Arrived home from my trip abroad yesterday and promptly passed out at 2am. Gnarly. It finally happened, I proposed to my girlfriend. I don't intend on writing out the full story here as I'm pretty convinced nobody really wants to hear engagement stories, but it was truly a challenge. Every major moment in this whole process has resulted in the most challenging outcome (picking the ring, keeping it hidden from people who have a lot of opinions on how I should do things, ordering the ring, getting the ring, hiding the ring, transporting the ring, getting a spot picked out in secret, getting her to the spot, getting her not to look at me while I get the ring out of my pocket, etc). I suppose the only good things I can take out of the experience are that she said yes, I did end up actually executing the proposal as perfectly as I wanted to, and that it makes a very entertaining storytelling experience to those who are interested. As a small example, take the day I intended to ask the question. I had it all planned out to the letter. Of course, that was the only day during the trip that she got upset with me, and to the degree that she decided not to speak with me anymore. How do you convince someone who, at the moment, hates you, to go on a hike with you, postponing a much-needed dinner, to the top of an unknown hill in a foreign town without them catching on? It was indeed a challenge, but thankfully I managed. ================ Read a post by cmccabe[0] on their phlog about having a "do" and "not-to-do" list and have been thinking about it throughout the day. Makes me think about my life, how I also have seemingly unlimited interests but increasingly limited time. I have been thinking about it as a "do" and "do not" list (though they were careful not to call it that), and I thought I preferred the titles "do" and "defer." It's not that I DON'T want to do the "not-to-do" things, it's that I'm not ready to do them now (either in time or in dependence on the completion of a current project). I'm going to try this for now. I'll post what I have now here but keep it brief with personally meaningful titles. Obviously I can go at length on any topic, but I'll have to leave them be for now. Do ---- - Wiki - Help plan wedding (this will be an ongoing project for awhile) - Pick out and get a new (used) car - Completely unpack from trip (suitcase, pictures, etc) - Masonry work Defer ---- - Toki Pona (until free time) - Russian (until free time) - Foldable Pi project (until wiki complete) - g20 (until free time) - Root beer (until free time) I'm wondering now how to organize these thoughts further. Maybe this is just how it is for now. Hopefully the completion of the setup of my personal wiki will help with all that. And perhaps it's also useful to have a "did" list, for what I've already completed. This way I can look back and feel accomplished. That might be adding too much complexity to this simple system though. Plus, I'd have to achieve things for that. ================ Loved the idea of an ultra-portable gaming system I read on jynx's phlog [1]. I have a similar idea that's been distracting me, only it involves a series of cards instead of a primarily dice-based system they seem to be using. I'm by no means a tabletop expert, though, so on top of not having enough time (see title "g20" under the "defer" list above), I'm also just clueless. But I also subscribe to the notion that "everything relating to play is play," so I've enjoyed exploring the concepts that are coming to me along the way. This might be why I tend not to finish most of my projects, I don't know if completing things gives me any more joy than just doing them and thinking about them. Also, very curious about how that 1989 dice roller works. ================ Car got smashed before my trip to Scotland. I've never been in an accident before, it was very overwhelming to me. Fortunately neither the other person nor myself were injured. And I was found not at fault, for whatever that's worth (probably not a whole lot). I get a payout from insurance but it's just so inconvenient. I loved my car! I would get an upgraded model but now that I'm thinking... It was a little small to fit some bigger activity gear in (bikes, board game collection, etc. whatever else had to be hauled). I truly hate driving big cars, but with this, plus thinking about where my life will probably be in the next 5 or 10 years... I'll probably need a bigger car. Ugh. I would put this decision off but it's pretty essential I have a car to get to work and other activities I have to do. I know this is a pretty first-world problem. It's hard to be truly mad when I walked away without injury or really any consequence. Nobody was hurt, and I like to think that all the video games I played as a kid helped me minimize the overall damage in the accident. Still, I'd rather it not have happened at all. ================ Truly don't understand the link system people do in their phlog posts. Here's the url's I mentioned - now what? [0] gopher://sdf.org/0/users/cmccabe/not.to.do.list [1] gopher://sdf.org/1/users/jynx/dat/20180519.post