I didn't post last weekend because I was at work. Yup... worked a weekend for the first time in years. That's something I'll talk about plus not one but TWO vacation plans!
Health
First up though is health. At my last doctor's visit in May (the visit in June didn't include a weigh in) I weighed in at 262lb. Remember, that was like an 8 year low for me. Well, I weighed myself last weekend here at home and I came in at 255lb. Now, I don't know how accurate this scale is but I do know it's consistent. It's my brother's scale and he's compared it to his doctor's scale over time and it holds up. Since I showed a little under 260 on his scale around that last doctor's visit I'm going to assume it's close to correct. That means I've lost abut 7 pounds in the last couple months. Not as fast as I was in the beginning of the year, but loss is still loss.
Last summer, this watch had the problem of being too tight. Especially on hot days where it seemed I'd swell up a bit. I'd get home and it would leave marks on my wrist. This year it's gotten so loose that it would slip a third of the way down my forearm. I finally went so far this morning as to take out one of the links and... it still fits more loosely than it did last year!
It made me take a closer look at the brown leather band and I noticed I've also moved it up a notch.
And those aren't the only ways my body is showing smaller. I have far more 'fat waddle' areas than I ever did. Under my arms, my belly, the backs of my thighs. Understand, these on their own are pretty gross... but I'll wear them as a badge as they show a reduction. It's kind of sad that I'll never get that high school body again. I'm fairly sure I mentioned the story before of my senior year in highschool. I was a big boy and weighed in at 220 pounds. I was 'big' even though I was also just over six feet tall. I swore I'd never 'dream' about having that body again as I'd get into better shape than that.... well, here I am 29 years later dreaming about having that body. Anyway, it's not like the clock will go back. I not only can't expect to ever get down to 220 pounds again, my body would be so different if I did that it wouldn't be worth it. It's just physiology that I'll always carry more of this weight in my gut.
But still. Losing weight is better than carrying it around!
Another big health benefit has been sleep. Before my schedule changed back to normal I'd go to sleep between 2130 and 2230. 0930 if I truly forced myself, 1030 as a last ditch force. And sometimes I just wasn't tired and I'd toss and turn until 2330. For work, I'd be getting up at 0430 and it was always hard to get going. I'd hit the snooze, I'd re-set the alarm, and sometimes I'd just screw up and oversleep. I was constantly tired.... until the next night when it was time for bed and then I couldn't get to sleep. It was a struggle. Since the switch over, I stay up until 2300 or midnight. I have an alarm set for 0730, but if I don't get up before it, I'm happy and well rested and ready to start the day by the time it goes off. Yeah, it's not much more sleep if any but it makes all the difference in the world that I'm back on a more natural schedule that matches my internal clock.
The weekend sleeping? Well, I still stay up for the same time but I get up much earlier. I have no idea what that's about, but I can also nap through the day so it doesn't matter.
Finances
At this point I've practically paid off the computer AND the tires. I was getting a little worried as that seems to be too fast of a pay off, but then I remembered I'm not paying for my student loans. That lone is 1200 in three months that I'm not sending in.
I won't get to tallying up this pay period until next weekend, but I'm fairly sure it's a 'bad' pay period. I've door dashed like four times, bought some scrubs, and bought some energy drinks in the most expensive way (yet convenient!) possible. Hopefully it'll just mean that I won't have any savings and/or extra payment on the credit car.
I'll also be overspending on the next pay period, but I'll get more into that below.
Family/Friends
So, when my brother B and I moved back home I had to re-establish my routines. At my cousin's/aunt's house I'd get home and B would be cooking dinner. Dinner was eaten then I'd move out to the TV and just veg for a few hours until it was bed time then start the day over. At first that didn't change all that much at home. But I found that the couch was hurting my back, so after dinner instead of veging in front of the TV I'd go into my bedroom and veg in front of the computer. I wouldn't game, or role play, or chat... I'd just put on youtube videos or maybe an old episode of Mad Men.
