Tag Archives: weekend

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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What Annoys Jeff this Week?

It hasn’t been an awful week. Tomorrow is Friday and I’m looking forward to an outstanding three day weekend and even better company. So there’s your silver cloud, now it’s time for the lead lining:

1. Command Decisions. Maybe I shouldn’t complain about the sheet of ice that covered the parking lots and roads at work this morning. The nuckleheads who piled up or ran down into a ravine trying to get to the gate are the ones who have a real gripe. Since all I did was twist the hell out of my back trying to keep my footing when I got out of the truck, I guess I got off easy. Since I didn’t have any trouble on the county roads getting to work, this might just be a case of the better part of valor being the powers that be saying “yeah, we didn’t get a head start on this one, go ahead and delay arrival by an hour.” By then that fine coating of ice would have been melted and a whole lot of property damage and more than a few personal injuries could have been avoided. Seems like it would have been a no brainer.

2. Books. Now that every DVD and CD I own are safely stored and backed up to disk, I’m starting to eye the one last bastion of physical media in the house… The bookshelves that take up an entire wall of my home office. They’re stacked to overflowing with dead tree editions of every book I’ve read over the last 20-odd years. A handful of them, certainly under a hundred titles, have some significant meaning to me and I’d keep the paper copy regardless. For the rest, though, it would be awfully nice to file them away as an ebook to have on hand “just in case” I ever need some factoids about the 1890s oyster harvest in New York Harbor for instance. Sadly, there is apparently no easy or cost effective way to get from paper to electrons in any kind of large volume without taking inordinate amounts of time. As long as it’s cheaper to buy everything over again as a new ebook than it is to copy what I’ve got already, the paper products won’t be flying off the shelves around her.

I usually shoot for three, but like I said, it hasn’t been an awful week. Check back tomorrow, though, because it’s Friday and something is sure to fly off the hinges 30 minutes before quitting time

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. If you’re going to run a restaurant equipped with a drive through, I’m going to go ahead and recommend that you not post a sign on the speaker box that says anything like “D-T is closed, please visit the lobby”. Umm… no. I don’t think I will. I wouldn’t have been in the drive through for breakfast if I weren’t already in a hurry to get somewhere else. Let’s face it, if I wanted to get out of the truck, walk inside, and have a meal, I wouldn’t be looking at fast food options. This is America, by God and if I can’t get food through the window of my truck from you, I’m going to drive my lazy ass next door to Burger King. Next time. Because if I don’t have the time to visit your lobby, I definitely don’t have time to sit in two drive through lines in the same morning. I didn’t want your tasty cheese filled McBreakfast Burrito anyway.

2. I know weather prediction is something akin to turning base metal into gold, but when you spend the better part of a day talking about the impending impact of “an Alberta clipper overlaying the area and bringing 1-2 inches of snow,” it only stands to reason that at some point during the night some actual snow might fall at some point during your forecast window. Here’s a helpful hint from your kindly Uncle Jeff… if you walk outside after sunset, look up, and see starts twinkling in the interstellar distance, it’s bloody well not snowing.

3. Picture it, Friday, 3:51 PM. At what point does it go through your head that “hey, this would be a great time to try to get something done.” Here’s a news flash Poindexter, it isn’t. Everyone’s brain is disengaged and they’ve already got one foot out the door. Sure, no one will say that out loud, but that’s what everyone whose inbox “pings” at 3:51 on a Friday is thinking to themselves when it happens. Actually, what they’re thinking isn’t fit to print in this nice, family oriented part of the internet. Rest assured, though Mr. Wants to Get One Last Thing Done on Friday, everyone thinks you’re an asshat.

Misfire one and two…

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Like most of the things I do when driven by good intentions, I should fes up to two misfires in the last 24 hours. The first, a blog post that went live on a Friday night around 8:30 based on the assumption that everyone would be paying attention to other things, proved to be my single most viewed post since March 2011. The next time I try sliding something past you people, I’ll show up at 3:30 on a Wednesday morning.

The second misfire came this morning, with my plan to drop in on the first big local gun show of the year. I’ve got a list of items I’m looking to pick up… some functional, some esoteric, and others, as the saying goes, just because I can (at least for the time being). That was my thinking anyway. Since my experience with gun shows has been almost exclusively in states that once rebelled against the Union, I was decidedly unprepared for the strict scrutiny, litany of nausea inducing rules, and sheer tonnage of regulations that the state of Maryland applies to it’s subjects who wish to exercise their rights enshrined in the Second Amendment.

The bottom line is that I opted out of the circus that I’m sure descended on the state fairgrounds this morning. For the time being there remain more efficient and still legal ways of doing business. I have no interest in becoming a felon, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to subject myself to the whims of the state legislature and of our most mighty and exalted lord governor unless I absolutely can’t avoid it.

