Quick and Quiet Tuesday

The day started before seven and hand most of the usual start. I decided to have a weirder and smaller breakfast today to try something different. I had some milk that was set to expire and another container that was only a handful of days behind that. I have been shopping every two weeks in the pandemic, as you know and try to buy the milk that is the furthest out from expiry. This would suggest that I got lucky one time and not so much the next. It’s the luck of the draw for that kind of thing. The food was leaner and meaner, in that it was faster to eat and less clean-up.

I was able to get to my desk ahead of eight and immediately tucked into a pile of emails that had flooded my inbox the night before. I hate getting the post six emails, I figure that my workday is over and so should it be for everyone else. That is not the case with timezones. The emails got folded into my list of lingering items to cover off. That list kept me hopping all morning. I felt unleashed. For months I’ve had a few larger, intense projects looming over me and I’m finally free of most of the them, or mostly free of them and I can rip through everything else now. I was invigourated and enjoying it. I made a round of calls to my contacts to check in with them, not to give them bad news but just to ask a couple harmless questions. That alone was a relief, finally I’m not bringing them pain. Late morning I had my one scheduled item of the day, a call with my team that went well over time. It ran right into lunch, which was late as a result. I nuked a healthy dose of leftover gutfill gumbo and it did as the name suggests and filled my guts right up. The afternoon was spent on some mindless tasks that I have to do annually. That provided me the freedome to listen to my accumulated podcast queue and get those cleared. Towards the end of the day I got a call that cruised me into the finish line for the workday. Dinner was simple and involved filling my guts again with leftover gutfill. I played some HomeScapes after that and then YouTube and then audiobook. There were things that I should have been doing but just didn’t. Future Tugboat may have issue with that. We were supposed to have a group chat with my old chum Villnerd and some others (the Sexy Bitch and Admiral Bonesaw) but it had to be moved to the following week. That will be something to look forward to whilst on vacation, asssuming they include me in the plan for Monday night. Bed was around the right time. Much like the breakfast, the day was fast, painless and lacked substance.

A Monday

Regular breakfast. Strong start, early out of bed. At the helm ahead of eight. The day was pretty typical of a Monday. Two meetings in the morning snd setting up some other things in the week took out most of the morning. It honestly flew by and there is not much to say about it. Lunch came on quickly and consisted of some soup. I had another meeting right after lunch and a second afternoon engagement right after that. The rest of the after was fairly open. I spent part of it on the horn with a colleague discussing this long term project we were wrapping up. He shared his edits with me and I spent most of the rest of the day implementing them. It involved making a change and then pulling something again and adjusting the final aspects manually. We finished soybean and I had corn ready for his final review by the end of the day. It was one of those mindless tasks where you just zone out and lose yourself in the work and the next thing you know the day is gone. I powered down at half five and scrambled to the kitchen. I snapped a picture of last week’s board before working on the new one. A day late, I know, but still, I did well last week, only missing the Friday night meal out of sheer laziness. You’ll recall that I made up for that later.

There was a point on the weekend that I was messaging Theodore Complete and the topic of the Tugboat’s Gutfill Gumbo came up. He was unfamilar and I guess that resulted in enough inspiration for me to make it. I also had some ground turkey that needed using up. If you are also not familiar with this culinary explosion then you should check out one of my first ever videos and see what a rank amateur can do without a recipe or basic understanding of making a watchable video. I should re-do that one with more effort. Maybe later this summer. The breakfast samidge vidja also deserves a better fate.

I had no plans for after dinner and that resulted in me doing very little. I started working on my mental list of what to pack but otherwise didn’t accomplish much, outside of taking down a jag of my audiobook. Bedtime came around ten and sleep was a bit after that.

Sunday on the Rails

Another full sleep got put in the books when I opened my eyes moments before seven this morning. I listened to a podcast for most of that hour before rising to eat some leftovers and perogies for breakfast. The Big T has been posting his Sunday breakfast for a few weeks so I followed his choice. Except I made mine in the air fryer which only takes nine minutes at 400F and cooks them just as nice. I added a sprinkle of cheese rather than the onions he used. It was a nice start to the day. I popped on my crocs and went for a short walk up to the mailbox while enjoying my audiobook. My new headphones had died just as I went out the door so I grabbed my ear buds. Nice to have a spare set of portable listening enablers. There was nothing important in the mail except a hydro bill for me to pay. I watered the plants and came back in. It was some kind of sticky out today. I opened the upper windows in the house to air things out and to further expose myself to pollen. My medication is holding strong, only some minor gooey flow from my nose, no itchy eyes or violent sneezing yet.

Around eleven I cut the lawn. This further tested my medication, to the breaking point. There was a lot of vigorous nose blowing afterwards. It takes me a lot of convincing to actually cut the grass. This round it took me three or four days to work up the courage or gumption to actually do the deed. Also, I got a serious sweat on. I had to take some time to recover after struggling out of my shirt prison. Next up on the list was to tackle gnocchi again.

I had been hesitant because I lacked the broccoli rabe or even the broccoli required for the recipe. After sitting and enjoying my book for roughly a half hour I tackled that recipe and it turned out great. To recover I returned to my lair for more FS19. That are many hours. I disgustedly turned it off around six when I realized I’d accidentally planted two crops in all my fields. I didn’t realize that one planter was doing corn and one soybean. What a disaster future Tugboat will have to deal with. Dinner was a couple ice cream samidges and a half dozen warmed up perogies. YouTube in the bed followed until the Chef called to chat. After that I took a run at some HomeScapes and then just focused on my book until sleep came. It was fantastic. A very relaxing and enjoyable day of rest.

