Y12 D127

 I didn't watch any of the debate last night, nor have I read any news this morning, but here's what I don't understand - why is this happening at all? No seriously. Why are you bothering to have a debate? Who the fuck is this for? Who could possibly be "on the fence" right now? Either you're a piece of shit racist, xenophobe, misogynist, facist supporting douchebag, or you're not. There is no inbetween this time around kids. There's no "gosh maybe one has a better foreign policy". So who the fuck is this for? 12 old people in fucking Iowa who "could go either way"? And fuck the electoral college. Shit needs to go. Period. I also think they're are a lot of people like us who are voting by mail this year (no, it's not a fucking fraud you asswipe) and have already voted. Ours came Monday and we had them filled out and sealed by yesterday morning. I will be dropping them off today after work. Don't need debates. Don't need ads. Shit is done. Let's just do this already. 

Worked on docs, prepped for today's class. Had coconut curry chicken for dinner.

2 days of classes with three students. Then finally payday, and the weekend. Which right now involves nothing. I like that.

Y12 D126

 I'm doing a little better this morning. Got a full night's sleep and that really helped. We moved the nightlight to point at a different angle and that made a huge difference. It's now providing B with more "exit row" lighting instead of lighting up the whole room. Much easier for me to tolerate. 

I managed to get through the workday which was rough. I have a couple of things I must get done this morning but I feel confident I can do it. I want them done by 9am. Wish me luck. Exterminator came around 3 so when he left I had to put everything from the cabinets back away. That was a pain. Lot of bending over which isn't helping my back. I will probably soak it tonight. Let the muscles loosen up a bit. Need to adjust the bed setting again.

Lately I have been watching a lot of random anime. With dinner, B and I watched two more episodes of Promised Neverland. Later I was 3 more episodes of Parasyte the Maxim. I never really watched anime before because what was available in English was limited. But now with Netflix having really good dubbed versions, I am finding there's a lot out there. Some really fascinating stuff too. Americans think cartoon and don't look beyond that, but some of this stuff is deep and dark. It's not all Sailor Moon and Akira people. Good stuff. 

Tonight is the first debate. This should be interesting. We got our ballots yesterday. Not like there's any surprise of how we're going to vote. I need to do some research on some local candidates, but even then, it's not going to vary much. I will drive them over to the office on Friday. A full month ahead of schedule. Our votes will count dammit. Make yours count too. 

Y12 D125

 Horrible night's sleep. We have been leaving a light on for B so she doesn't trip over everything when she finally comes in at 3am but it was bugging the living shit out of me last night. I kept sleeping in little bursts. 20 minutes, 1 hour, 30 minutes, etc. I didn't get more than 1 hour consecutively all night. I am not doing well this morning. My back hurts. My head hurts. Plus the weather outside is fucking me up. It's raining but the pressure is through the roof and it's hot and the AC keeps kicking in. So I am hot, dry, and annoyed all at the same time. Fun.

Kudos to FedEx and Chewy by the way. Friday at 9:40pm I ordered three new filters for the tanks. They arrived yesterday at 10:40am. 37 hours. Not too shabby. We decided to change filters on the axie tanks as the cannisters are producing a high water flow that annoys them. But power filters by and large suck. What we found was a good compromise. A power filter with the components of a cannister. Fluval C4:

These should really help things out. I put them on two of the existing tanks and a third one is waiting to go on the new lowboy. Spent time doing all that.

Made chicken tenderloins in garlic parmesan rice for dinner. Watched more of Neverland. Played some games. 

Now for a shitty ass work week. 

Y12 D124

 I was out of sorts yesterday but things are slowly becoming more stable. I was still frazzled from everything that happened on Thursday and Friday that I just felt like I wasn't in control of anything. I tried to slow down, focus, and get things back in line. By the end of the day I was doing much better. It helped that B and I sat in bed watching tv for like an hour. Just some calm alone time. 

In the morning I went and got the new lowboy tank for B. That turned out to be a bit of an adventure. She told me which one to get and that they only had one of them. Cool. When I went in to the shop (about 35 miles from home), I found it, and me and the employee started going over it. We noticed a few things. Turns out someone screwed up and inputted this as a new tank when it was in fact used. Upside is I got $50 off the price, bad news it took way longer than I wanted, we did a water test, had to wait for owner approval, etc. What should have been 10 minutes took nearly an hour. But in the end the time was worth it and the new tank is getting prepped to cycle. We have new filters coming on Tuesday (Fluval C4s) and once they arrive we will start the cycling process using bacteria from the other tanks.

As for our rescues, they all manged to eat and keep the food down which is a huge improvement. The babies that remain are eating and looking good. 

We got Qdoba for dinner because B was craving it. Either my standards for good food have gone down living here, or for some reason it hit the spot with me too. Whatever the reason, I was happy. We then got into bed and watched The Promised Neverland together. Got through 4 episodes. Very interesting story. Something different for sure.  

No plans today. Laundry. That's about it.

Y12 D123

 As feared, the baby didn't make it. We could see it had internal bleeding and just was done for. Probably had a piece of gravel in its intestines because this fucking shop has no clue what they're doing. Nothing back from the USDA yet. Every day they are still open is another day an animal has to suffer abuse. Not cool. 

But yesterday didn't just kick my ass with that, oh no. There were even more fun surprises. How about, B getting rear ended! Whee! Luckily she got hit by what I fear is the one person in MI who has decent insurance. Need to call them today to get her car repaired. 

