tollermom | Reading

April 2017

S	M	T	W	T	F	S
						1
2	3	4	5	6	7	8
9	10	11	12	13	14	15
16	17	18	19	20	21	22
23	24	25	26	27	28	29
30

Custom Text

K's goal is to get the walls of her room repainted in some color that is not the current really *bright* yellow that has been there for some years. This means that she is packing things up and finding things that she wants to donate to charity. I made the first run to Goodwill this morning, which mostly got rid of books that she had outgrown.

There was a lot of deferred cleaning downstairs that needed to be taken care of. Gretchen loaded and ran the dishwasher, while I swept up an enormous pile of debris and dog hair that needed to be disposed of. Then Gretchen and Julie potted some seedlings for their windowsill garden, which means that the potting supplies can be put away for a bit.

I started assembling the new side table for the patio and quickly realized that -- given the available work surfaces -- this was really a two person job. Gretchen was good enough to come hold things together while I bolted the parts into a whole. The only real problem was that the mini-wrench that they sent was not a great fit for the nuts, but it could be made to work and eventually did. The kids have carried the table out to the patio, the mess has been cleaned up, and one more thing is finished.

Yay!

Tags:

Not quite as unproductive as my weeks usually are, and there were some fascinating rabbit-holes to go down (I'll get to some of those later). And, yeah, a lot of good household-related things too. But not quite enough walking, and not nearly enough work (which includes music practice and writing). But some. But between stress around tax time, my ongoing health problems, and what's going on in the world, it's hard for me to be optimistic and hopeful, rather than pessimistic and depressed. So there was that.

With m and N returning from the US on Thursday, G's birthday (observed) on Saturday, getting (folding scooter)Lizzy back on Saturday, and N's next book nearing completion, there was a lot of great conversation and a goodly amount of sushi and other tasty stuff. I have some reviews to write -- hopefully overcoming my writer's block enough to do so. Here's a teaser.

Lizzy. When we got Lizzy back -- over a month ago -- from getting her flat tire repaired, she refused to start, displaying an error code (E8) on her dashboard. The manual does not have a table of error codes -- it says to call the dealer. They didn't know either. So we had them pick her up for repair. That was March 11. They called the factory. Several times, apparently. Finally I got the email saying she was ready to be returned, and that the error had to do with the freewheel lever not being engaged. WTF? Why was that not in the manual??!

Book. I recently read a near-final draft of N's new book, and yesterday I confirmed with her that I can say a little about it in public. It's called Paleomythic, and it's the first book in a trilogy. It is, in fact, a collection of myths -- stories about the history of Earth. As narrated, with close to scientific accuracy, by the gods themselves: the planets, continents, and seas ~~that~~ who were there and made it all happen. The framing story is narrated by Luna. It's not often that a book makes me cry tears of joy. This one did.

I note in passing that N's first book, The World As it Ought To Be, is widely available, and can be found through her website.

Health. The latest problem is Trigger finger, which I have been treating with diclofenac topical gel and, now, compression gloves. Because I need to use my fingers to pull on my compression socks. I'm also having pain -- probably muscle spasms -- on my left side, which is the side I sleep on. With the arm that Ticia likes to lie on.

Linkies! From last Sunday: Giant octopuses may have ruled the oceans 100 million years ago and Bruce Springsteen’s Chimes of Freedom. From Wednesday, Scientists reverse brain aging, with a nasal spray (nice if it works out, though I doubt it will be released soon enough to help me), and The Angine de Poitrine Argument for UBI. And from Friday, Scientists Finally Solved One of Water’s Biggest Mysteries and The Chord That Ended Classical Music - YouTube

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: indeterminate
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: a little

Tags:

The Cardinals held on to beat the Dodgers 3-2 tonight, which means that they have taken the series and have now won six games in a row. They and the Dodgers are both 20-13 after tonight, which is remarkably better than I expected that the team would be doing.

It is, of course, a long season. :)

Tags:

Welcome to May, 2026! Hooray, hooray, the First of May.

Right now it's actually half an hour after midnight on the Second in Seattle. But anyway...

Current Mood: depressed
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: JoCo

Tags:

recurring

Oh, my. Julie has turned 18 today. Both of my kids are officially adults.

Despite this, they will always be my kids.

Tags:

K finished her last final at Ball State this morning, so we headed down early this morning (not as early as I'd intended, but that's ok) to fetch her home from school. It turns out that I had managed to misconfigure Google Maps during my adventures in Canada two weeks ago with the result that we ended up taking a lot of back roads going to and from Muncie. I don't think this made things take a *lot* longer, but we certainly saw some entertaining countryside.

