400 days in the hole

Hopefully I'm not the only person who's had variants of Humble Pie's "30 Days in the Hole" playing in my head. No, just me huh? Ok. Yep, as of 1900 CDT, I hit 400 days since I started the whole isolation thing. Yeah, I know I've not been a complete hermit, I should have clocked off at 395 when I went to visit Amythest and got real hugs, and cat time. But round numbers, we'se likes them.

So what does that mean? Well, since that day in March 2020, I've pretty much phoned in my existence. Haven't read much, can't say I've done anything to earn employee of the year, or done more than the bare minimums to keep going. Not being mean to myself, it's a fact I've been running on auxiliary power and batteries, Most of us have. But, it's been 400 days. Time to let engineering bring the warp core back online.

(Have I mentioned I've read a lot of Star Trek wiki articles lately?)

So, I'm going to start working on eating betterish, and not ordering out every day. I'm going to get my tuchus out of the computer chair, and get more exercising than me going to get water every hour or so. I'm going to be social more with my friends, at least those where we're safe from each other virii wise (still going to be careful though, Mom did not raise an idiot. RIP Mom). I'm still going to do most of my shopping by remote, and wear a mask and avoid strangers, and everything else that keeps me and others safe. While trying to live a little.

6 months from tomorrow, I hit another Spawning day. 6 months to make some improvements. To catch up with people I care about. To open the gates to N'kai and deliver Tsathoggua upon this realms of snacks... Ok, that last bit should have been using my inner monologue, but I'm pretty sure that's never coming back after the last year of saying pretty much what came to mind when it did.

2020 Wrap Up

Well, 2020 is less than 8 hours from being over (at least here at Dunwich Abbey). And boy has it been one hell of a corker. Not going to do a major run down, because in that way lies depression cycles. Nor am I going to plan for the future, as well chaos is reigning and my skills at prognostication are about as good as always. So, here's some random foo from the year.

Finally got my ass moved. Signed a 2nd lease for another year. Still not all unpacked, but it's not been the most energetic year here. Still beats the old place.

Recommended with some friends I'd lost contact with, stayed in contact with other friends, and met some new friends. Definitely a net postive there.

Had a long dry patch when it came to reading, definitely bought a lot more books than I read. I'm slowly getting back into the reading vibe, which is good because there's been a lot of good books this year. Lots more scheduled for next year as well. Hopefully at some point I can get more bookshelves in here without worrying about it being a plague vector.

Not a lot else that's sanity safe. Health is ok, I really could be doing better, but well this is the year where 'good enough' is really 'great'. Mental health dropped some, but it's mostly been steady at a kind of lower level, again given the situation, it's a win.

So yeah, that's my very short, very shallow thoughts on 2020. My plans for 2021 are about the same as the last 9 months. Stay safe, wait til it's my turn to get a vaccine, keep my friends safe, and hopefully some time in 2021 get to do more of the things I enjoy outside of Dunwich Abbey. So here's to the future, may it be gentle to us all.

Welsh, closets, and fixing workstations

Well it's been a few days on the new meds, I see a difference, but that's probably the placebo effect of having done something. This is so far from my first rodeo, I even have the non-physiological foo mapped out. Work week was...goofy. Office moving around was a pain. Got a ping today that one of the dev boxes we hid in a network closet wasn't responding. So I drove up to the office to fix it. (I'd just finished the movie I was watching, so it worked out well. Needed some arguing, and some labeling and cable mishmashing. Came back home after that.

As I said today would have been Dad's 95th spawning day. So when I wasn't working on cleaning out the closet in prep for moving, or driving to work, I've been watching movies I remember watching with Dad. 'In the Name of the Rose', 'Hunt for Red October' and now, 1 Million Years B.C. (aka Raquel Welch in a fur bikini). It's been fun, not many sad thoughts. Didn't get as much moving labor done as I wanted, but I found multiple boxes of Mom stuff and that took some of the wind out of my sails. I decided to just keep it boxed up, move it to the new place, then I'll work on sorting through it. Or not.

