📁 08-23

Still zooming along with Kubuntu 23.04 as my main operating system. My side hustle might not make me rich, but it hasn’t been interrupted by any technical difficulties. Though it would be irresponsible of me not to mention that 23.04 is NOT a long term release OS, and it is running on a tried and tested Thinkcentre M73 (w/pupgrades). Best case scenario sans running an Nvidia Quadro K620 in 2023 (oof? oof.).

Fossil FTW7074 Hybrid Watch Update:

It’s fine. Pressing the Alexa button and saying, “cancel timer”, brings me to an nearly inescapable timer app. Which seems very unintuitive for a voice activated watch. The watch also still drops the Bluetooth signal while the phone is less than 3FT away. Possibly caused by my Avantree Oasis bluetooth transmitter. Sometimes making it difficult to set different timers. Yep, µAlexa requires an uplink to a server to function, go figure right?

I’ve also been secretly working on isolating a ground loop crackle coming from the M73. It travels up the stereo cable from the PC, through the two channel Just Mixer headphone mixer, and through the transmitter to my bluetooth headphones. The obvious choice is to buy a decent sound card, which I will probably do once I open it up the M73 again and see how the PCIE cards are arranged. I figured it’s a ground loop issue because I can stop it by placing my hand on the connector housing of the input cable connected to the mixer (hand on mixer make work good). It might just be a bad cable, but in this instance, I have a good excuse to buy a new sound card.

I know I’m caught up in nostalgia hype, and Gen-Z’rs are most likely profiting off my youth, but for a few seconds the other day I could imagine what it was like to walk out of the door of the family home in 1997. I could SMELL the open shed of .. bagged beverage cans as well. I guess the wind shifted during my recollection.

I never knew 🔗 Bram Moolenaar (creator of 🔗 Vim). To be fair, I don’t get out much, so that could be part of it. Though I can’t speak of Moolenaar or of his character, I can say that Vim helped me organize my thoughts in a way I never thought possible. At this point in my late thirties, I’m nearly certain I have some form of attention deficit disorder. The major shift in organizing my life began in 2017 once I obtained confidence with Vim. The text editor melted away, and I could do what I wanted to do at the speed I wanted to do it.

There’s a spot in my main Tmuxinator config file for a combination life journal and system maintenance log that I type in everyday (created: December 16, 2017 @ 6:13pm). Which was created using Vim, and updated using Vim. All the pet project scripts I’ve written since 2017 were created using Vim. It is one of the first programs I install on a new system, and it is the program I miss the most when I’m using Vi.

If I wasn’t such a monster of a visual person, I would be using Vim to type this blog entry. Previewing markup files using Vim was not something I could do comfortably, so hopefully that explains my monstrosity. I have two documents that I edit everyday in Vim, and I will keep using Vim, whether it be from a terminal emulator, Termux, or Linux console.

I obviously really enjoy his creation, and I’m so sorry to have heard of his passing. RIP.

Mothballed two @csmertx social media accounts recently. The only websites I check anymore are Imgur and Facebook. For the piping hot Star Trek memes of course. And I do my best to avoid the mud thrown in the Red vs. Blue mudslinging match. It’s a lot like dodging water balloons on the last day of high school (catapults .. ).

The trick is to spot the airborne balloon, and assume it’s not full of water..

And I tell you what, if you’re looking for inexpensive jeans for work that are more durable than certain outdoor brands, look for surplus uniform jeans on Ebay. These sellers inspect, sort, and wash the pants (depending on the seller ofc). Mostly Redkap brand, which are also sold new through Amazon. What makes these jeans better? Industrial grade stitching, extra belt loops, cotton/polyester blend for stretch/cooling, made for strong legs, and have YKK zippers. Some spots included, but who cares? They’re work pants.

Also, how do people just sit down and have a conversation with a virtual theater of people? Like, they just do that, and it’s rad. I envy your ability to sit still long enough to make that happen. With so many words in the US English language, and so many dialects, and it all just rolls off your tongues. It’s as easy to you as eating this slice of pizza is to me.

*unapologetic pineapple chunk noises*

Zerospin alleyoop soyale. Looking back, it’s funny to think how I failed so spectacularly on a suburban flat bar set-up. One of those wiggly Walmart flat bars. Three years before I messed up my ankle, I was zerospining on to to adult picnic tables. If I remember correctly, the trick is a funny way of saying backwards 360. My skates were less like the sleek inline skates designed for cruisin’ around Venice Beach, and more like a cross between hockey skates and snowboard boots. I mean, there’s a reason why skateboarders called us fruitbooters (AKA frootbooters). My skates were: Remz 2004 (beige) with Groundcontrol frames to help keep from smearing wax all over the skatepark (just like the picture above). There’s nothing like running up a metal quarter pipe on skates with wax on the wheels. I started with a 1998-2001 model of USD (company) 🔗 Throne (model) I found for $80 at a local sporting goods reseller.

The real crime was the ultra tall green Guinness shirt that I wore to cover my sagging bottom. KFC 3 era 🔗 Alex Broskow I was not.

