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| <p align="right"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font> • T R A N S I T I O N]]</font></p> | | <p align="center"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font>]]</font></p> |
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| | =[[2026.01.17 Dad Thoughts Evolved For Today]]= |
| | <font face="consolas, courier new"> |
| | So, I've written a bunch of Rants about my dad. Some as I realized he was mortal - which was a weird realization to experience as a rational being. More immediately when he died to metabolize my grief, and others over a period of a decade afterwards. Many of those were reminiscences of childhood defining experiences and mythologies for my own catharsis, and with burgeoning hopes of there being a way for my kids to know something of him. |
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| | I think he would have really liked them both. They have a lot of different parts of him, and his mom. |
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| | Except doubts bubble up from the corners of my memory. And I find myself working through extrapolations of the son-ward facets I could see into the person he might have actually been. |
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| | Obviously, my dad was pretty cool. And I don't just mean that in the idol-worship way sons have for their fathers - which I kind of do - but also he seemed to have an effortless way of making people want to be his friend. I don't actually know where he fit in the Letterkenny Spectrum as kid - hick, skid, or jock (definitely not a native or a christian, or Québécois for that matter nor a degen from up-country). But the vast majority of people I saw him encounter already knew him, or of him, and respected him if not overtly expressing happiness at seeing him. |
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| | All of which I couch as being the basis for assuming that he was pretty comfortable in our pasty-white mostly monoculture small-town circumstances. That sort of comfort breeds a sense of confirmation about one's own cultural identity. |
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| | And, honestly, while my dad was great at talking philosophy with me - especially about the why of things - whenever topics of other places or peoples came up he was consistently dismissive and unkind. And occasionally overtly racist, and sometimes simply xenophobic. |
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| | Over the past decade, I've worried about how my boomer dad might have responded to the weird right-wing stumble of western civilization. If I try to comfort myself with how he was smart and would be disgusted by the stupid lies, it's hard to deny the persuasive power that hate has had over people. Especially boomers. |
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| | It occurred to me to try to talk my hypothetical conservative father away from the lure of fascism, but it just hurts my heart too much to think about it too much. |
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| | But then I imagine how he'd react to his grandkids both being non-binary and fabulous. |
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| | The deepest well of my hope is that he would have spent a lot of time knowing them all through their lives and see how their development into who they are becoming is a lovely and natural extrapolation of the brilliant and lovely potential they've always had. And that his love for them would ease any struggling conservative confusion he might experience so that he could be the same cool and inspirational patriarch for them that he was for me and my sister. |
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| | That doesn't change the fear that he would have not been as close, or as accepting. And that fear sits on my heart. |
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| =[[2019.05.22 Grateful Desk Jockey]]= | | =[[2026.01.09 Men With Hats]]= |
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| Daimler generously allows its salaried employees to spend a couple work days a year volunteering in the community. Yesterday burned a volunteer day working on bike trails up at [https://www.trailforks.com/region/sandy-ridge/ Sandy Ridge] with the [http://nw-trail.org/ NWTA]. [https://scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram.com/vp/d99c8afcb955dcc5251105116761d7e4/5D9CD35C/t51.2885-15/e35/s1080x1080/60206452_422671091899061_5133496599733839580_n.jpg?_nc_ht=scontent-sea1-1.cdninstagram.com We dug in a culvert for drainage on the soon-to-be-opened Johnny Royale], breaking a mattock in the process due to the burly mix of rocks in clay. It was good honest work.
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| And I'm a soft weak lump of a mouse wrangler. I was sore and tired and honestly surprised at how ineffective I managed to be (seriously, fuck those rocks). I could barely drag myself up the mountain for a bike ride afterwards.
| | http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/2675399054887965559_copy.png |
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| =[[2019.05.19 Game of Groans]]= | | =[[2026.01.02 First Day Of The New Job]]= |
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| Even Drogon ended up being just a giant fiery Sadness Bat™.
| | Sadly, my epic new seat was not ready to set up. So I just admired the view for a minute - both out the across the river, and into my director's office at the giant Millenium Falcon LEGO set. |
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| =[[2019.05.15 Hannah Gadsby]]= | | =[[2025.12.30 - 2025 Wrap-Up]]= |
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| | ==Fredmas Crash== |
| | On the wet and rainy morning of Fredmas, Ember and Violet were commuting to Hillsdale for school when they were the tail-end of a 5-car pile-up. Speeds were modest, and the 2018 Subaru Impreza did all the safety-engineered things to sacrifice itself such that neither kid was injured in any way. |
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| My main excuse for not knowing anything about Hannah Gadsby until the Netflix release of "[https://www.netflix.com/search?q=nanette&jbv=80233611&jbp=0&jbr=0 Nanette]" is that she simply wasn't much of a thing in North America before that. But, obviously, Nanette is bloody genius. So it was a genuine delight when Susannah produced tickets to see her live as a Valentine present.
| | Communication was not stellar, but Violet managed to let us know right away. So without actually having all the details up front, Amy and I knew they had a problem and could see that they were in the middle of the Fremont freeway bridge and jumped into Velma to go help. When we showed up they were the only ones there - shivering in the rain on the side of the freeway. Amy onboarded the kids to drive them the rest of the way SW, and I stayed in the shivering sideways rain for a couple hours with the wreck to wait for the tow truck. Fun times. |
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| That delight was elevated not only by finding that we got to go with our cool friends/neighbors Lori and Chrystal, but that they had managed to get seats that were 5<sup>th</sup> row center. It was very Portland, as Hannah received a standing ovation just for walking on stage. You might think that oddly presumptuous, but it turned out not to be entirely appropriate.
