Inside The Perimeter

Happy Friday!

Because of my 7:30am doctor appointment this morning was not one on which I wanted to fall asleep early on the futon and be awake around 3:30am. But, that’s my current pattern. Shortly I will attempt to get a nap in so that I can get up again with enough time to take a fast shower and be at West Paces/ I-75 by 7:15am.

Yesterday’s tree work went almost as well as could be hoped, even though it was rather nerve racking at times. The taking down of the dead pine tree created quite the thump that had at least of of my neighbors looking to see what the hell was going on. I still have hours of cleanup ahead of me, time which I should be spending clearing the land on which I will put garden beds, but that’s what happens when you cut costs. There will be many backyard fires between now and summer; I know that a lot of the wood won’t be ready to burn until next year, but many of the smaller limbs and branches can burn sooner. I watched with interest yesterday as the squirrels tried to figure out what had happened to their highway system and sought alternative routes from one side of my backyard to the other.

This afternoon I have my first one-on-one meeting with my new manager; the last one left the company in December. This may or may not set the direction of my future with “XYZ Corp”.

No firm plans exist yet for the weekend, though I do have a few proverbially irons in the fire.

Hope you have a happy and healthy weekend.

I believe in the past I’ve adopted a theme for my new year. I wasn’t going to do so this year, but then yesterday a theme kept popping into my mind, so I decided I should go with it. My theme for 2021? “Embracing Change”.

It’s easy to say that “change” happened in 2020 and that we all were forced to embrace it in some way or another, but I feel that I have a lot more ahead of me this year.

Already I’ve had to deal with the recovery from my knee surgery. I am looking forward to talking to the doctor tomorrow to get her assessment as well as any advice for returning my knee to its pre-damaged state.

Today a change will occur that will alter the appearance of the ITP Estate’s property. I am having the tree limbs overhanging the power line trimmed, and the large dead pine tree as well as the smaller trees around it cut down. Even though these trees in the backyard are on the northern side of the ITP Estate the yard should get more sun, which should make my efforts to grow vegetables this year a little easier.

I expect 2021 will throw some more curveballs as well. Employment? Perhaps. Family? Perhaps. Political? It appears so. Declining health? Hopefully not. Normalcy, peace, happiness, improving health? Those would be hanging curveballs hit for a home run and would be fantastic. There are also some decisions that I will be making this year that I will discuss when the times arrive.

Well, as I type… I just read that it is confirmed that “XYZ Corp” will not be renewing its lease on the office space in Midtown. I hope this means that I can work from home, at least for as long as I remain an employee of “XYZ Corp”.

Yesterday I attempted a trainer ride. After thirty uninspired and bothersome minutes I quit.

Last night I continued emptying the pantry, refrigerator, and freezer by making a large batch of macaroni and cheese, into which I stirred a bag of peas. The food was delicious. Not as delicious was the bottle of cheap red wine that I opened to drink with it. The wine was okay, but I could definitely taste the cheapness within it.

Two things I don’t expect to change are the frequency or content of this blog — for better or worse. 🙂

Hope you are doing well and are having a good start to your year. And if you are not, I hope that things change for the better soon.

Well this is annoying, amongst many things annoying me currently, is the fact that the calendar app on my Mac for which I pay an annual subscription seems to be getting worse in software quality; I nearly gave this post the date of January 4th, because that was the day being shown in the app’s icon this morning until I restarted the app. Fortunately, I knew this date was incorrect.

Saturday, January 9th, can’t get here quickly enough for me. By then I should have all of the tree work successfully finished, and will have discussed my knee issues with the orthopedist and have been told that all is as it should be. I’m trying to project the best outcomes here…

I should go out in the yard this afternoon to continue working the yard before the rain arrives. After all, I do have a digging bar now. 🙂 However, the current condition of my knee is making me think that I should rest. Doing physical therapy and not having any pain after the surgery, may have given me a little too much bravado to do things, which may have set me back, hopefully not permanently.

