Have a surgeon and a date picked for the neck-needling procedure, it will be after I come back from my conference next month. I should be more worried about the business end that winds up in my right ventricle but the actual procedure doesn't scare me. It's the 'getting the probe in' and the recovery that worry me. Unfortunately, I will be conscious for the procedure. How conscious exactly is hard to say, but the anesthesiologist seems content to err on the side of more drugs rather than less drugs in my case. To quote him 'If it were solely up to me I'd have everybody knocked out for this procedure. When you come up here for yours, given your history, I'll add a little dissociative to your cocktail and keep the ativan on hand in case it's not working like we anticipate.' So, conscious, but likely too zonked to really be aware of being conscious. Yay medical science. He was also very happy with my weight loss, evidently the difference between 225 and 185 is substantial, anesthetically speaking. It widens the margin between 'Enough drugs to make surgery possible' and 'overdose' by a lot. Choir starts back up next week, and I'm super excited to get back into that pattern. I've missed the routine of rehearsal. We're doing Beethoven this fall, I think. A few collaboration concerts with the Detroit Symphony and possibly the Toledo Symphony again. My date went swimmingly, we're going to get dinner sometime this week. It's nice to reaffirm that there are kind, intelligent women that I get along with, if nothing else comes of it. Still 'talking to' a few other women too, because that's just the reality of dating, but it feels dishonest to some degree. I'll probably just put the rest politely on hold until I get a better vibe for where things are heading. I'm going to go to New Orleans for Halloween I decided. I'm going to roadtrip both ways, probably spend a night in Nashville on the way home. I'm going to try and see something spooky, visit the crypt of Marie Laveau, eat copious amounts of spicy food.
Thanks! I was remarking to ThatFanficGuy yesterday that '40 pounds' sounds a lot better than '18 kilos' so I'm going to keep using the imperial measurements.
Three vials drawn Sunday. Benefits of having a Quest pickup box on your doorstep. Doing a spit test today. Last time, my doctor called me up and said "not only are your cortisol levels the highest I've ever seen, they literally exceed the guidelines of the test." Article in Mother Jones today against meals suggesting that fasting for one or two meals a day is helpful to your metabolism. Quoted a study with an n of 32. Speaking as someone who did that for four years, mmmmmyeah you don't wanna do that.
Good news out the wazoo man, hella happy for ya.
Went home last weekend. Bought into the lounge, which means soup, salad, cookies, fruit and free well bourbon. Then my mother in law couldn't quite figure out traffic so I waited an hour at the airport at 1am. Can't be mad 'cuz she came to pick me up, but it kinda sucked. Then my wife got called to a birth the next night. So of my two nights home, I got to sleep for about five hours next to my wife. Then, of course, on the flight home there were two entitled spoiled brats from USC in my seat. I said "bad news, kids, you're in my seat!" and she-brat legit said "ugh. You sit in the middle I don't want to sit next to him." Well excuse me for earning a living. We're a week plus behind on the birth center (again) because our ceiling contractor cut his hand. Which sounded like a weak excuse until I found out he's been in the hospital with sepsis for a week. Hopefully he gets out today, and holy shit how scary is that?. You would think there would be more than a few people capable of hanging a tegular grid in a modern metropolis but you'd be wrong. Go figure. On the plus side, the $3600 phone system I got quoted I just bought off eBay for $300 all in. Had a $99 airline voucher expire last night. Bought two tickets to Calgary two weeks before Christmas. Staying at the Fairmont in Lake Louise for a week. Because you know what? Burning through three shirts a day and living in the asshole of Los Angeles entitles me to a little fuckin' snow. On the downside, I couldn't buy a ticket for the kid 'cuz she doesn't have a passport yet. So my wife is freaking out because we only have four months to get that shit sorted out. Apparently she's convinced that a monday morning flight from Seattle to fucking Calgary is gonna sell out fifteen weeks in advance. 1300 miles on a goddamn bicycle. And I'm not even halfway through. But then, every ten days or so, there's this.
Had a similar experience on my flight back from SFO recently. Young girl next to me said to the person she was loudly speaking to on her phone, "I can't believe they gave me a middle seat. I'm setting next to..," she glanced unapprovingly at me and didn't say anything more. It was then that I firmly and unabashedly claimed the armrest, for the entire flight.Then, of course, on the flight home there were two entitled spoiled brats from USC in my seat. I said "bad news, kids, you're in my seat!" and she-brat legit said "ugh. You sit in the middle I don't want to sit next to him."
