It came down to the wire, but all 12 government executive boards have now signed onto my/our bikeshare system! Huzzah. This project has given me a new...look into the legal profession. Mostly in how extremely shaky said profession appears, considering the nigh impossibility of doing anything with legal text such that other lawyers can't raise objections. I've had enough "ask 3 lawyers and you get 4 opinions" situations over the past year that I'm genuinely starting to wonder what on earth the point of the profession is beyond verbose perfectionism.
No snark? Lawyers exist as advocates and combatants in a system designed to solve conflict without violence. The system is not intended to lay down absolutes, it's designed to lay down the battleground for disputes. "Ask three lawyers and you get 4 opinions" is absolutely true until the dispute is adjudicated, at which point one opinion reigns supreme. It's like asking generals who will win a battle: they don't truly know until the white flag is waved.
I've finished my nine month probation at my new job! I'd have to do something incredibly negligent or just stop showing up to get fired now. This is as good a job as I can imagine getting out of community college associates degree. The work isn't often hard, the pay is great as are the benefits. There are many diverse sources of risk (chemical, biological and mechanical) but none of them are very likely to get me if I cultivate good habits. There are also six distinct work areas so there is enough variety to cut through the drudgery. The rest of my life has become a bit of a wreck but at least my money is in good shape.
Shout-out to the people in the house behind ours who had their dog outside at midnight barking aggressively for 10 minutes, encouraging it and asking who is there, to them after 10 mins go "oh it's just the raccoon in the tree." Finally got to break in our new grill with goat cheese stuffed dates wrapped in bacon, jerk chicken with a homemade dry rub, and pineapple. Highly recommend that combo for a dinner it's delightful.
So I've been having a lengthy barbecue battle for... a year now? The appliance shop that I will never buy from again had a floor model DCS-7 for like $2800. This was right about the time I was acknowledging my indoor barbecue was a fail and designing my way around an outdoor barbecue. I even had a design where I simply put it on the outside wall and built brick around it. It was gonna be dope, right under the window, right next to the dining room. Woulda been super cool. I didn't buy it in time which sucked because they're dumbly expensive. We then experienced The Great Dining Room Flood the resolution of which moved the dining room floor up 3 1/2", which necessitated a deck outside, which raised the floor out there an additional 18", which meant my barbecue could never work anyway so I was less sad I hadn't spent $2800 on a barbecue I couldn't fit anywhere. I then went through the exercise of designing my own deck (it's eight sheets) and discovered that my asymmetrical problems are solved handily by putting a barbecue island smack-dab in the middle of it, which gives me an 18" counter at coffee-table height for the deck chairs and a 38" counter at ground height for the barbecue and a 20" ledge that's perfect for sitting on. But then you have to engage in the entire dipshit world of "outdoor kitchens" and it's so. fucking. stupid. I mean, i even got a book on the damn things. And they tell you the only way to do this is to build some fucking thing out of wood and then buy sheets of BRICK VENEER. And you discover this is because masons are supermodels; they don't get out of bed for less than ten thousand dollars and they're all so busy building banks that they barely return your calls but finally? After six months of trying this guy then that guy then the other guy? I get a quote, that isn't awful, that can be executed next month. So okay the way to tie all this together is to build a brick barbecue and if you're going to do that you might as well pay lip service to the idea and what do all the nerds do they buy Blaze because of course they do but you look at the reviews and it's half people going "ZOMG I just got this it rulez" and half people going "ZOMG I bought this thing six months ago and it's already trashed" and the world of outdoor kitchens is gawpingly stupid and you go "goddamn it what's available on Facebook Marketplace" and you discover that 25-year-old DCS grills go for about 50% new. And you discover that more than half of the Youtube videos about DCS grills are about repairing them. And you discover that Fischer & Paykel be damned, it's an American company that assembles in America that started the whole stupid "outdoor kitchen" nonsense thirty years ago but bloody hell, there are enough crunk old rednecks out there going "yeah i replace these parts every ten years or so" that maybe? And then you find a new-in-box DCS-7 for $2800 And you know? What I'm looking forward to the most is the rotisserie.
