Ho Hum!

I'm still working out. I don't remember if I said before but I've been doing 6 miles after work and 15 miles on my days off. For the most part, I stick with it. I do occasionally just don't because I'm not feeling it. Actually, most of the time, I'm not feeling it but I still force myself. It helps that I have mile goals set it my head depending on the day so I usually get that. I even rode for 20 miles one day last weekend, rode hard too. Cranked on my workout playlist, shut my eyes and rode. It was rather enjoyable, I wish it could be like that every time.

Generally, on Fridays, I listen to New Releases so I don't push as hard but I still put in the 15 miles, usually just a few minutes longer than I usually do.

I finished up the Star Wars challenge sometime since my last post. I received this in the mail yesterday.

It's pretty cool, I really like it. I've been putting all my miles now on the Route 66 one. I think I'm going to put those pages on my side bar somewhere so you can just follow along there.

I mentioned I was listening to my New Releases this morning. Beth Crowley's new album was pretty good, lots of lyrics kind of hit home. I really enjoyed it and added the majority of it to my playlists. Coldplay's new one however, was a waste of my time but I'm not a huge fan of theirs but I do have some of their songs that I like so I'm a lot more critical when listening to them.

Cheri goes for her annual MRI today. I'll be her driver because they have to drug her up to get her in the MRI tube. We're hoping nothing has progressed because she stopped doing the MS drugs awhile back. She still takes LDN which helps with the symptoms but we don't know much about it. The MS drugs side effects were too much for Cheri, she couldn't function doing her daily tasks because of them which is why she quit. I think every MS drug has treated her that way.

This Week - Journal

 

Monday (January 2nd)

My mom and stepdad came by and picked me up for breakfast. We went to Copper Creek again. We met my aunt, uncle, cousin and his wife there. Food was great, as always. Love the Greek Skillet. I will miss these breakfast get together's on Monday when I go back to work. Only issue I had was I had slept in my contacts and my eye was bugging the crap out of me. I took them out once I got home.

I worked on My Sports Obsession's year in review and posted it. I need to work on the one for this blog. Maybe tonight.

Pretty much hung out and watched TV until this evening. Cheri and I ran some stuff to Whole Foods to use the Amazon Drop Off and grabbed some Sonic for supper. We came home and I went looking for something to watch so we're trying Three Pines on Prime.

We didn't stick with Three Pines, Cheri thought it was too boring so I'll add it to the long list of shows that I'll watch when I'm alone. We're watching Black Adam now, she won't like it, it's not her type of movie but I've been wanting to see it so here we are.

Black Adam wasn't bad but it wasn't great either. I felt like those DC characters were generic Marvel characters. We also watched Blacklight with Liam Neeson. Again, not bad but not great.

Tuesday (January 3rd)

Woke up a couple of minutes before my alarm because work called. I wasn't too pissed since I was getting up in 2 minutes anyways, other than they woke up my wife.

My cousin picked me up and we headed to the local card show and spent about 6 hours there sorting cards. I did baseball and sorted them by players. I ended up filling up a 5 row box of all the cards I sorted.

Came home and ran to Taco Bell for supper. Now just trying to find something to watch. Tried Kaleidoscope but the wife wasn't into it. She doesn't pay enough attention to anything so it has to be really good for her to stay with it. I'll add it to my list of shows to watch when she's not around. We ended up looking for a movie on the Fire Stick, picked one and as always, it wasn't what we picked but it had Owen Wilson so we watched it anyways. It was called Secret Headquarters. It was alright, had it's funny parts but some of the action was pretty cheesy.

Wednesday (January 4th)

Woke up earlier to take Duke to the vet, he's getting a tooth extracted today. Cheri's really worried because they have to put him to sleep but she's not too bad since he's been put to sleep a couple of times without issues. Hit Taco Bell for my breakfast and then McDonalds for hers then headed home.

Been down in my card room scanning and logging some cards that I brought home yesterday and then worked on some spreadsheets.

The vet called and said Duke did well and we can pick him up at 4. I'm sure Cheri is relieved.

Duke is home now and Cheri will baby him back to health. We'll probably watch TV the rest of the evening but I'm not sure what we're doing for supper. I'll probably end up running out and getting something since she won't want to leave Duke even though he's just laying around.

