I’m in a glass box of emotion, in an easy to read list:

1. SCOTUS and the entire justice system in the US scare the shit out of me and are giving off some very Weimar Republic vibes with their handling of important issues. We are all thinking of how tiered and corrupt this cavalcade of insanity has been, but I’ve yet to hear anyone at the top do or say anything to fight back.

2. I have a student who is just a total asshole who absolutely needs to be kicked out of my class. Really disappoints me. The mountain of paperwork is exhausting but I’m doing it because someone in a position of power needs to do the right thing once in awhile.

3. I’m loosing weight and just need to get over this plateau and into my goal area. So close but wow is Laphroaig delicious on cool evenings.

4. New “older me” personal best on the bench. So I got that going for me, which is nice. I use our college gym and it’s amazing. Most of the staff use the faculty hour but early in the morning, it’s only dedicated athletes and people who want to be there. It’s incredible and extremely satisfying to never need to wait for anything, and loose myself in heavy metal. 10/10.

5. Since AI is all the rage here, I used it for qualitative coding. Not to do my research. But to summarize and make suggestions. After playing with prompts it was pumping out time saving insights to empower me to dive deeper. Saved me MONTHS of work.

6. Finished a really funny article in the Atlantic on cruise ships. Awesome writing. Great story.

I was on two Boeing 787 flights and made it back to type about it. No problems. However, I have to admit I was irrationally nervous since all the whistleblower reports on the 787 came out as I was checking in for the second, a 10 hour direct journey.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Dragon Age: Origins

I’ll need to learn to swim better than a dead fish, but yes, I should look into doing this.

A long long time ago I had two serious knee injuries on the same knee. They warned me after injury and surgery 2 that the day would come when running just would became impossible and I should do everything I could to keep my muscles and health good. I was a runner my whole life, the injuries were not running related, but I could go on a 10 mile run like it was nothing and was pushing 60 miles a week for most of my adult life.

I started noticing some pain issues and swelling and had to stop running cold turkey two years ago. I got some training and hired an expert to craft a program to support my leg. Personal best in squats and deadlifts, it was incredible, looked and felt great for two years. But then, just like that, I went down on one knee to do a pallof press and HOLY MOTHER OF ALL THE GODS OLD AND NEW the pain.

I lost what remained of the cartilage. The muscle atrophy as I’ve gone through the systems to get a treatment plan and learn what’s going on has been brutal. I’m looking at major life changes to hold onto the knee until I’m old enough to warrant one replacement I can die with. And it absolutely devastated me. I drove home and saw a jogger and just got so insanely depressed. I want to go and start doing the exercises I know can help me regain some strength, and support that joint, but I also know an f’up will make it way worse. So I wait for PT and am just getting depressed AF.

It’s only Monday and I’m already falling asleep from exhaustion. Must. Turn. This. Week. Around!

What a great game and great memories for me. I remember, as a kid, building this huge coastal city and putting signs down to buildings I thought my grandmother would like and showing her. She loved architecture so it was always a nice experience for me.

Enshrouded and Valheim.

I want to go on an OG RPG run with KOTOR, KOTOR 2(I admit, never played 2), then DA:Origins. But I need time to loose since I get too lost in the story.

Except the Fade in DA:O. Skip the Fade mod all day every day.

First. Thanks for your kind words! Needed that.

Second, I think I’ll own it and do a “so you watched me break stuff live, let’s debug so I can show you how I go about it”

I have this unsubstantiated theory but hear me out. I challenge an economist to look into this. Anyways, shareholder focus has replaced capitalism, even late stage capitalism, with something else. I’m not sure what it is, but it’s whatever this subscription milk every penny movement is now built to support. It’s like revenue maximization on steroids, like we must seek revenue maximization while remaining 100% efficient in revenue pursuit.

And it’s killing everything in the way. There’s no give.

Economist, get your nobel prize. What is this phenomena?

Wall-E. Well done.

Had a rough lecture the other day and the imposter syndrome smacked me hard. I was teaching students in a skills lab, a sort of optional space where if they are struggling they can join me and learn basic items their prior courses didn’t prepare them for. For context, a budgeting class where they never opened a spreadsheet before.

So I walk them through the basics, how to use formulas and functions, simple stuff like SUM and using conditional formatting to make negatives red. I must have clicked it typed something and missed it and f’ed the last 10 minutes. Pie charts broke. Wouldn’t filter or sort my data by color. Man. It was a cluster fuck.

I woke up this morning, huge headache, and realized I’m just damn tired and drained. And it’s resulting in cracks in how effective I can be in the classroom. Really need this term to end, I’ve got too many classes and too many students to teach in top of my own research, family balance, etc.

“Everything is awesome! Everything is cool when you’re” checks notes “Drinking really nice scotch!”

Ok folks telling me to just get a Linux Distro.

PC Gaming - Enshrouded, Valheim, BG3, Dragon Age: Origins, and No Man’s Sky, generally Steam platform. Classics like Caesar III, TIE Fighter.

Work - Data Analysis, Lots of word documents, spreadsheets

Internet - Light browsing, podcast listening, music streaming

What distro and why?

That was brilliant.

This week is rough. We’re in midterms and everyone around is just in pain. Physical. Mental. I’ve been putting in 12 hour days trying to send feedback (I’m in the un-grading camp, which can be pain with a lot of students) prepare lectures, cover every imaginable student related problem, and it’s overwhelming.

It’s here where I really see where my class falls. Did I effectively get information across in a meaningful way? Yes. Are there a few students who are beyond helping? Always, and that pains me. You can do everything from outreach, to contacting student help offices, and they still miss assignments and stay on their phone during class. It’s 20-30k a year. Gone. And it hurts me that I can’t do more for them. The students who care are amazing and do incredible work. But knowing how much is at stake here, debt, knowledge, future, and how lucky they all are to have this opportunity…totally wasted. Hits hard every semester.

Ah yes Taxes. The things I don’t mind paying but wish the rich kids would pay too. :-(

Hang, in, there. I can’t understand nor relate to your situation, but you’ll find with time and reflection that things, did in fact, stabilize. Just know there are people that care about you and that you generate meaning and joy for people in your life.

Woke up. Got out of bed. Dragged a comb across my head…saw water damage in a room. Had a cup, noting I’d be late chugga chug chug Saw a pipe spraying water out my wall.

So I got that going for me, which is nice.

Otherwise, not too shabby. Thanks for sharing everyone and hope you have a good week this week. Remember, even when shit hits the fan there are still people that care about you. Even digital strangers with water shooting out of places water should not shoot from.

Thanks to all of you for posting this week. You’re wonderful for sharing and I’m very thankful.