My parents just bought a Condo (supposedly ready in 3 years) for their retirement. My Aunt and Uncle have bought quite literally the apartment next door. I don't know what my mom was thinking because my dad will never agree to move from the house. Looks like she convinced him on the argument that 3 years is not soon and he'll be too old to argue then...
I can't wait because in 3 years (when i'll be an established fimmaker) this will give me plenty material for my sitcom. It's a shitstorm coming.
Seriously, now that I moved out I love hearing from my parents because their life is so funny now that I'm not involved in the middle of it. Endless entertainment!
Just a couple weeks ago, they bought tickets to Cuba, drove halfway to the airport until they realized my dad's passport expired. Thankfully, my mom's passport was only expiring one day after their return (she got lucky buying the tickets!) They drove back home, dad took his Russian passport and flew out. Then, once in Cuba all was well until the day before departure when my dad realized he won't be able to come back to Canada without a Visa with his Russian passport. So they went on a crazy adventure trying to urgently get some papers from the Canadian consulate (I'll spare you the details). In this passport expiring extravaganza, my mom realized her Russian passport expired too and that her trip to Russia in a couple weeks was doomed unless she does something so she's currently running around consulates.
As if that was not enough, once back home, my mom was complaining to me because she hid her laptop from theives and could not find in anywhere. Like WTF people! I honestly don't think i'll notice for a long time if they get dementia...
- I honestly don't think i'll notice for a long time if they get dementia...
That's pretty funny. I was just talking with my wife and a friend about how crazy our parents are. Then it dawned on me, all parents are crazy in the eyes of their children, at least a bit. That means I'm doomed to be "crazy," by my children's standards.
Might as well embrace my future craziness.
I'm just amazed how two very intelligent and capable people (They did figure out how to immigrate to Canada and build a very successful life right?) can get into so many stupid situations literally all the time. This whole paragraph was only 1 week worth of adventures, tune in next week for another episode of "La vida de los padres de elizabeth".
I get sad at how much life my parents waste watching television. Also, they have long standing animosity towards their own parents which has caused them so much anguish in their lives and they don't even see it. It's a bummer. I'm trying hard not to have that with them and even said as much to them. They're a bit un-self-aware.
I don't think their life would be a comedy. So at least you have that going for you... Humor is a good thing!
Sounds familiar to my mother but oddly enough not my father. She never thought she would live this long so now she has no idea what to do with her life because at the same time she's waiting for the next illness to come take it all away. I don't really understand how they ever got along but I think it's more that my dad accepted who my mom was a long time ago.
It's still incredibly sad to watch her sit around and waste every moment she has because she's too afraid to live.
In a few hours, I'm going to start one of my team's lacrosse practices with a short presentation on nutrition. The high school I coach for is comprised of a poor-to-middle-class population of African-American students (92%, the rest is 5% white, 3% Hispanic, there are literally 2 Asian-American students out of 1,400). It's a magnet school in Baltimore and the kids are smart. But they are also incredibly ignorant of certain things, much like any 14-17 year old. And one area that's particularly lacking is nutrition. It's heartbreaking. Honey buns and Big Texases, McDonald's cheeseburgers sold in the hallways between classes, and sodas are staples of practically every kid on the team's diet. I asked the team for examples of healthy foods, and one kid said he drinks a lot of juice. When I asked what kind of juice, he said Tropicana Fruit Punch.
There's a lot that I need to unfuck here. But I can't just tell them all to shop at Whole Foods. So I'm trying to strike a balance. Because this shit is important. A proper understanding of nutrition (which I won't be able to give in twenty minutes) is foundational to a lifetime of good health. But trying to condense this information to maximize the benefits to a section of the population is pretty much as Public Health as it gets (right kleinbl00?). So this is good practice.
Gah. That's got to be so hard to see. Good on you for trying, bootz.
I had a friend who was well over 400lbs, and decided to get that shit sorted out. So he met with a doctor, and got some super basic education on calories. That's when he realized that a single Big Mac meal has half of the calories he needs a day. And he was getting two or three at a time. For lunch.
He started changing his diet too late. Died that year from basically an over-taxed system.
So if you get through to anyone on your lacrosse team, you have done good.
I can imagine your team running sprints for 20 minutes, out of breath, asking to stop, and you say, "Nope. You've only worked off the first three bites of that Big Mac so far. You have 4 more hours of running. Now GO!"
Yea, people don't realize how calorically dense our foods are. And furthermore fail to grasp how efficient our bodies are at retaining those calories. I've heard that to burn off the calories of a peanut M&M (about 5 or 6 calories) you'd have to full-out sprint the length of two football fields.
I've been counting calories recently. I even bought a kitchen scale so I could reduce inaccuracy in my estimates (there's still some when eating out). The calories in just a little cheese were crazy. So I replaced it with avocado. I cut the calories in half and add more real food to my diet.
I do think it's taken me fifteen years to figure out proper nutrition. You'll get through to a couple students, and a couple more will remember it later. You're doing good!
Thank you!
And being versed in nutrition as a science seems like it could take a lifetime. But there is a Michael Pollan quote that's coming to me. Here he is discussing his reasons why he wrote (another) book, this time not on the ethics of our food chain but on personal nutritional decisions:
- But many readers wanted to know, after they’d spent a few hundred pages following me following the food chains that feed us, “Okay, but what should I eat? And now that you’ve been to the feedlots, the food-processing plants, the organic factory farms, and the local farms and ranches, what do you eat?”
Fair questions, though it does seem to me a symptom of our present confusion about food that people would feel the need to consult a journalist, or for that matter a nutritionist or doctor or government food pyramid, on so basic a question about the conduct of our everyday lives as humans. I mean, what other animal needs professional help in deciding what it should eat? True, as omnivores—creatures that can eat just about anything nature has to offer and that in fact need to eat a wide variety of different things in order to be healthy—the "What to eat” question is somewhat more complicated for us than it is for, say, cows.Yet for most of human history, humans have navigated the question without expert advice.To guide us we had, instead, Culture, which, at least when it comes to food, is really just a fancy word for your mother. What to eat, how much of it to eat, what order in which to eat it, with what and when and with whom have for most of human history been a set of questions long settled and passed down from parents to children without a lot of controversy or fuss.
