No new horse

I did my budget and all the extra money I thought I had, where I could maybe get another horse is not there.  Possibly will look brighter next month,  depends on whether dad pays some of the tree trimming bill.  I put aside my petty "they treat me like an ATM" feelings and sent bro and Sil a check and a check to her son and son's gf for Christams.  I did write in the son and gf card "check out KenColeman.com"  A reasonably polite way of telling them to GOYAaGaJ methinks.   I could feed another horse but there isn't really money to pay market price for an adult horse and I'm pretty leery of rescuing one;  I'm no super keen horse judge.  I can spot some obvious 'probably wouldn't hold up for distance riding' but not enough to feel confident and we already have great plenty of horses I don't want to try to use for distance riding. 

Wrote a slightly overdue paper review this morning.   I did not catch every poor sentence but did give several  cases where a bit of word change will make things more clear.  I could hardly write "I have no idea if this is novel research because I've been horridly lazy about keeping up with reading the research journals but meh, thats why they get more than 1 reviewer.   The basics seemed fine, although I would not spot if the equations were wrong.   Got 15 cards addressed and very short notes added to the form letter on Sunday and mailed em this morning.

Saturday I finished cleaning up the horse pens from the half ass job the skid steer guy had done.  I am going to search for a new person but it wasn't sooo bad, certainly it was much easier for me to finish up the cleaning after he had moved the heavy piles of hay and manure that I had tractor raked up last week.  Also on Saturday got dad to help me get holiday decorations down, did 2 loads of laundry but skipped doing the towels and made CF steaks.  Steaks were fairly meh, but better than coming out tough or me thinking they tasted bad.   Sat evening I set up our artificial tree.  I'm going to have to get a new(er) one next year I think.  Its shedding needles and looking a bit ragged to me.  Turned out it was good I had not gotten outdoor lights put up because I remembered that its getting too hard to get enough lights for the tree with the bigger size bulb indoor lights we had always used so I took one of the strings of little indoor/outdoor lights for the tree instead of putting along our roadside fence. 

Sunday dad and I got the outdoor lights up,  he put up his laser and LED lights, which are sure a lot easier for lighting up the house and trees/shrubs next to house than actual lights.  I made fish for supper.  I have decided I like baking fish sometimes instead of frying it.  I'll still fry cod, it seems to taste good fried, but the other grocery fish benefits from a bit of soaking in lemon juice and and then bakes up fine.   I've also convinced myself its OK to use foil and make my life easier for baking a couple pieces of fish for supper.   

Well I am working FOR horses. Certainly not working the horses

I'm coming to grips; but with plenty of pissing and moaning; that upkeep of the place is 90% or more up to me now.   I'm trying to appreciate that dad is still taking care of himself and handling the routine bill paying rather than melting down because he simply is not up to doing much yard maintenance or doing the floors like he used to do.   Key word: trying, but I know that being grateful for the blessing of not having to take over the paperwork and bring in a health aide is the only way to keep my spirits up.    I know lots of folks are juggling the duties of full care for a parent or even a spouse's parent along with trying to keep their jobs and lives going and I am fortunate not to be in that spot and I am very grateful that dad took care of mom when she needed to be driven to drs. and so on.  He really did quite a good job of supporting her.

I got lucky and a tree trimmer who is moving into the neighborhood left a door tag with his information on our gate a couple weeks ago.  I called him, and he came on Sunday and gave an estimate and will come after Christmas and take down the 2 dead trees, plus do dead limb trimming on 5 still live trees that I was concerned could be a danger to the house, garage, vehicles .  He  really knows trees and the live trees will be much healthier and safer after getting this professional care and I don't have to worry about my safety nor the safety of the neighbor's friend that has a firewood business but no cherry picker to safely take down huge trees starting from the ends of the high branches.  A big relief to me to get that situation dealt with.  Barring a freak very high wind storm before Stefan gets to the job the outbuildings and vehicles should be spared.  We've been very lucky with getting away with just letting some other dead trees fall on their own; hopefully that doesn't evaporate when I FINALLY decided to be proactive and bring in a professional.

Sunday I also fired up the tractor and used the bucket to 'rake' built up manure and hay from the fence line where I feed so the skidsteer guy could just scoop it up easily and then can bring in some sand to fill in the low spots.   I meant to stay home and do more supervising/requesting of extra sand being hauled in while he was here  but I   Just   Could   Not   Do   It and left for work.    Maybe I'll try another guy advertising on CL or FB next time.   I can't help kind of resenting this guy for not being more complete.   He charges by how long it takes so its not like he gains anything by always doing only the 'quick and dirty' job.   Plus he was all grouchy with our dog today, and I never completely trust folks that don't like dogs.

Tanza is looking good.   I cut his feed back from the OMG I have to hurry up and get some weight on this horse amounts but will err on the side of him getting a bit fat this time,  I don't want to feel like "I HAVE to just end the season and get weight back on my boy" next fall.    The trailer was lame this year anyway so at least the reasons to not try hauling to a late 100 or multi-day were overlapped.

I have been kind of wanting to get a 2nd horse to do LDs, support local rides this year if I am able to attempt the 100s adventures I want  (but with a good amount of nerves) to attempt with Tanza in 2020.   But someone posted some young arabians at a kill pen.  I don't know if any of them would even be 4 to ride next year but I'm tempted.  Hopefully I'll see that someone else 'saved' them soon.   I don't really want to gamble with getting a horse that might be just another paddock decoration.

I'm probably going to put Bee(tle Baum) in with Tanza for a while.

I felt Lady's ribs today and she's getting plenty fat.  Bee is not bad but has the least fat between his ribs of all the horses here and he and Tanza are often visiting over the fence so I'm sure they'll get on fine so I think I'll just give Lady her every other day previcoxx in an apple slice and put her in the big somewhat diet pen group and have Bee with Tanza for a while.  Probably I'll have to rotate who is in with Tanza so I don't have a too fat horse.

Tanza is also looking pretty good so I'll cut down the amount of hay to him and whomever I have with him as well, but I still want him to have a bit more hay.  I don't need to have maximum high octane food going into my already energetic boy.

