Monthly Archives: October 2021

Better than the second, not as good as the first…

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Today I had every intention of starting off the series of “controversial” posts I mentioned last week as the new limited run feature on Friday evenings. Due to overriding circumstances, look for that to start next week. 

I’m calling this particular audible because I was able to snag an appointment to get my COVID-19 booster shot yesterday. As a proponent of vaccination (if not otherwise a paragon of personal health), I feel like I owe an update on my experience with the Moderna booster. I’m obviously not a doctor, but if I can be a trusted voice in favor of vaccines for anyone out there, I feel an obligation to do so.

To be perfectly honest, eager as I was to get an additional degree of protection against the Great Plague, I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the booster. The second Moderna shot left me pretty well throttled for about 24 hours. It wasn’t an experience I particularly looked forward to repeating.

I woke up this morning with the standard sore arm and a bit more sluggish than usual, but otherwise feeling fine. I waited, impatiently, for the onset of side effects at the 24-hour mark – when they struck me down following the second dose. Around 11:30, I noticed my attention span starting to slip. Nothing debilitating, but the early afternoon definitely required a far greater than normal effort to keep focused on whatever the tasks at had happened to be. Eyeballing my way through multi-thousand line spreadsheets was… not ideal. 

By about 2:00, I’ll admit to feeling well and truly run down… Not sick, just kind of tired and a bit worked over. It wasn’t the best day I’ve ever passed, but it was far from the worst. It was an easy price to pay for an extra measure of protection, especially given the prevalence of those in the local area who refuse even the most basic precautionary measures.

Feel free to sign me up for jab #4 when the time comes.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Parity. Part of my job this week was calling around and talking to people from other organizations who are saddled with their own version of my favorite dog and pony show. It’s no surprise that everyone I spoke to runs theirs a little differently. I didn’t uncover anything unexpected or particularly helpful, but I did discover that everywhere else, the person these other offices put in charge of their annual spectacular is at least graded out as a deputy director. Put another way they are all, a minimum of one good pay grade or two notches on the org chart higher than me. Yeah, that was a feel-good moment right there.

2. Inflation alarm. The federal government poured vast amounts of money into the economy over the last eighteen months in the form of direct payments via enhanced unemployment benefits and stimulus payments and the Paycheck Protection Program. People, as they tend to do when they have money in their pockets, went on a buying binge. Stocks, houses, and consumer goods were all in the crosshairs of people with cash to spend. We spent so hard we overwhelmed the supply side’s ability to keep up with demand. And now, the headlines are screaming that we’re supposed to be shocked that inflation has taken hold and the price of good and services is increasing. Beyond the few classes I had to take as part of a social science major, I’m not a student of economics… even so, the results of increasing demand, limited supply, and boatloads of money in circulation is almost entirely predictable, no?

3. The waiting. Here I sit. About seven hours after getting the COVID-19 booster jammed into my arm. I feel fine, with barely even a sore arm to show for my trouble. What I do have, though, is the uncomfortable period of waiting. My first COVID shot was a non event. After getting my second Moderna shot way back in March, I had a bit of an aching arm, but went to bed and woke up the next morning feeling fine. Exactly twenty-four hours after the jab, though, I got to experience the unpleasant hit-by-a-bus feeling advertised as a potential side effect – chills, aches, lethargy – pretty much the full list with the merciful exception of nausea. That one skipped me, somehow. In any case, I’m sitting here, waiting to see what things look like around lunchtime tomorrow. Prevention is worth a pound of cure and all that, but I’m trying to mentally prepare for another lost day.

Closing a gap…

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I’ve been chasing one particular book for about eighteen months. First edition later printings seemed to have a floor around $100. True first editions in fine condition regularly list in the range of $400 and up. I could have snapped one of those up, but it would have blown the book budget for several months all to hell and back.

I have auto-searches on several used book sites that send me periodic emails on when this book shows up for sale. A fresh 1st edition (albeit a 5th printing) showed up on the list this morning.  With an asking price of a mere $65 it’s obviously not the perfect copy I’d like to have, but it is signed, so there’s that going for it. 

I’ve dealt with this particular bookseller before. They’re a reputable outfit running both a respected storefront in the District and a vast discount warehouse I’ve come to love picking through when I have hours to spend wandering their stacks. That’s pretty much the only reason I took a wild chance on a book that otherwise seemed to be markedly underpriced based on its description and photos. 

The trouble with online book sales, like everything else that arrives in a cardboard box, is that you never really know what you’re getting. Based on past experience, I’m cautiously optimistic that what shows up will be something close to “as described.” Worse case, in a week or two I’ll have slightly overpaid for a nice, signed reading copy of Dunning’s Booked to Die… and the search can continue for a true first that doesn’t crush the budget. It doesn’t seem like I’ll have any trouble selling off my new copy to help defray the cost if I ever run across a reasonably priced copy.

