Bryce Moore's Blog, page 27

Farmington Fair on an Off Day

We had planned to go to the fair on Monday, as we usually do. Mondays they have ride bracelets, so the kids can ride as many rides as they want for one price. However, the rain had different plans. Monday wasn’t an option, so we had to reevaluate. We’ve gone Wednesday before (the other ride bracelet day), but it’s been such a bad experience: so, so, so many people. Huge lines. Just chaos.

So instead, we decided to go yesterday on my birthday. It was the first time we’ve tried going on a night that didn’t have ride bracelets. On the one hand, it was much more expensive per ride. I spent $40 on tickets, and each ride cost about $5. On the other hand, there was no one there. The place felt empty compared to all the other times we’ve been. That meant that there were no lines at all. The girls went on 5 rides total, and it took a fraction of the time.

Did they go on as many rides? No. Was the experience better? Yes. We managed to do everything we wanted to do and still be home by 7:30. Honestly, I’m leaning heavily toward only going on off nights in the future. It’s definitely better than a Wednesday. Debatably better than Monday. If you have kids who just want to go on a ton of rides, Monday might still make more sense.

We entered a bunch of different things in the fair as well. Denisa had some vegetables and herbs that won ribbons, Daniela won three first place ribbons for bracelets she’d made, MC cleaned up with crafts and paintings, and I won a ribbon for a leather-bound book I made for Daniela at Christmas.

All told, a successful fair experience, even on our 17th time going.

On Birthdays: 2023 Edition

It looks like it’s that time of year again! My Facebook feed is exploding with well wishes, and I’ve got people knowing about my birthday left and right in person. (I have many complaints about Facebook, but this is not one of them. I think it’s great that it gives people something small like this to connect over, though I am a habitually terrible Happy Birthday wisher.)

When you’re a kid, a birthday is an extremely exciting event. I mean, cake and presents? How does it get any better? I think it’s also big, because people pay extra attention to you that day, and attention’s something that’s far more important than people give it credit for. (In fact, just on Tuesday I was learning in my psychology class how one of the worst things a parent can do for a child is just be indifferent to them. I mean, not that abuse is preferred, but simply ignoring or not caring about a child makes a big impact on them.)

When you’re older, some of the shine wears off birthdays. You’re able to eat cake whenever you want to, and if you really want something, you can usually just buy it. However, when you’re a parent of kids still living at home, some of that birthday glow lingers longer. I know for MC, anyone having a birthday is a Big Event. Daniela also really tries hard to make the day special whenever someone has a birthday in the house.

At the same time, each time a birthday rolls around, you can’t help but reflect on the inevitable fact that you’re getting older. How old? Captain Picard was 47 when The Next Generation started. So was Doc Brown in the first Back to the Future. When I watched those as a kid, those two people were undeniable Very Old. Not very very old, but close enough. Now I’m just two years away from them.

They don’t seem that old anymore. (It helps that Picard is still going strong in the new Picard series, and now he looks very very old. As opposed to me. Who is not.

For so long, it feels like there are so many possibilities open to you. You’ve got plenty of time to make real changes and accomplish cool things. But as those birthdays start racking up, you gradually start to see that maybe not everything is actually possible. Or at least, much of it is becoming less and less likely. Some of that realization can be pretty stressful. No doubt it’s where many a mid-life crisis comes from, as people realize the person they thought they’d want to be isn’t who they’ve become, or that at least the person they’ve become isn’t who they ultimately think they want to be. (How’s that for an easy to understand sentence?)

I’ve written before that birthdays really should be like leveling up. You’ve made it to another mile marker, and in video games, that’s a very good thing. Still, it can be hard to keep that in mind every year, year after year. (But having a birthday each year sure beats the alternative.)

As I was walking to work this morning, I thought for a bit about whether I’d rather go back and relive one of my earlier years. Pick a year, any year, from your life, and go back and run it again. Let’s assume for the theoretical that you end up making the same choices. (No fair using later experience to fix things. That causes issues with the space time continuum, you know.) Would you want senior year of high school again? How about some time during college? Or maybe just go way back to when all you had to worry about was Saturday morning cartoons?

