Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
Burnt out, over the hill autistic IT nerd and longtime SSC lurker
User ID: 3219
Fellow Mottizens, I have a most shameful confession to make. Despite being a card-carrying member of the notorious player coffee haters, I have been living a lie.
I have been settling for coffee straight from a Keurig.
I hear your gasps and mutterings! I know! There's no excusing my behavior! For the sake of explanation, however, I will simply state that my coffee roaster was in desperate need of cleaning, which between my limited bandwidth and the tremendous amount of buildup in the roaster, became a fucking project.
That project has been completed, and I am happy to report that after two roasts, I can now confidently say we are back, baby! You see, the first roast, while good, was just muddled enough that I had some doubts. I could say for sure that the annoying meat-like savory note that cropped up was gone, as was the slight but persistent rancid flavor that often accompanied it, so it sure seemed like the cleaning had been effective. However, my coffee, a fine Ethiopian Dry Process from Hambela, while quite tasty and definitely a significant step up flavor-wise, failed to overwhelm me with its magnificence! What had happened, I asked myself. I knew that the roast had taken several minutes longer than usual, a definite potential issue, especially since hotter, faster roasts with my roaster tend to produce better coffee IME. Damn that cold snap! Or perhaps the beans were showing their age and indeed, they were no longer fresh from the vendor and quite possibly past their prime. Or, worse still, had my palate atrophied in the intervening time? Was I no longer able to enjoy the subtle depths of a premium cuppa? True, I could definitely taste fruity sweetness in many sips, as well as a chocolate note, yes, likely baker's chocolate, but outside of the traditional, relatively refined delicacy of a nice pour-over, I didn't get anything definite from the roast, despite enjoying it for over a week. The tasting notes indicated that there should be blueberry preserves, peach and dark plum notes in there, along with sorghum syrup (whatever that's supposed to taste like), and dried dates. I feared the worst.
The next roast, I brought out the big guns. You see, I still had a wee bit of another Ethiopian Dry Process from Guji, the infamous Gerbicho Rogicha. Hands down the best coffee to ever come out of my bullet, the Guji was even older than the Hambela before it, but I had nothing better in my inventory with which to test my skills and my palate. I roasted it on Sunday, another cold day, but managed to get it roasted three minutes faster than my previous batch, and happily locked it away waiting for it to out-gas and mature while I finished the Hambela. Today was my first cup of Guji, and I boy did it ever deliver the goods. The big notes that I remembered from the coffee were still there, slightly muted from their heights of peak freshness as they were. Still, it was deliciously reassuring to taste its bounty of flavors, from the pervasive limeade citrus note to the delicate floral sips as the cup cooled down, and an occasional-but-delicious strawberry fruitiness in-between. It was Good, and now I intend to roast down my burgeoning stores of green coffee and enjoy them while I still can. I even have two separate bags of Gesha to try out, which I look forward to roasting, and will do so as soon as I regain my roasting footage with a couple more batches. Stay thirsty and caffeinated, my friends!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
I can sympathize. I was actually going to wish you well myself! It took me several years plus some good fortune before I really became comfortable with a decent amount of risk, and I know well that it could have been quite different if things had gone poorly for me overall. Here's the story in case you're interested.
Once upon a time, several years distant, I embarked upon a similar path, setting aside a nice chunk of seed money and telling myself that I was going to treat it all as a loss and invest it. It's been one heckuva learning experience, and the first lesson was that I learned is that when I told myself I was going to treat it all as a loss, my emotional self didn't get the memo. This should have been obvious when I just let that account sit for a couple of years, never quite being brave enough to pull the trigger investing the time and effort to make some serious picks. Then a certain US manufacturer landed in hot water and I decided to roll the dice and bought in. Said manufacturer's stock continued to merrily dip and I watched on in anxious fear for around a week or so as ten percent of my investment potentially evaporated, reinforcing my first lesson. It turned out that I still cared very much about the money that I was allegedly treating as lost from square one! When it thankfully rebounded several days later, I sold with a tidy 6% gain and learned lesson number two, which was that I was gambling and not investing. Said stock continued chugging right back along at 150% of the price that I paid for it, teaching me what paper hands were, because I had them. I've since learned that my best actual investing is in the index funds that I plow my retirement money into every month, and that the little chunk of change that I set aside as an investment account can be much more exciting and emotionally rewarding (and occasionally nerve-wracking as well) for me personally as a vehicle for speculation and swing trading. It can be tons of fun, but for me it was most so when my then-boss and I would talk shop about hot and volatile stocks and what moves we were making. That in and of itself was as much as, if not more gratifying than the sweet picks and the nice trades. The hardest part for me has been managing my own emotions as I try to grow and manage that account, but the payoff has been in finding something that I just know is undervalued, investing in it, and watching it grow like gangbusters. The old cliche really is true: you miss 100% of the plays you never make in the first place!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Understandable. I know counselors that can empathize with you are out there, both male and female, and I hope your new counselor is one of said females. Best of luck!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Do you know what cops do when they assess that someone is out of their minds (either psychologically, or due to drugs)? They drop them off at the nearest ER, shrug, and say 'your problem now.' The worst types of criminals and mentally ill aren't dealt with by cops, but the healthcare system. The medical staff are meant to treat someone in a psychotic aggressive state without harming them or allowing themselves to come to harm.
