Local Politics We had ~10% turnout in our city commission primary. Whoooooh. Fucking Kobach. Everyone I voted for made the cut for the general, so that's nice. I suspect both of the incumbents will keep their seats, which means one of my choices probably won't get elected in the general. I hope Stumblingbear gets a seat, he's been the one taking affordable housing the most seriously thus far. Reading I'm now 30% of the way through Wealth of Nations. I get why no one reads this now. It's inconvenient. Both from a length perspective, and from our popular notions of what it says versus what it actually says. Darkwater: Voices from Within the Veil is also short and good. It is balancing out Wealth nicely. I have mixed feelings about these matte paperback book covers, though. Some of them hold up fine, but some of 'em (thinking about my copy of Land of Lisp here) hold up like shit. Union Trying to come up with suggestions for the contract negotiation suggestion meeting this weekend. So far, everything I have is stuff they won't want to hear: that is, stuff that would require active involvement on their part, not passive benefits. I.e. stuff to grieve when the company violates it. Bread My sourdough starter is... done. Tried sleeping it in the fridge while it was so hot out, but then I forgot about it. Tastes off now. Oh well, they mostly just cost time to start. Maybe I'll get that mill soon.
I read "Wealth of Nations" while at business school many years ago. I find it weird how often people will say something is leftist when in fact it is something Adam Smith would be fully supportive of (for example government intervention to ensure net neutrality). Or they believe capitalism leads to the opposite conclusion of what Smith actually advocated or warned about (e.g. Citizens United). So many today proclaim they are fervent followers of capitalism, yet have an incredibly poor understanding of this philosophy and the founding tract of Adam Smith. Your post made me order the book so I can read it again.
Yeah, it's quite weird to realize that the Dems are actually the most capitalist party right now. And also to realize how far removed the Libertarians (and most Republicans) are from capitalism.
Lol, nah. It was on a flyer when I was looking for inspiration, and I've always liked the saying "still waters run deep".
Packing up the hard cases tonight and mounting them on the motorcycle. Tomorrow I ride in to work, and - instead of riding home - I point the wheel south and head for California. It's my 30th high school reunion this weekend, in San Francisco. (Well, Mill Valley, actually, but most people don't know where that is.) And I'm riding my motorcycle down to attend the festivities. It's not that I have a lot of affection for my old high school class. I don't. I went to that school for 2 years, and then never looked back. It was fine. I had a lot of friends. But I'm only excited to see three or four people: My high school sweetheart and her boyfriend (both good friends of mine), and my old bass player and drummer from various high school bands. The bass player now plays for Jane's Addiction, and the drummer is the pilot of SpaceX's Dragon spacecraft. So I KNOW I'm gonna have a lot of fun chatting with those guys! I'm also going to my friend Jay's magic theater, the Marrakech Magic Theater, to see the late show on Friday. He's been a professional magician/mentalist for close to 30 years, and now he has a permanent theater and show! Getting to see him (and his family the next day) is going to be fantastic, and I hear the food is as good as the show. So yeah. Jumping on the bike and riding off into the distance, tomorrow. Whee!
thenewgreen lent me Pedro Páramo by Juan Rulfo for the plane yesterday. It is a wonderfully melancholy book. In describing it, I related to a friend that it is 'breath and death'. It's practically a meditation on the inescapable pull of death and how that mocks us all. Probably not the best read while preparing for a longevity talk.
I don't remember the last time I checked in. What was going on. I was in a sober living program for a month. It was incredibly heavy on AA. Which I've gone back to thinking is awful cultish folk medicine and anyone helped by it is helped in spite of it, not due to any therapeutic value it possesses. I might get back to that opinion or save it for its own post. I got in a monstrous blow out with my girlfriend. And the thought of going back to sober living, which was full of fucking meatheads who would have called me a pussy whipped fag if they I told them I was upset about a woman, was worse than moving into the YMCA. Me and my girlfriend made up pretty quickly and she told me I could move in with her. And when her ex husband found out I was near their daughter, he went apeshit and refused to let her see her daughter. He's been stalking my social media for a while and said he doesn't trust me because I wrote about my depression in a Medium article he found that I wrote. Despite him threatening suicide if my girlfriend doesn't remarry him. I thought I'd contact him in the most respectful way I could. That he'd respect the fact that I reached out and put aside my ill will. Nope. He wants to murder me now. Well still is probably more accurate. I pissed my girlfriend off so much she wanted to break up with me. Which she didn’t do but now we have to bend over backwards to placate this homicidal psychopath. So fucked up. And there's other details I didn't mention. I guess this is what happens when you get in a relationship with a divorcee who's ex is abusive. I don't know....
