I spent the last couple days hiking in the Adirondacks. It was my first time back since December 2019. I summited two peaks, Esther Mountain on Monday and Whiteface Mountain on Tuesday. They're both "hike to the top (in snowshoes in winter)" type summits. Both hikes went well. I had some issues with my glasses freezing over on Whiteface, and I probably should have put my goggles on, the goggles I've carried on almost every winter hike but never once used. The wind was really strong up there, and the trail was hard to find amidst the bare rock. I wish I'd taken some pictures of the building up there. It's only open in the summer, and it was completely caked with snow. They've had high winds and rain and snow. I didn't take any pictures because of the wind and losing visibility. 
For me the nuance I'd add to this is tradeoffs can be ok, but they're done in the open and generally comparable. Not "if you come to Christmas at my parents I'll let you go out with your friends next weekend" but more "I'm training for a marathon which means I'm doing fewer of the communal tasks so I'm going to make sure to give you time for your hobbies when the race is past." In my mind it's healthy to give up some things I want to do, but drawing the line at things that are important to me even if they aren't essential. Running a marathon is a want. Running at all is important. Doing some organized races is important. Doing a specific one is not. But even then if I said I wanted to run a marathon next fall and was asked not to, it should be because of something important to them. Like if the race is a Saturday but her brother is getting married Sunday and she doesn't want me to be useless and exhausted at the wedding? Ok. Doesn't want me to because she wants to hold that weekend in case it's peak leaf color change? Not so good. no quid pro quo
I was talking with a friend last week, and what I said to her is "being able to say 'no' means I can trust the 'yes.'" It's really about anything, as mundane as "can you check on my cats?" So in a relationship, equal means to me being able to trust the response of the other. If they always say yes to appease me, they're putting their happiness on my lap and I bet neither of us will be happy.12. What does an equal relationship mean to you
Happy hardest puzzle-a-day day to all who celebrate. mike Still going on the app with three solutions every day since December 1.
Is it worth it to pay for Duolingo? I started using it to learn Spanish for no reason than to have something mildly productive to do with my phone.
I was full time remote from March 2020 through April 2022. I loved it. My employer started bringing people back in the office then with our policy expecting people in the office at least three days a week. At the time I grumbled a little, but once in the office I found value in being here rather than home. Not value to the company, value to what I want out of my career. I think our policy is reasonable. We're a small enough company the individual relationships are significant. It also provides flexibility. Need to be home to let a plumber in? Just do it, no need to even inform your boss other than letting them know you'll be on Teams not in a meeting room. The most important thing about our policy is it's been consistent. It's what they were saying for months before being implemented, and it's been unchanged ever since. I can plan my life around this. My old job went to full remote. I've talked to people there who are all-in on remote, and one joked if they bring people back to the office he'll be looking for a job, and I believe him. I talked to another guy who said he's usually in the office and it's odd having a mix of people he sees every day and people, including his staff, who he never sees. I think they'll start bringing people back and create a lot of angst because of the change. After change, I think people are upset that salaries are up 2% while corporate profits are up 8% with inflation of 5%.
Did my fourth 70.3 distance triathlon today. Amazing weather lead to a small overall PR and a big run PR. I really tried to keep the run pace slow to not blow up and end up run/walking most of the course.
I do Body Pump every Sunday, and sometimes the lunge track has pulsing where you get into a lunge and go halfway up like eight, maybe sixteen times. It's always near the end of the workout, and I find it really hard. I often close my eyes and imagine the finish line of a marathon or 70.3 because to date no matter how tough it is I've always been able to run through the chute to the finish line. I need to work on pushing through the pain cave in the middle of a race and not just the end. I always end up walking a bit when I want to keep running.She said she envisioned herself in a hard hat, wielding a chisel and “going to town, trying to make it a dust pile while I am in there.”
Yeah expansion and warping are concerns. Seems like higher quality wood at least helps that. I've seen comments that people will leave the wood inside for a few weeks since my house temperature and humidity will be different than the lumber store.
Thanks for the encouragement! I've never tried anything quite like this, but I've tried other things I'd never done that worked out well. I figure an average hand built wood door is better than the decades old generic ones I have.
I'm toying with the idea of trying woodworking. It started when looking at my crappy hollow core doors from the '80s. Could I build my own doors? I kind of think I could. I also want to replace trim, so that means miter saw anyway. Just need to add a planer and jointer for big tools. It's all expensive but after replacing my roof nothing feels that expensive anymore.
