Tag: to do list

When?

I want to vote tomorrow morning before work, if I can. The early voting polls open at 8:00am. I think I can pull it off. I’m hoping my wife can go with me. If she can’t then it won’t be Friday because of work, or Saturday because of travel, so Sunday?

I won’t be able to play any guitar before work tomorrow if we go to vote. Friday might work. Saturday is highly unlikely. Sunday? Maybe. We’ll have to see.

I took these this morning after finishing my exercise for the day. I thought I might use one for the photo a day thing, but I went with a cat pic from the previous post.

Guitar noodling on Friday. Two days from now. Make it so.

Question for Myself

There is a question that I am asking myself today. More like a switch statement, for my programmer friends. I am not looking for advice or opinions, I am just mulling it around in my head.

Should I go to the sugar free bakery today and get some sweet sugar free cookies to have as after dinner snacks this week?

Or, should I bake that sugar free chocolate cake mix that has been in the cupboard for a couple of months now?

Or, should I do neither and just work my way through the pile of sugar free snacks I’ve hoarded over the last month or so?

Now, for the programmers… I asked Google Gemini to write me a switch statement in C that asks those three questions. Here’s what it gave me. 

#include <stdio.h>

int main() {
    int choice;

    printf("Should I go to the sugar-free bakery, or should I bake a sugar-free cake,\nor should I just eat the snacks I've hoarded over the last month?\n");
    printf("Enter your choice (1 for bakery, 2 for baking, 3 for snacks): ");
    scanf("%d", &choice);

    switch (choice) {
        case 1:
            printf("Going to the sugar-free bakery seems like a good option!\n");
            break;
        case 2:
            printf("Baking a sugar-free cake at home can be a fun and rewarding experience.\n");
            break;
        case 3:
            printf("Indulging in your hoarded snacks might be tempting, but consider the nutritional value and long-term effects.\n");
            break;
        default:
            printf("Invalid choice. Please enter 1, 2, or 3.\n");
    }

    return 0;
}

Hectic Morning

I messed myself up this morning. I overslept a little and then made it worse by not getting into my morning routine for about half an hour after I got out of bed. Ooops. I’ve been all out of whack ever since.

It actually started last night around 11:00pm. I went to bed really late and didn’t fall asleep for about an hour. I made a plan to do some guitar work after finishing my morning exercise. I picked two songs from the list of things I want to re-record and listened through them to remind myself what needs to be done. Then I had a snack and went down a small youtube rabbit hole (videos about Lord of the Rings back stories). (Oooops)

Then I got a really late start and didn’t have time for any guitar. I did open a box that FedEx delivered yesterday. It had some dishes in it that came from IKEA. Almost 50% of the items in the box arrived broken. Damn it. Then I punched into work and it’s been seriously hectic so far. It’s almost 12:30 now and the morning was colored by lots of urgent issues. I actually had a pretty long to-do list for today and I haven’t gotten to any of it yet. Here’s hoping the afternoon calms down.

I had to have a snack at about 11:30 and I over did it. Now I need to wait until my stomach empties out a little (no bad issues, I am just a little too full) before I can have any lunch.

We don’t have any plans in place for the weekend yet. I am still on the fence as to whether or not a leaf peeping drive to the mountains would be worth it or not. Maybe I’ll just take Dad’s camera and a roll of black and white film out and be faux artsy around town. Maybe.

Five hours to go until the weekend. Duck and cover and get through it, folks. Good luck.

Weekend: So Close

It is 2:25pm on Friday afternoon. I just finished lunch and am about to get back to work. I have been having a very productive day at work so far. I am pleased. Of course I probably just jinxed myself and the proverbial shit is going to hit the theoretical fan any minute. For now though, I feel like today has been a good day on the job.

The weekend starts in three hours (approximately) though and I don’t know what the plans are. We are going to do some family stuff on Sunday. There is a birthday. There is also a birthday today that I have to send off a happy birthday text message for. Very important. Outside of those two things? No clue.

After failing to get sunrise pics last weekend I am thinking about trying again tomorrow. The weather forecast looks excellent, though too cold for my taste. I wanted to grab the sunrise on the beach in my usual spot, then drive North up the coast a bit and get some ocean pics from the hills overlooking the coast. Then I could stop at a few of the usual spots on the way home. I would like to do that, but it all depends on how much sleep I get tonight. Well… that and the clouds, of course. I learned that the hard way last weekend.

I have yet to play my guitar during the month of October. Today is the 11th. I’ve taken pictures of guitars, case in point…..

41/365

(that is today’s photo a day picture)

…..but I haven’t actually played at all. I have a bunch of old songs I was working on re-recording a few months ago. There are a lot of things left to do for that little project, and I also picked a bunch of this summer’s project songs that I want to see if I can improve on. Maybe I’ll get back to it this weekend.

I don’t see us going to the mountains for fall foliage this weekend. It is definitely THE weekend to go, but the traffic is often nightmarish and I don’t think we have the oomph to deal with it. Maybe we can day trip/road trip somewhere down South here in Massachusetts. Go someplace interesting before the weather gets too cold and the ice starts piling up.

