Friday, January 13, 2023

This Week - Eating Out

 

Saturday (January 7th)

The wife was wanting some breakfast at lunch so it narrowed it down to where we could go. She actually chose Copper Creek. I had the Gyro while she loaded up on breakfast items. Food was great, service was good. The waitress said it was only her 3rd day but she did fine. The price got a little steep. I can see the extra $3 for her bowl of gravy but $5 for a side salad with nothing but lettuce with 2 pieces of tomato & cucumber. I'm okay with that, I'm in it for the Bleu Cheese dressing anyways but I thought $5 was a little expensive for it.

I'm starting to wonder if my wife is having pregnancy cravings as much as she wants Taco Bell lately. I wasn't really feeling it but the boss gets what she wants. I ended up just getting a nachos grande, taco and a drink. I wasn't really that hungry. I got a little scare when I pulled up, the first thing they said was they were out of, and I went crap, but he said change so exact change and cards. Whew! I said I had a mobile order and gave him my name. Then he started to read my order and said, oh, we're out of Mountain Dew Baja, oh wait, you got a regular Dew. Whew again! I gave them another green, everything was good and right but they did forget my extra cup of cheese.


Monday (January 9th)

We hit the drive-thru at KFC for supper. I had to wait on my fries but they told me up front that it would be a 4 minute wait and wanted to know if I wanted something else. I told him I was fine waiting, they just had me pull up until my food was down. Granted there was nobody behind me but whatever. Everything was good, even the wife's custom order and they remembered her butter and honey for her biscuit.


Tuesday (January 10th)

We were out and about so we ran over to Firehouse for supper. We usually do carry out but since it was a last second decision, we ate in. Everything went well, food and service were great. I actually rounded my change up (I rarely do that) because it was for firefighters.


Friday (January 13th)

We were out and about today so we grabbed some Sonic for lunch. It was good but the seemed to skimp on some stuff. My burger didn't have much on it as far as condiments and both of our chili cheese tator tots didn't have much chili on them. Like I said, it was alright but they weren't what they usually are.

The boss decided she wanted Taco Bell again for supper. They got everything and everything was right but like Sonic for lunch, they didn't put much meat in anything. My taco was good but both of our Chalupas (mine chicken, hers beef) didn't hardly have anything on it. It's my first complaint about Taco Bell in the last 5 trips so there is that.

Wednesday, January 11, 2023

This Week - Music

 

Thursday (January 5th)

Listened to 75 songs today. All different.

  • Listened to 73 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 2 songs from the Crabhands playlist.
Listened to 70 different artists today. 

  • Kid Rock, Russ Taff, Shinedown and System of the Down all had 2 songs today.

I listened to music while working in my card room. The 2 songs from the Crabhands playlists were new releases. I did add one of them.

  • Separate Ways (World's Apart) by Daughtry and Lzzy Hale 

It's a cover of the Journey song by it has a little more rock to it which is always my favorite 80's cover. I listen to both artists, Lzzy Hale is the lead singer of Halestorm who are one of my favorite rock bands.

Last Song of the Day - Black by Pearl Jam


Friday (January 6th)

Listened to 68 songs today. All different.

  • Listened to 18 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 50 songs from the Bear playlist.

Listened to 52 different artists today. 

  • Godsmack, Halestorm and Theory of a Deadman had 3 songs each today.
  • 9 artist had 2 songs each.
Those 50 songs from the Bear playlist was riding in my cousins car and he only listens to rock so I made that playlist specifically for when I was riding with him.

Last Song of the Day - 4xLife by Craig Morgan


Saturday (January 7th)

Listened to 42 songs today. All different.

  • Listened to 20 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 19 songs from the Our Favorites playlist.
  • Listened to 3 songs from the Crabhands playlist.

Listened to 41 different artists today. 

