Tag Archives: milestone

The Bathroom Report: Day 75

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When I started this series of posts back in May, I really wouldn’t have guessed I’d still be writing them 75 days later… and yet here we are. If some past weeks went forward in leaps and bounds, progress now feels like it’s measured in fractions of an inch.

I did get to commemorate the 75th day of bathroom remodeling by seeing the last “major” item knocked off the list of things that still need installed. The 4’ x 4’ piece of glass that should, theoretically, keep most of the shower spray contained inside the shower got dropped into place around 8:45 this morning. After a 24-hour waiting period for the silicone to set, the house will have a working master shower for the first time in its 22-year history. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a hell of a big upgrade from the super-sized, dust collecting tub the last guy thought should dominate the room.

It’s still not quite a fully functional bathroom yet, though. The prime contractor needs to come back to put in a towel bar and toilet paper holder. Two mirrors still need to be hung. There’s a fair amount of caulking that still needs done on the vanity and shower fixtures. The hand-held shower’s connection to the supply line still needs tinkered with to stop a rather annoying “belch” of water from coming out of the joint when the diverter is cut over from the hand held back to the main.

Maybe, if I’m lucky, it means just one more visit from the contractor and this endeavor will be finished. I suppose I could spend every day hectoring them about getting the last of the work scheduled, but since I’m holding the last quarter payment until work is finished and accepted, I suppose they’ll be calling me sooner rather than later.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Unless they pay a particularly obsessive level of attention to detail, no one would notice that the link to this post includes the path “what-annoys-jeff-this-week-500/.”

That “500” bit deserves a bit of a call out. It means this is the 500th weekly installment of What Annoys Jeff this Week. Allowing for the occasional week where something else occupied this space on Thursday evening, that’s just about 10 years’ worth of annoyances electronically documented for posterity.

That’s a lot of being annoyed, though it’s 100% on brand. Believe me, no one knows that better than I do… but really, have you seen the world out there? How could anyone be expected to walk through it every day and not be filled with constant, low-level rage and general disaffection for their fellow man?

Maybe that’s what I find so annoying this week – that so many don’t seem to be disgusted or bothered by it in any way… as if profound mindlessness is the proper and inevitable deep background noise of the universe. The very idea of going through life with that kind of devil-may-care attitude and sunny disposition makes me want to bash skulls.

And that seems to guarantee a steady march to What Annoys Jeff this Week 1000 in due course. As long as I manage not to blow out a valve or succumb to a massive stroke in the meantime from the unescapable fuckery we’ll see in the next ten years.

Unacknowledged milestones…

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It seems to me that we’ve largely been conditioned as a society not to talk about money. I’m sure there’s a plethora of sociological studies that define exactly what this is, but I’m not quite interested enough in the details to go digging. Suffice to say, the number of conversations I’ve had with anyone other than various paid advisors about issues of salary, retirement, and general finance is, in a word, limited.

Money and finances are just not topics we bring up in polite company, though maybe it should be. It feels like there would surely be a whole lot of people who would be better off if only they had a bit of financial education – or even just a passing interest and some kind of basic financial literacy. 

I only mention it now because after the terror of watching the hemorrhaging in February and March 2020, and wondering if the blood in the streets would ever stop flowing, a few weeks ago I passed through what I consider a major milestone on the road to reaching a decently funded retirement. Unlike most of the other major milestones we celebrate or at least acknowledge in life – graduations, weddings, births, deaths – there’s no accepted way to mark the occasion.

So don’t mind me, I’m just over here screaming into the void of the internet because we as a society have some kind of complex when it comes to talking about money… except when it comes to complaining about the price of gas or why on earth a beef roast now costs $20.

Three thousand…

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Managing the public archive has gotten significantly easier since I went through a mad tear of consolidating several different blog platforms into this one WordPress account. I can tell from the handy dashboard that shows me everything from daily views to most searched phrases and what keywords are likely to be bringing people here that the number of posts here has now swelled to 3,000.

It’s a nice round number. It’s the kind of milestone or way-marker I enjoy hitting. It shows me that regardless of that somewhat ephemeral nature of the internet, there’s a transaction record of sorts showing that I have, in fact, done a thing – even if that thing isn’t exactly the great American novel.

Sometimes I think I’d like to spend some time going back to the early days and do a bit of reading – sort of a look back at where it all started. I’ve got a bit of real curiosity about what may have changed over the last thirteen years. Or maybe I’m more likely to find that I’ve refined and expounded my ideas a bit since then, but many of them are still found firmly rooted in the soil from which they sprung originally.