Or how about, I accidentally licked a bug? Yeah. I was eating dinner and saw what looked like sauce on my hand. Nope. It was a stinkbug. JFC. Ruined my dinner for me. I have the pest people coming on monday to spray for stuff but come on. Not cool.

Or how about the surprise webinar I have to do in October on a topic I care nothing about? Good times.

Back to being done with the world. Dig me a hole and let me crawl in it please.

Y12 D122

 Well, I wanted an adventure, and I got one. An adventure that kept me up very late and cost me money. Let's start with the boring stuff. From 8-5 I taught. I had to start early and stayed later than I wanted because this group was not good. As human beings they were fine, as students, not so much. This was a private training for the one group I have been working with for a long time. Intermediate level material. When I got the class roster, I noticed that about half of the 15 names I didn't recognize as taking the intro class. That already put me on high alert. Turns out my fears were warranted. These people didn't think they needed the intro class but it quickly became apparent that they sure as hell did. We were so behind all day from questions that if they had been in the intro class would have never come up. It caused me to be irritated and flustered all day. I had to adjust material, answer questions that shouldn't have been asked, and the class moved at a snail's pace. When I finally finished, I was just exhausted. Too bad the universe had other plans for me.

About a week ago, B went into a local shop that she had heard about that sold axolotls. Her and her friend went in and she came home in tears. Turns out this store has absolutely no understanding of how to care or keep axies. The poor things were abused, half dying, and just messed up. This isn't even a pet store. It's a fucking head shop that happens to also sell "exotic" animals. AKA snakes, lizards, axies, kind of stuff. But they were killing these poor things. After calming down, she called them the next day and offered her services to help them take care of the axies. Help rehabilitate them, set them up in proper enclosures, etc. She spoke with the owner who said they would talk with their animal person and get back to them. Well, she gave them a week. As of yesterday she hadn't heard anything back. Her and friend went back to the store yesterday and conditions were even worse. One tank had two dead at the bottom rotting away. Somehow not managing to breakdown completely, she had her friend buy 5 of the axies to get them out of that hell hole. She would have taken the two remaining, but she didn't have enough on her. Needless to say, we now have five more axies. When she had first described to me the conditions, I thought she was exaggerating but when I saw the five she brought home, I exploded. This is straight up animal abuse. One probably didn't make it through the night. I didn't look yet, but it wouldn't eat, barely was moving, and is just a baby. Two of them have never been fed properly. There are two adults who are malnourished and one that is completely deformed from living in improper tank conditions. The other three are babies, two of whom we should be able to nurse and get growing. The third, well, like I said, he may be a lost cause. The two adults have gravel in their stomachs (axies should NEVER be in tanks with gravel as they will suck it up when they eat and it stays in their intestines) and you can tell they've never been fed live food. We hand fed everyone last night and they were so excited to have real worms. One of them kept throwing up because it had never had real food but just kept trying to eat. Don't, I am about to break down again. Look, you can hurt humans all you fucking want, but don't ever hurt animals on my watch. The store is damn lucky it was closed by the time all this went down because I was 30 seconds away from going over there, beating the shit out of the owner, and setting all the animals free. For the next few hours we hand fed these poor littles, set up proper holding tanks, and just tried to get them happy. 

B is contacting the USDA to turn this shop in. Yes, the USDA. They are the ones who monitor this kind of stuff and they are obligated to follow up on any reports of animal abuse, improper care, etc. I think she did it all last night while I was sleeping. There are multiple online forms you have to complete for this. I told her she also needs to follow up with a phone and if she doesn't, I will today. I want this shop closed. I want this person fined, beaten, and out of business. I am still angry. 

When that was all finally done, we had to go out. We needed food for them, food for the cats, and food for ourselves. We hit the pet store first, then because it was so late, McDonald's drive through. Which was horrible by the way. The entire time I have lived in this state, I have yet to have a McDonald's meal that didn't suck horribly. Seriously. There has been something wrong with my order every. single. time. Then we needed groceries. We ended up going to Walmart which was right around the corner. Why? Because B's friend had an EBT card with $500 on it that if she didn't spent it would go away. I don't get the details, but she needed to spend like $400 more or something to get the next set of benefits? I don't know. I was too flustered. Point is, she offered to buy $100 of groceries for us on her card. She was doing $100 for us, $100 for her mom, and $200 for her. Okay cool. Now there are limits on what can and can't be bought, so we ended up with two carts. A lot of what we needed was stuff she couldn't buy like paper products, cleaning products, etc. In the end, her cart had $85 of stuff for us, and ours had $50. Look, after everything, I was very grateful for this but I was also tired, angry, and dealing with Walmart morons didn't add to my mood. By the time we got back home it was almost 10. Then we needed to put everything away, check on the babies, and deal with normal stuff. 

Somwhere around 1 I finally fell asleep. Today I have a 4 person class from 12-4 and the problem is my boss is on this class. He is interested in the material unfortunately. I say unfortunately because it means I have to be on the more professional side today. And I can't cut class early. I have to try and fill the full four hours. But once this class is over, I am done. Like done done. 

Whew. There it is. Thursday adventure.

Y12 D121

 I need a new chair and mat for my office. The stupid mat I have had for like 5 years now and it is all beat up and moves all over the place. I went fancy last time and got a bamboo one because it was where people could see it and it fucking sucks. Correction, it worked fine for the first few years but for the last year it has been slowly driving me crazy. Probably because I am using it more. This is what happens when you are home 24 hours a fucking day for six fucking months. It's been a week since I have even left the house. I actually looked this time. Feels longer, but it's been only a week. Long enough to drive me bonkers.

