Benjamin Barlow

I once told a college professor of mine that I am inherently lazy, but there is a quote from Jeff Bridges that probably describes me better. He once said “I’m always busy, but I’m lazy as well.” I really am ambitious and busy, but I do appreciate those moments when I can sit back, relax and savor my lazy hobbies (reading, watchin’ youtube, napping…).

This also brings up that pseudo-virtue for programmers that lazy programmers are the best programmers. This is such a popular idea that Bill Gates is mis-attributed to the quote “I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.”

So why am I posting on busy-ness? Well, I had a particularly busy weekend. Let me tell you about it.

There were a few goals to first explain. Amber wanted to get her mom a bedroom set of a dresser and sidetables but those in the furniture stores sucked. So I commissioned my carpenter cousin Justin to help out for only a few hundred more with dramatically better quality. Anywho, he finished a few weeks ago and the dresser and sidetables are ready for use. Then some great friends (that happen to be former co-workers) got together for one’s birthday so that was definitely an event to attend. Finally, BADGERS!

So on Friday after work, to satisfy the goal of getting the bedroom furniture, Amber and I drove home to grab a trailer. That was a two hour drive.

We then left for up north to stay the night at my Grandma Bartz’s which allowed us to get up early and pack the furniture up the next morning. That drive up north was three hours and our time of arrival was 11:00pm.

The next morning, we had a great homemade breakfast and enjoyed my Grandma’s company until we left ’round 9:00am. We then took off to pick up some trailer ties and then load up the furniture. We were back on the road back to Gays Mills around 11:00am (three hour drive…).

We get back, unload the furniture, and I went back home to unload the trailer when Jamie O strolled on by. We were kid friends that also had a fairly talented High School band “Us For Now“. Anywho, we chatted in the yard for an hour before I had to go get ready for a night out in La Crosse.

I got ready, Amber got ready, and we left for La Crosse (hour drive). We had some Chinese, caught up with what everyone was doing, went out to a local (Sparta) bar for the end of the Badger game. BADGERS ARE IN THE FINAL FOUR! I really can’t emphasize how awesome that is…

By the time Amber and I got back to Gays/Grove (hour drive), it was 1:30am on Sunday morning. What a Saturday…

I, of course, slept in a little bit on Sunday.

After my Ma got back from Church, we went to our local restaurant/bar/grille for some Lunch Wings. It couldn’t have been a coincidence, but Jaimie O and family strolled in to which we had some catchup conversations.

Amber had a grilling lunch date with a kid pal Kelsey, so we hit the road again for 45 mins to have that grill out in La Farge. Yup, two lunches!

From there, we FINALLY headed back to Madison (two hour drive)… but that is not all…

We get back, I rested for an hour-ish, and then I have to head off for a three (ended up being two and a half) rehearsal.

By the time the weekend ended, we had driven for 12 hours with a lot of moments between.

I had hoped to get so much packed into a weekend so I wouldn’t have to spread it all out over many weekends. It’s my style to try and just get everything done in as few goes as possible and I definitely accomplished that.