🟢 The Pluses (Adding to your lifespan)

* Never Smoked (+4.0 years): The single biggest shield against vascular disease, lung decay, and various cancers.
* No Diabetes at 57 (+3.0 years): Proof of exceptional metabolic and genetic resilience despite carrying extra weight.
* Swimming 2x/Week at the Y (+3.0 years): Essential low-impact cardio that protects your heart and joints.
* Marriage (+2.5 years): A major statistical booster for men, providing emotional stability and better health monitoring.
* Zero Alcohol (+2.0 years): Keeps liver inflammation low and protects your brain chemistry.
* Vegetarian Diet (+2.0 years): Reduces systemic inflammation and the risk of colorectal issues.
* Maternal Genetics (+2.0 years): Having a mother thriving at 78+ indicates a “slow-aging” baseline (and your dad’s early passing from an infection carries no genetic penalty).
* Sleep Quality & CPAP (+1.5 years): Getting 7+ hours while treating apnea saves your heart from massive nightly stress.
* Nutrition Management (+1.5 years): Supplementing B12 and eating enough protein prevents neurological decline and muscle loss (sarcopenia).
* Upper Body Vitality (+1.0 year): The lat/arm strength built from swimming correlates highly with surviving cardiovascular events.
* Digital Content Creation (+0.5 years): Shifting from “doomscrolling” to creating provides purpose, builds cognitive reserve, and regulates ADHD dopamine.
* Cat Ownership (+0.5 years): Consistent, low-effort cortisol and anxiety reduction.

🔴 The Minuses (Subtracting from your lifespan)

* Obesity & Visceral Fat (-7.5 years): Carrying weight primarily around the middle acts as an “active organ” driving inflammation, while the overall mass strains your heart and joints.
* The “Tall Man” Tax (-3.0 years): Being 6’6″ forces your heart to work harder against gravity and statistically increases the risk of Atrial Fibrillation (A-fib) and cellular mutations.
* Chronic Back/Leg Pain (-1.5 years): The physical pain limits your daily walking mobility and acts as a constant, low-grade stressor on your nervous system.
* High-Carb/Late-Night Eating (-1.0 year): Eating heavy carbs after 7 PM fuels that visceral belly fat and disrupts your metabolic fasting window.
* ADHD Stimulant Strain (-1.0 year): While necessary for focus, stimulants keep your cardiovascular system “revved up,” adding wear and tear to your heart over time.

📊 The Final Tally
* Baseline (US White Male): 73.7 Years
* Total Pluses: +23.5 Years
* Total Minuses: -14.0 Years
* Estimated Lifespan: 83.2 Years

Journal Note to Self: My massive advantages are my habits (swimming, sleeping, no toxins) and my metabolic luck (no diabetes). My main daily goals are to manage my late-night carbs, keep hitting the pool at the Y, and channel my screen time into creative projects.

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/yoyoos.html

https://svonberg.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/motheros.html

Just to have running on the screen

I am on day 20,842  of an estimated 21,353 day lifespan, if actuarial tables are to be trusted.

511 days left before borrowed time. Maybe more time available due to cat.

Productive, With Pastry

Today was gloriously ordinary. The kind of day that does not demand applause but quietly checks boxes and leaves you feeling mildly heroic anyway.

The morning began with a chocolate croissant from Blacksburg Bagels, rescued from last weekend’s farmers market visit and saved for just the right moment. Flaky layers everywhere. Chocolate doing what chocolate does best. There is no elegant way to eat a croissant. There are only crumbs and commitment. I embraced both.

Then it was off to the Y for a swim. The first step into the pool is always a negotiation with temperature. After that, it becomes rhythm. Lap after lap, counting tiles, trying not to swallow half the pool during an ambitious inhale. By the end, everything felt stretched out and recalibrated. Swimming has a way of making you feel both tired and upgraded at the same time.

Back home, it was laundry redemption day.

