It is Wednesday morning, June 15, and, for many of us that receive our paychecks semi-monthly, it is payday. I am a fortunate man to work for a great company with solid benefits, and a culture that promotes well-being.

Seriously, when I talk with some of my peers, I am stunned by some of the stories I hear. So many workplaces these days have pretty toxic environments.

Today is the third day of our public speaking skills camp. I’ll put a little more polish on the presentation I gave Monday and see how it lands. There are a few things I want to take a second run at in the training environment.

Tonight I get to hang out with the guys online for a gaming session. I look forward to it, as I don’t believe we’ll be playing on Sunday this week – Father’s Day, and just about all of us are dads. Some of us are grandfathers (not me!), and that’s par of the course when you have a bunch of guys in their late 50’s through mid 60’s.

I probably ought to keep an eye on the availability of the washer and dryer today. I have some necessary articles of clothing in need of laundering.

To be frank, it’s been a pretty uneventful couple of days. When given a choice between “less drama” and “more drama”, I’m perfectly fine with my life having as much drama as a Wyndham Hill sampler or a “best of” album from Narada Lotus. I like the kind of music that one can meditate with, or simply cause me to relax and fall into a needed slumber.

Now, it is time to attend to coffee and breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, and I’m already wondering what we’re going to have for dinner, on this 14th day of June. Tuesdays have been a good day for tacos, and there’s a place on the edge of town with a dollar taco special. Gears are grinding.

I generally start off my blog posts by going out to check the number of days I’ve been alive on Rod Martin’s web site. A moment ago, the IP address wouldn’t resolve, but it appears to be fixed now. The average person lives somewhere between 28,500 and 30,000 days, and that’s the kind of thing I keep track of with my daily posts. Glad his site is OK, and you should go check it out if you like cool personal/professional web content – especially if you have an interest in Drupal.

TV situation is still unresolved until Sunday, but my tablet has a DISH app on it, so I was able to watch the Celtics-Warriors game last night. Golden State rode the roller coaster, up in the first half, down in the third quarter, and back up in the fourth. They take a 3-2 lead in the best of seven series, with two games to win one. History is on their side.

More internal training today. I look forward to it. I seem to be participating at a fairly high level, and I would encourage more of my peers to dig in a little deeper with their observations. I try to provide feedback on every participant and was a little disappointed that more of my peers didn’t provide a comment or two about my delivery.

Lean in.

It’s about that time for me to think about my workday, grab a cup of coffee, and get my breakfast squared away. Low-carb tortilla with American cheese going in the toaster oven, sausage and cheese scramble going in the microwave for an improvised breakfast burrito.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday morning, and my internal training event starts in a couple of hours. It is the 13th of June, and a week away from my son’s 21st birthday.

These days, many Americans have familiarized themselves with the acronym, “RWNJ”… which stands for “Right-wing nut job”. Historically, they just stood around in wearing shirts that violated the flag code, yelled at people, and waved around sounds with poor spelling and punctuation. After January 6th, they proved to the world just how dangerous they can be. If the vocal minority doesn’t get their way, they’re more than happy to shoot a few people and twist up some pipe bombs to get their way.

This past weekend, a group organized as the “Patriotic Front” was arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho. There was a pride month celebration and march scheduled there in support of the Idaho LGBTQ+ community. This neo-Nazi pack decided they were going to don riot gear and cause trouble, but fortunately folks thought they looked suspicious in their riot gear. They arrested the lot of them.

Thank God.

It really pisses me off what assholes like this have done to twist and corrupt the word “patriot”. I love my country. I volunteered to serve my country, but was unable to pass the physical, but I know any number of good guys that have stood up, taken the oath, and vowed to fight and die for this country (and others as well – I have friends that have served in the armed forces of Australia, Canada, Israel, Sweden, Jordan… and probably a few others).

They think they get to own a term like “Patriot”, because they think they are on the right side of some vision for what they want this country to be.

