Friday, August 16 2019

Dear Journal,

Good morning, and happy Friday everyone! Yesterday was quite the day. It was pretty much end-to-end meetings, the last of which being the staging DR exercise that the interns and I have been planning over the last month. It was pretty tense. We hit a few snags, but all-in-all, it was successful and pretty impressive. We grabbed a beer at the work happy hour gathering to celebrate and debrief before I jumped on the bus to head home.

After getting home, I was surprised to find that Rodney was still asleep. I was in no hurry, since we had decided to eat out somewhere and there was no need to make dinner. I climbed under a blanked on the couch, joined by Zig Zig. At first, we watched a few YouTube videos, but it quickly turned into a deep, solid thirty minute nap. Ziggy slept up by my head with her nose nestled in between my neck and the pillow. I felt like I was drifting through space - it was an excellent nap, and so rewarding after a busy day.

I woke up to Rodney yelling DADA at the top of the stairs. With great reluctance, I emerged from the most snug place in the universe so we can get on with our evening plans. We decided to walk to the new Ian's pizza that sprang up in our neighborhood about 0.8 miles away. By evening, the cloudy sky had cooled the air, and mysteriously the mosquitoes weren't out last night, making for a wonderful walk down the nature path to this exciting new pizza place. The location was a former factory, and it is being refitted into some kind of miniature indoor bistro. While waiting in line for our pizza, there was plenty of room for Rodney to run around.

We enjoyed our pizza and a couple of beers on a picnic table outside. The dogs didn't get to eat anything, but they had their fill in attention. They were very popular with the bike path crowd, and Ollie and Ziggy basked in the brief popularity.

After we walked home, I put Rod to bed while Marissa mowed the lawn. I worked a bit on the Minecraft server. Marissa and I are going to try to play tonight while she is spending the night in Chicago, so it was important that I figured out the networking ahead of time. Once I got it to a working condition, I joined her in the dining room and we caught up on some YouTube videos. Last night's playlist was the new Hot Ones interview featuring Stone Cold Steve Autstin. Steve Austin was a pleasure to listen to. Podcasters are very loquacious, and being a professional wrestler he had lots of interesting anecdotes about the industry. While "professional wrestling" is a form of staged, fabricated entertainment, you can go down a really interesting rabbit hole reading about the culture, the daily life, and close-nit bond that these wrestlers experience.

Today is nothing short of a victory lap for the week. We have a few meetings that lead up to lunch, then we're heading over to the park for the company picnic, where free beer and food abounds for the weary worker. I am due back home at five, but as I'm taking the bus home I'm planning on rocking a mild, mid day buzz, then tapering off in the afternoon. You gotta be careful with those Wisconsin craft beers, though. The difference between two, three, and four beers is a whole order of magnitude. Now that I mention it, I might as well break down my system. If you want to enjoy a craft beer, but still be productive immediately afterwards, one beer is perfect. If you must, get a second, but do not finish it. The maximum beers you can enjoy productively is literally 1.9, so enjoy the second one if you're having a good conversation, but whatever you do, do not finish it. For some reason, exactly two beers is enough to break the party barrier. Anything between two to three beers can be called "the Friday night zone", as this should only be enjoyed on a weekly basis - perfect for unwinding after a tough week. But a fourth beer is usually asking for trouble. This should not be attempted unless you're prepared to deal with the consequences, or you need to show somebody up on the dance floor at a wedding. May as well call four beers "the wedding zone". To review, I intend to hang out in the Friday night zone through lunch. Again, this system only applied to craft beers, if you're drinking a standard PBR or a lager, those tend to be a little more forgiving (and hydrating). Lastly, a good rule of thumb to follow is try to drink one pint of regular old water for every pint of beer you drink. Your stomach will thank you.

Hope you all have a fun, relaxing Friday night. Grab a drink, you've earned it.