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Showing posts from August, 2022

Storming norming forming and other fun

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Well over 6 hours of sleep  AND late-night Seattle time worship with Kiev Friends AND up in time for highly topical techno Zoom Save the piquant nuclear power plant and other national security commentary for another blog. Also commentary relevant to the title. In the meantime: Random flowering landscaping  on the way to the bus  the other night

Chasing Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'pai on Youtube

about 4.5 hours of sleep. Blame not necessarily in order of importance --caffeine late in the day --really cool social contacts --an effort to chase down the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'apai eruption video that Youtube had been tempting me with all day until I gave in and wanted to post that exact video to one of my blogs. It's still a cool video even if I couldn't find a second time. 

Make self exercise even if pure laziness suggests a longer but less walking transit routing.

Almost 7 SEVEN hours of sleep. Getting out and moving, also seeing mom and making her reminisce helped a lot. Gorgeous fallish weather. Mild temps. Sun. Maybe the last time we can eat on the patio which I find WAY more opening and less depressing than her apartment. Route home: I can't believe how creaky I feel. I chose the more walking transit routing because it is faster. When I say I can't believe, the issue is a matter of a couple blocks. Sigh. Compline last night also spoke to me more than some days. The biggest downside of solid sleep spell: I woke up two hours past when work on the busted water main started. 

Today's palate cleanser: Why Does Caffeine Exist?

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5 ish hours of sleep. Waiting until bedtime to wash hair has all kinds of logic. Going to bed hungry and with wet hair braided is a recipe to wake up sooner than one really needs to. Also there is a busted water main near our building and water will be off on Monday ie regular shower day. I HOPE the water main gets fixed in one day. Meanwhile, change the cat box early. Make extra ice cubes. Fill the tea kettle. And be glad if that is that worst problem of my day. It isn't so be glad anyway that there isn't even worse. And here is the relaxation video of the night. Yes, I said relaxation.

Mammalian Evolution Time frame: Did An Ancient Pathogen Reshape Our Cells?

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Almost seven hours of sleep.  No idea what I did to achieve that. Also even though I theoretically woke up in plenty of time to wash my hair before a 1 pm Zoom that did not happen. And the "HOLY SHIT" news just keeps coming. Tucker Carlson actually has a point to treat carefully about arming oligarchs in Ukraine. I am not going to untangle all the threads because there are enough other strand of geopolitics ahead of it in line. As for the "Election Justice" event on January 6...I think we should just steal the phrase and adapt it to... Then we come to who has Orange Foolius already sold stolen info to? And Puttie messing around with both nuclear power plants and supposedly possibly also tactical nukes. Two old guys losing it.  In the realm of Youtube trying to keep me from obsessing about the most up to the second time frame, here is an interesting item about mammalian evolution time.

Jupiter! Stunning New Images From James Webb Space Teles...

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4ish hours of sleep. Kahlua and skim milk seems to be good for relaxation but not necessarily good for sleep. But an hour of comedy about 60 % of which was actually funny and images of Jupiter are also good for cleansing the soul after too much Trumpishness and war in Ukraine.

Algorithms and leaky vessels: when just to go to bed in the face of new ways to multiply

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6.5 hours of sleep all in one spell! start with 3+ hours of intermittent exercise doing laundry! Two washers, 3 dryers, 5 wash and 4 dryer loads. I had to share the laundry room with NO ONE, one reason I got it all, shorts for coming hot days and travel laundry all done at one sitting! I think not eating late in the evening really also helped. That seems to be a hard discipline but it also really seems to matter. The other path to virtue: I FINALLY got my kitchen floor mopped. Finally and we will not even count how long I have been fussing about intention. Unfortunately I also learned that my supposedly new bottle of ammonia has a spectacular leak all over inside the bucket I was storing it in. So buy more ammonia and see if I can make it a weekly ritual with some other needed rituals on other days. As for more efficient living via Amazon orders: I need distilled water regularly. I think I should just buy a distiller. I am not quite up to the HS chemistry class DIY piping.... PS One wa...

Big bags of viral DNA: Viral Fossil Record The Pandemic That Lasted 15 Million Years

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6 ish hours of sleep. Still no laundry. Also inching toward actual floor scrubbing. Really embarrassing that it is taking me this long to just get it done. And in other news, should I just blame all my problems on evidence from fossil record that most modern species are basically big bags of viral DNA? Also happy independence day / six months of war day in Ukraine. with a dollop of Molotov Ribbentrop pact anniversary from yesterday. 

