Still there, finally leaving tomorrow morning. Stayed post event for some rangering, it’s been a blast. My best year yet.
We’re pretty set on the Manaslu hike in Nepal. Taking the plane tonight, starting the hike the 11th. Got pre-rejected from a fun work gig cause I can’t work in the USA. But in the way they messaged me, sounds like I was short-listed for the interview process. At least it got me to do a nice re-edit of my CV! Big freezing rain back at home, trees falling on cars and power lines and half the city without electricity. It looks beautiful tho. Starting to miss people back home, but maybe it’s just that I’ve been idle in the past weeks. Once I’m in a new country exhausting myself hiking every day it will probably pass. Considering attempting a 30-day meditation streak for the duration of my Nepali Visa and stay. Seems the kind of fitting wooowoo activity, and a good moment to give it a go. Just do a daily unguided 20-30 mins? My quick research of guided meditations only turns up shitty « increase your earning potential and self esteem » or « destress and fall asleep » ones that’s don’t feel right. Open to advice and suggestions if you have some - I’ve only attempted it sporadically a handful of times in the past, never more than 2 days in a row. I’m a complete beginner. Namaste my friends!
Mentally, I’m doing really good actually and the trip has been amazing for my breakup processing. It’s not something I think my ex would have enjoyed too much or that I would have done with him. So it’s cool to do something that I feel is my own. Still had a rough moment yesterday, hesitating between buying a ticket for a regional burn event in Ontario. We’ve always done the events together and now I don’t have a car to get there or even a tent. All common friends but also a ton of new fun people attending. I could find a tent and ride easily - but do I WANT to is the question. We’re on good very friendly terms. I can’t tell if I’ll regret going or not going more. I cried, made a pro/cons list and talked to my friend about it that offered me a spot in their camping area. Still can’t decide…
Classic timmies order is a double double (2 milk 2 sugar). I’m sure plenty people drink black. Fast and easy. Waiting 30 mins to order a black coffee at Starbucks feels dumb. I’ve often seen long ass drove through coffee lines n the morning and can’t fathom why people do it considering it’s longer and more expensive and worse than making your own… but I don’t drink coffee so i guess I just don’t understand. What did I just read, the pictures are terrible. “Here is plain joe with his cup of joe”.
Love it, they seem like fun and kind folks. Makes me want to read the book just for the stories. I’m a habitual hanger outer, especially at my friends Vlad. The key is that he has a very predictable fixed schedule - so I can almost always guess where he’ll be. And feel always welcome showing up uninvited either at his home or the cabin over the weekend.
After 3 days on the road sleeping is airplanes and busses - I’m in Koh Tao, Thailand. Doing my first diving class tomorrow. Cheers!
I had part of my right temporal lobe removed as well! It’s gong to be the 10th anniversary at the end of the month, completely cured me of epilepsy that started during my teenage years. I was taking 13 pills a day at the peak. Modern medicine slaps 🤘they say they removed a golf ball sized piece, and thankfully i felt no noticeable difference after the surgery at all.
Yup! Going early for built with our friends camp, and then we gtfo to camp near the black hole for the week. I’m doing a few shifts with rangers to become a green dot, my partner full on gayte. Wish I could stay longer but leaving Sunday afternoon to catch a flight back to stupid work… You still at the center camp music spot?
A Hubski meet up never disappoints ! Have met a handful of you over the years, in multiple different cities. Hit me up if you’re ever in Montreal or visiting the black rock desert on labour day this year 🤘
A flame effect with propane that goes "POOF!" It's a pretty well documented concept, but it was both our first time building one with my friend and I learned a ton. Here is the schematics he drew, I might print it on a shirt or something (but I like the hand-labelled version he did better, will scan it when I get my hands on it) Here is me feeling happy the first time it poofed: 
Got my 2 art projects approved! 500$ for a sunflower poofer and 1000$ for a spinning seesaw. Now I actually need to build it before the end of june. Our broken trailer-room at the countryhouse is worrying me a little, because I don't see when we have a spare moment to go fix it in the foreseeable future. Took that antisocial pandemic life for granted I guess. Same with my garden i've been meaning to start for the past week. On the plus side, got a cute side piece with a cool truck. Things have been simply, easy, pleasant. Just what I needed in my love life. I've also told my boss I will quit come the end of fall. While I enjoy a lot of my work, certain things have been a problem from the start and I don't see them getting better. I don't think we'll ever agree on the exact source of our frictions, but Iet's just say my boss is a demanding and hard person to work for. All my dedication to the project is not enough to compensate for the emotional toll it's been taking on me. Maybe I'm a bad employee, but I don't have that workaholic drive to keep pushing. And my boss is a great person, I feel our friendship could recover significantly once we're not working together again.
