wombat_socho

Conference call this afternoon before work in which it was announced that the NSSAB meeting scheduled for April 16 in Beatty and the National Chairs Conference the following week would both be virtual instead of in-person because of the uncertainty regarding DoE's budget. Not mentioned but undoubtedly a factor: the chance of a shutdown on Friday. I'm somewhat relieved by the news, frankly - the notion of hopping in the car on 4/16 and getting my ass to Beatty the day after the tax deadline did not thrill me, nor did the idea of going to Vegas the following week for the chairs meeting. They could change their minds again, I suppose, but I'm just as pleased to kick back and attend the meetings from home, even if there's no travel pay in the offing. 

Work has been picking up a little, oddly enough; I keep getting a few TPR a week, most of which are quickly finished and quickly paid for, and I currently have a couple of chonky returns with lots of stock transactions & other fun things. I need to call a client about one of those since her brokers screwed her and sold a LOT of stock which they didn't bother withholding taxes on, so she has a huge tax bill and owes us a lot of money too. She's first on my list of priorities tomorrow; I should have called her today but I got bumrushed by a couple of clients and next thing I knew it was after 2000. 

I was surprised to get a call from the ex, who sounded chipper and cheerful for a change. She thanked me for all the fudge, which she's still nibbling away at (I'd forgotten I sent her about 2 pounds of the stuff) and was suitably amused about its origins. 

Weight is slowly coming down from the wretched excess it reached during the Confinement excursion, though my BG bumped up slightly today.

It snowed last night, which sucked, but I didn't have to go out so I didn't. Probably won't go out until tomorrow night, when I'll be out of tea and will also need to pick up some corned beef for St. Patrick's. 

Put in a full day with the balancing board today after using yesterday afternoon to get my ears lowered, check in with Dr, Hsi, and get my PTIN renewed. It was pretty cold this morning, so I broke out the field jacket and gloves, though I really didn't need the latter. 

I decided since my appointment with Dr. Kletzky is in the late afternoon tomorrow, I'll just drive down in the late morning, do the appointment, and then crash at the Strat before returning here on Thursday. That way I only miss 1 1/2 days, 2 at the worst, instead of missing 2-2.5 days. I might even manage to pick up a few things at Walmart on the way back, or on the way to the Strat. 

I'm getting used to Civ 6, even though the cartoony leader portraits are still annoying and I'm not keen on some of the mechanics changes. Won at level 3 with good old Julius Caesar, and am currently attempting level 4 with Teddy Roosevelt. On my way to crushing the treacherous Aussies, after which the Brazilians are going to get it right in the teeth. This took priority over blogging; after all, I can easily catch up tomorrow. 

Time to hit the rack.  

Had my first return today, a 1040EZ that the client didn't want to drop off. I knocked it out in about 15 minutes, gave the fellow a 10% discount since he'd been with us forever, and also did some work on my own return, which I am hoping to have wrapped up and submitted before I head up the road on Friday. I am on the schedule in Dayton, as I mentioned in my last post, but I am basically standing by and waiting for dropoffs, fulfillment returns, and suchlike things. 

Did laundry tonight at Tonopah Station, as one does on Sunday night, and washed my sheets since all I've been wearing this week (mostly) are T-shirts and pajama pants. Daytime temps have been in the 40s and 50s, so I haven't had to run the space heaters as much. 

I'll be devoting most of my off-time to rooting out the rest of the Son of Silvercon expenses and putting those on the second Schedule C. I really wish I'd gotten the Spark card sooner so I don't have to dig through four different credit card statements (and the credit union, and the NSB account) but it can't be helped. I expect that Schedule C is going to show a pretty humongous loss when all is said and done. Speaking of the convention, Brad Torgersen agreed to be our Guest of Honor this year. 

I started doing a Memorandum for Record about my intentions for Son of Silvercon and got derailed into copying various philosophical musings about Anime Detour into a Word document that I may or may not pull together into an e-book. 

The VA disability will hit on the first, and $25 of it is going toward a preseason shearing. I am undecided how much of the rest will be going toward credit cards and how much toward new work shirts and work pants. One of my existing pairs of work pants has a hole in the front left pocket and (IIRC) a ragged left cuff, and I know I've lost a couple of work shirts in my travels, so I'll definitely have to invest in some of each. In addition to getting my ears lowered, I'm going to stop by the DMV and renew my registration. Getting a handicapped parking placard involves having doctors sign off on various forms, and I think I'll just pass on that for now. I'm not that crippled yet.  

I am mulling over whether or not I want to get the Imaginos albums by Albert Bouchard. They pull together and remix the songs that Bouchard and Sandy Pearlman originally intended to be a sort of secret history of the 19th and 20th century, which are scattered all through the Blue Oyster Cult discography, and while I find the story interesting, I'm not sure I want to listen to the musical. 

