Dull Men's Club

You may recall that I recently used my whiteboard. Well yesterday I wiped my whiteboard clean, in case I need to use it again! I started by just using a paper napkin, but that was smearing. Luckily, I have some hand sanitizer nearby, so I used a couple drops of that to get it really clean.

I was going to take a picture but then I was worried that some crafty person will be able to read the scratches and bumps, or maybe the reflection. So instead here is a computer-generated image of what my whiteboard looks like now:

Bonus story in comments.

I don't want to be some white collar stiff. I don't want to work in a place with ties. I don't want to be a tie guy. I don't wear them to weddings, because that's not me.

Nothing against tie people. It's just not me.

But let's just say I already had been through college and established a career for myself.

At least no one had to tell me and I figured it out for myself, I guess.

It's very late but I'm hungry and can't decide if I should eat something. I wanna make tortellini but I also feel like sleeping sounds more healthy.

I have an appointment tomorrow and I talked with friends until after midnight. Maybe I should just go to bed.

I mean I was down on the floor, scrubbing the grout and wiping the wall behind the toilet. The stuff that normally gets missed.

Feels good.

Picked my son up from sports training. Had to give a couple of other kids a lift home because we share lifts to these things. Dropped them home on the way. It’s not exactly the shortest route but it was fine.

The Arctic chill has kept me inside for the better part of Thanksgiving weekend. Today, on day four, I decided to take the opportunity to paint some terracotta pots I had lying around and to plant some props that have had roots for a few weeks now.

I painted the pots with the milk paints from Fusion Mineral Paint's Swedish Collection. I wanted to use milk paint because of how quickly it weathers and chips and I think my succulents will look really nice in the pots once the paint cracks and the terracotta starts showing through again. There's a part of me that feels inauthentic for using a paint specifically made to age quickly, but I don't mind.

I had four cabo-style pots with saucers. The milk paint comes in a powder and needs to be mixed with water. The amount of water you add determines the darkness of the paint and the dry time. I ended up giving half of the pots about four coats of red paint and the other half the same amount of blue. After I the final coats were dried, I mixed up a small amount of white paint in a leftover medicine cup (the cup that comes on top of the bottles that you use to measure your dosage) and lined the rim of the pots and the saucers with one heavy pass.

I did all this on my kitchen counter on the plastic boot tray we keep by our front door. The good thing about milk paint is that it cleans up really easily, so even though I got a little bit on the counter, it wiped off easy.

I have a large cactus that stays outside year-round in a big terracotta pot that I painted several years ago in the same way. At this point, almost all of the red has chipped away. The only traces of it are near the bottom of the pot, inside the rim above the soil (about 1") and on the saucer. I think it looks beautiful and hopefully I can bring the pots I painted today outside during the summer and weather them the same way.

I have a calendar where I write appointments.

I have a doctor's appointment that I had to write on the calendar.

I have a physical whiteboard where I write a "to do" list.

A couple days ago, I wrote on my whiteboard: "put doctor's appointment on the calendar".

Today I put the doctor's appointment on the calendar.

I have not yet erased "put doctor's appointment on the calendar" from the whiteboard. I look at it and feel a little proud that I accomplished something today.

Maybe tomorrow I'll erase my whiteboard.

I enjoy working on and fixing all manner of things. Very often I find that I have small items that need to be cleaned. As such I purchased a small ultrasonic cleaner. On this occasion I'm replacing the valve cover gaskets on one of our cars. I place the bolts into a small plastic jar of cleaning solution, then place the jar into the ultrasonic cleaner which is filled with plain water. The ultrasonic action still goes through the container and cleans the items, and I don't have to use 2L of cleaner. I then strain the cleaning solution to get all of the items out and then pour it back into it's own sealed jar for next time and thoroughly rinse the items of cleaner.

Now once I scrape and clean the gasket surfaces and covers I have clean, dry bolts which will accurately torque to specification.

It's currently 34°F outside. I'm waiting for the sun to warm the house to the lowest recommended temperature for application, 35°F. Second coat. Really regretting getting fancy with accent colors.