You're spot on about certain dressings totally annihilating any caloric deficit you're trying to run. And portion sizes are another thing -- family sized bags are just a trap to have in the house. Even large containers of healthier foods like nuts I get into trouble with. Our brains aren't geared for abstaining from food that's around us and immediately available, especially food that's salty or oily or sweet.
- It's a touchy subject though, so I'm pointing her towards a nutritionist and they can be the messenger.
It can definitely be that. But you're pointing her to a nutritionist? That's pretty suggestive itself lol.
Damn.
I knew Coca Cola was bad, but not that bad. Comparisons of familiar things are so so much more compelling than statistics. In school we were told that "one bottle of Coca Cola equals so many table spoons of sugar", but since we didn't have a good intuition as to how much sugar was acceptable, it didn't stick. I can't even remember how many table spoons it was!
Junk food is terrifying because it's so easy to consume without thinking. Sure, it's also easy to mindlessly eat healthy food, but I've never eaten an entire fried chicken's worth of carrot sticks.
I had to see the statistics behind this. Not that I'm defending soda drinking - I'm just curious. My quick math from a nearby coke can tells me 140 cal per 12oz - that's 11.6 calories per oz., making a 64 oz BigGulp weigh in at 747 Calories.
According to this, ONE pound of breaded, fried chicken is 506 calories.
So maybe an entire chicken has a little more meat than a pound? I dunno - I actually don't love fried chicken... but I do know that a pound of it is more than I would ever want to eat. And the fact that a pound of it is LESS calories than a leg spreader Big Gulp (which I have had) is frightening.
Thanks for the eye-opening reminder to cut the soda.
So, back to reality:
- After removing the bone, a half of a roasted chicken weighs 480 grams, or 17 ounces. It has 1,070 calories, 115 grams of protein, 64 grams of fat and 0 grams of carbohydrates.
http://www.livestrong.com/article/544545-nutrition-in-half-of-a-roasted-chicken/
That's a roasted chicken, not a fried chicken. It's also half a chicken.
When I go here, A breast, a thigh, a leg and a wing come in at 970 calories. So I'm not sure how Livestrong is cooking their chicken if they come in a hundred calories hotter than KFC but there it is.
Coca Cola agrees with you - 12 calories per oz. 765 calories in a 64 oz big gulp. Or, about a wing shy of half a fried chicken. So HEEUGE SURPRISE, the shock jock was exaggerating. BUT it sure switched me over to diet, I tell you what.
And then I had some liver tests done and that effectively got me off cola. PROTIP: sodastream. Skip the syrups and just make yourself sparkling water. I drink that shit all day long and a $15 charger lasts me two months.
- about a wing shy of half a fried chicken
I think that is how my mother in law describes me to her friends.
So yah... The sodas... I don't drink much anymore. It's just not worth it. I have a mexicoke every couple days. I consider it my beer. I'll occasionally get a huge fountain drink when I'm driving for 5+ hours. But even then, tried little crystal light with caffeine packs are way more effective than the gut wrenching soda bomb.
Even if the shock jock overestimated - who cares. It's a great way to think concretely about soda consumption.
- I'm not sure how Livestrong is cooking their chicken if they come in a hundred calories hotter than KFC but there it is.
If I had to guess I'd say it might be because KFC chickens tend to be on the small side anyway, and they don't include the full half-breast in their breast pieces (they get three pieces from the breast instead of two); but still seems hard to fathom (re: deep-fried vs roasted).
I had a certain friend (who is on hubski but I won't name names) who lived an entire year of high school having a diet coke for breakfast every day. Sometimes he would also have a snickers.
Other than a fun anecdote - I'm not sure I have a point. I'm glad you are teaching them about nutrition. I hope they are at least made aware of their choices and can start to make conscious ones. Don't beat yourself up if the Big Texas cinnamon rolls and sugar drinks still flow. Educated, grown adults (myself included) make terrible decisions every day regarding nutrition. I've heard that the adolescent brain is nearly incapable of actually internalizing long term consequences. I don't know how true that is. I might wager that the human brain of almost any age isn't good at it.
anyway - good on ya for working it in there. It's super important - especially for athletes who want to perform. I hope at least one kid takes it to heart.
Keep making a difference blackbootz. You're the friggin man.
teenage brains don't have fully developed executive process functioning in their brains. this is the limbic system and usually develops in late teens early 20's depending on gender. i know this because i learned about it high school health while grounded or otherwise in trouble and came home to my parents and said "you can't ground me because of a developmental issue". they laughed in my face but now whenever some teen makes the news for doing something dumb we can laugh about that damn limbic system.
Thanks steve, I'm trying :)
And great point about the executive function impairment/undevelopedness that you and arguewithatree pointed out. Anecdatally, my experience completely supports that. I physically couldn't imagine acting in my best long-term interest when I was 17.
I guess you can start by asking them what they think their Idols eat and why and then go from there. It should be easier with athletes since nutrition is one of the cornerstones of physical fitness and every major athlete is on some sort of diet plat. You cant really build consistent muscle mass without proper nutrition so part of their commitment to their sport can be a commitment to better nutrition (assuming they are actually committed).
Shopping at whole foods is over rated, there is no nutritional difference between organic and not organic. One is fertilized with petroleum byproducts and the other one with human and other feces.
Since You are working with athletes, a diet plan should be part of the workout plan so you can explain it in those terms. Give them some basics and then have them come back to you in a couple days with their diet plan. Give them some diet goals like 35g protein a day, less than 10 of sugar, etc and them have them come back to you and show you how they tried to achieve that. Many will miss but they can tell you why, then you can figure out what problems they are having and work towards solutions.