Got a stupid no name flu. Still never had the covid for some reason. Work has been fun - lots of new members at the makerspace, things are activating with the spring energy, planning all the summer projects, we have more and more training offerings and are slowly building up local notoriety. I feel things have evolved quite a bit since I joined a year ago. The daily dealings have been almost entirely in my court since my boss is busy with a grant application with a 5mil$ cap to develop 5000 squarefeet of new artist spaces. If we get it, we should start construction by next winter. In the meantime, we're also looking at buying out the whole building while real state prices are still affordable(ish). They have already increased by a few mil since we've started renting about 4 years ago... Did my first MIG welding class this weekend - and I was actually pleasantly surprised at how easy it was. I somehow expected it to be a LOT tougher. My welds are not the prettiest, but that's just practice. Maybe I'll do the TIG class later too. I need to think of a fun little sculpture or something I can build up from scrap metal at the space and can display at the country house - just for the practice! I bet I can even get it financed by our local burning man regional if i bring it over for the event. I need to get my ass in gear about actually learning the skills i've been talking about learning the past few years. I think I've been talking about the welding for the past 4-5 years! Can't believe it took me so long to pull the plug. Next up would be sewing! I also want to do a little bike touring, but have no idea where to start. I think the cost of the gear is what is stoping me right now, but I have never even researched if it's something I could rent.
https://nerdlegame.com/ Nerdle!
Massive Covid outbreak in my circle right now. Had a gathering on Sunday and 3 people have since tested positive. We all got tested and are awaiting results. Everyone is double vaxxed, one person with COVID has no symptoms at all, others have either a mild sore throat or a headache with fever. I’m feeling totally fine, but still expect my result to come back positive. Which will suck because I’ve seen my parents on Tuesday and I’m scared I might have spread it to them as well. I guess we all got too comfortable as of late, or that this new variant is extra agressive. But at least I’m glad no one seems to feel very sick. My biggest concern really is about infecting vulnerable people. Edit: We're negative! Yay :) But it does put the covid fear back into sharper focus for the upcoming holiday season. And it looks like i'm back to being in the office alone for a bit while my colleague and boss recover.
Funny, this conversation made me curious enough to go watch it and I've just paused it around 40 mins too. It's just... not funny? I'm probably not the audience, but feels like the same level humour as "asians can't drive" jokes. Superficial biggoted BS. I like edgy, dark offensive humour generally. This feels like a boomer trying to grab onto the last bit of relevance he has, Ellen style. Like he said at the start, he's rich and famous - and totally disconnected from real life IMO.
Our local regional burn is happening soon - I’m excited but also a little over it since I’ve been in charge of the shit show that is been ticketing this year. With total attendees number that shifted, lots of camp churn and cancellations because of the “vaccine passport”, our first lottery sale and low income process, Eventbrite bugs - this has been a total mess. I’ve made about 100 mistakes and gave myself way more work than needed with too many ticketing “waves”. Also people suck at finding emails and following deadlines. My only solace is that it should go smoother next year. And that I’m not part of any camp to deal with - just a cool hamster wheel art piece with my crazy artist friend Vlad. A bit worried about the cold, but also pumped at the idea of a burn after 1.5 years
Acutely aware today of how unpleasant and incompetent I can be, when I lack a few hours of sleep. Had a horrible nightmare, where I was shopping at the supermarket and didn’t plan ahead so I didn’t take a basket at the entrance. I had my hands full and the tomatoes fell and scattered around me. I felt like an idiot. And have had a crappy day ever since I woke up. I think it’s partly a stress dream due to a lot of things happening at work, while we’re all (like the 3 employees of the makerspace) leaving to a festival for 4 days tomorrow afternoon. The problem is that I could not possible advance the work anyway, since with events it mostly hinges on other people and volunteers. Plus I still need to shop, pack and wrap up my other 2 work project things. I really hope I can power through this tonight and get up well sleep and ready to rumble tomorrow.
