Saturday, March 16, 2024

It's not wallpaper, but the paint here is yellowish...

Apparently the 15th was Wordle #1000? Interesting.

Wordle 1,000 🎉 4/6

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A lot of little things this week seemed calculated to drive me nuts. 

At work, to boil a busy week down to eight words, everything was harder than it should have been. 

  • One subject matter expert retired a document I had already put work into. 
  • Another subject matter expert reapproved a document without changes but I had questions of my own they didn't answer or apparently even understand. 
  • Someone asked to make changes to an org chart when I was the only one around, and I had to say no because I didn't know them and the org chart showed they had no authority, but I probably could have handled my response better in other ways. 
  • We had a briefing about a new task tracking system, and while the transition is unquestionably bad news for us, I'm more concerned about how unprofessional my teammate was to the messenger. 
  • The kid had school inservice Thursday and Friday and I had to pick her up before a meeting. 
  • Inputs for two urgent documents were late, and when they came, addressed the less urgent of two. 

Work aside, the kid seems grumpier and brattier than usual for no apparent reason. I've ramped up use of my orthotic shoe inserts to the point where I've worn shoes more than in most of the past 4 years (wow, there's a milestone), and it's getting warm enough that my feet get sweaty and therefore itchy. I'm even hearing a faint dripping in the walls off and on. T. can't hear it, and I can't hear it all the time either, but when I can, it's persistently annoying.

My mood is surprisingly good with all that in mind! Good influences include the weather, getting a little more exercise (which are interrelated, of course), getting more sleep, and making progress on some incremental things at work. Also presentism; I was miserable Wednesday and Thursday but Friday went unusually well. The WAR went well, I got some overdue admin work done, and we did some fun shopping before/around gymnastics. 

Healthy engagement with multiple hobbies might also be helping. Variety is good?

  • I ordered some Magic cards online last week and made changes to my Modern deck this past Sunday or Monday, but haven't actually played it yet. Some of that shopping Friday was at Labyrinth, where I got a Doctor Who deck. Not the one either the kid or I was the most enthusiastic about, they were out of both of those, but it should still be fun. 
  • I've mostly been spending my time in Warcraft doing Normal raids and easy Mythic+ on multiple alts, to complete their sets for the tier. It's a moderate challenge and a moderate amount of variety, and definitely a lot more interesting than trying to get the legendary on my main. 
  • A couple weeks ago I checked out the first book of The Murderbot Diaries from the library, mostly on T.'s recommendation. I'm enjoying it. I'm now halfway through the second book. It's not big or deep enough to keep me engrossed for years, but for every Wheel of Time, there's a The Dresden Files, so maybe that's just as well.

Saturday, March 09, 2024

Business and pleasure

Wordle 994 5/6

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Work was productive over the past week, but not in fun ways. That effort to organize our backlog has paid off in that I could get to work, or put people to work, on the oldest or most urgent tasks with more certainty about what those were. Good for me. But there were a lot of little problems about how to work on them, and whether the information we've been given is actually accurate. Twice now a certain team has told us a document was good to work on, and then after we got around to working on it and put several hours into it, told us it was irrelevant and should be retired. If that happens a third time we're talking to management. 

Also, I got a scare when I did a security training and realized I hadn't reported international travel 2 years ago. It'll probably be fine, but still, that was stressful.

Haven't been sleeping well lately. T. seems to have plateaued on CPAP progress. Also, around 2 AM on the 6th I got up to go to the bathroom and nearly fainted. Something like that has happened twice before (this was the first time, and the second time was a couple weeks ago or so). Even though I didn't literally faint the two recent times, the fact that it's a pattern is a bit scary, so I made a doctor's appointment for Friday. It was inconclusive.

Over the past week I've been playing Warcraft a little bit less than let's say 2 months ago, and casually. I've got the Mythic Battle of Dazar'alor plate set (not soloable because that's in a legacy content gray area, but still casual) and three tints of the Dragonflight season 3 tier sets on various characters, and I'll probably continue doing so over the next few weeks, but no comprehensive or challenging goals seem interesting.

Monday or Tuesday I asked for advice on Reddit about my Modern deck and got some good ideas, so Wednesday I ordered a few cards that should hopefully make my current deck better. I don't want to spend too much, but I enjoy the hobby and hopefully would enjoy it more with these changes. I also spent some time organizing my cards. About 10 years ago they were organized fairly well, but there were two problems: (1) they weren't labeled, so it was hard to figure out what that organization was, and since then I've got new cards here and there that I never sorted. So Monday I labeled everything and started sorting the unsorted stuff. Progress. 

Friday was the monthly parent/family gathering for the kid's school, and was parent's night out at the kid's gymnastics class, so that was socializing, plus a date. Fun.

