Y12 D5

I haven'r read the news yet and to be honest, I'm a little scared. Last I saw protestors were tearing down the barricades at the white house, undercover cops in the crowd were inciting the violence, and people were being killed.

The revolution is currently being televised. 24/7 in glorious technicolor.

I spent about 3 hours yesterday rearranging my office to take my mind off the world. I ordered a monitor arm for my desk to mount two of my monitors on to clear off the desk space. That was a nice distraction for a while. I also cleaned the house not because it needed it but because I needed to be separated from reality. I also baked, hung the old medicine cabinet in the basement, put up a hook that needed to be mounted, and did a water change. Trying to keep sane is resulting in a very organized house. Here's a pic of my new desk layout.

The monitor arm is very useful. I can pull the left one closer as needed, raise things up, etc. I am liking it so far.

I baked strawberry conrmeal cobblers. Individual size. B took some over to her grandmother. Her grandfather is up at the cabin setting it up for summer so her grandmother was all alone over there. Keep that social distancing going.

Made steaks for dinner. Came out very nice.

Hiding in the house yet again today. No need to see the outside world thank you very much.

Y12 D4

"When the looting starts the shooting starts..."

Oh yeah, Hillary would have been just as bad.

"Thugs"
"My ratings!"

This isn't an administration. It's a fucking joke.

14 years ago we watched "President Camacho" and we all laughed and said that could never happen here. Now we're living it. The streets are on fire. I always said our next civil war (ain't nothing civil about war) will be a race war. Here it is.

Blood on the streets. Blood on the rocks. Blood in the gutter. Every last drop. You want blood? You got it.

Yes you have.

I am ashamed to be a white person in America. I am disgusted to live around people who are "very fine people". Things are not good right now. Not good at all.

I left the house twice yesterday. Grocery store. Pet store. Luckily the grocery store is back to being open at 6am. I was one of 5 customers in the whole store. Anxiety level reduced. But I bought enough groceries I don't have to go out again for a while.

Recorded a class. Hung a medicine cabinet. Made spaghetti with meatballs for dinner.

Watched the streets burn. Watched injustice in the heartland. I've been to those places. I know those streets. Now when I return I will see bloodstains.

The years are changing me. Not always in a good way. I withdraw from the world because I hate what the world has become.

Y12 D3

I took a ganble yesterday and it paid off. I scheduled the AT&T guy to come between 8 and 12 with the hope that he would either come at 8 before class or closer to 12 after class. He came at 8:30. As expected since it was a sporadic problem, there was nothing for him to do and he was gone by 8:45. After testing the line in the house and the line to the house, he looked over his logs and he is confident it was due to one of their own people working on the box and not letting anyone know. I am like the only person in the neighbordhood with fiber and have a direct line from the box less than 500 feet away. I would be surpised if it was even that far. Point is anyone doing anything to it will impact me directly. He tested light strength and all connectors and all is good. He also complimented my placement of hardware as optimal for the house. That was nice.

Taught my class and finished around 1pm. We managed to make up for the lost time on Tuesday which was great. All of my students were awesome and we got through everything with no issues.

Made crappy dinner. Wasn't in the mood to really cook so a quick hamburger helper later, food is served. I need some real food. Like sushi or something pretentious. I miss real food. Going to the store this morning. Might get something for myself. God I really want bone marrow or foie. But those days are gone, aren't they?

Watched some TV, helped B do some fish stuff, went to bed.

Apparently our grocery stores are open at 6am again hence the early rise. Let's see if that causes me less stress. Doubt it, but worth a try.

Y12 D2

Worked extra yesterday with my students to make up for the lost time on Tuesday. We went from 9am until after 7pm. Took a couple extra breaks but otherwise stuck to a normal schedule. Was totally worth it. We only have about 2-3 hours to make up today. We're going to start early again today because all of them have at least one conflict and we need to make up the time. Luckily they are all good students. This is an advanced class and for once I have students who all belong in the class. No one has been a problem which is great. I complimented them all on that too. Wonderful group.

Given how much I worked yesterday, not much else to report. Had a late dinner, watched some TV, went to bed. For once no drama from the outside world. Or at least none I bothered to pay attention to. I did realize something though last night. I was bringing in the garbage cans and saw people out walking and cars on the road and I thought to myself how can these people go right back to thinking everything is fine and act like none of the last two months happened? I realized afterwards that this whole event has changed me on some level. I didn't like being outside before this but now I am loathe to want to be in public. I don't want to be around people, I don't want to go anywhere with a group, etc. I am quite happy staying away from everyone and just being inside. I know that sound a bit defeatist, but I don't want to die from stupidity. The stupidity of someone accidentally sneezing on me. This whole event has hit me hard. Mortality awareness I would call it. So yeah, I am going to stay in here and just watch the world unfold.

AT&T is supposed to be here this morning. Let's see if they find anything useful. Highly doubt it, but we shall see.

Y12 D1

Yesterday was really bad. First off I was bored, stressed, and anxious because class wasn't starting until 11:30. I was sitting around doing a whole lot of nothing. Finally get class under way and around 12:30 my internet konks out. I had to reschedule class and spent the next two hours with AT&T troubleshooting. They couldn't figure it out either and they are sending a technician out tomorrow morning. Right now I have connection, but it's 1/2 of what I should have and it's insanely sporadic. I go from 300mb down to 110k to 2mb back up to 200mb all in the span of a few minutes. My latency is all over the map too. 9ms to as high as 500ms. They think it's either a line issue outside or a failing ONT. Lovely. I am trying again with my students today but no promises.

That took up most of the day. Next thing you know it's 4pm. Had dinner out. Well not out, but you know what I mean. We had dinner curbside from the coney nearby. B was craving it. Whatever. After dinner, we watched some TV and I went to bed. She has been sleeping in the guest room because she is having trouble falling asleep and doesn't want to wake me. Makes me feel horrible.

