After the historic snowfall out east, I bagged one more peak before coming home. People must have been out in droves Friday, because the trail to Mount Marcy was in fantastic shape. This is the McIntyre Range as seen while coming down from Marcy. The flight is Air China CA819 Beijing to Newark. 
I'm quietly falling apart. I'm anxious, overwhelmed and tired. The thoughts of self-harm are coming back, for the first time since months or even years. I have several important uni projects pending, and I can't seem to make any progress in any of them. Two of them are already post-deadline, and I haven't even started making sense of them. I've skipped a month's worth of classes already, and only have enough in me to visit the classes I like or those where attendance is as much as you need to get a credit. Tried to reach out with that to a couple of people. They didn't know what I'm talking about and didn't care to find out. Neither has shown me sympathy or empathy. Shit, it was me who ended up extending the hand, because I'm giving. I have no idea what to do. All I know is that action breeds action: what you do defines what you do next. I'm gonna see if I can gather it and put myself through one of the tougher subjects I've been skipping tomorrow. I'm giving a private lesson on Russian to Patrick, and as much as I am excited about it, I don't even have the basic materials for it. All because I can't do enough to make it to the search. I'm a fucking mess.
Take all of this with a grain of salt and understand that in a lot of these things, I'm an idiot. But here are some thoughts . . . For your classes, maybe start going to them. It seems like a lot now, since your so far behind, but the more you wait the harder it will be to get caught up and the more scared you'll be of going, creating a horrible positive feedback loop that gets more and more difficult to break. For your projects, do them to the best of your ability, finish them. Then go to your professors with them in hand, acknowledge the mistakes you made and the lateness of the assignments, and see if they'll give you some partial credit, or at the very least, some advice to getting caught back up in class. For self harm, see some help if you can. I don't know about Russia, but in America almost every college has counselors, priests, etc. that are there to help students with the non-academic tests life brings us. You are smart. You are strong. You want good things in your life. Embrace yourself and you'll find the strength to see things through.
The first secret to depression and anxiety is to compartmentalize and accomplish the small things one at a time in order to diminish the pile. It's easy to "scope creep" your way to despair - note that you list four things as if they're cumulative, rather than symptoms of the underlying problem. Do the thing you can do now and do it now. Do not frame it in reference to the millions upon millions of other things holding you back - strike against this one thing, now, and get it done. Then once that's done, strike against the next thing. Then that night, write down on a piece of paper what you accomplished - and below it, what you'd like to accomplish tomorrow. Be realistic. Be conservative. And be forgiving if you only hit half of it. The other secret is exercise. I reckon it isn't exactly walkin' weather in Novosibersk at the moment but if you can find a swimming pool, buy some goggles and do some laps. It's contemplative, it's isolating, and it will put you in a place where you can let the monsters run through your head in a place where the only thing on your plate is facing them. This is not a battle you will ever win. Eventually you will fight the enemy back to the demilitarized zone where you can keep them safely at bay and lead a normal, happy life... but the sooner you get into the mentality that you must fight for your happiness, the sooner you will start protecting your perimeter against incursion.
Traveling on my daughter's fifth birthday. :( Hoping it's a productive trip. I think Reddit's new profiles are all about the AMAs. update The meeting this morning was productive. I think we met a famous sportsball player. In DEN getting a wedge salad. The wedge is so dumb, but I love it.
They took out my grandmother's tumor and now she doesn't have cancer anymore. To compensate, my mom totaled her car (now bringing the number of my immediate family members who have totaled 2+ cars up to 3) and my one cousin who's my age and has had a serious on and off heroin problem since before I started smoking pot has been disappeared for two months. Don't worry, cops are on it. I mean, if I'm going to go to a funeral that's not my grandmothers, I can admit one for the long-time heroin addict with a criminal record who used to rob her family for drug money because she knew they wouldn't call the cops on her is, well...at least a predictable option.
Haha! You make me feel better with your heroin addict family stories. I've had two that sound like the spitting image of your cousin, one of whom is currently in play, the other ten years clean. Both stole money (significant sums) and both disappeared from time to time leaving us waiting for a call to come look at the body. It's horrible but also nice to hear we all deal with the same bullshit.
Hey Pubski. Been a while... I'm just passing through. Got the Google mesh wifi thingies, and my house and network have never been happier. Got Chromecasts spread around the place connected to speakers in my bedroom, the kitchen, and the Pillow Palace, so I can throw my Spotify signal around wherever I am. Making generally good diet and exercise decisions, but my body is at the early stage of, "Hey! Dude! SERIOUSLY?!? What the hell are you doing to me?!? I thought we had a good thing going on here... sitting all day... lazing around the house watching movies when we get home... what is this EXCERCISE and STRETCHING bullshit?!?"
