josie

I've seen the video of when I broke my leg playing last November and the way he went down is eerily similar. If he did what I did, a spiral fracture, the ankle itself would be fine (tendons need some work) and with immediate surgery/magical NHL medical care, he could be skating in as little as 3 months. That's a huge IF that's what he did. I say less ankle because the hockey boot does help protect that. My skate blade touched my calf when I went down and my ankle itself was fine, the bone above it, not so much. The hope is it's a twist and fine. But I'd almost rather a break he can get pinned together and rehab quickly and move on from than a twist that will haunt him for years to come. God this sucks.

Attractive coworker got married last weekend. Creepy project manager I've mentioned before covered her work station in hand made/hand painted paper butterflies. She's the only one he is nice to... he also is a professed Asianophile and she is the only woman of Asian descent here. He has a girlfriend in China... So yeah, there's all these gorgeous paper butterflies all over the place... he made one of the other girls here do it so "it wouldn't look weird". It's pretty weird. This place is certainly never boring.

oh.. they did. I was told directly to cut it out. Gave me the "caffeine is actually a drug" speech and threatened me with heart attacks...

I do love green tea. That's been my saving grace so far. I make it very very strong. haha no prob! I never considered myself bad since my animator friend drank an average of 4 pots a day. Now that CAN'T be good for you.

I'd never had coffee until my final year in college. Then it was up to 3 Red Bulls, several large coffees, and about 6 shots of espresso a day. I was drunk on caffeine. I was a jittering, never sleeping, SUPER productive pile of jelly. I was definitely my thinnest. Eating hurt. I was kind of a giant walking, talking coffee filter. Thanks Bio, I'll give those a look! I trust a lady with a caffeine icon :) And man, I guess I never considered that I would ever look to decaf in my life..... but the smell... I miss the smell.. and the taste... Love my black as night coffee.

You're correct. I think all ideas are problematic in some way. I went straight to the source of complaint- which seemingly is hormones. Perhaps there is a better quantifiable resource. Times in heats/races. Weight amounts. But then team sports get tricky. Perhaps a massive overhaul of the system is uncalled for, and it's just good ol' fashioned acceptance that'll do the trick. That's a variable we cannot test at this time. I love things like the Olympics because you see such diversity in the athletes. I've been a fan of studies in forensic anthropology for a long time. The different markers in skeletal construct between people of different descent is amazing in its own right. Such a wide range! And all running on the same track. Science and nature are cool- and often tough to create clean organized stalls with (excluding dichotomous keys haha). I think I'm getting off topic. Oops. I dunno, but it's worth being willing to consider alternative avenues.

At the end of my rope, I was about to subject myself to a battery of GI doc tests. Decided as a last ditch effort prior to doing this, to listen to several friends' advice and cut coffee for a week to see what happens. I'm fine. Supplementing the caffeine need with tea. Apparently less than one cup of coffee a day can give you two-way stomach flu for months on end. Unreal. Still have some other issues, but the main one appears to be mostly mended. Oh, but how I miss coffee....

That second part there is kinda what I meant. Somehow more quantifiable. I admit it sounds more like a rainbow happy future idea than something that any money making sports enterprise would ever dare to implement, but hey, it's a hypothesis. Maybe at some point the sex will be irrelevant. Perhaps those numbers ARE testosterone count or something. We have male and female because those are black and white in our culture. A wild grey area has emerged... and where does it go? It has a bit of black and a bit of white, but not enough grey to be its own category... And in the terms of something as dazzling as sports, if you go with my genderless sliding scale idea, maybe that takes the spice of extreme examples out of it and you're left with an average pack per "class". Don't know. Could be an interesting thing to try. I'm just asking more questions than I am really answering- but I think with something like this, that's not entirely unhealthy. It's an issue to be explored, not solved immediately. Incremental change and understanding sticks better than sweeping revolutions!