Side note - we finished watching The Good Place. There has never been a more perfect tv show. What a wonderful piece of work. We loved every minute of it. I am glad they had a clear vision from the start of where the show was going and they got to tell the entire story. It was just great.

That's about it. Oh, my coworker sent an email around 2:30am saying she has no power. May is just going out with a big fuck you, isn't it? Good times.

Y11 D366

Here it is, the end of Y11. It was 11 years ago that I sat in a bar by the beach and wrote my first ever post. Roughly 4000 posts later here we are. 3000 miles away from that starting point. Light years away mentally for sure. I'm not that person any more. I'm not the person I was for a lot of these posts. Some years have been good, some not the best decisions were made. Remember 2010? Now there were some questionable life choices. Yet, here I am. Sitting in my house doing okay. It took a lot to get here. I never thought I would be back in a stable position like this. I honestly didn't know what would become of me 11 years ago. If you had said you'd be in MI well that right there would have made me laugh. Heck, 5 years ago I would have laughed at that. Of course none of us who were asked in 2015 where do you see yourself in 5 years got the answer right, now did we? Sheltered in place during a pandemic certainly wasn't at the top of the list of responses. But here we all are in that respect. State of the world aside, this year has been okay. B has gotten herself closer to being okay as have I. I don't have the social group I need yet but it's good. I am still working through all that. Materially my life is much better than it was 11 years ago even if sometimes I don't see it and miss stupid things. I've seen more of the world in the last 11 years than the 10 prior. Australia, London, Canada, France, Netherlands - these have all been in the last decade. More than most. It's all good. I am worried about the world. I hope things right themselves. I hope capitalism in its current form takes a big hit and things gets revamped. Doubtful, but I still have hope. Got to have hope, right? Hope is what took me from being alone in a bar unsure of the future to being stable in a nice house with a loving partner. Got to keep Hope, otherwise, what's the point?

Did pretty much nothing yesterday which was nice. Cleaned the grill so we could have the traditional midwest memorial day inaugral bbq. Just made burgers. Didn't do anything fancy. More the principle. It's finally nice here. AC has been kicking in. If the world calms down a bit, B will probably head to the cabin for a few days. Can't say as I blame her. I will go for 2-3 days at a time whereas she wants to stay for a couple of weeks. Now that we have two cars, not a problem. See? 11 years ago summer lake trips were NOT on my radar. Ha.

Have a class today and tomorrow. Three students but it's better than nothing. Unfortunately they're 11:30 - 7:30. That part sucks. But I am billable and it means no one will bug me for two days. Can't complain about that.

Y11 D365

This is a leap year isn't it? Means I have one more post to make tomorrow. 366 days this year. Need to be accurate, sorry.

Typing this on my new keyboard. Logitech Orion G910. HIGHLY recommend. Solid keys, good throw, backlighting is customizable. Most of you probably never think about your keyboard, but these are the things that lead to higher productivity and less repetitive stress issues. Not to mention the colors are fucking cool.

Did a lot of fish work yesterday. Moved one set of fish from one tank to another in prep for new axies B has coming. Prepped the new tank. Did laundry. Cleaned the house. Set up the new basement fridge. Which is also perfect. Finally have the worms out of my food fridge.

Made awesome shrimp and crab crepes for dinner. Was very pleased at how they turned out.

Not much else. Watched some TV. Went out in public for some things for my crepes with my flamingo hair. That was fun. Need to do a touchup on it this morning actually. Going to do that now.

Have a good day off people. I know, it's weird this year, but hang in there.

Y11 D364

Oh man do I have a lot to share with all of you today!! End year 11 with a bang dammit! Let's start with this:

Yep. That's me head. I'm a flamingo!! Took over three hours to do because I made sure to lighten/bleach it first. But man what a difference that made. The color really took to my hair. So totally worth it. I love it. Don't care what anyone else thinks. I can't wait to see the reaction on people's faces around here. Remember, old punks never die, we just stand in the back.

But that isn't even close to the big news. Let's start with this: got a few things coming from Best Buy. Today a new keyboard and a fridge for the basement (mini). Next week, a new camera lens. On June 10th a new dryer. Wait a minute you say, didn't you just pay Best Buy off? Yep and I will pay all this off. PLUS still pay off the couch as planned. But how can you do that? Free money bitches.

Every morning I check the USPS website to see what's coming. If you don't use it BTW, I would encourage you to check it out. Informed delivery dot com. For me it's a way of keeping track of packages and mail. Anyway, in yesterday's scheduled mail was what looked like a check from the US Treasury. Huh?? That can't be what I think it is, is it? Yes it is. After spending like an hour creating an account on the IRS's site, turns out we made the stimulus check cut-off by $800. I wasn't sure how much the check was going to be because there looked like some restrictions depending on how you file, $5 off for every $100 over X kind of things. Regardless of how much, it was definitely unplanned, non-taxed, literal free money. Sweet! Talk about anticipation of waiting for the mail.

Mail shows around 6 and I rush to the box. Holy fucking shit. We got the full amount. $2400 bitches. Do I feel guilty? A little bit. I know there are plenty of people out there who really need these checks to pay rent and put food on the table. But look, I didn't ask for it, I didn't apply for it, and I most certainly wasn't expecting it. We decided to use it for its intended purpose - economic stimulus. Each of us gets $600 to spend as we choose, we spent $600 on a dryer, and $600 to savings. A reasonable split of the money. 25% into savings but 75% right back into the world. Just what this was designed to do. Part of my $600 is going towards a new macro camera lens and fancy Logitech keyboard. I was going to buy these things for my birthday in July, but now I can buy them with zero impact to our budget and household. The household $600 we went a little over. The dryer itself was $550 and the mini-fridge for the basement was $110. So yeah, we will eat that little difference. We've needed a fridge down here ever since B got the creepy fish. She feeds them live worms which have been living in our normal fridge. Plus we'd like to have some sodas and water downstairs. Again, a purchase we were planning anyway. Same thing with the dryer. You know we bought the washer right after moving in, and now we finish the set. B is probably going to use hers to buy fish equipment. She wants more axolotls and one more tank. You go for it. Your money.

