I was in Paris for 4 days. It changed me. I saw what life should be like. It should take 3 hours to have lunch. You should walk everywhere you go. You should only build buildings worth building. You should have the largest and most beautiful of those buildings dedicated to showcasing art. The people have a leisurely way to them, while also having a definitive style. It’s remarkable. It’s a remarkably beautiful place. It’s the new gold standard for cities for me. I’ll return.
they let the modernist architects into paris exactly once https://www.lonelyplanet.com/articles/skyscraper-paris-makeoverYou should only build buildings worth building.
Yes! They all refer to it as "Paris' middle finger." I didn't reach the article you shared, but our guide at the Eiffel Tower told us they had commissioned 14 of these buildings but after building the first people essentially rioted and demanded they never build another. Interestingly, there was the same such fervor after the Eiffel Tower was built. A famous artist, whose name escapes me, said that he always took his lunch at the Eiffel Tower because it was the only place in the city where he didn't have to look at it. lol. It's a remarkable city.
Love your perspective of the city :) I have a few questions! - Where did you go to eat ? Did you find anything worth mentioning/sharing ? Did you like the food ? - What did you visit ? What stood out the most ? - Where french people that you interacted with "nice" ? How was their english ? If you have some pictures, I would love to see what caught your eyes.
1. We ate here: Le Meurice and Antoine and had champagne at the Krug bar at the hotel [Shangri-La](http://www.shangri-la.com/paris/shangrila/press-room/press-releases/le-bar-ciel-ouvert-by-krug/ ) which is where we stayed. But my favorite meal was at a little Brasserie over near the Mussee D'Orsay called Cocorico. We ate one big meal a day and the rest of the day walked it off. 2. What stood out the most was the Cathedral Sacre Couer in Monmarte. It was a beautiful walk to get there and the cathedral itself is stunning. When we entered they were just starting a mass. We sat and participated. (neither of us are catholic or even religious). A nun began to sing. It was like hearing the voice of an angel. It impacted me. I began to pray. No joke. I had a spiritual moment. Only minutes before, I was walking up the hills of Monmartre and my wife pointed out a woman that looked just like my recently deceased grandmother. It was all very romantic, other-worldly and unique. We also visited the Louvre, the Eiffel Tower, Musee D'Orsay, and walked all over the city. We sat on the steps of the modern art museum and watched all the local skateboarders do tricks on the steps of that beautiful building. NEVER could you get away with this in the US. 3. English is a second language there. Never did I experience an issue communicating. The French people I interacted with were very kind, but to be fair most were service people; waiters, drivers, etc. We spent most of our time together. I'll try and post photos when I can. Onward!
Sounds like a lovely holiday. I'm really happy that you enjoyed your time there ! Thanks for sharing.
One of my cats learned how to kill birds and proceeded to attempt a neighborhood genocide. He went from not killing birds to killing one or two a day. We ordered some bell collars and his kill count went down to one every two days. We have more bells coming today, they are supposedly louder and ring easier than the ones we have. I took his collar off today to adjust the bells (he was able to hook their rings on his teeth). He bolted during the collar adjustment and came back 20 min later with a bird. If I can't get the bird kill rate down to something like one a year than he'll only be able to go outside at night. He's a hell of a cat. The vet just saw him and said something like "this is what a healthy cat should look like!" He's lean fit and smart. I've never had a smart cat before. Hope I can get a handle on his murderous behavior. I'm drinking Broken Top bourbon from Sisters Oregon, I think they have bourbon figured out at their price point.
There's actually a lot of compelling arguments to be made for keeping cats indoors. If you're curious to hear some of them, I'd be happy to share. If not, that's okay too. I don't want you to feel like I'm passing judgement on you, or worse, telling you how to conduct your own personal life. Cause I'm definitely not.
I think extremely late bootleg pubski is the only place to post this dumb shit. But folks, I'm drunk and in love, and there's truly, truly nothing like it. Best of all, she's told me that she loves me. Circumstances might mean that we don't end up together for the long haul, but that's okay. We've had such an incredible time together, and I am so, so lucky to have someone so incredible want to be so close to me. Hopefully we make more memories together, but everything thusfar has been a beautiful gift. I appreciate anyone who reads this putting up with the shameless sentimentality. We'll be back to your regularly scheduled quiet scissortail in the morning.