Been going to yoga. Turns out when it's not Bikram bullshit run by GirlyGymBros so they can listen to whitesnake while doing downward dog it doesn't suck. I, on the other hand, do. Been going to physical therapy. Last week my PT girl observed that my running form sucks because one of my legs points out. I observed that I told her this the previous week and that further, it points out from the hip, it points out more when I'm under stress, and that chiropractic makes it point straight for a while. I then asked her if I should maybe go see a chiropractor. She looked at me stupidly. Seeing her again tomorrow and if she doesn't get her shit together I'm bailing and finding another. Been logging all meals (usually I go up to dinner and stop because logging meals is a drag and I've been doing it since 2011). Logging everything, I'm running about a 700 calorie-a-day deficit and gaining a pound a week, all the while being cranky, light-headed and despondent over low blood sugar. Meeting with a nutritionist Friday who is going to go through the rigamarole of assuming I'm lying, because that's what medical professionals do when you present them with something they don't understand - assume you're lying. Fuck all doctors everywhere. At least we now know I don't have a tumor. But I guess that makes me even more of a liar. I have to spend six months with a nutritionist before I get a referral to an endocrinologist. Been logging bugs for Google. My wife and I run Project Fi because theoretically, we should always be reachable which matters when you deliver babies for a living. Which makes it suck all the harder when one of your wife's expectant moms has to call an ambulance because Google Fi won't connect EIGHT phone calls and three texts. So the birth center's first official birth was a transport because Google. We're at about four hours of testing now, roughly a dozen bug reports, and we've been able to confirm that not only does Project Fi not connect calls when it decides to get on "xfinitywifi" (even when it's got full bars on T-Mobile) it also won't connect to anything, at all, ever, if you tell it to connect to Sprint. As in, if it thinks it's on Sprint, it won't pass phone calls even when you're on Wifi. When I mentioned to Google that I have more testing with their product than I do with Avid, and Avid gives me about $20k worth of software in response to my efforts, they were unmoved. Fuck Google, too. Been trying to sort out a goddamn magazine subscription. I went from having two magazines on two names for one year each to having one subscription and one cancellation with no refund. When you get on their website they won't send the form until you select your country. THERE IS NO PLACE TO SELECT YOUR COUNTRY. I had to reach out over a goddamn Facebook message. Our open house is this weekend. We're spending $30 each for munchies for whoever shows up because we're catering it. At least then it will be fucking done. Of course, our contractor started grouting the backsplashes... and then fucked off somewhere so the counters are covered in grout but the tiles are not. He's got 48 hours. And i'm supposed to be mixing this fucking movie but instead, I'm trying to get my wife's phone to take calls, my dad's "gift" to actually arrive correctly and the rest of my unemployment money to arrive because fuck you you have to re-file every three months because you're a freeloading insect, the Republicans said so. And now I'm going to go for a run, and try to turn my leg the right way, and get a spasm in my hip, and then go put together Ikea furniture instead of, you know, working on the shit I get paid for or finishing the goddamn book because when you work for yourself, that means that everyone values their time above yours.
Ya know... I wonder if the police/black helicopter guys have a Stingray installed in your area? I've anecdotally noticed a "pattern" that in certain areas with ample wifi and cell signal, calls not being connected, SMS messages vaporizing into thin air, etc... and I wonder if the Stingrays are not so good at passing on valid data as they are at collecting it... Because, these problems seem to occur in areas police find "interesting"... like Rainier Ave, and a wide stripe on either side of Aurora Ave in the north end (where meth heads are making product in quiet little residential subdivisions), etc. I wonder if they can trace the signal path your data is traveling? Either way, it's gotta be goddamn frustrating. Here's a way to figure out where Stingrays are operating: http://www.citylab.com/crime/2016/10/racial-disparities-in-police-stingray-surveillance-mapped/502715/ The ACLU is also tracking their use: https://www.aclu.org/map/stingray-tracking-devices-whos-got-them
It's a lovely, if dystopian vision. unfortunately this is all on Google. 1) Things started going pear-shaped after the March 7 update. 2) Rebooting the phone does not improve performance. 3) uninstalling Google Fi, resetting the SIM card and reinstalling Google Fi does not improve performance. 4) I can be running and streaming Google Music over T-Mobile but I can't send or receive calls if the phone thinks it's talking to xfinitywifi. 5) Attempting to force it onto Sprint causes it to brick to the point where it won't even accept dialer codes until it's been soft reset. 6) A stingray that stays in one place is called a tap. Stingrays move around and, therefore, would cause intermittent problems. I, on the other hand, have 100% repro. 7) The issue is also displayed at my wife's work four miles south in the heart of Mountlake Terrace, three full miles from 99.
The phones work if they are not connected to Wifi. If they are connected to Wifi, all bets are off. Telling the phones to never connect to xfinitywifi is not a long-term solution as the major benefit of Fi is wifi calling and 80-90% of the wifi hotspots you find, particularly at my wife's clients' houses, are xfinitywifi. Further, it all worked in February.
How's it work out in Monroe? Say, if you're driving to Jay's house? 'cuz both me and the wifey had T-Mobile iPhones and the TMO signal goes to nothing. Sprint? Sprint works out there but it doesn't work in lots of other places. Meanwhile we've literally got a 50' ATT tower in the parking lot but people on Verizon bitch that there's no service. So duck and run away all you want, but understand that we had to bail on that exact configuration because the minute you cross the slough you are radio silent and that's no good when you deliver babies for a living.