My conclusion was basically, no thanks. First, I can’t think of a single year that didn’t have its fair share of difficulties. Experiences that I’m glad to be done with. (Or maybe the word is “relieved.”) Yes, there are highs, but there are also lows. Both in things that happened to me and decisions I made. And the fact of the matter is that no amount of looking backward will really do anything for you now. I try to remember that in a year or two or ten, I’ll be looking back at what I’m doing now.

Better to live each year like it’s one you’d end up wanting to relive, if you had a chance. Theoretically, I’m getting better at this whole “being alive” thing. I’ve got more practice at it, anyway.

In any case, thanks for all the birthday wishes. I appreciate them.

What Makes Something “Young Adult”?

I read reviews and chatter about books online. It comes with the territory of being an author and librarian. And a personal pet peeve of mine is when books are dismissed as being “too young adult.” (I mean, of course it would irritate me, seeing as how I write young adult literature. I’d like to make a particular side note of an even bigger pet peeve: when adults criticize a YA book for being “too YA.” That’s like me getting angry that my chocolate ice cream tastes like chocolate.)

From context, I gather that when people talk about something being Young Adult, they’re using shorthand for it being too simple, or too short, or too fast paced, or even possibly for being written in first person point of view. They also might not like that there aren’t adult themes, or graphic sex, or . . . I don’t know. I can’t figure everything out.

I don’t think I’m irritated by the fact that some people prefer books that are slow paced or very lyrical or whatever. To each their own. No, I think what really gets my goat is when people use someone else’s favorite style as a way to put down or dismiss something in that art form. Although as I think about it, perhaps this is hypocritical of me. I don’t like Grape Nuts. This is a well-established fact. But my critiques of Grape Nuts center themselves around the qualities of the “cereal” that I dislike. Namely, how it has the consistency and taste that bring a certain je ne sais quoi to mind. Let’s call it . . . cat litter.

(Then again, as I think on it, perhaps there really are people out there who like to eat cat litter, and so I shouldn’t be so dismissive of it.)

Would I ever said something tasted too much like Grape Nuts? I suppose I might, if I had a bowl of cat litter for breakfast? But if I were to do that, wouldn’t it kind of be my own darn fault for choosing to eat something I know I generally don’t like?

If you don’t like YA books, don’t read YA books. But if you read an adult book and feel like it’s too fast or too whatever, just say that, instead of saying it’s “too YA.”

This makes perfect sense in my head, but I worry it isn’t translating itself well into blog form. Oh well. Some days you’ve got grapes and nuts, and some days you’ve got Grape Nuts.

Missionary Parent: One Year In

Today marks the anniversary of Tomas’s first day as a missionary. I’ve been taking some time to think back on how the year has gone. As I imagine most would expect, it went very quickly and very slowly at the same time. We check in with him once a week, and often it feels like there’s been almost no time at all since the last time we talked to him. The first few months he was gone felt very long, but it’s picked up quite a bit since then. Yesterday when we talked to him, I realized that we’re now swinging around to the time when we have to begin thinking about prepping for what happens when he comes home. What classes he’ll take. Where he’ll live. Stuff like that. It’s not an urgent need or anything, but also not something that should slip off the radar.

Having him leave was definitely very difficult. I think if he’d gone to college first, it wouldn’t have been as hard. Knowing that he’d be gone for two years was a lot, and having him be the first of my kids to leave made that even more difficult. I still miss him. There are still a lot of things I did with him that no one else in the family really likes to do the same. Watching BYU football games isn’t as much fun, for example. And for some reason the rest of my family just doesn’t seem to care as much about video games and martial arts movies. I don’t get it.

At the same time, it’s been very rewarding seeing how much he’s growing while he’s away. I think it’ll be a challenge for me to not treat him as a kid anymore when he comes back. He definitely won’t be one anymore, but it’ll take some effort to break old routines. It’s a fine line to walk right now, being excited for him to come home, but not wanting to distract him too much from what he’s been doing. Having been on a mission myself, I know how much faster the second year goes than the first. It’s easier to make the transition back to “normal person” when you can give the mission the attention it needs while you’re there.