I went to a CLE (continuing legal education) thing at my alma mater last week. The theme was restorative justice, basically the idea that there may be better responses to crime than just throwing people in jail. It was good to see the work being done, and also that it was being done by people actually in a position to do something (some of the speakers included a local trial judge and a prosecutor). The last speakers were a couple of guys who had only recently gotten out of prison for murder, and who helped co-found a local group trying to stop street violence before it starts. They were really amazing, and I had a good conversation with one of them afterwards. You can tell when people get It, even if you couldn't explain what It is, and these two get It. The keynote was given by Dr. Johonna Turner, who is with the Zehr Institute for Restorative Justice at Eastern Mennonite University, just up the road. To start with, and I recognize the unfairness of this, she was the first person I've ever heard use words like "intersectionality" without making it sound like all the ills of the world are my fault as a white cisgendered male. She managed to talk about these things and somehow make it feel like everyone in the room (or me, when I was talking to her later) was in it together. I probably spent an hour talking to her after the main event ended, and even ended up giving her a ride back to her hotel afterwards. She was very patient with my fumbling attempts to talk about issues of gender and race. Meanwhile, I'm in the market for a new psychiatrist, as the one I had is leaving practice (or at least the local one). I was able to get in with one earlier this week, but I was not impressed. Apropos of nothing he started talking about how when he did inpatient work, most of his job was in sussing out fraudulent requests for hospitalization, and spent a good chunk of our appointment bemoaning drug-seeking behavior. He doesn't take depression seriously as a thing, totally blowing off my own issues with that particular condition (which are getting worse of late). He talked about the low success rate of a given antidepressant as if that were meaningful, especially given that it's basically impossible to know if a given drug will work for a given person ahead of time (and objectively measuring the effectiveness is super difficult). It was all very surreal, and I get the impression that he's out on his own because of anger at The System. But it's also clear that he's very stuck in his ways, and is more interested in them than listening to me. (This was further supported by the fact that he kept talking about out-of-pocket costs despite my having insurance, and that we spent half my appointment going through the questions that I'd already filled out on the intake paperwork.) Ironically one of the things that I was excited about was that, according to his intake person when I made the appointment, he typically avoids stimulants in treating ADHD. I'd be glad to change, because the med crash is a bitch. He instead prescribed a stimulant. To be fair, he did say that this one tends to be a more gradual come down, although I'm skeptical of his statement that I wouldn't notice it wearing off. I still have a couple months of meds from my previous doc, so at least I have some time.
Restorative justice (aka Healing Circles) is a small but increasing part of Canadian criminal law after having been inspired by our Aboriginal Communities. I believe it was a ground up movement enabled by flexible sentencing options. Statistically it seems to improve victim satisfaction and generate positive mental health impacts for all participants, "among other benefits" ie. it is really cheap.
I intended to write a series about my journey through the liver transplant process but gave up after bad timing resulted in my first 2 posts not going through. Short story is: i've lost 50 pounds, have had my belly tapped of infected fluids several times, feel pretty good most days, was at the main hospital this week for multiple tests including 18 blood samples and have apparently plateaued for now. My MELD score (Model For End-Stage Liver Disease) is sitting and staying at a 14 (with a 5 month mortality rate of 6%) and thus my priority for transplantation is very low but I am advised I will get much worse very quickly at some unpredictable point. The docs were impressed by my adherence to or surpassing the recommended dietary, exercise and medication regime. However, the head doc but gave me ridiculous amounts of shit for putting one sip of wine in my mouth, chewing it and spitting it out. He also pisses me off by framing everything I say as "my contention", instead of stated fact, so I began responding in kind to things he said but then decided just to sit there and shut up. ugh There are also real concerns about my lack of a support network. I do not have a SO or kids, my siblings have no desire to disrupt their routines and I am not sure if I really have any real friends; just acquaintances at best. I offered to hire someone to live-in if necessary but they understandably don't consider that sufficient support. Their recommendation is that I impress upon my family/friends the need for support but they don't seem to understand that that just aint going to happen. I am good at being direct and have made it clear to people that I need help but no one has stepped up so I don't think there is much more that I can do in that regard.
