I'm done with liberals. They are already coming out with all the articles and OpEds about how Joe Biden needs to waffle on this, and give way on that, and soften his approach to this other thing, to appease the Republicants and nihilistic right.

Fuck that shit, right in the ear.

Call me the Militant Left from now on. Fuck this milquetoast weenie DNC compromise bullshit. Let's just get shit done, make life better for everyone in the process, and call out the motherfuckers when they are being motherfuckers.

"Hi. My name is Joe Biden. I am holding a check in my hand for $3k with no name on it. You can write your name in here next week, if you call Mitch McConnell today and make his life a living hell."

I read Catcher in the Rye last weekend. I don't read much, and I'm sure I was supposed to read that in High School. I'm not really sure what I think about it yet. It's been on my long list of "some day I'll get around to reading that book" books. More later when I've processed it some more.

I also got around to watching a film that has been on the list for a while: The Fisher King. After watching it, I'm certain that I've seen a few clips before, but I've never watched it. I enjoyed it immensely, and it served as an interesting viewing after having read the aforementioned book.

It's a good week pubski friends. I raise my bottle in your general direction

I finished this last night.

I don't really finish paintings, as much as paint until painting more ceases to make sense. This one is fairly large (3'x4'), and is on canvas. This is the first time I've painted on canvas. I prefer wood. Canvas has a texture and a bounce that seems to work against you rather than with you. Most paintings provide a bit of insight. This one helped me recognized that Neo-Megilp is very good for final lighting effects. Basically, I thin the paint, and work over the shadows and highlights with blues, greens, yellows, etc. You can't see it, but you can sense when it is there and when it is not.

My next painting is going to be on wood, and it will be smaller.

I ran for the first time since cutting off my fingertip several weeks ago. It throbbed a bit, but it wasn't as bad as I had dreaded it might be. The cold bothered it more than the exercise. I also did some push-ups. I am currently switching between my left middle finger and my shortened index finger as I type this. My brain definitely needs to be re-trained.

I've been doing a lot of purging of stuff at home. Some things were trash, some donated, and a couple giveaways on Craigslist. I still have some vacuum tubes to offload and need to call a local guy back about them. He owns a HiFi shop and is into old tubes. I'm keeping the ones that fit my amps but he can have the rest.

My spare bedroom is almost usable again, with most of my hiking stuff now making its way into the closet.

I found my old PlayStation 2 which I never used much and don't have a way of hooking up anymore. It feels weird to donate it, but it's sat in a shoebox for years. Better for the humane society thrift shop to get $10 for it and for someone to enjoy it than for me to hold onto it.

This started because I bought a new bike trainer and needed space to set it up. So now I'm one of those dorks on Zwift. Hills and the overall experience on Zwift are way better than any other indoor trainer I've used, but you still can't really coast.

It's so fucking banal to be politics obsessed right now, and yet I can't stop myself. There will be no cure for this until Jan 20 goes as it should, which appears to be the likeliest outcome, although still one among several possibilities. I read today about John Adams's refusal to attend Jefferson's inauguration, and the near civil war that the 1800 election sparked, complete with Federalists calling up militias in Pennsylvania and Virginia to counter the Republicans' attempted subversion of the vote. Although I was already basically familiar with the story, that provided some needed context, because at least it shows there's nothing new under the sun. I keep telling myself that Moscow Mitch hates Trump, too, and that his ruse is nothing more than a really underhanded get-out-the-vote effort in GA, but I don't think he understands the fire he's playing with. Or maybe I don't. Hopefully it's me. Anyway, just ignore this comment if you're sick of politics. I just need a void to spew into. I'm sure a lot of people do, so as always, big ups to mk for providing us one.

Here's a really interesting case-study in "Why Facebook is Terrible" and "Why Large Facebook Groups Are Killing The Planet" and "Why Digital Advertising Will Ruin You":

Real talk: I'm seriously contemplating shutting down this group. This is not a threat, just the reality of my free labor situation. I will continue my daily reporting of dining information on my website and I will keep all social media related to <Removed>, except for this endeavor, this Facebook group that sucks so much of my time, it's unreal. It's become an unwieldy labor burden I don't know that I want to continue.

BACK STORY

I started a dining website in 2019 called <Removed>. This Facebook group is an extension of my website, of course.

MY LABOR

I spend 15 hours a week writing and reporting stories for my website and managing my other <Removed> social media. I spend 15 hours a week managing and moderating this group, which has become a major time suck.

THE PROBLEM

When this group was smaller, I had a much higher click-through rate. That gave me tangible rewards that made the labor I put into this group worth my labor.

THIS GROUP GOT TOO BIG, AND NOT ENOUGH OF YOU READ MY CONTENT

With 14,000 members, you'd think I'd have a big click-through to my website? Well, you'd be wrong. That number has plummeted to 1 percent. I do A-B testing in the group. I'll post a story here, and only here, to measure the click-through rate to my website. The results have been disappointing to me considering the amount of time I spend moderating and upkeep in this group.

MY READERSHIP OUTSIDE THIS GROUP

I get so much readership outside this group. My click through from my other social media, which I spend almost no time managing, is amazing and is carrying my website and my efforts at this point. But this group? You are not giving me enough support.

WHY NOT GET ADMIN HELP FOR THIS GROUP?

The legal entanglements of my website and social media brand mean I will not be handing off this group to anyone or having admins help in the group. I cannot, for legal and branding reasons, have anybody else manage anything related to my website unless they are an employee. And, welp, I can't even afford to pay myself, let alone an employee.

