My name is among two recommended for grant placement. I've been there thrice before without making the final cut, but I'm mildly optimistic. The topic is in my area, I have all the qualifications they wanted and more, though we all know it means precisely shit if you "don't feel like a good fit" so it's far too early to say anything either way. That's pretty much it as far as news goes, lightening my afternoon of grading mid-terms (results are various shades of depressing) and listening to flatmate's gf's increasingly annoyed monologue about office politics. Aikido got more interesting, with some light sparring introduced possibly as a result of everyone being increasingly vocal about drilling seemingly the exact same things for over two months. It's a cliche, but I got a bit of that Karate Kid moment when Daniel understands that all those miscellaneous chores had a purpose. Morale's up, and I want to see what's next. I'm invited to spend Christmas with my brother and his family, but I just don't feel it. Being alone at this time of year isn't new to me, but for the first time, it looks like something I want.
Not to add to your stack of papers, but are you aware of the Springer Handbook of Nanotechnology? As far as references go, I found it mind-bogglingly exhaustive but didn't learn of its existence until I was almost done with my masters. I hope that it goes without saying that I'm here if you'd need help or a second pair of eyes. Onwards, man! Well, it was back when academic performance scholarship covered about 60% of my livelihood. Today, however, it's a different world.remember it's never really stressful if you're doing what you love
I live within 10 minutes of SeaTac Airport. So I often have other peoples' cars parked in my yard, while they are on vacation. Such was the case with my parents' Prius, for the last week. Last night, they arrived at the airport at 7:30, and I picked them up. Except... When I left work around 3:00, I noticed that traffic into the airport had already backed up onto the freeway and was stopped dead. So at 6:15 I packed up my iPad and got into Mom's Prius to go find a place in the cell-phone-waiting lot, and do a little video editing and some voiceover work while I waited. (Voiceover pro tip: If you need a 'dead' room to record in, sit in your car. For most modern vehicles, it's a surprisingly good space to record sound.) Except... There wasn't any traffic. I drove the 7 minutes to the airport, parked in the first space in the lot, and did some recording and editing on the iPad. BING! Text from Mom. They got their bags and are heading to the gate. So I start the car to go get them. Except... The car wouldn't start. But it's hard to tell on a Prius... they have the most awkward user interface of any car I have ever driven. It had previously complained to me with a caution arrow and alert chime - at 70 MPH on the freeway - that the "Key was located in the car." Duh. No shit, car. I'm DRIVING THE CAR. Anyway, car won't start. No power at all, in fact. Interior lights out. Check engine light and caution triangle (with no other information) on the dash. Power button changes from green to yellow to red. So I call my wife to come get all three of us! Except... She has just gotten home from a massive day of work, and her car is FULL of a clients' junk she is getting rid of. So - exhausted from a long day at work - she has to dump everything in the driveway, and race to the airport to pick us up. Except... The airport is now as busy as it was at 3:PM, and it takes her more than 40 minutes to get to me and pick me up, and another 15 to drive the quarter mile into the airport where my parents (73 and 83 years old) are waiting in the cold. Except... The car has not been reconfigured to seat 4 people, so we have to quickly open all the doors, rearrange the whole interior (which is not completely empty, because she forgot about all the stuff in the footwells behind her seats, where my parents feet need to go), and it takes us long enough to get my parents and their bags all in the car that the Airport Cops are on our case about being in the way. But we do it, and head out to get them home. Except... My wife hasn't eaten all day, and needs to go home and rest, so we go home and switch all my parents stuff into my car, and I drive them home 40 minutes north of me. And then drive back to the airport, where I am meeting a tow truck, because - guess what? - if your Prius 12v battery is dead (my diagnosis of the problem), you can't lock the doors, and I'm not leaving my Mom's car unlocked in the airport parking lot overnight. Then the BEST TOW TRUCK DRIVER EVER shows up, and we have a great conversation, and he's able to jump-start the Prius with a special thingie on his truck that attaches to a special thingie in the fuse box of the Prius, and IT'S RUNNING! WOO! But I need to make sure it charges, so I drive around for 40 minutes before parking the car back at my house (where it left four hours previously), and taking a Lyft back to the airport, where I pick up my car and drive it home, and fall into bed about 2 hours after my normal bed time of 10:30. And then I wake up this morning at 5:AM like someone switched on a light in my brain. BAM. AWAKE. It's 8:42 AM and I feel like it should be 1:00 or 2:00 PM... this does not bode well for the rest of today! --- But tomorrow I am going to see Deadmau5 and Friday is my last day of work for the year (and my whole team has decided to "work from home") and then on Saturday I'm going to see Rezz and I don't have to be back at work again until Jan 2.