All too true. Alas, this is pretty much SOP since a landmark Supreme Court ruling in 1975 set that specific standard. The system, such as it is, is working as intended. I work with folks that are responsible for doing the psychiatric screening end of this that get dispatched to the hospitals to determine whether or not these sorts of individuals are in such imminent danger to themselves or others or alternately cannot care for themselves that they need to be temporarily detained against their own will. It pretty much sucks for all liable parties, which is to say the hospitals, LEOs, and the screeners. The LEOs must regularly attend training on how to assess potential mental health issues with these sorts of folks and they could conceivably be put under the microscope for the decisions they make in these sorts of cases, so they're going to err on the side of taking folks to the hospital, where high-priced medical staff often need to basically wait for a drunk/drugged up patient to sober up, deal with the frequent fliers that are off their meds or worse still, decompensating but have to stay there until a bed opens up in a longer term care unit, or convince the depressed individual to just commit to a fucking safety plan already and Get Out of Dodge while they still can because they really don't want to have all of their things away and have to live in a padded room for a few days until they're judged safe from harming themselves, now do they? If a patient makes it to one of our people then we have to go through reams of paperwork to document the encounter with the client as well as the entire timeline from when the client hits to the hospital to when we leave, including when we first get the call, when we arrive at the hospital, what the disposition of the case was, whether or not the client was temporarily detained and if so, where were they sent, when was the ruling made, who ended up transporting the client, when did they arrive to collect the client, other various and sundry questions all revolving how long things took because detainment orders expire, and so if things go awry the bureaucracy can cover its ass and point the finger at the right party, which starts with our folks if they don't document everything to a T to begin with.
Somewhere, Moloch is smiling.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Challenge accepted, I'll update when I've finished the book. Glad to hear that you liked it!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Eh, it's been good enough to hold my attention (currently on chapter 12, and things have developed quickly) but then again, I always say I'm a cheap date when it comes to books and it continues to be true!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Yeah, that's certainly been true for my wife. After a few years of wanting the hard luck cases and the downtrodden, she's learning that working harder than her clients is a bad idea and that too much of that sort of thing is burning her out. That said, it was certainly an experience when she wanted to talk about Systemic Racism with me, blissfully unaware that I'd been around the internet more than long enough to have experienced many HBD debates and that the argument she was making was essentially straight from the Dread Jim with the serial numbers filed off. GUH.
Language games, of course, lead inevitably to The Rectification Of The Names. Alas.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Okay, gotcha. I still think your analogy holds merit, and that as much as good therapists can project an affect that I see as inherently Therapeutic (think Dr. Wong if you're a Rick and Morty) fan, it's also true that there's still some bleed-through that happens, personality-wise. So general agree, just was thinking along different lines.
Also, I gotta say that given my wife's firsthand experience in grad school the SJ stuff can be... whoo, boy! I mean, most of her texts were what you'd expect, but she also had texts like Decolonizing Methodologies and Privilege, Power, and Difference so, yeah. But getting into that would be thread derailing, so I'll just say that I think that there was enough dissonance there that my impression is that she mostly was able to doublethink here way through it.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Really good comment! If I'm understanding you correctly, which is to say that most therapists will in their profiles/web pages/whatever advertise their preferred specialties and modalities and the like, then I think it does, yeah. To develop this thought a little further, while some modalities have become mainstream and common, there's still plenty of specific modalities for specific problems, like DBT specialists for BPD, CSTs for sexual specific issues, et cetera, and in that sense I'd absolutely agree that it's good idea to do one's homework and pick the right "genre" of movie accordingly. I was glossing most of that over in thinking, okay, so there are relationship issues but OP is doing individual therapy, and asking about counselors specifically... yeah, if they're seeing a LMHC, LPC, or whatever their State wants to call it, then OP should at least be in the right neighborhood. Not 100% guarantee, of course, but generally speaking looking at a good flavor of individual therapist. In making my comments about a PCP, I was drawing on my own experiences with a PCP in the past. I had a bad one that simply brushed off a serious and chronic medical problem that I had and when I got fed up and went directly to a surgeon, said surgeon took one look and was like, "yeah, you need surgery," and promptly scheduled me. My current PCP (when I actually see her) tends to actually listen to my presenting problem and offer me solutions if she has them or referrals if she doesn't, and I'm grateful for that. My wife has had similar experiences, so for both of us even getting more than blown off has been a non-trivial problem that we've had to overcome, hence my thinking that finding a good fit requires work even at the PCP level, and isn't something that can be expected right out of the gate. I think that part remains true, and the whole genre twist is an important one, though now my brain is going, "well, ackshully, all these licensed folks have to do so many hours of continuing education each year, some of which is different modalities, so maybe it's more like go to the right multiplex," aaaaand I'm gonna kill the analogy there before it goes further into the weeds.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
We have just the one female counsellor who serves all three roles (her individual sessions, my individual sessions, and the couples sessions). Which I’m sure must be a conflict of interest
Absolutely. Assuming you're American, this is enough of a conflict of interest that your therapist could potentially lose her license were you or your girlfriend to file a complaint. It's also all-too-common behavior, unfortunately.
