Food porn. The Mexican Omelet.

So I’m in the process of going through photos I’ve taken and uploading them to my Flickr stream. At the same time, I take pictures of the things I cook so now that gave me the idea for content for the blog which will be food porn. In each instance I’ll post pictures of the thing I made and the recipe if I can track it down.

Today it’s MEXICAN OMELET!!!

This is really not something that really started with a recipe as much as me taking things I have in the house to make something that might catch my fancy. Here, I had sauteed a diced green pepper and a diced onion. 

Really this is just something I threw together that I had a fancy for on a Sunday. Eggs, Chorizo, Green Pepper, Onion, Cilantro, Queso Fresco and various spices like garlic and cumin. Grab some bottle salsa from the fridge and some taco chips and it was quite the meal.

And of course after I sat down and had my omelet it was time for a nap.
 

Same old playbook.

I’d like to thing that people could come up with something new but it appears you can’t teach an old dog new tricks.

Only a day after the fifth anniversary of January 6th, Democrats once again showed us why their “outrage” over January 6th is really nothing more than a dog and pony show to play to the cheap seats and get the drones all ramped up.

Once again we return to that garden spot of the country, Minneapolis where…

So, again I’m back trying to cut those snippets in the draft queue down to the single digits. Considering it spring cleaning of a sort on the blog and clearing out my own cobwebs between the ears.

Democrats love to talk about ‘INSURRECTION!!!!’ You know, very dramatically and all that. January 6th is the touchstone for them, the thing they can pull up to repeatedly get the base hyped the only thing is these same people aren’t talking about ‘INSURRECTION!!!!’ that they’ve engaged in.

What do I mean? Well, our friends are conveniently ignoring a few things like this:

Over 60 U.S. Secret Service officers and special agents were injured defending the White House over a three-day period between May 29 and May 31, 2020, during protests following the death of George Floyd. Agents were assaulted with bricks, rocks, bottles, and Molotov cocktails while securing the complex.

I guess storming the White House is all perfectly fine if you don’t like the guy in the White House and you don’t consider it insurrection at all and perfectly justified. As a matter of fact you will even make jokes about it, people like Paula Poundstone, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Colbert and others thought it was incredibly funny and they even came up with the hashtag ‘bunkerboy’ liberals thought their insurrection was hilarious. 

When another liberal mob outside the White House threatened Rand Paul and his wife again it was downplayed:

On August 27, 2020, Senator Rand Paul and his wife, Kelley, were surrounded and harassed by a large group of protesters while walking to their hotel following the Republican National Convention near the White House. The couple was escorted by police, who formed a barricade to prevent physical injuries during the incident.

It gets EVEN BETTER THOUGH… Democrats ignored their own rhetoric that led to this little incident:

On 14 June 2017, domestic extremist James Hodgkinson opened fire on a Republican Congressional softball 1 game practice in Alexandria, Virginia, shooting four people, including two US Capitol Police officers and Congressman Steve Scalise, before being fatally wounded by police. According to open source reporting, Hodgkinson had recently traveled to Washington, DC from Illinois where he had a history of writing “angry” letters to his local newspaper and making phone calls to his local congressman highly critical of the Republican Party, conservative political agendas, and the current administration.

We could talk about the assassination attempt on a Supreme Court judge but seriously? How much more do we really need to look at before it becomes clear that there is a double standard at work in both the media and among Democrats. It’s the same way a women can be killed by excessive use of force and it’s ignored by the same people who spent the 8 months prior ripping the country apart over excessive use of force.

The only thing they have managed to accomplish with all of this? It’s been to take someone who didn’t vote along party lines and drive them totally away from their brand.

The one good thing about the blog…

Is that it can give me a perspective on my life. Weird, huh? Yet, it’s true… sometimes I go in and look at the stats and see what posts are getting traffic and I found that something that was really, really, really ancient had gotten some hits.

When I say ancient, it was something I had written over 20 YEARS AGO!!!! 

The funny thing is it’s about the ex… there have been other women in the intervening years but no woman has risen to the level of connection or taking up that amount of space in my heart as Madame X (as I call her) did. Sometime around ten years ago, I just stopped trying because I wasn’t in a place where I felt good about myself and didn’t think anyone would be signing up for what I had to offer because I was a hot mess.

I was having trouble finding work, my teeth were truly a mess (thanks to NYU Dental School - NEVER GO TO A DENTAL SCHOOL TO HAVE YOUR TEETH WORKED ON), just overall things were a struggle.

Anyway, before I gave up there were a parade of women… all of them unique in their own way. I’m not talking about people I dated once or went out with a few times either because literally there was a horde of them. I’m talking about women who things went further with. There was one woman who was independently wealthy and owned property on the north fork of Long Island (a house with a barn and an artist’s cottage) as well as a building in the West Village with about 20 apartments and commercial space on the first floor. I actually broke up with her after a few months because she was a nasty piece of work. What was funny was my cousin’s wife asking me did I really have to break up with her showing the difference in people’s priorities.

Then there was the divorcee who was a clothing designer and had an apartment in Brooklyn. She wasn’t really a bad person except she was a little crazy. Mind you, crazy in a woman can be good but we more or less just didn’t work out. She’s up in Boston now I believe.

There was another woman who had come her illegally from one of the Baltic nations. She was a yoga teacher among all the other jobs she had and she did work a TON of different jobs. If there was anyone I took at all seriously it was her the only problem was she had gotten so used to lying to people that she thought everyone around her was stupid. If she had at least been honest about certain things it would have likely gone much further but I simply felt I couldn’t trust her.

Now, the funny thing here is that she helped me after we broke up and I had dropped my Vespa and then on the flip side she had to do something for the guy she wound up marrying and kept asking me questions that I finally told her to give it to me and I did it and then showed her how to alter it if she needed so she would look good to her new beau. I really do like her still, she’s a good person and I’m glad she got things in her life straightened out.

Then there was the porn star. That’s a story in and of itself. We had a bit of a long distance thing going on for awhile and then she came and stayed with me for a short period. I have to say she was the kind of woman that men just couldn’t help themselves when they saw her, she really was that good looking but again… she was a hot mess. She tried to get me to do porn with her but in all honesty I just could not see foisting myself on the public (no one wants to look at me). Certainly it’s a story but sadly she did go off the rails later on. She’s still around but I don’t think she’s doing porn anymore.

Getting back to the topic though… Madame X.

Tonight after seeing the stats I went back and reread that post: I’ve resisted urge to talk out of school.

Here’s the funny thing about it, I REMEMBER FEELING THIS WAY. Now, twenty plus years on when I look back? I’m happy about how I handled things but sad about how things worked out. I can’t say I am happy about the path things took but I do know she’s happy and she’s married and has been married for some time.

