Rave: Wife went into labor two weeks early and our second son arrived today. He's healthy and labor was a breeze compared to our first.
Rant- We dropped our daughter off at college this weekend and said goodbye yesterday. This is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do. My daughter and I are very close, and I’ve been dreading this for years, no exaggeration. After we said our goodbyes my wife and I left her dorm, and within minutes I was bawling. Fuck, I’m crying now typing this. I love that kid so much the thought of not having her around is killing me. Of course this is how life goes. Having her never leave home and make her own life would be horrible, and I’ve seen that scenario firsthand. Me being me, I’m not just thinking about her being away from home several months, and she’ll be back home around the holidays. I’m all too aware that this is the first step in her becoming her own person and making a life. Over the next several years we’ll see her less and less as she gets internships and jobs, and starts a career and lives her life. And getting to see her will be something we have to arrange, instead of a casual thing we can do when we feel like it. Fuck, this sucks.
Rant: COVID is absolutely kicking my ass. My head feels like it's in a vice and I keep vomiting. Even threw up the Pedialyte. Then it hit me.... My head probably hurts like this from no caffeine. I am baby sipping some coffee and the edge is slightly dulled. Hopyi don't throw this up too. Edit: it was the caffeine. Don't stop your daily drugs when you get sick, kids.
Rave: On Saturday morning I went to an estate sale and saw some vintage speakers for sale: I did some research and went back this afternoon (Sunday) All items were marked half priced and I bought the speakers for $125. I took them to my office spent an hour cleaning them up and crap, they work just fine. They do not require any replaciing of speakers or anything. The rant is that the grill cloth is perfect and irreplaceable. (They just do not make that style anymore) So I cannot take them home as the Kitties would instantly use them as a scratch pad.
Rave: I organized a surprise day for my wife so she could go visit her grandparents. She’s been stressed about her job lately I’m glad she was able to do something that she’s been meaning to do for a while. ?: Last night I had a dream I had sex with Mona from Who’s the Boss?
Rant (sort of): Our sons have been away at college and are coming home for the weekend today. Our younger son is having a little difficulty adjusting to campus life and has been texting my wife bitching about this and that. Wife says coming home for a couple days to decompress wouldn't be a bad thing but I don't know, I think he'd be better off staying there and getting used to things. I mean, it's been a week. We're still working out things here ourselves. I don't know... But I'm going along with it, and leaving in a little bit for the four hour drive round trip. Then I guess she'll take them back up Monday.
RAVE: Amazon has some thing where every three months I can run a special on my books. I resisted doing a free book promo last time, but this time around decided to give it a shot. It's only 5 days, so what the hell. In the 24 hours since doing so, 365 people have downloaded it. Most of them were yesterday, and last evening I was so surprised I decided to see what I can do with international marketing and dropped some money on a FB ads in the UK, Ireland, Canada and Australia as well as the U.S. The down side to this is I don't get paid anything at all. However the goal was to get eyeballs on pages and build up a fan base, as well as hopefully make the money on the sequel. Whether that last part works remains to be seen, but I'm calling this a win just one day in. Also, I'm holding steady at #6 on Amazon's Top 100 Free Books.
Rave: We just bought our first house. It is in a fantastic place to raise our future kid, and I am neighbors with my favourite coworker. Double rave: The sellers didn’t even bother to counter our offer. If they had they could have gotten 15k more dollars out of us. Now Jägerette won’t have to start an Onlyfans to help with payment.
Rant:Well scratch that. Just got back from the fertility doctor who had decided to skip the weight requirement that they have and run a detailed hormone panel anyway. Premature ovarian insufficiency/failure. Our only options at this point are donor egg IVF or hope for a spontaneous ovulation which with the Dr’s interpretation of her results is very unlikely as she may not even have any viable eggs left in her mid 30s. Well, I guess we will end up being those crazy people with like 6 dogs in our house.
