Rant: At this point, any whiff of severe weather fills me with dread and anxiety because DTE is such a pile of shit. Last year we were out of power for 5 days in February, and it just hits different than power outages in the summer. Less food to throw away and more “how cold will it be in this room when I wake up?” ETA: Still have power but my parents are out a mile and a half away. Lights are flickering. Hoping dinner gets done before it goes out. In the mean time we are enjoying our sauna since we cranked the heat to 72 like crazy people. Looking forward to when the snow turns into rain and then back into snow/sleet again and then the wind pics up. Stupid winter.
Rave: I so love living in California where if power goes out for one hour in a year, it is a crisis. It just does not happen. Same with natural gas to my house.
Rave: This might be only understandable to southern WASPs but I had to see a friend and his wife yesterday where there is conflict at a woman’s 70th birthday party. I ran that room and had her sulking on the side. Just an absolute beat down. I’m talking birthday girls friends trying to set me up with daughters, kids running up saying hey Mr gamecocks and she is just alone and sulking and it was glorious.
Rant: A restaurant institution here was supposed to close Sunday. I had been looking forward to one final meal there tonight and they abruptly closed this afternoon. I have played Galaga there at 6 years old and picked up girls at the bar in my 30s. Very sad to see it go.
Rant: Our band's first gig of an upcoming self-limited schedule is tonight. I reserved a room down the street yesterday morning and didn't get cancellation insurance because, what are the odds of needing it? Pretty fucking good apparently. Yesterday afternoon I started having a runny nose and scratchy throat. Our bass player, who I haven't seen since Dec 2 said he did too. We both tested positive for Covid. So now the 6 piece band will be a 4 piece acoustic act without us. Luckily, at least for him, the lead singer who is also like a brother to me, still needed a place to stay. So I gave him my room. And now I'm stuck at home for the weekend.
Rave: free lavender and other essential oils from my neighbor, who works at a place that distills EOs from various herbs, and who gets freebies all the time. It's one of my more expensive soap ingredients and I was looking for lavender EO because I'm about to run out. Win! If I never have to buy lavender EO again, they'll never have to buy soap again.
RAVE: Doing an onsite in Montreal for a week. Should be a blast. As much as the weather is shit, it'll be great to get out of town and hang with the mostly virtual team. The food and drink in Montreal does not suck, and despite huge layoffs going down (25% of the company), I've got a hell of an entertainment budget for the guys. There's a reason why all my onsite days start at 10am... gives you a solid hour to recover from your hangover.
Montreal is a fun town, I'm gonna need till noon to feel like a human but I'm sure you guys will be more responsible than I was.
Rave: Insurance company came through for us, paying slightly more than half of the total cost. “Replacement cost” is what they called it, so I’m guessing they figured they could pay for the materials. We’re happy, and I think I’m gonna have “It never hurts to ask” engraved on my tombstone.
Rant: Just got off the phone with an old squadron mate...just found out one of the guys we served with died just before Christmas and nobody knows what happened. Fuck!
Rant: so, I can see my hall bathroom through the garage ceiling. Been like this a week and a half. I have an insurance claim going but still going to have to pay the deductible. Silver lining: the tile and previous modifications were DIY and the tile work in particular was really bad. Like loose tiles and shit. So we will get coverage to replace at that cost and use the LVP I am future planning on doing all over the upstairs. Might buy a new vanity too. Shits already torn out, what's a few extra hundred for a small upgrade?
Rant: Delivery drivers/Postal workers/morons who keep throwing parcels at our front door making it impossible to open the door to retrieve the parcel. I'm getting far to much exercise going out the back door, walking around the house to recover the door blocking parcel. How hard can it be to put it down a couple of inches sideways so it doesn't jam the door shut?
Rant: My desk chair broke last week, and this substitute one I've been using until my replacement comes in sucks ass. I thought it would be fine for a few days. It's not. It's awful.
Rant: A friend died today. He was older and lived a good life, but the last few months, and how he went out were shitty. He was my dad's age, and was my neighbor when I lived with my parents. He taught me some cool stuff, and is the reason I do what I do for a living. I will miss him.
TBD Rave?: Found an old Amazon gift card cleaning out my parents basement over the weekend so I'm splurging on a Zojirushi rice cooker. Buy once, cry once as they say. FUIYOH!
RAVE: Started working with a company that writes collision estimates for smaller shops that don't want to pony up the money for the monthly subscription costs for the estimating software. Pay is cheap but the workload is super light and it gives me some stuff to do on my own time.
Rant: Getting old sucks. Been having an uncontrollable urge to pee for a couple of days, so went to the doctor and they made me piss in a cup, took some blood, gave me the finger-poke of doom all to tell me that everything LOOKS normal, but they can't definitively tell me what's causing the issue, so they're just gonna prescribe a generic antibiotic in case it's a UTI, and hope that clears it up. If not, I get to go see a specialist.
Rant Among other things I’ve experienced as I’ve gotten older, I have some kind of TMJ thing going on. My jaw will lock or click and closing it is painful. The more astute of you will recognize that closing your jaw is a basic part of eating. Which I cannot do, even though the Mrsanthropic has made a wonderful dinner and I’m fucking hungry.