The United Way campaign is kicking my butt at work as I decided to run a bunch of trivia games and getting them to work the way I want them to in MS teams is taking a little big of work to finagle. Plus my co-coordinator and I are doing a whole bunch of event coordination, and since I’m a techie type compared to most, I am involved in lots of things I probably don’t need to be. 🙂
But today I decided to double-down on work. Next week is a REALLY busy week for work + the campaign, and I need to have all the balls rolling/flying/bouncing where they need to be. Monday is a whole bunch of test events to make sure everyone knows how things work; Tuesday is a 3 hour meeting I’m hosting for the technical side with break-out groups in MS Teams even though MS Teams doesn’t DO breakout groups (hah! Take THAT Microsoft!); Wednesday I have a bit of breathing space; Thursday is my first live trivia event with individuals, so far only about 10 people playing. Friday is a chance to breathe again. Monday to Friday I’m also running trivia by email, doing my REAL day job, and just generally bopping along.
Which means I doubled-down today to pre-set a whole bunch of things up for Monday’s test sessions, pre-saved files where they need to be, added links in all my meeting invites, tested a few things, etc. We had a meeting today with Heritage to talk about their trivia game and how it is working, which was uber helpful. And then my bilat with my boss confirmed that I’m generally good-to-go for my workplan for my team, with a few big details to be worked out.
But to get everything going? I basically worked until about 6:15, took a break until around 9:00 or so, and then did another 3h tonight to nail it all. Powerpoint, MS Teams, my own website — I was using EVERYTHING. About six things off my to do list that were going to make my Monday relatively insane. I don’t want to work on any of them over the weekend, so I’m quite happy to just be “done” in advance and hope that Monday gives me a bit of time to work on Thursday’s stuff.
I don’t really like messing up my work/life balance, and I don’t do it very often at this point in my career, but it got the job done. And it means I can stop worrying about stuff the rest of the weekend too and focus on home chores. (Oh, wait. Is that a yay or a nay? Hmm..). Heck, I even managed to squeeze in some volunteer work today for astronomy with the public library.
I rock.
Today I choose to double-down on work and get a bunch of stuff out of the way for Monday.
I participate in a number of astronomy fora online, and most of the time, I’m relatively comfortable deferring to people with more expertise than I when someone asks an astronomy question. I have expertise in goto scopes, but on other scopes, I tend to let others respond. Once in awhile, I’ll engage on issues where someone is going too far in my view in their passion for one type of scope over another, often talking smack about other scopes in ways that are not helpful to newbies, or recommending options that are just ludicrous.
Some specific bugaboos that I have are:
People who want to recommend a specific type of eyepiece over another, when most eyepiece use depends heavily on the user…I love long eye relief and wide field of view, Jacob hates it; he prefers small plossls. At star parties, some people’s eyes work well with my one eyepiece that is big and wide, but sometimes people can’t see ANYTHING in it, and I switch to a smaller plossl, and BAM! they see everything. It’s just about their eyes…there are some 3500 different eyepieces on the market, and while not all of them are the same for quality, there are LOTS of variables for what makes a good eyepiece for YOU;
People who recommend binoculars without any extra consideration for the person’s vision, age, firmness, etc. I have binos, I like having them as an option, but they are a terrible option if they were my only tool, and I would have quit astronomy if I had started with those. They have their use, they have their downsides.
People who want to tell people you can’t do photography without spending $2K on various rigs or you can’t buy entry-level scopes, total waste of money.
There are others, but you get the idea. My frequent reaction is to pompous asses telling newbies who asked for help that there is only ONE way forward. Today was one of those days. A person had asked a question on one of the astronomy buy / sell fora in Canada, with a limited budget. The advice she got was generally terrible, but in the forum’s defense, it is more for people actually buying and selling, not discussion. Anyway, I saw her post, I saw what she was looking for, and I thought, “Okay, I’ll help”.
So I posted to her with a bit more “scope” (pun intended) for her question, helped her frame her interests a bit more, gave her a good overview of some options, and told her to DM me if she wanted to, happy to help. Which she did, and so I did what I said. I helped her work through some options. She was pretty far advanced already, I mostly just filled in pieces around her knowledge so she knew her tradeoffs, and what she was looking at with a limited budget. She had two good options, and so we went through all the pros and cons of each, but honestly, she could do either. Mostly what I did was give her peace of mind that she wasn’t crazy and that there wasn’t some magic difference between the two that would make her mind up for her. There isn’t, not really. I spent some time in messenger with her today going over things, sporadically throughout the day, and she’s generally comfortable now with her choices. We’ve expanded her list from 2 scopes to a ranked list of 5 possibilities, and she understands the differences between them are likely to come down to budget, availability and/or personal preference. She’ll use the list to help her decide, and she actually feels like she knows what she’s doing now and isn’t stressed anymore. She has a path and the confidence to walk towards the (astral) light.
