Hi all of hubski. I want to say something to y'all. I need to write another #stateofthelil report, but I've been too busy. I shouldn't give up on dating yet, but OftenBen's therapist is probably married or gay or 30 years younger than me. So far there's been the holocaust guy (we'll be kind of friends, though, if he can handle his anxiety and depression; the "disgraced" doctor that I told a few of you about; then there's the married guy who admitted to already being in a committed relationship but wanted to "audition me," he said, as his girlfriend; then there was the scammer whose picture was posted at a dating scamathon website. There was a guy 30 years younger than me, but I didn't want to meet him. I will change my gender preference and see if anything more interesting comes up. Now the worst thing is this: when I got home from work just now I had an email from a recently divorced person that I've known since university (he was my TA). He subsequently became a well-known novelist and person of ongoing interest. He sent me three emails confirming our lunch date, and not hearing from me went ahead to the location anyway. Whaaaa!!!??? Am I that addled that I didn't even know I had a date with him. I have absolutely no recollection of making this date, and my usual computer is in another city so I can't even check to see if there's evidence. All I remember is writing him saying that I wasn't interested in lunch, I was only interested in cuddling and giggling. When he wrote back saying that giggling would be okay but his Italian girlfriend might be upset about the cuddling, I promptly lost interest. So all I can say is WTF? There was no lunch date. He's hallucinating, not me. But maybe I'm more addled than I know. So that's the current state of the lil. I'm much much more fabulous than I sound -- and much less as well. Luckily steve is always there for me --- and BLOB_CASTLE just sent me a postcard... and Kevin from the fatal train crash still writes me. So read this fast because I might delete it. Bye for now hubski, I'm always here for you. Edit: and I mustn't forget the "Cleanse yourself" guy who, after I told him about the disgraced doctor, insisted that I had been negatively affected and now had to "cleanse myself" before we could talk further. I said, "I'd prefer to integrate my bad experiences rather than cleanse myself of them." He replied "NO! You have to cleanse yourself." This was all on an IM function of the website. At that point I disconnected.
Maybe, just maybe you'll end up meeting someone the old-fashioned way. You know some poor guy's car breaks down, he has a flat tire and you, being the helpful person you are, stop to help him change it. You then realize that he is a well respected musician that writes scores for films. Something like that ...
So the house is in great shape. And our property manager totally took care of the place. So we're currently looking at 2-4 weeks of construction and $5-10k worth of remediation to fix the subfloor. So that's nice. On the plus side I've met with our new landlord (still haven't signed the lease yet) by total accident and that's looking pretty good.
I could smell the urine stench just looking at all of those pictures. ugh. I don't think I have ever seen a hot water heater sitting on wood. Most houses would have basements in Seattle but that is a single story bungalow?
Finals next week and the week thereafter. I'm busting my ass to get good grades, I really hope it pays off. Feeling 80-90% confident I'll make it through 3 of the 4 course finals - I'm not at all sure I will nail them all. Let's call it a challenge, that sounds better. I'm also slowly becoming the COO of the hydrogen race team. I've learned more about constructing a (hydrogen) car in the last week than in the rest of my lifetime and I still don't fully grasp it. Trying to map out what a team of almost 100 people does in an entire year is not easy. But I am definitely getting there:
When you lead this team and hold them together till the end, congrats you are now a project manager. Get your PMI certification and you just became that much more employable. The cert, from those I know who have gone through the paperwork, is nuts, but the pay bump is worth it.
As y'all know if you have been reading Pubskis, I have been on a 2-month long crusade to become more healthy and physically fit. It has been going really well. I can do 100 push-ups in sets of 10, I can run 3 miles non-stop (and generally run about 2.5 every other day), and I have been focused on being a lot more active and eating healthily. Oh and I haven't had a cigarette in I think 2 weeks and a day. (Don't ask me how it's been; I'm usually unusually good at quitting things, and this has been about the same. I know it's harder for other people. Sorry.) Understandably, although I do not think I've lost much actual mass, the way the meat hangs off my skeleton has changed. I suspect I have a lot more muscle and a lot less fat than I used to, not that I was ever overweight. I've noticed several things, most about the way my clothes fit, that indicate this to be true. My mother has also lost some weight recently, through walking, etc. Although you wouldn't know this unless you've been a Hubski-friend of mine for some time (as I don't talk about it much or often), I have a conflicted relationship with my mother. Would you like to know why? Yesterday we were on the phone and, in a very typical my-mother-ish move, my mom told me that I could not possibly have gone down in bra size, because she has not gone down in bra size. I had to buy new god-damn bras because the old ones were falling off, I have no words for the person that she is.
god dammit ref I'm going to go for a run tonight. Been doing the pushups thing, will have to push that more too.