With help from Julie, Max, and Felix, everything was loaded into a *very* full van. The room was reconfigured for inspection and then we ran out to grab some lunch and hit the road home.

Calvin and Ruby were taken care of today by a dog sitter who made two visits to the house while we were gone. They seemed happy to see her if pictures can be believed. They were also happy to see us.

The library is now full of a half dorm room full of stuff which will have to be dispatched. Happily, this is not yet my problem. :)

Tags:

Today I am thankful for...

Having the good sense to recognize that I probably shouldn't have a second cup of coffee today. (We'll see later whether it was a mistake.)
Cat fud, snacks, and other staples that come in boxes that can be hot-glued together to make storage compartments for small objects. Also hot-melt glue, because I'm too lazy to use white glue and clamp things properly.
Cats. Special thanks for Ticia-snuggles, and Bronx learning to be somewhat more gentle. Now if only he would learn to sit on my lap instead of my keyboard.
Our Dutch bookkeeper and our US financial advisors.
Spreadable blue cheese and good whole-grain bread.

NO thanks for getting old, with its associated ailments and disabilities. I think Ticia (who turns 20 sometime this year) would agree with me.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: maybe tonight

Tags:

thanks

I have managed to get all of the critical items set up and configured on Gretchen's newly Linux Minty fresh laptop, so that's one thing done.

The thing that I failed to accomplish today is getting an appointment at our local Social Security office. This is important, because it appears that even if I sign up for COBRA, they will not pay anything, because they want us to have Medicare, which we do not yet have, because we have never needed it, because we had employment-based health insurance.

This might actually be illegal, but one of the things that I am sure of in life is that Larry Ellison has bigger lawyers than I can afford to engage.

We are driving down to pick up K from school tomorrow. While I am driving, Gretchen will get on the phone and see if she can get an appointment so that we can provide the appropriate documentation to go along with our application.

Whee.

Tags:

So that Gretchen wouldn't have to haul back upstairs to file her Social Security and Medicare applications, I figured I'd just borrow the tiny laptop that I got for her a few years ago and use it for the process. Piece of cake, right?

Well, it would have been, except that the laptop had so little charge on it that I couldn't get it to stay awake. Ok, let's let it charge a bit. Now, I should be able to get it to stay powered up.

Google Chrome is so old that I can't get it to connect to the Social Security site. I try upgrading Chrome and cannot, because the disk is completely full. This box only has a 64 GB drive.

I give up. I borrow Gretchen's phone and use it to complete the process. Yay, me!

Then it is back to studying the laptop. The disk is so overrun with Windows 11 that it can't even load updates to the OS. A web search indicates that it's time to give up and install Linux, because Windows 11 will only barely run on the box.

I'm installing Linux Mint now.

*sigh*

Tags:

I am digging through a mountain of electronic paperwork. I opened new bank accounts today, because my current bank account at Huntington Bank pays a miserable rate of interest and I have a severance payment that needs to be making something more than they pay. As it happens, my financial advisor was able to point me at some accounts that his organization can provide that both pay a better rate of interest and which have various bonuses attached to them if I meet the requirements, which I *should* be able to do.

I ended up driving to my financial advisor's office after lunch (which was a short drive from Woodfield Mall where I'd just had lunch) to open the accounts and it turned out that I could have just as easily done all of this from home, as they had to hand me a computer and let me file all of the electronic paperwork for that. By this evening, the accounts had both been opened and I was able to move money from my current accounts to make initial deposits. One down!

Having the account number for the new checking account meant that I could use it in my application for Social Security and Medicare as the target for direct deposits, which is one of the things that I needed to do to collect the bonuses from the new accounts. My application is now filed, although there will be a mountain of documents that need to be submitted somewhere. I'm working on that.

Meanwhile, I now need to complete the application procedure for Gretchen tomorrow, which will include determining whether or not she will get more money on her own employment record or the spousal benefit. This means that both of us will need to be here at the computer.

The dogs will not like this.

Tags:

I have filled out the forms for Gretchen and me to apply for Medicare. Now I just need to get someone to accept them. This is important, because even if I were to sign up for COBRA for both of us, it is subordinated to Medicare, which we do not have, which seems to indicate that we wouldn't have health insurance anyway. This may or may not be legal, but that probably doesn't matter.

