This is the website of Abulsme Noibatno Itramne (also known as Sam Minter).
Posts here are rare these days. For current stuff, follow me on Mastodon
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I’m still a bit late on the blog punch, but while it was happening my eye was drawn to the James Kim events as they played out. I really didn’t want to pay attention. I wanted to ignore it. But it resonated because of these days:
And some others that were not on random vacations and so I don’t have the full story with pictures and dates and times posted… but more things like that… where I have gotten myself into potentially sticky situations… have happened, as I tend to really enjoy exploring areas off the beaten path, and it just happens sometimes when you do that. What James Kim did… take a interesting looking back road as a potential shortcut… is definately somehting I would do.
Now, I’d like to think that in each of those cases I was actually prepared and knew the risks and made sure that while I was in situations that if they went wrong could get unpleasant, would not actually become life threatening. That I was always close enough to help that if I got stranded I could easily get to somewhere and get appropriate help. I’d like to think that I’d not take that interesting back road through the mountains in the middle of the winter… that I’d know not to do that, even if it looked tempting. But… I could see myself maybe tempting fate.
The reality is that on any of those days I listed above, or on a few others, even on those trips, had the right series of things gone wrong, I would have been in deep trouble. Even aside from getting the car stuck in a ditch and such… for instance 19 May 2002.
Nothing went wrong. No bad things happened. But for the majority of the time I was alone, out of cellphone coverage, and over 40 miles from the nearest (tiny) town and fairly far from any roads that had regular traffic. If I had a flat tire or run out of gas (as almost happened), I would have been in trouble, but I know I could have gotten to help, as unpleasant and inconvienant as it would have been. I knew the way out, and it was walkable. And it was spring and I had a tent and a sleeping bag, so I probably wasn’t going to freeze, even if I had to camp overnight (as I’d done earlier that trip when I got the truck stuck).
But… if while climbing the step hill/mountain my random spot was on I had sprained my ankle or broken my leg or something… then I would have been screwed. It would have been bad. And just a couple more bad pieces of luck on top of that could make it REALLY bad in a hurry. OK, several bad things would have had to happen, not just one… but still… those things do happen. The Kim’s are proof of that. On any number of occations, things could have gotten to the point where my life was in danger.
I thought I was being slightly reckless enough to make it fun, but not so reckless as to actually make it dangerous. And every one of my random trips WAS very fun. I had a blast and miss doing that. But more carefullness is clearly in order.
I haven’t done a random trip in awhile. And the presense of Brandy and Amy most likely being with me will certainly make the next trip a bit tamer, and we’re a bit less likely to go trooping off into the jungle in search of the exact random spot as I might well do if I was alone or with Chad or something, but still…
Next time we do a trip… hopefully in 2007 to Quintana Roo… I think we are going to need to rent (or buy) one of these or perhaps one of these. Or maybe even both. They are expensive, but if one is going to be going off somewhere where if something happens someone isn’t going to find you right away and you might not be able to call for help in normal ways… I’m thinking they might be good investments.
That whole thing about what assuming makes? Yup. Gotta remember never to assume anything and always make sure everything is explicit. I keep learning that but eventually forgetting it again. Can’t ever forget that.
Thats it for now.
Sometime in the next few days I have to catch up on some posting. I have one book I finished and one movie I saw that I haven’t posted about yet. And I should do more ancestors soon too. Not to mention other things that might be worth commenting on… for instance… it looks like Roscoe has learned the “and now bring it back” part of “Fetch”.
It has been a really bad five weeks. Starting with what happened with Zuri which had me in very horrible frame of mind which I am still working to get over. These last five weeks I have been sadder and angrier and meaner and less patient than I remember being in many years. I think it is almost over though. Five weeks is enough. Meanwhile, almost as soon as that happened, Brandy got sick. Then Brandy broke her leg. Then this last week I’ve been sick. It has been a bad five weeks.
Of course, then I remember that right before that five weeks I had a kidney stone episode. And right before that we found out my Saturn is dying. And right before that some one bumped into Brandy’s car in a parking lot while I was in it waiting for her to come out of a store. (No serious damage.) Literally the day before that someone dented my Saturn in a different parking lot while Brandy was driving. (It was the mom of one of Amy’s schoolmates… we know her.) And a week before that, someone smashed in the window of Brandy’s car and stole her purse while she was at a school rummage sale within sight of the car.
And come to think of that, before that we had months of tension about selling the house.
And going back almost a year, there was all that nonsense in Florida.
Come to think of it, it has been a bad couple of years.
