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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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=[[2024.03.17 Mexican Reflections]]=
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A trip to our plant in Saltillo Mexico earlier this month was quite interesting.
The first thing to mention is that this was not my first trip to one of our Mexican manufacturing plants.  Last time, the visit to Santiago involved staying in Mexico city - an urban area with the same population as Canada.  That was interesting in its own way.


=[[2019.04.11 Is there a hole in my chest?]]=
This time involved being in northern Mexico, and it's possible that needing to be escourted most places with a security detail insulated me quite a lot from the granular details of the lives lived there. Which obviously is an insight of it's own.
Well, fuck.  
 
The hilarious driving habits of the locals is a delight to witness - from the safety of the back of a van.  Coming from the infuriating obliviousness of drivers of Portland, it was actually a relief to see such vigour and skill.  And the best part was the way in which they we very relaxed about all the interactions that I would have experienced as very intense.
 
But the thing that sticks out most for me, and feels really inspirational, is the camaraderie the workers at the Saltillo plant. I had to learn a wide variety of individualized handshakes to greet the people I met, and they often laughed and hugged me when I got them wrong.  The ubiquitous friendliness and helpfulness of everyone at the plant is something I've never seen at this kind of scale before.  Makes me wish there was a way to import this, large-scale, into more of the aspects of life.
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=[[2019.04.10 Looking Back On Lycanthropy]]=
=[[2024.02.25 Is That What I Looked Like?]]=
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http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/Thing1.jpg
University student ID 1993:<br>
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/411M8MQPGZL._SY445_.jpg
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4850_small.png
 
University graduation yearbook 1999:<br>
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4851_small.png


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. 
New engineer ID 2000:<br>
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4852_small.png


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.
Terrified Canadian engineer suddenly employed in the United States 2002:<br>
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4853_small.png


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.
Resigned Canadian engineer with a family in the United States 2007:<br>
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4854_small.png


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.
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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.
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From then on, the lucid dreaming became the normAnd I still have them, from time to timeI still cherish my taloned alternate existence.
=[[2024.02.15 Awkward Honesty]]=
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Found myself this morning in the awkward position of explaining to a group of parents why I hadn't responded to my daughter's ability to participate.  The crux of my reluctance is that it's on the handover day where I take the kids back to their mom's house, and I don't get to see them again for a week - and any playdates mean curtailing my time with them.  What seems like a no-brainer helicopter parent supported socialization opportunity for the kids to the rest of the parents is a fraught emotional inflection point for meAdding to the complication is that I have to drive them across town, not just let them scamper out the door to participate like they do back in the ex's neighbourhoodAnd all the while we deal emotionally with "Sunday Energy", there is also weekly chores to negotiate.


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.
Meanwhile, I could just imagine one or all of the parents thinking "What's with Emo-Dad™ making such a big fuss over having his kid show up for a play date?  Just say yes or no! We don't need to hear all about your feeewings, whiner."


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 traumatizingSo, that much is pretty obvious.
However it was actually received by most of the parents, the ex did reach out very sympathetically.  It did a lot of credit to how well we've managed to be kind and connected despite the divorceBeing mindful adults has its benefits.
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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.
<hr>


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 helpfulIt'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.
=[[2024.02.11 Qualitatively Hating Working In The Office]]=
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So, having spent a week (well, 4 days) working in the office again, I now have more direct data regarding what it's likeWhich sounds silly after having spent a couple decades having worked in an office setting, but the recent handful of years of mostly working from home has massively transformed my perspective.


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.
Firstly, credit where credit is due, when at the office it is much easier to keep the parade of attention mostly work-related. 
 
But, and this is a critical "but", it feels like it leads to a considerably bigger problem.  Because all my in-between filler moments are more filled with work minutae, that means that my brain gets much less capability to recharge in those pauses.  It turns out that spending all those so-called "micro moments" bumping into colleagues, that burns neural resources for an introvert such as myself.
 
The two main results of this are that 1) I'm considerably more exhausted at the end of a work day - not even counting commuting, and 2) I have fewer good/big ideas.
 
The exhaustion part is probably easy to understand.  After an intense meeting, or tough bit of design, at home I can quietly do some dishes or some such, letting my subconscious work on stuff.  At work, I have to either bumble through the campus making up social niceties or fend off trawling coworkers looking for verbal answers.
 
The good/big idea part is actually a discovery that I had during the past week.  See, I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night most nights last week, with an idea about how to solve a problem or something to try at work.  And the previous couple decades came back to me in a flash: that's how work used to haunt me.  But that stopped when I was working from home.  But instead of being haunted by work such that it wakes me up, I'd have a couple big "aha!" moments during the day, most days.
 
Basically, for me, work from home allows me to generate twice as many good/big ideas as being in the office, and in ways that don't fuck with my sleep and stress.
 
Which is an excellent segue into the motivation I have right this moment: I'm absolutely dreading going back in for another week of this shit.  It's hilarious to say, because my job is super fun, my workplace is extremely nice and accommodating full of cool people, and even my commute is a laugh of a bike ride.  Yet here I am, very much dreading it.
 
<hr>
 
I assume that I'll re-acclimate, and the stress will ease back down as I get re-numbed to the overt dominion of the extroverted and the soul-draining non-stop effort of having to pretend to be social.  I'll do cool work that will make it all worthwhile, and loosen up my clenched soul on the privileged experience I had.
 
If this were a reddit post, I'm sure there would be swarms of commenters urging me to take this newfound knowledge and find the bravery to seek another position that would allow the exact thing I like about the pandemic era WFH.  Which is when I gesture vaguely to my giant golden handcuffs, the kids about to need cars and then university, and the lovely house I couldn't afford to buy again in this market even if I kept this well-paying job.  And I'm chicken.
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=[[2019.04.10 SPACESHIP!]]=
=[[2024.01.15 Snow Driving Observations - part something]]=
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Portland is funky, snow-driving wise.
 
Generally speaking, PDX is mild as hell, rarely getting more than a dusting of snow at most and not enough to worry about.  And the occasional punctuation of stay-around snow isn't in any way particularly much accumulation.  But despite being infrequent and short-lived, it is almost always expert-level snow situations.
 
Taking a step back, my northern peoples have a great deal of opportunity to hone our slidetastic situational control.  Even those Canuckistanni who do not overtly enjoy a good bit of the slidey-slidey get sufficient exposure to know where their limits are and to be sensible.  More than that, there is a good long ramp up and ramp down of the snow-ness, much of it during climate that is cold enough to have the ice and snow be pleasantly predictable.  So when there is a surplus of the slippery substances, or, more poignantly, when it's sometimes in that dangerous extra-slippery state of melty snow on ice, there is a deep well of useful reflexes to draw from.
 
Meanwhile, here in PDX, the locals almost never have to face snow.  And when they do, they are woefully incapable of doing so.  Augmenting this low-skill demographic is the relatively large influx of Californians, all of whom seem to want to pull over and have a good cry when it so much as rains.  Which it does.  Often.  Maybe more on that some other time.  This leads to a relatively high number of vehicles out and about completely without any winter tires.
 
The hilarious twist that PDX plays on the unsuspecting snow-n00bs is that, since it is rarely very far below freezing here, it is very close to the melting point - the slipperiest sort of snow.  Which, more often than not, gets augmented with PDX's special sauce: freezing rain.  So not only is there very little opportunity to practice driving in snow here, the snow goes from nothing straight to expert snow.
 
Resultingly, there is much chaos to be had here. And regardless of how capable one and their vehicle might be, it is exceedingly perilous to join in the maelstrom when it starts. But shortly after everyone freaks out and stays the hell away from the snow covered roads, it's basically glorious emptiness and freedom for snow-loving freaks such as myself to get out and have some joy.
 
Plus, in a more mature vein, it is an opportunity to provide transport to those that need help and reap a healthy crop of brownie points.
 
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=[[2019.04.02 Pete Buttigieg]]=
=[[2024.01.13 Farewell to the Mayor of Kenton]]=
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I've only recently heard about Mayer Pete, and his candidacy for President.  And, well, wow.
It is with deep sorrow that we learned that my favourite cat of all time - Charlie¹ - passed away this week.


S put it best when she described him as being focused on mindful process, instead of clinging to particular issuesAnd 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.
From the moment he ran up to greet us when we first came to look at this house, we knew he was special.  His legend among the neighbourhood was known by everyone we met; "Oh, yeah - I know Charlie.  I make sure to stop and pet him whenever I come this way."  Our block Whatsapp thread is still pinging with people sharing pictures and stories of him over the years.
 
The peak of his legend might have been his fighting off a coyote, and living with some epic scars.  And his giant murder mittens certainly lent credibility to his prowessBut it was his calm fearless demeanour that won my heart the most, coupled with his refusal to put up with any shit, desire to lure people into being playfully mauled, and the itty bitty tiny meow that he made out of his lion-sized throat.
 
May your legend in the next world be as epic as in this one.
 
 
 
 
 
¹ He also had many nicknames, including:
* Chonkmeister
* Chuckie
* Chuckles
* Kaiju Kitty
* Chuck Wagon
* Chonk Chonkerson (Man On The Street)
* Chuckzilla
* Chuck Roast
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=[[2019.03.25 "That's not how it works."]]=
=[[2023.12.28 Reflection 1: Marthaller's Move To Germany]]=
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"That's not how it works."
 
Now that Colin and Colette have been gone for a couple weeks, it has finally sunk in that they're not just a few blocks away any more.  Partly because life got weirdly busy such that we didn't hang out constantly any more (and, regrettably, entirely too few bike rides this past year).  But also because Colin reached out on WhatsApp to apologize for their SMS/texting not yet working on their new German phones, and it reached the threshold of being really real.
 
In honour of the fun bikeness of our shared affinity for the Church of Dirt™, I intend to pivot to dragging the kids out regularly to Sandy Ridge and Rocky Point for regular application os gnar.  We'll see how well I do at that.
 
Meanwhile, we have yet to see what for Fifth Position Racing will take, as Colin and I (and whomever else we can lure into participating) set up an online racing league to play with.


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?"
Luckily, I have some successful history of being able to keep in touch internationally...


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.
<hr>


"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>."
=[[2023.12.28 Reflection 2: Swift & Union Closing]]=
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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."
When Amy and I moved to Kenton, we were delighted by the many options for places to eat within walking distance, and we looked forward to sampling them allExcept we never did, because one of the first places we went to was Swift & Union.


Itty bitty black eyes roll in my partners fuzzy face"Missionaries are still robots, right? They don't get access to mentally-based abilities."
The ambiance, upon walking in, was exactly the vibe that we both enjoyOpen enough to feel like we engaged with the room, but with lovely booths that let us sit side-by-each the way we like (plus room for kids, when they join). The music playing was pleasantly aimed at Gen-X nostalgia, which works great for us.


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."
Even better than the ambiance was the staffAll of them excellent and friendly, and a couple that we quickly became friends with - such that they would wander over to our table to catch up and chat when we weren't in their section.  They consistently made the experience personal, welcoming, and enjoyable.


The long sigh that flows out of the Orbodun's nostrils is a ripe mix of appreciation and fearFor my own part, I deliberately verify my connection with my mini-missionary weapons to reassure myself that the monster isn't nearI have no idea of what to do now.
Plus it should be stated that the food and drink was all fabulousNot fleece-your-pockets extravagant gustatory adventures, but extremely yummy and satisfying fare that we often found ourselves cravingThat includes the kids, who can sometimes be difficult to feed.


The Orbodun is laughing? I crane my head around to take a better look, to see how badly he's crackedHe's reaching up with a massive paw to wipe a mirthful tear from one side of his scarred muzzle.
Anecdotally, the owner - Zig - wanted to simplify down to just one restaurant - Tabor Tavern. We hope that our favourite servers and the awesome cook(s) found great places to jump to insteadS&U was open for a final week before xmas, which we indulged in twice, but they were unable to complete the week as the staff understandable fled.


"What's going on?"  Oh, right - the Takolee can't actually hear anything.
I guess we'll resume sampling the local alternatives.  Life goes on.


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.
<hr>


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?
=[[2023.12.28 Reflection 3: FPS w/ Amy]]=
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"So, basically, this means that your master sent you specifically to get caught by usIntentionally, so that you could say this to us."  He's looking at me pretty deliberatelyHe's saying something more to me than just these words to the Takolee.
I was there, in the beginning, playing [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wolfenstein_3D Wolfenstein 3D] on my lowly x386 rocking a vibrant 256-colour 640x480 RGB displayBut that's about all I can claim, because in those early days I definitely set video games aside to focus on engineering classes insteadThough many of my peers rocked cooperative/competitive battle like X-tank on UNIX servers, and quickly followed up with the evolving DOOM and Quake games.


"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."
By the time modern FPS games evolved, I was well outside of the participation sphere - no console games at allThough I did play - and get good at - simulators like X-Wing and Mech Warrior, it was never quite the same.  Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time playing combat-oriented imagination-intensive games, thinking about fighting.  This made me feel like I might be good at FPS, and might be missing out.


"Ha.  No."  A beatific smile creases the Orbodun's muzzle.  "It sent you as a messenger."
Skip ahead the rest of the 30-ish years, and I find myself with MMORPG-goddess Amy as a partner.


OhFuck.
I dipped my toes in some games, but have quickly discovered that I abhor grindingMore than that, I have very little positive feedback playing by myself.  But I have found something that very much is fun - parallel play.


"What message? That you're just as zarked as I am? GreatGlad to be of service."
We got Amy an X-Box for her birthday this year, and it's been a hoot (cough [[2023.07.30 It's FORZA's Fault, Really|Forza]] /cough). Mostly it's been cooperative puzzle games like Humans Fall Flat, but we just started Tiny Tina's Wonderland. Holy fun FPS intensityIt's odd to essentially be Amy's sidekick, since she's decidedly more skilled than I am.  But I clearly have some tactical talent that shines through, and makes it fun.


"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.
<hr>


"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.
=[[2023.12.03 Mustache Day Ish]]=
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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.
It was about the right day, and I had just gotten my dream Ferrari in ForzaThis was the result.
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In the subsequent stillness after that flurried moment, the Orbodun and I gaze worriedly at each otherProbably for totally different reasons.
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=[[2023.11.26 PPS Teacher Strike]]=
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Three weeks of shenanigans later, and I have two things I take away from it.
 
1. The teacher's should have had a strike soonerEven aside from wages that have not kept up with inflation, it appears that teachers have not been heard or appropriately supported for quite a while.  Before the strike it was a general truism that America doesn't value teachers enough, but learning about the specifics of teacher grievances in what should be a city focussed on education to support our various high-tech industries was surprising.


Yep.
2. PPS is kind of shit.  Not that I ever expect a public bureaucracy to be amazeballs, but the disingenuous communications and essentially propoganda-class releases were disappointing.  It takes a certain ilk of horrible to rely on people to be unable to do math in order to lie to everyone about how they're treating the people who teach math.  And to have every single letter to parents repeat "we're so worried about the children", as if the teachers do not, was an insult to anyone capable of spotting empty rhetoric.
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"So, where to first?"
<hr>


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."
=[[2023.11.20 Welcome Gefferts]]=
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S recently married the truly lovely John Geffert, making him Simon and Violet's new step-dad.  Plus, his son's William and Miles are now step-siblings to our kids, vastly increasing the potential chaos in all our lives.  Plus, you know, even more kids to take mountain biking.


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."
Welcome to the family Gefferts!
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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.
<hr>


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>."
=[[2023.11.04 Back To Office]]=
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So my office recently announced that we'll be returning to the officeA fig leaf of "hybrid" is still offered - we can work from home 1 day per week. Any day we want!


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."
The nominal reason is to foster improved collaboration by strengthening our interpersonal cultureAnd there is no denying that onboarding new people is very much harder when most of the 60+% of the workforce is remote on any random day.


I snort at that.  Not entirely intentionally; the frustration is still bitter in the back of my throat.
Instead of a point-by-point comparison of methodologies and circumstances that used to work in-person versus those that work remotely, let me just point out the simple fact that nobody has been prevented from coming in to the office.  Some do, but most do not.  We're all very smart adults, and have clear ideas for what works best for us, and have obviously made our choices.  We are not being consulted.


"What options? I told you that you're zarked."
So, the question becomes - why do our corporate leaders think they know better than us?


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?"
==Hypothesis 1: Occam's Razon==
Our executives think they are in their positions because they are smarter and more capable than most others, and therefore their theories about productivity and work/life balance have implicit clout outweighing everyone else.


The Takolee is uncharacteristically still.  "No.  Now that you mention it, it really doesn'tNow I'm even more confused."
Maybe they're rightPerhaps we'll find out.


"Oh?"
==Hypothesis 2: Dinosaurs==
It's how they did it when they were the doers, and they don't like things being different.  It's scary.  Plus all the people who are actively climbing the corporate ladder directly beneath them all agree!


"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 riskI was so freaked out by feeling like I had screwed up..."
Worth noting is that mammals have only been nominally dominant for a few tens of millions of years (ignoring the superior total mass and probable durability of insects), while dinosaurs lumbered along for well over a hundred million yearsInertia is a motherfucker.  


"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."
==Hypothesis 3: Insecurity==
How can managers manage if they're denied most of the tools they've gotten accustomed to using?  Leadership and inspiration can only work on people they intrinsically understand, and all the slackers will find ways to shirk doing their fair share.


"You both are zarking annoyingJust say something straight, damn it."
Except, of course, as the brilliant Mark Moyes once said, "I'm perfectly capable of getting nothing done at my desk." Babysitting is a less effective tool than some might hope.


I grimace and say it.  "It's a job offer."
==Hypothesis 4: Piles Of Beans==
There sure is a lot of theoretical value in the fixed assets of these large office buildings.  If they become overtly and obviously a waste of resources, it sure would be a huge loss - on paperWatching the city repossess large buildings and turning them into affordable housing and civic spaces must be horrifying to the company accountants.


