Good evening, every body! Fat old Grampa Bob here on a beautiful, crisp November night. The clock just rolled over to 9:00 PM. Lisa and I are sitting in the living room watching a playoff match between the Sporting KC soccer club and the Portland Timbers. 

Go Sporting!

Today will be one of those news days that you might read about in the future. Today, Trump’s fixer plead guilty to a few things in order to work out a plea deal, and right off the bat he confesses to lying about the Trump Organizations efforts to build/develop Trump Tower Moscow, and then we find out (apparently) that part of the Trump Tower deal included a penthouse suite for Vladimir Putin, worth $50 million. 

Wow. 

Trump headed out of the country for the G20 conference in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Trump says he’s cancelled his meeting with Putin, but there was smoke out of the Russian news that Russia intends to proceed with the meeting. It will be interesting to see who wins.  I have a feeling Trump will capitulate if Putin forces him. Trump has always behaved like Putin has something on it. In your time, you might discover the truth. I hope I’m around to find out what it was that compromised Trump. 

I’m not a Trump fan. 

I love my country. 

This guy is not good for our country. 

I hope his becomes a cautionary tale. 

Peace y’all. 

Good evening, dear reader, whether guest or future grandchild. 

My name is Bob. 

I’ve had a pretty good day.

My car is running better. My wife’s little hybrid got me back and forth to Leawood successfully over the last couple of days, and I appreciate her allowing me to use it. 

I’d tell her how grateful I am, but she has fallen asleep in a recliner adjacent to mine. I’m watching a little college basketball,  North Carolina at Michigan, and this is turning into quite the match-up. 

Class went well today, covering everything up through the module on backup and recovery. Tomorrow I’ll jump right back into the various connectors in the Exchange application… and that’s a pretty boring topic.  

I think I need to cut up something sweet. Maybe one of those ridiculously large honeycrisp apples, if there are any left. That would be a better choice than potato chips, I’m sure. 

Looks like I have a lot of things to prepare for on the work side of things. The coming weeks are going to be filled with lots of new courses and labs. I need to do a pretty intense assessment of the labs, rumor has it they leave a little something to be desired. 

That’s all for now. 

Peace y’all. 

One of the things , one of my many flaws, is that I get attached to my vehicles, and my daily driver is sick. Ruby needs a fuel pump. That almost sounds like a lyric to a bad country song.  Yeah, my brain goes there sometimes. 

I remember now my first college English teacher, Nancy Avery. Taught English, and ran a greeting card company on the side, Avery Cards. Beautiful greeting cards. 

So, my ride is in the shop, she needs a new fuel pump and some other connective piece, but that’s what she needs to keep me rolling safely back and forth between Lawrence and Kansas City. 

I still feel like I need to catch up on some sleep. Then I look down at the clock on the lower right hand of my display, and I see it is already after ten o’clock at night. 

Tomorrow I should get my car back. I’ll get a few modules cranked out in my Exchange class, and get back to the rest of my life, such as it is. 

Just kidding gang. I have a wonderful life. I love my family, dogs included, I just like to make a bad joke about my life every now and then. Just keeping it humble. 

About time for me to keep it humble from a warm comforter. 

Peace y’all. 

Good evening friends and future family members, it’s the old man again, dropping a clue here and there as to what’s happening in my slightly-above-average life on this fine day in November. 

It was cold this morning. And dangerous. Had to drive in to Leawood this morning for work, and stretches of the highway that would normally be driven at 70 miles per hour got dropped to 35-45 miles per hour in some cases. The highway had large patches of ice, and much of the efforts to clear the road left one lane semi-clear and the other a corrugated mess. 

One thing that driving under those conditions will do… it will make you tired. So much of the trip is just white-knuckle “focus on every little thing” driving while counting the number of cars and trucks in the ditch. I figure there were two dozen cars and two semi-tractor/trailer rigs in the ditch. 

So as I write this, I anticipate the next word and the next, as I approach my pledge of two hundred words per day so I can shuffle my big white butt off to bed. 

Note quite there yet. 

I feel like I could fall asleep in my chair. Maybe I’ll just go get the bed warmed up for Lisa so she doesn’t have a frosty cold bed to crawl into when she comes to bed. 

Sounds like a plan. 

Peace y’all. 

The snow came down today in rural Douglas County, 4-6 inches according to the weather reports. It was coming down as ice and snow today… and guess what? Tomorrow the expected high is 54 degrees, so all of it will melt off. It’s kind of crazy… that’s Kansas weather. 

They’ve already called off school for both KU and the Lawrence school district. My work has declared a late start, but I’m hoping my class will be able to start on time. Half of my class is remote, so the travel issues that affect so many others won’t be quite as prominent in my class. 

I’m starting to wonder if there is any pumpkin pie left. 

A man needs his sustenance, right? 

So, the weather has been crappy, the fireplace has been a god send… not really a fireplace. It’s a wood-burning stove. More efficient, has a fan, tied into the central heating/ac, so it does a better than average job kicking the heat through. 

Tomorrow, I’m back in the classroom. Teaching Exchange 2016, so it’s a class that I’m very familiar with. 

I need to read some new books. I’m going back through some books right now, and it sure seems that I’ve read them before. Maybe I’m just going back through and coming across some familiar story lines. 

Or maybe I’m losing my mind. I don’t think I am, but all possibilities are out there.  I’ve learned not to put limits on what might or might not be possible. 

Car is in the shop. Hope I get good news tomorrow from the guys that service my wheels. 