Talk about some good news. Yes, I still feel a little guilty especially how close we were to the cut off, but I am not going to lose sleep over it.

Did a water change on all tanks too yesterday. It doesn't seem like we did a lot, but the things we did took some time.

Made shrimp tacos for dinner. Was very happy with those. Watched some TV. Went to bed late around 1am.

For today, nothing planned. Just going to wait for Best Buy to deliver one of three orders. The fridge and keyboard are coming today. Whee!

Y11 D363

It's a 3 day weekend! Woo? Doesn't really mean much here. But I am sure the mouth breathers of the world will be out in force. Apparently we can now congregate in groups of 10 or less here in MI and I saw one of the neighbors taking advantage of that. They have kids that have just graduated which must really suck not being able to have a ceremony but they had like 10 cars in front of their house yesterday. Be careful people. Don't be dumb just because you're tired of it.

Worked on more docs yesterday and completed another presentation for a client. Look at me - DOCUMENT MAN! Able to produce a powerpoint, faster than a word document, more powerful than... well you get the point.

Cleaned out the cat closet. That was fun. Overdue, but needed to be done. Went to the grocery store. Got anxiety.

It was Flick day in Animal Crossing. Highlight of my day. Made 2.8 million bells.

Today I am doing water changes on the tank and dyeing my hair. Yay me. Electric pink here we come.

Y11 D362

You know how when you buy a car depending on the final payoff of the trade in or the DMV fees paid, you sometimes get a check back in the mail or you get an invoice for like $20? I just got that for the old mortgage. Apparently my new loan was $5 short. I just got an email saying they charged my bank account $5. Okay. The other $200k wasn't enough I see. Got to get that last five bucks in. Gotcha. Go capitalism.

Busy day yesterday. Finished up my three classes and managed to get a presentation done for another client. I still have to finish up some demos for it, but otherwise it's ready to go. I did get into a argument with the fucking marketing person yet again. I agreed to take over the other instructor's classes for a couple of months to help out while we get our pipeline back where it needs to be. They have a 6-9 week project to put her on that she is willing to do, but that left like a dozen classes that needed to be assigned. I stepped up and said sure IF we change them to be EDT instead of PDT. She runs from 8:30-4:30 PDT for her stuff. Out of the 12 or so classes, only 3 have current students registered. I told everyone I am okay with doing those 3 at the PDT times, but for the rest, please switch them. Well the marketing person threw a fit saying I should do ALL of them as PDT. I was like no fuck you. I am not going to have week after week where I am working until 7:30 at night. That will disrupt my whole life. I will compromise and do some of them from 7-3PDT like I used to do for years but no way am I doing them all on PDT time. She didn't like that response. Well tough shit bitch. Not your call. Let's see today what the fall out is from that.

Took Chili to the vet yesterday. She needed a rabies shot but was alo having some ear trouble. She needed them cleaned and some drops. She has a little infection going on. $300 later she is good. Have to take her back next Thursday for a second application. Fun.

The neighbors admitted defeat last night. Two trucks and some gangster looking burly guys were there ripping out the AC units and duct work. Wah wah. Their trucks were loaded when they left. One of the AC units is still there but I bet it's because they couldn't fit it or it was too hard to just rip out. I'm telling you, that house will go back up for sale. You watch.

Three day weekend upon us. End of May. End of year 11. Wow. How time flies when you're stuck inside.

Y11 D361

I love when we hit this time of year in TV land. Standard TV land that is. Shows finishing up for the season, cliff hangers, no idea if things are coming back. Oh yeah, good times. Bah.Old media is dead. Long live New media. Great. Now I want to watch Videodrome. Eddy Haskell died. Used to watch that in the summers at my grandmother's house. That and Perry Mason. Ah those were the days. Wait, here's one for you - yesterday was Kurt Loder's birthday. He turned 7 fucking 5. Yeah. MTV launched 39 years ago. Let that sink in. Almost 4 decades MTV has been on the air. Remember Headbanger's Ball? Remember when videos were just concert footage? We be old motherfuckers.

Taught day two of my class. Went quite well actually. After class I received multiple pieces of praise from my students including one sent to the powers that be on both my side and the client's. That's always nice. Makes it all worthwhile. Long day, but rewarding.

Made nice lamb shoulders for dinner. Was quite happy at how they came out. Watched a little tv, went to bed.

Today taking one of the cats to the vet. Her ears have been bugging her plus she is due for a rabies shot. This should be interesting. It's a call from the parking lot situation. Let's see how this goes.

Y11 D360

Day 75 of SIP. The howling at night continues. I fear leaving the house after dusk. I have my comforts inside. The windows need more wood covering them. Must get that done before sunset. I swear I saw one of them looking in last night. Oh wait. I am not legend. Yet.

Starting to feel that way though, that's for sure. Especially as I read headline after headline that says X state sees 500% surge in new cases after reopening. Wait, you mean SCIENCE WAS RIGHT?? OMG I AM SO SHOCKED. Die die my darling...

