I go backpacking. Most of you know that. I am on a mission to hike the length of the Appalachian Trail, one section at time.

The section we had picked for this weekend ran 35 mile from Swatara State Park to the tiny town of Port Clinton, in Pennsylvania.

I walked with 2 friends from from work; our Network Analyst, who sports the trail name, WAN-Man; and a technician, we call her the Uber-bot.

We took off work on Friday, so we could make a three-day weekend of it. It was fun, even though we are allowed to take off work it had the feel of playing hooky.

We got on the trail around noon. The walk started very uninspired. The trail went along a small road, and then up and under Interstate 81. But then it went in to the woods. Once I within the thick summer canopy again, I immediately felt like I had some returned, even though I had never been on this section before. I didn’t have much time to start waxing poetic about it before the trail began to ascend steeply up Blue Mountain.

It was hot and humid. And we were drenched with sweat as we climbed. We reached the top and followed the trail along the rigdeline. The trail was overgrown and the underbrush rubbed against our legs as we walked. After a while I noticed that a lot of that underbrush had three leaves. Poison Ivy. The only saving grace was that I sweating so much that I could hope that the sweat running down my leg would wash off any of the poison that may have rubbed against my leg.

For the most part it was decent trail and we made good time. We covered the first 8 miles or so before the trail turned extremely rocky. It was slow going, trudging through the rocks, especially since I knew that I was close to the shelter and I was ready to be done.

Eventually, we crossed Pennsylvania Route 501 and not long after that we came to the 501 Shelter. I had been told that the 501 shelter was great. But I was immediately unimpressed by it. It wasn’t a shelter in the traditional sense. It was more like a bunkhouse. It had four walls and doors. A huge sunroof. 12 Bunks. and a large table in the middle. On the table was a pizza box. Apparently they delivery to the ’shelter.’ Outside there was running water and even a primitive shower set up.

It went against a lot of what I am looking for when I go backpacking, namely to get away from it all. I considered pitching tent, but rumor had that violent thunderstorms were called for. We unpacked and claimed bunks. We went outside to cook, the stench of the eight hikers staying there was a bit strong.

We ate and sat around and talked until the bugs drove us indoors. I wrote in my journal for a while and then went to bed. I fell asleep quickly. II woke in the middle of the night to hear driving rain on the roof and thunder. This wasn’t my ideal shelter, but on this night I was glad of it.

Continued.

Just when I thought that I would be able to start feeling like myself, I woke up with gunk oozing out of my eye.

Conjunctivitis. Great. Also my nose is running like a facet.

I don’t know why I bother getting out of bed.

My wife got an iPod Nano in the mail today. This is odd, because she didn’t order one. It seems she filled out some sweepstakes at the grocery store and she won. Go figure. I helped her set it up and gave her a couple hundred songs to play with.

I am going to crawl in to bed and hope that it doesn’t get any worse tomorrow.

I’ve had a whole day to recover, but I’m still useless. We’ll just blame this stuffiness in my head.

I coasted through work today. Asshole tried talk to me again. I put on my iPod. He kept talking. Some people are very dense.

I was hoping to air out my tent in the sun yesterday. Of course, the sun doesn’t seem to shine anymore. If I waited for the sun I’d have nothing but mildew for a tent.

What is that?

It is a tent in my kitchen, of course.

Luckily, no one around here likes to cook anyway.

I solved a mystery, I’ve been working on for a while. It feels good. (Don’t ask… it doesn’t make any sense… I promise.)

I found a new comic book. It has been out for a few months, but I’m a bit slow. Batman and Robin, the Boy Wonder. I was thinking that I should pick up a Batman title, and when I saw that Frank Miller was back to writing Batman, my decision was made. I’ve read Issue 1, I loved it. Some people have panned it for being ‘over the top’ in both dialogs and artwork. Well Duh. It’s Batman. I loved it. I need to find #2, my comic book store can’t seem to lay hands on it, and I’m not quite willing to pay 10 backs for it on eBay (once you figure in the shipping.) Who knows, maybe I’ll have a weak moment.

I am trying to write the account of my hike last weekend, but my brain dead-ness is hampering the effort, I apologize for any inconvenience.

Now it’s off to sleep.

I went backpacking this weekend. I’ll write about it in detail later.

What I will tell you now is that it is official: I am out of shape.

