Update July 12, 2026

New section!

Health
I had two migraines since my last Update.  One went for three days, though only the first day was bad enough to not work.  

Mental health wise, I'm doing very well.  During my last therapy session I put out there that everything is going well.  Even when things don't go perfectly, I still end up looking on the bright side of things.  This is VERY good news.  I see my psychiatric NP next week and I believe I'll ask for a reduction in my Paxil.  If there were no side effects from my meds, I wouldn't want to change a thing.  I'm not one of those people that believe that mental health meds 'fix' you.  They don't.  Once they get you to a good spot, you continue to take them at that dosage.  UNLESS there are side effects.  Considering I had sexual, urinary, sleeping, and appetite changes with these meds, all of them difficult to deal with, I'm going to ask for a reduction.  Not a big one, and I'll be ready to re-assess soon thereafter to see if I should go back up to the 'normal' dose.  

I've still been losing weight.  I'm concerned enough about it that I'm actually trying to eat more.  For instance, I had a donut early this morning.  That would tie me over until our Sunday late dinner around 3 pm.  But I had a little spot of hunger around 11:30 AM so I went ahead and ate a breakfast bar.  I've also cut out my cucumber from lunches and replaced them with bell peppers.  And on this last shopping trip, I didn't get more carrots as I'm only eating like one or two baby carrots each lunch.  Instead I got some snap peas and some snipped green beans.  Hopefully the taste and texture difference will be enough to make me want to eat more during my work lunches.  

I'm STILL adjusting to a new sleep habit.  When I work, I can get a good night's sleep.  Get home around 8 AM, go to bed at 9 AM, and sleep more or less through to my 4 PM alarm.  I do wake up several times during the day, but I'm able to get back to sleep.  

The problem arises when I'm not working and therefore don't have specific times I need to wake up.  The first day off I try to just follow my body.  If I get tired around 9 AM, which is normal, I go to sleep.  But if I wake up at Noon after only three hours, I go ahead and get up.  I most often get tired between 10 PM and midnight that first night, and go to sleep then.  

The problem is that I don't get a consistent amount of sleep then.  I sometimes will sleep through until 6 AM and other times I'll wake up at 3 AM.  And I mean WAKE UP.  I can stay in bed and try to go back to sleep, but I'll just toss and turn around for an hour.  I've tried.  So then with only a few hours of sleep, I get tired during the day.  Instead of a one or two hour nap though, i can sleep for five or six hours.  It's like my body is still on the 'sleep through the day' clock.    

I'd be concerned, but if I have stuff to do (with friends, with family, around the house, shopping...) I can easily stay up.  Its just a problem when I'm sitting here wasting time, relaxing.  Anywho, it's something I'm watching.  

Finances
A month later and I still don't have answers on the overtime situation from my Memorial Day check.  They explained one part where I got 'paid' for the hours with the shift differential and then it was withdrawn, leaving the shift differential.  That was the convoluted way they add the shift differential to the actual hours I worked on the holiday.  But still no answer on why they gave me the same hours of pay with a vastly odd pay rate and then took it all back.  

This last check, I got a lesson on paid time off. We have four categories.  As they list them they are Extended Sick Leave, Personal Day, State Mandated Sick Leave, and Vacation Time.  The easiest is the Vacation Time.  Each pay period we earn a few hours of vacation time and can use that, with permission, to take personal time off.  I right now have about 26 hours of vacation time.  The Personal Day is about the same thing as the Vacation time, but we get three 'days' each year.  For me on a twelve hour shift, that's thirty six hours.  They can be used as we want, with permission of course.  The State Mandated Sick Leave is what you'd consider normal Sick Leave (and how I'll refer to it from now on).  Each pay period I earn about 1.8 hours of Sick Leave.  When I call in Sick, it's paid with that built up Sick Leave.  Finally the Extended Sick Leave is only to be used for surgical needs or when an illness keeps you away from work for more than five days.  I can't use it for a migraine (unless the migraine goes for more than five days).  

The problem comes with my migraines.  When I considered myself ready to get back to work is when I only had a single 'migraine day' that would keep me from work each month.  That's because at my previous job I earned 4 hours of sick time every pay period.  Two pay periods (roughly one month) and I'd earn a sick day off.   But now I don't earn that much and I work for twelve hours a shift instead of eight.  To earn a single sick DAY off I need to work about 14 weeks.  That's over three months.  I might be a little screwed on that as I'm getting one or two migraine days a month that keep me from work.  

When I called in sick twice in this last pay period, neither of the days were filled with sick time. To be clear, I only have like 9 hours of sick time so it couldn't have covered 24 hours of sickness, but they didn't even use that amount.  My check was just around $600 shy of its normal.  To make sure I get paid for sick time I have to not only call in properly, I have to mark it on our time clock software... which I don't use for anything else.  And this process wasn't explained AT ALL in orientation.  

Whatever.  I know it now.  I just really want to find out what that extra overtime was and why it was taken away.  

