Half and Half

Day started at a decent hour. I was up, dressed and fired up around seven. There was no shower, the decision to not leave the house was made in the very early hours. All revved up with nowhere to go led to getting the laundry ready to deal with. But before that step was taken there was some MSC challenge attention required. I had mostly caught myself up on things but had a couple days left to wrangle. Next move was to order a couple of books off the internet. I updated some Musings as well and then found myself casually browsing. Next move was to get the laundry in and running ahead of starting breakfast. I warmed up three slices of bacon to rob them of their grease and then layered a full pan of perogies into the remaining liquid sizzle. I turned the heat down much lower this time around and really let them warm slow. Towards the end I jacked it to get more colour. I topped them with something I got for Christmas and have been unsure of since. Those green chunks below are candied jalapeños. The cheese and Cholula you will recognize of course. Those elements were good. The new piece? I didn’t care for it, sorry Mom. It was very spicy which was nice but it reminded my taste buds too much of the various preserves and chutneys I hated as a kid. Couldn’t do it. I’ll have to find someone to give it away to. Yuck!

After a solid feed of perogies and storing the few leftovers I decided I would go after my lingering to-do list. First I repotted a couple of rogue morning glory plants. I had been harvesting some of the seed pods that were left after a flower withered and died and burying them in random pots to see if they’d germinate. Well, they did. Not wanting them in every pot in the house I decided to put a couple into their own pot and get them ready for spring. It went poorly. I had a pot of dirt already warmed in the house for a few days. I broke up some chunks of topsoil to create a finer blend. I let both pots dry down so it would be cleaner but all the soil fell away from the roots when I dug it up. I gently put it in the new pot and watered it hard. Way more than I should have. It had a fairly significant droop going on a short time later but by day’s end had started to perk up. Time will tell. The next item was the magnetic knife holder that I got as a gift a decade ago. The hole on the left was a breeze to drill. The one on the right was between two glass tiles. My bit doesn’t work well on glass. I tried progressively smaller ones to no avail. Through trial and error I was able to get enough purchase that it blew the glass up (luckily not into my eyes) and I got my pilot hole. I still managed to strip the screw head on the left so it’s permanent now. Regardless, I’m glad that those sharp knives are out of the drawer and in a place where they aren’t hidden land mines. It looks decent too.

With my list nearly done I made way downstairs to change the laundry over. From there I went and played some more MSC, just recreationally while I listened to the last few podcasts that had stacked up in the queue. Out of content I again fled to the basement. This time close to two. I started the latter half of my day at this point. FS19 got fired up and that was that. I continued listening to the Hobbit audiobook that Audible gifted everyone while I played. Major items from this session are that I got a new trailer to haul grain, needed an upgrade to match my huge combine. I got a pickup truck and a header cart. I also bought a small field next to my smallest field and then rented a plow to turn them into one respectable sized field. I also bought the field to the West of those. So after expanding my capacity, I’ve expanded my acreage. It’s not a big deal but when I take a load of material in my new wagon I get way more income (obviously) but the less trips to do so is exciting. I should be able to take it in faster now. Starting to make plans to get some chickens next, will try and put them on the next farm I buy. For now I have to rebuild my inventory and my savings. I was able to tear myself away from that at half nine and used the time before bed to get my laundry folded and stowed. Half the day was feeding my addiction and the other half was somewhat productive, hence the title.

Fooling it in

I had a late start to the day today, not surprising with the previous night’s bedtime. I didn’t wake until after eight, interesting since the rest of my family was up with the sun apparently. I wasn’t feeling particularly rested and had no compulsion to burst out of bed. Instead I lounged some and watched YouTube. Eventually I willed myself to rise and shower. My next stop could have been breakfast but I had used the last eggs the day before so I decided to shuffle down the hall and get my MSC situation in order. I hadn’t given any attention to that all week so had all the days of March to deal with. By the time I’d gotten up to the current day it was half eleven. A good time for lunch. I dumped a cold bowl of KFC slop into my own dishes and warmed it up, barely. I also turned some leftover mini hashbrowns from cold to soggy and lukewarm. I could have reheated them in the air fryer but was being optimisitc and lazy. It made for a filling meal. So filling that it nabbed any momentum I may have had and I found myself sinking into the depths.

I put on a film, trying to pick something upbeat. I settled on Take Me Home Tonight from 2011. With Netflix I try not to be a browser, if I find something even remotely interesting I dive in. I’d rather watch trash than watching nothing and endlessly flip through wondering if there is something better. I moved from that right into another 80’s type movie, except this one is actually from the era, Just One of the Guys from 1985. This one was much less good with a lot of bold choices. It could be a candidate for How Did This Get Made. It was a enjoyable and fun though and satisfied the classic Rom Com tropes so I was fine with it. I was feeling a bit peckish at this point, or maybe bored. I went up and heated up the bowl of poutine to a lukewarm temperature and added the last few mini hashbrowns into the mix. While it was rotating amongst radiation, I checked out the meal board and you can see I was much better at hitting the mark this week, going a perfect five for five, even though I didn’t really eat anything at dinner on Friday.

The food came out cool and needed more attention, I had to chop it up to get it heat properly. I nabbed one of the cans of Pepsi too and hustled back down below to watch Juliet, Naked from the year 2018. This was an interesting film, unique story. The kind of movie that doesn’t get promoted anymore. It’s not a summer blockbuster so gets lost in the shuffle. It was well acted and enjoyable. The knock I have of it is that Rose Byrne, the female lead, is clearly pregnant throughout filming and is constantly trying to hide her stomach with various props or shots. I found that to be quite distracting and took me out of it too often. I started paying attention to how they’d hide it in a scene rather than to be fully invested in what was happening. Probably an unfortunate timing with previous committments. And as it’s not easy to get something like this made so they probably forged on. I can’t blame them for it, but that’s the one slight bummer of it all. I transitioned into the Leaf game after this. They weren’t playing great, adequate but their opponents, the Canucks, were the hungrier team. When they went down by two halfway through the third I turned things off and went upstairs. I knew what would happen. I was able to get to sleep shortly after ten to wrap up a basically wasted day.

Snapped Streaks

Another mediocre rest, this time waking up for no good reason around four and not being able to get back to sleep. This meant that I was up pretty early but I was seriously lacking motivation. The freezer has opened up to a point where I can start to see some of the food that has been stuffed into corners or buried under things over the last year. Becaues of this I discovered a package of breakfast hashbrowns and my brain looking for comfort decided that today was a good day to air fry those up. I did manage to find the discipline to hold myself to one samidge with this new addition to breakfast. The fooling around with breakfast, first in three days, ate up anytime I would have had for an early day walk. Which is all good because the weather turned much colder and it would have been frigid. Instead I had this fancy breakfast and snapped my streak of going without at two days.

