And thus far, The 33rd Expedition has been the most overconsuming of this HFC! Before yesterday, I've averaged almost 90 grams of protein—last night, I absolutely FEASTED on 11-12 salt & pepper chicken wings (9.5 oz), making the daily protein SMASH 146 grams! So, I'll be dialing things back in the upcoming couple of weeks as I prep for July 30's Expeditionary arrival.

Why the dietary hijinx? CELEBRATION!

This is a time to dance in this liberation of unfettered trail footwear with arms outstretched joyously toward eternity; to be a crackling torch bursting in the darkness; and to embrace the unknown with a captivated heart and eyes set ablaze!

Too over the top? Naw, just cleared it!

Yesterday, as I cleared the pool pump basket, I got to thinking: life is good. I mean really good! I've a good existence now and when I pass, I'm still me! Forever. Ain't death gonna hold me down. I'm just getting started.

Sometimes, I get caught up in the world. Sometimes, I'll pull over this ill-fitting cloak of the world, which in turn, shapes to depress me. While not realizing it, these clothes of the world dump on me a fallen emotional state: 1) the weight of the futility of it all; 2) a loveless existence; and 3) no identity. I quickly cast it aside. That is NOT me. Those clothes fit somebody else.

I got to thinking some more: I need to bring back my December 31 Resolutions, but integrate the bread thing and the hobbies—although that hobbyist stuff really is a part of Dec 31. New Year's resolutions are New Year's resolutions! There's a reason why they excite me! And sure, I'll update them to reflect the changes in 2023.

I strive to be the best version of me.

What became of yesterday's fate? Yardwork, tangles of jungle amount of yardwork. Three instances of my 80V battery in my attempts to bring civilization to the wilds kind of yardwork. I regretted I never took the shot with a window opened up in these past few weeks. And plants hate me.

Still, the takeaway was that I had the stamina to keep pushing, even if took up my day and hampered my breathing. Even the battery to my Aftershokz audio ran dry as my line to the weedwacker met its end.

At day's end, I was beat. There's more to do; there's always more to do. However, it was just after 7:30 PM and I was scheduled for routine maintenance.

Among the things I loved about the country is that I could just ignore wide sections of my property for the whole season! Here, I have to give thought for a single bush! The last place...how many trees did I have? Hundreds? I don't know. I know we planted 30 for funzies and it seemed like just a few. Incidentally, I chose to keep 4 tulip poplars in the old horse pasture. One of these days I'd like to drive out that way to see how they've held up after 7 years. I got the sense that massive, high fantasy oak that in that back, the one without a couple of Tolkien Wood Elves living up there, saw the founding of our nation.

My old yard:

(media content yanked to optimize site)

At any rate, natural is just better. Maybe that's what makes these city neighborhoods just...weird to me. Everything's sculptured, a place full of people but you see no one—well, other than the outsiders who sculpt. There's something that's just...uncanny about it. Dystopian even.

I had ChatGPT define uncanny valley for me this morning because I didn't want to define a definitive source:

The uncanny valley is a concept used in the field of robotics, animation, and human-computer interaction to describe the phenomenon where humanoid objects that closely resemble humans but are not quite perfect evoke feelings of eeriness or discomfort in observers...(As they) become more humanlike in appearance and behavior, there is a corresponding increase in their appeal and familiarity up to a certain point. However, once the similarity reaches a certain threshold where the artificial entities appear almost but not entirely human, it triggers a strong negative response in humans. This dip in the graph, or the "uncanny valley," represents the point where the observer's sense of familiarity is disrupted and they perceive the entity as eerie or creepy.

The uncanny valley effect can be attributed to a mismatch between the expected human behavior and the subtle cues that reveal the artificial nature of the entity...

What of my 16,439th day on this earth? What shall be of its fate?

This opening comes off far more epic than what it typically is; I expect today will be just another lightly-salted segment of a largely forgettable chain of events. Things like: setup another 2-day steep of cold, flavored coffee and run down budget inconsistencies—well, these are the things I have done before 4 AM today. For what it's worth, it has been another day where I woke up in the 2 AM hour, beating that 3 AM alarm, for a solid 4 hour and 17-minute slumber. Later today, I'll play this for the kids:

YouTube Link

I'll add in some other instruction, prompt them to continue to write their chapter recap of Sunday's DnD session and so forth. I'll flip on the pool to flip the pool off again. I'll update Cronometer and then filter that data to my Google fitness sheet. I'll catch a few minutes of this episode from the Duck Call Room: #255. And so it goes.

This day will pass like so many before it, meaningless. Oh, I am not saying those specific things don't value. Clean laundry and dishes are a good thing! But, do these things really change anything? Contribute more than merely marginally—if at all? I suppose it is all the process; it is all a part of the prior post's drive to the end of the road.

Are these lyrics but my twentysomething's lament?

Dreaming about providence
And whether mice or men have second tries
Maybe we've been living with our eyes half open
Maybe we're bent and broken
Broken
We were meant to live for so much more
Have we lost ourselves?
Somewhere we live inside
...
We want more than this world's got to offer

-Switchfoot, Meant to Live

No, at 45, it is just as applicable as it was to me at 25 when I heard it live during the July 4th weekend of 2004, specifically captured in this exact moment in time:

YouTube Link