I've been pecking away at tree trimming.  I got a new chain for the pole saw and got smart enough to grab the 3-step mounting block to reach higher branches.   I don't have the arm strength to use more than 2 of the 4 lengths for the pole saw and its also no good reaching too high so the block is nice.  I need to drag out the ladder for some branches I feel I should cut down to reduce risk of branches damaging the house or garage roof but its getting there.  Tomorrow I want to move my little horse trailer and hook up my gooseneck.   I should have done that this weekend and dropped the trailer off at the repair place today but I guess I'm still kind of hoping dad would take the trailer in to drop it off, but he would wait until I need it next spring if I just wait on him plus I'd like to have the trailer gone and see if I can get someone to cut that dead tree down.   I'm thinking we'll have to move panels where the mini's are so the tree or some of its branches can come down in those directions and not break the panels.

Saturday we got the new TV I got dad to buy last weekend delivered and set up and the old 37inch tube TV that quit working hauled away to be recycled by Best Buy.   Last night Clint Eastwood movie Pale Rider was on and I enjoyed watching it on the high resolution 43" screen and getting to enjoy the mountain backdrop and so on.  Of course the downside is I might have done something else if dad was watching it on the little portable TV he had been using for the last few months.  But it was ridiculous, he pays $$ for direct TV and then just using the old portable TV to watch when new TVs are relatively cheap.

This morning I did some raking up of the area around Tanza and Lady's half barrel hay feeders.  That is the other reason I'm going to cut back some on the hay to Tanza and whomever I have in with him for a buddy.   Too much wasted hay.   I try to keep raking up the stalks they don't eat and give those leftovers to the mini's but I need to have dryer ground around the feeders to make that work better.  My arms are whinging that I did too much raking,  I need to have dad call the skidsteer guy again.

Sis had invited us for Thanksgiving and I told dad I guessed we could.  Now I don't really want to spend the time driving because there is so much I need to do.  I'll have to call her.  I don't want to not go and Dad's health takes a bad turn but we did get a good visit in August.

And today I learn I'm a bad person for riding FW

FW is 'feather weight' and I'm not.   Over a decade ago some tiny hineys in the most populated region were griping about how its so hard for them to get into regional placings versus especially heavyweights because of wives who add their non-riding spouse to the membership to support AERC and # of placings is taken by the # of registered members in a weight division rather than by the # of folks actually entering rides.

I thought it was BS and that the org has too many weight divisions and posted that "well put your DH in your weight division, its perfectly legal to be heavier that the weight division boundaries. if they do enter 1 or 2 rides some year" and then I thought "I can't make them have fewer weight divisions but I can put myself in the lightest division."  Years pass with me only owning dinks and not getting to enough rides to be competitive no matter what.

Then I got Tanza, stayed in the FW division and wow,  he has been in the standings a couple times and yes I noticed that the LW, MW and HW divisions were all more competitive in our region and the bottom point level listed in them was much higher than the # of points we had earned.  So I felt a bit of 'white privilege' type guilt but then thought  Oh well:  I didn't just pick the least competitive division and it is not like weighing more gives me some advantage over actual tiny hineys so I'm just going to leave myself in this division anyway;  I'm sure at some point there will be a few high level tiny hiney riders and it will no longer be the easy division for year end point accumulation.

So today I read a post griping about heavier riders changing to FW and knocking the true waifs out of placings.  I think the big gripe was about folks who had started in a heavier weight division and then dropped down mid-season.   I still think its a bunch of whiny B.S.   If someone is kicking your teeny little ass point wise, but being left in the dust by a Christoph or someone and they drop to your skinny waif division and make it more competitive you have the option of going to more rides,  or riding at a higher speed to get placings points or doing a 100 for the bonus points if getting a jacket or vest is a big deal to you.   Shut up and ride.

Tanza was awesome at Red Canyon ride

The Duck wants riders to wait 30 minutes after their horse pulses down before going to the vet at checks.   Tanza would come into a check and be dragging me around looking for food, I'd get his mash and hay out and he'd hardly lift his nose out of the food for 25-30 minutes so it worked perfectly for us.   

On day one I got uneasy about trail and then J picked up on it later and we doubled back when we should not have.  Wow was he mad.  I knew he likes to go for placings but he had said he wanted to ride 3 days so I really could not grok worrying about finish order on day 1.  So I promised him I would not ride with him after the vet check.   I missed a turn and ended up looping back to the vet check, yuck but it was not a huge # of extra miles and Tanza drank good so it was OK.  Then coming back in to camp I had caught up with a couple of folks and we 3 caught up to a couple that were leading their horses because the horses had gotten stupid about the cows earlier on the trail.   We 3 were all politely staying behind but the gal got all crabby that 'you're riding our ass.'   Later her horse hit 8000 miles so I think she just had jitters about making the milestone and is not normally a grouch; but between the 2 grouches and thinking the gals that were just a bit behind me when I missed my turn might have noticed and chose to let me go wrong cuz placings fever again even thought we were all at least an hour behind Christoph, I was pretty blue that evening.

I took day 2 off, took my tire to Panguitch to have it replaced.  On day 3, Tanza was wanting to keep up with a gal who was going fast, she had 3 horses she had brought to the ride and was riding not quite at Christoph pace but to finish about 5th place.   Finally I got Tanza to stop thinking he could catch her speedy gray horse than S passed me and was going pretty fast plus I knew she doesn't like to ride with someone else most days (she was 1/2 of pair behind me when I turned wrong on day 1 so she has one person she loves to ride with at least on her other horse.)   Next horse behind her was Otis B and he let me ride with him.   What a treat riding with a top pioneer event rider.  Normally I would have felt obligated to separate from Otis and Phyllis cuz they ride together all the time and a 3rd horse would be a nuisance but Phyllis had SFDT surgery on her mare in April so she was not riding. Otis' horse likes to follow vs lead so Tanza was thrilled,  he enjoys being in front as long as he has a wing man or posse right behind him.  Otis and his mare were still really setting the pace as Tanza would walk if she got too far behind and pick up a trot if he heard her trotting behind him but the 2 horses both worked well riding like this. 