I was in the chair at eight and got a running start at work. I fired out a bunch of emails and then got myself ready for the one critical meeting of the day. That meeting went well and gave me some information that put me in a nice spot. I got the last of the same type of information from another customer and was riding high, feeling pretty good about my process. So the morning was a success. That leads me to the interesting aspect of the day. In the US we were celebrating Employee Appreciation Day. I’m not sure if that was a National thing or if it was just within our company. Not important anyways. My function group was told that we could spend a certain dollar amount today to get a meal for us and our family. It was a nice amount, unlike the anemic value our Canadian Leadership offered during our National meeting. Because my boss essentially reports into this US group he was told to participate so he, myself and my teammate were told to get after it. I discussed with my team member what we were going to do. I had no idea. It was suggested that I get groceries, or booze, even sushi. I wanted to spend a good jag of the money, that was encouraged. I thought about a big Chinese order like I did with my parents in the summer and then living off that for a few days. But that thought reminded me of the days when the Chef and I used to make one KFC order a year and do the same. We’d order a twenty piece bucket, family sized fry and gravy each. Then we’d sit down and eat all the fries and as much of the gravy as we could first and then see who could eat more pieces of chicken. The best I did was seven pieces. A bout of nostalgia must have swept over me because I locked it into my mind that I would get KFC. As much of it as I could order. I didn’t order until around noon so it was going to be a late lunch. I was pretty short of our spending limit but I did order more KFC than anyone I know. I told people I was order for me and for future me since I didn’t have a family to feed. This is what showed up at my door forty minutes later.

I had initially picked a bucket meal but those are pretty expensive, even the one I had that was a deal. I decided to focus on many lower ticket items rather than one big one and see if I could build up the same aspects but cheaper (and without disgusting sides). I started with three $5 fill-up meals. Two chicken bowls and a box. Then I got some chicken strips and the buttermilk ranch dip. I added a slice of cheesecake and six cookies for dessert before adding a snacker wrap and sandwich. The last thing I added was a chicken stacker sandwich. I ate one bowl, the two sandwiches and a Pepsi and thought I was going to die. I carefully stowed the rest in the fridge for later and went to lay down to recover. Regrets were instant.

I was able to pull myself together after a short rest and get back to work. There was a bit of a fire drill later in the day that got handled and I was able to get everything posted and accurate for my customers. I’m tracking nearly three weeks ahead of last year on some of this stuff. Amazing when you know what needs to be done. By the time work wrapped up it was nearly six. I didn’t need to worry about dinner since I was still pretty full. I had to kill some time until nine though. I cleaned up a bit, my parents reached out looking for help with their TV again. I wrote a bit of a story to share with a buddy for my D&D character. I scoped out Twitter and cleaned up my personal email. It was after ten when things finally started to pop off. We had a group video chat with a couple of lads, some out West (hence the delayed start - timezones). It started off a bit awkward but it was twenty minutes past high noon by the time we wrapped it up. It was closer to one by the time I was able to slip into the sweet embrace of the night. Pretty wild day in the end. The weather kept me from my walk in the morning and then the giant feed disabled me further. The wind was a factor too. But truly it was my lack of motivation, a condition that creeps in with bad sleep. I knew it would happen I think but I broke my walk streak.

Therapeutic Thursday

As nice as the last couple mornings have been, this one was inversely terrible. The loud boy who lives a house to the south of me is working nights and gets home around 4:30am or five. I’m not sure when he got home but I know when he turned on his sound system, it was minutes ahead of five. The stupid [expletive] had the bass pumping for about fifteen minutes before something prompted him to tone it down some. After tossing and turning for an unmeasured amount of time I was able to fade out to a raucous, dream-filled sleep. I recall the last dream slightly but not enough to share. I got moving closer to half seven than to seven, which is a bummer as I was hoping to get a walk in, starting a streak. I skipped breakfast and went straight to work. Bum hitting chair right at eight. I meandered a bit to start the morning, I texted my old friend Steve to wish her a happy birthday. First interaction since the last time. I’m glad I did, we’ve been back and forth over the day. She says she’s gonna check out the site, we’ll see if she sees this shoutout. Eventually I got on task because I had one of those customer meetings I talked about yesterday at ten and had to get myself prepared for that. I did a greasy move and loaded up a couple emails before the meeting and told them I’d send them the info after the meeting and hit send the moment the meeting ended. I thought it was awesome. With about five minutes left in the meeting another customer who I was planning to call was ringing me so I got them back right after the meeting and that call went really well. I was riding high heading into lunch. I started debating what to make and quickly settled on Our Compliments brand Pad Thai with Chicken. I did two packages and added a big swirl of sriracha sauce to it. It was spicy and cleared out my nostrils right quick. The chopsticks made the consumption process longer, which is something I’m trying on. I tend to wolf my food down, and I’m starting to think that is less than ideal.

With that reasonable load in my gutsack I put my shoes on and headed out the door. I did the exact same walk as yesterday but did it a minute faster. Not a big deal but there was a headwind for half of it this time. When I got home my feet and shins were a bit angry but it was good to string together two days. I logged them in my FitBit to further help gamify it for me. I was back in the saddle at one and got real productive through the afternoon. I dealth with a few requests as they came up and got all my guides for the year pulled, uploaded and shared. I talked to a couple more customers to try and get them on my timetable for stuff. I joined a diversity and inclusion focus group later in the day. It was moderated and anonymous. The lady asked questions and then probing questions and we were supposed to share our answers in the chat. I don’t think there was a huge crowd or maybe I was more insightful but she read more than a few of my thoughts to the group, anonymously of course. I didn’t say anything that wasn’t true or that I wouldn’t say in person the top brass of the company. I think that’s called being a straight shooter. By the time I wrapped up my business items for the day it was shortly after five. I mentioned it previous but I’m making an effort to stick to my meal plan this week. I’m perfect so far and tonight was calling for Hamburger Helper. I had a box of the Beef Noodle flavour but wanted to dress it up a bit, make it shine some. Plus I had a whack of leftover black beans, corn and cilantro to find a use for. I followed the recipe on the box for the most part except that I added my beans and corn. Toward the end I added some chili powder and ground cumin to the party. I tore up some leaves and sprinkled them on the finished product. Turns out I’d grabbed the parsley though. So after I took the photo I added that much again of cilantro. It was really good. I was shooting for a bit of Tex Mex influence but this was top notch. I could have added a bit more heat in the end but I’d do this again for sure. I even managed to have a reasonable portion for once, storing the rest away for later.

I was excited that I finished dinner at around half six. I figured I’d only have to wait a half hour or so to watch the Leafs battle the Canucks. But I was mistaken, since the game is in Vancouver it was starting at ten, basically at bedtime. So I had to find something to do with my evening. I wasn’t ready to donate it to FS19 this time so I decided to sitdown and watch the Framing Britney documentary. She was popular in our house growing up and was certainly in the public eye so I had been meaning to watch it. It was kind of a bummer. Her story is pretty tragic and sad. I’m not sure I’d be on the street now demanding her release but with her being only a few years older than me and having been on lockdown for the last twelve plus years I think about what I did in my life over that period of time and it makes me sad for her. She was the sacrificial lamb that carved the path to show what not to do. The timing of it all is a big factor. I was talking to Theodore Complete about it a spell back and we figured that the popularity of the internet coming on strong and making print media less prominent did away with the kind of circus. Now people can control what the world sees and they choose to share rather than a mad frenzy to get an image of their personal life. I have never supported the celebrity worship that society is obsessed with and after seeing what she had to deal with I’m glad I didn’t. The people involved that they interviewed tried to frame themselves as innocent but they aren’t. They were parasites trying to take advantage of someone. The director of photography made me feel dirty. Anyways, I don’t want to give any too much in case you haven’t seen it and are planning to. I folded some clothes that had been hanging in the dryer all week (that I’d forgotten about until I saw I was on my last pair of drawers today) and then did a bit of reading online about what I need to learn to play Dungeons & Dragons. Steep learning curve.