That's the exact argument d4rk and I get into. I acknowledge the point, it's a valid point. I guess I adhere more to the "well, Usain Bolt, Michael Phelps, Katie Ledecky are physically built entirely differently than the rest of the their competitors- and we don't see it as unfair." camp. That gets into "natural vs unnatural" territory. One could argue that well, Bolt was born with that muscle build, Phelps with that long torso and those big feet. A transgender athlete is consuming hormones, an outside source, to physically change his or her body, it is no different than steroids (see East German female lifters in late 80s). But then I guess, is it transphobic to say well, they're simply assuming their natural form? I've heard some discuss the transition as not much more than fixing an incorrectly functioning organ. So where do we allow a gifted athlete who happens to be transgender to compete? Do we ban them and say, sorry, your physical condition is unfair, give up your dreams and do something else? Or do we implement a sliding scale based on numbers or something to maintain some fairness on all levels, regardless of assigned gender? I feel for any transgender athlete right now. Damned if they do, damned if they don't. Brown will be interesting to watch. I think a path that compromises may present itself in time here. I don't have the answer. We have just begun to even pay attention to this issue - and sports is probably the biggest of catalyst arguments. I guess I have no problem with it. I doubt athletes are going to all suddenly claim they're transgender and go through the fun of being a social pariah and deal with hormone therapy just so they can excel in a sport. Maybe there's a positive in there that hasn't been thought of- only very recently has it become somewhat acceptable for females to be strong. If transgender women raise the bar in a more physical sport that favors the big (wrestling, weightlifting, perhaps), competition may rise with them. This can also go for men with being more effeminate. Something like a transgender man winning titles in figure skating or something. I dunno exactly. Interesting impacts, maybe neither good nor bad. I have this exact argument w/ d4rk about women's hockey and allowing checking. Or women playing in the NHL and why they don't. How sports change depending on the type of people playing them- hockey flexing and changing from rougher, physical and slower to incredibly fast and agile- majority player body types change. Equipment evolution can even have that effect. Just another interesting variable. Tricky conversation in 2016. Probably will be for another 50 years. Things have changed relatively quickly in the last decade. There will be backlash, and tough decisions- this is one of them.

Sad I missed this thread. I don't internet too much on the weekends, I save that for when I'm bored at work :P d4rk mentioned it but in the last year I have worked with several transgender people quite closely and man, I didn't know what I didn't know. My friend Sam still plays roller derby with all ciswomen as he transitions to male. I have watched my former student and good friend Ray transition and have listened to many of his struggles, which I helped him explore and communicate through his art. Some of them are great people willing to understand and educate those unfamiliar with their identity, others get rather militant and rude, easily offended. Humans! I learned that many words I used that I thought were ok were actually a bit offensive (saying that a transgender man is a biological female, for example). Assuming a transgender person is a hermaphrodite is incorrect as well, as that is an entirely different situation. I think gender fluidity and assigned gender at birth to transitioning is a new concept to many people, and thus often distasteful/scary. The "I know I'm a man/woman, what's wrong with these wackos? Need more attention? Going undercover? Perverts?" while conjuring an image of Frankenfurter in fishnet thigh highs(A transvestite and a transgender person are not the same thing! Just ask Eddie Izzard). I guess what helped me a lot was understanding that many see sexuality and gender as a sliding scale rather than strict compartments of straight/gay or male/female. Answered some things for me personally, honestly. Sure, you've got the tiny percentage of "tumblrinas" identifying as pansexual fox otherkin using the pronoun ze (I taught one of these, regardless of identity, person was a total a$$hole), and I think many use those extreme examples as a strawman argument that everyone of a questioning identity is an "attention wh0re" or "confused". As cited above, anytime sports/physical ability get tied in, things get more difficult. I say good for Harrison. Brave to come out. Sports culture is still not kind towards homosexuality, let alone the "new" political frontier of transgender. We encourage athletes to flaunt their identities, be public figures... and when one comes forward as something as "unusual" as gay or transgender, some very disheartening rhetoric fills the airwaves. Sorry for the book- I've gained a decent amount of knowledge on this topic recently, and while I obviously can't speak fully for anyone, I'd gladly answer any questions I can with what I've learned. There's some good info in this thread, and some not so good stuff too. I do tend to be more liberal on this subject, moreso than d4rk (we've gotten into some heated discussion over the transgender athlete argument during the Olympics). Questions are good, assumptions are usually not.

