Tag: Holiday

The Annual “Slowest Work Day of the Year” Post

Hello there, and welcome to the 2021 edition of the “The Day Before Thanksgiving is the Slowest Moving Work Day of the Year” post!

As (I think) I alluded to in a post yesterday, the four day Thanksgiving weekend is my favorite weekend of the year. Better than Christmas, better than New Year, better than all of them. Memorial Day falls super close to my wedding anniversary so that holiday is really a close second, but Thanksgiving? That’s the tits, bro. Christmas sucks the big one next to Thanksgiving.

As a result, the anticipation of the four day weekend makes the last day at work feel like it lasts 800 hours instead of just eight. It’s a slooooow day, dig? This year is subtly worse than most. My company is changing it’s holiday/personal time off process and replacing the day after Thanksgiving with a floating holiday. I will still be able to put in for the day off, but I might not actually get it.

Whatever, that’s irrelevant to today’s discussion. For now we just have to worry about how the eight hour work day is going to feel like 8000 hours. At least the kids will be here tonight. That helps straighten out any distorted reality.

Happy Day Before Thanksgiving, everyone. May your work day be quiet and free of surprise issues.

Not Much Going On

Watch, I publish a post saying that there isn’t much going on and five minutes later I am going to get run over by a mac truck sized issue at work. Just you watch.

Anyway, nothing much going on today.

Work has been quiet, which is nice on a Monday. I got a little exercise in this morning, but I am having a hard time getting as much done in one sitting as I could even a few days ago. My goal is 30 minutes and I usually try to do it in two 15 minute chunks. Over the last three days or so I haven’t really been able to do more than 10 minutes at a time. Either my back will start screaming, or my calves, or my knees, or something. Isn’t exercise supposed to get easier the more you do it? Apparently not.

Intermittent fasting has not been all that great lately. One or two days each week I have been failing. Not completely, but I’ll be shutting it down after 13 hours or 14 hours or whatever. The goal is 16. Having said that though, today’s fast just ended at 18 hours. So that’s a good day, right?

I have Veteran’s Day off on Thursday. It’s bitter sweet. Starting in January my company has changed the way we handle time off and it includes some of the non-national holidays we’ve enjoyed for decades being changed to floating holidays… which means next year I don’t get 11/11 off. This is my final Veteran’s Day. Unless of course I put in for a floating holiday on that day next year, but that’s neither here nor there. I plan to honor the holiday by playing the guitar, and ending World War I.

Okay. Lunch is over. Back to work, Robert.

Take a Holiday

Yesterday was the 4th of July. Independence Day in the USofA. Today is the 5th of July which, thanks to the 4th falling on a Sunday, is the day we celebrate the holiday and have a day off from work. Amen to that, brothers and sisters in the American workforce.

I haven’t really done anything. I unclogged a drain in the bathroom sink. I finished watching Black Summer. I put guitars onto a couple of new song ideas. I’m up to six songs now.

I haven’t spent much time with heavier “rawk!” sounds with the new guitar. That changed today. I had some crunchy goodness going on. The bridge pickup on the new guitar is kind of in love with the Bassbreaker 15. The neck pickup is jealous of that love and therefore kinda bitchy. They aren’t playing all that nicely together. I’ll work it out. If not there will be a new pickup. Something swanky and boutique. Probably not until the kids are done with college though. Money? What’s that?

How about a little love for leather guitar straps. I’ve never owned one before but when the new guitar came (I still can’t believe Jen bought me a Les Paul for my birthday. Best birthday gift ever) I needed a new strap and I found a reasonably priced one on amazon.

One thing I learned, the cloth straps I’ve been using since day one back in 1987 play nicely with clothing. Meaning that when I need to adjust the strap’s position relative to my shoulder, it will slide around easily and not try to bunch up my shirt. Not so with the leather strap. The leather strap grabs hold of my shirt and drags it along with it everywhere it goes. I never thought of that before. No one was more surprised than me.

Anyway, are you having a happy long weekend? I am having a happy long weekend.

On a sadder note, Mary Weinrib passed away at the age of 95. Who is Mary Weinrib? Well pop culturally speaking, she’s Geddy Lee’s mother. Now giving birth and raising the greatest bass player in history and the frontman for the greatest rock band in history is a legendary accomplishment. That’s great. It’s also not the most amazing thing she’d ever done. Mrs Weirib, as a young woman, survived the Holocaust. She survived Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen, among others. Rest in peace Mary Weinrib. Your kid done good.

