Y'all. The wedding suit is DONE (almost). Still needs doing: strap for the vest, slip-stitching on vest/jacket/pants, sleeve buttons for jacket, hem for pants, lots of cleaning up (unfortunately, there are some small iron burns on the lapels of the jacket which I'm trying to figure out how to deal with). This was the biggest sewing project I've undertaken, and I am generally really pleased with how it turned out. The suit fit me really poorly as-is because I am pretty lanky and fall in-between two sizes, so I had to do a lot of alterations, and still might do some more here and there. Unfortunately, this was after I had already bound the seams of the jacket with bias tape, so the insides of the jacket are not as clean as I would like. The suit is made of a linen, which was fucking HORRIBLE to work with because of how much it stretched and shrunk throughout the process. All told, it took three days to sew - one for the vest, one for the pants, one for the jacket. This was my first time making any of these patterns, so there was lots of learning to do. T-Minus 17 days til the wedding. Still need to make rings, but that can wait another day.
Oh thanks! They are SO comfy - that's mostly why I used the linen for the suit. Outdoor wedding in August, I wanted the most comfy/breezy fabric I could get my hands on. I actually took the pants in about an inch after taking this picture, and they still have a lot of give. I still have about 3 yards of this fabric left over, think I might also make a pair of shorts from it.
Looking sharp! 17 days!!! That’s awesome, flac. I look forward to wedding day pics. Onward!
That’s great. I’m looking foreword to that. I’m sure we all are. Enjoy the journey and the last days of being “fiance’s.” You’ll be married for life but only a fiancé for a couple weeks more. Savor it!
I ran into the asshole that crashed my birthday party again this weekend. It happened to be the craziest underground illegal private party i've ever been to. Smack down in old town, open bar, 2 amazing Djs in a tiny space and it was still pumping at 6am when I left for home. I had the greatest pleasure in shaming him for kicking a young girl out of an Uber at 2am because she would not sleep with him. He gave some weak ass excuse about feeling misled by her. I gave him shit for it and he kept apologizing to me the rest of the night. I think maybe he expected to never run into our crew again. Hopefully it taught him a lesson and he'll be less of a douche? I didn't know confronting someone could be so satisfying, and now i'm glad to put this whole ordeal behind me :)
Society runs on good behavior. Grifters and douches know this - they cut in line because they know you're used to living in a world that runs on good behavior and when confronted with bad behavior, you assume "someone will say something." And then nobody does, and then about twelve people around the incident kick themselves for two days about what they should have said because they know they got stepped on and they promise it won't happen the next time and because society runs on good behavior, the next time is years distant and that instinct is dead and the next time it happens they commence shower recrimination anew. What most people don't realize is that all it takes is a spark - one person saying "excuse me what do you think you're doing?" for everyone to find their bravery. Nobody wants to be the first but everyone is ready to be the second; that's the secret of humanity right there. If you're willing to go out on a limb and not be taken advantage of, the world will rally behind you. Fight for what's right. Always. Stand up for the people being stepped on. Always. Nearly everyone wants to do the right thing but nearly no one wants to do the right thing first. Mutherfucker needs to apologize to the girl. He won't though. And what you probably taught him is to be more careful with his douchebaggery. Baby steps.I didn't know confronting someone could be so satisfying, and now i'm glad to put this whole ordeal behind me :)
Nobody wants to be the first but everyone is ready to be the second; that's the secret of humanity right there. If you're willing to go out on a limb and not be taken advantage of, the world will rally behind you.
This is very good advice.
Guy Laliberte built this really cool immersive pyramid experience in our city, that also has " parties" in the evenings. I went to the "taboo" themed one a couple weeks back to see what it is. https://py1.co/en/py1-nights/taboo/ Turned out to be about 90% club crowd, and I got called a homophobic (?) bitch by some drunk dude, because I called him disrespectful when he tried to take a selfie with a person in a Gimp suit that clearly didn't want to be photographed. That's why I rarely go to regular parties anymore... But at least getting under the skin of some assholes provides some entertainmentMutherfucker needs to apologize to the girl.
I have told him that, but she's away for vacation until september and I don't think I want to give him a way to reach her online. Fight for what's right. Always. Stand up for the people being stepped on. Always.
I'm pretty good at not being stepped on usually, but the next step is being a better defender of the people around me too. Which also involves getting my friends to come flag me when they feel uncomfortable about someone - cause i'm not a mind reader and can't notice everything.
Good job calling him out and making him answerable for his behavior. The only reason these guys do it, is because they think they won't suffer any consequences. Getting berated by a fierce and beautiful woman gets right to core of his toxic masculinity, and shows him for the childish twerp he is. Good work! Now shake it off, and go on being awesome.
