Birth center is donezo. I mean, there's a couple little things. Gotta put up some blinds. Need to replace a doorknob. One counter still needs a backsplash. But we spent $1500 on catering for 50 people at the open house Saturday and after three hours we had eight rolls of mortadella, a couple polenta cakes and about a melon's worth of honeydew. Also got my call for work this summer, so our financial future is secure while we wait for, oh, $1500 worth of catering to come back to us as goodwill and consumer interest. Also pulled off the taxes such that we won't starve prior to work starting again, was able to pay my daughter's tuition in full, was able to pay the accountants and was able to set money aside for retirement for me and the wifey for the first time since 2005 so that's nice. I also managed, through sheer blind luck and mk's tutelage, to leverage bitcoin and Ethereum such that... well, I'm pleased with the current price and guardedly optimistic as to its trajectory. We should be starving to death right now and we're not. We might be sitting on a half million dollars' worth of leverage but apparently that's between a third and a quarter of where we'd be with a dental clinic. I might be driving a '95 Dodge, my daughter's room might be directly across the hall from mine and I might not be sure if we can afford storm windows this spring but fuckin'A I have a reasonable expectation that whatever windows we've got, I'll still own their frames next year. My insurance is good enough that I have a nutritionist and a physical therapist, and my daughter is going to have a shitty week because she's got shots tomorrow and the dentist friday. I also have a yoga instructor. Mine is a pampered fucking lifestyle. If my biggest complaint is that I'm now eating sixteen servings of fresh vegetables a day I'm neck deep in white people problems. I dunno. You're supposed to be thankful in November. That's always seemed weird to me because that's right about the time you're going into ridiculous debt buying shit people don't need and busily accomplishing fuckall until January. For me, it's always been getting through February. We're cooking the second 3lb chunk of corned beef for my father-in-law's birthday tomorrow. That means i will make Irish Tacos for the second time in as many weeks because they're fucking delicious.
Hell yes kb! (almost sent this using your actual name, such was my excitement. You have been working so hard towards this opening. It's phenomenal to see someone set a goal as lofty as this one and achieve it. I know how much it takes to accomplish such things. It's Herculean. I read below that you are the one that took the photos for the center's art. They're amazing. Also, in a previous photo, I saw the living wall. -Well done! Hell, I'd have a baby there. Maybe I'll swing by in October with my wife. Turns out, we have a daughter on the way ;-)
This is brilliant. It's been so interesting following the development of your birth centre, I hope that the opening goes well! It's not often that we see people talk about starting a new enterprise who are also willing to be totally frank about the amount of difficulty and stress that goes into it. Also, TIL what a doula is!
Wow. I wanna have birth now. Did you take those photos that were printed and hung?
Everything currently hanging in the birth center was taken by me. Kind of intimidating to print up four of your own shots into 40x60 triptychs. We've been meeting with birth photographers to get their stuff to hang up outside the birth rooms. We get decor, they get advertising, the word gets out, everybody's happy. We had about nine doulas just sorta park and hang out for three hours. Initially it annoyed me and then I realized that (1) they're cruising for customers (2) they don't get to hang out and gab very often. So now we're thinking of putting together some sort of "meet the doula" event every couple-three months because it costs us nothing, gets people into the facility and increases the likelihood that our clients hire doulas, which reduces our transport rates precipitously and takes a big chunk out of the amount of hand-holding my wife has to do. The doula pope showed up Saturday. The pros were gobsmacked. Her husband sat in our lobby talking to no one and reading a book for half an hour. It was awesome.
Those are a couple of positive-sum business ideas. And those photos are great, what I was able to glean. How expensive are semi-large triptychs? And are there many birthing rooms in the birthing center?
Cheap. But also kind of crap. Like $55 plus $20 shipping. So... if you want to have a birth suite, there are certain requirements for size. There are other requirements for layout. There are still more requirements for access to bathrooms. There are still more requirements for access to gurneys. All of these are argued out and debated by no less than three agencies - the local jurisdiction, the planning department at the Department of Health and the licensing department at the Department of Health (who do not necessarily agree with each other). Further, there are requirements as far as ancillary support for those suites. Like you need a laundry room big enough that all your clean shit goes on one side and all your dirty shit on the other. Then, of course, you need facilities for the families, lockers for your employees (!) and a kitchenette which has its own happy fun time regs. And since you've got professionals around, and since you're hoping to attract others to pay you rent, you need a couple-three offices. And none of this is going to work without reception. So. If you want, say, two birth suites? Despite the fact that they're under 400sqft each, you've still got 2200sqft worth of facility upon which to pay rent and triple net every month.
