Inside The Perimeter

Oh my, if I thought yesterday’s weather was raw, today’s is going to be rawer! A high temperature of 37°F? Inconceivable!!!

Yesterday was spent nearly completely indoors. I put in a very good hour on the trainer, made a lame attempt at following a coding tutorial, watched a lot of tv/videos, and spent a lot of time reading, hemming and hawing about things to purchase on the internet, and trying to reconnect with some former coworkers to try to figure out how I will get my tax paperwork from the now-defunct XYZ Corp.

In the video realm I finished the latest season of “Letterkenny”, watched multiple episodes of “The Great Canadian Bake Off”, and the first episode of a show called “The Mick” which was recommended by my brother.

I keep trying to decide if I want to purchase a soup thermos, a new-to-me invention. If I can figure how to add my $20 gift card courtesy of Kraft Foods Philadelphia Cream Cheese to my Amazon account then I think I will buy one for myself.

On the tax paperwork matter I tried, and failed, to log into the Human Resources app we used at XYZ Corp. My fear is that my login is my XYZ Corp email address, which is now dead, so I won’t be able to receive a password reset email. Ugh!

It’s Friday already? Geez Louise!

I had considered going for a hike today, and you are probably thinking I won’t because of the cold weather. Well, yes, but yesterday I was reminded that I have an appointment this morning to get the ITP Estate’s security system upgraded to 5G. The appointment window is 08:00-10:00, so I am expecting the technician to arrive around 09:59.

With the bitter weather predicted and no time pressure to get out and lay trail tomorrow, Betsy, Bella, and I have agreed to walk (okay, Bella has no vote) but we may wait until later in the morning to get out.

Sunday is supposed to be a Wheelhopper day, but a cold Wheelhopper it will be so I am still on the fence on whether or not I will attend.

Hope you make it a great weekend. Stay warm, remain healthy, be happy.

Good Thursday morning all.

Yesterday was spent mainly doing some early morning choring, and then trying to close my exercise rings.

As I mentioned, I did a boatload of laundry yesterday morning. During the past two years of not going to an office I haven’t generated dirty laundry at the same rate, but tend to wait at least two weeks to do my laundry, instead of doing it weekly.

My brother and I had a good chat on the phone as well yesterday morning. We may not have solved our problems, or future problems, but it was good to speak.

Because of the weather forecast for the next few days I couldn’t sit inside and squander my final gorgeous day this week. I went out for a 3.5 mile walk, wander really, and listened to some of an audiobook.

Last night I went over to Betsy’s where she used the air fryer that had been delivered thirty minutes before she started using it. In the air fryer she made crispy tofu, then broccoli, and then garbanzo beans. These were served with some rice and a tikka Marsala sauce, and salad. We watched episodes of a show called “Travel Man” starring Richard Ayoade, best know for his role in “The IT Crowd”. In “Travel Man” Ayoade and a guest go somewhere for a weekend and do an assortment of activities. The cynic in me believes this is filmed over a handful of days and made to look as if it takes only two days, but I could be wrong.

Even though the rain will may have stopped by the time you read this, I will most likely be spending my day indoors. I hope to do a lot of coding, and spend an hour working out on the trainer.

On the blog front, I went back to look at a post I made in December, only to see that all of the emoji in the post was completely fucked. I don’t know what software change has ruined the emoji, but it irks me to no end since it’s not like iOS devices are niche products so the emoji they use should be supported.

Hope you are high and dry, having a good week.

Yesterday I spent a few hours puttering around WLF, mostly surveying wilting plants and burning brush to clean up and generate some ash.

Because I’d not gotten sufficient exercise and I was feeling very antsy, I went out for an hour-long walk in the afternoon. The weather was perfect for the activity and I counted four Christmas trees, all too far from the ITP Estate to be dragged. I considered walking to a grocery store to buy some carrots, but in the end just made a large figure eight that went nowhere in particular.

Last night’s dinner was a stew concoction. At first I was going to follow the recipe Instant Pot Quinoa and Butternut Squash Stew verbatim but then, well, I wanted to use some of the vegetables still remaining in WLF. Remarkably the butternut squash used in recipe was from WLF! It was one of two small ones I successfully grew. In addition to the squash WLF supplied gnarly small carrots, a daikon radish, and about five broad bean pods.

Jackson Associates is on my shit list again. I assumed that I would be a shoe in for surveys after they took away my $60 gig a few weeks ago. Last night I got all the way to the last question on a desserts when they bumped me from participating. Dangen! I also seem to get fewer opportunities to earn money from them than Bonnie. I know, completely different demographic, but still.

