My team is in the office today. Most of us, at least. When I got here I found out that it will probably be the last time in this building. There might be one more before the end of the year, but it probably won’t be a full day. Fortunately I have very little stuff here so I will be able to move out at the end of the day today.
I have to go to the office tomorrow. Ugh. I don’t wanna go. I know I say that every time I go into the office, but it’s true. One epic side effect of the Covid-19 pandemic is me being a full on work-from-home guy. I need to pack up my computer, pack a lunch, get my shit together, get up early, do my exercises, and leave early enough to get there even through an hour or so of gridlocked traffic.
Yeah, I am a telecommuter to the core now. I don’t wanna go to the office.
Picture it: 2010, sitting at my desk in Framingham. I went through a stretch at work that was probably the most frustrating and difficult and stressful couple of months of my whole 18 years at this company. There were two customers. One was really tough on us and found a lot of issues that were tough to solve and fix. They were good people, and when they found out the two of us who were supporting them were hockey fans they actually gave us each a little souvenir miniature jersey for their local hockey team. The other customer was the nicest folks you’d ever want to meet, but their entire system blew up on them when they switched everything on in their live environment and keeping them afloat was just awful. I joke that I still have nightmares about it… but am I joking?
This morning I spent some time working in the first customer’s system. Nothing special. I just delivered a couple of snippets of custom code. It was all straightforward and simple, but I did have a minute where I thought back to how tough they were 12 years ago and felt glad things aren’t that way anymore.
This afternoon the nice folks reported an issue that was similar to something that happened when everything went bad for them and now I know what trauma flashbacks feel like. Oh my goodness. I started sweating and my heart rate shot up. It turned out to be a simple issue with a very simple fix, but damn if I wasn’t stressing out like mad for a few minutes there.
Woah, man. 2010 all over again. How weird was that?
How about some random thoughts about nothing important to close out my lunch break?
Tomorrow is October’s work-in-the-office day. It might be my last day at my current desk. So many memories… no, wait. Almost no memories. I’ve only sat at that desk about 10 times since moving there in 2020 (I think). I need to plan out how I am going to get my 80 (not 60) grams of protein for the day. I’ll bring some chopped up chicken and maybe a protein snack or two. Maybe a protein shake in the morning before I go and a protein bar in the car on the way? I’ll figure it out tonight.
I haven’t played my guitar in ages. I am sad. I was thinking about taking my Les Paul out of the case just for today’s photo a day thing. I am hoping if I do that it will goad me into playing some. I need to play. This is stupid. I need to play. I think I am afraid that if I do try to play I will try to record something and find that I am still having the lagging problems I had with GarageBand last month. I may wipe my MacBook and then restore it and see if I still have the problem. I am frankly terrified. We’ll see.
Film is coming. I had a little stash of cash in my wallet that I was saving up to use for film purchases. Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be any place near home that sells anything other than cheaper color drugstore film. I wanted to get some cheaper black and white film to play with, and I wanted to get some slightly better film to use at Disney World in January. I couldn’t find anything like that anywhere. To remedy this, I rolled my cash stash into an Amazon gift card. I spent it all yesterday. I bought some cheap film, some decent film, and a couple of rolls of pretty good film. Amazon has shipped most of it already. The first package might be here tomorrow. We’ll see. I also bought an adapter that hopefully will let me use the Pentax lenses on my Nikons, including (maybe) my digital SLR. I’ll have to figure out how to let the DSLR use a manual aperture setting for it to work, but if I can figure it out it could be freakin’ cool.
Okay. Lunch break is over. I still need that photo a day thing. Maybe I’ll sneak into the yard and snap some colored leaves. Maybe I’ll document Bertha the House Plant’s newly forming leaf. Maybe I’ll take my Les Paul out of it’s case. I’ll let you know when I figure it out.
I gots me a raise today. Just a little one. Every little bit helps. It will let me shoot and develop an extra roll of film when we go to Disney World in January (he said, sarcastically)*.
We got the first level of buy in on a coding project at work today too. It’s been a pretty good day so far.
My exercise and move (calorie) goals are both complete. I’m just two stand hours (stand for one minute of an hour, 12 times a day) away from a perfect week on the old activity app.
We had talked about going leaf peeping tomorrow. That’s off the table. I don’t know if it’s on the table for Sunday, but I don’t think so. Next week is the busy week, but this week is probably too early in the season anyway. I’d still like to go, but only if Jen goes with me. It would suck without her.