If it costs the thousands of employees an average of 5 hours per week of unpaid commuting time (plus gas and vehicular wear), that's better than the company risking losing the value of its real estate.  Right?
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=[[2019.03.18 Love, Death, & Robots]]=
=[[2023.10.07 Printer Time]]=
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While I haven't had a regular printer for a while, as actual need to have paper copies of things has gotten very infrequent, in a reciprocal way I've been far too slow to get a 3D printer.  This has now been rectified.
 
Let there be random plastic thingies!
 
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Shout-out to my new online obsession.
=[[2023.09.04 Latest Bike Daydreams]]=
[https://www.netflix.com/title/80174608 Love, Death, & Robots]
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=[[2019.03.18 Hating Humans]]=
=[[2023.08.22 ID.4 Impressions So Far]]=
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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.
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4681.png
 
The things we like about the car (we're calling CUV's just "cars" now, right?) vastly outnumber the quibbles.  It drives well, carries everyone and the dog as necessary, and has all the options we need.


But this [https://www.smbc-comics.com/comic/whoopsie SMBC] strip is an amusing approximation.
-deep breath-<br>
And I need to accept that there are many things about the Tesla that have me both a) acclimated to a certain way of doing things, and b) spoiled.
 
In no particular order, here are The Quibbles:
 
==No Battery Pre-Conditioning==
This is an idiotic oversight.  The ability for a lithium-ion battery pack to accept charge is directly related to the temperature of the pack.  The VW ID-platform has active battery temperature management, so this is obviously possible.  This makes the difference between <50kW charging and >150kW charging, which is kind of the point of having access to DC fast charging in the first place.
 
==The APP Sucks==
I mean, at least there's an app to verify simple shit like whether the car is locked or what the state of charge is.  But after getting accustomed to the deep and intuitive integration of the Tesla app, this feels cheap and lazy.  Ideally I'd like it to act as the key for the vehicle - in fact that might almost qualify this as a double-quibble.  I don't like having to carry another chonky key fob.  Especially one with a "set off the alarm now" button placed such that I can accidentally activate it by sitting down.
 
==Everyone On The UX Team Should Be Sat Down And Told To Think About What They Did==
The main inputs to driving the car - steering, braking, accelerator - are generally pretty good <sub>(exceptions listed separately)</sub>.  That probably has more to do with the chassis design team though. Because everything else is weak-sauce output from a series of committees that clearly hated each other and were playing stupid internal-political games.
* Why the fuck don't the motorized mirrors coordinate with the seat/user memory settings?
* Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to interrupt the already-slow boot sequence of the infotainment to make the driver press "OK" every fucking time?
* Any control that you have to take your eyes off the road to use is totally wasted as a separate button/control.  Sure capacitive touch buttons are neat - on kitchen appliances.  But when I'm fumbling around for a control while I'm driving, I don't want the "looking for the control" to directly translate into "activating every fucking thing I touch".
* Having only two window switches to control both front and rear windows is the result of a deeply stupid person having too much input.  Yeah - cute idea, but just no.  I fucking hate accidentally bumping the invisible capacitive touch button that changes to controlling the rear.  But even more, I philosophically loath that they took a simple 4-switch control with 100% intuitive interface and made it need a logic board to hilariously discover new ways to go wrong.
* The media buttons on the steering wheel are regular controls turned 90° for no good reason.  Normal controller: UP = increase volume, DOWN = decrease volume, RIGHT = next track, LEFT = go back a track.  But for some fucked up reason, I now get to press UP to go back, DOWN to skip forward, RIGHT to increase volume, and LEFT to decrease volume.  Fuck you, VW UX team.
 
==Creep Mode: Make. It. Go. Away.==
Or at least optional, yeah?  I get that it makes the operation familiar to low-skill people transitioning from shitty automatic transmissions.  Cool.  But for those of us who preferred manuals, and now delight in the directness and finesse of electric drivetrains, you're just making shit bad with no benefit.
 
==Brake Hold Won't Let Go==
Yes, I like it when pressing the brake a bit extra when stopped that the vehicle will continue to hold the brake for me.  But in the VW, it won't let go unless I press the accelerator.  This is fine at a stop light or some such.  But when I'm carefully navigating down a slope this is lurch-o-matic.  This is extra exacerbated by the no-option creep mode.  At least the brake hold CAN be turned off by a crude intervention in the infotainment system, but really it should be able to be dismissed with a repeated brake pedal press.
 
==Secret Charger Unlock Method==
It makes sense not to trust the unknown charger connector, and totally avoid any chance of an arc flash by locking the connector in place - even if it indicates that it means to disconnect.  But having the method for releasing the suspicious charger connector be a secret staccato code on the key fob is infuriating when the standard glitch reset sequence for the vast majority of charging networks is "unplug and replug in vehicle".


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=[[2023.08.01 Kids At Sandy Ridge]]=
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Despite all the drama with fumbling the ability to put the epic bike rack on any functional bike-hauling vehicle, we gave up and just Tetrised the bikes into the back of the Flex to make it happen.
 
A warm but-not-too-warm morning with gorgeous dappled light, Simon and Violet immediately exceeded my expectations by gamely trying to pedal up the climb hill.  We kept exclusively to Laura's Line and the section of Lower Hide&Seek from the power lines down to the road.
 
It was amazeballs.  Sharing the Church of Dirt with them unlocked a spiritual sense of harmony and joy.
 
Violet had two crashes.  The first right off the bat, and it was hard enough to knock the wind out of her and scrape her up.  But a bandaid later and she was gamely riding through the rollers and berms. The second was at the very end - at the very same berm.   Except that time she rolled with the wipeout, left a Violet-shaped crater, and laughed like the unstoppable monster she is.
 
The tradition of DQ after riding with Simon has now been extended to Violet as well, and it was good.
 
My only regret is not taking any pictures.  I try to forgive myself by acknowledging that I was very much living in the moment the whole time.
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=[[2019.03.15 Rocket Launch Seen From Space]]=
=[[2023.07.30 It's FORZA's Fault, Really]]=
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Amy's main gift for her birthday this year was an XBOX, and she didn't want to wait for her actual birthday to start playing with it.  So last week we broke it out after we dropped off the kids with their mom, and proceeded to play a whole bunch of video games.  I've never had any kind of console game system myself, so it has been hilariously intoxicating to play with Amy on a bunch of games in our living room.  A couple are throwbacks to my PC simulation games of yore, a hilariously frustrating puzzle game, and a couple driving games.  The stand-out driving game we got was Forza 5.
 
We started calling playing Forza "drunk driving" both because of how bad at it we are with the basic game controllers, but also because it was funny to take turns playing while also sipping alcoholic beverages.  The game is simply beautiful, with a rather good physics engine, so it's enjoyable to feel immersed in the wildly bad driving experience.  Perhaps exactly because of how bad we were at controlling the vehicles meant that we often found ourselves off-road, which in turn lent itself to having better experiences with the off-road-capable vehicles.  The early champion of this realm is the Ford Bronco that you start the game in.
 
So much fun was had tromping around in this virtual Bronco that we asked ourselves, "what would driving a real Bronco be like?"  So, for shits and giggles, we set out last Friday to the local Ford dealer to take a Bronco out for a turn behind the real wheel.  It did not disappoint - we both liked it a lot.
 
Except for, you know, reality - the price, the fuel efficiency, and the overall poor ability to meet our second vehicle needs.  But while there on the Ford lot, we found ourselves facing the truth that we were sick of dealing with shitty old cars.  We have most of what we wanted to have saved up for the ID.Buzz already, so starting to have a payment now could be handled without difficulty.  Plus, we could trade in the hard-to-sell T4 van for sufficient downpayment on whatever we decided made sense.
 
After staring into the abyss of Ford offerings, we toddled over to the nearby VW dealer to see about their inventory of ID.4's.  Because they share the basic architecture with the ID.BUZZ that we intend to have, so it could be an opportunity to get familiarized with that.  And it just so happened that they had a lease deal that would carry us nicely until we get project:LEELOO¹.
 
And here we are, with yet another vehicle.
 
Now all we have to do is:
* Sell the stupid Flex.
* Install a 2" hitch to attach the bike rack.
* Get a home charging solution that doesn't suck.²
 
¹ "project:LEELOO" is the provisional ID.BUZZ name - so far<br>
² The car comes with 3 years free charging at Electrify America, so this is actually a somewhat lower-priority need.
 
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=[[2019.03.14 The Closest Planet To Earth Is...]]=
=[[2023.07.15 3-Week Break]]=
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Today kicks off the first day of my 3-week summer break, in which I plan to...
 
Hm.  You know, I'm not totally sure what.
 
Nominally, I'll figure out a way to strap the monster bike rack to the Rusty Pig and take the kids out for some adventures discovering biking.  And I mean to do a bit of writing.  And we plan to do a tonne of D&D.  Maybe a trip up the mountain with Zora.  Plus wrapping up with Amy's and Violet's birthdays.
 
But, really, those are possible waypoints instead of a packed itinerary.
 
I spent entirely too much time this past week being crushed under work stress, and I definitely don't feel free of its grip yet.  That's probably the main thing I need to figure out - by means of engaging with mindfully existing in a bunch of non-work moments.
 
<hr>
 
UPDATE:<br>
It's worth noting that on the very first weekend of said vacation, I was called by my manager asking me to consult on a testing issue. Having consulted, I'm now struggling with worry about the all-new problem encountered by the project. Goddamn work stress is persistent.


...usually Mercury.
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=[[2023.06.27 School's Out For Summer]]=
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=[[2019.03.11 Murderbot Diaries]]=
=[[2023.06.18 Anti-Antifa Conundrum]]=
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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 titleThat same irreverence is carried satisfyingly throughout the tone of the stories I've read so farAlso compelling is the very insightful way in which a sense of social awkwardness and profound introversion is lived by the main character.
During the legitimately delightful [https://www.deathcabforcutie.com/ Death Cab For Cutie] concert this past week, front man Ben Gibbard mentioned that the place they just came from was Vancouver BCWhile they were leaving the hotel, they mentioned that they going to Portland OregonTo which the random person warned, "Be careful, they have Antifa there."


I give it two assault blaster rifles firing celebratory shots into the air (without consideration for habitat structural integrity).
Ben rolled that into a hilarious battle cry, engaging the zeitgeist of the progressive front of the culture war perpetuated by the über-rich and their frightened conservative hordes.  And I'm sufficiently skeptical that I found myself wondering if this was a real encounter or merely a means to an audience-connecting trope.
 
But there's no denying that exactly that sentiment exists.  "Antifa" has become a sort of "they started it" boogeyman to counterpoint the awful shit skinheads and police do.
 
Yet the first thing I found myself asking this supposed Vancouverite is, "As opposed to what, exactly?"  Nazis?  Or Nazi sympathizers?  Because if you're not a Nazi, or a Nazi sympathizer, then you're technically anti-Nazi.  Which is anti-fascist.  Which is Antifa.
 
I'm curious to hear how these people conceptualize our various anti-fascist cultural heroes, like Captain America, Indiana Jones, and most of John Wayne's characters.  Are they booing and hissing when they watch Indy punching every Nazi he sees?  Or are they, as I suspect, grimly clinging to their own personal John Wayne-ness and dream of a glorious previous American Ideal that they do not interrogate in context of a modern reality.
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=[[2019.03.03 De-Motivation]]=
=[[2023.06.17 Where Does The Time Go?]]=
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Holy tapdancing fuck. I'm continually left amazed at how the ebb and flow of time management triage tends to weed out things I keep assuming I'll find time for eventually - like running, bike rides, writing, and drawing.


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.
Goddammit.


One more year of this shit, and I'm transforming all of my efforts for self-improvement outside of the company.
I know intellectually that it's a matter of <i>making</i> time for these things.  I also know that in order to make it consistent it needs to become habitual.  Now, if only knowing a thing made enough of a difference to make it so.
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=[[2019.03.01 CX Champions]]=
=[[2023.05.30 Culture War: Part What?]]=
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The continual grind of the fear machine, lubricated with falsehoods and fueled by blame, usually has a steady sickening thrum to it.  A cloying call for a country that only ever existed in rosy nostalgia and westerns, and vitriolic over-reaction to anything different or complicated.
 
I recently heard Jon Stewart say that Republicans focus on stoking culture wars because they're out of ideas.  They have no solutions, only complaints and attempted blame.  Which perhaps only rings true because of the total lack of resonance with me their histrionic message generally is.
 
Still, the recent utterances have me chuckling darkly.
 
The common refrain is, "People Are Fleeing Democratic Cities".
 
The stories tend to immediately go on to assert that people are leaving Democrat-run, high-tax, liberal-agenda hubs in big cities in favour of pro-business, conservative regions.  And I'm sure we could find some individuals with exactly that motivation, but somehow I doubt it is the majority.
 
No, I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of such moves are a combination of housing cost and the new-found ability to do many jobs remotely.
 
Ignoring for a moment the amusing aspect of the majority of the housing shitfuckery being due to "pro-business" interests, one has to wonder how much "liberal agenda" these fleeing individuals will actually leave behind.  Because the long-held majority of people's votes has been held in check by conservatives by gerrymandering.  But once the liberal agenda is free to exist across the spread of less-urban space, will scare tactics that work on the already-fearful willing-morons of the Repugnican party still hold as much sway.
 
As I said: chuckling darkly.
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=[[2019.02.27 Foxy]]=
=[[2023.05.20 Vanbortion]]=
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So... AKNOT is whole once again, and runs <i>great</i>.
 
There is, however, one niggling problem.  The excellent mechanics stressed to us once again that it is extremely difficult to get parts for this vehicle.  And with that in consideration, it is both hard to need to rely on AKNOT the way that we need to until we can get the ID.Buzz (whenever Volkswagen actually delivers those here) AND a sickening possible cratering of investment.  As it is, we are already well past the point where we will be able to recoup all of our resources sunk into AKNOT - however awesome it is at this moment.
 
This lead to a brief and intensive review of our needs.  Plus an uncomfortable reckoning of how much we really want a van - but that all the vans in our price range are either craptacular or not fit for purpose (moving kids and dog).  After discovering that some weakly-van-like options are simply too small [AHEM - Honda Element], we stumbled on the hideous functionality that is the Ford Flex.
 
It's sort of a mega-wagon.  Not really a van, because it's not tall enough or utility enough, but also not an SUV, because it has zero swagger and also way to low-slung.  The particular incarnation that we snapped up from what appeared to be a chop shop operation has too many blemishes to mention.  But should work for us for the duration.
 
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=[[2019.02.22 Path To Inner Peace]]=
=[[2023.05.06 "It was a funny moment."]]=
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"It was a funny moment."
<font size="6">The path to inner peace is<br>
not my fucking problem.</font>
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I know that the nanoscopic robots will eventually clean all my fangs completely, but it's easy to get impatient.
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.
<pre>...to be composed on a separate page...</pre>
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=[[2019.02.02 Wo-PAH Driving]]=
=[[2023.04.16 Why WaitButWhy Guy?]]=
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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 brainSuch fantasies have a lot of ways to be interesting.
Just to be clear, and as apology for my mouthful of alliteration of a title that made me laugh for no reason¹, the "guy" I'm talking about is Tim Urban - he's the fellow who writes the [https://waitbutwhy.com/ Wait But Why] blog.  I love that blog, because Tim has a modality where he gets interested in some random thing and then furiously burrows down to the bottom of that rabbit hole and tells you all about his adventure with bad stick drawingsIt appeals to several facets of my overly-nerdy trivia-addicted likes-to-know-stuff personality.


My rather limited understanding of actual violence is pretty radically differentIt's probably abrupt, and efficiency is likely key.
So when he resurfaced recently, saying most of what he had been doing during his reclusion was writing a book, I absolutely knew that I had to read that book.  1) Sounds like an epic rabbit hole2) Direct support of a person whose work I appreciate.


As an avid driver of performance vehicles, I've experience many sorts of vehicular thrillsThere 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 sceneThe throat-clearing downshifts lead into the exaggerated wind-ups of the building forced induction follow through to the augmented raucous exhaust note battle yells.
It's "What's Our Problem?" - with the tag line "the self-help book for societies"Like, the mother of all rabbit holesI girded myself, and dove in.


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.
Both aspects of the title are... kinda wrong.


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 wellYou've got to be attentive to your settings and circumstances and all the vehicular variables and so on with the foolish hooning black arts.
I actually finished reading it a while ago, because I downloaded it the instant it became availableBut I've had to spend a little time working through my disappointment and sadness about the book, and its cascade of introspection about my own assumptions.


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.
Much of the content includes things that I already saw in nascent form on WaitButWhy, and remain brilliant bits of thought experiment.  And I particularly appreciate the way Tim's way of thinking challenged some of the ways in which I have let myself become lazy with respect to being numb to much of the Republican actions in the culture war / cold civil war.


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.
BUT (and I actually backed up to capitalize that for effect) it falls down pretty fast and hard in the book about half-way though.  Full respect for Tim, as he even flags this transition point saying that many people will be unhappy (and awkwardly alludes to there being torches and pitchforks about it).  For all his forest of references and assurances about open-mindedness, Tim starts oversimplifying, cherry-picking, and false-equivalancizes (new word trademarked by me) his way to suggesting that the problem is wokeness (whatever that is this week) and a powerful cabal he refers to as Social Justice Fundamentalists.
 
Which is short-hand for "privileged person wants things to go back to how they were".
 
I simply don't have the energy to take the time to challenge all the ways I think he's wrong.  Aside from proposing that instead of SJF having any significant power that instead some <i>ideas</i> of addressing institutional inequity have become actually fundamentally persuasive because rigorous insight suggest they're uncomfortably true.  And I'm a little pissed at Tim for giving me hope that he would have some good suggestions about it.  But no.  Just fucking painting some whiney shit that agrees with his feelings and no useful ways to address anything.
 
