I don’t have a single favorite historical figure. I have a bunch of them. It is time for a (partially satirical/sarcastic) list!
Abe Lincoln, of course.
Niall of the Nine Hostages – He was an Irish king. DNA tests imply that the overwhelming majority of people of Irish descent are descended directly from him. Respect, bro.
I would say the Yardbirds Big Three, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, and Jeff Beck, but Clapton turned into an anti-vaxxing, racist prick, Jimmy Page had that whole thing with the “relationship” with a 13 year old girl, and Jeff Beck died before I could ever see him live and I would be too embarrassed by that to face him.
Barak Obama. Yeah. Eight years in the White House and the closest we came to a scandal was that one day he wore a tan suit.
Ted Williams. Maybe we could go fishing.
General William T. Sherman of the March to the Sea fame. He just seems like he’d be a fun guy to hang out with. As if he was a little unhinged, but in a good, funny way.
Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.
That list is just off the top of my head. I’m sure if I spent more than 0.68 seconds thinking about it I would come up with more. Also, better. This will do for now though. Happy Thursday, everyone.
It’s Wednesday. I’m back in the office. You don’t care, but I want to write about something… anything… so here we are.
Today is Juneteenth. I completely forgot. When the state first established today as a holiday we got it off. Less than a year later our company turned most of the non-national holidays into floating holidays so now we don’t get today off. It was just another day for me except that there was no traffic on the highways this morning. From my house to my office, 43 miles, took 46 minutes. Why couldn’t every commute be this easy? While having the day off would have been great, I will take this as the next best thing… sort of.
I failed to get six hours of sleep again last night. My watch tells me I got 5:45 but my heart rate numbers were pretty spectacular. Hopefully that means I won’t be too completely exhausted again today. Just mildly completely exhausted. I still haven’t hooked up my CPAP machine since coming back from Florida a few weeks ago. I think my sleep numbers (assuming my watch pulls accurate data) are implying that using the machine won’t make much of a difference. I should probably use it anyway. Maybe there will be a placebo effect or something and I won’t be quite as tired after a short night’s sleep. I don’t know.
The Oilers won last night. Yippee. Well… that’s being mean. I am glad they won. Not because I expect them to dig out of a three games to none series hole, but because it literally extended the NHL season. If they are going to lose on me and prove that I suck at picking the outcome of NHL playoff series’, then the least they can do is lose in seven games so we get our money’s worth, right?
As for the Red Sox, they have won four in a row including two wins against the first place Yankees. Glorious. I saw a post on social media where someone said that this streak proves they will not only make the playoffs, but advance to the American League Championship Series. I laughed out loud. No, let me be more specific… I laughed out loud for a long, long time. They are four games above .500. They are in third place in the division, 11.5 games behind the first place (and thoroughly evil) Yankees. They are two games out of the wild card. Oh yeah, it is June. Yeah… they are better than I thought they would be, but they are still pretty clearly mediocre. They might sneak into the wild card, but I am not holding my breath. If you’re expecting the Red Sox to do anything better than middle of the pack, then you haven’t been paying attention. No. They will not make it to the ALCS. If they do, I will happily eat my words, but I won’t have to because there’s no chance. This is the way. I have spoken.
I watched last night’s new episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. There has been so much hate spewed at this show. Most of it rooted in sexism and racism rather than the story or anything to do with it. I’ve enjoyed the show so far and I am looking forward to seeing where it goes. I’m on for the ride, as the saying goes. Last night though… episode four… I finally had something that I didn’t like. What was it? The running time was less than 30 minutes. Come on, Star Wars. We need more than that from our weekly episodes. We need more to sink our teeth into. These episodes should be more like 45-60 minutes, right? We need that content, folks. We need it! Star Wars, babie! Give us more!
The Oilers lost the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final series to the Panthers, virtually guaranteeing the Cup will go to Florida.
Then in game four, the Oilers won in a blow out. Tonight, in game five, the Oilers are up 4-2 after two periods.
If you were wondering what the hockey equivalent of a dick tease felt like, then know that this is it.
