The cutting time was about an hour and ten minutes.

But the set up with cameras and getting a mirror set up in the kitchen was probably an hour. And cleanup was maybe 15 minutes.

Watching YouTube tutorial videos was probably three hours or so.

Shopping online for the scissors and clippers I never bought, and then buying locally was something like three hours.

Editing the video took way longer than it should to get those huge files from the phones to the laptop. Maybe two hours?

You know how these things go. It was a project.

But yeah, a little over an hour.

If it's in front of your eyes or mouth cut it, otherwise fuck it. :p:

is this a Trump quote?

Nope, from the world according to Bruce.

I got a call from the resident social worker where my Mom lives. I'd sent my Mom a card for Easter and included a couple little treats inside. I sent it c/o the social worker, knowing that the social worker has a good relationship with my Mom and that the social worker also knows how to get and deliver mail, is ambulatory, etc. When the social worker, J, called me she told me she'd given the card I sent to my Mom, she was all smiles and hugged the card to her heart. This was before she'd even opened the card.

Anyhow J told me how happy it made her and how my Mom reached out to J for a hug, how happy she was. This makes me happy too. And a little wistful, it's been months now since I've seen my Mom. The place is on lockdown, has been for months (it seems, time's weird now). The phone sucks for my Mom since the stroke gave her aphasia as a nice little fuck you gift on the way out the door. *sigh*

Still it was nice to hear from a good person helping my Mom tell me how happy she was.

Yeah. Happy, we were talking about what makes us happy. :)

My son, the barber, just finished his application to request a gap year before enrolling in the University of Vermont.

I was worried it wouldn’t be approved, because with the uncertainty around Covid, literally every high school senior should be taking a gap year. But they responded within a couple hours approving his request.

He’s going to do forestry work at Philmont Scout Ranch in NM for most of the gap year. It’s perfect for him.

Nice! So many people underestimate the value of work experience as a teen, plus you can't beat good clean outdoor work.

SMRT

SonofV has been cleared to return to work!

He is back on the schedule for Sunday morning, 9am. He has a serious case of cabin fever and being back at work will be much better overall, even factoring in the increased risk of exposure to the public.

I get some of that with my beard: the cheeks grow faster than the chin so after trimming towards a longish Sigmund Freud (gives my chin a sassy defiant jut) I start getting broader and rounder, fulfilling the Claus.

The wife and I may swap haircuts with our Wahl and its graduated rakes.

Productive afternoon.

.

That is beyond impressive to a foreign city-ish chick like me.

It's impressive for natives too, well done sir. :notworthy

That's some good wood, sir!

SonofV reported a successful return to work, albeit "odd".

I'm pretty chuffed.

Getting back to work is gonna be weird for everyone, glad he survived.

Are all those trees going to be planks or some for posts and beams?

Right now, I’m guessing what I’m going to need for a not yet designed table for Pete. I will probably turn the rest into sizes more typically useful. I have a lot of projects in my head that probably should be on a drawing table but sometimes you just need to make chips fly

Groovy UV. One of my alma maters. Took dendrology 101 there. Great course in 1984.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Seems like a good course in 2020. I had a roommate in college who found stoned tree identification to be most soothing.

The expectation he has, based on conversations with Philmont staff, is that he will be cutting down trees and clearing brush in the Fall and stacking it up in big piles every 50 yards or so through the woods.

He's also going to join the skeleton crew that works the winter season. They have the honor of burning all those piles of timber.

All this is in some of the most beautiful country in the US. I'm not sure if he will be hiking in and camping to do this work, or if they stay at the base camp in cabins and drive out to the work site each day on the network of dirt roads on the ranch. But either way, it's exactly the kind of thing he loves to do. Room and board included, I think. The food situation is pretty good too. A step above backpacking food.

He's applied with a good buddy of his that had done trail work with him last summer as part of a trail crew at Philmont, and they worked well together. It should be fun for him, and a lot of hard labor.

Is it habitat restoration?

Wildfire mitigation, I think.

Looks like they are. Uni of Mich -my main place of job application- just announced a complete hiring freeze with the exception of the hospitals due to the projected income deficit due in part to the uncertainty of student numbers/tuition fees for next year :(

I had found a job Sunday night with a deadline of yesterday and I was just working on a cover letter when the press release came out :( so after a grocery run and dinner prep, I decided fuck it, banged out a quick cover letter (probably shittiest ever but....) and submitted it at 11:59pm. I guess that made me feel accomplished for a brief while yesterday, even if it was a completely pointless exercise

Well done monster.