I slept today, It was amazing, I will suffer for it later because my wife didn't. Oh the joys of fatherhood. The babe turned a month old the other day, happy growing baby. Still only sleeps for 2-3 hours though. The wife has been on a cleaning/decorating spree, its driving me a bit nuts but I think its hormonal. We bought a new couch, were cleaning every day, I ended up doing drywall so she could paint in the next couple days. This all adds additional stress to our already sleep deprived and stressful life. First week back at work, yesterday was day 2, wasn't sure I was going to make day 3 last night but the sleep really helped. I think I can make it though till Friday now. Things are looking up. On the positive side, this weekend was really good. Got a bunch of plants from Burnt Ridge nursery, and we planted around 150 strawberries, some kiwis, blueberries and a quince tree. Vegetables beds, fruit trees and chickens, - starting a real urban homestead here. Oh yeah BEES!, did i mention bees? I picked up some equipment off CL and put in an order for a small bee colony to pick up in April. I'm really excited about the bee stuff.
Another friend - Greg - moved into hospice care on Monday, and is facing his final days. The cancer didn't respond to treatment, and there are no more options. I know because he sent me an email, telling me (and others) about his condition, and his imminent death. He's clear-headed, facing the end with open eyes, and a full heart, surrounded by his wife, his family, and his closest friends. So I wrote a "have a nice transition" email to my friend. And yes, it was just as weird as that sounds. I reminisced about the years we worked side-by-side on a wide variety of insane Burning Man projects, and Maker Faire, and art cars, and wild raves, and... and then I said goodbye to him. His wife and I are playing Words With Friends, as she sits with him in the hospice. And I am deep in the dreary winter doldrums. Not upset, or depressed, or whatever. Just... flat. My friend Greg is dying of cancer. It's rainy and drippy and wet outside. I have no big Projects to work on right now. My wife and I kinda pass each other in the hallways, share a kiss and a few words about how much we are looking forward to Spring, and then go on to wherever we were going and whatever we were doing. Becalmed in the vast ocean of life. Waiting for any breeze to move my sails...
Today I start cooking legit meals. Figure I'm gonna start out small with like a vegetable Lo Mein (really like Chinese food, but no good Chinese places around me) then go from there. My goal is to learn to cook a really great steak, and just general knowledge of cooking. I'm really prepping myself for the day I move away, so that I can do stuff for myself without relying on bad food, or stuff like that.
"Good ingredients prepared simply" is the most basic truism in cooking. Be extremely wary of what you learn on cooking shows; there is as much fetishism for people who will never cook as there is instruction for those attempting to learn. Anyone who tells you that crushing garlic is bad but chopping garlic is good is attempting to intimidate you, not educate you. Vegetables benefit from being undercooked and suffer horribly from being overcooked. When in doubt, aim low. USDA "minimum done" and "recommended done" are not the same things. There is a great deal of controversy here but Thermoworks has yet to steer me wrong. On a related note, I'll bet you feel you can't afford one of these. That's okay. You don't need one immediately. But mark my words - as soon as you get one, you'll wish you had one a lot sooner. Put it on your wish list or whatever because anything that allows you to execute flawless poached eggs, steaks and fudge in one tool is a worthy investment. American Chinese cuisine is fundamentally four(?) mother sauces and a couple preparation techniques. Not surprisingly, French cooking is similar. Master the sauces, master the cuisine... and then you can mix it up and improvise with a great deal of success. A "really great steak" is like a "really great omelet" - it's really great ingredients left alone as much as possible. Tools matter. Reddit likes to argue about which you need more, a good set of pans or a good set of knives. Then they get into pissing matches about what "good" means, someone throws the Cutco bomb and it descends into invective. This is dumb because the whole point of having decent tools is that they make the process fun instead of a chore and generally you need to cut things that go in a pot and unless you're a rawist... Wusthof or Henkels, choice is yours, that set of four knives, a steel and a pair of scissors for $130 on eBay will do just fine. I've found that Wusthof tends to keep an edge better than Henkels but that could be confirmation bias on my part 'cuz I like their logo better. Not sure who's making Cuisinart's blades these days but they're okay. Despite what Rachael Ray is telling you, you don't need a Santoku. You probably do need a carving knife, a chef's knife, a bread knife and a paring knife (and a decent pair of shears). You also need a steel