Ten years into marriage, my darling man and I hit a milestone today: we managed to fail to accomplish installation of a window air conditioner without grumping or snapping at each other.
...the failure part is because apparently we need a 1/2" wood shim to bring the brackets up to a level where they'll clip into the bottom of the unit. This is not mentioned in the directions, as apparently our windowsills do not meet the ideal windowsill installation that it was designed for. So, drawing inspiration from the "if you have storm windows" section, there will be a run to the hardware store, a shim installed to raise the brackets to the height that they'll meet the bottom of the a/c, and things should be good.
The windows are, as far as I can tell, about 25 years old. I shouldn't be surprised that there have been design changes to the sills. Ah, well!
Note that I did not cuss at my darling man, and we didn't yell at each other. Actual air conditioning unit, included manual, and cats who were trying to help not included in this accomplishment.
Tuesday, June 2, 2020
Sunday, May 31, 2020
Fire in the sky!
Yesterday, we sent men up into space again!
Sure, the news is trying to focus on the highly organized and funded riots (with craigslist ads for paid rioters posted ahead of time, and pre-positioned pallets of bricks with people directing "protestors" to pick up a brick as they headed in...)
But that's temporary stupidity by ideologically blind idiots who think that if they recreate the summer of '69 with an overhyped and underperforming pandemic and astroturfed riots, they'll get the power they want. Ignore that mess on the ground. If we're going to redo '69, we're redoing the very best part, with men going up to orbit!
...and this time it's commercially, which means it won't stop if the next presidential administration and congress cuts funding. This makes me very excited, because single-planet species are at great risk of ceasing to exist. We need to get outa this place... I'll take the moon, but Mars would be better. Got an exoplanet that's earthlike yet?
By the way, SpaceX is still running live feed today as they're taking the opportunity to wring out hte Dragon with automated and hand-flown maneuvers. Because it is a test flight, and those two test pilots have got a whole lot of things to check out, while engineers on the ground await their data impatiently.
We'll get there yet! We've already gotten the first step down!
Sure, the news is trying to focus on the highly organized and funded riots (with craigslist ads for paid rioters posted ahead of time, and pre-positioned pallets of bricks with people directing "protestors" to pick up a brick as they headed in...)
But that's temporary stupidity by ideologically blind idiots who think that if they recreate the summer of '69 with an overhyped and underperforming pandemic and astroturfed riots, they'll get the power they want. Ignore that mess on the ground. If we're going to redo '69, we're redoing the very best part, with men going up to orbit!
...and this time it's commercially, which means it won't stop if the next presidential administration and congress cuts funding. This makes me very excited, because single-planet species are at great risk of ceasing to exist. We need to get outa this place... I'll take the moon, but Mars would be better. Got an exoplanet that's earthlike yet?
By the way, SpaceX is still running live feed today as they're taking the opportunity to wring out hte Dragon with automated and hand-flown maneuvers. Because it is a test flight, and those two test pilots have got a whole lot of things to check out, while engineers on the ground await their data impatiently.
We'll get there yet! We've already gotten the first step down!
Saturday, May 2, 2020
I wrote something new...
Now I have to write a blurb. Um, What's the story about? I just wrote tens of thousands of words exploring that. Um. It's about a ballistic pilot, and the absolutely terrible day she has when her own government tries to shoot her down. It's about the "military advisors" the Other Side is sending into her destination, because cold wars always have hot spots. It's about how, if you bleed a country with taxes and regulations until they can't survive, they will declare independence from the trade union just to stay alive.
It's also about learning that getting what you want doesn't mean you got what you need, and learning to ask for help, and to swallow your pride and start over. And about L-shaped ambushes and ground-to-air fire and how nobody loves linear assaults. And crusty cantankerous curmudgeons with hearts of gold.
And that, just because you've been in a field long enough that all the romance has rubbed off and you're well acquainted with the suck, doesn't mean you don't still love it anyway.
