Life My wife started a new job last week at the university! And my metamour (wife's girlfriend) moved in with us! Both good things but it's a lot of change at once that's been stressful. I found a good reading spot in the woods behind our house -- it's along an intermittent creek bed and has a bunch of huge boulders that are comfortable and cool even when it's hot out. There's just enough cell service to send texts which is perfect. Gardening We are trying to grow some tomatoes and peppers and basil this year. Yesterday I put up some chicken wire to keep rabbits and deer from eating the pepper plants -- I hope they make it; one is missing quite a few leaves. We also started some oregano, parsley, and chives from seeds. They're doing pretty well but aren't quite ready to go outside yet. I'm trying to sprout some jalapeno seeds too but those may not do anything...we'll see. There's a bunch of wild spicebush growing in the woods. The leaves smell heavenly when crushed up so I think I'm going to look up how to make tea from them. Apparently you can use the berries like allspice too? More life We live down a little gravel road off a state highway. Years and years ago there used to be a bridge over a creek a bit further past our house, but it has been out for so long that you can't even see where it used to be. The other side of our road connects to another state highway that goes to a town south of us. I guess taking our road would have saved a few miles over just following the state highways -- recently some GPS company twiddled some parameters of their algorithm and started routing semi trucks down our road since their maps don't know the bridge is out. Which is great except for there is nowhere for them to turn around -- they have to reverse over a mile until they reach a driveway big enough for them to three-point turn in. One night we're laying in bed just falling asleep -- it's maybe 1 AM or so -- and a semi truck comes down the road, stops at the gate across it, and starts reversing. We watch for a bit; he manages to get up to about where our driveway is. My wife says, "I wonder if we're going to have a mailbox in the morning" -- and immediately after we hear a drawn-out crunch as he runs over our mailbox. Well, alright then -- we get up, put on pants/boots/coats, get the gun (just in case), flashlight, go out and see what's up. He's friendly and seems like he's pretty new to the truck driving business, so we end up helping him reverse further up the road until he gets stuck in a ditch. So, anyway, I have a new mailbox now. ~fin~
I ran a marathon on Sunday and it was absolutely brutal. I'm generally a trail runner and this marathon was on a combination of asphalt and cobblestone. No fun. I felt fine up until the 30th km, at which point my legs went up in flames. I ran with the sole goal of finishing under 4 hours, which I honestly thought was going to be simple. I finished at 4:03, so I'm definitely feeling a little humbled on that one. Though due to work reasons, I was really only able to train for about 2-3 weeks, so really just finishing is a win. I ran the first half in 1:45 and the second in 2:15.. Should I ever decide to torture myself like this again, I'd like to be able to stick to a more solid plan. I found a place for me that will make a bespoke suit for a ridiculously cheap price and I'm seriously considering it even though it's really quite unnecessary at the moment.
Thank you! The last couple of kms were all cobblestone through the old town. It's a nice area and it was pleasant having people cheer you on but man it certainly didn't feel good. Any current ability to walk I owe directly towards my foam roller.
Made it to Seattle. Have been awake for 21+ hours, of which ten were in a plane and fifteen were in transit, and I'm now in the birth center I helped locate back in 2014 listening to this album on repeat. It always takes me a while until a holiday really starts to feel real - when I woke up this morning it felt like just another regular day, even though I knew better. When I flew into WA from the north, dipping below the clouds and I started recognizing roads, features and even counties from when I stared at them for half a summer in 2014...it suddenly clicked and made this lil' adventure of mine super real and all the more exciting. Also Isle of Dogs is a really fun movie, I helped this Ukrainian lady order food and I later got the fruitiest pinkest mango dragon thing from Starbucks just 'cuzz.
Our new dog is doing all right. He wags his tail at the prospect of a walk and when I make him some special chow at the end of the day. His a very timid guy but he seems to find human contact reassuring so at least he isn't cowering in a corner. I further destroyed my backyard today and decided on at least one new project that. I want to do out there. The one year redo of the backyard is surly turning into a three year project.
Monday I started a new position doing R&D at a pharmaceutical company. I’d like to tell you what the job is like so far but I don’t think I know yet. First order of business is to read and sign 129 SOPs. That’s thousands of pages of technical documents. Guess what I’ve been doing nonstop the last couple working days. I also have an upcoming interview for another job I had applied for ages ago this Friday. The offer from my current job was not particularly competitive, so there’s a good chance this one—academic no less—might actually pay the same or more. In other news I’ve been playing racquetball the last month. I’m not particularly good at it but it’s a blast. My playing partner is the guitarist from my band. The gym we found is this ancient community sports house and has a bar in the gym. How cool is that?
I have a vocal coach now! I'm taking a class in cryptography and it's kicking my ass. Still working away, folks!