I've done work for Gatorade, the NFL and Bravo that was all recorded in the back seat of an Escalade. I've also done work for Youtube bullshit where I tell them "go record the voiceover in your car" and then I get the work and I have to tell them "go record the voiceover in your car with the radio off" because god is dead and this is the worst timeline. (Voiceover pro tip: If you need a 'dead' room to record in, sit in your car. For most modern vehicles, it's a surprisingly good space to record sound.)
Spirit Bears Art The list of artists that genuinely speak to me is pretty short, but also pretty diverse. I recently discovered Jude Hill and she's pretty much shot to the top of my list. Everything she makes is so beautiful, so organic. Her approach to her work too, philosophically, syncs up with a lot of my thoughts, like this whole blurb from her about page . . . Just look at some of her pieces, like . . . This house, or this woven piece, or this heart, and this cat. Because the other week goobster and I were talking about visible mending, I feel like I should give him a shout out so he can check out these jeans. Everything of hers I see, I love, love, love. Shallow Deepness Ahead I recently had a brief text exchange with a friend, about how I'm going through a pretty intense but also enjoyable period of self discovery and change and some of the challenges it brings, like for example I'm becoming a bit more reclusive exactly when a lot of people around me are becoming more outgoing and I feel like the timing is unfortunate. We talked about how these periods of change seems to come about every five years, which coincidentally, is about the same timeline the cells in the body are considered to be all new and different. Sometimes I wonder about the nature of our cells in the relation to ourselves and how they're a tangible expression of self, being a whole, single unit, compiled of countless minute units. Countless cells, countless moments of life lived and experienced, each can be broken down and quantified, appreciated on their own, but the collective whole is so much greater. For fear of getting too spiritual/philosophical on here, I've been thinking about just like our cells don't all renew at once, but gradually over time, we obviously change gradually over time as well, still ourselves, but also to the point where we often feel completely different than who we were in previous decades. I think it's important to keep this process in mind, to embrace change and growth, and most importantly, make the conscious decision to do what we can to direct those changes and growth in a positive direction. Dunno. It's been riding my mind ever since that text exchange. Sorry for the ramble. It's been a rough week. I think after I'm done with laundry, I'm gonna head to the park, sit, and just watch the birds. Here's hoping you're all doing wonderful, Hubski.
White Kermode bears are not albinos as they still have pigmented skin and eyes. Rather, a single, non-synonymous nucleotide substitution in the MC1R gene causes melanin to not be produced. This mutant gene is recessive, so Kermode bears with two copies of this mutant, nonfunctional gene appear white, while bears with one copy or no copies appear black. It is possible for two black bears to mate and produce a white cub if both of these black bears are heterozygous, carrying one copy of the mutant MC1R gene, and both mutant genes are inherited by the cub. Additional genetic studies found that white Kermode bears breed more with white Kermode bears, and black Kermode bears breed more with black Kermode bears, in a phenomenon known as positive assortative mating. One hypothesis is that this happens because young bears imprint on their mother's fur colour.
unplugged for convenience of portability and my dedication to energy conservation. i don't buy much of anything and i hate all the "gunk" that is applied to fabric art these days. it interferes with the nature of the fabric. i believe in recycling and re-purposing and my work is mostly given away but i have opened a shop for smaller pieces. hand sewing is meditative and beautiful. i do occasionally plug in but machine stitches are just not the same.
Those jeans are the bomb! Man... I'd love to have some groovy patched jeans to wear around. But my jeans always die in the same place: they wear out in the crotch. And there's no way a funky-stitched, funky-colored patch is gonna look good on the "taint" part of jeans... :-( And I guess I don't want funky jeans enough to buy them pre-patched, either. An old acquaintance of mine from back in the Budapest days, is a Finnish textiles designer named Minna Koskelo. She designs other things too, but her textiles are my favorite.
