Several of my larp friends are going wild for Dungeon Crawler Carl, now.

I refuse to not be aware of the books and I've finished the first two in the last two days, so I'll be doing the next one today or tomorrow.

Satellites are exposing weak bridges in America and around the world

Satellites may soon help spot the world’s weakest bridges before they collapse.

Satellites are giving scientists a powerful new way to watch over the world’s bridges. Using radar imaging, researchers can detect millimeter-scale movements that may signal early structural problems long before inspectors notice them. The study found many bridges—especially in North America—are aging and increasingly vulnerable, but satellite monitoring could sharply reduce the number classified as high-risk. The approach could be especially valuable in regions where traditional monitoring barely exists.


The problem is, this won't fix the bridges. America already knows that many of its bridges need repair or replacement. There just isn't enough money for all that work. A big issue is that most government funding focuses on building new infrastructure, not maintaining old infrastructure. Satellite data can't change that.

I found this amusing.

Today is sunny and cool, a beautiful spring day.

I fed the birds. I've seen a few sparrows and house finches at the hopper feeder, and a male cardinal flying around.

I put out water for the birds.

Several of the gardens are now bursting with flowers. Honeybees are swarming over the flowers. :D

More of the fruit tree seedlings have sprouted in their jugs. The ones in the house are sprouting more too. The willow cuttings in water have rootlets over half an inch now!

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I filled 18 pots in a flat with potting soil.

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I planted fruit sprouts in most of the pots: Ginger Gold apple, Pink apple, and yellow pear. I'm pretty sure that I ran out of Ginger Gold and Pear sprouts. There are some Pink sprouts left, so I'll probably finish the pear row with those.

A fox squirrel was scolding from a tree overhead. I've also seen a dark-eyed junco flying around.

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I finished the last three pots with Pink Apple sprouts, and put labels in all but those. I still need to make the last few labels.

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I labeled the last 3 Pink Apple pots. I put a tub over the flat to serve as a greenhouse.

I did a bit of work around the patio.

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I did more work around the patio.

I am done for the night.

EDIT 3/8/26 -- I set up another 12-cell tray indoors with Green Striped Cushaw Winter Squash, seeds I saved from a tiny butternut, Landrace Zucchini, and Lofthouse Landrace Muskmelon. I gave each variety 3 cells, and I put 2 seeds in each cell.

Pick a thing or two that sums up how you're doing today, this week, in general, and tell me about it in the 5-7-5 syllables of a haiku.

=

Signal-boosting much appreciated!

I was having A Week. Wondering whether I had relapsed into depression or was just PMSing. Which wasn't clear because although I'd had my moontime on the 20th in Jan, I again had a mild version on the 9th in Feb. Every day my thoughts were a cycle of haha, I hate my childhood and my family and the world, my finances are tight and my future is bleak, but I'm taking my Vitamin D supplements so maybe I need to start taking Magnesium?

My inbox reached three digits, so instead of trying to get on top of things that way I think I'm going to go to the comments on my old entries to catch up on replying to friends. I'm sorry if I haven't responded to your comments yet! I'm getting to them. And I like leaving comments and responding to comments so I don't even know how I ended up on the over side of whelmed.

I finished watching Undercover Miss Hong and it stuck the landing! I really enjoyed it, I love the heroine and her friends, and I foresee a drama slump now because I don't know what to watch next that I'll enjoy as much. If you have any recs throw 'em my way; I've burned out on romance dramas so I'm looking for friendship-focused ones like this one.

I can usually shake off the Spring time change without any trouble, but today all I want to do is nappppp.

My second option is drinking a LOT of coffee. Thank god, I'm an expert at it.

Played through an event in Duel Links.

I watched Scream for the first time yesterday. I went in knowing who the killer was, but honestly even if I didn't, there were multiple times where they did something suspicious.

I started a project in RPG Maker MV just to figure out the engine.

I'm definitely feeling better. Still some pain, but it's not as bad as it was.

Daylight Savings weekend! I will miss that extra hour of sleep, but I am looking forward to more evening sunshine now 😊

(Actually, I will not miss that extra hour of sleep because I'm gonna nap later 😂)

Anyway, the usual stuff:

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So, I've been thinking about how everyone watches their favorite shows with their own particular way of seeing the world. This is why some people see certain ships and others don't.

It started with my pondering how people could watch something I personally think is pretty blatant and not see it. In my quest to figure it out, I've listened to a couple of Miami Vice episode reaction podcasts, and I gotta say, I was frankly pretty surprised by their take on some things. The way I relate to others myself is how I interpret subtext (or lack thereof). For instance...

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I feel like I ought to have more to say, but the last week has been more of the same: making bread (experimenting with sourdough, mostly hydration ratios, though I did do at least one pass at the cranberry walnut loaf and while it wasn't perfect it was good enough that I'm going to keep trying, it made excellent toast), noodling at writing stuff, and — well.

