Kinda chaotic days recently. Lots on my shoulders that I can’t or don’t want to let go of. Irregular sleeping patterns are also throwing me off my balance at times. Exercising and reading is going great, despite the above, but tonight’s the first evening I don’t have anything that I planned or need to do. I want to write more - my paper hasn’t moved in weeks. In other news, I commissioned a cartoon artist to make a drawing of my D&D character. Because I think that’s fucking cool, that’s why. This is the first detailed sketch. Couldn’t be happier about it:
Yeah, it’s a bummer cgod is an awesome person. One of the very first hubskiers. I know mk has been in touch. I wouldn’t be superseded if we see him back again. I also would be very shocked if he felt any pressure from the “Portland social justice gestapo.” -cgod is not one to be bullied or pressured. Hes his own man.
It's been a while. Where am I? I'm 21 and can legally drink now, so that's neat. Also not an RA so I can drink shamelessly. Graduating in December a semester early! Anyone hiring? Backpacked Europe for the entire summer a year ago. The blog layout sucks for some reason with no navigational ability. The final route ended up being Copenhagen -> Berlin -> Dresden -> Wroclaw -> Krakow -> Budapest -> Zagreb -> Sarajevo -> Dubrovnik -> Skopje -> Ohrid -> Athens -> Paros -> Santorini -> Naxos -> Split -> Pula -> Venice -> Bologna -> Ravenna -> Florence -> Parma -> Milan -> Back to Copenhagen -> Stockholm -> Narvik -> Oslo -> Prague -> Vienna -> Prague -> Home. Truly a life changing experience. Krakow, Sarajevo, and Ohrid were my three favorite places, wonderful people, incredible histories, and so few tourists mobbing about. Absolutely wonderful. Santorini was my least favorite. Shopping mall on an island. The other Greek islands, Paros and Naxos were fabulous though. Lots of pictures on my poorly laid out blog. Going to two concerts soon, Portugal. the Man and Reignwolf, about a week and a half apart. Yesterday I went to my first ever therapy intake. Holy fuck that sucked. Hopefully it will help some. Have been putting it off for like 6.5 years or so...
And he just released an album yesterday. Hear Me Out. I hesitate to call it an album, its not even half an hour in length, but it's a start. nowaypablo if you care as well.
Yeah it's a great album. Shame it's not longer.
Been listening to it all week. Love some of the tracks like Cops and Robbers. edit: woops I thought we were talking about Shakey Graves. Reignwolf's new record is also dope!!
Yeah it's really disappointing too cause he is so talented. He released a new song like a week ago but that's pretty much all he's done in a few years. Part of the reason I'm so excited to see him is because he doesn't release much.
https://www.businessinsider.com/stem-cell-freezing-longevity-silicon-valley-new-york-2018-9 ^this new “fat” product is finally launched. We have been working very hard on this. Have a read :) great work mk and ecib! I’m headed to Nashville atm for some stem cell bankings. So much happening.
It's day 22 of Korea. It's been hectic and busy and the time difference makes me feel like I'm on another planet (16 hours ahead of the American left coast, 13 the right). The only update I've made to people back home (besides the near daily calls and texts with family) is one instagram post. I'm not sharing much because I feel the pictures and captions so inadequate to the experience, which has been a galaxy of stimulation. The food is superb, going out so cheap, the countryside so beautiful, the places we visit filled with design features the result of considerations wholly foreign to me. And the people, both natives and exchange students, throw my Americanness into sharp relief. I thought most Germans were pissed at me for some reason but it's actually got nothing to do with me (I think). One Scandinavian said "I'm having the best time of my life" without so much as a change in facial expression. One more anecdote: Koreans love drinking. Holy fucking shit. At the orientation every single student club that presented to the assembled exchange students said "And we drink all the time. On the weekends, on the weekdays, on the holidays, on the Mondays." For crying out loud, the Buddhist Club has a weekend binge-drinking event for new students. And soju, the rice spirit that everyone drinks, is about $1.25 a bottle. Despite all the distractions/adventures/food for thought, I'm still not free of the mental burdens I bore back home. The fact that I feel like I'm without people who know and understand me, that I don't need permission to hang out or be with. I thought maybe I'd escape that by being someplace radically different. But we carry it with us. It's an internal resolution that I haven't found yet. I'm still learning to be whole wherever and whenever I am. Tonight I join the Art Club for, you guessed, an alcohol-fueled "Mentorship Training".
