Urgan Shows Up, Does the Thing

[Kishi]

29 minutes ago, Urgan said:

Interesting thing I noticed a few days ago. I have Jim Butcher's Furies of Calderon on my shelf. Have you read it?

 

Yes! It's good. Think Pokémon meets the Lost Roman Legion. Took me a few chapters to get used to the idea that I wasn't dealing with the Dresden-verse, but by the time I was acclimated to it, I was good to go.

[Urgan]

2 hours ago, Kishi said:

Yes! It's good. Think Pokémon meets the Lost Roman Legion. Took me a few chapters to get used to the idea that I wasn't dealing with the Dresden-verse, but by the time I was acclimated to it, I was good to go.

 

I have heard this Pokemon crossover comparison before, and it both amuses and concerns me. Perhaps a better name would be the Furries of Calderon. Eh?? At any rate, it's on the backlog, inching its way up.

[Kishi]

1 hour ago, Urgan said:

 

I have heard this Pokemon crossover comparison before, and it both amuses and concerns me. Perhaps a better name would be the Furries of Calderon. Eh?? At any rate, it's on the backlog, inching its way up.

 

You know, I was gonna take offense at that, but then I started thinking about it

 

 

and you know, I can't really say you're wrong.

[Urgan]

5 minutes ago, Kishi said:

 

You know, I was gonna take offense at that, but then I started thinking about it

 

 

and you know, I can't really say you're wrong.

 

Yeah, I know.

 

 

 

Some Pokemon are made of rocks and metal. Can't catch-phrase 'em all.

[Urgan]

 

8/28/2019 - 9/2/2019

 

 VACAY

武士道   (ぶしどう)

Justice

Giri

Dust 

Clean kitchen table

Clean kitchen counters

 

Courage

Crying in the Dojo

Technique Review - 7/8

Iaido Review - 4/4

Buki Waza Review - 4/4

 

Benevolence

Love

Keep in Touch - 8/8

9:00 Dinner - 8/8

Cat grooming - 4/4

Cat Box Care - 11/12

 

Politeness

Rēsetsu

Too Many Curses - 13

 

Do 道

Drawing Japanese Characters - 3/4

 

Honesty and Loyalty

Shinjitsu for Me

34 Unread Books - 2

Lingodeer Time - 20/20

Story Outline - 4/4

 

Matomo for Thee

Say (Only) What You Mean - 24/28

 

Honor

Battle With Meiyo and Humanity

Drive away donations

 

Self-Restraint

Exhibiting Yokusē

Home - Vacation makes it easy

Work - What work lol

Gym - Good

Dojo - Good

 

Well that's a lot of undocumented days. I can barely remember Wednesday. I took two days off on Thursday and Friday, which I already sorely miss. RIP long weekend. The important bit is I nailed a whole bunch of books. 24 total books now, only 2 of which are below 600 pages. I read the entirety of The Deep Beyond (Cherryh) and World Without End (Sean Russell). Got more than half of Devil to the Belt (Cherryh) read, too, which is the whole book Heavy Time and well into Hellburner. Amazing experiences. Found eight books that weren't going to work out. There's a lot I didn't do. Oh well. Haven't had a "real" "vacation" in a long time and, considering the week I've just walked into, I deserved to use the time how I wanted.

 

Things. Stuff. Shark Week. 

[Mistr]

Good for you getting rid of books that no longer look interesting. There are plenty of other books out there to read.

 

I want to agree that having a "might read next" pile of 10 books is reasonable. Considering that Dumbledore buys books 20x faster than I can read them, my potential reading pile is well over 100 books. I could be snowed in for a winter with no internet and never get bored.

 

I hear you on taking "Real Vacation" time. I hope you are feeling refreshed for the challenges of September.

[Urgan]

9/3/2019

 

 Honestly, Cats, Destruction Sounds Good Right About Now

 

I am taking a one week hiatus from structured goals just because I can. It's the end of a big ol' incrementing goal series, so I need some time to process. Also Tuesday was just....well. Shark Week, hangover-like exhaustion from the holiday, idiot coworkers trying to pass their work off on me, 4 meetings before 11AM, headache allllllll day long, and the crowning glory: UPS's resident ADA Delivery Driver ran right past my house and CBF to deliver a package or call me or anything, so it's allegedly going to be delivered Wednesday/today. Fortunately by some accident I was able to get home and shower a half hour earlier than usual, so...more nap time for me. Kept up with bare minimum Japanese practice, started dinner (just for me because husband figured I wouldn't be cooking and Foraged for himself...) before 9PM, and read a lot of words in Devil to the Belt. It is a really, really good book and an example of characters keeping me reading where the story has me wishing I was reading another of her books (I like the Merchanter angle waaay more than Earth Company, Union I'm meh about as it's a love/hate split on the books dedicated to that POV, although the azi are adorable fight me). Particularly a few of the first ones I read, since I had no context at the time. The last book of hers for a while will be from Union POV, so I guess I'll be re-evaluating that position soon. 