I’ve sort of known it. I’ve put on a few pounds over the last couple months. I haven’t been going to the gym. I’ve slacked.

But this weekend I got the proof. I set out to conquer the trail, but the trail conquered me. I was slow. I sucked. My two companions walk ahead while I trudged slowly behind. Sometimes I just stopped and stared at the trail hoping it would get easier. It did not. There were a few times where I was ready to just sit down and stop. I did not.

I should be at work today, but I called out. I’m whipped. My ankles and knees are battered. I am bruised. And my feet are sporting many shiny new blisters.

Besides that I feel good.

While I was trudging along, I had an epiphany. My project, the one with the PHP, is still very awkward in the way it is coded. Standing there, in the drizzle amongst the rocks, it occurred to me a better way to structure it. That is what I will be working on today. Probably.

This weekend was a wake up call. I need to stop pigging out. I need to go to the gym and do something. And if my knees bother me too much to run, I need to walk. I need to. I don’t like being chubby, but I guess that wasn’t enough motivation. But I cannot tolerate being so whipped on the trail.

It’s not just the trail, I’ve been exhausted all the time recently. It seems like I come home from work manage to throw together a dinner for me and the kids and then I pass out on the couch. This is not how I want to feel or be.

More on the hike later… with pictures.

I’m blogging at work again. I am a bad employee. Of course, we are playing the name that tune game on my iPod right now, so why not blog.

Shutter really sucks at name that tune.

Tonight, I need to pack for my three day backpacking trip, then do the stupid radio show. Any packing that does not get done before the show, will happen afterwards. I probably won’t get much sleep.

Sleep is overrated.

OK. I’m home now. I goofed off long enough that my work day week is finally over.

This week started like shit, and really it didn’t end any better. Maybe the heat is getting to people. I know that I’m not happy about having to work with this douche that screamed at me. He keeps trying to nice up to me. Fuck that. I am a patient person (really… I am) and I’m a pretty nice person. This moron is getting top pay because he’s been there forever and they don’t know what else to do with him, so they promote up and out of the way. What do I care, that’s not my problem.

It wasn’t. Then he screamed at me. Now every time he starts with the, Jeckles, I’m not sure what this error means. Jeckles, why isn’t this working. Jeckles, how can they expect us to do this without step by step documentation written at a level a simple child could read.

I want to scream at him:

Dude. You have a College Degree. You are a fucking Level III Engineer (compared to my measly Level II Technician.) Dude you make 30% more than I do. Figure it out. That’s we do. We figure it out.

I’m done with that guy. You don’t scream at me like that and then expect me to just forget that it happened,

I’m sick of other people too. Little people. Not Midgets. Small minded assholes, who think that they know oh-so-much about the world. They know what is right and what is wrong. And have no problem telling me all about it. And when I make it clear I don’t want to hear it. Then I’m the asshole.

I need to go pack. I’ll be on the stupid Radio show at nine. Tune in if you want.

Work sucks. But at least no one has yelled at me today.
I am supposed to set up some computers. They are moving them from somewhere else. And they keep not getting them moved. So I wait.

And wait.

I think I need to go backpacking. Conveniently, I’m going this Friday.

If I make it that long.
I just don’t think that I am cut out for working.

I did mange to teach myself some PHP in my spare time. I have figured out database calls and incorporated SQL statements in to the code. I also figured out encryption and authentication.

Now I just need to decide if I want to bother to set up classes (Object Oriented PHP) or just leave the code all spaghetti-like. It’s not like I’m being graded on this. But I do want it done right. Me and my stupid projects.

With any luck I’ll get this site up and running by the end of the month. What site, you ask. That is a secret. A surprise even. If I ever get it fnished… I’ll tell you about it. Probably.

I guess I’ll go back to waiting now.

I got up this morning. Time to go back to work.

No big deal, right? This is our slow time. If anything major had happenned, Shutter would have told me about it.

So I got my act together and headed to work. I even managed to get there a few minutes early, as opposed to the 20 minutes late I usually manage.

I got my coffee and sat down to check a week’s worth of email.

“Hey Jeckles.”
“Hey”

“Man, its a pain to set up this manger account for the new user.”
“The new user doesn’t have access to that.”

The new user also happens to be his son.