Maybe I’ll just stay home and watch the Bruins tomorrow at 1:00pm when they play the L.A. Kings.

Film

All right, red head. It’s time to get off your ass and shoot some film. Enough procrastinating. Enough saying you’re going to do stuff and then don’t. Damn it!

I have four rolls of film ready to develop. Most of it is from our Disney trip back in May/June. There are a couple of shots that are actually from Fathers Day and they are likely the last pictures I will ever have of my dad. It’s time to get the friggin’ things developed.

But…

I have a roll in my Nikon that is nearly finished. I should shoot the rest of that first and then get five rolls developed, right? I also have a roll in my Pentax. I should shoot through that and then get all six developed, right? Right?

Damn it! I am procrastinating around my procrastination! Get off your faux-photographer ass, red head!

Sunrise at the ocean tomorrow is 6:47am and the forecast calls for mostly clear skies. That does it. I’m going pitcher shootin’ tomorrow. Go to the ocean, bang out the roll in the Nikon, take some digitals, come down the coast to the usual places like the Plum Island light house and bang through the roll in the Pentax along with some more digitals. Then if I still have film left, hit a few places in my town and work through the rest of it.

I am working in the office on Monday so I won’t be able to get to the post office. Tuesday I am working at home though, so by Tuesday morning we’ll have an order placed at some photo lab and I’ll drop everything off for shipping before work.

I have spoken. Make it so. This is the way.

In closing, here’s a shot of the Spicket Falls Damn in Methuen that I shot on Kentmere 100 film with my Nikon FG-20. Just because film is cool in a nerdy retro faux artistic bullshit way.

191006760020_###

Sunrise Plans for Tomorrow?

The sun will come up over Salisbury Beach, MA tomorrow at 6:24am and the forecast for that time is for nothing but clear skies.

Will tomorrow be a sunrise photo shoot?

Maybe. We’ll see. That would be a nice way to kick off my work week’s worth of staycation.

I’ll let you know.

So Close, Yet So Far

Today has been an okay work day for a last day before a vacation kind of day. I still have one hour and 42 minutes to go before said vacation, but I will get there.

I’m starting to sort of chomp at the bit though.

Today has been busy without being stressful. I have had a lot of things to do but none of them have been high pressure or high profile or anything like that. Just a bunch of administrative type things. The customers have been quiet so I have been able to focus on things that need to get done. I am thankful for that.

The Great Pink Floyd Reverse Order Playlist is now back to Animals from 1977. Great record with some absolutely outstanding guitar playing from David Gilmour.

Endless River – Complete
Division Bell – Complete
A Momentary Lapse of Reason – Complete
The Final Cut – Complete
The Wall – Complete
Animals – Currently playing track two, “Dogs”
Wish You Were Here – Up next
Dark Side of the Moon – On double deck but I probably won’t get to it today.

What else should I mention for the benefit of some future version of me looking back at Friday the 13th of September 2024 out of some sense of boredom or a this-day-in-history kinda thing?

The weather at the ocean for the next week looks excellent, according to the long range forecast I just checked. I think a sunrise photo session is a given. I hope to finish off a couple of rolls of film while I’m at it. I still have three rolls from Disney back in May that I have to get developed. I’d really like to spend a day in Boston if I can, but who knows if that will work out.

I am also going to my Dad’s place tomorrow morning to fill up a few boxes with books to donate to the public library in Tewksbury. They are having a donation drive tomorrow and they can have whatever they want from Dad’s book stash. If there is anything they won’t take (why?) I will bring them to Goodwill or something.

Those things, plus some music, plus spending a ton of time hanging out with the love of my life, plus helping the kids out with something next weekend… I think I have my staycation pretty much planned. 86 minutes to go until it starts.

Planning

We went over some plans for the funeral service. We also wrote out an obituary. For the service it feels like there are more things to do than we have people to do them. It’s frustrating. As always, I want to make everyone happy and I just can’t.

There was some talk of my father’s will tonight. that weirded me out in a major way. I’m sure there will be more to come, but it’s something I never wanted to think about and now that it has begun, I want it even less.

Miss Robin tried to make me feel better. She’s fluffy and cute so that’s something she’s good at.

As for tomorrow? No idea. I want to spend time with my wife. I want to spend time with music. I want to go grocery shopping. I want to jump into the car with Jen and run away and not come back for days. So… the usual Saturday thinking.

So Close

The weekend is so close. Less than 11 minutes until my shift is over.

I have to go to my dad’s to help him with something tomorrow. I also need to go grocery shopping tomorrow. Other than that? My schedule is open and clear.

If only I had booked vacation days on Monday and Tuesday… and Wednesday… and Thursday and Friday. Naw, a normal two day weekend will be enough (insert maniacal laughter here).

Less than nine minutes to go now. So close you can feel it. So very close.

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!

312/365
312/365