From time to time someone asks why I do this. I’m not monetizing the site. In fact I pay a noiminal fee every year to prevent adds from appearing here at all. Like I wrote up there in the “About Me” section many, may years ago, anything written and posted here isn’t necessarily done with an eye towards an audience. It’s done almost exclusively to vent my own frustrations and petty annoyances. Knowing that, the fact that so many of you hang around for the ride is downright humbling.

A year and then some…

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Back on the 21st of February, I published my usual Thursday edition of What Annoys Jeff this Week. It took me a few weeks to noice that the link for that post ended with /what-annoys-jeff-this-week-365.

It took me even longer than that to recognize the implication of what I was seeing. Somehow, I’ve managed to post a full years worth of weekly annoyances as part of the “blogging to keep myself sane” program instituted here long, long ago. Just let that sit there and sink in (or fester) for a moment.

Saved here in the never-really-goes-away electronic universe are 365+ weekly posts dedicated to telling the world what trifling ridiculousness has earned my ire that week. I mean you could read one a day starting tonight and not read the last one of the batch until some time in late March 2020.

Friends, that’s a lot of being annoyed, I can promise you that. Even so, what’s recorded here is just the stuff that made the cut on any given week. I shudder to imagine what the totals would look like if I bothered to write down everything that was ever in the running. Is it possible to clog the the internet with the sheer volume of bitching and complaining you’re trying to cram through its tubes?

Based on the comment section of most major news sites, I doubt it somehow.

Anyway, I’m currently taking an inordinate amount of pride in the amount of annoyed I’ve managed to rack up. I’m not quite sure it’s a badge of honor, but it’s something.

Something cool just happened…

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So, something cool just happened. Well, I guess it’s something cool if you enjoy blogging, facts and figures, and establishing order out of chaos.

A few minutes ago I hit “post” on the last of the archive material I was bringing over from my long-defunct and anonymous alternate blog site. For the first time ever every single post I’ve made now resides on WordPress right here at http://www.jeffreytharp.com. That’s 2,774 posts stretching back all the way through 2006 and the early days when MySpace was considered a legitimate blog hosting alternative.

I’m not even going to guess at the word count or the number of hours that have poured into this little endeavor of mine. Both of those factoids would fall into the “interesting but irrelevant” category for the moment. Instead, I think I’ll just fix a bit of a drink, sit back, and be pleased that I’ve done a thing.

Fifteen…

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This coming Saturday will mark an auspicious milestone for me – The 15th anniversary of signing on as one of Sam’s civilian employees. The truth is that number feels vaguely fictitious. It clearly isn’t possible that much time has passed since showing up to meet the bosses and a gaggle of other new employees at a Shoney’s restaurant just outside the gates of Fort Lee in Virginia. As much as those days in the old Blue Auditorium and nights of bar hopping between Petersburg and Richmond feel like a different lifetime, they also feel a bit like they happened last month.

Due to some of the vagaries of the dual age and years of service requirement of the federal retirement system, racking up half of 30 years doesn’t quite put me officially halfway through a career. I won’t hit that magic point until March of 2019. Having fifteen years down still feels good. Just knowing you’re close to the back half of the game give a bit of comfort that sitting in cubes working on PowerPoint won’t last literally forever… even on days when it feels that way.

So what have I learned over the last decade and a half? I’ve learned that some people are heroes and others are knaves. I’ve learned that management and leadership are rarely the same thing. I’ve learned that no matter how hard you roll your eyes they actually won’t fall out of your head. I’ve learned, perhaps most importantly, that given enough time and distance, even the worst of bad days isn’t as awful as it seemed in the moment. That’s the kind of folksy wisdom you need to remind yourself of as frequently as necessary.

So as for me, Saturday will mark 15 years down and about 17 ½ left to go. For anyone else out there following along in Uncle’s great civilian army, you know that magic 15 year mark also means one very important thing. It means that I’m adding another 52 hours of vacation time to the mix. If you think having an extra week plus a little of new found time off coming my way every year from here on out to the end doesn’t hit me right in my happy place, well, you might not know me at all.

Miles to go: or Reaching for that long, long weekend…

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When I see stories like the death of Malcolm Young at age 64, I’m even more convinced of the need to retire at the earliest available moment. All life is a gamble. Sure, your day is probably going to go without much trouble – or it might be the day you get run down by a bus. Malcolm was 64 – an age that I increasingly think of as “not that old.” He has the resources of a lifetime spent as a rock star to draw on to fight the disease that struck him down. He died anyway.

