I love languages almost as much as I love travel.

I watch a lot of videos and follow a lot of accounts which talk about languages, so "The Algorithm" is constantly feeding me more language content. Which just goes to show that it's not all bad, because cool stuff like this is what I want to see on the internet...

This guy is awesome! I love people who know things.

I missed two on the list. The same one he did #10 (which I wouldn't have thought of, even with three strikes available) and #9... which I should have thought of, but I didn't because I wasn't thinking of the other countries that also speak it (which is silly because I absolutely knew this).

For somebody who loves languages as much as I do, you'd think that I speak a slew of them. You'd think wrong, unfortunately. But it's not for lack of trying...

• German. My great grandmother spoke German, so I thought it would be fun to learn how to speak it. This would be in Middle School, and I have long since forgotten all but the basics, which is sad because I've been to Germany a lot.
• Spanish. Studied it in high school. I still use a bit from time to time, but to say "I speak Spanish" would be a gross overstatement. I dabble. And I can understand it being spoken far easier than trying to speak it myself.
• Japanese. I studied it because I love Japanese cartoons and comics and wanted to try and understand Japanese language and culture so that the anime/manga would be more enjoyable. This was an off-and-on endeavor during high school. But then became an obsession when I started traveling to Japan for work and to see friends I had made. For a while in the early 90's I was fairly fluent. I could hold my own in a basic conversation so long as people weren't speaking too fast. Now-a-days? I have a tough time remembering much of anything. A lot of words, but grammar has gone right out the window.
• French. I loved the idea of being able to speak French, but it was way past my ability to grasp. Five or six months before my second trip to Paris, I did nothing but listen to Pimsleur language tapes. It was a wasted effort. I managed to speak basic phrases and be understood, but it never really gelled, and my comprehension was awful so I gave up. On the plus side the French people, who have a reputation for being "rude," were incredibly nice and supportive of my feeble efforts in mangling their lovely language. I never met a single French person who was anything but kind to me.
• Italian. I started studying Italian once my Japanese was pretty good. I wanted a second language and thought it might be an easier alternative to French. My passion for visiting Italy and eating Italian food sealed the deal. It was nice to be able to have basic conversational skills (especially the three times I took my mom) but I didn't use it enough to really have it take 'hold.
• Swedish. For my first trip to Sweden, I studied really, really hard to learn the language. I had this fantasy that I would be all cool and be able to chat up hot Swedish women. I tried it out on some friends I was meeting and was immediately told "English is fine, please don't do that." Because of course their English was better than mine. I think I remember maybe five words.
• Portuguese. During the time I spent visiting Spain (5 times in 6 years), it was always my goal to tag on a trip to Lisbon. And so I did. I wanted to have a little bit of Portuguese in my head so I could enjoy it more, and studied quite a lot. Alas, the people I tried to speak to had zero interest in entertaining me. They'd even pretend to not understand me... even when I was certain that I was pronouncing everything correctly. I gave up on that real quick.
• Russian. After visiting countries like Poland and Romania where I was at a serious disadvantage by not knowing any of the language (English is not as ubiquitous as in other European countries), I decided that I would study Russian before a planned trip to St. Petersburg in 2013. I was not going to mess up an architectural dream-trip by not being able to communicate. So for nine months I studied. Which was insanely difficult because Russian, which I was told would be easier than Japanese, is not a simple language for Westerners to wrap their head around. But I pushed through and... had a visa problem and only made it as far as Helsinki. St. Petersburg would have to wait. Then, eight years later, I had a work opportunity where knowing Russian would be helpful so I started looking at it again. I'm far from fluent because... well, unless you're born speaking it, Russian is just next-level tough. But I have built a bit of a vocabulary and am not entirely helpless, so that's nice. I'm probably going to stick with it for a while because the difficulty gives my brain a workout and can hopefully keep me sharp in my declining years.

And that's it. Studied a lot, know nothing. The story of my life, really.

If I had tons more time to spare and the brainpower to handle it, I'd love to learn Mandarin. That seems as if it would be a real door-opener when it comes to work projects. And of course visiting India is still sitting on my bucket list, so learning Hindi would also be nice. Realistically, however? English, a smattering of Japanese, and Russian is probably it for me.

I'm too tired to have a happy Valentine's Day.

Which is just as well because my blow up doll is leaking air.

Good luck out there everybody.

