Category: NoJoMo

Halfway

Today’s been the first day where what I’m going to write about really didn’t float through my brain throughout the day.

Busy as hell.

But I think there’s some movement on the idea I had about what to do with the empty house.

It’s cold and nasty out here in the Beltway Swamp.

But the Red^H^H^HFoo^H^H^HCommanders beat the Iggles last night, which was nice.

The election’s still not sorted out, officially, but things look pretty much resolved.

The GenXer in me says, “let it all fall apart.”

But where I am with so many things, now, is getting rid of any sort of obfuscation. One of the news stories on the TV was about a five-year-old who got off at the wrong bus stop.

The mother, and the “community members” were upset about two things:

1. The driver hadn’t been punished publicly, and;
2. There’s no people on board minding the kids more closely.

Or, to restate, we’re upset that the driver’s life wasn’t ruined, and that there’s not more unfilled jobs for people on busses.

They never say the quiet part aloud. I initially typed, “here,” but it’s true all over. The officiousness, sure, is more pronounced here, but what can you say?

It takes a lot to get the fuck over yourself when it comes to that sort of things. I know it was something that was really holding me back, professionally, for a long time.

I’d say, no, I’m not allowed to do that.

But I so dislike failing, I look for reasons why I’m prohibited from doing whatever was asked, then failing.

Maybe it’s a personality flaw.

Back at it tomorrow. I am so not ready for Thanksgiving. I also ended up not taking as much PTO as I’d intended. *shrug*

It’s just there on paper.

2022 Football So Far

Wow. I don’t know.

The Saints have problems on offense. The For(mer)skinsCommanders aren’t playing horrible ball, now, that the offense is playing more consistent ball. Both teams are pretty much doing a 4-2-5 scheme on defense. Tampa and Green Bay are doing a weird like 2-4-5 thing.

At the same time, maybe some rule changes have changed up the things that had really changed everything to straight man-to-man defense.

Simultaneously, after a few weeks of people trying to figure out what’s going on, there’s been a return to classic football.

Moose Johnston, a fullback who led E. Smith for many years with the Cowboys, is enjoying the hell out of a return to more old school football.

There was something I was watching that actually had pulling linemen as opposed to the weird slide blocking only.

The rule changes surrounding the kicking game and overtime work well for the most part. I still think that the touchback should be the same for punts and other turnovers. Want it to be on the 25? Okay. It’s the 25 everywhere.

There’s a Commanders game tonight. Unfortunately, I’m going to miss a significant portion because I have to work. Pffft.

Halfway point tomorrow.

Luckiest number; just about perfect for the topic.

Travel Recap

Wednesday — I worked about an hour early in the morning, just making sure things were running correctly. No issues, so finish up packing, and wait for my wife to get home to take me to the train station; thank you.

When I got to the station, I was a tad earlier than I’d planned. It wasn’t very cold, the vintage booths inside the station are incredibly uncomfortable, so I’ll just go sit on one of the many benches on the platform and wait. Fine. Whatever.

So I plopped my perpetually-numb derriere on the plastic-rubber-coated steel mesh bench….and slid right off. A nice gentleman who was waiting for the train to Norfolk, and who I’ve not yet emailed, helped me up. I could tell there’d be bruising, maybe a scrape on one of my legs, but everything seemed to be sort of working; I’m fine. I just emailed him this morning, taking a break from writing this, and I feel a bit about that.

I spoke to the man who’d helped me up about how I’d gotten to the Beltway Swamp permanently from where he was. Good conversation. I finally got around to emailing him this morning.

The car attendant helped me get the chairs reconfigured to a bed, and I was able to stretch out and sleep.

Thursday — The train trip was rather uneventful, but I was a bit uncomfortable on the ride. Meals were still odd from COVID adjustments. You’re still eating in your roomette/room, which isn’t exactly ideal; I kind of would like to go to the dining car. When my wife and I went to New Orleans on our honeymoon, we had some good discussions with other couples who got seated in the same booth.

When I got to Hattiesburg, I was missing something that I’d thought I’d used in the car. Nope. Can’t find it. Whatever. It cost probably thirty bucks; I’m not going to spend too much time looking. My aunt, and another family member picked me up at the station, and we went to my mom’s house.

It was dark, but at least the electricity was on. They left, and I wento to take a leak. No water. Fuuuuuuuuck. Look at what local hotels are going to cost, book a room, call my aunt to come back and take me to the hotel. Call my mom, and tell her that I wasn’t going to come see her that night.

