What a shitty fucking weekend. Nearly non stop rain and temps in the 40s. It might be dry and almost 60 tomorrow. I can’t wait until Tuesday morning so I can resume my crappy job while the sun is shining outside.
It turned out to be a not bad weekend. It was cold one night, and some leaves from the garden have edge damage, but overall everything survived... so far. Been a long day out in the sun today... finished off planting everything in the garden, did some minor rock work in the back yard, mowing, trimming, hedge trimming... I think it's off to bed early tonight and I'll sleep like a log.
This weekend has just been three days of suck so far weatherwise. Cold, rainy and just miserable. If not for the addition to our family, I’d say it sucked completely. Fortunately this little guy is an absolute joy to have around and train (so far). Although it’s sort of like raising a baby again, complete with lack of sleep. Rugs are all spotless though (again, so far).
I'm sorry some of you had crappy weather to contend with. It's been a warm and beautiful weekend here, around 85 and sunny. A friend stayed with us, it was really nice to socialize in person and have a nice, low-key time with a friend. This afternoon we stripped the baby down for kiddie pool time and set up the sprinkler too. I laughed so hard at the naked baby butt running all over the backyard. Babies look like chimps walking upright.
Absolutely beautiful weekend weather-wise here at the Aqua Teen headquarters, marred by life getting in the way. I decided to split my weekend half and half between going outside and trying a modicum of self-care and getting caught up on my infinitely growing backlog at work, which blows ass but is also a form of self-care because not having fifty people harassing me about getting back to them on all manner of trivial shit is a major stress reducer. I went out into nature to one of my favorite spots this afternoon to hang out and read a book on my reading list, which I expected would be busy because Memorial Day. I went in the late afternoon to avoid the crowds. It was a little busy but generally OK until these throngs of people wheeled in coolers, strollers, and huge Bluetooth speakers and began blasting shitty music for everybody to enjoy. The dozen or so feral children they brought with them were left to run every which way, and when an adult discovered one was wandering too far or had disappeared somewhere, instead of getting up to get the child they would simply scream the child's name at the top of their lungs repeatedly and do one of those whistles that can be heard over a mile of open ground. Often six or fewer feet from me. When they finally packed up and left, the spot they occupied had about 8 discarded masks, 5 or 10 empty soda cans or drink bottles, a spilled half bag of chicharrones, and various other detritus on the ground. The thing that bugs me most is that this is not, like, unusual. These are essentially average people. And that means that the average person is not able to build up a mental model which includes other functioning human beings coexisting in the world. ~ ~ ~ My boss works 12+ hours a day every day, including all weekends and holidays. She's a high-level executive, this is totally her choice. I am sure the company appreciates it. I am the #2 in the org and try to hold myself to a reasonably high standard without enabling that behavior; I still work more hours than anybody else in the organization except my boss (this is not hyperbole, I run the time reports) but not anywhere near the same insane amount. What this means is that 1) weekends/holidays only mean I stop getting actions from everyone else, my boss is continuously churning out new actions for me; and 2) when I do get online at any time outside working hours (including at, like 2AM) it is likely my boss will be online and wants to shoot the shit over IM or give me some more work to do, when in fact I am trying to get my actual job done because this is the only time I am not in 10 consecutive hours of meetings a day. So today was one of those days where she was busy at work in the middle of a shitfight with a different exec who is new and, despite having zero idea how our company runs or what it does, has decided we need to stop everything we're doing to save us from ourselves. So I spent my half-workday today dealing with all of that weaponized autism instead of clearing my actual backlog.
The big pot of chili is ready for the beach potluck at our lake. Sounds like there is going to be some damn good food there. We’ll be wearing parkas, but good food and plenty of beer should make for a good time. By the way, I don’t know if any of you know this, but this weekend isn’t about barbecuing, a day off, or the beach. Thank goodness there are plenty of self-appointed patriot watchdogs letting me know that in gazillion Facebook posts.
Thank you for all the well wishes, everyone. Even though my wife came down with preeclampsia again, the labor was pretty uneventful compared to the birth of our first kid and it was pretty smooth overall. The shittiest part was having to sit in the triage room for 18 hours with zero sleep when we got to the hospital, which was pretty miserable. Now we’re just chilling in the postpartum wing until tomorrow. Out of boredom I went down a Chris Chan rabbit hole and had to explain to my wife why I was saying, “What the fuck?” to myself every 5 minutes. Can’t wait to get out of the hospital.
I'm sick of the passive-aggressive vetbro BS and a few years ago started posting this every year: https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/05/26/mil-splaining-memorial-day-stop-it/amp/
So, the local JW's have apparently taken to sending hand written letters via mail in lieu of going house to house during the pandemic. I received one from someone who only included her first name. It was Karen. I shit you not. I'm tempted to send her a letter with links explaining why the formation of the Earth and subsequent development and evolution of life means the blurb about Adam and Eve is bullshit. I clearly have to much time on my hands.
