Evie Day 230

Good morning, and a happy Wednesday/Hump Day to you all. It’s a new month, and today is 1 November 2023.

We were ready for trick-or-treaters last evening, but the only creature that came around looking for treats was the neighbor’s malamute. Jamison (dog’s name) did an adequate job disrupting the household as he stood in front of the front porch picture window and drove our house dogs into a frenzy. It got loud for a little bit, with Odin’s loud boy bark, and Lily has this high-pitched piercing bark that lands on my eardrums like an ice pick.

Dane suggested a movie last evening, but I’ll be the first to admit that I was distracted. Lots of color and action in “Across the Spiderverse”, but I have to admit that this particular movie had a a lot of moving parts, and I got lost due to my lack of focus on the plot. I should take another run at it when I can find time, see if I can sort it out a bit better.

Normally, Wednesday is a gaming night, but it looks like tonight might not be a good game night. Two of our game masters have work-related responsibilities, and our third gamemaster had his computer crash, requiring a rebuild. Tonight just might be a quiet evening at home, and the big bad evil guys will get to walk the planes for another few days.

Today is day three of my security class. It seems to be going well.

My youngest daughter and granddaughter came by the house yesterday. I was expecting them around noon, but they got in a little early. I was able to share my granddaughter and her cow costume with my learners. They were quite kind.

That’s about it. TIme to get this in the can. I’m thinking some leftover chili with a couple of eggs this morning might make for a good breakfast start.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 229

Good morning, and a happy Taco Tuesday to you all. On top of that, today is 31 October 2023. It’s Halloween!

I will not be appearing in costume today in front of my security course. I will be wearing a polo shirt and a cardigan, in the style made popular by many grampas around the world.

The other good news is that I get to see my granddaughter today, dressed in her first Halloween costume. She’s going to be the cutest pumpkin in town, and she will no doubt be a favorite when she goes up to trick-or-treat at my wife’s office up on campus.

My son is wearing a low-key Halloween costume, wearing a red-and-black plaid shirt and walking around with a roll of paper towels as he impersonates the Brawny character.

My wife planned ahead, making sure we have plenty of Halloween candy to give away for all of the kids that will not be showing up on our doorstep.

The news is back reporting on the kidnapping of hostages by Hamas terrorists. Israel has effectively declared war on Hamas and has taken armed forces into Gaza in an effort to recover the innocent people taken on October 7. Some hostages have been recovered, but there are still more than 200 still being held. I hope two things – that all of the innocent folks taken are recovered safely, and that the efforts by the Israeli military don’t end up becoming fertile ground for the cultivation of another generation of Hamas terrorists. Peace is far more preferable.

Tonight, I’ll make a taco run to my place on the east side of town. Halloween or not, Taco Tuesday takes precedence.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 228

Good morning, and a happy Monday to you all. Today is 30 October 2023.

Tomorrow is Halloween. This will likely mark the 5th straight Halloween with no one coming to our door and saying “Trick or Treat”, with the possible exception of my granddaughter, who will end up costumed as a pumpkin. Living out in the country has its advantages and disadvantages, and being secluded enough to hide from kids in scary costumes is a side effect.

This weekend was an opportunity for some streaks to end. The Kansas City Chiefs ended a streak of sixteen straight wins over the Denver Broncos, as a flu-sickened Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs’ offense turned the ball over five times and never looked in sync. The Kansas Jayhawk basketball team lost a pre-season exhibition game, and looked okay in the loss – I’m not too worried about it, as it doesn’t show up on the books – one of the game conditions was that no one fouled out, and I have a feeling several players would have if they had tallied the fouls. But… the big one… the University of Kansas Jayhawks pulled off a win over the Oklahoma Sooners for the first time since 1997. It was very nice giving the Sooners a going-away present as they leave the Big 12 Conference and head to the SEC next season.

I have a central time zone security class that will start in a couple of hours. I don’t mind the East Coast times, but after the early start with those classes, it’s nice to get back to a central time zone class… makes for a little slower start in the mornings, and a chance to enjoy an extra cup of coffee before the festivities start.

Might be time to get a pot of coffee dripping.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 225

Good morning, and a happy Friday to you. I hope this finds you happy, healthy, and surrounded by loving family and friends, bipedal and otherwise. Today is 27 October 2023.

I thought about tackling a certification exam today, but today might be a good day for me to address some other issues in my personal life. Some things are best attended to on business days.

It’s weird thinking about how fast this year has gone by. October is about to pass into history, and November looms like a specter left over from Halloween. November will be a good month, with family gatherings and the positivity most people have as we approach the holiday season from Thanksgiving through New Year’s Day.

We finished up our class in good order yesterday. There were no real problems, and a couple of emails to return to attendees after the class formally closed. It can be a hassle trying to get folks to fill out the post-class survey… wish I knew of a way to get more folks to fill those out.

That’s about it, really.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 224

Good morning, friends, and I wish you all a happy and healthy Thursday, It is 26 October 2023.

My work schedule today is favorable. My training partner and I agreed last week that I would cover days 1 and 3, and he would cover days 2 & 4… and today is day 4. I have a little case study today, and the class closing, but other than that, I’ll be focused on answering questions in the chat. I’ll have adequate time to ponder my next week’s delivery.

Just took a moment to ping a friend located in Maine. Some spree killer responsible for 16 deaths last evening is still on the loose. I don’t know much about the situation, but all positive intentions for the folks around Lisbon, Maine. I hope the suspect is in custody soon and the community doesn’t face any more tragedy than it’s already had to endure.

I was able to get online with the guys last night. Our friend who suffered the cardiac event on Sunday was online as well, and we gave him adequate words of support, as well as an occasional playful poke.

Overall, it was a boring day yesterday, with rain most of the day once again. I hope I can get a chance to walk out later today to check the status of the pond and see how much rain it caught.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 223

Good morning, and a happy humpday to you. It is Wednesday, 25 October 2023.

Yesterday was a pretty straightforward day. My training partner took the lead on yesterday’s content, and I participated by posting URL after URL in the chat. I’m back, front and center, today, addressing security concerns about documents and endpoints.

We had tacos for dinner last night, and anyone who is a casual observer of my Tuesday or Wednesday posts will not be surprised by that fact.

Lisa and I finished the Apple show, “Silo” last night, and it was interesting. I might need to read the other books in the series. “Silo” was based on a series of short stories by Hugh Howey, starting with “Wool”, which came out in 2011. Interesting premise.

Tabletop gaming with the guys tonight. I look forward to it. I have a sense that there will be a heightened sense of fellowship following last weekend’s event with one of the guys.

It’s going to be another rainy day. We need it. When I was mowing last weekend, I could tell how dry things have been based on the water levels in the pond.

That’s all I’ve got for now.

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

Peace y’all.

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.