Friday, June 09, 2006

Warning

It seems that the feds are trying to find new ways to spy on us (again).

Short n Sweet

My wife made it home safely this week - all rested and 'vacationed-up'. It's great to have her back. Her serenity lasted less than 24 hours (see past blog post for teen issues). And today things have, at least tentatively, reached equilibrium.

I've been dealing with my diverticulitis issues for the past month. I think I'm out of the woods now. But the meds I've been on (two strong antibiotics) seem to be messing with me in other ways. The bottle on one of these meds says 'may cause dizziness'. They're right, and it's very disconcerting. A less serious side effect: strange metallic taste in my mouth 24/7 while I'm on these. The pills run out next week and I can deal with it until then.

Other than that: Summer. Walks. Photography. Flickr. And friends... can't forget them.

Saturday, June 03, 2006

Batchin' it

It's been awhile for me again between blog posts. I don't know what the deal is. Partially, just the fact that it's summer and it's so easy to stay out and play when it's light all night. The other reason is that things are going pretty well. I find that I blog more when I've got stuff weighting on my mind.

So... onto the news with me. (and sorry for any repeats - Im to lazy to re-read my prior posts for this) My sister in law stayed with us for a mini-vacation for a week. Used up some free air miles and made a 'cheap' trip out of it. When she went back to Oregon on the 27th, she bought another RT for my wife - again on air miles. And my daughter and I are a bit past half way through wifey's Oregon 'cheap' vacation.

On the down-side, I spend some of this time working through some 'teen' issues that were in progress when my wife left. (a heartfelt thank you goes out to a few of my friends who helped with advice in that department). And am still dealing with some medical issues of my own. And she's got the good camera and I have not been motivated to take pictures with the shitty one. I have shot less than 30 frames since she left. And although I have been extremely active on Flickr for the past couple of months, my activity there has ground to a halt for a week now. On the plus? Whole bed to myself. Guilt-free pass to go out of town for a drive or whatever - pretty much any time I want. But yes, I'll be glad when she's home.

On the close horizon? 4th of July weekend. Seward! Watching the Mt. Marathon race, etc. I had to get a bit creative with the vacation time. Although I have the first week of July blocked on the calendar at work, I am scraping the bottom of the barrel on leave-hours. The reason? Illness. What I neglected to mention on the last blog post is that vacation time is also sick leave. And I had a rough few weeks in March. Flu, with complications. Then I proceeded with my vacation time for my sis-in-law and had to take a couple more days while wifey is away for things like doctors appointments for my daughter. I was actually going to give up on the 4th, but realized that I can make a four day weekend of it by spending just one vacation leave day on Monday the 3rd. Of course I would prefer to have a recovery day AFTER the 4th before going to work. But hey, this is a compromise that I can live with.

This weekend will be a hodge-podge combo of the necessary and the superfluous. Today I am supporting a friend by attending the funeral of his son. I wont talk much about that because frankly I have never gone through that kind of loss, and cannot begin to conceive the depths of his pain. I hope that just being there will be enough it will have to.

The Vacation Game!

At my office we have to plan out our vacations at the beginning of each year.

It works like this: A calendar gets passed around in order of seniority and we each block out our first choices for vacation. The selected days must be in a continuous block. Then it makes the rounds again and all the employees choose a 2nd pick. Obviously, if you intend to use them both, you must have enough vacation time available by the time those dates arrive. Otherwise, it is okay to free-up any time later, and allow someone else to have it. It's basically just 'making reservations' for the time. Finally the calendar makes round 3. One final rule: calendar time that is already 'blocked' by two other employees is off limits.

I have refined my planning technique over the years. It goes something like this... Block two weeks or so for early summer for the inevitable visits from friends or family from Outside. (that's 'choice one'); Block some time for late fall; if for no other reason then that I will be ready for a break by then and will have some PFD cash to work with (choice two); and finally... Rondy! See, the calendar actually goes from March of this year to the February of the following year. Don't ask me why. So my Fur Rendezvous time is the last choice of the vacation 'year' for me.

Aside from vacations, of course, are the major holidays and a few 'floater days' that we are allowed. For this year, I have just finished using my first block of vacation time.