I keep two old box knives in the kitchen junk drawer. One has a regular blade on it, and the other has a hooked blade because I think they’re safer and run less risk of damaging the stuff inside the box. But sometimes, you just need a regular box knife. They’re both old and handle rough, but they have seen a lot of use.

Last night I was painting. While trimming some masking tape against a hard edge I realized the blade on the regular box knife was a bit dull, so I went to change it. While flipping the blade around to the unused side, I noticed there were no more spare blades in the handle.

Today I bought a new pack of blades. They purport to be better quality and will stay sharper longer than the original set of blades that came with the knife, but I guess we’ll see how that holds up with use.
While adding the new blades into the handle, I decided to go ahead and clean up both knives - get all the tape residue out, and clean the internals. Then I gave the slightly rusty patina’d slide mechanisms a couple drops of 3-in-1 oil. I also gave the blades in the handle a drop along their sharp edges for good measure.

They open and close very satisfactorily now.

I did my daughter's ponytail, unprompted, much to my wife's surprise. She loved it and I felt like I was taking a zen garden.

She needed to redo my work but, was still proud of myself.

Some days i fix the tools i use to fix tools. And some days i just fix stuff, but that's pretty rare.

Usually my dad has done it, but I did it for the first time with the electric carver. Turkey turned out great

It will be ready tomorrow because today was Thanksgiving. This happens alot. Are there too many holidays or what?

Sometimes I like to stare into space while he does his business. This is especially true if the moon is bright or it's warm weather. There is often peace in the back yard in spite of traffic sounds and light pollution.

I made the bed this morning meaning that it will ready tonight when I go to sleep. Added benefit: it stops the dog having a sneaky nap directly on the undersheet when she thinks nobody's around.

My eye prescription changed. So I bought some new glasses then picked them up. Now I can see better.

He stayed at my sister's yesterday so he and her dog (his brother) could get the crazies out before family comes over. A smart move but I missed him more than I thought I would.

So, our baking is done, we put those staples on the list, and we'll get them with our weekly shopping.

Nothing much happened.

Now I never have to think about the porch lights again.

My oldest kid was out of school a whole week with pneumonia a couple weeks ago. I got very little work done (no work = no $ but that's OK in the short term).

On Friday I got a fever, chills, headache, lots of coughing, and massive massive fatigue. Now getting very little work done again. I'm probably going to be at like 40% typical income for the month. Again, OK in the short term but I got goals and this isn't helping you know?

By Tuesday it was about the same level so I did a "telehealth" visit thing and they said, yeah suck it up and take some robitussin.

Last night I started hearing the sound of rice krispies coming from my throat after a breath. I think that's a pretty tell tale sign of fluid in the lungs.

So today I went to urgent care. They did a chest x ray but the radiologist was out and the doctor found the imaging inconclusive but put me on antibiotics anyway.

Hopefully I will start feeling better in a day or two. This sucks.

As I plan to clock in on Saturday to fill in some gaps I have missed before (all paid, thankfully) I don't need to wake up as early as I do all week and I don't need to hurry in the morning for there's no one to watch over me coming at the right time this day, but a convinience of a bus that goes on a fixed timetable, my trust in it, makes me consider repeating my daily routine anyway.

It's so easy to follow the script instead of thinking how and when to commute if I choose to arrive later. The amount of work stays the same either way, so even if I deny myself a longer weekend sleep and comfort, I'd have more time at my hands when I finish. Sounds like a good comrpomise.

Taking this route, I can ease my head a bit and instead think about what I can do at work while being that early and alone. Listening to podcasts from my phone's speaker, not headphones, may be one way, let it be something that could usually rise some brows like gritty true crime on English (no one speaks it there). Skipping my regular morning food prep and having either fast noodles or some simple non-McD take out for a dinner can be another way to make it lazier and less formal.

There'd be my condradictory attempt at showing to myself that I don't belong there today and can do anything... while working on Saturday from the office. It's fun to recognize that, and that's fun that I can't really imagine anything else less dull to spice it up that I myself would want, but that's really the most fun I need to have there. It's my work after all, and I don't want to spend more time than needed to finish it, and after having some thoughts about how boring I actually am, I find that I therefore waste less time on unnecessary 'fun' and would instead be free by noon if I'm lucky.