Playing with the iPhone. Go to the darkest part of the yard, set it face up on a chair so it’s stable, set it for the longest exposure it will do (not that long) and then lurk to see what I get.
And in the quarter moonlight & glow of the neighbors’ backyard lights, wearing a dark T-shirt, I turn into a disembodied head, hovering off on the side of the frame, floating among the ever-so-slightly trailed and blurry stars.
It’s a look.
Filed under Astronomy, Paul, Photography
Well, at least it’s not September any more.
Some big bank (Bank of America, maybe?) is running ads with a tagline something like “What would you like the power to do?”
Remember the movie “Scanners”? Yeah, if certain prominent public figures and politicians start having their heads explode live on national television, you’ll know…
Filed under Paul, Photography
The world’s going to Hell and I didn’t even get a handbasket.
Goodbye, September! You had your moments, but overall you sorta sucked. If only October didn’t look to be even worse from Square One…
Filed under Paul, Photography
I wish that I could stop watching the news. It’s bad out there. Scary shit going on and I have no idea how to deal with it or make it better.
There were some nice things today on a personal level. Trying to focus on those.
Watching “Field of Dreams” (with commercials, unfortunately) helps. What a perfect movie. The whole story arc at the end with Archie Graham…
Tuesday awaits.
Filed under Paul
Critical deadlines met. One way or the other. In this case, the “other” meant a marathon, 20-hour-plus work session yesterday with the final draft reports being emailed out at 03:15.
I checked with my Oura Ring to see what it thought of my two hours of sleep and the message was, “DUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUDE!!! WTF!!!???”
Maybe there is something to this AI thing?
I may sleep in and sit on my ass all weekend. I trust that the remaining stuff in the one PODS container will still be there on Monday. As will be the empty PODS container that was scheduled to be picked up last Wednesday, then yesterday, then… There are certain local managers and member of the PODS C-suite that would not get my vote for a performance bonus this year. In fact, I would recommend clawing back any performance bonus they got last year!
Filed under Forever Home, Health, Paul
Boy howdy.
Loving the new house, not so thrilled about all of the work that remains to unpack and get settled. Got a bit knocked off kilter with some news, when the move and the freakin’ world had me already spinning, so it’s all a bit odd.
Perhaps I need a better office chair, since I seem to be in this one about 16+ hours a day and this one is thirty years old and sort of sucks. But I digress…
Lying on the floor by the front door, we have the good luck charms and trinkets on the front door handles, and the really nice chandelier in the foyer.
Sleep would be nice – one leftover from all of the moving the last week is those freakin’ nocturnal leg cramps waking me up every hour. If anyone has a cure or a suggesstion on treatment or prevention, please drop it into the comments. I’ve been bitching about it to my Primary Care Physician for about fifteen years and so far all I’ve gotten is, “You’re getting old.” While true, it’s less than useful.
And somewhere I picked up a cold. Lousy sleep every night for a month, pretty constant pain and discomfort, and hitting the Dayquil every six hours is not a good combination for wrestling with the nature of reality.
That’s how you end up lying on the marble floor by the front door, taking pictures of the ceiling and the chandelier.
I need better drugs. Or better reality. Or both.
Filed under Forever Home, Paul, Photography
It’s a state change, a phase transition, like ice to liquid water and back to ice. From stacks of stuff in the garage and everything put away in cabinets in the house to everything in boxes and in the PODS and moving truck, then back. With trying to get through the next three to four weeks while caught in the middle.
“Chaotic” is such a weak and incomplete word to describe it.
This is one day’s work in the first of the PODS unit. I’m not just tossing things in and trading chaos for even more chaos just to get everything from this physical location to the new physical location – there will be plenty of time for that panic and chaos exchange program in three weeks.
For now, stuff is moving into the PODS unit only when it’s labeled, cleaned, inventoried, and similar stuff grouped together, and a map made of where stuff is so that I can find it if I need to quickly at some point. All of the bins along the left, especially the ones with the green & red tops, are Christmas lights and stuff for the interior of the house and the tree. The two racks down at the end have magazines and books on the bottom two shelves (heavy – load from the bottom!) with computer accessories and hardware and office supplies up above.
I think the second PODS unit will start to get mid-sized furniture – several small file cabinets, a couple of shelving units from the back porch, a couple of four-drawer lateral file cabinets, a couple of bedroom cabinets, my table saw, garden tools – that sort of thing.
It’s progress – this is a marathon, not a sprint.
The giant cardboard figure? Jean Luc Picard. Another one down on the right is Buzz Aldrin on the moon. Can’t let it get boring!
Filed under Forever Home, Paul
No, I didn’t attend any of the “No Kings” protests today, as much as I would have liked to. Other priorities, sadly. As noted before, this whole “responsible adult” thing sort of sucks, big time. Not a fan!
It would have been a nice day for it. First day in a few where it wasn’t either “clear and a million” with nothing but blue skies, or hazy and cloudy and grey.
The contrast was much nicer.
Philosophical point – doesn’t the classical description of Heaven sound incredibly boring and dull after about a week? Sure, having anything you want any time you want it with no stress, no worries, no pain, would be fantastic for a while. But for eternity? YAWN!!
Maybe Michael Schur and his team were correct.
Enough philosophy! Back to processing payroll!
Filed under Paul, Photography, Politics, Weather
I’m not a superstitious person by any definition, but the way bad shit has been coming for the last month or two (deadlines, the World, this stupid tooth, etc…), you can’t be too sure.
But tonight – might that possibly be the slightest glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel for the #1 stressor in my life right now?
It’s possible, but I’m not going to get my hopes up. There have been several times in this process where I thought I was doing well and had others explain to me in some detail why I WAS WRONG. (It still might have been a “them” thing more than a “me” thing, but it was depresssing either way.)
Now, while there’s still a day or two of work to do to finish Phase One, enough of the work has been completed and submitted so that I’m not feeling absolutely crushed and hopeless. I’m still going to have to work through all or at least most of the weekend to complete Phase One, and there will be more work coming when Phase Two starts, and there’s probably a Phase Three to follow after that, but it’s like a triathalon. At least I’m getting to the end of that first event. Maybe. Until Monday comes and “they” decide to crush my soul again just because they can.
Things are cloudy and the view is murky – but that might be a ray of light peeking out. (Photo from the 2017 total solar eclipse we saw through high, thin clouds somewhere in southeastern Nebraska.)
The new gym my trainer is using has new toys and torture equipment. I’m feeling that tonight.
It’s a “good” feeling in the sense that my head knows it’s for the greater good, the long term goals, blah blah blah, yadda yadda yadda… Meanwhile, I’m physically exhausted and sore. It’s a good match for the mental exhaustion. It feels like… It actually reminds me of about Mile Twenty of running a marathon. “The Wall.”
At least I’m not thinking about my sore tooth. Mind you, the tooth still hurts. But I’m not thinking about it.
We Love The Stars Too Fondly 