Then I remembered his posts about Elon Musk.  Oh, man, the embarrassing agony of how much I was sucked into that nepo-1-percenter's atrocious bullshit.  And Tim helped cement that for me by writing an entire fucking serious of fluff pieces about him.  How in the everloving fuck did his utter tool-ness and actual technical cluelessness get conveniently missed?  Is it because, oh-I-don't-know, maybe Tim likes to wax extensively about <i>things he wishes were so</i>.
 
 
<b>TL;DR</b> - person I identified with, liked², and respected spent a sabbatical to discover that they're actually many of the things I'm frightened about myself being blind about.  Boo.
 
 
<blockquote><hr></blockquote>
 
¹ <small>Other things that make me laugh much more than they should for no reason include "Joan of Bark" as a name option for our puppy.  Just to put things in perspective for how utterly about my own amusement everything here is.</small>
 
² <small>That bit being past tense is perhaps a bit silly.  I suspect that Tim Urban is still a pretty cool person that I like; I'm just being angsty.</small>


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.
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=[[2019.01.29 Pole Machine]]=
=[[2023.04.02 Van Update]]=
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Ummmmmm. It's hard to even start with how cool this thing is.
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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 temperSo instead they press billets of it into approximate shape and CNC the final surfacesHence one facet of the name "machine" is from it being machinedIt's geometry, which is on the "hold my beer" end of aggressive also qualifies it for being quite a machine.
If you can see the image above: Glorious, isn't it?
 
Well, no, but it certainly seems that way in regards to its core mission: adventure give-few-fucks van. The manual transmission driving experience and nicely german steering feel blow every other cheap van we tested completely out of the water.  The chonky tires look badass, even as they give it a bouncier but better-isolated ride. The epic bike rack speaks directly to the core bike-shuttle function of the machine.  Getting the passenger side mirror replaced also makes piloting it less difficult while looking less sketchy than the glued-together mostly non-functional previous mirror.
 
Zora dog in particular has taken to loving riding in the van, as it generally means some adventure where she gets to be with the kidsAnd the kids, who have distinctly giraffe-like aspects, relish the vast passenger volume they get to ride in.
 
Plus, it has to be said: the 5-cylinder motor makes delightful sounds that tickle my nostalgia of my 80's Audi coupé and it's inline-5.
 
BUT - and this is a big but - there are some serious concerns remaining and emerging.  There has long been a metallic jingling sound coming from the RHF quadrant during engine load - first guess is a loose heat shield.  Now, however, there is a distinct reduction in power availableFirst guess is fouled fuel filter, questionable air filter, and unknown spark plug condition.  And a distinct smell - sometime clutch-like, other times burn oil seeming.
 
Fortunately, we have an appointment at a mechanic for a comprehensive inspection and to perform any work necessary to make it reliableAnd, if they don't blow my van budget, maybe they can help us with nuisance elements, like the unreliable power windows, lame headlights, and the stubborn rearview mirror mount.
 
<big>[[2023.04.02 Van Update | Now with a(multiple) Van Update Update(s)]]</big>


Glorious.  If I had unlimited funds, some of it would be spent on this.
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=[[2019.01.27 Portland International Auto Show]]=
=[[2023.03.19 Winter Test in Alaska]]=
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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.
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What happens in Fairbanks, in March, is generally pretty cold.
 
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=[[2023.03.09 Zora Dog]]=
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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.
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4403%20copy.png


==Jeep Gladiator==
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4452%20copy.png
http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1748-web.jpg


Several of us were curious about this long-coming cargo-capable stretched wranglerIt was exactly as we imagined it would beAs you might be able to discern from the picture, Gnarthaller didn't like it.
She's a Bernedoodle (half Bernese Mountain Dog and half standard Poodle), known for being calm, smart, and mostly hypo-allergenicAmy loves dogs, and both kids have been wishing for a puppy for quite a long timeAnd Zora is a font of adoration and emotional support, for the whole family.


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 wantsIt's probably going to sell great.  #MERIKA.
I've long asserted that I prefer most dogs to most humans, but have generally been too selfish with my time to become obligated to take care of a dog.  But after a decade of being a dad, it feels like it might be a moot pointAnd holy fucking shit she's adorable.
 
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==McLaren==
=[[2023.02.27 Tax Return Reflections]]=
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Doing taxes is weird.


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Starting from the premise that it's up to individuals to process their own tax calculations and propose how much they think they should have paid in comparison to how much they may have already paid - when then governing bodies generally already know what this should be automatically.  It seems... wasteful.  Why not just have the government do the standard re-alignment they do anyways, and give taxpayers an opportunity to argue with it only if they feel there is a worthwhile discrepancy?


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1750-web.jpg
Then there's the whole parasitic tax-preparation industry that preys upon the vast majority (including me). The fact that it has successfully  lobbied the government to both increase the inscrutability of the tax system and repress the IRS from providing a standardized and free tax entering mechanism is a typically capitalistic kind of awful.


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.
After completing the wasteful/parasitic/labyrinthine preparation process, then comes the amazingly awkward navigation of how to actually get a refund.  I just want it in my bank account.  Why isn't that the first option? Why isn't that an option on the very first page?  Why does it have to be an exercise in futility looking for it, only to realize that the first pages are traps to lure users into another parasitic subscription or fee service.
 
The simple fact that we can't even avoid making the necessary alignment of taxation with the state non-horrible for most people doesn't build much confidence that we'll be able to accomplish the much harder task to improve the tax code so that the super-rich pay their fair share (again).
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==Ferrari==
=[[2023.02.17 Van Plans]]=
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Update on our crappy old 1993 VW T4 EuroVan with an I5 and a manual transmission...


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1752-web.jpg
Things accomplished on it so far:
* managed to actually pass DEQ, get registered and plated (kind of a long story by itself)
* repaired the rear seat belts to functionality to actually have more than just one passenger
* re-connected the transmission shifter linkage that fell apart/off
* obtained updated wheels + tires


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1753-web.jpg
Things needing to get accomplished:
* re-re-connect the transmission shifter linkage, because the previous fix also broke - temporarily re-attached but need to put a new-new bushing in (correctly), investigate getting a new heat shield so the exhaust doesn't melt the bushing and/or a supplementary restrain feature
* get previously mentioned wheels + tires actually mounted, balanced, and installed
* remove the incorrectly installed review mirror stalk - to install the cool new rearview mirror + camera system
* replace the broken passenger side door mirror (part obtained)
* find out why the power door windows aren't working any more
* find out why water is pooling in the passenger door (possibly connected to the broken door mirror)
* replace the stereo head unit so that we can listen to music without the faceplate randomly falling out
* remove the outboard rear-face seat to facilitate loading large loads / bike / dog
* replace seatbelt for inboard rear-facing seat for bonus seating needs
* get a bike rack - because multiple bikes don't actually fit inside
* replace the "cool" aftermarket LED headlights with ones that actually work in the dark


There was a berlinetta, which is historically my default lust-magnetAnd there was the most-modest variant (Portofino?) which almost allows someone such as myself to whimsically considerI didn't even bother taking pictures of them.
The awkward thing, strategically speaking, is that Amy's lease Jetta is being given back in a couple monthsSo, in order to avoid having to shell out for another vehicle, it would be nice if the crappy old van (CODENAME: AKNOT) was reliable enough for our occasional parallel-commuting needs.  Mostly kid-school deliveries when Amy has to workThe path towards reliability is not meeting our required timeline.


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.
Either I need to stop being driven to becoming a quivering wreck by work stress so I can make shit happen, or we need to find a mechanic to deal with some of our list.
 
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==Porsche==
=[[2023.01.30 Victoria Trip]]=
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http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_1755-web.jpg
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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.
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4355_tarantula.png


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http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_4357_pagliacciswife.png


==Everything Else==
Amazing adventure with Amy, staying at the [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Empress_(hotel) Empress Hotel], and spending most of a week with Dave and BonnieComplete with a hike up Mount Doug and visits to my nominal favourite restaurant in the universe - Pagliacci's.
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 sectionLike 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.


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=[[2019.01.20 Leslie Odom Jr.]]=
=[[2023.01.18 Married]]=
https://www.portland5.com/sites/default/files/styles/event_square_large/public/events/2018/05/01/19_SP0120_Leslie-Odom-Jr_438x400.jpg
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Team ClaAmy™ is now a legally recognized partnership. ❤️🫀


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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].
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=[[2019.01.17 Robert Frederick Castle Choate]]=
=[[2023.01.08 Heart Attack Scare]]=
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Today I became a great-uncleMy little sister's youngest child just had a childMan I feel old.
Last Wednesday (2023.01.04) I was standing at my desk at work when I noticed an un-ignorable ache in the upper-left quadrant of my chest.  I rolled my shoulders and arms, to see if I could stretch out whatever kind of muscular knot it was, to no effect.  Instead, I started feeling dizzy.
 
Now, I'm a 50-year-old man who takes medication to avoid having my blood pressure cause heart/brain to explode, so this is a constellation of symptoms I'm pre-disposed to be wary ofSo I did what any neurotic out-of-shape health-conscious person would do while in their employer's high-density working lot: I Googled that shit.
 
Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Sentient beings of all sorts: the online search results were not reassuring.  <i>Quelle surprise.</i>
 
So I lowered my powered standing desk, plopped myself down on my chair, and started to feel <i>really</i> dizzy - complete with tingling in my hands and fountains of cold sweat.  I turned to my trusty design partner - Meredith - and told her vaguely that I didn't feel well and might need some help.
 
I put my head down in my hands on my desk and proceeded to feel very poorly indeed.  Meanwhile, Meredith went full rockstar and called 911 to talk with the operator while also coordinating folks in the vicinity to check for possible supplies and facilitate the EMT's showing up.  I feebly sent a barely-coherent text to Amy, and managed to copy/paste her number to my boss to keep her informed.
 
At no point did I pass out, but I definitely was not highly responsive and quite frightened.  The EMT's showed up, and the whirlwind got underway in earnest.  It was weird to be rolling out of the office on a gurney, with people staring.
 
They determined that I was not actively having a heart attack, so there was not a mad rush to the hospital.  An IV was inserted for ease of access to my circulatory system, and an ungainly array of patches had been shaved on my chest to facilitate sticky EKG leads, plus my old friend the pressure cuff.  Once at the hospital, in additional to constant electro-potential monitoring, blood oxygen saturation, and regular blood pressure monitoring, I also got a several rounds of blood tests (one lost, just to keep it interesting) and some x-rays.
 
The sum of the efforts determined reasonably conclusively that I did not have any sort of heart attack.  And, technically, I appear to be in relatively good cardiovascular health - even my pre-hypertension appeared to be under better control that I had thought.
 
So, what happened?
 
Well, first and foremost, I had symptoms that one does not fuck around and find out about.
 
But in a more direct manner, there are several related elements that might be sufficient to explain everything.  The chest ache showed to be very proximal to some broken ribs I suffered just over a year ago, so they might have acting up for the first cold snap since they "healed"The dizziness is very similar to one of the side-effects of the hydrochlorothiazide that I take for high blood pressure - and the night before I had taken a double dose, because I had missed one.  The bonus shaking sweats and apparently lack of circulation might have been a panic attack brought on by my fears, and my generally high baseline of work stress.
 
From here, I need to get on with finding a new Primary Care Physician - so I can do a follow-up.  There's going to be some unpleasant amount of fuss going forward at the office.  So it goes.  It also seems like a timely prompt to keep my wellness as a priority.


Welcome to the world, little guy.
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=[[2019.01.11 Tulsi Gabbard 2020]]=
=[[2023.01.02 Hello 2023]]=
http://kvankii.com/gallery/tulsi2020.png
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Reflecting, 2022 was pretty good for me. And for most of the world, as long as you gloss over Russia's shit-fest invasion of Ukraine, and several awful climate disasters that are a taste of how things are likely to be from now on.


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Looking ahead to 2023, there are a few things flagged already:
I've been mulling the need to participate in the democratic process here in the United States.  This has been simultaneously urged and thwarted by Cheeto Hitler.  On one hand, his election demonstrates the need for people to clearly express their representation and the pitfalls of leaving decisions to the lowest common denominator.  On the other hand, it is hard to want to intentionally join a country that elected a sexist racist moron.
* getting married to Amy
* weakly honeymoon thing meeting up with Dave/Bonnie in Victoria
* driving around in our old 1993 VW T4 van like a boss
* Death Cab For Cutie concert at Edgefield
* Whistler trip with the Bike Crew
* Middle School for Violet
* High School for Simon


But then there's Tulsi announcing her intention to run. <br> 
That's pretty exciting.
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=[[2018.12.23 Spider Man: Into the Spider-Verse]]=
=[[2022.12.18 Fredmas Fusion]]=
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Today is the annual remembrance of my Dad's birthday: Fredmas.


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It's also the negative 1-month mark for Amy and I getting married.  I think he would have really liked her, and there is some complicated deconstruction to do in my head about what I think he might have thought about getting re-marriedBut maybe I'll save that difficult bit for some other Rant™ and just focus on the happy part about marrying Amy.
It seems like an awkward revelation: that a great way to do a comic book movie is with... animationBecause, <i>DUH</i>.


Yet, it really isn't that obvious.  Partially because of the thundering dominance of live-action comic book movies (mostly Marvel), and the entrenched third-tier-ness of other animated comic book movies (mostly DC)Indeed, most people reflexively under-estimated SM:ItSV precisely because of its animated nature.  Anecdotally, this prejudice is part of what drove the creative team to ensure that they made are really great movie.
Except that today I finally found out the technical details of the Helion fusion reactor, and I'm very busy having my mind blownI thought tokamak's were pretty cool, and stellarators were amusing, but this pulse fusion technique is genuinely thrilling.


And it is a really great movie.  I'm easily amused by most imaginative-action movies, but it also blew Simon's socks off.  OK, maybe that's not super hard to do either.  But we are clearly the core of the target demographic, and they succeeded brilliantly.  There really isn't a moment of the movie that doesn't suck you in, thanks to a rich tapestry of clever detail both visual and audible.  Plus the story is sublime, with masterfully considered characters.  All this, stuffed into an animated framework that actually helps tell the impossibly visual story in a way that simply couldn't be pulled off as well with live-action.
The main elements that blow my mind (in order of mind-blowing-ness):
# direct output of electrical power - bypassing the need to crudely use heat to run something like a turbine
# simplified fuel - use of relatively-common deuterium and helium instead of ultra-rare tritium (or plutonium, ick)
# massively reduced radioactive byproduct - even compared to tokamaks, and removing the need for beryllium layer
# a demonstration reactor to supply output power in 2024


Back when I was considering art school, I stumbled on the conundrum of being pushed towards sculpture but being drawn towards 2-dimensional work.  How could 2-dimensional depict something better than the 3-dimensional?  When what you were depicting wasn't possible, even though you could see it.
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=[[2018.12.18 Fredmas]]=
=[[2022.12.12 Managment Theory Desiderata]]=
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While Fredmas is a logical time to be thinking about my dad, I have also found myself thinking about him quite often recently.  I suppose that it is impossible to know who he was to himself - the person he thought himself to be.  It wasn't the sort of thing that he communicated.  Most of my impressions are about how he affected me, and the many things he thought aloud.
A couple of half-ideas I scribbled down as notes meant for contemplation and possible inclusion in [[CUSP|my as-yet unrealized management theory book]].


From the perspective of my young self, he was an unknowable force of raw purpose - working and playingEven his frequent rests, to consume books and beer and televised hockey games, were all done with relished deliberatenessIt gave me a depressed sense of never being able to live up to his example, but it also gave me a clear direction to try to growAs I grew into adulthood, I could see more about how he was always working with what he had.  His lack of expressed regrets and regard for what to work towards is something I've adopted wholesale, as much as I can.
==profits : bonus==
The tendency to make an association between a business's profits and employee bonuses is entirely understandableBoth in positive ways and negative ways. The positive association is the idea that when a business has good fortune, that is then trickled down to the employeesThe negative association is that a business keeps all the profits, and the employees do not get to share in that extra successBoth viewpoints have their arguments, couched in terms of "fairness".


Now, as a middle-aged father myself, it is clear to me that he was totally making it up as he went along.  There is an innate urge to try to mimic his parenting style, his approach to life even.  But there is this odd aspect by which having lost him so soon before becoming a father has allowed me to be open to honest reflections about what was good.  And there was a lot of good.  But perhaps thanks to our tender wind-down as father and son, I can also see how I can do better.
They're both wrong.
 
==active neglect==
Ever get the feeling that you've done nothing wrong, and more than a few things right, but that it makes no positive impact?


The realization that I am best when considering what utility I can have to the people and ideas I care about, I think I finally understand the source of his purposefulness.  Thanks dad.  Happy birthday.
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=<font face="Arial">[[2018.12.12 Insights on Mountain Biking and Parenting]]</font>=
=[[2022.11.09 Misunderstanding Millennials]]=
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It has occurred to me that there are some striking perceptual similarities between mountain biking and having children.


Attempts to explain this have not gone well in person, but maybe a somewhat more deliberate construction here might work betterIt goes something like this:
Recently watched Simon Sinek talking about some generational shifts in the workplace.  The whole reason I watched it is because I'm nominally a fan of his book "Start With Why", particularly with the concept of inspiration over manipulation.  During the talk, he presented a hilariously rose-coloured remembrance of <i>how things were</i>Where we got our "purpose" from going to church, our "community" from interacting with neighbours, and our "socialization" from [check notes] bowling clubs - and he goes on to lament that these have all faded away such that we're now expecting these things from work.


