Finishing up an Alaskan cruise. This is the complete opposite of how I usually travel and likely something I will never do again. That said, it has overall been an incredible time with some wonderful companions.

Tomorrow, we will pick up my friend’s ashes at a post office in Anchorage, and the next day we will head to Kenai Fjords National Park. He made it to 49 states, so we’re bringing him to the 50th.

The cat is cute. Work is stressful. It’s too damned hot (I hate summer). I should read more – I miss having the time.

Finally finished fixing bugs for an unofficial update of a fan game that I was modding. So pretty good.

my dad and his wife visited for a few days, so that was fun. went to a couple of museums, breweries, etc.

RAGBRAI is less than two weeks away!!! i gotta get more riding in. i did get my new tires installed yesterday, since i noticed my old ones were looking a little worse for the wear. was hoping to go for a ride then, but storms rolled in and ruined my plans.

echo (border collie) is showing some signs of generalized anxiety—pacing, whining, barking, and generally restless. i’m not sure if it’s because her routine was upset with family visiting + fireworks + storms, but i’ll probably get an opinion from the vet. i did ask for some better anti-anxiety meds for the sound events, since the xanax wasn’t doing a whole lot, even administered pre-sound.

spent a lot of time reconfiguring my budget with actual since YNAB is hiking up their prices again. still pissed they did away with their promised “lifetime” subscription price.

Guess who got their computer back??

Finally after having to send the motherboard I had bought back that I had unintentionally broken the pins on, it’s together and back at my house and I’m so grateful. I’m glad I had a laptop to lean on but I hated it all the same.

It was a bit of a struggle because the drive with Windows on it wouldn’t work for some reason. After messing around with it, I got it to function, but I need to find the time to wipe everything and start over with Bazzite and Windows dual boot. That’s a project for later me, though.

I got help for my dog’s vet bills, as I’m drowning in money issues currently. It’s not a huge chunk of money and I’m spacing their visits out, but Bowser is behind on immunizations and they both need annual checkups. I feel like a really bad pet owner because I’m disabled and don’t work, yet have two dogs, but I treat them the best I can. And originally, circumstances were different and I could afford everything much more easily.

But things are okay at this very moment. I hope everyone else has a fabulous week.

The gastritis is… bad. And I’m tired of working through the pain. But my friend made me dinner this evening which was amazing because I’m so tired of making food that’s suitable for me to eat.

Never take ibuprofen on an empty stomach.

Moving delayed again due to weather. Also honestly I’m not sure why family keeps offering to help me move. Their vehicle has cargo space, sure, but it’s one vehicle between five adults, and very few of them know how to drive so that really limits when it’s actually available for me to borrow.

They’re just gonna have to evict me and throw all my shit down the stairs and break it like they do with my neighbors.

Had to cancel an art collab I’ll never have another chance to do, because I live in one apartment and my computer is in the other.

Skin infection isn’t going away but my insurance rejects every test I get, so I’m done trying.

Had either COVID or the flu, but it was the week of a major US holiday and they were disciplining people for calling out, so I worked all week. Got publicly shamed for my terrible metrics while I was too phlegmy to speak.

Basically, next week HAS to be good.

ETA at least I’m back at the gym, although I feel terrible after being out for two weeks. I was so sick I was just working and sleeping for a while.

My primary instance is experiencing a DDOS attack, so I am on my backup account for a while.

I just had some vacation time, which was SO nice. Today, I was supposed to go back to work, and the office experienced a major issue with our servers, which could take up to a week to resolve. So I might get a second paid week off, which would be one heck of a nice vacation.

For hobby stuff, I’ve still been livestreaming (mostly elden ring dlc), and people are coming around more often lately, which is neat. I’m starting to see two or more people show up, which is mind-blowing. I’m excited but also nervous because that could eventually be way more people if this pace keeps up. I feel like I’m kinda just fartin around, so I’m not really sure what to do as things grow. But I assume I’ll have some time to ease into things. It’s neat!

Back to work. With the US holiday being essentially a 4day weekend, plus getting back into town from a weeklong biz trip the week prior, didn’t do a whole lot of anything last week, other than sleeping and gaming and occasionally looking at email/Teams… So it’s a bit hard to get back into it.

I think I’ve settled on a new apartment in my soon-to-be new city. It’s expensive. Parking alone is like $120/mo (street parking requires a city permit). But it is what it is. It has what I want, particularly being close to a subway stop. Maybe I pay out the nose for the first year, then once I have my bearings, learn the area, I can find something cheaper elsewhere.

Dealing with apartments is a pain in the ass. I live in an apartment now and have lived in a few different apartments for the last 9yrs. So it’s not like I have no experience. But god, some of these places makes it very difficult to talk with a human. No, I don’t want to chat or text or have a phone call with a chatbot or AI assistant. No I don’t want to start the application process online before I get my questions answered. I just have a few questions; call me, please. Luckily someone – a real someone – finally called me today.

Also, what the fuck is an “administrative fee” at an apartment, and why is it so high? I get having an application fee of like $50. I get needing a deposit. But a $500 “administrative fee?” Have never come across that before. And this isn’t the only place I’m looking at that has it. As always, just another way to wring money out of folks.

Hopefully I’ll have this all settled within the next week or two.

Otherwise, back to FFXIV. Taking my time with the new Dawntrail expansion.

Not bad.

I’ve reached the point where, as a contrarian, it’s time for me to speak less about politics online, so I started adding in filters to my Mastodon feed, and I like that my feed is less doomscrolling now.

We’ve had a friend visiting for a few days to help build out his photography portfolio and get some nice pictures of stuff around the farm, which I’ll be sure to share once I’ve gotten them. It’s super nice to have outside perspective - I don’t always feel the progress that others perceive, and don’t give much credit to the work that’s put into it. I should put more into validating myself and my efforts, but it’s still nice when other folks help out with that.

I’m also nearing functional completion of my bookshelf project but have been a little bad about documenting it for !diy - I have a few photos I’ll share once I have regained some of my bandwidth. I’ll still have to do the trim but will be able to start storing our books, records, and stuff there soon instead of all the small shelves and stacks scattered around the house.

Trying my best to find a new job asap so that I can actually take 1 or 2 weeks of summer vacation instead of just stressing over applications.

Also my cat is getting surgery today to have his upper front teeth removed because they were infecting (and already had been before). The vet said it’s best to just remove them altogether because he won’t really miss them anyway and can eat fine without. Worried about my little guy but I’m sure he’ll be okay ❤️
he should be ok to be picked up in about 4 hours yay :)

Also, great opportunity to air out the apartment hehe

Last month my wife’s employer went bankrupt and tomorrow my employer is holding a meeting about the financial situation and the consequences. Fun times.

Checked into a partial hospitalization program last week because my social anxiety and agoraphobia got too big to manage alone.

The past few days have been perhaps the first I’ve felt joy and love in their full forms 😸