Good morning! It is Tuesday, 20 December 2022, and for many, there are three remaining workdays before Christmas.

I am ready.

Star Wars ugly Christmas sweater today, and two different ugly Christmas sweaters for tomorrow and Thursday. There is one time to wear ugly Christmas sweaters, and now is that time.

As far as my health goes, I have shared with you that I tested positive for COVID last Thursday. Today, I am feeling better, and we’ll take another test this afternoon to see if I’ve beaten this thing into submission. Better the virus than me.

Winter storm is supposed to hit tomorrow. I’ll try to get vehicles into the garage one more time today, but I’m not that optimistic. Couldn’t get ’em started last weekend, so my expectations have been managed on that side of it.

I still need to wrap some presents… I don’t think I need to worry about buying any – pretty sure I’ve got those bases covered, but I should do a mental recap.

The news is focused on one crisis after another. Migrant surge at the border. There’s always a migrant surge at the border. Some folks would compare this to an armed invasion of militant activists dedicated to spreading communism in the US. In reality, they’re just folks trying to get away from really crappy circumstances and are hoping that a life in the US will be less crappy. I don’t really blame them. What would you do to make a better life for your kids?

OK, time for me to get focused on the day ahead.

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

Peace y’all.

It is a Monday, 19 December 2022, and Elon Musk can still kiss my furry butt.

I write my blog pretty regularly. Throughout the week, I generally write Monday through Friday, with the occasional post on the weekend as well. After I post it, I let people know that I’ve posted it on Twitter, and recently, I’ve added Facebook and Mastodon to the list of places that let folks know that my blog has been posted.

Mr. Musk, in one of his creative bilge sessions, decided that he will not allow people to promote other forms of social media on Twitter. I may have to make sure that all of my posts make reference to my other social media accounts.

I’m taking a day off today. I looked at my time off for the year and realized I had a few extra hours to take off, so I grabbed eight of those hours and dropped them on today’s calendar. I promise today will not be in the least bit productive.

I think I’m in full recovery at this point. Feeling better, no longer fighting that respiratory weight on my chest from my bout with COVID. I still have a bit of a sniffle, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.

Today will be a day of catching up on the Christmas stuff. I’ll get some gifts wrapped up and placed in a box by the tree where Odin won’t feel the need to relieve himself.

Time to make a pot of coffee and get busy doing not much.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Friday! Yay! Last day of the work week, first day of the weekend. 16 December 2022. And I need to get the trash out to the corner this morning.

So, how do you say it? It’s my turn. I’ve posted on my blog since last Friday that I’ve been under the weather, and yesterday I went ahead and hit the drive thru to pick up a few rapid COVID tests. Got them home, opened the instructions, took time to actually READ the instructions, then took the test. That little red line by the “T” for test and the red line by the “C” for control went hard red real fast.

I have tested positive for COVID.

I figure I picked up a dose late last week, not quite sure how or where I might’ve picked it up, but with Dane and Lisa both having bouts with it (Dane tested positive yesterday), it’s probably been passed from somewhere on campus to me through them.

My training partner this month has been completely cool with the news, and she’s offered to pick up a little more of the delivery. I’m not taking sick days so much as taking sick hours daily after my regularly scheduled deliveries. The main thig for me is not to put a strain on the other instructors by asking them to cover for me. The problem with calling in sick in my line of work is that very often there is no one to fill in, especially this time of year when more instructors have booked time off for the holidays.

I can suck it up for a couple of hours and put on the right face and do the job. It’s only a couple of hours. Yeah, I’m not feeling 100%, but I can manage this for a bit. Might not be good for 8 hours, but I can pull it off for 2.

OK, time to get this in the can and get on with the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is 15 December 2022, and I didn’t sleep so hot last night. I just had random crap racing through my brain all night. It was a weird revolving door of thoughts triggering other thoughts, and none of it could ever lead to a solution, of course. It was all just crap racing around my monkey brain, preventing me from having a good night’s sleep.

I need to get a COVID test.

Lisa, Dane and I were talking yesterday. I live a pretty isolated lifestyle, working from home and going into Lawrence a couple of times a week to pick up stuff that isn’t part of the regular grocery run, like stuff I like to have around when I’m actively cutting carbs.

