#also it took like 5:30 hours on sunday which is when i managed to download ps and i had to finish it that day ashcgdsf

[moonflowerus]

Happy 5th anniversary, ONEUS!

#oneus #foroneus #hello i'm back #spent months without ps since i got a new pc and wanted a newer version #i know this isn't as nice as some stuff i've done but i hadn't edited in a long time #also it took like 5:30 hours on sunday which is when i managed to download ps and i had to finish it that day ashcgdsf #also can you believe i thought it was missing some silver sparkles and decided it looked better without? truly surprising #i hope that i can make gifs with this ps and it won't save like shit like before #mine #m:edit #*stars #*gh

[seniorsweeney-blog]

Starting Out: First days are universally the hardest days...

Day 1: August 13, 2019

I arrived in Uganda around 2:30 PM. It was a long journey (12 hours from New York to Dubai and then another 6 hours from Dubai to Entebbe), but we made it safely. Along the way, I watched movies, journaled, and began to read Melinda Gate’s book, The Moment of Lift.

I was greeted at the airport by Ruth, my host, and her cousin George, who I met on my last trip. After about 20 hours of traveling, I felt extremely comforted by a familiar face. We hopped in the car and made our way back to Kampala.

When we made it to Ruth’s house, it felt entirely different than last time. Everything might have looked the same or similar to what it was a year ago. However, during my last trip, I always had Ysabel, a fellow student, by my side experiencing everything. We had been chosen to work the internship together, live together, and be support sources for each other.

This time, I am on own, and being back in Ruth’s house without Ysabel made me confront that reality. Not only am I on my own, but I am also doing a completely independent project. There is no office space for me to go, no strict 9-5 schedule, and no manager assigning my tasks. I am in charge of finding a space to work, creating structure for myself, and finding people to interview.

I tried to fall asleep around 8:00 PM, but I could not help but feel a little overwhelmed by this reality. “What was I doing here?”, I thought. Doubts, worries, and stressors circled my mind and kept me up. This is often what happens to me when I have to deal with uncertainty. My mind thinks of all the things that could go wrong rather than the plan to make it go right. However, I decided to shut that shit down and play a guided meditation for sleep. Sometimes, when confronted with anxiety, this is the best way for me to get through it. The guided meditation urges you to “give your thoughts permission to leave you to take their own journeys for a while and join you again in the morning”. While this seems like the obvious thing to do after a long journey with limited sleep, sometimes it is helpful to have a reminder to tackle your problems when you are well rested.

I woke up again around 1:00 AM and luckily Maddy, a good friend, was around to call and chat. She heard me out, made me feel comforted, and reminded me that I am up for task.  Feeling more secure, I fell back asleep and let my mind and body prepare for the next day ahead.

Day 2: August 15th, 2019

Given my anxieties the night before, I really hit the ground running on my second day. I got up and called a friend around 8:00 AM, I ate a breakfast consisting of mango, pineapple, and a fried egg, and then I took a boda to Acacia Mall to get started.

I first tackled the problem of getting an office space. I visited a local coworking space called Tribe Kampala, where many researchers and internationals come to enjoy fast internet and a productive environment. I opened a membership, set up my WiFi, and sat down to work.

Next, I started to make a real tangible action plan. For my senior thesis, I am investigating the roles and experiences of teachers, administrators, policy makers, and nonprofits in integrating the refugee population into the national education through the Education Response Plan (ERP). I intend to start with the schools because they are hardest to reach from abroad and Ruth, my host mom, offered to drive me to these schools because she does not have much going on during the weeks.

While I had prepared a list of schools that I was interested in visiting before coming, I realized that I had to narrow down my target sample to schools that serve refugees. I had read in numerous reports that mentioned 23 schools with the highest refugee populations, but I was having trouble tracking their names.

I first attempted to narrow the sample down by identifying the subdistricts in Kampala with the highest refugee populations and creating a list of schools within those areas. Then, after four hours of work, by the grace of God, I found a list of schools in Kampala and their refugee count in their student population deep in the bottom of a UNHCR update from 2016. While collecting accurate information of the refugee status of students can be difficult because many children choose not to disclose this information, this was a start. With this list, I began mapping out the schools, tracking down their phone numbers, and creating a plan to visit them starting next week.

After working for quite some time, I headed over to Acacia Mall to buy a phone plan. Unfortunately, I forgot that I needed my passport to register so I had to put this task off for the next day. Instead of doing that task, I went to a café, had a passion juice, and practiced on my mental math to prepare for some case interviews that are looming in the fall.

Around dinner time, I met up with Ryan, a recent Princeton graduate currently doing a Princeton in Africa Fellowship which sets you up to work for NGO or Social Enterprise in Africa for a Year. He is working for Rockies, an organization that scouts a talent from across rural Uganda, recruits them for a performance troop, and pays for their training and schooling. He just moved here in the beginning of August and is already being thrown into work from grant writing to logistics.

We went to Meza, my favorite shawarma place in the world, and chatted about our experiences, our transition, and our lives. Then, we went to Wine Garage, a nearby lowkey wine bar, for their happy hour to celebrate meeting each other and my first full day in Kampala.

I ended the day feeling more confident and positive then before. I realized I wasn’t alone and that I had many contacts and many people I could reach out to. I also realized that I can make a plan and execute on it- it’s as simple as just doing it. I had plan to contact schools the next day and reach out more people.

This time when I got home, I worked a bit more, excitedly showed Ruth the schools, and called my parents and friends to tell them the updates. Things were looking up!

Day 3: August 15th, 2019

Today, was a longer day. I woke up a bit later around 9 AM because I was up until late working on logistics for when I get back to school and start working with the Glee Club. I quickly showered, ate breakfast, and ran out the door.

I made it to Acacia Mall around 10 AM and went to the MTN Mobile Provider Office to set up my local number (finally!) Pro Tip: Always do it at the airport- it might be more expensive, but it’s easier. It took about an hour to get all set up and squared away with a phone number, but I practiced on my mental math app in the meantime. While I wanted to have been watching Stranger Things, the last thing I need right now is more mysteriousness to creep into my subconsciousness.  So, instead of watching those pre-downloaded Netflix episodes, mental math it was.

After, I finished setting up my phone. I went to Tribe Kampala and began to make phone calls. The first 10 schools I called either did not pick up or were invalid numbers. Finally, 11 calls later, an administrator told me that I must go through the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to interview students (yay bureaucracy!!).

With this new development, I called the KCCA to figure out the process to get their approval and introduction to schools. I found out I needed to provide a letter of introduction from my University providing the details of my work. So, for the next hour, I printed and assembled a packet to bring to the KCCA. I then took a safe boda to the KCCA, walked into their massive complex, and was directed to the department of education for approval. I handed her the packet, explained my time crunch (only 3.5 weeks), and she told me that I can expect to hear back from tomorrow with her feedback (Please say a prayer for this to work out). Despite this bureaucratic bump in the road, I am positive that it will all work out and that I am taking the steps in the right direction.

After this, I had a call with an associate at a consulting firm to learn about her experience and gather her advice. I also read a chapter in my Casebook and practiced more mental math (shout out to my sister if she’s reading this).

For dinner, I met up with Rosette, a former coworker of mine from the Bayimba Cultural Foundation, where I worked last summer. She has since left the organization and is on her way to the next thing in life. Here is a bit about her life because I think she is a power house and we all can learn from the way she walks purposefully through life and always demonstrates her value:

           She is the daughter of a diplomat, who recently passed away, and majored in tourism in her undergraduate education. She had always been interested in theater and drama starting with her work at her local parish where she led the Christmas Cantatas and taught Sunday School through drama. While working at Sunday School, a leader in the church took notice and offered her a job as her project manager. She worked there for a while, but after being dissatisfied with inconsistent pay, she looked to move on. 

It was around then when she made a close connection with the woman who would always write the Christmas Cantatas. She impressed the woman by tidying up her place and offered Rosette an administrator job. While she was happy at this job, she both lived and worked with this woman which made for difficult boundaries. It was around that time when she started going to the Bayimba Festival and connecting with their founder, Faisal. She became their part-time workshop coordinator as she continued working for the other woman often working early mornings, late nights, and traveling on the weekends for the Bayimba events across the country. After doing this for a period of a year, she realized that she had to get out and move on her own. Around that time, she met three international women hoping to rent out their place while they would be away. Despite not having the money at the time, she demonstrated her interested and moved forward with the opportunity. 

After working hard at Bayimba, the team there began to take notice and offered her a full-time position when the funding came in. She then was able to move out of the old job and house and start this new career with Bayimba. For the past 9 years, that had been her life. She worked as the coordinator for the Bayimba Academy- organizing workshops, inviting guest artists from around the world, and helping develop the young talent here in Uganda. 

Just this May, she resigned from Bayimba and began to take the steps towards her next phase in life. She is hoping to improve her education and eventually work to improve the channels for cultural exchange across the world and open people’s minds up to the broad arts landscape that is out there. She is brilliant, strategic, and has had so much faith and courage over her life. I am excited for her next adventure.

           Rosette and I talked for hours and she connected me with some music educators that serve refugee populations across Uganda who I will try to interview. She is one of those amazing individuals that leave you speechless at times.

           Now, I am in my room in bed at Ruth’s house next to the Oryx Petrol Station on Bukoto-Kisassi Road. I am exhausted, but so excited and ready for what will come tomorrow.  

[canaryatlaw]

OKAY. It’s Sunday night, I’m on the plane back to Chicago from Clexacon in Las Vegas. What a weekend man. I had such an amazing time with friends I already knew and ones I just met for the first time. However, much of how the con was run was an absolute shit show. I must’ve said a hundred times that being that they’d done this for like 3 years already, they should know better than to do the stupid kind of shit they were doing, and yet there we were. So that led to some crappy situations, but I still had a great time do to the awesome people around me. I can’t say I’d go again though, because it was just a very poorly run event and I’m (obviously) not afraid to call them out on it in public, because it’s clearly needed when they’re prioritizing getting every last dollar out of everyone rather than the safety/wellbeing of the guests and the experience of the congoers (and the sanity of their volunteers, for that matter. But I should start from the beginning.

I left off Thursday night right before trying to fall asleep. I say trying because sadly it did not come easy, I think I fell asleep finally some time around 4, which put me at like 3-4 hours of sleep for the night, which made me feel a lot more exhausted through all of the very long day I had. I think I woke up at 7:30 am on Friday, that sounds right. Threw the last of things together and got an Uber, picked up Jess and was on our way to the airport. Got through everything okay, for one reason or another they let us go through just the metal detector instead of the full scan machine thing which was nice because the whole machine is a giant pain. We got to our gate and waited, and got somewhat delayed but eventually got in the air. Landed about 1 pm Las Vegas time, so 3 pm for us, so it already felt like it’s been forever and we wanted to get there as soon as we could. We ended up taking a taxi to the place instead of dealing with their airport’s Uber procedures, whatever those were. It was a pretty short drive, so we got there and walked into the casino part, and proceeded to get very lost until we saw someone that looked like they would be going (take that to mean whatever you’d like) and begged them to help us which they readily did thankfully lol.

So with some help we got to the actual part the con was taking place at, and found our friends who were in line for the Avalance panel that was at 3 pm. They were fairly close to the front for the regular admissions at least, so we got fairly good seats. I was going to live tweet but since getting off the plane my signal had been very poor (apparently Verizon doesn’t get good reception in Nevada) and not only did the place not have WiFi, but some people were saying they actively dampened the cell phone signal to “keep people focused on gambling” or something like that which is wild, really, all of this leading to the conclusion that my battery was gonna die a lot quicker than normal and I couldn’t afford to live tweet. Clexacon is also really good about putting their whole panel’s online though (one thing to their credit at least) so I didn’t feel too bad about it. The panel was great though, Jes and Caity together are always fucking hilarious and they were honestly so bad at paying attention and staying on topic it was really funny. They definitely like, hinted heavily at several things upcoming in the rest of the season, I won’t get into it because I know some people don’t like spoilers so I’ll leave it there and say if you want to know more go watch the panel. It was really great though, and as was suspected, Katrina Law crashed it and it was hilarious.

After the panel we rushed over to Jes’ table as soon as we could, which took a minute because instead of the normal con set up where each celebrity has their own table, they were switching off tables in shifts more or less (a dumb mistake which led to issues when they needed the table for the next guest but still had a mile long line, one of many things they totally should’ve known better than to do). So we had to wait a minute and then get in line and wait for her to head over, which wasn’t too long. Jess got a photo signed because she had a nice new one and it let us talk to her lol. She was doing selfies but that wasn’t quite established yet, since the con had put out a whole statement saying there would be no selfies (and then the guests were like yeah right we’re gonna do them anyway, bless). So we talked to her for a few minutes about some spoilery stuff we had gotten told about and then moved on since she had quite a line already.

After that we walked around the merch hall for a few minutes before heading over to the photo ops, and oh what a chaotic mess that was! After a while we managed to get in the right place with the right people and then had to wait a while longer lol. But for that night we had a duo op with Caity and Jes with Season, Jayne, Jess and I, with a pose inspired by the breakfast club (I’ll post my crappy quality picture of the print out since they don’t have the digital downloads yet and don’t know when they will after this) which involved me lying on the floor lol so that was amusing, got to say hi to Jes and told Caity I’d see her tomorrow.

Once we were done with that we waited for a bit for other people that had different ops since they were all clumped together (singles for any of the three including Katrina, duos with any of them, or trios with all three) and then once we were all done we left to go to the Taco Bell, the infamous Vegas Taco Bell that you can get married in and was famously featured in Jess’ social media au that I didn’t read 😂 but it had become quite a big deal, so we walked for about 15 minutes till we got there. They were blasting music inside at like a way too loud volume, so after ordering and getting our food we ended up sitting at their little outside portion, where we could still hear the music but it wasn’t quite so bad, lol. So that was certainly an experience.

When we walked back to the con place we met up with some friends who had brought along some games and such for a game night, and we ended up playing games with them for several hours, which was very fun. We played one called The Resistance which is kind of like Mafia and whenever we play any game like that I will ALWAYS end up being the “spy” as it was in this case, and it happened both rounds we played 😂 it’s just more fun that way. We played a few different fun ones. It was getting late though and I was like high key tired, and since we weren’t actually staying at the hotel there because it was very expensive (though the rooms were very nice) so after a while Jess, Melissa, and I ubered back to the holiday inn where Melissa had gotten a room and was letting us crash with her lol. Our Uber that night was a red hummer, so that was wild. I was like getting deliriously tired at that point but I knew if I didn’t wash my hair it would look like shit in photo ops the next day so I forced myself to wash it quickly and then go to bed right afterwards.

I set my alarm for 8 or 8:30, I’m not sure which, but I got up and got ready for the day, grabbing a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading over to the con. The Nyssara panel was first thing that day but since we knew it was gonna be online anyway we decided to skip it in favor of Jes’ line on a hope that most people would be at the panel instead (there were actually a good number of people there, but I’m sure there would’ve been a lot more without the panel). So we waited a bit for her to show up and she started signing, then we had to wait a few minutes while she went and crashed the Nyssara panel of course in payback for Katrina crashing the Avalance one the day before, which we fully expected to occur lol. Then she came back and we got to her pretty quickly. I had her sign the op of her and Caity that we got the night before.

Once that was done we headed to the photo ops since they were shortly afterwards, also a shit show but no surprise at that point. I just had a Jes op, and I decided since I was wearing my Captain Marvel tank top I got from hot topic a few weeks ago I decided we should do the pose with our arms extended since that was their kinda thing, and it came out really well, I was happy with it. Once everyone was done with photo ops, which took a while longer, we went to the autograph/merch hall and decided to hit up Caity’s line while we could, I had her sign her side of the duo op from the night before and got some selfies, it’s always great to talk to her, Sara’s always gonna be my favorite character and a big part of why I love the fandom as much as I do so I always love getting to interact with Caity, and she seems like she remembers me pretty consistently at this point so that’s always nice.

Once we all got through Caity’s line Jes’ was still really long so we decided to go to the Black Lightning/ThunderGrace panel with Nafessa and Chantal, who were both super awesome and the panel was great. They were so much fun to get to talk to and it was good to hear the writers were playing the long game with their relationship since at the beginning of season 2 it looked like that might not be the case. Towards the end of the panel we were informed that Jes’ line had been capped, which was very weird because she was supposed to be signing till 5 and it was only like 3:45 at that point which is WAY too early to cap a line. So after the panel we headed straight over there to figure out what was going on. One of the other stupid things the con was doing was overpromising things to their VIPs and basically just letting them through over the regular admissions at a rate that was impractical and frankly just didn’t make sense. So there was a VIP line that was very long and looked like it might be being added to, and a shorter regular admission line. We basically decided to be stubborn though and see if we could play it out on the hope that if they tried to end it before we got there Jes would see us and want to talk to us basically, which I’m not sure how successful we would’ve been and did not at all know if it would work or not. But basically we planted ourselves at the end of the regular admission line on the premise that we were talking to our friend who had managed to get added to the line, and then as things evolved basically more people started getting in behind us which the volunteers were not happy about (I want to make it clear though, I’m not at all blaming the volunteers for the shittier parts of this weekend, that blame lies solely with the con and the decisions they made, including not training their volunteers for all the situations they should’ve been trained on, but the volunteers were just doing their job and I would never fault them for that) which was understandable but we were gonna try.

We eventually more or less got added to the line but there was zero guarantee we were actually going to get to see her.

At some point around 5 Jes wanted to stay through the line so she had to get moved to a different table since they were still doing their shitty system with the tables, and then had to lead the whole line over behind her, which we think they basically just put the entire VIP line in front of the regular admission people, even those who had arrived clearly after us, so we ended up waiting quite a while there with seeming little to no movement. After we had been waiting a little while they Black Lightning girls had come to the tables nearby and Nafessa didn’t have a line, so I ducked out quickly (with plenty of friends to save my spot ofc) to her table because I’ve wanted to meet her for a while now but never had the chance, and thankfully she was doing selfies so I got to talk to her for a bit and then take some selfies with her, she was really really great and I basically cried talking to her about how much I love the show and the character of Anissa so much and just how iconic it was to see the image of her standing there in her superhero outfits and having the bullets just fucking bouncing off of her after so many LGBT female characters were killed off often for very shitty reasons, I’m like tearing up just thinking about it now lol so I was really glad I got to meet her.

Once I finished there I ducked back into Jes’ line, which had finally seemed to move some so we were a little closer, but still had to wait a bit longer. Jes was a total champ because she absolutely did not have to stay for everyone there, but she chose to do so despite being super tired and worn out herself, so she gets major credit here. We got to see her finally though after going through way too much shit to get there lol, I got my op from earlier that day signed, but had to forego a selfie because I was out of cash lol. Oh well. It was sad because the only con coming up she has scheduled is the love fanfest which is in Barcelona this summer (and in case you were wondering flights to Barcelona for those dates are sitting solidly around $800) and we’re ofc not planning on attending that so having to say goodbye without knowing when we’d see her next was kinda sad (and of course we’ll be bugging HVFF like crazy to fucking invite her to their cons, ugh) but I was still really glad we got to see her.

When we finally finished there god we were all so wiped and hungry since it was almost 7 pm at this point and we hadn’t really eaten since breakfast, so we ended up taking an Uber to the closest In-N-Out which was of course a must whenever we’re somewhere there is one (usually California but in this case Vegas). It wasn’t terribly crowded so we were able to get a table and food fairly quickly, god their strawberry shake was so fucking good and their burgers and fries were great too. We stayed there for a while and just talked and had a good time before deciding to walk back since we now had food in our stomachs, lol (we were originally going to walk there but my stomach was already like mmmMNOPE and walking for 20 minutes would’ve been high key bad). Once we got back to the con place we met up with the game friends again and played for the rest of the night. We started with a game called joking hazards which is like cards against humanity but based on cyanide and happiness comics which I read religiously for years and you basically had to build the funniest comic strip and my entries had everyone cackling basically the whole time even if I didn’t win the round, it was just all really hilarious and fun. We moved on to some other games which were fun, around 10 or so Jess had to head to the airport because she had been planning on going to Star Wars Celebration Sunday (plans which got thwarted by unexpected snow in Chicago) so she was flying out that night and arriving at like 6 am Sunday morning. We kept playing till like 1 or so at which point everyone was just really tired so Melissa and I headed back to our hotel. I washed my hair again quickly and got ready for bed. One thing we messed up on was forgetting to bring any makeup remover wipes or otherwise makeup remover, and there’s only so much you can get off in the shower, so when I get home tonight I need to like, douse my face in makeup remover and get off all the damn mascara that I couldn’t get off for three fucking days. We headed to bed though, Melissa’s flight was early Sunday morning so we said our goodbyes and went to bed.

