Evelyn Day 62

Hi folks! It is Wednesday, Hump Day, 17 May 2023.

I better check to see if the guys are gathering online tonight. We might have a night off with one of the guys away on a cruise.

I’ll get back into my virtual classroom in another couple of hours. Until then, coffee, maybe a low-carb bagel or English muffin. I also need to get the ladder out for the guys from Wicket Broadband. My terrestrial internet connectivity has been a little off, so they’re coming out to check the alignment on my dish. Satellite internet is doing OK, but we’ll have at least three people on it until we can get the other internet connection adjusted. Rural internet leaves something to be desired. I sure wish somebody was running fiber out this way.

I have some paperwork I need to attend to for my manager. I don’t mind saying, “This is what I did”. I don’t like to overly embellish – I would much rather keep it short and sweet, direct and to the point. I’m not a big fan of trying to describe the molehill in terms best reserved for the Himalayas. Maybe I should have three responses for each topic… the short and sweet, the slightly embellished, and the third option where we drag the topic through all the bells, whistles, and then apply copious amounts of frosting and glitter.

Seems a little fake. I’m not good at fake.

OK, time to get to work on my day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 61

Good morning, folks! It is Tuesday, 16 May 2023, and today is also the official two-month celebration for my first and only grandchild (I’m ok with the one for now, folks. I’m in no big hurry to get myself to the bottom of a pile of grandchildren).

Yesterday was a good first day for the cloud solutions architecture class. I’m delivering with an instructor that I have not worked with before, but he’s a good guy and things went pretty smoothly. Today will be more of the same as we focus on data storage and integration.

Normally, we avail ourselves of the opportunity Tuesday presents and snack on a few tacos for dinner. Last night Dane told me he would not be around for dinner, so I can cut the taco order back a bit. When it’s just him and me eating, we can polish off ten to twelve tacos pretty easily. It will just be Lisa and me tonight, so six or seven tacos ought to be enough.

I don’t have a whole lot else to share. Got a few loads of laundry done throughout the day yesterday.

Sorry, just not a real exciting day yesterday.

I’ll get this in the can and get on with the most important part of my morning, the preparation of coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 60

Good morning, and welcome to the beginning of a new work week. It is 15 May 2023.

First a recap of the weekend…

We had a pretty busy weekend around here. Lisa had some graduation-related events on Saturday, then she had plenty of other work to keep her busy after arriving home. I spent a good chunk of Saturday on either the mower or the tractor trying to clean up the property a bit. Every weekend it doesn’t rain is an opportunity to get into a wrestling match with Mother Nature over ownership of our lot. She’ll win over time, guaranteed, but I’ll try to hang on as long as I can.

Yesterday was Mother’s Day. I reached out to my mom, and I was happy to discover she’s been attended to by my siblings in Clay Center. All of our kids came over yesterday as well, and Gracie was kind enough to bring Evelyn with her as well – Evelyn will be two months old tomorrow. It was a good visit yesterday – when you have three adult children, and you all can hang out without some argument about politics or social justice, it’s a good day.

This week I have a cloud administration class, running on central time zone this week. In my virtual classroom at 8:00 AM, start class at 9:00 AM, and wrap it all up at 5:00 PM. I have to admit, it will be a welcome change to teach back in my home time zone. Last week was Pacific, and prior to that, there were a few weeks of east coast classes – which I welcome. Yeah, with east coast, you start earlier in the day, but you also get things wrapped up at 4:00 PM my time.

OK, time to make a pot of coffee and grab a bagel.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 57

Good morning, and Happy Friday! I hope this missive finds you well. It is 12 May 2023, and this weekend families will gather to celebrate our moms.

My mom is in Clay Center. I probably don’t visit as often as I should. The weekends seem to come and go so fast, and with spring, there is much to do around the property here, but I still need to do this. This weekend is full, with college graduation tying Lisa up the next couple of days… next year it will be compounded by Dane’s graduation.

I’ve got a few meetings today. I think I have things settled with my training partner next week, and I am making plans to create a video with another teammate on how to present our content to neurodivergent audiences. I might be joining Dane for lunch prior to meeting with an accountant at 1:00. After that, I have a little more freedom to study in a little more freeform fashion. I have a couple of things in front of me that I would like to get certified in – security operations and artificial intelligence. I think in the coming years there will be a convergence of these two technologies to help thwart certain types of attacks, mainly ransomware attacks that have been so troubling in the past few years.

It’s trash day here as well. I moved our regular trash bin out to the side of the road, but before they arrive in a few hours, I predict there will be a small mountain of empty boxes being transported from my workspace to the garbage pickup site. I need to tidy up my workspace a bit.

Other than that, not much else. I’ll see my other kids this weekend and mt granddaughter as well.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 56

Hi folks! (Good morning, Evie, when you’re old enough to read this, know that I am thinking about you and everybody else in the family).

Today is 11 May 2023. I have the last day of my cloud security course with my training partner – the last day working West Coast time for a while.

It’s not that big of a deal, just a 2-hour shift in my day. It’s manageable, but a little weird at times. Going to lunch at 2 o’clock isn’t something I want to get used to.

We still have finals week stuff happening around here, and that keeps Dane and Lisa focused on school, but for different reasons.

I spent a little time yesterday looking over my scheduled time-off from work. I’ve got ten days ob the books for the rest of the year, and I still have five more days to schedule. Those five days will likely get scheduled during prep weeks in September and October, and I might even sneak in a day in a couple of weeks when I have another May prep week.