Saturday, April 25, 2020
Masking my contempt for idiotic decrees
The county judge just issued an order for all individuals over the age of 6 to wear masks in public. Which I find idiotic and especially trying, because my masks are specialty high-end N95 Vogmasks designed for being worn days on end when the pollen count is too bad for me to breathe unfiltered air. The last thing I want to do is wear them out by continuous use when I can breathe just fine, and not have them when I need them! (See also: they've gone from being easily available to completely sold out everywhere, all the time. And while I only need them a few times a year due to overactive immune system, I really feel for the folks who need them full-time due to medically suppressed immune systems.)
Capitalism to the rescue! Fine Art America now offers facemask option on some of the paintings uploaded, which means I can now wear out Ken Nelson's Alaska paintings. This makes me giggle.
Check this out!
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunset-over-the-alaskan-wild-kenneth-nelson.html
Capitalism to the rescue! Fine Art America now offers facemask option on some of the paintings uploaded, which means I can now wear out Ken Nelson's Alaska paintings. This makes me giggle.
Check this out!
https://fineartamerica.com/featured/sunset-over-the-alaskan-wild-kenneth-nelson.html
Friday, April 17, 2020
Persistence, take 2
After several years of showing up, and doing the work, despite injury, illness, and several other setbacks, I'm getting there. Just grinding it out, pushing through the soreness and the "don't want to" and the frustration and everything else.
Rack pull 135 pounds
Overhead press 70 pounds
Bench Press 87 pounds
Talking to my father last night, and he was rather boggled by those numbers. Then again, I suspect he still thinks of me as the 5' 5" 95 pound teenaged twig with a bright shock of blonde hair and a book practically glued to my face.
Mind you, dad was grumbling mildly about the difficulty of working on a pipeline where the only way to get access was to do a one-handed plank while swinging the hammer and holding the testing equipment overhead with the other hand. Dad, who has said maybe someday soon he might be getting too old to be the guy who climbs the rope ladder into and out of the tank... in full containment gear, while trailing the hoses for the air supply...
Yeah, I have a long way to go before I'm as tough as my father.
Rack pull 135 pounds
Overhead press 70 pounds
Bench Press 87 pounds
Talking to my father last night, and he was rather boggled by those numbers. Then again, I suspect he still thinks of me as the 5' 5" 95 pound teenaged twig with a bright shock of blonde hair and a book practically glued to my face.
Mind you, dad was grumbling mildly about the difficulty of working on a pipeline where the only way to get access was to do a one-handed plank while swinging the hammer and holding the testing equipment overhead with the other hand. Dad, who has said maybe someday soon he might be getting too old to be the guy who climbs the rope ladder into and out of the tank... in full containment gear, while trailing the hoses for the air supply...
Yeah, I have a long way to go before I'm as tough as my father.
Monday, April 13, 2020
Persistence
This year, I decided I would write every day – and it didn’t matter
if it was 5 words of fiction or 5,000, as long as it was every single
day. No, I didn’t decide this on January 1st; that would have been far
too convenient. I decided to do it on January 18th, right as I was in
the middle of working on the pantry turnover project.
(Every year, I put a sticker on each and every item in the pantry. This way, I not only go through the entire thing, but I also get to see exactly what is still stickered from a year ago, and hasn’t been used yet. It leads to a month+ of interesting one-off meals, using up oddball ingredients, along with much lower grocery bills for the duration, organized pantries, and the sincere but unkept vow not to have so much “Oh! I want to try that!” that I never got to next year.)
This is relevant because this year I got a pack of gold star stickers for the pantry, and ended up with almost 500 excess gold star stickers. Having them right there, I resolved there was no time to start like the present, and put up the gag-gift wall calendar (shirtless men in kilts, with sayings like “Once you go plaid you’ll never be sad”), and started giving myself a gold star every day I managed to write at least 5 words of fiction.
For those of you rolling your eyes or laughing at the mental image, hey, writing may be serious business, but no one said we had to take it seriously!
What I also should have done, if I’d thought about it at the time, was keep a running daily wordcount. Alas and alack, I didn’t think about it until roughly a week ago. And then about four days ago I went “If I tracked morning vs. evening, I could see when I’m more productive…”
Turns out, it’s mornings. Not what I expected!