Every day is exactly the goddamn same.

I finished a major portion of the new docs I have been working on finally. Like three days late but dammit I got it done. Mind numbing bullshit is the problem. Thank god I have real class today with 15 people. Keep me somewhat occupied. Other than that, nothing around here has changed.

Every day is exactly the goddamn same.

I need sleep. A lot of it. I need to get away again. Somewhere. Anywhere. Change of scenery. I need the world to not suck so bad. Did you see the latest. Executive Order to teach "Pro-American" history in classrooms. I mean seriously? Fuck you old white men. Fuck you. Fuck your generation. Fucking baby boomer pieces of shit. Liars. Cheats. Scum. Thank god I don't have children in the public school system.

Every day is exactly the goddamn same.

Made tacos for dinner. Finished New Girl. It wasn't a bad show but it definitely had its share of  sitcom cliches that made parts of it unbearable to me. Now on to something new. Or old. Finish Star Trek TOS maybe. Get that off my continue watching. Finish Dead to Me. I only have one episode of that left. 

Every day is exactly the goddamn same.

Y12 D120

 I had a meeting with one of my coworkers yesterday. He has been a bit aloof in some of his emails lately and I couldn't figure out if he was just being overworked, if I did something wrong, etc. Nope. Turns out he had motherfucking COVID. Poor guy has been isolated to his bedroom for the last 2+ weeks, his family leaving paper plates of food in front of the door, worried if he is going to live through it. He was also very careful. Mask wearing, people avoiding, but apparently he was too close to someone somewhere who didn't think they needed to take precautions and bammo. He's my age too which makes it even scarier. He is very worried about what kind of long term damage this will do. I read last night about a 21 year old who came into hospital "recovered" from COVID with a damn heart attack because of the scarring and damage it did to his system. Now, my co-worker does have his white privilege in full effect. He was able to get into a study at Stanford where he has been on an experimental drug from Japan and is being seen 2-3 times a week for aftereffects. So yeah. He's getting good care, his insurance is covering most of it, and he should be okay. Still scary as fuck though. I am in no way taking that away from him. If it were me, I would do the exact same thing. Call in every favor I have to get the best care.

Spent the day working on two different sets of documents. Got one finished, hoping to finish the other today. Had leftovers for dinner. Almost done with New Girl. Four episodes left. Teach all day tomorrow. Just making it until the weekend. That's my life. Just make it another day. Surviving. 

Weather went back up to 80 yesterday. Even it doesn't know what the fuck it is doing. I am ready for it to snow to be quite honest. Cover the world.

Y12 D119

 Almost 200 days since this shit began for me. March 6th. I still haven't left the house. Been four? five? days. No desire to go anywhere or do anything. Nothing on the horizon that will motivate me to leave the house either. Probably not until the weekend. That will be like 10 days in the house. Yeah that's just great for my mental health. Good times. Reading an article yesterday about the upswing in bunker sales. I actually get it for once. I would love to randomly find a door in my yard that went to some secret bunker. Hide out until 2030. Give the world a decade to figure its shit out. Bought a new t-shirt yesterday. Trent has made pandemic shirts. The one I got for me has the outline of the US with fire filling it and the words 2020Broken on the front. On the back "climbed up real high fall down real far". Got one for B titled every day is exactly the goddamn same with that text on the front repeated except down the bottom where it says "there is no love there is no pain, every day is exactly the same". Sums up the year pretty well I think. NIN store if you want your own souvenior of this hellscape. I am waiting for someone to make "I lived through the 2020 pandemic and all I got was this lousy t-shirt". Worked on docs. Made chicken. Went to bed. Tossed and turned. Had weird dreams of car crashes and nanobots. Welcome to my hell.

Y12 D118

 I distracted myselfy yesterday with some projects. Took my mind off the state of the world. You know I just realized I haven't left the house in, shit, I can't remember how many days. Four. Four days since I have left the house. Wow. Okay. Anyway, I did some projects yesterday. I cleaned the back part of our basement storage area. It's where the furnace and water heater are located. We keep all the fish stuff in there as there are some nice cabinets in there. But it was getting kind of messy and was disorganized. Not any more. As a result, I freed up a huge amount of space in the laundry room area itself. Where B's cave was is now cleared out. Since we put the TV in the bedroom and she has switched to catridges for her stuff, the cave isn't needed. As a result, I was able to finally have a spot for my pops. I mounted four shelves and did this:

Neat eh? That was my day. Watched a little TV, ate dinner, went to bed. Teach two days this week with a couple of meetings today. Moderate week. The weeks just keep coming. Day after day after day. Sigh.

Y12 D117

 Before I say anything else, let me be 100% clear on something: if you vote red, abstain from voting or worse, vote for a stupid fucking third party candidate this time around, do not ever contact me again. As far as I am concernced you are dead to me. I truly mean that. If any of this bastards choices get put on the court, we are one step closer to Handmaid's Tale. You all think I am kidding. Go ask your mom or your grandma if they could open a bank account when they were younger. Or apply for a credit card. Or adopt. Or own a home on their own. ALL of those things required a woman to have a man's permission. And I am not talking that long ago. We're talking the fucking 70s and 80s people. IN YOUR LIFETIME for most of you this was reality. That doesn't even count medical issues. Ask a transgender person over the age of 40 what it was like. That not only could you be arrested for wearing the 'wrong' clothes, but odds are you would be beaten first. You think cops are getting away with murder now? You know what happens if this continues? We will need an Adjustment Day. It's starting to reach critical mass in that direction. So I reiterate, vote anything other than blue down the ballot, don't ever talk to me again. Period.