| | Some lessons learned, and Ember has yet to get back in that saddle. Scheming about how to proceed with commuter vehicle plans is still ongoing. It seems like a logical time and place to make a plug for the replacement to be an EV, but probably shouldn't push too hard. Because reasons. |
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| Not only was this show ("Douglas") brilliant in the same manner as Nanette, while being entirely different, but it highlighted aspects about myself that allowed me to hold them in a much more compassionate way. It also meant that Hannah did not linger to absorb as much praise afterwards as she deserved.
| | ==Work Transformations== |
| | December as a whole has been weird with trying to finish handing work batons to their new responsible engineers. It's been the longest that I've been in any group - 10 years! - and recognize that it's going to be a long time to ever fully extricate myself. |
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| I expect that Douglas will eventually appear on Netflix too. I heartily recommend watching it.
| | At the same time, the new Vehicle Level Engineering role is both exciting and boggling. Frankly, it's a lot. |
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| | Simultaneously, Amy is changing shifts to stop the 5 12-hour shifts in 6 days marathon every couple weeks and jumping into 3 shifts every week with her best non-Clayton friend. We're all very excited for the shift in energy. |
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| <hr>
| | ==Other Stuff== |
| | This winter break had been bookmarked for a bunch of reading and writing plans, all of which have basically unravelled as I'm actually spending most of my time just mouth-breathing my way through the exhausting cold/flu that Ember gave me. |
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| =[[2019.05.13 Interesting Boredom]]=
| | Now that the kids are back, I do intend to inflict all kinds of old but beloved movies on them. So there's that. There's also a butt-tonne of sugary foods from all the sources to keep me overfed while I quietly lament how few bike rides I actually went on this year. |
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| A conversation in the middle of the night with me and S, then again the next day with me and Simon.
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| <pre>Now with actual interesting bits.</pre>
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| | So it goes. |
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| =[[2019.05.13 Kaua'i]]=
| | Things I'm looking forward to in 2026: |
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| | * bunches of Amy+Clayton adventure time regularly |
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/kauai-web.jpg
| | * diving into a dream job (should probably write a separate post about that thought alone) |
| | * defeating fascism |
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| The Portland Castles just spent a week in Kaua'i, and it was pretty fantastic.
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| <pre>Now with actual details!</pre>
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| =[[2019.04.19 Good Friday Bike Ride]]= | | =[[2025.11.30 Movember]]= |
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| Had a great day riding at [https://www.instagram.com/p/BwdQKytHz7s/ Black Rock Mountain Biking Area] instead of working today. It was good to see that much of my skills for more difficult descents remains functional. It was annoying to recognize the degree to which my fitness is not up to snuff for the climbs. Even more frustrating is the degree to which joint pain is now also a limiting factor on top of just needing to expand cardio and strength.
| | Not my best effort. I suspect that the grey makes it incrementally less impressive. Plus I kept trimming to avoid poking Amy so much, and the surrounding scruff softens the effect even more. |
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| Obviously, more training is required, to see what kind of shape I can manage to get into before Whistler this summer. But, still, it does cause me to consider my own physical reality, and how an e-MTB might alleviate some of that to allow more riding overall.
| | Gone now, but not missed. Other than the daily startle of seeing my dad in the mirror. |
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| Perhaps that drastic a step (and controversial amongst my riding crew) can wait until I actually need to keep up with Simon and/or Violet. Perhaps.
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| =[[2019.04.11 Is there a hole in my chest?]]= | | =[[2025.10.18 No Kings]]= |
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| Maybe.
| | 40,000 people in Portland sending a clear message. |
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| | Awkwardly, the current administration has also been sending a clear, fascist message. |
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| =[[2019.04.10 Looking Back On Lycanthropy]]= | | =[[2025.10.04 Federal Troops In Portland]]= |
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| http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/Thing1.jpg
| | It's really weird. Just, you know, profoundly weird. |
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| While it has been a while, there was a time when much of my artistic imagery was of a monstrous version of myself. It evolved over the years, but the key features manifested in my early 20's in the form above. A stylized werewolf. This came from an internal development that felt poignant to me in my teens.
| | Acknowledging for a moment the footage from 2020 looked bad - as shown on cable news. But even then that was basically constrained to a couple blocks downtown for actual protests. Meanwhile there were other simultaneous marches about police brutality throughout the city that were completely peaceful and not newsworthy. |
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| There was a recurring nightmare I had for the majority of Grade 10, where I would be walking somewhere alone, at night, and find myself hunted down. The details varied: the setting being the woods or streets or hallways or whatever, the sense of being followed would grow gradually or it could snap suddenly with a grim knowledge, and the end could be a grueling chase with endless desperation until I was torn apart or it could be a flash of panic and jolting awake.
