Nothing this week

Not much going on here. We survived Christmas. Now I'm just enjoying my time off until January 4th when it all comes to an end.

With the lack of new shows on right now, we're struggling to find stuff to watch. I have all kinds of stuff to watch, but it's mostly science fiction and my wife hates scifi and she's always home. She'd let me watch them, but than I feel bad because she's bored because she's not really watching.

We watched Limestone over the weekend, it was okay but nothing exciting. We've been watching mostly movies since.

As you can see by the last 3 days of my timeline on Letterboxd. I don't like to watch movies that I have already seen so it makes it difficult to find stuff. Sure I can watch stuff I've seen but I would much rather watch something new. It's pathetic that I struggle to find movies to watch when I have access to Netflix, Amazon Prime, Hulu, Peacock, Disney+ and Xfinity On Demand.

No real plans this week off either, just chilling at the homestead. I'll probably hang out in my card room most days just so I don't annoy the wife too much. Maybe I'll post more here, probably not. I've done good with a post a week for the last few, I don't want to push it.

I laugh every time I see this commercial. That doesn't happen too often with commercials.

A Week in the Life of Me

Not too much going on so this may be a quick post, it may not, once I get typing, you never know.

We watched the season finale of the Mandalorian yesterday and it was pretty awesome. I hope Disney does just as well with their other Star Wars shows they plan on putting out. I don't want to spoil it but the ending of the finale was so cool, and was such a good ending. I can't wait to see what the next season entails.

We're in the middle of the final season of Homeland. They finally put it on Hulu with the rest of the seasons. We may even finish that this weekend. Other than that, a lot of the other stuff we watch is on winter hiatus. None of my sports teams are even on for another week, Christmas day at that.

At work, we finished a 5S project that we've spent the last month working on. I got volunteered for the the project, I think, because we were doing the battery/chemical storage room and the majority of the chemicals in that room are mine. We got all kinds of compliments about how great it looked now. We'll see how long it stays that way. 

I'm officially a 5S Champion now.

We we're supposed to meet every day for half an hour and work on the room and there was originally supposed to be 4 of us but the team member from one department quit right away. Another department's guy would show up every day, 10 to 15 minutes late and than leave right at the end of the half an hour. Me and another guy would be there almost an hour a day working on it. On Friday, the day of recognition, where they brought in management to see what we did, the late guy was there before me and I'm always early. Pissed me off but I didn't say anything, I just look like the asshole if I do.

I guess where I work is changing their logo so now I'm going to have a lot of clothes that are outdated. That's alright, because other than a couple of hoodies, everything with their logo on it I wear to work anyways. I've accumulated quite a few things with their logo in the 6 1/2 years I've been there. The basic shirt is the logo on the front top left and the core values on the back. I have 5 gray ones and 3 black ones of that. I have a red volunteer shirt, a green company picnic one and 2 black breast cancer ones. I also have 2 hoodies that I love, because they fit great and are so comfortable. I wear one back and forth to work in the winter and the other I wear around the house (I have it on now). All that doesn't include the keychain, backpack and multiple hats. The nicest thing about having all those is I didn't pay anything for them, they were all given to me so I can't complain about that. Next week is the last week before Christmas so I'm curious if they'll give us something else. The last 3 years were the hoodies and last year was a hat. With the way this year has gone though it wouldn't surprise me if we didn't get anything but they did go around asking everyone their shirt size awhile back so we'll see.

As busy as we are this year, we didn't get our usual 2 weeks off at Christmas but I had enough time saved up to take the last week off so after the 3 days this week, I'll be done until the first week of January. I have no plans but it'll be nice not having to go to work.

Not sure what I'm going to watch with all that time off but I'm sure we can find something.

Santa came to work on Friday.

So far the plan is we are still getting together for Christmas. We didn't get together for Thanksgiving with all the Covid outbreaks but it's been relatively quite lately. I was even worried about going on Thanksgiving just because a ton of people at work were coming down with it and I didn't want to bring it in to everyone. Of course it didn't end up mattering since the majority of my family have gotten it. Nobody in my household or my mom's household has but a lot of the extended family has.

December 14th (2020)

My wife sent this photo of her and the cat. Kitty doesn't usually allow us to hold her for very long anymore.

December 15th (2012)

This is my oldest daughter holding Kitty back in 2012, I would say she's probably the reason Kitty doesn't like to be held but I don't really remember her ever liking it.

December 16th (2011)

This was taken back in 2011, my youngest son was into Lego's big time and they had a Lego thingy outside Chicago and we took him up there. He absolutely loved it. He wasn't even into Star Wars when I made him take this but he is now so it worked out.

December 18th (2009)

My wife (back then my girlfriend) sent this to me. We started dating long distance so this is what we did. We were young(er) and in love, we were probably nauseating to most.

