Good morning! It is 29 August 2022, a Monday morning. This is the unofficial last week of summer, as Labor Day weekend comes at the end of this week, and the sights and sounds of fall begin in earnest.

I’ve missed a couple of days of posting, as I focused on other tasks and responsibilities around here. Lisa and I had an enjoyable weekend as we recognized her 29th birthday again, and I pinged my brother Tom to wish him a good birthday as well.

There has been news, and as I look forward to the launch of the Artemis rocket, I am concerned about some of the news coming out about the security of the US. At this point the stories are little more than rumor, but if the rumors get confirmed, it really looks bad. Damage assessments, national security breaches, exposure of human assets.

This could really be bad. I wouldn’t want to be a foreign asset of the US government right now.

I get back into my virtual classroom here in a bit. It’s a security course, so a lot of folks take this sort of stuff very seriously.

Four days, and then my “official” September begins. Due to schedule movements, I have a non-delivery week next week so I can focus on some recertification I need to get wrapped up. The following week is built around some team meetings, and then I return back to teach an admin course. I had a non-delivery week scheduled for the first full week of October, but that was moved up a week so I can jump into another 4 week blended learning class in October.

Time to make the donuts…

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is 26 August 2022, a Friday morning, and the sun has yet to break across my eastern horizon.

I was thinking about some song lyrics this morning…

“Sometimes in our lives
We all have pain
We all have sorrow

But if we are wise
We know that there’s
Always tomorrow”

We all have times when we need to lean on friends, lean on family. We get by with a little help from our friends. He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother. Trouble me.

The other day, a bill was signed into law that gives some of my fellow Americans with student loan debt some relief. Some other countries on earth don’t have to worry about this because they provide free education for those pursuing college degrees. Others start training people for trades while they are still very young.

Right now a number of folks aren’t really happy about debt others have accumulated being transferred to others. It’s been surprising how many of those same people applied for and accepted loans from the federal government to keep their businesses afloat during the pandemic – loans that have now been forgiven.

The part that a lot of these folks are overlooking is their own profession of faith. A lot of folks who claim to be Christian seem to be overlooking the fact that the entire basis of the faith is the transfer of debt. He died for our sins. People recite the Lord’s Prayer every day- and one variation states, based on Matthew 6:9-13 “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.”

I’m not going to be sad or complain that some folks got some debt relief. Heck, big fossil fuel companies received funding in 2020 that costs twice what this student loan relief costs.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is 25 August 2022, and I’m going to take a few moments to tell y’all about someone I love very much.

Today my mother turns 80 years old.

Hi mom! I know you don’t get out to the internet much, it’s not really your thing.

My mom was born in Minnesota, the second child born to Seg & Lyla Severson. Her older brother was born a year earlier on the exact same day. She would later become the “big sister”, as the family added two more younger brothers for her, then two younger sisters. From an age perspective, she was kind of on an island, with only boys for a long time, my aunts not being born until several years later.

She went to school and loved Iowa girl’s 3-on-3 basketball. She played guard. She also was a cheerleader.

Her cousin was engaged to a guy from Sioux City, and she went with her to see the city one day in the late fifties. As fate would have it, her cousin would break up with the man she was seeing, but that man had a younger brother. That younger brother would become her husband and my father.

My mom is a good person. She loves her kids, her grandkids, and all the many pets we’ve had around the house. I know there are a couple of names I could bring up around her that would likely bring a tear to her eye.

I’m going to give her a call later, as I doubt she’s up quite yet.

I love you, Mom.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning. It is 6:10 AM on 24 August 2022. Time for me to organize my thoughts and get focused on the task at hand. This morning I have a case study review of a networking problem, and later today we’ll get back in to office hours to further discuss cloud networking solutions.

More news this morning on how bad the classified document breach was at Mar-a-Lago. The Russians have been claiming ever since the docs were discovered that all of the classified information was in their hands as well. I hope that the FBI dusts all of those documents for prints.

I’ve had friends that served in the military and the US intelligence apparatus. I know they are trained on the proper treatment of classified documents.

I wonder if we’re going to get any rain this week?

Freya, our #2 oldest dog and the mother of the sisters Von Floof, has been having some kind of weird hiccough/cough thing the last couple of nights as well as during the day yesterday. I hope she gets over it soon.

Just a couple more days, then I get to turn my head to some different tasks. A full month of cloud solutions architecture can be whelming. Not underwhelming, not overwhelming, just whelming.

I think it’s funny that the spell check integrated into WordPress doesn’t recognize the word “whelming”.

Time to make the donuts…

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is 23 August 2022, and I am wide awake. Coffee is dripping, my second large glass of water sitting to my right, and three pooches in my immediate vicinity.

Looks like the news has no shortage of stories this morning revolving around the Department of Justice and the seizure of government documents from the Eagles’ Nest. More docs are being requested from the National Archives by the select committee investigating the January 6th insurrection, and Cheeto Benito has filed a suit demanding a “Special Master” to determine the scope of the search warrant on his secret hideout and golf course to see if the documents seized were within scope.

I look forward to hearing the gavel fall on Trump’s legal troubles for the very last time, but that may be years down the road.

This morning I’ll be back in my virtual classroom, reviewing last week, previewing this week, as we discuss networking, business continuity, and migration. My training partner and I have quite a bit going on with this last four-day stint with this group.

Tuesday… and I am wondering about dinner tonight. Might have to make a run into town for taco ingredients.

Oooh. New story… Mudge is back. Didn’t know he had been in charge of security for Twitter. Looks like he’s turning whistleblower about security risks and poor compartmentalization at the micro-blogging service.

OK, time for me to focus on the day ahead.

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

Peace y’all.

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.