I hadn’t gone for dinner on the train as it was earlier than I’d normally eat. Being later in the evening, nothing was open for delivery. So on to the hotel convenience store for….a Barq’s, a Hot Pocket, and some cookies.

Friday — Phone calls to various places to get the water turned back on. This was a bill that didn’t get to my brother who’s paying the bills related to the house. I really thank the folks at d’Iberville Water for helping coordinate getting things turned back on. Went over to see my mom, gave her gifts, spent some time, then back to her house to be there for the water restoration. I’d booked two nights in the hotel. Ordered a Po’Boy from Quayve Brothers, which I think is probably partially-owned by the mayor, who was a high school football teammate of my father’s.

Saturday — Birthday celebration for both my grandfather and my gradfather, and my mother at Cafe New Orleans. Another Po’Boy, though a different variety. Spent some time with family members finding out what’s going on. Stormy weather. People might not understand what a morning Thunderstorm is like; I appreciate it. But it was kind of last pushes of warm weather. It got cold in the afternoon. Well, about at cold as it gets along the Gulf Coast. Some good conversation with family members about my mom’s condition; I’m not going to elaborate. I slept in a recliner in the living room, which wasn’t at all ideal, but it worked, I guess.

Sunday — Wanted some coffee, so I ordered some, and donut holes from the only place that was delivering. Much like the hcaiI really don’t remember too well, unfortunately. Looking through SMS chains with my wife, I think I was spending a considerable amount of time communicating back-and-forth with my neurologist. The fall may have contributed to some of the symptoms I was (and still am) experiencing. I discussed some of how my mother had planned to set up the house. She’d sort of been using the master bedroom (still not going to be used to calling it the “primary bedroom.” Sorry, not sorry.) But she’d kinda-sorta set that up as a TV room, though she said she had planned to use it as a bedroom. I put down some things so I could sleep on the floor, which wasn’t at all ideal.

Monday — Went and spent time with my mom at the care facility. It was her birthday, so I ordered dinner again from Quayve Bros.. Gave her, also, the few donut holes I had left. I didn’t get to eat any of it because of an accident. Given that it was my mother’s birthday, I let her have my sandwich. I went back to the house to watch the Saints’ game. Pfft. I really don’t like hte style of football the Ravens play, but the Saints basically didn’t show up until the fourth quarter. Since I didn’t have anything to eat, I ended up ordering a pizza from one of the chain pizza places. It was not great, but filled me up okay, I suppose. I still didn’t get through the leftovers the next few days, unfortunately. My mother wanted some paintings she had from the house for her room at the retirement community. I had absolutely no idea where some of these things were. So look around a bit, then finally go to sleep. My aunt brought me boxes and shipping labels so I could send some items to my brother in VA.

Tuesday — Had three meetings. First, the person who’s been doing the lawn came over, and we discussed next steps. We decided that he should do the final cut of the season on Friday morning. Since the lawn season is over, he was trying to dig up business for the winter, and said that he could help move things out. He helped move the mattress, and box spring into the master bedroom. I paid him extra for that, as well as for all that he’s done. He wants a loveseat that’s there, which we’ll probably sell to him regardless of whether we rent the house out. While it’s functional, it is old, and kind of beat-up. Second, the property manager I’d found, really the only one who answered my queries, discussed the ins-and-outs of renting out the house. I kind of put together a timeline, but the fees, etc., are acceptable if we want to go that route. Third, the security system guy showed up to hook up the video doorbell. What I’d done to connect the security system to the Internet system was correct, so there’s better alerting and management of the security system, now.

Wednesday — My godmother (my mom’s best friend and roommate from college), and my aunt collaborated a bit to search for things in the house My uncle brought my mother over to look for some of the things she wanted. Unfortunately, with her condition, that was quite unfocused. She bounces from thing-to-thing with little focus on why she’s doing what she’s doing. What I’d set aside for her she ended up not taking; I’m not sure if that’s because it wasn’t what she was looking for, or whether it’s just something she forgot. At the very end of the day, potential of a family member renting the house for his adult kids. That, actually, would be ideal, even if it doesn’t bring in as much revenue.

Thursday — My aunt picked me up, and we went to the airport. I told her that keeping the house “in the family” would probably be the best option, and communicated that we were willing to take less money. Perhaps a lot less. Got to the airport very early. Ate some odd fries at the airport bar. Actually used a paper straw for the first time. It was okay, I guess, for water, but I can see how it wouldn’t work well for anything more involved than water. Would have gotten a bottle of soda, but I couldn’t take it through security, so just free water. Flights back were rather uneventful. It was snowing on the descent into Charlotte. Winter is coming or something.