“YES HE DOES! ALL HELPDESK PEOPLE GET ACCESS TO THE SERVERS AT ALL OF THE SITES.”
“Are you talking about the Manger account or just admin rights.
“ADMIN RIGHTS, THAT’S WHAT I MEANT.”
“OK, calm down. I thought you meant the Manager account.”
“YOU’RE AN ASSHOLE! WHY DO YOU HAVE TO BE A SUCH A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”
“Look, calm…”
“NO! YOU DO NOTHING BUT GIVE EVERYONE SHIT! YOU’RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE!”

I went and got more coffee. I didn’t expect it to be agreat day. But I didn’t think it would go to hell by 8:15.

It’s great to be back.

So we got back from vacation.

We got up this morning and started to clean up and put away all of our vacation stuff. And to clean up the disaster we had created in the packing process. I spent a good chunk of the morning cleaning and then decided I had earned a break.

I sat down at the Super Computer and checked my email.

The first one I opened said:

I forgot to tell you
Happy Father’s Day! :)

We forgot about that completely. Our schedules are so off from the traveling that we missed it completely.

And I cannot believe I spent the first part of my Father’s Day cleaning the kitchen.

Don’t fear, there will be a large steak dinner to make up for it.

So there was a Tropical Storm. But it kindly went north and bothered some one else. And I got on with my vacation.

We spent the day Tuesday at the Lowry Zoo in Tampa. We saw Tigers, Orangutans, Rhinos, and manatees. And a bunch of other animals. I, of course, took about a thousand pictures. The sky threatened to rain on us a couple of times but it never actually did. We grabbed subs for dinner and then headed to the beach to the sunset. The wind was blowing fiercely. And the surf was incredible. The kids had fun running into the waves. I took pictures of one of the prettiest sunsets I’ve seen. Not a bad day.

Wednesday, we ended up going to the beach. It wasn’t exactly sunny, but it was warm enough. We body surfed on the waves, still larger than usual thanks to my friend Alberto; built sand castles and looked for shells. We went out for dinner at nice little restaurant and called it a day.

Today we took a ferry to Egmont Key. You can’t get there, except by boat. The U.S. built Fort Dade there in preparation for the Spanish-American war. The ruins are still there. The whole place is quite breath taking. There are no concession stands, no tours, no gift shops. You just walk around this island that is filled with palm trees, tortoises, cacti and lizards. You’ll be walking through the sand between palm trees, when you catch a glimpse of a ruin of the perfect beaches. It was absolutely incredible. And to make it just perfect, if very hot, the sun was out and the skies were blue.

Tomorrow we head home. We will probably go visit the bird sanctuary before we leave. And I think we will take our time and take 2 days to get home.

I leave you with this picture of Egmont Key.

Alberto is a tropical storm. He organized himself over night and has had sustained wind speeds of 70 mph or so. I believe that it is quite likely that he will be promoted to a Hurricane before he makes landfall tomorrow.

I won’t go so far as to say that this is ruining my vacation, but gusting winds and driving rain is not what I had in mind when we planned this trip.

Usually when we go on vacation we do something low-key and inexpensive. We go camping or we go to my parents second house on the lake. And we have fun. This year we decided to do something a little more exciting. To take a real vacation. I guess I don’t have to spell this out, this is what chose to do. And we have invested much more in to this trip than we usually do.

I can’t help but be furious about this storm. I hate not knowing if the kids will even have a chance to go swimming in the Gulf or if we will be able to go to some of the cool places I really wanted to take everyone to, most of these place are going to be difficult to manage in rain and gusting winds.

Having said all that, I’m not about to just give up. We searched for some indoor things to do. And we wanted to find things that were unique to here, not just cop out and go to a movie that we could see at home. I found a few places and we checked two of them out today.

First we headed over to the Clearwater Aquarium. To call it an aquarium is probably over stating the place. Which is why I chose it. One of (if not) the best aquariums in the country is in Baltimore, so I guess I get a little snobby about going and paying to go in an inferior one some place else. This place was more of a marine animal rescue. I like animal rescues. They do good work, and I don’t mind paying a little money to get into a place that does that kind of work.
I also like that the people that work at these places care passionately about what they do. They had a few dolphins there. Also some sea turtles, sting rays, otters and some other assorted fishes. The kids got to ‘pet’ the sting rays, and we got to see the dolphins get fed and trained by the volunteers. We able to get very close and learn a lot about the animals. And of course, I took a boatload of pictures.