And the thing is? If you lack the competence to secure a decent seat, you lack the standing to bitch about it. It's like "Look, bitch. I see you playing Candy Crush on your rose gold iPhone 6 plus. Did you know that there's an app that allows you to select your seats at any interval and repeatedly from the minute you purchase your goddamn ticket? Did you further know that since this flight was an unknown plane type until yesterday, ALL the seats were up for grabs 24 hours ago? Finally, did you know that this entire row was empty when I grabbed this seat, thereby ensuring that it's entirely your fault that you're sitting here? So you can have an attitude. And you can be a bitch about it. But my ticket? It says 7A. And yours? It says 7B. So scoot the fuck over and STFU."
You just wrote out my entire internal dialog. For what it's worth, I really like the Delta app. It's simple and easy to use. Seatguru is also awesome. Also, the delta skymiles program doesn't suck. Also, TSA pre is a necessity. Also, hang in their KB. Sound like you're a busy fella right now. I feel ya. I'm traveling so much and getting so little sleep that my body finally called "uncle" and got sick. Need to rest. Kid starts kindergarten soon. Craziness. Need to spend more time w wife and kids. Starting a business is so rewarding but also so very time consuming. We have people flying in to MI from California for the procedure. Pretty neat. Onward!
In order to not pay the TSA directly, and to save $45, I opted for Nexus. 3 month wait, but at least that way I meet with the border patrol, the only arm of the TSA to actually accomplish anything related to terror attacks. Delta and Alaska are in a fare war out of Seattle right now. Delta said "let's share loyalty programs, you guys own the PNW" and Alaska said "sounds great" and then Delta said "we need you to divest of all your alliances in the Pacific Rim because we're Delta" and Alaska said "no" and then Delta said "we will fucking bury you" and Alaska said "game on beyotch" and three years later, Alaska is going big rather than going home. Delta, meanwhile, ruined Northwest, which was ruined by the CEO that Alaska kicked out because he nearly bankrupted the company (whose son was friends with an ex's sister - we used to hang at parties). I'll say this - I've never had a worse time on a plane than Delta, except for America West, except for United, except for Spirit, which actually makes Delta the fourth-worst airline I've ever flown. Alaska, on the other hand, is actually not shitty, particularly depending on the flight. The guy who flies out of LAX friday night at 10:45 has twice said "we've got ten tons of fuel and we're gonna use it all 'cuz it's time to go home" and then we land 45 minutes early.
That Fairmont? Good on ya - the Rockies in the winter snow are amazing. Sidenote: an industry guy told me that the best moment to buy plane tickets is ten weeks in advance, as they then start to shift their pricing focus from tourists to business pax, so you can pick up cheap nonflexible tickets.
That one. Will keep the 10 week thing in mind. We'll see when we get passport shit sorted out. It's funny - we took shots and were ready to go over a year ago but dealing with the SSA in Los Angeles is a FUCKING NIGHTMARE. Like, we got up early to do it on a Saturday down by LAX and the line was already four blocks long nightmare. And then we didn't get around to it until, like, now.
I've not been to the area, but you're only 2 hrs drive away from some hot springs just on the other side of the BC-AB border. AND you would get to go through Glacier National Park , which is gorgeous.
looks like the ones I was looking at are only open until the fall - which seems dumb to me but to be fair they do have to use a howitzer to keep the highway open in the winter.
I went to the Canmore Nordic Centre to snow shoe. Never stood on skis in my life before, but it was fun (and exhausting). I only had one near-death experience almost speeding down a trail. Don't know how it's like with the kid though.
There was an active shooting a block from my house at like 4:00 AM. I was walking back from King Soopers on a junk food for Overwatch run with my roomie when some swat guys rush up on baseline and started yelling at us to leave now. Now I'm not about to talk to the swat fuck that noise. So I whispered to my roommate to use his magical white people powers to convince the guy to let us go since that's where we lived and it was windy and cold as fuck outside. Edit: I have a sick idea for a card game if anyone wants to hear it Swat guy is like "there's a guy shot four bullets, walking around anywhere between baseline and foothills." To which I reply "well fuck me I'm not gonna get any sleep tonight am I?" so we wait... And wait... And wait... They caught the guy 50 minutes ago as of this post. 7AM. Buddy and I got back half an hour later. I have class at 11:00. So I'll be doing my best to stay awake for my 3 hours of class.