Not much else, I don't think I've mentioned it, but I've been using DuoLingo the last 3 months to actually study Latin. I know a lot of words, but I have little to know idea on grammar or structure. Sadly, I can't say I'm much better at it, but it's fun to try. Today, kind of on a whim I fired up Welsh, since I keep running into Celts in my reading. A lot more material, since Welsh is a living language, and I'm better than listening/saying the basic words than I am at Latin. (seriously, I rather just read it). So we'll see. I don't think I'll ever be more than a how to ask nicely for the restroom, and sorry I don't speak $language, do you speak English ? But who knows, maybe something will click. And I'm having fun.

31 days til I get the keys to the new place. I need to get services moved over, and I need to figure out some other new place stuff. As well as finish packing/organizing. Holiday BS is pretty much being treated as just BS, I really ain't feeling it this year. Oh well, a little over two weeks and it's done. Then moving, then Cthulhu knows. Right now it's still day by day. Which is about all I can count on. Night all.

Vulpine’s Brain Chemistry: an update

Today was a visit with my pshrink (psychiatrist if you're new to my way of writing). Standard 6 month med review. 6 months ago my biggest stressor was my low platelet count and the new office being kind of meh. Needless to say, my current stressors are much higher.

So I went in, saw my doc, told him the details, both what's happened lately and the high anxiety and lows of depression. So we're upping my anxiety med 'allowance', I normally limit myself to one of my acute anxiety meds a day, now I'm allowed two, with an increase on my prescription. I'm also adding Wellbutrin to my cocktail. Different kind of antidepressant that I haven't been on before, it affects a different set of neurotransmitters so it should change up the chemistry some. Side effects are mostly the same as every other antidepressant I've been on, except instead of a sedative affect, it might make me a bit jittery (thus I take it first thing in the AM). Too late in the day to take the first dose, so we try tomorrow. Then it's try to keep track of things/moods/etc, aka getting back to offline journaling. (or online, easily searchable journaling).

The migration that was scheduled for this weekend is pushed back to the end of the month. So that gives me two weeks to beat Atlassian into submission. Also gives me time to get used to this new med, and cope with moving and sadness. (Saturday would be Dad's 95th spawning day). So yeah, the end of the year should be...interesting. Let you know how it goes.

Midweek rambles

Having a rough day of it. Started off ok, played chauffeur for a friend who needed a lift to a doc appointment, a friend I haven't seen in the flesh in many years. Got to meet her two kitties, both were skittish about me, but one warmed enough for pets, and the other kept staring at me with really gorgeous eyes. I'm patient, I'll win the kitten over eventually.

But afterwards, I felt off. I was near Recycled Books, so I made a stop, but that didn't help much. Got a couple of books, but one is a duplicate of something I already had. Got lunch and I was going to do some other errands, but I decided that the cope tank was just about empty. Came home, deal with frustrating doctor/insurance foo (never try to get a referral when you're changing insurance copies in the next month and a half). Then found a letter from the DocInABox about 'we're trying to reach you.' Call them, get the run around, finally get someone to call me back to tell me 'Oh we're calling about the referral. Why the actual fuck? Why couldn't a receptionist have looked that up? Probably because it was filed as something HIPPA esque I guess. Still damn frustrating. I am grateful I'm off this week. I'm sure I'd be yelling in the office sooner or later.

Since then I've watched a few movies, had at least two short crying jags over Jessi thoughts. Almost got into a yelling match with a friend, but it got better. We talked through my distinct lack of interest in Turkey Day, as I said right now I feel 0 thankfulness. So, I may just pass. Going to decide Thursday when I get up. I'm not in a social mood, and I don't think I'm up for a fairly large group of people. But, we'll see.

I'm trying to plot apartment stuff, but lacking info like the Spectrum demarc location, and where the power plugs are is causing my plans to be...vague. I can't just go in and look, the current tenant isn't moving out til end of Dec, and no way would I ask to see it. So I have to wait. And to be honest, I'll change my mind 10 times in the next 10 weeks about layouts and plans. So trying to get ideas, but not get attached to them. I really should hide the floorplan, and just dream what I want, then when I have access to the place, I can make my ideas fit. We'll see.