Well... that's Monroe, man. Might as well be the Moon! (Honestly, I turn off my phone when I go to Jay's, because the battery will die as it panics and continually, fruitlessly, hopelessly scans for signal... and receives none.) But then, I'm a writer. I don't run a birth center. So powering off my phone is a perfectly reasonable thing to do. For days at a time.
Right. If you did deliver babies for a living, you'd discover that home birth mothers have a startling proclivity for living on the moon. More than that for my wife to accompany me out there she has to call everyone who might possibly go into labor over the next however-many hours and give them an alternate contact person (another midwife) to call with questions or concerns. And then as soon as we're back in cell coverage my wife has to check all her voicemails (usually under a dozen) and check in with that alternate midwife.
Go to settings and see if you have an option called something like "Sprint Wifi Optimizer". Turn it off if you do, it automatically tries to connect to Sprint partners like Xfinity. Just a suggestion. If you have an Xfinity account you can delete your device in your account setting but this might cause more problems than it fixes if she needs to do it every time she uses Xfinity wifi. Might be Google's fault but it might be other shit messing with Google.
I've had coustomers who's devices frequently leap into Xfinity wifi instead of the shop wifi. I guess it's a thing. Maybe Xfinity forces it somehow? They'd like all your data. It's only been 1 out if 100 people it seems to happen to. Have you tried a different brand of phone yet?
It's a known problem. So, your stupid Windows/IOS/Android/Apple computer calls to connect to "xfinitywifi". At my local Waffle House, 15 of them all answer my call SIMULTANEOUSLY and, usually, nothing even connects. If one does connect, in the off chance one is a little stronger than the rest, the first time you send data to it, they all start calling and calling trying to reconnect. We sit with a professional networking program and joke about how stupid this is from this giant communications company that should, but doesn't, know better. Unless you can get close enough to ONE xfinitywifi that obliterates the signals from all the other xfinitywifi stations on the channel (1 or 6, sometimes 11), it WON'T WORK! As usual, when trying to describe this to tech support who know how to configure cable boxes but have no idea how 802.11(x) wifi operates, trying to get the Comcast beast to CHANGE the SSIDs to something UNIQUE, such as "xfinitywifi + the last 4 hex characters of that modem's MAC address" is like trying to push a 2500 pound elephant up a hill. Every hotspot having the same SSID must be ok or the Comcast beast wouldn't have done it. So, expect wireless wifi in every Comcast city in America to become a nightmare of stations all with the same SSID crashing and crashing and trashing wifi for everyone, not just Comcast's inop customers unless FCC does its job. Starbuck's can pull it off because although they're everywhere, there generally aren't more than three per block. On the other hand, the birth center backs up against a 22-unit apartment building and unless you buy your own modem, every single Comcast customer is bleeding out "xfinitywifi" giving your phone around 11 SSIDs with the same name. I can watch the "xfinitywifi" signal jump 20dB as my phone chooses between three or four of them. Project Fi only works with Google or Nexus-branded phones because only Google or Nexus-branded phones will run dual-band on a single SIM. Your choices are 5X, 6, 6P, Pixel or Pixel XL. Also, if your router is running damn near any kind of security, it'll take an extra second or two over barely-secure xfinitywifi. My laptop does it often, even though I'm less than five feet away from a rock-solid Netgear Nighthawk. It's the security.You go into a bar. Standing in the doorway, you say, loudly, "Hey, Mike!" 22 people named "Mike" turn around and stare at you for more information. You, lacking Mike Murphy's last name, say, "Hey, Mike!", again to 22 angry Mikes who all try to answer you at the same time in a mass confusion as they are all Mike. Everyone is lost as you can't talk to 22 people simultaneously. That's what Comcast has done to crash wifi across America. Every Comcast wifi hotspot has the SAME EXACT SSID, "xfinitywifi".
Ever set up an Airport Express? Simple as fuck, right? How bout setting up an Airport Express to extend an existing network? utter shitshow, right? I'm not even sure they let you do it anymore. Take it from me - it takes about five hours of experimentation the first time, then pretty much every time you change something, expect to spend another couple hours. Wanna see how Eduroam does it? It's on the Wikipedia page: You can build a mesh network with Ubiquiti or Ruckus or whatever. You pay more. a Unifi is like $90 a node, compared to the $25 you pay for consumer shit. But it allows you to have everything working in concert - adjust the power, hand signals off from WAP to WAP and most importantly, put credentialing and access at one centralized location. On the other hand, when you open up your Comcast router it has a 2nd network built in, on the same frequencies, at the same power, as your own personal SSID. The only thing Comcast has control over is whether or not your credentials let you on. It matters a lot less when things are well-spaced but when they aren't, look out.The eduroam service uses IEEE 802.1X as the authentication method and a hierarchal system of RADIUS servers.[15] The hierarchy consists of RADIUS servers at the participating institutions, national RADIUS servers run by the National Roaming Operators and regional top-level RADIUS servers for individual world regions. When a user A from institution B in country C with two-letter country-code top-level domain xy visits institution P in country Q, A's mobile device presents his credentials to the RADIUS server of institution P. That RADIUS server discovers that it is not responsible for the Institution_B.xy realm and proxies the access request to the national RADIUS server of country Q. If C and Q are different countries, it is in turn proxied to the regional top-level RADIUS server, and then to the national RADIUS server of country C, which has a complete list of the participating eduroam institutions in that country. That national server forwards the credentials to the home institution B, where they are verified. The 'acknowledge' travels back over the proxy-hierarchy to the visited institution P and the user is granted access.