This planet is lousy with life. So many invasive plants in my garden I'm trying to hold at bay. The native ones I planted got mowed down by bunnies and kept growing back until I fenced them, and now those are over a foot high. One is milkweed that's important for butterflies. I see bluejays and cardinals in my garden. I've seen lightning bugs and what I think are soldier beetles. There's a maple sapling at my fence I'm going to try to dig up this fall and put in my yard.
Getting my roof replaced tomorrow.
Yeah I need to look into that because my utility is changing rules soon. I think installed before April 1 I'd be grandfathered in on full retail net metering. I'm not sure I'll have the budget for it but I need to work out what options I have. Also I upgraded my electric panel last winter. The old one was trash and would have needed to be replaced. But now I'm in good shape there, too.
I got one bid at $12,700 and another at $16,600. Both highly reviewed on Google. Hard for me to see the additional $4000 from the second. It's a pretty simple roof, not hard to see how a complicated one could be a lot more!
So a new roof is expensive. Also absolutely essential and I have the opportunity and budget to do it right. Still. I'd hoped to limp along with this roof until the house was paid off, but I guess doing it now and having my mortgage a year longer is financially similar to paying off the house a year earlier and then replacing the roof. I got one bid this morning and am expecting another this afternoon.
Thanks I have someone coming by Monday. The question I'm asking myself now is if I take the opportunity to remove my chimney. It currently only exhausts the hot water heater which could probably be modified to exit out the side. Change hot water heater exhaust. Remove chimney. Replace roof?
One year to the day in my house. Found a roof leak tonight. It must only leak when it's windy at a specific angle because it was obvious when it happened, and this is hardly the first time it's rained. wasoxygen when I bought it I think you told me home ownership is a fight against water. Seems to be true! I'm fortunate that it seems minor and I'm able to manage the expense.
I slept 8.5 hours last night and 9 hours the night before. I had a pretty crazy 10 days. Air conditioning died, was replaced, my cat got out and spent two nights outside before I caught her. Did my first air travel since the pandemic to steamy Washington DC, flew home on 4 hours of sleep to get ready for a triathlon the next day. I caught my cat with a live trap because she wouldn't let me within ten feet of her. As soon as she was inside she let me pet her, of course. She was as much as four houses away when I was trying to catch her, and I'm very impressed she made it back home on her own. I did all the classic tricks of putting food, litter box, clothes, and her blanket outside to smell. I even took her brother out on a leash. I got her the first night the trap was out. And now her brother learned he likes going outside and sits by the door waiting for me to take him out.
Looking at some of your pictures I was reminded how real life dwarfs my own pictures. Being there had to be stunning.
I've seen them in Toronto a few times and woken up the next morning to my face sore from smiling so much. All time top concert memory is seeing Kevin Drew and Feist sing Almost Crimes in 2010. I was right in front and was totally unprepared for Kevin Drew and Feist using the same mic for her parts. Song starts with Justin Peroff's drums and Andrew Whiteman's guitar parts, Kevin sings his first couple lines, steps aside, Feist steps forward and melts my face off. Emily Haines even sang Anthems for a Seventeen Year Old Girl that night but Almost Crimes is etched into my brain forever. Probably the band I've seen third most often after Tegan and Sara and Metric.
Except Metric's show (opening for Noel Gallagher and Garbage) was cancelled tonight because of the smoke!
Smoke here is pretty bad, coming down from Canada. I want their indie bands and poutine sent here and not their smoke.
Unreal performance from Courtney Dauwalter to beat the previous record by over an hour! https://run247.com/running-news/trail/western-states-100-2023-results-report
Heather Jackson is out. Since I followed her from triathlon she was one I was really cheering for.
My old job had a culture like that. It was more important to follow process and procedure than to understand the issue at hand and find the best solution. Great pay and benefits but an uninspiring place to work. My three star review is still the featured review on Indeed.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/reddit-ceo-compares-moderators-to-aristocracy-as-blackout-stretches-on/ar-AA1cDOwM I feel like, sure, calling moderators aristocracy might have some validity. But I doubt reddit realizes they're Tsar Nicholas II in this analogy.
I forget how the people making it pitched it especially because I don't watch true crime stuff. I guess I'm picturing it like Making a Murderer which I never watched. Because I was literally the person who tipped them off, they want to talk to me about my experience to help tell the bigger story of what happened. From what they told me it's a lot bigger than just having access to one kind of famous person's email. I expect it to be pretty niche, though Manitowoc, WI was pretty niche, too.