~Tuesday~ Each year in the last week of October, we celebrate “We Are Red Hat Week” at work, which consists of a lot of activities you can opt into. Today, I participated in:
We were matched up with 5 other Red Hatters we didn’t know, from around the company, and after introducing ourselves to each other (i.e., name, team, and time with Red Hat), we answered 7 ice breaker questions. Here they are with my answers:
1. What’s your favorite part of your job?
Editing the Command Line Heroes transcripts; editing webinar titles, abstracts, and speaker bios; and editing the Red Hat Summit session titles and abstracts.
2. What’s something you love about your work at Red Hat?
Getting Red Hat Rewards and my fun, creative, and smart team.
3. What’s the most special item on your desk or in your travel bag? If you have the item, show it on the video, if desired. Briefly share why it is special, or why you like to keep it with you at your desk or when you travel.
I have a 2-picture frame of my sister receiving her doctorate’s degree and the acknowledgments page of her dissertation, which includes a thanks to me for inspiring her research.
4. What is one of your workday morning rituals? Whether it’s working out, meditating, spending time with your children or pets, do you have something you regularly like to do before you start your work day?
I’m not a morning person, so all I do before starting my workday is shower and have breakfast. I do have an after-work ritual of doing the USA Today Crossword Puzzle online with my husband. (It’s an everyday ritual; we do it on the weekends, too.)
5. What has been one of your biggest challenges during the pandemic? Little or big, what’s something you’ve been challenged by during these strange times?
Not being able to meet my friends out at a local bar on Friday nights, which we did very routinely.
6. What’s something you would never want to change at Red Hat? As we grow, change is inevitable. But, what’s something about our culture, our norms, etc. that you feel is so special that you would never want to see changed? Why?
When we’re working in the Red Hat Tower building, free bagel Wednesdays in the cafeteria. Why? Because I love both bagels and free.
7. How do you describe life at Red Hat to your family and friends? Working for the world’s largest open source software company can be unique. When people ask what it’s like to work at Red Hat, what are some of the things you describe?
I usually talk about the flexible work hours, feeling like I’m seen and heard there, how great my team is, and how much I enjoy doing work that I love.
I really enjoyed meeting the people in our group and hearing all of their answers to these questions.
Bob went on a couple of walks today, the first included a stop by the nearby post office to mail some postcards and a greeting card. There are still plenty of flowers in bloom here.
On his second outing, he saw these 2 vehicles that surprised us because we’ve passed a roadside sign, several times now, that says “John Martin” on it, and we’d both assumed—for some odd reason—that the person was a realtor. But as it turns out, he owns a local excavating company.
One rather bizarre sign Bob came across was this:
Although we’ve never heard of them, meat raffles are definitely a thing. We might just participate in this one on Saturday if when we get there, it looks like it’s being managed safely with regards to the pandemic.
Snarky aside: Not exactly sure what that orange with the bone shoved up its hind end is doing in the picture, but whatever. 😉
Have you ever attended, or even heard of, a meat raffle? If so, do tell.
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~Monday~ Our Red Hat marketing organization had a “virtual offsite” today, even though we’re all offsite all the time now. When we’re in the office, this is a meeting that we have away from the office in a local establishment, which includes a catered breakfast, lunch, and an open bar “happy (2-3) hour(s)” at the end of the day.
Obviously, we can’t replicate all that virtually, and even though there’s, proverbially, “no free lunch,” we were authorized to expense our lunch today in the spirit of the meeting. Bob and I ordered takeout from a local restaurant that we’ve had our eye on since arriving.
John’s orderCalifornia Chicken Sandwich: sprouts, avocado, queso fresco, 1000 island on wheat |
Bob’s orderCape Cod Reuben: fried cod filet, coleslaw, swiss, 1000 island on marble rye |
Bob had a busy day today—doing our grocery shopping for this week and doing our first load of laundry here in the quaint little laundry (and small library!) area that’s part of the deal here. He also cleared away our bar that we’d set up on the countertop over the dishwasher, because the owner had a new dishwasher installed today. (See what it looked like prior to being cleared.)
To top off Bob’s busy day, he cooked homemade hamburgers for dinner on one of the two Weber charcoal grills that are here for our use.
That’s it for today.
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~Thursday~ I’m pretty lucky in that I usually have just 1-2 work meetings a day, and often I don’t have any at all on 1 or 2 days of the week. That was not the case today. I had meetings from 10:00 to 4:00, with 2 of them overlapping, which I had to choose between. Our team meeting won out, because it’s usually fun, and I love our team.
Bob took another walk today, this time to the east coast of the Cape where he encountered the Nauset Lighthouse of the Cape Cod chip bag fame.
Also in that area were The Three Sisters lighthouses, which earned their nickname because when looked at from afar, they looked like black-hatted women dressed in white. (Full disclosure: The hyphen is my own. I don’t think they meant “Black, hatted women,” and if they did, they should have capitalized the word black and added that comma. But I digress.)
