Leaderboard

Hi All. Today, I got to do a small tour of Prague. Too much to see in just a few short hours of course, and these pics don't do the place justice, but I saw a castle!

I will be going to Prague, Czech Republic this spring 2024 for a week-long class field seminar!

Strike is over, my book sales leapt up, and I lost 3 pounds, so I’m back in the game!

You ever have a bad day at the office, it’s finally quitting time, and someone comes up to you all chipper for no goddamn reason? I don’t blame that droid. 3PO being all excited to see someone looking like him. Eat a dick man, he just wants to go home and soak in an oil bath, not have a friendly chat with a stranger.

They are getting big!

I’m a bestseller now so I take it all back. (kidding… sorta… Odine is 100% correct.)

I got to see it.

Look. We all love our pets. I have two cats, they are awesome and I adore them..., but I never expect or require any else to. Why do dog owners seem to be unable to think this way? Or even worse, why are so many of them OFFENDED when you don't automatically love their dogs? Why does not liking dogs in general make you a villain? I don't care for dogs. But like, you can have one. I may or may not judge you for it, but that's my business. But if your dog comes running up to me in public, or if I come to your place and it starts jumping on me, or begging to have my food-- that shit isn't cute. Put your dog away. Why do you think it's okay to let your dogs idiot behavior be in somebody's else's face? Ultimately, I feel like having a dog is like committing to having a low IQ toddler that's never going to get any smarter. You can't simply, leave your house and do something without it being a whole thing. I will also say this, I won't date a single woman with a dog. I'll date women who have kids. I'll date women who have husbands. Better yet, I'll date a woman who has a dog if she has kids and a husband to watch the dog... but if it's JUST her and the dog? NEVER AGAIN. That four-legged cock-blocker makes sleepovers next to impossible, generally puts a time limit on dates, or worse, it comes along and does it's stupid dog shit in the middle of everything. I just can't trust something that likes me THAT much without even knowing me.

I got long johns. In ARIZONA. For real.

Haven't been here in years, this seemed like a good place to update where things are at these days for anyone who doesn't do Zuckerbook. Last month marked my five year anniversary working at NASA. Technically I'm a contractor, but my center is a fairly chill laid back one where there's barely any real difference between that and a civil servant. I finally moved from internal comms and project management to public facing comms with the uncrewed craft department this last summer. The big project in 2024 is going to be the Europa Clipper, it's a ton of fun amusing and bewildering kids and big kids alike with the possibility of weird purple alien sharks underneath the icy crust there. There's of course a fair degree of government bureaucracy, but it's tolerable and the rest of the job is a blast. I travel a ton with the new gig. Enough that it's a ton of fun, but not so much that I'm gone from home too long. I'll be in NYC and DC right after New Year's, anyone feel free to hit me up if you'd like to hang.

LONG STORY SHORT: Well, The 'Goatman' finally found something that was in his budget. I found a 2016 Wrangler 75th Anniversary Edition. Picked it up 2 days ago. I could be wrong but, trimwise, it falls somewhere between a Sahara and a Rubicon? SHORT STORY LONG: I test drove it almost a month ago. The numbers never got to where I was comfortable, so I said 'no thanks' and walked away. This past Monday, the car salesman texted me, asking if I had made a purchase yet. I said no then he told me that the Jeep I drove was still there. I asked if the price had dropped at all or if they could budge on the price and get me where I want it. He said there was nothing he could do. The very next day, I got an email notification that the price went down by $1,000. When I clicked on it and went to the site, the price was an additional $1,400 off. So I contacted the salesman, asked him if the price actually did drop by $2,400. He confirmed it. I asked him if they could get it where I wanted it. He checked with the sales manager, he approved it. All the paperwork was prepared and ready for me to sign when I got there. After about one hour at the dealer, I drove her home!

Autumn in the mountains of NC is indescribably beautiful.

I got a big grant proposal submitted today.

I have a job interview for a project manager position. It will be a decent pay bump if I get the job. Wish me luck guys!

I got a new car. Going to replace the engine in the other one and give it to our kid.

I finally got released today after my kidney levels finally cooperated. It feels so nice to be lying in my own bed again. I’ll finally get to see my son again in an hour or so. I won’t be able to pick him up for about 5 more weeks, though. This is the longest I’ve gone without being able to see him in-person.

