we didn't have time to do sonnet 5 today, but i'm really happy with sonnet 4. i'd be even happier if there wasn't a good chance that i damaged it already due to misunderstanding the aftercare instructions - caring for a new tattoo is pretty straightforward, caring for a new tattoo that's right next to two week-old tattoos is another story altogether. it still looks amazing, i hope it's fine.
so my day went to a bit of work, lots of time being very present for the ink (i'm totally over youtube for live-streaming, though), posting about it on social media (i just want to attract people to my graphic novel project, and that's really hard), a long shopping trip, a few episodes of hunter x hunter with my boy (gods, i love chilling with him and he's happily learning the japanese songs), showering him, saying goodnight, and then fussing about at random and not really getting anything productive done. honestly, 'cause i just don't feel like it.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
relativity
last night i got a relatively decent night's sleep. we'd bought a fan yesterday morning and some insect killers (the kind you plug in to vaporize insecticide), i went to bed earlier than planned and aside from lower back pain during the night and twisting my neck just before waking up everything was fine.
it just suddenly occurred to me that of all the problems i have with sleeping, the biggest by far is that whenever i finally do get a chance to rest i'm either hit by rls, or lower back pain, with the latter only really becoming a thing over the course of the last two weeks (since i lifted the grate to save the chicks).
yesterday and today have been considerably cooler than the sauna temperatures from monday, and while i'm not 100% the cold that hit me hard over the weekend seems to have run out of steam. gd and i dropped mr smear off at school to another dramatic "no, don't go!" goodbye, then headed downtown to do some shopping, then came back home to work.
ostensibly.
in the midst of a ton of bureaucracy which would consume most of my day - people needing to be paid, people owing me money and undelivered goods, dealing with insurance idiots - i suddenly remembered at hour 22 that i had a 24-hour deadline to response to a request from company 1 which required finding a bunch of historical data and printing / signing / scanning, which means that at approximately hour 23 i returned from the printers with considerably higher levels of stress than was necessary.
picking up mr smear, heading to the coffee shop to work and passing by the tattoo parlour for a quick consultation, finally getting a little bit of work done, rushing to pick up pita bread and coming home to find that gd has learned to make good za'atar
really realizing that i'm doing the next two tattoos today! watching hunter x hunter with mr smear before shower and bedtime, getting a little more work done and finally crashing
it has been really hard to find time to work this week, and even harder to find motivation, but what's particularly sad is that i've had a couple of really cool breakthroughs and nobody to share them with, and nobody on my team is interested in looking at my code so i'm stuck celebrating myself by myself. which kind of sucks. i'm really, really excited about going to work for company 1. this shit has been lonely AF.
it just suddenly occurred to me that of all the problems i have with sleeping, the biggest by far is that whenever i finally do get a chance to rest i'm either hit by rls, or lower back pain, with the latter only really becoming a thing over the course of the last two weeks (since i lifted the grate to save the chicks).
...
yesterday and today have been considerably cooler than the sauna temperatures from monday, and while i'm not 100% the cold that hit me hard over the weekend seems to have run out of steam. gd and i dropped mr smear off at school to another dramatic "no, don't go!" goodbye, then headed downtown to do some shopping, then came back home to work.
ostensibly.
in the midst of a ton of bureaucracy which would consume most of my day - people needing to be paid, people owing me money and undelivered goods, dealing with insurance idiots - i suddenly remembered at hour 22 that i had a 24-hour deadline to response to a request from company 1 which required finding a bunch of historical data and printing / signing / scanning, which means that at approximately hour 23 i returned from the printers with considerably higher levels of stress than was necessary.
picking up mr smear, heading to the coffee shop to work and passing by the tattoo parlour for a quick consultation, finally getting a little bit of work done, rushing to pick up pita bread and coming home to find that gd has learned to make good za'atar
really realizing that i'm doing the next two tattoos today! watching hunter x hunter with mr smear before shower and bedtime, getting a little more work done and finally crashing
...
it has been really hard to find time to work this week, and even harder to find motivation, but what's particularly sad is that i've had a couple of really cool breakthroughs and nobody to share them with, and nobody on my team is interested in looking at my code so i'm stuck celebrating myself by myself. which kind of sucks. i'm really, really excited about going to work for company 1. this shit has been lonely AF.
Monday, January 28, 2019
furnace
it feels like it's been weeks since i last had a decent night's sleep. if it's not my back, or sudafed (made the mistake again yesterday), or new tattoos, or the unbearable heat...
last night was rough, waking up was rough, taking the nanny to task for not doing her job satisfactorily was rough. saying goodbye at the school to a mr smear inexplicably freaking out because he thought we were abandoning him - he was surprised when we picked him up and repeated "i thought i lost you" - was really rough.
only vaguely recognizing our creepy not-neighbour when chatting with her after my morning meeting, then being grateful that i hadn't
a nose too stuffy for the gym, uploading the latest podcast episode, getting a little bit of work done, discovering that the hospital had overcharged us by $600 in december and couldn't be less interested in returning the money, picking up gd and picking up mr smear, spending an hour not-working at the local coffee shop because i was assisting the background-check company and trying to get two phrases translated into latin, hurrying home to hurry to sea point to pick up a script
the struggle to keep my arm out of the sun is real. i don't know if i'd have committed to 154 sonnets initially if i'd known how difficult and lengthy the aftercare would be, 154 x 1-2 hours of pain is not the same as 154 x 4-5 weeks of avoiding water, itching, freaking out anytime something touches the open wound, and now, apparently, literally burning painfully like a vampire the instant the sun hits new ink.
mr smear unwillingly waking from his sauna-car nap, pharmacy and shopping, a great time playing with top trumps' adventure time cards, then watching a couple of episodes before bedtime.
a very late bedtime. followed by bureaucracy. and now it's 11.15 and i need to get some actual work done, dammit.
...
MOSQUITOES. I FREAKIN' HATE MOSQUITOES.
and i didn't even know just how cruel they can be.
last night was rough, waking up was rough, taking the nanny to task for not doing her job satisfactorily was rough. saying goodbye at the school to a mr smear inexplicably freaking out because he thought we were abandoning him - he was surprised when we picked him up and repeated "i thought i lost you" - was really rough.
only vaguely recognizing our creepy not-neighbour when chatting with her after my morning meeting, then being grateful that i hadn't
a nose too stuffy for the gym, uploading the latest podcast episode, getting a little bit of work done, discovering that the hospital had overcharged us by $600 in december and couldn't be less interested in returning the money, picking up gd and picking up mr smear, spending an hour not-working at the local coffee shop because i was assisting the background-check company and trying to get two phrases translated into latin, hurrying home to hurry to sea point to pick up a script
the struggle to keep my arm out of the sun is real. i don't know if i'd have committed to 154 sonnets initially if i'd known how difficult and lengthy the aftercare would be, 154 x 1-2 hours of pain is not the same as 154 x 4-5 weeks of avoiding water, itching, freaking out anytime something touches the open wound, and now, apparently, literally burning painfully like a vampire the instant the sun hits new ink.
mr smear unwillingly waking from his sauna-car nap, pharmacy and shopping, a great time playing with top trumps' adventure time cards, then watching a couple of episodes before bedtime.
a very late bedtime. followed by bureaucracy. and now it's 11.15 and i need to get some actual work done, dammit.
...
MOSQUITOES. I FREAKIN' HATE MOSQUITOES.
and i didn't even know just how cruel they can be.
