Guess who finally has a high school diploma? This girl!
IMPOSTER SYNDROME Had Veen and 'bootz out last week. Veen for ten days, 'bootz for three. Did much hosting. Had many "what do I do with my life" conversations. Drank astonishingly little alcohol. Spent a few hours showing veen how to take apart a watch; apparently the parts Elgin I bought last year is hella more hammered than even I knew 'cuz my screwdrivers looked brand new for the past two years but as soon as I had to get the dial off that thing I'd snapped two blades. Veen asked if I ever experienced "impostor syndrome" when it came to watchmaking. It's a fair question. After all, two years ago I knew virtually nothing. Thing of it is, though, it's an extremely shallow field. Immersing myself in it for a year and a half has me revealing manufacturers and history my instructors never knew, manipulating small parts my instructors can't manipulate and knowing by heart industry statistics that lifelong watchmakers are completely incredulous about. I learned as an acoustical consultant - a trade that requires a mechanical engineering or physics degree and several years experience with esoteric empirical knowledge - that the way you prove your worth in a gnostic field is by slagging on others. The normies don't know so if you piss all over everyone else they assume you're pissing with reason. And watchmakers piss all over everyone. As a group their shit doesn't stink and if you ask 'em questions they'd best put your ass in its place. Their Facebook groups are largely about how stupid customers are, how stupid vendors are, and how horrible everyone is to their preciousssssss. Here's the thing, though. A mechanical watch movement has between 50 and 250 parts, from the most basic to the most fiddly chronograph. Yeah there are watches with more but really, it's a bunch of gears ("wheels") and axles ("pinions") and other jargon and they only interact mechanically. The engine your Toyota has 5-600 parts and that's just the mechanical shit. A fuckin' fuel injector is like 30 parts and for it to work you've got fluid mechanics, electromechanics, electronics and thermodynamics. Not only that but your average "watchmaker" has no idea how to do anything other than fix the mechanical bits and polish what's there. It's a specialist field where nearly everything else is farmed out to other specialists. And I've been spending the past year neck deep in the "other specialists" shit - I've mixed three seasons of television while also earning sixty college credits in the past year while also spending maybe 300 hours (and $28k or so) in pursuit of "watchmaking" (which is what we call "being a watch mechanic"). I know more about watches and their repair than a few manufacturers I know. But my daughter was whiney on Sunday. There was a little drama. She insisted she wasn't whining. I let her know (during the hug-it-out period) that if I'd used her tone of voice when I was a kid I would have been shouted at, possibly spanked and sent to my room without any supper and that sometimes I have a hard time when she does stuff I wasn't allowed to do, even if the stuff I wasn't allowed to do didn't really make sense. She asked why my parents were so mean. I said I didn't know. She asked if I told them to stop being mean and I said "I didn't know they were mean, they were the only parents I had" and she said "but you aren't mean" and I burst into uncontrollable tears. And I mean, she doesn't know. She has no more insight into my suckitude than I had into my parents'. But I had a pretty good idea by 3 that my relationship with my parents was dissimilar to my peers. And whereas every picture I have of myself as a youth is of a haunted-eyed little spooky kid, my daughter is happy to the point of mania in photos. The great thing about kids is they love you unreservedly and worship everything you do (until they become teenagers, anyway). The terrible thing about kids - for me, anyway - is that you're never, ever worthy of it. I am blowing off the rest of my schooling. Jewelry class for the past 10 weeks has been bang-on-shit-with-a-hammer class and I have received exactly zero instruction. I crafted a silver cup from a sheet using nothing but a hammer - it looks like a Riedel stemless champagne flute. I coated it in Japanese enamel to see what the colors look like. And it looks amateurish and silly because I received zero instruction in enameling. I have some interesting parts from that class, but everything I made I made without any input or insight from anyone while also being sniped by everyone around me (because jewelers are like watchmakers but with less schooling). And I cleaned out my bag, and I'm going to take the F (I'm yearning for that F - I'm eager to have it sit there - so that the instructor knows we're enemies now), and I'm going to pursue my own thing because where I'm going I don't need roads. I set micro-pave last year without knowing the first thing about it and while it looks like hammered shit, the next one won't and if you set out to learn how to do micro-pave the first thing you do is apprentice in Antwerp and get yourself a $2500 