Emergency room again. Intractable vomiting (feat. Blood clots and deep orange bile) shakes/chills, flop sweat. Did you guys know you can drink lidocaine? Edit* I'm comfortablely parked in my recliner with the proverbial Michigan cure-all, Vernors, in hand. Managed to get home by shackling a compounding pharmacy with a prescription list both archaic and arcane. All my bits are where they ought to be, less the array of various goo corpuscles sent off for testing. Diagnosis - likely a form of Viral gastroenteritis. Treatment - Extra Drugs in various forms to keep the tenuous armistice that is my body from devolving into open warfare. Also, sleep in aforementioned recliner for a week instead of my bed, to be kind to various bits under repair and somehow that helps.
Interesting times. Business: two new hires. Training a guy in LA today. Have a company interested in merging with ours. -this could be very promising. Personal: house is on the market. Have four people coming to see it in the next week. I think we are at peak market. I wanna sell prior to Bernie being the nominee. I think if he’s the president the markets will respond. I also think it’s inevitable that they do regardless of who the prez is. Might sell and then hold cash till market bottoms and then buy again. My wife is doing very well. Excited for a not too distant announcement of her professional development. Kids: they’re great. I have a 9, 6 and 2 year old. Hard to believe. They’re neat kids. They’re a handful and very headstrong and antagonistic but I love them. Traveling to Belize at the end of March. I need to make music. Been too long. I’m so tired all the time at night. And that’s when I have the time. How are you?
I got a new car! A GTI mk6 Autobahn with 50k miles on it. The Saab had cracked it's coolant tank (again), and the mechanic reported that this time it had blown a gasket with the overheating, and he couldn't find the parts for it anymore, because... Saab. Time was definitely up. It was leaking every fluid it could, the check engine light was perennially on, the suspension was getting iffy, the key fob even stopped working so I couldn't arm the security system. So the other night I went out just to browse, and ended up getting this. I love it so far. I do a lot of worrying with finances and stability etc. etc., yet I bought my achievable dream car on very short notice and it's not going to break me. So I guess I'm doing pretty OK actually.
Set up some big-boy accounts yesterday, hoping to get a roth IRA up and running soon as well. Going to save with the goal of covering six months of expenses (not sure if I want to call it my 'rainy day fund' or my 'fuck you fund') and then start saving for a new car - my 1999 Nissan Maxima has cost me more money than I could sell it for in the last six months, and I'd like a car without rusty holes the size of my head! Having a single income isn't so hard when I'm getting most of my calories from work food, and my biggest expense is rent. I went a little crazy on knick-knacks and tech shit, hoping I can spend the next few months making responsible financial decisions that'll put me into an easily repeatable pattern. I'm not struggling to get by at all, but finances stress me out. Hoping to curtail this stress by following a plan and making periodic alterations as the context around it changes. Who fucking knows, man. I'm a child. Why are they paying a child all this money, anyway?!
