#AAR – Page 3 – The Boring Old Man

Here, there and everywhere…a quick catch-up

I’m feeling a bit neglectful of the ol’ blog these days and I just got back to town, so I figured I’d re-cap the last 10 days or so…

The first week of October was not unlike a big punch in the face. Work was ridiculous and on top of the ridiculousness of the day-to-day stuff, we were also hammering out the operational budget for next year. Now, I wear many, MANY hats in this gig, and do a lot of different things, but accounting is something I simply despise. I recognize that it’s a necessary evil, but I just really loathe that part of the job. A week of eyes glazing over and constant, recurring headaches, it was unpleasant to say the least. The Polyphia show was supposed to be the highlight of the week, but that was a bit of a bust too, so the week was just grueling. There was a light at the end of the tunnel though, an impending road trip, kicking off on Sunday, October 8th.

Sunday, October 8th we hit the road to Anaheim, CA for an out of the ordinary trip. For the last 25 or so years, the Mrs. and I have wanted to experience a Disneyland Halloween, and this year we finally did it. We tried to make this trip last year but our planning started only 3 months ahead of when we wanted to go and there was NOTHING available. Seriously, nothing. So this Halloween excursion had been on the books now for 10 months – a long time to wait! And to be honest, I’ve kinda lost my appreciation for Disney over the last few years, between them gobbling up so many other companies and intellectual properties, putting out crap movies and all their “woke” nonsense, I had considerations of calling the whole thing off. Nonetheless, a Disney Halloween was a bucket-list thing since I wanted to go long before the company started going down hill…

The last time we’d been to Disneyland was for our daughter’s 5th birthday – she’ll be 30 this coming February – it’s been a while!

We were expecting long lines and exorbitant costs for everything, and we grossly underestimated both. I’m a maniac for roller coasters, but waiting 2 hours (no, I’m NOT exaggerating!) for a 2 minute ride takes a lot of the fun out of it. Honestly, I have mixed feelings about the entire thing. When we first got there I found myself grinning ear-to-ear at the “magical” aspect of the place. Part of that was nostalgia, but really if you take in the architecture and the design and the special little touches everywhere, it really is unlike anything else in the world.

But the crowds! Good grief! It was just a non-stop, undulating sea of people everywhere you turned. And let me tell you, after seeing thousands upon thousands of these folks doing their best to make it an awesome day for themselves, I started to lose what little faith I had left in humanity.

This is not to say that no fun was had, there were some fun moments…just hours of waiting in “cattle chutes” in between those moments of fun. The Mrs. and I decided upon our departure that we won’t be back unless we end up with grandkids to take. Even then, it would be a tough sell…

On the bright side, we did get to ride the “Incredicoaster” at the California Adventure park on our last day, and I just gotta say WOW!!! Hands down the best roller coaster I’ve ever ridden – by a country mile!

As for the Halloween aspect, the main reason we went, it was underwhelming. There were a lot of decorations put up for it, some pretty stunning in fact, but overall it wasn’t all that different. Maybe the 80 degrees and sunny weather kept the Fall spirit at bay, I dunno. All I can say is Halloween didn’t seem to make it any more magical than it already is, it just brought in a ton of extra people.

After roughly 48 hours in Disneyland across 3 calendar days, it was back home for a layover/re-pack/car swap and a single work day for the Mrs. (and I got to put in some volunteer time at the school too, while she was working). On the 12th we set out again for one of our favorite destinations, Pismo Beach, CA.

I’ve said before that Half Moon Bay is our “home away from home”, but Pismo is a close second. The fact that one of my oldest friends lives there AND I can always count on him to head out into the surf with me, makes Pismo a very welcoming destination indeed.

This time around we tried out a few new places – the new food destinations were awesome, the outdoor hot tubs at Sycamore Hot Springs, eh, not so much… Nonetheless, we had a really relaxing time and I got to surf two days in a row, which almost never happens!

Pablo (right) and the B.O.M. (left) heading into the Pacific!

The whole reason for this trip was in celebration of the Mrs. and I hitting our 32nd (!!!) anniversary. Still having a hard time wrapping my head around that one… Add to that another 3 years together before we got married and we’re approaching double the years together than years we’d lived up to that point. It is staggering. Heck, our daughter is nearly 10 years older then we were when we got together, how time flies, eh?!?

We got back home late Sunday afternoon and the girls had a spa appointment to go to, so I headed out to my studio for some much needed drum time. I decided before I left on this trip that I wanted to change things up with my kit, and started tearing it down before I left. Last night I got a new, much smaller configuration set up and took it for a test drive. It’s pretty close to a “standard” set up now, which kinda rubs me the wrong way, but I’ll keep messing with it ’til I find a set up I love…Or I’ll go back to the “everything but the kitchen sink” set up, cuz I’m weird that way…

Monday was back to the grind, sadly. Morning commute traffic, 444 emails waiting and back to trying to solve everybody’s problems “yesterday”. Thank goodness for the recharge!!

All in all it was a great week, in spite of the hiccups, and I’m feeling invigorated and ready to seize Fall – my favorite season!

Thanks for stopping by!