Sunday, January 27, 2019
fiery sunday
getting to bed around 2am, another mid-night wakeup to stretch
waking up early with a stuffy nose and scratchy throat for a long, tired day. a long walk around the block with our neighbour, possibly damaging my new tattoo, it seems like i've managed to nudge him to find himself a goal and its a very interesting one
the new ink itch beginning to rear its ugly head
gd and mr smear swimming for a while, my mom dropping off her computer so that i could update it and sort out her email
our friends coming by, a fun afternoon (when the kids weren't fighting, but they were mostly good), inspiring what will hopefully be a welcome change in company 1's code review process, dropping them off and borrowing sudafed and witnessing a terrible mountain fire
the pride in listening to mr smear singing along to some of the japanese lyrics of the hunter x hunter generic, a delicious dinner, fun shower, reading metamorphosis to gd and mr smear until he passed out, posting this and then beginning to stress about tonight's podcast episode and tomorrow's work...
waking up early with a stuffy nose and scratchy throat for a long, tired day. a long walk around the block with our neighbour, possibly damaging my new tattoo, it seems like i've managed to nudge him to find himself a goal and its a very interesting one
the new ink itch beginning to rear its ugly head
gd and mr smear swimming for a while, my mom dropping off her computer so that i could update it and sort out her email
our friends coming by, a fun afternoon (when the kids weren't fighting, but they were mostly good), inspiring what will hopefully be a welcome change in company 1's code review process, dropping them off and borrowing sudafed and witnessing a terrible mountain fire
the pride in listening to mr smear singing along to some of the japanese lyrics of the hunter x hunter generic, a delicious dinner, fun shower, reading metamorphosis to gd and mr smear until he passed out, posting this and then beginning to stress about tonight's podcast episode and tomorrow's work...
why climate change matters
"I have been to many talks at UCT about this topic and every time the same thing happens, they leave out any natural impacts from the sea, clouds, decaying forests, volcanoes, insects, animals and only tend to blame humans. Their conclusions are always the same, end fossil fuel and the world will be a better place, yet they do not give any alternatives. They go on about how the polar ice caps are melting and have never been this defrosted ever, yet if you watch what is happening in Siberia and the Yamal peninsula gas pockets are being formed from decaying animals which were caught in these ice shelves. Now if the ice levels have never been this low in history, then how did animals get trapped in them? I do research in alternative fuels and even with all the billions of funding, the highest percentage it could enter is around 10-15%...so a country still needs something else to take up the slack and every country ends up taking fossil fuel. In fact the trend for coal use globally is on the increase and there is no evidence in sight to show any decrease soon. Even if we were to stop fossil fuel use, the CO2 being produced by nature will still so called negatively impact the world, just at slower rate...but destroy the world in eventuality...or so they say. These climatologists cannot even predict an earthquake, yet they can for sure predict the end of the world, without real tangible evidence. Mars is more evidence of this, Mars according to geologists once had a favourable environment for humans, yet without 1 human or without fossil fuel it destroyed itself! Look at Saturn, astronomers are noticing that its rings are disappearing....without humans and without fossil fuel...all by natural progression. Imagine if this climate change could do a 180 and then we all sit together to find real solutions, maybe there are ways of making fossil fuel cleaner or safer? Imagine putting the billions that go to alternative energy and do not produce significant progress to projects within the fossil fuel industry which were sidelined due to funding problems. While we all flow towards alternative energy...all we have got is higher energy prices, higher vehicle prices, higher transport costs. Have you noticed while civilian fuel prices go up and up, jet fuel has been going down down down and yet the cost of flying is still going up and up. Let us look at Al Gore, his carbon foot print is so huge, you would not expect him to be the climate change activist of climate change activists....then you also have China who cares less. If everyone does not have the buy in then you will fail. I read yesterday that the Chinese built a waste to energy plant in Ethiopia....a little more investigation found that the plant started being built in Sept 2014 and using an obsolete emission standard which expired in July 2014 I think. Yet there was an updated version from 2010...which begs the question why did they not use the more stringent emission standard and went for an obsolete version instead? It is a rhetorical question, had they built the factory according to the new standard it probably would have been illegal to build it. In conclusion, I do not say that I do not believe that the climate is changing, however I do believe that this issue is not as serious as politicians make it out to be, because the world has been in this situation before and managed to have spectacular ice ages and survived thousands of years after them...There was an expedition to the Arctic to study the levels of ice there, the scientists employed the strongest icebreaker in the world, they predicted the voyage would get to their destination in record time because the ice was very thin....in the end, the ice was so thick, the research had to be abandoned...How about that egg in the face and this research had got funding on the grandest scale. There are too many holes in the climate change topic and even the professors who come talk admit it....I feel socialism and communism would make matters so much worse."
it's absolutely correct to say that the climate changes and has changed without us. that doesn't mean that industrialized humans haven't enormously influenced the rate of change, and we have more evidence than we need to demonstrate that. it's easy to pinpoint fossil fuel as a large contributor, but there are problems with that which you've pointed out; however, looking at the prices of things doesn't mean much because a lot more than fuel costs need to be factored in.
getting off fossil fuel is nice in theory, but solar, wind and biofuel are not really viable alternatives as you've pointed out. hydro, geothermal and nuclear, on the other hand, are more than capable of doing the job, and the tiny risks associated with nuclear are absolutely worth the efficiency of energy output we'd get.
it's also not true that getting off fossil fuel alone will be sufficient, as we have as much if not more influence coming from animal agriculture, and all of that combined with a whole lot of other things which include an horrific quantity of food waste being stored in garbage dumps, ocean acidification and depletion, and a reliance on unrecyclable rare metals for our tech parts.
it's also true that we've had worse climates in history, but there's a fundamental difference causing the concern for the current trend: we weren't around when those animals were trapped way back when, and as adaptable as we are humans beings are not capable of adapting to the coming changes "en masse". a heck of a lot of us will die. mostly in wars over resources like water - which if you recall is what began all the trouble in syria.
the planet will survive whatever comes, and it'll most likely re-equalize at some point in the future. human beings? unless we slow this down dramatically or get off the planet, we're toast. we might survive in pockets of mad-max-like hunter-gatherer tribalism, but all the wonderful things that make us so amazing? we'll lose them, and as far as we know we're the most advanced species this universe has produced.
even if all this was some political conspiracy - which is so outside of the realm of the possibility that it's almost funny - not aiming for sustainability is simply not intelligent behaviour. a big part of evolution is optimization, and since industrial consumerism took hold a century ago we've been devolving into a species of wastefulness, ignorance and isolation.
i don't know what socialism and communism have to do with anything, i'm an anarcho-capitalist and i'm pretty confident that my political ideology has little to do with how i'll fare during civil war and surviving in the wilderness. i'm also fairly sure that all the wonderful tech and knowledge we've been developing ever since we started farming is worth saving. i also don't think there're enough politicians anywhere who have enough of a handle on the situation to turn us around without a fight.
this whole "debate" misses one important thing. we live on a tiny planet, it's the only one we can survive on (until we manage to escape), and there's a fundamental principle that most of us learn early on goes something along the lines of "don't poop on your own step"... or more accurately, "in your own drinking water". we are long overdue in applying this principle to how we treat our environment, none of us are immune from the shit-storm that's coming.
it's absolutely correct to say that the climate changes and has changed without us. that doesn't mean that industrialized humans haven't enormously influenced the rate of change, and we have more evidence than we need to demonstrate that. it's easy to pinpoint fossil fuel as a large contributor, but there are problems with that which you've pointed out; however, looking at the prices of things doesn't mean much because a lot more than fuel costs need to be factored in.
getting off fossil fuel is nice in theory, but solar, wind and biofuel are not really viable alternatives as you've pointed out. hydro, geothermal and nuclear, on the other hand, are more than capable of doing the job, and the tiny risks associated with nuclear are absolutely worth the efficiency of energy output we'd get.
it's also not true that getting off fossil fuel alone will be sufficient, as we have as much if not more influence coming from animal agriculture, and all of that combined with a whole lot of other things which include an horrific quantity of food waste being stored in garbage dumps, ocean acidification and depletion, and a reliance on unrecyclable rare metals for our tech parts.
it's also true that we've had worse climates in history, but there's a fundamental difference causing the concern for the current trend: we weren't around when those animals were trapped way back when, and as adaptable as we are humans beings are not capable of adapting to the coming changes "en masse". a heck of a lot of us will die. mostly in wars over resources like water - which if you recall is what began all the trouble in syria.
the planet will survive whatever comes, and it'll most likely re-equalize at some point in the future. human beings? unless we slow this down dramatically or get off the planet, we're toast. we might survive in pockets of mad-max-like hunter-gatherer tribalism, but all the wonderful things that make us so amazing? we'll lose them, and as far as we know we're the most advanced species this universe has produced.