Granted I do end up walking probably 4 miles a day at work...I should buy a Fitbit to track exactly how much distance I'm covering. You're doing it a little wrong. You should make your friends exercise with you and then go drinking. edit: Update, ran 1.5 miles on a hill interval sequence (it was nasty out so I had to treadmill it).
Congratulations on the hard work, it's inspirational. Keep it up. In terms of the mom thing I can understand the conflicted relationship. Maybe not in a daughter-mother way, but in a son-mother way. I'm not sure if those two types share a similarity in any way, but I don't know I feel like I get it.
Having just moved out of my parent's house with my boyfriend, we've embarked on a fitness journey too! We signed up to the gym and have been going to bootcamp classes twice and yoga once. The goal is to go to bootcamp 3 times a week but the first time I went I was pretty sore for like 3 days. 2 times bootcamp +1 time yoga sounds reasonable for now. I don't really have any body fat to lose but I've been neglecting being fit since I started Uni. Gotta get back on that until I get too old. My boyfriend would benefit losing a bit of weight tho so it's a side benefit of working out together :)
I know, it was a crazy summer. Having moved house and country I can get back to logging.
the city sure is lonely without your partner in crime
I'm sorry to hear that, this must be very difficult for your grandmother. I cant imagine.
They were really in love too. Even a year ago, if a song she liked came on he would grab her hand and they would dance together in the living room. I once asked her what the secret was. She paused, and then said "well, you have to like the person". So I guess that's the trick. It's funny. They were very well off. He did well in business and they have several properties. But at his funeral, his business successes weren't mentioned much. It was his love for his family, his compassion and caring for his community that stuck with everyone. It's a real reminder what's important, I'll be lucky if I leave a legacy like his.
I'm sorry to hear of your loss. May your grandfather be at peace now. He had a love that few people ever get to have.
You were at the game? You were in Ann Arbor, the home of mk and you didn't let him know… Ann Arbor is essentially my hometown, I'm glad you were able to visit. You should definitely go to school there. I will make sure you are well taken care of.
So did you see the game-winning player get his hip broken in the celebratory dog pile following the last play? There's a video of him trying to swat away someone victoriously shaking his broken body. Can't decide whether I want to laugh or slowly shake my head with pursed lips while looking at the ground.
My new counselor suggested that I attend his mindfulness group a few times, there's a meeting tonight that I'm probably going to go to. Lately we've been discussing how important community is to the human animal, and how I really don't have much of that in my life at the moment. He's an old hippy who likes to use the word 'awakening' to describe what he sees as global trends towards conscientiousness, nonviolence and nuanced thinking. (Side note, he has a bit of a crush on lil, based on some excerpts from our conversations that I've showed him.) I think I'm definitely too young to have the kind of comforting perspective on these things that he does, but I at least have an academic appreciation for the general decline of violence in the United States. Maybe one day I'll internalize it.
My aunt was on medical leave for some mental health stuff, and was mandated to go to something like that (but a little more intense - 9-5 with a bunch of different activities). She didn't want to do it, but when she went she said she got a whole lot out of it. sample size of 1, but hey, i guess don't knock it?
Ok meeting report. lil, i asked, he is taken. It was the first session of an 8 week cycle of guided meditation and mindfulness exercises, done largely by the method of Kabat-Zinn. There's a wide variety of experience in the room, with regards to familiarity with meditation in general and mindfulness in specific. I'm glad I went. I have been neglecting my meditative practice, and nothing made that more apparent than sitting for 10 minutes. I think I'll go next week too. Now I'm home, watching Godzilla while I cook dinner. Star Wars for dessert I think.