because the more often you hone the edge the longer you can go between sharpenings. And you should probably start out by getting your knives sharpened for you. This costs anywhere between $2 per blade in Seattle to twenty fucking dollars in LA. I was all set to drop $400 on some All-Clad back when I was in my early '20s but instead bought the (then $150) Kirkland Signature set. Aside from a couple Le Creusets I have purchased no cookware since 1998... and I have a $100 thermometer. Non-stick is a waste of time. Do not bother. The teflon will come off over time, your choices of cooking implements is severely limited and you don't need it. In order to keep food from sticking you need only raise it to room temperature (by running it under warm water, for example) prior to putting it in the skillet. Once butter stops sizzling, it's ready to cook. And by limiting yourself to steel, enamel and cast iron, you can use spectacular tools such as this which will render nonstick to ribbons in two sets of pancakes. Best of all, should you have a kitchen disaster (such as reducing olive oil to varnish by getting distracted while heating a pan), stainless iron and enamelware all respond favorably to a blast with Bon Ami. The best "starting out" cookbook is not The Joy, it's not James Beard, it's not America's Test Kitchen, it's Eduard de Pomaine's French Cooking in Ten Minutes from 1930 for the simple reason that it argues ingredients plus cooking equals food, a fundamental maxim entirely lost by todays overfetishized food worship culture. Cooking is learned by cooking. It is learned by experimentation. It is learned by confidence. It is not learned by letting others tell you what you can't do, by assuming that if it's tarted up with excessive prep it will somehow be better. And finally, know that presentation matters. I've personally been skeptical of this but I spend half the year eating out of a buffet. last year, one of the cooks prepared me a plate of the exact same food I eat out of that buffet and lemme tell ya - well arranged food actually does taste better than that very same food heaped on a plate. Don't get precious with it but have a little pride. I leave you with this: ZOMG Thomas Keller cooking a ZOMG roast chicken. See how obsessive that fucker is? Now hie thee to Amazon and watch Season 1, Episode 3 of Julia Child's French Chef from 1963. Notice how it is the diametrical opposite. I've cooked both. Know what? They taste like chicken.
I have 2 La Creuset dutch oven pans. They are awesome. I have a few All Clad Blacks but only use them when I'm getting all serious. Otherwise I use some decent mid grade cookware. Nonstick work good for about a year if treated with great care. You can't get them as hot as other pans or you'll damage the coating over time, not great for saute. I still have a nonstick fry pan, I guess it's a bad habit that I should get over. I have a variety of knives but only use a mid grade chef knife for everything. I dice garlic and core tomatoes with a chef knife. I would drive chefs mad on the job refusing to use pairing knives but my fine knife skills are good and I'm fast when I need to be so in the end they just let me use my chef knife and left me alone. You only "need" a chef's knife an a bread knife but there are about a million posts on the internet telling you otherwise. I like Bittman's how to cook everything as a starting place for what I'm going to make but I have a ton of cook books and a decade+ of Cooks Magazines that I go to for ideas. Cook books are there mostly for ideas.
My knife skills should be a lot better than they are but I never had any desire to excel as a mindless kitchen drone. If I had a great knife I'd do much better. I'd guess that I've spent the better part of a waking year if my life with a chef knife or meat cleaver in my hand. You can't help but get better when you have one in you hand for 30 hours of a 40-50 hour work week. At one time I worked at a restaurant that had all you could ear fajitas. No one worked that station more than two days a week because their hands would get so fucked up from holding a cleaver for hours on end. My right arm looked like Popeye's my left looked like a normal guys arm who never worked out. People would laugh at it when I'd show them. At the end of a shift I could neither open or close my right hand until the next morning. I remember the despair of the entire Harvard football team coming in for fajitas mid shift. You would be a perfectly useful kitchen drone in a week. In a month your knife skills would be way better. The competition not to suck makes people who care get better super fast.
UPDATE: It went well for the first time. My family all enjoyed it, and I learned a hell of a lot from it. There is already so much I want to experiment with. I have a picture of it, but I've gotta move it from my phone. I'm super excited to make it even better next time. I also found out that the clean up afterwards is hella therapeutic for me. I actually enjoy hand washing, wiping, and just cleaning up. Cooking was a bit hectic, and the clean up was super chill. It was a nice balance.
