We had plans to go to Vermont My step son celebrated his birthday on Tuesday and we were going to go see him for a slightly belated birthday lunch.
That was before the winter storm warning was announced and the forecast started calling for maybe 10 inches of snow.
Eight days ago we were in Florida and it was 88 degrees out.
Winter sucks.
Word on the street (pun intended) is that traffic is really crappy tonight. I still have almost two hours to go before I finish work and go out to brave the roads, but I am not looking forward to it.
What I am looking forward to is seeing my step son tonight. He’ll probably be getting to the house while I’m stuck in traffic. All the more reason to be happy about the commute situation (yes, that was meant to be very sarcastic).
I really want to go home now. One hour and 47 minutes to go.
While we wait, here are two pictures I took while putting gas into the car this morning… because that’s related to the overall topic, right?
I think my step son Harry loves both of our cats very much, but if I am being honest, I think Robin is his favorite. I also think that Robin knows this, and I think that Harry is Robin’s favorite human. They are best buds, really.
As I have mentioned a few thousand times on this little journal of silliness, my work from home office space is currently situated in Harry’s room. When he moved to Burlington he took most of his furniture with him, including his bed. In it’s place, Jen and I bought a day bed that can double as a couch when Harry isn’t home with us, and a bed when he is.
Earlier today, while I was working, I turned around for a second and found this view of Robin sleeping on the day bed.
I sent it to the family group text and said I think this means that Robin misses Harry. I think that is clear.
My step son’s plane landed a little over an hour ago. My wife went to the airport to pick him up and they are on their way home now.
Another happy landing! The plane is on the ground, safe and sound. Welcome back to Earth, Harry!
The cats don’t tend to visit me while I am working, but for some reason they did today. Maybe they know I am in my step son’s bed room and he’s flying home from the UK today. He is currently in the air, on his way to London to grab a connecting flight to Boston. Can the cats sense that?
Anyway, I took some pic because that’s what I do.
Lily promised me she wasn’t the one who messes with the plant clipping I wrote about yesterday.
Yeah, whatever you say, feline. Whatever you say.
Tomorrow afternoon my step son and I are going to a hockey game. It’s my first hockey game in person since… 2016? 2018? I can’t remember. It’s my first NCAA hockey game since 2004.
I graduated from UMass Lowell. My step son currently attends the University of Vermont. Both teams are in the Hockey East conference and… well… both teams kinda suck. UVM is in 8th place (out of 11 teams) with a 3-3-1 record in conference and a 4-5-1 record overall. UML is in 10th place with a 2-6-1 record in conference and a 5-9-1 record overall.
I expect the game is going to be evenly-ish matched but also kinda crappy. I don’t care. I’m looking forward to spending an afternoon with Harry, probably trash talking each other into oblivion. I tried to get myself a UML hockey t-shirt to wear but I failed. Oh well. The Vermont fans in the building will know that they have a foreigner in their rink by me being obnoxious. I used to be a pretty obnoxious fan back in my minor league season ticket days.
It’s going to be fun.
It’s just after 8:30am on the Friday before Labor Day weekend and I haven’t punched in to work yet. I had a few things to do first. I went with Harry to the garage to drop off his rental car and pick up his car. It’s all set and it looks as good as new. He just left to go back to Burlington. He’s going to miss his first class this morning, but that’s about the only downside to this visit. All is well again.
I’m less than nine hours away from a three day weekend. I just finished season 11 of the new Doctor Who. I have 20 episodes over two seasons left to go and then I’ll be all caught up. I’m on episode 17 of season seven of the original show. Eight episodes left in this season and something like 2346123472572 episodes left in the full series. I don’t expect to finish either series this weekend, but I can pretty much guarantee I’ll be done with the new show in a week or so which means I will be 100% caught up before the next episode airs in November.
What about the music project? I have 27 songs finished and 39 total in progress. I have four more songs ready to mix and I hope to crank them all out tonight. I have 30 days left, including today, and a ton of work still to go, but I think I am more or less on pace to finish on time. I’ll have a few days at Disney World where it will be tough to make progress, but I think I will be okay. I should note that even though I took over two weeks off in August, I still managed to finish an RPM Challenge Rules album in a month as I started and finished 12 songs within the calendar month. I started and finished 10 in July too. In order to hit 50 songs over all I will need to start and finish 11 songs in September. Three album in a months in a row isn’t a bad place to be. I think once this project is finished I will try to get back into the last re-recording project which has been left hanging for a little more than a year now.