Two days operation and I am doing much better. I am surprised how little pain I have now. I’ve progressed to eating soft foods and have been getting up to walk a lot. My new, shorter digestive system seems to be functioning pretty well so far, too. I am hoping to get sent home tomorrow.

You can’t have a conversation about this Kennedy without talking about vaccines and the fact that he knows only surface level information about vaccines and clinical trials. The fact that he knows just that surface level information is why he is so dangerous with his claims about them; he knows just enough to sounds like he knows what he is talking about, but he doesn’t understand the details and nuances. That makes the rhetoric that he spews extremely dangerous. I am very sorry to hear about what your father experienced with the vaccine. From what I have read in the journal articles about myocarditis and severe inflammatory responses to the Covid vaccines, the prevailing understanding is that individuals who experienced them typically have proteins present that result in an immune overreaction to the vaccine. There is also ample evidence that the rates of myocarditis and similar reactions are even more prevalent in those who got Covid but did not receive the vaccines (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9467278/#:~:text=Conclusion,those who received the vaccine.) Unfortunately, it is impractical to test everyone for such proteins ahead of vaccination. That is why governments started advising a much bigger block of individuals than likely actually has that protein response to consider alternative vaccines. Such reactions were not caught in the clinical trials due to the extremely small probability of individuals having those reactions. Clinical trials are designed first and foremost with safety in mind. That is why they start with small sample sizes during stage 1 to test for safety issues. In stage 2, the sample size is chosen very carefully to then check for evidence of, in this case, immune response (development of antibodies), while still keeping the sample size low enough that if there are adverse reactions in a size of the sample that would not have been caught in stage 1 due to rarity of those reactions, the number of people potentially harmed would still be extremely low. Moving on to stage 3, the samples are the largest they will be in a controlled experiment to test if the end goals for the study are met. In this case, that means the modulation or prevention of Covid in patients receiving the vaccine. However, once again the sample sizes cannot reasonably capture the most extremely rare events that may occur in less than 1 in several hundred thousand individuals. That is why every single medicinal product is monitored by regulatory groups after they hit market to watch for extremely rare adverse reactions to offer subsequent guidance. In fact, the first several years after a product is released is referred to as Stage 4 of a clinical trial. In normal circumstances, the general public hears very little about any of these stages or the process, only typically that it takes years to go through. That time frame is usually due entirely to a lack of funding and resources to handle the manufacturing, logistics, and recruiting aspects of the trials in a short period of time. With the whole world throwing resources and money agh the problem at the same time, those challenges were mitigated and allowed for all of this to happen in a time frame that saved and/or greatly helped a tremendous number of people. Kennedy and his ilk do not understand how these things work, nor the way that the field of statistics provides context to the numbers that they throw out there as evidence of wrongdoing.

Welp, guess I am done parenting. (He didn’t notice there was no diploma in there. It arrives by mail in a couple weeks.)

Mark Hamill liked my comment on Facebook today so I'm pretty much a celebrity by proxy.

It got a little dim here for 10 minutes. I bookmarked soooo many idiot IG reels by conspiracy theorists saying this was going to be some big world-ending event and now I get to spend my day going back and making fun of them like it's nightly in 2002.

Fuck Trump. That is all.

Appeal denied, retaliation report dismissed because they couldn't prove it was a false report. It is clear that they are not interested in doing anything about it. Q did a half day at the STEM school program on a day off (different districts who have different semester grading days off). It was grades 6-10, so she would be one of 2 6th graders. That ended up being a little intimidating for her. They are learning Python, and everyone is on their own plan, but she worked with another kid of similar age and she had a tough time following because she would be a beginner. They also had their Language Arts section and discussed The Hobbit. The teacher told me later that she participated more than some of the other kids who have actually read the book. Haha. The teacher ultimately thought it went well, but Q didn't feel as good about it. So she requested to stay at her elementary school for the rest of the year because she loves her teacher. So I requested we stay on the waitlist for next year for the STEM program. In the meantime, we will check out our District's parent partnership program and see if it has a similar program that wouldn't be as bad of a drive or consider one of the private schools. I did follow up with the principal to let her know that we had considered other options but decided to stay, but because of how the situation has been handled, we plan to leave the school district next year. I think she was surprised that we would go that far, but its very clear that I cannot expect this district to look out for her interest. I also let her know that this situation has taught Quinn not to report, because it won't go anywhere, and it will just stir up drama when all she wants is to be left alone. As long as kids lie and say they didn't do the thing, the finding is "inconclusive". You can't trust bullies to tell the truth about their actions. On a positive note, we had an excellent IEP meeting for E yesterday. Everyone is very proud of him for how far he has come in the last 1.5 years. I did bring up how I am very concerned that they are moving 6th grade to middle school the year that E goes into 6th, and his SpEd teacher admitted that she had a moment of initial panic when she heard the news, as well, because we all agree that E probably needed that extra year with them. However, the team promised that they will come up with a robust plan and supports for him. One thing they pointed out was that the program he is in is not currently at our local middle school. If he were to continue in this Social Skills/Communication program, he would need to go to the middle school at the other end of the district, which is a 30 minute bus ride. They've actually made it a point to provide a customized support program for each of their graduating 6th graders so that can attend the local middle school and avoid sending kids to the other side of the district, and have tried to argue to the district that they have enough kids (with future growth) to support a program at the local middle school. Sigh. So they want to come up with a similar plan for him because they think it's important for these kids to stay with their peer groups instead of sending them off to middle school with no friends. I made sure to thank them for creating such an inclusive environment at their school, and to let them know that it's not the norm at other schools we've attended (this goes for our previous district, too). They said that meant a lot to them.