Headed back to Ohio for the weekend. In the 5.5 years we've been together, d4rk's only been there briefly for a wedding. Hoping to stop by the marblehead lighthouse near Port Clinton- one of my favorite spots on earth. Otherwise, cornfields! And celebrating my dad's 70th and my 27th, belatedly.

Just had confirmation- my safety net is gone. I don't know what I'm going to do in the spring. I know it pales in comparison to the other things in here. Sorry.

My company's 401k matching has been inactive for some time now. I'm squirreling away a good chunk of every paycheck and have enough for a house downpayment in one of my savings accounts. The idea is I live off it if/when I move and can't find another job and cry a lot or use it for wedding/house/honeymoon stuff as d4rk climbs his way out of debt, mostly the student loan variety. Though when the day comes to spend some of that money, I'll be pretty upset... I prefer to hoard my funds. I wish I understood all of this stuff better. I just know that hoarding/investing is good, spending is bad.

I'm sorry Dennis. That whole system is borked. Another person fired from the company.... I'm beginning to fear that my safety net of working remote when I move to Buff in the Spring may not be there... I could be facing unemployment and no income for some time until I swallow my pride, forget all my hard work and just become another loser artist flipping burgers. My fault for not going into a STEM program like everyone told me to. Then again, apparently there's enough money to take the drinking buddies to NYC on the company's dime... at least that's the pretty well founded rumour. I just get mad at everything nowadays.

I got a flight suit. The main zipper is broken. :( Bummer.

It's a small small world, after all.

Yeah I guess he's a manager at Dog Town. Kinda punks around town, much like Greg.

I honestly don't know. He's keeping it really really small for cost concerns and such. Still pretty wild.

One of my buddies wandered into our office today to say hi and told me a pretty good story. He's adopted, and as he's getting married next week, it seemed as good a time as any to meet his biological family. Well, turns out his uncle is Greg Isabelle, the drummer in one of Wes Borland's bands after Limp Bizkit. Big Dumb Face. Isn't playing anymore, but still. His name is Greg as well, and they share a lot of oddities. And then he met his biological brother. A guy he already knew and was friends with here in Rochester. He found out and almost fainted.

Oh my god, the future is now. All my old primers, theory and technique books are... apps!!! Definitely get your daughter into music. While I kinda hated it as a kid (I was pushed to be competitive rather than just enjoy playing), I've always been proud of my musicianship. I started piano around 5 and didn't quit until I moved away for college. I hope to have a piano again someday so I can really get into again. I was really good when I quit. It... fades quickly. Same with sax. Learning piano is tough. I learned classically. Many can just let loose and jam. Learn the scales, learn some chords, get to where you can separate the hands in your brain- it's a cool skill to have.

High school was when I was obsessed with Floyd, Zeppelin, The Who, Beatles. I kinda hate that disastrous relationships and growing pains kinda tinged a lot of that music with bad memories for me. I do like the occasional Beatles wander; Sgt Pepper was and is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's just a journey. Or the Who Live at Leeds. And some Zeppelin, when I pull the vinyl out. The Battle of Evermore is just the perfect song to paint by sometimes. I fell in love with them young, and read every book I could find, and discovered that, lo and behold, these rock gods were just people- flawed people at that. And some of their flaws regarding women I hate to say really tarnished my love of their work- rendered some of the beauty of the songs twisted. Should watch the Wall again. The animation was a lot of fun in it, in a good ol' acid trippy way. And I should rewatch Tommy. Grew up with that movie- was describing it to a friend the other day when I realized just how bonkers/wonderful it is. Queen, no joke, saved my life a couple times in college. The show must go on, who wants to live forever? I'm pretty deep in an Americana rut right now. And old blues. I love hearing the original inspirations to the big bands mentioned above.

Alright, that's it, I'm showing up in boy drag.

Yes please. Coworker next to me has a tarantula. I add some snakes, we get some lizards to help with the fly problem, I like it.