You got interesting friends and that's wonderful. I don't know. Something about pre-patched jeans strike me as even more wrong than pre-stressed jeans. I hate the word "authentic" when it comes to describing what something is or isn't in spirit, but you know, darn if that doesn't strike me as not authentic. I'm kind of sad that I recycled all of my old jeans and bought new ones literally about six months before I discovered visible mending. I probably could have saved all of those pants for at least a few more years, and in the process, a lot of money. Thanks to stretchy denim being so ubiquitous now, old fashioned jeans are now both harder to find and more expensive.And I guess I don't want funky jeans enough to buy them pre-patched, either.
exhales Haven't shared what was going with me in a while here. I seem to mainly find time to do it when I am on holidays at home. So, out of my childhood room, I give you my last 6 months of living. health I was doing good, really good. Found my way back to Karate, was climbing in between, staying active as a way to manage the stress that is building up in my last year of PhD. And then it happened, I misplaced my foot during sparring, my ankle twisted, and then my knee followed. I heard it. I never thought that I would hear it. The pain was instant. Fast forward by a week of swollen joints and not knowing what is up, my ACL ripped. And that just before summer/festival season. It felt like this started a process of extreme ups and downs that went on until last wednesday. I decided to still go to the burn I wanted to do go. Twisted my unstable knee twice there, didn't care, had surgery in august. Felt like a vegetable for 3-4 weeks. Been recovering well. Twisted my knee again, worried that it ripped again, still don't know if it is fine but doctor says it feels okay, probably not ripped. I figure, either case, I need to get my muscles back, focus on physio and training my legs with the hope that all is fine. Apart from my knee. I have had stomach troubles for a while and I couldn't quite figure it out. I still don't know exactly, but it seems to be connected with milk products. When I leave them out, reduce my meat/fat intake, eat more salad, my stomach is more happy. Maybe I should listen to my body. Chances are I became lactose intolerant with age? Wasn't sure this could happen. Heard some anecdotes from people where it happened to them during some stressful periods. PhD Its the last sprint, my friends. After having my last thesis advisory committee meeting I was told to wrap it up until June next year. Problem is, the main results of the thesis are just being uncovered now. Hypothesis that I have been following for the past year (and my boss believing/betting on for at least that long) are turning out to be false. I am accepting it and looking for other solutions, my boss is not. This lead to one of my hardest progress reports last week. It felt like going into cognitive war with someone who was waaaay too lucky in his career. I felt sick and even more disillusioned by scientists afterwards. How can you claim that you are doing hypothesis driven science and then no accept the results of all the experiments that have been done? Bottom line, he wants to have a look at my raw data of two years of experiments because he doesn'T understand my simple analysis of calcium signals. Funny thing is, all that happened just 30 minutes after he declared in front of the whole group that he is giving me a 1000€ bonus for all the things I do for the lab. Not exactly "carrot and stick" but it felt like it, somehow. Anyway, it seems like its time to fire the engines up to 120% and bulldoze through the next months. I am not sure what I am going to do afterwards. I promised myself that I won't stay in science unless I am going something that I am really passionate about. So I have been looking for labs that work on the claustrum as I am still obsessed with the neuroscience of psychedelics. I have made positive contact with one PI in the UK where I have a feeling that I could learn something. There is another one in Jerusalem that I have to yet contact... Family On the 12.10., is my fathers birthday. On the 12.10.2019, at 10 in the morning, while frying some breakfast eggs, my father had a sudden cardiac death. Luckily, my mother and grandma were home. They heard a noise in the kitchen, found him, and my mother started to reanimate while my grandma ran out to the street to catch the ambulance that was on its way (because we don't have addresses). After 10 minutes of reanimation, a guy on a motorcycle arrived with a defibrillator kit. They introduced those mobile units because of the crazy traffic situation in Israel. The streets are always packed and people don't know how to open up a rescue alley. He gave my father a shock, got his pulse back. Lost it again, shocked him again. Went like this for another 3 times. 10 minutes after the mobile unit, the ambulance arrived and took him to the hospital. Overall, it took 45 minutes from the moment my mother called until he was at the hospital. When my mother called, around 12 am, I was having late breakfast and planning to call my father to wish him a happy birthday. I was surprised to be called by my mother and sister at the same time, instead. I instantly felt something was wrong. I picked up and listened to my crying mother. My mind went cold and analytic. I remember asking he for the details and time it took for things to evolve. My medical studies popped up again, remembering that 3 minutes without air could already start the brain damage. In my head, I thought him dead. And then the sadness kicked in and I was in agony. She told me that they had to do two stents and put him in hypothermia to help reduce the damage. So he was in a coma, without us able to say whether he will wake up, or not. There was only one reflex, find a flight and head back home. This is also when I realised that I am not prepared for such an emergency. Dishing out 1000€ for a flight ticket is not something my PhD finances