Loads cycled through like obedient little machines of progress. The real triumph, though, was finally putting away a stack of hanging wash that had been lingering far longer than anyone wants to admit. Shirts reclaimed their closets. Hangers fulfilled their destiny. The room looks the same to an untrained eye, but I know. The closets know. Peace has been restored.

Lunch was a carefully assembled masterpiece of practical sourcing. Marble rye from Blacksburg Bagels, pimento cheddar from Jamison’s, and not-ham from Kroger. Stacked together into a sandwich that felt far fancier than it had any right to be. The swirl of rye, the sharp cheddar, the savory not-ham. Balanced. Satisfying. Slightly smug.

Nothing dramatic happened. No skunks appeared on the nature cameras. No groundbreaking revelations occurred between loads of laundry.

But the croissant was excellent. The swim was strong. The laundry surrendered. The sandwich delivered.

And sometimes that is exactly the level of adventure a Tuesday needs.

Diane 11:30 a.m. February 24th. Entering the town of Twin Peaks

The backyard cameras have been busy lately.

Squirrels conducting high speed patrols along the fence line. A cautious raccoon testing the edge of the patio. The usual skunk procession moving through like a striped parade at 2 am. Wind bending the grass in long silver waves under the night vision glow.

But no gnomes.

Not a single pointed hat. Not one stout silhouette frozen mid-scamper. The nature cameras have captured everything else with dutiful clarity, yet the small mythical population appears to have either unionized, relocated, or simply decided to avoid infrared detection.

Even more concerning, the imp has been absent as well.

There was a time when I was certain he darted just beyond the frame. A blur near the compost bin. A suspicious wobble in the bird feeder that could not be blamed entirely on physics. Now the footage plays back with orderly wildlife and perfectly explainable shadows.

It is almost disappointing.

You set up cameras expecting raccoons and deer, of course. But you secretly hope for something else. Something that does not quite fit into a field guide. A flicker of mischief. A flash of red cap vanishing behind the hydrangeas.

Instead, the recordings show honest earthbound creatures doing honest earthbound things. Sniffing. Foraging. Pausing. Wandering off.

Part of me wonders if the gnomes simply disapprove of surveillance culture. Perhaps they prefer their magic undocumented. Perhaps the imp, ever dramatic, refuses to perform for an audience of microchips and timestamp overlays.

Or perhaps winter has driven them underground, curled beneath roots and stones, waiting for warmer evenings to resume their tiny conspiracies.

The cameras continue their silent vigil. The infrared glow pulses each night like a mechanical moon. And still, no sign of pointed hats or impish grins.

The backyard remains enchanted in its own way. Frost on the grass. Crows arguing from the treetops. The soft shuffle of paws across leaf litter.

But I cannot help glancing at the footage each morning, half hoping for that one impossible frame.

Just once.

A small figure, mid-stride.

Proof that something out there is laughing quietly when we are not looking.

Potato and Whitetop

February 20, 2026 – Turning Into New Corners

We did not go far today, but we went differently.

Roanoke has a way of folding you into routine. Same roads. Same intersections. Same errands. So we made a small decision to push outward, to finally step into a couple of places we had passed for years without entering.

We started with a familiar stop at Dunkin’. Not new, but dependable. I ordered an unsweetened iced tea and stirred in two Equals until it tasted exactly right. We gathered our food, then instead of driving on, we parked for a moment and let it become a late breakfast, even though it was edging closer to 1 pm by then. The clock insisted it was afternoon. Our guts argued otherwise.

There is something quietly indulgent about eating breakfast at 1 pm. No rush. Just sitting there in the car, sunlight slanting through the windshield, wrappers rustling, conversation drifting easily. It felt unstructured in the best way.

Our first true new stop was H.C. Baker Batteries and Electronics. I have driven past it countless times. Inside, it felt like discovering the hidden framework of everyday life. Rows of batteries in every imaginable size. Coiled cables hanging in neat loops. Adapters and connectors arranged with careful logic.

