Christmas Activated

December 06, 2021 by Adam in Family

We tromped out into the woods to cut down some trees on a property owned by some friends of Joanna.  It was 30 miles away, so a bit of a drive, but it was a nice day and it felt good to be out in nature for a time.  We ended up with a somewhat sparse, natural-looking tree which we brought home and decorated.  Joanna had assembled a kitty tower out of two kitty towers we had around, so we tucked the tree next to that.

The advent calendars have begun again, which means I occasionally eat too many chocolate covered espresso beans.  I indulged a little too much this weekend, mostly making myself grumpy in the process.  I did manage to wrap some of the presents for Christmas, and Joanna put up the lights outside, including the seasonal favorite drunk Santa.  Plus Ben found the Christmas hats for the kitties, which Data begrudgingly allowed.

Mocha Friday

December 03, 2021 by Adam in Family

It's been a quiet week at work with Jonathan on vacation.  I've been putting together a fun little "create dashboard from measure" feature that should speed things up.  I love getting in the flow and turning something from idea to a functioning feature in a day or two.

It's the start of December, which means it's advent calendar time.  I've been getting chocolate covered espresso beans and the occasional sweet Joanna note.  Between the two of them it should get me through the dark days ahead.

Life is otherwise generally uneventful.  Kids and kitties are doing okay.  I have a corner of the bedroom overflowing with packages that need to be opened and wrapped.  There's a week or so of school before winter break, which should make the kitties happy as there will be more people around to pet them.

Boosted

December 01, 2021 by Adam in Adam

I didn't take a picture of myself this time, but I drove out to a Springfield Wallgreens, waited forever, and got my Pfizer booster shot.  So far I feel fine, though I may try and go a little slow today.  Glad I got it taken care of.

Suck it, Omicron variant!

The Omicron Variant

November 30, 2021 by Adam in Family

Life seems a little too much like the old sci-fi books I read as a kid, complete with goofy-sounding names for everything.  In any case, I'm getting my booster shot tomorrow and it sounds like vaccines still work against this latest covid variant.

It was a nice four-day weekend, with lots of hanging out with kids and slowly getting ready for Christmas.  Emma's gotten really good at Atomicrops, beating year 7 amidst shrieks and high-fives from me.  It's the week before finals, so she's wrapping up projects and getting ready for her math and biology tests.  Ben's doing similar things in his biology class too - it's fun listening to the two of them talk about cell structures and DNA.

I've mostly recovered from my annoying cold.  I've been playing with some of the new games I picked up, including a new card battler called Inscription, which is really well done.  Continuing the good news, it's date night tonight - maybe we'll break open the new art supplies and try and draw something.

Post-Thanksgiving Virus

November 27, 2021 by Adam in Family

Thanksgiving night I suddenly got some weird sinus pain which was really bad, but cleared up by the morning.  I'm always nervous about such things in this pandemic era, but it cleared up to a mild sensation which I don't really notice much.  Hopefully it's just the various strains of colds being passed around.

As for the last couple days, they've been really lovely.  Joanna and I had a great kissaversary, exchanging presents and hanging out.  Joanna got me a canvas of pictures of us.  I got them fancy art supplies and a two-player game called Mandala which was fun to play.

I've also finally sorted out the children and made sure they picked a gift for each person.  There are a few more things I need to sort out in terms of buying gifts, but I'm feeling pretty good getting most of it early.  Suck it, supply chain issues.

Happy Thanksgiving

November 25, 2021 by Adam in Family

Joanna and I are back home, playing video games and chilling with the cats as we digest our delicious Thanksgiving meal. Seraph made the main dishes and got mom's house ready while the rest of us brought side dishes. The food was great and we chatted away the afternoon. Sadie called as well and talked to everyone, despite Simon's attacks with a slap bracelet.

It's also our kissaversary, so Joanna and I have a bunch of presents to exchange this evening. The amazing sweater Joanna's Ben knitting for me finally finished today as well, so I've been showing it off to everyone.  It's been a good day.

Wandering the Farm

November 22, 2021 by Adam in Family

It was another quiet weekend, like so many these days.  Saturday morning Emma and I did our usual library run, picking up a nautical book for her at the used bookstore there.  She worked on homework off and on and we both played too much Atomicrops.  Ben played a bunch of Terraria, though I've yet to set up the new computer as a permanent Terraria server.

Sunday Joanna and I managed some yardwork, mulching leaves and throwing them in the compost.  We also went out to the farm to visit the chickens and look for mushrooms.  I though the writer's shack was coming along nicely, though there's always lots to do.

Head cold mocha Friday

November 19, 2021 by Adam in Family

I've got a touch of something or another, probably the same thing Joanna had this last week.  It's not too bad, just some annoying sinus pain that I'm keeping at bay with the power of Advil and mocha.  We have some tricky work problems to sort out today, but hopefully I'm still up to the task.

Life's generally been good, if busy.  I had tea with mom.  We had a good meeting with Duncan's IEP team and he's feeling a little less overwhelmed.  I picked up Emma from school yesterday after her last chem lab and second to last bio lab.  Joanna's been working on insulating the cabin in the woods, getting about half the walls done.  Ben's been playing a lot of Terraria lately and I keep trying to setup a server to run it all the time for he and his friends to play on.

I decided that I was playing too much Atomicrops and needed to play something story-focused, so I picked up True Colors.  I really enjoyed Life is Strange with all the teenage angst and this has a similar feel.  Joanna crashes out on the couch with the cats and a Switch, playing Stardew Valley and we game in the same room together.  Ah, the joys of marriage.

Quiet Weekend

November 15, 2021 by Adam in Family

It was a fairly quiet weekend, full of laundry, dishes, and raking the yard.  I got a little organized and sent off a package for the upcoming birthday boy.  I also helped Joanna put up a new light fixture in Ben's room.  Old houses make for weird issues when attaching to new things.

Emma signed up for her new classes which are basically the same other than an honors class focused on the ocean and unusual events.  I'm hoping she can somehow leverage her nautical skills to wow the professor.

Work's moving along.  I nervously put out a copy-and-paste thingie that I came up with on my own.  It's one of those basic things that you can't live without once you discover it exists.  Next up is one of those "Adam - figure it out" tasks involving security.  Hopefully I'm somewhat competent.

We did all take a moment to look at Ancestry's latest ethnicity breakdown.  Emma's calling it "the Scottish update" as we all became much more Scottish.

Data Driven Mocha Friday

November 12, 2021 by Adam in Family

We've been in meetings all week, so I took some time while people were talking to go out to healthdata.gov and download various data sets and load them up in the application I spend my days working on.  I graphed COVID-19 cases, deaths, and vaccinations along with anxiety and other causes of death.  It was depressing at times, but really told a story.  As COVID-19 deaths went up, so did reported anxiety, and as vaccinations and deaths went down, anxiety rates did too.  There were also surges in other causes of death like Alzheimers and heart disease, either due to undetected COVID or due to lack of care.  Interesting stuff, though clearly pretty bleak.  It's always useful to use our application like a customer would as I ended up logging a bunch of bugs along the way.

As for the rest of the week, all has generally been well.  Emma's final went well.  We had a little basement flooding due to heavy rains, causing Joanna to clean out the leaves in the back stairwell really well.  Ben and Duncan are out of school for a couple days.  Data welcomes me each morning with head bonks and hopes of belly rubs.  It's not a bad life.