Author: Derek
Ward Manor Happenings
Now I Know What It Feels Like When A Jackhammer Is Used Indoors – Remodeling the bathroom didn’t go quite as planned. Part of it was some “interesting” choices made by the builder during construction. I don’t know all the details, except it required the contractor and his partner using a jackhammer. I’ve also found having two people working in your house from morning to night is not conducive to the restfulness of Ward Manor. Saying nothing of what it does to my routines. And I’m a creature of my routines. Still, the new bathroom looks pretty damn awesome, and MIL is very happy.
Old Florida Christmas – The Wife and I enjoyed the annual Old Florida Christmas event at Manatee Historic Village. There didn’t seem to be the same amount of vendors there, but we did find a few things there. Besides, it’s a special place for us. A couple of the buildings suffered enough damage from Milton that we couldn’t go in. One of which was the church we got married.
I Am Stupid and Opened My Mouth – My counterparts across the country were commiserating we have not had an in-person meetup in a while. I was stupid enough to joke that they should come to Florida to escape the cold. Guess who suddenly found himself in charge of organizing and facilitating said meeting? Ah well, at least I have friends who can help me since I know nothing about the official process.
OneDrive Shenanigans – I use a rather large Excel workbook to keep track of songs I’ve used for Metal Tuesdays as well as the anime I’ve recommended. I keep it on OneDrive for autosave purposes. Somehow, Excel on my iPad managed to replace all of the data with a blank workbook. Needless to say, I was a bit miffed. Actually, there were curses and oaths to gods above and below. I have over 500 songs on the “backlog” to use and probably 20 or so anime series. Reconstructing that would be a huge PITA. Checking the version history in Excel on both the iPad and my laptop were no-go’s. Feck. Then, The Brother helpfully suggested to check the version history on the web version of Office. Well, damn if that didn’t work.
And no, I don’t really want to hear about the shortcomings of OneDrive. I know it’s shortcomings. I’ve also dealt with files being eaten by a hard drive, Dropbox, Scrivener, and a bunch of other programs. Shit happens, and it’s happened a lot less with OneDrive.
December Anime Recommendations
Apple Music Wrap-Up 2024 – aka Dangers of Having A Shared Account
I pulled my Apple Music numbers for 2024, since it’s that time of year for wrap-ups. Except, something didn’t look right. When I looked at my top 15 artists, everything looked kind of what I expected – with the glaring exception of Taylor Swift standing atop the list like a juggernaut in terms of minutes played.
I am not a Taylor Swift fan. I’m sure I’ve heard her music, by osmosis if no other reason. But I’ve never intentionally searched out her music. So how? Oh, yeah. The Wife listens to music sometimes when she works. And she uses the Apple Music linked to the Echoes. Taylor Swift was not the only surprise. Let’s just say there were some unexpected albums that showed up. Ah well.
Anywhoo, on to my stats.
Ward Manor Happenings
In most respects, it’s been a run-of-the-mill week. There was a decision made, which I’m keeping vague for OPSEC reasons. However, it required a lot of quick buying of things. Fortunately, there were still some Black Friday / Cyber Monday sales going.
Some items of note:
- The Japanese restaurant that recently opened near us is pretty decent. At least food-wise. The chairs, on the other hand, leave much to be desired for a dinner.
- I’m really not trying to get a new laptop right now. Although my current one is really trying to force the issue. We had a morning of me trying to get Civ to run without crashing. Ended up having to re-install Civ, which seemed to fix most of the issues. Most.
- On a related note, since I had to go to Steam to download Civ, I checked my hours. I’m up to a bit over 8,500 hours on Civ 6. Yeah, I’ve gotten my money out of that.
- On a related note, it’s really hard not to want to buy a new laptop when one of my top candidates is on sale. And maybe if we didn’t have to shell out a bunch of cash for the vague item in the intro, I could better justify it.
- I did splurge and pick up a Tokyo Marui HK45 airsoft. No, I don’t play airsoft. They’re props, trainers, fidget spinners, and toys. I have noticed that over the years, my tastes have become more expensive. Not the pay real gun money for the airsoft version. But the idea of dropping a couple hundred or so on one is not unreasonable.
- Speaking of gun-tangential topics, I’ve decided it was time to start carrying IWB again. I wish it meant I’d lost enough weight that I could do so with my current jeans, but I’m not that lucky. At any rate, I went to go find my previous IWB set-up. In the holster bin? Nope. Hrm. Look in the normal spots. Nope. Look in the abnormal spots. Nope. Where the hell? I know I didn’t give those away. But it was like they grew legs and went walkabout. The Wife suggested I should just get a new setup. After going back and forth, I decided to give We The People holsters a try and ordered. Then found my setup a few hours later in the place I put them in “because here I won’t forget them.” Eh, I’ll give the new ones a try when they show up.
Ward Manor Happenings
Ward Manor upgrade happenings – We’re remodeling the downstairs bathroom to take out the tub and replace it with a walk-in shower. However, we’re getting close to start time, so we ordered all the tile needed. Yeah, that was a lot of money. The first bit was delivered, but it was by – I guess – a freelancer. We were taking packages of tile out of someone’s car. Well, we got to use the collapsible wagon we picked up with the ambitious goal of using it to walk to the grocery store across the street.
We also took advantage of the Black Friday deals to do some upgrades on televisions. Both MIL’s and our bedroom televisions have been showing their age. It was interesting to see how much thinner current televisions were compared to some most of a decade older. Plus it was nice watching “Dune Part 2” on a new OLED.
Less upgrade and more shuffling was moving a couch from upstairs to downstairs. Fortunately, it kind of slid down the stairs. But it did require quite a bit of shuffling to get it into place. Now to figure out how we’re redoing the upstairs. I mean, we kinda have a plan. Sort of.
Thanksgiving happenings – This year Thanksgiving was being held at BIL and SIL’s house. Since Mom is back out west for a bit, The Wife stepped up to make some of the common dishes. Namely, the stuffing, the apple crisp, and the sweet potato souffle. The stuffing is a family recipe from my paternal grandmother, and it was the first year someone other than Mom or The Brother made it. This was one of the holidays The Wife was very grateful to have the double oven. My contribution was limited to helping reach high or heavy items.
There was a lot of food. SIL went all-out. The Wife’s food was awesome. SIL’s food was awesome. I overindulged in said awesome food. It’s a good thing I took Black Friday off. Food hangovers can be just as bad as alcohol hangovers.
Story Happenings – I finally finished the third Irregulars story. Well, I got the ending finished. Now it’s set it down for a bit and then do an edit. My goal was around 15K words, and it’s sitting at 16K words.
Decorating Happenings – This is The Wife’s favorite time of year. She can let her decorating instincts run wild. To her credit, she’s been keeping the volume of decorations down to what can be easily moved in four to five large plastic tubs. Still, it’s surprising/amazing how the house changes as it is festooned with holiday cheer.