Author: Doug McCaughan

Once again, National Lampoon’s film crew is with us bright and early. The McCaughan’s are going on vacation! We are off to visit my 96 year old grandmother and other relatives for Thanksgiving. We’ve rented a tank, er, Suburban that is completely tricked out. The driver’s seat provides haptic feedback, vibrating whenever backing too close to an object, or vibrating just on the left side when crossing the center line, or vibrating on the right side when crossing the shoulder marker, and apparently the windscreen illuminates red when approaching a vehicle too quickly (despite trying, I haven’t proven that one yet). We will travel in the snowstorm created by the nor’easter which certainly will not interfere with our 7pm dinner reservations. Our house sitter is prepped and our crew is excited with our earliest riser at 5am and all following by 6am except the zombie 24 year old who despite my pleas decided to stay up in the night playing video games. We shall see if he actually makes it to the car.

Kitchen cabinet removed. Long chat with an old friend. That was extremely pleasant. Caught up on The Walking Dead…new more! Watching wife stress over packing and cursing me under her breath for not using magic to install the cabinet/microwave and clean the house kitchen and pack.

Cooked breakfast with precision. Now catching up on The Walking Dead over coffee.

I awoke at 4am to do some programming. For the first time in my life, I felt that urgency to leave a perfect bed. The weight of the covers was just right. The warmth exact. The pillow could not have been more comfortable. Usually when you experience this, you have to leave the bed. I should have left the bed and met my responsibility. But I accepted the perfection, and slept in until 8am. No regrets despite the nagging voice in my head wanting to berate me for the loss of productivity.

Today:

• Client work
• Hang a cabinet in the kitchen
• Pack for a trip to visit my 96 year old grandmother in a snow storm
• Return some borrowed tools to a friend
• Shop for the trip
• Shop for the house sitter
• Pickup the rental car
• Pickup the college student
• Clean the house

So beautiful outside! A bit windy. Would love to take the kids to the park to fly kites. But duties call, and despite being a vacation day, I find myself glued to the computer.

I took a few days vacation to try to bring order to my life. So far today, I have run a new electrical circuit to the drive way to charge the car, been notified that I am receiving my first tax refund in 15 years, and programmed the Nissan Leaf to open the garage door!

Next on the list: plan a scout meeting, work on client web sites, and do some demolition in the kitchen.

This is such a milestone!

The trim color on my socks usually matches the color of my underwear. Now, if I see you look at my feet and smile, I’ll know you are one of the 4 people who read this blog.

Just finished off some client work. Nice way positive way to end the weekend.

Let see, what was Sunday?

Slept in a little.
Worked on client’s site.
Invoiced.
Lunched.
Destroyed kitchen.
Helped child with home work.
Bought cabinet.
Cooked dinner.
Made children cry.
More client work.
More invoicing.

Hmmm. Feels like there was much more than that to the day.