Radio Cat

Just look at that furry little diva being all bad ass.

Today has been better than yesterday on the healthy front, but I’m not up to 100% yet. Let’s call it 80-85% and assume I’ll be through whatever is bothering me by tomorrow.

Today I managed to completely screw up my daily routine but I’m okay with it. We got snow yesterday, so this morning at 5:30am or so instead of going down to the cellar and getting my exercise in for the day I went outside and shoveled. We didn’t get a lot of snow, but we got enough. Within an hour it was all gone. Not long after finishing up outside I went out and ran some errands. Today is a very important day, after all*.

I didn’t get to breakfast until I was starting work at 9:00am. The hunger pains that I wrote about yesterday were definitely a thing and the eating struggles I also mentioned yesterday were also a thing, but not as bad as last night. Since breakfast was so late I didn’t have time to eat a snack mid-way between breakfast and lunch. I ended up going four hours without eating and wouldn’t you know it, when lunch time started approaching those mean old hunger pains were back again. I’m eating lunch now and feeling a little better, though that weird queasiness that has been slowing me down the last couple of days is still there. It is definitely better than it was, but it’s still there. It hasn’t been enough to stop me the way it was yesterday, so that’s a big plus. Maybe I can eat enough lunch so that I won’t be hurting in the lead up to dinner. That would be nice.

*Why is today a very important day. you ask? Because today is my beloved wife Jen’s birthday! It’s not just any old birthday either. It’s a big enough milestone birthday that her present this year was a week at Disney World. Yeah, it’s a big deal. She’s the love of my life and the woman of my dreams and my beautiful bride and it’s her birthday! Wish her a happy birthday!

Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday to you,
Happy birthday dear Jen,
Happy birthday to you!!!!

Last Night’s Snow

We got some snow last night. The anticipation was enough to screw over my band practice, but in the end it wasn’t too bad. I don’t know what the official total was but it looked to be about 4-5 inches of really light snow.

When I woke up this morning I looked outside and thought to myself that I would clear off the driveway and the walkway and the fire hydrant after work. I did my morning exercise and ate breakfast and then thought I would maybe go out and shovel a path from the road to the door and leave the rest for after work.

It’s really cold out today so I dressed in a couple of layers and put on my snow boots like a good boy. I went out, fully planning to do just enough to let the mail man get to the mail box. Next thing I know, it was all done. All of the shoveling. The entire driveway, both cars, the path around the house to the back door, and the fire hydrant. All done. I did not start the cars so they still have a layer of ice. Other than that, it’s all done.

I suppose there is still a chance that the plows could come back and widen things, and that would leave a small snowbank at the end of the driveway and I’d have to deal with that. We’ll see how that goes.

I’m really pleased with myself for getting this done so early. It would have been on my mind all day otherwise. Like a dark cloud hanging over my head.

And yes, this post is just an example of me whistling past the graveyard. Expect a bunch of these kinds of posts today.

We’re Going to Fail Again, Aren’t We

The band practice is on the books for 4:00pm tomorrow. I should be super psyched.

I’m not.

We’re going to get slammed with a snowstorm tomorrow afternoon. Practice is going to get snowed out.

MUTHA PUSS BUCKET!

I’m keeping my fingers crossed, but I swear that mother nature hates my guts. What a bitch!

Random Wednesday Evening Thoughts

Here are a few of the random things going through my pea brain on this Wednesday evening.

I haven’t shaved in nine days. If I don’t shave tomorrow you will hear me screaming from hundreds if not thousands of miles away as I tear the flesh from my face because I can’t stand the itch anymore.
What is it about that cats that makes them go from sitting calmly on the chair with each other one second to savagely trying to maul each other the next second? Is it me? Did I do something to cause the armageddon? The cat-mageddon if you will?
I really hope that Washington, DC gets hit with a massive, catastrophic blizzard on Monday (January 20th). Not the whole city, just the national mall. Really, just one end of the national mall. The end with the capital building. Like, a strategically placed blizzard. Yeah, that would be nice.
March 14th is going to be a big musical day for me. There’s a new album by Envy of None coming out that day. There’s only one member of Rush releasing music these days, Alex Lifeson, and Envy of None is his new band. Rush, of course, being one of two bands that, musically speaking, drastically turned my musical world upside down. The other band that, musically speaking, drastically turned my musical world upside down? Throwing Muses. Guess what? Throwing Muses is also releasing a new album on March 14th. Holy Shit Snacks!

Transitions

My glasses have those transitions lenses. You know, they tint themselves in bright light so they act as sunglasses when needed. When the light is dimmer the lenses un-tint themselves.

Yesterday we got an inch or two of snow. Not much, but enough to need to clean it up. I did a lot of it yesterday when I went out to the store. It snowed enough afterwards that everything was covered again. I went out and shoveled it all this morning, including the path to the side of the house where we keep the trash barrels and in front of the fire hydrant that’s on the end of our property. I also put some ice melt down on the driveway. We’re good to go. Our personal snow removal is complete.

If you’ve ever been outside after a fresh snowfall you know that it is super bright. If the sun is out, it reflects off the snow and everything around you is super bright. The transitions lenses come in handy on days like this.

I’ve been back inside for 15 minutes now and the lenses have yet to un-tint themselves. It’s like I am walking around at midnight with all the lights off.

Fun.

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.

Snow on the Way

It’s going to snow tonight. Crap. I was going to see if Jen and Harry wanted to go for a drive to look at xmas lights, but now I just want to pull a blanket over my head and hide until the weather clears. I mean, winter officially starts at like 4:00am tomorrow morning. It’s bound to snow eventually. That doesn’t mean I have to like it.

I did a couple of goofy things with this little bloggie today. This post will serve as a bit of a test for one of them. I added a couple of new share buttons. Bluesky and Threads (and Mastodon? Did I add that one too?) are new, and Tumblr was re-added after being removed at least once. I removed twitter/x as well because fuck that musk prick. Fuck him right in his fucking eye. I tested the Bluesky and Threads buttons and they work. I also set new posts to automatically post to Bluesky. When I publish this literary tome I will see if it worked.

Another change, which is internal and should only be viewable by me, is that I think I hooked up to Google Analytics. I’ve had that option for ages now but I never did it. I am at heart a stats geek, so why didn’t I? It seems like I am too late as my engagement stats (the ones built into wordpress.com) are down something like 70% since they peaked back in February. Allow me to make the same caveat I make every time I mention this page’s stats… I really don’t care about the stats, I am just a numbers nerd and like to mess around with them. Also, and definitely most importantly, being down 70% from a very small, some might say microscopic, number is just another small, microscopic, number, dig it? This is not one of those blogs that sees a gajillion hits an hour. I consider myself lucky when I average one hit an hour and in my experience that would be a lot. In other words, I am in no way interested in drumming up business with insipid brain droppings, dig? Like I said twice before in this post, I just like playing with numbers. I have a Computer Science degree for cripes sake. Numbers are fun. Whatever, I am curious if linking up to Google Analytics a) worked, and b) will show me anything fun. I’ll probably write 100000 posts about it over the next few days (assuming it worked, of course).

All of these changes are internal but they might be a hint that a bloggie shake up is coming, and you know what that means… that means I am probably going to start messing with the theme and the layout. Sometimes Robert just cannot stop himself, you know?

What the hell was I talking about? I can’t remember. Oh yeah, it’s going to snow tonight. Doesn’t that suck? I think that sucks.

Oh well. I am going to click Publish now. Here’s hoping we cross post over to the ol’ Bluesky Social. Wish the bloggie luck……….