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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 fixed the 3D printer problem
• I mostly finished writing my Asclepius letter
• I figured out how to do the file repository at artistry: All computers get the same Google drive desktop and at the end of the day, I search for files that have been modified today only and incorporate them into the back end repository
• I found Megan’s coffee cup
• Abigail has picture day and she was so cute putting on makeup and then us cleaning it up on her face and ultimately taking most of it off
• I’m going to drama class today for work which is pretty fun
• I decided to go back and listen to the Harry Dresden novels again. I listened to the beginning of battleground again and omg it is wonderful writing!
• I had a great discussion with Abigail this morning about how you think about things before you do them, and then how you can think about things faster than you can actually do them. For example I opened a jar of peanut butter in my mind, and then she listened to a song in her mind and we both danced like fools at the breakfast table to the song in her head!
• Megan and I are getting excited about RVing next week and we are happily fantasizing about getting an RV (and planning on renting several times first!)
• Abigail is simply rocking her ukulele practice. My new ringtone can attest to that!

You might enjoy the Video Speed Controller Chrome extension.
Get it here.

I use it when I’m trying to find the good part of a video: tap “Jump 10 seconds forward” or “jump 10 seconds back” a few times! Or when Hulu forces me to watch ads, I fast forward through them at 16x speed. And of course, when I’m watching a boring video, I’ll turn up the speed so I can “watch faster”. I’ll turn it to 1.2x speed when I’m trying to watch a slow drama that needs to kick it up, or 2.5x speed for poorly cut Youtube videos!

These settings work very well for me:

Also, since no one should ever fully trust a free extension to not snoop on you, I set it to only run when I click on the icon, like below:

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

RVing is in our future! We’re renting one in 2 weekends and taking it to a redwood forest campground in Santa Cruz! We’re considering the joys (and pitfalls) of owning vs renting! Have you considered RVing? I’d love to bend your ear.

Abigail’s life as a second grader has been pretty awesome!

Laiden with a backpack on her way to Mr. Prather’s class!

Oh yeah, she’s learning to drive.

The family had a great time seeing “Elephant and Piggy We are in a Play!” last weekend!
During the play, we got a thrill when Elephant was talking about realizing that they were in a play (a classic Elephant 4th-wall-break, ha!) and he said… “they have stuffies!” clearly talking about Abigail’s stuffies. After the play, we were walking in the farmer’s market with Elephant and Gerald poking out of my shopping bag and I heard a voice over my shoulder whisper it again, and there was the actor who plays Elephant with a big grin on her face! Great fun!

I offered a friend help with managing credit card offers. Here’s my letter to her:

Now that you’ve made your spend with your Chase Sapphire card, don’t you think your husband should get a card?

When the new card arrives, stick your old Sapphire card in a drawer and make sure you’ve set an alarm to cancel your first card about the 10 months after it first arrived, you don’t want to accidentally get charged $95 for the yearly renewal! (I have a suspicion that if I cancel my cards too quickly, the credit card company won’t want to issue me another one)

When cancelling, tell them, “I’m cancelling because I don’t want the temptation of spending money I don’t have”. They shouldn’t pester you at all about maybe keeping the card.

I’m pretty sure that you earned about 60,000 Chase Ultimate Rewards points. I’d recommend that you not try too hard to get the extra bonuses, just turn it into cash money. For example, your points are worth 10% more if you spend them on internet or cell phone charges. I say, “yeah, whatever, just give me my $600 free money!”

You won’t be able to get another Chase Sapphire card and earn a bonus for 4 years, it’s in the contract. They also stipulate something like “you can’t get a card if you’ve opened more than 5 other cards in the last 2 years.” They do that to prevent people from doing what you are doing :-)

So set an alarm for late 2026. You -might- be able to get another Sapphire card, or you might just be relegated to getting other cards. Don’t worry, there are lots out there!

Have fun with the free money :-)
Lee

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