Saturday, March 02, 2024

That's enough

Wordle 987 5/6

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Monday was a bad day in almost every sense, to the point that I resolved to do things differently with work and my hobbies. 

  • Work was a mess Monday. The same problematic tasks as last week continued, and a task that's been on my to-do list for months got tangled up in it as well. I powered through my role in it in an afternoon and did what I was told by rote, despite suspecting that the work I was doing was already out of date. 
  • Domestic life was also messy. During the day Monday I got on the roof to work on the leak, so good for me for getting around to it, but it didn't work, so it feels worse in hindsight. On Sunday I thawed a 3-lb. leg of lamb for dinner, forgetting that T. was going to a political event Monday evening. Just figuring out a recipe I could do with it with what I had on hand was a pain, and I had to do it while handling the kid solo, including getting her to practice her guitar. T. cares about that a lot more than me, and I resented it a bit. (Not relevant to the aforementioned resolutions, just to my mood.)
  • As for my hobbies, in some senses, Warcraft went well Monday. On my main I was in a group that killed Fyrakk on Heroic, the main activity for getting the legendary, for only the third time, and on an alt I've been neglecting for a couple months I did a whole bunch of easy-but-rewarding stuff, almost finishing their class set. But I'm frustrated anyway, because the Fyrakk kill was such a messy and unrewarding process! Killing him was basically the luck of getting invited to a good group. I died halfway through, due to someone else's mistake (and that's not just my opinion, the leader said so), but still, it sucks and my contribution was negligible. I'm not sure if the problem is my choice of class, my gear, my tactics in the moment, or all of the above, but I suck. And even if I had done better, it's still not a fun or meaningful process, it's just rolling the dice multiple times to hopefully get an item to maybe do better. 

So I'm done with my main. Maybe for good, definitely for the season. I finished my usual goals earlier than usual, went farther than usual, and am making myself miserable trying to go even further than that. I need to focus more on work, less on the game in general, and definitely less on my "main" character.

I stuck to that well enough for the rest of the week, playing in relative moderation and getting our backlog organized comprehensively. I didn't finish any tasks as such, but I started one and feel like I'm in good shape for more. 

Tuesday I also got orthotic shoe inserts, so I've been steadily wearing them more and getting used to them. (Recommended by the podiatrist way back here, and getting fitted for them was an errand on Jan. 22, and now they're fiiiinally ready for me.) 

Friday I went to Friday Night Magic. Lost two rounds, got a bye, and didn't stay for the fourth. Not too much fun. Maybe it was just bad luck or bad matchups, but I might want to consider doing things differently.

Saturday, February 24, 2024

Relaxation, but not enough

Wordle 980 5/6

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Last weekend was a holiday and the kid had an extra day or two off school ("or two": she had the Friday before and Tuesday after the holiday off, but on Friday she just had a lazy morning and T. took her and a friend to a museum while I almost had a typical day, so it's not relevant to the following), so we made our roughly annual pilgrimage to Rehoboth Beach. Left Saturday morning, came back Tuesday afternoon. 

It was fun. The beach itself was incidental at best. Instead we spent a little time on a nature walk at a nearby national park, a lot of time shopping, and a lot of time in the hotel pool. Despite so much family time, it was relaxing. (I feel a bit guilty writing that.) Sleeping in the same room as the kid helped enforce bedtimes for T. and I. She's getting into reading, so we could spend a fair amount of time reading our respective books without bothering each other. I wasn't cooking, and the kid can behave fine in a restaurant by now. 

Wednesday I kind of had to jump back into work with both feet. Some minor-but-annoying stuff came up while I was gone. Thursday and Friday were worse. There's this urgent thing going on, people aren't following our process and we don't have the standing to complain about it, and we don't even understand why it's being done that way. My management is reasonable, I have a good handle on what is expected of me and my team, and it's a different problem than last week, but still, it's definitely not good.

Friday, February 16, 2024

Fitness and frustration

Wordle 972 5/6

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My parents visited briefly last weekend, so that was nice. We took them to Granville Moore's, which I've been trying to go to for a while.

So far, the only thing I've learned by tracking my weight is that I weigh more after going to restaurants. I've stopped tracking day-to-day outings, and never tracked my food intake to begin with, but it's obvious the morning after. Duh. As for exercise, Tuesday I got out the rowing machine and used it. Good for me. The bad news is, I'm still sore from it now. Working out like that once a week is probably neither useful nor sustainable.

The other part of the title comes from... basically everything else. Fixing that hole in the ceiling proved harder than expected; there's definitely water damage. We're trying to get a contractor in here but they aren't being responsive. The mortgage company also isn't being responsive about that one form. I'm at the point of calling a lawyer but T. and the architect seem to want to keep talking.

