A really cool thing happened

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
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And in today’s world, I really needed one to happen. We all do. So this is a thread to talk about the cool thing that happened to you and gave you a bit of joy.

Last night a friend on Facebook posted something about one of our favorite musicians. Someone else posted about the first show they had seen back in the 70s at college. I had been there, too, and went searching for the date of the show. And I found a video with filmed clips from the show. It had been in the Student Center ballroom. I didn’t have a ticket so I snuck in from the backstage area and I watched from side stage. The video is about 5 minutes of shaky clips. But near the end, I saw a woman standing offstage just behind the musician and it was me! It freaked me out. But in a good way. I mean, there I was, 50 years ago. I shared it with my friends and we’ve been laughing about it all day.

Please share any cool thing that’s happened to you lately.

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That is indeed very cool.

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I don’t think this is truly cool, but it certainly made my day:

I had electricians in to do some minor work, and they commented on the cats they saw because at least three were hovering around, inspecting their work. One of the guys asked how many I had and I kind of cringed and said,
“umm … sixteen” :grimacing:

His words, more or less were:
Get out! No way! If I hadn’t seen cats I’d never have known there were any in the house, there’s no cat smell at all!

The other guy (who had been here during the original kitchen reno in Nov) said ‘yeah, this house always smelled clean. We’ve been in houses with just one or two cats that you instantly knew there were cats in the house.’

I had not just deep cleaned the place, just my normal routine (which is apparently effective but not remotely eat-off-the-floor or white-glove-test clean).

Definitely a win since I just assumed I was pretty nose-blind by now! :smiley:

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Jeez, that gave me chills. But the good kind!

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Mine’s a bunch of geeky TL;DR — short version is that two pieces of computer equipment that were ill-advised purchases can substitute for each other in unplanned ways which is quite cool.

When I was first outfitting a MacBook Pro 2018 to use as my work-from-home laptop, it was an upgrade from a vintage 2011 that could no longer run an OS as modern as what the boss’s VPN requires. Apple had changed how periperal devices get hooked up. Old way: 3 regular USB ports, a Thunderbolt2 (mini displayport) for external monitor and/or other purposes, “magsafe” magnetic AC power in, FireWire 800, ethernet port. New way: four Thunderbolt3 ports, have fun! I curse a lot and order adapters so I can hook up my crap.

One of the adaptive devices I ordered was a huge unweildy external card box, what we used to call a “breakout box”, into which I installed a StarTech FireWire card so I could have FireWire on this newfangled thing, since all the computers in my computer collection back to the 1998 ‘WallStreet’ PowerBook G3 can speak FireWire. It worked but took up a lot of desk space and has a noisy fan and at some point I unplugged it.

Fast forward to the declining years (i.e., now) of using the previous laptop as my everyday personal computer, this being the 2011 vintage MacBook. This is a much better machine for travel and general personal enjoyment, with that big 17" screen, standard USB ports (there’s an immense array of USB devices out there and they all have the old style plugs on them), nicer keyboard. One problem: design flaw, the discrete GPU burns out and this model then turns into a boat anchor, useless. I have several live working computers of this model and a closet full of dead ones. I learned how to disable the discrete GPU both to prolong these laptops and to boot some I’d previously relegated to “dead”.

One thing I like to do with my personal 2011 MBPro is output video to our TV set (streaming or from local video file). I have a mini displayport to HDMI cable and a little stand to put the computer on. The newer-fangled 2018 models don’t work with an adapter. BUT I can’t output video from a 2011 if I’ve got the discrete GPU disabled, because it needs that to run any external display device.

I contact a tech advisor who instructs me to snag an Akitio Thunder2 box and an external GPU card. Find one on eBay, yay! Box arrives. Oops, I ordered the wrong thing… this is an Akitio Thunder2 all right but not a box, it’s a hub! It’s a Thunderbolt2 device that gives you FireWire 800, a couple standard USB ports, a passthru Thunderbolt2 port, but no place to hook up a card. It’s a cute quiet flat little device, no fan.

Yeah, it works with a Thunderbolt3-Thunderbolt2 adapter and now I’ve got FireWire 800 for my 2018 work computer. Now if that unplugged StarTech box will work with the older 2011 using a similar adapter, I can put the external GPU in that… (waiting for the card to arrive, fingers crossed…)

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I was at one of the concerts that Depeche Mode used for their concert film 101, and I was pretty near the stage. I’ve never seen the film but I wonder if I am visible. That would be something. I must find a copy now, because of your story!

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Whoa! Super cool!

Cue Twilight Zone music

That is indeed very cool.

Do share your cat cleaning routine. Enquiring minds want to know.

I only have two cats but I live in a small apartment. I used to have a friend whose nose was very sensitive and I would ask him to come in and check out my place. Sadly he died in 2018. So I don’t have anyone to do that. You can’t ask just anyone.

