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Friday, January 10, 2025

Did my dad quote CONFUCIUS?!? Dude…

I’m in this picture and I don’t like it?

During my reread of Walden, I came across this:
All change is a miracle to contemplate but it is a miracle which is taking place every instant. Confucius said, “To know that we know what we know, and that we do not know what we do not know, that is true knowledge.”

As Chuck was fond of saying, “I don’t know what I don’t know until I know I don’t know it.”

Similar? Way off the mark?

OK. So… let’s get to the point of this entry.

I gave my ‘notice’ today.

I say ‘notice’ because the plan is to consider working remotely. In 5 months, 2 weeks, 4 hours, 7 minutes, my lease expires and I’ll be long gone. Somewhere anywhere between Stephen King and Canada. I’m not fussy - it’s wherever I can find what I want in my price range.

The owner took it relatively well.

I want to post the details, I want to scream them into the universe, but it’s probably not the right thing to do… EVERYBODY SHOULD WORK FOR A GUY LIKE THIS.

Speaking of owners and work…

My little side hustle is live! If you’re interested in hiring a remote bookkeeper, shoot me an email at wendell gee 1985 at g mail dot com and I’ll point you in the right direction. If you’re friends with me on the book of faces, it’s a pinned post. Thanks!

OH!

I found a house I really love on Zillow, and it’s been on the market for a while. Fingies crossed that it’s still on the market when I get up to Maine. I would really be surprised if it is, but hey! It’s near Stephen King, so that means… UMAINE ICE HOCKEY!!!

I’m so excited to be moving back to New England that I can barely stand it.

Life is good.

Posted by Matty on 01/10 at 07:02 PM
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Sunday, December 29, 2024

I find it wholesome to be alone in the greater part of the time. - Thoreau

I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. - also Thoreau

Hmmm… I haven’t read Walden and Civil Disobedience in forever. The fact that he’s top of mind today might mean it’s time for a reread. I mean, I still have my copy from high school. I’m surprised it’s held together this long.

 

The blue book in the background was an Xmas gift from the X, (Ha!) but I haven’t read it yet.

(Also, running around my head is R.E.M.‘s Finest Worksong, where we throw Thoreau and rearrange. Whatever that means. Michael, if you’re reading this, please explain yourself.)

Wow. THAT was the tangent to end all tangents. (Today at least.)

And now I’ve forgotten what…

Nope, I remember.

Can I just say what a bitch it is to start a company? Especially when you’re into tech and have a creative / marketing background? I spent a ton on software templates and social media posts in an effort to cut corners. The social media stuff may be well worth it and the two software tutorials / templates seem to be worth their money as well.

I spent last night branding the social media posts and building out the recommended schedule for them. I launch January 1st, so it’s coming up quick.

I just had a five day vacay from the day job and didn’t accomplish as much as I wanted to on the side hustle… but I also relaxed a lot. Burnout has been my constant companion for months and dealing with seasonal depression and obsessing about my move to Maine isn’t helping matters.

I have to work on day job stuff today because I don’t want to close November in January, but that’s a choice I’m making. Not the best one, but it’s a choice.

In the meantime, I’ll throw up a crappy home page with a link to my Calendly, Facebook, and Instagram pages. It’s at least something while I work on the back end.

Is it bad I’m buying shit from Amazon instead of leaving the house and going to Target just because I want the boxes? Yeah, it’s probably pretty bad…

In other news, I gave into the hype and saw Wicked. I broke much sooner than I did with Hamilton, and I’m just as disappointed. Hamilton’s soundtrack won me over, but I can’t say the same for Wicked’s. I don’t know why I can’t see these and obsess over them like my friends do. I want to love them that much, but they’re just… bleh.

So yeah, about that move.

I am constantly pissed off that I’m spending as much on a 700 sq ft apartment as I did on a 2K+ sq ft house. I can’t afford this on my salary, but none of the less expensive ones were as nice and after all their add ons (especially the cat charges), they were just as expensive. Florida real estate is stupid.

I can get decent houses in Maine for $100K - $200K. With a nice deposit, my mortgage will be more than reasonable. AND if I’m spending $2K a month on a place to live, I’d rather create equity than line some landlord’s pockets.