Going to breakfast with a friend in ten minutes. Then probably cleaning the house a bit, then wandering into bang-on-shit-with-a-hammer class. I'd probably blow off bang-on-shit-with-a-hammer class because I've banged on my last shit, as far as I'm concerned. I've got some gem setting to do for my own edification but I'm in that marvelous place where the instructor could give me an F and it wouldn't fucking matter because I'm a rich old man who doesn't need your fucking grades. But Veen is over Greenland right now and my stupid class is about 45 minutes closer to the airport when he lands at 4 so I might as well show my face and be annoyed.
I'm in a funk today. Computer shit has kept me in knots all day, and made me miss 3 deadlines... which don't go away, they just become twice as urgent tomorrow, when I have other deadlines to meet. Sheesh... I have also firmly hit my mid-life crisis, I think. I don't want to do my current job because it "isn't important", but I don't want to look for another jobby job... I want to do something meaningful. But I have a lot of experience in the tech industry, which is boring and dead and unimportant and life-suckingly commoditized nowadays. So I'm buying an old beater motorcycle this weekend, with plans to do a RestoMod on it in my shop. Tear it down. Rebuild it. Modify it significantly. Probably turn it into a pile of scrap and sell it for 1/10th of what I put into it... but I may learn something. Stay groovy Hubskites.
Sun 9:17 PM • Hi, i am jojo,I'm interested to [exact title of my Craigslist for-sale ad] Sun 9:18 PM • Hello Jojo, this is Steve. I’m getting the kid off to bed, but could show you the trailer tomorrow evening if you’re free. Sun 9:19 PM • I'm available for tomorrow Sun 9:25 PM • Sounds good, between 6 and 9 should work. Sun 9:26 PM • but? i am unsure you real. Sun 9:28 PM • Sometimes I feel that way. Sun 9:29 PM • i send google 6 digit code u get it,You can show me right code now.Then i will believe that you are a real person. Sun 9:29 PM • Can i send u code?? I read up about the Google Voice scam. Sun 9:36 PM • Sure, send me a code. no code received Sun 10:28 PM • Thanks for sending the code. Is 7pm good? No answer; scammer was probably foiled because I was using a Google Voice number already. Anybody have any good scam stories?
Not personally, but Kitboga is great fun to watch.
Federal Election in Australia last Saturday. Since voting is compulsory (sorta), everybody turns out, has a sausage and then goes to the pub. It almost feels like a public holiday. This one was particularly portentous because the conservative government of the past three years has been bloody awful and there was widespread expectation that the progressive Labor Party would walk it in. Instead, an electoral car crash ensued and we woke up on Sunday stuck with the government unchanged. A lot of people are deeply disappointed.
But that's been the story of the Australian government for ... what?... a decade now? The electorate gives New Guy a brief chance, he/she gets things slightly organized, and then the electorate throws them out because they aren't changing things fast enough. Wash, rinse, repeat.
I really didn't want to come home after learning of the result. I had the Guardian's live results on my phone and was fretting much to my friends' annoyance. When the bookies changed their odds to $4+ for a Labor win I'm pretty sure they wanted to kick me out of the house on account of my complaining. What I'm most upset about though is that I couldn't get a democracy sausage in Indonesia.
Try being at a union party. There were grown men in tears. Yeah, the sausage thing has really become a feature in the past decade or so. Overall, voting venues are more and more resembling small fairs, which I'm loving. Clifton Hill Primary School was offering democracy daiquiris during the state election last year. I fully support compulsory voting, but watching pensioners down cocktails at 10 in the morning is its own reward.
I just got back from a 1-week holiday in Indonesia. I forgot how much I loved the country and realised how much my Indonesian has suffered - I haven't used it in 4 years and the only thing I can remember how to say is that I can't remember anything... So now instead of doing any real work I'm looking at finding Indonesian courses in Melbourne. I'm also trying to find Spanish courses. And trying to figure out how I'll be able to fit all of this in with my already busy schedule while also finding time to spend with my partner. Yikes...
Jobs Feel like I need a change of career. Have zero credentials and zero desire to pay someone money to tell me what they think I should learn. Thinkin’ &Stuff Been thinking about Fermi’s Paradox and also the borders between life and not-life and being alive and being dead. Need to sit down and write some things up for sharing. In the meantime: What are your thoughts on the Zoo Hypothesis?
I've always found the Zoo Hypothesis to be too geocentric by half. "They're ignoring us because we're too special." The longer I live, the more likely I think it is that nobody ever reaches Kardashev I. Can't reach Kardashev I? Then you, my friend, ...are alone.
That, and for every "scientist" that ever told you you weren't special, there's a dozen Youtube channels telling you exactly the facts you want to hear. If you told me I needed to communicate with Alpha Centauri A, I'd say "the best way to do that is to launch a probe at Alpha Centauri A." Ignoring slowing down to capture orbit, the Juno spacecraft would get there in about 18,000 years according to Wolfram Alpha. So maybe we create a 100GW laser and launch kleenex at it. But now I have a 100GW laserbeam pointed out into space and what could go wrong. What's gonna be funny is when we find out Oumuamua was fukin' Rama.One of the reasons that I think the Flat Earth people are popping up again is because it makes the earth, and thus by proxy Humanity, special, unique and just oh-so-wonderful.