I've been sick, really sick, all of us in my house have and it's still not letting up. This sucks because I haven't been able to get back into school nor focus enough to get anything done at home. My first real proper class of students was last week, it went pretty bad. I keep flip-flopping on how I feel about it, some days I think "Hey, at least all of them were doing the task, and most of them managed to complete it!" but other days it just continues with "... and what did I actually do as a teacher?" and draw a blank. I've not had a chance to talk it over with people since I've been ill, so I don't really know how I can tackle the problem of Not Sucking... next week is half-term so my plan is to come back after that prepared with a direct action-plan on what I think I need to be successful at this. I feel like an asshole demanding things of people, especially when I know they do not have the time to do stuff for themselves let alone me, but I think I'm going to have to put my foot down and say, I need help with W, I want to do X, Y, Z to work on that first.
i'm never on but i got a my stickers fm insom and they said "stop leaving" so I guess i'll give a small update: I started a podcast. and a youtube thing and some other things i guess i dunno who cares really it's just that and school at this point
I have been selected to become WRCU's technical director next semester! I'll start training in about a week. Show's still going well. It's fun as hell, and I have a fairly respectable listenership. Thanks to everyone here who's caught it! I'm considering switching my intended double-major from Theatre/German to Classics/German. Of course there's still roughly a year before I have to declare, so it doesn't make much of a difference right now. I reinstalled Spotify and started a Premium subscription at their student rate. I intend to continue buying music, but I missed Spotify's UX. Time will tell whether I actually manage to keep buying albums at the same rate I was before-- although as a broke college student, that's not the highest bar. I continue to be busy enough with academics and activities that I don't have time to have meaningful interactions on Hubski. I'm sorry if I've ignored your post or comment. I miss you all
Last week I finally booked a December trip to the Adirondacks for a week of snowshoeing. I'll have five full days plus two travel days. I still need to figure out lodging. I have a couple different ideas based on hikes I want to do (and backup plans if weather is sketchy), so I'm almost set there, too. As I get older it's harder to leave home. The inertia of my routine is hard to overcome. I just finished reading Into Thin Air, Jon Krakauer's book about the 1996 Mount Everest disaster. It was a good, fast read. I like hiking but think I'll steer clear of mountaineering. I plan to get up to 4500' in December, maybe over 5000' depending on my final plans. 29,000' is well beyond my interests. The hardships Everest climbers endure are unreal.
What are your ideas? The only winter hiking I've done in the Adirondacks is Cascade and Mt. Jo.
I'm thinking two days in Newcomb in the hopes at least one day is perfect for me to do the Santanoni range. If the first day isn't good I'll do Marshall instead, but if I get the Santas on day one I'll spend the night in Newcomb and drive around to do Lower Wolf Jaw on day two before continuing to Lake Placid that night. Then day three I'll try Esther and/or Whiteface. Day four I'm thinking of doing something from The Garden, maybe Gothics or Basin/Saddleback. By days three and four a lot will depend on my energy level. Porter from The Garden is also an option. Then day five I'm thinking I'll try Rocky Peak Ridge on the way back down 73 before heading down toward Albany that last night. In snowshoes (but not always "official" winter) I've done Algonquin, Wright, Street, Nye, Giant, Tabletop, Phelps and Big Slide. I love the winter day hikes in the Adirondacks. Giant was very cold and the summit buried in clouds, so a nice day the last day to do RPR and head back up Giant to redeem it would be great.
That sounds awesome. If you like snow sports I would highly recommend dog sledding.
That would be amazing! How does one get into dog sledding? Snowshoeing was easy: shoeshoes, dress warmly and that's about it.
Just found this video. Look at how eager those dogs are to run. So happy. And not exactly a quiet sport when you are not on the move.
I just happened to be staying at a resort that had that option so I went out for 6 hours. Loved it so much I had to go for a 3-day trip the next month. It ain't cheap as I think it cost me $500 on the day trip and $1,500 for the 3-day but we had awesome hot meals and they had tents set up for us. Even though you are theoretically just along for the ride it is a lot of work and you are exhausted at the end of the day. Especially when you fall off (which you will) or when someone else falls off and you have to rein in their team. Oh man those dogs love to run and it is tough to stop them. Tons of fun!