I've been in the same position scrambling to meet a midnight deadline for a job posting. I'm glad I did, despite not getting the job. You're doing the right thing for the right reasons. Keep it up.

I cut my hair!

It's shorter and I can spike it again and I can't believe how much happier it's made me. It was driving me nuts. Nutser than I realized, apparently.

I'm no newbie to hair cutting. I always cut my own pre-kids (but it was longer then, which is easier to do on yourself), and beest's, and the kids' until they were middle school, but it does take time and so once we had a little more money and I went shorter and the cheap production-line places like Great Clips were a thing... I paid someone else to do it (and hated every second of it)


And Bajaboi made delicious dinner (which is how I found time. kinda. dinner was ready before I was completely done, so I'mm'a tweek the back another time, but only I know what isn't as I would like it there ;) )


And I ran my 50th mile since Parkrun stopped so that's an accomplishment. Happy is not a word I associate with running.

Well done!

Nice!

Gah! I know what you mean. Mine's going to get like that soon (and after not making it to the hairdresser's for far too long far too frequently recently the last time I was there I was crowing that I'd be back on a schedule at last! [nope]).
Mr Limey is not, I think, a hairdresser in the making so either I do it myself or go stark. STARING. MAD!

I was in dire need of a haircut before this caper began.

Not only do I now resemble a badly thatched cottage, I'm beginning to feel like one.

Can dry rot in the purlins and Deathwatch beetle be far behind? :eek:

Black beetles that are cutting their capers all over your Morris wallpapers . . . and crawly things never at rest . . .

Wuhan is slowly cautiously opening businesses, most are still pretty empty except the barbers and hair salons are mobbed.

Well, it's taken a month but I finally managed to get a groceries delivery slot *hurrah*

... sort of.

There were no delivery slots available for regular grocery shopping (where you put together your own list) from Tesco, Morrisons or Sainsburys - but there were available slots for Morrisons 'Food Boxes'.

I have been wanting to try one of these - just because I think its a genius idea.

https://www.morrisons.com/food-boxes/boxes

I went for the meat eaters food box. Contents variable, but should contain something along the lines of:

£35 including delivery - supposedly enough basics (not including coffee, tea sugar or breakfast cereal) for 1 week for 2 people - so definitely enough for me for over a week

I will keep trying for a slot for a full groceries list but if this works out then it should at least allow me to cut down my trips to the village shop down to once or twice a week instead of every 2nd or 3rd day.

Pet food I can mainly order separately online and my neighbour gave me a phone number for a local dairy that are doing 3x a week deliveries of fresh milk, butter, eggs and I think yoghurt


The idea of a preset shopping list of basics really appeals to me. I think even without the current crisis, it's a genius idea. And then supplement it with stuff from the local shop - means not having to go to the supermarket at all.


Right now cutting down the number of times I have to go into the shop at all, and also cutting down the amount of time I spend in the shop when I do go in, by reducing the number o items I have to buy in there is a very good thing.

Probably a can of Soylent Green in there for Carrot. ;)

Ha! He wouldnt eat anything green

The grocery store curb side pickup slots for my elderly parents open up at midnight two days before the slots are available. The slots all get snatched up before 1:00 am. My parents go to bed at around 9:00pm. So they miss it.

So we have developed a system where they fill a virtual cart as they realize they need stuff, and then when it’s getting to be time to place the order, my brother in Arizona places the order for them at midnight Eastern time. It’s only 9pm for him, so he just needs to set a reminder, and he places the order.

If you don’t have your cart already full, in the time it takes you to shop virtually, the slots are all full, and you are out of luck.

Our strategy is being tested for the first time this week, so we’ll see how it goes. I expect it to work though, because he will place the order at a few seconds after midnight.

This is going to become the norm and only the connected will get served.
Then they'll expand their capability until everyone can get it and be grateful.
From then on they will choose the availability and quality you get.
Everyone pays with a card so the 2 or 3% being skimmed by the card will drive up prices.
Welcome to 1984.

If it's not too nosy, why on earth do you need to go to the shop this often? is it the volume you have to carry? Or do they rarely have the products you need?