All in all, though, I am now at a job I enjoy and can grow in, we are now in a decent house that we like in a decent neighborhood, money is no longer a major day to day concern, either through my previous employer faling to meet any of their commitments like last year, or through maintaining two households like the first part of this year. Amy is in a school she loves, and she is doing very well.
MOST things are going very well and the trends are all in good directions.
But there have been some very hard bumps and bruises along the way. And the last five weeks has for me very tough in terms of those personal at home things. But I can see the sky again now I think.
And I really really hope the next five weeks… hell, the next five months… the next five years… are all up trend all the way. Well, at least mostly. I don’t need any more months like the last month please.
Saturday was a musical day in the Minonagony household. The morning had us getting up early (for a weekend) to get Amy to a church in Everett where her chorus was singing for a “Lady’s Tea” at some church up there. It is their first public performance of the season and somewhat of a warmup. I took this picture and was busy trying and failing to post about it from my Treo and so intent on trying to figure out why it wasn’t working (never did figure that out) that I didn’t notice at all when the music suddently stopped mid-phrase and there was a gasp and a commotion as a parent ran up to retrieve her daughter who had just fainted on stage. It was not Amy. After a few minutes of everybody composing themselves they started over at the beginning of that song.
After that, we raced back down to Seattle to the University of Washington. The bass teacher we had taken Amy to didn’t quite know what to think or how to approach the task of teacher her after her first lesson with him, so had arranged for her to be seen by HIS teacher, a professor of Music at the UW. So we got there just in time, only to be the only ones there. Both the teacher and the professor ended up being about 30 minutes late. When they got there they took Amy and asked Brandy and I to leave. So we went and got coffee while Amy had a one hour session with the Professor. Apparently she did pretty well other than her usual 11 year old attention span and taking it seriously issues. They are going to consult with each other and get back to us on what they think the best approach to continuing her bass education will be. The Professor is also going to try to get us set up with the Seattle Youth Orchestra, which Brandy had sent email to over the summer but who never answered us. Since Amy doesn’t have an orchestra at her school (too small) it is important to have an actual outlet to perform… it gives a direction to lessons and practice and such.
Anyway, musical day.
I’m a little bit late getting this out, but a couple of weeks ago my father, William Minter, was given the “Bud Day Award” by the Association of Concerned Africa Scholars. Congratulations to him!
Tuesday around 02:00 UTC as I was leaving work to slog through a drive home three times longer than it usually was because of snow I saw firetrucks. A lot of firetrucks. I was crossing the bridge right after I left work (it took 15 minutes just to get across the bridge) and firetruck after firetruck after firetruck went zooming by with sirens on. I wondered where they were going and what the big fire was that needed so many firetrucks. When I got home I checked on the local news and couldn’t find anything at all. Nothing on the 11 PM news either. Just lots about how all kinds of people were stuck in the snow and such.
Today at lunch I found out… the fire was in the building where I work. The alarms went off minutes after I left the building. And it was not a false alarm as happens occationally. The lobby was apperantly actually full of real smoke from some sort of real fire.
But it seems it was small and taken care of quickly by the dozens of fire trucks. Today there is no sign whatsoever that there was any problem at all. I have no idea where exactly the fire was. There is no obvious damage anywhere.
Anyway, that is what the firetrucks were for.
This morning it was sunny. For the first time in weeks it seemed. And for a few hours my mood was also lifted. It was sunny! It was a good day! I was actually feeling somewhat upbeat for the first time in a long time.
Then it started raining again. If the weather guy on TV this morning is correct, after today this November will officially be the rainest month ever recorded in Seattle since they started keeping records of such things. It is grey. It is gloomy.
Weather aside, I haven’t been in a very positive mood these last few weeks anyway. The sun this morning was a nice change. Too bad it only lasted about 5 hours.
When I first got here in January we had a record streak of some 40 days in a row with rain or some such. Now we have the most rain in a single month (with plenty of time left in the month for more). Yay!
Ya know, what they say about Seattle winters does appear to be true. Six months of darkness and gloom. Hibernation really would be a good option.
Wake me up in March.
 Amy’s new bass arrived Wednesday. Her old one broke just as she was outgrowing it last year, then we had a rental for the rest of the time in Florida. But she has been without one (and hasn’t been taking lessons) since arriving in Washington in July.
The new bass is here now though, and she resumes professional lessons next week. It will be a good thing. She has been without a bit too long and is probably a bit rusty. but I’m sure she’ll snap back into place quickly. This also means we need to get the designated “music room” in shape to be used. Right now there are a bunch of random things in that room.
