ERE Adventuring

Where are you and where are you going?
white belt
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by white belt »

I’ll update the results of my enoki experiment in the apartment homesteading thread. I was able to buy an enoki liquid culture syringe online in the USA for like $14 including shipping. If this works then I might branch out to other strains eventually. The liquid culture method appeals to me because it can store for a long time in the fridge, takes up minimal space, and can essentially last forever if I inoculate new liquid cultures. Also I have more faith I can keep things sterile compared to using spawn.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

My second batch was also a pre-sterilized spawning substrate that I innoculated with liquid culture three weeks ago. The whole thing never saw one bit of contaminated air and is innoculating like crazy right now. So I definitely get the appeal of working with liquid cultures. I didn't think of using the leftover culture for making more, but that's something I should probably try, too.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Weekly update, go!

Adventuring
My knee keeps getting better as long as I stretch my hip flexors every now and then. It's weird that the solution should be this trivial, but I'm not complaining. Overall the mystery pain has been replaced with a bit of "real" knee pain. I suspect this is because my knee is just very weak, as I was unable to train it for the last 18 months. So I've decided to start with strength training again, although I'll focus on longevity instead of strength/power for now.

I also started a 26 week training plan that I basically copied from Training for the Uphill Athlete. I'm not sure how to adjust this trail-running plan for hiking, so I kept the volume recommendations as they are. The first week started off with 30km total. Since my knees felt weak I had to do several 5-10km trips all over the week. Hopefully I'll be able to do a few longer trips in the future, but for now it's sustainable either way.

Work
The neverending presentation-slides are now at a point where they can be used to acquire new project partners. The problem is that while I worked on marketing the hell out of our new tech, nothing much else has been done. About half of our department has shifted focus to the new way of doing things, while the other half is just doing business as usual. Meanwhile, those that work on new stuff have kinda separated into splinter cells that are having a very hard time of coordinating.

I've now connected with a few of those splinter cells and we're slowly working our way into a cohesive core group of coordinators. While this is definitely positive, the grassroots nature of the whole thing is really annoying. I might be maximally unfair here, but I feel like the higher-ups are commanding change from the ivory tower and whenever they remember to ask, they are disappointed that it's not magically done yet.

Anyway, the higher-ups seem to have noticed this, so the idea of a Big Important Meeting has been entertained (no plans or dates yet, though). I want to be hopeful that these are just growing pains, but I honestly know better than that :/

Stopping Smoking
This is hard. I switched from high-nicotine to no-nicotine products, so at least I kicked the actual addiction by now. But the habit of always reaching for the vaping pen is hard to let go of, especially since my fiance has no intentions of stopping. We've had a talk yesterday and she agreed to mostly smoke out of my sight, so this should help.

theanimal
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by theanimal »

I'm enjoying reading about your experiments and experiences in mycology. Hope the knee heals fully soon!

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Thank you. Mycology (or at least at-home cultivation) seems to interest a lot of people lately. The Apartment Homesteading Thread is especially interesting with what @white_belt is trying. My own experiments are either failed (old ones) or in the innoculation phase (new ones), so I won't have much to say over the next few weeks :/

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Sadly, magic mushrooms are highly illegal around here, so I'm not willing to give those a try yet. I'm mostly interested in adopting those growing techniques for growing gourmet mushrooms as they don't require a sterile room and a huge laminar flow hood. The problem with the techniques, however, is that they produce very little actual mushrooms. Which might be fine if 10g can get you through a week, but it's basically nothing for gourmet mushrooms. So I'm still working on adapting those techniques :/

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

I've been working on my month's end review draft (numbers still need to come in), but this section has grown into it's own post. As usual this is more of a writing meditation and probably not terribly exciting for others to read :p

Work
Venting time, big time: As my big project has been postponed by the partners, I'm struggling to find meaningful work right now. I've got a few things that might become important a few months down the road, but aren't that urgent right now. Consequently, they are more in the brainstorming/messing-around phase and I'm unable to produce definite deliverables.

