Life updates

[Arlos]

Yellowstone is the single most beautiful place I have ever been on this planet. I've been to Yosemite, I've been to Hawaii, I've been over most of the country. Nothing even comes close to Yellowstone.

If I might be so bold as to suggest somewhere to stay while you're in the Yellowstone area: https://www.pineedgecabins.com/en-us

My parents and grandparents would take me and my brother up there every couple years when we were young. Those cabins are in a town called Silvergate, which is right outside the park. You can wake up to find moose grazing only a couple feet from your cabins. Every building in that town is made of log cabin style construction, too. Looks awesome. (and the 1 restaurant in town was really quite good, actually.) It's a quick trip into the main portion of the park, and there's lots of amazing stuff to see. My dad, me, and a couple of my grandparents would always head to the nearby Soda Butte creek to fish for trout, and it was awesome to eat pan-fried trout that had been in the river not an hour before. From Silvergate you can also head north across the Beartooth Pass into the rest of Montana, which is a breathtakingly beautiful drive (reporter Charles Kuralt called it "the most beautiful drive in America"). Once in Montana, you could head up to Glacier park too, which is up in northern Montana.

On your way up there, you might consider stopping at the Buffalo Bill Museum in Cody, Wyoming. https://centerofthewest.org/explore/buffalo-bill/ We stopped there once on our way up to Yellowstone, and even as a 6 year old I was pretty fascinated.

[leah]

If I might be so bold as to suggest somewhere to stay while you're in the Yellowstone area: https://www.pineedgecabins.com/en-us

oh wow i love these little cabins!! i want to take my dude there.

[Jay]

I'll be honest, I'm a total city boy. I want to experience Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon but I'm not sure how long I want to stay there. I'm that asshole who's wondering what the Wi-Fi situation's gonna be lol. Totally ready for Salt Lake Comic-con tho! I'm definitely taking a photo with David Tennant.

Thanks for the recommendation Arlos. I'll check it out when I have a moment.

[Arlos]

When we were going there regularly, my family got to know the owners at that time, and they were cool people. We stayed in the Pine Edge ones. I still remember the sights and smells as we would be getting there and it might be the single thing I am MOST nostalgic about from my childhood. If they're anything now like they were then, I can recommend staying there unreservedly.

[Arlos]

I'll be honest, I'm a total city boy. I want to experience Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon but I'm not sure how long I want to stay there. I'm that asshole who's wondering what the Wi-Fi situation's gonna be lol. Totally ready for Salt Lake Comic-con tho! I'm definitely taking a photo with David Tennant.

Thanks for the recommendation Arlos. I'll check it out when I have a moment.

Well, apparently there's basically no internet actually at the cabins. Have to go to the neighboring town where they have a hotspot with free wifi.

[Jay]

I'll be honest, I'm a total city boy. I want to experience Yellowstone and the Grand Canyon but I'm not sure how long I want to stay there. I'm that asshole who's wondering what the Wi-Fi situation's gonna be lol. Totally ready for Salt Lake Comic-con tho! I'm definitely taking a photo with David Tennant.

Thanks for the recommendation Arlos. I'll check it out when I have a moment.

Well, apparently there's basically no internet actually at the cabins. Have to go to the neighboring town where they have a hotspot with free wifi.

What kind of savagery is this?

[Spazz]

Plebs

The blackhills are way cooler than yellowstone.

[brinstar]

What kind of savagery is this?

shut the fuck up nerd

[Harrison]

That escalated quickly.

[brinstar]

lol just trolling a bit

seriously though not to go all thoreau here but i firmly believe that we must afford ourselves occasion to experience nature with all five senses, unimpeded by the constant background buzz of phone notifications or emails or even passing vehicles, because time spent in such a state is furiously good for the soul or the spirit or the mind or whatever level (from 0-100) of supernaturalness you ascribe to human consciousness and mental well-being

so get out there, leave your phone in the cabin, find a trail, sit next to a lake, contemplate the birds, think about how long those trees have been there, actively listen to the sound of the wind rustling the leaves, watch the weather change

experience the world with your factory-installed hardware, at least for a couple of days, the world will still be here when you get back

