Weekend Notes

Some notes about things, some of which happened before the weekend began. But first…

A Blog Update

Yes, I fucked around with how the site looks over the weekend. I believe I had used the same theme for six or seven years. That package had not been updated in ages, and while it has continued to work through WordPress updates, I kept getting warnings that it may fail at some point. I liked the way it looked and I don’t have near the enthusiasm for messing around with that stuff as I did 10 years ago, so I kept kicking that can down the road, figuring if I woke up one day and it didn’t work, I could just slide into the default theme and then look for a replacement.

I finally broke down, though, and putzed around with some free themes Saturday night before I paid $20 for a “professional” package on Sunday. I think “professional” just means it gets updated more often than the free ones you find on WordPress’ site.

Anyway, I think I’ll stick with the look you see now for the time being, although there may still be some random tinkering. I did not like the way the new theme presented in simple black and white, so shifted it to the color scheme you see. I’ve never had a two-column setup before, so thought I’d try it. It has been a long time since I used a format that just posted excerpts of posts on the main page. Maybe since I used Moveable Type, which would have been in the 2005–2006 range.

I also added a tagline for the site, one that I think is very funny if you get the reference. I know a few of you will.

See that little moon up in the top menu bar? You can use that to toggle the site to dark mode, if you wish. Other than that, not many changes for you, my loyal readers.

Let me know if you find anything that doesn’t work.

Moving Day #1

Thursday S and I went to Cincinnati to move M from her summer place to the one she will live in the next two years. We had a fair amount of stuff here that nearly filled S’s Telluride. I had a cargo van reserved in Cincy for the big stuff. I very much wanted to avoid driving anything bigger than that on the narrow, hilly streets of the Clifton/Over the Rhine neighborhoods. I had checked and the cargo van was big enough to move a queen-sized bed, which is what M has. Then Thursday morning I had a moment of panic when she sent us pictures of what stuff was hers in the basement. I didn’t realize she’d have a big-ass dresser, some barstools, a nightstand, plus a large headboard. I feared S’s wrath if we got down there and all this shit wouldn’t fit.

M was working so she left a key for us and we started loading up around 3:00 PM. Our goal was to be done right around when she got off work and could collect the key for her new place.

It was hot and steamy. I was a sweaty mess. I might be too old for this. But we got all that shit into the van! Pretty easily, even. So easily that we decided rather than wait for M to join us, we’d just head to the new place, about three blocks away, and start unloading as she had already received the code for the door there. S and I are both “I’m not here to fuck around” types when it comes to moving. We don’t always communicate well while in the midst of this, but we get shit done. M was the only one moving in that day, the first day of the lease, so there was no one in our way and nothing in the house to block our path. We not only had her old place packed up, but we had everything unloaded from the van and S’s car before M got to the new one. Efficient!

The new place is old. Interesting. A little creepy, at least when totally empty. People who knew me in college will remember the place I lived in for two years with six other guys. M’s new place reminds me a lot of that. It is even seven years old than mine, built in 1901. And it’s been 30 years since I lived in that house. I don’t remember it being super run down, but I was a dumb college kid then. The age shows at hers. Especially the basement, which is straight-up scary. I think I would rather pay to do my laundry somewhere than have to go into the basement to use theirs. Their neighborhood is a little sketchy, too. But that’s Clifton for you. She’s the dumb college kid now, and isn’t really fazed at all by its condition.

M got what we think is the best bedroom. It’s the only one on the main floor, but way in the back and you have to wind around to get there. There are a lot of architectural “quirks” to the house from over a century of updates. One of the more interesting ones is that there used to be an entrance where her room is. At some point it was turned into a bedroom, and the entry plastered over on the inside. But they left the door on the outside. So inside her room, you see a normal wall. Outside, though, they left the door, just made it inoperable. The window panes are still in place, even. Through them you see the back of the plastered walls. Wild. I’m not sure what the point of that was. I should have taken a picture because I’m not sure that description makes total sense.

She and her six roommates will be sharing two bathrooms, and one is right next to her room. She has a window air conditioner. Some of the rooms upstairs do not and were hot as hell when we were there. I really hope all those girls are bringing their own window units. I remember how hot my room in Lawrence was in the summer, and how chilly it could be in the winter. But I loved that house and all the memories that came with its quirkiness. Hopefully she has the same experience.[1]

She has about a 10 minute walk to campus, up a steep hill. Fortunately she’ll be overseas this winter so will only have to deal with it in the cold her senior year.

Her summer internship officially ended on Friday. However, they asked her to stay on and continue working on the project she was assigned over the summer through the fall semester. It will be 10–15 hours a week, she’ll still get paid, and it looks great on her resumé, so she dropped a class to make it work. I think she’ll be doing some of that work this week before sorority recruitment begins next weekend.

Back To School

Thursday was also CHS’ first day of the year, so L is now officially a junior. And driving herself. Weird after all these years to just have one kid in school locally, and she being pretty much independent from us. She texted me from her math class that day saying how easy it was, and how her teacher was surprised she got an answer right . The next day she moved up to honors. Look at the big brain on L! Because basketball dominates the first semester, she was reluctant to load up her schedule too heavily. Now she has one honors class, one AP, and her Spanish class is for college credit.

C has one more week at home; we move her on the 20th. IU does rush in January so she’ll go about ten days later than M did when she was a freshman.[2]

Jim Lovell

Lovell, the commander of the Apollo 13 mission, died Friday. A true, unquestionable, American hero. In his honor I watched the Netflix documentary Apollo 13: Survival that night. It is very good. They didn’t Netflix it up at all. It reinforced what a great man he was, not just because of his calm, cool demeanor in the face of a disaster in outer space, but also in how being in space affected him. I’ve seen a lot of footage of Lovell, read a lot about him, and have always been endlessly impressed with his easy demeanor. He never came across as a hot-shot test pilot, but just a normal, fairly humble guy.

At the end of the program you hear him talk about what it was like to see the earth from outer space. How you don’t see cities or borders, and you realize that’s home to all humans and we need to find a way to protect the earth and live together in peace.

Compare that to the people who are now in charge of our space program, their goals, and how they view their mission…

RIP