In any case, I’m short on time today, and I can’t say anything else. It’s been an interesting experience, and one that I’m glad to now have some practice with, because that first time was very rough.

Apple Watch: Seven Years On

With the announcement of the latest update to the Apple Watch line, I started wondering just how long it’s been that I’ve had mine. A little bit of spelunking in my Gmail got me the answer: 7 years. That’s pretty surprising, honestly. Am I still happy with it? Do I want to get a new one?

First, the happiness scale. Overall, I don’t have a ton of complaints, though I don’t know how much I’m really putting the watch to use. For reference, I’ve got a series 1, so it doesn’t get any older than what I’m using. I put it on the charger each evening before I go to sleep, and then I put it on first thing in the morning. It usually runs out of batteries about 14-15 hours after I’ve charged it. During the day, I use the watch to track my activity level. It doesn’t always do a perfect job knowing when I’ve been active and when I haven’t, and that’s an irritation, though nothing to the point that makes me want to get a new watch. I get updates from Facebook Messenger and iMessages, and Ring lets me know whenever someone’s at the front door. One of the most important things I use my watch for is to ping my iPhone, so I can find it when I lose it. (This is a regular occurrence.)

In theory, I should be able to use Siri on the watch, but I’ve found that it really struggles to do that, and so I usually don’t try to put it to the test. There are a number of apps on the watch that I also don’t use, probably because they don’t seem to work all that well on my older model.

I would like to use my watch to track my sleep, but I’ve been reluctant to do it, just because I haven’t really thought about when to charge the watch, since I charge it over night. That said, I searched a bit online to see how people handle the charging time, and the suggestion is to just charge it before you go to sleep. I might give that a shot, though I’m not sure how well the battery will hold up. A seven year old battery is already doing well just to be chugging along.

Having my watch on means I’m pretty much always available, for better or for worse. If someone calls my phone, it almost always rings on my watch as well. Is that healthy? I’m not sure, to be honest. Thirty years ago, someone could call you, and if you weren’t home, you didn’t answer. If you didn’t want to answer, they wouldn’t know you weren’t home. Now? If I don’t answer, it’s likely because I’m busy, but I think there’s still a higher expectation of availability. And ten years ago, if you didn’t answer your email right away, there wasn’t a big expectation that you would, because you might just be away from your computer for a while. Now? I feel like those lines are much blurrier, and the truth is that having a smart watch only fuzzes them more.

Enough for me not to have it? I don’t think so, but it’s definitely something to keep an eye on.

So seven years in, am I going to buy a new smart watch? After all, Apple just came out with the Series 9. It does a few more things, and I’m sure it would handle some of what I do more effectively, but I’m going to stick with what I’ve got for now. It works well enough. If I get to the point where the battery’s not up to snuff anymore, I’ll explore new options, but for now, I just don’t see enough difference for me to want to consider the additional expense.

Hurricane Lee and Me

I live in Maine, and people keep hearing about Hurricane Lee and Maine, so I suppose it’s no wonder I’ve also been asked “What’s happening with the hurricane?” a fair bit. We don’t get hurricanes here in Maine very often (and it doesn’t look like we’re going to get one this time, either), but I can just update you all at once about what’s up with the storm in my corner of the state.

Honestly, I’m not expecting it to amount to much for me. It will be windy. Right now they’re saying wind should top out at 26mph by me. It’s definitely been windier here before. We’re supposed to get .2 inches of rain. That’s . . . pretty much nothing. Of course, the eastern part of the state has things a bit differently. They’re looking at about 4 inches of rain and 33mph winds. That’s definitely a lot of rain, even for here, especially with how waterlogged the ground is already. (It’s been a very wet summer.) I was just talking to someone in Machias, and the university closed campus today at noon, requiring all students to head elsewhere. (They provided housing for them at the flagship campus in Orono, if they needed it, it sounded like.)