[Drem]

yeah i'm at the point where i just ignore my phone most of the day. pick and choose the messages i wanna respond to, wait a couple days to respond to the other shit. i have zero social media apps on my phone and only look at facebook because of our business page and only do it on my laptop. it's nice. and my phone battery lasts like 3 days now because those trash apps aren't constantly using data

i yearn for camping time and being away from the daily mess. i feel sorry for people that get mad about not having wi-fi or phone reception

in other news, got a new analogue synth (korg minilogue), guitar (fender jaguar), a new amp (fender blues junior w/ EL84 tubes), a Fuzz War pedal (Kreygasm), and dove headfirst into a shitty drum kit (pearl soundcheck?) that i've slowly been replacing all the heads and cymbals for and got a pearl piccolo snare for a little more pop. i haven't played music for like 10 years outside of a little acoustic guitar and of course piano so this has been a really invigorating couple of months for me. i never had the money for what i wanted before so it's nice to see it all finally realized. gimme drum lessons brinstar xD

[brinstar]

in other news, got a new analogue synth (korg minilogue), guitar (fender jaguar), a new amp (fender blues junior w/ EL84 tubes), a Fuzz War pedal (Kreygasm), and dove headfirst into a shitty drum kit (pearl soundcheck?) that i've slowly been replacing all the heads and cymbals for and got a pearl piccolo snare for a little more pop. i haven't played music for like 10 years outside of a little acoustic guitar and of course piano so this has been a really invigorating couple of months for me. i never had the money for what i wanted before so it's nice to see it all finally realized.

fuck yeah

gimme drum lessons brinstar xD

fuck noah

lol i wish i were any good at teaching drums, i tried a couple times and it was a flaming disaster

i originally learned to play way back in the day by putting Nevermind and Superunknown in my headphones and banging along until i could get it right (or at least close enough). worth a try maybe, if you have an album or two you can think of that you can hammer away on a couple times a week

in other news i have become a late-night lyft driver in the past few weeks in order to give my debt annihilation plan a bit of a boost (and to save up for the tennessee trip in a couple weeks). it's going fairly well so far, averaging about 80 bucks a week for a few hours of driving

[10sun]

I drove for Uber a few years ago.
Friday & Saturday nights only.
I was averaging $150 a night from 9pm to 3am.
Factor in what I wasn't spending going out myself and it was a major income boost.

[Tossica]

https://www.discogs.com/release/12343939


My first LP at age 48.

[Zanchief]

Sup "Friends",

My annual hey how's it going post. Should I bother trying to bring some new life into this place with my humorous observations?

Life Updates? Kids (3), work (1), wife (?), the usual.

Sorry about the apocalypse currently going on down there.

It seems most of you reprobates are doing good. Glad to hear, folks.

[10sun]

Sup "Friends",

My annual hey how's it going post. Should I bother trying to bring some new life into this place with my humorous observations?

Life Updates? Kids (3), work (1), wife (?), the usual.

Sorry about the apocalypse currently going on down there.

It seems most of you reprobates are doing good. Glad to hear, folks.

I thought it was appropriate.

[Zanchief]

It seems every second person up here hates Trudeau, so there's just no winning in politics.

[leah]

i want to smooch trudeau

[brinstar]

• mid-sept taking a couples' roadtrip down to great smoky mountain natl park for the better part of a week. hike around that shit, try and spot a bear, drink a gallon of whiskey, try and convince the crew to trek up to mammoth cave natl park
  
• late sept going to SD for a climate conference, gonna pad the trip out a couple days in each direction so i can do some solo hikes and such in wind cave natl park, black hills natl forest, and badlands natl park. y'see, leah got me a 1yr natl park pass for xmas '17 and i'm trying to get as much use out of it as i can before it expires, but it's hard because most of the great plains is devoid of national parks
  
• gonna try and become a lyft driver within the next few weeks. mostly just gonna do it after work since i work downtownish, though i will probably post up downtown a couple weekend nights a month (and bring the switch in case it's slow). need some extra scratch for all these trips!
  
• fall softball starts in 3 wks, we've still never won a championship but i've pushed my lifetime OPS up to 1.753 after retraining myself into an opposite-field hitter a few years back (it was north of 2.100 in five of the last seven seasons!) - and on the mound in one game back in may i notched a career-high 8 strikeouts by taking advantage of a gusty 20mph crosswind

got back from GSMNP/MCNP on sunday. shit was awesome. drank a lot. had the best breakfast of my life at blue sky cafe in nashville TN, and the best enchiladas of my life at sonora in asheville NC. did tons of other cool shit. was a blast.

still looking forward to the solo jaunt to SD in a couple weeks.

in the span of a month i've racked up just shy of a thousand dollars doing lyft, which includes two $300+ days during husker home games, though technically i haven't actually made any money yet because i've reinvested all of it back into my car (new windshield, new battery, new shocks, new thermostat). hella nice to have a side hustle though, no doubt

fall softball is garbage, sure i'm batting .800 after four games but they're ALL singles, time to hit the cages apparently ;\

[Jay]

Stuff's pretty stable and boring. I've been playing lots of games lately and living the funemployed life.

