Today is my last scheduled day of work for 2020. I’ve tied up everything I need to apart from one email response from one individual, who’s reply need only consist of “thumbs up*” for me to close the book on this particular item and feel like I’m keeping the project on track. Also, my body […]

Bureaucratic Talking Shutdown Blues (2020) by Chuck Parker So, if you’ve been reading the headlines, you know we’re running up against the end of another continuing resolution to carry the Federal government over the debt ceiling, and if they don’t get something sorted by Friday midnight, a whole bunch of public servants get furloughed….again. I […]

In the end, this week hasn’t necessarily been as bad as it’s posts suggest. Progress has been made. It’s looking like that work headache is finally clearing, and the (totally not mine) delays have been noticed by levels of power that might be able to effect change (but I’m not holding my breath). Also, earlier […]

I know it’s cliche by this point, but 2020 has been, and continues to be the best practical case for evidence of time dilation in terms of relative perception in recent memory. Psychologists and physicists will be writing papers on this for decades. Remember Four Season Total Landscaping? That was only three weeks ago. In […]

If you’re looking for some Thanksgiving Eve enterainment this year, might I humbly suggest you tune in to my friend Madison “Metricula” Roberts’ weekly streaming music show on Wednesday night? Each week, she plays “6 songs at 6pm from 6 categories”: One song hot off the press by me, one song by a friend, one […]

Indeed, a week. As briefly teased in earlier dispatches, I’ve spent a large part of the week dealing with petty bureaucrats and their petty power-trips. It has, for the large part, sucked, though after working with some dare-i-say “allies” within the organization, I unleashed a little bit of bureaucratic jujitsu of my own, and have […]

Like I said yesterday, we’re going to be waiting a little bit for this one, but from where I’m sitting, things looks to be breaking our way. All it’s going to take is time. It’s the same way we get through any week, really, and this week’s been a long one for other reasons as […]

It’s damp, it’s sort of cold, and it’s less than a week to election day. If you haven’t done so, or sorted out how you’re going to do so, get on that now, please. It’s not too late, but it’s imperative. But, the week’s basically over. It’s been low-level stressful all the way around, though […]

As predicted, the weekend was pretty low-impact. Friday night involved some livestreamed-over-the-internet theater (the kid kicked ass in a very intense role), Saturday was a brisk five mile hike, doing the shopping, and spendng a few hours engaged with the virtual version of the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, or as it was called this year, […]

Another Friday reached. Another week behind me. All told, this one’s been a little less stressful than the last few. Sure, there’ve been headaches and roadblocks (one of the backbone financial systems supporting multiple agencies has been choking all week, preventing me from getting important requirements funded, and more importantly, keeping many people from submitting […]