Beyond joining Hubski... Family: Saturday evening got to keep my grandson overnight. It is quite the experience when you look forward to an infant spending the night. As a parent, you treasure the nights when the infant stays with someone else. I often come home from work to find my wife fawning all over our grandson. // My son didn't get his license until he was in his twenties. So Sunday I got to spend an hour with him showing him how to change the various break light, turn signal, and parking light bulbs. He also filled his windshield washer resevoir. Good bonding moment. // My wife signed us up for a farm share this summer. First batch of veggies came in last week but we were so busy we didn't have a chance to cook anything. Ended up giving most of them various family members. I kept the chives and romain lettuce for us and made some salads. Work: I continue to love my job and the people I work with. The organization is going through a tough time right now financially, so they have been making a number of changes and attempting to button up some of the holes. A lot of changes. Friends: I went to Burlington Vermont with a bunch of mountain biking friends the week before, but not to mountain bike. We camped out on North Beach and rode bikes around town hitting the different breweries. It was a gorgeous day out and the company was awesome. This was our second annual rail trail brewery tour. I can't wait to see what they plan for next year. // Tonight I am going to a friends house to play some cribbage and perhaps a game of Ogre (pocket version from a few years ago). He usually has an incredible selection of IPA's to choose from. My mouth is watering just thinking about it. Community: Spent Saturday at an all-day event with the youth athletic team I coach. The kids performed well and ended their spring season on a high note. I am going to miss those that are aging out of the program. But, in six weeks the next batch starts!
Hello, and welcome! Sounds like you are kinda in the prime of life, my friend. Grandkid you like to spoil. Son you are still finding ways to connect with. A wife and home that seem to make you happy. Work that keeps you busy. And volunteering with kids. You have earned yourself an easy chair, with a drink holder, a good view of the TV, and authority over the remote control, I think! :-)
Oh how I wish! No one in my house thinks that I should have control of the remote. My wife will grudgingly watch no more than 1 rugby game in a month, unless it is the World Cup. Sci-fi and action movies are 'too gruesome' to watch with 'family'. So, I get to watch sappy Hallmark movies instead! (Did you know they are doing Christmas in July all month? I have now seen over a dozen Christmas movies!) But, yes. When I stop myself from grumbling about all the little annoyances, I have a good life. Goobster, your post from last week helped me to remember that. Thank you!You have earned yourself an easy chair, with a drink holder, a good view of the TV, and authority over the remote control, I think!
Maybe you can start watching Queer Eye. Every episode is a tear-jerker triumph of humanity. It's sweet in all the right ways, and... I just can't get upset at people helping others improve. (And hey... the Rugby World Cup 7s tournament starts tomorrow in SF! Looks like they are going to stream the games via their web site - both men's and women's teams! - so you can watch on a laptop while the wife watches her Hallmark movies on the tv!)
Work in progress. I wanted to paint something completely different, but then I discovered the excess of yellow paints and the plans got changed. Two of my short stories are going to get printed later this year and my 'choose your own adventure' game is being considered for the special issue. I should be more excited, but dread every minute of it. kleinbl00 helped me get over the initial "how do I talk with editors?" problems and it can't be understated. Thanks once again! Night shifts at the store are fucking up my sense of time. It's a blur of sudoku, crosswords, dicking around with my coding projects and being slightly shocked when a client enters. There's literally no reason for this place to be open at night, but I'm not going to raise this issue.
Been on the road for like two and half weeks now, getting a bit of road loneliness, I want more than conversation with coworkers or small talk in a bar. Everyone wants to be friends over a drink but no one wants to spend a day together, not that I'd expect anyone to take in a random stranger for the day. Not all together bad, stopped at Tioga State Forest Saturday and Pittsburg Sunday, saw the sights and took some pictures Stopped at the Polish HIll Street Festival on Sunday in Pittsburg and talked with some cat's around my age (25) who had started a non profit that taught students from high schools in rougher parts of the city stick and mig welding with a plan to create a sculpture for their community to teach them welding and fabrication. They had run 4 or 5 programs in different neighborhood in the past 2 or 3 years. I was pretty impressed to see that from people who were under 30.
