The guy who almost never works from home is working from home

My company's headquarters building is undergoing some pretty extensive renovations, so they kicked us all out and told us to work from home for a couple of months.

That makes it sound harsh, but the renovations are very much welcomed, and we're already an organization in which office-based employees work from home two out of five days each week anyway.

Or at least most people do. As I've mentioned here before, I go into the office every day, even on Mondays and Fridays when only a relative handful of people are there. It has nothing to do with being anti-work from home. I just focus better and prefer being in the office environment.

What happens when you do that, though, is that you kind of forget how to work from home when you have to. And by that I mean I have trouble getting into the right mindset when it's time to head upstairs to my office and start the workday.

All of the things that are so convenient about working from home are the things that distract me from my work tasks.

Like, for example, you can do laundry when you work from home! But on laundry days, I mostly think about when it's time to put the clothes into the dryer and when I can fold them rather than the things I'm supposed to be doing for my job.

You can also see your spouse/housemates when you work from home! Yes, but while this is enjoyable, it's also distracting. And while I know my wife loves me dearly, when I'm working from home, I'm invading the space she's used to occupying alone Monday through Friday. I totally get where she's coming from here after 32 years of marriage.

You can run to the store if you need something or schedule an oil change when you work from home! Again, yes, but again, distracting. I lose focus.

I realize this is a me problem, and that most people are mentally strong enough to be productive when they work from home. I'm simply not one of them.

So while there have been certain conveniences during this extended period of the office being closed, there is admittedly part of me looking forward to January 20th, which is the day our building is supposed to open back up and I can return to some semblance of a routine.

Somehow I think Terry is looking forward to that day, too.

Look, if the guy in front of me is driving slowly, there's not much I can do, so stop tailgating me

This happens to me all the time on my drive to work. I take mainly one-lane (each way) side streets, most of which have posted speed limits of 35MPH and on which the majority of drivers do about 40, maybe a tad faster.

The system works well for everyone involved until one person decides to go under 30, even on the driest, clearest day when driving conditions are optimal.

A line of cars quickly forms behind them, but they are insistent on proceeding well under the speed limit.

Not the worst thing in the world, but admittedly a tad annoying.

Quite often I will be the car directly behind the offending dawdler. I will move a bit to the side so the other drivers can see what's going on, and to convey the message, "Hey, it's not me, it's that guy. What are ya gonna do?"

Yet even when I do this, the car behind me will often position itself about 6 inches from my back bumper, as if tailgating me is going to make Slow Poke Rodriguez speed up.

Why? Why would anyone do this? What do you think you're accomplishing riding my butt when I have absolutely no control over the speed we're going?

Back. Off.

I hate to generalize here, but almost every time this happens, I will look in my rear view mirror and notice that the driver behind me is a young person.

Pardon my old man ranting, but what exactly are they teaching these kids in driving school?

Ease up on the gas pedal, Sophia, and put some more distance between you and me. You're accomplishing nothing.

You know, most of the time my blog posts are meant to convey something funny, touching or otherwise positive. It's not often I complain, or at least not often I end with a complaint.

But that's all I have today, along with the following bit of advice:

If you're someone who does this, stop it.

Yes, I'm looking at you, Liam. You're not getting to first-period Biology any faster by rear ending me.

I told Terry, "No more cats!" And then along came Cheddar...

I became a cat person only because I married a cat person.

Having grown up with dogs, I didn't know much about caring for felines until the spring of 1992 when Terry and I got ourselves a little kitten that we named Alex.

This was during my three months of bachelorhood after I moved out of my parents' house and into the house on East 300th Street that Terry and I bought before we got married. Alex and I lived there alone until June, when Terry moved in following our wedding.

I quickly learned that cats are self-sufficient, territorial, and depending on their personality, varying degrees of affectionate.

In the three-plus decades we've been married, Terry and I have had a range of cats, including a long stretch in which we owned five of them. Over time, I became the one who fed them all every day and cleaned their litter boxes.

Thus, while I was sad when our cats Fred, George and Charlie all died within about 15 months of each other, there was also a sense of relief that morning cat duty might someday be lifted from my shoulders.

At that point we had just two kitties, our girls Ginny and Molly. I was fine with this arrangement and was always the first one to say no when someone suggested we take in a stray or claim a kitten in need of a home.

Meanwhile, our daughter Melanie had moved out of the house, and she was building a little cat army of her own. That included an orange stray who started hanging around her place last winter, and who she would regularly feed and pet.

