Done last week (20160904Su - 10Sa)
This post covers most of my week-long vacation, so while it's not quite time for a wrap-up of my goals, I can say that I met about half of them. Which was about what I expected.
The big accomplishment for the week, without a doubt, was posting my one-line Linux setup/configuration package up on GitHub. (I then spent much of the rest of the week debugging and tweaking, but that's also to be expected.) It's called Honu, after the Hawaiian name for the green sea turtle, because a turtle carries its home around with it. The README starts off with this quote from my song, Windward, because I just couldn't resist: Where the wind takes us next year no turtle can tell
But we'll still be at home, come high water or hell,
Because home is wherever you carry your shell.
The implied puns on $HOME and sh(1) are, of course, entirely intentional.
Honu is meant to be fairly general; it's expected that any user -- including me! -- is going to want to customize the heck out of it. To that end, there's a sample customization package, also on GitHub, called Myrtle. Of course. (My own customization package, which you will not find on GitHub, is called Mathilda, after LookingGlass Folk's name for the narrator of "Windward".)
It hasn't been all roses and rainbows, however. I've spent an inordinate amount of time coping with the bindweed (morning glory's evil twin) that has overgrown the walkway along the south side of the house, sorting a year or two's worth of mail, and recovering from last week's disk crash on the server. I've been doing quite a lot of writing, though a lot of that has been on Quora, so I'm not sure whether that counts toward my daily writing goal, or away from it.
I'll say one thing for Quora, though -- it makes me appreciate my own knowledge and social skills. Being able to answer questions is a real boost to my self-confidence in both those areas. Who knew?
Psychologically, well, ... mixed. I've definitely been less stressed out the last two days of the week than the first two -- I was able to handle a trip downtown that turned out to be a total write-off, due to things being closed/not where I expected, quite calmly and even with a little wry humor. The check from last week's stock sale arrived on Tuesday, which helped. On the other hand, it still apparently doesn't take much frustration to put me back over the edge.
I was a total wreck on Sunday. I seem to handle stress a lot better when I'm by myself. With Colleen around, especially, I get into a horrible feedback loop. By the time I got home I could probably have used an Ativan, but my prescription on those has long since expired. I settled for reading and gin. Low blood sugar may have contributed; I'm not sure I can tell the difference between anxiety and hunger. Alexithymia in action.
I am not ready to go back to work tomorrow. I may never be ready. I'll do it, but it won't be pretty. Notes & links:
0904Su * up 4:35ish; W=204, P=124/86, p=61; laundry, dishes % I've been up for about three hours; I've probably spent enough time on Quora and FB at this point. (Still a few stories on DW that I could read, but that's reading time, not social media time.) Time to try something else. * Writing: 759 words in the weekly post. Ghod knows how much in Quora : Best use for old Nova may be as a router/gw/web server -- possibly after swapping boards with Polaris! Pity to waste that case, though. Or I suppose I could put everything back the way it was, but it would be a hassle and I rather like having the desktop and files on the same box. Shades of Central! * started on Honu with a couple of bfg runs. : Colleen tells me that the plant overrunning our South walkway is bindweed. Figures. There is also a patch of clover taking over the lawn from the southeast corner by the deck -- I'm going to let it. ~ Tried to go out for a drive with Colleen. Tire pressure warning light on, so tried to pump it up with the portable compressor. Didn't help, so tried to find a gas station with air. Failed -- the only ones required either coins or a real credit card. % By the fifth one and some tight driving situations, I was a wreck again. low blood sugar may account for some of that. % 2:10 61/126 60 135/79 73 123/79 71 % I do NOT know how to tell the difference between stress and low blood sugar. % Colleen pointed out that today is exactly a month after Amethyst's birthday, and that we didn't mark it then, but that she's thinking about her now. That may have something to do with it, too. % This was one time when I really think I could have used something in the benzodiazpine family to good advantage... ** Config -> Honu <- double star for a completed vacation goal. ~ Decided not to try to re-sequence the commits. As it is, it's pretty clean. * Out to get cat food and gin. Apparently I did manage to get the tires inflated to the point where the warning light is off -- I just hadn't reset it properly. So I won't have to go get tires this week. : Saw an couple -- maybe fifties or so -- crossing the street in front of me with their steps in perfect sync. As they got to the other side I could see that they were holding hands. "They've been doing this for a while", I said to myself. @ ysabetwordsmith | Marriage Wisdom " Marriage is like scrambled eggs. You never walk away from it, and you have to wait for the right moment. " *. 