Because I haven’t been thrilled with the ghetto laundromat I am trying to return to the Waschsalon in midtown. I thought I had learned my lesson, arriving fifteen minutes after the posted opening time, but alas have arrived to find it dark. Having seen the erosion of the quality at this place wants me to give up on it completely and if I could find another laundromat nearby that accepts credit cards I’d stop coming here forever. 7:25am opening, the attendant was apologetic, but we all know that this of far from his first offense.

I have a busy day ahead today. After I get my laundry I will be calling the mysterious Bill/Ronnie to talk about some family stuff.

My attempt at returning to the coding lifestyle went poorly yesterday, so I need to push myself harder on that front.

And tonight is a Betsy night; at least it’s her turn to cook.

Hope you are remaining healthy and happy, and that you find all of your businesses open when you arrive.

Screw Omicron, there is a whole lot of chili going around. I mentioned Bonnie bringing some over on Sunday, then Barb mentioned having some too. Therefore I had to make more, and an odd pot I made! I had a box of Carroll Shelby’s chili mix in the cupboard so I used it, a can of tomato sauce, a can of kidney beans, a can of PBR, and a combination of Beyond ground beef and Impossible sausage for the meats. I wasn’t done going batshit crazy however, as I added some chunks of pan-fried potatoes (think “home fries”) that I had baked earlier in the afternoon. With this chili I ate some cornbread (yes, to use the oven to add head to the house), and drank an ice cold beer that I stored in a Canadian refrigerator, aka “outdoors”, for a few hours. What a delicious meal it was, especially when I added some sour cream, cheese, and Fritos to the chili. Woot! Look at me cleaning out the cupboard, refrigerator, and freezer, and, I have enough leftover for at least three more meals.

This digression into poor eating was allowed since I put in a hard 45 minutes on the trainer yesterday afternoon. It was a perfect day to sweat indoors.

On my day off from choring, or caring about anyone except yours truly, I also finished reading the book “The Thursday Murder Club” in preparation for moving onto the second book in the series “The Man Who Died Twice” when it becomes available from the library or I buy as an ebook before the estimated eighteen-week wait expires. This series is written by a man named Richard Osman, who I’ve come to know by watching British tv shows on YouTube.

I mentioned yesterday that I lost a tray of seedlings to the wind which knocked over one of my little greenhouses. I’m still bummed by this, and need to take note of the plants I was growing. Honestly, I planted the seeds about a month ago (I’ll know exactly if I can still read the writing on the popsicle sticks), so I am not 100% sure of my intentions in planting them. I think they were mostly lettuces. This year I intend to be far more attentive to what and when I plant things, and ensure that the identification labels are legible when it comes time to referencing them months after planting.

Theoretically the City of Atlanta will be picking up garbage and recycling today. They’ve not picked up recycling in weeks, and my trash pickup was pushed a day due to yesterday’s federal holiday.

I really need to start adulting today, though I will spend some time outdoors working in WLF to get some exercise as well. This being Tuesday means that it will be a night at home. Who knows what sort of batshit crazy dinner I will make tonight? Oh wait, I do, but you will have to return tomorrow to find out.

Hope you are remaining happy and healthy.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 187.4 pounds (0.0 from last week’s weigh-in); not bad, considering I have not been dieting at all.

Well, well, well, two outta three ain’t bad, right?

I went to the Southern Comfort hash on Friday night. Well, I went to the end of the Southern Comfort hash on Friday night for the Christmas tree burning. Beforehand Bonnie and I decided to go out for a walk to get exercise. We walked three miles down the south Beltline, which meant a six mile walk was in order. Well, we then decided to walk to My Friends Bottle Shop, adding another two miles to our journey.

Saturday’s hash went well, we had over fifty hounds. Well, more like fourteen. Most people seemed to like the (5.5 mile) trail even though they had some difficulty solving our checks and some people were hoping for harder shiggy than we went through. I thought our trail had a good amount of runnable shiggy and interesting scenery to be a good Atlanta trail. The On After was at Arches Brewing, but I was not in the mood to be out any longer so I headed home instead.

And then the snow arrived on Sunday!

WLF experienced its first snow! (Yes Bill/Ronnie, this is enough to be qualified as “snow” in Atlanta) The snow and cold will put the final nail in the coffin for some of WLF’s crops. I’ll let whatever is going to die die, and deal with some cleanup next week.

The high winds caused the power at the ITP Estate to go off/on about ten times yesterday morning. When the winds died down, the snow started falling.

After being outside on Saturday I was worn out and couldn’t convince myself that going out in 35°F, wet weather by attending Black Sheep was a good idea. From what I’ve seen on Instagram it appeared that the pack who did go out (perhaps even more hounds than we pulled in on Saturday) had a blast. Instead of going out I allowed myself to be a lazy slob and do nothing. Bonnie walked over with frozen chili and we dined on it while sharing some beers and watching tv.