Look deeper into the recipes and think about the process. Why do they have you put the butter in the pan, wait for it to sizzle, and then put in the chopped onions, long before the mushrooms? Because the onions need longer and more intense heat to break down to that lovely translucent phase. And juice comes out of them that mixes with the butter, so when you put the mushrooms in for the last 5 minutes, they get coated with the yummy onion/butter goodness. All cooking is chemistry. From how you cook a specific material, to the flavor profile of the final dish, everything is just chemical processes. For me, this makes cooking really simple. Carrots, onions, potatoes, and other root veggies go into the broth first, because they are hard and will take longer to cook. "Soft" things, like mushrooms and bell peppers and chicken go in later, because they don't need to cook as long. Watch the Netflix TV series "Cooked", and then read his book "The Omnivore's Dilemma". Cooking is best when done simply with great ingredients, and he does a brilliant job pounding that fact home in a really enjoyable way.
To add: protein and cook time is protein specific. Chicken cooked all day will be dry. Beef cooked all day will either become tough or fall-apart delicious depending on other conditions. Shrimp should be cooked until just barely done and no more. Squid must be cooked under two minutes or over an hour; in between it becomes rubber bands. Scallops are best seared quick and hot; pork is best slow and low. Skate? ...skate I have fucked up four times. That there is restaurant food.
Good on you, man. Cooking is important. Solid advice: when you know you might overdo the amount of ingredients for a roll, buy two bread rolls, and wrap the full one with the other one. Don't cheapen out on the bread roll. Gonna save you a lot of spilled sauce when you eat. Put less than you think you might need into it, sauce included. Would give you some more, but the thing escapes me.
Random things in veen's life: Found a new sticker for my laptop. It's a bit cheesy, but I think it is Gouda 'nuff. Spent Saturday gliding for the first time this season! Remarkably, I hadn't forgotten everything. The weather was amazing too, I even got a bit of a sunburn. I have been loving the Netflix Original docu series 'Abstract: The Art of Design'. Objectively, it is not that great (the first episode is kinda boring and it treats the designers it focuses on like gods) but I find it incredibly inspiring. Makes me want to drop everything and create a masterpiece. Work has been meh. I know I'll start my graduation project in a month so I have been turning that dial down, which means that I am mostly at the office for show. Don't want to burn these bridges though, when I graduate it's a fallback for me. I have been considering not shaving and keeping a stubble tidy. But I don't know if I will look cool or pervy. Five days of not shaving and it doesn't look like much yet. Should I shave / trim it, or around it? Last week I tried easing into DST by setting my alarm 10 minutes earlier every day for a week. It kinda worked! I had a serious case of the Mondays this week but overall, experiment successful. For some reason I have also been very productive this week, I wonder if it's related. It does hinge completely on not going out to parties, though.
I think it's worth continuing to grow it out, if anything to see what it looks like! To answer the question of "if I will look cool or pervy" you have to just go for it and see. If it's pervy, 20 minutes of shaving and a day of embarrassment and it's gone.
Finally made a decision on a vacation...going to Missoula, MT for this amazing music festival. I think The Decemberists saw what Wilco have been doing with Solid Sound and decided to put on their own version of that. I'm pretty okay with it, considering it's a helluva lot closer. thenewgreen where should I look into staying around town? Never been to Missoula but there's a pretty sweet looking hostel. Anyway, PR'd my 5k time two of the last three weeks. I'm still slow, but I'm finally hitting < 24 minutes for a 5k, and am on a fairly set running and weight lifting regiment. Between that and the "not drinking this month" thing, I haven't had much to talk about, really. Feels like I'm a boring individual human bean when people ask me what I've been doing. Guess it's hard to explain. For some reason a 4-mile mud run in a park doesn't seem like an amazing time to some people. Also, compression tights are really, really fucking comfortable. I need to do a better job with nutrition, though, between work and all the fitness stuff it's hard to find the time to make a good meal before 8pm, which is later than I really want to be eating. Once the Farmer's Markets start back up that should make things a bit easier.
I wouldn't have the faintest on where to stay. I haven't been there in over 15 years. If it's still around, you have to get JJ's chicken fried steak, at the Oxford. late night after the bar. It will taste like ass unless its after 2-am. Also, if it still exists, the Eastgate lounge had a pretty damn good jukebox. You should get out of Missoula and head up to glacier national Park. It's only a few hours north. The drive there is pretty amazing too. Flathead Lake is every bit as beautiful as Lake Tahoe. I don't have a lot of time right now, I'm sure there's much more I could suggest. The Decembrists are Colin Malloy's band, right? He had a band when I was at the University of Montana called Tarkio. They were the most popular band in town back then. I'm not surprised his concert is in Missoula. What venue?
I visited 6 countries in the last 2 weeks, 4 of them new, and my birthday was last Thursday. Topher is here in Pristina with me and the seasonal depression seems to be finally on its way out (although having my best friend back in my bed probably helps too).
