Author: sean

After the past few days’ marathons, back to the disturbing dreams. Yes, it’s on the to-talk-about-list with my psychologist when I see her next.

I couldn’t resist writing that down, and it ended up with me being awake for several hours.

But it was something so, um, noteworthy, that I had to get it down for memory.

From this day in 2001….

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Cat Mutilations
Heard about it on Dreamland the other night. I suppose the aliens have gotten bored with cows.

This weekend was a loser. Friday night was beer and burgers at the pub. Saturday night was tequila and wings in Norfolk. Had a hangover on Sunday and I didn’t even get drunk. How much does that suck?

Anyone heard “Clint Eastwood,” by Gorrilaz? I’m not sure I get it. Is it like a white-boy takeoff on Puffy? What is with these people?

My annoyance has once again delayed his departure. He was supposed to be gone this past Monday. Now it’s wednesday night at the earliest. And he’s got company until he leaves. Wonderful.

It’s 4:35, and I’ve been here since 7:30 last night.

I need to find something fun to do tonight.

Or else.

Bleh.

Work.

At this moment, I have absolutely no motivation to do anything, yet my productivity at work tonight has been stunning. I’ve said that I’d be totally unproductive and I wouldn’t care about anything if I had a girlfriend…but I feel totally unproductive and don’t care about anything while I’m single. Yet I get things done. Explain that one.

Want a laptop, damnit. I’m wondering if I’ll get anything for my birthday. Maybe a stripper. No, I take that back. Don’t need to deal with the ex on my birthday. For those of you who care, that’s a week from tomorrow.

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Even back then I was working. I really don’t know that I’ve had a period where I just didn’t do anything for a long time.

Oh well.

My brain is always plugging away at things.

That is a problem.

Write about getting lost and finding an alternative way – it can be literal or metaphorical

This kinda fits in with some of the strange drams I’ve had in the past few months….being stuck in a place, not being able to find a way out, and running out of the energy to search for new ways.

But when can I take a break to get away from everything? I have the financial means, but there’s still responsibilities I can’t bring myself to shirk.

Maybe that should be my focus for a while?

Next milepost is next May, I guess. Keep chugging until then.

Another incredibly long day that involved a trip to Amazoniaville.

Strange being in the same area where you used to work, trying to get your bearings.

But it’s done. I might can have a couple of days off, finally.

I tried to revisit old entries to find something to tackle.

5. What is the ugliest name?
Hortense.

I think I probably still agree with that from April 2004.

Reading through those, however, I find that there’s still agree with.

Makes me think of Chomsky’s creationist generative grammar. There is something innate in reactions to certain things….and I don’t know that you can ever change those reactions.

Even if mores have changed.

Another from Tracker…

“Wow, I didn’t know you could do that with chapstick!”

I don’t wanna write about that. But there were garment removals later, if memory serves.

I’m stuffed with aromatic Indian food, and not really paying attention.

But I’m generally felling accomplished.

And I’ve worked all the hours I was supposed to for the pay period. I’ll probably end up doing a lot more, but whatever.

Freewrite

Well, yet another one.

I’m waiting for my doctor to get on the camera for my telehealth visit. She’s clearly running behind.

But I was running around this morning. It went somewhat well, but there’s more I have to do tomorrow.

Progress on fixing the immediate difficulties. Unfortunately, it’ll only push me until next spring.

But it’s something, I suppose.

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And disrupted by her finally getting on. She’s happy with the MRI results, so that’s a relief. I can also take ibuprofen, which the drugmaker was kind of pushing me away from, so that should make me feel a bit better.

Am I really two-thirds of the way through this streak?

Yep.

Another frenetic day awaits. Then maybe some relief for the weekend.

Another day so busy. I think they want me to run all over the place tomorrow. I will sign on early in the morning, and go from there. I do need to be home in the afternoon so I can meet with my neurologist.

Yesterday’s shot wasn’t terrible. I guess that I was going to sleep just as I really started feeling lousy. Wasn’t great when I woke up, but I did pretty much sleep through the night.

Work today, on the other hand, was exhausting again. Fingers crossed that I can get things finished so I can take a couple of days off to start next week.

But this whole thing has had me feeling a little proud of myself. I kept my word to the guy who hired me, despite odd recruiter calls for a good long time.

I really suck at patting myself on the back. Another of the many things where I’m not great.

Whatever.

I’m not embarrassed by anything I’ve done.

Free-write tomorrow for the two-thirds mark.

Another incredibly busy day that’s really prevented me from thinking about or doing anything other than work.

Another day. More forms. More actual trips I really have to take by the end of the week.

I was actually really nervous about taking my injection tonight.

I told my neurologist about it, and have a virtual appointment with her on Thursday.

Another in-personal appointment for something else tomorrow.

Ugh.

But I feel like I’m scrambling, and really getting things done with work.

Let’s see what happens.

Villagers awake to find that a strange well has appeared in the center of town.

I really don’t know what a well here in Alexandria would produce. Lots of dirty DC and MDDR ground water seeping in?

Got through the nighttime shift. OMFG.

Maybe I’ll get some more substantive writing this weekend.

I checked some of my writing on this day from years ago….

Writing about the operation for CCSVI.

