Oh hubski. I miss you. Some day, I'll tell you everything. It will be one massive post. Till then, be well.
This last odyssey to Los Angeles has been a bust. Worse, the first weekend I would have come home I couldn't because we were scheduled too tightly for me to be willing to pay $600 for a ticket. The next weekend I came home was blown to shit by two births. I'm home now; my kid is sick and so's my wife so mostly what I've accomplished is loading the dishwasher, taking my father-in-law to the airport and getting in a nap. It took me eight hours of travel to do this. Now I don't get to come home again for two weeks. Meanwhile they've been sending my paychecks home and my wife has been too busy to get the mail for two days so we have a nastygram from our postal carrier telling us she's confiscated it all and is holding it hostage. It appears that Amazon has decided to no longer pay delivery people what they're worth, so they're using the USPS, which is clogging up everyone's mailbox, which is causing USPS to take it out on everyone in the neighborhood Meanwhile we've deduced that I effectively caught a fungal infection from my roommate that is going to require oral antifungals. I've had a Black Spot on my hand for a year and a half now; it's pretty clear that I got it from rolling up the hair in the shower drain so I could throw it away (he has dandruff and athlete's foot). It has not responded to 18 months of topical prescription antifungals and has appeared in my ear of all places but worse, has jumped to my wife's hand. And possibly my kid. So now I'm deciding if I want a bottle of Cavicide or a bottle of Clorox Antifungal in the shower. NAMM was a shitshow, in case you were wondering. The crazy off-brand Chinese knock-offs vomited out of the annex and metastasized over the whole of the show, thereby making every third booth a Pakistani company with a Canadian name selling Highland bagpipes. Every company selling something you wanted to see had locked their shit off in a private suite while companies you never cared about like eBay and Wordpress were front and center. One of my best friends in LA called me every name he knew and upbraided me for 20 minutes because spending 15 minutes going "dude, I'm pretty sure that camera up there is fake, there's no possible way it could be real" was not an earnest-enough attempt to say "dude, I'm pretty sure that camera up there is fake, there's no possible way it could be real." He's not speaking to me a week later. Everyone else? They think this shit is hilarious but it's abundantly clear that one of us has utterly and totally lost perspective. I downplayed the true nature of how badly he cut into me because he'd probably be fired and the reason he's lost perspective is he's starving. And on the one hand, I'm honored he trusts me enough to fucking lambast me for 20 minutes. But on the other hand, I'm offended that the only reason we're here is he didn't trust me enough to listen.
I'm now an official Sports Writer for a yet-to-be-launched new sports network. They are building out content for the soft launch in March, and I have three articles submitted, edited, approved, and laid out already. It's even a paying gig. Add another line to the resume. Life is weird.
Last live Beatles performance on the rooftop of Apple Studios on this date, 1969.
Oh, to have been there. I've seen this performance many, many times. I'll gladly watch it again. I just watched the Queen film, "Bohemian Rhapsody." What a lot of fun! I loved Queen growing up, still do. That Live Aid performance is amazing. I posted it to Hubski WAY before the film ;-) On a side note, the other day my wife floated the idea of moving to Key West ... didn't see that coming. Do people live there?
Where are you and how cold is it? Minus 18 here in southern Ontario. Windchilll - 28 In Fahrenheit that would be -0.4 and -18.4 Fun fact: at -40 Celcius and Fahrenheit are the same I have to leave in an hour. So far the Prius has started every time. Maybe today too. I'll know soon.
Seattle. In the high 40's to mid-50's. Generally sunny, with intermittent early morning fog. It's kinda gorgeous. Rode my motorcycle three times in the last week. Just leather jacket and jeans. No special warm gear needed. Now I'm off to get a massage.
what up lil checking in with the overnight -50 windchill, i went outside for a sec because i was curious and that sucked but what sucked more is somehow my patio door mechanism froze or something because now my door won't fully close so i'm "working from home" but mostly i'm monitoring my door in case it gets any ideas
What’s up? Like tng I miss my friends here, but life and so much in it has changed so I am here less. Class soon. There’s a new Hamlet in VR that I’ve been wanting to post. https://www.americantheatre.org/2019/01/25/what-dreams-may-come-a-vr-hamlet-puts-us-in-the-room/ Well here it is. There’s a link in the article. Scroll way down.
east lansing, the great state of michigan around -5 F and apparently -20 with windchill
It is a bit ironic, isn't it. The jet stream that causes these phenomena runs so far south that it rarely affects us directly up here. The British Isles are experiencing an unusually cold winter though.