Sultry Saturday

I slowly emerged from a thick and heavy sleep around seven but wasn’t able to get my feet under me until closer to eight. I was in no rush. I had several prospective things I wanted to accomplish over the course of the day but knew in my heart that I would be hard-pressed to do any of them. In no particular order, I wanted to catch up on Musings, I’d squandered some early week momentum in the back half. I wanted to raise up the mower and do a light trim, the weeds were getting fairly rampant and I was concerned about stressing the grass. We’ve not had regular rain and after last summer I’m gun shy and worried that it will burn off again. I wanted to make an elaborate breakfast using the instant pastry I had in the fridge for a week. And I wanted to work on the boat, namely to finally finish removing the foam from the one side of the seats. It is a pretty good sized list but I figured it was for the entire weekend, and still knew that I wouldn’t do it all. My lack of motivation that has multiplied in the pandemic is astounding. I’m getting genuinely concerned about my recovery to regular laziness. Rather than tie into that list, the first thing I did was set about clearing my MSC challenges from the last week. I sparked up my audiobook, assume it is running for most of the rest of the morning. I’d been caught up last Sunday on the challenges so only have a handful to deal with. Only a couple Expert level tests slowed me up. I knocked all these out ahead of ten. I was starting to feel the void within me growing and deigned to stuff some food into it. Since one of the items on my list was to tackle those pastries I did just that. I started off the way I would a breakfast burrito, with four strips of bacon sizzled until crispy and then two chorizo sausages mashed up. My four egg scramble was then added along with the crushed up bacon. Top that mixture with cheese and you’re done the filling. For Pilsbury Grands you put some cheese and a 1/4 cup of filling at the wide end and roll it up, tucking in the sides. For Pilsbury Crescents you do the same but with a teaspoon of filling. Cook the pastry as the packaging instructs, cool, and enjoy. I decided to enjoy on my deck with some water, raspberry lemonade and a Blue Colt.

It was just starting to get steamy out when I’d finished and I was feeling very relaxed with a full belly and from the nicotine. I was so relaxed that I found myself feeling sleepy and got to my bed in time to pass out for a nice nap. Not a long one, but a deep one. I had to find my place in the audiobook upon waking and continue my day. I played some HomeScapes to avoid getting up and doing anything productive. I was going to go get the mail but my brain felt it was going to be too sticky by now so decided to just languish for a few minutes. Closer to two I re-heated some of the leftovers from breakfast and descended into the lair. The audiobook went off at this point and I settled in with my lunch to watch the new Bo Burnham special, Inside. I enjoyed it, it was very creative and somewhat alarming. It was like watching someone try really hard to go crazy. I hope he’s alright, he has an interesting perspective that we shouldn’t lose. Since I was locked in at this point I decided to explore some more psychological thrilling stuff and watched the movie Glass, which I hadn’t yet seen. I’d watched the first two films in this series and felt I should see the finale. It left me in a strange mood. I had an ice cream sandwich to calm myself and then jumped into Rocknrolla. I’d seen it before but the teaser and the time that had passed since made me want to rewatch it. I didn’t regret it. It ended just ahead of ten and I went to bed. I fell asleep shortly after listening to my audiobook.

Eager Friday

Friday started and I could feel that I was at the end of something. I didn’t know why but had a feeling that things were about to wrap up and start a new chapter. The usual morning routine and usual morning breakfast started my day. I had some juice along side my water and made sure to fill my thermos to the top. I was keen to stay well hydrated today.

I started thinking about my afternoon plans as I sat down for work and in hindsight I probably shouldn’t have. I reviewed some files and got prepared for the first meeting of the day. The customers talked for nearly triple their allotted time and we ran long too. It was a long and painful meeting, only because I was yearning to do other things. And they talked about canola a lot, the other crop that I don’t really work with. During the call I setup the release of my last winter seed item that is getting planted. The end of my marathon, gruelling spring was finally here! Also making it tough was that the DnD gang was asking some questions and having some dialogue about topics pertaining to the game. I was trying to ignore them but got swept in and ended up doing some rolling to help figure some stuff out. It was during canola parts, relax! That meeting ran into the next one, which went incredibly fast with interesting and engaging discussion. I had a quick chat with a colleague after and then I was free. I ripped down to the kitchen to make a late lunch, it was nearly two at this point of the day. I had a can of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Rice soup and extra water. My next move was supposed to be to cut the grass. Instead I found myself on my bed playing HomeScapes and listening to my audiobook. Then I feel asleep. I’m not sure how long I napped exactly but I woke up to a raging thunderstorm. That is disorienting and a bit scary. It was around five. So much for the lawn plans. I headed to the kitchen but instead of making the intimidating gnocchi I was supposed to, I bailed and had some chips, cookies and a granola bar. Just a pile of garbage for dinner. It was after six when I’d finished grazing and I went back to the Mini for some YouTube. Then audiobook later in the evening. It was half nine when I passed out, waking up a few hours later for a few minutes before being dragged back under. My hellacious spring was over. My big meetings were over. My document preparation was all but over. I felt like I’d moved past something and could really relax and enjoy myself, and in this instance, that meant sleeping.

Sleepy Thursday

I started the day emerging from a refreshing sleep, the first time in a while that I can say that. I have been struggling to find sleep at night and I started thinking about some of the parameters that I could adjust. This year I’d found myself eschewing my usual pajama pants for just drawers and a shirt, or just drawers. I started to question the temperature that I was finding myself in that led to that decision. I had been chatting with the Chef and posed the question to him, about what temperature he set to sleep. It was well below where I was. I then recalled that I’d adjusted my setting this spring to reflect the rising energy costs brought about the carbon tax. I’ve commented on this greedy tax previously and won’t now. After consulting with the Chef I decided that for my own mental health and well being I would adjust the temperature. Based on the pain and aches in my neck area I decided to evaluate the effectiveness of my pillow next. My main pillow had been disintegrating slowly all year. The cover got a rip in it that just got worse with time, eventually it would slough off like dead skin and leave me with only a thinning layer of cotton between my face and the horrors within. Recently I’ve given up on the sheath and just just used it in this fashion. I think some lumps or cracks are forming that leave me sleeping on a rough edge rather than a smooth, firm surface. As such, I’ve decided to switch it out for my backup, aka the other one on my bed. I wanted to get a fresh pillow a month or two back but we haven’t been allowed to buy anything outside of food in stores so I’ve found myself in this predicament. The switch in pillow seemed to help in attaining a proper sleep. Hopefully this is a consistent result.

As for the day itself, nothing exciting that I can tell you about. I had my normal breakfast and then went to work for a morning of virtual training before lunch. I had eight minutes for lunch today and managed to consume a Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Chicken Parmesan panini in that time before running back up to my computer for a pair of customer meetings in the afternoon. They weren’t overly exciting, although I had more fun in the first one than the latter. When they ended I wandered around the kitchen for a bit. I had put leftovers as my option and I didn’t have a lot of them. I decided to use this free pass to knock out some loaded tots. I cooked the bag and separated out a portion into the fridge before eating the gooey mess in the photo. That capped off the business end of the day.