I was set to wake up to my alarm at 10 to an empty hotel room which did in fact occur, but it took a little longer for me to actually get out of bed because I was very tired lol, I don’t think I actually fell back asleep but I rested my eyes a bit more until like 10:26 at which point I convinced myself to get out of bed. I got ready and officially checked out of the hotel room (which just involved telling the front desk the room number and that we were checked out) and headed over to the con place, messaging a few various friends I had made since arriving since my original friends were now gone, lol. I met up with them shortly afterwards in the merch hall where we wandered around for a bit and I did buy some stuff, mostly small art stuff and a few buttons, before we headed to the short film festival that was taking place from 12 to 2. I grabbed a sandwich quickly from the little cafe they had and headed in. The films ranged between comedies and dramas of different subjects, they were all really good and several made me cry, one had me like on the verge of sobs at the end lol so yeah they were very good I’d say. Once those were finished they had a little talk with some of the film creators and actors that were there which was fun.

Once that event was done I headed back to the merch hall with one of my friends to find a few things, and once we were satisfied there we ended up walking out across the street to the New York, New York casino which had a shake shack, where I got a burger and a root beer float which was very good. So we ate and talked and had a nice time. We walked back to the con area after, my friend went to a pitch session and I went back to the merch hall for a final round before finding another friend and sticking with them for a bit, one of the tables had been doing a raffle so we waited for the results of that which was entertaining, then talked to a few vendors we knew, and ended up going back to my friend’s hotel room for a little bit. My flight was supposed to leave at 7:25 so I was planning on leaving the con for the airport around 5, but I had gotten an email from southwest saying it had been delayed half an hour, so I ended up staying until around 5:30 before saying my final goodbyes and getting an Uber to the airport.

The Uber ride was quick, check in was very easy and I breezed through security, again only having to do the metal detector, so I made it to the gate shortly after 6 and then had plenty of time lol. So I just sat and listened to podcasts and went on my phone while having it plugged into one of the outlets they had under the seats for about an hour or so until I got up and grabbed some Burger King for dinner, then returning and eating that while we started the boarding process, the flight before us ended up getting in a little late so I think our ultimate take off time ended up being like 8:10 or so. We’re supposed to get in a bit before 2 am Chicago time, which should be fairly soon since my phone is currently reading 11:25 pm Vegas time, which would be 1:25 am Chicago time. Of course I packed super light since I was carrying my backpack around all day for two of the days I was there, so I just have the shorts I wore today which was great for the 80 degree Vegas weather, but being that it FUCKING SNOWED in Chicago today I’m guessing they’re gonna be a bit less than adequate. Since I flew Southwest we’re getting into the airport that’s further from me, but the roads will at least be clear and you can just take the expressway up so it doesn’t take too much longer than the one that’s closer to me (which is always just a pain in the ass because it’s O’Hare but it’s where pretty much everyone flies out of except Southwest). So now I’m here, sitting on the plane and typing this. As things stand right now, Jess had gotten off of work tomorrow for Star Wars Celebration which she wasn’t sure she was gonna do on Monday but since today didn’t end up working out she’s gonna go, I was able to get a single day Monday ticket to go with her so we’re gonna get brunch at 10 and then head down to that con, lol, probably stay mostly in their merch hall and maybe meet up with some people, before going home to watch the Legends episode of course. And yeah, that should be fun. I’m running low on battery so I’m gonna stop typing for now, I’ll probably write a final few sentences once I’m home or almost home and about to go to sleep.

Okay, flight landed at 1:49 am, it’s now 3:08 am and I’m lying on my bed about to go to sleep. Goodnight peeps. Hope you had a good weekend too.

#daily journal #April 2019 #Clexacon #Jess tag

[thegentjimmy]

DJing, performing and loneliness.

I’ve been meaning to write something about this for a few weeks now. Firstly when I started to feel a little depressed again after months of feeling refreshed and reinvigorated. Secondly, after Avicii died and when a lot of my friends dismissed the situation stating “Oh well, his music was shit anyway.” And finally, during mental health awareness week, when I saw loads of people lighting up my social media, the news, and the world with positive messages that it is ok to feel empty, lost and hopeless sometimes, which is important to hear, even if it does start to sometimes get a little repetitive, acceptance is key - and it seems the world has begun to embrace mental health and the benefits of discussing it and being aware of taking care of our mental well-being in our daily lives. 

I’m here to talk about the darker side of my experiences within my job, a job which I love to bits. I get to play music in various forms for a living and I could not be more thankful that this and this alone, mostly pays for my electricity and food and rent. Although it’s not been an easy path, or a quick one - and the route to this situation has been dogged with difficult scenarios, the most difficult of all, constant loneliness. 

When I began DJing I didn’t even consider how much solitude and isolation I was entering myself into. I just loved music. My first residency was at a bar called SOYO in Sheffield - where I would play for 4 or 5 hours on a Sunday night. I’d spend hours all day picking out music for the evening, working on my mixes, downloading, researching, picking through old CD’s and vinyl in every charity shop I could find trying to ensure that my sets were interesting and varied every time - although it often didn’t matter because unless a big group of my friends came down to see me play (which they did quite regularly and I can never thank them enough for that) I would just have the general public mouthing off in my ear about playing more Rihanna and turning my shit soul music off. 

The flyer for my first ever DJ residency. 

My first night at SOYO playing “Mixtape” - I bought all these cassettes for about 5p each in a charity shop and carried them in every week for decoration.

I was also working a “normal” job at the time, in a hotel as a waiter and bar tender. I was offered a second DJ residency and quickly worked out the sums, in two DJ gigs per week, I would be earning more than I would for working 30 hours at the hotel. I took great pleasure in telling my bosses to fuck off on a particularly stretched evening where I was clicked at by a man who hosted celebrity dinners, the particular celebrity this evening was Trigger from Only Fools And Horses. He wanted more champagne. I wanted him to get shat on by a flock of seagulls (the band or a load of angry sea birds) Deciding that was probably not going to happen inside a 3 star hotel, I walked out instead. 

Practicing mixes whilst my housemates and I prepared for a night out on the town, no doubt a few beers in. Ironing board was a great DJ booth.

That was the second to last time that I worked as part of a “team” (there’s no ‘I’ in team, but there is an ‘I’ in ‘isolation’) and I’ve only just realised that now, writing this. I threw myself into solitude at work. Not only would I be spending long hours behind the decks picking out records (a lot of which I hated) to try and encourage people to have a good time, slowly honing my craft, earning my stripes - as they say, I would also be on my own during a lot of the day, picking out music for future gigs, emailing people to try and get work, practicing mixes, recording mixes, over and over again to try and prove that I was good enough, chasing up payments that had been promised but never delivered, all the while learning about music history, keeping up with current trends, emerging trends, reading about popular music in all its forms since the pirate radio days of the late 60′s - to 90′s rave and 00′s boy bands, really just attempting to diversify myself as a music collector and human - whilst most of my other friends were at work. And when my friends finished work and invited me out for a pint, for a birthday meal, round to their house to watch a film, or out on a date, I was busy working as many days as I could to make a living doing something that I absolutely adored. And gradually, the invitations stopped coming. And I didn’t even notice. I was obsessed with making playing music, my job. And going out after I finished my job with people that worked in bars and getting pissed because I was so desperate for human interaction. Sadly, a lot of these situations I can’t even remember. There could have been some great ideas discussed, but in all honesty, there probably wasn’t! 

My friend Ben travelled back to the UK from New Zealand. It was the first time I had seen him in 5 years, and I was obviously working. He bought us double rums all night. I was very ill the next morning. 

Playing the backroom at Replica, Sheffield. My remit was “Dubstep and Electro - cooler more underground music.” I was probably playing 50 Cent - Ayo Technology instead.

There was a point around 5 years ago, when I DJ’d every single day for 3 months straight. And because back then I was only just starting out, most of the gigs I did for free or for very little money. I didn’t have time to go and see my friends. I barely saw my housemates, although we did have some incredibly special moments during those years. Then, I took a job teaching - working in a small team of wonderful individuals and my entire outlook on everything changed. I was happier and fulfilled and I didn’t know why. I wasn’t feeling distant as much, even though this was only a temp job and it paid barely enough to afford food for the week. The interactions with other human beings were worth more than the £50 a shift, more invigorating to my happiness than a big bag of chips and a can of dandelion & burdock. 

With the Clothes Line gang - a few Red Stripes in, having a cuddle. 

I left Sheffield in 2014 and then my troubles really began. Now living in Leeds, I was short on work there, so travelled back to Sheffield regularly on the M1, via trains, on the National Express - usually alone. I would then DJ alone, for upwards of 5 hours, and then return home, where I would sleep - wake up alone, spend all day alone as my then girlfriend went to work, finding music, chasing gigs - mind constantly whirring, rarely allowing myself time to see friends, to see family or to relax - there were bills to pay and music was the only way I was going to pay them - and I would make it work. 

Playing indie bangers at Bumper in Liverpool - I caught the train and after the venue closed at 5am, I waited until 8am for the first train home sat on the steps outside Lime St Station. 

I fell into the worst part of my depression after the collapse of two relationships in quick succession - left alone to stew and process that heartbreak and misery for many hours a day as well as the usual non-stop work, travel, work, travel to work, travel work, work and non-stop work, that no-one even noticed that I wasn’t ok, because they were so used to not hearing from me. The assumption was (and still is in many cases) that I was that “funny guy” on their Facebook, that made them laugh or dance when they saw me (probably constantly drunk at this point, because I was absolutely fucking miserable) and not the guy that spent hours and hours on end in bed all day cry-laughing at himself for being a fucking hopeless loser and focussing on all the wrong things in a constant downward spiral of epic proportions. 

First ever designated dressing room at The Leadmill in Sheffield. 

A wonderful doctor friend of mine, Sarah, recognised I was depressed and encouraged me to visit my GP. I was in the GP for all of ten seconds, before I was dismissed with the NHS depression helpline number and told “It’s about a 6 month wait if you want to talk to someone.” Sarah then took it upon herself to ring me every day, even if it was just for 5 minutes - she’s a true credit to the NHS, her profession and a fucking good mate. She rang me every single day, without fail. She encouraged me to form a focus - and I decided to relocate to Manchester for a fresh start and new challenge. 

I’ve since had further help, a course of counselling at which my counsellors immediate opening gambit, when I told her how I was feeling and that I didn’t know why, was to say “Well it sounds like you’re a little bit lonely.” Things clicked pretty fast after that and I realised how important it was to make time to see your loved ones, the very thing I had been missing out on for years. 

Solitary figure playing music after our final year films had been screened at university. Palmed my own Dad off on my friends so I could play music most of the night. 

I’ve spoken to very few musicians, performers and even photographers/videographers/cruise ship dancers/fridge repair technicians that haven’t told me that at some point during their career they’ve not felt lonely - it goes with the territory of being self-employed or working in the arts/entertainment industry. It’s all “smiles for the gram” then smashing in a fucking gram, to forget that you’re fucking miserable and sat on your own most of the time, scrolling through your phone hoping that someone, anyone messages you with a better offer than “do you fancy sitting on the sofa in your pants going over your setlist for tonight again whilst simultaneously listening to 18 shit house remixes of the latest shit house record that you don’t really like but they’re hammering it on daytime radio so you probably better download it - just incase.” 

I’ve started interacting with my DJ pals more and more over the last year or so - and also the bar staff and managers in venues that I work in. Human interaction is hugely important and DJing/photographing/playing live music in bars and clubs can be a very negative environment, particularly when the general public often leave their manners at the door, or on the toilet floor after they’ve smashed in a few lines/tequilas. There’s a whole heap of rejection, huge highs that come out of the blue and big lows that shake you to your core, financially and emotionally - losing gigs sucks, being skint sucks, your favourite venues being forced to close down sucks, realising you’re too old to understand why students like certain songs sucks, being constantly berated and belittled as you just try to do your job on a Saturday night, by drunken wankers that apparently know more about music and the performing of music than you do, yet somehow, they appear to not have been booked to play this particular weekend SUCKS, being used as a cloakroom sucks, having beer spilled all over the thousands of pounds worth of equipment you’ve scrimped and saved for over the years and all over your favourite t-shirt DOUBLY SUCKS and walking out of a bar or club hoping that you’ve done a good job but not really being sure and having to then drive 3 hours home, on your own, via motorway closures, speed restrictions and road kill generally fucking sucks. But you can’t do anything else once that love has gripped you. You will play music until you die, until you breathe your last breath of grotty smoke machine fluid, get your last electric shock from a terrible bashed in plug socket in whatever bashed in, held together with sellotape club/bar you are playing in on the night and float off into the big DJ heaven in the sky, where there is a big sign saying “No morons, no requests, just 100% good music.” It’s in our blood. 

DJing is better with mates. Me and the Clothes Line gang at The Harley, the night we found out that we had been nominated for an exposed award. 

I’ve also found things that help to combat my loneliness at work, and the best ones are as follows. Having a group chat via social media with other DJ’s/Musicians that are working at the same time as you - sending jokes and laughing at other people’s shit requests in a group is wonderful. We also have socials where we all meet in person and laugh at people and their shit requests. And all the DJ in-jokes come out and we sit and make snide remarks like a bunch of gassed up Beyonce’s. Taking time off from weekend gigs, to socialise with friends, family and my amazing supportive and understanding girlfriend (DJ Widow Numero Uno and the best thing that ever happened to me) - I now try and plan my calendar a few weeks/months in advance so I can book these occasions in. Plus it gives you something to look forward to on the weekends/whatever other anti-social hours you are working. Taking time to try and engage with the public when they’re making requests (to a certain extent - I don’t let people take the piss!) cos as before, human interaction (even with drunk strangers that want you to play Cotton Eye Joe because it’s Sharon’s birthday and she’s 45) = Hugely important. 

The SXC Bois DJ massive on a social in Manchester.

Also I’ve very much enjoyed collaborating during music making, or music playing once or twice a month, so I’m not just sat on my own making weird pop music in our back bedroom. Most importantly, taking a bit of time away from music (although it is the second most important thing in my entire life) to engage in other activities. If you’re like me and your entire focus is on one thing and it engulfs your entire existence, it can become a bit exhausting, particularly for your friends who really, REALLY don’t care who you think the next best UK underground trip-hop swing crossover band are going to be, they just don’t care. They want to talk about the football. Go and watch the football. Music/work will be waiting when you get back. 

Collaborating with Duncan Vaughan, performing as Klixz for the first time, February 2018, at The Tuesday Club, Sheffield. 

The invitations aren’t flying in thick and fast, but I think that some of my closer friends have now started to realise that I’m not just constantly busy these days and I do want to see them and socialise and have fun. I always have, I just didn’t make them aware of it very well. And life is busy and sometimes things get in the way of hanging out with one another, but laughing at inappropriate jokes with good friends over a decent cup of tea will always make me happier than playing Darude - Sandstorm to a festival crowd of 2,000 people adorned with glowsticks. Well, it’s kind of 50/50 actually. But you can do both, on the same day, if you’re really clever. 

I hope this advice helps someone, even if it just makes you chuckle thinking about me hiding under my duvet severely depressing having a cry whilst at the same time laughing myself for how pathetic I am. Whether you’re just starting out or years into a career in music - loneliness is a real issue in the music industry and beyond - as if a constant fear of inadequacy, perfectionism, constant rejection, living hand to mouth, threat of going deaf and never being able to hear music again, venues closing and your car insurance premiums rising through the roof isn’t enough to send you over the edge, add in total unabridged loneliness to the bundle and you’ve got an unhappy sandwich soaked in misery dripping right there. But you don’t have to eat it. You always have a choice. 

Fuck loneliness. 

Your pal, 

Jimmy x

Useful links: 

24/7 helpline for musicians suffering with mental health issues:

https://www.musicmindsmatter.org.uk/

Musician meetup - if you’re in a new area and looking for someone to natter about Lou Reed and do a bit of jamming with:

https://www.meetup.com/topics/musicians/?_cookie-check=UiZDil7HvilO41v0

Musician’s Union - fighting for better lives for musicians everyday and a whole host of other useful links and help: 

https://www.musiciansunion.org.uk/

The Samaritans - free phone number 116123 (UK)

https://www.samaritans.org/how-we-can-help-you/contact-us?gclid=Cj0KCQjwxtPYBRD6ARIsAKs1XJ5sL3-1_5YZp5YtWVhvwwnPIWkzdNs4rqLCMML72ZB6es__6mne5IsaAjnfEALw_wcB

Thanks for reading! <3 

#music #musician #mental health #depression #dj blog #djlife #dj's #performer #sheffield #manchester

[techcrunchappcom]

New Post has been published on https://techcrunchapp.com/spacex-crew-dragon-departs-carrying-nasa-astronauts-toward-home/

SpaceX crew Dragon departs, carrying NASA astronauts toward home

By: New York Times | Published: August 2, 2020 9:16:49 am

NASA astronauts Douglas Hurley and Robert Behnken head to launch pad 39 to board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket for a second launch attempt on NASA?s SpaceX Demo-2 mission to the International Space Station from NASA?s Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, U.S. May 30, 2020. REUTERS/Joe Skipper

Two astronauts who took the first commercial trip to orbit have left the International Space Station. They are scheduled to return home Sunday.

Astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley traveled to the space station in May aboard a Crew Dragon capsule built and run by SpaceX, the private rocket company started by Elon Musk.

The Crew Dragon undocked from the space station at 7:35 p.m. EDT on Saturday, with brief thruster firings pushing the spacecraft back.

As the capsule backed away from the station, Hurley thanked the current crew of the space station and the teams on the ground that helped manage their mission.

“We look forward to splashdown tomorrow,” he said.

If the weather remains favorable, it will splashdown in the Gulf of Mexico off Pensacola, Florida, at 2:41 p.m. Sunday, NASA announced.

A safe return would open up more trips to and from orbit for future astronaut crews, and possibly space tourists, aboard the spacecraft.

Isaias is forecast to sweep up along the Atlantic coast of Florida over the weekend. NASA and SpaceX have seven splashdown sites in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic, but the track of the storm ruled out the three in the Atlantic.

“We have confidence that the teams on the ground are, of course, watching that much more closely than we are,” Behnken said during a news conference Friday, “and we won’t leave the space station without some good landing opportunities in front of us, good splashdown weather in front of us.”

How can I watch the return of the astronauts?

NASA Television’s coverage will continue through splashdown.

What will happen after they leave the station?

A: The capsule is now performing a series of burns to move away from the station and then line up with the splashdown site.

For much of the trip, Behnken and Hurley will be sleeping. Their schedule sets aside a full night of rest.

Any return journey that exceeds six hours has to be long enough for the crew to get some sleep between undocking and splashdown, Daniel Huot, a NASA spokesman, said in an email.

Otherwise, because of the extended process that leads up to undocking, the crew would end up working more than 20 hours straight, “which is not safe for dynamic operations like water splashdown and recovery,” Huot said.

Just before a final burn that will drop the Crew Dragon out of orbit Sunday afternoon, it will jettison the bottom part of the spacecraft, known as the trunk, which will then burn up in the atmosphere.

At reentry, the Crew Dragon will be traveling at about 17,500 mph. Two small parachutes will deploy at an altitude of 18,000 feet when the spacecraft has already been slowed by Earth’s atmosphere to about 350 mph. The four main parachutes deploy at an altitude of about 6,000 feet.

Once the capsule splashes in the water, it is expected to take 45 to 60 minutes to pluck them out.

Why does Isaias affect the return?

The storm complicated where splashdown could take place. At the splashdown site, winds must be less than 10 mph for the capsule to land safely. There are additional constraints on waves, rain and lightning. In addition, helicopters that take part in the recovery of the capsule must be able to fly and land safely.

The first landing opportunity will aim for only the primary site, Pensacola. If weather there is inconsistent with the rules, the capsule and the astronauts will remain in orbit for another day or two, and managers will consider the backup site, which is Panama City, Florida.

 Is it safer to land on water or on land?

Spacecraft can safely return to Earth in either environment.

During the 1960s and 1970s, NASA’s Mercury, Gemini and Apollo capsules all splashed down in the ocean while Soviet capsules all ended their trips on land. Russia’s current Soyuz capsules continue to make ground landings, as do China’s astronaut-carrying Shenzhou capsules.

When Boeing’s Starliner capsule begins carrying crews to the space station, it will return on land, in New Mexico. SpaceX had originally planned for the Crew Dragon to do ground landings but decided that water landings, employed for the earlier version of Dragon for taking cargo, simplified the development of the capsule.

