Evie 259

Good morning, and a happy and prosperous Thursday to you all. Today is the last day of the month, 30 November 2023.

I’ve been pondering my health a little more lately, probably triggered by the traumatic experience of turning 60 this last September. I think about age-related issues, such as cognitive decline, hypertension, that odd occasional tremble in my hand, and just general mental health stuff relating to anxiety, etc.

I had some stuff keep me up last night. As I told my wife, it was like my head was playing a radio and constantly switching channels, going from talk radio to music to white noise and back again. It was complicated by one of those “ear worms” – a song you get in your head and just can’t get escape. I love music. I have a preference for different styles. Before I work, I listen to a lot of smooth rock from the 80s, a lot of Christopher Cross, Bruce Hornsby, James Taylor, and Dire Straits. That said, why did the song stuck in my head have to be “Bad Blood” by Neil Sedaka?

It seemed like that song was stuck on “loop” from 3:00 AM until my normal wake-up at 5:30. Not a pleasant experience. I’ll get through the morning, but when I take my lunch break today, I’ll likely be slapping on some noise-cancelling headphones and listening to my meditation music for an hour before I go back and wrap up my class.

I better make a pot of coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 258

Hi everybody! Today is Wednesday, 29 November 2023.

November is slipping by pretty quickly. Time seems to go by much faster when one stays busy, and this month I have been rather busy, and that doesn’t appear to be changing as we move into December.

My class is going well this week, and my attendees are being a little more engaged. It can be hard at times to draw people out, and if you’ve been around folks who work in IT, there is a sizeable portion of the community that doesn’t want to be drawn out – they just want to kick it in the back of the room and listen. I’m not going to compel folks to participate if they aren’t up for it, because I know that getting called out in a learning environment can cause some folks stress.

We had out typical Tuesday night dinner last night. Tacos are the perfect food.

After we dined on our taco feast last night, we settled in and watched the Kansas Jayhawks host the Eastern Illinois men’s basketball team. The spread on the game was ridiculous, something like 38.5 points, and Kansas played to the level of their competition, eventually winning by 8 – a far cry from the projected point spread. Kansas hosts the University of Connecticut Huskies on Friday night, the number 4 ranked team in the country. Kansas will need to bring a little more game to win at home, I think.

OK, time to think about breakfast… coffee, and scrambled eggs with a little leftover chili ought to get my digestive system moving.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 257

Hi everybody! It is another glorious Taco Tuesday, 28 November 2023.

I started my class yesterday, with a pretty good turnout. One of the challenges this time of year is getting folks to show up on the first day of class. It’s fairly regular to have a couple of folks not show up – our classes are free to our customers, and that might affect the perceived value of the course. Add in the challenges folks face during this time of year, and it is not unusual for there to be a pretty significant drop-off in attendance. We had a good day, and at the end of the day, there was pretty good feedback from my attendees, especially those in distant lands who were very late into the evening (2:30 AM in India!) and needed to get some sleep. One of my learners made the joking comment that sleep was for the weak.

I’ll get my day going here in a couple of hours. I’ve always been an early riser, something I think I picked up from my dad. He always got up at 6:30 AM, and with the years that I faced an hour-long commute to drive into Kansas City, I became accustomed to getting up at 5:30 AM. I sleep in a bit on Saturday and Sunday, but on workdays, 5:30 is the wake-up call.

I think I’ll have some of my wife’s leftover chili with eggs for breakfast this morning… avail myself of the opportunity to surprise my taste buds and stomach on a Tuesday. I won’t have much lunch – probably just a protein shake, and, as anyone who has read my blog before can expect, there will be tacos for dinner.

I’ve got dogs on my lap as well as my notebook. I suppose one could make the joke that I have a notebook and two furry laptops.

There is not much else to get into this morning. Kansas hosts Eastern Illinois tonight in a warm-up game prior to taking on the defending national champion UConn on Friday. I might need to get an extra bag of tortilla chips to enjoy with salsa during the game tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 256

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you. Today is 27 November 2023.

I’ve got the news on, and the primary topic is the release of some of the October 7 hostages being held by Hamas in Gaza. There have been a number of hostages released, a number of them women in children. I’m not sure as to the numbers nor composition of those that were released on the Israel side. My understanding is that there is about a 3-to-1 ratio, with Israel releasing three for everyone released by Hamas.

I’m back in my virtual classroom for the next four weeks, with three classes focused on case studies and no real “labs”, and then another security class prior to the holiday break.

Sportsfan Bob had a good weekend. My Jayhawks finished out the regular season of football with a road win to finish 8-3, the first time they’ve won that many games in 15 years. The Kansas City Chiefs started off Sunday by spotting the Las Vegas Raiders 14 points before dropping the hammer and outscoring the Raiders 31-3 starting in the 2nd quarter to secure a road win.

Not much else happening in my corner of the world. Time to start looking over the content for my class that starts at 9:00 AM Central Time.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 253

Good morning, and a happy Black Friday to you all. My wife and eldest are heading out to see what Black Friday deals are out there to be had…today is 24 November 2023.

I’ve done the Black Friday thing in the past, but these days I’d rather plan a more organic Christmas shopping experience. Combine that with the fact that I’ve already taken care of a great deal of my shopping for the holiday and there’s not that much left to pick up, and I’m on pretty good footing for the holiday.