The evening was a bit more eventful than normal. I had got a request from my GM to do a more specific job of describing my character’s appearance and gear. He asked me specifically about the armour, weapon and shield he’d normally sport. I shared a couple of photos of what I felt the armour would entail and a couple of the sword, including something that would be carved into the blade. I also chose a shape and style for the shield he carries. I added a rune to that, this one meaning stone, apt for a protective device. I added a couple of characters that would be on the shoulders of the armour to deepen the personal meaning of it. With the research and the sketching I did, I probably burned an hour or two of my evening. I then went and tidied the trash in the garage to get ready for garbage day. The last hours of my day were spent catching up on YouTube that I’d missed and listening to some podcasts that were showing up late because Apple podcasts is getting worse and worse. I was tired and excited to get another strong sleep so I feel asleep early.

Hump Bump

The day started around half six and was wrought with some minor head and neck pain and overall grogginess. Some stretching and a hot shower relieved most of that unpleasantness. That allowed me to go get into breakfast. The normal meal with a glass of raspberry lemonade today. While I waited for the samidges to cool I freshened the clothes in the dryer. After cleaning up I took a few minutes to get that load folded and stowed. That put me at my desk shortly after eight. The morning was lined up for a number of breakout sessions and then some customer meetings in the afternoon. The speakers were excellent and the content was moved through with attention retaining speed. The keynote speaker from the previous day returned to have a separate session and I found that very interesting again. I only got to start the last breakout before having to jump over to a customer meeting. They had a lot of new faces so we had to do the classic roundtable exercise. I generally hate that and find it a waste of time. It would be nice if someone knew that was coming and pulled together a quick dossier for everyone. Headshot and the three generic lines you say every time: your title, where you’re based and a concise description of how you relate to them. It would save fifteen minutes and a lot of awkward guessing who was going next. Anyways, before that meeting had got started I slipped downstairs and warmed up the last two pizza buns for lunch and watered the flowers. I figured it was supposed to rain so may as well water them now to make that a certainty. I chortled down the grub just ahead of the meeting. That one ran into the next and then that one ran over time. I was ready to pack it in at five but got a call to pull me closer to half five. Then I was talking to the Chef about how knows what while I started working on my dinner. It was cardboard pizza night, like all Wednesdays now. I added the cheese and planned the Cholula. I rammed it in the oven and it was done while I was still talking to the Chef. I couldn’t figure out what else to add and then I realized I had some Great Value brand Jalapeno Cheddar Cheese Crunchies in the cupboard and it would be awesome to sprinkle some of those over the top. I made sure to drink extra water when taking this meal down.

I listened to a very interesting episode of a new podcast. The episode and possibly the season are focused on a girl’s disappearance from my home town. I am familiar with the location, the story, the names. It’s very interesting, as I say. I’m learning some new theories and details I hadn’t heard before. The podcast is called The Next Call and is done by a big time CBC investigative podcaster. It is weekly, I’m already looking foward to learning more next week. When that was done it was time to prepare for the weekly D&D session, another weekly item that I look forward to. And for damn good reason this week. We made some questionable decisions last week and apparently have squandered an opportunity in doing so. We won’t know what until the campaign is over. We had quietly worked out some semblances of plan during the week between sessions and by some strange miracle we mostly pulled it off. It wasn’t a great plan but some key improvisations and solid rolls saw us through. We didn’t get to do exactly what we hoped afterwards but it was an amazing session. My face hurt from laughter afterwards. I think we surprised the GM again this week with our schemes. I even got an inspiration point to use. Next week promises to be just as interesting. When it ended my mind was racing and it took me until quarter to eleven to find sleep.

Gifty Tuesday

Rough start today. My brain server powered on at half six this morning but wasn’t able to engage my muscular skeletal systems until after seven. There was a sluggish element to it once engaged also. Showering and dressing was uneventful. Breakfast consisted of the leftover breakfast potatoes with a blast of three cheese ranch over the top. I’d argue that it was a form of potato salad but the feedback was contrary. I got to work a few minutes after eight and started preparing for my morning long meeting. It will be US centric but I’ll be asked to provide feedback on it so I have to pay attention. Should be able to snag some speaking points or nuggets to use or at least reference. In the blink of an eye the morning had passed. The only interruption was when I hustled down to the basement to move the laundry over from the washer to the dryer. The first customer meeting started around noon so I nabbed a couple pizza buns just ahead of noon and refilled my empty thermos. Water consumption was higher this morning. The meeting ran into the next one. During that second meeting the doorbell rang and I had a package.

This is the package that we sent out to customers as a thank you for working with us as well as for attending the meetings this week. There is a nice water bottle, some wireless headphones to use in work from home settings, some treats, and a sweet LED flashlight and electronic lighter combo. That means I have two e-lighters now. Excellent. There was a nice letter also. Pretty sweet package. Not longer after there was another package delivered with a fancy d20 that I ordered last week. It’s only marginally bigger than what I had. An unexpected win is that I can use the box the snacks came in as a dice tray. I just need to figure out how to add foam or something in the bottom to soften the rolls. Fun afternoon anyways. I ended my day with a meeting trying to explain to internal teams what issues the customers are having with their output. It caught them off guard, not the most fun. The work day ended at half five. Theodore Complete had previously taunted me with a photo of his lovely BBQ’d and that served as extra motivation to prepare what the board wanted me to make. I had purchased some chicken souvlaki, mainly for the sticks, in case I was in a pinch for the Family Feast. I sparked the BBQ and cooked these up, to perfection naturally. While cooking I grabbed my shears and started clipping big weeds around the fence to clean up the look of the yard. The grass is ready to be clipped but I’m waiting for a rain to ensure I don’t stress it. There are weeds, but it’s alright.

I crushed some of these with a small pile of iceberg lettuce I thought to have after I had mangled things. It was a nice meal despite the simplicity. I’m not sure if it was the day of meetings or the heat from my half hour outside but I was tired. I climbed into the cloud not long after dinner again. This is something I should try and change. I watched a lot of YouTube and then learned about my new gifts. I got the headphones working and figured out the lighter. The headphones are decent, not spectacular but amazing cause it was free. I tried playing a few songs to gauge the quality. I found myself energized, probably with excitement of a new toy. Eventually I found myself cleaning up my podcast queue and fading off into sleep. It was shortly after ten when my eyes closed fully.

