Evie Day 244

Good morning, and a happy Wednesday to you. It is 15 November 2023.

Last night was weird.

I was supposed to go on a boat trip and dinner with my work teammates, but late in the afternoon I was getting an odd feeling. Felt a little light-headed, got the impression that my blood pressure was spiking, and decided that maybe spending two hours on a boat was not the best idea. Even after I made that decision, the feelings didn’t subside for a while. The closest I can get to describing it was a panic attack, which I have had in the past. My apologies to my team for missing out, but I do think it was for the best. I didn’t want to turn into a 275-pound pile of vibrating, sweating goo in front of people. Better to stay in the hotel room and calm back down.

More meetings today. Then another dinner, but this time, just the west coast team. I should be ok.

I watched a little bit of the Kansas college basketball game – not all of it, which would be a first for me in a long time. I’m usually pretty good about staying up, but I turned the game off with ten minutes remaining just because I was exhausted.

Not much else to share, really.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 243

Good morning, and a happy Tuesday to you. I wish you peace, happiness, and tacos on this Tuesday, 14 November 2023.

I had a great time last night hanging out with some folks that I had not seen in quite some time and finally meeting a number of folks that I have worked with for a while but had yet to meet face to face. It was a lot of fun and provided me with a sort of energy that I kind of needed at year’s end. All too often when you work from home, you don’t get to have these in-person get-togethers, so it was most welcome.

One of the things we watched and talked about was sports, and there were definitely some things to talk about as we watched the Denver Broncos upset the Buffalo Bills at home. It was a rather stunning outcome, and quite the game, with a dramatic finish as the Broncos placekicker missed his field goal attempt, down one, with time running out on the clock – but with the quick reset the Broncos ran to set up the kick, the Bills were confused and had 12 men on the field – one too many. The second attempt from five yards closer sealed the game for the Denver squad. I have some Bills friends who will not be happy.

I’m going to have a full day of meetings today, and there might even be a sighting of me with a guitar in my hands tonight. Not making any promises.

That’s enough for today. Time to go hunt for a cup of coffee and grab some breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 242

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you all. It is 13 November 2023.

Did my regular thing this morning, trimmed my beard/goatee thing with the electric trimmers, brushed my teeth, and jumped in the shower to finish up the task at hand. Coffee is brewing, and I’ll toss a little container of leftover corned beef hash into the microwave as soon as I get this post completed.

Sports guy Bob had a mixed weekend. Friday night, the Jayhawks put on another show on the basketball court for an easy win, a tune-up game prior to tomorrow night’s match against the Kentucky Wildcats. The Kansas football team had some struggles Saturday against Texas Tech, with player after player walking off or being helped off the field with injury after injury, including our second-string quarterback, Jason Bean, who has been leading the offense most of the season following the injury to our starting QB in the third game. Our freshman walk-on QB did outstanding work in his surprise effort, but Kansas left a little too much time on the clock, and Tech scored a field goal with the clock running out. Dang it.

I’ve got some work meetings this week. That’s kind of the focus this week. Next week, I’m taking some time off for the Thanksgiving holiday week.

Not much else to report, really. Almost lost my dwarf cleric yesterday during the role-playing session… but he could stand a rebuild following a computer crash. Lost a lot of his details, so it’s a good time to rebuild him right with all of his skills, abilities, and healing potions intact.

That’s enough for now. I’ve got stuff to take care of.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 239

Good morning, and a happy Friday to you all. It is 10 November 2023.

I’m thinking sushi for lunch with my son, schedule permitting.

My mind is in a bit of turmoil today. There are any number of things I need to focus on and more than a couple of distractions at the moment, most notably my boy Odin expressing his dismay over the lack of surplus bacon on my wife’s breakfast plate.

Everybody has “stuff”. I’m kind of in a box this morning – I have a report to complete regarding my work activities, and I have to reconcile that I haven’t been that great at compartmentalizing my life – I have a lot of “creep” between the various aspects of my life, from one box into the other, and I need to do a better job managing that.

You know what… maybe I just ought to focus on that stuff right now. I get up in the morning and I write this, and to a degree, writing can be therapeutic. Write now I just feel like I need to get this done and get back to focusing on the other stuff.

Odin is still whimpering at my wife’s feet. He’s a noisy boy. Squeeky.