December 18th (2019)

I snapped this in a meeting last year, it's how much my work paid out in workers comp claims. Notice the biggest number in the orange, oops. That's from when I burned myself with Sulfuric acid. Nothing like getting called out in a meeting you're sitting in.

December 20th (2019)

Me and Santa at work last year. I think he grew this year. I looked a little "special" in this photo.

I'll probably post again next week since I have time off so I'll talk to you all then.

This week

I was talking about some TV shows last week that I've been watching and I forgot a show so I made a note to myself to mention it this week. Season 2 of the Mandalorian has been on for a month or two now. I really like this show and I get Disney+ for free so I'm on it. This week's episode, (*SPOILER*) Boba Fett was introduced who has always been a fan favorite and the Empire finally got Grogu so the next 2 episodes are probably going to be good when the Mandalorian, Boba Fett and Fennec join forces to go after him. I like Fennec as well but that's mainly because I really liked the show Agents of SHIELD and she was a main character (Agent May) on there.

I've also gotten through 8 episodes now of the first season of Star Trek: Discovery. I've watched them On Demand but I'm not sure how far they'll let me watch until they ask for me to pay but I'll keep watching as much as I can. I'm really liking it though so I'm hoping I can watch it all but I doubt it. 

Sometimes when a different Star Trek series starts, I have trouble connecting with the characters but I don't have that problem with this show. It's been very entertaining.

Another show that has hooked us is Paranormal: Caught on Camera. It's just like it says, paranormal activity caught on cameras. It's not like the ghost hunter shows where you see nothing and might here a thump here or there. This actually shows all kinds of stuff. There have been more than a few stories that gave my wife and I the goosebumps. If you get a chance to watch a few episodes, check it out on the Travel Channel.

Work was alright this week. It was 8 hour days but you could volunteer for more so I worked 9 hours Monday-Thursday and just 8 on Friday. It was a little slow at the beginning of the week until we cleaned the press, that helped get moving a little bit. The city came out to do their annual sampling from the manhole out front. They usually don't give us a heads up as it's a surprise sample but instead of setting up a machine that takes samples all day, a guy just came out to sample and they wanted to know if we'd have the water flowing as it doesn't all day. I got a time when he'd be there and started the press just before he was supposed to be there so he'd get a good flow.

I have 20 hours left of vacation/personal time so I think I'm going to take one of the 3 day weeks off at Christmas or New Years. I've heard the MM said he's going to deny any vacation days at that time but we'll see. I usually have a couple weeks of vacation left at this time but my surgery wiped most of them out. I'm also one of the few people in the plant that has Personal time left. If I make it through the month without missing, it'll be 2 years in a row of perfect attendance. That's a long ways from when I skipped school all the time.

Listened to a few newly released albums and singles this week. Hollywood Undead latest came out yesterday. Miley Cyrus the week before and Lee Brice the week before that. Also listened to a handful of songs by Lit as they were my random artist on my Random Music blog. I added a bunch from Hollywood Undead and Lee Brice, Miley Cyrus not so much. I either really like her songs or I don't. She has a few that I like but for the most part, she's not one of my faves like the other 2.

I told you my cousins kid was in the hospital with double pneumonia and Covid last week. He got really bad and they were real close to putting him on a ventilator but he started to get better and he went home yesterday. He's still on oxygen and needs to rest but at least he's out of the hospital.

My son has been working at Dairy Queen for awhile now and this is the first weekend he's had off in a long time so he finally got to go see his mom. We've been working on getting his drive time in so he can take his test and get his license. He's also gotten into music as of late which is nice because it gives us more to talk about.

My wife has been working on some goodies for Christmas. Sadly, she doesn't set too much out for me, something about me being fat. She does give me samples and I agree, I probably don't need to eat it all but that certainly doesn't mean I don't want to.

Since Trevor is at his mom's, we have the house to ourselves so we've been chilling all day. Which is why I have time to do this post. Hopefully see you next week.

Covid update and more

Not to much going on around here. I'm trying to getting in the habit of posting more often, even if it's just everyday stuff. I've told you before (probably awhile ago) that I have a blog (not public) where I list everything in a daily format. For example, if you go to today's page, it starts with 2009 and lists a Facebook post that I did. In 2012, I posted a tweet and an Instagram photo along with 4 blog posts. I also went to work that day. I've gone back through my social media and Google maps and listed everything for each year that I have listed. I started this a couple of years ago and it's taking me that long to compile all the info. I've also added newer stuff like what TV shows I've watched, how many songs I've listened to, what I've eaten that day as well as when I woke up and went to bed. I also add any photos which some even predate social media as I have scanned older stuff and added them. I also have 2 quick journal spots. One is sports related, the other personal but I tend to just put quick bullet point type entries. So I want to start using this blog to get in more depth of what's going on in my life, even if it isn't much.

TV

I've been wanting to watch Star Trek: Discovery but I wasn't going to pay for CBS All Access. I just found out that they are playing it on CBS every week now so I'm finally watching it. I watched the first 2 episodes On Demand Friday night and the 3rd recorded on the DVR so I'll get to continue that week by week. I may be a couple years behind but at least I'm able to watch it now.