Just last week, someone in the office next door went to meet her maker. She left Friday afternoon, called out on Monday, and on Tuesday she was dead. She had four decades of good and faithful service under her belt. She died anyway.

Given my lifestyle – with its love of red meat and carbs – I can’t reasonably expect to be a centenarian. I’m under no illusions there. Still, I don’t intend to die in harness, although I understand random chance could have something to say about that. As of right now, unless Congress weighs in and changes the rules mid-game, I need to reach the magic combination of 57 years of age and at least 30 years of service. I’ll land on that milestone on June 1, 2035. It’s a date that still seems awfully far away, but not nearly so far as it was once.

The very fact that time is limited drives me to gather up what I can as fast as I can and then get on with enjoying that (hopefully) long, long final weekend. I’m determined that I’m not going to allow myself to be the guy in the office who sticks around until 70 out of fear that the money might run out before I do. At least I’m well served that my desired lifestyle in retirement is largely quiet and relatively inexpensive. As long as I’ve got coffee, a few books, a quiet place in the woods, and a handful of critters warming themselves at my hearth, my needs and wants are largely met.

Now I’ve just got to try to not drop dead before I can get all the pieces lined up.

Rolling over…

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Early in the commute this afternoon, Big Red’s odometer rolled over 100,000 miles. That’s not quite as big a deal with these fancy new vehicles as it was say with a 1986 Oldsmobile Cutlass, but it’s a personal milestone for me. It’s the first time I’ve ever held on to a car long enough to rack up that kind of mileage.

It’s one of the few times in life I can honestly say I’m not really even interested in looking for a new car (though I wouldn’t say no if someone dropped a Ferrari or a Koenigsegg in the driveway). I thoroughly enjoy driving this over sized red beast of mine. Sure, she’ll never sip fuel like a Prius and there’s the occasional rattle of indeterminate origin, but I just plain like the old girl. I don’t suppose it hurts that she’s bought and paid for either.

It’s inevitable that at some point something new and shiny will catch my interest and replace Big Red as the objective of my automotive affection. Until then, though, I think I’ll be perfectly content traveling the highways and byways in my Tundra/living room on wheels and watching the Smart cars scurry out of my way.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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Because I keep track of such things, I can tell you that this is the 150th weekly edition of What Annoys Jeff this Week. I have no idea whether I should be proud of that fact or horrified by it. Regardless, I’d have felt terrible in letting it pass without noting this small monument to one man’s ability to bitch and complain constantly and at length over long periods of time. As much as I’d like to just let this be a self-congratulatory post that feels like it would be something of a cop out… With that foremost in my mind, here are the three things that top my list of annoyances this week:

1. Forgetting. My memory has never been all that strong. Names? Forget it. I’ll forget a new person’s name before they’ve even left the room. There’s just something off with that part of my brain. I’ve learned to work around it without it usually being obvious. Forgetting the plastic pass that lets me into the building in the morning is something more problematic. That’s happened twice now in the last three weeks – both times because my pass was just a little off where where it normally sits. Apparently deviating from the morning routine even by as little as six inches one way or another is enough to mean I’ll end up driving 40 minutes to work, going home, and then trying the morning commute for the second time. If it happens again, I’m just going to staple the damned thing to my forehead and be done with it.

2. Realizing your own (lack of) importance. Most people don’t know this about me, but I have a long history of tilting at windmills. I’ve made staking myself to lost causes almost my life’s work. You could almost call me a patron of futility. It’s probably some kind of deep character flaw, but it’s been my mode of operation for so long that I’m not sure I’d know how to proceed any other way. Because of my windmill tilting tendencies I get to enjoy that awkward moment when you’re forced to admit that you’re nowhere nearly as important to someone as they’ve been to you. It’s a roundhouse kick to the ol’ ego. Fortunately I’ve got that in spades, although that still doesn’t make an distasteful truth any more palatable.

3. Missing deadlines. For the first time possibly ever, I’m facing a major project that in all likelihood I won’t be able to bring in on time. That’s made all the more problematic because there’s no option but to bring it in on time. There’s no rain date and the thing is going to happen no matter how many bits and pieces I’m still holding when the time comes. It’s infuriating because there was plenty of time to get everything in formation – right up until the point we (collectively) started getting sloppy and letting sloppy be ok. My inner perfectionist is aghast at the possibility.