In different news, I have determined that our combined prescription cost at Sam's Club -- excluding our Ozempic and Mounjaro! -- should be less than $100 per month. Given the sheer number of prescriptions that we take, that's pretty good. This does require us to get the prescriptions 30 days at a time, but it's not like I don't get to Sam's Club frequently -- and, of course, the program is set up that way to get you to Sam's Club frequently. :)

It looks like there is some sort of reduced rate available for the GLP-1 drugs, but the landscape is moving so quickly there that sorting out which information is correct is a challenge. And that is one of the reasons that I have an advisor to sort this out...

Tags:

Bad news for the week: Ticia's kidneys are failing, and she's lost a lot of weight since her last check-up. She's been with us for 11 of her 19 years; I don't know how long she'll last. But I've ordered kidney diet cat fud and high-calorie treats. About all I can do. She makes me think of Rodin's "Belle Heaulmière".

And of course that's on top of everything else going wrong in the world. Also, I'm not getting much done. And I somehow screwed up my order for a Travelpro backpack, and left off the house number. Fortunately I was able to update the address, so I got it the next day. It's supposed to fit under an airplane seat, though I have my doubts. It's also supposed to be blue, but it's a really dark blue.

I did have a zoom call with my financial advisor Thursday, mostly about estate planning. Seems like a good time for it. And I heard back from the place that repaired Scarlett -- they're going to look for the missing charger. Fingers crossed. Also heard from the place that's repairing Lizzy; they have no idea what's wrong and are consulting with the factory. I suggested that they should send us a replacement. Haven't heard back about that.

Big congratulations to this year's href=https://filkontario.ca/2026/04/19/2026-filk-hall-of-fame-inductees/ >Filk Hall of Fame inductees, Margaret Davis, Tim Griffin, and Amy McNally. For more musical mayhem, have some Angine de Poitrine

Also, Krakens in the Cretaceous. Possibly as long as 19 meters. Better hope your time machine doesn't land in the water.

( Notes & links, as usual )

Current Mood: deeply annoyed at myself; worried
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag
Current Music: Angine de Poitrine - see post

Tags:

One of the things that I've been planning to do since getting laid off is to figure out how to do some new things in the studio. Today, it was stupid Cubase tricks.

I pulled up a song that I've been fiddling with in the editor. Then I spent some time figuring out where the heck VariAudio had gone, because when you hide things in Cubase, sometimes you hide them *very* effectively. Having recovered it, I sent it to analyze the vocal track and determine what notes were in it. Then I told it to convert the track to MIDI.

Ok, now I have a lot of entertaining (if not wonderful) MIDI data. I pasted that onto an instrument track and started fiddling with it using the various instruments that are available inside of Cubase. I also moved the track up an octave, because most respectable instruments would prefer not to be in the octave that I sing in. :)

You will not be at *all* surprised to hear that I got nothing at all that was useful. But I didn't *expect* to get something that was useful -- I just wanted to see what I *could* get this way.

I *much* prefer to have my friends singing and playing real instruments on my recordings.

It's interesting to see what sort of sounds you can get out of the software though... :)

Tags:

I am getting more things moving, but less things have been moved than I might have hoped. On the other hand, there's that annoying problem of needing to do your research.

I have one form left to fill out before I can go apply to get Gretchen and me on Medicare A and B. Then I need to handle the D and G parts, but I have someone helping with that -- but before I can do that, I need to figure out the exact rules for getting the kids on COBRA, preferably without me. This will require a call to the COBRA administrators. Apparently, there is some possibility that the kids could get 36 months of COBRA coverage -- or maybe even until they are 26! -- but the rules around this are all maddeningly complex. I suspect deliberately so. :)

There's also the possibility of signing them up for a marketplace plan, which *looks* like it might be cheaper, but there's the question of whether you've actually got anything better than a catastrophic plan in that case, given some of the deductibles. I need to pick some brains on this. And check and see which doctors the kids are currently using and whether I would have any coverage in that case.

On the other hand, I have managed to use GoodRx to get a prescription that Gretchen needed refilled at a substantially better rate than I would have if I'd taken it to Walgreens, even with the coupon that the pharmacist was ready to apply. That's a good thing.

And my computer has been returned to Oracle, so they have released my severance. About a third of it got bitten off for taxes, which is not a great surprise. I was already going to make estimated tax payments to land in a safe harbor for next year, but all of that will have to be adjusted in some way that is not yet obvious.

I need to apply to start my Social Security in May, but the website is being a bit stubborn about that, or at least it was when I was trying last week. Maybe it will be different this week since I've been officially terminated. It's hard to say, but I can go back at that. The worst case is that I'll drop the application in on May 1st.

