Evie Day 756

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. Today is 120 April 2025.

I have a routine… I wake at 5:30 most mornings, grab a shower, drink two cups of weather, then I sit down to catch up on important overnight news and write my blog entry for the day.

As I’ve mentioned before, my usual weekday tabletop night is Wednesday, but we’ve been moving the day around a little bit to see if it helps with some scheduling problems we’ve encountered. It’s better to have a few extra players around to distribute the battle load, as well as the social banter that comes with hanging out with the guys. Tonight is the night, and I hope to have a good turnout.

I have the last day of my cloud solutions architecture class. It’s been great working with this group over the last few days. I hope the training partner has been happy with my delivery – we’ll find out later when we ask them to complete a post class survey.

Tomorrow will be a prep day for me. I have a class to deliver next week that I haven’t delivered, but it’s familiar territory, teaching scripting in PowerShell. I’m looking forward to that.

I need some coffee… time to make a pot.

Oh, interesting enough… the tariffs that had been announced have been suspended for 90 days. The DJIA rallied yesterday after the announcement… and then the questions start to get asked. Was this market manipulation? Sell short before the tariff announcement, buy right before the tariffs are suspended. There is one particular member of Congress that might have a little explaining to do (I wrote that and heard Desi Arnaz’s voice in my head).

Anyway…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 755

Good morning! It is 9 April 2025, and it is a Wednesday, a Humpday, Midweek… Friday’s coming, we just have a few more days.

As you can probably presume, there were tacos last night, as I am wont to do. Yesterday, at the end of class, I had a moment, and I quickly wrote a prompt to create an image of a taco buffet created by a gourmet chef. It was a little fun for a Tuesday afternoon. I’ll get back into the room soon and prep for the day, but I’m thinking I might want to revert my Teams backdrop to something a little more professional than an AI-generated taco buffet.

Normally on Wednesday evenings, I get together with the guys for a little tabletop, but we’re playing on Thursday night this week. The last few sessions have been great, and I look forward to the next.

As far as the day goes, I’m not expecting much variety. Lisa heads into work at 7, Dane will work on his stuff, and I’ll be back in the sunroom teaching class, hopefully without Odin and the sisters Von Floof barking at birds right outside my sliding glass window. That was a bit irritating yesterday afternoon.

Not much else to add. I’m going to get this in the can and make a pot of coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 754

Good morning, and a very happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 8 April 2025.

Yesterday was a good day. I was back in my virtual classroom for the first time since the end of January, and it felt good. I had a couple of minor hardware issues – my laptop couldn’t load drivers for my secondary camera – but it was a good day, and the folks I had in class seemed to have a good experience.

After my class finished, I received a very pleasant surprise in the form of my youngest daughter and my granddaughter, Evelyn. Gracie is still new to her job with the school district, and Evie has been going to day care, making new friends with little sprites in her age group.

After dinner, Lisa and I settled in to close out the season of 1923. After we closed out that series, Lisa was ready for bed, but I flipped over to the college basketball game to watch the last 7 minutes or so. Congrats Florida.

OK, I have class today and tacos tonight. It’s time to make some coffee and get a bite. Class is on East Coast time.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 753

Good morning, and a very happy Monday to you all. Today is my brother’s birthday, 7 April 2025.

My thoughts this morning are with my cousin Mike and his family. Mike Severson had been fighting some serious health issues, and this past Saturday morning he passed. He was a good guy.

Today is also my brother Dan’s birthday, as he turns 57. Happy birthday, Grampa.

Today is going to be an interesting day. It will be my first day back in the virtual classroom in a couple of months, and I am looking forward to it. I’m not sure how many folks will be in attendance, but we’ll get things locked in and tied down. This is the environment in which I thrive, and I look forward to it.

Tonight there will be a national championship basketball game between Houston and Florida. Houston is in the Big 12 now, so there’s some support around here for the conference. I’m sure there will be some Florida supporters, but probably not too many around here.