"I GUESS MY CUT WILL BE SHORTER THAN USUAL!" — Me. After I dropped the #3 hair clipper guard, broke it, and had to switch to a #2 guard.

"WELL THAT'S UNFORTUNATE!" — Me. After my hair clippers died half-way through the haircut I was giving myself.

"DON'T PANIC! YOUR GRANDFATHER WAS A BARBER, SO YOU GOT THIS!" — Me. As I attempted to use scissors to even out my haircut.

"THIS ISN'T GOING WELL AT ALL!" — Me. After I realized that I am making matters far worse trying to scissor-cut my hair.

"I MAY ACTUALLY HAVE TO SHAVE MY HEAD NOW!" — Me. After an hour of making my head look like I stuck it in a blender.

"DON'T LOOK, GRANDPA! DON'T LOOK AT ME! THE SHAME! THE SHAME!" — Me. After giving up completely.

I don't mind working. Honestly, I don't. My job is tough, time-consuming, and demanding, but it's also satisfying, and I love that my assorted skills and talents are put to good use. So, yeah, I've been a hard worker my entire life, I put everything I have into the job, and I'm okay with it. I'm not saying this because I'm expecting a medal or I'm waiting for somebody to hand me a cookie... it's just a window into my mindset for this post.

That being said...

I don't want to be working ten to fourteen hours a day, seven days a week when I'm 80.

And yet, it's looking like that could be a very real possibility. The government is likely going to increase the retirement age (again), and it's understandable. People are living longer, so they have to work longer or else there won't be any money available. I get that. But it probably doesn't matter. Despite promises to the contrary, if piece of shit pig fucking Republican lawmakers have their way, you won't get any Social Security anyway (despite being forced to pay into it your entire working life). Which means you'll be fucked if you stop working regardless.

The weight of thinking about that has been crushing me lately.

It's never, ever going to end.

• I never wanted for anything I needed growing up, but in order to buy the "cool jeans" and extra things I wanted, I took Summer jobs and worked after school.
• I worked multiple jobs and untold hours to get out of the debt I ran up in college.
• I worked extra hours whenever I could to be able to afford to go on vacations.
• I volunteered for charity work mostly because I want to do some good in the world... but also because I could expense food and tack on a few days vacation to the places I had to travel. That way I didn't have to buy as many groceries or pay for plane travel (just my hotel and food for the extra time outside of work).
• While caring for my mom, I worked my main job from home and took on any extra work I could get... from freelance design to proofreading... so I could help pay for her care and get a safe home for her.
• When my mom had to move to a care facility, I worked an extra job so she could get into a better place and I could buy what niceties I could afford for her so she'd have the best life she could under the circumstances.
• And of course I had to find extra work so I could afford to fix all the problems with my home.

COVID shut down my volunteer work... and my job at work changed so I don't have time for other jobs now... but I'm still working hard. And that's good. Like I said, I want to work hard to make my way in the world and be able to afford a few fun things in my life. Nobody is going to throw millions of dollars at me, so hard work is the only way it's going to happen.

But holy shit I don't want to be working like this at 80.

I need something to look forward to in my sunset years.

I became a vegetarian on Earth Day, 1986. Back then it was no easy task because the many food options we enjoy today didn't exist. Finding meat substitutes at the local grocery store was difficult if not impossible, so I ended up making weekly trips to the health food store... a very expensive endeavor.

As the years marched on, access to more reasonably-priced and better-tasting vegetarian options for all my favorite foods became easier. Burgers, bacon, hotdogs, sausages... it was all there. And my diet today is much the same as it was in the 1990's. Except now I can get an Impossible Whopper at Burger King. Now-a-days, being a vegetarian is easy. It's going vegan that's hard.

Because there's one dietary staple I simply cannot give up: dairy & egg products.

But not for lack of trying. This past year I've made a real effort to ditch milk. I mostly buy almond or soy milk. And it's fine. I love to drink chocolate-flavored faux-milks (mylks, they're called now?). I have no problem putting vanilla or plain mylks on my cereals. Everything that I used to do with milk works with imitation milk. I'm good. But there's three things that there is no adequate substitute for...

Ice Cream
This is not a deal-breaker. I can live without ice cream. I don't eat a ton of it anyway. Juice bars are good enough. But still... there are times that it's the perfect treat, and the vegan options aren't great.

