khedron

Today's my first day of vacation. Yeah, I wrote over the weekend about starting vacation, but that was the weekend. Weekends don't count as vacation. Today, Monday, is my first real day of vacation. And today, on my first real day of vacation... I worked. 🤣

Oh, I didn't work a full day. Good grief, I'd never do that. Not unless I was getting a day comped somewhere else— which I have done before. Twice this year, even! Once in March and once again later in March. 😅 But this time it was just 1 hour of work. I figured I can give the company an hour on my day off in exchange for all the flexibility I enjoy during regular workweeks.

Me feeling charitable, or reciprocal with flexibility, isn't the only reason I took a meeting and did some followup work today. It's that, as I've pointed out many times before, work doesn't stop just because I'm on vacation. Especially in sales, work doesn't stop. Customer projects keep moving forward, and frequently the deadlines are set without regard to my availability.

When that presents a big problem I push back and/or call for backup. Indeed, there was another customer meeting today I let my boss handle for me. So he's working a bit today, too— which absolutely factors in to my charitableness / reciprocity calculus. A colleague was even willing to cover this meeting for me. But I volunteered to do it myself even on a day off because, honestly, the alternative is worse.

You see, the alternative if I let this going a week or longer without touching it is not "I'll do it later, when I return," but rather, "While I'm out for a week, other people will try to do it, and they'll do something wrong and break it, so when I return I'll have to spend 3x as long fixing what's broken. Oh, and when it broke someone pressed the panic button, so now I have to join multiple status calls with managers who are demanding explanations." 😣

Saturday was the start of a Christmas-holiday vacation. Counting the two weekends I've got 9 days off from work. As I remarked at the start of the week this is an unexpected vacation. I only learned about the extra days off on Monday!

The late notice to me means I didn't have time to plan anything. ...Not that I could have planned much, anyway, as Hawk is still healing from her foot surgery. And if I had planned a low-key trip it'd be in jeopardy, anyway, as she took a spill last weekend that has made it really hard for her to move again. Hopefully this setback is temporary. One of her doctors says it'll take 2 weeks to recover. That puts it out at... the end of my vacation. 😞

"Oh, but we can stay home and celebrate Christmas!" you might encourage us. Except we don't celebrate Christmas. It's a nonfactor for us. Usually we simply use the time off to travel somewhere. That makes it extra annoying we can't travel. Especially that we can't travel and actually do anything.

But we did manage to do a little bit Saturday! Hawk and I went out for lunch together, did a bit of shopping, then came home to relax. She needed to rest as even moving between the car and a restaurant table and a motor scooter at the store exhausted her. But resting up in the afternoon recharged her for a low key evening with friends. We met a few friends at La Fiesta (a favorite Mexican restaurant) for dinner and then played board games together back at our place until 11pm.

Today (Sunday) we've got nothing planned. Ditto the next few days. I'm sure we'll get together with friends again a few times this week, so at least there'll be something to do. But even though there's not much I am glad for the time off from work, now that I think about it. I just wish I could find better value in my not-working time by having more fun.

This past Saturday I went wine-tasting locally with my friend, Anthony. He and I had done a wine-tasting afternoon back in August, when we visited David Bruce Winery and Thomas Fogarty winery. My original plan for that day had been to visit three wineries, but at the first winery it became evident that we wouldn't have time for all three. Trimming it down to 2 worked really well for that day. We had 2 great visits without feel rushed. And it gave us a clear reason to get back together and do it again. We had to hit that third winery!



Winery #3 from August's trip— the one we skipped— was Byington Winery. It's in the mountains of Los Gatos, perched about 2,000' above San Jose and the Silicon Valley.

Saturday turned out to be a great day for a visit, even though it was the middle of December rather than the middle of summer. That's because we had beautiful weather on Saturday. The sky was clear after morning fog burned off. Rain hadn't been seen for days. Down in the valley the daytime high on forecast was an average-for-the-time-of-year 60°F (17°C) or so. I expected it would be cooler 2,000' up in the mountains. But there seemed to be a temperature inversion up in the mountains, as it was shirt sleeves weather (high 60s) when we arrived. We stowed our sweaters in the trunk and headed inside.

We opted to take our tasting standing at the bar inside the hunting-lodge style main hall. A few other guests were at the bar so it was mildly social without feeling crowded. The tasting menu included 4 wines, which immediately turned into 5, then 6, then maybe 7. I lost count. One thing that's true about many wine-tasting venues is that if you're good company and you schmooze with the staff without coming across as a moocher, they'll open up some extra bottles for you. I can schmooze when I need/want to, though I often feel self-conscious about doing it. Anthony's a natural at it. In our conversation he talked about all the bars in town where he "knows" the bartenders and gets free drinks. 🍻



After drinking our fill at the bar we headed outside to appreciate the view from the hilltop. I kind of wish we'd done this earlier in the afternoon, as toward the end of our visit the weather had turned cooler.

