Category: :)

explorer build update 2

jesus tapdancing christ. it’s 30c out, and probably about 36c in the garage. 36 stagnant, dusty, degrees. still, at least i got something done. it’s better than nothing. tomorrow i tackle the rest.

side note: i have a problem with wheels i think. why do i have 4 complete sets of wheels and tires for the s4? wait no, 5 if i count the ones on there already. i also have another set on order. what the fuck man?

i miss aim

definitely about to show my age here, but whatever. i really miss AOL instant messenger. i miss the nonsense font choices people made. i miss having a buddy list. i miss the away messages. i miss desperately searching for meaning in the lyrics people posted in their away messages!

i know, i know, facebook messenger, discord, telegram, snapchat, imessage, bla bla bla… it’s not the same thing. these try to do too many things all at once. they’re too connected to a million other features, platforms, distractions, etc.

when i think about it, i really miss a lot about the early days of the internet in general. it seemed a lot more ‘special’ back then. everything that existed really showed how much, or how little effort an actual, real person put into it. everything was so much more intentional. everything was so much more personal.

i remember when i built my first web server way back when. i had just moved out of my parents house and took over the spare room in j&k’s apartment @5309. i didn’t have a computer, nor did i have very much money, so i scoured the local newspaper’s classifieds section to find something for sale and i ended up finding a used 486DX4 system in a giant metal tower for a price i could manage.

the only operating system install media i had were a million different versions of macintosh system (6, 7, 8 and maybe 9 too? i’m not sure that was out yet.) and a handful of freeBSD disquettes. so, freeBSD it was, because macintosh system was 68k only and this was x86. i had no clue what i was doing, no clue how to make it work, no documentation, no nothing. yet somehow i got x working, and then somehow i got it online too.

i think i probably ended up getting debian install media too at some point and switched to that, but, honestly, i don’t remember all that much from back then any more. heck even what i do remember is probably wrong too haha

i must have been using a dyndns domain back then, because i only registered my current domain back in the summer of 2002. no, not this one, my actual one… not that this one isn’t real… ahh forget it. you know what i mean.

having to figure everything out, learn how the operating systems worked, learn how apache works, learn how bind works, learn how sendmail works, all of it so that then you could learn how html works and then learn how to make something that was even a little bit functional and all that work, just so you could post some nonsense online that was important to you… like, that’s a lot of fucking work. back then you had to really want it. you had to really care.

compared to today where this very site took me all of about 17 seconds to set up from beginning to end. it’s not the same. honestly, it feels disposable. like if i just deleted this whole thing tomorrow, would it even really phase me? i could start again somewhere else in no time flat.

don’t worry, i have no intention of deleting this place any time soon. i just really miss the old days.

now get of my damn lawn you kids!

chubs and prom queen

tabarnak. last night was great, but oh boy am i ever paying for it this morning.

j&k, m&j2, you are good people. i’m happy to count you as friends. j2 i am sorry you are perpetually the asshole, but at least m got to be prez this time! for one round anyways lol. and thank you so much for hosting, cooking, cleaning. most of that is usually my job, so taking a break from it felt great, also everything was delicious!

there was a lot of reminiscing tonight as well. j&k and i share a lot of history… i mean, j has been my best friend since we were like 13 or 14 years old. and i’ve been friends with k for just about as long too. we all used to live together too at one point. man, we had some good times.

band today. i don’t know if i am going to make it. at least i know j and m are going to be in similar boats after last night.

i think we might play some more of our own stuff today, or at least i am going to suggest that. last night m was pumped to show us some things he was working on, and also was strangely motivated by something i wrote when we first started this, played it once or twice and then discarded it. i thought no one liked it, but i guess it just needed to ferment a little.

better help – part deux

mixed feelings… i did ultimately decide to change therapists and not wait for my originally assigned one. the platform does make it very easy. 2 clicks and you have a variety of new options. you can see their profiles and specialties, their upcoming availabilities and reviews. i picked someone whose specialties lined up with what i think i need and had decent availabilities.

i chose to do a chat session, though there are options for video call and phone call. something about chatting just feels a little safer/easier. session started only a few minutes late, and i was informed ahead of time that there would be a slight delay.

the chat session itself had one thing from a technical standpoint that REALLY threw me off. it’s live typing. like you can see what is being typed as it is being typed. as someone who regularly writes something, reads it back, deletes it and writes it again about a million times for each and every thing i write, this was a total mind fuck. i found myself really having to think hard about what i was going to write before just writing it. at first, i really didn’t like it. but then i decided to just go with it and just let things happen as they happened and in the end it was fine. i guess it forced me to be a little more honest and a little less calculating. how fucking demented is that? i would normally delete what i just wrote there, but no. i’m leaving it. fuck it.

so, tech issues aside, this first session is almost word for word, exactly what i expected. which the cynic in me was screaming ‘see?? you knew what was going to happen. you already know what you need to do. stop being a bitch and do it.’. i’m trying to silence that voice and trust the process though. because it’s not that easy and you know what, this person just met me, i am paying them money, of course they will want to build rapport and trust. of course they are going to offer words of encouragement. of course they’re going to make this as pleasant as possible to start. do i really want any different? am i some kind of masochist or something and secretly want someone to tell me i’m a shit? am i? no… i don’t think so. i don’t know. whatever. shut up.

