Almost There

It’s 2:15pm. Lunch is about to end (I started my break a little later than normal today). I have a vacation day booked for tomorrow, then the following two days are off for Thanksgiving, then the weekend. That’s right, folks. I have a five day weekend coming and it is just a bit more than three hours away. I have one more meeting on my schedule this afternoon and I have a few email threads that need updating. Other than that, we’re just riding out this fine Tuesday in the office.

So before Covid shut everything down I was a regular user of Audible, the audiobook subscription service. I forget how but at some point I came into a whole bunch of credits and blew them all on a number of books that I never got around to listening to. Back in March when my company upped our in-the-office requirement from once a week to twice a week I reopened my account and all of those unread books were still there. One was a biography of Syd Barrett. I’m listening to it now and while many of the events and facts the author describes are clearly incorrect, and many others are trying to show Barrett as some poetic legend on a level that is infinitely greater than his catalog demonstrates, it is a good read. I have been listening to a lot of his music over the last week.

The National Solo Album Month (nasoalmo) rules allow for one cover song. While adding another song does not fit my personal theme for this month’s project, I am wondering if I should record a cover of Dominoes. I’m thinking about it.

2.5 Hours to Go

The countdown to the end of the work day and the start of my long weekend continues. I was pulled into a meeting for the stretch of time that I was planning to have lunch so I had to delay my break for an hour. It’s 3:00pm now and I am just wrapping up my lunch. My stomach has been okay for most of the day, though I’ve twice been hit with empty stomach hunger pains. The second time was at 11:00am while I was in a (different) meeting and it was pretty uncomfortable. A protein bar and some sugar free chocolate at 11:30 put me right. I’m optimistic that I had enough lunch to hold off any further issues until I get home. Cross those fingers, kids.

For the third day in a row I am trying to get through the day while dealing with feelings of exhaustion. Why? I got a decent night’s sleep last night. I should feel better today than I did yesterday or the day before, right? Nope. I am super tired once again. Last night at about 9:00pm I could barely keep my eyes open. Then, magically, by 10:00 I was wide awake. I was able to get to sleep by 11:00 though so I thought it would be okay. Today I’ve just been wiped out all day. If this comes up again tomorrow I might actually take a nap. Wouldn’t that be fun? I mean, I am old so of course it would be fun. The older you get the more that a good solid nap is a thrill ride. Bring it on, people!

Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in 18 minutes, and a long weekend two hours after that. Power through, Robert!

Eight Hours to Go

The title of the post says eight hours but it is really eight hours and 13 minutes, give or take a few seconds.

Long weekend approaching. Prepare for the arrival of a long weekend.

I am so tired today. I slept for six hours last night. I was hoping I would feel better than I feel right now. I’m exhausted and I haven’t done anything yet. I’m sitting at my desk in the office fantasizing about going home and taking a nap. It is going to be a long day, I can feel it.

The weather forecast says the sun might come out mid-morning tomorrow. Could that be enough to get me out of the house and into the city for a little photo-walk? Probably not, but maybe. Just maybe. I want to take some photos and I want at least some of them to be on film. We’ll see.

Apart from that, and needing to get a car inspected, I am hoping my long weekend will be a musical one. I am hoping for lots of recording and guitar playing. All I have to do is get through the work day today. Eight hours and eight minutes to go.

One More Work Day

Tomorrow is Wednesday. I have to get through the work day and then I am on a four day weekend. It seems so incredibly far away. It is infinitely far away.

I am about to watch this week’s episode of Star Wars: The Acolyte. Will it be as excellent as the last few weeks? I hope so.

My stomach issues from this morning have more or less fixed themselves. That’s good. Unfortunately they were replaced by repeated hunger pains. What I normally call Empty Stomach Pain. It has happened three or four times today. No matter how big a meal I have, I just can’t get out in front of it. Instead of the usual three hours between eats I have been hurting at around two hours. In two instances it was only 90 minutes. What’s up with that? I will need to have a big bedtime snack today in the hopes that I won’t have any problems over night.

Tomorrow is an in the office day. I am exhausted beyond measure tonight. I don’t know how I am going to get through the few things I still need to get through before I can let myself sleep. I’m only one day away from a super long weekend though. I need it bad, folks. I need it bad.

Starting a Tough, Short Week

This week is going to be a tough one for me. Not because anything particularly difficult is on the horizon, but because I took vacation days on Thursday and Friday and my brain is already in long weekend mode even though it’s only 11:30am on Monday.

Yeah, it’s going to be a long three days getting to that vacation time.

The reason I took the vacation time is Friday is my 20th anniversary with my company. July 12, 2004 was my start date. I figured I’d take the day off in celebration and then just splurged and took the day before too. I don’t have any set plans for the two days yet. Just vague ideas about making music in the cellar and going outside and taking lots of pictures. The latter assumes the weather will cooperate. The five day forecasts look okay, but not great. Maybe it’s getting time where I have to stop holding out for morning sunlight and just go outside and shoot whatever regardless of the light conditions. I don’t know. Maybe some ugly clouds over the ocean would look interesting? Who the hell knows. Surely not me.

Anyway, I am sure I will write 23462346747 more posts about my upcoming four day weekend before it actually arrives. For now though, here is today’s photo a day challenge picture… because. I don’t know. What do you want from me? I’m just an old hack. Leave me alone!

Longest Day Ever

Oh man, are you feeling it today too? Has today been the longest day in ages or what?

It’s Friday but I swear the clock is running slow. I think it’s only actually moving forward in time when I am looking at it. When I am not looking at the clock it is stopping itself somehow. I think the universe knows that I am just a few hours away from the weekend, and that I have a sick day booked on Monday (for a doctors appointment) so it’s actually a three day weekend for me… so it (the universe) is dicking with me.

What a jerk, eh? Hopefully it’s only affecting me and not all of you, dear readers. Hopefully your clocks are progressing appropriately.

Good luck out there, folks. It’s a weird one for sure!

Personal Time

My company gives us all 16 hours of personal time each year. They also give us weeks upon weeks of vacation time. The difference is that the personal time is meant to be used in small chunks at short notice, while the vacation time, which they don’t actually call vacation time, can only be used in four or eight hour chunks per day and is supposed to be booked in advance. The other difference is that vacation time can be carried over from this year to next year if needed while the personal time disappears on January 1st.

What does all of this mean? I had five hours of personal time left in the bank and I used it all up today. Robbie will not be having any time vanish on January 1st this year. I started my weekend five hours early, babie!

How did I celebrate this happy surprise of a half day? I ate my lunch too fast and made myself gastric bypass sick, that’s how! Yes! Well played, Robert the putz! I had a hamburger again to have another test of the sugar free ketchup. Yes, it does taste like ketchup and no, it is not disgusting! What a treat! It was such a treat that I ate way too much per bite and plowed through it all way too fast and got something stuck in my stomach tract and had a full on case of the foamies.

I am better now that a couple of hours have gone past. I’m okay!

Happy weekend plus five hours of personal time, everyone! WOOHOO!

Day One: Epcot

We spent the day at Epcot Center today. In the afternoon we had a visit with a couple of New Hampshire transplant friends who now work in the parks. It was a really nice visit that ended up in one of the restaurants in the Mexico pavilion where we had a fantastic dinner.

It was a very good day. I did not take many pictures though, film or digital. Here are a few rando’s though. The light was pretty bad all day and in the evening it was total cloud cover and a major rain storm. Here’s hoping for better sun-luck at Magic Kingdom tomorrow.