What are you doing today?

My day was hot outdoors so I went out only sporadically and never got to the pool at all because I was keeping my friend, the landlord of the unit below mine, appraised as to what was going on in her unit as her tenant had notified her that he'd be out on June 30th, the place all cleaned and so on..... Over the past year there had been problems with this tenant -- I had the distinct displeasure of smelling his cigarette smoke during the winter months and even after he was told to stop, that this was violating the lease agreement, he continued, both inside and out on the deck until he was ordered to stop that as well. Other situations came up along the way, too, and it was clear by his general behavior and demeanor that a condominium community was just really not the right living environment for him. Money was an issue and once he stopped paying his rent the landlord didn't hesitate to take action and serve notice on him. Coincidentally, it seems as though he stopped paying rent at just about the time he started driving a different vehicle than the big Jeep he had been using.....not too hard to do the math there and figure that maybe he decided that paying for his different car (not a new one, a modest used Honda Civic sedan) was preferable to paying rent for a tiny apartment in a community where it was pretty clear a lot of people weren't exactly fond of him. Whatever..... Apparently he somehow managed to score a different place to live and has now, thankfully, has moved on. HOORAY!!!!!

Once he was gone the landlord, the president of the condo HOA and I took a look at the apartment and it was a relief to see that the place looked pretty well cleared out and cleaned up, although there will still need to be a thorough cleaning, of course, plus some repairs and a full repainting. Since earlier while out on the boardwalk I had noticed that the deck looked pretty messy and there was junk on the deck table, etc., we were concerned that the inside of the place was also not cleared out or cleaned, but this afternoon the tenant and some other men came in and did the job, got it all cleared out. Whew, in 94° heat, not a great time to be having to do that kind of thing, especially hauling trash bags to the dumpster and things to the recycling area.....

So between that, doing a few odds-and-ends around here and also paying a few bills online as it's now end-of-one-month and beginning-of-the-next one it seemed as though today was rather busy!
 
Pumbaa said:
That’s why you should add a “please” when ordering your digital assistants around. That way you can at least hope they kill you politely during the uprising.
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I live in constant fear of Skynet going online, so I always tell Alexa please and thank you.
 
The only real thing of any importance done in this house today was toasting some croissants with ham/cheese/tomato... wait no not that, the other thing: my wife got a message from the local private hospital, saying those who had already registered their interest (i.e. us) have 5 days to pre-pay for vaccinations before they open it up to anyone who wants it. They're still saying they expect to do vaccinations around October, and they'll offer refunds if for some reason they can't do it by December.

Given the alternatives here, there was zero hesitation making that payment.
 
Alli said:
I particularly like when she responds with “you bet!”
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I've been saying that to my boss for years, he'll call me at 9:00 PM (Eric, I need you to get back with client so and so right away!) You bet, I always say. Feels like Alexa has robbed that from me.
 
Paid a fleeting visit to the city today for some food shopping.

Actually, earlier, I had phoned the French bakery, and, when I learned that they still had the bread I wanted (campagne baguette, rye bread), I asked them to hold some - or, put aside some - bread for me, which made a trip to the city inevitable.

So, I visited the French bakery (and I now have French bread for the week; some days, they are sold out by 9 a.m.). And I bought a small lemon drizzle cake, (baked by the French bakery - embarrassingly, they do our classics better than we do) as well.

Next, was the Asian store (lemongrass, galangal, garlic, sambal oelek, rendang paste, ramen noodles, chilli peppers, aubergines, Japanese curry, miso paste, pak choi, coriander, lemons, and French onions).

Then, the cheesemonger's, where I purchased Roquefort, Bleu d'Auvergne, St Nectaire, mature Gruyère, aged, mature Comte, Torta del Casar, Delice de Bourgogne, and Camembert Rustique.

And pasta, mixed salad leaves, and Milano salami.

And, a few beers were also bought.
 
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Had my bi-annual review today - always fun when my VP puts down targets for me to achieve that are not only already being planned, but have been for months now! 😜

Another reason why him missing out on the weekly meetings we have the the other members of the BI group keeps on failing him.