I was right, I ran down to Subway (blah!) which I'm not a big fan of but that's what Cheri wanted. I was right, neither of us were all that happy with the food. There's a reason I've only eaten there one other time since 2020.

Thursday (January 5th)

Not too much happening today. I was going to go to breakfast with my uncles and cousin if I woke up before 9 but I ended up sleeping until almost 9:30. My cousin and I were going to go card shopping but we both decided we weren't in the mood and then I sat around for an hour playing on my phone while Cheri watched TV. I couldn't decide if I wanted to go work in my card room.

Work called me to do their Thursday check in and informed me that I will go back on Monday at my usual time so we'll see how that goes. My Plant Manager is supposed to call me today to let me know but I wouldn't be surprised if I don't hear from him. Not long after, my 3rd shift operator called me to bitch about maintenance not listening to him. I told him now you understand why I can't get anything done on 1st when it comes to dealing with them. They always think they know better. I tend to pace when talking on the phone for awhile so once I hung up with him, I decided to head downstairs. I don't really have much card stuff to do so I'll probably work on blogs and spreadsheets while I decide if I want to do anything else.

All the TV shows are coming back so we'll be sticking with the DVR for the most part for awhile in the evenings.

Friday (January 6th)

I ran over to Sluggos after I got up and we headed to Schererville to the Baseball Card Exchange. We hung out for a couple of hours between shopping and Sluggo talking. I picked up a couple cards for me and a couple for a guy I trade with Ann Arbor.

Just got teared up at the ending of Call Me Kat. Such a touching ending about the loss of Leslie Jordan. He was one of my wife's favorite people, and I like him as well so that news hit us a little bit.

We've been screwing around and looking more into the streaming in order to drop cable. I'm not sure what we're going to do. Essentially, the only reason we have cable which cost just over $100/month is so I can watch Michigan and White Sox games. Most everything else can be streamed and watched elsewhere. We've spent most of the evening working on it.

Saturday (January 7th)

I slept in way too long. I didn't wake up until 10 am which is going to make it really tough to get back into the routine work schedule of waking up at 3:45 am.

I got up and unhooked the cable box and DVR and put them in a bag and the wife and I headed out to pick up groceries and drop off the boxes to Xfinity. We got there and they told us we couldn't cancel the cable because we just signed a contract. Apparently when I talked to them last week, he signed us up for a whole new contract without even telling us. So now I have to call and get them to cancel the contract that I never signed up for. I tried calling outside the Xfinity store but after half an hour, I gave up so we could go get lunch. I even left it on the phone call the whole time we drove to Copper Creek before hanging up. 

We came home after lunch and I hooked up the cable box (since I couldn't cancel it) to watch the Michigan/Michigan State basketball game and neither one of the boxes would work so I ended up streaming the game. They wonder why I want to cancel it. I'll call them tomorrow and drop everything off after work on Monday.

Went looking for something to watch this evening and settles on the Rig on Netflix. Only a couple episodes in and it's alright, intriguing enough to keep my interest. I'm not sure my wife likes it though.

Sunday (January 8th)

Set my alarm for 8 am. Still didn't get up until after 9. I didn't sleep the whole time between 8 and 9 but enough. Although it's after noon now and I still feel tired. I hate feeling tired, it's how I feel on work days but it needs to be done so I can get some sleep tonight. I can't be up until 2:30 in the morning again and plan on getting up at 3:45, that won't work, at all.

It's been a very blah day, I haven't really been into doing anything. I sat at my desk downstairs for awhile just scrolled through Reddit. I don't know if it's because I have to go back to work or other personal issues but I'm just very down today.

This Week - Journal

One thing I noticed about this past week is I'm a lot more active when I don't have to work so once I go back to work, I'm sure these posts will be a lot less wordy. 

Monday (December 26th)

When I woke up, I shot off a text to my mom and asked if we were doing breakfast. She usually does breakfast with my aunt and uncle on Monday's and I've been tagging along with them since I was home the previous 2 Mondays. They weren't doing breakfast because my aunt and uncle's grandkids and great grandkid were in town so they were hanging with them before they went home. So Cheri and I went out with just my mom and stepdad to Copper Creek, which is a favorite breakfast spot of mine. It's a small diner kind of place but great food and they have the Greek Skillet that I love to have for breakfast. It was a nice breakfast, especially since Cheri went as she doesn't go out with us all the time. I always enjoy just hanging out with my family so it was a good time.