I mentioned in the last post that my stomach has been a little less than 100% this morning. I had some trouble with water early on and had to deal with a minor bout of The Foamies after taking my vitamins. I only got eight ounces of water in during my exercise, but afterwards I was okay for breakfast and I am feeling much better now. I’ve managed another eight ounces since I came home from Harry’s auto shop. I think we’re back on track today. I might have a hamburger on the grill for lunch today. We’ll see how it goes.
Okay, it’s 8:50am now and I have to be punched into work by 9:00. I think I’ll hit publish on this masterpiece of an update and get my work day started. Lots to do today, lots to do. Eight hours and 40 minutes to go until the long weekend.
You can do it, Robbie! You can do it!
What a nutty kinda day it’s been. Sheesh.
My step son Harry is home from Vermont right now because his car is in the shop and he needed to go to a mechanic near us because he couldn’t get one near his home without having to wait for a month or two. He needs to head back to Vermont tonight, but his car isn’t going to be ready until next week.
He went through his insurance claim (long story that you will not get details on) to get a rental for the next week. At lunch today I drove him to the rental car place to pick up his temp-ride. They told him they needed to call the insurance company to verify our plan will cover the rental because he is under age. The rental agent called them and found their entire system was down. They couldn’t look up our (or anyone’s) policy.
Harry offered to stay at the rental place until it was worked out so that I could go home and get back to work. Fortunately by around 2:40 or so the insurance system issues were cleared up and he was able to drive off in his rental car. All worked out for the best eventually, but talk about annoying!
On an unrelated, less serious, but still annoying note, at around 9:30-10:00 or so this morning both cats snuck their way into the cellar. Both of them! After an hour or so I was able to coax Lily back upstairs but Robin wanted nothing to do with it. A short while later I was trying to bribe Robin upstairs with some treats and Lily ran past me and went back down stairs again! FFFFUUUU!!!! That was just before we had to go to the rental agency!
When I got home I expected them both to be sitting on the stairs waiting for the door to open. Nope. Neither of them were. I got Robin upstairs soon enough, and by 2:00 I had them both upstairs. They both tried to eat a plant, one of them knocked over a box full of guitar gear, they got into just about everything down here. There are so many places for a cat to hide, I was unable to find them on my own. I also had to trip a few mouse traps, just in case they stumbled across them. What a couple of feline jerks, right? Bad kitties!
They are upstairs now though so they are good kitties once again. Still… sheesh!
Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in nine minutes. Here’s hoping the zaniness is done for the day. I need a nap!
Just jotting down some smallish, random thoughts on a Thursday afternoon.
My stomach is being a jerk today. Gas. Bad gas. Lots of bad gas. My stomach is a bit upset. A little bit of pain. Nothing bad, just gassy. Super gassy. Pardon the T.M.I. of it all. I just felt the need to share.
In the interest of daily creative behavior like the photo a day challenge and my current 1400+ day posting streak on this little bloggie, I was wondering if I should post a daily haiku. What do you think?
One haiku each day
You know, to keep the brain loose
Could be worth a shot
I have watched a lot of Doctor Who today. Like, an alarming amount of Doctor Who. A frightening amount of Doctor Who. Both the original series and the new series. So much Doctor Who. I may have a Who problem.
We brought Harry’s car to the shop today. Here’s hoping they get the work finished before he has to go back to work next week. I may have to drive him back to Burlington after I finish work one night, and then turn around and drive home right away. That could be a long night. I will do it with a smile on my face, but… yeah, that would be a long night.
The cats have been super affectionate today. I am not sure why. It doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things, but it is definitely a welcome development.
There are a couple of good things coming tomorrow. One good thing and one really good thing.
The good thing is a new mini-split AC system for the primary bedroom. We had one installed five years ago and were told it would last for a long time. It didn’t. It’s only a tiny bit better than useless right now. It’s freezing in there. We’ve had to add a space heater to keep from turning to ice some nights. The new AC is going to be installed tomorrow and here’s hoping it’s going to last as long as they tell us it should. At least this one has something like a 12 year warrantee.
That’s the good thing, what’s the really good thing? Harry. Harry’s Spring Break starts tomorrow and he’s coming to our house first. We’re going to have him here starting tomorrow evening and running through early next week. He’ll spend the second half of his break at his Dad’s but I’ll be sad about that when it happens. Until then though, I am stoked that he’s going to be at our house. He’ll be here when we ring in the start of daylight savings time on Sunday. I’m totally here for it.
Inside the Red Head's Head 