It sounds like a better, albeit more expensive, solution for you would be good old Google Voice and multiple cell phones. You can have a single GV phone number ring through to your phones, and if you're on both AT&T and Verizon, you'll have service anywhere there's running water and electricity.
Once more, with feeling: After yet another hour of troubleshooting, the latest version my phone now sees is Feb 27 and it appears to be working as advertised. The Play store still shows March 7 as the latest build but they've locked my phone off from grabbing it and lo and behold, we're back to where we were when things worked. I honestly don't understand how this became a discussion about how I don't know how to phone. It's frustrating verging on insulting. For the record? I have a 16-instance SIP gateway on 90-minute battery backup with a (not-yet-configured) failover from Comcast to Frontier that records voicemails and sends them as .wav files over email to hit my wife's phone on T-Mobile, Sprint, US Cellular or Wifi all because in Washington paging networks use the same frequencies and towers as cell networks which means they provide no redunancy which means I effectively needed to roll my own 5 nines reliability paging network out of off-the shelf componentry and fuckin'A, up until Google rolled an update (an update I've now spent five hours, six emails and fifteen bug reports unfucking) it all worked gangbusters without having to pay for two f'n plans. AT&T? GSM. Verizon? CDMA. TMO? GSM (and they share most of AT&T's towers). Sprint? CDMA (and they share many of Verizon's towers). So sorry if this comes off as snippy but I legit assembled a goddamn 7-phone PBX in my apartment in LA to confirm all this shit worked and the problem isn't that the solution doesn't work, it's that google fucked up.1) Things started going pear-shaped after the March 7 update.
I never meant to imply that you didn't know what you were doing. I think it's ridiculous that Google can't get their shit to work. I think there's a reason why consumers are so hesitant to adopt real Google products (Nexus devices, Fiber, Fi, etc.) and your ordeal is a perfect example.
I always wounder where the data goes. My work phone for example sometimes will make a call and you can actually hear someone else sharing your phone line. Theoretically the shared line stuff shouldn't happen on a digital phone signal so I wounder where the data goes.
Analog phone lines can easily induce signal on each other in areas where the lines are poorly insulated. If there's any analog switching equipment anywhere between handsets, one conversation can easily jump lines. Ever seen one of these? You plug the tracer into the wall, turn on the tone, and then wave the probe over this giant wall of shit until the thing in your hand starts going "tweedleleedleeedleedleedle" and then you know which two of eighty gajillion wires go to that wall. But you never actually interrupt the circuit anywhere - that tweedling you hear is a magnetic field being generated over twisted pair.
Thanks a lot asshole. I just snort-laughed on a plane and the attractive girl next to me looked over like I was crazy. Thanks. Been going to yoga. Turns out when it's not Bikram bullshit run by GirlyGymBros so they can listen to whitesnake while doing downward dog it doesn't suck. I, on the other hand, do.
Ever seen a massage therapist about that hip ? I mean I fixed this guys tennis elbow for at least a year without him needing to do any of the exercises or weird shit they do at pt. Just me 45 minutes a week massaging the arm and I'm a drop out. I also follow this woman on Instagram that loves to point out when her clients lose weight from eating more. She actually had 3 pictures lined up once with her clients start, then progress from her plan followed by when the woman went on her own and cut calorie more. She got bigger that time. I bet she would believe you.
It was caused by stress. Stress apparently causes some hip flexor or whatever to shorten. At its worst, my right foot at rest is about 80 degrees off of parallel from my left foot (or my pelvis, for that matter). It always has been; the school nurses always tried to get my parents to treat my scoliosis and shit until they eventually gave up and figured out they didn't give a fuck (see also: teeth). Giving it a good crack will reduce that angle by 30 or 40 degrees, and then the next time you might get another 15 or 20. The pathway to chiropractic on that one was archetypal of the bullshit. I went to see a doctor because I had plantar fasciitis and general pain while running. The doctor took one look at my chart and said "yeah, your feet would hurt a lot less if you weren't obese, lose some weight" and walked out. Then their assistant decided that maybe acupuncture would help with stress or something, and, since it was covered by my insurance, why the fuck not. The acupuncturist took one look at me and said "fuckin' A, dude, you need to see a chiropractor about that leg, also a podiatrist, here let me throw some needles in your temples 'cuz that's my jam" (except he was Chinese and his english was a lot more formal than that) and then the chiropractor fixed my leg but decided I needed to keep coming in once a week forever because that's their jam and the podiatrist, meanwhile, wrapped my foot, tried to give me cortisone injections and recommended that we sever a couple tendons to my toe because fuck you, that's why. After some cajoling he relented and prescribed me some righteous carbon fiber orthotics which were great and then I lost that job and lost that insurance and those poor orthotics had to last me another eight years. Meanwhile the running store in Los Angeles said "hey, you're running wrong, try out these weird ass shoes and also stop running like that" and then I broke a metatarsal. Two weeks after the doctor called me fat? I broke a pedal off the exercise bike at the gym. Second in three months. I debated sending it to her and asking for her advice on how, exactly, I lose weight considering I was literally breaking exercise equipment, but never actually did. It's one of my major life regrets.