We came home and I headed for my card room to get the cards I got for Christmas logged in and scanned. Cheri started taking down the Christmas stuff. Just as I finished the cards I got yesterday, Cheri sent me a text saying that she should log all her ornaments into a spreadsheet. Her mom buys all of us ornaments, every Christmas so we have a ton of ornaments. We downsized our tree a year or two ago so we barely use any compared to how many we have. Of course, she text me that because I'm the king of spreadsheets so I went back upstairs and sat down and we worked all day on logging all the ornaments, then we logged all her Jim Shore stuff all while taking everything down. So we ended up spending the majority of the afternoon and evening doing all that stuff. It was a good time as well just because we usually just sit around and do casual chit chat, I always enjoy doing projects with her, but I hate projects in general so it's always a toss up on whether I'll enjoy the project. Spreadsheets are my jam though, so I enjoyed that one.

I need to make sure I silence my phone tonight because a few people are going back to work in the morning and I already know the line is going to be down for the first 4 hours because my plant manager didn't respond to my text last week about how to fix it and I don't want to be woke up at 6 am about it.

Tuesday (December 27th)

I didn't wake up to any missed phone calls, that's always a bonus. I knew they would be able to handle it, I was more worried the plant manager was going to call me to bitch about it. I talked to Ken and he did say they had all kinds of issues with the boiler all day but maintenance was there to work on it.

My cousin and I went out to the local card shop to do some shopping. When we walked in, a couple of the guys that set up at the card shows with us were there. One guy left not long after but the guy that sets up behind us at the Fort Wayne show hung out the whole time we were there (just over 3 hours) so we all were talking about sports and cards in general, I enjoyed it. That's part of the reason I like doing card shows is just the standing around with a bunch of guys and talking sports and such. I bought a few cheaper things for myself. I may go in next week with my cousin and help the card shop owner sort cards, which I love to do anyways. He'll pay me in cards, which I'm definitely cool with. We'll see.

Just hung out and did our usual this evening, watched TV while screwing around on the internet. We're thinking about ditching cable since we can stream most of the shows on services that we already have. I'll have to call the cable company in the next day or two.

Wednesday (December 28th)

Stayed home most of the day. Called the cable company and he lowered our bill a little but I think we're still going to cancel. It just isn't worth it. I hung out in my card room most of the day, logged and scanned the cards I got at the card shop yesterday and then started pulling all the cards that I need to scan for the TCDB. That took most of the day, I didn't realize how many I needed to scan. There were 3 pages and I only got the first 2 pulled.

Ken called from work and said they decided that a few people were coming in next week as well. They just can't make a decision in that place.

Samantha came over to use the shower and once she left and my son went to work, Cheri and I decided to go to Barnaby's for supper so we got dressed and headed out. You can tell it's the week that a lot of people have off because it was packed and loud, Cheri and I could barely stand it, we're getting old. By the time we got our pizza, most of the place had cleared out and it was better. The pizza was better than usual as well so there was that.

We hit Walmart on the way home to grab a headlight bulb for my car and I grabbed a strap for my Fitbit watch because I'm going nuts without having it on me and the one we ordered on Amazon isn't supposed to be here until next week.

Thursday (December 29th)

Worked in my card room in the morning. Finally finished pulling all the cards that need scanned (photo below). That is going to be a chore but at least I cleared my desk off of all the other cards since everything is pulled now, I put everything else away in my card room is back to being organized.

Each stack is a page on TCDB and there are 100 cards to a page. I've got to scan fronts and backs so it'll be a project. I should be able to get most of it (hopefully all of it) done while I'm off work.

The HR lady called me today, they call everyone on Thursdays on the weeks we are off to make sure everyone is doing ok because a lot people can't handle the time off because of the lack of money coming in. I told her I'm great, that's why I save all my vacation and personal time. I'm covered for the whole 3 weeks. She said they were discussing only having 70% of the work force coming back on the 9th. Yikes! I should be part of that 70% but I won't count on that until I know for sure. As much as I like having to not work, I only have so many vacation days and I don't want to burn them all up in January so hopefully I'll get called back. I should.

