As I type this, I’m a little more than twelve hours out from getting my booster shot. Moderna this time, as, while it doesn’t really matter with the mRNA varieties, there’s some evidence that that the Pfizer-Moderna combo provides a bit more protection, and I figured I’d cover all the bases. In terms of side effects thus far, the injection site is sore and the lymph nodes in the neck are swollen, though I’m expecting things to go downhill from here.

Oh well; It’s a light work day, and I don’t really have any plans for the weekend.

And, I’m glad I’ve got it done. A lost weekend’s worth the peace of mind.

And hey, Congress got their sh!t together and I won’t have to worry about being locked out of office until February at least.

In terms of tunes, I seeded things with a peppy little tune that I’ve been enjoying on the local indie radio station for the last couple of months, and then just let the algorithms take control, and the results are kind of all over the place, really, which, let’s be honest, reflects my tastes pretty well. And I always forget how much I dig that mini-symphony coming in at #14:

1. “Be Sweet” – Japanese Breakfast
2. “Fall Down” – Toad the Wet Sprocket
3. “Fearless (live)” – The Magpie Salute
4. “Will The Wolf Survive” – Los Lobos
5. “Warranty” – Meat Puppets
6. “Are You Drinkin’ With Me Jesus” – Jello Biafra, Mojo Nixon
7. “Mr. Brownstone” – Guns N’ Roses
8. “Old Siam, Sir” – Wings
9. “Eaten By The Monster Of Love” – Sparks
10. “Wells Fargo” – Babe Ruth
11. “Murder” – David Gilmour
12. “Double Life” – The Cars
13. “Black Gold” – Soul Asylum
14. “Funeral For A Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” – Elton John

While I was taking my leave of the online world this weekend, another ‘rona variant arrived on the scene, designated Omicron (o), which a much scarier sounding greek letter than Delta (δ), even if we don’t know much of anything about it and it’s actual impact just yet.

As for what I’m doing about it, and what I, an admitted non-expert civilian, recommend *everyone* do about it, is to keep practicing social safety measures such as hand washing, social distancing, and wearing a damned mask when I have to go to the store or whatever.

I’m also going to get my COVID booster ASAP – I initially waited a bit because I was operating on old information (this is science in real time after all) that recommended waiting a couple of weeks between the annual flu vaccine (I got mine at the end of October) and the booster, though the most recent guidance says that an interval isn’t necessary, and, in fact, recommends that people save a trip and do them both at the same time if possible.

To emphasize the point here: I’m going to keep doing the things I’ve been doing all along to avoid getting or spreading COVID, and it’s worked so far.

Sadly, there’s a significant minority of people in this country (and the world, I suppose) that refuse to do this, largely because of political affiliation and bad information spread by social media. This significant minority, unsurprisingly, is made up primarily of white rural conservatives, who for all sorts of reasons, ranging from conspiracy theories to “owning the libs,” refuse to take this thing seriously, even after nearly two years and most of a million Americans dead.

And, at least in part, because of those people, COVID-19 is no longer a virus to eradicate; it’s become endemic, here to stay, forever.

That said, most people don’t really understand how this works, and the up-and-down of virus numbers lines up with the political fate of elected officials who, apart from a few significant exceptions, are doing the best they can with the information and power they have to deal with this thing. Sadly, the cycle of people refusing to do the responsible thing, often for political reasons, is preventing these steps from having the most desirous effects, and because the buck stops at the White House, are unfairly blaming the current administration for the continued existence of the problem.

It’s that damned “rights vs responsibilities in citizenship” thing again that I continue to rattle my cage door about, and what’s likely going to be the final nail in the coffin of this unique experiment we call the United States of America unless that “change rising from crisis” pattern I keep looking to for solace eventually happens on it’s sort of usual half-century timeline.

But, once again, honestly, what I see when I go outside to buy cat food doesn’t look anything like our better angels, and I’m finding optimism kind of hard.

Plus, y’know, another potential shutdown at the end of the week.

At least I got to make a couple of cheap Star Trek and Transformers jokes. Take the win.

For a short holiday week, I’ve been awfully busy at work trying to line all kinds of things up for the end of the calendar year slow season. Project documentation review/edits, trying to figure out how to support a last-minute test support request when most of the technical experts are on use-or-lose leave, seemingly never-ending “town hall” meetings with various flavors of leadership trying to tie up the year while folks are still here, which often include aggressively obstructionist vaccine mandate “questions” and all that…plus, y’know, unless they do something in DC, we’re out of money come next Friday.