Do you have any friends/colleagues/whatever who are good runners around Seattle? They might be able to direct you to some good PT's/Chiros/etc etc. Plantar fasciitis ain't nuttin' to fuck with.
Haven't had plantar fasciitis in ten years. Golf balls fix it. This current shitshow wasn't generated by any foot pain or anything, it was generated by a torn/strained calf muscle three weeks ago and then panic over the fact that if I can only run two miles every other day I gain a pound of weight a week therefore it is imperative that I be able to run my typical 10-15 miles a week.
Ah, apologies, it sounded like everything had been happening concurrently. Standing by my point of if you have this problem do something about it NOW for anyone else who might be reading.
I can't say anything about the X-COM board game directly, but FFG makes solid games in general, so it'll probably be very good. Much like Master of Orion II, I've wasted countless hours on X-COM and Terror From The Deep when I was younger. The modern X-Box versions suck in comparison, but I'm half tempted to steal one of my wife's Windows Boxes so I can download and replay the X-COM series again. I'm pretty certain they're on Good Old Games right now, alongside Jagged Alliance, which is another great squad tactics game.
In all honesty, I like plug and play games. Modding and/or having to fiddle with a system to get a game to play aren't much fun. Plus, Dala has like three laptops. I'm sure she can spare one. :) As for Jagged Alliance, especially the first one, just keep in mind you're playing a game that's over 20 years old. There are some dated aspects, especially in the UI, but its bones are solid as hell. Shadowwatch is fun as hell too.
So St Patrick's Day was interesting, for lack of a better word. It was pissing rain all day, but my townsfolk are hardy people, and that wasn't to stop us (most towns in the county ended up postponing their parades til this weekend). I was at the front in my bare feet, chattering with cold and trying not to look too awkward as I waved and smiled at people. The advantage to being first was that I was first out of the rain and promptly ran back home for a hot whiskey (Bushmills, hot water, sugar, a slice of lemon speared with cloves). Work that night was insane for a few hours and then quietened down nicely. After-work pints were never as well-needed. Then more painting at the sister's house on Saturday, then back to the pub. I feel like I'm hardly getting anything done, and yet I'm quite busy, time-wise. Skype call incoming from an old friend so I'll finish this later, in the meantime here's the cat: So, while _refugee_ has been creating books, I've been busy destroying one: I found a copy of this book in the pub, of all places, and knew I'd finally found the ideal hidden-flask-book. Don't fret; I bought a used copy on Amazon, and I did read this before I started cutting into it. It's almost finished; just a lick of glue is needed on the inside to keep the pages together. It started off as very precise work with a scalpel, and eventually descended into me hacking away trying to make the flask fit; I had left enough room at the beginning, but the sides started to taper downward as I cut in. So it's rather messy, but it should be okay. I've been reading Gavin Maxwell's A Reed Shaken by the Wind, written in the 1950s about his travels through the marshes in eastern Iraq (which I'm led to believe have since been drained) and his time with the Ma'dan peoples (who presumably have consequently been displaced). They lived in reed huts and their main income came from weaving mats, but interestingly they raised water buffalo - never for their meat, but for their dung, which had a plethora of uses including as fuel. He describes how they would spend hours harvesting hashish - not wacky tobaccy but the buffaloes' fodder, which prompted me to look the word up. It turns out that the word 'assassin' comes from the Arabic for 'hashish-users'. From etymonline.com: 1530s (in Anglo-Latin from mid-13c.), via French and Italian, from Arabic hashishiyyin "hashish-users," plural of hashishiyy, from the source of hashish. A fanatical Ismaili Muslim sect of the mountains of Lebanon in the time of the Crusades, under leadership of the "Old Man of the Mountains" (translates Arabic shaik-al-jibal, name applied to Hasan ibu-al-Sabbah), they had a reputation for murdering opposing leaders after intoxicating themselves by eating hashish. The plural suffix -in was mistaken in Europe for part of the word (compare Bedouin). Middle English had the word as hassais (mid-14c.), from Old French hassasis, assasis, which is from the Arabic word. And now it's well past my bedtime!
assassin (n.)
