hi hübsch - i just keep on living eh? decided that i should skitter back in here for a while
i went to japan for a language program over the summer, gonna be able to graduate in 3 years now (so that's nice). i'd love to head back but i'm not sure i want to live there enough to be an eternal honkyjin
relationship number 1 worked out for a yearish but we grew apart, which is a shame, but it happens - Boy the Second has been found and is very sweet so i guess you can't gain without loss
i got a job in september, thinking about quitting - having money is nice but the bosses and scheduling practices are miserable - i'm taking 18 credits like a dickweed as well so that was a mistake
speaking of mistakes, i tried to go off my antidepressants and boy oh boy that was an extended nightmare- i'm back on but those fellas take time to take effect so i'm still sitting sad, but i guess it was worth a try despite being a horrible failure
i lost about 15 pounds while i was in japan (thanks, campus gym and limited groceries) but i gained at least 10 of em back (thanks dominos 2-topping medium pizzas for 5.99 each), but at least a little chunk of that might be muscle or at least better-placed fat than before because i kept up the gymgoing here before i got kicked in the dick with the whole can't-get-out-of-bed thing
right now i'm sleeping a lot and trying to find lots of opportunities to laugh, otherwise i don't have much in me. love to you all.
Thank you for stopping by, it's nice to hear from you. I have gained some weight as of late too, but unlike you it's not In the right places. It's pretty much all in the ole gut. Hang in there re the meds. All things said, it sounds like you are incredibly self aware. That's something most people can't claim. Good luck with #2 :)
This is hilarious to me. Why? Because mk of 5 years ago would have built the function you suggest. That said, I like the update. Thx mk.
My kid is really cool... he got tired of his watches just laying on his dresser... so he 3D printed some hooks that would fit the buckles snuggly and latch on to his cork board (or a small metal bar that we're considering hanging)
and even though this is the day after pubski.... I still had to share. I did a thing today:
Chickens
Bertha is making a good recovery! I was so worried for her before I left, but now she's eating well and gaining weight a little bit at a time. She came with me to lab on Monday and seemed to enjoy it so I think she'll be making more visits in the future.
Research
My presentation went really well and several people had interesting questions afterward! It's nice to feel like other people find it interesting and valuable, since I worry a lot about both of those things.
I am supposed to take my comprehensive exam (like a thesis defense, but before you've written the thesis) this semester but there are three and a half weeks left in it and my advisor wants me to get two more papers out the door before I do the exam. I have been treating research more as a 9-5 job than a lifestyle and I think I am going to have to start working harder if I ever want to get out. We'll see if my mental health will tolerate that.
Just realized you can't even see the actual soldering station so you probably meant the rack of test equipment :)
It's "general lab stuff" -- old oscilloscope (which I think the trigger is messed up on? I need to investigate), a few power supplies, and a signal generator. I'd like a nice multimeter and a logic analyzer too but I haven't had reason to ask for them yet. Maybe soon, though, if things keep up this way.
One of the other research groups I work with works at the university's "electromagnetic compatibility" lab which is about half a warehouse out in the middle of nowhere and goddamn do they have some fancy stuff out there.
Thanks! It's an import but it gets the job done just fine so I have no material complaints with it. It's for "science" -- sometimes my lab does hardware-heavy projects so we use it for assembly/modifications/rework/etc. There's also a nice reflow oven next door if we need to make any surface-mount boards.
Here we're using it to make some shielding boxes for a serial communications link that needs to happily survive a test chamber that can produce electric fields up to 175 kV/m -- so what would normally be a pair of wires attached to a board is now a fiber-optic transceiver, a big shielding box with ferrites on all the data and power lines, and three coax lines carrying power, transmit, and receive to the actual device in the test chamber.
So Japan trip is cancelled - partner developed shingles this week, started with some nasty back pain then the rash emerged and we headed off to get treatment. She seems to be in so much pain, it's incredibly hard to watch and be able to do nothing to help her.
Sucked calling and getting flights/accommodation/leave cancelled but imagine if we tried to travel with her like that, 4 hour drive to Christchurch, 10 hour flight to Japan, then 2 weeks of wandering? She'd hate it.
We'll do it again next year with twice the funding for a fun blow out.