I didn't notice it so much but I'm also not very close to the power plant
Illuminopoly seems really cool. Out of curiosity what other games do you play? I've got a semi regular group as of recently and have been looking for more options.
Carcassone is a great game, so is Pandemic. Haven't played the rest of them (think we had Lost Patrol in a place where I used to live?). Puerto Rico is another fun board game.
It took me 3 and 1/2 hours to tear down and rebuild, but I fixed my lens. No new parts needed, just had to tighten some bits that the impact let loose. Canon uses the softest metal for their fasteners that I have ever encountered. The Canon factory had to replace the main board in the camera. --- The first outdoors farmers market starts up on the 8th here. The local hardware store does an indoor one year around, but there are only ~5 stalls. Steph is hoping to find some farms that are OK with consumers coming out and looking at their operations. We'll see how that goes. Kale are doing well, we'll go out and turn some earth this weekend if the ground isn't complete slop. --- Our "wedding reception" is slowly becoming something I'm dreading. One of my sister-in-laws was upset that she didn't get to go to the courthouse when we eloped, so we let her organize a party to help heal that wound. On the condition that it was a party. If we wanted pomp and circumstance we would have had a wedding. Our requests were: No Children, A keg of local beer, and that it's a Potluck. We told her we would only be wearing our normal clothes. So far, only the keg remains. She keeps asking about how we are coordinating our clothes. "Teamsters shirts and Jeans." --- If you ever find yourself in Lawrence, KS, go to the visitors center and enquire about The Movie. It's 20 minutes, and really, really bad. The gleeful face of the guy manning the center as he sets up The Movie isn't a wholesome sort of glee. Then go to Terrebonne's off Vermont St and get a portobello sandwich and a pecan praline bar. It's cheap, and it'll help memories of The Movie fade. --- Mastering The Art of French Cooking has an amazing french bread recipe. When people ask me what my recipe is, I'm going to start directing them to that. Shit, it might become the recipe I actually use instead of just throwing shit together.
Last night my immediate family in town went out to NPR's live recording of Science Friday. If you listen closely to the airing on Friday, you may be able to distinguish my clap from the rest of the crowd. /s The topic was a mix of robotics and space. Boy do I wish I had gone up and gotten my questions heard. Overall, it was a reminder of why I don't tune into that section. On the topic of human exploration of space, there was a question about why we should be looking to space for human preservation and the two answers given back from the NASA employees boiled down to: (I) Humans are explorers by nature. (II) Resources are easier/cost efficient to extract from the Asteroid belt rather than middle earth for the reasons of safety and quality of life. What. Anyways. I'd be happy to discuss what you guys think once you hear the segment aired. The final speaker was interesting, and talked about exercise in space by using machines with springs to increase the work astronauts do during a workout in rather than sustain the work done over time. In theory, the machine(s) will reduce the amount of equipment and time spent for exercise in space. Onto my own life, (hot off the press) I'm spending a month under the wing of a geothermal company's founder where the intention is to learn all I can about the industry and how it works, then apply it in the field during my remaining time there. Planning on taking a local engineer out in May (closer to the date, when I'm free from school) for lunch and getting good information to read up on as well so I'm more prepared. (Thanks to kleinbl00 for the suggestion) A peer of mine from grade-school died by suicide this week. While I wasn't close with him, it's someone I saw everyday for a few years. Hard to think looking back now how short a time he had here. This in combination of my surviving grandparent's recent illness has really been provoking existential thoughts. My brain keeps reference an older discussion when goobster had lost his friend Mark: As cliche as it is, I say a glimpse of what this means after re-reading Siddhartha for a go-around. There was a deeper appreciation for the life and general place around where I stood. This, most recently was compounded with a discussion shared with my uncle along similar lines, since he, too believed death is absolute. His reason being his experience as a doctor. He said I hadn't understood what that meant until a week before my peer's successful suicide attempt: your experience of the world, in your conscious self is no longer. That sounds basic, but for some reason it sunk a bit deeper knowing that my mind as a sanctuary will be eradicated. Further, death won't mean just black absence since I won't even have the consciousness to perceive said absence... for the eternity of my passing from the blink on Earth. Holy shit. I think I'm starting to finally understand why people may fear death, and yet I find that doubly as sorrowful knowing that such a permanent solution to a (circumstantially) temporary problem is found in suicide. In other words, I've found yards of compassion for loss of life where I've previously procured inches. While I may not have known my peer deeply, I'm told just showing up and shedding light into my (positive) perception of them will be more than enough. Both of my roommates knew/knew of him. I'm attending the visitation tomorrow and offering them rides. Finally, school. Sorta getting my groove on in class, but outside of it I'm still a work in progress... There's more to the story, but I really can't get over the thoughts on death and re-evaluating what's really worth living for in my life and my place here for the time I have."Whatever happens after death (if at all), it's nothing like what you'd experience in this life because your brain stops."