Worthy of note, "hashishiyyin" is a sobriquet along the lines of "dirty hippy" or "filthy stoner" as the Fedeyeen were legit not-fucking-around terrorists who lasted as long as they did and shaped Islamic society as much as they did through seriously ruthless, underhanded asymmetrical warfare. http://www.ismaili.net/histoire/history06/history610.html Most any "secret sect of killer monks deep in the mountains" paradigm you've ever read or watched is the echoes of the fear of the Nizari fedayeen ("those who sacrifice themselves"). They were pretty much the world's premier terrorist organization for about a hundred years.Hashish or Hashisha is the Arabic word for hemp, which is latinized cannabis sativa. Its variety is Indian hemp or Cannabis Indica, have been known and used in the Near East since ancient times as a drug with intoxicating effects. The earliest express mention of the word hashish contained in "at-Tadhkirah fi'l Khilaf" by Abu Ishaq ash-Shirazi (d. 476/1083). The use of hashish grew in Syria, Egypt and other Muslim countries during 12th and 13th centuries among the inferior strata of society. Numerous tracts were compiled by Muslim authors, describing that the use of hashish would effect on the users' morality and religion. Consequently, the users of hashishqualified for a inferior social and moral status, similarly to that of a mulhida, or heretic in religion. Neither the Ismailis of Syria nor the contemporary non-Ismaili Muslim texts, which were rigorous towards the Ismailis, ever attested to the use of hashish among the Nizari Ismailis.
Vetting roommates currently. I settle on my house in 9 days, and I'm trying to decide whether to shack up with someone who shares values (stimulating conversations, physical activity, a wee bit of partying) or a quiet someone who pays rent and I don't interact with much. Maybe for the first time around, I go with the latter. There's a religious guy who is interested and who's nice and quiet would probably fit the bill. I could always change it up later. In NYC right for spring break. Beautiful outside! Gonna spend the day thrift store shopping.
Cell phone writing will keep this shorter than thoughtful. Shared values create the possibility of respectful friendship even though you are also the landlord. Respect might lead to more openness and fewer assumptions. Think carefully about your lease agreement. More later via pm.
Do go on! Tell me what it's like living in a full house. Do they share similar values with you?
I'm still alive. One step closer to getting my MR2 running again. My wife's getting screwed over at her job and it's the same shit that I've seen over and over again at this university since 2010: the people who care have no power to make things better, and the people who have the power are only out for themselves or are sucking up to the people above them in the hierarchy. We're also getting chickens here in the next couple of weeks, so we'll be building a coop here soon.
One of my co-workers is quitting at the end of next week. She's about the only person on this side of the building within ten years of my age, so that's a bit of a bummer. Until I asked her why. She's outdoors minded (search and rescue certified, many excursions, etc.) and is going to hike the entirety of the Pacific Crest Trail. The reasoning is that one of her neighbors recently died, and it had an impact on doing this now rather than later. It's a strong decision. This morning the birds were singing in the thrush across the street, the sun was somewhat out, and tonight is my mid-week run (grouped runs from Tuesday through Thursday). This spring and summer will be spent outdoors at the least, I've been thinking a lot about the nature of the work and the nature of nature. This year, I think, is a training run for bigger things in more ways than just running. We do what we can, while we can.
I met someone at a MeetUp that wants to do the PCT. I hope she goes for it. She's in her late 20s and said if she isn't married or having kids by next year, she's going to pack up and go do it. The philosophy I use is I'd rather try and fail than not try at all. As long as I think it can be attempted safely, it's worth a try. It's really helped me do more outdoors things that might have otherwise intimidated me. I've failed along the way, but trying again was eventually successful.
That's the exact same philosophy my co-worker has (maybe it's an engineering thing...). Planning on buying a tent and a pack in the next month or so. Definitely by the end of April, at the latest. The tent I'm really gunning for is currently out of stock.
What are you looking at? I'm not an expert but enjoy looking at gear. I like my bigger bag but will probably pick up a new smaller daypack.
Tent: Six Moon Lunar Solo. Holy shit that's a lot of tent for how light it is. Too bad I can't order it for another month. Pack: I'm going to get fitted for one in the next couple of weeks and take it from there, but the obvious choices seem to be Osprey, Gregory, or Salomon. Somewhere on the order of 45L - 55L is what I'm looking for. Just bought another pair of running shoes (same pair I currently have, because I love them), and need a new pair of hiking boots. Or rather, will by mid-season less I want more knee problems.
24 oz for a tent! That's awesome! I have the Big Agnes Copper Spur UL1, one of the lightest tents, and it's a full ten ounces heavier! That's significant. I have an Osprey Atmos 50AG, and it's awesome. I carried it up and over Algonquin, on to Iroquois and down to Lake Colden one day. I learned: set up camp somewhere lower and do day trips to summits. I also learned that even at the point of total exhaustion, this bag didn't hurt my shoulders or back. Like you said, Osprey is an obvious choice (I followed the crowds), but they're one of the obvious ones for good reasons. Do you do any trail running? I haven't but have been thinking about trying it this summer. I think it might be a good middle ground between street running and hiking. What are your thoughts on sleeping pads? I have one, and it's comfortable enough, but it seems really bulky.
