EricMN

I'm glad someone else asked about the tomatoes.

It's good to see you here, sir. As a fellow work-from-home person, I get the lack of ready relationships. Here's to re-connecting with the world.

Hello, Nerds. A re-introduction is in order. I used to be here regularly. I went from skinny in high school to overweight in college to sedentary and obese as an adult to finally making a change ten years ago and losing a lot of weight and getting pretty fit. I stayed that way for several years. When COVID hit, I went from a routine that worked for me to needing to protect my immunocompromised family members, which led to a lot of regression to bad habits that I thought were gone forever. Turns out the world is round and you can wind up right back where you started if you aren't careful. Fortunately, the world is round and you can also keep moving forward and wind up right back in a good place, too. You just have to do it intentionally. I'm older than I was when I got healthy the last time. I deal with the effects of arthritis on a daily basis. I'm going through a major transition with work over the next year and right now it's kind of a time sink. I am now a single parent and I'm trying to completely integrate my fiancé into my family and even though we've been together for years this is a long, exhausting process. These are all things that weren't challenges when I was in this place health-wise last time. They're just things to overcome. The good news is I developed a LOT of healthy habits over those 7-8 years and I know the things I need to do. Move Intentionally I had joined a gym in January of 2013 and stayed with it until this past summer, with a major break for the COVID shutdown that sent my gym remote. It was during shutdown that everything sort of went sideways. I completely stopped running and I haven't worked out regularly in... yeah, it's been a long time. When my kids went to distance learning, it also meant I spent a lot of time sitting shotgun to make sure my kids did homework, and I went from commuting to work to working from home and being able to mentally disconnect from the office most of the time to it just being ~here~ and it's a challenge. Goal: Move Intentionally, one hour per day. I have resources and I want to be able to do a 5k again by April. Eat Mindfully For almost seven years I was able to successfully track macros and make solid food choices. I knew when my treats happened and I dealt accordingly. I have fallen WAY off that path. I know how to do this. I'm going to set a sensible calorie and macro target that will allow me to drop this excess weight and still fuel my workouts. I'll adjust as I go along. Goal: 1850 kCal/day. I need to set my underlying macros. I'll post that separately. Embrace Self-Care I have allowed this to happen to myself and I need to do two things: Not lie to myself about how it happened, so I can move forward away from this place in my life Not lie to myself about the effort it's going to take. It's going to take an lot of labor - physical and emotional - to get where I want to be. I need to be sure to be kind to myself along the way. I need to remember that progress is not linear. Goal: 30 minutes per day with no screens, no work, and no living the drama of others. This includes my family. I'm looking forward to being here regularly in a place I called home for so long.

You're not wrong. I've said before that the leap the Jedi make from "I have caring relationships with others" to "Everyone is filled with hate" is absurd. Grey Jedi make much more sense. Hello, friend.

I'm sorry, my friend. My condolences. I have been living around ESL people for way too long. I read this sentence and my first reaction was "no need for the extra ED on the end there, 'saw' is already past tense" While I, on the other hand, was about to congratulate him for napping. I was right there too.