It’s helped that the hurricane’s path kept pushing eastward, putting us more and more out of the way of it. I think it’s possible we’ll lose power some, and the apple harvests might be hit by this, but by and large, I’m hoping for a fairly normal weekend.

Of course, weather forecasts have been wrong before, and I wonder if I’m jinxing myself by typing this. (I can just see it now: the Hurricane Pilot getting an urgent message. “Bryce said he thinks he’ll be fine!” And just like that, the Pilot spins the wheel to the left, changing course as fast as possible . . .)

A Few Political Thoughts: 2023 Edition

No matter how much I try to ignore it, I have to face the fact that another presidential election year is staggering toward me, lolling from side to side like some sort of deranged zombie, and I’m just staring at it in horror, unable to move. It’s especially discouraging this year because I have little hope that it’ll be anything other than a mulligan of 2020’s election. If Trump is once more selected by the Republicans as their candidate, I’ll have no choice but to vote against him. That said, I’ve been unimpressed at best with Biden. A trained cocker spaniel would be better than Trump, but that doesn’t mean we have to just go for whatever we’ve got lying around.

I was thinking this morning over my voting record. It really has bounced back and forth, when it comes to presidential elections:

2000: George W. Bush. Didn’t even think twice, mainly because I was 22 and didn’t think twice all that often. Those were the days when I was a staunch Republican.2004: George W. Bush. See above. Same explanation.2008: Barack Obama. I was on the fence about McCain. I thought he had the potential to be a good president, but then he went and picked Sarah Palin as his running mate, and any chance I’d vote for him went out the window. It was a colossal failure of judgement.2012: Mitt Romney. I still think Romney would have been a great president, and I’m disappointed he never got his shot. This was an election cycle where my faith in The System really went down the drain. I knew Romney tangentially. A friend of the family, and a well known church figure in the northeast. The way he was portrayed in the press was very disillusioning, and permanently changed the way I view public figures. At this point, I always remind myself that I don’t know any of them. I only know what I’ve been told. I think in hindsight, people should recognize Romney was the real deal. Yes, perhaps a bit stiff, but genuinely interested in doing the right thing. The fact that he was one of the few to stand up to Trump, and that he’s now bowed out of any further Senate runs, only furthers my opinion of him.2016: Hilary Clinton. I didn’t view this as a political decision. I viewed it as a moral one. I will never vote for a person as reprehensible as Donald Trump, regardless of ticket. This was a case where I didn’t have to wonder if the press was portraying him unfairly. All I had to do was listen to him speak, and he gleefully showed exactly who he was.2020: Joe Biden. See above. Same explanation.

There is a very good chance I would have voted Republican all three times I voted Democrat, if only the Republicans could have fielded a ticket I could get behind. Of course, that was back when I had some respect for the Republican party, and it would have implied they would have rejected Trump. Instead, they seem hellbent on picking Trump again, and if they don’t pick Trump again, they seem to want to pick someone about as bad.

When Romney stepped aside, he said “At the end of another term, I’d be in my mid-80s. Frankly, it’s time for a new generation of leaders. They’re the ones that need to make the decisions that will shape the world they will be living in.” I completely agree. Joe Biden is 80 right now. Donald Trump is 77. Age doesn’t preclude people from being outstanding leaders, but our government is making decisions for a future very few members of that government will have to live in. Obama is 62 now. He was 47 when he was elected. More of that, please.

My respect for Biden would spike if he openly acknowledged this and stepped aside. But that’s not a bet I’d take in a hurry. So instead, will we end up with 2020, but with legal proceedings?

I’m going to go back to ignoring this as long as I can . . .

Tomas Update: Week 15 in Trenčín

Ahojte všetci! Not much time this week, so just a quick update on things – 

– 17 people at church this week (!)

– getting fed very well by the members here

– the blanket continues to grow

– two baptismal interviews in Žilina (!!!)

