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You're probably already asking yourself, "What the Hell is Sarge posting about now? Ladies yelling at cats? Randomness versus Open Thread? Has that boy been drinking or what?"
No, I haven't been drinking but ...
Quick Aside: Friday last I mentioned going out to eat with friends, while there I ordered a Guinness and was extremely disappointed. It tasted, I dunno, off. It was room temperature and, as I'm not British, I didn't like that all that much. (I like my beer cold damn it!) It also tasted like a bad imitation Guinness. But I digress ...
Now where was I, oh yes, no, I haven't been drinking. What I have been is exhausted. As the calendar year draws down to the last dregs in the keg (maybe that's why my Guinness tasted bad, okay, okay, I'll climb down off that particular horse, for now), I get really, really, really tired.
Why not take a vacation during the year, Sarge?
Well, I do, for maybe a week at a time, which usually involves going somewhere, which is, tiring. Though I enjoy the being there, the journey is tiring.
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But at the end of the work-year lies the Christmas holidays, the winter break, whatever the proper corporate term du jour is. Back in the day I always tried to save enough PTO to make it a two week vacation, now it's three. Three whole weeks of R & R¹
Now that being said ...
While there is the drive down to Maryland and back, which I'm so used to that it isn't that bad, besides which, I'm driving and there's plenty of leg room in Blue. Besides which, who doesn't like the drive through the dystopian landscape which is northern Jersey?
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Harvey probably should have thought that scheme out a bit more.
So today (tomorrow as I write) is my last work day of 2021. I won't return to the office (actually it's a computer lab) until the 10th of January. Twenty-three days of ...
Yup, freedom.
Okay, that was kind of random.
¹ Rest & Recreation. Can also mean Rock & Roll. There will be some of that as well.
My wife and I are big fans of Guinness, or at least I was when I could still partake of alcholic beverages. But it should be served properly, as intended by the brewers and by custom . I always heard that folks in the U.K. drank warm beer, but that wasn't entirely accurate. It was (still is in a lot of places) served at the ambient temperature of the pub's cellars, which was usually where the kegs were stored. Said cellars are most often a fair bit cooler than the main floors where, hence the Guinness is cool, not too cold or too warm. Guinness can also be an acquired taste, and some never acquire it. I'll also put in that Guinness in Ireland, even on draft in the U.K., is better than what we get here, especially if it isn't at the proper temperature.
ReplyDeleteAll true.
Delete(Don McCollor)...Then there is the hilarity of watching an inexperienced bar person decanting a Guinness (especially a warm one) into a glass like a regular beer and trying frantically to contain the eruption of foam...
DeleteHa, good luck with that!
DeleteThink of the next few weeks as practice retirement. There are still plenty of things to do and some may even be critical, but there’s no particular schedule in doing them. It does help if you have a weekly timepost to reset your internal chronometer. Church on Sunday works for me. So my brain can go “2 days from timepost = Tuesday” or “3 days til= Thursday”. Given that this ship left early Sunday, I have no earthly idea what day of the week it is. Which is good I guess.
ReplyDeleteWith my many (okay three) trips to Sandy Eggo this year and my comp time off for that work, The Missus Herself has had to resort to a weekly meeting with her Korean friends on Wednesdays to keep her bearings. I go by is it Monday? Nope - I gotta post. It is ? Ah, juvat's got this.
DeleteSarge, there is something about having a single week off that almost thwarts the concept of vacation - as you have said, it becomes eaten up in transit or in things one must otherwise do (but never gets done in the normal week, like extra house chores or car maintenance or filing for taxes) or in fretting about what is waiting for one back at work.
ReplyDeleteLast year, due to a clerical error our company gave us two full weeks off. I cannot remember the last time I took two full weeks off. It was glorious. Sadly, they failed to repeat the error.
I also like your idea of coming back in mid month of January - allows one to ease back into the transition.
Coming back later than everyone else is great. All the moaning about coming back to work is finished. Everybody is settled down and back at it.
DeleteGotta love those types of clerical error.
And it allows for all the holiday sicknesses that get shared with everyone to mostly have burned out by the time you return.
DeleteInteresting point. Valid.
DeleteGuinness is supposed to use Nitrogen instead of CO2 for pressurization. Many places will use CO2 from their existing system. This can affect the taste. One of two things may have happened. The place where you usually drink it may have the Nitrogen system and the other place was using CO2, or the exact opposite.
ReplyDeleteBingo! That has to be it. It explains what I was tasting.
DeleteMan, that is glorious. Enjoy the R&R....
ReplyDeleteOh yes, yes, I will.
DeleteNever realized I had a stuttering problem!
ReplyDeleteI blame the cruise line's WiFi. You think you hit submit, but it's still there, so you hit it again, and again, and again.
DeleteI deleted the extras.
Probably, we were just putting into port and I Ihit send as it was transitioning from sea to land connection.
DeleteThanks
That would explain it.
DeleteSure it does...
Delete🤣
DeleteUntil I retired (I really quit), in 2001, I only had more than a week at a time of vacation when I was in the Navy.
ReplyDeleteThat was at Christmas one year, and at PCS two other occasions.
Once, when I got married, I took unpaid time off to get our new apartment set up.
The closest thing to freedom was when was no longer self-employed.
I’ve managed that twice.
As for Guinness, I’ve only had it from a bottle, and that was a really old bottle.
By the time I visited Dublin I had stopped drinking, so I missed a great opportunity.
One week off at a time, hard to really enjoy, at least for me.
DeleteSometimes it wasn't even seven days in a row.
DeleteOh my, not good!
DeleteBack in the day, travelling was done at night so we could see to set up the encampment or take down the encampment. Thus a hard schlog of night driving, not so hard on the way to there (except for the day of packing and loading followed by driving) but after a week or so of vigorous exercise and bruise-making, kind of hard on the way back.