Though, after 11 week of typing everyday, I have discovered the flaw in my plan, the canker in the musk-rose bud… carpal tunnel syndrome. I now have braces for both wrists, better ergonomic setups at all workstations, (though some tweaking needed), and the sense that I really need to modify this plan to take days off. G-d may have told workaholics to remember the Sabbath not for him, but to force us to take time off and do that rest and heal thing we’re so terrible at. I am at least calling most evenings off… mostly…
But one other random, strange and unexpected thing happened… the scattered bits of scenes that I wrote every day started accreting into a story. And yes, I had to stop and figure out how things were linked, and go back and change things, and some characters didn’t actually have a name other than a placeholder until 20K in, but…
Almost in reverse, a plot started to emerge. And characters started to gain voices, and go haring off in directions I didn’t plot, didn’t plan, and didn’t see coming – but in written retrospect made perfect sense. And it’s turning into another, as a friend teasingly calls my books, “tactically correct romance.” (Not that I set out to write romance, but I do set out to write tactically correct and competent people. The romance happens, whether I want the characters to do so or not. Thankfully, fellow authors understand when I yell at the manuscript, “No! Unlike The Princess Bride, you are not a kissing story!” At least, they offer sympathy and liquor instead of a jacket with sleeves that tie in the back when I whine about the characters blowing raspberries at me and doing what they want, so I think they understand…)
Given this book didn’t start with a plot and a plan, it’s going to take more editing. I can’t complain too hard; I wasn’t expecting to recover the writing well enough, and learn coping mechanisms for the medication side effects fast enough, to get a story finished this year.
Next up: figuring out how to pull off this trick a second time!
(Every year, I put a sticker on each and every item in the pantry. This way, I not only go through the entire thing, but I also get to see exactly what is still stickered from a year ago, and hasn’t been used yet. It leads to a month+ of interesting one-off meals, using up oddball ingredients, along with much lower grocery bills for the duration, organized pantries, and the sincere but unkept vow not to have so much “Oh! I want to try that!” that I never got to next year.)
This is relevant because this year I got a pack of gold star stickers for the pantry, and ended up with almost 500 excess gold star stickers. Having them right there, I resolved there was no time to start like the present, and put up the gag-gift wall calendar (shirtless men in kilts, with sayings like “Once you go plaid you’ll never be sad”), and started giving myself a gold star every day I managed to write at least 5 words of fiction.
For those of you rolling your eyes or laughing at the mental image, hey, writing may be serious business, but no one said we had to take it seriously!
What I also should have done, if I’d thought about it at the time, was keep a running daily wordcount. Alas and alack, I didn’t think about it until roughly a week ago. And then about four days ago I went “If I tracked morning vs. evening, I could see when I’m more productive…”
Turns out, it’s mornings. Not what I expected!
Though, after 11 week of typing everyday, I have discovered the flaw in my plan, the canker in the musk-rose bud… carpal tunnel syndrome. I now have braces for both wrists, better ergonomic setups at all workstations, (though some tweaking needed), and the sense that I really need to modify this plan to take days off. G-d may have told workaholics to remember the Sabbath not for him, but to force us to take time off and do that rest and heal thing we’re so terrible at. I am at least calling most evenings off… mostly…
But one other random, strange and unexpected thing happened… the scattered bits of scenes that I wrote every day started accreting into a story. And yes, I had to stop and figure out how things were linked, and go back and change things, and some characters didn’t actually have a name other than a placeholder until 20K in, but…
Almost in reverse, a plot started to emerge. And characters started to gain voices, and go haring off in directions I didn’t plot, didn’t plan, and didn’t see coming – but in written retrospect made perfect sense. And it’s turning into another, as a friend teasingly calls my books, “tactically correct romance.” (Not that I set out to write romance, but I do set out to write tactically correct and competent people. The romance happens, whether I want the characters to do so or not. Thankfully, fellow authors understand when I yell at the manuscript, “No! Unlike The Princess Bride, you are not a kissing story!” At least, they offer sympathy and liquor instead of a jacket with sleeves that tie in the back when I whine about the characters blowing raspberries at me and doing what they want, so I think they understand…)
Given this book didn’t start with a plot and a plan, it’s going to take more editing. I can’t complain too hard; I wasn’t expecting to recover the writing well enough, and learn coping mechanisms for the medication side effects fast enough, to get a story finished this year.
