Having finished that class I took the last two weeks, I went back to the usual office grind on Monday, to get some good news, mostly hassle, and finding that nobody feels like answering their email or voice mail.

Grrrr.

The good news, that I keep hanging onto, is the fact that I only have to weather this crapstorm for two more days, at which time I pack up the car and drive south, eventually to Atlanta, where I get to be a rock star with the rest of the Blibbering Humdingers at Dragoncon once again.

I absolutely cannot wait, because while DC is huge and crazy and weird and tremendously exhausting fun, it’s generally a good kind of crazy and weird and tremendously exhausting fun, where I get to spend time with almost 100k of my fellow nerds, most specifically, with my musical community that brings me such joy.

Oh, I not only get to be a rock star this coming weekend, but as of this past weekend, I am a Pegasus Award Nominated rock star, as the Humdingers made this year’s final ballot for “Best Performer”. The Pegasus Awards, for “excellence in filking”, are handed out every October at the Ohio Valley Filk Fest, are kind of a big deal in the circles I travel in, and it’s really a nice honor to make the final ballot, especially in the “Best Performer” category; I think it speaks to the effort we put into putting on an entertaining and engaging stage show (which isn’t always a priority in this world), and I feel like I can take some small ownership of this one, given the fact that I have a lot more high-profile performing credits with the group than I do songwriting or recording credits (though those keep adding up too).

While winning would be lovely, the competition is fierce in our category, which also includes such luminaries as Sunnie Larsen and The Faithful Sidekicks this year. That said, as much a cliche as it is, being nominated already feels like a win.

But yeah, anybody can vote on this one (not just those with convention memberships, like the Hugos), so if you’re feeling so inclined…

So, by the time this posts, it’ll be my birthday. Hello, 45.

I don’t feel old, until I sprain something by tripping over nothing. Still, I *am* in better shape than I was when I was twenty, which I guess says something.

Tomorrow is the last day of the class I’ve found myself in for the last two weeks. It’s not been a bad experience, and I’ve enjoyed it, and made a few friends in the deal, and as I write this, the running graded total has me two points short of a perfect score. I expect I’ll drop a few more, because one of the truisms of these sorts of workforce development courses is that nobody gets perfect scores on group exercises, but all told, I’ll take it. That said, I’ll be glad to be done with it, because I’ll get my usual schedule back.

For exactly three days, because come Thursday of next week, I am off to do the DragonCon thing once again after taking a year off. We’ve got a bunch of shows lined up Friday through Monday. It’ll be good to see and play with my friends again, especially folks I only get to see there, or otherwise a couple of times a year at special events. My nerd musical community is one of my lifelines, even if I’ve managed to build up a nice local musical community as well.

Speaking of that community, my open mic this week as almost too successful; we ran over half an hour past official closing time because we had too many people sign up, even if I did limit sets to fifteen minutes or three tunes. I suppose this is a good problem to have, though we’ll have to maybe make some adjustments for future events if turnout keeps trending up. In any case, the venue is very happy, as tons of people come in and eat and drink a bunch; certainly more than enough to cover my stipend and comped bar tab.

Not much on the agenda for the weekend; we’re going out with friends for a birthday dinner out tomorrow night, I’m getting my oil changed and tires rotated, and I’ll do like usual and hit the farmer’s market. I expect I’ll try to record a bit, because that’s what I do, and likely run some tunes we’re likely to play next weekend. Otherwise, I’ll probably just raise a glass to the memory of what is no longer possible, an MCU with Spider-Man in it. Oh well. Maybe they’ll find a way to reconcile, maybe not, but Tom Holland was the best thing to happen to my favorite super-hero for quite some time.

Anyway; tunes. As part of our ongoing decluttering project, we got rid of a bunch of CDs along with the books, but not before ripping them to mp3 first, so I have a bunch of newish digital stuff to cycle through for these random playlists, which are listed immediately following this paragraph. Not a bad list, really:

1. “TMZ” – “Weird” Al Yankovic
2. “The Green and the Blue” – Amy Macdonald
3. “Can You Keep A Secret” – Utada Hikaru
4. “Burn All The Letters” – Indigo Girls
5. “London (live)” – The Smiths
6. “Hero Takes A Fall” – The Bangles
7. “Start Again” – Bishop Allen
8. “Shimmy Low (live) – The Clarks
9. “Are You Ten Years Ago” – Tegan and Sara
10. “The Lovecats” – The Cure
11. “Songs From The Wood” – Jethro Tull
12. “Would You Rather” – Phoebe Bridgers

It’s been quiet around these parts recently, other than a couple of quick frustrated maintenance posts. There are a couple of reasons for that. First, “these parts” aren’t the same parts anymore.

