Evie Day 166

Good morning, and a Happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 29 August 2023.

Yesterday was my brother’s birthday, and I have to confess, I can’t recall whether I wished him a happy birthday or not on my blog. I texted him and shot him a note on social media, so I think the message got through to him . To be honest, Tom probably doesn’t read my blog, so the other avenues were probably a wiser choice.

Freya had another day yesterday. I warmed my heart when she came down into the sunroom where I was delivering my class. During lunch she sat with me, and when I carried her back down to the sunroom, she walk around, and I lifted her up the two steps to go back into the main part of the house. She then went over to the water bowl and drank – I’ve been so worried about her being dehydrated, it was really a moment to see her take in some water.

Day two of my admin course today, and I get the easy day – day two is a networking day, and my training partner and I both love this content. He’ll cover two modules, and I’ll cover one.

Other than that, not a whole lot going on. The weather is cooling off, with highs in the 80s. Currently 63 degrees Fahrenheit here at 6:10 in the morning.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 165

Good morning, and welcome to the first day of a new work week. Today is 28 August 2023.

And a happy 58th birthday to my younger brother, Tom. I hope he has a good one.

Saturday was a bit of fun. I had not posted anything, but we had a small surprise birthday party for my wife, Lisa, with some friends who came in from out of town, some of whom she had not seen in almost twenty years. She was quite surprised that I could keep my mouth shut about the whole thing and pull off an actual surprise. I struggled at times, but we got it done.

That was the highlight of the weekend. Sadly, we’re also watching for the rainbow bridge to appear, I think. Our second-oldest dog, Freya, our morkie little momma, has an infection she’s fighting, and we’re not optimistic about the outcome. She’s all of five pounds of love, and her go-to spot was either my lap or Lisa’s lap. She’s still with us, but she’s fighting to not take the pills, and we’re struggling to get her to eat and drink. I wish she would drink some more water. She has been a wonderful dog, and she’s the mother to the floofs, Rosy and Lily.

I’m back in my virtual classroom in a couple of hours, another central time zone delivery. I’ve got a plan with my training partner – he has to take off early on Thursday for an appointment, I’ve got a call today I have to take before the 5 o’clock end-of-day.

I love my dogs. Even when Lily climbs up on my laptop and demands attention. Rosy is in my lap right now. I wish it was Freya that had the strength to sit up here right now.

Thanks for reading my post.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 162

Happy Friday friends, and welcome to my blog post. Today is my mom’s 81st birthday, the 25th day of August, 2023.

I need to remind myself to get the trash out to the corner… it’s trash day.

My training partner and I wrapped up our security course yesterday. I hope the learners had a positive experience. Next week, I’ll be back in the virtual classroom delivering an admin course, followed by a different security course right after the Labor Day holiday.

There was some news yesterday with the former guy turning himself into the Fulton County courthouse on the RICO charges he is facing along with his co-conspirators. His mugshot has been posted all over social media. He looks like someone who wants revenge. He will find out that his ego and mouth are writing checks his ass can’t cash.

As I have posted this week, I will be continuing my blog for as long as I am able. I will not, however, be posting about my blog on Twitter, now “X” (stupid name, Elon). I have had it with the rise in white nationalist posts on that forum, and the crap that continuously fills my feed. A nationalist influence is being pushed there, and I’ve had enough. Add in some really stupid decisions by Musk, and it’s just another reason to get out of there sooner rather than later.

Oh, Elon – one other thing. Your truck is ugly. It looks like somebody tried to breed a DeLorean with a Pontiac Aztek.

I’ve got some stuff to focus on… it’s Friday, but it’s still a workday.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 161

Good morning, and a very happy Thursday to you all. Today is 24 August 2023.

I delivered my course yesterday with no real problems. Two more modules today, and we can get this class in the can. This class has gone OK, not the best I’ve ever had, and certainly not the worst. I remember the worst… and we’re not doing that again.

For dinner last evening, I took the easy way out. Jason’s Deli can put together a pretty good sandwich and a pretty good salad, so that was my escape route. That nutty, mixed-up salad is my go to, although I wish there was a keto-friendly raspberry vinaigrette to compliment the meal. I went with jalapeno ranch, but I think there are better dressings out there that are a better contextual fit.