That's quite the itinerary! I consider myself to be in decent shape but those five days would wipe me out for sure.
I've done three days in a row but not five, so I am a little concerned it'll be too much. If I find myself getting worn down I'll take day three or four off in the hopes of making the last day or two more successful. Spending a week rather than just a long weekend as I've done in the past takes some pressure off having to definitely do a specific hike on a given day. Rule 1 is don't get hurt. I turned back at the tree line on Algonquin in March when I was unable to find the trail. That wasn't fun, but I was safe and uninjured and not lost above the tree line. I went back and got it in April (and again in August with an overnight bag).
Sometimes I feel bad about my finance situation even though I'm trying to stick to a budget and am throwing a bunch of money at my student loans. Then I go read r/personalfinance and see a post about how awesome and how much of a good decision it is to live out of a truck. Fuck that place, sometimes there's good advice but a lot of of it is essentially "never do anything or do this ridiculous thing until you're 30". Grumble grumble. Went on a couple of hikes this past weekend. This was a nice one.
I am going to tell you a story that will probably make you hate me. My student loan payments were about $400 a month. I had an account dedicated to paying it off so the last day of every month for years I would take $400 cash out of my main account, walk across the street and deposit it in the loan payment account. Then one day they just stopped taking it out. So I called them repeatedly to ask why and no one seemed to know. I kept putting it in month after month and it just sat there with no withdrawals. I kept calling them and no one had any answers. After about a year I received a letter saying they had miscalculated and I owed them $500 a month, to which I said too bad as I had a signed "consolidation agreement" which superseded all other prior agreements and authoritatively set out the terms of my repayment. Eventually the Bank cashed in on the Federal guarantee and the government then sued me and tendered a consolidation agreement that I had never seen before and was not signed by me but set forth the increased amount and a few other documents that were clearly put together after the fact. After about 2 years it went to trial and the judge called us into his chambers and said the Bank was wrong but I took the money so morally should pay it back. I agreed but the Feds would not give me a discount and I would not agree to the full amount in lump sum. So we ended up going through with the trial and the judge ruled against me as expected. I went for coffee afterwards with the other lawyer and the Fed's representative and he said he would be in touch to work something out about payment. And then I never heard from them again. By that time I had about $10K in the account and I kept putting money in every month and so I waited about a year and then took the money out and shut the account down. At the end of the day I think I ended up getting away from about $15K of debt. And it does not show up as a default on my credit rating. Bizarre. And that looks like a pretty nice hike.
That's a beautiful picture. What hike was that?
Rattlesnake Ridge in Washington state. Little did I know there's another 2.5 mile trail off the summit of this one that takes you even higher. I'll probably be saving that for a Spring hike.
Just spent two days with my boss. First time I've met him in person. He's a nice guy and he listens to good music. I like the guy. We went on two big appointments today and I felt like a boxer that was lacing up his gloves again for the first time in a while. I enjoyed the calls and it looks like I may actually close some business. Pretty cool! Edit: While with my boss I was contacted by a company named Boston Scientific. They want to interview me tomorrow. It's a cool gig. -I'm torn. Couldn't hurt to check it out, right?
Med industry? That could be pretty cool. Good luck with the interview (if you take it?), did they cold call you?Boston Scientific
I had done research on the company and product months ago via a recruiter. Then they were in a hiring freeze. Now it's available again. I figure it couldn't hurt to check it out. Nothing to lose.
I am lucky enough to be in Krakow for work this week. It's a beautiful city and some of my colleagues over here are taking me out for beer tonight. I wish I could stay a little longer.
Aw krakow is amazing! If you have time, you can bike to the Benedictine Abbey in the suburbs of Krakow, on the Vistula: http://foundonland.tumblr.com/image/85619442785 There is a bike bath all along the river and it's a really pleasant ride :) If you want to go out, check out the Forum, I had a blast: http://www.forumprzestrzenie.com/
Working on some things. Going to be in South Beach over the weekend. waywardsamurai, Spotify will embed for posts now, and will embed in comments in the next update that will be pushed out soon.
Currently on a train, headed to the airport. Finally a real vacation! 5 days in Disney for the Food and wine festival!!