Work is frustrating. I'm frustrated in myself for not working harder, with basically everyone else in my office (not my teammates, but everyone we need inputs from) for not getting back to us faster, with management for pulling me into pointless meetings for unclear projects... the job isn't the worst it's ever been, but it's not great at the moment.

Warcraft is frustrating. In theory I could not play my main character at all, or spend 2 hours per week maximizing my chances of getting the legendary on them and spend the rest of my free time doing fun stuff on alts or outside the game entirely. But it's actually taking more like eight hours to almost maximize my chances of the legendary. I could maybe be a little more efficient about it, but still, it's neither a fun nor a smart approach to the game.

Even driving is frustrating! Wednesday there were four car accidents in the general neighborhood of the school during rush hour. I really need to get the kid back to biking, not that it would have helped Wednesday, due to swimming. I'm glad we finally had a discussion about why it's so hard for her, at least, she has trouble getting started and is nervous about doing it in traffic, so a practice session is on our agenda. But that doesn't make being stuck in traffic any more fun.

I almost think I shouldn't be posting this because dwelling on it reifies it! Thinking about my mood when I'm not in the middle of that stuff, it hasn't been all that bad, but I don't know why!

Saturday, February 10, 2024

Crazy week

 Wordle 966 5/6

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It was crazy.

Monday I tried but failed to mail a package to the mortgage company to hopefully (not definitely!) deal with the biggest (one of the biggest?) remaining stumbling blocks to permits for our renovation. I failed -the post office didn't have suitable packages for sale, and by the time I made it to the UPS store, it was too late to go back to the post office.

Tuesday I actually mailed it. Yay. I also finally dropped T.'s bike off for repairs.

Wednesday after a routine trip to the bathroom I was surprised to see a hole in the ceiling of the guest bedroom. Apparently the plaster (sheetrock? Drywall? Whatever) can just "delaminate." I'm not sure there's water or insect damage, but I'm not sure there isn't.

Work Thursday and Friday was unusually busy. Lots of SharePoint issues, which isn't my specialty. I might have handled them poorly. I also tried to be productive about other things, which I feel good about in hindsight but wasn't fun at the time.

Thursday during the day I got T.'s bike. I also got 2.5 gallons of distilled water for her new CPAP machine. I meant to get one gallon. That was fun to carry.

I've got an adequate number of steps in by running errands, especially with so many being more complicated than expected. I haven't got any aerobic exercise, though. Not sure how I feel about that.

We had a nice date Friday night. After a rough end to a rough week, it was nice to have a semi-fancy dinner with T. and no kid.

Saturday, February 03, 2024

Self-control is a muscle

Wordle 959 4/6

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The big crisis last weekend was the kid's piercings. She tried to change earrings and couldn't get it back in, despite our help and a lot of screaming and crying. After a little research, it seems that Claire's misinformed us or we misunderstood them: we thought earrings could be changed after 3 weeks, but it's more like 6 or even longer. So we're probably going to have to get that ear repierced. This also resulted in some marital friction as T. and I disagreed about how to handle it.

Sunday I finished Anansi Boys. It was OK. Like American Gods, but based on different mythology. One more book to get off the metaphorical list and hopefully out of the physical house before we move. Next on the list: My Heart is a Chainsaw, a Christmas present I had forgotten about until T. reminded me. It was from her. It's only January. Yup, I'm an asshole.

I've been thinking more about fitness lately. Actual exercise is hit or miss, but I've cut back a bit on drinking and skipped dessert most days. We put batteries in our bathroom scale for an unrelated reason and I've started weighing myself daily and added the column to my fitness spreadsheet for it. It's too early to notice any benefit, but still, good for me. 

The kid has been really grouchy over the past week or two. I'm not sure if it's due to the earring, lack of sleep (we've been lenient about bedtime), trouble with her friends, or something else, but I'd hate to think it's the new normal. 

I didn't observe any Warcraft blackout days over the past week, but somehow I managed to play in moderation anyway. I was productive at work - maybe not perfectly, but more than usual - and got the essentials done around the house. Good for me. My latest goal is to kill the final boss on Heroic again, partly to prove that I can do it, and partly because of a bug where I didn't get all the rewards I expected the first time. (EDIT next week: or so I thought. I got it, I was just confused. So now I really am just playing for fun and very incremental rewards.)

Thursday was disrupted when power went out. It was maintenance. They said we got calls in advance. We didn't. So I went to the library, fuming all the while, and was surprisingly productive there.

Friday, in addition to the biweekly report and working on some old tasks, I wrote a letter to the mortgage company, went for a walk for exercise, troubleshot the flat tire on T.'s e-bike (it's been there since December; I can't fix it because I'd need a stand to turn the thing upside down), and went for a walk for exercise. I treated myself to lunch at Ben's Chili Bowl, but still, good for fucking me.