The problem with this is that while I'm back home with mom, I'm not spending any time with her. Yeah, there's dinner, but that's not the same. But I've grown accustomed to it. When I force myself to sit out with her and watch TV, it's just maddening. There isn't anything she watches that I want to watch. She likes her animal/vet/zoo shows and will flip between them and fleamarket flip or the news. If I want to watch something, I want to watch it. If I want to do something, I want to do it. So even if I can get invested in a show, once a comercial comes up and she flips the channel, I pick up my phone and start checking out facebook or twitter or my Google feed. And then whenever she gets back to the show I was invested in, I can't pull myself away from my phone.
So, even when I'm with mom, I'm not with her.
Speaking of Mom, she had an episode last week that I wasn't aware of. I had to learn about it from my brother. While cooking dinner she had to drop into a chair and call to him for help... she needed her nitro. She had to take two as the first one didn't stop her massive chest pain, but together they worked. If you don't know, nitro pills are what you take for chest pain associated with cardiac events. Heart attacks. Most people that have had heart problems are prescribed nitros and told to keep them with them at all times just in case. If you're having a massive heart attack they won't stop them, but they'll be part of the diagnosis as they'll work and then the pain will come back. Its like they can pause the problem. For more minor cardiac events, they can actually stop it. And for non cardiac chest pain, they won't do a damned thing except give you a headache (you get the headache with the other uses too, but who cares if you've just stopped a heart attack!).
The fact that she used it and it helped said that she was in fact having a cardiac event. On top of her lung issues, she may be having related or completely unrelated cardiac issues. And.... that's that. It isn't too big of a deal unless it keeps happening. She has her ICD or internal cardiac defibrillator, so if she goes into a bad rhythm it will shock her back. Its scary, but not worse than the fact that she can't walk from the living room to the kitchen without her oxygen. And speaking of that, she's still pushing herself too hard. She wanted independence day to be special so she made up her 24 hour salad some fresh green beans, some nice tenderloin steaks, and a desert we call Texas Yum-Yum. On Saturday the third she prepped the green beans by cleaning them, cutting the ends off, and cutting them in half. She prepped the steaks with a garlic/salt/pepper rub. She got the salad together which is a lot of ingredients and actually laying them out instead of just popping them into a bowl. And the desert took making the crust, two kinds of pudding, cooking all of that, letting it all cool, putting it together, and covering it with whipped cream. Honestly, it's one of her easier deserts, but she has to stand in front of the oven to make two separate puddings and just that alone could take it out of her.
By the time it was getting dinner time, she was wiped out. She'd planned on making sloppy joes but we just ordered out. She didn't even put up a fight.
And then there's the dog. Let's call him Z. Z is old. Z is our family's second Shih Tzu and was 'adopted' about six months before my father passed away. That makes him 15 years old. He's going blind, he's lost most of his hearing, he's lost most of the hair on his tail, his hips bother him a lot, and he has skin tags over which makes it uncomfortable for him to be petted. How long certain dog species live is always a guess, but the best guesses for Shih Tzu's are between 9 and 15 years. I've seen as high as 16, as low as 8. Basically, he's at the end of his life. The vet says he's very sprightly for a dog his age and would guess he was closer to 9 than 15, but even she admits he's old and showing it. His newest problem (and his most frightening) seems to be dementia.
The dementia shows in various ways, but mostly it makes him look confused. He'll wander into a room and sit down. He'll look around like he's lost something, then get up, move a few feet away, then sit down again. He'll keep repeating this. He'll see us and come to us, but he seems nervous, like he doesn't recognize us. And sometimes he'll just shake. Now I'm not sure if that's physiological or psychological, but it's frightening to us as it makes him look VERY scared.
He doesn't have long.
Work
Not much different at work except we lost our health unit secretary. She (let's call her D) had over 32 years with the department so she'll be taking a LOT of institutional knowledge with her... but good riddance.
