Garrulous Bombast

Today is Tuesday. Second day in a row packed full of work and, dare I say it, productivity. Today I spent the morning putting a button on CL. Originally the afternoon was going to go to prep work for NOF and ECB, but an emergency BXP came in today, so I figured...why the hell not. So I spent the afternoon on BXP, which was actually pretty fun! Not a bunch else to report from today. I squeezed in a little time for chores and basic admin and stuff, but honestly, most of the day was spent in the pod mines. Once again I let inbox and job hunt fall by the wayside, but otherwise I covered pretty well today. Even throwing in this token blog post before I head to bed. ;) So, yeah...good week so far on the productivity side. Not such a great week so far balancing pod mines and admin. One step at a time, I guess.

Oh, a couple of notes, I guess. One, I braved the Outside today (briefly), basically just on a whim, since I decided I wanted to pick up some dinner for me and T, since she still wasn't feeling so hot today, and I felt like making a little excursion out of the house. The other thing was that S got in touch today to let me know the office will be reopening next week, and if I like (and if I observe the social distancing protocols), I could try coming back in for therapy. I didn't get back to her...I'm kinda chewing on it. Like...I do want to get back to therapy, but with the new office space being a new environment and with the overall stress of just...going to the Outside...I dunno. Is it a Good Thing overall? Still kinda tossing it around. I'll get back to her tomorrow.

Okay, I think that's it. Not an exciting day, but a decent day nonetheless. More awaits tomorrow, especially cuz I pushed off a few things today to work on BXP. I'll pick things up again tomorrow and see how the schedule looks. Onward.

EDIT: Day 24

Wow, so...it's a reasonably early evening blog post, and it's more or less at the completion of the dailies. What's my secret, you ask? I did no other work today except admin stuff. (Well, a couple bits and bobs aside for regular weekly stuff and chores and such, but...yeah, mostly just sitting down, rolling up sleeves, and inbox slogging.) I'm blog posting to put a button on things. I may have shaved a little off the job hunt, but I did spend time catching up and clearing the way, and I feel better positioned now than previously, so...I'm taking the W.

Another big side effect of not being in the editing pit all day is that I was able to hang out a little more on Twitter, so that was kinda nice, too. Definitely felt a little more connected to the RPG stuff that normally I feel so on top of, but that I've felt pretty damn disconnected from in the last...wow, I don't even know how many weeks.

Anyway. So it was quite a busy day today, frankly, and I got a lot done, but because of that, I don't have a lot to blog about. I do know I can kinda coast into the evening pretty guilt-free, though, so that's nice! Also I know I really gotta tackle some pod edits tomorrow, cuz I did that thing again where I just kept kicking it down the road, and...well, now it's caught up with me. That is a terrible metaphor, now that I really take a look at it. ANYway. So that's what's up. Gonna take some damn time off now. :) I may actually have a short edit to do tonight, but...we'll see when/if audio comes in, and it won't be the worst thing if it's pushed to tomorrow morning, I guess.

Today is Thursday. Day 19. Onward!

Just kind of a pro forma entry today, just since I'm waiting for my data backup to finish and...I dunno, I get to check the box off that I posted today. Can't say the day really went as planned. The original idea was to focus on admin and inboxing. What actually happened was a day of audio work, though a pretty solid day of audio work, admittedly. Really proud of some of the sound design I did today and some new techniques I picked up for post-production, I won't front. But...definitely I didn't get any admin catchup done, and also by the afternoon, my brain just kinda...crapped out. At the time, I thought of it as "hitting eject." Like...there just came a point where I was like, "Welp. I'm done now." And I made some popcorn and watched TV. And, like...that was basically it for my day. I mean...I guess that happens sometimes, especially these days for lockdown and all, but I've been trying to avoid that and keep to something of a work schedule. Ah, well. Can always try again tomorrow.

Anyway. Bed will be good. Today is Tuesday. (Huh. Missed the MM stream again.) Day 17. Peace!

[EDIT: I dunno if the sound design work is worth commemorating or what. If I leave a note to my future self that it's the CL voicemail project...I wonder if that'll be enough? Guess we'll find out.]

Today is Friday. Day 12.

Definitely skipped blogging yesterday, but for all that, it was a pretty productive day otherwise. I wrapped up ECB, and I also did a complete SA, so there was a lot of pod mining yesterday. I did not do so hot with the dailies...I kinda just crapped out at some point and didn't wanna do any more stuff. :) But, still...not a bad day for editing, anyway!

