Greetings: An update on the previous month. There is no journey map for the month of November, because that portion of my life has come to a close. This previous month, after talking with the wife, I made the choice to leave over-the-road trucking and settle into a home-bound position that will let me see my family more than once every two months, and take care of the home fires. Was it a good choice or a bad choice? The jury is still out on that one, but things are in motion.

The year comes to a close.

We have made it into a new month and December is rolling along already. There is no way to tell what the month is going to bring, but so far it has been decent to me so I will be nice to it. All things considered it was a very mundane day and that is OK. I continued to work on my data projects and I finished yet another one. When I tabulate everything that I have gotten done since I left the truck, and i go through my master checklist, I am almost a year ahead of where I thought I was going to be. It's amazing what difference a few days off can make. That being said, even though it has only been a little over a week, it feels like a month.

I did get notification that they fast tracked my background check for reasons that I will not discuss here, but my orientation has been scheduled for December 6. And we will go from there. I do not know what that future is going to bring but I am going to take it with stride and do my best. That is all that can be expected of me. I know that there is some form of irony in the fact that I am going into a form of law enforcement, but i don't even want to think about that.

I got a second wind in the evening and they went outside and moved a bunch of leaves from the backyard to the front so that they can be picked up. And while I was doing that I fixed the tire on the wheelbarrow, and since everything was out I fixed the tires on the big cart. I think that was pretty good for the end of day. I should mention that I have completed the writing project and the current phase. I've gone through every single story and I've made sure that they are viable and something that I will eventually work on. The final numbers are that there are 42 novels, 31 short stories, and about 75 articles. Now I can get them into some kind of order and work through them. Obviously this story of Lilith and the fairies floats to the top of the list, with the political commentary right behind it. But both of those are novel lengths, and I want to make sure some short stories get done in there so that I can put them in for submission. Of course I have to figure out where I'm going to submit those to and I have to continue to look into the gig work. Right now I only know that I have to be at Walmart at 9:00 on Wednesday and I don't have any other information so I cannot set schedules. But that should resolve quickly and I will get into a routine.

Just a study of motion.

Always check your tops!

I was just full of it today. I started the day out slow, but gained serious momentum as the day progressed. I hit the backyard hard and got the lion share of the leaves to the curb. There is still a lot more to go, but i ran out of room at the curb. It was a good workout but it left me seriously exhausted. But that was not the interesting part of the day. In the morning I did my normal morning stuff including meditation, exercise, and yoga, and in the afternoon I had a little relaxation time before it was time to cook meals for dinner. And that's when things went out of control. We've gotten in the habit of cooking meals just to be leftovers. We all work such weird schedules and eat when we choose to and it makes life easy. This evening I chose to make some hot sausage and some panko breaded chicken breasts. The same thing I've been cooking on the truck for over a year. What I did not count on is the cayenne pepper lid. When I went to sprinkle the pepper over the hot pan, the lid popped off. About a tablespoon of cayenne pepper hit the red hot iron frying pan. It created an instant cloud of something similar to tear gas. It took almost two hours to air out the house and it was at least an hour before I could get back in the kitchen for any length of time. But it all came together in the end and I went upstairs to my cubby and watched a movie well I continue to sort files. I still have a little more clean up to do on the writing and then I can dive back in.

I do have a little bit of artwork that I am working on right now as I prep the photography and digital art site. It is a reflection on the madness of Alice from the famous tome by Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, better known by his pen name Lewis Carroll. I have no idea why I jumped down the rabbit hole with the white rabbit, but it should be interesting. I pulled three images of Alice from the Photoshop course and I am finishing them out. They should be up in the next few days.

I am sore all over.

First things first. I have jumped in with both feet into clearing the old sites and getting everything re-directed over to THIS site, CWklein.com. One of the biggest barriers has been that I set the site up so quickly, that I could not remember how the hell I was getting files onto it, so it was limited to the one computer and location that had that information saved. This morning, I resolved that, got into the account, and reset everything so I can get into it, and I remember how to do it. Now I can get things done!

The early morning was not exciting at all. I updated the journals and blogs and such, and did the morning routine. Then I had a sugar crash. It turned me moody as hell and lethargic. But at least I figured out what it was, resolved the issue, took a 90 minute nap, and restarted the day.