  • Chase Rice had 2 songs today.
Listened to the Our Favorites while in the car with the wife and the 3 songs from Crabhands were new releases. I added the following.
  • Key West & Colorado by Chase Rice

Last Song of the Day - What If I Never Get Over You by Lady A


Sunday (January 8th)

Listened to 105 songs today. All different.

  • Listened to 105 songs from the Everything playlist.

Listened to 94 different artists today. 

  • Petra had 4 songs today.
  • Stone Temple Pilots had 3 songs today.
  • 5 artists had 2 songs today.
I go back to work tomorrow so my songs totals will go up as well as a couple of other playlists.

Last Song of the Day - What's Love Got To Do With It by Tina Turner


Monday (January 9th)

Listened to 202 songs today.

  • Listened to 23 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 12 songs from the Check It playlist.
  • Listened to 157 songs from the Work playlist.
  • Listened to 10 songs from the Non Work playlist.

Listened to 143 different artists today. 

  • Limp Bizkit had 6 songs today.
  • Seether had 5 songs today.
  • Blake Shelton, Halestorm, Hollywood Undead and Lil' Wayne had 4 songs today.
  • 7 artists had 3 songs.
  • 23 artists had 2 songs.

You can see I listened to a lot more playlists. Those are the 4 I generally listen to on work days. I listen to the Everything playlist on my way to work and in the shower. I listen to the Check It playlist while sitting in my car before I go into work. I listen to my Work playlist at Work, obviously and my Non Work playlist I listen to on my way home.

I added the following songs to my playlists.

  • Nookie by Limp Bizkit
  • Don't Know Much by Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville


Tuesday (January 10th)

Listened to 200 songs today. All different.

  • Listened to 8 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 13 songs from the Check It playlist.
  • Listened to 146 songs from the Work playlist.
  • Listened to 18 songs from the Non Work playlist.
  • Listened to 15 songs from the Our Favorites playlist.

Listened to 145 different artists today. 

  • Lee Brice, Lindsey Stirling and Seether had 5 songs today.
  • Keith Urban, Linkin Park, Limp Bizkit and Nickelback had 4 songs today.
  • 6 artists have 3 songs today.
  • 18 artists have 2 songs today.
As you can tell, till no meetings which is why I'm getting so many songs at work. I normally only shut off my music if I have to go to a meeting.

I added the following songs to my playlists today.
  • When Will I Be Loved by Linda Ronstadt
  • It's so Easy by Linda Ronstadt
  • Somewhere Out There by Linda Ronstadt
  • Roundtable Rival by Lindsey Stirling
  • Underground by Lindsey Stirling
  • Papercut by Linkin Park
  • Given Up by Linkin Park
  • Crawling by Linkin Park

The Everything playlist is up to 5895 songs.

I didn't realize Lindsey Stirling played an instrument (possibly Violin). I have her on a couple of other songs where she's listed as a featured artists, I just assumed she was a backup singer. I added a couple of songs and put a couple more on my Check It to listen to later. Cheri had me watch a YouTube video of her, she's pretty amazing.

Last Song of the Day - In Too Deep by Genesis


Wednesday (January 11th)

Listened to 171 songs today. 169 different.

  • Listened to 8 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • Listened to 1 song from the Crabhands playlist.
  • Listened to 10 songs from the Check It playlist.
  • Listened to 142 songs from the Work playlist.
  • Listened to 10 songs from the Non Work playlist.
I listened to Warrior by Atreyu and Come on Get Higher by Matt Nathanson twice.

Listened to 125 different artists today. 

  • Lionel Richie had 6 songs today.
  • Linkin Park and Zac Brown Band had 5 songs today.
  • Kenny Chesney and Seether had 4 songs today.
  • 6 artists had 3 songs.
  • 14 artists had 2 songs.
Lionel Richie and Linkin Park were mainly off the Check It playlist as I'm working through the L's. My number was down because I had a meeting today so it was off for an hour or so.

Monday, January 9, 2023

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.

