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.
State Fair Happenings – Last weekend, The Wife and I stopped in at the State Fair. The nice thing about getting into the State Fair is that I just have to find the deputy on duty, show him my CCL, and he waves me through. We went through the winners of the various arts and crafts. There were some neat things people had created. We also had a long conversation on whether Lego pieces should count if it’s just putting together a kit versus creating something completely new using Legos as a medium.
We went through Cracker Country. The house they used for showing life in the late 1800s was ringed with a fence. Milton had done a mischief on the house. The rest of the place was fine, and we enjoyed going through the buildings. The Wife picked up some wood utensils, including something for her crochet.
We went through the “Artisan Marketplace”, which I tend to call Etsy Hall. Lots of gourmet doggie food booths. Lots of other booths. We ended up picking up some wax melts because we are always on the lookout for new and interesting scents.
On our way to Expo Hall, we decided to stop in at a food stand offering boba tea. For the love of all that’s holy, do not get boba tea at the state fair. The tea itself wasn’t bad, but the boba was… well, how to describe it? Stale, flat jelly might be the closest.
Expo Hall was about what I expected. I tend to refer to it as MLM Hall, as that tends to be most of the vendors. Nothing really caught our fancy, so we left empty-handed. It was a pleasant way to spend the morning.
Co-Pilot Happenings – For my fantasy novel, one of the things I’ve been experimenting with is using flavor texts to tell the backstory. On a lark, I put one block of flavor text and asked it to rewrite it in a particular style. Damn. That LLM put out a really good bit of flavor text. I think I’ll keep using it for the flavor texts.
Court Happenings – We had to go to court this week. For anonymity sake, I will not explain why. So why bring it up? Well, let’s just say getting through security was interesting. They had me half-unpack my carry bag because their detector had trouble with all the little pouches. Then it flagged on the small pair of trauma shears I keep in my bag. The deputy took one look at it and just waved me on. After our business was conducted, a fee had to be paid – which was in another part of the court complex. At that point The Wife just told me to wait outside instead of having to deal with me trying to get through another security checkpoint.
Clean Out Happenings – Over the weekend we finally got the tubs of Christmas decorations over to storage. We also did some cleaning out of the master closet. Finally, we assembled a pair of those Ikea shoe storage cabinets. Damn, that ended up giving us a lot of space back.
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.
Uncertain Happenings – Ward Manor is in a bit of turmoil. In case you are wondering, the day job with the .gov is impacted by the recent executive orders. We are waiting to see how that will shake out for my particular office. Especially considering my office doesn’t have space to cram in eight more people. One thing is for sure, our budget is going to take a hit.
Family Happenings – Last week I had one of my cousins and his wife come out to Tampa. They came down for a nice visit at Ward Manor. We picked up dinner from a local barbecue place that we really like. It was good visiting with them. Although the gator nor the parakeets made an appearance.
Non-Sleepover Happenings – Last weekend we were supposed to have our great niece for a sleep over while her mom went out. Unfortunately, the day of, we were told that the little girl “picked up a cough.” Ah well, we will do this later. The great niece has been asking for a sleepover since the last time – or as we call it, when she and her mother evac’d to Ward Manor for Hurricane Milton. At least the little girl has fond memories of a terrifying night.
Borg Cube Happenings – Traffic around Ward Manor got snarled pretty spectacularly due to TECO moving a massive piece of equipment from the Port of Manatee to one of their power plants. Although every local news outlet and various community groups informed the public this was happening, there were still folks with shocked pikachu faces. It’s still fascinating from a large scale engineering perspective.
Cold Happenings – We are surviving some very cold temps for our neck of the woods. All the clothing we purchased for our trip to Idaho have come in very handy for the past couple of weeks. Fortunately, we haven’t had the snow that upstate has been forced to endure. I’ve been asking folks if they’re surviving the cold or enjoying the cold? Particularly with the influx of recent transplants.
Day Job Happenings – The Wife and I are awaiting to see how the new executive orders on government workers and telework shake out. I love being punished because of the misdeeds of others and being at the mercy of the mob. My own feelings aside, The Wife and I are budgeting for the possible purchase of a new vehicle, because if I have to go back, being a one-car family is no longer viable.
Door Happenings – The pantry doors at Ward Manor were not closing securely enough. Particularly with some very curious cats who want to get into the various contents. We decided to upgrade the pantry doors to something a bit more secure. The process took a bit longer than our handyman originally thought, but the end result turned out pretty good.
These aren’t normal visitors, but our little pond was visited by a flock of these neat little birds. The Wife came into my office telling me there were some new black and white ducks. Which they aren’t but it was easy to make that mistake from our back window.
This is from wikipedia.
I couldn’t get a good pic because they were too busy running about the pond.
