Ramblings of a rural(ish) geek

Looked out this afternoon, and there are a couple score of red-winged blackbirds at and under the feeders. There is also a sandhill crane standing watch in the backyard. :)

in work news -- AAAIIIGGGHH-- that is all. I am completely and utterly stonewalled at a task until I hear from BC how it is done. (there's a step missing between payroll and accounting, and I don't even know where to start looking for it.) I can do payroll, I can do GL entry, but I have no idea how to get data from one to the other. Treas. says "there's a spreadsheet that she imports", but I can't find the damn thing. I know full well that she does not enter the entirety of payroll (inc. taxes/pensions/etc) every month, and the timesheet that gets sent off to the payroll company doesn't have all the info on it, but I can't figure out where she gets the data from. I suspect there is a file to download from the payroll company, but I can't figure out how to get that report in xls format.

I spent so much time poking about on BC's computer today (well, and an already scheduled staff meeting) that I didn't get *anything* else done. People will just have to wait until next week for their expense checks. I did get payroll entered and sent off to the payroll company on time, so at least people will get paid. I am somewhat concerned about the early month bills, but I don't *think* there's anything due before the end of next week....

There was an LCCB concert on Sunday, and it went pretty well. I could wish for a less shrill flute section, and a trumpet section that actually played soft, but it's fine for what it is. There are many community bands that are less good.... I am kind of tempted to go to the AA Concert Band concert on Sunday, but they're doing a piece I really dislike, and I am a bit concerned that they're going to spend the concert "spraining their shoulders" as they pat themselves on the back for the theme of the concert. It could be fine, but I've seen other things in AA that could be nice made into caricatures because the presenters are so proud of themselves for doing a 'different' thing.

that it's very strange for there to be more snow on the ground in Houston and NOLA than there is here. Some of that, of course, is because "it's too cold to snow" here -- usually when it's this cold, there are no clouds and thus no snow, and we are far inland and only get lake effect snow when the wind is coming straight from the west (or from the north over Lake Huron/Saginaw Bay, but that happens very rarely).

I did not have to skip Livingston rehearsal tonight -- Howell cancelled school, so by default there is no LCCB rehearsal. BC called the Ingham County clerk about tomorrow morning's meeting, and they said "yeah, you're not the first to call. We'll have the meeting for whomever shows up, and send forms off to those who didn't make it in to the meeting". TwpBoss closed the office for Tuesday a couple of days ago, so I haven't left the house since Sunday's trip to choir practice....

I discovered tonight that the ski gloves that I picked up off the clearance rack last summer have pockets for those little handwarmers.... I don't need them when I'm going outside to get the birdfeeders or to sweep the fluffy snow off the porch, but it's nice to know.

J is currently building a mixtape for his new motorcycle. It's got a tape deck, so of course it needs a mixtape. Grateful Dead, Cash, P!nk (because why not), BOC, Springsteen, Queen, etc. (hopefully no Bob Seger. If I never hear another Seger track in my life, it'll be about right.)

J started the bathroom demolition/reconstruction last week. (The old shower stall is being removed from the hall bath, and the space is being shifted to the closet in the master bedroom.) The same day, we started clearing spaces at work for the HVAC contractors. I am already tired of boxes everywhere....

Three elections worth of boxes are in the Clerk's office, one under my desk where it's almost-but-not-quite in the way; and there are other boxes on top of filing cabinets. Another year's worth of elections is boxed up and on the floor in the furnace room. They'll just have to live with it for the next four weeks or so (the space is quite large, and seems at least partially intended for storage of municipal broadband equipment). I only did one row of boxes down one side of the space, out of their way. BC and I went down on Friday and got everything off the top of the file cabinets and desktops and floor and sorted into Recycle/Shred/Trash stacks, with one box of "we need to see if we have copies of these before we Shred them, but we don't have time now". There are still two rooms of cruft that need to be sorted, but they aren't our responsibility. One is the treasurer's space, and one is Zoning's. We're still waiting to hear when the remodelling crew wants to start work on the office spaces upstairs, because we'll have more stuff to move then. In an ideal situation,, the HVAC crew will be done, and we'll be able to move most of the stuff from that closet into the basement, but that's a bit unlikely, based on the amount of work the HVAC crew has to do. It'll probably have to go into the shed, which is a faff -- either down a narrow half-flight of stairs and out the side door; or halfway across the building, out the front door, and then halfway around it. Nothing really heavy, per se, just bulky and hard to carry, and many pieces of it.

On the home front, everything had to be removed from the closet. There are boxes and stacks of clothing everywhere. And drywall dust, and broken chunks of drywall, and the old closet shelves+rods. The old shower is in pieces on the deck. (The closet will actually get painted now! Have no idea what color it will be -- there may be enough usable paint in the basement, or we may have to buy some. I think there is enough of the almost-boring-beige(*) left from the master bath for the hall bath.) We need to figure out closet flooring and cabinetry colors, too. And a layout, so we can get everything out of boxen and into the closet ASAP. I want lots of shoe cubbies (will also work for J's tshirts) and mesh drawers for sweaters and wear-to-work shirts.