Walking Through Wednesday

Rough start to the sleep period. Had to pull the trigger on shirt removal to get there. Woke up later and decided to bypass breakfast. I got threw on a toque, my sweet sunglasses from my Sudbury Sister and went for a walk. It was meant to be a quick walk and then have something to eat. Instead I kept on going. As I approached the crossroads where a little way ahead was the mail and to the left was an actual walk I decided today was finally the day I moved beyond a mail run. The next decision point was when I got to the corner of Frontenac and Marquette. A right turn meant a respectable first effort, continuing straight meant a real walk, as far as I used to take the dog. I went straight. Except I forgot that it took a 45 degree angle and banked up to the top of the street. To put the exclamation point on the effort I walked to the end of Marquette and back, mostly because it had a sidewalk on both sides, felt like it was meant for that.

The experience was an assault for the senses too. Lots to see, haven’t been out much in a year. It smelled like dog poop. The retreated snowbanks are revealing a lot of little time bombs that lazy people left as a treat for the future. It tasted like my mouth, I didn’t taste my walk you idiot. It felt good. And that is the most important part. After I turned the corner my breathing levelled out and wasn’t an issue the whole time. I probably couldn’t have carried on a conversation the whole time. Before you judge, remember that I’ve been in my house for nearly a full year without much physical activity. When I got home I could feel it a bit in my legs and arms. I used Google Maps to try and estimate the distance. I have no plans to get an app for that. I probably already have one somewhere. Anyways, I was pretty excited about finally doing something that when I got home I recorded my thoughts here for you to enjoy. Only had water thus far too. It would be nice to get into a routine of this, knock back some pandemic weight gain. I’ve proven that I can do routines. Look at my French lessons. I hit a milestone today with Duolingo. A one thousand day streak. Meaning I’ve earned XP for a thousand straight days. I can’t speak much French but it’s something.

That’s a lot of detail and writing for the first hours of the day. Luckily the rest of the morning was fairly unremarkable. I tried to get the Chef on the phone to no avail. I talked to some customers and did some work to keep things moving. I took a look at my potential rewards and saw that a fish finder is back as an option. I think I’m going to make a move on it. I decided to go for lunch a few minutes early since I didn’t have anything yet. I had leftovers, specifically the leftovers from the burrito aspect of the kolaches. I included the small bit of sausage and radish matchsticks to the pile too. It was much spicier than expected.

The afternoon started with a quick call. I got some action items from it and started working on those. Next I got productive and started scheduling a few meetings with customers and then generated some working files to use with them that will feed my master files. It was a nice relaxing task for me. I had another call later in the day with a small team of close colleauges and we nailed down some issues and then went around the horn and updated each other critical items and news. It was so well received that we decided we should put one in the calendar every couple of weeks to stay connected with what is up in our world. That ended around five and I scuttled down to the kitchen for dinner. I made short work of the leftover pasta and a few of the kolaches. I used the air fryer to reheat them and that function alone is magical. They were perfect, like they’d emerged crispy and golden for the first time. After cleaning up I watched a bit of YouTube and did some research for the night’s main event. Tonight was my first experience with Dungeons & Dragons. A few of my buddies from high school have been in a campaign for many months now and are meeting up almost weekly to socialize over the game. They’ve asked me previously to join them and I eventually decided that I’d watch and see what it’s all about and how it works before making any committment. It’s apparently free to start and for me it took very minimal effort. I signed up for Roll20.net, a platform that enables them to play remotely, and waited. They all live somewhat close geographically so if their game hadn’t gone remote then I wouldn’t have had this chance. Thanks pandemic! It was more or less what I expected but I had a hard time following at first. I still don’t know all the ins and outs but at the end of the night I agreed to step in and join the party. I’ve got a steep learning curve ahead of me. I mention it here because I also want to recognize that this is well out of my comfort zone and a few years ago I would have bailed on it so hard, but I honestly think I’ll enjoy it. Plus the boys are all good guys so we’ll see where that takes me. I had some issue getting to sleep, particularly cause I was watching the end of the Leafs win. I eventually drifted out around eleven.

Kolache Tuesday

Eyes opened ahead of six today and figured I would get a jump on the day. Was cleaned up and working on breakfast before seven. That was quite a difference from the past few days. Very much up and at them. Normal breakfast, put the bird feeder back out, regular morning. I had a bit of time so I got myself caught up on Musings and on posting Episode 3 for Theodore Complete. Then work came calling. I had day two of the technical meeting with my US colleagues. They are doing some cool tour things that truly set them apart from everyone else. It’s a strong team. I had to jump out to attend a Canada meeting. It was shaping up to run through lunch. I deftly switched my meeting on to my iPad and hit the kitchen. Lunch was Campbell’s Chunky Potato and Bacon soup supplemented by Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Mozzerella and Meatball panini. I had to eat it ag my desk, camera off, during my next meeting. It was more intense with a hint of circular discussion. It flowed right into another ninety minute call. It ended a bit early and I found myself cleaning up some contacts. I’d started adding a few new team members to my contact list and saw some names that didn’t belong anymore. Next thing I knew it was twenty minutes later and I’d done the whole alphabet. Dozens of deletions. I made a couple calls and watched a replay of something I’d missed previously and I powered it down a little ahead of five. I had something to do. Yesterday was National Kolache Day in the US. I missed celebrating it and wanted to rectify that. Kolaches are Czech (I think) sweet pastries traditionally. In America they have more options. Quickest description is they are a pizza pocket with better fillings. I decided I’d use the dough I bought for this and got to preparing four different types.

The tater tots one is actually some leftover tots and radish matchsticks. Trying to add some crunch. Admittedly, it didn’t work, they softened too much during cooking. It was pretty tasty overall. The chorizo and cheese was a can’t miss combo. It was fantastic. The burrito consisted of rice, salsa, cilantro, corn and black beans. It tasted more bland than expected. Maybe lacking some salt or something. I had higher hopes for that one. It was too hot when I rolled it up too, lesson learned. Speaking of too hot, the pasta ones were a gag for some old friends. I only made a couple. Harkens back to the legend of the pasta wrap, a tale for another time. Overall they were all pretty good. I should try another dough someday but I’m taking it slow. Walking before I run type of thing. After cleaning up the incredible amount of dishes I sat for a minute to relax and plot my next move. I heard a noise in the wall and went outside to investigate. Not seeing anything I listened a bit more then pounded on the wall. I tried to drive the critter out. I sat quietly afterwards, for a long time. Hearing nothing I went on with my evening, texting some old friends and reading the news.

A Monday Enjoyed

Woke up refreshed and first hot shower in a couple days really lit my world on fire. Didn’t feel like a Monday at all. Breakfast was a delight of routine and I had extra time to peruse the last magazine on the table. Probably time to check the mail to fetch the next batch of publications. The early start and breeze through the routine had me in the chair ahead of the starting gun. I see that as both good and bad. Nice to hit the ground running but we both know it means I’m just going to end up working longer. The morning was blanketed with a technical team meeting and the afternoon had a Juan on Juan meeting with my boss. The morning meeting was filled with useful tidbits and despite it being my US team and somewhat unrelatable I found it to be excellent use of my time. It ended just in time for me to get some lunch at a decent hour before the next thing. Lunch today featured a can of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo supplemented by a wrap. The wrap consists of sketchy, expired Turkey slices, monterrey jack cheese and Dijon mustard. The wrap was very acidic and I was worried it was going to end me. There was an after effect that your delicate eye-drums shouldn’t hear, lest you be offended.