I also stayed up way too late last night, so today has kinda just been a wash. I'm poking at dailies here and there (I'm only blog posting because also it's blog archive day and I just took are of that), but mostly I'm just kinda...video gaming and spacing out. Speaking of that, I got to the end of the Factorio demo today, so that's good; I can maybe get that out of my mind now. :) I like the game. I think I am not...great...at it? But I like it a lot and almost certainly would play it for hours and hours on end, and so should tread carefully. :) I'm gonna hold off on buying the full version until I, like...figure out my schedule and stuff, I guess, but...yeah. Good times.

Yeah, I dunno. Not much to report. Kind of a lost day, and like I said, I'm only posting right now cuz I happened to be in the neighborhood. :) Probably a bunch of pod mining this weekend; I gotta work on NOF! Otherwise, just kinda...doing my thing. Onward.

Today is...Tuesday? Yeah, that's...troubling. Lot of lost time there. And not a lot to show for it, I'm afraid. I have spent much of the last several days just...in the hellzone, really. I think I kept things fairly light over the weekend, but more significantly there was just nothing yesterday, Monday. The original plan was to just come out the gate and try to get like a "regular" work week going, or at leas a work DAY, but...yeah, that didn't happen. Part of it was waking up too early, and even weirder, T was up before I was, even, and was already busy doing stuff. So I just didn't get any good traction, and then there was a naptime in there. I think I spent a good amount of time job hunting, actually, but overall...no work done, I can tell you that. And just...so much stress. So. Much. Stress. Stress and anxiety. I've just been plagued, ya know? I don't think I've been coping as well as I thought. Had a chat about it with T, actually, last night, which I think (hope?) is contributing to me having had a better day today, having gotten some of that off my chest.

So, yeah...today, Tuesday. Actually spent some time in the pod mines...got like half of ECB done. Helped that T went out shopping, I guess, but...it's not like I super capitalized on that time, either, having gone out for a walk and then taken a long-ass break in the afternoon. This is my new thing, though...I'm gonna try taking breaks instead of just...giving up on the day...when I feel overwhelmed. But anyway. Helped with the post-shopping stuff...got some admin done...I dunno. It was an okay day, productivity-wise. Not my best, not by a long shot, but definitely not the sinkhole I've been in for the last...few days? Weeks? Can't even tell anymore.

So. Trying to be more conscientious about getting work done. Also trying to make it a point to get a little walking in, even though it means suiting up for the Outdoors and decontaminating when I get back. I'm hoping today means the beginning of recovery for me. I have just been feeling so crappy lately, and I'm fairly sure it's just...anxiety run amok, ya know? I don't think I'm actually sick, but...we're in the middle of a damn pandemic...what am I supposed to think. Ugh, what a mess. But, yeah...like I said. Felt better today than I have in a long time, so hopefully this is the start of something good. Guess we'll see how tomorrow goes!

MM stream got canceled tonight, so that's a thing. It means I won't be spending the morning editing, though, so there's that. Well...I won't be spending the morning editing MM, anyway. I probably will be spending the morning editing, but it means finishing up ECB instead of getting MM prepped.

Yeah. Guess that's about it. Bed soon. Putting a pretty decent day behind me for once. Hope for the same tomorrow. Peace.



Day 9

Today is...Thursday. Day 4. I kinda lost half of yesterday. I mean...clearly I didn't do a blog post. What I did do yesterday was wake up hella early for reasons I do not understand. I did some chores and stuff...then for whatever reason I decided that that was the day to finally cut my hair and shave, so I did that. I'll be honest...I felt kinda better after that! The last few days, besides trying to navigate the overall stress and malaise that is the COVID-19 world, I also haven't been feeling physically tip-top, and that brings with it all kinds of extra anxiety and stress, so I think I may be getting caught in a kind of death spiral sort of thing. Regardless, though, I've been doing a lot of...I dunno...giving up on the day? Lately? But...the point of this when I started this meandering line of thinking was that I've also been feeling like there's something maybe wrong going on in my lungs or something. And, like...intellectually, I know things are fine. Well, "fine." But I'm not in immediate danger or anything. Nonetheless, the anxiety parts of my brain get fired up with good ol'-fashioned freakouts if, like, I detect any little abnormality with my health or...sense of body...working? ANYway. I only bring all this up to mention that I took the long shower opportunity to relax and breathe in a lot of steam, and that helped my lungs feel better, and that just helped everything feel better. So that was nice. Other than that big project for the morning, I sat down and did some MM editing. Those two things were pretty much it for me yesterday.