even if all this was some political conspiracy - which is so outside of the realm of the possibility that it's almost funny - not aiming for sustainability is simply not intelligent behaviour. a big part of evolution is optimization, and since industrial consumerism took hold a century ago we've been devolving into a species of wastefulness, ignorance and isolation.
i don't know what socialism and communism have to do with anything, i'm an anarcho-capitalist and i'm pretty confident that my political ideology has little to do with how i'll fare during civil war and surviving in the wilderness. i'm also fairly sure that all the wonderful tech and knowledge we've been developing ever since we started farming is worth saving. i also don't think there're enough politicians anywhere who have enough of a handle on the situation to turn us around without a fight.
this whole "debate" misses one important thing. we live on a tiny planet, it's the only one we can survive on (until we manage to escape), and there's a fundamental principle that most of us learn early on goes something along the lines of "don't poop on your own step"... or more accurately, "in your own drinking water". we are long overdue in applying this principle to how we treat our environment, none of us are immune from the shit-storm that's coming.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
ups, downs, rounds
yesterday:
waking up at 6.30am to send an embarrassed email to company 1's recruiter to correct for an email i'd sent at midnight
falling asleep again and waking up late, mr smear at home with what appeared to be a cold, rushing to eat breakfast and get to the therapist for a first meeting, a quick stop by the tattoo parlour to discuss sonnet 4's alignment, a couple of tough conversations with company 2's recruiter but with a surprisingly positive outcome, heading to work at my mom's coffee shop
getting an important piece of work complete and shipped, but the rest of the afternoon was consumed with collecting details for a background check: you know that moment when you hit "submit" after typing a lot, and you took so long that the website logs you out? that happened to me, after gathering details that took two overseas phone calls to clarify. but good news! when i logged back in my details were restored. 2019 technology for the win!
a big grocery shopping, bringing it home in time to take mr smear to the temple, a really nice friday night service, a good chat with SxS but feeling really sad afterwards for his sister*, a nice dinner with my mom, watching half an episode of peaky blinders then crashing early.
* she's been suffering from a neuro-degenerative disease for years and without a definite diagnosis they can't get her into clinical trials
today:
waking up in the middle of the night again, stretching and then suddenly fainting, sleeping until 9.30am and waking up tired, apparently having caught mr smear's cold
a quiet saturday morning indoors.
a really nice afternoon at shimmy's, managing to stay out of the sun, a shocking bill at the end of it
mr smear's big fall backwards off the couch and a struggle to put ice on the giant lump on the back of his head
another struggle to wake him up after a twenty minute nap and eventually managing to take him for a walk in the gardens, coming home and showering and feeling ready to relax then discovering that we were all out of toilet paper
pure resentment for a fight with gd being shared with mr smear and my mom, going to her place for a cool-off period and after a long phone conversation returning home to give us another try
waking up at 6.30am to send an embarrassed email to company 1's recruiter to correct for an email i'd sent at midnight
falling asleep again and waking up late, mr smear at home with what appeared to be a cold, rushing to eat breakfast and get to the therapist for a first meeting, a quick stop by the tattoo parlour to discuss sonnet 4's alignment, a couple of tough conversations with company 2's recruiter but with a surprisingly positive outcome, heading to work at my mom's coffee shop
getting an important piece of work complete and shipped, but the rest of the afternoon was consumed with collecting details for a background check: you know that moment when you hit "submit" after typing a lot, and you took so long that the website logs you out? that happened to me, after gathering details that took two overseas phone calls to clarify. but good news! when i logged back in my details were restored. 2019 technology for the win!
a big grocery shopping, bringing it home in time to take mr smear to the temple, a really nice friday night service, a good chat with SxS but feeling really sad afterwards for his sister*, a nice dinner with my mom, watching half an episode of peaky blinders then crashing early.
* she's been suffering from a neuro-degenerative disease for years and without a definite diagnosis they can't get her into clinical trials
today:
waking up in the middle of the night again, stretching and then suddenly fainting, sleeping until 9.30am and waking up tired, apparently having caught mr smear's cold
a quiet saturday morning indoors.
a really nice afternoon at shimmy's, managing to stay out of the sun, a shocking bill at the end of it
mr smear's big fall backwards off the couch and a struggle to put ice on the giant lump on the back of his head
another struggle to wake him up after a twenty minute nap and eventually managing to take him for a walk in the gardens, coming home and showering and feeling ready to relax then discovering that we were all out of toilet paper
pure resentment for a fight with gd being shared with mr smear and my mom, going to her place for a cool-off period and after a long phone conversation returning home to give us another try
Friday, January 25, 2019
rough but ready
a rough night, the new tattoo being fine but my legs and lower back killing me
mr smear trying to sleep in but waking up in a good mood, dropping him off at school, stopping at my mom's vida in time for my meeting, sending a delay email to company 2
leaving in a huff
a pleasant chat with company 2's recruiter, working from the gym, helping out a "co-worker", making progress but then being thrown completely when company 1 got back to me with an offer that's better than i asked!
head spinning, making a little more progress but leaving in a daze, arriving home just before gd and mr smear, trying to rest for a bit, heading across the road to the coffee shop to work, a struggle to pick a wine for gd, picking the wrong wine, returning to struggle to pick another one in heavy winds, deciding i wasn't leaving the house again, leaving the house to bring my mom a sweater against the wind, a delicious curry club dinner, showering mr smear and reading from "shakespeare's ovid" (arthur golding's metamorphosis) to which he fell asleep in short order
lots and lots of bureaucracy, including dealing with reddit banning my campaign account
mr smear trying to sleep in but waking up in a good mood, dropping him off at school, stopping at my mom's vida in time for my meeting, sending a delay email to company 2
leaving in a huff
a pleasant chat with company 2's recruiter, working from the gym, helping out a "co-worker", making progress but then being thrown completely when company 1 got back to me with an offer that's better than i asked!
head spinning, making a little more progress but leaving in a daze, arriving home just before gd and mr smear, trying to rest for a bit, heading across the road to the coffee shop to work, a struggle to pick a wine for gd, picking the wrong wine, returning to struggle to pick another one in heavy winds, deciding i wasn't leaving the house again, leaving the house to bring my mom a sweater against the wind, a delicious curry club dinner, showering mr smear and reading from "shakespeare's ovid" (arthur golding's metamorphosis) to which he fell asleep in short order
lots and lots of bureaucracy, including dealing with reddit banning my campaign account
Thursday, January 24, 2019
thursday morning 1am
this post begun on thursday morning at 1am as a series of quick notes before crashing twenty minutes later
tuesday:
a pretty solid day's work at the gym, a sneaky DAI transfer, shopping on the way home, a difficult shower with mr smear (although it improved fairly quickly), and a great game night of dnd
working until midnight
wednesday:
getting up just before the alarm, working through a tough bug, learning that the company i interviewed with on monday can't handle my salary and feeling relieved that i won't have to reject them for company 1
dropping mr smear off at school and getting my fingerprints taken by company2
a quick stop at home, a little work, then packing and heading to the tattoo parlour, silently freaking out when i saw the designs, reworking them until satisfied then finally getting on the table around 12.30, lots of pain with the intensity rising to a dramatic climax (me yelling and struggling to breathe evenly) for the last 10 / 15 / 30 minutes, finally finishing up around 4pm
burning pain, desperately tearing into a sandwich gd had brought, a quick pharmacy run and then posting all about my tattoos while learning about youtube's amazing ability to strip out copyrighted music from a video
the anxiety waiting for company 1's recruiter to call and not realizing i'd been holding my breath until i got the exciting good news, suddenly feeling woozy (shocked and exhausted post-tattoos and good news) and lying down for a bit, then showering mr smear, chatting briefly with my mom and going to the school for a parent-teacher meeting
a positive meeting, being presented with a card and a bottle of champagne by my new co-workers (assuming the offer gets made formally before company 2's expires), heading to their place for drinks and suddenly it was 10pm, rushing home to relieve my mom and finding mr smear still not in bed and being super-cute in negotiating with gd until eventually they both passed out
trying to fix my mom's work device and eventually being forced to throw in the towel
tuesday:
a pretty solid day's work at the gym, a sneaky DAI transfer, shopping on the way home, a difficult shower with mr smear (although it improved fairly quickly), and a great game night of dnd
working until midnight
wednesday:
getting up just before the alarm, working through a tough bug, learning that the company i interviewed with on monday can't handle my salary and feeling relieved that i won't have to reject them for company 1
dropping mr smear off at school and getting my fingerprints taken by company2
a quick stop at home, a little work, then packing and heading to the tattoo parlour, silently freaking out when i saw the designs, reworking them until satisfied then finally getting on the table around 12.30, lots of pain with the intensity rising to a dramatic climax (me yelling and struggling to breathe evenly) for the last 10 / 15 / 30 minutes, finally finishing up around 4pm
burning pain, desperately tearing into a sandwich gd had brought, a quick pharmacy run and then posting all about my tattoos while learning about youtube's amazing ability to strip out copyrighted music from a video
the anxiety waiting for company 1's recruiter to call and not realizing i'd been holding my breath until i got the exciting good news, suddenly feeling woozy (shocked and exhausted post-tattoos and good news) and lying down for a bit, then showering mr smear, chatting briefly with my mom and going to the school for a parent-teacher meeting
a positive meeting, being presented with a card and a bottle of champagne by my new co-workers (assuming the offer gets made formally before company 2's expires), heading to their place for drinks and suddenly it was 10pm, rushing home to relieve my mom and finding mr smear still not in bed and being super-cute in negotiating with gd until eventually they both passed out
trying to fix my mom's work device and eventually being forced to throw in the towel
Monday, January 21, 2019
hello monday
i'm beginning to believe that replacing coffee with green tea is helping immensely. i'm also beginning to believe that i'm getting older because my lower back is hinting at me.
