An open book journey of Christopher William Klein
Greetings: An update on the previous month: The month of January was quite a bit of a roller coaster. I spent a week in Chattanooga, tennessee, and was trained for my new position as a driver leader. I did not get my second week of training there because of the ice storms in the snow. I started my new position and that took up a bulk of the month. I continued working on my novel and my study of Photoshop.
The new month is here. Click here for March 2024
...The weekend, right there.
I have finally hit a bit of a smoother day. There were some little bumps of hectic action, but for the most part, everything came together nicely. I have been released from my training program and am now a full driver leader. I'm beginning to tighten down my routine, and things are going well. Now I just have to get that routine locked down, and things will be golden.
As you can see, there is no artwork for today. Unless you want to include the one that I am putting at the top of the page, but that storm cloud is from last year when I was taking the first set of courses. At this point, I am done with the courses that I was in, and I have yet to pull the next set. Unfortunately, the next set was done by a different author, and I do not know what format it will take. But I think it is set up more of a weekly outcome than a daily outcome. We shall find out this weekend, and we will go from there.
I think I am finally getting into the routine at home and work, and I'm pretty sure I can bring this together sooner or later. I have to tighten my morning routine because I've been sleeping a little later, but I don't think that will be a problem. At work, I believe that I've gotten my routine down so I can get everything done in a timely fashion and have time for other projects that I am doing for the company. But that is another ball of wax that I won't go into this time.
The morning routine went well even though I was running 90 minutes late. Thankfully, my yoga for the week is just the tree pose, which is very easy to do. I did skimp a little on my exercise, but I was feeling my age this morning. I will probably do the minimum tomorrow as well, and then I will reset over the weekend and get back into a more rigorous routine.
I had some good conversations at work and I am getting used to the human condition. It has actually been very difficult for me to be around that many live human beings, but I am starting to adjust to it. That is something that I am watching very closely because I really don't like being face-to-face with human beings. Sometimes, it really sucks to be an empath. But I think I have it under control.
The drive home from work was not terrible for a change, and that was good. I held a long conversation with the great blonde one, and she had a lot going on. But this is not a place for rumor, innuendo, and gossip. But I can be a sounding board when I want to. Once I made it home, I found out that Willow had made some excellent ham and cheese sandwiches, which was dinner. I finished the first season of Picard, and then it was time for some virtual reality. I finished up the shooting gallery, got my awards, and some extra cash, and moved into the sewers. The funny thing is, this part of the game is beyond where I had to stop last time because I was not appropriately armed. It's amazing what you can do with a shotgun. At least when you're facing zombies. But I moved to the next level, let the girl get captured like I was supposed to, and completed the next section. Then it was time for bed. Tomorrow is another day.
...by fire.
This is what would qualify as a rough day. It was one thing after another from when I got to work until I got home. It started with a face-to-face interview with one of the drivers about safety issues, continued through a highly aggravated and angry driver who yelled at me for 45 minutes, stepped through a driver who lied to the company about where his home was and was having trouble getting home for a physician's appointment and ended with me driving a truck. They terminated a driver, and I had to return him to the Olive Branch terminal. This is just another day in the life of a driver leader. But everything went smoothly, and for that, I can be thankful. The Dallas crew and the Chattanooga team are out of Memphis, and we are now on our own. But I think we are doing well as a team because we all have our strengths, and we all have our weaknesses, and we share information. They even included us in the national pool, so we are taking calls that are overflowing from other areas. I'm curious to see what that does to our metrics. I left work about 20 minutes early to drive the other driver over to Olive Branch, and then Larry picked me up. That made me about an hour late, but I feel accomplished.
This is a work from a little over two years ago when I first started out. You cannot tell it, but the models are Angelina Jolie and Milla Jovovich. This was when I first played with the modeling program and the new filters in Photoshop. I was originally going to discard this because I didn't like the underlying structure of the faces, but now I have a better understanding of how it happened. The girls' bone structure causes the artificial intelligence to enhance those aspects of the two models. Over the next few days, I will revisit this lesson and see if I can tweak it and give them a more natural look.
This morning, before heading to work, I began setting up my new podcasting equipment. Fortunately, I was able to get everything up and running smoothly after watching a helpful YouTube tutorial on how to operate it. I had initially planned to use the webcam on my laptop for webcasting but quickly discovered that the resolution was too low. As a result, I must replace the camera. However, I have plenty of other tasks to tackle before that becomes a priority, so it's not a big deal.
I was able to set up my gear and complete my morning routine before leaving for work, which was great considering I was already running an hour behind schedule. Despite the delay, I managed to complete all my tasks, and that's what really matters.
The evening was a bit hectic as I got out of work an hour late. I had to Fish Sticks for dinner and had planned to try the virtual reality experience, but I was just too exhausted. Instead, I decided to work on my artwork and ended the day quietly before heading to bed early.
...gotta love it.
It is a weekend, but I still had a little bit of work to do. Thankfully, the only thing I had to do was go over the week and ensure I got everything done. Of course, this is only my second week in this position, so I forgot a thing or two. But I have a list of things to complete when I go in on Monday, so it is all good.