Why is the return trip an important part of the Crew Dragon’s first flight?

A: After launch, reentry through Earth’s atmosphere is the second most dangerous phase of spaceflight. Friction of air rushing past will heat the bottom of the capsule to about 3,500 degrees Fahrenheit. A test flight of the Crew Dragon last year successfully splashed down, so engineers know the system works.

A successful conclusion to the trip opens the door to more people flying to space. Some companies have already announced plans to use Crew Dragons to lift wealthy tourists to orbit.

In the past, NASA astronauts launched on spacecraft like the Saturn 5 moon rocket and the space shuttles that NASA itself operated. After the retirement of the space shuttles in 2011, NASA had to rely on Russia, buying seats on the Soyuz capsules for trips to and from orbit.

Under the Obama administration, NASA hired two companies, SpaceX and Boeing, to build spacecraft to take astronauts to the space station. NASA financed much of the work to develop the spacecraft but will now buy rides at fixed prices. For SpaceX, the trip by Behnken and Hurley — the first launch of astronauts from American soil since the last space shuttle flight — was the last major demonstration needed before NASA officially certifies that the Crew Dragon is ready to begin regular flights.

 Who are the astronauts?

Behnken and Hurley have been friends and colleagues since both were selected by NASA to be astronauts in 2000.

Both men have backgrounds as military test pilots and each has flown twice before on space shuttle missions, although this is the first time they have worked together on a mission. Hurley flew on the space shuttle’s final mission in 2011.

In 2015, they were among the astronauts chosen to work with Boeing and SpaceX on the commercial space vehicles that the companies were developing. In 2018, they were assigned to the first SpaceX flight.

 What have the astronauts been doing aboard the space station?

Originally, the mission was to last only up to two weeks, but Behnken and Hurley ended up with a longer and busier stay at the space station. Because of repeated delays by SpaceX and Boeing, NASA ended up short-handed, with only one astronaut, Christopher J. Cassidy, aboard the space station when the Crew Dragon and its two passengers docked.

They stayed two months, helping Cassidy with space station chores. Behnken and Cassidy performed four spacewalks to complete the installation of new batteries on the space station. Hurley helped by operating the station’s robotic arm.

The men have also been contributing to science experiments in low earth orbit. They assisted in a study of water droplet formation in the low gravity environment of the space station using a shower head, and another that used fruit punch and foam to look at how to manage fluids in space. They also helped install new equipment inside the station that will be used in future scientific research.

Cassidy will remain aboard the station with two Russian astronauts, Anatoly Ivanishin and Ivan Vagner. All three are to stay on board through October when another crew of one American and two Russian astronauts will replace them.

When are the next Crew Dragon flights, and who will they carry?

A: The first operational flight of the Crew Dragon will launch no earlier than late September. It will take three NASA astronauts — Michael S. Hopkins, Victor J. Glover and Shannon Walker — and one Japanese astronaut, Soichi Noguchi, to the space station.

The second operational flight, tentatively scheduled for February 2021, will carry two NASA astronauts, Robert S. Kimbrough and K. Megan McArthur; Akihiko Hoshide of Japan; and Thomas Pesquet of the European Space Agency.

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[ginasneesby]

New Zealand 2018 - first week

So I did it, I planned to move to New Zealand for a year and I actually did it. The last thing that I decided I wanted to do and actually did was to start tap dancing when I was 15 so it's only taken me another 14 years to achieve something I said I was going to do. Obviously, that doesn't include uni and London etc because that was a natural step, this is so far away from my normal life it's a little scary but I'm also very excited for what the year will hold.

I flew on the evening of the 9th of January and was escorted to the airport by my parents, my sister and my two best girls. We had a meal and a drink, I was given some lovely presents and then I made them leave me so I could go sit at the gate and not make a big scene in the departure lounge. I'm going to miss everyone like crazy but I hope travelling and having new experiences will fill that gap; at least a little. My first flight was about 14 hours long, luckily I had nobody sitting next to me so I had a bit of room, but I was also trying to stay awake this journey to try and get on the right time so I watched films for most of the flight and didn't mind being in one seat and up right. Of all the films I watched Deepwater Horizon was probably the best one it made me forget that I was on a plane which is always good when you're sat down for so freaking long. I stopped off in Manila for 3 or so hours, it wasn't too bad although it's a weird feeling to be tired so you want to sit down but also want to do anything but sit down because that's all you've done for the last day and will do again for the next 10 hours. There is also absolutely fuck all to do, so I spent my time listening to sense and sensibility on Audible, I wish I downloaded a better book. The next flight was 10 hours I was in the middle of 4 and every seat was taken and I noticed there was no entertainment system in front of me. Ho Ly Shit!! Luckily my plan was to sleep for most of this flight, I managed about 5 hours having had a little kip on the first flight, but that still meant 4 hours until we landed with no films to watch and nothing downloaded as I have no memory. I can't tell you the last time I cycled through Candy Crush, Angry Birds and other such games for such a long time all while listening to Jane Austen. It was a very boring few hours, but I made it! I landed, collected my bags, got through immigration and customs and after a desperate cigarette got a shuttle which took me straight to the door of my Airbnb in Grafton. I was determined not to ruin the good work I had done on the plane so even though I was pretty tired I went out for a walk found the local supermarket and bought a few things for dinner. It's quite an experience walking around a supermarket hungry and jetlagged, you can't make any decisions on what you want to eat but you kind of want everything, after I walked home with the food I then wasn't hungry at all so I had a few chips and dip and went to sleep. I woke up at 3 o'clock in the morning really hungry so ate a little something, luckily I managed to go back to sleep easily and woke up at a more reasonable time.

My first job was to try and find a car, I had a budget of about $2,000 which is about £1100, it didn't have to be anything spectacular it just had to last me a year! Maybe I was looking in the wrong place but nobody really had cars for that price, they were all a lot more expensive, one dealer did have a car in that price range, it was a bit older than I would have wanted but I thought I'll have a look and take it for a drive, however he came back to tell me but they'd actually lost the keys about a month ago. Good work guys. So a bit deflated and a bit sunburnt, why did no one tell me it was going to be so hot! I trekked back to my Airbnb stopping at a pub, an Irish pub obvs, and then decided to go to an off licence to buy some more beer and try to salvage the day. That's always the best thing to do when you're worried about how much to spend on a car, right? Spend it on beer instead and then the issue is gone. I have to say I did have a lovely evening sitting by myself, on the deck, in the sun, getting slightly tipsy and watching comedy programmes on Netflix (Jess is a life saver!) Although I was slightly surprised, it being Friday night that no one else in the Airbnb appeared or even came to say hello, luckily it wasn't my proper accommodation; that would be really sucky.

The next day I had arranged a number of viewings for places to live, the first one although a nice room was living with a family which I didn't realise, yeah no thanks. The next one was quite nice but unfurnished and quite a long way from any shops or pubs, it was on a highway which would be really helpful to get to work but not so fun when you have to drive everywhere. Also some of the neighbours have swimming pools which the girls who lived there said was actual torture on hot days; however it was still top of my list. The third one was a small room which didn't even fit the bed in and there was only one bathroom between me and two boys, it was also upstairs so I would have had to trek through the house if I needed a wee at night. There was also the slight problem of both boys being vegan, yeah no thanks. I had a few more viewings the next day so I wasn't too worried although it's always slightly nerve-racking when other people have viewed, if they didn't pick me, I may have been forced to live somewhere awful. That evening I have plans to go to dinner with my two aunts who came to New Zealand that day and we're heading down to Queenstown to see my cousin play in the under 19 England cricket World Cup team, of all the places in the world it could have been held, it was here. It was very nice to see some familiar faces and actually talk to some people as I haven't really done that for a few days unless I was buying something. We went to a really nice Thai restaurant called Saan where they recommend you buy the large dishes and share them, we shared some starters and have some smaller dishes to ourselves and were absolutely stuffed, whether that's portion size or jet lag I don't know, either way they paid and I was home by about 9:30 and ready for bed.

Sunday morning and I was getting up at 7 o'clock, unthinkable, but I had a viewing and a carfair to get to, this was going to be my best shot at finding a car for the right price. The viewing before was a nice place with one lady, she liked feeding the pigeons outside her front door which meant that they gathered there and harassed you, and she listened to country and western music... for fun. But the place was nice enough, not too expensive and I wouldn't have to buy a bed which was a big plus, she also give me a lift down to the fair which was about 5 minutes away so I wouldn't be late. She had only shown around one other person and would prefer me so she didn't have to live with a guy; so she went to the top of my list. The car fair was a massive success, they had a whole section for under $5,000 and I saw quite a few around 2000, although was quite surprised to see some very old cars(1994) hoping to get 3 and a half to 4, wishful thinking guys. I'd be interested to know if they sold for when I come to resell my car, I think I could get more for it then I paid, especially as the registration only has to be renewed yearly because it's from 2000; apparently backpackers like this and so are willing to pay slightly more. The guy selling the car told me it have broken down recently and so he had bought another car in the meantime and then fixed the problem so he just wanted to get rid of it, he was selling it for 1250. So not only was it a lot cheaper than most of the other cars it had recently been serviced and old bits replaced for new, we took it out onto the highway to check it would go up to 100 kilometres an hour without exploding and when I was satisfied, and the check came back saying it wasn't stolen and there were no massive debts on it, I bought it!!! My only issue is that it's automatic and only 1.3 l engine, not great for a country with lots of big hills, but I'm pretty much used to it already, there wasa bit of toing and froing changing the owner as I had an international licence and then sending the money as I didn't bring my card reader with me and didn't have data yet, but eventually we sorted it out and I came back home. Adulting level one succeeded. My last viewing was up on the north shore near the hospital that I'm going to be working at, this meant crossing the Harbour Bridge with the amazing view of Auckland CBD that I remember from 10 years ago. The place is setback in the bush and down a wicked driveway that reminds me of a holiday home we once had in France, you don't want to stall on that bad boy! It's a beautiful 4 bedroom house, a decent sized room with the loo right next door and two bedrooms downstairs who tend to use the bathroom. The other people living here are more my age and the landlords have a holiday home down the coast that they're trying to get me to already, so I agreed to take the room on the spot. (And I might head to that holiday home!) That night, I don't think I even made it to 8:30 before falling asleep, it had been a busy day.

My only job for Monday was to move into my new place so I quickly ran into town before my check out to see if I could open a bank account, apparently they're very busy and I couldn't get an appointment for a few days, so I thought I'd wait and do it at the branch near my new place. I did get a SIM card which means I have data, I didn't need a bank account or an address which is annoying as I would have got it on day one, I dread to think what my phone bill will be like after texting a lot of people about viewings etc from my UK number. I also got stung in a parking place as the machine didn't take cash and wouldn't accept my cards, by the time I found another machine it was charging me over the hour so I paid $12 for 45 minutes of parking. Needless to say my true Brit came out and I did a bit of shouting at the machine and may have called the car park a cunt. Check out with simple and I stopped at the supermarket on the way to my new place to grab some lunch stuff, and made my appointment with the bank for Thursday, who knew banks was so busy!? After unpacking most of my stuff I headed back to the shopping mall and into warehouse which is a wonderful shop, you can buy pretty much anything and most things in bulk. I bought a set of shelves where I could store my makeup and random bits and bobs and also a mirror so I have somewhere to do my makeup that isn't the little toilet. I then did a big food shop channeling my sister in planning breakfast lunch and dinner for the week, however I did have to count every cent as I went around as the money I had in my purse is all I have until I get my deposit back. My old landlord has at least been in touch and taken my bank details so hopefully it's on it's way, but I did give them to her on Friday and nothing has appeared yet; this is the only annoying thing about the time difference, for me it's end of day Tuesday where as she hasn't woken up yet so won't answer my text for a while.

I slept very well in my nice comfy bed and was trying to think what to do with my day when I looked out the window and saw it was raining, how bloody rude. After breakfast and lounging for a bit it cleared up so I jumped in my car and drove up the coast to go for a walk, I went to Parry Kauri Park and went for quite a muggy jaunt amongst the trees, the sounds and smells were beautiful. The rain had made the forest smell lovely and every so often patches of sunlight came streaming through the super tall trees, it did however mean I was absolutely baking by the time I finished my half hour walk, on my way back down I stopped in on the coast and sat in the shade looking at the waves enjoying the breeze. I also took a quick detour to Takapuna Beach which is my closest one to see what it looked like, the waves were immense and there were loads of people windsurfing, however it was still lovely and warm. I don't have anything planned for this evening and don't have a firm time frame on when I will start work so I may start planning a little excursion for the end of the week, even if it's only with my landlords to their other property.

#newzealand #auckland #emigrate #buying a car #finding a home #aunts to the rescue #thai food #saan ponsonby road #ellerslie car fair #mazda demio #north shore #warehouse #nostalgia #summer rain #kauri tree #takapuna #adulting

[blaurascon-kzk]

KZK Discord Digest [ Week of Nov 29 - Dec 5]

SUMMARY: Kat has made preorders for the last round of Elemental Kirins available as of a few days ago. This was to ensure that rent and utility bills were paid on time - as of yesterday, thanks to you all, everything is covered! We don't intend to make preorders a regular thing going forward; Kat was in a bind for this and it was necessary. Check out below for more renders & previews! Speaking of previews -- I will not be syncing the teasers and WIPs channel to this tumblr. If you want to catch more early sneak peeks at stuff, I highly recommend joining the Discord. Links are in my profile on SL.

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Nov 29

KatLast Friday at 4:30 PM @everyone I hope you all hade a good Thanksgiving, and for those of you who dont celebrate the systematic destruction of indigenous peoples and rampant capitalism, I hope you had a good thursday.

In all seriousness, and in the intended spirit of Thanksgiving, I wanted to say again how utterly thankful I am to have the honor and pleasure of helming a community of incredible people. Whether its greeting newcomers with open arms, or encouraging oldtimers to keep pushing forward, you've all been a huge inspiration to me to keep doing what I do and you've all been so kind and supportive to me as well through some of the worst parts of my life. I only wish I was better equipped to do the same for yours.

So while you recover from your turkey induced comas, please remember to tip your service staff, hug your pets, drink water, and call your folks, mk?

I love you all, and a happy(slightly delayed) Thanksgiving from kat, april and alex(my cat <3)

______

Nov 30

KatLast Saturday at 12:52 PM @everyone So, today I'll be taking an action that to some, might rub them the wrong way. In a few hours, I plan to make preorders for the Aeterna, Teknika, and Ragnarok available.

I don't like doing this when I've got nothing to show inworld, but I'm backed into a corner. My rent is due tomorrow(1350$), and my electric bill and storage bills are also due but I've got about 350$ to my name.

IMPORTANT: These preorders will be purely voluntary and optional. If you are NOT comfortable preordering an avatar, sight unseen, PLEASE do not feel like you're obligated to do so, especially if you're concerned you might be disappointed by its quality or that it doesn't meet your expectations. This also applies to people who are also struggling financially--Please take care of your own personal finances first, I'll manage.

Like the previous elementals, they'll be 1000L$, with the exception of the Teknika which will be 1200L$ because of the extra work that had to go into it. Remember that these elementals lack a lot of the major features of their primary avatar, but make up for it in uncommon, high quality parts great for wearing out of the box, or taking that special avatar to the next level as a mod.

This will NOT be a routine--I do NOT feel good about doing this, but I'm reaching the end of my rope. I'd hoped to have these done far sooner, but my desire for quality means the standards I've created these assets to is a trade off for time.(I'd hope to have these done by the 22nd. I know, right?)

For those willing and able to help out by preordering, thank you. And to those of you who'd like to wait, I respect and appreciate that as well--Your trust in me is one of the most important things to me.

More details coming later today. @everyone Should also mention that Nova preorders won't be available until I've made more progress on that avatar. At the moment, its so early in creation that no one can draw a clear conclusion of what to expect and even that's a bit too much to me.

PATREON SUBSCRIBERS: I will be suspending December billing cycle. I'd hoped to be done with these kirins soon enough to get everything ready to ship for December, but that just wasn't in the cards, despite pulling back to back 18 hour days. ALSO, I may have to pay out the ~600 USD sitting in that account, to help cover rent, if I can't work some kind of miracle with the Kirins. I ALSO do not feel good about this, but Eight months of fighting, planning, sleepless nights, and emotional breakdowns went into getting this place... I'm terrified of losing it.

I'm terrified of failing and going back to Louisiana. I'm terrified of losing my best chance at freedom and happiness in the last ten years.

KatLast Saturday at 7:53 PM @everyone It is with.. gritted teeth that I say this, but the Kirin preorders for the Ragnarok, Aeterna, and Teknika are now available in the main store.

I know the last several years have been a constant barrage of me constantly asking for everyone's patience and forgiveness, so if you decide that you'd rather wait for the final release, I understand and respect your decision.

But if you're willing to, any support you can offer is deeply appreciated. Just because I've put them up for presale doesn't mean I'm not working on them. Once I confirm there's no major hangups with the vendor, I will return to my work to get the Nova into a presentable state and work as quickly as I can to release the final 4 kirins in finished, working order, as soon as I can.

I look forward to the day where I no longer have to make these kinds of posts.

KatLast Saturday at 8:24 PM @everyone Also, here's another look at the RAGNAROK, rendered in marmoset (Skin color will be black and a dark reddish purple color palette)

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Dec 1

KatLast Sunday at 4:13 AM @everyone The nova, oddly enough, has been one of the hardest ones to design, but as I fiddle with colors and options, I find myself approaching a look I can be pleased with. Here's a teaser of the mask that the Nova will have:

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Dec 2

KatLast Monday at 2:06 PM @everyone This morning I awoke to find I'm within 20kL of meeting my goal, and when combined with what I've got in Paypal, I will be able to make all my bills this month, by end of day.

This new chapter in my life hasn't been the easiest, but when compared to people who will spend christmas in the back seat of their car, I still count myself extremely lucky. Had I the means to get them out of the cold, I'd so so in a heartbeat--passing on the kindness and generosity shown to me by you all.

I've talked alot about my mental state. I've struggled with burnout and depression for years, always retracing the same old problems and never finding a solution that worked.

Since finally getting a place to live, I find myself flourishing creatively, and emotionally. My motivation is returning to me, one day at a time, and each day it gets easier to smile.

I have all of you to thank for this. I couldn't have done it without you.

Going forward, I intend to put this newfound energy to good use and channel it into productivity--Addressing the long overdue Direwolf Update, the preorder skins and bonus plush set, and finalizing the updates to the devkit to make it free to download.

I know its just words now, but I am nothing if not motivated to keep up the pace. Eviction is scary. I finally got someplace where I can be happy and I'm terrified of losing it and going back to Louisiana. I truly love it here, so I promise I will do my best to avoid that, and to do right by you guys.

Here's to the future. :beers:

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Dec 3

KatLast Tuesday at 3:17 AM @everyone As of this moment, I met my goal! Thanks to some very generous last minute contributions from some friends, I was able to raise all of the money necessary to pay rent. Some of that was loaned, some was given as gifts, but regardless, I am deeply grateful.

Keeping my gaze forward and my hopes high. Thank you all. I don't deserve you all ;3;

______

Dec 4

KatYesterday at 12:01 AM @everyone Because I decided that the Nova had to be covered in intricately carved lines, it took me a couple days to get everything sculpted, shaded, and composited, but here's a preview of the Nova! The black areas will be invisible/use the  base kirin textures (recolored to match the Nova's palette). And there'll be a purple orb hovering between the two points on the tail.

KatYesterday at 3:08 PM @everyone Hey folks, sorrya bout that bit of spam earlier. When adding new roles and shifting channels around, some permissions got forgotten/messed up, allowing a spammer to slip through. They've since been banned indefinitely, and the loophole patched. We now return you to your regularly scheduled nonsense. :heart:

KatYesterday at 6:40 PM @everyone so thanks to everyone's incredible support, rent is paid and all my Bill's are covered for the next month.

With exception that I might have lost my replacement birth cert so I get to have fun going thru all my belongings to find that...

Either way, full steam ahead!! <3

#kzk-dd #kzk

[willridgard]

Ghost Ship Way 👻🚢

As I said in a recent blog post, Ale Trails are fashionable. I therefore thought it’d be best to try another one, albeit slightly different to the last! With injury ruling me out of weekend football for a while, I thought ‘why not treat the better half for a mini-break on the stunning North Norfolk coast’? Obviously, and this was a discussion we had beforehand, the best possible way to enjoy our time together was by trawling through seven different pubs and trying a different ale in each!

