{"id":2053,"date":"2021-03-16T06:21:15","date_gmt":"2021-03-16T10:21:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/?p=2053"},"modified":"2021-03-17T21:05:39","modified_gmt":"2021-03-18T01:05:39","slug":"dispatches-from-stinkbug-manor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/2021\/03\/16\/dispatches-from-stinkbug-manor\/","title":{"rendered":"Dispatches from Stinkbug Manor"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What&#8217;s going on? Things are falling apart. Things are building. I&#8217;ll try to to explain. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<div id=\"ez-toc-container\" class=\"ez-toc-v2_0_84 counter-hierarchy ez-toc-counter ez-toc-grey ez-toc-container-direction\">\n<div class=\"ez-toc-title-container\"><p class=\"ez-toc-title\" style=\"cursor:inherit\">Today on the Lstrblg...<\/p>\n<\/div><nav><ul class='ez-toc-list ez-toc-list-level-1 ' ><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-1\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/2021\/03\/16\/dispatches-from-stinkbug-manor\/#Some_Not_so_Great_Things\" >Some Not so Great Things<\/a><\/li><li class='ez-toc-page-1 ez-toc-heading-level-2'><a class=\"ez-toc-link ez-toc-heading-2\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/2021\/03\/16\/dispatches-from-stinkbug-manor\/#Some_Good_Things\" >Some Good Things<\/a><\/li><\/ul><\/nav><\/div>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Some_Not_so_Great_Things\"><\/span>Some Not so Great Things<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">OK, I&#8217;ll admit that the Lstrs have had a bad run as of late. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>First (and worst) my Uncle Jim died last week.  Uncle Jim&#8217;s obituary, prepared by the funeral home, was rote and factually incorrect.  He deserves better. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I reserve the right, in a future project,  to take a more in-depth look at Uncle Jim&#8217;s history. There is nothing scandalous there, I am sure (or hope), but I realize that my family doesn&#8217;t do a very good job with preserving our history.   Take a look at the thread for a few dashed off thoughts and impressions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">I want to tell you a few things about Uncle Jim. Not all of it is exactly true, perhaps, but it is what I&#39;ve heard or how I remember it.<\/p>&mdash; Greg (@Greg_Lester) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/Greg_Lester\/status\/1367644987014451205?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">March 5, 2021<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">2. Aly jacked up her knee while skiing. We tried to get a last day of slushy skiing at mountain so close it isn&#8217;t even in the Poconos. She caught a bad patch of terrain and her right ski slowed while the rest of her flew onward. The cheap rental bindings refused to give way, so she&#8230;jacked up her knee. She won&#8217;t need surgery, but she&#8217;ll be on the DL for the foreseeable future.  She&#8217;s the one with a job, so we&#8217;ll need to find safer activities for her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">3. The Daughter broke her nose.  She had a bad run of stitches and accidents a few years back, but we&#8217;ve been doing well all through her teens. A rambunctious ten year-old headbutted her schnozz while she was volunteering the weekend before last. We have an appointment for schnozzal realignment this morning. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">4. I&#8217;m still gainfully funemployed. Fortunately, I have a client I consult for regularly, and I still have some unemployment left over for the weeks I don&#8217;t work. Some stability would be good right now, but I am grateful for what I have. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><span class=\"ez-toc-section\" id=\"Some_Good_Things\"><\/span>Some Good Things<span class=\"ez-toc-section-end\"><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Scouts seems to be going well. I&#8217;m Scoutmaster for The Daughter&#8217;s Troop. She&#8217;s made First Class despite officially having &#8220;No Interest&#8221; in ranks and stuff. The Son is doing well, having stalled out somewhere between Star and Life.  Having summer camp to look forward to is a positive.<\/li><li>I&#8217;ve picked up exercise again. Went for a brief run moments ago, in fact. Admittedly, trying to put on a suit for Uncle Jim&#8217;s funeral was a wake up call. Also, I shaved. If I want to write for a living, I can&#8217;t be both bearded and fat&#8211;that&#8217;s not exactly standing out in the crowd.<\/li><li>I have a client, so every so often I can forgo an unemployment check, which is good for the soul. <\/li><li><a href=\"https:\/\/bandcamp.com\/ithinklikemidnight\">I Think Like Midnight<\/a> has released an album. It is different in a good way. A little more electronic. A little dreamier. Good music for bad times. I promise I&#8217;ll review it later this week. <\/li><li>Speaking of music, I re-discovered <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ultima_Thule_Ambient_Music\"> Ultima Thule<\/a>, an ambient music show out of Australia, on Mixcloud. It was my go-to for plane music when I traveled for work (Wu-Tang in the airport, Ultima Thule in the air).  I now get most of my music out of Bandcamp and Mixcloud it would seem. I&#8217;m looking to divorce myself from the Apple ecosystem, so this seems like the natural direction. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What&#8217;s going on? Things are falling apart. Things are building. I&#8217;ll try to to explain. Some Not so Great Things OK, I&#8217;ll admit that the Lstrs have had a bad run as of late. First (and worst) my Uncle Jim died last week. Uncle Jim&#8217;s obituary, prepared by the funeral home, was rote and factually [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","post-preview"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7V2xo-x7","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2058,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2053\/revisions\/2058"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lstr.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}