Eggs
I don't really have to eat eggs. So long as there's a substitute to use in baking cakes and such, I could give up eggs without too much issue. I use maybe a maximum of a half-dozen a month (mostly in baking). I'd eat a lot more for the protein content, but I don't like the smell that comes from cooking them. When cooked at home, I eat them mostly scrambled inside of breakfast burritos. But if I'm at a restaurant? Over medium on toast all the way, baby.

Cheese
I love cheese, I live for cheese, most of my favorite dishes are built around cheese, and giving up cheese would require a radical shift in my diet that I'm not prepared to make. Currently, I've not been able to find a vegan cheese that is in any way acceptable to eat.

If a vegan cheese is developed which has the texture, cooking properties, and approximate taste of real cheese, I could become a vegan overnight. I wouldn't even have to think about it. And I really hope that day is coming. If Burger King's "Impossible Whopper" has taught me anything, it's that the science of plant-based foods is seriously breaking barriers.

It's only a matter of time.

But will it be before I die?

When I got home from the office for the day I had a quick bit for dinner then pulled up a personal project I've been working on for the past seven years. It's a writing exercise that may not go anywhere, but I enjoy the distraction from the constant barrage of work that never ends.

But the file would not open.

I went to my Apple iCloud Drive to see what was going on, and found out that files of all types were being reduced to zero bytes. I sorted by date and could literally watch it happening in real-time. A file would be 3.8 gigabytes one minute, then 0 bytes the next. And it's not just big files... even small little nothing files were being gutted...

from 265 bytes to 0 bytes in less than a minute.

Everything had been working fine in the months since I copied all my files over to iCloud Drive. The only thing I had done which might cause this was to pull out my iPad yesterday to update iPad OS. All my files were put on iCloud Drive while the iPad was off, so I can only guess that it woke up, sall all the files it didn't know about, and is somehow removing all their data. Except when I turn the iPad off completely, it's still happening so maybe the iPad Os update is just a coincidence.

In any event, my iMac which has Apple Time Machine backup running is useless for iCloud drive, because it doesn't back anything up that it hasn't held on its local drive. Something Apple should really tell you. Otherwise, you're completely boned. Or not. Apple Support is calling me back in the morning so (hopefully) something can be done. I dunno.

All I do know is that my files are being destroyed while I watch, and most times it happens before I can even download them to back them up. It reminds me of that movie Disclosure where Michael Douglas is trying to uncover critical information he needs to save his job, but Evil Demi Moore is deleting them as he's trying to save them. THIS IS ME RIGHT NOW...

If Apple can't help me tomorrow morning, it means a lot of stuff I've had for decades... photos, files, drawings, and whatnot... which haven't been backed up somehow, somewhere, are gone forever. That would be a horrific loss from which I don't know I can ever mentally recover.

Apple. Where everything just works!

It's Wednesday. I am writing this near midnight. I've had a very rough day. I want nothing more than to slip into a deep coma and forget about the world for sixteen hours. But instead I'll be wide awake rehashing events of the day in my head while watching videos. I am watching YouTube under the delusion that it will distract me from my brain... all while knowing full well that it will not. If I'm lucky, I'll eventually be able to fall asleep for four hours before I have to wake up and start another day that likely won't be much better.

The video that's playing as I am typing this is called Real Reason Ships Don't Pass Under South America (It's Not The Distance). It's fascinating. And I'm really glad that I didn't watch it before my Antarctica expedition because I would have had second thoughts...

Ultimately The Drake Passage is very much a right of passage for visiting Antarctica. Some people get smooth sailing. Most people do not. In my case, it was isanely rough. As in looking out my cabin window and not being able to see sky rough. And though I definitely didn't think so at the time, I'm actually glad for that because it makes for some funny stories. Like having to sit down to pee because the boat is slamming you around so hard, but finding yourself being thrown off the toilet while attempting it. And trying to eat in the galley while dishes are flying past you. Good times. Good times.

But anyway. I'm going to sign off because the next video in my queue is about bananas confusing AI, and I can't wait for that...

Is there anything you can't find on YouTube?

Our winter has been relatively mild. It's snowed, sure, but it always melts away in short order. But then this morning it was bitter cold. And yet the sun was shining, so I anticipated it would warm up by the afternoon.

It did not.

When I left the office to get into my car and go home, the sun had been replaced with overcast skies and snow. Not tons of snow, but enough that the wind blowing it around produced whiteout conditions. As if that weren't bad enough, the snow had been fused to my car window by the cold, making it really difficult to scrape off.