Okay,  I'll finish the account in a 2nd post.  

Black Hills trip was mostly mis-adventures. Hopefully filled the yearly quota

I still don't know how well the saddle pad adjustments will work for Tanza cuz I only rode him short walking rides with Dad and Sis.   This is because I was dumb when trying to level my trailer.  FYI, if running trailer wheels up on blocks is not enough to level it; one needs to have the wheels on the ground and chocked before unhitching from p/u.   And never think "oh it will be just a few minutes and we are right here watching" and leave the horse tied too long while getting trailer situated.

So Tanza had some minor bruising of lower front right leg and was w/o his shoe and I opted not to ride him at endurance speeds.   The leg was fine by Monday so that was a good decision.

Saturday was not bad,  we rode a 2-3 mile loop, saw it was looking like rain and decided to go back to camp and get rain coats or wait if it rained.  It started raining when we got back to camp so we untacked the horses and hung out in dad's camper to have a bit of lunch and see if it cleared up.  It rained for 15-20 minutes and then just stayed overcast and drizzled a bit about every 30 minutes so we never did ride anymore that day.

Sunday we went on a longer ride.  Dad got his saddle way off to the side where he fell off twice, once each side.  Second fall he went downhill and wrenched his back.   We were right by a road at that spot but he initially thought he could ride back, but got to hurting so when we crossed a road we got him off Razz and left him to wait for us to come back in a p/u.   I had to talk sis out of going off to get vehicle faster.  I felt like with Dad's balance and hurting back it would be a disaster if Razz and Tanza were even a bit jiggy when she left on Babe; plus I wouldn't be able to get Dad down safely by myself.   She did stay with and it did take both of us to get Dad dismounted w/o dumping him.  Was no problem ponying Razz back to camp and we got Dad in p/u OK.  Offered that we could take him to the clinic to get checked out but he felt it was just wrenched back muscles and I figure he knows his body after 79 years.   Gave him Alleve and SalonPas patched back at camp and got him in his comfy zero gravity chair and he was ok.

Sunday evening I decided I would hook my p/u back up, and put trailer in the access lane since most folks had gone home so we would not be fighting with it Monday morning when we had an 8 hour drive to get home along with getting the rest of camp torn down.   While I was doing that Tanza was scratching his head like a dog and got his leg over his high tie lead rope.  Thank god I have plastic tubing over the lead rope.  He got just a tiny bit of a friction burn, but did not break the skin and seems sound today.  I wrapped it Tuesday to keep the tiny bit of scabbing he was getting even though I didn't see any broken skin down, lest the scabs cause issues and he seems to be trotting sound even in the wrap.    We got the p/u hooked up and then it was time to get it moved.

When the trailer came off the trailer jacks I was using as risers on Friday the tires were jammed between the trailer jacks and the chocks behind the rear wheels.   I was trying to shovel out underneath the jacks and Sis said "use your bottle jacks to raise the back end of the trailer."  That was a great idea.  I got the trailer jacked up and we got all but the one big chock behind the right tire out; then I was able to pull forward and sis was able to use the shovel to dig that chock out.   I got the trailer backed up onto the more level access lane, had some late supper and crawled into bed.

Monday we got everything packed up and on the road at a decent hour and made it home by about 6:30.  I even had time to spray some goatsheads.   Dad was hurting from the long drive but he felt good enough to unpack his fridge yesterday.  

I'm going to have to put CJ and Tanza together for a while

The two redheads are a bit skinny and Razz and Sadie are plenty fat.   So I'll have to put CJ and Tanza together and hope Tanza doesn't get a bit where the saddle pad will rub so I can feed them plenty of hay and give CJ more Eq. Sr than he is getting now and maybe a bit of the Amplify.  Good thing I went to the Buffalo creek ride and got the "body score is a 4" to open my eyes to the gradual weight loss with Tanza and now I looked at CJ and noticed he has dropped weight too.   I don't like my horses being under a 5 but I was just not registering the dropping weight until the vet said Tanza's body score last week at the ride and then I noticed I can see ribs on CJ this weekend.  Sigh, in theory part of the reason to always shove any thought of moving out back in a closet is because I'll notice things and take better care of the horses.   I guess I'm going to have to get a younger roommate with sharp eyes to fill that role for me before too long.

I sprayed about 5 gallons of 2-4-D this weekend.  This is good burr eradication progress,  it took me quite a while each time to walk around and find burrs to spray to use up about 1.3 gallons of spray.  I have to remind myself of this progress because I felt like "uggg, I'm still not doing much but spraying weeds"   I also did some hand weeding of mom's old super over-sized flower bed,  watered the pretty weeds I'm trying to start along the outside of the horse pen and burned some tumbleweeds that got going before dad got his mower belt replaced earlier this summer.  Not bad for as hot as it was.  Not great but not bad.

I also washed a couple loads of clothes, I hauled a huge tote of sweaters that mom had to take to SD to hand off to sis to deal with and also washed some of her clothes on hangers that had gotten so dusty they needed to be washed before wearing or giving away and boxed them up.   It always seems to take a huge toll on my mental/emotional energy stores to deal with "what to give away, throw away etc. and this was no exception.  I added some smaller ls shirts to my wardrobe as I sorted,  decided that I will give bro mom's Broncos Ed McCaffrey jersey,  I forgot she'd even had that or the Brett Favre T-shirt.   Course she didn't wear them often, appreciated them as gifts, but was saving them.  I come by that silliness naturally,  of save something until it spoils (food) or is outdated or no longer fits well etc.  instead of enjoying it and being ok with using it up, wearing it out etc.  Trying to work on this personally.

Tanza did great yesterday but saddle fit not right yet

Argghhh on the fit issues.  If I had confidence it would fix the problem I'd buy a new saddle for him but I don't.   The adjustable fit (with special fit pads) seem to work for a lot of folks but I can't stand the thought of spending that kind of scratch on a saddle where the cheap construction ends up with screws poking the horse if the rider misses a problem and I think the poking screw is not visible with the saddle lining.  I will try shimming my saddle pads to be thinner at the spine to hopefully even up the saddle pressure and if I can't get that right will start looking for a seller/fitter for expert help.

