Drive

Lots of driving in the city today. Lots and lots of traffic jams. Lots and lots.

Long Drive Recap

The drive from Methuen, MA to New Bedford, MA:

103.1 miles in one hour and 48 minutes. The GPS app (Waze) took me through a couple of weird routes, but there wasn’t any traffic at all.

The drive from New Bedford, MA to Methuen, MA:

93.8 miles in one hour and 28 minutes. The GPS took me on exactly the route I would have expected.

The total drive:

196.9 miles in three hours and 17 minutes.

In closing, here are a few toy camera app (Hipstamatic) pics from the gas station near our house that I stopped at as I was leaving on today’s drive.

Do the Right Thing?

I don’t want to go into details but here’s the deal.

I have something to do tomorrow and I don’t want to do it. Originally, the plan was for my wife and I to do it together. It involves driving for an hour and a half, doing something that may not take a lot of time, and then driving home for an hour and a half. As of now though, my beloved bride needs to work tomorrow so if this happens it will be me doing it alone.

So there are two options. One, I do the right thing and I go and do this task. Two, I don’t do it and I stay home and run errands for my wife and just be here with her, which is absolutely what I want to do.

Frustrated sigh… If I do this then it will help someone out and if I believed in karma (which I absolutely do not) then it would be a good thing for everyone, karmically speaking (is karmically a word?). I just selfishly do not want to do it because it is going to take up the entire afternoon and most of the evening and I really just want to spend time with my wife.

I am probably going to do it. Like I said, it’s the right thing. The other person involved has already done a similar thing for me. It’s only right and proper for me to do the same in return. I just don’t want to spend three hours in the car round trip.

Ugh… I didn’t expect this post to feel so negative. I really just thought it would be an unemotional stating of the two sides of the coin and instead I feel like this reads like I am pissed off and defeated by the situation. It’s not that big a deal. For me, it’s not that big a deal. For the other folks involved it is, but me being involved is a microscopic piece of it. Ugh… I don’t know what I am saying anymore. I’ll shut up now.

On the upside, the Boston Bruins appear to be putting an end to their 10 game losing streak by beating the shit out of the Whalers tonight. Too bad it’s WAY too late to have any meaning. Ugh. The Red Sox got rained out today so they are going to play a double header tomorrow. Maybe things will go well and we’ll get to spank St Louis twice in one Sunday. That’d be nice.

Another Rainy Drive

It is pouring rain out this morning so I must have needed to drive to the office. Yesterday I drove to my in-laws and back in the thickest fog ever. I could barely see the road. Today I drove to the office in a huge downpour and could barely see the road.

Coincidence?

Yes, of course it is.

Rain is a Thing

So rain is still a thing. I mean this from a work point of view.

When Covid hit and we all started working from home full time, I learned to stop really worrying about rain. I didn’t have a commute anymore so I didn’t need to drive to and from work in the rain. I didn’t need to walk out to a parking lot in the rain. I didn’t even need to walk to the driveway. From the perspective of getting to and from work rain (and snow) stopped being a concern at all.

Now that we’re back in the office at least some of the time it’s a thing again and it sucks.

It is pouring rain today. I’m looking out the window and the parking lot looks like a small lake. I have to drive to a different building soon and that means I have to go out in this suck-fest of a rain storm and get drenched so that I can make the next meeting.

Working at home is so much better than working in the office. So much better.

Thus concludes this morning’s rant about rain. Thank you for your time and patience.

Rain

190 miles, give or take, from our kids to our home…

And it poured rain the entire drive.

The.

Entire.

Drive.

We are home at last and the visit we had with the kids today was wonderful. One of them has a new significant other as well, and we met that person for the first time. No spoilers though.

Here’s hoping we get more chances to hear Bellana sing with the Vermont Symphony Orchestra in the near future. They are playing Stravinski’s The Firebird in the fall. Does that have a chorus section in it? I freakin’ hope so. (I once was quite the Stravinski guy, but it’s been a while)

The next road trip on our agenda will take us quite a bit more than 190 miles. Florida, here we come!

Long Day Alert

Wow… Wednesday… am I right or am I right?

It’s a work-in-the-office day. I woke up nice and early, though about half an hour later than I was hoping. I had a lot of meetings on my work calendar today, the first of them being very early in the day. I wanted to make sure I could get through my whole morning routine, including 45 minutes of jogging (pronounced yogging) in place and making lunch and packing emergency protein snacks and all of that stuff while still leaving enough time for me to get to work a little early.

Unfortunately when I got out of bed I saw that we got a dusting of snow overnight. Not a lot, but enough to cover everything and guarantee a terrible morning commute. I was hoping to get out onto the road by 7:15. I made it by 7:20, but I had to cut my exercise in half to pull off that feat. That means I am going to have to yog tonight when I get home and I really do not want to do that. I wasn’t late to work, but it did take me an hour and a half to drive the 40 miles.

Now that it’s about 2:30 in the afternoon, I have survived two big meetings and I have a third coming up in half an hour. I’m stressing out, big time, but once I get through today I will not have to worry about this sort of thing for a while and I am happy about that idea.

Tomorrow and Friday I will be working from home. I am optimistic that I will be able to get a lot of music done before work both days. Fingers crossed for some guitar playing and car vocals and fun stuff like that. I’m also thinking it would be nice to mix a song or two over the weekend. Doesn’t that sound like fun?

For now though, I am really tired and can’t wait to get through my next meeting so that I can relax a little. Maybe if I can get my exercise finished right after dinner tonight I might be able to go to bed early and enjoy not having to stress over a work project for the first time in a couple of weeks. Fingers crossed, right?

Scenes from a Road Trip Part Three

Random moments from stops on the road yesterday.

What’s the deal with whale tails in Vermont?

This might be the cover for my next album, which will be called “awkward turtles have weird babies:

Stretching My Legs

Welcome to New Hampshire. I just crossed the state line coming out of Vermont. I still have about 100 miles to go but I pulled over to give my legs a good stretching. I’m in a Walgreens parking lot and the store is closed. That didn’t compute for me until I looked at my watch and saw it was 9:10pm. Oh, yeah. Closing time.

Okay, time to get back on the road. I need to get home with enough time to do my 30 minutes of walkies. Yikes!