– random Blava pday since our district abandoned us (+ cool city pictures )

Things are well here, just very very busy

But we are doing good and our friends are all well, plus things have really started picking up lately. Still anticipating fall here and I love seeing the leaves start to fall. Also I hit a year out like next week soooo

Anyways that’s about all I’ve got for this week, keeping it brief for once. Hope you’re all well, and excited to see the great colors back home. Pictures: 

https://photos.app.goo.gl/GHgGUxN4X6y5nvio8

S láskou,

Starší Cundick 

Television Review: Picard Season 1

I’m a fan of Star Trek, though I’m also far from a Trekkie. I’ve seen most of the movies, and a lot of the television shows, though not nearly all of them. Denisa and I watched some of The Next Generation together a while ago, and it was fun, but also not riveting enough for us to stick with it. The “Problem of the Week” style of television that used to be dominant just doesn’t quite do it for me. But I’d heard good things about Picard, so we decided to give it a shot.

We finished the first season last night, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It definitely leans heavily on the nostalgia factor to make it feel really great, but the story stood alone pretty well. Picard, long since retired, heads back to space to try and save the galaxy one more time. It was a lot of fun to see many of the old crew members pop up here and there, and the new crew members Picard assembles are each pretty well done.

Is it a show that will make a Star Trek fan out of anyone? Probably not. But if you’re into sci-fi shows and have dabbled in Star Trek off and on, it’s worth your while. It was odd to have them make the decision to throw in random F words into the show. I suppose they thought that’s what it takes for a show to be taken seriously these days? I mean, I’m glad they didn’t decide to make Picard suddenly start swearing like a pirate, but still. There’s something about profanity that feels antithetical to me in Star Trek. I’d always looked at it as a show that’s family friendly in nature, more or less. Maybe I missed something in the later series that I’ve never seen. Still, good to be aware of, since the show’s officially rated TV14, and I could see a number of people being surprised and unhappy to have the bad language pop up. (Again, not everywhere. Just once or twice an episode, which somehow made it stand out even more.)

The bottom line is that I’m up for season two, and I look forward to seeing what exactly they do with the show from here on out. 7/10.

Disney+ for Language Learning

I’m still on my language learning kick, trying to study Slovak once a day. (Well, Slovak on Mondly. Duolingo still doesn’t do Slovak, so I do Czech, instead.) I’m up to 250 days in a row, as of yesterday. Is it working? Um . . . definitely not as well as actually taking a class in it, speaking as someone who’s taken a number of languages. However, some of that is because I don’t devote an hour a day to the lessons. Usually it’s more like 10 minutes. On the other hand, it’s definitely teaching me the language better than the “nothing” I did for years before then. (Go figure.)

However, today’s post isn’t about those apps. It’s about how very impressive the subtitle and dubbing options are on Disney+. The other day, Denisa and MC watched Cinderella in Slovak with English subtitles. Last night, the whole family did the same with Princess and the Frog. We could also have done just Slovak subtitles. And it’s more than just Slovak. On the Lion King, they have 24 different languages for dubbing and subtitles. That’s a seriously impressive amount.

Do they have it for all languages and every movie? No. But compare this to what I used to have to do to watch movies in Slovak. It involved buying the DVDs in Slovakia, and then jailbreaking a DVD player in America to make it region-free. So that meant we had very few options to watch, and we could only watch them in one spot. As DVDs became more and more out of date, it also meant that I had to go to special lengths to make sure the DVD player I was using still worked.

Now? I just open the same app we use to watch the movies in English, and I press a couple of buttons to select the language. Easy. (And easy increases the odds we’ll actually do it.)

So, how well are my language skills coming along? Based on yesterday’s viewing, they’re actually better than I thought they’d be. I think it would be most useful for me to watch the movies in Slovak with Slovak subtitles, because a large part of understanding a language comes down to being able to tell what they’re actually saying. I could get a number of words and phrases, but there were many many strings where I could barely catch a word.

Anyway. If you’re interested in learning languages, I definitely recommend watching some media in the language of choice. These days, it’s so easy to do, it’s kind of a no-brainer.