At the time I was begrudgingly riding a Manco Hornet scooter to work. Which was about as cool as it sounds. When I called the local motorcycle shop and said, “Hi, I have a Manco Scooter..” I was cut off with an, “I’m sorry.” I’m sorry you’re driving that hunk of junk around, but please continue.

To be fair, I got my damn headlight bulb lol

Sometimes I wonder what people think of that one employee that’s moving around using crutches. I mean, working retail is a physically demanding job. People underestimate the amount of 12pk sodas and gallon water jugs being lugged around by the staff. Gallon jugs of water at the time were delivered in boxes of 6 gallons per box. Once you’ve unloaded a trailer full of water you start to see the other deliveries with a different perspective. I was that person using crutches for three weeks. I should have been that person using crutches after a full examination and whatever pins or casts or boots may have been required to fix what I screwed up. There’s a lot of twisting around in the air and landing in strange foot configurations for the trick I was trying to perfect (rolling as fast as possible). Thankfully, during the Thing whatever was causing the strange shifting sensation in my ankle/heal stopped. Actually, during the Thing was when I started experimenting with high doses of CBD. To each their own.

Their own what? Boat? Like, a free boat? Ok.

And to be fair, I saw an MTV action sports segment featuring Josh Petty that really sparked my interest in the sport. There were two songs I remember: 1. Mykill Myers - Who Am I, and 2: 🔗 The Associates - From the Ground Up (The World Famous Beat Junkies - Vol. 2 ft. DJ Rhettmatic). I’m nearly certain the Who Am I song was for Petty’s part. The other song may have been part of a team promo video I’m not sure. MTV was spotlighting a lot of interesting talent just before reality TV took over the network.

The insult to injury is knowing I could have stomped around in one of those cool looking medical boots.

♬ I keep stomping in my medically prescribed boots ♬

Also, during 2005 I took a still photograph of my eMachines laptop from when I was watching a rollerblading video (Cirque Duh SOL EH? ? … or B-Unique’s Freestyle rolling? idk). How about the corner apartment room with the dual windows and that awesome storm season breeze? I’ll admit it, staying in North Central Florida has a few perks.

I dug around the metadata for the labtop image above (shot with a 🔗Canon SLR) and found that I used a 🔗 Noritsu Koki QSS-32_33 lab printer/scanner to print that image. I took several years of typing classes, and the printing controls were limited to a few clusters of buttons, so correcting and printing was one of those weird things that I could do pretty well. Red/Green/Blue adjustments, brightness adjustments, and contrast adjustments. When paired with an appropriate developer (that I have no info on), the lab was capable of printing within 40-45 minutes depending on the number of photos taken per roll. I can’t remember all the details, but IIRC, processing the negatives took around 30 minutes. That is, if whomever loaded the machine taped the leader to the leader card correctly. Lost wedding photos once. That was a fun explanation.

“Ma’am, our machine, it ate your memories.” “Yep, chomped them real good.” “Oh sure, here’s a CVS giftcard for when you want your negatives to get tangled in the gears of this machine again.” *Slaps Machine for Good Measure*

IIRC, the reason store employees told customers 1 hour to develop and print/scan was due to the volume of rolls. On a typical day we printed about 40 rolls, but for certain days of the year we were printing upwards of 120 rolls. I had to tell people coming in with family photos that they’ll have to wait until the next day because property damage insurance photos were piling up behind the developer. I stopped counting hours after I told a customer that the wait would be eight hours. Develop, correct, print, and talked photo lab customers through the envelopes. There were also grad night rushes, and graduation rushes.

And yea, I may have learned to print quick because kids visited the store with their folks, and some people thought it was a good idea to drop off their ‘honeymoon’ pictures. Is honeymoon the right word for it? Thankfully, I’ve blocked those particular images from my mind.

The truth is that I am a happier and healthier person while using cannabis. I still have an occasional drink though (a few times a year). And yes, my glass piece did come with a complimentary pair of Birkenstock Sandals, thank you very much for asking. I suddenly feel the urge to rally against 🔗 GMOs for some reason. They’re a big factor of corn production in the United States - but still - my Birkenstocks have broken through my blood brain barrier. There’s no hope for me now. Save yourself..

A few months after I quit cannabis, I lost my main project contract due to low productivity. Apparently, my performance was not on par with my peers, so they ended my contract a week after I passed a project instruction comprehension quiz. In my defense, we were doing 5-15 minutes of searching per task within 1-2 minutes. But wow that job kept my mind busy like no other.

The occasional flashback. I mean, let’s be real here, the work I did was for a project that interfaced directly with an everyday people network that used a very ineffective content filtering algorithm. The filtering improved quite a bit after the first year, but that first year was just wild. I thought a billion-dollar company would have that figured out before I signed up, but initiating my first inappropriate content flag during the first week proved that theory was incorrect. Please don’t sue this smol blogger. This is not even an actual blog. I don’t even generate .xml for RSS feeds, so no 🔗 Slashdot Effect for me (lol).

The non-disclosure agreement I signed forbids me from sharing all the identifying details of the work I did, but I can say I started during a very interesting time in U.S. American history. I learned more about news events during those two years than I had in the previous ten years.

