Sunday Catch-up

I'm still working out. I wasn't as great this past week but I did alright.

Monday (Labor Day) - Road the bike for 15.04 miles

Tuesday - Walked 3.05 miles

Wednesday - Walked 1.55 miles

Thursday - Day off, rain

Friday - Walked 1.54 miles

Saturday - Day off, show day.

Sunday - Biked for 15.07 miles

So not too shabby. I should have walked on Thursday. It rained really hard but it was finished by the time I left work. I was afraid I'd end up on the other side of the lake when it started again and I would have been screwed. Hind Sight says I probably would have been ok.

I unlocked this earlier in the week from the Star Wars Conqueror's Challenge.

Other than that, those have been quiet. Now that I'm doing the biking on the Route 66 one, the Star Wars one has slowed down.

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I started a new blog for myself. I titled it Mental Health. It's a private blog so there won't be an address or anything but it's a place to put my private thoughts about my Mental Health. I've struggled with a few things recently so it's a place for me to unload my feelings.

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Not looking forward to work tomorrow. My partner in crime there has left. She did a lot for me, work and personally. She took a lot of stuff off my plate which allowed me to get a lot of stuff done that I didn't have time for and we made a great team and I'm going to miss that. She was also very good for my head because she was very good at getting me out of bad moods which work tends to put me in. I'd like to think that we were both good for each other in that aspect. So tomorrow starts work life without Lex and I am not looking forward to it.

This Week - Journal

Monday (January 9th)

I slept like crap last night, as I usually do on Sunday nights. Something about going back to work after having days off. Last night was worse than usual, probably because I had 3 weeks off.

I got to work at 6 like the boss told me. I usually go in at 5 and make sure the line is running before everyone gets there but he didn't want me to and they ended up not starting to run until almost 7 because of an issue with the airlines. I worked 10 hours and am absolutely wore out, and I didn't even do that much. Way too much time off of doing nothing. 

I called and cancelled our cable so now we're "cordless." Our antenna came in today and I hooked that up so we can watch local TV which will mainly be to watch sports. Most of the shows we watch can be streamed.

Tuesday (January 10th)

Nothing terribly exciting today. One of the girls crashed a load but no damage was done to the parts but it took a bit to fix everything. Still haven't had any meetings which is great. I did have a Teams Meeting online but I ate lunch and listened to music during it. I just unmuted when I needed to say anything.

Came home and ran out to Xfinity to drop off the cable boxes (we're officially done with cable TV) and UPS store to return some Amazon purchases. Right up the road from the UPS store is Firehouse Subs so we went there for supper. Cheri actually wanted to go in and eat which was shocking to me but we did. The chairs kicked her ass which would be why we don't normally go in.

I'm super tired tonight, I may crash early but I'm trying to get all my online stuff done.

Wednesday (January 11th)

Actually had my first meeting of the year. I say actually because we usually have a ton of them. I guess I should say in person meeting because I did have a Teams (online) meeting earlier in the week. That is the one nice thing about not having everybody there, way less meetings.

Found out at work that we're only working 32 hours this week. Well, I'm getting 34 because by the time they decided that, it was too late for me to leave early today and I'm working 4 hours tomorrow.

Thursday (January 12th)

I was out of it this morning, I don't know if it was the cold or the Nyquil I took last night. I probably shouldn't have gone to work. I'm pretty sure I had a fever for the first hour I was there. I kept telling myself, you only have to be here for 4 hours. Only I ended up being there 6 because they brought a hot part down after the line was shut down so I ran it myself and had to stay until it was done. Plus I had a few other things I had to finish.

I got a text from Cheri asking if I sneezed on the pantry door, I replied that I don't think I did but who knows. Apparently it was covered in snot. I went back and watched our cameras, yep, it was me. Oops! I told Cheri it was payback for her giving me the cold.

I'm missing my first Michigan game, it's hard and I don't like it but it is what it is. I'm following the game online and I'll watch highlights when it's over, maybe even the whole game if I can find it but it sucks not being able to watch it. Hopefully the next game is on something I get.