Working through the old lessons is very interesting. Because I was off work today, I had time to do 2 of them; the results are here. These have much more detail than the original works when I first began. Even the picture of the girl in silhouette is more detailed, even though it is minimalistic. I think going through the original lessons to see how I have evolved was a very good idea.
I am unsure if this was a lazy day or not. I had a list of things that I wanted to get done, but I stayed off of that list for the most part. I was able to get a significant portion of the garage taken care of, and I got the pictures taken for the insurance company. But other than that, I sat in the garage work area and worked on my novels while I watched Picard in the background. I cannot tell if this was a productive day or not.
I was still strung out from the week, but by the end of the day, I was feeling much better. I got on the VR system, and made it through two or three chapters are more completed. I was underwhelmed about awakening, so I shifted gears and started working on the last few chapters of my story about the sentient virus. The next thing you know, I was typing the ending, and that was another novel complete except for editing. I have to buckle down and get one of these published, which will probably happen through self-publication on Amazon. But I have to start getting my name out there if I want to do anything with the rest of them. That is a problem for a day that is not today.
Tomorrow, I have to continue working on the garage and get my podcasting and webcasting area set up, and I have some cooking that I want to do. In the morning, I will jump on Amazon and get the stuff to replace a screen, and I will put a leaf blower in the cart for review. The one I have had for years finally bit the bullet and went to that grave leaf blower garden in the sky. At first, I thought it was just the bushings until I took the cover off and found out that the entire thing had collapsed inside. I know that it is ancient, and it just could not handle it anymore.
I was able to get through two lessons for my artwork and five lessons for my French, so I guess the entire day was not wasted. I did not sleep very well last night, and I took two naps during the day. I probably got six hours of sleep between the broken sleep and the naps. I used to be able to do that standing on my head, but not anymore. And I'm back to having strange dreams. I may have to move my mini computer near the bed to play my subliminal music on a timer. I said that it does not bother Laura. But I will give it another week because it is entirely possible that the sleep issues and the dreams are related to stress from the new job. Since that is getting better exponentially, I can deal with it. I want to plan tomorrow for lunches for the week so that I don't have to scramble every morning and figure out what I'm going to do. I found one of my old recipes for Chinese meatballs, and I may try that. But we shall see.
While I was working in the garage, I pulled out the heated lunch box that I used to use on the truck and found out that it was 12 Volt instead of 110. That means that I cannot use it at work, and instead, I will be using the thermos. Of course, I can always take things in leftover containers because we do have a working microwave, thanks to yours truly. It is just too many things to take in at once, so I'm taking them one at a time.
I have not yet decided whether tomorrow will be a day of rest or work. I will decide that in the morning. I do want to finish setting up my broadcast area, and I have about a week and 1/2 to figure out what webcam I want to get. But that requires way too much brain work, and I will put it off till the last minute. But the best way to avoid a trap is to know of its existence, and that's what I'm going to do. But I am hoping by next weekend that, I will have the ability to podcast, and I will set up my first show. I have a few other things that I have to take care of first. We shall see how the week rolls.
...Blues.
Yes, I have the Sunday Blues. But not in that way. I worked on a little reflection of last week and I know I made a few errors, but I think that I can bring them together Monday when I get to work. Every day is a learning experience.
Part of the use of my extra time today was working backward through my lessons. In doing so I realized that my characters don't always match my theme. This was an experiment with saxophone and violin. The base models were Ella Fitzgerald and Ertha Kitt. I like this series.
I did not sleep well, but i did get to take a nap. In the morning I worked on some of my novels, and I got a very good bead on where things stand. I was able to finish the novel about the Super intelligent computer that's going to save the world, and I was able to work through a very significant Photoshop lesson. You can see the results of that above. I took another set of pictures for traveler's insurance and got those over to Brittany for review. I cooked Empress sauce, and beef with broccoli. I worked through another couple of levels of Resident Evil and ended more than 20 sound checks on my new podcasting system. I did not get a demo done today as I had hoped, but that's OK because sometimes the slow hand is victorious. I did take the time to go on to Amazon and put the screen for the front of the house in the cart, as well as the new leaf blower. While I was there, I chose a green screen background set up and a webcam so that I could do webcasting. I will order that stuff over the next couple weeks and then I will be an influencer. Be afraid. It was a long but productive day.
...What a day.
I was highly unprepared for today. We did not have enough coverage due to some outages, so I was covering 48 drivers for more than three hours at one point. And because many of these are new drivers, as in new to the industry itself, there were some serious issues. But we muscled through as a team and got the job done. It was exhausting. I am beginning to wonder if they pay enough for this position. But I will explore that question later.
Today's entry will be very light because it was all work and no play. I woke up close to two hours late this morning and could barely make it through the morning routine, and then it was crazy all day at work. When I got home, I heated up some fish and rice with my Empress sauce and sat and watched Picard while I ate. The excitement for the evening was facing the next boss in Resident Evil, and he kicked my butt. But that's only because I didn't know what had to happen to him. I know now, and I will get him next time. And, of course, Ashley is still kidnapped again. That girl gets in so much trouble. Tomorrow is another day.