B's cakes turned out amazing:

Not bad, right? She was up until 4am frosting those bad boys. Some of her best work.

Spent hours doing fish tank work yesterday. We ordered dinner in. Italian. It was pricy but really good. We definitely found a place we would go to in person eventually. 

Watched TV. Bed. 

Y12 D116

 I can't do it any more. I can't live in this world. With RBG dead, the fate of the future truly is in flux. What happens over the next few weeks will decide the course of this country for the remainder of my life. That's a scary fucking thought. Mitch McConnel is the biggest piece of shit, most disgusting meat suit slimeball to ever walk this planet. I don't understand how that thing justfies its existence. Despicable, horrible, awful, piece of shit. Wait. That's not fair to shit. If you think I am overreacting then you are a CIS-gender, heterosexual, white male with a moderate to high income. Because for you, nothing will change. You'll keep going in your nice little leave it to fucking beaver bubble. You who proclaims "i'm not racist but..." or "I'm not ....phobic, but...." can just fuck right off. Come out of your bubble for 30 seconds and realize that RIGHT FUCKING NOW illegally imprisoned latina women are having their fucking uteruses ripped out of their body by ICE. Realize that the shitstain's primary nominee has already said its first act is to roll back ALL LGBT laws and ALL women's rights laws. So no, you fuck, you won't be affected. But then again, you're the same people who won't wear a mask because "I aint afraid of duh 'rona". Never thinking about the fact that it's not to help you, BUT YOUR FELLOW HUMANS. You know, the people that McConnel doesn't care about either. And I am talking to you whiny bitch babies who surrouned the MI capital with semi and fully automatic weapons yesterday. You are fucking children. Give a fuck about someone else besides yourself for once. That's it. I am done. I am done wasting my breath on all of you. As soon as their lockdown is over, I'm going to Australia. Even Canada is too close. Ironically, even Germany is looking good right now. You know, the country that has LEARNED from its past. 

I fear there will be another world war in my life. And that's not a pleasant thought.

Taught all day, depressed all night.

Fish tanks today. Other than that, digging a bunker to die in.

Y12 D115

Still hate this new interface. It's dumb. Yeah, that's my big critique. Big dumb poopy stinky face.

I got up a little earlier today because I have shit to do before class. Bills. Ribs in the slow cooker. 9 hours on low. All day ribs. 

Taught day two. Nothing exciting there. One more day to go with this group. This is a mildly easier day compared to yesterday and I should finish a little early given the size of the group. We shall see.

Finished the main storyline in Control. Man that last part was a bitch. I kept getting lost, then I kept having issues getting to the final platform. But I did it. Now time to start the DLC. Two main DLC packs followed by some one off stuff. I will consider it done once I get through the two mains. The side stuff can stay side stuff. 

B stayed up baking a cake last night. Her friend's friend is having a small birthday on Saturday for her 1 year old and the baker bailed last minute. Super B to the rescue. Of course the kitchen will be taken over when she frosts and finishes, but it's nice of her.

Speaking of birthdays, I was proud of B for holding her ground yesterday. In another example of 'people are fucking selfish and stupid', B's mom called her yesterday and told her they were all going to dinner at some restaurant for her grandma's 75th. WTF? Stay home people. Still people dying out there. This is the kind of shit that's causing this to not let up. People are pretending like the calendar is going to magically change shit. "Just get through the year". And then what? It's not gone. It won't be gone until you dumb ass people stop going out in public and spreading germs. Sorry if your birthday sucks, but deal with it. B did say fuck no she's not going to some stupid restaurant. Proud of her for that. CA and OR are still on fire. We're getting temperatures in the 40s right now at night. Floods are happening all over. And you fucking people want Italian? Fuck off. 

Time to do bills so I can start my ribs.

Y12 D114

 Yesterday started off horribly. I spent nearly two hours before class trying to get instances up and running for the group. I tried like five different ones, had multiple people on the phone with me, and finally we figured out that when the servers were last upgraded, the supplemental programs were not. So while everything appeared to start up, when you launched the supplemental, it failed. Of course the class is ON the supplemental. At like 8:25am got it figured out and I had two of four ready to go. Got the second two ready as I was teaching the into part of the class. Talk about stress.

Three students, no real issues with them. One is a anti-mask covid is a hoax kind of douche, but I am swallowing my anger and just teaching the class. I know this because he was talking about his going to Sturgis and not wearing one the whole time and he was just fine. Okay buddy. Thank god we're not doing this class in person.

B made chili for dinner. She had a skype session with her friend in Australia. I played Control. Almost done with the main game. So many WTF moments last night while playing. The coolest part of the endgame is the ashtray maze. But now I have the final baddies to deal with and the main storyline will be done. I did the majority of the side missions too, but still have three different DLC packs to finish. So won't be done quite yet.

Two more days with this group, then it's the weekend. Whee.

Y12 D113

 I'm doing a little better today but still not great. I was able to talk about things with B last night which helped. I feel bad using her as a therapist but I don't have a whole lot of other choices right now. One does, what one has to do.