| | I suppose that if one were to conflate the "hundred days of protest" in 2020 with the rising homelessness problem, one could squint and see the folks cowering in tents and vehicles and pretend there's a direct connection of some kind. I mean, other than the systematic violence done to the worker class both strip mining us for wealth and trying to overtly pit us against each other. |
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| At first I never saw what was chasing me, but then I generally had a good, horrifying look at the Thing. Then the nightmare developed a deeply creepy echo-nightmare: after I woke in a cold sweat and fell back asleep, I dreamt that I had found the source of my torment and so I chased it down and killed it. It felt like the original nightmare had reached the limits of how terrified I could be, so the follow-up seemed to by trying new ways to mess with me. The thing that I chased and killed exposed depths of rage I was horrified to feel. The penultimate twist was when the thing that enraged me started to more obviously resemble myself.
| | But in context of what is actually happening right now - which amounts to a group of 6-16 people regularly taunting ICE agents at a single building - it's wildly disproportional. Especially with the Portland Police Department stating, in court, that all the altercations they have evidence for so far are mainly cases of untrained federal agents trying to instigate meme-worthy moments with the peaceful protestors. |
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| Honestly, it wasn't until years later when I first started retelling this experience that it occurred to me how blatantly obvious and cliché this all sounds.
| | So the federal activation of 200 National Guard to "pacify Portland" is, well, purely for show. |
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| The final shift eventually came one night when, just as the first nightmare was starting to get into swing, I recognized that I was in <i>that</i> nightmare. Almost casually, I wondered if I really needed to hunt myself down twice and experience it from both sides. Which, I should be clear, I had not actually realized was the case before - either asleep or awake. It felt like the two nightmares sort of, well, melted into me. Still asleep, I decided to be the Thing - and I reveled in a sense of super-powered romping through the neighbourhood and nearby woods.
| | Which makes Portland's main reaction one that endears this city to me even more: to be silly. Dressing up in harmless costumes, dancing, and handing out cookies. Doing whatever it takes to make the video bites nearly impossible to weaponize politically, as the fascists so clearly desire. |
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| From then on, the lucid dreaming became the norm. And I still have them, from time to time. I still cherish my taloned alternate existence.
| | And to the person in the inflatable costume that had the inlet of their suit sprayed with pepper spray: I hope you are OK. As much as that must have sucked, and possibly could have caused serious medical repercussions, you embodied the shallow idiocy of their position. In no way could a bumbling inflatable costume be considered a threat, and to assault you was to show the cowardly and loathsome depth of their antisocial motivations. |
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| But there's more to it. Because the original nightmares had their own particular origin, even though they grew to encompass all of my own self-loathing and sense of being an outcast and random other bits of teenage angst. That origin was the movie: Silver Bullet.
| | To the federal fucknugget that used pepper spray on an obviously-harmless person in an inflatable costume: Now we all know why you have no real friends and your life is empty of meaning. You obviously don't belong in Portland. |
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| I was 12, and I watched it at an acquaintance's house one summer night. It's pretty good, though when I got S to watch it she was far from impressed. The ride home afterwards, in the dark, was unbelievably terrifying. My imagination was in overdrive, and the sense of being chased was clearly traumatizing. So, that much is pretty obvious.
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| What is less obvious is the way the story stuck in my head. Because the characters were interesting and fairly well-developed, it was easy to get in the heads of who they were supposed to be. The main character was simply too charming and brave for me to identify with, even though I liked him a lot. The sister (cousin?) was cool, and I couldn't believe myself to be like that either. Neither could I see myself in the quirky and fun uncle. No, I found myself writhing with a sense of understanding the werewolf.
| | =[[2025.09.17 Bertrand Russell On Fascism]]= |
| | <font face="consolas, courier new"> |
| | As mentioned on BoingBoing today:<br> |
| | In 1962, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, invited Nobel-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell to a debate. Mosley aimed to persuade Russell of fascism's merits. |
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| The werewolf spent most of its existence just trying to fit in. It did its best to be the best person in the whole town. It worked at being generous, and being people's friend, at being helpful. It's just that sometimes it couldn't help but become something that everybody absolutely hated. And everybody hated it, and worked together to get rid of it. Until finally it lashed out in an obvious way and it could be gotten rid of, because that path of lashing out was a trap. The bias of this view is faintly ridiculous, but it represents how it wormed into my head. It is also seductive to imagine being powerful, because I spend much of my teenage years being forced over and over again to admit I was less powerful than the bullies.
| | Russell, who was 89 at the time, replied: |
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| So that's how lycanthropy became a personal metaphor for self-loathing, but also a symbol of how I claimed my own power and grew to accept myself.