It's very easy to (consciously or subconsciously) feel like travelling (running away) is the answer. In my experience, it even works at first-- the newness of somewhere foreign beats out old pain. But the latter creeps back in, and either we deal with it, or we run further away. I'm trying to work through my burdens too. Write a PM if you ever want to talk.Despite all the distractions/adventures/food for thought, I'm still not free of the mental burdens I bore back home. The fact that I feel like I'm without people who know and understand me, that I don't need permission to hang out or be with. I thought maybe I'd escape that by being someplace radically different. But we carry it with us. It's an internal resolution that I haven't found yet. I'm still learning to be whole wherever and whenever I am.
Greetings from Chicago. Let's go look at some machine tools. American Airlines is an abomination. There were people nearly getting into fistfights with the flight attendant because they wanted to sit in better seats than the ones they were assigned and then as soon as the door closed he was all "sit wherever you want! THUNDERDOME BITCHEZ" and peaced out. There were like three people vaping close enough to me that I smelled it and fuckin' hell I work in LA and live in Seattle and Chicagoans are sparky. My new favorite hobby is watching "epic" "amazing" "unforgettable" movies my cinematographer buddies recommend to me in the worst format possible, IE, the back of an airline seat because fuck them and their utter disregard for story, acting, or anything other than "look how neutral the halftones are." Wolf of Wall Street is a piece of shit, as is Dunkirk.
been meaning to go to that, saw something similar in houston a few years ago. sargent is pretty underrated. is it mostly portraits, or does it include his later stuff? i can't really get into portraits. why can't i get into portraits? someone send me a cool portrait, not counting veen's d&d character
If I have time to buy a slice of deep-dish pizza I will declare victory. I have been dealing with trade shows for 20 years. I can burn through NAMM, NAB, InfoCOMM, NSCA in a day, and then go back through for another day for cleanup. This monster? I spent 7 hours and barely got through one of five halls.
Work switched over from Microsoft to G Suite. it's been a trip, let me tell you. They released several paragraphs about how they believe G Suite is poised to become the industry leader for productivity software (never mind that none of the people with those beliefs are actually tech people - we're a bank, remember) and admitted in the last sentence G Suite is also cheaper. As far as I can figure it's like 50% cheaper. So yeah I can't totally fault them on doing what they did considering other circumstances but just quit with the BS, man. I'm reading Prayer for Owen Meany. I wanted to read Ciderhouse Rules first, which I swearswearswearswear SWEAR I have a copy of, but can't find. And couldn't find at either of the two bookstores or two libraries I visited. And I didn't want to wait until whoever checked it out from the only library in my country who has it to return it to continue reading as a whole, so Owen Meany it is. So far, Owen Meany is a strange book. A bit more fantastical than most of the other Irvings I've read so far, it feels like. I have to watch Vertigo this week, it's a friend-assignment. I'm looking forward to the time when I sit down and do it. I know I've watched pieces of it, but I don't think I've ever seen the whole thing in one go. Can't remember it, at least. Halloween approaches! Tis the season. I had another friend who called me combative for apologizing to her. We're not gonna be friends any more. This is the same person who told me a headshrinker was specifically a psychiatrist, a doctor who prescribes drugs, and definitely did not mean anything else such as a a counselor or a psychologist or a therapist. And when she did even though I knew she was right I didn't take a screenshot of the definition of this SLANG WORD, btw, so right off we know it has variable meanings, and send it to her because I was being an adult and having friends and not petty. I couldn't sleep til 3 am ln after our disagreement and I just don't need to spend my time having pointless conversations that end in me trying my best to be patient and smooth over disagreements in the interest of friendship and getting called combative for it. I hope I don't sound too negative. Life is still and again mostly pretty good and I continue to try and make it and myself better. I went on a date this past Friday -- we seem to have mutually decided we're not interested, but hey, I went on a date! That's trying. That's more than I have been. (The problem may be that I'm not really interested in dating at all. If that's the truth, it's not a problem, really -- just something I need to realize about myself and accept.)
