An update on the flowers, including the latest flower bed addition to to speak (really just adding on to an existing one, see the first 2 images with the new look and the old look (don’t worry the pink flowers growing outside the bed are still there))
As I mentioned, I haven’t been writing much recently. The problem with the essence of a blog is that it’s allegedly an online diary. Now that works well and fine if you’re on livejournal as ZergMaster69 and no one has a fucken clue who you are. But the problem is that on a blog you’re exposed((that’s from 2015, but I said basically the same thing in 2017 and 2018 and 2018 again, and 2020 as well)) (you can hover over the footnote number to see the footnote inline). In real life you basically have a few set of archetypes you present yourself to the world with.
Take for example who reads this blog, there’s 4 general category:
Now the problem here is that these people usually get wildly different archetypes and perception on who I am.
Let’s take my most popular post((Now there’s a longer story to that since I thought my parents knew, since I told my dad before we got married and asked him to tell my mom. He clearly forgot, so, you know, they learned from family members who use social media, I’m sure that was a fun time all around)) by far, I think part of it is folks love gossip, and that shit is ripe for gossip. I can only imagine family members((again, probably mostly my aunts)) sharing that via their chat group((potentially via fax machines)). That post breaks the whole archetype I presented to family, (most) co-workers and (most) random acquaintances. I’m sure basically 0% of them would of guessed it.
I’ve mostly not mentioned anything related to poly since because well, again the whole archetype stuff. Unlike Facebook where I can pick and choose who sees updates((and I probably will do that to be honest)) on a blog, well, it’s all public. And let’s be honest, I don’t really want random family members to ask follow up questions on my recent heartbreak, then again, I don’t think anyone really wants to talk about heartbreak with family members no matter the circumstances….
Anyway, all that to say, fair warning you might have to endure some sappy emo shit on this blog for a bit.
Many vegetable seed packages tell you how far apart you should space, but also when you should “thin” the crops. It’s something I’ve always been bad at. I see a whole bunch of radish tops and I get excited and I don’t want to thin them out. I mean, firstly, mother nature doesn’t thin them out, so I clearly don’t need to.
Also, the idea is that really all I care about is the total amount of radish right? Not exactly that each individual radish is as big as possible, right?
You get this problem in the office as well, and I’ve been guilty of this in the past. The thinking goes that It’s okay to have some low performing folks as long as your total output is higher. It’s okay to tolerate mediocrity because the pain and the work and the impact on morale of going thru firing someone or going thru telling someone their performance isn’t up to par might not be worth it.
The problem is, when I had many radishes growing in close proximity none of them really matured, they were just some weird radish-like monstrosities.
And I’m sure you can figure out with the foreshadowing here, my thesis here is that the same happens in an office. When you start to accept mediocrity, you end up having more and more mediocrity.
It’s really tough and really challenging to have all the hard conversations about performance. It’s tough to take the time to reflect on why you hired these people, what influenced your decisions that proved to be wrong, what mistakes you made, how you could of better set them up for success. It’s really tough to accept that you made a mistake and you need to address it, that you need to then follow thru on firing those people (performance improvement plans rarely, if ever, fix the situation).
I haven’t always been able to do that hard work, and it’s always easier to see problems when it’s not you who has to deal with them, but hiring and firing is the most important thing to an org. It’s the one thing you should devote the most resources to.
Who you have on your team is more important than your team’s mission or it’s strategy. It’s more important than how you do things, it’s more important than the right leadership. Having the right people will let you improve your strategy, it’ll help you tweak your mission. Having the best strategy doesn’t matter if you don’t have the right people. So start pulling out the bad radishes as soon as possible.
I’m not sure if I did an update on the garden bed since the first one was built. We’ve now added 2 more. Only one more of them with the landscaping ties, the last one with fence board (we had more dirt and we didn’t want to really pay the extra for the landscaping ties on the last one. We’ll probably redo it in ~5 ish years if/when the wood starts to rot.
