Useless Blogging

So I’ve been walking in the morning. I set my alarm clock a half-hour earlier than usual, get up, get dressed, and take a 30 minute walk. Outside, even.

I had six days’ worth under my belt coming into this morning. I went just before we did the river trip, and then all last week (the weekends, I slept in; this is a pattern I plan to continue). On Friday, Emma asked if she could join me. I told her I’d be going again on Monday, and if she wanted me to, I’d get her up to get dressed and head on out with me.

And today, sure enough, she was good for it.

I picked her up out of her bed and plopped her onto our bed. She was startled a bit, until I told her why she was awake and in a different bed. She was quick to change, and before ten minutes had passed after the alarm went off to wake me up, we were both headed out the door. We each had one pound weights for our hands, even.

It was a nice walk. The weather cooperated, and Emma was talkative without being overbearing. We talked about the walk, and about dreams, and about leeches and vampires, and all sorts of stuff.

I’m truly looking forward to it tomorrow.

[10:02] Ben Cash: no one gets a save against reality. you are either immune or you aren’t.

Because of JoAnn, who found this doodad here.
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Happy Planet Index

Your personal Happy Planet Index (HPI) is 32, which is similar to that of Bulgaria. Sorry to say that this is below the world average of 46. For those living in the UK, you’ll also be disappointed to hear your score is below the national average. Your score is about the same as that of your country, 28.8.

Below is a breakdown of the various components that make up your HPI score.
You:
32
Average:
41.8

Life Expectancy

Your life expectancy is average for your gender and country. However, it’s below average for the people who’ve done this questionnaire. Small changes to your lifestyle could make all the difference, for example quitting or cutting down smoking, eating a more balanced diet, or getting more exercise. Everyone knows these habits can be hard to change, but you wouldn’t be the first to do so!
You:
74.5
Average:
79.6

Ecological Footprint

Your ecological footprint is 9.96 global hectares, or 5.53 planets. This is higher than the national averages for every country in the world.

Your ecological footprint is about average for the country you live in.

You are using over five times your share of the world’s resources. This is well above the average for most nations – the only nations that can match you or come close for resource consumption are the USA and a few Gulf States. Of course, that is not to say that there aren’t hundreds of millions of individuals living at your level of consumption, even including a few in the poorest countries in the world.

To be honest, pretty much any change in your lifestyle would reduce your footprint a bit. However, if you can look at all three of the top priority issues below and say ‘I’m working on that’, you’ll be on the right road:

1. Get off the road! Car use has a huge impact on ecological footprint. Obviously it’s harder for people in certain circumstances, but where possible, try to use public transport more. Or, even better, get a bike!
2. You don’t have to become vegetarian, but cutting down on meat, particularly beef, and particularly from animals fed by imported soya feed, is an effective step to reducing your footprint.
3. No doubt the biggest chunk of your footprint is coming from air travel. For example, flying direct from London to Sydney and back would add 5.44 g ha to your footprint – that’s the average Briton’s footprint for an entire year. And, of course, flying indirect adds even more polluting air miles.

You:
9.96
Average:
5.51

Life Satisfaction

Brilliant! You reported a life satisfaction of 9, which is above the national averages for all the countries of the world. At the individual level, in the World Values Survey, only a quarter of respondents worldwide, and 29% of British respondents reported a life satisfaction of 9 or higher.
You:
9
Average:
6.73

Well-being

The new economics foundation (nef) recognises that there’s more to life than feeling good, which is why our model for well-being is based on four domains – personal feelings, personal functionings, social feelings and social functionings. ‘Feelings’ refers to your attitude to the way you, your future and society are. ‘Functionings’ looks at whether you have the opportunities to do the things that bring you well-being. Like with life satisfaction, a score of 5 is theoretically the middle score, but, given the way most people respond to surveys, is below average.
Personal Feelings

In this online questionnaire, personal feelings are assessed with two questions – one testing your optimism and one testing your self-esteem.

You are optimistic about the future and probably also about yourself.
You:
7.03
Average:
6.04

Personal Functionings

In this online questionnaire personal functionings are assessed with five questions – two evaluating your subjective opinion on your health and how activity you are, the other three testing you for feelings of autonomy, purpose and worth.