The restart went well. I hit Walmart and did the grocery list that Laura and Willow left for me. And I think that I got everything right, which is excellent. I usually will mess up one or two items. I did grab a bag of potatoes for myself and the stuff to make biscuits and gravy. Once back at the house, I hunkered down and started working the wood pile. I spent about 3 hours pulling, cutting, and burning the debris. But I only got about 1/3 of the way done. Then it was back inside to set up the rest of my garage refuge with the Keurig and coffee pot, pull the generator and get the part number for the carburator (I really hope that is the problem), and made the biscuits and gravy. The latter was not the best experience. I got some pre-made drop biscuits. They are horrible. I will have to remake from scratch in the morning.

The evening was spent rolling Babylon-5 on Tubi while I worked my stories and art. Nothing great to show for it this time, but I am getting closer every day. The problem is that I don't know what I am getting closer to. Most of the writing has been updating the Triumph portion of this website and I should have that done shortly and will be able to move on to bigger and better things.

I am still sore all over.

Today was another one of those special days when I felt behind the entire day, and time passed at different rates depending on my perspective. I spent the early morning and my quiet time modifying Triumph media and moved the whole site to the new web space. The only thing I have left to do is change my e-mail address with Network Solutions, but that is quite involved, and I won't do that today. When I looked up, it was almost 7:00, and I thought it was closer to 5:00. That wasn't comforting. But I did take it in stride, and I got in motion.

The following day's task should have been to make new biscuits, but that will wait until tomorrow morning. I dove right into the wood pile, and by some miracle, I cleared it. It was too windy to do the burn, but I have four piles of properly sorted wood ready to burn. That is played an accomplishment.

Next, I did a good scrub and clean on the kitchen floor. It has been bothering Laura and me for quite a while. But it's taken care of now. It's amazing what you can do when you have home time. Speaking of which, my time has been off lately, and I thought I had to head into Walmart on Wednesday for my orientation, but it is Thursday. I took the time and got my account set up to be ready for orientation, and when I checked the calendar, I was a day off. Then I double-checked my day planner, and that was a day off, too. I've been running a full day ahead for six days. The funny thing is I didn't notice.

I ended the day with a significant amount of writing and some artwork. I still have to find a time and place to work on my music and photography. But I went through the art cabinet today and have all the oil paints, brushes, and everything else I need to do some oil painting. I even found half a container of paint thinner in the garage. I only do not have a canvas, but I have a full roll and wood in the garage. I can make a canvas. But that is an adventure for another day.

The adventure of the evening was with my workhorse computer. It looks like I won't be able to avoid Windows 11 any longer. Today it became a forced update, and that pretty much ran overnight. That computer is very light on memory, and I will have to do something about that. I'm going to go ahead and put it on my list to check into tomorrow. I reinstalled that computer back to factory specifications because Windows 11 dragged it into the mud. We shall see.

One of the greatest disadvantages of my faith, and in the following of Lilith, is that she is a female leader of the great beyond. And while it is not taboo for the masculine to walk her path or follow her counsel, it can create some problems. The most prevalent one is feminine thinking from a masculine perspective. Personally, I think this is a good thing, but others might disagree. Today during meditation, the trickster goddess showed me images of the maiden, the mother, and the crone. The triple goddess. And while this image does not properly represent the end of life for the feminine, it was one from the archives from September a year ago, that seemed to fit the moment.

Onward and upward.

Now that I have time straight again and I am no longer running a day ahead of myself, I got centered and accomplished a few things. I had to assemble a Christmas list, leading to a two-hour rabbit hole and contemplation of life off the truck. I used to have so many hobbies, and because of the time spent in my little compartment for the past few years, most of those have gone the way of the dodo. So, for my Christmas list this year, I put some things that may refire my creativity. But it also created a new project. When I lost my hard drive last year, I lost almost 500 patterns for jewelry. Using some programs that I picked up in school, I could recover most of those files, and they have to go through them as well as the other files on that computer. It is a monumental task, taking the place of the other massive functions that I have completed. And I always work well under pressure.

While doing my morning routine in the garage, I doubled my yoga and considered what to do about the swing. I either must get an indoor rig for the garage or build an outdoor one I can put into place. The drawback of an outdoor rig is that it would be seasonal. Moving the swing when I am using it is not a big deal, but the weather might be a factor. I may also look at the substructure of the ceiling in the garage and see if I can find the main support beams. But I must do other things first, which must be put on the back burner for now.