Rearranged my bedroom again. When I left home and lived on my own, I first lived for three years on 150 sqft and then for two and a half years on 180 square foot with two crooked, jagged, slanted walls out of four. So I've gotten into the habit of rearranging and reoptimizing my space every few months or so - as soon as a new arrangement pops into my head, I can't resist spending an evening just to try it out. Even now when I have a perfectly rectangular and spacious 140 sqft for only my bed, cloths and desk. I told my gf I've been dreaming of having a nice, big, preferably wooden bookcase, filled with hardcover books, potted plants and vinyl. She pointed out that I could move the bed over and have 7ft of wall to do just that. So I spent my evening this Monday moving everything around and Marie Kondo'ing some stuff out of the door while I was at it. Anyway, I've ordered a bunch of books that I've loved reading already as audiobook, and I'm looking into good bookcases, which are surprisingly hard to find - there is not a lot that's decent, affordable, and stylish. There's about three styles of bookcases, apparently, and if you don't want any of those, go fuck yourself or go to IKEA. So I will probably do the latter. In other news, it'll probably hit 107F here tomorrow. So much for a temperate sea climate. If I don't respond anymore, I'll probably be dead from a heat stroke or something.
I am in Scotland. Last day. Things I’ve done; golfed, eaten coursed “Downton Abbey” type meals many times, traveled on the royal Scotsman, hiked to castles on the isle of Skye, as well as caves. I took a boat cruise through the Highlands, drank way too much scotch, biked through the Highlands. Did a wilderness/nature/survivalist hike. Did I mention scotch? There’s been a lot. Walking tour of Edinburgh, hiked to King Arthur’s Seat. This is not the type of vacation that my wife and I would have a planned, but it was a gift from my in-laws and as such we followed suit. It was a really interesting way to see Scotland. I’m very grateful. Lots of fine dining, lots of very nice hotels. Lots of champagne. I had a taste of a world I have only seen on the fringes. Joanna and I snuck in some bike rides, hikes etc. otherwise, it was a trip of dining and drinking. No complaints.
My roommate messaged me from Croatia last night at 1am to see if I was okay. Apparently he got an alarm in the garage which caused him to check one of those paranoia apps which told him that a bicyclist had been shot down the street and that apparently there was random shooting. So yeah. That's my neighborhood. He wasn't really asking "are you okay" he was asking "are you dead." I'm still fucked up over Frank Meza. Yesterday's ride was 16 miles in a 12mph headwind at 103 degrees. I have a Shimano 105 Groupset to put on the bike on Thursday; unfortunately bike parts are poorly documented and it looks like the brakes will never fit. The front fork will take calipers, but only really long ones, and the back one won't, but apparently V-brakes are better anyway, so why the fuck can I buy a dura-ace caliper for a gajillion dollars? Fuckin' bike people piss me off. The TSA stole my stapler. Why? "Yeah we know that our own website says that all staplers are A-OK but it also says it's up to our ultimate discretion and this isn't a stapler, it's a staple GUN. Staple GUN. And we confiscate guns. Wanna fight?" When I complained, TSA Los Angeles sent me a response in teal comic sans. I finished William Gibson's The Peripheral recently. It takes place in the near future and the not-so-near future. Between the two, climate change and pandemics have wiped out 80% of the human race. Los Angeles makes me think that 80% figure is perfectly satisfactory.
Bookbinding A month or so back, this guy's channel popped up out of the blue and he's been slowly yet steadily pumping out content. He's not showing anything new or revelationary to me, but there's enough variation in the techniques he's sharing that I find his videos worth watching. What I particularly appreciate about his videos is that unlike a lot of bookbinding "tutorials" I see on YouTube, he clearly knows what he's doing and what goes into making a lasting, sturdy book. My only wish is, and this goes for most of the videos out there, is that he'd spend as much time discussing the whys of techniques as he does the hows. Regardless, when people ask me for good videos on the subject, he's going to be among my first recommendations. Jobs I have a job interview lined up that I'm getting ready for. The timing literally couldn't be better. It's scheduled on the same week where I finally get some days off work, so not only do I have a day where I can actually go to an interview, I also have some time to prepare. The job itself isn't ideal, but the pay is better and it's significantly closer to home, so I think it's a good stop gap as I continue to search for something that I think more closely aligns with who I am as a person and how I want to live in this world of ours. The Woods I think tomorrow, I'm gonna take a long, quiet, solo walk in the woods. It might be the fact that I have the windows open right now and can hear the summer cicadas, but I think nature's calling.