I found out that Tanza has more bottom than I thought.  He was acting tired to start the last loop and then M came riding up on his nice bay horse and Tanza was like "oh I enjoy cruising with Rocky" and was trotting fast and cantering quite a bit and was still in great form at the finish.  If I can get the saddle fit really good so Tanza's back stays comfortable he will be awesome.  It was a hot day yesterday and I was close to done in by the end of the ride.  Did get Tanza back to the trailer with food and water before I had to lay down for a bit.  

I must restock my trailer with snack foods and buy string cheese for the next ride.  Also need to restock my salt and minerals for Tanza and get horse feed.  I'll probably just take 1/2 a bag of Eq Sr instead of packing up buckets since Razz will be along and we'll be about 4 days.

I should water some things today and perhaps I'll get a bit done but my scalp is demanding I shower first and really scrub with some baking soda.  Sky is teasing that it may rain and water things but it usually doesn't amount to a good watering out here.  

Well I did not get to ding management on their reviews

In previous years the standard deal was supervisor's bosses would sent an email to everyone that was supervised by them inviting any comments.  Well this year I guess the new system is to ask X # of people for feedback about everyone who is being reviewed.   I was not in the group of X for either my direct boss or our program team boss and I never saw any "hey you can offer generic feedback on managers" invites.

It is a good overall thing to ask a few people to give answers to focused questions for every person being reviewed.   But its also a nice little dodge for managers that deserved to get some dings since their reviewer can choose *friendlies* to give that feedback versus inviting feedback from everyone who is living under their supervision.

Everyone is about breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for getting the first bits of data processed from our new satellites.   They didn't see fit to mention that the sister agency in Taiwan had the first download analyzed before we got our little configuration issues ironed out; must only magnify their own success as much as possible.

    Its why I love Trump so much.  When he does his pep rally speeches he is always saying how "our military,  our dedicated workers, etc etc have done an amazing job."  This is especially refreshing after the last potus that always spoke "I did x, my plan worked, yada yada"    And I'm not a total fan girl of Trump.  I don't love his speaking style which often seems like trying to sell something.   But Trump is always crediting americans, his voters, the military, etc etc when he is talking about any success instead of trying to claim all glory for any success but can't scapegoat fast enough for any failures like most politicians.

Our neighbors mom died last week.  G and S used to be our neighbors and were great before they moved to AK and rented the place to their daughter and SiL who are also marvelous.   I did not get a card out for them to take with them to funeral in IN.  I've been thinking in terms of writing a card to leave for them when they get back and only thought "oh should send a card to funeral"   Oh well.  I sprayed goatsheads over there this morning.   G used to tell my mom "someday I'm going to tame this yard"   She did get quite a lot of nice trees going.  Getting rid of as many of the nasty burrs as I can is my personal memorial to her feisty but fun and friendly spirit.

 I kind of care less if toad boss(es) are at all put out that I missed meetings today because I didn't manage to fit both things in.   I started with the early morning meeting, joining from home, but they were going over visuals but no one was sharing the ppt or whatever that to the meeting,  only to the display monitor in the conference room, so it was going to be a total waste of time for me to sit at my laptop and only get the audio of them discussing the plots.  

Must keep my resolution

Boss is not making it easy.   But if he was a good boss I wouldn't be trying to do so many things and could work in his little obsession.  Since he has driven so many people to leave and been such a slowpoke to get new people in there is just no way I can possibly humor him, I have got to attend to real priorities.   But I hate conflict and the whole stress of having to fend him off is making me turn to time wasting things like puzzles to get myself to a point where I can work at all.

This too shall pass.  This too shall pass.  I passed my test of being honorable last fall/winter with the incorrect ride results and I will pass this character test as well simply because I need to.  If I let him mis-direct how I spend my time it will put the group in a hole and I'm not going to hurt the group.

If he gets totally psycho about it and fires me that would be him hurting the group not me and I think his boss would probably tell him to grow up and not sabotage the group when we are SO short handed right now.  Anyway some part of me would be happy to be pushed out of this quagmire, but I will stick it out and try to help the group succeed vs quitting because even the bosses are basically good people and I really wouldn't want to hurt all the scientists that have devoted so much time and energy to the mission over the years.

So tired

I'm tired of the liberals and their BS lies on TV and FB.  I'm tired of feeling so behind and stretched too thin at home and wondering how to solve the issue.  I hate the thought of bringing a stranger into the house but we have a big house so trading room and board, or room and board for person + horse would make sense to get another able body to do some of the chores.  Hiring somebody is a crap shoot of finding someone good, still would be a stranger coming onto the place and if I had them do housework coming into the house ,and I think would put a pinch on my budget although I've been lazy about doing a budget the last few months.

I'm tired of the management at work not communicating with me.  I think they don't communicate with the team period; but its possible they do share info orally in the mornings when I am not there.  And Im just tired of the group boss being a toad.  He wants everyone to code in his style which he can't make time to explain and his code structure is overly complicated and hard to follow.  I've never coded in Obj. oriented style but other software people also tell me its hard to follow his code so its not just my lack of training in that way of coding.   It would be OK if he just wanted people to code in python and c, c++,  rather than "follow my cryptic style."   Sigh.  And he won't even hand off the passwords and manual to program our ground rcvrs to the IT team.  

All of that behavior goes with someone who is too insecure to enable his team, but with his resume and skills he should not be insecure.  He can write code, he knows the science quite well, he is good at interacting with the funding folks, the division boss did the same PHD program as him so he knows he has a solid advocate above him.   I need to get with my plan of buttering him up and coaxing that he needs to hand things off because we can't afford for him to give himself a heart attack trying to do the work of 3 people.

Gulp, our orbit scientist is leaving

I knew she would leave in the next year.  I just figured it would more likely not happen until 2-3 months from now and that there would be 4 weeks notice rather than 2 weeks so the handoff of what she developed would not be so rushed.