Very long entry, and I’m going to stop.

Today’s prompt is less daunting than the one that I thought it was. That’s tomorrow for my trip recap.

It’s going to be long. And I need to write about Notes of a Goon over on backatagain.com.

So tomorrow might be some longer writing. I keep getting distracted by random things. Today’s was a weird 1990s earworm from something that I wasn’t a big fan of back then. Who knows?

But onto today’s prompt.

What are some qualities of bad bosses? What would you not do if you were supervising others? (Reachback to 2015)

You know, I had a laundry list of things I thought I’d write when I plucked this one out.

Would i speak to some of these folks if I met them in person? Yes, yes, no, yes, maybe, yes, yes, briefly maybe, still do.

Thinking about it, more, the really bad bosses fall into two categories: self-aggrandizers, and “company men.”

For me, it’s complicated by the travails I was experiencing during the bad years.

But there really weren’t many who even attempted to understand what I was going through; the realities of my personal situation.

Maybe that’s something that’s gone on with the pandemic situation, too; I know very little about my coworkers and supervisors. But I guess, too, the big thing the really bad bosses were certainly on top of is really dead. I see stories on the news about spyware on employees’ laptops to see that their asses are in seats moving their cursors at the expected intervals.

But so much of my thinking is flavored by my particular industry. I don’t fit here, anymore. The only representation of success is your Minesweeper skills. There’s no analysis. There’s only whether you can get to 80% on a “test.” You don’t need to write. You don’t need to understand why or how a particular product works. You just need to have the letters after your name.

So…whatever. I’m ready to take my leave whenever that time comes.

Veterans’ Day

the eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. 1918. My dad’s grandfather had been a brand new Army Lieutenant for World War I. My great=grandmother would tell storis about how his instructors had released all of the new soldiers after they finished training to go home for some time (a week, maybe?) before they shipped off to Europe. Don’t go get married! Yeah, of his training unit, about 90% of them (including my great-grandfather) went back and got married.

My dad admired his grandfather so much, and it served as inspiration for my dad to scurry around to finish college so he could go to Vietnam and kill a Commie. He ended up on active duty for almost 25 years.

I tried to be like my dad. I didn’t know, and there probably wasn’t a way to know then, what the hell was going on with me, physically. After experiencing significant problems getting through the physical training, it became pretty clear pretty quickly that I wasn’t going to get a scholarship. I had other things going on in my life that were more interesting things to pursue, so I left. My newfound political perspectives then, too, made me more than a little wary.

As more’s finally come out about WWI, the people who pursued it look worse.

My mind was fucking blown by the stories that came out about how you’re not allowed to dive near Lusitania because of the scads of ordinance that’s deteriorating on the sea floor.

Much like why I’m more worried about conventional weapons if something cooked off between the Norks and someone nearby. Yeah, a nuke is fucking scary. But there’s also a pretty damn good chance it won’t work correctly. The metric tons of conventional ammo that are sitting north of the DMZ will mostly work. And you’ve probably got a million people dead in South Korea before the attack can be stopped.

The NeoHippy crowd are absolutely terrified of nuclear war, but say nothing about the conventional stuff that will (still) work.

Still, after WWI, all of the remaining troops came home. Post-WWII policy really doesn’t allow that to happen very often, unfortunately.

We were in Afghanistan for nearly twenty years. (I think we should probably have left after it was clear OBL wasn’t there anymore….or, definitely, after he was killed in 2012. Instead, we were there until the pols, eager for a new MISSION ACCOMPLISHED moment, screwed up the withdrawal that had been scheduled. Lots more mistakes, like abandoning the air base before everyone was out, but I still haven’t seen anything that says that the delay wasn’t for anything other than political posturing….)

Even with Vietnam, there were things floating around that led to things like The Mayaguez Incident.

Do what you need to do, and go home. War, much like pimpin’ ain’t easy, but it’s necessary.

Thinking about my wife’s commentary on this when it comes up every year — there’s a substantial portion of the US population who don’t even know anyone who served. My feed on the Ginger Dropout’s social networking site is full of people today showing their early career photos from the military.

My father-in-law was in the Navy for years.

Spending as much time as I did in Norfolk, there’s veterans all over.

Is that true in, say, an affluent Northeastern suburb? You know, the kind of place where people are all bent-out-of-shape that the student loan forgiveness whim probably isn’t going to hold up in court. Or, to go to the opposite end of the country, how many people who live in the San Fernando Valley actually know someone who enlisted?

