20 July 2022. It is Wednesday, and a day I have been looking forward to for most of the year – today is my last full delivery day before I take my first week of vacation this year. I have a tendency to focus on work for the first six months of the calendar year, and then once we roll over into the new fiscal year, I plan on taking greater advantage of my vacation and personal time allocations.

I’m kind of tired, so the break is welcome. I’ll likely have some emails I need to follow up on, but I am really going to focus on relaxing. I’ll turn the alarm clock off, sleep in, read, watch some stuff, and just try to re-balance myself.

I should probably go through my calendar though – I need to make sure I get my vacation time for the next six months on the schedule. I already carry over the max vacation time (3 weeks), and I don’t want to leave time on the table at the end of the year.

Last night I studied my material in preparation for today, and when I’m done with this, I’ll go back through my slide deck and check my notes, take a quick look at the demos I’ve prepared as well.

I’m a real exciting dude this morning.

Sometimes I’m focused on current events, sometimes I’m focused on weird stuff I come across, either a historical note or some comment that a talking head made.

I’ll just get to work on my day.

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

Peace y’all.

19 July 2022. It is Tuesday morning. Today I’ll be monitoring the chat in the class I am co-delivering. I do like this security class, but I’ll be the first to admit that spending such a long time away from that course left a little dust on the books. Yesterday was not my “best day ever” as an instructor. It was OK, but I was asked to run a couple of demos that I wasn’t prepared for – the setup would’ve taken 45 minutes to show – and we were already going to be behind on the clock.

Currently watching some sports from last evening. US Women’s National Team versus Canada in soccer. I did get the word from a friend that the US won, 1-0, and I’ll watch until the US women score. Then I’ll flip back to the morning news.

We’re making some plans for the weekend. Gracie’s birthday is on the 23rd, so we’re going to go out for dinner Friday night. Gracie already took care of the reservations, all I have to worry about is bringing my appetite and my credit card.

Time for me to breathe, gather my wits about me, and get ready for the day ahead. Coffee should be done, so I’ll toss back another glass of water, pour a big mug of bean soup, and execute the plan.

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

Peace y’all.

18 July 2022. It is Monday morning, and there’s a mist hanging over my little corner of Douglas County, Kansas. I have a security course starting here a little later, an east coast delivery that kicks off a little earlier than the central time zone deliveries I usually have.

Yesterday was a productive day. Right after Lisa and I had breakfast and watched church (we haven’t attended Mass in person since March of 2020), we got to work getting trash out of the barn – old mattresses from a case she was an expert witness on (the side she was on won their case). Having that bucket on the front of the tractor sure came in handy when moving some of the bigger pieces.

I get to co-deliver this week with an old friend. I’m looking forward to it. We decided to split days, so I’m up for the intro and section one today. He’ll take care of day two and day four… then a Friday of cleaning up loose ends. After that, I have a week of vacation starting next Monday.

I’m not writing with much purpose this morning. I’ve had a glass of water, but no coffee yet. Lily and Rosy are up and out of their crate, but they are not yipping a little at the bedroom door. Lisa is getting ready for her day, and the other dogs are in with her. I’ll drag my butt out of the chair soon and get to work on my breakfast.

Tonight, there’s some soccer to watch… US Women’s National Team versus Canada tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

16 July 2022, a warm Saturday night in the middle of summer. Dogs are outside on the deck, and I know Lisa is about to open the door and let them back in, so I’ll adopt a relaxed posture and write a little bit.

I remember in college, I was taking English 101 with Nancy Avery at Wichita State. She would later start Avery Cards, a little greeting card company with some of the nicest little country cards you would ever like to find. Nancy asked us to keep a daily journal and write something in it daily (and yes, I give her credit for the initial push to create this habit). I remember how she used to react to some of my entries… she gave me credit for my creativity, but I think it probably alerted her to the odd directions my mind can turn on a dime.

These days I don’t sit down with a journal and pen and just let stuff flow. To my future grandchildren – If you come across one of my journals, open it up. If I haven’t changed my habits in the coming days, you may very well have a journal with ten pages in the front filled with gibberish, and most of a pretty good journal left for you to explore your creativity.

Do it.

