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.

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.

TV Thursdays #3

Between the wife and I, we watch a ton of TV. We both record our own shows as well as stuff we watch together. She generally watches her shows while I'm at work and after I go to bed. When I'm home, we watch our shows and when we run out of those, she has to watch my shows. Here's everything we watched this week.

• 20/20
• 60 Days In
• All Rise
• Almost Home
• Blackish
• Blind Date
• Bob Hearts Abishola
• Body Cam
• Bull
• Deputy
• Emergence
• Family Guy
• FBI
• FBI: Most Wanted
• God Friended Me
• Hawaii Five-0
• Kevin Hart: Don't Fuck This Up x 6
• Last Man Standing x 2
• Live PD x 2
• Live Rescue
• Lost in Space x 6
• Magnum PI
• Manifest
• Messiah
• Mixedish
• Nightly Pop x 3
• Shameless x 13
• Single Parents
• the Carbonaro Effect
• the Circle
• the Mandalorian
• the Neighborhood
• You x 10
• Zoey's Extraordinary Playlist

20/20, Blind Date and Nightly Pop are my wife's but I have to admit, Nightly Pop is pretty hilarious so I don't mind watching that. We watched the whole season of the Kevin Hart show on Netflix, it was ok, nothing outstanding. We tried the Circle and Messiah, also on Netflix but neither one of us were into that. I may watch Messiah on my own but the Circle was just stupid. I finished Lost in Space and we watched the 2nd season of You, also on Netflix. Our go to when we are out of shows is Shameless (yep, Netflix) as you can tell by the 13 episodes we watched this week.

• Into the Dark: Midnight Kiss

As I stated before, Into the Dark is technically a show as a new one comes out every month but they are all different and an hour and a half so I count them as movies. Plus, they are listed on Letterboxd so they have to be a movie, right? Guess what forum these are on, nope, Hulu. You thought I was going to say Netflix again, didn't you?

• Michigan Wolverines at Maryland Terrapins
• Michigan Wolverines vs Alabama Crimson Tide.
• Michigan Wolverines at Michigan State Spartans
• Michigan State Spartans at Michigan Wolverines

The first and the last games listed above are women's basketball. The Alabama game was football and the 3rd one was men's basketball. I'm pretty sure they lost 3 of those games so it obviously wasn't a good week for me in sports. The women beat State at home so there was that at least.

TV Thursdays #2

Between the wife and I, we watch a ton of TV. We both record our own shows as well as stuff we watch together. She generally watches her shows while I'm at work and after I go to bed. When I'm home, we watch our shows and when we run out of those, she has to watch my shows. Here's everything we watched this week.

• All Rise
• Beat Shazam
• Black Lightning
• Blackish
• Bless This Mess
• Bob Hearts Abishola
• Carnival Row (Amazon Prime)
• Carol's Second Act
• Castle Rock (Hulu)
• Charmed
• Ellen
• Evil
• God Friended Me
• Hawaii Five-0
• Live PD x 2
• Live Rescue
• Madam Secretary
• Magnum PI
• Merry Happy Whatever x 8 (Netflix)
• Mixedish
• Mom
• Reprisal (Hulu)
• Saturday Night Live
• Schooled
• Shameless x 7 (Netflix)
• Single Parents
• Supernatural
• the Blacklist
• the Carbonaro Effect
• the Conner's
• the Dead Files
• the Mandalorian (Disney+)
• the Moody's x 4
• the Neighborhood
• the Rookie
• the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon
• the Unicorn
• Treadstone
• Watchmen (HBO)

Ellen, Saturday Night Live and the Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon are all my wife's shows, everything else is ours or mine. We just started Shameless and it's in its 9th season (I think) so since there are a ton of shows to catch up on, that's our go to when we have a lot of time and nothing to watch on the DVR. So you'll probably see that show come up a lot with a lot of the shows heading out until the beginning of the year.

• Brittany Runs A Marathon (Amazon Prime)
• Into the Dark: A Nasty Piece of Work (Hulu)
• Wonder Woman (On Demand)
• Solo: A Star Wars Story (Netflix)

We watched 3 of those movies in one day, just wasn't in the mood to watch regular TV. Into the Dark is technically like a show as they release one periodically (beginning of each month) but they are generally around an hour and a half so I consider them movies.

Wonder Woman we had seen before (in the theaters) but the TV ended up on part of it and we decided to find it somewhere and watch it with less commercials so we found it on demand.

I like Solo a lot more than I thought I would. I'm picky on the Star Wars movies and I didn't think I would care for it but I was wrong. Watching the Mandalorian each week had me in a Star Wars mood so I finally watched Solo.