Additionally, I need to start getting head’s down in coding so that I have plenty of current coding projects in case I need to interview for a new job this year; I feel that my skills have been getting rusty for awhile now.

I want to go to Aldi today, but will probably put going there off for yet another day as I attempt to use produce/products that are already in my possession. Through consumption and donation I am slowly making headway toward cleaning out my pantry, refrigerator, and freezer; this doesn’t annoy me.

In addition to watching Top Chef tonight “with” Betsy, I am also going to make a list of expenses to see if I can eliminate some of them, as well as making a growing plan using the new garden layout that I have conjured.

Hope that you are not annoyed and are remaining healthy.

Just a quickie today so that I can go to Lowe’s to buy a digging bar before I head to College Park for my (hopefully) last physical therapy session. I return to the orthopedist on Friday for a follow up appointment. I’m happy with my decision to have the surgery and most of progress, but the occasional pain bothers me.

I didn’t get a whole lot accomplished yesterday, other than cooking meals that I ate yesterday and will also provide me with leftovers all week. I want to hit Aldi on my way home from physical therapy, but you know, I am supposed to come back to log into work instead. Speaking of logging in, apparently my password expired while I was taking vacation, and that caused me all sorts of issues until I was able to contact IT. Dangen! I wish I had set a reminder to change it prior to my break.

Oddly last night around 9pm I finally remembered that I’d not retrieved the recycling bin from the curb. I went outside and the opening of my door scared an animal away from the front of my driveway. I’ll assume it was the neighbor’s cat, who takes a liking to sleeping around the front of my house.

Today I should remember to drag yesterday’s Christmas tree to the way back of the yard; currently it sits be the side of the carport.

I am glad that today is election runoff day in Georgia. Perhaps I can watch YouTube again without the constant barrage of political ads. Next on the political agenda is to stop Trump and the Republicans from overthrowing 245 years of democracy. I won’t feel “safe” until Biden has been inaugurated.

Hope you are remaining well.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 188.4 pounds (+1.0 from last week’s weigh-in); whoops! Not the best way to start the year… 🤪

Aw, back to work… 😢

It was a wonderful two weeks of vacation, even if it was filled with physical therapy sessions and chores.

Saturday I joined the “Overachievers” group for a trip down to Cochran Mill Park. Everyone except yours truly did the Dirty Sheets bile ride, while I did a 5+ mile hike through the woods. After our exercise most of us headed to Cochran Mill Brewing for a celebratory beer or two. As an added “bonus”, the brewery was also the On-After for Saturday’s hash which was laid in Fairburn.

On early Sunday morning I confirmed that one block is about as far as I want to drag a Christmas tree. Before sunrise a made three trips to drag four discarded Christmas trees back to the ITP Estate to become fuels for future fire pit fires, and perhaps organic material for the future garden. It was a vigorous fifteen minute of exercise before my day really started.

After lugging Christmas trees to the way back of the yard I once again took shovel in hand and put in a third day of mud shoveling and root pulling in an effort to clear the brick path. I am not sure Woodstock was as muddy as my backyard was yesterday. 😂 I have at least a few more hours of labor ahead of me to finish this task. And then, I need to level the ground next to it where I plan to put my raised garden beds; I’m sure I’ll hit a ton of roots in that ground as well. 🙁

Sunday afternoon’s fun was walking around taking photos of the old Presidential Hotel (at I-85/I-285 aka “Spaghetti Junction”) while the real hashers did trail. It was a chilly day.

My early rising combined with manual labor knocked me out very early last night.

Hope that your 2021 has gotten off to a happy and healthy start.

Happy New Year, friends!

I made it to about 11:35pm last night.

I will blame my inability to make it to midnight on the combination of waking early, physical therapy, and shoveling direct and ripping up roots to expose another third of my hidden walkway.