Better Late Than Never.

EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is being published about a week late… I guess in the thrill of it all, I forgot to hit the Publish button… I’m going to go ahead and post, as this blog has become my “backup hard drive”, and helps me remember what I did last week. Without further delay:

Here it is, the LAST day of June ’23 and I FINALLY got back in the water and took the surfboard for a spin!

The conditions are not great, and truthfully they usually aren’t at this time of year in this locale, but it felt GREAT to just get out there and be IN the ocean after such a long pause.

I love the beach, always have, and can hang out on the beach all day, but it pales in comparison to being in the water. There is just something magical about it.

Feeling very fortunate at the moment, and grateful for the pause in “real life”.

Might do another session tonight, and have one planned for tomorrow morning with one of my oldest and dearest friends, so more to come.

Thanks for stopping by!

Double Nickels today…

Hit another milestone today, the 55th year of my existence begins. Ugh. Hard to believe.

It’s been a good day tho. Took some time off work. The Mrs. treated me to donuts (a blueberry fritter, no less!) and I spent a slow morning doing odds and ends before heading to my studio for some drum time. Even took the time to replace my severely worn out snare drum head.

Early afternoon I picked up the Mrs. from work and she accompanied me to a local legendary record shop, Streetlight Records in San Jose. I’ve been going there since maybe 1982 (the old location that was in a converted house!), but the last time I was there was ’19, before “the Plague”. I had a nice time flipping through the racks, and was happy to see they are really leaning in to the vinyl Resurgence! I found a vinyl copy of an instrumental Beastie Boys album, and left “feelin’ like a kid again”. The icing on the cake was stopping off for a Slurpee on the way home! Good Times!!

In the evening our Girl came over for pizza – my favorite – and some classic comedy movies. A quiet but delightful night!

On top of it all were well wishes from family, friends and even a couple co-workers.

All in all, I couldn’t have asked for a nicer day!

Thanks for stopping by!

Playing catch up!

To say the last month has been a whirlwind would be an understatement!

It seems as though things have been firing on all cylinders lately and half the time I don’t know if I’m coming or going!

Work has been busy – the end of the fiscal year, plus the start of a new one brings all kinds of mind-numbing nonsense, but overall things are going well on that front.

The Mrs. had a bit of a health issue that got us into the Urgent Care facility a couple weeks ago, but thankfully that’s all resolving nicely and she’s getting back to full function without any further intervention.

My gym routine has been pretty solid. It took a minute to get back in the swing of things, but I’m feeling confident again and getting stronger by the week. I haven’t got to the point where I’m enjoying it again, but I don’t dread it every morning either, so I consider that progress!

My musical stuff has been going slower than I’d hoped, but again I’m still progressing. My playing continues to improve and I’m slowly but surely getting acquainted with some new gear that will help me continue my pursuits.

We just recently returned from another trip up to Oregon, which was fantastic! It was our daughter’s birthday recently, so she and her BF headed up to Gold Beach and we joined them up there for a couple days, just relaxing and enjoying the quiet.

Our view from the patio soaking tub…Not too shabby!

And most recently, just a couple nights ago in fact, we got to see our favorite live band – Magic City Hippies – at one of our favorite venues – the Fillmore, which was absolutely amazing! This was the 6th or 7th time seeing them and they continue to get better every single time.

So yeah, it’s been a bit of a blur, but in a good way.

More to come, thanks for stopping by!

So many fails!

This morning has me facing a big reality check in my ability to deal with “unforeseen circumstances”. In short, I’m beating myself up pretty good this morning.

As I write this, we’re at about 30 hours without power. I realize that for some of you, this is nothing. For us, it is extremely unusual. I’ve lived within a 25 mile radius of where I am now my entire life and to the best of my recollection we’ve never gone more than 24 hours without power. Outages are usually resolved within 12 hours, most in less than 8. So yes, we’ve historically been a little spoiled.

But that was then… Our utilities company (Pacific Gas & Electric) has been really dropping the ball the last couple years. One of my colleagues that lives close by, but in a more rural section, has routinely gone without power for 4-5 day stretches half a dozen times a year since 2019.

Around 5:00am today – 27 hours into the failure we got an update from the Utilities stating the “expected” restoration is by 10pm TOMORROW. This is unprecedented in our area. We’ve lived in the same apartment for 16 years and have never, ever gone 3 days without power.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve been a big believer in preparedness since my days as a Boy Scout back in the 70’s and 80’s. Emergency preparedness has been part of my job for the last 20+ years. I’ve been an active member of my Town’s Community Emergency Response Team (C.E.R.T.), I’ve trained with County Fire Depts. in two different counties, and done FEMA emergency response training. In short, I know this stuff, and have a knack for imagining a “worst case” for any scenario.

I’ve spent years and countless dollars preparing for emergencies and this minor blip caught me with my pants down…

Don’t get me wrong. We’re not suffering or in any kind of danger, but I have never felt so unprepared in my life.

I’ll start at the beginning…

When I woke up Tuesday morning, I just went to the gym expecting that by the time I got home the power would be back on, but stopped off at a 7-11 on the way home to get coffee for the Mrs. and I, just in case. Which turned out to be a good thing, ‘cuz the power was still out when I got home.