microscope. But I've got a Valjoux 7750 that's misbehaving and when you look up the symptoms the Internet tells you to "take it in for service" and what they don't tell you is that at the price point of that 7750 the "servicepeople" are going to swap the movement and I'm wondering if I fucked it up by wearing it in beat-on-shit-with-a-hammer class. See, I know beyond a reasonable doubt what I know about fixing watches. But when the internet tells me I have no idea how to wear a watch I'm perfectly willing to believe them because I'm fucking white trash and I know it down to my very bones. This washed across my transom this morning. You don't need to click on it. It's a puff piece about a jeweler opening a new boutique. They're spending about $1.3m and creating ten jobs. Woo hoo. News piece. I built a birth center with about $350k and our payroll now has nine people on it. We're setting up a Vaccines for Children program and it's going to be three phone calls, one contractor and three SKUs purchased. We'll be up in a month. Shit's trivial. Sure as fuck isn't worth making an international trade magazine. My daughter spent her weekend putting together "scent packs" - her idea of play is to pick herbs, wrap them in paper, put together a merchandising display and haul it into class in an egg carton so that she can dominate a pinecone economy she created. Yeah. My daughter is getting others to hoard pinecones for her by selling artisanal herbs out of my garden. Told my wife this wasn't something all the kids had come up with, like we thought, but my daughter's idea and she said "well it's not surprising, she is the daughter of two entrepreneurs, after all." I immediately said "well, one entrepreneur and one loser who wastes a lot of time and money on useless knowledge." She was quiet for a minute and then said "That's you talking, not me." I spent $1300 so that Christie's could teach me the history of jewelry design. It's not a course for jewelers, it's a course for bored old rich ladies. I tell you what, though - ain't nobody in there gonna say that you should feel bad for owning gold jewelry because it's mined illegally in the Amazon for use in iPhones. When I'm done I hope to have a rich old lady's understanding of jewelry as propagated by Christie's because it's hella more useful to me than an angsty community college assistant's understanding of jewelry as propagated by indignant environmental movies. After all, jewelry makers call byzantine chain "idiot's delight." Jewelry sellers call it ten grand. George Friedman recommended the works of Herman Wouk yesterday. This passage caught my eye: "Impostor syndrome" is, to me, the "abyss of relativism." I know what I know about the outside world because I can vouch for that knowledge. I fought for it, I tested it, I verified it, I expanded it into corners it was never meant to illuminate. The inside world is, has been and shall always be a dark and dismal failure because my n will never be greater than one. I have no doubts that I will be able to create and sell luxury timepieces. And I have no doubts that I will feel uncomfortable wearing one for as long as I draw breath. And that's pretty much where I am this Wednesday. Cheers.Even more instructive was the character Armin von Roon, a German general and aristocrat, whom Pug Henry met in Germany, and who wrote an operational analysis of the war that Henry translates into English. Wouk explains German strategy in detail and unapologetically. He argues powerfully that Germany was forced into a war it didn’t want and lost it only because of the ruthless cunning of Roosevelt. I didn’t agree with it, and I thought he was falsifying history, yet Wouk’s emulation of a brilliant German general explaining his country was, in my view, Wouk’s moment of genius. It was not just that he explained it but, in that passage, he reminded me of something I learned in philosophy. I was taught that you must understand a philosopher as he understood himself. Wouk showed that you must understand a nation as it understands itself. You may take issue with philosophers of a nation, but only after you have disciplined yourself to understand them as they understand themselves. And when you do that you not only understand important things, but you learn to compel your soul to listen and learn, even from evil. From Wouk I learned the suspension of judgement without plunging into the abyss of relativism.
I’m glad you had that moment. It’s important stuff. I miss ya, pal. Hope to see you soon.I said I didn't know. She asked if I told them to stop being mean and I said "I didn't know they were mean, they were the only parents I had" and she said "but you aren't mean" and I burst into uncontrollable tears.
I’m in a Delta lounge and you made me cry in front of strangers. Jerk.
My kid won the lottery to get into the talented and gifted school. I'm very happy for her, I think she's going to thrive there. She's feeling a lot of anxiety about changing schools and not seeing her friends as much, I think it's going to be an emotional summer. I had something else for show and tell but hell if I can recall what it was. Ah well.