Kittens being visually cute meh but How We Domesticated Cats (Twice) WOW!

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6.5 hours of sleep. The last go back to bed hour REALLY helped. So did the walk yesterday and dealing with trash this morning. I wouldn't mind fewer spasms but I guess I get to deal... And in the realm of public service education:

When nature decides to blow things up.

5+ hours of sleep. If one goes to sleep earlier, theoretically one can go back to bed and get more sleep. Desire to go back to bed did not kick in until after breakfast, a point to pay attention to. As for the title, the news item here from a few months ago grabbed my attention just because of the name of the volcano.   USGS Understanding the Hunga Tonga Event NASA EOS Dramatic Changes at the Hunga Tonga Hunga Ha'api volcano NOAA The Hunga Tonga Hunga Haapai eruption a multihazard event Phys.org "released more energy than..." There. I can't find the original video but enough Geophysics themed adrenalin junkie. Back to earth and equity and transportation.

Compline, nuclear abolition and war time nuclear power plant trash talk. Also happy birthday Grandma B

 Almost 6 hours of sleep. Body definitely likes exercise both yesterday and today. Today I FINALLY made it to see my mom. I had not realized I had not seen her since before I went to Omaha. Mom said it is her mother's birthday. Grandma B died when I was 6. I am her oldest grandchild. I remember she was a strong presence even though now I also know she struggled several years with cancer and taught school full time. I remember her Christmas cactus maybe because I found it reassuring in the presence of a bewildering parade of strangers.  My mother asked whether I remember her. I think she and grandpa visited on Christmas. I think she wanted to know what I wanted for Christmas. I am pretty sure my mother suggested a sweater and I absolutely wanted something else. I also remember a visit probably near her death where my sister and then youngest cousin were vying for who could fuss the most. And family memories of funeral circumstances include my sister and me being peeved for diff...

Zebra Are Terrible Horses

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5 hours of sleep. I did some household puttering while on my congressman's conference call. Again youtube is looking out for my sanity. And today I went to a seattle greenways event. The weather was gorgeous.

More on Fussy devices and why won't this one talk?

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6ish hours of sleep. More would be good. Guess why a no-coins vending machine would be a good idea and then tell me who is going to be able to reach the card reader So would more exercise Hah. phone battery may be refusing to hold a charge longer than 20 seconds and this Chromebook may be refusing to talk but Google IS automatically backing up my photos. And live humans to debrief after Zoom events. The same photo as above left here as a techno artifact  

I hate headphones and other techno adventures

 6 ish hours of sleep definitely not enough exercise yesterday.  I won't learn new device if I don't practice. And I have work to do!

Because it's already fall in some places

6 ish hours of sleep and the specter of brisk weather in MT makes me smile even if there is an extreme heat warning locally Google reminded me I have not signed in on one of my toys in awhile so I am going to see if I can remember its accessitility features other than gosh it's awesome to have a keyboard. Good morning.. day two of a puffy coat morning walk - a little brisk at 33, shy of a frost. Fall feels near in the upper Blackfoot. pic.twitter.com/GyekSypPME — Eddy - happy rescue (@robgump54) August 16, 2022

Youtube looking out for my mental health? Smelting Iron from ROCKS (Primitive Iron Age Extraction)

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Almost 6 hours of sleep. Yeah! I did not make it to fully dressed before a 9:30 zoom but bra under sleepware will have to do. I think cat has a hairball and I need to tend to because throwing up breakfast is not preferable. Usually this clears up after cat gets rid of hairball but it's a drag until then. Cat is also clearly displeased with variation in the canned food routine. Trip to TJ needs to happen to remedy that but I am enjoying just having food at home and not wandering out into the land of more complex options. I got taxes done by deadline but I am glad the next electronic step agrees with me there is a problem. No penalty for amendments if one makes the deadline but still Maybe Youtube is trying to look out for my mental health. No steady diet of news frenzy. How about videos about smelting iron, making glass, and socializing feral kittens.

Monday underslept

About 4.5 hours of sleep. Going back to bed can't really be a thing because I have STUFF TO DO that I decided to let sit last night so I could binge watch and start to compose a Dear Melania Be glad your name is noe Breona blog post.  Literary efforts will have to wait. Happy Monday 

Let's have a nice sensational title: The World's Most Dangerous Blood Type

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6 + hours of sleep is glorious. So is going to bed early enough to be able to go back to bed after the cat wakes me up. Memo to self: do not spend all of life in front of computer. That is all for today.    

