Evie Day 680

Good morning, and a happy last day of the Western work week to you all. Today is Friday, 24 January 2024.

In five more days, I’ll reflect on my dad’s birthday. I’ve taken the month of January away from alcohol, and on my dad’s birthday, I’ll toast his life and his memory. When I’ve done Dry January in the past, I didn’t always stick to the pledge, but this year has been an exception because I played by the rules. Minor achievement achieved, here’s a badge to post on LinkedIn.

Today I’ll wrap up my solutions architecture class. Two more modules to cover, and one case study walk-through after the closing. I have a little recording to do this morning that I couldn’t; do last night – after talking all day in class, I was starting to lose my voice, so I thought the better of it. I’ll get it cranked out shortly, after I get the garbage out to the corner.

We’ve been keeping the news off for some time and will continue to do so. It seems there is always something in the news that reminds us that the country is taking a turn, and I don’t believe it’s for the better. My mom’s insulin prices will be going up because Big Pharma investors need to be reimbursed for their campaign donations. Farm good prices will be going up, as the ICE raids are affecting farm labor – people aren’t showing up, and crops will just rot in the fields. The White House says that Ukraine just should have surrendered to Russia instead of fighting for their homeland… words from a man who surrendered to Russia long ago.

This weekend I’ll watch some sports, Kansas will have basketball games for the men and women, and the Kansas City Chiefs will host Buffalo. As I flip through the news and other social media, I see that the hatred for my favorite sports team is growing with each win. Even if the Chiefs win, I probably won’t say much about it. No need to transfer the hate from the team to this fan.

Time to get this in the can and get going on coffee and a breakfast bite.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 679

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to yo all. Today is 23 January 2025.

Every time I write the year correctly the first time, it’s a minor victory.

I had an exchange on LinkedIn I would like to share.

A former coworker posted a note on LinkedIn, the professional social network, that he was just so darn happy that the president declared that everyone has to go by the pronouns assigned at birth, and all of this pronoun nonsense was over. I had to remind him that using the pronouns people prefer is a sign of respect, and that I would continue to use his preferred pronouns in that fashion. He then complained about why certain groups have “months” and veterans don’t, and that he was upset about the rainbow being associated with LGBTQ acceptance rather than God’s promise that he wouldn’t kill everyone on the planet again because God is a good and caring God that just killed all the women, men, babies on the planet.

I probably should have asked how he knew for sure that God wasn’t regretting his decision and showing a rainbow in support of the people he had murdered, including the LGBTQ folks. It’s not like somebody was taking down contemporaneous notes.

I’m snarky that way. A lot of folks claim to know the mind of God, and I love it when I get a chance to say, “That’s not what God told me” just to see the look on their face.

God told me to leave my neighbor as I love myself. God told me to do under others as I would have done unto me. God never told me to that if I advocated for the eradication of folks with gender dysphoria, I wouldn’t be inconvenienced by pronouns. Seriously… there are people that think the world would be better off if trans kids offed themselves so they wouldn’t have to change one part of the way they refer to another human being. How selfish is that?

Oh, Susan tells me that it’s National Handwriting Day. Write somebody a nice handwritten note… and make sure it’s legible enough for them to read. I know I will – my dad is watching.

On that note, it’s time to get ready for the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 678

Good morning, and happy Wednesday to you all. Today is 22 January 2024.

It seems this month is flying by.

It’s funny. I invested so much time into passing that exam I took Monday. I studied over my Christmas vacation, took the exam, and missed it by that much. I learned more, tried to stay focused as much as possible, and passed the thing on Monday, but it feels like I have missed out on a great deal. I didn’t spend time with my family like I should have over the break, and I was distracted by that exam even when I was around my wife and kids, and of course, Evelyn, my granddaughter.

Now I ponder buckling in to tackle another certification exam, the last in the security suite. This one should not be quite as challenging as the other one, but it could have a few hidden tricks and trap in it. The day will come when I no longer have to get certified and renew those certs every year, but that day is years away.

Lisa and I had a quiet evening at home. I looked over some work content, and played a little sudoku on my laptop until it was time for bed. I turned on the “Sleep” music channel, settled my brain into a less active mode, and dropped off.

Today, I’ll be back in my virtual classroom in a couple of hours. Database design, high availability, data integration are the subjects of the day. Tonight, it looks like there will be a little time for some virtual tabletop with the guys. One of the guys in the group talked about his schedule, and he’s anxious to slay some non-existent big bad evil guy to work out a little tension.

I see I have a class scheduled out into April now. That is a bit of a reassurance.

Time to get focused on the day.

Evie Day 677

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 21 January 2025.

Make a plan, and get some tacos later. You’ve earned it.

