Daily Grind

I used to participate in a weekly meme called Wordless Wednesday, which was to feature posts of images/photographs with little to no copy — wordless blog posts… on Wednesdays. Well, today is likely to be a Wordless Wednesday (except for this post, of course). It’s been insanely busy at work with everyone trying to cram their projects into these first couple of weeks of December in between the various holidays that mess up the normal routine, and I just don’t have the time to dedicate to doing much writing and the corresponding reading I do that drives what I write about.

I apologize in advance if it seems like I’m taking the lazy approach to blogging today by just posting “wordless” posts — but I have to be “lazy” today blogging-wise because of time constraints.

So, I hope you’ll enjoy this special, extended edition of Wordless Wednesday. (Instead of photographs, I’ve found a few videos that I want to share.)

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Nothing ruins a weekend like Monday morning. It doesn’t matter how old I’ve been, weekends have never been long enough and Monday’s have never been less despised.

And I’ve noticed that it makes little difference whether you’ve had a really good weekend or a really crappy weekend. Monday is very rarely welcomed. Your body seems to know it’s Monday, even if you wake up at the same time as you did on the weekends. It doesn’t want to move very easily. Your joints ache more than normal, your muscles are stiffer than normal and your mind is reluctant to kick into gear. You find yourself mumbling and grumbling as you seem to run into things, drop things, forget the most basic routines and start your day off on the wrong foot.

You find yourself staring at your computer wondering what the heck to write about for your blog so that you don’t look like a lazy bum of a blogger… and wondering why you even care… it’s Monday after all.

I hate Mondays.

It’s early Monday morning and I’m staring ahead at a very hectic day. It’s left me creatively blank. I’ve been sitting here staring at the proverbial blank page trying to come up with something to share for this morning’s blog post… and I keep coming up blank.

So, the best I can come up with is “Happy Monday” and “Hope you have a great week.”

[Groan] … [grumbling and mumbling, "I hate Mondays" ] …

Another Monday morning and another “I’ve got nothin’” post. Here it is Monday morning, the first day after a weekend break and I feel more worn out this morning than I did going into the weekend. It was a busy, busy weekend. Friday was spent packing up for our big move to our new offices (moving from one floor to a newly renovated floor three floors up). Saturday was spent largely at the mall, as described in my last post. Yesterday was spent setting my new office back up so that I could get started back on projects first thing this morning.

I had intended to post pictures of my old office and my new office, but I just didn’t get around to it. Perhaps this evening or tomorrow morning. I had also intended to write more about my new iPhone 3G and/or the iPhone 2.0 firmware upgrade with its new features, but I just haven’t dedicated the time to write. It’s not that I have writer’s block, but rather energy block — I’m just flat spent.

So, sorry for wasting your time with this blog post, but that’s all I got this morning.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who moans and groans more on those Monday mornings after a long holiday weekend or vacation. Even if you really like your job, like I do, something about these particular Mondays make you dread going back to work.

Such is this morning. I’m not ready for the daily grind to resume. I really would prefer another day (or two or three or more) off. But, alas, it is not to be. So, I’ll try to make the most of it.

And I’ll start with an 80s classic — and there’s nothing like 80s music to make me feel better!

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Why is that when you need sleep the most, you sleep the least?

I’ve battled with insomnia off-and-on for several years now. Sleep apnea was a major cause of it, but fixing that issue hasn’t completely cured my occasional episodes of restless sleep.

This latest round of fitful nights began this past weekend when I visited my brother. Anytime I sleep in a bed other than my own, it’s almost a foregone conclusion that I’ll have trouble sleeping. Add to that the fact that I unwisely chose not to bring my CPAP machine (for my sleep apnea) because I didn’t want the hassle of getting it through airport security. Consequently, I didn’t sleep well either night.

The last two nights have been very restless. I attribute that largely to a very busy work week and a special event that our department is coordinating tonight. I was in Tulsa yesterday helping get the event set up. I’ll be in Tulsa again today helping finalize the details and then helping coordinating the actual event this evening. It’s a very important event for our firm, which means my mind tends to work overtime going through all the details. And when my mind won’t shut off, I don’t get much sleep.

