Operation Chillax
by Scott Hardie on May 23, 2009

Today begins a week-long vacation from work, my first break since GooCon last October. Well, not quite begins, since I still have more work to do tomorrow. But then I'm free! Many thanks to my coworkers for sending me off with birthday decorations all around my cubicle and birthday sweets piled high. I invited people to my desk all day to take some and I still had two bags of brownies and cookies and cake and donuts to bring home. My team rules.

Anyway, here's looking forward to the week ahead. Kelly and I are broke, so we didn't plan to go anywhere, until my mom gave me the terrific birthday present of funding a night's stay in Orlando and some tickets. We'll probably skip the theme parks and go to smaller attractions like Blue Man Group, Pirates Adventure Dinner Show, Medieval Times, DisneyQuest, and so on. There are a lot of things that we've always talked about trying there. We also want to spend a day in Tampa seeing things and visiting friends, and there are still a few attractions we haven't even seen in Sarasota despite living here for five years now.

On the home front, Kelly is spending a lot of time building her new web site, which I think means that I'll spend a lot of time working on my web site. I'll probably catch up on some books and games that I haven't had time for lately. Mostly what I want is a break from work; the last four months have been very stressful and very demanding of my time and energy. After a back sprain last week and finally getting some bills paid off this week, I'm ready to have some fun and relax, or chillax as we have said since visiting Kelly's parents. Her brother will tell Mom to chillax, and she'll ask what it means, and he'll explain it, and she'll ask what it means again, and Dad will tell him to stop using that word because it confuses her. They all need to chillax.

Two Replies to Operation Chillax

Aaron Shurtleff | May 23, 2009
Have a great time, Scott! You certainly deserve it!

Ryan Dunn | May 23, 2009
[hidden by author request]

Logical Operator

The creator of Funeratic, Scott Hardie, blogs about running this site, losing weight, and other passions including his wife Kelly, his friends, movies, gaming, and Florida. Read more »

No News is Good News

Yesterday I spent eight hours in a hospital waiting room in Tampa while my mother underwent surgery for a torn rotator cuff. She's recovering well, but the harm inflicted on me by eight hours of cable news has yet to wear off. It happened to be Fox News Channel, but that's irrelevant; all news is boring when you're in the hospital and are stuck watching it at length, because the newscasters only repeat over and over the breathless update that they have nothing more to report and here are the things they don't know yet. Go »

Illinois 2013

Ten highlights of my just-concluded road trip to northern Illinois with Kelly, in chronological order: - Seeing lots of friends and family at our engagement party in St. Charles, our old hometown. I was glad to be able to talk to everyone there, and also glad that I now recognize almost everyone in Kelly's large family on sight. Go »

I Have Boring Dreams

Real men don't play tennis, and they don't play chess. They play tennis on a giant virtual chessboard where every step of their feet and bounce of the ball instructs the computer where to move the next piece. And they call it chennis. Go »

Pass Me the Green, I Need Some Trees with My Tennessee

Kelly and I just took a short vacation to Gatlinburg: Two days there, with two full days of driving to make it happen. We've been itching to get out of the house during this awful pandemic (and to use Kelly's PTO before it expires), but with options limited for places to go safely, we realized that we could rent a cabin with family and just go hiking and birdwatching and grilling, avoiding crowds in favor of natural spaces. Kelly's immediate family from Illinois drove over to join us. Go »

Not Exactly Red Hot

Her: "What's that CD you're holding?" Me: "Chili Peppers. I still haven't gotten over their album from last summer." Go »

Game Over

On paper, Game Over doesn't look promising: A vulgar, video-game-themed cartoon series on UPN that only lasted five episodes. But I rented it anyway, and somehow it managed to be entertaining and smarter than it needed to be, but maybe that was just the low expectations kicking in. I think the key to the show is that it actually respected its characters and cared for them as a family unit, instead of using them as empty vessels for punchlines (latter-year The SImpsons) or treating them with unmistakable contempt (Family Guy). Go »