The non profit sounds fascinating - as someone who is just about to graduate university I would love to do something like that in my community. My city does have programs that would help people get some hands-on experience with welding and the like, but most of those that I know of are limited to the local universities, and are thus non-accessible to lower-income families, plus there are only a few in the public schools in the area. Building some kind of a hacker/maker-space or at least a program to teach MIG/stick welding would be a lot of fun, and, I'd imagine, very rewarding.
Expanding on what klienbloo is saying a bit, the guy and girl who started the non-profit said it was relatively easy to get going once they established a plan. They mentioned having a mentor so I imagine that helped pave the way a bit easier. From what they told me their process was more or less. Have idea to share experience they have. Talk with faculty at local schools to see if they are interested in the program Figure out location to teach and how to select student who apply grant writing grant writing So much grant writing and then get things going. They really made it sound like the hardest part was grant writing to be honest. If you are offering a program that is lacking an option already it sounds like it is something very doable provided you put in the effort and legwork. We only talked for about 30 minutes so I'm sure there is a lot more to it but that's a synopsis of the conversation I had with them regarding the subject.
This is incorrect. Most votech programs are heavily subsidized by the federal government and many of them have not just fee reduction and scholarships they legit provide like food assistance while you're in the program. More than that, the budget for publicizing this fact is effectively zero so most people don't know about it. If you're poor you can learn to weld at a community college for almost nothing. More people should.but most of those that I know of are limited to the local universities, and are thus non-accessible to lower-income families, plus there are only a few in the public schools in the area.
That's great to hear! There is only a handful of colleges and universities in the city, and they certainly don't publicize whatever scholarships they have for their welding and fabrication programs. Then again, it might be different here in Canada, but I'd think that the government would provide a lot of the learning tools for free, seeing as how the student loans and grants are already comparatively generous. Reading up more on it, it turns out that most (all but one, actually) of the votech schools in my city have been closed or converted during the 90s, citing things like lack of funding and low enrolment. The one school that is currently operational was also closed down from 1996 to 2001, and has only been able to expand and upgrade its program through a fundraising effort from local businesses back in 2010 since the public school board refused to pay for it. I would also assume that it provides the tools needed to learn things like welding, but the information on their website is extremely scant, and I wasn't able to find whether there actually is a program to learn this one particular skill without having to be enrolled for the full school year.
A welding certification takes a while. In the US, at least, once you make that weld you own it for life. If a natural gas main bursts 40 years from now at the joint you welded, it's your fault. There's a big difference between "we went to Harbor Freight so that inner city kids could weld old car parts together to make public art" and "we're training people to make a living."I wasn't able to find whether there actually is a program to learn this one particular skill without having to be enrolled for the full school year.
Right, I definitely agree with the necessity of having a professional welder be properly trained, no matter how long it takes. However, coming back to what moslydeaf was talking about, what I'm actually interested in is a program for those inner city kids, and not for people who would necessarily want to graduate with a degree in Welding and Fabrication. For example, something like a BAJA SAE competition is a fairly complex project (certainly harder than most public art installations), that has the weld samples from the vehicle's roll cage being checked by the tech inspectors before the competitions due to the danger that would otherwise be present to the drivers. The welders, however, do not need to be licensed - a good number of my own friends participated in working on the vehicles in the last few years, most of them having received the same minuscule amount of MIG and TIG welding training as I have. A program for projects like that would be a quick and fairly painless introduction for people wanting to learn the basics, but unfortunately I'm just not aware of any public entity in my city that would provide it.
On Living in the Present, or Please Do Not Get A Medieval Blade In Your Eye --- After a month of waiting my Nerdiest Thing Ever finally arrived. It's a custom-made D&D dice box with a quote that I personally care about and that totally fits the nature of the game, since throwing the dice by definition will end my doubts. Not long after its arrival, I tried again to search the web for the source of the quote and I think I may have found a source? Wittgenstein said in his book On Certainty that “a doubt without an end is not even a doubt.” I can see myself misremembering / paraphrasing / butchering that quote into mine. Speaking of nerdy things: a friend of a friend was doing one of those historical reenactments, and somehow he got stabbed by a fucking sword in his eye. It went partly into his skull, so not only will he be half-blind, he also has difficulties talking and may never recover fully. Dude's the same age as me, and just like that, his life got upended. I also read Paul Kalanithi's When Breath becomes Air this week. It's a posthumous memoir. Paul was on his way to become one of the best neurosurgeons, when he was suddenly diagnosed with cancer. The book feels unfinished because that's what it is, and that's what his life was. Yet he found the strength to remain hopeful - not for a cure, but "for days of meaning". It's made me contemplate on my own frailty and mortality. About the ol' "live each day like it's your last" adagium. After all, who knows what could happen. But on the other hand, should I really change my approach to life? I spend a lot of time contemplating my future, and mulling over the past, and I wonder if it gets in the way of the present too much. I know I can't do anything about things like cancer and swords to the eye. But I can work on those days of meaning. And maybe the way to do that is to let those plans and those reflections go for a while. To let go of my doubts about my future, and my doubts over my past actions. Maybe that's why that quote resonates so much with me.