Right now, I’m not actively doing much of anything, including eating. Might be the reason a cracked 270 for the first time this year (more likely due to being sick and not eating rather than any meal plan).

Anyway, I’m fairly certain that I didn’t get it from my workplace – hard to catch a virus over the internet, but another family member had a positive test, plus Lisa and Dane spend a lot of time on campus, and that’s likely to be a hot spot.

Yeah, I need to get tested.

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

Peace y’all.

14 December 2022. It is Wednesday morning, and the sun has yet to breach the eastern horizon. I’ve been under the weather the last couple of days, but this morning I’m doing OK. That doesn’t mean that I won’t be feeling like a dirt-rolled snotwad later, but for now, it’s good enough.

I joked with friends yesterday that Benadryl is the “I’m not ready for a nap/we didn’t ask you” cold medicine.

OK. Today’s rant.

I go by Bob. I prefer Bob, I’ve always been called Bob. No one that knows me calls me “Robert”. If I hear “Robert”, I figure it’s either because that’s what it reads on the form, on my insurance card, or it’s my Gramma Reinsch mad at me from beyond this mortal plane. I don’t look at it as an insult, but I have preferences.

In a lot of movies, you’ll hear coaches and drill sergeants misgender the troops. It’s not innocent. It’s an attempt to diminish, to make people feel they are somehow “less”. We’ve been doing it so long, we don’t even give it a single thought. “Let’s get to work, ladies” is one of those expressions you’ll hear, and maybe it’s time to rethink that.

Then, the crux.

Everybody deserves a base level of respect for just being a living human being in the world. I’m often surprised how many people forget that. We need to respect each other and refer to each other in a fashion that says, “hey, I see you”.

I was going through the comments section about a story of a corporate environment where people were constantly misgendering people. I told ’em it was bullying.

Oh, boy.

One person, “Remember when we told our kids, ‘sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me’?”

My reply – we were wrong to say that. We know that mean kids can torment another kid to the point of suicide or worse.

“It’s bullying to make me use a pronoun that I don’t accept”

It’s not about you, dude. It’s about a 3-way fork in the road. 1. Misgender somebody. 2. Learn their name and refer to them by name. 3. Use the pronouns they prefer.

Show me on this doll where the pronoun hurt you.

The irony is that I pointed out that kids use nicknames as a form of torment, and it happens all the time. Part of that irony is that the guy that argued about “pronoun bullying” – his first name was Richard.

I wonder if he takes issue with being called “Dick”.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, 13 December 2022. It’s about time for me to do a little assessment of my Christmas present situation. I need to recap what presents I’ve taken care of and what needs to be addressed, but I think I’m getting close.

Yesterday wasn’t great for me. After I meandered through a couple of meetings, I called in sick for the afternoon. The problem with me regarding sinus congestion is that I react to decongestants pretty well, but I end up simply opening up the faucet and my nose runs like a horse bolting out of the gates at the Kentucky Derby. I’m not 100% today, but I’ll muscle through it.

I need to spend a little time on my goals/personal mission statements later today. I talk with my manager about it later today, and I know he’s supportive of these efforts. Sometimes it’s nice to get a different perspective on such matters. I posted on LinkedIn about my ambition to redefine that, and the first person to voice support was my training partner for my class this month, and I’ll be darned if she didn’t help me write a section right then and there.

Other than that, not much to talk about it. Two more weeks of class then a break for Christmas and the New Year.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday morning, 12 December 2022. In other parts of the country, snow has been falling heavily, but not here quite yet.

Today is my prep day for the rest of the week, and I’ve got a few meetings to attend, as well as my Teams channel for my class.

Ugh.

Monday.

This is a very Monday Monday. I’m tired. Dogs wake up all barky.

But, my Monday is probably isn’t as stressful as it probably is on campus for the college students – it’s the beginning of finals week.

A little bit later today, I’m going to try and be a little more introspective about the coming year, set some goals, and work on my personal mission statement. I need to ponder a bit on where I’ve been and where I’m going. I’ve got a good personal journal set aside to help me with that, asking me to think about some questions to help define that. I used to work with books and planners that made me think about “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People” and some other books on creative visualization – the process of visualizing the future with the goal in mind. It’s time to revisit that. Clear up some things.

I’m just not into this morning, so, I’m going to call this one short and good.

