Went to the last of the summer outdoor ballets last Friday in Akron. The first piece was amazing – lots of really fluid movement across the stage and almost inhuman grace. The rest, to my mind, was less so.
Hey, I tried.
That first piece also had some amazing music and I wasn’t the only one to get out my phone and Shazam the hell out of it.
It was “Tremors”, by an artist called SOHN. I’m been listening to it a lot since then – just amazing and such a haunting sound. And with headphones? Just… wow. Got the CD on order and looking forward to enjoying more of this talent.
You can check out the Youtube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tu2mVP6xee0
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Switching gears a bit… Spiders. I’m generally okay with spiders and won’t go out of my way to kill them. Live and let live and… well… avoid. However, one of these little creatures decided to build a web between the corner of my house and the support post for my porch roof.
Directly in the path to leave my house and go to my garage.
Naturally, I blundered into this, destroyed the web, and sent the spider scrambling. I did the usual trashing about to get the web off me, then went on my way. The next time I came that way, the spider had rebuilt the web – in the exact same spot – and I blundered into it again. Destruction, scramble, thrashing – again.
The next time I came through there, I saw the spider – in the newly built web in the same spot – and managed to stop before I hit it. I paused a moment, then went out into the yard and around the gate to miss the web and still be on my way.
I felt bad for the spider. All that work for some clumsy giant biped to come along and crash into it. Spiders don’t really live that long and it seemed really determined to build in that spot.
So, with a little caution, I managed to avoid the really beautiful web and let the spider do its thing.
Right up until this morning when I forgot about the web and in the dim light managed to blunder into it again. This time, the spider was knocked to the ground and was seemingly gone.
The web was rebuilt when I got home this evening and I managed to avoid it. The spider was, I guess, okay – though one of us, clearly, is an idiot. I hope it’s the spider.
[If you’re on the web today, little spider, I’m sorry.]
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I dropped my car off last night at the dealership to get it looked it regarding the missing odometer.
They were still open so I parked the car and went in to let them know I was dropping it off in person instead of using a dropbox. The technician asked me to wait while he went and pulled the car in. I gave him the keys and he pulled it into the garage – and sat in the running car for a few minutes while I waited. He then turned the car off and got out.
“Well, that was strange,” he said and I readily agreed.
“I was trying to get the mileage and it wasn’t there,” he continued and we talked for a few moments about what else was missing from the display.
I signed some paperwork, verified my phone number, and was on my way.
“Strange” in car repairs would most likely equate to “Uncommon” – which I’m guessing is a synonym of “Expensive”.
But, still, kinda cool to have a “new” problem. As a computer guy, I deal with all kinds of computer problems everyday – and they are usually pretty routine.
[And, truth be told, it’s a wonder that computers work at all.]
But sometimes I’ll get something weird that really peaks my interest. Those get a little more of my time and detective skills to work out. I like a little bit of a challenge and something a little out of the ordinary.
They called me this afternoon and told me that it was the computer having trouble communicating with one of the parts. They cleared the error codes and… everything came back to normal.
Essentially, they rebooted my car.
And fortunately, they didn’t charge me for it – though they said if it goes again the replacement part is $400. And, of course, my warranty expired 2 weeks ago. Which would explain why the guy that sold me the car and the service manager were so eager to have me trade in the car and get a new one – even though I’ve had the car just slightly (2 weeks) over three years.
Hmmm…smells like Planned Obsolescence to me. But I might just be cynical.
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I got a scratch on the bridge of my nose – guess I must have nicked it with a fingernail. It scabbed over quickly and was no big deal. However, the combination of glasses, swim goggles, and pool water irritated the cut and loosened the scab. When I got out of the pool and started to dry off, I knocked the scab loose and started bleeding.
A lot. Like, Carrie levels of blood.
The blood welled up from a tiny abrasion on my skin and ran down my nose. I grabbed a paper towel and put direct pressure on it and gave it a few minutes while I continued to drip dry.
When I felt enough time had passed, I pulled the paper towel away.
And the blood welled up, unabated, and started to run down my nose again.
More paper towels and then – “How do I deal with this – without getting blood all over everything?”
So, with care, I managed to hold the paper towel to my nose with one hand and get out of my speedo with the other. Yeah, not my most graceful.
It took me twice as long, but I managed to get dressed one handed and then checked under the paper towel.
Nope, still gushing.
Fresh paper towel, then out to the front desk. The lifeguard at the desk was wearing a fanny pack and seemed really excited to be able to use the first aid supplies there – if only to offer me a band-aid.
Back to the restroom and got my cut covered up. With my glasses back on, the small band-aid wasn’t noticeable. Last night, the bleeding had finally stopped when I took the band-aid off. But, I didn’t want to risk opening it back up in my sleep accidentally – and turning my bed into a horror movie – so I put a fresh band-aid on. I took it off before my big meeting today and it was fine.
I’m not really weirded out by blood, but was a little un-nerved that the “direct pressure” didn’t do the job. Might have been the leftover aspirin in my system from a recent headache.
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Finally, and I know this is a long post, I started on the construction of my Halloween costume tonight. It’s going to be technically complicated this year and I need to develop yet another skill set to pull it off. Should be… interesting – if it works.
And that’s enough for today.