Dump your birthday
I almost moved this weekend, twice. Not actually. But I did text my realtor and asked him if it was worth it to move, so I didn’t have to figure out how to hang these curtains in the guest bedroom.
He assured me it was not.
Hanging curtains seems like a simple task. Drill pilot holes, bzzzz bzzz, go to the other side, bzzz bzzz (that’s the sound of a drill), take impact driver and screw the hooks to the wall. Place rod across hooks. Place curtains on rod. Fin.
Despite the simple nature of the process, I kept screwing up. The first time, I drilled my holes at 73” apart. This was bad because the rod I bought was only 72”. There is a saying, measure twice, cut once. Sure. Well, jokes on you. I didn’t measure at all. I looked at where I wanted my curtains to be, and bzzz bzzz drilled a hole. The higher and further from the frame you hang curtains, the more welcoming and larger the space appears. I wanted a large-appearing space. So much so that I overshot my mark.
Okay, so that screw up aside, I had to take a week off. Besides, I got the first dose of the Moderna shot, and I thought my arm would be too sore to continue hanging curtains. Turns out, it wasn’t. But I still took the weekend off to recover.
So back at it on Super Bowl Sunday. Check the directions. Tells me I need a 3/16 bit. Bzzz Bzzz, Bzzz Bzzz. Drill into the frame this time. Fool me once…
Grab my screws. Try to screw them in. The hole is too big. Pilot hole with 3/16 is for the use of anchors. Anchors are not needed when you drill into the window frame. Ipso facto: my holes were too big. Ai yi yi.
This was when I texted Clark. What can I sell my house for? Is it easier to just do a controlled burn of this room and start over? Who even needs curtains anyway?
I moved the pilot holes, drilled with my smallest bit, a half-inch and did it again. I now have curtains up in the room. It was straightforward when I got all the steps right.
This wall has many extra holes in it
The second moment I almost moved came when I decided to clean my dishwasher. This was honestly not something I ever considered doing, but our glasses kept coming out dirty, like caked or covered in salad bits or something. So I google how to clean a filter, and the video doesn’t reflect the situation in my dishwasher at all, so I just tried to do my own thing. I found a filter in the dishwasher door. Popped it off and nearly collapsed.
Imagine looking into a sandbox after a kindergarten class picnic, and everyone left their garbage behind. Juice boxes, orange peels, Lunchable wrappers, sandwich crusts. Then, imagine it rained biblically for 40 days on top of that sandbox so that everything swelled and broke down.
By the time I opened this filter, we were post-food. It was like a kindergartener’s depiction of food on those kitschy plates we had hanging in our houses for far too long. I cleaned this space to the best of my abilities. I don’t know. I like, stuck some shit in there and scooped out the gunk and used a paper towel to remove the residue when possible. It was gross. The dishes still came out dirty. So I mean, whatever I cleaned wasn’t even the problem.
Probably just going to move next time.
Didn’t even mention that it was so cold, our shower window ledge popped off. Now we’ve got a handyman coming over tonight on my birthday to do whatever needs to be done to fix that issue.
Do not think it’s supposed to do that.
And now, the dumps:
It’s a podcast. When I was out shoveling on Thursday, I listened to the first episode of Reply All’s series on Bon Appétit. It tells the story of the rise and fall of Bon App, the very trendy YouTube channel and nominal cooking magazine that took place for basically all of the 2010s. The wheels really fell off the bus this summer around the same time as George Floyd and the Pandemic, so maybe you missed it. I don’t know how many parts this series is, but episode one was good. I suspect Ep 2+ will be as well.
Do you want the short version of what happened? Here’s how the Business Insider bullet points describe it:
Bon Appétit came under fire last year as high-profile staff members alleged a toxic workplace.— Executives resigned after employees of color described a racist environment at the publication.— BA YouTube stars announced they would no longer appear in the publication’s videos.
The podcast features only interviews with people of color, though the host did research and interviewed many people for the story.
This is a profile. I see a lot of Gigi Hadid in Leen (or Leen in Gigi Hadid. Whichever one is more flattering to my wife, then that’s how I mean it). They’re both super gorgeous, and from the looks of it in this profile, they’re both super moms. Gigi and Leen had dissimilar birthing experiences. Gigi’s took place over 14 hours in an inflatable tub on an estate in Bucks Co, Pennsylvania, while listening to The Indian in the Cupboard that ended with Zayn catching the baby. Leen’s took place over, I dunno, like 70 hours in a hospital in Qatar that ended with me crying a lot as I stood as far towards the top of the bed as one can in a birthing suite. This profile in Vogue tells the story of new mother Gigi, living on a compound, riding horses, hanging with family and raising her daughter, called “Khai” which supposedly is Arabic for “the Chosen One.” (According to my resident Arabic expert… “I’ve never heard that in my life.”) Regardless of naming convention, the Hadid-Malik clan seems to be handling parenthood as well as any new parents can. Gigi captures the nature of parenting well with a quote that closes the feature. I think it summarizes where Leen and I stand on parenting as well.