Harry Bailey from It’s A Wonderful LIfe just doesn’t hold anything for many people today; a small, small segment of the population from certain areas go, and they’re really never home permanently.

I thank the people who served. I wish there more spread out among the population.

Are you calling for a draft, then? No, no I’m not. I doubt that even if there was one, many of the people drafted could pass required medical exams.

What would happen to Private Pyle today?

---

I’ve written enough for today. A bookmark on OD mentioned that it’s amazing that this is alreay a third of the way through. It is, I guess, but there’s still more to do.

As I as landing in Charlotte yesterday, during the descent, we were going through snow squalls. I’m ready for the cold weather.

And coffee. Which I’m going to go do now.

Free Write

I’m sitting in an airprot waiting for my plane to arrive and board.

Really not sure how much I accomplished on the trip, but I think there’s a few things that are better than they were, at least.

I think we’ve got at least a partial path forward.

And holy shit that Intertubes there are fast.’

We get better downstream speeds, but the upstream speeds there are much, much, much better, and synchronous with the downstream.

I’m a little less concerned about the supar-fancy sekurity system, but there’s still things that make me uncomfortable.

I didn’t hook up the devices from Space Cowboy Jeff (Bezos). I’m wondering if there’d be a way to contentedly coexist with some of this shit.

But it still makes me nervous.

With all of my physical maladies, you’d think that I’d be less concerned than most about modesty.

So much for that.

Home is where you poop with the bathroom door open.

Yeah, I’m still not really okay with that, even when nobody else is home.

As far as the travel goes, it’s really not worth it to try to save that much money.

If the price difference between cattle car econ, and first class is a couple hundred bucks, really what am a saving going with the cheaper ticket?

I get a shitty seat in the back, have to pay for my bags, and so on.

Not having to deal with that, alone, is enough to spring for the higher-fare ticket. The bigger seats and Bree drinks is really just a bonus.

I can remember a guy whose financial advice show used to run on the station where I worked. He bought his engagement ring at Costco.

I didn’t do that.

Okay. Plane is here. Time to fly.

Election Reax

I don’t know if I mispasted the prompt on this, but it had the prompt for yesterday in my draft.

Whatever.

The results aren’t in, still.

Not upset to see that some of the more extreme candidates on “both sides” lost.

Also not upset to see that the NeoHippy Libertarian endorsement of the reactionary Republican in (Florida-Humidity)Arizona didn’t work.

In a way, I wonder if this might be a good thing. *shrug*. (I expect a monumental crash, financially, shortly. Myriad reasons, and it’s not because of what any of the pundits are saying. Clinton inflated real estate and equities. Dubya largely reinflated those bubbles. Obama and Trump did more harder. Meanwhile, the zOMG PETRODOLLAR!!1! crowd are still without explanation as to why things like precious metals haven’t taken off….or why inflation is just as bad, if not worse, in places without the hated FED; RON PAUL. Nobody has any real idea.)

So, resignation, and determination to do what’s best for me, and the people I love.

To that, I have things I need to do today, but seem to be in no particular hurry to go do them. I’m tired. Special thanks to the guy who’s been doing the lawn her for moving the sleeping materials into the bedroom, but I still didn’t;’t sleep well.

nfusion isn’t until the 22nd. MRI(s) on the 16th. Now like four of them with the symptoms I’ve been having.

Whatever. /GenX.

Thinking tomorrow’s free write might be from airport waiting areas. Something to do. Or maybe while I’m in the air. We’ll see.

Plans for Election Day

I can’t tell you how incredibly busy I am, but, at the same time, not that busy.

I think I’ve done most of what I came here to do.

In the morning, I’ve got a meeting with the security guy. Later in the morning, I meet with the guy who’s been mowing the grass.

Need to get these package off to my brother.

Maybe meet someone who can help me put these electronic devices back in place now that I’ve gotten replacement batteries.

I wish there was a way I could describe the complete ambivalence I feel at this point.

That somewhat applies to the pols, but not completely. I’m not all about calling a truce. No, there needs to be retribution towards the people who overstepped bounds. The pols get some of their punishment after today. On the personal side, I don’t know.

I voted absentee knowing I’d be out of town on Election Day. There was only one race on the ballot. The district where I live has been “blue” since the Northern Aggressors went back across the Potomac in 1876.

Whatever. I don’t expect the candidate I voted for to win, but I really think there needs to be some younger blood injected into the system.

Kennedy has repeatedly called for a GenX takeover. I don’t know. There are so few of us that we’re easy to forget.

