Hoo boy. Monday was the first day back for pretty much everybody. A handful of wise people knew to take off on Monday and have their first day back be Tuesday… but the first Monday back was a killer. The holiday hangover was in full effect starting at around 7AM. I had 5 meetings on Monday before lunchtime and heard the phrase “what are we doing?” in each and every one.
By Tuesday, people seemed to have remembered how to do their jobs. I, myself, went in and rebuilt a server from bare metal.
It’s just like riding a bike.
After that, my golly, Wednesday and Thursday were just interminable. It was hard to concentrate. It was difficult to do anything. Seriously, this has been the longest week ever.
And so this weekend will be spent recuperating from the longest week in the world. Which is weird because, in lockdown, recuperation looks very similar to working. Sitting in front of the computer, typing, sending emails… But, in addition to that surface level stuff, there are games to play, boxes to break down and put in recycling, bedclothes to change, laundry to wash, and kitties to pick up and sing the “>I love little kitty, her coat is so warm” song
(I found this link with the same song, but I’m pretty sure it’s tied to MK Ultra).
When it comes to the Covid, we’re entering the home stretch. Colorado is in Phase 1 for the shots and people are getting them and, at best, our household is a Phase 2 household. (Come on, Spring. Just get here.)
That’s pretty much it. Maribou and I have recently started watching Rocky and Bullwinkle and Friends as our nighttime date and I find myself surprised at how much of it I remember despite not seeing it since, oh, the 70’s. (I remember loving the voices, hating the animation and… golly, the voices are out of this world amazing and the animation might have cost a buck and a half to make. Granted, those were Eisenhower dollars.)
And that’s it. This weekend will be the first weekend of 2021’s New New Normal. I know that, in the past, I’ve tried to do better at slowing down and staying in the moment. But, jeez, Summer can’t get here quickly enough.
So… what’s on your docket?
(Featured image is “Huggles”. Taken by Maribou.)
We continue our slaying of the Dragon armies and then look for the lich Rathmodar’s phylactery (sp), then it’s off the the well of dragons to defeat Tiamat.
And I’m house hunting. It’s a crazy market.
Recycle: Just don’t recycle and invite you ex down. Given her obsession with recycling, she’ll take all your paper and glass back home with her to recycle. Prob solved.Report
I dunno. Classes start Monday so today I’m doing the various bits of housekeeping (mainly fighting with BlackBoard) to get things ready.
I just sent an e-mail reminding one class they DO have lab on Monday (many lab classes just handwave the first week away as “oh things are still in shakedown mode) and I included “Don’t forget, masks are still required” on it and now I just feel tired and sad. Oh, less than I’d feel if someone showed up unmasked and tried to play dumb about it, but still.
I didn’t finish the pair of Christmas-yarn-themed socks before Christmas, and not even before Epiphany, so maybe I try to finish them this weekend? I don’t know. It’s going to be cold and raw and while I’m tired of being indoors, I guess “indoors” is my life for a while yet. At least I am in the nebulous queue to get a vaccine, when-and-if there are vaccines available for “wave 3” here. I’m just hoping that the mutant strains don’t outrun the vaccines before we can have a few months of traveling and shopping without fear again.Report
Oh hey, this is also Zoom knitting meetup this weekend, so I have that on Saturday!
Also might consider baking something, since (a) my blood numbers all came back good from routine bloodwork and (b) the tele-health checkup does not expect me to weigh myself or report a weight. (And anyway: though I am down a little, extreme fasting over the weekend wouldn’t really do anything)Report
The only thing better than an impromptu 7-day weekend granted by one of your exiting Top Exec (kinda like a corporate pardon? – no politics) is the 2-day work week that starts on Thurs. Hey, it’s Friday already!
I must have gone to the well too many times because I said to my wife, “Hey what are we…” and she cut in: “Nothing, absolutely nothing.” Jan and Feb are gonna be tough… usually we work in a fancy dinner / get-away weekend in one of those months… this year? Nothing absolutely nothing.
The only thing bolstering spirits is the addition/remodel we’re doing… it’s nearing completion and we’re at the stage where instead of being excited about insulation batting we get to be excited about window trim and lighting… and giddy with anticipation at the tile. Probably over-compensating Jan/Feb/Covid blah’s by overspending on the nesting/decorating budget. But anything is better than nothing absolutely nothing.Report
I am back in class for my final quadmester of my MBA. The biggest part of the term is the Capstone Consulting Project. I expect I will be putting quite a few hours into that this weekend.
Maybe we’ll take down the Christmas decorations, but no promises.
Probably play some Genshin Impact, Super Robot Wars X and get some time in on the Monster Hunter Rise demo (March is so far away).