Yesterday felt really long. Taught from 9 until a little after 5. Made dinner. Next thing you know it's 7pm. Class went okay. A couple of rough spots but we worked through them. The biggest problem was you guessed it, Sales and Marketing emails after class. Some people have no respect for other people's time. Or as I put it to B last night, everyone is dealing with this in their own way; for some it means throwing yourself into work as a distraction. For me work is the least important thing and I can't muster the same enthusiasm or dedication. Sorry. Just the way it is.

Some development with the neighbors. They finally had someone mow and clean up the yard. Since they bought the place, no one has done any yardwork. It was looking like complete shite. How much you want to bet a for sale sign goes up next? Can't grow here? Oh well, sell it. Buh-bye. Unfortunately our yard guy hasn't come so now we look like the messy ones. Hopefully he will come today and we won't look so bad. Ah the big challenges of suburb land. Personally I would like to tear the whole front yard out and put in natural landscaping. Fuck lawn. It's dumb.

Day two of class in 4 hours. Oh boy.

Y11 D359

We went from a freeze warning in effect to a flood warning in effect. Wonderful. It rained all damn day yesterday. Like hard rain too. We were warned for 4-5 inches of rain. Our 'pond' in the backyard upgraded to a small lake. It should ease up today and actually be nice come the weekend. Not that I will be going anywhere. I don't care what the dummies around me are doing. I am staying inside for another month at least. On a positive note about that, I was talking to the kid last night and she is back to full time hours and it looks like she will be able to work from home permanently going forward. Like once a week visits to the office, but otherwise 4 out 5 days at home. She will save on rent, gas, food, etc. Good for her!

I got a lot accomplished yesterday. Only have like two more demos to write and I will have three classes done. Not too shabby. Productive day. I worked until about 3 and then made a new recipe for dinner. It was one of those 'what do we have in the pantry' kind of recipes. I made a nice teriyaki chicken with pineapple fried rice. I was impressed with myself. Trying to come up with some variety of what we're eating you know? After 74 days SIP, it's getting harder to think up variety. At the end of the month I plan to do some data anylsis on our spending and can't wait to see the uptick in grocery spend compared to the downtick of gas and dining spend. Should make for some interesting data.

Had the meeting with the new boss yesterday. Went as well as could be expected. He is learning the lay of the land. Overall he's a good guy. He has experience doing this and understands some of the subtleties of the work we do. So far no complaints. I am sure there will be, but all is okay right now.

Today and tomorrow have real classes. 12 students from Pru. Most of whom I recognize their names from recent classes. This should be decent in terms of frustration level. We shall see. Holiday on Monday too which is nice. Just need to make it through the week and get 3 days to do nothing. Inside. Alone. Welcome to 2020.

Y11 D358

A seriously boring day yesterday. We watched the rain fall and didn't leave the house yet again. Our yard turned into a duck sanctuary at one point. We had four males just hanging around conducting important duck business in our backyard. That was the most exciting thing to happen yesterday. Otherwise, nothing. Heck, dinner was leftovers. We read. Watched some tv. Played some video games. That was it. It was one of those days where at 8pm it was like, can I just go to bed already? Some classes this week at least. Two solid days with Prudential. Meeting with the new boss today at 1pm. Yippee.

Y11 D357

Man I love natural sleeping. No alarms. Fine day Sunday. When I don't have to travel that is. But man do I miss it. I miss getting on airplanes, I miss new places. I know a lot of people have used this time to binge movies and TV shows (I've done my share, finished Derry Girls on Friday) but I've had a hard time with that, mostly because I use the road to watch shows and movies. I am used to sitting in a hotel room watching 10 episodes of Star Trek in a week. Not sitting at home. There's some weird guilt level associated with doing it at home I guess. Regardless, I still miss travel to some degree.

Didn't do a whole lot yesterday. Laundry, house cleaning. Baked chocolate chip muffins. Had pizza for dinner. B watched the new Scoob! movie. She liked it. Never understood the fascination with Scooby Doo. Not my thing.

Same planned for today - nothing. Might do some fish tank stuff but that's about it. It's supposed to rain from noon on with a floor warning in effect. That's fun.

Y11 D356

And with that my house is refinanced. My new base mortgage is $900 a month plus $500 going to escrow for taxes and insurance. Booyah. That's less than the rent I was paying in 2010 in the bay area. Insane. The whole process yesterday wasn't bad. They let B sign from the car so she didn't have to have any contact. Inside it was me and the agent and that was it. I got through everything in about 45 minutes. That was pretty much my day. Nothing else of any excitement happened.

Been seeing the same SUV show up at the house next door. One I haven't seen before. But so far, no attempt at trying to turn their power back on. Nor have I actually seen anyone. The car shows up when I'm not looking, gone a few hours later. I expect to see activity there today since it's the weekend.

Oh wait, there was one annoying bit yesterday. I went to the grocery store near the title office because of convenience and have vowed never to go in there again. They weren't enforcing masks at all. Smug ass old white women (primarily) walking around without any masks acting like they were queens of the world. Seriously?I got out of there as fast as I could which unfortunately wasn't very fast. Granted, it's my own fault for going into a store at 2pm on a Friday, but fuck me it was rough.

Had a german dinner of sausages and kraut last night. Paid for it later, but damn if it wasn't tasty.

The weather is a little nicer finally. Raining, but warm rain. Makes me HI sick. I love weather like this. 100% humidity and just warm enough you can hang around without a jacket on. More of the same today. Can handle it. Might even put on shorts today. Woo.

Y11 D355

Ten days and we roll into a new year. Wow.

I actually focused on work yesterday. Dealt with an issue for a client, went heads down on the new material. I have two of the classes complete and have about 4 more demos to write in the other ones. Productive day.

Made meatloaf for dinner. Dealt with last minute docs for the closing today.

Bill paying time too. Upside? Confirmed no mortgage payment until 7/1. That will help things. Especially if we don't leave the house for another month. Which I don't plan to do.