I'm making a very poor decision and running the Soaring Eagle 10k in preparation for a half-marathon I am running. It will be the second trail race I've done, every Saturday I do a 5k that's half trail, half paved. A full on trail race is a bit different of a beast, especially out here where 500-600 ft of elevation gain is a "light" trail run. Sleeping pads I like! It's good to have a firm, even base to sleep on instead of having a sleeping bag conforming to whatever kind of ground you may be on, and it also acts as insulation between your sleeping bag and the ground, as AnSionnachRua mentioned. It's good for my mental and physical health on weekend trips.
This gear talk makes me really want to go on a long walk. On sleepy pads, don't you think they're essentially for blocking out the cold coming up from the ground?
Good point! They make up for the sleeping bag getting flattened under body weight. I think the comfort aspect is important, too, as good rest can make a hike more enjoyable and more productive.
I know a guy who did the PCT too - he came back skinny like hell after it. His next adventure, he want to camp out in the north and he's still undecided between somewhere in Siberia or North of Quebec. (I told him he has better chances of making it out alive in Quebec in case of some sort of emergency, but I think he's too seduced by the romantic aspect of Siberia...) Been trying to get him for an interview for my travel stories series i'm just getting into, but he's a busy guy.
Fair play to her! I've met some people who've done the PCT (though more who've walked the Appalachian) and it sounds utterly amazing. I'm very jealous you have such a trail in your country; in Ireland there's no trail that would take more than a few days to walk.
Friends and Family Called a famity member this week. We don't talk much, almost never, and I'm trying to fix that. The conversation went well, but was frustratingly short. I think I'm gonna resort to just calling them out of the blue when I feel like it. My friend who asked my wife and I two weekends ago to go to cars and coffee with her and a guy she likes is doing amazingly well with said guy. They've gone on a few dates since then and I get the impression that she's more than halfway smitten with him. It's awesome to see. I had lunch with one of my coworkers this week, who is one of those kinds of guys that's much easier to get along with outside the realm of work. He's an awesome guy and for about an hour he talked to me about the workings of the various warplanes and the politics behind them, video games, his family, etc. Lastly, I'm thinking about calling up a bud and see if we can't plan a way to see some of the regional museums around here. He doesn't get a lot of free time these days, so when we do hang out, I think I owe it to him to make it something kind of big. Television I know who George Burns and Gracie Allen are. They were once very big deals in the comedy industry and George Burns himself worked well into old age, though the only thing I've ever seen of his was "Oh, God!" Antenna TV has recently started showing episodes of "The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show" and I have got to say, it's a hell of a show. The situations are absurd yet believable, George and Gracie are razor sharp in both their wit and timing, neither one of them is afraid to be the butt end of a joke of it'll get a good laugh. It's hard to put into words just how good this show is. If anyone on here ever gets the chance to check out a few episodes, I highly recommend it. Art Know what I love so much about Hubski? It has so many amazing, honest to God, creative people. So many people in fact, that I'm afraid of doing any shoutouts for fear of forgetting people and making anyone feel left out. I was up late last night, browsing Wikipedia when that thought crept into my mind, and it made me sincerely happy. Keep sharing what you make guys. :)
My point is this: You don't "make" anyone feel left out if you somehow leave them out of a group cyber-huggy shout-out. If they want to feel hurt and left out, they can ask themselves, hubski-style, what can be learned from their feelings of hurt.I'm afraid of doing any shoutouts for fear of forgetting people and making anyone feel left out.
Just stop that right now. Most of us have never met any of us. We have this strange existence in other people's imagination which is both flattering and frightening. -- I mean WHO on hubski imagined our Russian buddy ThatFanficGuy having a giant moustache?
In a minor funk. I've started working 6 days a week in hopes to save up enough money to move out into an apartment with my boyfriend soon. The work itself is good, but it's a big ol' bummer to not have the energy to work on music in the free time I have now. On the plus side, I traded in an old drum machine to the local music store for a Bandurria and some other knick knacks, and the store owner gave me a free electric guitar because she saw me messing around with some of the cheap ones in the store. It's been a while since I've torn down a guitar to completely remake it, so this should be a fun side project. It's a shitty Strat clone that's in desperate need of some fret work, new pickups, and a fun paint job. EDIT: PS, ButterflyEffect, still planning on coming to Portland at the end of the month?