From an objective point of reference, it is entirely reasonable to evaluate idea-X as being characterized primarily by risk and unpleasantness.  Further, there is a somewhat disconcerting difficulty for a non-X-inclined person in comprehending the ascribed benefits and joys attributed to idea-X by X-committed individualsEven worse than that, the testimonials of the X-inclined people seem to revel in the objectively worst parts of idea-X.
In the same talk, he also described a sense of loss of trust between employers and employees, bringing up the symbology of the "gold watch".  He mentions it to lament how people could feel certain their loyalty would be rewarded, nominally by getting a valuable watch from their employer at an advanced stage of their careerExcept that, from what I can tell, the gold watch was always a symbol of disappointment - that "I've given my whole career to this company, and all I get at the end is this watch" at retirement.  But this may be tangential.


You take that paragraph, and you can plug in both "mountain biking" and "having children" with equal ease.  For people who are not one or the other - parents or mountain bikers - this might not be obvious.  But as a person who regularly tries to describe the painful joys of parenting to non-breeders, and the treacherous thrills of mountain biking to sane people, they share some very similar variability of interpretations.
Clearly this is an emotional expression by Mr. Sinek, utterly unsupported by the long and complicated history of worker's rights.  But even more interested to me is how it seems to fail to recognize the aspect in which companies actively try to insert themselves into employee's identity, and are perfectly happy (HR statements taken as "just words") to have other aspects of employee lives atrophy in favour of work focus.


For example:<br>
From there, he seems to conclude (or deduce?) that "millennials" are less capable of handling stress (presumably than gen-X or boomers).
When I comment on being exhausted from being woken up in the middle of the night by my spawn, non-breeders interpret that as a cautionary tale about the horrors of sexually-transmitted parasitic primates.  Whereas other parents smile and nod wearily, knowing the sensation of worthy sacrifice for these beings we adore.


For example:<br>
Maybe this is intentionally done to build sympathy with tropes that his management-fad target demographic tend to cling to.  But it seems that an unwillingness to put up with bullshit is not the same as being less capable of handling stress.  Indeed, the accurate recognition of the importance of dealing with stress and not treating having feelings as taboo seems like one of the triumphant elements of the progress of society as a whole.
When I share tales of facing down a steep treacherous track while traveling at a speed guaranteed to hurt if I make contact with the plentiful trees and chundery rocks, non-mountain bikers wince and think me very foolish to have gotten myself in such a predicamentHowever mountain bikers look for the opportunity apply a high-five in appreciation of the base-of-the-brain adrenalin from using skill to overcome fear.


For example:<br>
But maybe Mr. Sinek is falling victim to the all-to-common tendency for seasoned adults to have increased rigidity in their thinking, and to start treating anything that is different as being less good than how they were before.
When I reflect on the price of, well, everything to do with having children, not-parentally-inclined folks laugh and imagine all the things they don't want to give up.  Instead, other people who have kids laugh about the realization that it's all wasted anyway.


For example:<br>
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When I kvetch about the misery of slogging uphill through the rain, mountain-bike-averse persons hear a tale of misery.  The alternate assumption of a veteran chunder-seeker is that this was an investment that would certainly prove worthwhile for the gnar-filled joy to be reaped from the vert.
 
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And so on.
=[[2022.10.22 the marginalian]]=
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Maria Popova has been collecting and curating all kinds of eclectic interests and wisdom she shares on her subscription:<br>
[https://mailchi.mp/themarginalian/16?e=4e8ff51e7e The Marginalian]


It makes me contemplate some possible similarities of questionable evolutionary biology theory to explain how these altered states of perception might make sense.  For the case of parenting, it makes evolutionary sense for humans to have altered neurobiology regarding the having of offspring - because fondly care-taking our young despite the bottomless demands they require helps the fundamental success of the species.  Likewise with mountain biking, it is the same foolish wellspring of enjoying overcoming fear with talent that allowed our species to (occasionally) successfully transition from being cave bear chow to wearing cave bear pelts.
This latest edition particularly resonated with me.
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=[[2018.12.08 Some Chunder Gnar]]=
=[[2022.10.16 Hm.]]=
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Another cold wintery bike ride today.  Still fun, but not a great display of skill or bravery.  When things are going well, I have a sense of flowing or flying, and there were indeed moments of that.  A far greater proportion was spent feeling like I was just clunking along, trying not to crash in the slippery bits of frost built up on the previously-moist parts of the trails.
I meant to write something - mostly some added work on a story, instead of making myself read too much more of the molar-gnashing (and award-winning) sci-fi I'm currently struggling through.


It was good to ride with Danny again, not least of all because he was able to give me a ride up the mountain while I'm bike-rack-lessThe rest of the squad is young and fast and skilled and invincible and I didn't see much of them other than when they waited for us to bunch back up.
FailJust zombied instead.
 
The sketchy bits of ice on the upper trails were preferable to slushy mud lower down.  The large knobby tires felt like they were shredding the trail on the bottom half, and a terrifying heaping of chunky mud bits were liberally distributed over me.  The mud churn was also disappointing in how it made cornering nervous and bled all momentum from the flowing lines of Lower Hide & Seek.  But, as alluded above, even the worst mountain bike riding is still pretty good fun.
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=[[2018.12.03 Goodbye Lily]]=
=[[2022.10.09 Triumphant Return To Game Nights]]=
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq8zieug245/
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Dave and I have had a long-running Game Night, allowing us to keep playing AIF even though we lived in different cities - and then different countries.  But last year, after [checks math...] 25-ish years, Dave asked for a break for a while.


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Which made sense.  It had been a long time being weird loner nerds playing our ultra-violent RPG, and a long list of various life stuff had accreted over the years for us.  Taking a breath from long-term time commitments is a chance to re-assess what's healthy for ourselves.
 
Except for the obvious aspect that Dave is my best friend from the depths of deep time, and having the ability to semi-regularly hang out with him is kind of emotionally important to me.  And outside of our "game night", there's just not much of that really going on.  We did manage some occasional brief chats in the same time slot as the Game Night, when we were both online, so that's something.  But not quite the same mojo as actually doing something creative together.
 
I managed to drag the kids and Amy up to see the family in Canuckistan this summer, and while there got to visit Dave (and Bonnie) in person.  This gave more opportunity to see how Dave was doing, and to plumb the idea of re-starting Game Night.  The hook on the lure was to suggest a couple things:
 
1: Try Dungeons & Dragons 5E, so that Dave could sample it firsthand.
 
2: Include more people in the game, to improve upon the endless cycles of 1-player games we had been grinding through for decades.
 
The 5E part wasn't too hard; I had a metric shitte-tonne of unused D&D game ideas too violent to include in the kid games I've been DM-ing.  So I kitchen-sinked those all together to make a chimera horror adventure gestalt.  [insert pantomime of job-done hand clap-wiping motion]
 
The "getting more people to play" aspect was the thing we had classically had stumbled on.  We met, and agreed on a sort of shotgun approach - meaning just ask everyone who we could think of to play with us.  Which, admittedly was a pretty short list.
 
Amy volunteered immediately, so that was a great relief.  Both Dave and I talked about inviting Lou, but both of us independently contemplated it and chickened out, being reluctant to face the rejection directly.  I still mean to ask him at some point, as a matter principle.  Lou is super cool, and even though I know he's simply too busy to play with us (or do much of anything with us), I'd still like for him to know that he's still welcome join in.


=[[2018.12.01 Christmas Wheels]]=
The main win, though, was getting Ulrich to agree to play with usFinally hearing his voice again, after years of purely text correspondence, was pretty great.
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As is our annual family tradition, we headed out to murder a tree to decorate our living room with.  While we were driving out to the tree farm, there was a noticeable vibration in the car.


S [driving]: "There's a weird shaking in the car."
We had a session-0, where we finished off the character generation, and had an initial encounter.  It was hilarious goodness.  I'm genuinely delighted to have this personally-curated crew of alpha-nerds to play with.
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Clayton [trying not to be a terrible passenger]: "Yeah, I can feel the vibration too."
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S: "Is this going to be OK for me to drive to Hood River today?"
=[[2022.09.25 Triumphant Return To Whistler]]=
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Link might not work for people who are not awesome enough: <br>
[https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipNQTtPMUHriRufcCNg0maMrjpP9_cEZZ0FdFk8rn4vOf6BuVxa5eu5YvF6lY3rTcQ?key=Z0R3OWN0NHZkanQ3X3dOYmNNZFNhb3IyemZVbUpR Whistler Photo Dump]


Clayton: "Well, I'll have to take a look to be sure."  Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself about how I'll make room in the garage to use my sweet sweet hydraulic floor jack and find some minor imbalance-causing thing and be a total hero.  Or possibly find something that I cannot fix myself, but at least ensuring the safe operation of the Moobaru.
A long pandemic later, finally managed to make it back to Whistler (and Squamish).


A short time later, while still driving, S slaps me in the arm. "Oh!  I remember - there was a thing that I ran over yesterday.  I thought it was, like, just a plastic bag.  But then it was all bang thump under the car."
Impression #1:<br>
Holy fucking fuck coastal BC is gorgeous.


Clayton: "Ah."
Impression #2:<br>
This kind of adventure is only possible by riding on the coat tails of more dedicated and more prepared friends.  Shout out to @gnarthaller for setting everything up, including arrange for a sweet condo to stay, driving most of us up in his sweet adventure van, and being B-Squad leader.


A few minutes later, when we stop at the christmas tree farm.  Clayton: "UUUUHThat's a big, obvious dent in the wheel.  How is the tire even staying inflated?"  I also had a stray thought wondering about some sort of karmic connection between our cars, because I also managed to get some curb rash on Ghost yesterday (something that I basically never do).
Impression #3:<br>
Getting old sucksI mean, I know I could be in better shape in general, but the difficult realization is that staying in shape went from being effortless in my 20's (when I had time to do it, but didn't really) to being nigh impossible and scary (when I don't really have any spare time, but try hard to work it in systemically).


After murdering the tree the furthest from the parking lot, we coordinated with a local Subaru dealership to find a replacement wheelAs a bonus surprise, when we got to the tire store we noticed that whatever had smashed the front wheel also managed to take a bite out of the rear wheelFun.
Impression #4:<br>
Mountain biking is very much my adrenal pathway to zen.  Even though, in comparison with everyone I ride with, I'm not very good.  And even though it is a non-stop lesson in humilityThe emotional space the riding creates helps me with pretty much every other facet of my lifeIt gives me resilience to face difficulties at work, and patience to enjoy time with my kids instead of murdering them, and insight about how savour my life while I'm in it.


Luckily, the tire store had some used steel wheels and had an open lift.  So we used the time to introduce the kids to a magical land called <i>Olive Garden</i>, which basically blew Simon's little pasta-loving mind.
Impression #5:<br>
The 20-km black-diamond technical climb-ride up to and back from Comfortably Numb was so gorgeous that even though I couldn't appreciate it at the time because of how hard it kicked my ass, it squats in my memory like a nugget of masochistic joy.
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=[[2018.11.25 Murder Elf]]=
=[[2022.09.11 Project:DEATHBOX - Das Gehts]]=
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While still maintaining a regular AIF night with Dave, I've also started playing some Dungeons & Dragons latelyThe more important game is running an adventure for Simon and a couple of his buddies, who are all brand new in the realm of role playing games and discovering all the exciting aspects thereof. In addition to all of that, I've also managed to join a semi-regular D&D game with some of the 'dads' and other adults. It is particularly amusing to see these assorted personalities come to terms with my roleplaying.
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/vwdeathbox.png
 
UPDATE: there are a few challenges with the yet-to-be-officially-named VW van.
* It did not quiiiiite pass DEQ, so it has a date the The "Fix-Um Haus" to see if we can tweak the tune to reduce the CO2 by 2%After which we can properly register, plate, and insure the damn thing.
* Then there is the fact that I need to fix a bunch of seatbelts...
* Also, I'd like to pull out the rear-facing jump seat next to the sliding door - to better facilitate the loading of my giant-ass bike into the insufficiently-folding rear bench seat area.
* Then we get to do fun upgrades like wheel/tires and a bitchin' bike rack.
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They're all adept at roleplaying, and a couple of them are good at optimizing the rules for their character effectiveness.  But when it comes to combat, none of them quite hold a candle to my enthusiasm.  This is where Dave would just grin in an unsettling way and nod knowingly.
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My wood elf ranger has earned the title "Murder Elf" among the crew.  I think they meant it to jokingly shame me, and were then quietly alarmed by how much I liked it.
=[[2022.09.06 Work Observation]]=
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My work To-Do list involves temporal paradoxes.
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=[[2018.11.11 Centenary of Armistice]]=
=[[2022.09.04 VANS VANS VANS VANS]]=
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It feels hard to believe that we have had 100 years of resolving to avoid the horrors of modern war.
So, now that we've sold VANTACULUS (the Wee Van), we've been contemplating what we should be getting for Operation DEATH BOX.
 
===Ford Econoline E350===
The big chungus option, assuming one can find an acual passenger version.  The work van version is much more plentiful option, but even though I could technically bolt in seats for the children, it would absolutely suck for them for road trips.  While the full size van would rock the utility function in perpetuity, the thirsty V8 (and occasionally, V10) would mean some serious struggling for the short term need for commuting.  They look like bricks, but not in a good way.
 
STATUS: Still technically in contention.
 
===Honda Oddessey===
In all honesty, this was my frontrunner when starting the search.  Japanese reliability, plus Honda driving dynamics, and I think they look rather smart.  Then we went to look at one, and things went wrong.  It was discovered that the Oddessey has "touchy" power sliding side doors, which would definitely go wrong for my little idiots.  Then we found that the second row seats can't really fold out of the way enough to fit the mountain bikes.  In fact, there is some significant doubt about 3 mountain bikes fitting at all.
 
STATUS: Not currently being considered, and somewhat bitter about it.
 
===Toyota Sienna===
The more-reliable near-era Japanese option.  I've superficially been not looking for these because A) I think they're ugly, and B) the ex-step-MIL drove one and it scarred me forever.  Dimensionally, this van should be approximately the same interior space as the Oddessey, so there is doubt about its ability to accomplish the bike-hauling mission.
 
STATUS: Technically still being considered, but possibly as a last option.
 
===Dodge/Chrysler Vanageddon===
I know.  I KNOW.  Shitty Chrysler product is like deciding to buy some lucky mechanic a new boat, and to abstain from joy while doing it.
 
BUT, here me out.  These horror-filled boxes of poorly-considered cheap plastic have considerably more room inside, thanks to the Stow-and-Go™ capabilities.  Plus, because they are generally considered to be shittier, it is possible to get a much newer specimen, which would allow some increased modern amenities - like back up camera and bluetooth.  And while I can't stop seeing the design-by-committee, Amy likes how they look.
 
STATUS: Probably, unfortunately, the frontrunner.


There are many things that human society is very poor at learningRemembrance of the wastefulness of violence is merely one of those things.
===Toyota Previa===
These are all older, and due to their charm, much more expensive for what they technically are.  However, they are bubble-era Japanese builds, which is famously high quality.  They would be fun(ner) to drive, thanks to the rear wheel driveAnd the funky way the rear seats fold up and the second row swivel to face the rear might - just might - provide enough room to haul all the bikes and kids.


http://clipart-library.com/img/1981314.jpg
STATUS: Hopeful saviour from Chryslery Doom.
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=[[2018.10.16 Marat / Sade]]=
=[[2022.08.27 Oh, Yeah - Biking Is Awesome]]=
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Haven't been biking enough this year because of stupid reasons - mostly just insufficient free time and too many obligations.  But managed to go up to Sandy Ridge today with the Friar and the Send Bro. It was so fucking good. I'm slow, and I'm weak, but thanks to the magic of the e-bike was able to not kill myself on the climbs and volunteer us for a second excellent lap.


LONG LIVE THE REVOLUTION!
Which reminds me - I still need to reserve a DH bike for Whistler in a couple weeks.  Yikes - I'm so not ready for that.
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=[[2018.10.25 Desired Jerk]]=
=[[2022.08.08 Wee Vanless]]=
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The derivative of position with respect to time is velocity.<br>
Sold the kei-class Mitsubishi Minicab Bravo today.
The derivative of velocity with respect to time is acceleration.<br>
The derivative of acceleration with respect to time is... jerk.


No, really[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerk_(physics) It's a physics term].
It's possible that it is actually a victim of its own success.  The nominal purpose of the wee van was to haul mountain bikes, and if getting to ride in the wee van meant riding mountain bikes, both of my kids wanted in on the actionUnfortunately, the wee van only has room for 2 people + 2 bikes. So the wee van just isn't big enough to carry us all.


This was relevant to me as I was delighting myself driving GHOST to work this morningBecause, while it is true that GHOST's acceleration is awfully nice - and what gets measured by all the numbers-obsessed - it's the broad prowess to adjust that acceleration that really is a driving delightBecause that's what engaged driving is really about for me: control.
Plus there is the small difficulty with travelling at freeway speeds.  And a total lack of safety equipmentAnd an inability to start in cold weatherAnd a lack of basic creature comforts.


I'm not too bothered by the double entendre, either.
Anyway, there needs to be a replacement crappy van to suit the increased crew + cargo requirements.  The hunt begins now for Project: DEATH BOX.
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=[[2018.10.21 Henry Rollins]]=
=[[2022.07.30 München VS Portland]]=
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Went and saw the Henry Rollins Slideshow Tour today with my favourite architect neighbor, LoriWhile not the most thorough Rollins fan myself, I haven't witnessed anything he's done that I haven't at least respected. Lori had never heard of himHis songs take a certain mindset to enjoy, which I'm rarely in these days, but his spoken word is always entertaining to me - that is what we got to have for this showListening to his radio shows and podcasts do tend to be a bit wearying if you try to binge them; he has a lot of energy, and a sanctimoniousness that is low grade but cumulative.  This show was just about the perfect dose of Rollins, however.
I really like Portland.  Lots of fun people, great food, and ready access to outdoor funBut there are definitely two things that Munich Germany does so well that it makes me wish there was some way to import to where I live.
 