I’m moving in May / June and I will be working remotely with some support in Florida. At least that’s the plan. The boss already knows that I’m moving so it’s been discussed; he just doesn’t know the timeline. I’m saving that for after the holidays.

We’ll see.

Alright, I should stop stalling. The sooner I get the day job shit done, the sooner I can get back to doing nothing.

 

Posted by Matty on 12/29 at 09:07 AM
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Sunday, November 24, 2024

Reflections on retirement and the ADA

I’m in that picture and I don’t like it.

My way cool, super sexy Logitech keyboard has a loose key and it is driving me nuts. Like seriously. It’s the comma key. Used for… commas and playing the Sims. Do you know how much I write?!? To have a comma key that bounces all over the place makes me want to hulk smash the damn thing.

Logitech also doesn’t sell spare parts (supposedly. I haven’t looked too hard), so if I can’t find what I need, I’m buying a new keyboard… this pisses me off so badly, you have no idea. I have a much, much, much older Logitech keyboard that I absolutely love. Love it so much that I had one purchased for me at the day job. This new one felt more Mac-like and since I live in two worlds - I go both ways - this was a perfect bridge. That bridge is falling down.

Let’s see… what else is new?

My buttermilk pancakes are AMAZING. I used to buy pints of buttermilk, but I wasn’t using it up before it went bad. (And do you know hard it is to find a pint of buttermilk? Cooking for one sucks!) I ended up searching the web and ended up buying some buttermilk powder that was recommended by America’s Test Kitchen.

OK. Enough stalling.

We have an employee who is disabled per the ADA guidelines. This employee is replacing one that is retiring (retired now). We were planning on terminating their employment because they were doing so poorly during training, but their disability made itself known at work and we weren’t sure what to do. It’s not a potion where we could work around any attendance issues caused by this disability - it’s a department of one and usually very busy. The company I work for is deadline driven, so if there isn’t someone at that position, everyone else has to chip in to cover and it leads to a host of problems.

Lucky for them, I am both HR and an expert on the ADA. That’s what happens when you get fired in direct response for asking for a reasonable accommodation. And it was reasonable. The fact that they then decided to throw all kinds of performance issues at me - without a single discussion - and send me to their shrink… yeah. I had a very good case against them and still decided it wasn’t worth trying to sue.

Anyhoo. We’re not big enough to have to abide by the ADA, FL is an at-will state, and we have documented meetings where we actually have pointed out the performance issues and the continued absences. So termination it was, but we gave them two more weeks to prove themselves. They spent one of those weeks in the hospital, as a no-call, no show so we had another justifiable reason to term.

When they got back from the hospital, the owner pulled them in and had a chat. Then I got pulled in for the update… somehow during that discussion, I talked about the Cats and how I got fired. How I job hop because I either get fired for being bipolar or I quit when I can’t keep it under control. (I also find really shitty jobs and / or bosses which help trigger a manic cycle…) He point blank told me that he thought for sure I was going to tell him I was leaving when I told him about the divorce.

My dumb ass said yes, I am moving, but I don’t have a timeline yet. (Liar, liar, pants on fire…)

Dude, the look on his face - we’ve had someone retire, we’re probably going to fire their replacement, and someone else wants to go to part-time. There’s a rumor that someone is moving to Puerto Rico to live near family because they don’t feel safe in the States anymore. We’re twelve people - that’s a lot of loss in two months. For a place that never had any turnover. Of course, people age out and nobody really thought that Trump would win a second term…

I told him I wanted to stay on, remotely, and he looked so relieved. He offered to hire someone that could support me if I needed someone in Florida. I then continued to blab on and on about how he’s the best boss I’ve ever had and how hard it is to want to move home when I just found my forever job… but I need to move home. I can’t continue to live in FL.

So, then we had the retirement party.

Jesus motherfucking crispy Christ on a fucking cracker.

All my emotions came pouring out - we really are such a tightly knit family and it really sucks to leave that behind (even if I work remotely, I won’t be physically based in FL). I know I don’t belong here, but I belong there. Some of my friends think that I should leave now and not look back and the other half think that because I’m agonizing over this decision that I’m not ready to move home. That second half is wrong. SO. VERY. WRONG. I just can’t figure out the timing yet. I just can’t walk away from the best boss I’ve ever had.