Worked on docs the majority of the day followed by 2.5 hours with these people in MA. Out of six, 3 were sharp and I would have no problem working with them, 2 were okay and could be handled, 1 was their boss and he needs to go. He's the one who basically kept pushing me to do their work and show them things as if this were a paid for session. This was free mentoring in the expectation (salesperson's, not mine) that they would see how great were are and buy real training. Yeah, not what this guy has in mind. He is going to milk us for all the free information he can get all the while teasing he's going to close a deal. Him I didn't like one bit.

Made some steaks after class. Watched some TV. Played Control. Went to bed. 

Three fulls days of teaching now. Doing what I am good at. Hopefully that will help my mood.

Y12 D112

 I am not doing well. Mentally, not physically. Physically I am fine. Well, no, not really. More ear problems. I have another fucking ear infection in my right ear. Hurts like hell. But the bigger problem is my mental state. I am just stuck inside my head once again. Feeling overwhelmed. Feeling lost and hopeless right now. I don't feel like anything matters. Especially work. It just all seems so useless. I just feel like the world is falling apart and yet capitalism keeps on cranking, crushing the souls of everyone trapped inside its machinery. Now I have to do some stupid ass mentoring session with people I don't know, never heard of, and with less than 24 hours notice. I mean, what's the point? How is this helping the bigger picture?We're all supposed to pretend that things are normal so old white men can make more money? I mean in the end, is it any deeper than that? When you pause it's depressing. No two ways about it. We're in the shit and no one cares. I read an article about people living in hotels that have been in some cases abandoned by their owners. People living in filth. No power. Not sure where their next meal is coming from. And the sad, sad part is these people have jobs. They work 40-50 hours a week at multiple part time jobs because no one will give them full time work because they don't want to pay benefits. Where this story took place, in order to comfortably afford housing you need to make $20-$30 an hour and these people make $8-$9. The real irony? This is right next door to one of the largest money making venues in the world. Billions of dollars come flooding in normally. Heck, millions are still flowing in right now. Yet, a mile away is a motel strip where gunshots ring out at night and people who are trying their best to make a living are trapped in rooms without AC dying. That divide, that dichotomy of two americas is so striking and shameful. When I try to wrap my head around that and justify the stupid shit I do for a living, it's hard. I get paid to tell people how to make more money, how to squeeze more dollars from patients, from customers, from shippers. How to cut more corners. I perpetuate the wrongness of the world and for that I get my 30 pieces of silver. Add to that when I look around, I see others oblivious to all this pain and crumbling of society and the world. They're disassociating. "It's Fine" is the true motto of 2020. We all know it's not but we fear raising our head too high lest the lawnmower cut it off. So we bury it back in the sand and we watch Rome burn.

Not hard to see why I am depressed, eh?

Yeah. I would tell you I worked, ate dinner, etc. But what's the point? I am surviving. Most of what I do each day is survival. Not enjoyment. I calculate out the 18 hours until I can go to bed again. I fill the hours with whatever meaningless tripe I can to just make it long enough to go back to sleep. That's all I am trying to do right now.

Survive.

Y12 D111

 I am going to literally kill one of our cats. She has been driving me nuts since 11pm last night. She's being overly needy and driving me up a wall. She just won't shut up. But that's not the bigger problem. I was in bed, sound asleep when I hear this god awful howling. Turns out there was a stray cat in front of our house and ours was going nuts yelling at it. I shooed away the stray and it came back. I locked ours in the bedroom with me but she started screaming. I let her out, the stray came back. I finally got everyone gone and calmed down but man was I pissed off. 

Then I have the weirdest fucking dreams. I was in a police station waiting for lab results and trying to stall to keep bad guys from being able to leave. Then I was in a strange apartment and this guy was singing. There was more that I am not remembering right now but it was just this weird montage of things. Something to do with driving and cars I remember. Like I was buying a car or something. Just out there.

Worked more on the pantry as the hanging baskets B ordered arrived. We were able to leverage that empty space above the cans with hanging cubbies for chips and the like. All space is now used properly. Other than that, didn't do much. Touched up my hair. Played some video games. Oh, I did have one crazy moment. I was playing Control and I was in this spoopy part of the astal plane when BAM the power goes out. Game got a jump scare out of me even when it didn't mean to do so. Don't know why the power went out but the timing was spot on. I thought I had the new machine on the UPS but apparently not as my screen went dark. Need to fix that issue today. 

Three days of teaching this week. Weds-Fri. Have to get through today and tomorrow. And yes, I do feel like I am 'getting through' each day right now. The world is too far gone for me to feel anything other than survival most of the time. Sad.

Y12 D110

 Right after I posted yesterday the work issue was resolved. I jumped to conclusions and almost made a mountain out of molehill. I sometimes forget I now have a boss who actually listens to me as long as I present my argument in a clear, logical manner. I replied to his messages about using zoom and within an hour we had come to the collaboration of using a different product. Both of us had our goals met without incident or fight. It's so nice and refreshing to have that after having a dumbass in charge that wouldn't listen to me. With old age comes the ability to admit when I am wrong or have jumped to a conclusion. I totally did that in this case and am happy to say a positive resolution emerged.

We worked on rearranging the kitchen yesterday. Did bedding laundry. Went to a Zoom birthday at 11pm. Cleaned fish tanks. Had tacos for dinner. Went to a Zoom birthday at around 11. It was horrible and underscored everything I hate about Zoom. Downloaded Tony Hawk. Played through the first four levels. Finished them. 14 levels to go. Then repeat for 20 more characters. Woot.

Went to bed around 1. Today, going to the grocery store for a few things, not doing much of anything else. 