First: the subway systemIt's goddamn magical, how well-integrated it is and magnificently run.  Unfortunately, to have such a thing in Portland would involve an order of magnitude more investment than what we already struggle with to make our half-assed MAX system runBut I really do think that if we had something as fundamentally wonderful as das Münchner U-Bahn-System, we Portlanders would find the value in it.


He warned us, right up front, that he was going to keep changing directions to keep us engagedAnd that he didIt landed a few solid gut punches while also managing to share intimate facets that were simply lovely, all the while being delivered with delightfully self-deprecating humourHe showed us the world, his thoughts and hopes about that world, and how it reflected on him in such a way that let us reflect on ourselves.
Second: German drivers in generalAggressive but capableMore than a few assholes, to be sure, but at least they're gone fastMy very first driving experience back in Portland was an enraging reminder of how fucking unskilled and oblivious Portland drivers are.  Not really anything to be done easily about that either.
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=[[2018.10.07 Amateur Plumbing]]=
=[[2022.07.17 Joys Of Home Ownership]]=
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This is really a tale about how I'm glad I have a cushy desk job instead of being a "skilled" labourerBut before I get into that, let's go back about a yearThat's when the kitchen sink started leaking quite badlyA quick inspection suggested that it would be a pain in the ass, and I didn't have time to address it right awaySo, in order to buy a couple days until the weekend, I tried wrapping the pipe in some cool hydrophobic tape I've gotIt workedA little too wellI had hoped that it would reduce the pour to a containable leak (a shallow bucket was appropriately situated)It completely contained the leak insteadWhich meant that when the weekend came, and I got a better idea of how much of a pain in the ass it would be, I felt able to procrastinateAs more time went by, the more I felt complacent about the patch job.
Amy and I love our house, because of how perfectly it fits us and the kids, with a great walkable neighborhood, and a huge list of facets that make it lovelyExcept, as every homeowner knows, houses are not static entities - they're a constant grind of repairs and improvements fighting against the endless tide of entropyAnd when we bought The Battery (nickname brought to you by a dubious concatenation of initials) there was one big upgrade we intended to do: solar panels.
 
It took a little while to arrange, but we settled on the Tesla solar system with a powerwall battery backup for the house (and a grateful nod to the federal 10k$ tax rebate to make it happen)Significant delays were incurred as we waited for planning and approvals, but finally we had the system installed!  Except, not yet commissioned because it needs final inspection for powering up by PGE (our local power utility).  Annoyingly, PGE never got around to upgrading our service meter to allow for 2-way power delivery, but the resourceful installers at Tesla installed a parallel meter system that should work.  However, this required completely re-wiring our breaker box - and it got pretty crampedStill, everything worked just fine - or so it seemed.
 
A couple days later, apparently some yahoo crashed into a power pole a couple blocks away.  This knocked power out for the neighbourhood, but also sent a power bump at the same timeThe powerwall tried to cover for the lost power, but encountered problemsThe problem became clear when the main power came back on later that day - three of our circuit breakers were unable to be resetAlong with it we were down the section of the house that powered the internet modem, our furnace controller, and dishwasher.
 
Some frantic calls to Tesla later, we were told they would get to us as soon as possible - after the weekend.  So we limped through a warm weekend without AC, washing dishes by hand, and running an extension cord to power the modem.  Monday came, and they verified that the breakers themselves needed replacementBut they could not get parts until the next day - but they could re-purpose one of the working breakers to run whichever circuit was needed to make the HVAC work againSo by trial and error it was determined that it was... none of them.  Something else was wrong with the HVAC, and the dishwasher.
 
After the technicians left, we did some frantic research on what could be amiss.  Everything we could find was fine - breaker on, reset switch reset, circuit board fuse was fine.  So thought we had deduced that we had fried our smart thermostat controller.  I rolled to the only store locally claiming to have the same model, so that I could just plug-and-play a replacement, and they didn't have oneThey did have an upgraded version, though that required re-wiring the controls.  Screw it - whatever.  Bought it, installed it.  Still didn't work.


Alas, even the coolest hydrophobic clingy tape can't hold a badly corroded pipe together foreverAnd this past Friday the leaking resumed.  So Saturday was my day to finally address the fix properlyAt which time, it becomes appropriate for a hypothetical flashback to the last time this was fixed - before we bought the house.  Due to the extremely awkward location of the pipe, it is rather difficult to get leverage on a modest-sized pipe wrench that can fit in the spaceGazing at the deep gouge marks on the fitting, it's easy to imagine how ardently the previous plumber tried to dislodge it.  Worse, looking at how the now-leaking pipe was crudely soldered onto the remains of the compression fitting, it becomes obvious that they gave up trying to get it out, and instead hacked off the old pipe and welded the replacement directly on.  I also like to imagine that the previous plumber felt some quiet shame, for the mess that the next plumber would have to face when the thin-walled pipe they installed invariably rusted through.
We hoped that it was a combination of a fried control unit AND an unpowered circuitThose hopes ended when the Tesla technicians showed up bright and early and replaced power to the whole houseStill no joy for the HVAC, or the dishwasherThey were not really permitted to do anything beyond the power distribution system, but did us the favour of testing the high-voltage fuses for the AC - which turned out to be blown.


While I could probably have managed to saw off the pipe in the same sort of way that the previous plumber did, I lack both the tools and the skills to braze, solder, or weld on a pipe in a leak-free mannerPlus, I'd much rather fix the pipe with some corrosion-free plasticThus I began my attempt to unfasten the fitting that the previous plumber had given up on.
So we went to an electrical supply store to purchase some replacement shotgun-shell-sized fusesAnd the HVAC still didn't workSo we were left with having to call HVAC technicians, and the earliest available appointment was two weeks out.


It did not go well.
-sigh-


After five hours, I had managed to turn the damn thing just 15°Admittedly, most of that time was spent with the fitting not moving at all.  And 2 hours were spent nursing an array of self-inflicted wounds while watching the Matrix.  The awkwardness of the location of the fitting prevented easy access to leverage.  The confines and the elasticity of the plumbing meant that impacts had no effect in budging the pipe wrenchI nearly maimed my face several times trying to use a crow bar on the handle of the pipe wrench while jammed under the sink.  Until finally I came upon a method of bracing bits of lumber as adjustable fulcrums to use a length of square bar to inch the pipe wrench along.
Luckily, Pyramid Heating & Cooling called a couple days later to say that they had a cancellation, and they could come immediatelyWell, not immediately - because it was the afternoon and since our furnace is in the attic it would be horrificBut they did swap us with another customer the very next morning.


Once the fitting was out, it was a 10-minute trip to the local hardware store to buy $16 worth of parts, and a further 2 minutes to install.
In the meantime, we got to work on the dishwasher, with the working assumption that it had a fuse of some kind that was also borked.  So we disconnected it and pulled it out to find that it has no such protection feature.  Time for a new dishwasher.  Which was fetched in the uber-charming wee van, to the delight of the Home Despot workers who helped us get it.  Which in itself is a minor miracle, because it turns out that Home Depot doesn't stock appliances - except that happened to have accidentally been shipped the exact one we wanted.  Which was fun.  Brought it home, installed it, and it works great.


Whatever pleasure I might have for accomplishing this trivial piece of plumbing, even though I overcame what the previous plumber seemingly left as a booby trap, is utterly drowned in the aching discomfort of it allCraning and straining and slipping and smashing and accidentally banging in a confined space with unyielding surfaces sucks giant donkey ballsYes, I used my cleverness to do something difficultBut I have the joy of getting to employ my cleverness every single day at work - at my comfy desk.
Pyramid technician shows up and listens to our tale of woe.  He said, "I have an idea"A few minutes later, "YEP - your transformer got burned out." Replaced it handily, and our HVAC comes to life and was working greatThe feeling of relief was a welcome change.


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_2592_web.JPG
...


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_8770_web.JPG
Which lasted for a few days. Then yesterday we noted that the AC was not actually able to cool the house.  We futzed with sensors and settings, but the awkward truth is that it is running the AC and the blower fan and we're getting an insufficiently-cool draft.


Time for another call to Pyramid.  When they open on Monday.  GAH.
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=[[2018.10.01 Ongoing Tesla Testing]]=
=[[2022.07.10 Missing My Little Vampire Slayers]]=
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More detailed exploration of the performance envelope of GHOST has revealed further insights.<br>
This was the first week of vacation, which I'm taking in alternating weeks while I've got the kiddos.  And we got to spend all of it doing all the things as well as lots of down time.  Bike riding, D&D, walks to the park, playing Magic, learning Python, beach trip, yardwork, and lots of naps.
 
The week was somewhat impaired by a power bump and outage that revealed a flaw in our newly-installed solar+battery system (not yet commissioned) which left part of the house without power - so we've had to improvise powering the internet, be mindful of regulating the house temperature with airflow, and washing lots of dishes by hand.
 
The crescendo of the week was last night - as the Spice Girls (the party name for the D&D characters) stumbled upon the secret base of a vampire pirate ship.  In its entirety, the Pale Prow with its vampire spawn crew and its elven-vampire captain would have been wildly overpowered for the Spice Girls.  But they happened to poke them before sunset proper, which allowed them to face the crew separately from the master, and with a couple Daylight™ spells was enough to let them prevail. 
 
We perhaps ran a little too late, but fuck it - it's summer time and they would be stuck in a car all day on a trip to Canada with S.  They get to camp in a fun tent trailer, but are completely insistent that they can't do it because of the impossibility of being civilized to each other.  I struggled with how to ease this ridiculous impasse, and ended up outraging Simon by belittling the difficulty.  Here's hoping he gets to sleep in the car.


* The review mirrors are really quite puny.  Makes for a nice low Cd, but I'd personally trade that for improved sensor capabilities over my shoulders.
And now they're gone for a weekAnd I'm am heartbrokenI just immediately miss them a ridiculous amountI can't wait for our next week off together.
* GHOST might be lighter and more nimble-feeling than a Model S, but she's still a hefty girlMomentum must be considered.
 
* Further to that, stickier tires will be requiredMostly to improve turning and stopping; not that GHOST is a slouch at either, but rather to carve out more safety factor for my enthusiasmThough it is rather entertaining feeling the whole chassis squirm under full thrust with the current shoes.
It really puts the foolish work anxiety in to context.
* The turn stalk has a marginal flaw: the left "tap" sensor is mis-calibrated such that a simple triple-blink lane change is hard to get instead of continuous blinking.
* Overall, this might be the exact right embodiment of my car-self.  A bit heavier than ideal, but more powerful and smarter - and carrying more baggage.  And still quite silly.
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=[[2018.09.29 Meet GHOST]]=
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Five years and one day after selling Richthofen, my beloved Porsche 911 C4S, I picked up a new alter-ego-class car.  It's a 2018 Tesla Model 3, long range battery, dual motor all-wheel-drive.  White.  And we named it "GHOST".
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==The Name==
This was simply a family vote.<br>
http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_8955_web.JPG


It might have been nice to continue the monster motif set by "Grendel" by using "Wendigo" from the spooky campfire stories my dad used to tell.  TESSA was a lovely runner-up, losing only the all-important Violet vote - who simply insisted on "Ghost".  Even though I thought for sure she might also vote for "Princess Sparkle Prancer", but no dice.  Only Simon was suitably amused by "Tesly McTeslaFace".  And ForAytToo might have had a chance, if we had learned the VIN soon enough give it momentum.
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==The Colour==
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The thing that most people seem to question is the colour I chose.  Perhaps because I have generally terrible taste in colours.  Even so, I do have preferences.  Seeing the car in person, in white, it makes a lot of sense.  The bright trim fits better than with anything dark.  Plus, only black and white are available without metallic flakes - a feature that has come to annoy me for no good reason.


http://kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_3716_web.JPG
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==Stupid Grin Driving Glee Factor==
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Tesla isn't totally transparent about some specifications for the car, but my (unofficial) understanding is that it's got two 191 kW (256 hp) motors, but that the actual power it can apply is limited by the current output of the non-Performance battery management system.  It's supposed to be able to do 0-100 km/h in 4.5 seconds; it feels like less.  It is significantly faster-feeling thrust-wise in all real world situations than Richthofen was, which feels important in my withered soul.  So, while it officially lacks access to "Ludicrous" speed, it is certainly consistently hilarious.  The delighted shrieks of terrified joy from the kids when we merely go in a straight line are simply dad-tastic.


It's quite an experience, and I have a lot more soaking in to do.  Which will naturally translate into more writing.  But for now, it is a fabulous introduction.
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That sure was a lot of scrolling you did without prompting.  Perhaps you have read some of my other throw-away bits hidden down here, or perhaps you are just naturally curious.  But I hope you feel, as I do, that the immersion of the moment is the key part of the experience.  The existence of the chain of thought: "I wonder what's down here" - searching for signs of what this scrolling expanse is yielding - and then "OH, that's all, I guess." 
 
But, really, that's all most places and moments are.  Look around, literally and figuratively, and sense wherever you are.
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Latest revision as of 05:36, 18 March 2024

claytoncastle.com



2024.03.17 Mexican Reflections

A trip to our plant in Saltillo Mexico earlier this month was quite interesting.

The first thing to mention is that this was not my first trip to one of our Mexican manufacturing plants. Last time, the visit to Santiago involved staying in Mexico city - an urban area with the same population as Canada. That was interesting in its own way.

This time involved being in northern Mexico, and it's possible that needing to be escourted most places with a security detail insulated me quite a lot from the granular details of the lives lived there. Which obviously is an insight of it's own.

The hilarious driving habits of the locals is a delight to witness - from the safety of the back of a van. Coming from the infuriating obliviousness of drivers of Portland, it was actually a relief to see such vigour and skill. And the best part was the way in which they we very relaxed about all the interactions that I would have experienced as very intense.

But the thing that sticks out most for me, and feels really inspirational, is the camaraderie the workers at the Saltillo plant. I had to learn a wide variety of individualized handshakes to greet the people I met, and they often laughed and hugged me when I got them wrong. The ubiquitous friendliness and helpfulness of everyone at the plant is something I've never seen at this kind of scale before. Makes me wish there was a way to import this, large-scale, into more of the aspects of life.


2024.02.25 Is That What I Looked Like?

University student ID 1993:
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University graduation yearbook 1999:
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New engineer ID 2000:
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Terrified Canadian engineer suddenly employed in the United States 2002:
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Resigned Canadian engineer with a family in the United States 2007:
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2024.02.15 Awkward Honesty

Found myself this morning in the awkward position of explaining to a group of parents why I hadn't responded to my daughter's ability to participate. The crux of my reluctance is that it's on the handover day where I take the kids back to their mom's house, and I don't get to see them again for a week - and any playdates mean curtailing my time with them. What seems like a no-brainer helicopter parent supported socialization opportunity for the kids to the rest of the parents is a fraught emotional inflection point for me. Adding to the complication is that I have to drive them across town, not just let them scamper out the door to participate like they do back in the ex's neighbourhood. And all the while we deal emotionally with "Sunday Energy", there is also weekly chores to negotiate.

Meanwhile, I could just imagine one or all of the parents thinking "What's with Emo-Dad™ making such a big fuss over having his kid show up for a play date? Just say yes or no! We don't need to hear all about your feeewings, whiner."

However it was actually received by most of the parents, the ex did reach out very sympathetically. It did a lot of credit to how well we've managed to be kind and connected despite the divorce. Being mindful adults has its benefits.


2024.02.11 Qualitatively Hating Working In The Office

So, having spent a week (well, 4 days) working in the office again, I now have more direct data regarding what it's like. Which sounds silly after having spent a couple decades having worked in an office setting, but the recent handful of years of mostly working from home has massively transformed my perspective.

Firstly, credit where credit is due, when at the office it is much easier to keep the parade of attention mostly work-related.

But, and this is a critical "but", it feels like it leads to a considerably bigger problem. Because all my in-between filler moments are more filled with work minutae, that means that my brain gets much less capability to recharge in those pauses. It turns out that spending all those so-called "micro moments" bumping into colleagues, that burns neural resources for an introvert such as myself.

The two main results of this are that 1) I'm considerably more exhausted at the end of a work day - not even counting commuting, and 2) I have fewer good/big ideas.

The exhaustion part is probably easy to understand. After an intense meeting, or tough bit of design, at home I can quietly do some dishes or some such, letting my subconscious work on stuff. At work, I have to either bumble through the campus making up social niceties or fend off trawling coworkers looking for verbal answers.

The good/big idea part is actually a discovery that I had during the past week. See, I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night most nights last week, with an idea about how to solve a problem or something to try at work. And the previous couple decades came back to me in a flash: that's how work used to haunt me. But that stopped when I was working from home. But instead of being haunted by work such that it wakes me up, I'd have a couple big "aha!" moments during the day, most days.

Basically, for me, work from home allows me to generate twice as many good/big ideas as being in the office, and in ways that don't fuck with my sleep and stress.

Which is an excellent segue into the motivation I have right this moment: I'm absolutely dreading going back in for another week of this shit. It's hilarious to say, because my job is super fun, my workplace is extremely nice and accommodating full of cool people, and even my commute is a laugh of a bike ride. Yet here I am, very much dreading it.


I assume that I'll re-acclimate, and the stress will ease back down as I get re-numbed to the overt dominion of the extroverted and the soul-draining non-stop effort of having to pretend to be social. I'll do cool work that will make it all worthwhile, and loosen up my clenched soul on the privileged experience I had.

If this were a reddit post, I'm sure there would be swarms of commenters urging me to take this newfound knowledge and find the bravery to seek another position that would allow the exact thing I like about the pandemic era WFH. Which is when I gesture vaguely to my giant golden handcuffs, the kids about to need cars and then university, and the lovely house I couldn't afford to buy again in this market even if I kept this well-paying job. And I'm chicken.