The day we found out we had to cancel everything I discovered a friend of mine had just got her fiancee home after having a brain tumour removed - and that slapped some perspective into me.
Hope you're all doing well, pals.
What a crazy week it's been! Thursday we drove out to Belgium, ate a massive plate of skinny fries and camped out in a field. We made a big fire, heated some rocks and built an improvised sauna inside a sprinter van. Also baked some bread on a stick by the campfire - first time I've heard of this and it's way better than marshmallows. It was awesome!
Sunday I made it out to the Dutch Burning Man decomp, and it was also sick! Awesome day program with super insightful talks and workshops. Great laser and fire show outside. Crazy amount of stages and soundscapes and performances. Kept going all night and took the bus back home to Eindhoven the next morning at 9am. Kept up the energy by drinking Mate. I wish this drink was more popular back home, it's the best. Tastes delicious, it's not too sugary and the cafeine really keeps you energized.
Was struggling with buggy software and had trouble with the final video exports i've been working on. And just in time Adobe emailed me with a free one week trial of Premiere and company. Goddam is stuff easier when you're not macgyvering some old hacked versions by changing version names in text edit files and constantly re-linking media. Cranked that shit out in a day! And exported it all too, since media encoder actually worked.
Yesterday we had a whole day cleaning out the houses we've been living in. It was hard work, lots of dumpster runs but we really made good progress. And to cap the night, Alejandro the Mexican Badass build a temazcal out of scraps in the backyard - so it was sauna round 2! He led the whole thing, in a traditional Mexican way and we did some singing and sharing in the steam. I'm going to miss this little weird community we have going here in the Netherlands.
Sometimes, I wonder what have I done to be so lucky and to always be surrounded by such amazing people. Also, sometimes I dread the future because it's hard to imagine life can be that good all the time. I fear some hard times will come eventually, and I hope I'm ready to face them.
Charity
Team Trees is at 15 million. When the whole thing first started, for the first couple of days, they were getting about 2 million trees a day. It's slowed down to the point where now it takes a week to get that much. That honestly makes the whole launch that much more impressive to me, the burst of enthusiasm and support everyone showed. I think they'll still hit their goal of twenty million trees by 2020, but at this point, everything could stop today and I'd say they did a great job.
Houses as Playgrounds
I pass by sometimes a farm house that is currently undergoing repairs. It has a new roof and siding and it looks like the work has started going on inside. For a few reasons, I'm pretty certain it's not being fixed up for sale, and even if it was, I don't think Dala and I could afford it or find it practical. Being about 800 sq feet, the house itself is too small to be practical and being on farm with a barn and a field or two and all, there's also too much property to manage to be practical. But man, I was thinking if we were rich, that would be the perfect kind of getaway place. Imagine being able to stuff that house with bookbinding equipment, sewing equipment, etc. plus having a barn to do whatever with plus more acres of land than anyone really needs. I mean, the imagination runs wild with ideas after a while.
Sewing
Working hard on some projects. I'm probably looking at 100 plus hours on things when everything is said and done and one of my friends recently said "that sounds like too much time and work" to which I say it isn't. It's a hundred hours of meditation and mental stimulation, a hundred hours of learning and creativity and art appreciation, a hundred hours of couch time with the wife and dog, and a hundred hours of fruitful fun all at once. It's a really efficient use of time actually. That said, I recently looked at a corner of the living room and though "I bet if I got rid of a few things, I could fit a loom there." Unfortunately, that's pretty impractical. Unless I had a get away farm house with a loom inside . . .
How are we halfway through November already. Feels like September was a fortnight ago.
I'm still infrequently working on my academic paper. It's basically been short bursts of one or two days of work every two/three months. Did a final round of comments, and now it's now good to go. The four (well-known in the field!) professors that are my coauthors are happy with the result, which feels like a hard-won thing. Now I just gotta process the comments from this round and figure out what the submission requirements are.
Started DMing my first campaign this Monday with a few coworkers. Still find it kind of miraculous that in a company of like eighty people we've found five that are nerdy enough for D&D. It was a lot of fun, but a campaign is a noticable step up from doing a oneshot here or there. Need to step up mah game!
Speaking of work... I feel like I've honed in on the type of work I want to do most, and I'm starting to feel like 2020 could have a lot in store for me in that regard. I've been planting seeds everywhere I can for a bit now, let's see if it works...
