My Mycelium Journey

 

Parties used to be a thing... People gathering in general... Starting to really miss things like this but so thankful that I had the oppertunity to see everyone that was able to come out for this! What a blast! Nothing to motivate a house cleaning project like having friends over (and needing the space to decorate!). 

GWAR! This was Fun Fun Fun fest in 2010. I was so excited to see GWAR walking around I got a picture with them!  I missed out on getting a shirt, they (and their merch) only stayed the day they played and I didn't even go to a merch tent that day. This picture was better than any shirt, though, and takes up less space!  

 

Had so much fun in the paper mache! Probably have't made a pinata since grade school! He's full of Rum, Candy, Lais, and pirate booty. This was part of the party preparation for Talk Like a Pirate double feature in the backyard tomorrow! The final product! pretty pleased with how this came out. Alfi is terrified of him, maybe it's too realistic? Forming the body and the first coats of paint! First face iterations. Had to change to something a little less happy cartoon. All of these face components got nixed.  Face overhaul. updated eyebrows, eyes, and mouth.   

Room 1 is DONE!  

Beautiful night for a walk in the park! 75 degrees and overcast.   

Refinancing the house. Looking like a rate of 2.5% which is pretty fantastic. Current rate is 3.75%. This is the 2nd refinance on this house, but with rates this low it's hard not to jump at the chance. Was looking for another house but the market is too hot right now. Houses are selling too quickly and for more than asking. Maybe in a year or so I can pick back up and look around. Wasn't sure if I'm fully committed to moving out to the country. Still enjoying this house, but I knew I really liked it when I bought it. I didn't walk into this house and think "this is a perfect rental" like I did when I bought my first house. feeling pretty lucky to be "in" on this house and having the opportunity to do some renovations. 

Fully grouted, ready for sealant. Baseboards to be painted and put back in. I really like the color, had concerns about the light grout but it's a very thin grout line and going to seal it too... should be fine! So fresh and so clean. No more dog odor. Just needs a rug to pull the room together!  And curtains...  

 It's been a while, but grouting has finally begun! Will be exciting to have this room back. Not sure what to do with it, might move in for a bit while the rest of the tile works it's way around. RUGS!

Coinbase -  This is a place to exchange USD for some of the more common coins Like Bitcoin, Etherium, Litecoin, Dash. They are adding more coins as days go by, but if you want different or more rare coins you may have to get your USD into Bitcoin and then move it to an exchange. You'll have to send the crypto coins over the blockchain using a hashed version of the public key. The private key is the security behind your digital asset, don't share this with anyone you wouldn't want to have access to your coin.  The exchanges peg Bitcoin to the other "altcoins" (altcoins are anything that isn't Bitcoin). The price of the altcoin is actually in Satoshis which takes a little getting used to.  https://www.coinbase.com/join/larris_z    Once you get your account set up in Coinbase, you can go to Coinbase pro (same login/account) and the trades are cheaper.  https://pro.coinbase.com/  This disadvantage to pro is that you have to put your funds into the account ...

After pulling up the tiles because they didn't stick they are going back down. Slow process but looking good! Can't wait to get this room done!

I'm thinking this could be a very good time to get into crypto. It's so hard to do all the shit that getting into crypto takes. I have some stuff that looks like it's actually recovered from my epic "oops" that was 2018 FOMO so bad it hurt. That is just sitting on an exchange. I like the idea of a hardware wallet but it's so hard to keep these up to date. I'm struggling with the firmware updates. version 1.3.1... responded to the help ticket I had in on this. We'll see. at least it's progress.  Even on the exchange. it's so annoying that I have to verify the IP address every time that I log in with a 2-way authentication. I've logged on from this computer so many times but it's not where I set up the original account. Also, the authenticator is on a phone that is now 3 phones behind and is only being used for an authenticator... so another area that could take the whole process down.  why do wallets have to be so hard? the wallets on th...

It's more than just the speculation of a made-up overly volatile value. I signed up for Robinhood today. so much easier to jump right into trading. Very similar to online poker or game. There's not really any explanation of what you are getting when you sign up though. It's not overly clear that you don't actually own the coins. It's not clear what this value is. Is this only the value in Robinhood? you aren't able to trade the coins or buy things... only paired to USD. There are projects and ideas behind crypto coins and tokens. Maybe I thought too highly of Etherium a few years back. I laughed at Cryptokitties, aren't we still laughing at Doge in TikTok? Until I have a better alignment to fanboi status, maybe I should just keep to BTC. And then I think about a recent experience that worked really well... Dash (the ap)- super fast wallet, low fees, easy sign-up, easy QR code scan for send/receive. Bitrefill (the ap)- buying gift cards. So many options avail...

What is more noble than getting water to people? 

So... the floor didn't stick. Nothing like that feeling of setting foot for the first time on freshly laid tile and hearing that hollow sound. Ouch! The bright side was that they really didn't stick, so pulling them back up again wasn't too terribly difficult. Only the fancy "J" cut piece broke. Thankfully, there are pictures of this tile before it was destroyed.  There were a few things that didn't go as well as they could have. Entire floor had to be pulled up. Some of the highlights of the failure...  All tiles need to be fully back buttered Mortar needs to be super thick especially for large format tiles.  Upgraded to a 1/2" trowel.  More pressure for initial tile setting. No voids! Mortar selection wasn't correct. Even though it said it was for large format tile, the cheaper stuff still didn't work. Who needs $7 mortar when they sell it for $32!? Had to get the polymer blended mortar for  stone tile (using a porcelain tile). The tile guys on ...

Last tile into place at 2200 hours today.  Getting supplies: A total of 4 trips to get 69 boxes of tile, from Floor and Decor. This spanned 2 days and also involved 3 trips to home depot. Over 3,500 lbs of tile hauled in a Honda Fit.  Painting: First step was painting the room Nano white. This took about 2 gallons of paint due to the significant color change from dark yellow to white. Wall patches due to the messy curtain rod install. So happy that curtain is gone!  Setting up the tile, measuring, making cuts. Laying out the tile, determining orientation. Laying the first tile was not as exciting as laying the last.  During a cut around a door frame, the tile saw bent. This was a sign that the right tool was out there! James took a trip to home depot and found the perfect tool, a hand held wet saw. Worth every penny.  Made the job go much more quickly and precision cuts that would have been near impossible with the table wet saw were possible with this handy gad...

I remember when being stubborn was good. Resistance to religions that had no logical sense. Oppression and thought control where it wasn't needed. Resistance to peer pressure, being popular, being involved in clicks (the ideology of segregation). Remember High School? How far the wealth of knowledge has come. I can look up how to take apart a laptop to fix it, cultivate and start a mushroom business, grow microgreens, create a website and manage multiple domains. It wasn't until recently I had ever searched for or attempted any of these things. Everything is low hanging fruit. Lazy abounds. Is the human condition looking for an excuse to be sick and tired? Is that the origin story for Covid? What if parents only allowed their kids to drink the alcohol they fermented or smoke only what they grew? The kids would have potential tradesman skills they could use to make a living, start a business.  what if this desire to party could be used to drive entrepreneurship? What if the payc...

Navy beans after reading some navy bean soup recipes. Finally used the sautee function on the instapot for the first time - Carrots, onions, garlic. Added veggie bullion and pressure cooked the beans, after it finished cooking I added the kale. paired with quinoa with walnuts and a salad topped with fresh beets and carrots. Approved.