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| | Dear Sir Oswald, |
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| =[[2019.04.10 SPACESHIP!]]=
| | Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism. |
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| | I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us. |
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| =[[2019.04.02 Pete Buttigieg]]=
| | I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement. |
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| I've only recently heard about Mayer Pete, and his candidacy for President. And, well, wow.
| | Yours sincerely, |
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| S put it best when she described him as being focused on mindful process, instead of clinging to particular issues. And how it's like he's functioning from his center instead of from fear or need. It's Obama-esque. And it's rather exciting.
| | Bertrand Russell |
| | </blockquote> |
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| =[[2019.03.25 "That's not how it works."]]= | | =[[2025.08.15 If Not Stupid, Then Why Stupid-Shaped?]]= |
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| "That's not how it works."
| | Seriously, there is so much political stupidity going on. |
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| | ETA:<br> |
| | Examples? Hell no. It would be like admitting a vampire into your home to post anything like a meaningful set. |
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| I'm squinting, even more than usual, struggling to understand. My huge, fuzzy Orbodun partner persist with the questioning. I can hear his fear underneath his impatience, and it echoes my own. "What? So you're saying that you don't have to know the plan in order to follow instructions?"
| | If there is permitted to be accurate news and history recorded of this era, simple searches will reveal enough to explain. |
| | </font> |
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| The medically incapacitated Takolee is only capable of conversing via direct contact with his internal comms, which might be what makes his texted responses come across as, shall we say, snippy?. "No, you towering mound of unreasoning fluff. IT knows what I'm going to do better than I do, that's the whole point. IT never gives me good instructions. Nev-ver. IT gives me cryptic suggestions, and I always end up doing exactly what IT wants. Every uncle-zarking time. There is no double-crossing. There is no second-guessing. Just the implacable hand of fate moving people like game pieces."
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| "So, lots of mathematician stages?" I hear my partner state the obvious, but it doesn't fit the gravitas of the Takolee's desperation. | | =[[2025.06.25 Corporate Culture]]= |
| | <font face="consolas, courier new"> |
| | Big changes at work. Not going to talk about that overly much - it's too boring to even write out. |
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| "Zarking NO. You think mathematician, and you think probabilities and really good guesses. I've done jobs to fuck with scary mathematicians, and while they tend to not make mistakes they are still limited by reality - you can get at them by sneaking in the really improbable cracks. This is more than that. IT isn't making shrewd calculations, IT just zarking <i>knows</i>."
| | BUT. An aspect I find interesting is who is excited about these major changes, and who is worried about them. |
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| Having this conversation purely in text means that I'm much easier to understand, even as it mutes the Takolees ability to emote. "Just knowing stuff... that sounds like a mentalist."
| | Now, obviously, both reactions are simultaneously valid and possible. I feel both myself. But whether the excitement is more important compared to the various individual level of concern does speak to where many of us are. Which, in turn, is strongly indicative of the sense of trust we have with the company - or our sense of trust in ourselves to offset any lack of trust in the company we have. |
| | </font> |
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| Itty bitty black eyes roll in my partners fuzzy face. "Missionaries are still robots, right? They don't get access to mentally-based abilities."
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| An awkward thought saunters into my few-track mind. "It could totally have arranged broad access to a powerful mentalist, though. Mix that in with a handful of stages of mathematician, and the big bastards going to - pardon me if I don't get the quote totally right - just zarking know a lot of stuff."
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| The long sigh that flows out of the Orbodun's nostrils is a ripe mix of appreciation and fear. For my own part, I deliberately verify my connection with my mini-missionary weapons to reassure myself that the monster isn't near. I have no idea of what to do now.
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| The Orbodun is laughing? I crane my head around to take a better look, to see how badly he's cracked. He's reaching up with a massive paw to wipe a mirthful tear from one side of his scarred muzzle.
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| "What's going on?" Oh, right - the Takolee can't actually hear anything.
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| My partner shifts his own guarded position to reach over and make his own direct connection with the limp Takolee in my satchel. "Sorry, I was overcome with the beauty of it all."
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| The Orbodun really has cracked, because that makes no sense at all. I feel an awkward lump in my heart as I contemplate putting him out of his misery.
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| He must have sensed something, because he catches my eye with his own gaze, and shakes his head meaningfully. He's got a look of pity about him. Is he pitying me, or the Takolee... or all of us?
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| "So, basically, this means that your master sent you specifically to get caught by us. Intentionally, so that you could say this to us." He's looking at me pretty deliberately. He's saying something more to me than just these words to the Takolee.
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| "Yeah, I get that IT basically sent me to die. I never thought the day would come, because I'm so useful, but I have never doubted for a moment that if I were to die it would be ITs will."
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| "Ha. No." A beatific smile creases the Orbodun's muzzle. "It sent you as a messenger."
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| Oh. Fuck.
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| "What message? That you're just as zarked as I am? Great. Glad to be of service."
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| "Pissy, aren't we? We're going to let you go now."
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| We are? Dammit, I'm having a hard time swallowing this idea. I do a new sweep of the park to catalogue all potential observers and rank them threat-wise. It's a long list of small numbers.
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| "You're going to do what now?" While the Takolee is incredulous, the Orbodun pings me to do the thing. So I extract the Takolee-damping dart after giving the RELEASE command.
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| The Takolee is out of the satchel so fast I have difficulty moving my various pointy bits out of its way so that it doesn't hurt itself (any further). Then it's behind a tree and lost to sensors in the blink of an eye.
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| In the subsequent stillness after that flurried moment, the Orbodun and I gaze worriedly at each other. Probably for totally different reasons.
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| Yep.
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| "So, where to first?"