In the afternoon, we drove down to St. Petersburg and checked out the Dali Museum. I was impressed with it. It was a very large collection. And the tour guide was awesome. I am familiar with Dali, or at least I thought I was. I learned a lot. It was great.

And now, I’ll just have to play the wait and see game for tomorrow.

A tropical storm. The first of the season. They named it Alberto. And its heading right for me. Well, they say it will hit north of here, but I’m looking at the satellite and radar pictures; and it look like it headed in this direction to me.

But hey, 40-50 mile an hour sustained winds are nothing. I’m not scared. I’ll probably go and try to get some pictures. (OK I won’t go far, but I will try for pictures.)

What sucks is we didn’t really plan for rain. Most of our plans (swimming, going to the beach, going to a wildlife reserve, going to a bird sanctuary, and going to Bush Gardens) just won’t cut it in driving rain with lots of wind. We will not be deterred, however. Tomorrow, assuming that they are right and this thing hits north of here, we will go to an Aquarium and to the Dali Museum in St. Petersburg. Interesting places that conveniently have a roof. And if all else fails, we can always go to a movie. I hear X3 is good.

I took some pictures around sunset down at Indian Rocks Beach. Sunset itself was a flop, the cloud cover was too thick, but I got some cool shots of the surf. I’ll try to post one or two if I get a chance.

What kind of jerk goes on vacation to get away from it all, and as soon as he arrives, gets on the Internet to check his blog. Oh. That would be me.

We got up at 3:30 AM this morning, I poured some coffee down my throat and poured some more in a travel mug. We tossed the kids in the car and got on our way at around twenty past four.

Before I had driven 10 miles, as I was making a turn, my travel mug fell over and poured scalding hot coffee on to my leg. Spilling coffee is a terrible thing. The burns, the stained clothes and the embarrassment are bad enough; but the fact that you just lost all that coffee makes it almost unbearable.

I was able to drive into North Carolina before exhaustion got the best of me. I let Mrs. Geek take the wheel and moved into the back to watch a movie with my youngest son. I’m sure it was a great movie, but it looked a lot like the back of my eyelids.

I resumed my spot at the helm and pushed into South Carolina and then Georgia. These two states are great fun to drive through. Flat, straight interstate lined with trees. Not even many billboards to look at. Boring. Mrs Geek and I switched again and she finished out Georgia. I took over and drove the rest of the way. As we approached Tampa, a rain storm came out of nowhere, dumped so much rain that I could not see more than a few feet in front of me, and then cleared up again. All in a matter of minutes. I love Florida weather.

I really do. It is crazy hot down here, but I love it. Something about all this heat and humidity makes me feel alive. Of course, they are calling for rain the next few days, but I’m sure we can work around that.

We arrived here at a bit after nine, seventeen hours later than we started. Taking a way an hour for Dinner, we covered over a thousand miles in just under sixteen hours. It’s a lot for one day, but I’d rather get the chore of driving over with, and start enjoying my vacation as soon as possible. Speaking of which… I’ve got to go.

Two days till vacation. Twos days till vacation. Two days till vacation.

It’s not helping.

Why does everything have to be so frustrating. I guess its me. It must be.

I went to re-image a bunch of old computers. The image failed. The fucking hard drives were too small. So…
First thing tomorrow I’ll be re-imaging the same computers. Which is great, cause it was so much fun the first time.

< Broken record>

I hate people. And unfortunately that extends to Internet people too. Cause they are just real people. Except for teh ones in the chat rooms that want to show you theit webcams. They are not real. Sometiems it harder for me gage to tehinternet people. But in the long run the break donw is always the same: msot people suck, a few are pretty good.

Lousy odds if you aske me.

</beating a dead horse>

I’m busy as hell, with all my little projects. But it seems like I make remarkably little progress. I hate this.

And so You know. I’m not joking when I say I’m paranoid. I really am. It is so crippling some days.
You can go ahead and make fun of me now. (and no, I’m not trying to be ironic.)

I’ve been reading my old blog entries. And I’ve come to a number of conclusions.

I am a boring dude.
I whine alot.
I don’t really do anything.
I am boring dude.

My blog (This blog) will turn 2 years old soon. I’m thinking of putting decorations and baking a cake. Then no one will show up and I’ll eat my cake. It will be a very fitting way to celebrate this blog.

