Evie Day 406

Good morning, and a most pleasant Thursday to you all. Today is 25 April 2024.

Today is the last day of my security class with my training partner. We’re having a pretty good week, and tomorrow will be a good day to get caught up on the other stuff I need to focus on. I need to make a plan for a course blueprint, continue to work on other course blueprints, and get a permissions issue handled on a GitHub repository for a project I offered to help out on.

Today is going to be one of those hazy, wet, gray midwestern spring days, with rain falling off and on throughout the day. They happen… heck, they’re necessary, right? April showers by what they are…

I might have to start paying attention to the Royals again. They are playing pretty well, and currently sit in second place behind Cleveland in the AL Central. They’ve got old leadership (Salvie Perez) and a young rising star (Bobby Witt, Jr. ). If they’re on, I’ll give ’em a watch. The problem is the Royals have made a streaming deal with a service I don’t pay for because the only games of interest that they show are the Royals. I stream a few channels, but they have a little more going on than one team or one show.

I need to get something to eat and start my day. That coffee isn’t going to brew itself. I’m thinking a little corned beef and eggs for breakfast sounds good.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 405

It’s Hump Day! I hope you have a great day! Today is Wednesday, 24 April 2024.

There are a lot of 4s and 2s in that date.

The news is on, and it’s about the former president’s behavior in court, as well as his relationship with the pseudo-news tabloid “The National Enquirer”. They’re currently discussing a story that was put forth about Ted Cruz’s father being involved in the Kennedy assassination. This work of fiction came out during the 2016 campaign, and the former owner of the tabloid stated that it was a complete fabrication. Ted Cruz has endorsed Trump for the 2020 presidency.

What the heck is wrong with people? If someone claimed my father was involved in the Kennedy assassination, I sure as heck wouldn’t be endorsing that person for the highest office in the land.

I’ll be back in the virtual classroom in about an hour. Today is my day to talk about security for storage, containers, and database instances. We’ll get into labs this afternoon, and then I’ll be able to help out with chat questions tomorrow, I’ll be responsible for our closing talk tomorrow as well.

I’ve got the service department from the John Deere dealer popping over sometime today to pick up a couple of our utility vehicles. It will be nice to get those two units serviced and back into commission. Lisa and I have some gardening to get to, and plants to get into the ground.

I should plant more wildflowers.

I should also get something to eat and make a pot of coffee.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 404

Good morning, nd welcome to my favorite work day of the week… Taco Tuesday. Today is 23 April 2024.

My class is off to a great start. My training partner and I made a plan, and the execution seems to be going in the right direction. Today I’ll be minding the questions that pop up in chat, and he’s covering the lecture, demos, and slides. We’ll flip back to me at the podium tomorrow.

We’re on Eastern time for this delivery, and with the various work tasks I have to complete this week, having that regular workday end at 4:00 is a minor victory. I worked for a while after class yesterday, completing some requested reviews and staying focused on some other credentialing opportunities. There’s a credential kind of hanging out there at the end of a tree branch calling at me “Take me! Take me! Just answer this 28-question review document!”. This might be a nice little cert to snag as we head to annual meetings with managers.

Lisa has had her breakfast, and we’re both now sitting on the couch watching the morning news. Lucy is on my legrest, Odin is between Lisa and me, and the sisters Von Floof are on Lisa’s lap. I’ve got my glass of water to my right, and the coffee pot is just over there waiting for me to kick it into brew mode.

I made the arrangements to get some of our utility vehicles services. The battery in the gator looked pretty corroded.

There’s not much else going on at the moment. Coffee pot is calling, and I’m pondering my first meal of the day. Bagel and cream cheese? Small omelet? Toast with peanut butter? Decisions will be made.

The one decision I don’t have to think about too long is dinner. Tonight there will be tacos!

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 403

Good morning, happy Monday, almost time to make coffee. Today is 22 April 2024.

Back in the virtual classroom in another hour, teaching security this week.

I’ve got a busy week ahead of me.

I have a video I need to record for work and a couple of reports I need to get over to my manager. Next week I have a team retreat in Portland, Oregon, flying in on Wednesday, and returning home on Friday. I have a little prep work to do for that get-together, with a little talk I need to scrape together.

Lisa and I were productive this weekend. We took a trip into Kansas City on Saturday morning to pick up some things for the yard. The lawnmower and gator still need to be serviced, but I’ve reached out to the John Deere dealer here to get that resolved.

I was able to spend a few minutes with my youngest daughter and granddaughter yesterday. Evie is such a little cutie, with just enough hair to gather up into miniature pigtails. She’s still very focused on Mama, but she seemed to be ok with Lisa holding her, but she was not really comfortable with Grampa. It happens. The day will come when she hits the door, shouts “Grampa” and runs in to my arms. I need to give the little one some time to grow into that.