With no organized events, at least any that I would be comfortable attending, Bonnie and I got together for dinner. The two of us walked up to Midway Pub where we ordered dinner and beer. At Midway I saw Terri (aka “Star Whore”) and her crew; I wished them a Happy New Year from a social distance. After we were done with the food we walked back to my house. At home we split a beer, a limited edition bottle of Bagpipe Warrior Scotch Ale that I purchased at Cherry Street Brewing a few weeks ago; it was delicious. While consuming the last beer of 2020 Bonnie and I watched the Beastie Boys documentary on AppleTV Plus; if you were a fan of Beastie Boys and have the Apple TV service I recommend spending the time to watch it.

Today I will use the dank, rainy weather to do some indoor chores and restart my coding career.

I toyed with the idea of making resolutions and coming up with a theme for 2021, but instead decided to skip that.

See you all at Cheddarhead! Oh wait, that’s no longer a thing. At least I can’t blame COVID for canceling this year.

May you all have a wonderful and healthy 2021.

December Summary

12/01 – 188.0, V, trainer (55:00) 🙂🤕
12/02 – ?, V, trainer (55:00) 🙂🤕
12/03 – ?, V, nothing 😢🤕
12/04 – ?, V, trainer (55:00) 🙂🤕
12/05 – ?, V, nothing 😢🤕
12/06 – ?, V, walking 😐🤕, hashing 🙂🤕
12/07 – ?, V, walking 🙂🤕
12/08 – 188.4, V, trainer (50:00) 🙂🤕
12/09 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/10 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/11 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/12 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/13 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/14 – ?, V, nothing 🤕
12/15 – ?, V, physical therapy 😕🤕
12/16 – 186.8, V, nothing
12/17 – ?, V, physical therapy 😐🤕
12/18 – ?, V, walking 😕🤕
12/19 – ?, V, nothing 😢🤕
12/20 – ?, V, yard work 🙂🤕, hashing (2.5 miles) 😕🤕
12/21 – ?, V, physical therapy 😐🤕, walking (2.5 miles) 😐🤕
12/22 – 188.2, V, yard work 🙂🤕
12/23 – ?, V, physical therapy 😐🤕
12/24 – ?, V, trainer (40:00) 🙂🤕
12/25 – ?, V, yard work 🙂🤕
12/26 – ?, V, trainer (35:00) 😕🤕
12/27 – ?, V, nothing 😢🤕
12/28 – ?, V, yard work 😀🤕
12/29 – 187.4, V, physical therapy 🙂🤕, walking 🙂🤕
12/30 – ?, V, yard work 😅🤕
12/31 – ?, V, physical therapy 🙂🤕, yard work 😅🤕

To say that things happened in 2020 that I never would have imagined is understandably an understatement.

And then take yesterday…

I went out to the backyard to do some work, including start leveling the ground on which I intend to put my vegetable garden next year. Because I am who I am, I strung a line demarcating three sides of the plot, and it didn’t look quite right. So, I went to one of the pieces of rebar marking a corner; I pulled it out from where I had hammered it in, moved it a little, and went to hammer back it in. Then I hit something hard. I tried again, and hit something hard. I knew deep inside it wasn’t a root… I should mention that many years ago I discovered that there is a brick path that I believe runs from the garden gate to the brick patio, but I have never seen. I fetched a trowel and dug where I was trying to hammer in my rebar, and lo and behold I found brick. Like an archeologist I stopped the original plan and made a plan to uncover the new find. Thus far I’ve uncovered about eight-to-ten feet of brick path and hit many stubborn roots along the way. I am hoping that I will not regret my decision to uncover the path since this will most definitely change the arrangement of the vegetable garden.

Yesterday I had my annual eye exam. By and large everything is fine, and I am waiting for them to email me a receipt and my prescription. Of course after everything looked fine with my left eyelid yesterday afternoon, last night it became a bit irritated.

Later this morning (it’s now 5:00am) I have what may be my last physical therapy session. I have permission for two more sessions, so I may return next week. Today I also should schedule my follow up appointment with the orthopedist.