Went over to my mom's at 3 and met my brother, his buddy and my mom and stepdad and we left for Ann Arbor. We were heading up to the Michigan basketball game. We ended up being late because we didn't plan enough time to stop and eat. I kept throwing hints out that that was going to be the case but nobody listened. You would think they'd listen to the guy who's on time for everything. I had a great time, it was my first men's basketball game there. I've been to a woman's game before. The only part of the evening that sucked was we lost to somebody we should have beaten pretty easily. The team does not look as good as we had hoped. We didn't get home until after midnight.

Friday (December 30th)

Cheri had to go to the chiropractor so I tagged along as I usually do when I'm home and she goes. I didn't even get out of my pj's because I sit in the car while she's in there and listen to music. When she came out, we headed over to the Culver's where my daughter works and grabbed some food and said hi. We sat in the parking lot and ate, as we always do and then came home.

Apparently when I talked to the cable guy to lower our bill, he did a bunch of changes that I didn't ask for. I'm definitely ditching them next week. I'm just going to take everything and set it on their counter and tell the to cancel everything but the internet. We signed up for Philo just to see if we like it so we're probably use that to watch a bunch of stuff.

I went down and did some organizing in my card room in the afternoon. I moved a small desk into it and made a shelf of my "other" collectibles (photo below).

These are all things (mainly ornaments) that people have given me, I haven't paid for any of it but I like them so I put everything in my room but my sports collectibles keep growing and I needed the shelves for that stuff. So I added this small desk next to the desk that I actually use. I don't know if I'll keep it or not but it's definitely more organized than it was before. The top left is the Walking Dead with Groot from the Guardians of the Galaxy in front of it. The middle is Game of Thrones with Star Trek in the front and the whole right side is Star Wars.

Saturday (December 31st)

I actually had to wake up to an alarm clock today. I got up at 7:45 and headed over to my cousins where we drove to Lake Station and set up at the VFW for a card show. It was a pretty slow show but a couple of pretty big sales helped make it a good show financially. My brother came down and hung out with us for an hour or so. We were going to shut down about half an hour early so I could get to my brother's house for the Michigan playoff game but there was a guy still looking at cards so I called my mom and they picked me up early. Which was a good thing because that guy ended up spending $500.

I'm not even going to talk about the game, that was embarrassing and that wasn't the Michigan team I watched all year long. As always, I enjoyed hanging out with the family. Especially my brother as I don't get to see him much anymore since he moved an hour away.

Came home and chilled in the living room, watching TV until a couple of minutes before the ball dropped, we switched it over to watch the ball drop. We had to turn the TV way up once it did to block out the fireworks going off around us otherwise our dog freaks out. They went on for awhile so we flipped it over to the Nashville one where they were playing country music until the ball dropped there. We went to bed not long after that. We're such party animals in our old age.

Sunday (January 1st)

I pretty much spent the day in my card room and was working on blogs. I typed up everything above this and about half the music blog post. From here on out, I plan on working on those posts daily so it doesn't feel like it's taking nearly the amount of time that it did today.

I also scanned and logged 5 or 6 cards that my brother gave me yesterday.

The rest of the afternoon/evening I spent screwing around on the computer and watched some TV. Mainly the Michigan basketball (that was not the team I saw on Thursday) until Yellowstone came on. We also finished the last couple of episodes of Night Sky. I enjoyed that show, wish they wouldn't have cancelled it after 1 season. Not really sure what I think of 1923, it's ok so far but hasn't been as great as the previous season, whatever year that was.

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.

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 Catch-Up Post

I was going to post today, but I don't really have much to talk about it so I'm just gonna start typing and see what comes out. It'll probably end up being a random type post but it's better than nothing.

We've been binging on some shows this weekend. Yesterday and this morning we knocked off what was left on the DVR and we watched the whole season of Bonding on Netflix, that sounds like a lot but all 7 episodes were under 20 minutes a piece. I didn't know that when we started it but oh well, it wasn't bad. It had it's funny moments, and raunchy moments, glad the kids weren't home. Now we're watched Dead To Me, also on Netflix. It's listed as a comedy but it's much more of a drama, but either way it's still good. Lots of twists for such a small story. When we're done with that, we'll watch the new Game of Thrones tonight.