She eventually took him into her home and named him Cheddar. She loved Cheddar, and with good reason. He's a good cat.

The problem was that one of Mel's other kitties, who generally hates the world and everything in it, took to tormenting Cheddar. They couldn't even be in the same room together, which forced Mel to keep Cheddar locked up in a bathroom while she figured out what to do.

I didn't want any more cats, but I also didn't want Mel taking Cheddar to the Humane Society. One night she came to our house for dinner and mentioned him, and I went ahead and said what was on everyone's mind.

"Oh, just bring him over here," I said. "He can live with us."

And so she did. And so he does. It took a little while for Ginny and Molly to accept him, and even then, at best, they tolerate him.

But Cheddar has been a big hit with the three humans in our house. He's affectionate, inquisitive, entertainingly vocal, and fun to watch whenever he goes into kitten mode and starts playing with whatever he can find on the floor (a hair tie, a cat toy, a piece of string, a dust ball, etc.)

So now we have three cats again. It's not five, and I don't intend for it ever to be five again. Or even four, for that matter.

We're sticking with the ones we have. And once they're gone, no more.

And this time...I mean it.

The Atari 2600 was the greatest Christmas present I received as a kid

I don't know these kids, but I'm very familiar with the thrill of unwrapping an Atari on a memorable Christmas morning in the early 80s.

I had great Christmases when I was growing up thanks to my parents, who were not only generous and loving but also big fans of the holiday itself.

Until maybe the late 1980s, in addition to a tree and the usual household decorations, my mom would also set up a table in the living room on top of which she would lay out various Christmas desserts, candy, nuts and fruit. It would all just be sitting there for the taking for the two or so weeks leading up until December 25th, and believe me when I say I did plenty of taking.

When I woke up on Christmas morning, my presents would usually be laid out on the couch in the living room. And they were all unwrapped, which in retrospect seems a little odd, but that's the way it was.

Well, I should say that some presents were unwrapped and some were wrapped. Until I was maybe 9 years old, those unwrapped presents were the ones from Santa, while the wrapped ones under the tree were from Mom and Dad.

There would always be one expensive "featured" present. In 1984 (maybe '83) it was my Commodore 64 computer. Other years it was usually some electronic game or simply a physically large gift like an electric race track or something.

The most memorable of these marquee presents put an exclamation point on Christmas 1980 (or maybe '79...again, these years are getting fuzzy). It was an Atari 2600 video game system, and it changed everything.

Until the Commodore 64 came along, I played lots and lots of Atari games. I even had a little black case that was designed to carry 8-track tapes but in which I stored my Atari cartridges. Or at least I stored some of my cartridges, because after a while I had way more cartridges than the case could hold.

I would not only play Atari at home, I would also pack up my most popular games in that case and take them to my friends' houses to play on their Ataris. Those friends included Kevin, Mike, Todd, Ray and Dave, among others.

My friend Matt lived right across the street, but he had an Intellivision instead of an Atari. The Intellivision featured graphics and sound that were clearly superior to the Atari 2600, but the game play was sometimes lacking and it never quite earned the market share it probably deserved.

I have great memories of Christmas mornings and afternoons spent playing with everything I had received, and I will say that even at a young age, I was very grateful for it all.

It's a little more than two weeks until the big day, and even now at 55 years old, I can't wait.

Internet pro tip: There's probably no need for you to repeat what 14 other people have already said in the comments

I'm sure Dr. Rick would appreciate what I'm saying here.

Quite often I'll come across a Facebook post in which a person is asking a question that has a short, definitive answer. It's usually something like, "Hey, does anyone remember the name of the auto parts store that used to be at the corner of Main and Orchard? What was it called?"

Someone will immediately post in the comments, "Bob's Auto Mart," to which the original poster will respond, "That's it! Thank you!"

And that should be the end of it. Yet within minutes, there will be a dozen other essentially identical comments:

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"It was Bob's Auto Mart!"

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"Definitely Bob's Auto Mart"

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"Bob's Auto Mart"

"I think it was Bob's Auto Mart, but I'm not sure."

And so on...

I don't claim to know a lot about a lot, but I am confident in giving you the following piece of Internet posting advice:

If someone asks a question, and you're pretty sure you know the answer, check the comments/responses to the post first. Did someone else already give the exact answer you were going to give? Great, mission accomplished, no need for you to respond at all.

