Weekend!
This weekend is the last weekend I’m home before leaving on a jet plane for a couple of weeks.
Going to go back out to the remote site for the last time, they tell me. Of course, last time, they told me that that would be the last time. I deliberately set it up so that, next time, they could sent out any old person who knew how to use a computer, was familiar with the applications, and could read a dang document.
BUT NO. They said “we wanted to change everything, upgrade the applications, and make it so that all of the old documents needed to be updated. So we have to send the guy who is the expert out there.”
So I’m flying out to the Middle East one last time.
Which means that, this weekend, we have to prepare for my trip. So I have to hit the various grocery stores to make sure that Maribou has Kraft Dinner at her disposal and, presumably, hot dogs to chop up and put within said Kraft Dinner. Get the various other staples from the various other specialty stores littered around town. Maybe assemble something in the crock pot for her to cook on Monday or Tuesday.
We’ve got kitty litter. We’ve got cat food. We’ve got bottled water. We’ve got peanut butter. We’ve got frozen pizzas.
I’m sure I’m forgetting something. Well, we’ll get that on Saturday or Sunday while we’re running about.
There’s also New Year’s Eve this coming Saturday night but ringing out the old and seeing in the new entails something like “staying up past midnight” and we’ll see if something like that happens. I don’t know that it will. Saturday and Sunday seem to be pretty full. Gonna need to hit the sack by 10, probably.
But, all in all, it’ll be the “hey, honey, are you sure you don’t need anything else until I get back?” errands and then, in the evenings, doing the stuff that I wish I could be doing for the next two weeks, instead of spending my time in some faraway land away from my wife and kittens and bed and computer and frozen pizzas.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Image is “Play” by Clare Briggs. Used with permission of the Briggs estate.)
My wife and I usually order pizza for new year’s eve. We go back to Big City on new year’s day and back to work on Tuesday. Not a bad life.
Good luck and have a safe trip!Report
What Jaybird said.Report
So more food and slavery posts to look forward to?Report
Depending on what happens, I have a Four Horsemen idea floating around.Report
Excellent; horse can be tricky though. Sometimes you want to try to pull it into a French herb palate but that requires really fine, fresh cuts; otherwise I’d just run with an aggressive spice palate. My guess is that the Near East will run more towards the latter than the former.Report
Of course, last time, they told me that that would be the last time. I deliberately set it up so that, next time, they could sent out any old person who knew how to use a computer, was familiar with the applications, and could read a dang document.
The last time I switched teams, I wrote up everything I did for the old one and scheduled two days of meetings to be sure everyone knew what their new responsibilities were and where to go for info about them. The first time the old team needed some new code written, guess who they called.Report
Both of you need to read this new book that just came out.Report
I’m at the New Years Dance Extravaganza in exotic Framingham for New Years.Report
Safe travels!
I had an ultrasound today and Surrobaby is big enough to actually look like a baby now! Everyone is so excited, and I think it’s a relief for the dad. I’m sure it’s hard to feel real to him when he’s not the pregnant one and this is his first child. We heard his heartbeat twice, and the intended dad even let me have my own copy of the ultrasound to show my son. He seems like a really nice guy. We set up a lunch date for next month. I’m hoping we can become friends.
I have a three day weekend, and Junior comes home from a five day stay at his father’s house tonight, so we’ll be doing the last round of holiday gifts and cleanup. I’m finally starting to get a little bit of energy back, so we’ll venture out to the children’s museum or planetarium. Maybe both! We’ll probably indulge in a New Year’s Day hike since Oregon has a little campaign going this year. I’m determined to workout every day this weekend. I’m in the mood for a little mother and son yoga.Report
Other than UFC 207 tonight (Rousey is back!) this should be a very quiet weekend. We have our 3 nieces visiting from Washington DC, so we’ll dote on them a bit, but mostly i always use this time to mentally prepare for a productive New Year. To-Do lists updated. Goals set. New calendars unwrapped. Blank pages filled with possibility. New Year’s Day edges closer to being my favorite holiday every year.