so next appointment is booked. at the end the therapist encouraged me to write about how i am feeling and tried to over explain that and how to do it. i did giggle a little inside and offered a warning ‘be careful what you wish for’. told them i had already been doing that in a blog right now and have a history of writing going back many many years. i don’t think i will share this place though and will instead stick to the journal system inside the platform.

sleep depravation is pretty rough today i have to admit. a couple of nights sleep really resets your tolerance for it. i think i am going to try take the afternoon off work, consume of the devils lettuce and then try to pass the f out.

play it by ear?

really good jam yesterday, despite y not being there. things are slowly coming together, things are getting tighter, less mistakes being made. j and m only took one 420 break and both were motivated to keep going. i played my heart out as well… i guess i have some demons i need to exercise or something (shocker, right?).

i’m starting to believe in j’s plan that by next summer we’ll be able to play a show.

the other day j said something as well which i thought was interesting. both m and i play by ear. we can’t read music. heck, i can barely read tab and i don’t even think there is tab for drums. j on the other hand relies 100% on tab. so every song we learn, he needs to study and m and i just kind of fuck around until we get it. because of this, j claimed we were superior musicians to him. which is kind of funny, because j has always been one of my musical inspirations/mentors/idol. i’ll take it as a compliment.

anyhow, towards the end of the jam, m pulls out a little thing he’s been fucking around with for a while and holy moly, i fucking love it! pardon the potato recording quality.

little rough still, this was the very first time either j or i played along to it, so there is work to be done for sure. but man oh man, this is something. can’t wait until next weekend to flesh it out more.

i guess i still love her

haven’t really spent as much time caring for her this year… i think this will be only the second wash this summer. i desperately need to decontaminate the paint and the whole drivers side needs polish, last time i was in tremblant the parking garage dripped shit all over the side and it kind of stained clearcoat. thankfully it’s only visible in the brightest of sunlight.

foam canon is a must. if you wash your car at home by hand, get a pressure washer, even if it’s a cheap one, and then get a foam canon. makes all the difference.

she cleans up nice i think…

as annoying to clean as they are, BLQs fuck.

no flames today… it is saturday morning after all. pow pow pow

realisations

i’ve always struggled with the concept of mental health. like, in theory i understand, but in practice it never made sense to me. i think i’ve always had a pretty strong hold of my thoughts and feelings, i’m not usually prone to sudden outbursts of emotion, i can usually rationalize most things, i can usually win the battle between brain and heart easily enough. so things like depression for example just always seemed kind of made up to me. like it was just a convenient excuse to get out of anything because heaven forbid anyone ever calls you out on it. like ok, you’re sad, great, suck it up butter cup, i’m sad too, but we got shit to do, so bottle that shit up and lets go. it doesn’t make sense to stay in bed all day, it doesn’t make sense to zone out, none of that behavior makes sense! if you have something you need to do, then do it. or don’t, but then be prepared for the consequences.

i think part of the problem is that i’ve always seen it black and white like that. as if all the world was binary and there are always only 2 values possible. i mean, for a lot of things it really is like that. right or wrong, up or down, more or less, in or out, yes or no… but feelings… mother fucking feelings… they ain’t so binary i am slowly realizing. i mean, i know there are not only 2 feelings, but for pretty much my whole adult life i’ve treated most feelings like an on/off switch. you’re happy about something or you’re not. you are sad about something or you’re not. you’re nervous or you’re not.

you love someone or you don’t.

wait… what was that last one? you love someone or you don’t… ouff… i’m not so sure any more. i mean, for most people in my life it’s true. i love z and l and would take a bullet for them no matter what. n and m, even though it is not usually reciprocated, i love whole heartedly as well. e, j, g, t, all of them, say the word and i’m there, no questions asked.

k8 i will always love, even though she’s no longer present in my life.

k i will always love… but… i don’t think in the same way… in some ways it’s more than all the other’s combined, but in other ways, it’s the exact opposite.

think of it this way, i always believed i lived in a world where everything is binary, there are valid values of 1 and 0. everything is easily processed and categorized. and then all of a sudden there’s a 2. and a 3. and an l,m,n,o and p as well as a, emoji representing macaroni salad. how do you process that?

i guess that’s what i have been feeling for a while. and my stupid brain just rejected the “faulty” data and only accepted the valid 1’s and 0’s. but all of a sudden now i am realizing there are petabytes of this supposed invalid data in the cache and it all needs to be processed.

i’ve got some work to do.

and so, we begin again

a long, long time ago, when the internet was young, before tiktok, before instagram, before facebook, before myspace, even before livejournal, there were a handful of us who hand crafted our own websites which ran on computers we had in our own homes or apartments using barely serviceable home internet connections to share stories about our lives to whomever may stumble across them. honestly, at least for me, it was not really even to share with anyone, it was just somewhere to put something out there into the universe instead of leaving it stuck in my head.

recently i’ve been struggling. ok, maybe in hindsight it has been more than just “recently” and struggling is maybe too strong of a word? i don’t know. shut up. just let me do my thing. the last time i felt like this, blogging really helped me sort my thoughts out and enabled me to move forward. what is it they say about investing in stocks? something about past performance is absolutely indicative of future results? or maybe i have that backwards. either way, this is what i’m going to do now.

back then my blog was filled with angsty posts about how life is unfair and how love is so difficult. well guess what boys and girls? same shit different pile this time around! so buckle up! the show is about to begin!