Back.

Back at it.

Back to the routine.

Back to the generalness of life.

My travels are all over now and I’m here with nowhere to go for the foreseeable future.

There are no plans to go home or anywhere for Thanksgiving or Christmas.

I’ll be here.

Relaxing.

Chilling.

Knowing me, there might be work that I’ll have to do over the break. We shall see.

Back…and it feels good to know that I’m back to my routine again.

Family.

It was great seeing a lot of family a few weeks ago for Annie’s weekend.

I don’t get to see them much. I don’t visit them as much as I should.

It’s great to see them and 5th Auntie.

I haven’t seen her since before Uncle passed. I’m glad to see that she’s doing well and is in good spirits.

I didn’t know from around the country was going to show up, but I was excited and glad to see whomever did.

Besides my family and 14th Uncle and Auntie, no one else from the Northwest came.

I didn’t expect to see many, since they weren’t that close, but I’m sure that if the schedule worked out a little better, they would.

It was a little tough having the wedding on a Sunday, in the fall when school has already started.

It was good catching up with my cousins too, knowing what is happening in their lives and what they’ve been up to.

Family get-togethers. We don’t have enough of them.

We should have more.

C’est la vie.

I’m sure we’ll have plenty more.

Looking forward to it.

Napa.

The little mini glutton vacation.

My bro and I planned to go to Napa a few days after the wedding to relax.

It was great. It was my second time there this past year.

I honestly think that I don’t go enough. It’s close enough for me to just take an extended weekend to go up and relax and enjoy life.

Clos Du Val.

My favorite.

I bought another bottle there. This was the most expensive bottle yet.

$120.

Worth it.

Definitely worth it.

We spent a relaxing day wine tasting and eating.

My bro been to Napa a few times with me before, but I think this was the first time that he had tastings on his own. Before we’d usually split a tasting and it was funny now for me to see that he got fucked up after two tastings.

Really, he got fucked up after one.

We went to three tastings in total and I had all three.

He was napping at the last two.

Definitely worth it just chilling at the grove at Chandon tasting while he napped.

Looking forward to the next trip.

I made it back to the Fall Agency Meeting and was able to miss a good portion of the meeting.

I have no shame.

I was happy to see a lot of the regional folks again and was invited to have dinner with the media managers.

I even stopped by the after party at the Ye Ol’ King’s Head for an hour.

No drinks. I was being responsible and honestly, after the wedding and everything, I needed a break.

I didn’t drink much that night. Maybe a beer and two glasses of wine.

Let’s hope I do the same at the holiday party.

No more blackouts!

Tableau Conference.

TC18.

I was in NOLA the past week for the conference.

I’m glad I was told about it and was given the opportunity to participate.

There’s just so much shit. My brain – fried.

It gave me an opportunity to learn about the tool and what it can do.

We aren’t using it to the full potential. It gave me a better understanding of the tool and how it works.

I never touched the tool or used it until two weeks ago because I needed to.

The biggest thing that I got out of the whole conference was how big data is managed by larger companies.

Everything is in the cloud.

Online data lakes and warehouses.

There’s a compute service layer.

I went in thinking we should manage our data a particular way and after, I honestly don’t know how the fuck we should manage our data.

I have no clue or any insight on how things should be done.

I don’t know what the bigger picture of the team and their wants are.

I feel genuinely useless when it comes to this project.

It’ll be an interesting conversation in the next few days as I talk about the data project.

With the RPAi project and the Digital Media Data RAI project and the small AHM RAI project, I want them to be the same project and I want to do this right.

I just don’t know what the “right” is.

There are so many conflicting ideas of what should be done that it’ll fail from the start.

I’ll tackle it when I tackle it.

I’ll research all the vendors that I got information from and hopefully come to an informed decision on how I think we should proceed.

I want to get this done.

I want this to be over.

Let’s do this.

So.

Back.

Looking to finish off the next month of classes and moving onto whatever is next.

I have no idea what is next.

I have no plans.

I’m taking it one day at a time.

I expect myself to do all that I can, the best that I can, and not worry about anything else.

One step.

One day.

Let’s do this.

The end of the year approaches.

Let’s finish it with a bang.

Bring it.

Here I am.

Back at it.

It’s been a while since my last post. A few weeks.

Had a few busy weeks here and there with traveling and working on the weekends and catching up on school and programming.

Lots to do.

My life….is in flux.

It’s definitely not normal.

There’s going to be a new normal for the next few weeks at least, with more traveling and with night classes.

Classes had officially started and so far, I’m enjoying them.

I think I’m enjoying the Relational Database class a little better than the SQL class, even though it’s been mostly SQL so far. I think it’s more about the theory and the foundations of what a database is, plus I already know a lot of the stuff that’s been discussed.

The same goes with the SQL class too.

Both professors told me that I may be too advanced for the class, but I told them that because I learned on the job, I don’t have a solid foundation. I may know 80% of everything, but I want to know the last 20% because they may be beneficial.

There are a few downsides to class. One of them is that I can’t get access to some of my quizzes and assignments on time for some reason. I always have to reach out to the professor and then to their tech support. Weird.

Also, I don’t sleep well during the nights that I have class. It seems like I can’t turn off my brain. It’s busy, processing information, thoughts.

No idea.

But, school is school. It’s going and I’m enjoying it.

Life.

Tired.

True true tiredness.

It never ends.

It never goes away.

Life.

Tired.

That’s all I feel now.

Tired.

Getting old sucks.

Being constantly tired sucks.

But that’s normal. That’s status quo.

Soon, I’ll be on a little break seeing family again and then I’m off to NOLA for a conference.

Travel.

Fun.

Make the best of it.

Life the best life and be the best you.

I try.

Everyday.

BFF’s last day was yesterday.

Sad.

I’ll miss her.

While I was in Moorestown, I stayed with Linda and Sung for a few days.

It was great seeing everyone again. It’s been so long, and it was talking with Linda that I got more serious about investing in my future.

Sure, I have my 401(K) and my investments through work and the mutual fund I setup years ago with dad’s life insurance money, but I never seriously thought about it and be proactive in trying to save up.

So, last week, I started Roth IRA fund with Vanguard and started dabbling in trading.

I’m not a serious trader, so I just invested a small amount and only have stock in Microsoft and Apple. I definitely will need to diversify and maybe put in a little more money later, but at this moment, I need to get past the urge to constantly look at how my money is doing or how the market is doing.

I don’t need another stress level in my life, but yes, I’m about to be 40 and I should take this kind of shit more seriously.

I’ve always had my contribution from work at 7% since the first day I started and being there 10 years, I should have upped it significantly. I’m making a significant more than I did back then.

10%.

I’ll deal with it.

It’ll be better than having the money sit in my savings and only collecting $8/year in returns.

Let’s see how it goes.

I think it’ll be fine.

Let’s hope it goes fine.

It’ll definitely be fine.