metawidget: A platypus looking pensive. (Default)
Yesterday was Father's Day and also two weeks into me sleeping in the new place. It's shaping up — I keep chipping away at the move; there are still boxes and bags in the front room at the new place but all the rooms feel pretty homey. Father's Day included going to Ada's concert where she sang '22,' which involved more Communauto adventure than anticipated — Elizabeth couldn't unlock her booked car, then I grabbed one that turned out to have a flat, and walked to the replacement. Third time lucky! Also, the concert was running late so Ada got to sing despite our travails. Afterward, we hunted for a brunch place and found a spot at Alpina up in northern Aylmer. They were slammed but nice and the food was copious and tasty.

In the afternoon I found a couple of items from the dregs of garage sales to fill out the kitchen and back deck, and then Andrea and Morgen came over and we went to the nearby city pool all together and had supper. It was lovely to show them around and splash in the pool (I'm not a huge swimmer but it was mostly goofing around in the shallow end).

Things are still mostly cordial with Elizabeth — she got brunch for us, she's offering to help with stuff — but August scheduling is presenting some challenges — trips and plans and kid preferences on what to participate in. More discussion required, I guess.

Union-wise: it's likely real, I plan on handing over the presidency of the subgroup (the local committee) to a young, keen activist (votes permitting) as I've wanted to for a while. That gets me to the state I have wanted to be in for a while.

Lastly: car and ferry booked for adventure with Ada! Lots more to plan, but it's getting real!
metawidget: Person sitting cross-legged from the rear, in black and white with noise and scratches (body)
What have you done lately for improving or maintaining your mental health? What more would you like to do?
I have been getting outside and moving almost every day — running, walking, biking — most days for an hour or more. I'm lucky to have that time to do it, and it feels good to move, get fresh air, and see my local area and how it all fits together. I know where my tofu burgers come from! I know how to get between neighbourhoods! Also, I got my first dose of COVID-19 vaccine (Team BioNTech/Pfizer for the curious, although really Team Get Something In My Arm), which is one thing off my mind and a step toward getting to the After Times.
When did you last eat something specifically because it was good for you?
I think the only thing I "eat" for health reasons is actually making a point of drinking water. I'll remind myself to take it easy on something rich or vapid but I try to eat things that I like eating.
These days, what are you learning about, and what would you like to learn about next?
Management, union-ing, exercise training (taper! cross-train! stretch!), 18xx games (mostly 1846).
What’s positive about your physical appearance lately?
I trimmed my hair and beard yesterday! And I'm a bit sleeker than pre-pandemic thanks to all this running.
What will you do this weekend to bring joy into your life and a smile to someone else?
I'm going to play silly online games with a friend living alone, help make nice food appear for Mother's Day, and DM a D&D session with some of my favourite people. And probably get outside on feet or wheels.

From f.riday5.com

metawidget: Person sitting cross-legged from the rear, in black and white with noise and scratches (body)
Rands muses on something I've felt has been rattling around my memescape over the past couple of years… being from the memescape, it's not groundbreaking but it's what tweaked me to post.

It's been a bit of an autumn… a little over a week ago we lost a radical elderly Druid (never a Druid elder, she insisted that was a kind of tree). Her passing was a surprise to everyone and I can still hear her voice in my head when I think of her. Elizabeth made a list of little tributes to her including picking up trash, gardening over more lawn, being kind to animals and looking for meaning, and the one thing I can think of to add is chipping in a little extra to the food bank and to people facing oppression (most recently the Mi'kmaw fishers being terrorized in Nova Scotia).

We're also trying to wrap our heads around holiday plans, avoiding as much marginal risk increase as possible and still make it happen — gathering with who we can, distanced present drops and walks with others, Zoom and Canada Post with further flung people and cooking up a storm. We're going to make it happen. And whenever things are sufficiently normal we'll gather again with people we haven't gathered with in a while. Not being able to visit makes me miss people more.

Work is also pretty intense lately; there are urgent projects and personalities to wrangle; I'm feeling like I'm more in manager than statistician mode right now. My supervisor says I'm doing fine but I'm not always so sure.

I've been running regularly and keeping track on Strava (find me there under my real name if you're interested). Quantifying it motivates me — in these first few months I've gone from being able to sustain a run for under a kilometer to being able to do 10+ km at a moderate run or a mixed stagger for over 20km when I'm feeling really ambitious. My shirts fit better too, and it makes the neighborhood feel closer together feeling that more of it is reachable on foot.

Podcasts

Dec. 13th, 2015 10:54 am
metawidget: My full geek code.  Too long for DW alt tag, please see profile if interested. (geek)
It's been a while since I posted, and this has been sitting on the notepad for a while…

When I was at work, I listened to a lot of podcasts to damp down noise from the floor while doing not-too-intense work. At home, I find time here and there — while cooking, sometimes while the kids play if the kids are off doing their own thing, while on the bus to grab a car… it's a small luxury to let a chunk of consciousness run around with smart, different folks across Internet audio.

Here is what I manage to listen to regularly:

Spark from CBC Radio: Nora Young has the best radio voice among living radio hosts, in my opinion (Lister Sinclair gets best ever). The podcast is mostly about technology, but in an expansive, humane way that often focused on usability, accessibility and the creative uses people come up with for existing technologies.

Death, Sex, Money from WNYC is a show of long-form interviews touching on the title topics (usually all three of them) with people who have lived through some interesting stuff.

Planet Money from NPR is a show about economics for laypeople — sometimes they do a show on explaining a hyped topic (What is a collateralized debt obligation? What just happened to the Chinese markets?). Sometimes they look at something mundane and explain the minutiae (t-shirt manufacturing, raisins) and sometimes they follow a person's cunning business plan with an eye to what economic mechanisms are in play underneath (a y taxi medallion empire, for instance).

More or Less from BBC Radio 4 is a show of statistical fact-checking: from political claims to memes about toxic levels of banana consumption (hint: absent a health condition that makes you super-sensitive, you will have trouble keeping down enough bananas to kill you via potassium or radiation poisoning). It's funny, chatty and a neat way to think about all steps of the statistical process while finding out what's preoccupying Brits who listen to or make geeky podcasts.

I also listen to and enjoy Savage Love (US politics and relationship advice), Polyamory Weekly (charmingly indie relationships and media watching), Radiolab (lovingly crafted, humane stories touching on science) and Dan Carlin's Hardcore History (passionate lectures on a huge range of history, mostly military and political, with lots of quotes from original sources and psychological guesswork — and a voice and delivery that I like but is hard to be neutral on).

Any suggestions I might like, especially in the 15–30 minute range?

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