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Really minor but still very nice: got purred to sleep by a snuggly cat last night. Of course, this is the same cat who cost me an hour of sleep yesterday morning with noisy melodrama about how hard it is to cope when Mom’s still in bed when Dad is up. :wink:

Also, the AC fan in the car decided to work today after a couple of days on strike.

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Marillion toured for Clutching at Straws in 1987-88, during my junior year of high school. While they were playing stadiums in Europe, here in the States they were pretty much unknown, so played in clubs. There was a local club where all the prog acts would play when they came through town, but it was 21 and over. So when Marillion came through town, I couldn’t go, which bummed me out, big time.

But! One of the local rock stations had a prog rock show that aired on Sunday nights. The radio station broadcast the Marillion show - I can’t remember if the band actually played on a Sunday, or if it was a different day and the station let the prog rock show DJ come in and broadcast the show, but whatever. I taped the entire show as I listened to it.

A year or so later, during my senior year, I had those tapes in my car. The car was broken into and my stereo stolen, and to add insult to injury, they took my tape case as well. I didn’t care so much about the rest of the tapes, as those could be replaced. But I was really upset over my bootleg. For years.

Into the 90s, CD bootlegs became increasingly common (if you knew where to find them), but I never did find a copy of that particular show.

And then, only about six months ago, I was perusing a file sharing service, looking through Marillion bootlegs. And there it was! I wasn’t looking for my lost show, or even thinking about it. Almost 40 years after losing my tapes, the show fell into my lap.

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A really cool thing happened to me yesterday: I accepted a (great) job offer. :slight_smile:

On 2/28, the federal contract I supported was abruptly terminated. It was quite simply a victim of horrific timing, between an option period that was supposed to take effect the next day and the issuance of EO 14222. Our customer was beside themself, but it was out of their hands. We were notified at 4:15pm on a Friday that work was to stop immediately.

We were directed to use leave for the following week, and in the course of two subsequent meetings with HR we learned that a week-long furlough was next and that layoffs would follow. Most staff were laid off this past Friday, but I was lucky enough to be given a three-week “extension” to work on contract closeout tasks and help draft a proposal for whenever the government is able to compete this work again. It allowed me to avoid being furloughed, and bought me time to look for a new job. I really wanted to stay with my current company, so I started by focusing on internal opportunities: our recruiters and managers are awesome, and between that and some lucky timing – and my frankly solid resume – the new position starts on 3/31. I think I’ll be both happy and successful, and it’ll be a promotion. “Relieved” doesn’t begin to cover it!

So cool!

My family lived in England from '83-'85, when I was a young teen, and I hadn’t thought of Marillion in ages until about a month ago when a UK Doper mentioned Fish having a show nearby. I loved “Kayleigh” when it was released, and her post prompted me to listen to it for the first time in close to 40 years. OMG, the memories… :face_holding_back_tears:

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Comedian Paula Poundstone, who is often a panelist on NPR’s Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me, once mentioned that she had sixteen cats. One of the other panelists, incredulous, said, “How do you come to have sixteen cats?”

Paula replied, “What do you mean? You have fifteen cats and then you get another!”

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I work at a food pantry. Monday afternoon I was in the warehouse talking to a couple of volunteers and we saw a box truck slowly driving through our parking lot. The box truck had signage for a frozen treat company on the side. We joked about the ice cream truck stopping and giving us some ice cream. The truck stopped. The driver got out and I went outside to talk to her. She asked me if this was a food pantry and I reassured her that it is. She told me she worked for this frozen treat company and asked me if I would like some treats for the pantry. I said sure. She asked me if we had a freezer. I told her we did and took her inside to see it. It’s a walk-in freezer that holds 7 or 8 pallets. She asked me if I would like a pallet of treats. I assured her that we would like that very much. Then she asked me if we would like a second pallet for the volunteers. I enthusiastically assured her that we would really like that very much.

I was talking to her while we were unloading the pallets and she told me that her job is to drive around the southwest and perform random acts of kindness by dropping by places unannounced and giving away treats. What a cool job. The only stipulation was we were not allowed to publicize it on social media because she didn’t want anyone to know where she would be next. I’m justifying to myself my bending this agreement by not identifying either company.

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That really is a cool thing. I’m sure a lot of families will appreciate it. I hope you and the volunteers enjoyed your treats!

I’m glad to see that it’s not all gloom and doom. Congratulations!

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This is not so much a cool thing that happened to my, but to Spike and Squeaky.

My sons’ band became the first high school band to play under the blue whale at the American Museum of Natural History this past Monday.

Imgur

Imgur

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I entered the Tour of the Scioto River Valley bicycle tour in 1973. It is a 2 day, 210 mile trek. When they mail the results to you it includes a collage photo of dozens of scenes from the event. My motorhome is right in the middle. Me and my Peugeot didn’t make the photo.