With the holidays and lack of stuff on TV, we're back to watching stuff off the streaming services or On Demand. Yesterday we watched Welcome to Plathville. My wife has seen previews and wanted to start watching it so we went back and watched season 1 and what's played of season 2 so far. Wow! I'm all for protecting my children because the world sucks but you also have to prepare them that it does suck. They aren't going to live in a bubble for the rest of their lives.

Last night we watched a couple Christmas movies on Netflix. We don't generally watch a lot of those but we liked the Christmas Chronicles with Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn and they just released the 2nd one. After it was over, they advertised another one called the Christmas Drop. It wasn't bad either and in the end we found out it was based on a true story and my wife likes those.

I also found out last night that HBO is free On Demand until the end of the month. Which is tomorrow. Would have been nice to know that sooner. I'm trying to catch up on some shows off of it that we like, or I should say, that I like. I watched an episode of Westworld last night and am watching more today. I had watched season 1 back when we watched Game of Thrones and I would use my daughter's boyfriends HBO Now account but I haven't had access to the channel since then. They cancelled it when Game of Thrones ended. I'll probably watch that most of today. At least until the Michigan basketball game comes on tonight.

I wanted to start Lovecraft Country but I'm not sure I'll have time before the free time ends.

You can track what movies I watch here.

Music

I mentioned that I'm pretty big into music now. I listen to around 120-150 songs a day when I work and sometimes when I don't, I can still get around 100 or so. Pretty much anytime I don't have a TV on, I have music on. My playlist has almost 4000 songs on it. I was content just adding songs here and there while building the playlist but now, I'm broadening my playlist by listening to stuff I've never heard before and adding stuff here or there. I use the discovery weekly playlist on Spotify to listen to stuff I haven't heard, plus I'm doing a random artists post once a week on my music blog and have added songs from artists that I already listen to.

You can track what music I'm listening to here.

Covid

I told you all my aunt, uncle and grandmother had Covid. Last I've heard, they are all improving or at least, not getting worse but I got a text from my mom, apparently my sort of nephew (my cousin's kid) is in the hospital with it and not doing well. He's only in his early 20's so it is pretty scary right now. He's not responding to treatment and is getting help breathing.

I'll be honest, when I got the text a day or two ago, even though he was in the hospital, my thought was he was young, no biggie, he'll get better. I got the text today about him worsening and it really kind of hit home. I'm truly worried about him and it's scary that we may lose him. I can't imagine being his parents and not even being able to see him.

I'm pretty safe as in I don't really go anywhere so I'm not in the public much. We do most of our shopping online or do curbside pick up. I could be safer at work, for the most part I'm by myself but I do have to sit in on meetings and such and am not always as safe as I should be. With the recent events, I plan on changing that. There are things I could do better.

That's all for today. I'm getting sleepy just sitting here and I have to work tomorrow so I need to avoid taking a nap so I can go to bed at a decent time. Until next time.

Thanksgiving

First off, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone.

It's a weird holiday this year with the pandemic going on. A week ago we were planning on getting together at my mom's like we usually do but since then, my brother, aunt and uncle and my grandmother have all had positive tests for Covid. So we are all in our own homes today. My wife is still preparing a Thanksgiving feast for us so I'll still get the food but I won't get the time with the family and that's what I really love about the holidays. Just the hanging out and talking. I hope this gets better in the next month or so just so we can still have Christmas together.

My wife made all the sides yesterday so we could deliver food for some family yesterday. We took Cowboy (Damn) beans, Green Bean Casserole, Noodles and Sweet Potatoes to my grandmother, aunt and uncle, and my mom and dad. I put damn in there because that's what my wife calls them, damn beans. Mainly because after the first time she made them, my family now asks her every holiday to make them.

She's making a chicken today, no turkey because by the time we realized we would need one, they were hard to find. At least small enough for the 3 of us. She's making us mashed potatoes, stuffing and a pie for dessert. Plus the stuff listed in the previous paragraph that she made yesterday.

If you think we are over reacting by not getting together, I live in Elkhart county. Google it, we are very high in cases. We are the RV manufacturing capital and most of us have been back to work for awhile. I went and got tested yesterday after work. I'm not expecting a positive but I figured it doesn't hurt to get tested since a ton of people have had it so I've definitely been exposed. It'll be my 3rd Covid test but the other 2 were before a surgery, not because of exposure or symptoms.

It's really bad here and to be honest, it doesn't seem like anybody is doing anything about it. I don't know what they can do or not do, I'm not going to get into all that. All I know, is that it doesn't feel like they are doing enough.