2024.01.15 Snow Driving Observations - part something

Portland is funky, snow-driving wise.

Generally speaking, PDX is mild as hell, rarely getting more than a dusting of snow at most and not enough to worry about. And the occasional punctuation of stay-around snow isn't in any way particularly much accumulation. But despite being infrequent and short-lived, it is almost always expert-level snow situations.

Taking a step back, my northern peoples have a great deal of opportunity to hone our slidetastic situational control. Even those Canuckistanni who do not overtly enjoy a good bit of the slidey-slidey get sufficient exposure to know where their limits are and to be sensible. More than that, there is a good long ramp up and ramp down of the snow-ness, much of it during climate that is cold enough to have the ice and snow be pleasantly predictable. So when there is a surplus of the slippery substances, or, more poignantly, when it's sometimes in that dangerous extra-slippery state of melty snow on ice, there is a deep well of useful reflexes to draw from.

Meanwhile, here in PDX, the locals almost never have to face snow. And when they do, they are woefully incapable of doing so. Augmenting this low-skill demographic is the relatively large influx of Californians, all of whom seem to want to pull over and have a good cry when it so much as rains. Which it does. Often. Maybe more on that some other time. This leads to a relatively high number of vehicles out and about completely without any winter tires.

The hilarious twist that PDX plays on the unsuspecting snow-n00bs is that, since it is rarely very far below freezing here, it is very close to the melting point - the slipperiest sort of snow. Which, more often than not, gets augmented with PDX's special sauce: freezing rain. So not only is there very little opportunity to practice driving in snow here, the snow goes from nothing straight to expert snow.

Resultingly, there is much chaos to be had here. And regardless of how capable one and their vehicle might be, it is exceedingly perilous to join in the maelstrom when it starts. But shortly after everyone freaks out and stays the hell away from the snow covered roads, it's basically glorious emptiness and freedom for snow-loving freaks such as myself to get out and have some joy.

Plus, in a more mature vein, it is an opportunity to provide transport to those that need help and reap a healthy crop of brownie points.


2024.01.13 Farewell to the Mayor of Kenton

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It is with deep sorrow that we learned that my favourite cat of all time - Charlie¹ - passed away this week.

From the moment he ran up to greet us when we first came to look at this house, we knew he was special. His legend among the neighbourhood was known by everyone we met; "Oh, yeah - I know Charlie. I make sure to stop and pet him whenever I come this way." Our block Whatsapp thread is still pinging with people sharing pictures and stories of him over the years.

The peak of his legend might have been his fighting off a coyote, and living with some epic scars. And his giant murder mittens certainly lent credibility to his prowess. But it was his calm fearless demeanour that won my heart the most, coupled with his refusal to put up with any shit, desire to lure people into being playfully mauled, and the itty bitty tiny meow that he made out of his lion-sized throat.

May your legend in the next world be as epic as in this one.



¹ He also had many nicknames, including:

  • Chonkmeister
  • Chuckie
  • Chuckles
  • Kaiju Kitty
  • Chuck Wagon
  • Chonk Chonkerson (Man On The Street)
  • Chuckzilla
  • Chuck Roast


2023.12.28 Reflection 1: Marthaller's Move To Germany

Now that Colin and Colette have been gone for a couple weeks, it has finally sunk in that they're not just a few blocks away any more. Partly because life got weirdly busy such that we didn't hang out constantly any more (and, regrettably, entirely too few bike rides this past year). But also because Colin reached out on WhatsApp to apologize for their SMS/texting not yet working on their new German phones, and it reached the threshold of being really real.

In honour of the fun bikeness of our shared affinity for the Church of Dirt™, I intend to pivot to dragging the kids out regularly to Sandy Ridge and Rocky Point for regular application os gnar. We'll see how well I do at that.

Meanwhile, we have yet to see what for Fifth Position Racing will take, as Colin and I (and whomever else we can lure into participating) set up an online racing league to play with.

Luckily, I have some successful history of being able to keep in touch internationally...


2023.12.28 Reflection 2: Swift & Union Closing

When Amy and I moved to Kenton, we were delighted by the many options for places to eat within walking distance, and we looked forward to sampling them all. Except we never did, because one of the first places we went to was Swift & Union.

The ambiance, upon walking in, was exactly the vibe that we both enjoy. Open enough to feel like we engaged with the room, but with lovely booths that let us sit side-by-each the way we like (plus room for kids, when they join). The music playing was pleasantly aimed at Gen-X nostalgia, which works great for us.

Even better than the ambiance was the staff. All of them excellent and friendly, and a couple that we quickly became friends with - such that they would wander over to our table to catch up and chat when we weren't in their section. They consistently made the experience personal, welcoming, and enjoyable.

Plus it should be stated that the food and drink was all fabulous. Not fleece-your-pockets extravagant gustatory adventures, but extremely yummy and satisfying fare that we often found ourselves craving. That includes the kids, who can sometimes be difficult to feed.

Anecdotally, the owner - Zig - wanted to simplify down to just one restaurant - Tabor Tavern. We hope that our favourite servers and the awesome cook(s) found great places to jump to instead. S&U was open for a final week before xmas, which we indulged in twice, but they were unable to complete the week as the staff understandable fled.

I guess we'll resume sampling the local alternatives. Life goes on.


2023.12.28 Reflection 3: FPS w/ Amy

I was there, in the beginning, playing Wolfenstein 3D on my lowly x386 rocking a vibrant 256-colour 640x480 RGB display. But that's about all I can claim, because in those early days I definitely set video games aside to focus on engineering classes instead. Though many of my peers rocked cooperative/competitive battle like X-tank on UNIX servers, and quickly followed up with the evolving DOOM and Quake games.

By the time modern FPS games evolved, I was well outside of the participation sphere - no console games at all. Though I did play - and get good at - simulators like X-Wing and Mech Warrior, it was never quite the same. Meanwhile, I spent a lot of time playing combat-oriented imagination-intensive games, thinking about fighting. This made me feel like I might be good at FPS, and might be missing out.

Skip ahead the rest of the 30-ish years, and I find myself with MMORPG-goddess Amy as a partner.

I dipped my toes in some games, but have quickly discovered that I abhor grinding. More than that, I have very little positive feedback playing by myself. But I have found something that very much is fun - parallel play.

We got Amy an X-Box for her birthday this year, and it's been a hoot (cough Forza /cough). Mostly it's been cooperative puzzle games like Humans Fall Flat, but we just started Tiny Tina's Wonderland. Holy fun FPS intensity. It's odd to essentially be Amy's sidekick, since she's decidedly more skilled than I am. But I clearly have some tactical talent that shines through, and makes it fun.


2023.12.03 Mustache Day Ish

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It was about the right day, and I had just gotten my dream Ferrari in Forza. This was the result.


2023.11.26 PPS Teacher Strike

Three weeks of shenanigans later, and I have two things I take away from it.

1. The teacher's should have had a strike sooner. Even aside from wages that have not kept up with inflation, it appears that teachers have not been heard or appropriately supported for quite a while. Before the strike it was a general truism that America doesn't value teachers enough, but learning about the specifics of teacher grievances in what should be a city focussed on education to support our various high-tech industries was surprising.

2. PPS is kind of shit. Not that I ever expect a public bureaucracy to be amazeballs, but the disingenuous communications and essentially propoganda-class releases were disappointing. It takes a certain ilk of horrible to rely on people to be unable to do math in order to lie to everyone about how they're treating the people who teach math. And to have every single letter to parents repeat "we're so worried about the children", as if the teachers do not, was an insult to anyone capable of spotting empty rhetoric.


2023.11.20 Welcome Gefferts

S recently married the truly lovely John Geffert, making him Simon and Violet's new step-dad. Plus, his son's William and Miles are now step-siblings to our kids, vastly increasing the potential chaos in all our lives. Plus, you know, even more kids to take mountain biking.

Welcome to the family Gefferts!


2023.11.04 Back To Office

So my office recently announced that we'll be returning to the office. A fig leaf of "hybrid" is still offered - we can work from home 1 day per week. Any day we want!

The nominal reason is to foster improved collaboration by strengthening our interpersonal culture. And there is no denying that onboarding new people is very much harder when most of the 60+% of the workforce is remote on any random day.

Instead of a point-by-point comparison of methodologies and circumstances that used to work in-person versus those that work remotely, let me just point out the simple fact that nobody has been prevented from coming in to the office. Some do, but most do not. We're all very smart adults, and have clear ideas for what works best for us, and have obviously made our choices. We are not being consulted.

So, the question becomes - why do our corporate leaders think they know better than us?

Hypothesis 1: Occam's Razon

Our executives think they are in their positions because they are smarter and more capable than most others, and therefore their theories about productivity and work/life balance have implicit clout outweighing everyone else.

Maybe they're right. Perhaps we'll find out.

Hypothesis 2: Dinosaurs

It's how they did it when they were the doers, and they don't like things being different. It's scary. Plus all the people who are actively climbing the corporate ladder directly beneath them all agree!

Worth noting is that mammals have only been nominally dominant for a few tens of millions of years (ignoring the superior total mass and probable durability of insects), while dinosaurs lumbered along for well over a hundred million years. Inertia is a motherfucker.

Hypothesis 3: Insecurity

How can managers manage if they're denied most of the tools they've gotten accustomed to using? Leadership and inspiration can only work on people they intrinsically understand, and all the slackers will find ways to shirk doing their fair share.

Except, of course, as the brilliant Mark Moyes once said, "I'm perfectly capable of getting nothing done at my desk." Babysitting is a less effective tool than some might hope.

Hypothesis 4: Piles Of Beans

There sure is a lot of theoretical value in the fixed assets of these large office buildings. If they become overtly and obviously a waste of resources, it sure would be a huge loss - on paper. Watching the city repossess large buildings and turning them into affordable housing and civic spaces must be horrifying to the company accountants.

If it costs the thousands of employees an average of 5 hours per week of unpaid commuting time (plus gas and vehicular wear), that's better than the company risking losing the value of its real estate. Right?


2023.10.07 Printer Time

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While I haven't had a regular printer for a while, as actual need to have paper copies of things has gotten very infrequent, in a reciprocal way I've been far too slow to get a 3D printer. This has now been rectified.

Let there be random plastic thingies!

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2023.09.04 Latest Bike Daydreams

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2023.08.22 ID.4 Impressions So Far

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The things we like about the car (we're calling CUV's just "cars" now, right?) vastly outnumber the quibbles. It drives well, carries everyone and the dog as necessary, and has all the options we need.

-deep breath-
And I need to accept that there are many things about the Tesla that have me both a) acclimated to a certain way of doing things, and b) spoiled.

In no particular order, here are The Quibbles:

No Battery Pre-Conditioning

This is an idiotic oversight. The ability for a lithium-ion battery pack to accept charge is directly related to the temperature of the pack. The VW ID-platform has active battery temperature management, so this is obviously possible. This makes the difference between <50kW charging and >150kW charging, which is kind of the point of having access to DC fast charging in the first place.

The APP Sucks

I mean, at least there's an app to verify simple shit like whether the car is locked or what the state of charge is. But after getting accustomed to the deep and intuitive integration of the Tesla app, this feels cheap and lazy. Ideally I'd like it to act as the key for the vehicle - in fact that might almost qualify this as a double-quibble. I don't like having to carry another chonky key fob. Especially one with a "set off the alarm now" button placed such that I can accidentally activate it by sitting down.

Everyone On The UX Team Should Be Sat Down And Told To Think About What They Did

The main inputs to driving the car - steering, braking, accelerator - are generally pretty good (exceptions listed separately). That probably has more to do with the chassis design team though. Because everything else is weak-sauce output from a series of committees that clearly hated each other and were playing stupid internal-political games.

  • Why the fuck don't the motorized mirrors coordinate with the seat/user memory settings?
  • Who the fuck thought it would be a good idea to interrupt the already-slow boot sequence of the infotainment to make the driver press "OK" every fucking time?
  • Any control that you have to take your eyes off the road to use is totally wasted as a separate button/control. Sure capacitive touch buttons are neat - on kitchen appliances. But when I'm fumbling around for a control while I'm driving, I don't want the "looking for the control" to directly translate into "activating every fucking thing I touch".
  • Having only two window switches to control both front and rear windows is the result of a deeply stupid person having too much input. Yeah - cute idea, but just no. I fucking hate accidentally bumping the invisible capacitive touch button that changes to controlling the rear. But even more, I philosophically loath that they took a simple 4-switch control with 100% intuitive interface and made it need a logic board to hilariously discover new ways to go wrong.
  • The media buttons on the steering wheel are regular controls turned 90° for no good reason. Normal controller: UP = increase volume, DOWN = decrease volume, RIGHT = next track, LEFT = go back a track. But for some fucked up reason, I now get to press UP to go back, DOWN to skip forward, RIGHT to increase volume, and LEFT to decrease volume. Fuck you, VW UX team.

Creep Mode: Make. It. Go. Away.

Or at least optional, yeah? I get that it makes the operation familiar to low-skill people transitioning from shitty automatic transmissions. Cool. But for those of us who preferred manuals, and now delight in the directness and finesse of electric drivetrains, you're just making shit bad with no benefit.

Brake Hold Won't Let Go

Yes, I like it when pressing the brake a bit extra when stopped that the vehicle will continue to hold the brake for me. But in the VW, it won't let go unless I press the accelerator. This is fine at a stop light or some such. But when I'm carefully navigating down a slope this is lurch-o-matic. This is extra exacerbated by the no-option creep mode. At least the brake hold CAN be turned off by a crude intervention in the infotainment system, but really it should be able to be dismissed with a repeated brake pedal press.

Secret Charger Unlock Method

It makes sense not to trust the unknown charger connector, and totally avoid any chance of an arc flash by locking the connector in place - even if it indicates that it means to disconnect. But having the method for releasing the suspicious charger connector be a secret staccato code on the key fob is infuriating when the standard glitch reset sequence for the vast majority of charging networks is "unplug and replug in vehicle".


2023.08.01 Kids At Sandy Ridge

Despite all the drama with fumbling the ability to put the epic bike rack on any functional bike-hauling vehicle, we gave up and just Tetrised the bikes into the back of the Flex to make it happen.

A warm but-not-too-warm morning with gorgeous dappled light, Simon and Violet immediately exceeded my expectations by gamely trying to pedal up the climb hill. We kept exclusively to Laura's Line and the section of Lower Hide&Seek from the power lines down to the road.

It was amazeballs. Sharing the Church of Dirt with them unlocked a spiritual sense of harmony and joy.

Violet had two crashes. The first right off the bat, and it was hard enough to knock the wind out of her and scrape her up. But a bandaid later and she was gamely riding through the rollers and berms. The second was at the very end - at the very same berm. Except that time she rolled with the wipeout, left a Violet-shaped crater, and laughed like the unstoppable monster she is.

The tradition of DQ after riding with Simon has now been extended to Violet as well, and it was good.

My only regret is not taking any pictures. I try to forgive myself by acknowledging that I was very much living in the moment the whole time.


2023.07.30 It's FORZA's Fault, Really

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Amy's main gift for her birthday this year was an XBOX, and she didn't want to wait for her actual birthday to start playing with it. So last week we broke it out after we dropped off the kids with their mom, and proceeded to play a whole bunch of video games. I've never had any kind of console game system myself, so it has been hilariously intoxicating to play with Amy on a bunch of games in our living room. A couple are throwbacks to my PC simulation games of yore, a hilariously frustrating puzzle game, and a couple driving games. The stand-out driving game we got was Forza 5.

We started calling playing Forza "drunk driving" both because of how bad at it we are with the basic game controllers, but also because it was funny to take turns playing while also sipping alcoholic beverages. The game is simply beautiful, with a rather good physics engine, so it's enjoyable to feel immersed in the wildly bad driving experience. Perhaps exactly because of how bad we were at controlling the vehicles meant that we often found ourselves off-road, which in turn lent itself to having better experiences with the off-road-capable vehicles. The early champion of this realm is the Ford Bronco that you start the game in.

So much fun was had tromping around in this virtual Bronco that we asked ourselves, "what would driving a real Bronco be like?" So, for shits and giggles, we set out last Friday to the local Ford dealer to take a Bronco out for a turn behind the real wheel. It did not disappoint - we both liked it a lot.

Except for, you know, reality - the price, the fuel efficiency, and the overall poor ability to meet our second vehicle needs. But while there on the Ford lot, we found ourselves facing the truth that we were sick of dealing with shitty old cars. We have most of what we wanted to have saved up for the ID.Buzz already, so starting to have a payment now could be handled without difficulty. Plus, we could trade in the hard-to-sell T4 van for sufficient downpayment on whatever we decided made sense.

After staring into the abyss of Ford offerings, we toddled over to the nearby VW dealer to see about their inventory of ID.4's. Because they share the basic architecture with the ID.BUZZ that we intend to have, so it could be an opportunity to get familiarized with that. And it just so happened that they had a lease deal that would carry us nicely until we get project:LEELOO¹.

And here we are, with yet another vehicle.

Now all we have to do is:

  • Sell the stupid Flex.
  • Install a 2" hitch to attach the bike rack.
  • Get a home charging solution that doesn't suck.²

¹ "project:LEELOO" is the provisional ID.BUZZ name - so far
² The car comes with 3 years free charging at Electrify America, so this is actually a somewhat lower-priority need.


2023.07.15 3-Week Break

Today kicks off the first day of my 3-week summer break, in which I plan to...

Hm. You know, I'm not totally sure what.

Nominally, I'll figure out a way to strap the monster bike rack to the Rusty Pig and take the kids out for some adventures discovering biking. And I mean to do a bit of writing. And we plan to do a tonne of D&D. Maybe a trip up the mountain with Zora. Plus wrapping up with Amy's and Violet's birthdays.

