Longest Week Ever

Man… I sure do bitch about work a lot, don’t I?

This has been the longest work week ever and it’s only 1:00pm on Wednesday. Why is that? Why am I so stressed? There’s nothing going on that requires my stress level to elevate out of control. It’s just been a reasonably normal week. Sure, my dining room did flood yesterday…

Did I mention that? We have an office water cooler in our dining room. It is exactly the thing you picture in your head when you hear people talking about being at work and talking around the water cooler. A great big five gallon jug of water sitting upside down and draining into a tall cooler. Yup, exactly what you think. Yesterday it seemed to spring a leak and we had a small lake forming on our dining room floor.

I unplugged the unit and pulled the full bottle off of the top. I had put a new bottle on that morning. There had never been any leaks before. Was it the cooler or was it the new bottle? I betcha you can guess. Once the bottle was out of the equation the leaking stopped. Yup, there was something wrong with the bottle. I put a new bottle on to see what happened and it’s been leak free for about 24 hours now. Problem solved, I think.

Anyway, outside of that and the ugly fact that it snowed twice this week, it’s been a normal few days. Why am I stressin’? Why am I bitchin’? Who knows.

I do know that we’re planning to go to a No Kings rally this weekend, so maybe it’s not so much work stress but it is actually excitement over the coming event. Maybe.

Until then… 2.5 days left in this already long, long, long work week. Crud.

Rain is a Thing

So rain is still a thing. I mean this from a work point of view.

When Covid hit and we all started working from home full time, I learned to stop really worrying about rain. I didn’t have a commute anymore so I didn’t need to drive to and from work in the rain. I didn’t need to walk out to a parking lot in the rain. I didn’t even need to walk to the driveway. From the perspective of getting to and from work rain (and snow) stopped being a concern at all.

Now that we’re back in the office at least some of the time it’s a thing again and it sucks.

It is pouring rain today. I’m looking out the window and the parking lot looks like a small lake. I have to drive to a different building soon and that means I have to go out in this suck-fest of a rain storm and get drenched so that I can make the next meeting.

Working at home is so much better than working in the office. So much better.

Thus concludes this morning’s rant about rain. Thank you for your time and patience.

Cook Out

The weather was garbage when we got up this morning, but by lunch it had cleared up nicely. I had a mini-cookout. I made us burgers and fries for lunch. I hope Jen enjoyed it. We were watching Disney Cruise videos while we ate… and now we want to go swimming in the Caribbean.

I have been in the Atlantic Ocean. I have been in the Pacific Ocean. I touched a Great Lake once… actually… twice, I think. I’ve been in lakes and ponds and rivers. I have never been in a Sea though. Taking a dip in the Caribbean could fix that oversight.

Okay, Robert. Back to your chores. That bathroom isn’t going to clean itself.

Fun with Plumbing

Years ago we had a problem with water leaking next to the tub. It ran through the floor and ate a big hole in the sub floor before pooling up in the cellar. That lead to us having the whole bathroom remodeled.

It kinda didn’t fix the problem. I’ve seen water coming into the cellar a couple of times. There’s some damaged wall board next to the tub. I don’t think it’s a leak, I think it’s just a shower curtain issue. If we are super careful and close it tightly and make sure nothing gets out then there’s no water in the cellar. If we’re lax in our shower curtain workflow then we get some water. Not much, but enough.

We had a plumber in this morning to take a look. He suggested having a contractor come in and try to tighten things up so no water drips out. He added a little calk along the edge of the tub but that will more likely just move any water away from the wall board a little. I think we just need to be extra careful with the shower curtain. We’ll keep an eye on things.

In the meantime, here is a picture of Robin the kitty looking all introspective. She’s pondering the meaning of life here, clearly.

Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part Three: Merrimack River

Hello and welcome to the third and final post dealing with pictures I took this morning. This time we returned to Raymond J Martin Riverside Park on Riverside Drive in Methuen, MA. The last time I came here it was with my Nikon film camera, also known as the ebay camera. Today it was all digital, babie. Nikon D90 like a boss from 2010.