I guess for Thanksgiving, I'm giving up thanks that I have been Covid free so far and that even though I work in a factory with a 150 or so people, that I pretty much stay to myself and work by myself. I'm thankful that my son hasn't had it because even though we kept him out of school and he's doing virtual learning, he does have a job at Dairy Queen so he works a few days a week. I think he's pretty good at keeping his mask on at work thought. Same goes for my daughters, both have jobs in the public and have been Covid free. Both have been tested multiple times because of exposure and they've all came back negative. I'm also extremely thankful that my wife pretty much stays home all the time. When she does go anywhere, she doesn't go in anywhere and is just picking up stuff they bring out to the car. While I do believe she is healthy enough to fight off Covid, I don't want to take the chance with all her other medical issues.

I'm also thankful that the family members I care about haven't gotten it or have had somewhat mild cases when they have. A few still have it so hopefully they don't get any worse. I'm definitely concerned about my grandmother having it but so far she's just been tired and is having sinus issues.

I'm extremely thankful for my wife. She didn't have to go through all the trouble of making this dinner for us. She knows Trevor and I would eat a frozen pizza if we needed to, we're not picky. I love the fact that she did, for us. I really love that she wanted to take my family all kinds of food yesterday as well. She really would do anything for anybody. You know she's a strong woman to put up with me on top of all her medical issues. She'll pay for the time in the kitchen and she knew that before she did it. I'm guessing a trip to the chiropractor will be in order for tomorrow.

Hope everyone had a safe and happy Thanksgiving.

Random Artists #2

I actually got a post in this past weekend, so be shocked that you're getting 2 in a week. I enjoyed doing the Random Artist post last week so I though I'd hit you up with another one.

I've actually been listening to new music via the Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify so I'm adding quite a few new artists to my playlists. This week, the playlist is at 3,959 songs which is up 32 songs from last week and 1,107 artists which is up 11 artists.

Artist #1 - Random #541

Kid Rock - I've listened to 241 tracks since 2018.

The top 12 tracks are all on my playlists. I believe Cocky was on that Discover Weekly playlist and I ended up not adding it. The Devil Without a Cause album I had on CD which is why you'll see 5 songs off that album. These are all in order of how many times I've listened to the songs but they are pretty much all on the same playlist.

Artist #2 - Random #568

Lifehouse - I've listened to 78 tracks since 2018.

As you can see, I only have 3 tracks on my playlist but I listen to them all pretty regularly. There's only 4 play difference between the 1st and last song. All are pretty good songs, they are probably another artist that if I took the time to listen to them, I'd probably find a bunch more songs.

Artist #3 - Random #981

the Offspring - I've listened to 153 tracks since 2018.

These 6 tracks are all the Offspring that I have on my playlists and again, there is only 6 play difference between the top and the bottom which isn't bad considering I've listened to them 153 times in the last 3 years. Of course, when I think of the Offspring, the song Why Don't You Get a Job is the song that pops in my head.

Artist #4 - Random #373

Foreigner - I've listened to 218 tracks since 2018.

I've got 9 tracks listed under this 80's staple. I really like most of these songs but as you can see, 2 are marked as my favorites (currently 251 songs marked as favorites). There is quite a difference between the top to the bottom at 13 plays. It seems like I should probably know more of their songs as popular as they were but these are the ones I have so far.

Artist #5 - Random #932

the Beach Boys - I've listened to 187 tracks since 2018.

I don't know how you wouldn't know any Beach Boys songs. Depending on your mood, they are one of those bands that when they come on you don't want to hear it or you sing along with it. I have actually seen them in concert a whole lot of years ago. It was a free concert under the arch in St. Louis as part of the 4th of July celebration.

That's quite a group of 5 artists. I'm thinking about incoorporating something like this on my music blog, we'll see. The wheels are turning in my head. I may play around with the idea tonight.

Covid and work

Since I have some time, I'll try to throw in a Covid update post.

In case you haven't heard, there's a pandemic going on. We took a month off in March when this all started, than slowly brought back people to fill in positions. I was in the first wave back so I've been back since the beginning of April. We did a pretty good job at keeping the positive cases down in our plant, for awhile. It seems to be running rampant now.

There's a wall between our side of the plant and the other. The other had a few cases here and there but they all work side by side. On our side of the wall, we are pretty spread out so it took awhile for us to start getting cases. Now that we've had them, we can't seem to stop them. 

My department only has 3 or 4 people on each shift so we're not a big department by any means and up until 2 weeks ago, we hadn't had any positive cases. As of today, 2nd shift has been decimated. 2 positives and the 3rd went home Saturday with symptoms. Her sister works 1st and also went home but she hasn't show signs yet. Our boss called in Saturday with possible symptoms as well so we're waiting to see how his test comes back. If he has it, I'm guessing it came from his boss who has been out for 2 weeks and is coming back tomorrow. If my boss comes back positive, there's a good chance all of us on 1st were exposed.