Given all that, I need a little break to clear the head, so I’m taking a long Thanksiving weekend, and largely unplugging; leaving the email, headlines, social media, and even the phone in do-not-disturb mode for a couple of days, and just giving thanks for the peace and quiet.

Ideally, the only bandwith I’m planning on using will be dedicated to streaming services to watch some of the wealth of great newish TV that’s popped up in the last week or two. Seriously, between the live-action Cowboy Bebop, Wheel of Time, MotU Revelation part two, Hawkeye and my new favorite, The Great out there, I’m planning on logging some serious lazy couch time this weekend with good food and likely a couple of good beers.

Yeah, I’ll still do my best to get some outside time (had a wonderful four mile hike after work yesterday for example) and get the chores done and the bills paid, but really, my primary goal is to rest, relax, and tune out the stressors of the world for a couple of days.

So, really, don’t expect to see much of me through the series of tubes, because I’ll be chilling and detoxing in meatspace.

Before I go, though, as is tradition at the end of my week (whenever that happens to be), I make a list of what the algorithms serve up for me to listen to based on whatever data it uses to track me. This latest playlist is surprising, consisting largely of deep cuts from retro indie rock, given that my soundtrack for the last couple of weeks has been a bunch of Zappa, Prog Rock, and bits of the new Adele record.

That said, I kinda dig the overall upbeat vibe it’s throwing, recognize that Zappa connection at #9 that somebody’s going to call me on, and am somewhat perplexed at the multiple mentions of Venus.

Hope your holiday weekend is as restful as I’m intending mine to be. Rawk:

1. “The Slider” – T. Rex
2. “Under My Thumb” – Pentagram
3. “Get It On” – Kingdom Come
4. “Far Side of Crazy” – Wall of Voodoo
5. “Radar Gun” – The Bottle Rockets
6. “Goodbye (live)” – Oingo Boingo
7. “Wolfman Jack” – Todd Rungren
8. “Three Of A Perfect Pair” – Between the Buried and Me
9. “Big Eyed Beans from Venus” – Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
10. “Nitro” – Dick Dale
11. “Venus of Avenue D” – Mink DeVille
12. “Stray Cat Strut” – Stray Cats
13. “Down With Disease” – Phish
14. “Keep It Out of Sight” – Dr. Feelgood
15. “Happy Boy” – The Beat Farmers

Because sometimes, we just need reminding…go read a book!

This week, apart from that thing I mentioned yesterday, has been pretty bog-standard. It’s been colder around here, so it’s been a little more hiking rather than biking, both because of the temperatures and a general malaise and sinus pressure that comes along with it. Work’s been more of the same, with the addition of a couple of process improvement workshops stretching out a couple of workdays. Plus, that thing in the title; happened twice this week.

Could’ve been emails anyway; I’m not sweating it.

I have, of course, been watching the various circuses in Washington and Kenosha; I’m afraid the latter’s got the potential to be really pretty ugly when the verdict finally comes in…I’m afraid either likely outcome (acquittal or mistrial) is going to lead to unrest and possibly violence, because tensions are already high, and anything other than guilty is going to just encourage more vigilantism, and more guns introduced into a situation has never, in the history of ever, ratcheted down a contentious situation.

As for the former? I don’t know. I wasn’t really expecting a House vote on BBB this week anyway (it’s possible they could suprise me today), though Rep. McCarthy’s eight hour, thirty-two minute floor speech delaying things was indeed impressive; I don’t agree with the guy, but I’ve got to respect the old-school “Mr. Smith Goes To Washington” vibes. It’s a shame one of the local Reps from my metropolitan area (Abby Spanberger* from VA-07 on the north side of town) gave him some ammunition with her FDR comments that got raised again last night in McCarthy’s marathon.

…And for the record? I think she’s mostly wrong. I didn’t expect another New Deal out of this administration, necessarily, but given the once-a-century circumstances, if the patterns of history hold, we’re due for some big reforms; it might not be the Biden administration that gets the credit, but one can’t deny that BIF and BBB introduce some significant progress, and the national discourse is seriously talking about things (UBI, college debt forgiveness, single-payer healthcare) that never would have been mentioned even 15 years ago. It feels like better things are coming, and the current administration is laying the foundation. That’s sometimes the only thing that gives me hope amongst all the current chaos and conflict.

I wasn’t really expecting to go that deep into politics this morning, but honestly? Those last couple of sentences express a lot of what’s been rattling around in the back of my brain the last few months. What can I say? I was a history major; the long view is my thing.