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

Peace y’all.

Friday! Friday! Friday!

It is 9 December 2022, and even though the sky is overcast, I know there will be some light – even if I have to be the source.

Oh, man. Last night, Lisa and I flipped on the tv and had no idea what to watch, and I guess somewhere along the line I had set the DVR to record the KU women’s basketball games. The tv flipped over to the channel to record the unranked 7-0 KU women playing at the 12th-ranked 7-0 Arizona Wildcats. Unranked, undefeated versus highly ranked and undefeated.

Kansas won by 27.

That was a whoopin’.

After that, I flipped over to Amazon Prime to watch the NFL football game – the Los Angeles Rams versus the Las Vegas Raiders. On paper, the Raiders should have won going away. The Rams starting quarterback is done for the season, and they made a move to bring in a sack of potatoes to finish out the season. That sack of potatoes is Baker Mayfield, Heisman Trophy winner and number-one pick in the NFL draft. I watched Mayfield, with some serious help from the Rams’ defense, recover from a 16-3 deficit in the 4th quarter to come back and win. The icing on the cake was a drive of 98 yards with a minute and 45 seconds or so to win 17-16.

Brittney Griner has arrived in the United States. A swap was made. Criminal arms dealer Viktor Bout was approaching his effective use date, with the prospect of parole in the next few years. With the “use-by” date approaching, the best deal was made, and she’s coming home. It would’ve been nice to get Paul Whelan home as well, but the Russians are going to use that ace-in-the-hole for something of greater value, likely tied to trade deals or the Russian rape of Ukraine.

OK, time for me to get my head in the game and get ready for the day ahead.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning. Thursday 8 December 2022.

Flipped on the news, and the two stories at the top of the feed are relating to bad things… on November 13, four college students at the University of Idaho students were murdered, and they are still looking for the killer, and the other story is about the attack on a power substation in North Carolina, and it appears that a hate group coordinated the attack on the substation.

It might be time to turn off the news and wait for the sun to rise.

I am back in front of the camera in a bit, this morning talking about data integration. I’ve handled this talk a few times, so I’ve grown more comfortable with it. Every time I have this discussion, I end up learning something new about the various resources involved in those operations.

I think my spouse is under the weather. She had some interaction with somebody who was fighting the seasonal flu earlier in the week. It’s been disrupting her sleep patterns. I hope she’s feeling better soon.

I need to double-check my Christmas shopping list and see how much more shopping I have to do. I think I’ve got a handle on it.

I also have a new planner arriving today or tomorrow – time to think about my goals for 2023 and get the timeline working. I need to get them written down and figure out what milestones I can define and then stay focused.

We all need to keep learning and growing. When I stop, it’s time to step back. Can a person stagnate and be a positive influence at the same time? I think a person would be looked at more as ballast than a motivator at that point.

Time to get ready.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! 6:00 Am Central Standard Time on this 7 December 2022 Wednesday.

Woot! I get to play online tonight with some friends, but there’s work to be done before we get to that point.

And… what things have happened in my life and in the world over the last day? Well, stuff has happened.

First of all, congrats to Dr. Raphael Warnock for winning the runoff election against the woefully underqualified and Trump-backed candidate Herschel Walker. I still can’t believe that almost half of the voters active in that election voted for a Texas resident. It’s a little crazy.

Oh… Trump had some more bad news. Two things. It appears that during his presidency, Trump pulled in a 19 million dollar loan from a source with ties to North Korea. That might explain his fawning over the North Korean dictator.

That’s not the biggest piece of news, however.

The Trump Organization was found guilty on 17 federal charges of tax fraud/tax evasion.

Trump has not been very active on social media since that judgment was handed down.

OK, moving on.

I’ve got some recertification to get done this week. Need to find a nice gap in the next day or two to wrap that up.

Bonnie came over for dinner last night, and there were many tacos to be had. We talked about the holidays as well as Bonnie’s plan to have Dane over to watch her dog in January while she heads off to a couple of workdays on the east coast.

I’ve been messing around with my audio setup to create/record music. Computer is in good shape, and the new Presonus audio interface seems to be working well. I might need to grab a couple more 1/4″ audio cables to complete things.

Other than that, not much else to share.

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

Peace y’all.