Yesterday was a pretty dark day, in my opinion. A felon was sworn in and started issuing executive orders. First, apparently, was an EO to raise the flags back up to full staff, as the tradition is to fly flags at half-staff for 30 days following the death of a former president. Tangerine Palpatine couldn’t bear to share the stage with a man who had more integrity in his toenail clippings than Cheeto Benito has in his family tree.

There were other EOs. Raising drug prices for Medicare and Medicaid recipients. That fat bastard thinks my mom has money around that pharma investors need more than she does. There was another EO that was the most anti-LGBTQ+ declaration in a hundred or more years. He also pardoned around 1500 rioters who participated in the January 6, 2021 insurrection -effectively stating that it’s ok to assault police officers with flag poles, bear spray, feet and fists as long as you do it in Trump’s name.

We’re going to continue to leave the news off in the mornings.

Folks on social media platforms have noticed new followers – apparently the FOTUS and Vance have both shown up on folks’ lists of followers mysteriously… or not so mysteriously. All Zuckerberg has to do to modify the world’s followers on Facebook and everyone has a new follower. Great… just great.

I’m back in my virtual classroom today, teaching solutions architecture. I have a couple of other tasks I need to attend to as well, verifying the classes I can teach. I made a typo recently that showed I was capable of delivering a course, and when I checked out the course, I realize the mistake I had made.

I did accomplish something yesterday – I got that monkey off my back and passed that certification exam.

Time to get this in the can and turn on my little space heater back in the sunroom… -11 here, so I’m going to need a little help getting my workspace up to speed.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve. If you beat up cops in DC, it is.

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 676

Good morning… I almost wrote “good moroning”… that’s not until noon.

Welcome to another week in 2025. Today is Monday, 20 January.

Years ago I was building a new system to help me learn cloud technologies and some other applications in the Microsoft 365 application suite. I was trying to devise a name for the machine, and decided to go with “Nightfall”. I thought it appropriate considering the short story by Isaac Asimoc and the insanity I thought the world was experiencing in 2016 and 2017. Nightfall seemed a good name… a descent into darkness, and moments of pure chaos.

I retired Nightfall late last year after a good run. I still have it, but it sits unplugged back in the office next to my new desktop with the i9 processor and the high-end video card. Still, the name was appropriate at the time.

The Chiefs won on Saturday over the Houston Texans, and it appears as if the Buffalo Bills will be travelling to Kansas City for the AFC Championship this coming weekend. The game will start at 5:30 Central Time on Sunday, January 26.

I have a meeting this morning with a colleague in France, then I’ll continue my preparation for another certification exam. My confidence is a little better this time around.

Starting tomorrow, I’ll be delivering a solutions architecture class. I have a few new twists that I plan on incorporating into the course to spur a little more engagement.

Meeting, exam, doctor’s appointment. I’ll relax a bit tonight after I pass this exam. Tonight’s national championship game between Notre Dame and Ohio State will be fun. I can’t say I have a preference – my oldest daughter earned her master’s at Ohio State, and we’re a Catholic family, and we’ve known more than a couple of folks who attended Notre Dame.

Time for me to get a pot of coffee going, and get back to studying.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 673

Good morning, and welcome to the last day of the Western work week. Today is 17 January 2025.

Hey, I got the year right the first time!

There’s a grim vibe in the air. Time to make some changes.

I have been fairly active on Facebook for a number of years, ever since the young lady who looked after our kids introduced the site to me back in the ’00s. These days I read articles, read posts, and watch… and I am not happy with the direction social media is taking to appease the FOTUS. Many of the big tech companies are currying favor – Meta, Google, Amazon – in order to win giant government contracts that the orange one will award based on loyalty. Anyone with a clue knows that he is the most transactional president in US history… if you want something, you have to do something for him first.

Yesterday I was criticized for making reference to the GOPs approach to providing emergency relief to California. The Speaker of the House and a congressman from an adjacent red state have both made comments about “conditions” for California relief in the wake of the largest suburban/urban fire in US history. They want California to adopt some more friendly conservative practices before they will provide the emergency aid they desperately need. I never heard the California representatives say anything about South Carolina, North Carolina, or Mississippi implementing policies favorable to progressives before voting for their hurricane aid. Maybe there’s a different set of standards when there are liberals involved.

I’ll post the links to my blog on FB, but my daily participation in that forum is going to get shaved down. If folks are interested in my opinion, they are welcome to come check out my blog. I’ll continue to write, but I have a feeling that the next four years will turn a lot of social media into a dark place.

Today will mostly be a study day as I prepare to tackle a cert exam again. I panicked the other night and moved it to Monday, but that gives me the weekend to prepare.