Things are going pretty good at work. I just got enrolled for a few classes this summer as well as a class in September to prep me for a huge test that could get me some certifications, which will hopefully come with a big raise. I just hope that's the way my job sees it. It would save the company money, quite a bit so I would think that would be raise worthy. The first class is in less than 2 weeks and I have to travel an hour and a half one way. All 3 of the classes are there (the other 2 are in June) and the test prep class is in Indianapolis which is just under 3 hours from here. It's overnight as well so they'll have to put me up in a hotel. So like I said, I think my job is going well.

We've felt bad that we haven't been taking the dog to the dog park, our oldest always did and said he had a blast so we finally got around to taking him. He pretty much just smelled around everywhere and barely interacted with any other dogs. So now we don't feel bad for not taking him so often. He sniffs and runs around in our back yard, do I really need to take him somewhere else to do that?

I got tickets to my first White Sox game in awhile, I think the last one I went to I took my kids to their first game in 2013. I'm taking my brother and his wife (who hate baseball) and my mom and stepdad (she hates baseball, he doesn't, but he also never watches it). They've been begging me to take them. They said "I don't know why you've never invited us?" Um, because you hate baseball. They'll enjoy it though because they'll like the atmosphere. It's also in a couple of weeks.

I'll post about my walking again in the near future. I've been going from Coors Field in Denver to T Mobile Park in Seattle so there has been a whole lot of nothing to post about. I am in Washington so I'm closing in on Seattle.

If you're confused about this paragraph, go click on the Walking label.

I guess that's it for now with my exciting life.

Slow Saturday

I feel like I should post something, I'm sure nobody is really waiting for anything but I hate neglecting the blog. My life pretty much consists of home and work.

Home life is pretty boring. Sam is driving now so I don't have to run her back and forth anymore. We've actually taken in a friend of hers who has just had a rough life. Her family just don't want to take care of her so she doesn't get anything she needs or help with getting to work or anything. We've taken her in which essentially means we've taken financial responsibility for her because in reality, that's all we've done. She wanted to move in because she knows living here, she has to keep up with school work and doesn't have the stress of dealing with all the crap at her place. We met with the guidance counselor and straightened some things at school and are trying to get her on track to graduate on time.

I guess I had something to say after all. I'm still keeping track of my walking on a map. I believe I'm in Idaho at the moment but it'll be awhile before I reach anything because there isn't much around.

Work life is pretty good. I enjoy most of my job. I finally got my lab built and have moved in so that's great. I've had some issues with some of my employees but to be honest, I'm not comfortable posting about work online. Anything can happen with the information and the company I work for is pretty huge and like I said, I enjoy my job so I don't want to jeopardize anything so I generally don't say anything.

So between my boring life at home and not wanting to post about work that pretty much leaves me with nothing to post about. So there you go.

I still post on My Sports Obsession fairly regularly but if you don't like sports cards, that means nothing to you. I also post almost daily on Last Song of the Day which if you like music, or even if you don't, you can check it out. I post the last song that I listened to off of my playlist that currently consists of 3,306 songs. It has pretty much everything on it. Rock, Country and 80's are the top 3 genres with songs posted so far so go check it out.

Wednesday Medley #2

1.  The Circleville, Ohio, Pumpkin Festival starts today.  All things pumpkin are everywhere. What is your one very favorite pumpkin flavored food or drink?  Do you wish it was available all year or do you only want it in the Fall?     Pumpkin Pie and that's about it, not a huge pumpkin fan.
2.  What product would you seriously stockpile if you found out they weren't going to sell it anymore?     I don't know, I'm not really obsessed with anything in particular. I have lots of things I really like but it's more cravings than anything. Once I satisfy the craving, I'm over it for awhile.
3.  What is the most interesting thing you have seen online this week?     Highlights from the Michigan game
4.  Is it better to be a "big fish in a small pond" or a "small fish in a big pond"?     Big fish in a small pond I guess, but I have no desire to be the big fish.
5.  My Joe has become obsessed with playing chess on the computer.  Do you play chess?  Are you good at it?     I play but I rarely play. I taught my kids to play and it was fun until they got bored with it.
6.  Tell us something random about your week.     My oldest son, girlfriend and 2 kids are staying with us from Thursday until Tuesday. Our nephew is getting married so Cheri's whole family will be together. If our oldest daughter can get up here this weekend, we are hoping to get a picture of our whole family together. I don't think all of us have been together in 8 years.

I'm finding that my life is so boring, that I even have trouble answering these basic questions.