That’s the good thing about Ale Trails. They’re versatile. You can do them wherever and with whoever you like: friends, family, loved ones, and even pet tortoises who originate from the Mediterranean! (My tortoise Coco will be fully immersed in them when she gets a bit older. She’s only just turned 2 bless her). My better half loves exploration, adventure and going to new places so was naturally delighted at the idea; she actually planned the trip via and after downloading the CaskFinder App. I know. What a woman. I got lucky.

Overall, we enjoyed good food, good beer and good company throughout; three elements every good weekend should include!

Of course, I didn’t get it all my own way and there had to be some compromise. The ol’ bank account took a slight roasting and it wasn’t just pubs we visited...(There’s a very nice craft shop in Old Hunstanton I’d advise looking in). 

Although, on the Saturday, we had very little alternative but to spend all day in the pub due to the continuous downpour that, try as it might, failed to dampen our spirits. A blazing fire, a pint of Britain’s favourite drink, and numerous packets of crisps and peanuts - what more could you want!? 

As part of CaskFinder App’s World’s Biggest Ale Trail, we decided to explore a section of the Adnams sponsored ‘Ghost Ship Way’ Ale Trail. 

And despite being disappointed by the lack of Suffolk’s finest ale on show, it was good to see so many local brewers (Woodforde’s, Brancaster, and Mauldons) supporting their local pubs (and vice-versa). Here’s the route we took armed with our CaskFinder App maps and scanners… 

Stop 1: The Ancient Mariner Inn (Old Hunstanton, PE36 6JJ). Very impressive, warm and homely - just what you need after a rain-sodden two-hour trip! Plenty of beer selection. Opted for a pint of Fullers’ Seafarers: a refreshing, fruity bitter. Pub’s Halloween decorations inspired the generation of our Halloween Housewarming ideas (which we hosted the following weekend)! Mwahaha.   

Stop 2: The Lodge Inn (Old Hunstanton, PE36 6HS). Different vibe. Very modern. Very hotel. Cool (in both sense of the word) own ale: The Lodge Inn Finest Ale. There seems to be plenty of competition up there in terms of hotel-cum-pubs and the production of their own ales. 

* Sleepover at the King William IV Country Inn, Sedgeford: very good service, dinner, breakfast, beer, wine, price and accommodation. Highly recommend to all.

* Holme beach: a beautiful setting for a Sunday morning stroll. Tide out. Sun glistening. Squelchy sand. Blustery winds. Wrapped in hats, scarves and coats. Very Autumnal. Managed to avoid stray golf balls from the Old Hunstanton course, too...#fore   

Stop 3 (via the above *s): The Lifeboat Inn (Thornham, PE36 6LT). Very old school and very dark, with the only source of light and warmth coming from the fiercely burning fire. Ideal opportunity to put the feet up with half a pint of Woodforde’s flavourful Once Bittern. Could have quite easily stayed longer, but the trail must go on...

Stop 4: The Orange Tree (Thornham, PE36 6LY). Pricey! Lots of oranges. Busy member of staff showed good knowledge on ale choices. Tried another one of those pub / hotel produced ales...Unsurprisingly orange.

Stop 5: The Briarfields Hotel (Titchwell, PE31 8BB). Limited Norfolk phone signal makes for a quite a fun mission! Big car park. Classic hotel. Another one of those ales. Quick pit stop. Stomachs starting to rumble. Sunday Roast calling, but elsewhere...

Stop 6: The Ship Hotel (Brancaster, PE31 8AP). Superb half of Brancaster Best. Certain staff not so superb. After rejecting three elderly customers the offer of food, rude, dismissive northern member of staff gave us the same service. Didn’t sit well when that offer was revamped. We’ll pay our £2.05 and be gone! Cheers. 

Stop 7: The Sculthorpe Mill (Fakenham, NR21 9QG). Stomachs well and truly rumbling now! Opted to break the journey home up. Talk about stumbling across a hidden gem. Beautiful moss-filled lake. Good food. Cosy environment. Friendly staff. Even treated myself to a whole pint of Ruddles Best packed with soft, fruit aromas. Trail over (for now). Home time! 

It was a fantastic weekend, but with my beer head on, it’s fair to say that this trail provided plenty of challenges... 

If it wasn’t the impractical placement of Cask Marque certificates (to scan the QR code and register the pub visit), it was the limited phone signal which was near impossible to obtain! Fortunately, most pubs had accessible WiFi to save the day! 

And if it wasn’t the wet weather, it was the distance between each pub which makes ‘Ghost Ship Way’ an extremely difficult - and perhaps unappealing - trail to complete. While exploring our short section of aforementioned pubs, we had to drive to virtually every destination. And with more than 30 pubs on the trail that spread across the best part of 70 miles from Heacham to Gorleston, I doubt there are many ale trailers who have completed the trail! P.s. When I say ‘we’, in regards to driving, that doesn’t include me...

However, we love a challenge and this weekend was absolutely superb. I’m up to 20 scans now: only another 3,500+ to go until I venture onto the World’s Biggest Ale Trail leader board! The better half also managed to get her first two scans: I’m sure she’s cherishing those and will actively attempt to catch me up.

Good weekends are all about exploration and adventure. New pubs. New beers. Same loved ones. Rumour has it another trip is in the pipeline soon. Maybe Coco will join us on the crawl this time…

Top three pubs of the weekend:

1. The Ancient Mariner Inn, Old Hunstanton, PE36 6JJ 

2. The Lifeboat Inn, Thornham, PE36 6LT

3. The Sculthorpe Mill, Fakenham, NR21 9QG

Top three beers of the weekend: 

1.Fullers’ Seafarers

2. Brancaster Brewery’s Brancaster Best

3. Briarfields Ale

Reminder: The seven step guide to a good Ale Trail 

1. Download the CaskFinder App and register on the World’s Biggest Ale Trail 

2. Tell your friends / family / pets to do the same

3. Find and explore different ales and pubs

4. Scan QR cods to build up your tally and win prizes

5. Read up on beers and give out star ratings

6. Make memories. Take photos. Have a blast!

7. Repeat!

#beer #ale #aletrail #caskale #pubs #northnorfolk #ghostship #norfolkpubs #caskfinder #weekends #weekendsaway #norfolk #best things to do

[southernchicstyle]

I Scream You Scream

                                                                 Photos by Daniel Ortiz Photography

When thinking of ideas for our daughter’s 3rd birthday party, she was on a major ice cream kick (I mean, what kid isn’t... but she was extra excited about it all of the time). So, ice cream party quickly became the theme. 

And, with her birthday falling on a week day and Sunday Funday on my brain, “Sundae Funday” just clicked and came together! There was already a gold letter banner for it and everything. Plus, it was nice having all of Saturday to get everything ready for the Sunday party. 

I pinterested the heck out of ideas to find what would really stick for our party. Ice cream cone centerpieces, a sundae bar with lots of toppings, and an ice cream cart were MUSTS from my research. 

Etsy came through with the best banners, printables (invites, signs, etc), and balloon garland kit (linked everything at the end of the post but also attempted to link throughout the post). 

There are so many fun ice cream themed ways to serve food. I found this great clear acrylic cone stand and served fruit in sugar cones. And, our sweet nanny made popcorn balls on sugar cones that turned out so cute!

Another Etsy find were the ice cream food tents that were a great accent to the decorations. 

The table centerpieces were a combination of a few ideas I saw online. The glass containers themselves were finds from our local Ross. (The gold bottom was not my favorite at first but I’m so glad I got them!)

Then sprinkles went in the bottom with a waffle cone for the flowers. Carnations and hydrangeas give a good ice cream scoop appearance and we added in some wild flowers to liven it up.

Not everyone will care so much about sprinkles matching throughout the party, but I was a bit crazy about the specific colors. So, I found a huge container of them online and used them from the cake to the centerpieces, etc.

Ice cream cone cookies and 3s were an easy cookie decision in the party colors... with sprinkles, of course. Ours were made by Paulie’s Cookies in Houston. They tasted as delicious as they looked!

And, these honeycomb ice cream cones were an easy addition to the party.

I really loved so much about the birthday party, but I’m SUPER proud of the ice cream cart. Unable to locate one to rent or purchase, I tasked my handy husband with making one. He bought the wood, I found the wheels, we had the umbrella, and I bought the letters (and lined them up ever so carefully). He knocked it out of the park!

The balloon garland kit was perfect for recreating this look I found on pinterest (we added in the lavender balloons to pull it in from other parts of the party) and the inflatable ice cream cones were one of the first things I bought for the party!

The ice cream cart photo spot was popular, too. And, thanks to the balloon garland kit I now can create a balloon garland with ease!

Since the kids would no doubt end up on the playset, it got a little ice cream party touch, as well. A mini ice cream banner was the cutest along with mini 3D cones. 

Our talented nanny also created the awesome balloon ice cream cone that she also knocked out of the park. She even managed to add balloon sprinkles!

It was SUPER windy during the party, so it was quite difficult to capture of a photo of the awesome ice cream cone balloon piece completely upright (its even on a sturdy metal pole...).

Two things: 

1) Who remembers the ice cream poppers/shooters (in my daughter’s hand below)? We HAD to have them for the party and the kids LOVED them!

2) The pieces on the floor in the photo below are frozen rose petals. I’d never seen anyone freeze flowers like this! Keep reading for who made that happen.

Scooping ice cream from tubs was the last resort for the party. My first idea was to rent a soft serve machine. Oddly enough, that was a difficult task (finding a company who rented one and would deliver it to our area).  Sharing this with a friend, she recommended trying a local ice cream store for catering.

So, I reached out to Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream. You know, the ice cream spot where they make the ice cream in front of you using science. Not only would that provide entertainment, but it would be one less thing I have to attend to during the party.

Sub Zero to the rescue! 

The owner was great to work with, and he had a great set up complete with science experiments for the kids like the frozen roses. Perfect option for a party!

For the Ice Cream Sundae bar, toppings were the hero. 

But, the set up included two “ice cream sundae” arrangements (white and pink hydrangeas bundled to look like ice cream scoops with burlap wrapped around the stems to look like a cone, and a cherry on top), the ice cream cups each child could take home with them, and our wooden back drop covered in vinyl sprinkles and finished with the “Sundae Funday” gold balloons. 

Toppings on the bar: Marshmallows, crushed Heath Bar (toffee), cherries, mini M&Ms, gummy bears, strawberry wafers, almond slivers, Teddy Grahams, strawberries, sprinkles, cookie dough, peanut butter cup, caramel, chocolate syrup, white chocolate syrup, and whipped topping. 

Clear scoops for the toppings aimed to keep little hands out of touching everything. No telling if that was successful, but they looked great!

Even though ice cream was the main attraction, you can’t have a birthday without cake. 

Sweet Marie’s made the cutest “ice cream cone melting” cake for our girl’s party. And, we ordered some chocolate and vanilla cupcakes from the local grocery store with white icing and added the cupcake holders and cherries to look like ice cream sundaes.

The birthday girl wore a tiara made of sprinkles (a little pricier than I wanted, but it was perfect) and a custom Cuteheads dress with the most perfect ice cream cone buttons on the back. 

The candle for the cake is simple a “3″ I found online that we put adhesive on and sprinkled sprinkles on to match the cake and other decor.

Oh how I wish I could take credit for the melting ice cream cone on the craft table, but I only found the idea on pinterest. Our nanny recreated it!

Rough instructions:  Inspired by Pinterest. We didn’t have specific instructions, but took brown butcher paper to make the cone and added a sheer tan ribbon for the lines. The white “ice cream” is a filler you would use when stuffing pillows or crafts for kids with pink table cloths (I believe we used the plastic ones you can get at any party store) bunched up around the base with craft pom poms sprinkled all over. The cherry is a bunch of sheer red fabric balled up with pink string making the little pink ball on the cherry and a cotton ball on top of that. Used a combination of hot glue and fabric glue to secure things.

In addition to the jump house, our playset, and the trampoline, we had a necklace/bracelet activity for the kids.. These ice cream cone charms paired well with the two sets of beads I ordered for stringing. 

And, the bean bag toss has become a consistent activity at our parties. It was painted with flowers for the first birthday, bubbles for the second, and ice cream for the 3rd. You’ll see the next iteration when I get our son’s 1st birthday posted!

For the adults, I found a fun ice cream champagne idea on pinterest and put my own (easier) spin on it. The post I found suggested scooping vanilla ice cream ahead of time and putting it in the freezer on a pan, which definitely helped get the drinks out quickly. And, we served them in fun gold rimmed champagne flutes that I also used for flowers on the kids’ table.

To make the ice cream drink, add a scoop of vanilla ice cream to the flute then pour champagne over it. Add a raspberry flavored drink on top... just a little more than a splash. We used the black raspberry Ice Water, but the original recipe called for a homemade raspberry sauce. I did not have the time for it, and the raspberry sparkling water was easy and delicious!

And, last but not least, the kids all went home with some fun ice cream themed goodies. The favor tags were a printable download linked here that was personalized with our girl’s name. And, the cellophane wrapped cups were printed with a similar ice cream cone as the signs and invite. Inside the cups we put ice cream pens, mini sundae shaped lip glosses, stickers, and lollipops.

Then we wrapped cellophane around the cups, tied it with ribbon, and added the favor tags. The kids also took home bath bombs shaped like ice cream scoops with sprinkles. My friend Beth (who owns Manor) made them and they were a hit!

It may have taken me a while to get this comprehensive post together for you guys, but I loved reliving every single detail. My last tip from the party is related to the balloon garland. 

Get a balloon pump for blowing up the balloons, use balloon tape, and enlist help for blowing up balloons. It’ll go much faster with help! And, the balloons will hold air and typically look good at the least for 24 hours. We assembled ours the night before.

All things party related including some not pictured:

- Assorted Beads for Stringing $14

- Balloon Garland Kit, Ice Cream Dream $30

- Balloons: Gold and White 12″ Balloons, 100 pack $10

- Balloon Tape, 25′ length $7

- Cake by Sweet Marie’s

- Candle (gold trim 3) $4.50

- Cherries: Pack of 25 Artificial Lifelike Red Black Cherries $5.60

- Clear Acrylic Ice Cream Cone Stand $15

- Clear Scoops for Toppings, 16 pieces $9 

- Confetti Sprinkle Beverage Napkins (48 count) $7.50

- Cookies: Custom by Paulie’s Cookies

- Dress: Custom Cuteheads Dress

- Elastic Thread Beading String, 0.8 mm $7.60

- Ghirardelli Caramel, Chocolate, & White Chocolate (3 pack) $18

- Gold Plastic Silverware (300 piece) $30

- Gold Rimmed Champagne Flutes (clear hard plastic set of 50) $20.20

- Gold Rimmed Plastic Cups (set of 50) $14.20

- Happy Birthday  Ice Cream Banner $20

- Honeycomb Ice Cream Cone Hanging Decor $6.50

- I Scream You Scream Instant Download Sign, 8x10 $5

- Ice Cream Birthday Party Printable Invitations, 5x7 pdf $16

  for those in Houston, I print mine at Katie & Co.

- Ice Cream Birthday Party Favor Tags (1.75″ x 3.5″) $10

- Ice Cream Cone Shooters, 12 pack $12

- Ice Cream Cone Charms (set of 9) $9

- Ice Cream Dessert Bowls and Spoons, 12 pack $14

- Ice Cream Party Balloons with Sprinkles $13

- Ice Cream Party Cups (with lids and straws, 16 oz) $12

- Ice Cream Parlor Food Label Table Tents, Printable set of 8 $10

- Ice Cream 6″ Pens (6 count) $12

- Ice Cream Scoop Bath Bombs (made by Beth of Manor)

- Inflatable Ice Cream Cones, 36 inch $8

- Lavender Balloons (12 inch, 12 count) $4.17

- Mini Ice Cream Banner $10.40

- Natural Rainbow Sprinkles, 1.6 lb $18.99

- Pastel Lunch Napkins (150 count) $15

- Photos: Party Photographed by Daniel Ortiz

- Rainbow Sprinkles Lace Tiara $30

- Self Adhesive Vinyl Letters, 4 inch $9.50

- Sprinkle Number 3 Balloon $6

- Sprinkle Paper Lanterns (set of 3) $11

- Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream (catered locally)

- Sugar & Cloth 5 inch Oval Dessert Plate, Mint with Gold Trim (24 count) $10

- Sundae Funday Gold Balloon Banner $37

- Sundae Lip Gloss Party Favor, set of 12 $16.55

- Tablecloth: Round Raised Petals in Taffeta, 120 in. $40

- Wire Spoke Wheel, 16 inch for cart $33

- Vinyl Sprinkle Stickers (used on backdrop)  $18

Sugar & Cloth 5 inch Oval Dessert Plate, gold plasticware, and  cake by Sweet Marie’s

          _______________________________________________________

Birthday Archives:

2nd Birthday: Bubble Bash

1st Birthday: Garden Party (I guess its possible in my baby brain state I never posted the garden party... Will remedy that as soon as I can)

#ice cream party #ice cream #sundae #sundae funday #birthday party #3rd birthday #ice cream birthday #sprinkles #kids party #party planning #what to get for ice cream birthday #sundae bar #toppings #kids ice cream party #decor #party decor #DIY #party style #sprinkle tiara #ice cream cone holder #ice cream cone #houston blogger #lifestyle blogger #party planner #ice cream champagne

[sophiescarlet]

my anime boston recap

i told a few people i’d write this, so here. warning, it’s long as fuck.

rebecca black - friday

while waiting for artists’ alley to open, i sat in a corner and watched people go by and saw a group cosplaying the main characters from the extremely underrecognized game the arcana, which was awesome and i totally would have asked for a picture but i’m way too shy. even though i’ve asked cosplayers for pictures before but i seem to have regressed in that sense...

i also saw (and this happened throughout the con) a bunch of hot, fit, really thin girls, which made me feel gay (as expected) but also really envious and sad and insecure about my body. cause i wish i looked more like them.

i also saw two girls cosplaying snow halation!honoka and kotori from love live, and the honoka had a giant honk nesoberi that i totally envy, and then right afterward a hate na heartbeat!eli and nozomi came around the corner and they were the coolest. i wish i’d had the guts to ask them for a picture too.

finally i went to artists’ alley and i got to buy a print from one of my favorite persona 5 fan artists but unfortunately she didn’t have the postcard set i wanted to buy. BUT right across was another fan artist whose stuff i really like so i bought a BUNCH of her prints - one of each of the p5 girls for me, and an extra makoto for my friend - and she came over to thank me and we chatted a little and it was nice. i am fucking determined to befriend some of these people and now at least one of them knows who i am.

i went to a panel on “fandom as coping” presented by a social worker which was really cool. she talked about how even though she’s a social worker, she still went through a severely suicidal period this past year and survived because of yuri on ice. i left partway through because then she turned it over to the audience to share our stories and i didn’t need to hear from a bunch of people talking about bad things that had happened to them.

the next thing i went to, after hanging around the vendors for a while, was tara platt’s (mitsuru and elizabeth from persona 3) q&a. she was really cool, and i actually managed to ask her a question, which was which one she preferred. (she said she can’t choose a favorite, but had more fun with elizabeth.)

i went to a presentation by sunrise, the studio that made love live among other things, but it was boring and i left early again because they were talking about gundam and other action stuff i don’t care about.

i’d planned on going to johnny yong bosch’s (makoto from free, kitamura from toradora, yu and adachi from p4) q&a, but it had a hella long line and it was obvious i wasn’t going to get in since the room wasn’t going to accommodate that many people. so i went over to a panel greg ayres (kaoru from ouran, nagisa from free, monokuma from the danganronpa anime) was doing on “it gets better.” come to find out he is openly bi! and is good friends with his ex who’s a trans woman and confronted her family about misgendering her! he is my new fav ngl and a far cry from hikaru’s va whom i met at tora-con a few years ago and was kind of an ego. it was a conversation sort of panel and we talked about a lot of stuff around queerness and bullying. i had to leave that one early too, but wished i could have stayed for the whole thing. also, there was a girl across the aisle from me who mentioned she was trans, and at one point i happened to catch her looking at me, and i think she was checking me out! sadly, i did not run into her again.

the reason i had to leave early was to get johnny’s autograph. he was really cool and i totes wish i could’ve gone to his q&a. since i don’t actually have any free! or toradora! or p4 merch, i had him sign my p3/p5 dancing game since it did at least come with p4 dancing as a free download. he took his daughter with him to the con which i find adorable though i have to wonder how bored she was sitting there for an hour and a half while he signed autographs.