“Okay, now what?”
“You have a kid and you’re lying in bed together and you look over and you’re like, ‘Okay, what now?’ And you ask all of your friends the same questions, and everyone has a different answer. And that’s when you kind of realize that everyone figures it out for themselves,” says Gigi, serene and sincere. “And you do it in your own way, and you can take bits and pieces from people, but you’re always going to end up doing it a little bit differently. This is our way.””
3. A story about Bitcoin Exchanges I do not have enough vocabulary and know-how to explain Bitcoin or Fintech or Blockchain. If you have ever been half-way through reading the Dumps and wondered: Can Sam offer any insight or guidance on Dogecoin or Polkadot?
The answer is a definitive no. You aren’t here for guidance. You are here for me telling anecdotes about using a drill the wrong way. And if occasionally I point you towards something you can read that helps you understand how a 35-year old from Detroit created a cryptocurrency exchange and now is on the run from the US government for, in my opinion, pretty weak charges, then this is your moment.
This is the story that, in a few years, someone will use as the template for the biopic about Arthur Hayes. If you want to read the piece before it becomes a movie, then I recommend it. Some of my favorite moments include details about the BitMEX offices in Hong Kong (aquarium full of sharks!), a 30-year-old billionaire living in Milwaukee, and backpacks full of cash used to buy bitcoin in different countries. The story could make you feel bummed if you, like me, are about the same age as the three main characters. Makes me wonder if Arthur Hayes has ever tried to clean a dishwasher filter.
Talk about needing a dishwasher, amirite?
4. Here is another profile. I can’t say that it’ll be the last one for February, but I can say it’s the last one for this episode. Just about the same as Bon Appétit was falling apart, so too was Andrew Gillum’s marriage, political future and public identity. You may recall that Gillum was one of the two minority Democratic Gubernatorial candidates who lost narrowly in 2018. Unlike Stacy Abrams, who spent the last few years registering voters in Georgia and helping to turn Georgia blue, Gillum… was up to some other things. The story starts when photos of Gillum appeared on Candace Owen’s Twitter, showing him blacked out in a Miami Beach hotel with a male sex worker and suspected drugs. What happens from there is a portrait of a politician dealing with a fall from grace, navigating the realities and optics of being a bi-sexual man (and minority) in 2021, and a couple who tell one story of what happened versus the story being told by the aforementioned male sex worker.
I have no idea if Gillum has a road back to political life. The author mentions Katie Hill, another prominent Dem, who resigned in light of the discovery of her bisexuality and relationship with a staffer. Each politician is young enough to hope that a more progressive electorate will overlook past issues and transgressions and look past their sexual identity. It’s fair to say that only time will tell. Shit, we have an 80-year-old president, so I mean, in 30 years, Gillum could be dealing with a vastly different nation.
5. I mentioned at the top that I received my first dose of the Moderna vaccine. A few weeks back, Minnesota decided to run a pilot program to vaccinate 15,000 teachers hoping that doing so would lead to a return to schooling. I was lucky enough to be selected to grab a dose. So on the final Friday in January, I drove into Saint Paul and parked at the Xcel Energy Center. I followed the signs but really just went towards the area everyone wearing masks was coming from. The longest queue I waited in was probably under five minutes, with a dozen teachers. We were given new masks, even if you had two on, plus a face shield. Then we walked down some stairs, down some long alleys, guided by National Guardsmen and up to a few dozen registration tables. I gave my name and my phone number, waited for a space to open and then sat down next to a young man with a buzz cut. I rolled up my sleeve, he gave me some paperwork, he jabbed a needle into my shoulder, and that was that. I waited in the monitoring zone for 15 minutes. And then I left. In and out in under 25 minutes. Back in a month to get my second dose.
Me, getting the vaccine, sort of. I mean, just use your imagination.
I know I posted something called The Plague Year in January, and very few read it. I suspect this will be similar, but hey, even one click is okay with me. Here is a story about how Moderna, a company that has never produced anything, vaulted itself into the vaccine space and now is on pace to earn 13 billion in revenue this year. If you’re into the How to of things, this one does an excellent job of explaining the science, tracking the first participant in vaccine trials and monitoring the spread of the disease. Learn about RNA and probably learn about Nobel award winners.
It’s my birthday, and we’re having steak for dinner, and hopefully Culver’s for lunch, but not in that order.
Hope you have a good birthday.
