Hey folks, I hope you are well. This is the 22nd day of August, 2022. It’s a little later in the morning than I usually write, but I got up and went to work right away, tending to some necessary duties, and now I have a little gap in the day before I jump into a meeting at 9:00.

I had to get a little internal training completed. I thought I had it all wrapped up, but I forgot to check a box in the session, so, therefore…

I also availed myself of the opportunity to do a little organizing. I have been a little too dependent on my memory of late, and I’m worried about skipping stuff. I’m going to try and do a better job maintaining my to-do list, and try to cover all of the little details.

Hopefully writing things down will help me out.

I worry about how my mind and body are changing as I grow older. In a few weeks, I’ll turn 59. I’m not ready to retire – but I am ready to think about retirement, right? I recognize that there’s only so much more cerebral elasticity I can muster. Yeah, I see the ads on TV for the over-the-counter supplements that are supposed to help with that… I have gone so far as to look up the price.

I don’t think I’m ready to go there yet.

Write and maintain lists. Walk around with a pad of paper and a pen. Use that daily planner on a daily basis (what a thought!).

Let’s buckle down and get stuff done.

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

Peace y’all.

OK, it’s Saturday, 20 August 2022. I’ve been getting some stuff done, paying some bills, picking out and shipping birthday presents, and prepping some other tools for use around the house just as soon as the grass dries up a little bit more. It’s been raining quite a bit this last week.

It has been an interesting week. Good course delivery with the usual amount of imposter syndrome… yeah, I have a problem with that. Had some good meetings with managers and coworkers. Got a little good news with my review with my new manager. Did a teammate a solid by picking up an extra class.

I haven’t been exercising my creative muscles of late. I should consider spending more time with my guitar, drawing some fantasy maps, or writing some fiction. I finished off one of John Scalzi’s newest titles, “The Kaiju Preservation Society”, and was very pleased with the story. It was an audiobook, narrated by Wil Wheaton. At the end of the book, Scalzi had his author’s afterward, and it may have been the best afterward of any book I have ever read. Mr. Scalzi talked about his process, his work ethic, and how the COVID pandemic affected him. He was really impacted by his experience, as we all were. It made me think more about writing, and I am considering taking some writing classes.

I’ll probably work in the writing classes between the guitar lessons I haven’t been taking.

That’s me being the grumpy old curmudgeon.

Alrighty, time for me to get back to this very one-sided futbol match between Arsenal and Bournemouth. 3-Nil Arsenal.

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

peace y’all.

It is Friday morning! Woot! 19 August 2022 , and the weekend is nigh.

This is going to be an interesting news day. There’s a lot of noise around Trump and the classified documents. It appears as if a judge is about to release a redacted version of the affidavit regarding the search and seizure. The Trump camp wants it to be released, unredacted, as people are speculating that the affidavit could reveal who the mole is inside of Mar-a-Lago… the Donald wants to find out who the rat is.

I could speculate, but my suspicion is that it is a family member or members.

More of Trump’s former staffers are speaking out. One young man, a former staffer from South Carolina, was on the news this morning stating that everything about Trump was “I, me, my, mine”. He said that when items were in Trump’s possession, he treated those objects like a 5-year-old with a toy they wouldn’t share or give up.

I suspect Donnie wasn’t really a team player.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Dane and I are going to take a look at our tree situation. We’ve got a dogwood tree that has grown out over the driveway a bit, and we’re going to get the pole saw out to trim that mess back.

I’m back in the virtual classroom for office hours with my learners in another hour and a half. Time to grab a cup of coffee and some breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday morning, 18 August 2022. In a couple of hours I will be giving a presentation on monitoring, logging, and security, and I did not get a good night’s sleep last night.

It was one of those nights when I just couldn’t turn my brain off. All night I had something running through my head, whether it was storylines from TV shows and movies, song lyrics, thoughts on the state of the world, random stuff. I found myself practicing some mental exercised to calm down my brain, but it just didn’t work with me last night. I think later today I’ll get some headphones on and get into a Headspace exercise to try and clear out the blockers that are keeping me from relaxing.

It’s cool outside right now, sun barely inching up over the eastern horizon. There’s a mist hovering over my little corner of the prairie, and the day is upon us. I’ve got my glass of water, waiting on my first cup of coffee… and then it all starts.

This is my last major presentation for the week. Focus on the frequently asked questions and the best practices, answer the questions as best I can, and just keep swimming.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is Wednesday, 17 August 2022, and I am preparing for my first case study this week for my solutions architecture class. I think I have a pretty good grasp on the material, so I hope for a productive session.

Lisa and I are watching the news and talking a bit about current events. So much going on in the world. Election primaries across the country, with a notable loss by Liz Cheney in Wyoming. I guess there’s not a lot of critical thinking going on in that state. I thought that with the seizure of the classified documents in Mar-a-Lago, more people would come to the realization that Liz is right, and Trump is a compulsive liar, but it’s almost like there is more shame in admitting they were wrong about Trump, so they double down. Pitiful.

Trump was apparently upset about the FBI taking his passports. I can’t imagine why anyone would think he would be a flight risk (rolls eyes). Here’s an idea, Donnie – don’t keep your passports and classified documents in the same “go bag”.

Cryptocurrency doesn’t appear to be a very safe investment. Seeing reports that billions in cryptocurrency has been stolen, and theft of crypto is up 60% over the same time period last year. Who would’ve thought that a fake currency created by hackers might get hijacked by hackers? (Another eye roll)

So, two-hour blocks this morning and this afternoon, a meeting at 1:00 with my manager (short discussion). I need to coordinate a couple of things with my son, and there may be some tabletop gaming in the evening.