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| I bring a talon to gingerly scratch at an itch on my snout. "Well, I suppose it makes the most sense to finish off the shift of your weapon configuration with that annoyingly capable technician."
| | <br> |
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| |
|
| While the Orbodun is nodding, the Takolee reappears from behind a totally different tree. "Wait. So not only did you let me go, and you're not trying to chase me, you're actually going to wander directly into the place you were sure was a trap? I am clearly missing something."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| With a cock of my ear and and a sideways glance, I regard the Takolee. "You still smell terrified. Maybe we're misleading you with casual banter while we actually plan on tracking you by scent. Again." The Orbodun expresses his frustration with me by coving his face with a giant shaggy paw.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| The Takolee is quite discomfited. That's a word, right? He's agitated - even for a Takolee. "No, you immense talking sphincter, I'm worried because I'm missing something - and <i>I Don't Miss Things</i>."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| While I'm trying to formulate a joke about that being the Orbodun's line - him being a sniper and all - he goes and intercedes. "Well, really, you explained it perfectly well. This super-powerful missionary we're in the orbit of, there's nothing we can do to out-maneuver it. Regardless of whether it's math or magic, it will always be a step ahead of us. And I think it's pretty clear that we can't fight it head-on, considering that lesser missionaries easily kicked our asses. So it gave our Massetin friend here very few options."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| I snort at that. Not entirely intentionally; the frustration is still bitter in the back of my throat.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| "What options? I told you that you're zarked."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| The Orbodun gives a patient chuckle. "True, you did say that. But why? Does this extremely powerful missionary have a habit of toying with people? Unlikely; that's a sign of insecurity, and that doesn't fit. Does it?"
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| The Takolee is uncharacteristically still. "No. Now that you mention it, it really doesn't. Now I'm even more confused."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| "Oh?"
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| "Well, because it must be trying to warn you to go away - right? But it doesn't do that; it just makes people go away before they even know they're at risk. I was so freaked out by feeling like I had screwed up..."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| "Right, you must have gone a long time without getting tripped up, it would throw anybody off. But no, it's not a warning. I mean, it could be if we wanted it to be, and we probably wouldn't be worth chasing - but we'd never really know and it would suck. No, there's another side to the message you present."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| "You both are zarking annoying. Just say something straight, damn it."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| I grimace and say it. "It's a job offer."
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| </font> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.18 Love, Death, & Robots]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| [[File:Lovedeath&robots.jpg]]
| |
|
| |
|
| Shout-out to my new online obsession.
| | <br> |
| [https://www.netflix.com/title/80174608 Love, Death, & Robots]
| |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.18 Hating Humans]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| I've been trying and failing for a while now to translate my feelings regarding extremists, particularly white power, and have to admit that it's still mostly just incoherent disgust.
| |
|
| |
|
| But this [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/whoopsie SMBC] strip is an amusing approximation.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| https://www.smbc-comics.com/comics/1552921321-20190318.png
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.15 Rocket Launch Seen From Space]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| https://youtu.be/B1R3dTdcpSU
| |
| </font>
| |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.14 The Closest Planet To Earth Is...]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| https://media.giphy.com/media/mJzrDOCwZB7wEZE4EK/giphy.gif
| |
|
| |
|
| ...usually Mercury.
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
| https://www.tesla.com/content/dam/tesla-site/sx-redesign/img/model3-proto/specs/top@2.png
| |
| <hr>
| |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.11 Murderbot Diaries]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| http://www.marthawells.com/Murderbot1250.jpg
| |
|
| |
|
| Recently I've found myself sucked into a new science fiction series called "The Murderbot Diaries". Honestly, I felt it was worth peeking at purely for the title. That same irreverence is carried satisfyingly throughout the tone of the stories I've read so far. Also compelling is the very insightful way in which a sense of social awkwardness and profound introversion is lived by the main character.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| I give it two assault blaster rifles firing celebratory shots into the air (without consideration for habitat structural integrity).
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.03 De-Motivation]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| https://virily.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/DEMOTIVATION.jpg
| |
|
| |
|
| It's hard to admit that all you see your company leadership does as being easily replaced with a simple set of annoying alarms and buzzers.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| One more year of this shit, and I'm transforming all of my efforts for self-improvement outside of the company.
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.03.01 CX Champions]]=
| | <br> |
| [[File:Cxchampions2019.jpg|800px]]
| |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.02.27 Foxy]]=
| | <br> |
| https://i.cbc.ca/1.5035136.1551261452!/fileImage/httpImage/image.jpg_gen/derivatives/16x9_780/fox-and-vole.jpg
| |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.02.22 Path To Inner Peace]]=
| | <br> |
| <blockquote>
| |
| http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/Quoteleft.jpg
| |
| <font size="6">The path to inner peace is<br>
| |
| not my fucking problem.</font>
| |
| </blockquote>
| |
|
| |
|
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | | <br> |
| This was my favourite quote after a week of collaboration training in Atlanta. The best parts were facilitated by a troupe called [http://www.bandingpeopletogether.com/ Banding People Together], which was a musically-themed approach built around a novel personality assessment resource. It was rather compelling, even to someone as innately skeptical as myself, and despite my being jaded by personality assessments as the spouse of a clinical psychologist inevitably is.
| |
|
| |
|
| The quote, however, was actually from one of my fellow participants. There were about 200 of us, from all corners of Daimler and Mercedes in North America, and it was an impressively high-functioning crew.