I did not try to run one of my USB audio interfaces into my iPad at lunch today. I think I am too scared to try. Sad face.
I am a jerk. I manipulated the internet today and I am sorry. I was looking at the stats on the new film-only blog and I was very close to seeing September get more total page views than the two previous months. I opened the page in July so there are only three months worth of data, but I really wanted to see September with the highest hit count. That’s why I put up a second picture today. I apologize to all involved for sort of gaming the system as it were. I’m a stats nerd. Sometimes I can’t help it.
On a related stats note, last October I went through the most amazing page view stats run on this page that I have ever seen. It lasted four months before slowly coming back down to Earth. This month’s stats are okay, but nothing compared to what I was seeing at the end of last year and the start of this year. I don’t get big numbers here even at my best, I ain’t no SEO pro or nuttin’, but it was fun to pretend for a while. I do appreciate all of the folks who come and visit still, even the bots and the spammers. Like I said: Stats nerd.
Hmmm… working on a project for work where the data does not match the spec. I need to dig in and do a little research on this one. Weird.
What else… nothing. I think I’ll click post now. I’m sure I’ll be back later. There are songs to mix and share tonight, even though they are AWFUL.
*Want to know what I did when I got my first raise from this company back in 2005? I bought a camera. Yup. Some things never change, babie.
Well, my four day weekend is over and I am back at work. Oh well. It was a very good weekend all around. Lots of photography exploring, some guitar playing, some new furniture, a couple of trips to see Mom including one where my father, brother, and sister in law all visited too, lots of fun spending time with the love of my life, a quick visit with the kids in Vermont, and lots of resting and relaxing and being calm.
And it’s over. I’m back to work. My next time off is for a doctors appointment on October 18th. Bring it on, let’s go.
New episodes of Andor and Handmaids Tale tomorrow, I think. A She-Hulk on Thursday and a Rings of Power on Friday and a House of the Dragon on Sunday. Also, most importantly, the final eight episodes of The Walking Dead kick off this Sunday. I don’t want it to end, really, but I think it’s time. Not sure about the 13560823467 spin offs on the AMC agenda though. There’s a Rick and Morty from this past weekend that I haven’t seen yet, but I as of this morning I am caught up on Archer.
And that, my friends, is where we’re at.
I’m in the office today. Not my office but another of my company’s buildings that is 35 miles further from home. The first 10-15 miles of the commute was brutal. After that it was just a matter of trying to go fast enough to make up for some of the lost time. I got to the parking lot with a couple of minutes to spare.
Speaking of the parking lot, I have never seen it this full. Even pre-pandemic, I never saw this place packed the way it is. There is a conference here today. We are not going to it, but we are involved in a couple of things that are sort of related to it. I’m the guy hiding in a conference room, sitting as far away from everyone else, and only removing my mask to consume sustenance.
I really want to go home now.
I’m at the office, sitting at my desk. Tomorrow I’ll be at the office, but not my building. I’ll spend the day in a conference room.
I have seen two other people on my floor (the third floor, if you’re curious). One is sitting at a desk about 100 yards away. The other is a custodian cleaning a conference room. That’s it. I kept hearing noises and eventually determined that it was a tree branch tapping a window. Kinda creepy, actually. I’m listening to a Walking Dead podcast on headphones to drown it out.
Okay, back to work for me.
Today has been a day. Meetings and more meetings. I had seven on my schedule but I punted one of them off until tomorrow so I ended up with six. I just got out of the last one. I was able to sneak in about half an hour for food and that was only enough time to eat half of what I brought with me. I got through all of the protein but none of the fruit. Last night’s dinner was similar. I got through all of the protein but none of the vegetables. Today the issue was time. Last night the issue was nausea, but the end result is the same. Uneaten food. I might try to snack on a few grapes while driving home, but only if I’m feeling okay on the hydration front. I have been feeling super dried out pretty much all day today. I have 45 minutes to go before quitting time and my water bottle is full. Let’s see how I feel.
Also, it just started pouring out here. Fingers crossed it stops before I have to walk out to my car. A working boy can hope, right?
We’re in the office today. I’ve already had two meetings (successfully). Only five more to go today.
Traffic was okay. It took a little more than an hour to go 40 miles. Not as bad as it often is. We’ll see how things look on the way home this evening.
Fingers crossed for a quiet day. I want to get home and see my love. We’re so used to remote work meaning that we can just walk to the next room and say hi that it really blows when that’s not possible.
Oh well. Happy Tuesday.
Inside the Red Head's Head 