Category: Microblog

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…

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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…

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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…

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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.…

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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…

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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,…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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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My chest still hurts. I’m not sure what happened but yesterday I was burping all day but it wasn’t painful. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and my chest hurt. I assumed it was a pulled muscle and went back to sleep but then when I woke up I started getting paranoid, thinking about a friend who recently told a story of her dad ignoring a heart attack then finding out what it was years later when the doctors did an x-ray and found his heart…

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It’s been a chill weekend for me, which is rare. I’m almost always doing something, party event, a trip or a big dinner or something. It feels like it’s been months since I’ve just been able to take a weekend all to myself.The timing worked out as my roommate has COVID. I think I may have it too, as I felt real tired yesterday and groggy. So it’s good it happened on a weekend I was already looking forward to doing nothing.I’ve been consuming audio. Funny that self-help and educational…

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I wanted to talk more about immigration and my experience working for Anagh Technologies, kind of continuing from my last entry. The whole thing about Anagh Technologies was they would sponsor immigrants, get them their green cards, then guarantee them a job. Since they work directly for Anagh, and Anagh just rents them out to anyone who wants their skills, they don’t need to worry about being deported when they lose their job. Anagh just keeps them on the salary and gets them another position.The problem seems to be that…

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Tonight I wanted to tell the story of the two years I spent working for Anagh Technologies. Someone the other day told me they feel safe around armed guards because they are given background checks.So I have a story about background checks.On the one hand, Anagh was probably the shadiest company I’ve ever worked for (which includes Boss Tweed fish and chips in Bellingham where my boss once whispered to me that our illegal fishing practices had actually caused the Arctic Rose disaster which killed 15 fishermen.)Okay so in 2014…

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Okay am I gonna talk about how great my life is again–strange I keep wanting to do that now when my entire life up until recently, I’ve always wanted to use writing as an expression of my anger, frustration and negative thoughts and granted, I was often trying my best to turn it into something positive, but up until recently almost all of my writing–well there’s a lot of joy in my stories I write–but especially with my journal, i mostly only wrote when I was upset about something.Now I…

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I went to Kennywood yesterday and it was cold as balls but still surprisingly fun despite none of the real coasters being able to run in that temperature.Been thinking about how great my life is and why–that’s really the important thing to analyze for me is why did my life turn out so great?, I know it’s due to my decision making, and I know in general what I’ve done right, but sometimes it’s hard to pin down the specifics of your own behavior patterns.But I’ve been thinking, really it’s…

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Figured I should write a thanksgiving entry because it’s like it’s kind of mind boggling how much I have to be thankful for these days. It’s after 1AM but I figured I’d stay up late tonight and bust this out. I wasted some time today playing Brotato. Not sure what’s wrong with me. Can hear my roommate downstairs playing it. Got a couple more friends into it.It’s not good. Like crack.But I did work on customd.app earlier today and last weekend I spent most of the weekend working on it…

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I’d like to say I’ve been busy and that’s why I haven’t written in a week but I’ve actually been struggling a little to stay productive.I blame Brotato.I need Brotato intervention. I used to make fun of my roommate for being addicted but now I think I’m worse than she is.I did work on my app, customd.app a little last weekend, upgrading angular to 18. I really really really need to get back into that. I use it for so many different things in my life and I’m convinced that…

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Are we still doing the whole “trigger warning” thing? It occurred to me that I’ve totally stopped worrying about doing that. Probably for the best. Trigger warnings, and the overall mentality that we need to be protected from ideas and stories is really counter productive to the long term mental health and stability of our whole society.But maybe I should give a trigger warning for my aunts and mom and others in my family.I’ve held a lot of bitterness for a lot of years and it’s time to talk it…

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