Plus, she went into a field which perfectly suited her and which I’m sure she’s good at. She’s moved up in her field so there’s the evidence she’s been successful. I haven’t actually had any contact with her in a long, long, long time. While I will confess to prying about on the internet, she made it crystal clear I was old news. As much as I would like to still be in contact with her, I understand and respect her wishes.

I wonder sometimes what her version of the story is. I get the sense I’m portrayed in very unflattering light because if I wasn’t the villain of the piece that would mean she was the villain and I don’t think she would accept that because a lot of her life was about being a victim and it isn’t to say she lived an easy life but truthfully as rough as her life may have been in comparison to the life I lived, hers was roses and sunshine.

When she left, she left the cat that she bought to the relationship her with me and she even stated she was leaving the cat because she knew that if she had left and taken the cat too I would be totally destroyed and she was right. The cat passed away four years later and that was a huge hurt and I think that was the last time we had any contact as well.

I’ve wondered sometimes about what went on. There were things that came to light afterward that made me question whether I had been smart in trusting her but she has to carry that. Funny thing was the other day I was talking to someone who bought her up and who had a skewed version of things and I made it clear he was off base entirely. To the point where something that had happened after we broke up I put a stop to solely because it just wasn’t a good thing for her.

We don’t have contact but now as so many years have passed I wish we would be able at least to talk civilly but I won’t initiate it simply because I got the message. I know I did the right thing it’s just too bad really. 

Being an archeologist.

Lately, I’ve been something of an archeologist which has been something…

See what happened is this, I bought an iMac in 2008 that was my main machine and then I milked that sucker for all it was worth. Around 2014, I went out and purchased a PowerbookPro. I did that because there was someone I was working with at the time, a friend (who I had a falling out with of all things) that had talked about working together and me needing a laptop. Then, in 2021 I think, I went out and got myself a M1 iMac.

Understand, I really do get every last bit that I can out of any hardware I buy. Some people are out there buying each new piece of equipment as it rolls out but I’ve never done that.

At some point, the iMac from 2008 died… what had happened was that the internal drive gave up the ghost and I went out an got myself a SSD drive for the thing. I pulled the drive from the iMac and managed to throw it in a case and get all my data off the thing.

Since the iMac died, the laptop became my go to machine but I never really set it up the way I had the old iMac set up. I didn’t get email setup on it with Apple mail and all my different email accounts so that meant I had no access to all those old emails. I never set up Apple mail on the laptop.

Years rolled by and I just plodded along. I got the M1 iMac and that even sat around for over a year still in the box. I mean I paid the thing off before I even hooked it up. Last year, I managed to scrounge up some freelance work and the fact of the matter was that the programs the client was doing the work in wouldn’t run on the laptop so it meant I had to get the M1 going.

So, I got the thing set up and then I wound up shifting over to it because I had four external drives anyway. There came a point where it became clear I needed to replace the battery on the laptop. I managed to get that done but then something happened with the keyboard and the backlit aspect of it meaning more work so that was that. I mean the laptop worked it was just that the keyboard on it didn’t work and I found that frustrating as hell.

So everything shifted over to the M. Last year, I plunked down money on a big SSD and in the last week or two I’ve been consolidating all the external drives and volumes onto the single SSD. At the same time it means that I’ve finally gotten my music library set up on the M1 and I’ve also gotten Apple Mail setup too.

There is literally a ton of shit to go through but seriously there are some emails I’m glad to find because the people who sent them are gone! Also, it’s nice to finally be able to access my music library again and now it’s a question of cleaning up my desk and labeling the drives and their cases as I wipe them so I can use them in the future.

The funny thing here is that I don’t feel as if I’ve accomplished anything but it really is something of a big deal. 

Boy, that sucked!

I had the opportunity to watch some HBO content over the last few days. I’m not really sure how that worked out to tell you the truth because I didn’t sign up for HBO but it may be one of those free weekend things that they haven’t advertised.

One of the things I managed to watch was the James Gunn Suicide Squad movie.

What a resounding piece of shit!

I looked around online and they indicated that this version of Suicide Squad had been better received than the last movie and I have to admit I was a bit dumbfounded by that. Here’s the thing, in some circles, any movie based on a comic book property should generate mucho dinero! People forget dogs like Daredevil, Catwoman, Elektra and others.

After watching this though all I could think about was how desperate Idris Elba had to be for a payday to be in this movie. Oddly enough the movie is rated highly by folks and higher than the previous Suicide Squad which I honestly don’t think is a bad movie at all.

I don’t know if I am so totally detached or what because of the two Suicide Squad is a way better movie than The Suicide Squad...

We have moved into this moment where we are in a state of flux as far as DC goes with its film and TV properties.

James Gunn took over and everyone was all… 

Okay, so now years after I started this post the landscape has changed and James Gunn is the head of the DC properties for the moment because with all the merger stuff all bets are off as to what is going to happen.

We’ve now had a few things under Gunn’s guidance that have come out… Peacemaker, the Superman movie and while people may not realize it, the animated Creature Commandos. Supergirl is about to come out as well and that actually looks pretty good especially since Jason Momoa is a perfect fit for Lobo.

The Green Lantern series is going to drop shortly and that actually looks pretty good too. 

The important thing to remember here is that we actually have already seen GUY GARDNER in the Superman movie! Sure enough, I did a quick search and the AI Gods came back with these tidbits:

In James Gunn’s Superman (2025), Guy Gardner (played by Nathan Fillion) aligns with the Green Lanterns as the established, brash, and somewhat “jerk-ish” Lantern of Earth's sector 2814. His inclusion serves as a direct bridge to the future DCU, setting up the HBO series Lanterns by showcasing a Green Lantern who works Earth-side and has a contentious, independent relationship with both the Green Lantern Corps and the US government. Here is how his character aligns with the Green Lantern mythos in the movie:

• Faithful Portrayal: The movie features a comic-accurate Guy Gardner, complete with his signature bowl cut, over-the-top confidence, and aggressive construct-making style (such as creating giant green hands to fight).
• The “Backup” Role: In line with his original comic origin, Guy is positioned as a reliable, if unpolished, substitute to Hal Jordan. Early lore suggests he may be acting as the primary Earth-based Lantern while others are in space.
• An “Anti-Hero” Personality: Nathan Fillion described his character as “a jerk” with a heart of gold, representing the wildcard element of the Corps who often gets results when diplomacy fails.
• Conflict with Authority: Guy’s abrasive personality and tendency to challenge authority figures—even Superman—set the stage for his future in the Lanterns series, which is expected to explore the tenuous relationship between the Green Lanterns and human government.
• Direct Connection to HBO Lanterns: Fillion’s Gardner is not a one-off appearance; his character is confirmed to appear in Peacemaker Season 2 and the Lanterns HBO series, bridging the cinematic world with the upcoming cosmic mystery show. 

Guy Gardner’s role in the movie helps establish a broader, more mature, and varied Green Lantern mythos within the new DCU, differentiating him from more heroic Lanterns like John Stewart or Hal Jordan.

