Category: Family

Wedding Happenings – This past weekend, BIL and SIL got officially married and all. It was a simple service with The Wife officiating. We’re all so very happy for the both of them. I had no official role, other than to walk The Wife down the aisle to take her place. This turned out to be fortuitous when her the shoes she was wearing spontaneously decided to strike their wedges and become sandals. Still, great joy and merriment was had by all. Particularly the grandniece who got to play herself to exhaustion.

North Carolina Happenings – Of course, the next day, The Wife and I drove up to Charlotte, North Carolina so she could do some face to face time with her team. My work is being “finicky” about folks working remotely, so I took personal time. However, I still ended up bringing my work stuff with me because of a large project going on and a short turnaround for one of my parts. So, while The Wife walked across the street to the office building, I logged into work. The nice thing about working while technically on leave meant I didn’t feel particularly guilty about switching from work to goofing off. I still managed to get my work done.

The drive up was mostly uneventful. No real traffic or weather issues. There were a couple of items of note. The Wife’s flip-flops broke, making her two for two on shoe destruction that weekend. The nice thing about living in the future is that she ordered another pair of her casual shoes for delivery to the hotel. The other weird thing was Siri randomly deciding it needed to give me directions at 2X speed.

Sunday night’s dinner was raiding a nearby grocery for a few items that we missed in the whirlwind of packing and wedding stuff. The Wife was fascinated that this grocery store had a wine bar in the middle of the store. Monday night’s dinner was at a Cuban place that was pretty good. It was as good as anything I would get in Tampa (which is high praise for you outside of Tampa). If we have to do this trip again, it will certainly be on our list. The one thing Monday’s dinner showed was gaps in The Wife’s knowledge of Spanish/Cuban fare. Since I grew up in Tampa and was briefly married into a Cuban/Puerto Rican family, I’ve absorbed a lot of food knowledge over the years. Enough that I take it for granted that anyone who’s spent enough time on the central Gulf Coast would know. Let’s just say there were some food items that I was very surprised The Wife was unaware of. This means some trips up to certain Tampa restaurants are required.

Wednesday we got up at oh-dark-early to make the trek south. Tuesday was rainy in North Carolina to the point there were flash flood warnings. We figured leaving early enough we would miss the weather. Yeah, not so much. We did get hit with some pretty heavy rain on the way down. Once that cleared out, it wasn’t a bad ride down. Until we hit the major road leading to Ward Manor. I swear we spent more time in traffic there then we did on any of the highways. At least we got home and unpacked before 2pm.

Kickstarter Happenings – Several months ago, The Wife convinced me to pick up an Olight Ostation to recharge my AA batteries. I really liked it and wished it also came in a version that would recharge my AAA batteries. Then I get an email that Olight has a new version on Kickstarter. After talking with The Wife, we decided to back the project to get the Pro version. If there’s one thing we learned last hurricane season, we need to make sure all of our batteries are charged quickly. Plus, I’ve moved household electronics to use AA and AAA instead of CR123’s.

Color Coordination Happenings – One of my quirks that The Wife doesn’t really understand is my shirt rotation. My “work uniform” is a polo and cargo slacks – except for Fridays when the slacks are replaced with a kilt. I have a line of different polo shirts that I’ve accumulated over the years. I grab the next one in the line, find the appropriately matching slacks/kilt and accoutrements and prepare for the day. I recently purchased two new kilts. The Wife was enamored with one that had greens and browns. She asked if I was going to be wearing that last Friday. I told her that depended on the rotation. She gave me that look she always gives me when I say something that just does not compute in her worldview. Later on, she asks which end of the row I pull my polos. You can see where this went.

Me: It’s as if a ghost put a shirt in the front of the rotation that would match the kilt you asked about.

The Wife: Well, if it was a ghost, at least it’s a color coordinated ghost.

I wore the new kilt last Friday.

Upstairs Happenings – The shuffling to decompress The Wife’s home office and turn the loft area into a shared craft room continued with some major moves. It was a lot of “if we want to move this here, then we need to move that there.” For example, we moved what is essentially a mobile kitchen prep table from her office into mine. Which involved me moving a corner cabinet. Which meant I had to move my rack I use for my airsoft rifles. Not to mention taking down all of my various toys and such.

My original idea of making it into an aircraft carrier for my mecha will have to wait due to space issues. But version 1.0 of toy display seems to be okay.

It will be interesting when I am able to assemble Superion.

Amazon is so helpful scheduling Prime Days right around The Wife’s and mine birthdays. We get to spend all of those helpful gift cards on sale items.

This year was the DVD year. After Milton and some other outages, The Wife and I decided that we needed a small collection of DVD/BluRays for the times streaming was unavailable. We already picked up a few series that we both liked, so I expanded the collection with “Downton Abbey” and “Lower Decks” as well as “How the Realist Hero Rebuilt the Kingdom.” That last one is an anime I really liked.

I also picked up a new twelve bay charger for AA and AAA batteries.

I did pick up a flashlight – an Olight clip on. I haven’t used much of Olights, so I figured I would give one a try. I do love their big AA battery charger.