...much better now.
I do believe that things have calmed down a little, at least on the work front. Everything went smoothly today, with only a few bumps that I had to climb over, and we kept control of all our drivers at all times. Mark even managed to get that truck recovered, and I was able to put in a travel request and an Uber request back-to-back. I think I may have this. Of course, I'm only at 16 drivers at this point, so I'm half of where I need to be. But all good things will come with time.
When I got up this morning I was running almost two hours behind schedule, so that only left me 45 minutes to get my morning routine done. I had to cut short my yoga and my exercise as well as my meditation. That is something that I will not be doing again because by the end of the day, I was very tightly wound, and that is never a good thing. But since nothing happened in the morning and the day was calm at work, when I got home, I ate dinner, watched Picard, and then spent some time on virtual reality. It was not a bad day, it was just a day.
I did get quite a few compliments on my women of the Blues posting, and even though I really like them, I still think they can be improved. But these things all come with time so I am not going to sweat it.
...and the flow.
I don't particularly appreciate being tested. Especially when it is done clandestinely to prove a point; that is all I will say about the subject. It was a very calm day today. All of my drivers fell into line without a problem, except for a few hiccups here and there; there were no serious issues. I am halfway to the caseload that I am eventually supposed to meet, and I do not believe it is going to be a problem. Time will tell.
I was running almost two hours behind this morning, so I had an extremely rushed morning regiment that tossed off the entire day. Thankfully, work was calm, and I did not have to deal with severe problems besides being tested without my knowledge. But it also made for a highly boring and long day. By the time I got home, I was a little tired, but not nearly as tired as I had been of late. I took advantage of the time and ate dinner slowly, watched another episode of Picard, and then did some extra exercise and meditation instead of virtual reality. I just was not in the mood today. I am sorry that this is such a short entry and that there is no new artwork. Sometimes, you have to step back, and this is one of those times.
...and there are downs.
As the title says, there are ups, and there are downs. And today had both of them, usually back-to-back. I worked very hard with the driver to keep them with the company, and I had another driver think he was Superman and make promises that he could not keep. Of course, Superman went over my head first to my boss and then to my boss's boss. And this is the second time he's done it. I'm getting very sick and tired of people who need a Binky and a diaper, who will not take responsibility for their own actions and then expect somebody else to fix them. But that is my rent for the day and I will move on.
I can look to the horizon and see that the weekend is almost here. And I am ready for it. It has been a very long week. One week from tomorrow, the big fish come in from Chattanooga to see the new terminal. I guess any excuse for a party, but there's not much to see.
There's not much to tell today; I overslept by 90 minutes again, I droned through the day and did my job, and I came home and ate before I went to bed. I'm not sure when I became this boring. But I'm not worried because it's only a slump while I adjust to my new routine. It's only been a couple of weeks. I did not get a chance to jump on virtual reality today because the section I'm on will take quite a while, and I did not have the time. But as long as I get my chores done on Saturday, I will make the time
...is that good or bad?
Some things in life make time pass quickly. Today was one of those events, and it was just the bulk of what was coming across my desk and around me all day. Thankfully, I got into the groove, and I got a rhythm set up where one thing would end, and another one was beginning. It was extremely hectic and I could feel the pressure building, but it never got to a breaking point. It was never overwhelming, and it easily could have been. I got some news at the end of the day, but I cannot share it just yet because I have to see how it plays out. It could be very good or terrible. But since it is perfect for me and very bad for others, I'm going to try to let it go for the weekend and deal with it later.
Late in 2022, I skipped over a week-long lesson in my Photoshop course. It was connecting your created works to an emotional state through meditation. I don't remember why I skipped over it, but I think it made me uncomfortable. It still makes me uncomfortable, but I think the rest of this month will be dedicated to these types of images. And here is the first one. I called this one empathy. This young lady reflects on what she feels around her. And what she feels around her is pain. It's a little dark for going into a weekend, but there it is.
I never really understood the powerful draw of the weekend. But I do now. As the clock clicked toward 5:00, I could feel my mind racing toward nothingness that existed within the scope of the next two days. It is Super Bowl weekend, and I am not watching the Super Bowl. I have absolutely no plans other than doing stuff around the house I'm getting a few things checked off of my list, but nothing that is special. But it is a weekend, and I will take it.
Time is an enemy right now. This morning, I overslept again, and I had to fight to get everything that I had to get done before I left the house. when I got off of work, I was exhausted. I hit the house, ate a meal, watched a show, and went to bed. I believe I had more free time while driving the truck. But it is still good to be home.
...really?
Because it is Saturday, this is a day off. But is it a day off? While doing other things, I spent about 3 hours working on possible scenarios of what could happen on Monday morning and through the entire week as we gear up for our grand opening on Friday. But there are way too many potential scenarios that I cannot develop the top three. I have narrowed it down to about 7, And I have plans for each. But time is the enemy right now, and we shall see what happens.