So, whatever is going on there’s some kind of plan and it is interesting enough to give it some rope and see where it leads.

As something of a treat.

Better Call Saul is coming up on its last season which makes you wonder what’s next for Peter Gould and Vince Gilligan...

 I was going to write something about how I thought the end of Better Call Saul should go but honestly they really did do a terrific job of it so I can’t complain. Everything that’s been done in the Breaking Bad universe has for the most part been well crafted story and that’s why those properties are so popular.

My ending likely wouldn’t have had Saul go back to his old ways. It was a little disappointing to be sure but the nice thing about the series was the way that it dovetailed. When I say dovetailed was that while there are detestable qualities about Saul, one of the things we come back to in the series time and time again is that he’s not entirely irredeemable.

More often than not it’s people’s conclusions about him and that as a person… 

So, here I was going to talk about the character study that both Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul were. Make no mistake, each series was nothing more than a detailed character study of each of the leads. Vince Gilligan said as much when he described Breaking Bad as Mr Chips to Scarface to detail the transformation that Walter White went through from the beginning of the series to the series conclusion.

It’s great writing really. The kind of writing I’d like to be doing if I could.

I don’t spend enough of my time writing. I’m lazy that way. It’s to my own detriment and as I run out the clock on my life it bothers me on one level I won’t leave a mark on the planet other than this stupid blog.

Vince Gilligan was a favorite of mine from the X-Files so when Breaking Bad hit since I was already a fan of Bryan Cranston and Vince Gilligan was the show runner I was all in.

Better Call Saul is interesting because it acts like a sandwich to Breaking Bad… we see things that happened before Saul Goodman met Walter White and we see what happened afterward. At times, it’s quietly terrifying. There are things that happen that are just so vivid and real.

I’ve danced around darkness over the course of my days which has seen me in some very odd places. I’m familiar with the kind of sudden random violence that happened in BCS. Any ‘citizen’ does walk away shocked because you think the veneer of civilization matters when the truth of it is that it really doesn’t.

I’d love to see more of Jimmy McGill, they did the fans a service in the final episodes because they showed at the end of everything the character took on the weight of everything to make sure the woman he loved didn’t wind up exposed at all. There is something very romantic in that to be sure.

Beyond that though the dynamic between Rhea Seehorn and Bob Odenkirk was really special. Does Saul get out of jail? Does he get out before he serves 86 years? I think so and I think Kim works on getting him out. At least that’s what I want to think.

Now, the bigger question is when is Vince Gilligan going to give everyone that series featuring Jesse Pinkman’s life in Alaska. 

The abject stupidity of some folks.

I went out to dinner tonight with a dear friend. Someone who is my elder, at the ripe age of 88 I would wish to be as active and spry as she. She had spent her day at a ‘No Kings’ protest which I actually think is just about one of the most ridiculous and pointless things I’ve ever heard of.

At one point during dinner, I asked which kings she was protesting and she said there was only one, ‘my favorite guy’ as she put it. And I actually laughed and said that was ridiculous which I think surprised her a bit. I didn’t pursue it any further but the fact was I wasn’t at all angry and my reaction if anything was totally dismissive which I think threw her off quite a bit.

You see, if people had gone out and said they had a ‘I HATE TRUMP’ demonstration that would be one thing. I mean, that’s what the whole thing is but calling it a ‘NO KINGS’ protest is farcical and here are a few reasons why…

In the last eighteen months, Democrats have shut down the government no less than three times. They haven’t accomplished anything at all with a single one of these shutdowns, instead they’ve made people’s lives harder. They have put benefits they rely on, or paychecks they need into question really only to try and make a President look bad.

Now, that’s not on the President, that’s on them.

Better still, the same people who are doing this? They and the staffs they have working for them all continue to keep getting paid. The latest stunt with this bullshit at airports? Well, members of Congress BYPASS SECURITY so let’s just add insult to injury as they not only get their paychecks but they aren’t inconvenienced in the slightest by their own actions.

It takes a special kind of scumbag to pull a stunt like that.

And what is it they are actually against?

Oh, that’s right… they don’t like the fact that ICE agents are wearing masks.

Aren’t these the same people that were outraged and forcing everyone to wear masks just a few short years ago? Aren’t they the same ones defending people who are out there wearing masks at these >cough, cough< ‘peaceful’ protests when they are throwing rocks and other objects, setting fires and destroying property.

Or better still, they talk about wanting to hold ICE accountable to the law. This is even though Federal officers are not beholding to state laws beholding to them:

Federal law enforcement officers are generally immune from state law prosecution under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution when they are acting within the scope of their duties and their actions are "necessary and proper" to their federal functions. However, they are not exempt from state law, and can be prosecuted if they act outside their authority or commit crimes. 

Yet, these are the same folks who ignore Federal Laws in the creation of ‘sanctuary’ jurisdictions and not cooperating with ICE retainers. Oh and by the way? Just because you’re a citizen doesn’t mean you get to run over a Federal officer or be armed and fight with them when they stop you. Contrary to what people on the Left would like to use as their cause celebre.

Now, if Trump were a king I’d think he would be able to do what he wanted and just open and fund DHS but that isn’t the case at all.

The same people now will point to Iran and say Trump is acting like a KING but what’s funny is you can go back and see none other than Nancy Pelosi telling the world that Barack Obama didn’t need any Congressional Approval when he was doing the exact same thing in Libya:

President Barack Obama did not receive formal Congressional authorization for the 2011 military intervention in Libya. The Obama administration argued that authorization was not constitutionally required because the limited “kinetic” actions did not constitute a full-scale war or “hostilities” under the War Powers Resolution.

Funny how those same people have a different story today.

In the case of my friend, I didn’t press the matter and I didn’t even press a bunch of other things because really what’s the point. The thing here is I’m like a lot of people who feel the way I do and know you can’t have a discussion of any type with someone on the Left because of the meltdown that will ensue.

These folks that are out there with the whole ‘No Kings’ thing?

Bullshit. 

Why?

THEY LOVE KINGS!!!!

You know how I know? CLOSE TO A HALF A BILLION (WITH A B) DOLLARS WAS DONATED TO DEMOCRATS BY ONLY 30 PEOPLE!!!!