There were 5 shootings within 5 blocks of my house last summee (2 on my block) and one mugging in front of my neighbor's house. Only 1 shooting within a block of my business this summer and one other shooting close to the house. Say what you want against run away housing prices but it had its upsides.
It's just weird because the whole image is that Boulder is where Silicon Valley is moving itself. It's literally a two-sided coin with this city: one side shiny and techy and googly, with bikes and mountain paths and ski resorts...another side with homeless people wandering the park like this is Night of the Living Dead. It feels like a Post-Spring Egypt, except in this case, Cairo and Taba are the same city.
Found some pictures on FB of our patrol bases during field exercises this summer. Brings back some very, very, very not fun memories. And a few fun ones. The hooches (poncho roof things) are way too high here-- they're technically not supposed to be tied higher than knee height, so that you can only slip underneath it laying down. But considering how horrible some of those nights became in constant freezing rain, this camp's leadership might've 'laxed on em a little bit. West Point isn't so bad. I'm blessed with great roomates, 3 of 'em, and we do a good job keeping up each other's morale and covering down on the group. Amazon prime with that student discount. All I can say about that. Family friend sent me these 4 books. I'm so fucking excited because this person is very well read and about 70 years old I believe, that they hand-picked books for me to read is the coolest shit of all time. I'm very grateful. All I have to do is find time to start one of these. If you're in college and you're reading this: turn up for me, please.
The Scifi Club is coming back. I'm pretty excited about it actually. I'm debating what day of the week is best for it. I'm leaning towards Monday or Friday to be the first (well, no. 8 I think actually). I'm thinking this Friday, actually.
I've returned from my Epic Road Trip 2016™. Me and five of my best friends took two cars and drove via Berlin and a bit of Czech Republic to Krakow and back. We climbed the Sněžka, survived Polish traffic, accidentally saw the Perseïd meteorite swarm, visited Wawel Castle and found really cool geocaches in the Tatra Mountains. Now I'm sweating myself dry because it is something like 95F without air conditioning.
My last post was long enough already, so I'll talk about my experience in the new place here. Photographs would be in place here, but I'm not in the mood to make them. You'll see everything in a #russiabynatives post I'm planning for this week, a bit of guide around Tomsk. My new apartment is as old-fashioned as the last one. The furniture is not the same but is equally old: sturdy enough but retro for about forty years. I like it that way. It's quite comfortable, even though it has some quirks. It's not overstuffed, though I would rather get a place with less stuff, other things being equal. It's also outfitted with a giant-ass cast iron radiator which, the owners promise, will make my winter very, very warm. It's right by my bed. I'm moving the bed before the early winter kicks in. It has a cool wide table where a lot of things fit, like: laptop, wide mousepad, watch, notebook, lamp, external HDD and several plates, and there's still space left. The table itself has two mirrors of different size by the wall; I see myself as I write this. A couple of years ago I would've taken them away because they'd make me look at myself, and that, for me back then, was a cringe-worthy sight. Now, though, I catch a glimpse of myself quite often there, especially when I do some silly dance over whatever's playing in the headphones. I like having the mirrors. They let me look at myself and see that I'm fine, which is much better than the things I used to think of my appearance before. I see that I look alright, and it makes me all the more confident. I took the TV away at the first opportunity: it took a lot of space (which I repurposed for the printer/scanner) and would've seen no use from me. As soon as I get my tools, I'll start optimizing the place's physical performance. The previous apartment's windows looked right over one of two of Tomsk's main vehicular arteries. It was noisy by day and almost quite by night. I liked it that way: it's very urban. I thought I'd miss it, the new apartment being a couple dozen meters away from the road now, but I turns out I'm fine. I do miss the Sun lighting up the apartment the way it did before, though. It was beautiful and energizing. The stadium I used to run at is now a bit more of a walk, which, in head, turns into a big block when I wake up early enough to do the run. The White Lake, a good spot to run, is undergoing reconstruction until next study year. Bummer. So, I barely run these days: feels like I have no place for it, now, even though the stadium is just fifty more meters away. Silly how that goes. Mosquitos are a menace here: my arms are all red from the bites. Not sexy. I take some common medicine to counter the itch, but I still have to keep the windows closed at night, which may contribute to groggy mornings. I don't like that, having come here with the desire to change things, but either that or I'm as ugly as a hunchback - a bloody one, considering that I'm a masochist to a degree. Thinking of employing some anti-mosquito radiator. Funny bit: my windows overlook the parking of a Russian car dealership. It's quiet and, to a degree, industrial. Oh, and the giant radio relay tower - it's now in my sights, day and night. Man it's huge. Things are slowly moving better. Thinking about it inspires me to do more change. It's good to have Pubski to verbalize this stuff. Helps me find that things are good.
