Happy things thread!

[Raphael]

Remember how, a while ago, I reported that the contractor company in charge of collecting wastepaper around here had missed several waste collection days? Well, a while after they had returned to doing their jobs, we have now, that is, yesterday, finally gotten around to taking out our backlog of wastepaper to the wastepaper bin at a moment when it had been almost empty. Took some effort, but was well worth it. Ah, the joy of having gotten something done!

[bradrn]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

[Raphael]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

I guess I should congratulate you on a happy experience you had been looking forward to. But the part of my brain that keeps saying "What, snow in early April?" is getting in the way.

[bradrn]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

I guess I should congratulate you on a happy experience you had been looking forward to. But the part of my brain that keeps saying "What, snow in early April?" is getting in the way.

It’s odd, yes. Especially since we got none all winter! (Or at most a few snowflakes drifting down and melting as soon as they touched anything.)

[Travis B.]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

You sound like someone who hasn't lived with (and driven in) snow every winter -- lol. I for one, like many in these parts, welcome the end of snow for another season.

[bradrn]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

You sound like someone who hasn't lived with (and driven in) snow every winter -- lol. I for one, like many in these parts, welcome the end of snow for another season.

No, I’m not, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all winter. Of course, we just got a light dusting here, which melted almost as soon as the sun came out — quite different to the huge buildup of snow you get over there. (And even so apparently there was trouble on the roads.)

[Travis B.]

Finally, we got snow today! It was really cool to see.

You sound like someone who hasn't lived with (and driven in) snow every winter -- lol. I for one, like many in these parts, welcome the end of snow for another season.

No, I’m not, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all winter. Of course, we just got a light dusting here, which melted almost as soon as the sun came out — quite different to the huge buildup of snow you get over there. (And even so apparently there was trouble on the roads.)

I can imagine coming from a place where it doesn't snow and wishing to just see snow in a place where it allegedly snows, and having to wait all the way till spring, when it likely seems like it might not snow at all, before getting the chance to see snow for once.

[bradrn]

You sound like someone who hasn't lived with (and driven in) snow every winter -- lol. I for one, like many in these parts, welcome the end of snow for another season.

No, I’m not, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all winter. Of course, we just got a light dusting here, which melted almost as soon as the sun came out — quite different to the huge buildup of snow you get over there. (And even so apparently there was trouble on the roads.)

I can imagine coming from a place where it doesn't snow and wishing to just see snow in a place where it allegedly snows, and having to wait all the way till spring, when it likely seems like it might not snow at all, before getting the chance to see snow for once.

Precisely!

(It makes a welcome change from all the rain, I will say that for it…)

[Travis B.]

No, I’m not, and I’ve been looking forward to seeing it all winter. Of course, we just got a light dusting here, which melted almost as soon as the sun came out — quite different to the huge buildup of snow you get over there. (And even so apparently there was trouble on the roads.)

I can imagine coming from a place where it doesn't snow and wishing to just see snow in a place where it allegedly snows, and having to wait all the way till spring, when it likely seems like it might not snow at all, before getting the chance to see snow for once.

Precisely!

(It makes a welcome change from all the rain, I will say that for it…)

Snow is typically more pleasant to be in than rain, but rain is typically more pleasant to drive in than snow unless it is particularly torrential.

[lëtzeshark]

We had a few days of snow flurries the last week of March here in the Grand Duchy, but I also remember getting snow in southeastern Germany on 1 April about four years ago (and we had 21ºC weather to start that week!). There was quite a bit more snow here in Luxembourg this year, though, but the bulk of it was during the period when I was in the US for Christmas (and my family in North Carolina also got some snow at the beginning of February!).

Happy: tomorrow (Monday) is a holiday here in Luxembourg (Easter Monday), and I think I need a day off after all the craziness involved in preparing for this conference. Notably, this also starts the period of about two months when there are a lot of holidays and other days off here, between the movable holidays for Easter-related stuff, Labor Day, and Europe Day...

[Man in Space]

My vacation this year for Norman Music Festival 2k26 was a massive, resounding success.

This was the longest I’ve been gone since college¹. I was there for almost a week (due to economic reasons the flights I got were stupidly late outgoing and stupidly early returning, i.e. it wasn’t seven full days), and I was able to use that time to the fullest. I get into Wyatt Earp at some post-midnight early hour and my best friend is there to greet and collect me. OKC² to Norman was about half an hour, traffic notwithstanding, though at that early hour it was light. He drops me off at the Holiday Inn, where I prefer to stay when I’m there, and says he’ll stay until I actually get into the hotel. After hailing the night attendant, I waved him off to go back home and he left. The problem, as it turned out, was I had somehow booked the Holiday Inn back in Oklahoma City by mistake. Thus I, much chastened, hailed an Uber. The night dude at the OKC Holiday Inn was kind enough to take pity on me and allow me to check in early.