After gulping down my trepidation inducing sustenance, I settled back in to the chair. I tried plugging in my personal NexiGo webcam to my work computer, just as a change of vantage point for my professional interactions. It worked. And after some reviewing, alleged to be a clearer image. I had my meeting with my boss. I tried to make it about HR so we could count it as a check-in meeting. We had thirty minutes scheduled but ended up going for ninety. It has been pretty rare that I get much FaceTime with my boss over the last year and he had an opening and wanted to keep chatted. We stretched across a bunch of topics. I feel bad for my teammate who went first and was confined to his half hour, not wanting to impinge upon my slot. As it happened, I had business to discuss with him right after and that ran into another call with a colleague dans la belle province. That went right into a call with Mother, trying to help her adjust the display on the TV. Once she started on the correct remote it was easy.

I lingered in the kitchen during the subsequent conversation, eventually deciding to make some tots and green beans. It’s new that I would consider adding green to the combo. I hope I continue to make better choices. And I have leftovers of both to explore later. When dinner was done I had a chat with the Chef. We’re planning to meet up for the first time in three months and have a breakfast meal at a restaurant. Not sure when but we’re open to it. It’s been a long time since we did that, maybe the summer. While that was happening I fired up FS19. I got to use my fancy combine. It was awesome. I got all my land harvested and replanted quickly, ready for another cycle tomorrow night. I was in bed for puck drop on the Leafs at ten. I was asleep minutes later. When I came to in the night to pee I saw they had a stunning shutout victory. The second in a row.

Addiction Affliction

Since I didn’t stay up all night this Saturday night, opting rather to have a nice sleep, I was up at a decent hour on Sunday. I didn’t dawdle in the sheets today either. I got some laundry put away and then climbed into the chair to take down some Musings and wipe out the remaining days of February MSC. I did some general browsing and reading as well. I thought about shopping online a bit but instead wandered down to the kitchen to get a meal made. By this time it was coming up on eleven in the morning. I fried some bacon, drained the pan, browned some chorizo in the remnant juices and then dropped three scrambled eggs into the mix and dropped the heat dramatically. On the side I laid out some wraps, covered them in shredded cheese and a hint of dijon mustard, trying to work through the bottle. I wrapped up the cooked mixture in the pan and pressed these things in the hot pan, after increasing the heat. That was a legendary feed.

I cleaned up, leaving the pan to soak with soap and scalding hot water. It was back to the lair to get into some more FS19. Today I truly lost myself in it. It was around four that I stirred to grab a glass of water and three cookies before getting back to it. I didn’t even stop the game while doing that, leaving my workers to continue. I had put on a spring jacket at breakfast as the house was cool and ended up wearing it all day long. It was a weird move. After my after snack I was in it to win it. With the goal of getting my huge combine on my mind. It was ten when I stopped, shortly after buying the biggest, baddest, most expensive combine in the game. So for those of you tracking me, I’ve picked up two farms, two new tractors, and upgraded all my implements to a larger size, not the largest for all but I’m getting there. I also remembered something about combining smaller fields into larger ones to accomodate larger equipment. I looked it up and followed the steps to combine my two original fields into a larger one. I also expanded a couple of spots on the field. I made my small field across the highway bigger too. So I’m down to three fields now, but all big enough for my new toys. It’s exciting, even if you don’t think so. I was asleep by half ten. Likely with a satisfied little smirk on my lips.

Saturday Selfishness

Late start, did some lounging and general avoidance of the world which was aided by Youtube. When I felt that I’d exhausted the contents of the platform I slowly emerged from my nest to make some comfort food for the first meal of the day. It was mid-morning so anything was in play at this point. I chose a foodstuff that is as versatile as the timing of the meal and cooked up a whole mess of perogies. The Big T wouldn’t have approved of me doing it on a Saturday but he’s not here. When I’d eaten my fill and stored the rest I filled up my thermos and a big insulated mug with water and journeyed down into the basement, into my lair. I fired up Farming Simulator 19 (FS19) and got to work. I wasn’t alone today, I was accompanied by the third of three books of the Licanius Trilogy by James Islington. It is such a well woven tale. It wasn’t well received and I can see why the “experts” would be upset, it’s meant to be read as a complete trilogy, not a standalone. Either way.FS19 is going well. I’m working the same four fields and trying to swell my bank account after some purchases. Got the seed drill I wanted. Got a bigger tractor, a Case Maxxum with 409 HP. Which enabled me to get a larger cultivator. Next up should be a bigger combine. I should go mid-range and scale up but I’ll probably go big right away. That was about the size of it for the entire day. Later in the afternoon I warmed up the last chicken chunk from the previous night and wrapped it up with spinach and dijon and some radish chunks. I supplemented that little snack wrap with a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Mozzerella and Meatball panini box. That and a lot of water was all I consumed on the day. Other than a major swath of my audiobook and a lot of hours on FS19. Oh, I did take this photo for y’all, just to show you how my meal planning is progressing. The ‘X’ means I didn’t have that meal on the prescribed day, actually didn’t have it at all. So week two didn’t really go that well. I think for it to work I need to make the board then go shopping and have the jam in the evening to follow through. I’m generally too tired mentally to bother at this point. I’ll have to push through that I guess. Is that what people say?

Crowning Day

Had an admirable sleep and a relaxed start to the day. Breakfast was the normal repaste. Time was taken afterwards to bag up the incredibly smelly garbage and put it out. I even washed the can to try and cure the stink. It’s been the same rank odour dwelling in there for a bit. I wonder if it’s the rotten egg shells. I generally rinse food containers and try to keep compost in the garage. I will have to straighten this out after future investigation. I had day two of that Licensing Meeting on the docket starting mid-morning, first thing for Calgary likely. This left me with a little over an hour to wrap up any lingering items and that’s what I did. I closed out several things from earlier in the week and got myself ready. I had a couple slides to present so wanted to not embarrass myself. I don’t know this subject material as well as I’d like to. The morning zipped by and then while some of the team had an in-depth canola discussion I slipped out to have a delightful lunch. I took some time to pound and soak some chicken. Had to use up that buttermilk and this was the only way I know how. I had a can of Campbell’s Chunky Pepper Steak soup while returning some calls for my actual lunch. The afternoon breezed by with laughs and jokes between presentations. The talk I was involved in garnered some intense discussion and was the last of the day. There was a happy hour scheduled and everyone hung around. There was a kahoot quiz and we all had something to drink. Last time, in this scenario, I went with the fancy ginger ale from Christmas and some Northern Harvest. I didn’t last long, starting to get a full buzz. This time I went with some vodka that had been hanging around for years and the leftover raspberry lemonade I had. I got a buzz slowly over time and not fully until later. I should pause and recognize a couple things here. First the vodka was distilled by a friend from high school at his now successful business in BC. This is from the second batch ever. I tried it seven or so years ago and it was a bit harsh. But at that time I was drinking fancier stuff. Like Prince Igor run through a Brita filter four times, making it indistinguishable from Grey Goose according to my research. Not just me drinking it but sampled by a half dozen sober, university girls that I used to know. So I was in a different place with my palette. I eased into it this time too but I found it to be decent and definitely effective. I texted the manufacturer to give him his accolades and he laughed, agreeing they have made a lot of improvements over time. Shortly after six I had to tap out to work on my dinner.

I took the chicken out of the buttermilk bath and breaded them with panko and cayenne, an excessive amount. After a quick rip through the air fryer I built my sandwiches. I subbed in spinach for the cabbage and ignored the jalapeño. All in all, it was a solid approximation to the proper recipe.

