I just finished listening to A Perfect Union of Contrary Things, the biography of Maynard James Keenan, and like the vast majority of audio books that I listen to, I realize that hour per hour it adds an order of magnitude more value to my life than does TV (currently watching the 2024 season of Kitchen Nightmares) and video games (still playing through the new Doom). I’m thinking more and more about just quitting TV and video games almost entirely, or like by 95%, down to just special occasions. After…
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Rescuing a couple chipmunks from my pool
I watched a movie over the weekend called Eighth Grade written by Bo Burnham, whose this genius comedian/musician whose kind of on a whole other level of comedy… this movie wasn’t a comedy exactly though it was funny in parts… super awkward. I normally don’t like awkward movies but this one wasn’t like American Pie or Meet the Parents, it was a movie driven toward realism, like it could have been a completely true story down to nearly every detail. Hard to watch, but very very good. But I was…
Read MoreHappy Memorial Day from a pacifist who is finally willing to speak the truth about the military
I just finished A Good Life, 15 essential habits for living with hope and joy by Pope Francis. I decided to buy it last night after my weird day of feeling like I was wasting my life, thinking it could bring me some motivation, and I think it worked. I’m still blown away by how much that guy just seems to understand how life really works. The fact that I don’t believe in God in a literal sense, it’s like that doesn’t seem to matter at all. I still pull…
Read MoreDealing with my lack of motivation this memorial day weekend
I’ve been really struggling this weekend with motivation. I guess there’s more important topics for me to write about, especially it being memorial day weekend so I should be talking about peace and my frustration with the whole rest of the country who seems to openly celebrate war and death and the us-vs-them culture that breeds hate for anyone who is not born on the same plot of land as you, and about how I, like so many other people attack the people who most reflect my own personality. I’ve…
Read MoreSeeking fun loving social media experimenter. No experience necessary.
Okay, I am finally going to try to write this out, about how I want to hire someone to promote my content and app for me. This job would be open to… well the right person… hard to know who the right person is… you don’t need to agree with everything I say here of course, in fact I would want someone who can openly disagree with me and not feel uncomfortable about that.My budget is $600 per month. You wouldn’t be expected to work any more than 10 hours…
Read MoreA dream spoke to me through ChatGPT about focusing on what’s really important
Had a dream I was at a convention of some sort. I was in my hotel room and the lady in the room next to me was looking for someone to watch over her cat and couldn’t find anyone so I finally volunteered. The cat was in my room now and I went down to eat in the hotel restaurant. I come back and find that the cat had removed the screen from the window and almost fallen out. In the gap on the outside of the screen I remembered…
Read MoreDoes this dream have some kind of meaning?
woke up real early today. It’s 7:35 now. this not smoking weed thing really does reduce the amount of sleep I need.Had a dream last night that me and a small tactical team were stalking some bad guy. I’m sure this was inspired by the level I was playing last night in Terminator Resistance where you have to chase after The Infiltrator. First we were outside chasing and strategizing, each of us in a different spot, trying to head him off. One of the guys I’m working with is like…
Read MoreI’m hiding from the things I actually want to talk about
I told myself that I would write an entry today that progresses my goals. Specifically an entry outlining how I want to hire someone to do social media for me, and how I want it all to work, outlining my expectations, strategies and ideas for what I want them to do. Or if not, I have other entries i want to make that I feel are important to talk about, like one about my trauma surrounding police brutality and my cop cousin who assaulted me when I was about ten…
Read MoreA happy rant about space travel and quitting weed
I quit smoking pot two days ago after a quarter century of indulging pretty much daily. Feels kind of strange but not nearly as bad as I feared. This is my first time ever actually trying to quit. It’s not like the tobacco which I smoked for 20 years and every year I tried to quit a couple times. I must have tried to quit tobacco 40 some times before finally succeeding after reading The Easy Way to Stop Smoking by Allen Carr.But marijuana is different. I never felt bad…
Read MoreLost in the woods or trapped in a cave with no light, finding healthy perspectives
Over the weekend I went to a party at a cabin out in the middle of the woods. I went on a hike with a friend and he was a little concerned we would get lost and I then talked a bunch of big talk about how I grew up wandering around the woods and never got lost, you don’t have to worry with me blah blah blah. Then we went out walking and started enjoying it and I guess we walked a lot farther than we realized and sure…
Read MoreI Published 3 Audio books
I got a marketing email from Amazon a couple days ago that said that some of my books were eligible to be turned into an audiobook using AI voice. I turned three of them into audiobooks almost immediately. One of the only times a marketing email was actually effective on me.https://www.audible.com/search?searchAuthor=Kalin+RingkvistThe other three were not eligible because they did not have table of contents, so right now it’s just my short story collections that have audio versions. I went through The Pioneers and gave it a Table of Contents and…
Read MoreThe time I fat shamed someone
I had some really difficult stuff I wanted to talk about, like war and death, and how when I was a kid, I wanted to, like countless other boys, join the military and just kill kill kill in a sociopathic orgy of suffering, and how that horrifying perspective that I had as a child eventually led me to go totally the opposite and become devoted to non-violence, de-escalation and turning swords into plowshares.But instead, I figured I’d talk about something less intense: fat shaming. I feel like I need like…
Read MoreWhy am I so scared of promoting my stuff, being open, being myself?
