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December 22, 2021: Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today

44 Comments

I was supposed to have the day off yesterday but there was a big pile of work to do and no one else to do it, so I got to put in a good six hours.

44 thoughts on “December 22, 2021: Not Even Supposed To Be Here Today”

  2. better than putting in a bad six hours.

    Waiting now on home rapid test At home rapid says you dodged a bullet.... PCR scheduled for 8:15 am. There is so much work for me and my team to accomplish in such a tight time frame I'm worried that we won't make it over a major deadline.

    After typing the above I'm shaking my head at the idea of a deadline at a museum being something to really worry about in light of the pain and suffering of the last two years. Perspective, wish there was a store to buy some.

    2. At home rapid tests apparently have very good specificity (few false positives) but relatively weak sensitivity (lots of false negatives). Which seems like the wrong kind of test for public health purposes....

  3. I did a few hours of vacation work myself yesterday. I would far rather move a few things ahead now than be absolutely slammed the first week in January.

  4. Our office is technically closed for the week between Christmas and New Years, but it's furlough not holiday.

    So if you want to get paid over the break, you have to budget your PTO for it. (So your 15 PTO days are really only 10-12)

    And of course, we have work coming in the entire time and contracts that only allow for federal holidays to be taken off, so people have to come in anyway. So I'm working 2-3 hours on the 27-30th

    It's an asinine system.

      1. We should either

        Get the same PTO and these are paid holidays, or

        Just work, there's no reason for the shutdown.

        Evidently, it's a relic from when the company was a lot smaller and there was almost zero work coming in over the break. It's simply not the case any more

  5. I have this Thur/Fri off and next Thur/Fri off, plus should get Early Quit notice today and next Wed. I also have an extra ½ day of vacation for getting vaccinated, so yay.

    We just started going back to the YMCA since when Covid started; need to work on these sore hip flexors a bit.

  6. I’m working this week and plan to work most of next week. The busiest time of my year runs December–April, and much of what I do this month is triaging work for January –March. Plus, these two weeks tend to be quieter, so it’s a good time to get things done unfettered from interruptions.

  7. I may have already mentioned this, but the post title reminds me that my friend preached on Clerks durning pandemic. I’ve never heard more qualifications and warnings and caveats before a sermon than that one! It was delightful.

  8. I’m officially off until January 3rd, but since my online classes need to be up and running by that day, I realistically have plenty of work to do before then. We are staying over with my sister in law in Kansas today, and then getting to my mom’s in the Twin Cities tomorrow, so I’m planning on waiting until after Christmas to actually dive in on the class prep.

      1. Yea, Kansas to Minnesota in one day is...ambitious. I really don't like to do more than about 6ish hours of driving in a day (conveniently, about the length of the drive between here and the Boy's in LA).

        1. I've done Minneapolis to Tulsa (and vice versa) several times over the years, it's about a 14 hour trip in decent weather.

          1. that's brutal for people who don't drive for a living (and even for them). I don't do those kinds of driving days any more. I'd much rather pay extra to break it up.

            1. I usually do the entire Minneapolis to St Louis drive, but I occasionally take a break after lunch.

              We're driving down on Friday but it will be a quick trip.

          3. We used to do tejas to mn straight. 21 hours. Twice a year. Yeah, cross town is enough for me now.

        2. Kansas to Minneapolis is actually the shortest leg of this trip, by far. The two days to get here were Southern California to Albuquerque, and then Albuquerque to Lawrence, KS. Those are about 11-11.5 hours each. Tomorrow is only 7.5

      1. January 3rd is our (optional) winter session. The Spring semester doesn’t start until late February.

        So, our options are to start right after New Years, or wait 7 more weeks.

  9. From about Thanksgiving until mid-February is usually one of my busier times of the year. People want to get legal stuff done before the end of the year, and then they resolve to get legal things taken care of. Throw in small business and real estate reporting/renewal issues, and time off is hard to come by, and/or results in loooong hours early in the year.

    2. If you're swamped, then it's a good thing Judge Rohland didn't appoint you as one of the three commissioners for the Sandborn-Springfield project. (He appointed a realtor, an appraiser, and an auctioneer.)

      1. Judge Rohland is definitely one of those people who is busier than anyone else, and also understands and accommodates how busy everyone else is. I appreciate so much that he is my local judge.

  10. I just got back from two days off (in Yosemite with mrsS, daughterS, and nephewS and his family). We WERE planning to go to Santa Fe for a week on saturday, but that trip just got canceled. MiL is very disappointed, as we had planned a (already almost a year-) belated 80th birthday celebration with the whole family and a bunch of her friends. But Omicron. 🙁

    1. also, we split a 4-bedroom house with the nephew in Yosemite West, which is inside the park, about a 20 minute drive from Tunnel View, towards the Wawona.

      All in, the house was about $615 per night for the two families. I'm sure we saved a good $150-$200 per day on food by bringing in groceries for breakfast and dinner at the house and sandwiches for lunches on the go. Plus lots of space for the kids to run around.

      the first day, we did Tunnel View, the Lower Yosemite Falls trail, bummed around the Visitor's Center and giftshop, and the Tuolumne Grove trail. The second day, we did the hike in from the Mariposa Grove Welcome Plaza up to the shuttle bus stop near Fallen Monarch. The kids were about done at that point, so we didn't do the extra 0.8 miles to Grizzly Giant, so, instead, we walked the road (instead of the trail) back down to the Welcome Plaza and headed for home.

      Soooo many burned areas and downed or dead trees. But it was still beautiful. Also, there was a major wind event back in 2019 (I think) that knocked over a whole bunch of tall trees in the Mariposa Grove, damaging the bathrooms and part of the trail.

  12. I started my job at a pretty good time of year, in my first four weeks I'm getting three company holidays. Also, my boss is out all week, our PR agency is shut down this week and next, and I've wrapped up all of my meet-and-greet/product education meetings, so I have ample time next week for project work.

  13. Someone brought bear meat sticks to the company party so I had to try one. It wasn't terrible!
    And now I can check that off my list .

      1. When I was a teenager, one of our neighbors went hunting for the first time, and managed to kill a bear. In addition to not hunting, they also didn’t really cook, and therefore had no idea what to do with hundreds of pounds of meat. So, we ended up with a bunch.

        Bear roast was pretty good, and bear stew was delicious. But for some reason bear chili was horrible, and basically inedible.

        1. Never tried bear, but I did just finish portioning leftover venison chili from the pot I made today. I don’t have the trimmings - headed out to my buddy’s spot after the new year for a day of grinding and sausage making - so I used store bought ground pork and sacrificed a portion of back-strap for the cubed portion of the wild protein.

          It turned out really well, but I’ll be sick of it by Saturday… no one else in my house will eat chili - even if they didn’t see the deer.

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