When everything was cleaned up I watched Irrestibles, a Jon Stewart film. Naturally it was political in nature, though classed a comedy (I think). Maybe it was the fading vodka buzz or the long week but I didn’t fully appreciate all the layers. Maybe it wasn’t as deep as I imagined. It wasn’t perfectly executed but was well done and had some very serious messages delivered in an improved method. I’m glad I did it. There was still some daylight left afterward but I decided I’d had enough and went to bed with some YouTube, getting an early start to the sleep hours.

Teeth Gritting Thursday

I had a refreshing sleep. That element was definitely part of my recent mood. I am hoping between the jovial meeting, the fun catch up with Theodore Complete and the refreshing sleep I’m in a better state for the rest of the week. I feel depleted of rest and behind on poops, TMI? After cleaning up and dressing I set about making my regular breakfast. Thankfully things went smoothly. I was able to get into the saddle by eight and set about the tasks that had been pushed off previously in the week. I also had to pull together a key file that I’ll need for the rest of the seed order process. I think I’m about a month ahead of last year on doing this. Mostly because last year I was learning the process and trying to find things that worked. This worked, and I’m going to be well ready for things this year. When you have to lean on other people for the success of your task then it’s best to remove as many excuses and avenues for error and delay as you can possibly dream of before. Plus it makes things easier for them. When you can make a process easy for someone else there is a higher likelihood that they’ll do it. The reason for pushing hard to get that file done today is the meeting I had over the lunch hour with my US colleagues. It was the first of the season for this topic and I wanted to be ready to battle if required. It took me a couple last year to understand what was happening but now I have an idea of the process and can better participate. Because this meeting was over lunch (Central Time culprit this round) I had to either ate early or really late. I chose early and put some chicken wings that were starting to stink up the fridge in the air fryer before dousing them in BBQ sauce. I fairly decadent lunch for a weekday but I was using what I had. That is the last of the Sysco wings. Now I wait to see if the Chef reads this and enables some samples for me. The afternoon was about pulling together info for customers and trying to whack-a-mole requests as they came in. I like to try and knock back little ones as they pop up to keep things moving. I’m quite proficient at prioritizing issues that will take longer to resolve and queueing things up, despite what others may think. The afternoon whiled away sufficiently fast and led me to dinner at half past five. I got weird with it. The meal plan called for cauliflower bites but I’ve never done them before and wasn’t in a mindframe to take the time to learn. I just wanted food quickly and quietly. I reheated the last two sausages from the brood I’d made on Monday. I didn’t know what to put with it and had little energy to expend. I grabbed a mittful of cherry tomatoes. That’s it, that’s the dinner. It was good, filling, and healthier than most I’ve made recently.

After dinner it was back to the addiction after a night off to nerd it up. I played until half ten and then stumbled into bed. I picked up a bigger field next to my existing farm and spent most of the time cycling through harvest to planting. I started mapping out the order of puchasing my equipment upgrades and estimating the pile I’d have to raise for each step. I also need to try and buy another farm in there too to make my investments worthwhile. To get across more ground faster I need bigger implements. To use bigger implements I need bigger tractors. To pay for these upgrades I need more land base. You can see how it is a vicious cycle, just like real farming. And people wonder how farms got so big nowadays. It was a lovely evening spent playing that and listening to my audiobook. I should mention that I’m onto the third installment of the Licanius trilogy on my second “read through.”

Weird Wednesday

If Tuesday saw me cranky to start the day then I went nuclear on Wednesday. I’m still baffled. The start of today was such an unmitigated disaster that I can only look back and laugh about how outrageous it was. You can call it getting out of bed on the wrong side, or being in a bad mood, whatever you’re into. I started in a bad place and things only got worse from there. I started my breakfast sandwich process like every other day. If you’re a regular reader you know full well that I have made these before. That I’ve been making them almost daily for a year. There was one change today, that I’m sure I’ve made before that seemed to be a factor. You can see at 5:08 of the instructional video what that step is. I feel like the egg was pressurized or something. As soon as I tapped it on the side of the egg cup it exploded and half the egg missed the target. As near as I can tell a large portion of the shell vapourized or blended into the egg and disappeared. I tried to scoop the egg with the spatula but it was a sloppy mess still and just made more of a mess for me. I waited a few seconds and it started to cook and firm up on the cooktop and I was able to get a shocking amount into the cup. No such incident occurred for the other side. I started hot, in a bad mood and generally frustrated and angry with the world. You can imagine how I felt with this mishap.

Now that you have a flavour for how my day was going and have jumped over the photo of that incident, let me assure you, it didn’t get better. I’m not sure of the cause of the other half of the breakfast samidge debacle but I do suspect that maybe the extra time added to the process while I was trying to clean up the exploded egg let the cheese get to a more liquid state than is suggested. Let me break it down for you. So the time went on as expected and when the beeping started after five minutes I set about opening the machine and harvesting my yum-yums. The process is that you open the cooktop. Then you slide out the section between the top and bottom cups. This all went great. Next you open the top cup, usually having to push down on the english muffin top to ensure it isn’t attached. The top half of the samidge is sitting on the bottom half at this point. Next you lift the bottom ring up and you have a complete sandwich sitting on the cooling cooking surface. Except, this time that didn’t happen. The cheese had leaked out enough and cooked on the troublesome left side and as such had secured the bottom bun to the bottom ring. When I lifted the bottom ring this time, the bottom slid out with it and the top half of the sandwich ended up on the cooking surface. I’m not sure how this could happen so perfectly and on the day of he exploding egg no less. Cheese got everywhere, the photo doesn’t do it justice. It was just hanging there. Not to be outdone, you can see in the below photo that the right side also fell apart. After my rage blackout and curse word laden rant, I was able to nab the hanging half and re-construct things. Keep in mind that everything is fully molten at this point. I managed not burn my hands. First bite I’m pretty sure I discovered the missing shell as I gulped a solid chunk down the hatch. At that point I was beyond caring, seething at a rapid boil.

That’s the energy I took into work. Helpless frustration and the resultant rage. There was a call that I listened into but didn’t really participate in to start the day. I worked through emails and issues before the big call started. Day one of our Licensing Quarterly meeting. It was slated from ten until half five. Before it started I figued I’d better take a pee so I’d be ready for hours of engagement. I won’t get into details but by the end of it, there was piss everywhere but in the toilet. I set about cleaning it up with some paper towel and cleaner. I managed to slip and smash my elblow on the edge of the toilet bowl in the process, the good times continued. Then, in the first hour of the meeting, I got four phone calls. I’ve gone weeks without getting a call from most of these folks, maybe months. Then they all call on the same day. Oddly enough, none of them were follow-ups from my bout of calls on the previous day. I had to send most of them to voicemail with an accompanying text message to let thme know I wasn’t available. Some were a copy paste. It never fails, it’s like they know when I’m not able to answer the phone. Since the meeting was run by our Calgary office it was all on mountain time, which usually means late lunch. The were good enough to put a half hour break around noon my time though and then only a half hour for the actual lunch break. That allowed me to gobble down a bowl of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken Noodle soup. Because the Leafs are playing Calgary again and I decided to eat my Leaf can, for good luck. I supplemented the meal with a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini, Mozzerella and Meatball panini. I needed a break with some comfort food to get a break. I did things deliberately in the preparation to avoid any kind of injury or futher calamity.