Re: cheaper business choices We're working on reducing our budgets. The company has long provided Starbucks coffee in the break rooms. Early this year they emailed us with an email that amounted to "Good news! We're replacing the premium coffee with the store brand of our vendor! It gets better; for those of you who want other choices, we're putting in Keurig machines! And we're so green we're going to collect the cups for recycling. Yay environment!" Like, wow. Not much is more environmental than a small bag that makes a huge pot of coffee. The k-cups are an environmental disaster even if you recycle them. Just say it like it is: we can save $40,000 a year with the generic coffee. We aren't stupid. That's forty grand of raises or benefits or something that won't get cut. Just be straightforward. I actually don't mind the store brand coffee.
Lol raises what is this 1970? CEO bonuses additional management and shareholder value is where it’s all going. Coffee going away is a really bad sign because the perceived benefit value is much higher than the cost. I bet you won’t le have to pay employees a couple more thousand a year to have comparable value to the employee. Something about being fucked over on coffee every morning has always made me a bit annoyed with my employer.
My business has raises as part of the standard yearly review package. If you don’t get a raise you ranked as not meeting standards. So ymmv. My company is lorg. Cutting to Gmail may have saved $100k/year or more. For appropriate context, my company is significantly lorger than at least 90% if the companies google lists as adopters of gsuite when you go to research on its website. And no, it’s not a listed company.
We actually have raises! If I remember my starting salary correctly, my pay has exceeded inflation, though my skill and value to the company have increased in that time. I'm not bothered by the fact if changing the coffee. The reason behind the budget squeeze isn't hidden and seems reasonable to me. What bothered me was the tone. They tried to spin it like a benefit. I think it was just one over stimulated person in the facilities group and not a trend, but we'll see.
The most agile, efficient, and professional company I ever worked for had committed entirely to the G Suite of tools. It's amazing how efficient and clear all communication is when you strip out all the stupid in PowerPoint, Excel, and Word, and make people's IDEAS stand in the forefront. It makes decisions so much easier! And it enforces a stripped-down look and feel to all communications. Put your idea out there in a field of white space. If it's a good idea, people will get it. If not, they won't get swayed by animated transitions and colorful backgrounds and all the bullshit of Microsoft's America. But everyone has to commit to it. I do not have high hopes for your banking peers. This is gonna suck. --- Owen Meaney. I still can't get that book out of my head. It pisses me off, and I'll be interested to hear what you have to say about it when you are done.
Once again I am the Millennial expert, lol. A lot of people have lost a lot of productivity and time. While I can understand it, when my manager asked how it went for me, I said, "My thought is that Gmail is not Outlook and my goal in switching is not to make Gmail like Outlook in any way. I'm just going to use it and see what works for me." I've been in the industry for 8 years working with the same set of software the whole time - microsoft. I'm the youngest person in my department. There are a few others around my age, but there are also many others who literally know nothing except Microsoft and that's what they have been using at every job for 15, 20, 25 years. I have gmail at home and have used Gsheets, Gdocs, drive, etc. A lot of people never have. I'm not a fan of the decision and some decisions Google makes about how to organize certain features of their products baffle me...why isn't the "Settings" icon consistent, for instance - in gmail and hangouts it's a gear in the upper righthand corner, for some reason in Chrome you can only get there by hitting the 3 vertical dots -- but I can live with it. It's familiar. It's not totally unknown to me. I totally understand why for a lot of people it's just going to be incredibly difficult to transition. I'm glad I'm not as bad as them, at least. I don't pretend to be a technology loving expert. also the way my company is transitioning just sucks as well. they're trying to make chrome our default browser but there are applications that simply do not work in chrome, only IE, and even with chrome add-ons designed to mimic IE chrome does not work. We're being forced into disorganized and confusing situations in places.
