Category Archives: Japan

Music and Bolt and Hunting for Soft Serve

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Today we wandered down to a music contest starring our oldest and her band, er, her band club. The adventure ended with ice cream and disappointment.

The contest featured dozens of high school bands each with 10 minutes to perform before they were rushed off for pictures and waiting. There were lots of rules, mainly no pictures or video in the concert hall unless you buy it from the professionals.

Our oldest’s band did well (and will be moving on the next part of the contest) although I felt it was not their best performance of the song.

After their turn, I took the opportunity to bolt for home as our oldest wouldn’t be performing again.

On the way home I decided I needed some soft serve ice cream. In fact I was craving it. I even passed better, more expensive variations of ice cream because was in the mood for soft serve. I went for the cheapest only to discover that particular McDonald’s branch didn’t sell ice cream. Then I went to a different restaurant where I got a big cup and a little bit of ice cream for a substantial price.

It was tasty, but it was a disappointment.

Later, She Who Must Be Obeyed and our youngest came home. It turns out they had also been craving soft serve, but they’d found a better version. I broke at least one commandment involving coveting at that point and committed ice cream adultery in my heart.

However, because our oldest is moving on, I’ll have the chance on Tuesday to get real soft serve.

Of course, I’ll probably be craving something else at that point. I hope I’ll be able to find it.

Keeping Place

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A mercifully boring day today, so this will be little more than a place keeper.

Been scribbling on other writing projects and have a few posts I’ve been avoiding finishing. Not because their long or controversial, but because I’ve not been able to get things down the way I’d like.

Luckily, it remains unseasonably cool. (Cool enough that She Who Must Be Obeyed wanted the windows closed this morning because the breeze was too cold.) This does bring rain, but since I have no reason to go out right now, I don’t care.

The biggest problem right now is the only thing being kept in place is my butt. I may have “butt in seat” but it’s not translating to finished projects. Everything is sort of stuck in place right now.

 

Just a Random Walk With Thee

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Today was one of those days where lots of random things happened because of people behaving in random ways.

It started with alarm app trouble and getting up late.

I cooked breakfast not knowing that She Who Must Be Obeyed planned to cook breakfast for me once she came back. (Note: she wanted to use up old English Muffins so was going to make me a homemade egg McMuffin.) This was a shock as she hadn’t announced her departure which meant I didn’t realize she’d left.

Then people seemed to come and go at random leaving me wondering if I was supposed to cook lunch. I never learned what was supposed to happen because suddenly lunch was made.

Then there were random computer issues that delayed my working on today’s house arrest-related work which slowed down my other projects.

I also had to help our oldest resend birthday pictures as her phone had autofilled my email address with the wrong word. “delivery” vs “delively”.

After that I couldn’t be bothered.

Not Bad for a Monday

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Today, for complicated reasons I’ve discussed before, was a paid holiday. Because of this I was in a good mood and more productive than usual.

Although I was nursing a migraine hangover I got a lot of small projects finished. Some of them were actually useful, too, and not just plans to do something.

I managed to feed our youngest, although that amounted to mostly saying “food there. you make you food.”

I also packed and posted a sale pen, which also might have contributed to the good mood, especially as I broke even on it (and all the most recent purchases).

Tomorrow, though, house arrest starts again for a few days. That will make me cranky. It means, at least for this week and next week, I don’t like Tuesdays.

A Forced Day of Rest

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Not much to report as I got the migraine spot early and that ruined the rest of the day. At least until it got better.

Everyone was out and about doing various things when I got the migraine aura and took some medicine. I suspect it’s because the unseasonably cool weather has been messing with my head (or I need to get up and about some more).

Either way, taking medicine led to me being sleepy the rest of the afternoon which led to me accomplishing  very little.

Eventually, though, I got better and we enjoyed our youngest’s birthday.

More on that in a future post.

Randomly, Without Feeling

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We were apparently attacked by a North Korean missile tonight but we are apparently okay.

That pretty much explains today. Lots of little things happened, but none of them were particularly good or bad, although they could have been.

I reached the end of my first week of work/house arrest and the entire notion of it has me feeling glum. I’m feeling this way even though I actually did extra work to get ready for next week’s house arrest/work and felt reasonably pleased by what I’d done. As I’ve said before, it’s not that I have to do work during the summer that bothers me, it’s that I lost free summers without any compensation and that any attempts to get any leniency have all run into the same professional BS artist.