(* -- I thought it would have more color in it. I did sizable test patches, and it was good, but once the whole room was done it was beige. kind of a taupe-y beige, but still beige. sigh.)

FCB tech rehearsal was last night. In Farmington (natch). In the cold (13F when I left home; it was still 13F when I got home, so that wasn't too bad). At least there hadn't been any snow since Thursday AM. We had to fit the usual band arrangement (with an extra mallet percussion and a drum kit) on the stage, and add a piano (Clavinova) and a harp! It's a bit of a squish. The band is already a bit too big for that stage, and adding in a couple of very large instruments....

The harpist missed the rehearsal because she had a concert, so we won't know exactly how she'll fit until Sunday. At this point, my main concern is how people are going to get to their seats, with both sides filled with not-so movable instruments. I think we'll have to ask the harpist to move her instrument out of the traffic pattern until everyone is in. (She doesn't play on the first piece.)

Thursday morning, my boss called "due to cold and the condition of the back roads, I'm not going in to the office. You don't have to either, unless you've got something that needs to be done." well, I don't really have anything that needs to be done except plan the move, which we can do now. So we spent about an hour discussing timing and what will need to be moved where so the contractor can start in mid January. It's going to be a mess. The worst part will be figuring out where the old ballots (which need to be in locked storage) will go while the contractors are working in both of the available locking storage areas. Currently, they're in the upstairs locked closet, but that closet is going away. Well, put them in the basement; except that the heating/cooling duct that runs down the middle of the basement is being replaced. We'll have to check with the contractor -- if they don't need access to the new furnace room, maybe we can put them in there.

Thursday evening (after the snow had stopped, but it was still cold), I went in to AA to usher for a strings concert at Rackham. I was underimpressed. OK, I will acknowledge that they are technically a very good ensemble, but they are much better heard than watched. Everyone in the quartet makes it obvious to the audience when they are playing a difficult part -- they dive toward the stand, or writhe around on their chair, or flip their head or leg. I find that extremely distracting -- I was taught that it's supposed to at least seem effortless. It probably didn't help that I really did not like the first piece that they did. It was billed as a "conversation between solo cello and string quartet", but it didn't seem like one to me. It seemed more like two different speakers addressing an audience, which is not actually a conversation. (and then the cello player was tapping her foot during the String Quintet, which is usually not a problem, but she was wearing hard soled shoes and I could hear every tap. As a festival judge once said "I don't see a 'foot tap' part in the score".)

At least it's not actually raining -- it's been doing that mostly overnight or when I'm at work this week. I did get rained on a teensy bit yesterday when I was out running extended errands -- hadn't done anything since before the election, so I was way behind, although we hadn't run out of anything. Only three cans of cat food left, though.

Today I need to clear the living room of all the things that I've just been dropping there to deal with "later". It is now later, so....

BC and I did a layout of the new office space (so they know where to put the outlets and the network and phone ports). Once I got the room plotted out, and post-its of the furniture sizes, it took about 5 minutes, and we tried a few different configurations. :) She was impressed. There's a desk in the corner with the person's back to the door, but as that's the second clerk, I don't see it as an issue -- that person will rarely be in the office by themselves. There is space to shift the desk away from the wall, but then that person will be between the wall and the desk. This may be preferable, I don't know.

And then word came down from 'on high' that they wanted a third estimate, and they wanted to ponder some of the results of the energy audit. sigh. It's not going to be plausible to replace two small gas furnaces (new one is 5 yrs old, old one is only 10) with a heat pump, especially if it means redoing the HVAC system in the entire building. [The HVAC in the old building needs to be fixed anyhow, because the person acting as General Contractor (to "save money") for the remodel 5 years ago screwed it up, and exactly how badly has now become clear. It was apparent shortly after the remodel was finished that there were issues, but the "GC" said it was fine. It wasn't, and still isn't, but BC and I went poking around in the basement/ductwork with a flashlight and chalk and figured out what was wrong. Short version? Penny-wise and pound-foolish. (or, as Papa used to say "you'll always remember how much you saved".)]

My TSax compatriot at Livingston will not be playing the Holiday concert -- his wife scheduled a "I gotta get out of this town" vacation for that weekend, so.... It'll be OK, although I will have to pay especial attention to Christmas Festival, which I'm used to playing in a different key. It's important to play a Bflat instead of a B, really it is. And I need to work on the flying-finger bits in Home Alone. (I needed to work on them anyway, because he was very clear that he wasn't gonna try for the 8th notes at 160bpm, much less the 16th notes.) And there's another piece where I'll probably be playing the 2nd ASax part -- both of the AS2 players are new to the instrument, and are scared of the accidentals and syncopations.

(the way it usually does, one day at a time. I know.)

Farmington's Halloween concert was Sunday. It was much better performed than Livingston's, even though the music was harder. We did not have FCB rehearsal the day after the concert, because the HS was having stage rehearsal for their Tuesday evening concert, and it was just easier for everyone if 70 extra musicians just stayed away. I will be missing the rehearsal on Monday, 4 November, because I will be doing the final set up for the township hall for Tuesday's election, after a day of processing and tabulating Absent Voter ballots. whee?