I had a gaming session last night on Fantasy Grounds with the Wednesday night/Sunday afternoon gaming crew. After watching a brief recap of last evening’s GOP presidential debate, I’m very thankful I had something better to do. The only thing that I have been convinced of is the fact that I don’t want a single one of them picking a Supreme Court Justice. The court has gone too far to the right, and corrections need to be made.

At this point, it’s all a dog and pony show, as the former guy is leading the polls, and today he has to turn himself into the Fulton County District Attorney. I don’t know how anyone with a functioning brain cell would think a twice-impeached rapist under indictment for espionage, fraud, and racketeering has any business holding the most important political office in this country.

As a reminder, I will be closing my Twitter account after tomorrow’s post. You can find me here, of course, at https://www.bobsterism.com . That’s not going to change. I’ll still post to my Facebook page and my Mastodon account at The_Bobster_LFK@mstdn.party . I’ve had enough of Musk’s jacking around with the platform, and the right-wing trolls are taking it over. I’ve got better things to do than create content for that jackhammer.

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

peace y’all.

Evie Day 160

Good morning! Happy Hum Day! Today is Wednesday, 23 August 2023.

One of the things I look forward to on Wednesdays is the time I get to spend with the guys playing around a virtual tabletop. I look forward to this evening’s session because by gaming I avoid television and the Republican Presidential Candidate debate -1. The minus one, of course, is the twice-impeached rapist currently under indictment for espionage, fraud, and racketeering. He likely will duck all venues that are not 100% under his control until he has no choice but to show up.

More folks in the Trump circle have turned themselves into the Fulton County (Atlanta, GA) courts system for arraignment. One of them was smart enough to ditch the Trump PAC paid-for attorney and got his own attorney, then immediately refiled his testimony to correct several lies that he told during his initial statement. Funny that… when Trump provided an attorney, he lied, and when he got a simple public defender, he was advised to (gasp) tell the truth.

Class is going OK this week. I’ll take a little time to go over my talks here in a bit. Security is an interesting topic, but sometimes we can find ourselves grinding on a topic. These topics can make a guy feel the grind sometimes.

And, Elon Musk, if you are reading this (because I’m sure you have nothing better to do) you have turned Twitter into a flaming pile of trash. More and more neo-Nazi content showing up in my feed, and you are normalizing it, sir. You have told folks that you are taking away their ability to block people that could be harassing others, and now (brilliant move here) he’s going to remove news headlines from posts because he doesn’t think they look good. Idiot.

That’s enough for now. If you want additional info on my future posts, connect with me on Facebook, LinkedIn, or Mastodon. On FB, I’m Bob Reinsch, same on LinkedIn, and my Mastodon handle is @The_Bobster_LFK@mstdn.party. I will be canceling my Twitter account after I post my blog on Friday.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 159

I still think it’s kind of cute that I get Evie all to myself on her half-birthdays.

It is Tuesday, 22 August 2023. I wish you peace, happiness, and tacos… because they are all kind of the same thing, anyway.

First day in the virtual classroom went OK. This class is one that I have not been teaching with an incredible amount of frequency, so I’m still working on “telling my story” with the content. I’ll have a chance to focus on that a little bit more today as I deliver a couple of modules, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. I think it takes a few deliveries to get comfortable with any new content. I’ll get there, but part of it depends on the frequency of deliveries. I won’t get much better if I have to wait another six months before I deliver the same content again.

I’m trying a different approach to staying a little bit more on top of my mental game. I’ve read books, practiced meditation, and done a few other things to stay focused on self-care. I’m trying something that I have tried before with some success. If I decide to grind out a post about it, it will be around October 9. That’s when I should have some results of this little experiment.

Dane and Lisa had long days yesterday up on campus. I hope today goes a little better for both of them.

I ordered a gift for Lisa’s birthday this Saturday. Nothing ostentatious, but I think she’ll like it. I could mention it here, but I know she reads my posts from time to time, so I won’t ruin the surprise by writing about it here. Hi honey!

Tonight, there will be tacos.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 158

Good morning, and welcome to the beginning of a new work week. Today is 21 August 2023.

I’ll be back in my virtual classroom in a couple of hours. I’ll be delivering a security course with another trainer, and I think we have a third tagging along for the experience.

Odin, my big boy at 28 pounds, just noticed the Chewy box sitting by the window in the dining room. I don’t know if it’s the box or something that he smells inside the box, but he was pawing at that cardboard unit with enthusiasm and zeal.