Be careful of official government nutrition info it seems to be riddled with inadequacies and special interest lobbying (food pyramid). If you tailor your info to athletes and athletic nutrition you will be fine (although still tons of conflicting information).
I only brought up Whole Foods as an additional complicating layer in proper nutrition, namely that it's hard enough to know what and how much to eat, let alone how prohibitively expensive it can be. I'm going to introduce macronutrients and ratios, maintaining muscle mass, nutrient-dense and satiating foods, but the issue will be of presenting it as well as possible so that it's retained. It wouldn't hurt getting them to think about their idols that are successful athletes, if only as an appeal to an authority.
Awesome links, I'll definitely check out the video when I get some free time. I've heard of Kai Green before and have liked what I've heard. Thanks wonton
I got a writing internship with Telltale Games. They're the ones that made this fantastic scenario:
Being honest the first Walking Dead is one of my favorite games of all time. I've hated pretty much everything about myself and my life for a while now, but not this so I guess that's nice.
Hopefully I get to work on the third season. Even if I do, I can't talk about it since I already signed an NDA.
I'm moving! I think.
I'm seeing someone! I think.
I pretty much have two jobs right now! I think.
Thanks! Now I just have to figure out how to finangle a lease that's not up until the end of April when I'm intending to move into this other place in the second week of April...
My current apartment which is kind of more room than I need in a new construction in a southern area of this city, to an apartment in a building constructed in 1929 in the Broadway District of my city. It's 100 ft^2 smaller, but it has a renovated kitchen and is cheaper and the kind of place I've wanted to try living in for a while now.
Who is "they"? If it's the person from point 2, nope, not anytime soon at least!
Thanks! I'm relatively content with things right now. And starting to be cited for some of the work I'm doing outside of what I'm getting paid for. That will probably be expanded in next weeks Pubski.
Painting updated.
Very happy about that tree in front of the building.
I'm still finishing our taxes. This is our most complicated year yet. :/ I have a long day. But we are going to Chicago this weekend, and while my wife visits and old friend, I'll be taking my daughter to the Shedd Aquarium. That'll be fun.
I'm impressed with the painting. I'm also intrigued by your choices of scenes. They're usually really normal. Nothing fanciful about them. I'd like to see you paint a car accident.
Edit: to be clear, I think they're wonderful and really calming.
Thanks, I appreciate it. But, I feel that art has been saturated with sex, violence, and politics for the last century. It definitely has its place, and I don't fault anyone that has a real desire to do it, but IMHO a lion's share of it is a result of expectations. What's worse, is that exploration of the subtle parts of our nature/condition are so often ironic or lathered in sincere affectation.
I mean, to be honest my life hasn't been much defined by violence, and to the extent that it has, I'm not keen on painting it.
That's not to say that I am not making an effort to infuse them with something personal. I am. I know the things that I paint, and to the extent that they aren't literal, that's the thing that I am working on. I feel that my latitude there expands a bit with each painting, and that's part of what excites me about starting the next one.
Interesting. I have never really looked at Hopper's work aside from Nighthawks. He uses geometry in a way that reminds me of M.C. Escher. I can see what you are saying about the calmness.
My first paintings were far more geometric and abstract, done with house paint on metal:
In those paintings I was interested in getting at the essence of a scene while restricting the color and the lines. Almost as if you were creating a commercial label for something non-commercial. I think a thread of emotion has remained constant, even though the technique I am using is so different now.
Hopper is one of my most favorite artists. Many people see melancholy and sadness in his paintings. I don't. I see strength in simplicity.
Automat from 1927 is one of those. Some people see a lonely woman in an empty diner. I see a strong, empowered woman, out on her own at night (at a time when things like that Were Not Done), fulfilling her desire for ... coffee? a piece of pie? dinner? And not needing anyone else to be there.
So yeah. I see Hopper in your painting.
As far as your earlier work - like the one you posted - it feels very experimental... like the early modern illustrators around the time of Mondrian...
Very cool!
Thanks. That's an interesting take on Hopper. I am going to Chicago this weekend. Maybe I'll get a chance to take another look at Nighthawks in person.
I can see what you are saying about Automat. It does look like she is taking the time to think on things alone. She could be thinking about something sad, but she could be weighing a decision, or just taking a moment.
I agree with you, there is no shortage of these types of paintings. I really like the calming aesthetic of what you are making. I just thought it would be ironic to have that aesthetic show something like a simple fender bender or perhaps a traffic jam. -Also something pretty common in most peoples lives but not ever considered serene or pastoral. But there is probably too much irony, too much juxtaposition in art these days, no doubt.
Have you considered painting someone's portrait? That would seem the ultimate challenge.
Yeah, if I did a fender bender, it would probably just be me doing it for the irony. I'd like to avoid that. Also, who wants a fender bender on their wall? A traffic jam is a bit more interesting. I suppose both will be historical curiosities in time.
- Have you considered painting someone's portrait? That would seem the ultimate challenge.
Yes, I probably will. Although I am not there yet.
I think you could make a serene fender bender though. Capture that moment right before you exchange information and you're both kinda staring at the damage like welp :/
- I suppose both will be historical curiosities in time.
- who wants a fender bender on their wall?
Good point. Still, maybe one could dedicate it to scenes that will be antiquated in 20 years time.
There are many historical paintings of nude people. In fact there are entire Instagram accounts dedicated to the oddest of the paintings. I think they are very interesting because they show a different side of our ancestors from the narrative we are normally fed.
Turbotax makes it pretty easy. I just have to undo a IRA contribution, which made it a mess. The one time I used HR block, the next year I found that they made a mistake.
But yeah, as things get more complicated, I'd rather have an accountant as a part of an audit rather than suffering it alone.