So, time to get a pot of coffee brewing and get some peanut butter on some toast. My security class isn’t going to teach itself, right?

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 400

Good morning, and, for those of you that have reached the end of your work week, Happy Friday! Today is April 19, 2024.

Two things… no wait… three things…

1. My granddaughter is now 400 days old. I like round numbers!
2. To the groovers getting ready to celebrate the fake holiday tomorrow, be careful, drink water, bring enough snacks to share.
3. An apology… I forgot a name yesterday, and there’s no excuse. The new guy in gaming group is Todd, not Tony. My apologies.

I’ll be wrapping up my four-day class on cloud administration today. This has been a pretty fun group to work with this week. My class schedule for the coming week was modified for next week, so now instead of a solo cloud solutions architecture class next week, I’ll be delivering a security course with another trainer, and that’s alright. It’s been a while since I had a chance to work with this gentleman, and we have some stuff to talk about.

This weekend is going to be a mix of yardwork and organization. There’s always plenty to do out here. The yard need some attention – some folks would argue that I don’t have a yard as much as I have a dandelion patch. I hate putting chemicals on my lawn, but the shear volume of weeds requires a shift in philosophy. The time has come to get rid of the weeds and try to go something to grow a little grass.

I have some workwork to get done this weekend as well. Some paperwork requires my attention. Sunday is for family, and Sunday afternoon is time with friends as we make the Forgotten Realms or another realm safe for humanoids.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 399

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. Today is 18 April 2024.

First of all, my class is going well. It’s a good group, all Canadian, and they are very pleasant. Good questions, and receptive. They ask very good questions and have embraced some of the things that I have shown them relative to generative AI and good prompt practices.

Now the real point of today’s post. I am thankful.

A few years ago, I used to open the day and post something that I was thankful for on Facebook. No big deal, but after a while, I had an old business associate (that I no longer chat with) mock that practice, as well as another, where I would change my profile pic daily, grabbing some cute or humorous picture of a baby animal or something else in that theme. Of course, the old Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria kicks in, and I bit flip, quit doing anything fun in that vein, and go through a period of just feeling some shame.

I’ve worked through some of that, but I know that condition still hangs out there and has held me back from taking some changes or doing some other things that I would like to do… like maybe playing guitar in public.

I am thankful for those that accept me, warts and all. My wife and family have a choice – Lisa could’ve kicked me to the curb years ago, but she sees something in me that’s good, even salvageable, but like all, I’m flawed. I’m going to be me, and as a dad and husband, I’ll occasionally blurt out something inappropriate. My friends, however, don’t have to put up with me, they simply choose my company.

When the pandemic hit, everything changed. I quit going out for the occasional beer after work. I quit going to the store as much in favor of in-home delivery. I lost touch with a lot of old friends back in my hometown… but I don’t know that I missed out on much.

During the summer of 2020, I started talking with an old training friend about jumping into an online game. Daniel had a group of guys that he had been playing with for years, both in person and online, dating back to their college years back in the 70s. He invited me to join, and although I didn’t pull the trigger immediately, I see that I bought the “ultimate” version of the virtual tabletop software in January of 2021.

I want to express my gratitude to that bunch of guys. Some of them read my blog post and give me feedback and support. In game, we always have a good time. Schedules and technology don’t always cooperate, but we still find some time most weeks to get together for a few hours on Wednesday and Sunday to roll virtual dice and make some fantastic world safe for good folks of the realm. Thank you, Daniel, Greg, Ron, CB, Matt, George, Rick, and our newest member of the group, Tony. I appreciate ya.

That’s enough. Time for me to start thinking about the day ahead, starting with coffee and a bagel.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 398

Good morning, and a very happy Wednesday to you all. Today is 17 April 2024.

My training partner and I had a pretty good first day of class yesterday. He handled the introductions and the second module on the day, I covered modules 1 and 3. The first day of class is generally the busiest with all of the introductions and instructions that we dispense to prep people for labs and such. Today I will handle the review, followed by John tackling the first and last modules, and I’ll shoehorn a module on intersite connectivity later in the morning.

I need to call the John Deere dealership and get the lawn mower and gator on for service. I procrastinated the last couple of days, so I haven’t made the call yet.

There are some other tasks I’ll try to focus on today as well. If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll get some necessary paperwork done for a couple of ongoing projects. I’m working on a co-hack exercise for some new security tools, and I also need to get a report in on my progress to my manager.