Meanwhile, Gretchen has arranged a dog sitter for the day that we're running down to pick up K from school, so that's good. She's also set us up with a quote to get the asphalt driveway replaced when the neighbors are doing it, which will result in a small discount. They also quoted fixing the front step, but that is not going to happen, because it is way too expensive to fix a relatively small problem.

Things are getting done. I'm just getting tired of spending all of my time sorting these messes out when I *should* be not working. :)

Tags:

Today was the opening performance of the last play of the season at the high school, "The Outsiders". It wasn't a play or book that I was familiar with, so all new material. It was definitely heavier fare, but the kids did a good job with it and the enormous number of southern accents that were required.

And now it is time to head off to bed. I am still making up my post-FKO sleep deficit and the number of forms and meetings that I'm having to deal with aren't helping. But I will get to the end of these.

Eventually.

Tags:

Today I am thankful for...

An instruction book written half in English.
Fast delivery, when I can get it. Thank you, Bol and PetsPlace! NO thanks for Ticia needing a kidney diet now.
Diclofenac, Ibuprofen, and Naproxen.
A vet who makes house calls.

Current Mood: grateful
Current Location: Schildhaven in Den Haag

Tags:

thanks

We left the Cubs game tonight after six innings with the Cubs leading 6-2, because it was darned cold. I should know better than to trust that the temperature near the lakefront would be anything like reasonable on a day like this. But, no. I wore my windbreaker instead of my winter coat. It will be a couple of weeks until my next game due to fetching K from college, so we'll see how the temperature is by then.

The Cubs new remote parking lot is bad in about every possible way. It takes at least 15 minutes longer to get there than it took to get to the Irving Park lot if you are coming from the west or northwest. It is possibly closer if you are coming from the north, but if you were coming from the north, you could just take the Red Line. I am not sure *who* this location advantages.

The lot is a five story tall parking garage. When you pull into the lot, they tell you to scan a QR code and connect to a website to enter the information to get free parking (which takes the form of a 100% discount on 10 hours of parking). You can't connect to the website once you are *in* the garage, because huge mass of concrete blocking the signal, so you have to wait until you are parked and then walk out of the garage where you have signal and complete your data entry. Happily, I have my license plate number memorized, because you will need that to complete the process, along with a credit card that they can bill if the game runs longer than 10 hours.

There was no parking short of the third level when I got there. That's ok, because there are elevators.

Well, it would be ok if the elevators were working. Actually, I was told that they *were* working, but that no one could ride on them, because the City of Chicago inspectors had not yet approved them. This meant that I got to walk down two flights of stairs on the way out and *up* two flights of stairs on the way back in, all of this with my improving, but still bum knee.

Happily, the fellow in charge of such things waved me onto the ADA bus, which saved me a good bit of walking tonight. And since we left after the sixth inning, we didn't have to watch as the gate let cars out of the lot, one at a time. Many, many cars...

It's possible that the space that they used for the remote parking lot last year is no longer available -- that's what happened when it moved to the Irving Park / Rockwell space some years ago due to construction at the university it was at. But that space was *so* much better than this garage.

I think if I were confident of finding parking in the Skokie Swift lot, I'd just drive there and pay for parking and the El.

Tags:

This may not be the best day for writing a "state of the Bear" post, but it felt like it wanted to be written, so here I am. Mostly I just want to complain. Don't expect it to be organized.

Lately I've been having quite a bit of random pain -- mostly in my hands, in the form of trigger finger, which I assume is mostly RSI. Over the last few days I've also had trouble with my left shoulder; I sleep on that side, so it's not surprising either. (I've been treating the hands with diclofenac topical gel in the appropriate locations, and both with ibuprofen.)

I have a query in to my GP's office.

Meanwhile Ticia, my lovely old lady cat, is not doing well. She had a vet appointment Monday; she's lost a lot of weight, and according to the lab results her kidneys are failing. I'm putting her on a kidney-friendly diet, but even so I'm afraid she may not have much time left.

And I'm not all that sure about me, either.

Current Mood: worried
Current Location: Schildhaven Centraal
Current Music: Big Yellow Taxi

Tags:

Happy Wednesday!

I'm taking search offline sometime today to upgrade the server to a new instance type. It should be down for a day or so -- sorry for the inconvenience. If you're curious, the existing search machine is over 10 years old and was starting to accumulate a decade of cruft...!

Also, apparently these older machines cost more than twice what the newer ones cost, on top of being slower. Trying to save a bit of maintenance and cost, and hopefully a Wednesday is okay!

Edited: The other cool thing is that this also means that the search index will be effectively realtime afterwards... no more waiting a few minutes for the indexer to catch new content.