I spend a lot of time contemplating my future, and mulling over the past, and I wonder if it gets in the way of the present too much.
It does. Contemplation and reflecting are good things generally, but can leave you numb. Here's what I do with my mulling mostly: Ask: What can be learned? (Learn it, then move on.) Maybe one stays mulling over the past because the thing that can be learned might be too difficult to truly accept and embrace.
I find this to be so difficult though, because it is rarely the case that the answer presents itself lickety split. It's usually days, months or even years later that I feel like I have learned the lessons from it. The emotional distance gained from temporal distance is what allows me to hone in on the answer. I wouldn't be mulling over the past if it wasn't useful to some degree.Ask: What can be learned? (Learn it, then move on.)
No Barkeeper in sight. I'll pour my own wine. Let's see - Barefoot Pino Grigio or Naked (Grape) Pinot Grigio? June 15 As I mentioned in an earlier post, my mom slipped again and, this time, fractured her hip. July 12 After almost a month in the hospital cheering everyone up with her positivity and gratefulness, they released her into my custody. The hospital case worker referred her to the community case worker who I haven't spoken to yet. An occupational therapist is supposed to come to the house (please, soon) and recommend bars put in certain places around my mother's downstairs washroom. She won't be going upstairs anymore. I rented a hospital bed for the living room. Even though I haven't talked to the community case worker, the personal support workers (PSWs) came right away. They have names like Aman and Jasbinder and Lakhvinder. They are lovely. The come in the morning and help my mother bathe and get dressed. They might straighten up a bit and then take off to their next appointment. The only problem is my mother is up at 4:30 or 5:00 a.m. and they tend to come around 10:00 a.m. Today, I managed to get one to come at 7:00 a.m. It was a good day. This is all covered by the province. They also sent home two pieces of equipment free for a month: a commode and a walker. The physiotherapist was at the house last Friday. The PSWs usually call the night before, but the physiotherapist called half an hour before coming. He did an assessment and gave her six exercises to do three times a day to build strength in her hip and legs. For example, stand on your good leg, raise your bad leg and hold for five seconds. Repeat 10 times. My mother obeys and cooperates but has trouble remembering what to do. I have to lead her through this. She's also incredibly funny. One of the exercises is squats. The instructions say, "Slowly bend your hips and knees, then stand up tightening your buttock muscles." She squats down 1-2-3-4-5, and then stands up loudly saying "And tighten your buttocks!" Then she laughs and laughs. The first week for me was all improv. I had no idea what I was doing. My mom had been living independently at 91, but at the hospital they suggested that she needed "supervision" going forward. Siblings checked in from far away, but it looked like I was the supervisor for now until something more permanent could be arranged. Now, I am organizing some paid helpers to come to the house an hour after the PSW leaves. They will help her with exercises, meds, making lunch and then help her into bed for a nap. I'm putting together a schedule from now until August 20 when my older sister is coming from three time zones away for two weeks while I'm away. My younger brother will be back from a trip and he and my sister can contemplate longer term plans. My mother's wish is to be able to stay in her own home where she's lived mostly since 1962. As some of you know, I live in Canada. The only bill I saw was $45 for the ambulance. That's the only bill I will see for surgical, medical, and 28 days in the hospital. The level of care my mother received is available to all Canadians. She does not have any personal health insurance plan. Her plan is The plan. Not only that, but she agreed to participate in a research study that was looking at what would happen if people suffering from hip injuries were fast-tracked into surgery and operated on within seven hours, compared to those who were put into the normal surgical stream and waited 12-24 hours for an operating room, anaesthetist, surgeon, etc. to be available. Those in the study had a 50-50 chance of getting fast-tracked and my mom won the lottery.
