I eat so much pharmaceutical plastic each day I can tell manufacturers apart by the taste of their pills. I finally got to run my sawmill with the electric chainsaw attached. First small slab ( 1'x2'x1.5") looks pretty nice although it needs some attention from a plane to be usable lumber. Unfortunately the body of the electric saw appears to be all plastic and the bolts that hold the whole thing together seem to be pulling through their mounting brackets. Once I get a replacement spark plug for my gas powered saw I think we should be in business to cut some serious lumber. Honey locust
My sister is getting married this Friday! I've been to only one wedding I can recall, and now I'm the witness too. Gonna be interesting to see if we can actually maintain 6ft distance. Everyone's supposed to have their own seats at distance. Excited to start my secondment next week. My SO graduated in March and, after months of sending out resumées and cover letters only for them to fall on deaf ears, suddenly found herself selected as the best candidate for two positions last week. She can start ASAP at a very good NGO that's doing research into education. Super happy for her. Gonna be a busy few months I'm sure. We also need to figure out how to deal with both of us in calls most of the week; we only have one office that we usually both work in, with me on calls. I also want something of a standing desk for calls, as I'm starting to hate my fantastic Aeron chair simply because I'm glued to it 8-10 hours a day.
I have nearly finished transcribing, commenting, and (when necessary) correcting those institute materials. It's a goddamned test of character if anything else. It also showed the author as making annoying, silent assumptions or subtle-but-meaningful changes to notation. One situation made me question the utility of it in the first place: it wasn't clear from neither formulae nor context if the mass in question was effective or not. Why does it matter? Well, using a Star Trek-like analogy... this is a pizza: and this is effectively a pizza: In reality, depending on the material you're working on, it could probably account for even as much as six orders of magnitude worth of discrepancy between theory and measurement. TAing assignments are in: classical mechanics, and mathematical methods workshop -- both done almost entirely remotely. Not gonna lie, CM is one of my all-time favourite courses, so even if unexpected, that's some damn good news to get it. After another "I know we all want to play but let's shoot shit for the next three hours instead" of an RPG session, I started looking for people online. Thirty hours later I had more than a full complement of players and was knee-deep in drama after opting to let a furry with a great backstory stay and reject some cookie-cutter rogue instead. So, either way, I'm not playing this weekend. Dunno why I keep trying. It's fun, but too rarely survives interfacing with reality for me to put nearly as much effort as I do.
Our front lawn has never really been a lawn... it's compacted hard dirt, and where we parked our RV until we sold it a couple months ago. It looks like shit, and I hate it. My Mom is a Master Gardener, so she decided to help us out with making something out of this dead space. She got a lovely tree. We tried to plant it. The two of us dug a hole (yes, my 73-year old mother can still swing a mean mattock!) about two feet deep, and filled it with water to check drainage. An hour later, when NONE of the water had soaked in, we realized we had a different problem to solve first: soil rehabilitation. So I have been swinging the mattock this week and digging up the 16x30 hard-pan dry surface in preparation for getting a load of mulch and soil delivered. We will leave that for a year and a half, or so, to let it rot and compost and rejuvenate the soil. Then we will plant shrubs and ground cover and a couple of trees, and put in two rows of pavers I can park my car on, nestled into the plants. It'll be wonderful. In three years. - In the mean time, I've been swinging the mattock in the back yard, as well, digging out a small hillside to build a patio. Under the lawn, the ground is loose and sandy... and full of rounded river rocks the size of two fists! So using a shovel in there is almost impossible. So I swing the mattock for 10 minutes or so, then rake out the debris with a metal rake for 20 minutes. Repeat. I've got 60 concrete blocks ordered for delivery, which I am going to use to build the retaining wall, and I've already got about 110 flat square pavers for the main patio surface. Except I just checked the delivery date for my concrete block... and it is due the END OF SEPTEMBER. (Literally checked the status about 15 minutes ago.) Shit.
Home renovation materials seem to be in short supply. We were supposed to travel for spring break back in April but cancelled b/c of COVID. Instead, we figured we would do a bunch of projects around the house. The week before vacation, we ordered a bunch of lumber from Home Depot so we could build a small floating deck and repair our shed. It took three weeks for the delivery to come. And some of the lumber was the wrong dimensions (luckily bigger so we could rip/cut it down). Went to the store several more times this summer and the lumber racks are bare. No store within 50 miles has anything in stock. Crazy.
Turns out I out-thought myself. I have a locally-owned small hardware store near me called McLendon's. It's wonderful. As close to an "old school hardware store" you can get, while still being a viable modern-day business. We also have Home Depot and Lowe's, which are your typical big-box hardware stores, although Lowe's is less shitty than Home Depot. I knew my local McLendon's didn't deliver, so I ordered from Lowes. They are the ones that told me they'd deliver my block in a MONTH. Yesterday at McLendon's, picking up some little stuff, I see them loading up a truck with blocks... so I ask some questions, and, yes, they DO deliver, and yes, they DO have the block I want, and it is also $.30 cheaper per block! So I called Lowe's and cancelled my order, and went in to McLendon's about 20 minutes ago. They'll have my block delivered by lunch time. TODAY. I may never have to go to another big box hardware store EVER. Yay!