Y12 D109

 It's later than I thought. I can tell that fall is almost upon us as it is darker in the mornings. Another 45+ days until we change the clocks but you can see it coming. My ears are bugging me this morning. Too much moisture in the room last night. I need to turn off the humidifier for a few days. The weather is getting colder too. Low 70s right now for the week. Rain on a few days. Good weather as far as I am concerned.

Taught all day. Started early as some students logged in early to ask questions and stayed late to ask more. It was a long day. But it got longer because our pantry came and we spent the next two hours assembling it and the rest of the night moving shit over. Next thing I knew it was 9pm. The pantry looks good though. Check it out:

We're going to get some hanging cubbies for the large open part and put snacks in them. 

Now today we're going to redo the rest of the kitchen cabinets since we have more room available to us. That's the big plan for Saturday. Whee.

I am going to have a battle with work next week. My stupid boss wants to start using Zoom. Fuck Zoom. It's a horrible piece of shit product. I will not show my face in classes. Fuck that. If they force me to start using Zoom, I will, even in the middle of a pandemic, start looking for a new job. Great. Now I am going to stress about this all weekend. Fucking people. I fucking hate people. Stop changing shit just to change shit. Bastards.

Y12 D108

 Still hate this new interface. After a decade of one way, it's hard to change.

New Marilyn Manson album out today. Excited to listen to it. I heard the title track already and enjoyed it. Let's see if the rest of the album holds up.

Taught all day. Good group in terms of engagement level but they had some serious technical issues and a few of them got lost as a result. Another day with them today but hopefully we can get through it without any more problems. We shall see.

Made nice lamb burgers for dinner. Was quite happy with how they turned out. I added some queso fresco and dill to the mix. Red onion, spices, and some mint jelly finished it off. Good stuff.

Played more Control. Weird weird shit. Chased a rubber duck for 30 minutes. Don't trust Marshall. But more importantly, don't trust Pope. They're both 'off' a bit. 

My first class nuts arrived yesterday! 5 lbs of premium nuts. I calculated out how much that would have cost to buy in a store and I got $50 worth of nuts for $37. Good deal. Heat me up a washcloth and pretend I am on an airplane. I am thinking about taking a test flight to like Chicago. See how they do. Maybe in October. Too many people still dying for my taste.

To all my Bay Area, SoCal, and Oregon readers, please be safe. I know it sucks out there right now. Stay inside, don't breathe the air, and please don't catch on fire. I don't have time for that.

Y12 D107

 Ugh, this stupid interface changed. In the last week I have dealt with three apps changing their interface for no damn good reason. This site, Netflix on their web interface, and Goto Meeting. Enough. New isn't always better. This new interface here is shite. Bad developers. No cookie.

I didn't want to get up this morning. I could use another hour or three for sure. Very sleepy. Much sleep needed. But on the plus side, it's Thursday already. Whee.

Okay, let's see, yesterday. Taught a group of 14 most of the day. It was a moderately okay group. I had people from multiple countries - US, Mexico, Brazil, and Ireland. That was fun. Some of them were lively, others not so much. Funny enough my most lively were the ones from outside the US. Maybe my US folks are all just tired of their world falling apart. Or being on fire. Or freezing. This image from the other day just sums things up to me:

Welcome to 2020. I saw a good post the other day that said I would be happy for winter coming but something tells me this is the year we get flammable snow. Mood.

Been playing a new game. I have to switch games and genres every so often or I get bored and distracted. After playing through 2.5 Wolfenstein games, I needed something "new". I started playing Control. WTF? SCP meets X-Files. The story is out there for sure. It's a very interesting game. More importantly, playing it on the new computer is heaven. Using DX12 with full ray tracing on and it is just smooth. Reflections and particle physics are crazy good. That part makes me happy. As for the game? It's got my attention that's for sure.

Made lasagne for dinner. It was acceptable.

Dealt with some BS scheduling stuff after dinner with work. Too many people trying to manage my calendar is once again causing issues. Shock.

Today and tomorrow is a group of 6, all west coast. I am scheduled to start at 8:30am EST. But given they are all NorCal students and most of that area is on fire and looks like hell, I am going to be lenient in what time people arrive. This is going to be rough for them and I know it. We will get through it. 

We'll all get through it. Kicking and screaming.

Y12 D106

Worked on my docs yesterday but didn't do as much as I should have. I got distracted by a side project. I decided to dual boot one of my old mac mini machines. I still haven't really come up with a solution for replacing faceless Joe as a media server and though well, maybe if I use one of the minis that might work. But when I used one before it wasn't quite powerful enough and part of that was due to OS overhead. So I decided screw it, I will reduce down the OS by putting Linux Mint on there. Actually went pretty smooth in terms of install and configuration. I also was able to get it setup with a remote viewer. I won't even need a head unit with it. Less deskspace all around. I got the OS installed and configured and now just need to see if I can get plex on there and running. If so, I will swap it out with Joe and see what happens.

Watched some TV with B. New book came in the mail which I need to find some time to read. The Invention of  Sound from Chuck. It's a small book in comparison to some of his other work, but I am still excited to read it.

Had a hodge podge dinner because neither of us wanted to cook. Leftovers, salad, etc.

Three straight days of teaching for me. I am happy about that situation. Nobody to bug me for a few days. Whee!

Y12 D105

Nothing exciting to report today. It's raining outside and won't get over 65 today. Me likey. My kind of weather. I slept okay. A little rough. Some weird dreams about time travelers and just plain weirdness. Most of it a jumble.