Alive and well. I got a job at a veterinarian. I get some money for playing with dogs. And scooping poop. It doesn't pay enough to support me at all even at 40 hours. It's called a "recovery job" by some. But my girlfriend still loves/supports /trusts me. For some reason... Would not blame her for leaving at all. I love her so much. 😥 Also I now use emojis because of her. Meh. 😐
I'm feeling beat up and sounding like a broken record but, man, I just don't feel recovered from that backpacking trip. Think I caught something that put me down for the first week or two and now my musculoskeletal system just doesn't feel like cooperating. Managed to run 7 miles yesterday but am feeling the consequences today. A slow 7 miles at that. Looks like it's time to start building again...sigh... Had an idea for a podcast. After finding and posting that "Bears Eating Moths" article, I think it would be neat to have a 30 minute, twice a month, podcast intended for radio and internet distribution covering one to two environmental/nature/conservation topics. Working with others in these fields such as master Arborists, environmental sustainability folks, people who maintain and work on campgrounds/hiking trails/etc., beekeepers, so on and so forth. In addition, pairing a small themed playlist with each episode. It's probably just another idea that I won't follow-up on because of everything else that's going on.
I GOT AN INTERVIEW FOR TOMORROW MORNING WISH ME LUCK! Wish me luck. Just the usual chat over coffee but first impressions are everything! I'm reading about the company's domain and their competitors... I don't want to give away any details but now feels like a good time to be moving into this industry. Anxiety has been bad as ever. Mitigated slightly by using some novel and fun technology at work but generally not great. I should quit coffee. MORE SLEEP. and getting to work early. I need to become much more in tune with what makes me feel good and what makes me feel bad.
I started a blog, then ended up spending all my time on optimizing the technical aspect of it rather than writing content for it. I've basically learned the basics of web development and Nginx hosting. Now I'm thinking about moving from Wordpress to Hugo so I can have the site statically generated, and maybe trying my hand at making my own super lightweight theme. All for a blog that has a total of 1 article.
This website doesn't work for me in Firefox, lol I prefer things more along the lines of https://bestmotherfucking.website
Houses I've joked a few times with Dala that maybe we ought to just buy a plot of land, dig a big hole, throw a tarp over it, and call it a house. Last night I had a dream I was in a log cabin, like you see in movies or travel commercials, but a little nicer, like one you could live in year round. It had big flat rocks for the floor spread out and filled in with mortar. The walls were made out of massive, dark logs and the mortar in between them looked very rough but very solid. It was a nice little place. I woke up this morning kind of wishing I lived there. Not enough that I'd actually go out and have a log cabin built, but enough to where it's a really pleasant thought. Movies If and when we ever do get our own place, provided there's ample street parking, I'm starting a film club. My living room. Surround sound. At least a 45" television. I'll learn to cook so I can make and serve dinner to everyone, the dog can come and go as she pleases and enjoy people's company, and it'll be awesome. I'm gonna show good, classy shit, like Kurosawa and Cohen Brothers and Chuck Jones and such. Watched On the Waterfront for the first time in about five years yesterday. It's good. I forgot how sloppy the ending felt though. The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly One of my buddies the other day asked me if I'd recommend The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly to him. I called him up to tell him the movie in general is absolutely great, but pointed out a few things to him that would make it easier for him to watch since this is generally not his kind of movie. I'd figure I'd share them here cause I think they're actually good tips. 1) It's a much slower paced movie than the summer block busters you're used to. If you were having trouble appreciating the slow unfolding of Hard Boiled, you'll have trouble appreciating the slow unfolding of this film. That's okay. This is just that different kind of movie. There's a decent chance your mind might wander. To combat this, watch the movie in two parts. When Blondie and Tuco get captured by the Union Soldiers, have that as a cliffhanger. Take a break and watch the rest of the movie later that night or the next day. 2) The movie is dubbed. Yes, I know all of the actors speak English, but it's dubbed anyway because Italian cinema. At first, this makes the movie seem kind of cartoony, but after a few scenes you'll actually appreciate it because it gives the characters a subtle, ghostly quality that adds a sort of otherwordly accentuation to everything they say. 3) Pay attention to the scenery and landscape surrounding the characters. It's an unspoken antagonist that's constantly trying to kill Blondie and/or Tuco or at the very least, impede their progress. Sergio Leone spends a lot of time and effort to illustrate that and it works really well. 4) Appreciate Leone's extreme close ups. They're very artistic.
