By the time anyone reads this, I’ll be done working for the year. It’s kind of fitting that the big thing on my agenda for the last day is the try-to-make-it-quarterly touchpoint meeting with my supervisor to talk through the whole work experience thing and make plans for moving forward into 2024. So, having wrapped […]

Today I started my final work week for the year 2023. Three more days, and another work year is in the books. Honestly, I haven’t spent a lot of time reflecting, because I’ve been too damned busy tying things up before I take off for a week or so. …And of course today (actually over […]

We’re hitting that interesting time of year. Work, thankfully, is slowing down as all of my fellow public sector bureaucrats start burning their use-or-lose leave and leaving the halls of power empty (or emptier than usual, given the fact that so many of us work remotely now). The co-worker I’ve been unofficially mentoring for the […]

Given that it’s Thanksgiving tomorrow, I’m going to be going dark(er than usual) for a couple of days; it’s just easier for my mental health. Deal with it. But, before I do, I’m going to mention that I’ve got a gig a week after Thanksgiving at Dancing Kilt, where I’ll be playing my eclectic mix […]

Overall, this has been a pretty crappy week. Sunday morning I was chopping vegetables into the crock pot for vegetable soup and tagged the tip of my left ring finger with a just-swharpened knife. Ouch. Also, having the bandage there has wseriously impeded productivity; it keeps getting in the way of the typing by which […]

Yes, I’ve been absent. It’s been a couple of weeks. I’ve been working like crazy. my lovely spouse has been dealing with medical issues. I’ve been helping. I’m trying to get a recording project done. I’ve been unpacking boxes. I’ve been hanging curtains. I’ve been reading books. I’ve been working even more. Life’s busy. But, […]

So, I’m going to call my posting of the new version of “Shutdown Blues” a stroke of luck, because, as you, a reader well-informed on the news of the day, know the government didn’t shut down over the weekend, which, honestly, was fine, apart from the knowledge that it’s all the more likely we’ll be […]

Bureaucratic Talking Shutdown Blues (2020) by Chuck Parker Damn, I’m getting a lot of mileage out of this tune, though I suppose I need to update it with some new lyrics, maybe about how this whole thing really stems from that one time that Kevin McCarthy cock-blocked Matt Gaetz… In any case, I’ve spent the […]

This week was, if that’s possible right now….normal? The work week started out wrapping up the workshop my team’s been working the last couple of weeks, documenting processes and doing our best to impose order on the chaos that is our agency’s information technology department, at least in terms of how projects and acquisition requirements […]

So, once again, my membership with independent music radio station wnrn pays off with free tickets to live shows in the area. This time, it was a pile of 90s rock bands touring together; exactly the sort of stuff one would hear on the radio while I was in college and my early ’20s. Fastball, […]