> The image is one from the archives that I never finished, so I finished it today. I do not remember the original premise, and i do not know where the stairway leads. I will leave that to your imagination.
Plans today were foiled by the weather. It rained for the entire day, and I was not able to get out and test the new leaf blower. Instead, I did almost nothing, which may have been precisely what I needed. I jumped on the virtual reality and got almost to the end of the second to final chapter of my game, and I watched some TV. Recorded TV, of course. I worked on some of my projects and artwork and made plans for tomorrow. I made some meatballs with Chinese sauce, and Laura made a few other meals, so we have some food in the house. This past week was very long; next week will probably be longer. So, a day down was exactly what I may have needed.
...just stay calm.
Once again, even though I have a day off, it really is not an off day. I worked on some of the files I use at work every day, trying to get them in a more usable format. One of my biggest problems with work is that we use so many different programs from many different sources that there are multiple paths to get to each destination. While this may be good for an adventurer, it makes it very difficult in logistics, especially when you are training other people to do this. And tomorrow, we shall see what happens with the uprising of this system. Cue the drama queen music.
> Today, I felt the need to get my witch on. I grabbed one of the old lessons, continued on my black-and-white journey, and found this little gem almost complete. I just had to put in a facial expression, and it was done.
Tomorrow is Monday, but I do not have to worry about that today, because it is not Monday. I hit the ground running and got a significant amount of stuff done, including fixing the screen for the front of the house, ordering my green screen for my webcasting, and doing more cleaning in the garage. I also worked on my novels and my artwork and got to die several dozen times in Resident Evil. By the end of the day, I was aggravated but not frustrated, and I looked up the cutscene from the current chapter and found out that I was hitting the wrong button. Tomorrow, I Will Survive. That is assuming that I survive work to get back to the game.
On a less pleasant note, my tooth is acting up. It is making it difficult to sleep, and that is not a good thing. I will give it until Tuesday, and if it has not calmed down, it will be time to call the dentist. I also have a referral for this, but a surgical extraction does not sound fun. We shall see what the gods are bringing to me this week.
...hectic, but fine.
I am glad that I did not get myself all worked up over work for this week because everything was just fine. The rogue element has calmed down, and we'll be sticking to its outcome and aside from a few people that called out for the day, everything went like clockwork. I do have one driver who is being pulled into one of the terminals to be suspended for safety reasons, and I'm going to lose no sleep over this because I have coached him repeatedly, and he felt that I was micromanaging him. While this may have been true, he did need it. And when it stops, we see the result. I also got a visit from one of my drivers, and she sang my praises to the high heavens and to everybody in the building. She's a brand new driver and got stuck in New Jersey in a place that no truck should ever be and I talked her through it. I think she will be a good driver in the end. The entire day was a series of fighting fires, figuratively, not literally, and the day passed by quickly.
> Every week, I can receive free stuff from many of the programs that I use. I tried to remember to do these downloads because they expire at the end of each week, and for the most part, they have been touch and go. However, this week, I got a new wireframe, a new skin, a couple of new backgrounds, and some new outfits for space girls. This image is brand new and took under 20 minutes to create. It is all generic, stock items, down to the facial features. I'm not sure if I like this or not, because it doesn't have any of me in it. But I put it here for you to judge and I will look at it again later.
The most significant thing about today was my tooth. It is still acting up and it hurts like hell. But I muscled through it for the day. I got up so late that I did not have time to update the blog for yesterday, and I had to cut short my morning routine. That is never good on a Monday morning. But I pushed through and made it to work on time, and started the day. The day was pretty much commonplace and I came home and blew through the level that I could not beat on Resident Evil and made myself breakfast for dinner. I put together this piece of artwork that you see above and then it was time for bed. What a boring day.
...no, not that much!
It was a very interesting day. Two drivers were terminated from my team for different reasons, and six drivers were added to my team. Add to that the fact that one of my new drivers got trapped in a swamp and had to wiggle her way out, and that just rounded off the day. It did not help that I was not feeling well, but that is down in the personal section and you will get to read about that in a few minutes.
> I think that I am running down on my art classes for now. I am very much enjoying digital art, but my ideas are running low. I am working on some old ideas, but nothing new is coming out. Today is the exception. This doorway is an old piece of digital art, but I went looking for it. I was reworking some of my old audiobooks, and I came across The Dark Tower by Stephen King. And it reminded me of the doorways. That's what I was reading when I designed this quite a while ago. I pulled it in and finished it up, and I realized that I only had about a dozen more unfinished works. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about that.
The Highlight for today is pain. I overslept, and i was a bit rushed in the morning, but I got everything done. There was not a whole lot to take for lunch, but that is OK because it is difficult to eat right now. The pain in my tooth has moved to a solid 8 on the pain scale, and it does not matter what kind of painkillers I take, it stays there. To complete the problem, it is constant. I did call a couple of dental surgeons, but all of them have to get back to me. It makes me wonder if there isn't a problem with dental society that they are that understaffed or overworked. When you add to that the fact that they are overpriced, it does not make for a happy time, especially when you are in significant pain. The one that I was referred to in Cordova said that they would call me back within 24 hours. That was as of 10:00 this morning. I need a resolution to this. It encompassed my entire day.
