The weekend was kind of mixed. Had a whole table full of Georges for the birthday D&D one-shot with teenage boys. We got through it, though, even if I had to crack down on the whole “chaotic evil cannibal” character concept. I did discover the wonderful Everything Sucks! on Neflix on Sunday afternoon (pure, distilled […]

This week has not been amazing in terms of personal well-being, or, you know, the well-being of seventeen people in Florida. After a thoroughly enjoyable experience with Friday night’s Father-Daughter dance, and a pretty decent adventure Saturday with the D&D crew, and an excellent batch of cajun chicken salad derived from this pretty much perfect […]

My nerves really can’t take this kind of thing for much longer, I’ll be honest. This latest shutdown drama, passing late into the night (and still technically not over as I write this) has been hell on my calm, especially given how normally disorganized my organization is. I went to bed not knowing whether I’d […]

So, I thought I had a huge, long-suffering work problem solved when I left the office yesterday. Yeah, that didn’t happen. Lots more drama in the inbox this morning, so that’s something I gotta solve, or at least make some progress on. Oh well, I guess that’s why they pay me the big bucks, except […]

Like more than three-quarters of a million of my compatriot bureaucrats, I am currently sitting in my office waiting to receive my furlough notice for signature and conducting the most disorderly “orderly shutdown of operations” one could possibly imagine. Unlike the last one these, just a few weeks after I changed jobs over to an […]

As expected, I had a good time at Marscon this year. The people at this con; the organizers, the volunteers, the performers and guests, and the attendees are, at this point, like family – Marscon feels like coming home. You guys are awesome, and you really know how to make a person feel welcome, appreciated, […]

After yesterday’s aborted attempt, I made it into the office this morning (after a two hour delayed opening, which I obsessively checked on six or seven times as I got ready), cracking the seal on that metaphorical jar of pickles. Roads weren’t bad, though my parking lot, as I expected, wasn’t plowed, and there was […]

Greetings, folks, from the leisurely period between Christmas and New Years where you never quite know what day it is. I had a little bit of a bout of illness here the last couple of days (my spouse too – I blame my kid back from college, which is fair, I was sick every year […]

Monday is, allegedly* my last “in-the-office” work day for 2017. Tuesday through Thursday, I’m off-site (at that nice training facility around the corner from my house) taking a not-so-exciting three day course on Earned Value Management, as I believe I may have mentioned. This is not something I’m excited about at all, but it’s required […]

Okay then. Not loving life right now. Stress (and depression) is a bitch. As I run down the end of my work year, I’m able to nudge lingering issues forward, sorta, but they never seem to get solved. I’ve got this one issue I’ve been trying to run down since October, and whenever I make […]