OK, last Thursday was a bad day for Wall Street. I mentioned it on Friday, I think. What I didn’t see coming was how bad Friday was going to be… Thursday was bad, Friday was even worse. Looks like some of the overnights in the Bitcoin and Ethereum markets were bad as well, so the blood bath may continue into today, maybe even longer.

OK, time to get ready to work.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 750

Good morning! It’s the last day of the Western work week! Friday! Friday! Friday!

OK, I might be getting a little carried away there. Today is 4 April 2025.

Today I’ll be spending some time preparing for a couple of upcoming classes. It will be good to get back into the swing of things, I have an architecture class next week, then a script-writing class the following week. It will make for a decent month.

We moved out regular Wednesday night game over to Thursday night, and it was a good one-off time shift. One of the guys who’s been dealing with some personal and medical stuff was able to join back up with the party, and that pretty much made the night. I hope we have a similar turnout for Sunday’s session.

I see the stock market crashed even more yesterday. Yay. Lisa and I are a little apprehensive about how Trump’s latest debacle might affect our retirement accounts. I saw I lost quite a chunk in one of the accounts. This tariff business just strikes me as a threat to other countries… it’s like Trump cut the head of every world leader’s favorite horse and dropped it into bed with them Corleone-style.

I could rant about stuff all day… but it’s not healthy.

The weather today is going to be pretty gray. I’ll get out of the house later to get stuff for dinner. I’m thinking something with scallops. I stepped out on the front porch earlier just to listen to the sound of the gentle rain falling and breathe in a touch of the petrichor. I always liked that word… and now I used it in a sentence. Woot!

OK, time to get the coffee on, think about getting the trash out to the corner for pickup, and sketch out a framework for the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 749

OK, looks like my site is back up. Sorry folks, it has been a few days…

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. My WordPress site has been offline a few days, so I do apologize for that. I have some friends that keep track of me through my blog, and I didn’t mean to worry anybody.

We had a weekend, we had a Monday, I had tacos on Tuesday… and Wednesday game night has been deferred for a day this week.

Work stuff is going pretty well. I had a nice conversation with a training agent from the UK about my availability to teach some classes on this side of the Atlantic, so that looks like a possibility.

To be frank – I always hated the term “To be honest”, because the smart alex in me always thinks and sometime says out loud – “Oh, now you’re going to be honest? You’ve been misleading us up until now”… so, to be frank, things are ok for me professionally. They could get better, but I’m putting together a patchwork of small opportunities that are keeping me engaged.

My big worry right now is the economy. Tang the Terrible’s latest poorly thought-out tariff initiatives suggest we’re headed for a major recession.

For those of you who like my occasional posts about my granddaughter, Evie is growing up fast, and she’s learning some very important lessons right now about a toilet’s purpose. We also found out over the weekend that she likes orange sherbet… not necessarily the lemon or lime that were in the same pint.

There you go folks… the first picture I’ve ever added to my blog.

OK, time for me to get focused.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 743

Good morning, and a happy Friday to you all! Today is 28 March 2025.

Sorry about yesterday. I started to put things together, and then I was unable to get authenticated to WordPress, and then I became distracted by another project.

This has been a good week. Gracie started a new job with the school district in Baldwin. Dane had a breakthrough with some of his research into a medical device, Bonnie was busy with her work, and Lisa was doing well, too. I’ve been working in a project that has been very professionally satisfying, clearing some labs for a lab hosting company, and my report is due Monday. If I can keep crackin’ this morning, I might have it done this afternoon.

Wednesday night is normally a game night with the guys, but with some travel and other work responsibilities, we didn’t have the numbers, so we called it an early night after some chat. Hopefully, Sunday afternoon will have better attendance.

There are some other things going on in the world that I could talk about, but it would just get my blood pressure going.

On that note, it is Friday, I need to get the garbage out to the corner for collection.

I’ll get back with y’all on Monday. Hopefully I’ll have a little more to share after the weekend.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 741

Good morning! It’s Wednesday, Humpday, Mittwoch, whatever you want to call it. Today is 26 March 2025.