By the afternoon, I kinda felt like packing it in. I don't guess I felt completely that way at first, but I did feel like a significant break was in order, at least maybe a quick nap or something, in recognition that I woke up way too early. But, yeah...I forget exactly how it went. For sure T went out to the Outside for some kind of excursion, and I put in a movie basically with the idea in mind of falling asleep. So...basically I just whiled away the afternoon. I may have dozed a bit. But mostly I was just...feeling kind of uncomfortable in my chest and then...trying to continue existing and not freak the fuck out about feeling uncomfortable in my chest. I dunno. It was not a great way to pass the day, but it was what it was.

Today has been...better? So far? For one, I woke up and did not feel uncomfortable in my chest, so that's always a good sign. I sat down, started getting some work done, and even got some laundry going. So it's only about lunchtime now, but I feel like I've gotten a fair amount accomplished today, even if none of it was pod editing, which I really need to get moving on. But, yeah...just trynna...keep things going.

I did start to feel a little overwhelmed earlier today. I've been thinking that maybe instead of just collapsing and calling it a day, maybe I should start looking into something like, I dunno, taking a little break?! That seems like it might be a more reasonable approach. I'll look into it. In the meantime... Yeah, I don't even know. I guess I'm just gonna see how this afternoon goes. Ideally, I'd spend the rest of the day pod mining and looking for work. (Oh, that's another thing I've been better at the last couple days...looking for more work. Gotta keep on that, too.) Practically? I'm not sure. I'm about to break for lunch. Historically, at least lately, that's often spelled the end of my day, but also I'm feeling a bit better today than I have in a little while, so...maybe there's something there. Maybe not.

I was confronted with a thought today that I think I have to mull over a little more, but...I got to thinking maybe the current crisis is giving me an alibi to fail. That's...sobering in some way.

Onward.

Today is Sunday. Today is also the last day of GCOG! Seemed like it went well, at least from my perspective. I also did not get anything additional done today. Played some XCOM, though, so there's that. :P But really...just kinda felt run-down today and not really like getting up to anything. Audio still didn't come in for NOF, so...I dunno what's gonna happen there. ECB is still on deck, but I'm still kinda ahead from when the release schedule shifted, so...I feel okay about that. So, yeah...not a lot extra got done today.

I think...that's about it. Don't really feel like "talking." Dinner soon, then bed. We might brave the world tomorrow and get some groceries. We shall see.

Onward. Ever onward.

Today is...Friday? Yeah, Friday. I missed posting yesterday...I think mostly because I got caught up in some coding and kinda lost the end of the day to that. :) Left like half my dailies undone, too! Relatedly, I also stayed up later than I should have, so I'm kinda on the punchy side today. Let's see what we can do.

Okay, so...yesterday. It was day 1 of GCOG, and though I'm ostensibly coordinating the help desk, it's really not a high-traffic situation, so it didn't take up a whole lot of my attention, all things considered. So between being glued to my desk but not really needing to devote a lot of cycles to that, I spent the vast majority of the day yesterday catching up on inbox backlog, which I actually made a lot of progress toward. Didn't get all the way through, but definitely made a lot of progress. Was kinda hoping I could finish it today, but...eh, we'll see. What spending the day on admin yesterday meant, though, was not doing any pod editing, so...there's that. But I think I'm still okay on that front. (Better be, since I'm likely skipping that today, as well, but more on that later.)

Anyway. So...big admin day yesterday. Part of what came out of that, though, was I got an idea for something I figured a simple Discord bot could do, and then I started looking into writing a Discord bot to do it, then one thing led to another, and, well...here we are. It was that kinda thing that happens where I just get a bug in my head to do something, and I can't just abandon the idea when I feel like it's just...right there, ya know? But that was the rabbit-hole I fell into. Made decent progress on that yesterday and learned a lot, so that's nice. Plus I "finished" it this morning, so it shouldn't be weighing on me anymore, but yeah...I still devoted too much time and attention to it when it wasn't really...necessary. Or smart, even. :) Couple extra hours lost sleep not so bad, though. Felt good to roll up my sleeves and get some code written.

