I defended my thesis. I am told by my committee that they're willing to work with me to get it to publishable standard and that they are interested in supporting my development of a theoretical framework. According to them, I've done 80% of a possible dissertation, with another subsection of my thesis showing promise for the development of a separate paper. I'm still broke though.
I'm kinda done with the damn heat. Has rained like twice in the last two months. And I can't cool down by going for a swim because the pool gave three days' notice about closing for repairs for damn near two months in the summer. My three-times-a-week swimming routine was going pretty well but I guess I'll have to build that back up in September. Things are going pretty damn great with the girl I'm seeing. We've seen each other multiple times this week. She's chipping away the wall I've built around myself; opening up the space to slowly and steadily grow towards each other. Couldn't be more happy about it. I went to a theme park two weeks ago where I lost my watch in a rollercoaster. Had it in my pocket and should've mistrusted those pockets more (since my phone has already fallen out of them). But alas. After spending an unreasonable amount of my free time looking into various fancy watches I landed on a gorgeous classic Tissot automatic watch. I love the engravings, the open back, the subtle pattern and the soft ticking. It's basically everything I wanted my 10 year old Fossil to be. Spot the differences!
I mentioned a few Pubskis back that I wished to write and illustrate a little children's book for my newborn nephew. Well, I've now started the process of learning to draw so I can realise that. I found a great course on Udemy. Seeing as though 6 days ago the extent of my drawing skills was dumb cartoon faces, I'm really pleased with the results so far. I'm looking forward exploring it more. Other than that, not much has changed. I'm going to be doing a 'Foundation Safety Rescue Training' kayak course sometime soon. It's a requirement if you want to become a coach. And even though I'm some way off being able to be a coach, I though I may as well take the presented oppertunity. I'll hopefully be on the river again tomorrow, but it might be cancelled for water quality reasons due to some impending storms causing water run off from the roads.
Don't be afraid to make mistakes. Yesterday I tried to draw Vladimir Putin with no reference and ended up with an OK caricature of Steve Jobs. I'm not much of an illustrator or cartoonist so if I try to do that kind of thing I just do a shitload of sketches to suss out what works and what doesn't. But that's me when I try to cartoon.
For sure. The course emphasises the same attitude, going as far as to suggest not using an eraser. Instead, it concentrates on starting off drawing basic shapes as light as possible and using any mistakes and less accurate markings as a framework to mould a better representation with increasingly darker lines. I never though of drawing as being done in this way and what's cool is that it's somewhat analogous to my music composition process. Though I must confess that I have used an eraser a few times. Mainly when I commit to a dark line too early on.
Thanks! I would like to introduce colour eventually, but I'm definitely just focussing on the basics right now. I remember when I was younger that I used to draw these jungle-scapes that I thought were dope and then I'd attempt to colour them in and ruin them. In some ways I think that put me off drawing back then. So I feel like it's an area that I need to work up to rather than going in all guns blazing. Here's another bird I did today:
I have a similar ambition. #childrenspoemsbytng I’m an awful illustrator though. You’ll see my illustrations in a few of those poems.
It's a cool ambition to have! If you have a desire to improve your illustrations, I can wholeheartedly recommend the tutor I found on Udemy. Here's a link to the first course in his series.
There is a septic tank somewhere in my backyard, I must decomission it. The sewer pipe goes into the basement floor and historical permits from the 50's sets the depth of a sewer connection at 8ft. There is some chicken scratch that suggests that the cesspool lies 15 ft from the house at a depth of 8 ft. 15 ft is a somewhat odd distance as the requirements at the time it was installed was 10 ft and a plumber saves 5 ft of pipe and trenching if he sticks to 10. My hole is about 8 ft deep at 15 ft from the house and I've found nothing so far. I'm going to do another foot before I start trenching toward ten feet away from the house. It could be that the sewer line was moved when they changed from septic to city sewer. The septic might be going off at an angle which would make this process a whole lot harder. I can't follow the pipe from the house because it's under a concreat slab. All this is so we can build a deck. My hands are like hamburger right now and I hope I find this thing soon. The old cat and the new cat are becoming decent friends.
Hey, just a quick one as I'm on my phone: this is probably mad overkill but I can't help thinking that this is a good use case for many of the techniques mining exploration people use for mapping geological features (exploration geophysics). It's not my personal focus but I think you'd have a good chance of finding the pipe using ground-penetrating radar or electrical resistance tomography (where I live the domestic sewer pipes are plastic but maybe you might have luck with a metal detector too). Some guys that I work with spent some time trying to use these to do realtime crevasse detection and I believe it's the same technique used for archaeological surveys. Whether it's a commercially available service with a reasonable price tag I'm not so sure. Anyway as I said it's probably overkill but it immediately popped into my head so I thought I'd share. Cheers.
Metal detector won't hack it at 8 ft deep. I might have to resort to underground radar if I can't find the pipe. Hiring a company to do the location and dig would cost over $3 k while doing it myself will cost about $1k. The deck is already a significant expense so I'm trying to not hemorrhage any more cash.
My first 50k race was cancelled last night due to a forest fire. It was supposed to be this Saturday. So that sucks. I might go run an unofficial, unsupported 50k this weekend instead.
Sorry to hear that! Both parts! I hope you have a great run, and I hope the forest recovers quickly.
Abiding. Finally found a stable medication dosage/combo, and I'm enjoying actually being able to get things done. Today was work on Greek and do a little bit of coding. Tomorrow, who knows? (Probably Coptic and drawing.) Unfortunately, Previously Recorded, one of my background-noise YouTube channels, is retiring. So I need more! I like discussion-oriented stuff, usually just good group dynamics. But ideally something that I can zone in and out of.
