Category: Family

Kilt Happenings – I recently found some relatively inexpensive kilts in my size, so I ordered a few. These buckle up like the kilt I wore for the wedding last year, which makes them much more comfortable than the snap ones I normally get (e.g., 5.11 kilts). The only downside is that these have no pockets, unlike many of the utility-style kilts I have. So, I found a sporran. At this point, I’m going to be wearing kilts as daily work wear until they send me back to the office. And I’ve already told work that I can’t find where I’m not allowed to wear them – so jeans days will become kilt days.

Civilization Happenings – As most readers know, I play a lot of Civ. Mostly Civ 6, as I just can’t get my head around Civ 7’s major changes. Anywhoo, I had an unusual loss. In turn 2. When my initial settler was killed by a flood.

Tech Upgrades Happenings – The Wife and I looked at our budget and our future needs, and decided to do some tech upgrades. Mainly the big ones were our phones. We went to the Apple Store and upgraded our phones to 16’s. I really needed more space and we both wanted the satellite connectivity. Plus getting more of our stuff on USB-C. Plus wantsies. While we were there, we also upgraded The Wife’s watch. While researching which phone to get, we saw that there was a sale on newer Galaxy Tab 11 inch tablets. These would replace the ancient ones we use while doing the treadmills.

3D Printer Happenings – We are most likely going to rehome the 3D printer. Before that happens, the printer is going BRRR. For me, we found a print for the island from the USS Flagg. That sounds too cool if I’m going to turn a table into a carrier for my various mecha.

Easter Happenings – Ward Manor again hosted the family Easter dinner. In addition to all the setup such a dinner requires, we also hosted our grandniece for a sleepover. The little girl loves running around Ward Manor, exploring all the rooms, playing with the cats, and turning the lightsabers on and off. She’s been asking for another sleepover – the first one being when she and her mother stayed at our place during Milton.

The real fun part was on Easter morning, she looked out the window and said, “There’s a bunny!” At first, I thought she was seeing someone’s decorations, but lo and behold, there was a rabbit going between the houses. So, with some prompting from The Wife and MIL, the Grandniece proceeded to tell everyone she saw “The Easter Bunny’s Helper” all day.

It’s hard to believe that The Wife and I have lived here for four years. For me, I get this familiar dichotomy of feeling like it’s only been a short time, and at the same time, that I’ve always lived here.

So, back when Ian came through a couple of years ago, we pulled a bench we had in the garage up to our bedroom to make room for other things. We placed it under the big windows, and when the storm screens came down, the cats were very happy to have a place to sit and watch the backyard. We recently put in the third iteration of cat perch for the windows.

It turned out to be a bit higher, but it will be easier to maintain than the last two perches.

Last weekend, MIL put a new over the toilet cabinet up in her bathroom. This meant relocating this to our master bathroom.

I’ve had this shelving unit for more than twenty years now. Mom bought it and a dry sink for me when I moved into my old Tampa house. And since we had the “hanging kit” out, we decided to hang up a couple of things in the master bedroom.

The wedding picture and the “Love You” was there previously, but The Wife picked up the cow pic a few weeks ago, and I got my starship comparison a few months ago. The plan is to get something below mine to even things out. Probably a little sign or something that I can attach some of my patches to.

We are also still in the process of turning the upstairs living room (aka “the loft”) into a craft/hobby room. It will mostly be so we can pull a lot of The Wife’s crafting machines/printers out of her room and get some more space for supplies. We put in a new desk/table a couple of weeks ago so she could set up her new heat press.

Last weekend, The Wife and her SIL used it to make some t-shirts for SIL’s workplace. They were both very impressed by the speed and efficiency over The Wife’s older press. While they were doing that, I was putting together a new bookcase that will most likely hold very few books.

It went together pretty decently, but I’m not going to say it was easy. I will say that picking up the set of allen wrench drill bits and allen wrench screwdrivers made it a hell of a lot easier. So much easier than the desk/table in the lower right where I didn’t have those tools and had to use that crappy little one that came with the kit.