But, really, those are possible waypoints instead of a packed itinerary.

I spent entirely too much time this past week being crushed under work stress, and I definitely don't feel free of its grip yet. That's probably the main thing I need to figure out - by means of engaging with mindfully existing in a bunch of non-work moments.


UPDATE:
It's worth noting that on the very first weekend of said vacation, I was called by my manager asking me to consult on a testing issue. Having consulted, I'm now struggling with worry about the all-new problem encountered by the project. Goddamn work stress is persistent.


2023.06.27 School's Out For Summer

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2023.06.18 Anti-Antifa Conundrum

During the legitimately delightful Death Cab For Cutie concert this past week, front man Ben Gibbard mentioned that the place they just came from was Vancouver BC. While they were leaving the hotel, they mentioned that they going to Portland Oregon. To which the random person warned, "Be careful, they have Antifa there."

Ben rolled that into a hilarious battle cry, engaging the zeitgeist of the progressive front of the culture war perpetuated by the über-rich and their frightened conservative hordes. And I'm sufficiently skeptical that I found myself wondering if this was a real encounter or merely a means to an audience-connecting trope.

But there's no denying that exactly that sentiment exists. "Antifa" has become a sort of "they started it" boogeyman to counterpoint the awful shit skinheads and police do.

Yet the first thing I found myself asking this supposed Vancouverite is, "As opposed to what, exactly?" Nazis? Or Nazi sympathizers? Because if you're not a Nazi, or a Nazi sympathizer, then you're technically anti-Nazi. Which is anti-fascist. Which is Antifa.

I'm curious to hear how these people conceptualize our various anti-fascist cultural heroes, like Captain America, Indiana Jones, and most of John Wayne's characters. Are they booing and hissing when they watch Indy punching every Nazi he sees? Or are they, as I suspect, grimly clinging to their own personal John Wayne-ness and dream of a glorious previous American Ideal that they do not interrogate in context of a modern reality.


2023.06.17 Where Does The Time Go?

Holy tapdancing fuck. I'm continually left amazed at how the ebb and flow of time management triage tends to weed out things I keep assuming I'll find time for eventually - like running, bike rides, writing, and drawing.

Goddammit.

I know intellectually that it's a matter of making time for these things. I also know that in order to make it consistent it needs to become habitual. Now, if only knowing a thing made enough of a difference to make it so.


2023.05.30 Culture War: Part What?

The continual grind of the fear machine, lubricated with falsehoods and fueled by blame, usually has a steady sickening thrum to it. A cloying call for a country that only ever existed in rosy nostalgia and westerns, and vitriolic over-reaction to anything different or complicated.

I recently heard Jon Stewart say that Republicans focus on stoking culture wars because they're out of ideas. They have no solutions, only complaints and attempted blame. Which perhaps only rings true because of the total lack of resonance with me their histrionic message generally is.

Still, the recent utterances have me chuckling darkly.

The common refrain is, "People Are Fleeing Democratic Cities".

The stories tend to immediately go on to assert that people are leaving Democrat-run, high-tax, liberal-agenda hubs in big cities in favour of pro-business, conservative regions. And I'm sure we could find some individuals with exactly that motivation, but somehow I doubt it is the majority.

No, I'd be willing to wager that the vast majority of such moves are a combination of housing cost and the new-found ability to do many jobs remotely.

Ignoring for a moment the amusing aspect of the majority of the housing shitfuckery being due to "pro-business" interests, one has to wonder how much "liberal agenda" these fleeing individuals will actually leave behind. Because the long-held majority of people's votes has been held in check by conservatives by gerrymandering. But once the liberal agenda is free to exist across the spread of less-urban space, will scare tactics that work on the already-fearful willing-morons of the Repugnican party still hold as much sway.

As I said: chuckling darkly.


2023.05.20 Vanbortion

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So... AKNOT is whole once again, and runs great.

There is, however, one niggling problem. The excellent mechanics stressed to us once again that it is extremely difficult to get parts for this vehicle. And with that in consideration, it is both hard to need to rely on AKNOT the way that we need to until we can get the ID.Buzz (whenever Volkswagen actually delivers those here) AND a sickening possible cratering of investment. As it is, we are already well past the point where we will be able to recoup all of our resources sunk into AKNOT - however awesome it is at this moment.

This lead to a brief and intensive review of our needs. Plus an uncomfortable reckoning of how much we really want a van - but that all the vans in our price range are either craptacular or not fit for purpose (moving kids and dog). After discovering that some weakly-van-like options are simply too small [AHEM - Honda Element], we stumbled on the hideous functionality that is the Ford Flex.

It's sort of a mega-wagon. Not really a van, because it's not tall enough or utility enough, but also not an SUV, because it has zero swagger and also way to low-slung. The particular incarnation that we snapped up from what appeared to be a chop shop operation has too many blemishes to mention. But should work for us for the duration.


2023.05.06 "It was a funny moment."

"It was a funny moment."

I know that the nanoscopic robots will eventually clean all my fangs completely, but it's easy to get impatient.

...to be composed on a separate page...


2023.04.16 Why WaitButWhy Guy?

Just to be clear, and as apology for my mouthful of alliteration of a title that made me laugh for no reason¹, the "guy" I'm talking about is Tim Urban - he's the fellow who writes the Wait But Why blog. I love that blog, because Tim has a modality where he gets interested in some random thing and then furiously burrows down to the bottom of that rabbit hole and tells you all about his adventure with bad stick drawings. It appeals to several facets of my overly-nerdy trivia-addicted likes-to-know-stuff personality.

So when he resurfaced recently, saying most of what he had been doing during his reclusion was writing a book, I absolutely knew that I had to read that book. 1) Sounds like an epic rabbit hole. 2) Direct support of a person whose work I appreciate.

It's "What's Our Problem?" - with the tag line "the self-help book for societies". Like, the mother of all rabbit holes. I girded myself, and dove in.

Both aspects of the title are... kinda wrong.

I actually finished reading it a while ago, because I downloaded it the instant it became available. But I've had to spend a little time working through my disappointment and sadness about the book, and its cascade of introspection about my own assumptions.

Much of the content includes things that I already saw in nascent form on WaitButWhy, and remain brilliant bits of thought experiment. And I particularly appreciate the way Tim's way of thinking challenged some of the ways in which I have let myself become lazy with respect to being numb to much of the Republican actions in the culture war / cold civil war.

BUT (and I actually backed up to capitalize that for effect) it falls down pretty fast and hard in the book about half-way though. Full respect for Tim, as he even flags this transition point saying that many people will be unhappy (and awkwardly alludes to there being torches and pitchforks about it). For all his forest of references and assurances about open-mindedness, Tim starts oversimplifying, cherry-picking, and false-equivalancizes (new word trademarked by me) his way to suggesting that the problem is wokeness (whatever that is this week) and a powerful cabal he refers to as Social Justice Fundamentalists.

Which is short-hand for "privileged person wants things to go back to how they were".

I simply don't have the energy to take the time to challenge all the ways I think he's wrong. Aside from proposing that instead of SJF having any significant power that instead some ideas of addressing institutional inequity have become actually fundamentally persuasive because rigorous insight suggest they're uncomfortably true. And I'm a little pissed at Tim for giving me hope that he would have some good suggestions about it. But no. Just fucking painting some whiney shit that agrees with his feelings and no useful ways to address anything.

Then I remembered his posts about Elon Musk. Oh, man, the embarrassing agony of how much I was sucked into that nepo-1-percenter's atrocious bullshit. And Tim helped cement that for me by writing an entire fucking serious of fluff pieces about him. How in the everloving fuck did his utter tool-ness and actual technical cluelessness get conveniently missed? Is it because, oh-I-don't-know, maybe Tim likes to wax extensively about things he wishes were so.


TL;DR - person I identified with, liked², and respected spent a sabbatical to discover that they're actually many of the things I'm frightened about myself being blind about. Boo.



¹ Other things that make me laugh much more than they should for no reason include "Joan of Bark" as a name option for our puppy. Just to put things in perspective for how utterly about my own amusement everything here is.

² That bit being past tense is perhaps a bit silly. I suspect that Tim Urban is still a pretty cool person that I like; I'm just being angsty.


2023.04.02 Van Update

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If you can see the image above: Glorious, isn't it?

Well, no, but it certainly seems that way in regards to its core mission: adventure give-few-fucks van. The manual transmission driving experience and nicely german steering feel blow every other cheap van we tested completely out of the water. The chonky tires look badass, even as they give it a bouncier but better-isolated ride. The epic bike rack speaks directly to the core bike-shuttle function of the machine. Getting the passenger side mirror replaced also makes piloting it less difficult while looking less sketchy than the glued-together mostly non-functional previous mirror.

Zora dog in particular has taken to loving riding in the van, as it generally means some adventure where she gets to be with the kids. And the kids, who have distinctly giraffe-like aspects, relish the vast passenger volume they get to ride in.

Plus, it has to be said: the 5-cylinder motor makes delightful sounds that tickle my nostalgia of my 80's Audi coupé and it's inline-5.

BUT - and this is a big but - there are some serious concerns remaining and emerging. There has long been a metallic jingling sound coming from the RHF quadrant during engine load - first guess is a loose heat shield. Now, however, there is a distinct reduction in power available. First guess is fouled fuel filter, questionable air filter, and unknown spark plug condition. And a distinct smell - sometime clutch-like, other times burn oil seeming.

Fortunately, we have an appointment at a mechanic for a comprehensive inspection and to perform any work necessary to make it reliable. And, if they don't blow my van budget, maybe they can help us with nuisance elements, like the unreliable power windows, lame headlights, and the stubborn rearview mirror mount.

Now with a(multiple) Van Update Update(s)


2023.03.19 Winter Test in Alaska

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What happens in Fairbanks, in March, is generally pretty cold.


2023.03.09 Zora Dog

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She's a Bernedoodle (half Bernese Mountain Dog and half standard Poodle), known for being calm, smart, and mostly hypo-allergenic. Amy loves dogs, and both kids have been wishing for a puppy for quite a long time. And Zora is a font of adoration and emotional support, for the whole family.

I've long asserted that I prefer most dogs to most humans, but have generally been too selfish with my time to become obligated to take care of a dog. But after a decade of being a dad, it feels like it might be a moot point. And holy fucking shit she's adorable.


2023.02.27 Tax Return Reflections

Doing taxes is weird.

Starting from the premise that it's up to individuals to process their own tax calculations and propose how much they think they should have paid in comparison to how much they may have already paid - when then governing bodies generally already know what this should be automatically. It seems... wasteful. Why not just have the government do the standard re-alignment they do anyways, and give taxpayers an opportunity to argue with it only if they feel there is a worthwhile discrepancy?

Then there's the whole parasitic tax-preparation industry that preys upon the vast majority (including me). The fact that it has successfully lobbied the government to both increase the inscrutability of the tax system and repress the IRS from providing a standardized and free tax entering mechanism is a typically capitalistic kind of awful.

After completing the wasteful/parasitic/labyrinthine preparation process, then comes the amazingly awkward navigation of how to actually get a refund. I just want it in my bank account. Why isn't that the first option? Why isn't that an option on the very first page? Why does it have to be an exercise in futility looking for it, only to realize that the first pages are traps to lure users into another parasitic subscription or fee service.

The simple fact that we can't even avoid making the necessary alignment of taxation with the state non-horrible for most people doesn't build much confidence that we'll be able to accomplish the much harder task to improve the tax code so that the super-rich pay their fair share (again).


2023.02.17 Van Plans

Update on our crappy old 1993 VW T4 EuroVan with an I5 and a manual transmission...

Things accomplished on it so far:

  • managed to actually pass DEQ, get registered and plated (kind of a long story by itself)
  • repaired the rear seat belts to functionality to actually have more than just one passenger
  • re-connected the transmission shifter linkage that fell apart/off
  • obtained updated wheels + tires

Things needing to get accomplished:

  • re-re-connect the transmission shifter linkage, because the previous fix also broke - temporarily re-attached but need to put a new-new bushing in (correctly), investigate getting a new heat shield so the exhaust doesn't melt the bushing and/or a supplementary restrain feature
  • get previously mentioned wheels + tires actually mounted, balanced, and installed
  • remove the incorrectly installed review mirror stalk - to install the cool new rearview mirror + camera system
  • replace the broken passenger side door mirror (part obtained)
  • find out why the power door windows aren't working any more
  • find out why water is pooling in the passenger door (possibly connected to the broken door mirror)
  • replace the stereo head unit so that we can listen to music without the faceplate randomly falling out
  • remove the outboard rear-face seat to facilitate loading large loads / bike / dog
  • replace seatbelt for inboard rear-facing seat for bonus seating needs
  • get a bike rack - because multiple bikes don't actually fit inside
  • replace the "cool" aftermarket LED headlights with ones that actually work in the dark

The awkward thing, strategically speaking, is that Amy's lease Jetta is being given back in a couple months. So, in order to avoid having to shell out for another vehicle, it would be nice if the crappy old van (CODENAME: AKNOT) was reliable enough for our occasional parallel-commuting needs. Mostly kid-school deliveries when Amy has to work. The path towards reliability is not meeting our required timeline.

Either I need to stop being driven to becoming a quivering wreck by work stress so I can make shit happen, or we need to find a mechanic to deal with some of our list.


2023.01.30 Victoria Trip

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Amazing adventure with Amy, staying at the Empress Hotel, and spending most of a week with Dave and Bonnie. Complete with a hike up Mount Doug and visits to my nominal favourite restaurant in the universe - Pagliacci's.


2023.01.18 Married

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Team ClaAmy™ is now a legally recognized partnership. ❤️🫀


2023.01.08 Heart Attack Scare

Last Wednesday (2023.01.04) I was standing at my desk at work when I noticed an un-ignorable ache in the upper-left quadrant of my chest. I rolled my shoulders and arms, to see if I could stretch out whatever kind of muscular knot it was, to no effect. Instead, I started feeling dizzy.

Now, I'm a 50-year-old man who takes medication to avoid having my blood pressure cause heart/brain to explode, so this is a constellation of symptoms I'm pre-disposed to be wary of. So I did what any neurotic out-of-shape health-conscious person would do while in their employer's high-density working lot: I Googled that shit.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Boys and Girls, Sentient beings of all sorts: the online search results were not reassuring. Quelle surprise.

So I lowered my powered standing desk, plopped myself down on my chair, and started to feel really dizzy - complete with tingling in my hands and fountains of cold sweat. I turned to my trusty design partner - Meredith - and told her vaguely that I didn't feel well and might need some help.

I put my head down in my hands on my desk and proceeded to feel very poorly indeed. Meanwhile, Meredith went full rockstar and called 911 to talk with the operator while also coordinating folks in the vicinity to check for possible supplies and facilitate the EMT's showing up. I feebly sent a barely-coherent text to Amy, and managed to copy/paste her number to my boss to keep her informed.

At no point did I pass out, but I definitely was not highly responsive and quite frightened. The EMT's showed up, and the whirlwind got underway in earnest. It was weird to be rolling out of the office on a gurney, with people staring.

They determined that I was not actively having a heart attack, so there was not a mad rush to the hospital. An IV was inserted for ease of access to my circulatory system, and an ungainly array of patches had been shaved on my chest to facilitate sticky EKG leads, plus my old friend the pressure cuff. Once at the hospital, in additional to constant electro-potential monitoring, blood oxygen saturation, and regular blood pressure monitoring, I also got a several rounds of blood tests (one lost, just to keep it interesting) and some x-rays.

The sum of the efforts determined reasonably conclusively that I did not have any sort of heart attack. And, technically, I appear to be in relatively good cardiovascular health - even my pre-hypertension appeared to be under better control that I had thought.

So, what happened?

Well, first and foremost, I had symptoms that one does not fuck around and find out about.

But in a more direct manner, there are several related elements that might be sufficient to explain everything. The chest ache showed to be very proximal to some broken ribs I suffered just over a year ago, so they might have acting up for the first cold snap since they "healed". The dizziness is very similar to one of the side-effects of the hydrochlorothiazide that I take for high blood pressure - and the night before I had taken a double dose, because I had missed one. The bonus shaking sweats and apparently lack of circulation might have been a panic attack brought on by my fears, and my generally high baseline of work stress.

From here, I need to get on with finding a new Primary Care Physician - so I can do a follow-up. There's going to be some unpleasant amount of fuss going forward at the office. So it goes. It also seems like a timely prompt to keep my wellness as a priority.


2023.01.02 Hello 2023

Reflecting, 2022 was pretty good for me. And for most of the world, as long as you gloss over Russia's shit-fest invasion of Ukraine, and several awful climate disasters that are a taste of how things are likely to be from now on.

Looking ahead to 2023, there are a few things flagged already:

  • getting married to Amy
  • weakly honeymoon thing meeting up with Dave/Bonnie in Victoria
  • driving around in our old 1993 VW T4 van like a boss
  • Death Cab For Cutie concert at Edgefield
  • Whistler trip with the Bike Crew
  • Middle School for Violet
  • High School for Simon


2022.12.18 Fredmas Fusion

Today is the annual remembrance of my Dad's birthday: Fredmas.

It's also the negative 1-month mark for Amy and I getting married. I think he would have really liked her, and there is some complicated deconstruction to do in my head about what I think he might have thought about getting re-married. But maybe I'll save that difficult bit for some other Rant™ and just focus on the happy part about marrying Amy.

Except that today I finally found out the technical details of the Helion fusion reactor, and I'm very busy having my mind blown. I thought tokamak's were pretty cool, and stellarators were amusing, but this pulse fusion technique is genuinely thrilling.

