Was up past midnight to buy tickets to NASA Space Center in Houston. Kids age 3 and under are free. Still paid around $84 for tickets for two adults and a kid above 3.
Went to bed around 1:30 AM with thoughts still swirling on my head regarding the upcoming drive to Houston. Eventually fell asleep.
Woke up close to 9 AM. Had breakfast with family. Then into the bathroom. Finalized the stops along the drive while in the bathroom. Got ready after a good shower.
Loaded the wife's CX-5 with everything we needed for our 3-Day weekend getaway. Then off we go, first to a bank to withdraw cash money for our trip. Then to Quiktrip to get gas and ice for our cooler. The cheapo utility knife I got from Home Depot broke when I used it to break up the ice. Oh well, at least it was cheap.
Finally, at around 11:30 AM, we started our drive from Dallas to Houston. It was going to be a 4 hour drive, give or take.
I planned to stop by Rest Areas along I-45, but decided to skip those in the interest of getting to Houston faster. So our first stop was Buc-ee's in Madisonville, TX. The drive to Buc-ee's was uneventful except for when a driver passed us on the right.
I'm fine with drivers passing on the right by the way, but one driver in a black Chevy Malibu did it in an outrageous and reckless manner.
Earlier this morning, took a walk at the office parking lot. Ever since summer started, I've noticed a drop in the number of people taking walks around the office. I'm sure they're just trying to avoid the heat. I don't blame them. I on the other hand am still taking walks, because I need to get away from my cubicle to clear my head and rest my eyes.
Back to try out a new use case for this blog...
It was freezing at my cubicle. Went down to pick up a jacket from my car. Decided to hang around the parking lot for a bit. There is an excessive heat warning in effect, but the shade makes it bearable.
It's Monday and I worked from home today... and that's it. I have found that I have not much to say on this blog. Kinda surprising considering how much I was itching to create this kind of blog. It turns out, I really just don't have much to say about my day, or some of it I just don't deem worthy to publish, or some of it will take away from content on my other blogs.
Don't read this as a bad thing. One aspect of blogging is self-reflection and this is exactly what just happened to me. In my first post for this blog I said I was itching for a new blog to let the words flow. I thought I had a lot of things to say. It turns out, I didn't.
Back then, when I had this kind of blog, I did have a lot to say. I also only had one blog. Now though, I have a number of other blogs, most of which would cover most of the topics that I would write about on this blog. And so I have learned, that even with the itch for a new blog, I have found that my other blogs are enough. I don't need a new one to let the words flow. I mean the words did flow for a few days, but it dried up just as quick.
Again, for someone new to blogging or wanting to start out with blogging, don't look at this in a negative light. This is me finding out what works and what doesn't. That's a good thing.
I'll leave this blog up for the time being as a reminder to myself that, whenever I feel the itch to create a new blog, I probably don't need one.
To everyone else, keep on blogging. I'll catch you in my other blogs. Peace!
These two can play video games together now. Gave me and my wife some time to prepare breakfast in peace.
Worked from home today. One of the perks is being able to take a shower during my lunch break.
An interesting thing with working from home is that I don't seem to get hungry as quickly. At the office, I would start getting hungry at around 9:30 to 10 AM. At home, I seem to be able to forego breakfast altogether and just wait to eat until noontime.
My youngest son is going through a phase. He's always crying in the morning when he needs to get ready to get dropped off at daycare. It's obviously annoying, especially early in the morning. But gotta remember to be patient. They won't stay this small and dependent for so long. Gotta make the most of my time with him.
Gotta say the beauty of Write.as is that it feels like a blank paper ready for you to write on. In fact it encourages you to write, what with its minimalist markdown editor. I'm not sure why people switch blogging platforms so much. Actually I know why. They're looking for something and not all of their requirements can be satisfied by Write.as. But man, if you just want to write and get it out there on the web, this is as good as it gets.
One more day of working at the office for this week. Just finished going through a number of pull requests. Code Reviews are my job now. It has been for close to a year now. I barely get to write code. It kinda sucks not getting to write code all the time. But I look at it as a different sort of challenge, instead of writing code, I now guide the people who write code for our team.
Had a delicious peanut butter sandwich. Thank God for my wife. She also includes jokes inside the zip lock bags that hold the sandwiches. Probably, should start sharing them here. Some are quite funny.
Gotta admit that I don't have a direction for this blog, other than to note down what goes on during the day. This is the challenge with having a blog that is not focused on a specific topic I suppose.
One benefit I see though, is that like my paper journal, which is getting written to less and less because of this blog, it allows me to explore my thoughts. It's basically writing things down to understand what you're thinking about.
Working at the office again today. Our company policy is that we work at the office Tuesdays to Thursdays. We get to work at home Monday and Friday. I wonder how soon till other companies require people to get back into the office. I recently read an article where Disney started requiring people to start working at the office again. Apple apparently also implemented a policy similar to our own, where people need to be at the office on Tuesdays and Thursdays, plus one more day at the team's discretion.
The days of the full time work from home will probably come to an end soon. As much as I love being able to work from home, gotta admit that I'm much more productive when I'm at the office. There's a lot less things to distract me from work when I'm at the office.
Working at the office also allows you to set boundaries to help you unwind from work. When you're at the office, you work. When you're not at the office, you don't need to think about work. This is hard to do when you work from home full time.
First time back at the office since I got sick early this month. The last entry on my daily planner at work says “01/03/2023 – Tuesday”. I guess that means I haven't been at the office for 14 days. Thank God for a lenient manager who allowed me to work from home as I recovered from whatever sickness I had.
I created a new blog. I named it “The Daily Log”. It's been a long time coming really. I've had a blog like this in the past. I made some irreversible mistakes with it and had to move on. The thought about creating a new one never left my mind, though I never acted on it. But today the itch to recreate it was just too strong. I felt like I needed an outlet. A place to let the words flow. I gave in.
I'm still trying to figure out the ideal structure for posts on this blog. But the basic idea is, there will be one post for a given day, that same post will be updated as I find more things to write about throughout the day.