15min: Went out to the yard after dinner; pulled 7 bags of mis-bagged recyclage and 3 of garbage that didn't fit and put them behind the fence. Noticed that the yard trash bin was empty; filled it about 1/3 with bindweed from the walkway alongside the (former) garage. Which was, admittedly, the least overgrown section, but I wisely decided to stop before doing any more damage to myself. : Bindweed is morning glory's evil twin. * More work on Honu. README.md. Added pandoc and recommended packages in opt. About the only things left are removing savitzky.net references and adding some parameterization. Then updating Config, which will probably get renamed Matilda. Because, turtle. The public version of that will be called Myrtle. : I have an extra 2TB hard drive, formerly in a Vantec case; apparently backups from 2013. 7-day rotating backups but no sign of the weekly archives, unless I missed it. 0905Mo Labor Day * up 5:40ish; W=203.4, P=114/87, p=65; Shower, dishes,... laundry * 15min: took a used pizza box out to the garbage before the garbage truck arrived. Would have taken the compost bag too, but it was mostly empty. % 7:52 done with social media. * One story episode left from DW. * Noonish: pushed Honu to github. * Drive with Colleen - up 99 to Lynnwood; back via I5 * Repair http://steve.savitzky.net/ after MakeStuff and Honu changes * PAY: * Amex, * Wells, * Sound 0906Tu * up 5:45; W=204.4, P=135/79, p=59; laundry, dishes * work on Myrtle, and some corresponding changes to Honu's _bashrc ~ 11:15 Colleen UNW -> next week * 11:16 Morgan Stanley check showed up. Whew!!! * 11:30 expect call from Google - we'll reconnect in December * 15min: Bindweed. Got most of the way to the back door, though there are some stragglers. Might need hedge trimmer. * more work in Honu, being careful to preserve existing bin and dotfiles. * Myrtle pushed to GitHub. ** 4:30 take Colleen to dinner at Flying Fish - happy hour is 3-6, so plan on getting there around 5pm. -> Yum. Although the truffle fries were way too salty. Next time we'll go for more protein. ~ Colleen also needs to go to the UW clinic to have her legs checked on -> maybe not; they're improving. % 9:02pm: P=129/92, p=72 * More tweaking on Myrtle and Honu. More work on Mathilda, which needs more than just tweaking. 0907We * up 7:00; W=203.4; P=140/72, p=64; laundry ~ get some milk before the kids get up - they were already up when I came downstairs at 7:20. So... * Cleanup in Myrtle and Mathilda. They have not, of course, been tested yet. :P * TJ's for milk and honey wheat cereal x $A Affinity Group fair -- esp PWD. 11:30 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. Van Vorst Courtyard ~* recording with Naomi -> practice and track list brainstorming. Cool 2-voice arrangement of Rambling Silver Rose. Mina's Song, As You See @ Custom Poster Prints that Rocked our World - Xerox * Dinner: broccoli beef (since we didn't use the steaks for dinner last night) ... and Colleen's carrots, also from last night. Stupidly forgot to turn on the rice. (Thought I had, but apparently double-clicked or didn't click firmly enough) @ answer to What does it feel like to go through college with dysthymia? - Quora % 9:06 P=116/86, p=67 * prep for tomorrow: track down * checks and * passport photo for bank/post office trip 0908Th * Up 5ish; W=204.6; dishes @ While Americans fight over transgender rights, a Canadian province has a simple fix - LA Times (acelightning) @ Infinite Scroll | jQuery plugin, Wordpress plugin, interaction design pattern ^ note that Shoreline has BECU, Union Bank, a post office, and (on the way) the smog check place. * 15min: emptied mail cubby onto dining table, which I'm using for sorting. Sorted magazines into discard; maybe skim (Science and CACM); and skim, maybe read (American Scientist, Voice of the Carleton Alumni, Catalyst, Distillations) @ Building a new Tor that can resist next-generation state surveillance [LWN] : the mail sort so far has turned up a license-renewal form (with unpaid toll bills), several unpaid toll bills, and new debit cards for BECU and UBOC % Here's how the toll bill procrastination thing works: I get the bill; think "ok, I can pay that online. I need to set up the account"; and put it aside. And never look at it or think about it again. :P & checked on passport application. Good thing I did; the Shoreline PO doesn't handle them, so I'll have to go downtown, maybe tomorrow. ** Th get car smogged - the attendant told me my L rear