I'm the first one to admit that TurboTax is an incredibly useful product. But can I point out that Intuit, the makers of the software, spend millions of dollars a year lobbying Capitol Hill to stall legislation that would streamline the tax filing process, enable the IRS to send people pre-populated forms, and even create a return-free filing system?
Accountants, while just as dependent on the opacity of the system for their business, don't then as effectively lobby Congress. But Intuit's software helped 33 million people file their returns last year. H&R Block? 20 more million. Those two companies try their damndest to preserve the mess.
TaxAct! It's similar to TurboTax, they try to upsell you on everything but it's easy enough to avoid that, and I don't think they lobby to prevent changes to tax codes.
I've heard of it, though have never tried it myself. Arguably any free version of tax preparation software, including TurboTax's free versions, would be better than giving Intuit money. Although there's the whole "if you're not paying for anything when using a service, then you are the product" so TaxAct is probably better than TurboTax in that regard.
Thanks. I am RICE-ing when I can. It seems to be something only time will fix. It is especially disappointing as I have had a great week hitting my caloric and exercise goals and now I am worried I will be set back in my progress, which I was finally feeling was actually starting to be visible, since I can't exercise.
If physio is too expensive ( when is it not really ) runners knee is so common that you could honestly just look up the exercises. It's just quad exercises like laying on your back, lifting the leg, holding it in the air for x amount of time then lowering it.
At least then you'll feel like you're still getting some exercising while also preventing future problems.
Don't let it get your hopes too down. I basically couldn't stand up straight three pubskis ago, an the X-ray made it look like there was cartilage damage, butnow it's good enough that I almost forgot to put my knee brace on this morning. A PCP told me that I had "runner's knee" (Patellofemoral Pain Syndrome), while pediatrics gave me a more specific sprain to a tendon on the outside of the outer side of the knee.
I was told that in addition to icing it when it hurts, it also helps to put a warm wet towel over it (when it doesn't hurt) to improve blood flow to the tendons. Coupled with (honestly pretty intermittent) PT and a knee brace, it got better much faster than I expected.
If rest doesn't do it, visit a PT and have them give you some excercises. Often, tendonitis is caused by underlying weakness in stabilizer muscles that can be hard to work without isolation exercises. Working them in isolation will also help your main lifts too, which is always cool.
I've been Googling "IT band syndrome" all week for similarly disappointing reasons. A real disappointment from what felt like great progress.
Yeah. I mean it's my fault. I have been getting back into running pretty consistently but then the weather changed and I went on 1-2 hour walks every day this weekend and clearly, the increase in mileage was just way beyond what my poor little knee could handle. I cannot truly blame it. My mentality was "I used to do this all the time, so I should be able to still do it!"
That is not the appropriate way to treat your body, even if you are only 26, apparently.
That sounds about right, unfortunately. A slow and steady ramp up is always the way to go. Hope this doesn't put you down for too long.
I wish that didn't sound familiar, but it does. Rest really does help me, and optimistically I think you'll be back at it soon.
I ramped up miles way too fast. Also my own fault. My mentality was "I used to be limited by exhaustion, so if I'm not exhausted I can keep going." It'll get better, but it's so tough right now.
Oh man, I'm sorry. Not being close doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, and it doesn't mean you shouldn't feel sad or grieve his passing.
A classmate died in a car accident my last year of high school. We weren't close, but we'd been in classes together since we were eight years old. I still remember him in second grade. We weren't close, we hung out with different people and had different hobbies and interests, but I still choke up a little when I think of him. His funeral was really tough. That was seventeen years ago. His name was Ryan.
Art is making something out of nothing and selling it.
-Frank Zappa
Rewrote 3 chapters of the book yesterday. Again, for the third time, whatever. This story has become my P90X, my sun salutation, my downward dog. What joy there was is long gone, replaced by an inexorable sense of duty to everyone who ever believed in it.
I'm through the hard stuff. Of the 169,000 words written, there are only 18,000 to go. Of the 71,000 rewritten, I expect maybe 12,000 or so to be added. It'd be interesting to find a plagiarism detector or something to compare manuscripts. There might be a paragraph that survived largely unchanged. I'm pretty sure that there are a couple instances where two or three sentences made it from one rewrite to the next. POVs change, dialogue changes, and it gets tighter and tighter but you don't do that by editing. As E.B. White said, "writing is rewriting."
My big show summoned me back for the tenth year. That means sixteen weeks of luxuriant payment in air-conditioned luxury... in Los Angeles. It'll be four solid months away from my family, but this is what we do to keep the lights on. I've got six weeks or so to wrap up my affairs here, finish the book and get a first pass done on a feature. It's impossible to do anything substantive while the show is on. If I don't finish the book before, I won't finish the book until October or November. With any luck it'll be done before May and I can spend occasional effort on the thankless task of "and selling it."
I realized the other day that "and selling it" is the most divisive thing any artist has to do. It's the cause of more fights than any other artistic discussion in my life and if there is to be blood, this conflict is the knife. There's this soft sentimentalism around "artists" that suggests that the act of creating is enough, and only those callow opportunist gloryhounds that require external motivation would bother to seek the validation of a paying audience.
It's not because of any absolutist moral principle. It's because it's fucking hard. It's the hardest fucking thing an artist has to do.
The world is full of better writers than me. It's also full of worse ones. My take is that if I'm going to give my life over to such a tedious, thankless task as writing a quarter million words, I owe it to those words to try and get them read. And that means convincing hostile gatekeepers that my labors have merit. It means convincing people to spend money on my scribblings. It means believing that the shit from my head is worth ca$h M0ney to go into yours and I think most "artists" aren't willing to sully their perfect Aristotelian idealism with the crassness of the market.
I've got the backing of two NYT bestselling authors. My editor has a Wikipedia page. My agent works for Stephen King's agent. And I'm scared shitless.
Because you aren't an artist because you call yourself an artist. You're a poseur because you call yourself an artist. You're an artist when someone else calls you an artist, or more specifically, when someone else spent money to call you an artist. And that divide is a cast-iron bitch, my friends.