Update I'm another day removed from the sprint that was "get shit done before the Grad Party" of last week. Now that I've summed up what I did, I'll review it in light of my actual Challenge Goals: Be kind to myself I kept this theme in my head the entire ten days. In regard to the Day Job, I managed that well. On Friday afternoon at 5pm, I set my work status to "Out of Office", told the one person who had an active support issue that I was now unavailable and to work with my team to resolve in starting on Monday, and turned off my work phone. (I have a separate work phone so that I can keep my life separate from my job.) I also told my team "Things don't have to be on fire in order to contact me for help, but there better be smoke." Nearly all of them understood. On Monday afternoon, I got a phone call from a number that looked vaguely familiar on my personal phone that turned out to be one of my co-workers having general problems with some support tickets. I was not rude with him, but I very directly told him that he should be dealing with our teammates that were actually at work that week to solve his issues. I didn't hear from him again (and frankly, would not have answered his calls if he had made any). On Thursday, I got an early call from my manager; he knew I had been out of contact and called me directly regarding a short-notice meeting that was happening that morning. Our parent company will be terminating our local IT staff in 12-18 months (there are two groups). I'm in the 18-month group. I'll get severance and a retention bonus if I stick it out. I'm not even a little bit sad about it, and I'm not worried for my career future, as I have a good friend who is one of the best IT Recruiters in the area with an 18-month head start; my only question is whether my non-vested retirement money will mature when they let me go. I wound up spending a good chunk of the morning in meetings because of this. I'll be reclaiming that time off, my manager knows this, and I don't feel like I was wrongly inconvenienced. Last year, my oldest daughter moved back to Minnesota from Seattle and needed a place to stay while she looked for a place of her own, which of course meant my house. At the time I was working on the deck project. I would spend whole days out there, in the summer sun and heat, and regularly lose track of time. The first time she noticed it, she came to me and said, "Dad, you need to take a break! You're working too hard!" And I extended my hand to shake hers and said, "It's nice to meet you. I'm Project Dad. You obviously have mistaken me for Normal Dad. I tend to work long hours and forget to take breaks. It's nice to meet you." This year, I made sure that I drank lots of liquids and at least had three meals per day. I got six to eight hours of sleep per night. Also, when we got to the end of the week and I was throwing 2-cubic-foot bags of mulch, I took breaks when my back began to complain. Try Not to Exceed My Max Encumbrance In regard to the Unpaid Second Job, I spent two hours on Monday troubleshooting and fixing our DMX stage lighting. We had made some changes to our sanctuary in preparation for a return to in-person worship (which happened this past weekend) and the lighting stopped responding to the control board. This system had been a black-box to our team since we had a professional set it up three years ago and now it's not only fixed, but understood. I had committed to having this fixed last week and the fact that we did it in less than the three hours I expected it to take was a bonus. I also got up early Sunday to make sure all the settings were correct for my Youth Group kid who has been learning the system but was running solo for the first time, because I wasn't willing to throw one of my kids to the wolves without at least making sure all the things he hadn't been taught yet were working. Less than one hour of smoke testing and validation (including driving time to and from) allowed me, with a clear mind, to take the rest of Sunday off (on our first in-person Worship service since Covid lockdown) for the first time in 16 months. The time spent was still a net gain. Within easy tolerance. In regard to my family, my middle child and their wife came into town for The Boy's graduation party a few days early. I set them up in a hotel in the city, paid for an Uber to get them from here to there and vice-versa several times, and put them to work a couple times and didn't feel bad about it either time. Also, having them a good drive away meant that time together was intentional, and nobody over-stayed and drama in very short supply. Killing. It. As far as the landscaping and garage work, my fiancé had some specific things she wanted done, and I thought I did some smart things: There were only two things on my fiancé's list that didn't get completed, and we had fallback plans for each one. One was getting the lattice covering on our deck supports completed. That job has been hanging out since last year and it's partly because the only panels remaining aren't straightforward and will require some planning and I'm not quite sure how I'm going to make it work yet. I left that for Saturday, and had a shot to finish, but then it rained - sometimes heavily - all day Saturday. I made her happy by hanging plastic sheeting during the party. Closer, but not overloaded. I usually do a terrible job of making sure my kids know what needs to be done. I figured that one out early in the week. Everything on the board got done. My children pitched in like crazy - My oldest daughter, a professional bartender and server, managed drinks and then did all the kitchen cleanup on Sunday. My oldest son spent his day off from work fixing some of our landscaping retainers so I could take care of the sod and mulch, and then cleaned the entire main floor - including dusting, bless him - before work on another day. My middle kiddo and their wife spent two full afternoons painting my garage. And The Boy and The Pink Princess were rock stars in the yard, cutting and bagging dozens of bags of sod and helping get them to the environmental recycling site. I am very thankful for and proud of my big, weird family. But not the cats. The cats are annoying and can leave at any time. My neighbor was a huge help. He was, until recently, the kitchen manager/executive chef at the restaurant that catered our food, and even though he had left for a new place in their restaurant group, offered to manage our food so we didn't have to, on his day off, out of friendship. He made it so we didn't have to think about the food and every time I offered to help him he chased me away. We thanked him appropriately for the time and energy he gave back to us. So, even though it was a really hard-working week, it was not mentally- or emotionally-draining (except for the socializing on Sunday) and I actually hit the ground on Monday refreshed and ready to go back to work. Full health bars, ready to head back out into the dungeon maze.

It's good to see you post, brother.

Actual Start of This Challenge (for me) So. My week of PTO is over. We had a graduation party to put on, and my fiancé had things that she wanted done before the party. None of them were outrageous requests, although some of them were time sinks. Over the last two months, lots of things in my life have been equal time sinks that would often not allow me to put in the time needed to get done the things she wanted before the party. So, while I generally worked myself from sunup to well past sundown almost every day, I was at least realistic and smart and did two things: I told her what wasn't going to get done, and what might get done but was going to be left until the end of the project I asked for help from my family instead of going heads-down and plowing forward. "Asked" In the last ten days: I built a portable outdoor bar for my patio out of reclaimed material I finished prepping the interior walls of my garage for paint I replaced the janky "framing" from my back garage door and did the job properly With some help from my fiancé and my kids, I spent three days removing over a thousand square feet of sod from my yard by hand, because 55 years of previous owners of this house saw fit to try to landscape with various types of rock and pavers, failed, and then covered it all in dirt and grass, and then installing 55 bags of decorative mulch I setup and tore down a grad party with between 30 and 100 guests and socialized with most of them. The socializing was the most exhausting part of the whole day. I did get to talk to some of my youth group kids I haven't seen in over a year, and one of my nieces I haven't seen in at least that long, plus four or five of my former youth group kids who are now adults (two of whom used to babysit for my son The Graduate), so it was pretty much worth it. My family did a great job. I woke up today proud of everyone and the hard work they did, and thankful for them and who they are. It was a physically exhausting week. I needed the mental break from The Day Job and The Unpaid Second Job, badly. I'm taking a day to relax and then starting things that are challenge-related.

So this all ended on kind of a sour note. I don't mind sour so much - I love grapefruit and I drink a Lemon Basil energy kombucha daily - but I like my sweets too. I'm going to try for sweet.