My chances are narrowing as they are shutting down the breakroom again on Monday. I have a microwave and fridge in my office so guess where most of my department will be going for breaks? I got some disinfectant spray from the cleaning lady and I spray my office down a few times a shift. Pretty much every time I go in there to spend some time. I don't know how much that helps but I'm doing it. I also have a sink in my office so I wash my hands a whole lot more than I used to.

I read an article in the Washington post that said that where I live was hit hard in June but squashed it pretty well and stopped it from becoming bad. Now, we are among the top cities in growing cases. In the article, I read it a few weeks ago, it said that the reason we aren't able to squash it this time was with the elections coming up, we couldn't get the help that we had gotten in June. The elected officials didn't want to make mistakes and hurt their chances of getting elected again. Don't even get me started on politics but the fact that it even comes up when there is a pandemic going on and them worrying about their jobs instead of helping their constituents says a lot of what you need to know.

Honestly, I keep waiting for the county to completely shut down again like it did in March, it's gotten that bad, but yet, nothing happens. I read where the governor was trying to hold off moving up another stage, I don't know why. To be honest, I never know if what I'm reading is even real or not anymore.

I'll keep going to work and taking what precautions I need to take to hopefully keeps myself clean of the virus, but to be honest, it feels like the Hunger Games, or rather, the Covid Games. Just waiting to see who the last one standing is.

Random Artists #1

I don't have much to post about anymore, kids are growing up and I don't do much. Really the only thing I could post about is work and I try not to post about work so it can't be held against me. I've seen plenty of times where people get in trouble for what they post on social media. What I do do (I said doodoo) is listen to a lot of music. You can see that here. So I've been trying to come up with some posts over here.

On my sports blog, on some Sunday's, I post random cards from my collections. So I thought, maybe I could do a random post here of some kind, only with music. So I randomed all the artist on my playlist of 3,927 songs (1,096 artists) and we'll see if I have anything to say about them.

Artist #1 - Random #1036

Tommy Lee - Listened to 33 times since 2018.

These are the only 2 tracks of his that I have listened to in the last year or so. Hold Me Down is on my playlist so I know that one, I believe Good Times was probably on the "Discovery" playlist on Spotify which is supposed to give you songs that you may like. Apparently I didn't, because I didn't add it.

Obviously, Tommy Lee was a part of Motley Crue of which I have some songs of but this track is the only one I listen to from his solo career. I don't know that I've even heard others so I probably heard Hold Me Down on the radio as it came out 10 years ago and that was pre-streaming music. I don't listen to the radio anymore.

Artist #2 - Random #623

Megadeath - Listened to 29 times since 2018.

Megadeath has been around forever so I probably know more of their music (I may not) but I haven't taken the time to listen to anything else. This is the only song I listen to regularly. I heard this song back when I used to watch wrestling and I believe this was Goldberg's song at some point.

Artist #3 - Random #832

Sharon Van Etten - Listened to 22 times since 2018.

Again, only one song with the 3rd artist. I don't really know anything about this artist but I do know where I picked up the song and added it to my playlist. It was on the Man in the High Castle, it may even be the song during the opening credit but I'm not positive on that. I haven't watched it in awhile. I also know it's a cover but I don't know if I've ever heard the original or not.

Artist #4 - Random #916

Tesla - Listened to 36 times since 2018.

I finally got an artist with more than 1 song on my playlist, even though it's only 2. This is probably another artist that I probably know more of their songs but I haven't taken the time to look. I generally add songs when I hear them or think about them. Both of these songs were pretty popular in their day.

Anytime I hear the song Signs, I think of the skit that Bob & Tom (radio show) played. When it gets to the line that says "and I jumped over the fence and said, what gives you the r..." next thing you hear are gun shots and the song is over.

Artist #5 - Random #680

Nine Inch Nails - Listened to 88 times since 2018.

This is the first artist with 3 songs and also the first artist that I have streamed over 50 times in the last 3 years. Which is surprising because I've streamed 33% of those artists more than 50 times. So maybe it's not as surprising that 1 out of 5 has over 50 when only 1 of 3 has done it. Anyways, enough of the math. The songs are listed in order of amount of listens since October of last year.

I know of Nine Inch Nails, they've been around awhile as well but I don't believe I really know a lot of their music. I believe all 3 of these tracks I used to hear on the radio when I listened to it.

That's it for today, we'll see if this becomes a regular thing or not.

Until next time...

ENT Run Around

I forgot I was updating peeps since it was a few days ago when I updated on my wife. Today I'll update you on me.

Right before all this Covid crap hit, I was actually scheduled to have surgery on my nose. The day before my surgery, they cancelled all non essential surgeries but this update actually goes back before that.

After the beginning of the year, the wife and I decided that we would finally get my nose looked at. I pretty much couldn't breathe out of it anymore so we made an appointment with an ENT (ear, nose, throat) doctor in the clinic where my insurance covers. I went to 2 appointments and had my surgery scheduled. My diagnoses was that my septum was shaped in a S and that the membranes on the sides inside my nose had all grown out so they were going to go in and straighten it out and burn back some of the membranes and open it up.