Mike Kupari posted on X tonight that David Drake had died, which I suppose shouldn't have come as a surprise, but nonetheless it did. Guess we'll have to look for another guest of honor. My connection with Dave started when I was in high school, reading the collection of Galaxy I'd been gifted by the school librarians, and discovering "Under The Hammer" and "But Loyal To His Own". I wrote him some letters, to which he politely replied, and I kept an eye out as he began to become a Big Name in Baen's stable of authors. A few years later, I joined the Army, and as most of you know, managed to wangle an assignment to the 340th ASA Company of the 11th ACR. This was not, strictly speaking, the same company Drake had been in during Vietnam, but it carried the lineage of that MI detachment, and when we finally met years later at Arcana, he was pleased that we had that connection. With the exception of his Cthulhu mythos stories (which were arguably more horror than fantasy) I was never that interested in his fantasy novels, but I read and/or bought just about every SF story he ever wrote. As others can testify, he was a fine writer, a great guest at conventions, and a wonderful human being. Not an officer, but definitely a gentleman. See you at Fiddler's Green, sir.

As for me, well, the run down to Las Vegas for the pulmonary appointment Thursday afternoon was sufficiently exhausting that after picking up probably too much food at McD's and some fluids at Sonic, I crashed within an hour of checking in to the Strat and didn't wake up again until 0500 Friday, at which point I shaved, dressed, and hit the road to the VA, since I had an 0700 lymphedema appointment followed by an 0800 wound care appointment. Having done those, I ducked into the eye clinic to see the optician, who helpfully tightened my glasses after changing the left screw and recommending that I use two hands to put on and take off my glasses. Also managed to get in early to see the sleep clinic people about my CPAP, so after stopping by pharmacy to see about my glargine (I was out and had no refills) I was on the road to Maverik for gas and BBQ pork rib bundles along with more fluids. One brief stop at the NSB off Aliante Parkway and a talk with Carlos later, I was on the road. 

Got home at 1700, unloaded the Kia, and decided I'd had enough fun for the day. I put the Senators in the hands of Robot Ted Williams (and beat the Red Sox 2 out of 3) and went to bed, not rising until 0900 Saturday. It was cold as fuck (I think the high Saturday was 35) so I donned my busman's jacket again and went out for pizza and post office stuff. The VA sent me more Tubigrip and antifungal powder, and the rest of the mail was junk. 

I am dithering whether to go to Raley's tomorrow or Tuesday. There's a lot of stuff I need that's on sale, and at this point I could use the 5% senior discount, assuming I remember to mention it. At least it won't be freezing out this week. 

I didn't go out after coming back from Las Vegas, but I did get my CE done. Also finally made some generic Rice Krispie bars, which I need like a hole in the head, but they were good and I have most of the pan left. I also ran the dishwasher, which means that the deep fryer is half cleaned. I'll handwash the tray tomorrow, maybe. 

Tomorrow, since it'll actually be over 40 degrees for the first time in a few days, I'll go downhill to the office in the afternoon and do laundry there for once. Also on the agenda is picking up my cards from the post office and depositing John's check to the N3F account. Time and energy permitting, I'll also start on my Skills to Win training, which I'll actually get paid for. Paid training, hooah!

I'll wait until Tuesday to pick up eggs, coffee filters, margarine, and whatever other essentials I need to carry me through to Friday when both the VA and SSDI checks arrive. 

For various reasons, I didn't sleep well this weekend and was generally out of sorts. I did go forth to Family Dollar on Saturday and bought a couple more plastic bins, some soup, and some hooks on which to hang my headphones and other things. About all I got done was several abortive games of Civicrack, and the laundry on Sunday. Saw some of "Cast Away" in the bar while waiting for my clothes to dry. 

Yesterday it snowed, so I didn't go out; today, it snowed again but it died down to flurries by the afternoon, so I went out and collected the mail, most of which was junk, but there was one check for Son of Silvercon. I also agreed to take on Caitlin Walsh as Chief Artist and fellow shill for the convention;; she has admonished me to be more positive about the convention, and I explained to her why I seem to be diffident about it. 

Also in the mail was the copy of S.I. Hayakawa's Language In Thought & Action, which is interesting and not at all dry. Perhaps it will help me straighten out my head, or get it to a better place, at least. 

Also also I went to Raley's for more tea, a couple of small plastic cubes for the desk, eggs, English muffins, and doughnuts, which I originally wasn't going to get but the flesh was weak. 

Actually did three fulfillment returns today; started a fourth but the docs wouldn't download, so I'll try again tomorrow. 

Yesterday was pretty uneventful, despite the snow (about 5", made the roads interesting). The billing situation with the hotel got sorted, I had a couple of clients come in so I wasn't just sitting there in the office for six hours, and I managed to get over to Smith's and pick up some food afterward so I'm not eating out all the time. $28 of it was a sushi platter, which did my weight no favors, but I am going to try and eat better this week and get some of that weight off. Also, lower the BP, which was unpleasantly high this morning. At least my waking BG was normal. 

My schedule has been adjusted so I'm working 12-8 every day except Sunday, so I should make a pile of money just based on my hours. What this will do to my commission/post-season bonus remains to be seen, but either way, I'm getting paid.