If the rain holds off, and my muscles are not too sore from yesterday’s hard labor, I might get back out in the yard to uncover more path today.

Normally I’d wish you a safe New Year’s Eve, but obviously this year’s edition won’t be nearly as raucous as in year’s past. Be safe regardless. See you in 2021.

There needs to be another level of “First World Problems” for my dilemmas. Last night I found that magically my lost contact addresses have returned, but then after rebooting my iPad all of the tabs in Safari and Chrome had been closed and lost. Ugh.

Yesterday I met up with Bonnie and we walked up to the East Atlanta Village to get lunch. Being a weekday during COVID our opinions were limited, so we selected Flat Iron. After perusing the menu and finding something that sounded delicious, I was informed that I was looking at the old non-COVID menu. Dangen! But, an Impossible Burger was located and ordered. I was so full by the amount of food I ate at lunch that dinner was little more than snacking on cheese and crackers.

Today I am going back to my office neighborhood to visit my optometrist. Beforehand I am going to take advantage of the last nice weather day this week to get some more yard work done. Another factor in my backyard saga is my acceptance of the offer to get my tree work done, and, if no family drama occurs before Thursday I’ll be shelling out a sum of money to get the deed done.

Hope you are well. Tomorrow I should write a recap of 2020. We’ll see…

– Yard work, about five hours’ worth
– Tree Service meeting to get a quote, it’s not going to be cheap
– Birthday party at Arches Brewing, fun

That sums up yesterday!

Well it took nearly thirty-eight years, but I finally used some of the geometry that I learned in high school. Yesterday I wanted to mark the rectangular area of the back yard that will hold my raised beds and pathways around them. I wanted it to be as perfectly square in the corners as I could make it. I marked a straight line for one side, but wasn’t sure how to easily find the proper spots for the other corners. Since I was attempting to get right angles I realized that if I calculated the length of the hypotenuse I could measure out that length from each corner and sink a post into the opposing corner, thus creating a (close to) perfect rectangle. When I level the ground bounded by the rectangle and start laying some paving stones I will see how close I have come.

My many hours of manual labor yesterday have worn me out. Unfortunately I am going to have to rally within the next ten minutes to go to an early-morning PT session.

Hope you are remaining well, and are winding down the year happily.

Tuesday Tale of the Tape: 187.4 pounds (-0.8 from last week’s weigh-in); the magic of yard work.

The last Monday of 2020. I’m ready to move on…

I’m also ready to get past January 5th so that YouTube stops showing me political ads. I never thought I’d be happy to be served an ad describing a new prescription drug, but it was certainly better than any of the political ads I’ve been forced to endure.

This weekend was another roller coaster ride of a weekend. If not for some family drama it would have been a very cold, but relaxing Christmas weekend.

Yesterday Bonnie and I got one more Hop Passport brewery under our belts. We drove down to Peachtree City to drink at Line Creek Brewing. Actually, Line Creek was our second stop because a certain someone name “Paulie” entered “Fall Line Brewing” into Google Maps and was surprised to see how long it would get to the brewery due to an accident on I-75, so we stopped at Cochran Mill Brewing in Fairburn first, since that would take us down I-85 instead. It wasn’t until I mapped a route from Fairburn to Peachtree City that I realized my initial mistake. Have I mentioned the family drama? 🙄

Today I will be doing some manual labor in the backyard as “productive exercise”, at least until the tree service company arrives around noon. I still have a lot of work to do in the yard to prepare for next year’s planned garden. I almost wish that I had started a YouTube channel last summer to document the process that I have been going through. Maybe by now companies would be sending me free shit to “review” like I have heard so many YouTubers tout. 😂

Tonight I am going to a birthday party at Arches Brewing, but the catch is that the party is a “Circus Theme” so I have no idea what I am going to wear. This is another reminder why themed events stiess me out since I don’t really have costumes and don’t want to buy things to wear one time.

Hoping that you had a stress-free and healthy Christmas weekend.