Even if the Oilers win tonight, there is still virtually no chance of them coming all the way back to win the Stanley Cup. They are just trying to give me a little hope so that Florida can crush my dreams the way they did when the eliminated my Bruins, both this year’s playoffs and last year’s playoffs.
Sure, I am happy the Oilers are winning in game five. It’s just going to make it more painful when they eventually lose.
In other news, the Red Sox beat Toronto again tonight. That’s four wins in a row for my home town team. I’ll take that.
The current temperature is 95 degrees. Hot enough for ya?
A few minutes ago I went outside. Today is trash day and I walked out to the street to bring in the barrel.
Woah! It’s hot out there, kids. It’s steamy hot.
I love it.
On an unrelated note, I just got another notification stating that the 9-1-1 service is up and running again. Good job, whoever it was that fixed whatever was wrong. We can now easily call for emergency services in Massachusetts again. Thumbs up.
The heatwave has arrived. It’s 93 degrees outside. Wait, don’t you have to be over 90 for three days to officially rank as a heatwave? So maybe it’s more correct to say that the potential heatwave has arrived. Whatever.
I still have the windows open in my little office space. My Nest app is telling me that it’s 81 degrees in this room and 76 degrees in the living room. It’s definitely warm enough to approach being uncomfortable, but given that since losing weight I find myself really cold all the time… it’s kinda nice right now. For the first time in months I don’t feel cold at all. Not even a little bit.
I just got a public safety alert on my phone. Looks like the 9-1-1 service is down for the entire state of Massachusetts. Here’s hoping none of my neighbors need to call for emergency services any time soon. It would suck to dial 9-1-1 and get a busy signal or some sort of error message.
Similar to yesterday, I am still exhausted. I failed to get six hours of sleep yet again last night, though I only missed it by about five minutes this time. I’m really tired. Really, really tired.
Three hours left in the work day. Fingers crossed I can make it through in one piece. Also, fingers crossed we don’t melt in the heat today, and fingers crossed we don’t need to call for an emergency service. Hang in there, Massachusetts.
Harry has returned to Vermont. I am sad, but it does mean I can work from the desk in his room again. I’ve already taken over again.
The windows are open, though it’s going to get into the mid-90’s this afternoon so I will probably close them soon. The cats are happy.
The plants (Bertha the plant clipping, Bertie Bots Every Flavour Plant Clipping, and Bertrand Russel the Plant Clipping) are all happy too. I think… they are plants… their thoughts are tough to read.
Is it a cop out of an answer if I say all of them?
Why limit yourself to a subset of the globe when you can see it all? This is all hypothetical, isn’t it? Spin a globe, stop it with your finger at some random spot, go to that place. That’s how it’s done, folks.
If we are going to limit ourselves to some hypothetical subset…
I’ve only been to one country outside of the United States and that was Canada. As I am a little on the lazy side when it comes to traveling, all of my top choices of countries to visit would likely be places where most folks speak English, and most road signs are also in English. The UK and Ireland would all more or less tie for first place on the big destinations list. Australia and New Zealand would be on the short list too, but only after the British isles. After that, how about literally everywhere in Europe. Start in the West and work my way East. Simple.
After that? I really don’t know. Brazil, Morocco, India, Japan. Maybe a road trip from the Southern tip of South America all the way home. That would be pretty fantastic. Then we could rerun the plan starting at the Southern tip of Africa and ending in France or Spain, and then fly home from there. Just imagine how much the rental car would cost for a trip like that. Yikes, but totally worth it. It would make our epic drives to and from Disney look like a walk around the block.
I’ve kinda gotten off subject though, I think. The short answer to the which countries would I like to visit question is every country in the British Islands and more of Canada. I want to go to Newfoundland, where my maternal grandparents came from, and Ireland, where my paternal grandmother came from, and Scotland, where Jen’s family came from. I want to trace our roots, as it were. That would be fun.
We have to go back to Disney World twice before we leave the country though, and after that we need to go back to Southern California which will likely include a day trip into Mexico… which just implies that any plans I have for international travel are likely to never get too far beyond hypothetical. It’s like John Lennon said, life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans.
