ieve's Squall of Consciousness

Entry 13 - Biggest Kid, Wet Boots, Heckin off to Spain

(Feb 2 2026)

(Three slices of life to kick off February.)

1. The Biggest Kid in the Class

Doing a beginners swim class as part of prep for Sprint Triathlon, starting this Friday. (I can swim just ... very poorly and inefficiently.)

Got an email from YMCA regarding swim class starting. I think it was just a generic template email being sent to _everyone_ who is signed up for a swim class because it said "We're looking forward to meeting you and your child", and some basic guidelines for wrangling your child."

I do not have a child... Nor am I a child.

Went back to YMCA website to double check, yes the class says 'Teen and Adult' lol. Just needed to sanity check I'm not going to be the biggest kid in the class.

And hey look there are now TWO people enrolled in the class, so at least it won't just be me flailing around by myself with the swim teacher staring at me.

2. Surely that storm drain river isn't _that_ deep

Riding into work this morning... the long way. (Still only a 25 minute affair). It was a nice ride along the seaside cliffs and down past the marinas.

There were city crews all over doing something in the storm drains - either causing flooding of random streets or fixing flooding of random streets. It hasn't rained in weeks, so it did seem a little curious that an entire intersection was sitting in ~8 inches of water.

And then ... one of those concrete swales that goes perpendicular across the road. And it's full of water. Surely it's not _that deep_. Surely I can just ride through it at a moderate speed and this will be fine, right?

I stood up on the pegs and rode through and ... WHOOSH, instantaneous boot and sock soaking. Like, RIDICULOUSLY soaking wet. I may as well have stopped and put my boot down in the water for how wet I got.

Luckily my long way route meant I was only 5 minutes from home after 15 minutes of riding, so I went over the hill to go home and get socks. Except.. surprise! My other pair of riding socks that I could find were still damp from doing laundry yesterday. So grabbed a pair of regular socks to wear during the day, and my damp boot socks can dry out before I go home, and my wet boot socks are in a plastic bag, and my boots are... really fucking wet but hopefully will dry out by end of day.

lol.

Oh well. I got some adventure riding in, without ever leaving the city!

And ... makes me realize one more reason if I am going to get into offroady type riding that these boots are not at all adequate. They're not even boots by riding standards. Boots by normal shoe standards, sure, but by motorcycle standards they're just street riding shoes - better than riding "sneakers" but not at all the same protection as a stormtrooper boot.

3. Screw it, I'm going to Spain

February ... it's sadboi music season! So I put on Eden's Dark album at work, and the video to this album is just the Eden guy driving around presumably Ireland and it's gorgeous and green and foresty.

And that made my wanderlust really flare up - I had planned to rent a motorbike in Ireland for our July audit (in which our company's notified body audits us in person in Ireland... despite there being exactly two people in-country in Ireland and zero design/development/manufacturing/warehousing/distribution in country, but our EU legal manufacturer entity is there. Doesn't matter that they also audit us onsite in the US, doesn't matter that the stuff they're auditing is _exactly the same_ as when we do it in US, they ALSO audit onsite in Ireland.)

It's kinda nice actually, work pays for the flight over, pays for hotel for the days we're supporting audit (and all food and coffee and ... basically the guidlines are 'expense _everything_ while you're traveling, from the moment you get to our local airport, until you get back'), and we can just pad a few days on either side and then only need to pay for own hotel and food and travel for those extra days.

Except boss took me off the team supporting that audit. "We expect FDA to come back with questions and you need to be available to support deficiency remediation and document updates."

Ummmm there is literally no way of telling _when_ FDA is going to come back with questions. We don't even know when we're going to submit. Why would you assume that _this_ specific week in July is going to be impacted? It makes no sense.

Maybe I pissed her off, or pissed boss-boss off, I dunno.

Anyway. Got the "You should just plan a vacation where you rent a bike somewhere on the other side of the world and just cruise" bug.

I'm going to Denmark with my mom and brother in June ... so thought, something in March-April timeframe would be nice. But I would need to go somewhere warm ... mediterranean is the obvious choice for 'across the pond' and ... easy. Tractable.

First thought was Roma to Gibraltar, but then I remembered the logistics of renting a bike mean I should probably do a loop.

Andalusia! Potentially a loop of Malaga, Ronda, Seville, Cordoba, Granada, back to Malaga. Maybe fewer cities so I can spend more time in each - or maybe the riding is the point and I'll only spend a day in each place, hit a couple touristey things, and move on... we'll see.

Check Google Flights to get to Malaga and ... hey $500 (actually turned out to be $700 after bags and some ability to change flight) round trip is not bad at all. April 19 to 27, perfect amount of time. (And it's right before Sprint Triathlon on May 3, so it kinda works perfectly for taper down from training.)

One wrinkle in my plan ... our FDA submission is supposed to be in the March-April timeframe. Supposedly. Maybe. Boss is NOT gonna like me going on a motorcycle adventure in the late March early April timeframe but... I'm not sure it's going to be a request.

I mean

They can't be like

"Oh September 30th is the submission date, it's gonna be crunch time"
"Oh wait that didn't work out, but now December is the submission date! Crunch time!"
"Oh wait that didn't work, but REALLY THIS TIME March/April timeframe. Super crunch time!"
"Oh and it's a recert year so PTO approvals will be significantly limited! (what boss said last year. lmao like ... no lady, a couple of audits do not mean the entire year is compromised for PTO. People are going to go on vacation.)"
"Oh by the way we're expecting questions from FDA _sometime next year_ so you're not supporting the Ireland audit, you need to be available to support remediations and document approvals"

Yeah

Fuck that noise

I'm going to fucking Andalusia when it's convenient for me

(...)

hahaha asked my coworkers if this is a bad idea...

RA (Regulatory Affairs) person: "We're not likely to submit in March/April, just go whenever. Anyway I'm going to Greece in May"

Principal QE (Quality Engineering) teammate: "You do you, boo."

Junior QE: "I'm also disappearing in June to go to Greece"

All of us, evidently: "Fuck this we're going on Europe adventures"

OK I have the support of my immediate team. Boss will be annoyed. But. That's okay.

And if RA says go ... like ... she's the one putting the package together with FDA, she knows if I'm needed that week or not better than anyone. I got the blessing I needed.

Anyway it's not like I'm not quitting on your total BS project and BS culture. I'm just going on an adventure with absolutely no contact for a week. I haven't given up on the company yet, despite much nonsense.

(...)

Went down and excitedly announced my "Screw it I'm going to Spain I already bought a plane ticket" to RGA (Returned Goods Analysis) guy. He told me something ... anti-ominous. If I were invested in getting this thing submitted at a specific time it would be ominous. For my situation, it was actually the best news I've heard...

He's 'not supposed to tell me', but that there may be something that happened that will push the timeline out even further and it's "Supposed to be announced soon maybe"

lol

He's the office therapist, so I have to respect that patient confidentiality, and so I didn't press for more details but.

Yah. Sounds like the March-April timeframe is fake anyway, so ... I'm just gonna go on my adventure when it's convenient for me.

(...)

Anyway sadboi music month is cancelled. I'm too excited to be sad.

- 🜌

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