Once I finished the morning routine and everybody was in motion, jumping in with both feet was time. I finished moving the Triumph site to the new location and put a notice on the old site pointing to the change. Now, I must get the other sites done. The fun part came when I straightened up the front yard and took care of the overgrowth at the corner of the house. That was a bit of a rabbit hole because the leaves got on my nerves once I cleared those out. So I took care of those as well. It was too windy to take care of the debris in the backyard, but that is OK because there is still time.

Then I hit another rabbit hole. I spent nearly an hour and a half or two hours creating my Christmas list. It is very creative and gives people a lot of options. But honestly, not one thing on it is essential. And I would happily sit on Christmas Day with the family and do nothing. And that would be a lovely gift.

As the afternoon rolled around the corner, I hit yet another rabbit hole. Recently, the ladies bought me Resident Evil 4 for the meta virtual reality system. I think that I've been consciously avoiding it because I know about my addictive nature. And sure enough, as evening rolled around, I cranked that sucker up and went and played with zombies for about two more hours. It was a lot of fun once I got the control system down. The drawback is that it made me wonder what other games are available for the system. So I went to the website and looked and am creating a list. It is a lot of fun.

It looks like a perfect day if you read the previous paragraphs. But as with every good thing, there is always a bad thing. The computer I use for my artwork has been troubling me for months. I was going to format and reinstall, so I did a preliminary diagnostic, and the secondhand memory that I put in years ago has started to fail. The problem is that only that computer is set up for my artwork. And it is challenging to set up another one. But we shall see; I either need to go through the time and expense of setting up a second computer to do that, or I must get new memory. At this point in my life, neither one is an option. That only means that I cannot create new artwork, but as I have discussed before, I have hundreds of finished pieces that need a little work. So, it's not a total loss at this point.

I ended the day by eating a pizza and watching a film in German. I have no idea why. It popped up on my Netflix suggestions, so I watched it. Tomorrow is the last day before I return to work, and I have to plan the day properly. I need to go into this new adventure , calm and in control. And we will see what the future brings.

Pensive about tomorrow.

Today was my final day of freedom. I busted my ass and moved ALL the websites to cwklein.com, even though they are just shells for right now. However, I did verify that all the information is saved to the local drives and accounted for. So it is all good and is now a rebuilding process. That is pretty exciting. As soon as I get the email with network solutions updated, I can close down the Hostgator account, and that will be the end of that story.

I did some early morning shopping at Walmart for the house, then came back and relaxed. I did another hour or so in Resident Evil Four and then puttered around the house most of the day. It is very cold, and it is making me grumpy. I never used to be this cold-sensitive, and I don't like it. Part of it is that it makes me very tired and lethargic. That is never a good combination. In the evening, I spent some time in the garage with the heater while Laura played with the VR setup.

Tomorrow I go into Walmart for orientation, but I have no idea what happens after that. So it has me a bit pensive and on edge. I believe that I have everything ready and I am looking forward to the new challenge.

Reflections on downtime

I have been down and off the truck for about 10 days. In that time, I have used my time wisely and gotten a LOT done. Most notably was the yard, both front and back. I did not finish with the leaves in the back yard, but I have to wait for them to pick up those that I have put to the curb. But one of the most important things that I accomplished involved DATA. I recovered almost a Terabyte of data from a damaged drive, and that included my E-books, Audiobooks, and images. While doing data, I re-formatted my storage drives, moved everything to external storage, and set a new project to get it all sorted out. Finally, I made sure that I had all the information from the websites on Hostgator, and deleted those sites, making their new home on cwklein.com. The only issue that I experienced is that the memory on my workhorse computer is shot. I need to come up with about $85 to replace it, and I am not sure where I am going to get that. At least not yet.

Something new.

The most significant event for today was my new position as a Walmart asset protection investigator. This is a very fun way to say store detectives. It's not as glamorous or as interesting as one might think because most of the time will be spent walking around the store, incognito, looking for bad people that are doing bad things. Or even good people doing bad things. And then following a very strict set of rules to show them the error of their ways. They actually have an excellent policy, or sets of policies, on how to deal with people who breach security. I'm not sure if this is my bag of tea or not, but I will try it.