Thursday, January 5, 2023

This week - Eating Out

I feel like we are eating out a lot right now. I need to go back to work just to pay for everything. I go back to work on Monday so I'm guessing this will get a lot smaller next week.

Thursday (12/29)

I traveled with some family up to Ann Arbor on Thursday evening and me hit the local Texas Roadhouse. We were on the road for a basketball game at Michigan and we were on a time crunch. We were on the road and still about 40 minutes out and my brother got on the app and put our name in which was great. When we got there, we were the next ones up which was really great because of the time crunch. We got seated, ordered and everything went well, other than I had to eat fast which I hate doing. The food and service was great and I loved that we could check out right at the table, except that I had planned on using cash but since we were in a hurry, I just used the debit card so we could get out quicker.


Friday (12/30)

When I'm home and the wife goes to the Chiropractor, I usually tag along and we go to Culver's afterwards which is right up the road. I generally don't even get out of my PJ's because I sit in the car at the Chiropractor and we hit the drive thru at Culver's and sit in the car and eat in the parking lot, which is what we did.

It's rare for anything bad to happen when we go to Culver's but this time it wasn't the greatest. I still have it a green, but marked an F for food being the issue. We ordered and pulled up to wait for our food. And waited, and waited. That alone is rare but the reason I mentioned it was because when we pulled up, they were bringing food out and cleared a couple of cars. Then nothing. We sat for a good 8-10 minutes before anybody else got any food. That's the rarity because they are usually pretty efficient. I marked the F (stands for food, not a grade) because the fry's weren't their usual crispy self and our cups of cheese were barely warm. I gave them a green still but I don't usually mark down for having to wait because a lot of places just can't get help and that's generally the reason. I'm pretty patient but I like my food to be good as well.


Saturday (12/31)

Picked up Taco Bell on the way home for Cheri. She ordered on the app and I had her get me a Mountain Dew. I pulled up, gave her name and they said they didn't have anymore Sierra Mist (for Cheri) so I changed it to a Mountain Dew. Pulled up and he informed me they ran out of Mountain Dew as well. Had I not already paid for it in the app, I would have just cancelled my drink because I wanted a Dew but since it was already paid, I came home with 2 Pepsi's. They got her food right as in her changes to her Chalupa but they didn't give her the nachos or cheese. The O stands for Out (Mountain Dew & Sierra Mist) and S for shorted (Nachos & Cheese).


Monday (1/2)

We went up to Copper Creek Cafe for some breakfast. Everything was perfect, food was great, service was great. Had a little bit of a wait to sit down but that doesn't bother me as they were pretty busy.

Cheri and I went to Sonic Drive-In for supper. Ordered on the app, pulled into our stall, checked in and the food came pretty quickly which is rare. We usually have to wait awhile there. Food was pretty good and correct so no complaints here.


Tuesday (1/3)

Ordered some Taco Bell and the app and went and picked it up. They redeemed themselves as everything was good. They even put a lot of the extras (lettuce, cheese, tomatoes) in. Everything was correct and they didn't forget anything.


Wednesday (1/4)

Hit the drive-thru at Taco Bell this morning for some breakfast. I ordered the crunch wrap meal and they gave me the box meal which was fine. I would have ordered that had I noticed it before I ordered. Or maybe that is the meal now, who knows. It comes with a side of hash browns that didn't come with the meal before. Everything was great. That's 3 out of the last 4 good. Compared to the 3 out of 5 bad previous to those, they are definitely getting better.

Hit the drive-thru this morning for my wife's breakfast. Her order was all there and good. That's 4 green in a row for McDonalds over the last month or so.

I went in and grabbed a couple of subs for supper. The only reason they got a yellow instead of red was because I wasn't expecting much. I generally don't eat at Subway, I'm not a fan of it. I've only eaten there one other time in the last 2 years but my wife was craving an Italian BMT. I figured I'd try out one of the Signature sandwiches. It looked nothing like the picture, which wasn't a surprise. Both sandwiches were cold and I had them toasted, makes me wonder if he even turned on the toaster oven thingy. The service was good, food sucked. Not surprisingly.