Two More Days. Just Two More.

I have a head ache.

Lack of sleep will do that to you.

I’m grumpy I want to lash out at people. Which sucks. I’m not upset at people, I’m upset at person. But lashing out at person will get me no where.

So I’m stuck.

Stay back.
I may lash.

Just so you all don’t think that I’m nothing but a bundle of sadness. Here is a post to say everything is alright.
Not bad, even. One might even venture that everything is Pretty Good.

I know, strange but true.

Yesterday I was very productive. I got some writing done, plus I was able to make some (but not nearly as much as I had hoped) progress on my super-secret new project.

At work I have been tasked with training the new guy. Which is fine by me. I’ve got someone to do the grunt work for me now. In all seriousness, I don’t mind training him. If I’m going to be working with him anyway, I might as well be training him to work the way I think he should.

Also, I got a 200 GB external Hard Drive and set it up yesterday. I now have all of my Photos and MP3’s stored on it. This will free up room for the thousands (I’m not joking) of pictures I intend to take while I am on vacation next week.

That’s it. Just wanted to share a decent Monday with you. You may now return to your daily grind now

I woke up, got up and started up my stove to heat some water for coffee.

I love coffee. For many trips, coffee was an issue for me. At first, I packed instant coffee. But instant coffee isn’t any better on the trail than it is at home. As a matter of fact it is worse. After all this walking, I can’t help but feel that I deserve a good cup of coffee. After that, I tried these little coffee packets that you dip in hot water like a tea bag. The flavor was better than instant, but it always tasted weak. Finally, I discovered a rugged coffee press designed for backpacking.

I put the coffee in the press and poured the hot water in. While that was brewing, I started to work on breakfast. I added some water to the dehydrated tomatoes, potatoes, and mushrooms. I mixed some water in with the powdered eggs. I push down the plunger on the coffee press and take a sip of hot freshly brewed coffee.

I throw the vegetables in a pan put them over the stove. Once the water is cooked out of them and the potatoes start smell good, I add the eggs. A few minutes later, I’m eating scrambled eggs.

After I was done eating, and I had cleaned up my pans, I started packing up my pack. I stopped for a moment to look at a map with Kurly. She was trying to figure out where her and Swanson would camp that night. As we were looking at the map, the young kid (whose name still escapes me) dropped his pack and jumped back, and flung a mouse to the floor of the shelter.

“Holy Shit. Fuck! It was in my pack! Fuck!”

We were all watching him now. He went to see what kind of damage the mouse had done to his pack. He jumped back again. He threw another small mouse from his pack. He started removing the contents from his pack. Once he removed the larger items, he turned the pack upside down and started shaking it. Another little mouse fell out. A few more shakes and a larger mouse with another small one clinging to it fell to the floor and scampered away.

My feelings about shelter mice are well documented. But this was taking it to another level. It looks like those mice had taken up residence in his backpack. He maintains that his pack was mouse free when he arrived. But I have a suspicion that he picked up those mice in another shelter and had carried them to this shelter. Those nasty little bastards moved into his pack and built a nest. While we standing there gaping at his pack, one of the the little ones tried to crawl back into his pack. It was at this point that I decided that from now on, I’d sleep in a tent.

People packed up and headed out. The thru-hiker Sourdough asked me if I could take a note and leave it at Matt’s Creek Shelter. He wanted to warn other north bound hikers that a bed and breakfast that was listed in the trails guides was no longer open. I told him I’d be happy to take the message and leave it in the shelter for other Hikers to see. Since Matt’s Creek Shelter was our destination for that night, it was no inconvenience at all.

The Kiteman put on his pack hit the trail. I told him that I would catch up with him soon. I sipped my coffee and looked at the map. For the day we had to climb 800feet. Then we would descend 2700 feet to the James River. From there would go two more miles to Matt’s Creek Shelter, 12 miles in all. The next day would bring a 3000 foot climb over another 12 Miles.

I put on my pack and started walking. The morning was foggy and humid. I found myself winded quickly. I couldn’t help thinking that it was going to be a long day. I caught up with the Kiteman at the top. We took a break and looked at the view. But there really wasn’t much to see. Most of the view was shrouded in fog.