I only spend about four hours, or maybe a little more, in training, and then it was back home. I spent a little over an hour moving more leaves in the backyard and then it was upstairs to my cubby for some relaxation. I did try to do some artwork, but the workhorse computer is not cooperating. Unfortunately, the same thing happened with writing, and I'm going to have to do something about that. But not today. We will see what tomorrow brings. I still don't have a schedule and it looks like I'm going to be working side by side with the other investigator and we will have to work something out. But I'm sure that it will be fine, eventually.

It is all about the rules.

I think it is amazing when some people, or companies, will give emphasis to. One of the biggest things that they gave emphasis to in training for my current position was social media. And it's not the use of social media while working, but how you comment about the company itself. It is a fireable offense to speak out against the company negatively. And from what my orientation trainer told me, it is enforced. Very interesting.

Anyway, I spent most of the morning preparing to go to work. It was a series of mental exercises to prepare me for the remaining four modules that had to be completed. I figured it would take only a few hours. I was quite wrong about that. It took about 30 minutes. Then I had no direction at all. My trainer has to report to the person who is going to be supervising me and then they will take control and we will go from there. We are going into the weekend and I do not have any idea what the next few days bring.

So it was back home, to a dinner of hot dogs and salad, the movie "Tomorrowland", and then a couple hours of writing. The writing was not enjoyable because I could not load my tools. I'm going to have to figure something out to deal with the workhorse computer and see what I can do. I spent about 2 1/2 hours on writing and I only got 3 pages done. I have to do better.

A decent day.

It was a very warm day when I woke up and got started with my routine around 2:00 AM. I had a cat looking at me when I woke up, but I am starting to get used to that. I think that Kitska can tell time, and she knows when I am supposed to get up. She waits for me to move so that she can assume her position on the heating blanket. Weird cat!

I got through the morning routine and decided to tackle a long overdue project, the skylight in the master bath. It took about 2 hours to get a new frame built to hold the drywall, but that was because I had to do the cuts in the garage, then take the pieces to the top floor. It was tedious because the handyman that covered the skylight did not measure for his repairs. He just eyed things up, so I had to adjust the new frame to his, less than perfect, measurements. While I was doing this, I texted with Johnathan and got my schedule for the week. I have 40 hours. Yeah! I will be working with him for four of the says, and Shannon the other day. I am looking forward to learning the routine.

Once I got the frame installed, I chose to put the installation of the drywall off until my day off, Thursday. It is hard working over my head like that, so I figured it was best to take it in little bits. I settled in and did some writing. I tried to do some more artwork, but the computer is running between 10-15% efficiency, and that is not viable for the programs. Pfft. Willow and Laura helped me set up a META account, and I played with Vernillon, a painting program. It is pretty cool. I have to reinstall Resident Evil 4, but that is okay, it is a fun game and I have no problem starting from scratch. I can fix a few errors that I made the first time through.

I ended the day with some potato fish, baked potatoes, and a silly movie. Austin Powers, International Man of Mystery. I just needed something silly that I had seen before. Tomorrow is another day, and I will be spending eight hours at Walmart, learning my new trade. I did continue with one of four courses on PMP (project management professional) and with a bit of luck, and some extended study, I can take that test with the new year. It would be nice on my resume.

Not a great start.

So, my workhorse computer is running at near 10-15% due to memory issues. So I have switched over to my mini for most of my daily stuff. To load my writing software or art software on the workhorse can take 15 minutes or more. Then to use it is tedious. This morning, I went to start up the mini, which can do the writing, blogging, email and such, but not the artwork, and it did not power on. I did the basic troubleshooting, and sure enough, the system is not getting power. I double checked the power brick, and it is working just fine. The system board is just not getting power. That would be a blown motherboard. It is like the universe is out to get me this morning. It took about 3 hours to get an email done, the blog for yesterday, and to log into Dell Support. Of course, the Warranty for the mini expired in January of 2023, so no help here. Pfft.

Long days.

My morning time was spent using a lot of extra time to get the minimal amount of things done. I got my exercise, yoga, and meditation out of the way first thing and then I did a deep dive into getting things caught up. It took a total of 2 1/2 hours to get three images up on the website. Granted, I can automate some of the process, but at this rate it's going to take forever. But I wanted to see if I could do it with the cripple machines, and i can.

I got a new schedule for training, and it seems to be all over the place. I am sure that that is to observe the different aspects of the company at different times, but it is still annoying. But it is 40 hours a week, so I'm not going to complain.