Next up: figuring out how to pull off this trick a second time!
Monday, March 2, 2020
Thoughts For You From a Sunny Day
You know who you are, and you wouldn't appreciate it if I said your name; it'd just add to your hurt and your pain. I won't make you bleed in public.
I don't yet have the words to say it right.
But I have a gift for you, a little spiky and fragile, a song... This is one I enjoy for the the music, and the context and connotations and the world I was living, the person I was when I first heard it.
But also for the lyrics.
As the years go by, some songs from my childhood have become as trite and awful as trying to recapture the magic of childhood cartoons, or the first drunken time I saw Heavy Metal, or the wonder the first time I saw anime - learning that such a new and very different art form existed.
But some? The lyrics grow in meaning as I've grown.
And this song, it was so easy on the ears as a dance floor respite when the entire world was mine to explore, and the clubs brilliant and beautiful and I could dance until they closed, then drink coffee and catch the well-after-midnight trains till we walked and laughed and ran through the Loop, twirling in the silent streets, hands out for balance on the edges of the flower planters, dancing on the benches, owning the silent downtown, the sleeping city. We swaggered and staggered and laughed until we were collapsing in the park, a happy group of friends as the sun rose over the lake and the city came to life.
Now, though, years later, all too many funerals and memorial services, wakes, and search and rescues turned into search and retrieval instead... I hear most prominently the line half-hidden softly at the end, the advice that came too late. Because as sugary and poppy as it sounds on the surface, at heart it's an an elegy, written for a comrade already gone into the darkness.
Take it easy on yourself...
Please, when you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed, when the to-dos seem overwhelming, when you're staring at up at the mountain of all you want to become, and to have done (but barely started, and despair at succeeding), when you're staring down at the wreckage of your carefully crafted life and plans...
Take it easy on yourself.
We'll be here for you.
I'll be waiting.
https://youtu.be/5UXnulANF8g
I don't yet have the words to say it right.
But I have a gift for you, a little spiky and fragile, a song... This is one I enjoy for the the music, and the context and connotations and the world I was living, the person I was when I first heard it.
But also for the lyrics.
As the years go by, some songs from my childhood have become as trite and awful as trying to recapture the magic of childhood cartoons, or the first drunken time I saw Heavy Metal, or the wonder the first time I saw anime - learning that such a new and very different art form existed.
But some? The lyrics grow in meaning as I've grown.
And this song, it was so easy on the ears as a dance floor respite when the entire world was mine to explore, and the clubs brilliant and beautiful and I could dance until they closed, then drink coffee and catch the well-after-midnight trains till we walked and laughed and ran through the Loop, twirling in the silent streets, hands out for balance on the edges of the flower planters, dancing on the benches, owning the silent downtown, the sleeping city. We swaggered and staggered and laughed until we were collapsing in the park, a happy group of friends as the sun rose over the lake and the city came to life.
Now, though, years later, all too many funerals and memorial services, wakes, and search and rescues turned into search and retrieval instead... I hear most prominently the line half-hidden softly at the end, the advice that came too late. Because as sugary and poppy as it sounds on the surface, at heart it's an an elegy, written for a comrade already gone into the darkness.
Take it easy on yourself...
Please, when you're feeling overwhelmed and stressed, when the to-dos seem overwhelming, when you're staring at up at the mountain of all you want to become, and to have done (but barely started, and despair at succeeding), when you're staring down at the wreckage of your carefully crafted life and plans...
Take it easy on yourself.
We'll be here for you.
I'll be waiting.
https://youtu.be/5UXnulANF8g
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