On the Ground

My step son’s plane landed a little over an hour ago. My wife went to the airport to pick him up and they are on their way home now.

Another happy landing! The plane is on the ground, safe and sound. Welcome back to Earth, Harry!

Flying

My step son woke up this morning in Scotland. He’ll sleep tonight at our house. He’s already part way through quite the travel journey today.

I used flightaware.com to watch his first flight, from Aberdeen, Scotland to London, England. In less than five minutes he is scheduled to take off on his second flight of the day. This one from London to Boston. He’ll land sometime around 9:00pm, or a little before then.

As is always the case when one of the kids is traveling by air, I am nervous. Hell, I’m always nervous, but like the good American who comes from Irish immigrants, I suppress my nerves and emotions and just bottle them up until I explode. See the collected works of Dennis Leary for more stereotypical information on this stereotype that is probably not accurate but sometimes feels like it is.

Yeah, I am nervous. I watched the first connecting flight circle Heathrow airport a couple of times and I started getting scared that there was something going on in London. Nope. Just a busy day at the ol’ airport. Everything is fine. Everything went fine. All is well.

Flightaware says the plane is taxiing for take off. I’m not superstitious, but I (figuratively) have my fingers crossed. Here’s hoping for the best.

Safe flight, Harry. See you on the ground, back home in the good old U.S. of A.

Office Day

We are in our second week of having to come into the office twice per week instead of once. It’s Monday so here I am. At my desk. In the office. Monday feels like a really crappy day to come in, but I need to pick a day to go along with our usual Wednesdays and I don’t want to come in two days in a row and Monday just feels better than Friday so I’m here on Monday. I did Friday last week and the morning commute was all right both days. Friday had the benefit of having far, far fewer people around. Monday has the benefit of getting the second day out of the way really fast. I think we’ll stick with Mondays for now.

My step daughter is flying home tomorrow afternoon. I took the afternoon off so I can get her at the airport. I am thankful to have as much personal time available to me so that I can do stuff like this. It’s a good thing and it makes me happy.

I took a pic this morning. Nothing special but it’s a photo a day challenge kinda thing.

I need a haircut. Did I mention that? Do you care? No? That’s okay. I need a haircut anyway. Just sharing, or maybe just over sharing.

What else… I don’t know. I have a meeting in half an hour. That’s fun, right?

I watched the third episode of The Walking Dead: The Ones Who Live (aka the Rick and Michonne show). It’s the weakest of the three so far (there are three more coming this season), but it was still pretty good. I am pleased with the season to this point but I am hoping the quality goes back up starting next week. No spoilers. If you like The Walking Dead, you should be watching. That is all.

Jen and I have been watching Star Trek: Lower Decks. I started watching Penny Dreadful the other day. I’m still plowing through The X-Files. I watched the first movie after finishing season five. Tomorrow morning I’ll start season six. I’m getting near to the point where Mulder leaves and that’s going to make it hard to power through. I’ll stick with it though. I promise.

Okay, back to work with you, Robert.

Happy Friday

Happy Friday, everyone. Hopefully Friday has meaning for most if not all of us. It has extra meaning for me this week. Starting this month my company has changed it’s hybrid work requirements. Where it used to be that we had to be in the office for 20% of each pay period (basically one day each week), as of March 1st we have to be in the office for 40% of each pay period (basically twice per week). Today is my first, second day of a week. None of us our happy with this, but it’s a whole ton better than being back 80%, which is what we had prior to the pandemic shut down. Oh well. I’ll deal with it. I am still coming in every Wednesday. My group has Wednesdays as a mandate and the second day each week is at everyone’s personal discretion. I am sort of planning on making Mondays my regular second day, just to get it over with, but that didn’t work this week due to the contractors working in the kitchen. Friday was the only day that worked for me. Fortunately there was zero traffic today. I made the 40 mile drive to the office in 45 minutes. If only it were like that every morning.

In other news, the kids are on the ground. Bellana’s flight landed in Georgia (the US state, not the European country) before I went to sleep last night. Harry’s first flight landed in London well after I nodded off for the night, and his connecting flight landed in Scotland before I woke up this morning. All is well on both of those fronts. Here’s hoping they both have a great time on their trips.