Woke up at 0400 this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so I'm going to do my insulin, have a croissant and coffee, then wander down to see what the breakfast buffet is like. 

It was not too surprising that my weight ballooned to 398 after the trip to Pahrump, considering I made some dumb food choices, but at least my blood sugars are starting to come down into mostly nominal range, and the BP is pretty much normal. Doc Bui wasn't too thrilled by the numbers, nor was I, but we're going to tweak the Jardiance and see how things are next month; hopefully I'll exert better control over my feeding, and I'll definitely be more active once I'm in the office.

Pahrump was nice. The Nugget was comfy, the room had (almost) enough plugs to suit my needs, but the lamps were weak, so the room was kinda dark, which I suppose would have been great if I had been there for romance, but since I wasn't, it was a minor irritation. Since Pahrump is about ten times the size of Tonopah, they had all kinds of fast food & grocery stores, and I dropped by the Smith's to pick up some Carbmaster yogurt & cream along with some chocolate croissants which I really could have done without. Breakfast in the Nugget's cafe was really cheap even before the $10 off voucher, and I enjoyed a round of (discounted) bingo before I left town on Thursday. I also stopped by the Walmart three different times: on Tuesday night for cables & protein bars, again on Tuesday night for syringes, and on my way out of town for frozen veggies, instant oatmeal, cleaning supplies, and a couple of other things, which unfortunately did not include water enhancers. Derp. There was also a Sonic next to the Walmart, which I hit up frequently for fluids and a couple of Toasters of various varieties. 

The meeting I was there to attend went on interminably, with some of my fellow board members wasting time by asking questions that had already been answered either by the speakers or in the materials provided. The internet connection sucked, so there was nothing for it but to pay attention. There's another meeting next month in Las Vegas, but I can't make that one because it's on the 15th and I'm scheduled to work 2-8 PM that day before catching a flight to SLC and LTUE the next day. 

It was below freezing when I left town on Tuesday and equally cold when I got back, so I only unloaded the perishables and necessities, intending to go out today and get the rest of the stuff after throwing out garbage, but it didn't get above 20 today so I said the hell with it, I'll wait until Saturday when it'll be in the low thirties instead. 

Clocked in today for a few minutes, but there were no updates to either of my clients, and while I now have access to fulfillment returns, there weren't any of those available, so I clocked out and approved my timecard. Every little bit helps. 

Woke up heavier but not as sugary, and the BP was okay. 

Much to my surprise, the additional snow that was supposed to  arrive in the morning didn't, and most of what had fallen melted off the streets and parking lot, so I threw out the accumulated bags of trash, dropped off the rent check, and blew ~$50 at Raley's on eggs, tea, yogurt, and a loaf of bread for sandwiches. I forgot a few things, but nothing essential, and I can always drop by there tomorrow or Saturday. 

Clocked in for about five minutes today to read stuff in Inkling that basically reminded me of all the messaging I did in WC last year. The good news is that they didn't change any of it so far as I can tell. We're supposed to be getting our 1-on-1s with our office managers (or MTLs as they call them now since they're all juggling multiple offices/teams) during this first fortnight, but so far I haven't gotten a heads-up as to when that will be. It'll happen when it happens...probably while I'm getting my hair cut next week, since Murphy is always watching.

Cleaning continues. There is apparently someone in town willing to do cleaning work, and I think 'll give them a call tomorrow, see what they charge. 

We got about 3-5" of snow over the weekend; between that and the sub-freezing temperatures, I chose not to do laundry until today, when the snow had had a couple of days to melt off the roads and parking lots, and the temperature was closer to freezing than not.

The Raley's ran out of Arizona diet green tea in the cans, so I've been making do with the plastic gallon jugs. It's not the same, but at least it provides me with more containers to dispose of used syringes. I'll be going over there tomorrow to pick up eggs, cream, and some more cans of tea if it's back in stock; another gallon jug if it isn't. I still have half a turkey, three containers of ham and one of soup, a couple of kielbasa, three packs of brats in the freezer, and a lot of canned soup in the cupboard, to say nothing of the ingredients for various breads. I could probably stand to avoid the Raley's for another week or so, but the flesh is weak.

SSDI showed up at the credit union a day early,  so I paid most of my bills, bought another CD set in Klaus Schulze's La Vie Electronique series, a tool for cleaning my keyboard, and a Ciaphas Cain novel for my Kindle. I'll drop off the rent check tomorrow and put the Frontier check in the mailbox, because fuck their useless website. 

I went out to do laundry and eat an early dinner at the Stage Stop (garlic cheese curds, a Philly with eggs, and fries) and it was hard graft, I'm telling you. Had to scrape off the car and be very careful walking across the ice & snow to the car and from the car into Tonopah Station.
By the time I was done drying all my stuff, I was so tired that I couldn't fold all my clothes and wound up just stuffing them in the laundry bag. Arms are still sore and I think I'll forgo the daily linkagery in favor of doubling up tomorrow.

With that, I am for bed, since I was up before 0800 today and it feels closer to 2300 than 2000 which it actually is.