It's been quite a week and my mind has been all over the place, so I'm going to post in here just to get it all down. I had to put my dog down on Sunday (he was the family dog, but I was there when we first got him). It was a sudden turn of events that started on Friday. He became very sick very quick, and no matter what the vet did he just got worse. I had to make the decision to put him down. I think that decision, no matter how sure I was, will haunt me for a really long time. I had to pick my father up from the airport to drive straight to the vet to be there with him for his last moments. I miss him tremendously, and I will never forget that moment. I've had another dog pass before, but this time kind of messed me up. I mentioned I was picking up my father from the airport, he had been with his father down in Florida who almost died the week prior. My grandfather had finally gotten a pacemaker installed and things were looking up. My sister went down to Florida to continue being with my grandmother and grandfather while he recovered. I get a text while at work that he is back in the hospital, and my heart sinks. My dad hasn't gotten a break for weeks between his father, his job, and our dog. I wish there was more I could do for him. On the brighter side, my supervisors are very happy with my work and ability. I received a raise in salary, and they are looking to have me work under some of the more senior staff to gain new skills inside and outside of my field. I'm also slowly progressing on my fantasy novel, which I feel like I have a solid handle on for the first time in weeks.
I'm in Denver with thenewgreen atm. Heading home today. I think I'm adding an email activation step in account creation, and in doing so, we can maybe remove the promotion mechanism. I'm going to China for the first time in several years later this month. I'm excited to see what has changed.
Chickens Six raccoons later, our birds are noticeably more relaxed and chatty at night! Someone is still coming around and digging near their run at night, but whoever it is has learned to roll the trap over to knock the bait out, so we're going to have to try a couple other tricks on them. We put pinless peepers on our rooster and he looks like he's wearing little reading glasses: (he was very polite about the whole ordeal and seems to be doing just fine.) A Question Do you think it's possible to meaningfully distinguish someone and the things that person does? Or, in a context: can you love someone and yet think the things they do are terrible and hateful?
My wife and I were picking cherries the other day and she was singing Are You Gonna Be My Girl. We ended up ripping into it for having terribly misogynistic lyrics even though it's a pretty good bop. Or listen to Fashion Nugget -- especially It's Coming Down -- and reflect on how all the breakup songs just reveal how much the author just doesn't see that his behavior towards his ex was awful. I guess what I'm saying is that sometimes you can't split the art from the artist's bad parts because the artist put those parts of them into their art.
I agree wholeheartedly. From the linked article: Personally, I have a really hard time ignoring context. And art is all about context.The comedians Dana Min Goodman and Julia Wolov said that after Louis C.K. cornered them and masturbated in front of them at the U.S. Comedy Arts Festival in 2002, they feared that speaking out about the incident could risk their careers. While Louis C.K. felt free to flaunt the behavior throughout his comedy — in one scene of “Louie,” Pamela begs him not to start masturbating in front of her — the women were silenced. He took advantage of them, then took ownership of the experience.
Without a doubt. I won't give details about what some of the people in my life do that worries me so, because they're not able to be here to speak for and defend themselves. What I will say though is, knowing that people I love embrace attitudes or engage in behaviors that I think are wrong, unhealthy, dangerous, or what have you, is it's important to remind myself why I love them but also why it's important to have boundaries. Just because I want someone to be a part of my life, to be there for them and to help them and support them, it doesn't mean I have to let that relationship cause problems for me, my life, and my other relationships. It's a balancing act, and one that often has me considering and reconsidering where I stand with people and why.Do you think it's possible to meaningfully distinguish someone and the things that person does? Or, in a context: can you love someone and yet think the things they do are terrible and hateful?
Here, let me give a real good example. I have a buddy who loves movies. They're over at my place on the fairly regular to watch them with me. However, we never go to theaters together because they can't resist the urge to discuss the movie, while watching it, in a crowded theater. It angers other movie goers and embarasses me, so I absolutely refuse to go to the theaters with them and they know this and understand why. If they want the situation to change, they need to change their behavior, but while they might be frustrated by my refusal from time to time, our situation doesn't detrimentally affect our friendship.