Friday (January 13th)

Woke up feeling like crap. I couldn't breath out my nose so I spent the last few hours tossing and turning. I checked the Nyquil and it apparently only works 6 hours so I'm guessing I slept good until it ran out.

I rode with Cheri out to her chiropractor and then ran out to the card shop. The owner had let me know he had 2 5000 count boxes full of Frank Thomas so I ran in and picked them up before going to pick up groceries and grabbing some lunch then heading home. 

I went downstairs and started sorting the cards to see what I needed. I haven't started checking but I already pulled out enough dupes to fill one of the boxes so I'll take that to the card show tomorrow and give it back to the owner of the shop who also sets up there.

Saturday (January 14th)

Kevin and I set up at the Fort Wayne show. Had a decent show but we depleted our football and basketball and need to restock before next Saturday. We picked up some today but Kevin is going to try to get some more during the week.

Sunday (January 15th)

I can't believe we are half way through January already. I slept in the recliner again last night. I slept pretty good. Woke up a few times but I got up around 6 and took some more Dayquil and laid back down and slept until 9. I definitely sleep better in the recliner with this cold.

When I finally did get up, I went down and worked on my Frank Thomas box. I was hoping to finish but its taking me longer than I thought. Since I get off at 2 this week, I might jump down and work on them for an hour or so wnen I get home. I've already got a stack bigger than I expected and I still have quite a few to go through.

Cheri was working in the storage room so she was down there with me as well. After supper, I stayed upstairs and watched TV while she went back down there. I figured she was just going to finish the tote she was working on but it's been a couple of hours and she's still down there.

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.

We'll see how long this time

Wow! It's been 224 days since I posted last here. I have more going on in my life than I did back then but it still isn't a whole lot. I do actually leave the house more often on the weekends because my cousin moved back up here from North Carolina. We're both into sports cards so we hook up and do related things that I won't get into now because I'm going to try to post more about that when it happens.

Kind of looks like me, if he was fatter.

As far as going on's, the majority of my life is still work, which I won't (can't) post about here. It's going ok, I like what I do and there are days where I feel important in the cog of the machine but there are a lot of things that piss me off as well. My company is a pretty big company and they watch social media, which is why I don't post about work. I'm not really one to bitch about work to the masses anyways. I rarely bitch about work to my wife because I have a 45 minute drive home and I relax and let it all go in that time so by the time I get home, I don't want to talk about it and I've forgotten the majority of it.

Back in our younger days.

My wife and I are still going strong after over a decade (doesn't feel like it's been that long). We have our issues like any married couple does but again, nothing that I would want to post on social media. We both still love each other and enjoy our life together so you can't really get better than that.

Not a good likeness, but it's clipart.

My 19 year old has now moved out and on her own. She's like any typical 19 year old who complains about life but doesn't do any of the steps that she needs to do to improve it. We give her all the tips to help her, she listens intently but never does them. Like I said, typical 19 year old.

My 17 year old is doing great in school. Taking Engineering classes at the career center so we're hoping that's a field that he continues on in college. At this point, we're hoping he just doesn't decide to make the decision to not go to college. He's too smart to waste the opportunity but we know how teenagers make decisions. He's been working for the same fast food place now since he was 16 and he likes it there. He has been promoted to an assistant manager which he enjoys as well.

My other love is music. I love listening to music and do it all the time. You know I'm a stats guy so I can even tell you that I listen to around 1,000 songs a week. Sometimes under a bit, sometimes over. (I'm listening to music now.) So I'm going to try to post something tomorrow, probably music related.

I know I've said it a hundred times, but I'm going to try to be better here. I post almost daily on My Sports Obsession and Random Music so I don't know why I can't do the same thing here. Hopefully, starting tomorrow.

Here's to a new run of posts!

A Week in the Life of

I'm still finding my way around these posts. They are essentially what happened in the last week. I haven't really had an order to them yet. I just went through my "A Day in the Life" posts to see if I had anything to talk about this week. I'm not going to rehash my Instagram posts, you can follow me on there if you want to see my post a day.