Didn't do anything of note yesterday. I enjoyed my holiday. Watched tv, played video games, ate joe's special for dinner. Talked with the kid. Nothing exciting on her front either. Sometimes boring is okay.

Document writing today. Have another new class I am designing. Only have today to work on it this week. Have more time to focus on it next week but would like to get something put down today. At least get the structure completed. We shall see. Other than that, no pressing engagements. Can move at my own pace.

They were working on the house next door again. I really wonder what the plan is for that house. They've ripped out all the AC stuff and about once a week a work van is there, but you never see them doing anything. Like there's never any supplies being moved in like drywall or anything. Nor do they ever bring any garbage out. So what are they doing? I don't think the power has been turned back on either. It's quite strange. I wish I could get in there. The only thing I have seen them bring out are the key doors I saw at one point in the kitchen. But that's it. There's still like some basic "this looks staged" furniture in the front room. It's very odd. On the other hand, the longer I can have no neighbors, the better. Can't imagine getting some annoying family moving in there. I would rather have the weirdo drug dealers. Fun times.

Y12 D104

Yay holiday Monday!! Nothing planned, nothing to do. I also have a decent week ahead with three full days of classes. I can handle this.

Did some random projects around the house yesterday. One of the major ones was figuring out a solution for my monitor arms. When I was rearranging things for the new computer, I discovered that the clamp on the monitor arms was warping my desk from the weight. I quickly switched back to stands to let the desk not break. But the arms are 1000 times more convenient and work better for me. I needed to figure out a solution. What I did was find to solid thin pieces of wood to put on both the top and bottom of the desk and them put the clamp on that. Now, the wood pieces will protect the desk and they will go before the desk does. That was a satisfying project to complete.

What else... Hmm. It was such a bunch of little things I am losing it. Made a nice pineapple chicken for dinner. Cleaned the kitchen stove. Played some video games. Watched a little tv. B and I did some brainstorming on how to make the kitchen work better. Let's pause and discuss this. As some of you know, our kitchen is aesthetically pleasing and one of the key reasons we bought this house. After almost two years in it, what we have found however is the cabinet layout and design is less than optimal for our needs. There's places where they used bizarro world cabinet layouts and where the giant window is, they could have put it two more cabinets and better used the space. So, what we're doing is putting a stand alone pantry at the end of the kitchen. This is the biggest problem - food storage. None of the cabinets seem to work for food - too tall, too short, too deep. A stand alone pantry will give us cabinet space for appliances and the like while making it easier for us to keep track of foodstuffs. We have been trying to find one that wasn't cheap looking (like the $200 IKEA ones) but we also didn't want to spend $1000 on some fancy furniture. We found a nice one in between for $480 that will be here in 2 weeks. Hopefully it will meet our needs because at 115lbs, I am not sending it back!

That's about it. Sleeping better with the adjusted bed. Should have done that sooner.

Y12 D103

Let's start with the disappointing news - the donor's kidneys weren't viable. No transplant this time. The upside though is that this shows she's at the top of her list and the next kidney that comes along trhat matches her group demographic will be hers. After all these years to at least be in a position to receive one is exciting. I have a feeling over the next year we will have more situations like this where everyone is on red alert when one is on the horizon.  Just keep those fingers crossed.

Woke up at 4 yesterday but was refreshed. Headed to the grocery store from the hotel at 6, was home by 7:15. Put away all the groceries, unpacked, and did some stuff around the house. In my absence B decided to remove the doors from the bedroom and office closets. She replaced them with curtains instead. Don't get me wrong, they look good. It opens the room as the closet doors were those nasty rolling ones. But she left the old doors in the dining room. That was my job, moving them downstairs. Took care of that, dealt with some fish stuff, watched some tv.

My new memory sticks arrived yesterday. I now have 64gb in this bad boy. What's it going to buy me? Well, mostly for when I am doing work stuff it will help. Faster video rendering, able to keep more open (the editing software plus the app plus office apps) without impact. One big benefit is when doing customer analysis, I will be able to handle much larger data sets without issue. I plan on doing some testing, but I feel like I could easily load 1m rows of complex data without breaking a sweat. What I am going to do is take my current sample data set and dupe the rows. Get me a good solid set. Have some fun testing it.

We ordered in GOOD mexican last night. I had molcajete which while in the real world is a mortar and pestle, here it is chorizo, steak, and chicken served in a sauce with cactus and onions. Very good stuff. B had pollo poblano and was quite happy. Sad we had to eat it at home, but we were happy to have it.

I did adjust my side of the bed yesterday. I slept pretty damn good. I cranked that thing up too. Going to try it at the higher setting for a few nights and see how I do.

Nothing planned for today. Video gaming and that's about it.

Y12 D102

I slept so soundly last night. I woke up a few times but each time was from a deep rem sleep. I woke up sideways at one point. Makes me think I need to readjust the bed at home. I haven't adjusted it in a while. Could also have been the six baby pillows surrounding me the whole time. Regardless, I needed this. B got a lot done at home, I got nothing done here. Perfect. I watched an entire season + of New of Girl, played video games. Best day ever. Went to target, got some non-perishables off my list, gave myself a manicure. Ate tacos in the room. Good day.

Kidney update: so they are still waiting for the donor to die. Lovely. It could be any minute they have to go to the hospital, could also be days. Everyone is on edge. They want to have a BBQ today. I am feeling very hypocritical if I go, but I know this is important. Playing it by ear. I will definitely be following social distancing rules and wearing a mask. Especially since I have been at a hotel.