The good news is that I drove over 450 miles to northern Wyoming and rode 100 miles this weekend.  Tanza did well.  Our pace was slower than what I'd like to be at but I haven't done enough conditioning and on day 1 it was ride with folks who were going to go over 8 mph or stay with the slower group.   Slower group ended up with 6 mph pace, rather than 6.5 to 7 I would have liked.  Oh well.   On Day 2 Tanza stuck with young riders who were doing 8 mph pace on the first loop.  Actually he insisted on passing them towards end of loop.   And then starting loop 2 he was getting tired and as they started out cantering and passed us he was "meh, I don't need to stay with them."   I don't love that our pace slowed down so much that overall ride pace was only 6 mph by the end of the day but he was on day 2 and I have not done enough conditioning miles on him to push him past the pace he was volunteering.  

I enjoyed the weekend overall,  a few minutes here and there of feeling over heated and over tired but I remembered to enjoy being on the trail on my awesome horse most of the time.   Met a gal on my route and had the wonderful blessing of having her drive a good part of the way from where I picked her up on Friday (I only drove 90 miles after her place and she drove the rest which was about 180 miles)  and she drove around 120 miles on Sunday which made things much easier for me.  She also crewed for me a bit on Sunday,  she was hurting from riding on Saturday and just volunteered in camp on Sunday.  

That gave her lots of time to visit with the other folks attending the ride and she had a great weekend and is excited to get into the sport here.   She used to live in upstate New York, moving, having a saddle fit issue that ended up with getting bucked off and a back injury had resulted in her not riding much since moving to WY a couple years ago.  So I helped promote the local rides to a new person, yay me.   She recently got a rescue Akhal Teke horse and one of the gals at the ride is a huge lover and promoter of the AT breed so that was a nice side benefit for S too.   

Its snowing

Not unusual,  I remember loading horses in a light snow to head to memorial weekend rides in SD and having nice weather to ride in, although the horses always thought I was nuts loading them up to go ride when it was snowing.

Tanza and Lady got bute a couple hours after their vaccinations and no reactions.  So Tanza should be good to go ride.  Because of the forecast, my vaccination reaction worries and general OMG I'm so behind feelings I decided I will ride on Sunday.  So current plan is to haul to Casper or hopefully Thermopolis on Fridaay and overnight at a fairgrounds and then a short drive to ride site Saturday morning.   Donate the unicorn poster and half chaps as ride awards.

Work is continuing to be a madhouse.  It should not be so, but the group manager wants to maintain direct handling of low level tasks and then doesn't have enough hours in the day to keep track of and communicate the big tasks that need to be done to the team.  Plus he, or he and/or  the program manager keep refusing to hire another software engineer and admin support person so both the ops group and the admins are stressed having to be 100% all the time and still feeling like we are falling behind.   I am going to have to ding all the management for this when input for *their* APRs is sought by the higher ups.    Sick and tired of their attitude of pinching pennies on things that are needed and then being lavish on extras.

Yay its Friday.

Boss is gone,  the simulation is done.   The defective switch that caused extra work and stress for me and the official ops monitor last weekend and the whole team through Wednesday was replaced on Thursday.  Yesterday one of the horses was in pasture (had stepped over fence.   I let all horses out for a bit, while I organized supplies and replaced one broken off post and did a temp patch of the wires to that post with string, then called it good and told dad he had to help me fix fence on Friday.  Today I dug 3 post holes and Dad tamped in the posts and did most of the staples.   He was not going to tighten the one section of fence but I found where a splice was and proceeded and he helped me get that sorted and done.   Now that paddock fence should keep the horses in.  And since neighbor A helped dad fix the pasture fence a few weeks ago its not like we have to panic that horses will go through the pasture fence and be on the road if they do get out into the pasture overnight, but I still want to limit their grass and introduce it gradually.

Lady seems to be doing pretty well.  I will have vet look at her when he does vaccinations but I think she will be fine for D and her kids to ride this summer.  I am a bit nervous about vaccinating on Tuesday and planning to enter a ride on Saturday but it should be OK.  Tanza has not had reactions to the shots that I have noticed.

Wed I have to take my car in for servicing by 10 am and the boss has scheduled for me to join meeting to discuss how to work on next set of CWPD.  Well at least I was coming in early anyway but I don't know why I have to be in that meeting.  I was not wrestling with that group's data two years ago so I have no back knowledge.   Perhaps they want D to hand more of that work to me because they need him to get something else done,  who knows with the stupid chaotic management.

Group boss wanted me to give him raw data not plots for stats on Tuesday evening.  I did this but we run stats on two parameters and I ran the stats #s for the old parameter that *I* think of for stats and not for the newer parameter.  Then he didn't recognize that the numbers were normal for that old parameter and just tell me "I wanted the new parameter" but emailed me asking didn't I think the values were too small.   Finally he sent me a plot with "isn't this the normal?"  late Wed evening.   I hadn't registered myself that the raw #s didn't show in the header what parameter the stats are for but only the height level, mean, RMS and # of obs used.     Luckily since I still had all the tabs up I was able to generate what he wanted pretty quickly but I was not thrilled that he isn't familiar enough with both stats plots to have recognized "oh these are the old parameter and just asked me right away to generate the stats #s for the newer parameter instead of having to have the back and forth and me not get the info I needed to know what he wanted until so late.

Tomorrow and Sunday are the charity ride I like to do and then next weekend I am off to my first competition of the year.  I feel so ill prepared but I keep reminding myself that Tanza is a rock star and I will muddle through.  Its not like the course is horribly steep or long.  I loved it last year for a first ride of the season.

Well made it through the work week from hell, (mostly, my day is not done yet)

But I am soooo over my boss and even over the group unofficial leader right now.   I know she and the designated helper on being the conduit to N have been busy and having to concentrate with the new tasks but how exactly does she expect things to work after actual launch if she and H are the only ones who know the process?  They can't cover 8 intensive days in a row with just two people IMO, plus, I *know* the eventual plan is that whomever is on 'ops' would handle forwarding payload requests and things.    But they don't want to deviate from the plan and/or take a little time to explain the process for me to be able to do any of those tasks so whatever.  Its not like I have not been busy and stressing, what with the bosses pet project clocks failing.

I did manage to fix one fragility issue with the clocks in spite of how hard it is to figure out his system so wooHoo.