Thankfully, as the meeting went on I settled down. The team was chipper and there was some good natured ribbing throughout the afternoon. Something that I’ve missed in the last year or so. Slowly but surely the rage slipped away. By the time the meeting wrapped for the day I was just tired. I again went off script from the meal plan and made a cardboard pizza with some extra cheese and hot sauce on it. It looked gross and tasted weird. Not sure what the issue was. I pointed my compass skyward and went upstairs rather than down after dinner. I had some research to do. I mentioned to some high school chums that I wouldn’t mind watching a session of their regular Dungeons & Dragons game that they’ve been doing for a few years. I wanted to see what all the hoopla was about without committing to anything. In order to do so, I had to sign up for roll20.net and provide my email to the dungeon master. Theodore Complete was very excited about this and wanted me to create a character in advance. I suspect he enjoys that process. I told him I had something in mind, from a short story I was working on a few years back. That mental picture and background of the character were the basis we used to create a character. He was pretty insistent that we have a call and go through options. That was not an expected outcome of the day based on the start. They aren’t playing during the week this week because one guy is working nights but I’m scheduled to sit in on their next session. They suspect they’ll pull me in immediately, hence wanting to have a character ready. For any nerds out there I’m a Gith Fighter. When this was over I did a bit more reading on what we’d just done and then retired with some YouTube videos, which I’m well behind on.

Just Tuesday

Sleep wasn’t great. Not sure what the issue was, all conditions and settings were ideal for success but it was a whiff. As a consequence to this I started the day with a bit of a burr under my saddle and not feeling well prepared to face the day. I had some food and got to work on time. I had a series of calls separated by brief breaks to allow me to be productive between. I got more out of the calls then I expected and was fairly engaged the entire time despite feeling tired and cranky. I had leftovers for lunch, way too much. It was probably close to a double meal. I didn’t feel bad about it at all, that’s the worst part. I was in a mood by this point. I didn’t want to do the stuff I should have been working on so made some phone calls in the afternoon. I talked to a number of customers to check in and confirm some details. Most had questions for me and we got some other stuff moving too. It’s funny how we both had questions and needed information to execute our jobs but hadn’t reached out. It took me looking to side-step something for it to happen. I know why, it’s the schedule and the non-stop barrage of little things. The smallest of which get pushed off and people don’t connect because that is just something else in the schedule. It’s odd. As much as the picture I’m painting you is flattering and productive, I admittedly half-assed the afternoon. I did some reading and tried to setup some future items but mainly I was just keeping busy. By half four I couldn’t keep it together and went running to the basement. I had a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini, BBQ Chicken for dinner with the remainder of the leftovers and got back to my true passion, FS19. I made a couple of sizeable purchases and rebuilt my holdings. I got a new farm next to my existing land. I also have a new, more powerful tractor. That step enables me to upgrade my seed drill and possibly my tillage equipment. I previously bought the biggest fertilizer spreader and pimped it out with extensions, fancier spinners, etc. Part of my strategy this time is to do custom work through contracts to make money while my crops grow. Many of the easy ones are for fertilizing so I upgraded that equipment first to enable quicker execution of those, and thus faster money. I’ve picked out the new seed drill already too, I chose the largest one that works with my upgraded tractor. I just learned that you can customize things as you buy them. A miss on pimping out the tractor but everything else going forward is going to get maximum options. Either way, I played this game until half ten and was asleep around eleven.

Moving Thru Monday

Ever since the Family Day weekend where I got Monday off I’ve had a tough time really getting moving on Mondays. I think my brain really liked that three day weekend and the break it afforded me mentally. I was pretty sluggish out of the gate, depsite an adequate rest. I broke the fast with my usual breakfast, eaten quickly and powerfully before getting to work only minutes after eight. I got prepared for a half dozen meetings scheduled for the day, most of which were in the afternoon. Because something was slated over the noon hour I busted out at eleven and cleaned the driveway quickly and then got busy in the kitchen. I pan fried some bacon for their grease then I popped a couple of “sandwich steaks” (new cut?) into that pool. I over-cooked them but was fine with that. Hard not to with such thin meat. While the meat was toughening I prepared two of the small wraps from the last Family Feast. One I dressed with pesto and then topped with dijon mustard, the other I smeared with the pictured chipotle mayo spread. I warmed up some mushrooms after the steak was done to add some “beef” to the affair as well. You can see the spinach but likely can’t make out the single slice of bacon and half slice of monterrey jack cheese nestled under the steak and mushrooms. All in all the process went quicker than expected. If I was thinking I’d have put some slices of radish in there too. The running joke after our fish taco family feast is that we all bought a sack of radishes and used one. Now having to find more uses for the little things. This was an elaborate and tasty lunch that took the entire 45 minute break to create. I ate them hurriedly and made it back for the meeting.

The afternoon was chock full of meetings. One into the other, into the other. During one I was able to slip down and grab a new purchase. My new triple layered cotton masks have come in. I ordered a larger size than the standard to cover my giant face and oh boy does it. I had some comments that it was like I was wearing a diaper on my face. That’s pretty much the idea. I wanted to keep all my business in and keep all your business out. I wore it for awhile to get a feel for how well it works (camera off in the meeting) and it does warm the face quicker, to be expected but otherwise should be breathable enough for me to survive. Why, you’re thinking? Because the recommendations were updated to suggest that triple layer was a safer option so I’m going to switch to these. I got a three pack of them. Why wouldn’t I wear the appropriate protection? You don’t wear flip flops to your construction jobs? You don’t wear a bathing suit to go for a walk in a winter meadow. You don’t bare face it in the store. I’m still trying to flatten the curve I guess. I didn’t just get these, I got them previously but had washed them up to get the stank off them. They come from California and smelled like chemicals.

The meetings wrapped up at five and after another half hour or so of cleaning some issues I wandered down to the kitchen to follow up my elaborate lunch. The meal planning board said I should make bangers and chips. Mostly because I don’t have the stuff to make mash. I used the air fryer to quickly blast a package of sausages into submission. Actually, it was parts of a couple packages. You can see a hot italian on the right and a bacon and cheddar butcher style on the left. This is about one third of the fries I cooked. It took a couple batches and was annoying. With really working the air fryer so hard for this meal the kitchen got a bit of a stick to it. I turned on the super weak kitchen fan to fix it and descended out of the carnage.

The remainder of the evening was spent feeding my addiction. I was pretty surprised that I took the time to make supper. In years gone by I probably would have just grabbed something terrible and slinked downstairs. I’m talking about Farming Simulator 19 (FS19) of course. I did bring the Mini with me so I could watch the Leafs. As it turned out, TSN owned the regional TV rights and the broadcast that SN had was the Calgary broadcast, which was blacked out for my region. So I was forced to resort to radio online. Not that it would have mattered. We know what was going on the big screen. The Leafs sucked and lost. I bought focused on stockpiling money and crop inventory with eyes on some big purchases in the game. At least I’m using fake money to buy stuff now and not doing the in-app purchases from that game I started previously.

Suddenly Sunday

The day started late and it started slow. It was nearly ten by the time I’d awoken, cleaned up and got down for breakfast. Got eggos to use syrup. Didn’t feel like going to get the toaster so I used the air fryer to warm up breakfast. It worked perfectly and didn’t make enough of a mess to warrant having to clean it. Perfect!

I wanted to work on my meal plan for next week so I captured this plan of the week gone by for posterity, first one executed, and developed the new one from what I have on hand.

