Category Archives: Life

5AM…

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Because I’m Mr. Glass Half Full, I can see the positive about my internal alarm being so well set that it likes to wake me up at 5AM even on Saturdays. Aside from the chance to see the sun come up – or in this morning’s case to see the sky go from dark gray to light gray – it’s given me the chance to catch up on some blog reading and commenting that I never seem to have time for. That’s basically how I spent the first 90 minutes of the day; reading blogs, dispensing comments, and swilling down coffee at the rate of about 8 cups and hour.

What all this “extra” time this morning didn’t do, of course, is lead me down to the basement to reacquaint me with the exercise equipment I’ve been ignoring since I jacked up my back this winter. Now that it’s feeling better, I’m assured that I can safely get back to that routine… but keeping up with other people’s writing is way, way more fun. I know at some point I’m going to have to get back to that. 5AM (4:30 on weekdays) feels like it’s probably going to be the only available time to make that happen. Sleep is basically the only thing I’m currently doing that I’m willing to cut out of my schedule in order to add something new. If I get up at 4:30, I’ll still manage to get five hours of sleep every day. How much of that do we really need anyway?

I’m sure this all seems like a better idea while I’m sitting here well caffeinated than it will when I’m struggling to understand the concept of an alarm clock at 4:30 on Monday morning. This plan probably won’t survive first contact with the enemy, but at least it looks good on paper… or at least it looks good on paper if you don’t have any expectation of every getting eight hours of sleep. I haven’t had that expectation in a very, very long time.

That one guy from the meeting who had a beard…

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I have a confession to make. If I’ve only met you once or twice, I’m never ever going to remember your name. If I only see you once a month, I’m not going to remember your name. If we pass in the hallway every day and I recognize you by sight but we don’t have any substantive interaction, I’m never going to remember your name.

Some people have a knack for matching names and faces – even for people they see once and then maybe never again. Honest to God, I can sit in a meeting with you. Have an entire discussion and use your name the whole time, but five minutes later I’ll end up referring to you as “that one guy from the meeting who had a beard.” I know that for a fact because it’s exactly the phrase that came out of my mouth this morning in reference to a meeting I was in yesterday.

So, I’m not good with names. I make up for it with wit, charm, and by never talking myself into a position where I’d need to use a person’s name. Studying your own handout while asking “What do you think,” is a good way to avoid the awkwardness, in case you’re interested. Just avoid eye contact so it’s never entirely clear who you’re addressing and most of the time you’ll be good to go. And sign in sheets. Sign in sheets are your friend. They’re like having a cheat sheet only it’s perfectly legitimate.

All I’m saying to the people who I’ve met already and for those I’ll inevitably be forced to meet in the future, is don’t take it personally when I can’t call you by name in a meeting, after a meeting, or really at any time. Frankly I can’t call anyone by name. Sometimes I draw a perfect blank on people I’ve worked with for almost half a decade, so it’s nothing personal. It’s not you, it’s me.

I’m sure there’s some kind of mental gymnastics I could do to power up that part of my memory that is supposed to store and recall names, but doing that would require far more effort than I’m really willing to invest in it. I’m happy enough continuing to use second and third-person pronouns to meet all my professional needs.

Known knowns…

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The better part of a decade ago the then Secretary of Defense befuddled members of the Pentagon press corps with a discussion of known knowns, known unknowns, and unknown unknowns. Love him or hate him, Secretary Rumsfeld had a certain happy felicity of phrase that made his press events a thing of beauty to watch. Believe it or not, though, I did’t log in tonight to talk about the former Secretary.

Instead, I came to complain about the known knows – namely that I know the weekend is ending in a few hours and I know even before Monday gets here that I’ll be working late tomorrow night. I don’t mean that I’ll be there until the small hours of the morning, but there is an unavoidable afternoon meeting that’s definitely going to step all over what is normally a very happy time of the day. In this case, it’s not exactly my fault. I inherited this meeting from someone who has moved on to practice other opportunities to excel and it was set in concrete long before it landed on my desk. I like to think you all know me well enough to know there’s no way in hell I would schedule a meeting at end-of-tour. That’s just not my style.

So that’s my known known before the new week even starts. It’s a fair bet that it’s a known that will annoy me for the rest of tonight and throughout the day tomorrow. I wish it didn’t. Things that screw with my carefully cultivated schedule are one of those things that bother me well beyond all reasonable levels. With all that said, the knowns aren’t likely to be the things that really jam up the week. It’s the whole host of unknown unknowns lurking right below the surface that promise to blow the week to hell and back.

With that said, I’ve got a bottle of wine to finish and a good book to stick my nose in for the balance of the evening. That should decisively keep both the knows and unknowns at bay for the time being.