I stumbled across The Bear. I really wasn’t that intrigued until I heard Peter Superman recommend it. His previous of The Silo was very well-received at home. Just sitting watching TV with my wife is enjoyable.

Thank you to Tracker for the prompts. They’re coming in handy.

Your worst haircut.

Oh, I don’t really know. A significant part of my head hair is gone courtesy my genetics.

I’ve taken to pretty much doing a clipper cut, and that gets progressively shorter.

But I figured by this far into my forties, a significant portion of it would be gray. I also presumed I’d be able to grow a full beard by now.

So much for either of those.

Otherwise, I think I’ve really been taking it easy this weekend.

Long week ahead.

So much sleep. Finally.

I had led that with a four-letter initialism that contained a profanity I’m trying to cut out. *deleted*

No, I’m not offended by the naughty language.

But keeping a clean vocabulary helps with other things.

Don’t bite my nails. Don say #$@ethan

Both require similar levels of discipline.

~Make up a good excuse for missing a deadline at work.

As I’m writing on a Saturday afternoon after doing several hours of work to try to complete stuff that I’d promised months ago, but wasn’t able to finish due to other obligations…..

I am so exhausted. After odd sleep last night, I ended up finally falling back to sleep, and ended up asleep until like 1100.

This week portends to be similarly-busy. I’m hoping that the Tuesday injection doesn’t mess me up as bad as the one this week did.

Time to do fantasy league setup….pfft

Yeah, I’m so busy I really am not having time to devote to this, but I am dedicated.

Just the act of plunking away helps recenter me, maybe?

Watching news about the severe weather. Looks like the Beltway Swamp is pretty calm.

I need to get with the guy, who I think I was supposed to replace, tries to fit in with his new role working with my company. Sounds like he’s kind of acclimating to the climate, but, I think it’s a bit of a culture shock.

I’m here to help, even though I’m so busy, and I really wasn’t happy with some of the things they’d been doing.

The company is the spin-off of a company I have experience with. When a proposal I helped write in about 201s beat their former company, protested the award. The company I was helpihg had a policy of not participating in protest recompense. The old company ended up prevailing in the protest….by just cutting salaries by 25% across-the-board and rebidding.

This would have been early in the days of converting almost everybody to a subcontractor.

Double-whammy from both the Patient Protection & Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as “Obamacare”), and general cuts to industry spending.

Your employer has to offer every employee an opportunity to buy very expensive care.

So you don’t have many full-time employees; nearly everybody is a subcontractor.

Not only do subcontractors end up paying the full premium, a lot of the anciallary benefits you’d expect as a full-time employee go away.

Say goodbye to that cafeteria legal plan.

He’s working with one of the little companies that formed after all of that….and is probably happy considering the raw deal he’s been getting for the last few years.

What else?

Prompt: A sudden sinkhole swallows one corner of a house, exposing a secret room where a crime might have been committed.

Given that I live in Alexandria, it’d likely be something from the Civil War, or the glory days of Byrd Organization Virginia.

But I’m pretty sure there’s nothing that’d be revealed. The building we’re in is largely improved land for the railroad tracks across the back of the complex that have been there since probably about 1840.

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I missed the Hall of Fame game last night. Too busy. And I don’t really care about the teams who played. Not that you’d see much with the truncated regular season.

Think we’ll do draft Sunday before Labor Day.

.

Speaking of that, sorta back to needing to burn leave. Friday before scheduled for off. My birthday, too.

Still looking at a long time in the fall.

I had to resurrect my Ticketmaster account to see if I could get Tay-tay tix for my wife. Yes, this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re married to a Millenial girl…..but we can fly to NOLA. It’d pretty much be our anniversary week, anyway.

I really need to find more prompts, still.

So. Busy.

I am so incredibly busy that I can’t see straight.

Thankfully, I feel a ton better today than I did yesterday.

So many forms to fill out because I’m being asked to fill in on positions for people who’ve yet to be hired.

I have been looking back over old entries, however.

Something I put up on OD from some other site people tried to which others tried to migrate in 2002:

Read a promotional book sent to the station last night while I waited on Debian to finish downloading (building a small server to act as an Appletalk to windoze gateway)….

The Internet connection at the stations wasn’t great, but it was certainly better than the dial-up I had at home. Assuming everything worked, I could download the installation ISO in the first part of my shift, and burn it to a CD-R before the end of my shift.

I did this stuff at work because the Intertubes connection was quick for the time, and the CD-Rs were kinda-sorta free out of the production studios at the station.

If memory serves, the stations had something like an 80KBps fractional T-1 connection.

Certainly better than my 3.3Kbps home connection.

*checks old ISP address*

Hmmm… can’t reach this page

They were absolutely awesome from their founding in like 1996.

*looks up the WHOIS data*

Ties to some other one-off Intertubes provider. Opening that provider’s page shows some generic portal stuff.

Being a nerd is disappointing.

So, too, was diving back through old email to find my Ticketmaster login to try to buy Taylor Swift tickets for my wife.

Uses the email address I stopped using in, uhhh, probably 2004.

No, I’m not that interested. But she is, and it’d be an excuse to go to New Orleans. Concert(s) are a couple of weeks after our anniversary; why not?