AHHHH. (This is another relationship vent brought to you by kantos) 5 jars of your most fermented jam. Throw in the whole trash bag too, please. I'm my mind is numb from the level of face plant I just achieved. Proceed to have nice meal Gets to that moment of make a move or not Ask bluntly after a nice night if she's looking for a relationship "Not particularly" Land softly with a couple minutes of not awkward conversation Exit the girl Gonna ride out the feeling of the L for the duration of the evening. Then call friends in the morning to get back on the buck. Fortunate enough I can bounce back with a game plan, but damn that was rough. I'm taking a warm shower, and going to bed for a mental reset. Night hubs. o7 Invite girl over for dinner
This week I went out apple-picking with my friends and had a great time. We chose a wonderful sunny day and got a huge bag of Honey Golds and Empires that I am still chewing through, and probably will be for the foreseeable future. The orchard was a fair distance outside of town, but the crowds were huge - I guess everyone is just trying to bask in the sun while they still can, we've had our first frost of the season a few days back. Walked around the orchard for some time, and then tried to get lost in the corn maze (but couldn't). Also I took some photos of the Parliament while walking around a few days back, and they just came in from the lab. I've been trying to shoot on film recently, which wasn't going too well (destroyed my first roll and got some light leaks on my next one cause I didn't roll it all the way back before opening), but, other than the expense and the inconvenience, it's fun. 
Today's my 3rd day in Eindhoven, and it's been awesome so far. Eating delicious vegan food every day, slowly getting to know the 40 young folks in the crew, biking everywhere, barely drinking. Feels super wholesome - I think I needed that in my life right now after the crazy summer of debauchery I've had. Prepping for dutch design week right now and getting in the groove of the film crew. I wish i could have gotten here earlier honestly, seems like it's been lots of fun and the project is wrapping up in december. But the founder is very seriously looking into buying land in Portugal and building an alternative community. Pretty much a hippy commune, but a high tech version where you document your processes and share it all open source and do R&D for sustainable living.
What are you planning to do in Bhutan? I’ve just met a guy this week that spent a year working there, setting up a fab lab. He said visiting is quite hard, and you have to be accompanied by a tour guide at all times. But that it’s a super unique and beautiful place. Would love to hear about your impressions after you visit!
Photography Going to a DSLR from a pocket point and shoot a few years ago was a wonderful change. My lizard/frogs/bugs photos jumped up in quality significantly. Fall is coming up, and the bugs are starting to get more sparse, so I've been focusing more and more on birds. They're more difficult to work with though, as they're often any combination of pretty far away, very shy, move around a lot, or sticking to the shadows and thick leaves and branches. My 70mm lens isn't cutting it, so I'm gonna save money so in the spring, I can buy maybe a 400mm lens or something. I already have a bird/bug hunting strategy for if and when I do. From sunup to about ten, I'll have the bigger lens out for birds. Then from ten to early afternoon, when the birds become less active, I'll switch to the 70mm lens and turn my attention on the crawly guys. iNaturalist has done me a lot of good this year, motivating me to get out more. I've learned a lot from it too and look forward to getting out and learning more the rest of this year and into next year. . . . Life I wanted to talk about other things tonight, but my heart isn't in it at the moment. I don't want to be all Facebook Melodramatic Cryptic Post or anything, but I don't want to go into detail about some hardships I'm working through. My burdens are my own to worry about and I'm trying my best as possible to be a level, positive voice on Hubski and in life in general. I'm having a tough year though, I'm ashamed to admit, and today was such a good day it really made me realize how much I've been struggling, for quite a while actually. I know I'll survive in the long run, cause I'm a never give up kind of guy and I'm blessed with some genuinely good people in my life, so don't worry too much. All that said, maybe if some of you are the praying type, as vulgar and selfish as it is for me to ask, throw one or two my way?
Well I don't know who to believe now. https://imgur.com/a/PbyGotd Found this photo from a few years ago - my first foray into beers that weren't easy to quaff lagers. I got it cause it had a funny name, Jack the Sipper, turns out I really like dark beers and thus I was converted. It's certainly not as heavy as the beers I moved onto, but I have a strong nostgalic feel for my first "different" beer.
I don't think we're on Beer Street anymore, Toto