Later that day I met up with my pencil pal. She and I’d first crossed paths when we were in the same Arabic class at OU and we have had an exchange of analog letters for some time now, an exchange I greatly enjoy and look forward to. She spent quite some time living elsewhere but recently returned to the OKC area, and we met up for lunch. Lunch, and the general catching-up it accompanied, were quite enjoyable. Next, we went to the OKC satellite location of Guestroom Records. Guestroom is a mandatory element of the annual ritual—one that I was even able to manage two years ago, when I wasn’t able to attend the Festival proper at all (due to illness and inclement weather). There’s always something there that surprises me. Past years’ winners include

• A Neu! box set
• A super deluxe box set of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All
• The special box set of Sun-Ra’s Space Is the Place OST
• The Evil Star box set by King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard

This year, it was Basinski’s The Disintegration Loops, which I never thought would ever have a vinyl release due to their form and format. I have not as of yet played it. My best guess is, since it’s ambient and silence does play an important part in the pieces, they were able to squeeze more time onto each side of the vinyl (which is apparently how they got Discrete Music³ onto a single 12” at 33 rpm). I also picked up the box set of Loaded by the Velvet Underground, which is a very sentimental album to me⁴, and the version of Deftones’ White Pony that came with the Black Stallion remix album.

It will be annoying in multiple respects to keep saying “my best friend” and “mine and my best friend’s really good mutual friend”. We will, respectively, call them “GRAND DAD” and “Gil”⁵.

Tuesday, my best friend’s family invited me over for dinner. It was delicious. After that, we played Uno with a massive, kitbashed pool of Uno cards from various sources, which is a pastime of the family’s. After managing to get my best friend’s mother into the habit of saying “piss” and watching a KamSandwich review of Envelopes of Cash, we split back to the hotel. The rest of Tuesday and Wednesday were spent trying to grok⁶ realistic climate mapping for conworlding purposes.

Thursday is day one of the festival. GRAND DAD and I had lunch at the Waffle House near the Walmart that our movie night group frequented so often⁷. To our delight, Miss Mary was still working there—she is a very sweet older lady who always excelled at her job and made you feel welcome. Gil is joining us at the festival proper. GRAND DAD drops me off by festival HQ so I can pick up the parking pass I got. Everything goes smoothly, we hit up a few of the shows, head back in and call it a day. In terms of activity and spectacle, Friday is, of course, bigger than Thursday, and Saturday bigger still. I got to experience it not only with GRAND DAD but also Gil, whose attendance had been somewhat in question but managed to swing it all three nights. I got interviewed by a campus news sort of thing; there were these journalism students on Thursday who were going around asking people about it and they came up to our group and asked if we wanted to be interviewed. GRAND DAD immediately points at me and says “He’s the one you want to talk to. He came a long way to be here.⁸” There was a guy busking on a drum kit by the statue of James Garner, a guy selling sheets of bubble wrap, someone offering Polaroids…not to mention the actual music. I don’t think there was a single act we went to that disappointed.

The flights were themselves pretty painless (specific times of travel notwithstanding). Both times I changed planes at Chicago Midway, but I think the longest layover I had was maybe two hours, if that? It was pretty smooth all around, aside from my medical garments tripping the detector again.

And then I got to see Ma, the dog, and my dad again at the end of it all. Amaze amaze amaze.

1. I spent a week-ish in Roswell, NM for spring break when I was a senior. That is a whole saga unto itself. I occasionally miss one of the T-shirts I wore (Threadless’ “Duke of the Moon” in gray) when I see photos therefrom.
2. Oklahoma City, OK.
3. Brian Eno’s proto-ambient exploration, of which the eponymous piece is about a half-hour long.
4. My uncle made my dad a mixtape at some point within a year or two of my birth, and my father played it with great frequency in his old Ford Tempo GL (when he wasn’t playing Pat Metheny, Steely Dan, or the Police). “Sweet Jane” was on that mixtape. After not hearing it for probable years, sophomore year of college I sat bolt upright one day, having just thought of it, to try and identify it. The mixtape, or rather the paratext around it, had a direct influence on Twin Aster—I had misread “Donald Fagen” as [dʉɱ‿feɪ̯ˈgaɻ], and that term was originally the term for (the human-colonized planet around) Epsilon Eridani. (Incidentally, in the same cinematic universe, Beta Hydri was “Badrabbit”.)
5. Short for “Gilgamesh”.
6. In the Heinleinian sense, not that of the X proprietary generative AI model.
7. Part of our movie night group’s activities included dining at a restaurant before screenings. That specific Waffle House was where we ate about half the time. We all really liked the hash browns (there usually were four or five of us and between us would order 18–20 total) to the point that regulars would see us come in and immediately prep the stove. We also found out that new hires would often get scheduled for Friday shifts specifically so they could get the experience when we did show up (they must have been excellent teachers, because we never had a negative experience there).
8. The fact that it's a journey of 1’100 miles or so I make every year I can has reached the awareness of the Festival powers-that-be. The OU Daily was pointed in my direction by the Festival organizers a few years back, but Instagram spammed the messages from the journalist and I missed out.

[Travis B.]

Nice!

[lëtzeshark]

Had a great trip to the Netherlands this past week. Got to see a friend in Ghent (Belgium) on the way, then spent a nice five nights sightseeing, eating stroopwafels, and also meeting up with some various former coworkers.

Also, it looks like I'll be going to Portugal for work in about a month, so that's also exciting!

[Travis B.]

Also nice!