My first week of leaving/weaning myself off of Facebook has gone extremely well. When I have logged in, I have gone through my content and deleted massive amounts of things going all the way back to 2008. I now only log in via an Incognito Chrome session on my laptop, which I rarely open anymore. (Most of my data consumption happens on my iPhone or iPad.)
I am now texting actually interesting and meaningful things with people who I have wanted to cultivate a closer relationship with. I've let go of people I no longer need to have in my life, and the relief there is quite a revelation.
I had many people muted or sorted into groups that I no longer check, so they were effectively out of my line of sight... but the act of going in and actually unfriending them was cathartic. And - surprisingly - not fraught with "meaning" or "import" like I thought it would be.
I thought that being friends on Facebook held some sort of value or import. It doesn't. You click a button, they are gone. You click a button, they are back.
But the difference INSIDE, in my head, was monumental. I realized I still mourned the loss of my old Burning Man crowd, circus family, and old coworkers I had lost touch with. They still held some space in my head, somehow. But, the act of unfriending them on Facebook was a ritual: I remembered the person I knew; I remembered our good times together; and I remembered that who I was then is not who I am now, and the same goes for them. Then I would click Unfriend and move on.
The relief, the closure, the whatever-ya-wanna-call-it was wonderful. I was carrying baggage I didn't know I still had.
Ironic Plot Twist
About 18 months ago, here on Hubski, I predicted the death of Twitter due to Trump's use of the platform.
Today, I am now a regular Twitter user. My feed is highly curated to rugby content, plus the local West Seattle news feeds, AOC, Mayor Jenny Durkan, and the cast of Letterkenny. That's it. Everything else stays out, and I find that cruising through the latest rugby scores, local news, and what AOC and my Mayor are doing, keeps me up to date as much as I need to be, on Twitter.
And if I forget to check it for a week? Who cares? Nobody is listening on Twitter. Everyone is standing in the same room and shouting at the same time at the top of their voice. Twitter is ME ME ME all the time, so when I want to hear what people are saying about themselves, I tune in. When I don't; I load Fallout 76.
I need to do this on Facebook too - I barely use it now. When I open the App it's only because a "memory" has popped up and I am quick to laugh at my younger self and promptly delete the post.
In lieu of 76, I've started playing Death Stranding - it's very.... different. Like, I knew it would be, but I'm surprised at how invested I am in the story that kinda doesn't make sense but I also kinda don't mind?
I went on a reprieve for a while, which is why I wasn't online at all. I'm not doing this without my fiancee again.
Next week marks a year of us being together.
We have decided on a boat wedding.
It is lovely.
I have taken a break from everything and the massive overhaul wasn't easy. I have also taken it upon myself to quit smoking all together for 2 weeks. I have since backtracked, but at least I know I can now do it.
I am hoping to attend one class before the year ends.
I know what I want to do. It's nice.
I've managed to actually make computer books interesting again. I've managed to make the last medication I was on an allergy for me.
It's mindblowing. I've never felt this compassionate towards my partner before.
I would tell people.... you know that feeling when you love someone, but don't like them?
There was a reason I didn't like myself to the point of wanting to burn out, only less than 2 years ago.
Sure, I had an ego. Loved myself so much in a way that only the sympathetic ear and loving touch of a creator can understand. Many people told me to write a book.
But I had wanted to fundamentally fix myself before making something for others to consume again.
I used to get a lot of scathing accounts from others in the past. I would hear a lot worse before my life started over. Using people- especially in relationships- why, that is probably why I disliked myself. It actually took a lot of visits to the hospital, lots of therapy, and lots of drugs for comprehension to set back shop.
I lost a lot in it due to grief.
That being said, I consider myself a different person today. The woman my fiancee knows of today is a much kinder, genuine soul. I'm lucky to have learned how serious my addictions truly changed me over the years. I am lucky to have had the ability to record and perform, regardless of how anyone else has felt about it. Above all else, I am glad that the idea of ego being a privilege and something to be cultivated, carefully, is what I needed to focus on before going on to the next chapter of my life.
For now, I say Happy Holiday seasonal tidings!
I will be quite busy over the next couple of weeks, but I thought to check in.