Finally received my last grade for a vibrations class, which means I'm all set to graduate in the fall. This means that I need to start looking for a proper engineering job instead of working as a cook at a nearby pizza place - the student loan payments are set to kick in around November, and I don't want to take the full fourteen years to pay it back. There is also some sort of a low-grade anxiety that's constantly spread over everything I do and feel - perhaps it is just the fact that my life is rapidly changing, for better or for worse, but it's far from pleasant. It's like I'm finally coming face to face with some responsibilities of an adult, and I'm just not used to it yet. On a positive note though, the heat wave that has been around for the past two weeks has turned to pouring rain that is set to continue for at least the next few days. It feels nice to not be afraid to burst into flames every time I step outside.
It's terrifying. It'll work out, but it's terrifying. Also where is it that it's raining? I want rain.There is also some sort of a low-grade anxiety that's constantly spread over everything I do and feel - perhaps it is just the fact that my life is rapidly changing, for better or for worse, but it's far from pleasant. It's like I'm finally coming face to face with some responsibilities of an adult, and I'm just not used to it yet.
Having just gone through it, there's no way arond that looming sense of ohgodInowneedtogetmylifetogether - or at least I didn't find it. I started thinking about what makes my skillset and experiences unique and useful way before I graduated. It's a very difficult question that often takes a long time to answer, but the one you ultimately need to answer to find a great place to work. The rest follows from that in my experience - finding a good place to work is the first step in the Rube Goldberg machine of building a life you want to live.
As of posting this I think this is the highest number of hubspokes with the least amount of discussion in a pubski I have ever seen. 8 spokes and not a peep? I’ve been making a modest effort to get hired to score an indie game for a little bit now. Finally this week I have people showing interest getting me to do it. Fingers crossed. I’m also feeling better about work in general this week. My finances are not encouraging still, but I’m acclimating to it now. Work is at least not droll, possibly even moving forward.
Achievement Unlocked My friend the appliance installer came by to check my wiring for a new 240v 40A circuit I had to run to my kitchen, to support the new induction range that was getting installed yesterday. He looked over all my work carefully, and said "Yep. This is good. Flip the head around on the outlet, because the plug will be mounted the other way. Other than that: excellent work!" So I have now done Scary Electrical Work that involved my home's fuse box, and not only did I not die, not only did I not burn the house down, I also did it well! Sadly, I did not confirm the appointment to have the range delivered yesterday. And, if you don't confirm the appt a few days ahead of the delivery, they cancel the appointment. So I am without a range or oven until Monday, when they will deliver it for sure this time. BBQ steaks and chicken, and salads until then, I guess! (Yum!) Meh. Can't win em all!
Yeah. And Titans looks like the exact opposite of what they should do with that property. Someone from the movie department must have transferred to the television department. Aquaman just looks like garbage. The TV stuff should inform the movies because it's so much more successful. I guess they're slowly removing the Snyder framework?
Speaking of TV and Movies, apparently this is getting a 92% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes at the moment. Honestly? I'm not surprised. I don't care what the naysayers have to say, the cartoon series is straight up fun. The creators behind it just want to have a good time with the material and it really works. Plus, if you're a comic and/or pop culture nerd, it's chock full of inside jokes. Dala promised to take me to it when it hits the theaters and I'm gonna hold her to it.
Fanboy anger is so weird. Especially now. Canceling a show is a lot more complex of a decision than canceling at comic. I was riding my bike to the comics shop over 20 years ago and never fell in with a nerdy crowd. My interest was always my own so fanboyism wasn't ever a thing I really dealt with in person or understood. And I read the source material since I was a kid. Comic economics are a little weird but also pretty simple since the costs are fairly uniform excepting some creators but those guys' names move books Now the weird dude behind the counter and a mob of his associates are harassing Star Wars actors and bitching about every corporate decision a television studio males regarding a show they like being rebooted or canceled. It's inescapable. Real news reports on these over opinionated asses I have to imagine what it's like to be a person who thinks they have an ownership stake in a character as a person who's watched superhero comics be bonkers as fuck and stylistically every way you can imagine for as long as I can remember. I don't like imagining that mindset I lost a larger, better, clearer point in the details but I just woke up. I award myself points for difficulty
I feel you. Personally, I learned back in the mid-'90s, early '00s that just because something resonates with me, doesn't mean it belongs to me and that sometimes people in charge of properties I enjoy will make decisions that I don't like. I think the three biggest examples that I can think of are The Star Wars Prequels, Tri-Star Godzilla, and The Matrix Sequels. When I came to realize though that if someone makes something I don't like, it doesn't take away from what I do like, and it doesn't mean something is ruined for me forever. Case in point? Tri-Star Godzilla didn't ruin '54 Gojira and when Godzilla 2000 came out, I was able to enjoy it just fine. That said though, after Tri-Star, there was a sense of relief in watching Godzilla 2000.
Exactly. Comics are always changing, even if only by the styles of the artists so I don't immediately get the attitude that if you don't like a version of something then the original is threatened or lost. I seriously doubt many of the people bitching about the new Thnudercats show actually remember the original. It was shit. But now it's a brand more than a creative intellectual property and brands can become part of an identity. Check out this Twitter thread. https://twitter.com/radicalbytes/status/1016778646655123456 Specifically its claim that people completely missed the point of a crucial scene in RotJ. These same type of people seem to miss the point that entertainment is meant to entertain. And not everyone with these types of genre properties. You can have a teen targeted Teen Titans and a tween targeted Teen Titans and they can both be good and bring in a bigger fanbase. I don't know that you can have a live action R rated Titans though... if someone makes something I don't like, it doesn't take away from what I do like, and it doesn't mean something is ruined for me forever.