In keeping with the Musk Activity Report, allow me to list the five things I did last week — almost all of which, I’ll agree, I do every week. Bearing in mind that I’m actually retired and not therefore required to do anything, here they are:
1) Prepared and posted about 30-odd articles for this here blog. Some require little preparation — such as the Caption Competitions, Sunday’s Classic Beauty and Random Totty categories, of which I typically do a month’s worth in advance. Others such as the Comment Of The Day also require little preparation other than formatting, but I typically do those as I stumble on them. The heavy hitters (e.g. Gratuitous Gun Pics, political analysis and social commentary) take a lot longer because in many cases they concern subjects with which I’m not familiar and require that I delve into the topic at some depth. Reports on daily news take very little time, but commentary thereon does involve at least a little contemplation if not ancillary research, as does the weekly News Roundup. As I’m committed to publishing at least four posts per weekday and one each for Saturday and Sunday, you can see how this all adds up, timewise. And I count this as only one thing I did last week, and pretty much every week. No doubt some Gummint bureaucrat would spin those out into at least a dozen things — such is the nature of make-work Gummint activity — but for me, it’s one.
2) Reading and answering mail. I get upwards of two dozen emails a day from Readers. Some require a response, some are FYI. Whatever, thank you for all of them — regular correspondents know who you are — and I value every single email. (I don’t get much if any hate mail, but that’s fine. If I wanted that kind of thing, I’d get a Twitter/X account.)
3) Grocery shopping. Because New Wife works a day job (more on this below), it falls on me to keep the household running, and typically this involves about three separate trips per week (because I prefer to eat fresh foods rather than canned or frozen). Once again, this I count as one thing not three.
4) Meal preparation. There are two such activities. Firstly, each night I prepare a “brown-bag” lunch for New Wife’s consumption the following day. It involves a fresh garden salad, some kind of meat and a dessert (pitted cherries and full-milk yogurt). Secondly, because she works five days a week, I see no reason why she should come home exhausted and then have to prepare us a meal; so at least three nights a week, I prepare dinner for us both. Friday nights we’ll either share a frozen pizza or whatever. We don’t do takeout unless we’re desperate. Weekend meals are an ad hoc kind of thing — cheese or chicken toasties — unless we decide to treat ourselves to a roast, beef or lamb) which I typically do while she does household stuff like laundry. (In passing, I keep the apartment tidy, bed made and the kitchen spotless because I loathe the alternative with a passion).
5) Range trip. I view this as part of my civic duty. Choice of guns depends on my mood or “rotation” (“damn, I haven’t shot Gun X for a while, it’s time”). 5a) Maintenance. I also clean and oil my guns once a week — not just those I fired at the range, but also one or two others on a rotation basis. (I’m not compulsive about this because I don’t have to be. While I have the cleaning kit out, in other words…)
Those are the five things I do every week, which I consider cumulatively as my “job”. I didn’t include the voluminous reading (paper and Internet), because that’s recreation. Ditto the many WhatsApp messages to friends and family.
6) Ad hoc jobs. Last week, I also fixed the headliner on the Tiguan — after only 135,000 miles, the glue weakened and the liner started flopping down, don’t get me started on quality control nowadays. I also re-glued the gearstick shroud in New Wife’s Sputum (which had worked loose after only 26,000 miles because Fiat), and took it in for an oil change.
In government-worker terms, that list would probably exhaust most of them and require some time off.
On the other hand, I can’t get fired.
Quality on today’s vehicles seems to be lower than 10 to 15 years ago and the prices are higher than ever.
In the home maker dept your roles have switched. You are the person makin the sammich. Nothing wrong with that.
How is the Ruger Redhawk 45? Any more updates or range trips about it coming?
I see the Musk Activity Report stirred up a firestorm of whining among BigGuv drones.
Boo-hoo, poor babies.
Everyone in my engineering group did weekly activity, progress, and time reports against projects. These were the foundation for manning, budgets and planning for future projects.
These BigGuv drones have an entitlement attitude that must be broken or we’ll all go broke.
Once again, if someone shines a bright light on the rats in the basement, they will get angry because they’ve been caught stealing someone else’s food and fear their gravy train will be taken away. I’d think if the drones were doing something necessary and doing it well, they’d be proud to report it.
Like you, I was an engineer.
Like you, I had to do weekly reports on progress against objectives.
That sort of thing is why engineers are valuable contributors to organizations. It’s also the reason we’re well paid.
After decades in industry, the lab shut down, I was packaged out, and I took a professor of practice job at a small state university. I was teaching only two courses the first semester, but both were for the first time; I was working my tail off learning how to prepare a lecture, grading work, etc. About a month into the job, it dawned on me that no one seemed to be checking to be sure I was even showing up, let alone doing a decent job. Yes, I’m that slow. It did take my that long to see that a government job is different from one in the real world.
Last week I completed the construction drawings for a custom 9800 s.f. home to be built in Cape Coral, FL after working on them off and on since Oct.
Today I start the preliminary design process for a 600 unit, 3 story condominium project in Atlanta, GA.
It’s starting to warm up a little around here and while there is still snow on the ground there are things that need to be done. For example, the cutting up of a massive amount of delivery boxes that have been thrown haphazardly in the workshop, and taking them to the recycle center.
I’m 70 and though I collect SS I still work as much as I can. More than half a century ago I got addicted to this stuff called money and all the wonderful things it can do for me. That’s not likely to change.
“ More than half a century ago I got addicted to this stuff called money and all the wonderful things it can do for me. That’s not likely to change.”
Im a little younger I got the same addition about 25 years ago.
Major issue is that the politicians are addicted to our (working people’s) money and they love to steal from the working and give to the losers who don’t work. Sadly that’s not likely to change
Trump is a breath of fresh air and Elon is a good partner in this battle. An enema was needed and it is here.
Enjoy the projects and I hope you aren’t taxed into oblivion.
Four:
https://youtube.com/shorts/8BednZTynvA?si=xpIvQXycqBB7WRCc
Since nobody else reported their 5 Things,
1 I spent a huge amount hours over several days on the phone resolving a technical service issue with my Cable and Internet provider, Most of which was expended wading through an endless series of computer generated voice prompts and menu selection before reaching an actual human to explain my technical problem. Then I expended more time attempting to communicate with someone who insisted his name was “Steve” when it clearly was more likely to be mahesh.
2 I removed several inches of compacted frozen ” Global Warming” from the skating rink formally known as my driveway.
3 I succumbed to the annual extortion demands from the Greeting Card Industry known as Valentines day.
4 . Prepared and filed the new Beneficial Ownership Reports for the S Corp for my rental properties. Exactly the same information I also report to the IRS. Why can’t they Talk to each other and cross reference their Data.
5. I began to assemble the rest of the needed data for my Tax returns – But I’m still waiting for final reporting from 1 financial institution.
….. and then I did my regular household activities.