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.02.02 Wo-PAH Driving]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| As an avid consumer of stylized violence in my entertainment, I have a diverse and detailed understanding of how fighting can be shown. The purpose of the myriad of styles is to convey feelings rooted in some primal corners of the human brain. Such fantasies have a lot of ways to be interesting.
| |
|
| |
|
| My rather limited understanding of actual violence is pretty radically different. It's probably abrupt, and efficiency is likely key.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| As an avid driver of performance vehicles, I've experience many sorts of vehicular thrills. There is definitely a trend in the newer performance vehicles I've sampled, they do tend to have generally more peak capability. And that additional capability has been engineered in the manner of a movie fight scene. The throat-clearing downshifts lead into the exaggerated wind-ups of the building forced induction follow through to the augmented raucous exhaust note battle yells.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Now, I am partial to a certain amount of theatre with my hooning, because I'm a child. But the sharply artificial rattle-barking of an over-fueled AMG 43 merely rolling through a parking lot is kind of stupid. And, if I'm totally honest about it, even my beloved Porsche 911 had a certain Bruce-Lee tension to it as you could feel the increasingly available power as the engine RPMs climbed.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| And if you can get it right, there's a satisfaction in that too. Because it takes talent to drive fast well. Not just driving fast, because that's stupid outside of a racetrack, but driving fast well. You've got to be attentive to your settings and circumstances and all the vehicular variables and so on with the foolish hooning black arts.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| But then you get used to driving a decent electric car, like GHOST. And it's not even a little bit about theatre. It's all about just getting it done efficiently. It's actually really fucking easy to drive fast well, because it's less variable and with less distracting show. It's all so accessible, and I do dearly love control of that kind.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| In the movies, the fighters are mostly these body-builder types with showy muscles. But you have to know that, in real life, the deadliest special forces badasses are lanky efficient monsters who quietly end fights before others even know there is a fight.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Driving around in the Porsche, every asshole would try to race me and every police officer would mentally consider if they had an excuse to pull me over. But now that I skulk around in GHOST, I just succeed at speeding without anyone having much notice.
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.01.29 Pole Machine]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/Pole_Machine_frame.jpg
| |
|
| |
|
| Ummmmmm. It's hard to even start with how cool this thing is.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| The Nordic Bike Gods over at [https://polebicycles.com Pole] made this model called the [https://polebicycles.com/machine/ Machine]. Instead of using carbon fiber, they decided to use 7075 aluminum - which can't be welded without losing its temper. So instead they press billets of it into approximate shape and CNC the final surfaces. Hence one facet of the name "machine" is from it being machined. It's geometry, which is on the "hold my beer" end of aggressive also qualifies it for being quite a machine.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Glorious. If I had unlimited funds, some of it would be spent on this.
| | <br> |
| </font> | |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.01.27 Portland International Auto Show]]=
| | <br> |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new"> | |
| Honestly, there wasn't much time for exploring the show this year. Because #w*rk. So there really was only opportunity to peek at a couple highlights before fleeing back to meetings.
| |
|
| |
|
| A brief shout-out to [https://www.subaruofportland.net/ Subaru of Portland] for gifting me two free tickets. It is appreciated, and their customer service is one of the reasons we've had so many Subarus.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <blockquote> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Our first mission was to team-investigate various candidate next-steeds for [https://www.instagram.com/gnarthaller/ Gnarthaller]. Which is amusing because they're all various flavours of Toyota utility vehicles. Meanwhile, the only actual photos he posted from the show were of a moldy-green muscle car. Typical.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| ==Jeep Gladiator==
| | <br> |
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1748-web.jpg
| |
|
| |
|
| Several of us were curious about this long-coming cargo-capable stretched wrangler. It was exactly as we imagined it would be. As you might be able to discern from the picture, Gnarthaller didn't like it.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| But why? Because it's a half-assed idea executed half-assed-ly, and would simply not meet the goals of utility and reliability he probably wants. It's probably going to sell great. #MERIKA.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| ==McLaren==
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1749-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1750-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Something something longtail, and I can't remember which what how other one. What doesn't translate well is how small and jewel-like these vehicles are. The previous generation of MP4C and even P1 variants were impressive and other-wordly, but in person had an aura of plastic posering on top of a racecar in order to pretend to be Ferrari-ish. Not any more; now they out-Ferrari Ferrari at the sense of concentrated special-ness. Very nice.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| ==Ferrari==
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1752-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1753-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| There was a berlinetta, which is historically my default lust-magnet. And there was the most-modest variant (Portofino?) which almost allows someone such as myself to whimsically consider. I didn't even bother taking pictures of them.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| Instead, I felt the need to capture the brawniest Grand Tourer ever - mostly because it felt odd to have a Ferrari seem hulking compared to the nearby McLarens - and the fabulous shooting brake. That almost-wagon version of Ferrari is very intriguing for me, much to the scorn of my peers. I think it's because I have a better grasp of what it would be like to live with a high-performance car. The single mission of LOOK AT ME gets dull; I am more curious about something that would rock a road trip too.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| ==Porsche==
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1755-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1757-web.jpg
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| The Porsches were automatically more memorable than either the McLarens or the Ferrari's because you could sit in them. The 718 (ex-Cayman) telegraphs hysterical joy through its taut steering wheel; none of us could repress brilliant smiles from just being in it. The Panamera Grand Tourismo took the do-everything roadtrip vibe and dialed it up to 11. Fantastic.