Upon scheduling my surgery, right before it was cancelled, we realized that the doctor I had been going to wasn't even in my network so the insurance didn't cover those 2 initial appointments and I had to pay for them completely. Apparently they were renting out the space in the clinic and aren't actually a part of it. So they were never in my network. So even if Covid hadn't cancelled it, I was going to because I wasn't going to pay twice the amount I needed to.

I found another ENT, made sure he was in my network and went to him. When they scheduled the surgery, my wife told them that it couldn't be at Memorial hospital because they weren't in my network. After 2 weeks, they never sent my paperwork so I went over on the Thursday before my surgery was scheduled. I got the paperwork, everything was good on it and they told me I had to go for a Covid test that day so they could have the results back before the surgery. Sure, no problem. I went down to take the test and when they did it, she told me I had to quarantine until the surgery. Nobody told me that before hand, I had planned on working the next 2 days, have Sunday off and work Monday and Tuesday before my surgery on Wednesday.

I went to work the next day because I couldn't just call in for the next 4 days and I have to schedule vacation days a week in advance. I talked them into giving me Monday and Tuesday off but I still had to work the weekend before. When I got home on Friday, I grab the mail, and the letter they were supposed to send me 2 weeks ago, was there. I opened it up and on this one it said my surgery was scheduled at the hospital that was out of network. WTF?

So I proceeded to call the ENT only to find out they closed at noon. So I than called both hospitals to find out which one I was scheduled at and sure enough, they scheduled me at the one I can't go to. I went ahead and went to work on Monday and told them it was cancelled, again. I finally get everything straightened out and scheduled at the correct surgery center and my surgery is rescheduled for a few weeks later.

They told me that I could do a rapid Covid test on the Friday before my Monday surgery. They scheduled it for 3:45 in the afternoon and my wife specifically said "I thought you closed at noon?" The lady told her that some people stick around and there will be someone there.

So Friday rolls around, I get off work early and go to get the test done. I show up at the ENT and they are closed but there is a doorbell and it says to ring it for appointments so I ring it, and wait. Nobody comes, so I ring it again, and wait. I ring it a 3rd, 4th and 5th time and nothing so I call the office number and there is a number to call for the on call nurse so I called her. She told me she would get a hold of someone so I sit down and wait. Meanwhile, it starts dumping rain outside.

Eventually someone comes to the door from the inside so I stand up and go to it, she opens it and looks at me and asks if I rang the bell, I said "multiple times" so she said "I'll go and let them know you're out here." So she was another patient and didn't work there. She brings back a doctor and I talk to him. He told me he has no more patients scheduled so I told him what I was here for. He told me that they do the Covid test down around the other side of the building. I showed him the text I had confirming the appointment and it says on the text that it was at his office. He said the only reason he knew the tests were down there is because they took one of his nurses earlier down there.

So I go outside in the pouring rain and walk all the way down to the end of the building and there is a sign that says Covid testing and to stay in your car. Figures. I knock on the door and she pokes her head out and tells me I'm supposed to stay in my car. I told her what happened and that my car is all the way on the other side of the parking lot so she finally let me in and took the test.

I never did hear back from the on call nurse.

In recovery (flipping off my wife)

After all was said and done, I had the surgery last Monday. Once they got in there, they found a bone spur that they had to remove as well. It went well, I came home that afternoon. The only issues that I have had since was for the first couple of days afterwards, when I would stand up my nose would bleed. I'm not allowed to blow it or stick things up there so basically I had to let it bleed than wipe it up. I never took any of the pain meds that they prescribed for me.

I'm now 4 days since the surgery and my nose is finally starting to clear up some. It's not completely clear yet and they said it could take a month or 2 for the swelling to go down but I can tell you as of today, I can already breathe through it more than before the surgery and as I said, it's definitely not completely clear yet.

They didn't schedule my post op until the 14th so I have all of next week off as well. I'm certainly not complaining about having more time off. I do plan on complaining to the doctor that his office staff sucks ass, I'm sure he probably doesn't care but I do plan on complaining because of all the run around.

That's my update, maybe I'll update the kids, maybe not. I'm seem to be getting forgetful in my old age.

Update - Wife

Since I have a couple of weeks off (not Covid related but I'll get to it), I figured I could take some time to throw some updates here.

Cheri

An actual recent photo - we don't take very many.

She's doing okay, I guess. With all her issues it's hard to tell. She wanted to go the chiropractor yesterday but they were closed and the guy she likes has Tuesday off so she has to wait until Wednesday.

She has finally taken some advice from me. I've been telling her for years that she needs to get a hobby. Her old "hobby" was sitting on her phone, playing games. She wasn't so bad that she ignored everything to play, just that it was all she did. It would annoy me that she would play while she was eating. She'd say something about me keeping my stats, or blogging about my cards. I would just say at least I feel like I'm being productive on my down time.