could handle so lightly. But that is another issue. I found a flight for next day in the morning. Already at the german airport, my mom called me to tell me that he woke up. Completely confused, but seems to still have many of his normal function. Fast forward a few hours. I am standing in his room in the hospital, in shock. My father had a memory span of 3 minutes. I had no clue what to feel in that moment. Relief that he is alive and survived? Worry for how his life will continue if this is how he states? My irrational mind was in control and it seemed to block out all the things I learned about post-operative symptoms and delirium because boy, the next week was one hell of a ride. During the following week, he had to do another two stents (correct a previous one, and open another one). This was all too surprising to us. My father is a thin and rather healthy-looking guy. How could it be that 2/3 of his heart wasn't being perfused? Simple answer, 35 years of cigarettes. Delirium does weird things with you. You can't really sleep as you wake up every 5-10 minutes throughout the night. You forget all kinds of shit which leads to repeating all kind of stuff. You do weird things like ordering 3 skinned rabbits from 3 people at 6 A.M. which I had to drive around town to collect. Or, broadcast funny pictures of your 75-year old sister (who lost her husband a year ago) you took with your newly discovered gender swap filter on snapchat, with the purpose to find her a new husband (why did we give him his phone back???). This was of course all also mixed with blaming us. We, my sister, my mother, and I are the reason this happened to him. Because we are not close to him and studying in Germany. Because my mother is "driving me crazy", which means, translated, she does not follow his orders. And that after her being the only reason he is still alive. It was a hard week. And a hard month afterwards (specially for my mom). But now, just 2 months afterwards, he seems fine. He had to get another stent to open up that last missing branch. He is taking his meds. He quit smoking. He is less aggressive (seems like it at least). He hasn't been to work yet, which is good. But something changed. We are all scared that this could happen at any instant now, again. relationship I realise, now that I wrote that word above, that my stomach starts to hurt and I am hitting a mental roadblock in my head that is trying to stop me from writing or dealing with what happened. Do I listen to my body/mind or are the misaligned? Anyway. In July, just before the ACL surgery and the burn, I met a cool girl. She was fun, shared many of my hobbies, is an Imogen Heap fan, liked raving, eating, and binging TV shows. I got interested. It felt nice. So things developed. And we got to know each other better. Our good corners, our weird corners. All of that in parallel to me being strapped to a bed most of the time without the ability to do much because of my leg. But it was a nice time. However, at some points past the first month or 1.5 months since we started dating, I started to get weird thoughts. I caught myself worrying about the problems the future will bring more often than enjoying the current time with her. My plans were to finish the PhD and leave. And now I am heading towards a relationship with a 34 year old woman (5 years older than me) that is feeling good but I know that if I commit full on to this, I will not be able to leave. I talked to her and told her what was in my mind. She said we should stay in the present and not worry about the future. This silenced the voices in my head for a little. But rather, it made them quieter for a while, because they came back, and started to get louder and louder. The following two months, I caught myself constantly switching between the worry about the future and questioning the relationship and enjoying the time with her. She was caring and lowing. She showered me with love and I could feel it in everything she did. And it felt good to be loved like this. But I also realised, that I am not giving her or will probably never hive her that love back. In any form. There was a moment where I "snapped out" of it and know that I am not in love. Not in the way that she is looking at me and it made me feel very guilty. To cut a long process short, at one evening, where I was again trapped in the "being here and being there" feeling, I decided to let loose of all the thoughts I had jumbled up in my head, with the hope that some clarity will crystallise out of it. It ended up to be the night we broke up. And that was not my plan. But it was inevitable, at least in my view. This was 3 weeks ago. And it was hard. It was hard seeing her hurt. Hard letting go of someone that loved me this much. But I saw no other way. Doubt and sadness mixed with feelings of relief. Did I do the right thing? Did I just throw away something that I will regret in the future? Was I chasing something that doesn't exist? The thing is. I know how I feel when I am madly in love. I had that same thing happen to me a year ago. Back then, the situation was switched. But I remember, that in that state of mind, nothing was impossible. Whenever I looked into the future, I saw solutions. Whether it was the "jew dating arab" problem, or, the geographical situation, or, money... Nothing was a problem. But now, I only saw the problems. Which hinted me that I am in no way close to feeling the same way I felt last year. Even though I went a long way from being emotional popsicle that I made myself become in highschool, I am no way close to being emotionally open or understanding my emotions. And this whole story is again an example of that. Whenever I have a hand-written letter in my mailbox, it is never a nice one. This time it was also no exception. One day before my flight home, I get a looong letter from her and all I read was pain and sadness. And it hurt me a lot. It pains me to see the damage I did, again. And I wonder if there will be a time where I will not do this damage anymore...