Also as part of the admin catchup yesterday, I decided to let my paid DW account lapse. Money's getting short, and as much as I like supporting the site, it's just one of those things that I guess I should cut. I don't think it's going to make too much difference to operations around here; it's not like I was a DW power-user or anything. The one implication is that I had to get rid of some icons, but...eh, it's fine. Honestly I should probably even consider moving this operation over to self-hosted or whatever. I mean...this is pretty much just here for tradition's sake. In that...it would feel weird to make this a...fully hosted blog? I dunno. Whatever. Anyway, so that was a big enough part of my day yesterday that I felt like I should make note of it. Not sure why; just felt like a sign of the changing times or something. Maybe I'll renew again when times are better. Maybe I'll migrate over to something I control. Who can say.

So...today. Day 2 of GCOG. First thing I did (once I got the office rolling) was the SA edit that was waiting for me (it came in yesterday evening). Didn't take long. Then the usual Gauntlet post, then I went back to the code mines and got my little bot project to the point where I wanted it. So that's nice. I'm still on help desk duty, but I felt comfortable enough monitoring it via my phone that I took a long lunch and watched some TV with T. Caught some What We Do in the Shadows, which is pretty funny. :) We might be hitting dinner a little on the early side tonight, so at a good break point I stumbled my way back to my desk.

Which...I guess brings me to now? This is an unusual (lately, anyway) afternoon post. It's not even putting a button on the dailies. It's just..I had time to do this now. This feels more like classic helpdesking stuff anyway. :) The kind of thing I can work on while I'm sitting here, but also can turn away from quickly if I need to. But regardless... I guess I said I'd get back to the bit about not pod editing today. Originally that was going to be in favor of finishing off the email backlog. But I spent half the day coding already, and also my brain is just...not fully in gear, ya know? Guess that shouldn't stop me from inboxing, but mostly it's just not great for editing. Mostly I just want to make sure I get through my dailies. Whatever happens after that...happens after that...but I don't feel like I can really sweat it. It does mean I should rest up tonight, though, and edit at least NOF this weekend, if not ECB as well. I'm still gonna have more helpdesking time, so that was the original theory behind having a lot of time for pod mining at the end of this week. But! Two days of helpdesk already and nary a pod edited, so...guess we'll see how that turns out.

In any case. I'm gonna try and close out the dailies now and maybe, just maybe, kill the email backlog, too. That would be a pretty damn good day. If I don't finish the backlog, though, I'm not gonna cry about it. I really would like to get the dailies cleared out, though. So, yeah. Onward!

Today is Tuesday. What can I really say about today except that I spent the vast majority of it in the pod mines. Productively, too; got some good, good editing done. Didn't quite hit the schedule goal, but still got quite a lot of work done. It was at the expense of not being able to hang with T much today, but rather than pushing through for an evening shift to finish up the project, I'm pausing the project, calling it a day, and getting ready to chill for the evening. I don't think I'm gonna catch the MM stream tonight. I had intended to originally, but I'm just kinda tuckered out, and I'd rather spend a relaxing evening with T. My motivation to catch the stream has dropped now that I also edit the show afterward, haha.

In any case. I dunno...not much to report. Very busy day, lots of work done. More tomorrow. And so on, and so on.

Today is Sunday. I missed posting yesterday. Actually I missed doing a lot of things yesterday, though I did finish the BXP edit I had scheduled, so that's something! Today I wrapped a GC edit, so I'm feeling pretty good on the pod mining front. Yesterday I just kinda conked out by the afternoon, though, and I didn't even really get through my dailies. When I got out of the mines, I just kinda went straight to the couch. I wound up spending most of the rest of the day just watching TV with T and/or playing around with some Banished. I felt like zoning out on some sim game, I guess.

Today was a bit better productivity-wise, I think. I got started on the GC edit first thing, though I did get moving a little later than usual. T was up early, though, and I ended up taking a break from the mines so make lunch and we took a nice lunch break, but unlike most days lately, I then went back to work after lunch, so I managed to finish up the edit and get through the rest of my dailies. Which, granted, are not extensive on a Sunday, but still. Feels good to at least check off all those boxes.

I'm posting to put a button on the day, so I have no qualms about fucking off for the rest of the day. Plus it's Sunday. It's also Easter, which I had kinda forgotten was a thing. :) Nonetheless...it was a good day, I got stuff done, and I'm pretty sure I can just stay out of the mines tomorrow and make sure I get some inboxing and admin stuff done. I think I need one of those days where I can concentrate on that stuff and get caught up. Onward, then. Peace!