Stuff.
My mom’s here, by the way. She’ll be here at least a few weeks.
I also got a salary increase at work.
Not that either of those things make what happened yesterday any better. I just want to be with Jazzy.
Yeah, Pretty Much
And -22 is NOT that cold of a temperature for Calgary. Just sayin’.
Drawers
Now that I have a semester off, I’m deep cleaning the condo ‘cause it’s super gross and dusty and full of all the empty boxes/envelopes from our random online purchases over the past year.
Super fun!
Today’s task was re-organizing a few of my drawers of nonsense. Here’s some fun stuff I found:
Here’s the plaque from the writing award I won in 6th grade. I was going to be given it during our graduation ceremony, but I was too busy GETTING APPENDICITIS so they just gave me this thing afterward.
Here are my abysmal GRE scores from when I was first applying to grad school for psych. That “quantitative” score is so horrible. But I did okay in the “analytical writing” section, though. I remember the two essay topics were things I was super passionate about, so I just went off on them, haha.
More test results! This is from the Iowa Test of Basic Skills that I took in 5th grade. I’m surprised my spelling score was so low; I was a pretty good speller in elementary school. I don’t remember what the “social studies” category actually was testing, but I clearly didn’t know the stuff.
Here are my notes from 2018 when I tried to re-write Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” to apply to the 30 years I’d been alive.
Supa fun!
One thing can be said about Calgary’s weather:
It’s never a half-assed attempt.
Is it winter? A WHOLE WEEK OF -30 DEGREE TEMPS!
Is it a snowstorm? A WHOLE FOOT OF SNOW PLUS SNOW DRIFTS!
Is it a windstorm? JUST KIDDING, TORNADO, BITCHES!
So today it rained, which means it rained like this:
The video doesn’t really capture the intensity. This also went on for like half an hour. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen it rain so much for so long.
I don’t mind rain if I don’t have to be out in it. I didn’t have to be out in this, so HOORAY RAIN!
Hey Pacific and Inland Northwest!
Y’all enjoying this heatwave? Are you having a super good time trying not to die?
Well, get used to it. This is our future. Summers will be this hot or hotter, these heatwaves will become so normal they won’t even call them “heatwaves” anymore, there will be droughts and general water shortages, and everything will be on fire.
Exciting, huh? I can’t wait!!!!!!
F-F-F-FIRE!
So British Columbia is on fire. Lytton, BC was actually literally engulfed in flames and everyone had to (without a lot of warning) evacuate.
That’s terrifying.
I also found a bunny hiding out under a car in the parking lot when I came home from my walk. It was obviously a domestic bunny – it was black and super small and did not look at all like the gargantuan hares we have around here – and seemed very timid and unsure of what to do. Which probably means that someone dumped him. Because what else are you going to do to a poor animal during the worst heat wave western Canada has ever seen?
I hate people and I hate the heat and I hate that this is going to be our future.
This heat wave can already go die now, k?
Our condo was approximately 200 degrees this evening, so once the sun was mostly down we just went out and sat on the balcony and played Jeopardy! on the iPad.
Check out how creepy the cancer center looks.
Scary River Fun
So today I had to call 911 for some rafters who ran into trouble on the Bow River.
Technically I wasn’t the only one who called 911 – people further up the river who had witnessed the raft capsize had called first, as I learned later – but the people who had been dumped by the raft were moving REALLY FAST down the river and were yelling for help as they were passing where I was walking, so I called 911 just in case no one had done it yet.
Bystander effect, right?
Anyway, I think I was able to help a little bit, because I was able to tell the operator approximately where the people were in the river (based on the street I was by) and give an idea of how fast they were moving so that rescue could possibly intercept them.
And completely unrelated: I was perhaps the most dehydrated I’ve ever been by the end of my walk today. I didn’t bring enough water and our heat wave is starting to pick up today, so that was fun.