She had a lot of responsibilities. She was basically the queen of our entire office staff. She did ordering for all of heathcare. She was the "Time Master" (seriously... that's the title) and approves everybody's time. She's supposed to monitor the staff meetings and put out notes of them. She keeps tabs on who is working when and puts out lists of our current employees and their status. And she kind of did most of that... just badly and selfishly.
As the nursing supervisor on one side of the facility, I'd handle ordering. I'd track what everybody needed and then send it on to D. I've been doing this for three years, and I honestly couldn't say what she did with that information. I don't know how often she'd order, or where she'd order anything from. She'd place orders without telling me, even though I was asked to not just send everything to her as it came my way. In other words she'd place an order that she might only do once a month without asking if I needed anything. I might have been sitting on something for three weeks, and now it will take an ADDITIONAL four weeks before she can order it again. If ordering went well, she took all the credit. If there was any problem, it was someone else's fault. So we're constantly running out of necessary and frivolous things alike.
On the 'Time Master' front, she went well above and beyond her responsibilities or even what she was suppposed to do. Our time system works like this; A nurse puts in their schedule. Their supervisor reviews it and makes sure that any time off (sick time or annual leave) or overtime (mandated, voluntary, or clinical needs), is approved. She would then go through it and was supposed to make sure it was all in the proper format. That someone used the OVT1 code for 1st shift overtime instead of OVT2. Or that their holiday overtime went at the end of the week instead of on the day they were working the holiday. Then it goes to our local HR, then to the state HR, then checks are cut. She, instead of just checking formating, would take it upon herself to approve and, more importantly, deny overtime. It didn't matter if the nurse worked it or not, she'd take random overtime shifts off peoples time sheet. The supervisors, the ones before me anyway, didn't care as D was doing their timesheets for them and they just needed to 'approve' them without looking through them. That stopped once I got there... or rather I had to call her out to the HR office on the first 5 or 6 times she did that on one of my nurses and then she got written up for it. So far as I know, she's still been doing it for the past couple years, just not to MY nurses.
She didn't do anything for the staff meeting notes except take the agenda sent out before the meeting and put it into the past tense. It didn't matter if we veered off subject and talked about something entirely different.
Her 'current' list of employees is always missing some of our newest and always has someone that hasn't been working for us for months.
So, good riddance. I'm happy she's gone.
Oh, and I mentioned that I worked. Yup, did a full shift in the Clinic. I thought I'd talked about this before, but I don't see it in the updates. Well, the other supervisor and I have to occasionally pick up shifts. We're supposed to work more in the clinic, even though we have to much on our plate AND we're already doing a lot of clinic duties.
I figured on a day where I'd have to mandate a couple nurses, I'd take one myself. Doing the actual call outs isn't bad. I know I'm fully capable of doing them and documenting them properly. The problem is the exact rhythm. Coming in, do I get a radio or is it handed off from the night nurse. Do I count first thing? When do I check up on the guys in segregation. Silly stuff like that. I got ready the day before by heading to the north clinic and having one of the nurses walk me through a normal morning. Saturday night I set my alarm for 0330 and....
Yeah, slept right through it. I ended up being about an hour late (which works out as I also stayed an hour late!). Some of the nurses chided me on it, but enough said it was cool that I was picking up a shift that I think it was worth it in morale if nothing else.
I'm not sure how often I'll do it though. First, I won't do a med room. I haven't run a med room in like 5 years. I'd be slow as molasses and probably almost dangerous. So that also takes out the RTP blocks leaving just the two clinics. I should also really only take afternoon shifts and not make the morning mistake again... but then again I DO expect an afternoon nurse to get their ass in for a morning shift when their mandated to it, so I guess I can at least try.