Finally, I did a little bit of writing today, but it is useless. It takes about 10 minutes for any document to open and any time that the system hits autosave it will stop responding for anywhere from three minutes to 12 minutes. That just interrupts the flow, so i will put my writing on the back burner for now and it can sit and slow boil with the artwork. I can still play my videos for PMP, so I will put my energies into that for now period

Limited.

Right now, due to the degradation of my computers, I am constrained to what I can do. I have to pause after each sentence and let the computer catch up with me. So, for the unforeseeable future, my entries may be limited. And the same thing is going to happen with e-mail. Until I do something about the processing power, I may have to start limiting my e-mail communications. It just takes too damn long. The sad thing once things are up and running, it is okay. It is getting them started that is a bear. But we shall see what happens.

Very tired

The morning was calm and I was able to work through my routine without issues. The day at work was okay, and I ate my lunch in the car because I did not want to go back to the break room. When I got off, I was beyond tired and I hit the house, had a cup of coffee and slinked off to bed. What a boring day. But I have tomorrow off, so maybe that will make up for it. I have a very long list of things to get done.

A Long Day

I had one hell of a list when I woke up this morning. It does not help that I woke up exhausted yesterday because I was so sore, but I muscled through the morning. The technician came to do a tune-up on the HVAC system, and I thought he would be here for about an hour, but it turned into three hours. And of course, they had to give a little presentation on possible upgrades. When we got that system three years ago, I thought we got top-of-the-line everything, apparently not. But everything is in good working order, and we're done with that until spring.

I knocked out a bunch of stuff both before and after the technician at the house. I got my medication set up for the week and updated the blog. I cleared the trash from the garage and did a good cleaning on the microwave that I took out of the truck. I got a pork loin meal cooked, but I did not get the ribs cooked. They will have to wait until Saturday.

But the big, exciting thing that I got done is I upgraded the memory on the workhorse computer, and it is lightning fast now. It took almost two hours to start up after a standard restart, now it starts up in about 90 seconds. I even have the memory in the trash so that I don't accidentally put it into something else down the line. It's stimulating. It gives me back my ability to write, and that is something that I have been seriously missing. It does not give me back the ability to do the artwork, so there won't be anything new just yet. But I got the warranty for the other machine, and I will deal with that on Saturday. Once I get that machine serviced and back to me, I will be back to 100%. Even with the new memory, the workhorse and the desktop are too old to handle the pen tablet, which is critical to how I do my artwork. But little steps here.

This is another exciting piece of news. But this is one that is causing confounding confusion within the old gray matter of my mind. I got a call for an off-the-cuff interview for the company that I technically still work for, and as expected, I blew it out of the water. The pay is almost $10,000 higher than what I make as an asset protection specialist, and that is if they pay me at the bottom of the scale. At the top of the scale, it is almost $20,000 a year. That is something that I must sit down and talk to the wife about, possibly over a glass of wine. I have a craving for an excellent Chablis, and I don't know why.

Then I ended the day sitting on the floor, tearing apart the carburetor on the generator until Lara and Willow returned home with Taco Bell, at which point I ate and then jumped into virtual reality. It took about 15 minutes to download Resident Evil onto the meta quest, but I got through the first chapter entirely. It was relaxing, and I must make that part of my routine at least every few days. Tomorrow, I am back at Walmart, and we will see what the day brings.

Back at it

Even though work sucked, there was a bright side to the day. I am back to partially normal operations with the computers. I can load my writing tools, which I took advantage of today, and I can even load a small portion of my art tools. I can't load the good stuff, but I can load the basic things so I can edit. I really wanted to get a lot more done this evening, but when I hit the door, I was exhausted. I waited for Laura to get home, and then I went to bed.

A day of rest, mostly

This was a Saturday and a day off. Even though I had the entire day off, it was not relaxing. It took me until almost bedtime to remove the stress from work altogether, and now I have to return tomorrow. I do not see this as a healthy option. But I did talk to Laura, and I have a few ideas on how to proceed so we shall see how it goes. Not the one thing is for sure, and that is that I am not going to put up with disrespect. There's no reason that I should.

On the home front, I was able to get quite a bit done today. I've set some very high goals for myself for my day off, and I did not think that I would get anywhere near them. But I did. Most importantly, I got the generator fixed, and it is purring like a kitten. I sealed the hole in the bathroom roof that had been there for more than two years. I even called Dell Computers and navigated the foreign support to get my mini laptop taken care of. In theory, I should have that back by the end of the year. I did a significant amount of work on the art site that you can reach from the main menu, and I cooked a rack of ribs. I think that is a pretty good day.