The gods of late evening bus transfers were smiling

About 4.5 hours of sleep. Can you say morbigb fascination with multiple news streams. What will it take to get...to peace negotiations? I could have gone back to bed after I dealt with the knocking. Memo to self: there is very little I need instantly and I need to keep to the discipline of Amazon deliveries on only one day. Plus my body does MUCH better with more sleep. Celebrate sunshine and clear skies and just about right temperatures Despite procrastinating on multiple themes I do not regret hanging out with blind people at a restaurant. I have to ask one friend "Did your daughter really say that?" And conversation wandered to a tender place. "No, just because you don't know whether prayer is working may or may not have anything to do with whether it is working and no, it's not dishonest to duck dialogues with relatives you rarely see about .... Then it was time to come home. I got to my transfer stop and there were several people waiting. That is a good sign...

Are you feeling better than this morning?

4 + hours of sleep. No wacky ass try to fly to Europe without a passport dreams at least. I am responsible for being addicted to the tawdry tales of search warrant at Mar a Lago. This morning's neighbor moment: I don't care what prison abolitionists say. If a person of color asks me to call 911 I do it. This morning was a Cantonese speaking caregiver who barely speaks English. Her 86-year-old client lives around the corner and across the hall from me. When she got there he was slumped over breathing but not waking up easily. I helped call and summon paramedics and make sure they accessed the interpreter. Much later I saw neighbor out walking around looking like he feels better than this morning.  

Walking on a metal grate in stocking feet.

About 7.5 hours of sleep. The "bonus" during the go back to bed segment: one of my periodic catch a plane to Europe while completely unprepared dreams. This one featured a HS friend dropping me at the airport, permission from someone to fly with only an ID and with the expired passport at home, and weird wayfinding involving help from strangers, weird elevator sequences, the aforementioned stretch of stocking feet on metal grate and at last coming out on a weird much quieter than real life runway just as the plane was pulling away from the gate.  On the up side, when I woke up my cat was sleeping right next to my head.  Also, nothing ached during the dream. Waking up is another story. Note to self: renew passport. With breakfast / brunch: nuclear power plant in war zone and labor treatment at meat packing plants during full on disaster capitalism under pandemic. And the universe moves along with probably non-english speaking staff doing the standard get apartment ready for ne...

Body craves exercise and more sleep

4.5 hours of sleep. I SHOULD go straight to sleep after worship with Kiev Friends. I should NOT watch any more morbidly fascinating democracy on the rocks news videos. I should save focus for the weekly 9 am tech zoom Going back to bed should have been a thing.  And my body misses all the exercise I get while travelling. First world problems.

New laptop mixed blessing

4.5 hours of sleep Things I can do at home on new laptop and things that remind me that every time I have a new device there are new dimensions of dorkiness. . If I really can't see the screen because of window glare I SHOULD get better at more eyes free. Ugh. And at least brain has evolved enough that the default screen reader speed does not just put me to sleep. Happy Tuesday

Monday monday with grocery delivery to keep me spoiled

almost 7 hours of sleep because thank god of go back to bed. If getting frozen food items delivered in three different bags when they all would have fit in one is the worst problem of my day.... Nothing like calls from different threads of life to remind me of what I am coming back to on top of cool new stuff from workshop. 

Vocabulary and Peacebuilding

4+ hours of sleep. The Sunday crossword was easy and calming even though it was begun late. International Meeting for worship with attention to Ukraine has dwindled from nearly 500 to 30+. And today there is a very valuable breakout about Quaker Peacebuilding. And there is a vocabulary discussion about clearness processes. Anyone under 60 here?

Did RantWoman stop sleeping or was it just crappy wifi?

7 hours of sleep last night after getting in at 2 am. Previously  About 6 hours 5-6 hours x 2 nights 7 hours counting the 2 hour nap 4 hours and time to pack Days of vigorous exercise help sleep. Crappy cell service and lack of willingness to deal with hotel wifi and unfortunate lack of inclination to tote laptop to training venue  impedes blogging The cat is glad to see me. Perhaps she resents being left alone to deal with Blue Angels training noises. The world is owed more pictures and I need to persuade my phone to help deal.