Rant: My kids daycare teacher was fired for holding him up by one arm. He’s fine, but now we are in the middle of a DCF investigation of the school and more layers of the onion are in peeling away. Glad I have to deal with this for $800/week.
Rave: Being laid off is never fun times but I think we are doing okay. Hub's company's right hand doesn't know what the left is doing and the whole process has been a total mess and more work that it needs to be. But, his time has been extended a little to wrap up stuff (due to other people not doing their job in a timely fashion), he gets severance, he'll be eligible for unemployment, and he got to keep a FUCKTON of supplies that would have been trashed from the warehouse. We just unloaded everything from the Uhaul. Like easily 6-10k in cabling materials, pallet jacks, dollies. New leather chairs for our kitchen table, steel folding chairs, a HUGE metal rolling tool chest full of tools. He hasn't had a break or vacation in forever so I'm looking at his unemployment with delight. Especially during the holidays. Oh, and legally we are allowed to use the whole year's FSA dollars even though we're a month into the new insurance period. I am actually having trouble spending it all. We are up to the gills with first aid supplies, tens unit pads, and we're all about to get new Rx glasses and sunglasses.
Rave: On Friday, I accepted a new job for a 46% raise. Rant, sort of: Now I have to deal with downtown Austin traffic three days a week.
Rant: After being pursued to become a big part of a small, but growing, dev-for-hire company as head of the Tokyo office (said by the CEO as "the other him"), I had a terrible "meet the team" experience down in the head office of Kagawa (about an hour's flight away). Instead of spending time getting to know the team, having a dinner out, and then later sitting down with the CEO to really get down to brass tacks, I spent a total of 15 minutes interacting with the team, 45 minutes discussing some work the CEO has me consulting on (details still yet to be hashed out, kick off in about 8 hours), and then me going back to my hotel room to sleep. The whole team dinner I thought we were having vapourized, and I did go out later that night with the CEO for an hour 45 of chicken before he headed off for the weekend. A lot of red flags being raised here. Had a short talk about equity, and I said 25% over 4 years with 10% after the first. He balked at that. I reckon for his expectations of being "the other him", I should be getting closer to 50% over the years. Rave: Takamatsu is highly recommended for visiting. The islands are are a beaut, and ritsurin gardens are gorgeous.
RAVE: Had the surgery to remove the skin cancer and they got it all on the 2nd sample. RANT: Got there at 8am and just got home at 4pm. RAVE: The Doc did a great job and only removed what was absolutely necessary and I won't need a skin graft. RANT: The amount of gauze I have makes it look like Quasimodo's hump migrated.
Rant: I had to throw a DevOps Manager under the bus in a fairly harsh way today. Usually I feel bad about that kind of thing, but I've had it with this guy. He constantly over-promises and under-delivers. A project he told me would be completed by now has not even been started yet and, after telling me for weeks it wouldn't be an issue, he informs me he has no idea what to even do and he doesn't feel comfortable attempting yet or asking his team to do it. Now i have to go back to executive leadership and tell them the opposite of what I've been telling them. I am not going to burn because this guy keeps pulling this shit.
MEGA RAVE: My best friend and his wife have been trying to get pregnant since either my before my son(almost 7) or my daughter(9.5) were born, either way it has been a very long time, and lots of money in IFV treatments. Today he texted me a 3d ultra sound picture. I couldn't be happier.
Rave: I've been asked to take on the role of CTO for a project. The first, Very Serious offer of this kind of thing. Rant: It's a bullshit NFT project that is VC funded, but in distress. I've been parachuted in as kiiiind of a favour to a mate (still billing) as a PM with basically zero time to go. They, at least, have realized that they're in trouble and are thinking about postponing the launch for 3 months. I'm not leaving my current job for it though, and don't want to devote more than 15 hours/week I'm spending on it already.
Rant: Trying to quit smoking cold turkey. Day 1 has been less than fun. Bet trying to sleep is just going to be awesome.