Only Work

Interesting start this morning. Awake at half six after a long sleep but wasn’t feeling amazing yet. I might be slowly dying. Hot shower and dressed for meetings in quick order but had to lay down for a few minutes. Probably dehydrated still. I made the traditional breakfast with an adjustment. Minutia alert! I did the majority of dishes while I waited for them to cool this time. Generally that happens at the end, this could save a lot of times wiping the machine was a mistake though, it was still piping hot. The rings were easy enough to clean though. Might try this again to consolidate the process. The efforts did pay-off as I was at work on time and able to print and review my speaking points for my section of the presentation I would be giving multiple times this week. We’re meeting with our customers individually in conjunction with a larger meeting our US colleagues conduct for their customers. It is a big effort and provides a lot of useful information and updates to help the customers run their business. Usually it involves a trip to STL or somewhere neat. Last year we were supposed to go to Kansas City, but COVID crushed that. I started my weekly meeting with the local team and then moved into these meetings. I got a short fifteen minute break for lunch. I scarfed down two pizza buns, not as good as the previous batch, and hustled back. I did take a picture of my meal board from last week. I made a huge improvement week to week, hitting the mark every day. I’m hoping to build on the momentum.

I ate most of my lunch back at my desk as we started into the next meeting. The afternoon was all meetings and then a few follow up calls to take my up towards half five. I powered down and my body wanted me to shut it down. I chose to put some breakfast potatoes in the air fryer instead. That wasn’t going to be much of meal though so I called an audible and whipped up some sausage and cheese breakfast stackers. This was a filling and fast meal. I took a couple photos and couldn’t narrow it down, even with She’s help, as to which to use so I posted both. I think I prefer the potatoes in the foreground.

I’d love to order this in a restaurant someday. Cheap and easy, have it scalable by the stacker (with an upper limit) and have a challenge for seven stackers and triple the potato pile. Have a time limit and a prize for individuals only. This would be cool for a pub. A group of hungover pals could stumble in and order a platter of this too to share. I think it would be awesome, do you? Comment below.

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The rest of the evening was me giving into my body’s whims. I went to my bed and layed down. I tried HomeScapes but refused to pay anything so it was short lived. I watched some YouTube and nearly fell asleep at half eight. Instead I watched some videos about Heart and Nancy Wilson. Heart is secretly one of the most iconic and prolific rock bands EVER. A long string of hits, respect of their peers and longevity. No wonder they were inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame in 2013. Very impressive. I fell asleep around half nine. Apparently just ahead of the Chef calling to chat at 9:38pm. My scheduled Do Not Disturb had kicked on so I didn’t even get to hear it and groggily answer. I woke up after eleven and saw the miss but didn’t want to call in the middle of the night. Guess I’ll do that early in the morning. The day felt like mostly work, I’m sure that trend will continue.

Unpleasant Sunday

Sunday was not a good day for the Tugboat. In the night I had a bout of what I’m considering acid reflux. Around two I woke suddenly choking on something burning and struggled to recover. It was terrifying. You’ll remember that this happened two other times so far in 2021, both after a late meal that featured unhealthy food. This time and the previous were related to spicy chips actually. I think I will have to be more conscious in the future. I chewed two Tums and used the bathroom for all conceivable uses and tried to get back to sleep. There was a revving engine outside so I looked to see a big, jacked up pickup a few doors down where a guy was helping someone who looked dangerously drunk into the house. Then I heard a woman shouting. I’m guessing that guy gave up COVID and got bombed with the boys. Too soon. I nabbed a few short bursts of sleep but was feeling like trash come morning. It was around nine when I finally pulled myself together to get out of bed. I showered, dressed and fired up my audiobook. I went to the kitchen and had some leftover tots and Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Chicken Parmesan panini. A weird breakfast. I also had a few spoonfuls of plain Greek yogurt, hoping it could help settle my guts. Lots of water was required too. I did my MSC challenge and watered the plants but was not able to really get my day going. Just ahead of noon I found myself back in bed and was able to get a nap, a good one. It was after two when I came back to life. I had a couple handfuls of chips and more water and was starting to feel alive again. I started the laundry and cleaned a bathroom. I finished book 8 of the series and started book nine. I took some time to do some computing and changed loads. I then played a lot of HomeScapes in my bed. I wasn’t able to sleep again. After that it was dinner time. I wrapped up some leftover meats with lettuce and monterey jack cheese. One had green yogurt with it and the other I used chipotle mayo. Very filling and tasty. I included a closeup shot of the leftovers from Friday.

After dinner I brushed my teeth and then trimmed my mustache. I wish I could have got a haircut. I have meetings all day, every day next week and would have preferred to look presentable. I played a bit more HomeScapes until I’d unlocked a new area. I’m sad to say I spent more money on it. Bad! Around seven I did some calisthenics to get the blood pumping. I need to shake off the hangover type feeling I’ve had all day. It didn’t seem to work. I had more water and settled in to my book and an early bedtime.

Quiet Saturday

The day started at the normal time. Then I realized it was the weekend I rolled back over and listed to some podcasts. I had a handful stacked up to knock down and did that before getting cleaned up and facing the day. I started by working on my MSC challenges. I was well behind in those and enjoyed my audiobook while I played. Then I had to work on the mountain of Musings that had accumulated all week. I got partway done those and felt I should have some food. I was starting to feel hungry. I cooked up a big dose of perogies and decided to eat them on the deck. I put in my earphones and grabbed a glass of pink lemonade and some water and sat out to get some vitamin D. It was already feeling warm when I was out there around half ten.

I came back in and cleaned up before going back after the Musings. Some breaks were taken during the process but it was close to two by the I finished things. I had some water and a couple handfuls of chips. Then I went to the basement and fired up FS19. I harvested all my fields and planted them again. This was taking a very long time and requiring a lot of management. I decided to duplicate my planting setup and bought a second tractor and drill. When I finished I bought several sheds to put my equipment in and installed a new pressure washer. I’ve got quite a setup now. I hauled some grain and made a lot of money. My bins are still full of inventory. Things are looking good. I powered that off around nine and tied into some spicy chips and Dr Pepper. Not much of a dinner but I wanted it. I tucked into bed to watch some YouTube. It was a very quiet day that saw me fade to sleep around eleven.

