Cav's Place

Seems quite wrong to post a regular personal update on the day marking eleven years since I got thrown back here, but it’s either this or another protest report that I’m in no mood for and would have little to say in, not having attended any since the previous such report despite initially meaning to at least look around the Izvor park one Wednesday morning, since that was the important day. Plus, since there are plans for the weekend and I’m considering going to the one for forests planned for Saturday and then will certainly go to the Sunday one this time around, the listed issues once again being mostly worth supporting, it’ll probably be better to post that report late tomorrow evening, so the period covered will end just before the weekend, when something more relevant should happen, allowing me to start the next one directly with that.

So here I am, I guess, writing a regular personal update on this day and saying that Monday I installed Eschalon: Book I and started playing it. Had found it interesting enough to consider buying at some point, had changed my mind some time ago, but now that it became free I of course grabbed it and then gave it a try. And no, the few more attempts I made to get Age of Wonders: Shadow Magic to work again weren’t successful, so couldn’t continue playing that these days anyway. Hope I’ll figure out some solution eventually, but for now I have something to play that so far keeps me somewhat interested.
Hope I won’t have more problems with this one as well though. I mean, granting it some permissions made it start well enough in windowed mode at first, since I had selected that in order to test it, but then switching to full screen and starting it again once again froze my system, again because Comodo wouldn’t allow it to do what it wanted to but also couldn’t display the prompt, so I again had to wait out all attempts until the game shut down and I could see what it wanted and grant the permissions manually before trying again.
Yet that was expected by now and not having to do with the game, so the worrying issue was earlier today, when I tried to save and nothing seemed to happen. Switched back to desktop, saw the old save still in that slot, switched back to the game, tried again and it claimed to work. However, when I then tried to save in another slot, it gave an error and deleted what used to be in that slot, including the folder itself, without replacing with the new data, and the same happened with any slot I tried other than the one which seemed to have frozen that one time, where I could still save. Copying that information into the other slots allowed me to save there as well, and then after quitting the game and starting it again I seemed to be able to save in any slot again, and loading previous saves seems to work fine, but it’s worrying, seeing as it not only prevents saving but also deletes the data in the slot. Seems to be a known issue, with a few variations and no clear solution even when brought up again more recently.

As for volunteering, the locations where the group I went with last year will plant trees now were finally listed and there is again one close to Bucharest, so I already signed up, hoping things will be smoother this time around. They say it’ll happen either on March 25 or April 1, depending on the weather, and I’d prefer April 1, but I’ll be ready in either case… Though that just means I’ll be ready to get to work, as being around all those other people is not something I can ever feel ready for, and those organizing this make the problem even worse since they’re also those organizing that small protest at Izvor park and, on top of their approach and views making me uncomfortable taking part in something organized by them, now I also just made my opinion regarding those things very clear and that makes the prospect of facing them again much more concerning.
Not that I’m any less concerned about the other thing I mean to volunteer for, which is cleaning the Botanical Garden. The NGO organizing it says it’s the 12th year and I’ve known of it for the past several years, but so far the focus was on making it a team building exercise for companies and the form also required information about the volunteer’s work, so I couldn’t go, yet this year I see no mention of such matters anymore. That still leaves the fact that I have no idea who those organizers are or how it usually goes, plus concerns about the weather and about getting there, since this will take place on six days, starting this weekend and continuing during the next two, and everyone signing up needs to say on which day or days they’ll be available, but dad can’t tell me when he won’t need the metro card ahead of time in order to allow me to give an answer and know that won’t be a problem. Still, I’m just about certain that I’ll be signing up for March 18, since on this first weekend it’s likely to rain, I obviously need to leave the third one free for the trees, and there may be another Sunday protest on March 19 and I’d rather not go there in the evening without sleep.

And just to clarify something mentioned at the start of this post, I did seriously intend to at least go to Izvor park Wednesday morning and see whether more or at least different people will be there for the protest scheduled while negotiations were to take place inside, but there seemed very little hope for a higher turnout and instead of any positive change in attitude, the organizers posted statements that made me feel even worse about being anywhere near them in a situation where each individual will be noticed. If it’d have been a matter of being one among at least hundreds, and preferably thousands, it’d have been different, but being among ten or so people at an event with a main stated purpose that you fully agree with but which has clearly identified organizers who assume stances you find seriously troubling, including in the statements released about the event itself, isn’t even only a matter of significant personal discomfort, but also one of wondering what will your presence be perceived as actually supporting.

As for this week’s run, that was Tuesday, after dad woke me up around 11 AM or so by making noise and after I gave up trying to get back to sleep I saw it was still quite sunny outside and the wind, while noticeable, wasn’t as strong as what the forecast listed for later. Not shaven in about a week and a half, but it was the best opportunity this week, as the weather only got worse after that, so I grabbed a little to eat, went to the toilet and went out, also leaving the t-shirt I was wearing around the house on me. Sure felt the gusts in some areas, so couldn’t stay under 50 minutes again, but wasn’t far either, managing 50:25, with sector times of 4:30, 5:24, 6:09, 4:34, 5:22, 6:17, 4:45, 5:23, 6:12 and 1:49, making for lap times of 16:03, 16:13 and 16:20.