(Note: Facebook and/or Twitter apparently blocked a previous post where I used the adult version of that phrase to describe the person so many of you may not know who I’m talking about as it never reached my Facebook stream.)

I also worked on the writing project I’ve mentioned before, but in that case I’m butting heads with all kinds of writing that seemed like a good idea at the time. I killed so many darling today that I spent more time slashing and less time transcribing. That was followed by the second guessing.

It’s now the weekend and I get to enjoy three days of actual vacation before house arrests starts up again.

Glorious Cool

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Nature gave us a bit of mercy today in the form of unseasonably cool weather.

This meant that even such tasks as running to the bank and paying taxes were actually kind of pleasant because it was possible to walk more than several meters outside with out becoming soaked in sweat.

Not only did we not need the air conditioner (at least as long as the pleasant breeze continued) we barely needed a fan.

I dragged our youngest to town so that I could take money from one account and then walk across the street to deposit the money in a different account. After that we had an early lunch and then our youngest went to swimming class. (Note: this means she probably didn’t enjoy the cool weather as much as I was.)

All in all, this meant everyone had pleasant moods today. I don’t know what the forecast is for tomorrow,

It will probably be warmer, but hopefully not much less merciful.

Follow Up, With Attitude

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(Note: I’m feeling salty. So what?)

He has a good memory about what I said. About what he said, well not so much.

I’ve mentioned before how the company I work for tried to assign me, well, I believe the technical term is “shit work” during the summer.

I didn’t, however, report the follow up.

The day after I wrote about that situation on this bit of blather, I got the phone call I was expecting from the company I work for’s designated bullshitter. He’s supposedly a former Marine security forces bullshitter and as such is trained in talking down angry people. (Note: I don’t consider him an honorable person therefore “former Marine.”)

His technique is to remind you of what you said, interrupt your attempts to vent even if it will make you feel better, and then conveniently forget everything he’s said when you attempt to remind him of it. In fact, when you attempt to remind him of what he said, he interrupts you in order to remind you of what you said.

The problem is, there is no way to get past him. He acts as a kind of secondary firewall to keep upper level management from having to deal with the actual product that is being sold. (Yes, I have accepted that I am a product.) There is a firewall level in front of him but they don’t bullshit as well as he does and he eventually gets involved.

Oddly, he’s almost single-handedly responsible for losing the company three positions at the school where I work but he keeps his job. People feel unsupported and leave for greener pastures. In my case, it will be extremely difficult to find a greener pasture. Therefore, If you know of any jobs in the USA involving teaching or writing, please let me know.

In a final twist, those three lost positions are all filled by people who used to work for the company I work for, which says a lot about the company I work for.

 

Sell and Wait and Sell

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It seems, the last couple nights, as if I’m always closing but not actually getting close.

Last night I had bites on a couple pens I’ve been trying to sell and I stayed up late answering questions. In one case, the deal is done pending payment, and I’ve even managed to upsell a couple things (pending payment).

With the other, things seemed to finish quickly after I lowered the price slightly, but once we got to the payment part, communications ceased and payment has not been made. (Note: nothing ships until I’ve been payed.)

Now I’m probably going to have to stay up late and see if I have more questions to answer or a box to pack.

If I don’t hear soon, I’ll have to declare it’s still available and see what happens. Oddly, I know at least one person who will not be happy if the pen becomes available because they are interested in it and have been hoping it sells to someone else.

Not Many Excuses to Go

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A number of factors have combined to keep me locked up in the apartment: heat, humidity, and an age related general lack of interest in going outside unless I have a particularly good reason to do so.

The latter has caused me to cancel planned outings even during nice weather. The typical process involves a couple days of making plans and more plans but  then the day of the plan arrives and my brain starts rationalizing staying in by second guessing the necessity of following the plan. My brain is suddenly concerned about spending and spent energy and all the bad and annoying things that can happen during the outing.

If it is hot and humid, or there’s a strong chance of rain, the process happens much faster.

In the end, I usually end up staying home.

This makes life kind of relaxing as well a whole lot cheaper. I just doesn’t give me much to write about.