Next will be setting up a workstation for The Wife to plug in her laptop on the desk so she can better control all of her printers/machines. Then drag out and find places for her Cricuts and printers. Then she should have plenty of space for her various crafting endeavors. I’ll post when we finally get everything set up.

But what about my hobbies? My biggest hobby right now is writing. For that I just need a chair and a power source. Which I will have. I’ve also decided to repurpose my old laptop into a writing laptop. As in, no games, and minimal other apps than what I need for writing.

The reason there wasn’t a Monday Links post was that The Wife and I did our now-annual pilgrimage to North America’s oldest city. It’s where we honeymooned and it’s one of our favorite places. We tried something different this year by going during the week instead of going on the weekend.

Monday started with taking our hairless Boo to the kitty cardiologist. The cat is doing well without any degradation. Plus, there may be a drug therapy to help his heart. We’re hopeful. Upon discussion with The Wife, we stopped at 5.11 so I could pick up a new backpack. The sling bag is good for short trips out to stores or errands. For long days walking around, I have found that my lower back dislikes the sling bag. So, I figured trying out a smaller backpack.

We went to the fort, which was in the midst of an invasion of school-age children. There were also some new displays compared to last year. From there, we hoofed it over to the Oldest House. Touring the exhibits, I explained the difference between matchlock and flintlock. Then back down St. Georges to enjoy all the shops. And yes, I procured a new hat. We need a new hat rack. We also found that some of the shops we normally visit aren’t open during the early part of the week.

We also found the B&B we stay at has an outdoor cat that is the spitting image of our big orange cat.

In short, we had a lot of fun, came home with some new souvenirs, and generally considered a good trip.

Day Job Happenings – We’re still in a holding pattern. We know that Reductions In Force (RIFs) are happening, but the timeline is a bit…opaque, shall we say? Similarly, while a large segment of my division’s workforce has returned to office, I am in a portion without a current RTO date. The Wife and I are a little concerned that I’ll get an RTO – which necessitates getting a car – and then getting RIF’d a few months later. On the plus side, we received some additional revenue, so our last major debt, other than the houses is now paid off.

Musical Happenings – Back in November, I saw that the Sarasota Orchestra was going to be playing Gustav Holst’s “The Planets.” This is one of my favorite pieces of classical music. So, I picked up tickets for their matinee. Weekend before last, The Wife and I made the trek down. It was amazing to hear that played live. One thing that hit me while I was playing it live was the intricacies of the orchestra. Yes, I’ve seen it on television, but for some reason, the synchronicity of the various sections and the way that they came together was more on display in a live setting.

Sourdough Happenings – The Wife decided to join the sourdough bandwagon and try her hand at a starter. Because we need to anthropomorphize everything, she christened her starter “Doughlene.” Something about feeding it and keeping it alive means it must have a name. The Brother was kind enough to lend us some cookware he wasn’t using. We shall see what arises over the next few weeks. (See what I did there)

Travel Happenings – Because I was an idiot and opened my mouth a couple of months ago, I ended up facilitating a two-day meeting for my counterparts from across the nation. However, since this meeting was going to be held at an office in Tampa, The Wife and I decided it would be better to get a hotel for a couple of nights. One, that avoided the hour long commute both ways and it would give me the freedom to socialize with my peers outside of working hours. Yeah, let’s just say things did not go according to plan.

I thought I was booking one of the newer hotels near the office. How many times would you expect to have two hotels of the same chain next door to each other? If you guessed that Derek did not get the new hotel and instead booked the run-down hotel of the same chain next door, you guessed correctly. It wasn’t the worst hotel we’ve stayed at, but you could see the bottom of the list. It was bad enough that we changed our plans and checked out a day early.