(A) if you can get the money together for a piece of land, putting a cob house or lean-to or geodome or any of the other cheap forms of housing becomes much more attainable. Also, you can do it in your spare time while paying rent somewhere in the city or whatever. Look into the permaculture and homesteading subcultures because they're both populated by cheap-ass dreamers without any particular need for luxury. (B) televisions are cheap these days and surround systems are cheaper. I put a 50" 4K in the birth center for $550 and the surround rig, which has legit in-walls, was like $400. Home-theater-in-a-box systems can be had for under $150. Just make it cool with your roommates and start doing the hosting thing - even if all you have is a shitty 19" television and a nine year old DVD player. Don't wait on stuff to do things with people. (C) one of my favorite movies is The Terrorist which was shot MOS and overdubbed (not well). So in addition to being subtitled from Tamil it's also over-timed colorwise and has this really sloppy slip between lips and sound. It makes for a trance-like viewing experience.
I'm kind of serious about doing this. I'm not quite ready, but the more I look at it, the more I like it. There's an intriguing plot about 30 minutes north of town. I should email the realtor and ask if they know if it's buildable.if you can get the money together for a piece of land
You can learn a lot simply by looking at what the zoning codes are, what the setbacks are, what the wetlands protections are and where the utilities are. The realtor should be able to give you where all the utilities are; that certainly adds expense but isn't insurmountable. The USDA, if I recall correctly, has all sorts of floodplain info as well as what sort of soil type you have there and what you can grow. My experience has been that places that look too good to be true tend to be. I was looking at one spot that didn't sell despite having dozens of acres of land... turns out the dwelling was within the 100-year floodplain and was effectively red-tagged by county code (no permits would ever be issued for improvements or expansion). I was looking at another that claimed there was ample room for subdivision... turns out the structure itself was within wetlands protection zones and could never be expanded (let alone subdivided). I was looking at still another that looked all kinds of great... until i discovered that the previous owner had cut down a lot of trees and the entire property was out of compliance with county code such that it had an entail of $500/day fines stretching back to 2011. But all this shit is free to learn and will teach you more and more about what you like and what you don't and what you want to see. You'll excuse me if that was incoherent. The margarita plan won out.
That was very coherent. Thank you. This is probably true about the one plot I was eyeing. Six acres across the road from the Wisconsin River. But it's very up hill. I suspect it's not buildable due to access issues. A road abuts the property, but the slope looks steep on topography maps.My experience has been that places that look too good to be true tend to be
I've stayed at the Songdog Ranch many times, and the ranch house is a two story house built out of hay bales covered with mud. So digging a hole in a ground and covering it with a tarp? Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Or you could get your home delivered.
I've been reading a lot about Whiteness and how to see it. I have this idea in my head for a website, but I just started a new budget with my wife so I don't pay for hosting and don't want to pay for the WP plugin I would need. I'm still going to try to organize the information in a spreadsheet though and make the concept for free. If it works out, maybe I'll splurge.
I'm still shopping around but I'm looking for a timeline. Essentially I want to be able to show the evolution of the concept of whiteness in different realms - social, legal, scientific, and political. So the top of the page talks about the two fish who end up asking "what's water", and how that question is parallel to the people who ask "what's whiteness?" The timeline would start under that in antiquity with the greeks who categorized people as citizens and non-citizens. As you scrolled down you would get more information on when the five races were defined and given hierarchy, or when laws were signed to change the definition of white from caucasian to light skinned european. By the end, the challenge to the reader is for them to understand their whiteness and its impact on their identity, and to discover what their identity is when divorced from whiteness. I think I can do all this in WP and there's a plugin I have my eye on, but it nickle and dimes you for features. Plus I'm a bit of an impulse buyer on projects like this, so I want to do the spreadsheet first and commit to the hard part of the project (the research and writing) before investing in the fun part.
Get Aeon Timeline. I use it extensively for all kinds of timelines. No, it isn't a blog or web site, but it will help you lay out your story, define the important relationships, and basically story-edit your idea down until you can get it into a presentable format. Presentation methods are a dime a dozen. Figuring out the essential story you want to tell, is the hard part, where the majority of the work needs to happen.
I have a server to play with if you don't want to pay for hosting, but that's just hosting. WP plugins cost an arm and a leg over time.