Not much else thank goodness. I am taking today off to focus on the closing. Leftovers planned for dinner.

Y11 D354

You know what's nice? Turning the heater on in my office and not having it kick in the UPS after 30 seconds. Why can I do that now? Because the neighbors next door now have NO power. That's right kids. Buckle in for a wild ride.

Around 8:30 yesterday the crews from DTE show up to check my power, yet again. I go outside with them and they pop the load tester into my box. This time we're "within tolerance". Still low, but not low enough they can do anything. I said look next door. Look at those AC units. FINALLY someone listened to me and the lead guy said okay, we will go to the neighbor on the OTHER side of them and test their strength. He comes back and when you take what that house is getting compared to what I am getting, guess who is no longer "within tolerance".

They then went and looked at the connection to the bad neighbor's house. After three of them looking at things, checking the pole, standing around deciding what to do, the lead guy knocks on the door. He tells me that they are now waiting for legal to show up on how to proceed because not only do they have an unapproved, uninspected box, but they have an unauthorized line running to the pole with non-DTE approved connections. Plus he told me that as he walked around the house it straight up reeked of pot. What a surprise! Tada!

Another guy shows up and about 2 hours later, he knocks on the door. He informs me that the neighbors have had their power cut due to illegal theft of power. Boom. He also tells me that if I see lights on without having seen one of their crew to inform the police. The police have been notified of what has taken place. He also drops this bomb - the amount of power they were drawing was so high that it could have burned the house down because it would have overloaded their shit unapproved fake meter. On top of that, it was absolutely their fault the transformer blew on the 4th and it would have blown again. They're going to be charging the property owner for the cost of fixing the transformer. Here's the best part, apparently the house is being 'rented' and the when they contacted the renter DTE was told to contact the owner who attempted to play dumb. Um, how do you not know your tenants have installed 3 additional AC units on a house buddy? That's not like hanging a picture on the wall. If he wants power back on at the level they need for their product, he is going to have to pay DTE to give him his own dedicated transformer with a separate line. Yeah like that's going to happen.

The bottom line is I really didn't care they were growing pot. I cared because they were impacting my ability to live. Flickering lights, overloading my circuits. The power guy even said that it could have caused my board to blow with the surges and drops we were experiencing. That's not cool. If they hadn't put on the extra load I would have said nothing. But nope. They fucked up and got greedy. Now you pay for that greed.

That was the majority of my day right there. The whole thing sorted out around 1pm from 8:30am. Worked on docs, made dinner, went to bed. You know, the regular.

Today is more docs and tomorrow is blessed closing day. Woot!

Y11 D353

Current mood:

What? You don't feel that way too right now? I am not advocating we 'reopen things' but I am starting to go a little floopy. Got one out of three classes done, about 1/2way on number two. Made some progress there at least. That was the bulk of my day. B had a paint date with her friend in Australia. They watched a Bob Ross video together and painted. It came out pretty cool. Me, I did nothing. Because it's me.

Scheduled the closing finally. Friday, 1pm. And I have to do it in person. What a load of shit that is. I should have been able to wire the money and docusign everything but no. Some industries really need to catch the fuck up in that respect.

Lawnguy came. Looks good outside. It might actually warm up today. Get all the way up to 60. The irony is that starting tomorrow it's scheduled to get up into the 70s but it's also supposed to rain for 3 days straight. Whee.

Y11 D352

I had a rough day yesterday. The anxiety and depression were in high gear. Still are. Couldn't focus on shit. Can't breathe. Not enough humidity. I turned it down when it started to warm up but oops. So I tossed and turned all fucking night. It's been 67 days since life was normal. It's been 67 days since I've gone anywhere other than groceries stores and pet stores. My lights are still flickering. Packages are delayed. Documents need to be written. Scheduled to close on Thursday. Let's see how that goes.

Y11 D351

Well I did nothing of any significance yesterday. I did go to the store briefly for a few things I forgot. The number of old white men buying last minute flowers for mom was ridiculous. The florist was doing curbside pickup and had a line 10 cars deep. All old white men. I bet this really hurt the restaurant industry yesterday. M-Day is the biggest eating out day of the year. I feel bad for that. Sort of. I feel bad for small businesses who count on those dollars but I don't feel bad for the servers and cooks who would have been abused by a room full of Boomers and Karens. They got a break this year from the bullshit. So that parts okay. The rest sucks.

Really didn't do a whole lot else. It rained for hours, turned into snow. Yep. In May. Wearing a sweater right now with the heat on. In May. I have pictures I took in February from the beach one year. I need to look at them to remember what normal weather looks like.

This week I have three classes to write. That's it. I can do it.

Y11 D350

2 weeks until a new year starts. Kind of like my Chinese or Jewish New Year.

My wife is a crazy person. She stayed up all night again doing research on relatives she doesn't even know. I don't know what to say about it. I think it's an exercise in futility, but then again, I hate people and most of my family.

Kid's doggo is sick. She had to go to the vet yesterday. Waiting on test results.

I made another chocolate chip cookie pie.

Oh, real news - DTE came out yesterday because our lights are still flickering. Guess what? VINDICATION! We're supposed to have 240 coming into the house from the line, we have 231. When the tech put a load on it, we dropped to 215. Yeah. I am not out of my mind. We have power issues. So now a crew has to come out and figure out how to get us more power off the line. This will be fun.

Sunday. No plans. No tasks. Video game and laundry day. Good times.

Y11 D349

Yesterday was not a good day.