The meeting went well, but there were overriding concerns. Please see Monday’s post. I also didn’t socialize much after working hours because my counterparts all seem to be raging extroverted night owls who think nothing of staying out late. The Wife and I are very much early-to-bed-early-to-rise folks.

Still, the meeting was an overall success, and I did enjoy chatting with my counterparts. It was also somewhat gratifying when one of my counterparts who I respect specifically pointed myself out as one of the most knowledgeable about our program.

The cats were less than pleased with all of the travel in a short amount of time.

Yarn Happenings – As I’m sure most of you are aware, the craft store Joann’s is going out of business. On a lark, I brought up their website on my laptop Sunday morning. This ended up with a significant yarn purchase. At Ward Manor, yarn is a non-perishable consumable. It won’t go bad, and The Wife and MIL have plenty of use for it.

Gadget Happenings – Upon the urging of The Wife, we picked up this intriguing charger for AA batteries from Olight. I was reluctant because of cost, location, and it only handled AA batteries. Well, it’s kinda neat. I like when it drops the charged batteries down. Kind of reminds me of a pachinko machine.

I’m going to miss another Monday Links. I swear, I forgot the pace of insanity with Trump. Half the time, the links I write up on Saturday to post Monday seem to be obsolete. We will return to regularly scheduled Monday Links next week. I think.

I understand that I am probably going to get little sympathy. I understand that in the circles I normally travel in – from a writing standpoint – are most likely trumpeting the shrinking of the federal workforce. I have, on this very blog, also advocated for reducing the size and scope of the federal government.

I am also a government worker. I will not name the segment I work in for anonymity’s sake. This post is more a chance to let out my fears and frustrations. You can agree with them or not. You can revel in my despair. I really don’t care.

I am also an evil teleworker. I haven’t had an office/cubicle since March 2020. Even before those days, I was a part-time teleworker. So, yeah, I was annoyed by the “return to office” push. Honestly, it feels like I’m being punished for the misdeeds of workers in Washington and because business owners in DC were upset about losing business. So, my household has to incur a bunch of new expenses (especially since we are currently a one-car household) because others couldn’t act responsibly.

And now I’m looking at lay-offs. I’ll admit, it’s the uncertainty that’s eating me up. I would like to think my leadership would do what they could to keep me. I like to think that I earn my salary by providing good value for my organization and the American taxpayer. In fact, one of the odd things about being a libertarian in government is that I’m often the one advocating against spending additional funds without significant justification at how this works for our mission. But the chaos of the last month means that no one knows what to expect.

Here is my lamentation. I am being fed to the mob. Not because there is a real plan to cut the size and scope of government. It’s just performative destruction by trolls and bullshit artists. There is no 3-D chess or brilliance. It’s whatever can get done before people are stopped by the courts.

Do I expect your sympathy? No. I can fully understand why people are celebrating the cuts of what they see as waste, fraud, and abuse of their hard-earned tax dollars. I know that others have been in this position with companies undergoing restructuring.

Do I expect that some will revel in my fear of losing my job? Absolutely. We are in a populist time. A time where emotion overrides reason. Where people feel free to unleash their worst sides online.

I just needed to get these words out instead of bottling it up. I know the fear is infecting my family bonds. I process by writing, and this lamentation is my processing.

If you have sympathy for me, I will graciously accept it. If you don’t, I will accept that as well.

There was no Monday Links this week because The Wife and I made a weekend excursion over to Disney to meet up with some of her work friends.

Hotel Happenings – We stayed at the Dolphin, which is on the Disney property, but it’s not owned by Disney. I think it’s a Marriot property. Anywhoo, because we were a bit late to make our reservations, we couldn’t get the room Friday. Darn, but the reservations clerk said it would be okay for us to go to the hotel and at the very least, we would be able to drop our luggage and then go to the parks. Due to the vast number of rooms, we might even be able to get a really early check-in.