My second boss (yeah, I kinda have two. No, they don't coordinate) has picked up on this after going to other colleagues behind my back, asking them what I'm working on (with reported undertones of "does she work at all?", as usual). So he bombards me with bullshit tasks, some of which are far outside my responsibilities and skill set. Most of this is figuring out whose problem it should be and then delegating, but it doesn't help that I can't get a hold of the required people (thanks corona).

Meanwhile, the Slide Review Committee continues to pick apart my presentation slides that were just awesome 2 weeks ago. Apparently, the focus of what my presentation should achieve "obviously" shifted, without silly me picking up on it. I was appropriately patronized and now continue to tack on all the missing parts.

On top of that a few colleagues needed help with the last shiny tech that has basically been abandoned as the leadership lost interest. Anyway, we bought it, so we use it every few months. Which just means that as the only person capable of doing it at all, I still have to re-learn most of it every few months for a single task. The overhead is stunning, while the results mostly satisfy aesthetic predilections.

*deep breaths*

Maybe a little self-reflection is in order: The biggest problem I see is that I don't really have anything to work towards. Writing this down it's quite clear on what I should focus, but it didn't feel like that for the last few weeks at all. So maybe this post has already done it's job and my situation will improve once I shift my focus to the important-but-not-urgent work. I already have a Minimum Viable Solution for one "project" in mind, that might actually somehow fit the single-minded focus du jour.

This means I'll have to be extra proactive and efficient with the slides, the 2nd boss' bullshit jobs and the old shiny tech. As I've mostly handled them reluctantly until now I'm pretty sure there's room for improvement. Setting myself up for a fresh start next week might require some weekend overtime to get most of these out of the way. I despise the thought, but I won't be able to switch off until I feel things are "right" again, so maybe I should just get it over with? I'm conflicted on this and might need to sleep on it.

As for the kinda-backstabbing nosiness of my second boss... I'll have to find a way to communicate my workload more clearly. Corona makes this extra hard, as the weekly meeting has been adapted to fit the home office environment. This means shorter meetings where the first few points on the agenda take up all the time, while my stuff needs to be rushed towards the end. I might need to prepare my points succinctly and convincingly beforehand, so they are maximally legible to the leadership.

Our grassroots thing might help with that, too. As I mentioned before, we've begun work on a shadow-society of interconnected worker bees to make up for the missing guidance from above. During one of our meetings I might have vented a bit, and others seem to agree that things are not as they should be. The resulting working group has agreed to collectively "manage upwards" in hopes of avoiding busywork. We'll see how that plays out.

Overall I feel much better about this than I did an hour ago. Proofreading this whole thing in its entirety has me thinking if I might not be better advised with searching for fault in what I did wrong instead of venting so much. After all it's the only thing that I can change, and this here situation keeps recurring, so I might need a system to prevent this from happening. But that's a thought I'll mull over after biting the bullet and getting rid of as much busywork as I can this afternoon.

NuncFluens
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Monthly Review: February 2021

Post by NuncFluens »

Finances
New best month ever! At least as far as total € saved goes. I've changed up my accounting to reflect all my income streams instead of only salary. So this is not really comparable to anything that I did in the past. Consequently, my SR dropped to 66% even though total € saved were higher this month. I'm still not sure if I won't change things up again :p

At the very least this makes my Sankey diagramms much more exciting:

Image

The good:
  • I got a nice refund for electricity and insurance, as we used less than what we prepaid.
  • I got some dividends. I mostly chose dividend-paying funds for tax reasons, so they're not optimized for high yield (1-2% p.a.). This might also have been the highest paying month for dividends this year, although some more should come in next month.
  • A neighbour saw us lugging weight plates inbetween our basements and wanted to buy some. I sold them way under value (30€), but it saves me a lot of hassle.
The bad:
  • We miscalculated my share of the rent, etc. so I had to pay the difference for the last few months to my fiance.
  • I still didn't quit smoking for good, although I've limited it considerably. The fiance is also trying to quit but has chosen a slower fade-out, so this might go on for a few months yet as I'm adopting her schedule.
  • I omit a lot of the more fuzzy stuff from my accounting (coins in my purse, money "owed" to/by my fiance, etc.), so I'm not sure if those 111€ that are unaccounted for are due to this fuzzy accounting or not. With all relevant metrics going up, though, I don't care that much.
Adventuring
I managed about 100km of hiking this month, so it's not significantly less than last month. I would have gotten in more, but hurt myself due to a series of bad decisions. They were quite harmless in isolation but broke the camel's back in the end. For now I'm getting by on Netflix and video games, but I hope to be able to get going today or tomorrow again.

Mycology
The initial batches have died for good, so I've mostly been waiting for my grain spawn to be fully innoculated. It should actually be ready to be put into fruiting blocks soon, but I'm struggling with motivation after my previous failures. On the bright side, I found that my wild enoki spores had actually grown into a valid liquid culture just as I was preparing to toss them out. The resulting grain spawn (on barley, didn't have anything else) is growing slowy but surely.

With spring coming around, I've also done a lot of research on what can be found in the next few months, which is mostly morels. It might still be too early to actually find anything, but I'm pretty sure I'll be roaming the woods a bit more in the next few weeks.

AxelHeyst
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by AxelHeyst »

Congrats on the best month! I'm following along with interest. What software do you use for the Sankey diagrams? I have diagram envy. :)

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Thank you. That reminds me, I've been meaning to follow your journal after someone pointed out your very insightful review of Build a Better World in your Backyard but never got around to it. Until now that is, although it might still take a few days to catch up the newest posts.

Those diagramms were made with this online tool. It has some shortcomings, mostly with formating/ordering, but it's free and easy to use.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

A few things have happened, so maybe it's time for an update :)

Work
As I was quite unhappy with my work situation I turned to look inward and decided that I need to do a better job "managing up". So I used my work-provided online-subscription thing and found the book Managing Up by Mary Abbajay. I felt a bit like an RPG-rulebook in how the different "classes" of bosses were laid out, but it also came with actionable advice on how to handle certain aspects of certain leadership-styles. The prose was also very directed and didn't feel like fluff at all, so I am very happy to have read it.

What I take away from this are two things: One, the renewed insight that I can't change my boss, but only my reaction. And two, a whole new bag of guidelines on how to handle certain moods and work better with my boss instead of against him.

Overall this made my work life much more bearable and - dare I say it? - fun again. Not sure why, as I had the usual minimal interaction with my boss, so I couldn't really apply anything yet. But maybe it's just because the book made me believe that the situation can be handled. Anyway, with this off the table I managed to grab onto a few real projects and am now doing just fine :)

Adventuring
I somehow managed to catch a cold, probably because I absolutely had to visit a colleague to help her install a system update and her son had the flu. She didn't really point it out until I was there, though, so that was not super nice :/
This has left me unable to do any outside activities or indoor training, so I'm just lazing around for now.

DIY
I started baking (bread) again! I initially stopped baking as winter approached, after producing 5-6 less than stellar bread loafs in a row for which I blamed the falling temperatures at the time. And while they might have a played a role there, I have since adapted my recipe and process and now everything works fine again, despite the still cold temperatures. So I'm enjoying my homemade bread again and it's just so much better than storebought.

I also dug out my sprouting glass and started sprouting again. This one I stopped because I wasn't really sure about how edible my sprouts were. They were always kind of slimy and unattractive smelling, so I never really felt safe eating them. This time around I decided to put them in a spot that only gets indirect light and the first bunch turned out great. Not sure how the rising temperatures will affect this, but for now I'm happy.