 

Anyway, what I'm getting at is I'm allowing myself to tread water and survive this week, as that seems challenge enough for now.

 

Addit: forgot to mention in the haze of agony that was yesterday, on Sunday I had an epic reckoning on a family member's really bizarre pattern of (not) responding to my text messages. This person is old enough to know better and maybe even care a little. It was pretty harsh, but about 1.5 - 2 years coming. This kind of thing demands a track record, not That One Time, you know? Really sucked it up and went out on that limb to express myself. We shall see what good it does, apologies are worthless if the action persists.

[Kishi]

With as hard as you've been killing it, I'd say you're due some rest. Get as much as you can.

[Mistr]

I agree with @Kishi. You have been working hard and making progress on a bunch of goals. You have also had to deal with a lot of frustration at work, commuting and from your family. You deserve some time to chill and just do fun stuff.

[Urgan]

9/4/2019

Have a Nuke, September

Wednesday was...well, it wasn't Tuesday. Literally and otherwise. UPS should change its name to POS. I say that in an eye-rolling way, not an enraged fire demon way. Nothing in the package I'd ordered could not be obtained locally, but I'm trying to get similar pricing and avoiding Walmart here. I got a refund via Amazon's automated system, so no long term damage to anything but my confidence an Amazon order will be delivered now. I made another order between the aborted order shipping and foundering in some dumbass's truck. THAT order is not so easy to procure in a brick-and-mortar. If it fails, there will be Trouble and now there's a track record. Keep in mind nothing about my account, address, or physics have changed since that time I mentioned getting an Amazon order that was battered earlier in August--remember the soap debacle? Guess who ordered a book and soap in the same order again? Don't ask, I don't know why/how this happened again. Call it a double test on Amazon's ability to pack product and presumably UPS's ability to do You Had One Job. For the record, we don't live in the woods, there is no "turn off the paved road," no long driveway, no hill, no dale, no dusty trail. It's a tiny driveway about 1.5 car lengths long with a mailbox with 2 week old white on black numbering upon it. The likely cause of delivery driver brain strain is for whatever reason the subdivision builders stuck our address, say **95, between adjacent addresses **85 and **74. No idea why, but it is a curse upon our house, as literally as possible. I have the serenity to cope with this, and also eBay. 

 

Gym time was okay, work was all shades of the bruise, and dojo was free training. My partner and I chose katamochi iriminage and bokken work. It's not taisubaki, it's the other sparring term I can never remember. Anyway. I had to say "no, sensei" to the black belt who told me I was demoing 5, as I do not know 5 so it would be impossible for me to confuse 4 and 5. I did get one detail incorrect--4 includes a thrust by the defender directly for the face/neck of the attacker and I'd gone for more of an over the head motion, but the destination was the same and all attacker moves were correct. I feel somewhat proud of this given when we'd set out to begin I was not sure I remembered the steps. 

 

Went home and finished Devil to the Belt. I just flat-out love these books. If you like stories where the good guy(s) die, where no one ends up happy or fulfilled, and the world implodes... 

 

Cherryh is not for you.

 

She does not "subvert your expectations" (read as marketing spin for "disappoint"), but the books will make you wonder how they're going to pull it out of the fire and it is a delight to see the characters triumph. There are very well-fleshed-out, believable relationships. In a sci-fi political drama. Not just romantic ones. The platonic/familial ones are equally as tense and intense. And you kinda want to kick the heads in of some of the characters, but it's because they're being dumb yet understandable from their flawed POV. Not because you want them dead. Most of the time lol.

 

22 hours ago, Kishi said:

With as hard as you've been killing it, I'd say you're due some rest. Get as much as you can.

 

18 hours ago, Mistr said:

I agree with @Kishi. You have been working hard and making progress on a bunch of goals. You have also had to deal with a lot of frustration at work, commuting and from your family. You deserve some time to chill and just do fun stuff.

 

Yeah no worries there, I'm barely functioning right now lol. If I expire during this afternoon by way of weekly meeting, it was nice knowing y'all.

[miss_marissa]

4 hours ago, Urgan said:

If I expire during this afternoon by way of weekly meeting, it was nice knowing y'all.

If this ain't corporate America in summary, I don't know what is.

[Urgan]

28 minutes ago, miss_marissa said:

If this ain't corporate America in summary, I don't know what is.

 

Good news, we all got out alive in no small part because Certain People never showed up. Dodging Bullets.