I’m spending today working on the layout of my business website. I’ve been looking at some books I bought on WordPress, and the more I read the more I hate the idea of using it. I just can’t wrap my head around how it works. ExpressionEngine is so much easier and now that it’s on version 7, a little better on the back end, too.

OK… I should probably get going. That code’s not going to write itself. *sigh*

Posted by Matty on 11/24 at 10:13 AM
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Saturday, November 16, 2024

Adventures in cooking

Well… Millinocket is closer to really good college hockey, but Presque Isle is more fun to say

That’s probably not the best way to make a decision on where I’m moving to, but fuck it.

I’m watching UMaine vs Boston University right now on ESPN+. I’d rather be at Alfond Pond, seeing it in person. *sigh*

I got to see BU play Maine in Maine almost a decade ago and it was an experience. You know me… nothing says Wendell Gee like arguing with the ex about the semantics of going down (on someone) just as a bunch of college hockey players walk onto the elevator.

Yup.

Hey, they got a good chuckle out of it.

Speaking of chuckling, I’m loving listening to the announcer say “Bangor”. It’s pronounced Bang-or (more or less) but dad always pronounced it like Bang-ah and I do, too. Either that or Bang-her. (Banger? I hardly knew her!)

And… we’re finally where this entry was supposed to start: My dad.

Good old Chuck. He tried. He tried so hard - and failed consistently - to cook my entire life.

Exhibit #1: Super Duper Eggs

My success in the kitchen has mostly been limited to things I can bake. Baking is easy - you pop a bunch of flour and some shit into a hot box and let it sit until it tells you it’s done.

I grew up cooking on a gas stove. I am front row on the struggle bus when it comes to judging temp on the cooktop. For example, I watched my potato sit on a black piece of glass for 20 minutes before the water decided to start boiling. I never once saw that thing turn red. (But, surprise! A watched pot will boil. Eventually.) You throw a pot on a burner with an open flame under it and you can tell that your food is cooking. You know how you can tell?

THERE IS A FUCKING VISIBLE HEAT SOURCE.

But I digress.

I’ve been living off recipes from America’s Test Kitchen. Mostly the Cooking for One cookbook this week, but I’ve spent a lot of time with the Cooking for Two cookbook in the past. (ATK seems write the only recipes that I cannot fuck up.)

This one is the best thing I’ve made so far. BY FAR. (Chicken Lettuce Wraps with Hoisin Barbecue Sauce for One)

Because. Dude.

I made edible rice.

EDIBLE RICE.

Now, my dad had this hatred of rice. He never ate it unless it was fried with pork, and even then, he didn’t eat a lot of it. If I thought I had weird food issues, white rice triggered my father’s PTSD. (Rice paddies in VietNam, I guess. He never talked much about the war.)

I’ve heard that it’s impossible for someone like me to make rice successfully.

I didn’t even have a lid for my small saucepan, so I was positive that this was going to be an unmitigated disaster. Proof that, despite the five months of practice I’ve had, the lack of cooking skill in the Gee DNA is real.

Well.

Thursday night, I made this chicken dish but I opted to eat it in flour tortillas. I couldn’t justify a head of lettuce for this, but I had the tortillas on hand.

BECAUSE I MADE TACOS!

Wait… let’s finish the chicken story. Yes, the chicken. We must finish the chicken.

So. Tortillas. I wasn’t brave enough for the rice. Not when I had a banger (HA!) of a headache. It was good. Edible.

Decent enough so that I used the other half of the chicken to make the same exact thing last night.

But I tried to make rice for it to sit on.

No. Not tried.

SUCCEEDED.

I made that rice like I was Jamie Fucking Oliver.

No. Wait.

It was better. (Granted, it was just white rice, but… I bet Uncle Roger would have approved.)

Context:

I guess there’s hope for me after all.

I also guess I owe you the taco story.

My dad once made this Super Bowl Chili with ground beef that was a day past the sell by date.

We both got food poisoning so bad that I’m surprised we survived it. After that experience, I swore off eating ground beef unless I purchased it that day.