This week

I don't want to go back to work tomorrow. I know, who really does but they gave me a whole week off so I really don't want to go back.

A few weeks ago, they decided they were going to shut down for the week because sales were down. Most people were upset, don't get me wrong, none of them wanted to be there, but most couldn't afford getting paid for one day (the 4th). A few people were complaining how they didn't have vacation days and they burned through their personal time already. Most of them used them just to take days off, no real reason to use them.

Then there's me, who never really uses his vacation days. I've used 2 of my 2 weeks so far, one on a court date with the Ex, the other on our annual Father's day weekend camping trip. I regret using both because both times sucked. Either way, that still leaves me with 8 days. For the record, I also have 14 of my 16 personal time left as well. So when they said, hey, you're getting a week off, I was stoked. I put in for 4 vacation days and said, see ya!

I cropped out the sign cuz you all

don't need to know where I work.

The wife and I decided to head on out on Saturday (last weekend) and took the kids with us to Virginia to see her family. We basically hung out with family through Monday.

Sam's b-day was Sunday

On Tuesday, Cheri hung out with her BFF all day while the kids and I headed out for just outside Asheville, NC to hang out with my cousin all day. It was only an 1 1/2 drive from Bristol so we went down that morning and hung out up in the mountains before heading back.

On the 4th, we headed back which was a great decision because there was absolutely nobody on the roads. Other than around the big cities, there wasn't anybody out there. A normal 10 hour drive took us less than 9 and the only reason it took that much time is because I have an insurance thingy in my car portal which dings me if I go over 80 mph. Basically, I set the cruise at 78. If the speed limit was 70 mph, I went 78. If it dropped down to 55 mph, I went 78 mph. Normally, when it is 70 mph, I set my cruise for mid to high 80's.

Thursday we chilled at home, Friday we spent all day building our shed for the back yard, that's a whole another story but it's finally up. Haven't really done anything since but either way, I really enjoyed having a week off and I'm also really not looking forward to going to work tomorrow.

The positive of going back to work is the week before, they put the walls up to my lab/office. I'm hoping they went in and got my cabinets, countertops and sink got installed this week so I can move in. I don't think they did, but I'm crossing my fingers. I've already got my desk, I'm just waiting on the other stuff to get put in.

Over the river and through the woods, with pizza

I got to work today, knowing I was going to have to make quite a bit of adds to get caught up from not having my pump for a week. So as usual, more stuff got thrown on me taking my time away. When I finished topping off the tanks, I had to pump out anodize rinse water into a tank that needs cleaning. One thing we have learned is Sulfuric is great for cleaning hard stuff. I use it in my lab once a week just to soak certain beakers that get crappy looking after a week of use. I let it soak in the beaker for a few hours and it looks like new. Anyways, I pumped over the rinse into our old black dye rinse to let it soak and hopefully make it easier to clean the dye off when we get around to doing it. Of course, this knocked an hour off of the time I use for my daily stuff.

Once I got my testing done, I decided to skip out on the decanting of the Anodizers to make time to knock off all the other adds. I made adds to the Soap, Etch and Seal tanks as well as got another Caustic barrel going to the Etch tank. I knocked them out relatively quick which was good since I was short on time.

I'm thinking with all those adds done, I can knock out the Anodizers in the morning and that should leave me some time to do a bunch of paper/computer work that they want me to do before the weekend. We are working Saturday so I do have an extra day to get it done.

After work, I came home, showered and went to pick up Trevor from the school. He had his J-Club (Academic team) practice/meeting. Then we came home, hung out, then headed for my grandmothers house. One thing I've learned this week is not to leave between 5 or 6 o'clock because it is a pain in the ass to get out of our neighborhood and out onto the main road. We got out and went to Bruno's to pick up the pizza then headed out.

She had a couple of surgeries on her hip and is restricted to putting absolutely no weight on it so she moves around with a wheelchair. Which of course is odd because before the hip issues, she could out walk me any day of the week. She is way more active than I am but once this time frame is over, she will hopefully be good to go back to resuming her normal activities.

My mom invited us all over so Cheri could give my grandmother a haircut, I'm pretty sure it was also a way to get us over there because I'm a horrible grandson and don't visit. Which wouldn't be bad if I had an active life, but all we do is sit around and do nothing and I still can't take the time. It isn't like I ignore her, to be honest, I just don't think about it and once I do, I'm already home and in my PJ's and don't want to leave.