Thank you all for being here and always being a nice part of the internet (y'all are on my homepage.)
You build a better future.
Nostalgia is an exercise in reflection: you are putting "where you were" in the perspective of "where you are" and reconsidering your regard for past events. Nostalgia is a pain in the ass when you have no good options: I am currently nostalgic for an era when I could buy fucking Kirin Light at the local grocery store because now my choices are basically IPA, Zima and wine coolers. Nostalgia is much less deadly when you have choices: I spent much of my 20s lamenting my inability to read signals in my teenage years because there's a whole lotta tail I coulda tapped and that would have made my life infinitely better. But I've been with a girl for 17 years who still wears size 2 pants, who still looks bangin' in a bikini and still hasn't figured out she's punching well below her weight.
You're in a shitty place right now, homey. You were going to change the world and now you're not. Or so you think. Nostalgia for you is a wistful exercise in what you were. Because you're unsatisfied with what you are, it's a net loss. The best way forward is to focus on what you're going to be.
Seems that you are defining 'nostalgia' as a bad thing, if it is something you have to "deal with."
You know it doesn't have to be?
Recalling good times, good memories, does not have to be juxtaposed against whatever situation you are in today that is perceived to be less wonderful... you can just enjoy the memory... enjoy the feeling of being back in that time ... and then let it go.
Then come back to the present, and be present, rather than comparing uncomparable things, like who you were back then with who you are now.
No, but nostalgia can have different definitions. Merriam-Webster defines it in a partially negative light. I meant in the Gatsby sense, you beat on against the current.
Do I want to relive my childhood? Hell fuckin' naw. But even when life is good now I can't help but feel... bored. It's like nothing really gets my blood racing anymore. The frontiers have been conquered. I've laid it all to rest. But then all of a sudden I hear a track from my friend's band almost a decade ago all the emotions come flooding back and it's too much to bear. I'm not sad it's over, I'm glad it happened but it's that feeling of having gained and lost some infinite thing.
Gotcha. I see what you are saying.
You know, kleinbl00 has commented a couple of times with numerous studies that say, basically, whatever you were listening to, eating, enjoying when you were about 18-23, is what you will ALWAYS think of as "good" for the rest of your life.
Now I'm in my 50s, I think back to those years - 1987-1993 - and realizing how true this is. Mine also extends a little earlier, probably back to 1983 or so, because I grew up with a group of guys who were about 3 years older than me. So I was far more in that demographic, and had very little in common with people exactly my age.
I still think that you can decide that "nostalgia" is a good thing... embrace it for what it is: a biomechanical/societal programming that incentivizes you to see one particular phase of your development as superior over others. So you can look at that, marvel at the complexity of the human organism, and also know that it isn't necessarily "true", either.
I'm not calling you wrong, or anything... just wanting to give you another way to view nostalgia as a positive thing, and not a condemnation of your current place or accomplishments or phase in life. <insert heart emoji here>
It depends. There are some things that I can be reminiscent about but never revisit, like memories of time spent with family and such. Other things are much easier to visit, whether it's watching people on YouTube talk about and play video games I used to love, reading articles about old technology and toys and such, rewatching movies and TV shows, rereading old books, etc. One of the nicer things the internet has brought us is the ability to revisit moments of our past.
Oddly enough, I used to really enjoy antiquing, and while my time and money and attention is spent elsewhere these days, I loved how it gave me a sense of nostalgia for a time I wasn't even alive to experience myself.
I have been mired in a situation of vindictive multiracial cancel-culture influencer I-me-mine incompetence for three fucking weeks now.
My hours wasted have left the "tens" and are in the "hundreds".
I am coping with two buck chuck and Jack Daniels.
Yesterday our opponent asked for our termination letter five days ahead of the meeting for a "partner organization on campus." We told them their partner organization was welcome to contact us directly. At this point we got "can we have a phone call? It feels like conversation has gone sideways."
So in other words, we flushed out their lawyers, they know we flushed out our lawyers, and they're still shining us on because they are feckless dipshits. And I mean we have a contract that says we can terminate whoever the fuck we want on no notice what-so-fucking-ever if they don't abide by our terms and we have a signed term sheet and documented violation of it so they can fuck right off to hell but
it
still
makes
me
so
fucking
tired.