I love the re-store, it’s the habitat for humanity store where you can buy random building supplies. You never know what you’re going to find, but whatever it is, it’ll be a good deal and the money goes to habitat for humanity.
Anyway last year sometime I found these rocksolid garage floor coating for $50 a box (usually ~250). The reviews are a bit hit and miss, but most of them just mentioned that you’d need more than they said. So since I thought our garage was around 500sqft I bought 5 boxes which would allegedly do more than enough (625sqft).
Turns out our garage is more like 625sqft and putting just the right amount on was really not enough. You could see thru the coating to the floor.
It was a pain to get on and it took way longer to dry than they mention (they said 8-12h, but it wasn’t really ready even after 72h.
We got some more boxes after complaining to rustoleum and while it’s a bit better it’s still not great.
Anyway, here’s how it looked like:
We plan on adding another 3 boxes that we’re getting from rustoleum and we’re hoping it’ll be a bit smoother and less spotty. We’ll see. Either way, our garage is now ready to play ball hockey in.
“We don’t receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us.”
Marcel Proust”
Some songs just feel right in a specific moment… It’s sunny today and it should be this whole weekend. The song feels very much apropo.
Recently I’ve been having a lot of thoughts but they haven’t translated into posts. I think this is because, since this is public and friends, family, work, can all see it, things need to be at least slightly polished.
I do think that’s a bit BS since it means against living authentically (and by doing so, increasing the amount of mis-information or ignorance in the world [IMHO, living honestly and authentically is the only way to help the world get better since it’s only with better data about the world that we can make wiser decisions about it]) but I recently don’t want to have the tough conversations that will happen if I just write everything I’m thinking. I don’t want to have to explain to some well meaning family member that yes, things are fine even if I talk about all the things that are on fire. (This also applies to friends and co-workers, but family is the usual suspect.)
I’ve started writing some drafts since that seems like a good balance.
I have one I’m working on that I think will be titled “Buddhism, Rage Against the Machine and George Bernard Shaw”
Hopefully at some point I’ll find a way to massage all these opinions in a way that won’t “offend my political connects”
If not, they’ll be sneakily published without being posted anywhere. (I mean, if it’s not on social media, it might as well not exist)
English automated translation follows
C’est 15C en se moment et c’est ridicule comment du bien sa fait. Genre, c’est la premiere journée que je peut etre comfortablement dans mon screened in porch. On a été pour une marche, on avais pas besoin de manteau, y’avais un beau soleil.
Je sais que l’hiver est pas finit. Et pas juste pcq mes parents mon envoyer une photo de la nouvelle dump de neige que y on eu mais aussi pcq je sais que y neige souvent a Ottawa en avril. Cela étant dit, le printemps approche tout doucement.
J’ai commencer a planter des raises dans la maison. Pas vraiment pcq j’ai besoin plus de plant de fraise mais plutot par ce que sa me donne quelque chose a faire en attendant que je peut jardiner dehors. Y reste au moins 6 semaine avant que on peut penser a planter dehors mais on y arrive.
On avais pas mal de plan pour la cours encore cette année mais je pense que avec la pandemic on va en mettre plusieurs en pause. Focuser plus sur apprécier la cours que esseyer de l’amilioré tsé?
Automatted English Translation: (deepL)
It’s 15C right now and it’s ridiculous how good it’s doing. Like, this is the first day that I’ve been comfortable in my screened in porch. We went for a walk, we didn’t need coats, it was sunny.
I know winter’s not over yet. And not just because my parents sent me a picture of the new snow dump we had there but also because I know it snows a lot in Ottawa in April. That being said, spring is slowly approaching.
I started planting strawberries in the house. Not really because I need more strawberry plants but because it gives me something to do while I’m waiting for me to be able to garden outside. It takes at least 6 weeks before you can think about planting outside, but you (editor’s note: we’ll) get there.
We had a lot of plans for the class (editor’s note: yard) again this year but I think with the pandemic we’re gonna put a few on hold. Focus more on enjoying the class (editor’s note: yard) than trying to improve it.