Story 28Oct2022: Friday

At 12:30AM, I could not fall asleep and deactivated my Twitter account. There is a significant exodus from Twitter for all the obvious reasons, and I found an invitation to join a new friend’s Discord server, so I did. I will be on Discord now, which I believe is the future. Not necessarily the company but the idea you can put up your own server and connect with friends on various shared servers. I like that idea, and thus, I will leave Twitter and start a more vital server and service-based identity in social media. Exciting.

The morning started with me not rushing as Friday is a work-from-home day at the shoe company, with the corporate folks wanting folks at WHQ Tues-Thursday. I spent much of my interactions in Zoom in the office which I think is quite strange, but I do get to talk to folks in my immediate groups as they are all physically present Tues-Thur in the office. Free coffee is available until 10AM, and there are many parties with food and drink to help us better reconnect. Using an older term, our project manager was visiting from Bend this week (it is the first time meeting her in person), so we had our first in-person meetings with her. We may see her in November, unless the snow comes early, and then again in the Spring. All strange to me.

I had only a few meetings on Friday, but our messages on Slack were non-stop, as was the email traffic. There were a few breaks and a spectacular production mistake that cannot be discussed here. Folks were busy, and emotions were starting to run a bit high. A Friday like I used to have in the old days. Most of this, while annoying, will likely clear in a few hours. An After Action Review will be slightly unpleasant for such avoidable mistakes, but that is how some folks learn. I deleted the folksy saying here as it seemed disingenuous about learning the hard way.

I managed to visit Susie in the hummingbird house in the late morning. To get there, I took Air Volvo through Beaverton in the rain, skipping Old Town. I had to avoid splashing folks waiting for the bus–there was a lot of standing water.

It has been raining for days, and we have showers until June or July. I am looking for a break in the rain to plant my tulips. It is 50F (10C) and wet most of the time now.

Susie was happy to see me; I brought her her “Boo” sweatshirt. I also brought a talking spooky candy dish with an animated eye for the hummingbird house to use. We chatted for a bit, and Susie was disappointed not to go out to the park, but it was nasty out there. We did call Susie’s mother, Leta, and chatted for a while.

I left with a kiss and headed back to the Volvo Cave. Despite the rain and construction, the slow driving did not include any overly imaginative driving from my fellow Oregonians. I took the less construction-filled Division back and crossed through Aloha, an unincorporated city–just a name on a map–without issue.

I continued with work until 5PM with a few breaks as my colon decided to demand attention, and the drive home included more concentration than usual, but all was well. I rested for a bit as I tried to slow down.

Next, I made dinner after learning that Mariah was too tired for a visit from me in Portland. First, a pork chop from the freezer fried in butter and coated with Five-Spice Powder and some salt. Wonderful. Next, green beans (frozen) wilted in more butter with almond slices and garlic (powder was all I had)–a fav. Lastly, I boiled dry Geman noodles from the German Deli, but they were just average with butter and Herbs de Provence.

I tried the highly-rated show, The White Lotus, on HBOMAX. Nope. The only thing I liked was when the gal that married a spoiled rich guy always looked plain, took off her bathing covers, and was a perfect thin model walking into a pool, and the mean girls were left with mouths open–that was a good moment. But I won’t be back.

I headed out and reached Wildwood Taphouse in the early evening. There, I reorganized the solo board game Nemo’s War which got partially dumped in the car. It was just mixed up inside, and nothing was lost. I then worked on getting my Discord accounts working. I seem to have two accounts and learned that my @me.com and @mac.com are on two different accounts, one two-years-old and one going back to 2017. I have them defined now in one instance of Discord. Finally, I had a few beers, wrote more Dungeons and Dragons adventure text, and posted here and there on Discord, my new home. I never got to playing Nemo’s War which I wanted to try again.

Aside: The new chess computer, a Raspberry Pi 4G based machine, is now available to replace the controlling unit for my chess machine. So tempting to spend money on that, but chess is on the back burner for now. Resist! It is just under a thousand dollars–good is not cheap.

I went home and read and had trouble sleeping. Too much tea, I think. Thanks for reading.