My world is pretty damned busy. I have a full-time job, a family, I volunteer with my church, and I attempt to have some sort of healthy lifestyle. Over the past year, the volunteer position turned into more of an Unpaid Second Job, though that's slowly fixing itself, and my full-time job recently spiraled out of control, and though that project is in the rear-view mirror, I fear others like it will just rear their ugly head soon. I don't need my life to be perfect; I just want to find some balance. This challenge will have only two goals, which I will attempt to achieve daily: Try not to exceed my max encumbrance Be kind to myself That's it. That's a LOT. I've been going at a breakneck pace for years. I have five kids, a grandson, a fiancee, a full-time job, a part-time volunteer position AND until 2019 was working out or running up to seven times per week while also competing in 20 Obstacle Course race weekends per year, buying a house, remodeling the deck, becoming a woodworker, and being a massive Star Wars nerd. My fiancee told me I don't know how to take vacations because when we would vacation, I would either go race, or go on a service Mission Trip with my church youth group. One of my kids told me she was worried I was going to have a heart attack. My youngest told me she doesn't like asking to go shopping for things like clothes that fit or groceries because I'm so busy. These should be red flags and I have ignored them for years. So right now, I am trying to change my behavior. On the first week of this challenge, I am taking a week of PTO from work. I am going to be doing landscaping in my yard, finishing my garage, and completing the lattice cladding on my deck in preparation for my son's High School graduation party. I also need to put together a couple of media slideshows for the party instead of the photo boards most people have done, because it's easier and less time-consuming. So, my family is not wrong and I don't know how to vacation and I do too much, stress too much, and should learn to be kind to myself and rest. I'll give it some effort.

Periodic Update So. Encumbrance has been exceeded this week. I kind of knew it was coming. The Day Job has gone out of control. I worked part of last weekend to try to meet a deadline and then on Monday had to pass the problem off to someone else. This was because we had both a massive process migration - which has alone cost me more than a full day's work every day this week - and a simultaneous upgrade of our Enterprise Business Management test system in preparation for an end-of-July release to production as mandated by the business in order to meet regulatory requirements to sell a specific product - something that would have also cost me more than a full day's work each day this week. I was told two weeks ago this would be happening. I should have given my notice and been gone when this all went down. My team has been sharing the load, but there's just too much load. I will work an average of 14 hours a day every day this week. It's... a lot. It means I've had to cancel everything else and I couldn't tell you what I've eaten this week, but I'm sure it's not good. Also, last weekend was the start to my youth group's Graduation Party tour. This will be a challenging summer, trying to not only eat garbage. In better news, my Pink Princess has been busting her butt to pass her classes this week. She's been distance learning for almost 16 months now and she's just ~done~. She's motivated to do her best this week, but it's just been a bad trimester - partly due to mental exhaustion and partly due to the fact that she wound up a nearly full-time babysitter for my grandson for a while - and there's only so much she can do. Finally, the concrete contractor surprised us by calling on Saturday and saying they had a cancellation and could get to us this week. Today it's almost done, which makes up for the 1.5 tons of pea gravel I had to shovel last weekend during the evenings after the temps dropped out of the high 90s in order to clear the area because my fiance doesn't understand allowing people you hire to do the work you contracted. I'll have pictures of the patio by the end of the weekend. It looks awesome but it's not done and it's not my job so I'll just share the outcome. This week is a complete, out-of-control disaster, but it's almost over. And I don't even have the high ground.

Update "Is that him? Twice in the same week?" Had too many simultaneous commitments on Tuesday, so there was no return to the gym, and there won't be one until next week. I did get in a "run" on Wednesday afternoon when I got a Peer Pressure Text Message from my Mud Brother Ed to come out and grind. I'm almost done with the Garage Shop. I installed some shelving for my reclaimed walnut pieces and boxed up all my small exotic accent pieces. Let's discuss that random branch, shall we? I have a large, mature Black Walnut tree in my backyard. Two years ago we had a huge storm blow through and blow down a couple large branches. This is one of them. I intend to turn some mallet handles on my lathe from this. I took a "shop tour" video that shows the full view of where things are going to live. There's still a little pile of stuff next to the corner shelf unit to get rid of - including that leftover insulation - but this is close to done from an "organize it" standpoint. Thursday was High School Graduation for my son. I have been kind of overwhelmed by the whole thing and I waxed nostalgic on social media about it. https://www.facebook.com/EricMN/posts/10160876076502786 There was a stated limit of four guests per graduate and we brought five, but it was outdoors and un-ticketed and nobody cared, but on the car ride to the ceremony he was hot (90 degrees at the time), super stressed-out and snappy at everyone. But when it was all over, he was happy and excited like everyone else. It was a whole graduating class of "The Weird Kid". He wasn't any weirder than anyone else and probably less-so than some. I couldn't be more happy he chose to attend this school. Apparently it is a School of Environmental Studies tradition for graduates to go barefoot to show their connection to the earth. I didn't know about this. A couple of kids wore their shoes or just socks anyway. He was barefoot, which he doesn't normally like. I was proud of him for joining in with his classmates. The Pink Princess was so proud of her bubby she couldn't pull off a decent group selfie. This was our best. I should do an Encumbrance Report but I'm not going to. I'm just going to enjoy yesterday.

