deathmtn

- Client B work.
- Did an interview.
- Had a realtor conference.
- Called the inspector, got some things clarified.
- Talked to a building dept. Municipal workers seem really friendly there!
- Filled out a form.
- Discussed what to ask the seller for, sent the email with our decisions.
- Made dinner.
- Booked a babysitter. Which, for various reasons/strangely we have never done!
- Condo communication.
- Emailed a friend.

There are about 300 bands at Hellfest. Maybe covid has made outdoor shows a more prized thing, so everyone wants to play at one? There's a stage that literally has Carcass, Napalm Death, Memoriam, Demilich, Blood Incantation, and the band with my favorite death metal band name, Carnation.

The recruiter emails are intensifying.

Dr. Jim,

It's Nate with Weatherby Healthcare. I work with GIs who are looking for great supplemental income opportunities and more flexibility in their schedules. The current market is seeing the highest demand ever, meaning your skillset is worth a premium. I'd love to connect this week to better understand your current situation and from there determine how we can utilize locums this year to take advantage of the current market and get you more flexibility! When works best for you?

Nate ____
Consultant, Gastroenterology

Weatherby Healthcare

Note: I am not a gastrointestinal doctor.

38-minute run (no hills), 14 pull-ups.

14 pull-ups.

An addendum to my comment about Good Talk being funny: It is funny, but it gets sad and makes you relive moments of political horror and worries you if have have a non-White kid. That said, still a very good read.

The guy has been obsessed with maze balls ever since they got one at afterschool a month ago. This week, we got him a Perplexus Epic. He continues to be obsessed and spends over an hour a day moving the ball around inside this bigger ball.

There is some skill involved as well as the kind of “physics entertainment” that marble runs provide, but there’s also a pachinko-like random chance aspect to it. So, maybe it is hitting up the rat brain part of the guy’s head a bit.

Still, he does have actual goals that he tries to accomplish in the maze ball, which he tracks on paper, as well as specific strategies to get to them. And as someone who played poker for hours a day for a couple years, I can’t judge.

Plus, getting that much satisfaction out of an object doesn’t happen later on in life, so he should exploit this ability while he can.

I'm reading a book of Ursula K. Le Guin's essay, which is actually just her blog printed into a book. Years ago, I would have said it's a stupid to print a blog, but it's really way easier to read in that format.

I didn't realize she was incredibly funny. I recommend reading The Sissy Strikes Back.

Old age is for anybody who gets there. Warriors get old; sissies get old. In fact it’s likely that more sissies than warriors get old. Old age is for the healthy, the strong, the tough, the intrepid, the sick, the weak, the cowardly, the incompetent. People who run 10 miles every morning before breakfast and people who live in a wheelchair. People who work the London Times crossword in ink in 10 minutes and people who can’t quite remember who the president is just now. Old age is less a matter of fitness or courage than of luck equals longevity.

If you eat your sardines and leafy greens and wear SPF 150 and develop your abs and blabs and slabs or whatever they are in order to live a long life, that’s good, and maybe it will work. But the longer a life is, the more of it will be old age.

- Updated billing stuff.
- Client B work.
- Cleared up large attachments from email. I always forget that everything is backed up to my own server, and I don't need to be delicate about deleting.
- Took my car to the body shop to fix two doors. One turned out to just have a hidden child safety lock on. The other just started latching as normal when the body shop guy tried it out!
- Called a county board of health, talked about septic records.
- Emailed a town board of health, which never answers their phone. Hours later, got the full copy of the septic certificate of compliance.
- Revised the budget for likely new regular expenses. Next, we need to price out home improvements.
- Called a septic pumping company and found out what was involved in getting a certificate of compliance and that it is more or less as rigorous as a Title 5 inspection. (Also, our general home inspector told me that the Title 5 is cursory. I think she probably knows her stuff about about normal home inspection, but I'm slightly uncomfortable that she was wrong about this. She was right to say I should talk to the pumping company, though.) So, I once again more or less think the septic tank is probably fine.
- Client C work.
- Got some incidental groceries.
- Picked up some rapid tests. Insurance covers them! We still do not have covid.
- Emailed some friends back.

30-35-minute run, 14 pull-ups. Followed by calls about septic stuff.

I'm reading We Should Get Together, which is about making new friends. It’s really good, but mostly, it's convincing me that making new friends is arduous and difficult.

- Dropped off.
- Client B work.
- Client C work.
- Read about septic tanks.
- Talked to septic tank company about what's involved in the various types of inspections.
- Realtor communication.
- Picked up some stuff from the store.
- Went to the electronic music group. Messed around with equations for chord density; realized I'm not going to get a single equation to work for the whole piece. Going to have to have several. Talked about programming jobs; I'm afraid I was a little cynical.

I still do not have a plan for what we're going to do about the 100°F weekend. I did pick up some ice cream, though.

Dag, the children

17-year-old demoing a mind-controlled mechanical arm

Nine-minute run, 14 pull-ups.

Welp, it's gonna be 100°F this weekend, and I gave away the ACs, thinking we wouldn't need them until after we moved.

- Dropped off.
- Client B work.
- Booked an inspection.
- Mailed a check.
- Realtor communication.
- Got some brake fluid and put it in my car, hoping to satisfy a warning light in my car, but I suspect the warning light may actually be what doesn't work right.
- Made dinner.

34-minute run, 14 pull-ups.

- Dropped off, picked up, dropped off.
- Reviewed forms.
- Client B work.
- Condo accounting.
- Conference with the guy's social counselor.
- Signed stuff in front of a notary.
- Did some uncomfortable negotiating and deciding. We probably talked over what we were going to do for less than an hour, but it felt extremely long. We ended up getting an offer accepted; after a bit of semi-numb relief, our worry-conditioned minds immediately jumped to "What if the inspection reveals something horrible?"
- Made dinner.
- Worked on the Operational piece some more. I was disappointed in it when I listened to it for the first time in a month last week, but now I'm hopeful again? Also started writing a script to generate a solo for it.
- Emailed a friend back.

Three sets of deadlifts.