$485,123,852

Michael R. BloombergCity of New York NYNew York NY	$60,839,734
Dustin MoskovitzAsana IncSan Francisco CA	$50,671,800
James H. & Marilyn SimonsSimons FoundationNew York NY	$32,216,763
Fred EychanerNewsweb CorpChicago IL	$31,587,600
Reid Garrett HoffmanLinkedInSan Francisco CA	$28,480,804
Deborah J. SimonSimon Youth FoundationCarmel IN	$24,440,360
Stephen F. Jr. & Susan Z. MandelLone Pine CapitalGreenwich CT	$23,650,900
Wayne D. JordanJordan Real Estate Invest/Akonadi FdtnOakland CA	$17,523,596
James R. & Mary K. PritzkerPritzker GroupEvanston IL	$13,982,929
Christian LarsenRipple LabsSan Francisco CA	$13,865,236
Mark & Simons HeisingMedley PartnersAtherton CA	$13,629,773
Henry B. LauferRenaissance TechnologiesLantana FL	$11,730,016
Marc StadDragoneer Investment GroupSanta Barbara CA	$11,098,500
James R. & Kathryn A. Murdoch21st Century FoxNew York NY	$10,925,600
Patty QuillinPhilanthropistSanta Cruz CA	$10,824,256
Jay ScheideUnemployedCambridge MA	$9,995,000
Karla JurvetsonKarla Jurvetson MDLos Altos Hills CA	$9,531,296
David LippeRenaissance TechnologiesSetauket NY	$9,480,700
Wendy SchmidtSchmidt Family FoundationPalo Alto CA	$9,287,241
Michael MortizSequoia CapitalMenlo Park CA	$8,800,000
Amos B. Jr. & Barbara HostetterPilot House Assoc/Barr FoundationBoston MA	$8,758,978
Ronald C. & Gayle ConwaySV Angel LLCSan Francisco CA	$8,058,673
Eric LauferLaufer Wind GroupNew York NY	$7,637,795
Andrew G. HauptmanAndell HoldingsLose Angeles CA	$7,291,339
George M. MarcusMarcus & MillichapPalo Alto CA	$7,212,631
Erica F. LawsonUniversity of California/San FranciscoSan Francisco CA	$7,124,968
Jeffrey SkillGoodlands ManagementPalo Alto CA	$7,014,265
Steven SpielbergDreamWorks SKGLos Angeles CA	$6,910,764
John F. FishSuffolk ConstructionBoston MA	$6,025,482
Kenneth J. DudaStanford Children'S HealthMenlo Park CA	$5,723,453
Michael J. & Cari SacksGrosvenor Capital ManagementHighland Park IL	$5,516,900

 

Sure seems as if Democrats have absolutely no problem with any kings as long as they’re pumping money at Democrats.

So, when you call a protest ‘No Kings’ I call you out for lying. Just call it what it is, you’re an unhappy clown that is upset you didn’t get your way when the majority of the country voted against your candidate after four years of really crappy performance. 

Save me from Democrats phony baloney!

Apparently, because Democrats are desperate to try and gin up the drones they spread a lot of falsehoods hoping they’ll stick. This is akin to what high school girls do to a girl they dislike, they spread rumors about her in the hopes she’ll develop an eating disorder or kill herself. It’s not adult or mature but then again aside from Democrats themselves who would believe they’re even remotely mature.

I’ll likely piss off a bunch of people I know, especially the ones who hold themselves above the rest of us thinking somehow they have some great insight that the rest of us aren’t intelligent enough to recognize but the truth is they’re just fooling themselves.

Want a case in point? That would be the clamor over the Epstein files… somehow, if we are to believe the Democrats there is some kind of wild scandal that’s buried in the Epstein files that involves Trump. Oh, there is also a conspiracy afoot to hide the truth from people.

Well, the Epstein files released and while there were folks hysterically shouting about them and some conspiracy it’s looking to use the language of someone, a nothingburger.

I mean there are still a lot of people tied up who are going to have problems and be outed by all of this but as far as the President goes? Not really anywhere near as much as Democrats would like to have people believe…

The big thing these days is that you hear people on the Left say that Iran is the distraction from the Epstein files but seriously how fucking stupid are you people?

As more time goes by we discover just how much the Biden White House coordinated the attacks on the previous Administration.

Right now, we are in the THIRD GOVERNMENT SHUTDOWN THAT HAS HAPPENED IN THE LAST YEAR!!!! Please someone needs to explain what exactly each of these shutdowns actually accomplished other than indulging the crazies in the Democratic Party and giving them a dog and pony show. At this moment for the third time in the last year, Federal workers are going without paychecks while the Democrats in Congress still keep collecting theirs and you actually want me to believe they care about people?!?!?

In this case, at a time when we need Homeland Security the most, Democrats have decided to make a show of it. To what end? WHY TO PROTECT ILLEGAL ALIENS!!! So, in essence they want to stop the problem that they have created from being fixed. Let’s also go one step further in that they are opposing the SAVE act which the majority of the country - BOTH PARTIES!!!! Are fully behind showing proof of citizenship to vote!

That’s really telling actually, why on earth would anyone oppose this?

We hear that it’s RACIST! Which is a bit ridiculous when you have to show ID to fly, to get into most buildings, to go to the DNC convention, EVEN TO SHOVEL SNOW IN NEW YORK CITY!!!!!

The thing is here that in a lot of Democratic states they’ve been giving illegal aliens driver’s licenses and you know at least for my state the other thing they do when you get a driver’s license is that they ask you if you want to be registered to vote!!!!

Think that’s an accident?

But, I’m sure in the same circles we’ll be hearing the same old accusations being tossed around disingenuously because it’s all about emotion and getting the base hyped up so they won’t do a closer look.

These people should be ashamed of themselves. 

As if anyone needed any more proof of just how stange the things that interest me are.

Today, I watched this entire thing… I didn’t watch it all in one sitting, I stopped and started it doing things around the house that needed doing and then coming back to it.

 

Why would someone do this? You have to wonder, right? The truth is though that the infrastructure of New York and the surrounding area just fascinates me. All of it… roads, trains, bridges the architecture. I am simply amazed by it all!

I know more useless facts about the city and its hidy holes than you can imagine. Watching this is a kick to me because you can see that it only takes the train a hair over three and a half minutes to take people from a station…

I don’t know where I was going with the three and a half minutes thing but I’m always fascinated by subways, rail networks, roads, bridges… all kinds of infrastructure. I had gotten the NYC tour guides license just for bragging right back in the aughts. That’s another story.

All of it is just the most incredible thing to do a deep dive into. Before there was a High Line Park it was something I knew about. I’ll bet you didn’t even know about the LOW LINE! It was a park that had been planned over by Delancy Street and would take over the space of the underground Williamsburg Trolley Terminal. I even went to the exhibit they had showing off plans for the park, it was just amazing. 

As first reported by Crain’s, funding for the estimated $83 million subterranean green space that would have been tucked deep beneath the Lower East Side within the long-abandoned Williamsburg Trolley Terminal has essentially dried up. This has forced the project to go “into dormancy” as Signe Nielsen, a landscape architect and member of the Lowline’s board of directors, explained to Crain’s. “We were unable to meet all of the benchmarks that were required, one of the most significant of which was to raise a substantial amount of money.” 

All of it are things I find incredible. Not just within the city itself but throughout the state. These are the things that interest me. I can remember as a teenager going on an adventure with a friend where we took the 2 train first to the terminus on 241st street (I was living in the Bronx then) and road the train all the way out to New Lots Avenue in Brooklyn just standing with my friend looking out the window of the first car.