Yesterday was a productive day. I stayed on task for a very long time working on my lab reviews. More today, but instead of three-hour and five-hour labs, the collection I continue with today will all be between ten minutes and half an hour for each experience.

There were no real surprises for dinner last evening. Dane preferred the pork chili verde, and Lisa had a little of that as well as chips and salsa. I had my crispy beef tacos with some queso and habanero sauce, and all was good in my corner of the universe.

Today shouldn’t be too exciting, really. Labs, paperwork, other paperwork, and then a little tabletop with the guys this evening. I’m not quite sure where we’ll be with numbers, but whether it’s conversation or gameplay, I do enjoy hanging out with the guys.

I don’t have a whole lot to add, really. There’s stuff on the political horizon that angers me, but I can’t do anything about that. Let’s just say that secure communications should not be hosted on an unsecured app, and if someone on a team mentions using an unauthorized platform for secure communication, it’s the responsibility of everyone in that conversation to question.

That’s enough… time to think about more pleasant things like coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 740

Good morning! I hope this Tuesday finds you happy and healthy, and possibly prepared for the perfect meal on the day… TACOS! Today is 25 March 2025.

Yesterday was a good day. I was fairly productive with my class commitment, but I took a moment or two to say hi to some former teammates (truth… some of the folks at the mothership that I used to work with will never be “former” teammates… good people), and then I got back to work. It was nice to pop in and say hi, and then pass along my current email address.

My work day was done about 4 PM, so I ran into town thinking that it would just be Lisa, Dane, and me for dinner, but Lisa phoned me while I was on my way home that we would have two additional guests for dinner, our daughter Gracie, and of course, our two-year-old granddaughter Evelyn.

We made up a little game for Evie… the “quick hug” game. She has to run to one of the others in the room and give them a quick hug and then run back to momma. She seemed to enjoy it. I know I certainly did.

In light of recent events, a buddy of mine has redefined an acronym. “TS/SCI” normally means “Top Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information”. In light of the recent Signals snafu announcing war plans, it is now suggested to change it to “Top Secret/Some Civilians Invited”.

Including a journalist from “The Atlantic” in the war plans distribution list is not a good idea. It might be a breach of security…

“But her emails!”

Yeah, another mess up from the current administration… absolutely a fireable offense two months in. I don’t think it will improve.

In the meantime, I hope you find all the freshest ingredients for your dinner this evening… crispy or soft shells, a good protein, grated cheese, maybe some warm queso… fresh lettuce, and just the right sauce. Mine will be habanero.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 22,470

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you all. Today is 24 March 2025.

We had a weekend.

It was pretty typical first weekend of spring, with a dinner with an old family friend on Friday, some planting of seeds to get our veggies started, and some other family stuff. Lisa and I are still maintaining our broadcast news boycott… it’s not really a boycott, we just can’t stand to see Kumquat Pol Pot get any more attention.

We did watch some sports over the weekend, but no basketball. We’re still mourning the fall of the Jayhawks in the first round. Saturday evening we watched some women’s soccer as the Kansas City Current traveled to Washington, DC to play the Washington Spirit. The Kansas City squad won 2-0.

Baseball is around the corner with opening day another week or so away. It’s frustrating around here. The Kansas City Royals are the local team, but their broadcast package is lousy. We’re on DISH network, but apparently the Royals made a deal with Direct TV, so the only alternative is to buy the streaming package. I’m not that dedicated a baseball guy to spend a ludicrous amount of money just to watch baseball. I can watch other sports instead, or even (gasp!) go outside to get stuff down around the property.

I’m always thankful for the Sunday afternoon gaming sessions with the guys. I enjoy the banter, and it’s an enjoyable experience to slay an imaginary baddie every so often. It can be cathartic.

I’ve got work to focus on today. There’s also a learning day for my training peers. I signed up for two sessions, and one has already been canceled. I might have to poke around and see if there’s another I can get in on.

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

Peace y’all.