Monday night we didn't have much to walk so I searched for a movie. If I don't already know of a movie, I just pick one of the streaming services or on demand and go through it until we find one. We ended up watching Unknown, I believe it was on Netflix. It stars Liam Neeson and we hadn't seen it so we figured why not. It wasn't anything special but it was a decent movie. Enough to entertain us for just under 2 hours.

Had Taco Bell this week. If you don't know my history with Taco Bell, here's a quick reference. Used to love it, had it all the time (see my stats post). Last year they took a bunch of stuff off their menu, including most of my usual order. Haven't been going there nearly as much but my wife likes the Queserito so I would just grab some chili cheese burritos. The problem with that is her order can only be ordered through the app, not a problem, use it anyways, but the chili cheese burritos aren't on the app, no idea why. So basically I get annoyed every time I go there because I have to do an online order as well as one at the drive-thru. When I get to the last window, they'll hand me one order and I always have to explain that the next one is mine as well. Like I said, it was just annoying.

Well this week when we grabbed it, I noticed a Club Chalupa and tried it. It was pretty good so I can order that now instead of having 2 orders. They also announced that they were bringing back their Cheesy Fiesta Potatoes which is one of the items they took away that I liked. So my Taco Bell intake is looking up. I just hope the Club Chalupa isn't a promotional, it wasn't listed there on the app so I think it might be a regular menu item.

I pass a mall on the way home from work and it's a dead mall (see above). A really dead mall. There are only a few stores left in it besides the anchors (JC Penny and Hobby Lobby). There are supposed to be 4 anchor stores and even 2 of those are empty. Basically, it makes it nice to walk, not many people and warmer than walking outside right now. I see more mall walkers than customers. I ended up walking 3 days last week. I started Tuesday, went back on Wednesday. Thursday my sister-in-law and niece were visiting my wife so I came straight home after work to see them. My wife tends to visit all of her family in the middle of the week while I'm at work so I don't see them often. My mom ended up meeting me out there and we walked on Friday. I went over 2 miles each day which is my goal, for now. 

Part of the problem I have with walking at home (other than it's winter right now) is by the time I get home, I just want to shower and relax so I talk myself out of walking. That's the main thing on why this mall walking might be good for me. We'll see how long I sustain it though, because to be honest, I really don't enjoy walking.

We had to work yesterday (Saturday) and I might have stopped there on the way home but I had made plans to have lunch with my youngest daughter. Her girlfriend and my wife, neither care for Hacienda and we both like it so we tend to go there. It's the second time we've done it, I'm going to try to make it a regular thing. Every month or two or something. Otherwise, I don't see her much as she doesn't visit us much more. Even though she is in the area all the time. Damn kids!

I ended up walking 7.75 miles at the mall this week. Hopefully I can make it a regular thing since last time I went to the doc, for the first time I was over 300 lbs. Being 6'3" helps we wear it better than most but I would like to get rid of some of my gut. I've been pretty steady in the 290's for a long time so it's not like I put on a ton of weight but there's something about that number, 300 pounds just seems like a lot.

Not to much going on at work. The city surprised us with an inspection on Wednesday. During our Q&A, he mentioned that he only schedules us for an hour because he knows the walk through never takes long because we are always on point. He said some places he goes he has to schedule 4 hours. Everything went well, he even contacted our EHS coordinator and told her that he was impressed with our staff (which is me and our EHS person) so that's always good to hear.

The wife and I went out Friday night, it seems to be becoming a regular thing where we drop my son off at work and than go to 5-Guys burger and fries (they have curb side pick-up) and than we just sit in the parking lot in our car and have supper. Afterwards we run down to Steak 'N Shake and grab a couple of shakes, and again, sit in the parking lot and have our dessert. It really is the perfect date night for us. We enjoy the food and I would rather sit in the car, listen to our tunes and enjoy a meal than be stuck in a restaurant where people are annoying and it's usually loud so you can't really talk that well. My wife has issues with a lot of noise, it makes it hard to focus when there is a lot going on so it's a nice date night for us. We can even stay in our PJ's which is what we tend to do. Don't worry, our PJ shirts are regular shirts so you won't notice unless you see our PJ bottoms.

