^H

Describe your travel plans for the next few months. Is there any destination you’re really excited about? Any you’re dreading?

I currently have no firm travel plans over the next couple of months. If I somehow manage to score a Shmoocon ticket, I will go to DC for that, and likely take my wife with me.

Otherwise, there’s nothing.

I don’t know why I asked if there was a dread-worthy trip. October seems like last year to me, now. Maybe dreading funeral trips for relatives who weren’t doing well at the time. Who knows?

At the same time, it feels like I’ve been on the road for months, now. I sleep at my mother’s place the night before I’m at my office, then figure out how to get home on nights when I don’t have work the next day.

For the money I’m earning, I couldn’t more strongly recommend against it.

The preceding missive was written as decompression, but it’s still true for the most part.

How the fuck did I wind up like I am? I don’t think I did anything wrong, but I clearly didn’t suck up to the right criminals. So I get cast aside, only to be drawn back in for a pittance.

It’s fine; I’m not the one in Federal Pound-Me-In-The-Ass prison.

Even more, I can be proud of the things I’ve done.

Write a bit about why you’ve chosen to write this (and past) years. How many years have you been at it? Art you satisfied with what you’ve written this year? In past years?

I’ve chosen to write, because I think the physical act of doing it keeps me on schedule. With so few things in my life actually being in sync at this point, thi sis something. the concept of a “normal day” has eluded me, completely.

And I’m a bit okay wiht that. I really don’t ever want to get into a routine wiht what I’m doing now; this shit sucks,

Maybe it’s slightly hypocritical of me to say that, when what I’m trying to ram down unwilling throats at work is standardization. I also want to measure how long it takes someone to run through those procedures, and how many errors they make along the way.That’s doubly-threatening. First, that anyone would dare analyze what people are doing to do their jobs is taken as an affront. That they’re being critical because of process tedious

But I keep doing it because it will give me a small sense of accomplishment when I’m finished. What did you do this November? Oh, I grew a beard, and wrote every single day. I also didn’t outright quit a job I loathe. And you?

“We know the requirements.”
So fucking write them down. (And do you have a tapeworm?)

Sealing your fate, there, guy.

I apologize for the rambling. As I said yesterday, I’m really past my breaking point. I could whine about it being unfair, etc., but I won’t. At the end of the day..the sun goes down in the West. And I can look at myself in the mirror, in spite of my failing eyesight.

Last weekend before the short week. For fellow U-S Americans, this is essentially a three-day week. Do you have any big plans for the remainder of week before tryphtophan poisoning?

As I recycled old memes in the prompt… (http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/miss-teen-usa-south-carolina)

No, I’m not going to South Carolina, though I do have family there, and have been a few times.

So, what have I done this weekend? Pretty much exactly what I said I was going to do.

The next three days, I will try to continue doing the work I’ve been doing. I’m hoping for some clarity about what’s going on; big changes are afoot. I don’t think a lot of people understand them.

The bottom line is I’m still the FNG. The entrenched staff still haven’t wrapped their heads around how things are going to change. “It’s a customer requirement!!1!” Okay, who signed off on it. “Just do it.” To quote one of my wife’s songs, “fuck you very very much.”

To put it succinctly, I know different ways to do the things you want to do, but I can’t do it within the ball of dysfunction you’ve given me to work in. Yes, Agent Fleming, I know I shouldn’t end a sentence in a preposition.

In short, I’m really at my breaking point, don’t undestand what’s taking so long for something else, and am unwilling to do anything untoward — to GTFO of my current situation, or to make people happy by doing what I know, and can show, is wrong.

Maybe I’m a sucker.

November 22nd is a big day for a graying segment of the population; calculate your age for that particularly bad day in Dallas, and describe the most important President of your lifetime.

I was -16 when Kennedy was assassinated. So, biologically, half of me existed. The other half wouldn’t be produced until years later. The current President was only a year old. This has little significance for probably the majority of Americans today. It’ll be less and less relevant as time goes on.

As for the most important President of my lifetime, I keep going back to George HW Bush. More and more I realize how little the Boomer Presidents have actually done for the country. The political unpopularity of some of the smart fiscal things he did, along with the “little Admiral,” cost him re-election in 1992, unfortunately. I actually work with people now who were born after he was President.

The more I see, the more disgusted I get, lately.

What are your plans for the evening following what was surely a long week? Are you satisfied with how the year went?

This week was interrupted for me by the doctor’s appointment on Tuesday. No work, because I had to be near home for that.

Plans for the weekend.

Tonight:
1. Figure out how to get home after work.
2. Take pills
3. Get home
4. Drink aperitif.
5. Cook steak. (I’ve been informed that I am doing this tonight, so…)
6. Eat steak/drink beer.
7. Drink digestif/watch TV.
8. Husbandly duties. 🙂
9. Sleep.