I postponed the week's erranding to today from the usual Wednesday, because the weather then was great for working in the garden. So, of course, it's chilly and damp today and AA is overrun with Oregon fans in town for tomorrow's football game. sigh. OTOH, there was no line at the cider mill or the gas station. OTOOH, I forgot to stop at the feed store for birdseed. I will need to run into town tomorrow and get that. sigh, again.

not saying it was windy while I was out running errands, but the two old plastic milk crates (actual milk crates, "borrowed" from dairies by persons other than me in the early 1980s) that were on the side deck when I left at 11am were in the side yard when I got home at 3pm.... {and I know it wasn't J, because he's in K'zoo, doing a "honey-do" list for friends.}

I currently have the back door open to catch the (probable) last of the pleasant fall breezes.

but I still didn't get into the garden. Tomorrow for sure! (whenever I was home last week, it was either too wet to be in the garden or I was working on the laundry room.)

The FCB did a concert at Franklin Cider Mill on Sunday -- two weeks earlier than we're usually scheduled there, *and* earlier in the day. It was still 6 hours from when I started packing the car to when everything was unpacked. sigh. It rained off and on all day Sunday, but *not* while we were playing, so that was very good. Had the wipers on for much of the drive there and back. Monday we did a deep dive into the tricky piece for the October concert, and run-throughs on the less difficult pieces. Tuesday's LCCB rehearsal was working on tricky parts for *that* concert, which is a week before Farmington's. One of the pieces we're doing in Livingston is one that SR played when she was in HS, so I'm having flashbacks to her in front of the microphone singing the sax solo (so that ZM wouldn't go all loud and stompy on it).

Monday and Wednesday and Friday, J and I did more work on the laundry room. OK, he did most of the work, I provided recommendations/design preferences and "heavy analytical work" (aka "hold this"). I think the actual construction work is done in there. I still have a box of stuff in the front room that needs to be sorted as to whether it goes back into the laundry room or somewhere else. The rack for the recycling bins went in yesterday. I still need to find a boot tray for the room -- the one that SR had in her apartments would be great, but I think it went away; whether to the rummage sale or with DB to OH, I do not know. The boot tray I bought today doesn't fit.

Work days are getting long, as election work is ramping up. Between ballots going out and ballots coming in, and voters coming in to replace spoiled ballots, and trying to figure out who is actually going to be able & willing to work on Election Day.... (and BC's husband is having back trouble, and DC's husband is having heart trouble, and the computers are doing weird shit, and "can you proofread this", and oh-by-the-way 'what carpet do you want in your new office?'.)

that is all.

Tuesday was a day. I left for work a bit early, because there was a work-related Zoom at 10am, "went" to the meeting, did the things I usually do on Tuesday, then we went into the rabbit hole that is "the ballots have arrived". Open the big shipping boxes, make sure that the correct boxes of ballots are in them, then open the boxes of ballots to make sure that *their* labels are correct. Then "fight" with the test chart site and Acrobat to get the test charts printed out ("this worked before!" "yeah, four years/one computer upgrade/two software versions ago. it doesn't work that way now."). Then two hours to make a test deck.

and then it was late to be leaving for rehearsal, and I still had to go home and get my instrument/music, because I hadn't planned on being at work until 6pm. Get to rehearsal about 15 minutes later than I usually do, but still before rehearsal starts. Play rehearsal, do teardown after (they rotate sections to do teardown, and this week was our turn). Stop at MickeyD's for something to eat; they're woefully understaffed and slow; finally get food and head home. Get nearly home, and the last major corner before home is blocked with lots of bright lights and haze and firemen and firehoses. Sigh. Even if they're done dealing with whatever it was, it'll be another 30 minutes before the intersection is clear. Turn around in a convenient driveway and go all the way around North Lake, thus completing the trifecta of small towns (Pinckney, Hell, Unadilla). Still don't know what happened at the corner -- I may find out Sunday at church.

I got home over 12 hours after I left for work. The cats were annoyed.

J and friends have gone off on a (scheduled well in advance) outing to Mackinaw City and environs. I did not go, as my back is misbehaving, and I felt that a)a four hour drive followed by b)three days of uncomfortable chairs followed by c)a four hour drive was unlikely to be a positive experience for anyone. (nerve impingement isn't fun.)

I didn't actually make the decision until Thursday -- I stepped in a hole I didn't know was there while I was weeding on Monday and jarred my spine -- I was hoping that the inflammation/impingement would clear by midweek so that I could go on the trip, but when I had actual *pain* from the impingement at work on Thursday, it became pretty clear that it would not be a good choice.

I'm bummed to have missed the trip, but.... J's been gone for nearly a month, between "so busy" before and ick after(*) the UK trip (and he was away from the house for a week before *that*, so he's really not been "home" since early July). I'm not sure that spending a long weekend in close company (anyone's company!) after being solo for most of the summer would be a good thing either.

* he caught COVID on the boat -- everyone who was on the boat got it. I seem to have dodged it, again. yay!