To get back to banality? Not a lot on the agenda for the weekend. Hardywood’s letting some barrel aged Caliente GBS trickle out this weekend, and I still haven’t gotten my hands on this year’s (Kentucky) Christmas Morning yet, so there might be an expedition to the brewery. Also? Netflix has the live-action Cowboy Bebop out, and Amazon’s got Wheel of Time hitting today, so there’s several hours worth of genre tv I wouldn’t mind consuming along with some creamy fermented holiday goodness…

As for tunes? Lots of old school, prog, and prog-adjacent this week, which isn’t surprising given my recent Zappa binges:

1. “The Court of the Crimson King” – The Claypool Lennon Delirium
2. “(I Wish I Could Fly Like) Superman” – The Kinks
3. “Super Stupid” – Funkadelic
4. “The Seeker” – The Who
5. “Helter Skelter” – The Beatles
6. “Outoon valoon” – Juice Leskinen Slam
7. “TNK(Tomorrow Never Knows)” – Phil Manzanera
8. “Palestine Texas” – T Bone Burnett
9. “Keep Pushin'” – REO Speedwagon
10. “Nantucket Sleighride” – Leslie West, Mountain
11. “El Dorado” – James Wilsey
12. “Anus of Uranus” – Klaatu
13. “Cheap Sunglasses” – The Sword
14. “Red Barchetta” – Rush
15. “Highway to Hell” – Tom Morello, Bruce Springsteen, Eddie Vedder

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*- I struggle to call her anything but Abby, as we’ve got some friends in common and that’s how they refer to her, and I’m pretty sure we’ve been introduced at a couple of social functions over the years. She’s still more moderate than I’d like, though again, she’s not officially my rep (who’s more than satisfactory, if less prominent in the media), and according to those folks mentioned above, she is a pleasant and genuinely decent human being.

Because I don’t have enough going on in my life these days, I managed to get some of my work published in a literary anthology that was released for sale yesterday.

A friend from my youth who published a wonderful first novel earlier this year (for which I was privileged to serve as a beta reader) has launched her own small press, Wild Ink Publishing, with the mission to support “aspiring authors get their words out to the world.”

It’s first publication, Into The Mirror: A Literary Collection, has been described as an anthology of “personal reflections.” It’s full of essays and poetry from a whole host of authors exploring their personal passions, challenges, and questions in both prose and poetry.

For my part, I’ve got several poems in the collection, largely adapted from song ideas I’ve had over the past few years, some previously recorded, some not, all of them exploring personal thoughts and ideas including grief, ambition, frustration, regret, and exploration of what life is like in middle age. If you’re familiar with my musical work, you’ll find a lot of it familiar, but I think it works in slightly different ways in this new context.

So there it is; in it’s first day out into the world, it appears to be doing pretty well (top 10/100 in poetry anthologies and essays on Amazon as I write this), though I know the publisher and all of my fellow contributors would appreciate you taking a look and maybe posting a review.

Yeah. I did a thing. Hope folks appreciate it.

Indeed, it was a little quiet in this space the last few days. Why? Because I decided to take the Veteran’s Day holiday on Thursday and stretch it into a long weekend, because I could, and I needed a short break. That short break included spending quite a lot of time away from the computer.

So what did I do?

Thursday morning, I did another half-century ride on the Virginia Capital Trail. the weather was beautiful, and I wanted to get one last long one in before the cold really sets in. Fifty miles in the saddle along Route 5 was refreshing and rejuvenating mentally, and not nearly as painful as I was kind of expecting the rest of the weekend. The fact that I can do this sort of thing at 47 at all is a good feeling, and having something like it in recent memory is something I can look to when I’m not necessarily feeling my best.

As for the rest of the weekend…I had a beer or two (along with some always excellent curry…) at one or two local watering holes. I watched a couple of movies. I took my lovely spouse out to lunch and did some shopping at the specialty grocery store. I baked an apple pie (because my farmers’ market hook-up keeps bringing new varieties of apples every week, and I always buy some, usually faster than I can eat them). I enjoyed some quality time with my cat. I ate my daughter’s excellent broccoli-cheddar soup. I played some Dungeons and Dragons with friends…

…but most importantly, I didn’t think about work for a couple of days.

It was a nice break, leading into the last part of the year, which in terms of work is going to be concurrently kind of slow and really pretty busy. In the next four weeks, there’s a list of stuff that needs done at work before the calendar runs out, and it’ll occasionally be a struggle getting it done, what with everyone dealing with use-or-lose leave to spend because we’ve been in pandemic conditions for the last nearly two years and nobody took any vacations. Plus, there’s that whole expiring continuing resolution looming on December 3rd, which is making getting those things done a lot more difficult, and preventing me from working ahead on stuff because until it’s resolved, we can’t effectively work toward anything requiring funding after that, because as far as the books are concerned, nothing exists beyond the end of the CR.