Feastly Finish

There was an Amber Alert in the night that roused me from my slumber at 4:11am. The neighbour loudly watching something with the sound up kept me from gracefully dipping back into it. I was able to find my way to the silent halls of sleep again but it wasn’t without difficulty and trial. When my eyes regained conscious sight it was exactly two hours after the initial interruption. That was all well and good because I needed to be up early on this day, there was errands to complete. I had four goals for leaving my home on this day. One was to collect a week’s worth of mail and pay any bills contained therein. Second was to fill the tank of my truck with fuel to replace that which was expended earlier in the week. Third was a McBreakfast to treat myself. And the most critical of the tasks was to revitalize my stocks by getting groceries. I had some specific items to purchase to enable myself for the pending family feast scheduled for later in the day. I had pushed this trip to the eleventh hour because with a new company edict of “meeting free Fridays” the obligations I normally would have had Friday morning were torn asunder. I did forgo the second objective due to a heavy amount of construction around the gas station I frequent and being unwilling to seek an alternative I took the cowards way out and ran from that responsbility. The rest was a success, as evidenced by my pictured bounty below.

The morning errands resulted in a later start to the day but that would end up being inconsequential in the end. I was at work for nine and started working on my on-going project immediately. It is the kind of thing where you make changes in one screen but are unable to see the final product until you save it and open the new file. So each time you find a mistake you have to go make the change, pull it again and check. This makes for a fairly time consuming and dull process. Needless to say, I was thrilled to be working on such a mindless task. With my audiobook accompanying me, it was the kind of morning I very much enjoy. I completely lost myself in the task, working to perfect the output. Only later in the night did I dream that I could be really customizing the report with more logos and colours. Maybe for next year. Just before lunch I had a call (not a meeting) with a colleague to try and force some action on an invoicing question that had come up. She knows the right people to kick to get stuff moving. By the end of the day the act of her setting up a meeting for next week had got someone out of their stupour and incited some action. It’s fun to learn what buttons to push to make the system work. When lunch rolled around I remembered this time what I wanted to have and enjoyed some Our Finest Chicken Pad Thai. It was hot and delicious. It was one by the time I started into this treat though and technically I was supposed to be on summer hours for the afternoon, especially since I’d piled up more than the requiste number of hours to enjoy that. But with a full belly I climbed back into the saddle.

I wanted to keep working on my project with the aim of getting one crop mostly done to the point that I could submit it for review and proofing to a collegue who traditionally serves that purpose in the project. The time was flying by and before I realized, it was half three. I shared what I had for both crops and then kept working. It was nearly five by the time I decided that my day was at an end. I powered down and snuck to the kitchen for a quick snack of some chips and a maple creme cookie. I also started to review the recipe for the evening’s meal and lay out some of the necessary ingredients. I sat on the couch and listened to my audiobook with my eyes closed for a spell. At half five the family was getting restless to start but my youngest sister in Sudbury was nowhere to be found and we couldn’t reach her. Mother decided that we’d start and she could catch up, a bold move. Tonight’s meal was Turkey Kofta Kebab Lettuce Wraps from the Skinnytaste One and Done book. It featured ground turkey with an array of spices and fresh herbs combined into a patty. The idea is to form them around a skewer and grill them in some fashion to cook them. I was without skewers due to a moral dilemma. I could reach a few feet into a closed aisle in the store and grab them but feared rejection, reprisal, or dismissal at the cash for doing so. But they were so close to the edge, taunting me. Turns out Mother didn’t want to skewer hers either so we ended up comprising half the group who eschewed the grill in favour of the air fryer versus the other half who followed the recipe. That decision had mixed results. We all skipped the step of letting the meat rest for thirty minutes in its new shaped form. Here are the results

Parents effort. They used ground chicken and the air fryer.

Sudbury sister grilled her’s. She had the best looking kofta balls.

The first round for the Tugboat.

The second round for the Tugboat.

STL sister had some issues with her pre-soaked skewers and the new BBQ.

STL sister’s finished product. They were very excited about using their grill.

We chatted, laughed, and did virtual tours until half seven and then we parted ways. I was full and didn’t want to start anything new. There were Musings that needs my attention and the boat is in perpetual need of my efforts. Instead I decided to watch some YouTube and get to bed early. I did end up working on some website based things but had a very quiet evening and an early bedtime. Hoping to finally get a big sleep in. The day as a whole was a nice finish to the week.

Calm Thursday

This day saw me up early but I didn’t get up until seven. No shower. Got back to normal breakfast. Work at eight. Call at nine, losing a colleague. Unexpectedly had to chat with global lead of my function. Hair was greasy and weird. The one day I don’t shower, naturally. Very good and productive meeting. Worked away for a couple hours and then had to scramble to cobble together an early lunch. Warmed up bacon and cheddar sausages, quartered and cuddled it into some torn up monterey jack cheese and tucked it in with some spinach and chipotle mayo sauce.

The reason I had to make an early lunch because I had a meeting from noon to two and then a meeting immediately following. When those three hours of meetings ended I wiped clean a handful of items and finished up a small task then started working the phones. Three phone calls later I checked in with the Chef for the first time in a week or so while I worked on a few MSC challenges. I’m well behind on them now. He was late for his evening activity and was getting stressed. My dinner was the next item on the docket. The board said I should be making leftovers. I was pretty thin in that department, definitely more than expected. I decided to air fry some McCain Cheesy Tots. I split them in half and dressed up the tots with some Tex Mex shredded cheese and sriracha ranch dipping sauce. Very tasty and not debilitatingly filling.

After dinner I played some HomeScapes and listened to my audiobook. It got to a point where it wanted some money so I stopped playing and started watching YouTube and editing a video I made in early May and neglected. I’ve got a lot of things to catch up on actually. I posted it on YouTube and kept watching YouTube. That was the remainder of the evening.

Wild Wednesday

Tight for time in the morning. Improvised a faster breakfast with strawberry and banana smoothie and some unhealthy yogurt. It saved a lot of time, actually early to work.

Started working on my on-going project until I learned we got the lab results back. I started a scramble to get a customer their seed in a rush. It was a painful process but by midday they had it, thankfully. That was a pressure situation. I found out that my last corn item finally got dislodged and was delivered. Progress! Almost done with this. I had a pair of calls to review things with interested parties in my ongoing task and then just kept working on it. Lunch was a can of Campbell’s Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo. That’s all. The afternoon wasn’t very exciting. I ended the workday with a call with a colleague around half five. I headed to the kitchen. As it happened, my colleague and I were both making pizza. He was making the crust from scratch. I was making a cardboard pizza. I figured I’d dress it up some. I sliced up a whole chicken breast while cooking four slices of bacon. The base pizza was a Great Value brand four meat thin crust. I added the additional meat to make it a six meat pizza. I also added some shredded cheese and some Cholula hot sauce. It was filling and the extra meat cause the base to not cook as much as it should have. I had to take a minute to process my feed.