Good intentions…

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no_motivation1I came home from work last night with good intentions (and a list) of things I wanted to get done before calling a full stop for the day. Exactly none of those things happened, as I sat down after dinner and promptly fell asleep. That was not part of Friday night’s grand plan. Of course instead of jumping on those items this morning, I’m trying to ease into Saturday while nursing an unearned headache. I don’t mind an early morning headache when I’ve done something like spend Friday night drinking cheep booze, but when I spent it mostly sleeping and sending periodic texts, I don’t feel like I’ve done anything to earn the morning unpleasantness.

Now sure, I could sit here with the lights off and continue pouring coffee down my throat, but I still have good intentions towards the grand plan of getting through the things that need to be done this weekend. Now unfortunately I have a day and a half worth of “stuff” jammed into Saturday… and at the moment, instead of doing any of them, I’m sitting here taping on the keyboard and waiting on a fresh pot of coffee to finish dripping. I have a feeling that good intentions may not be enough to get me over the hump today… so this post basically services as documentation that despite my best efforts even I succumb to my inner slacker, but at least I have the decency to feel bad about it.

Not ready…

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I’m running down the clock on my last few hours of mid-summer vacation doing laundry, making dinner, and generally trying to smooth the transition back to work tomorrow. I’m not going to lie, there my have been a FML moment when I cracked my eyes this morning and realized I was 24 922e95ce8dd0b51f9a273eb8cd59d075short hours from diving back into the grind. It’s not that I hate work, but like everyone else there are just a trillion and a half things I’d rather spend my time doing. Such is life.

One of the unavoidable conversations you hear at the office is contemplation about how people will keep themselves busy in retirement, whether or not they’ll be able to adjust effectively to a world where a third of their day isn’t pre-planned for them. Every time I get away, I’m reminded that I won’t ever have to ask myself that question. I know with absolute certainty that I’ll manage to fill my time with activities that feel way more rewarding than ginning up a well-crafted PowerPoint or thousand column spreadsheet. Mercifully, my interests don’t require a small fortune so when the time comes, it’ll be surprisingly easy to flip the switch and get on with it.

Yeah, so while I’m not ready to get back to the so-called real world, I’ve got readiness in spades for the day I don’t have to. Talk about long range planning.

I should have hired a Sherpa…

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I’m good at a lot of things, but as I’ve mentioned previously, packing judiciously is not one of them. In fact, you’d be hard pressed to see much difference in how I prepare for a 4-day trip to a location less than 100 miles from home as compared to let’s say a 2-month expedition to the source of the Amazon. I’ve spent a very large percentage of my years acquiring items that bring me comfort, make life easier, or that I otherwise just enjoy having around. In setting up shop in a home away from home, I’m basically of the opinion that as many of those items as possible should make the trip with me. My packing calculus recognizes no actual difference between being gone overnight or wandering off for a year.

The good news is that whenever I get where I’m going, I almost always have what I need – sometimes (often) to the point of being duplicative. The down side, of course, is that since I don’t have a Sherpa, I’m the one who ends up toting and hauling this mess from Point A to Point B and back again to Point A with whatever additional provisions I’ve laid on during my stay. It’s particularly bad when I’m driving from place to place with basically unlimited capacity to tote more “essentials” with me. The $50 a bag fee on most flights helps keep my over packing in check when I fly, but certainly doesn’t eliminate it.

I’d like to say I’ll try to change – that I’ll try to mold myself into that kind of traveler who can set off at a moment’s notice with just a carryon bag and a passport, but I know that’s not me. That’s never going to be the way I travel. Traveling with me is always going to be more akin to supplying the Normandy landings than it is to backpacking across the Continent with a Eurail pass. Sherpa or not, I’m totally alright with that.

Doggone…

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Last night was the first time in over a year that I didn’t have two furry little heathens keeping me company. It felt surprisingly unsettling. Once you’re use to waking up to a cold nose in the middle of your forehead, the buzz-saw like snoring you can hear from three rooms away, and having a couple of shadows following every step, it seems thoroughly unnatural not having them around.

What surprised me most, though, was how much my schedule was influenced by having them around. Morning, afternoon, and night, all my activities are apparently informed by their schedule of meals, needing to go out, and endless toys dropped at my feet. I had no idea how much time they bite out of the day until I showed up at work half an hour early this morning. I ran my normal weekday routine, minus the dog-related stuff, turned off the coffee pot, got in the truck, and drove away not realizing I was way, way early for everything. Feeding, medicating, and then trying to corral everyone back inside apparently takes far more time each morning than I thought it did. I’ve been doing it the same way for so long now that most of it happens on autopilot.