I’m home! It feels so nice to be home after almost 3 months of absence. And I have so many projects I’m inspired to do right now - I understand it’s not realistic to do it all but I’ll try to start ASAP while I’m still motivated. I have a welcome back party planned on Saturday and according to Facebook I have 35 attending, 35 maybes, and 33 other invited. I know of at least 10 people that are planning to come - not on this list. So the house will be packed. Warms my heart to know my friends missed me and want to hang out. Right now my plan is to make some hot wine and hot chocolate. Maybe bake some cookies too. Anyone has tips/good recipes? Otherwise I’ll probably end up making whatever’s on the top google result. A friend volunteered to make midnight grilled cheese. I’m super pumped :)
Kayaking https://www.instagram.com/p/B4qIFpSArVO/ I've been going from strength to strength with my kayaking. I got a new boat that has a lot less volume and is a lot more playful. It's added some excitement to some of the easier rivers around this way and punishes mistakes more. That's meant that I've increasingly had to rely on my roll and it's feeling real solid right now. The interesting thing about rolling a kayak is that it starts off as a mechanical challenge most often practiced in the relative serenity of a swimming pool. Once you have the mechanics dialed, there's no reason you can't apply them to real whitewater with equal success. But then you're disorientated by the water rushing around you, the welcoming dark brown of the UK's rivers swallow the light, and the cold bites at your body. But still, the required movement remains the same. So at that point the roll becomes a head game instead. Right now, I tend to feel pretty zen when I flip over,, which is cool. I take a metaphorical breath, then just roll up on autopilot. Maybe that's due to the cold showers I've been taking. Music https://clyp.it/clroh5d1?token=0bfc978c628c7d6cc74dc203e7ca92d4 I finished a new track today. It's a different direction to the jazz fusiony stuff I was doing for the last couple of years. I only have one other track in this vein and I don't plan to focus on this style exclusively. But it's been fun to make purely electronic music again, especially as it gave me a chance to actually make use of my Behringer Neutron.
There's not many things that willingly get me out of bed before dawn on a rainy winter's morning. It really is the best. Being on the water, pushing yourself, and going on adventures with great people. Not to mention that it's great exercise. I couldn't recommend it more. The kayak in that video is an older model (2003) and only cost me £170 second-hand from an acquaintance. Considering my paddle was £150 second-hand, I can't complain about the price. It's what's known as a "river play" boat. It's designed to offer a middle ground between a bigger, more stable river running boat and a smaller, more agile play boat (essentially a trick boat). So in short, yes it is designed specifically for whitewater. You can read about the different types of whitewater kayaking here. My pure river running boat cost me £600 on a clearance offer. For reference, the latest top-of-the-line boats will set you back £1500-£2000. And the profit margins are very thin for the manufacturers, so really they should be selling them for more. If you wanted to try it out though, your best bet would be to find a local club. They will have boats, paddles, and PFDs that you can try as part of the session price. And often they will have pool sessions which can be more inviting for beginners around this time of year.
thank you! we do have a little club. membership $18 per year. i am not the club-joining type, but perhaps i will make an exception. can whitewater kayaks double as placid lake/river kayaks? probably right? if so, i may just buy one of those and if i ever get around to using it in whitewater, so much the better.
There's a maxim in kayaking: we're all between swims. And the real danger beings once you're swimming. If you don't join a club, it's sage advice to kayak with others around. Because when you fall out of your kayak in an unfavourable position, being on your own makes things a lot more dangerous and difficult. You want people around who can help you. A river running kayak can also be used as a touring kayak (i.e. one made for flat or calm water). A true touring kayak will be longer than a river runner as the added length helps to maintain speed. They'll also have a skeg (a fin centered on the bottom of the boat) that keeps the boat tracking in a straight line. You can also get crossover boats that seek to bridge the gap between the two.
THE CAT HAS EMERGED. He likes my partner a little more but I think that's because I'm bigger/clumsier/louder. If I'm not moving too much he'll come sit on me, like so: https://imgur.com/a/PtPS5SO We've been systematically introducing him to our new place room by room so he doesn't feel overwhelmed, last night we left our bedroom door open a crack and he barged through at 1am purring like a V8 and slept pretty much on my face. It was rather endearing even if I didn't sleep very well. Knowing he's becoming more adjusted is well worth a bleary-eyed morning. Usually he won't come out during the day, and stays under his chosen couch of solitude. But yesterday he came out as soon as one of us got out of bed, meowing for the first time and generally getting under our feet like a regular cat. I was playing on my newly built PC with some friends, and they were using Discord to chat so I hopped into their server - I normally only play with other New Zealanders because of connectivity but there are a bunch of Americans in their chat so I was talking to them, and man the accent is actually adorable. I think they feel the same about mine but they had to get me to repeat things as a result of the Kiwi tendency to blunt vowels whenever possible. Two more days of work - today and Friday, and I've just sat down at my desk with very little to do. I reeeeeeally need to finish the present shopping..
