Done Since 2025-08-10

Aug. 17th, 2025 09:49 pm
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
[personal profile] mdlbear

It doesn't feel like it was a long week, probably just because I don't remember too many bad things about it. Kaleidofolk had some very good rehearsal/practice sessions, and I got to read the draft of the book that N is working on. On the other hand, my back has been giving me trouble and still isn't back (pun intended) to normal. Pain, as it turns out, uses a lot of energy. In other news, it finally occurred to me to look up symptoms of cataracts and connect the dots with my night vision problems. Duh.

I spent Monday afternoon through Thursday wearing a blood pressure monitor. I'm now on a calcium-channel blocker. So we'll see whether that helps. And whether the infusion of iron I got on Friday helps with my anemia.

I seem to be sleeping a little longer, possibly because of increased cat cuddles. And if you look down to the very last entry from yesterday, you'll see that I refer to Ticia's "hunting call" -- the sound she makes after pouncing on a crinkle ball. Sort of a cross between a purr and an angry growl. Scared the heck out of me the first time I heard it. Now it's just incredibly cute. In the morning I found the crinkle ball on the floor at the foot of the bed. Several times this week I found them on the bed.

She still won't play "fetch" though, and she doesn't chase them the way she used to half a decade ago. Of course, she's an old lady now, and needs to look out for her dignity. Or something.

In other news, according to this report, students retain more from reading than they do from podcasts of the same material. (One can easily imagine confounding factors that they didn't take into account, but...)

If you're thinking about letting an AI do your programming for you, you should probably read this first.

Notes & links, as usual )

catamariner: (Default)
[personal profile] catamariner
Um, I was supposed to be retired and able to spend time on music. Strangely, I got hired in the new city and so now I am back to filking as an after-work obsession. Ah well, still love astronomy too :-)

Instafilk, deposited here so I don't have to transfer it to my pad to sing it if the need arises...

"Scrollin’ for the Lyrics" a parody, TTO Rollin on the River 8/15/2025 at WorldCon; Heather Preston

Left a good con for the filk room,
‘cause I’d rather sing ev'ry night and day,
Happily I lost a whole lot o’ sleepin',
Singin' 'bout the things might be someday.

Big circle keep on turnin',
Filk singers keep on learnin',
Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' for the lyrics.

Sang a lot of Fish at Cons’nance,*
Played a lot of Hayes in Toronto too,
But I never saw the whole room know the lyrics,
'Til I hit OV-FF with you.

Big circle keep on turnin',
Filk singers keep on learnin',
Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' for the lyrics.

If you come down to the filkroom,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.
For the songs they love about the stars above and
If you want a turn they’re happy to give.

Big circle keep on turnin',
Filk singers keep on learnin',
Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' for the lyrics.

Scrollin', scrollin', scrollin' for the lyrics.


*Note: the last time I was at Consonance I did get to sing a lot of Leslie Fish songs but that was a long time ago! Still love the classics. And Frank Hayes is perfect anywhere: Atlanta to Toronto to Zanzibar! Nonetheless, we all find ourselves looking up lyrics online sometimes, and last night this occurred to me as I watched a bunch of us scrolling to support/harmonize with the filker who was up!

Thankful Thursday

Aug. 14th, 2025 08:33 pm
mdlbear: Wild turkey hen close-up (turkey)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

Done Since 2025-08-03

Aug. 10th, 2025 10:20 pm
mdlbear: blue fractal bear with text "since 2002" (Default)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Up and down. Ame's thirty-fifth birthday, and the atomic bombings 80 years ago. OTOH m's return from the US Wednesday, and for some reason I noticed being in a good mood shortly before bedtime. Possibly from getting out of one of my support groups early. Or it could have been something somebody said in the group. Also, my balance seems to be improving a little after finding a test that I can practice against. But I should also find some exercises.

