Laughing City
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mr pine
Vintage Newbie


first off. I have no social media anymore. so this is like my only place to say things...so lucky you few who are still here.

Pre Covid seems like such a different time than now. hard to imagine that its just been three years since our first lockdown.

What's been happening new in your life since covid? maybe because of covid.
I will list off some of mine. both good and bad

I learned how to play ukulele. which I absolutely love.

I lost my father (from covid) and because of that started going to therapy and still continue to do so

I started reading books by this one author, Paulo Coelho. Mostly known for the Alchemist but my favorite of his is Aleph.

both of my kids attend public school now and my wife works at the same place I do though in a different department.

because of this I have moved from lower class to lower middle class. and I understand more than ever how the middle class is left out on a lot of things.

because of that I have gotten more political. I pay attention to politics and even read a few political magazines that I enjoy very much.

I was going to run for alderman in my town but my wife had surgery during the sign up so i missed it. per the ballot i would have won since no one else did it. maybe next year.

i left the church i had been going to for 20 years and ended up at a much smaller church that i really enjoy.

i went through, and am still going through a spiritual deconstruction. which is turning a lot of what I thought on its head but i am still optomisitic on the eventual outcome.


that's really it.
would be interested in knowing how you all have been this past three years.

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You're the Anti-Censorship+Topless Twitpic Parodying+Youth Group Video Directing guy that's a champion for the 1st amendment, Videogames as Art, and unrepentant file sharing...

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wilsmith
Vintage Newbie


Now that I have some time...

The biggest changes since the pandemic came on the work front mainly. Just prior to it there was major upheaval (restructuring in their words) that resulted in me getting very active in the union, and with good reason.

In the three years that have passed since then I've seen the impact of cronyism and short-sightedness on both sides of the equation and committed to promoting community redevelopment independently based on my experiences. Putting that plan together and presenting it to local municipal governments is requiring time I don't really have to spare, but if anything is going to be my life's work, it's always been pursuing that aim.

Meanwhile I'm at year 13 in my house, 16 at my job. Had my car 14 years, so everything, myself included, is getting old, and maintaining things is a labor, not so much of love, but more of reverence and appreciation for having had these things when I could have been without.

To my knowledge I've managed to avoid Covid, and if I ever did contract it, the vaccines and other new habits I adopted to maintain better respiratory health subdued it to the point it was indistinguishable from my normal sinus issues. On that note, there has been a lot of prolonged sinus issues impacting a number of my college classmates. Lots of amoxicillin and Augmentin prescriptions, and ear infections brought on by Eustachian tube dysfunction. I'm actually going to the audiologist Monday to get some testing done.

It's been an unexpected and dramatic turn of events to say the least.

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Sprocket
Vintage Newbie


Really interesting to see leaving social media and becoming more politically active. I was heavily involved in XR very early on (more concerned about biodiversity collapse than global warming, though the two are entangled) and then got very disillusioned with the inevitable shift online during lockdown. With Priti Patel keen to reclassify XR as domestic terrorists, my partner and I tried to move to the Netherlands, which (like Sweden) had been resisting lockdown measures. A week after we arrived it went into very hard lockdown and we were in a largely unfurnished apartment trying to get jobs. Two months of very bad mental health followed and thankfully we moved back before the travel ban cam in which would have meant my partner likely not seeing her kids for over a year.

Partly as a result of the above, completely moved out of academia, which has felt like a major decision having spent much of my 20s getting a PhD. Also, Like Mr Pine, completely quit social media (save, erm, LinkedIn).

At some point back since forum days I became a Unitarian, which has been a pretty major shift for me (considering that I was quite a confident/obnoxious atheist as a teenager).

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Sprocket
Vintage Newbie


P.S. Are we all Vintage Newbies now? XD

Just noticed that it's been over 20 years since I joined this place. The coding's held up well!

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wilsmith
Vintage Newbie


Sprocket wrote:
completely quit social media (save, erm, LinkedIn).


This genuinely made me laugh.
I finally got infected with Covid the week of November 11th and am still recovering. It has sucked, and I hadn't gotten the latest booster due to my own haphazardness. The few times I have been sick since the pandemic, they were brief and not very severe. This has been up there with the worst i have ever felt.

This is the first I've ever heard of XR, as international environmental activism is usually reduced to Greta Thunberg in our domestic news, and the last eight years of that news have been dominated but the vitriol of pro-authoritarian conservative rhetoric stirring political unease.

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Sprocket
Vintage Newbie


Aw sorry to hear that Wil - glad you are on the up and up! The first time it hit me it hit me hard - I feel so tired and exhausted and my chest took quite a while to properly recover. I feel thankful I'm not asthmatic because it was harder for my partner.
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homesick_alien
Vintage Newbie


Hello Adam Very Happy

I worked all through covid as I was an essential worker.Australia had some of the toughest lockdowns on the planet. Now I’m about to start traveling again. Ive done 27/50 states in the US so far.

The only person ive stayed in contact with this whole time is Shay

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Sprocket
Vintage Newbie


Hey Paul! Very Happy Glad you've stayed in contact with Shay! Hope she's alright!

I stayed in contact with Hannah and Jon/Juan for a few years and Jon even guested once on the uni radio show I hosted during my post-grad, but lost contact when I left social media during the first lockdown... while i miss some old friends, overall it was probably best for my mental health!

Which states have you enjoyed the most?

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