I’ve got dogs around me right now demanding a little attention. Rosy is a little more subtle about it, with her looks. If I reach over to give her a little scratch around her shoulders, she pushes my hand down to her tummy where she likes to be scratched. Lily is a little less coy, and she’ll just flip over on her back and compel me to get busy scratchin’ – that tummy isn’t going to scratch itself. Odin is nestled on my wife’s legrest, and Lucy is outside barking at a cloud. Four floofy beasts.

It’s getting to be that time. Coffee, a low-carb bagel, some onion and chive cream cheese today.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 397

Good morning, and a very happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is a rainy, stormy 16 April 2024.

Odin does not like thunderstorms. It is a bit of an irony considering he’s named after the thunder god’s father.

I figure the first clap of thunder hit about 4:30 in the morning – that’s when I felt the wump of a 28-pound morkie (goliath morkie) land right beside my face on my pillow. Odin has quite the personality, quite fearless in facing off against neighbor dogs and UPS drivers, as long as there is a wall between them. His go-to move when the storms hit is to insinuate himself onto my lap or Lisa’s lap and make those big puppy eyes at us to let us know he really doesn’t like this situation.

And more thunder rolls…

We are in a tornado watch here for a few more hours.

I return to my virtual classroom in another hour or so, an East Coast delivery of cloud administration. It was going to be a solo delivery, but there was a waitlist, so another instructor was assigned to accommodate those on the waitlist. I think I’m repeating myself, and fairly certain I told y’all that yesterday.

Time for me to get focused on the day ahead.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 396

Good morning, and a pleasant work week to you all. Today is Monday, 15 April 2024.

No one likes the 15th of April in America. If you haven’t filed, better get an extension in the mail.

Odin is at Lisa’s feet, and his vocalizations are very interesting. He really wants a taste of her breakfast. Lily and Rosy are in full high-dive rotation, from Lisa’s feet to my leg rest to the floor, like little kids going off the high dive at the swimming pool in the summer.

Lisa and I had a good weekend. We got some yard work done on Saturday. I’ve got to get two of our utility vehicles in for service, the mower and the gator, but I was able to get some mowing done with the tractor. I’ll be able to get a finer cut after the riding lawn mower gets back, and the little electric mower can suffice for the trimming in the meantime.

The world is a little more dangerous today. Israel performed a surgical strike on an Iranian embassy (military facility?) located in Syria a while back, and over the weekend Iran launched an attack of over 300 drones, rockets, and missiles at Isreal, with almost all of the inbound projectiles intercepted before they could do damage. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if Benjamin Netanyahu mocks the Iranian inbound attack as inept and poorly executed.

In the US, a trial starts today in New York regarding hush money and campaign funds. The best part about it is that the person on trial will be in court rather than in front of the cameras. Oh, darn.

I’ve got an interesting week. It’s a little flipped, with meetings and prep today, followed by a four-day class for a private customer. The waitlist for the course was long enough that the powers that be decided to add another instructor and open up the enrollment. We’ll jump into it tomorrow as scheduled, with an earlier start for our Eastern Standard Time delivery.

I’ve got some fourth-quarter stuff I need to attend to as well. New certs, new courses, and new reports I need to get done.

In the meantime…

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 393

Good morning, and a happy Friday to you all. Today is 12 April 2024.

A character from Western pop culture history died yesterday. The first professional football player to run for 2000 yards in a season, Orenthal James Simpson, died yesterday. He was an icon back in the 70s and 80s, as a performer in several movies, the spokesperson for Hertz rental cars starting in 1975, and a generation of kids watching football games saw OJ hurdle suitcases to catch a flight… maybe he should’ve left earlier.

I’m not going to get into the other stuff. Murder trials, theft of a Heisman trophy, jail time. He had a remarkable life, and he made mistakes. I’ll leave it at that.

I’ve got meetings today starting at ten, and a couple of other tasks I want to complete. I should try to tackle a certification exam this afternoon. but I don’t believe I’m prepared for it. Most of my classes break things down into 7 or 8 modules… this one has 57. Yeah… I need to stay focused a little longer for this one.

I keep looking to see if I’m getting blood on the computer keyboard. I nicked the side of my finger changing razor blades. Nothing arterial, no worries there, but it is a nuisance.

Lisa and I are going to have a busy day tomorrow. We’ll make a run into Kansas City to pick up some gardening supplies, and then I have to get some gas for the mower and some diesel for the tractor. I’ve never named the mower and the tractor, but after they turned over the first time after sitting idle all winter, they’ve earned monikers.

It’s crazy to think that we’re only a month away from opening the pool, Mother’s Day, Dane’s college graduation… wow.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.