I've crossed it twice. I hope to cross it again. But that fuckin' divide is a harder chasm to cross than the journey of turning 170k words into 85k because your editor says you have to.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________
Also my mother is coming to visit tomorrow and staying through Monday. At least she's manic right now.
It's early in the morning so I guess Ill just say I agree with everything you say, especially Aldnoah Zero even though you didn't mention it. Words are hard.
LV is close. steve, blackbootz, you know what that means
e: I thought that said Las Vegas. Whoops.
Las Vegas is like a 12 hour drive when LA is like 15. If I'm in the car for 12 hours, I can do 3 more. ;)
- my mother is coming to visit tomorrow and staying through Monday.
Don't forget to put on the Chieftains' collection the IRC found a while back.
so I touched on it really briefly last week but I am currently in the process of pursuing Baby's First Protective Order. Long story short, my estranged ex who I literally have not spoken to since I was in high school (because it was a high school relationship) went to my parents' house and got my dad to address and mail a birthday card to me because he "never forgets my birthday" and it's been 10 fucking years since we met in 2006. He then took to all forms of social media that I hadn't yet blocked him on (mostly accounts I didn't know he had) to try and direct my attention to my deviantart (lmao) account which hasn't been touched in at least 4 years. He went through and wrote a fucking novella about how he still loves me and I"m like that's cool you literally abused me for 2 years of my life and have unmanaged psychosis and I moved away and have a 100% new life now????
So I saved all the evidence and have it printed out as well as a MOSAIC assessment to take to the DV intake center here whenever I can actually make it there during business hours. I don't know if the protective order would actually stop him from doing anything if he did get it in his head to try and find me in person, I'd have the police record. Part of me oscillates between this being fucking scary and life threatening and it being really pathetic.
So that's that.
Protective orders give police the opportunity to address the fucked-up bullshit your ex does, should he decide to threaten you. They're basically a notice saying "heads up, cops, this guy is crazy and I think he might do me harm" which allows them to go "huh. Says here that she thinks you might do her harm and lookitthat! here you are, making every motion as if she's right! Into the car we go, chap!"
You're white, college-educated, young and female. Your friendly neighborhood constabulary will likely hop-to should anything go wrong. That's the point of a protective order.
results will vary for minorities and the economically-disadvantaged
that's why i'm pursuing it. i want to flag this freaky shit before it gets worse.
who fucking knows. i don't know why he thought it was at all appropriate and he's lucky it was my dad who answered the door because my mom would have eviscerated him. he got my mom's hackles up the minute she met him and then had to watch me date him for ~2 years until she paid the phone company to block his phone number when he went to college. best thing she's ever done for me tbh and of course i railed against how she doesn't understand and we're in love blah blah blah. the distance gave me time to realize that what happened was fucked up.
my dad has asperger's so he just didn't see any reason why sending me a birthday card would be inappropriate. so.
Oh. I assumed your ex is a she. Apologies.
- my dad has asperger's so he just didn't see any reason why sending me a birthday card would be inappropriate.
He abuses you and then sees nothing wrong with reminding you of himself? That's so fucked up.
I wonder now why the hell is your mother with your father. She sounds like a woman who's not only willing but ready to take measures to protect her child - which is but laudable - but then, hearing about your father...
Oh it's the psychosis. It makes him play it all down.
I ask that question a lot too but it's because my mom is super tightly wound and my dad isn't and I'm just curious how they didn't drive each other crazy and break up, especially raising 2 kids. he's a good guy, very smart and kind, he just... doesn't get why this was the wrong thing to do. i also didn't really open up to him about what happened (i didn't to my mom either but she found my tumblr when i had a breakdown in college and realized that i needed some help with my anxiety re: the abuse). and that's not his fault. but I still want to shake him and be like WHY
This pub sure fills up fast. It's only 10:30 a.m. EDT.
Coffee, please. Strong and black.
Happy Wednesday everyone. No stories this week. BUT: the new, post-divorce bf is arriving 6:00 a.m. Friday morning from the west coast and leaving Monday night at 7:00 p.m. so if you don't hear from me, you'll know where I'll be.
It's his first time in this part of the continent. He wants to see Niagara Falls. I wonder of the world why. He says he's bringing his bathing suit.
The wife and I have been house shopping for about three, maybe four, years now. It's not been fun. The options in our price range are either really nice houses in not so nice neighborhoods or not so nice houses in really nice neighborhoods. I'm more worried about the quality of the house, she's more worried about the quality of the nieghborhood. We disagree, a lot. No worries though, cause the longer we take, the more we save up.
Anyhow, I get a text from her this morning with a house she saw for about $40k. It has a few things going for it. Nice price. Nice neighborhood. Small yard. Small house actually. Price just dropped from $80k. Yadda. Yadda. It also has a lot of things NOT going for it. Mainly, it looks like a giant, cancer ridden ball of asbestos with God only knows what kind of ancient lighting and plumbing. Seriously, the place looks so rough, I don't even think it's fit to be turned into a meth lab. I don't know what she's thinking.
Also, know what pisses me off more than anything when talking to people about buying houses? When they say "Oh, I don't know why you're looking at houses in that price range. You could easily afford something that costs twice as much." No, fucker. No we can't. If we put all of our money into a house, then we're not saving anything for retirement, and that's just stupid. Fuck off.
My parents own two rowhomes in West Baltimore, and my mom thinks she'd could maybe get 50k for one of them. But yea, cheap houses exist. Though I don't like the sound of asbestos removal rd95, it can cost hundreds of dollars an hour to get that stuff removed properly. And you want to do it properly.
There are a few things we won't touch. Asbestos (both siding and insulation), plumbing (galvanized pipes that need replacing, missing pipes altogether, etc.), electrical (cloth insulated wires for example), foundation issues, frame issues, and a few other things here and there. The one thing that we are kind of worried about is buying up a house that the seller has "neglected" to disclose was a previous meth house. What a fucking world we live in when that's a legit concern.
