This week, as weeks go, at least personally, in this age of pandemic, protest, fascist photo ops heat wave, and bears, hasn’t been the worst of the lot. I’ve gotten some actual work done (without working too hard about it), read some books (including the wonderful The Last Emperox by John Scalzi, in the welcome […]

There are protests happening in the streets just a few miles from where I currently sit. For good reason. There is also violence happening there, and across this country, which is heartbreaking, wrong, and largely unprovoked against those protesting. The President is out there fomenting further hate, fear, and violence; not acting like the leader […]

It’s quite possible I’m the only idiot in the organization actually working today, given the date on the calendar. I say “working”, though it’s rather difficult to actually accomplish much of anything when the enterprise email system keeps throwing up random code errors instead of my inbox, and I require certain information from people before […]

I’ve all but stopped playing NPR in the car; I need a break from constant news about the current state of things, and the audiobooks of Patrick Rothfuss’s Kingkiller Chronicle give me plenty to work with when I’m making my twice-weekly retail/beer runs and when I take walks around the neighborhood. The constant shit-show of […]

Since my last dispatch 48 hours or so ago, it’s honestly pretty much the same. I get up, I work for a few hours in the company of my cat, sit conference calls and answer emails, then I try and come up with other stuff to fill the time; and honestly, with few exceptions, I […]

A relatively quiet Thursday, I think, was a welcome relief to internals. Work was stagnant,largely because I worked my ass off on Wednesday and the email server was choking much of the day (big influx of junk in the last hour, but it was all junk), which I’m not going to complain about – I […]

After being in “social distancing” mode for two weeks or so now, it’s weird that all this is starting to feel, well…if not normal, then at least kind of routine. We’re starting to develop patterns and habits, and for someone like me with obsessive/compulsive tendencies, regularity is comforting on a base, lizard-brain level (though that […]

The circumstances we’re living in right now, and will likely be doing for at least the next couple of months? Sure, they suck. But by doing the social distancing and such, we’re saving lives by making sure that important medical resources (hospital beds, ventilators, etc) are available to the people who’ll need them by slowing […]

Coping with the current General State of Things™ certainly isn’t made easier when you have a degree in history, and not just because it lets you pervert Santayana for effect. Beyond the whole “plaugues of the xx20s” thing that’s going around the internets, the stock market fluctuating wildly then tanking (which is mostly due to […]

Hasn’t been the best week, honestly. I’m mostly past the latest cold/flu/definitely not Covid-19 bug, but this one feels like it’s going to…linger. Taking off work Monday to play dead kinda helped, though playing catch-up always sucks, especially with a sore throat and gnomes hammering in the sinuses behind my eyes. Work has been a […]