I really scored some neat stuff at the a really free flea market that was held in the parking lot of the Bellevue Community Center nearby me. This is just a way for people to get rid of things that they no longer want and benefit the community. I got some DVD-Rs, a good quality bluetooth speaker Tribit speaker, and a Logitech web cam with the Carl Zeiss lens! I made out like a bandit.

Denisse was with me and she also scored some stuff. She likes collecting squishmallows and some stuffed animals. She also spotted a great Christmas decoration and a really unique handbag labeled with Asshole and Emotional Baggage. That was hilarious and screamed her personality. We got some playing cards. In the end we filled a small cart.

I am at work now and pretty happy about it. I am at my favorite site which is a locked down building. I can relax and enjoy. It is literally collecting an easy paycheck for watching over things. I am really grateful for this gig. In an ideal world I would do double shifts here on Saturdays and Sundays because this is easy and peaceful.

My favorite distro of Linux, Arch, is really frustrating me. My desktop completely petered out after the last power failure. It corrupted a whole lot and basically I needed to rescue my system. I was able to get all of the data backed up but I need to reinstall Arch. I am okay with that because it was an old install.

I decided to work on the reasons for my failure to get Arch Linux going. So I set up a VM on my laptop and fired up the installer. It turns out that I did two things wrong: (1) I never added the lvm driver to the boot loader and (2) I used the wrong partition UUID. Both are critical for my setup to work. I use full disk encryption for my desktop stuff because I believe in the fundamental right to privacy for “digital” papers and effects.

I often write a fair amount of controversial things and I could be in the cross-hairs of the tRump Administration. Fortunately, the courts have generally ruled that someone cannot be forced to give up a decryption passphrase. However, courts have ruled that people who use devices locked with biometric data can be forced to provide that. I keep all my stuff encrypted with passphrases just for that reason.

Good golly I am tired tonight. I really want to go home but I still have 2 hours left on the clock. I really want to hit the 10:15pm 13 bus to get home for only $0.80 versus a Lyft which is easily $15-$20 on Friday night. There’s no love for the working man. Buses stop at a ridiculously early hour for route 13. I need a vehicle badly!

Yesterday I discovered 7-OH, a kratom alkaloid and that oh stands for oh my god is it good! Unfortunately, it’s made me very stoopid today but I did enjoy the opiate-like high I got. I felt all warm and fuzzy inside in much the same way that morphine did when I was given it in the past. I really do need to be cautious with this stuff because it can be highly addictive. Given that it came on quick and strong, I am not surprised. So I will wait about a week before I do it again.

Strike that! I am going to wait a lot longer than one week. According to this blurb from wikipedia, I am going to pursue this even more carefully.

7-hydroxymitragynine (7-OH) is a highly potent, psychoactive compound found in trace amounts within the kratom plant (Mitragyna speciosa), but in recent years, it has been isolated, concentrated, or synthesized in labs to create products that are far more powerful and dangerous than traditional raw kratom leaf. While natural kratom acts as a mild-to-moderate stimulant or sedative depending on the dose, concentrated 7-OH functions as a strong opioid-like substance with potency reported to be up to 13 times stronger than morphine.

This stuff should not be trifled with. When I read, 13 times stronger than morphine, I cringed. In fact, this is going to be something for a once-a-month-only fun time.

So I did in fact get absolutely nothing accomplished and it is a really good thing that I am working in the evening instead of the day shift because there’s no way I would’ve been good to go for an 8-4. 2nd shift is much more manageable today. I think I am going to sleep well tonight. I’m hoping to get 6-8 hours of serviceable rest.

I’m not even going to try working on a website tonight. I’m going to coast through this day.

I had another lousy night’s sleep! I will definitely need a nap at some point today. I don’t know why I am getting the nightmares at full tilt bore but it was one right after another. Despite the poor sleep, I feel okay this morning. I don’t have any grand plans to accomplish much today. Instead, I like the idea of simple, uncomplicated relaxation.

I did manage to get the boot loader repaired on my desktop yesterday morning and it was surprisingly easy. I will revisit the idea to replace the boot loader from GRUB to SystemD-Boot at a later point in time. It depends on how intent I am at breaking things only to have to repair them later. I crack myself up! There’s no pressing need to change the boot loader. I just know that GRUB is slow as hell.

I am hoping for some warmer weather in the next couple of days as I would really like to sit out on the porch and read; take in the sun and fresh air as it does wonders for the mood. I know I will have to work for the next four days and I do have an event that I am looking forward to on Saturday morning. This event is like a giant yard giveaway. It’s billed as a free market. I want to get there early enough while the pickings are good.

I’m ready to make it a good day and not the way yesterday went where I was just in an inexplicably foul mood and I had to dig deep for patience. I am going to chock yesterday up to having a day where I felt irritable and overstimulated.

I took melatonin when I did not need it and I think I actually induced a night of continuous nightmares one after another. Finally, I just got up and out of bed to start writing my daily blog entry. Despite having a lousy night, I am determined not to let that bring me down. If I need a nap later, I’ll take one. For now, it is time to write.

Yesterday, I discovered something called PressMeGPT. It is literally an AI-powered theme generator for WordPress with results that are nothing short of amazing. It looks like I will have a website up and going in time for my goal of April 15th and that pleases me. The theme is beautiful and represents exactly what I would like to project to my potential customers.

So today I need a day where I do not do anything and to simply relax. I got quite a bit achieved yesterday so I feel good about this. I also have an inexplicable craving right now for a turkey sandwich. I may have the rest of last night’s dinner which was a Cappriotti’s Bobbie. Man that is a good sandwich! Maybe it was the tryptophan mixed with the melatonin and THC that gave me a bit of a night with nightmares? I am laughing now at the poor choice I made.

So I will be watching some shows that I enjoy and do a few other things. I have to repair my desktop computer today. I screwed up the boot loader so I will have to book with an Arch Linux ISO and reinstall GRUB. It won’t take a long time and I’ll get things up and going again.