...but productive.
I had to leave work early today for a dental appointment, but the day was productive. Most of my drivers are in line, and there are no severe issues going on and tomorrow I'm going to get them planned out for the weekend so nobody is sitting. At least, that is the hope. I have to find a way to bring the planners online and get them to keep my people rolling. But we shall see what happens. It is just two more days until the big bash to open the Memphis office officially, and we are not ready for it.
> Because of my tooth pain, my mind goes to a very dark place, and I pulled up this old image I created in January of last year when we were studying the horror genre concerning digital art. I do not particularly like this one, but I do like the composition. It was originally in color and I took it to a full black and white scene because it looks more dramatic that way.
This week is taking so long to pass, but I believe that has something to do with the amount of pain that I am in from this tooth that is causing me problems. But I did get a partial resolution to that issue today. After several failed calls to oral surgeons throughout the Memphis demographic, I contacted a place in Cordova. They kept the office open for me late this evening so that I could get in and have my tooth looked at. It is an Abscess that is causing the problem. The doctor was confident he could pull it immediately using the local anesthetic. But he was compassionate enough to consider my fear and anxiety of the dental work. Instead of just reaching in and yanking it out, I have an appointment scheduled for Monday, and before I go, I will be taking Xanax. Then I will have two more of them when I get there. Right now, the dentist does not have access to nitrous oxide, and Xanax is the next best thing. I should fly high for at least an hour while he pulls the tooth. He got me out of pain and gave me a prescription for antibiotics that I could take before the appointment. And that should take care of that problem. I miss the excitement of being on the road. But only sometimes.
...Lilith help me.
They have started to arrive. Our out-of-town visitors started to roll in today, and most of them stayed over at the hotel. One of our drivers showed up and the director of driver retention showed up. But other than that, it was a very calm day. I did have a little bit of trouble with one of my drivers and him trying to quit. I cannot allow that, so I have him coming through Memphis tomorrow. I will get this to work. Tomorrow we have our big soiree, and we will see what happens from there.
Archives are getting a little slim, but here is one of the last few that I have. I just had to finish out the eyes and mouth and here is the end result. I think this project was about surviving the end of the world, but I can't remember.
The end of the week is quickly approaching, and I am looking forward to it. There's not much to say about today because I woke up late, I worked all day, and then I stood in the line for almost 40 minutes at the Walmart pharmacy to get my medication for my tooth. I have to give the pharmacist credit though, she was really looking out for me. The reason it took so long is that I need amoxicillin. However it is a matter of record that I am allergic to penicillin. Since they are in the same family, the pharmacist held the order until they could talk to me. Kudos to Walmart. Other than that, it was an extremely boring day. I do not believe I will be able to save that tomorrow, but for now, that's the way it is.
...nope, blurry.
The focus for today was work, and it was hell. We had our out-of-town visitors in today, and it was not nearly the brouhaha that everybody said it was going to be. I was expecting dozens of people, and only a few showed up. But we got through the day; we had a cute little lunch, and they wanted to see drivers enter the terminal, so a couple of mine did just that. It was a very unproductive day, and toward the end of the day, things got very bad for one of my drivers, and I do not think I will be able to keep her. But that is internal information, and I will not be putting any details here. I did wind up staying about 1/2 an hour late to finish that up, and then I did the handoff to after-hours coverage. I'm not feeling terrific about today, and I will only be working 1/2 a day on Monday because I have to go to the dentist. Next week is going to be very long.
> We have a modified photograph today. I took this picture last year or the year before in Pennsylvania. I was on a 34-hour break in a little, no-name truck stop. And I wanted to go wandering. As you can see, it is not just photography. But all I did on this photograph, imported to Photoshop, was adjust the histogram and the saturation. I actually think this one might make a good print. But now I know how to use the histogram.
Because of the extremely long day and getting up late, there was almost nothing in my personal life. Even with the weekend off ahead of me, I came home exhausted and went right to bed. Hopefully, it will be an awesome weekend, because next week is going to suck. But that is a problem for a time that is not now.
...for good or bad.
The weekend is here, and I should not have a focus on work, but I do. I spent about two hours putting together a list of things that I need to get done in this coming week because, in this position, things can quickly go out of control. And they are teetering on that edge. Once they go out of control, it will be challenging for me to rein them back in. So I have to make sure that that does not happen. Thankfully, since I had time to breathe today, I could identify most of the sticking points, and I think I can bring them together. I am up to 22 drivers now, so there are only eight more to go, and I will be at capacity. My coworkers are doing about the same.