katy perry - last friday night

at this point, i had a couple hours to kill, so i walked out to newbury comics in the hopes they’d have the bananarama vinyl reissues from the british record store day. they didn’t (though weirdly they did have the shakespears sister one), but they had kacey musgraves’ golden hour on sale, and i’ve been waffling on buying that for ages, so i finally snapped it up. then i went back to the mall where the con (sort of) was and got some godiva ice cream, which was even more overpriced than you’d expect but still very good.

so my last agenda item for the day was yuri lowenthal’s (makoto/minato from p3, yosuke from p4) q&a, which tara crashed because they’re married, which i love because it means that mitsuru is irl the canon waifu. once again i managed to ask a question, which was which p3 girl he’d like to have minato end up with, which made everyone laugh, and of course he said “i want to preserve my marriage, so either mitsuru or elizabeth.”

then i went home and felt like death.

i don’t know any songs that have “saturday morning” in the title

i took an uber to the con for saturday because the T was being replaced with a shuttle bus and i decided i’d rather pay $17 each way for a 15-minute trip than $2.50 each way for a 90-minute trip.

i went to a panel on “idols in anime” that was kind of interesting but i didn’t take much away from it, other than that i should maybe watch revue starlight. but then i went to a panel on “diversity in the magical girl genre” that was really cool. it was hosted by a queer latina woman and she talked about racial, gender, sexual, and ability diversity. it was interesting because she has a very negative view of yuuki yuuna, which i can certainly understand but don’t really share. but it was a great panel and i feel like i learned a lot. one neat idea she had was that what comes across as queerbaiting (or whatever-baiting) to western audiences can be really progressive representation in japan, and vice versa.

after that i went to another panel on “magical girl fashion” and literally got up and left because i couldn’t stand how wrong the presenter was.

i’d missed out both days on the free autograph passes for yuri and tara, so i went to their paid session, which to make a long story short was an absolute fucking disaster, and i ended up making a complaint, during which i cried in front of the con’s assistant director. so there’s something i can check off my bucket list. i also met the director, who came over to reassure me they were fixing things and said, “i keep saying i need a machete to take off people’s heads this year.” so obviously i immediately liked her! in the end, i did get their autographs (on the same p3d/p5d game) for fifty fucking dollars... i’d been expecting more like thirty. and they didn’t even personalize them. sad trombone noise. they were nice though.

then i rushed over to the free autographs and saw kara edwards (chihiro in the danganronpa anime) and had her autograph a wall scroll i’d bought from a vendor. i wish i could’ve gone to her q&a because she seemed sweet.

and right after THAT, i got in line for tara sands (a bunch of pokemon) and had her sign a manga volume i bought for my friend. she was also awesome and i really wish i could have gone to her q&a because we had this exchange:

me: this is for my friend who’s a huge bulbasaur fan

sands: oh, you’re such a good friend!

me: i know. and i won’t let them forget it.

sands: [laughs] that’s good! keep it up, i like your style!

i then went to greg’s q&a, which was fun. he mentioned that while recording the audio commentary for ouran, caitlin glass (haruhi) and todd haberkorn (hikaru) got really uncomfortable during one of the twincest scenes and started talking about anything else they could so they wouldn’t have to talk about the twincest, and in the commentary you can just hear greg laugh a little because he’d made himself laugh by thinking of saying “i just think it’s hot” but kept himself from saying it out loud. the hero we deserve tbh.

whigfield - saturday night (i actually don’t like that song btw)

at this point, it was time for the 18+ panels to start, so i went to one where yuri, tara platt, lisa ortiz (idk her), and billy kametz (same) did in-character readings of various scripts. they did a couple of star wars ones which obviously did nothing for me, except that tara did bb-8 in a christopher walken voice, which was fucking hysterical. the other one i remember was lisa doing a southern belle voice narrating the notebook, with yuri as sasuke (i think) as noah, and billy as lelouch (?) as ally. but the best one, of course, was the last one, which was the iocane powder scene from the princess bride, performed by yuri as spider-cop (iirc) as the sicilian and tara as elizabeth as westley. it was AMAZING.

then i went to greg’s 18+ panel where he recounted risqué stories like when his mom wanted to watch an anime where his character has anal sex. i remember it being hilarious but unfortunately don’t remember any specifics other than him affectionately calling his lawyer the C-word and a story about beating up an asshat in the o’hare airport after asshat broke a jigglypuff ornament his friend made him.

blondie - sunday girl

so having stayed out past 11:30 for greg’s panel the night before, and forgetting to take melatonin before bed... i actually couldn’t wake up sunday morning so didn’t end up going back to the con at all. which was really sad and disappointing as it meant i missed getting greg’s autograph, a panel on autism in anime fandom, and the voice actor roundtable panel, all of which i really wanted. so after finally getting up at 2:30pm i spent the rest of the day super depressed and mad at myself and just sad and disappointed.

the end.

#dreams of an impossible princess

[slarty1]

WRITTEN JOURNAL # 30: The end of era 2 (the first era ended with the death of my 1 photo video app)

I now have a computer, so there is no more need to video myself reading blog entries.  I can just type them and put them on my blog.  That makes my contest with MWR extremely short lived.  Lisa seems to have given up her contest with MWR too.

Yesterday after writing and videoing the last entry, I did indeed go downstairs and check the mail.  The mail had in fact come.  No Obamaphone yet. So my next step was to get to Free Geek before they closed, which I managed to do.

I didn't know which bus to take to get real close to Free Geek, so I took the 20 down Burnside getting off @ 8th.  I shot video of a moth at KBOO, and continued on my way, collecting cans as I went.  I also photoed a statue along the way.

I think I must have arrived @ Free Geek an hour or so before closing time.  I told the receptionist that I had received a computer from a woman and that it was password protected, and that I was thinking of nuking it and putting Linux on it, and asked if she could think of a less extreme solution.  I then mentioned that I was also concerned that my computer might not have enough memory for the latest version of Linux.

She couldn't think of a less extreme solution.  She really didn't feel she was qualified to answer.  She asked around, just a bit, and to no avail.  So I went next door to the store of Free Geek, and basically said the same thing.  The cashier recommended that I put Linux on, and said it wasn't that extreme.

He said it costs $10.00.  I asked whether that was for the nuke disk or the Linux disk.  He said there was no need to nuke it.  I then mentioned my concern that my computer might not have enough space to load the latest version of Linux.

I had to get my computer out and read the model.  He checked the WWW to see if my computer had a 64 bit architecture.  It didn't.  Since I was last @ Free Geek, they have switched from Cd's to thumb drives to my mild surprise.

My computer turned out to have a 32 bit architecture.  He had to download a 32 bit compatible Linux to a thumb drive just for me.  I then tried to load Linux using the boot menu of my BIOS.  It didn't work, so I asked the cashier for help (by this time it was a different cashier).

He said to go ask tech support, so I went back next door.  It turned out that the person who usually does tech support was “very sick” yesterday.  Free Geek isn't open on Sundays or Mondays.  Tuesday is July 4th.  

So that left Wednesday.  They told me to come back on Wednesday.  So I went back to the store hoping that the original cashier I'd spoken to was there.  He was, but my hope that he would be my saving was crushed.

It turns out that cashiers @ the store aren't allowed to help with what are deemed tech support issues.  So I asked if I owed any money.  He said yes that the Linux cost $10.00.  I had $8.00 in Bills.  I took that out of my Bill tin (I think I've already told the gentle content beholder that I keep my money and my cards in tins).

When I went to my change tin, he told me $8.00 was adequate.  I don't know why.  He gave me a receipt with info on it I may use.  So I went outside and called MWR on Messenger.  He again suggested I check YouTube.  

So I hung up and did so, but the videos I watched seemed to be doing what I already tried, but with different results.  A man came by smoking a cigarette.  As the gentle content beholder should be aware, I was out of store bought smokes.

So I asked if I could buy or trade 1 for a lighter.  He accepted my monetary offer.  He noted my computer, so I told him I was trying to install Linux on it and asked if he'd like to help.  He did so immediately, an immediately the computer started doing something different.

He knew what he was doing.  Quite soon it became apparent that the computer was installing Linux.  He asked in verification whether I wanted to erase Windows.  I said yes. It was Linux mint instead of Ubuntu, which was a surprise.

I don't know if I got mint because my computer isn't a 64 bit architecture or if Free Geek had switched to mint.  @ the time I assumed it was because my computer didn't support 64 bit architecture.  In the final stages of the loading he had to get going.

He left me with some final instructions but it turned out to be pretty self apparent stuff.  So I stayed around, even tho Free Geek was closed, until my battery got critically low.  

I'm pretty sure I called MWR to give him the news @ some point.

When my battery was dying, I left.  Getting back home took a while.  I had enough money for smokes but it was all in change.  @ my new smoke shop I took a picture of some bikers.  I think I then went home and fiddled around with my computer some more, until about 11:00pm.  

The main thing I remember trying was to move my music files on my phone to the SD card.  I thought I succeeded, but when I checked my phone the files were still on the phone.

 I woke up this morning @ about 9:00am.  I immediately collected my stuff, including my bag of cans and bottles, and went down to Saturday Market.  Edd English was there, but not yet playing the sax, so we shot the shit getting to know each other a bit better.

 I had to get going before he started playing, as there was a good chance he wouldn't be playing for another hour when the market officially opened.  There were a pretty good number of bottles and cans @ Saturday Market and Waterfront Park even tho it was so early.

I then went to the bench outside the Starbucks on 2nd and Main to steal Wi-Fi.  I think there I tried to put my phones music on the Nano.  That turned out to be too nonintuitive for me.  My phone wasn't registering in the USB port.  

I then headed for Whole Foods to turn in my bottles and cans.  I took public transportation most of the way there, out of Laziness, to beat the heat, and to save time.  It was around noon or so.  The library closes @ 5:00pm on Sundays.

The machine was up.  I got 5 dollars and some odd cents for my efforts. Enough to buy smokes.  I then went to the Library.

While there I thought I'd @ least gotten my music files on my computer, the phone now registering in the USB port.  I thought it hadn't been working earlier because I hadn't secured it fully into the USB port. That would later prove wrong.  

Other things I did @ the Library were 1) check my mail, I can now read the replies I missed on my phone.  It turned out I missed an appointment with Jennifer Gambill, but I don’t think that was my fault.  2)  Tried to enable comments on my Tumblr. MWR says I have not enabled comments.  I think MWR is wrong.  I think comments are already enabled.  3) Tried to forward my Tumblr posts to Facebook.  4) successfully downloaded the introductory manual to mint.  I should have done that last night @ Free Geek, but I forgot.

 successfully downloaded Nethack.

If there were other things I did @ the Library, I forget them.  I think I'll be buying drinks @ Wi-Fi enabled coffee shops whenever possible so I don't have to pack up all my stuff whenever I want a smoke.  

I

stayed until quite near closing time.  Then I went to the Starbucks @ Pioneer Square, to steal Wi-Fi for what turned out to be a BRIEF conversation with MWR.  I just basically tried to keep him informed of the latest developments.

I then went home, and when I plugged my computer in, I discovered that my phone's music files were not on my computer after all, and then it turned out my computer wasn't registering my phone in the USB port again, so I took out the SD card and plugged it in the computer.

That worked.  I copied the music files onto the computer, and had the computer restart just to make sure they stayed on the computer.  They did.

The next thing I did was read that intro to mint.  It didn't cover the stuff I really wanted to learn.  Then I played some Nethack on my computer.  Then I started this entry, @ about 9:30.  The time is now 12:41am.  I have a little over $2.00.

I should take a shower and wash some clothes tomorrow morning.  I found some cheese crust bread on the way home.  I am now out of mayonnaise and cereal, so maybe I should also go shopping tomorrow.  I’d forgotted how much I enjoy typing, especially on a word processor.

[dmartin-blog]

Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers

via WordPress ift.tt/2Eyu2I4

I’ll be honest guys, I almost didn’t get my picks done this week and that’s because I decided that watching 71 straight replays of the “Miami Miracle” would be a better use of my time than finishing my Week 15 picks.

If you put the word “miracle” next to a football play, there’s a 100 percent chance that I’ll be watching it on a loop, non-stop, for at least three straight days. I didn’t leave my house for a month after the “Minneapolis Miracle.”

With the play in Miami, you have to watch it at least 10 times just to fully appreciate the poor tackling effort that Rob Gronkowski made at the end of Kenyan Drake’s run. You know what, let’s watch it one more time, because you can never watch it too many times.

That will never get old. Patriots fans are going to be forced to watch replays of that and the helmet catch for the rest of eternity, which is enough to make you feel good inside.

You know what else makes you feel good inside? Watching football, and we’ll be getting plenty of it this week. As a matter of fact, Week 15 is the only week of the entire NFL season where we get treated to four days of football (Thursday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday). I’m not good at math, but I think that means more than half our week is going to involve football, which means I need to hurry up and get to these picks, because we don’t have any time to waste.

Actually, before we get to the fun stuff, here’s your weekly reminder to check out the picks from all our other CBS Sports NFL writers, which you can do by clicking here. Also, if you’re looking for a new podcast to listen to — and who isn’t — you can click here and subscribe to the Pick Six Podcast. I team up with Will Brinson, Ryan Wilson and Sean Wagner-McGough every week for an NFL recap show that you can download each and every Monday morning during the season. It’s basically music for your ears, except no one actually sings.

Alright, I think I’ve delayed long enough, so let’s get to these picks.

Stream Thursday’s game and all of Sunday’s games on fuboTV, try it for free, and stream the CBS games on CBS All Access.

NFL Week 15 Picks

L.A. Chargers (10-3) at Kansas City (11-2)

8:20 p.m. ET, Thursday (Fox/NFL Network)

Guys, I have some good news and some bad news. The bad news is that this is the final Thursday night game of the season. That’s bad news because I’m not sure what I’m going to do with my Thursdays from here on out. Actually, you know what, I do have 17 Hallmark Christmas movies currently on my DVR and they’re not going to watch themselves. Now I just need to figure out if I want to watch “The Gingerbread Romance” or “Christmas Incorporated” first.

Now, I also said I have some good news and the good news is that the NFL is ending “Thursday Night Football” with a bang by giving us the Chargers and the Chiefs. There are only two teams in the NFL that have scored at least 20 points in every game this season and those two teams are playing in this game, which means there’s a 99 percent chance that we’re going to get a crazy shootout.

The one thing that makes this game difficult to predict is that both teams are dealing with some big injuries. On the Chiefs’ end, Tyreek Hill (wrist, heel) and Spencer Ware (shoulder, hamstring) are both battling injuries. On the Chargers’ end, they probably won’t have their two running backs this week: Melvin Gordon is still dealing with a knee injury and Austin Ekeler can’t really move his head right now.

#Chargers RB Austin Ekeler said his injured neck is very stiff and he can’t move his head a whole lot today. He’s officially day-to-day but he appears to have plenty of recovery to do quickly if he’s going to be available Thursday vs. KC.

— Jeff Miller (@JeffMillerLAT) December 10, 2018

Now, I’m not a doctor, but if you can’t move your head three days before you’re supposed to play in a football game, that probably means you’re not going to play in that football game.

Although the Chargers are going to be hurting at running back, the one thing they will have is all of their wide receivers, which is all Philip Rivers needs to win. In the first meeting between these two teams, Rivers threw for 424 yards and he might double that going up against a Chiefs passing defense that ranks dead last in the NFL this year.

As much as I like Rivers, there are a lot of reasons to pick the Chiefs in this game: They have the best record in the AFC, they’ve won nine straight against the Chargers, and home teams are 11-2 on “Thursday Night Football” this year. However, I’m not going to pick the Chiefs.

Back in August, I picked the Chargers to win the AFC West and I’m going to stand by my pick, because if you don’t stand for something, you’ll fall for anything.

Did I steal that quote from my niece’s tumblr page? Yes. Is it the most overused quote ever on the internet? Probably.

“You’ve got to stand for something or you’ll fall for anything.”

— Miranda Lambert (@mirandalambert) February 15, 2012

Am I still picking the Chargers? Definitely.

The pick: Chargers 34-31 over Chiefs

The result: Chargers 29, Chiefs 28

What NFL picks can you make with confidence in Week 15? And which Super Bowl contender goes down hard? Visit SportsLine now to see which NFL teams are winning more than 50 percent of simulations, all from the model that has beaten 98 percent of experts over the past two years.

Dallas (8-5) at Indianapolis (7-6)

1 p.m. ET (Fox)

If the Cowboys make the playoffs this year, they should probably send a thank you note to Jon Gruden, and that’s because he’s basically single-handedly responsible for the the Cowboys success this year. Gruden hasn’t been able to turn the Raiders into a contender, but he turned the Cowboys into one when he decided to trade Amari Cooper from Oakland to Dallas. That deal took place on Oct. 22, and since then, the Cowboys have been unstoppable.

Cooper started his first game for the Cowboys in Week 9, and in the time period since then, he leads the NFL in both receiving yards (642) and receiving touchdowns (six). Oh, and the Cowboys are 5-1 in the six games that he’s played in. If Gruden hadn’t decided to implode his roster and sabotage his own team, none of this would have happened and the Cowboys wouldn’t have Cooper, so maybe they should send him a fruit basket and a gift card to Chili’s on top of that thank-you note. However, they definitely shouldn’t send him any cookie dough, because apparently, that stuff is bad for you.

I don’t want to say the CDC is overreacting, but I’ve been eating cookie dough every day for the past three weeks and I feel fine. As for this pick, I’m taking the Colts, and if I end up missing it, I’m blaming the cookie dough that the CDC said I wasn’t supposed to eat.

The pick: Colts 27-24 over Cowboys

Note: The Cowboys will clinch the NFC East with a win on Sunday, and although I’m not picking them, I am giving you a heads up so you can avoid all Cowboys fans for at least 24 hours after the clinching. As everyone knows, there’s nothing Cowboys fans like to talk about more than how amazing the Cowboys are. If you have a lot of friends who happen to be Cowboys fans, you might want to turn off your phone and quit all social media.

New England (9-4) at Pittsburgh (7-5-1)

4:25 p.m. ET (CBS)

The Patriots are coming into this game after losing on a miracle play in Week 14, and yet somehow, I’m fully convinced that the Steelers actually had the crazier loss on Sunday. For one, they lost to the Raiders, which is basically the NFL equivalent of hitting rock-bottom. The Raiders don’t even have a general manager. I mean, it doesn’t get any more demoralizing than losing to a team and then watching that team fire their general manager the next day.

I didn’t think it was possible for a first-place team to be in total disarray this late into the season, but the Steelers have proven me wrong. The most baffling part of the Raiders game is that Mike Tomlin kept his starting quarterback on the bench even though he was healthy enough to play. After Ben Roethlisberger left the game in the first half with a rib injury, he was ready to return in the third quarter, but Tomlin wouldn’t play him because he didn’t want to ruin the “rhythm and the flow of the game.” That would be like not pulling the chord on your parachute because you don’t want to ruin the rhythm and flow of your free fall. PULL THE CHORD OR YOUR SEASON IS OVER MIKE. Not pulling the chord would end in disaster and it’s starting to feel like that’s where the Steelers season is headed.

if Roethlisberger plays against the Patriots — and he likely will — he’s going to be dealing with a rib injury. If James Conner plays, he’ll be dealing with an ankle injury. The Steelers can’t beat the Patriots when they’re healthy, so I have no idea how they’re going to do it when they’re banged up.

I’ve been writing this picks column since 2013 and in that time, the Steelers have never beaten the Patriots. Including the playoffs, these two teams have met a total of five times over the past five years and the Patriots have won every game. Watching the Steelers choke against the Patriots has basically become an annual tradition and I don’t see that ending this year.

On the other hand, Roethlisberger did win a game on a miracle play once, so maybe the Patriots should be concerned.

The pick: Patriots 30-23 over Steelers

Seahawks special: Seattle (8-5) at San Francisco (3-10)

4:05 p.m. ET (Fox)

The fact that this section is back for another week can only mean one thing: My record picking Seahawks games this year is still perfect. This section will only exist as long as my record stays perfect, and right now, it’s sitting at 13-0. Last week, I said the Seahawks would win by double digits in a beatdown of the Vikings and that’s basically what happened on Monday night.

At this point, I’ve decided that if my streak continues, I’m going to start celebrating each new win. If I improve to 14-0 this week, I’m going to buy a Marshawn Lynch elf on the shelf, which sounds weird, but I don’t care. At $19.99, this thing is a steal.

I will say that I think the marketing team for the Marshawn elf blew it. I mean, how is this thing not called “Lynch on a bench?” You get all the fun of an Elf on the Shelf, except on a bench. Someone at NFL Shop needs to make that name change happen.