It started with me going to the store. I had to go to the big store for what we needed and fuck me, the anxiety and stress that created. People not wearing masks. People not respecting the lines on the floor. But the kicker was the woman behind me in line. She was jabbering away on the phone in Russian and not paying attention to how close she was to me. I am about six deep in line when I hear her come up behind me. I turn around and she is like right on top of me. I give her a death stare and when we move up I give her another stare. But guess what? She's so busy on the phone she doesn't pay attention UNTIL I FEEL HER CART HIT ME. I got pissed. I pushed her cart back into her. That got her to pay attention. She ended up moving to a different line. Fuck you.

Stressed out I head home. WTF? There's two fire trucks, an ambulance and 2 cop cars in front of my house. Great. My wife is dead. Yes, that's where my mind went. Why else would that many emergency vehicles be there. I pull in to the garage and go to one of the cops sitting in their car and ask what's up. They're waiting to go to the school down the street for some fucking parade. Seriously? My brain is fried now. Thanks.

But wait, there's more.

So B gets up around 11 and lays this on me: She thinks she has found her 'lost' grandfather. See B's mom's father has never been to anyone. Her grandmother never married the guy. Kind of like how I never knew my father until later in life, but in this case, the grandmother has NEVER spoken his name to anyone. Thanks to a 23 and Me match, B thinks she found the family secret and was up until six am stalking this guy and his family. Sadly, because most people are idiots when it comes to their online presence, she knew quite a bit about this guy and his entire family. From Arkansas. So now B has this burden of information. So she calls her mother and grandmother over to confront her grandmother. Turns out she was wrong. Sort of. This guy is related but in a 3rd cousin sort of way. The grandmother did divulge the real name of B's actual grandfather finally. The reason she never told anyone is that he had been a married man she met in a bar. Scandal. B then spent the rest of the day researching THAT guy. All she discovered is he's dead, his family is dead, and that she is 110% Polish.

I worked on materials until about 5 at which point I went to make dinner. Look outside and guess what? IT'S FUCKING SNOWING. For real. Snow. May. FUCK THIS. I looked up the weather and we have a severe freeze warning in effect until 9am today. It's currently about 20 degrees outside.

Done. I am done. Only thing left to say:

And now, the end is near
And so I face the curtain
You cunt, I'm not a queer
I'll state my case, of which I'm certain
I've lived a life that's full
I've traveled each and every highway
And more, much more than this,
I DID IT MY WAY

What, you think I'd go with the Sinatra version? Oh hell no. Sid Vicious baby. Side note Puscifer has a new video out there. Check it out. Apocalyptical. Go Maynard.

Y11 D348

Woo hoo! I woke up to an email that my loan is ready to go! Just need to sign papers, send over monies, and I will have gone from 5.25 to 3.168. Plus because of the timing, my next mortgage payment won't be due until July 1st. That means no mortgage in June so I can use the money to pay off another credit card and that means in July my total monthly savings will be somewhere around $500. That will go towards another card and by September, my monthly savings will be around $700 which can go towards something else etc etc and at that rate come January we will be saving around $1000 a month! Amazing what just one month of extra money can do. For those not following the logic, I have two cards with about $1000 on them - our basement couch and my American Airlines card. I give them each $200 a month. Take the $400 less per month my mortgage will be, plus the $400 I am giving them each month, that's $800 per month. I use that to pay off one of the larger ones that has $3000 on it and by the end of the year, I will have that paid off, giving me $1000 per month. I then use that to pay off the BIG ones like B's car. It doesn't take much to start knocking things down. Of course, my closing costs are about $2000 so that's gonna knock things for a little while.

Spent the day working on documents. Same thing today. I have three new classes to develop. I should be able to get one of them done today and the next two next week. That will give us some good material to offer up. Most of it will be e-learning targeted but it still is good stuff to have available.

B and I played animal crossing together yesterday and managed to get a 5 star island finally! We basically had to empty our houses out to meet the "decorate the island" goal. What a pain. Our island is a mess right now but we hit the goal, got the golden watering can recipe and now just need the lily of the valley to bloom. Once that blooms, we can clean the island back up. Cut down some trees, level out some areas. Hey look, it's dumb but it's keeping us sane and we can do it together.

Speaking of that, I had a card game arrive yesterday in the mail that I kickstarted like six months ago. Had totally forgotten about it. It's called What the Plot and is a story telling game. Right up my alley, eh? You get a story prompt and three key words. You have to tell a story then the person next to you has to continue the story. We might try playing it in a zoom meeting with some friends. We shall see.

Chipping away at leftovers in the fridge. I need to do a SMALL amount of shopping today. Nothing major so I should be able to use the self-checkout. It's big store shopping unfortunately. Plus B is out of worms again. I need to hit the pet store. Stupid fish and their stupid live food. Technically their not even fish their amphibians but I digress.

Went to bed around 11 last night. Got some decent sleep. Woke up at 1 from a bad dream. Can't remember it now but I have been having disturbing dreams lately. Shit like alien invasions, car chases, stuff like that. Feeling a bit stressed from real life methinks.

Okay. Time to 'sign' some documents.

Y11 D347

You know how my co-worker and I have been stressed out and constantly worried if we should take time off, if we would be forced to use vacation, etc? Yeah, well, it turns out our big boss decided when this all started to get one of the small business payroll loans. In order to not have to pay it back, not only should we not take time off, HE NEEDS TO HIRE PEOPLE. Seriously? We're worried about shit and he has to spend all of the loan in order to not repay the damn thing. Now because of the rules and limits, it's not like he can give us raises unfortunately, but it's just one of those things where "really? you couldn't have fucking told us this a month ago when we were freaking out???". Sigh.

Also as a result of yesterday's meeting, I have some clearer direction on what I should be working on for the next week. Cool.

That was the most exciting thing that happened yesterday. Oh wait, we caught another mouse in the ceiling. Had to deal with that. That was fun. Made mac & cheese for the week. The kid got her dog. Life plods along.