I have to be more zen.  I like this paycheck, I don't want to jump to a new job with limited PTO and flexibility of hours when I have a great horse NOW.  Plus I do feel like I provide some useful help to the team in keeping things going and I want the mission to work at least a year or two so S, J, etc get data for their science.  Especially S who spent a huge amount of time proving we meet some stupid requirements that the dumb ass bosses wrote up without doing homework on did we need to be that accurate in this or that particular and how hard will it be to show we meet this goal.

But speaking of dumb ass managers.   Top guy will only listen to other scientists and our group manager just refuses to comprehend that he doesn't know that much about software engineering, and will NOT support the software folks asking for more help to be hired; to look at how we could migrate to a more modern system etc etc.    And both bosses have been told that the group needs a daily operations manager since group manager is traveling all the time, trying to find new projects for us to do.  Well yay for funding but we have two BIG *contracts*  where the management (not us lowly ops team members) signed on the dotted line that we will be an operations center vs just doing research level processing on a best efforts basis.   And they have just stuck those requests for a daily ops manager in a rhetorical drawer,  and not taken step 1 to either promote the unofficial leader to being a manager nor to bring in a specialist in program/software team management.  SMH.  I must remember,  I want to help things succeed not for those two cads but for S, and J etc.

I have the top layer of the deck mom had made from recycled wood from old shed removed.  I think dad is kind of like "why are you ripping out what mom built?"  but he knows the thing had rotted out.  I'm actually feeling a bit of "aww its a shame, mom spent so much time on this"  myself but I cannot go back in time and nag dad to apply water seal and do any other maintenance or make time to do it myself and having a deck with sections rotted out where the boards literally would break when stepped on was a liability hazard even if it was just a ground level deck only 6-8 inches off the ground vs a 2nd floor deck like at sis' house.

I cannot really keep up with maintaining the place.  I should bite the bullet and try to find someone who would do some house cleaning and light yard work in exchange for a bedroom or two.  The news channels are nattering often about how hard it is for folks to afford to live in the general area.  I just hate the thought of trying to find someone willing to put up with us old rednecks plus do some actual work.   I suspect it would take quite a bit of sorting to find someone.  And I suppose at some level I feel like "why should I even have to bother,   *I* don't need the place to bring top dollar when dad passes away for my retirement,  I'm only worried about it for the sake of the sibs.

At least I feel less like crying

Was feeling very weepy this morning.  I tried to take some load off our Software Engineer, web expert yesterday and it wasn't a full disaster, but was not completely smooth and appreciated either.  Yesterday I spent most of the day wrestling with issues caused by code developed by the boss who fancy's hisself a professional code developer.   The actual code is not bad AFAICT which isn't very far, but boss has scientist mindset of not sharing work until publication/copyright is in place and that doesn't work with code.  Especially when he has to spend a huge percentage of his time in travel and meetings with the funding agencies.   Some of yesterdays issues were because of my dumb "aaagh fix this move" early in the morning that I forgot to undo, rest was boss, cuz he had changed file naming format and that change got pushed to the production machine yesterday when he was trying to quick fix things but I did realize that to make the needed change on my script that fetches his product and renames it.   Its so hard to work with his code because he won't tell me what is doing what so I can look into anything and he writes in object oriented code style so the main code that I CAN find is just a few lines of "call this input routine that you don't need to know where it lives"  now call this piece that will call other objects.   I hates it, I does.  

We have a few really GOOD people on the team - if I thought the boss(es) were doing everything possible to try to make work life easy for the good people and had contingency plans for filling in and replacing them if/when they do jump to greener pastures I'd feel confident.   But no,  I feel like the bosses are blowing off the best people.  We are not implementing things developed by the scientists,  boss who likes to code does not follow the protocols which makes the sys admin frustrated and I doubt they will even do the paperwork to promote him to be making some outreach of "hey we understand your value and would like to keep you for a year or 2 past you getting your degree" 

Fairly productive weekend

The sour note is I was grumpier than an old bear with dad on Saturday when he asked if I wanted to fix fence that afternoon.   Blew up and shouted that no, I wanted him to take neighbor A up on A's offer to help with the fence cuz I was tired after putting hay mulch on grass I seeded last weekend, wanted to ride and then was going to burn brush pile later.    I did have a decent ride on Tanza, I am so blessed that god send this horse into my life.   Also burned one brush pile and roasted my hot dogs, barely (I did not rig or borrow proper camp fire toasting forks and the long grill fork is not long enough for an open brush pile fire.)    Washed on load of laundry.

Sunday I rode Sadie,   raked up weeds in the garden and got them burned,  raked some of the stomped and pissed on hay away from the feeders in the big horse pen.  (darn horses not just eating all their hay, but I have been giving that group the stalkier bales cuz they are plenty fat.)   Fixed some fence with dad so the project would not be so big for him and A on Tuesday.  Also did 2 more loads of laundry, cooked spaghetti and ran the Bissel over mom's chairs that I took out of the shed.  I decided I'm just using these, cuz with bed bugs and flea concerns I don't think folks will buy 2nd hand soft upholstered furniture if the thrift stores even take it.   Plus we deserve nicer chairs upstairs.   I'm throwing away one old ugly yellow chair that the arm broke off.    I had to leave my 2nd brush pile,  the wind kept gusting all day on Sunday.

I also got my grass watered both days and this morning and burned the barrel contents from burn barrel that neighbor P loaned us.   I *will* get rid of some of the bushy weeds, cardboard and small branches around here.  I'll also get another burn permit  so I can get rid of the big pile of thicker branches.   And the velcro strap to hold the saddle pad from slipping forward when riding Tanza is working great.   I was feeling bad about forgetting to do it over the winter but at least the pad did its working forward thing on just a short ride at home and I got it fixed now before doing 25-50 mile ride with the issue.

dagnabit I don't want to switch jobs/careers

But I feel like the idiot bosses are trending hard towards failure.  Smart folks on the team are making plans to leave before the metaphorical ship sinking and bosses are full heads in the sand vs even making an effort to try to retain core people by promoting them to be at least a little more competitive with the regional job marketplace.   I want to bail out of this state since its veering into commie shithole as fast as it can and I had hoped to be able to maybe just retire somewhat early and move to WY after my position or this whole project peters out (thinking that would probably be 5-6 years down the road; maybe moving and working part time after 2-4 years.   But if the effing bosses are going to crater in fast and completely kill the project in 1.5 to 2 years it might be dumb for me to not explore some kind of business or put out resumes now.

