It’s Saturday morning, and I’ve already been working. Got some overdue mowing in, and just as I came in the house, the sky opened up and the rain started to fall.

It’s been a few days since I wrote. I guess I last wrote on Wednesday night, if my dates and entries are correct. Since then I had an uneventful trip home… but I was able to get some necessary work done. This coming Monday I have an appointment with the Department of Homeland Security for my TSA/Global Entry Trusted Traveler , but because I was able to get to the Toronto Airport early, I went through the interview process then and there, so now I’ve freed up some time on Monday afternoon.

While I waited in the lounge at the Toronto Airport (Pearson), I did crack my laptop to check my email. Seems there were a couple of scheduling issues that popped up, so I ended up picking up a couple of additional days of delivery right after we get done with our team retreat in Washington. Looks like in the span of a week, my presence will be required Seattle, Chicago, and oceanside Virginia.

Yesterday was a good day. After I got hoem very late on Thursday night, I got up and took care of some things that needed to be attended to , and then grabbed a late lunch with my son. We did our normal thing and went out for sushi It was nice to see that one of our regular sushi bars was back open after a brief remodel, and offering 30% off most of the items on their menu. Dane & I ate well yesterday. We also had a really nice talk. He’s grown into a fine young man, and seems to be on the verge of having a girlfriend. He never really dated in high school, and college has presented him with a chance to hang out with more young people that he has more in common with. He had to come home yesterday afternoon to pick up his D&D books in anticipation of a new game starting on Sunday. It’ll be good for him, and he’s going to be playing with an interesting mix of players, with there being more members of the fairer sex, and the person running the game is female as well. In all the years I played, I never once had a female DM. I’m going to guess that there will be a little more story and a lot less dungeon crawling hack and slash.

Tonight, Lisa and I are heading into Kansas City for a show, but not before she and I go take a look at a piano for the house. Nothing grand, just a little electric piano for Lisa to play and practice on. Then we’ll grab a nice dinner before we head over to the Midland (the Arvest Theater at the Midland… gotta give the sponsor their credit) to see a great guitar player, Tommy Emmanuel. I’ve seen some of his videos, and a few other pieces, anf I am really looking forward to watching this guy play.

Other than that, I’m just trying to relax a little bit before I dive back on the training train on Tuesday. One virtual training gig here at home, over Microsoft Teams, and a two day delivery in Phoenix.

Life is good, I’m happy. Lisa seems to be happy. The dogs are getting their tummy scratches.

College football starts here in a little bit. I’m going to wrap this up, then double-check my word count for the month. When you’re looking at two hundred words per month, I’ll be aiming for a word count of six thousand words for the month of September. I think I’m steadily moving in that direction.

I wish you all the best, and hopefully I’ll be sharing scores from Kansas and Kansas City football games tomorrow with 2 Ws rather than any other combination.

Peace y’all.

Reflections on the day. This is the 18th day of September, 2019. I had a good day. professionally, and the peripheral details of my life have been average or better.

My class is progressing well. As any trainer would expect, an on-site delivery has its own set of challenges. The most positive part of this delivery, as is likely to be expected based on the venue, is the students. It’s kind of an odd joke, but I’ll tell people that one day I hope to be kind enough to my fellow man that I’m mistaken for a Canadian.

I’m working with true Canadians this week. A very cool and friendly group of people. Any time the job needs a trainer in Canada, especially Toronto, send me. I’m half-packed.

Not much of an entry night, I know. I have a few things on my mind, but they matter requires a bit more contemplation.

I wish you all the best.

Peace y’all.

OK, it’s a Tuesday afternoon, and my students are busy, doing labs Some have decided to go back to their desks, some have decided to go home, and a couple have decided they can be most productive sitting in here, with me. It’s a great group of folks I get to work with this week, as one would expect from an all-Canadian class. In the past, I’ve joked that I would like to be nice enough to people to be mistaken for a Canadian. I shared that little bit of wit and wisdom with the group, and they all smiled.

As I started to write this, I took a look back at yesterday’s entry, and realized I hadn’t made one. I better go check the drafts folder. I don’t know what happened – I was pretty sure I had filled one out. Odd. But… and this is a big ‘but’, it wouldn’t be the first time that I had intended to write an entry, thought I had written an entry, then realized later that something had happened somewhere between hitting the “Publish” button and the rest of the world.