I should also mention that I did not mention when Neil Peart’s father passed away a couple of weeks ago. Sorry about that.

Quittin’ Time

Everyone psyched for the big fourth of July weekend? I am! I just punched out of work a few minutes ago and I could use a good long weekend.

Of course the forecast calls for frosty cold and constant rain and I have to spend 24 hours at my mother’s house instead of with Jen and Harry, but it’s still a long weekend and I am going to make the most of it, damn it!

Pour one out for America!

Happy Presidents Day

Happy Presidents Day, everyone!

Now for me personally, I really don’t agree with having a holiday celebrating the fact that we have had presidents. I would rather have a day celebrating some specific person from our history, but whatever.

Over the last four years Presidents Day has been extra hard to stomach, given that the guy sitting in the office was a fascist, racist, cheeto whose very existence soiled the position in which he “served”. Now that the scumbag is gone though we can enjoy the day again.

Happy day that celebrates 45 out of 46 US presidents, and thanks again to President Biden for literally being alive.

USA
USA
USA

Day Off

Is everyone in the USA enjoying their Labor Day holiday?

My to do list today is clean the bathroom, change the litter box, and work on 50/90. Also, do some of that exercise shit. I went for a five minute walk already today, similar to what I was doing last week… just walking in place. By the end of the five minutes I could barely lift my feet off the floor. Being criminally out of shape sucks.

50/90 update. 31 songs done, 10 ready for lyrics, three ready for rhythm guitars, and one that’s just a bass riff. 45 songs total. I was hoping to be at 40 before August ended. I missed it by three. That makes September a little harder than I expected.

It’s been about an hour since my five minute walk…

I think I’ll do another one now.

Yikes.

The Day Before Thanksgiving

Well hello there. Welcome to the annual The Day Before Thanksgiving is the Longest Work Day of the Year post! I’m glad you could make it.

Have you ever noticed that? The four day weekend (for many of us) is looming. It’s Wednesday. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving. The clock seems to be moving slower and slower as the day wears on. I’ve been at work for about 12 hours now and somehow it’s only 10:45. I don’t get it. The antici-

-pation is unbearable.

So tomorrow is Thanksgiving again. It’s pretty much my favorite holiday. That probably explains why the whole household gets seriously sick on this day each year. My wife is at home suffering from a major cold. I am at work and I can feel that same cold bug starting to take over. I’ve a little sore throat and a little stuffy nose. By the time we’re ready to eat the turkey tomorrow I’ll be 75% dead and without the strength to lift a fork full of bird to my mouth.

Assuming my beloved and I are healthy enough to join in the holiday festivities tomorrow (that’s a big “if” at this point), we will be celebrating with my side of the family at my brother’s house. My step kids will be with their father and that royally sucks, but it’s part of the deal. I don’t like it, but there’s nothing we can do about it. My niece and three nephews should be there, although the annual sickness is tearing through my siblings’ houses as well as mine so who knows.

I have decided to create a list of topics that should be off limits for Thanksgiving Day discussions. These have not been agreed to by the rest of the family, but I am throwing them out there in the hopes that we can end all arguments before they begin. The list is:

  • Politics
  • The election
  • Fascism
  • Donald Trump
  • Hillary Clinton
  • Politics
  • The Republican party
  • Nazis
  • Politics
  • The Democratic party
  • Racism/Bigotry
  • Politics
  • Fascism
  • Politics
  • Politics
  • Politics

I think we might want to add politics to the list as well.

So I’ve spent six hours writing this post and it’s still only 10:53. The clock has only moved eight minutes. This is crazy. Clearly the day before Thanksgiving is The Longest Work Day of the Year.

HoHoHo and all that crap.

Getting Close

It’s been a certifiably nutty day around here today. Lots of busy, busy, and busy. It’s like everyone on Earth decided that today was the day to try and get everything done before Christmas.

I’m not overwhelmed yet, although the cat is making a TON of noise.

The important thing is this…

In less than 24 hours I’ll be on my day and a half long Christmas holiday.

So close. So very close.

Holiday Math

Holiday weekend + rain every day = movie festival.

Saturday: Star Wars
Sunday: The Empire Strikes Back (with a bonus viewing of The Avengers)
Monday (scheduled): Return of the Jedi

This post might also have been titled, “Time Well Spent”