Workday blahs.

Ugh, I did something rather dumb at work last night last thing.   Things are set up such that the change did not go through and I realized and emailed "oops, maybe not" to the sys admin email alias right after so no biggie.  And sys admin that talked to me was nice about it but I still feel scolded and like "do I dare do ANYTHING today"

Plus tired and feeling a bit discouraged about home improvements.  I did a bunch of work this weekend, but none of the projects is completed so feels like not getting anywhere.  That is not correct, progress is being made, but such is human psychology.  I know this,  its why Dave Ramsey always tells people to list their debts smallest to largest and attack the littlest one first while making minimum payments on the rest.  Getting that psychological traction of "bill Z is gone,  now bill X is gone, etc is something most folks need to keep going, especially in the early days when its hard to adjust to a different way of doing things.

On the good side.  I sewed a D ring on the back of my saddle pad; tying it to the crupper ring at the back of the saddle does work to keep the pad from working forward.  I tried just using cinch cover at front of pad and that felt like just the right amount of extra, so I can sew shims to the front of the saddle and that should get the fit tweaked.    And I did get a ride on Tanza on Sunday, so did not sacrifice riding completely to chasing all the farm/home improvements.  

I rode yesterday morning and again this morning

So a bit of hope for getting back into a routine of riding 1-3 mornings a week before going to work.  But both days I was really late getting to work and have been dragging quite a bit at work so I have got to get that fixed.   I am hopefully past the jigsaw habit.  I actually pulled a couple up and went, nah this is not that fun in the last week.

I wanted to spread at least some of my grass and clover seed last weekend and I could not find the damn little broadcast spreader thing mom had bought.  I know I've seen it multiple times looking for other things over the last couple of years.  Argghhh I hate when this happens to me.  It's a big motivator for even doing the de-cluttering efforts.  "remove junk so I can find useable stuff when I am looking for it"   Oh well I guess I'll web search for makeshift seed spreaders.

I've been thinking for two months "sheesh I need to get a burn permit.  Finally pulled up the website yesterday and no burning Nov to March 31 anyway so I lost no time with that.   The bad news is I can't burn this weekend.   I may try to burn in the morning on Monday.  I really want to get rid of a bunch of cardboard and paper sacks etc in the garden shed and the feed room.

I found out DSW shoe shop in Westminster will take donated shoes so I can try to get a bunch of mom's shoes cleaned up and take them in there.

Harumphy hump day

Ok its just a typical crabby day for me.   I'm behind on doing my taxes and have to call the #*#& IRA outfit to get some tax form because I mis-typed my password or maybe didn't have the latest one written down.  Argghh,  I should not have to mess with top security to get a stupid statement for taxes.   I shouldn't have any but last year I screwed up and put $40 too much into 2017 catch up fund when I thought an email to have some money put in had disappeared.  I took $40 out  1 or 2 days later when I realized what happened but I suppose the damn market picked that 1-2 period to go up.  What a PITA this trying to be extra responsible for retirement has been.

Because I'm annoyed at myself for not taking care of this already plus not taking care of faxing form to stupid oil company to direct deposit those dabs (hanging fire for weeks now)  I'm projecting onto the world and annoyed at work whenever I ask about something and the responsible person comes with "I dunno, I think so&so that left did that"m  or some other lame ass deflection, and I'm annoyed at home because dad is creaky, old, and seems to sleep an awful lot.   Maybe I should nag him about his diet, but if he won't change how he eats when his doctor tells him I don't think he's going to take dietician advice from his kid.  And I don't know what I'd tell him.  I don't want to try to come up with paleo/keto/Atkins meals and snacks for him to eat.  *IF* he was asking me to make it easier for him I'd have him try the "Carbohydrate Addicts" plan (you can have whatever sugary or flour filled goodness you want, but only during 1 hour a day and rest of day eat only low carb things.  or just do the IF like I do; my *fasts* are 16-18 hours M-F and I take weekends off.  I need to cut back on the stuffing my face on weekends.  If I did that, maybe I'd look like a better role model, but dad would still probably stuff his face with candy throughout the day.

I got myself on a computer app jigsaw kick and am having to break that habit because it was cutting into work time plus mousing the pieces around gets hard on my neck/shoulders/forearms.   I have been having to fight the urge now on day 2 after telling myself I have to just stop cold turkey since the # of puzzles I wanted to do ramped up.  I don't even know why doing them seems so mentally soothing.  I suppose any task that takes just a bit of attention w/o requiring serious thought fills that role; its just too bad that I start thinking I need that soothing more and more frequently.  Just doing work stuff should suffice but there is a huge tension at work with new boss wanting everything python and super object oriented and I can barely understand anything he has written because his OO style makes things so obscure.  

I rode Tanza again on Sunday.   He is funny sometimes.   The one place we go that only has a single track trail had snow over the trail and icky gopher dug soft spots off the trail where the snow had melted so I asked him to go through the snow where the trail was.   He was pretty good about doing that but then on the way home he got silly about any spots where snow drifts came within a foot of where we were walking on the road.   I call it the arabian horse ghost stories effect.   When its just routine, like coming the last 1/2 mile home and being asked to just walk and cool down a bit they start telling themselves ghost stories and jumping at every shadow.

Got some vitamin H yesterday

The weather was kind and it stayed sunny and not windy past noon so I was able to enjoy a pleasant ride on Tanzaknight yesterday.  Did my soul a lot of good.  I am still feeling a bit overwhelmed with all the "I should get this done" tasks but most of them are not urgent.   I also got Diamond's front feet trimmed up.  I had trimmed his hinds a week and a half ago.  I did one front foot on Mojo and need to get him finished up.   Frosty's feet don't look as bad but I should try to get him done within 2 weeks.