I'm now doing some basic geeking, upgraded my Fedora server VM to 32, and it's being flaky. My OpenSuSE VM also flaked and died. I haven't had a lot of good computer luck lately. Oh well, I'm not the home sysadmin I once was. I do this all day at work. I've been meaning to work on packing and whatnot, but...see above where I said I had a near empty cope tank. Tomorrow I'm trying to not make many 'plans' I need to pick up meds and visit the store, but besides that I want to try to get some more down time. I may try to avoid the internets, and try to catch up on reading, if I can get the focus (I have very little). Kind of shocked I wrote this out without quitting and rewriting. But I think I'll call this a post. Laters cultists.

A Whole Bunch of Random

I've been random the last few days. So I've posted some odd stuff on Facebook. Some of it needs to be posted here as well.

Lovecraftian:
"We got the gills that give the thrills!" aka the New Esoteric Order of Dagon motto.

A new term for my clinical depression:
Oh, while listening to M.R. James' 'Count Magnus' while driving yesterday, came up with a good euphemism for 'being diagnosed (again) with depression'. 'Taking the Black Pilgrimage to Chorazin.' Seems fitting, since I came back with a follower that will never leave. Luckily (?) it rarely sucks the faces off of people. So I may start calling my swings as 'my minion from Chorazin.' Better than a black dog. I like dogs.

(don't worry, this isn't a cry for help or anything, just a random bit of brain foo. Change what you call a thing, and you change how you react. Words have power, and weird words make me feel 'better')

For those who are curious, you can find the story at the following link Text of Count Magnus

and if you just want a summary, check out The Wikipedia page on the story.

How M.R. James described me right before my Dad was born:
One more M.R. James bit. From the intro to 'A Neighbour's Landmark'. Sound like anyone you may know ? *wink*

"Those who spend the greater part of their time in reading or writing books are, of course, apt to take rather particular notice of accumulations of books when they come across them. They will not pass a stall, a shop, or even a bedroom-shelf without reading some title, and if they find themselves in an unfamiliar library, no host need trouble himself further about their entertainment. The putting of dispersed sets of volumes together, or the turning right way up on those which the dusting housemaid has left in an apoplectic condition, appeals to them as one of the lesser Works of Mercy."

It's been an odd morning, but all things considered I'm doing ok I think. Ciao.

Here comes the weekend

Been a couple of days since my sad post. The Fourth wasn't much better, I'm not the most patriotic person in the world, and I honestly felt very alone, but I didn't want to deal with the traditional crazies that come out to play. Plus it was bloody hot, and my apartment parking gets bad on the 4th, since the fireworks and festival in town are a few blocks away. So I stayed home, read a bit, watched a bunch of movies, and generally felt blah. Slept better than I had before, even with the fireworks, and got up for today's WFH day.

The plan was to take advantage of the quiet day and people taking long weekends and work on project stuff. That didn't happen, lots of virtual walk ups asking for help. I did manage to get a few things done, but nothing like I planned. Oh well. At least the day/work week is done. This weekend is Spider-Man flick, and I'm not sure what else. A few chores. Try to avoid bookstore runs, since next week is Half Price Books coupon a day thingie. So better to save on my book addiction and splurge next week (I also get paid next Friday).

So yeah, it's the weekend, thank Cthulhu. And I have no idea where to go with this post, so I'll wrap it up. Have a good night folks.

Wish I was Goin’ Down to Dunwich

Lots of stuff and things lately. Finally finished the Atlassian migration. It does still require work, upgrading things to a supported version that allows me to migrate the next set of Atlassian foo. But that's for another week. Speaking of Carcosa Corp, found out we're offically moving offices to the main set of offices in DFW. Not sure how much it will apply to me, since there's no current plan to move the DC we have. So that's something we need to work out. Move is in the next quarter or two. Looking forward to yet another wild fun of moving offices.

Speaking of moving, it's offical, I'm not moving this year. Too much other stuff going on. Work, timing, my own stress levels, and when the season of hot hits the area. So I signed a 9 month leason (starts May 1st), so I'll be trying to move right after the New year 2020. No idea where I'm going still. Will depend on work, on what I can find, and honestly, where is the best location for access to my favorite book haunts. So instead of moving I'm going to do a major declutter and moving of stuff into storage, and getting rid of things I'll never use or need again. (already have several bags of clothes to go to Goodwill). So hopefully when it comes time to move, I won't be in a huge scramble. We'll see.