I did that while watching YouTube. I got ready early for the weekly session. It was really good. We hunted all day at our plans and I think we threw off the GM. He was a bit frazzled when he realized we were bluffing. I’m sure we’ll pay for that later. It was excellent and we’re excited for the next round. I was asleep a half hour after we finished.

Sudden Adventure

I had a hard time starting my Tuesday. What did I have left? Work was frustrating, the only team that I still supported was trying their hardest to make me hate them. I was tired. Eventually I got up and got ready to go. I augmented my temporary office setup before starting work at eight. I worked away at a number of things in the mornig. I told the folks receiving seed that if they needed a body to run samples to the lab to expedite it’s release to customers that I could clear my schedule to make that happen. I was told to hang tight and they’d let me know. There was an informational call that I listened to and then a team meeting that I called into. I had a small update for the group. I got the nod just ahead of noon that they could use me to run that seed. It was going to be available for me at half two. That changed my afternoon drastically.

My meeting ended around half noon and I decided that I’d need a pretty big lunch since it was likely my dinner was going to be pretty late. My plan was to leave my place around two, grab the seed and hustle to the lab before it closed so I could get them excited about doing the test. Then it would just be our internal paperwork left. That must be a short process right? I pulled out the leftovers from the previous night’s meal and at most of the remaining sidekick, the rest of the green eans and one of the chicken breasts. They all got time in the microwave before my teeth got to gnash at them. The meal was quick, easy and delicious as well as incredibly filling.

I worked away for another hour before it was time to leave. I left a couple minutes later than planned and took off nearly on a whim. I had the stuff in my pockets and not much else. It felt odd to not be super well prepared leaving the house. I think the return to society is going to be weird for the Tugboat. I exacerbated my late departure by needing to get fuel on the way and picked up the seed about twenty minutes later than planned but was still going to arrive at the lab ahead of five. One of the customers I was doing this for happened to call and ask my why I was driving, asking if I was driving seed to the lab or something. I told them I was and it was well received. I arrived ahead of five but it was a ghost town. Everything was closed and quiet except the front door, that was open. Apparently they only work the mornings and you leave samples in the afternoon. I did just that and then started the two hour drive home. It was a beautiful day for a drive and I had my audiobook to keep my company, it was heating up to, making it all the more enjoyable.

I arrived home at half six and was supposed to make tacos for dinner. I chose that for Tuesday to mock LeBron’s stupid videos. Apparently he tried to trademark it, what a dink. Anyways, I am trying to stick to the meal board this week. Luckily I had a head start from Sunday’s efforts and already had my meat and mushrooms cooked. I just had to warm them up and roll the meal up. I added some shredded cheese and spinach to mix and that was good enough for some soft tacos. Check it off the list!

The remainder of the evening was low key. I ended up playing HomeScapes and spending a bunch of money foolishly on in-app purchases. That bill is adding up and I need to curb that bad behaviour immediately. When I started thinking about it, I switched over to YouTube and slowly faded into oblivion. It didn’t come easy since I’ve got some stress still about seed but the end is in sight. We’re nearly there, the nightmare is almost over.

Too Monday

The day started normally. Up around seven, shower, breakfast, etc. I was at work at eight and started trying to resolve last week’s questions, update customers on their seed, and prepare for upcoming meetings. In essence, not an exciting start to the week, yet. The first and second meetings went off without a hitch. After that there was some action as I learned some things about where the remaining soybean seed was, and got some updated timelines to share with some customers. Their reaction was more aggressive than anticipated. I also worked on the last corn item, trying to fight it though customs so it could get to the customer. It was already way too late but that doesn’t mean I’m going to give up on it. Those battles lasted until around lunch time. I went down to the kitchen to snap you a picture of the meal board as it sat at the end of last week. You can see that I had my worst week ever, only hitting the mark once for the week. Not good. I cleared off my failure and drafted a new plan for the upcoming week and then made a paltry lunch.

The reason I called my lunch paltry because it was so simple. I cooked the last Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Mozzerella and Meatball panini in my possession and felt that I could have a Dr Pepper if that’s all I had. So that was my whole lunch. This used to be a pretty normal meal for me when I was going to the office but for an effort in my own kitchen, even I recognized that this was a failure. In fairness to me, I didn’t have a long break between meetings to prepare a lunch but this is still weak.

During the morning meeting there was some banter about hockey and the big game seven coming up. I’d already written my beloved Leafs off. I figured in Game Five that they’d blown the series but I’m a diehard fan so I put up a couple of things in my office and took my meetings for the day with this motif. Much like Kevin Bieksa on Hockey Night in Canada, I thought it might be fun to change around the things in the background of my “set”. I’m sure I’ll pay for this display in the coming days but it was funny and I was able to bring some joy to my colleagues. It only took five minutes to prepare. The hardest part was going to get the hat by the front door. I shared this image with a few of my group chats too, just to entertain them and spread joy further.

My workday ended at half five and I decided to make sure I started the new meal board off strong. I had some time before the game started so I fired up the BBQ for the second time this year (more than last year already) and got my chicken started. These breasts had been in the fridge for awhile and I wanted to get into them. There was a whiff of stink starting in the fridge so eliminating the potential sources would help me keep things smelling appropriately. For the sides component of the emal I opted for some Knorr Chicken Sidekick. I generally make two packages and eat most of them as a meal. This time I cooked two but siphoned over half into the fridge. I nuked a can of beans to finish out the plate, again half going in the fridge. I’m getting better about that, helps me eat better and with more appropriate portions. I plated up a couple of the broken free tenders and one of the breasts that I cooked on the BBQ, the others joining the rest of the cast off food in the fridge. The combination made for a tasty meal that I demolished voraciously.

With dinner done and the dishes cleaned up it was time for the main event of the day. Game Seven of the Leafs and Habs. The first time they’d met in the playoffs since the late 70’s and one time had made a good showing and the other had collapsed. I’ll save the drama and just say that they never showed up for the game. Actually, it would have been better if they’d actually stayed home. It was embarrassing and predictable. Something is wrong with that group, they didn’t expect to win, they simply hoped they would. It was a crushing blow and I’m sure there will be consequences. Both in the media, the fanbase and maybe even the roster. This was supposed to be the year with the additions made, the “easier” path to the final four. It was hard to watch, but watch I did. Right to the final horn. My hat ended up getting violently thrown at some point mid-game but otherwise I took the expected defeat with minimal cursing. I’d be hearing about enough going forward to worry too much then. I quiety went to bed after the game, wrapped in a simmering rage and couched with frustration and defeat. Hell, it felt like I was at work.