It was tough for her to find something because there is all kinds of things she would like to do, but her body won't permit it. She likes doing things with her hands but her hands say no. She used to do woodworking and staining and big projects like that. She really enjoyed the creativity of it but like I said, her body just won't let her do that. She googled hobbies and went down the list and finally settled on cross stitching.

I don't know that she absolutely enjoys it, but she feels productive and she is creating things which I know she loves. She dove right in on it and picked a pretty detailed picture for her first one. Made lots of mistakes that frustrated her but she also knows that she's still trying to figure out the best way for her to complete it. She finished it (it looked really good) but I can't show it as it is a Christmas gift and I'm not sure if that person would see it here or not. She's working on another one now for her mom for Christmas. I can show that one when she's done because her mom can barely figure out the internet.

She's now getting injections in her neck and back to help alleviate pain. She's done the neck one a few times and they have really helped with it and her shoulders. She has a bulging disc in her spine that they really can't do anything with so this gives her some less painful days. I want to say it'll last a few months. She just got some in her lower back a couple of weeks ago (I think). I don't think they were as helpful but any help is good at this point. We're waiting to see how long until she needs another one of those. If she decides to do them back there again.

All in all, she's better than she has been in awhile. She has actually gotten off a lot of her meds and is more reliant on herbs and natural supplements and they have helped her quite a bit. She has reduced how much insulin she has to take for her diabetes, her goal is to get off of it all together. Her A1C has gone way down compared to where it was. Even her doctor has told her to keep doing what she's doing. She's actually more active around the house and has even taken the dog for an occasional walk when the dog guilt trips her into it (and she complains about my guilt trips.)

So while she still has all kinds of medical issues, she is doing better.

I was going to do one post with updates on everyone but this one is now over 600 words so I'm going to cut if off after Cheri and come back tomorrow and tell you why I have a couple of weeks off work (again, not Covid related.) I already know that update will be a fairly decent sized post so maybe another post with the kids. We'll see. I have the time, just have to take the time to do it.

Hopefully see you again soon.

Sunday Stealing #8

I ran across another one of these that I liked the questions, so here goes.

Funny the World

1. Last movie you watched.  Don't know if it's considered a movie or not but we watched Hamilton on Disney+ last weekend. I hate musicals but actually enjoyed this one.

2. Last movie you watched in a theater.  Star Wars: the Rise of Skywalker on January 10th.

I could answer the above 2 question because I track my movies on Letterbox.

3. A film you’ve always wanted to watch, but haven’t.  The new Invisible Man. This was going to be a recent movie because if I want to see something, I see it but we haven't watched much recently.

4. Favorite movie soundtrack.  Tin Cup.

5. Your favorite movie duo. James T. Kirk and Spock. Only reason I thought of them was because I watched a little of Star Trek the other night.

6. Movie you like because of its story.  Dragonfly

7. A film that disappointed you. Avengers: Endgame. Part 1 was pretty good, the finale didn't impress me as much as I thought it would.

8. Favorite scene from a movie. Wow, this ones tough. I think the first time I watched the Shawshank Redemption, when they lead you to believe that Andy hung himself and you know they are going to find him hanging in his cell but he's just gone. When the warden throws the chess piece through the poster. I was shocked!

9. Your guilty pleasure movie.  See above, love the Shawshank Redemption. Doesn't hurt that it's based off a Stephen King story.

10. A movie you keep going back to.  Captain America: the Winter Soldier

11. A quote you admire from your favorite movie. I have no idea. Favorite quote I could probably think of something. One I admire, nope.

12. A movie based on a true story. Eight Men Out

13. Your favorite actor/actress. There is so many to name.

14. A sequel you’re not a fan of. How about prequels, the Star Wars ones to be exact.

15. A film you know by heart.  the Shawshank Redemption

16. Your favorite opening scene.  Guardians of the Galaxy 2

17. A film that was based on a book and was executed well. This is tough because movies are never as good as the books. I'm going to go with the Shawshank Redemption (again) just because it was a short story so the movie was actually more detailed than the book.

18. A comedy film. This is 40

19. TV series you’re binging on now.  We just started season 5 of Homeland on Hulu when the wife is around. Right now I'm watching season 2 of Hanna when she's not.

20. A TV series you think is underrated. Yellowstone. It's not underrated but I don't think a lot of people watch it.

Facebook

I'm about done with Facebook. I always hated how they pick and choose what and who you see so I had a customized list which they used to let you do. I put all the people and pages that I wanted to see on it and then click on the list and it would order it by most recent. I would scroll down until I got to the spot where I left off last time. I got to see everything that I wanted to see. If someone posted a bunch of the same stuff every day, I just removed them from the list, I didn't have to unfriend them, just made it so I didn't see them anymore.

The last couple of weeks, Facebook has changed the list and it now does the same crap as their newsfeed. Only shows me what they want me to see. I see the same posts for a couple of days. I don't want to see what I've already seen. I don't want to have to scroll through all that just to see what I haven't seen. So like I said, I'm about done with it all.