My wife delivered a baby for a client last week. She's on Medicare. She is poor. She is also a rape victim and she has been homeless. There are about six different insurance companies that administer Medicare in our state. Five of those plans pay us exceptional dollars for delivering a baby. One of them pays us zero dollars. She was on the zero dollar plan. She was able to switch to one of the other five... effective July 1. She delivered the baby June 29. We made zero dollars. Our state requires us to administer vitamin K shots to all women unless they refuse it in writing. Medicaid reimburses us $3 less than it costs us to purchase vitamin K shots. As most of you surmised, I live in America.As some of you know, I live in Canada. The only bill I saw was $45 for the ambulance. That's the only bill I will see for surgical, medical, and 28 days in the hospital. The level of care my mother received is available to all Canadians. She does not have any personal health insurance plan. Her plan is The plan.
I am troubled by the American health care system. As good as health care is, Ontario now has Doug Ford for premier (brother of the now dead, crack-smoking former Mayor of Toronto). He is cancelling renewable energy projects and taking both our sources of energy and high school sex ed curriculum back to the last century. Oh, Canada. Oh, World.
This whole thing makes it easy for me to see why people struggle to have empathy for Trump voters. When hydro rates don’t go down and other bad shit happens I’m going to feel empathy for people who I know didn’t vote for him. The idiots who thought ford would solve their problems though, when their rates go up I don’t think I’ll be able to refrain from rubbing their faces in it. Mostly because they are the reason my actual friends will struggle. It’s like seeing all the trump voters losing their jobs over the tariffs, I can’t feel bad for them when they did something that hurt people I care about.
I couldn't believe Ontario elected anyone with "Ford" for a last name, but maybe that's because my awareness of Ontario politics comes from liberal Toronto musicians.
My wife and daughter have returned after 3 weeks in China, which is very nice. I'll be headed to the UP of MI next week for a much needed vacation. This is a painting I recently started: I'm taking a different approach in this one. We will see where it leads.
I have friends in HS that I'm hoping to drop in on. I guess LP is Lower Penninsula are maybe Left Penninsula. It looks pretty upper to me. I imagine that I'll drive in through the Soo. Are you in the thumb of the mitten? We'll probably head over to Canada through Sarnia. It looks like we are able to not drag the U-Haul and get everything shipped instead so that will make cross-country a bit easier.
Traffic slowed suddenly on Walker Road at 7:50 a.m. on the way to Cars & Coffee. At that time on a Saturday, most of the vehicles on that road are interesting, the serious go-getters leaving the show to attend to business, late-sleeping slackers like me driving north to check out the cars before enjoying the day, in my case with a run in Great Falls Park. The cause of the slowdown was soon apparent. A McLaren was wedged against a tree, a man sitting nearby with blood on his face. Police were waving traffic past, and I was too worried about rear-ending the Shelby Mustang ahead to get a good look at the scene. An ambulance went by as I continued on my way, driving more carefully than usual on the beautiful winding road. I sent my photo to the car guy at work, and he mentioned "250+" as the value and pointed out the paper tags. At the show, the sound of sirens was constant but most people didn't seem to know what was going on. A police helicopter circled overhead, then landed in an open field behind Katie's while we admired exotics. I didn't expect the police would medevac the driver, but sure enough the ambulance arrived and they loaded the guy on. Everyone livestreamed as the chopper took off. I talked to an EMT in the line for coffee. He said that the McLaren driver had been forced off the road by someone who crossed the center line, then he fishtailed and hit the tree. Social media would report that the driver broke his arm, "doesn't remember anything" but is "in good spirits." The show went on. It was a pretty good turnout, with more Alfas than usual and some kid-pleasing time machines. FCPD put out a finger-wagging tweet, pointing out that the $300,000 car had been purchased the day before and crashed "because of speed." The papers picked it up and manufactured a story out of the tweet, making every word into a sentence. Jalopnik made a better effort including a police photo from another angle. Be safe out there.
Being "in good spirits" after wrecking a McLaren...that's something I refuse to believe. Is Katie's a regular stop for you? It seems very cool!
When the weather is nice, Cars & Coffee followed by a run is the best way to start a weekend. I used to lug the camera over there and take pictures.