Another Week? Really? I hate excuses. I don't like it when my children make them. But sometimes, "Excuses" are "reasons" that just appear to occupy the same space. I had a serious migraine last week that took me out on Tuesday afternoon and didn't let me back to work until Thursday. I spent the rest of the Thursday and Friday trying to catch up at work. We did an inventory and I have no less than six concurrent projects going right now and four of them are coming due at the same time. Also, I had to help my son re-work his Senior capstone project and write his high school Senior thesis to ensure he can still And because I had lost most of the week, I went dawn-to-dusk on the Garage Project over the three-day American Memorial Day Holiday weekend. I'm tired, sore, and exhausted. My bag was full last week. Today, it is less-full. Encumbrance Report: The Day Job: Busy and under-the-gun. I missed almost two days with a migraine. I sat in eight meetings over the next two days, cranked out a file translation and projects are reaching a deadline. The Unpaid Second Job: Sunday only, for four hours. We are doing Outdoor Worship through June and then just going back indoors in July. A return to normal will also mean virtually no weekly prep-time. Also, I let it be known that on the 27th, I will not be there because I have a graduation party to prepare for. This is the situation letting me go as more than it is me letting go, but it's a welcome change regardless. The Kids: The Boy is going to graduate. We spent several hours on Thursday and several more over the weekend on his last two projects. The Pink Princess is doing catch-up work and will likely pass most of her classes. I'm pushing for all of them, she may or may not like me by the end of next week. Nerd Fitness: Posted a catch-up. My Health: I missed the gym on Thursday. I spent a lot of time in a dark, quiet room. I'm doing far better now. The Garage Project: I am 90+ percent done at this point. I finished insulating everything. It looks like the last picture of an insulated ceiling, except complete. I have cleared out all the junk, to the point that I was looking for some scrap to fill in a gap in a wall this weekend and I didn't have any. 🙄 I installed the overhead latches to keep the rolling cabinets level and they mostly work. Things hang a little wonky because it's a single-pivot attachment point. So far I'm okay with it. I completed all of the cabinet drawers on my workbench cabinets (one still needs a face) and nearly everything is put-away-able. I pulled my wall-mounted tool cabinets down, leveled the wall surface, got some cheap, thin hardboard panels and covered up the crappy blue walls (which I am 100% certain was the former exterior siding of my house), re-hung all my tools, and am preparing for paint. There's just that little pile of stuff by the bench on the left that still needs a home. And that patio table needs to go outside. That shelf-thing is about to disappear. Also, I can easily reach the rings now, and fail them just as easily. This is going to be another busy week, but I am so close to being done. What's left? Right side: Finish putting up hardboard on the back wall all the way to the stairs. Paint everything white. Put up a 1x6 header along the rafter line to make it look more finished. Build a shroud and dust collection for the miter saw. (That can come later but it would cut down on the mess.) Left side: Remove the door "moulding" and replace it with something that doesn't suck. Remove the coat/miscellaneous crap hanger next to the door and find permanent homes somewhere else for this stuff. Cover the half-wall stairway wall frame - probably with drywall. Put up a shelf unit above the lumber cart on the far side of the chimney to store my black walnut and other exotic cutoffs and accent pieces. Move that shelf with the 3D Printer box down a good foot so it's usable. Paint all the walls. Eventually I will cover the insulation with ~something~ but I'm not there yet. I am so close to done and this is so satisfying after the terrible mess it was all winter. Goal Tracking Workout: Sorta. Made it to one of my two scheduled workouts last week due to migraine. Running: No But I'm already committed to going tomorrow. Food Tracking: Sorta. I fell off tracking by on Tuesday when my migraine kicked in and I didn't have the mental game to pick up when I went back to work Thursday. This feels like an excuse. I need to get back on that train because when I'm being mindful of what goes in my mouth, I tend not to do mindless grazing. Graduation on Thursday with the kids' grandparents coming in to town. Tomorrow is kind of booked between work, The Boy getting a graduation haircut, and having a date with a trail after work. We'll see how encumbrance management works out this week. I'll check in when I can. I love my pinko commie antifascist liberal social justice warrior daughter. (None of those words are insults.) She would reinforce your hope for the next generation.

Monday Encumbrance Report: The Day Job: Busy but not gross. I am no longer on support. I had to drive to the office to meet my co-worker and hand off the pager so I don't have to hear 1996 call and ask for its technology back anymore this month. The Unpaid Second Job: I had a Sunday follow-up call with the Pastor. He and I moved on quickly to half a dozen other topics: Church Board Business, Youth Group, Youth Mission Trip, general theology and philosophy. He's getting better at calling around lunchtime at least. The Kids: The Boy still needs a kick in the butt to turn in some work that will allow him to graduate. This is precarious. I'm hoping he pulls through. I won't do the work for him. The Pink Princess has one class where she can't stand the teacher and her grade shows. She's doing well in everything else, but she's having major stress-outs over her High School Speech class. Of course, she keeps picking the most socially-conscious, controversial topics possible to piss off her WASP classmates. I both admire her for this and am annoyed she doesn't just pick easier topics with less stress. Nerd Fitness: Posted a catch-up. My Health: I went to the chiropractor and the gym. The Garage Project: I've come up with a mental prototype for an overhead latching system that will allow my rolling storage cabinets to stand upright regardless of the slant of the floor and this makes me happy. I completely un-loaded my lumber cart and re-organized all my lumber. I excised the last of the less-usable stuff. Everything I have left is organized, stacked neatly, and completely, 100% usable. Even those two buckets of reclaimed stuff on the left; the far left is exotic species cutoffs for accent pieces and would cost real money to replace. The bucket closest to the cart is reclaimed 1x2 black walnut ready to have the finish planed off. The big wooden ~thing~ next to the lathe is my table saw sled. I already have specific plans for the construction lumber on the left and the plywood remnants on the right. As I was about to carry the last bucket of scrap to the dumpster bag, my neighbor walked in the open garage door with two beers, and we hung out for an hour catching up. It was a good end to the day. Goal Tracking Workout: Yes. "Bars and Bells". I like this format and I am being mindful to not try to lift too much too early while I build back my lost strength. Elimination format: 35sec of each exercise on the left w/15sec rest. At the end, do one minute of one kettlebell exercise. For the next set, drop the last barbell workout and move to the next kettlebell exercise on the list. It's easy to do and complicated to explain. Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Protein: 75g Carbs: 193g Sodium: 4100mG(maybe) Fiber: 21g This was a good start to the week.