That’s fun.

In any case, I’ll be doing my best to knock all that stuff out before I take my usual end-of-year break, so I can start thinking about the holidays, which will, once again be low-key, because of, well, the State of the World™, and not just because we’re tired and don’t need to build up any more stress.

Oh, one more thing – social media reminders pointed out that my first record, World’s Okayest…, was released two years ago yesterday. Thanks to everyone who’s supported it so far; it’s not perfect, but it is, I think, a solid effort, and something I can be proud of. If you haven’t listened to it yet (or even if you have!), why not give it a spin on your favorite streaming service? I also wouldn’t complain at all if you bought it at the link above.

The whole idea of blowing up a legislative body right now is (figuratively, of course) maybe a little more attractive to me than it probably should be. Apart from the current shenanigans around BIF/BBB (some of which might actually get a vote today? maybe?) which almost certainly played a small part* in the less-than-preferable election results around these parts this week, the can-kicking tactics with regard to continuing resolutions and debt ceilings** are wreaking havoc on my ability to do my job. I’ve got projects to get scheduled, and when there’s no official budget after December 3rd, there are all kinds of additional roadblocks*** to deal with.

Apart from all that, the flu shot I got on Friday evening kind of knocked me harder on my ass than I necessarily expected, leading to my taking my first sick day in over two years, but I needed it. And, after a week of eating delicious leftover vegetarian chili combined with last night’s equally delicious halushki, let’s just say that my lower GI might be classified as a weapon of mass destruction per the Chemical Weapons Convention.

There’s been a general inconvenient undercurrent working it’s magic; let’s just say it ain’t been the best week; not the worst, mind you, but not great.

One bright spot was digging through the wealth of Frank Zappa live recordings available on Spotify. I think I’m going to stuff the news and all it’s associated frustrations on the car radio, at least until I get through all sixteen hours of Halloween ’77.

In related tunes news, here’s this week’s usual visit to the streaming algorithms, including some old school metal, my favorite R.E.M. song, something kind of out of place at #8, and a visit by the guitar player in Frank’s band in the above-mentioned shows at #7. It’s good stuff:

1. “Heading Out To The Highway” – Judas Priest
2. “Madonna of the Wasps” – Robyn Hitchcock & The Egyptians
3. “Glamorous Glue” – Morrissey
4. “Another Girl, Another Planet” – The Only Ones
5. “Switch 625” – Def Leppard
6. “God Is A Bullet” – Concrete Blonde
7. “Oh Daddy” – Adrian Belew
8. “(I’d Go The ) Whole Wide World” – The Monkees
9. “Know Your Product” – The Saints
10. “Lay Lady Lay” – Ministry
11. “Driver 8” – R.E.M.
12. “Yer So Bad” – Tom Petty
13. “Space Cowboy” – Steve Miller Band
14. “Until You Came Along” – Golden Smog

___________________________

*-…but nearly as much as the media claims. McAuliffe ran a less than stellar campaign and fed the other guy all kinds of plausible lines to run with while he was essentially running against TFG.

**- Reference, once again, this song (which, if you guy it, or anything else from bandcamp today, they’re waiving their fees, so I get an extra few cents on the dollar).

***-Roadblocks like procrastinators trying to push garbage through at the absolute last minute and lawyers generally misapplying the ADA where it doesn’t belong because they assume my meticulously researched and documented packages are the same kind of garbage.

It’s election day, everyone – get yourself out there and vote. Unless you’re here in Virginia (where election coverage is never-ending) or New Jersey, you likely have a slate of local offices on the ballot, but those are terribly important; those folks – school board members, county commissioners, etc – are closest to you, and have a huge impact on your life, so don’t skip this one, or any election!

I voted on Friday (I was out running errands in the afternoon, and saw the line at the early voting location at the courthouse was short, so I stopped, was in and out in a few minutes, and met a couple of candidates for the House of Delegates besides.

I’m never going to stop crowing about this, folks, because it’s damned important – for all kinds of stupid reasons, Americans are all about their rights as citizens, but pay little attention to their responsibilities – the vote is perhaps the most important responsibilities you have as a member of society.

So please, do your part, and maybe take a few minutes to consider your responsibilities as a citizen, and how important they are for you, your family, your community, state, and nation.