The Mandelbear's Musings

Got a few things done; a little guitar (in 5-minute noodles, but still -- I need to get my fingers back in shape) and a little hacking (kludged together a script for posting to DW from Emacs, using a bash front end to charm, which seems to be the only available command-line client. I can do better, but this was good enough for last week's post, and this week's). I also figured out why ljupdate.el is still broken: it's using an HTTP GET macro that doesn't handle https. :P

I've brought up over half of our CDs, and gotten most of them onto shelves. The new organzation, subject to minor revisions, is:

• Filk/folk/rock/pop/etc. alphabetical by performer. Last name for people.
• Filk/folk/rock/pop/etc. collections, alphabetical by title.
• Classical alphabetical by composer. Special exception for Gilbert & Sullivan, filed under G.
• Classical collections, alphabetical by performer or title, whichever makes more sense.
• Jazz, alphabetical by performer.
• Show tunes and operas, alphabetical by title.
• Natural sounds, relaxation, ambient, etc. alphabetical by title.
• Christmas music, alphabetical by performer.

The household coined two new words: "rambronxious" (portmanteau, me) and "rambrooxious" (portmanteau, N). These join "rambunct" (back-formation) as a verb. We (finally) have our fridge's icemaker working. The thing was apparently wrecked by having been left to freeze, sometime before 2015 when the house was installed. (What's the right verb for a manufactured home? Not "built", certainly. "Manufactured", maybe.)

Not nearly as productive on the psych front -- the LCSW I contacted last week isn't taking new clients. And there are only a handful of therapists on the island who take Medicare. (No surprise, especially to those following siderea.) So I got stuck, as I usually do.

I did, however have an Insight(TM), which is that I'm still nowhere near recovered from two years of burnout at Amazon. (Below you will find a few links for burnout recovery. Helpful, but not excessively so.) I also started using my happy light. (Yeah; it's a SAD light -- "happy light" is the brand.) And Ticia has been exceptionally cuddly, which is nice.

And one more insight: I figured out why I don't like writing in Markdown or other text formats, and prefer LaTeX or HTML: they're basically physical markup, not semantic markup. In HTML I can, for example, distinguish between a citation and emphasis, even though they both get shown as italics. Given my current set of emacs bindings, HTML is easier for most things; songs and poems are easier in LaTeX with my FlkTeX macros.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Music: Have spent most of the last hour and a half marking and splitting up Monday's and Wednesday's practice session. And I still need to move the DNS for tres-gique.* over to Dreamhost, and renew a couple of currently-little-used domains.

My idea for a single of Quiet Victories never materialized, obviously. But I noticed a rather inexpensive disk duplicator at Fry's... If I can find a printer with enough throughput it might be worthwhile. Otherwise, I'll have to settle for whipping the website into shape and printing booklets, which might be better anyway.

Health: The Ace ankle wrap seems to be working well; I think I can get through a weekend on just one pair of low shoes if I have to. Hopefully I won't have to in most cases, but it's good to know for air travel.

I seem to be getting enough sleep on a midnight-to-6am schedule, as long as Colleen isn't too restless.

For the last month or two my weight has been stuck stubbornly within a pound or so of 185, in spite of what I fondly hope has been a low-carb diet. May have to get more aggressive on that score. At least it's been on the low side of 185 for the last week, rather than on the high side.

Neighbors: Had a good talk with the next-door neighbors yesterday evening. They seem to be bearing up well under their losses, but between water and smoke damage they've apparently lost almost everything. The house appears to be structurally sound, though; repairs will be comparatively inexpensive in that direction. The fire was caused by an exploding part on the controller board in the washer; Belen had started a load just before she left. It's a good thing she did leave, though; apparently the next thing to catch was some plastic part in the washer, and the combustion products were highly toxic. PVC, probably. Maytag front-loader. Same kind that we have, though they've apparently been having lots of trouble with the controller, and we haven't. Knock wood.