Okay guys, last week I spoke of a girl that was browsing Tinder on a date. Well I confronted her about it and she told me that she was screwing around with a gay friend's account that she had access to. The friend allowed her to use it. She apologized about this and felt bad about making me feel crappy. She keeps asking me to hang out with her and I will hang out with her soon as she's not an awful person but I'm not sure of a relationship at this point in time. I'm a Mets fan and we made the World Series, so that's pretty awesome. Also I was asked to be a featured poet at a bar/performing venue called Parkside Lounge in NYC. They have a weekly poetry show on Sundays. I accepted and I will be featuring in January. So that's awesome.
Ah, so this much "anything". It makes me somewhat uncomfortable, but hey, let's go with it. Neil Gaiman's The Sandman. Holy smokes, The Sandman. Amazing, awesome story all throughout the seventy-plus issues. Fantastic art in the end and in Overture. I was mildly disappointed by Gaiman's storytelling in the middle of American Gods, given how blatant and obvious that part was compared to the first half, but The Sandman brought faith back. It's one of those stories that inspired me to write a few fanfics based on it. How about you?What's the best thing you've read in the last 5 years?
wasoxygen bought me a copy of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. That is high on the list. Just an incredible read with fantastic characters. I have been working my way through Winston Churchill's five book account of WWII. I've read three so far. Given that he is relating his first hand experience of leading the UK through the Nazi onslaught, there really isn't anything else like it. The books contain many letters between Churchill, his Generals, Ministers, and other Heads of State. It's very interesting to get a sense of their frame of mind when so much was uncertain.
The description of the book sounds very interesting, and I value your opinion enough for it to form my desire to read it. Thank you for letting me know of the book. Thanks for letting me know of the Churchill's books, too. I'm not sure whether I could ever bring myself to read something like that, but the premise of it sounds interesting. Indeed, if someone in the higher-ups of the governments involved would be able to tell about the Second World War, I'd be inclined to read it. It's too bad Mein Kampf is banned in Russia: despite the reputation of its author, it is a historical book which, much like Churchill's, sheds light on the second world-wide armed conflict.wasoxygen bought me a copy of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. That is high on the list. Just an incredible read with fantastic characters.
I would recommend reading historians who have written about Mein Kampf way more than the source material. I tried once. It was very difficult to make heads or tails of. Mostly it appeared to be the collected ravings of an extreme narcissist, and to pick out the actual policy bits requires more study than I was willing to put in. Fortunately, the book itself has been dissected in great detail over the years, and there are resources out there to get a glimpse of Hitler's political theory. I will highly recommend a new book on the topic, Black Earth by Timothy Snyder. It's by far the most insightful book I've ever read on the topic of Nazi thinking, how the Holocaust actually happened, and what the aims of the Nazi regime were vis-a-vis Jews and Slavs. I doubt it's been translated into Russian yet, as it's very new, but if you're comfortable reading it in English, it's a worthwhile read.
Thanks for the advice. I would still like to take a look at Mein Kampf out of curiosity, but I'll follow your advice. I've just put Black Earth into my Amazon wishlist. Amusingly enough, there was another book with the same title by a different author that told, instead, about either of the Russian revolutions.
I am home sick with the crud. That and I stopped taking allergy drugs early this season; normally I stop at Halloween, but we had a freeze and I was good for a few days before the last orgy of bugs, and dirt, and pollen, and bad terrible air. The migraine is eating active brain cells. In news that does not suck, I am giving yet another talk at the library next month, then one at the planetarium. After the second talk I am taking the telescope completely apart, cleaning everything, adding a new light baffle and (hopefully) have it all together for viewing the sky in January. In still other news that is going to either be the most awesome thing ever or the most awesome fail ever, I have a tiny older scope that I am going to convert to a cell phone lens. The goal of this is to let people look through the main scopes, and then use the smaller, older scope to put their cell phones up to the eyepiece and get a picture of the moon, or in spring Jupiter. The hope is that all the kids with their phones will post picts on social media and do out advertising for us in places that I may not know about. The thought of 40-50 kids flooding facebook with astrophotography images makes me wonder how well it will work out. I still have a bit of testing and planning over the winter, but I think I can pull this off.
better find them before they roll away. What's up?