Evie Day 222

Good morning, and I wish you all a most happy and satisfying Taco Tuesday. Today is 24 October 2023.

Man, this month is going by fast.

First week in Redmond, then a week of prep time. Last week was a networking delivery, then this week’s security delivery to close out the last full week of October. I’ll have a solutions architecture class next week, another security course before traveling to a work meeting and then some time off for Thanksgiving. We’re going to blink twice and it will be New Year’s Eve and we’ll be ringing in 2024.

Today I’ll be the second trainer in the room. I took the lead on yesterday’s content, and today my training partner assumes that role while I answer questions in chat and add some notes to my slide deck for tomorrow’s sessions.

It was great to see some responses in my group chat with the tabletop gaming bunch. We were pretty worried about one of the guys, but yesterday he must’ve got his hands on his phone to reply to personal messages, and it was great to see him crack a joke. We’ll see go things go tomorrow night and this coming Sunday, as far as getting together to roll some bones. I’m just glad he’s in a better place today than he was over the weekend.

Time to get this in the can and get going with my day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 221

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you all. Today is 23 October 2023.

This morning, the dogs, most notably the fluffy boy, Odin, have taken a desperate interest in my wife’s breakfast. The vocalizations – not really accurate to call them “barks” – coming out of Odin are the canine of equivalent of Oliver Twist pleading for more porridge. He can be very insistent.

The weekend was pretty mundane. I spent a good portion of Saturday on either the tractor or the riding mower, tending to one of the last mowing efforts of the year. With the tractor, I go at it with zeal, pulling the brush trimmer behind that green beast until it overheats and shuts down on its own after an hour or so of operation, then I switch to a smaller green beast to tackle more mowing needs. After I get off those machines, I’m a bit stiff, and I was even more stiff on Sunday.

Sunday was a different kind of day. Normally, it’s a tabletop and football kind of day. Sadly, though, we canceled the tabletop gaming stuff as one of our group was in the emergency room with a heart attack. He ended up getting a couple of stints put in, and he’ll get out of the hospital in a couple of days, so we are all grateful that he’s going to be OK for now. If he comes across this post, I want him to know that we’re all thinking about him, wish him well, and we need his barbarian to crush the skulls and will of our opponents as soon as he’s up for it.

Might be time for me to get in for a physical.

This morning I’m back in my virtual classroom, teaching a security class. The content for day one can be a little dry – I describe it as being as exciting as a peanut butter sandwich that has been left out in the rain. It’s an introduction to lists of stuff on the first day, so I’ll try and have as much fun with it as possible.

Time to focus on the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 218

Good morning, and happy Friday to you all. Today is 20 October 2023.

I read my friends’ posts on social media, and sometimes I respond, and sometimes I don’t. One of the last times I responded was a posted picture of a friend’s daughter hugging a lifesize cutout of Donald Trump. I replied, “Rapists aren’t heroes”. I think she kicked me to the curb later that day.

Y’know, if you’re picking Donald Trump over me, please kick me off your friend list. I’m not a traitor. I’m not a fraud. I’m not a rapist. If you prefer that sort over my company, please punt my butt to the fence line.

I could go on. I’ve seen posts about rich people, poor people, sick people, healthy people. One conclusion I have come to is that the world has a number of people who will never have enough. Sometimes people don’t have enough food, water, or access to health care. These folks are on one end of the economic spectrum. Then there’s the other end of the spectrum… people who have plenty of food, water, and access to health care, but it’s the other stuff, the trappings of wealth that they can’t get enough of. There are people in this world who will never have enough money, power, or influence over other people’s lives.

These are the folks who make big campaign donations to the right people at the right time to make sure that their income is taxed at 8% while others get their income taxed at 35%.

I’m not going to blame the poor for their plight. As I stated earlier, some folks don’t have opportunities in front of them. In some US communities, the funding for public schools is pitiful. The affluent send their kids to private schools that get to cherry-pick their student populations, including recruiting the best athletes to represent their schools on scholarship. At the same time, these affluent folks use their political clout to siphon off funds that are intended for public education and redirect them to vouchers and other mechanisms that undermine the public education system.

The same sort of thing happens in health care. Doctors invest in their “private hospitals” while they still see patients who would normally go to the community hospital. Doctor and staff identify the patients with the best insurance, detour them away from the community hospital towards the doctor’s private hospital, and now those insurance companies are paying for medical equipment that is only used by the private hospital. The community at large doesn’t benefit. Eventually, that doctor sells out their well-stocked private hospital to a corporate healthcare system and runs for Congress (Yes, Roger, I’m talking about you).

Enough ranting for the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 217

Good morning, and a most happy Thursday to you all. Today is 19 October 2023.

My three-day networking class is over, and I think it was a success. My training partner seemed to be happy with our delivery, and the real-time feedback we received from the learners was all positive. I haven’t jumped into the comments yet, but I’ll take a look at them later today.