The Wife and I traveled out to Idaho last weekend for my uncle’s memorial service. Christmas– got a bunch of Pocky, a metal tumbler emblazoned with the Mountain Dew logo, and a flashlight that extended out. The Wife told me that she didn’t know how many lumems, but thought I would find it neat.
Dinner was crammed with folks. The Wife’s nephew gave us some smart lighting and gift cards. He also surprised his father with an 85 inch television. It was nice to watch the reveal. Then it was clean up and pack up.
Thursday – Woke up at 0300, did chores, packed up the remaining items, and headed out to the airport. Needless to say, seeing the main security line, even at 0500, made paying for TSA Precheck worth it. I got flagged for routine check, which meant unpacking my carefully packed backpack to get to the wife’s laptop.
First leg wasn’t too bad. Mostly spent the flight watching most of John Wick 4. Wife was extremely happy when we descended into Minneapolis because there was snow on the ground. Once we deplaned, there was one hell of a hike to get to our connection’s gate. Our connection was late departing, but it gave me time to re-watch some Gate. I decided I wanted to binge the series again while we were out. While waiting for our plane, my cousin texted me to ask if I would help his wife with a PowerPoint issue. I told him I would help her when we were in Idaho, but I wasn’t going to do tech support from an airport lounge.
As we landed in Boise, I was excited to see a line of A-10’s as we landed at Boise. The wife was very confused at what they were and why military aircraft were at a civilian airport. It was a bit of a hike to get the bags, but we were quickly fetched by Mom. Which was good, because it was cold out. I found out when we got to Mom’s place that my aunt makes homemade salami. Which is very tasty.
Friday – I woke up feeling like I had a cold coming on. Because the desert is dry and my sinuses now mimic the desert. The Wife was excited to see the snow on the ground. I agreed to do a quick excursion outside so she could experience the snow coming down and get pictures. I forget how wet you get from when the snow melts.
Just as I was settling in to watch my iPad and continue my re-watch of Gate, I was informed we are going to do errands in preparation for the service. And I get to drive in ice and snow and rain! I’m not complaining about the necessity, but I don’t do well with sudden changes. Plus, we were supposed to be helping my cousin in a couple of hours. Frustration compounded when the first store didn’t have what we needed, the second one was closed, but at least the third had everything. I was already at my frustration level, so I was glad to go back to the house.
My cousin and his wife came over, but I found out my PowerPoint services were not required as the funeral home created the presentation. And did a much better job that I would have done with PowerPoint. So we just visited for a while. This was the first time my cousin and me got to meet our respective spouses.
After dinner I got to drive in ice and rain in the dark so we could go up and help set up for the service. For my sins, I got detailed with making the presentation work.
The mp4 file would not work on the media players. Thanks to one of the cousins, we found out it would work on the television, but they wanted me to convert it to a file that would play on the laptop so they can use the projector. Yeah, I don’t have my laptop with me because my new one is barely portable, and I wasn’t taking that huge thing when my iPad does most of what I would want my laptop for. Anyways, I was handed another cousins laptop and voluntold to figure it out. Consulting with brother and Copilot gave me a plan of action, but it was late and I was tired. I would put try my plan in the morning.
Saturday – The plan was simple. The media players we were using wasn’t able to read the file. So get one that would. So, I downloaded VLC and it worked.
We get to the service location and it’s a lot of work getting setup. I also find out that the funeral home is going to come and handle the video. Okay. Fine, I’m the backup. Hey, since you’re free, could you see if you can get this camcorder to work with this memory card? Answer (after about 15 mins)? No. But I will record on my phone and enlist the help of The Brother to get it in a usable form. I knew my shoulders were not going to like that, but I was willing to make that sacrifice for family.
The service was very nice. It was very much on-point for the man being honored. Since I was the “cousin from Florida”, I knew very few of the attendees outside of “core family.” I just did my best to stay out of the way of the organizers with the exception of doing whatever labor was needed. Due to inclement weather and other events, we had about three-quarters of the attendance originally projected. Fecal matter occurs, and Uncle Calvin would understand that better than anyone. The result was that there was a bunch of food that needed to find homes. I imagined we will be eating leftovers for the rest of our stay.
We were exhausted by the time we collapsed into bed. Which didn’t help when MIL called to inform us there were electrical issues at the house. One of the breakers flipped and would not reset. We ended up using FaceTime so we could see the issue. So far as we can determine it was one circuit that controls the kitchen lights. One of the benefits of the smart house was being able to check most of the upstairs by using the Echoes. The wife texted our electrician in hopes he would see it in the morning and get us on the books. Much to our surprise, he texted us right back. At around 11 pm local. He said will come out Monday to take a look. It seems like after we make a huge purchase, something expensive breaks.
