Done Since 2018-08-19

[mdlbear]

Not too bad, especially compared to last week. Monday Colleen moved from the hospital in Everett (over an hour away, more if the ferry line is backed up) to rehab at Careage of Whidbey (about 20 minutes away, in Coupeville). She is doing very well, and we expect her to come home sometime this week.

I've been taking my guitar, and gave an impromptu concert Friday (see this week's S4S for details). I also took advantage of the proximity of Home Depot in Oak Harbor (a little past Coupeville) and Shoreline (on the way back from Seattle after visiting N and the kids on Thursday) to pick up more of the 5-shelf plastic shelving units that I'm using in the garage. I can fit two in Molly's back seat, which is why it required two trips.

Of course, I haven't been getting very much else done.

The air quality has been terrible most of the week due to the wildfires to the East; not as bad as Spokane a few years ago when we were there for Worldcon, but bad enough for many people to be wearing masks. I suppose I should have, but I haven't been outdoors all that much.

Worldcon was in San Jose last weekend. Obviously, we didn't go -- apologies to all the people we wanted to re-connect with. With Colleen in the hospital, we would have had to cancel anyway; it was her dicey health that made us decide to skip it. But it's still one more thing on my bucket list that I've missed. At least I had an actual excuse this time.

Notes & links:

0819Su
  * up 6:39; W=198.2, S=; cat cuddle, shower
    Had both cats on the bed when I got up; Ticia by my head and Desti by my feet
  : left ~10:30; got on the noon ferry.  Long line.
  : C appears to have hit her baseline kidney function -- creatinine 2.3 (normal is 1)
    She will be moving to Careage, in Coupeville, as soon as they can get a bed for her.
    She's off the IV.
  : from conversation with V:  project Gutenberg, Bible Gateway, some geneology sites...
    -> the list of things I can do needs some organization and more humor.
    -> also a page of links.  Include music.
  % C has been having a bad round of diarrhea; she was crying from the pain and I couldn't
    do anything to help.  That hurt.
  : received Dean's party announcement: it's the 14th-16th of September.
    his email mentions that he's been hosting AirBnB guests.  So...
  * changed cat boxes.  The one in the cats' room has obviously gotten more use.

0816Th-20Mo (dates of hotel reservation)
  x Worldcon in San Jose -> as it turned out, with C in the hospital we would have had to
    cancel anyway.

0820Mo
  * Up 6ish; S=6:55; cat cuddle
  @ What Does "Ethical" AI Mean for Open Source? | Linux Journal
  : C called while I was on the ferry to say that she was getting discharged today.  Drove
    her up to Careage of Whidbey, in Coupeville -- way cheaper than a cabulance.  Looks
    like a nice place; I had a good conversation with her roommate, Sandy, who was in
    rehab after an encounter with a pickup truck.  My age or older.
  : Now C is asking for some of her caftans; I could only find one.  I know there must be
    more.  Somewhere.
  & Blackbird was offering an upgrade to Bionic, so I fired it off.  It went to sleep just
    as I was moving it to the UPS in the LR.
  * 11:59pm-3:00am - planned power outage for repairs at Greenbank substation.
    -> the UPS woke me up; had a hard time getting back to sleep
    -> Blackbird eventually ran out of battery and put itself to sleep.

0821Tu
  * up 7ish; W=197.6, S=?; didn't use mask after waking up.
  & blackbird's upgrade picked up where it left off, so that's good.
    -> wasted a fair amount of time trying to fix the config; may have to start over, but
    lighter -- didn't need help.
    One more trip should do it, unless I decide to make it a row of four instead of three.
  * serenaded C in the lobby -- Lily et.al, Wheelin', Desolation Row.  Made an absolute
    hash of Wheelin' -- clearly I need more practice.  Chords on Desolation Row fall apart
    in the last part of the verse.
  : C walked all the way from her room to the PT room.  Farthest she's gone so far.  The
    PT guy measured it -- 178ft
  % observation:  I seem more inclined to talk to strangers when there's noone I know
    around.  Interesting.
  @ kaberett | A Midsummer Night's Love Meme (my thread)
  * Singing:  worked on "Mary O'Meara".  Several run-throughs, including two with no
    guitar, N' on piano.
  : C needed panties and wipes, and wanted her needlepoint, so made another run up to
    Coupeville after dinner.  Air quality awful - worse than a bad day in LA.  Not as bad
    as Spokane.  I'd really prefer not to see what I'm breathing.