As for this week’s game, the Seahawks can clinch a playoff berth if they win, which means there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick the Seahawks in this game, and I won’t be surprised if things gets ugly. For one, I’m pretty sure everyone in Seattle’s locker room is still slightly bitter about the fact that Richard Sherman called the Seahawks a “middle of the road team.”

If the Seahawks are a middle of the road team, then I’m not sure what that makes the 49ers. Not only did they lose to the Seahawks 43-16 back in Week 13, but they’ve also lost nine straight games to the Seahawks dating back to the beginning of the 2014 season.

This definitely has all the makings of a trap game, but with Sherman’s quote and the 49ers upsetting the Broncos on Sunday, I don’t think the Seahawks will be overlooking anyone.

The pick: Seahawks 31-20 over 49ers

NFL Week 15 picks: All the rest

Texans 27-20 over Jets

Browns 19-16 over Broncos

Falcons 20-13 over Cardinals

Bengals 30-27 over Raiders

Bills 23-16 over Lions

Bears 20-17 over Packers

Vikings 30-17 over Dolphins

Titans 23-20 over Giants

Jaguars 19-13 over Redskins

Ravens 24-16 over Buccaneers

Rams 34-23 over Eagles

Saints 31-24 over Panthers

Last Week

Best pick: Last week, I predicted the Falcons would score 20 points and lose to the Packers, and then the Falcons went out and scored 20 points and lost to the Packers. Of course, the reason I picked the Falcons to lose had nothing to do with the Falcons and everything to do with the Packers. When it comes to making picks, I only have one rule and that rule is that there’s a 100 percent chance I’m going to pick a team to win if they just fired their coach. However, I now feel bad for picking the Packers and taking advantage of Mike McCarthy getting fired, because apparently, he’s a classy guy.

Even though the Packers kicked him to the curb, McCarthy still took a out a full-page ad over the weekend to thank the team and fans for their support. That’s basically the complete opposite of the scorched earth tour that Hue Jackson went on after he got fired. You know, the one where he blamed everyone but himself for the Browns’ failures. Jackson also added insult to injury by taking a job just weeks later with one of the Browns’ biggest rivals.

To put this in layman’s terms, McCarthy’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then sending his ex-girlfriend a thank you note for a wonderful relationship while Jackson’s firing would be the equivalent of a guy getting dumped and then setting his ex-girlfriend’s house on fire in the same week where he also started dating her slightly less attractive sister.

I think the lesson to be learned here is don’t date your ex-girlfriend’s sister.

Worst pick: Last week, I spent roughly three paragraphs talking about how the freezing cold weather in Chicago would have no effect on a team from California and let me just say that I’ve never been more wrong about anything in my entire life. Not only did I pick the Rams to beat the Bears, but I said they would score 26 points in the win. I’m not sure if you watched the game, but the Rams definitely didn’t beat the Bears and they didn’t come anywhere close to scoring 26 points.

I have no idea why I said the Rams could handle cold weather. As someone who lived in California for six years, I know for a fact that the only thing people in California hate more than non-organic food is cold weather. If it’s not beach weather, then there’s no reason to go outside, but it’s always beach weather, which is why everyone in California is always happy.

I mean, I can’t even type on a computer when the temperature drops below 35 degrees, so I’m not sure why I thought Jared Goff would be able to throw a football. Lesson learned, which means if the Rams play any playoff games this year in a cold-weather city or a city that doesn’t serve organic food, then I’ll definitely be picking against them.

Finally, if you guys have ever wondered which teams I’m actually good at picking, this is the part where I tell you, but I don’t need to tell you, because you already know. Through 14 weeks, I only have a perfect record picking one team: The Seahawks (13-0). Also, I’m 11-2 picking the Rams and 10-3 picking the 49ers, Chargers and Browns (9-3-1).

As for the rest of the NFL, I’m somewhere between 6-7 and 9-4 picking the 27 teams not listed above.

Picks record

Straight up in Week 14: 10-6SU overall: 132-74-2Against the spread in Week 14: 9-7ATS overall: 98-105-5Exact score predictions: 2

You can find John Breech on Facebook or Twitter and if he’s not doing one of those things, he’s probably re-enacting the Miami Miracle with his cats.

ift.tt/2FY3zVO

Posted by smashdownsportsnews on 2018-12-16 13:51:15

Tagged: , Featured , Football , News

The post Week 15 NFL odds, picks, how to watch, stream: Colts win thriller over Cowboys, Patriots over Steelers appeared first on Good Info.

[wumbo-boi-blog]

9/13/19

Hello World! It’s been a long ass time, and for that I’m sorry. I fell behind on writing for a few days and then I just kept getting busy so this got put on the back burner, but I’m back! Here’s a (somewhat) brief synopsis of every day since I wrote last...

8/30 - Went over to Parker’s house and drank for the first time! It was ok. His roommate got supper drunk which was amusing. I stayed the night. 

8/31 - There was a home game (1st one of the season) and Parker went to that while I went back to my dorm and listened to the game. I ended up feeling kinda sick and stuff, so I took a nap in the middle of the game lmao. Later Parker’s dad took us out to supper and I had a massive pretzel. Later that night I asked parker to go get me some allergy meds and some ice cream, which he kindly supplied. I then passed out for 12 hrs!

9/1 - Mostly just hung out in my dorm and did a little bit of homework. I called all of my parents and told them about my first week of classes. It was nice to tell them about it.

9/2 - It was labor day so I didn’t have anything to do, and my roommate was still out for the weekend. I did more drawing homework, cleaned up a lil, and went on a nice walk around campus with Parker. I read him some letters I had written for him and we talked a bit about marriage and shit. I gave him a gold turtle pin as a token of my love or whatever. We crossed paths with a fat raccoon and a kid showed us a  ~ magic trick ~ where he split a stick using his forehead. College is wack. All in all a good day. 

9/3,4,5 - I can’t remember much from these days. Mostly just doing class work and shit. I had planned to go home the coming weekend so I was trying to get as much done as possible before I went. I spent a shit ton of time in the studio on Wednesday night and had a great time with the buses (I did not have a great time). I hoped on a bus thinking that it would take me to one of two places close to my dorm, and I’d just get off at whichever stop came first. Neither of them did. I rode the whole route for like 30 min and got off one stop from where I had originally gotten on. I hadn’t eaten supper yet, and it was 9:50. The dining halls close at 10, and I was 10min away from my dorm. I managed to stop by a little shop and get a sandwich 5 min before they closed, and I angrily walked my way home. I sat in the common room, ate my sandwich, and then promptly returned to my room and fell asleep after a shitty 16hr day. Thursday I just spent more time in the studio getting shit done.

9/6 - I didn’t have class until noon so I spent my morning packing and getting laundry done before I went home for the weekend. I tried to get the washers to work but they wouldn’t take cash or debit, so I had to download an app, put a minimum of $10 worth of credits into it, and THEN I could start my laundry. I was going to eat breakfast while my clothes were being washed, but the dining hall closed right when I got there, and I almost had the gate shut on my head. Instead, I went to my room, read the book Parker let me borrow, and had some granola bars. When my laundry was done I went to put it in the dryers, only for the dryers to not fucking work. I drug my still wet clothes up 4 flights of stairs and got to let everything air dry in my room. I went to class, came back, folded as much as I could, ate some shitty dining hall food, folded the rest of my clothes, got my bags, found my car, and headed out. On my way back home I happened across a dinky little town called Stanhope that apparently has ‘watermelon days’ every year in July. I took a bit of a scenic route compared to the interstate and I greatly enjoyed my tiny bit of isolation. I made it home just before 4, talked to my dad for a bit, refueled my car, got groceries, and made it back in time for some pork burgers for supper! Afterwards Chance and I talked about movies and shit for a long as time before we finally picked out a movie for family movie night. We ended up watching Heathers, and after that we all went to bed.

9/7 - The next morning my dad got the whole house donuts, and he and I went to the farmers market to pick up eggs and banana bread. Upon returning home he gave me a whole bunch of art stuff for me to use, and I packed it all into a little leather messenger bag he gave me. So now I have an art bag! I worked briefly on some of my studio homework, and just hung out at home. I watched netflix briefly and cuddled with my cat for a bit, which was nice. A little before 4 my dad and stepmom left for a concert, leaving me alone in the house. At 4 I headed over to my mom’s and talked about college with my stepdad for a bit. Then my mom came down from taking a shower and we talked further about college stuff. After that we went to supper with my grandparent’s in a nearby town. When we returned home I got to pop open my senior yearbook that my mom had picked up for me. It mentioned some of my big accomplishments of the year, and it felt really nice to be recognized for the hard work I did. When I was done I headed to bed.

9/8 - On Sunday morning my family went to our town’s local flight breakfast at the little airport just outside of town. Idk what it is about mass produced pancakes on a supper old griddle, but they SLAP. I got to see some kids I graduated with and some coworkers too. After breakfast I made energy bites for a while, and around mid-afternoon we went to my grandparent’s house. My grandma had made me scotcharoos and rice krispie treats which was really sweet. We got to check out a room in the basement that my grandparents had redone, and it looks pretty good! We also got to look at some old pictures my grandma was going through. After that we all returned upstairs to watch NASCAR and talk about everything under the sun. When suppertime was rolling around, we returned home so my mom could get started on the spaghetti. After supper was done and stuff was being cleaned up, I packed my stuff up and got ready for the 2hr drive back. I listened to the Heathers musical soundtrack and now I can’t stop listening to it. Whoops. When I got back I started the 2 block ‘trek’ back to my room with 2 bags and a heavy laundry basket full of snacks because I ain’t no bitch who takes two trips. I should’ve taken two trips. I had to take a break 3 times before I got to my room. It’s important to note that while I was walking down the hall to my room a guy stopped me and told me to vote for him as treasurer and another guy for hall president (which I did). As I finally made it into my room and set down all of my shit, I realized I couldn’t really move my arms. I ended up asking Parker if he could come help me unpack, which he kindly did, and I repaid him with some energy bites. We sat and talked a little bit about our weekends and the coming weekend, and then we parted ways and went to bed.

9/9 - Waking up for class was a bitch but class was alright when I got there. I didn’t do much other than attempt to catch up on the homework I didn’t do over the weekend for my studio.

9/10 - Tuesday was pretty ehh. I wore a super cute outfit and got complimented on it by a lot of people which was really nice. I would’ve had a supper shitty day without it, and I truly appreciated it. I was freaking out a lil all day because I hadn’t completed a drawing yet that was due the next day, so I spent a few hours working on that. I went to my studio lecture and had a small panic attack and a bit of an identity crisis. I also thought heavily about if I’m actually capable, worthy, and skilled enough to be and do what I want to be. That was fun. I was finally able to calm myself down enough to go eat quick, finish up my drawings, and then go visit Parker. It was really nice to see him again and it really helped just being with him for a lil bit. I returned to my dorm, showered, and went to bed.

9/11 - It was pretty rainy and gross all day, but I luckily missed most of the rain and stuff. My studio took a bit of a toll on me mentally. I guess I hadn’t realized just how stressed I was and that I really wasn’t giving myself a break. For the past week I had been stuck on a ‘if I don’t stop working I’ll die’ kind of mindset. I broke down a little in class which was great. It doesn’t help that it’s my period week either. It was basically just my eyes constantly dripping tears and me being unable to stop it without going somewhere to cry for a bit (which wasn’t an option). This carried on until like the last 10 minutes of my next class (so 1.5 hrs of crying). After class I went to lunch, went back to my dorm to do homework, and went to the College of Design to work on a sketch for like an hour. I couldn’t focus so I said fuck it, went and got myself some half priced sushi from hyvee + some other little things, returned to my dorm, and watched Natural Born Killers. I honestly had a really nice night just sitting for a bit and relaxing briefly. When the movie was over I showered and went to bed.

9/12 - On Thursday I had a plan for the whole day + Friday. I was determined to get everything on my list started at the time I had listed, and finnish everything around the time I wanted to be done with it. I got up and got breakfast at 8:30, had class at 9, lunch at 11, did math homework at 11:30, went to class at noon, did more homework in the CoD, worked on a sketch there, went to my lecture at 3:20, and had a meeting at 4:30. My meeting got over at like 4:50, and I booked it back to my dorm as I could see a storm coming and I didn’t have a rain coat or umbrella. I made it back to my dorm shortly after it had started sprinkling, and had 2 min to spare before the heavens opened up and it POURED. I took a lil shower so I could keep on track with my schedule without getting off track.I went to supper at 6ish, left for the CoD at 6:30, and made it there a little before 7! I had snacks packed for when I would inevitably get hungry, and was fully prepared to finish my first sketchbook assignment. I left the CoD at like 9:30 and returned to my dorm at 10ish. I had another snack and started a book my dad had given me before I went to bed.

9/13 - Today I attempted to wake up at 6:30. This did not work, and so I slept in until 7. I didn’t have a class until noon, but I wanted to spend the morning in the studio. I went to breakfast with a former classmate, and then got to the CoD just after 8am. I spent from 8-12:20 working on sketches and taking little breaks every hour or so. I received an email at like 10am from my math prof. telling us class was canceled, which was fucking stellar. At around 12:50 I met up with my dad to go out and eat sushi. I had a pretty good time talking with him and the food was spectacular as always. After that we took a brief trip to the Earl May across the street before he dropped me off at my dorm. I had hoped to get back to work on studio stuff, but I decided not to since I had already done that all morning. I instead went to the Club Fest thing held in a building near me and I signed up to hear more about a bunch of clubs such as birding, film making, theatre, and even fencing! I’m excited to join a club and actually meet people. After that I went back to my dorm to grab some cash so I could then return to that same building and do a pottery painting workshop! It was Stranger Things themed, and I got to paint a mug with some cute lil shapes on it. I’ll have to wait until next week to see what the finished product looks like, but I’m excited. While I was painting I got to talk to a couple of girls next to me who seemed cool. We didn’t exchange info so I’ll probs sadly never see them again. Oh well. After painting I returned to my dorm again and read a couple books on the outside steps leading into the building. When I felt like I had had enough, I went to supper and had some cereal. I came back to my dorm and listened to music for a little bit and sang to myself and just did fun weird shit that I can’t do when someone else is here. I then showered, and started writing this big ass post! I’ve currently been writing for like 2 hrs, but It’s so worth it. It feels really nice to finally have this crossed off my to do list and to just write about stuff. I really do enjoy writing, and I think I’ve been needing this. I’m kinda figuring out how to balance work with play in a healthy way that works for me, and I think I’ve partially gotten the hang of it. I’m hoping to finish most, if not all of my homework sometime on Sunday so I can give myself time to relax tomorrow. I’m so ready to let loose a little and have some fun. I think everyone else is too lol. It’s like 11:52pm and it seems like everyone in my dorm is still up and doin shit. It’s fine with me though. I’m ready for a batshit crazy gameday. I’ll likely catch y’all up to speed on Sunday. Until then, Bye for now!

[paulsolorzano]

12.09.18

Starbucks. Ribeyes. Storage space. Habits. 

Sorting through the space a little. I need to make some room for the giant Game Cube display my brother  is bringing up 

To discuss still: 

Mother had a heart attack

Rachel getting a divorce

Back to Orlando 

Becoming awesome

the ‘roast’ culture Yaqeen and I  cultivated to keep morale up

Managing Tokyo Elvis 

Escape as a coping mechanism 

Minus the bear farewell concert

Sleeping on couches when under emotional distress 

“Inventory” night

10 second romance (rearview mirrors at red lights)

Notable places visited:

Listening to:

Gwen Stefani - love angel music baby 

Jeff Rosenstock - I look like shit 

My chill mix

Fake problems - real ghosts caught on tape 

Antarctigo Vespucci - soulmate stuff 

Antarctigo Vespucci - love in the time of email 

Kanye west - life of Pablo 

Kanye west - graduation 

Watching:

Somm on Netflix 

Reading: 

Eating:

Apple cider vinegar shot

Wheat grass juice powder 

Kale/spinach/radish/parsley/celery/lemon juice/stevia drink 

Outback ribeye and wedge salad and green beans 

Playing:

Purchases:

Final Fantasy crystal chronicles, Japanese version for Game Cube 

Squid head - vintage Star Wars

Packages received: 

No post on Sunday 

But I opened these:

Devil boy by Iconoclast

 eBay obsessions: 

Lyric of the day:

Quote of the day: 

8 ball questions and answers:

Hashtags: 

12.08.18

Sommelier course, day 2. We take the exam at the end of the day today. Fingers crossed dammit. 

—-

Passed the exam! Hard work paid off. A vision planned out and executed. Nice win for me. And my boy Mac is all about it also. The wants to keel going and the wants me to come with him. 

To discuss still: 

Mother had a heart attack

Rachel getting a divorce

Back to Orlando 

Becoming awesome

the ‘roast’ culture Yaqeen and I  cultivated to keep morale up

Managing Tokyo Elvis 

Escape as a coping mechanism 

Minus the bear farewell concert

Sleeping on couches when under emotional distress 

“Inventory” night

10 second romance (rearview mirrors at red lights)

Notable places visited:

Went to Axx Sxxxx’x house in winter garden, after going to outback. Lots of steak this week. Took a weird long way home through Apopka. 

Listening to:

Watching:

Reading: 

Eating:

Starbucks 

Playing:

Purchases:

Packages received: 

eBay obsessions: 

Lyric of the day:

Quote of the day: 

8 ball questions and answers:

Hashtags: 

12.07.18

Sommelier level 1 course: day 1. My boy Mac who I work with and I are here. Ritz-Carlton off of Koh young pkwy in Orlando. Way too early for me to be awake. I ended up waking at 5:30 to get moving. On a little break just now, after the first leg of slides. They gave us a physical copy of the huge pdf they emailed us. I’m scribbling notes as they lecture.  

—-

Hell of a long day. Got maybe 3 and a half hours of sleep? Came to the Ritz Carlton and downloaded 10 hours of information. Me and my boy Mac are as ready as we’re gonna be for tomorrow. 

After some introductory shit, It was pretty much all France today. We also tasted 12 different wines today. Surprisingly I’m not wasted. I pretty much spit everything out for the most part. 

Feeling more confident after today. But tomorrow is gonna be most of everything else: Germany, Spain, Italy, America and Australia I think. I didn’t even touch America or Australia. 

70 questions. I only need 60% to pass. That’s 42 correct questions. I can do this. 

To discuss still: 

Mother had a heart attack

Rachel getting a divorce

Back to Orlando 

Becoming awesome

the ‘roast’ culture Yaqeen and I  cultivated to keep morale up

Managing Tokyo Elvis 

Escape as a coping mechanism 

Minus the bear farewell concert

Sleeping on couches when under emotional distress 

“Inventory” night

10 second romance (rearview mirrors at red lights)

Notable places visited:

Listening to:

Watching:

Reading: 

Eating:

Playing:

Purchases:

Packages received: 

eBay obsessions: 

Lyric of the day:

Quote of the day: 

8 ball questions and answers:

Hashtags: 

12.06.18

Ate a lot of meat yesterday. Craving more today. Also I seem to be having some mood related swings. In the shower today I was overwhelmed by sadness for a fleeting minute. Yes, it was relative to Axxxxx and how I blew it. 

Death cab for cutie playing in this Outback Steakhouse. Shoving a wedge salad into my face. The pen has ahold me; I smoked off of Tina’s cartridge because she wanted me to try it and see  if it was harsh. And it was. That didn’t stop me from taking a rip, and then another. 

I unfocus my eyes and stare through one of the tv screens playing basketball recaps. The pen has me in a daze. I finish chewing through this ribeye. Leaving nothing but a few green beans. Coffee after this undoubtedly. Me and my routines.  

—-

Time in Bradenton after Alaska with Danielito and the rest of my family:

My brother and I discussed me coming back and all we would do is smoke and watch YouTube videos, and goddam if we didn’t do just that. He was working a lot so I would also spend time with his gf Kristy. She enjoyed the company as my brother would later tell me. And I wouldn’t see why not seeing as my bro and I are similar dudes.  

Spending time with my mother was nice. Since we spoke every day over text we were pretty caught up when she and Rachel picked me up from the airport. 

—

Just interacted with an extremely enthusiastic barista at Starbucks. White girl, pretty perfect makeup, and ‘Disney cast member’ levels of energy and excitement. 