So, we picked up The Wife’s boss/friend, at oh-dark-early on Saturday and made the trek across the state. When we get to the hotel, we were fully expecting to just be able to secure our luggage and head to the parks. But, they actually had rooms available. Well, that was fortuitous. We had enough time to drop our stuff and catch the bus over to Animal Kingdom.

Animal Kingdom Happenings – I’m not the biggest fan of Animal Kingdom. Still, I enjoyed doing their little safari excursion. Although, my lower back wasn’t too pleased when we got off. We joined up with The Wife’s co-workers and “friends of friends”. They stopped for breakfast, so The Wife and I stopped for something called a Chai Marsala. Would not recommend that. We hung with the group as we went through some of the exhibits, but The Wife and I aren’t real big on rides, so we split off from them while they went on the Everest rollercoaster. About midday, The Wife and I split with the group and headed to Magic Kingdom.

Magic Kingdom Happenings – By the time we got off the bus at Magic Kingdom, The Wife and I were tired and hungry. It didn’t help that the place was crowded enough we had to sit on a railing to eat our lunch. We wandered around Main Street, picked up some souvenirs, and then headed back to the hotel.

Day One Wrap-Up Happenings – The bus didn’t take us directly back to the hotel, so we had to walk a short distance to hotel. Plus it took some personal navigating as the walking directions from Apple Maps sent us into a construction zone. By the time we got back to our room, we were exhausted. We just crashed. It was bad enough that we didn’t realize until we got up to get dinner that we hadn’t quite closed the door.

Epcot Happenings – Day Two was going to be Epcot only. One of the nice things about staying at the Dolphin was we could take a boat over to Epcot. Even better? The boats drop you right at the World Showcase, which was what we wanted to do. For me, the biggest draw in the World Showcase is Japan – because I’m a bit of a weeb. We made a quick excursion there, just to see the offerings. We had lunch in France before we went to go meet up with her work friends in Mexico. They were going to the whole Drinking Around the World thing. I wanted to go to Mexico to get another ceramic parrot for my office to replace one that had broken. After a quick detour through the United Kingdom, we walk around to Mexico. Go into the main building to the shop that sells parrots. Nope. Only these little things. Damn. Oh well. From that point, we waited on her friends. About this time, we’d been in Epcot for a bit over four hours. We were waning. So, we said our regards and then decided to head back to the hotel. A few stops in China, Italy, and Japan before we grabbed the boat back.

Overall Happenings – Overall, we had a lot of fun, but it was a lot of time on our feet. The Dolphin is a great hotel for being close to everything. There were some lessons learned if we do this again next year.

Civilization Happenings – Thursday morning I was doing my normal morning routine and Steam helpfully informed me that The Brother was playing Civ 7. WTF? I knew my package let me play early, but I didn’t think it would be open until the weekend. I popped open Steam. Uh, no, it won’t let me download. I try a couple of times, but say screw it and log into work. On our group chat, The Brother said he had to restart Steam a couple of times before it would let it download to his Steam Deck. I flip over, restart Steam, and yep, there it is for download.

Civ 7 is very pretty, but a lot different than Civ 6. Enough I’m getting that frustration as I try to understand how the mechanics work. I’m not sure how I will like the new mechanics, but I remember I didn’t like all of the new stuff when I started playing Civ 6. So, I will play Civ 7 until the frustration gets high, switch back to 6 for a bit, and then switch back. When I get a couple of playthroughs, I will have a better grasp.

Shopping Happenings – Last weekend, The Wife and I traipsed up to the new Daiso Store in Tampa. The Wife described it as a cross between a dollar store and Five Below. It’s interesting because instead of putting tags with prices in American currency, they just have signs around the store with price conversions.

Family Happenings – Since we were close to Mom’s, The Wife and I dropped by. We got to see Shootin’ Buddy, his partner, and their little girl who is getting close to a year old. Shootin’ Buddy told me he saw me walking across the parking lot at Daiso while he was picking up food. Apparently, there aren’t a lot of folks who walk around in Stetsons and 5.11 sling bags.