Where Did Last Week Go? Sorry, people. I wasn't trying to ghost this challenge, honest, it's just that my bag was full. "His bag whatnow?" My bag was full. I had exceeded my encumbrance. "Me, become overly-committed and overly-busy? That's unpossible!" What was in my bag last week? The Boy went back to in-person school for the first time in six months. He's graduating in two weeks (hopefully). His school does a 10-day "Intensive Theme" and he's doing Outdoor Recreation, because he needs the Phy Ed credits for graduation. He loves and hates it so far because he's been even more sedentary than usual since lockdown last year. It's a good finish to his school year. Now I just have to manage him to passing grades in those two classes. He's got ten days. The Day Job was extremely busy. The Mothership Parent Company (who we will henceforth refer to as Sarlacc Co, since we were acquired three years ago and have not been not devoured and spit out, just slowly digested over a period of several years) is trying to migrate one of our systems and it is not going well. I'm the integration point for four of the mini-projects that is part of this integration. I was busy all day long from the time I logged in each morning until the time I refused to answer emails at the end of the day. Also, I spent a good deal of that time dealing with a member of Sarlacc Co's IT department who is absolutely exhausting. She scheduled a "quick meeting" with me that should have been five to ten minutes but lasted 45, and I had to fight to get in a word edgewise, even when she would ask questions. She had one of her co-workers also in the meeting and he said nothing for 35 minutes until she asked him a question, and then he answered in two sentences. None of us had a camera on, but I could still see his resignation. The Unpaid Second Job was busy. Our church is transitioning from online-only worship to Hybrid Worship, which should have been easier, but was not because we have a ton of little kids and African Americans, not all of whom are going to get vaccinated due to a distrust of the government and vaccines. This means we are going to start with outdoor worship while continuing to stream our services online for those who choose to continue to attend that way. This meant I spent parts of three days setting up a second sound board, two remote cameras and a remote big-screen monitor. It was far less work on Sunday but a ton of up-front work that just took time. I made it to my gym twice, as scheduled, last week. It was good for my body and honestly it was good for my soul. Different trainer on Thursday than Tuesday haven't seen her in over a year, and she basically ignored me and let me get my work in. It's good to know the trainers all communicate about those things. Finally, I'm making significant headway on the Garage Project. I fixed two of the three rolling cabinets and I finally figured out how I'm going to fix that whole janky-looking "We stand on a slanty floor" problem. I re-located two wall-mounted cabinets to make better use of existing space. I re-organized all the drawers near my bench and now I have a better workflow. Also, I excised a full cubic yard of what was mostly unusable scrap - clearly, while I don't hoard possessions, lumber cutoffs are a whole different story. Not everything is Put Away-able yet, but we're close. I expect to be done this week. That was it for the week. Everything else got dropped. The good stuff, like posting here on NF, was dropped in a sanctuary so I could pick it back up again later. Goal Tracking Workout: Yes. Made it to both of my scheduled workouts last week and I have 2 on the calendar for this week. Running: No But my body says it's time to start. This will will be fun. Food Tracking: Sorta. I fell off tracking by about Wednesday because my bag was full. I still ate well. The scale says I lost between 4 and 6 pounds last week. I'm not hung up on the number because while the scale didn't change for over five years, my body sure changed between 2013 and 2018 and I know that's more about how it's made than what it weighs - but losing weight at least means I'm not being too stupid with choices. Right? This week looks better. Two of the four projects at work are wrapping up and I can see daylight. The Unpaid Second Job won't need all the preparation time I put in last week for things to go well again on Sunday. And this Garage Project won't last forever. And then I will record a celebration montage before starting my next major project.

I don't know about cheap, you should ask @EricMN who did it a couple of years back. What I can say is we suck at handling covid and hiding it under the carpet, in hopes tourists won't notice, so it might be better to visit next year. That's on top of cruises normally giving you little time in each place in order to increase spending on board, this year due to covid they're not disembarking at all. So short story, you're always welcome, but it might be better to give it a year. The cruise is probably cheaper in terms of total dollars, but that depends on the round-trip airfare per-person, too. I'd prefer visiting Athens and getting to hang out with @DarK_RaideR for a week again than being on the boat and I am actually hoping cruises become a thing again someday.