Sunday – Breakfast was fried apple waffles with a side of mom and my aunt sharing recipes with the wife. Afterwards, I was told that we were going to a thrift/antique shop in Shoshone we’ve been to previously. Somehow, those plans morphed into a longer excursion up towards Sun Valley so the wife could see more snow. I was miffed with plans being changed on the fly, but shouldn’t have been surprised at this juncture. At the shop, we came across a set of uranium glasses. Mom agreed to transport them down when she comes back to Florida. Then up to see snow. The Wife was impressed and happy. I took comfort in that. Dinner was at a steak place, and I had some decent pork chops.
Back at Ward Manor, MIL managed to get the breaker flipped, but we were still going to have the electrician check it out.
Monday – The plan is a day of rest and get a few things done in preparation for travel back. Back at Ward Manor, the electrician came by to check on the issue with the circuit breaker. The good news is that the issue wasn’t going to cause a fire. However, since it was an intermittent issue, and everything was working when they were there, they can’t narrow it down. It’s most likely one of the recessed LEDs, but we will have to wait until the culprit burns out or causes enough of a fault that the electrician can find it. This is the sort of thing why I don’t deal with electrical.
Relaxation was further disrupted when the wife received a notice of cancellation on the rental’s insurance. Note, this is the insurance we just procured because the previous insurance company dropped us after the hurricanes. After discussions with the agent, it seems they want the things fixed they asked us to fix and then we can resubmit to revoke the cancellation. We already sent them the contract we have to get those things fixed, but now we’re scrambling to work with the construction company to get an appointment. Just an added level of stress. My wife, being the wonderful person that she is, took point on getting it straightened out. Sort of. Hopefully. The Wife asked the universe what else, and it answered. I had to go fetch mom because she wasn’t feeling well, and as I was getting ready, shoelace broke. Feck. At least that was all the universe decided to throw our way that day.
Tuesday – Packing for the trip home is always a bit stressful. We always come home with more than we left with, things don’t pack down like they did for the trip out, etc. Plus there’s always the nagging worry we forgot something. That last bit was a little lessened due to Mom coming back down in a few weeks.
Then we had to do some tech support for Mom. It’s a good thing the wife is more tenacious than I am. I was ready to give up (because it was cold outside), but she persisted and was able to get Mom’s issue settled.
The trip to the airport was pleasant. Gave time to chitchat with Mom. Getting through Boise airport check in and security was a breeze. Once again, TSA precheck was worth every cent.
Getting out of Boise was delayed due to the crew being late. Eh, it wasn’t that bad. I think departure was delayed maybe five minutes. It’s still neat to see the Idaho ANG’s A-10’s lined up off the runway.
The meal on the first leg home was a “chicken Cuban”. Let’s just say they used that term very loosely. It didn’t help it was barely defrosted. Apparently, the catering service in Boise wasn’t up to par.
Atlanta wasn’t too bad. Except for the two and a half hour layover. Oh well, it gave us time for the wife to go to a makeup store she really likes. Plus, the pilot managed to get us off the ground early. Which meant we were on the ground in Tampa a few minutes before the new year. It was interesting seeing the fireworks across Tampa as we landed.
There was some issue with the tram from the airside, but by the time we got to baggage claim, one of our bags was already waiting for us.
The drive home wasn’t as bad as feared. We pulled into Ward Manor around 0130.
Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and all other celebratory greetings!
New Hardware Happening – The big news is that I’m now blogging from the new Battlestation (which is the name I’ve used for my laptops for the past two decades). My old laptop kept crashing, and Best Buy had the Alienware m18 on sale. It is significantly larger than my previous laptop, and I dislike the fact that I can’t charge via USB-C. Still, playing Civ on this beast is going to be fun – particularly when Civ 7 drops.
I hate having to go through and do all the setup. Logging into accounts, finding old license keys, downloading applications. I will use this as an opportunity to streamline some older processes.
I’ve also had to reorganize my desk a bit since the new laptop is bigger than my old one.
There will most likely be more reorganization as we go through “The Great Upstairs Shift” when we decompress The Wife’s office, turn the upstairs living room into a craft/hobby room for both of us, and a bunch of furniture trading between rooms.
If all goes according to plan, I will have an aircraft carrier in my office for all my veritechs / transformers / etc.
Party Happenings – The Wife and I went to the Christmas party hosted by a former colleague of hers. She got to meet with some old colleagues and her current boss. Plus we met some new acquaintances. The Wife always comments on how I can hold a conversation with folks even though I’m a raging introvert. Which is true. The problem is I’m an outgoing introvert – which translates into once Derek starts talking on subjects he knows well, he doesn’t really shut up. I’m really working on info-dumping during conversations and making sure I’m not dominating a conversation.
Keeping Warm Happenings – The Brother found this little fireplace. I find it very relaxing.