Jobs Applying to stretch and dream jobs to fulfill my internship requirements. These are the only jobs that I'm willing to go out-of-state for currently. They are BIG stretches. So big I'm not upset if I don't stick the landing, but goddamn if I do... One thing I've found is the other internships around me are so environmentally oriented. When it really comes down to the question of 'what is your interest,' I'm tired of BS'ing to further myself towards a desk I don't want. Relationshit I've asked the same girl out to go places 4 times in January, and flat out asked her on a date post-Valentines day. Every single time life keeps getting in the way. I keep hearing 'yes', or a possible reschedule, then life falls through: a car issue, overslept on a nap, family is in town (again), and a family emergency to boot. Roughly in that order. I'm amazed I've been so damn persistent despite all this, going off of 'yes' for a month only for circumstances to flop. I swear getting ghosted is easier so I can just moved on without thinking about "what-ifs". My rule of 'no response is a response' has been called into question by friends and family throughout this, and I'm trusting this woman to be up front with me when her priorities are not me - rightfully fucking so, might I add. So, when I'm not sure why she hasn't re-scheduled or reached back out, I keep oscillating between "let it the fuck go" and "be patient". A nice facebook scroll-through popped 'when the right relationship comes around, it won't be toxic like this'. This isn't toxic. This just sucks. I'm not in control of anything at all, and this sucks because I had a solid foundation to base a relationship from here. I didn't idealize her, but I damn sure knew she looked like the type of woman I'd like to be with. Pains me to think 'just keep in mind those qualities and look elsewhere' and 'maybe the timing really just isn't right'. In order to move forward, I'd really have to believe being persistent ISN'T the right move. Thanks for listening to me rant in your head. What can be learned? 1. Python. I got my fireball data project approved to work on for two courses at once. I want to leverage the final product in job interviews mentioned above. 2. When to hear 'no thank you,' (a la 'read between the lines') and when to hear 'I'm sorry life has been so busy'. I don't know if I'm there yet, but I hope to get this one under my belt through this relationshit ordeal. 3. Leaning on friends is nothing to be ashamed of. All of last semester I went out of my way to help the others in my classes. Not to network, but because I wanted to do grad school different than undergrad. After the second or third flop, I was invited out of the blue for dancing with my cohort. Was able to balance 'a good time' with venting, and was lent an air-mattress for a night over with a friend in the end. Been having movie nights after weekend labs on and off since. [Edit] 4. Diversify your love and attention. Spread that goodness and those who appreciate it will reflect it back. That will sustain you for giving to others who don’t have the bandwidth for you. Its a gift that keeps on giving. Grad school is shaping up.
I have counter-examples, but your point stands - and that's part of my problem. I need help. ._. This is more rhetorical/me-shaking-my-fist-at-the-universe: When am I supposed to trust when people say yes? A simple, actual "no thank you" would be nice once in a while. Realizing I'm getting the round around is pretty maddening.People make time for what they truly want to make time for.
it's been snowy lately - i'm sitting in class before it starts and the professor just started playing some VERY dramatic classical music so i feel very 50s movie chase scene i started heading to the gym again - i accidentally ruined my calves to barely-can-walk for a couple days but other than that i've been happy with what i've been doing; been waking up earlier again too spring break rapidly approaches: i'm going to visit my folks, but my boyfriend is coming along so that should be nice - last time it went really well and my parents liked him a lot, so i'm looking forward to seeing how a week-and-a-half together will go :3 i can't think of anything else interesting going on but the uninteresting things are going alright too
Job continues to go well. I've been investigating a couple of the shadier entities in the vastly under-regulated supplement market, set to publish results in a couple weeks. In the process of moving my savings into a credit union. Appeals to my sensibilities, and my wallet. 5% APY on savings account for the first 2k with .25% on everything else, meaning that I will be earning about 166 times the interest on 2k, and about 6 times the interest above that. Plus, I currently live a 6 hour drive from the nearest branch of my bank, so I'm about done with that. Have been going to the gym almost every day. Feels good, have lost a lot of the gut. I don't like being fat in my 20s. My partner shares my membership and goes frequently, and the accountability is helpful. Because of my area, the gym caters mainly to septuagenarians, so I don't have to worry about unsavory gym folk, although their taste in treadmill-view TVs is lacking. A friend of mine is a cross country running/track and field coach and gives good advice, but the other day he joked "You asking more for advice now will end with you asking for advice on your first half-marathon in 6 months." As much as I don't want him to be, as I hate running with a passion, I'm afraid he might be right. galen is planning a visit at the end of next month. I am excited to show him my neck of the (literal) woods, catch a baseball game, and maybe go clamming...? We'll see. Also I need to brew beer so he can try my shitty beer when he's here. Hubski meetup in New England?