It happened. It finally happened. My reputation as a writer has finally grown so much that someone, a friend of a friend, contacted me about a freelancing offer! We went back and forth a few times about the idea behind the project, how much work it would take, etc, until finally we came down to it. The discussion of how to set a number, and what number to set! I said, "My time is valuable, so I expect to see some compensation for it." In the twistiest twists of all twists, it happened! My contact said, "...My time is also valuable, so never mind. I know how to write!" This is it, guys! I've arrived.
Barkeep, pass me a warm can of PBR with a liberal coating of fine dust on the top, please. Man, my whole life used to revolve around Burning Man. But now, as my friends excitedly pack for their adventure in the desert, I am happy for them. I have no FOMO (fear of missing out), just happiness that they are going to carry on the tradition. And me? I'm getting the itch to travel. My foot is much better now, and I am looking forward to getting out on the road somewhere and taking a long weekend, or something... a short getaway with the wife and the dog...
Told both radio stations I'm taking a step back from them. Thinking I prefer the NE to the NW. Removing myself from the dating pool.
Generally I agree with you, with the caveat that some pizzas stand up to breakfast much better than others. Even some pizza that's decent fresh just doesn't have a good texture when chilled and aged. The perfect straight-out-of-the-fridge slice doesn't always correlate to the best pizza generally.
I'm on day three of trying to get a wild sour dough starter going, and day two of the current starter. My first grew an ecology amazingly well in the first day, but it was blue and green... I don't think I'm going to name my starter until it is five days old. Anything sooner than that seems like a setup for disappointment. We're also almost through our first month of keeping a budget. Holy shit! I feel like an adult.
What are you doing, for the uneducated? Yes! Keep up the good work!, and thanks for reminding me about my own plans for budgeting.trying to get a wild sour dough starter going, and day two of the current starter
We're also almost through our first month of keeping a budget.
Sourdough is pretty interesting, and is the way bread was made for most of human history. What I'm actually doing isn't very exciting. I am taking a mixture of water and flour in a 1:1 ratio, and letting it set out in my kitchen. I start off with a small amount, and mix in an equal part every day (doubling it). I'm banking on the fact that the wild yeasts and bacteria in my kitchen will take up residence and form a stable community. If they take hold, in about a week I should have my target volume of starter, and the community should be strong enough that the bacteria and yeast will fight off anything dangerous for me to eat and I'm good to start baking. Then I'll do my routine of feeding the starter and doubling it, and then take half of the starter and use it for the day's baking. Fermentation is a great thing.Writing in the Encyclopedia of Food Microbiology M.G. Gaenzle writes "The origins of bread-making are so ancient that everything said about them must be pure speculation. One of the oldest sourdough breads dates from 3700 BCE and was excavated in Switzerland, but the origin of sourdough fermentation likely relates to the origin of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent several thousand years earlier... Bread production relied on the use of sourdough as a leavening agent for most of human history; the use of baker's yeast as a leavening agent dates back less than 150 years."[63] Sourdough remained the usual form of leavening down into the European Middle Ages until being replaced by barm from the beer brewing process, and then later purpose-cultured yeast.
I'm gleefully embracing that fact, too. I can't take credit for having fucked my first starter because this shit is basically black magic. HAHA! Kinda romantic, ya know? A boy and his flour goop. Classic tale.From my understanding, there is some debate as to where the wild yeast actually is.
Oh yes, sorry. Bread. I got too excited and left that out. I make bread pretty regularly. Not daily, but often enough that buying flour in a 50 pound / 22.5 kg sack makes sense. ... I'm also kicking around the idea of just buying grains and milling my own. I don't really like whole wheat breads, but I've also never had fresh whole wheat, which goes rancid pretty fast.