There were some household goods we needed that got purchased, but the last personal purchase were some toys. Hasbro is releasing a new version of the Aerialbots, and Walmart had Silverbolt on sale. Plus I picked up Air Raid from Amazon. I figure by the end of the year, I will have the new and awesome Superion built and in my home office.

Day Job Happenings – We got word this week that the threat of a RIF has abated. So, for the foreseeable future, I will be gainfully employed at the .gov. My position is still under review to determine if I should be at the grade I’m currently at, but I can weather a loss of grade much better than I could weather the loss of job. Plus, there’s this inexorable relief – like a Sword of Damocles has been removed.

Fourth of July Happenings – For our Fourth this year, the plan was to have dinner over at BIL and SIL’s place. SIL has her granddaughter down for a couple of weeks. I was asked to smoke some ribs for the dinner. Small problem. Rain. Plenty of rain. I still gave it a go. Worked for a bit, and then fire went out. We ended up finishing the ribs off in the oven. Not my finest smoking work, but at least folks enjoyed them.

We also had The Wife’s Niece and our grandniece over for a “sleepover” as we were going to the zoo the next day. The grandniece was very interested in my Autobot Blaster toy. It’s rugged, so I didn’t care if she manhandled it.

Dinner was good because we got to see The Wife’s Nephew and his wife. We don’t get to see her very often due to everyone’s different schedules. She works at Apple, so she gets to field all the questions about “what iPhone should I get” and such. The Wife and I have discussed with MIL that she should get a new phone. Also, we think she should get an Apple Watch. The fall protection is a big reason, but also the phone locator. We’ve been discussing it for months. Nephew’s wife had her convinced over dinner. It was very amusing.

After dinner, we shot some fireworks off in the backyard. A pretty decent Fourth.

Zoo Happenings – Saturday the group of us traveled up to Tampa to go to ZooTampa. Since I have lived in Tampa for the better part of five decades, I will always think of it as Lowry Park Zoo. We managed to get into the park just as they were doing the macaw flights. Imagine four large parrots flying at head height around a large plaza. It was pretty neat.

Sometimes I forget how big, how loud, and how pungent some of the animals are.

Here’s a series that NatGeo did a few years ago.

I would highly recommend stopping through if you are in the Tampa Bay area.

House Happenings – Over the last year or so, we’ve gone through three different lawn companies. It’s always the same. They tell us they can do everything and then it just goes down to mowing and edging the lawn. We’re on our fourth company – this one run by a cousin of The Wife’s Niece’s SO. The cousin wants to break into our neighborhood – and he considers us family – so, his team has been taking care of all those little details we asked for. Like getting rid of some shrubbery the builder put in that makes it hard to make full use of our postage stamp of a driveway. I’m sure the HOA is going to get bitchy at some point, but we’ll deal with that when it comes along.

Vehicle Happenings – With me now having to go into the office five days a week, The Wife and I knew that we needed to get another vehicle. We were holding out to see what future plans my day job was going to unfurl, but leadership is being cagey as hell. I don’t even know when they will reveal our new re-org. Anywhoo, there’s been a couple of close calls with The Wife not having a vehicle at her disposal while I’m an hour away.

So, last weekend, The Wife and I moseyed up to the dealership where we bought the Ward Wagon. We told the salesfolks we were interested in this Kia Carnival, a Subaru Ascent, and a Nissan Pathfinder. So, what did we end up coming home with? None of those!

Ward Wagon 2.0 is a 2024 Outback. It was the one that was in the right price range with the right features.

And an action shot.

Retirement Happenings – This week, The Brother “retired” from his day job at the same .gov where I work. He’s been there for nearly 30 years, and took advantage of the early retirement. He has a plan to start up some projects and do some retraining. It’s just weird that he and I are not going to be working at the same “company” like we have for the past sixteen years. I’m sure it’s even stranger for him not going to the place he’s worked for pretty much all of his adult life.

Father’s Day Happenings – Back on Father’s Day, we “consecrated” the new grill by smoking some brisket. I tried a recipe for a mustard-based rub that turned out not too bad. The meat was well liked, and we generally had a good day.

Day Job Happenings – I really want to believe I’m going to come through the upcoming RIF, but my leadership is keeping its plans close to the vest. It doesn’t help that my local leadership is expanding my team. Mixed signals there. We’re adding more people, but we don’t know if any of you will be cut. I would like to think my local leadership has been assured that us in field operations are “safe” and that’s why we’re getting new people foisted on us. One of the “new” people is someone I’ve known and worked with for fifteen years, so that was a good addition.

Upstairs Happenings – The great reshuffling of the upstairs continues as we work at decompressing The Wife’s office. This weekend’s adventure was putting together a new bookcase for the bedroom. Yes, it has a litter box in the bottom. Yes, we don’t have a lot of books on the bookcase.

The ladder bookcase is now in the loft/craft room. Instead of books, it is now festooned with The Wife’s Cricuts and our big printer. And The Wife’s collection of mouse ears from our sojourns to the Disney properties.

Bird Happenings – Yesterday at one of the bird feeders, we saw a cardinal among the doves. First time one of those red birds have shown up in our area. Unfortunately, it was just there for a bit, grabbed some seed and then flew away. We’re hoping it sticks around.

