Two Brisk Days

Well, a brisk weekend all in all.  Saturday was pretty straightforward - breakfast at the Hickory Pit, then over to Cupertino Square to see "American Hustle", an outstanding movie.  From there, lunch at TGIF, then off to the park for a two mile plus walk on a beautiful afternoon.  Home for the evening, a call with TR, an early night curled in bed and a phone call from my friend Tyrone.

Seems that Tyrone laid his bike down on the freeway last week, catching his foot under the bike, bruising it badly - fortunately, it looks like no breakage.  He actually rode the bike for a couple of days and then put it in the shop for repairs - and the parts were late.  He was seeking a ride up to Foster City to go to his second job on Sunday.  I obliged and I will also take him up to work tomorrow as well - he's hoping he gets his bike out of the shop tomorrow, if the parts have arrived.

So, today was running Tyrone up to Foster City, then breakfast at the Classic Diner in Fremont with Tony, then home to watch a spot of TV and take a nap, then back up to Foster City, then home once more.  Whew. Upon returning home I discovered that my lights strung on the patio had given up the ghost.  Parts of the string were out for no apparent reason.  So, a quick dash out to OSH for a new string of lights (this time I went for the blue icicles), then home and restring them all.  Exchanged some text with TR, then a call with Brandy, and now, in the waning moments of the night, going to call my nephew.  Tomorrow is going to be a brisk day as well.

In Which I Struggle With Time

It is rare that I edit an entire entry.  But, every now and then, I write something that, on reflection, I am simply not satisfied with.  When that happens, I take advantage of the ability to delete or edit that entry.  This entry was originally about my struggles with time - but my thoughts around those struggles were not complete, so I decided to declare a do over and hit the delete button. 

Let me simply start out by saying today, I struggled with time. There are days when I get harried. Basically, what happens, is that my expectation of the timing of the day does not line up with the actual timing of the day and it frustrates me.  It is one of my major stress triggers, at home and at work. Consequently, inside of me, I feel a great urge to get better control of my timing as I go through the day.

In order to do this I need to simplify, I need to de-clutter the days.  I think I am approaching a time for another wave of simplification, perhaps a semi-drastic wave of simplification.  I need to get things trimmed down to what matters to me, and then let myself focus on what matters.

Now, those three paragraphs are next to nothing like what I originally wrote, but they are closer in spirit to what I was trying to say, minus the pointless complaining and vaguely talking around the subject.  I like this entry better, it is tighter, it gets to the point, and it is a good starting point for the further conversations around time.

Popping over onto a completely different subject - I saw and enjoyed "The Hobbit: Desolation of Smaug" today.  I would recommend it - a solid addition to The Hobbit series of movies.  Then, in the evening, I've watched two episodes of "Almost Human" from the DVR, which I enjoy immensely as well.

A Semblance of Something Ordinary

I think if I have an overall feeling right now it would be - mostly tired.  Mainly tired from the aftermath of the food poisoning.  Though I am much better, I feel like I am catching up on my sleep.  I am generally trying to push nine or ten hours of sleep a night.  I deliberately kept this weekend as low key as I could in order to get the maximum amount of rest and relaxation out of it.

On Saturday I saw the new Dwayne Johnson movie over at Cupertino Square and followed it with dinner at TGIF.

On Sunday, it was breakfast with the guys and then we spent most of the day getting Tony's large things moved out of his apartment and up into the new shared apartment in Fremont that he is moving into.  It went fairly well for a move, all in all.  There was me, Tony, Bob and Pierre and his new roommate Dan and his wife.  There was enough hands to spread the work around, though Tony still has a lot of stuff to move, the bulk stuff is over to the new place.

From there, I came home, tried to take a nap that kept getting interrupted, then watched the latest episode of The Walking Dead (excellent as usual).  There is a new show coming on the History Channel that starts tonight that I am going to watch - "The Vikings".  It looks like it might be pretty interesting. Then, an early bed and a good night sleep, probably with a call to my step-dad mixed in there somewhere.

 My plan is to keep things very low key this week and do my best to catch up on my rest and my sleep and get my life hammered back around into a semblance of something ordinary.

Seeking An Easy Evening

It is near the end of the day and I am thinking of it as a conflicted day.  The conflicted part arises because I was unable to get work out of my mind.  I dislike it when, no matter what I am doing, work is never far from my mind and never far from my imagination.  It is an unwarranted intrusion.

But, other than that particular conflict, it was a pretty nice day.  I slept later then usual, until about seven a.m.. I am sleeping late due to work, in my opinion.  The long hours have been taking it out of me and when I get a chance to sleep, I tend to sleep longer then usual.  I don't think I am sleeping deep enough, I think my mind is always spinning, trying to be overwhelmed with all the stuff going on. Sometimes when I wake up in the middle of the night I have to remind myself that it is the middle of the night and there is next to nothing I can do about work.  So much of what is going on in my current work world is completely out of my control.

Anyway, after waking, I showered, had a cup of coffee, and then met Tony for breakfast.  We actually had a plan for the day.  Tony is looking for a cheaper place to live - a tough challenge here in San Jose where the cost of living is rather high to start with.  After breakfast we drove up to Fremont to check out some lower cost apartments Tony had found online.  Since neither one of us is all that familiar with Fremont, it was a bit of an exploration.  I wasn't terribly impressed with what we saw, though I credit part of that to the fact that it was a gray and gloomy day. 

There was one apartment complex that I instantly like for the ambience. It was old, ratty, and run down - but it had character.  When it comes to apartments, character counts. The cost savings, to me, isn't that great - he'll add to his commute time and he may only make marginal savings.  Ultimately though, it is his call since he has to live there - and I definitely understand the urge to save money.

After a few hours of apartment scouting, we stopped in Union City and had lunch at Texas Roadhouse, then from there, drove down to the AMC theatres at Cupertino Square and saw the new Stallone movie (directed by a favorite of mine, the very talented Walter Hill).  It was entertaining and it was definitely a Walter Hill movie, which was kind of cool and unexpected.  There were a few false notes in casting, but other then that, it was a pretty entertaining bit of popcorn.

After Tony dropped me off I got in my car and drove up to a health food store in Mountain View to get some Paleo Bread (low carb or net zero carb bread) and a few other low carb treats - some cookies and some health bars.  With all the hours working I am spending too much time sitting and not watching my diet as closely as I should, consequently my blood sugar is creeping up. It is still in the excellent range, but it has been consistent ten to twenty percent higher that I like it. It is going to take a fair spot of discipline to pull it back in the very excellent range.

Then, back home, and I settled in for the evening and watched "Spartacus: War of the Damned" off the DVR.  A nice guilty pleasure that is.  After a simple dinner I took a short and brisk walk around the neighborhood, then slipped back inside to this moment, where I am sitting here writing in my blog.

My plan for the evening is, I think, a little correspondence. I am going to write to T.R., then to my sister and brother, and then, perhaps, watch another show off the DVR before curling up and reading.  I didn't work today, on purpose, because I figured the sixty one hours I worked last week was sufficient to earn me a day off.  I don't know if that was a mistake or not since I could never shake the work thoughts.  Tomorrow though, I am definitely going to have to feed the beast.  I've got what I am estimating is between six and eight hours of work that I want to have done prior to Monday.  Tonight though, I am going to continue just trying to relax and have an easy evening.