I am taking advantage of the fact that I am 40 miles from home right now to make my way to IKEA after work. IKEA is about 60 miles from home, but only 20 miles from work. I will head down there as soon as I am free and go to the returns department and bring back a great big pile of stuff that IKEA included in our kitchen redesign blue print that we didn’t end up needing. There is a lot of stuff to return. A lot of stuff. If I get it all done tonight then we don’t have to worry about it, and with the money we get back maybe I’ll be able to afford a hair cut this weekend because damn, do I need a hair cut!

Anyway, here’s today’s photo-a-day picture. I took it before I did my workout this morning at about 5:40am. It’s only 9:14am now but it’s already felt like a long day.

Tomorrow

So the plan for tomorrow, a sort of random vacation day in the middle of the week.

We have a ton of stuff that we bought for the kitchen remodel that we didn’t end up needing. Some from Home Depot, some from Lowe’s, and some from Wal-Mart. I plan on spending a nice chunk of the morning returning as much of that crap as I can. I thought about going to IKEA to return some of the mountain of leftover stuff we need to bring back but the receipts are all confused. We have to work it all out before we bring stuff back.

When I get home it will be about time to head to the airport. Both kids should be here by the time we need to leave. One, Harry, is here already. The other, Bellana, will be cutting it close but there should be enough time. It’s going to work out so that I can drive them both into the city at the same time. Originally I thought I would be playing Robbie the Airport Shuttle Guy twice, but now it looks like we can consolidate the two down to one. Nice.

After that I will go home again and make dinner for the love of my life and then hang out, missing the kids, until bed time.

Busy day on tap, yes it is. It should be fun.

Day Off Tomorrow

I took a vacation day tomorrow. Nice!

Both kids are going on Spring Break trips, and they are both leaving tomorrow, and they are both flying out of Boston Logan Airport. I am going to drive them both. Just call me Robbie the airport shuttle.

My step son is coming here tonight. My step daughter won’t be here until tomorrow. We won’t have a lot of time to hang with them before they jet off to more exciting places, but I’ll take what we get. I do love it when my step kids are here. Even when it’s only for a few minutes.

Happy Valentines Day

I am in the office today and Jen is working from home. I was able to wish her a Happy Valentines Day before I left the house though, so that makes me happy.

Yes I know that Valentines Day is a hallmark holiday and not a real thing, but I was alone for so very long before I met Jen that I never got to celebrate and I just want to make up for lost time.

We used to do anti-valentines celebrations. A bunch of friends would get together and go bowling and eat pizza and make fun of the happy couples. Now I am in one of those couples and I do so love every second of it. Make fun of me all you want, being with Jen is totally worth it.

Happy Valentines Day, Jen. I love you with all my heart. Smooch.

Happy Birthday, Jen!

One Year

We lost my mother one year ago today. After years and years of dementia she was finally free of all of her physical pain and mental confusion. Would she see it as release the way we hope she would? I have no idea.

I got to spend a little time with my father tonight. He was mostly okay, but he’s having an annoying, persistent health issue of his own that flared up quite a bit yesterday and sent him briefly to the ER. He’s fine, he just needs to do what the doctors tell him to do. When he does, he improves. He just doesn’t do it enough. Insert the frustrated sigh here.

Now that I am home I have spent the last 15-20 minutes asking Google Bard to generate images of Jedi Knights in goofy situations like being a contestant on The Bachelor, riding a tiger, or watching a baseball game. I feel like I’ve found my new favorite internet hobby.

No music progress today. It’s getting close to bed time and I haven’t accomplished anything. Well… I picked off a few things at work today, which was nice. Just no musical accomplishments, that’s all. There is also a zombie movie that I want to watch tonight so that I can listen to a podcast discussing it on the drive to work tomorrow.

So many things to do.

Burlington, VT Yesterday

I told my wife that I will eventually photograph all of the city of Burlington, Vermont but it will take years as I am sort of doing it one little street at a time. Here are a few random views from yesterday’s visit to celebrate my step son’s 21st birthday.