| | <br> |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <br> |
|
| |
|
| ==Everything Else==
| | <br> |
| Nothing else was worth spending time to photograph. Even so, skipped a lot of manufacturers.
| |
| ===BMW===
| |
| No M3? Fuck you.<br>
| |
| The M2 felt OK. M5 was locked - fuck you.
| |
| ===Volvo===
| |
| Seriously pleased with the look and feel of the V90. I could see myself getting one of those for the family - if I couldn't swing a Mercedes E-class wagon.
| |
| ===Audi===
| |
| Didn't even bother sitting in any of them after determining that the R8 was locked. The cowardly thing sat huddled and unappreciated looking out through double-doors at a Porsche Turbo tackling a line of ardent fans rotating through its cockpit.
| |
| ===Mercedes===
| |
| Didn't even walk through the section. Like I need to look at the vehicles I don't want to lease.
| |
| ===GM===
| |
| I don't care what Gnarthaller thinks, your muscle cars misunderstand what driving is about.
| |
| ===Ford===
| |
| The Fiesta ST is obviously a hoot. Now try making a Mustang that spends less effort posing and more matching its siblings intent to entertain.
| |
| ===Kia===
| |
| Stinger. Dudes, well-played.
| |
|
| |
|
| </blockquote> | | <br> |
| </font>
| |
|
| |
|
| <hr> | | <hr> |
|
| |
| =[[2019.01.20 Leslie Odom Jr.]]=
| |
| https://www.portland5.com/sites/default/files/styles/event_square_large/public/events/2018/05/01/19_SP0120_Leslie-Odom-Jr_438x400.jpg
| |
|
| |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new">
| |
| As part of S's adoration of Hamilton, she got tickets to see Leslie Odom Jr. at the Schnitz. His performance was pretty magical. The renditions of his heartbreakingly poignant songs from Hamilton were amazing, as one would expect, but his other songs were special in other ways. Classic jazz covers laid down the deep connections and talent. Songs from his album were contemporary and brilliant. Particularly entertaining to me was a cover of [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mq4UT4VnbE Minnie the Moocher by Cab Calloway].
| |
| </font>
| |
|
| |
| <hr> | | <hr> |
| | <font face="consolas,courier new"> |
| | RESISTANCE STATUS: |
|
| |
|
| =[[2019.01.17 Robert Frederick Castle Choate]]=
| | * US citizenship: APPLICATION (still) PENDING |
| <font face="Consolas, Courier new">
| | * local politics: NULL, homeless situation correctly one of the main foci |
| Today I became a great-uncle. My little sister's youngest child just had a child. Man I feel old.
| | * global politics: NULL, wait - Justin is dating Katy? Nice. |
| | |
| Welcome to the world, little guy.
| |
| </font> | | </font> |
|
| |
| <hr>
| |
claytoncastle.com
So, I've written a bunch of Rants about my dad. Some as I realized he was mortal - which was a weird realization to experience as a rational being. More immediately when he died to metabolize my grief, and others over a period of a decade afterwards. Many of those were reminiscences of childhood defining experiences and mythologies for my own catharsis, and with burgeoning hopes of there being a way for my kids to know something of him.
I think he would have really liked them both. They have a lot of different parts of him, and his mom.
Except doubts bubble up from the corners of my memory. And I find myself working through extrapolations of the son-ward facets I could see into the person he might have actually been.
Obviously, my dad was pretty cool. And I don't just mean that in the idol-worship way sons have for their fathers - which I kind of do - but also he seemed to have an effortless way of making people want to be his friend. I don't actually know where he fit in the Letterkenny Spectrum as kid - hick, skid, or jock (definitely not a native or a christian, or Québécois for that matter nor a degen from up-country). But the vast majority of people I saw him encounter already knew him, or of him, and respected him if not overtly expressing happiness at seeing him.
All of which I couch as being the basis for assuming that he was pretty comfortable in our pasty-white mostly monoculture small-town circumstances. That sort of comfort breeds a sense of confirmation about one's own cultural identity.
And, honestly, while my dad was great at talking philosophy with me - especially about the why of things - whenever topics of other places or peoples came up he was consistently dismissive and unkind. And occasionally overtly racist, and sometimes simply xenophobic.
Over the past decade, I've worried about how my boomer dad might have responded to the weird right-wing stumble of western civilization. If I try to comfort myself with how he was smart and would be disgusted by the stupid lies, it's hard to deny the persuasive power that hate has had over people. Especially boomers.
It occurred to me to try to talk my hypothetical conservative father away from the lure of fascism, but it just hurts my heart too much to think about it too much.
But then I imagine how he'd react to his grandkids both being non-binary and fabulous.
The deepest well of my hope is that he would have spent a lot of time knowing them all through their lives and see how their development into who they are becoming is a lovely and natural extrapolation of the brilliant and lovely potential they've always had. And that his love for them would ease any struggling conservative confusion he might experience so that he could be the same cool and inspirational patriarch for them that he was for me and my sister.
That doesn't change the fear that he would have not been as close, or as accepting. And that fear sits on my heart.
Sadly, my epic new seat was not ready to set up. So I just admired the view for a minute - both out the across the river, and into my director's office at the giant Millenium Falcon LEGO set.