Not exactly a good week for walking either. I skipped Tuesday because (IIRC) I was running late after helping N give Cricket her meds, and had a doctor's appointment after that. Then I did something unpleasant to my right ankle Friday morning, probably on the stairs with an excessively heavy bag of garbage. (Mostly cat litter.) I went to the end of the block and back this morning but didn't want to push my luck. I have no idea what became of my little plastic bin full of knee, ankle, and wrist braces.

On the gripping hand, I have the old household server, Nova, running again. That's notable mainly (only?) because it's still running Mint version 21.3, so it still has Python 2 installed, so I can run my Dreamwidth posting client on it. (I also have it on Raven, but N is borrowing it. When she's done with it I'll be able to upgrade it.)

Nova is headless. I could ping it, but not ssh to it, which turned out to be because it was on the wrong subnet. Fixable by widening the netmask on Nova and one laptop. That was an interesting exercise, though, because I had to do it over ssh (i.e. without a display), which meant that I had to learn the text user interface for Network Manager. Feeling mildly accomplished from that.

Also, m and I had a good rehearsal of Ship of Stone yesterday. The plan is to do one song per day to use as scratch tracks for the next album. My intended recording hardware was not cooperating -- I seem to be missing one of my large-diaphragm vocal mics. May have to fix that. Meanwhile I used my trusty old Zoom H2, which is perfectly adequate for scratch tracks.

In links, last week Mastodon was added to the Digital Public Goods Alliance’s Registry, which is pretty cool. And the World’s first Facebook museum helps users face the future after its hoped-for demise.

Notes & links, as usual )

So soon?

Aug. 10th, 2025 01:14 am
freyjaw: (Mike Rowe)
[personal profile] freyjaw
Dad's sugar tanked again, but they couldn't get it up. They sent him to the ER, and he's now back in THC (chortle). He really needs to stop crashing his glucose. (I know he doesn't do it on purpose.)

Bear had a case of needing petting, so she bunted me whilst I was in the bathroom. Our cats tend to hit us up for attention when we're there. Captive audience.

Cut that out!

Aug. 9th, 2025 12:47 am
freyjaw: (dirty jobs)
[personal profile] freyjaw
We got a call from Temecula Healthcare Center after 2300. Dad's blood sugar tanked very low (again?!), but they got it back up without an ER trip. Dad does go below 20 on occasion, where normal is roughly 80-130 mg/dl. That's not good.

Bear is doing well. No seizures, and Chris doses her with phenobarbital in a bacon-flavored paste that she really likes. Achilles still scares her at times, and he tries to look nonthreatening to soothe her. She let him sniff her rear, but sniffing noses is a seldom thing with them. She gets too nervous. Monroe misses sheet fight with Dad.

Thankful Thursday

Aug. 7th, 2025 05:14 pm
mdlbear: Wild turkey hen close-up (turkey)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Today I am thankful for...

  • Health insurance.
  • Apps that work reliably and well. (Thereby excluding the ones that don't, of which there is a greater number.)
  • Software that retains backward compatibility. (Thereby specifically excluding Python 3.)
  • Being alive. That is deliberately not saying much at this point.
  • Ticia. Thanks to Bronx is limited to those occasions when he isn't being nippy.

NO thanks to ANYTHING THAT REQUIRES USING A FSCKING PHONE.

River: Amethyst Rose: 35

Aug. 4th, 2025 08:50 pm
mdlbear: (rose)
[personal profile] mdlbear

Well. Today is my daughter Amethyst's 35th birthday. (I used present tense two years ago, and it still feels right. Past conditional is awkward and just plain wrong. If we can celebrate Washington's Birthday, I can celebrate Ame's.) This time last year her birthday fell on a Sunday, so it got attached to the weekly "Done Since" post. This year she has her own day back, and her own post.

Last year, too, we were getting ready to move to Den Haag; we have been here for ten months now.

G and I just raised a glass in her honor a little while ago, and I've sung her song, "For Amy". I don't seem to have much to say tonight.

"That's ok, Dad; neither do I."

"Good night, Ame."

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