Back to work on 1/3 for me.Report
[Much more personal than ever …]
After 24 years of practicing law, I’m done. I’ve hit complete burnout. I just loathe my job (and myself for lacking the courage to quit) every single day. At 52 years old, I’m crazy to try to find new work, but I just can’t do this any more.
So, my weekend is going to be spent talking to my wife about what salary I have to have so that we can pay our mortgage, and what might be a good fit for me to do next.Report
Dude, life is too short to not be happy. This is scary, but it’s the good scary.
Good luck. Get a job that you don’t mind.
Are you tethered to where you currently live?Report
Los Angeles County should be big enough for me to find useful work.Report
It’s never too late to find something that doesn’t make you miserable. Like Jay said, life is too short to hate what you’re doing every day. Choose happy! Good luck and be brave! 🙂Report
Best of luck to you. It shouldn’t be terribly hard to find a job you don’t hate. A job you like or love is a tougher fit of course.Report
Congrats! I know how scary it is. At a couple of years younger, just short of 25 years in a tech career, the job had become non-fun, and then the new corporate masters announced that none of the acquired engineering staff were necessary. I ended up doing something entirely different. I was agonizing over the decision; the final push was from a rabbi, over a beer, who asked me, “Mike, does God have to write it across the sky in big letters for you?”Report
Go for it. There is no amount of money worth being miserable every day.Report
Congrats!Report
Best of luck @francis I am in somewhat of a similar situation, with the added frisson of not being sure if my wife wants me to go back to work. But, this has led us to leave the high cost Bay Area for greener (literally) pastures.Report
Good for you @francis . I know how challenging it can be to get to that place about work, and how difficult it can be to choose that path even when it’s obvious one. I’ll raise a glass to you and your wife this evening, and I’ll be rooting for you in 2017 to land somewhere that makes you excited to get out of bed and go to work in the morning.Report
Tomorrow will be digging through the fireworks stash. Nothing airborne, just ground effects. Had a good time plinking last weekend, will probably do some more this weekend.
Saturday will end the marathon week of Harry Potter. Ame said for years she would only watch the entire series, so it’s been this funny thing for years, and the conditions just kind of aligned on this week.Report
Weekend Part II:
As a consolation prize for my being willing to quit, my wife is willing to invest a few grand in a computer system that games better than my aging Dell laptop.
I do love Skyrim, but by the time there are three people fighting and a spell being cast, things move reallly slowly.
So, assuming that I have (frex) $3,000 to spend on a gaming system, what do people recommend?Report
Of course, the answer is always “what do you most like to play?”
But you mentioned Skyrim so my immediate answer is “FALLOUT 4”.Report
Has anyone heard of this?
I’ve been thinking about downloading it, but wasn’t sure if it’s legit. (I’m a novice at such things, but the game seems really cool.) It’s supposed to be a free, open sourced version of Axis & Allies.Report
The link didn’t embed but I’m assuming you’re talking about TripleA?
I’ve never played, because I always assumed that it required human opponents (and you know how I feel about those) but now I see that there are different AIs available…Report
Sorry the link didn’t embed, but yes, that’s what I was referring to. Supposedly, it has AI’s. I’m not a big fan of human opponents, either. Or rather, I’d like to have the option to play the game against a computer. That’s mostly because it’s hard to find others willing to play the same games with me and even harder to find those whose schedules meshes with mine. That’s one reason I never got involved with role playing games as a kid. I liked the idea–and my parents had even bought me a D&D set one Christmas–but I couldn’t find others to play it with. There were a couple of solo games (kind of like choose your own adventure, but with dice) and those were fun, but few and far between.
Anyway, I might give tripleA a try.Report
My weekend just started with the “You’re gonna have to remove your kid from your car insurance” followed by digging up quotes that say said kid (20 and planning to move out next month) is about 18 kinds of screwed.
Admittedly, his fault entirely — not the greatest driving record.