They way I figure it, I have just enough time to adjust to them not being around that it will be a shock to the system when they come home this weekend. Then I’ll get to muddle through a few days of running behind schedule for everything. Even with the expense, hassle, and (apparently) sheer volume if time they consume, I have to admit I like it better when they’re around than I do when they’re not. George is pleasant enough company, but at heart I’m a dog person. As giddy as I am about getting some well-deserved down time this week, I’ll be just as giddy to get back to drool covered floors and tireless barking at the neighbors.

An embarrassment of riches…

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If you checked in tonight hoping to find something witty or controversial, boy did you come to the wrong place. As much as I enjoy a good rant, I just don’t feel like I have one in me this evening. I wonder if that’s because there seems to be an embarrassment of riches lately when it comes to the vast number of issues loitering around that need a good calling out.

Just from my handy dandy notepad app, I’ve listed the following contenders in no particular order:

1. The southern border of the United States is being overrun while we’re busy watching the world cup.

2. The world medical community is racing to contain the largest-in-history ebola outbreak in Africa but is being chased out of “hot spots” by the local indigenous population who apparently aren’t keen on modern medicine.

3. The approval ratings for all three branches of the federal government are at or near all time lows again… and again… and again.

4. The media are acting surprised that there’s a hurricane forming in the Atlantic during hurricane season.

5. The great state of Maryland has a number of new laws that went into effect this week, among them an increase in the gas tax and grain alcohol prohibition… Because higher gas prices and banning one version of an otherwise widely available substance are clearly two of the most important things Annapolis needs to focus on.

These are just a couple of the notes I jotted down so far this week – not the items that have been specifically reserved for What Annoys Jeff this Week. Maybe my brain is too addled by the recent heat, but I don’t even know where to start ranting about this mess.

The forgotten blog…

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I could probably create some grand story about why this is the first post in three days, but the fact is I mostly forgot about posting this weekend. Not spending a great deal of time annoyed, aggravated, or otherwise pissed off radically diminishes the number of ideas worth writing about. That might be the only unfortunate side effect of spending a weekend successfully hiding from the world. The lower blood pressure resulting from the lack of human interaction is probably worth the lack of words.

Conveniently, Sunday night making its inevitable appearance has reminded me that there is, in fact, still a world out there just waiting to cause offense. That’s probably what reminded me that I needed to get back to the blog. I’m doing my best to remind myself that this weekend is leading into a short week that’s leading in to a long weekend, that’s leading into an even shorter week, that’s leading into an even longer weekend, that’s leading into yet another short week. As long as I get over the hump of the next four days, at least the first half of July is scheduled to look pretty damned good. I’ll just keep my fingers crossed that I don’t find some way to jack it all up between now and then. In fact even admitting that I’m looking forward to it has probably been enough to irretrievably jinx myself.

Tomorrow’s Monday, which if nothing else means that there will in all likelihood be plenty of fodder for new posts. I just hope the blogging gods will let me off the hook for skipping out on them for the last few days. Otherwise, it’s could be a very long week indeed.

Stuck…

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Maggie and Winston are two of the great joys of my life. With a few exceptions they’ve been around longer than most of the people I know and frankly I’d rather spend time hanging out with them than most two legged critters. For all the medical bills, late night trips to 1931518_140947123584_1995326_nemergency vets, special foods, and number of times I’ve nearly killed myself stepping barefoot on a toy or pile of sick in the middle of the night, I can’t imagine a time when there won’t be dogs in my home.

With as much affection and regard as I hold for these noble animals, it’s helpful to be reminded from time to time that while dogs can give us the impression of being surprisingly smart and adaptive, they can also be incredibly stupid creatures. Take for instance, my Maggie – the sweetest, most gently disposed Labrador God ever put on this green earth. Since she was a puppy she’s had an innate ability to almost predict my thoughts – which way I’m going to turn, what room I’m headed to, or when dinner is about to be served. This morning, though, I woke up to find she has chewed through my comforter at some point in the night and somehow managed to get her head stuck in the resulting hole. I wish I had the wherewithal at 5AM to snap a picture because it was one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever actually seen in person… a 50 pound lab wearing what amounted to a queen sized barber’s cape with a tell-tale look of guilt on her fuzzy little face.

This can only mean at some point in the early hours of the morning, the thought that this was a good idea when through her baseball sized brain. Apparently she’s not as good at independent decision-making as I’d been giving her credit for being. Instead, it just makes me wonder what else she’s up to while I’m catching a few hours of shuteye. Then again, it’s probably one of those things I’m better off not knowing.