Today is Monday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
Yesterday the recital was nice – not too long and generally fun. I will work on videos this weekend.
Afterwards, we ran by the hospital to see Sunnee’s dad. He’s been there since December 5th with something called – Guillain-Barre Syndrome. It’s a strange thing that is rumored to be a reaction in some to the flu shot. He had one about two weeks before the symptoms started. He cannot move his arms and his legs are pretty bad as well. Every other day he has his blood run through a machine that removes the platelets. He’s also hoping that the muscles around his lungs don’t get it so that he doesn’t have to go on a respirator. Not that people in hospitals look good, but he looked hellish. I feel bad that he can’t do anything about this other than let it run it’s course. I’ll update everyone as we find out more.
Check out this sunset from last night!

I went to bed early last night and woke up at 5am. I decided it would be better to just get up – so I did. Made it to work by 6:30 am! I am trying to catch up on the daily work that is my new responsibility. I had to catch up from last monday – so six days of daily work! I think I finished all the entry portions of the job, but need to double check again in the morning with a clear head – fourteen hours made for a long day.
We had our employee Christmas Lunch today – I couldn’t get anyone to help me even after asking. By the time I got it all up and running I was tired of dealing with it. Afterwards I just wanted to sleep. The food was good – as always.
I was very sleepy when I came home and should have just gone to bed instead of looking up things online. I think I’ll go to bed now. Not much chance of waking early tomorrow…

Happy B-Day to: Brenda

My sister in Colorado! I hope we get to see you this holiday season…
Regardless, Happy Birthday wishes to you!

Today is Sunday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
I don’t know how I forgot to do a post for yesterday – it just seemed like the day got away from me… Sorry.
Friday was more of the same. Lots of catchup from being gone for a couple of days and making sure everything else was running smoothly. Microsoft issued a HUGE IE update – apparently there was a large attack on IE 6 and IE 7. I have switched every computer over to Firefox but you can’t remove IE from the ‘base’ system without messing up a bunch of stuff. In between all my ‘work’ I had to update the computers. A couple of them I hadn’t done in a couple of months – that was odd.
I also caught up on several tasks that I had been putting off for quite a while. Luckily for me the people have been very patient in waiting for me….
A couple of meetings that went okay, but it’s been a long couple of weeks.
I remembered at the END of the day on Friday that I had to go to work on Saturday to do payroll. With Christmas being on Thursday, people don’t typically want to work on Christmas Eve and nobody wants to come back on Friday, then off for the weekend. Let me change that. My employees want to work because everyone needs the money right now but even the freight companies are closed on Friday which means even though they will work, I can’t ship anything. I only get paid for things when I ship them. So. Only a two day workweek. That makes it hard to get payroll processed in time for direct deposits. Hence, I went yesterday for about five hours. Done.
It was nice and warm yesterday, I wish I had time for bike ride. It’s not warm enough this morning for a ride and I can’t go in the afternoon because today is Railee’s Holiday Piano Recital. Good for family, bad for my body so I can get a ride in. I’ll post the videos from her recital like last time.
I have quite a bit of computer work to get done but it’s just not working out well. The files that I needed have missing fonts and it’s been very hard to motivate myself to work on the weekend. This past week has really sucked my energy. The more I work, the crankier I get. Everyone has noticed and reminds me of it – almost on an hourly basis.
Christmas is in three more days. I truly am not anywhere near being in the mood for a holiday. Not only because times are tight, but I just don’t feel like celebrating. I don’t want to be near others. Typically I get in the mood a couple days before but I just don’t see it happening this year. I know what the spirit of Christmas is supposed to be for but I just don’t have it. I watched “A Charlie Brown Christmas” last night and you would think that would keep in in perspective for me but it didn’t work either.
This is a sobering…

Hopefully I finish the weekend on a more positive note?

Happy B-Day to: Tonya

I’m pretty sure this is your 36th birthday. Even though you won’t call anyone back or respond to voicemails or emails…..
Happy Birthday to You!