One of the things that I find most interesting about the Yellow Billed Cuckoo is that it's colloquial name is "The Storm Crow." It got the name because it's bird song is often heard on summer days before it rains. I remember the first time I came across the term, it was the name of one of the mechs in the MechWarrior game series. For years I imagined a literal crow flying around in tempests and tornados and thunderstorms and if you do an image search for "Storm Crow" you're gonna see a lot of fantasy drawings depicting just that. So imagine my surprise, some twenty plus years later, learning that this little guy is the actual bearer of the name. I never would have thought. Tangently related, a while back I was blathering about taxonomy and one of the things I talked about is how it's often a central issue in conservation. Turns out, in the western states, the population for the yellow billed cuckoo has declined precipitously and there's an attempt to designate a potential sub species for the western populations to give them protective status. Speaking of declining populations, I worry about the Rusty Black Bird because they're just darling to look at, so bright and colorful despite being what a lot of people would consider drab. I'm about to get up off the couch to sew together some text blocks for bookbinding. I have two new types of paper that I both love and am frustrated by in equal measure. I also have probably a dozen or so text blocks that still need casing in, but, you know, it's always good to have extras. Right? I have some ideas for books, think I might share them next time kingmudsy makes a craft thread, just to get feedback. Here's hoping you're all doing great. Spring is right around the corner.
It's so weird to hear it after a winter with maybe two days of snow and temperature scarcely breaking -3 °C. And even I can recall winters when you'd be shoveling snow and by the time you'd finish there'd already be a fresh layer where you started. Makes you think what climate change deniers smoke.Spring is right around the corner.
A few days after spring was officially declared by SMHI it snowed and was below 0 for enough days that I think winter would have come back if that's the way it worked. We had a winter though, which amazes me because I didn't think we'd had enough cold days in a row.
So my city has three confirmed cases of coronavirus. One of my coworkers went to Venice this past weekend. A more distant coworker went to Milan a week and a half ago. I recently met an absolutely incredible woman and things are just going so smoothly. I have an essay due Sunday which I have almost completely neglected. My check engine light is on; I think I should be able to get to in May. And most importantly I have until Friday to decide if I would like to spend an extended vacation in the desert, which I am considering far more seriously than I had anticipated. It appears that everything has decided to happen all at once.
Countdown to my trip to the UK is now under two weeks ... and they've started canceling large public events like the one I'm going to. Of course, Italy has a legitimate outbreak of Corona Virus now, and the UK doesn't... yet. But 17 days ago the virus was still contained to China. So who knows what the world will look like in 17 days - on March 14th - when I'm supposed to be in a stadium with 60k other people in Cardiff. And who knows what my vacation looks like if we can't go to "public places and gatherings" - like museums and tourist locations across Great Britain - while I am there. I mean, there's only so much of Hadrian's Wall you can walk alone in the Scottish rain before you get cold and wet and want to go have a cream tea in a tea sho.... oh wait... they're public places and could be closed. (Maybe.) May just need to go to the smallest distillery in Scotland (because fewer people fit inside, we are less likely to share the virus, right?) and sample their wares: In other news, I'm getting together with my old junior high school metalhead band-mates to record new material this weekend! Which should be loud. So there's that.
Got that good ole empty feeling inside me, been fighting it for a few weeks now but am slowly losing that battle. Might be another real fun ride on the depression wagon 🙃
Took a role as ticketing lead for our Regional Burn of 400 people. Set up the eventbrite with all tickets and vehicles passes, a census and developed a Directed Sale and Low Income ticket strategy. The sale was at noon yesterday, and the 300 general sale tickets sold out in 4:30h. Which is nice, but it also means we need to shift to a lottery next year since demand is growing fast. And that sucks because eventbrite is a great ticketing platform, and all the lottery ticketing systems I've seen have been super limited in functionality. I guess it's a next year me problem. I feel I've been better at being productive, tying off loose ends and checking off annoying tasks from my to-do list. A big one still to do is my taxes for the year. Maybe tomorrow? My accountant sucks because she doesn't understand what I do/the internet. So I'm toying with the idea of filling my own taxes? If someone's gonna fuck it up and do it wrong, might as well be me. Trying to organise a slavic Maslenitsa pancake weekend at my parents country house, but the main people I wanted to go with are all too goddam busy. I guess that's what happens when people have real jobs. Hesitating between keeping it super low key with only a couple folks or inviting some people it would be good to get to know better, maybe build some connections.