Toward the end of the day, I did wind up jumping on the virtual reality and going into a world of make-believe through one of the applications. It was pretty interesting; it is a series of subliminal mood enhancers, and it helped quite a bit. Then I watched a movie and it was time for bed. I do not know what this coming week brings, but I'm going to grab it by the horns and find out.

The mire of the soul.

It was all work and no play today for our wayward traveler. I hit bottom. The morning went fine, and I hit work with a positive attitude and then was brought down like a pinata being hit with a huge stick. I cannot stand being disrespected or cast aside. But it was a red-letter day because, after work, I hit the house after buying a frozen pizza and grabbed the Vodka. I intended to have three fingers and slip off into oblivion. The ultimate backslide to pre-marriage days and the breach of a promise I made myself. Intentional oblivion! Nope. And I caught myself at the last minute. I rode the anger and the rage and went to bed angry. Another no-no. But better than the alternative. Tomorrow, I will listen to my wife, who is much smarter than me, and I will talk to the lead in my store and let him know what is going on. And we will go from there.

Better, but still pensive.

I spent the morning doing the explanation thing at work. Then I blew through the day doing some interesting investigative tasks. It worked out well. I did not have time to do my entire morning routine, but I am rolling through my French, Java, C++, and PMP all at once. It helps the old brain to move forward. I got home to Little Ceasars and had a decent bit of relaxation. I did try to do a new piece of art, but without the pen-tablet, it is a NOGO. That is okay; it was just an experiment. I will probably delete it in the morning. I expect the box to come via FedEx sometime tomorrow, and if they just have to swap the motherboard, as I suspect, I should have the mini back in about a week. That would be nice. This was a much better day.

I do not particularly like this image, but it was a test to see what I could do without the pen tablet. The most significant difference in using a mouse over a tablet is the time involved. I did the standard on this one by using a 3D studio wire frame image pulled into Daz 3D and then wrapped with a composite that consisted mostly of Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Jennifer Lawrence, and Winona Ryder. When you put all of those together and include a stock red dress, this is what you came up with. The process here took about 13 hours over four days. On the tablet, it would have been about 2 hours.

Well driven and active

The early morning was occupied by cleaning up some of the things I had sitting around. I did some more editing on the stories that were sitting, and I finished off the Pagan in the forest in a red dress. So, it was a pretty productive morning. I did one section of each of my courses. They are now set up in a routine so I can address them daily. If I have calculated correctly, I should be done with all five around mid-February as long as I stay on track. Then I will pick the next 5.

A majority of the day was spent at work and it was a decent day. So I will not complain about it. Even though the work was enjoyable, using that much of my brain when I am not used to it is still exhausting. I got home tired, but not in a terrible way. I grabbed some ribs for dinner and then was off to bed. Tomorrow is my interview for USX, and then it is time to make some hard choices. I know it is arrogant, but I cannot see a situation where they would not offer me a position. But it could happen, and I am ready for it, just in case. Right now, I'm in a position, and all I have to do is make it to the end of the year and go from there. We shall see what happens.

Oye, vey, Uggg

From a personal perspective, today was a bit frustrating. However, I think that it is all related to the lousy interview I talked about above. I don't let myself get hoops up for too much lately, but I think I did in this situation. That is causing me some problems. Once the interview was over, I got my stuff together and headed down to FedEx and UPS to get my computer in the mail to be repaired and drop off a return for Amazon. Then I headed over to AutoZone, where I met a very negative person working the counter. He was just outright nasty. I ran a few personal errands, and then I got to the house and moved leaves until Laura got back from the afternoon crossing guard. Then, I spent the better part of 45 minutes trying to swap out her headlight. Why did it take 45 minutes? It took 45 minutes because I was not paying attention, and I could not get the bulb back in after I just swapped it out. It would not go in because the gasket from the old bulb was left behind, and I did not notice it. Once I got that out of the way, I was mentally exhausted. I took a short nap and was getting up to cook pork chops when I found out that Laura had cooked, and there was plenty of food in the house. So, I will hold off on the pork chops for another day.

On a lighter note, I finally have a structured personal education plan in place that includes French, C++, Java, and project management. I may add unity to the mix later. But I think that is enough for now. I know that I work the next two days, 8:00 AM to 5:00 PM, but I have no idea what's going on for the weekend and into the new year. I'm looking forward to going to work tomorrow and diving in to see what I can get done.