And, of course, he found the Atlantic Ocean coastline.
I received an interesting message and photo from my first cousin about our paternal grandparents’ grave that I talked about yesterday: “Just thought I’d show you that our paternal grandparents’ grave is not buried. It’s one of the graves I monitor, and I just called the office to have the stone raised.”
Manuel Martin: 1893 – 1966; Mary Martin: 1903 – 1991 
One interesting thing about this picture is seeing that “M.” in my grandfather’s name. It’s my understanding that he didn’t have a middle name, since my dad was named Manuel Martin, Jr.—and he was proud of that junior and always included it when he said/wrote his name. If my grandfather did have a middle name, and my dad didn’t, dad would not be a junior. I’ll have to follow up with my aunt (dad’s sister) about that.
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~Wednesday~ Another uneventful workday, which is exactly what we like.
Bob took a drive to Orleans for a Stop & Shop grocery store run and a TJ Maxx stop (considering a door mat, some potholders or oven mitts, and a couple of wash cloths).
After lunch, he took a walk to the nearby Cape Cod Rail Trail, one of the national rails-to-trails conversion projects.
At the grocery store on Sunday, we saw this lobster already removed from the shells for just under $19 for the package. And in our typical fashion, we hemmed and hawed about spending that much money on something, but ended up buying it. It was totally worth it!
Happy hour: Eggnog-amaretto-bourbon cocktails, lobstah, and drawn buttah
We’ve begun to think about things to do this long weekend. All of my weekends while here are going to be “long” weekends, because I’m taking all Fridays off.
A couple of things we’re considering so far, one of which was suggested by a Facebook friend who knows we’re here, include:
Getting excited about the weekend just creating this entry! Tomorrow’s my “virtual Friday.”
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~Tuesday~ Another successful work day. We experienced a short, mid-afternoon power outage, but fortunately, I had recently saved the document I was working in, so I lost very little work. This is the second outage we’ve had since we arrived. The first one was the first day, and it was in the middle of the night, so no harm done. Hopefully it won’t be a “regular” thing. UPDATE: Large power outage affecting the Outer Cape
Bob explored a little more today, taking a walk to the closest coast. Where we are in Eastham is a just a tad bit closer to the west coast of the Cape than the east coast, so he went west, following a sign for Cooks Brook Beach.
He passed some “rainbow art”:
before reaching the beach:
You know who left those footprints all over the place, right?
We bought some eggnog at the Stop & Shop on Sunday, and we used some of it to make eggnog martinis for happy hour tonight. Good stuff.
Here’s the recipe:
A dear friend from high school, who now lives in Maine, was in touch today, and we’ve made plans to see each other while we’re here. So excited.
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~Monday~ I found the local classical station, Classical 107.5 WFCC (“Cape Classical”) to listen to on the radio during my editing day. So far it’s pretty good. It’s nice to know, too, that at any time, I can tune in to my “home” classical station, 89.7 WCPE, which streams on the internet 24 hours a day.
Funny thing related to this, when we first got here, driving up the Cape, I remember thinking how “small town” the entire Cape is and thinking about what it might be like living here, and I thought, “There’d be no symphony or opera here for entertainment, for sure.” But, lo and behold, one of the first things I heard when I turned on “Cape Classical” was an ad for the upcoming Symphony Spoooktacular sponsored by none other than the Cape Symphony! So much for preconceived notions.
We solved the mystery as to whether this “fan-like appliance” in the upstairs hallway was a fan, a humidifier, or a dehumidifier.
It’s actually a Whirlpool Whispure 510
air purifier.
You know you wanted to know.
My first day working from here was smooth sailing—I started at 7:30 and quit at 4:30.
During his day, Bob took a walk around the area checking out the businesses that are within walking distance of us, which include The General Store (red sign to the left), a U.S. Post Office (in the middle), and a Ben & Jerry’s (to the right). Not pictured, but just around the side of Ben & Jerry’s is a Dunkin’ doughnut place.
There are several others businesses, too, including the Cumberland Farms convenience store we walked to on our first night here, a liquor store, and several restaurants, including a couple of seafood places and a deli.
After work, we walked together to check out Willy’s Gym, 0.4 of a mile from our place, to see what kind of temporary (month-long) memberships they might offer, and how it was being managed for safety during the pandemic.
It’s a decent place; it even includes a pool, but it’s $140 each for a month, and that’s not going to work. That’s a year and 2 months each in Planet Fitness value. $280 is way too much for a month just to access an elliptical machine, which is all we’ll use there. I mean we only paid $500 to buy our own elliptical machine at home!
Upon returning home, we did our daily USA Today Crossword Puzzle online and had happy hour. Rituals. Comforting.
I texted the owner this evening to help us figure out how to get the DVD player working and how to access Netflix from this entertainment center setup, because we couldn’t get it to work. It turned out a third remote was needed that was in one of the bedrooms instead of in the living room where it was needed.
So, Bob is back in business tonight for his movie and TV watching, and I’ll start on my next book club book. Life is good.
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