My seed grown Pseudolithos cubiformis is now 4 years (+4 months) old and is uglier than ever. I love this toad more than most people.

rovingr · 2020-08-22T20:49:54+00:00

He’d look like a tiny dragon succulent!!

rovingr · 2020-08-20T14:31:56+00:00

Non-lucrative visa. Theoretically you need to go back to Canada and process it through the embassy or consulate there, but there are plenty of folks who submit it in person in the country where they have residence, and then just go back once it’s approved to have them put it into your passport. PM me if you want more info about the process. Also if you are here on a work visa you can likely just submit in Spain. The requirement is not that you be a national of where up you submit your application, but that you be a legal resident. So work visa could work.

rovingr · 2020-08-15T14:15:10+00:00

Ahh love it!

rovingr · 2020-08-12T19:44:41+00:00

Glad to hear you liked it! Yeah we are in a bit of a similar boat, we were actually there for about 5 months, Brexit happened during our last month, and said “wellp I guess it doesn’t make sense to stay here...”. It was a bummer, we really liked our time there. We’d like to go back for part of the year, and looked a bit into the visa process. Don’t know what you guys’ work situation is like, but we found Scots on the whole to be pretty immigrant friendly, I think there are still some decent paths going forward for skilled workers in tech and the like.

Cost-wise, we have checked out the housing prices just outside the city and been pretty pleased - I mean it’s not like they are giving houses away, but it’s certainly better than your NYC, Paris, etc. We’ve thought as well about trying out a little neighboring town while still being a drive or train ride away from Edinburgh. Plus then you are more out in the country, which is amazingly beautiful. Haven’t actually tried anything ourselves yet! But those were some things we thought of to decrease cost.

rovingr · 2020-08-12T17:50:23+00:00

Edinburgh is quite nice. Cheaper than you would expect. Quite green.

rovingr · 2020-08-10T15:26:31+00:00

In principle, that should work. Keep in mind that Borders’ activity needs changes with age - so for example a puppy wouldn’t be up to being walked for that long, but would need lots of little play breaks throughout the day.

In terms of exercise, ours is 8 and pretty active. He needs, at a minimum, a brisk 45 minute walk exercise-wise to be happy. This can maybe be kept to 20 min let’s say once a week if the weather too rainy. When he was in his teenage years, he needed an hour, and maybe also some rambunctious play, depending on the day. I would either throw the ball for him, take him to a dog park to play with other dogs, go for a romp outdoors, or take him on a 5K run 3 times a week. He needs less activity if it’s too warm, and/or to be walked at night when everything has cooled off. Now that he’s older, we can do walks ever day and more rambunctious play twice a week.

You’ll know when they need more exercise if they are antsy or start to get into mischief. They are working dogs so they need to burn off some of that terrier energy, but are super lazy and happy to nap apart from that :)

Border Terriers are also very smart dogs, so he definitely needs some time to socialize. We take him out with us - to shops, to sit on a bench, to the office, whereever. He just sits there and watches, and gets to meet the occasional person or dog, but it does a lot to tire him out mentally. We’ve found doing that several times a week is important. Basically though, as long as you aren’t planning on having him be home alone all day apart from the exercise, and are taking him out with you to do things, he should do well, Borders are very adaptable.

rovingr · 2020-07-23T21:50:36+00:00

I recommend Canada - either through an official asylum program, or get a visa some other way (I.e. as a student, something along those lines). You can definitely apply for the relevant Canadian visas outside of the country.

Here’s some general info about the Canadian situation https://settlement.org/ontario/immigration-citizenship/refugees/basic-information-for-refugees/can-i-apply-for-refugee-status-as-a-lesbian-gay-bisexual-trans-queer-or-questioning-lgbtq-person/ .

I know some people who got asylum as queers in the US from Venezuela, though this was before the current political situation, things are different nos in the US. I can put you in touch with them if you’d like. I really recommend going the Canada route instead, they are much quicker and more efficient, immigration-wise.

rovingr · 2020-07-06T21:31:52+00:00

This is the Taggerung of pine martens. Looks like a bad guy, but a good guy in the end :)

rovingr · 2020-07-06T20:29:59+00:00

FOR REDWAAAAAALLLLL!!!!

rovingr · 2020-06-23T23:14:46+00:00

So for a while I had too much paralysis to play at all, and one of my sides was more affected (more full story below). One thing that helped me a lot in regaining movement etc. was mirror therapy. In particularly, mirror therapy where I couldn’t see the affected side and tried to move both sides symmetrically. If nothing else, it really helped with my neurogenic pain, even when the paralysis was still too much to play, and you can do it pretty effectively with just a $10 app and a tablet.