Mycology
I found some renewed interest in foraging, now that spring is coming around. I did some research on spring mushrooms and apparently morels will be the only thing that's growing for the next few weeks. Although, the way it looks right now it might still be too cold. Anyway, I'm really motivated to get out and see what's coming up once I'm fully healthy again.

AxelHeyst
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by AxelHeyst »

NuncFluens wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 10:42 am
Overall this made my work life much more bearable and - dare I say it? - fun again. Not sure why, as I had the usual minimal interaction with my boss, so I couldn't really apply anything yet. But maybe it's just because the book made me believe that the situation can be handled.
The book helped you build an internal locus of control, yes? Nice! Internal loci of control are WAY better than external haha. I seriously think one formula for happiness is to do whatever you have to to move the locus of control for as many things in your life to internal, whether it's true or not, and ignore everything else. And attitude is always internal by definition.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Wed Mar 10, 2021 6:28 pm
internal locus of control
Yes, exactly this! Thank you for the phrase, that was what I was looking for.
I often find myself in situation where I'm just reacting to (or stoically bearing) what happens to me, so that's definitely something I should change. Maybe I can find a few books with that search phrase. Unless you'd know a good one to go deeper into the concept off hand?

AxelHeyst
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by AxelHeyst »

Not specifically, I think I've just picked it up from 'here and there'. The last book I read that touched on it, I think, was Honoring the Self by Nathanial Branden. I could be mixing things up. I'm not in to the Ayn Randian Objectivism of that book so much, but found value in the rest of the chapters.

Also Journey to Ixtlan, by Carlos Castaneda. And The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruis? I might just be listing books I think are neat at this point? :lol:

One of my favorite quotes around this idea is:
David Allen, Getting Things Done wrote:"If it can be changed, there's some action that will change it. If it can't, it must be considered part of the landscape to be integrated in strategy and tactics." –
What I like about this is that just a quick look at the idea of locus of control might imply that you can move the locus to inside by controlling your emotional reaction to a situation. Sure, but how, and what if I still want to be effective in a situation, not just serene about it? Well, if you can't change it, put it in the "uncontrollable environmental factors" list in your mental strategy document, and incorporate it. So I might not be able to change the fact that my boss has a short temper (hypothetically), but I can ACCEPT that fact, make myself not get bent out of shape over it, and modify my career strategy to reflect that reality. It's that last piece that I think some people don't get to, or don't realize is an option.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:01 pm
Not specifically, I think I've just picked it up from 'here and there'. The last book I read that touched on it, I think, was Honoring the Self by Nathanial Branden. I could be mixing things up. I'm not in to the Ayn Randian Objectivism of that book so much, but found value in the rest of the chapters.

Also Journey to Ixtlan, by Carlos Castaneda. And The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruis? I might just be listing books I think are neat at this point? :lol:
I did a bit of reading the summaries on goodreads and they sound pretty cool. I've put them on my to-read list, but seeing how my library is still locked down it might take me some time to get my hands on them (if the library even has them).
AxelHeyst wrote:
Thu Mar 11, 2021 4:01 pm
What I like about this is that just a quick look at the idea of locus of control might imply that you can move the locus to inside by controlling your emotional reaction to a situation. Sure, but how, and what if I still want to be effective in a situation, not just serene about it? Well, if you can't change it, put it in the "uncontrollable environmental factors" list in your mental strategy document, and incorporate it. So I might not be able to change the fact that my boss has a short temper (hypothetically), but I can ACCEPT that fact, make myself not get bent out of shape over it, and modify my career strategy to reflect that reality. It's that last piece that I think some people don't get to, or don't realize is an option.
From my cursory research it looks like in professional parlance at lest, "locus of internal control" and "self-efficacy" are two different things. So "locus of internal control" seems more like the old "... I can only change how I react" and self-efficacy being the "I myself can do something about it" part. And I agree, it's nice to be serene about these things, but what I'm really looking for is a feeling of self-efficacy. Now the hard part will be how to cultivate that, because I understand it intellectually (like in the D. Allen quote) but it just doesn't click on a visceral level all that often yet.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Crisis
I was unsure on whether to write this at all, as it's not really about me. But seeing how it affects me too, and me wanting to have a complete record of what's going on in my life in this journal, I've decided to give a TL;DR version with a lot of juicy details left out.