I have a different vision. My vision is one of inclusion, diversity, and respect. My vision is one where people weigh the issues instead of placating a group that just happens to be loud. My vision is one of shared experiences, knowledge of the past, recognition of past mistakes, and steps together for a better future.

Maybe a future with fewer shootings as well.

I’ll choose that path. I’m not going to get suckered into some racist tribe that actively recruits the most gullible for a malevolent intent, seducing them with contorted advertising slogans that use the words, “Duty”, “Patriot”, and “Freedom” with as much integrity as a sandcastle during high tide.

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

Peace y’all.

I hope you have been having a good weekend, if you are reading this in real time. If you are reading this at some point in the future, I hope your life is going well. Here it is Sunday evening, June the 12th, and I am pounding out a blog post.

A word that is becoming more popular in our 21st century culture is the word, “influencer”. I took a moment and looked up the root word, “influence”, and jotted down a few synonyms.

Some of the synonyms seem positive enough, with such words as, “leadership”, “character”, and “magnetism”. All to often, however, my mind is drawn to the other synonyms, like “force”, “impact”, “command”, and “dominion”. It strikes me that influence can be as subtle as a nudge, or as blatant as a shove.

I’m not an influencer.

In my role with my employer, I have taken on some mentorship responsibilities. I’ve been working directly with a younger trainer for almost a year now, and I believe we have made some progress. I hope other opportunities to mentor arise in the next fiscal year. That said, I don’t want to have an aggressive approach to the role – no “force”, no “command”.

I think I can be a good nudger, though.

I’ll make that my goal. Be a better nudger. Help the other trainers I find myself working with draw their own conclusions and find the right direction that fits them .

This next week I am partaking of some internal training to help me with my presentation skills. I look forward to the experience.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday night, a bit warmish late evening on this 11th day of June. It’s still 85 degrees outside at 9:33 PM.

It has been a day. So, as I mentioned yesterday, we are currently without television, but that’s certainly not to say that we’re without media. Lisa is back in our bedroom watching on our bedroom set, and earlier today I snuck in an episode of “Stranger Things” on the big desktop back in the sunroom. We tried to play a little card game tonight, but that didn’t go as well as we had hoped. I guess I copped a bit of an attitude, and that didn’t help.

I was reading a story earlier today about a guy that had a job interview, and they asked him to write an essay of at least two hundred words regarding his position on abortion. I would’ve had a heyday with such a task, but alas, I’m not out there filling out job applications such as the one this gentleman had to waste.

I likely would’ve gone into a diatribe about the necessary body parts that I did not have, therefore their likely would not be a need to ever make that decision. It could’ve been fun to take more of a victim role and assume ponder the prospect of infertility, and how their asking him to write a two hundred essay on the subject was a form of harassment and cruelty.

Or, I might’ve just flipped them off. It’s none of their f******g business what my position on abortion is, and wouldn’t ever need to be part of any conversation we would ever have.

I just don’t get people that think they have a right to control people’s reproductive lives. Contagious diseases are a different story… if I’m spreading a virus that can kill you or your loved ones, that’s a conversation worth having.

I’m just kind of pissed off at the world.

A couple of folowups… my west coast team lost in the championship round to the Latin American team. I lost twice on an architecture I like and won on an architecture I never played before. I salute the LA team for their knowledge and good fortune.

Regarding the new tv… it arrives a week from tomorrow. I ordered a heavy-duty wall mount, articulated unit that can handle stud mounts and up to 110 lbs. The new set should weigh about 85, and we’ll break out the stud finder to get this mounted appropriately. The delivery includes setup, but I don’t know if that includes sticking the wall mount on the wall. Dane and I can attend to that before the set arrives.

Next week I have an internal training event. I look forward to that sort of change in my routine. I love the chances I get to hang out with my teammates, whether in person or virtually.

Time to call it.

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

Peace y’all.

It’s Friday night, June 10, and we’re relaxing in the living room. Bonnie is playing a game on her laptop, Lisa is reading something on her phone, and I’m enjoying an evening cocktail.