Today is going to be a book-cracking day. It’s time to take a look at my classes, figure out what courses have had updates, and get to work familiarizing myself with the changes. I have security courses in the next couple of weeks, as well as an architecture class. There is always plenty of new content out there for me to explore.

Enjoyed a little virtual tabletop gaming last night. It’s always relaxing to gather with friends, tackle an unknown challenge, and cover the ground with the virtual blood of our sworn enemies. Ok, maybe not so much “sworn” enemies, but they were in the way and refused to yield, and a barbarian is just going to be a barbarian sometimes.

Other than that, not a whole lot else to get into. The same stuff going on in the world today as there was yesterday. More evidence coming to light regarding the explosion at the hospital in Gaza, and it looks like it was a Hamas rocket that had a misfire. Of course, there will be plenty of folks, including American politicians, who want to place the blame squarely on Israel, and I’m not taking that bait. There’s video from Al Jazeera and geo-located audio that support the theory that it was Hamas – the captured audio bit was effectively two Hamas terrorists talking – “Was that us?” “Yep” “Oops”.

Time to refocus on the part of the world I can control. Make a post of coffee, maybe throw together some corned beef hash for breakfast. Now just thinking about it makes my tummy growl.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie 216

Good morning, and a happy humpday to you all. Today is Wednesday, 18 October 2023.

More chaos in the Middle East… yesterday there was an explosion at a hospital in Gaza, and both sides of the conflict are pointing fingers at each other. The Palestinians are claiming it was an Israeli air strike, and the Israeli side is saying that the evidence points to an off-shoot Palestinian Liberation group that has a record of poorly aimed rockets that have landed in Gaza again and again. I suspect the latter – I don’t think the Israeli forces are that sloppy with their airstrikes that they would commit such a horrendous war crime.

All I know is that there will be evidence. Let an international team investigate. Get to the truth.

I got a good night’s sleep last night, which I needed after my short night the day before.

Lisa is eating her breakfast at the table, and Odin is in anguish that she’s not sharing. That fuzzy boy can have a conversation about his need for food. His vocalizations are hilarious sometimes.

I’ve got a couple of modules to cover today, one on network security and another on network monitoring. The first will take most of the morning, the second, not nearly as much time.

So, this week I learned a couple of things, the most important being that maybe I need to be a little more selective about concerts and venues. Some venues are a little too tight for an old man like me – I need more leg room. The other thing is that I can experience a band concert on TV just as much while I’m at home, and I don’t have to wait in line to use the bathroom.

The other societal benefit of me staying home is that folks don’t have to worry about dealing with me. The fewer grump old men people have to deal with regularly, the better off we all are.

Alright, time to get focused on the day ahead.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 215

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday to you all. It is 17 October 2023.

Last night I went to a concert with my son, Dane, and I was reminded of the many reasons I don’t go to too many concerts anymore.

It wasn’t the volume. It was loud, I wore earplugs. I knew I would need them, and I didn’t want that type of overstimulation to ruin the experience for my son. I planned ahead on that front.

It wasn’t the quest for the brown note. The bass in that show vibrated the building, and I was starting to wonder if that deep, vibrating groan was going to knock something loose.

It wasn’t the strobe lights. Some of the effects were pretty darn cool, but there were times that the strobe lights were getting to me.

It wasn’t the crowd. Yeah, there were a number of folks that were tripping the light fantastic, vaping and openly toking. It’s been part of concert going since I went to my first concert in the summer of ’78 – Kansas at the Salina Bicentennial Center.

It wasn’t the musicians. Fabulous artists. The mastery of the guitar, bass, drums was quite evident. Very talented performers.

It was my right knee.

Dane and I were sitting in the balcony, and there was no leg room to be had. I had to stand up a few times to stretch my leg out, and at one point I just about left the balcony seats just do I could stand up in an alcove outside the main theater. I need to plan better for next time.

That said, good show. Polyphia is a solid band.

Back in my virtual classroom in another hour. My training partner and I split duties once again, with me tackling the review and a module on high-speed hybrid connectivity, and then he’s got a couple of sections on different types of load balancers.

That’s good enough for now. After I’m done talking, I’ll be spending the rest of the day dreaming of tacos.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 214

Good morning, and happy Monday! We start a new work week on this day, 16 October 2023.

So, what has happened since Friday? As many of you have noticed, I am a sports fan, and my Kansas Jayhawks lost on the road in Stillwater, with the Oklahoma State Cowboys pulling out a win. OSU is hard to beat at home – they have been a little down this year, based on their record, but at home they are a tough team to beat. Oh well, time to rally and try to close out the rest of the season strong.

In the NFL, the two remaining undefeated teams fell, as the Philadelphia Eagles and the San Francisco 49er both lost close games. That means that right now, the longest winning streak in the NFL belongs to the 5-1 Kansas City Chiefs, who lost the first game of the season, but has found a way to win since.

