mdlbear | Done Since 2022-03-27 (Reply)

Strange week. No disasters, and some success -- mainly my short concert at FK-NO 3 (the third virtual FilKONtario) -- but also some computer weirdness, fighting with WordPress (I may need a bigger hammer), a completely flipped schedule, and an unexpectedly large amount of ?emotional? something-or-other.

I didn't practice nearly as much as I should have for my concert set, but it was (barely) enough. The set was 15 minutes, which I figured (correctly) would be about all I'd be capable of. I'm pretty sure most of the emotional weirdness came from the setlist:

I mentioned in my introduction that "Eyes Like the Morning" probably doesn't need a trigger warning for anyone but me. (I could have been wrong about that. Feel free to correct me in the comments.) On top of that, I've had For Amy (CW: major character death) as my top earworm for the week, which doesn't help.

Oh, yeah -- some of the week's weirdness was due to the fact that in the process for setting up my lair for N's new fosterling, m's friend k, to quarantine in for the week, I somehow managed to leave my main laptop, Sable, behind on my desk. Oops! Fortunately I have spares, because I seem to be the household's default destination for unloved laptops. I hauled out Raven, which normally lives in the bedroom. After which I discovered that the passwords file hadn't been synced in at least a couple of months. (No, I have no idea how that came about. Distraction?) Fortunately one can set WordPress passwords from the command line, and I'd already set up SSH to the server.

Also around computers, one of my older Thinkpads, Sherman, has been acting strangely -- quite possibly either a corrupted hard drive. Bad memory is also a possibility, though it passed the test I ran on it. Meanwhile smartd on Raven has also been complaining, which implies that its rotating rust drive is dying, so I'm in the process of setting up a new SSD for it. Terabyte SSDs are cheap!

I've been making modest progress toward modernizing the markup in GoingSideways.blog so that I can take advantage of the recent editing improvements in WordPress editing. Because the WPBakery page builder is a miserable editing environment for me, and the way it does layout (with "shortcodes", and if you don't know what that implies be thankful) makes it difficult to switch to some more modern editing environment. I think I have everything updated except the home page at this point. I may need a bigger hammer for that.

And oh, right -- there was also the dentist appointment Thursday, getting a crown replaced. (I think it was a replacement, anyway.) The technology for that process has improved amazingly since the last century, but making the new crown on the spot means an extra 45 minutes or so sitting around reading my phone. (Beats driving an hour and a half each way to the follow-up appointment for getting the lab-made crown installed, so I'm not complaining at all.)

Notes & links:
0327Su  * litter boxen
  : N picking up k -- will be isolating in the lair (I stay up on Whidbey for the week)
  * up 6:30ish; S=822; shower, laundry; bed
  : stripped bed; discovered that the bottom sheet was torn.  Well, there's another.
    * order another top sheet.  All the ones I have are king.
  : Sherman is behaving very oddly.  Whole system hangs when FF opens a private window
    -> that's in mint.  ubuntu works okay.  Probably a reinstall is in order.
  * order a 1TB SSD for Raven, which has an unhealthy disk
  * N picking up k, who will be isolating in the lair (I stay up on Whidbey for the week)
  * after arrival:  ~ water orchids  * sort mail
  * guitar:  Eyes, Stuff  -> fingers starting to hurt, so time for bed.
  * litter boxen -> back pain -> meloxicam, heat

0328Mo
  * up 5:30; S=6:02;
  * set up GS staging site.
    it was set up with wp-admin credentials and ssh authorized keys same as main site
    -> disabling WPBakery breaks the home page, but apparently nothing else
       ok, also the post thumbnails in the sidebars and the carousel.
       interestingly, it is still broken (but differently) after re-enabling it.
    -> trying out Posts in Sidebar, Recent Posts with Thumbnails.  Fixes sidebar breakage
  * singing:  Eyes, River, Stuff.  Forgot Wheelin'
  * round-up on hemlock.  probably not nearly enough
  : The 1TB SSD I ordered for Raven arrived.  Not sure how to set it up.  Sable is
    DEVICE         START        END    SECTORS   SIZE TYPE (LABEL) OS
    /dev/sda1       2048     526335     524288   256M EFI System
    /dev/sda2     526336     788479     262144   128M EFI System
    /dev/sda3     788480   67897343   67108864    32G Linux swap
    /dev/sda4   67897344  166201343   98304000  46.9G Linux (ww) Mint
    /dev/sda5  166201344  264505343   98304000  46.9G Linux (xx) LMDE
    /dev/sda6  264505344  362809343   98304000  46.9G Linux (yy) UStudio
    /dev/sda7  362809344  461113343   98304000  46.9G Linux (zz) (spare)
    /dev/sda8  461113344 1953523711 1492410368 711.7G Linux (vv) (shared)
    -> but I actually never use anything but Mint at this point.  Try Elementary?
  