I also want to work on the Gundam Unicorn model that I got. The first couple Gunpla I did were beginner level. This one is a beast.Report
“What are we doing?” indeed! I’m only just now getting to the thing that I had sort of slotted for getting done (or at least started on) the first Monday back. Complicating things is making sure I’m starting from the correct software base and sorting out our development environment which is scattered across three systems because of reasons. And I’m being asked to give 36 hours this month to another program because of reasons but…that program doesn’t have any work for me, so I’ve found a clever way to use their time in a plausibly completely relevant and justifiable manner, but that means I have to interrupt my actual job to do plausibly completely relevant and justifiable thing for a couple of hours every day.
But I’ve discovered “Live at Daryl’s House” on YouTube, which I guess is a show Daryl Hall was doing on MTV a couple of years back where he invites musicians to his house and they make music together. It’s pretty fantastic, even putting up with that incredibly irritating “cardio doesn’t burn fat” guy’s ads that periodically interrupt my listening (and there he is now).
And I’m starting to eyeball the layout of my house to try to figure out where I can stick a home office because I doubt me and my people will be getting the vaccine before Summer and this “temporary” setup I’ve got here probably needs to be made more permanent-ish.Report
Man, sometimes I feel like the dumb meathead at this site. Is no one else going to watch our first ever triple header wild-card weekend? Should be good though not for my Redsk- I mean WFT, unless they find a way to knock Tom Brady out of the game.
Other than that it will be chasing my toddler around the neighborhood on his balance bike and trying to clean out my dresser for stuff to send to goodwill or trash (spoiler, I will not get to it).Report
Go Football Team Go. Football well you Footballers. (Well akshually, in Europe…)
Eh, I’ll watch the Bears wander around the middle part of the field for a few hours… so there’s that, I guess.Report
I’ve tried Hail to the Footballs but it doesn’t quite work. Not sure if that’s because it sounds too much like a song about testicles or if it’s lingering personal guilt for appropriating the culture of fools. Or maybe I haven’t appropriated anything at all.
I will root for the Bears because I think the Saints were a bunch of crybabies with that uncalled PI thing the other year. Sadly I think you will have a similar experience as me. Serves both teams right for attempting a playoff game without an offense.Report
My favorite storyline is the Pace/Trubitsky Harvard Business Review Cautionary Tale in the making.
* Trade a 2nd/3rd/4th rounder to move up One (1) spot in the draft to pick a QB not on anyone’s radar.
* ???
* Bench QB in Decision Year
* Decline final year on Rookie Contract
* UnBench QB – squeak into playoffs
* Re-sign over-valued QB at highly inflated Rate
* Go to Step 2.Report
As a fan of two of the most mismanaged franchises in all of pro sports I feel you.
On its face it seems like a straightforward game of identifying undervalued assets, having a good sense for buying low and selling high, and maintaining the discipline to only splurge on luxuries when you’re ready to go over the top.
But then there are those ‘intangibles’ that screw everything up. And if they somehow against all odds run the table? Well that’s what we all watch for right?Report
Well, it could be worse, we could be Mets fans…Report
That’s what I mean. I’m an Orioles fan. For me it is worse.Report
Ouch. Lovely ballpark though. Once convinced our Marketing group to rent a skybox for a ‘customer event’ at Camden. That was fun.Report
Orioles and Redfootballs? Couldn’t be Nationals and Ravens?Report
Neither existed when my loyalties were establisbed. And at least the Redskins were good at the time. Orioles glory days were fading but they weren’t a laughingstock. We had Cal Ripken and could have made a run in ’96 but for that kid.Report
I used to be a Redskins fan myself, but that was before Dan Snyder took over. Team loyalty kept me going for about a decade of losses, but too much was too much. The next decade of losses convinced me I was right.Report
Yea, sadly that is a common but understandable story these days.Report
Pretty good performance yesterday, though. I would have expected a losing-record team to barely show up, but they stayed in the game the whole time. I might have to start taking Brady seriously, though. I always thought of him as a cog in the NE machine, but he can win a game without being coached by a supernatural being.Report
Trubisky and his 5 yd. passes. Ugh.Report
Please allow me to join you in your dumb meatheadedness. I’m a Chiefs fan when I pay attention to the NFL, but I stopped religiously watching the NFL a couple of years ago because it just wasn’t fun anymore (but heck yeah I watched the Super Bowl and heck yeah I cheered my chosen team on. I regret nothing).
These days I’ve moved my observance to soccer and I follow Arsenal of the English Premier League and Rapids of MLS. This weekend I’ll be watching Arsenal host Newcastle United in an FA Cup match.Report
I’ve never been able to get into MLS but I did attend a Bundesliga game (VfB Stuttgart v. Bayern) years ago and finally, as an American, got a little sense of what all of the fuss was about. As a sport I think it just does not translate to TV well. Hopefully you guys win it.Report
Taking down the tree. It’s always kind of a bittersweet exercise, but this year even more so.
Might go for a bike ride to a friend’s house tomorrow. It’s been a pretty mild winter here in Chicago so far, and the streets are still relatively pandemic empty. It’ll depend on my lazy butt actually getting out of the house.
Also, it’s Girl Scout cookie time. I had to order online since in person sales aren’t a thing this year. Here’s to Thin Mints!Report