Around Los Angeles and the temperature is 64 degrees Fahrenheit.
It's 32F but it feels like 26F, I'm in northern new jersey. It's supposed to get a lot colder tomorrow.
I'm on my couch, under a blanket with the dog. Its probably mid-90s under here. All I know is, it's way too cold to be in the craft room right now, as its the only un-insulated part of the house. Since I can't work on crafts at the moment, I'm watching YouTube videos on gardening and pretending spring is right around the corner. I can't wait to grow some peppers, carrots, and radishes.
Dallas TX. 40F/5C. Overall the winter has been warm - second winter in a row with no ice or snow.
I'm cold as well. Not chicago cold but it's still decently cold as the polar vortex is about to hit the New York City area.
Bit of a rough week. Started a new job. Ive worked 39 hours in 3 days with 2-3 days left on the job. The guy whose supposed to be training me keeps giving vauge explanations and then fucking off somewhere and its just a frustrating first week on the job.
Yean i it is man. I'm doing finish carpentry in a few different brands of car dealerships. I'm a little out of my depth but that means i have room to learn which is something I crave out of work. I was a bit frustrated when I made that post and feel better as the week has progressed. I. may have exaggerated my carpentry experience to get the job and was worried about it coming back to bite me haha. Thanks for asking amigo
Had one of my first ski lessons this week, on one of those carpet conveyor belt like things. Reminded me of how the best learning devices are as difficult as they are rewarding. If all goes well I will feel confident enough to ski with fun the yearly company ski trip this March. And I wanna surprise the gf with an indoor ski day for Valentines, cause I know she really likes skiing but hasn't done it in ages.
I feel it only takes a couple days of skiiing before you can go down the easy slopes pretty confidently. It's pretty intuitive once you get into it - the trick is just to zigzag to slow down instead of trying to go straight down and brake pizza-style. Winter sports are the only thing making winter bearable right now, enjoy!
Yeah, we went for a week of skiing it wouldn't be an issue, but it's only 3 days of skiing. Last year was my first skiing holiday, and it was more perilous than I hoped - for some stupid reason a blue ski run can mean anything between 'kids playground' and morituri te salutant almost-black steepness in Austria. (Green doesn't exist.) It's so bad I have been considering writing code that can pre-analyze and rank the steepness of ski runs based on DEMs for me. I had ski lessons, but once confidence is lost it's really hard to get it back when you're on a steep as shit slope and dreading your next move. Only on the third day did I figure out which ski runs are good to practice on, and by that time it was already nearly too late. All I want this year is to whizz down a mountain at a slow and comfortable pace without breaking anything.
I've been reading a lot more in between writing. I've been slowly learning to enjoy the world disconnected. I need to look for work soon, but thankfully I am in a position where I can take my time. I want to take the next exam, but I need to work before I do that. The IT world is more experience based than anything.
Super cold here in central VA, made worse by the fact that it rained yesterday, which is the perfect recipe for black ice. Plus I saw this morning that our state Dept of Transportation wasn't able to get out and treat the roads for some reason. More generally, I'm in a better place about actually doing some things I've been talking to myself about doing forever. Drawing is happening more, and I'm planning out what I hope will be a decent story. (Serious plug for Dan Harmon's Story Circle technique). Keeping work productivity going is hard, because I'm getting into Peter Gibbons territory ("It's not that I'm lazy, it's that I just don't care."). In today's edition of first world problems, the laptop I bought when I went into private practice may be nearing the end of its lifespan. It'll hit 5 years old next month, and while it seems to be doing okay, I'm not sure how much longer that'll last. At the least, I need to redo the partitions on it. It has a small SSD and then a large platter drive, and without thinking I put / on the SSD. This means my home partition has way more space than it needs, while I'm having to clean stuff off to even be able to do system upgrades. For some reason pacman is super squirrelly about allowing an alternate install location. Speaking of squirrels, it also hordes downloads like it's the apocalypse: it saves everything it downloads by default, which means you end up with lots of old versions just hanging out (the idea is to be able to downgrade as needed, but (1) I've never needed to, and (2) it's far too aggressive). I just ran a script to clear pacman's cache on my desktop, and it erased 14.2GB of old packages. Dell has some nice-looking 2-in-1 laptops right now, which even has their version of the Apple Pencil. Apparently Linux compatibility is pretty good with all of those, but I'll need to research that further. It'd be nice to have something that could replace both my laptop and my iPad, but I don't know if there's anything for Linux that's as good as Notability.
