Today is kind of a big deal. Today, I turn fifty years old. Neither of the previous Charles Parkers made it this far. It feels kind of weird to be here. This is, oddly enough, uncharted territory. I am, in a lot of ways, at least below the neck, in the best shape of my […]

This week’s been less than optimal for several reasons. Taking the day off for some medical stuff that I’m stressed enough about left me with almost eighty emails to sort through this morning, and getting up at all this morning felt awful because yesterday felt at all times exactly like Saturday. All that busy probably […]

So I haven’t done one of these in a while. I’ve had a rough couple of months. Really busy time at work, some personal health challenges, some communal health challenges (hello, COVID round two!) that killed some much-anticipated plans (goodbye, ConGregate), some puppy growing pains, and a national and global political situation that’s been looking […]

This space has been pretty quiet for the last little while; not much but playlists most weeks and complaining about work stuff. That’s honestly been the standard agenda with life lately, and I’m tired of repeating myself. Also, it’s just been busy; long hours, getting yanked into unpleasant temporary supervisory stuff, and I’d rather sit […]

Bureaucratic Talking Shutdown Blues – 2023 edition by Chuck Parker Assuming all goes well and the Freedom Caucus and Senator Rand Paul don’t decide to shake things up, the CR that expires at midnight tonight will be succeeded by a full half-year official budget for my half of the Federal Government, and we won’t shut […]

My first (of six) weeks playing the boss for the team at work is wrapping up. It’s actually been a bit less stressful than I expected. I’ve not been *not* stressed (especially in the early part of the week), but it’s not been a complete disaster. I also managed to move some of my own […]

Spent way too much time on the phone this week; meetings and calls and consultations, and all kinds of things to get me up to speed to be the boss for the next couple of weeks. Not a whole lot of life outside of that, really. Not much to report. Didn’t get all that much […]

I’ve been ridiculously productive this week; I finished fawm with a day to spare, even if I didn’t end up actually recording anything during February. I wrote fourteen songs, and a handful of them have potential, which is the idea. I’m aiming to have a new record ready to sell at Congregate this year, so […]

Another week where I’m filling in for the boss, and spending too much time on conference calls. This is starting to become a habit, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. I suppose it’s inevitable, as so many folks look to me as the substitute boss most of the time anyway, but it’s […]

So many slides. Over and over. Hours and hours. That’s the story of my week. Couple of big briefings for folks in the rarified air of senior management, plus a handful of training sessions on how to use simple SharePoint libraries delivered to uncooperative audiences, along with all the preparation and editing and run-throughs and […]