Tag: weekend plans

Weekend: Imminent

Less than two hours from now the work week will come to a merciful end and the weekend will finally begin. Oh, happy day.

There is a huge, gargantuan, bummer this weekend. We had Rush tickets for the Mohegan Sun arena show on Sunday. Note I used past tense. We sold the tickets. We didn’t want to, but something came up for work and we couldn’t be at risk of being on the road, two hours from home, and work saying they desperately needed something done right now now now. This is the downside of having a job that occasionally requires you to be on call. It happens to all of us now and then. It used to happen to me all the time, but not so much anymore. Now when it comes up it’s always due to something major and that’s the case this weekend.

I am very sad to miss Rush but I’ve seen them twice on this tour and those two shows followed 11 whole years where I was convinced I would never see them live again. I’m good. I am Rush-Musically satisfied with the state of the world right now. The two shows we saw were amazing and I am so happy that we were a part of them. A small part, of course. In the Cleveland case we were a small part way off in the distance, but a part nonetheless. I am sad about Sunday night, but in the wider scope I am overjoyed with what 2026 has given us.

What else is going on? Tomorrow is Halloween. I have a great big pumpkin sitting on the sideboard in the dining room just waiting to be carved into a jack-o-lantern. We also have a great big bag of candy that is patiently waiting for trick or treaters to come by and claim it all. I’m not one of those grown ups who likes getting dressed up and partying on Halloween, but I do like working the door for the trick or treaters and I do miss when our kids were little enough to take part. I always enjoyed hitting the streets with them trying to maximize their candy haul. Those were good days with little people. Now that our kids are adults it is my job to help a new batch of kids get the most candy they can get. I take that responsibility very seriously and do my job with a smile.

After spending the months of July, August, and September writing as many shitty songs as I possibly could (60 songs in 90 days) I took October off. Fortunately, October ends this weekend and I can start working on the next forgotten internet based song writing/recording challenge. National Solo Album Month. Write and record an album within the month of November all by yourself without any help from anyone else. I’m thinking I want to incorporate the saxophone this time around. I’m not sure how. I think we’ll have a bunch of songs in the key of Eb minor with melodies trading off between vocals and alto sax. Something like that at least. I might want to use acoustic guitars more often as well. I don’t know. We’ll see.

Daylight savings ends this weekend. Sunrise at the ocean on Saturday is something like 7:17am and sunrise at the ocean on Sunday is something like 6:17am. I might take the camera out somewhere on one of those days. If I wait until Sunday I can work on the Frugal Film Project rolls for November. Maybe I’ll go into Boston. I’m off work on Monday too. It was supposed to be because we were going to be driving home from the Rush show in Connecticut. Now it’s just a random day off. If the weather is nice, photos might be taken. I have to get this sort of thing in before the weather goes to hell and that’s going to happen any minute now.

I saw something on social media today about the anniversary of the release of R.E.M.’s New Adventures in Hi-Fi record. It occurred to me that I haven’t listened to that album in… in… in a really freakin’ long time. Maybe not since the 90’s. It came out in 1996 and I played the crap out of it upon its initial release but I don’t think I have spent much time spinning it since then. I listened to it today and I think it is better than I remembered it. Binky the Doormat is still my favorite cut. After it was finished I started moving backward through time through their catalog. I’m back to Green now. I remember California. What a ridiculously great band R.E.M. was. We need more bands like that in today’s shitty world.

Okay. That’s all the self reflection I’ve got in me today. If you’re going to one of the Rush shows at Mohegan Sun (tonight/Friday and Sunday) say hello to the gang for me. We’ll get them next time… assuming next time is the rumored residency at The Sphere in Las Vegas sometime next year because if that happens we are absolutely making the trip out west to see at least one but preferably more than one show. Bank on it, Rush fans.

Friday at Last

Work has been good this week. No disasters, no scary moments. I did get a call from a customer (service programmers, like me, are not supposed to get calls directly from customers) but I was able to help the guy and it actually felt pretty good. Nope, this past week was a good week at work.

It was the rest of civilization that blew chunks. My wife and I agreed when we discussed it last night that this week has been the longest six months of our lives.

I need to do something creative this weekend. I NEED TO. Photography. Let’s go out and snap some pictures! Let’s play with the new long lens I bought a few months ago. Let’s play with the 120 film camera I bought a few months ago. Let’s go to the ocean and watch the sunrise and shoot all sorts of good stuff. Of course we should check the weather first… snow and rain today and tomorrow and rain on Sunday. Well you can just bite me, mother nature.

Music it is then! Guitar! I will play guitar this weekend if it kills me! I don’t know if we’re going to have a band practice or not. I’ll post something to our messenger thread later today (when it’s not pre-8:00am so that the other three guys don’t think I am weird and obsessed or anything) and see what’s up. If not then I need to find something else to do.

I do not want this weekend to be spent doom scrolling news sites and reading stories about the collapse of american democracy that will build up inside of me until I have a stroke. No. That would be bad, even if it is more or less inevitable. I must play guitar! I! Must! Play! Guitar!

Nothing to Say

I’m down to the final minutes of my lunch break on this fine Friday afternoon. I am pretty exhausted from a lack of sleep over the past… month(s) but I’m hanging in there. I had some Purdue Popcorn chicken and some peanuts and some sugar free Hershey bites for lunch. I really want a drink of water but I still have to wait the better part of an hour before I am clear to drink anything. That’s a gastric bypass patient thing. If you know, you know.