Interesting thinking about suicide... phrased another way, it could be said that atheists have a harder time committing suicide because they know this is the only chance they get. If you think you live beyond death, or that you are reincarnated, suicide is a viable - and temporary - solution. Hm. Interesting. And hey... I'm glad something I wrote had an effect on you! I'm honored.
Of course. I use hubski as a vent for thoughts I don't express openly much, so they have quite a bit of time to marinate in my brain. On the flipside, I really appreciate what others write on here as well. Yourself, lil, kb, and ob got the hamster wheel spinning in my head a lot - granted the little I know. If anything, thank you.And hey... I'm glad something I wrote had an effect on you! I'm honored.
There's lots of blending that goes on with these terms. There are Atheist Buddhists who don't believe that they are going to be reborn as a dog or something, but instead believe that treating others as if they were yourself in a different life is simply the best and most ethical way to go about living. There are Buddhists who call themselves Atheists because they don't believe in any specific deity, but who do believe in supernatural entities/processes. They believe that they will be reborn into a life befitting their karma. They are Atheists because they don't believe in a God, but some other people who call themselves atheists would say that they are not actually atheists because they believe in supernatural beings/processes.
Ideally seeing yourself as a work in progress aligns you with others who are aware that, like everyone else, they are learning to live in the ever-changing world.outside of it I'm still a work in progress
that's exactly the way you want to be - a work in progress. -- not smugly on top of everything -- but A. Work. In. Progress. There's more to the story,
Tell more when you get a chance. pm if you like.
Rather than moan and whine, I will be very brief. Coming from a bad mental health spot, I have a small bit of wisdom, and that is this. I have gone from life-threatening problems, to interesting, and not life-threatening problems. The problems that I do have are wallet problems, not will to live problems, and I am working on being grateful for that. Started to really dig into the Mass in Time of War to be fully prepared for NYC come June, which is only 2 months away. We have one rehearsal between now and the flight. Four rehearsals with the full choir in NYC. One dress rehearsal with the orchestra and soloists. It helps to keep that in mind as I sit and audiate and study my score.Your problems will never go away. You will never not have some sort of problem that needs addressing. The best you can hope for, the best you can work towards, is to have interesting, non life-threatening, sometimes fun problems.
NEVER buy ANY ticket that is not being sold at face value. This is a basic principle of Burning Man, and anyone selling any ticket over face value should be reported, and that ticket number will be invalidated by the Burning Man org. STEP is always a good idea. Register there. Have your money ready. It is the only 100% absolutely sure way to buy a ticket second-hand, because it is run by the Burning Man org. For me, I just do a lot of stuff with my local Burner community. I know a lot of people, and let people know that when they hear of a ticket, to let me know about it. By the first of August, tickets should be pretty easy to find. Keep cash on hand, set up email alerts, and watch your facebook posts closely, and jump as soon as you see a ticket available. Shit happens. People break legs, get new jobs and lose their time off, and Family Things come up that prevent people from going. There is also a seriously woo-woo hippie aspect to this that plays out for me, every.single.year, and that is, if you are supposed to be there, the World will sort out making sure you find a ticket. I know. It's silly. But it's true, and has been true for the last decade, in my experience. People overcome the most unlikely circumstances because the universe has decided they need to go this year. Other people are totally prepared, and fail to get there due to some insane circumstances. So. Make sure you are connected with your local community. You go to the local events, and volunteer to help out in some way. When people participate rather than attend, they are much more welcome.
Yeah, reported a bunch of scalpers on Ebay already. Really pissed me off they try to resell for profit when our group only got a handful. High hopes for the Step program right now, but i'll look into connecting more with the local burners. I only know a handful of people right now. Morale kind of in the gutter, but I guess it's just the initial disappointment. Will try to stay positive and prey to the Fire Gods :) Hopefully before August too because we had this whole roadtrip planned but at this point just getting to go would be already awesome. Quick question - is face value the number written on the ticket or the actual money paid by the person to buy the ticket (I hear there are some non-insignificant fees on top of the ticket price) Are you planing on attending this year?