Entertainment
A fun song game up one morning. I have a Google Home screen in my room and just about every morning I say "Hey Google, shuffle playlist Good Tunes". It occasionally messes up because AI voice recognition still isn't good enough, but it's doing a fine job. One such mess up though was playing the song "Shuffle" by Bombay Bicycle Club. Specifically the acoustic version.
My brother also turned me on to a nice cover of Mr Brightside:
I started watching LOKI on Disney+. If you like Marvel movies, then you'd probably like this. I'm only halfway through it, so I won't pass any judgement on the story so far but it's enjoyable. I don't know how, but I'm actually into the 5th season on Mad Men. This is just SO good! If you haven't watched it, you really REALLY need to. It's on IMDB right now free (with commercials). I think that's about it for TV.
Movie wise, I watched the HBO movie No Sudden Move from Steven Soderbergh. It stars a TON of great actors including Don Cheadle, Brenden Fraser, Benicio Del Toro, David Harbour, Jon Hamm, and Ray Liotta. It was really good! Last night we watched Amazon Prime's Tomorrow War staring Chris Pratt. Good solid sci-fi movie with a big budget. A lot of the time when movies are made for the streaming services I wonder if they were failed big budget movies. Like they weren't good enough for the big screen. But I could have seen either of these be a summer or holiday block buster.
Finally, my brothers and I are all on the Google Movies family plan. It's technically my account so all purchases go through my credit card. All purchases are shared amongst the three of us. If they want to buy something, they simply do so then send me the cash via cashapp. Last night while we were watching Tomorrow War, my brother R bought Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile. Two of my absolute favorite movies. Shawshank is easily my most watched movie. Ever. If I haven't watched it over 100 times then I'm close. If I'm every channel surfing and see Shawshank on, I stop and watch it. It can be five minutes in or 5 minutes from the end... I'll stop and watch it. That's a big reason why I didn't have a digital copy. I was always afraid that if I had a digital version to watch anywhere I want, I'd channel surf, find it, then go to the digital copy and watch the whole damned thing!
I moved on from playing Control on the computer. I'm done with the main game and the first expansion. The second expansion is fine, but it focuses on linking the game to the older game Alan Wake and I'm not really interested in all the idiosyncrasies I'm sure I'm missing. I re-picked up Assassin's Creed Valhalla, and just like Control it plays just fine. I've seen the fps go down to the upper 50s several times, but I think the average is closer to 70. Remember, that's with every setting maxed out at 3440x1440 resolution.
Speaking of frames per second, I looked into overclocking my video card. While I've never done it and don't think it's something I'd really get into, it seems a waste to have this card that's designed for it and not use it. Sure, I wouldn't have bought this card if I had my druthers, but I have it now so why not use it? Well, I found a professional overclocker writing about overclocking this very card and he used AC Valhalla as an example saying that when it was clocked to its max, he was averaging 74 frames per second with lows just below 60. Umm.... no, I don't think I'll bother with overclocking it at all!
The same goes for overclocking the processor. It's just not worth it, especially with the extra heat produced which then makes the fans spin up louder. It's running just fine.
A quick word on Nina. I feel bad. She is, by a mile, the sexiest looking car I've ever had. With Fiona, Ginger, and Isabella, I was in the habit of having them detailed at least once a year and sometimes twice if I were taking longer trips in them. Well, time has not been kind to getting Nina detailed. I got her in July of 2019. In November I took her on a long trip, but she was still car dealer good, so I didn't get her detailed before hand. Afterward.... well, I drive an hour to and an hour from work so why detail her just before the snow/salt season. Then 2020 happened and by the time I wanted to get her detailed, the economy shut down. I could have gotten her detailed last autumn as the places were opened up (at least for a little while) but then it became a safety issue.... I wasn't sure I'd trust them in my car without it sitting and decontaminating for a couple days.