Damn. That's a simple question that's hard to answer. I feel like a whole book could be written about this. Depends on mine and that person's level of communication, trust and respect, and why the boundary was set up in the first place. Can we talk about what that boundary is, how big it is, and why it's there? Can we make choices that will allow us to take that boundary down? If yes, awesome, let's agree to work on things. If no, then I'm sorry there's pain involved, but it's either their pain for the boundary being up or my pain for it coming down. Some people are willing to work with you to make things work, some people not so much. Sometimes I'll make concessions for the sake of maintaining a relationship. Sometimes I just get burned, but you know what they say, "fool me once . . ." I will say every person in my life is different and I'm an ever changing person with an ever changing life, and as a result every relationship in my life is different and my relationships are constantly changing. I will never not extend out a hand in good will, but the amount of good will I'm willing to offer might be very limited. Similarly, I will always be willing to give people the benefit of a doubt, to appreciate their ability to grow and change, but if I've been burned in the past, I'm not gonna just accept that someone has changed for the better without some good evidence. Like I said, when I put a boundary up, there's a need for reflection and analysis, because they, myself, our relationship, and probably my relationships with others can all be affected.
I think this is about as good an answer as one can give to that question. Sometimes people are willing to make different choices to move a relationship closer. Other times it's best to leave boundaries where they are, especially if trying to move them in the past ended poorly. Thanks for your thoughts; they definitely helped my thought process!
i read a really weird longform slice of life piece on the guy who tried to kill reagan. he got out a while back, controversially, moved back in with his mother. says he's reformed but still clearly nuts, although not dangerous. his mom basically said she was so happy to have someone around the house again. she seemed over the moon. so yeah the answer is gonna be yes as long as you're talking parents and children.Or, in a context: can you love someone and yet think the things they do are terrible and hateful?
I think I want to make a distinction here between things people have done and things people do. People can change and can be forgiven for things they have done, but that can only be meaningful if they do different things going forward. It seems like this guy, despite having done some terrible things in the past, is now not doing those same things. And I think that's an important part of this. (Also, I would totally buy that guy a beer. Fuck Reagan.)he answer is gonna be yes as long as you're talking parents and children.
yep this is the exact context I'm thinking through myself right now.
Yeah John Hinkley Jr isn't a great guy. He didn't shoot Reagan because he wanted to shoot Reagan, he shot Reagan because he thought it was the best way to impress Jodie Foster. We're talkin' about a guy who thought Taxi Driver was a love story. And while I, myself, am not a fan of Reagan, Hinkley created a world where fuckin' Al Haig tried to seize the government.I feel very good about the fact you at least know my name and how I feel about you. And by hanging around your dormitory I've come to realize that I'm the topic of more than a little conversation, however full of ridicule it may be. At least you know that I'll always love you.
Just leaving Denver. Strange to be here and not see steve. We are kicking ass at Forever Labs. Still, it’s such a balancing act. There are times when the business is thriving and yet we are still lacking capital. It would be amazing to to be fully capitalized. Anyone wanna kick down $5m? I’ll turn it in to $100m. Excited to see my kids. I’m gonna work out of an office in northern Michigan for a week for the Fourth of July. I have been doing Yoga every morning. I feel pretty great. Been meditating every day too. Game changing stuff. I hope you are all healthy and well. Love ya, Hubski!
I find the further I go down the rabbit hole of living kind of an unconventional life, the less people I have around to talk to :( On one hand, my life has never been as fun or as exiting as it is now. On the other, I’d like to vent and talk about stuff and feel my old friends won’t understand (and have mostly moved away). My newer friends don’t feel that close yet. I’ve just been having a bit of a tough time due to some recent events, and it feels lonely.
I feel this in my bones. As my interests get more niche, I feel like I'm slightly (and quite unintentionally) pulling away from some of my friends. I bonded with the people I'm closest with partly through our shared interests (then music, anime, video games, tabletop games). Now that I don't watch shows or play games much at all without them, I feel like I have less to talk about with them. They will always be irreplaceable, but the slight distance is saddening. I am making new friends with my newer interests, but as you allude to, the process is difficult and takes a lot of time. I wish you the best of luck.
Back home again! Had a wonderful time with kb, his family and bootz. Many good conversations, hikes and foods were had. (Except Hot Tamales. What the hell is wrong with you people.) To top it off, I was welcomed by my family when I arrived and was handed a beautiful card with an ultrasound on it. I’m gonna be an uncle for the first time! So happy for my big sister. I did get hit with the jetlag hammer pretty hard on the way back here - haven’t had a proper night’s rest or productive day yet, coffee be damned. But that has to be up there on the list of first-worldliest of problems to have. I can’t complain, especially with a romantic weekend in Cologne coming up. I booked us a hotel room in a beautifully repurposed old water tower, which by the looks of it is going to be totally awesome.
