seasonal

• A few weeks ago, I was at the college and came across Boss and a colleague talking in the hallway. It was from them that I learned that Dolly Parton had died.

Not gonna lie, when they saw me and said, "we were just talking about Dolly. Yeah, she died", my first thought was Dolly the cloned sheep. And I thought to myself *she was still alive??*. Coincidentally, I've learned that she, the sheep, was actually named after Dolly Parton because her DNA came from a mammary gland. There you go.

Anyway, the conversation then turned to an opening the colleague had in her department. K is an assistant director in recruiting and advising. She had an opening, which I actually already knew about because Sarge told me he was applying for it.

From this short conversation, I got the vibe that K was wanting me to apply. I do like K, and it would be nice to have her as a boss, but I'm just not interested in a full-time position at this "season of my life". Plus, I know Sarge is really hoping he gets the role.

The job description is nearly exactly that of one I applied for about 10 years ago at the university when we lived in Colorado Springs. At that time, it was very appealing. Needless to say, I didn't get that job. And now we're here, and I appreciate the part-time "season"

• I've been doing some decluttering in little bits the past few weeks. Despite my ongoing efforts, I seem to always manage to come across something that has me saying, "why do we have this??" 

Going through the stash of bicycle tubes, I found eight... count 'em, 8... that don't fit any bicycles in our possession. These things happen when you sell/offload 4 bicycles in the span of a couple of months. 

This, to say I have a new bicycle. I'd been researching for a few months and had been riding the hand-me-up from Meego for nearly a year. The hand-me-up's been good, but it's starting to feel its age.

So I indulged, purchased from a nice local bike shop. 

She is a joy. I've named her Honey.

take a big breath and hold it

I had an abdominal ultrasound, of all things, this morning. Haven't done that since spying on Meego in utero.

Recall that my doctor had me do some blood tests and advised me to cut back on the alcohol and fatty foods. And I was all, "what alcohol and fatty foods?"

The blood test showed a couple of elevated liver enzymes. Same thing the second time. So, ultrasound it is, and again with the "cut back on the alcohol blah blah blah..."

Did the ultrasound and got results in less than an hour while I was back home having my no-alcohol, non-fatty breakfast. Thankfully, everything is boringly normal, as I suspected it would be.

In the meantime, I had googled - as we do - these pesky enzymes. Seems they can be elevated when there's injury or inflammation somewhere. I will blame it on my back which began bugging me a year or so ago. On that, I will blame the backpack that I use for work. Meanwhile, I'm doing PT, which is helping, and experimenting with different backpacks.

So, speaking of backpacks, recall that we got a new Ring doorcam last weekend when our old one went belly up. Along with the purchase came a 30-day trial of their enhanced AI generated descriptions of the goings on.

As an example, I was brushing off this garden tool I used for clearing the big swaths of vegetation on the helms deep road. 

We got it a long time ago, and I don't remember the name of the tool. Apparently Ring AI doesn't know what it is either, so called it a metal detector.

Back to the backpack... When I leave for work wearing a backpack, Ring calls me a child.

But when I return home, I'm a person.

Clearly, that backpack is aging me.

door cams, ham cams

Tuesday that feels like a Monday. I've got tutees this afternoon, and appreciate not having any  responsibilities until then. 

I was on a grateful bicycle ride this morning, and there was a bicycling woman on the pathway a few yards ahead of me. A guy riding an e-bike went past me - on the left after beeping his horn, all very cordial. I waved my hand in acknowledgement.

He then did the same with the woman in front of me - beeped before passing on the  left. She seemed about to similarly wave in acknowledgement, but as he went by, I saw that she instead raised her hand to flip him off.

What was THAT about? There are some reckless e-bike riders around, typically riding powerful e-bikes that aren't allowed on the bike path, but who's gonna catch 'em? Because of those hooligans, many bicyclists and pedestrians don't like e-bikes in general.

But this guy was not going super fast, his bike looked legal to me, and he was following the rules. I don't think he even noticed that she had flipped him off.

Then it was my turn to pass, so I'm thinking, "is she offended by ANYONE who passes her?" I dinged my bell and went by her, possibly flipped off. I didn't check.

We had a nice 3-day weekend. Saturday was very low-key. We went downtown and hung out at the Farmer's market. Sunday, our front door ring camera had crapped out. It's quite old and just didn't seem to have any get up and go. We laid it to rest, got a replacement from Best Buy, and Magnum installed it. We're back on front door surveillance,

Yesterday, we went up to Helms Deep. Meego joined us, and Wolfgang met us after for lunch. 

I've mentioned here that our "driveway" on the property is in rough shape, so I wanted to get a feel for just how rough as we've been considering hiring a contractor to clear and smooth it out for us.

So I took to it with a couple of hand tools to estimate how many "Man Hours" - to coin an outdated cost estimating term - it would take to shape it up.

Here is a view of what most of it looks like while entering.

Then I took a pic of the area I cleaned up without too much effort in about one "Old Lady Hour".

We have a dollar amount that we're willing to pay someone to clear it, but it's not like we need to have a whole road built. There's a road there, it's just been neglected for a while and needs a little makeover. We'll probably do it ourselves like old time pioneers.

The trail cam showed more deer. No cows this time, and still no mountain lions, but we know they're around. 

This guy shows up frequently. Must be a favorite branch. 

Either that, or he knows there's a trail cam there, and he's a total ham.

nuptials, harvest, leadership

Labor Day weekend - the unofficial end to summer. Time to get serious.

• We're going to head out for a coffee bike ride in a minute. I think I mentioned that I sold/donated three of my four bicycles over the last few months. Now I'm down to one. I like the simplicity of one general purpose bicycle, but also find myself wanting a new one, thinking end-of-season sales will be upon us.

