…and that’s another one in the books.  This year’s Ravencon ended up being a good experience, largely due to the presence of some very good friends I don’t see often enough and a reasonably relaxed vibe when I wasn’t rushing to sit panels, play shows, running equally-busy offspring to off-site commitments, or working around inconveniently […]

As the title of this post suggests, we’re smack in the middle of that stretch of springtime with a total dearth of federal holidays; this year with 96 days between Washington’s Birthday (observed) and Memorial Day. In public service, one can usually count on a long weekend or some such break every six weeks or […]

There’s everything and nothing going on all at the same time, and I can’t find motivation or focus for more than two or three hours at a time. Sure, I’ve kind of hit the “acceptance” stage of the whole current American experience and it’s constant threats to my livelihood, but the constant load is a […]

I’m frankly tired of being angry and afraid. The stress of this whole < gestures widely toward this general overall situation > is certainly still there, and festering, but I suspect I’ve just become inured to the constant pressure of all these stressors. It’s not quite numbness, but it’s getting there. I’d like to think […]

One more week down, and the work slog continues, in part because Schumer indeed did fold (though it remains to be seen if he’s as capable of 4-D chess as the red hats claim TFG is), and the shutdown was put off, at least until at some point in the summer when the debt ceiling […]

Staring down another Friday, another shutdown threat, and this one’s even more loaded than usual. The seven month(!) continuing resolution that passed the House earlier this week is total hot garbage, and calling it “clean” is even more of a fiction than usual, as it cuts all kinds of funding for necessary services, and perhaps […]

So, Ret-Con last week was cool. I was made to feel very welcome by all, and had fun doing neat panels, even if I didn’t get much of an audience for my show. Oh well, it happens. This past week in the real world, as you might imagine, seriously sucked, apart from my regular after-work […]

So….yeah. Another week; thousands of probationary employees all over the government fired, so many of us glued to r/fednews for the latest rumors, all-hands Teams meetings where HR guys in rumpled suits allude to “huge RIF” using all kinds of words except for those two. The new SECDEF (who’s a moron) doing a video townhall […]

Been another week getting lost in the work (the last few days? A hugely successful development sprint for much-needed budget and planning data reporting tools) and trying to not think too hard about the larger world, at least when it’s not intruding into my work inbox. I’ve been mostly successful, I think; the fact that […]

Another particularly stressful week in the public sector, as one would certainly expect if you’re paying attention to the news at all (though the DeRP/”Fork” offer is being addressed only tangentially on a lot of mainstream media sources, especially the more right-of-center ones). Still, when uncleared, unelected Techbros and their minions start taking down whole […]