As always, I stumble along the fine line between wanting a collection that looks good on the shelves, but that I’m not afraid to take down and fondle a little. At least now my Cliff Janeway series won’t look like a gap-toothed smile. 

Maybe I could offend everyone…

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For the last few weeks I’ve been pondering on the idea of a new limited series of posts. Maybe six or twelve posts here, expanding on my view of all the controversial stuff that seems to preoccupy our every waking moment.

I’m thinking here of abortion, voting and voting rights, free speech, LGBTQ issues, the Second Amendment, the environment, healthcare and the social safety net, and fiscal responsibility (or lack thereof). I’m sure offhand I’m missing some of the key topics that make people do the crazy.

It feels like good mental exercise to a) Refine my own thinking a bit and b) Likely offend, anger, annoy, or otherwise agitate every single person who reads the blog or follows me on social media over the course of two or three months. I mean with goals like that, what could really go wrong?

So, aside from anything I’ve already thrown out, what are the other grand controversies of the day just begging to be given the once over?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Friday afternoon. Once upon a time, I actually enjoyed Fridays. They were a day full of promise. Now, of course, Fridays are just the day the Good Idea Fairy makes its rounds or people remember shit they should have done earlier in the week and try to jam it through so they can claim it got wrapped up before close of business. I can only urge you not to be that guy. Don’t wait until Friday afternoon. I promise you, deep down in places professionals aren’t supposed to talk about, no one give a shit at 3:30 on Friday how good an idea you’re having or whether something gets done or not. Maybe there’s an exception for immediate threats to life and safety, but otherwise all anyone on the line cares about on Friday is getting the hell away from cubicle hell for a few days. I know the uberbosses, enthroned high on Olympus, have forgotten their days lower down on the org chart and truly believe that everyone wants to (or at least should) give 300% 24 hours a day, but the heights of Olympus aren’t a reflection of any kind of universal reality. Sometimes those memos are just going to linger over the weekend… and I’m perfectly fine with that.

2. Paper cups. I know it’s saving the world or whatever, but I miss Chick-fil-a’s Styrofoam cups. In its new, socially responsible paper cups, the lemonade gets watered down on the ride between drive-thru and office. It’s just disappointing.

3. Heating and cooling season. So here we are well into autumn. It’s a special time of year where I fire up the furnace each morning to knock the chill off the house and then a few hours later when passive solar heating has sent the indoor temperature well into the 70s, switch the air conditioner back on to get the place back down to a reasonable sleeping temperature. At least in this part of the world this mixed season doesn’t usually last long. While it’s here though, I spend an unreasonable amount of time pondering the time, effort, and cash it takes to maintain a steady 68 degrees. 

Lunch date…

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For all my ranting and raving, I have a loose policy of not really talking too much here about my personal life. Often enough that’s because I’m not sure it would make for particularly dynamic reading. Plus, there’s the bit about the internet not needing to know absolutely everything I’m up to. Occasionally, though, there’s a little bit of a story that just too good not to share.

You see, I had a lunch date Sunday afternoon. Low pressure, low key, and the first time I’ve sat down in a restaurant since December 2019, when the rumors of plague started rumbling out of China. 

No, I obviously won’t name names, but she’s a lovely girl – charming, articulate, and a keeper of cats with at least a polite interest in books. I’d be hard pressed to remember when two hours in the presence of other people passed quite so pleasantly.

There’s a catch, of course – and not, probably, an obvious one. You see, in what I can only assume is typical of her fellow Millennials, there was a bit of a rant about capitalism, “the system,” and a Bernie-esq flavor of wishing to bring about a brave new socialist world. 

Look, I’m all for people being engaged, involved, and having informed opinions. I’m even up for the discussion should anyone want to have it. But it was hard not to chuckle a bit at the mental gymnastics it takes to talk about burning down the system while drinking $15 sangrias paid for by someone who earns their living by actively working to advance the system and prop up the military-industrial complex. Unless your plan is to dismantle the system one drink at a time, in which case then I suppose the revolution is now.

I’m not sure there will be a second date, but the first one was worth having if only for the pure entertainment value. 

The eighth time around…

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This morning I was granted official permission from the gods on Olympus to begin preliminary planning for the annually reoccurring piece of this job that I hate the most. Yay.

Putting a six month long planning process that stretches across a dozen different organizations, nearly a hundred separate contacts, and relies on offering a happy, welcoming face to our partners from the private sector into the hands of a well known introvert and misanthrope feels like the height of bureaucratic folly. It’s the kind of thing I’d intuitively want to give to someone who didn’t unflinchingly use the phrases “wedding planner,” “circus roustabout,”, and “welcoming the great unwashed masses” to describe his role even to the most senior of leaders.

