Evie Day 503

Good morning, and a happy Humpday to you all. Today is Wednesday, 31 July 2024.

I looked at the number of days I have been alive, and thought it looked like something else. My brain is a strange instrument.

There’s stuff going on around here. I’m busy, Lisa is busy, Dane is busy. Dane spent most of Sunday and Monday helping his friends move, and he went straight to the Ibuprofen yesterday.

Last night we had food from our local place, Cascada la Golondrina, and I splurged for the bacon-wrapped shrimp fajitas. I remember the character Ron Swanson from “Parks and Rec” stating that was a favorite, as it was his first and third favorite protein served together. Why I remember that, I have no idea.

We watched the Olympics, with some of the swimming events, and the US Women’s Gymnastics team bringing home the gold. It was great watching those young ladies complete their so-called “redemption tour”.

I just paused a moment to figure out what Olympic events today might pique my interest. Looks like there will be some basketball to watch later today.

Breakfast and coffee are calling, so I’m going to wrap this up and get focused on the day. I’m back in my virtual classroom in about two hours, so I have some time to focus on me a little bit. A cup of coffee would be most welcome after I finish my second glass of water.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 502

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 30 July 2024.

Where did this month go? Wow.

I look at my granddaughter, and the days for her are so full of new experiences. She’s only been in the world a scant 502 days, meanwhile, I sit over here, the number of days full of twos and threes, and each day rolls into the next, sometimes with significant interaction, other times, not so much.

Last night Lisa and I watched some of the Olympics. The men’s team gymnastics was a lot of fun, and we particularly enjoyed the pommel horse performance by a 25-year-old electrical engineer from Penn State. Stephen Nedoroscik took off his glasses and completed the Clark Kent to Superman vibe. What a performance! In an event where most of the team competes in multiple events, Nedoroscik is a specialist – he’s one of the best in the world at that piece of apparatus. His performance helped propel the US Men’s Gymnastics Team to the podium for the bronze for the first time in 15 years.

I’m back in my virtual classroom in another couple of hours. I’ve got a few tasks to attend to before the work day begin in earnest, including recording a small bit for work.

It is Tuesday, my favorite day of the workweek for food. Tonight, there will be tacos. I need to jump into the AI tool and generate a taco-related background for my meeting.

Other than that, not much else to report. Life goes on.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 501

Good morning, and a pleasant opening to the work week for you all. Today is Monday, July 29, 2024.

We did family stuff this weekend. Due to certain privacy concerns, I’m not going to go into too much detail, but yeah, we had a good time, all the kids were around, and I spent a little time with my granddaughter, and visited with some other family members. All in all, it was a pretty good time.

Back to the grind today, although the grind today will more likely have to do with coffee beans than repetitive work tasks. Today I’ll be in a day-long “camp” about using AI. I hope I pick up a few more tips on how to get the most out of the tools that have come to the forefront over the last couple of years.

I probably ought to throw a brisket or a pork loin on the smoker today or tomorrow.

The dogs have all gathered around my wife while she eats her breakfast, all four of them hoping for a taste, so more vocally than others.

I start my class tomorrow, so today will be a good day to attend AI sessions and organize my talks for the week. I’ve got a couple of emails to kick out to some folks in a bit, but they’re on West Coast time, so I’ve got a little time to myself before I have to dive into the workday in earnest.

In the meantime, coffee, breakfast, and maybe a little Olympic competition.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 498

Good morning, happy Friday. Sorry I didn’t post yesterday, but my hosting service was undergoing some maintenance. Today is 26 July 2024.

My niece and her family are coming for a visit. It will be nice to reconnect. We’ve got some plans to have a little fun, and the Olympics will be on in the background.

I swapped Friday sessions with my training partner, so he’s taking today, and I’ll take the closing next Friday. All in all, today looks like a good day to take the afternoon off.

I see that there has been a coordinated attack on the French train system. I hate terrorists.

So.. what did I want to tell folks about yesterday? Wednesday was a good day. I got together with the guys for some gaming on Wednesday night. Any night my character remains upright the entire night is a good night. Yesterday was a little frustrating, as I tried to open up my WordPress site and the site said, “Not today, bud”. Had some meetings, got some stuff done, made arrangements to go to the company studio in September.

I’m kind of boring this morning. Nothing is really coming to mind to talk about.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 496

Good morning! It’s a Humpday! Today is 24 July 2024.

I really have no idea what I’m going to have for breakfast this morning. I should do some serious pondering on the matter.

This week seems to be flying by. There were two presentations on Monday, yesterday, and two more today, and that’s just fine. It’s what I do.

I’ve mentioned it before, but it’s good to revisit from time to time. I almost have a split personality, or maybe it’s more like an “extrovert switch” I flip in front of an audience. I can be as extroverted and attention-seeking as the next person, maybe even more so. And then, we put the Bobster away and just go back to being Bob, and I’ll go grab something to read or a Sudoku puzzle and sit quietly in the corner.