Good work on the ticketing thing! I've always wanted to do a Burner event where the tickets were 'stacked', and distributed by the recipients.. It would work like this: You select, say, 10 core members of the community. Past event producers, key artists, a couple of the theme camp organizers, etc. A good representation of the "do-ers" in the local Burner community. You give each of them 100 tickets. They distribute those tickets in groups of 5 or 10 to whoever they choose. You trust them to distribute the tickets to people who are going to be good to have at the regional event. People who get the culture, are down to be participants rather then spectators, people with clever new ideas, and the old hands who 'it just wouldn't be the same without you!' Those people then distribute their tickets - in groups or singly - using the same logic, to their network of selected recipients. Then, the day of the event... People show up at the gate, and they get a colored wrist band, that identifies which of the 10 'original' people was the source of this ticket. If you notice all the people with the blue wristbands are fantastic burners and totally making the event awesome, you know who to thank/appreciate. On the other hand, if everyone with a yellow wristband is a sexual predator and making people uncomfortable at the event, people can address the issue with the person who was responsible for distributing the yellow tickets. It is community accountability on a large scale. And hey... if you didn't get invited (didn't get a ticket), then you have some self reflection to do! If you invited someone who turns out to be a dud or a problem-child, then you have some apologies to make to the person you got your ticket from, AND the community at large. Talk about an intentional, thoughtful, and engaged community! This would be amazing, I think. Maybe you should do that next year. It sure is easier than a lottery. :-)
Haha that’s quirky! My one issue with this is that there are already some complaints about the community being too « turned in on itself » where it might be hard for newcomers to integrate. When tickets sell out that fast, but camps and community members might get directed sales it starts feeling « exclusive » to outsiders, because they might not realize how much volunteer work is behind it all. You need new blood for a community to not turn toxic, and segregating people by color (bracelets) might turn sour fast. Maybe for a small one-day party tho, 100ish people.
But that's why the selection of the "original 10" recipients is so important in my ticket distribution model. These need to be people who deeply understand the culture and intent behind the Ten Principles, and know that new people are absolutely critical to developing and sustaining the culture of the event and community. If they only give their tickets to the Jaded Old Burners, then that's the event they will have: a grumpy buncha has-beens who are More Burner-y Than Thou. So any responsible member of the "original 10" has calculated the distribution of their tickets to encompass the reliable Old Skool producers of fantastic participatory events, AND the careful selection of newbies with potential to bring something fresh and surprising. PLUS, it makes the COMMUNITY responsible for who shows up, rather than an algorithm. Don't like the mix of people at this year's event? Then go talk to the Original 10 about it. PARTICIPATE. Advocate for your belief/position, and help them direct tickets in a better way. Because... every year the Original 10 will/can change. It's how the producers of the event keep it fresh and keep everyone in the community engaged. (I had a small experience with this when I was one of the producers for our regional Decompression event, Seacompression. There was a heavy metal camp that wanted to put up a stage and have live metal bands playing. Since 100% of the music at Decomps is EDM, it was kinda crazy to dedicate an entire 40' x 40' space (and the sonic space around it) to heavy metal. But ya know what? It was one of the most popular placements at that year's event! People LOVED it!) So yeah. I think the "Original 10" ticket distribution idea is one that is GENUINELY Burner, and - if we all actually believed in the Ten Principles - then it could work. At least that's my theory...
Just saw this reply. The main question I got when I talked about your idea with some friends was "well, who gets to chose the 10 burners" ? A burner event without EDM sounds nice, would be a totally different vibe for sure. Our local regional has a shortage of stuff to do at night if you're not out dancing in my opinion. We're gonna set up a bar, to see if that helps fix the issue a little.
I think I just found some fake data. What looks wrong here? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6796530/figure/f0025/ I wrote the editor.
At the possible expense of looking dumb, it simply looks like the percentiles were flipped..