When I first arrived the water was perfectly still. It was like a mirror, except for the mist. I am so happy most of my shots came out okay. At first I couldn’t figure out what the two crossed lines in the water were, but then I realized they were reflections of the contrails in the sky. Awesome.

Dig that crazy mist!

This one is a little crooked. I was leaning over trying to get under the tree and I should have just used the LCD screen. Oh well.

Ducks! Even though they ruined the perfectly still water. Still, ducks!

Now we come to the lesson part of our journey. Using Manual mode instead of Auto means that when things come out of the blue you can’t just point and shoot. You have to set things up. When I suddenly saw a mist-spiral cruising along the top of the water I had to be quick, but in Manual I wasn’t quite quick enough and this is the best I could get. Had I been in Auto I would have nailed this before it hit the trees. This is the best I could do under the circumstances, I guess.

I was trying to get another misty shot but the birds flew in out of nowhere and it looks like they were the point all along.

Just look at that!

I wish I had the polarizing filter. I would have seen right through that glare to the bottom of the river.

I need to find out what that building across the water is. Pretty sure that’s Andover, MA.

Did Robert use exposure compensation on this puppy? Yes, Robert did use exposure compensation. Almost like he knows what he’s doing, babie!

Album cover?

No, this is the album cover.

I took a few of the park itself too, including some pics of the places I got all of the previous views.

Blurry background AND blurry foreground. Nice.

Gazebo pic #1.

Obligatory flag pole pic.

Gazebo pic #2.

Warning!

And that, friendly readers, brings my three part post journey to an end for today. If the weather holds I might do my original idea of visiting three bodies of water in Tewksbury tomorrow. Long Pond, the Shawsheen River, and Ames pond. We’ll see. Tewksbury is only 15 minutes away but it seems like a long drive for some just-after-sunrise goofiness. I haven’t checked the weather since last night. If it holds, I might give it a shot. I’ll let you know.

Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part Two: Forrest Lake

Part two of this morning’s photo adventure is Forrest Lake. I’ve been here a few times and the pictures always disappoint me. Not today. Not really, at least.

There were a lot of people at the boat launch area so I walked a little toward the closed beach to keep plenty of social distance. The mist coming off the lake made the stop worthwhile.

Dig how still the water was.

Is it really a lake, or is it more like a pond. Seems pond-esque to me, but what do I know?

The public beach closed at the end of August.

Dig that crazy mist.

I should have brought my polarizing filter but it doesn’t fit on the lens I was using.

Next stop is the final stop, at the Merrimack River.

Three Bodies of Water in One Morning Part One: The Mighty Spicket River

Did I go out shootin’ pitchers this morning? You know it babie! The air was cold but the sun was bright and the sky was perfectly clear. I thought about going to Tewksbury and checking on the Shawsheen River and Long Pond and maybe Ames Pond but we had people coming to pick up the couch we donated and I didn’t want to go that far from home. Instead I visited the three biggest bodies of water in Methuen. The Spicket River, Forrest Lake, and the mother of them all, the Merrimack River.

I took a few pictures at each location, going slightly overboard at the Merrimack, but we’ll get to that later. First, some shitty pictures of the muddy and gross looking Spicket. It’s super low, but not nearly as low as it was the last time I checked on her.

The Mighty Spicket has seen better days, but it’s not nearly as bad as I thought it would be. This is on Hampshire Street, just a few minutes after the sun came up.

The sun wasn’t getting through the trees to the water, but it was pretty freakin’ glorious out on the road. Is this why they call it golden hour?

Crossing the road for a different view…

The next post will be Forrest Lake and after that will be the Merrimack (where I went a little overboard).

Merrimack River in Color

Here are the color equivalents of the pictures from the previous post. Amazing, right?

Merrimack River in Black and White

I stopped at the river on my way to visit mom today and took a few pictures. I got a few on film and then switched to the same ol’ digital black and white vs vivid mode again. Here’s a few black and whites…