yesterday was very full, we had a family lunch at cafe riteve, picked up a birthday present (and an awesome spiderman activity book with figurines for mr smear), arrived only half an hour late at the blue train for the birthday party, generally enjoyed everyone's company, left too late to visit the rabbi, dropped gd off at the hospital (she was having another allergic reaction), got mr smear into the pool for a bit, got frustrated with my mom's email setup again, and i think i went to bed at a reasonable hour.
this morning i woke up around 5am, worked on my podcast for a couple of hours, including recording it (pity the volume didn't pick up properly, i think it's because of the ambient noise that late in the morning), dropping mr smear off at school, hitting the gym to work and spending a good chunk of the morning chatting with shared-workspace co-workers, lunch with gd and a friend, home to nap for twenty minutes, then leaving for a final technical interview
arriving late because an uber driver had accepted my fare with no intention of picking me up whatsoever. when i called the second time, after six minutes of not moving during which i could have walked to where he was, he hurled abuse at me and told me to cancel - which i did, but i was already late.
a very positive interview, returning home, playing with mr smear for a while, at least until he started misbehaving in the garden, showering and eating a delicious dinner and crashing on the couch while mr smear watched adventure time, going to bed early but getting up to do hackerrank problems and a little work, now about to crash and try the early morning approach again.
yesterday was very full, we had a family lunch at cafe riteve, picked up a birthday present (and an awesome spiderman activity book with figurines for mr smear), arrived only half an hour late at the blue train for the birthday party, generally enjoyed everyone's company, left too late to visit the rabbi, dropped gd off at the hospital (she was having another allergic reaction), got mr smear into the pool for a bit, got frustrated with my mom's email setup again, and i think i went to bed at a reasonable hour.
this morning i woke up around 5am, worked on my podcast for a couple of hours, including recording it (pity the volume didn't pick up properly, i think it's because of the ambient noise that late in the morning), dropping mr smear off at school, hitting the gym to work and spending a good chunk of the morning chatting with shared-workspace co-workers, lunch with gd and a friend, home to nap for twenty minutes, then leaving for a final technical interview
arriving late because an uber driver had accepted my fare with no intention of picking me up whatsoever. when i called the second time, after six minutes of not moving during which i could have walked to where he was, he hurled abuse at me and told me to cancel - which i did, but i was already late.
a very positive interview, returning home, playing with mr smear for a while, at least until he started misbehaving in the garden, showering and eating a delicious dinner and crashing on the couch while mr smear watched adventure time, going to bed early but getting up to do hackerrank problems and a little work, now about to crash and try the early morning approach again.
Sunday, January 20, 2019
interviewing chicken hero
monday 14th:
was that just monday? waking up late (i needed the sleep, desperately, and i was dreaming), warning the nanny about using her phone when on the job, making just enough progress to report to my coworkers, working and looking after mr smear (including literally walking him across the road and back to keep him away from the vacuum cleaner), heading to the gym and being too late to secure a room, studying for an hour then rushing home to pick up keys for my mom's and arriving there with three minutes to put the kettle on before my phone screen...
... passing the screen, rushing to pick up emergency groceries and get home in time to take mr smear swimming, shower, and leave him with my mom while gd and i went to the temple for our monthly study group
home, reading the chronicles of narnia until bedtime, working through until 1.30am and going to bed with an almost complete proof of concept
tuesday 15th:
two green teas instead of coffee, home alone with mr smear, struggling to work while he desperately wanted to play: the heartbreak and guilt was crushing
a quick swim in cold windy weather before rushing off to a lunch with some recruiters, feeling awfully tired, sudafed and a great interview for a product that i've wanted to build myself, a quick stop at home then off to the temple for our first committee meeting
mr smear being surprisingly well-behaved during the meeting
home, mom arriving for help with data recovery then disappearing, dr horrible's sing-along blog, a quick bedtime reading, then working straight through
wednesday 16th:
to 1am, taking half an hour to actually getting into bed
a tough wake-up, but green tea instead of coffee again seemed to be helping
morning traffic jam to mr smear's first day at the new school, total chaos as nobody knew what was happening, our concerns over allergy awareness and his stress over not getting a superhero sticker on his locker
working a bit then heading to the tattoo parlour, the artist not feeling well so we postponed the appointment and sat planning for an hour an a half instead, with both of us feeling excited by the end of it
running into our neighbour on the way home, poor dude's been super sick, writing up the morning's experience and working a little more before taking gd to pick up mr smear
a much-needed nap, waking up to "no! we must go without daddy!" followed by "daddy is my best friend" (i was stunned ^_^)
a great swim with mr smear and gd and really playing in the water, a good shower, delicious dinner and hook
working late, finally getting my code running on a demo server
thursday 17th:
struggling to get out of bed, getting a little work done, dropping mr smear off at school, a blank space (work? bureaucracy?), dropping gd off in sea point and settling in at my mom's for a really cool semi-technical interview, an amazing lunch from the sunshine food company, difficult personality assessments, too much renovation noise for the cognitive ability assessment so driving to the gym for that, the confidence-crush of bad time management and then rushing to sort out consent forms for the next day, two coffees later and generally feeling anxious and overwhelmed
home, dinner, mom's visit, running to our friend for interview prep and leaving feeling far more confident, home again in time to say goodnight to mr smear and have a few laughs while gd read him the witches until he passed out, hackerrank...
friday 18th:
... until 1am
a pretty decent morning, but running late with a big rush to get mr smear showered and to school before hunting for parking at the offices i was to interview at. in the middle of the rush mr smear came up to me for a hug and said "i love you, daddy" and that really made my morning!
a full day of interviews, generally engaging and pleasant, finishing the day with a (half a) beer with our friend (and realizing that i've been friends with the guys i met up with at that same bar recently for twenty years, since my first year at university)
a quick stop at gardens centre, picking up one bottle of wine but forgetting the other, getting home planning on taking mr smear to the temple but walking to pick up the forgotten bottle and deciding to just relax for a bit instead.
