The Bruins lost tonight. I didn’t get any music done. I’m not planning on car music tomorrow. I got a chunk of my work project done but not enough to feel comfortable.
I’m going to bed. I can’t keep my eyes open.
Good night, universe. Talk to you tomorrow.
Raise your hand if you like Mondays. I’ll wait.
I suppose there are folks who work weekends and have Mondays off who might like Mondays. For the rest of the working world? Mondays suck.
I am about to have a tough couple of days. I am not going to say I left a project until the last minute, but I may have left a project to the second to last minute and now the clock is close to running out. Shit. I had been doing so much better with planning and scheduling and not letting myself get tied up in things that keep me from what I need to do. Things have been weird this month. Let’s blame it on that, m’kay?
There’s not much else going on today. Here’s hoping for a burst of professional productivity. Happy Monday, everyone.
Hit it, Max.
It’s Sunday and Jen and I are just hanging out in the office. We’re in the midst of a grande experiment to improve one facet of our existence. It’s something incredibly important that everyone deals with every day……..
Pillows.
We’re trying to up our pillow game, big time. Jen ordered some pillows the other day and we used them last night. They were very firm. Much firmer than we’ve ever used before. Jen didn’t like them. I haven’t really decided yet. Too firm? Maybe. Too firm to use? I don’t know. We are trying another set of pillows next that are a little squishier. I expect they will be Goldilox: just right.
What else is going on? I am going to have a painful week at work this week, so I’m enjoying the calm today. I’ll pay for it later. I have another day off this week too. Wednesday. That’s three consecutive Wednesdays I’ve been out of work. The other two had actual reasons. This week is just because I had to burn eight hours of vacation time in order to avoid maxing out at the end of the month. I will likely have to do a couple of days in February too, but at least I can use the RPM Challenge as my excuse.
I am a little sad today. A few weeks ago I ordered a pile of new clothes. Two t-shirts didn’t come quickly, but they finally came at the end of last week. The two shirts came from the Rush Backstage store. Yup. I’m wearing my fav band on a t-shirt. Unfortunately, the first of the two that I’ve tried on is really small. It has made me sad. I guess I am going to have to go through a weight loss surgery process in order to get smaller so the shirt will fit. I’m guessing the second band shirt is going to be small too, but I haven’t tried it on yet.
I can’t think of anything else to write about. Jen picked up a copy of NHL ’22 and I started playing it yesterday. Maybe I’ll sneak in another game tonight. I’m playing through the Spengler Cup. I have no idea how that tournament works, but I haven’t lost a game yet. I have it on the lowest difficulty level though, so if I lose a game it means I royally suck.
Okay. Ms Patches just came into the room and she’s meowing for attention. I think I’ll post this and go pet her. Bye for now.
When the pandemic started I declared that I was still going to get up at the same time each workday morning that I did before the company sent us home. That means I would have to be up and ready to go out the door by 7:30am.
I stuck to that for a while but eventually the snooze bar started getting pressed an extra time or two. Today I got out of bed at 7:00am. Last week there was a 7:15 and a nearly 7:30. Soooo. Nope, not sticking to that particular lock down promise to myself.
Today is the day that my company is trying to reopen the buildings. This is their second attempt. The first was last summer. We’re going hybrid so we are only supposed to be going into the office a small percentage of the time. Last week they gave us the option of delaying our come back to February 1st if we were worried about Omicron. Am I worried about Omicron? You bet your viral ass I am. So I won’t be going back today.
Still, with the hybrid return on its way I should really try to start getting out of bed earlier again. It would be the smart move. I should really do it. Will I do it? No, probably not.
New Years gave us a long weekend last week. Christmas gave us a long weekend the week before.
This weekend is just a normal two day weekend? What the hell? You mean I have to go to work tomorrow?
That’s so harsh, bro. So harsh.
My CPAP machine pissed me right off last night. I went to bed at 11:00 and then woke up a little before 2:00am with the mask sliding all over my damn face and leaking like a… like a… like a something that leaks a lot, I don’t know. I sat up and screwed around with all of the harness straps and stuff and eventually was able to get back to sleep.
How much does it suck when the thing that is supposed to help you sleep stops you from sleeping? It sucks a lot.
Change of subject…
When the hell am I going to use all of this time off? My company changed the way they dish out time off, including taking a bunch of holidays that we used to have off and turning them into floating holidays and rolling that together with the couple of personal days and the huge pile of vacation days and renaming it all Personal Time Off. We accrue x number of hours each month and there is a cap on how much we can carry before we stop accruing more.