Monday This is the face of a man who has ~seen things~. Things like contractor bids. And the inside of a gym for the first time in over a year. No progress in the garage. We met with a concrete contractor, I clenched tightly, and we signed a bid to have a concrete patio installed that leads up to my deck. This will probably be done before our graduation party next month. I'm excited and also nervous. I'll get over it. Goal Tracking Workout: Yes. "Bars and Bells" at the gym, in person, for the first time in over a year. I don't have a whiteboard because I forgot my phone (horrors), but this was a 30m pacer workout with three people - one would do the barbell set, 20 reps of a specified exercise, while the other 2 would do whatever the kettlebell exercise was. Once all three people finished, we would move to the next set of exercises. This went on for 10 different movements. I wore my mask because I don't know any of these people anymore except the trainer. She started high-key "Wow, it's great to have you back" and I was able to tell her I just wanted to do my work in the corner so I could go puke in the middle of the workout. She got the message. It was good to be back. Next class is Boot Camp on Thursday. I am bringing my phone for a whiteboard photo. Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Protein: 69g Carbs: 223g Sodium: 3500mG(maybe) Fiber: 17g Starting tonight, things get busy this week. I am meeting my Church A/V and Tech Services partner to get things set up for a return to Hybrid Worship. We start meeting in person, outdoors, this weekend. This means all our existing systems need to be redirected to other inputs or outputs without breaking things when we come back indoors. I hope I continue to have time to stay productive in the garage. It's going to be a push.

Weekend Update Watch The Bad Batch. That is all. Productivity, thy name is EricMN. Things that happened over the weekend: - Installed three more runs of insulation and wow my shoulders were smoked from working overhead - Cleaned out the corner where the lumber cart will live permanently. This meant emptying and dismantling a perfectly good and well-organized shelving unit - Immediately re-purposed all the existing lumber into a new shelving unit to go above the rolling storage bin, which immediately started accumulating ~stuff~ - Re-located all my good, usable dimensional lumber next to the lumber cart, which needs to be emptied and re-organized already - Built another rolling storage cart that is ready for shelving, but holy crap the lumber was warped and twisted and it this one will need internal framing to square it up With all the busyness, I forgot to do any food tracking, but also due to the busyness, I literally did NO snacking. And I usually make everything I eat at home. For instance I make FIsh Tacos: - 1 or 2 baked fish filets, depending on thickness, with Chili Lime seasoning - 3 Corn Tortillas - 1 serving of a Dole Sweet Kale & Broccoli salad for topping Eat your hearts out, people, these are mine Also, on the Working From Home front, there is new news. Our office has been gradually re-opening and we have been told that the office will be "Fully re-opened by June 1" which most of us took to mean we were expected to be back at work. Our team had negotiated with our IT director to work-from-home three days per week. On Friday, we got notice from him and HR that work-from-home as a choice will be offered at least through the summer, to be re-evaluated at that time. I may never commute again. This is all plywood strips of no more than an inch in width and dimensional lumber cutoffs - mostly 1x2 and 1x4 - less than 12 inches long. I'm sure I kept some of it thinking, "I could build cleats for shop cabinets from this". If you were closer, I'd give you right of first refusal, but this is the burn pile. I've been resisting a fire ring since we moved in because the backyard hasn't reached its final layout, but I'm about ready to put one in just to consume my unusable ends. The lumber cart is going to be all hardwood shorts, and you can have that stuff when I die. Save this post until then so you can prove your estate claim to my family. 😁

Thursday Busy day; I felt like I was being pulled in several different directions. First, the actual Day JobTM was busy, all day long. I'm on a two-week support rotation and it's been mostly quiet this week, due to a lot of the work we've done the past two years to create self-healing automated jobs, but this week The Business has raised a lot of weird issues and I'm the lucky one to field them and fix them. Second, the unpaid Second Job - Church A/V volunteer - needed attention as we are in Hybrid Worship and we had people submitting videos (readings, music) that need minor edits and re-formatting for broadcast on Sunday. This was a HUGE job when I took it on last fall, but it's so rote by now, I just do a little at a time and nothing takes more than a few minutes. Related, I had an honest conversation with my Pastor about the sheer amount of time and dedication this is taking. Since we went to virtual worship last March, the Pastor has regularly attended remotely from his cabin, or from a hotel while visiting his mother, or family in Iowa, or just had other pastors do the service because he deserves a week off. On the back end, it has been myself and one other guy - a good friend - who have done all the technical work to make this happen every week. This includes editing videos during the week leading up to worship as well as the actual work of being butt-in-seat and running the production. Basically, Sundays are low-budget live broadcast production. My friend is in active treatment for Lymphoma and last summer was downgraded to Stage 4. He has continued to do the work while going through treatment, but has needed several weeks free from assisting with production, and I begrudge him nothing. However, this leaves me solely responsible to put on the service, and while I can do 99% of this myself by now, I'd really like a week off at some point. We've reached out several times to ask for help and the response has been radio silence. I told my Pastor that if this didn't change, I was eventually going to do what would kill me inside and just take a week off whether there was someone to cover or not, and if not, then there wouldn't be a church service for anyone to attend. He heard me. Shortly after, I heard from a couple people that they would be shadowing what I do on Sundays starting this weekend. Third was the kiddos. The Pink Princess is finishing up her sophomore year and she's in full-on end-of-year slide. I'm doing what I can to keep her motivated. She had a virtual appointment with her doctor who prescribes her meds for anxiety, depression and ADHD and they're changing the dosages. Finally, I got back into the garage last evening. Now that the lumber cart is finished, I took on the enormous job of tearing apart my out-of-control lumber storage corner, which had drastically overflowed the shelves I built two years ago. I wish I had taken progress pictures, this was a HUGE change. Also, I have far too much lumber on-hand. Some of that will be incorporated into upcoming builds, like the storage shelving that will be built directly above the storage bin. Some of it I just need to get rid of; I've reached out to some friends who have backyard fire pits to come take some scrap. By Tuesday I'm going to get a dumpster bag and just start throwing it all away. Pictured: mostly not scrap. Note: casters on the storage bin. Also, note the two white wall panels in the back. I had forgotten about those. These were left over from the apartment we lived in before we bought this house. It was a two-bedroom apartment, which is a problem when you have two teenagers and two adults living there. I had built a floating wall to section off our dining area to build my son his own room. When we moved out, I dismantled the wall, patched the ceiling and the wall where it was attached, and got back 100% of my damage deposit. Those panels were stored behind the lumber storage. They are no longer behind the lumber storage. Soon I will have one fewer blue wall in the garage. I really wish I had taken a "before" picture. Goal Tracking Workout: No Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Protein: 93g Carbs: 242g Sodium: 3500mG(maybe) Fiber: 18g Yeah I think the streak broke when I forgot to hit "Submit" yesterday, but we'll work on a new one.