Follow Me (Everything is Alright)…

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One thing I know from a misspent middle age is that Fridays are pretty much the worst day of the week to post a new blog. As soon as the whistle blows at the end of the day, people are off and racing to start the weekend – or in this case the extra long holiday weekend. Even a post with all the right content, perfectly archived tags, and on a topical bit of content just isn’t going to have juice. That’s why Fridays are usually the day I don’t bother posting anything. Even on Saturdays you can reach a respectable audience if you get you post up and Follow mein front of people early enough in the morning that they see if before they run off to do whatever it is normal people do on Saturdays.

I’ll be completely honest, I don’t know what my posting schedule is going to look like for the next few days. This has all been a long way of saying that hitting the regular gates for days and times that I usually post can be a little problematic when there’s travel and a holiday involved. I’m not even going to pretend that I’m going to try to sticking to a schedule for the next few days. With that being said, I don’t foresee things going dark around here either. Stupid things that need to be talked about seem to follow me around like damned plague of locusts.

The best way to make sure that you don’t miss any of the fun and excitement at jeffreytharp.com is to go ahead and click on the little “Sign Me Up” button on the upper right hand sign of your screen. That way you’ll get your very own email notification every time something new shows up. I mean if that’s not a Christmas present, I don’t know what is.

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Comcast. We’re now on the 3rd monthly bill that’s jacked up as a result of my changing cable plans. This month’s bill got it mostly right, but still shows a $16 charge for a DVR and service that I no longer have. That’s not going to blow the monthly budget, of course, but it’s one of those small things that it really shouldn’t take three months to sort out. Now that I’m not really doing any living in the basement, I think I’ll just have that cable drop turned off and send the box back… At this point, any time I can put fewer dollars in Comcast’s garter, the happier I am. Optimistically, I think we should have everything resolved by sometime in June.

2. Terms of Service. If Instagram changes their terms of service and you don’t like it, go ahead and delete your account. To the best of my knowledge, no one is required to use Instagram. Since their providing a free service to the people of the interwebs, I think it’s only fair that we expect that at some point they’re going to have to figure out a way to make money from their service. If my fancy business classes are to be believed, the whole point in starting a company is to actually make money. Otherwise, they’d be a charity (or an arm of government) and would be interested in providing all of us something for nothing until the end of time. If you think applying filters to your grainy camera pics is so important, go ahead and by a copy of Photoshop and do it up right.

3. The Friday before a Ten Day Weekend. If anyone is expecting great and wonderful things tomorrow, let me disabuse you of that notion before we even get there. Although my body may be physically be shackled to my desk for one last eight hour stint, rest assured my mind has already flown the coop for 2012 and isn’t accepting any additional old business at this time.

What’s next?

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It doesn’t happen very often, but from time to time I hit a point in a weekend where everything I wanted to get done is finished long before I planned on it being that way. As it turns out, I’m not particularly comfortable with sitting around without something that needs doing. Most of the time I try to cram my weekends sufficiently full of projects that I’m still scurrying on Sunday after dinner to get the all finished before the curtain falls. Since I’ve clearly misunderestimated the time needed for things this time around, I’m going to have to call an audible… Now if I can just figure out what else needs done around here I’ll be all set. If all else fails, I can always sit down with a frosty adult beverage, which is a virtual guarantee that I’ll be asleep within five minutes. In a real pinch, I could go ahead and do laundry… but then my plan for Sunday is wrecked before it even gets here. Have I ever mentioned that OCD is fun?

What Annoys Jeff this Week?

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1. Comcast. Making the list for the third or fourth time this year is the cable company that everyone loves to hate. Ever since I downgraded my service a two months ago, my bills have been arriving with what I’ll generously call wild inaccuracies. I spent 30 minutes yesterday on the phone with a very nice CSR who thought she was going to be able to make this month’s round of corrections. Except, of course, she couldn’t because the amount of the correction was in excess of $25… which triggered the need to execute what I believe she called an “elevation form for tier two service.” Instead of being transferred to this group of genies, I’d have to “stand by for them to contact me sometime within the next five business days.” I don’t know why I ever hold out hope that anything can either A) just work the way it’s supposed to work or B) Be corrected with a single phone call. Clearly my expectations are misaligned with reality.

2. The five day work week. I’m out of practice with being at my desk for a full five days in a row. I know this because it’s Thursday and the only ambition I have left is to muddle through tomorrow and get to the weekend. It’s not that the week has been particularly busy, problematic, or strange… but the trek from Monday to Friday has just seemed to go on forever. Now if I can just gin up enough oomph to drag myself through three more long weeks, I’ll be all set for the 11-day Christmas weekend.