Might be time to oil the dog.

OK, rather than sit here and think about the other things I need to do, I’m going to get on them.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 238

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. It is 9 November 2023.

I do pay attention to the political landscape, and sometimes it terrifies me. The prospect of Trump getting back in the White House is something I do not want to face, and as I look at some of the polling data, it is one I likely have to face. I couldn’t believe the American people would be so gullible back in 2016 when he was elected, and after all of the facts that have come out, it it still within the realm of possibility that he could return to the presidency.

Through Mitch McConnell’s machinations, he put three justices on the Supreme Court, when, if this had been handled as it has been in the past, Trump would’ve likely had only one. Scalia’s vacant seat was not filled because it was an election year, and Ginsburg’s seat was filled because it was.

Politics are sickening in America.

I’ll wrap up my solutions architecture class today. It’s been a good week with a small group. I would’ve liked to have had more of my learners active in the chat, but I also respect that some like to sit back and listen. I’ll just accept the reality of it and focus on my part of in the delivery.

I’m a little tired this morning. Neighbor dog up late barking. Even in the country, there are still some inconsiderate dog owners that leave their dogs out too late and too loud.

That’s enough for now.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 237

Hi! My name is Bob, and I write a blog Monday through Friday. Today is Wednesday, 8 November 2023.

I get up at 5:30 AM to get ready for my day, and I try to crank out a couple hundred words about what is going on in my personal and professional life. I am married, the father of three kids, and the grandfather of one little girl who is 237 days old.

I track the number of days I have been alive. The average person lives between 28,500 and 30,000 days. As of today, I’m at 21,968. I turned 60 years old in September.

I am a technical trainer by profession. I have a college degree, and I have been working with computer since the late 70s, when I discovered the first PC purchased by my high school stashed in a chemistry classroom storage closet.

I’m geeky, nerdy, and I used to be a little bit athletic when I was a kid. I like to play guitar, but I do not read music. I like to play golf, but truth be known, I haven’t picked up a golf club since I started working for my current employer almost five years ago.

I work from home. I spend my days talking to people all over the world about cloud technologies. Right now I am starting day three of a course on cloud solutions architecture.

I have four dogs. We used to have five, and lost one of our beloved pooches in September, and I do miss her. She was a wonderful dog.

Tonight there will be a debate between most of the GOP candidate for the presidency, while the leading candidate, currently facing 91 counts in 4 jurisdictions, has a rally down the road where he doesn’t have to share a stage with anyone else. I think I’ll be focused on my game night with the guys instead.

That’s just a little slice. I write a post like this every now and then to kind of ground myself and remind myself of who I am and what I do. I don’t claim to be anything more than what I am. I just want to be a genuine guy with hopes and fears like anybody else.

That’s good enough for now.

I always close my posts with two lines.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 236

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday. No need to ask me about my plans for dinner. It is 7 November 2023.

Kind of interesting… my website is undergoing some maintenance, so I have started my daily blog entry in Notepad.
Not much going on here this morning. I’ve got some info to look over for my class here in a bit, but the news cycle is focused on the off-year election coverage. Not much really going on with our local elections, mostly school board and city commission stuff. There are some elections in other parts of the country that have a little gravity in states like Virginia and Kentucky, where right-wing Christian men are vying for the right to take away more body autonomy from women.

Sorry… I’m not a big fan of men controlling women’s rights to make their own decisions about their bodies. I would also not be in favor of a female majority having the ability to control the body autonomy of men. It’s a private matter, and it’s really no one else’s business but a woman and her doctor.

Yeah, I’m starting off the day with an attitude. I should check myself.

Lisa and I watched the Kansas University season opener last evening. Kansas, the number one ranked preseason college basketball program in the US, took on an overmatched squad from North Carolina Central. It was not a good experience for the Carolina team, as Kansas controlled the game from the start, and ended up winning by a score of 99-56, with walk-ons closing out the last seven or eight minutes of the game while the starters got to rest and watch. I can’t help but wonder of North Carolina Central’s athletic director lost a bet and had to put Kansas on their schedule. The game was kind of ugly for them, and there were obvious moments of frustration for the visitors.

OK, time for me to get this in the can and start to focus on the day’s work.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 235

Good morning, and happy Monday to you all. Today is 6 November 2023.