But here we are. This year will be my eighth as wedding planner in charge of this particular effort. Years ago the bosses promised “just one more year” and we’ll get someone else to do it. They don’t even bother with those lies now… so I guess it’s eight down and thirteen more to go… unless I manage to cock it up in some truly spectacular and unanticipated manner. I’m not one to go in for sabotage, but I’m told that accidents happen, so a boy can dream.

That happy dream notwithstanding, I’ll get it done on time and to standard, but don’t think for a moment that I’ll be enjoying any of what I must do these next six months. It’ll be a product not done for love or pride of a job well handled, but purely because I enjoy getting paid every two weeks and would like nothing to interfere with that continuing well into the future. Nothing more, nothing less.

One of my best friends from college had a simple sign in his dorm room. It said “You don’t have to like it, you just have to do it.” On such words, whole careers are built.

The best ten weeks…

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Here we are in mid-October, I’m comfortable saying I’ve mostly adjusted to the diminishing daylight and have started into one of my favorite times of year. Sure, it’s about to be the “holiday season” or whatever, but that’s not really it. Not directly, anyway.

I’ve long made a habit of mostly hoarding vacation time through the first 2/3 of the year. With the arrival of October, though, it’s time to start letting those days spool out. For me, that means the next two and a half months look something like this:

Three-day weekend… Work for two weeks… Five day weekend… Work for a week… Four day weekend… Work for three weeks… and finally the last, glorious Fifteen day weekend capping off the year.

The annual burning off of vacation time is a real thing of beauty. This annual rite of autumn is made easier in my case by not having to burn time during the rest of the year to tend to sick offspring or in accommodating spousal wishes. I sprinkle days through the rest of the year to get a quick breather when necessary, but it’s here in the fall where I really get my head right.

In a few months the new year starts and with it a new round of hoarding time off begins… with the promise of another fall filled with days not spent dwelling under fluorescent lighting. For now, though, I’ll happily celebrate the best ten weeks of the year,

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. At least twice this week, as I drifted off to sleep, I thought of something and noted that it would be a good blog topic. Yep. I’ll write about that tomorrow. Of course by morning the thought had completely evaporated without hope of recovery. All I’m left with is the ghost of an interesting idea and no ink on the page.  I’m going to need the ideas to start coming before that instant when consciousness blinks out of the night while I’ve still got a fighting chance of making some notes.

2. There’s a day next week I wasn’t scheduled to be in the office. Now I am. Not because of some bureaucratic fuckery, but because I opened my own stupid mouth and volunteered. After almost 19 years you’d think I would know better. Sure, it’s one of my few “high profile” projects, but there’s absolutely nothing I can add in person that I couldn’t have added in a video call. But there I’ll be, failing to strike a blow for the power or remote work. Let the record show I’m able to annoy myself just as much if not more than other people can manage to achieve.

3. I’ve been using my original Gmail address since back in the olden days when the service was “by invitation only.” Yes, I’m well aware of how much of my “personal information” Google is sweeping up in their net by providing this otherwise free service, but it has been an absolute workhorse over the years. I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve gone to check my email and found it unavailable. I’ve been using the account for everything, for so long now, that it’s almost starting to choke on the not-quite-spam – or the random marketing emails sent by companies I legitimately do business with. They’re companies I don’t necessarily want caught in the spam filter because I like getting receipts, bills, and  the other bits of information I need,.. but getting 20-30 messages a day that are close to but not quite spam feels like way too much. I could probably spend a little while tightening up my filters, but I definitely wanted to bitch about it first.

Controversial, unpopular, or downright offensive…

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I took a little heat about that Columbus post a few days ago, but overall, the ratio ran more in my favor than not. That’s nice, but my opinions don’t generally tend to be informed by what I think the ratio will be. Being at heart a traditionalist who also happens to have some decidedly non-traditional beliefs will do that to you. If I were worried about what anyone thinks, I’d keep my mouth shut… and I certainly wouldn’t be sending it out to the internet, where ideas go to live forever.

There are, of course, plenty of topic I chose not to talk about here. I don’t think any of them are particularly wild or outlandish, but a few would certainly be controversial, unpopular, or downright offensive depending on your individual point of view. So, for now, it’s in my best interest to leave them unsaid and unwritten.

The day I’m no longer dependent on earning an outside source of income, however, all bets are off. It should be an awfully interesting day around here when all the filters come off. So, really, this post is just a request for patience. Perhaps extreme patience… but maybe some of those extraordinary rants to come will be worth the wait. Check back in 14 years or so and we’ll all know for sure.