But that's not all! Not only could I barely see, but my car didn't want to start and it was running weird. Even the turn signals sounded slow and clunky.

When I finally managed to get home, I was incredibly thankful that I had a garage to pull into...

Since I couldn't scrape the car itself, I just brushed off the snow as best I could. I expect the remainder will melt since my garage is slightly above freezing.

Which beats trying to melt it off with a blowdryer in this -6° heatwave we're having.

UPDATE: But that's not all! I never heard my heat pump turn on. I was then informed that it won't turn on when it's so cold that there's no heat to extract from the air. The only option is for my HVAC system to engage the Auxilary Heat. Which is far more expensive to run, but I'm awfully glad I have it...

UPDATE UPDATE: But that's not all! It's Saturday morning and it's -14° out... but it feels like -23°... which is to say I'm hiding in my house all weekend...

Times like this I wish I had millions of dollars to spend winter in a warmer client.

I went to the office as planned. That part was okay.

Then I went to get my teeth cleaned, found out that the hygienist I've been going to for 20+ years had left, I had a serious tooth-related issue that needs to be dealt with, Albertsons didn't have any squirty cheese, Our Flag Means Death was cancelled, and then everything turned to shit.

After the week I had dealing with my chest cold, HAVEN'T I SUFFERED ENOUGH?!?

The good news is that the streets were nicely plowed after the snow that got dumped on us fell, but of course there are people still driving as if they are on bare pavement when the roads haven't been sanded. Not far from my home somebody in the car in front of me did not give themselves enough time to stop and went blowing right past the stop sign onto a busy street. As I watched it all happen I was like "Go with God, there buddy!" because I thought for absolute sure that I would be witnessing an accident. But... miraculously... God must have been watching out for them (or they were very lucky), because no collision occurred.

Then I got to read this headline...

POPE CALLS FOR UNIVERSAL BAN ON SURROGATE PARENTING, CALLS IT "DEPLORABLE"

"Deplorable." Surrogacy is "deplorable."

I am saying this as a former Catholic... assholes dictating reproductive rights can seriously go fuck themselves. This guy has absolutely ZERO authority to be calling for a "universal ban" on surrogacy. For those who want children but cannot have them for whatever reason, surrogacy is an option. For women who carry other people's children for whatever reason, surrogacy is a right. It is categorically absurd for this asswipe WHO DOESN'T EVEN HAVE A UTERUS AND CAN'T* HAVE SEX TO BE DICTATING REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS TO ANYBODY (except for those Catholics who turn to his words for guidance, I guess).

But UNIVERSAL BAN? Yeah, fuck ALL the way off with that bullshit. You know what *I* deem deplorable? The Catholic Church not turning priests who sexually assault children over to the police. Clean up your own fucking house before you dictate how other people live in theirs.

Jesus.

Old white men constantly dictating what women can and cannot do with their bodies is the height of asshole arrogance. Especially this crusty old fuck...

Photo of Pope Whatever taken by AP Photo/Andrew Medichini

Maybe one day religious leaders won't be drenched in hipocrisy, but I'm not counting on it.

Last Thursday my persistent post-nasal drip that's brought on by a never-ending array of allergies went into overdrive. It felt like I was drowning. I had trouble breathing. My inhaler was helping to make it so my breathing wasn't so difficult, but I decided to stay home and work so I wouldn't be a disruption at the office.

Friday was far, far worse. When I woke up I was coughing constantly and eventually it got to the point where everything in my chest was aching. My lungs would alternate between feeling like they were on fire... to feeling like they were itching on the inside. But my inhaler was still helping so I tested twice for COVID, took all the cough medicine I could find, grabbed some cough drops, and went to work. It wasn't bad... at first. But by the end of the day I felt dead.

Then the weekend came, my inhaler stopped working which meant I wasn't breathing well and my lungs felt tired. I thought maybe RSV was in play, but after going through tele-health I found that was very unlikely. I still tested negative for COVID, so I chalked it up to a chest cold and tried to power through.

Then, miracle of miracles, my inhaler started working again.

I worked at home again because I didn't feel like overdosing on cough medicine and I had great humidity in my house, but today was mostly okay. I could breathe fairly easily most of the day, and this evening I was happy to find that I wasn't hoping I would stop breathing so it would all end.

Pretty sure I'm going into the office tomorrow.

Dang it.