The main elements that blow my mind (in order of mind-blowing-ness):

  1. direct output of electrical power - bypassing the need to crudely use heat to run something like a turbine
  2. simplified fuel - use of relatively-common deuterium and helium instead of ultra-rare tritium (or plutonium, ick)
  3. massively reduced radioactive byproduct - even compared to tokamaks, and removing the need for beryllium layer
  4. a demonstration reactor to supply output power in 2024


2022.12.12 Managment Theory Desiderata

A couple of half-ideas I scribbled down as notes meant for contemplation and possible inclusion in my as-yet unrealized management theory book.

profits : bonus

The tendency to make an association between a business's profits and employee bonuses is entirely understandable. Both in positive ways and negative ways. The positive association is the idea that when a business has good fortune, that is then trickled down to the employees. The negative association is that a business keeps all the profits, and the employees do not get to share in that extra success. Both viewpoints have their arguments, couched in terms of "fairness".

They're both wrong.

active neglect

Ever get the feeling that you've done nothing wrong, and more than a few things right, but that it makes no positive impact?


2022.11.09 Misunderstanding Millennials

Recently watched Simon Sinek talking about some generational shifts in the workplace. The whole reason I watched it is because I'm nominally a fan of his book "Start With Why", particularly with the concept of inspiration over manipulation. During the talk, he presented a hilariously rose-coloured remembrance of how things were. Where we got our "purpose" from going to church, our "community" from interacting with neighbours, and our "socialization" from [check notes] bowling clubs - and he goes on to lament that these have all faded away such that we're now expecting these things from work.

In the same talk, he also described a sense of loss of trust between employers and employees, bringing up the symbology of the "gold watch". He mentions it to lament how people could feel certain their loyalty would be rewarded, nominally by getting a valuable watch from their employer at an advanced stage of their career. Except that, from what I can tell, the gold watch was always a symbol of disappointment - that "I've given my whole career to this company, and all I get at the end is this watch" at retirement. But this may be tangential.

Clearly this is an emotional expression by Mr. Sinek, utterly unsupported by the long and complicated history of worker's rights. But even more interested to me is how it seems to fail to recognize the aspect in which companies actively try to insert themselves into employee's identity, and are perfectly happy (HR statements taken as "just words") to have other aspects of employee lives atrophy in favour of work focus.

From there, he seems to conclude (or deduce?) that "millennials" are less capable of handling stress (presumably than gen-X or boomers).

Maybe this is intentionally done to build sympathy with tropes that his management-fad target demographic tend to cling to. But it seems that an unwillingness to put up with bullshit is not the same as being less capable of handling stress. Indeed, the accurate recognition of the importance of dealing with stress and not treating having feelings as taboo seems like one of the triumphant elements of the progress of society as a whole.

But maybe Mr. Sinek is falling victim to the all-to-common tendency for seasoned adults to have increased rigidity in their thinking, and to start treating anything that is different as being less good than how they were before.


2022.10.22 the marginalian

Maria Popova has been collecting and curating all kinds of eclectic interests and wisdom she shares on her subscription:
The Marginalian

This latest edition particularly resonated with me.


2022.10.16 Hm.

I meant to write something - mostly some added work on a story, instead of making myself read too much more of the molar-gnashing (and award-winning) sci-fi I'm currently struggling through.

Fail. Just zombied instead.


2022.10.09 Triumphant Return To Game Nights

Dave and I have had a long-running Game Night, allowing us to keep playing AIF even though we lived in different cities - and then different countries. But last year, after [checks math...] 25-ish years, Dave asked for a break for a while.

Which made sense. It had been a long time being weird loner nerds playing our ultra-violent RPG, and a long list of various life stuff had accreted over the years for us. Taking a breath from long-term time commitments is a chance to re-assess what's healthy for ourselves.

Except for the obvious aspect that Dave is my best friend from the depths of deep time, and having the ability to semi-regularly hang out with him is kind of emotionally important to me. And outside of our "game night", there's just not much of that really going on. We did manage some occasional brief chats in the same time slot as the Game Night, when we were both online, so that's something. But not quite the same mojo as actually doing something creative together.

I managed to drag the kids and Amy up to see the family in Canuckistan this summer, and while there got to visit Dave (and Bonnie) in person. This gave more opportunity to see how Dave was doing, and to plumb the idea of re-starting Game Night. The hook on the lure was to suggest a couple things:

1: Try Dungeons & Dragons 5E, so that Dave could sample it firsthand.

2: Include more people in the game, to improve upon the endless cycles of 1-player games we had been grinding through for decades.

The 5E part wasn't too hard; I had a metric shitte-tonne of unused D&D game ideas too violent to include in the kid games I've been DM-ing. So I kitchen-sinked those all together to make a chimera horror adventure gestalt. [insert pantomime of job-done hand clap-wiping motion]

The "getting more people to play" aspect was the thing we had classically had stumbled on. We met, and agreed on a sort of shotgun approach - meaning just ask everyone who we could think of to play with us. Which, admittedly was a pretty short list.

Amy volunteered immediately, so that was a great relief. Both Dave and I talked about inviting Lou, but both of us independently contemplated it and chickened out, being reluctant to face the rejection directly. I still mean to ask him at some point, as a matter principle. Lou is super cool, and even though I know he's simply too busy to play with us (or do much of anything with us), I'd still like for him to know that he's still welcome join in.

The main win, though, was getting Ulrich to agree to play with us. Finally hearing his voice again, after years of purely text correspondence, was pretty great.

We had a session-0, where we finished off the character generation, and had an initial encounter. It was hilarious goodness. I'm genuinely delighted to have this personally-curated crew of alpha-nerds to play with.


2022.09.25 Triumphant Return To Whistler

Link might not work for people who are not awesome enough:
Whistler Photo Dump

A long pandemic later, finally managed to make it back to Whistler (and Squamish).

Impression #1:
Holy fucking fuck coastal BC is gorgeous.

Impression #2:
This kind of adventure is only possible by riding on the coat tails of more dedicated and more prepared friends. Shout out to @gnarthaller for setting everything up, including arrange for a sweet condo to stay, driving most of us up in his sweet adventure van, and being B-Squad leader.

Impression #3:
Getting old sucks. I mean, I know I could be in better shape in general, but the difficult realization is that staying in shape went from being effortless in my 20's (when I had time to do it, but didn't really) to being nigh impossible and scary (when I don't really have any spare time, but try hard to work it in systemically).

Impression #4:
Mountain biking is very much my adrenal pathway to zen. Even though, in comparison with everyone I ride with, I'm not very good. And even though it is a non-stop lesson in humility. The emotional space the riding creates helps me with pretty much every other facet of my life. It gives me resilience to face difficulties at work, and patience to enjoy time with my kids instead of murdering them, and insight about how savour my life while I'm in it.

Impression #5:
The 20-km black-diamond technical climb-ride up to and back from Comfortably Numb was so gorgeous that even though I couldn't appreciate it at the time because of how hard it kicked my ass, it squats in my memory like a nugget of masochistic joy.


2022.09.11 Project:DEATHBOX - Das Gehts

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UPDATE: there are a few challenges with the yet-to-be-officially-named VW van.

  • It did not quiiiiite pass DEQ, so it has a date the The "Fix-Um Haus" to see if we can tweak the tune to reduce the CO2 by 2%. After which we can properly register, plate, and insure the damn thing.
  • Then there is the fact that I need to fix a bunch of seatbelts...
  • Also, I'd like to pull out the rear-facing jump seat next to the sliding door - to better facilitate the loading of my giant-ass bike into the insufficiently-folding rear bench seat area.
  • Then we get to do fun upgrades like wheel/tires and a bitchin' bike rack.


2022.09.06 Work Observation

My work To-Do list involves temporal paradoxes.


2022.09.04 VANS VANS VANS VANS

So, now that we've sold VANTACULUS (the Wee Van), we've been contemplating what we should be getting for Operation DEATH BOX.

Ford Econoline E350

The big chungus option, assuming one can find an acual passenger version. The work van version is much more plentiful option, but even though I could technically bolt in seats for the children, it would absolutely suck for them for road trips. While the full size van would rock the utility function in perpetuity, the thirsty V8 (and occasionally, V10) would mean some serious struggling for the short term need for commuting. They look like bricks, but not in a good way.

STATUS: Still technically in contention.

Honda Oddessey

In all honesty, this was my frontrunner when starting the search. Japanese reliability, plus Honda driving dynamics, and I think they look rather smart. Then we went to look at one, and things went wrong. It was discovered that the Oddessey has "touchy" power sliding side doors, which would definitely go wrong for my little idiots. Then we found that the second row seats can't really fold out of the way enough to fit the mountain bikes. In fact, there is some significant doubt about 3 mountain bikes fitting at all.

STATUS: Not currently being considered, and somewhat bitter about it.

Toyota Sienna

The more-reliable near-era Japanese option. I've superficially been not looking for these because A) I think they're ugly, and B) the ex-step-MIL drove one and it scarred me forever. Dimensionally, this van should be approximately the same interior space as the Oddessey, so there is doubt about its ability to accomplish the bike-hauling mission.

STATUS: Technically still being considered, but possibly as a last option.

Dodge/Chrysler Vanageddon

I know. I KNOW. Shitty Chrysler product is like deciding to buy some lucky mechanic a new boat, and to abstain from joy while doing it.

BUT, here me out. These horror-filled boxes of poorly-considered cheap plastic have considerably more room inside, thanks to the Stow-and-Go™ capabilities. Plus, because they are generally considered to be shittier, it is possible to get a much newer specimen, which would allow some increased modern amenities - like back up camera and bluetooth. And while I can't stop seeing the design-by-committee, Amy likes how they look.

STATUS: Probably, unfortunately, the frontrunner.

Toyota Previa

These are all older, and due to their charm, much more expensive for what they technically are. However, they are bubble-era Japanese builds, which is famously high quality. They would be fun(ner) to drive, thanks to the rear wheel drive. And the funky way the rear seats fold up and the second row swivel to face the rear might - just might - provide enough room to haul all the bikes and kids.

STATUS: Hopeful saviour from Chryslery Doom.


2022.08.27 Oh, Yeah - Biking Is Awesome

Haven't been biking enough this year because of stupid reasons - mostly just insufficient free time and too many obligations. But managed to go up to Sandy Ridge today with the Friar and the Send Bro. It was so fucking good. I'm slow, and I'm weak, but thanks to the magic of the e-bike was able to not kill myself on the climbs and volunteer us for a second excellent lap.

Which reminds me - I still need to reserve a DH bike for Whistler in a couple weeks. Yikes - I'm so not ready for that.


2022.08.08 Wee Vanless

Sold the kei-class Mitsubishi Minicab Bravo today.

It's possible that it is actually a victim of its own success. The nominal purpose of the wee van was to haul mountain bikes, and if getting to ride in the wee van meant riding mountain bikes, both of my kids wanted in on the action. Unfortunately, the wee van only has room for 2 people + 2 bikes. So the wee van just isn't big enough to carry us all.

Plus there is the small difficulty with travelling at freeway speeds. And a total lack of safety equipment. And an inability to start in cold weather. And a lack of basic creature comforts.

Anyway, there needs to be a replacement crappy van to suit the increased crew + cargo requirements. The hunt begins now for Project: DEATH BOX.


2022.07.30 München VS Portland

I really like Portland. Lots of fun people, great food, and ready access to outdoor fun. But there are definitely two things that Munich Germany does so well that it makes me wish there was some way to import to where I live.

First: the subway system. It's goddamn magical, how well-integrated it is and magnificently run. Unfortunately, to have such a thing in Portland would involve an order of magnitude more investment than what we already struggle with to make our half-assed MAX system run. But I really do think that if we had something as fundamentally wonderful as das Münchner U-Bahn-System, we Portlanders would find the value in it.

Second: German drivers in general. Aggressive but capable. More than a few assholes, to be sure, but at least they're gone fast. My very first driving experience back in Portland was an enraging reminder of how fucking unskilled and oblivious Portland drivers are. Not really anything to be done easily about that either.


2022.07.17 Joys Of Home Ownership

Amy and I love our house, because of how perfectly it fits us and the kids, with a great walkable neighborhood, and a huge list of facets that make it lovely. Except, as every homeowner knows, houses are not static entities - they're a constant grind of repairs and improvements fighting against the endless tide of entropy. And when we bought The Battery (nickname brought to you by a dubious concatenation of initials) there was one big upgrade we intended to do: solar panels.

It took a little while to arrange, but we settled on the Tesla solar system with a powerwall battery backup for the house (and a grateful nod to the federal 10k$ tax rebate to make it happen). Significant delays were incurred as we waited for planning and approvals, but finally we had the system installed! Except, not yet commissioned because it needs final inspection for powering up by PGE (our local power utility). Annoyingly, PGE never got around to upgrading our service meter to allow for 2-way power delivery, but the resourceful installers at Tesla installed a parallel meter system that should work. However, this required completely re-wiring our breaker box - and it got pretty cramped. Still, everything worked just fine - or so it seemed.

A couple days later, apparently some yahoo crashed into a power pole a couple blocks away. This knocked power out for the neighbourhood, but also sent a power bump at the same time. The powerwall tried to cover for the lost power, but encountered problems. The problem became clear when the main power came back on later that day - three of our circuit breakers were unable to be reset. Along with it we were down the section of the house that powered the internet modem, our furnace controller, and dishwasher.

Some frantic calls to Tesla later, we were told they would get to us as soon as possible - after the weekend. So we limped through a warm weekend without AC, washing dishes by hand, and running an extension cord to power the modem. Monday came, and they verified that the breakers themselves needed replacement. But they could not get parts until the next day - but they could re-purpose one of the working breakers to run whichever circuit was needed to make the HVAC work again. So by trial and error it was determined that it was... none of them. Something else was wrong with the HVAC, and the dishwasher.

After the technicians left, we did some frantic research on what could be amiss. Everything we could find was fine - breaker on, reset switch reset, circuit board fuse was fine. So thought we had deduced that we had fried our smart thermostat controller. I rolled to the only store locally claiming to have the same model, so that I could just plug-and-play a replacement, and they didn't have one. They did have an upgraded version, though that required re-wiring the controls. Screw it - whatever. Bought it, installed it. Still didn't work.

We hoped that it was a combination of a fried control unit AND an unpowered circuit. Those hopes ended when the Tesla technicians showed up bright and early and replaced power to the whole house. Still no joy for the HVAC, or the dishwasher. They were not really permitted to do anything beyond the power distribution system, but did us the favour of testing the high-voltage fuses for the AC - which turned out to be blown.

So we went to an electrical supply store to purchase some replacement shotgun-shell-sized fuses. And the HVAC still didn't work. So we were left with having to call HVAC technicians, and the earliest available appointment was two weeks out.

-sigh-

Luckily, Pyramid Heating & Cooling called a couple days later to say that they had a cancellation, and they could come immediately. Well, not immediately - because it was the afternoon and since our furnace is in the attic it would be horrific. But they did swap us with another customer the very next morning.

In the meantime, we got to work on the dishwasher, with the working assumption that it had a fuse of some kind that was also borked. So we disconnected it and pulled it out to find that it has no such protection feature. Time for a new dishwasher. Which was fetched in the uber-charming wee van, to the delight of the Home Despot workers who helped us get it. Which in itself is a minor miracle, because it turns out that Home Depot doesn't stock appliances - except that happened to have accidentally been shipped the exact one we wanted. Which was fun. Brought it home, installed it, and it works great.

Pyramid technician shows up and listens to our tale of woe. He said, "I have an idea". A few minutes later, "YEP - your transformer got burned out." Replaced it handily, and our HVAC comes to life and was working great. The feeling of relief was a welcome change.

...

Which lasted for a few days. Then yesterday we noted that the AC was not actually able to cool the house. We futzed with sensors and settings, but the awkward truth is that it is running the AC and the blower fan and we're getting an insufficiently-cool draft.

Time for another call to Pyramid. When they open on Monday. GAH.


2022.07.10 Missing My Little Vampire Slayers

This was the first week of vacation, which I'm taking in alternating weeks while I've got the kiddos. And we got to spend all of it doing all the things as well as lots of down time. Bike riding, D&D, walks to the park, playing Magic, learning Python, beach trip, yardwork, and lots of naps.

The week was somewhat impaired by a power bump and outage that revealed a flaw in our newly-installed solar+battery system (not yet commissioned) which left part of the house without power - so we've had to improvise powering the internet, be mindful of regulating the house temperature with airflow, and washing lots of dishes by hand.

The crescendo of the week was last night - as the Spice Girls (the party name for the D&D characters) stumbled upon the secret base of a vampire pirate ship. In its entirety, the Pale Prow with its vampire spawn crew and its elven-vampire captain would have been wildly overpowered for the Spice Girls. But they happened to poke them before sunset proper, which allowed them to face the crew separately from the master, and with a couple Daylight™ spells was enough to let them prevail.

We perhaps ran a little too late, but fuck it - it's summer time and they would be stuck in a car all day on a trip to Canada with S. They get to camp in a fun tent trailer, but are completely insistent that they can't do it because of the impossibility of being civilized to each other. I struggled with how to ease this ridiculous impasse, and ended up outraging Simon by belittling the difficulty. Here's hoping he gets to sleep in the car.

And now they're gone for a week. And I'm am heartbroken. I just immediately miss them a ridiculous amount. I can't wait for our next week off together.

It really puts the foolish work anxiety in to context.












































































































That sure was a lot of scrolling you did without prompting. Perhaps you have read some of my other throw-away bits hidden down here, or perhaps you are just naturally curious. But I hope you feel, as I do, that the immersion of the moment is the key part of the experience. The existence of the chain of thought: "I wonder what's down here" - searching for signs of what this scrolling expanse is yielding - and then "OH, that's all, I guess."

But, really, that's all most places and moments are. Look around, literally and figuratively, and sense wherever you are.