This really was what I was doing as a 15 year old, can you imagine. Mind you, this was before cell phones and helicopter parenting that me and a 14 year old friend went on an adventure together and didn’t broadcast the fact or even let an adult know we were doing it.

How times have changed. 

Using love as an excuse.

I had the occasion to have a conversation with someone yesterday who is in a bit of a quandary and it was a reminder to me that there are worse things in this life than being single. Mind you, given the choice I certainly would like to have a partner but there are caveats to that… at this point in life, someone needs to be additive and not subtract from the quality of the days.

Now, that doesn’t mean everything is perfect or equal, nor does it mean that everything would go 100% my way. There isn’t a relationship on the planet between two people that is like that and good luck finding it. All relationships are a negotiation of sorts. We negotiate our terms in relationships and maybe that’s why marriage is a contract.

In the meantime I was playing the role of advice to the lovelorn, then again maybe lovelorn isn’t the right word really. Maybe…

Anyway, getting back to this. It was an old girlfriend that had been calling me. There’s a bit of a long story in that. She’s a nice enough person and everything but some people who complain about drama in their lives seem to do their level best to make decisions that make their lives very dramatic.

She has been appearing/disappearing over the last few months which was way more telling than she might have realized. There’s always more to a story, you just have to be patient and wait it out to get the whole thing.

I was glad to hear from her on one hand but with her, given what’s been happening with her over the last few years I’m always inclined not to really (I’m trying to think of the word here and it’s just not coming) extend myself.

There’s this thing that goes on, she shows up and appears to want attention… again, I’m just a bit wary because honestly? My life might not be terrific but I certainly don’t need it to be worse.

And I heard from her and she was talking about what was going on but there was a subtext and then she disappeared only to reappear a few weeks later when I was fairly certain she had one foot in, one foot out of some kind or relationship and because of that she was feeling lonely and wanted attention.

But the problem here is, I’m really not inclined to be someone’s second choice. I’m not their backup plan. I’m not the person who is so desperate as to suddenly drop everything and alter my world. It’s just not happening.

And then things got a bit busy on this end as it was and there are priorities.

As I got more of the story it turned out to be really funny, not funny for her but just another illustration of the bad choices some people make. It turned out money was involved and a lot of grift but I had seen this before with other women I know. It does make me laugh. The guy is smoke and mirrors, but he managed to talk her out of money and he did it by showing her a good time but the only issue with this is it’s a case of living beyond one’s means. So, there is all this ostentatious stuff but then when the bills come in it’s a bit of a problem and oh, I want you to invest in my business and we’ll be partners.

There was a lot more but she disappeared again and I just got tired and blocked her so I won’t deal with this anymore the next time things go off the rails and they will.

You would think people would get smarter as they get older but they don’t.

She went from an abusive controlling marriage to another guy and another guy and now another controlling person. That’s not on the guy either, she made the choice and you have to own your own actions and decisions in life. It’s a sad thing to watch especially when you might have thought someone was smarter than that. 

How’s that jerking off going?

I just have to ask everyone I run into these days how their jerking off is going since we are all of us subjected to WAR PORN!!!!!

I don’t know about you but I get a real stiffy when I see another grainy video of some kind of penis substitute having a glorious orgasmic explosion and destroying something!

WHO GIVES A FUCK ABOUT PEOPLE ANYWAY, RIGHT?

On the flip side, I have to love the folks on the Left who are so deranged these days that it’s their default stance to take the opposite side of an issue even if it means endorsing a bunch of repressive and brutal clowns. Seeing Democrats talk about ‘war powers’ when Obama spent months just bombing the shit out of the Libyans and then getting all up in arms about the single digit casualty numbers when they were downplaying what happening in Benghazi or the Americans killed in the Afghan withdrawal just speaks volumes about what’s important to them.

Better still is seeing the same people who were cheering when gas prices were skyrocketing a few short years ago because they wanted to kill the fossil fuel industry now fretting about the impact and costs to people due to higher gas prices (which still haven’t matched what the highest prices were under Biden).

Oh… I was watching CNN the other day and what I really loved was them giving shade to the Iranians. The saw was along the lines of the price the Iranian people are paying with the campaign… it’s as if in World War II when they were attacking Germany and the Nazis the newscasts talked about the poor Germans who were suffering.

Look, if you think that a nation led by people who have been shouting Death to America and trying to get nuclear weapons aren’t a threat then you’re doing your best ostrich impression. There would never be a perfect time to deal with Iran but there isn’t a better time than now when the regime is weaker than it’s been in decades and doesn’t even fully have the support of the people of the country.

I have to admit though that the constant parade of Democrats who have both engaged in the fruitless exercise of shutting down portions of the government in a show for their cult members engaging in hysterical bleating when a military action is less than two weeks old shows us all just how far the party has fallen.

If you look, I’m obviously not a fan of war but military power exercised judiciously as an extension of Foreign Policy is nothing more than another tool in the tool belt. Iran wasn’t negotiating in good faith. As a matter of fact they have NEVER negotiated in good faith. Over 40 years they done everything in their power to destabilize the Middle East. A world without a nation under the rule of the mullahs and the IRGC would be a better place.

People forget what Iran once was the way they forget what Lebanon once was. In both cases the repressive mullahs had a great deal to do with how things changed. In Iran it was the total repression of the populace and in Lebanon it was destabilizing the country by supporting Hezbollah.

No one wants war. No one wants to see their shit blown up, to see people lose their lives but seriously? Are people forgetting all the Americans killed in Iraq as a result of the actions of people funded by the Iranians? Are they forgetting how this has gone on for over four decades? Do you really think things would be better if this regime actually had nuclear weapons? If anything it would mean Saudi Arabia and Israel and maybe even Egypt would push forward into having nuclear arsenals of their own. THINK THAT’S A GOOD THING?

I’m in a wait and see state at the moment. There may be temporary pain to be sure but it will be well worth it the more we can diminish and downgrade the threat of a regime that as recently as two months ago killed over 30k of their own citizens. Also, the next time someone calls Trump a dictator? Look no further than Iran to see what real dictators looks like and stop the hysterics.

How lazy am I?

This is another thing I just never got around to posting:

 A week goes by… the snow still covers the driveway and I am a prisoner in my own home. I went out on Thursday after it had snowed the previous weekend and shoveled a path through the snowbank so the postman could bring the mail and I could get deliveries but I didn’t do anything else.

I’ve got plenty of food in the house and work has been crazy busy. On top of that, it is so amazingly cold outside, I mean where would I go if I even wanted to be out in this?

I’ve got a bunch of things on the radar that need to get taken care of… I have an appointment to get the taxes done, so I have to get some things together for that and the appointment will be here before I know it. The car needs to go in for an inspection and I’m probably going to bite the bullet and get new tires as well as having some other things done. Then there’s an application I have to put in as well for some assistance with medical.

