First Time in Ages

I just did something that I don’t think I have done since before Covid came along and mussed everything up.

As previously mentioned, it’s snowing today. Not a lot. We have about an inch on the ground. We might get another inch on top of that, but by no means is today’s storm anything to be worried or upset about, other than the fact that snow is always a pain in the ass. We are New Englanders. This is nuttin’.

However, I needed to go out and do the grocery shopping. My wife has been eating super healthy lately and she was out of all of the healthy things she needed for lunch. I had to go out and restock so that she could have a good lunch. That means I had to go out to the store before the snow stopped. Not only that, I had to go out before the snow removal crews started working. In other words, I had to drive in the fresh, untreated snow.

As previously stated, that was not a big deal. There was enough snow to make the roads a little slippery, but not enough to cause any real troubles for an experienced snow-driver. It made me think though… when was the last time I went out before the plowing started? I can’t remember. It’s been a long, long time. The last time had to have been pre-Covid lockdown. There hasn’t been a time since then that I had to be somewhere bad enough that I couldn’t wait for at least the plows getting one whack in. The only thing I could think of that would have made me go out right away was if one of my parents were in the hospital. If that happened I must have blocked it out of my memory. There was the drive home from Vermont a few weeks ago… does that count? I think the side roads might not have been hit yet, but the main roads had. I don’t know.

So I guess all I did today was spiritually renew my New England Winter Driver ID card. Yeah. I can still drive in the snow. Yippee for me, babie.

Not Today

I was thinking of taking the new eBay camera out to shoot that long awaited test roll today. Maybe go to the Merrimack River or downtown or Forrest Lake. Anywhere, really.

Nope….

Not today. Friggin’ snow. Mother Nature just hates me, it’s obvious. I still have to go out and run a bunch of errands though. Friggin’ snow.

As if I Needed Another Reason

I don’t need another reason to want to work from home more and work in the office less, but I have one. A good one.

There is something about the lighting and the mirror in the men’s room in the office that really points out how much grey there is in my hair. Especially around my temples and right above my ears. The grey hair really just leaps out at you.

Yeah, that’s a damn good reason to want to work from home more and work in the office less. As if I needed another reason, right?

Flurry

I checked the weather before I left the house to drive to the office today. Very cold and very windy. That’s what we can expect.

Just before I got to my exit off of route 128 it started to flurry a little. Just a tiny bit. By the time I parked in the parking lot that flurry was actually sticking. How? It’s still just a flurry. There is so little snow falling that you can almost count the flakes as they drop. Somehow though, that tiny amount of snow is sticking to everything.

There is so little of it that you can’t even call it a dusting. This feels weird. We just had a sander come through the parking lot. Do they know something that the weather forecast I checked doesn’t?

Could this be related to the fires in Los Angeles? What a horror that is. The pictures are terrifying. If you’re in L.A., stay safe. If they tell you to evacuate, do it. You’re too important to risk otherwise. I’m 3,000ish miles away so I cannot even imaging what it’s like there.

Okay. I have to go in to work now. I’m sitting in the car typing this on my phone and I’m freezing. I hope everyone has a happy Wednesday. Stay safe out there.

Living Room Redux

The living room has been slightly rearranged thanks to the new couch. I suspect we will love love love it for a few weeks and then rip it apart and change everything because that’s what crazy kids like us do.

Just for laughs, I took a panoramic pic too.

Jack Hammer

The temperature outside of my house right now is a balmy 18 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s 14 degrees below freezing for our non-US, non-English temperature unit using readers. It’s really cold. The ground is completely frozen. It’s January 7th. It’s as Winter as you can get.

At this very moment there is a work crew jack hammering the street in front of our house. They are jack hammering all over the street. I think it’s something to do with upgrading the gas lines or something like that. The city sent us a notice about it months ago and at the time we thought, why the hell are they going to start a project like that in January? What the hell are they thinking? Have they never been in Massachusetts in January before? Everything will be frozen.

So yeah, we’ve got that jack hammering thing going for us as we start our work day today. Oh yeah, we also have a furniture delivery truck scheduled to show up within the next three hours or so… and the road is being dug up…

Nice. Ugh.

Bad Cats

Apparently the cats pried open the door to the cellar and went downstairs even though I tell them every single day that cats are not allowed in the cellar.

Man, what a couple of jerks! Bad kitties! Bad!

2.5 hours left in the work day. To reiterate the sentiment of a blog post from earlier today, I want to go home. Blah!

Getting Old Can Suck

Tsunami is touring in March. I saw them once back in 1997. I want to go but I’m old and tired and boring (well, boringer) now… what do I do? Besides feel super lame, of course.

Rob (@robj1971.bsky.social) 2025-01-06T00:46:01.684Z

What to do, what to do. The downside of getting old is the increasing disinterest in all things social. The upside is…

is…

Is there an upside to getting old?