Tag: Kids

Attenuation

Usually when we go up to Vermont we leave as early as humanly possible so that we can spend as much time there as we can and still get home at a non-ridiculous hour. Today is a little different. I have to time my arrival to match up with his class schedule. That means I have another hour or so before I have to leave.

I was thinking about playing some guitar before I go, but Jen is working and a few minutes from now she’ll be in a meeting. Better for me to keep quiet. It got me thinking about gear though. The amplifier I am going to use for November is a Vox MV50 Clean. There are a ton of MV50 models, but the Clean is the only one that comes with an attenuator. The others have a master volume. Blah.

It’s supposed to be a 50 watt amp and the attenuator has three settings; Off, 1/10th power, and 1/100th power. So it can be 50 watts, five watts, or 0.5 watts. At 50 watts it is loud. Great googlymoogly it is loud. At 0.5 watts it’s not. It’s a nice, useable at home volume. Well… still maybe a smidge loud, but not bad. I keep it at 0.5 all the time.

But should I? I was complaining the other day about it caving in when I bomb it with signal out of one of my overdrive pedals. Maybe I should set it to 1/10th power and just keep the volume control really low. Hell, maybe I should turn the attenuator off and see if I can use the volume control to keep things manageable. It’s doubtful, but maybe worth a try?

Huh… we’ll see.

Change of subject: Last night I don’t know what I was thinking. Two nights ago I had a memory lapse and got into bed without putting my CPAP mask on. Dumb ass. I realized the mistake before my head was on the pillow and all was right with the world again. Last night I missed two things. I forgot to top off the CPAP machine’s humidifier tank. Oops. It didn’t run out, but it’s close to empty.

I also forgot to charge my friggin’ watch. I finished my 30 minutes of exercise and just forgot to put it on the charger. Next thing I know I’m dozing off and my battery is at 30 something percent. Crap. Well, if it dies it dies. What’s a red head to do? I went to sleep. When I woke up today it was at 12%. It’s good to know that I can go 24 hours without a charge. The downside of course is that it’s been on the charger for about 90 minutes and it’s only back up to 52%. It’s probably not going to be fully charged by the time I have to leave. That’s okay. It’ll be charged enough.

I still need to top off the gas tank (it’s about 190 miles each way. In my hybrid Kia, if I start with a full tank I can get there and back and still have about a quarter of a tank left. I friggin’ love science) and pick up some caffeinated beverages for the ride. After that the only question is music or podcasts? If it’s music I might go with the new live record from The Pineapple Thief. I first stumbled across them a couple of years ago and it’s all good stuff, just nothing that sets the world on fire for me. Their new live record (they couldn’t tour last year so they did one show in an empty room and webcast it everywhere. The new record is that show) does it. It sets the red head’s head right on fire. Great album. I was seeing all this potential and waiting for a record that lived up to it. The last one was close. This new one nails it. Having said that though… I’ll still probably go with podcasts. That’s just kinda where I’m at this morning.

Happy travels, folks!

Road Trip on the Books

It’s official. I’m Vermont bound in the morning. Three hours up, drop off a laptop, three hours back. Sounds like a fun day to me.

The last time we went up there we took the kids to lunch. Covid dictated we get take out and eat it in the car. Someone, I’m not sure who, did not finish their lunch (it wasn’t me, I scarfed my sub down like the universe depended on it). I went to get something out of the car this morning and… oh the smell was powerful. I cleaned out the food and opened all of the windows. I think it’s okay now.

I mentioned before that I started a time lapse video with my iPad before work this morning. It’s still running. I’m going to stop it soon. It’s been over 10 hours. That should be a pretty good chunk of data for the iPad to work with.

I was thinking about time lapses and the road trip that’s coming and trying to figure out a way to have a time lapse running out the window of the car for the whole way up and the whole way back. Can I do that? I’d have to figure out a way to either aim out the window, or balance the iPad against the window. I think it might be more trouble than it’s worth. I wish I still had that little iPod Touch. If I could keep it plugged in that would work. Too bad it died.

Oh well. Probably not worth the effort.

Okay, I need to go blow out the candles. Talk to you later.

Unplanned Road Trip

I may be making an unplanned drive up to Vermont this week. Possibly soon.

Harry’s laptop has suffered a tragic accident and may be on laptop-death’s door. There is a strong possibility that I might have to run a replacement up to him. Not sure yet, but I gave work a heads up I might have to bolt with little to no notice.

If only his school let Freshmen keep a car on campus. He would have already been here and been halfway back by now.

Oh, the webs the universe weaves.

Late Sleeper

I went to bed last night a little before midnight. I woke up once around 6:00 but went right back to sleep. Next thing I know it’s 9:00. Eight hours and 45 minutes of sleep, six hours and 30 minutes of restful sleep, and a sleeping heart rate dip of 30%. That might be the best night’s sleep I’ve had since I started paying attention.

We have a scheduled FaceTime with Harry this afternoon and we’re planning a Great British Bake Off watch party too. Other than that… we’re plans free. So some TV, some World of Warcraft? Maybe some more guitar. How about definitely some more guitar.