Finally convinced him to at least have monthly meetings where we can go through the team backlog and actually learn what we're doing. "To be brutally honest [VP Name], you really have no idea what my team are even working on, and not that I want to be micro-managed, but I do feel you at least need to have at least a fucking clue so you can defend us the next time the business gets a hair up their ass and wants something tomorrow."

"I'll not argue with that one," was the reply. And just like that, monthly backlog meetings are now on the calendar and he's going to make more of an attempt to not skip out on the weekly BI meetings!

It's nice to be left alone and chart my own course - and I must be doing it right because I rarely if ever get challenged with anything I do, but it is nice when your boss knows just what the fuck it is you and your team actually work on!

We're the oddity in our IT department - he's in the face of all the other IT departments but just likes to leave me alone. Can be nice, but he needs an edukashawn!
 
Spent a little time today shooting a few more photos of the condo unit beneath mine for the landlord -- thankfully a much more pleasant experience than the first time! I also communed with what I have now learned are not just pretty plants growing and growing incredibly quickly, but are actually weeds, and notified the condo management company of the need for the landscaping folks to attend to that before the weeds take over the entire front "yard" of the building next door and worse, the weeds spread to the small "lawn" in front of my building.

After that started the usual beginning-of-a-new month process and preparing last month's files and folders for backup, set up new folders for this month's activities and also found some time to play with my new fisheye lens..... A storm interrupted things with lots of thunder and lightning so had to hurriedly shut down the computer, but I found other things to do while that was happening. Next on the agenda is my evening meal, which will pretty much be a rerun (i.e., leftovers) of the meal from two nights ago. And so my life goes.....
 
Sorting through some screenshots of fabric samples trying to pick some out to edit and convert to wallpaper options for July on my XR. That and my laptop are the only devices where I bother to switch up the wallpapers on a fairly regular basis.
 
I’m picking up friends this afternoon and going downtown for a celebratory lunch. What am I celebrating? So glad you asked! I finally got all my approvals from the IRB (Institutional Review Board) to do my research.
 
Alli said:
I’m picking up friends this afternoon and going downtown for a celebratory lunch. What am I celebrating? So glad you asked! I finally got all my approvals from the IRB (Institutional Review Board) to do my research.
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Congrats. What is your research about?
 
This week I finally finished with 11 years of postgrad medical training (PhD, residency, fellowship). Even though I hit my average 3-4 papers/year average, the past year has been the least productive and I fell short on a lot of projects I've always been able to deliver on before. But it was also most challenging year in all levels and I can't complain, got my dream position, my family is healthy and I get to get a 2-month vacation before diving deep into reshaping my field. Despite my grievances, there's one thing I really like about America, the attitude towards complainers like me. Throughout my professional experience here, when I complained almost nobody ever told me to STFU. They asked me "What do you want to do about it?" And when I told and showed they promoted me over and over again. Despite my deep love for the European lifestyle this never would have worked like that over there.
 
Alli said:
I’m picking up friends this afternoon and going downtown for a celebratory lunch. What am I celebrating? So glad you asked! I finally got all my approvals from the IRB (Institutional Review Board) to do my research.
Click to expand...
Our IRB shut down with COVID completely. My non-interventional study took 9 months to get through...Now I have a clinical trial that also took like 7 months to push through but I think we'll get approval this month. So big congrats. The speed of IRB only compares to the velocity of giant sequoias.
 
Stephen.R said:
Congrats. What is your research about?
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Parent Engagement, Distance Learning, and Covid: A Phenomenological Study. Which means I’ll be interviewing parents to relate their lived experience.
P_X said:
Our IRB shut down with COVID completely. My non-interventional study took 9 months to get through...Now I have a clinical trial that also took like 7 months to push through but I think we'll get approval this month. So big congrats. The speed of IRB only compares to the velocity of giant sequoias.
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Damn! It actually took the school system a month to approve my request. The university gave me approval in 4 days. I’ll be doing all my interviews on Zoom for a multitude of reasons.
 
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