filkerdave

OK then. I'm back from a week offline camping, work is still killing anything I have resembling time, I had a great interview today for another position, and what's going on with all of you?

I discovered, by accident, that Firefly is streaming on Hulu. Now, unlike the vast majority of my friends back in the day, I didn't much care for the series. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything I much cared about.

But I've got Hulu, so maybe I'll give it another chance.

A follow-up on my post about work the other day.

As I knew (intellectually, if not emotionally) it wasn't anything bad. Or, not bad as such.

Our lead SA is leaving and moving back to Taipei to help take care of his aging parents. And they've asked me to step into his role. I mean, I'm a contractor rather than a FTE. I'm new to the project and I often don't know what the heck is going on. I think many of the design decisions that were made in the past few years on the project are absolutely the wrong ones and if it were up to me I'd throw half the stuff out and start over.

That apparently qualifies me!

I got pinged on Teams chat today by someone who said, "Hey, do you have time to meet with me and $VP this morning?" After my last 2 jobs, those kinds of meetings basically terrify me. There's no reason they should. When you're going to be laid off, it's going to be a meeting invite that appears on your calendar for the next morning or possibly that afternoon with you, your manager, and HR. The person who asked me isn't HR. $VP has asked me to set up meetings this week to discuss some solutions to problems with $CLIENT.

But there's still that tightness in my gut. And it's distracting. Just about when I started this job on what I thought was a temporary basis, the whole IT market just stopped offering full-time remote jobs in solution or enterprise architecture. There hasn't been one that wasn't a temporary 3-6 month contract show up on any site since the beginning of June. (I could, in theory, take another job but that would mean moving and I don't really want to do that).

Tea. More tea. That'll help.

One of the absolute weirdest films to come out of the 1970s (and there were a LOT of weird films to come out of the 1970s) was La Planète sauvage, released in English as Fantastic Planet. I've not seen it in years, but it turns out that the original French version is on YouTube. No subtitles, sadly. Si tu ne parles pas français, tu ne peux pas comprendre à quel point c'est vraiment bizarre.

I understood probably only a third of the French, but it was enough to make me remember just what a trip this film is.
I think it's worth looking for the dubbed version!

You know what I want for lunch?

I want to be sitting outside at a streetside café in a European city with a glass of wine and a meal. The actual type of food is less important, really. The outdoor table and the wine are non-negotiable.

I could actually do that here in our own little setup; we have a small table right outside the greenhouse on our driveway, and we have plants all around, but it's not quite the same thing! (Plus, it's hot here today. Currently 79F/26C and the little bistro table is in full sun. We really need an umbrella for it.

On Friday, Stevie and I drove down to Superior, Colorado. We had tickets to Folsom Field for all three shows of Dead & Company's final tour on Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. We went to Superior because we have friends from here in Jackson who are living there now, and we could stay for free at their place, plus hang out with them (at some point; we didn't actually get to do it much).

Saturday we decide to go to lunch and then to the campus early to guarantee a place to park. Stevie found a vegan restaurant called So Radish in Arvada. Everything on the menu is plant-based. My first meal was the meatball sub, and Stevie had the smashburger, both using Impossible Burger. My sub was great, really. Tasty sauce, the vegan parm was good, the hero roll was fantastic. But Stevie got the monthly special burger, which was a smashburger with vegan cheddar, carmelized onions, mushrooms, pickles, and a sauce on toasted sourdough. I'm not a vegan. I'm not a vegetarian. I really like burgers. This was honestly one of the best burgers that I've ever had anywhere in the world. (Also, their fried pickle chips were outrageously good.) We like our meal so much that we went back for lunch pre-show the next two days. STRONGLY recommended if you happen to be in or near Arvada.

We got to the campus and parked the car. I made a note of the lot number (415) and then we followed the crowds to the stadium. We had field-level general admission for all three shows, so we could get up close if possible and dance if not. We were right on the rail on the right-hand side, just behind the Deaf Zone. This is a special area where hearing impaired fans (Deaf Heads) can take in the show and the scene, and there were ASL interpreters as well.

The band sounds great this tour. I'm a relative newcomer, but they're just playing and singing better than I've ever heard them. Standouts from the first night were Dear Mister Fantasy/Hey Jude, St. Stephen, and Scarlet Begonias. That and the people. Being with the right crowd can make or break a concert, and we defintely had the right crowd. We mostly hung with Quinn, his girlfriend Essence, and his brother Patrick

We walked out after the show. I was a little turned around because it was now dark and we'd had several hours of amazing music with cool people. So I asked some of the local constabulary who were standing there if they knew where lot 415 was (mainly the general direction). They pulled out their maps and...no lot 415. It's not on the map. This is really NOT what I wanted to hear, so we headed off in the direction we thought it might be. We found lot 470, and were basically clueless as to what we could do now. The online campus maps were no help; there's no lot 415 on them. We stood there in 470, wondering what to do, when another couple asked us if we knew where lot (some other number) was. I said we were lost and really didn't know and they mentioned that we were in 415. Stevie and I looked confused. The sign for 470 was right next to us, but this couple said the sign over on the other side said it was 415. We walked over and...there was our car! It turns out that the way CU does their lots is that each section has it's own number. 470 is the lot, but if you cross over a thin grass strip between 2 rows, you're in 415!