taking my mom and mr smear to my aunt's for a really nice friday night dinner, mr smear passing out on the couch towards the end and giving me no trouble all the way to putting him into bed at home and going to sleep myself
yesterday:
waking up but needing plenty more rest, starting the day with adventure time and eventually getting out the house around 11am, picking something up in sea point then driving to my mom's coffee shop, chilling there for a bit (mr smear napping on granny for a while), running into a cousin and his girlfriend, and then bumping into our friends and their kid and taking them with us to plant to pick up shwarma and to the eco-village at oude molan for a great afternoon with the kids both riding horses.
on the way back to the car we saw a hen and her chicks by a sewer grate, and our friend realized that some of the chicks had fallen through the grate; i jumped to lift it, only realizing just how heavy it was after i'd already gotten it off - fortunately, while i'm feeling the strain in my lower back i did pick it up with relatively decent form and it could've been a lot worse. it felt really good returning the two lost chicks to their mother.
getting everyone home, showering mr smear, watching stardust, getting mr smear to bed, falling asleep watching titans,
this morning:
jesus, netflix, where did boj and he-man go?!
this post aside, i really do have a lot of work and podcasting to catch up on in addition to family / birthday / community obligations. i'm feeling relatively relaxed, though, this weekend has so far been an enormous relief from the intensity of the past two weeks.
was that just monday? waking up late (i needed the sleep, desperately, and i was dreaming), warning the nanny about using her phone when on the job, making just enough progress to report to my coworkers, working and looking after mr smear (including literally walking him across the road and back to keep him away from the vacuum cleaner), heading to the gym and being too late to secure a room, studying for an hour then rushing home to pick up keys for my mom's and arriving there with three minutes to put the kettle on before my phone screen...
... passing the screen, rushing to pick up emergency groceries and get home in time to take mr smear swimming, shower, and leave him with my mom while gd and i went to the temple for our monthly study group
home, reading the chronicles of narnia until bedtime, working through until 1.30am and going to bed with an almost complete proof of concept
tuesday 15th:
two green teas instead of coffee, home alone with mr smear, struggling to work while he desperately wanted to play: the heartbreak and guilt was crushing
a quick swim in cold windy weather before rushing off to a lunch with some recruiters, feeling awfully tired, sudafed and a great interview for a product that i've wanted to build myself, a quick stop at home then off to the temple for our first committee meeting
mr smear being surprisingly well-behaved during the meeting
home, mom arriving for help with data recovery then disappearing, dr horrible's sing-along blog, a quick bedtime reading, then working straight through
wednesday 16th:
to 1am, taking half an hour to actually getting into bed
a tough wake-up, but green tea instead of coffee again seemed to be helping
morning traffic jam to mr smear's first day at the new school, total chaos as nobody knew what was happening, our concerns over allergy awareness and his stress over not getting a superhero sticker on his locker
working a bit then heading to the tattoo parlour, the artist not feeling well so we postponed the appointment and sat planning for an hour an a half instead, with both of us feeling excited by the end of it
running into our neighbour on the way home, poor dude's been super sick, writing up the morning's experience and working a little more before taking gd to pick up mr smear
a much-needed nap, waking up to "no! we must go without daddy!" followed by "daddy is my best friend" (i was stunned ^_^)
a great swim with mr smear and gd and really playing in the water, a good shower, delicious dinner and hook
working late, finally getting my code running on a demo server
thursday 17th:
struggling to get out of bed, getting a little work done, dropping mr smear off at school, a blank space (work? bureaucracy?), dropping gd off in sea point and settling in at my mom's for a really cool semi-technical interview, an amazing lunch from the sunshine food company, difficult personality assessments, too much renovation noise for the cognitive ability assessment so driving to the gym for that, the confidence-crush of bad time management and then rushing to sort out consent forms for the next day, two coffees later and generally feeling anxious and overwhelmed
home, dinner, mom's visit, running to our friend for interview prep and leaving feeling far more confident, home again in time to say goodnight to mr smear and have a few laughs while gd read him the witches until he passed out, hackerrank...
friday 18th:
... until 1am
a pretty decent morning, but running late with a big rush to get mr smear showered and to school before hunting for parking at the offices i was to interview at. in the middle of the rush mr smear came up to me for a hug and said "i love you, daddy" and that really made my morning!
a full day of interviews, generally engaging and pleasant, finishing the day with a (half a) beer with our friend (and realizing that i've been friends with the guys i met up with at that same bar recently for twenty years, since my first year at university)
a quick stop at gardens centre, picking up one bottle of wine but forgetting the other, getting home planning on taking mr smear to the temple but walking to pick up the forgotten bottle and deciding to just relax for a bit instead.
taking my mom and mr smear to my aunt's for a really nice friday night dinner, mr smear passing out on the couch towards the end and giving me no trouble all the way to putting him into bed at home and going to sleep myself
yesterday:
waking up but needing plenty more rest, starting the day with adventure time and eventually getting out the house around 11am, picking something up in sea point then driving to my mom's coffee shop, chilling there for a bit (mr smear napping on granny for a while), running into a cousin and his girlfriend, and then bumping into our friends and their kid and taking them with us to plant to pick up shwarma and to the eco-village at oude molan for a great afternoon with the kids both riding horses.
on the way back to the car we saw a hen and her chicks by a sewer grate, and our friend realized that some of the chicks had fallen through the grate; i jumped to lift it, only realizing just how heavy it was after i'd already gotten it off - fortunately, while i'm feeling the strain in my lower back i did pick it up with relatively decent form and it could've been a lot worse. it felt really good returning the two lost chicks to their mother.
getting everyone home, showering mr smear, watching stardust, getting mr smear to bed, falling asleep watching titans,
this morning:
jesus, netflix, where did boj and he-man go?!
this post aside, i really do have a lot of work and podcasting to catch up on in addition to family / birthday / community obligations. i'm feeling relatively relaxed, though, this weekend has so far been an enormous relief from the intensity of the past two weeks.
Sunday, January 13, 2019
uneasy like sunday morning
yeeeee gawds. gd and i were both totally over today before we even got out of bed. this morning was such a struggle that my main goal was to see if i could get my computer hooked up to my monitor, which it hasn't been for the longest time. by my second-and-a-half cup of coffee i'd finally started getting some paid work done, it was a painful case of slow-and-steady-win-the-race, and eventually took a break to look after mr smear who was physically expressing his frustrations at us having been indoors all miserable day (it was a miserable day outside, too).
on a couple of occasions i threatened him with taking him back to the store and exchanging him for a new one, which i found funny at the time but in retrospect was probably not smart. later, gd and i had a fight over me threatening to give him a hiding for playing with the dangerous hinge-side of a door, in spite of the fact that i'm the flg-bearer of never beating your children: having argued about this and considered it, given the choice i would much rather traumatize him in a "standard" way than have him lose fingers, limbs, or life. i will do what i can to avoid hurting him in any way, but if he's laughing at me while doing something remarkably stupid that he knows he shouldn't be doing i'm not certain how else to approach this.
my mom came over to help out for a little bit, and we had a long discussion about what to do about purchasing the neighbour's apartment (i really hope he makes me an offer that i can afford), and then i spent some time researching my next podcast episode but got so lost in golding's translation of ovid's metamorphoses (and trying to keep track of the stories) that that's going to have to wait until later in the week.
mr smear and i watched toy story 3 over dinner, i resumed podcast prep but have recently realized that i have paid work to complete and a big interview tomorrow afternoon that i haven't begun to prepare for, so i'm calling it a night now and praying i'll be strong enough to get out of bed on time.
on a couple of occasions i threatened him with taking him back to the store and exchanging him for a new one, which i found funny at the time but in retrospect was probably not smart. later, gd and i had a fight over me threatening to give him a hiding for playing with the dangerous hinge-side of a door, in spite of the fact that i'm the flg-bearer of never beating your children: having argued about this and considered it, given the choice i would much rather traumatize him in a "standard" way than have him lose fingers, limbs, or life. i will do what i can to avoid hurting him in any way, but if he's laughing at me while doing something remarkably stupid that he knows he shouldn't be doing i'm not certain how else to approach this.
my mom came over to help out for a little bit, and we had a long discussion about what to do about purchasing the neighbour's apartment (i really hope he makes me an offer that i can afford), and then i spent some time researching my next podcast episode but got so lost in golding's translation of ovid's metamorphoses (and trying to keep track of the stories) that that's going to have to wait until later in the week.
mr smear and i watched toy story 3 over dinner, i resumed podcast prep but have recently realized that i have paid work to complete and a big interview tomorrow afternoon that i haven't begun to prepare for, so i'm calling it a night now and praying i'll be strong enough to get out of bed on time.