You are healthy and overall feel autonomous, purposeful and able to demonstrate your abilities to others.
You:
6.04
Average:
6.14

Social Feelings

In this online questionnaire social feelings are assessed with four questions – three assessing your opinion of your community, whilst the last looks at personal relationships.

You have a strong sense of trust and belonging in your community and a happy personal life.
You:
5.47
Average:
5.66

Social Functionings

In this online questionnaire social functionings are assessed with four questions – two assessing your job / studies, one your free time, and one your community participation. If you did not respond to the work / study questions, your score is judged purely on the other two aspects.

You are satisfied with your job / course – it is interesting, and only occasionally stressful. Further it normally leaves you enough time to do the things you want to do.
You:
5.98
Average:
5.58

*NSync singer Lance Bass says he is gay – Yahoo! News

Excellent news for all the guys who had a crush on Lance. Not so much for all the ladies.
I liked Lance… he was my favorite of the group.

Wyzcrak today made an important announcement after six weeks of keeping folks in the dark, and in the wake of this news, I wish to offer official public congratulations.

So to Wyz, Mrs. Wyz, and the Yet-To-Be Baby Wyz: good work.

If it waits four days, you have to name the baby after me.

The “van” in this case is a mobile home, but the feeling was still the same.

First, let me say that I love my friends. They are a source of great joy in my life. All in all, I’m rather short on friendships (a downside to working at home, maybe), so I’m very happy that my friends are of the type that are fulfilling on many levels. This references everyone I consider a friend, for the record, and not just Julz and D and their boys, who are the specific “friends” for the remainder of this post.

Having a getaway spot like a home on the Allegheny River is a great plus. In more than a few ways, I’m envious of their situation in life that has allowed them to spend the majority of this month living there, away from the stressors of normal existence.

But damn, does living there offer some new ones.

For all the closer I felt with my friends, I sure did feel disconnected to myself. I was out of sorts most of the weekend; I don’t know how well it translated to everyone else, but I know my wife noticed. It was like I was missing puzzle pieces or something; you could see that there was a picture there, but there were a couple parts that were left empty, and nothing left on the table fit.

I can probably psychoanalyze myself into some sort of technology/internet craving or something, but that seems so five minutes ago. So I’ll just abruptly wrap up and say “I’m back home now.”

… is on.

So we’re finishing the basement. Walls and ceilings will be up in a month or so. Floor will come later; we’ll probably seal up the floor with something or other before putting in something more official.

Kudos, then boos, then kudos to Owens Corning for coming out, then failing at being responsive, then coming back with a lowball to convince us that we can do this at all.

I plan on spending a lot of time down there, just for the heck of it. At first, at least.

Goes beyond the typical “sit, stay, roll over” stuff. Otherwise, it wouldn’t be blogworthy.

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So in my last post, I sort of let the moment speak for itself. There’s still a lot to be said though, more thoughts and more words screaming to be let out.

A lot of thoughts regarding the happiness of yesterday stem from an article I read earlier in the week on autism and langauge (two fields close to my heart, for different reasons). The display yesterday has little to do with empathy or a lack of it, of course, but it did do something tangentially related: she took a wholly social construct (going to the bathroom instead of in your pants) and made it her own. Unlike food, drink, cartoons, etc., this (seemingly) wasn’t something that Sara desired (at least, not in the same sense as the examples, where they bring her pleasure). This was an order of magnitude removed from Sara herself, at least conceptually; it may be that the months of Backyardigan Fruit Snacks have made it so that she’s desirous of those and not the potty, but she often goes at home without the promise of them nowadays.

I prefer to think that she’s getting it, myself. She’s still a far cry from being normally communicative and socialized, but — like the professor in the NPR story — she’s realizing, if only on a logical level, that there are things that happen not because we have an original personal desire, but because society expects such things to become personal desires.

The scene: Don Pablo’s. The night: tonight.

Sara: mildly incoherent mumble
Julie: What’s that, honey?
Sara: I want potty please.