The next day, after another delicious lunch at So Radish, we got to the campus earlier so we could park closer in. We had time to relax until we went to get on the general admission field line. Still not at the front, but we knew where we were going, and we got to the same spot we'd been in the day before, hanging again with Quinn, Essence, and Patrick. The second night was even better than the first, and the second set would have been worth the price of admission alone: They Love Each Other into China Cat Sunflower into I Know You Rider into Fire on the Mountain.

One of the two songs I really wanted to hear at some point in these three shows was Morning Dew. And that was their closer on Sunday night. It was SO GOOD. I was in tears, I had chills, I was totally entranced. And...someone has put it on Youtube. I'm crying now listening and it was even better in person. The encore that night was a great acoustic version of Ripple, which will be familiar to a lot of my filk friends, even if they're not into the Dead.

Monday started off much the same way as Sunday. Lunch at So Radish, head to the campus to park, and meet our same crew on the field. Much anticipation because the first two shows had been SO good and I had no idea how they were going to top them. And this was our third and final night; it was going to be our last Dead & Cpmpany show. There are only 2 more stops on this tour (The Gorge and then San Francisco) and we're not going to either. So it was a bittersweet moment.

And what a set it was! Every song, every transition. We had Bertha, Jack Straw, and Althea. We also had a weather delay (lightning reported within 5 miles), but they picked up and at what would have been the end of their first set they went right into the second. Help is on the Way/Slipknot!/Franklin's Tower. He's Gone. The Other One. A version of Standing on the Moon that was almost as good as the previous night's Morning Dew and also had me in tears. There was no way this could have been any better.

And then...

"Will you please welcome to the stage Dave Matthews."

Dave Matthews? For real? Are you KIDDING ME?

All of us were cheering and screaming and jumping up and down. He started out solo acoustic, playing All Along the Watchtower, gradually increasing as rest of the band joined in. All in all, he played with them for 4 songs, and it was incredible. We didn't want to leave the field afterwards, untill we had to. Hugs were given to our new Dead Family. Everyone lingered, wanting to hold on to that last, special moment. (Again, my filk fam will be very familiar with that feeling.)

Tuesday was the 4th of July and a travel day. We hung with out friends in Superior whom we'd been stayng with and got on the road. It's an 8 hour or so drive back to Jackson from their place, so we had previous Dead & Company shows playing so we could sing along as we drove. We got back just in time to hop on our bikes and head over to the town fireworks. (And, when we got there, local band Sghetti was on stage playing Shakedown Street!).

Today is a normal day. Neither of us are quite ready to take off our wristbands and we're still on a high from how great the shows were and I'm listening to music while I work and wondering if there's any possible way we can get to San Francisco for the last show.

I think I've mentioned before that we have a full CSA share in one of our local farms. Stevie acts as a volunteer site host on Thursdays (helping put out veg from the truck for people to pick up, mainly) which means she gets another half share those days. We also have a small greenhouse and plenty of pots in which we're growing tomatoes, onions, cucumbers...and arugula and romaine. The CSA shares in the start of the season are heavy on greens, plus things like radishes where the greens are very edible (seriously, sauté radish greens in olive oil and garlic and they're an amazing side dish)

What this means is that right now, we have a LOT of greens. Like, "if we ate salad every day we'd still have a lot of greens."

It's not necessarily a problem, as such, but we have a LOT of greens.

I've gafiated from convention fandom these days, but I was reading on Twitter the other day how a second Archipelacon was going to be happening AND that it had been chosen as the 2025 Eurocon.

The first Archipelacon, in 2015 was one of the best cons I've been to. The thing that I recall is that capacity was limited, and I didn't want that to risk not being able to go!

Soo....I've bought memberships, one for me and one for Stevie. I'm tempted to do something similar to trip last time: a few days in Stockholm, ferry to Mariehamn (Åland) for the con, ferry to Helsinki. Last time I got in a few days in Turku as well but I don't need to see it again unless Stevie wants to. I know she wants to see Stockholm and go back to Helsinki.

It's 2 years out and I'm already looking forward to the trip!

We go to Costco on a regular basis. How is it we're out of rice?