Y11 D346

Guess what? I'm back to being cold again! Whee! Yes because for some reason winter doesn't ever want to fucking end in this part of the world. It just wants to keep going and going. Good times. Let's see what it is right now, shall we? Oh boy! It's 36 degrees! Yay! Ugh. So done.

Taught all day. Makes for an easy day to reflect on when your whole day is spent doing a single task. From 8am until after 5pm. Not an exciting class. Normal folks. 15 students. Only 1 trouble student for once. Manageable. My bigger issue was the 17 emails I was getting while teaching from once again, Sales people. This time there seems to be a problem with one of our older recorded classes. One I didn't do. Before I took this over, my old boss tried his hand at recording things. He didn't do them in the same way I do. He tried doing them in a single take, didn't have proper editing software, used a headset, etc. All things that make for a bad final product. After telling the sales person I didn't do those recordings and don't have the source files, that should have been the end of it, right? Well it was except that they didn't take my name off the carbon list. That's what drives me nuts. I had all these emails going on and past the first couple, I had no need to be on the thread. It was just an annoying distraction.

Had minestrone soup and manicotti for dinner. Now that was alright. Our yard guy came too. Mowed, cleaned my gutters, and hauled away some wood from the backyard. Things look much better. I am liking this new guy much better than the service we used last year. Plus he uses PayPal so no having to write or mail stupid checks. That drove me nuts. 

Played some video games, went to bed around 11 and got some good sleep. Today I have a team meeting where we will finally get some updates. But in the end it's going to be: "meet the new boss, same as the old boss". 

Y11 D345

OMG WILL THE DRAMA EVER STOP??

So here's the latest fun; we were up at 2am because that's when the power came back on. It had been off since just around 7pm. Yep. I was in the kitchen baking a pie, B was in the shower and BOOM a transformer behind us blew. The signal at the end of our street and our entire block was without power. After talking with a few neighbors we are all pretty much in agreement it was due to the fucking drug neighbor's AC units running full steam all day and night. It finally overload the circuit. None of us are too happy with them right now. The thing is right now they have probably drawn unwanted attention to themselves as a result of this. I noticed one of the crew working on the problem looking in their backyard making note of the four giant AC units. Someone's gonna have some 'splaining to do Lucy. My biggest concern was that I wouldn't be able to teach my class today. Luckily it did come back up. I have had multiple energy providers in my life and none have been as responsive or wonderful as DTE. They are on top of their shit for sure. They had someone dispatched within 45 minutes, kept us updated through the app, and beat their estimate by 2 hours. Rock on.

Now if that had been the only thing, it would have been okay. But no. On top of this, around 3pm I found out apparently I have a new "boss". Oh boy! I am getting emails from someone I have never worked with before asking for shit that normally falls in my area. WTF? So yeah. We're now having a team meeting tomorrow to 'clarify things'. Good times.

Today I can just focus on this class. That's all I need to do. Get through one more day. Speaking of that, it's day 60 for me. Yep. I got home March 6th and this makes 60 days that I have been SIP. In those 60 days I have gone to 3 places primarily with one bonus stop to Best Buy. What a time to be alive.

Y11 D344

As promised:

MAY THE 4TH BE WITH YOU! (And also with you)

Look! A Catholic Star Wars joke. A twofer!

I'd like to start today with a big FUCK YOU to both PayPal and Lebanese thieves who 'stole' $100 from me yesterday. I won't dignify these pieces of shit by calling them 'hackers' like the media would. No no. They are straight up piece of shit thieves. Period. Here's the story:

I was sitting down in the office taking a break when I get an email saying someone has logged into my Nintendo account. I have been worried about this because you may have seen 160,000 accounts were stolen recently. So I immediately log in, change password, setup 2FA, etc. BUT as I was doing that, they managed to link something called "Epic Games" to my account and had authorized a $100 from my linked PayPal account to my Nintendo Funds. My assumption is that the next step would have been to transfer that $100 from my account to this Epic Games account. Unfortunately for them I turned off access and unlinked everything before they could transfer the funds. Instead the $100 is now in my Nintendo account. I then went and filed a complaint on PayPal. Sent them the login showing the attempt was from Lebanon and not me. Guess what fucking PayPal said? Oh no, since you had this linked already this was a valid transaction. Um excuse me? Well fuck you. So the good news is I stopped someone from getting at my money, the bad news is I now have a $100 credit on my Nintendo account. Meh. At least I still technically have my money and some scumbag piece of shit doesn't.

That was the big excitement for yesterday. Otherwise, not a whole lot going on. Spent time in the backyard enjoying the temporary change in weather.  It got up to about 74 but was mostly overcast and windy. A little catch-22. Here's some nice temps, but not nice enough you can enjoy it. Sucker.

Cleaned out the fridge yesterday and went to town on leftovers. Feel much better about that. I hate when we waste food especially now. It was a hodge podge dinner, but it got rid of stuff.

Went to bed around 11:30 as today I don't have a lot going on. Working with B to finish up the class I recorded. Tomorrow I have a full day training for a client so that's good. But today I am going to work on some new material at my own pace.

Y11 D343

Sometimes the lights all shining on me
Other times I can barely seeLately it occurs to meWhat a long strange trip it's been

What in the world ever became of sweet Jane?She lost her sparkle you know she isn't the sameLiving on reds and vitamin C and cocaine
All her friends can say is ain't it a bitch...


Mood. Big mood.

Happy Sunday kiddos. First off it's May 3rd. No really. (Tune in tomorrow for obligatory Star Wars joke). Fucking March lasted six months and April said 'nah fam, I'm out' and lasted six minutes. Seriously does anyone remember April? It like stayed for twenty seconds. WTF? Next thing you know it will be June. 