The last thing I did for the day was some meditation and some work on my writing. I think that I am about to go to a place where I need to start publishing. I have to figure out how I'm going to do that. I will probably go the self-publication route again, and then I have to find a way to get myself known. We shall see.

More Ducks! Where are those ducks?

I got a little behind in the morning trying to get out the door to work because I was rolling through some of the art sites and a couple of other projects. But I made it to work right on time and got busy. I'm starting to get into a routine, and once I get that done, I'm sure things will be fine. I made two ham sandwiches for lunch, worked through the day, and got home quickly. I was in the mood for kung pao pork, so that's what I did as soon as I got home. It came out quite well. I received my new year schedule and even entered it into the Google family calendar. It was a pretty decent day. Yesterday, I got my mini computer on its way back to Dell, and that should be coming back, most probably, right around the end of the year. Then, I can get my entire routine in place.

All work and no play

As I always do, I got into motion this morning, but I doubled up on yoga, exercise, and meditation. I don't know why; it was just an urge. By the end of the day, I was glad that I did because I was far from balanced and centered. Then I had trouble sleeping, and it just was not a positive day. I did get to experience that situation where I am listening to another language and don't realize it again. A young lady lost her wallet, most probably stolen, and I got through most of the conversation before I realized she was speaking Spanish. It probably would have mattered if I had had to speak back to her; once I was only listening, it was very interesting.

I got home and took the call from US Express, ate dinner, and just stared off into space. I really need to find a way to tip the balance one way or another with what's going on, and I just don't know how to tip the scales. I cannot believe I am so afraid to make a mistake. There are times when I want the younger me to come back. The one that would charge headlong into any situation, regardless of consequence. But then again, I think that if I was that man, i would not still be on the planet. Self-reflection can be a real bummer. Anyway, tomorrow is another day. Ironically, I have to make a decision by tomorrow about the career change or the potential for it. Isn't that interesting?

Good and bad together

The personal part of the day was much better. I have been having a crisis of spirit about what to do with my employment, and thanks to Laura I believe I have figured that out. Now I just have to dive in and get it done. In my morning time before work, I managed to get another section of the website up and even prep the next section, which is the largest, so that I could do that over Christmas. I ate a horrible breakfast of a handful of sausages, and I decided to buy lunch. That was the wrong choice. I ate some kind of weird chicken and it was not good. But that's OK because after one more day, it will be time for a day off. Then we shall go from there. Evening was mundane, and I did nothing but eat pizza and watch YouTube.

The year is almost gone.

This is Christmas Eve, and as we have gotten used to doing, we did presents this evening. The morning was basically sleeping a bit in and then heading to work. When I got home, it was time for pizza and presents. Everybody did pretty well this year. Roman got me a new metagame, Willow got me an excellent jewelry toolkit, and Laura's gift will not be here, probably until next week. I don't know what that one is. But it turned out pretty well for everyone. Laura loves her shoes, even though she doesn't remember our conversation about them, and they are too small. Thankfully, they can be exchanged. Even the cat did well with a new treat dispensing toy. Then, it was time for an early night and some well-deserved rest.

Merry Christmas and such

A Merry Christmas to everyone. Supposing that is your holiday for the season. Happy Yule, happy Kwanzaa, happy Hanukkah. Whatever your reason for celebrating the season, I wish you a happy one. So many people get upset and forget that this is a time to come together instead of being driven apart. Regardless of the celebration, it is usually based around family, friends, and community. And people get so stressed out and upset over things that it is ludicrous. But enough of that.

There was no work today and there will not be any until the new year. I am comfortable, have come to terms with that, and will move past it. The day was spent mainly in the kitchen cooking all kinds of yummy things. I made deviled eggs, egg rolls, and crab Rangoon. Rowan did Mongolian chicken, and Willow did an excellent mushroom soup. Laura jumped in and helped the entire time, and we had a good family cooking day. Everybody has their traditions, and I guess this is ours, and it worked out pretty well. The rest of the day was spent relaxing. I feel that I better get as much relaxation as possible over the next two weeks. But we shall see.

Not much to say and do.