• Syracuse Orangemen at Michigan Wolverines (Women's Basketball)
• Iowa Hawkeyes at Michigan Wolverines (Men's Basketball)
• Michigan Wolverines at Illinois Fighting Illini (Men's Basketball)

As you can tell, basketball season is upon us. We won the top 2 and lost the last game. I didn't realize the women were ranked at the time so they were better than I was was expecting. That was the first game this year of theirs that they broadcasted. The men spanked Iowa at home but then underperformed in Champagne and got beat.

There you have it for another week. We'll probably start binge watching more shows in the next week or so with the shows going on hiatus for the holidays. Maybe even some more movies.

TV Thursdays

Music one day, walking another, so let's do TV as that's about all I do anymore anyways. I figured I'd show a little of my life on the boob tube.

Between the wife and I, we watch a ton of TV. We both record our own shows as well as stuff we watch together. She generally watches her shows while I'm at work and after I go to bed. When I'm home, we watch our shows and when we run out of those, she has to watch my shows. Here's everything we watched this week.

• 911
• All-American
• Almost Family x 2
• American Housewife
• Arrow
• Atypical x 10 (Netflix)
• Batwoman
• Black Lightning
• Castle Rock (Hulu)
• Live PD x 2
• Living With Yourself x 8 (Netflix)
• Madam Secretary
• Nightly Pop
• Prodigal Son
• Schooled
• Seal Team x 2
• Shameless x 6 (Netflix)
• Stumped
• SWAT
• the Dead Files
• the Flash
• the Goldbergs
• the Good Doctor
• the Kominsky Method x 8 (Netflix)
• the Man in the High Castle x 2 (Amazon Prime)
• the Mandalorian (Disney+)
• the Masked Singer
• the Purge
• the Rookie
• the Tonight Show starring Jimmy Fallon x 2
• Treadstone
• Van Helsing

I told you we watch a bunch. Remember, right now a lot of shows are on fall break so that's why you see some Amazon Prime and Netflix shows where we watched a bunch of episodes. We watched the whole season of Atypical, Living With Yourself and the Kominsky Method. I'm way behind on the Man in the High Castle (2nd season) and we just started Shameless so you'll see those shows here more. There's also some Hulu and Disney+ shows but they only do an episode a week so I can't binge them unless I wait. These are the shows that I watch (minus Jimmy Fallon and Nightly Pop), my wife's aren't listed. She watches a ton of reality TV and stuff on Investigation Discovery.

Get A Job (Prime Video)
Instant Family (Prime Video)
the Irishman (Netflix)

As I said, lots of shows are on break so we got a few movies in this week as well. Get a Job was meh! Instant Family was really good and I like the Irishman but my wife didn't care for it but I always liked those mobster type of movies.

You don't think I don't watch sports do you.

Detroit Tigers at Chicago White Sox
Chicago White Sox at Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim
Ohio State Buckeyes at Michigan Wolverines
Michigan Wolverines vs North Carolina Tarheels
Michigan Wolverines vs Gonzaga Bulldogs
Michigan Wolverines at Louisville Cardinals

They replayed a couple of Sox games Thanksgiving Weekend so I rewatched them. One was an awesome come from behind victory, the other was the annoying game with Bill Walton doing the commentating. We won the game but he was just annoying to listen to it.

Technically, I didn't watch the Ohio/Michigan game on TV. I saw it live, regretfully, but I figured I'd list it since I was listing sports.

I did watch the Michigan basketball team beat North Carolina on Thanksgiving and then Gonzaga the next day. Which put us on a high for the letdown that was against Louisville on Tuesday. All 3 were ranked in the top 10 so I'll take a 2-1 record so far against top teams.

That's it since last Thursday. As I said before, I'll try to keep up with some more posts.

What I'm watching

We spent last weekend watching the Into the Dark series on Hulu. I thought it was a TV series but once we got into it, I realized that they are all movies. Usually under an hour and a half but a movie none the less. You can see my ratings for each one here on my film diary. They weren't great, most weren't horrible. They were a typical horror series I guess. It's rare to get a really good horror movie and being they are putting one out one a month, I wasn't expecting to much.

We've also been really getting into the Live PD, Rescue, First Responders and whatever else is out there. We already have a healthy respect for those individuals but watching what a lot of them have to go through when dealing with the idiots out there, makes you respect them more. Of course, the real reason we watch is just to watch how stupid people really are. It also helps that Live PD is 3 hours on Friday night and Saturday night because right now, there isn't much on.