So, I got a call from my boss yesterday. Looks like my contract is going to get cut short by 8 months. I was hired by a friend of a friend (my boss) as a contract programmer to work on a project for one of his clients. That client is having financial difficulties (bad economic sector where the recent drop in oil price has caused a lot of economic downturns.) My boss runs various projects for his client but he will be retiring soon and the client has just hired its first head of IT. My boss is trying desperately to re-negotiate my position and role so that I am hired directly by the client. but it's highly likely they'll just can the project instead. That leaves me in a bad situation because: 1) Every project I've ever worked on has been bespoke software - I don't own any of the code I've worked on, so literally nothing to show of my work. 2) I'm getting on in years and IT is notoriously a young person's field. There are plenty of older people working in IT but... 3) I have very few contacts in the industry. Most contract work comes through networking but I have virtually no network because... 4) I switched careers from IT to teaching ESL, then (about 2 years ago) back to IT. 5) Where I live there is very little work developing software, it's nearly all hardware and the ESL industry here is strong but again they're biased heavily towards younger people. Any help you can suggest is warmly welcomed. I'm an optimist, so I'm not losing sleep over this, but it's putting me in a much worse situation and I'm open to any guidance.
Have been spending the week up in Maine, lots of beautiful biking. Have to start getting my life together when I get home - heading to Chicago in just over a month. Finally settled on a complete song list for my album, am going to dive headfirst into recording once I get back too.
test Got a few calls and emails back about possible jobs, so I'm excited about that. I applied to some paralegal positions even though I don't think my future is headed towards the legal department. I'm really getting back into horror as a genre, but I really just want to read some good horror. I've spent a lot of time watching horror movies recently, but I'm gonna start looking into some good books to read. If anyone has any suggestions let me know.
In the spirit of #scificlub and horror I recently read "The Jaunt" by Stephen King and I recommend it.
As much as I'd like to complain about the lost today, things are moving forward for me. I started caring about my health. I used not to because it made me a victim and, therefore, I could complain about how bad I have it and receive pity which, as far as I was concerned, was as good as any kind of caring. I'm still moving past the barrier of "I kinda wanna do this, but, you know", but it's a progress, and I appreciate it. I'm making stuff happen in my life, as well. I enjoy web programming - and web game programming, in particular - very much, and I've been making some games in the background. By the way, Weaver is not abandoned: it's been transformed into something cooler which I'm working on right now. I've almost finished The Words Game, and when it's done, I can ship it to the Web as well as to smartphones so everyone could enjoy it. The rules are simple: you have a word, and you have to explain it to your team without using the word itself (or, in some versions, related taboo words: for example, "space", "living" and "floor" might be the taboo words for "house") for a point; the team with most points by the end of the game wins. It's a simple game, but it's been fun to play in our Language Practice classes, so I thought I'd make it easier to play, especially for the next year's freshmen. No Man's Sky's tool/weapon-building system blew my mind, so I want to build something like it from the web tools now. Some other games are also moving forward slowly. I don't know why yet, but I think the way I feel right now - somewhat apathetic and less energetic than by the time I arrived or last study year's moving out - is connected to figuring stuff out and making things move. It took me three days to force myself to make the first meal in the place, but I did it, which means I'll have less trouble making the next one. I'm still freaking out about making something with mushrooms, but... I guess I'll get there. I feel a bit disconnected from everything that's happening around me and in my life, which may be a mental defence I'm employing to shield myself from the stress I'm feeling. The apartment's a mess after all the shit my parents brought over. I still spend a ton of money on take-out food, sweets and drinks because I'm terrified of and have no energy for cooking. The bedbug anxiety still lingers because the bites haven't gone away yet. Maybe something else. elizabeth told me when I last talked about similar experiences last study year that I'm just overwhelmed and should take a step back. Should would be right again if she told me about it now. The problem is that it's hard to bring myself to relax at times like these; it is as if I feel, in my subconscious mind, that I should suffer like I do. It's a relict of the system of values I'm moving away from, where I wasn't worthy of good things. It's a slow process, but it's moving.
I'm wonder what sickness lasts at least three weeks, causes sore throat, general fatigue, headache / fever, and chills. And possibly affects housemates with more mild, but still prolonged symptoms. Mono is one candidate, and I've never had it before, but it would sad to have gotten the kissing disease without at least some sinful behavior. On the plus side, enjoying my month of super-spotify and found several great DnB radios to keep my mind focused while I write.