OK, maybe cut the first few pages that I wrote on and combine them into a single mismatched scrapbook (crap book?) of mental skip days and moments.

I hope your life is structured so you have time to be a productive member of society, pay all your bills, and still have time to read good books, write your own thoughts down, and maybe practice an instrument if you are so inclined. We all need a creative outlet, some art thing that smooths out the rough spots.

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

Peace y’all.

It is 15 July 2022, a Friday morning, and my day is starting at a manageable pace.

Lisa and I decided to go to a baseball game in nearby Baldwin last evening. My nephew, Keegan, has been spending part of his summer playing for the Baldwin City Blues baseball club, part of a league for small college players to continue playing after their college seasons are over.

It was nice to see him and watch him play (catcher). He had a nice hit in the bottom of the 4th inning that drove in a run. That moved his team to a 9-1 lead, but the opposition came rallying and covered some of that gap, 9-6, but it was getting late for us old folks, so we decided to head home in the 7th inning. We almost stayed out until 10 on a weeknight … thrill seekers to the end.

I’ve got a few meetings today, but nothing too heavy. I’ll spend part of the day and this weekend gearing up the security course I’m delivering with another instructor next week.

The coffee is done… time to go grab a cup…

Later today I’m planning on getting a couple of things done. I’m going to go get my second booster for COVID, and I’m going to run by the courthouse and vote early for the August 2 election. It’s a primary for the most part, but the GOP Secretary of State tried to sneak a constitutional amendment into this election cycle rather than wait for the general election in November, as there is an expectation that there will be greater GOP turnout for the primaries, and their goal to change the state constitution to take away freedom.

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

Peace y’all.

13 July 2022, a Wednesday morning, the sun rising in the east, and a pair of floofs sitting with me on the couch.

I’ve got the news on, and they are reviewing some of the January 6th testimony. It still amazes me that 1) we really got that close to losing democracy on that dark day and 2) there are still idiots out there that continue to support Trump and that they want him to run for election in 2024.

People just don’t pay attention to some of the facts, but Americans have a long history of willful ignorance. It seems like we make the decision time and time again to believe and trust the wrong people, we give them power, and then we act all surprised when they abuse it. That’s how you end up with a guy like Mitch McConnell pulling the rug out from under a sitting president under the guise of “it’s an election year” when it’s Obama that would have the nomination of a Supreme Court justice, and then reverse course when Ruth Bader Ginsburg passes 6 weeks before a federal election and ramrods a cultist into the Supreme Court because it’s politically advantageous.

As far as I’m concerned, all three Trump supreme court appointees are invalid. Traitors shouldn’t be able to appoint anyone to a lifetime office.

Over the next couple of years, we’re going to witness an incredible battle for the White House in 2024. Ted Cruz and Ron DeSantis are going to pull out all of the stops so that they can push their personal theocracies into the highest office in the country. My biggest concern is the GOP winning in 2024, then they can expand the Supreme Court, and more right-wing nutjobs receive another five lifetime appointments to the court responsible for the direction of our legal system.

Yeah, that’s the kind of thing that gets stuck in my head sometimes.

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

Peace y’all.

Welcome to 12 July 2022. It is a Tuesday, and as I look out the window, the sun rises in the east, and the clouds to the north of me are steadily moving from west to east.

I probably ought to take a look at the weather forecast to see if I need to get some of our utility vehicles in the garage. Nobody likes planting their backside into a wet tractor seat.

A couple of days ago, I had someone reply to my blog post on Twitter, about exposing myself via my blog posts. It is food for thought. I post what is circling around my noggin at the time. My posts are very much “stream of thought” missives, and my tendency to be distracted in the moment…

… like right now. Folks on TV are talking about the photo from the Webb telescope and the photo that popped up yesterday showing a cluster of galaxies some 13 billion light years away from Earth. It’s a tiny, tiny segment of space that otherwise would appear empty, but the telescope reveals thousands of galaxies so very, very far away.

OK, where was I?

I don’t really worry about any kind of backlash or retribution about what I write. I write my perception of the truth, and that perception is my reality. If someone takes umbrage with my view of the world, I can live with that. My point of view is singular – I wouldn’t expect anyone to look at the world the exact same way I do.