You might have, if you timed it right, found things looking different for a while. That’s because I changed hosting services. I used GoDaddy for years, and while it was functional, support was garbage, pricing wasn’t ideal, and I, frankly, had issues with them from a social and moral perspective.

So, since my hosting package was up for renewal this week, I went and looked at other options. I ended up with bluehost; which I kind of like so far, and I got three years’ worth of hosting for less than the price of one at the old place. Reviews seem good, and the price is right for a couple of years. I also offloaded some support/management stuff by going to a wordpress hosted account, which covers wordpress (the engine I use to run this blog/website/thing) administration rather than me installing it on a blank server myself and managing fixes and upgrades.

More to come there; I’ve been on it for a week; I’m still tweaking the UI, though I haven’t had much time.

Otherwise, my schedule’s been totally disrupted the last two weeks, as I’ve been away from my office and spending some up the road the training center on my old, old workplace site sitting in class: Intermediate Software Systems Acquisition. It’s just as exciting as it sounds. Actually, it’s *very* relevant to some aspects of my job; possibly more than the certification track that I’m required to have. This one will net me a certification I’m not required to have, but if I’m required to rack the workforce development credits anyway, might as well snag something to pad the resume. That said, since class core hours are shifted a couple of hours from my usual work day, and I’m a creature of habit, I’m a bit disoriented and out of sorts, especially since it’s messing with my outdoor and exercise time; I’ve been walking in the 100°+ heat (there’s a nice walking trail nearby that I can knock a mile or two out on after work), but it’s not the same as usual.

So that’s why things have been slow and weird around here. Hopefully it’ll change.

Well, after fighting with things for a few hours this evening after sleeping on it, I eventually, after wrestling with ftp clients, IP addresses, and trying to write SQL queries when I barely know enough to be dangerous (remember, I’m the guy that once took a whole government agency’s clause-selection system in the contract writing tool down for a whole week for want of a semicolon), got my posts and most of my old, circa 2010 wordpress theme back.

In the end, it turned out that my damned export xml file was just too big for the managed WordPress install – it kept choking on it after so long. So, I kept running it over and over until everything eventually loaded.

Of course, my theme customizations are gone, as are most of the images I’ve uploaded over the last decade, but most of those that matter are backed up elsewhere, and for the purposes of this site, less important than all the text I’ve knocked out since 2007. If you’re digging through the archives, you’ll just have to deal with the occasional broken image.

Sorry.

Anyway, it’s been a heck of a week. Class hasn’t been terrible, overall, and I *nailed* the first exam today. But, I had to go back to the office to water the plant, submit the timesheet, and, sadly, wrestle with some garbage my boss wasn’t able to fix on his own. Also, storms made a fifteen minute trip take almost an hour.

Whatever; this weekend’s kinda quiet; I can relax a bit, maybe, wrestle with wordpress themes, and maybe finally get over to Molly’s “Blind Dog Brewery” (and bike shop), since yes, like everything else in the RVA region, my local bike shop is now also a brewery.

So, I swapped web hosts this evening, and well, this is what I ended up with. Looks like I lost quite a bit of stuff in the mix – I seem to be missing about eight years’ worth of posts.

Shit.

Well, I’ll work on sorting things out – it’s not *gone* per se, but I can’t quite yank it out of the aether yet.

at least I’ve got the email sorted. the usual bits work

double damn.

Yes, it’s Friday. Woo. About time.

I honestly don’t have all that much to say. Work, hike, cook, sleep, repeat.

Supposed to get together with some friends this weekend; hope it’s cool.

Next week, and the week after, I’m in class – “intermediate software systems acquisition”. Exciting stuff, certainly. It’s only half as long, and way less involved than the class I took last August while stuck in Aberdeen. This time, it’s just up the street; I’ll take it.

Anyway, tunes. Mix of Pandora and a bunch of the discs I ripped before trading in for store credit at 2nd & Charles. Not awful. Enjoy:

1. “Ocean Blue” – Cut Copy
2. “Hot Stuff” – Toledo
3. “The Plains of Memories” – Borknagar
4. “Riptide” – Vance Joy
5. “Come On Eileen” – Dexy’s Midnight Runners
6. “77” – Alice Bag
7. “Burning Down The House” – Talking Heads
8. “Drunk Drivers/Killer Whales” – Car Seat Headrest
9. “Jesse’s Girl” – Rick Springfield
10. “Long Road” – Patty Griffin
11. “Whispers in the Dark” – Mumford & Sons
12. “Eshkol” – SJ Tucker
13. “Want Some, Need Some” – Poison

So, yeah, I spent most of Wednesday with a significant part of my brain thinking it was Thursday. When I came to that realization, believe me, it sucked.