I’m back in the virtual classroom again today, delivering a networking course. I’ve got two of the three modules on tap for today, and tomorrow I’ll switch up with my training partner, and he’ll tackle two and I’ll handle one. A little lighter delivery day which I welcome because…

… Dane and I are going to a concert in Kansas City tonight. An area of rock music Dane enjoys as do I is referred to as “math rock” with chord and note progressions seemingly based on fractals and Fibonacci sequences. The Texas band Polyphia is playing at the Uptown Theater in Kansas City. This is the first time Dane and I have gone to a concert together. I’ve gone with my daughters to a show or two in the past – I know I wasn’t the only dad that took his girls to go see the Jonas Brothers.

Had a good day playing tabletop with the guys yesterday. We worked ourselves out of a dangerous situation, finished the adventure, leveled up, and talked about what we’ll do next time.

On that note…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 211

Good morning, and happy Friday. Today is 13 October 2023.

It is Friday the 13th.

Last night I got a little reminder of where I’ve been.

When I was in 7th grade at Salina South Junior High, I’d get together with friends after school for this and that, and one of the things some of the guys did was go over to Salina South High School to try their hand (legs?) at the high jump pit. Mostly guys just liked laying in the pit and talking trash like any 12 or 13-year-old kid would. I was just kind of hanging out because at that point I was on the tennis team, not the track team. There was one guy in the group who could high jump and did better than anyone else, and his name was Barry. I tried it, and thought it was fun, but one day I picked up a piece of pipe they used for watering the football field, tossed it up in the air, and missed when I tried to catch it. That piece of pipe hit me hard right in the mouth, cracking two of my teeth. The next day, Mom took me to the dentist, and I ended up with a new cap on one tooth, and some smoothing and filing on the other one so I wouldn’t have a completely jacked-up smile.

Last night I was reminded of that as I was using a toothpick to remove a small piece of last night’s dinner from my teeth, and an old crack in that front tooth gave way along with a small piece of that tooth. In the back. It’s not really visible when you look at me from the front, but I can sure feel that missing chunk with my tongue. Thankfully, there’s no real pain or sensitivity to heat or cold, so it’s really a minor inconvenience.

For those of you that don’t know me that well or for that long, in 8th grade I changed schools when my parents moved out to the country. I did go out for different sports, and failed to make the basketball team, but I did go out for track and field, and I returned to the high jump pit, a different pit located at Kenwood Park where the Roosevelt-Lincoln Junior High team practiced. I wasn’t the best, but I worked my way up the ladder and eventually became competitive. Won a meet my junior year, and placed second at the league meet my senior year.

Anyway, that’s a short little story about my teeth.

I’m going to wrap this up and get focused on my day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 210

Good morning, and I wish you all a happy Thursday. Today is 12 October 2023.

The news cycle is 100% about the terrorist attack on Israel and the capture of at least 150 people taken as hostages. Entire families were slaughtered. A grandmother was executed and the video was uploaded to her Facebook page. Children were killed, and molested. It’s horrific.

How can people that do this sort of thing think that they are doing God’s will? That’s the crazy part about it to me. These folks are motivated by religious fervor, a twisting of the word of God. I really can’t find the words. There are a few things I think anyone can recognize a simple truth… there will be a lot more deaths. It’s inescapable.

I can’t fathom the terrorist mindset. When terrorists attacked the World Trade Center towers on September 11, 2001, a war was declared against Al Qaeda, and the result was the loss of hundreds of thousands of lives. If you went to any of the Middle Eastern countries that endured years of conflict following 9/11 and asked the locals if it was worth it, I don’t think you’ll see folks lining up to say it was a good idea.

I have a feeling that there will be many Hamas supporters who will become former Hamas supporters, one way or the other. There will also be a new generation of young people that will take up one mantel or another.

Peace is better. I hope we can all get behind that. There is a certain base level of respect that all people deserve.

I’m pissed off.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 209

Good morning, and a happy hump day to you. It is Wednesday 11 October 2023.

We’re into the fifth day following the Hamas attack on Israel. This is a terrible event, and the death count is going to continue to rise. Hundreds of innocent people are being held hostage by a terrorist group, and they are being used as pawns in a game against an Israeli government that doesn’t negotiate with terrorists. There will end up being thousands of more people killed in this conflict, and Hamas and their Iranian sponsors are fine with that. Keep the victims in your thoughts.

During my prep weeks, I try to get in all of the other stuff I have to deal with as just a part of life. Eye doctor, medical doctor, car service, you name it. It’s easier to deal with when I’m not delivering a class. I also have opportunities, like I have this afternoon, to work on my space. I’m moving some stuff around to try and create a better delivery environment and incorporate the Open Broadcast Studio software into my workspace. I’m hanging green screens (chromakey backdrops), and then setting up some shelves in front of the backdrops. My goal is to create the appearance of my bookshelves traveling with my wherever my background photo says I am. I’ll then try to keep those shelves populated with conversation pieces, interesting bookends, and the like.

But first things first, right?

Time to block out my day.

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

Peace y’all.