Jesus H. Christ. We just got back from Dallas. I've been driving for almost eighteen hours, and I haven't had a drink in over twenty four. We got the car, but what an ordeal. I'll give y'all a write-up tomorrow.
My wife is on afternoons, which means she doesn't get home until 12:20am or so. So when i get up i try and be quite, have all my work cloths already outside of the bedroom so i dont make noise. So this happened when i was just getting out of bed.. Wife: It is monday right? me: yea wife: OMG you are going to be late for work. me: no it is ok it is only 7ish wife: ok me: go back to sleep honey This happened through text after she woke up me: do you remember our conversation this morning? wife: i had a dream, i thought you were late for work wife: i asked if it was monday. me: yup wife: not a dream wife: that was a conversation me: yup
What a great weekend. Friends and family came over and it was a nice feeling knowing that everyone was all vaxxed up and no one had that uneasy "we shouldn't be doing this" feeling. Took my buddy for a ride in the Z06 and he giggled like a school girl each time I matted the gas. He drives a Honda Fit for comparison haha. Boiled peanuts were some of the best I've made. Pulled pork was "meh" I think I took it off too early. The Wife knocked it out of the park with her charcuterie tray though. Felt like kids again. Swim races, cannonballs, jackknifes etc. Woke up sore as shit.
Okay guys, here's the Dallas trip writeup. Li'l Bandit has been looking for a new (used) car for months. He's been saving his money, and after he got his second stimulus check, he had enough to work with. What kind of car do you think a 20 year old guy would be dreaming about? A Trans Am, like his dad? A Mustang, just to piss his dad off? A ballin' lowrider Impala? A jacked-up full-size Chevy Blazer? WRONG. He wanted a late '80s/ early '90s Toyota Camry. No, I am not joking. He said that he really likes the styling. While an odd choice, I approved; those old Toyotas were the unkillable kind, and at least I don't have to worry about him wrapping it around a tree. So he finally found one in Irving, Texas, one of the many cities sandwiched between Dallas and Fort Worth. Why did we have to travel 500 miles for a Toyota Camry, you're probably asking. Answer: because this one has a man-pedal. He got a taste of driving standard in my car, and he wanted more. I totally approve. So we made the trek up there Sunday morning. The good: Spoiler We got the car, obviously. $1,300 for a totally clean, straight Camry (4 cylinder) that had a lot of work done to it before it got sold to us. 187K miles, so it's barely broken in. The bad: Spoiler The seller was acting really flaky with Li'l Bandit, and we thought the deal was off, but then out of the blue he sent a message basically saying "if you're going to buy it, buy it this weekend, or I'm going to sell it to someone else." I REALLY didn't want to go all that way for a car; I wanted the deal to be off, but this seemed to mean a lot for Li'l Bandit, so I did it. For the record, my dad wouldn't have done this for me. The ugly: Spoiler We stopped in San Antonio Sunday night, because Jungle Julia (she went along, too) wanted to stay at a fancy hotel on the Riverwalk. Motel 6 was out of the question. But because it was Memorial Day weekend, prices were "higher than normal." I'm not going to say how much I paid for this room, but it's more than I've EVER paid for a hotel room in my life. I've gotten to stay in some supposedly really fancy hotels in my life, and I just don't get it. What the fuck is the appeal? As long as it's clean, and has four walls and a roof, it's good enough for me. I don't care if a place has concierge service and valet parking. I'll find my own shit, not the place you get a kick-back on, and I don't want anyone else driving my car. But JJ liked it, so meh. The drive from San Antonio to DFW was pure hell. We hit a traffic jam on I35 leaving Temple, and it went on until after Waco. As soon as the traffic jam ended, it started to rain. HARD. Which slowed down traffic again. We got to the seller's house about 4 hours behind schedule, but we made the deal and left. It rained hard for almost 400 miles on the way back home. I normally don't have a problem driving in the rain, but this time I was towing a car behind me, so I was a little more paranoid. Also, it seemed like most of the way back between Dallas and San Antonio was under some stage of construction, so in many places the road only had temporary lines painted on it, with uneven surfaces. This meant that when the roadway was covered in water, you couldn't really tell which lane you were in. Because of all that, we got home at around 5AM. Fuck, I feel tired just thinking about it. One last thing I want to mention: Once we left the Valley (passed the Falfurrias Border Patrol checkpoint), we only saw THREE state troopers the whole trip. That's because 2/3rds of all Texas State Troopers are IN THE VALLEY. The rest of the fucking state is running on a skeleton crew. This is really fucked up. Why is my area being targeted? Do any of the other Texas TiB members ever see state trooper patrolling city streets like they do down here?
The governor has directed the state cops to "help" with the border crisis, and the Republicans have been talking about the Brownsville Greyhound station a lot.