For the first time since October 2023, I have posted an average of two posts per day in a single month (31 days, 62 posts).
This is not exactly one of the great achievements of my life, but it does signal that I was finally able to get into the habit of posting more regularly again, and more specifically, not getting hung up on what to post, just posting whatever.
I believe I have achieved posting whatever.
Onto September!
But first, it’s time for you-know-who again. That’s right, typing cat!
August 27, 2021 was a pleasant summer day. I was on vacation–the last day of vacation, actually. I had started my stay-at-home vacation1No, I will not use the term “staycation” two weeks earlier, with my last day in the office being August 13. And yes, it was Friday the 13th (read the Wikipedia article to find out there is no consensus on how, exactly, Friday the 13th came to be considered unlucky), but there was no bad luck that day, just another 7.5 hours of working remotely, which I had been doing (with occasional trips to the office about once per week) for over 17 months as the first few waves of the pandemic swept across the world. Well, maybe there was some bad luck for the entire sum of humanity at that point, come to think of it.
August 27 was also my last day working at Langara College. I chose to leave before the busy fall semester would begin–which was also when the school would re-open to on-campus classes. Getting out before the busiest time of year seemed wise, wiser still since we were still in the middle of a full-blown pandemic and I remembered very clearly how crowded the halls of the college were.
When I look back on the time I spent there–a few months short of nine years–I have no ill will. I worked tech support. It was exactly what you’d think, maybe worse in some small ways. I started and ended in the same place, never advancing, though that was partly on me (I turned down a chance to move to a different team) and partly on management (in fact, when I returned from a three-month leave of absence in April 2021, the manager told me there was quite literally nothing for me, but they could help train me in other things that interested me. It was kind of bizarre, in retrospect (and it did play a not-insignificant part in my decision to leave). While I never advanced, I did assume more responsibilities and was probably well-positioned to take over the management position directly above me, had it opened up (it did not while I was there, though I did serve in a temporary capacity in the role from time to time).
The pandemic was a boon in a few ways, which I’ve mentioned here before:
But work-wise, the pandemic was not good. The co-op program, in which I oversaw two to four co-op students each semester, something I’d been doing for about two years, was shut down until January 2021. I reverted to being a regular tech and after just a few months, I was already burnt out. The co-op program resumed at the same time I went on my leave of absence (a coincidence) and was handed off to someone else. When I returned, it was made clear to me that I would not be overseeing the co-ops anymore, but never explained as such. This was really the main reason I chose to leave, the meeting with the manager was just confirmation that the decision was the right one.
That meeting happened in early April. I knew I wanted to quit, but I didn’t have a plan. I pondered and by June a plan had formed, so I then moved to when to leave. I was helping oversee the implementation of a new knowledge base and ticket system, which would critically go live while my manager was on his vacation, so I knew I needed to stay for that and to make sure everything was not on fire when he returned.
An unfortunate side effect of this is that he returned only two days before my effective last day, because I’d booked my annual vacation for the last two weeks of my employment. I still remember in Slack, he was catching up on email on August 11, and he typed something like “Oh” when he got to my letter of resignation (I thought I still had a copy of it, but can’t seem to find it. It was short, euphemistic and to the point). I couldn’t give him the full notice he deserved because he was on vacation and kids, never take your work on vacation and do not bug co-workers when they are on vacation, unless someone is going to die in the next hour otherwise.
He wished me well and gave me a gift card for free eats–which I used! I mean, I used it the next year. I’m never very quick at redeeming things.
I had an exit interview on that last day, the 27th. I was mostly guarded. I felt no need to rock the proverbial boat and really, it was mostly me–it had become clear that I was not happy where I was and management had assured me that nothing about where I was would change–so leaving was really just the logical thing to do.
And now, three years later, how do I feel about it?
It was absolutely the right thing to do. I still keep in touch with a few co-workers. I heard some nice things about me after I left, which made me feel good. I hear occasional gossip. I am not surprised that three years later, the service desk where I worked for so long is now be staffed by people I don’t know. The turnover is always highest there, because tech support never gets the treatment it deserves–not at Langara and, really, not anywhere else, either.
I don’t miss the commute, and I don’t miss the work at all. Like, not even a tiny little bit. I feel I was pretty good at what I did–I got positive feedback, people were always pleasant to me, and I genuinely enjoy helping others, but there has never been a time when I thought, “I miss doing that stuff.”
