Evie Day 488

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

Yesterday was a good day for me… I got some stuff done – not all of it, but a chunk of it. I made myself a list and got to it. Some of it I should be able to get taken care of before the day gets going in earnest. I’ll be back in the virtual classroom for office hours at about 8:00 AM… not due in until 9:00, but I like to get in early.

Last night I did a little foraging for dinner and came across a pretty good buy over at HyVee on pork tenderloins. I picked up two of the tenderloins, one to smoke this week, and another for the freezer.

Y’all don’t have to ponder too long on what our dinner plans are for tonight. There will be tacos, and the only variable is the number.

My son talked to me this weekend about reading more fiction, which I would love to do. He suggested that he and I, as well as my oldest daughter, start reading books together. Pick a title, read it, and talk about it. My only concern is trying to keep up with Bonnie… that girl goes through books like a hot knife through butter.

I’m not feeling it this morning. There’s usually something going on somewhere in the world worth mentioning, and I’m sure there is… but I just don’t feel like talking about stuff. Right now I think it’s more important to listen to what’s going on rather than commenting. Some of the things going on in the world are quite frightening, and a number of those things are going on in my backyard.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 487

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you all. Today is 17 July 2024.

OK… somebody took a shot at Trump over the weekend. Clipped his ear. The shooter is dead, a 20-year-old kid who couldn’t win a spot on his high school marksmanship team. Trump is apparently fine, a father there with his family is dead, and the Republican National Convention begins today in Milwaukee.

I’m on a prep day today. I’ve got two presentations to nail down, a talk for tomorrow to outline (a familiar subject), and an exam to prepare for. I should look at the applied skills courses as well, and fill in a couple of blanks.

We had a relaxing weekend around here. Lisa wrapped up a major project on Friday and had a little time to relax this weekend. I worked on projects intermittently, watched some sports, and joined the guys around the virtual tabletop yesterday afternoon.

There’s not much else to share really. I grilled some wings and had some Thai food. Peppers are coming along nicely, and the pool is warm.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 484

Good morning, and a happy last day of the work week to you all! Today is Friday, 12 July 2024.

Today is an Evie Day.

I always look forward to seeing my granddaughter. I think she’s getting used to us a little more. My daughter is raising Evie at home, not using daycare the way Lisa and I had to back in the 90s and early 00s. I think that’s a pretty healthy choice. That said, Evie is all about Momma. She can be a little clingy.

Yesterday I burned a bridge. An old high school classmate, from my younger brother’s class, had called me out more than once on my opinions, one of them being on the use of Ivermectin as a treatment for COVID. I did a simple lookup of some medical content, and he wasn’t really happy with the peer-reviewed content I offered up in the debate. He makes fun of old Joe, and he wasn’t happy that I pointed out the guy he supports has 34 felony convictions, 2 impeachments for cause, two judgments against him for defamation related to sexual assault, and his fraud related to Trump University and his legal paperwork for loans and tax appraisals, and that wasn’t even getting into the Georgia election interference or his mishandling of classified documents.

I then told this person that no one is too surprised that he would support a felon with a history of sexual assault. I must’ve struck a nerve… a real old one, but it was struck nonetheless.

Fluff Busting Purity informed me that he was no longer connected to me on Facebook soon after.

I can be an arrogant, opinionated curmudgeon. If folks come at me with misinformation, they will meet that arrogant, opinionated old fart. It has amazed me how some folks will believe blatantly false and malicious things about one person, yet ignore the verifiable truth of someone else.

I’ll be back in my virtual classroom later. One two-hour session, then I have the balance of the day to focus on some other projects. I’ve got two presentations a week from Monday that need some attention. I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied… the grass in the yard won’t cut itself, either. Sunday, there will be mayhem… the online sort with the game crew.

Next week… we’ll continue with the class, moving from week 1 to week two in the four-week format.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 483

Good morning! It’s Thursday! I hope you all have plans for a great day. Today is 11 July 2024.

The little icon in the lower right corner of my laptop is waiting for me to install an update. I thought I was done with updates for the week.

Yesterday was a good day. On the work side of the house, we talked about the labs and alternatives if the labs get a little wonky. One of the things I like about this course is that there are interactive lab simulations that walk through all of the labs. I recommend these for folks who are relatively new to the cloud, so they can see how the tools work before engaging in a hands-on lab where they are required to engage in a little more tactile learning.