> This is a new piece. This is part of my meditation, and it is a self-reflection of myself and my current state. I did this as part of my self-analysis, and I am unsure if it was helpful. It is made from a heavily manipulated photograph of myself. But realism was not the goal; I was trying to see the inner self. In doing so, I can identify my flaws and the dichotomy within me. There is some serious symbolism at work here. Most notable is a four-way split. Not only do you have the main, forward-facing image of myself, with a monkey on my back, but you will also see a split from left to right. I believe that this represents some of the frustrations that I have been having trouble bringing to bear. But now that I have a visual representation of what I see as my superego, I can beat it with a stick. I will revisit this exercise on the ides of March and see if it has improved. Time will tell.
Today, I'm going to do an entry that will be a lot shorter than it could be because there are some things that just do not need to be addressed. I woke up in a terrible mood, and it took almost 3 hours to get out. During this process, I got a cramp in my big toe, a double Charlie horse, and other pains in areas that are unmentionable. I could also not get warm, and that started to annoy me. I managed to fight myself up the ladder and get to a decent place, and then all hell broke loose. I spent the rest of the day battling inner demons, but by the end of the day, I was not back in a positive place, but I was in a neutral place, and I will take that. We are all allowed to have a bad day, and this was one of them.
Because of the negative headspace, I could not get my list done for the day, which could have tossed me back into a very bad place, but a late-day meditation, and I was able to put it in perspective. I did get up into the attic and cleaned that out. I also got part of the garage done so that once I get the rest of my equipment, I can start my new hobby and tell the world what I think. I do that already on social media, but I will expand that footprint. I jumped on my game on the VR, but that did not go well at all. I have a new computer to play with, and I put about 8 hours into it, but I got nowhere. I just could not get things to come together. And then the day was at an end. With a little bit of luck, tomorrow I will be able to get back on track.
...some play.
The only thing that I had to do for work today was think about it. I have a pretty good plan in place for what to do tomorrow morning so that I can get everything done before I go to my dentist appointment afternoon. Now all that I need is for work to cooperate. But i will not find that out until tomorrow.
> I spend a lot of time on the female form. I like women, I do not deny this. But once in a while, I have to move my mind and my pen toward the masculine. Today, I had a lot of time on my hands, so I concentrated on the masculine and zombies. Here is both.
Today, they had to get out of a very negative mood from yesterday, and i think i managed it for the most part. I'm still carrying an extremely high degree of frustration, but i have been able to suppress it. There is nothing that I can do about it, so it has come down to acceptance. There is no monster to fight our challenge to overcome. It just is. On top of that, I have to keep myself in a positive state of mind for my dental visit tomorrow so that I can get this over with. There is not a whole lot that can scare me in this world, but a visit to the dental chair is one of them. So if you ever want to kidnap and torture me, there you go. But I did get a lot done. I set up my podcasting and webcasting area and even installed my green screen. I continued with the garage cleaning adventure, and I tried to do the leaf blowing in the backyard. Sadly everything is still too soggy, so that's going to have to wait. Tomorrow, they have half a day at work and then I go to the dentist. While i'm doing that, the wife is supposed to be setting up the fence repair in doing a couple other things. We shall see how this week turns out.
...but not for play.
Today was a day for a whirlwind at work. They arrived about 90 minutes early and I sat down and started tearing through the stuff that was behind. It took me until down to the minute when I left, but I think I got everything cleared out. And there was a lot of it. But I think it's all good and I think things are back on track. That is what counts. I was out the door at 12 noon exactly and on my way to the next adventure.
Of course, I put a picture of a male up and people have to ask me why I don't do animals. I tell you, my admirers, what a group. But to pacify Renna, Michelle, Michael, and Julia, you may have a cat. And don't think you pressured me into this, because you didn't. I did this cat as part of the domestic animals course in the middle of 2022. This is by far, the best one.
Looking at the title of this paragraph, you would think that I am out to storm the beaches of Normandy. But that is not the case. The mentioned letter stands for the dentist. I would never compare my ordeal to the deaths that occurred in Normandy, and I will abscond the name. I blew through work and was out right on time and that gave me plenty of time to meditate before I went over to the dentist. I was on generic Xanax, so my son was nice enough to take me over, and doctor Mo did an excellent job. I think that I was in and out of there in under an hour, but I can't really be sure because time was all weird. I got out of there and came home and ate mashed potatoes and broth and then went straight to bed. I was asleep before the anesthesia wore off. I am pretty sure that is a good thing. Tomorrow is another day.
...no, really.
We had a visitor in from Chattanooga today, and I got into work early, ended my Morning, and said that I could try and keep caught up. I was not feeling great, and for half of the day, I was feeling a little off. I was just exhausted beyond compare. Fun stuff. Then I pushed through the day, and I think I got everything done, and tomorrow will be another day. Hopefully, I will feel better.