I apologize. I’m really not tracking with this this morning. Waiting on deliveries, distracted.

Maybe I can circle back tonight.

Write about when you were tarted unfairly. (Flashback to writing from 11/7/2013 where I was writing about what happened at the four-letter company)

Oh geez. Um, yeah, what happened to me in 2013 through about 2017 is pretty incredibly awful.

Coming on my trip, knowing that people where I am make extensive use of the dropout Ginger’s apps (read: Zuckerberg…Facebook/InstaGram/Meta). Scrolling suggestions, and I see the guy who was my boss at one of the bad stops; the one I left voluntarily.

Was I being reckless? Maybe. But my entire world had been thrown into chaos course a guy who’s, as far as I know, still in Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison.

While that stint was pretty awful, it was led into by my stint at the four-letter company. My initial inclination when I got the way lowball job offer was to say, “add ten percent, and we’ll talk.” On advice, I accepted the really lowball offer. So less than 80% of what I’d been earning, in a position that wasn’t really suited to me, and in the office five days a week off of significant telework after I’d really chosen to stop driving.

I fully admit I was an asshole while I was there.

I admit I was drinking more than I should have. (But that was the only thing that was kinda sorta keeping my weight up….)

But after they moved me into, essentially what my previous position had been with no salary adjustment, I was pissed.

When the guy responsible reached his plea agreement, they set me adrift.

And, after mildly attempting to do the sort of thing that’s now widespread in the IT world about five years before it became widespread, I took yet another job that underpaid me. I took it to keep us housed, fed, and clothed.

The work wasn’t really my forte, but I had enough knowledge to be okay at it. When the more senior person they’d been trying to bring over to the new company fell through, I got promoted again…without a pay increase. Adding to the stress was that the company’s health insurance didn’t work where we lived, so I had to buy insurance through the Federal Exchange. That’s all after-tax income…so imagine your bills going up several hundred dollars a month. None of the specialists I’d been seeing accepted the Exchange plans, so I had to find new ones. Just as my disease modifying therapy had quit working. Good stuff. (I will say that the only bright spot out of that was it led me to come up to DC to volunteer myself as a test subject at Georgetown. (I can’t thank Dr. Amjad, and all the other folks at Georgetown who’ve really rebooted my life.). Maybe all the doctors in my past who were convinced I had mononucleosis mistreated me?

No. That’s a cop-out. I forgive them. I was diagnosed right at the median age of diagnosis for MS. I’m also a dude, which makes me half as likely to have the. condition.

For that, I had to live back at home with my mother during the week, and only see my wife on weekends.

Thank you to my mother for putting up with me during this time, and giving me rides to and from work because the short bus wouldn’t run to her house a bit more than a mile out of the service area.

Happy birthday, too, to my mom. That was part of my calculation for traveling when I did, so I could come and see her today. I’m writing this laying on the floor in her vacant brand new house that I’m trying to figure out what to do with (she’s in memory care, so she’s not living here….she’s got a permanent address there, and the little dog is with my wife and I….I was looking at doing short-term rentals with it, but I’m leaning towards just having all her stuff put in storage, and leasing it outright…)

The joint birthday party her family had over the weekend for her, and her dad, was great. I’m happy I got to go.

So sleepy time. Saints game tomorrow night, work on the house, and election night reax Tuesday.

And maybe I’ll quit hitting these a day early.

Write about your writing tools. (Flashback to 2004 post about the switch away from MovableType)

These days I’m pretty much back exclusively to WordPress.t

There might have been something I used prior to OpenDiary, but that’s lost to the Internet Archive, and I have no idea what my username would have been more than twenty years later.

Getting information in to the CMS is now pretty much an in-browser operation. I remember fun things with things like LISP things for EMACS.

For my writing lately, it’s all within an OS-native browser. I typically type into WordPress, then copycasta other places. But I can save the archives in XML files I can easily move around.

I probably ought to write scripts to scp things periodically, but manual copying and pasting makes it um…yeah, I’ll get to it.

But that WP uses documented, open data specifications makes me feel a bit better about throwing my data into it. When OD went on hiatus, I just had ASCII files of all I’d ever written there from the export tool. Some of the things I’d done with things like black text on a black background get lost. In the XML file, maybe, things won’t disappear so easily.

I guess I could print things to PDF, too, but holy god that’d be unwieldy.

I still do need to consolidate some, but it’s not been something high on the priority list. I say that as I write in a house where I basically can’t find anything, and am trying to figure out how much energy I want to spend on trying to get this set up.

Ugh.

More tomorrow.