Little disappointed to hear this jewelers apprenticeship moves quite a bit slower than I thought. The other apprentice I work with has been there for 1 year and has only had one training shift on the bench. I was told during the interview I was brought on to free up more time for training so hopefully that is is the case. On the plus side working around jewelry has kept my mind on it and had me focused on my goals more. I've been spending about an hour a night working through YouTube tutorials for Rhino 6 to learn CAD design. I also ordered some books to help expand my knowledge and skills. They are; Modeling in Wax for Jewelry and Sculpture (covers carving and casting), Jewelry Design and Development: From Concept to Object (Follows 20 artists from start to finish on a piece), Jewelry Illustration, Jewelry Concepts and Technology (seen it on a few lists as the benchworkers bible) , Jewelry Design: The Artisans Reference (covers the fundamental components of rings, cuff links, bracelets, watches,ect.) I have some more books on my shopping list about more specialized for certain techniques or the history of jewelry but I think this is a good start to establish a solid understanding of the fundamentals. I'd like to find a good beginners project book for benchwork but I haven't done the research yet to find one. If they will not be able to give me bench time at work I will teach myself in my free time. I hope with developing my own skills and the work experience/resume bullet point of the job I will be able to get my foot in the door somewhere better paying and more interesting in a few years. kleinbl00 I know you are studying Jewelry as well. I mainly posted the book list above for you. Do you have any recommendations to round out my self education?
I also have Jewelry Illustration. I intend to bang through it this summer. I may have to challenge you to a draw-off! ;-) First drawings due Pubski after next!!! I'm saving your list. Totally gonna grab some of those, from the library if nowhere else. The standard that everyone points to is Tim McCreight's Complete Metalsmith and I grabbed Charles Lewton-Brain's hinges & Hinge-based Catches for Jewelers & Goldsmiths. They're blatantly practical books.
I'm game! I can't promise I'll be much competition though haha. I will pick up Complete Metalsmith. It's been encouraging to know that there are in depth books available on so many techniques used in the field, like a book specifically for hinges and catches.
I regret to inform you that there's an entire class of jewelers who make a lot of money writing books for other jewelers, teaching other jewelers, holding seminars for other jewelers... There's more (basic) knowledge out there than customers so there's a lot of "how to make an ashtray out of PMC, $400" shit out there. The Lewton-Brain book is useful because it's basically "here's how to make a joint that moves" which comes in handier than you might think.
Hey 'ski. Another week into my mild case of midlife-crisis-itis, and life continues to be dynamic and changeable... - I'm off to my Father-in-Law's 80th birthday party in Minneapolis. He has asked his friends and family to either roast or eulogize him. There is Family Strife, so this has the potential to go colossally wrong in so many ways. - I got the mid-life-crisis-cycle (motorcycle) last week, and began tearing it down in preparation for rebuilding and modding it. The first step was to literally ride it down the two flights of concrete stairs that connect my front yard to my back yard, where my shop is. The first set of steps went off without a hitch. The second set of steps are - apparently - slightly taller. So the bike high-centered, and it took some significant amount of work to lift it off where its frame had contacted the top step, without also dropping it over sideways, or letting it go on its own further down the stairs. Because I am a clever monkey and can use tools like levers, I got it done. Once in the yard, I began tearing it apart. My compression tester arrived yesterday so work can now begin in earnest... - ... once I finish the insulation, walls, and ceiling in my shop. See, my shop is just framed, and is cold as hell in the winter. So it is currently full of the insulation and sheets of plywood that will eventually go in between the studs, and skin the walls. But I'm off to Minneapolis, so I can't start on that right now. - But my beloved rugby team - the Seattle Seawolves - have made it into the semifinals, and because of their decisive win, they earned the right for the semifinal to be a home game at their field that is no more than 7 miles from my house ... the same weekend I will be in Minneapolis for my Father-in-Law's birthday. So with some delicate relationship dancing and juking and jiving, and about $500 in fees, we have rescheduled our flight home on Sunday, so we arrive at the airport and drive directly to the game. - And today I filed my application to become an Arts Commissioner for my local town. Because I don't have enough going on already. - And delicately deflected the third inquiry in as many weeks, into my status in the polyamorous community, from a lovely woman I am fully thrilled by. (No. Still not poly.) - And I'm working with my boss to try and close down my job/department at my company, because it is not in line with the direction the company is plotting for the future. My skills would be better used elsewhere in the company, and the future direction of the product line is toward a specific niche that my work really doesn't encompass. Nobody seems to be thinking about this at a higher level in the company, so we are going to bring it to their attention and see what kind of future role I can sculpt for myself here. So yeah. Same-old, same-old, really. :-)