Today, well, it’s MLK Day and I have the day off! ???? (fuck, emojis are really gone for awhile; you are probably pleased by this…) Last year I joined hashers in picking up trash. This year, I am not sure. The weather here is supposed to remain cold, which will mean that the snow may or may not melt. [update at 7:30am — I just peered through the window as day is starting to break and see that most of the snow has already melted!] Because of the cold I won’t be hashing tonight, even though the start is at 5pm. I will try to jump onto the trainer for awhile in order to get some exercise.

Hope all is going well and that you are remaining healthy.

Happy Friday all! Hope you have had a good week.

Yesterday was a decent day, even if I did screw up my pumpkin bread.

Bonnie spent two hours walking our trail yesterday, oh, and I joined her. This will be a good Atlanta trail with some shiggy but not as much as you would expect as if we were laying Black Sheep. We had two instances where Google Maps let us down — once where construction currently underway stole the stand of woods we’d hope to use, once where the shiggy was completely impassable. Trail will be around four miles in length. After reccying we returned to her house to share a few well-earned beers.

Last night I ate dinner of leftovers, before passing out hard on my futon.

Today? Dunno.

I am currently trying my hand at another baked confection today, oatmeal cranberry bars. Clearly I have plenty of oatmeal as I failed to use ant yesterday. And guess who had two cans of cranberry sauce in his pantry, ten months away from Thanksgiving… LOL

I think tomorrow’s trail is ready, so I don’t think Bonnie and I will go out to reccy again. That leaves all day to have fun or chore. Tonight is the annual Southern Comfort Christmas tree burn trail. Last year I was physically unable to perform as I was recovering from surgery. This year I will skip trail to save myself for tomorrow.

Tomorrow’s Betsy/Bella walk will happen, but will have to be abbreviated for me as I will need time to pre-lay trail. And then it will be time for AH4.

Normally I’d declare this Sunday to be a Black Sheep day. However, the threat of freezing rain and/or snow is giving me second thoughts.

Hope that you have a happy and healthy weekend.

With new LED lightbulbs in the house you’d think I’d be on a tear to replace my old incandescent ones. Not so fast, my friend! I have put a bulb into the “broken” fixture, but I have yet to take the next step of enclosing the bulb with the fixture’s glass enclosure. I do intend to replace the other two overhead bulbs in the kitchen so that all three have the same color temperature.

Last night I made a fairly delicious vegetarian jambalaya to bring to Betsy’s. It was not my best jambalaya, but it was quite edible. And, I kept the bottoms of the green onions to plant out into WLF! As I surmised, Betsy didn’t get into “The Great Canadian Bake Off”, even though she enjoys “The Great British Bake Off”.

With all of the talk of Omicron I decided to start my day like it is April 2020 by baking a loaf of pumpkin bread. Perhaps my decision was swayed by watching “Bread Week” of a season of “The Great Canadian Bake Off” when I returned from Betsy’s. Or perhaps it was swayed by the discovery of four cans of pumpkin purée living in my cupboard? ???????? Goddammit, I just realized that I forgot to fold in to rolled oats into my batter! This is what I get for not laying out all of the ingredients prior to starting the preparation, even though I thought that I had done so. Shame, shame, shame. ???????????

Today is a reccying day! At some point later this morning, early this afternoon, Bonnie will make our first pass at Saturday’s trail.

I’m not sure what the rest of my day holds.

Hope all is good in your world.

Well poop. Yesterday didn’t go as I hoped, that’s for sure. Thankfully nothing catastrophic occurred.

I mentioned that I did some yard cleanup yesterday, cutting up a bunch of tree trunks, as well as filling a yard bag with English Ivy. So that was good.

Yesterday afternoon I received an email alerting me that my paid survey was cancelled. This means that I am not receiving the $60 I was expecting to earn today. To add frustration to losing out on the money I also anticipated driving to Sandy Springs / Dunwoody so I placed an order for LED light bulbs at the Buckhead Home Depot. I will have to drive up there today to claim my order. Perhaps I will make the trip worth it by also stopping into the Target that is near the Home Depot.

After that I found out that neither Bonnie nor I won the free concert tickets to a concert at The Eastern at the end of the month. I want to go to the show, the band playing is called Pinegrove, and I was hoping Life would smile upon me by letting me go for free.

And finally a $2 rebate on a bottle of wine that I sent in online last month was declined because supposedly the receipt I submitted did not have a valid date. I’m calling bullshit, but for $2 I am going to let it drop and think twice before buying Josh Cellars wine again. Their decision will most likely cost them more than $2 of lost revenue from me in the future.

By the time you read this I am hoping that I have my daily exercise knocked out by putting in 45 minutes on the trainer. And if all is going to today’s new plan I am currently doing (or have done) some coding prior to driving to Buckhead too.