It will be a marathon day and it’ll be close to midnight before I finally get to climb into bed tonight. I went to bed early last night hoping to get a full night of rest before a very long and hectic day. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t sleep. I finally got tired of fighting the sleeplessness and just got out of bed at 3:30 this morning.

Trying to drive home from Tulsa tonight could be a daunting challenge. A long day after little sleep, the likelihood of an adult beverage (or two or three) during the event and a longstanding propensity to nod off while driving certainly portends a potentially disastrous scenario. Fortunately, because of my confessed sleepy driving tendencies, one of my colleagues has already volunteered to be my designated driver (whether or not I even partake of the evening’s libations) should I need one before even knowing of my sleeplessness the past two nights.

So, hopefully things will go smoothly today and I’ll be able to climb into my bed tonight safe and sound and enjoy a good night’s sleep tonight — even if it’s an abbreviated one. I just wish it was Friday and I could sleep in tomorrow morning!

It never ceases to truly amaze (and utterly annoy) me.

I’m commuting to or from work, or I’m driving somewhere around town, and I see someone roll down their window and discard a piece of trash. Sometimes it’s a plastic wrapper. Sometimes it’s a piece of paper or a fast food wrapper. Often it’s a used cigarette. Most don’t even try to hide it; it’s as if there’s nothing wrong with littering.

How would those people feel if I just came over to their house and dumped my trash in their front yard?

Unfortunately, since we live on a corner lot, we see that as well. Other people’s trash litter our lawn — on a daily basis. Plastic pop bottles, empty beer bottles and beer cans, empty beer cases, empty cigarette packages, fast food sacks and wrappers, and assorted other trash is thrown (or blown by the wind) into our yard on a constant basis.

It completely boggles my mind that people are so lazy, so careless and so [CENSORED] rude. It demonstrates just how self-centered so many in our society have become. They simply don’t care enough to care at all about anyone but themselves.

If you want to live in your own filth, fine. But don’t share your filth with those who certainly don’t invite it. “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.” If you don’t want people dumping their trash into your front lawn — or, better yet, your living room — then don’t dump your trash on the land we all share (and especially on MY yard). It really isn’t that hard to throw your trash into a trash can.

Grow up and clean up after yourself!

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[And that concludes today's rant/soapbox/public service announcement.]

From GasTaxScam.com:

Dear Sir

First we must solicit your confidence in this issue. This is by virtue as being utterly confidential and “top secret”.

We are SENATOR HILLARY CLINTON, the wife of the former United States head of state, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, and also SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN, friend and associate of current head of state PRESIDENT GEORGE W BUSH. We got your contact through business inquiries as we were searching for contacts of a citizen who can help save our and our family’s political careers since our country has been frustrating us.

We are top officials of the United States Senate Government who are interested in importation of oil into our country with funds that are presently trapped in the FEDERAL TRANSPORTATION TRUST FUND dedicated to improving transportation. We wish to send this money to overseas accounts in the MIDDLE EAST but cannot due to restrictions in Congress Transportation Equity Act requiring that this money must be spent to build roads, bridges and high speed trains. Continued

Tags: gas tax holiday, Hillary Clinton, John McCain, parody, satire

Working off insufficient sleep and excessive creative drain from a heavy workload, I’m suffering from a little bit of writer’s block. So, you’re stuck with another edition of random ramblings…

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Are we there yet?
I am so ready for this presidential campaign season to come to a close… and there’s still another seven months to go. Would it be possible to have a news channel that covers news other than what’s happening with any one of or all of the presidential candidates? I would love to know what’s going on in the world, but I’m so sick of the politics of this campaign, I have to turn off every news station to avoid hearing anything about it. Fortunately, I have the Internet that allows me to more effectively filter my news. What did we ever do without the Internet?!?

Continued