Also, there are a lot of Burners in Montreal. Email either of these guys, show them your YouTube channel to show you are for real, and they'll totally help get you connected with regular events. http://regionals.burningman.org/regionals/canada/montreal/ Usually Burning Man communities have weekly pub meetups, or potlucks. This is a great way to connect with your local community. These guys probably also know of art projects that need extra hands or help getting built. Volunteer. Serve drinks at a fundraiser, or whatever. You will meet great people.
Yeah, I hear there are monthly potlucks, we have a fb page - but I never attended. I'll try to make it next time, and meet some new people :) Sounds like a lot of fun anyway, I just always made excuses not to go, because I don't know anybody but I should just get over that.
"Not knowing anybody" is one of the reasons people don't go to things... and one of the first things that blows people's minds when they first experience Burning Man. Go to the potluck. See what happens. I think you are going to be very surprised at how welcoming a community can be. Tell them what you want, and you will instantly have five or six people excitedly trying to help you out! It is a really cool community, and the potlucks are an easy way to find your place within that community.
Face value is what you pay. Period. There are also parking passes, but those are face value, too. There are no other fees except shipping, which to Canada is the standard $39 parcel post rate.
I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. I may as well have a panic attack when I'm in class. All the people around me I reached out to so far failed to show any kind of compassion. Knowing that I'm at the lowest point now is a relief. Been to all classes today, for the first time. The teachers I've met weren't nearly as nasty about me skipping a whole month worth of classes as I imagined. Haven't had a highly destructive thought for a while, and fought the other ones successfully. Eaten when hungry, which is enormous. Complimented a girl without thinking too much about it. The group and I have a tall enough wall by now that, about administrative matters, they dare not talk to me. The dean's office needed our credit books for government reevaluation. I only learned about it today, a day before it has to be done, not from the head of the group but from the only other guy in it, because we still maintain semblance of contact. (if anyone wants to talk to me about repairing bridges, opening up to people, apologizing first or the giving spirit - not fucking now) I have no one to reach out to, no one to talk to about how I feel or just spend time with in the immediate vicinity. Best anyone did was ask me how I was and, receiving no reply, say "Oh. That bad?". People only care about me as long as I provide some sort of utility. Without that, I might as well not exist. Same thing about my narcissistic mother. May or may not be related to shit that's happening. Lost a few friends since last Pubski to the same apathy. Met half the people I didn't want to meet within the same half an hour today, including Julia. One of her posts later came up as "recommended" in my social network feed. Going to meet another person tomorrow. Shit. One day I'm gonna laminate my memory of Sveta on Hubski, 'cause I keep thinking about her years after. Watch out for that name. Damn it. On top of simple desire to dissapate in people for a little bit, I'm experiencing limerence. Fucking hell. (if anyone wants to talk to me about getting therapy - I don't even have money for food, so not fucking now) Anyway. Lowest point. Gonna keep attending all the classes, like I promised myself I would. Haven't seen byonic for a long while. Makes me worried. He's not active on IRC or Hubski.
They say stereotypes exist for a reason, and as a British person my teeth fucking suck. I've got to get a load of fillings, go teetotal on all unnecessary sugar, and use a toothpaste with 5x the amount of fluoride in. That's what I get for being a stoner who didn't look after his teeth when I was an undergrad. I thought I'd been doing alright with my dental hygiene since then but obviously not. Oh well, at least we have the NHS so it wont be too much money. I've been having mixed feelings about my music lately. I've tracked about 450 hours work on it since October last after I made a resolution to be more discipline. I've undoubtedly made a lot of progress but it's hard sometimes doing this shit in isolation. I know I can't expect the people around me to ever be as passionate about what I'm creating as I am myself. That's just not realistic. But now I'm finally starting to achieve compositions that touch on my 'inner ideal' of how I want my music to be and people barely seem to show anything above a vague appreciation. Meanwhile, this generic, badly produced piece of Drum & Bass I made in a week 7 years ago has 250,000 views. Oh well, I'll keep ploughing on I. Maybe I just haven't found my audience yet. The more likely conclusion is that I'm just not good enough yet.
I'm looking into getting a cash back rewards credit card. I have a credit score of 790 and I have been looking at the chase freedom card and the Bank of America card as I Bank with Bank of America. I'm open to other cards as well. Any experiences or tips?