We wandered at a leisurely pace, chatting and enjoying ourselves. After a bit, we passed a sign. It said that we had only walked 4 miles, and that we still had 8 miles to go. I picked up my pace and got serious about covering some trail. I had soon left the Kiteman behind me somewhere and was walking alone again. Just as I thought I had found a good walking pace, the trail started descending steeply.

At some point a day or two earlier I had stumbled while walk. In the process, I must have bruised my ankle. I didn’t really notice it much, until I started walking downhill. Now every step pushed my boot into the bruise. At first it hurt, this grew to a nice throb, until I was stopping every few steps to relieve the pain some. I tightened the laces on my boot to try to help. I walked a few yards, then decided to loosen the laces. Nothing was helping. As I walked I began to get very angry. A very irrational angry. I was not having fun. Soon I was thinking strange thoughts like, at least tomorrow is all uphill.

Down the mountain I walked. I seemed to go down forever. I was sure that I must be getting close to the bottom. I came around the bend and Saw a nice overlook. I walked out on to the rock and looked out and saw a beautiful panorama of the James River stretching below me. Way below me. I was only halfway down the mountain! I dug in my pack and came up with some Advil. I sat and stewed and snacked.

Before long, the Kiteman showed up. If I was angry, he was livid. He tossed down his pack, looked over the edge and said, “We have to go all the way down there?”
“Yep.” I replied.
“Fuck.”
“Yep.”
He noticed that I had taken of my boot, “Ankle bothering you?”
“Only, a lot.”
“Dude, I don’t know if I can walk another 26 miles after today.”
“Not knowing isn’t good.” I pulled out the map and showed him the wilderness we would be walking in to.
“Holy shit!”
“If we keep going there is no good bail out point for 22 miles or so.”
“Shit.”
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t want to ruin your trip… but I’m not sure how much more I have left in the tank.”
I thought about the throbbing pain in my ankle and said,”I’d rather bail at the James River today, than have to carry your pack for your tomorrow cause you pushed too far.”
“Let’s bail.”
“Let me see if I can get a signal.”

I took out my cell phone and managed to get a weak signal. I called Mrs. Jeckles and she volunteered to drop everything and head down to meet us. I told her that we would be at the James River by no later that 5. She would have trouble getting there before 7, so we would wait for her there.

I think we both felt better, knowing that the end was in sight.

He said, “Dude, I’m sorry I’m such dead weight, I’m just not in good enough shape for this shit.”
“Dude you did fine, we’ve come over 40 miles. And you just earned yourself a new trail name.”
“I did?”
“Yeah. Dead Weight.”
“I can live with that.”

We packed back up and started walking. We hadn’t gone too far when the sun came out for the first time since Saturday. The descent became less steep and the Advil must have done some good, because I could walk with out stopping every few steps now.

We spent the rest of day walking down this mountain. We arrived at the James River around 4.

I now had a dilemma. I had promised to deliver that note for Sourdough. I left my pack with Dead Weight and slack packed the 2 miles up Matt’s Creek Shelter. I dropped off his note. and then headed back. With that extra excursion, I had walked 16 miles. And my ankle was throbbing again. I made it back to the James River at just a little past 5.

We sat by the James river for a few hours, snacking, chatting and joking. At just about 7 Mrs Jeckles pulled up and drove us back to the real world.

Another crappy week is almost over.

What is it about a 4 days week that is so hard to take.
I hate days at work like today. I wasn’t motivated to take care of anything. I did the bare minimum. What A Waste.

At least I have a job where I can get away with that.

I have some decisions to make. I’m not thrilled with how some of my online nonsense is going. I need to decide what I’m going to do. What I will continue with and what I’ll let slip by the wayside. I had a project I was working on. My ‘next big thing.’ But my last big thing, has done a lot to convince me that maybe I don’t really want to commit myself to another thankless chore.

I get enough of that in the real world.

Now is no time to make these decisions. I’ll do that with in a calm and relaxed state of mind. Thursday nights haven’t been calm or relaxed for me in some time.

Also.

I know I’ve been a grumpy son of a bitch lately. Sorry about that. I appreciate your patience.

So much I want to do. But I’m not sure which projects are worthwhile and which ones, while good ideas should be put on hold. Some should be scrapped. And others that have been ignored should be picked up and dusted off.

Such a lot to do. On top of a full time job no less.

Later. These are decisions for later.