Time to get the garbage out to the corner.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 672

Good morning, and a happy Thursday to you all. Today is 16 January 2024.

It was an interesting day yesterday, as there’s some movement on my team at work. The gentleman who has been my manager for the last few years is moving to a different team, and I am getting a new manager, my 8th or 9th since starting in 2019. The new manager is someone that I have worked with in the past, another instructor, so I’m going to remain open-minded.

Class went well yesterday, We sandwiched my section on virtual machines between two modules, one on storage, and the other on application services. My training partner this week did an outstanding demo on Container Instances, and I learned a few things about the developer side of the house.

Last night we did not get together for tabletop gaming online. It was probably a good idea, as we start at 8, and Kansas was pummeled by Iowa State between 6-8. Iowa State is ranked number 2 in the country, and on their home court, there are few teams that are going to give them a game. Kansas tried, but in the end, turnovers and free throws did them in. Missing bunnies doesn’t help either. Kansas hosts Kansas State on Saturday, and with both teams coming off losses, there could be a little fire in the belly.

I had a cert exam scheduled for Friday, but I panicked and moved it to Monday. I want the weekend. I need to pass this exam, and I have more than a little anxiety about it.

That’s about all I have for now.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 671

Good morning, and a very happy Wednesday to you all. Today is 15 January 2024.

Yesterday was pretty uneventful. After I wrote yesterday’s blog post, I did my recording for YouTube, looked over a couple of other things before work, and then spent a large portion of my day cuddled up next to a microphone doing my thing. It was a pretty good work day. After that, I sat in my chair with the dogs and did a little reading, followed by a word from my wife that our youngest daughter might be joining us for dinner, so I planned on some queso and a couple of crunchy ground beef tacos for her. My taco run was quick and without complication… no tequila shots, no Dos Equis this month. We had a nice dinner.

Today will likely be more of the same, but I usually get together with the guys on Wednesday night for some tabletop gaming, but it looks as if we won’t be playing tonight – too many other responsibilities with some of the others. That’s ok, I have some more studying to do.

It was announced that my employer is going to layoff some folks, and I’m one that might be in the crosshairs. Not a good feeling, certainly not good for my blood pressure and anxiety levels.

It’s out of my hands.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 672

Good morning, and welcome to the second Taco Tuesday of 2025. Today is 14 January 2025.

Did it again… 2025, Bob.

Yesterday was a good day, albeit closer to uneventful than exciting. My class is on Eastern time, so I go back into my workspace at 7 rather than 8 and finish a little earlier as well. However, yesterday, there was a little post-class organizing that needed to be attended to, so that extended my workday. I spend a little time last evening studying for a certification exam as well.

I’ll head back into my office/workspace/studio/broadcast booth in a bit. I have a little bit of recording to get posted to YouTube. I also had a teammate reach out to me about doing the voice-over for an animation his team is putting together. I have accepted and will get to work on that.

There really isn’t that much going on here. Like I said, closer to uneventful.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 669

Good morning, folks! It’s a Monday! Today is 13 January 2025.

2025, Bob… 2025.

I still pop in the old year from time to time, habits being what they are.

I’m working on some new habits. This month I’m participating in Dry January – no booze until January 29, and then I’ll lift a glass to my dad. His go to was Canadian Lord Calvert and 7-up. I like the Canadian whiskeys as well, but have a preference for the sour citrus taste of Fresca or Squirt. On his birthday, I might go a little old school – Dad used to like a Manhattan every now and then as well.

One other thing – it’s not you, it’s me. I’m neurodivergent, and I have attention issues, anxiety, and panic attacks (they suck, by the way), plus a couple of other side effects that can make me a little more challenging to deal with. Nobody likes bad news, but most people can recover, but there is a group of folks that dwell on the negative messages and it’s hard to shake… these folks might very well have rejection sensitive dysphoria – it’s always deeply personal. My point is that if you tell me something and I appear to be distracted, it’s not your fault. I’m just wired a bit differently.

I’m not going to go into textbook descriptions, but it’s not fun. Then again, panic attacks aren’t fun either, just sitting in one spot and vibrating so fast I feel like can pass through solid walls, plus the physical drain of the experience… it sucks. My panic attack frequency has improved, but they still happen. I’ve been getting them for decades, it just took me a long time to figure out what they were.

Today I’m back in my virtual classroom, delivering an admin class with another trainer. This week I’m working with a trainer I have not delivered with before, a gentleman from Montreal. I wonder if he’ll be impressed with may guitars that are from Montreal as well… hmmm.

OK, time to make coffee and get ready for my day. East Coast delivery today, so we’ll start a little earlier, and then I’ll have a little more time tonight to focus on my certification exam prep for Friday.

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

Peace y’all.