The Pain in my tooth continues even though it is no longer there. But that is to be expected because I had a tooth yanked out of the bone, and it will take a little while for my body to adjust to that. It was a fight all day at work to stay awake with the medication, and I was just beyond exhausted most of the day. But I did work through quite a few things, and I think I did OK at work. Tomorrow is going to be the big test, but I can't worry about that tomorrow. When I hit the house in the evening, I ate some mashed potatoes and beans and went to bed. I can feel the screaming meanies at the edge of my psyche, and I am hoping that they do not follow me into tomorrow. I believed that I was going to get through this without a psychological repercussion, but if today is any hint at what lay ahead, it may be an annoying Rd. Time will tell period
...out of the woods.
I only did half a day of work today because I looked like death in a microwave. I could not concentrate and was going back and forth between sweating and freezing. It did not make for a positive workplace environment. So I did about 1/2 of a day and headed home.
When I got home, I did something that I have not done in years. I slept for 15 hours. I hit the house, 8 something that i do not remember, and went to sleep. And the fact that I was able to stay down for 15 hours says that I must have needed it. It makes for a very boring blog entry, but hopefully it means that i am on the mend.
...getting there.
Today was a little better, and at least I was able to keep my concentration for most of the day, and that is something new for the week. Except for one or two-speed bumps, things went like clockwork for most of the day. I still have a few drivers that are giving me issues, but for the most part, the entire team is coming in line. I will take it. Now, all I have to do is weed out these problem children and either bring them into line or get rid of them. Obviously the former is the desired action, but I am growing that hard shell. It's all good. Just one more day to go, and the week is over.
I received a call early this morning asking if the fence company could come early and do the tear-down. I did not even think about it and said yes. Not only did they make the teardown, but they got the fence back up. It looks pretty good. That was the high point of the day because when I got out of work I was exhausted and I hit the house, ate dinner come, and went right to bed. I'm still feeling a little under the weather, to the point that I don't even feel like doing my art, or anything else for that matter. I'm slipping down into that Gray area, and I have to deal with this this weekend. I cannot afford that, so I have to find a way to take care of it. I just have no idea what way to go with it.
...But only the end of the week.
Work was a series of ups and downs today. There were times throughout the day when everybody was busy and working on challenging projects, and there were other times when we were all sitting there staring at each other, waiting for something to happen. Unfortunately, there was no middle ground. It was always feast or famine. We were waiting, near the end of the day, for that one crazy call to come in that would take a long time just as the day was ending. Thankfully, that did not happen, and it was time to go home.
A few people have noticed the missing artwork from the past couple of days, and sadly, I'm not sure when it will come back. Most of my energy right now is being put into remaining stable. A lot is going on, requiring a significant amount of concentration. This is especially true because of the five days a week when I get up, go to work, come home, and go to sleep. Comparing being a driver leader to being a driver, I would have to say that a driver leader is a more difficult position. But it does make me look forward to the weekend, which starts tomorrow. And I have big plans for tomorrow, so hopefully, they will come through.
...still, something.
It is a weekend so I did not have to go into the office, but that does not mean that there was nothing to do. I took about an hour and went over my notes from the week and I do not believe that I've forgotten anything. If that is true, then next week should start out OK. If I did miss something, then that could be another problem. I guess we will find out Monday.
Saturday did not go nearly as planned. I hoped to wake up full of energy and ready to face the day. Instead, I woke up, jumped out of bed, and immediately fell to my knees. That is not a very good way to start the day. I have a series of muscles that are giving me a hard time, and unfortunately, the ability to fix the problem is outside of my reach, so I have to deal with it. In this case, I just went back to bed. But it made for an agonizing and miserable day, and I could not get too many things checked off of my list. It has me in a bit of a negative mental spiral, and using meditation, yoga, and exercise, is only holding it at bay, not resolving the issue.
When I finally did get out of bed, we were able to get the spark over to the Chevrolet dealer so that it could be repaired. We stopped at Sam's Club and picked up some staple goods for the house, and then we went over and picked up the rental car for the week so that the wife would not put out all week, juggling vehicles to make it to her commitments. It's all good.
As noon rolled around, I felt worse, so I wrote off the day and sat like a bump on a log. I will regret this tomorrow deeply, but for today, it was the best course of action. Tomorrow is another day, and with a little bit of luck, I can grab it by the horns.
...a productive day.
I kicked butt with the day, and I started with work. I got all my ducks in a row of things that need to be done, so when Monday morning rolls around tomorrow, I will be good to go. And I used that as a jumping point for the day. I'm going to have to remember that trick.
As I'm sure you have noticed, I have backed off my artwork for a while. Because of some personal issues, and some time constraints, I do not know when or if I will get back to them. But you will be the first to know if you keep following along. Unfortunately, the same may be said for my writing. Until issues are resolved, I may put it all on the back burner and concentrate on other things.
Yesterday was horrible. The last two weekends were awful. They were not horrible because of anything that happened but by things that did not. In short, they have been sitting on my ass every weekend and doing nothing. That changed today. I recognize that I am in a negative headspace, and I've been in one for a while. I know the causality; I know multiple answers. And they sit and stare at a wall. No more.