I had a pretty good weekend.

I don’t hide my sports fanaticism as any of you who have come across my blog are well aware. I’m a Kansas guy. Kansas and Kansas City had a pretty good weekend. The Kansas Jayhawks won on the road at Iowa State, a team that hung 52 points on the Jayhawks the first time they met in Ames under the current coach Lance Liepold. That’s pretty significant, and it propelled Kansas to its first winning season since 2008—pretty good stuff. The Kansas City Chiefs bounced back from an embarrassing loss on the road to the Broncos by beating an AFC-leading Miami Dolphins team in Frankfurt, Germany. The Chiefs became the first NFL team to win games in four different countries – USA, England, Mexico, and now Germany – not too shabby. The one match I did not watch was Sporting KC playing St Louis in the MLS playoffs and scored a huge upset over the West-leading team from across the state.

I was a bit productive on Saturday, as I started the task of cleaning the barn to make room for my utility vehicles here in rural Douglas County. We’re looking at a more-rough-than-average winter, so it’s best to get the vehicles indoors.

I’m back in my virtual classroom in another couple of hours. I’ll be teaching cloud solutions architecture this week, going solo this time for a class of 27 learners from around the world.

Tonight I get to put my sports fan hat back on as the preseason number one ranked Kansas Jayhawk basketball team opens their ’23-’24 campaign versus North Carolina Central. Kansas should be favored, but one thing I have learned – if teams don’t take an opponent seriously, it can lead to embarrassing outcomes. Kansas needs to step on the gas early, get a solid lead, and then work on their player rotation. It will be interesting to see what happens with the shooting from beyond the 3-point arc.

That’s enough for now.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 232

Good morning, happy Friday, and where did the week go? Today is 3 November 2023.

I suppose I should head into the courthouse to vote today. Normally, it’s a Tuesday thing, but I’ll be in class, so I might as well go take advantage of early voting.

It’s kind of funny. I’ve heard people grunt, grunt, complain, and moan (when I say that in my own head, I don’t use the word “complain”) about voting – whether it’s early voting, voting machines, vote by mail, allegations of stuffing the ballot box… but there’s not a lot of fraud cases out there that disprove voting options one way or the other. Our system is pretty good. It just seems like there’s momentum to try and make voting as difficult as possible. It doesn’t make a lot of sense to me.

TV spokesperson has a voice that hits my eardrums like as icepick. Ugh.

My partner and I wrapped up our security class yesterday. Good class, good learners. Today I’ve got a day to prepare for my class next week, a solutions architecture course. The week after that, I head to Austin, Texas for a team meeting, and I’m taking a vacation week for Thanksgiving. I have this tendency to defer my vacation time to the end of the year. The only problem is that I often don’t have enough year left when I figure out how much vacation time I have left… I’ve left some days on the table in the past, and I likely will do the same this year.

Well, I don’t have a lot of motivation to continue writing at the moment. Nothing against y’all, but I think I’ll just wrap this and get it in the can.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 231

Good morning, folks! It is Thursday, 2 November 2023,

Today is the last day of my security class. The course had a refresh recently, and I like what the courseware designers have done with the class. The previous iterations of the course presented some challenges – most of those challenges centered on time management, making sure that our learners have adequate time to focus on the hands-on labs. This new version is better.

I’m watching the news this morning. A senator from Alabama has been holding up promotions for US servicemen as part of an infantile tantrum. He doesn’t like the fact that the military reimburses military personnel for travel for certain types of medical care, and to put an exclamation point on his self-righteous indignation, he has been holding up the appointment of officers to leadership positions for months – at this point, it might very well be years. He’s doing the work of the Chinese and Russian leadership without compensation from their governments… as far as I know. By the way – he never served. I didn’t serve either, but I volunteered, just couldn’t overcome a major blip in my health history. Back in ’85, a person could not serve in the military with a history of cancer, and I was only a year, year-and-a-half out from my fight with the big C.

I got together with some of the guys last night. One of our gamemasters was rebuilding his campaign from backup, and several of us were able to recover our characters from the local cache. My backup showed up as a level one character, but that had more to do with the computer I was logging in from than versioning problems from the local cache. We’ll get it sorted out this weekend, I hope.

Not a whole lot else to report. I guess I’ll get focused on the day.

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

Peace y’all.