Wednesday night was a weird one…I dreamt that both my lovely wife and I were appointed as Supreme Court Justices, though the entire thing took place in and around a giant high-class restaurant in Washington, D.C., where we spent time hanging with my old high school acquaintances, and everyone was in some sort of band (not just me) and broke into song now and then. Every time we went outside to walk around the block (no reason; just go with it), a black SUV would invariably pull up and Barack Obama would open the back door, say hello and shake hands with someone.

Oh, and we were both wearing judge’s robes the entire time (Mine was very specifically a cheap graduation gown I bought in non-dream life at a thrift shop for a buck a few years ago and used to build a cheezy Sandra Day O’Connor costume involving a white wig and a cast-off piece of lace). At some point I lost my robe, which made me very very concerned.

Don’t mind me; my brain is weird.

My actual Thursday wasn’t actually somewhat better; although I had to deal with the being very tired from not sleeping well due to the very real anxiety about the robe. Hours of phone calls. Trying to figure out what my boss is thinking when he doesn’t answer questions. Begging for test data from someone, anyone, so I can get this project put to bed by the time the resources outside entities were kind enough to offer run out. Regarding that last one, I managed to get some senior executive types to back me, offering to get personally involved to ensure that I get the right answer from the proper stakeholders. Having those big shot types offer to bring the hammer down on your behalf feels pretty damned good. If you can manage that, I highly recommend it. It’s glorious.

Yeah, my life could be better right now, .but it has potential Hoping the weekend will be better; I also haven’t managed to get any recording done this week so far because reasons. I really need to fix that.

In any case; tunes. “Weekly Discovery” playlist from spotify, mostly. Any playlist that starts with Tim Curry’s “I Do The Rock” from 1979’s Fearless reocrd is okay with me:

1. “I Do The Rock” – Tim Curry
2. “Obscurity Knocks” – Trashcan Sinatras
3. “In My Room” – Echo in the Canyon
4. “Three Is A Magic Number” – Blind Melon
5. “Buffalo Run” – Orville Peck
6. “Dreaming” – Blondie
7. “Blue” – The Jayhawks
8. “Head On” – The Pixies
9. “Cruel Summer” – Prima Donna
10. “When I Get Up” – Tim Heidecker
11. “Life During Wartime” – Talking Heads
12. “Cowboy Song” – Thin Lizzy
13. “This Time It’s Different” – Heart Bones

To think I started off today feeling optimistic about things.

After a relatively frustration-free workday yesterday, I had a nice four mile hike along the river after work, had meal of fresh vegetables, and spent some decent time chilling with the cat and watching Veronica Mars before settling in for an actually pretty good night’s sleep.

Things started going down-hill as I quickly started discovering how all these other people upon whom my projects and livelihood depend are continuing to drag their feet rather than provide the data, answers, or support they’d promised. My 9am working session with *my* project was especially dire; I can’t remember the last time I was part of a group that felt so helpless because others wouldn’t pull their weight.

It was dire.

And it continued through the rest of the day. I did make an executive decision to write off the half-assed efforts to continue untenable strategies and started rebuilding, again, the acquisition packages that got savaged in the review board last week, and the boss, uncharacteristically (probably because he’s stuck out of town in his own hassle of crap meetings), provided welcome, direct, and prompt support.

At least that’s something.

This is all leading toward some humor, as promised.

Intermittently throughout the day, as most people do, I made idle text conversation with my lovely spouse. At one point, I expressed my intention and desire to pursue some outdoor stress relief, as follows:

“I’m definitely hooking after work today…I need the outlet.”
“HIKING. HIKING”

My lovely wife (who’s been struggling with autocorrect a lot recently) asked if my phone “had other plans for me.”

Honestly, I desperately needed that laugh.

As I lie here on my bed, my eldest child’s cat lying asleep next to me (I’m the perennial second choice; she’s currently out with friends) watching another too-short weekend come to a close, I feel kinda hung over (I can’t say I had *nothing* to drink Saturday evening while we sat and watched Veronica Mars series 4, but certainly not that much…) due to seasonal allergies and the medication I take to address them, I think about things.

Reflect, even. I reflect on the fact that I got a decent amount of things done this weekend. I paid the bills, did the shopping, washed a bunch of laundry, made some decent meals, hiked/power-walked ten miles through the woods along the river, and, he-says-with-significant-pride, fixed the loose door on the dryer.

I didn’t manage to get the fish tank cleaned the way I’d have liked, though while out buying cat food, I talked a woman out of buying an angelfish to drop into her 20 gallon tank full of neon tetras; as that way lies sorrow and madness, primarily for the neon tetras, who would quickly become cichlid feed, though also for the angelfish, who, within a few months will be the size of a cereal bowl (rather than the cute little quarter-sized baby he is now) and will be stuck in a too-small tank; I call that a win.