Class is going well, and as I’ve stated before, it’s always the students that make the class. These folks are interesting and just generally positive people to be around.

Last night I had a pretty good evening, ordered a keto-pizza with cauliflower crust, and I really enjoyed myself. For lunch today I had another pleasant surprise – the Thai Express restaurant in the building offers riced cauliflower instead of steamed rice as an option with their entrees. Oh, baby, I’m looking forward to lunch for the rest of the week!

OK, still a little behind, but I’ll make it up tomorrow and Thursday. I’ll have a little downtime on the flight home Thursday night, so I should be able to get caught up over the next couple of days.

Peace y’all.

It’s a little weird here, sitting in my hotel room on a Sunday night, before my delivery tomorrow morning. Tomorrow, I turn 56. There are a lot of things I could dwell on, but I’m going to try ad avoid the cliche retrospective that folks do on their birthdays. There’s where I’ve come from, there’s where I’m going, and then there’s the only time that really exists – now. (OK, that wasn’t some lame attempt to suck up to Eckard Tolle).

I’m ready. I’ll look over a few more things in the morning before getting packed up and heading over.

I had fun today at a place called “The Loose Moose”. They had NFL Sunday Ticket, and I got a front row spot at the bar to watch the Chiefs beat the Raiders. I have to confess, that beginning with the Chiefs going down by ten to the Raiders gave me a little pause, but then they got some things figured out and went after the Raiders hard. Chiefs win, closing out the last matchup at the old Oakland stadium, 28-10.

I’m looking forward to getting a good night’s sleep tonight. The last few nights have been either unrestful or abbreviated.

Anyway, wish me luck with my delivery tomorrow.

Peace y’all.

There are some things I shouldn’t do when I’m tired. One of those things is thinking. I think the others are trying to be friendly to family, friends, strangers, and dogs. I take that back… the dogs are pretty forgiving.

I have a tendency to be grumpy when I’m tired, and with the lack of sleep and travel schedule I’ve had this past week, I’m not currently the best version of myself.

I am feeling better. The two medications they have me on to address my ear infection seem to be doing the job, and although I had a short night last night, I did have a fairly restful few hours of sleep. Then I got up and got checked in online for my very early flight tomorrow morning.

There are some good things happening. Yesterday I had a good class. Interestingly enough, made a joke about how bad KU football is. KU was to play Boston College last night, and BC was favored by almost three touchdowns. I joked that everybody ought to take BC to cover the spread and then some.

Boy, oh, boy. I could not have been more wrong. Granted, BC came out strong, stopped Kansas, and scored twice before KU got on the board. It was a 10-0 game in the first quarter early, and I was in a state… I was thinking, “Here we go again, another road blowout”.

I got on my flight from Tallahassee to Charlotte, and I was really hoofing it to catch my connection, and I made it with just moments to spare. After my flight got up to ten thousand feet, I hopped on the internet, and a friend pinged me, asking me if I had been seen a recent score. I had not, so I went and checked it out, and I was in for a pleasant and unexpected surprise. Kansas was beating Boston College.

I quit looking. I was afraid that if I kept paying attention to the score, I would feel that familiar disappointment.

And I didn’t. I caught a final score, and I could hardly believe my eyes. Kansas didn’t just beat Boston College. They broke an eleven year streak of losing to Power 5 schools on the road. They won by 4 scores. They had what might turn out to be a breakout game. A Les Miles(tone) game.

I am happy.

Tomorrow, I hope to be even happier. Chiefs play the Raiders, and I’m hoping for a statement to be made in that scrum as well.

OK, I’m still tired, still grumpy, but at least I recognize it, and when you have an awareness, you can do something about it.

I might be still a little behind on the month. I’ll take a look at the totals later, but I’m ok with being a little bit off. I’ve been a little bit off physically, and mentally. Everything is going to be OK.

Thanks for reading. Sorry if I came across as whiny – I’m not the best version of myself right now.

Back to work on that…

Peace y’all.

Hey, went to the doctor. I’ve got an ear infection. I’m taking stuff to help resolve the pain and inflammation. I’m tired, and I’ll write more about this tomorrow and over the weekend.

Peace y’all.

OK, future grandchildren of mine, let’s talk shall we? Once again, it’s old fat Grampa Bob talking about life and the world I live in here in good, old 2019.