It's really cool, but frankly there are a few too many strings for my comfort... knocked it down to a healthy 9 strings instead of 4, and have it tuned in DADGAD. Cool stuff. Balalaikas are pretty sweet, my BF's dad had one for a while because he loves Dr. Zhivago
Yep! Have train tickets for the 31st and leaving April 2nd!
oooo. Preview says markdown headers work? edit: interesting. only in the previews. Gardening ==== The adventures continue! Kale ---- We had a close call a few days ago, when the wee sprouts outpaced the watering regime, but every body is doing just fine. They just look like sprouts right now, roughly two inches high. Nothing to point to what the are except for maybe how deep a shade of green that they are. Almost tinges of blue. Seeds ---- So apparently the library has annual gardening exhibit. Naturally we're gonna check that out. Apparently there are free seeds, but what I'm really hoping for is information on when to look for local planting dates. We've also given up on finding onion seeds. I thought it would be fun to start 'em that way, but apparently the gardening industry has other ides. Starts it is. Locally started starts ideally. Starting a seed, letting it grow and increase in mass and volume by a factor of bazillion so you can pluck it out of the ground, box it, and then ship it across the country is fucking laughably wasteful. I've moved those boxs. Smell nice, but they are heavy, and large. Before we got off the phone, I asked Salatin if he could ship me one of his chickens and maybe a steak, too. He said that he couldn't do that. I figured he meant he wasn't set up for shipping, so offered him my FedEx account number. "No, I don't think you understand. I don't believe it's sustainable — or 'organic,' if you will — to FedEx meat all around the country. I'm sorry, but I can't do it." The Omnivore's Dilemma, by Michael Pollan Weather ---- The guidance on when it is generally safe to plant would be useful, because Kansas is fucking weird weather wise. Over the weekend it we were hitting above 80F/26C, but I just woke up and it is 37/2C out right now. ## Community-supported agriculture? Does that style of header work? Also, any Hubski peeps a member of a CSA? We are thinking about trying to work that into our budget. Might be doable, since the car got paid off with the tax return. Camera and Shipping ==== Canon hasn't said what exactly happened to the camera when it and I had our brief romance with the asphalt, but they did charge us $200 and said "it'll be a week". The interesting part of sending in the camera was, for me, the fact that I sent it via USPS instead of my own workplace. I dropped the camera off shortly before noon on Saturday. Paid like $15 for a flat rate shipping box and some packing materials. Got a tracking number which when we checked it in the parking lot at work on Monday before my shift started, told me that the package was out for delivery, over 1000 miles away. Mental State ==== I've been pretty dour recently, so I'm making a better effort at watching my emotions and consciously noting when I feel that way. I've also been putting a decent amount of energy into configuring a hakyll setup to put on my VPS, but I don't actually know what would go on it. Thinking generating content for a website -even if no-one reads it- feels oppressive. And slightly... shameful? Definitely a twinge of something like. And yet I felt fine barfing forth pubski comments. The question I'm struggling with is this I think: what the fuck do I have to say that would stand up to living in its own repository? Hakyll is fun to configure, though.
We do this one in Seattle: https://www.growingwashington.org/food-box-options it comes out to about $3 an item or about 2x as much as the grocery store. We do it because it encourages us to cook with vegetables that we dont normally use and because it encourages us to eat more vegetables. We consider it a luxury itemDoes that style of header work? Also, any Hubski peeps a member of a CSA? We are thinking about trying to work that into our budget. Might be doable, since the car got paid off with the tax return.
it comes out to about $3 an item or about 2x as much as the grocery store. ...[SNIP].. We consider it a luxury item That's around what we are looking at too. The price comparison is more favorable if we assume that otherwise I'd be buying the produce from the community owned grocery, but either option is a big step up from going to Aldi or Kroger or likewise. I got so used to barely making ends meet, it's taking me a while to figure out where my priorities lie on where I want to ease up on being frugal. Food is a compelling choice because a) I can spend locally, b) I enjoy it, and c) it isn't super consumerist.
Woah woah woah. You read my dotfiles? My mind is blown. I was actually thinking about yanking those from my github, since I've moved to neovim, but I guess I won't now. Don't pigeon-hole yourself with something specific and talk about stuff that's on your mind. I'm by all means serious. This is good advice. And flattering. Most of the blogs I've read have been focused in on one or two things. I've read a lot recently, combing over hakyll repositories. I really like how Matt Wetmore has moved his footnotes along side the text in the margin, but I don't like the way he did it. Not that that matters, as his repository doesn't have a license for me to yank that anyways.Said the programmer (props for Haskell by the way! ;)) with a dozen of hobbies and strong tendency to ponder. Dude, you have more interesting things to say than almost every single blog I read so far! Your literal dotfiles alone helped me a lot and were a cool thing to read.
Yeah, wanting to work with Haskell or lisps pushes me towards Emacs, but nvim's superior terminal interface and evil-mode's uncanny-valley of vimness pushes me slightly harder towards nvim. I can come back to vim after long spans of disuse and just pick it up, like riding a bike. Emacs is more like learning to juggle: constant practice, or it slips away from me.Since I don't like Sublime or Vim (although their selection of Haskell-related plugins actually works out of the box :/) and Leksah can't be even installed without some serious work on Cabal I had to default to Emacs.
I've never tried any of the starter packs. My issue with Evil is that it is great --in some ways a better vim than vim-- until you have to use a package that doesn't have an evil-mode wrapper. I have a hard time jumping between the two styles of editing.