Y.A.W.N.
still buggered from the week, even after two pretty decent nights' rest.
friday 11th:
recruitment bureaucracy, taking mr smear to the museum
a failed attempt at a nap
the nanny taking mr smear to our friends while gd and i rearranged the apartment, which now looks pretty cool and my books are on my shelf again! and mr smear's room looks like a kid's room, with his books actually accessible to him. picking them up, bringing them home, taking her to the bus station, doing a grocery run, returning home to pick up mr smear and driving through to the temple.
a pleasant service, mr smear behaving pretty well (either in spite of or because of being tired)
hosting the new rabbi, a decent evening with only a couple of faux pas', driving her home then returning to go straight to bed.
saturday 12th:
finishing the princess bride, heading to the waterfront to sort out gd's cellular contract and failing, grabbing lunch, rushing to go through to the greyton farm animal sanctuary, realizing it was too late and too far, meeting friends at the green point park, meeting them back home after checking out our neighbour's apartment and deciding that we definitely want to buy it if we can get the financing, everybody yawning, eating gd's amazing curry, running around wildly in the company gardens, taking a walk around the block and stopping for a delicious vegan double-thick shake, getting mr smear showered and into bed, watching venom (a lot of fun), being unable to do anything productive and
now:
deciding (right now) to go to bed before 1am in spite of a podcast episode to plan, paid work to complete and a big interview on monday to prepare for
friday 11th:
recruitment bureaucracy, taking mr smear to the museum
a failed attempt at a nap
the nanny taking mr smear to our friends while gd and i rearranged the apartment, which now looks pretty cool and my books are on my shelf again! and mr smear's room looks like a kid's room, with his books actually accessible to him. picking them up, bringing them home, taking her to the bus station, doing a grocery run, returning home to pick up mr smear and driving through to the temple.
a pleasant service, mr smear behaving pretty well (either in spite of or because of being tired)
hosting the new rabbi, a decent evening with only a couple of faux pas', driving her home then returning to go straight to bed.
saturday 12th:
finishing the princess bride, heading to the waterfront to sort out gd's cellular contract and failing, grabbing lunch, rushing to go through to the greyton farm animal sanctuary, realizing it was too late and too far, meeting friends at the green point park, meeting them back home after checking out our neighbour's apartment and deciding that we definitely want to buy it if we can get the financing, everybody yawning, eating gd's amazing curry, running around wildly in the company gardens, taking a walk around the block and stopping for a delicious vegan double-thick shake, getting mr smear showered and into bed, watching venom (a lot of fun), being unable to do anything productive and
now:
deciding (right now) to go to bed before 1am in spite of a podcast episode to plan, paid work to complete and a big interview on monday to prepare for
Thursday, January 10, 2019
high and mighty
so... i laughed, i almost cried, i finally went back to bed around 4.30am, having finally completed the work i began on monday and feeling pretty good about it. but not about myself, because i was feeling totally wired and just ever-so-slightly hallucinating.
around 6.30am i looked online and learned that combining sudafed and caffeine is a thing. "i won't be doing that again," i told myself, "not after this one last time just before my early morning interviews."
let me tell you, i was WIRED. i don't think it helped my mental acuity much, i felt a bit slower than usual and words i needed kept drifting through my brain and fluttering off again, but overall the interviews felt good and considering the fact that they're planning on contacting my references tomorrow i'm pretty confident that i did alright.
it's funny and a bit sad that a friend at a big global company was the instigator of all this - me realizing that i need to get myself an office job in order to save my sleep / sanity - and that company has been dragging their feet so i might not even make it to the first screening i have with them on monday. i feel bad for my friend because their team needs someone like me, but if the company i sat with today makes me an offer i don't think i'm going to turn them down.
...
i walked home, ate lunch, cleaned up my code and proudly pushed it, juggled emails and invoicing and a bunch of other things, then dropped for a nap which was mostly pretty good. for a nap. mr smear and his nanny came home around 4.30, i showed him pictures of cyclops (greek, including the dude from oh, brother, where art thou) which led on to lego x-men and havok, then slowly made my exhausted way to my mom's coffee shop for a chai and a chat, did a massive grocery shopping, came home to eat dinner and watch half of the princess bride, put mr smear to bed*, got caught up temporarily in william goldman's introduction to the 30th anniversary edition of the princess bride book which i plan on reading to mr smear once we've seen the movie, then got sidelined sorting out something for gd with her ipad and am now, finally, about to go to bed.
* ever since he was really little, i've been putting him to bed with a blessing / statement of family values to him in a little hebrew rhyme i came up with. tonight, for the first time, he tried to say it along with me, and words cannot express how pleased / proud / heart-warmed i am. and that's after a day that began (for him, at least) with us chilling on his bed listening to jefferson airplane and the doors while he figured out what he wanted to do with his morning**.
** oh, that's right, it actually began with his whining "i want granny!" repeatedly until i tried to record it for my mom, at which point he stopped whining and then managed to hurt himself trying to pick his nose.
...
i think i deserve a little bit of a rest.
around 6.30am i looked online and learned that combining sudafed and caffeine is a thing. "i won't be doing that again," i told myself, "not after this one last time just before my early morning interviews."
let me tell you, i was WIRED. i don't think it helped my mental acuity much, i felt a bit slower than usual and words i needed kept drifting through my brain and fluttering off again, but overall the interviews felt good and considering the fact that they're planning on contacting my references tomorrow i'm pretty confident that i did alright.
it's funny and a bit sad that a friend at a big global company was the instigator of all this - me realizing that i need to get myself an office job in order to save my sleep / sanity - and that company has been dragging their feet so i might not even make it to the first screening i have with them on monday. i feel bad for my friend because their team needs someone like me, but if the company i sat with today makes me an offer i don't think i'm going to turn them down.
...
i walked home, ate lunch, cleaned up my code and proudly pushed it, juggled emails and invoicing and a bunch of other things, then dropped for a nap which was mostly pretty good. for a nap. mr smear and his nanny came home around 4.30, i showed him pictures of cyclops (greek, including the dude from oh, brother, where art thou) which led on to lego x-men and havok, then slowly made my exhausted way to my mom's coffee shop for a chai and a chat, did a massive grocery shopping, came home to eat dinner and watch half of the princess bride, put mr smear to bed*, got caught up temporarily in william goldman's introduction to the 30th anniversary edition of the princess bride book which i plan on reading to mr smear once we've seen the movie, then got sidelined sorting out something for gd with her ipad and am now, finally, about to go to bed.
* ever since he was really little, i've been putting him to bed with a blessing / statement of family values to him in a little hebrew rhyme i came up with. tonight, for the first time, he tried to say it along with me, and words cannot express how pleased / proud / heart-warmed i am. and that's after a day that began (for him, at least) with us chilling on his bed listening to jefferson airplane and the doors while he figured out what he wanted to do with his morning**.
** oh, that's right, it actually began with his whining "i want granny!" repeatedly until i tried to record it for my mom, at which point he stopped whining and then managed to hurt himself trying to pick his nose.
...
i think i deserve a little bit of a rest.
sudafed and coffee
i forgot, i took sudafed and drank coffee thinking i was going to be up all night.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.
heavy hump day
did i really begin the day with an interview? then return home to fix a door handle, work, then take gd shopping for chairs, then fight with an old man who hooted at me to get my attention, then sit down at a coffee shop to work and do a second interview, then pick up mr smear, drop him and gd at home, then return to the furniture store to pay, then take mr smear to the pool for a swim, then shower him before leaving him with my mom to take gd to the hospital, then book her in, then return home to fetch her things, then do them off and say goodnight, then call to get mr smear to pee, then learn that i have two technical interviews too early in the morning, then get a call to pick gd up (bad beds), complete some work before my mom got back, pick up gd, bring her home
and finally work until realizing that it's past 1.30am and oh shit.