Bit of both - I have also been shopping for mum because she also couldn't get a food delivery and is staying completely out of shops.

I don't drive, so whatever I buy has to be carried home - its not a long walk, but there's still a limit to what i can carry - if I am buying milk for both of us, for 3 days, that's about 10 liters of milk. Also, despite the guideline dates, after about 4 days the milk starts to go on the turn, so just based on milk alone, it's 2 trips a week.

I have also been buying tins of other dog food to help eke out the Chappie that they are used to because there were some delays on stock for home delivery - so that's 6-8 tins of dog food in a typical trip. Add in a couple of tins of beans each, a loaf of bread each, a few bananas each and some yoghurts for Ma, 4 rolls of toilet paper each and say, a jar of coffee or a box of tea and it's mounted up already to a sizeable load to carry and only accounts for some of the stuff we need.

It's also only a village store, so it's quite small, and one section of it is the post office. there are only 5 people allowed in at once, it's difficult to go back around to get something you've forgotten as you went past and its difficult to manoeuvre with two shopping baskets (no carts, shop is too cramped). Add in that sometimes you go and they don't have some of the things you need, or they only have a very limited stock of it, so you can't really buy a bunch to stock up - don't get me wrong they do brilliantly, and thanks to them I have managed without a supermarket shop for about 6 weeks and didn't have much in my cupboards at the start of that period. But it' a bit more complicated than doing one big supermarket trip where you can buy everything in one go.

It just ends up with shop visits about every 2nd or 3rd day. They're not all full trips, laden down with bags some of them are top up trips.

I don't like being in there for long - because it is so enclosed. I'm not sure going in only 1-2 times a week would be a safer option if it doubles the length of time i am in there.

Sounds tough, I'm sorry. I hear you re the milk. I was trying to go only once a week but it's just not possible. Here milk does last forever, but I now have two young men in the house who only drink milk or water and whose diet seems to be 75% cereal with milk. I bought 3 gallons on Friday. We might make it til Tuesday. Maybe :/

Did you now it freezes OK though? Just freeze it in small enough amounts that you are able to defrost the whole portion you froze at the same time as IME it separates out as it's freezing, so if you break off a bit of it to defrost, you don't get the proper composition.

Melted ice cream works with Cheerios. :D

I think that is how the "second supper" cereal works round here.

Wegman's wouldn't take my milk bottle returns last week. They paid me for them but now I'm stuck with them. Since this is the happy thread I'm happy my chickens are being productive despite the bumpy weather.

Returns? The sell returnable bottles?

Yeah,I think Griff may be posting from the 20th century.

The past is prologue.

I've got five or six of them here, too. Half gallons and pints.

There are deposits on those here too. We have a 10¢ deposit on all cans and bottles (except those used for products containing real fruit juice) and the big glass bottles from local dairies have bigger deposits in the $1-$2 region.

Right now Michigan is still charging deposits but not accepting returns :( My garage is overflowing

I have to go to Wegmans tomorrow, I'll look and see if I've been missing them. :confused:

The EU passed a resolution to phase out one time use plastics, like beverage bottles, over the next five years. They may be seeing a lot more glass. I haven't heard how that will go in the UK now under the circumstances.

Are they for refilling or recycling?

I was weeding this evening and observed two people performing silly walks as they passed my house. One knew I was there, one didn't. Both were walking by themselves (but on the phone). I saw others read the signs and smile too :D

They want one time use items to be of materials that are easily recyclable. The goal is to keep plastics out of the oceans.

Win

These are for reuse but apparently something has gone wrong in the return chain.

A lot of farms are dumping milk because it's not moving. Maybe they have an over abundance of bottles on hand or the outfit that collects and washes them shut down. The store doesn't have room plus they get to hang on to the 2 bucks until the chain unkinks.

I quit buying milk because I was an irregular drinker. When I started eating cereal again I bought almond milk because it would love me long time. But now I'm going through a gallon a week I can buy either but have developed a preference for the almond milk. I feel like a traitor to my cow roots, pulling teats on a frosty morning keeping my forehead warm against her side.

Our Governor banned returns on the ground that the virus could be on the containers. Stores here currently won't accept returns of any type, not just recyclable containers with deposits

Ah, so there is a method to the madness. Thank you.

Yeah, the system probably isn't as mechanized and sanitary as I imagined.