But we’re talking tripling his car insurance. He can’t drop coverage down to liability only (which would represent only a modest increase) because, you know, the car is owned by the bank still.
He can’t not drive because he lives in the Houston area, which is designed to punish people without cars.
So far, I’ve identified three options for him: 1: Accept a tripled payment he can’t afford. 2. Stop driving for somewhere between 1 year and 3, depending on how long insurance companies track accidents. (While still paying for the car he can’t drive) and bum rides to work/use Uber as this is the Houston area and public transportation doesn’t exist, and “walk-able” is an insult.. 3. Find a way to rapidly pay off his car, and drop to just liability, and hope he’s past his sucks as a driver stage.Report
There is a 4th Option:
Married Men, even if under 25, get better insurance rates than unmarried (or so it was the case back in the 90’s).
This may or may not be preferable to 1, 2, or 3.Report
Whoa, flashback to my freshman year in college in 1972. The US was still in Vietnam, the draft was still running, my lottery number was very low, and I had to make a choice. One of the options was the list of women against the war in Lincoln, NE who were willing to marry male students with low draft numbers (student deferments were long gone, but being married still kept you out). I was about a day short of walking down to the Air Force recruiting office — who were willing to keep me stateside programming computers — when Nixon suspended the draft. Despite all his other flaws, I’ve always figured that I owed Nixon one.Report
I’m told my father had a similar story. His number got pulled but Nixon suspended the draft a week or so prior to him having to show up… and he just didn’t show up at the building and nobody ever knocked on the door to complain about it and, next thing you know, Saigon fell.
No politics, of course.Report
What’s probably gonna happen is I’m going to give him my 120k 2009 Prius in return for his 2013 Coralla with 20k. And then make him still pay half the car note for the Coralla (it’s a three year loan he was already paying, so it’s a discount) because while I’m trading up, I’m having to get rid of a car I love in return for….just a car. A reliable car, but not one I really like.
Because if I’d known all this when we BOUGHT the stupid Corolla, I’d have bought a newer Prius under my budget instead of a reliable car under his. (And when it pays off I can always trade it in for a Prius…I like my Prius, dangit).
He can swap to just liability, reduce his car payment a bit, and move out on schedule. If he wrecks the Prius he may never get a Christmas gift again.
Ugh. Cloth seats and no backup camera. Barbaric.Report
Probably smart. There are better reasons to get married that remain very bad reasons to get married on their own terms.Report
Well, he was going to move out next month. But there’s a difference between “expected car insurance increase of 25% to 50%” and “triple”.
Liability only drops him to “25%” (even going above Texas’ mandated minimum coverage).
I love that Prius, darnit. First car I bought brand new. Had everything I wanted, exactly as I wanted it. I’ve driven that 120,000 miles. I’ve kept it in great shape. Yeah, technically this is a massive upgrade but it doesn’t feel that way.Report
Can’t sell the Corolla?Report
I literally just bought the thing. Like two months ago.
Kid wrecks his car. Kid has to replace car. Kid goes with Corolla (good price, reliable, etc). Kid gets surprise insurance hike two months later of 300%. Kid now needs to drop to liability only.
Which means “no car loan” — so cash on the barrel, as it were.
Frankly, given his budge (what’s left after trading in the Corolla and paying off the loan)t, my old Prius is probably a far better car than he can buy outright. High mileage, but in great shape with one owner. So straight swap, and he’s got three years of half payments to replace what he broke. (It doesn’t work out if he breaks a car and I end up with a car payment. But since it’s an upgrade to swap, I’ll take half the payment now).
I mean that’s the thing in the end: He can’t have a car loan for somewhere between one year and three years, not and afford the required insurance. He’s got to stick to liability only (and uninsured motorist, but that shouldn’t scale with your record.)
So it’s either pay off the Corolla (unofficial family loan) or straight up swap and negotiate a deal on the Corolla with, well, me.
It’ll work out, it’d just be nice if we lived somewhere with actual mass transit. It’d give him some other options (like just not driving for a year or two).Report
Ah… I saw “2013” and figured you’d had it for a few years with minimal use.