"Oh, bother," said Pooh, "I forgot to hit 'Submit Reply' yesterday." Wednesday MikeMikeMikeMikeMike! Goal Tracking Workout: No Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Protein: 130g Carbs: 166g Sodium: 3800mG(maybe) Fiber: 17g Another productive day in the garage. The lumber cart is done and on wheels. Casters on, almost everything loaded. I opted to leave one of the shelf tiers out. I'm going to opt it back in this afternoon. I shared this with my team from work and one guy said "Cool Flex, Bro" since it was constructed from plywood and 2x4s, the purchase of which nearly requires a second mortgage right now. I defended myself - the plywood was purchased in 2018 and the 2x4s anywhere from 2012 to 2019. All I spent this year was about $30 in hardware because I wanted heavy-duty casters which I didn't have on-hand. He said I should have sold the lumber - on-hand construction materials are basically Bitcoin at this point in the economy. Wait 'til he sees me dismantle my old lumber shelf. Also, one of my good friends runs a fitness business on the side from his home. Last winter I built him a power rack from construction lumber, before prices really went nuts. Last spring, when I thought I would be working out from home, I built a plyo box and it's been mostly gathering dust since. I called him, he came and picked it up, and I guarantee he's already made better use of it than I did. One less thing taking up garage space, I won't need it as there are several at the gym I will be going back to next week, and it's got a good home. We don't know if he will "cap out" or if he will eventually "catch up". I am prepared for either possibility. We have talked about a "what's next" plan - he needs to get his first part-time job and he needs to look into things like "Do I want to start out with one class at a time at a community college near us". We're also exploring other resources offered by the state and the county, like Vocational Services, to help with this. I have learned how to present stuff like this, gently, over time, so that he doesn't get overwhelmed; but he is kind of on his own when the lights go out and he tells me he lies awake, worrying about his future. Evidently he's not alone. His sister, who is only 16, told me when she was in Middle School that she needs to get a good job when she grows up so he has a place to live since I'm old and will die someday. She inherited my sarcasm and dark sense of humor. The dark side may have casters, but as a self-professed Rebel Scum I expect to have to bug out at a moment's notice and nothing is bolted down. Everything should be pre-fitted for casters. I like those things for furniture. We have hardwood floors and everything in the living room has them.

Tuesday Tuesday meant the final Parent-Teacher conferences for my son. Conferences have all been online this year. I hope for all parents' and teachers' sakes this never goes back to in-person. What a life-saver. The upshot is that as long as he doesn't tank the next couple weeks, he's going to graduate. He's excited, but he's kind of scared. One of his autistic manifestations is developmental delays; he's about as emotionally mature as your average High School Freshman. Being 18 years old, a legal adult, and having adult expectations spikes his anxiety to almost "curl into the fetal position" levels. He's been focused on getting to graduation on June 3 and blocking out the "what next." We'll figure out "what next" starting on June 4. After conferences were done, I got into the garage and started building the Lumber Rack. I'm a bit more than halfway done. Progress photo: I'm maybe halfway done. I have more supports and cleats to attach and casters to mount. If I'm lucky, this will get done tonight so I can start putting all that scrap in the background away. The more likely scenario is this will bleed over into tomorrow as we're on Grandson Daycare duty this evening. And also, for the LOVE OF GOD, someone needs to let me throw away that Christmas Tree stand or get it donated to charity. We have an artificial tree due to all the people in our home with allergies. We don't need to keep it. I'm coming to grips with the fact that, with other obligations, there likely won't be any fitnessing before classes start next week, but food tracking is going well. I'm just falling back into the habit. Goal Tracking Workout: No Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Protein: 162g Carbs: 99g Sodium: 3500mG(maybe) Fiber: 17g Also, @DarK_RaideR - this makes three days in a row. I want points for this. Once you brought this up, I looked around our house and now I want to do this with our living room end tables. My fiancee enjoys doing puzzles, this would be a good way to make space for that. No, I got a day off from what is essentially an unpaid part-time job. I've seen your guitar photos on the Bookface and they're gorgeous. I think inspiration runs both ways.