Wednesday, January 09, 2019
heavy before hump day
these last two days have been rough, i've been having trouble focusing and i'm not sure if i've had a cold, or just been suffering from "seasonal" allergies.
monday morning i was not able to be functional until about half an hour before my meeting, which fortunately was enough to have an idea of what i was doing. unfortunately, two "days" of work and this part of the solution has proven so tricky that i'm behind on my target, and it's now past 1am and i have to be up for a morning coffee meeting with a company i probably won't be applying to work for.
i was a mess for most of monday. i worked out pretty hard at the gym, worked a couple of good hours, then suddenly my back began to hurt... i walked to the pharmacy to pick some stuff up and didn't change out of my training shoes, which turned out to be a bad idea because by the time i was done i felt old and brittle, i came home to watch the angry birds movie (it's actually a great movie), walk around the neighbourhood with gd and mr smear, then return home and feel sorry for myself before turning in early.
yesterday:
i've spent a lot of time dealing with recruiters, i've had one interview so far; and although it went well, the longer i've thought about it the less interested i am, because it doesn't seem to be a significant improvement over my present employment.
gd took mr smear to the local baths this morning for an hour or so and he's definitely into swimming. she brought him back earlier than anticipated and left him with me for an hour or two, which threw out the rest of the morning completely. i took him downstairs to play in the garden, we mostly had fun, he lost a tennis ball after throwing it at my head, and then we returned home where i got a little work done before heading to the gym where i got a lot more done. i was so into it that i returned home much later than planned, rushed a shower and dinner, picked up snacks at the grocery store and joined out bi-weekly dnd group for a highly entertaining evening.
game notes:
1. your dungeon has an office, but no toilets. WHERE IS ALL THE POO?!
2. i decided to call the halfling with amnesia "bilbo", he actually turned out to be a thief.
3. i failed a stealth check trying to sneak up on bilbo to see if i could smell anything interesting with my super-keen senses. all i could think of to say when he caught me was that i was trying to get a better look at his rune... which was hanging on his neck in front of him...
4. we had a fight with a bunch of disembodied hands. the puns got out of hand very quickly.
5. we picked up a soul trapped in a lamp, bilbo put it in his backpack. "change voice: penelope". "okay, penelope: how do we get to the bad guy". penelope's only directions were "down", i was hoping for something more in line with "in one hundred feet, turn left"
6. i stabbed into the darkness where i'd last seen the skeleton, heard a death-squeal, and pulled out my spear with the skeleton hanging off the end. and thus did i invent "spear-skeletoning".
monday morning i was not able to be functional until about half an hour before my meeting, which fortunately was enough to have an idea of what i was doing. unfortunately, two "days" of work and this part of the solution has proven so tricky that i'm behind on my target, and it's now past 1am and i have to be up for a morning coffee meeting with a company i probably won't be applying to work for.
i was a mess for most of monday. i worked out pretty hard at the gym, worked a couple of good hours, then suddenly my back began to hurt... i walked to the pharmacy to pick some stuff up and didn't change out of my training shoes, which turned out to be a bad idea because by the time i was done i felt old and brittle, i came home to watch the angry birds movie (it's actually a great movie), walk around the neighbourhood with gd and mr smear, then return home and feel sorry for myself before turning in early.
yesterday:
i've spent a lot of time dealing with recruiters, i've had one interview so far; and although it went well, the longer i've thought about it the less interested i am, because it doesn't seem to be a significant improvement over my present employment.
gd took mr smear to the local baths this morning for an hour or so and he's definitely into swimming. she brought him back earlier than anticipated and left him with me for an hour or two, which threw out the rest of the morning completely. i took him downstairs to play in the garden, we mostly had fun, he lost a tennis ball after throwing it at my head, and then we returned home where i got a little work done before heading to the gym where i got a lot more done. i was so into it that i returned home much later than planned, rushed a shower and dinner, picked up snacks at the grocery store and joined out bi-weekly dnd group for a highly entertaining evening.
game notes:
1. your dungeon has an office, but no toilets. WHERE IS ALL THE POO?!
2. i decided to call the halfling with amnesia "bilbo", he actually turned out to be a thief.
3. i failed a stealth check trying to sneak up on bilbo to see if i could smell anything interesting with my super-keen senses. all i could think of to say when he caught me was that i was trying to get a better look at his rune... which was hanging on his neck in front of him...
4. we had a fight with a bunch of disembodied hands. the puns got out of hand very quickly.
5. we picked up a soul trapped in a lamp, bilbo put it in his backpack. "change voice: penelope". "okay, penelope: how do we get to the bad guy". penelope's only directions were "down", i was hoping for something more in line with "in one hundred feet, turn left"
6. i stabbed into the darkness where i'd last seen the skeleton, heard a death-squeal, and pulled out my spear with the skeleton hanging off the end. and thus did i invent "spear-skeletoning".
Monday, January 07, 2019
almost enough
almost 2am. enough caffeine to be wired, but not enough to be functional. one podcast published, one jira slack integration integrated, one (paid for) problem solved. will i be more functional if i crash now and try to wake up early? will i be able to wake up early?
Sunday, January 06, 2019
wall painting
HAHAHAHAHAHAHahahahaha... ah ha... aaaah... haaaa...
i thought i'd get lots of work done today, but everyone came back a lot earlier than anticipated, the two boys took everything out of me and i wasn't even supposed to be dealing with them, i ended up being sidelined with a jira box setup (at least i was finally successful), and at some point i had to just throw in the towel and go and swim with my wife and son.
which was awesome, in particular because mr smear insisted on swimming by himself (with waterwings, of course), and i couldn't be more proud! he was sad when we told him he had to go, he sat on the edge of the pool for a little while meditating on how much he didn't want to leave...
i got most of the work in for my podcast after we got back (thanks to my mom taking gd and mr smear grocery shopping after mr smear and i showered), then watched the rest of hook with mr smear, we were joined by my mom, the movie is still amazing, mr smear went straight to bed afterwards.
my mom left recently after helping me write a very formal email to my landlord, gd is playing games on the ipad (angry birds and billiards, i'm kinda pleased even if she's cursing a lot), and i'm about to drink tea, tidy up the podcast, and try and get some paid work done before going to bed.
i thought i'd get lots of work done today, but everyone came back a lot earlier than anticipated, the two boys took everything out of me and i wasn't even supposed to be dealing with them, i ended up being sidelined with a jira box setup (at least i was finally successful), and at some point i had to just throw in the towel and go and swim with my wife and son.
which was awesome, in particular because mr smear insisted on swimming by himself (with waterwings, of course), and i couldn't be more proud! he was sad when we told him he had to go, he sat on the edge of the pool for a little while meditating on how much he didn't want to leave...
i got most of the work in for my podcast after we got back (thanks to my mom taking gd and mr smear grocery shopping after mr smear and i showered), then watched the rest of hook with mr smear, we were joined by my mom, the movie is still amazing, mr smear went straight to bed afterwards.
my mom left recently after helping me write a very formal email to my landlord, gd is playing games on the ipad (angry birds and billiards, i'm kinda pleased even if she's cursing a lot), and i'm about to drink tea, tidy up the podcast, and try and get some paid work done before going to bed.
my weekend ending early
it's sunday morning, i got a good night's sleep last night but this morning has already gone wild as our friend and her kid arrived; the two boys have redecorated mr smear's bedroom with black marker and i'm already ready for them to get out of the house so that i can get some work done. at least the kids are playing nicely. mostly.
the reason i need to work today is that friday was a complete loss; i stormed out angrily from an entirely unnecessary argument, got caught up in our neighbour's psychic adventure (stepping on a "cue" with a noose in the background just as a truck saying "REGRET nothing" drove past), straight from that conversation into a meeting with my cousin who's back from being a counselor at a summer camp, and from there going to a play-date before heading to the temple to say goodbye to the week.
mr smear fell asleep on the way home, and we woke him before we went to bed to use the toilet and that turned into an hour or so long nightmare...
