The Mandelbear's Musings

Done last week (20160605Su - 11Sa)

2016-06-12T18:20:24Z

I've gotten a lot done this week, at work but mostly at the house. We have a truck coming Wednesday to haul away the pile of junk that's been sitting in the back yard getting water-damaged since last year when we sorted through the stuff in the garage. This week I've been adding to it, and especially yesterday when I disassembled the pile of wood sitting on top of the old blue workbench. The latter, and most of the wood, were in sorry shape. It hurt a lot to see how bad they'd gotten. I did manage to save most of the hardwood and vertical-grain Douglas fir, so it wasn't a total loss, but close.

Well, we didn't really have room for the workbench, anyway.

I've also been through a couple of the boxes behind my desk. Including the one labeled "tiny computers". It seems that, over the years, I've spent an inordinate amount of money on small Linux-based devices that I mostly haven't taken the time to get working. There's a list in the notes, under 0611. And then there are the laptops (all but one of which have been recently upgraded to the latest Ubuntu, so that's good), the two Linux boxes in tower cases that are still perfectly functional, but I don't need them, the old Android tablets, ...

*sigh*

I've found other "treasures", too. I'm not sure nostalgia is good for me. Too many reminders of things I haven't done, or started but abandoned. It's easy to blame depression, and I do, but that doesn't make it any easier. Or less depressing.

I think it says something -- damned if I know what it says -- that while I noticed last Sunday that I had put in a good day's work and accomplished a lot, I didn't connect that fact with a feeling of accomplishment, or any other emotion. (If "accomplishment" even counts as an emotion. I think it does, but I'm not sure. That probably says something, too.)

Music note (see 0611 -- yesterday was busy, too): At the suggestion of the guy who sits next to me at work, I looked up the Demoscene and watched a couple of videos, and a documentary, on YouTube. Mind-blowing. Especially when you consider that, say, "Chaos Theory" by Conspiracy -- the whole thing, music and video -- was entirely generated by a 64K program in real time.

The demoscene reminds me a lot of the filk community, and it makes me want to see what could be done for World Inside the Crystal that way.

( Notes & links, as usual )

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Done last week (20160417Su - 24Su)

2016-04-26T03:16:29Z

The big news for this week is RainbowCon 1, this coming weekend. But other than that...

Colleen lost her uncle in a car crash. So not exactly a good week. Busy and somewhat rough week at work. Lots of tidying, moving of boxes, and so on. So my back hurt most evenings. Naproxen is my friend.

Finished my taxes, sort of at the last minute. Owed about the same as last year, which was a pleasant surprise, considering that before I started Sunday it was showing about twice that. I could have handled it, but glad I didn't have to.

N and G moved down to their new suite in the basement. It'll be gorgeous when they get moved in. I helped with putting up shelves, but the last two I put up weren't level. Grump.

... and when I couldn't give Naomi a coherently practical reason why I was prioritizing clearing a way to the garage, she said, "Oh. It's an emotional need then. Go ahead." Oh. Yeah; I guess I have emotions these days. And other people can still notice me having them when I can't. Which uttterly fails to surprise me.

Can't think of anything else worthy of mention.

( Notes & links, as usual )

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Done last month (20130720 Sa - 0801 Th)

2013-08-03T06:24:48Z

I hadn't realized just how comforting petting a cat can be. Our cats are wonderful. Especially Curio, who spends most of every night in my room.

Lots of puttering around the house over the last couple of weeks -- that's largely because other things are something of a trainwreck. In particular, Colleen's situation. Our insurance stops paying for her nursing home stay at the end of next week. We'd been told weeks ago, but at the time 10 weeks seemed like plenty of time. At her appointment last week, though, she was told that she could only put 10% of her weight on it. Gleep!

Most of the obvious options are out -- it's unlikely she could get the level of care she apparently needs at a group home or assisted living place. Which would be close to $6K for a month's stay, in any case.

We may be able to have her at home. If she can handle a commode, and transfers in and out of a wheelchair, it'll work. We will almost certainly need to have someone come in in the daytime to care for her, but between me, Emmy, and Naomi we can probably handle night-time. Hopefully.

I haven't been doing all that well. I don't really register stress, but it's there. Between that and depression (even with drugs), and a general low energy level, I'm probably pretty close to the edge. Can't be helped. The feeling of helplessness doesn't help, either. Help?

( raw notes )

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Done yesterday (20111109 We)

2011-11-10T15:39:26Z

Being a Wednesday, all the time I would have spent on a walk was in fact spent in our weekly group meeting. But during the lunch break I found that one of my coworkers is a musician and is starting to do some home recording. We'll have lots to talk about.

I did quite a lot of puttering -- I finally replaced the new doorknob set on the front door, which has been coming apart because the ancient door is ~.75 inch thicker than modern ones, by swapping it with the set from the office. Which has setscrews that screw into holes in the shaft. Problem solved.

I also took a good look at the capo I have on Flame, and tried the "cut off a chunk" drop E trick. I win. I also did quite a lot of noodling and some chord practice.

On the other hand, my nose has been stuffed up for the last couple of days; I finally resorted to sudafed at bedtime, after two extra nose-waterings failed to help. I'm not going to cut off my nose to spite my face, but how about just to get rid of the damned nose?

Today's links include an article from Pravda about The Large Families that rule the world (from tracing large shareholders), and Marconi Union's "Weightless", supposedly the most relaxing tune ever. Whether "relaxing" also means "boring" is a matter of taste; ambient has never been my style. MU have some other cool stuff up, though.

( raw notes )

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