Thursday (1/5)

Sent the kids to pick up from our usual Chinese take-out. It was great, as usual. No complaints at all. We don't usually go there when we're feeding 4 because it's pricey.


Friday (1/6)

Taco Bell again? I know, but Sluggo and I were out and about and it was there. It was another good run though as I gave it all green but with me, all you have to do is give me everything, I didn't have any customizations that the wife usually does. We actually ate in since we were on the road.

Since I ate the above on my way home, when we got home, my wife wanted Taco Bell so I went out and grabbed some for her and it was actually a green as well, even with the customations. That's 4 straight green. I might actually starting to have faith in them again.

Wednesday, January 4, 2023

This Week - Music

 I almost always listen to my music on random. I will note when I don't.

Wednesday (December 28th)

Listened to 120 songs. All different.

  • 110 songs from the Everything playlist
  • 10 songs from the Our Favorites playlist
Listened to 107 different artists.
  • DC Talk had 4 songs.
  • Taylor Swift had 3 songs.
  • 8 artists had 2 songs.

Nothing out of the ordinary. I listened to my usual playlist (Everything) while I worked on cards downstairs. The songs from Our Favorites were while in the car with the wife.

Last Song of the Day - Sign Your Name by Terence Trent D'Arby


Thursday (December 29th)

Listened to 87 tracks. All different.

  • All 87 from the Everything playlist.
Listened to 76 different artists.
  • DC Talk and Brett Young had 3 songs each.
  • 7 artists had 2 songs.

Again, nothing out of the ordinary. The radio was on while I was in the car with family but the volume wasn't up so I didn't track it.


Friday (December 30th)

Listened to 78 tracks.

  • 56 tracks from the Everything playlist.
  • 22 tracks from Our Favorites playlist.
Listened to 70 different artists.
  • Pink, Pop Evil and Taylor Swift had 3 songs each.
  • Ed Sheeran and Everlast had 2 songs each.
Listened to 75 different tracks. Listened to the following more than once.
  • What's It Like by Everlast.
  • Just Give Me a Reason by Pink.
  • A Crime to Remember by Pop Evil.

All 3 of those are on both playlists that I played which is why I ended up listening to them twice in a day. Our Favorites playlist was in the car with the wife again.

Last Song of the Day - Heaven by Kane Brown


Saturday (December 31st)

Listened to 28 tracks. All different.

  • 10 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • 18 songs from the radio.
Listened to 27 different artists.
  • Eagles had 2 songs.

I tracked the songs that came on the radio while in my mom's car. I guess I should have tracked the songs I listened to while watching the ball drop but I didn't think about it. It was only a few before we went back to watching regular TV.


Sunday (January 1st)

Listened to 132 tracks. All different.

  • 56 songs from the Everything playlist.
  • 13 songs from the Crabhands playlist.
  • 63 songs from the Check It playlist

Listened to 74 different artists.

  • Deuce had 12 songs.

I was going through new songs today so there are a lot less artists but I added more songs to my playlists. The Crabhands playlist are all new releases. I listened to a new Adam Lambert song as well as Deuce's new album. 

Adam Lambert's song was a cover, it was ok but nothing I needed to hear again. I would have liked the Deuce album a lot more if it wasn't for the language and subject of the few songs I would have added. I'm ok with language and poor subject matter but what they were rapping about just didn't click with me. It was actually disappointing because I probably would have added 4 or 5 of the songs if not for that.

The Check It playlist is new to me songs from artists that I currently have on my playlists. I'm currently working through the artists that start with L.

Here's the new songs added to my playlists today.