In the meantime, work continues to be the shitshow and the client freaks out on an almost daily if not more basis. I think back to late October when she said she had another project for me and the waiting until right before the Christmas holidays to hand it off. A handoff which was so incredibly bad in terms of the information needed being either wrong or absent, there wasn’t much I could do.

Now at the end of January she’s freaking out because the people above her want to know what’s going on with the project.

If I didn’t laugh I’d cry.

The group head has been working with me and I absolutely love her. I mean I get off the phone and do the old people thing of making a statement to no one of, ‘she’s so nice’ as I smile to myself. She has helped out a great deal and I’ve wondered if it’s me that all the projects I seem to wind up on are shitshows but she assures me it isn’t.

In the meantime it’s just been so very busy.

Here’s the funny thing though… if the client would just leave things alone and let me manage things and supervise the work we’d be a lot further along. Instead she changes gears every other day. I started the project and had a plan of attack that targeted a certain batch of work and we managed to get it turned around quickly but what was funny on the client side is that after all the freak outs they were surprised by how much had gone out the door.

At the moment I finally have the space to get everything ready for the tax appointment coming up fast and the car is scheduled for an inspection and I’ve gotten two tires ready to be mounted on the thing to boot!

The application will also be on the list of to-dos for the week and maybe I’ll even get the laundry done, the toilet finally fixed and the snowblower running (though it looks like I won’t be needing it - fingers crossed).

Once those big things are taken care of the list still is long and there is a lot to do and now is the time to get to it! 

Shelf life.

There are days and then there are days and it seems lately as if the days all blend together and I am somewhat tired all the time of late.

I don’t know how to explain it and it’s just not clear to me if it is age or something wrong with me. I’m just tired a lot of the time, there’s really no other way to put it. I find myself exhausted after the frenzy of the first two months of the year and I can’t say that I’ve fully recovered from it.

In the meantime…

I started this quite recently. The truth of it is I’ve just felt really, really tired lately. All the stress of work through January and February finally caught up to me I guess and then add to that all the little explosions that have been going on it just took a bunch out of me.

I looked and it appears I have a bit more paid leave this year than I have had in years past which makes up for them not giving me any kind of raise when they reupped me. I’m still on the same rate even after three years with the company but I guess I should just be happy to have a job at this point in life.

The time though is way, way more of a payoff than any more money would have been. Slowly I have been lining up time off for myself. The thing about time off over the last few years has been that work has been such a shit show that when I finally do get some kind of time off, all I can do is laze about and catch up on sleep because I’m so entirely spent.

This time around I’m trying to give myself small breaks before we get too deep into the year so coming up I’ve taken days sandwiched around two weekends spread out meaning I have about a month of four day work weeks in the near future. You’d think working remotely would mean life is easy but the truth is there are ways I work way, way more time and way harder than I ever did when I was chained to a desk in an office.

When you work remotely, you are ‘always on’ so to speak. That’s backfired on me the last week or so because what has happened has been I’ve gotten most everything taken care of and then found myself wiped out. This might have to do with me starting the days at 5am. So, I got to the middle of the day twice and just napped. 

I wouldn’t have dropped off if I didn’t need it but it meant when I was ‘dinged’ by someone I didn’t respond immediately.

That’s not good.

At the same time though the laptop they’ve give me to use appears to have some weirdness in that the sound doesn’t always work on it, so I have a bit of a built in excuse in a way because there have been times where I have had to restart the thing when I get into a meeting and I can’t hear what the other person is saying.

Now, what I was beginning to say though is whether or not I’ve reached my shelf life? I’m tired a lot. There are aches and pains but I can’t see running to the doctor over this because the simple truth is that I’m in my mid sixties now. You don’t FEEL different in your head but certainly there are differences.

Yesterday, I lazed the day away. Never a good thing but maybe I’m being too hard on myself because I have been getting other things done besides work so at least there is some momentum. 

I went to the gym.

So the last two days, I went to the gym and got in a good workout. I mean I spent over an hour and by the time I was done I was all sweaty and everything. I need the exercise too because I am way too fat and I really don’t want to be a fat fuck. I don’t mind being a skinny fuck, but being a fat fuck is a non starter and right now I really could lose a whole bunch of weight and be way, way better off for it.

At least the trip to the gym was convenient. All I had to do was to go downstairs, put on my winter gear and there was my gym. The gym being a good awful monstrous pile of snow and a wall built up by the plows at the bottom of my driveway.

Mother nature not to be outdone by the 13 inch snowfall we got back towards the end of January, followed by an almost three week deep freeze decided she wasn’t done with us yet and so on Sunday we got almost two feet of snow dumped on us. What was really just wrong about that was that it was getting to the point where I could almost see all of the ground sans snow right before the storm hit. Even worse was that the forecast kept going back and forth. There was a point at the beginning of the week where we were supposed to get hit by a big snowstorm. A few days later they were talking about only an inch or so and then come Saturday it went back to what they had originally forecast.

Even worse was that throughout most of Sunday even into the evening there was just nothing sticking. Saturday and Sunday had been warm days so the flurries we got didn’t do anything at all but then between the time I went to sleep on Sunday night and the time I got up on Monday morning the damage was done.

UGH.

I didn’t bother with it Monday because it was still snowing but Tuesday I went out thinking to see what I could get done and to at least get an opening down to the street so the mailman could deliver the mail. As it was I got more than I thought I would finished but I was out there for over an hour. I just take my time and work a certain way when shoveling snow so I don’t injure myself. I can’t believe watching my neighbors that they simply don’t know how to shovel and use their backs to life instead of their legs or that they don’t hold the shovel so they’re making a bit of a lever and not having to work so hard.

Anyway, that was a workout to be sure.

Then today when I got up I looked outside and it had snowed again!!!!!

DOUBLE UGH!!!

So, I went back out and cleared the area already shoveled and finished expanding the width of the area I cleared as well as attacking the bottom of the driveway so I could get the car in and out. It’s done. It was a lot of work and I didn’t keel over which is good, I saw the forecast that we might get another five inches of snow though but at least on the ten day I can see that a week out the temps will change and we will have a bunch of days where the lows won’t get close to freezing and all of this will melt! I can’t wait for spring!!

All the things I don’t care about.

You know I was going to write about something else and I put up that title and then walked away from the computer and didn’t write anything. The thing is, I’ve been so busy with work and the various calamities that have been going on it doesn‘t seem as if I have the energy of late to do much.

I had a pipe burst last week.

Seriously, we had a cold snap that seems to have finally broken and I imaging that when the temperature got warmer was when I discovered that one of the pipes had burst. I went out in the dark last week on a Tuesday morning to move the recycling bins down to the curb to see water pouring from an overhang above my garage door. When I say pouring that is indeed what I mean because it was a torrent!

At first I thought that snowmelt on the roof had come down between the walls but when I put my hand beneath the water and realized it was warm I knew it was from the heating system.

Just great.