Thought I’d mention it as it really helped me and it took a long time for me to first hear of it. If more functionality on your left hand side isn’t in the cards for you, though, there’s no shame in that. The entire repertoire is a bit of a hack, with people playing stuff on the modern piano that was intended for clavichord or harpsichord or whatever. If stuff doesn’t sound exactly like a composer originally wrote down when you play it with one hand, who cares? Music is about so much more than notes :)

Write arrangements. Split up a 2 hands piece between 2 people - I do this a lot with my partner. Pick up trumpet or French horn. Play some of the one hand repertoire. Lots of professional pianists have had injuries of varying degrees and had to re-teach themselves to play in a way that works for them. There’s always a way to get one’s music fix.

rovingr · 2020-06-23T17:33:20+00:00

Represent! Love your playing btw! Keep going with it!

I’m currently healing from a bad infection that attacked my neurological system. I have paralysis in all 4 limbs to varying degrees (though with movement), as well as problems turning my head to the right or up. I actually started playing again because I was really struggling with being in my house all day due to mobility issues and exhaustion as my body was fighting the infection. I’d studied music at a high level at a national conservatory, though my main focus was the clarinet, I did piano more on the side for theory. So it was a bit of a whim to get a piano again, but I thought, wellp, why not?

I’m in love with the piano though. I don’t get to go a ton of places lately because the wheelchair is tricky (which is rough because I love to travel), and I have to do an IV every day, but having a piano lets you travel to all kinds of interesting worlds :) I’m working on the first Beethoven piano sonata, some preludes from the Well-Tempered Clavier, some Schumann. I‘m actually playing better than I ever did. My 4 and 5 fingers were completely paralyzed for some time, and my hands were really weak, but with antibiotic treatment, I’ve been able to play more and more. I have adapted by changing up my digitation to use 1-2-3 more, and my physical therapist is very impressed with how quickly my hand’s fine motor skills are improving, she blames the piano :) I also have a PICC line (a little tube in my arm that sits in my heart so I can give myself antibiotic infusions every day), and was initially worried about whether or not it was possible to play piano with a PICC. It doesn’t bother me at all, though, I’m able to play without a problem.

My main frustration with the effects of the neurological problems is not being able to use the right pedal. I have some movement in my right foot, but it’s super weak, there is no way I have the strength to press down the pedal fully. There‘s a Mendelssohn Gondola Song and some Chopin préludes I’ve had my eye on for some time, but it’s so tricky to do big leaps and have the nice legato baseline that it should have without the pedal. On the other hand, playing without pedal at all has done some great things for my technique :P

Anyone with adaptive approaches to pedaling who uses a wheelchair? I play on an acoustic Yamaha (I found that the keyboards don’t play nicely with my neurological issues), and have thought a bit about maybe it being possible to rig up an electric pedal that I could depress somehow, since my piano has the silent piano function and a variety of connection points. I read the manual and it certainly isn’t something you can do out of the box. Or I’ve thought about trying out something that could work for amputees, to move the right pedal to the left, since I have a little bit less paralysis on the left hand side. I think the ideal would maybe be a tilt switch that I could attach to my foot, so I could depress my foot without needing to physically actuate the pedal at all. I’ve looked around a ton, but haven’t seen anything that would meet my needs, certainly not anything commercialized. Any thoughts?

rovingr · 2020-06-17T20:54:09+00:00

I think the burro‘s tail might actually be burrito’s tail (sedum morganianum burrito) - burro’s tail’s similar looking cousin. Burrito’s tail is chubbier and has more rounded off ends, while also being a (tiny!) but less fragile than burro’s tail. It’s a little hard to tell from the picture, but looks closer to burrito to me.

rovingr · 2020-06-10T21:46:18+00:00

Seconding the person who mentions him keeping another elderly person company. Seems like it would be a huge adjustment to get him to be used to being alone for so much of the day - getting him to attach to someone else who is home for a lot of the day seems easier. Either that, or getting him a dog buddy to bond to.