From there I went down and started FS19. I brought a jug of water and my audiobook. I was ready for the long haul. About half one I crawled back up (while letting the game ride, workers doing my tasks) and made some grub. I used the air fryer to make some tots and then layered them with salsa, shredded cheese and freshly chopped cilantro to make a yet unnamed masterpiece. I’m not sure what I did differently but it was excellent. Might have been the fresh herbs. I did some bird watching while I waited for it to cook. Also finished my audiobook and immediately started the next one in the trilogy. When the food was ready I scarfed it with a Dr Pepper in the basement and kept going on FS19. It was around six when I moved again. Grabbing a part bag of Cool Ranch Doritos and slipping back down. I wrapped it up at ten thirty. Got into bed and could hear loud talking or a movie from next door so I shuffled off the the guest room. It was not a productive day, but I did enjoy it, I think?

Self-indulgent Saturday

Saturday was not exactly about living my best life. I started the day by lingering in bed, something that has become more normal as the weeks of lockdown turned into months. I got myself cleaned up to face the day and broke my fast with a handful of Au Gratin chips and a couple of full slugs of water. After such a nutritious breakfast I tackled my MSC challenges and then dabbled in a Musing of the previous night’s meal. I kept the A/V train chugging by editing a couple of videos and posting them on YouTube. The first one is a collection of clips and stills from the previous night’s meal. I started filming it initially as a gag to make about hammering chicken but it expanded from there. I hope you enjoy.

The second video was just a quick time lapse of me finishing the painting a while back. By the time things were up and correctly posted it was lunch time and I warmed up some leftovers. I used the air fryer to reheat the chicken and it makes a noticeable difference. I think I was able to effectively re-create the dinner from the previous night.

After cleaning up my mess I returned to my computer and started playing Red Alert for the first time in months. It was a good time. I would have liked to read a book but I didn’t have one going so I reverted to my audiobook and sort of faded out into a quick nap. When I woke I felt like I needed to take on a productive project so I shovelled off part of the deck and created a trail to the bird feeder. I used this path to access it and refill it so the birds have a reliable food source through the winter months. I also tidied up the kitchen more and cleaned up some in the living room. Around half four I dusted the remainder of the bag of chips as a form of dinner and did something even more problematic. At five I unwrapped Farming Simulator 2019. This is something that I’ve been carefully avoiding since I got it for Christmas (at my request) a couple years ago. I had played the 2015 version on PC and had issues. I started playing immediately and didn’t stop. I ended up watching the Leaf game on the Mini. That’s how you know the game is problematic. I started with €99k and dipped down with equipment purchases and got myself back up close to the starting point by 1am. Went to bed shortly after. Yikes.

Another Family Feast Night

Day started normally. Shower etc. then breakfast, normal fare. I had woken early so was able to be at the helm for eight. I went through my regular Friday morning call with my USA colleagues. I worked on some items that had languished on the to-do list for a few weeks and got things whittled down nicely. I had a call with a colleague in Quebec for a spell and eventually talked hockey, trying to figure out why the Leafs would go after Galchenyuk. We’ll have to see I guess. The call ran past noon so lunch was a touch later than normal. It was comprised of a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini - Barbeque Chicken panini and a can of Campbell’s Chunky Butter Chicken and Vegetable soup. A filling and tasty repaste to be certain. The ease of preparation of the lunch and my speed of consumption meant that I had some extra time of my allotted forty five minute break. I did some preparation for the pending meal and filmed it. I may edit some things together later. Fuelled up and with a big mug of water I crawled back to my chair and got into the afternoon. I got a call from another colleague in Quebec who I hadn’t heard from in a spell and we got to talking. Mostly about work but I asked him some leading questions about a recent mishap he’d had. He broke his fibulia and tibia in a skiing accident and is still in the throes of the recovery. It was a pretty harrowing tale. After a lengthy chat that had us laughing our heads off at the end I got back to business. I prepared a couple of slide decks and scheduled some meetings for the following week. I answered some questions and posed some of my own to advance some topics and powered down at half four, having put together a full eight hour day of effort. I did my MSC challenges at this point and started to mentally prepare for the family feast to come. I got a call from a colleague down the road who was having a beer and wanted to chat, that took me right up to game time. We start at six, our time. This week my Sudbury sister had chosen Spicy Fried Chicken Sandwiches from the One and Done cookbook. I decided that I wouldn’t make the same slaw as the recipe called for as I hate onions and didn’t want to buy red wine vinegar for just this. I did the rest the same. Except I used red cabbage over green as I had some that hadn’t turned yet from the previous meal we made together. I can summarize that it is very spicy when you put extra cayenne and when you cut up a jalapeno that is about the size of an apple. The chicken was smooth and delicious thanks to the buttermilk bath it soaked in all afternoon. Take a look below at everyone’s version.

Photo credit: STL Sister, responded well to coaching.

Big T’s build

Mother’s more photogenic version

STL sister’s version

Sudbury sister’s overhead version. We chirped her for the photo

I made two and opened one up for your viewing pleasure

I was checking another app on my phone and absent mindedly swiped them all closed when I was done, effectively hanging up on my family. Not sure how the rest of their call went. I uploaded some video and photos to various places and had a short respite listening to my audiobook. At half eight my second video chat of the night commenced. Meat Man, Admiral Bonesaw, the Booj and I jumped on a call and Cheese joined later with a brief cameo by Two Glasses of Wine. We had a couple of drinks and mostly laughed it up remembering better times. Some of us hadn’t heard some stories and others revelled in the memories. I had two beers, matching my total from the previous night. They didn’t hit me as hard this time but I did get louder and ruder, cutting Meat Man off a couple of times (sorry buddy). Eventually the call wound to a close around eleven and I sought the comfort of my bed. I was shortly after eleven when I punched my ticket for the day and whizzed away into the land of nod.

An Enjoyable One

The day started early which made the late night all the more unpleasant. I had tossed and turned for some time, trying many thing to coax sleep to me, before finally passing out from sheer exhaustion. I flailed in bed for a while before accepting my fate and deciding that I did need to get groceries. With a family feast coming up tomorrow and no good opportunity in between to stock up I really had no choice. I made my complicated list and was out there door into the warmed up truck in no time. I had a low air warning on one of the tires but chose to ignore it for the short drive, it was fine, don’t worry, this isn’t foreshadowing. I mention it only because if I was making a run for it during a zombie apocalypse it could have been a problem. I stopped for a McBreakfast and got to Walmart shortly after eight, once again respecting the first hour of senior time. It wasn’t an exciting shop, I wandered around the part of the store I wasn’t buying anything from just to get some steps in while I was out and about. Naturally a customer called while I was out, I don’t get a call from anyone for weeks until I’m unable (unwilling) to answer. That’s the way of things. I got home and quickly stowed my goods in time to start work just after nine.

I powered through the morning and got pulled into a meeting before lunch. Eventually I went down to eat at half twelve with the previously moved meeting from earlier in the week looming at one. I slurped back another big bowl of soup, the last of it, and a pizza bun. Third day in a row for that combination. I treated myself to two Viva Puff cookies for dessert today, the benefit of grocery day. The call went by very quickly and I followed up with the host to offer my assistance on the project. Next there was a call I was looking forward to. One of my customers was having a virtual event that featured a beer tasting. The event itself was to introduce some opportunity to grow malt barley in Ontario. As such both the Big T and Jacko were on the call. It was a follow-up to the other one I’d referenced. It was pretty good, one presenter had some issues with connectivity it seemed but overall a good time. I thought it would be an hour, maybe ninety minutes but it lasted much longer than that, taking it right up to the end of the day. I drank the two beers that had been mailed to us previously and it all went straight into my face. I guess I’ll have to recover some tolerance before that goes away. It didn’t last as long this time. I know from incessantly checking with my phone. I had a little fire to put out before powering down and I’ll see tomorrow what I did. I was fairly tipsy after those beers so it might be exciting.