Octopath Traveler Switch
Overcooked II Switch
Divinity Original Sin 2 Definitive Edition PS4
Spider-Man PS4 (My favorite game this year)
Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age PS4
Mega Man 11 Switch
Shadow of the Tomb Raider PS4

Looking forward to:
Fallout 76 PS4
Red Dead Redemption II PS4
Destiny II: Forsaken PS4 (It's out I just haven't had a chance to play it)
Soul Calibur VI PS4
Super Mario Party Switch

[Tossica]

Did we roll back or has no one updated in months?

[leah]

no one has updated, i think! so weird.

HI EVERYONE. my life is not that exciting but here's some bits and bobs anyway!

- i know i mentioned that both of my corgis died this summer, and i'm still not fully over it BUT sir and i did adopt two new cuties from a local rescue. their names are ted and pooka and they're of undetermined breed and also extraordinarily cute. both are black; ted kind of looks like a black golden retriever mashed down into corgi size/shape? he has the shaggy coat and floppy ears of a golden but the stubby legs of a corg or maybe a basset hound. for whatever reason, he is listed as a terrier mix. who knows. pooka is also a black terrier mix but that designation seems more believable in his case; he kind of looks like a really long-legged boston terrier but without the bugged-out eyes. i promise they're both very cute, ha.... but ted is my favorite. (ssshhh, don't tell pooka.)

- relatedly, sir moved in at the end of the summer, and things continue to be very good with us. he's met almost all of my friends and family and has gotten along quickly and easily with all of them (although i guess alex would have to weigh in for sure, ha). i'm still regularly blown away by how EASY and COMFORTABLE and idk just kind of natural things are for us. i had to work *so hard* to keep my relationship with josh on the rails and things with russell require almost no extra effort. it feels really good. really, really good. (ETA: shitbag ex-husband moved to another state to buy a house with my shitbag ex-bestie so that was a kick in the dick. still working through a lot of mental/emotional bullshit w/r/t that whole rat's nest.)

- job is still the same (nonprofit marketing) and i've been freelancing fairly consistently all year too. if anyone has writing or editing work for me, let me know, ha. comfortable with all kinds of materials (tech, finance, healthcare, etc.) and good at what i do. holla at ya girl. :P

- on another financial note, i have made the very difficult decision to pursue bankruptcy filings. i ended up with a lot of debts post-divorce and it got to the point where i was only making minimum payments and then using cards to pay for everyday necessities, that whole vicious cycle of crushing debt, so i just decided to say FUCK SHAME and find a clean slate. it's not officially done yet, but the gears are in motion. i feel like a bad grownup and human because of it but also we deal with the cards we are dealt and that's all there is. i still keep hoping that some benevolent angel will bestow a small fortune on me so i don't have to go nuclear but obviously that's not going to happen so i gotta put on my big-girl pants and deal with it. sigh.

- miraculously, my friend bill wanted sir and i to come visit him and his wife in connecticut so badly that they bought us plane tickets so i'm going to be in new england from 12/30 to 1/4. yay.

- i got last place in my fantasy football league, whoops. lot of freak injuries at really inopportune times. womp womp. it looks like sir is going to win, though, so at least we'll cancel each other out.

- i remain bad at D&D but am still enjoying it immensely.

that's all i can think of! what about you??!

[Tossica]

Besides my son, this is the greatest thing I've ever created. All original music written and performed live by me.

https://soundcloud.com/midnight-music-c ... rthur-2018

[brinstar]

dumped by gf of 4+ years a couple months ago

[Arlos]

Have had some ups and downs in personal life. Some of the downs have been pretty hefty, but hopefully no more of that for the time being. Looking for work ATM, so if anyone needs a geriatric MBA grad with (unfortunately) little practical experience in marketing, I'd love to hear about it. lol. Apart from person foibles, which I'm really not going to go into here (things got pretty dark, I must admit), I really have nothing new to report, alas.