Today is Friday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
Back in town again. Sort of felt good to sleep in my own bed again. Only sort of because I didn’t sleep well.
A busy day of catch up and having to approve a bunch of signage before Tuesday. I don’t think I’ll make it as most people are closing for the holidays today. I’ll see how that works.
Everything else appears to be going okay. I can’t believe it’s Christmas next week…

Today is Thursday

Life: Work:
Weight: ??? Hours of Sleep:
CATCH UP!
Last minute travel changes. Tim was supposed to go to L.A. and Bay Area and I was supposed to be in Oklahoma City and Tulsa….
Lots of changes over the weekend and L.A. and OK were cancelled. I got the stick to go to Bay Area. Reluctantly…. NOT!
Flew out Tuesday afternoon, barely got payroll out before leaving. I normally go for the direct flights but had wanted to get to town with enough time to get some good food! It started in Albuquerque – the flight was late because they were waiting for a First Officer to arrive for our flight – waited 30 minutes. The weather was not my friend – I purposely flew through Vegas since it was weather-free. Sadly, the rest of the nation was under poor weather so it made EVERY flight late or cancelled. So it was almost sixty minutes late. In my eyes I’m 90 minutes late. Yet, we landed only 30 minutes after we should have. I didn’t get it. I actually spoke to the person in the seat next to me instead of sleeping. That was strange for me.
Landed and by the time I made it back to where the hotel was – it was almost 10pm. I almost opted for no food since it was so late. I noticed that there was an In’N Out Burger nearby and made the trek. It did taste good though. I really like the fresh french fries.
This is the trip of cashing in reward bits. I stayed at the Hyatt Place for free. Nice hotel. Small rooms but they have nice stuff in them so you don’t mind. The downstairs lobby is like a little cafe/restaurant/bar/lounge thing that could be fun if there were some fun people staying there. I was too late for any of that.
Driving around went well, I added two more unscheduled stops even!
I met with the Atlanta people and the class was okay. A few more stops and then across the bridge to San Rafael just in time for traffic. I stayed at the last store for over an hour just to avoid the road. Eileen drove up and we went for some sushi. It was very good and TJ took great care of us. It was very tasty. A few rolls, some nigiri, and a couple of beers. It was surprisingly affordable for northern California. Matt couldn’t make it as he had a last minute, late meeting. We made one more stop to talk concerts, famous people and the election before calling it a night.
Last night I drove north to Petaluma and my last stop before leaving.
Answering emails took a bit and now I’m off for the day. One store then to the airport and back home – hopefully in time for dinner.

Today is Monday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
Overall just a cold, windy day all day long. A lot of work got done and not enough small, house-bound projects. The tree didn’t get decorated. Laundry got all done…
Today is a busy morning already, I need to get there to work on payroll.

Today is Sunday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
After the bike ride it was a quick shower then I had to get dressed as Jill, Donald and Emma needed to borrow some stuff then I had to see the neighbor’s new car…
Then I had to take Railee to a birthday party. It was at Roller King – a roller skating venue that I used to frequent no less than 28 years ago. Sunnee had the idea that I would just drop her off (at six) and pick her up at ten. I knew that was not going to happen. First, Railee was starting to come down with a cold and was very sleepy. Second, she had not been roller/ice skating before so I figured (ok, HOPED) that I could help teach her. I knew that I was not going to drive all the back across town and wait for her to call me.
The place has not changed in 28 years – even the smell. It was kind of a strange experience. I think the skates were all 30 years old, new wheels though. I tried helping Railee and a couple of the other girls on how to get started. Thankfully, Railee asked me to get some skates and to go with her. Whoppee!

