Apparently Arizona Gets Ice
Of the few hours of daylight that I am awake this month, I happened to take notice during #thebigchill that on the precious winter rye grass I was so desperately trying to grow and fill the dirt pit that I refer to as “my backyard” had frozen puddles of ice of where the water collected after the sprinklers ran at 9 AM. I noticed this because it was more about 10 AM on one of the mornings I was off and had a thought of gee I haven’t been outside in the sun in a couple weeks. Plus I wanted to see what the big chilly thing was all about. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen physical snow in Scottsdale before like a year or two after my family moved here (pre millenium) but this was MY house that was getting iced. It amused me for a few minutes, I then proceeded to go back inside saying damn the cold and went to bed.
Sooooo night shift…honestly have to say it is not as bad as the last time. Maybe it is because I prepped for it better? Maybe its because I decided my new years resolution should be to live life with a more positive spin and get less stressed? Or maybe its because I don’t care at all. Whatever the reason, overall its not that bad. I still see Katie early in the morning before she leaves, get her breakfast burritos and/or Starbucks as a surprise, and then for a few hours at night before she goes to sleep. The hardest part on this schedule is honestly figuring out what to do with all the time. Its not necessarily the boredom that gets to you, it is the lack of socialization and seeing physical people that builds up. Luckily my buddy Justin (who I haven’t seen literally in forever) also works 3rd shift nights and has been great to talk to. We went to see Django Unchained…side note highly recommend this movie, stop reading at this point and go see it now (I’d quote it because its an awesome movie TO quote but I can’t quote it because its too horrible for mature, polite, and sensitive people to deal with and I’ll probably get beaten with a purse or something if I ever did quote this movie in public)…and grabbed a beer in the Biltmore area. I also learned I don’t hang out downtown nearly enough, also where Katie works, I think that may be the plan for the end of the month. On top of that, a couple of video games I should mention here that are addicting to pass the time with: The Room and Galaxy on Fire 2. Both of these games are for iPad/2/3/4/Mini and are really tough to put down. The Room is a puzzle game where you are given a box with puzzles. Each puzzle you solve gives you the next piece of a bigger puzzle and so on. Galaxy on Fire 2 is a space game where you get a ship and you upgrade it, fight pirates, do missions, do a story line…kills hours of my day (your night) and is awesome. The Room took about 6 hours to go through the entire game and GOF2, well lets just say I’m still playing it since the missions are endless and with my OCD I have to have the biggest and most bad ass ship ever that won’t get taken out by anything.
Coffee has definitely been my friend throughout the transition for keeping me awake and benadryl for going to sleep during the day. I’d say the one thing that got me to immediately transition is the Lego VW Bus that Katie got me for Christmas. I worked New Years Day and had the rest of the week off to adjust. I fell asleep like around 8 or 9 that night and woke up around 1:30. Opened the Lego box and started to build, by 5:30 when Katie was up it was almost halfway done. Instead of going to sleep when I was tired, my OCD of getting the thing built took over and I think I passed out at like 11. This literally got me switched over immediately. My biggest fear now for adjusting back is wondering if I will have to take it apart and put it all back together again haha. Anyways here are some pics of the finished model, as well as some Lego Storm Troopers I had and thought they would look funny in the bus.
Other things keeping me busy is watching The West Wing since all 7 seasons are on Netflix (literally did a happy dance when I started watching), Mad Men, Undeclared, Cougar Town, Suits (coming back this month), Once Upon a Time, Guys With Kids, and New Girl. I set up the Mac Mini in the office which took one of the nights to get everything up, and this now streams to the living room TV. Why you ask? Because the internet provides lots of awesome content that I like to watch on my big TV from the couch. The reason for the Mac Mini upgrade is because it has the i5 processor, something my MBPro lacks and can’t stream to the Apple TV without. My iPad also has a Splashtop remote app, so while I sit on my couch in the living room, the iPad literally becomes the Mac Mini and controls what streams to the Apple TV. The other advantage of this is since the Mac Mini is plugged into the new LED from my Costco winnings, its super energy efficient to just sit idle and be accessed from whenever (as you can see my nerd side has taken over in the wee hours of the morning). It works great…since dropping cable in December Katie and I still watch the stuff we were before and not paying out to wazoo for it.
What else is there? I’ve made some attempts at working out…nothing that would be of any productivity. I did however learn I lost 10 pounds the other morning, and the last time I checked to know how it was 10 pounds was back in November. So really even after all of the holiday eating and what not, I managed to lose and not gain. Go me. Let’s see…cleaned up the office a bit which was on my to do list, learned Walmart is NOT a fun place to go and kill time at 3 in the morning, lots of redditing, planned out some trip options for my buddy’s wedding in April of which I am the best man for. AH! One of my nights will be spent writing my toast! And planning a bachelor party maybe? I don’t know on that one. Tracy may hurt me for that…
Overall…that’s really it. No headaches this time which is good and it is more than halfway over. 2 more work weeks of this and then back to reality. Next up, stop being lazy for the second half of this month and get back to coding, stop using a tweaked already developed template and make my own for this site, and pick up the guitar again.