Tonight is Betsy dinner night. It’s my turn to cook and I have decided that I am going to make a vegetarian jambalaya for dinner. I don’t think Betsy was sold on “The Great Canadian Bake Off” last week, so I have no clue what we will watch tonight.

Hope that your day was less of a disappointment for you, and that today doesn’t disappoint at all.

HBD ITP-Reader Bob!

Yesterday I stayed off the internet to avoid hearing about the game, today I must to the sale to avoid it hearing all of the boasting from UGA fans. Forty-one years ago doesn’t seem long enough in my world, back then I didn’t give a shit about college football at all. Braves won the World Series, UGA the National Football Championship. It doesn’t get much worse for a Mets fan and UF alumnus. Thanks, Life. It’s a good thing that I don’t value my happiness based on sports any longer. 🙄😂

Whoops, stepped away from the blog and forgot to return. Where was I…

Yesterday was all right. Apparently this country has entered another toilet paper shortage, at least that’s what I gathered from the emptiness of the shelves at Kroger and Publix yesterday. While I didn’t do the greatest job of constraining my purchasing, I did manage to buy products for which I had coupons and/or rebates or were BOGOs/clearance, so I was able to recoup some of the costs.

I mentioned going on an impromptu walk with Betsy yesterday and picking up a Christmas tree, well, this was to be repeated later in the afternoon, only this time with Bonnie. And the Christmas tree I picked up yesterday afternoon came with a free ornament! Woot! My two walks accomplished my exercise goals for the day, so I was clear to skip hashing last night.

With the purchases I made at grocery stores I knuckled down at home and did an inventory and reorganization of my cupboards. In the process I pulled out five items that went into last night’s dinner. I essentially made a fake baked ziti, using pasta, pasta sauce, mushrooms, fake ground beef, and some cheese. The dish could have benefited by having a bolder flavor, but it was quite edible and the 13″x”9″ casserole dish’s worth will feed me for days.

The cupboard organizing also inspired me to reorganize my seeds as well. Next step in that process is to make a 2022 WLF plan and ensure that I have everything at hand (dollars to donuts says I do).

Today? It’s cold again! I was planning to go into WLF with Wee Little Chainsaw to cut up tree trunks and larger branches, but I might want to stay in for awhile. There is discussion of trail reccying today, so I should bundle up and do that with Bonnie. And tonight I’ll be bunkering down at home, eating leftovers, staying warm, and trying to convince myself to do something more productive than watching videos.

Hope that you are warm, healthy, and happy.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 187.4 pounds (-1.2 from last week’s weight-in); progress, slow progress, but progress nonetheless.

I am struggling to get motivated this morning, neither breakfast nor coffee has helped thus far.

Due to weather and my own malaise it was a fairly uneventful weekend.

On Friday night I brought beers over to Bonnie’s and she cooked us a chili dinner. It was nice and relaxing.

Saturday morning saw me bundling up to walk with Betsy and Bella in the freezing temperatures. After making our rounds I returned home and bunkered for many hours, uninspired to do little more than read and nap. Along my walk home I was going to claim a discarded Christmas tree. As I approached the house I saw the homeowner outside clearing gutters, so I thought rather than just take the tree, I’d ask permission. After all who’d say “No.”? He did. Well, to be fair he said yes, and then quickly retracted that telling me that they had promised the tree to the Boy Scouts. Fair. Fucking olive drab do-gooders… On Saturday evening Bonnie and I walked up to East Atlanta Village and had a few beers with my buddy Shelby and his girlfriend at Hippin Hops and Sabbath Brewing.

Yesterday’s weather threw me for a loop. It’s going to rain all day. No, it’s going to rain late afternoon. No, it’s going to start raining, stop raining, and then rain with a vengeance! Because of this I spent 45 minutes on the trainer, only to see sunshine when I was done. 🤔 A check of the weather convinced me to ask Bonnie if she wanted to walk, which we did, 4.5 miles worth! 🙌🏻 However, along the way it started to spit rain. We stopped at 3 Taverns Imaginarium for a beer but when I saw the storm front headed our way we made the quick decision to buy beer to go and walk to her house prior to the deluge; it was a wise decision. We drank beer and ate more of her delicious chili.

Today? Unsure. I doubt I will be hashing tonight. My goal is to put my head in the sand while all of the testosterone of Alabama and Georgia fans swells. I should probably swing down to Home Depot to pick up some LED light bulbs, and perhaps stop at a grocery store to pick up two items needed for Wednesday night’s meal at Betsy’s.

I should also spend a lot of time writing/studying code. Now that we are in 2022 I really need to step up my game.

Hope that you had a healthy and happy weekend.