This is a big purchase, but Amy has been seriously studying the bass for years now with private lessons and all, not just school orchestra or whatnot. It is also a physically BIG purchase. I haven’t seen it in person yet, but it is HUGE. You can see the crate it came in on the picture, but it is certainly much bigger than Amy is and big enough so that it is difficult to transport. It should last a few years though. At the end of that time Amy will need the next size up… and we’ll need an SUV just to have any hope of being able to transport it back and forth to her lessons. :-)
Some have asked us why we would get a new bass rather than renting or buying a used one. I frankly don’t remember all the details, but Brandy spent MONTHS researching the tradeoffs between cost, availability, quality, etc before picking this particular bass from this particular vendor, etc. If I remember though, and Brandy can say more in the comments if she wants, but some of the reasons were…. Basses in this particular size are not all that common, as the bass isn’t a that commonly chosen an instrument anyway (compared to say, violins), and it is even less common amoung children Amy’s size. So it is hard to find used ones anyway. And unless they get mistreated (in which case there is a quality issue anyway) basses of any decent initial quality actually tend to appreciate in value over the years rather than depreciating… so good used ones actually tend to cost more than new ones. And rentals tend to only be economically optimal if you end up renting only a short time… say a school year or part there of. If you are going to keep and use the instrument for years, buying rapidly becomes the better deal… more cash up front, but less over the total life of the instrument. This one should be good for maybe four years… above that threshold. And it is fully insured in case something “bad” happens to it before that time. If in that time Amy decides to give up the instrument, we sell it used. It’ll still probably be the best option economically. (Other than having her switch to a smaller cheaper instrument. :-)
In any case, Brandy and Amy have been giddy with excitement ever since FedEx called Tuesday to say they would be delivering Wednesday. The crate was too big to come into the house (even into the garage). So Brandy had to unpack it outside. I presume by the time I get home Amy will have given the new bass a spin.
I look forward to many evenings of hearing bass (and piano and electric guitar) practice happening downstairs while I hide in my office upstairs. :-)
She’s in a chorus that gives outlet to public performances on the vocal side. One she has resumed practice on the instruments for awhile, we’ll probably start looking for some performance outlets on the instrument size. (Her school is too small for an orchestra at the moment, although they are working on expanding their musical offerings.)
Anyway… new bass. Amy (and Brandy) are happy. :-)
I got an email from my dad yesterday that started with this sentence:
News – today Cynthia passed her road test for drivers’ license, so she can drive alone or with an adult.
This is quite scary. I remember when you could fit her in a picnic basket! And now she is driving!
Last night some sort of error occured here at work and the Windows passwords for a variety of people we reset to unknown random strings. I was lucky enough to be one of those people who had this happen to them. The result, I can’t log into my laptop at all, I can’t get to my work email, etc. Logging into my Linux box (which was not effected) I am able to get to the Internet and the Intranet. But most of my work, with exceptions of meetings (of which I have one today) requires email. The handful of things that don’t require email, for the most part still require access to things I have on my laptop. I think there are a couple things I could do involving editing some things on some internal Wiki pages, but even that would be aided by access to everything else.
So basically, I have been out of commission in terms of doing anything useful most of the day today. Now, on the one hand, having a little extra time to relax and surf the web (since I *do* have Internet access) is nice and all. But on the other hand basically sitting in an office stareing at a screen knowing there is work to do but that you can’t do it effectively gets really old after a couple of hours. Even though I had a pretty good night’s sleep yesterday (after basically staying up all night watching election coverage the night before) I am still getting tired out of boredom. Luckily, in just over 15 minutes I need to catch a shuttle to a different building for a couple of meetings. That will basically occupy at least two hours and basically take me to the end of the work day.
Then hopefully by morning, all the issues will have been worked out and solved, and I’ll once again be able to log in and work normally. The appropriate people are actively working on it as a high priorty. So I assume it will get fixed in that timeframe if not before. Quite annoying though.
I should get ready for my meeting now though.
PS: This is the post that will knock my Zuri obituatuary off the home page of abulsme.com. On the one hand, I have been posting at least once a day in part specifically for that to happen sooner rather than later, cause it was a somewhat painful reminder. On the other hand, now more than a week later, as the emotions subside a bit, instead I am a bit sad to see it go. I really like that picture of me and her. It is a low res low quality webcam picture, so it won’t necessecarily print that great, but maybe I’ll still make the highest quality print I can from the original and hang it in my office at home or something. Maybe not quite yet, but maybe once a little more time goes by and I can see it and think happy things rather than sad.
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