HOW YOU CAN ENSURE I KEEP THIS GROUP GOING

I'm giving myself 90 days to see if this turns around. January 2021, I'll be making some decisions.

I want to be clear that there are ways you can help me and my mission of broadcasting the good news about dining in <Removed> that will make my labor here worthwhile. Two are free. One is a donation. They are:

1. Click on all my stories at <Removed>. There's real value to my website in that. The more people who read my stuff, the higher Google pushes my site on search results, and more people will see the good news about dining in <Removed>. Then, I'll feel I get something tangible from 15 hours of labor a week in this group. My labor outside this group has paid off because my readership stats right now are where I was at in year eight of running my last dining blog for the local newspaper. But the people who are doing all the work to help me broadcast my devotion to dining in <Removed>? They're not in this group.

2. Share my stories. Social shares by YOU improve my ranking for social media distribution and will result in higher readership. Facebook's algorithm favors content creators who get more shares. You can't share from a private group (Facebook's rules, not mine), so if you want this group to continue, go to my other Facebook page, <Removed>, and share my stories from there.

3. Put your money where your mouth is. Like my content? Then send some cash my way to keep my operation going. Patreon is where you can contribute. Between income taxes and platform fees, I make about 50 percent of earnings through your pledge, but it's better than nothing and I like that Patreon handles the transactions and taxing so I don't have to. Patreon pays for my hosting, web, platform and design software fees, my licensing and business fees. I don't accept advertising on my website because it violates the ethics codes all journalists follow, so Patreon is the only way I earn money for my labor. <Removed>

This has been a PSA. Carry on. I am turning off commenting because this isn't a debate, a call-to-action for arguments, or anybody needing to wax my ego, or an invitation for trolling. This is REAL TALK about whether or not this group continues and what you can do to help ensure this group is worth the labor I invest in it.

I'm reading a lot about financial planning and investing lately. Feel like I'm now in the place where it would be good to get my ducks in a row and think seriously about things like buying a house or dividend investments or not. Most of the landscape is either FIRE-self-immolation-BS, written by and for boomers, scammers or idiots. There's gotta be a financial strategy out there for millenials like me that's doesn't include either "adulting" or "inheritance tax", and I'm bound to find it and/or build it.

Tusks everywhere

Camano Island Roasters is doing gift boxes. So I decide I'm getting my dad coffee for christmas. Question is, which house gets packages better? I shipped him some colossal prawns about ten years back and they were straight up stolen by the post office. So I call him. He picks up the phone and immediately hangs it up again, his signal for "I'm taking a nap fuck off". yes he has Caller ID.

So I call my sister to get an answer. Turns out power's out at my childhood home, land of tusks. Apparently my dad's solution to GR is to make it harder to squat. But now of course we've got a house in a mountain town in November with no power under the tender care of a chronically depressed 79 year old alcoholic. So we come up with a plan - her husband's a contractor and we're going to take the temperature to see about him going out and assessing what its' going to take to get 40 years of garbage out of the place, rehab it and get it ready for tenants. 'cuz fuck, a better solution to "your rogue common-law-stepson is cooking meth in the kitchen" is "make it not his kitchen" not "make him bring a putt putt." I'm unsure why this assessment was mine to make. No I'm not. I cope by remembering. My sister copes by forgetting.

It's all so annoyingly academic, though. NM is a common-law state, which means the stepmom gets everything, unless my dad wrote a will saying she doesn't, in which case there's a will, which I've been previously requested not to contest. So really I'm attempting to protect assets that aren't mine, be a good neighbor to people I will never interact with, attempt to do the civil thing for a town that actively hunted me like a criminal because of an old Mormon's grudge. So I'm grappling with the instincts to "be a good son" to people who were never good parents and aren't particularly remorseful about it.

My mother sent me a two page memoir of her mother. It contained a number of facts that do not jive with what I heard from multiple relatives growing up. She attached a note asking if I wanted to read more. I answered in the affirmative and my mother told me she wasn't going to write it anymore because it was too upsetting. Then she called me up on my birthday to accuse me of editing this document to reflect that my grandmother had been caught in flagrante dilecto with her anthropology professor. She was quite accusatory and angry and didn't humor the notion that I am incapable of editing a document on her computer. A week later she called again and asked me to send the document on to my sister "without the edits". She can't send it herself because when she opens her computer it's full of strange marks all over the page. "show edit marks" within Word was broached but that clearly wasn't the problem. So she's still angry at me. Meanwhile my father is taking a nap every time I call. Phone goes up, phone goes down, dial tone.

I sent him fuckin' coffee anyway.

I've been in an extra nostalgic mood lately. Maybe it's because there is nothing concrete to look forward to? I've been looking over old pictures quite a bit. Writing, and considering learning some basic code to make a non-wordpress website. One of those low-tech JSON blog type things. But I'm not sure i have anything worthwhile enough to say, that it deserves a special place on the internet as opposed to my notebook. Could be a cool winter project.

I had a thought recently, about maybe wanting to learn a martial art? I feel I haven't been active enough in my recent years, and would benefit having a regular exercise routine. I used to walk a lot - especially when traveling. And bike to work and around town all summer. Less so now that I don't have places to go.

I'm really dreading the winter, even if we bough ski passes. Something about the sun setting early, the coming cold and confinement makes me feel like i'm stuck. Like time is passing me by, and i'm not moving forward.