—

At a weird spot in town: 434. I’m not too familiar with this area. It’s hilly, which is uncharacteristic. That being said, I feel like I’m elsewhere.  On the road somewhere maybe. Different place, different climate as well since it’s actually cold today. And by that I mean 69°

To discuss still:  

Mother had a heart attack

Rachel getting a divorce

Back to Orlando 

Becoming awesome

the ‘roast’ culture Yaqeen and I  cultivated to keep morale up

Managing Tokyo Elvis 

Escape as a coping mechanism 

Minus the bear farewell concert

Sleeping on couches when under emotional distress 

“Inventory” night

10 second romance (rearview mirrors at red lights)

Notable places visited:

Johnny’s fillin station for a date with Penny

Hung with Christine at her temporary Airbnb 

Listening to:

The agency - engines

Vulpeck - the beautiful game 

PHOX - PHOX

Lucius - Wildewoman 

Lucius - good grief 

Jeff Rosenstock - worry. 

Watching:

Reading: 

Eating:

Outback Steakhouse. Had a 10oz. Ribeye and green beans. Shrimp and garlic topper on the steak 

Starbucks cold brew with heavy cream and a shot 

Coffee from Austin’s 

Burger with no bun from Johnny’s filling station 

Salad with blue cheese dressing   

Playing:

Purchases:

A couple things from BAMF comics and collectibles 

Terminator ReAction figure

Vintage Star Wars figs:

Complete loose Lando Calrissian 

Complete loose Tusken Raider

Packages received: 

Not so much a package but Christine gave me a copy of MFing Wine Folly! Not too shabby at all. Nice thoughtful gift seeing as I’m doing my sommelier course tomorrow/Saturday 

eBay obsessions: 

Robotech action figures 

Lyric of the day:

Quote of the day: 

“I can’t get into it” - my server at outback in regards to water. WATER! 

8 ball questions and answers:

Hashtags: 

12.05.18

Driving to Bradenton from Orlando: 

I like to take the scenic route to bradenton. Meaning, ill pull off at random exits to find a weird gas station, or a coffee. Always stop at the rest stops if I can remember. 

Its a road trip so I treat it like one, even f its only a couple hours. 

The last time I went, I checked out a vintage video game store in Largo I believe it was. Ended up going the St Pete way to bradenton. 

Driving to bradenton is part of my attempt to not be a deadbeat family member. To see them once a month if possible. Which with the slightest amount of planning, of course it’s possible.

Ive had this rental car since I got back to Orlando. A new Nissan Altima. Love the thing, but paying out the ass for the convenience. I’ve been slowly talking with  a couple places to try and get a vehicle but its slow going. Mostly because im semi lazy and have this vehicle already haha. 

Speaking of bradenton, I need to get the logistics down about getting the Game Cube station from my brother and bringing it up here somehow.

—

Feeling abnormally tired lately. Maybe I’m not gettin the right kind of sleep. Definitely  getting coffee. 

—

Coffee got. Strolling around the Altamonte mall solo. I spend a lot of time alone lately. Ive felt alone since  Alaska. 

Just a slow wave of sadness just underneath my surface. I need to exfoliate it. I will only achieve that with fulfilling things and people and experiences 

—-

There’s a dumpster in the winter park village; I just walked by it. One time, Axxxxx and I came dumpster diving over this way. We found a pretty sweet painting among other stuff in one of the dumpsters. I ended up hanging it up at the sumner house in Kissimmee. 

That place was once mine alone, and then she lived there briefly with me before we drove to Alaska.  

So yeah I just walked by the dumpster, and the swell of sadness rolled up on me. 

Everything around here is a memory of us. This may be part of the reason for my depression. I’m swimming around in memories all over town. I’m not safe because we’ve been every fucking where around here.  

And I sit at this red light with my head in my hand, crushed for a moment, due to life 

To discuss still: 

Time in Bradenton after Alaska with Danielito and the rest of my family 

Mother had a heart attack

Rachel getting a divorce

Back to Orlando 

Becoming awesome

the ‘roast’ culture Yaqeen and I  cultivated to keep morale up

Managing Tokyo Elvis 

Escape as a coping mechanism 

Minus the bear farewell concert

Sleeping on couches when under emotional distress 

“Inventory” night

10 second romance (rearview mirrors at red lights)

Notable places visited:

Listening to:

Sufjan Stevens - songs for Christmas 

Deftones - Saturday night wrist 

Team Sleep - s/t

The reign of kindo - play with fire 

The reign of kindo - rhythm, chord and melody  

Brightwood - wake 

The reign of kindo - this is what happens

Queens of the Stone Age - songs for the deaf

Watching:

Bojack Horseman

Reading: 

Eating:

Apple cider vinegar shot 

Kale/spinach/radish/parsley/celery/lemon juice/stevia drink 

Wheat grass juice powder 

Ribeye and creamed spinach from Longhorn steakhouse 

1/2 chicken from Pollo Tropical

pistachios after hitting the pen all night

Playing:

Purchases:

‘Choices’ by Jermaine Rogers 

Packages received: 

eBay obsessions: 

Deftones vinyl records

Lyric of the day:

“Bring me a reason to cry and I’ll shed you a tear” - the reign of Kindo 

Quote of the day: 

8 ball questions and answers:

Hashtags: 

[nycrunning]

November was something… I ended up with the most mileage and tons of great runs… It started with the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K, a hilly 5K through many NYC touristic attractions like the United Nations, Grand Central Station, the NY Public library, Central Park, etc, all the way to the NYC Marathon finish line. I made a little video if you want to see what it looks like. It’s quite fun.

The next day, of course, was the marathon… I started the day early with a 12 mile run before spectating. It was a gorgeous day.

The Argentinian flag by the finish line!

We started the cheering around 10:30, when some of the wheelchair athletes were still going through First Avenue. We saw the pros and a LOT of friends, a LOT.

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We then moved the cheering party to Fifth Avenue for a few hours. I had little voice left but we managed to yell and cheer for a few more hours.

After a quick lunch and regroup we headed to the finish line to cheer on the last finishers. That is the biggest party!

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November has a lot of races and amazing runs… because the leaves change, it’s just magical out.  Here is one example:

I run a bit of the 60K to keep Michael company, that was fun:

The next day, I was signed up for two races. I know people who have done this but I never had. First, a 4 Miler in Central Park, at 8 am:

That went fine. Then some caffeine and up on the 1 train to Van Cortland Park for a trail 5K at 11:30 am.

That was intense… Legs were stiff right at the start of the 2nd race (it was a bit cold) but once we got moving it was fine. Happy it was a short race or I would have gotten hungry.. it was noon and all!

A few days later was Thanksgiving and spent it with family!

I am also lucky that I have a friend who lives close to my family and took me out for a 7-mile trail run, post-Turkey.

Looks sunny but don’t be fooled: it was freezing!!

That weekend we also did an exploratory long run into Queens and the neighborhoods that would be affected by Amazon’s takeover of the area. The LIC QNS waterfront has been evolving a lot in the last few years and it looks amazing. For now at least.

Told you it was a LOT!!

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 173, that IS GOOOOOD!

Downs: Not one.

Ups: All the fun fall folliage runs… Running can be quite epic in November, when there is daylight to see it! Also, finally caught up with my yearly mileage!

Balance: ALL so good. Hey December, TOP THIS!

October

Don’t call it a comeback, but I wish it was! In October, my legs finally felt good to go again, after about 3-4 months of some twinge, strain or whatever it was. I should have stopped running and I would have been fine in a month or two, BUT I was not going to miss Summer Streets… that really messed it all up. And I was managing it properly so I didn’t have to stop running but it took waaay too long because I didn’t really take the time to fix it. Anyway, I did the Bronx 10 miler (here is the report and here is a short video of the race),

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and a week later I did the Divas Half Marathon in Long Island -a tough race for me as I was all alone after mile 4 (how do the elites do it??). Here is a video of the race.

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Then, I took a last-minute flash trip to Argentina to see the family, especially my pregnant sister and I had some amazing runs. I did a long run from Palermo to Vicente Lopez and back, and a few more runs around Palermo and inside El Rosedal. It was epic. Here is a little video I put together.

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When I came back home, there were many great runs, as it was the few weeks before the TCS New York City Marathon and there are really waaaay too many events. Which is a great thing if you can clone yourself. Otherwise, it’s FOMO all day long as it’s impossible to go to everything. Take your picks and don’t look back!

The last weekend of the month, and the week before the marathon, I do the Polland Spring 5 Miler. It was a great run with Michael, we chatted the whole way and it was my 21st race this year, a PR. Not a really a PR but I’ll take it! I am behind on mileage and still really really slow so that’s all I have these days…! Good enough for me!

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Closing up the month with a visit to the marathon expo to pick up my bib for the Abbott Dash 5K, will report on that soon!

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 140, oh well. SO behind my goals this year

Downs: NONE

Ups: running in Buenos Aires was literally epic. I can’t get over how fun that was!

Balance: ALL thumbs up!

September

hello Friends!

September was more work and socials and running… Is that a good thing? emmmm. You can decide (and keep it to yourself, as I like to say). There were some epic runs and some crappy runs. Mileage was pathetic not impressive. Some runs made it all worth it. We did a run to the Little Red Lighthouse, which was awesome.

I had no pain and I felt strong. The next long run was awful. The day after was AWESOME. Get the jist? A run to the Bronx and back last week was great. I was a bit all over the place (meaning: not just in Central Park) but I really like that. Had a few long runs with Kettia and Khris (as you can see I have a favorite pair of Oakleys).

The run to the Bronx was awesome but I got no pictures. I get distracted sometimes, I AM truly sorry!

Ah the sad part: Juan was ready and all packed to leave to China for his half Ironman and the RACE GOT CANCELLED…

Sad. Now we’re BOTH going to another one in November… in China also. It’s about 33 hours door to door, exciting! Gotta learn some Mandarin, help please!

and then I started feeling better. It was instantaneous. The little itch I had in the back of my leg went away last Thursday and voila… there goes 4 months of what the hell is this? but I am back! 

And Sunday was the New Balance Bronx 10 Miler, ohoooo. I’ll refer you to the official post, but it was fun. Slow as F but fun. Oh well, here comes the time to pick back up the speed. yeeeeeey.

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 116, ooops, went from the biggest month to a very small one. OK.

Downs: my knee had a weird twitch and I was getting very tired of it. Had to skip the Newport Half to make sure I was giving it the rest and time it needed.

Ups: I finally felt ok in the last week: strong and ready to push back. 

Balance: Good now. I feel I am back to normal. Slow but normal.

August

is always a good month because of SUMMER STREETS, literally, I should be hired by the Summer Streets People because I feel like a community evangelizer. That is all I talk about to anyone all year long. You know it. Anyway, to recap: I like Summer Streets. A bit. If you just met me or this is the first time you read this blog, Summer Streets happens 3 weekends in August, on Saturdays: they close traffic on Park Avenue in the Upper East Side all the way to the Brooklyn Bridge, for 5 hours. It’s MAGIC.

If you missed it, shame on you (and, how are we friends???). If you never heard of it, pen it in for next year and don’t make vacation plans or don’t say yes to weddings. If you don’t live in NYC, get tickets now. 

So, Summer Streets was awesome, even though it RAINED ALL THREE SATURDAYS as you can see in the pictures (ugh) and we have to chop one run short because there was lightning, thunderstorm and flash flooding (but mostly because with all that water I couldn’t keep my contacts inside my eyes…!). It was still awesome. 

The day after the first Summer Streets, July something, a Sunday, I run the NYRR Manhattan Mile, a new race and a distance I’ve never run. So, automatic PR you say? Meh I don’t count those, but I WILL COUNT THE NEXT TIME I RUN THIS DISTANCE because I run it as slow AF. So, here we go: I have a bum knee. It’s not chondromalacia patellae, it’s not ITBS, I’ve ruled out a lot of things but it’s just weird because it hurts VERY randomly. AND, if I take time off, it hurts more. Go figure that one out. Good luck. Anyway, that day my knee was hurting so I struggled to finish. It was also like one hundred million degrees celsius/fahrenheit. 

Luckily I had Jackie, Michael and Brian to not only keep me company but throw power boosts at me during the last mile where they all decided to pick it up and I was just not into it. Aw, friends that throw stuff at you while you want to curl and cry are the BEST! ❤ I guess.

HA.

The next weekend was another combo of Summer Streets and a race. This time I attempted to do two races on Sunday and it didn’t work out AT ALL. I wanted to do the France Run, a 5 miler in Central Park at 8, and then scoot out to Williamsburg (in Brooklyn, for all my international readers! This Wsburg is in BK, not Colonial Pennsylvania, as I had to be told a few times in my first years in NYC coming from Philly!!!) (where was I?) then scoot out to Williamsburg to race the Brooklyn Mile. My heat was at 9:30 am. Possible?? Not really. What was I thinking? Not only David and I run France Run as slow as we possibly could without bursting into a walk spider-crawl, BUT we then proceeded to be extra stooopid fun after we finished and pretend talk in French and rename everything. We then also decided, while it rained, to taste and eat all the French things they had… chocolate, financiers, it was good… oooops, it’s 9:30! CRAP. And the truth is, I wasn’t in any shape to race a mile. My knee agreed (probably).

The last weekend of August (am I missing one???) it was a doubleheader. I did the Percy Sutton 5K in Harlem on Saturday and the Henry Isola 4 Mile XC in Van Cortlandt, Bronx, on Sunday. Who knew I could handle it? The knee was stoopid all week so I run to the 5K with Kettia and David SUPER slow, like 11 pace and was thinking to maybe cheer. I felt 100% pain-free so I decided to race. It was slow (23:06 It think, 7:24 pace) well, yes, I haven’t done anything hard in 2 months so I couldn’t expect much more but I felt good and that is all I cared about. Plus it was fun. We met lots of people, Frankie run me in, we had an hour-long stop on the run back… it was all shit and giggles, the way a race morning should be (to me, don’t judge!).

We run back. I ended up with like 10 miles… then… the next day, cause I felt ok… (who feels ok the day after a 5k?) I decided to run to the Bronx to run the Henry Isola 4 miler. It’s in the trails and it’s cross country. Ummmmmmm I was an XC virgin and had NO IDEA what I was doing. I didn’t even know why my age and gender was on my bib! Or how we all run on the grass and not the path…? it was all so weird. So, I’ve done trail races, like ultras, or like Bear Mountain 50K, or stuff like that. But this was SOOO DIFFERENT. Fast but also trails, crazy. Anyway, I run to the Bronx, got there at 8 am, race was starting at 9 and it was SO BURNING HOT already… I started feeling all the heatnessticity before we even started. It’s a smaller race than the typical NYRR race, like a LOT smaller. 40% of it were we out of the trails and in THE SUN. The last loop was hard and I won’t admit this to myself but there’s a chance I didn’t negative split this race. It was still great though (if can call walking up Cemetery Hill twice because your legs can’t run up, then yes it was great).

I think you can tell how HOT it was. Maybe by the sun situation, or my sweat situation, or maybe becase my hair is fried. I didn’t run back home. At all. I tried. But no.

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 157, biggest mileage month so far this year. Just checked and my biggest month was 187 miles in October 2016. 

Races: Four. Two were miserable/slow. One was ok, one was awesome.

Ups: UM, HELLO, SUMMER STREETS. Did you forget already??? Also, that’s the most miles I run in a month this year. Catching up.

Downs: THIS STOOOOPID KNEE. Sorry, sorry, I still need love you knee, please don’t hurt me, anymore, prettyplease?

Balance: I wanna feel un-pain again and run hard, and do speedwork and I hate this crap. 

July

I barely remember July already and it was just now. My parents were still visiting so we kept touristing around and we had an amazing Fourth of July with all the official NYC fireworks on the East River. Epic. I did two races, with meh performances. The first one was the NYRR

hair working hard for the picture, post-Retro 4 Miler

 Retro 4 Miler, and I was really lame to not dress up, or back?  I seriously will wear any costume but just like happens every single Thanksgiving Halloween, I don’t care enough to remember more than 1 minute ahead of time. Every year I tell myself I am totally going to dress up next year and then I forget. Then every year, when the costumey event happens, I tell myself I am gonna set a reminder in the calendar for a month BEFORE Halloween/race/etc so I can plan ahead… but I am a snooze-hitter with things I don’t really want to bother with (NOT the alarm, you KNOW I wake up before the alarm even goes off!), and I use my go-to motto: if I didn’t bother doing it so far, no chance in hell this is gonna get done ever. Just like with the emails at the bottom of my inbox. If it’s been 2-3 days, there’s a high chance they won’t get opened/read/replied to… AAAANYWAY, I didn’t wear a costume for the Retro Run because I am lame. But people do, and it’s SUPER fun and I really really really always wish I did. mooooving on. Ah, so, the race. Wasn’t feeling it. I met with Courtney to do about 4 or 5 miles before and I kept wanting to go home. I was THIS close. Does that ever happen to you?

Then, I also did the NYRR R U N 5K in Central Park last week. Also wasn’t fast or anything special. It was a bit like hell hot so I decided to hold it in a bit. I managed to not kill myself. It was meh, but I love that course, it’s pretty fast with just one hill. Saw like a million people I knew, which was fun as always to catch up and chit chat and all those things with lots of chs in them. cha cha cha.

If anything else exciting, fun, amazing happened, I either don’t remember or it’s totally private or NSFW! HAAA, got you thinking!!!

DATA DOWNLOAD

exciting huh? I am behind on my mileage… been behind since,… January??? I am lazy or having too much fun, you decide.

Total Miles: 152, not bad, not bad… not amazing but the most this year. July is a good month to run!

Races: 2. LAME!!!! Last month I had 6… so… AH THAT’S WHY MY MILEAGE IS UP!!!

Ups: I heart running in the summer. LOVE IT. JULY NEEDS TO BE 325 DAYS PLEASE.

Downs: omg my hair in the weather. HELP. Send the firemen or the paramedics or Paolo Puttanesca asap.

Balance: I have no idea. ALL I CARE ABOUT RIGHT NOW IS SUMMER STREETS. SUMMER STREETS STARTS IN TWO DAYS. SUMMER STREETS IS THE BEST. SUMMER STREETS HERE I COME. SUMMER STREETS IS THE BEST. DID I TELL YOU I LOVE SUMMER STREETS?

can you tell I am melting?

June

was a great month. Let me break it down before I forget it all (photos and a super organized calendar really do help!). I often wondered if I should do these weekly… there is so much to say but then I forget. Anyway, JUNE was BUSY, My parents came to visit from Argentina, which is awesome, they come every other year, for about a month and it was amazing. We did everything, we went everywhere, I got myself them so tired every single day…. it was awesome and rough at the same time. We literally did it all in a month. We even went to Miami for a few days of untamable hair and sticky skin. I forgot how insanely hot Miami is in the summer. #protip, don’t effing go to Miami in the summer, ever. or really, at any other time but definitely NO in the summer.

Anyway, the month started with the Italy Run NYC, a 5-mile race in Central Park, sponsored by Ferrero where I proceeded to smear Nutella all over me post-race, best celebration possible, correct? Before you ask, there are no pictures of that because it’s a LIE. Race was good; my performance… meh (actually, I don’t remember anymore!).

Literally 3 days later, I did another race, the Summer Series 5K in Prospect Park. It’s on Wednesdays at 7 pm, which REALLY messes up my sleep AND my Thursday morning run with my Flyers friends, BUT…I kinda love showing up because:

I see lots of friends I don’t see every day in Central Park

I cherish (and also hate) racing in a different course than the ones I did one million times in CP (though it’s also harder)

Love the small race ambiance

Also, don’t remember much I think (given there is a picture of my holding a medal, duh) that I placed and I got a medal. Oh, and I totally remember I got something like 71% AG. YEAH, nbd.

And… 3 days right after this one, I had the 3rd race in 6 days… can you imagine how that one is gonna go???? So, Saturday morning was a Mini10K, which is a mega party, so I wasn’t going to miss it. BUT, I also wasn’t going to miss the other mega party Friday night… So come Saturday morning I was a MESS… my feet hurt (from the heels or dancing, who knows!) and I was sleeeeeeepy, SO SLEEEEEPY. I have no idea why, NOT ONLY I SHOWED UP TO THE RACE, BUT I also met Elizabeth (she is real, I promise) to do 4 miles before the race. MENTAL.

But, it was all worth it. I run it, EASY, with 3 friends, and it was a frigging BLAST. I regret nothing. #noregerts.

Told you it was FUN! Yeah, I was physically miserable but no one remembers that… smh. So then my parents arrived and we started the daily tour of all the food and all the things we don’t tell the tourists about. AND the World Cup. June was literally mental. Somehow I managed to get to Queens the next weekend, early, to run the Queens 10K. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to make the trek because Argentina was playing at 9 am against Iceland and I’d miss the first half, but so happy I went… Not only I had tons of fun at the race, I SOMEHOW (…miraculously) managed to do OK. Noooo, not a PR or even close but I got up to 69% AG, I was just one minute off from my PR, which is from frigggggging 2013! Does that even count anymore? I say NO.