The weekends sort of allow me to recuperate. The stupid burns so fucking much sometimes.

I finally got what I was working on to work. Sorta. After peeling back twenty year-old layers of brokenness.

“Do what the customer wants.”

Uh, the customer doesn’t want to get into trouble, and if you just fucking do what the customer wants, he’s going to get in trouble.

Apologies for the aside. I have no idea what I’m going to be doing Saturday, other than hitting the wine store to buy something for Thanksgiving dinner. The annual downtown lighting ceremony is that night, so I don’t think we want to be out and about. Not that I ever want to be out and about anymore, but….

And I didn’t have the part about how my year went drafted as the day passed. But, is there a more concise way of saying, “Fuck no?”

Now that you’re two-thirds of the way through, write about whatever you’d like. Will you finish this year? When have you done this previously?

You know, there’s not a lot I really want to say right now. That’s probably okay considering how few reads I’m getting. My opinion is rather unimportant, I suppose.

Most of my coworkers are confused by my facial hair this month. One of the senior NCOs did get it, however. “Movember!”

So, what else… Writing, I normally throw things into a draft message, which I can access from anywhere, and never send. If it accidentally does get sent, it goes to another of my email addresses. Not that I’m particularly trying to hide what I write (obviously, I wouldn’t be publishing it on my shitty blog, PB, if I was….), but the Intertubes are so locked down I don’t have much of a choice. I can type away as thoughts come to me.

Will I finish? Pretty sure I will, considering there’s only ten days left. I started doing this in 2010, right after I was diagnosed. Getting sick certainly helped me focus on writing again. I can sit back, shut my eyes, and pound out whatever I’m thinking. Please to be excusing the typos.

When I’ve gotte through each, I’ve felt a sense of accomplishment, I suppose. That I could still dedicate myself to something. As my health’s continued to deteriorate, that’s been important. I’m not ready to hang it all up. I think I still have places where I can contribute. Can I work like I did when I was in my twenties? No. Are there other things I prioritize? Certainly. Do I need a lot more rest than I used to? Absolutely.

And, obviously someone else thought so, too, today. I applied for a job last week. Twice referred, twice not. Nothing says sense like the Federal Government.

But I’ve written enough for today. Ten more to go.

Have you ever been to a foreign country? List the ones you’ve visited, and what you remember about them?

Considering my dad was stationed in Germany for six years … is a pig’s ass pork?

Let’s try tro get through the list, in no particular order.

United States
Germany
The Netherlands
Belgium
Luxembourg
Denmark
Austria
Switzerland
France
United Kingdom (England)
Florida
Czech Republic
Slovakia
Hungary

Then there’s the ones I barely remember; should I even count those? Actually, come to think of it, though, France almost falls into that category. In the days before the EU, France had a really stupid visa policy in effect at the border. If you were an American coming across, you needed a visa (which tooke about two weeks to obtain, and cost like $15.). We toured things like The Somme before they put htat policy into effect. My parents went back a couple of times, but I never did as a kid. I guess the EU has pretty much fixed that sort of thing.

I also wrote a joke in there. Since I can count the number of people who are reading these on two fingers, I hope it’s enjoyed.

Have you started your holiday shopping? Any idea what you’re going to get people?

My holiday shopping has been rather significantly affected by my seven months without any income. My wife’s picked up a few things for folks, but, no, I’m nowhere near finished.

So, the rundown that I can remember….

• Help buy a gift card that’ll go towards a new computer
• Gift card to ____ ___
• Various Amazon gift cards
• ???

At the same time, all I really want to do is spend some time with my wife. This year’s been so unhappy and hectic; just ready for it to be over.

~o/When I was seventeen/it was a very good year/o Write about seventeen year-old you.

Seventeen year-old me had a lot more zits, and smoked a lot more tobacco. He also drank a lot less alcohol. My old OD entries start at around my twentieth birthday. , so even they wouldn’t be a lot of help. By that time, I was working in radio, no longer with high school girlfriend, etc..

At seventeen, I started my first “serious” relationship.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lQlIhraqL7o

I was trying to figure out what to do with my life, really. Where did I want to go to school? What did I want to study? Do I believe in God?

Some answers came quicker than others.

But I graduated high school. I got accepted to most of the colleges I applied to. I got threatened with disinheritance if I accepted the offer from Ole Miss.

I didn’t help form babby. I didn’t get in trouble with the law, mainly because I did very few things tghat were against it….

I was rather dull, if you8 ignore the zits. And bad hair.

I guess I do have to wonder what I might have done differently if I’d known I was going to get sick.

But I can’t dwell on those. Maybe there’s some things that I would have done differently, but, overall, I think I made the right choices for the situations.