It was half five when I galloped down the stairs to start dinner. The amended plan said that tonight was the night for the coconut shrimp. I’ve had the shrimp in the freezer for months now and finally was getting around to making it. I set up my breading stations and took my time preparing the meal, savouring it. The consumption saw much less care and patience. They were perfect. I left the shrimp in the sink all day today to allow them to fully thaw this time. I’ll have to get some more to try it again. When dinner was cleaned up I ascended to work on some Musings and then recalled the Leafs were on again. So I settled in to watch them light it up.

Good Corporate Citizen

It wasn’t the greatest sleep I’ve ever been associated with but it seemed to have been adequate as my body woke before seven. My brain quickly followed. The early start meant that I was done breakfast and cleaned up ahead of eight so started work early too. I didn’t feel like I had any pressing, tight deadline things on my plate and that was odd. I worked on cleaning up some files to be more accurate and then started doing a deeper dive on our database to clean out some long standing annoyances to me. I had a call at ten for an hour and that was followed immediately but a call with a coworker that handles some things for me in Canada occaisionly. I wanted to talk through some things to get aligned rather than sending a dozen emails that were just slightly off the mark for a couple of weeks. Sometimes it is better to be direct. That brought me right up until lunch as the call spilled over time. Today was the same as the past few days, a giant bowl of the soup I’d made over the weekend and a pizza bun that was about to go off. In fact, I had to pick some suspicious looking white pieces off it. They could have been flour from the orginal preparation but I’m not taking that chance. Warming up soup and scarfing a bun didn’t take very long so with the extra time I went out to clean up the sintered snow that the plow had unceremoniously dumped into my clean driveway the previous night after everyone had gone to bed for the evening. I heard it happen. It was a pretty serious workout. Especially because on one side I have to toss it over my head and the other side is waist deep but the pile comes to a defined peak now. Unless we do something we’re going to be short on space soon. While I was out and about I thought I’d march up to the mail box and get some justified exercise. When I got to the corner I saw that the efforts to clear the sidewalk stopped. Someone had cleared it except the last four or five feet, or more likely the plow had filled it back in. Regardless I decided that I would go back and get my shovel and rectify this. There was a layer of ice underneath and it was a challenge to clear out. I manged to get them all cleaned back a way and in a state where nobody should have to step through deep snow to get through. I saw that most people were walking out into the street or using the other side exclusively so hopefully my efforts are appreciated. It was a good workout for me. I told my family when I got back in the house. Mostly so if I expired from my exertion that they’d have a reason for my sudden demise. The Big T said that my grandpa would say I was being a good corporate citizen and be proud of me. I really appreciated that and needed it more than I would have guessed. Re-invigourated by that I got back to work ahead of one. I worked on some of the stuff that came up in the alignment meeting until a Zoom call about gene editing. It was very general but also quite interesting. I was able to get caught up on Canada’s position on the topic. We have none. After this I cruised to the end of the day updating files for the new year. I actually ended things off a bit early due to the early start in the morning and was able to clear my available MSC challenges before heading down for dinner. I stuck to the meal plan and prepared a soft taco bake kit. I’m pretty cheap so I used pork as my meat component. It was pretty fantastic. After finishing my portion and stowing the rest I cleaned up, ate a handful of marshmallows as a makeshift dessert and headed down to watch the Leafs with my eyes rather than just my ears. The game went well this time and when it was over I made my way to my bed to toss and turn.

Snow Dump

The days started by busting loose from a big, thick sleep. Last night I was lulled to sleep peacefully by Joe Bowen amidst the epic collapse of my beloved Leafs. Luckily I didn’t have to hear the final moments and instead faded off into a full night of sleep and rest. When I woke up my heart was broken and my driveway was filled with snow. A lot of snow! We got over a foot of the white stuff and the trickery of the wind made it deeper in my driveway. The plow helped with that also by folding over a nice wave of sintered snow. I was not excited to take that one. First it was imperative to start the day with a hearty breakfast since I didn’t know what was going to happen. I had a lighter morning and felt like I was obligated to clear out the driveway and make the sidewalk passable for all the people needing to get out and exercise. The breakfast went off as planned, the usual fare. It looked extra good today so while it was cooling I snapped a picture.

When the feeding and cleaning was done I ventured out to work on the driveway. It was windy and blustery and I knew that more snow would trickle in but I wanted to make a start of it, primarily to clear the sidewalk. I’m not sure why that was such a priority but it HAD to be done no matter what. I worked away for thirty or forty minutes and I had cleared a path to the sidewalk and then a path down the middle of it across my property to the neighbour’s drive on either side. I was beat, turns out inactivity affects your stamina for phyical endeavours. I was about to pack it in and saw lady down the way was stuck in the end of the driveway. She didn’t properly shovel the sintered snow and got her car hung up. One of those “I have all wheel drive, I can do anything people”. That’s now fair, she was nice enough, just didn’t understand how she was stuck and was stressed about getting to work, first day back and all. I tried to shove her loose from the front but she was truly hung up and spinning three tires, the fourth was resting. I cleared around the back tires and worked at pushing her back forward into her properly cleaned driveway. I eventually got her back to square one and we dunged out the end better. She was fine after that. I had to be careful working around the Infiniti since I know what repairs cost on those from earlier life experiences. I got back and saw that the snow had filled back in everywhere except the sidewalk. I couldn’t tell what I’d shovelled for the most part so I hung my head in shame and went inside to start work and catch my breath. I was able to get powered up and running in time for my 10am webinar. When it ended I got ready for a longer meeting and for an even longer one after that. By the time I was able to stop for lunch it was two and I had the last meeting left. I guess I was on mountain time. Just as I was doing the dishes my two hour meeting for the rest of the day got moved. This meant I could get back to my shoveling. I worked at it a while and when I was thoroughly gassed, I took the opportunity with the sun being out still to work on the snow blower. I didn’t have the right oil so I simply gave it a shake to mix up the gas and set about starting it. It took about five pulls to catch. I think mostly it wasn’t drawing fuel initially. I’d done from the sidewalk to the house and only had the last six feet or so. The pile got higher and higher on the one side and I got caked in snow from the light breeze in my face. I tried going with the wind but that would have filled the neighbour’s driveway up. When it was all dunged out I took a walk up to the mailbox and plucked out a waiting package before returning to work.

I felt like I needed to make up some time for work, having been outside for more than an hour twice during the day. I went at it until minutes ahead of six before powering down. Amazingly it was still light out when I got back downstairs and I noticed a larger bird at my feeder. It appeared to be a cardinal. I couldn’t get a great look at it since it was being cagey and hiding on the far side. I watched it for several minutes afterwards and just took some time to sit and enjoy nature after having battled it for a large portion of the day.

I was supposed to have coconut shrimp for dinner but in all the frustrating snow nonsense I neglected to take the shrimp out so had to switch over to chicken wings, which were thawed. I made a baker’s dozen with rough half in a spicy gar par sauce (left) and the remainder sauced with Sweet Baby Ray’s BBQ sauce (right). It was half seven when I finished the cleanup and I shut it down. I got ready for bed and climbed in. YouTube then my audiobook rounded out a day with much more physical exertion than usual.