I have the chase freedom card, and I've never really had an issue. I feel like its hard to judge whether a card is good or not until you actually have an issue with the card, and you see how the bank resolves it. From researching both cards, I feel like the best option is gonna be the card you bank with. It's usually much easier to pay balances with an account connected to the CC in question. I bank with Chase, so I have chase freedom. Beyond that Chase freedom has a 5% cash back deal in rotating categories that for the most part make at least one thing in the category worth it. I think this rotation is grocery stores, and the previous cycle was gas. Then there is 1% on all other purchases. I've traveled out of the country twice with the card, one call is all it took. After that I never really had a problem with the card. If there was anything specific you wanted to know just let me know. (I'm not sure how you handle money I would assume you handle it well with that credit score, mine is around the same).
I have a Chase Freedom and have been pleased with it. First time I had a fraudulent charge, they called me before I knew it was there. Second time, I caught it. Both times it was a painless process to say it isn't my charge and get a new card. Easy.
I went with the BarclaysBank Apple Card, which gives me a crapload of cash back in the form of $25 Apple gift cards. I have nine of the things on my desk at home right now! They just keep sending me money. And their online site is pretty well done. Simple, easy to navigate.
Art I know it's only two days old, but this thread made my week. If anyone missed it, go check it out. It goes to show that it's a fact that Hubski is brimming with some pretty creative people. I'm currently working on a 5x8 drawing of a pink ant and the background is gonna diamonds filled in with random bits. The background is taking forever to sketch out. Before I color it in, I'll do some tests on another piece of paper to see the best way to color stuff without messing it up. Heaven forbid I put hours of work into something just to have to scrap it again. ::cough::likemy::cough::quilt::cough:: Drew a waterfall in a keyhole. Learned waterfalls need more rocks. Learned that I don't need to be good at drawing to enjoy it. I think I'm gonna hit up a museum on my next day off. Cellphones The release of the BlackBerry KEYone is right around the corner. Dala and I are both planning on getting one, at which point my Galaxy will become an MP3 player/mini tablet for home use. We will probably order from the manufacturer directly so we don't have to worry about our phone carrier putting crap ware on the phone. That said, it turns out that the phone will actually be made by TCL, which after the whole fiasco with ZTE and spyware, is making me second guess whether the KEYone will be a smart choice. Westerns Got off work early today. I'm currently watching The Rifleman on Hulu as I sit on the couch with the dog, waiting to fall asleep for a nap. I got to the second half of Trigun and quickly lost my interest in finishing the series. It goes from being fun and mostly light hearted to being dark and mopy and overly dramatic real quick. The second half is nowhere near as fun as the first half.
Have the opportunity to study abroad the spring semester of 2018. Think I'll take it. The two main options that jump out at me out of the twenty or so exchange programs offered in twelve countries are programs at University of Leeds or one of two universities in Seoul, SK. I'm leaning heavily towards Seoul. Has anyone been to or lived in (or studied abroad!?) in Seoul? I hear the food is fucking amazing. BIG THINGS EVERYBODY. IT'S ALL COMING UP TRUMP. /s
Lolololol nailed it. That episode was so good. I'm recently obsessed with Cowen. I went to see him interview Gladwell a few weeks ago with wasoxygen and it was kind of electrifying. His unabashed curiosity and enthusiasm is infectious. What's the ICN?
I had Teeth Anxiety! That's when you get mild toothache then you become convinced your teeth are all going to fall out. I went to a dentist yesterday. My teeth are fine. I have a bit of a gum disease but this can be amended by going to a hygeinist to get a deep clean and then modifying the way I brush so that I don't hit my gums. So relieved. I also got food poisoning this weekend from maybe a kebab but maybe also spoiled milk. Not sure. This week has been so stressful. I slept for eight hours last night. I intend to repeat this feat tonight. I also have to find a new place to live within two weeks because I told my letting agents I wanted to move out because my current house is a squalid hellhole and all my housemates are moving out (which were the only good thing about the place anyway). I hope that a change of scene to somewhere with a bit more light and a cycle route to work that doesn't involve gambling with Death every day will help my mental health a bit.
I went Snowboarding in Lake Tahoe for a week or two with my school when I was around 15. Such an awesome place. I remember on one day I went off-piste to go between the trees and when I came out my entire group had disappeared. This just so happened to be where the trail split off in two opposite directions. What's more, one way went back to our Californian resort and the second way to a different, Nevada based one. I had no idea where to go. After walking around a bit, I ended up choosing to go left and luckily I was correct. When I arrived at the bottom the instructor was obviously relieved. Someone said to him: "would you have got sacked if he didn't come back?" He didn't know that 'getting sacked' is a synonym for getting fired in the UK and responded: "What's that? Like getting kicked in the balls?" Good times.The skiing here in Lake Tahoe has been rather marvelous.