0823Th
  * awake 3ish; read, went back to bed 4:30ish; dozed a little
    % one anxiety? attack.  Shut the bedroom windows because I was smelling smoke.
  * up 6:50; W=197.8; 
  * bring air mattress down to Rest Stop
    leaving at 9 doesn't really guarantee arriving by 11, though I did make it with 3
    minutes to spare despite (just barely) missing the 9:30 boat.  I should leave no later
    than 8:45.
  $ $20.90 AX to DreamHost to register computer-curmudgeon.com for 2 years.  N suggested
    getting that for branding.  There are a couple of competing registrations, including
    the one without a hyphen, but there does not appear to be a WA business by that name
    -> use info@computer-curmudgeon.net, forward to curmudgeon@savitzky.net.
  * left ~3:15 (N and m had another appointment); got shelves at HD, and dinner at Third
    Place after an unsuccessful stop at Ross.  Home around 11:30
  @ Faxploit: Sending Fax Back to the Dark Ages - Check Point Research [LWN]

0824Fr
  * up 5:30ish; S=6:04;
  @ A web of anxiety: accessibility for people with anxiety and panic disorders [Part 1]
    | TPG – Digital Accessibility Solutions
  @ flycheck/flycheck: On the fly syntax checking for GNU Emacs
    flycheck/flycheck-versus-flymake.rst at master · flycheck/flycheck
  & Quite a lot of singing.  Played for C in the back dining/activity room after lunch.
    Then V and C voluntold me to play at the ice cream social, which started at 3:30.  I
    ended up playing until after 5.  In no particular order: Get up and Go (I did start
    with that one), Wheelin', The Travelers (split), The Bears (together), Ship of Stone,
    Gentle Arms of Eden, Rosie, The Mary Ellen Carter, World Inside the Crystal, Keep the
    Dream Alive (went out on that one, IIRC), Bells of Norwich, Bigger on the Inside, The
    Owl and the Pussycat, The Times They Are A-Changin',
  % it's possible that the anti-inflamatory (diclofenac) cream may be starting to work.
    Not as much pain as last night.

0925Sa
* up 7ish; W=196.8, S=8; shower
  @ Linux apps are NOT coming to many still-supported Chromebooks [LJ]
  @ Federated paywalls and consent bits
  * put together the remaining two shelf units.  Goes much faster if you start by putting
    the legs onto the shelf above -- that's the press-fit direction.  The bottom ends of
    the legs have the narrow section and just drop in.  There's room at each end for
    a 12"-deep unit, of which I have one.
  * up to see C -- hung out in the lobby until she got sleepy around 3:15 and sent me
    home.  Some noodling, trying out Bad Guys in G
  : Note for guitar teaching -- Freight Train etc. work okay in G, which lets a beginner
    avoid using the F.  (You don't get the C7-E7 slide, though; it would be G7-B7)
  @ The 10:1 rule of writing and programming S(L) on average, every line of text or
    code gets "rewritten" 10 times (lines added plus lines deleted, so really more like
    (added + deleted) / (2 * alpha) where alpha is average lines affected per change.
    But still.
  * changed the water filter on the fridge.  The cap/handle/whatever is partly broken, so
    it was hard to get the old filter out. -> ordered replacement

Comments

(back reading)

[jesse_the_k]

Glad to hear C's on the mend, and all that driving around is quite important.

Glad you saw that anxiety post at Paciello.

Computer Curmudgeon is a lively name (anyway to grab "computer-curmugun" while you're at it?)

Sounds like your calluses are well-developed again.

Re: (back reading)

[mdlbear]

It's the next in that series that I'm really looking forward to, although I can get a lot of useful ideas just from the first one. I wonder whether anyone has done something similar for depression.

Re: (back reading)

[septemberlilac]

Thanks for the link to the anxiety post. It and several others you've linked to previously on the subject of mental health issues are very useful. BTW, there were a couple of panels at WorldCon about creative people dealing with depression and anxiety, especially focusing on coping techniques the individual panelists had developed, which were extremely valuable. I'm hoping that more cons will start to have panels on such things. Fandom has helped bring so many other topics out of the closet,it would be nice if we could do the same for coping with these very common but too rarely discussed in public type of issues.

[jcfiala]

Glad to hear things are slowly mending and improving on the health front.

Re: (back reading)

[mdlbear]

Are there any links to this stuff? (If not, maybe I should track some down.)

[gorgeousgary]

Glad to hear Colleen is doing better. Sounds like the impromptu concert was fun.

I don't know if this will amuse or depress you (or both), but on the way from the SFO area (where we stayed overnight before Worldcon) to San Jose, Google ended up sending us down I-280, right past the exit for the Starport. Then on the way back to SFO, our shuttle driver took the scenic route down San Carlos to avoid traffic, so we went right past your former digs again...

[mdlbear]

More amused than depressed. If we'd gone to Worldcon I would have at least wanted to take a look and see what the current owners had done with it.