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0·1 month agoPacking/moving. We’re almost done, but discover another part of the attic around a corner. It opens up into a multi-level mall-like area (but with narrow stairs) full of dining room and bedroom furniture sets. It all needs to be out by morning.
These guys claim to want a degree, but really will take a warm body:
https://careers-tierpoint.icims.com/jobs/2572/operations-technician-i/job
The pay is still peanuts, though.
Hurin Thalion. Excellent choice. I like you.
I was a lazy jerk that just bombed out of the local college in record time. I figured I’d try photography trade school. She was a natural artist with no plan and picked the same trade school. We were in the same 6-month program. She specialized in lab work, I went into product photography. Class started October 1984. We had several family deaths, financial ruin, and other calamities - but supported each other through it all. Lived with family and in the car. Got my life on track in my 30s. Bought a house in 2000, married in 2004, kid in 2009. Now a boring but desperate suburbanite staring down the next downsizing wave and big medical bills.
Slackware. About 1994 or so.
The Dispossessed, The Lathe of Heaven, and The Left Hand of Darkness - by LeGuinn
The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion
Dune
The Screwtape Letters - C.S. Lewis
Stranger in a Strange Land
I have two.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1981_Brink’s_robbery Summary: an armored car was robbed by desperate “most-wanted” types. Bug national new.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gilchrest_Road,_New_York,_crossing_accident Summary: school bus full of kids hit by a train. The reason why “this vehicle stops at all rr crossings” is a thing.
“How to Win Friends and Influence People” was published in 1936 and is still useful.
A foot-in-the-door job is colo datacenter tech. I know a major national company that pays about $20/hr and will take what they can get at that price point. Not interesting, not promote-able, bad schedules. But a resume item. Exposure to enterprise-grade equipment. While there, get the advanced certs you realy want and work on networking with the customers and vendors.
VisiCalc
4·9 months agoI have inherited about that many photos. Old family photos back to 1900. I’d like to know how you manage that many. Scan, sort, search, index, store, etc.
We had a difficult move. In that first chaos, we saw the folks across the street with their kid - the same age as out kid (6 years old). Now, I know where they live, and it’s a nice neighborhood, so I asked if they would mind a “playdate” at their house for the next few hours (aka babysit). They were happy to do it.
But I should do this in order:
Directly behind us was Agnes. She had the bad kind of dementia, and her daughter (a nurse) was trying to hold it all together. But there was a LOT of screaming as Agnes had no recall of her daughter and thought she was a robber/killer. I had been in a similar situation years earlier and gave our sympathies to the daughter. Agnes died that year and they sold the house.
Clockwise, our left-side neighbor is retired. They winter in Florida. The son is a mental case - shouting profanity and obscenities on the phone at all hours on his back deck. We can’t use our deck for the first three years. It mitigated later on. But no relationship there.
Across-left is a VERY private family. Eastern European accent. Grandmother, mother, 3 teen kids, dog. We are told the dog bites. Always pleasant. Never much to say.
Across the street is a busy house. He does some kind of dirt-moving-landscaping thing. Wife is smiley and quiet. Older boys, and a girl in middle school. We ask for a quote for some work like he did for his left-side neighbor. Says Sure, then blows us off. Three times. We don’t talk now.
Across-right are the folks from the first story. They have TWO kids. Girl is 2 years older. We became close and still are. The boy becomes a stand-in brother for my son. Like brothers, they have nothing in common, but make it work.
Right-side has the opposite: boy is 2-years older and the girl is the same as my kid. So that’s 5 kids at the grade-school bus stop. Every morning the three families stand out front with coffee and chat. wait for the bus, send off the kids, chat some more, head off to work.
The right-side folks have become our closest friends. Wonderful people. We mow each others’ lawns, depending on who gets to it first. Outside movie nights in the lawn between the houses. Built matching COVID gardens next to each other. Kids do homework together.
Oh, and back to the backyard. The folks that moved in have a Brooklyn mentality. Squirrels are rats and need exterminating. Every yard needs a fence. Loud music at parties. Suspicious of any new folks. My wife had a bit of that when we met, but lost it after a year or two. I doubt these folks will warm to us, since the fence they put in is 8’ high.
There are others further off. “The folks with the Red Setter”. “Old Italian Cranky guy”. “The guy whose wife died”. There’s a zombie house on the block - unoccupied for 7+ years. “ZZ-Top dude” - he has a long beard). All folks that walk around the block in nice weather. We wave and smile. Chat about dogs or the weather or the garden if everyone is cheery.
It seems a good idea to remain civil (or silent) - neighbors with grudges make life miserable all around.
If you can find a new one. They are $45+ on ebay used. None of the usual US sellers has any.
Creative Commons: BY SA NC
Fly her apart then!
61·11 months agoAs I understood, that was one intent of the electoral college.
Nice mention of Feather. Excellent. I find them more effective but less forgiving than Astra. A superior tool for someone with experience. I always recommend Astra for a beginners first pack and Feather after the first month or 2.
Some RPG tables are heavy on the RP. You might try your local game store.
If you have a local Renfaire, they often take on inexperienced folks for atmosphere. Very low bar of entry.
My wife and i went to Tortola in '99. Everything went wrong, and we still had a good time. If things had gone right, we might have never left.
That said, the off-trail areas of the state parks of north NY, NJ, PA, up to Canada and into Vermont) are where I feel most at peace. A quiet cabin on a lake ten miles from a small town would be a perfect place to retire to.