Let's start by disclosing something: I've been working on a Filk Hall of Fame nomination for Amy McNally for several years now. I keep sending in more data to add to the pile, including a copy of the article she wrote about letting kids touch the fiddle (one of them was my kid), and a full discography which I got from Amy by shyly asking "How many albums *have* you played on?" I'd been considering going to FKO this year for a while, because it just felt like that nomination ought to be ripe.

And then I got an email from Amy asking if I was planning on going to FKO this year and if she could catch a ride with me. Sounded good to me!

Debbie Gates had asked me earlier if I might be going and if I could play some rhythm guitar for her Interfilk Guest concert. This also sounded good to me and now I was committed to going, so...

And then I got laid off, which gave me more time to study rhythm guitar parts. :)

Anyway, I had made plans and booked hotel rooms based on "I'm working on part of Thursday before heading out", so that was what we did, ending up in Jackson, Michigan on Thursday night and driving the rest of the way in on Friday. This meant that we only made it to one of the two rehearsals for Debbie's concert, but that worked out ok.

I wasn't up for the theme filks on Friday, so I ended up in the small end of the big room upstairs and sang a few songs. Then there were the concerts on Saturday and the Filk Hall of Fame induction speeches, which I was greatly looking forward to. :) And then the Interfilk auction, where I suggested drafting Interfilk Guest Debbie as an Interfilk auctioneer. Despite her being worried about it, she did just fine, which was *exactly* what I had expected.

I did not have the right sort of spoons available to go to the memorial filking on Saturday night -- I got a chance to briefly say hi to Sue Jeffers and I wish I'd had a chance to chat with her more, but time was failing at its basic mission of preventing everything from happening at the same moment. I ended up in a tiny filk back upstairs that including John McDaid and we swapped some songwriting stuff back and forth which was fun.

Sunday, there was the Filk Hall of Fame concert which was absolutely lovely. And Gretchen was very thankful for the streaming that let her watch all of the concerts from home so that she could see what we were up to.

The Dead Penguin filk was unsurprisingly large, so it took a long time for our organized chaos to make its way around the room. I sang three songs: "Zeta", because Rand was there and he would actually get all of the references :); "Third Planet From the Sun", because I'd chatted with Tim Griffin about the song earlier as one that could be classified as educational; and then "Shining", because that was the first song that I wrote after COVID and I had wanted to write something positive. And I got a big hug from Judith afterwards, which was a fine thing.

Amy and I got up and managed to get on the road by 7 AM local time, which was really good. We made great time (and found Coffee Crisp on sale at the Onroute, because K wanted Coffee Crisp) right up until we got to Sarnia. There was only one booth open to handle cars at American customs, so we were backed up for an hour. They managed to find someone to open a second booth as we got close to the front of the line and we were the second vehicle through that booth. This was shortly followed (as shortly as possible!) by a trip to the nearby Speedway, because it had become *very* necessary for reasons not at all related to gasoline consumption.

The rest of the trip was simple and included the same good conversation that we'd had on the way to the con. Amy realized that we were going to get in early enough to catch a bus back to Madison and the option of sleeping in her own bed sounded really good, so I dropped her off to catch the bus and headed home.

Then I turned around and went back to the airport when Amy texted me to let me know that I had forgotten to ask for Gretchen's key to my car. Oops...

But I made it home, unloaded the car, and then Gretchen joined me for a happy trip over to Texas Roadhouse for dinner, because a nice little sirloin was in order. :)

This was the first time I'd been to FKO since (I think) 2018. Something went wrong in 2019 to prevent us from going, although I don't remember what at this remove. Then COVID hit, our passports expired, and things were very, very busy.

But things were less busy this year, so that was good. I had a good time.

Tags:

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags

Style Credit

Style: Elegant Notebook for Gold Leaf by rosecarmine
Resources: Yusuke Kamiyamane and Atle Mo

Drummer's Corner of the World

... tollers rule ...

Reading

Profile

April 2017

Custom Text

Cleaning Up

Done Since 2026-04-26

That's a Winner!

Rabbit rabbit rabbit!

Julie Is 18

Fetch!

Thankful Thursday

Round and Round

Laptop Blues

A Mountain of Electronic Paperwork

Forms, Mr. Rico!

Done Since 2026-04-19

Learning New Things

More or Less

The Play's The Thing

Thankful Thursday

Game Report

River: State of the Bear, with bonus cat

Search maintenance

The Brief FKO Report

Page Summary

Expand Cut Tags

Style Credit