tire was low. It was alarmingly so, so I decided to get air. ** Th deposit checks - (still a stack of Exxon dividend checks; I'll do that at BECU) Also most of C''s rent, which was in cash. Kept out the small bills. & got air for the van. By the time I got home the pressure warning light was on again. Added repairs to the list of things to do. * raise Colleen's weekly allowance to 250 to allow for grocery shopping. @ answer to What is love? A cliche question but I really wanna know what is love in other people's view. - Quora " I said to myself, in several different ways, “This is my very best friend ever; do I want to spend the rest of my life living with her?” The answer was always “yes”. After 40 years together as friends, lovers, and companions; through three daughters, one of whom died a month before she was born, a half-dozen love songs, my depression, three illnesses that nearly killed her, innumerable long walks, and over 14,600 good-night kisses, the answer is still, always, “yes.” I still don’t know what love is, but it’s something I’ve somehow learned how to do, and that’s what matters. " Kind of proud of how that one turned out. 300-something words. % 10:27 P=120/80, p=67 0909Fr * up 5:30ish; W=203.6, P=140/76, p=67; laundry, dishes * 10:50 - I should stop looking at social media at this point. Actually, about three hours ago. * fill out passport application online and print. * 15min: sort mail. Ongoing. Have most of the immediate recyclage done, so now I'll actually have to start _looking_ at stuff. : Nova is having trouble installing the PPD for the Samsung. Fortunately the Artisan 50 *just works*. -> The PPD I downloaded installs fine from CUPS, but doesn't work. -> apparently you have to lie to CUPS and say its a 3470 series. * Successfully installed Ubuntu on the former backup drive; used the two 34G partitions as root and home. Installed in the shoebox, which I'm calling "bluebell". *. Printed BNY Mellon tax form - found it in the email archives. ~. went downtown to the post office. Turns out *all* post office passport offices are by appointment only, which takes 4 weeks. The person behind the counter said there was one "in the courthouse", so off I went to the federal courthouse, which doesn't do passports and never did. There's an office at 4th and Lander, so I hopped on a bus to go there, but found that they had closed at 1 (was about 3:30 at that point). Got off at Cherry, walked to 2nd and Columbia, and got on the C. (It turns out on inspection that there's one in the _King County_ courthouse, but it would have been closed by the time I got there.) % went in to Ross after the post office, but decided I didn't need anything there. % I can tell that my stress levels are way the heck down, because none of that stressed me out. Although when you get down to it, I don't generally overload unless there's a deadline or I think there are people watching or getting impatient. * Bindweed. Cleared the walk from the raised beds back to the gate. It's all rolled up in a huge bundle; it'll take the electric hedge-trimmer to cut it loose. Lot of stragglers. * Test Mathilda setup on Bluebell. Had to add -y to apt-get in a few places. Honu asks about the mail setup -- might want to put mailutils in opt Something weird about the way it chained; probably have to download and source. % even when I'm basically unstressed, it doesn't seem to take much to flake me out. % 7:30 I just want to curl up in a ball right now. Not sure why % 7:37 P=129/84, p=79 * Set up repeat order from Petco. May have to be adjusted. 6 dozen every 2 months. * 10ish: bath. Nice. Cut it a little short because Ticia was meowing to come in, but didn't seem very comfortable with me in the tub, and the door kept closing so she couldn't get back to the bedroom. 0910Sa * Up 6:15; W=202.4, P=119/79, p=71; shower, (original reading 140/122) * buy something with each of UB and -household- _BECU_ cards to activate. Need a stand-up weed puller, maybe garden gloves, so that would be good for the household card, but in fact ended up using the BECU card not remembering in the moment that the household card still needed activation. Gloves, weed-killer, long-handled weed fork. * QFC on the way back for chicken Italian sausage and bacon * Bindweed. One more session will fill up the cart; it gets taken on Monday. % hot, sweaty, itchy, and tired. * some work on Mina's Song * many recursive chgrp's because there are a lot fewer users and groups than there used to be. @ US government: Stop using the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 right now | ZDNet fire hazard % When Ticia closes her eyes and turns toward me I just _melt_. I close my eyes too, and skritch her. I'm a pushover. % 7:03 P=135/72, p=74 & 8:30ish watching 2001 with C and C'
[Crossposted from mdlbear.dreamwidth.org, where it has
comments. Comment wherever you prefer; anonymous comments are allowed on DW only]