  • Hollyhood Vacation by Deuce.
  • Rock and Roll by Led Zeppelin.
  • D'yer Mak'er by Led Zeppelin.
  • Going to California by Led Zeppelin.
  • It Ain't Over 'Til It's Over by Lenny Kravitz
  • Can't Get You Off of My Mind by Lenny Kravitz
  • When I Need Love by Leo Sayer
  • More Than I Can Say by Leo Sayer
  • You and Me by Lifehouse
  • Broken by Lifehouse
  • TNT by Like a Storm
  • Gangsters Paradise by Like a Storm

My Everything playlist is up to 5,884 songs now.

Last Song of the Day - Don't Dream It's Over by Crowded House


Monday (January 2nd)

Listened to 28 tracks today. All different.

  • 10 songs from the radio
  • 18 songs from the Our Favorites playlist.

Listened to 26 different artists today.

  • Melissa Ethridge & Toby Keith had 2 songs each.

I tracked the music in mom's car again which is the radio tracks and the Our Favorites in my wife's car. I'll be glad to go back to work and listen to my own music all the time.

Last Song of the Day - Love the One You're With by the Isley Brothers


Tuesday (January 3rd)

Listened to 10 tracks today. All different.

  • 10 songs from the Everything playlist.

Listened to 10 different artists.

Only listened to a few tracks before my cousin picked me up and some more when I ran to Taco Bell and back.

Last Song of the Day - I'm on Fire by Riley Smith


Wednesday (January 4th)

Listened to 102 tracks today. All different.

  • 26 songs from the Our Favorites playlist.
  • 76 songs from the Everything playlist.
Listened to 89 different artists.
  • Taylor Swift had 3 songs.
  • 11 artists had 2 songs.

We listened to the Our Favorites in my wife's car again and I listened to the Everything playlist while working on my cards in the card room and when I ran to Subway for supper.

Last Song of the Day - Today's the Day by Pink

Tuesday, January 3, 2023

Year in Review - 2022

Since I'm trying to blog more, I'm going to post another stats from the previous year. I used to do them every year but I didn't last year.

2013  *  2014  *  2016  *  2017  *  2018  *  2019   *   2020

Here we go!


We eat out, probably more than most but not as much as many. We are real close to being emptynesters so a lot of the time, Cheri doesn't want to cook just for the both of us.

  • 1 Time - Applebee's, Baker Youth Club, Bourbon Street Pizza, Callahan's, Fazoli's, Gerace's Pizza, the Hatchery, Heinnies, the Hilltop Resteraunt, Hopcat, IHOP, Little Caesar's, Mandarin Kitchen, Nelson's, Olive Garden, Party on the Patio, Pizza Hut, Popeyes, Raising Cain's, Rico Suave, Sailor's Pizza, Schoops, Simonton Lake Drive-In, Texas Roadhouse and Tradewinds.
  • 2 Times - 7-Eleven, Chick-Fil-A, Cracker Barrel, Dunkin, Flippin' Cow, Long John Silvers, Macadoo's, Red Lobster, Smith's Food Mart and Steak 'n Shake.
  • 3 Times - Bravo Cafe, Domino's Pizza and Hacienda. 
  • 4 Times - Chili's and Copper Creek Cafe.
  • 5 Times - Jimmy John's. 
  • 6 Times - Bruno's Pizza and Trinity UM. 
  • 7 Times - Five Guys, Arby's, Mandarin House and Martin's Deli. 
  • 8 Times - KFC.
  • 9 Times - Dairy Queen and Firehouse Subs.

  • 11 Times - Sonic Drive-In (5 times last year)
My wife loves Sonic. It's alright, I do like the chili cheese tator tots but as far as the burger's go, I don't feel like they are anything special.

  • 15 Times - Wendy's (2 times last year)
We got a new one a little closer to us so we went there a few more times than we used to. I like the Baconator Fries but other than that, nothing special.

  • 21 Times - Barnaby's (never been there before this year)
My wife got addicted to this place, the pizza is pretty good but she's usually the one who wants to go here.