It's been kinda crazy here. Work has been a bit frustrating and I've been in a bit of a rut, so I've been just spent for a while now. It will definitely help to have a break for the holidays. I'm staying put for the first time (ever?) for christmas. Just me and the fiancee this year, and I'm looking forward to it. We have a tiny tree, and I'm thinking about making something nice for a holiday dinner. Duck maybe? We roasted ducks at my aunt's place and they came out pretty great. I may try that.
We traditionally have roasted duck for Christmas Day. With boiled potatoes, red cabbage (with apple), and sauce from the roasted duck. However, this year the whole family is here so we probably have to adapt to the vegan/vegetarian tastes of my sisters. How do you make your duck?
Chickens I pulled one of the cars into the basement to change a tire and Lion panicked so much that he flew out of their enclosure. (He's quite good at flying but only uses it very occasionally.) I don't expect he'll be making many escapes — all our birds tend to learn that just because you can get out of the nice safe enclosure doesn't mean you want to. When they were all rowdy teenagers living in a 4'x4' box in our dining room, one day we came home and they were all out of the box and rightfully spooked. I suppose it's more obvious how to get out than how to get back in? Anyhow, for the remaining month or two they were inside, they escaped not once. Well, except for the time we fed them bits of pork chop before dinner and one of the hens, Pig, realized that we were eating more and not sharing! So she flew out of the box, crash-landed onto my wife, hopped on the table, and attempted to abscond with a pork chop bigger than her. Shop I started cleaning the lathe while it was apart, and, well, you can't clean just a couple parts and expect them to stay clean, so at this point I have cleaned the parts I've taken off and most of the other parts of the lathe that I touch while operating it. The carriage will have to wait a bit for a thorough cleaning as there are quite a few moving bits in it that require care and a couple of repairs that make sense to make while it's apart. I replaced a couple setscrews on it and weirdly enough they were metric thread? A while back I had to find some screws for a gear cover and those ended up being metric too. Nothing looks like it's been re-tapped, so I'm not sure why an American-made lathe from 1918 would be using metric hardware. It doesn't have the right gearbox for a from-the-factory metric lathe. Life Parents are coming to talk tomorrow. We'll see what they have to say.
i had my first good interaction with my extended family since i was a wee bairn, got schlonked on punch and played lego with little cousins and it was pretty alright unfortunately the day after i caught the flu so i've been a wreck since sunday night but i'm starting to health up so i'll probably be fine by the end of the weekend ideally i made some fine pork gravy the other night that's all
Still wandering around this painting. Adding a flaming yellow tree center right. The trunk is just kinda floating there atm. My daughter is shooting arrows, and she's pretty good. Yesterday she got a bulls-eye and left it in the hay so I could see it when I got home. Today was a 24 hour fast. My plan is to do it once a month. Going from dinner to later dinner isn't difficult at all. I'm looking forward to some family holiday time. No travel until the new year, but the first few months will probably be nuts. I think I already have three trips in January. There is only one Pubski left in this decade. Is Peaky Blinders any good? I started reading David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. I'm enjoying it, but an essay that he wrote on television seems to trite and dated. It makes me realize that half the shit we say about technology is going to cease to matter soon after it does.
I enjoyed peaky blinders, specially the first two/three seasons. It becomes repetitive later on but still very well produced. For me, Tom Hardy played the best role I have ever seen on TV in this show. But I am no film expert and have no clue. The music choice is also nice :)
I met someone from the internet to buy a laptop the other day. My coworkers all thought I was crazy, but I wound up with a great deal on a gently used Thinkpad and didn't have to worry about delivery issues. I'll probably clean it up and install some flavor of Linux on it before giving it to my partner as a Christmas gift.
Saw the sun rise right over the summit of Mount Rainier while I was driving to work today. What a nice moment. Hoping I’ve figured out a way of biking + public transit that means I won’t have to drive to work next year. I hate commuting 15 miles each way five days a week.