We started this today on Prime, it's supposed to be pretty funny. It's been ok so far (just finished season 1) but I know a lot of shows pick up after the first season and I hope this one follows that lead. With my lack of plans this weekend, we may get close to being finished with it by Sunday night.

Let's not forget my Sox, I always try to watch them but they are actually fun to watch this year. They are young so they don't always win but when they get on a roll, they are exciting to watch again. Coming into today, they've won 3 straight. Next week I'll get to add Michigan football as well.

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.

Randomness

2 months again without a post. I'm getting really bad at this. For the last few weeks I have said, oh, I need to post something on here, then I get sidetracked with all my other blogs and it never gets done. I had the thought that maybe I would post here on Sundays due to the fact that I have one other blog that I don't usually post on Sundays (it coincides with getting stuff in the mail and there is no mail on Sundays).

Here it is, around 10 pm on Sunday and I just remembered to do this. Although, my typical Sunday, I'm on the laptop most of the day while I'm sitting on my ass. Today, however, I slept in way to late (almost 11am), relaxed for a bit before going outside to power spray the house. The north side of the house gets absolutely no sun so it gets a little moldy. By the time I came in, grabbed some supper, it was after 6 before I picked up my laptop.

We've continued our 4 day weeks at work for awhile but I have been usually able to get my 40 hours in or at least close to it. The lost overtime has sucked, especially with stuff coming up that we need money for. Like my Michigan game tickets and getting Samantha's car ready to drive because she will be eligible to drive on her own in a few weeks. With a few things that happened at work, I think we should get our 5 days in for now.

I have been continuing to keep track of my steps and mileage. I just haven't posted anything here because I'm going from Denver to Seattle and there is a whole lot of nothing in between. There is a stop or 2 in between that I'm going to go by just because I've been there in real life and want to go by it.

I did pass 600 miles for the year, less than a week ago. While I don't have a fitbit anymore, it died, I've been using my phone app (Samsung Galaxy Health App). It's not nearly as accurate but I make do. For one, I tend to leave my phone next to my recliner every time I get up at home so none of those steps get counted.

Along with my 600 miles above, I posted my 600th post on my Last Song of the Day blog a couple of days ago. I went for awile without posting on it because it got to be to much for so little, so now I just post the album cover, the video from YouTube and the lyrics. It goes a lot quicker and since it doesn't get a whole lot of hits anyways, I'm fine with that.

We've been trying to knock out some shows on HULU this past couple of weeks. I was waiting for Castle Rock to end before I signed up so I could watch them all during my free 30 day trial. We finished it and now are watching the Handmaid's Tale. All the fall shows start this week so we'll probably be done with HULU until we cancel it once we finish it.

That's all I got for today, we'll see you again, hopefully soon.

Work, weather and SOA

They announced at work that we were going to 4 days starting next week. There has been rumors of it for a couple of weeks so I knew it was coming. I should still be able to get my 40 for a little while because we've got stuff we can do when the line isn't running but I don't know how long we can milk that.

On the way home today, I sent Cheri this pic with the caption, that doesn't look good.

I was hoping to get to the north/south road I take to get home before it hit so I could get ahead of this but in a matter of minutes after I sent this, the sky got dark and opened up. It was pouring and got very windy. Guess that's what the Tornado watch was for.

We only had 1 show on the DVR so it's probably going to be a Sons of Anarchy weekend. We're already into our second episode tonight. Other than taking Samantha back and forth to work, I'll be plopping in front of the TV.

Travel and TV

I'm back, I know, again. We'll see what I divvy out.

Went to Indianapolis this past weekend and spent some time with Skyler at her new place. It was a cute little home and she lives by herself which is good but better than that, she took us down to her local spot and it was full of hipsters which she'll fit right in with. It makes us happy that she is happy where she's at. That's all you want for your kids is to be happy. It's certainly not everything she wants or deserves but it'll be good for her for awhile.

Since there isn't much on TV right now, we've been watching Sons of Anarchy. Skyler, and others, have been telling us we'd like it. We should finish season 1 tonight. We've like it so far so I'm sure we'll stick with it.

I plan on watching the MLB All-Star game tonight, I haven't told Cheri yet, she hates baseball. When I watch the Sox games I can fast forward a lot so it doesn't take nearly as long. If I watch it live, plus it's an exhibition, it'll probably go until midnight. Cheri may not love me anymore after that.

Not much else going on. Still waiting on my office to get finished at work. The skeleton part is up and pretty much finished. Now I've got to pick out counter tops and a sink and have that installed and then it should be good to move my desk in.