0329Tu
  & awake 2ish; S=3:05; Ticia very demanding; down 3am
  * up 7ish; S=6:30;
  @ post GS: Homecoming
    -> don't have the twitter password for GS.  Can post in SS, which has more followers
    -> boosted on FB, DW
  @ FDA authorizes second coronavirus booster dose for people 50 and older - WaPo
  @ 2SLGBTQIA+ Inclusivity - Edmonds School District lots of good resource links
    Edmonds School District adopts new Transgender Student policy; - Lynnwood Today
  * took battery from the new scooter and put it in the old one, which is lighter (and
    ha(s/d) a bad battery).  Collapsed some Chewy boxes.  More cat litter arrived today.
    % heart rate stil seems elevated some time later.
  : I think I've figured out why some widgets show filenames rather than images: symlinks
  * flush pipes.  Lots of dirty water.
  % meloxicam ~10pm

0330We  * litter boxen
  * up 7ish; S=7:38;
  * format new SSD.  May want to revise that to add W$
    -> reformat xx as ntfs, and rename it ww  Probably won't work
  @ Mozilla’s vision for the evolution of the Web (executive summary)
    The web is for everyone: Our vision for the evolution of the web
    Mozilla unveils vision for web evolution | InfoWorld
  * singing: Wheelin', Eyes, River, Stuff
  @ How neuroscience debunked "learned helplessness" theory - Big Think
    tl;dr: helplessness=freeze is the default; you have to learn that you have power
    " We don’t learn helplessness. The brain assumes helplessness when exposed to adverse
      conditions. If we want to feel that we have any control over our own outcomes, we
      have to learn that we have power. "    
  * 2pm FKO sound check  -> went very well -- hardly any adjustments needed.  Of course,
    I'm not going to be using this rig down in Seattle.  Unless I take the mic down.
  * take scooter out to Molly.  Conveniently, both cats were on my bed.
  & update W$ on Raven and Starlight.  Both support EFI; Sherman doesn't.
  % having a little trouble deciding whether to put W$ on the new SSD.  And whether it
    actualy belongs in Raven or should be a backup drive.  Note that changing Raven's
    drive requires removing screws.
  & tried to update W$ on Raven, which turned out to be a mistake.  Hung on update 7 of 8
  @ New federal COVID website shows where you can get Paxlovid pills : NPR
    COVID.gov - Find COVID-19 guidance [...]
    COVID-19 Test to Treat Locator
  % 10:50pm sleepy
  % meloxicam 11:45  - apathetic
  
0331Th Transgender Day of Visibility
  & awake 3:50ish; S=3:48; TMJ crunches  -> down 4:50
  : firefox seems to be broken on sherman.
  * up 7am; S=5:56; (actually awake 7am, not out of bed until 8) TMJ crunchy
  @ Macro Photos by Barry Webb Highlight the Spectacular Diversity of Slime Molds(C')
  @ Transgender Day of Visibility | GLSEN
    International Transgender Day of Visibility - Wikipedia
  @ eftychia | QotD chilling
    " Today is the International Transgender Day of Visibility. [...] This is a precarious
      time for trans people and will likely get worse before it gets better. "
  @ Biden commemorates Transgender Day, slams GOP bills as wrong | AP News
  @ Flamingo Spotted in Texas After Escaping a Kansas Zoo in 2005 - NYT
  * 12:30am leave for dentist - check ferry sched. -> half-hour; gMaps says 1:12 at 10:30
    Check gMaps again ~noon -> catch 1pm ferry; it's 25 minutes' drive from the terminal
  * 2pm dentist crown -> no pain and fit perfectly, so easy
    % Over two hours.  During the actual drilling I went through songs in my head --
      Eyes Like the Morning, The River, Wheelin', For Amy; most of Stuff that Dreams are
      Made Of, and QV up to around Agamemnon, so about 2/3
  * charge Molly
  % 8:30ish feeling cold
  * put a scooter charger in -Molly- _luggage_
  * laundry

0401Fr
  * up 7ish; S=6:53; 
  * bring a scooter down to RS for zoo trip
  @ Massive Black Holes Shown to Act Like Quantum Particles | Quanta Magazine
  @ post Catching Up to Now - GoingSideways.blog; boost on FB, DW
  @ Follow Friday: Primers and Guides for future reference
  & 15min: added a line to 2021/1103 for ~SEO of my last booster.  `~` because the only
    search engine I'm optimizing for is grep-find and dgrep
  * guitar -- mostly noodling, not very long.
  * Down to Seattle noonish.
    % feeling seriously overwhelmed.  Not entirely sure why.
  & Apparently along with leaving Sable in Seattle, I'd also neglected to sync before I
    left.  Which made for an interesting rebase.
  : And now I have to reset my password on GS again -> or rather use the wp command to set
    it back to what it was.  It wasn't compromised, just inaccessible for a week.
  * remake bed in lair, re-set up CPAP.
  * bring bamboo pillow out to lair.
  * singing: Wheelin' (off book)
  % meloxicam with pm drugs.  The bite guard is a bit off wrt the new crown.  :P
    -> will have to get one of the DIY kits
  % headache.  Dehydrated?

0401/2/3 -- FK-No (zoom)
00402Sa
  * up 6:15ish; S=7:45;
  * singing:  full set: Wheelin', River, Eyes
  @ Why Have Female Animals Evolved Such Wild Genitals? |  Smithsonian Magazine (andrewducker)
  * 11:00 FK-NO concerts start.  Talis.
  * 1:15-1:30 FK-No concert (4:15 pm Eastern time) on Saturday April 2, for 15 minutes.
    Wheelin', The River, Eyes Like the Morning  -> went okay, modulo an interruption
    between verses of The River.  Hugs and good wishes from several people in the audience
  ->Our committee won the bid to run a virtual Or-E-Con 2 on November 4-6, 2022 which will
    have a Zoom track of filk music, SO If you want a concert slot or want to run a music
    workshop or themed circle, send me an e-mail at: friendsoffilk@gmail.com (Cecilia Eng;
    she'd sent me a PM earlier.)  So, yeah.
  % how the fsck did it get to be 4:30?  Didn't I just finish my set? ... oh.  guess not.
  % I seem to be in a pretty weird state.  Might have to do with my set??  Maybe.
  % 7pm can't focus.  Listening to FK-NO probably has a lot to do with that.
  % meloxicam with pm drugs ~10:30