I also never got around to recording the power-pop guitar lines I hear in my head for “Hello, Friend”, but I’ll get it there this week, I think. I’ve almost got enough tunes almost in the can that the theoretical record is kind of coming together. I can almost see the end of the track list – I *think* it’s going to come in around ten songs, plus maybe a demo or two if they fit (I’ll see about sticking that stuff up for sale/name-your-price online eventually, but I want to get this record done first. After wrapping Stranger Things this week (which started slow, but ended very strong), my tune about Eleven in season two that certain friends really dig is getting added to the docket; it’s largely an acoustic jam anyway. Stay tuned.

As I look toward the week to come, it looks like I shall indeed (after conversations with my boss on Friday) soon be transitioning into the requirements/budget slot and away from being the electronic data interchange program manager, in part because I’ve spent the last two of three years working to make that job soon irrelevant, and I’m better than anyone else at this whole acquisition thing. We’ll see what happens, but I have a few more packages to knock together this week for other departments, and this other pain in the ass one that got trashed at the pre-review through no fault of mine (though it felt like it) to salvage. It’ll be a change; and a gradual one at that. I hope it’s going to be a good one.

Otherwise this coming week, besides the things I talked about above, I need to get another load of crap over to the second-hand shop, keep my fitness routine going, and I’ve got a corner of the house stacked with old equipment and documents I need to clear out; it’s starting to irk me.

…but right now, I’m going to raise a toast to all my friends (of whom there are many) setting up tents in Western Pennsylvania for the Pennsic War, which I’d love to pop into someday, but I honestly can’t see adding the SCA to my pile of hobbies any time soon, pet the cat some more, take my nighttime medicinals, and brace for another week as a goddamn professional.

One unique thing I can really say about this week is that it passed, at least to the point I write this, remarkably fast; I’ll take it.

Work’s been work, apart from the absolute shit briefing on Thursday afternoon; ’nuff said. I’ve been hiking rather than biking this week for my fitness/stress relief; partially for a change, partially because weather has been iffy for biking (it’s either way too hot or way too wet). It’s been nice; each the days I’ve gotten out so far I’ve done three miles or so at a different local park along the James and it’s associated marshes/watersheds, seeing lots of pretty dragonflies and and logging some km in the Niantic AR games (Wizards and Pokemon), because if the phone’s in the pocket anyway, why not (it also helps me track my distance)?

I’ve also started working on some downsizing of possessions and media (old CDs, books, comics, and DVDs), because my house is only 1400 sq. feet and there are lots of living things in it, and this old stuff is just taking up space, really. Figuring some of it’s worth something to somebody, I ran a big load of things out to 2nd and Charles, a kind of neat used book/media/etc chain that’s got a location nearby, on Tuesday (when it was raining too much to knock out much outdoor exercise), which got a lot of stuff out of the way, and logged me some store credit, but not as much as I’d like (to be fair, it was mostly mass-market paperbacks that they sell for a buck or two, so I probably got a quarter a pop) that I can use eventually, though, it’s really only the first load of many; Once I finish the books, I’ll start working on thinning out the blu-rays, which should net me a bit more, that I can spend on fleshing out a slightly more curated pile of crap.

After last week’s wealth of paying gigs (heck, I made almost $200 playing music inside a week), it’s been quiet musically, though I did arrange a basic drum track for the next song, which is going to be much more electric than most of the other stuff I’ve recorded thus far – “Hello Friend” (my big hit?) feels like it needs to lean into the power pop feel for the studio recording, which I’ll spend some time on this weekend, I think, since there’s not much else going on.

Speaking of power pop, there’s a lot of that in this randomized musical selections; Spotify’s “weekly discovery” playlist appears to have spent some time watching MTV’s 120 Minutes circa 1988 recently. Overall, this isn’t bad; it reminds me of that cute mousy alternative-ish girl from freshman honors english class who listened to IRS-era REM and the Smiths that we nerdy types had huge crushes on but were too socially awkward to do anything about it.

Whatever. I think I managed to do pretty well in the romance department in the end; I can still dig the music:

1. “See America Right” – The Mountain Goats
2. “Apollo 9” – Adam Ant
3. “Bring on the Dancing Horses” – Echo & The Bunnymen
4. “Crater” – Gord Downie, The Sadies
5. “God” Tori Amos
6. “Son Of A Gun” – The Vaselines
7. “Best Friend” – The Beat
8. “Birth, School, Work, Death” – The Godfathers
9. “Joining A Fanclub” – Jellyfish
10. “Ladykillers” – Lush
11. “Valerie Loves Me” – Material Issue
12. “Gun” – Uncle Tupelo
13. “Starry Eyes” – The Records
14. “Rock ‘n’ Roll Lifestyle” – Cake