Fredmas Crash
On the wet and rainy morning of Fredmas, Ember and Violet were commuting to Hillsdale for school when they were the tail-end of a 5-car pile-up. Speeds were modest, and the 2018 Subaru Impreza did all the safety-engineered things to sacrifice itself such that neither kid was injured in any way.
Communication was not stellar, but Violet managed to let us know right away. So without actually having all the details up front, Amy and I knew they had a problem and could see that they were in the middle of the Fremont freeway bridge and jumped into Velma to go help. When we showed up they were the only ones there - shivering in the rain on the side of the freeway. Amy onboarded the kids to drive them the rest of the way SW, and I stayed in the shivering sideways rain for a couple hours with the wreck to wait for the tow truck. Fun times.
Some lessons learned, and Ember has yet to get back in that saddle. Scheming about how to proceed with commuter vehicle plans is still ongoing. It seems like a logical time and place to make a plug for the replacement to be an EV, but probably shouldn't push too hard. Because reasons.
Work Transformations
December as a whole has been weird with trying to finish handing work batons to their new responsible engineers. It's been the longest that I've been in any group - 10 years! - and recognize that it's going to be a long time to ever fully extricate myself.
At the same time, the new Vehicle Level Engineering role is both exciting and boggling. Frankly, it's a lot.
Simultaneously, Amy is changing shifts to stop the 5 12-hour shifts in 6 days marathon every couple weeks and jumping into 3 shifts every week with her best non-Clayton friend. We're all very excited for the shift in energy.
Other Stuff
This winter break had been bookmarked for a bunch of reading and writing plans, all of which have basically unravelled as I'm actually spending most of my time just mouth-breathing my way through the exhausting cold/flu that Ember gave me.
Now that the kids are back, I do intend to inflict all kinds of old but beloved movies on them. So there's that. There's also a butt-tonne of sugary foods from all the sources to keep me overfed while I quietly lament how few bike rides I actually went on this year.
So it goes.
Things I'm looking forward to in 2026:
- bunches of Amy+Clayton adventure time regularly
- diving into a dream job (should probably write a separate post about that thought alone)
- defeating fascism
Not my best effort. I suspect that the grey makes it incrementally less impressive. Plus I kept trimming to avoid poking Amy so much, and the surrounding scruff softens the effect even more.
Gone now, but not missed. Other than the daily startle of seeing my dad in the mirror.
40,000 people in Portland sending a clear message.
Awkwardly, the current administration has also been sending a clear, fascist message.
It's really weird. Just, you know, profoundly weird.
Acknowledging for a moment the footage from 2020 looked bad - as shown on cable news. But even then that was basically constrained to a couple blocks downtown for actual protests. Meanwhile there were other simultaneous marches about police brutality throughout the city that were completely peaceful and not newsworthy.
I suppose that if one were to conflate the "hundred days of protest" in 2020 with the rising homelessness problem, one could squint and see the folks cowering in tents and vehicles and pretend there's a direct connection of some kind. I mean, other than the systematic violence done to the worker class both strip mining us for wealth and trying to overtly pit us against each other.
But in context of what is actually happening right now - which amounts to a group of 6-16 people regularly taunting ICE agents at a single building - it's wildly disproportional. Especially with the Portland Police Department stating, in court, that all the altercations they have evidence for so far are mainly cases of untrained federal agents trying to instigate meme-worthy moments with the peaceful protestors.
So the federal activation of 200 National Guard to "pacify Portland" is, well, purely for show.
Which makes Portland's main reaction one that endears this city to me even more: to be silly. Dressing up in harmless costumes, dancing, and handing out cookies. Doing whatever it takes to make the video bites nearly impossible to weaponize politically, as the fascists so clearly desire.
And to the person in the inflatable costume that had the inlet of their suit sprayed with pepper spray: I hope you are OK. As much as that must have sucked, and possibly could have caused serious medical repercussions, you embodied the shallow idiocy of their position. In no way could a bumbling inflatable costume be considered a threat, and to assault you was to show the cowardly and loathsome depth of their antisocial motivations.
To the federal fucknugget that used pepper spray on an obviously-harmless person in an inflatable costume: Now we all know why you have no real friends and your life is empty of meaning. You obviously don't belong in Portland.
As mentioned on BoingBoing today:
In 1962, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, invited Nobel-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell to a debate. Mosley aimed to persuade Russell of fascism's merits.
Russell, who was 89 at the time, replied:
Dear Sir Oswald,
Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.
Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell
Seriously, there is so much political stupidity going on.
ETA:
Examples? Hell no. It would be like admitting a vampire into your home to post anything like a meaningful set.
If there is permitted to be accurate news and history recorded of this era, simple searches will reveal enough to explain.
Big changes at work. Not going to talk about that overly much - it's too boring to even write out.
BUT. An aspect I find interesting is who is excited about these major changes, and who is worried about them.
Now, obviously, both reactions are simultaneously valid and possible. I feel both myself. But whether the excitement is more important compared to the various individual level of concern does speak to where many of us are. Which, in turn, is strongly indicative of the sense of trust we have with the company - or our sense of trust in ourselves to offset any lack of trust in the company we have.
RESISTANCE STATUS:
- US citizenship: APPLICATION (still) PENDING
- local politics: NULL, homeless situation correctly one of the main foci
- global politics: NULL, wait - Justin is dating Katy? Nice.