Anyway, I scrambled to get someone in to fix it and this was after shutting everything off (which thankfully I know how to do). The original estimate I got was for over $1,000 but after my cousin yelled that I was getting ripped off, I found another place that cost me a little more than half that. I got through a cold night with the over and the wood burning stove keeping the house toasty and then it got fixed and I was poorer for it.

I hate spending money.

Seriously, it’s like I’m hemorrhaging money of late… I got two tires for the car and today went and paid for inspection, an oil change and the tires to be put on along with other things and that was over $400!!!!

I am so close to the bone on everything that I don’t have big things like this set up for my budget and I don’t like having outstanding debt. It really is a matter of me getting off my ass and moving forward on other fronts and turning some of the clutter into that nice green paper.

But, I’m thinking now I am better dealing with things and just moving on that letting them linger and develop into bigger problems. Like many I’m worried I’m being ripped off. I am somewhat suspicious about the tires and if they actually mounted my new tires or not but it’s done and the idea is just keep moving forward and not stopping because inactivity only makes things worse. 

Well, that’s done.

After six plus weeks of insanity, the project from hell while not done is at a point where I can see my way out of the forest. The client, a cosmetics company, decided that product currently produced but not yet shipped to market was a significant enough investment that they couldn’t just outright trash product even though said items did not meet regulatory guidelines about to go into effect in a few months.

So the decision was made to place decals that would comply with regulations on all already made product. Thing is, while a lot of projects for the client have a timeline that is months out? This project needed to be completed in a matter of weeks.

Eight before the holidays I got a massive dump of materials into my lap with the thought that I would ‘get started’ on a the project which was already late. Of course, the handoff was a mess and much of the data useless because it was simply WRONG and there being no one around to answer questions (because everyone on the client side conveniently took off for the holidays) it meant that when everyone came back at the beginning of the year we were still at the same place we were before without any progress at all.

It’s at this moment you could cue the freak out on the client side as they realize that it’s more likely than not they won’t meet deadlines and there are people high up in the food chain with eyes on this.

Mind you, stuff like this never ceases to amaze me… someone just not doing their job, leaving things to the last minute, dumping it off on someone else with the expectation that the slack due to their laziness or failure to heed a timeline. It really is astounding but then again, they’re the client so really it’s not like you can complain. WE WANT THEIR BUSINESS!

Mind you, I didn’t get a raise when they reupped my contract, I don’t get any overtime, there are no bonuses but someone… yet again, I get another project dumped into my lap which is a disaster in the making. I’m beginning to see a pattern here.

I’m glad to have work but at the same time, my time is valuable since it’s a dwindling resource. I’ve lived this thing now since the New Year meaning almost every waking moment has been playing a game og catch up since it is a huge pile of work that has been dumped on me. I’m doing more in six weeks than two or three people in my role manage in a year.

I’ve worked just about every weekend so it’s been something along the lines of 50 nonstop days of work.

At one point recently, the client said, ‘Oh, I see you got a lot done over the weekend! I guess because it was cold you didn’t have anything else to do.’

Honestly, that went over with me like a turd.

I responded thusly, ‘Actually, I have plenty to do with my free time which is very valuable but because the handoff on this project was so bad I am having to kill myself to try and keep us on track.’

No, working when I could be doing something else especially when I don’t get paid by the hour is NOT FUN! It’s my own form of stupidity that I feel responsible for things and that I don’t want to fail but do a good job. There are people who would just do what is required and put in the minimal hours and be done with it and if things missed deadline then that wouldn’t be their problem.

The only problem I have with all of it is that I often feel unappreciated in the context of how I’ve been jerked around with being on contract and not regular and all of that.

This weekend though, I finished all the setup and markup of everything. Now, from this point forward all I have to do is review, markup work, approve and ship. It’s still quite a bit of work to do but no one now is waiting on anything from me at all. I’m not a choke point so when I get asked I can point people elsewhere.

Again, there is still a ton to do! I just won’t be working 15 hour days or on the weekends anymore and my life can return to some semblance of normalcy. The good part is that it looks like that’s happening just as the cold snap is ending and for that I’m especially glad! 

It’s all about story you morons.

I want to take a moment from an otherwise hellish week to merely comment on something that I watched recently.

Over the last few years, Disney, Marvel, whoever you want to call out has tried to club people over the head with politically correct casting and the like where they take people and cast them against what the character is to check some kind of DEI box and teach us all a lesson.

Usually the way they do these things is so thoroughly ham handed and done while ignoring story.

Discovery is a great example of the vomitus dreck that is foisted upon us making sure we have all those things that are necessary for REPRESENTATION!!!!!

In the meantime? You go back to Deep Space Nine and you see all the ways they just implemented it without even clubbing you over the head.

Dax? Well, Dax is likely the first transgender character in the Star Trek universe because as a Trill the Dax symbiote had both male and female hosts but it worked out logically within the framework of the narrative. Oh, let us not forget also that the lead character happened to be Black… was a Black single father raising his son. I mean, DS9 is my favorite Star Trek series but you know they did all this while creating a something that fit into the Star Trek universe seamlessly and didn’t kill you with their preaching.

This past week I got through Wonder Man. 

 

WHAT A TERRIFIC SERIES!!!!

And oddly enough the lead character is Black with a Haitian background and none of that bothered me at all because they did such a great job with the story and making the characters more than 2D cutouts meant to ‘teach you’ something.

If you haven’t seen the series, it is likely one of the best things I’ve watched coming from Marvel in a long time. They have the benefit of Ben Kingsley who is a great actor and just hits it out of the park but I have to say that the lead in it Yahya Abdul-Mateen IS JUST INCREDIBLE!

I didn’t even realize he was in Aquaman but boy, he just really blew me away in this. I have to say I loved this series because the story was just so damn good! Now if only Marvel could learn a lesson from this and apply it going forward maybe they would recapture some of that magic they seem to have lost! 

Weird ads…

About the one main thing I do on my smart phone is play solitaire and this car game. I don’t really text that much and I simply have gotten out of the habit of even talking on the phone with people. It’s not that I don‘t want to talk to people but I’m never sure what kind of schedule they’re on and I know for myself there are times when I’m more or less down for the day and just want to vegetate (which now that I think about it is most of the time).

They say these ads are free but none of them are free and you wind up being deluged with these ads. Sometines they’ll be an ad that’s in heavy rotation like there was a Volvo ad a few months back that I found very annoying. There are times when Royal whatever that game is or one of the variations shows up and I’ll use the opportunity for limited play but I won’t download it just because these things are addictive and I waste too much time as it is.

The other day this ad came up on the phone:  

First off, it’s fucking hilarious on a whole bunch of levels. I mean, generally women would like the world (or at least men) to believe they don’t shit. They want men to believe that the way they want men to buy into their appearance which is generally artifice more than anything else.