  • 22 Times - Culver's (14 times last year)
We both like Culver's and now my daughter works there so we visit her some. The burger's are alright but we go for the fries with cheese and the cheese curds.

  • 25 Times - Burger King (28 times last year)
This is usually our go to when we are craving a burger. Not that theirs are fabulous but they are better than most other fast food. Plus I have breakfast here twice a month for a lot of the year.

  • 26 Times - McDonalds (28 times last year)
I go out for breakfast twice a month at work because I have to go to another plant. Taco Bell no longer is open until later and Burger King was under reconstruction for awhile, that left McDonalds. Otherwise, this might even be less than double digits.

  • 50 Times - Taco Bell (48 times last year)

This is an easy number 1 because they are our go to when we aren't really craving anything. I do love their breakfast but rarely get to get any anymore. It's also the closest fast food place from home so a lot of times we just grab it rather than driving further. We didn't eat there much at the beginning of the year but it picked up when they brought some of the good stuff back.

As you can see, we've been eating out more. Like I said, almost emptynesters. Between work, school and his girlfriend, we don't see my son much and next year he'll be off to college.

This past year in books has gone done. I generally only read on my breaks at work and with my break schedule lately, I haven't been getting much reading done.

Next up is movies. I track what I watch here, but I also track the numbers on a spreadsheet.

Our movie viewership is down a bit, you'll notice I don't hardly ever go to the theaters anymore.

My sports viewership was down as well.

I didn't even watch any hockey or softball this year. Football was up 3 games but everything else was down. I don't really have a reason why the basketball is down, baseball is down because the Sox sucked last year and I got frustrated towards the end of the season and wasn't hardly watching any.

I track my music on Last.FM so you can go back and look at anything for the last few years. I like my playlists large and on random, I hate hearing the same songs over and over again. Here are my top 10 artists for last year.

The majority of my listening to music is at work and my work playlist consists of mainly rock and country which is pretty much everything you see up there. My main playlist consists of almost 5,900 songs coming into this year 5,884 to be exact.

I started tracking my sleep as well this previous year but because of my personal blog where I track everything, I was able to get most of the last few years numbers. 


As you can see, I tend to not sleep a ton. The majority of my work days fall in the 6 hrs and under while most of my non-work days are 6 hrs and up. I do get over 6 hrs on some work days but not often. Probably about once a week or so when my lack of sleep catches up with me.

I keep a lot more stats on myself but nothing nobody else will be interested in. Not sure anyone is interested in all of this either but it's out there now.

Monday, January 2, 2023

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.

Sunday, January 1, 2023

Throwing out Ideas

I'm trying to come up with some weekly blog ideas. I'm hoping if I can do some of those, maybe it will kick off the blogging juices. I've been kicking around a couple ideas. I like two of them, I'm not sure about the third.

The first one is just a journal kind of post, I'll go through the week on what I did each day. I typed out this week and it's a big post. I'm sure once work fires back up it won't be nearly as wordy.

The second is a rundown of where I've eaten out for the week. I've actually been tracking how good the food and service has been for a couple of weeks so this will go along with those stats, only I'll go into more detail. Kind of yelp reviews of my visits. I mainly started tracking how good or bad these places were because it seemed like for a stretch, there was way more bad than good. So I just wanted to see if that was true or not.

The last one, the one I'm not sure about, was about the music I listened to for the week. I typed out a couple of days and while I think it's interesting, I don't feel like anybody else will. On the other hand, I generally post what I want, I'm not about the likes or whatever. To me, anything I put on the internet is something I want to be on there, something I can look back on when it pops up annually. So I might do that one as well.

I said before that maybe I would do some book reviews when I finish one, that's good for 20 posts or so a year. We'll see what happens. As I said before, once I go back to work, it may all go by the wayside. I should go back and look how many posts I do in January compared to any other month.