Today I finally went over my business stuff with a friend of mine who's going to school for accounting. Last month I bought a subscription to this accounting thing and felt like an idiot- it's a web app that makes invoicing really easy to use, but my fear of money and not doing a good enough job to deserve money made it feel like the app was mocking me for not being able to use it, plus I had blown more money to subscribe to the app. Sometimes I remember that Britney Spears doesn't have autonomy over her own adulting matters, and I think to myself, Britney Spears is my spirit animal. Today I finally got to a friend who was going to school to accounting to help me face my business fears. She went through and helped me make a few practice invoices and organized my stuff into the invoicing app's boxes and fear stopped being the mind killer it was and the fear became... fun? Things are so clear now. My friend is also going to help manage my to-do lists and keep me accountable for timing myself and doing things in the right order. I also just got a business licence for thefuture.design under a sole proprietor! Tomorrow I'll set up a business bank account so I can really keep things organized. I'm a little annoyed that my friend won't accept a cut of things, I really feel like this is the single best thing that has happened to me all summer, hell, all year. I'm going to surprise her at work with a chai latte tomorrow. A load has been lifted off of me, and it's a rollercoaster to describe. I think it starts with Catholic guilt. Then it goes into a love of learning and the love of a job well done. Then starts the isolation of autodidacism, the pang of specializing in things there are no tutorials for. Rolling your own culture, rolling your own mess of a career.. Imposter syndrome. Bikeshedding and constant self-justification. Glorification of the wrong parts. Saying yes to every project that people want you to do. Leaving a lot of things unfinished. Shame, and Catholic guilt. Things are clearer now? Yes. I still have a lot to do. Also, if you use the referral code "WEEWOO-IS-A-SHILL" for And.co I'll throw in this fucking spatula.
Learn Quickbooks. It will make you feel like you deserve the money. Not only that but should you ever be in a position where you are making money, Quickbooks will allow you to continue to earn it. AND when you are making enough money that you actually have to pay taxes on it and shit you just give your quickbooks file to your accountant, because all accountants use Quickbooks. Lisbeth Salander didn't have autonomy over her own adulting matters either and she's a much better spirit animal.
Hey, just a little unsolicited offer - my wife just started her own business and has a lot of the same worries you've voiced - not being worth what you're charging, getting taxes and accounting in order, etc. - if you ever want to talk through some stuff she or I would be happy to chat.
Thank you so much! I'm currently on the upturn right now, but I won't hesitate to ask if anything comes up.
Got home at 1:30, got up at 9 and washed and tuned the bike before I had my coffee so I could avoid the 100 degree heat today. Read 102 yesterday riding into work; it took me two bottles of gatorade before I felt normal and another three cans of Talking Rain before I had to pee. This despite drinking 48 oz of water with added electrolytes on the ride in. My helmet straps this morning looked like urban camo there was so much MeSalt on them. Hard to believe I did a 114 degree day last year, and that with only 40oz of water. The roommate bought a gallon of margarita mix, threw a fifth of tequila in it and tossed it in the fridge. It's entirely possible that I will spend the day hammered out of my mind and playing Horizon Zero Dawn. However, I should probably finish my coffee before I pour a margarita. Hitching a ride with said roommate into Beverly Hills tomorrow. He's got a dentist appointment and I want to look at stupidly expensive watches because while I don't know what sort of inventory they have, I know that Beverly Hills is the most likely concentration of stupidly expensive watches this side of Dubai. Speaking of, I've decided MB&F are the shiznit. I would love to charge $75k for shit like this: Because of course you're going to charge $5000 for a print of an E-jag whose wheels have been photoshopped away. BTW ButterflyEffect we're going to Portland in November
It was 105 here today. Not very Portland like at all. Took the wife and kid to Ape Cave lava tube. The climbs were a bit challenging for inexperienced adults but my six year old conducted herself like a tough little pro. We had to hand her down a few rock features but she walked/climbed most the way herself. Best part was that the cave was around 48 degrees.
Whoa. That's really cool. If it's a weekend I'm free count me in!
Waylaid in Cincinnati, hopefully ending up back in CT tonight. Made two shirts this week, but I don't feel like downloading the imgur app to my phone, so they'll be up later. Quite happy with both of them, and glad to be sewing again. First time in about 3 months.
I have a loose outline and notes for my trip/internship report. The onset of carpal tunnel is scaring me out of going ham on the keyboard (on my phone now), so I'm looking into dictation for the post and upcoming school year (last one!). Sadly, the pioneering of the ground source heat pump tech en masse installation is concentrated in NY for the time-being. There's a couple local businesses in the area that do as much, on my to-do list for getting some informational interviews in with them. The research professors in clean energy at my uni are all heavily invested in solar tech.
Wassup from Portsmouth, NH. Caved last week and drove all the way to summer camp from Providence (7h drive) for like 36h of fun with friends and Alex. A kid we kicked out of camp like 5 years ago for bringing weed (and being a general dick) showed up at night with wine and took off with the underage counselors. So we tried kicking him out again, while his girlfriend was hyperventilating, crying out "Why do you all hate my boyfriend ". He slipped trying to escape, dented his car and then called the police on us. Needless to say it was an eventful evening... My mom was disappointed I didn't stay to look at the pretty houses in Providence, but that will wait for the next time.