I fucking love dogs. Dogs are the fucking best. But please, stop bringing your dog to the store and please leash your dog. I am a total Karen when it comes to this shit.

When the entire story is magically erased at the end. We’re made to believe the stakes are high, but ultimately nothing you saw mattered because it all got undone. They show us something and really play it up, and then yell psych. A good example is the Prince of Persia movie that came out around a decade ago. The characters were after some magical artifact that could turn back time. At the end it was used to reset everything. So nothing you saw for the past two hours mattered because it all got erased. Sitcoms used to do this a lot too when you find out a character was dreaming the whole time. Always bugged the hell out of me.

I got new trekking poles, knitted hat, waterproof backpack, and gloves rated to -30F. Also a cool solid oak walking stick/wizard's staff which weighs like 15 pounds so I can whack people who let their dogs run off-leash on trails.

I took a picture of my tree because Tami asked on Facebook and then I forgot to post it lol. My tree has a bunch of photo ornaments (I do a new one of our family every year) and handmade ornaments from the kids and me (from when I was a kid). We also have a bunch of silver metal snowflake ornaments from when we first got a tree and had no decorations. Then we have a few silly decorations like Funko Grogu and R2-D2. I do a little bit of ribbon and beaded garland. And then there's the baby gate because my husband still doesn't trust Luna (we have a few handmade wooden ornaments that she's chewed up the last few years, golden retrievers gonna retrieve). We had these beautiful glass icicles when I was a kid and I have no idea what happened to them. They would catch the lights on the tree and be so pretty. I wonder if I could find something like that again.

Brisk day for some trail time!

Our little guy has been around for a whole year now! I can barely believe it.

I took a T-rex to the mountains

Good news, obstacle cleared, for now. This is still a year-long process, but I think I am better prepared than most people.

My second interview went well. I think I have a good shot at a job offer!

I got a check I wasn't expecting! Bonus money!

THE MURDEROUS HANDS OF DISNEY my all time favorite nightly quote

The little guy is both crawling now and constantly pulling himself up onto his feet on anything he can find. There goes being able to put him down in one spot.

The more shows come out, the more I think Order 66 didn't really do anything did it?

So…. on strike. Working on a few personal projects. I am planning to shoot a short scifi film. There’s a couple space shots and I was assuming I’d need to do them as cg. I talked to a few friends who do that sort of thing and it’s not cheap. I was on YouTube watching videos to see if I could teach myself— cause that is the sort of thing my ADHD brain does… but 3D software vexes me. Anyway, happened upon a couple videos that showed that oddly, doing it the old school way is actually easier than CG now. With a decent lighting set up, a mini dolly, a green screen, camera and model spaceship you can do what ILM did decades ago with a few clicks in after effects (which I DO know how to use.) So obviously, I needed a spaceship. Off to some kitbashing tutorials, and a great one on “panelizing” by Adam Savage… I decided to convert this old batplane toy my kid nabbed at a garage sale a decade ago k to a chunky armored spaceship. So batplane, plus a lot of cut out pieces of styrene, parts from a macross valkryie armored fighter, a Russian fighter plane missile kit, another anime robot fighter plane, and a Space 1999 Eagle shuttle. Bunch of glue. Spray paint. 34737273 exacto knife blades. Cost me maybe around $30 in supplies.