I’m happy to help, it’s part of being in the community of amateur astronomers. We help people climb the learning mountain that goes with early entry. She was stressed because it’s a big gift for her husband, she has a limited budget, and this is a significant purchase. Ultimately? I just helped her talk it through. Not telling her what to buy, but helping her decide what she wants to get. In the end, she’s likely to go for a bigger (and more expensive) scope than she started with, and I feel a little guilty about that, even though it is a SIGNIFICANT step up for a bit more money. But I’ve assured her that the original two are just fine, if the budget doesn’t allow that, and that the other one is just a big bigger for more light capturing ability.
Eventually, I want all this “info” to be in an astronomy guide that someone can read and go, “ah-hah, I get it!”. And then they don’t need to talk it through with me. But she needed SOMEONE to walk through it with her, as it’s a gift, and in a COVID world, she can’t just pop over to the local astronomy group and figure it out with them. There are books and websites out there and I’ve almost never found one that explains it the way *I* would recommend. Everyone’s mileage varies though and today I think I was helpful.
Today I choose to help someone figure out how to get started in astronomy and figure out what they “need” vs. what someone else might tell them to get. Or even what I myself have chosen in the past.
I generally feel like I’m having a bad day overall. Nothing major, just a lot of little things affecting my mood. And I’m trying to avoid giving in to it.
I mentioned previously that I’m a little stressed with work. While there is are lots of things going on at once, most of it is manageable. However, I also find myself waiting on some HR news, a new configuration to my job potentially, and I’d like to just “know” the direction I’m heading. I feel like I’m in a holding pattern. It’s not “bad” per se, just frustrating when I’m already busy with other things.
I also mentioned previously that I haven’t been sleeping well. I’m not waking up every three hours anymore, but I don’t feel rested when I wake up, not even with my sleep machine. I know some of it is just a COVID isolation wall, but still, a bit frustrating and lowers my energy levels for coping with run-of-the-mill challenges to my daily resilience and efficiency. Or, like everyone else, maybe it’s just a shorter way to say “I’m affected too”. I like WFH, but I am struggling to keep work and personal separate, particularly as so many of my hobbies are digitally enabled and the computers sit about 4 feet apart from each other.
On top of work and isolation buzzkills, I’ve been worried about Jacob the last couple of weeks. He’s been struggling to self-manage his work at school, and his schedule during the day, so his productivity has dropped. He’s behind on a few things, enough that the report card season prompted his teachers to send reminders on a few missing items. He’s not the only one behind in the class, but he’s playing catch up. He’s also been experiencing anxiety challenges, something that looks like it might be a larger ongoing problem for him for his future. One part of my brain wants to rail against the universe as being unfair, while another part wants to punch the universe’s laughing response in the nose. I feel like he already has enough to deal with, particularly right now with some pending decisions about surgeries.
And then there’s my health. My back was out, which messed up my digestion system and my ribs still don’t like me much today. I’m still getting frequent headaches that appear to be sinus related, but only about half the time (the quick “sinus tests” of bending to touch your toes or jumping up and down only aggravates the headache sometimes). I feel like the pre-diabetes stuff is under control generally, with my weight and medications relatively stable, but I am REALLY bored with my food and snack choices these days which frequently leads to unhealthy snacking. My right ear has been hurting on and off for the last week, and just for fun, my pink-eye disappeared but the same eye now seems to have a sty. Yesterday, out of the blue, two teeth started acting up, I’ve never had a problem before, but they are reacting to anything cold with a sharp twinge. Great. And then tonight, just for fun, I felt some of the face-numbing that I had about 5 years ago that turned out to be “undiagnosable”. In other words, we ran lots of tests, no known cause. It’s not a heart issue, no stroke, could just be stress or an allergy thing. Or my sinuses are pinching a nerve or something. Who the f*** knows. I tried to talk to my doctor last week, but the clinic is part of a hospital so they won’t let anyone come in if they have anything that might remotely seem like Covid. A sty could be pink-eye, so I can’t go in. How would I know if it was pink-eye and not a sty? I’d have to go in. See the catch-22 going on here?
Yet even with all that crap going on, it’s just noise. Mostly anyway. That’s NOT why I’m having a bad day. I’m having a bad day because it’s Remembrance Day. My father died October 5, 1996, but when October 5 rolls around, I almost forget, I admit. The day doesn’t rattle my cage. Some years it’s been late in the day before I even remember. My mother died November 16, 2012, and while it is more recent, I find too that the day itself doesn’t resonate with me. I know it’s coming next week, but I’m not worried about it. Those two dates cause me no real pain, no reason to do more than pause to remember them.
By comparison, Remembrance Day is a full stop. For my dad, it’s easy to know why…they did a poppy service for him from the Legion, and I still have one of the poppies left. Another one I put in the coffin of my mother 16 years later. Or rather, my niece did because I was doing the eulogy at the time and couldn’t have held it together if I had to do it. Sure, I miss them at Easter and Christmas, although those are more about my mom or a general ache. Remembrance Day is a sharper poke with a stick.