Maybe there are and they're too far away to notice. Maybe there are and the technology they use is unrecognizable and/or undetectable to us. Maybe there are, but the attributes of life they exhibit aren't what we'd recognize as "alive." Maybe there are, but their metabolic structure is so different they don't give off biomarkers we'd recognize, such as creating oxygen or co2 during respiration. Maybe there are, and they're just very, very, shy. :)Why are there no aliens?
I think you and I are on a similar thought path. I think the Zoo Hypothesis is bullcrap, but more because the universe is huge and difficult to survive and navigate in than because the aliens think we suck. I highly doubt it is about us at all. There are a few more points, but that’s definitely part of why I don’t like the Zoo hypothesis.
What if the speed of light really is ultimate? What if radiation really does decrease by the inverse power law? What if it really does take all the energy and time to cross the gulfs of space that we think it does? I read a paper once that pointed out that "interstellar hydrogen" is a guess, not a fact. What we think of as the interstellar medium may end at the Oort Cloud. At that point, all your beautiful dreams of Bussard ramjets and VASIMR flame out and leave you in the deep black. Ockham's Razor on extraterrestrial contact is it's more trouble than it's worth.
I think the speed of light really is ultimate and that it would take a Kardashev III+ civilization to make long distance space travel feasible. At that level of energy expenditure, you’re not flitting around the ‘verse and chatting it up with whatever local yokels you happen across. Interstellar hydrogen is probably there but maybe not at any kind of concentration that could be used for propulsion.
Star Maker is mentioned in the article and was pretty good. “Probably the most powerful work of imagination ever written” according to Arthur C. Clarke; Borges deemed it “a prodigious novel,” the author called it “remarkably bad.” I'm still miffed that Fermi's Paradox had apparently been resolved a long time before anyone told me.
Our Namibia Roadtrip of over! Saw a bunch of cool animals, realized some unflattering things about someone that was a good friend before, became quite close with the one guy I thought would annoy me the most, visited a Himba tribe that still lives in huts on the border of Angola, petted some Cheetas at a sanctuary... overall a cool experience but not something I burn to re-do. Most people on Safaris are grey haired white people. So it’s not great in terms of meeting new folks. Maybe I’ll do another one when I’m retired. Tomorrow we fly back home and I can’t wait. I miss my friends. I miss my family. I need to work and earn money. I need some time alone with my boyfriend to sort some stuff out. I need to make a dent in my mega long to do list. I want to build some cool shit for our tiny regional burn in a month :)
The Good A friend of mine recently got a new boyfriend and she really seems to like him. From everything I've heard, he's a wonderful guy. She's an absolutely wonderful lady, so smart and kind, so this is great news. She deserves someone nice. Matt Heckler recently released an album on BandCamp and I'm so in love with it. The dude is a great musician and I like each and every song he has on there. I'm thinking of treating myself to it soon, and possibly a dedicated MP3/flac player. My flip phone is completely ill equipped to play music, in the sense that it can play music but does it so poorly, I'd rather think it didn't have the capability at all. I asked my mother recently if she has teddy bear templates. She's proceeded to flood me and Dala with more internet links than we'll ever need. Even though we talk infrequently and almost never see each other, I think my taking on sewing means a lot to her and its just one more way for us to connect, which in all honesty, is amazing. The Bad I don't like dwelling on the bad. Let's just say today wasn't my day and I thank God there's a tomorrow so I can try again.
A little late to the party, but I've been feeling singularly unmotivated lately. It's a case of just not having motivation, not any sense of futility or doom. Progress? I came down with a cold almost two weeks ago. I was mostly over it by the end of the week, although poor sleep (for reasons unknown) was not helpful. Then my brother got married last weekend, which was awesome. Everything went well overall, although my brother broke his foot about a week before the ceremony (he was super drunk, celebrating the end of finals, and doesn't know what he did.) The cane went pretty well with the aesthetic (they got married in the back garden of the Edgar Allen Poe Museum, after all). I was his best man, and i'm still kind of awe-struck at him asking me. I'm not a particularly open or affectionate person, but he's much people-oriented than I am. Little things he's said over the years have made me think that my opinion of him is something he cares about a great deal, and I have a hard time knowing what to do with that. (Granted, that's true of all praise I encounter, but still.) The downside to the weekend was a couple nights of even less sleep, which meant by Monday I was feeling gross again. I'm still not fully over it, and the holdouts have decided to make their last stand in my lungs. That's usually how it goes; at least I didn't get bronchitis this time. (Ever since I got full-on pneumonia back around late 2009 my lungs have seemed to be the place that germs like the most.) That's really about it. The three-day weekend will be nice, even if patriotic holidays always make me vaguely uncomfortable. I've gotten my wife hardcore hooked on Stardew Valley, and we've been playing it co-op most nights. She's talking about buying the Android port so she can play it on her Kindle at work. Admittedly I've thought about getting it for iOS or Switch...will likely do the latter because I know if I put it on my iPad, which I take to the office, I would never get anything done.