Let's take a look at all my social media and how I view it.

• Facebook - look at my list and my memories for that day. For now.
• Instagram - only view the stories, will occasionally scroll through the feed when I'm bored, but not very often.
• Pinterest - only post my cards from my blog. Don't view anything at all.
• Snapchat - I send my streaks out daily and view streaks sent back to me. I'll go through the feed once a day but I only have a couple of people who posts regularly.
• Tik Tok - I only check it when I'm pooping at home (I hate when people watch videos in the bathroom in public places.)
• Twitter (personal) - I have a list of people of who I actually follow. I check it daily but doesn't take more than a few minutes to get through it.
• Twitter (sports) - Same as above. This list has card blogs and other sports figures but again, doesn't take more than a few minutes to get through it.

With all of those above, I rarely post anything to any of them. My twitter accounts I post links to blog posts but as far as anything personal, extremely rare.

So when someone asks me if I could live without Social Media, yeah, I really could live without it. It's not a huge deal in my life. Do I enjoy it? Sure. Do I have to have it? Nope.

I don't understand the obsession with Facebook to begin with. I see people in their cars while driving to work at 4 am in the morning scrolling through it. Is it really that important that you can't drive without looking at it? I see people at work constantly pulling their phones out and checking it. I just don't understand it at all.

For the record, I rarely, and I mean rarely ever use social media on my phone, other than Snapchat and TikTok because that's kind of their thing but as stated above, I don't use them often. When do I look at social media? Usually sitting in my recliner on my laptop in my living room. Not in the car, not at work, not while hanging out with my friends (if I had any).

When I get bored, I will admit I get on Reddit on my phone but it's not that often. Usually if I'm sitting there with some time to kill for something.

I just truly don't get the obsession.

Stay at Home, Day #3

I'm on the 3rd day of the stay at home order, nothing has really changed much. I have tweeted more, as you'll see below.

Day #1 (Wednesday)

I wasn't going to download it but a couple of people at work said it was hilarious so I downloaded it and played with it for awhile. It's definitely better than I thought it would be.

I got up to grab some chips, and I noticed my wife was watching me so I asked what there was eat and ended up making me some nuggets. She doesn't like it when I snack for my lunches on the weekends.

We decided to go out for supper, or at least out to pick it up. We had read on their Facebook page where their employees were doing deliveries (they don't normally) on their own gas and people weren't tipping them. So we drove 20 minutes out there to get food and tipped even though we just picked it up.

I worked on this most of the evening. I know their websites that do this for you but I just went ahead and did it myself. I got nothing but time these days.

We got through most of the DVR so we headed over to Netflix, my wife has been wanting to watch it. We ended up watching all 11 episodes and as you can tell by the time this was posted, we stayed up a little late to do so.

Day #2 (Thursday)

I've been going downstairs and working on my cards in the mornings, usually until mid afternoon. Gives my wife her time to herself plus I planned on getting a lot done with them since I'll be home for a couple of weeks. It also gives me a chance to listen to music.

Every couple of weeks or so I try to go through the New Releases. Didn't really find much this week.

I hate notifications on my phone. The only ones that I have are Snapchat (I don't get many and they help me to remember to send my streaks), texting and my work email. No Facebook, no Twitter, no Instagram, nothing. I shut the Facebook off for the same reason that I uninstalled Tik Tok. They give me notifications of things I didn't ask for. Such and such posted a new photo. I don't care, I didn't sign up for notifications from that person, don't send them to me.

Day #3 (Friday)

I'm not sure what Walgreens deal was but starting last night, they've been texting my wife every hour to let her know she had meds to pick up. She knew this already but she was waiting on one more to get filled. They even called her about them and when she told them she was waiting on the last one, they got it done.

Hit the grocery store as well, I just went in for 1 item, Milk. By the time I got there, my wife had text me a few other items and then I saw Chef Boyardee 10 for $10 so I grabbed those and a few other things for lunches. I also slipped in some Classic Jelly Beans (Tis the Season) and the latest SI because Tim Anderson was on the front.

I was going to grab some breakfast at Taco Bell on the way home but apparently they discontinued it, hopefully just until this virus is through. I love their breakfast Crunchwraps and the Cinnabon Delights.

When I got home from running around, I headed for the basement to work on my cards and listen to some music. Some background on the above tweet, I was up at the University of Michigan for a game but it got delayed an hour for lightning so a friend and I were walking around the campus. There was a frat house (I assume) and a bunch of people were hanging around, having fun with music playing. That song came on and everyone cheered and then they all stopped what they were doing and rocked back and forth and sang along to the song. We were across the street and we could barely hear the radio anymore over their voices.

We don't have any plans this evening. Just going to catch up on the DVR. We're on yesterdays shows so we may get caught up tonight, we may not. We'll see.