Family/Friends
My brother B seems to be doing better.  Not a lot better, but he's at least accepting of his situation more than he used to.  Before, he was disappointed when any tweak to his therapy didn't get him perfect results.  Now, he's happy even if it's just small improvements.  

My brother R is doing well.  His vacation 'up north' really helped recharge his batteries.  Mom is... well, she's about the same.  She had an emotional break down earlier this week after a doctor's appointment.  it was really difficult for her to get out of the house and then even worse to get back into the house.  When she explained that she'd been feeling down and worn out for the past few days, it made sense.  But she went right to the "I'm not going to be around that much longer" place mentally.  I think she's better now, but R and I are setting down some harder rules.  If we see that she's tired, we're going to insist on her not cooking.  Whether that's me and R picking up the slack or us ordering out, it doesn't matter to me.  I just want Mom to know that her putting herself out just to cook for R and me isn't worth it any more.  Even if doing so makes her feel good about herself.  That reward isn't worth what it does to her any longer.  

A and E are both doing well.  Not much from either. I think I might plan a trip down to Texas sooner rather than later.  I'm not sure exactly when, but it would be on one of my five day stretches off.  I could then tack on my two days of vacation and that would clear out an entire weekend.  Drive down Wednesday/Thursday, hang out Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and drive back up Monday and Tuesday to return to work on Wednesday.  

I'm thinking maybe in August, before the college football season starts.  

Shit... looking at the calendar, I might need to start planning that now.  A quick glance at the calendar shows that the weekends of August 8th or 22nd would work for me.  Later than that and we bump into college football.  Earlier than that, and I'd bump into scheduled appointments including a doctor's appointment and a car recall appointment.  

We had another game night at S's house.  It was fun.  I'd purchased the board game we played, Catan, and played a game with B and my nephew J a couple weeks earlier so I was able to bring my copies of the game giving us enough pieces for all seven of us there to play.  We played on the single extended may designed for five or six people and to be honest, it was too much.  We were crowded.  But it was a learning experience and it was fun.  Next game... and there WILL be a next game as we all enjoyed it... I'll bring some standardized home brew rules set up for games of 7 or 8 people.  I know it includes combining two boards.  

Work
 I'm enjoying work.  The longer I'm there, the more I'm learning about their culture.  I can only say that thank God we're getting a union.  They (the executive team and even management) is very good about saying we have to follow all the rules and then hinting at us NOT following the rules.  For instance, we're supposed to have two people present when we have patients around.  that includes Admissions.  But they'll schedule us with only one person there and then act all surprised when I call and ask what I should do with no one else able to help me.  They set it up so that I'd be alone and then just expected me to DO IT alone even though they say to follow the rules.  

A lot of nurses there do that.  Follow along with their hints and do stuff they damned well know puts their patients, themselves, and their licenses at risk.  I might be making enemies with the management, but I'm telling all the nurses that I can that they canNOT get in trouble for protecting their license.  

C, one of the nurses I worked with (she did the 3p to 3a shift) quit.  She'd been there for a year but had been jerked around for almost that entire time.  I can't blame her for leaving.  She only accepted that shift as a step in to either getting a day shift position or moving into some kind of management position.  But while they dangled those in front of her constantly, they never materialized.  So, she's gone.  Thankfully she's part of the game night crew so I'll still see her once a month or so. 

Entertainment
No big surprise, but I decided to watch the Transformers movies again.  I'd watched the 1986 Transformers The Movie before my last update, but now I've started on the Bayverse movies.  I've watched the original several times over and liked it.  It's not art or anything but it has good big bad robots transforming and fighting and a good enough story.  The second one, Revenge of the Fallen, I saw once but it was difficult to try and watch a second time.  There are two characters that are just rude, bad, racist characters of black youth.  Their tone of speech, their language, their motions, their accents, even their decorations (yeah... one had a gold tooth).  It was tough to get over such blatant racism, but I still go through it this time.  

The third movie, Dark of the Moon, is all right.  The destruction of Chicago is fun to watch but hard to stomach as a movie plot point.  The fourth, Age of Extinction is bad.  The only thing keeping it from being completely terrible is the Dinobots.  Grimlock is BADASS in it.  But the whole Megatron/Galvatron is ham-handed and bad and the 'bad guys' transforming is just terrible.  It takes away half the fun when you don't see them actually move around and 'transform', instead just turning into a bunch of cubes and changing shape.   I'm now about half way through the fifth and last Michael Bay movie, The Last Knight.  Whoa boy, it's bad.  B A D bad.  It ignores any semblance of story, barely has Optimus Prime, tries for humor and misses terribly, introduces what should be important characters (Hot Rod) and completely mess them up so bad that I hadn't recognized them before.  I mean, at one point they're fighting in an 'abandoned city' in South Dakota.  And it looks like a reasonable two stop light town.  But then during the fight then end up in a twenty story tall building... surrounded by other twenty story tall buildings.  It was like downtown Detroit.  Then when the fight ends, they end up back in the two stop light town.  What the actual fuck?