The good news is that we get a shit load of personal time off. The bad news is we actually have to use it if we want to keep getting more. Oh, the webs we weave. I am about a minute below the cap right now so I have to use some time this month… and next month… and every month. That’s a good thing, but it’s also a logistical struggle, you know? Times are tough. Anyway, what I really need to do is take a week off and get the accrual down a bit so I have some breathing room. Good idea! But when? The best time would be a time when kids are here. Bellana won’t be home for months because she’s going to be in Europe for the next semester. Harry will come home on breaks. Good idea! When is the next break? March 7-11! I’ll put in for that week!
I love it when a plan comes together.
It’s getting nearer and nearer to bedtime on Sunday January 2nd. When today ends, the holiday season ends with it. You know what that means, right? That means we go back to work tomorrow. Ugh.
I don’t want to go back to work tomorrow. I should have taken this whole upcoming week off. I have so much vacation time banked that I am going to stop accruing more if I don’t start using it. I have one day off booked already mid-month, but I really should have taken January 3-7 off.
Change of subject…
Homework assignment for myself: Research Maastricht University, including the city it lives in, and everything about The Netherlands that relates to it that I can find.
Get to work, fat boy.
I have seventy-nine minutes to go until the long weekend. New Years is so close I can practically smell Times Square.
Two unrelated things come together in this post. First, I am curious how many of my loyal readers and only friends are planning on going out for New Years Eve. By going out I mean going someplace where more than 10 people will be present. Doesn’t matter if it’s inside or outside, I just want to know if you are going to an actual party. Second, WordPress.com has just given us access to a third party plug in/embed thing that lets us add polls and surveys and stuff like that to our posts. I add ’em and no one response to ’em, but I keep adding ’em!
I posted one of these polls the other day before I knew how to see the results without actually adding a response. Once I figured it out I found there were seven responses. Six of them were me. Wheeeee!
73 minutes to go.
What percentage of the work day is left? It’s 4:18pm. I work from 9:00am to 5:30pm. I have worked (7 * 60) + 18 = 438 minutes. There are (8 * 60) + 30 = 510 minutes in the day. I have worked ((7*60)+18)/((8*60)+30) * 100 = 85.88% of the work day. Fuck yeah, math.
Answer the poll! Polls are fun! Specifically, polls are fun when you’re a lame blog poster like me so let me have fun!
Today is going to be rough. Mostly because I convinced myself that yesterday was Friday when it was only Wednesday.
I put up a post yesterday listing off all of the things that were going well at that moment and wondering what was coming along to spoil the vibe. Nothing did. I was worrying about work, but it stayed quiet and all was well. Only my brain trying to skip over today was less than happy.
Today’s a little different. Nothing bad going on, just not quite as 100% positive as yesterday. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. I know I got a lot more than the 4.5 hours my watch registered, but still not a lot. I think I was a little under six hours. Okay, but not great. I woke up with a bit of an upset stomach. I feel a lot better now, but it is sort of like getting off on the wrong foot.
Now there is just a single 8.5 hour work day standing between me and a long weekend. New Years Day is a holiday for us and since it falls on Saturday this year we “celebrate” it on Friday, which means we get New Years Eve off. I love it when the calendar works out that way. It’s like a nice little bonus. The downside is that our holiday schedule is changing as of 1/1/22 and we don’t have another holiday until Memorial Day in May. Yikes! We have floating holidays now in place of the non-national holidays we used to have, so we don’t lose any time off. We just don’t automatically get the non-national days off anymore.
Okay so in summation, yesterday started as a good day and stayed that way all day. Today hasn’t been quite as good but it’s already starting to look up.
Oh, and both kids are here. So it’s going to be a good day no matter what.
55 minutes until I have to punch in to work.
Nine hours and 55 minutes until the long weekend.
Hang in there, boys and girls. We can get through this day together.
Today is the first time since Bellana finished her Fall semester at school (apart from a few hours of miracle on Christmas Day) that both kids are home. They will both be here until Monday morning and I am as happy as a middle aged red head gets.
We were supposed to have a fancy dinner on Christmas Day but we didn’t due to all of the various circumstances. We are having the dinner that we had planned for Christmas tonight. Jen is in the kitchen right now while I watch the clock inch through the last 36 minutes of the work day.
New Years Day is this weekend.
All of these things together have combined to convince my tiny, teeny, tiny little brain that today is Friday. No. Today is not Friday. Today is Wednesday. Wednesday, not Friday. I still have a full day of work tomorrow that I have to get through before the holiday weekend starts.
My brain is broken. My brain cannot process the fact that today is not Friday. I feel like I’m losing my mind!
Inside the Red Head's Head 