I've already put more hours into personal projects this year than I did in the entirety of 2017. I'm pleased about that. I'm not please about how tired I'm feeling. I'm going to start tracking my sleep again to make sure I'm getting enough. I hope I haven't got cat AIDS. I'm not sure how I feel about life at the moment. It's the first time it's ever started to feel 'day in day out'. Not that I have a particularly arduous routine in the grand scheme of things. But it's still the same tasks and projects on repeat. Sitting in the same room every day. I suppose that's the unglamorous part of hard work. But it's like life is simultaneously getting slower whilst going faster. Either way, I'd sure like a change from the software I've been UATing for the last year and half (intensely for the last 6 months). That's what I get for seemingly being the only person in the company who can use an ounce forethought before writing a bug ticket. Part of this feeling is likely down to the fact that I got super attached to the kayaking I started and all the sessions have been cancelled for the last 2 weeks. It's amazing way to break free from the regularity. And I've been progressing fast apparently. The coaches certainly seem really enthused with how enthused I am. From what I can tell, a lot of attendees don't really push themselves to really improve. That's fine - doing things for the pleasure of them and all that - but I think they just like that I'm keen for everything and give it my all. It's starting again on Sunday and I can't wait to be back on the water. Funny anecdote: at an earlier session, one of the coaches who I hadn't met previously came up to me at and said "you must be famous Jez". I responded with "famous Jez?" expecting him to explain the source of my newfound notoriety. Yet he didn't. And now it's gone on too long to question it. The last time I saw him I had been upgrade to "world famous". I guess there's worse things to be called.
I think I've gotten the hang of home electrical wiring. I've done a number of things, from installing new outlets and lighting, to troubleshooting minor homeowner-fixable problems. Each of these projects were just carefully following a map of black wire here, white wire here, green wire here, but no real understanding of WHY each of those needed to go where they went. But yesterday, it kinda "clicked" as I was rewiring the ceiling lights and outlets in my ever-incomplete bedroom ceiling remodel. There was this tangle of wires inside a vintage junction box. I was trying to carefully remove each of them, and map it all out... when I realized what was going on. I pulled out a piece of paper, drew out the wiring the way I thought it should be, then confirmed that it was actually wired that way inside this Junction Box of Doom! So I cut all the old wires, ran new wires and a new outlet, put it all back together... ... and it didn't work. But I now know why. Just a loose connection, really. (Turns out that getting four heavy gage wires to make a reliable connection to each other is a pain in the butt. I'll fix it tonight.)
Attempting a creative feat that's out of my usual scope of complaining about my life in one way or another. So if anyone on hubski who knows I respect them in one way or another is reading this, don't be surprised if I contact you in the future for advice and critique. I apologize in advance for disturbing these unnamed people. I got a high degree of fuck everything conflicting with a high degree of basic human empathy or some advanced level empathy maybe. The result is a lot of just accepting that I'm batshit fucking insane and spitballing to see what I'm right about and what is worth saying. Tethered to the idea of what is a good design. I'm aware of how confusing that all was.
Attempting a creative feat is good. Complaining about life is understandable. Imagine a Venn Diagram in which "fuck everything" (anger, numbness, inaction) intersects with "high empathy" (caring, listening, observing). The overlap is probably a very creative space. Add design and it should be interesting.
I just told the local DSA folks I'd help them canvas next Saturday. They asked if I could do it today, but I've been day drinking. Honestly? This kinda scares the willies out of me. One of the reasons I'm so militant at work is I've figured how to override my social anxiety through combativeness. My anxiety isn't anywhere near as bad as it used to be, and I can recognize that this will be good for me to do, but I haven't felt an abstract twinge of fear like this for quite a while.
The new cat does seem like he is not only a good cat but he might even be a great cat! I stepped on a nail while wearing flip flops, it went deep. It only hit flesh and muscle. I don't remember when my last tetanus shot was, so I reupped and had a doctor dig around in my foot. Honestly the shot hurts worse than the foot when I don't have weight in it. Have spent a good amount of the week thinking about charity. I owe lil a response but keep finding my thoughts to be evolving. Hopefully I'll get around to it. Maybe others deserve a response as well but I don't think any response I have for them will ameliorate any of their dissatisfactions. I have come to realize that it's hard to have a bad day at the shop. No matter what happens, someone will say or do something that stimulates, inspires or humbles me. It's a good way to spend my time, even if I spend too much time at work. We are in the process of destroying our back yard and rebuilding it. Deck construction starts tomorrow if the contractor is being realistic. After that I have to build a fence, a playhouse and do a lot of yard work. I like projects and our yard should be dope next summer.