I have some physical ailments, and I had to deal with them, but I found an excellent technique that is quite painful but it is highly effective. And that was the beginning of the new journey for today. Once I took care of that, I attacked the garage like a force of nature. I was able to get the entire thing out in my exercise machines cleared and cleaned, and I even spent an hour using them. Then I turned my attention to the kitchen and cooked two meals. I did some writing, I wanted to work on some artwork, but I did not have the creative muse, and then I attacked the backyard. Four large bundles of sticks needed disposal, and three of them no longer existed. I sat down and burned them all, paying homage to Lilith. If you want the gods to answer, sometimes you must call them. While doing my ritual burn, Rowan told me that the Keurig had stopped working. When I came inside, I double-checked it, and indeed it had stopped working. Normally, I would leave something like this for Laura because she has all the information, but I went off intuition. I looked at what it was doing and realized that the bottom nozzle was jammed. I took it apart, cleaned it, and put it back together, and it was all good.
I asked Willow to help get me a treat with everything I accomplished. I have been getting very aggravated with my game on virtual reality. But it's only because I cannot get the rhythm down. And I am repeating the exact same mistake over and over again. So Willow grabbed me a new game that is still a zombie shooter, but a little more structured and cartoonish. It's a two-part game, including one where you defend the house. I played it for about an hour, which was a lot of fun. That being done, it was time for dinner and bed. Tomorrow is another day.
...New Week.
Diving back into a new week was a bit rough. The extended coverage team did a pretty good job of keeping things in line, but there was still a lot of cleanup and many drivers sitting. This is one of the problems that is becoming an issue with the job. One of the tasks we are given is that a significant portion of our job is dedicated to driver retention. However, we constantly have drivers that are sitting on their butts doing nothing because there are no loads in the area in which they are. If they have to sit for 24 hours, we give them $100, but that is a pittance compared to what they could make if they were moving. It is not conducive to retention. For some reason, they do not see this, and I do not understand.
As I re-enter into a new week, things are getting boring again. I was up on time and I was able to do my morning things. However, I had no urge to do any of my creative ventures because my energies are focused elsewhere. It is making me sad, but I will get over it. I got through my morning routine, and then I got through the work day. By the time I reached the house, I was exhausted and went right to bed after dinner. I am becoming a very boring person.
...forging ahead.
As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I shall fear no evil. But that is only because I am the meanest thing in the valley. I have no idea why that jumped into my head today, but there it is. I think that it might be. After all, I am growing that crust over my empathy when it comes to these drivers because I see the ones trying to take advantage. I feel like a pig with truffles because I can see them coming a mile away. And since the drivers are aware that we are focusing on retention, they believe that all they have to do is indicate that they might move on to another company, and we are supposed to kiss their asses. If anything costs me my job, it will be this, I will stand my ground.
I was up late this morning, so I got a late start, and I pretty much dragged through most of the day. But since it was all work and no play, that is fine. I got a bit of a second wind when I got home, and I could eat some fish patties and then play my new zombie game for a while. It is a pretty good game, and it is primarily a stand-up shooter. It has about half a dozen different scenarios, as well as a story-based, multi-user capability. I don't want to get into the multi-user junk, but the story-based part is fun.
...should be Friday.
These weeks at work are getting longer and longer. There is a lot going on and there is a lot that could easily make the job more viable, but I don't even have time to write these down because it is one thing after another. For most of this week already I have been handling more than 100 drivers which is triple what my workload is supposed to be. And I am having trouble keeping up. Granted, I am doing much better than anybody expected, but that does not help. My personal metrics are off the hook, and nobody can say a word about that, but I am also bringing up the site metrics along with everybody else. I am taking primary watch on multiple fleets and everybody else is taking secondary watch and backing me up. We should not be able to do this until well after our first year. And I admit that it is starting to put a bit of a strain on my mental state.
My day has become quite a bit of an obstacle. I am oversleeping, which limits my morning routine, and then I get home and I want to go right to bed. I am forcing myself to eat dinner and then play my game before I slip into the land of Morpheus. But this is not the way it was supposed to be. Something is going to give. I am just not sure what that something is going to be.
...soon, another month.
Last day of the month and only one more day in the week, and i am exhausted. The entire team is working against the wall because we are running a minimum of two people down every day. We are not sure if we are getting one of them back and that's going to make things very interesting. For the most part, the drivers are OK, but each team has three or four that are problematic. And we all use our different expertise to try and bring things into line, but sometimes it just does not work. It is exhausting. I really have to sit down and figure out if they are paying enough for this job. And part of the issue is the technology and the fact that it is not written properly for what we do. But nobody seems to want to do anything about that and they just want to roll with the status quo.
Once again, the personal life is on the back burner because of work. Even though it is only a 10 hour work day, which is manageable, there is a significant amount of time that is put into that 10 hours that makes it almost impossible to do anything from a personal level each day. We are only a little over 10 months into this launch, including training, but it's already becoming unmanageable. Everyone is complaining about personal time, and some people have gotten to the point where they're taking time off. As far as me personally, I am sleeping too much and by the time I get home I don't even want to read my e-mail. Something's going to have to give soon.