We didn't leave Byington empty-handed. No, far from it! Both of us generally liked most of the wines they poured for us. Our discuss as we worked through the list wasn't "if" we would buy bottles to take home but which ones. Anthony picked a few bottles of lighter flavors, a sweet chardonnay and a pinot noir, as his wife likes lighter flavors. (He figured bringing home bottles that she'd like would get him a pass to maybe do this again. 😅) I chose two bottles of a surprisingly well balanced chardonnay and a spendier Bordeaux-style blend. The latter was curious because I was all set to buy a bottle of a Barbera that tasted really nice. Then they poured that Bordeaux and it was lights-out for the Barbera. 🤣

More wine ahead: We visit J. Lohr in San Jose later in the afternoon.

On Sunday night at Bondi Beach near Sydney, NSW, Australia, two gunmen opened fire on a crowd of people at the beach. People were gathered after sundown to celebrate the start of the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah. The perpetrators murdered 15 people and injured dozens of others before being stopped by a very brave Good Samaritan and police. Example news coverage: BBC News article, 17 Dec 2025.

We marked the start of Hanukkah at our house in low-key fashion Sunday night local time. It was low key because that was our plan anyway, but also the tragedy in Australia cast a pall over what it otherwise a joyous celebration. (What is Hanukkah celebrating? I wrote a brief guide to Hanukkah a few years ago.)

One thing I remarked to friends and family on Sunday afternoon as news of the tragedy filtered in is that Australia was sure to reconsider its gun laws as a result of this tragedy. Unlike in the US, where one political party is entrenched opposition to any new gun restrictions and the current president callously responds with things like "Stuff happens" or even "Get over it!" to mass shootings, Australia treats such incidents as the largely preventable tragedies they are. Australia notably toughened its gun laws nearly 30 years ago in response to a mass-shooting tragedy and has seen markedly lower rates of gun deaths since then. Indeed, the prime minister and legislators are already evaluating what needs to be changed.

"Global Bonus Holidays for [Company] Employees" read an email that was sent out 2 months ago.

I didn't get it.

I literally didn't get it.

I only learned about it today when a few colleagues and I were making smalltalk at the start of a meeting. "Are you going anywhere next week when we have the whole week off?" they asked.

"WhAt WhOlE nExT wEeK oFf?!?" was all I could reply.

Goddammit.

God DAMMIT.

I could have planned a vacation if I'd known about this TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO. Instead I learn about it with less than a week to go. After Hawk made a conflicting plan... and even if we change that conflict, travel is 2x - 3x as expensive to book now as TWO FUCKING MONTHS AGO.

Several times a year I write an update about a credit card I keep in my wallet and how much I've earned from it. It's part of my practice of credit card churning. I open new credit cards for their lucrative sign-up bonuses, quickly charge thousands of dollars to them to secure the bonus points, then throw them in my desk drawer for the remainder of the year while I repeat the process with another credit card. These reviews are my check-ups on how well churning is working for me— as well as my decision point on whether to keep the card or cancel it and repeat the process. Usually I cancel churn cards after a year. Usually. Today I'm writing about a card that I've now had for 8 years— the longest of any travel affinity card— and will keep for at least a ninth: the Chase IHG One Rewards Select Credit Card.

I have kept this card for many years not because it pays any high-flying benefits but because it does the opposite. This lowly card pays a not-generous 5x points/dollar on IHG hotel spend; 2x on restaurant, gas, and grocery spend; and 1x on everything else. At a value of 0.6 cents per IHG point* that's only 3% value on hotels and less than 2% on everything else. I already own two credit cards that pay 2%, cash, on everything... plus my spouse has a card that pays 3% on all travel. So using this card for spending is generally a losing proposition. 😧

Most of the benefits I derive from this card are not from charging on it. One big one is that every year I get a free-night award. I've found I can redeem these for about $150 value. The certs don't buy a night at a top tier hotel (anymore), generally just a roadside motel along the way between hither and yon, but $150 is nothing to sneeze at; this one benefit alone is 3x the $49 annual fee.

Another nice benefit I get from this card is a 10% rebate on award points redeemed. How much that's worth depends on how many points I manage to spend in a year. This year I redeemed 71k on a few awards stays, so my rebate was 7,100 points. At the rate of $0.006 that's $42.

As for charging purchases to this card generally being a losing proposition... well, I did spend some on this card. If you don't use cards enough anymore the banks may shut down your account! I waited until there was a promo for "Charge $1,000 of purchases to earn 3,000 bonus points" and then spend just a smidge over $1,000 to earn the bonus. That's all I charged during the year. Those 4,000 total points from spending are worth $24.

Adding these all together, the card delivered $216 of value in exchange for its $49 annual fee. That's a little less than I attributed to the card last year but still enough to make it a keeper— especially because once I cancel this card, it's gone forever. Chase and IHG stopped offering this card several years ago. Apparently it wasn't making them enough money— which is corporate-speak for the benefits were too good for consumers. They've replaced it with a card that charges a higher annual fee. I plan to hold on to this lowly old card for as long as they let me.

The weather forecast as of a few days ago was a picture of beautiful weather on tap. It'd be warm (for the season) and sunny. To read my blog earlier today grumbling about the weather and then see a forecast like this...



...With a week and a half of high temperatures in the 60s, you might say, you might say, "Quit yer bitchin'!"

Unfortunately the reality has been far different from this forecast. Each day we've started off with dark, gloomy mornings followed by afternoons with temperatures that have fallen several degrees short of these mythical 60+° numbers. Today, for example, it was just 50° outside when I drove around town at 11:30am. It probably won't get warmer than 53° today.