Late to the pub... as per the usual lately. As it turns out, the fuel pump in a Mini Cooper costs more than you might think... It makes me crave more sunlight in the morning so I can get back on my bike to work program. I've got some time booked this weekend for a creative project I'm working on. More on that later. I love you all and miss you more.
I have looked very seriously at e-bikes. But honestly - I like (and could use) the exercise. My challenge during these months are more about the iced over paths, and the fact that it's dark during the commute hours. Only a few more weeks and I should be back in business at least a few days per week.
Darkness you can solve. Taillights and brake lights are now available at such a brightness that you're much more visible at night than during the day. I'm seeing these more and more, too. Ice... is not something you wanna deal with on a bicycle. Period. I would go as far as saying rain isn't worth dealing with either unless it's a part of your regular. Dealing with rain means fenders and wet gear and washing the bike every day.
yah... I''ll ride in the rain - I don't mind it at all. But I haven't done ice/snow since I was a kid and learned that hard way that bikes and ice don't mix. And honestly - my last commute was better at night - more trails, very little on surface streets. My current commute is just a few too many miles on not-so-bike-friendly streets to begin with, in broad daylight. I don't need to ride... so I only ride when I feel safe. Even as a conscientious driver - during the winter when it's dark, it's just really damn difficult to see a bicyclist - even when they're lit up like they're at burning man.
Went to the dentist for three fillings this morning, and now I'm at work beginning to get a headache. ------------------------------ I'm learning some C# so that I can understand the modifications some engineers made in the simulation software we use and hopefully join them on more interesting projects. ------------------------------ Last night in bed half asleep I decided to leave myself a note about cornbread. I pasted Wikipedia links, recipes and references to northern/southern/texas varieties, johnny cakes, hoe cakes, cornpone, and hot water cornbread. I guess I was hungry. I think I'm gonna buy another sack of cornmeal and try out some recipes. Maybe I'll post "the cornbread variations" grubski in a couple weeks.
These are on the list now too. I tried johnnyFive's recipe before but made made mess of it since the liquid/dry ratio is about twice my mom's recipe which I'm used to. Maybe I'll get it right this time.
Dunno if this is on point, but the key is to not mix the liquid + dry until right before you put them in the oven. The liquid ingredients (primarily the acid in the buttermilk) start the action on the baking soda and powder right away, and if you do it too soon it won't rise properly.
I remember thinking the batter was very thin. You're probably spot on and i stirred and poked at it too long hoping something would change and lost most of the baking soda leavening.
Drunkenly fell on my elbow yesterday, and now my arm really hurts :( But the potluck that was responsible for my drunkenness was really nice! Also, I signed up to go help out with some trail management up north in Mont Groulx this weekend. It's this mountain in the middle of a massive crater. You can see if you zoom out: https://www.google.com/maps/place/LesMontsGroulx/@51.4765619,-73.1718812,6z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x4cf31ff4648ea8b1:0x78be06ba1564e31c!8m2!3d51.448056!4d-68.687778!5m1!1e4 We pass right by Manic-Cinq getting there, I think it's the largest hydro electric dam in the world! I hope my arm feels better by then, because it's basically 2 days of shovelling snow. I must have some kind of masochistic streak to willingly go up north in February... I've never been so far north, hoping to see some northern lights!