I'm going to finish it just because I wanted to watch all the movies over and it's between me and the next three.  Next up is Bumblebee which I remember being a fairly good Feel Good movie.  Then there's Rise of the Beasts which I also recall being good.  Finally there's the new Transformers One animated movie that I haven't seen but have heard nothing but good things about.  

New Tech
So about a month ago I started looking for new springs to help out my keyboard.  The spacebar, being so heavy in all metal, was just too sensitive.  I found some springs that wouldn't mess up the magnets AND were more resistant than the normal magnets... but they came from a shop on Ali Express.  It was my first time using it.  The $5 worth of springs (they would have been $30 over here) didn't include the $20 in shipping.  

While I was at Ali Express, it of course looks through my cookies and noticed I was all over Transformers recently.  They very effectively presented me with the very Transformers I'd wanted but couldn't find at reasonable prices here in the States.  So, I added two transformers on as well.  Even with the huge shipping costs, they were cheaper than what I could find them for on Ebay or Amazon.  

Well... the transformers got here in just about two weeks.  I've been enjoying them for some time now.  The springs?  They seem to have gotten lost in Queens.  I've already earned a $1 coupon for them being so late, but I have to wait until July 19th at the earlier to declare them lost and get a refund.  I'm just about ready to order them again anyway as it would save me a week.  Worst case, I spend another $25 on springs.  

Writing
I have FINALLY got back into writing.  As of the writing of my last Update post, I'd last posted a chapter in You're Not The Boss of Me on May 10th.  Since then I've posted chapters on June 28th, July 10th and July 11th.  I also worked out a more detailed outline for this next 'part'.  And yes, this next part is Paris going to the Maldives with Darnell.  Blow Job Beach Party! I will hopefully even put out another chapter today.  

Michigan College Football
The Sorsby situation worked itself out.  Turns out that the outrage was enough for him to decide to join the NFL supplemental draft instead of playing at Texas Tech.  The irony is that the NFL decided to NOT have a supplemental draft this year.  Then the CFL just piled on and said that Sorsby wasn't invited to join their league.  

Thankfully Sorsby is still doing the right thing and says hes going to spend the year prepping for the 2027 NFL draft.  

Transformers
Okay this will be a new section for my Updates.  I've decided to budget $100 each pay period for Transformers.  If the one I want is $101, then I can't buy him.  I can, however, save the money not spent on transformers and add it to my next pay period's Transformers budget.  For example, say I buy the Insecticons set at Target this next week.  It's $79.99.  I could then bank that $20.01 and have  $120.01 the following week.  

The one exception I made is that when I get my next hiring bonus in September, I'm going to buy Unicron.  I have no idea where I'm going to put him, but I'm getting him.  Should set me back about $2000.  

I left off my Transfomers post with talk of getting Bumblebee, Hot Rod, and Frenzy.  All three came in and all three are spectacular!

I also took some new photos of Soundwave and his crew:

Knowledge of my addition is getting around.  My sister-in-law M works at Ollies and Ollies generally gets a good supply of older Transformers and puts them on sale at good prices.  Add in her employee discount and... yeah, she might be my crack dealer now.  

My brother mentioned that she saw an Optimus Prime Studio Series from Rise of the Beasts on the shelf for $25.  It originally went for over $40.  It was currently going for $35 at most places.  With her discount it would be about $21.  I was strong when he showed it to me as it's not the series that I want (the ones from the 1986 movie).  

But the next morning when I woke up and looked at the photos again... yeah, I liked that transformer enough to get him.  

I will still be strong though.  While I paid for him, I took that payment out of my next check's budget.  I also put him up on a shelf in his box and won't even open him until I get paid.   So, since I have to wait to play with him, you all have to wait to see him.  

I'm thinking that with $79 left to spend on the next check, I'll get the battle damaged Megatron that's an exclusive to Target.  I don't want Target to run out and he only goes for $60.  That'll leave me like $19 to put on the next check, giving me $119 to spend!  

Oh, and I'm considering spending more on this next check.  I get my Independence Day holiday pay which will be like an extra $400.  I might bet the Titan class Grimlock for $189.  

I do have to say, I get a kick out of looking up and seeing all the transformers.  I also get a kick out of occasionally pulling one down and seeing how far I can get into the transformation without looking at instructions or online for help.  I've transformed Galvatron (he was in his alt mode, so he's now in robot mode), Thundercracker, Soundwave (as shown above) and just earlier this morning, Bumblebee.  I gotta leave Optimus as I'll want side by side photos.  

And speaking of Thundercracker, I do want to get a complete Seeker set.  yes, that will mean having yet another Starscream, but these models look awesome!  

Soon enough I'll get Skywarp as he just released and then Starscream as he's coming out soon.  But a friend online also showed that next year they're going to put out some of the G2 seekers in the G1 forms:

Awwwww yeah!!  It turns out that when I went to look up that photo, I found out that these are now available for Pre-Order.  My email confirming my purchase has been received and they should be mine by October next year.