If anything, you might want to "like" the comment of the person who already said what you were going to say.

No need to post it yourself. though. You wanted to help, which is admirable, but someone else has already done the job. Move along. Thank you for your service.

Now, are there exceptions to this rule? Yes, at least one.

Using the example above, if you knew the answer was Bob's Auto Mart, but you also have an interesting bit of detail to add to the conversation, then feel free to reply. Like maybe you want to say something like, "As others here have mentioned, it was Bob's Auto Mart. They closed in 1978 when Bob moved to Florida to join a Hare Krishna commune."

That is interesting. That is new. That is something no one else has added. Please, post away.

But for the love of Mark Zuckerberg, understand that posting the 28th "Bob's Auto Mart" comment is not helpful.

When I become Internet czar under the new presidential administration, violating this policy will result in either a $5 fine or imprisonment for life. I haven't decided yet.

Sometimes I think I enjoy planning life more than I enjoy living it

When it comes to going to the gym, while I do genuinely like the act of lifting weights, what I really like is sitting down the week before and planning out which days I'll be working out and exactly which exercises I'll perform (with the attendant number of reps, sets, etc.)

In the same vein, Sunday afternoon is one of my favorite times because it's when I sit down and type my to-do list for the coming week into Microsoft OneNote.

And while I've never really had a vacation I didn't enjoy, to me nothing beats the fun and excitement of actually planning the vacation.

Do you see a pattern here?

I am by nature a planner. This is good thing to be in many respects, as it provides some degree of control – or at least the illusion of control – in an otherwise chaotic world.

But the drawbacks of being an inveterate planner are perhaps equally apparent. You don't always respond well when a plan (inevitably) goes awry. And you'll never be known as the most fun and spontaneous guy in the world.

There's also a tendency, at least in my case, to skip from one life plan to another in a futile attempt to discover the perfect way of living.

In my heart I know there is no such thing as "the perfect way of living," but my head insists it's out there somewhere and that, with each iteration of my life plan, I get that much closer to it.

To be clear, by "life plan" I mean a philosophy or approach to everything that consumes my time, both at home and at work. How should I do my job? How should I eat and exercise? When will I find time for spiritual nourishment? How much of my fall and winter nights should I devote to PA announcing gigs?

I try one life plan for a few months, then when I discover where it falls short, I switch to another. Sometimes these are small tweaks, while other times I make large-scale, wholesale changes.

All of which begs the question of why I can't just acknowledge that circumstances vary and I need to take things a day at a time, adapting to whatever comes my way without searching for a one-size-fits-all template.

In short, why don't I just, you know, live life?

As if often the case when I examine my own personality quirks, I don't have an answer to that question.

BUT...it's on tomorrow's to-do list to check some books out of the library that might explain why I am how I am.

I have become one of those New York Times puzzle people

Do you sometimes log onto Facebook and see friends posting little graphics that look something like the image above? And do you ever wonder exactly what they are?

Or do you know what they are but you don't care and instead keep on scrolling while grumbling about people clogging up your feed?

Whichever may be true for you, I understand both ends of this equation. For a long time I would see Facebook pals posting about how long it took them to figure out the Wordle, or how frustrating that day's Connections was, and I would just scroll right past without giving it a second – or sometimes even a first – thought.

Until one day a couple of months ago when I downloaded the NYT Games app and became one of...Them.

Rarely does a day go by now when I don't play (in this order) the New York Times' Wordle, Connections, Strands and Mini games.

You can also do the full NYT Crossword on the app, along with games like Spelling Bee, Sudoku, Letter Boxed and Tiles, but I stick to my core four.

This is mostly because I don't have the time to play every game the paper offers, but also because, after mentally working my way through those four, I have little patience and even less mental energy left to devote to the others.

There is something to be said, as you get a little bit older, for stretching your brain through these types of puzzle games. And Lord knows my brain could use a little stretching, given all the things I either forget or fail to notice on a daily basis.

But ultimately, I just find them fun. And there's a sense of accomplishment when, for example, I get the Wordle in 2-3 guesses or figure out the four Connections categories without a single mistake.

I'm not one to post my results on Facebook, but I'm grateful for friends who do because I like getting tips from them or commiserating over a particularly devilish offering from the Times folks.

I encourage you to join our little cult community of puzzle people. It's fun. Really.

Believe me, no one is going to force you to start sharing your performance on Facebook.

You'll do that on your own with no prompting from any of us.