Well, a slight correction: I really liked working with the co-ops. The energy, the vibe, it was a lot of fun, and I enjoyed being a teacher or mentor of sorts, kind of like the dad desperately trying to be hip to the kids, and sometimes even pulling it off. A number of the co-ops went on to use me as a job reference, which is another one of those things that made me feel good.
In summary, the strongest feeling I have is actually no feeling at all. When I reflect on those years, from 2012 to 2021, I don’t have any kind of emotional response. It’s just a time in my life where I did work, got my fill, then left. I feel, for the amount of time I was there, that there should be more, but there isn’t. I guess that makes me a little sad, but it is what it is.
I end with two photos, the first the view from my cubicle, the second the campus at sunrise.
I came across this quote again today again, and it still resonates.
The very meaninglessness of life forces man to create his own meaning. Children, of course, begin life with an untarnished sense of wonder, a capacity to experience total joy at something as simple as the greenness of a leaf; but as they grow older, the awareness of death and decay begins to impinge on their consciousness and subtly erode their joie de vivre, their idealism – and their assumption of immortality. As a child matures, he sees death and pain everywhere about him, and begins to lose faith in the ultimate goodness of man. But, if he’s reasonably strong – and lucky – he can emerge from this twilight of the soul into a rebirth of life’s elan. Both because of and in spite of his awareness of the meaninglessness of life, he can forge a fresh sense of purpose and affirmation. He may not recapture the same pure sense of wonder he was born with, but he can shape something far more enduring and sustaining. The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent; but if we can come to terms with this indifference and accept the challenges of life within the boundaries of death – however mutable man may be able to make them – our existence as a species can have genuine meaning and fulfillment. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
— Stanley Kubrick
I saw a link on Mastodon1aka the one social media platform I still use that led me to write.as, which is one of the blogging solutions I pondered when I was thinking a lot about moving away from WordPress. Then some things happened:
But as someone who hopefully isn’t just an AI scraping my blog for weirds and probably untrue things to add to the AI Slurry of Knowledge (SOK), you may have noticed I’ve also been engaged in something I call The Culling for the last few years. I can’t recall if I’ve ever fully explained what it is, but it’s pretty simple.
The Culling, explained
WordPress has made some dumb (IMO) moves regarding AI and are generally heading in a direction I don’t like. Also, the platform is bloated, creaking and there’s way more here than I need to just write inane things and post pictures on a daily basis to an audience of one to five people, of whom I count myself. Thus began the search for a replacement, which would also be part of The Culling.
And then lazy, too easy to do nothing, etc.
But now I’m looking again. I feel I’ve somehow managed to tap into one of those moments where I am invigorated for [x] period of time, and I am seizing it to move forward in several areas, one of which is this here blogging thing.
I will report back soon or soon-like.
The song Guns ‘N Roses didn’t write.
We’re apparently in for a few days of showers–specifically, five of the next six days, starting today, but not including tomorrow, which is strangely listed as “mostly sunny”. I’m okay with that, though I’m never really sure how to dress for summer rain. The high today will be 24C. That is totes t-shirt and shorts weather. But you’ll be getting wet, so wear a rain jacket. But any rain jacket is going to feel too warm when it’s 24C. So just embrace the rain.
Yesterday morning I got up and, as I always do, stepped on the Garmin scale in the bathroom to weigh myself. Except before stepping onto the scale, I stopped, because there was some kind of coarse powder sprayed on it. Alas, I did not take a photograph, which will become more relevant in a moment. I did, however, put together this simulation of the scene in Affinity Designer:
Because I had just woken up, and my brain was operating at like 15% capacity, my priority was to clean this stuff off the scale, weigh myself, then get on with the day. I figured Jeff would have an explanation for the powder.
He did not, as it turns out, and this is where I wish I’d taken a photo, because while my depiction above is pretty close to what I saw, a photo, examined all zoomed-in, might better reveal what exactly this stuff was.
With neither myself nor Jeff laying claim to having caused the powder to land on the scale (I wiped the floor around the scale, but it did not seem like much of this stuff landed there), the obvious questions arose:
The answer to both questions: I don’t know!
There is no apparent source for the powder. There is nothing like it in the bathroom, or anywhere else in the condo. It did not fall from the ceiling or come off the walls. It was not tracked in. It seemingly just appeared during the night and was there when I went into the bathroom early yesterday morning.
It did not return this morning, which is good, but does not lessen the general freakiness of its appearance.
If it’s an omen, I have no idea what it would mean. Clean more often? I mean, that’s always good advice.
I will update this post if more mysterious powder appears.
For a long while I averaged two posts per day, which seemed like a good thing, somehow. It kept my mind agile or some other buzzword. But since November 2023 I have not been able to muster the will to post much more than once per day. Why is that?