ReplyDeleteThen, as we got older, packing two days before, then driving there, then setting up the hotel room (still lots of stuff, clothes, a complete kitchen, armor, shields, yada yada.) Then loading up stuff from on-site (armor, shields, yada-yada from the on-site arsenal) and then the hard drive back, sore and bruised... that started to turn into a 2 day event for a 6 hour drive, drive to Gulfport or Mobile, get food and a good night's rest away from scuzzy hotel in a less-scuzzy hotel, then make the trip through the panhandle and to home.
And once we got home? Used to be unload that day, go to sleep, go to work next day, then it got to be partially unload that day, then sleep, then finish unloading the next day, then go to work the next-next day, which turned into unload the essentials of day of arrival, unload wet stuff the next day, go to work the next-next day and finish unloading sometime that week, in dribs and drabs.
Bleh. Travelling sometimes just sucks. Especially if you're tired and sore and bruised and don't want to go back to work.
Now that travelling means going to Walmart once a month with a trip to Sam's Club thrown in and then a stop at Publix to get what only is available or good at Publix, then home to unload the 4-6 black plastic tubs into the house, well, that takes up a day's worth of work. Bleh. A necessary evil.
Much rather stay at home and hide from the world.
But it is what it is. Not looking forward to any long-distance travel in the future as that means someone will have died. Nope, not looking forward to that at all.
At least wife's work pension will have started so the van will have a new set of shoes and stuff. Still not looking forward to death driving.
Especially since that means packing up the whole circus maximus, wife, dog, chair, food, clothes, me and on a minimal time schedule.
Maybe it's time to buy some adult clothes, just in case...
Bleh.
Must do baking, cookies for people, Christmas breads, holiday stuffs, anniversary baking, and then go to post office and mail everything.
Bleh.
I forsee much grumpiness and lack of sleep in the coming week.
Ouch!
DeleteSeems unpleasant, to say the least.
If it's not a month, I don't bother. And here,
ReplyDeleteBoy!, I say Boy! You're doing it all wrong.... The journey is the vacation if you do it right. Obviously you're constrained a bit by geography and New Jersey which sucks. We had a contractor supporting us in PMW182. He was a former Senior Chief Sonarman we needed for some analysis and testing but he refused to fly and lived on the other side of Yellowstone. We sent him train tickets and that's how he would ride out to San Diego and back again. In a sleeper. We may be the only ones that take 3 days to get from Ohio to the coast of Maine but we stop in Saratoga Springs and the first town in New Hampshire after our ferry ride across Lake Champlain from New York to Vermont. It's restful. The week on the coast is just extra restful. We squeeze the return trip into 2 days or 3 or 4 depending on how long we stop in Montpelier. I used to take the train between Newport, RI (URI really) and DC. It went through Jersey where it usually died and left us stranded without power for a few hours each trip. It took about 3 times longer than driving but it was winter back then and the roads were dangerous.
Hahaha! Sounds like you've nailed the traveling thing. If I only had that kind of time. Which I will next year, if I'm still numbered among the living. (I'm retiring at the end of 2022, at least that's the plan!)
DeleteIt IS about the journey... and the company.
DeleteMB and I have reached a point where there are very few non-stop trips.
We look for places to visit, and even re-visit.
Hence, we have had two 6-week road trips and a couple that were more than two weeks in the paste three years.
I would say that we prefer driving to flying.
And those of us here in Blogland enjoy your travelogues. And photos, mustn't forget those!
DeleteWe've done Brisbane to Melbourne and back (around a thousand miles each way) to see relatives for holidays, and the best times have been when we made it a road trip of two or three days each way. Stop off in Dubbo to take the kids to Taronga Western Plains zoo, do some stargazing in Coonabarabran, spot "The Dish" at Parkes (one of the ground stations for the Apollo missions, and so on. I'd like to stop off in Temora, to see the Aviation Museum, plus there's a bunch of other historic stuff on the way... Much better than sitting in a tin can for two hours, if you can afford the time.
DeleteWe'd do it again in a heatbeat, but it needs a good three weeks to make it worthwhile, and we don't have enough vacation time built up at the moment - plus (not wanting to get political here) Covid.
Making a road trip last a few days is the best. No hurry, see the sights along the way. Great stuff!
Delete(Don McCollor)...Back in the 80's, for a conference in Seattle, I persuaded our travel people to pay for an Amtrack ticket rather than an airline one. I would take vacation and pay for my own meals during the extra time. Train was three hours late. No pressure - going to be almost two more days there. Big comfortable seats (suitable for sleeping in) and an observation car to watch my country roll by. Sunset in the Rockies eating trout on a real plate with real silverware as the train tested brakes easing down the Divide at West Glacier. A morning along the seacoast running on the final leg down to Seattle...
DeleteSounds very relaxing!
DeleteI approve of your timely heading photo. My Uncle Dan West was in the Bulge.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy your 3 weeks of idleness!
Enjoy, aye!
DeleteRoad trips are the best. To me they are rejuvenating. I did 2 this year. One last May through TX, LA, MO, CO...6500 miles. One last Sept - MT, Dakotas, WY...5500 miles. I'm at the point where I'd rather drive than fly.
ReplyDeleteDepends on the destination. That might change once I retire and have more time.
DeleteA long time ago I was Random on sci.mil.navy in Usenet I used to get into all kinds of trouble with Blackbeard. The one field I walked was up by the DMZ at Castle Hill as part of the orientation the 2nd ID or 8th Army gave newly arrived officers. It was fascinating. The whole day was fascinating starting with Panmunjom and ending at Castle Hill.
ReplyDeleteI never got up that way. Had no desire to!
Delete