For a day off in the middle of the week, I actually thought I would be a bit productive today. I intended to do the ceremony with Jacob and Andrea this morning, but instead I just passed the time alone in my thoughts. Later, when I thought I might work on a couple of small projects, I passed. I did busy work and reminisced. Years ago, we did Remembrance Day potlucks with friends, but we can’t do that obviously in a COVID world, and while I thought about maybe doing some special dinner, I had no real desire to do so. It was just a “blah” day.
Work stress, not sleeping well, COVID isolation, worrying about Jacob, health annoyances, and feeling the grief of lost parents. It is not a good combo. I could have fought to push through it, but I think I would have broken instead of bending. Or I could have just given in and wallowed. I did neither.
Today I choose to avoid giving into a bad day and I’m just taking it easy. Nothing too big, nothing too aggressive. Going with the flow, even if it is a bit subdued.
Between my weight and lifestyle, my back doesn’t like me very much at times. It doesn’t take too much for things like yard work or walking in crappy shoes or sleeping in a new bed or a host of other things before my ribs start slipping out of position. Then my body starts screaming at me.
Sometimes I can do stretches and rolls, and sometimes with a bit of help from Andrea, it will release and move back into some semblance of alignment. Not always perfect but enough to reduce the screams to a dull roar. Other times, it won’t budge without professional help.
Last Thursday, I was supposed to have a chiro appointment, but I thought I was getting pink-eye again, I woke up with a sore throat too, and a bit of congestion. Probably fine and being fine are not the same thing so I had to cancel my chiro appointment. But my ribs managed to fully slip out of position over the weekend and my body was screaming at me again.
It literally felt like my lower rib cage was sitting about 4 inches in front of where it should be. Almost like a series of right angles coming in from my back as if I was made of offset lego blocks. I stretched, and it released a little. I did some more and it released some more in my upper back, but the ribs weren’t budging.
I suddenly realized that while Wednesday is a government holiday, the chiro office might be open and it was. But I also noticed that they had appointments available TODAY at 5:00. Sign me up! I normally go in the morning to get it all out of the way early, but it makes for a bit chaotic morning sometimes to get back in time to log in and start work.
I did the appointment, and we started with a slightly different set of pressure points and lighter than normal just to do simple alignment all over my back, and then he did a slightly different angle on my lower back. My ribs IMMEDIATELY said “Oh, we’re supposed to be over THERE? Okay, why not?”. Perfect simple adjustment. Mid back, same thing. Upper back? Nope, we’re not budging, they said. Neck was good, hips went fine, but upper back did NOT want to release. That’s okay, I can do that one mostly on my own with stretches. But it sure was nice for the ribs to go back and my stomach and digestion to go back to normal. When things get out of alignment too much, I start having digestion problems, and bloating, and just general rib pain, oh my!
Today I choose to fix my back, and it’s back to being right as rain.
I wasn’t entirely sure what to blog about today. I had a LOT of little things going on all over the place. I blasted through about 20 different things at work, although it required me to time-shift some stuff and work late tonight. I opted for something to eat fast, so we did subs tonight, which we haven’t done in awhile. I did some more work on organizing a series of Christmas presents for people that I can’t talk about until after Christmas, and it’s killing me, killing me, I say! Or I could blog about deciding to start an online trivia game with friends. There was some interest, so I created a Facebook group, and will get it going later this month. But I’ll blog about that then probably.
Instead, I guess my “big” thing for the day was that I got the car serviced and the tires changed. A year in, I’m at 16K for mileage, so it was time for the second service. And since it’s November, it was time to do the winter tires. I am not entirely sure why, it’s not like we GO anywhere. But still safer. We had rearranged garage and shed stuff on the weekend, as well as put away all the outdoor stuff in our gazebo, so the tires were ready to go.
I got up early, had breakfast, and loaded all the winter tires in the car, and left my keys for Nissan. Then it was time for “Talk to Nissan” day, with all of the following being different people, mostly:
They called me two weeks ago to ask if I wanted to come in for a service (i.e. they need customers!) and I opted for tire service too, and while they have a waiting room, I preferred their valet service instead;
They called me on Saturday to confirm the appointment for this morning;
They called me this morning to tell me they would be coming today;
They called me again as they were coming over to tell me and to ask if they could park in my laneway while they had my car (they used to have two people come, now it’s just one I guess);
They called me when the car got to Nissan to tell me what they were going to do and give me the price estimate;
They called me when it was done so I could pay and they could tell me their recommendations for future service;
They called me when they were heading over to return the car; and,
They rang the doorbell when they got here to return the keys and to caution me that the tires could roll around if I was moving the car with the summer tires still in there.
I might have felt that nine touchpoints were a bit much to simply get my car serviced. But hey, it’s done. And quickly. They picked up around 9:00-ish, and the car was back mid-morning. As I said, they aren’t that busy these days. The car’s going to sit for a couple of days so I’m not germ-phobic for it, and if I do drive, I’ll wear my gloves and mask. Easy peasy, lemon-scented sanitizer everywhere.
Today I choose to get my car serviced and ready for winter, even if I’m never going anywhere.