3. Lunch. When I worked in DC, it was two blocks to Chinatown, one metro stop from Union Station and the Hill, or a 10 minute walk in almost any other direction to find a diverse and tasty array of lunch options. Here in Aberdeen, there’s a Subway, a Burger King, and a few other lunch places that more or less serve the same thing. While I don’t miss the daily 90 minute commute, I desperately miss having some variety in my lunch options. I miss General Tso’s from Tony Chang’s, burgers at the District Chophouse, and deep dish from Armand’s. At this point, God help me, I even have fond memories of the build your own salad bar next door to the office and the hot dog cart set up on the curb. I’m not expecting an urban food environment here in the wilds of north eastern Maryland, but if I don’t find something other than sandwiches soon I may have to resort to bringing my own food… and that’s just not an option I want to entertain.

Sucking chest wound…

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Getting back to the weekly grind is tough after a regular, uneventful weekend. Going back after a four-day weekend is a little more like trying to recover from massive ballistic trauma – without the blood and swelling, of course. Sitting at the computer, staring at Outlook, and making an effort at being productive was just downright painful… and I think just reinforces why I need to win Wednesday’s PowerBall drawing.

I envy that select group of people who jump out of bed in the morning, fully energized and looking forward to the day. Generally the best I can hope to achieve is fully caffeinated and looking forward to going home at the end of the day. That last bit shouldn’t be taken as a slam against my job. As far as work goes, it’s really not a bad one; with a little attention to detail and a willingness to not let common sense get in the way, there’s really not that much to complain about.

Still, a job is a job and like 99.9% of the other working slobs in this country, there are of 687 bazillion other things I’d rather be doing on any average day. Tops on my list is not waking up at 4:50AM to three screaming alarm clocks. It may seem like a small thing, but I think it would go a long way towards reducing my regular feeling of post-weekend trauma. Since my experience has been that one job is more or less like the next, it seems to be that the only real alternatives at this point are to start robbing banks, come up with a Wall Street ponzi scheme, or win the PowerBall jackpot.

With only one of those three not leading more or less directly to prison, I’d say that the only acceptable plan is to win the lottery. Well, either that or somehow learn not to think of Monday as the sucking chest wound on the torso of life. Wish me luck.

Here’s to not feeling like warm death on a muffin…

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After enjoying Thanksgiving with the family, doing more in person shopping in one day than I do the rest of the year, and fighting off what was either a very brief cold or a singularly bad attack of allergies, I’m slowly working myself back into the old routine. Being Sunday, of course, much of that routine involves being annoyed that the weekend is already over. Weekends, even when they’re twice as long as usual, never really feel long enough. At least no one else won the Powerball jackpot last night, so that means I’ve still got a shot at it on Wednesday. That’s pretty much my happy thought for the first half of the week. After that, I’ll make no promises about keeping up a cheery disposition – especially since we’re now in the long stretch of no scheduled days off leading up to Christmas. The last few weeks have spoiled me with the random clumps of annual leave liberally sprinkled across October and November. Somehow I’ll manage to get by with just the normal two-day weekends for a few weeks, I’m sure.

So, now that I’m not feeling like warm death on a muffin, I’d better get on with doing the odds and ends that keep this place from falling down around my ears. With the holiday over, I’ll try to get back to something like a normal posting schedule here. In the meantime, if you really have an itch for more reading, take a look at the five “new” old posts from October 2006 that I put up earlier this morning.

Ignorant bliss…

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If you stick around any place long enough, you’re going to see history repeat itself over… and over… and over. After almost a decade of professional service to the United States, I can honestly tell you that there’s not much left that really surprises me or makes me nervous. There is one thing, though, that to this day makes the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and fills me with the ominous feeling that something ridiculous is about to happen. It’s not a warning light that flashes “launch detected” or even the thought of getting handed my walking papers if Congress doesn’t get its act together. Those are realities you just sort of things you learn to live with along the way.

The thing that strikes fear into my very heart is the sound of a phone ringing at 3:55 on a Friday afternoon. Nothing, absolutely nothing, good happens at 3:55 on Friday afternoons. Like a call in the middle of the night, it is never, ever good news. More often than not it’s someone who has made a bad decision somewhere along the line and is flailing desperately in an effort to find someone else to share their misery. Make no mistake, if you’re foolish enough to pick up that ringing phone, you’re going to become the someone in question. And your life is going to get very stupid, very quickly.

Sure, I know everyone is a selfless and dedicated employee who doesn’t mind having the first moments of their weekend spent trying to unravel someone else’s problem, but look, take it from me, the best thing you can do when you hear the phone ring at 3:55 on a Friday afternoon is just hum a happy tune and walk away. By the time you know what the problem really is, whoever you need to talk to in order to get it fixed will have gone home for the weekend anyway. Rest assured, whatever was stupid and broken on Friday afternoon will be waiting for you on Monday morning. It will still be broken and stupid, but at least you’ve bought yourself a full weekend of ignorant bliss.