For this past Christmas my nurses got me a full inner and outer detail. There were two problems. First, logistically, this was at a place in the town where I worked. A nice place and I'd trust them to do a good job, but.. I'm not taking it down there on a Saturday and just hanging out in town all day. Second, it was the beginning of winter again, and I would wait at least until spring. The first problem was solved by a nurse that offered to help me out on a Friday. He didn't work Fridays so he said if I could schedule it for a Friday, he'd pick me up in the morning when I dropped it off and take me to work. He'd come back and take me out for lunch so that I could smoke my cigarette, then after work take me back to pick up my finished beautiful Nina.
Like most services, getting something scheduled is currently a pain. I tried to get a booking around Memorial Day, but the first spot was in late June. To make it work with my nursing friend, I scheduled it for July 2nd. On July 1st as I was trying to find someone to work an overtime shift, I realized he couldn't work it because he had asked for the day off. Umm... he has vacation plans? I double checked with him and he does indeed have plans. "Any other Friday is fine".
Well fuck. I'm going to be using Nina soon and really wanted to get her detailed and beautiful. Honestly there isn't anything that would work besides having a nurse willing to help me out. I'd be willing to come in at 0800 and work through 1800 to make sure the car can get done, but no one works that schedule. And without being able to take a cell phone or cigarettes inside the facility, I'd either have to leave them in the car (umm... no) or just not take them at all.
So, I haven't called them to reschedule, but I know it wouldn't be this coming Friday anyway. Instead of presenting Nina as dirty as she was, I spent a good portion of this morning cleaning her out myself. Man, I gotta say, I hate cleaning cars. I know there are people out there that enjoy it or at least get some pride out of it, but that's just not me. I feel that the effort I put into this doesn't show in the final project. Now, if I paid for this and didn't have to do any of the work, it might be worth it.
And finally, the reason I wanted Nina clean. My TWO vacations. Okay, one isn't a full fledged vacation, but it's going to be a good fun day.
First up is J and I heading to Detroit this Saturday. We're going to specifically see the Van Gogh exhibit as well as the Detroit Institute of Arts. I mention those things as they required buying tickets in advance. We'll meet up here, drive over (in newly cleaned Nina), get some breakfast, then see the Van Gogh at noon. They say the whole exhibit takes about an hour, so we should be done around one, then we'll have a couple hours to kill before heading over to the DIA at three. After that, they close at five, we have the evening to fill. I'm sure we'll take a walk down town as there's a lot to see. Just off the top of my head, there's the Spirit of Detroit, the Joe Louis Arm, and the Renaissance center. We could end up over by the new ice arena, Comerica Park, and Ford Field, or we could just wander and see whats up.
And if you haven't seen about the Van Gogh exhibit, check it out. It's a traveling exhibit and I saw about it while it was in Chicago. Bascically they use projectors to project his art on the walls and have them subtly move around. There are enough projectors that you don't actually see your own shadow, even though it's even projected on the floor. It looks REALLY cool.
And the DIA? I've been there once, and it was amazing! I'd put it right up there with the Art Institute of Chicago. I'm sure we'll be escorted out as two hours isn't quite enough time to take in everything. Last time I didn't even get into the classics wing.
The real vacation is between July 14 and 21. July 14 and 15 I'll be driving down to Texas. I'll meet up with A and E and we'll hang out, likely in Austin. Then either the 19th or 20th, I'll start driving back. I always love these trips and like I've said before, it doesn't mater what we do or really where we're at, we'll have a good time. Normally I'd say we're going to easily meet up at A's place, just north of Dallas. Its only a three hour drive from there to Austin so we could car pool down and make it part of the trip (Nina would be up for it, but I'm not sure we'd all fit in!). BUT... A has two kids and they're not vaccinated (too young). So, I'm not sure what they'll want to do about that safety. If A and his wife say they'd be more comfortable with us not being around the kids, I'd perfectly understand. We can always meet up at Austin directly.
Anyway, I probably won't update next weekend unless I make a quick on Sunday, and then won't be here the next weekend. I hopefully will have another update with a lot of fun stories!
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