[Urgan]

9/5/2019

Sending for Help

Hey, it's the hardest day of the week! The one were the most fun thing that happens is a nap or two! YEAH. Read some, did bare-minimum Japanese, starting making carbonara just shy of 9PM. WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEgonnaDIAFbrb

 

Woke up Friday morning an hour late so gym time was less than half normal length and a quote for a combined total of nearly $3000 of repairs for my husband's car over the last two weeks. We have already spent nearly $2000 and are now quoted for another thousand. We think not, sir. #nope #kthxbai #livinginavandownbytheriver #sobbing

[Mistr]

Ouch, that hurts about the car. Time to start shopping?

[Urgan]

20 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Ouch, that hurts about the car. Time to start shopping?

 

Yeah, husband wants a truck to do Hauling Things. Ford F-150 and Toyota Tacoma are on the short list ATM.

[Kishi]

My dad got a lot of mileage out of the F-150 for hauling things; would recommend. It is a gas guzzler, tho.

[Urgan]

23 minutes ago, Kishi said:

My dad got a lot of mileage out of the F-150 for hauling things; would recommend. It is a gas guzzler, tho.

 

It'll probably come down to what's available in the end, but I know they're both common, which by recent experience suggests they aren't lemons and parts should be on the average cheaper than a more exotic vehicles. 

[shaar]

22 hours ago, Urgan said:

quote for a combined total of nearly $3000 of repairs for my husband's car over the last two weeks. We have already spent nearly $2000 and are now quoted for another thousand. We think not, sir. #nope #kthxbai #livinginavandownbytheriver #sobbing

 

 

yeah nope BYE

 

Good luck with the searching!  And you know, the keeping of your Sanity.  With a capital S.  Because Sanity.

[Urgan]

9/6/2019 - 9/8/2019

Trying to understand some people's ideas of fun got me like

 

Well if this wasn't a Week, there is no such thing. We survived it, tho, fam. And somehow I did not curse myself halfway to actual Hell in the process. Thursday evening husband invited me to The Woods where inside a tiny two bedroom house there would be multiple babies being Chaos Incarnate, deaf people somehow only I cannot understand, and all the heat straight from the center of the sun and I said 

 

He pouted about it, but got over it. Sunday I told him reason why I didn't want to go by reminding him of how last time was for me and he Got It then at least. 

 

It was another blur weekend. I similarly passed on Hand of Isis halfway through because good Lord that woman was angreh when she wrote that thing. Literally had a character do a "I'm a strong independent woman what don't need NO man * sassy indignant neck-break * " speech and I was like...remembering Black Ships and Stealing Fire like they were a Barbra Streisand song. Both written by her, both written in exactly the same mold but much, much better than Isis. The historical fiction aspect is amazing, but so much bitterness, so much socio-politics jammed right. in. there. with all the subtlety of a totally-not-naked-you-guys Mylie Cyrus riding a wrecking ball through the guts of this plot. I gave it a real good shot at 260~ pages of a 482 page book, but after that speech I was just like.....why am I reading this? Also I know this is gonna turn out bad because it's Cleopatra's story retold so I have no incentive to put myself through heartache and heartburn both. So it's going on the shelf to be reopened sometime after the Really Hot Place starts selling shaved ice. 

 

Anyway. Swinging wildly in the opposite direction on an equally unsubtle wrecking ball was Journeys Into America, basically a textbook that effects to be edutainment. Stayed up late late late to finish it Saturday night because I was Determined, guys. Also I ordered like 15 books I'd had my eye on because the total was half what I'd found on Amazon and my interest in them wasn't likely to dissipate soon. 

 

Sunday I slept in, got brunch, slept some more, made dinner, read Furies of Calderon to about 1/3 of the book, slept a little bit more. No sweating, babies, dying inside, or general humiliation occurred this day. Husband got home at around 8 at night from attempting to hunt doves in The Woods. Surely that most worthy of quarry. 

 

So. Furies. Its pacing is good, I have at least one character I care about (for now), and there was more than 10 minutes' thought put into the world although I am assuming there is a great deal more complexity/rules to be revealed (although the Rules don't seem to want to show up yet....). So far, as far as negatives go: never name your character any permutation of truth and/or loyalty because then it's a sure thing he's gonna do traitor things and the villains are so obviously Villains it's hilarious (although if his sole goal was to make us hate them, A+ for effort). The pacing of the story is brisk, writing style says Clear Command of the language and simultaneously that I do not expect a deep, intricate story to happen even over 6 books. This may sound like a slam, but really it's far better to be a simple story that delivers on the promise than a book that swears up and down in 8 languages including Latin that it has worlds of mystery and hidden depths only to end up looking like that horse drawing when the climax hits you like a cloud of warm sewer air. You know the one.

