Things that might be decidedly odd…

Scottish Lakes II

This is what a clearcut covered in heavy snow looks like:

But seriously, I went up to Scottish Lakes High Camp this weekend for a bit of rest and relaxation in the backcountry away from anything having to do with running water or electricity. There was quite a lot of snow up there compared to last year. I took the above photo when I had to walk about 75 yards up the mountain in a detour section too steep for a fully loaded snowmobile. At points there was so much white everywhere that it was difficult to discern the topography of the terrain. Strange but disorienting.

Last year, there was no snow from US 2 up to the mid-mountain point where the transportation transitions from 4WD to snowmobile whereas this year there was a lot of snow all the way up. Here’s a shot of mid-mountain from 2007:

And here’s one of roughly the same area on the same weekend in 2008:

It was a great trip though. Ken, Robert, Jeff and I shared our own smaller cabin this year as opposed to last year when Robert, Ken and I shared with about 7 or 8 people. Having our own cabin was more low key, but that didn’t stop us from throwing a party Saturday night. I guess we’re still the party cabin Here’s a shot off our back balcony:

The rest of the photos are here.

Snow?!?

This evening, Robert and I grabbed dinner up at Hopvine on 15th. While sitting there eating my pizza, I glanced out the window, only to see that it was snowing rather big, wet flakes. It’s very unusual to get snow this late in the season here. It’s perhaps even stranger because the weather over the past few weeks has actually been fairly sunny. According to the NWS, we’re matching record lows lately. On Friday, I’m leaving for the mountains for 3 days and they’re also expecting record lows there too. They’re forecasting 27F high and 19F low on Saturday! Eek, I better stock up on the long underwear before I leave…

Some follow up introspection

Earlier today I was thinking a bit about what I wrote on Sunday morning about frustration and my life. As part of that, I decided to use the search function on this blog to see what I’d written before on the same theme. In fact, I even searched for the word “ennui”. I found a couple posts that articulated the same complaints, dating back to about a year ago.

There are possibly even older ones too, but it doesn’t really matter. I’m clearly complaining about the same things again, which is just stupid on my behalf. Complaining about the same thing is only ok in my book, but only if it’s regarding something that’s out of my own control. I can continue to complain about Seattle traffic or passive-aggressive people because I can’t change those, but I can’t complain about my commute because I could change it by finding another job or accept that it’s just something unpleasant I have to live with under the current circumstances.

This discovery causes me to think more in a problem solving sort of way. If I’m going to bitch about the bars, I should just stop going to them for a while. I’ve kind of been doing this lately anyways, but haven’t really thought about it in such definite terms. I go out much less than I did a year ago already, but telling myself I’ll just stop going until further notice produces more clarity.

The other recurring complaint has to do with having friends who I share more in common with. On further reflection, I may have overstated this a little. I do have friends who I share some specific activities and interests in common with. The biggest example of this is the group I trained for STP with (and am planning to train with again this year). Biking is a positive, healthy activity I enjoy doing and I’ve got a group of friends who like to do it too. There are other activities and interests that I don’t share with these same people and that’s fine. For example, I don’t really enjoy alcohol-fueled party vacations, at least when that’s too much of the central focus. The cruise was fun because there was plenty of other stuff going on besides partying and heavy drinking. The Canada Day trip to California will be fine for similar reasons. However, I’m not planning to go to decadence this year with some of them because I can spend my vacation time and money on something I’ll enjoy more.

That said, the root of the complaint is still valid in that I need to build more friendships around common interests and activities either by meeting new people or expanding interests around people I already know. To facilitate that, I’d like to start some new hobbies or at least ways to spend time. At some point, I’d like to get involved in some more volunteer activities, but that’s going to have to wait until I’m finished with the new OutVentures website since that’s sucking up a lot of my volunteer time these days. I spend far too much wasted time at home sitting in front of this screen. In fact, there are times where I stare at the web browser with a loss of what to do after I’ve already read all my regular blogs and news sources each day. That’s gotta stop. Getting out of the house more frequently to do more enjoyable activities has got to be a necessary part of this.

I really hate…

magic quotes in PHP.

I don’t have access to the Apache or PHP configuration files to turn this off at the source and, of course, my web host doesn’t allow this setting to be turned off in an htaccess file. So, the only way I can solve this problem is to call stripslashes on all my POST and GET variables at the top of every script I run. One can only hope there’s a special place in hell for the PHP dev making this the default setting was a good idea.

That is all.

Safari 3.1

I downloaded the new version of Safari the other day when it showed up in my software updates. It seems to be working fine except for one really weird thing–space bar no longer pages down. This is really frustrating because somehow I’ve apparently trained myself to hit space instead of “page down” while browsing a long webpage. Arg.

Update: Oops, this seems to actually be a problem with the nightly build of Webkit that I’m currently running.

Post-anger

This morning (or really later this morning I should say), I’m not feeling angry any more. It’s amazing what a good night’s rest can do for that. However, I’m still feeling anti-social and generally dissatisfied. The line cutting just seemed to strike a nerve which unleashed other frustrations I’ve been thinking about lately.