Not even knowing which bank you work for, I am almost certain a good part of your IT department's motivation is "if the applications start breaking because our users have migrated away from IE, management will have to give us the resources to replace the bullshit intranet apps that have been the bane of our existence since the consultants responsible moved on and left us with their steaming pile of ASP back in 2001."also the way my company is transitioning just sucks as well. they're trying to make chrome our default browser but there are applications that simply do not work in chrome, only IE, and even with chrome add-ons designed to mimic IE chrome does not work. We're being forced into disorganized and confusing situations in places.
They’re vendor supplied apps and in talking to the Process development team today the understanding is that they won’t work in chrome and we won’t be spending the money to buy a version that will, basically. So no I don’t think it will push that kind of change.
Um. This scares the shit out of me, and I don't even know what bank you work for. I spent 3 years working at the pointy end of network security (F5 Networks), and assessing how our products, and our competitor's products, defended against an incredibly broad range of security threats. The ONE THING that enabled the vast majority of successful security breaches, was web apps running in Internet Explorer. The same app, running in Chrome, Firefox, Safari, etc., would not have the same security flaws. The simple fact that your app works in Internet Explorer and NOT in Chrome, is a deafening warning klaxon and flashing lights and alarms and explosions-off-in-the-distance-but-getting-closer-and-closer kind of warning that YOUR SHIT IS BROKE. Why? Because the fact the app won't work in Chrome means that the app is using some Microsoft-proprietary framework like ActiveX or .Net, to BYPASS PROPER SANDBOXING AND SECURITY and provide DIRECT ACCESS to the host computer's operating system. There is literally ZERO other reason for an app to work in IE but not in Chrome. (This is actually a "design feature" that MS used to sell. As a feature. Ability to bypass proper security permissions and rights systems, to get direct access to a protected resource. Of course, they called it something like, "Local resource speed optimizations!", but all they were doing was opening a back door to the club, and not even putting a bouncer on the door to check IDs.) I'm seeing the wisdom of bfv here... I think this project may have been forced by your panicked IT Department, who has been unable to make any progress with getting the IE app EOL'd. "... they're trying to make chrome our default browser but there are applications that simply do not work in chrome, only IE ..."
Google is not a company, not really; it's a loose confederation of warring business groups pretending to be a company. Don't think "country" think "Hanseatic league" or "the Pirate Coast." As such Hangouts looks like Hangouts, Chrome looks like Chrome, Gmail looks like Gmail, and the only thing uniting them are the Crayola Colors of the Company. I mean, Apple has iMessage. It works on desktop, it works on iOS. Google has so far tried - gChat - Wave - Hangouts - Allo - Duo ...and I'm still left in the position of texting from my laptop with a 3rd-party Haxie that works through a Chrome backdoor. At least Microsoft is all about Skype. They have no interest in making it work, but they have it.I'm not a fan of the decision and some decisions Google makes about how to organize certain features of their products baffle me...why isn't the "Settings" icon consistent, for instance - in gmail and hangouts it's a gear in the upper righthand corner, for some reason in Chrome you can only get there by hitting the 3 vertical dots -- but I can live with it. It's familiar. It's not totally unknown to me.
Literally impossible. There is something innate to the human spirit that demands that the real reasons for things always be as obscured as possible behind layers of spun sugar and cow dung. I suspect it has to do with confidence. There is a Rogan quote from his last special that encapsulates this well. just quit with the BS, man.
if you get ten really stupid people in a room, the most confident one just starts running shit. They don’t have to have any more information, they just have to be more confident. If you get a bunch of dummies together, they’re like, “I don’t know what’s going on.” “I don’t know what’s going on.” “I fucking do. I fucking do.” The guy doesn’t have to have any extra data, he just has to be the only one that’s confident.