Other than that, I’ve got plenty to keep me occupied for now. About time to get some coffee brewing, and reheat the leftover chili and eggs from yesterday.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 55

Hi folks. It is 10 May 2023.

Yesterday was a pretty good day.

My class is going pretty well. One of the challenges with this particular course is providing adequate lab time. In the past, it always seemed like the content on the first two days of class was a bit overwhelming, and the day one lab content could add up to five hours, but after lecture, there might be two hours remaining in the day. The same thing goes for day two. We did ok, maybe even slipping in an extra few minutes of lab time here and there.

There were a couple of political developments. Trump had a jury decide against him in a defamation lawsuit. He was accused of sexual assault by a woman, then he called her a con artist. She sued and provided evidence and witnesses to support her case. Trump filmed a deposition and did not show up for the trial, and his deposition might’ve made things worse for him – he made comments to the effect that the woman was not his “type”, and then confused the woman with one of his ex-wives. He then told the attorney deposing him that she wasn’t his type either. Trump was not happy about the verdict and

A GOP representative from New York, George Santos, is back in the news… this time because he is facing multiple charges from the DoJ regarding credit card fraud and other charges. He’s the guy that effectively manufactured a fake background, claiming Jewish heritage, touting his career as a varsity volleyball player at a school he never attended and other acts of sheer fantasy. I’m not going to be too sympathetic if he gets found guilty. He’s not part of the solution.

Time for me to think about the day ahead. I’ve got to talk to folks about application security and managing keys, secrets, and certificates in a few hours. Plenty of time to look over my content, but still, it’s time to get this in the can and get on with what comes next… and for me, that’s a medium roast Tanzanian peaberry coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 54

Hi. It’s 9 May 2023.

There’s stuff going on in the world. Some of it is good, and some of it is bad. For me, there’s more good than bad, I suppose.

My training partner and I got off to a pretty good start with our security course yesterday. It always messes with me a little bit to teach on Pacific Time. It seems that starting an hour earlier is a little easier than starting two hours later. It’s only four days, and I’m not adjusting my sleep cycle at all, so there’s no messing with my circadian rhythms.

Lisa and Dane are very busy this week. Lisa is giving finals and dealing with school stuff, and Dane is taking finals and dealing with school stuff. Mother’s Day is this weekend, and I need to do a little looking for my wife. Picked up something for my mom yesterday, so one mom was taken care of.

I’m not tremendously motivated to write. I was thinking about the expression, “Seek first to understand, then to be understood”. A lot of folks don’t do that first part. They don’t understand how people feel, but by golly, they want their feelings taken into consideration. It’s kind of sad.

Meh. Just not into it today.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 53

Good morning! It is Monday, 8 May 2023.

It is going to be a different kind of week for me. I normally teach my classes on either Eastern or Central time, and this week my class is scheduled on Pacific Time, so rather than haunting over to my virtual classroom at 7:00 AM for an 8:00 AM start, we’ll make that move at 10:00 AM for an 11:00 AM start and a 7:00 PM scheduled completion.

I spent some time mowing over the weekend. Had some of the particulate grass flying into my eyes through the gaps. I went to grab my goggles (prescription sunglasses/safety goggles) but noticed they were broken. Took them to Target Optical yesterday to see about getting them fixed or replaced. Ten days from yesterday I should have replacements.

Right now Odin is back in the master bedroom with Lisa and something has him going off. He’s barking his little head off.

Looks like we’re having a pretty overcast morning. Looks like the clouds are going to clear off after a bit for a bright sun-shiny day with highs in the 80s (Fahrenheit).

Not much else going on right at the moment. I need to make a pot of coffee and get some breakfast in me.

And hope Odin quiets down.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 50

Good morning, and Happy Friday! Today is 5 May 2023. It is “stop day” up on campus, as students get a break prior to next week’s final exams, and it is also Cinco de Mayo, which is an excuse to eat tacos and drink adult beverages with a Mexican theme.

Last night was a banquet, so I attended with my spouse. The awards were a little more interesting, as two of the award recipients were former college roommates and business partners. Their business may not have succeeded, but their careers took them to Sabre and Google. It was one of the more interesting dinners.

Today is a day for me to focus on paperwork. I’ll jump back into Powerpoint after a bit to finish my slide for my manager, then get to work on my annual Connect.

This weekend will be a weekend to work around the property. More mowing, gutter cleaning, and planting. Lots of things to keep me busy.

Today is also Day 50 for my granddaughter. Gracie reached out to me earlier this week about getting together at some time today. I’ll have to reach out to her to see if we have a plan or not.

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

Peace y’all.

Evelyn Day 49

Good morning! Or is it more appropriate to say “May the 4th be with you”.

I have meetings starting in a bit, and you can bet there will be all sorts of Star Wars-related shenanigans, and I won’t be resisting. I have on an appropriate t-shirt – Grogu from “The Mandalorian” with a circular frame around him reading, “Emotional Support Alien”.

It’s ok to have a little fun with it.

I think I was 13 going on 14 when Star Wars hit my hometown. I’d read a little bit about it, and I knew that it was a popular picture, breaking box office records and hanging around movie theaters for months while kids like me went over and over again to see this phenomenon.

It’s fun, but my first love will always be Trek. Live long and prosper.

Lisa has another recognition banquet tonight, and I have a feeling that there won’t be many Star Wars-related articles of clothing at tonight’s fete. I might have to look through my ties to see if I have one… if not, I might have to do something about that.

Other than that, I have plenty to keep me busy with end-of-year paperwork. Not a big fan, but I understand the need.

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

Peace y’all.