I am on vacation. I got to play with my best friend and her family all evening yesterday. Today my brother is coming over. And tomorrow we may go fishing again. 
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Despite tearing up 1/2 of the bottom floor of the house (see constant bitching in the Home Ownership thread) I believe our drain fly problem is finally solved. By this weekend I should be starting to put the kitchen and downstairs bath back into order.
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My high schooler is taking a summer class, by choice, and is actually enjoying it. Sheâs mapped out a plan to get it finished on time, and is doing a good job. Compared to six months ago, when she was hospitalized in the psych ward, this is amazing!
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Chickens producing up to 12 fresh buttnuggets/cacklefruit/eggs daily. We sell off the surplus, theyâre free range. Nice.
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LOL!! I will never think of eggs the same way again! 
This was Friday, but Iâm still kind of riding the high⌠We had what we call a âpop-upâ event for the Symphony Association, which highlighted individual singers from the Choraleâsomething that rarely happens, because we tend to hire out for soloists, and the rest of us are able to hide and make our mistakes anonymously in a group. 
But this time, those of us who felt brave (or are show-offs, like me) got to pick Broadway pieces to sing in front of a small audience individually or in ensembles. Weâd expected the environment to be way more casual, with people mingling, maybe talking during our performances. Like a lounge setting, or something. But they all came and sat in rapt attention for two hours while we sang for them. It was awesome! 
(Itâs also kind of liberating to let my inner Diva off her leash once in a while.)
One person I know pretty well (husband of another lady I sing with; grandfatherly type) told me I had a beautiful voice and he could listen to me sing the phone book. I donât mean to brag in mentioning that, because it was deeply humbling, and the kind of compliment I treasure for when Iâm feeling insecure or mediocre. 
It was an empowering evening!
But that wasnât all that happened that was great! Weâve mentioned before that our kids haveâŚdifficulties with food. They both have severe childhood eating disorders, and need to be back in therapyâbut I have not had a good lead on any effective therapy in this area that would definitely take our insurance. I knew weâd just be sent to the ones weâve used before, which, in my opinion, didnât get us very far. Well, it turns out that one of the second sopranos in our Chorale, who was another soloist Friday night, is a speech therapist at a recently acquired hospital group within our network. One that has OT and a feeding team. She is critical of the groups Iâve been to before, and understood everything I was telling her. Then she said they took all the insurances and they would get results. Theyâve been under my nose the ENTIRE time, and I would never have known if I hadnât struck up a conversation with her that night.
So, now Iâm still a little euphoric from such an ego-boosting evening, which also led to a path of treatment for my kids. The only thing that would make it perfect was if @sig was already home, but at least now weâre in the home stretch! Just a few more weeks!!
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Apparently thereâs an island off the coast of South Korea which has recently had street view added.
It is claimed that a dog photobombed every single photo. It seems that it followed the photographer all the way around the island and ended up in every photo.
Plus three different news sites with slightly different photos:
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Short version:
My son showed some strength of character this morning.
Long version:
Heâs currently doing a course that will lead to him being a builder. Builder apprenticeships are normally 3 years and this course covers a lot of the basics and is equivalent to the first year of an apprenticeship.
His attendance so far has been terrible. He has missed at least 1/3 of the course and we think he must be in danger of losing his place. Some of his absences have been justified, but a lot of them have been because he just canât get up in the morning. I know teenagers have difficulty with this, but sometimes you just have to suck it up and do the hard stuff - which he doesnât.
Last week things came to a head and we confronted him about the fact that he has stated in the past that he didnât want to be that guy who is unemployed and living in his parentsâ house forever. He agreed and made all the right noises about how he was going to take things more seriously etc.
This morning was one of those hard spots. He was tired and not feeling very well and didnât want to get out of bed.
But he did.
It took quite a bit of coaxing from us, but at the end of the day, the decision to push through it and be an adult was entirely his.
I hope we didnât overdo the praise thing afterwards, but we were both pretty proud of the fact that he did it - and we didnât bother hiding it.
Sundayâs Doctor Who episode addressed the problem that has been in every sci-fi movie and TV show that has âuniversal translatorsâ. The TARDIS not only translates all languages, but lip-syncs the translation to the mouth movement.
I think that is done for the benefit of the viewer so that it doesnât look like a bad 70s kung fu movie dub.
Iâm more curious how they deal with the occasional desire to not translate a term that somehow makes it through, like referring to Worfâs weapon of choice as a Batleth or whatever instead of translating it as âKlingon Swordâ or whatever.
Iâm kind of thinking B5 got this right, what with just havign everyone presumably learn English to talk to the ambassadors, and âcamera translatedâ English in scenes where subtitles would be annoying, like aliens talking amongst themselves for the entire scene.
This works less well for the traditional ST âexplorationâ focus, I guess.
No worse than Germans in WWII movies speaking English with German accents to each other in scenes that are supposedly taking place in German.
Lithuanian submarine captains with Scottish accents. And no discernible accent on the shipâs doctor.
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Oh, Iâm totally fine with that. Iâm not big on subtitles, especially considering how some media I gleefully enjoy watching while fiddling with a phone or tablet.
SpaceXâs double header this weekend. 2 launches in 49 hours (give or take), opposite coasts, 2 successful droneship landings.
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I suddenly have no responsibilities here whatsoever.
Except to mail my stuff home before we fly in a few days.
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Happy Anniversary, Sweetie! 
I would make me happier if you were already home, but this news is a great placeholder. 
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I donât have to go back to work until Thursday.
Iâm at work today. I am not amused.
Playing Candy Crush today and for the first time ever, hit the Jackpot.
Mind you, with the new TV show premiering tonight, that may not be a coincidence.
Was it Candy Crush that was the subject of the whole expose about their kind of shady difficulty adjsuting mechanics a few years back?
From what I remember, it basically was set to the difficulty increased once you paid, as youâve proven to be amenable to payingâŚ