Then, I was thinking… WHO COMES UP WITH AN AD LIKE THIS?!?!? I mean did the people who crafted this thing think that some constipated women was suddenly going to have a EUREKA moment as she had at last found a means of relief?

The cartoon is very good I have to say and really captures that moment of frustration and pain perfectly but seriously.

I did a quick search and apparently this is some ‘GUT FLORA’ company selling snake oil dressed up so you pay through the nose (or is that the wrong orifice?).

All I can say is that it was an ad that sure stuck out but if only for all the wrong reasons. 

I just can’t deal.

While I desperately have been meaning to write the truth of it is I’ve been in the middle of a snow shitstorm. Aside from work craziness which has been an absolute mess in so many ways there has been so much other stuff going on…

I had oral surgery last week. The odd thing is I had an implant put in in December and they gave me antibiotics and a scrip for pain meds. I didn’t take the antibiotics and I never filled the pain meds scrip and got by just fine.

I went back for a different procedure and I am in such great pain it’s really not a joke. I’m taking the antibiotics but they didn’t give me a scrip for pain. And now five days later I’m still a bit swollen and still in some pain.

That is the backdrop on everything really and in quick succession I have been dealing with the following…

Since a storm was coming it was a priority to get the snowblower running. To that end I order a new carburetor for the thing that Amazon said would be delivered next day but in the span of a few hours that became Saturday and it did come but it came late Saturday afternoon. Now, I could have had the machine broken down and ready to put the thing in but other things happened…

When I went down to the garage to take a pic of the model info on the snowblower I saw that the bathroom sink was backed up and there was water all over the floor telling me there was a drain clog. 

Grrrreeeeaaaattttt.

Fixable to be sure but one more thing. So, I got all the water cleaned up and the got the wrench and the drill and the snake and set about snaking the drain since that pipe is the drain pip for my kitchen sink which is the most used sink in the house. Mission accomplished but a dirty job to be sure. Then there was also cleanup of the downstairs bathroom which I am doing in little bites.

Upstairs I noticed that I didn’t hear the sound of the toilet tank filling and that turned out to be the fill valve in the tank going on the fritz. This now became another job! So, fortunately I had another fill valve available (I’m like that) and got the thing installed. However I had to futz with the feed lines and I was going to take the opportunity to replace the lines with shorter lines since I was doing the work anyway and when the biset attachment was installed the lines were god awful long meaning there was all kinds of feeds lines looping around that side of the toilet.

And I got replacement lines and came back and got everything hooked up again but now there was a leak around a t-valve so it was to another home improvement store to see if they had the replacement valve (they didn’t) and then running around to different plumbing supply house none of which have the part!

So, I’ve got a hose running from the utility room downstairs to the toilet upstairs while I have the line shut off while I troubleshoot that fix!

And again the backdrop to everything is pain, pain, pain!

I had thrown salt down on my driveway Friday night in advance of the storm and it actually did a wonderful job meaning the first few inches melted. I even went out after we had about several inches in the middle of the day on Saturday and cleared the bottom of my driveway to make life a little easier.

The plow guys though? There decided that they would make a point of burying me in which is what they did so now I have an over three and a half foot wall at the bottom of the driveway. I still have to see if I can get the snowblower working but for now I’m a prisoner.

So writing is the thing that has suffered but through all of it the one thing I hold close?

IT COULD BE WORSE! 

Damn, damn, damn.

It’s just been way too busy this week between work and other crap.

Work has been a joy (key in sarcasm) as there are daily changes in priorities on the project from hell. I mean the client literally will have a meeting and expect everything to suddenly stop and change direction and focus.

So, I generally ignore things like this because if I spent my day reacting I wouldn’t get anything done, have a lot of things half done and not be any further along in completing the project. I’ve gotten into the habit of working mainly in the evening and early morning because that’s the time I won’t be disturbed. I get everything set up so others can work on things and then it’s all timed in a way to get them moving.

About three times this week the client was in the process of having a meltdown depending upon which meeting they came out of. The biggest problem here has been not having all the information needed to get the job done or having information passed off that is just WRONG.

So, I just focus on what can get done and have been doing that. What was funny was hearing the client today surprised at how many things had gone out, a good chunk of the 350 items needed are just gone now, off our collective plate, out the door. Basically I know what needs to happen in a project like this to meet the deadline and have it be a success but that means ignoring a lot of what the client is freaking out about at the given moment and just yessing them to death.

Seriously, the surprise on the client’s end today was just hilarious in a way because if I had been doing what they had been asking for that wouldn’t have happened and there will still be nothing done even though we are getting closer and closer to our deadline.

While all of this has been happening, there have been a series of minor catastrophes happening around here…

We have a snowstorm coming. I had hoped we could make it through winter without having one of those backbreaking snow dumps happening but it looks like wishing didn’t do me any good. One of the things I have been procrastinating about is getting the snowblower taken apart and getting it running. Now I’m just left with no choice so rather than take the chance over cleaning it I just ordered a new carburetor that will arrive on Saturday with the snow arriving Sunday so I know what I’ll be doing but maybe I can take it apart and have it ready before the part arrives.

At the same time, I also had two other disasters happen, one being a drain clog on the kitchen sink which is the main sink I use (I’ve got a house so there is more than one and more than on kitchen really). The problem with that is that when I do have a backup while I am upstairs, in the downstairs bathroom sink the water backs up and overflows all over the bathroom floor which becomes something of another God awful mess to deal with.

I had gone downstairs to look at the snowblower and take some pics of the model number plate and saw that the water had overflowed on the floor.

 Grrrrreeeeeaaaaaatttttt…

One more fucking job to do.

Oh and then I had an appointment with the oral surgeon today as well.

BUT WAIT! That wasn’t all because while all this was going on, the fill valve on the toilet went. Now I have three bathrooms but there really is only one I use and this now needed repair as well so that’s MORE WORK! In addition to the clogged drain, in addition to the snow blower, in addition to work, in addition to the appointment with the oral surgeon.

Honestly? A lot of days I just want to lie on the couch and nap.

Today though beside getting a ton of stuff out the door… I managed to go down and do the oral surgeon thing which has left me with swelling and pain. Then after I got home, I just had to deal with that clog so I had to get out the tools, get out the drill, get out the snake and then go to work. It‘s not that it’s hard, it’s not like there is heavy lifting involved, it’s just a pain in the ass more than anything else and somewhat dirty. I still have to clean the downstairs bathroom but I got all the water taken care off.

Tomorrow will be the fill valve on the toilet, breaking down the snowblower and more work.

I just was wiped later in the afternoon and had to lie down but they got that time back when I spent a bunch of hours doing work in the evening. It’s funny really, they are never coming up short in terms of the amount of time I put in to do my work but I just can’t force myself to ignore other things that need to get done. It’s not even funny how many days I just sit down and don’t really even take any kind of break just to plough through work. It isn’t even a question of it ‘balancing out’ in the end because they always get way more than the hours I’m supposed to be working.