Time off November 2022 - New York with Ammon, and Then Maureen and Brian for Thanksgiving

≡

It’s just about thanksgiving 2022, and after 2 years of not being able to go to Oregon, we’re on our away! Through unexpected timing, before going to Oregon, I’m going to New York City with Ammon, and through even more unexpected timing, we just had lay offs at work, and have a major re-organization. Instead of being able to fully take the time off, I’ll be working several days, so having clarity on my priorities is critical.

The first leg of my trip is NYC. Turns out Ammon loves musicals, and every year he makes a pilgramige to broadway to be able to see like 14 musicals in 7 days.

6 months ago, Ammon was saying he loves these trips, but his wife Elise and his kids find them overwhelming and he has to go alone. I’m like “Well, I can work from the Facebook office in NYC, and seeing some shows will be fun”. (Not nearly as many shows as Ammon though). We decided back then to book the week before Thanksgiving.

These posts are a combination of time off, and all the stuff for happiness, which I guess gets tangled up with half of my evergreen notes.

Loading (/time-off)

My top priorities

Maintain Healthy habits

  • Keep my weight at 180 lbs (though dropping an extra 2 lbs would be amazing)
  • Maintaining a daily workout, at least stretching, cardio every other day.
  • Maintain my daily meditation and daily journal.
  • Check in on my streaks app - it’ll keep me honest
  • If I don’t care what I’m eating, eat a big bowl of popcorn
  • Don’t eat junk food cuz it’s cheap/free.
  • Throw away half my meal before I start
  • Take lots of photos

Keep work at work.

The last 2 months have been stressful at work, and I’ve been spending lots of time thinking about work at home, as a reminder to myself:

Loading (/mind-at-work)

Two days before the start of the trip we had layoffs (including my partners who help the team while I’m out), and a giant re-org where the team I support will be doing something completely new and I have a new boss, and this is all starting to be figured out while I’m on my flight to New York. I expect there will be lots of meetings and many decisions being made, and I’ll be working on EST with hard stops to make 300$ shows booked months ago. So here are my rules:

  • Disconnect from work as soon as I’m done work.
  • Be really calendar focused to get the time to be used deliberately.
  • Set expectations on what I can and can not attend
  • Realize I have lots of time to catch up async before everyone comes to work
  • Co-ordinate with my tech lead to have maximum coverage.
  • No looking at work on my phone (a bad habit I picked up the last few days due to layoffs).

Other

  • Experience New York, it’s an amazing city.
  • Feel got the most out of vacation

Executive Summary

Moments

  • Getting to tell Ammon all the stuff in my life in the first 2 hours of our flight
  • Doing ballon for kid on the bus
  • Seeing Harry Potter and crying
  • Poop story from cofffee shop
  • Not eating the M&Ms at the store
  • To Learn : Anniversaryj card
  • To Re-Learn : Monkey and Other ballooing things (Make blog post to remember)
  • Doing balloon trick for kid that didn’t want to be good on stage
  • Super funny commedy show, with wings and super funny singing guy
  • Boarding guy at the airport, treating folks to increaes energy liike they do at a comedy club, truly welcoming and thanking everyone.

Remember the peak end rule

Success Stories

Top Learnings

Friends (5/5)

Even though we live 40 minutes part, I almost never see Ammon in person (notable exceptions being when he is bringing over a birthday cake). I prioritized spending time with him - and it’s super enjoyable.

Family (Y/5)

  • ☐ Call kids every day and hear what they did.

Magic (Y/5)

Performing

  • Did magic for a drunk woman who put the card in her bra!
  • Did magic trick for a kid that was hyper on stage, got him calmed down and relaxed
  • Did a mgic trick which I thought I messed up, but the person had just written super small

Practice

  • ☐ Practice every day
  • ☐ Bring my magic fanny pack.
  • ☐ Work on anniversery card

General Magic

  • Saw Asi Wind’s amazing magic show, but it had low energy
  • Went to Magic Monday which is meh, but got to go on stage, which was really fun.
  • Went to Tannon’s that place is amazing.

Tech Guru (Y/5)

Enabling Environment

  • ☐ Don’t touch it.
    • Actually maybe playing with it isn’t terrible
    • Playing with it makes me happy, and charges up my energy
  • Got my offline vim setup for the plane - pretty freaking cool.