I do not know. I have theories. Stress is probably a big one. Falling out of the habit may be another. Maybe I’m just lazy or going through a protracted creative funk, or PCF as scientists call it.
Since there’s only one day left in the month and this is post #37 for July, it seems rather unlikely that I will crank out 25 posts between today and tomorrow to hit the two-per-day average. I mean, it’s theoretically possible, and I am mildly curious what sort of spammy nonsense I’d write about to generate so many posts in so little time.
But I probably won’t.
But maybe I will!
But probably not.
Here is a squirrel on a stump at Burnaby Lake:
That means everyone in Discord is sharing YouTube clips that look like this to me:
It’s okay, though, the Olympics (in Paris right now as I type this) are yet another major cultural thing I just don’t have interest in any longer. It’s weird, because I don’t know why this changed. I used to watch and even get excited in anticipation of the Oscar broadcast. Now I often struggle to remember the last film to win Best Picture (I do remember this time–it was Oppenheimer, which, like most movies, I haven’t seen. The last movie I watched in a theatre was Pixar’s perfectly fine Onward, in March 2020). In fact, the full list of things that once engaged me that no longer does is both extensive and maybe a little unnerving, because I really don’t know what has changed.
The drop-off in reading has actually kind of disappointed me. It turns out a long commute was really important to enforcing a good reading habit.
On the plus side, I have spent more time doing other things that are engaging or even healthy, like running and drawing. I guess it all balances out.
This concludes my Monday Semi-deep Thought™.
It is time, it is very much time.
Whoops, it’s 11 days later and I’m finally running again. This was not my plan.
But a toothache and other things got in the way. On the plus side, this meant I avoided running in what will likely have been the hottest stretch of summer.
My goal today was to do a 5K, whatever the pace, and emerge intact. Success! Though there was a moment where the intact part came into question.
I had planned to run counter-clockwise, but when I got to the lake I realized I’d done that the last few times, so it was time to mix things up and be crazy by running clockwise. I started off near the dam and though my first km was a slow 5:55/km, I was pleased when the second km came in at exactly the same pace. That didn’t last, though, and by the fourth km I’d slipped all the way to 6:15/km. I picked up the pace a little and shaved an impressive 10 seconds off the last lap, bringing my overall average to 6:05/km. I really can’t expect better with so little running and so much time between runs.
On the plus side, I felt fine. I knew UI was slow, but it wasn’t an agonizing, “When will this end?!” slow, it was just a moderate pace. It was warm, but a breeze helped, so conditions were also fine. Fine all around!
But…at around the 1.8 km mark, I was running along a shaded section of trail when my right toe hit something very firm. I can’t absolutely say it was a tree root, but I’m pretty sure it was a tree root (I will confirm later). As my foot got snagged, momentum began carrying the rest of my body forward. Fortunately, the root must have been small, because almost as quickly, my toe popped over it and I was able to pull myself upright and keep running, instead of splatting, like I did in August 2016.
Knowing what happened eight years ago, I felt an especially appreciative moment in not falling. The mind is a strange thing, though, and I continued on the rest of the run unconcerned about any other tree roots.
Hopefully the next run will be on a more regular schedule and not just whenever. Also, hopefully no more tree roots. Or rocks. Or ninjas. Or anything that will snag my feet.
Stats:
Run 873
Average pace: 6:05/km
Training status: Maintaining
Location: Burnaby Lake (CW)
Start: 11:12 a.m.
Distance: 5.03 km
Time: 30:37
Weather: Sunny
Temp: 20-21°C
Humidity: 59-58%
Wind: light
BPM: 156
Weight: 167.1
Total distance to date: 6,225 km
Devices: Garmin Forerunner 255 Music, iPhone 12, AirPods (3rd generation)
Shoes: HOKA Speedgoat 6 (10/26/36)
In WordPress, if you publish a post and later make changes to it, the Publish button changes to Update, to let you know that you’re, well, updating the post.
But in version 6.6, just released, that Update button now says Save, which is more old school, but actually makes less sense in terms of publishing something (as opposed to saving a file like a word processing document). I don’t hate the change, but it seems a bit weird and doesn’t really improve anything.
However, they haven’t made anything else objectively worse with this update (that I’ve found), so kudos for that!
Also, yes, I’ve kind of stopped looking for other alternatives to WordPress since finally committing to my site redesign. I still might resume that search, but it’s on the back burner again for now. Apologies to anyone waiting for me to render a verdict!
I am.