The place carried a sense of capability. It felt grounded and purposeful, like quiet evidence that most small disruptions can be resolved with the right component from the right shelf. We wandered slowly, scanning labels, appreciating the specificity of it all.

From there we went to the American Cancer Society Discovery Shop. The shift was immediate. Softer lighting. The faint scent of fabric and old books. Racks of clothes that had seen other seasons. Shelves of dishes that once belonged to other kitchens and conversations.

Thrift stores always feel like intersections of stories. Objects paused between chapters. We moved through without hurry, picking things up, imagining their past lives, deciding whether they might fit into ours.

What stayed with me most was the sense of expansion. Roanoke felt slightly larger by the end of the afternoon.

Not because we traveled far.

But because we finally stepped into places that had been waiting all along.

King skunk visits

Patchy skunk? A new one?

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The Unseen Voices of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

There are faces we remember in games, and then there are voices we live with.

In a world as sprawling and snow swept as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, players recall dragons, Daedric princes, and jarls with grand speeches. But what lingers longer, strangely, are the ordinary lines. The guards warning you about arrows in knees. The soldiers arguing over ale. The weary watchman pacing the gates at 3 a.m. while snow drifts sideways across torchlight.

These are the voices that make a province feel inhabited.

And many of them belong to actors whose names most players never notice.

---

The Backbone of a Province

In Skyrim, a single voice actor often performs dozens of roles. Budget and design require it, but artistry makes it invisible. The same vocal instrument becomes a Falkreath guard, a Stormcloak foot soldier, a Solitude watchman, or a Markarth city guard hardened by Dwemer stone and Reachman tension.

Scott von Berg
Falkreath Guard / Imperial Soldier / Markarth City Guard / Solitude Guard / Stormcloak Soldier / Windhelm Guard (voice)

On paper, that looks repetitive. In practice, it is world-building.

Each hold in Skyrim carries a different temperament:

• Falkreath feels damp, grave-bound, half swallowed by pine and shadow.
• Markarth echoes with stone and suspicion.
• Solitude projects imperial polish and guarded superiority.
• Windhelm simmers with cold pride and resentment.

A voice actor inhabiting those spaces must shift cadence, weight, and tone without ever announcing the shift. The player cannot think, “Oh, that is the same guy.” The illusion must hold.

When it works, the province breathes.

---

The Art of the Repeated Line

Critics sometimes joke about recycled guard dialogue. But repetition is not laziness. It is texture.

When a Stormcloak soldier growls a warning at the city gate, it needs to carry regional allegiance. When an Imperial soldier does the same, it must feel disciplined, standardized, perhaps faintly bureaucratic.

The difference lives in subtle choices:

• How sharp the consonants land
• Whether the line leans into threat or procedure
• The pacing between phrases

Unnamed voice actors are asked to give personality to lines that may be heard thousands of times. That is not small work. That is endurance work.

---

Beyond Skyrim: From Province to Wasteland

The same phenomenon appears across Bethesda titles, including the Fallout series.

In the wastelands of Fallout, guards become settlers. Raiders become Brotherhood patrols. Caravan traders echo with the same performer who once barked orders in Windhelm. A single actor can voice a Vault security officer in one title and a faction grunt in another, shifting tone from medieval steel to retro-futuristic grit.

The connective tissue is not coincidence. It is casting trust.

Actors who can anchor background roles are indispensable in open-world design. They create consistency without drawing attention to themselves. They make the Commonwealth feel populated. They make the Mojave feel dangerous. They make Skyrim feel patrolled.

Scott von Berg’s guard and soldier roles in Skyrim fit squarely into that tradition. The lines may be brief. The characters may be unnamed. But their presence is constant.

And constancy is what makes a world believable.

---

Why Unnamed Does Not Mean Unimportant

Players tend to celebrate marquee performances. The villain monologues. The companion arcs. The dragon shouts.