Last week, Maximo was like, "oh I'm not sick, it's just allergies" as he became, in short order, Very Goopy.

"I don't think that's just allergies," I said (helpfully! I am helpful). "You sound like a frog."

He rolled his eyes, but — well, dear reader, I was correct, it was a rather nasty headcold, one which he kindly passed on to me. It's been going around his work, evidently — everyone's negative for, well, everything (including Maximo), no fever/body aches/anything that would point to flu or COVID, just — goop. Good ol' rhinovirus, I guess.

Anyway, yes — he was like, "I don't think I'm sick", and then he was, I caught it from him, and thus had two days of sort of sneeze-y, goopy misery. Today is the first day that I've felt halfway normal since Thursday, and, well — ended up with a migraine, because the universe has a sense of humor. (Deep sigh.)

Was supposed to take a sourdough class that a friend of a friend was teaching and wanted feedback on; texted her yesterday thanking her for the invitation and telling her that in the interest of not passing along the crud, I wouldn't be going. So. You know. Boo.

Stayed home, obvs. Max went up to Salem to go meet one of his friends to play disc golf, since the weather was fine, and as soon as he left I went back to bed and didn't get up for a solid three and a half hours. Took pain meds, curled up in the dark, slept it off. Woke up not being entirely sure that words were, well, working, but mostly felt better, and have felt okay most of the rest of the day.

And, well, yeah.

The weather has been sort of shit lately — rainy enough that I can't start doing the outdoors stuff I want to do (clearing out raised beds, digging up the bulbs I want to get rid of in the front yard, because the hyacinth has more or less taken over the entirety of the corner and I am sick of it), also cold until today. It's actually supposed to snow overnight Monday, which is very ?! considering that today was 60F, and may explain the migraine (they are, alas, weather-linked).


The Fandom Trumps Hate (hereafter FTH) auctions wrapped this evening. Was sort of relieved to see that I got bids on both of them? Was half-afraid, going into this, that no one would bid on me — did actually have a couple of friends where I was like, "PLEASE, IF IT GETS TO THE LAST FEW HOURS AND NO ONE HAS..." — but, well, yeah. Did get bids! Got multiple bids, even, on the writing, which is still astounding to me, but FTH is one of the events that's for a good cause, so it's less, "ah yes, You Specifically are Desired" and more, "what you're doing is interesting enough and it's for a decent enough reason that no one's going to begrudge spending $5 on it". Though, er — I think the last bid for writing was more like $55? Which is, again, a bit "!!" to think about, but oh, well.

I won't find out about assignments until probably sometime next week, but I'm looking forward to it, so. Hoping that the second-place bidder from the writing auction also wants something, because A). More money going to charity = good, and B). They left a really lovely comment on something I'd written, which made me think, "ah, we have similar taste!", and so I want to know what they'd request, honestly.


Not much else to report, I think. Lots of grumbling re: physical health stuff (three migraines in two weeks, including one that more or less Lingered for three days) — the migraines were honestly what came up in therapy last, along with, "I know that rejection sucks but boy it really sucks" — and that's not terribly interesting to talk about, plus y'all heard from a lot as part of the Talking Meme Month stuff, so. I am still noodling over thoughts on writing for that, for the record, and when I finally have something coherent to answer the questions that were posed to me, I'll share it. It's very — mm. Part of it is that I'm reluctant to give advice on how to write, because I feel like it's personal/subjective, and what makes "good writing" depends on things like what the purpose of it is (e.g. is it technical writing, are you trying to convey information or instructions, are you telling a story — and if so, what sort of story) as well as your own personal style and preferences. I'm never going to write like Hemingway or Dickens, but I'm not particularly fond of either of their styles (nothing against them, really), so of course it's not going to sound the same, and if someone comes to what I've written looking for that, they're going to walk away annoyed.

I can talk a lot about how to develop the habit of it, which is how I think you get better, but...I mean...it also feels very deeply weird to position myself as an expert on this when I have recently gotten rejected. I haven't done anything meaningful with writing in about fifteen years — I mean, I write for myself, and it's fun, but I definitely haven't met the publication goals I set out to, etc, and so there's this feeling hanging over me of, "man, do I have enough know-how to feel comfortable answering this stuff?"

I think the answer is yes, with some hedging, but, well.

We'll see.

Watch this space, I guess, in the meantime, and I will probably try to throw up something coherent once my head is no longer actively trying to kill me.

First curriculum post of the last month of the quarter-- woo!

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Anyone watch that new Young Sherlock show?

On the one hand, it's one of Guy Ritchie's.

On the other hand, modern television has given me a lot of reasons to be wary. I have always loved Holmesian media, but I've been burned before.

I'll probably check it out either way.

We went out shopping today.

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