I had a good day. Not too demanding, teaching a class on Azure Fundamentals, but I did get a few good questions. One thing that kind of gets me… I’ll get good questions from some folks, I’ll tell them I don’t know, but I give out my card. I let them know that I don’t know the answer, but I’ll pass the question on up the line (subscriptions for government accounts, SQL server cluster migration) on up to others that have more experience and knowledge… and then they never send me the email to let me know how I can get back with them.

That becomes the blocker. That becomes the point where I get frustrated, because I want to help. I want to give them good, informed answers that will help them in their role.

But they have my info. I don’t have theirs.

At that point I could start looking through privileged information to get

their personal information, but that wouldn’t be ethical. If they wanted me to send them the information, there’s a process, right? I’ve chosen to share my information out. That’s on me. But I’m not going to “hack” some readily available information under the assumption of implied consent. That’s no way things are done these days.

(OK, just saw a spellchecking attempt that made me laugh… might be time for me to hang it up for the night).

That’s enough. I might be getting a little too preachy.

Peace y’all.

Good afternoon to my future grandchildren, and anybody else that works up the courage to click on my blog page (or maybe you were just that bored?).

It’s a Tuesday afternoon, and I’m on a protracted layover at the Dallas airport while I await the eventual departure of my flight to Tallahassee, Florida for three days of Azure training with yours truly orchestrating from the front of the room. I’m looking forward to getting back out in front of people, as this layoff has been long enough – 3 weeks plus since I was talking in front of a class.

Spent some time with my wife yesterday, just talking about life, including our life together, goals, and the things that worry us. The things that worry her are the things that worry me. Some things are beyond are control, obviously, as who knows what’s going to happen tomorrow? All I can do is keep getting up and getting after it, and try to make myself the best version of me I can produce. The things we worry about are the same things any parent worries about – the kids. Sometimes we worry more than others. Sometimes not as much. I just hope all three of my kids find their place in the world where they feel they have value and those around them recognize their value. I hope they don’t sell themselves short. I hope they attain their goals, celebrate the moment, then move on to the next goal.

It’s all in the churn…

Peace y’all.

OK, I’m about ready to call it a night and head off to bed. It’s a Monday night, and we’re after 10:00. The first Monday Night Football game was a heck of a game, with the New Orleans Saints pulling out a win that the Houston Texans fans just have to look at as another absolute heartbreaker. My heart went out for them and their fans when that all got settled. The second game tonight is the Raider and the Broncos. Considering that the Raiders play the Chiefs next Sunday, I’m kind of hoping the Raiders burn through a lot of excess energy and show up to play Kansas City a little bit flat.

They aren’t flat right now.

The Raiders are taking it to the Broncos. And it’s just the first quarter.

So, I’m packed. I’m taking a look at the tasks before me, for this week and next.

I also find myself looking at the dining options in the communities I’ll be visiting.

Love me a good Poke bowl. Raw tuna, seaweed, other stuff, and a nice dressing.

That’a bout all I have for tonight.

Gees… the Raider have scored again.

Like I was saying, that’s about all I have for tonight. I’ll get back on it and post from my Florida hotel room tomorrow.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Sunday night, this 8th day of September, 2019. It’s time for me to reflect on my day.

OK, something that just crossed my mind is this perception I might have created to my blog writing commitment. Keep in mind, I started this blog out as a lark, without any real direction or purpose. A couple of years ago, I decided to commit – I wanted to be more deliberate in my writing. I chose to follow a #WriteChain commitment, a pledge if you will, of writing two hundred words per day. I’v been up and down.

I want you to know that I’m trying to manage this pledge. I sometimes punt a day or two, and then I’ll try to make up the difference in word count over the next few entries. I haven’t always made a full commitment on some things I swore I would do or I wouldn’t do, but with this I’m in. I’m not going to promise that I will do something or won’t do something in the future because that gets a little ridiculous. None of us know what the future holds. All I’m doing is saying I’m going to continue to try and maintain a pace of two hundred word blog entries per day.

Oh… the Chiefs won today, beating the Jacksonville Jaguars 40-26. Patrick Mahomes to Sammy Watkins was the winning hookup on the day, good for three touchdowns and almost two hundred receiving yards for Watkins. Mahomes had over three hundred and fifty yards, and new Chifes LeSean McCoy had almost a hundred yards of offense on his own.

I’ll probably be recapping the Chiefs games throughout the course of the season. It’s going to be a good one.

I hope all is well in your world. I hope you have clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I hope you are healthy.

Peace y’all.