Finished a proof for my research today, spent most of yesterday and the day before getting ready to and running lab tests on a different project (hopefully the results indicate we can replicate our earlier work on this new system!), and wrote my advisor asking her if I can teach rather than have grant funding because I feel the expectations are too high, so that's how things have been lately.
So I'm moving in the middle of August. I've got the way I'm going to furnish it all planned out. Everyone I've shown it too says it looks "cramped" but I'm hoping that it'll feel cozy. If it does med up feeling cramped I'll just have to remove something. I'm turning 21 next week. It doesn't really feel like a significant birthday but it does remind me of the fact that I move ever closer to not being a baby-adult anymore. Soon people will expect me to have my shit together which... Well... We'll see.
I turn 39 next week. Outwardly it might seem like I have my shit together, but I do not. Don't worry what others expect of you. And happy birthday a little early.
I know it's right there in your username, but I'd somehow forgotten that you weren't American! 21 is when we're finally allowed to buy alcohol, so when I turned 21 a little over a year ago it was slightly more significant and probably more of a physiologically-destructive event :) From one person moving house to another, I hope you have less of a headache than I've had. I'm going to be with my parents for about a month while the new lease gets signed, and I can't wait to have my own place. I love my current roommate and I love my parents, but as a simpering introvert there's nothing I dread more than several hours of social interaction immediately following work. I should probably try to be less of a shut-in, but c'est la vie...I'm turning 21 next week. It doesn't really feel like a significant birthday...
I decided to opt for an apartment rather than a student corridor precisely to have my own space and not have to be social just because I want food. The move is going pretty smoothly so far (knock on wood) and it's actually starting to feel like a really nice place to live.
Smart. Having done both, I preferred an apartment immensely. I doubt your economy is as fucked up as mine, but it was actually cheaper for me to rent an apartment than it was to live in student housing! Higher quality living for less money and the ability to close my door and have the whole world leave me alone? Yes please :)
I'm pretty much running on empty. Not much output left. But I did get out for a nice ride yesterday. https://imgur.com/gallery/h96DwrH (oh well. can't get the image to display.)
Update from last week's moral dilemma: I didn't quit my job, and that project (the one that I felt was unethical) is now out-the-door. I still feel icky about it, but I had a few really good conversations with another guy on my team - neither of us like the application we put together, and we're going to talk to our boss about not accepting similar work / work from these clients in the future. At the end of the day, we need to feel good about the code we're writing. I'm not in a political or economic position to take a stand like this alone, and I couldn't just leave my job without putting myself through some really tough times. I think we'll be fine, and I don't think I'll ever have to design a predatory product like that again...Or maybe I'm being too optimistic? I don't know. This is what I can do right now, and we're doing well enough as a company to decline work. As a more general life-update, I have to move out of my apartment this week. It's like the worst parts of cleaning and doing laundry, but turned up to 100 - I've never noticed how much shit I have! I'm throwing a lot of it away, recycling what I can, and gifting out anything with even slight value. I'm going to sleep well when it's all done.
When you move in to the new wherever, you will appreciate having dumped useless shit. The purge is starting around my house as the effects of spring cleaning are starting to wear off. The tempo of midwestern garage sale culture suddenly makes blindingly clear sense to me.
We've been slowly purging ourselves these past few years. What's interesting is, this year things are a bit different. I used to be able to text a friend and say "Hey, would you happen to want my XYZ? It's in great shape and I know you like stuff like that." The answers used to always be "Sure! I'd love to take that off your hands." Now though? It's always "I appreciate the offer, but I'm trying to declutter myself." As annoying as it is to lose avenues of giving good stuff to people who I know would appreciate them, I can't be mad. I think we all have too much stuff and that we're all slowly drowning in it, so to see other people get in the declutter game makes me feel hopeful.
Mueller is testifying. I'm watching. I'd probably be better off not watching. But I need to be able to look the next generation in the eye and tell them that I at least tried to stay informed as our democracy passed away. I hope that those that come after will judge us mercifully.
The Twitterverse is of the opinion that the seven ongoing counterintelligence investigations have a lot of sticky bits that poke into Mueller territory and that public disclosure will have negative consequences. Of course, those counterintelligence investigations could simply be big rolled up balls of none-of-your-goddamn-business to keep Mueller from testifying.
He might have skeletons. His care in referring only to the report gives me the impression that he is sticking to a path that isn't his own. It's pretty clear that he doesn't want to express any opinion or interpretation that cannot be plainly found in the report.
He has a lot of work in the investigation, and I'm sure he would like to see something practical result from it. Given how politically difficult prosecuting a sitting president seems to be, making sure to do everything exactly by the book seems like a good tactic to avoid making a misstep that discredits the entire investigation.
I moved into the house last night. I might be going to Vegas today.