I am a sucker for high-fives!

Then, wait for this because the madness doesn’t stop there…. I did TWO races the next weekend!!!! YEAH, again, NBD! Crazy, right? I agree. It’s good that I am a biomechanics coach and I know what I am doing because otherwise my leggies would have fallen off by then… Saturday was the Pride Run and OMG I WAS NOT GONNA MISS THAT. I always race the Achilles Hope and Possibility race (which was going to the next day), so I decided to take the Pride Run easy and save my legs for Sunday. Only… I didn’t quite do that. I ended up with a lot of fun AND 12 miles… oooops. #mischiefmanaged (for you all PotterHeads!)

Jackie, Mary, Michael and I run the whole thing chatting from start to end. And the outfits were ON POINT.

Sunday I woke up to do a few miles before the Achilles Hope and Possibility race and I was wishing I had raced the day before… It was muggy, humid, gross and I was tired. You do what you can.

David and Patricia (and corrals B,C,D,E and F) smoked me but I was happy. My parents had come to spectate and it was AWESOME. They came both days. They LOVED IT. Those two races and really something. REALLY REALLY something.

The next weekend was a wash because I was out of town, and back just on July 1st to watch the husband race the NYC TRI, with the parents and my cheering crew along. TRIATHLETES ARE CRAZY, just saying. But he’s so cute, it evens out.

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 139, eeeeeek. too much racing makes the mileage go puff!

Races: SIX. 6 races in month. That’s probably maybe a PR, at least this year… ha, I have 12 races this year, 6 in ONE MONTH. 

Ups: All the fun things I did with the parents…!!! The Nutella at the Italy Run was HEAVEN. The Mini10K was SO FUN. Queens was a MEGA REVELATION. Pride and Achilles get me teary every time…

Downs: Mileage was yuk and I am behind my yearly goal. Tapering before races and how sore I am sometimes after…

Balance: ALL AWESOME!!!! I can’t believe I did all those races with all the other stuff I had going on…!

May

May was a whirlwind!! So much happened, and so many races also! I remember I started the month with something we had planned since September last year: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child!

Call me a Potterhead, That was awesome! Twelve hours later, I was up early for the Newport 10K, just over the Hudson, one of my favourite 10Ks, because 1, it’s flat, 2, the finish line bagels (and I don’t really like bagels!). The race was a blast as usual: I’ve run it a few times and it always delivers! It’s usually hot but I love the vibe and the views!

Of course, as usual, there were many runs and stairs workouts sprinkled through the month:

And then there was the Japan Run. I remembered being tired from something but then, at the start, I met with Brian and Nick and Jackie, and we all decided to run together and pace Jackie. Those are my favorite types of races!

Way too much fun was had!! The next weekend, just so I wouldn’t fall off the wagon, I run the NYPD Memorial Run 5K. It was HOT and humid but I rallied and for the first time in months, I did OK. I measure my race performances by AG and I feel I do ok when I get close or over the 70% AG mark. Lately, I had been around 64% to 69%, and in this race I went back up to 70% wohoooo. Also, it was super fun to run on the West Side Highway. I really like how wide it is there.

Then, three days later, after a brutal stairs workout and speedwork, we raced the Prospect Park Summer Series 5K: no biggie. The course was slower (as there is a hill in Prospect Park) but I managed very similar results! Just like 10 or 20 seconds off. I find it so weird to race at night (well, 7 pm), that I find it quite amusing to try to figure out what to eat, how much, when, etc. Of course, then I slept like crap after because I was so wired!

That was a lot of racing…!

DATA DOWNLOAD:

  Total Miles: 147, coming back up, but it’s hard with those short races because I feel like I need a good taper before and then my legs are thrashed for a few days…

Races: FOUR, here we go. Racing season is upon us!

Ups: the NYPD and the Summer Series 5K were definitely a surprise! I wasn’t expecting to do so well (NOT IN PR SHAPE YET THOUGH, ok?) and even though I don’t feel as strong as I used to, feeling in control of the situation really helps! One more thing: Central Park blossoming is the BEST!

Downs: how tired my legs feel two days after any short race! YUK

Balance: VERY HAPPY

So, I need to race more. Even if I am not in fighting shape or without any kind of expectations, I really enjoy it. The fewer expectations I have, the more fun I have, and so I go out there controlled and just let the race happen. I’ve actually started measuring races and performance by the amount of time it takes me to get back home, aka “how much fun I have”. For example, the NYPD Memorial Run was at 9 am and I got home at 4 pm: THAT is a successful race in my eyes now. The truth is I am not always (or ever again!) be as fast as I used to be or as I would like to be or as I would expect to be, so what should I do? Stay home until I feel I am in shape? HECK NO. To me, races are not a test of my fitness or “what I get from the work I put in” but a chance to enjoy with the community of friends who like to get out and enjoy the park with one foot in front of another trying to stay healthy. Yes, I’ll push hard here and there, but if one day I don’t feel like it or I decide to stick with a friend, it’ll be no different: it just HAS to be fun. 

April

We started the month in Argentina, which was great because it was WARM and hey, it was vacations. Got to see the fam and a few touristy things of course, and yeah, a few runs with Juan. Oh and of course I ate my face away. Lots of asado and steaks but also a lot of nikkei, my favourite non-native cuisine while in Argentina (my favourite non-native in the US is Japanese and French, you always gotta know where to get what!). I got back, I did a 4 miler in Central Park, the Run as One… it was so long ago, I can barely remember, or maybe it’s because I’ve been racing a lot the last two months! Oh yeah, I remember I got really hot (I was overdressed) and started way too fast or something, here is one picture!

I obviously spent some time running around, exhibit A:

or working:

or with Juan, usually eating crap:

and/or usually with friends, running or not!!!

DATA DOWNLOAD:

Total Miles: 119. Ooops. That’s low. I really vacationed in Argentina… IT HAPPENS, OKAY?

Races: just one but it was more like a tempo, wasn’t expecting to go all out.

Ups: the fun runs!

Downs: didn’t get a lot done!

Balance: it was good -> lots of blossoming happening all over NYC made it amazingly beautiful!

March

March is always a good month because it is my birthday!!! HA. I started the month with a race, the NYRR Washington Heights Salsa, Blues and Shamrocks 5K (there is a post there), which wasn’t great time wise but it was fun. See proof here:

There was a lot of running, maybe not tons of miles, because it was still cold as hell Alaska? ok Alaska, but it got done. 

And the United NYC Half happened. I saw so many of you there. That was an intense week and I was REALLY just a bit jealous of everyone running the new course. I got to run parts of it last year and was on one of the Pro lead trucks on race day and it looked amazing!! and everyone looked SO happy at the finish line… Really jelly So happy for you all!!!

We then went to San Antonio for a few quiet days of pulled pork and warmer weather. For my bday. We ate a LOT.  We run a bunch too:

DATA DOWNLOAD:

Total Miles: 151, it’s starting to pick up

Races: one. and I was so not wanting to race!

Ups: I did a lot of really great runs

Downs: still not feeling my best.

Balance: not letting it get to me. Let’s hope the nicer weather brings better running!

Also, one more thing I forgot to report on this whole year. A few friends and I have been doing monthly challenges. January was squats, February was pushups, March was planks. We usually just grab one from popsugar.com. Basically it tells you how many to do every day and each day is a bit more. It’s interesting. Maybe you’d want to try it with a few friends? we all text each other to make sure we’re all doing them EVERY DAY… Protip: it works better with a reward at the end of the month!!!!!!!!!!

February

was weird. I happened so quick I barely noticed. Instead of ice-fest, we had a few meltdowns (all kinds of meltdowns!) and even one day in the 70s… OH OH what are people going to use now to discredit “””global warming“””? I feel so bad for those polar bears, and hey, we won’t be moving to Venice anytime soon. Glad I live in a 2nd floor too, but I digress… Anyway, my body decided also to have a meltdown and I had a couple of stooopid issues (my hormones have decided they need more attention than any Kardashian!) and even some very very easy runs where my heart rate was about 50 over the usual… anyway, I was signed up for the NYRR Al Gordon Brooklyn 4M, and I was literally too tired to get up. Of course, I ended up running 11 miles in Central Park instead but my pace was 10:00 and my heart rate was at 82%. Insane. You just can’t win them all, can you? About two weeks ago, I spent the husband and I spent two hours shopping for half marathons for me… I came up with not a lot. If you have any ideas, let me know. Also, my running is so up and down I’ve started questioning if I should try to take some weeks/months off so my body doesn’t feel pressured and maybe that would help?

ha, I was just kidding! I’d be super hyper and way too annoying after just two days and waaaaay unhappy. So, let me just slow down, do it when my body is ok with it, and just enjoy it with no pressure. Deal?

So, I had a few awesome runs, still.

  Plus it was Valentine’s Day and who thinks we’d let any reason to celebrate pass by? any excuse works!

Also, I got to spend some quality time at work (at NYRR) with some people you might know… Meb and Jenny. Do you even need last names? Don’t think so! Meb is now a Team for Kids Ambassador and Jenny is a Rising NYRR Ambassador and both were in town to run the Virtual For the Kids 5K race. If you haven’t check NYRR’s Virtual Races, you should.

  Anyway, it all went waaay too fast!

DATA DOWNLOAD

Total Miles: 124, emmm, got lazy a bit!

Races: big old zero for the year

Ups: weather got surprisingly “hot”. 40s and some 50s even.

Downs: not feeling my best.

Balance: i am getting a bit frustrated. cause, wtf.

January

was really cold. The first two weeks we set cold weather records. It was awful. Running was awful. I started the year working at the midnight run and it was really really cold. I wore everything and it was still crazy cold. But it’s a super fun race!

It was so cold that the races on the second weekend of January got canceled. I managed to run both Saturday and Sunday but it was insanely cold. Everyone kept asking me what I was training for, as most people assumed I had to get the miles in for some marathon or something. I am not really training for anything, just trying to not let the winter win. I can’t say I loved it, but I got out there.

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As you can see there was a couple of blizzards in there, snow, ice, and all the layers. Luckily we had planned a trip to Mexico for mid-January to escape the cold. The vacation part was uneventful but we had a few epic runs with Juan (the husband!).

First night in the hotel, a guy who worked there came up to talk to Juan as he was wearing his 2017 TCS New York City Marathon shirt, to ask him if he had run the marathon. Turned out that Armando, our new friend at the hotel, was a runner too and invited us to his team’s workout the next morning. So, at 6:30 am we went out to meet up the Red Runners, who were having a special run as one of their teammates had passed that week. There was a half an hour of a warm-up, everyone in a circle, probably around 130 people, and the coach had a microphone and big speakers. Before we headed out, we all got one white rose to carry for the memorial. We all run together to a gorgeous lighthouse I never would have seen, we got there with the sunrise, there were speeches, even a triathlete pastor, there were prayers, and we run back with the boombox in tow. Everyone was together. It was very moving. And everyone was so welcome to this stranger. It was very special.

  When I travel, to me, the best thing EVER is to hang with the locals. Nothing could have beat that run.

Juan and I did have a few osom runs. The day after the run with Red Runners, there was a race in town, which we didn’t sign up for because registration was miles and miles away but we run to the start and finish to cheer/spectate. Funnest part: Kukulcan road (the main drag) had no traffic for the race. Quite FUN!

  The next few days we did great. We did a tempo together and we run back to the lighthouse so Juan could see it. We managed to get the sunrise too.

  And like that, we were back and the month was over!

DATA DOWNLOAD!

Total Miles: 140

Races: not even one. But we spectated at one..!

Ups: the runs in Mexico!

Downs: running in the sub 10 temperatures (which is like minus 20 in Celsius). NOT FUN. WITH WIND!

Balance: can it be June now? I really miss racing a LOT.

November 2018 - the year is almost over! November was something... I ended up with the most mileage and tons of great runs... It started with the Abbott Dash to the Finish Line 5K, a hilly 5K through many NYC touristic attractions like the United Nations, Grand Central Station, the NY Public library, Central Park, etc, all the way to the NYC Marathon finish line.

#Achilles Hope and Possibility #al gordon 4 miler #cancun runners #central park #cold weather running #italy run by ferrero #italyrunnyc #japan run #jenny simpson #Meb Keflezighi #mini 10k #mini10k #New Balance Bronx 10 Mile #New York City #newport 10K #nyc running #nyc summer streets #nypd memorial 5K #nypd memorial run #nypd memorial run photos #nypd memorial run report #nypd memorial run result #nypd memorial run review #nyrr #nyrr bronx 10 mile #nyrr henry isola cross country xc van cortland 4 miler #nyrr manhattan 7 mile #nyrr percy sutton 5K #nyrr pride run #PPTC Al Goldstein Speed Series 5K

[30somethingrookrookie-blog]

Days minus-4 through 0: Introductions

Thursday (day “minus four”): My best friend found himself in a hospital burn unit after a cooking accident.  With temporarily immobilized hands and feet from skin grafts, and his immediate family out of state with other commitments, he wasn’t going to be able to do much on his own.  I came by to stay at least through Sunday morning, in order to help him with food, drink, lip balm, and just generally keep him company.

While the burns had been healing somewhat well, he had just had his skin graft performed when I came in.  He was in immense pain, reporting that his thighs (the skin donor area) hurt worse than the actual burn sites.  They kept him under heavy painkillers and he faded in and out of both sleep and lucidity.  While he appreciated the company when he was able to talk, he spent more time out of it than in.  I realized quickly that I would definitely want to find something to focus on during the times when I wasn’t needed, because I planned to be there for a while.

Now I had played chess on-and-off before.  I had the chess.com app on my phone to mess with casually, and even was briefly on my middle school chess team a couple decades ago.  But, I had never taken it even slightly “seriously” and still considered myself an absolute beginner.  I had checked “Bobby Fischer Teaches Chess” out from libraries a couple times in my twenties and was loosely familiar with things like forks, pins, and checkmating a king when he was all by himself on the back row, but never learned to apply any of it, so really, my level of play was always “probably beat someone who just learned the rules, and literally nobody else.”

What had brought me back around to chess was an ad I saw in an idle game I was playing for an app called “Magnus Trainer”, which seemed to be a chess training app released with the blessing of a notable player (who I would soon find out is the current World #1 and World Champion, Magnus Carlsen from Norway).  I went looking for it in the app store, found two programs with this guy on it: the “Trainer” I was looking for, and also a cute program called “Play with Magnus” that offered simulations of the Champion at various stages of his life.  I installed both, because it sounded a lot of fun to play against the 5-year-old version of a future world champ.

I poked around both of the Magnus apps and the chess.com app for a little bit, and then watched some TV with my friend.  The cable selection was extremely basic (no FX, no Cartoon Network, only ESPN for sports channels), so we found ourselves watching lighthearted programming that was easy to watch back-to-back, like TruTV’s prank show “Impractical Jokers” and the CW’s stage magic showcases “Masters of Illusion” and “Penn And Teller: Fool Us”.  The nurses were reticent to give him heavier painkiller doses, because of the risk of respiration difficulties, but he was eventually able to get off to an uneasy sleep, and I found myself drifting off in the recliner.

Yowza, I’m starting to notice I’m using a ton of brand names on this.  I promise I’m not being endorsed by anyone to make a stupid blog about being a 30something chess newbie, or to trick anyone into watching dumb TV shows or downloading free-to-play apps.

Day -3 (Friday): Friend was in a lot of pain still, but his respiration rates had stabilized, and they were able to give him some of those unspellable medications they have.  I found myself with a lot of free time between the moments he was able to get up, and decided to really crack into the lessons on the Magnus Trainer app.  It started off with super-basic lessons that amounted to drills practicing the pieces’ moves and captures, and gradually increased in difficulty so slowly I hadn’t yet noticed it was happening.  Some of the “games” in the lessons seemed especially bizarre - there was one where you were moving around trying to escape from a “monster” piece which slowly floated around in real time.  The challenge would increase when it would as you to pick up “keys” on certain squares as you fled, and then to play as pieces that are increasingly difficult to get to those particular squares, such as knights.

I was having a good time and felt more confident, so I tried playing the Play With Magnus game.  Happily I discovered that the biographies for the first few difficulty levels (Ages 5, 5 1/2, 6, and 6 1/2) indicated that they all took place before he developed a particular interest in playing chess, and mostly talked about his hobbies at the time (soccer, geography trivia, and books about pirates).  I tried a few games against ages 5 and 5 1/2 and found that he would often make completely erratic moves, failing to capture in obvious exchanges or just leaving pieces completely en prise (fancypants chess talk for “just sitting there so you can straight up snatch em up).  A few wins boosted my confidence further, and I went back into the Trainer app, completing all of the sessions marked Basic and Easy, and making some headway into Medium.

Day -2 (Saturday): At this point I had started to grow a little obsessed with this Trainer app.  I was sometimes failing tasks, especially on the ones where speed was an issue, and I got determined to keep on plugging through, and at the very least finish all of the Medium sessions before I left the hospital burn ward on Monday.  

Couldn’t sleep at all, except brief nods-off in the recliner that peaked at maybe one hour.  When my friend was asleep, I’d put my headphones in, pop on a podcast (listened to a lot of McElroy family shows in this time, especially Sawbones, My Brother My Brother And Me, Wonderful!, and the backlog of the discontinued Coolgames Inc.), and blast straight into the chess tactics and games.  I found myself beating the ages 6 and 6.5 versions of Play With Magnus (plays somewhat similarly to ages 5 and 5.5, but doesn’t as often decide to just randomly give up the queen or miss an obvious capture).  I was intimidated by the description of age 7, where young Carlsen was motivated by sibling rivalry to defeat his older sister at the game, so I started playing games against the CPU of the chess.com app, which even offered an estimate of the CPU’s Elo level (the score used most commonly to rate a chess player’s overall performance.  a number in the 3-digits is a true beginner; an Elo rating of 2000 in the USCF is considered an Expert, and a professional International Master player holds a FIDE score of no less than 2400).  As that parenthetical aside probably tells you, I ended up doing some research as to what the ranks and rating numbers mean, and what I could expect to know at each stage.  As I played the chess.com app, I noticed that Level 1 (Elo 200) seemed to play full nonsense moves most of the time, and Level 3 (Elo 500) seemed to be the level where it first started really punishing any super obvious blunders I made.  Unfortunately I found myself moving too quickly and leaving valuable pieces en prise, so I ended up going back to tactics in the Trainer.

My goal was to finish all of the Medium lessons by Monday.  I finished them by the end of Saturday and was starting to crack into the last set, the “Hard” ones.  Sleeplessness is a Thing, y’all.

Day -1 (Sunday): Doesn’t matter how many tactics lessons you do, you lose against easy mode CPUs if you leave your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  Stop leaving your queen en prise.  All losses and no mates make Jack a dull boy

Day 0 (Monday / yesterday): Left hospital at 6 PM, confident my friend was once again in good hands.  The next day he was to have his graft sites looked at, and should have regained some of his ability to do things (I will update this tomorrow with his condition).  He was acting like his normal self, and even suggested that the experience might have given him the experiences he needed to go back into standup comedy, which made me happy to hear.  It was what he had wanted to do a decade ago, but politics at some of the local comedy clubs ended up leaving him with a distaste for the scene, and he had quit.  I hope he follows up on that, he’s legitimately a funny and talented guy.

Still starting to make some headway into the Hard section of the Trainer app.  Moved exclusively to playing Play With Magnus on the 7- and 7.5-year-old levels, as level 8 is officially where it jumps to “intermediate” and suggests that the boy had started to put in some serious study, which seems well beyond my point.  Still found myself making reflexive moves without thinking, and moving pieces that were critical to defending other ones.  Currently, my record against this app is 28 wins, 7 ties, and 16 losses, and it rather generously estimates my level of play at 892.

During a game against the Level 3 (Elo 500) chess.com app CPU, I managed to get the game down to a mate-in-1 situation 3 times in the endgame without even noticing.  I will make a separate post about that one, it’s wicked silly.

Day 1: done made me a blog, yeehoo!

I’m trying to figure out what a realistic goal is, if I keep on practicing fairly consistently, where I can try to reach in a month and in a year.  I’m in my early 30s, which is probably way too old to start taking a game seriously and expect to become the best ever, but I do wonder if I can ever make it out of “beginner” and into, I suppose, “chess player” status.

#chess #chessbeginner #diary entry #journal entry