It seems when I was younger, the Bobster switch came on more frequently and stayed on longer. These days, I burn through the moments, the energy dissipating rapidly.

I’ll be back in front of the camera for a couple of hours in the morning and a couple of hours in the afternoon. Tonight… there will be gaming!

I look forward to those times on Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon.

And my mind wanders back to thoughts on breakfast… I’ll make the coffee, and contemplate… looks like toast with peanut butter might be in my immediate future.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 495

Good morning, and the happiest of Taco Tuesdays to you all. Today is 23 July 2024.

I was exceptionally relieved at about 5:00 PM yesterday afternoon, as my work teammate and I closed out the last of the sessions for yesterday’s learning day. I was up to my armpits in two sessions yesterday, one went off without a hitch, the other with a minor miscommunication that kept us from getting started promptly. All in all, it was a pretty good day with some pretty good sessions.

Today will be a regular virtual classroom day, with my training partner taking control of the office hours this morning, and I’ll be responsible for the first whiteboarding session this afternoon to talk about storage options in the cloud.

I’ll admit… I wasn’t quite sure how I felt about Vice President Harris moving from the VP role to Presidential candidate, but today I am significantly more comfortable, and that level of comfort seems to be growing not just in my household, but with others as well.

We’re busy here at the house when we aren’t focused on work responsibilities. We are having some family visitors this weekend.

Tonight… there will be tacos.

Until then…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 494

Good morning, and happy Monday to you all. Today is 22 July 2024.

And it’s going to get very interesting. Yesterday, President Biden announced that he would back out of the 2024 election. He then endorsed Kamala Harris, the Vice-President, as his replacement. I’ve already made one prediction – if Harris is the Democrat candidate for the presidency, Trump will not debate her.

The barbs against Harris are already flying, with insinuations that she is too far to the left or otherwise unfit. Keep in mind that some of the folks making these comments are so far to the right that William F. Buckley looks middle-of-the-road.

This morning I saw Joe Manchin on the news. He left the DNC a year or two ago, and now he wants back in to have a shot at the presidency. He is very wealthy and made his money in fossil fuels. I’m not a fan.

I have a learning day today, with sessions starting in another hour. I have two sessions today, one early in the afternoon, one later in the day. In the first one, I am coaching people through a security tool, and in the second, I’ll be presenting some tips and tricks for using AI in the productivity suite.

I had a good time yesterday hanging out with the guys. We’re going to be focused on the house and property when we’re not focused on work stuff this week, as we have a niece and her husband coming for a visit this weekend. There will be D&D. I have to admit, I’m not quite sure what that will mean for my Sunday afternoon session with the guys I play with – it might be a good time to divert folks to the swimming pool so I can cause a little chaos role-playing an angry red-haired dwarven cleric. Lawful grumpy is an alignment, isn’t it?

The world is changing, and I need to change, too.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 491

Good morning… I hope you aren’t sitting in the airport this morning. Today is Friday, 19 July 2024.

Today is not going to be a good day at the office. There’s an authentication problem apparently caused by a regularly scheduled key rotation and now Crowdstrike and Microsoft have a serious authentication problem. I have a feeling it will be part of this morning’s office hours session.

I’d like to go on a talk about celebrating my youngest daughter’s birthday tonight, she turns 26. I’d like to talk about some of the other preparations that I need to attend to in preparation for next week.

I think I need to educate myself a little bit more about what is going on.

I’m going to close this one out early and get to work.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 490

Good morning everybody! It is Thursday, 18 July 2024.

Today is going to be a busy day.

I return to my virtual classroom for a couple of long blocks, a 2+ hour block in the morning, and another in the afternoon. In the between times, I have plenty to keep me occupied, with a couple of presentations for next Monday I need to nail down.

I flipped on the news… probably shouldn’t have. I think we’ll watch something a little more in our idiom. I certainly will not be watching any political conventions—too much gaslighting. I can’t support a felon for the presidency.

Election cycles bring out the worst in people. I had some guy virtually yell at me on social media yesterday, telling me that I’m not getting the truth from mainstream media. I asked him which news sources he would recommend, and for fun, I ran the named sources through a website called MediaBiasFactCheck.com . It’s fair to say that his news sources were a significantly less objective than the sources I generally lean on like AP Newswire or Reuters.

I probably ought to go tend to my other morning responsibilities.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 489

Good morning, and a happy Wednesday to you all. My Teams background will have camels in it today… it is 17 July 2024.

Last night I had tacos.

I felt it was important to get the important news out there first.

After dinner, we resumed doing a little thing we’d been doing here. Dane recommended a few weeks ago that we should watch the Lord of the Rings movies once again, and all three movies, extended cuts, are available on Max. That last movie, with the extended scenes, is four and a half hours long. We got through a few hours last night, and we’ll probably finish it up tomorrow night.

It’s better than watching a few of the prominent events on TV.

Tonight, I’ll get to avoid television tonight as well when I get together with the guys for a little virtual tabletop gaming.

The news is on, I’m feeling ill. I better wrap this up.

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

Peace y’all.