Grill Happenings – Late last year, I got rid of my Weber grill because we were looking at upgrading, and someone said they might have a line on some good deals. There were good deals, but nothing that made me want to put more money down. Plus, I hadn’t been smoking much, so it didn’t seem to be worth laying out cash.

Well, now we have some events coming up where I have been asked to smoke some ribs and other meats. After discussion with The Wife, we ended up picking up essentially my old grill, but this one was built into a little cart with a folding table. After doing some comparisons, we bought it on Home Depot for delivery to Ward Manor.

Monday morning comes and Home Depot says they delivered to my house. Great, but the cameras didn’t pick up anyone delivering anything. I go check their tracking and look at the helpful pictures. It was not my house. It was not my subdivision. It wasn’t even close to my street number. Jump on customer service chat – because Derek hates talking on the phone. The chat associate was helpful to a point. They offered a refund, and I asked if they could refund and reorder. After alll, I still needed my grill. No problem. Except it was kind of like I got disconnected in the middle of the chat. Essentially, I had to restart the ticket again. Second associate joins the chat. Nope, refund not processed, reorder not placed. Hey, do you mind if I contact the warehouse and see if they can arrange for a redelivery? Sure. After all, I still need my grill. While the associate was talking with the warehouse, they must have realized their mistake because, magically, my order appeared on my driveway.

Tuesday night, The Wife, MIL, and I put the grill together. It wasn’t as bad as some of the assemblies we’ve done, but still not the most helpful. I also sacrificed to the Assembly Gods when tightening a nut, and the drill spun the little piece of metal. A nice little chunk of my thumb was removed near the knuckle. It was one of those, “oh I guess it wasn’t that bad” until The Wife mentioned I was bleeding. Then the pain hit. Not enough to go to urgent care, but enough to be annoying. And bloody.

But I have a functioning grill that will get consecrated this weekend for Father’s Day.

Visit Happenings – Last weekend, The Wife, The Brother, Mom, and me trekked down south to visit with my great aunt. It was a nice visit and we went to our favorite little restaurant down there. My great aunt also gave us a blanket my maternal grandmother knit for her many years ago. It now resides at Ward Manor.

I drove back and forth, which is selling more on a Kia Carnival for the next car to join Ward Manor. We will see when/if we make that decision. Of course, they had to listen my playlist of eighties tunes while I was driving because…

Writing Happenings – I’ve outlined and started working on a new isekai story series. I’ve got the MC, the world, and the first story somewhat outlined. One of the quirks of the MC is his fascination with eighties music. Hence, my submerging myself in it.

Day Job Happenings – We’re getting no news from national about the RIF. My team is gaining some new team members via transfers. Which I would normally take as a good sign. They wouldn’t be adding to the team just to cut it, would they? The small fact that’s throwing a spanner in the works is that the decision to expand the team is local and the RIF decisions are being done nationally. And I don’t trust national.

Graduation Happenings – Last weekend, The Wife, The Brother, Mom, and me traveled across the state to watch my niece graduate high school.

Like her brother, The Niece’s ceremony would be held at their stadium. Outside. In the Florida sun and heat. We bought a couple of those seat cushions with backs instead of sitting directly on metal bleachers for hours. What we didn’t anticipate going over was where we would be sitting was in the direct path of the setting sun. This meant a quick trip to the Walgreens for some umbrellas to act as parasols.

Still, for all the heat and discomfort, it was great to see my niece walk across and get her diploma. And I got a nice compliment on my kilt.

Mother’s Day Happenings – For Mother’s Day this year, we had a pair of celebratory meals. Saturday was more adults-only dinner at our favorite restaurant in Sarasota. There was also another celebration at that time, but I going to keep that one a bit more vague. Sunday was a breakfast that included those who couldn’t make it, plus the grandniece. We love the little tyke, but she is a whirlwind of energy.

Clowder Happenings – Due to some shoulder issues, it’s not unusual for me to spend some of the night in a recliner that we keep in our bedroom. It’s also not unusual for me to come back to bed to find our youngest cat, Freya, sleeping in my spot. Normally, I just pick her up – which she hates – and then she scampers off. This time she decided she didn’t really want to leave the bed. Why? Because she found The Wife’s phone and decided it was a new toy. Which would be fine, except when Freya managed to call my phone. Yeah, time to take away kitty toy. At that point, Freya was no longer interested in staying around and scampered off.

Home Office Happenings – So, after I bought a new desk for the home office, I realized on a drive home that I was wasting a great wide desk and an excellent dual monitor because I had it still set for telework. That isn’t happening anytime soon. So, I moved my big wide monitor and laptop over. Still in process, but clearing the new desk gave me a good “landing pad” for my office bags. Unfortunately, there was a casualty. My remaining Exo Squad toy fell and broke. I’m gonna have to go on Ebay and see if I can find a replacement.

Day Job Happenings – The exodus continues as two more folks that I’ve known for most of my career have decided to exit the day job. I am now the longest tenured in two areas. It’s weird being the old man.