Edit: pic of the raft that had caught on the bridge by Edworthy Park. It doesn’t show up very well in the pic, but the water was REALLY moving.
I Love Calgary
So because I felt like death after my shot the other day, I forgot to post some pics I took of downtown. So here ya go!
LOL I HATE MYSELF
GO AWAY
ARCHWAY
Dudes, check out this super sharp Chinook arch we’ve got going right now.
I’m surprised I don’t have a headache from it.
Yay!
Kinvara Shoe Grave: Party Hard
Look at this madness.
LOOK AT IT.
I can’t remember when I got rid of all my older burned-through Kinvaras, but this is the newest graveyard. They fill up a whole recycling bin.
I have a problem.
TEST TIME
So for funsies, I decided to take a practice Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) to see how I’d do on it.
‘Cause that’s the kind of stuff I do in my free time.
Anyway, my results from the first practice test on this website:
Meh. Should have done better. This is good enough for all the military branches, though.
Hey look, it’s my greatest fear
What the SHIT. I’d move. I’d move completely out of the city. I’d move to the moon. I don’t care how many times they say it’s safe.
Structural collapse is terrifying to me, so something like this is unsettling.
An Eventful Day
So there was a lot of stuff going on today! Let’s run through it.
First, today was the first day where I felt like it was light enough to get up early (5:30-ish) and run in the morning rather than the afternoon. I’ll have to start doing this in earnest next week, since running before class will be a necessity as it gets warmer.
Second, COVID vaccination registration opened up for the 30+ crowd today at 8 AM, so while Nate and I were sitting in the car during Jazzy’s vet appointment (to check her eye pressure – it’s still in the normal range!) I decided to get in the queue to pick an appointment time. And the number of people waiting in line ahead of me?
But I actually had to wait less than the estimated time and got an appointment for May 20. WOO!
And finally: a new Coldplay song? LET’S GOOOOO!
GOD, his voice…
It’s Not Spring Until I Get a Weird Sunburn
This glorious thing is brought to you by the following thought process: “naw, man, I don’t need to take off my Garmin in order to put sunscreen on. I know how much of my wrist it covers.”
At least it’s not as bad as this atrocity.
OH HEY IT’S THE APRIL LIST AND ah, screw it
- Make icebergs and see how they float.
- There’s a realtor up here named Ken Richter and his realty signs are the most fantastically nerdy things I’ve ever seen. He plays on the whole “Richter Scale” theme. I always want to take a picture of one but there’s always people around and I always feel weird about taking pictures of…well, anything in public.
(Except other peoples’ cats.)
- Edit: I found the Remax website that talks about him and they have the little scale graphic he uses:
- Was anyone else absolutely terrified of Gossamer when they were a kid (and perhaps even now)? I think I’ve mentioned this before on here at some point, but I saw a .gif of him on Twitter and now I’m freaking traumatized.
I’ve had the opening song to “The Pajama Game” stuck in my head ALL FREAKING DAY, so here it is for you to get stuck in your head as well:
UGH I don’t have much to say today, sorry. Life is meaningless and the world is a constant disappointment.
A Rant Subdued
So I had this big ol’ rant planned out today ‘cause I’m SO FREAKING FRUSTRATED with how poorly the vaccine rollout is going up here in Canada and I’m SO FREAKING FRUSTRATED at how stupid people are being with their failure to follow COVID-related rules (the daily new COVID cases in AB are back in the 1,000s; thanks, losers)…but then I saw this thing and couldn’t stop laughing, so you get that instead of my rambling nonsense:
Relatable.
UGH FREAKING PEOPLE SLJFLSAKGFJALSGHFLAG
So Alberta’s going back to the Phase 1 restrictions because people suck and can’t follow the rules and now variant cases are making up like 60% of our new daily cases (which have risen back to the ~1,000 per day level).
I just want to see my mom. It’s been FIFTEEN MONTHS.
I hate everyone.
Eigenblogger 