Comfy Sunday

The facial hair I’ve been cultivating has become unwieldy and was in need of being tamed. That was the thought I was having as I lounged comfortably in my bed for over an hour after waking around seven. I planned and plotted my course of action. I would trim my beard, then shower, then start my day. It’s a simple plan, I’m not sure why it took an hour to devise such a simple plan but when I had it, I started to action. The trim went well enough, no slips or major errors. I cleaned up immediately and moved to phase two. I also gave my toenails some more attention, just trimming things up a bit. When I was all primped and proper I dressed myself in comfortable garb. I had my new no-show socks on, the ones I never thought would fit. Turns out they do and they are most comfortable. I donned a new pair of MeUndies and the MeUndies shorts. Both were exceedingly comfortable. With so much softness enclosing my lower half I felt I’d need to have something to match up top and put on my Dr Pepper t-shirt. It is the softest I own. I was head to toe in soft, comfortable clothing and loved it. I walked down the hall and started working on Musings, I was a bit behind on posting some of the drafts and wanted to get caught up before the day got away from me like Saturday did. I worked at that for a good amount of time before looking inward to see how I was feeling.

My guts responded to my inquiry and I went to the kitchen. It was close to ten by this time and I was definitely getting hungry. I started off by air frying some potato coins. Or nuggets. I’m not sure what the correct name is. When those were done I divided them in half and stowed some for later. The ones on the table now were topped with shredded cheese and salsa. Before eating those tasty morsels I fired up a frying pan with some ground pork on the stove. I traded off eating and browning that meat, when it was sufficiently browned I added some taco seasoning wtih water and finished cooking it. That went into the fridge for a fast meal in the upcoming week. I threw a package of mushrooms in the warm pan with some oil and salt next. While those were cooking away I put a package of sausages in the air fryer. I suppose I was cleaning up the fridge on a Sunday morning and prepping for the week to come. I put the mushrooms in the fridge. Only three of the four sausages made it into the fridge, the fourth ended up on the the end of my knife and eventually in my belly. Pretty good first meal of the day. By the time the cleaning was wrapped up it was well after noon.

From here I should have went in the garage and started working on clearing out more foam but instead I went downstairs and fired up Farm Simulator 19. Many more hours were invested into my electronic farm. I ended up buying two smaller adjacent fields and combining them into one as my crops I planted yesterday matured. They are close to my existing lands. I’m not sure what inspired that effort. Either way, the most of the afternoon was spent at that pleasure. When I felt I’d had enough I saved it off and moved to my room to dabble at some HomeScapes. It wasn’t long before I felt I should eat again so I made a very simple meal of some Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini Mozzerella and Meatball panini and a sausage. I had to arrange them to fit on the small plate. I noticed it looked like how most people would regard the meal.

There wasn’t much of note after dinner. I didn’t do anything of consequence. Some HomeScapes and then some YouTube consumption. It was a lazy end to a lazy weekend.

Early Morning

The sleep I started the previous night didn’t track continuously through the night like it is supposed to. I woke up at 3:43am with a burning heart. Actually it was more a fiery esophagus that bothered me. I chomped a couple tums and tried to get back to sleep. It worked, but only for a short while. I woke up around five and fully got up at twenty six. I splashed some water on my face and started my day. I figured with the early bedtime, an early rise was warranted. I also recognized an opportunity. I knew that my packages from MeUndies were close to being delivered, which meant I should check the mail, and I had another grisly task that needed to happen away from prying eyes. There were a couple of chicken breasts that I cooked a while ago with plans to make soup. The soup never happened and several weeks passed. The stink was starting to get noticeable in the fridge. I wanted to spirit the rotting meat out and throw it into the swamp across from my house. This early morning afforded me the opportunity. I donned my crocs and took off. The ground was still slick from the all day rains of Friday so it was a carefully stepped affair. I had the rancid chicken in a Ziploc and made my way to the swamp. I couldn’t toss them like I wanted as that would have meant littering so I dumped them as close as I could get. The sunrise (not pictured below) was magnificent and I felt like I had the world to myself. I love that feeling. Here is the view looking back toward civilization.

After stopping at home to drop off the smelly bag and scrape some of the mud off my crocs I continues up to the mailbox and found not one, but two packages from MeUndies. My special order and my regular order. My regular order was just a pair of drawers in a basic grey-green colour. The order from the sale, pictured below, consists of a pair of black shorts, two printed pairs of drawers and my first ever pair of no-show socks. They seem to be all the rage so I wanted to try them. I chose a printed pair, it says, “send noods” and has a bowl of noodles. I thought it was funny. I can’t imagine those little things will fit on my feet but we’ll see once they are washed. That is the next step for these.

After playing HomeScapes until the Mini died and listening to my audiobook I made my way to the kitchen for a break in the fast. I kept the book going in my headphones. I fried up a box of perogies and split them into a bowl and into the fridge. I had an iced cream sandwich and a glass of water which I took with me into my lair. I started playing Farm Simulator ‘19. And then I continued playing, and then I played some more. There are two large fields in the middle of the map that I’ve long coveted and had the idea that I would buy them and then using the plow feature, I would combine them into one mega field. Today was the day for that. I harvested my other fields and then did that. It took some time but I’m happy with the result. I then bought a half million dollar sprayer, the best in the game. I wasn’t sure I would like it originally but I found that I really like it. I played that game all afternoon. Around five I went and got my leftover perogies, two more iced cream samidges and more water.

Getting close to eight I put the Leaf game on my phone. After their heartbreaking loss on Thursday I already knew how the series would go. Montreal got to have 2500 fans in the building for this match and I knew that this would be the difference in the game. The Leafs battled back from a 2-0 deficit to tie it and force overtime but blew it again. I shut it off in disgust and took my clean laundry upstairs to be folded and stowed. I went to sleep frustrated by tired. Sleep came instantly around half ten.