Foundation issues are expensive and constant but the other shit ain't bad. As a home owner you have much less strict guidelines on asbestos work than a contractor hence you can do it cheaper. Housing electrical is really simple just time consuming to run wire and pluming has been simplified a lot with crimp on pex plastic lines. I've never done plumbing drainage that seems a bit more tricky but on most houses you already have that setup unless you need a drastic layout change.
Point being that you can do a lot more than you give yourself credit for and a lot of the items you listed could net you a heavy discount. That being said, in your price range the cost of materials would be a huge % of cost
- That being said, in your price range the cost of materials would be a huge % of cost
Yeah. That's part of the problem I'm working with. I'm figuring, if the cost of fixing up a house that's on the level of "meh" and making it somewhat decent pretty much costs the same as a decent house, finding a decent house at a good deal seems to be a better way to go. Less hassle.
I was approved fro $200K when I bought the current dump. I ended up buying a $85K house. Two days a month I work to pay off the mortgage, most of the interest is already done and everything I pay now is mostly principle. I've been thinking about a smaller house in a better area for about the same payment, but I am too busy and I hate moving.
I swear every contractor in Seattle is out to rip you off... I too tried to get someone in to do a little landscaping last week. All I wanted them to do was areate and seed my lawn... 300-600$ and they couldn't actually be bothered to show up on schedule. So I rented a aerator and ended up doing my and neghbors lawn for 65 bucks plus the cost of seed. 2 hrs of work for 300 bucks of work gotta be kidding me.
Well, the key element is a rock wall that spans the 65-foot yard, and is about 3-feet high. So there's heavy equipment needed... three-quarter-minus gravel base... tearing down the fence to get the heavy equipment and rock into the yard, and then rebuilding the fence when they leave... But all of that was only $9k.
The problem was replacing the tiny decrepit front lawn with semi-permeable stone pad that I can park the RV on... And that's gonna be $23k.
But still... a house for $40k... wow...
When I bought, I bought well below what banks, etc said I could afford. I think it's been good for my mental health because I have less at risk and more money in my budget for other things.
It's just a little condo, nothing special. At the risk of sounding smug, I plan to have it paid off in July.
Budgets are good.
- life of course might play out differently.
Which is why I don't borrow up to my eyeballs! I want to feel like I have options if life throws a curve ball. I've been very fortunate and very lucky, but I can't be sure that will always be true. My father's mindset (and I think it's generational to an extent) was to borrow as much as you can and spend the rest of your life paying it off. That just doesn't work for me.
- "Oh, I don't know why you're looking at houses in that price range. You could easily afford something that costs twice as much."
This always frustrated me. I know my budget. I know what I'm comfortable spending. Yes, my credit score may tell you I'm made of money, but I am not. I have a certain dollar amount I'm comfortable with. Stop trying to make me an irresponsible borrower.
One of the more shocking moments (at least when you first heard it... It's not surprising anymore) of This American Life's hour long episode on the housing crisis, aired in 2008, was hearing about the "No Income, No Asset Verification" loans that were being made. They brought in a guy called Clarence Nathan who was given one of these loans. This is the transcript
- And it turns out even the people who got them found them confusing. For example, a guy I met named Clarence Nathan. He worked three part-time, not very steady jobs, and made a total of $45,000 a year, roughly. He got himself into trouble and needed money. So he took out a loan against his house, a big one.
Clarence Nathan: Call it $540,000 for round figures.
Alex Blumberg: You basically borrowed $540,000 from the bank, and they didn't check your income?
Clarence Nathan: It's a no income verification loan. They don't call me up and say, how much money? They don't do that. I mean it's almost like you pass a guy in the street, and you say, will you lend me $540,000? He says, well what do you do? Hey, I got a job. OK.
It seems as if it's that casual, even though there are a lot of papers that get filled out and stuff flies all over with the faxes and the emails, and all like that. Essentially, that's the process.
Alex Blumberg: Would you have loaned you the money?
Clarence Nathan:+ I wouldn't have loaned me the money. And nobody that I know would have loaned me the money. I mean, I know guys who are criminals that wouldn't lend me that money, and they'd break your kneecaps. So [LAUGHING] yeah, I don't know why the bank did it. I'm serious. $540,000, a person with bad credit.
Got a couple friends. They sold their half-million-dollar condo in Playa Del Rey and with a little help from their folx, bought an $800k SFR in Manhattan Beach. It's across from the cemetery, on a busy road, with a postage-stamp yard and 900 square feet of space.
THEY'RE SCHOOLTEACHERS.
Also lovely people. Also with three kids. It's super-awesome that their eldest now gets his own bedroom and it's grrrreat that they have a yard big enough for a swing set (just) but it's a true mark of the insanity at play that (A) this house rounds up to a million dollars (B) our financial system puts schoolteachers in it (C) schoolteachers have to take on that kind of debt to live within an hour of where they work.
It cannot continue.
I would like to see the mortgage interest deduction destroyed. If they want to replace it with a home ownership tax credit, fine. But the fact that we all subsidize the realty and mortgage industries via this ridiculous deduction is immoral and leads to all of us taking on way more debt than a sane person otherwise would. And I say this having paid $16,000 in mortgage interest last year, which roughly translates to a $5000 gift from the renters of America to my wife and I, who really don't need the money.
We have a similar freeze here in MI, although it's a little higher than 1%, if I'm not mistaken. One downside is that it's really difficult to know what your taxes will be the year following the year in which you purchased a home. If the owner has owned for a long time, you can bet they'll be a lot higher.
"It cannot continue" is an accurate way of describing it, but what do you think the way out is?
Raising interest rates back up to 3%, enacting zoning laws that allow for more density and mass transit options, pushing home ownership back down to about 60% and encouraging more rentals, all the while not killing the job market, not pushing poor people out of their homes and preserving the character and style of the city/area in question.