I'm just not a surprise, here we are, type of guest so unless I plan on showing up, I don't think about it. I'm that way with everyone. I love my family and I love hanging out with them, even if we're not doing anything I always have a good time just chit chatting, but I just don't like just showing up, even if I know they wouldn't care.

Cheri ended up cutting Samantha and Trevor's hair as well. She figured she might as well while she had hair on the floor. Afterwards, we headed home. I probably could have gone to bed around 9 but that's to early, and now I'm awake and it's closing in on midnight. It's like a never ending cycle sometimes. That's going to make it hard to do all the computer work tomorrow. That tends to make me drowsy when I don't get much sleep.

A Catch-Up Post

It's been a somewhat busy week or so for me which is a rarity. On Thursday of the previous week, I called up to the general managers office at work. I walked in and said "I feel like I'm in trouble and got called to the principals office" he replied with "nope, it's all good news." So I sat down and he asked me a few questions about previous anodizing experience (I have 14 years in that field) and proceeded to tell me that one of the other plants have been asking about me and basically wanted to know if I was interested. After all was said and done, I am. This all came about because my old supervisor at the place I have the anodizing experience, now works at the other plant.

I then got called to go out to the other plant for an interview, on company time which is nice since it's a half hour drive. I drove out there, they basically interviewed me while they gave me a tour of the plant. I was out there for around an hour and a half, met a bunch of the big wigs and headed back. They ended up offering me the job later that Friday and I accepted. They told me that they would like to have me out there the next Thursday and Friday for some classes that they were giving so I let my plant know and they said it was cool.

That Friday night we headed out to Jellystone to go camping with the family. It was a good time but both of my kids didn't really take advantage of all the swimming and pool slides and stuff available so while it was a great place, I don't see myself going back. It is kind of geared more for younger kids than mine are but all in all, it was a good time.

It was a relatively slow work week on Mon-Wed as I'm just biding my time until they let me transfer. Thursday and Friday I spent out with my new job for a couple of hours as well as the time spent in the classes. The new job is a really good opportunity for me and I can't wait to get started out there. I had all kinds of higher ups introduce themselves and would tell me they were glad I was there, basically, made me feel important. It's been a long time since I felt that way at my job. Most of them know about me because I am filling a created position so it's like it was created specifically for me. It kind of sucks that I have to go back to my old job next week.

All week long while I was working, Cheri was home baking 40+ dozen (mini) cupcakes and a wedding cake for our niece. So the house has smelled extremely good. On Thursday, after some drama from the school, while we had our daughter sitting in front of us, we had a discussion on whether or not she was allowed to date because she had a boy that was interested in her and she was in him. So on Friday, she came home telling us she had a boyfriend now. Yikes!

Friday night, we went out to where the wedding was being held to drop off the cupcakes and most of the wedding cake. We also nabbed some Chik-Fil-A as we always do when we are on that side of town.

Saturday evening, we had the wedding, We went out an hour early to get the cake stacked all up, I should have gotten a picture for you all but honestly, we were putting everything together and I don't think I took more than 2 photos all night. It was a truly beautiful wedding, on a beach off of a lake. We had a good time. Our oldest daughter made it up as well so we got to spend some time with her. Our relationship has gotten a lot better in the last couple of years and I enjoy spending time with her. Plus, we're dog sitting her dog for a week until she comes up for another wedding next weekend. That always makes my wife happy, she loves that dog.

Today, we didn't do much. I ran the kids around a few places. Samantha dropped off a job app and filled out another one online so we'll see how that goes. She's only 15 so her places are limited as to where she can work. She's also been busy taking her online drivers ed so it could be a rough year for the nerves.

Tomorrow, I have to go back to court for child support. The ex-wife made one payment in 3 years and that apparently is enough for her to take me back to court to try to lower her weekly non-payments. Whatever, she doesn't pay so does it really matter on how much she gets added to her back support every week.

I think that's about it. That may not seem like much to you guys but we don't do much around here so for us, it's been an eventful couple of weeks. Once I get transferred to the new plant, I'll give a little more details about my new job but just know, I am very grateful for this opportunity and it comes with a lot of benefits that I don't have now.