Anger

I’m angry right now, although it’s fading somewhat as time goes on. What set me off was having to wait 25 minutes to pay my tab and get my coat at the Cuff. The lines were moving extremely slowly, not so much because they were long, but because people kept fucking cutting in line in front of me. I’m sorry, but it’s not acceptable social behavior to see your friend at the front of the line, cut to ask him to buy you 7 complicated drinks for all your friends then tender multiple forms of payment! I was so pissed that I seriously considered stiffing the bar staff for letting this all go down over and over, but then I realized that it’s not really their fault. The place was busy and they’re just trying to get things made as fast as possible. It’s still bullshit though that people pull those sort of stunts. I was angry enough to call somebody out even, but I held back because I just wanted to get home.

At first, there were maybe 5 people in front of me in line but with the cutting, it turned into something ridiculous like 15 drinks taking at least as many minutes to make. I gave several really nasty looks to various people. I’m sure it did no good, but I’ve got to let the rage out somehow.

Ugh, I’m just so tired of the bar scene in general. It’s just the same old shit. I’m becoming too jaded and bitter these days to even enjoy it much at all any more. Gross trolls giving me cruisy looks. Gussied up pretty boys and leather daddies with almost nobody in between. Sundry acquaintances I have nothing in common with.

Moreover, I’m feeling very anti-Seattle right now. People-wise, it’s the same outside the bars too–passive-aggressive people (who in turn bring out the most negatively passive-aggressive parts of my own personality) and a sea of acquaintances I have little in common with. I have made some good friends who I know I can count on, but I still feel like we have little in common other than being able to get along. In many ways that’s not surprising because I really do so little with my life outside of work and just hanging out with friends, but it still makes me feel unfulfilled. That work has been frustrating and demotivating lately (for reasons I can’t really go into) certainly isn’t helping right now either. Sometimes, I just want to pack everything and leave. Then I realize being somewhere else wouldn’t change anything, which is perhaps an even more depressing realization.

At the same time, it all seems so trivial. Elsewhere in the world, people are dying from war, famine and treatable diseases while I’m whining on my blog about being unhappy in my economically comfortable life. Yeck, it’s all so tragic and petty.

Taxes done

Now that I got that problem straightened out with Fidelity this morning (even if it was their fault), I was able to finish my taxes. I have both the 2007 return and the amended 2006 return done. I need to go to the doctor tomorrow morning for a followup on the abscess “procedure” then over to the post office to mail the amended return off. At some point soon, I’ll file my 2007 return electronically so I don’t have to fight with my stupid printer through all those pages. I’m not in a big hurry since I owe about $1200 (still a couple hundred less than I was expecting).

Tax woes

I started doing my taxes back in January but hit a snag that’s caused me to procrastinate finishing them. It all started when I had to recharacterize a Traditional IRA contribution into a Roth IRA contribution for 2006 in early 2007 because I realized I had exceeded the income limit for deductibility of Traditional IRA contributions after the fact. Compounding the problem was that without these Traditional contributions, my Traditional IRA was below the minimum required by Fidelity for the account. Hence, I had to convert the Traditional IRA into a Roth IRA around the same time such that I’d have just a Roth IRA.

Unfortunately, the paperwork for all of this arrived at and was processed by Fidelity in an unusual order. This caused my recharacterization to NOT be performed, although Fidelity never informed me of this until I talked to them this afternoon on the phone (which was an ordeal in itself since this is an unusual situation according to them). Now, it’s too late for them to change anything for the 2006 tax year, so I need to amend my 2006 taxes to reflect the change. It won’t change how much I owe in taxes for 2006, but it means filing more forms. Moreover, because of the way the paperwork was bungled, if I don’t file the amendment and get this straightened out, I’ll have to pay about $1000 more in taxes for income I already paid taxes on last year.

Ugh, what a mess. It’s all Fidelity’s fault, but I’m the one who’s going to have to clean it up.

Visiting the parents

I escaped for the weekend down to Oregon to visit my parents. It was a pretty standard trip all told. Got to see my parents, watched them bowl at league night with their friends, saw the new horses, played some Wii (my mom recently bought one and my parents have been playing it a lot) and just generally kicked back out of the rain. My weekends have already been booking up lately, so I knew this would be the best weekend to go visit. Next weekend is Easter and I’d rather just avoid all the additional travel hassles of going around a holiday. I’ve been out of town most of the past few weekends and will be gone again soon enough to the mountains for back country camping (well, I’ll be in a covered/heated cabin without power or running water so it’s probably not technically camping) and then Vegas for my brother’s birthday.

Driving down went relatively smoothly except for some traffic in Pierce County and then again at the 205/5 junction south of Portland. Coming back, the only traffic I hit was in Tacoma. Ugh, stupid Tacoma and its worthless traffic! It really wasn’t all that bad though, but I am glad to be back home and done with spending 12 hours on the road this weekend.