Author: robertjames1971

I'm wicked tall.

Handcuffed

We just had a really frustrating issue come up at work. The customer had access to their system locked down hard, for perfectly valid and acceptable reasons. They had issues with applications crashing and we couldn’t get in to see what happened. There were a slew of people from my company, the hardware vendor, and the customer on a conference call and we were all totally stumped. Then one of our tech guys and one of the tech guys from the hardware vendor started hammering away at it and they figured it out.

Sometimes this software support stuff can be incredibly frustrating, but when those frustrating moments get resolved… oh man is that satisfying. Even in a case like this where the folks who support my application ended up being innocent bystanders (the issue and the fix ended up having zero to do with us) it is still immensely satisfying.

Huge tip of the hat to the two guys who eventually worked it all out. As the commercials used to say, it’s Miller time*.

*It’s not Miller time for me. I don’t drink. The sentiment still works though.

Busy Morning

Back to work today, and it’s been a busy morning. There were a lot of things to unpack after the long weekend. Nothing bad, just lots of emails and things to discuss. The morning has flown by. Here we are, just after noon, and I haven’t posted anything to the blog yet! Insanity!

It is December. I need to come up with a music project for his month. I’ll probably get back to the old re-recording project thing. Who knows. Maybe I’ll roll that into February’s RPM Challenge somehow. Hmmm… things to ponder in the coming weeks.

Now that it is December I can officially say that we’re going back to Disney World next month. We’ve got that going for us at least. It’s almost time to pay homage to The Mouse again.

Until then just play your damn guitar, Robert.

93/365

Empty Nest

And just like that, our very full nest is an empty nest again. Harry left this afternoon and Bellana left a few minutes ago. They are both heading home to Vermont.

It was a wonderful weekend and I loved every second of it, but now I am sad. Jen and I will have dinner together and I’ll probably be pretty mushy and lovey (no spoilers) because I know she’s sad the kids are gone too.

Getting old sucks but it’s better than the alternative.

It is On

I can’t remember the last time we did it… Was it pre-Covid? Probably.

The Secret Santa between my siblings and I and all of our significant others is officially on. My sister brought it up in a group text. I was going to but she beat me to it. We’re all in. My brother in law set up the app we use and it’s all like game on now.

I need to make an xmas list now. One that isn’t all guitar gear and laptops and cell phones.

There’s no denying it now. Tis the season and shit.

French Toast

Oh, the bliss! I feel alive again!

Pre-gastric bypass surgery (2.5 years ago) I was a big fan of French Toast with Maple Syrup.

Post-surgery, where sugar can make me super sick, I avoided French Toast. My wife would make it for the kids and I’d have something else.

We were discussing it last week. There is nothing in French Toast itself that would make me sick. It was just the maple syrup that was a risk. I realized that was the only reason I hadn’t partaken in the delicacy.

Knowing that Jen was going to make it for breakfast today I went looking for sugar free maple syrup and I found some. Fast forward to today’s breakfast and I’m in!

It was delicious. Soooo good!

December

Good morning and welcome to December. Ugh. If I were looking on the bright side I’d say something like, one day closer to spring… but we haven’t even hit winter yet. December sucks.

Thanksgiving Part Two was a huge success. Dinner was fabulous, thanks to my wife. The xmas decorations are all up. I plugged in the lights on the outside of the house (that I never took down after last year) and a couple of short strands are out. I’ll have to figure out what to do about that. We had the annual Muppets Christmas Carol viewing. We did not manage to get a watch of Elf in, but maybe we save that for xmas eve?

Our kids are still here. They are both going back to Vermont today. One is going after breakfast, the other after dinner-ish. I love every second we can get with them here. I selfishly hate to see them leave but we are actually going to see them again next week. There’s something huge brewing in Bellana’s world and next weekend is when it hits. We’ll be there for it.

Until then, tomorrow I go back to work after a glorious five day weekend and I am sad about that. What can you do. I’ll be in the office which is making it feel worse, but oh well.

December is here. I put it off for as long as possible. Oh well, what can you do.

Tradition

We had our Thanksgiving celebration today and it was excellent. Afterwards we started decorating for xmas. The kids are here and they are going back to Vermont tomorrow so it was either do it as a family today or Jen and I do it on our own later.

Right now, right at this very moment, we are celebrating another holiday tradition. We are watching The Muppets Christmas Carol as a family. Literally the only xmas movie I care about. Except for that Tiny Tim song… that scene can be skipped.