That’s enough for now. Time to grab a cup of coffee and a little breakfast before I head into the sunroom.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, the 16th day of August, in the year 2022. I am waiting on coffee, drinking a glass of water, and watching the news… all while writing this blog post. On the morning news, they are discussing the affidavit regarding the search and seizure of classified documents from the Trump compound, and they can’t talk about the details. There is too much sensitive information contained in the affidavit.

From what I gather, there was a roadmap describing the contents that were missing and recovered from the search, and there’s highly classified material.

Yay. That’s great.

Ugh.

The guy that didn’t want to sit through security briefings had a bunch of security documents.

Donald J. Trump is a national security risk. Whoever thought electing this idiot to office ought to be ashamed of themselves.

Now the story has shifted to Rudy Guiliani and his role in election interference in Georgia.

I used to be a Republican.

Now it’s embarrassing to admit that I was ever that naive.

Time for me to think about the day ahead. Week 3 of my cloud solutions architecture course. This morning is a review/preview office hours session, then study time, followed by a chalk talk session on the whiteboard app.

Tonight may call for tacos.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is Monday, 15 August 2022, and it’s also payday… so, yeah, a generally positive kind of vibe.

Although I will admit, I had to correct a spelling error when I almost wrote “good moroning”, but I guess that would be for people that continue to support certain lost causes.

It’s going to be bit-flip kind of day, switching certain activities off and on as I prepare for my delivery week. I have four sessions over four days, with a review/preview session tomorrow, a case study on Wednesday, and a chalk talk on Thursday. Friday is set aside to “tell ’em what we taught ’em”, followed by the regular array of meetings.

There are always some meetings.

I don’t mind them, and I recognize the necessity of them.

The news is on in the background, and they’re about to talk about Salmon Rushdie and the attack on him. I can’t recall who said it, but someone said something to the effect, “if your religion cannot handle words, the words aren’t the problem”.

Nothing is above criticism. I’m not above criticism, the Catholic church is not above criticism, the administration is not above criticism… and no other institution is either. Yes, that includes every religion on this planet.

Hell – if we ever encounter alien life, they won’t be above criticism either. If they turn us all into livestock, you can bet we’ll find flaws in the cookbook.

I’ve reached the point of my post where I realize I’m reaching pretty hard for the next sentence. That’s a clue I need to wrap it up.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Sunday morning, 14 August 2022. Right now Lisa and I are watching one of the Sunday morning news shows, and there is some pol on there that is being asked direct questions and if he starts dancing any fast, he may very well vibrate fast enough for a phase shift.

Lisa wasn’t feeling well last night, and I was flipping through social media when I came across a post about a couple of old friends’ band playing, The Opinions, at a venue in north Lawrence last evening. Lisa gave me a hall pass, so I headed out to see them, and catch a little of the headliner, Patriarch, a legendary area band from the 70s and 80s that I believe is being inducted into the Kansas Music Hall of Fame.

It was good seeing the guys, and I tried to lend a hand on the load out – there was a big Patriarch fan base, and when the stage gets swapped to for the headliner, folks want that transition to happen as quickly as possible. We got it done, and then retreated to the bar for a little conversation and a beer. There are few things I enjoy as much as talking with Tim about guitars, and talking with Kelly about whatever.

Today I’ve got a little work study to get in, but I’ll defer most of it to tomorrow. The main thing today is just realigning my brain, playing a little tabletop with some friends, and just chilling out.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday morning, 13 August 2022, and I am contemplating my workload around the house.

I also make myself safe from having the FBI retrieve classified documents at my house.

Yesterday afternoon the warrant was unsealed for the search of the Trump residence, and an inventory of documents was released with the classification data. If the average American had been found with the documents listed in the manifest, they would be looking at a very long time in prison. If a 78-year-old was found with them, he would likely be looking at the rest of his life in prison.

Several rebuttals have come out of the Trump camp. One that might carry a little weight was a statement by Trump saying that they were all declassified by him, as he had the authority to do so, and that there was a standing policy that anytime Trump took documents to his residence they were declassified as a policy.

OK… that policy was documented where?

If it wasn’t written down, it didn’t happen.

The other more humorous allegation by Trump was a shot at his predecessor, Barack Obama. Trump stated that Obama took home 30 million pages of classified content home to Chicago. That lie was so blatantly false that the National Archive provided a press release describing their archival process for the Obama Presidential Library and how classified documents were never outside their control.

It’s all pretty ridiculous. Trump thinks the law doesn’t apply to him, but in reality, it applies to him just as much as it does Reality Winner and anybody else that mishandled classified information.

The FBI is dusting the files for prints.

My oh my.

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

Peace y’all.

Today is Friday, 12 August 2022.

I am very happy not to be someone today. The person I am happy not to be is former president Donald J. Trump. He’s having a rough week, and it will likely get even worse today.

There’s going to be a lot of speculation about the documents and materials that were seized from his residence at Mar-a-Lago. There is already some mention of certain “subjects” being floated by the press, most notably, the Washington Post mentioned in their report that some of the documents the FBI was seeking dealt with nuclear secrets.

Holy crap.

This is pretty damn insane.

Secrets for sale.

I really don’t want to speculate further. The imagination just can’t turn off over this sort of thing.

On the news, one attorney from the DOJ just made the comment, “there are classified documents, and then there are CLASSIFIED documents”.

I have some friends that served in the military, both in the US military, and military of other countries. Off the top of my head, I know I have friends that served in Canada, Israel, Australia, Jordan, Sweden, and India. I’m guessing the rules for the handling of classified documents are pretty universal.

This is going to be a bonkers news day.

Tomorrow’s blog post will probably have a little more detail. The DOJ will release the information in the warrant this afternoon unless Trump’s lawyers block it. Trump is publicly saying he wants it released. I’ll bet he’ll eventually try to stop it “as advised by his legal council”.

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

Peace y’all.