Here are some pics of Dresden and a museum I visited!

Q got into one of the private schools for next year. That's a relief. It's a really small school (22 kids max per grade/class) so I hope that's the right fit.

Behold! My new kitties!

I am so stoked. I have always rented and it feels nice to own finally.

Well here's an update. I saw the sales office today and negotiated that they make all the repairs including leveling the place, and put in an offer of $67k. Ten minutes later, they accepted. So now, I am landed gentry at last! LOL!

Omg I'm stealing this. For myself.

Had my interview and I think I did well. Now, the waiting for a response begins!

Riding the bipolarcoaster to the top again!

Omg y'all, I was talking to this dude and he mentioned that he liked horror movies, and one of the ones he mentioned was Leatherface, and I was all like "I'm totally friends with the guy who wrote the screenplay" and he didn't believe me, and I was all like "Uh-huh, my wife gave him good advice when his kid was little, and in fact, his kid just graduated high school last week, and you can look him up on IMDB because we're totally cool with each other" and now I am apparently best buds with Seth, and also may need to send Oliver a graduation present. Oliver, receiving random envelope with a check in it: Who TF is this?

Bud Light Lime FTW. Only shitty beer I will drink. When Carhartt pissed off all the fundies for being woke or some shit, I got a free jacket from our local gifting community from one of my kids classmates lol. That probably identified us as being woke too.

School update!! Despite occasionally trying to say otherwise, Noah wound up rather liking his school. And he did so incredibly well academically. They just threw him into algebra without testing his math level. We’d just barely started algebra in homeschool. I think he was maybe 4 weeks in, but he picked up right where they were without missing a beat. Even I’m impressed with that! He finished the school year with all As except science, which was a B, and all As on all his final exams. Can I just say how validating that is for me as his main homeschool teacher? This is a rigorous classical school where all the core classes are actually honors classes, and he crushed it. I didn’t even know how much anxiety I had about his academic “readiness” until it all started to dissipate. Noah also has zero social anxiety. I didn’t know that was possible for a 14 year-old. On his very first day of school, he mixed up his class schedule and wound up dressing out for PE only to discover when he walked outside that it was lunch time instead. So there he was, obviously in his PE uniform an hour early in front of the entire class. But he was just like “oh oops”, went back inside for his lunch, and found a table of kids to sit with. The he just went on about his day. When he told me about that after school a part of me was completely mortified for him, but he didn’t think anything of it. I told him that if that had happened to me I would have rather moved to Siberia than go back the next day. He thinks I’m weird. So anyway, he made several friends in the 2 months he was there. Even went to a birthday pool party the weekend after school ended. Luke also did amazingly well this year. He started school in January and was behind in reading and writing, which I expected as we’d barely started formal lessons with him. Since he was in the early childhood program in Houston in ‘19-‘20, they immediately set him up with group speech therapy, a paraeducator for one-on-one reading/writing, and a pull out group for social skills. He, like his brother, totally crushed math. His teacher mentioned to us several times how advanced he thinks mathematically and how quick he picked up new concepts. And by the end of the year, we were told that they recommended that he start 2nd grade without the one-on-one reading support as he has now “caught up” to his peers. Reading and writing skills are so varied at this age that I think he’s still kinda on the lower end of “on level”, so we’re trying to do more reading with him this summer. He’s actually really into a lot of Dr. Suess books and we’ve found him reading them spontaneously on his own several times now. We’ve also noticed an improvement in his expressive language and story telling. One of his biggest challenges is telling or retelling stories and answering why and how questions. He’s started to voluntarily retell events from his day or from his shows, and he even stops to correct himself when he gets something out of sequence. My favorite thing though is how all of his teachers and paras and therapists keep going out of their way to tell us how kind he is to them and to his fellow students. I try to cling to that now that it’s summer and he has a meltdown every time we ask him to do anything that’s not watching YouTube videos of people playing Minecraft.

Thank you for this. As the world knows, we are definitely on strike. Two good things-- One, I booked a job and got paid the first chunk right before the strike, and turned in everything I could on all the little stuff-- so in a weird way, I am now the least stressed I have been about work in years. I've got everything I needed to in, I've been paid a bit, I CAN'T work, and I have the job ready to continue on the other side of the strike. Two, the strike has made it clear that it wasn't just me having this problem, it's an industry issue, and some people have it way harder than I do. This is the worst thing. I always say I won't get another pet so as not to have to go through this again, and yet, I always do.