Classes are back in session and mostly in-person. We didn't require any testing or quarantining before returning to campus. The university's covid hotline rings only 9-3 on business days. Contract tracing takes "a couple business days". Student health staff aren't really all that concerned. I'll be surprised if we're still open in October. My university's council of graduate students, the one crumb of representation we get in the administration, has been effectively dead for the past couple years; this year the grad student body voted on a new constitution. I went to the officer election meeting and, uh, ended up running unopposed for one of the department representative positions. Hopefully this turns out well and isn't a waste of time!
there's this game show, I seen bits of it while channel surfing, it has Wayne Brady as a host and people in costumes and it's just not that interesting really but kind of fun to watch for five minutes once a month or so. Anyhow, they have people pick behind doors and sometimes people pick the wrong door and behind the door is a pile of garbage, maybe a busted car hauled from the junkyard or something, and it's supposed to be a non-prize. I wonder if a contestant has ever actually said to Wayne Brady "You know, in my spare time I make sculptures out of found objects. I know that's supposed to be a joke prize, but can I take that pile of garbage home? I could actually put it to good use." My friend was telling me about a new brand of jeans they fell in love with. They wanted to give me a coupon to order some if I was interested. After they told me more about the brand, I said "No thank you. I've all but sworn of synthetic fibers." Which ten or fifteen years ago, might have sounded weird, but I'm glad I have friends who understand exactly what I mean when I say that and why and are cool with that. Had job interview with an awesome garden center went really well in that the owner and I shared really good vibes, were able to just kind of chat, and it was more like a friendly coffee conversation (without the coffee) than an actual job interview. I really liked them and I like the place more now. Unfortunately, they just don't have a spot where I'd fit in. They'll hold my resume for spring hiring and I told them if anything comes up even before then, I'm game. Don't really got a lot of hope about it though. Silver linings seem a bit thin and elusive these days, don't they? I think on my next day off work, I'm gonna go bird watching and maybe think about how if I can't find them, I can go about making a few. Stay beautiful Hubski. Maybe make some silver linings of your own this week.
I did for a little bit. At first I found him to be funny and refreshing, but after a while his consistent crassness kind of turned me off. That said, I definitely understand his appeal and I'm really glad he's able to reach out to and inspire so many people, even if he and I have different philosophical approaches to nature. His passion is infectious. He and you and everyone else is right about being outside being good for mental health. I mean, yeah, there's papers and studies that say so, but just go outside and pay attention to your mood and the proof is right there in front of you. That said, August has not been a good month for me getting outside, between work and the heat keeping me away. I can't believe I'm saying this, because summer used to be my favorite season, but I'm really looking forward to fall and winter hiking. Those seasons are a lot less taxing on the body.
Nolle-p (the introduction for new students) is over! I'm honestly kind of sad about it. All my classes are online and I will have a sharp reduction in human contact from now on throughout the fall. The university is prioritizing new students when it comes to on campus education since there isn't enough space when everyone needs to distance. The pandemic-proofing ended up being mostly about having groups of students from the same class interacting, and keeping a distance to all other groups. It was quite different from my nolle-p where one of the defining features were big crowds. But it was nice, the organizers did a fantastic job. It's seldom your life ends up meeting in such a defined circle, last year I was new - this year I am guiding the new.
every time I think to make a pubski post, all of the voices in my head start rushing for the keyboard, and I get tired of playing traffic cop, so I tell them to shut up and I just read your posts... but today I'll try. - We're on day something something (maybe 20?) of terrible air quality. California and our own fires are combining to give Denver some of the worst air quality in the world. So the little pleasure one can normally get from going outside leaves you with a lingering scratch in your throat and/or cough. It's a bummer, but I'm grateful I'm not in imminent danger and feel terrible for the people whose lives are totally disrupted. My gratitude reminds me that little and temporary inconveniences are just that. - I've just finished Creativity, inc. I'd recommend it to anyone who is, or wants to be a manager, who works in business, who wants to work at Pixar, or even people remotely interested in some Pixar culture/anecdotes. -Been watching ethereum wax and wane over the last month or so. I had fogotten how emotional I can get over something like that. I've got back to not looking at the value. - kids are in remote school for now. starting back in-person in smaller cohorts in a couple weeks. Everything is weird. I'm on the school board for our little charter school. It's been a rough summer getting ready for this nonsense. - creativity has come in fits and starts... but work seems to rule supreme in my day-to-day. it's tougher and tougher to come up for air and do anything remotely enjoyable/creative. - That's not to say things are all bad. Things are actually pretty great. just weird. Everything is weird. I still love you all.
House Finally finished the last of the flooring on the second floor. It was just a few rows in the hallway leading into a smallish closet. But it involved working around multiple door trims and truly not-square walls. What my wife expected to take me a an hour or so took me the the entire day. And left me exhausted. My poor jigsaw got quite the workout too. Family Took off Thursday and Friday and went to VT to visit the in-laws. My wife, me and one of my SIL's slipped out to go kayaking. Less than 200 yards into the water the skies opened up and dumped buckets and lightning, sending us in a mad dash back to the car. Otherwise it was good to chat with my MIL. There was a lot of "huh?" "say again" as we spoke through our masks, but better than leaving there not knowing if she would survive for us to come back another day. Grandson came and spent Sunday - Tuesday with us. Gotta get our fix in before they more move next month. Took him to the beach yesterday and he swam for hours. The only way I could get him out of the water was to take him kayaking. That resulted in a fight over the paddles. He wanted to through it into the water, I wanted to keep us moving close to shore. I felt bad for the other families there having to listen to him scream. Work I can't believe I took off four days. Felt good, but have 400+ emails to wade through now. Why can't people just do their jobs without being needy? Oh well, it keeps me employed. Looking forward to next weekend already and it is only my first day back for a three-day work week. Overall, life is good. Progress, family, fun.