 

 

I would not call it fluff writing because it does have some idea what the heck it is and where it's going in life, but it's juuuuuust shy of generic enough that I'm continuing on to see what happens. 

 

Presently there are 20 unread books in my life, not counting the incoming flood of literature.

[Urgan]

On 9/7/2019 at 8:35 AM, shaar said:

 

 

yeah nope BYE

 

Good luck with the searching!  And you know, the keeping of your Sanity.  With a capital S.  Because Sanity.

 

We noping right out of that, because our sanity account levels are at CRITICAL lately.

[Urgan]

"September" 2019 Goals

P E R S P E C T I V E

 

The great big bushido quest is complete, but not forgotten. July ended with one weird breakdown of a work truck, and August ended with us committing to hunting for a truck of our own because Mystery Oil Leak $3000. The new laptop is holding up, and we haven't heard anything else on the roof--TBPH, I had forgotten it was a thing! Oops. 66 books shredded down to 20, a 60% drop from last month. I'm about to increase that number to around 35, but I have a plan to not end up reading all the short books at once again. Decluttering hasn't really happened this month and there really isn't anything in dire need of addressing, so I guess that goal is dormant until further notice. We do have some things that need to be hauled away, however....

 

Nothing about my prior goals really stopped being relevant, but I'm going to reorganize them. Now that I'm not really tracking nutrition or lifting for their own sake, that structure doesn't make sense either. So here we are.

 

Tasks

Ye olde To Do list:

 

Clean kitchen table

Clean kitchen counters

Drive away donations

 

Practice

So essentially we have technique practice, kanji practice, Japanese practice, and writing practice. Hmmmm what shall we call this goal set??

 

Crying in the Dojo - 0/16

Kanji - 0/4

Lingodeer Time - 0/15

Story Outline - 0/4

 

Behavior

Straight lifting the "Love" goals, they didn't stop being relevant either. Also, the Curse Count makes its triumphant return after being conveniently absent last week huh.....From 20 down to 13 is a good improvement if, again, you don't count what went down last week eheheheheheh. Anything that hits the air gets logged. 

 

Keep in Touch - 0/8

9:00 Dinner - 0/8

Cat grooming - 0/4

Too Many Curses - 0

 

Debriefs: 

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

[Mistr]

Good for you noping out of the event in The Woods. Obviously a sign of Learning Behavior. Good thing your hubby remembered that when his nose was rubbed in it. I notice that he went out hunting and was not cooped up inside with the small children. I suspect that hunting in this context serves the same purpose as going fishing, with equal emphasis on actually catching anything. My family does not hunt, but we do fish.

 

Yay for getting down to the last 20 books! After slogging through all those not-for-you plots, you deserve to get some good books to look forward to. And read in a timely fashion.

[Urgan]

9/9/2019

New ride

 

Tasks

Clean kitchen table

Clean kitchen counters

Drive away donations

 

Practice

Crying in the Dojo - 1/16

Kanji - 0/4

Lingodeer Time - 1/15

Story Outline - 0/4

 

Behavior

Keep in Touch - 0/8

9:00 Dinner - 0/8

Cat grooming - 0/4

Too Many Curses - 2

 

I remembered yesterday that face-down on the floor is a perspective. Truck-buying was a 4 hour brain-pulping nightmare, but we ended up with a 2014 Ford F-150 at the end of it and only a few curses while describing prior events to my mother. Specifically, the one from Friday where I threw the professional equivalent of a fit over support reps not supporting properly--i.e., in any way whatsoever in the case of one or two individuals. I was requested to provide the type of information I'd need to be supplied in order for the support to be useful, which I immediately did on Monday morning. They may not have been expecting that. Then I left because truck-buying. After that I was too zapped to do Aikido, so I went home and read more Furies. Updated estimation: predictable but entertaining and at 460 of a 653 page book, I feel like that's probably about where I'll stay for this book at least. Whether I'll obtain book 2 or squint at Dresden Files remains to be seen, the ending of books is make-or-break. I'm leaning in the former's case to enjoying this book and calling it good for the foreseeable future, but again we'll see. I do have a tidal wave of words headed my way by way of USPS, so I really shouldn't feel the burning need to follow up. Not that that's stopped me before....

[Mistr]

Yay for surviving the truck-buying nightmare with no permanent damage to anyone involved. I am afraid that I will be involved in something similar soon.

[Urgan]

14 minutes ago, Mistr said:

Yay for surviving the truck-buying nightmare with no permanent damage to anyone involved. I am afraid that I will be involved in something similar soon.

 

Bring your check stubs, your insurance cards, your driver's license, your house/apartment payment and income, your birth certificate, a blood sample, your entire family tree back to the beginning of time....