Feeling Friday

Friday started out like the other days, awake ahead of seven but didn’t really rock until seven today. I was able to settle in for my usual breakfast. I was able to package up the recycling and put it out in the rain after cleaning up the dishes and was still at my desk before eight. I didn’t have a meeting this morning to start the day and only had one scheduled at all. One that I didn’t need to be on. Spoiler, I still called in. Our company had institued meeting-free Fridays going foward to allow you to get work done. Before it was meeting free Friday afternoons, now we get the morning too. The the other notable development for this Friday is that it is the start of “summer hours.” If you’ve worked an extra hour each day you can take Friday afternoon off between today and the first Friday in September. I like that concept. I’d prefer to work four ten hour days and have three day weekends actually but this will do for now. I was able to sink my pearly whites into a task that I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to find the time to cover off. I could get used to this meeting free thing. The one negative is that it appears there was no movement on my last corn seed item. It’s still hung up in customs, I’ve given all the paperwork I can to help move it along and I’ve answered all the questions that have come up, I’m not sure what they are doing, unless it’s spite. I’m right pissed about that now. But I am trying not to get dragged down by it, since there isn’t much I can do about it. Mid-morning I ducked out to grab my empty recycling but otherwise I worked. I worked and I chewed through podcasts. It was productive. For lunch I finally had what I should have a week ago. I’ve been fumbling over these two boxes of Our Finest brand Butter Chicken for over a week. I moved them around to try and fit all the freezer items from last week and my intention was to knock them back and have the space. That obviously never happened, until now. I used to crush one of these and a sandwich component everyday for lunch when I worked at the research farm. Today I just had these two, one had been in the fridge for an embarrassingly long time. It was tastier than it looks.

With lunch out of the way I kept on working. I could have checked out for the summer hours but I wanted to get this task done and to be on hand to answer customer questions. Around three I cutover to my person computer and started working on my MSC challenges. That way I wasn’t exactly working but was close at hand if there was something I was needed for. I could see from the Team status that most others had already checked out. I always feed guilty with the summer hours, like I should be working. I know there are people out there still going so I feel I should be too. I got over that by four and powered off my work machine and moved on. I got a call from a colleague on their way home at half four and while chatting I put in my dinner order on the Pizza Pizza app. I commanded a small order of cauliflower bites, sauced with buffalo hot sauce, ten chicken bites with sriracha garlic dipping sauce, a grilled chicken caesar salad, and a bacon cheeseburger panzerotti. I was challenged to eat it all. So I tried to, it took over an hour but I managed it. I was fit to burst though. The panzerotti was amazing. After eating I grabbed my Mini and played some HomeScapes and listened to my audiobook. After that I just listened to my book. I was in my bed by eight and just listening to the story heating up. I feel asleep somewhere around nine. There was a short wakeup around ten but otherwise that was it for my evening.

Adventuring Thursday

The start was not as early as it should have been. I needed to be up around six so that I could tackle starting my day and get some tires loaded in the truck ahead of half seven. That would give me plenty of time to get a McBreakfast and make my way across town to the garage that would be working on my truck today. As it happened I work up with my failsafe alarm at seven and managed to get myself ready to leave by half seven and then proceeded to hurriedly scramble to load my summer times (on rims) into the truck and get them secure and tired down for the short rip across town. The McBreakfast stop wasn’t too bad, it only took me seven minutes to clear the drive thru. I arrived with three minutes to spare, so late. I’m nothing if not punctual. Maybe early more than punctual. Anyways, I donned my mask and started the process. I was allowed to wait inside in the waiting room. It was changed around to space people out and limit occupants but I was still surpised at that opportunity. I expected to have to wait outside in the lot like I did a year ago. As soon as I was settled in my phone started to get busy. I had some panicked email traffic from customers and tried to soothe their concerns from there. Doing that over the phone isn’t as effectual, sometimes you need a computer to share the right information. I was getting upset and perturbed at one point and decided to fire up my audiobook to calm myself. I decided there was nothing I could do until I was at the computer and decided to try and enjoy my experience sitting in a different chair. I could not. The truck was ready about ninety minutes after I exited it and I was on my way. The truck got a twenty one point inspection, oil change and tire swap. I got home and unloaded my winter tires into their resting place and got everything generally sorted out before quarter to ten. The summer tires on their bigger rims just look cooler. I’m not one for that kind of thing but I’ll admit it here.

I worked with the customer having an issue to get things as resolved as I could on my side, the rest will have to come from elsewhere. I really hope we get this sorted out, it’s my last corn shipment of the year and I’d very much like to get it over with. And so would they, they are desperate to get this planted now. Once I’d untangled that and some other minor concerns and updates I had a call with a one colleague and then another. And then another. I was on a roll, everyone wanted to have a chat today. But at one point I needed to take a break to eat my lunch. It consisted of Campell’s Chunky Chicken and Sausage Gumbo and a pizza bun. The pizza buns this week were much fresher than last time and the difference is making me fall in love with pizza buns again. I slammed an extra glass of water since I was light on it all day having broken my usual morning routine and forgot to fill the thermos. I was able to work on a few things and push some issues forward before a quick one on one call with my boss. I think we had a good chat and despite not being in person since last fall I think we’re getting to know each other better. I had a few more calls after my discussion with my boss but was able to close out the day at a decent hour, half five. I made my way to the kitched to wrassle up some dinner right away. I was supposed to make tacos according the board but I really wasn’t feeling it. Instead I made some Stouffer’s Bistro Crustini BBQ Chicken paninis, had a child’s yogurt and a Dr Pepper. Not a great meal but it was nice to eat and fairly light. Once I got that cleaned up I went to my bed for a stint to watched a couple YouTube videos.

I went from there to my computer. I cleaned up my emails and started to prepare for the postponed night of adventuring in the Underdark with my friends. We started on time and had a pretty good go of it. We moved quickly through the battle we’d left off with and then started into the next phase. It was a lot of fun. A couple of the party members had the following day off and were getting into it a bit, one knocked back a whole bottle of white wine and was “white girl wasted” from it. It was starting to creep into the gameplay so it was fine that we ended when we did, although I could have kept on. My Friday schedule wasn’t looking too daunting and we were in the thick of it. I guess we’ll see what next week brings. While we were playing I was stealing glimpses at the score of the Leaf game. They had a chance to close out the series and finally advance out of the first round. I actually put the game on my Mini for the second half of the third when it looked like they were mounting a comeback. They actually came back and tied it up and went to overtime. But only for a few seconds, they made a terrible mistake and lost almost instantly. Not good. After the match I was noticing that my arm didn’t hurt much at all anymore and as such I was able to get to sleep a bit faster. It was still close to eleven when my consciousness departed.