Friday was a good day. I told you: it’s often my most productive day of the week.
I watched the first two episodes of Silicon Valley season 6 and I think I was asleep by 4:30, setting the alarm for 9:30 to give me five hours.
However, I woke up on my own at about 7:30 and was at my desk by 8. I felt pretty good, so I just rolled with it, thinking I’d get to clock out earlier than usual, which is fine by me on Friday.
I got right to work on that engineering proposal, and found my groove immediately. It felt good. I submitted a rough draft by noon.
Revisions to the Kauai proposal took for-ev-er. It was mostly technical stuff I won’t get into, but geez it was a slog. I submitted the revision with a few notes, so I’m pretty sure this one’s not quite done.
It felt good to end the week with a few things checked off the list.
I did a few chores and went to bed — for several hours. It felt okay, but I’m now wide awake at 4:36 Saturday morning. Not what I had in mind.
Breakfast was overnight oats. Lunch was the leftover gyoza filling with the choy sum and kim chi, on fresh hapa rice. It was really good, so good I may just make this as a dish in the future. I’m thinking it could be a good noodle dish, possibly with fried udon or Hong Kong noodles.
I snacked a couple of times, grabbing a few bites of potato salad out of the fridge. Thank goodness I’m about out of potato salad — this is probably not the best way to get a bite between meals.
For dinner, I took advantage of the fresh hapa rice and had canned turkey chili. Another of my comfort foods. I love canned chili, and although I like my own homemade chili a lot more, there’s something really pleasing about opening up a can and pouring it over hot rice. It’s one of those meals going back to college days I never honestly got tired of.
I watched the rest of Silicon Valley while having dinner. What a near-perfect series finale. Tragic, heroic, and super funny, a bit like the series overall. I’m so satisfied with almost everything about this series.
My left knee is almost ready to go. I’m expecting to get back out there Saturday night, but I didn’t go for a walk today. Still aches though.
Not a lot of texting — I was feeling a bit tired most of the day when I wasn’t focused on work. Sylvia and I chatted on and off all day, switching between texts and work Skype, sometimes about work stuff. JB sent me a comment and question about the gyoza, which I still have to respond to. Crush Girl and I commented briefly about the new Hawaii cases (15!). Jennifer sent me a photo of the King Kamehameha statue, not adorned with the usual multitude of leis on his holiday. I just now responded that I kinda think it loooks better this way.
I don’t know exactly what I have in mind for Saturday. A little bit of reading for the writing partner for sure. Some personal writing, too. I have to hit the supermarket for just a few things sometime before Monday morning. I’m going to give the mug apple crisp a second try, and I want to make something in the Instant Pot. I might make some bread, too.
Two new non-metal albums released today, which I haven’t spun yet. Larkin Poe’s Self Made Man, and Norah Jones’s Pick Me Up off the Floor. Larkin Poe is two-thirds of the group once known as the Lovell Sisters, an amazingly good contemporary folk-country band, and I have high hopes for this one. I’m not a huge Norah Jones fan, but she’s interesting enough that I try to give her new albums a few spins to see if there’s something great in there.
I’ve kept a spreadsheet this year to track all my 2020 new music listening. I recently decided I needed a 100 point scale for rating the albums, something I’ve been using for movie ratings for a few years. I just need more precise ratings so when I sort my best-of lists at the end of the year, I’m not trying to remember if Album A was a high 8 and therefore better than Album B, which may have had a low 8. A hundred points lets me see that one album was an 87 while the other was an 80, and if they were both 87 I know there was no discernable difference in my fondness for them.
This means I’m going back through all my 2020 listening so I can give fair ratings to all the music I’ve already listened to. It hasn’t been unpleasant. Spent most of the morning listening to Haunt’s Mind Freeze on repeat (it was good music to work by), and now I’m giving a few spins to Sons of Apollo’s MMXX. The Sons of Apollo album is a good example of how an album grows on you over time. I’m glad I’m making myself hear it again, five months after its release. In January I thought it was about 50-50 modern rock and progressive rock, but now I’m hearing a sliiiiiight tilt toward prog. Still reminds me of a cross between Nickelback and Dream Theater, though, with killer soloing.
Okay, it’s just past five in the morning now, and I’m going to do a little bit of social media catch-up and head to bed.
Hope you’re getting the connection you need. And if you’re not, please reach out here. I’m (usually) good for a few text messages a day, as you can see. I’m just a little slow to respond once in a while.