That really sucks.
Does your son appreciate the situation? My parents let me learn a lot of real world lessons in real time, but they took care of our car insurance for a long time (which probably makes sense in the vast majority of situations when doing so is possible) but they never really talked to me about it so I had no idea how it all worked or what to expect it to cost or any of that when it came time to handle it on my own.Report
Also, Houston sucks. Easily my least favorite city I visited. Though when I was there, I remember lots of fanfare about the street car system they had just opened or whatever [insert eye roll].
I do remember having phenomenal Vietnamese food and a fun little spot called Bombay Pizza (which probably tells you I was there for work and never was out of eye sight of the (godawful cruise ship themed) convention center).Report
Oh, he gets it. He was shocked to the core to hear what his new comprehensive quotes were. He’s been paying his own car insurance since he started driving, and he was paying for the car note on the Corolla (it was his car, after all).
I’m really down to figuring out what’s fair on trading cars and the responsibility on the car note.
Also, close to the convention center is a bar call “Neil’s Bahr” which is grungy, geeky, cheap, and often has a guy making decent grilled food on the porch. More fun with friends, though.Report
Is there a horseshoe hanging up over the bar?Report
I have no idea. There’s an SNES with Super Mario Kart on it though. 🙂Report
Oy.Report
@morat20
I know we are in way different areas of what is called Houston (a 100 miles wide blob if you count from Galveston to Conroe – I’m in blessed GOOF, formerly Garden Oaks-Oak Forest, but GOOF is so post-millennial ), but I’ve found Uber in Houston exceddenly good, and surprisingly “cheap”
Alas, all will be different after the Super Bowl, I’m toldReport
I am going to see Sleater-Kinney tonight.
This year ended up being pretty rough for me. Not because of all the celebrity deaths or Trump’s election. I was laid off in March as I have mentioned before. Turns out the place I was working is sort of known for frequent and random lay-offs. I ended up doing okay financially but only because of random and dumb luck that caused me to get a really good freelance assignment during the summer which led to just enough freelance work to keep me okay through the fall. The original great summer gig ended because of appropriate randomness.
There were some other freelance assignments which helped but those were short.Report
This year was an intense year with a lot of uncertainty in it.
There’s a handful of reasons to believe that next year will have less uncertainty.
And, for that matter, more need for good legal help.
Next year will be better.Report
I wish you better luck next year. It’s tough having contingent jobs.Report
What @gabriel-conroy said, @saul-degraw .Report
Oh man… big plans…
This weekend was all about Mayo delivering on some of his birthday gifts: Saturday all-inclusive passes to the AMNH with his Pippe (my stepdad, a science professor and the resident family nerd) and Sunday a cupcake baking class with his Nonna (my mom). Then Zazzy was going to take the boys for the day while I went to watch football with the guys and slept it all off on Monday. WAHOO!
But… then I learned that what I thought had been the flu turns out to be pneumonia. So now I’m re-quanratined, cut off from the world, and on an anti-biotic that might cause my achilles to rupture. HUZZAH!
ETA: Mayo will still do all his stuff so everyone ELSE will be having fun.Report
an anti-biotic that might cause my achilles to rupture
That’s a pretty insane side effect. (But real, as a bit of Googling revealed.)Report
Apparently it’s been in the news. Tendinitis is the primary risk, with a specific trend with the achilles. Rupture is highly unlikely. Doc said it’s “worth the risk”. I’ll be horizontal for the next 10 days just in case.Report
Will you at least be able to marathon stuff like Netflix shows?Report
Yes. Currently working on “Atlanta”. Though the Mythbusters marathon keeps distracting. Also have “Westworld” queded up. I have to limit myself to the shows Lady Friend doesn’t enjoy.Report
That super sucks. I hope you feel better.Report
Watched Manchester-by-the-Sea yesterday. It is crazy good. I expect Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams to get serious Oscar consideration.Report
We saw it last week, and I really liked it. I liked You Can Count on Me a lot better, though. Manchester was the first movie I’d seen (at the theaters) in about two years, so I don’t have an informed opinion on whether it or its actors deserve an Oscar.
