Congratulations!
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After a long time I took my bike for a ride today.
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I am a volunteer docent, and I’m pretty proud of my public speaking voice. Today one of the other volunteers happened to catch part of one of my talks in a museum gallery that is … acoustically difficult. I’m a natural projector (I’m loud as fuck) but I actually have to make an effort in that gallery because it’s a huge space with a very high ceiling and a weird layout.
He said he could hear me from the balcony that runs along one edge of the gallery. I had no idea I was reaching that far and I’m delighted. Sometimes people overlook my talk from the balcony and they can actually hear me!
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Quick question, this may be bone headed, but that’s why I ask a non judgmental audience.
When buying surprise flowers for an SO or close friend, how much should I think about logistics? For example, if I present a bouquet of star gazers, is it annoying that I gave someone a job or is it nice that I got them their favorite flower? If I know for certain it will take two hours to stash a token of affection, what should I do?
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This weekend is fucking magical. Fucking. Magical.
Being a nice, kind, caring person isn’t always easy. Listening, and treating others with respect isn’t always easy. But when all that kindness comes back… It is grace and beauty.
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Indeed. And if you in real life manage to be that kind giving person. Wow. 
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Bought black genuine leather dress pants, made in Italy for the Calvin Klein label, in excellent condition, for under $20 at a St. Vincent de Paul thrift store on Saturday. They are powerful incentive for maintaining my current waist measurement.
https://product-images2.therealreal.com/CAL23129_1_enlarged.jpg
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I still have work to do, but the bones of my decorations are coming together.
- Edison bulbs
- Tube amp
- Fresh cut flowers and herbs
- A bowel of figs, basil, and orchids (not pictured)
- Modern Japanese tea pot
- Drapes
All laundry and dry cleaning is done. I talked to my mother for 33 minutes. I wrote two letters. I’m fuckin’ house broken, and proud of it.
I dare you to ask me to name every flower I picked.
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Thank you for not including your bowel in the picture, however full of figs and basil it may be.
(Teasing aside, the room looks great.)
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For once, it isn’t a euphemism 
I love cedar, tools, flowers, music, and beauty. Nick Offerman and I were seperated at birth.
In fact, it is New Avatar Time.
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Do you replace earth worms with tape worms in this set up.
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Paint him white/gray and I’m looking at my father. Scary.
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I cannot answer these questions (and apparently nobody else can either). Sorry! I would if I had any answers…
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My new computer stopped working well not too long after buying it - the speakers went from pretty good to really bad and the wifi basically stopped working - constantly disconnecting and even when it worked, it would usually be less than 1 Mbps. I’ve been using LAN in my FIL’s office for the last few days and was on the point of taking the computer back, but I decided to try fixing it one more time (it would be a pain to have to reinstall everything, for a start).
I fixed both problems in about 15 minutes, after finding the reason for both online. I’m not usually good at troubleshooting computer problems (especially when they involve networks), but today it just worked. I seriously thought the speakers were broken too and I’d at least have to use external speakers or earphones, but resetting the sound to default and disabling the location setting on Windows 10 worked perfectly. It’s like I have a new computer again.
Also, we’ve been having problems getting a yearly tax statement - there was some extra paperwork to do that they didn’t ask us to do the year before, but the lack of a statement resulted in the health insurance charging us the maximum possible premium - retroactively for the past year and a half, to be paid immediately. My income was lower last year for various reasons, so we definitely didn’t owe that much. However, I finally got the tax statement today, and we’re owed a fairly large rebate, as well as the extra money back from the health insurance company.
One of these days I’m going to work out the German tax system - I gave a statement every month and another at the end of the year, and it still wasn’t enough.
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A total different victory than most. But finally found out, at the Nature Museum, what a beach found is.
Wondered for years, and just went asking. The biologist first got it wrong ‘chest bone’ , but after looking at a clean skeleton of a dolphin. We found out wat it, with high propeability, is. A ‘hyoid bone from a porpoise’.
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I’ll call this a victory…for now. Only a $100 to get my garage door fixed.
But it’s on borrowed time. Guess iis time to price out garage doors. Joy.
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That’s impressively low - for anywhere, not just Chicagoland.
As for a new door, after too many bad experiences with indie companies I’d just go to a big box store; at least with their contractors there’s someone you can complain to. I put our current opener in myself, it was surprisingly easy.
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Another victory - a week ago we found out that we have about a month to leave our house and find somewhere else. It’s not easy to find affordable accommodation here, and we weren’t looking forward to the prospect of paying more for a smaller house farther from schools and work that we would also need to renovate.
Well, we found one. It is significantly smaller than the house we have now, but still manageable as long as we’re creative and willing to downsize a bit. It will need some work too (e.g. the whole place will need to be painted and we’ll have to replace the carpet in a few rooms - this is well within what you might expect for rental properties in Germany). It is a lot cheaper though - less than two thirds of the price of similarly sized houses we’ve seen. The location is great too - it’s only about 100m from my wife’s workplace and very close to schools and a supermarket, whereas other houses were quite a distance from them (this is important as we have small kids and no car). We can move in at the start of October, so it looks like we’ll have a minimum amount of disturbance to our lives and won’t have to worry about where to live.next month.
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That’s really awesome news! Better all around, except maybe for the smaller size, but hasn’t BB taught us that it’s hip to be part of the Tiny Home movement?
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