The depression has keyed up. Depression impairs my ability to do things that make me feel good so I don't do them so I feel worse so I don't do things that make me feel good because depression impairs my ability to do those things so I don't do them and I end up struggling to decide if I'd rather eat or sleep because I need to do those things but they become hard because they make me feel good but sleeping is hard right now because it's 1PM but eating requires getting out of bed which sucks so fuck all of humanity. What did you assholes ever do for me? I'm gonna watch YouTube videos about the Hulk until I have to pee, then I might have a drink and then return to bed to think about things that I'm not doing that would make me feel better which will prevent me from sleeping, another thing that might make me feel better because it's not something I'm doing very well right now. "I thought Bruce Banner died during Civil War 2, a terrible event miniseries I'm aware of in passing! Better waste time on this mystery!" ...hours later... I guess I'll eat some Chef Boyardee because I ended up watching a video about him somehow after trying to figure out if She Hulk actually had sex with Juggernaut.
Thoughts: 1) I should be writing at this hour. I probably will after writing this. 2) I have to make phone calls in the morning. 3) I miss my grandfather. 4) I miss my life 4 years ago. 5) I have to pick up slack on so many different types of skills; it makes me tired just thinking about it. 6) Money is never going to fill the void(but it will pay for my favorite places); thinking of alcoholism/addiction as a disease is doing wonders for my creative process. 7) I keep using this site to drop poetry and I swear that it's helping me feel a bit better. 8) What I want to do has a lot of acronyms and I need to drill them into my head. But- if I do this right, this is going to make my 20s comfortable enough to start working on inventions. 9) Seriously. What is sleep? 10) I'm wondering when it's safe to start living an ascetic lifestyle again. ... I am going to go write.
Work is crazy busy right now. And I'm recording for my band. I've woke up in the middle of the night for the past week hearing that damn song play in my head. It's not going too badly though. I have a lead that an opportunity to get a mostly ideal position at my current institution may open up in the near future. Fingers crossed. I am reading Dune for the first time. Love it. I even loved the '84 movie, since when I first saw it I was a young kid and all the cheese and flaws were entirely lost on me. Now I can appreciate the cheesiness of the film and the grandeur of the book.
#swelection Stefan wants to talk to Jan and Annie who doesn't want to talk to Stefan. Jimmie wants to talk to Ulf, but he only wants to talk to Ebba, Jan and Annie. Nobody wants to talk to Jimmie or Jonas, but Stefan can still get support from Jonas, but then he can't talk to Jan or Annie because they don't want to talk to Jonas. If Ulf and Ebba were to talk to Jimmie then Annie and Jan would stop talking to Ulf and Ebba and instead start talking to Stefan, as long as Stefan stops talking to Jonas. Meanwhile, nobody is speaking to Gustav and Isabella who are just happy to still be here. I have a feeling this post-election posturing might go on for a while...
Going home for a wedding! First friend wedding I’ll ever have attended. No idea what you’re supposed to do at a wedding.
Make awkward conversation with people you'll never see again, mostly. I'm assuming your girl isn't coming with you, which means you fell into the "random stragglers" table because for some reason seating arrangements are this thing that brides are expected to obsess over so you end up with extremely precise chaos.
Yeah, unfortunately she isn't. That would have been nice. Do you get drunk? I feel like people mostly get drunk at weddings.
You get drink, and you motherfuckin dance, and because you're never going to see most of those people ever again you can do both with reckless impunity and it's pretty much the definition of a great time. Plus good food, and everybody's usually pretty happy. Enjoy yourself for sure.
Lol. This is soooo true. Flask is definitely the way to go. They may have jack daniels or Jim beam but they’ll not have anything good.
Dammit. Should have consulted with you before hand, didn't pack the flask. Rookie mistake.