I'll get right on that. /s
The suburbs are in trouble and not at all sustainable; the only people really having that conversation are people like us on the fringes.
It is depressing to me that reasonable housing in my neighborhood has a zero more than reasonable housing in your neighborhood.
$40k won't buy a hole in a ground on which to build a house around here. I'm watching a couple quarter-acre plots and the cheapest one is $300k.
Yeah I'm my part of town 200k buys you 3000sf of tear down facing a school parking lot on one side and a drug house on the other. Builder bought it built a new 2200sf house and flipped it for 800k! Crazy times in Seattle real estate.
Also in your price range I don't recommend that you buy a fixer upper. Even if you have to spend 120k to get the house you want it's a better deal than the 80k fixer. Reason being that material cost and labor costs are pretty much the same everywhere. Kitchen remodel will run you 10-12, roof will cost you 5 heat will cost you 3-5 depending on how much work. And the unknown unknowns are killer. You start tearing shit up and you find wiring mold or other problems and you are in for some unexpected serious costs. You need 20-30 k of buffer cash to deal with renovation costs. For a 80k house that's the entire down payment.
We ended up getting a fixer because there was no inventory in our area. 2 years later it's finnally livable but we lived without a kitchen for 6 month no ceiling drywall for 8, cold as balls dust everywhere wife hated it drove her nuts. We came out ahead because houses cost more here but on a cheaper house it wouldn't be worth it.
Well, reasonable here is actually about $80-140k. There are of course houses that are much more expensive, and then the trailer parks. The $40k house is, in my opinion, less of a house and more of a thing. It's like a box of nightmares you can walk inside. I really don't know why she texted it to me, because she must know I'd be opposed to it from the get go.
We did though, almost luck out and tried to get our hands on a really nice house for about $55k a year or so back. The person who owned it was underwater and was trying to sell it quick. We were very impressed by it. Unfortunately, the bank he owed to seized it and turned around to put it back on the market for over twice that price. That sucked, for him and us.
Yes, no rush. We got in because of the crash, and were lucky because we had been saving for a few years before that. We got a fixer-upper. The shitty house in the good neighborhood option. I've touched every inch of the house. It has an amazing lot though. Because of sweat equity and market/interest rates timing, it actually has been a net positive investment.
I don't think you are going to see substantially higher rates or prices for the next couple of years, so I would be picky.
Yeah. The only problem on our end, I don't think we'd ever actually get anything done if we got a fixer upper unless we hired people to do it. So buying a rough house in a good neighborhood would still be more expensive than the initial investment. :/
the truth is that, as a homeowner, You're going to be throwing money at the house whether it's a fixer-upper now, or a fixer-upper later when you've not done the maintenance. At least with a fixer-upper, you can do the repairs or have them done, and be confident that they're up to new code and your standards (and also that they'll be good for a few years). Just include the cost of potential fix ups in what you're willing to spend for the house.
I mean, a house in great shape is basically a lie - I've certainly never seen one. If it looks good, you have to wonder what you're not seeing.
- I mean, a house in great shape is basically a lie - I've certainly never seen one. If it looks good, you have to wonder what you're not seeing.
Indeed. I think a lot of hesitance, on my part at least, to pull the trigger on a house is that I know that there will just be so much additional cost and work involved. They kind of strike me as money pits.
Well, really any large purchase that will last a long time is a money pit. Look at it this way - At least you are not buying a boat.
Bought my house almost 2.5 years ago for $270k, estimate now is almost 400k. I know a lady who just listed a house for $270k and got 10 offers the day it went on sale. Best offer was for $350k. It's not an exceptional tale.
This was an undesirable neighborhood five years ago. Real estate agents say that they have no idea what to list at or what to offer. It's a difficult time to buy.
Mars, from the last opposition two years ago. Working with the old data I have as I have had nothing but clouds and rain here and no clear nights to go out an observe. I'm slowly learning skills to get better at the processing.
This is about what Mars looks like through the eyepiece of a 14" reflector telescope when it is close to the earth.
I am on my way to visit some good friends in Utrecht. Someone jumped in front of a train on the route I wanted to take (The Hague-Utrecht) so now I have to take a detour through Amsterdam. Only takes me half an hour longer, so I can't complain. Network robustness: it matters.
Not really looking forward to next week, when finals start. I have 4 exams and a project presentation, and there are two I really don't want to fail. Spent the Easter weekend with the family so I didn't get to study much.
It almost comes natural! A while ago I walked through the city with another urban planning student from my major. Almost all our discussions emerged from the city around us, as we were both thinking about what we were seeing.
Chemists have their labs, med students have their hospitals, we have the entire built world as our field of study. Hard to get bored of you ask me. :)
Hey Pubski. Gimme something I can sip on for a long time. Maybe a Laphroaig Quarter Cask and two rocks.
Because this week is all about waiting...
Waiting for interviews. Waiting for people to get back to me. Waiting for wedding service suppliers to get back to me with their suggestions, numbers, availability, etc. Waiting for the sun so I can go for a motorcycle ride. Waiting for collaborators to finish their part of projects. Waiting for inspiration to hit me about how the hell to build that shed roof I need in the back yard. (No design feels quite right yet.)
Time to take some action.
Tomorrow.
The album I've been writing with my friend is not far from being ready for recording. I'm quite happy with how it's turning out. We both have quite different styles and you can definitely tell which song originated from who, but I think it works. I'll have to start putting some thought into how to record it next. It's an acoustic duo with vocals so nothing out of my comfort zone. I wont live record as I only have a matched pair of small-diaphragm condenser mics. I'll multi-track it so I can get the nicest recording of each guitar and vocals. l'll probably get some DI on the guitars too.