Is it human nature to frequently want new, supposedly better, stuff? 

• I worked in testing yesterday. I typically just work one shift a week there since tutoring has taken over more of my work hours, so I use that time to get caught up in anything new from testing. Recently, Daffodil had asked me to cover an upcoming shift for her, and I told her I would. Yesterday, she asked if I'd cover that same shift the following week as well.

"Whatcha doing? Anything fun?", I asked.

"We're getting all our marriage stuff finalized..." she explained.

Daffodil is in a long-term relationship - 6 years in. After telling me about the "marriage stuff", she continued,

"I guess you didn't know. We got engaged", then she held out her left hand, adorned with a complete tasteful wedding set.

I noticed it was a complete set, not just the engagement ring. Apparently, they consider themselves already married, so the "marriage stuff" they're finalizing is getting the marriage license, etc. from the courthouse. They'll have a party later "for the grandmas".

I gotta say, I love that idea. No need for lots of wedding pomp (plus expense!) and the stress that comes with it. I've met her man, and they make a strong couple. She's a very mature 27.

• Garden tomatoes are doing their thing, tomatoing as fast as we can eat them. A few mutants in the harvest, but tasty.

Last night/this morning, around 4am, I heard what sounded like a little kid saying, "Hey!"  or some similar one-syllable word from outside the window. Said it three times.

I thought it was weird for a little kid to be outside at 4am. Then I figured it's probably some critter, having sex or looking for it. I remember being told that if a critter is heard at nighttime, the noise is probably from one or the other activity.

But it may have also been trying to raid the garden.

• Lastly, in other food news, one of my tutees presented yummy homemade ginger cookies at our session. She explained that she's president of one of the student clubs, so she'd brought them for their first meeting. Good leadership skills, there!

She made dinosaur and heart cookies.

The heart didn't survive long enough for a photo.

traffic

Last Saturday was Tour de Fat here in Fort Collins. It's an annual bike-beer-and-stuff festival thing sponsored by New Belgium brewery. 

People dress up and parade bicycles, logging laps around Mountain Avenue near downtown, and there's music, events, and more fun to be had on the brewery grounds. 

SOURCE

Magnum and I biked over and caught a good portion of the parade. We had no silly costumes - other than what we normally wear - so enjoyed the spectating.

We headed out along the parade route until able to make a clean exit. While waiting for the crowd to part, I got a couple of good lungfuls of burning cannabis to help on the journey.

Tragedy struck on the day with all of the revelers in the downtown area. Story has it an elderly man in a pickup truck backed out of a parking space and hit a vehicle. He then rushed forward in the truck, up onto the sidewalk, and plowed into a group of people before a tree stopped his forward motion. One person died, 5 were hospitalized. Police are "investigating".

I put that in quotes because locals are still questioning what happened to the woman who was struck and killed on her bicycle about two months ago now. She followed the rules, but was struck and killed by a construction truck. Hmmm.

So a sad event on what is normally a fun filled festive day. I can only assume the person who died, a 33-year-old man from Denver, was in town to enjoy Tour de Fat with friends.

On a much smaller medical note, I went in for a blood screen today. This was a follow up to an earlier screening my doctor routinely ordered. For the follow up, she told me to "cut back the alcohol", which is pretty impossible for me since I can't drink much less than already.

I got the feeling my phlebotomist was new. I've been told I have "great veins" from a bloodletting perspective, and phlebotomists typically make short work of my draws. Today was a young guy, he played around with different vein options, then had a bit of trouble getting the flow going. He seemed a bit nervous from the get go, but I was a patient patient.

I think phlebotomists practice on each other while in training, but eventually, some "real" person has to be the first. I don't know if I was the first, but if I was, I guess he'll always remember me.

pretend you don't see it

Happy full moon Friday! Anything weird happening?

This week got busy as it closes out the second week since the fall semester began. Technically just one available time slot remains in my tutoring schedule, but theoretically, I could open a couple more time slots if push comes to shove. 

Honestly, I thought in-person tutoring was something that would be swallowed up by AI and other free online resources years ago. I guess some people still like having an actual person to lead them through the valley of the shadow of math. Plus, their tuition already pays for it, so they might as well take advantage if they've got time for it.

So far, all my tutees seem nice and hard-working. When first meeting a new student, I'll ask them what brought them to tutoring and get typical responses like, "I failed this class, so I'm taking it again and don't want to fail again", or "I get easily distracted/discouraged when I try to study on my own" or "You tutored my friend/older sibling, and they recommended you", etc.

One particular student I asked this week smiled at me and responded, "Mommy made me". 

So after this two-week frenzy of onboarding new tutees and the paperwork that requires, I think I've settled in for a fall semester. I worked in testing earlier today and observed this scene from the adjunct instructor break room - home of the querying whiteboard.

Theirs is just across the hall from our breakroom in testing, and they have a bigger fridge and sink, so we've been known to freeload over there. 

The sign above the sink, asking to "Please wash your dishes..." stood out to me as new.

Juxtaposed with all the dirty dishes in and around the sink, I'm wondering. 

Is the sign in response to the mess? Or is the mess in response to the sign?

wrap it up

And so it begins.

Students returned for the start of the fall semester this week. It's nice to see the increased activity on campus after the lazy days of summer. I've already gotten a few tutees filling my tutor schedule.

Today, I noticed the adjunct instructor breakroom whiteboard has awakened:

We stuck around here all summer, and I'd say my highlight was purchasing Helms Deep and getting to work cleaning up its rough edges. Plenty to do in that regard.

We were up there last weekend, it was nice to have Wolfgang along to help out. We got a few more captures from the trailcam, mostly deer. But they were eventually usurped by these party animals.

They didn't just dine and dash, however. They left us some fertilizer... until next time.