The holiday season is coming to a draw and soon the world will go back to normal, whatever normal is. When I woke up this morning, I did not get a solid amount of sleep. As a result of that, I spent the day Moody, restless, and tired. And that was not a positive way to spend my day but I push through it. I got a significant amount of work done on the website, and I was going to work on the skylight, but I forgot that I threw away my metal brushes because they had rusted. Since I did not feel like heading out of the house today, I'm going to have to do that tomorrow morning so that I can get that project cleared. I spent a lot of the day up in my cubby, and I was working on my jewelry stuff. I pulled everything out and separated it over 4 hours and now everything has a place. That is one hobby ready to roll. I am accepting today as a down day and I am not going to beat myself up for not getting a lot done. But tonight I will get a good night's sleep, and tomorrow I am going to kick butt. I have an extra vacation here and I'm going to take advantage of it. Time to break out the big list.

The attack of the poo.

I am not feeling great today. I did some serious work on the skylight and got the first layer of joint compound in place. But near the end, I was getting some severe vertigo. I checked my blood pressure, sugar, and oxygenation, and all was good. I think that I got some kind of bug. I did the family thing with VR, the wife, and the kiddos for a while and then decided to head off to bed a bit after 6:30 pm. I intended to sleep a minimum of, instead of the four to six I have been sleeping. We shall see how that plays out. My body knows what it needs.

On the lighter side, I got another two areas of the art site done, got the jewelry and model stuff set up in the cubby, and I am feeling pretty good about things. I tried to get some pictures of a squirrel, a new obsession, but I feel like a paparazzi going after a candid shot of some elusive actress. Damn, squirrels! But I will get one. It is now a mission. I have no idea why I want one, I just do. Maybe, I am off my NUT. Get it...squirrels....nuts? Ha ha ha. I kill me.

Too much sleep.

I slept 12 hours from last night when I went to bed to when I got up this morning. Then I did about three more hours for a total of 15 hours. I think that my body may be trying to tell me something. I was lethargic, and my equilibrium was off. But my blood pressure, sugar, and temperature were all good. I have no idea what this is, but I do not recommend it.

I did not get anything done today off of my list. I sat and huddled around my heater all day, but I still could not get warm. It is terrible. But it will be fine; everything will be fine. I got a notification from Dell that my computer is done and has been shipped back to me. Yeah for that. It should be here by the 3rd. I also got a call from another person in training on the 8th, they are supposed to be supplying transportation. I am not sure how I feel about that. Hmmm. We shall see.

The ick continues.

This is my third day of being ill, and it is not any fun. But at least I know what it is now. The equilibrium problem and the lethargy was caused by a common cold. It hit full force this afternoon and made me nice and miserable. I would have to say that it was not a fun adventure. Normally, I would have taken NyQuil and gone to sleep, and it would have been better in the morning, but I could not find my NyQuil. But that's OK because it will only add another half a day and then things will be fine. However, because of this little bit of a nightmare, I had another nonproductive day, and it is starting to annoy me. I've got a lot that I want to get done before I go back to work and three days of sitting on my butt is not helping. But the new year is right around the corner, and everything will be fine.

On my nerves.

OK I can officially identify this as a cold or at least the flu. I'm not sure which one it is but it is annoying as hell and it is kicking my butt. It has reduced me to sleeping for three or four hours at a time and then getting up for one or two hours before it drags me back down. One way or another I'm going to break out of this cycle tomorrow, but for today, I just rolled with it. A whole hell of a lot of sleep and a lot of miserable stares and a wall.

Get things done.

I slept for about 10 hours and I was still feeling like the wrong end of a mule, but I wrestled that into motion and got some stuff done. I started with the projects that have been annoying the hell out of me like the leaves, but that quickly blew into the wind. No pun intended. About halfway through the project, the leaf blower died a slow and painful death. It's been on its way out for a while but it decided to drop out today. I got the bulk of the leaves to the curb but I'll have to figure out something to do with the rest. I moved inside and cleaned up the bathroom that I've been working on and got the ladder out of the tub and cleaned everything up. I can't do anymore on that until I am ready to paint the bathroom. I double checked everything on the computer that just got repaired and everything is working properly. I started a new piece of artwork which i should have ready by tomorrow go Bowie shall say. Then I went through my entire list and cleared everything off of it. By the end of the day I could barely string two sentences together come on but it worked out well. I finished up my 2023 list and left nothing behind. I'm looking forward to a good night's sleep and hopefully I will feel a lot better tomorrow. And then we are in a new year.