Routines

We all have routines, I definitely have routines but they were disrupted this week. Cheri had decided to run off to Virginia with her daughter and to spend time with her son (and other family and friends) which left me and the younger kids on our own. Not technically on our own since our cat is here, as well as my daughter's dog. Certainly nothing I can't handle, I'm a big boy, but I have routines that when I get out of them, I get lost.

My work morning routine is get up, do bathroom stuff, get dressed in the closet (so I don't wake Cheri) then I go to the kitchen, get my lunch together, put on my shoes, put on my glasses (prescription safety glasses) and head for the garage to go to work.

My routine this week is more or less the same but I had to add a few things. With Cheri gone, if I don't feed the animals, they won't get food until the kids get up which could be as late as noon (not usually, but it has happened). So I check both their dishes as well as open my sons door so the dog can go sleep in his room after I leave. If I don't open the door, he thinks he's alone and whines for a little bit which will wake my son up anyways. If I open his door, the dog will just go get into bed with him until he wakes up.

As you can see, not much change, but there was one morning where I stepped out into the garage and couldn't figure out why everything was blurry. I then realized that I didn't put my glasses on. I was out of sync.

My nightly routine, is I put away what ever I have out by my recliner, put my phone on the charger then go to the bathroom (take contacts out, brush teeth) go into the closet and get out of my PJ's and go to bed.

Without Cheri here, I also let the dog outside, check the water dishes and clean the litter box before bed. Once again, not much addition but it's enough. I went through that routine and went to bed. When I got up the next morning, I went through the other routine only this time, I put my glasses on and everything got blurry. Apparently, I forgot to take my contacts out the night before.

The problem this time though was because I had just gotten up (I usually walk out the door 15 minutes after I've gotten up) and I had slept in my contacts. I couldn't get them out because they were stuck to my eyes. So I had to grab my glasses and my contacts case and hope by the time I got to work, they would come out. They did after a bunch of intentional (and non-intentional) yawning to get some moisture in my eyes.

I have other routines, such as when I first get to work as well as when I get on my laptop (I have a daily's bookmark that I work my way though) but I'm always amazed at how little I get screwed up when I get a little out of my routine.

My son

My son and I don't have much in common, very little at that. We share a middle name and that's about it. He's 12 and his interests are video games, YouTube and reading, in that order. He plays video games so much that we have had to set time limits because otherwise he'd play them 24/7. What's worse is it's really only one game, Minecraft. Now when I say he's obsessed about the game, let me explain. Remember those 3 things I listed as his interests? Video games (obviously, Minecraft), YouTube (he watches other people play Minecraft) and Books (Not all, but some Minecraft here as well.) There's been times when he comes out of his room and I say "What'cha up to?" He says "listening to music." At first I'm shocked, because that would be one of my interests so I ask "what'cha listening to?" His reponse, "Minecraft music."  Ahhhh

He has been getting into Pokemon Go as well now. At least it's something different. It gets him out of the house as well. His friends will come over and they go Pokemon hunting. They used to just stay in the neighborhood but they have ventured further. There is a church and school down the road and they have been walking down to it because it has Poke stops. Yeah, I don't really know what that means but he's out of his room so I can't complain to much.

He came home the other day from one of his hunting trips and I stopped him and we actually talked a bit about Pokemon Go. I started making comparisons to what I do a lot of, collecting (organizing) my baseball cards. That's one of the first times he seemed to "get me" and I understood some of the game, or at least the collecting part of it. It was a little bonding, at least as much as I've had with him so I count that as a positive.

Since this post is about him, I'll throw out a couple of Tweets I posted this week about him.

Apparently he needs re-taught how to do his laundry.

This happened at the end of our bonding talk. It made me laugh.

Day 50, Zion, IL (154.6 Miles)

As you can see, I'm still in Illinois. That's partly because we just came off the weekend which as you know, means I didn't do much of anything. 

I'm currently in Zion, I haven't seen much as far as anything spectacular to show you, I'm right outside a church at the moment. I'm still fairly close to the lake, a little more over a mile and I plan on following North for awhile before heading west.

I had fairly big day yesterday, I came home with around 7,000 or 8,000 steps and it was so nice out (mid 60's) that I decided to take the dog for a walk and added another 5,000 or 6.000 steps. I ended up with over 12,000 steps for the day. I had planned on going for another walk today, but I ran by my mom's after work and hung out for awhile. By the time I got home I didn't feel like going. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not.