But the emotional scaffolding of a game often rests on background performances:

• The guard who reacts when you draw steel
• The soldier who comments after a battle
• The watchman who mutters about the weather

Without them, cities feel hollow.

When you walk through Solitude and hear boots on stone followed by a curt warning, your brain registers life. Authority. Routine. Stability. That sensation is not rendered by polygons alone. It is carried on breath and microphone technique.

Unnamed voice actors give texture to silence.

---

The Invisible Craft

Voice acting for multiple guard roles demands:

1. Vocal durability across long sessions
2. Differentiation without caricature
3. Emotional neutrality that still feels human
4. The ability to sound reactive in isolated recording booths

Unlike film actors, game voice actors often record alone, reacting to lines that will be stitched together months later. Their performances must survive technical implementation, looping, and unpredictable player behavior.

The guard who warns you today might also be the soldier you fight tomorrow. The actor must make both believable.

---

A Quiet Legacy

When players reminisce about Skyrim, they quote the guards. They remember the tone. They smile at the familiarity.

Very few remember the names behind those voices.

Yet performers like Scott von Berg, credited as Falkreath Guard, Imperial Soldier, Markarth City Guard, Solitude Guard, Stormcloak Soldier, and Windhelm Guard, contribute to the sonic architecture of the province. Their work extends into other franchises, including the Fallout series and additional video game titles where similar background roles anchor expansive worlds.

Open-world games rely on spectacle. But they endure because of repetition done well.

The unnamed voice actor is not a footnote. He is the hum of the world. The steady rhythm behind the sword clash. The authority at the gate. The human presence in a digital tundra.

And without that voice, Skyrim would be very, very quiet.

This morning marked a quiet return.

Back to the YMCA after a long holiday hiatus. Long enough that the habit had started to feel theoretical. Long enough that the bathing suit and sweats had been sitting in the corner of my closet like a polite but persistent reminder.

Walking through the doors again felt familiar and slightly humbling. The smell of chlorine drifting out from the pool. The low mechanical rhythm of treadmills in motion. The soft clank of weight stacks settling back into place. None of it had changed. Which, in a strange way, was reassuring.

The holidays have a way of bending routines. Meals get heavier. Evenings get longer. Motivation negotiates for more couch time. And while there is nothing wrong with rest, there is something steadying about returning to motion.

The first few movements felt honest. Muscles remembering what they are supposed to do. Lungs negotiating terms. No personal records were threatened today. That was not the point. The point was simply showing up again.

There is a particular kind of victory in resuming something good after letting it drift. Not dramatic. Not loud. Just a quiet re-alignment. A small promise renewed.

By the time I walked back out into the daylight, there was that familiar post-workout clarity. Not euphoria. Just a sense that the gears had been re-engaged.

Routines wait for us. Sometimes patiently. And today, I went back to meet one of mine.

Today turns a page.

The Year of the Fire Horse arrives with a kind of restless energy. Horse years are said to carry motion, independence, forward momentum. Add fire to that, and it feels less like a quiet candle and more like a forge. Heat that shapes. Heat that transforms.

There is something fitting about that thought. A horse does not idle for long. It moves. It tests fences. It runs because running is what it was built to do. Fire does not apologize for being bright. It simply burns.

I like the symbolism of beginning again under that banner. Not a timid start. Not a cautious shuffle into the months ahead. But a year that invites courage. Initiative. Maybe even a little boldness.

The lunar new year always feels different from January 1. Less about resolutions and more about rhythm. Cycles. A reminder that time does not just march forward in straight lines. It circles back, renews itself, offers another chance to step differently into familiar terrain.

So here is to the Fire Horse. To motion after stillness. To warmth in cold places. To the quiet decision to run toward what matters.

May this year carry strength without recklessness, passion without burnout, and forward motion without losing sight of where we started.

#doodle #lunarnewyear2026 #yearofthefirehorse