I've been starting to set aside some time for myself on weekends so I've been trying to improve my woodworking skills so I can do a decent job making the arcade machine.

My first practice project was making a box:

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The stain isn't very well applied, though I can probably clean it up with some mineral spirits.

I also got myself another lego tank (not actually Lego because these are a fraction of the cost of actual Lego). This one is a British Matilda II. They are kinda cool, because although they were small, slow, and only mounted a two-pounder gun, but they were heavily armored and in the invasion of France the Germans discovered their tank's cannon's shells would just bounce off these little things. So these little, slow tanks helped disrupt the Germans enough for the Dunkirk evacuation. Which is way more than you wanted to know.

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Nice work, Gud! I'm glad you have some hobbies that make you happy.

Today has become food prep day because the fridge was getting out of control. I threw out what wasn't salvageable. Prepped carrot sticks for Francesca's bento box, put chicken and root vegetables in the crockpot with curry sauce, and put the rest of the root veg in the oven to roast.

Everyone is very stupid and I have lower tolerance than usual for it today

Nothing like making phone calls with a cold.

Quiet day here. Got to listen to President Obama talk, which always pleasant. I should be productive, and yet.

I have too many meetings and not enough desire to do work in between them. Hilariously, I'm interviewing an internal candidate, but it doesn't seem like HR knows he is internal? She came to escort him from one room to another, but he definitely knows his own way!

So, the mass shooting two blocks away from my work was actually the "easy" part of yesterday (because it was over before we found out about it, and while upsetting, did not require any action on my part.) The hard part of yesterday was that heavy rains on Wednesday night caused flooding (in part due to a clogged roof drain) in our public meeting rooms and book stacks. The emergency staff, including my boss, were at work Weds. night until 11pm, and we have been triaging and drying books, with the help of Preservation and staff from other departments, ever since. It is slow and depressing. And there are forecasts for heavy rain all weekend, and it's unclear whether or not the issues that caused the flooding have been fixed, and while it seems like the first 12 hours of this crisis went well it feels like balls are being dropped now, and I'm worried. Like, I just asked, "will anyone be monitoring the flooded areas for new water coming on overnight Saturday and Sunday before we open?" and the answer was "...".

Oh no, flea. That's distressing.

Oh, you're right, flea, that is worrisome.

Oh dear, flea. That is awful.