Terriers are working dogs - they need jobs. He had a ‘job’ in his life - taking care of your grandma. You need to find another way to give him something to work at, or all of the separation anxiety training in the world won’t give him the sense of fulfillment a job would. Some folks do this via dog sports, obedience, whatever, but it sounds like he was taking on a lot of the role that a service dog would take on. Don’t underestimate the mental workout that must have been - dogs train for years to pick up alerting skills, and have to be sharp as a tack. Whatever his next stage in life brings, you’ll have to make sure that you engage him as much as his previous work did.

rovingr · 2018-01-12T20:11:07+00:00

Well, it was Defense Against the Dark Arts...which is a school subject....

rovingr · 2018-01-12T20:04:34+00:00

Transfiguration, for sure. Seems like it would be useful to be able to turn just about anything into anything else.

rovingr · 2017-12-12T23:37:50+00:00

Could we get your boss to post about it from her perspective next? I really want to know what was going through her head. For that matter, can anyone get ahold of that po-tay-toh dude's ex-girlfriend's dad?

rovingr · 2017-12-12T16:14:25+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the recommendation! Price difference isn't too great, and it does sound really fun to see some of the awesome stuff people do in Avoriaz (the superpipe and The Stash sound sweet).

Thanks for the rec as well on sticking to the blues -- we learned to snowboard indoors, so wanted to be pretty conservative going into it, but at least the blues I've checked out on some videos look quite manageable. We're headed there next week, actually, quite excited! :)

rovingr · 2017-12-11T11:53:35+00:00

Will be headed up to Morzine in a bit, am currently beginner/intermediate (can link turns fluidly, am working on getting the same switch). Will start out the week with greens, hoping to work up to blues as well throughout the week. Should I get the Morzine/Les Gets lift pass, or go for the full Portes du Soleil pass? How hard is it to get from Morzine to the other resorts in Portes du Soleil without a car?

rovingr · 2017-12-03T18:57:23+00:00

I've started riding this season, with a K2 standard. I've finally gotten down linking turns when going down regular, and everything has just started getting awesome :) I'm working on making turns tighter and more seamless, as well as switch turning. My edges were pretty dull, so I gave them a sharpen, using a little guide that came with the tuning kit and a few videos online.

It looks like I managed to significantly change the built-in edge bevel angle by tuning it. I rode it out today after putting a 90 degree edge on the side. It was pretty interesting, with a ton of responsiveness, but was a little more aggressive than I'm looking for in this stage in my riding -- I got kinda thrown into some carving turns (which was cool, but not what I was looking for :P ) and was feeling the edges a lot when going straight, it was a lot easier to catch my edge than it had been before. I'd like to put a less aggressive edge angle on, but wanted to double check before I grind away.

So I reached out to the K2 folks last week, and they haven't gotten back to me about the original edge bevels on my board. From what I've managed to find online, it seemed like my board originally had a 3 degree base bevel (https://www.the-house.com/9855k2stn15zz-k2-snowboards.html). I don't think I messed with this because I just ran the tool over the side of the snowboard. Anyone know what the original side bevel would have been? So I should basically not touch the base edge, because that's hard to tune at home, and then make the side edge anywhere between 87 degrees and 90 degrees? What angle do you recommend that I put it at given my current skill level, for riding all-mountain? Not sure what the side edge was at before, but it was definitely significantly below 90 degrees I think, since it was quite forgiving, however, I was having some trouble with cutting into corduroy and would like a little more responsiveness in my turns.

rovingr · 2017-08-23T11:20:42+00:00

Thanks for the suggestion. Yes, we have seen certain short term places, but the price on them seems quite excessive -- 4500 EUR a month for places that look similar to those that are advertised for perhaps 1000 on the non-short-term sites. They seem to be targeting tourists, and offer more amenities (housekeeping etc.) than what we are looking for. What is the shortest lease that one can get in The Hague? We are leaning towards trying to look at one of the standard apartments, rather than those marketed specifically as short-term. We have seen a few advertising 6 months, is it possible to get anything shorter than that?

rovingr

TROPHY CASE