But, dude I have been CRAVING tacos. Mostly because I can’t have them.

I can’t buy the ground beef in the store because it’s sold in pounds and I refuse to save the leftover beef for another day. I need about a half pound, and I’ve always been afraid to ask the butcher to cut the package in half. (Not that I can even find someone working at 7AM on Sunday morning, but I digress.)

Well, there was someone working there last Sunday… and I got my meat.

Then there was the matter of finding the smallest amount of taco shells because who knows if I’ll ever be able to get ground beef again.

I ended up getting a dinner kit with six hard and six soft taco shells. I had the tortillas left over, so… chicken!

Speaking of chicken, I need to do some meal planning so…

Posted by Matty on 11/16 at 07:47 PM
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Saturday, October 12, 2024

Not again…

I aspire to this level of greatness

Can I tell you something?

I don’t have to buy two of everything any more!!!!

Want to see Matt Nathanson? Want to fly home and go to a Bruins game? Want to sit FIRST FUCKING CLASS?

When you are budgeting-obsessed and you realise that your budget is still built for two, and a mortgage, and a car loan… holy shit.

Once I revamped my budget to truly express my financial situation… wow.

For example, I’m going to Detroit to run the Freep International Half Marathon (traveling alone because someone didn’t want to go to Detroit.*ahem*). The airline offered me an upgrade to first class. It was just expensive enough that if I had to pay for two seat upgrades, there’d be no way. HOWEVER, since I only needed to purchase one? (Garçon, fetch me my Grey Poupon!)

Or, how about my trip home? I decided to take a little bit of my fuck you money and go home for my birthday. I have a very broad definition of home, so I’m flying in and out of Boston, going to Albany for two days, headed to Maine for two days, and watching a Bruins game. (We’ll talk about the B’s game in a moment.) When I decided I was going to get my live hockey on, I scoured the nosebleed seats trying to find a decent view at a price I was willing to pay - for two tickets. I only need to buy one, so I dropped what I would have spent on two completely shitty seats on one really nice one.

Or, I love Matt Nathanson, right? I would have had to buy two VIP packages to at least one show. (He’s playing in Fort Lauderdale and Orlando.) I bought two VIP packages any way - one for FTL and one for Orlando.

I FUCKING LOVE BEING COMPLETELY SELFISH.

Or, am I just enjoying the single life? I’ve spent so long trying to afford to keep us both happy with material possessions and experiences… I mean, I got a new car, he had to get a new car. Matching Mini Coopers, matching Jettas, matching Subarus (twice). It gets old. Vacations - needing to buy two plane tickets, having to plan a trip that makes sense and doesn’t have us ping-ponging all over New England for five days. (What? I can do what I want. He’s not the boss of me anymore.)

I’m really loving the freedom of it all.

That’s all.

So. About that Bruins game.

I’ve been avoiding the things that make me homesick for seven years. I’ve been avoiding all things hockey for six (to the best of my ability, of course).

Now that I know I’m heading home?

I’m embracing everything again.

Having an exit strategy is so freeing.

Where was I?

Boston. Hockey.

Focus.

I have decided that this is the year I go full-bore back into my hockey obsession.

Bruins? Of course.

College hockey? Oh, definitely.

UMaine season tickets are something I’m considering now that I’ve kind of zeroed in on a geographical area, and of course, I can’t forget my Huskies. UConn, not Northeastern.

Going to a hockey game is vastly different from watching one on TV. Duh.

And it is a pleasure that has been in lock-step with the worst pain of my life for so long.

Well, I’m ripping off the fucking band-aid.

I don’t have cable anymore, so I can watch whatever I want whenever I want and I don’t have to worry about stumbling on the Cats games / coverage / etc.

God bless ESPN+.

Now, if only those greedy fuckers at NESN would un-geo-lock their programming.

I will pay you fuckers for a year of Boston sports coverage.

Gladly.

Um… hi!

Tell me you’re in a manic cycle without telling me you’re in a manic cycle?

Yeah… it might be time to step away from the computer.

OK. I love you! Bye-bye!

Posted by Matty on 10/12 at 07:55 PM
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