Here in the States, having a MSW is actually a prerequisite for the additional coursework that goes with each particular specialty in question, as is practicing in residence under another licensed mental health professional (LMHP) within the same discipline, such as a licensed professional counselor (LPC) or a licensed marriage and family therapist (LMFT). If your concern is that they're not equivalent to a trained psychologist, then you can rest easy--LMHPs in general meet that bar and then some. That said, just because and individual has managed a graduate degree and a license, that doesn't necessarily make them a good counselor or therapist. Like all LMHPs, a good counselor or therapist is worth their weight in gold, as there are plenty of, well, not-so-good ones out there. Just like finding a good PCP that will actually listen to your concerns and tailor their advice/treatment to you accordingly, finding a good counselor that will do the same is possible (they exist!), but you might not necessarily find one your first time out of the gate, so I'd advise patience and willingness to go elsewhere to find a good fit. One other thing to address is that since you're doing individual counseling, as a rule good individual therapy will focus your needs, and any relationship counseling will come from the perspective of what is best for you, regardless of whether or not that's at odds with what is best for the relationship. Relationship counseling, OTOH, focuses on treating the relationship and not the individuals. FWIW, judging by your other reply, it sounds like individual therapy is the way to go.
And because we're on the subject, I've also had experience with doing relationship counseling in my marriage, and my situation was similar to /u/RenOS below. Despite being an LPC herself, my wife genuinely acted as if the purpose of marriage counseling was, for lack of a better descriptor, to make me "do right". Our marriage counselor (who was an LPC as well) quickly twigged to my wife's particular issues, which to be fair to my wife are rooted in massive childhood trauma, and although she didn't focus specifically on that, all it took was several sessions' worth of trying to work with that before my wife abruptly ragequit. It took another year and another separation, during which time we each had to come to grips with our own shit, before we were actually able to start doing things differently.
edit: tidied up some grammar
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
The Mote in God's Eye by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I've been wanting to read this one for a long time but there's a shaggy dog story that boils down to buying this one in paperback ages ago but said paperback turned out to be a misprinted copy, so when it went on sale in the Kindle bookstore, I was all too happy to pick it up.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Just finishing up The Wizard's Cat (The Wizard's Butler Book 2) by Nathan Lowell.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
This comic will always be with us.
Thanks for the laugh, first time I've seen that one!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
They are, thanks. It's not all sunshine and lollipops but generally speaking, we've been doing a lot better on the whole.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
Strong agree, I have about ten months of sick leave at this point. Nice if I ever get a lingering illness whilst still employed but otherwise? EH!
The Darksiders II OST by Jesper Kyd (not surprised that he's already been mentioned) is the first thing that comes to my mind and it is utterly sublime. I still listen to multiple tracks from it!
Chains: Unbound Book 11 By Nicoli Gonnella.
edit: fixed the book title
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
2mo ago
My personal favorite from that book is the baroque, multi-page detailed account of one of Randy's eating rituals in the Philippines. Pure gold!
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
3mo ago
I haven't got any solid impression of the consequences of not doing so though, and therefore haven't
I mean, it's not uncommon for one of my wisdom teeth to catch on the side of my cheek while I'm chewing, which is always aggravating, but that alone isn't worth the hassle of extraction in my book.
Muninn
"Dick Laurent is dead."
3mo ago
Yeah. But I'm now convinced that this bag was worse than average, because I remember trying a different brand of pre-ground coffee not that long ago and it was "okay" and smelled like average Arabica beans. This one definitely didn't.
Probably true! My reply was totally tongue in cheek and at least a little hyperbolic in that particular sense.
I think some of the disagreement around the discernment and snobbery in coffee and other food/drink comes from seeking enjoyment vs getting [active ingredient delivery system].
The cheapest coffee, wine or pizza can deliver their caffeine, alcohol or tasty calories, and serve their purpose in that way, and at low cost due to all the cutting of corners, which has some value to many consumers, but that's just one dimension inside the category. If you want enjoyment you want a product that represents some of the better raw ingredients prepared in a less destructive way.
I agree with all of this as well. It's not that there's anything inherently wrong or inferior with mass market coffee, it's that I quite enjoy the ritual of sipping a nice fresh shot of good espresso or cup of pourover coffee and discovering the flavors that said shot or cup contains, which is not something I can do with the mass market stuff. In fact, I'd say that it's highly impressive how brands from Folger's and Eight O' Clock to Starbucks can crank out a specific taste profile for their coffee year in and year out given the inherent variability of the beans themselves!
Me too, but what do I know? I'm not a fan of the bitterness either, which is why, when left to my own devices, I prefer espresso and pour-overs.
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