Spoiler follows (in case the blackout tag doesn’t work):
I thought the whole fire scene–the scene itself and as an explanation for what bedevils Affleck’s character–was too “forced.” Obviously it would be a different movie without that happening, so I guess I’m just saying I would have made a different movie. But I did think the movie was really good.Report
I haven’t seen that one, but now I’m going to look for it.Report
It came out about 2000 or so, by the same producer (director?….I get them mixed up): Kenneth Lonerghan (sp.?).Report
Same director. (In between he directed one called Margaret, but it’s a 6.5 on IMDB, which is not encouraging.) He also wrote Analyze This.
Heh, he also plays the passerby who criticizes Casey Affleck’s parenting skills. Looks like he gives himself cameos in all his films.Report
I’ve never seen Analyze This (I just assumed I wouldn’t like it). I hadn’t heard of Margaret. (I also apparently can’t spell.)Report
I liked it, but I like Billy Crystal a lot, and it was before DeNiro doing self-parody was a cliche.Report
Margaret looks interesting (from Wikipedia). I might Netflix it.Report
“Analyze This” is alotta fun.Report
I’m at the tail end of what @kazzy is going through. A bout of really nasty influenza A, which lasted from before Thanksgiving right up to Christmas. Then on the day before Christmas Eve my “good” ankle does this thing it does about once every 18 months or so, which is to swell up and in extreme pain. Now I’m 99.9% done with the flu (occasional light cough of two, maybe once a day, but feeling fine) and my ankle has gotten to where I can walk without crutches with just a slightly noticeable limp. (It should be gone completely by next week.)
My New Years Eve weekend looks to be a busy one, though most of it is work. I have three pieces I’m working on right now, one for MC and one for a new Rupert Murdoch (!) venture. I also need to get everything behind the scenes ready so that tickets for the February 7 Deadly Sins show can go on sale next Tuesday. And on top of that, the people who backed 7 Deadly Sins have asked us to produce a new, second, very different regular show at a different theatre, and that needs some tending to as well.
Otherwise, I’m going to be diving into the deep pile of books friends and family gave me for Christmas and my birthday: Hillbilly Elegy and the related Strangers In Their Own Land, Karen Russell’s Vampires In the Lemon Grove, Lab Girl, Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life, Jim Lynch’s Before the Wind, Dave Eggers’ Heroes of the Frontier, and Shawn Levy’s Dolce Vita Confidential, which is about the heady and swinging days that were the film and cinema world of 1950’s Rome.
Oh, and I think I’m going to see La La Land tonight, and maybe Rogue One tomorrow.Report
Ted Chiang’s Stories of Your Life
Brilliant story after brilliant story after brilliant story. I’ve been recommending it to everyone who’s seen Arrival.Report
Happy New Year to y’all. I saw Passengers and despite the critics panning it I loved it. Mostly for the spaceship porn.Report
@north Good to know since it’s on my short list of “once my ankle’s better, regardless of what critics say” movies. Hope it’s still in theaters by then…
Happy New Year!Report
I can see their point about it being neither fish nor fowl, but I think it’s a damn good watch despite that.Report
Getting in the car, going to the airport. Stuff will be intermittent for the next couple of weeks, know that it’s not from a lack of love!
SEE YOU ALL IN TWO WEEKS!Report
Grah, the plane is experiencing technical difficulties and the entire trip is now borked. So now we get to play the whole going through this city instead of that one game.
I hate being a grownup.Report
Looks like we’re spending the night in Frankfurt.
So a 24 hour trip becomes a 36-40 hour trip.Report
That really sucks honey. I’m going to call your mom and update her but if you see this, 5 minutes after it’s posted, you could call me. xoo.Report
Made it to the hotel in Germany. Now the effort is to stay up until 8.Report
You can do eeet!Report