After that, I had to focus on helping some of the learners with authentication into our course web app. I might still have a couple of folks that need some extra help, but right now, I think things are on track.

I’m up on the virtual dais at 9 o’clock. I have a presentation on “Governance, Policy, and RBAC”. RBAC stands for ‘role-based access control” – basically making sure that people have access to the resources they need to have access to, and have an authorized level of access. Not everybody needs to be a global administrator.

Last night I got together with the guys, and we progressed on our latest campaign, and nobody’s character croaked. That’s a pretty good night in my world.

My son and I talked a bit about gaming last night on the topic of homebrew world-building. My son has a very good imagination.

OK, time for me to get my ducks ready for the parade ground.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 482

Good morning, and a happy Wednesday to you all. Today is 10 July 2024.

Later today, I will be sporting an appropriate background for my Teams meeting. Camels will be involved in the humpday theme.

I had generative AI spin up a couple of backgrounds last week with some camel art. It was OK, but I did end up with something like a “PushmePullyou” from Dr. Doolittle. Generative AI is fun, but it’s not perfect.

We had tacos last night. I ordered the bacon-wrapped shrimp fajitas and then assembled my own… that was after I had a couple of good old-fashioned crispy ground beef tacos. I love Tuesdays.

The class went pretty well yesterday, with almost 200 learners in the sessions. We had the same issues we normally have when it comes to virtual private networks, authentication, closed ports on the firewall, etc., but we did a decent job getting almost all of them addressed. I’ll be back in the virtual classroom in another couple of hours to talk about the lab experience and give folks a hand with the first couple of labs for the course.

Tonight I will get together with the crew for some virtual tabletop mayhem. I’ve been playing with this same group for a few years now, and it is a lot of fun, I am grateful they have accepted me into the group. We have three different gamemasters, and two of them are running two different campaigns… so a total of five campaigns, five different characters, and all of them seem to be evolving in the right direction.

I need to get gas for the mowers… 5 gallons of regular gas, 5 gallons of diesel.

That’s all I really have on my mind today… ok, that’s a lie. I’ve got plenty of other things on my mind, but I’ll just keep some of those thoughts to myself for now.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 481

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday. Today is 9 July 2024.

I will be back in my virtual classroom in a couple of hours, the first meeting of my four-week class. It’s all basic administration stuff that I teach with some regularity, but those days of teaching cloud administration may be drawing to a close as the total number of admin course offerings have started to dwindle in favor of more expert-level courses on security and AI.

Yesterday was a busy day. I had a prep day, and I attended a couple of meetings. I worked on presentations, and after one meeting, I got pinged that one of my prescriptions was ready to pick up. I recently broke my glasses, as well as another pair of safety glasses that I wear when mowing, so I thought I might have time to run by the optical dispensary to see if I could get at least one pair, if not both, fixed. I got lucky with my daily drivers, a pair of clear frames from Ray-Ban, but they told me that they would have to send in the safety glasses for a lens swap due to OSHA concerns, which made perfect sense to me. After that, I ran by the grocery store to grab my prescription.

Later that afternoon, after I arrived back home, I received a phone call informing me they could swap the lenses in my safety glasses, so I could come by and pick them up anytime. After looking at the clock, I realized I could kill a couple of birds with one stone – pick up the safety glasses, and run by the chiropractor’s office to see if he could do anything about my right shoulder that has been bugging me for a few weeks after I fell in the dark (yeah, not my finest moment).

Anyway, I now have two pairs of fully functioning glasses, a better shoulder, a prescription, and Melita #4 coffee filters that I am so glad I remembered because COFFEE!.

I’ve got some things I need to look over for work, so I better make a pot of coffee, grab a slice of the breakfast pastry my wife made the other day, and get to it.

Tonight… there will be tacos.

In the meantime…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 480

Good morning, and welcome to the new work week. Today is Monday, 8 July 2024.

I’m starting a new class tomorrow.

I’ll begin a new 4-week blended learning delivery tomorrow with a trainer I have not worked with before. I look forward to it, and it’s particularly interesting this time around, as this trainer and I will spend four weeks in a delivery, then take a couple of weeks away on other classes and a little PTO, then we’ll jump right back in working together on another blended learning class.