I’m going to get a little work done this morning, then get back to the relaxing activities of the day, this last paid-time-off day for November. Next month, there will be more time off.

My daughter is having a conversation wth my wife right now, and the subject matter is one that I would much rather be in a different room right now.

OK…

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

peace y’all.

Evie Day 252

Good morning, and a happy Thanksgiving Day to you. Today is 23 November 2023.

I have much to be thankful for.

I have my health, and my family is healthy as well. My wife and I have good jobs, and good careers. That is a blessing. My daughters have their careers, and my son is doing well in his last year of undergraduate college. We have a home over our heads, and vehicles that get us from point a to point b. I have a happy, healthy grandchild.

I am thankful for the people who care about me.

Later this morning we’re going to head out of town to see family for the holiday meal. For the first time in some time, I will not be doing the driving… my oldest daughter is going to get us there in the car she bought late last year. I’ll get my tablet charged up and read on the trip. I look forward to someone else doing the driving… might help me out with my energy level at the get-together.

It is a holiday, and there are things that need to be done. The coffee isn’t going to make itself quite yet.

I wish you all peace and happiness today, and I hope you live a life of gratitude. I know I have plenty to be thankful for.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 251

Good morning, happy Wednesday. ‘Tis humpday, ’tis Thanksgiving Eve, and it’s a morning where I will get to enjoy fresh cinnamon rolls while my youngest daughter and granddaughter come over for a visit here in the next fifteen to twenty minutes.

My granddaughter is now crawling, so that will affect everything around here. Crawling leads to walking and walking leads to running, and that leads to little ones needing safe places to land. We’ll have to keep an eye on the corners, as we don’t want the little one to need a stitch in her chin or her cheek… like her momma had to have after falling into a media cart while she danced to the Barney theme music at daycare some 24 years ago.

I have not had a good week as a sports fan. Kansas football lost, Kansas City Chiefs lost on Monday Night Football, and the Jayhawk basketball team fell to #4 Marquette – I do not like losing to Shaka Smart ever. Tonight the Jayhawk men’s basketball team will play for third place at the Maui Invitational versus Tennessee, and they are going to give Kansas al they want.

The Chiefs loss was a hard one… Kansas City proved that the position title “receiver” was an honorary title, as the passing game suffered from 26 dropped passes, including a drop on 4th down and a drop in the end zone that would’ve won the game.

I didn’t write a blog post yesterday. WordPress was acting squirrelly, so I went back to tending to my rat-killing.

About time to do that again…

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

Peace y’all .

Evie Day 249

Good morning, happy Monday, and I hope my American friends have a wonderful week of Thanksgiving and the truth about the origins of this country. Today is 20 November 2023.

Lisa and I had a weekend trip down to Wichita to see a comedy show at the Crown Uptown Theater. It was a lot of fun, spent time with a couple of Lisa’s friends from before we started dating in ’95, and stayed overnight at the Marriott… got to get use out of those points! We saw Steve Hoffstetter and a few opening acts, one pretty good, a couple that were a little more forgettable. All in all, it was a great time, and Lisa and I reflected that we should do that more often.

I’m on vacation this week, but that doesn’t mean the work goes away. I’ve got plenty to focus on today and the rest of the week before we close out the year. I’ve got a daily minute to record here shortly, so after I get this cranked out and posted, it’s off to the studio to record.

Two games of interest tonight… the Kansas City Chiefs play the Philadelphia Eagles on Monday Night Football, while the Kansas Jayhawks play in the first round of the Maui Classic (now on Oahu, due to the fires on Maui a couple of months ago). The Jayhawks will play Chaminade tonight. I don’t think the Chaminade team will give Kansas much trouble, but there have been times in the past when Chaminade has been an early-season spoiler for some big-name squads… granted, that was twenty or thirty years ago, and the local team might have lost the element of surprise.

I’m going to get this in the can and get to work.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 246

Good morning, and happy Friday to you all. Today is 17 November 2023.

I returned home from my company off-site meetings at about 11:00 PM last night. I felt good to sleep in my own bed last night.

Now I’ve got some work to do.

For me, going to these sorts of meetings gives me a better foundation for the rest of the year. I have a better idea about the next steps.

Now I need to put the ideas I learned into action.

I’m not going to take a lot of time writing more about work stuff, but I could. It was a positive few days.

I just wanted to get this post cranked out to stay on top of my personal writing commitment.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 245

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. It is 18 November 2023. Hard to believe how fast this month is going by.

My team meetings are getting wrapped up today. After that, the focus shifts to “what comes next”. We’ve been spending a lot of time talking about AI and security, a couple of very hot topics at the office. I’m excited about what comes next.

I’ll be playing a role in today’s meetings, as we switch from the Americas teams to our individual regions. We’re doing a charity project, and we’re also playing a game. Each of these has some significant involvement from your truly.

Yesterday we had a charity event, a team-building exercise followed by building bicycles for kids. Somewhere during the team building component, I bent or twisted wrong and tweaked my back right in front of my coworkers. My groan was audible… and an accurate vocalization of what I was feeling at the time. I ended up returning to my room and lying down for a while. I was ok for last night’s team dinner. Everything wraps up this afternoon, and then I’ll head home to sleep in my own bed tonight.

Not much else to report that I can talk about. A family member got a nasty cut on a finger that led tp six stitches, but that’s news for that family member to discuss, not me.

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

Peace y’all.