yesterday started with a visit to the hardware store to learn about lock mechanisms, eat frozen yoghurt and drive off to canal walk to pray at the church of the almighty dollar; we didn't find the chairs we were looking for, but we did end up spending an inordinate amount of money on new toys for mr smear... a delicious lunch (i love seeing mr smear wolf down tofu and veggies) and returning home for a nap, a twilight swim (the water level's risen so mr smear had to stretch to stand, but he really enjoyed swimming and actually wanted me to let go while he was paddling), a hot shower and hook - i had to choose between english audio with all the subtitles, or french / english audio but no subtitles, which seems unnecessary, but at least we have another great "french" film for mr smear.
my mom coming over for a little bit, then putting mr smear to bed and falling asleep way earlier than anticipated.
the reason i need to work today is that friday was a complete loss; i stormed out angrily from an entirely unnecessary argument, got caught up in our neighbour's psychic adventure (stepping on a "cue" with a noose in the background just as a truck saying "REGRET nothing" drove past), straight from that conversation into a meeting with my cousin who's back from being a counselor at a summer camp, and from there going to a play-date before heading to the temple to say goodbye to the week.
mr smear fell asleep on the way home, and we woke him before we went to bed to use the toilet and that turned into an hour or so long nightmare...
yesterday started with a visit to the hardware store to learn about lock mechanisms, eat frozen yoghurt and drive off to canal walk to pray at the church of the almighty dollar; we didn't find the chairs we were looking for, but we did end up spending an inordinate amount of money on new toys for mr smear... a delicious lunch (i love seeing mr smear wolf down tofu and veggies) and returning home for a nap, a twilight swim (the water level's risen so mr smear had to stretch to stand, but he really enjoyed swimming and actually wanted me to let go while he was paddling), a hot shower and hook - i had to choose between english audio with all the subtitles, or french / english audio but no subtitles, which seems unnecessary, but at least we have another great "french" film for mr smear.
my mom coming over for a little bit, then putting mr smear to bed and falling asleep way earlier than anticipated.
Friday, January 04, 2019
payday delay and new year's re-evaluation
monday 31st december:
going to bed around 2.30am but only getting there around 4am with mr smear refusing to sleep for an hour and a nightmare half
the great playdate part 2, podcast publishing
swimming with water wings, mr smear going it alone for the first time and once again making the tattoo delay utterly worthwhile
heavy grocery shopping in 2 parts, popping loads of bloons along the way (i'm an addict, and it's become an OCD thing where once or twice a day i bring myself incrementally closer to 100%)
taking mr smear and his bicycle to the company gardens but both of us were exhausted, returning home for dinner, shower, thundercats, and to cry at the end of toy story 3 again (the others don't make me cry, but that ending gets me every time)
bedtime, bloons, road rage videos (i think i need a dashcam), then a less early night than planned
tuesday 1st january:
at least the third day with my neck threatening to spasm (left neck / shoulder)
a better night, waking up to the thundercats, our friend / playdate coming over, taking forever to get going to meet my mom and do some quick picnic shopping*, taking forever to get going to kirstenbosch, eventually arriving, finding a spot, calming down a little before managing the two boys alone in a small stream
* sandal stress on the way out
an important nap, a quick dip in the pool, thundercats followed by dinner and hunter x hunter until bedtime (fantastic teaching opportunity)
bloons until late, going to bed early-ish (11pm)
wednesday 2nd:
a grumpy morning, sitting out some maintenance tasks, still stressing about not being paid, letting in the cleaning lady, napping for twenty minutes, heading to the coffee shop to work and look for freelance jobs, protoplasm joining me and walking home for a beer, some manly venetian blind fixing and an interesting chat about sustainable architecture
gd's first curry (excellent), thundercats, hunter x hunter, an easy shower and bedtime, early to bed ourselves
thursday 3rd:
being woken by the olfactory assault of my wife spaying tabard in a closed bedroom and having to go sleep on the couch
one or two hours of snoozing my alarm, getting a bit of work done over a suspicious avocado toast breakfast, a mr smear meltdown, pinching nerves down to my calves, dropping gd and mr smear off at the castle then heading to work at the gym, an interesting chat with a "recruiter" (not exactly), some difficult hours between working and minor distractions, half an hour on the phone with my bank to (re)discover that their "wire transfer tracking division" can't track wire transfers unless they've cleared already, sending off a passive-aggressive email to our CFO saying that as i'd already borrowed money to pay rent, another couple of days wouldn't make much difference
at least coming up with a vague strategy before leaving around 4pm, taking mr smear down to the pool for a great swim, learning that he can stand by himself in the shallow end (!), gd joining us for a bit, showering, watching coco again, rushing an already sleepy mr smear through tooth brushing and bedtime, bloon destruction, settling in to work and finding the money in my account (hooray!) and sorting out repayments etc.
preparing an intro speech in case my offer to coach high school students in spoken word is accepted
today:
it's just past midnight and i'm going to try to get some work done before going to bed, it's really pathetic how exhausted i've been and i'm distracted and demoralized in general. i watched lisa feldman - you aren't at the mercy of your emotions today and i'm wondering how much control i have over this...
going to bed around 2.30am but only getting there around 4am with mr smear refusing to sleep for an hour and a nightmare half
the great playdate part 2, podcast publishing
swimming with water wings, mr smear going it alone for the first time and once again making the tattoo delay utterly worthwhile
heavy grocery shopping in 2 parts, popping loads of bloons along the way (i'm an addict, and it's become an OCD thing where once or twice a day i bring myself incrementally closer to 100%)
taking mr smear and his bicycle to the company gardens but both of us were exhausted, returning home for dinner, shower, thundercats, and to cry at the end of toy story 3 again (the others don't make me cry, but that ending gets me every time)
bedtime, bloons, road rage videos (i think i need a dashcam), then a less early night than planned
tuesday 1st january:
at least the third day with my neck threatening to spasm (left neck / shoulder)
a better night, waking up to the thundercats, our friend / playdate coming over, taking forever to get going to meet my mom and do some quick picnic shopping*, taking forever to get going to kirstenbosch, eventually arriving, finding a spot, calming down a little before managing the two boys alone in a small stream
* sandal stress on the way out
an important nap, a quick dip in the pool, thundercats followed by dinner and hunter x hunter until bedtime (fantastic teaching opportunity)
bloons until late, going to bed early-ish (11pm)
wednesday 2nd:
a grumpy morning, sitting out some maintenance tasks, still stressing about not being paid, letting in the cleaning lady, napping for twenty minutes, heading to the coffee shop to work and look for freelance jobs, protoplasm joining me and walking home for a beer, some manly venetian blind fixing and an interesting chat about sustainable architecture
gd's first curry (excellent), thundercats, hunter x hunter, an easy shower and bedtime, early to bed ourselves
thursday 3rd:
being woken by the olfactory assault of my wife spaying tabard in a closed bedroom and having to go sleep on the couch
one or two hours of snoozing my alarm, getting a bit of work done over a suspicious avocado toast breakfast, a mr smear meltdown, pinching nerves down to my calves, dropping gd and mr smear off at the castle then heading to work at the gym, an interesting chat with a "recruiter" (not exactly), some difficult hours between working and minor distractions, half an hour on the phone with my bank to (re)discover that their "wire transfer tracking division" can't track wire transfers unless they've cleared already, sending off a passive-aggressive email to our CFO saying that as i'd already borrowed money to pay rent, another couple of days wouldn't make much difference
at least coming up with a vague strategy before leaving around 4pm, taking mr smear down to the pool for a great swim, learning that he can stand by himself in the shallow end (!), gd joining us for a bit, showering, watching coco again, rushing an already sleepy mr smear through tooth brushing and bedtime, bloon destruction, settling in to work and finding the money in my account (hooray!) and sorting out repayments etc.
preparing an intro speech in case my offer to coach high school students in spoken word is accepted
today:
it's just past midnight and i'm going to try to get some work done before going to bed, it's really pathetic how exhausted i've been and i'm distracted and demoralized in general. i watched lisa feldman - you aren't at the mercy of your emotions today and i'm wondering how much control i have over this...
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