Well, not specifically thoughts on the Kentucky Derby, which happens on Saturday. These are thoughts that I had to put to “paper”, so to speak.
I have two extra days off, due to the Derby: the city buses take a massive detour away from Churchill Downs, so what would normally be a 25-30 minute trip becomes nearly 2 hours. And since I’m not keen on waking up at 4 AM, walking a mile to the closest detoured bus stop, and hoping I get to work on time, I now have a mini-vacation. 😉
Mystik Dan, right. / Michael Clevenger and Christopher Granger / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
While off today, I had the closest thing to an epiphany.
I do not like where I stand (in a few areas) in 2025.
Keeping the details short (this essentially is a ‘Night Walk’, not a ‘Night Road Trip’): the finances have crashed, work has become mundane at my main job, and I’m not having nearly the amount of fun out of the apartment as I would like.
Finances: I went over a few problems that are happening in a previous post. The biggest possible solution, that I can currently think of: sell my car back to Carvana. I do need to fix the Alternator, plus renew my tags. Once those get done (… somehow), I think I get enough back from them to pay the car off. This would eliminate the monthly payment and the cost for car insurance. Other cost-cutting ideas are floating around – we’ll see how things go in the upcoming few months.
Work: I hate that it has finally reached this point, but work is now a chore. The hours are early (and wearying), there’s little to distract from some of the stretches of non-activity (TV is only an option for News – everything else has been banned), and until this year, the pay has been stagnant. The raise that we got isn’t enough to keep me there for year #10, I think.
Fun: I need to get out more, and I’m not counting D&D sessions. Money does factor into a lot it, but baseball games, football games in the fall, movies (solo or with a group), the occasional make-out session (which hasn’t happened in over a decade), road trips (especially out of the Louisville/Southern Indiana area), Drum Corps competitions, bar/house gathering nights (no, I still do not drink much at all)…. these, and other things, need to actually happen, not just get mentally planned. Don’t get me wrong: video games are fun. But I need something to complement and supplement them.
So, to quote the late, great Owen Hart: “Enough is enough, and it’s time for a change!” Not just one change but many changes, many of them long overdue.
The Nexus 