Today, January 2, is my last day of my so-called “Christmas Break”. All told, it was some time away from work. I got some stuff done, got some books read, played a little music, and, I guess, didn’t think too hard about project deadlines for a couple of weeks, but at the same time, it […]

I make no secret of the fact that I have a *ton* of talented friends (I mean, I’ve never weighed them or anything, but…); today, of all days, a whole slew of them released, or started up crowdfunding efforts in support of, new projects that are really all very good and exciting. It’s only fair […]

On Friday, I posted a bit about weekend plans. Those didn’t go as expected. Friday evening was indeed kinda chill; I made some excellent refried beans in my instant pot. We ate them. It was good. Saturday, however, went a bit pear shaped; We tried to make the best of it, but nothing went as […]

It’s that day, it seems, for everyone. I’m back to “work” work after spending a month in academia, plus the kids are back to school today. Such fun. We shall all manage, and persevere; it’s the nature of life. That said, it was a decent, relatively quiet weekend, after I nailed the last “celebration of […]

It’s relatively bog-standard Wednesday evening; a week-and-a-half into my class, and the teams is starting to figure out the basic pattern and rules of engagement, getting along well, doing good work, and developing, at least in our case, weird conspiracy theories about how our grades are determined, and wondering about the oddly ever-present recurring value […]

It’s Sunday evening, and I’m back at my August home-away-from-home here in northeastern MD quickly making a trip to celebrate the kid’s birthday a few days early. Colleen went all-out putting together a Harry Potter-themed party, with floating candles hanging from the ceiling, turning the front door into Platform 9¾ picking out wands, sorting into […]

As I write this, I’ve spent a few hours studying for the first “Celebration of Knowledge” (I swear, I wanna hurt the person at the Department training organization who came up with that particular euphemism) scheduled for tomorrow morning, and am hitting consistent 100% scores on the practice tests that some kind soul put up […]

Another week, another pile o’ drama. Par for the course. Work has been ridiculously stressful, the weather’s been awful, kids have been extra twitchy lately, and the tension is bouncing back and forth amongst everyone in the tiny Parker household (including the cats who deign to stay) and everyone is on edge. Yay. I did […]

…this is a thing that doesn’t surprise me in the least.I literally LOL’d (and I don’t claim such things lightly). Encountered in this thread on Jezebel about Matthew “Neville Longbottom” Lewis’s wedding this past weekend:

Taking the Monday after the convention as annual leave is probably the best gift you can give yourself; just sayin’. I spent yesterday taking care of the life stuff I didn’t get to do over the weekend, as well as taking care of some basic rest I owed myself to make up for the con […]