I started watching two shows that have pretty completely hooked me. Midnight Mass and Y the Last Man. Midnight Mass took a couple of episodes to grab me, but Y the Last Man was more or less instant. There is one more episode of Titans to go and I don’t know how many more episodes of What We Do in the Shadows. Walking Dead World Beyond is on tonight. That’s okay. Fear the Walking Dead comes back tonight too and I don’t know what to think about it. Season five is still the worst season of television I have ever made myself watch. Season six started out better but spiraled right down the toilet and may have ended up worse than season five. Why am I bothering with season seven? It can’t be worse, can it? At the same time, it can’t be good either, can it?

The Red Sox are not playing today. It’s a travel day. The Bruins finally opened their season last night and they don’t play again until Wednesday. No Boston sports for me tonight. Suddenly that feels weird.

I’m having a bad time with the intermittent fasting this weekend. I thought I was going to be driving to Vermont yesterday so I stopped the fast and had breakfast. Today I slept late and did it again. Two sub 16 hour fasts in a row. I think that was the first time I’ve done that in 13 months.

So what am I getting at with all of this?

It’s going to be a lazy Sunday and I like it. Go play your guitars, kids.

Change of Plans

Today was supposed to be a trip up to Vermont to visit the kids. Lunch with one and a swapping of warm clothes for summer clothes for the other. Alas it was not to be… yet. Next week. An ear infection and a stomach bug have derailed the plans for today, but we’ve already rescheduled for next week.

Instead, Jen and I took a crack at the mess that is Bellana’s room. When the cellar was flooded the first time we started storing stuff in her room. When the cellar flooded the second time we continued to use her room for storage. We didn’t do it a lot, but we did pile up some stuff. We spent a good chunk of our Saturday morning getting rid of crap we don’t need and finding new homes for the stuff we might need in the future. The cellar, specifically.

My back is killing me from going up and down the stairs. That’s okay. I’m at my desk in the bedroom with the window open enjoying what is probably the last moments of decent weather. I hate fall. The leaves are starting to fall. Bite me, mother nature.

Oh well.

Baseball at 4:00, hockey at 7:00, guitar at?

Awake

Still awake. I wanted to go to sleep early but it wasn’t happening. Oh well, I’ll keep trying.

I just watched the first episode of Y the Last Man on Hulu. Color me hooked so far.

I wish Major League Baseball had booked game one of the ALCS for tomorrow instead of Friday. I have all this built up hype and no where to put it.

I still don’t know why the NHL season opened on the 12th but the Bruins don’t play until the 16th. Is it a TV rights thing? The NHL is back with ESPN for the first time in something like 300 years. Figures. NBCsn streams to an iOS app. ESPN only streams to subscribers. Jerks.

I mentioned we are going up to Vermont on Saturday. We are bringing cold weather clothing to Bellana (and bringing warm weather clothes back home with us) and we are meeting Harry for lunch. I can’t wait. Weekly FaceTime calls are great, but I’m looking forward to actual face time.

Okay, I’m going to put some music on and see if I can sleep. Talk to you all tomorrow.

More Nothing

Another lunch break with out much to talk about. We had plans to go up to Burlington to see the kids this weekend, but the weather is looking bad and thanks to Covid we want to stay outside so we’re looking at rescheduling. I guess I don’t quite need to have Bellana’s Fall laundry done tonight after all. I’ll still try though.

This is going to be broken record-esque. but my back and my shoulders and my legs are killing me and I haven’t don’t any of my exercise yet today. Not good, Robert. Not good.

I started a new candle yesterday. When I lit it again this morning I started a time lapse video. I’ll post it later today and you can bask in the glory of the glorious gloriousness of the candle burning time lapse iPad video.

This has felt like a super long week, but it hasn’t been particularly long at all. I think the start of October just makes everything suck. Not that September’s generally any better. Hang on to it as long as you can though. Don’t leave, September! Stay with me!

I haven’t a clue what I’m talking about anymore.

Okay, back to work. Lunch break is over.

Thursday Morning Musings

It’s September 30th. How the hell did we get here so fast? Yesterday and today the outside temperature when we woke up was cold enough for jackets. It just sucks. Covid ate two summers in a row, but they both flew by so fast anyway that I feel like we would have missed them even without Covid. Crud.

I forgot to mention this yesterday, but yesterday was the 11th anniversary of our buying this house. Our 11th Homeownerversary, if you will. I didn’t do anything to celebrate then, but I did today. I went downstairs to do laundry. While downstairs I looked for leaks and water on the floor. I didn’t find any. Oh happy day. I think there is probably some water under the floor tiles in a few spots still, but nothing visible. I need to run the dehumidifier for a few days to clean up the hidden stuff (in theory at least. Will it work? Who knows).

We are going to see the kids this weekend. Bellana asked if we could bring up some Fall clothes for her. I offered to wash everything first. Big mistake, Robert. There is so much laundry to do. So much. Mountains and piles and piles and mountains (I am exaggerating, yes, but there is a lot of it. A lot). I hope to have it all done tonight.

We missed the new What If last night. Jen was tied up at work and by the time that was wrapped up and dinner was done Harry was busy with homework. We’ll try the watch party thing again tonight. Last night we were going to mess up the tradition by not having burgers, but we can fix it tonight. Jen suggested veggie burgers. Consider it done.

And now, on to work. Happy Thursday, folks.