After about 30 minutes, she had the hang of it and did not want me around any longer. Sad Dad.
It did allow me to pay attention to everything else around me. I like people-watching at the airports and malls but THIS was better!
It was a mix of about five birthday parties, families, teenagers looking to hang-out, 35-40 year old women, and a strange mix of 22-25 year old couples that were wearing 70’s leisure suits, pegged jeans, and other strange, period clothing. It was a hoot!
Birthday parties are an exercise in patience by all adults. To see where their tipping points are. One family, it was over after about 20 minutes. Another took about an hour. Railee’s party and another one went the distance. There’s just too much going on and inevitably the adult to child ratio is way more than one person can handle. When that point has reached – and I’ve been there before – that parent inevitably gets: red in the face, screams at anyone around, usually takes it out on the employees of the place, and the kids all wish that they weren’t there. As another parent and I noticed, when you get more than two girls together – there’s trouble. They group off and always leave at least one person alone and feeling poorly. Always, some of the girls recognize this and then they group off and you have two to five different ‘cliques’ of girls that act like they all like eachother but are just there for the thrill of making someone else’s life miserable for the night. This, of course, happened. Girls are just mean – no matter their age.
Some of the families that were there were Moms and Dads with their munchkins that probably were dance roller skaters in their day. This was their way to force their childhood onto these kids. The kids were not wanting to be there, but their parents sure did. The parents looked like they had all gone their separate ways from the skating years. One – most definitely – had become a gang member and had served time sometime in his life. Another looked like she could have been working Central in the more recent years, but this was family night. Make a living, who am I to judge. The teenagers just frightened me. The guys were dressed well for guys – they had clean clothes on and appeared to have taken a shower in the past two days. The girls though. Wow. Too much makeup for that age, slutty clothes, and an attitude that was plain scary. As an admirer of the female form – there is no form at ten to thirteen years old. Those who do have a form should not be showing it to anyone else other than same age. There were a couple of men that we should double check the sex-offender registry on and sadly, they appeared to be employees. I know that as kids, we want to appear older and experience older things – but damn. They should shut down the clothing companies that make these things available in those sizes.
The strange ones were the 35-40 year old ladies that looked like they were torn between re-living their teenage skating lives and trolling for young meat. They were frightening. Somewhat flirty, but flirty to these 17-20 year old guys. One lady, had those way too short pants that barely cover their hips – complete with her thong peeking out. She was in her late 30’s. Great.
The best group was about six couples of 20 somethings that were just having fun. The guys were wearing polyester pants or in one case, a leisure suit. The others were wearing those stupid tight pants that 18 years olds wear. The girls were mixed from tights, to tank tops. They had lots of piercings and tattoos. They had the most fun of everyone out there. They were probably all on drugs.
I made a comment to an older person that worked there – probably 24 years old – and said they should offer booze to the parents for having to re-live our teenage lives all over again.

The party ended fine – a few bruises, everyone’s wallets a bit lighter, and only a few hurt feelings. I was tired and wanted to go home.
Today has been rainy, cold, windy – wait, the sun just came out. Only in New Mexico…

Today’s Bike Ride

Distance: 16.9 miles Time: ??
Avg Speed: ?? mph Top Speed: ?? mph
Calories Burned: ??
What started as a forced – get-my-son-out-of-the-house-ride – turned into a nice, crisp ride. We went to the bank, the bike shop to fix his tire, and to Wendy’s for lunch and returned home. From there I went out by myself and headed towards Dad’s new spec house. It turned out VERY nice. It’s down by Old Town and has a great layout. I stayed there for a bit and then headed back home.
The winds were from the South / Southwest about 8-10 mph and it was about 54 degrees so it wasn’t so bad. Again, to be mid December and riding my bike in my shorts is pretty nice as well.

Today is Saturday

Life: Work:
Weight: Hours of Sleep:
Sleep. It does a body good.
I just came home and went to sleep last night. Not much else than that.
I had wanted to go on a LONG bike ride today but it rained a bit last night and it’s very overcast and quite cold. Not New Hampshire cold…
Mike, Nancy and Hans (my brother and his family) live in Londonderry, NH. They called all day yesterday giving us updates as to what was going on as pretty much the whole state was frozen under. Mike lost power and phones in overnight and were busy trying to find a place to drive to. The ended up heading towards Manchester where it wasn’t as iced over. They had to take their freezer in the car with them with all the food so they could plug it back in wherever they ended up! Hans called me and said that the sun had just came out and that the trees were ‘beautiful’ because they are all covered with ice! Ouch. I reminded them that if they just drove west and south that we don’t have ice storms and they could return in March or April. They didn’t fall for it.
I don’t think I could just hunker down until it all melted. Not in my personality.
We’ll see what today brings and I’m sure I’ll update everyone tomorrow.