Work It's not going good. The honeymoon period is over, I'm burned out, and the combination of seeing the place with clearer eyes and my general exhaustion makes me realise it's probably not the place for me anymore. I absolutely love the majority of my coworkers to death, which is true for pretty much every job I've ever had, but that's not enough to keep me around. From time to time, I've fantasized about opening up a movie theater. Nothing fancy, two screens, humble concessions, and independent, foreign, and classic art films to distinguish my place from everyone else. It'll never happen, because I lack the drive and the capital, and there just isn't much demand for such a place. That said though, the independent theater in town is hiring, and while I know that theater work isn't fun, the hours are awful, and the pay is unrewarding, I'm half tempted to apply just to try it out for a year and get the idea out of my system. Besides, this place does line up with my dreams from time to time. They often have special events that range anywhere from Marx Brothers marathons to anniversary showings of classics like Cat on a Hot Tin Roof and Alien. The place really is legit awesome. Cars I don't know why, but Chevrolet cannot design a Camaro that ages well. Everything from the third generation forward just looks so bland. I finally saw the Jeep Gladiator in person and it looks awesome. Too bad it's an FCA vehicle. I think I might hit the dealership this summer and give the Hyundai Kona a spin. Dala and I aren't in the market or anything, but man, for some reason that car has me super curious and I don't know why. I think driving one and realizing it's just another car will get the "wants" out of my system and I can go back to not giving a hoot. Vultures and Chickens For those who don't know, the vultures around here usually congregate in groups of about three to six or seven. Twice last year though, I drove by hillsides with about thirty or forty of them, just hanging out. I asked a local wildlife guy at one of the parks recently and they think it's most likely a multigenerational family that is just sticking around. On the surface, that makes sense, as many birds are by nature relatively gregarious. On the other hand though, I just don't know how those many vultures can hang around each other for long periods of time without being broken apart by the friction caused by the need for food and space. Vultures are big birds, after all. I think I want to look up some biologists and email them, see what they have to say. In one of the fields, on my commute to work, is a bunch of free roaming domestic chickens. Every time I see them, I wonder if they belong to someone or if they're escapees, enjoying the joys and bearing the struggles that freedom provides, flirting with the feral nature of their avian ancestors.
So, I thought that the chickens I saw were a rare thing, if they are indeed feral. It turns out though, that it's a pretty common thing and quite a few cities in Florida are known for them. Weird!
A B-52 or something similar just flew over low and loud. I didn't get a good look and couldn't get a photo through the trees. It didn't show up on Planefinder. I see a pair of Ospreys fly by now and then but they never appear on the app. ADS-B Exchange shows a number of military flights nearby but no sign of this aircraft; the closest match has only four engines. Anyone have any tips on military planespotting?
The civilian-facing services filter USA-flight numbers because they are dicks. Some of the noise monitoring ones do, too. However, the Bruel & Kjaer ones don't. At least, they don't at LAX. This is how I was able to verify that yes, Virginia, that was a C5 Galaxy doing a touch'n'go at LAX (also known as "Los Angeles Air Force Base", having landed, stood on the runway for 10 minutes, and then departing again. Its flight track extended from the first noise monitor it acknowledged to the last noise monitor that saw it. It was some spooky shit. Fuck yeah I clicked the "report" button. Nothing ever happened. Globemasters are fuckin' loud and they look like a B-52 that ate a 747. And they carry things that go bump in the night.
also -- it's nice to know that while i'm down here on the ground working at pointless tasks, somewhere above me someone is having himself a fucking day:
there are very few south-to-south flights. glancing at that, i see a perth to jo-burg, and an auckland to santiago. i did manage to isolate one of the few air mauritius planes, coming out of europe, notable because it was the only plane on the entire map with its heading.
