Trying to get back on schedule

OK, so producing videos has been tough lately.

Every year around this time, my employer initiates what is known as "inventory". This isn't a simple matter of taking stock of the company's product, it's a comprehensive cleanout of all work areas. In order to expedite this, we are expected to work 5 days at 10 hours each for two weeks, and usually some time on the weekend as well. As I work third shift (10pm-6am), weekend work usually means 8 hours Friday night into Saturday morning. So added up, that's 58 hours. Add to that my family obligations, and I wind up working close to twice as much as sleeping.

Typically I leave at 6, and arrive home shortly after 6:30, so I'm in bed by 7. I usually get up at 2, shortly after my wife leaves for work. The last two weeks I've been at work until 7 or 8 (there are a couple of days I was able to get in by 9; I had one day each week I was able to go in for 8) and still generally needed to be up by 2 (although if my daughter was all set and still napping I would doze on the couch until I needed to get up to get my son off the bus).

So averaging 5 hours of sleep during the week did no favors for my YouTube channel, especially when it's right after the holidays, which in itself makes it tough to produce videos.  But barring the occasional Friday night I should be back on regular 8 hour shifts now.

I have been able to play some World of Warcraft, which lately has been mostly about leveling my Death Knight. He is level 91 now with his level 1 garrison featuring a barracks and a forge (his professions were originally skinning and mining, but recently I dropped skinning for blacksmithing). I had also built a forge in my warrior's garrison, but it turns out the only gear i can produce out of it is part of the Warlords Crafted set, which is limited to 3 items worn. As a jewelcrafter, I already had a necklace and 2 rings on, so no level 630 weapons/640 armor for me, and I replaced the forge with an alchemy lab. Back to my Death Knight, I also changed his specializations. While his off-spec remained Unholy, I dropped Frost in favor of Blood. I think I just like using 2 handed weapons with a Death Knight, and Blood offers pretty good survivability for leveling (I originally ran him as Blood back in Wrath of the Lich King, though that was before Blood became the dedicated tanking spec).

Also I was rather disappointed with the release date for the PC version of Grand Theft Auto V being pushed back to March. I was initially excited at the prospect that Rockstar was offering $1 million of in-game currency if you preorder it, and now they are also offering a free game (from a small list, but free is free); however, the way it works is they charge a 15% non-refundable deposit at the initial time of order. This is at least partly because you get your bonus game at this point, but also makes it so you think twice about cancelling your preorder if they push the release back again, as you are now out that money either way. Anyhow, I will now not be preordering. Hopefully when I put the money on my Steam account I will not blow it on a sale that pops up before March 24th.