The slightly filtered smoke you see trapped in that pipe shown above comes from a hemp plant. I bought another 1/4 pound of dried hemp flower early last month. It’s really the only thing legal in the state of Florida that is even remotely close to marijuana. I’ve mentioned 🔗 Delta-8 before in previous posts. The main chemical of the hybrid/creativity strain I use is 🔗 CBG, which is similar to 🔗 CBD, but different. It’s a difference that’s difficult to explain. I feel like my dexterity is better with CBG (CBG & 2x Delta-8). Gotta load up on those dexterity points, right?

Kubuntu 23.04 Update: It’s still fine. I prefer it over 22.04 for playing Steam games. Still use it on the same system I use for my side hustle. It’s fine. Fixing whatever madness breaks out when using KDE settings to save session would be nice polish. In the meantime, I have a 🔗 Plasma restart script, and a 🔗 KDE reboot script. Maybe I’m doing it wrong, I don’t know.

And before I get thousands of emails in my inbox (lol), yes, I’ve tried CBD gummies before. Gummies are just not for me. The 🔗 gummies container I bought has bright colorful cartoon animals on it - just like candy packaging for kids - what could go wrong, right? Oh no, my anxy uncle vibes are showing huh?

Whelp, back to getting mildly high and reading Goosebumps books. I have five on the 2read pile, and twenty more in the mail, lol. They’re like these little time capsules that can be bought for the price of a Starbucks pumpkin spice cold nitro latte espresso macchiato chai mocha grande.

I mean, technically speaking, a substance or nanobot assembly squad could replicate an antennae using the blood stream, but even so it would take a strong power source to boost the signal beyond the epidermis. And the blockage caused by the antennae would most likely cause cardiac arrest. So, I guess that wouldn’t work very well at all.

The awesome part of owning a brain that loses track of time so often is that I don’t really feel depression like other people. I’m not even masking, I may feel depressed for maybe a day, and then it just flows out of my brain. When I was 18, and had been out of my folk’s house for a few years, depression was a malady that was only for the financially secure. My perspective from that era was formed from friends, conversations on city buses, skating around downtown, newspapers, co-workers, and non-fiction books. People didn’t have time to think about depression. I’ve been numb to the world for long stretches of time, but I believe that is something entirely different.

The heck is Depression? Is that the new pizza place off Slurg St. and Flargatoon Ave.?

By 2020 I had spent six years in self-isolation. I’ve probably mentioned this in a previous blog post. People were losing their minds after the first month of The Thing. That’s when it sort of clicked in my head. Once my anxiety of the neighborhood subsided, I had some thoughts to work through. Trust for me is seeing a neighborhood that is very self-sufficient, and is not likely to resort to fighting over resources. I wasn’t exactly sure which neighborhood I was in until 2021. When you’re waking up every morning at 5:30am, because it’s the typical time for smash and grab home invasions, it’s a difficult time to organize thoughts. An attempted murder investigation was conducted in this neighborhood just a few years before The Thing. And a neighbor was arrested for dealing (probably weed). It doesn’t hurt to be cautious. Like I said, during 2021 was when I had a moment for introspective. For the first time in years, I could breathe a sigh of relief and know that I was working, and that my brain is just fine.

The investigation was over $600 in cash. Seriously.

Capitulating is not something that comes easy to me. For some it’s this grand gesture to continue the game, and for me, it’s just tedious and tiresome. To be clear, I’m talking about kissing the king’s ring and falling into some kind of complicated hierarchy. So yea, obviously when I was younger I had a lot of time-outs, and free time to dedicate towards introspection (reading books was allowed).

I might kiss a ring for Chicago deep dish with sausage, pepperoni, black olives, and pineapples tho

I’m going to keep the loneliness part of this blog post brief. Yep, I feel it every day. And yea, I would gladly accept help. I’m not afraid to admit that I need help. For sure. With that said, I would never want someone to help me in the guise of trying to change me into someone I’m not. I am the only me that I will ever be. Also, I’ve found that podcasts and reading helps a great deal.

Reading kitschy novels about monsters and wtf … “GO EAT WORMS!” How do I even classify that genre?

There’s something to be said about going to church to help with loneliness. I was raised with Lutheran values, but never attended a sermon as a kid. I think I’ve read somewhere that church folks actually live longer because of the unity of the congregations. No doubt there are several hundred studies on the subject. As long as the churches honor human dignity and soulful values, I see no harm in believing in a higher power. When I was working during The Thing, I came across several security cam videos showing difficult to explain supernatural like events. Mists floating through doors, etc. Maybe?

Events strong enough to trigger motion detection flood lights…

I lean towards a belief that the afterlife is more of an energy transfer. We all hit the ground running in an attempt to assemble ourselves again. Which I realize is sobering and terrifying, but far better than believing that it all just ends. I think there are some layers that scientists may not have observed just yet - is all I’m saying.

“Hey boss, can you spare some of your energy essence? I promise I’ll give it back…”

And in the life goal category: 31 Goosebumps books acquired, and 31 more to go. So good

Not counting the 3 re-issues I bought by mistake :/