Weekend was helping a friend out, managed to get myself majorly dusted, and tweaked my back. So I'm taking it easy tonight, watching movies and taking it easy. Tomorrow is probably chores, assuming I feel like moving around. Then it's another crazy week of work. And that's all I have, and have had for the last couple of hours. So I guess I'll call this a post.

A subject, a subject. My kingdom for a subject!

Well it's almost 3 weeks into the new year. Been a crazy few weeks. Work went from 0 (vacation) to 60 in nothing flat. This weekend was my latest attempt to migration 'The Software in Yellow' (my new nickname for the Atlassian Suite). Things were completed this afternoon, and testing will start tomorrow AM. *crosses all the tentacles*. I'm really sick of dealing with this, hopefully I'll get some kind of break soon from looking at it. We'll see.

Non work stuff, I rolled back the upgrade on Dagon soon after I made the post last time, the new SSD I had failed, so I rushed to plug in the old one. Which solved a number of frustrations. New computer plan is to build a computer new system, install the latest on that. Then transfer stuff from system to system, so I can work out the kinks without having to live through them. My new project though is a new media player system, I'm finding Shoggoth just doesn't have the oomph to deal with some media. So I'm picking up a gently used Lenovo tiny PC, going to throw some flavor of Ubuntu/Debian/Mate on it, and plug that in. Same basic setup, just more power.

Another project is getting pushed back. I had a plan to move when my lease was up this spring. But given how work is, and how the universe has been acting, along with the amount of stuff I need to do before the move, makes me think I just want to push it back one last time. Gives me time to plot, plan and organize. I'm also thinking of getting a storage unit, help clear out some space so I have room to organize easier. Plus I have stuff that I don't want to get rid of, but I don't need on hand all the time. Same with clearing some shelf space. We'll see how that all goes. (I've planned this about a dozen times in the past I think)

Not much else to speak of. This has been sitting open without anything else to type for a long while now. Going to call it a post. Hoping tonight I'll get some decent sleep, and that tomorrow's migration testing goes smooth. I'm also off Monday, which will probably be a hermit and chill day. At least, that's what I hope.

State of the Fox

October hasn't been what I'd call a great month. Work is lots of stress, lots of change and not a lot of concrete stuff. I'm officially a Subject Matter Expert for something I really do not to be involved in, but I am the guy with the most knowledge ATM. At least the project is a complete new build out, so hopefully I can do it right from the start.

I turned 46. I still don't feel 46. What the hell happened? I'll buy my 30's, since I can at least keep my checkbook balanced. Oh well. On my spawning day I went and saw a screening of 'Prince of Darkness' at the Alamo Drafthouse. Good way to spend the end of my spawning day.

Last night I went to the wake of a friend of mine from college. Saw a lot of people I haven't seen in too many years. Lots of stories, laughs, tears. I have a lot of stuff in my head that I have to process. Don't worry, nothing bad, just stuff in my life and how I view my life I think I need to change. I'm also sorry it took a friend dying for me to reach out and see those friends from my past. *sad*

Health wise, things are mixed. When I'm mindful of my eating, and my stress isn't super high, my bloodsugars are hovering a smidge above normal. When the stress kicks in, or I do something stupid like eat too much pizza (aka today), they're all over the place. My dealings with CareNow have sunk to a new low, I need to find a GP so I don't have to deal with unprofessional medical staff. I have a couple of leads from people I trust, so that's good. Depression/anxiety and stress is making the brainmeats tricky to manage, along with constant focusing on my blood sugar and how my eyes are acting. *yawn* I also am having issues sleeping solid, stress is for the feckin birds.

So what's coming up ? A follow up eye-doctor visit on Wednesday, then after that I hope to have stable enough vision to get my normal bifocal glasses. Various work projects, next weekend is more social time, and going to see some classic horror flicks next Sunday. Mostly though, I'm just going to be trying to keep the anxiety/stress levels from hitting peak levels again. *crosses tentacles*