What did you do this weekend?

I spent four days with the Tinder date, visited some cafes, went to the beach, did a few walks, went out for dinner and lunch, and also made brekkie together. He's so dreamy and cute and all those adjectives you'd ever want.

Before I'd left he'd already booked flights down to see me this upcoming weekend. It's going better than perfect, and to be honest my brain is still trying to process it all—which isn't leaving much room for trying to be a productive human in society.

Went to New Orleans yesterday for the big parade day! It was a lot of fun, and thankfully no one else got run over. They've had a real problem this year with two people being run over by floats. They had to ban "tandem" floats, even.

I mostly spent the day sitting in my chair, but I had a ton of fun watching all the people walking around and everything. I love crowds.

Baked 24 cupcakes and made 12 cake pops. I made buttercream frosting for the first time but had to hand mix it so I'm not sure if the consistency was 100% right. It was a lot of cupcakes but the cake pops were harder and my SO and I fumbled transporting them so I dropped one but it wasn't missed.

Also went to Ikea to get some odds and ends, hooked up my surface to a monitor so I finally have a big screen (was harder than you would think but only because I'm a fool) and generally just tried to decompress. It was busier than usual which is okay but I don't want to make a habit out of it lol.

Sunday was the Armed Forces Day in Russia and much of the CIS. In reality, men are celebrated – as proxy for warriors of the state – not just soldiers. Oddly enough, instead of a pair of socks and a bottle of shower gel – a gift so common it was a meme before memes existed – I got cash and a box of chocolates.

On Saturday my father, I, and my parents' dog went to the dacha to dig the greenhouse out of snow. The temperature's been drifting between positive and negative degrees Celsius, so the snow melted, compressed, and got heavy because of it. It took us three hours to settle (by digging the path to the house first), make a path between the house and the greenhouse, and get rid of all the snow on the top of the thing.

Quite a bit of work that I enjoyed, especially given how entirely devoid of movement my current lifestyle is. The dog – a one-year-old Pomeranian called Mickey (imagine this one but cream-colored, and you get a very good picture of what Mickey looks like) – didn't want to stay inside, no matter how cold it was, and spent much of the time in the snow, barking at the neighbours working outside. Didn't want to leave the dacha, either: when my father and I left, he just sat there by the door, looking into the court, as if to say "Let's go back!". No wonder: he lived there all last summer, when he was but a few months old still.

Updated the mod a little. Added the rest of the suits and early modules. Progress is somewhat slow... partly because I'm ahead of the curve of the game's development process. (Which is amusing to me.) The team behind the game is currently working on implementing the very things I need to make the suits work exactly as I envision them: mainly, custom effects for items. There's been some work done on those, but it's not promising that the project for implementing this part of the engine is part of the next major release, which is months away.

Work and work.

But I've made the decision to take my vacation week this year in March to visit my friend in Seattle! I'm really looking forward to seeing her again.

Not much.

I live in one of the epicenters of the Brazilian Carnaval (yes, it's unique enough for me to use "Carnaval" instead of the generic "Carnival"). The entire neighborhood becomes a HUGE party that attracts millions of people from all over Brazil and around the world to jump and drink and kiss around trios elétricos — big trucks that project sound powerful enough to put many concerts to shame.

It's a monumental annual event that happens in many forms and shapes around the country, this is how it happens in my state. In my vicinities, it basically lasts seven fucking days.

I don't like Carnaval myself, but I have to live with it. It also increases the value of my apartment, so it's worth it, I guess.

The sound comes unimpeded to my bedroom window, so my sleep schedule is dictated by it.

At the same time, my sister is here with my brother in law and my godson, so that is awesome.

I did manage to read two Todd Solondz's screenplays and half of Woody Allen's Midnight in Paris, as research for my next project.

I flew up to Seattle to see a friend that I don't get to see very often in person. Got to try some good food, went on the "Underworld" tour, hiked the old Mailbox trail and drank some beer/wine. My favorite part was getting to use my new YakTrax on the ice and snow. I felt like a goat hiking up and down the mountain.

Not much of anything, and this state of affair is going to continue for at least a week: there have been a few cases of COVID-19 in Lombardia, and so the Milano area is going on a soft lockdown for a while. Schools and universities are closed, like also night clubs and most places where people tend to congregate.

Public transport is still working, and supermarkets should be open during the week, but people are panicking to an absurd degree. I went to do a bit of shopping yesterday - I didn't actually need anything, but I wanted to pick up some salad and a few other odds and ends - but nada. By 17, the vegetables aisle was completely empty, save for four coconuts which were staring mournfully at each other. There was no meat, no milk, and even the refrigerated counter looked like it was looted.

The situation is just ridiculous right now. I hope that things will calm down, and I'm going to try my luck again tomorrow, but I'm not too worried. I'm just going to bunker down and get some rest.

Went on an off-trail guided cave trip with my 14- and 17-year old daughters (the Indiana Caverns "Deep Darkness" tour). Roughly: 93-foot ladder, 100 feet rope descent, half a mile or so of walking cave (well, walking and wading up to our hips in places), kayaking including a long stretch where there wasn't much headroom and you had to kayak by pulling yourself along with your hands on the roof, then reverse and come back out with a few side trips for crawls and squeezes.

It was fun and I survived, but at my age it's going to take a while to recover.

Wife and I took our fairly young child to their first rock concert. Amazing 10/10 experience for whole family.

For you parents who are horrified right now... It was a rock concert specifically designed for children: Volume stays well under 70 db, no strobe lights, they engaged with children, including one song with a parachute overhead (Sidebar: wtf other parents holding the parachute....a toy parachute is meant to be waved at least a little, not held steady like a tent). Best of all show was cheap, in the afternoon, and about 1.5 hour long.

And this wasn't children's songs. Each event they have a cover band performing real songs from that band (although some lyrics changed for family friendlyness).

TBH better than some other concerts I've attended, if only because my ears weren't ringing after.

It was a fairly relaxed weekend. Spent it with my partner and it was full of just sitting on a couch and napping, except for Saturday evening. We went out with some of her friends to a steakhouse and unintentionally watched the end of the NLL game between Saskatchewan Rush and someone else (I don't follow lacrosse), and then watched the first two fights of the boxing matches that night.

Watched the main event from that night on Sunday, and I feel bad for Wilder. It's a rough hit he took, but he did what he could afterward even if it isn't much. Then just more relaxing, some groceries in the late afternoon, and played some vidya gaemz while watching my friend's online D&D session she was streaming on Twitch.

Finally finished mounting a 10 280W solar panel array. It took some weekends, but it is finally done, i feel so happy :)

I'm on a small trip and it's been awesome, I've read the news about the coronavirus this morning though, not a good time to do a trip in Europe !

I got my cheap fretless bass uke, which has re-opened bass playing for me in ways I didn't anticipate. It's a bit more fun than the Squier Jazz Bass i have, simply because it's fretless. I've been trying to work out some bass bits so I can revisit the songs on other instruments.

Like /MrBig said, we have carnaval here in Brazil. I live in a generic poor suburb/periphery region in São Paulo City so no allegorical cars came anywhere near me, thankfully for me but unfortunately for my parents, who both went to the concerts in the middle of the city, who probably took one or 2 hours to reach city center, meaning they come back around 8 p.m, which puts me off.