Basically, my fiance's work situation keeps worsening (I wrote about it in December last year). The workload keeps increasing, with no energy put into finding additional staff. In the meantime a few people have quit and the development department is down to half size, which means issues are now piling up faster than they can be resolved.

The new leadership (firm was sold a while back) has done nothing up until now, but finally called a full emergency staff meeting last week. This was basically an hour of marketing ("You're all very important to us!") with no signs of betterment. In the meantime they showed their true colors during exit-interviews, trying to guilt-trip and/or literally trick people into staying on longer. The first impression of the new leadership is "very shady" with hints of "locusts!".

Consequently, with workload ever increasing, people leaving and no betterment in sight, my fiance had another breakdown. She has called in sick for now and might extend this for another week or two. She might leave her job eventually, but there's still a meeting planned to see if she might be able to reduce her weekly working hours.

This is all very stressfull right now, and while I absolutely don't blame any of this on my fiance, it still weighs me down quite a bit. I guess we'll just have to see how that meeting goes and whether the new owners of her firm can turn things around and if so, when. Sorry for basically only complaining, lol.

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Alphaville
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by Alphaville »

damn. i hate bad bosses. is she looking to go work elsewhere or just waiting for things to change?

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

Kinda both. First up will be that meeting with the old bosses while they still have a say in things. This one is scheduled for the first or second day she is going back to work and might result in a reduction in working hours and/or other concessions. She's still hoping that this is a transitional phase where the old owners dropped the ball without the new owners picking it up yet. If they're lucky they'll turn it around somehow.

Should things go from bad to worse, she's begun the process of arming herself with letters from her doctor in case they try to kick her out. They do have a "Personalrat" (staff council?) that advocates for worker's rights from within the firm. This might go further by involving an outside worker's rights association and - as a nuclear option - involving a lawyer. Let's pray it doesn't come to this.

Meanwhile she has been tentatively looking for other jobs, but it's more for getting a perspective right now. She's not married to the firm, though, so this might become a serious option if things don't change soon.

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Alphaville
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by Alphaville »

right, i thought i remembered you were thinking of moving to the netherlands at some point.

now normally i hate to make antiliterary recommendations and suggest horrible business fables, but there is a time for everything and this might be a good time to read the awful-yet-useful "who moved my cheese?" which is really a literary atrocity that makes the mind recoil in disgust, but it gets you in the right frame of mind after you vomit the horrible prose and faulty reasoning aspect of it. and it sticks with ya after a while in a useful way, sort of like a bitter poison that cures you of parasites or something.

this is just to say maybe read that awful book and read it complete, not as a summary of just mere ideas, because living through it burns it in your consciousness in a special way :lol:

but seriously, it can be a useful tool in spite of its infinite literary and philosophical flaws and obvious criticisms and absolute corniness.

alternatively, i could suggest a viewing of robert bresson's "un condemné a mort s'est échappé" which is great art and also a good tonic :D
Last edited by Alphaville on Mon Mar 22, 2021 9:51 am, edited 1 time in total.

NuncFluens
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Re: ERE Adventuring

Post by NuncFluens »

lol, you're doing a terrible job selling "who moved my cheese?" :lol:. The reviews online only helped insofar as I'm intrigued about just how bad it really is. My library just opened up again last week, so maybe I'll try my luck there if I can ever convince myself to go.

As far as the Netherlands go, that is still on the table and still very scary. Truth be told, I'd hate to relocate and find another job. But if this thing goes south for good we might make a change sooner rather than later, I fear :cry:

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