I showered and dressed for work by battery operated lantern and got ready for a day at the office. The Mrs. happened to have the day off and was going to be home, so before I left I pulled out our “solar generator” and hooked up the TV and our modem so she wouldn’t be bored and also have the capability to recharge her phone if necessary. I left for work fully expecting the power would come back on at some point during the day. So far, so good.

By mid-afternoon, still no power and no update from PG&E on restoration. By this time, we’re getting concerned about the food in the fridge and freezer.

I left work a little early so I could stop by our mini-storage unit and pick up our “big” cooler, then detoured to the nearest Quickie-mart and grabbed 20 lbs. of ice.

I got home to find the Mrs. had distributed candles throughout the apartment and had a couple battery lanterns running as well. She’d turned the solar generator off to conserve energy – it was down to about 70% capacity by that time.

I got busy loading the contents of the fridge into the cooler, only to discover we only had cooler capacity for about 2/3 of the refer, using 2 coolers and an insulated cooler bag. Not good.

The freezer was packed pretty solid, so it acted as sort of a cold-battery. Everything was still pretty much frozen solid, but I hooked it up the to generator for a couple hours to recharge the cold, and put the small insulated bag into the fridge for extra insulation.

After all that, I ran up the road where they had power for some takeout tacos and burritos. Then we unplugged the fridge, and hooked up the modem and TV, watched a little TV for a distraction and then got ready for bed.

Again, I was expecting a resolution overnight. Turned out to be wishful thinking.

I got up this morning and went to make some coffee. First problem, I cannot find (in the dark) our kettle. We ordinarily use an electric kettle, but I bought a “camping” kettle for situations such as this. Well, I couldn’t find the darn thing anywhere. (FAIL!) No worries, says I, I’ll just boil the water in a regular pot. Now for the stove. I purchsed a single burner propane stove for emergencies several years ago. Nice little unit, never had to use it. I’ve got a dozen bottles of propane for it, which I found immediately, but again could NOT, for the life of me, find the stove. (FAIL!) No worries, says I, I’ll just grab the Esbit stove out of the go-bag. So I went to the wife’s go bag, and NO DANG STOVE!! (FAIL!) I know I got one for her, and was sure I put it in there, but I emptied the bag and it was not to be found. Then I had to dig out my go-bag, and turned one up.

I set up the stove, put the pot of water on and let it start heating. Unbeknownst to me, this little stove would NOT bring the water to a boil. Why was it unbeknownst to me? ‘Cuz I never trained with it! (FAIL!) I got impatient after the second fuel tab, and made the coffee (in a French press) with water that maxed out at 161 degrees. It wasn’t gross, but it wasn’t good either.

Another shower and shave by lantern light, then thought I should run the fridge a bit more before I left. At this point the generator is down to 12%. I was able to run the unit for about 30 minutes and then it died out at 0%.

Now I’m back at work, thinking about all the food that will likely be spoiled by the time the power comes back on.

So, a lot of lessons learned here.

I had a good solar generator BUT I had only one extension cord to plug things into it. (FAIL!)

Once the battery was dead, I had no way to recharge it since there is NO sun for the solar panels. (FAIL!)

I had a little backup battery for charging cell phones, but I’d let it die by not keeping it on the charger, so it was useless. Using that for charging phones could’ve given us a little more capacity on the generator. (FAIL!)

I wasted time and added stress looking for the propane stove, which I never found. (FAIL!)

We were both having issues with our cell phones – they were barely working without wifi. We realized we no longer have an old fashioned “land line phone”. We have the line, we just didn’t replace the last phone when it broke. And the last one was a cordless phone, which needs electricity so it wouldn’t have served us well anyway. (FAIL!)

Our “big” cooler is wholly insufficient for emergencies. Way too small. It’s fine for cookouts or weekend camping trips, not preserving the contents of a whole fridge/freezer. (FAIL!)

Also, it occurred to me that had the power been out at our storage place, I wouldn’t have been able to get to our cooler at all…

Having go-bags is GREAT, but clearly just throwing stuff into a backpack without a clear inventory is a rookie move. (FAIL!)

Having a bunch of emergency supplies is also great, but having said supplies so disorganized you can’t find what you need, when you need it, is plain dumb. (FAIL!)

We did have a couple fortunate things, our hot water is still working and we had heat in the apartment. That was especially lucky, as our furnace hasn’t worked for about 3 years, and we just got a new one a few days before Christmas. Up til then we were relying on electric heat. We’d have been sunk if that were still the case…

All things considered, this has just been embarrassing. But I have learned a great deal from this excersize and can guarantee that the next time will NOT be like this.

Most importantly I’ve learned there is a HUGE difference between “knowing” and “doing”. I know a lot about survival and preparedness but I’ve never really had to put that knowledge to the test before. Now that I have, at best a very kind instructor might give me a C-. Test your gear folks. You don’t want the first time use to be during an emergency situation, trust me on this one.

I’ve got a lot of work to do…

Thanks for stopping by. Be careful out there!