This is such a better place than when you told me about this stuff face-to-face. Proud of you for getting to where you are with this. This line was inspired. Outstanding.

Monday It was my Getting Older By One More Day Than The Day Before day yesterday. I am now old enough to be a Cynical BastardTM, which should be just charming when combined with my Original Trilogy Luke Skywalker-levels of complaints and grousing. You've all been warned. There is a disturbing amount of chatter happening about my department returning to the office. So far we've negotiated this down to two days per week in-person in the office. I'm going to argue for one and if I don't have enough meetings to justify this, I'm going to work it back down to "The Pandemic Proved that Most IT Jobs Can Be Done Remotely, So I Will Not Be Seeing You All Later." Between work, dinner out with my family, and a Church board meeting afterward, there was no time for much but a clearing some of the mess in my garage to make room for the next project, the build for which starts tonight after work: His intro is cringey AF, but his plans are solid and I have all the materials for this on-hand. Goal Tracking Workout: No Running: No Food Tracking: Yes. Also, I said I was not going to track macros and, well Protein: 115g Carbs: 280g Sodium: 3500Mg (maybe) Fiber: 23g Which is pretty damn good considering I had some sort of chocolate molten center cake with vanilla bean ice cream for One Day Older Than The Day Before dessert. Thanks! Everything in my garage is going to be on wheels in the next couple weeks, and everything that isn't ceiling-height will have a fixed shelf above it for more storage. Even my workbenches are on casters. The only thing that isn't a roller is my Miter Saw stand and I could fix that in short order. I want everything to be Put Away-able. There's going to be a LOT of that going on around here over the next five weeks, so maybe I'll tag this thread "Things That Make Rurik Happy". Nice to see you as well. Thank you! And thank you. And not everything with the kids is always a win. But I was fortunate to be able to get my kids tutors. Even after she was taken from them too early, my kids' mom, who was a teacher, is still helping them with their homework. Facebook is a wealth of disinformation, but it was right about what day it was. And I was at three days (Posted Friday, posted Monday). I should get points for that. And thank you. Missed you, my friend. And thank you.

Weekend Update It was a productive weekend. There was no fitnessing so far, but I didn't expect it yet, and I am starting food tracking today, so, as far as challenge goals, there was about as much goal-meeting as there has been for the last year. However, with project time at a premium, I got to work and got these done: These rolling shelves are 24" wide and 18" deep. They replace pegboard attached to the wall in this spot, meaning instead of a lot of stuff hanging flush on the wall and taking up whatever real estate they take up, they take up less. Even 24" shelves turned with their back flat against the wall, this configuration saves me 12 inches combined between the two units. I re-purposed some of the pegboard I removed from the wall to use on the upper shelf for tool storage. I think all the interior walls in the cabinet on the left will be pegboard as this will be yard tool storage (rakes, shovels, weed trimmer, etc) and I won't need shelves. These are just the first of several units I will be building to re-organize my garage. Also, I am trying not to stress out about some things: I have hated those blue walls since the day we moved in, and I don't know if I have time to spackle, prime and paint in my compressed timeframe, so we're just proceeding as if they don't exist. The garage floor is so not flat that even these two items, side-by-side, do not sit squarely next to each other. I put the block supports for the casters on the outside of the cabinet on the left and on the inside of the cabinet on the right because the floor is so uneven, it slants toward the garage door (left as you view the photo) and I wasn't sure I had clearance on top of the second one to add 3/4 inch in height. I think I have enough room but I don't think I want to unload the cabinet to move them. We'll see how long my I can go without freaking out about it. The unit on the left is made from leftover cabinet-grade material I had on hand from last year when lumber prices were lower. The unit on the right is made from cheap, exterior-grade crap lumber, which is what I could justify buying without having an anxiety attack due to today's hyper-inflated building material prices. It's comparatively ugly and I hate it. I'm hoping I have time to apply some filler and a coat of paint soon. Alternatively, I'll buy some canvas drop-cloths to hang over them to hide them during the upcoming graduation party. When I paint, this is what I will be using for inspiration: There shall be no flat blue paint in this garage when I'm done. Today evidently I have ~plans~ after work, according to my family, so actual goal-ing will likely not happen until tomorrow. Thanks, my friend. I thought about that too; and while I haven't had any acute ankle issues over the last year, they're definitely weaker. I went for a very short and very fail-y trail run/hike with my Mud Brother Ed just a couple days before I posted this thread and my ankles felt very... floppy. I had to concentrate on form and was particularly mindful of those joints. It felt distracting. A good, solid couple months' of butt-kickings in the gym should help that. Getting back to running on uneven surfaces will, as well. Thanks! I always appreciate your encouragement. I try to throw in some of that every now and then, between complaints and general whining, but I will make no promises. We were both not in the best place. We'll definitely have a re-do. I don't even want the "welcome back". I want to show up, do my work, throw up twice during class and be allowed to leave in peace to tend to my bruised ego. Fair enough. And thank you. Agreed, friend. Word. Nice to see you, friend.