T w e n t y S i d e d

I spend most of my week driving people. That’s been a big portion of my time for a couple of years; I mentioned I take my parents to doctor appointments regularly. My current vehicle, a Subaru Ascent, was chosen mostly because it’s incredibly comfortable and roomy. For a while now another family member has started a new job and because of a car breakdown I’ve been driving them. This means half of that driving time is by myself, and I tend to write essays in my head. I don’t always remember them, unfortunately. I remember something about the development and use of GPS, because some anon on Reddit asked the other day why people didn’t have to pay a “GPS access” fee. I think the comparison was “if you have to pay for a cell phone or internet, why don’t you have to pay for GPS?” And I won’t get entire the entire explanation; like I said, it was a whole-ass essay.

The last week or two some of the trips have been fairly late at night, and unfortunately this has caused me to flash back to Middle School/Junior High and High School. Based on “traditional American” views my time in public school was “normal” to “good.” And I used to think of it that way, too. But as I’ve aged I have come to realize it was really pretty awful. Very few of my memories, even those I once considered “happy” memories, evoke nostalgia at this point. They make me cringe at best (and I know that’s a common thing, realizing how “cringe” you were when you were younger); but they also make me angry. Angry that I ever thought some of that was “good” or even “acceptable.” I have mentioned to my kids many times I wish I could take back my parenting of them when they were younger and do it over again. I made so many mistakes. While that is still the stronger emotion, because it concerns my children, I think I was even worse as a young person in school. It was ALL a mistake.

I don’t like these moments when they come over me while driving. I shake my head and try to drive the thoughts away.

Deep Thoughts aside, back to Girls und Panzer Episode 5; titled Veterans of their trade: Sherman Corps!

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Girls und Panzer: Veterans of their Trade: Sherman Corps”

Paige Francis He/him

I was really suffering last night. The last couple of days I’ve had on-and-off periods of general unwellness, and finally about evening yesterday I reached the point of deciding to go to bed early. I slept maybe an hour but sinus pain woke me up. It was one of those things where I could lay on the left side and my right sinus would drain into my left sinus, but not any other direction. If I rolled over onto my right side it would take about twenty minutes for my left sinus to drain to the right. If I laid on my back I just felt like I was being strangled. For a while I could lay *just slightly* to the left or right, alternatively, and keep the pain of a clogged sinus away, but I eventually got back up about 11:30.

Around midnight to 12:30 it finally started draining and allergy symptoms hit hard. My eyes were watering, I was coughing, choking, blowing my nose every thirty seconds; all while chugging H.E.B. brand Sprite. This took about three and half hours to calm down before I could head back to bed. Which, in turn, meant I slept in today; quite a bit. The whole time I was up I worked on file management on my computer. I had a directory of videos that needed sorted, renamed, duplicates removed, etc. It’s been sitting there since around 2021 or 2022. About 30% of it is done now. *Maybe* 50%, as a lot of renamed files are pushed below my working point instead of above. HOWEVER, the categorization topic that dominates the naming structure is still below me, too; and that will likely be were most of the files in the directory are. I suspect my interest in and attention to archiving in this way is what is commonly referred to as an “Autistic Special Interest.” I can talk for hours about how I would organize a directory of files. And yes, I can apply that to a database as well. I did it professionally for years. But here’s the weird part. Technically, if you organize the data through a database, file names are most useful as location or time markers. The organizing data belongs solely to the database. “Tags” in modern parlance, you might say. I *can* do that, but I would rather the file name and directory structure store all the most-useful information. In a good file system or file type, you can always store meta information, just as you would in a database.

Anyway, I stopped doing that to finish Episode 4 of Girls und Panzer: Captain does her best!

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “Girls und Panzer: Captain does her best! Pt. 2”

Paige Francis He/him