It was a decent day yesterday. Weather turned nice for a while. A little overcast but nice. Brought out all the animals. At  least three times we had the family of four deer cruising and chilling in our yard. The groundhog from next door came over. Multiple squirrels and birds. It was like Snow White's fucking forest out there all day. Kind of cool. I love seeing pictures of areas where the natural animals are just roaming the streets. Like we're back and there's nothing you can do about it. 

Unless of course you live in Lansing or Huntington Beach. What a disgrace. I can't wait until June when the numbers spike and all these idiots are suffering. Not going to the beach now are you dumbasses?

We had grilled cheese and soup for dinner. Was good. Watched some TV. I love canadian television for the record. Letterkenney, Corner Gas, Hudson and Rex, and now, Kim's Convenience. They just do TV better than us. So does BBC but that's a given. I have been watching Kim's and I love that little show. It just works. It's everything Fresh off the Boat tried to be but failed at.

Been playing video games. Been playing two - one on the switch, one on the PC. I swear, Ninentdo timed the release of Animal Crossing perfectly. Unintentionally, but perfectly. Right now there's nothing more relaxing than running around, fishing, catching bugs, and just feeling safe on your own little island with little friends to help you out. It soothing. I did get Doom Eternal at the same time but just can't get into it. I am on the third or fourth section but it just hurts my brain. It's too fast, too loud for right now. I need to be calmed not put into high anxiety mode. With DE if you stop for one second you've got an imp up your ass trying to kill you. So what's the second game I am playing? Final Fantasy XV. Yep. In 4k HDR glory. 94gb download from Steam with all DLC. But my god is it gorgeous. And since it is story driven and not KILL EVERYTHING AND NEVER STOP MOVING like a certain just mentioned game, I can go slow, enjoy the view, and focus on the story. I should take a screenshot for you all. It's pretty slick looking in HDR. I love when Steam has shit for $20 or less. 

Went to the store for a couple of things yesterday. People crack me up. There's a line of about 10 people all waiting for the one cashier but ZERO using self checkout and there were three of those open. Okay. Works for me. I was in and out before one of the people in the other line even moved. Got soup. We're going to ear a lot of soup this week. Liquid diet time. It's easy, it's quick, and little cleanup. Tired of doing dishes.

Baked a loaf of english muffin bread. It's okay. It was an experiment. Not sure I would make it again though. Little too dense for my taste. 

Today is a whole lot of nothing planned. Same weather as yesterday so going to wear shorts for the first time this year. Woo?

Y11 D342

Oh look babies. Look what you're tantrum did. Now we're extended until 5/31. All I can think of is the scene in Breakfast Club. You want to try for another two weeks?

I didn't do much during the day because B didn't get up until 2. Why does that matter? Because I needed her to proof the class I built before she assembles it. Turns out the files were all the wrong size and I ended up working around her schedule instead of mine. Ugh. Whatever.

Did ribs for dinner. Not sure what I am doing tonight. Need to make out a meal plan for the next week.

Nothing else to report. Have a good weekend people. Try not to die.

Y11 D341

Okay compared to yesterday I have a lot on my brain this morning. Let's see how much I can articulate right now. First off, I slept in a bit. Slept until 6:40. That was nice. I have been getting up early every day this week to get shit done and finally got it all done around 5pm last night. I have pretty much worked a full week so I can take it easier today. Thankfully.

Negatives going on right now:

- well I am completely disgusted by the display of idiots in Lansing yesterday. They are a real disgrace to people who are trying hard not to get sick. Machine guns in their hands. Did anyone notice how much they all look alike? Like a bunch of uneducated, racist, morons. DER GIB US R FREEDUM! Oh go fuck yourselves. On the other hand, go ahead, stand next to each other. Sneeze on each other. The more of you that die, the better off the fucking world will be.

- went to the grocery store yesterday and had another mild panic attack. It's pretty grusesome when the most dangerous thing I do in life is go to a damn grocery store. One of the stores near me is actively enforcing its face mask policy. Got to watch one of the aforementioned morons get turned away and throw a fit. That was enjoyable.

- it's May. WTF? March seemed to crawl to a stop but somehow it's May already? Sweet jeebies.

In other news, I did a webinar yesterday and it was nice to see people in the questions/comments section all excited to see me. I had fans. So that was neat. The webinar itself went perfect. Finished with 3 minutes to spare. Had 300 registered and almost 200 showed up. Can't be ashamed of those numbers.

B now has green hair. Her friend came over to help her and they did in the garage with masks. I stayed away to be safe. She looks like a troll doll. Technically we both do. Me with my violet, her with her green. Why the hell not? It's not like we need to go anywhere.

Hey, did I tell you all we're up to three dead from this now? All on B's side but she lost another one Monday or Tuesday. Days kind of blur this week for me so I am not sure when it was, but she's down more family. Between us, they are the kind who would have been at the protests so it's not like the world is going to suffer without them.

The thing that is bothering me most right now is that none of these people will look at history or science. The second wave of this shit is going to be WORSE. We have 60,000 dead right now. The second wave if no vaccine is forthcoming quickly is going to double or triple those numbers. We're nowhere near out of the woods on this. It won't be over until next year at the earliest. But you know FREEDUM!

Adjustments days lie ahead.

I think that's it... oh wait! I keep forgetting to mention that after 43 years I have finally seen the collapse of the empire. I watched Rise of the Skywalker finally. It was okay. A little overblown for my taste but not horrible. The real sticking point for me is the timeline doesn't work. Palpatine would have been too old to be her grandfather. Great grandfather maybe. But meh, that's the only real issue I had with it. Otherwise it was acceptable.

Now to go catch up on shit and take it easy. It's raining again, whee.