Blogging

  • Not at the expensive of family time.
  • Doing it early in the morning before folks get up is reasonable.

Programming

  • Nope.

Identity Health (Y/5)

Biking

  • ☐ Ride a citi bike
  • ☑ Biked on the hudson river pass
  • ☑ Got a bike pass

Ballooning

  • ☐ Bring lots of balloons and manual pump
  • ☑ Make some balloons for kids at the airport
  • ☑ Figured out how to carry balloon inflator in my pocket.
  • ☑ Did balloons for kids most days.

Joy Activities

  • ☐ Find Joy where I can

Emotional Habits (Y/5)

  • Turn off phone and use tablet instead
  • ☐ Daily gratefulness journal
  • ☐ Daily 8 minute (or 15 minute) meditation

Physical Habits (Y/5)

  • ☐ Wrist stretches every morning
  • ☐ Assisteted weights every few days
  • ☐ Cardio every other day
  • ☐ Assisted pullups

Statistics

Weight: 180 Gym Days:

Verbose

Diet

  • ☐ Weight myself daily
  • ☐ Be ready to get back on weight track for end of November weight in.
  • ☐ Recall, I’d be happier to be skinny then get a snack
  • ☐ If there’s something I want, get one per day, and keep calories down the rest.
  • ☐ Get a mini fridge and keep it stocked with Veggies and fruit

Sleep

  • ☐ To bed by 10 (if not 8) every night
  • ☐ No electronics/tv before bed, just read.

Mental quicksand

Missing important stuff in critical time at work.

To preserve future time-off with the family I planned to work a few days through the 2 weeks of time. Now it’s a critical time at work, so I’ll need to make deliberate decisions about what to do when.

See the section about keep work at work.

To make into a separate post

Friday to NYC

  • Got Ammon to take the earliest flight we could (waking up at 4am, is only 30 minutes “early” for me)
  • Super nice catching up with him, I never see him in person so lots to talk about and catch up on.
  • Playing spelling bee with Ammon was fun, and then taking time some hours to write up this travel post.
  • Note to self, read the time off post before hand.
  • Made a balloon for kid on airport to city bus
  • Did magic trick for girl, totaly missed. luckily she was drunk as a skunk and rather happy, stuffed card in her bra
  • Lost air tag, went on hunt to find it. Found it but too late was crushed by a car

Saturday - Harry Potter

  • Saw the best play of my life Happy Potter

    • Cried through the whole second act
    • Amazing blocking and transitions and special effects
    • Great story about a dad accepting his son

  • M and M Store

    • Load picture of M&M, and all the M&Ms
    • Instead of that, I just eat all the veggies in the fridge (see next day)

Sunday

  • Day before eating tonnes of vegtables (todo link photos)
  • Went for a walk, started to pour
    • Went to a meh coffee shop
    • Suddenly needed to poop
    • No bathroom at coffee shop, none near
    • Luckily citi bike, raced to hotle, and got it done

  • Funny part about emergenncy poop

    • First night, saw a comedy show one 20 year fit guy talking about healhty eating messing up your sphinctor not able to hold it in.
    • Didn’t think it was funny.
    • This morning, needed to poop, absoloutely hillarious
  • Asi Wind Show
    • Amazing Magic, but kind of slow …
    • Cool venue
    • Cool having everyone write names on their cards
  • Pizza Magic
    • Did another magic trick for girl in pizza line
    • This time thought I got it, but it didn’t have her name on it. Then looked closer, and it was just written really smal.
    • Not to self: Have someone else hold the cards
    • Tell spectator: Visualize your card in your mind … have you got it? Good
    • now, imagine it turning over… Did you do it? Great ..
    • OK, now do you believe? Great!!
  • Comedy Club
    • Incredible show, super funny.
  • Giving out balloons on the street
    • Very fun
    • Figured out howtt o keep balloon pump in pocket (keep the head out)
    • Someone asked to buy one, gave it for their daughter
  • Pull ups
    • Went all over central park to find pullup bars, finally found them, but then, super weird, got a video.

Monday

  • Super nice sunny day
  • FB office nice, but then told to go the really nice one. AMAZING views!
  • At work, new job, not sure what I should be working on … lots of free time.

Other

Saw 3 comedy shows

Priorities

  • Going to bed early even if miss stuff
    • Totally worth it
  • xyz