As many of you all know, I share the link to my blog on several forums. I have always shared my updates on Twitter, and lately, I’ve added Facebook and Mastodon to the mix. I am getting more and more discouraged with Twitter (now X). Over the weekend, Musk announced that he was going to get rid of the ability to block predatory accounts. The easiest way to evade predatory accounts is to not be on the same forum. I’ve been disturbed by some of the posts that have shown up on my feed promoting some pretty evil points of view. Add in the change to Tweetdeck, the only tool that makes Twitter worthwhile for me, and it looks like this week might be my last on Twitter. I won’t pay for something I’ve been using for free for the last ten years. I’ll continue to post on this site, but be aware that my participation on Twitter is likely to get curtailed real soon. I won’t say “I’ll never be back”, but the changes Musk has made to the platform are just not good business decisions.

Time for me to get the coffee brewing and get going with my day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 155

Happy Friday, everyone! It is 18 August 2023.

I made a mistake last night. I thought I’d get out ahead of it, and I moved some of the garbage out to the drive for pickup later this morning. Either the neighbor dogs, a coyote, fox, or raccoon decided to do a deeper investigation into the contents of a big trash bag. I’ve got a mess to clean up later.

I’ve got a day ahead. First meeting at 9, the second meeting at 11, lunch with Dane at 12:30, then I have a renewal to take care of that I’ve been putting off – no real fear of the renewal, just procrastination. Lisa and I will have dinner by ourselves this evening, as Dane will be going out with friends. I hope he’s careful driving around Lawrence tonight – the rest of the college students have started arriving in the dorms, and the Greeks will likely be out testing their new fake IDs at the “Barmuda Triangle” (The Hawk, The Wheel, The Bull).

I may have to make a trip to the company studios in October to shoot a training video for a document classification and governance product. That could be fun. Fly up on Monday, in studio Tuesday and Wednesday, then home on Thursday. I have some familiarity with the product, but between now and then, there will be some deep diving.

There’s other stuff going on, some things that I might write about later, but for now, I think I need to ponder on them a little longer.

This weekend, there will be much reading and mowing.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 154

Good morning, folks! It is 17 August 2023.

This week is going pretty well. I’ve been getting some things done in my workspace, and planning for some pending changes to the layout. I’m also looking pretty hard at clearing off an entire wall and pondering a paint job, making the whole wall a chroma key green so I can use some broadcast software that provides some interesting visual effects.

Had a short chat with my manager yesterday, and will have another talk today. I’m thinking about setting up a page or a file of “unsolicited advice” where I can share some things I’ve figured out in just about 30 years as a technical trainer and 45 years of working with computers. I think I can offer some insights as well as some more irreverent commentary about what I’ve experienced and an avenue for cracking a joke or two.

Working with dedicated time blocks seems to be working out pretty well. To-do lists are fine for a lot of folks, but I think dedicating time for getting certain things done works better for me. That reminds me… I need to dedicate a little time to the renewal of my Cloud Solutions Architect certification.

Yeah, I’m kind of boring this morning. Maybe a cup of coffee is in order to get me dialed in a little better.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 153

Good morning, and a happy hump day. Today is Wednesday, 16 August 2023.

More video is coming out of the Hawaiian island of Maui, and the devastating wildfires that have ravaged the island. Over 100 people have died in the fires there, making the Hawaiian wildfires some of the worst fires in US history. It’s going to take a long time for the island to recover.

There’s more news in politics as the Atlanta Distract Attorney announced more indictments against Trump, who is now facing over 90 felony charges relating to his crimes. It’s getting hard to keep track of the fraud in New York, the classified documents espionage case, the attempts to coerce the Georgia Secretay of State into committing election fraud, and defamation suits by poll workers.

The part that roasts my chestnuts is Trump’s claim that it’s all political and that he did nothing wrong. That is a hard sell for anybody that has been paying attention. From my perspective, Trump has entered the “find out” stage.

I’m working on some stuff for work, preparing my presentations for next week, and working in an occasional audiobook, or executive book review (I like alternating between full-length books and summaries). Add in some interaction with learners from past classes on social media (mostly LinkedIn) and the day can get full pretty quick. I’ve got a meeting today with my manager, and another with him tomorrow, each meeting for a different purpose.

Time to get the coffee on and think about grabbing some breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.