But first, groceries at 6am. Hell yeah.

Y12 D101

I'm in a hotel!! It's very odd. There's maybe 10 cars in the parking lot. I would wager at least two of those belong to employees. One is mine, which leaves 7 other guests in the hotel. I should have pushed for an upgraded room but I don't think they have anything too much better here at the ol' Hampton Inn. It's a holiday weekend and normally this place would probably be jumping, but here it is Friday and there's nobody. I'm totally okay with this, believe me. Just the fact that I am out of the house is enough.

I taught all day and finished around 4:30pm, let my students go, and did some last minute packing. I did get a really nice compliment from one of my students. We strive to not just be "instructors" and actually have real world experience with what we are teaching. It does make a difference as we can go off script, answer more technical questions, etc. Two of my students were prior students and knew what to expect, the third was a new guy, and he was the one who gave the compliment. He immediately recognized that was I wasn't just reading slides and called that out. He said it was nice to have an instructor who had knowledge of the material and wasn't just reading from a book. Bam. That's it right there. That's what we strive for in our classes. That was a nice way to end the two days and kick off the weekend.

Got to the hotel a little after 5pm, checked in, and walked over to the grocery store. That felt nice. Felt like I was really on the road. I bought rockstars, and some snacks, and food for dinner. I had a think of street tacos in my room. I also got some stuff for lunch today. The only downside is when I checked in, they informed me no breakfast. They will have 'to go' bags, but no waffle. Boo. I really was looking forward to that waffle. Oh well.

Today I am going to head over to the Target next door, get a couple of things, then sit in the room and play video games. For real. Those are my big plans. I even got up this morning without an alarm. I brought the switch with me and my whole steam library. No rush, no expectations. Now where's that to go breakfast??

EDIT -- I almost forgot the biggest news. B's grandma is getting a kidney!! After 7 years of dialysis and being on the list, one is headed to her today or tomorrow. We are very excited for this. It's the main reason we moved here. B is one of her primary caretakers and will probably end up living over there for a while to take care of things around the house. As more develops, I will let you know!

Y12 D100

In a couple of days it will be six months since I have been on the road. Six months of not leaving the house for anything other than essentials. Crazy shit man.

It felt good to teach yesterday. To feel useful again. Granted I only have three students, but it still felt good. I have one more day with them and then have 4 days without any guilt of work. Plus I get to spend some of it in a hotel. Woo. Simple pleasures man, simple pleasures.

Made tacos for dinner. Watched some tv. Started new colossus. Played for 90 minutes and was vbery impressed at the intro story. BJ seems to have gained a twang in his accent but that's okay. I can handle it. He's getting old. In the flashback seen the calendar shows 1919 and now it's 1961 so yeah, the boy is tired. He's been fighting nazis a long time now. He can have a twang.

Not much else. Need to pack up some stuff before I go tonight. Will take care of that when I am down showering. I am so excited to go to a damn hotel. How sad is that?

Y12 D99

Want to listen to a really great song? Look up Mick Gordon, The Partisan. Remake of a remake. 1943 French resistance song. Redone by Cohen in 69, but the Mick Gordon version. DAMN. Gives you chills. Where did I hear it? At the end of Wolfenstein - Old Blood. Yep. I have been killing a LOT of Nazis lately and let me tell you, it's immensely satisfying. Back in July when Steam had its summer sale I got all four modern Wolfenstein. New Order, Old Blood, New Colossus, and Young Blood. I am through the first two. That's a lot of dead Nazis. That song plays over the credits of Old Blood. After playing through the whole game the song just wrpas things up nicely. I can't wait to start New Colosuss. More Nazis to kill. If the DNC wanted to show their not a bunch of whiny bitches, they could make that their theme song.

Finished my recordings yesterday. 14 videos in three days. It's a ton of recording and editing and post production. But it's all done and I am off video duty for a while as a result. Thank goodness. That was my whole day.

Had shrimp fried rice for dinner. Basically it was a leftover melange that turned into fried rice. It worked.

Two days of classes, then I am off to the hotel, and a four day weekend. Whee!

Y12 D98

So I have blue hair now. 3rd color in six months. It came out lighter than I expected and I am going to do another 'coat' if you will to try and darken it up. I think the water was too hot when I rinsed it and I lost some of the color. Regardless, it's blue.

Recorded all day. Got five more recordings done. Four left for today and this class will be complete. I teach the next two days after that. I am starting to get full weeks again which is nice.

B and I did some rearranging in the basement. She is giving up her little cave area and we took the sofa we had down there to the curb. She's giving it up because she's not using it. The point of it was a place for her to go and smoke without the smell and everything else taking over the house. She has recently switched back to cartridge based systems and doesn't need to worry about smoke or smell and just hasn't been hanging out down there. We are rethinking what to use that space for now. I would like a tool chest with countertop. Help us clean the whole area up. But before we do that, we need to paint that whole room. It's one of the few rooms left that's the original nasty blow in paint they did down here.

Made vegetable rotini with shrimp for dinner. Bit random, but good. Did my hair after dinner. Worked in the basement, went to bed.

It's September btw. Two months until you vote. Please dear god, vote. Because even if you don't feel like your vote counts at the federal level, it does count for congress, senate, mayor, governor. These are the people who set the local policies and many times move on to larger things. Plus they will be important for keeping the president in check and we've seen how that's been working. Please vote. Don't be that person.