Not sure how much this will continue though because my son is taking his driver's test on Tuesday. Hopefully, he'll pass it so we don't have to drive him anymore. The taking him isn't a big deal. The picking him up between 10 and 11 pm is because on work nights, I'm in bed around 10 and my wife has trouble driving at night. She goes and gets him, luckily traffic isn't really bad and it's not real far. Her eyes have issues with the lights coming at her as they don't dilate very quick so she can't go from darkness and than a light in her face.

I guess that's all for last week. No real plans as of this week other than my son's driving test. Hopefully see you all back here next week.

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 and work

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Alone time

I'm lounging around the house today so I thought I'd come over and post, uh, something. I'm not really sure what.

Work has had some stressful times as of late, nothing I can't handle, just been stressful. Usually I calm down and get relaxed on my way home. It's around 30-45 minute drive home depending on traffic and I use that time to decompress, sit and listen to music and drive home. Once I get home, I shower and then veg out in front of the TV, sometimes nap until supper and then chill in front of the TV most of the night, until bed, which is usually between 10 and 11. I get up the next morning at 3:45 and start all over again.

Lately, instead of coming home and napping, I've been going downstairs and working on my cards. Awhile ago, after my grandfather passed, I got his desk and a few items.

Nothing too fancy but a work station all the same. The desk and chair were both my grandfathers. The bookshelf to the left has my card books on it and there is a dresser to the right that has all my other cards in it.

As I said, it came from my grandfather so I have this little section of some of his things. His name plate which I wanted because I always thought of his as a businessman. The Joe Montana stein because he was a Montana/Notre Dame fan, the St. Louis Cardinals Coke and Mark McGwire mug because he was a Cardinals fan.

I got it set up to work on my cards but never went down there because I was logging what I had on my blog and I could do that sitting in my recliner. Well, I got all those logged in so now I'm going through my books and organizing them and making sure what I have and what I have logged are the same. So now I go down and sit at my desk until supper then come up and spend the rest of the time chilling in front of the boob tube.

The positive, I'm enjoying messing around with my cards again, and I listen to music while doing it so I get more time to myself. Plus, I'm actually getting stuff done on my collections.

The negative, no more naps means less sleep. I should go to bed earlier but I hate going to bed that early, feels like a waste and it also means sooner that I have to go to work.

That's my sleep this past week. You can see where I did nap on Wednesday and Friday. Wednesday I got home later so I didn't go downstairs and Friday, I had to take Trevor to meet his mom so I took a nap intentionally knowing I wasn't working Saturday so it wouldn't screw my sleep up and I also knew I would get woke up at 4 to take him so it was a limited nap. I'm not sure why the time is off on that nap. Sometimes it registers me as napping when I'm sitting in the recliner because I'm so relaxed but I don't know why it didn't register the nap I did take. I didn't change it because the time was about the same.

I knew I didn't sleep a lot but I didn't realize how little until I had my Fitbit start tracking it. I do get quality sleep in that little bit of time because I fall asleep quickly and sleep pretty deeply most of the night.

I've enjoyed my time with my cards, and my alone time, and definitely listening to more music so I will continue doing it.

As I said, I get to listen to more music. Here's the top artists I've listened to in the last week. Just because.

Perfect!

If you knew me growing up, then you know, I never went to school. I skipped, all the time. My freshman year, I went 4 days a week. I bet I missed close to all of the Mondays. My mom always told me that it would reflect on my work record, my response was usually, if they paid me to go to school, I'd be there every day.

Well, like most things my mom said, she was right. I started working and I called in all the time. I never got fired for it because I was a good enough worker when I was there but I certainly couldn't have argued it if someone had fired me.

This post isn't about how stupid I was, this post is more about how far I've come. Today was my last day of work for the year. I have the next 2 weeks off. Paid at that because I was able to save enough vacation days and personal days to cover all 8 days that I wouldn't have gotten paid. I was able to save all those days because I had perfect attendance this year. No call ins, no tardies, no leaving early. PERFECT!