Now, I have been a vocal critic of certain political figures. Here’s the deal – If I’m wrong, I’ll admit it, but while we do a deep dive into what someone thinks I got wrong, I’m probably going to ask some questions that are uncomfortable for the person engaging me in that conversation.

My version of the truth may not align with everyone’s. Objective truth is very hard to find these days. I saw a post earlier this morning now stating that gas prices are now falling too rapidly, and I’m looking around going, “What a second… two weeks ago you were on a soapbox screaming for lower gas prices, and now you’re complaining that they are coming down too fast?”

It was political. It was a news post by a group that only looks at the negative because they back a different punch of politicians than the group in power.

I’m going to go focus on my work now.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday, 11 July 2022. In a short while I will return to the sunroom and complete my preparations for this week’s delivery, a cloud admin course for a private customer.

I’ve taken a couple weeks off of my meal plan, and I stepped on the scale this morning. It’s a little crazy how quickly I can put the weight back on when I’m not living with a little more discipline. That’s OK, I’ll get back on track starting with eggs for breakfast today, and keto yogurt for lunch.

I see that Steve Bannon has now agreed to speak to the House Committee investigating the January 6th insurrection. Apparently, Trump had claimed “executive privilege” and was fighting to keep Bannon from testifying, and now there’s this switch.

So… what might this mean?

Well, friends, grandchildren, and gentle readers from across the interwebs, let me remind you about a failed coup d’etat in November of 1923. We know it as an event called “The Beer Hall Putsch“.

The thing that we all need to keep in mind is the forum that the trial offered a young political activist. This young activist, a failed painter and veteran of World War I, gave powerful testimony about his feelings for his country, a strong sense of German nationalism.

The trial led to the sentencing of Adolf Hitler to five years in prison. It was during this period of incarceration that Hitler wrote “Mein Kampf”.

My concern is that Steve Bannon will try to make the committee hearings a mockery of the system, and make it all about the “Big Lie”.

We’ll have to wait and see. I hope this comparison is uncalled for but considering the “America First” white Christian nationalism that is at the heart of this authoritarian movement.

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

Peace y’all.

Saturday! 9 July 2022.

I will make more of an effort to adopt the date format used by more of the world. The metric system should be in there as well. I think the delayed adoption of the metric system is holding America back.

I probably should adopt Celsius as my temperature format, too.

It is a pretty special day. My oldest daughter is moving into her first place post-graduation which is not a place where her parents already live. She’ll be a scant 5-10 minutes from her workplace, so her commute will be much shorter, and she has a lot of necessary services very close by.

Dane has left to go take care of Gracie’s dogs. Gracie and her boyfriend took off for Nebraska Thursday morning, and Dane offered to take care of her pooches. Lisa and Dane will head over to Kansas City later. I’ll be driving the U-Haul in another hour or so… still have a couple of Bonnie’s things to toss into the Flex.

This will lower the tension level with our dogs here. Bonnie’s dog, Ruthie, is a nice dog, but I don’t think our little pack here ever accepted her as a member of their pack. I’m hoping that there will be less noise overall.

Yeah, that last line was definitely a grumpy old man line.

Alrighty, time to toss a few things into my car to ferry over to Bon’s new place.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Friday, July 8. I flipped on the news to hear the report of former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe was assassinated in Japan by a guy with a homemade gun.

President Biden is signing something protecting abortion access today. So many states have already made just about every form of abortion illegal. It’s all about controlling women, and it makes me sick.

Meetings start at 7:00 AM for me today. Two other meetings later today, one with a manager (not mine). I’ve been mentoring a younger trainer and this trainer’s manager would like to talk about the progress we’ve made.

I took the garbage out to the side of the road this morning… then remembered that last Monday was the 4th of July, so no garbage pickup until tomorrow.

I head out to pick up a U-Haul trailer early this afternoon. My oldest daughter has signed the lease and picked up the keys to her new place. We’ll get her moved tomorrow morning, and returning the trailer tomorrow afternoon.

Other than that, not a whole lot to talk about. Dog food shipment is running a day or two late. Odin is not happy. Might be getting tired of peanut butter sandwiches. (I’ve made two for the dogs to tide them over).

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

Peace y’all.