Fed Ex delivered a package today. I am not home to get it, but it contains a new guitar pedal. If I read the amazon shipping notes correctly, it’s a compressor pedal. The first I’ve ever purchased. I have this weird idea of using cleaner guitar sounds for this year’s RPM Challenge in February and a compressor will be a part of that. I bought an MXR Dyna Comp because it’s super simple and it will let me squash my clean signal down to a delightfully mushy… mush. There are two more pedals coming over the weekend. One is a Flanger, the other is an Amp Sim. I don’t have room on my pedal board for any of these kiddos and I don’t have open slots on my power brick… so I am going to need to get creative, I think. It should be fun. I don’t think I bought a single guitar pedal during all of 2024. I know I bought a couple of microphones for band practices that haven’t actually happened yet, but no pedals.

There are a lot of tentative plans for the weekend. We may be messing with our living room and we may be going to some stores for research purposes. I hope to spend some time wandering around town taking pictures with my new/possibly antique (though probably not) camera. I got a gift card for the sugar free bakery in Salem, NH for xmas. I haven’t bought anything from them in about a month, but now I am definitely going back and getting some cookies. Good stuff.

What else… I thought there was something else… One of our cars is going to get a break job. That wasn’t the thing that I am forgetting though… am I going to go shopping for a new iPhone? That’s definitely on the to-do list before we go to Florida at the end of the month, but is it this weekend? I don’t know.

I have to start practicing the guitar. The band is hoping to reconvene (hopefully for real this time) at some point after this weekend. I need to get ready for that. Which guitar should I bring to the first practice? Probably the Les Paul Standard that my wife got me for my 50th birthday in 2021. I really dig that guitar.

I know I had something else I wanted to write about but it has slipped my brain entirely. Don’t get old, kids. This is what happens to you when you get old. Stay young for as long as you can. Unless you’re already old like me in which case… sorry, folks. We had a good run, I’m sure.

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.

Is it the Weekend Yet?

It’s almost noon on Friday. The weekend is so close I can feel it sitting just out of reach. So close you can almost touch it.

Music this weekend? Photos this weekend? Who the hell knows, but I can’t wait to find out. I am ready for the weekend, babie! Bring it to me!

330/365
330/365

Schedule Shuffle

I woke up this morning with every intention of working in the office. Now it’s 9:07am though and I am sitting at my desk at home.

I woke up a touch later than I wanted to, and that was the first issue. By the time I finished my morning exercise (jogging [pronounced yogging] in place for 45 minutes) I just couldn’t bring myself to drive into the office. Instead of packing up my stuff I just ate breakfast and finished the episode of The X-Files that I was watching (the one where the baseball player in the ’40’s is an alien in disguise… not the best episode).

I am still planning on making tomorrow (Saturday) a major musical day. Jen is going to be at a conference all day so I am on my own. The to-do list includes getting a haircut (which I desperately need) and an oil change for one of the cars. Other than that, it’s music. The Record Every Month Challenge and Quarantine Tunes Volume Seven… and maybe a start on Volume Eight too.

I promise you, owe internets, that there will be guitar playing, song writing, and recording done on Saturday. Unless I change my mind and just sleep and watch TV all day, of course.

Anyway, here’s today’s photo a day challenge masterpiece.

204/365
204/365

To Do List

It’s Saturday. Jen is going to be working today so I will be fending for myself. I’m going to Vermont tomorrow to take my step son to a UMass Lowell vs Vermont NCAA Hockey game so I have to get all of the stuff I need to do this weekend done today.

It’s time for a to do list, babie! Yes!

  • Do my 40 minutes of exercise and eat breakfast. Gotta start the day off on the right foot.
  • Our bathroom tub is a disaster of mildew and soap scum and a partially clogged drain. Clean it!
  • Put together a desk for the new home office work space.
  • Go to BestBuy and curbside pickup two orders of stuff for the new home office work space.
  • Go grocery shopping.
  • Clean the cats’ litter boxes.
  • PLAY YOUR FRIGGIN’ GUITAR!
  • CALL YOUR FATHER!

There. That’s a good list of things that need to be accomplished today. Let’s see how many we can get to before bed time tonight.

36 Minutes Left

It is 4:54pm. I get off work at 5:30. 36 minutes to go until the long weekend.

Do I have any plans yet? I want to do some cleaning. Jen and I might take a lunch time drive tomorrow. I want to go grocery shopping in the morning.

Anything else?

The weather is supposed to be clear all three days. There has to be some photography fun. I might get up for some ocean sunrise tomorrow. The sunrise is after 6:00am now. I can handle that. I might shoot some film at the ocean, including some black and white film. How would a sunrise look on black and white? Dreamy and cool or blah? We might find out.

I need to book a Genius Bar appointment. My iPhone’s lightning connection is failing. I need to get that fixed. They probably just need to clean it, but we’ll see. I might wait until next week for that one though.

As previously stated, there is a Disney World trip this month. It’s a short one, but it’s coming up quickly. Is it too early to write up a packing list and start planning that? Do I need to buy a bathing suit? What are the chances of Jen and me hitting the hotel pool? I don’t know. I’ve lost over 200 pounds since the last time I owned a bathing suit or a pair of shorts that could pass for a bathing suit.

In other words… I have no idea what we’re going to end up doing over this upcoming holiday weekend. All I know for sure is that it is now 4:59pm and the weekend is 31 minutes away.