Haven’t written in a while, cuz of like a weird fear, I’m trying to wrap my brain around this, like why do I resist sitting down and writing in this journal? It’s not quite like dread, it’s like this laziness, I just want to sit in front of the TV and watch my stories. Why is is it so hard to force myself to sit down and start writing? If I didn’t enjoy it, it would make sense, if I didn’t get value out of this it would make sense.…
Read MoreRambling about books and stuff
Let’s talk about the media I’m consuming right now. Currently listening to Patrick Stewart’s autobiography Making it So, but I was listening to it on Spotify as I didn’t realize the Spotify has all these audiobooks, but also didn’t realize that you only get so many minutes. And the UI isn’t nearly as good as Audible’s– no, had to top myself from running on a tangent about Audible vs Spotify. Need to keep this about things that people can extract real value from.There were a few parallels with my own…
Read MorePeace is about attitude, language, and the courage to be vulnerable
I’ve been watching this old show from my childhood called Alien Nation and it presented a scenario where I actually would support violence or even genocide. It got me thinking about my sense of pacifism and how in many ways it’s more about attitude and language than actual literal non-violence.I was obsessed with this show as a kid, at one point even more than Star Trek The Next Generation, which was running at the same time. It only made it one season. Looking back, it had fantastic ideas, original plots,…
Read MoreMy Life in Snippets
When I was 6 I wanted to write a science fiction novel about Transformers but didn’t know how to read so I had to ask my mom how to spell every word. I got maybe two sentences into it before giving up and deciding to wait until I could spell. It took ten years for me to get back to it. My parents let me watch a Nazi documentary. I remember seeing actual footage of a German police officer shooting a small child through the head in front of her…
Read MoreBoundaries Can be Just as Important as Peace and Kindness
So I ranted about peace last entry, about how we are all God’s children and even when someone is actively out to hurt us, it’s still best to see them as humans, to have empathy, and to consider them to be ultimately equals on the same team. It seems so counterintuitive… but I also realized that I left out a big part of it: boundaries. People have always told me that I’d get my ass handed to me in life with this attitude and from my perspective I’ve very much…
Read MoreKalin Loves Pope Francis
I listened to a couple books by Pope Francis recently and I feel like they’ve sparked another spiritual awakening within me, (which has happened maybe 20 or 30 times in my life).It’s a good feeling.Like I’m no longer alone.I always saw the catholic religion as an enemy. I mean, I’ve seen some seriously messed up stuff come out of extreme religion, so to hear the freaking pope saying things that make me shout “A-fucking-men”, it’s really quite a shock. I’m still just as much an atheist as I was before…
Read MoreThat fear of human connection
So this one time I was super high on acid and walking down Eldridge avenue in Bellingham Washington toward Squalicum beach with a good friend and we walk past this house that has a little rock wall in front that lifts its yard up a couple feet from the sidewalk. In this rock wall, there’s all these beautiful little plants and flowers poking out of the cracks. They looked really well manicured but also natural like they were meant to be there. I start going on to my buddy about…
Read MoreJuggalos and Slave Drivers, Diversity and Inclusion
This one time when I was in pre-school my mom and my aunt started telling me that I had issues asking for help and I remember them asking me to “just try it, just ask for help”. They wanted me to just experiment, just ask someone for something, anything, even if it’s real small and you could totally do it yourself. “you need to practice asking for help”. They just kept telling me this.So one day in pre-school, we’re doing a little art project and my pen falls on the…
Read MoreDiversity Equity Inclusion Rambling
Last entry I criticized a book called Street Data Audiobook, about diversity equity and inclusion (DEI) when it comes to schools. I did feel a little guilty about posting something that comes down on this kind of thing right when Trump is going on a rampage against any sort of diversity initiative regardless of how much long term good it does or the data we have to support it. It felt tacky of me, but at the same time, it’s a discussion we need to have.I finished Street Data a…
Read MoreRambling book reviews and identity politics
I finished listening to Professional Idiot by Steve-O. Kind of a heartwarming story of redemption. It’s real and crazy and honest and I think I like autobiographies better than biographies for this reason: they tend to have self-help elements. They include the why and the thought process and details you just can’t get from a writer who didn’t live it. Professional Idiot does have some tidbits of good advice, especially for anyone with extreme personality issues or struggling with drugs and alcohol. Highly recommend overall.I should read more autobiographies. I…
Read MoreTrump is Stirring Up a Whole Lot of Trauma in my Friends and Family
Listening to Professional Idiot the auto-biography of Steve-O. It’s heartwarming in some twisted way despite what awful things he’s done. He owns up to it and that deserves some respect.I also listened to The Art of Happiness by the Dalai Lama a day or two ago and finished How to Boost Your Physical and Mental Energy. I’ve realized I can’t keep up on listing them all here. I go through so darn many self help and other non-fiction books. I’m enjoying this Steve-O biography enough that I think I should…
Read MoreMy great vacation, that fucked up movie with Demi Moore and some awkward bragging
It’s been a really great trip yet again, though they always are. Stayed a couple days with an old friend and his new wife down in the Seattle area, then came up here to Bellingham and Burlington and as I do once or twice a year just spend every night with different sets of old friends. Also the restaurants. Love the restaurants out here. Boundary Bay is closing down so I need to go eat there soon. Seems strange that I haven’t eaten there in ten or fifteen years and…
Read MoreAnti-aging blood transfusions and two scared kitty cats
I should be writing more. Almost two weeks since last entry. I keep thinking of things to say and don’t find the time (or energy) to say it but I tend to feel much better when I do.We got two cats at my house. Don’t think we introduced them properly. The sister (Nikita) abandoned her brother and climbed up into the basement ceiling to hide while the brother (Odie) isn’t really a climber so he’s trying to acclimate to the house by himself. He’s slowly warming up, but their fear…
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