My electronic music writing has been on slump. I took on a piece of client work which was quite out of preference/comfort zone and it burnt me out. It doesn't help that the client's have been extremely bad communicators. It went through three rounds of feedback and has been a month since I sent the last version. I still haven't heard back if they like the final product . At least I've been paid... I hope it's gone okay as they are my main (read: only) client and have been a reasonably reliable work source.
To combat said slump I've been doubling down on the learning side of thing. I'm currently taking a Reaktor course over on Kadenze and looking to take another specialising in building out music from minimal loop based materials next. I also just bought Komplete Ultimate 10. It's unbelievable how many products is in that bundle. I got it for £539 with a piece of £250 hardware. I don't want the hardware though so I'm going sell that. That makes it an amazing deal as it's usually £700-800. Though boxed version was out of stock so it's about 320GB to download it all. I don't think I'll be doing that in one go.
What also doesn't help on the electronic side of things is Apple screwing over the Macbook and iMac products. I love Logic pro but I've got running on a now 6/7 year old Macbook pro. Apple's products were always expensive but they used to always feel worth it. Now they don't. Stingy specs, lacking ports, etc. Hey, at least I've heard the new Macbooks are going to be even thinner!!! Wow, the feature every pro consumer has been pining over. I can't justify getting a new Mac now just for Logic.
My adventures in Windows DAWs has not been so great. Logic filled the perfect middle ground between recording/mixing and electronic music production capability. Nothing I have tested yet has been as good in that regard. I'm looking into Cubase 8.5 next and also giving Reaper another chance. We'll see I guess. Maybe I should look into Hackintosh.
Tried to go kayaking yesterday. Drove to three separate parks with water access after work and all three were closed. Looks like I'm stuck with dry-land workouts for the next few weeks still.
My birthday is coming up, and I have no idea what I want to do. There's the 'Dinner and symphony' option. The 'EDM show in Detroit' option. The only thing I really want is to hang out with my old friends, but because we all graduated and got jobs all over the freaking planet, that's really not doable. With the exception of last years excitement, my birthdays of the past several years have been really really unmemorable and unsatisfying, and I think it's dulled my ability to take pleasure in the event. I'll be glad to not be 23 anymore, but that's really it.
I need to take fun more seriously.
I think one should celebrate one's self. Walt Whitman style. He was counting birthdays:
- I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I loafe and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
My tongue, every atom of my blood, form’d from this soil, this air,
Born here of parents born here from parents the same, and their parents the same,
I, now thirty-seven years old in perfect health begin,
Hoping to cease not till death.
yes yes, celebrate yourself. It can be on your birthday or any other day of your choosing. (My brother's day was too close to xmas, so he celebrates it in June every year, six months later.)
- I think one should celebrate one's self
I believe I do this every day, with the reading books and writing journals and doing pull-ups. In the last 365 days, the ones with special significance - days spent with old friends. days spent with grandparents. days spent reading one or two of the books that stand out for the year. birthday...? don't remember it.
I tried fasting today. I usually eat much and with no pattern, so holding on for nine hours, though challenging, has also been rewarding. By the end of the nine-hour period I felt like my mind has cleared up; things became more obvious, desires transparent. I'm going to try this again at some point and will probably slowly adapt to this eating plan so as to reach my better-eating goal.
A comment to my now-defunct blog made me realize that I need therapy. A girl wrote about how she's all great - good-looking, clever, a leader but also prone to brooding and dreaming - and how people just don't seem to like her "for no reason"... and it frightened me just how much it resonated with me. The uni that I'm in provides therapist services. It isn't cheap for my pocket, but it could be well worth it. I'm going to make an appointment tomorrow and see where it leads me.
I've been thinking about how little I can relate to the people around me, and how much - to most people on Hubski. Sure, I'm not going to be friends or even pals with everybody here, but among Hubskiers I find the respect to each other and the compassion my surroundings lack. It's awesome to have such a place to come it, but I can't escape the feeling of how screwed up where I am is.
We just got home from our holiday, it was a mixed bag, I met up with an old friend, we "won" a giant pug teddy, had some good times but both me and the eldest reached our boiling points and things ended not so hot.
It's silly. I feel destructive and just... I dunno. At least the puppy missed us.
I found a place to live in London! OK, I'm subletting from one of my friends so it's only good for a week and a half but it saves me a little bit of time and money compared to taking a train ~100 miles every day. I need to make the most of the time I have to look for a place to settle down, but at least it's easy to go look at rooms after I finish work now.
Work is going OK, although programming is still difficult and I need to get better. There are some ways that that could be made easier for everyone, but I am not about to display chutzpah and start insisting we do such and such a thing that I read on Hacker News (thank you goobster) because I need to Prove Myself and because I Am Wrong, this means not being a smart-arse. I can do that. I think. I need to make sure I don't get comfortable. I'm still bad at fighting the post-lunch drowsiness, which can easily steal away an hour of productivity. We're near the end of a sprint, so while I am not being timed for this one, I don't want to look like I'm lazing around. You're probably all laughing at how novel I find this stuff
Congratulations, man!! On all of it. Seriously. You got the bull by the horns, now ride it.
I had a flat on Kensington High Street, right across from the park, way back in the olden days of the mid 2000's. I loved being able to work in London for two weeks, and then go back home to Budapest for 2-3 weeks. It meant I had enough time to get around and explore, but not get tired of anything.
Drink it all in, man. You are doing it!
Cough is still going around, I feel like my throat tenses up at the slightly sound of it, but so far I don't think I'm a spreader of the plague.
Walking == good again, stairs == alright, climbing is back to 3x a week and I seem to be able to handle the 10 ft drop without having to climb back down half the wall.
Wrote a 3.5 page email yesterday with all the plans, hypotheses, and assay I'll be doing from now through the summer. Hopefully what I've written will only be added and extended to in order to become a thesis proposal + R01 grant proposal. I'd appreciate the money as I look at the $1.5k in reagents I'll be ordering today just to get my assays off the ground.