Peace y’all. 

It’s been a semi-eventful day here in rural Douglas County. 

Started of the day in a positive way, with a great breakfast, courtesy of my beloved Lisa. 

Then… well… things went a little downhill. I offered to go into town on a grocery run. I do love a good turkey sandwich after Thanksgiving, and I have developed an inclination towards potato bread to go along with those post-holiday delights. I offered to pick up other necessary items (components for spaghetti, some half-n-half, apples, pears, and of course the much-needed feminine hygiene products that every husband loves to pick up). 

As I started to leave the parking lot, my often reliable Ruby decided to die. Crap. Restarted, Got out on to Kasold, then she died again. 

To make a long story short, I started and let Ruby fade about thirty times between the grocery store and Free State Auto Works, my mechanic of choice for the last twenty years or so. 

Lisa was kind enough to drop what she was working on and came to my rescue… although she knew I had her half-n-half, so that may have been a more prominent factor in her decision to come get me. 

So, I’ll talk to Terry on Monday. I hope all it that is required is a cleaning of some filter or something in the car. Ruby (My 2009 Ford Flex) has been a very reliable vehicle for me, but I really need to get another couple of years out of her before I can get a new set of wheels. 

Until tomorrow…

Peace y’all. 

Be right with you, 2 seconds left, KU tied with Tennessee…

And the game ends tied at 69, so we’re heading into overtime. It’s been a pretty good game so far, and each side has lost key players, Doke for KU, and Williamson (?) for Tennessee. 

We started the day early, with Lisa, Bonnie, and Gracie all getting up to do a little Black Friday shopping. Dane and I had an extra hour or two of sleep, then headed into Overland Park o hit Micro Center, and start his new build. 

After we returned home, we went downstairs and watched the KU-Texas football game. It was the KU head coach’s last game, and I wish him all the best, but rebuilding this program might have just been beyond him. 

3:34 left in overtime. KU up by 4, 73-69. 

Lisa made an outstanding Thanksgiving dinner for us here, with turkey, stuffing, potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry salad, the works. The dinner we had with family yesterday was outstanding, but there’s something to be said about a quiet, reflective family dinner as well. 

Might have to have a slice of pie or a turkey sandwich before heading to bed. 

It has been a long day. 

Peace y’all. 

Today is Thanksgiving. Most people focus on the food, the history, the parades, the football and basketball games. 

I do too. I love the food, the family, gathering around a television set to watch the Detroit Lions and the Dallas Cowboys do their annual games (not against each other, but with other teams). I love the laughter, the stories, the reflection… and, of course, the opportunity to give thanks. 

I’m getting better about giving thanks. On social media (Facebook… which may or may not exist at the time, you, my future grandchildren, exist), I try to find something new to give thanks for every day. I’ll readily admit that there have been some redundancy – I’ve given thanks to my wife time and time again, as well as some other organizations of significance. 

It’s important to live a life of gratitude. In your lives, you will accomplish many great things, and sometimes those achievements are to your credit and your credit alone, but the vast majority of your achievements have had a helping hand. It is important to let thank those folks. That aid may have been deliberate, sometimes incidental, but express your gratitude regardless. Every person you cross paths in this life needs to know that they matter and you appreciate the positive effect they have had on your life. 

That’s my post for the day. Thank you for reading it. 

Peace y’all. 

It’s a Wednesday night in rural Douglas County. Lisa is sleeping in the recliner adjacent to me, occasionally waking to tell me some random trip about her recent trip to San Diego, like “we walked by that Kansas City barbecue place that they filmed in the movie ‘Top Gun'”, then immediately falling back to sleep. It’s kind of funny, she likely won’t remember mentioning it to me later, or, more likely, she’ll tell me about it again. 

KU is playing basketball in New York City, playing and beating Marquette tonight to earn the right to play Tennessee on Friday night. Tennessee is coached by Rick Barnes, who used to be the heard coach at Texas, so he has some pretty good familiarity with the Jayhawks and Bill Self. 

Tomorrow morning we’ll get the car packed up and head off to Clay Center for Thanksgiving. Bonnie and Gracie are taking Gracie’s car and Colby on the trip. 

I’m still trying to get caught up on sleep after being up so late last night waiting for Lisa and Gracie to get home after thier trip to San Diego. 

In the meantime, I’m watching NOVA, an episode about origami. It’s rather fascinating. Now they have software to manage the aid in design of the folds. Someday , origami folding techniques will be major design considerations in many products, just wait. 

Time for me to call it a night, get my girl off to bed. 

Peace y’all 

Oh, man. I am tired. Lisa and Gracie should be getting back from San Diego in anther hour and a half to two hours. I’m going to try and stay up (or at least hang out in the living room with the tv on and a dog or two on my lap. 

A couple of  weeks ago, I took a test that determined my personality type, and I made note of my personal tendencies to argue. I need to work on that part of my personality. I’ve had it up to here (Bob gestures with hand slightly raised over the top of his head) with people posting fallacious (fallacy = fictitious story) content on social media. Seriously. It seems that have the stuff people post is just straight up lies. 

This country is in a real strange place. We have a guy in the White House that lies on a daily basis, and the die-hard followers buy in. People just aren’t ready to accept that this guy is a complete con-artist. He speaks, and they lap up the lies like thirsty dogs. 

It’s reached ludicrous proportions. I just don’t get it. The only thing I can really hope for is that this next session of Congress will stand up to this repetition of lie after lie after lie. 

I’m gonna let you go. 

Peace y’all.