The coldest winter I ever spent
Archive for the ‘General’ Category.
I give you the most quintessential video of Abigail ever! She is just 2 1/2 years old in this video and she is ROCKIN’! I see how the other kids are just barely aware of what’s happening and she is completely full of life; she is flailing her arms and legs and still fully keeping her balance! And that smile is to die for! That’s my girl, Father’s Joy!
Want to follow my posts on Mastodon (a new social network)? Here I am! Find me as @gadlen@sfba.social or here https://sfba.social/@gadlen
I post my blog here and crosspost it to Twitter, Facebook, and Mastodon. Though I post a lot more family pix on Facebook.
Can you help me find a manufacturing and order tracking system for my organization? We’ve got several projects (including the cool art coasters below) that are being designed and manufactured in-house by our students. I expect we’ll have sales of something like 5-20 items per day. Any thoughts?
I’m the Production Lead at Autistry Studios, a day program for autistic adults working toward independence!
http://autistry.com/
Gallagher, the watermelon smashing comedian, passed away just a few days ago (via).
I was tremendously lucky to see him perform live in 2006. That performance was an invitation to enjoy and fall in love with chaos, an energy that I embodied for many years, having recently changed my life by moving to the Bay Area.
(via)
Almost exactly one year ago, William Shatner, most famously Star Trek’s Captain James Kirk, took a brief trip to space aboard a Blue Origin rocket. After exiting the spacecraft on his return, the 90-year-old Shatner described it as “the most profound experience I can imagine… It’s extraordinary, extraordinary.”
Of course, “profound” doesn’t always mean “enjoyable,” and in his brand new memoir Boldly Go, Shatner wrote that his space adventure was actually a miserable experience. From an excerpt of the book in Variety:
I saw a cold, dark, black emptiness. It was unlike any blackness you can see or feel on Earth. It was deep, enveloping, all-encompassing. I turned back toward the light of home. I could see the curvature of Earth, the beige of the desert, the white of the clouds and the blue of the sky. It was life. Nurturing, sustaining, life. Mother Earth. Gaia. And I was leaving her.
Everything I had thought was wrong. Everything I had expected to see was wrong.
I had thought that going into space would be the ultimate catharsis of that connection I had been looking for between all living things—that being up there would be the next beautiful step to understanding the harmony of the universe[…]
It was among the strongest feelings of grief I have ever encountered. The contrast between the vicious coldness of space and the warm nurturing of Earth below filled me with overwhelming sadness. Every day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.
I don’t often notice videos made by my school district, but I like this one!
Last year I was the Occupational Therapist at the school in the video, Betty Reid Soskin Middle School. I got to hang out at the farm in the video. Yes, they turned a baseball field into a farm! Good times!
We got an inflatable hot tub last year and we are very happy with it!
Info:
Saluspa Laguna Hot Tub made by Bestway
Outside dimensions of the tub itself (as I measured) : 6′ diameter, 25″ tall
bought from Costco for about $450
177 gallon
Sometimes a day goes perfectly. On September 29th…
I’ve been thinking about and working on making a wildflower Meadow at Abigail School for about 11 months now. I tried starting too late last year so I just had wait for the weather. Here we are! I put down clear UV resistant plastic with the help of a friend for a month to solarize the soil. In a few weeks I will take up the plastic and throw down seed.
It’s a simple project but has taken some will to get it done.
– Approval from school (which meant I had to write up a detailed plan)
– I initially laid down the wrong plastic, with help from Eduardo. The photo on the Farmtek website showed clear plastic but the description was a little vague and I couldn’t find any other plastic sheeting on the site (my bad?) so I bought white plastic which turned out to be the perfect amount of light for growing grass. IE. the opposite of what I wanted.
– laid down the second sheet of plastic with help from Duncan!
– had a weird interaction with the Dad’s Club / Handy Helpers who argued that I shouldn’t ask for volunteers for my project on the main list because 4 events/year was the limit for the organization. :-(
– Lots of waiting for the rainy season
– I’ve got lots of California native seed from Larner Seeds ready to go!
Duncan and I getting the plastic down on a foggy evening