It was an interesting four-day weekend. I did get together with the guys last Wednesday night for a bit, as I am wont to do. We did our thing, making some fantasy world safer for the humanoid races and the powers of good, and then we did a little more of the same yesterday afternoon as well. These days I don’t have a lot of social interaction outside the home – I am the epitome of a homebody. The exciting interaction today with people will be running by Target Optical to see if I can get my glasses fixed or if I’ll have to order a new pair.

Lisa has been pretty busy over the four-day weekend as well. I left her to focus on her work Friday while I took off to Clay Center to see my mom, and I also was able to see my brothers. I dropped off some brisket and pork loin for them, and I was pleased to hear from my youngest brother regarding his opinion of my barbeque – he was pleased. Let’s hear it for minor victories.

I’ve got a couple of other projects to focus on today, and I should organize my time blocks for the week. There are presentations to work on, and coaching notes to review.

Until next time…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 476

Good morning! It’s Thursday… but in the US, it’s the 4th of July, a day we celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence. I pause and think about what my 7th great-grandfather thought when he signed that document. His name was Benjamin Harrison, and he was the governor of Virginia at that point in history.

I don’t think I would’ve liked him much. He didn’t treat folks well.

I will get a brisket trimmed up and seasoned to put on the Woodfire Grill. I’ve got some meat to prep for later today and tomorrow – I’m heading to Clay Center to see my mom on my day off.

Last night there was enough rain to put a damper on some fireworks celebrations. We still had our share around here with the thunder and the lightning. The dogs certainly noticed.

I got together with some of the guys last night for a bit of gaming. We had just completed a battle with some bad guys, and I was kind of dinged up, down 2/3 of my hit points, but it was all good – the bad guys were vanquished. We didn’t have the full party there with family and other responsibilities, so it was mostly a night of healing and looting… after all, those bad guys won’t be needing that cachet of gems now, right?

OK, let’s get this sorted…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 475

Good morning, and a happy Humpday to you all. Today is Wednesday, 3 July 2024.

It is Wednesday, but there are aspects of Friday mixed in , as we move into a 4-day weekend with the 4th of July holiday. I decided to let my feet start their vacation early, slipping into sandals rather than my casual loafers.

Last night there we tacos… I know frequent readers of my blog are sitting on the edge of their seats waiting for that confirmation. Crispy beef tacos, soft chicken tacos, and the Alambre from my local restaurant.

I’ll be back in my virtual classroom today. I’ll cover the first twenty minutes with review, then we’ll move into network security, and private access, and wrap things up with monitoring and log analytics. I hope we can wrap up in the middle of the afternoon to give folks a little more lab time. My training partner thinks we should forego the lab time in favor of doing more demos. I’m of the opinion that we may have spent enough time on demos, and it’s the lab time that our learners need. I have a feeling I won’t have much say in the final outcome.

I’ve got a brisket and pork shoulder to cook today and tomorrow. I’m thinking I can get the shoulder taken care of over the course of a few hours today, maybe getting on the smoker around lunchtime, and pulling it off after my class wraps up.

Last night it rained a bit, and the neighbors had to call off their nightly round of fireworks. For some folks, the Fourth of July starts on June 25 and runs through New Year. It was a bit quieter for a while, then the thunderstorm started and the dogs were scared of the thunder and lightning instead of fireworks.

I’ve got a few things to attend to, but I think I’ve done enough of a recap of my day. It was a decent day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 474

Good morning folks, and a very happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 2 July 2024.

Tonight, there will be tacos.

But the USMNT will have to eat theirs with no salsa… man, oh, mah. The United States Men’s National Team has been playing in the CONCACAF Nations tournament, hosted in the United States, and the host country does not advance out of group play. They lost last night to Uruguay. If they had not messed the bed against Panama, they might’ve moved on, but not this year.

I’ll be back in my virtual classroom in a bit. Yesterday was a rough start, as a thunderstorm passed through, dropped three-and-a-half inches of rain, shut down my internet service providers, and left me hanging. My training partner stepped in, and we swapped modules. My access came back online later in the day, and I got through the second module and the labs with no problem, but that was the worst networking situation I have had to deal with as a remote trainer.

I don’t have much else to share this morning. Coffee is starting to call my name.

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

Peace y’all.