March madness

I don't follow basketball either college or NBA.  But March madness sounds better than grumpy grinchy bitch session.   It was cold for quite a while so just filled water troughs, no dumping them.  Its plenty warm this weekend and I could have dumped the minis tank earlier but figured it is so warm it would matter that the heater element is in air cuz it wont need plugged in tonight.   So DAD decided to be helpful and top it off when he fed them tonight but without bothering to dump it.  

I know he is old and and hobbling, but I am so annoyed that he didn't use his head and just leave it till I dumped it tomorrow.   Crazy level of frustration for something that is not all that big of a deal.  I suppose I'm bummed because I wasn't smart enough to change my plans and ride early today while it was nice and it is not going to be as warm tomorrow vs being nicer tomorrow like was forecast.  And just generally feeling grump about realities of living with a 79 year old redneck, even though I take some pride in my own redneck style. 

Holy high shipping costs, Batman

On the good side  I am down 4 unused saddles.  I threw one away last year after deciding I didn't want to risk the thing ever ending up on a horse.  I made one into a novelty chair.  I sold the Stuben at convention last year and I got tired of looking at it and put mom's AP Wintec on Ebay last week and it sold.   I had set a shipping cost of $40 for it.  Actual cost at UPS was $69.   Gulp.   But its not about making money, I won't be in the hole even after ebay takes its sky high cut which they include shipping in what they take.   So its all good.  Better  I get a just a few bucks for the saddle but it gets used by someone who wants it, then for it to sit in the tack shed for years again and then be something I have to deal with whenever I finally get to move out of state and leave this commie infested place behind.    I'm just hoping the commies don't crash the economy too quickly and I'll be able to sell dad's place w/o too much pain.  I have resigned myself to not moving while he is healthy enough to live at home,  he loves the neighbors and easy shopping and stuff.  And we do have great neighbors, but the state is veering towards socialism at a scary rate.

Saturday is our regional endurance convention.  Hopefully it gets me all fired up to get back in the saddle on a regular basis.   I've got an awesome horse, fuel prices are quite reasonable and I'm still employed at a nice salary so I need to be enjoying those blessings.

Alphabet news' favorite way to lie

They don't want to directly lie.  There may be potential libel issues with that, plus they want to keep their micro-thin veneer of being objective when they are really the propaganda arm for the socialists.   So when they want to spread a lie they quote someone telling the lie and just don't offer any counter opinion.

Recent example.  Nancy Pelosi saying that if the Dems 'give in' and fund 200 miles of border wall  at 0.15% of the federal budget Trump could shut the government down any time to get his way.  Pelosi may be so old and demented she no longer remembers that this partial shutdown can only happen by the president refusing to sign an appropriations bill that does not fund a common sense border security addition.  Once the bill is passed government can not be shut down until all those appropriated funds are spent.  Now Nancy may be too addled to know this anymore but surely some producer in the local news rooms knows this.   But they think this lie advances their socialist cause so they don't air anyone explaining basic civics, just Nancy's silly lie.

I will not interfere with the online panhandler.

I will not participate but just as with a street theatre panhandler there is no need for me to interfere with the performance.   Those who donate are getting warm fuzzy feelings out of it and there is no need for me to interfere with that just because I get a vibe of "this is quite a cushy living, just shaking my cup online and otherwise gabbing with my fingers"   It is perfectly fine for me to simply choose not to jump into the game.

And on a related note:  I will get myself over feeling guilty about not giving my bro and SiL money and stop projecting "she was manipulating me, she is trying to be a pampered princess on my bro's middle class salary yada yada" to counteract my guilt emotions.   I ended up feeling manipulated in October and I have my own potential budget crunch and need to beef up my emergency fund plus get a vehicle repair/replace fund built.

I have also listened to enough Dave Ramsey to know that people have to control their spending to get out of paycheck to paycheck mode, otherwise the spending just outpaces any increases in income.   So I'm not going to try to supplement their income any more.  If they ask I will offer to pay for a FPU enrollment instead.   But they know the Ramsey name from me sending his money makeover book to her son and son's gf who "were going to get married but don't have money yet"  Well I DGAF if they marry or not.  They probably are better with not until they grow up and get themselves jobs or start a business walking dogs or whatever.  Working part time retail is not a good life long plan.  But IMO thinking they'll just be heirs is even worse and those adult kids need to be told "work part-time and get training for what you want to do as a career"  but none of those 4 is asking me for life advice so I won't shove it in their faces unless they ask me for money.

I just need to log in to my RA again and adjust beneficiaries.  If I 'get hit by a bus' I don't want my final thoughts to be "oh shit,  son and GF are going to indirectly get my retirement money cuz SiL will give it to them and bro will go along with it."

Winter blahs

I always get them, more a feeling of not wanting to do a bunch of riding than serious blues the last few years. And I always struggle a bit with "what is wrong with me not seizing the day and riding when we get nice warm days in winter?"   But since my riding desire comes back with increasing sun I don't worry as much as I used to.   I am trying to force myself to do more pecking away with de-cluttering efforts.   It is harder this year than last because I already got rid of most of the easy obvious stuff.  But I have made a bit more progress and I just need to keep making it at least a weekly goal.

I have whiffed on having difficult conversation with brother that he and SiL need to go to FPU or something rather than asking me for dough.  With the government shutdown I may face a budget shortfall myself this year.   I am undecided whether I should try to make a big de-cluttering, spring cleaning, yard improvements push if we end up on furlough/forced PTO or try to get a temporary job.
 If I had a crystal ball to know how long we will be in this place it would be easier.  With working full time I take the same tack as cooking.  "Only cook stuff I like to eat and dad can eat that or fall back on his usual pre-packaged stuff"   so with the home improvements and cleaning similarly.  "Only do things that will make my life easier by making it easier to find stuff or I'll enjoy the results of this project"  Part of me would like to sell the place and move to WY soon, but it is handy to be able to commute to work to have social interactions and be away from house and I cannot see dad deciding to move and give up the neighbors he loves and the handy very short drive to run in and shop or see docs etc just to make sure he doesn't lose equity value in the house.