Now I realize I'm not the first person to do this, there's probably a ton of people who haven't missed in a couple of years, maybe even some of you. For me, this is a big deal. I'm proud of it. I was close the last couple of years. One year I got sick for a few days, another I had to have my gall bladder removed, not this year though, I was there, every single day.

Maybe it's because I accomplished something that I set out to do. Not saying I fail at every thing I try but more that I don't really set goals in my life. I prefer to just live it. The last goal I had was to buy a house and we did that 3 years ago. Maybe in another 3 years, I'll have another goal. For now, I'm bragging about this one.

Randomness

I haven't posted in a week, figured I'd throw something up here so we'll go with a randomness post.

I don't normally talk about work much but my role is getting expanded tomorrow. I'm ok with it, it'll be more work for me but I'm not afraid of that. The thing I fear is that I enjoy what I do now and I have a feeling that I'll start losing the duties of that job and I'm not going to like the newer aspects of the new job. I just hope it doesn't get to the point where I don't like my job. That's my fear, because I hate doing something I don't like to do. When you hate your job, it makes it a lot harder to go in.

I've been reading the Dresden Files by Jim Brewer. It's pretty good. It was recommended to me awhile back, maybe even 10 years ago and I read the first 2 but I started buying free books and stopped buying his so now I'm finishing it. I just finished book 7 and I believe there are 17 of them now so I have plenty of reading to do. It takes me awhile to get through a book because I only read on my breaks so 40 minutes on work days and that's it. There is also 1 season of a show called Dresden

If you've been around here before when I did the book stuff you'll know I'm a big fan of the Hollows series by Kim Harrison and I know she retired the series at one point but I guess is working on a new one so I'm sure I'll pick that one up when it comes out. There are a couple of recent Stephen King books that I need to grab as well but since I'm actually spending more on my books, I generally only buy one at a time.

Didn't do much this weekend, as we tend to do. Next weekend we have a birthday party to go to as well as something for Trevor's school about scholarship stuff and he seems to want to go to college so we'll be doing those on Saturday, plus the ND/Michigan game in the evening. I might even try to get out on Sunday to see Zombieland 2 with the kids.

For those of you that follow my Last Song of the Day or even want to follow along at what I listen to, check out my profile on Last.fm. I just joined up a week ago so there isn't a ton of content on there but there's a weeks worth. I've listened to 535 songs since last weekend. For those that don't know, I have a playlist that is currently sitting at 3,508 songs. I put that on random and listen away. I don't like to hear the same songs over and over and this is the way to do that. Out of the 535 songs I listened to last week, there wasn't any duplicates. I believe this is pretty close to real time as to what I listened to. I think as soon as the song finishes, it shows up on the site.

That's all I got I guess, nothing exciting but I guess it's better than nothing.

Not so great week

It hasn't been a great week for me, hopefully things will get better.

Monday I went to work to find out one of my friends died early that morning. He was having chest pains and we believe he was driving himself to the hospital when he had a horrible crash. Coroner believes he died of a heart attack before the crash so he didn't suffer in that. He was only 52. It's been a pretty somber week at work.

On Tuesday, my boss informed me that he put in his 2 weeks notice. This boss is the reason I have the job I do. We worked at a different place together for 15 years and than I left and eventually he left and than he got me transferred to where I'm at. I really like the job and it's been great for us. I can survive without him. I can still contact him and will probably see him a little but what fears me more is who we end up with as a boss. I think I'm going to put in for the job but I doubt I'll get it. I'm not "enthusiastic" enough for them.

Wednesday I went golfing so there is that. Not that I had a great day golfing but it's always nice to be out there.