Games My Warhammer campaign concluded last weekend, the first ever for all but one of my players. Everyone seemed to enjoy themselves, the tensions were so high throughout the night that I got honest to god dissatisfied, impatient grumbling for taking an extra pee break. Got told to stop being silly when I asked if a player wants to retire her crippled character (squire who lost right arm while securing everyone else's retreat). Instead, she wants to make it work, debilitating game mechanics be damned. That's the spirit! I love it when people are that invested. After polling rest of the group in secret, I got nothing but overwhelming support when I asked what do they think about her getting knighted so early in the story. For sure, the next arc will start on a high note. I can't overstate how impressed I am with their attitudes and ability to play off each other so easily, doubly so for seeing these traits in relative newbies. Those games are only as good as people playing, and I clearly have some awesome souls around my table. Uni and research Defending next week, physics on Monday and maths on Thursday, but there's more! I was recommended by one of the TAs for a summer internship with an organic chem research group. And they're going to pay me for it too! Suckers, I'd do it for the opportunity and cafeteria vouchers alone.
¡Hola! Hablas epañol? I signed up for that Spanish course. In 8 weeks time, I should be able to form proper sentences. I've tried previously to teach myself Spanish, but it didn't go so well. I'm looking forward to being in a structured learning environment. I've been meaning to make use of the cold, rainy weather to get my motorcycle looked at. Desperately needs a service (my lease has a clause explicitly forbidding me to undertake any vehicle maintenance of my own on the premises), but I keep putting it off. If the weather is kind maybe I'll take it to my parent's place and do it there.
I bought a wetsuit (ping wasoxygen). Tonight will be my first swim in it, though I've rented similar ones. On Sunday I went and watched a triathlon like the one I'll be doing in a month. Someone died. "Medical issue during the swim not being treated as a drowning" is all they've said. It's spooky to think about. I may have watched him walk into the water as he had less than ten minutes left. He was 59. I also went to the visitation for the spouse of a coworker last week. She was 49. I'm going to wear my tri shorts tonight and maybe do a mini aquathon and run after. It's global running day or something. I'm seeing Paul McCartney tomorrow.
Taking a breather from The Age of Faith by reading Hawking. I am really coming to love Durant but man if i don't hate the age of faith something fierce. Starting with The Universe in a Nutshell because the library didn't have A Brief History of Time. Maybe some day soon my LTD will be approved and the insurance-hired PI can stop stalking me to make sure I'm not schlepping down to Walmart 25 hours a week while trying to claim disability.
Age of Faith was hard. We learn it as "the Dark Ages" not because nothing happened, but because it all amounted to nothing. The rest of them are easier to get through, at least until you hit Rousseau and Revolution. The Durants fuckin' loved the French and seeing the apologia for Robspierre & Co was rough for me. I didn't get a lot out of Hawking but I was born with a particle accelerator in my mouth so consider that situational. You might also like Tegmark's Our Mathematical Universe because it's a weird witch's brew of physics and metaphysics.
I’ve been playing racquetball a decent amount lately. I’d actually play it more often if it were convenient to, it’s been pretty fun. I’ve also been tearing through some paperbacks I got from a used book store a couple weeks back. Right now I’m on this odd illustrated novel by Frank Herbert: Direct Descent. Every couple pages it has a full page illustration and it is very 80s. I’m not far in yet, so remains to be seen if it’s any good or not. I’ve also been watching Chernobyl on the tail end of our GoT-mandated HBO online subscription and I’m hooked.
I thought I'd read every Frank Herbert book years ago (pre-internet). I have since that time looked up many authors and finished their full bibliography, but somehow Herbert escaped me. Thank you very much! The Hunt Begins!
Newest books: -Two books on tarot and witchcraft -Two Tom Robbins books -3 books on architecture and inventing -2 law books -Two erotica books -3 science fiction books -5 textbooks -several books for AA or NA -A Space Resources book -2 short story/poem books -Ernest Hemingway: A Dangerous Summer -Greek Tragedies/Plato -3 metaphysical books -Bell Curve by Herrnstein and Murray -Modern Handloading -A Confederacy of Dunces -Paradise Lost/Paradise Regained -------------- I have been studying quantum computing through a course online and I have started taking up my Cisco classes again.