Got free tickets to a small festival next week, as a helper to build a little effigy there. I’ve actually never been to a festival before, only burns so I’m trying not to set my expectations too high. I have no interest in dancing in front of a sound system so I’m glad we have a project to keep busy. And I feel like I know many people going. Curious to see how it will go and if I’ll enjoy it. Things are really ramping up at work too, with many events planned for end of summer and fall. It’s going to get hectic soon, but it’s also very exciting! Less admin, more party planning! My challenge will be to stay on top of things with so many things going on at the same time and not to drop the ball on something important.
Pics or it didn’t happen!
It's snowing today in Montreal too! April snow is not uncommon (despite the yearly outrage facebook posts, surprised by snow in April). But it's end of April already, and we've had super warm weeks. Good thing we didn't switch out for summer tires just yet!
Damn, now I want doritos but I can't leave the house past curfew.
Urgh this rings way too true. I've witnessed this happen too many times in the past few years, since getting involved in the BM community, a makerspace and starting our own plastic recycling non-profit. Even if you don't get demonized, you just start sinking hours into a volunteering black hole with no-one helping. So then you sink more hours into recruiting people to help, to find out they ghost the organisation immediately and you're back to doing everything. It really sucks, because I hate how everything these days is so transactional. But if there is no exchange of money, people have no qualms about wasting your time or not appreciating your work. Value is seen in monetary terms, and your volunteering time is judged worthless by outsiders, while feeling entitled - maybe because they assume you get an immense amount of satisfaction from it? It's been especially hard in Covid times, because now people are left with only the boring remote work side of things, without the social aspect (beer after a meeting/organizers cookout / whatever) that redeemed the thanklessness a little.
I just realized today one of the things I don't like about winter is the lack of bonfires. I guess fireplaces are an option, but it's not quite the same. I would kill for a beer around a fire with a few close friends right now.
Damn, that guy's getting dragged through the mud in this article! What a dick for ruining those nice people's Greenland expedition, because he had a plane to catch.
Just had a panicked phone call from my mom, worrying of being busted by the police and getting a 5k fine. Christmas is on standby once again. The most frustrating part about my family (Covid or not) is their absolute inability to make plans without changing the time/date/location at least 3 times. I'll try to talk them into the 2 days / 3h concept, it might actually work.
I've occasionally gotten "free trials" of those mail in meals. Tried both hellofresh and goodfood - and to be honest, it's kind of exciting to open a box and having a whole recipe prepped for you, with all kinds of techniques and flavour combos I would not put together myself. But at 10$/meal, I don't see myself actually subscribing. One time, the meal they sent me was literally 4 potatoes to grate and bake, with some yogurt sauce on the side. I would have felt pretty dumb if I had paid 20$ to bake potatoes, but the techinque used was actually nice and the result delicious. The pandemic has made me appreciate cooking a lot actually, and I feel like my cooking skills have improved quite a bit. I'm better at improvising, tacking more complicated recipes... When I'm stuck at home all day, sitting in front of my computer on the couch, i start to feel trapped. Spendig 1-2h messing around in the kitchen is a nice escape where i'm totally focused on something else.
I love this! I like the test print more, with the fewer colors, and i think these prints could also look super cool in funky not traditional peacock colors. It's great to see your progress. I've made some prints with a potato earlier in quarantine, and with a small wood block last week, but the lines/my tools were not precise enough. Time to pull the trigger and buy that amazon kit you recommended, for lockdown winter arts and crafts.
Added .jpg to your link
This shit is scary and horrifying :( Big props to the "moms" protesting too - sends a powerful message when police teargases a crowd of peaceful white mothers - the very demographic they are supposedly most invested in protecting, right after little white girls.
ei! don't you bring the bread into this!