— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि नवशीतिः —
Yesterday I learned about the practice of "
cloud seeding," which has apparently actually been around for decades: cyrstaline silver iodide—a substance once used in photography—is dispersed into clouds, where they enhance water droplets and, at least this is the aim, boost rainfall or snowfall in efforts to combat draught, or in some cases prevent hailstorms.
I'm kind of surprised I have never heard of this before, it sounds so futuristic to me, but it's been a longstanding practice. I even brought it up at the potluck before Action Movie Night last night, and Chris G, who strikes me as a very smart guy, knew all about it, how it works, and also noted it's been done for decades.
But here's where I first heard about it: during the third of the three interviews for which I was on the interview panel yesterday. This was the one virtual interview, as this guy lives in a suburb of San Diego, and has never been to visit any of our stores. Justine brought up the massive amount of rain California has gotten recently, and the guy was talking about how nuts it was, and then added something that took me aback: "And now we have 'man-made rain.'"
We were all kind of like: what. Also, the clear implication was that "man-made rain" was contributing to the large amount of rainfall.
This was where he was apparently mistaken. I had my laptop with my so I googled "man-made rain" immediately, and this was how I first learned the phrase "cloud seeding," and more importantly, came across this
Los Angeles Times article from just last month:
The latest unfounded conspiracy theory: Cloud seeding is to blame for California’s storms and flooding.
To be fair to this guy, he did not come across to me as a conspiracy-theory guy. But, this is one of the more unfortunate effects of widespread conspiracy theories: otherwise rational-minded people might still find themselves sharing things like, "I heard that cloud seeding is causing the storms." (Also to be clear and fair, this is also not specifically what the guy said. But, "Now we have man-made rain" in the middle of a conversation about storms and flooding is not that many steps away from it.)
The point is, we have a vocal minority of morons in California badering officials and blaming things like cloud seeding on their storms, and some of that noise unfortunately breaks through. Frankly shit like this does not bode well for the future of our species. I genuinely fear for this year's election.
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So anyway, that was the third interview, which was held from 3 to 4pm and was followed by a half-hour "interview debrief" meeting. Steven had to leave early from that as he had a movie date with his husband to see
Dune Part Two at the Pacific Science Center IMAX theater, which of course got me to sharing—again—that I've already seen it three times, and will likely see it at least a fourth before the theatrical run has ended. I noted that I have not seen any movie that many times in the theater since the
Lord of the Rings movies, and that was twenty years ago.
Justine rather surprised me when she said, "
Star Wars. I saw it seven times." I've never even had any movie conversations with Justine, so
that was something I never would have guessed.
Anyway, Steven just patched in with Teams Audio to continue giving feedback while he walked over there. We all pretty quickly came to a consensus regarding who we liked best.
Justine did say to me, "That was pretty painless, right?" I replied, "I felt somewhat out of my depth, but it was not painful." I really liked getting to be a part of this decision, though, and ultimately did have valuable points to make that others did not, and I genuinely felt like my opinion held equal weight with everyone else in the group. I just didn't engage conversationally during the interviews themselves in the same way others could, but that did not prevent me from being able to offer a qualified opinion.
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— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि नवशीतिः —
I guess I'll cover last night's Action Movie Night now. Shobhit did not come down after all. He's had a cold for a few days, and we were very confident that it wasn't covid, and I didn't want to use up the two that were all I currently had left—but then last night, before going down to the community kitchen, he said he felt like his brain was fuzzy, and that felt like an immediate red flag. I finally broke open the box and had him take a test. Thankfully, it was still negative: not covid.
But, he was still audibly congested and occasionally coughing, and probably no one downstairs would want to be around that, which I noted to him. He decided to stay upstairs, and I made myself my usual cocktail and brought down the veggie spring rolls we baked from Costco. I'd say about 80% of them got eaten, which is more than usual for stuff we bring to these.
It was still an unusually large group, about ten people, largely because a guy who only comes every once in a while came (was his name Tommy? I can't remember), and Ben, whose movie choice it was this week, brought a friend whose name I also can't remember. The rest were all regulars: Tony, Jake, Ryan, Chris G, Chris B, and Daniel.
This was another week where I had plenty to eat: Ben arrived with three medium pizzas in separate boxes, two of them vegetarian; Chris G also arrived with a large pizza from Mad Pizza, a veggie one that included kalamata olives and was delicious. Chris is always pretty funny about this, coming in with the pizza box in his hands, walking straight up to me holding it out and saying, "I brought your pizza." He's done this kind of thing multiple times now.
Shobhit had considered coming down just for the potluck, before I warned him off due to the group not likely wanting to be around his cold. Two or three people even asked after him, but after I said he had a cold Chris B even said, "[Tell him to] stay upstairs!" Shobhit had asked me to text him if there were pizzas, which I did after we all went into the theater. I thought he might come down and get some, but he didn't; I intended to take the last of the vegetarian pizza slices upstairs after the movie. This included three slices of the Mad Pizza, but Daniel, who eats a
lot, took one before we all left after the movie. Two slices was still plenty for Shobhit, to be fair (along with two smaller slices from the medium pizzas), especially since he had some of the spring rolls before I went down.
The movie Ben chose was
A Scanner Darkly, a rotoscoped science fiction animation movie by Richard Linklater from 2006. I had given it a B+ at the time of its release, but this time around, I
kind of checked out. Granted, that may have been largely due to the Zevia Cherry Cola I brought down spiked with a triple shot of rum. If I want to stay alert, I need to skip the cocktails.
That made for the ninth movie I watched in the previous seven days, six of them in theaters (
not including the Braeburn Condos theater). I'm watching another movie with Alexia tomorrow night and have another double feature with Laney on Saturday and I may or may not go to a novie on Sunday but almost certainly will on Monday. I think I'm good with taking a break from movies tonight. We have this week's episode of
Abbott Elementary to watch tonight, at least.
Oh, and I almost forgot: I can't believe I never thought to try this before, but after I used one of my last two covid tests on Shobhit, I decided to see if I could order more from Amazon using my FSA card. And I could! I bought two more 5pk boxes for $63.68 (that's $6.37 per test), without it impacting my budget at all! Granted, it's only March and between this and using the FSA card to purchase Omeprazole at Costco, we've already used up 30% of the $1,500 I allocated for this year. But, hopefully the 10 tests I'll now have handy will indeed last the rest of the year and maybe longer. I just feel way better having extras on hand.
I texted both Laney and Gabriel about discovering I could pay for covid tests with my FSA card, and I was surprised neither of them knew what an FSA card was ("I want one!" said Gabriel). Granted, I didn't for a long time either, and I can't even remember now how I learned about them—only that, as I explained to Gabriel, you allocate a certain amount annually from your earnings for qualifying health care expenses, and it doesn't get taxed like the rest of your earnings, through your employer benefits package. Gabriel texted me within minutes that he had looked into it and both he and Lea have it as an option. I suspect they may not be able to set it up until preparing for next year though, unless there's some way to do it outside of open enrollment. There might be, I have no idea.
I was just thrilled to discover I could get more covid tests this way, where it practically feels free. It isn't, of course; I'm still spending my own earnings—but, given that it's earnings accessed without any payroll taxes, it's like getting it at a huge discount.
— पञ्चसहस्राणि पञ्चशतानि नवशीतिः —
[posted 12:33 pm]