Thursday my daughter was all kinds of attitude because my wife texted her and told her not to make plans tonight so they could complete their chores. Than later on, I texted them not to make plans for Saturday because we were all going to work in the yard. She gets pissed at the stupidest things and just carries it forever instead of just letting things go. Chores are weekly and we ask the kids to help us in the yard once a year, in the spring. She acts like we make her do all kinds of things. Their chores took an hour and the yard work was maybe 3 hours. Heaven forbid we ask for 4 hours out of her life. Stupid teenagers.

Friday, I got off work early and came home to my wife asking me to run to Walmart to pick up groceries because they were ready. No biggy, it's right up the road. Pull up, check in and they bring it all out and load the car. Wrong! I pull up and check in to only realize that she put the wrong Walmart address in so I ended up having to drive all the way out to a further one, about 20 minutes. As I'm pulling in, I get a call from the wife, saying she just got a call from the school and the girl we have living with us was in an "incident" and that we needed to come in. Now we figured she got in a fight because they wouldn't tell us what was going on. So we weren't in a hurry. I drove home from Walmart, unloaded the groceries and picked up my wife and than headed for the school. We pull in to ambulances and a cop car. We go in and they tell us that she got in a fight in the lunch room and punched a boy. What was worse is that she punched a wall when she left the lunch room and broke her hand. The school talked the parents of the kid to not press charges because she is 18 and the kid she hit wasn't yet so she could have been in huge trouble. They threatened to file charges on him because of the hate stuff coming out of his mouth that instigated the fight. Once we were done at the school, we took her to the ER to get her hand wrapped and we have to take her to an Orthopedic doc on Tuesday, which is the same day as my court date for child support and my friends funeral. So it continues.

Saturday we got some yard work done, kids all helped and had good attitudes. It was a good day and I haven't done anything today so things are already starting to look up.

On top of all of this, Cheri has been in a lot of pain and fighting a lot of headaches. She's been diagnosed with arthritis in her spine and neck to go along with all her other disabilities. What's worse than the arthritis is it tends to give her headaches, which turn in to migraines.

We'll see if I get through tomorrow with the usual festivities of Memorial Day. We spend the morning at a parade and than caravan around to a couple of cemeteries where we have family buried before going to my cousins for a cook out. I already told you what I got going Tuesday. Wednesday I go back to work, Thursday I have an EHS conference to go to and then more work Friday. Here's hoping next week is quick and painless.

Busy week for me

I've actually had a busy week, or at least busy for me. I actually filled up a laundry basket of regular clothes. Why does that mean anything? I wash my work clothes separate so I have a laundry basket full of those every week, but when I come home from work, if I have nothing to do, which is most days, I shower and than get in my PJ's to sit around in. Most days I don't put on my regular clothes at all. So when I say I filled up a laundry basket of regular clothes, it means I actually had to get dressed after work.

On Wednesday, I went to the before mentioned class. I talked my work into giving me a shirt with their logo on it to wear there since I was representing them. The class was good, I learned some things. Most people in there were already certified so it all came easy to them, I struggled with some of the newer to me kind of stuff but I think I got it all. It was a 5 hour class and they had a bunch of breaks, free snacks and drinks as well so all in all, it went well.

On Thursday, I went golfing for the first time in 5 years. The work golf league plays every week (9 holes) but I signed up a week late so I needed to make up the first 9. They golf on Wednesdays and since I had that class, I missed the 2nd week. So on Thursday, me and a guy from work went and played 18 to make up the first 2 weeks. I had some really good shots, and some really bad shots. I shot a little higher score than I liked but I'll forgive myself for going over 100, even if it was only by 4 strokes.

Today, I took the fam (mom, stepdad, brother and sister-in-law) to their 1st major league baseball game. I think my Stepdad had been to one before but the rest, it was their first game. We parked, than walked down to O'Malley's where we got a bunch of Chicago Dogs (I had Chili Cheese Dogs) and ate before the game (it's cheaper). Plus we got greek fries at the game (pic on the right) that were really good. It wasn't a great game for the Sox but it was still a pretty good time for us.

That was my week, like I said, it was busy for me. Now I'm going to sit down and watch the Game of Thrones finale and start a new week. Other than my weekly golf game, I have no other plans as of now so I'll go back to being boring.