Phew. I'm tired, in a good way. I spent the last two days out in the mountains, summitting one of the 100 highest peaks in the state of Washington (my 4th of the year). It was a 21.5 mile trip, camped at the base of glacier, and got my first experience travelling on, up, down, and around a glacier! Anytime you're on a glacier and don't fall in a crevasse is a good one to me, and being able to see them first-hand, finally, was a worthwhile experience. I feel incredibly privileged to be in the outdoors, and especially on the mountains. There's something funny seeing the masses (well, okay, ten or so) people on the way to the more popular pass, and then how things immediately thin out as the hiking to camp gets more difficult. Coincidentally, also much more beautiful. And then, uh, you know, followed that up with a couple of hours worth of rock climbing. Trying to readjust to work (WHAM is playing on our office radio) and get on-top of other things at home which is a constant battle when this whole mountaineering thing takes up such a large chunk of time when it happens.
What happened since the Pubski relationship update: I met up with the girl friend (emphasis on the space), and cleared the air on the intent of my boundary. I gave myself a condition in continuing to see her, "I must be more aggressive about seeking a meaningful relationship." What this looked like is returning to online dating with a better medium suited to what I'm looking for alongside major profile improvements. Also found this little gem on the subject: Overboard? Maybe, though it did work out for her. Seriously contemplating it after my move since the profile improvement DID net me more hits, but with people that I wasn't interested in. That all said, I had a thought a couple minutes ago, "I spent the past 2 months or so working to meet said girl friend where she was. In doing so, I'm actively seeking intimacy from someone other than her despite both confessing attraction separately and maintaining a 'friendship.' If I do this with the dating app ordeal (which will lead to physically lead to actively going out and meeting people if it fails), then what makes me any different than her? Do I even want that?" So, that's where I'm at. Wondering whether effectively mirroring her behavior is really worth it in order to pick up where we left off, and if it's not where does that leave me.
My leg hurts and I'm grumpy. About three weeks ago I had some lingering soreness in my glute. The next run that grew to stiffness in my knee (or maybe where my hamstring connects or maybe my calf or maybe my IT band). That happened before at about mile 23 in my marathon. I took a few days off, ran two ok miles and then six miles that went ok but had stiffness an hour later. I took a week off and had a nice 7.6 mile hike. No issues. So Sunday I tried a six mile run. I gave up at 4.5 miles just feeling exhausted and a little stiff and started walking back to the car. That was fine for maybe a mile before the stiffness turned to pain. I walked for a mile yesterday which was fine, but I felt the stiffness a bit this morning. I'm trying to stay optimistic and mostly succeeding.
I filled out the form for the local university that does running evaluation but haven't heard back. You're undoubtedly right. I'll try my PCP next. I happened to have my annual checkup in the "sore but not stiff" stage, and he said PT was an option if it got worse.
This season is lonnnnnnng. We aren't a third of the way through and we're all deeply fatigued. I got to go home for 36 hours. It took me 8 hours to get back, door to door. Fuck LAX. I came down here 35 days ago. I'm pretty sure I was in my thirties back then.
I took Monday and Tuesday off work to escape for a bit and get my head back on straight. It was pretty nice but not long enough. I started reading the Harlan Ellison book I got and have been thoroughly enjoying it. There's a story, "Santa Claus vs. S.P.I.D.E.R.", where he's taking the piss and it's glorious. I went up to Mt. Baldy on Monday and hung out around some waterfalls. That was pretty sweet. I also have not kept up with my own deadline for the #scificlub this week, and I haven't watched the movie. Maybe that works out fine though, since this morning there were three new people popping up to get added to the list: moslydeaf LastingDamageII chowderchowder. So maybe they can check out the post and see if they want to also get in on this one:
I've started watching it, mostly because it has Gillian Anderson. Is it ok if I join the discussion later, or are they normally short-lived? Not sure if I'll finish it tonight.