Lisa and I went out to the pool earlier, and Dane came out as well. The water in the pool has warmed up to around 80 degrees Fahrenheit, so it was not nearly as cold as it has been in other years for my first jump into the pool.

I went in off the diving board. I know that men don’t enter the pool via the steps.

Last night, the family television slipped into a recovery mode, and in spite of applying the updates both over the internet and via USB port, the system became stuck in a loop, and even the factory reset option failed to get the system back working again, so after some brief maneuvering, I picked up a new television that will be delivered a week from Sunday… Father’s Day.

OK… I already received a Father’s Day gift this year, but I’m not going to get upset about this timely arrival. This will be another smart tv with an integrated Roku video system. We’ll be able to use the old remotes with it, and it’s being delivered and set up. We may even opt for a wall mount.

Oh… and it’s ten inches bigger diagonally. Old one was 65″. This one will be 75″.

Hey, my visual acuity isn’t what it used to be.

Tomorrow I’ll hit the farmer’s market with Lisa, and we’ll pick up some stuff for meals Saturday and Sunday. I might look for some more of that purple asparagus from Pendleton’s Nursery near by. Get a nice Hollandaise sauce on it… that’s the good stuff.

OK, time to think about other stuff.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday morning, June 9, 2022, and I’m watching a news report about the guy that got arrested outside Chief Justice Kavanaugh’s home during an attempted assassination attempt.

Assassination attempts are wrong, assassination is wrong. Assassination attempts are not a form of peaceful protest. Let’s not create laws that restrict peaceful protest. Let’s not confuse the two.

I’m not going to spend more time going down that road. That horse is being kicked in Washington, DC, and, although there has been some action on AR-15 age limits (House passed a bill, we’ll have to see what happens in the Senate), I doubt there will be much change. The next mass shooting involving that class of weapon is likely already in the hands of the guy that is going to use it.

All I can do is hope my kids aren’t in his site lines.

I thought my wife was going to take off for Kansas City today for an overnight trip, but, pleasantly, her trip was cancelled for a positive reason, so we’ll have an evening of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds and The Orville.

Last day of my administration course. We’ll get the lecture wrapped up this morning and leave the afternoon for lab time. At 4:30, I’ll participate in round two of a game challenge at work… I won my first round the other day, and now I face a member of the East team. She has won as many rounds as I have. I might lose… we’ll have to wait and see.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday morning, June the 8th, in the Year of Our Lord 2022… and I write that thinking, “In the Year of Our Lord” seems like there was no presence of God prior to the birth of Jesus.

The way we date things is pretty random.

We have our calendar, named after some guy, named “Julian”… (note to self… a character named “Julian Calendar” could be fun).

Meanwhile, in th other room, I have a Bluetooth speaker running out of battery power, and it groans at me to plug it back into power. Not right now, little Bluetooth speaker, I am writing. Not much longer now though.

It’s raining this morning, again. The rain is generally good for the trees and plants we have around here. It also causes the grass and weeds to grow, so that means more mowing.

Day three of my admin course this morning. I’ve adapted the class to a hybrid, teaching one module and performing one lab, then doing two lectures back-to-back, followed by open lab time for the balance of the day. It helps the learners in distant countries manage their day a little better, with a choice later in the day to either do the labs at that point of the day or head off to bed – by the time I get done lecturing at 1:30 or 2:00 in the afternoon, it can be pretty late for IST – India Standard Time. 1:30 PM Central Time equates to midnight in India. That’s late enough.

OK, time to go plug that speaker in and get some breakfast in me.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, June 7, and the 59th birthday of my high school friend Rob. I hope you are having a great day out west.

Things are getting weird in Washington, DC, obviously. Thursday night the January 6th committee hearings move to prime time for some pretty interesting questioning. One of Trump’s advisors has been arrested for failing to respond to a subpoena. I have a feeling that more arrests are on the horizon.

Right now the news is reporting a story on the Proud Boys and the charges of sedition several members are facing. They are being charged for their attempts to overturn the election from November 2020.

Some people are very gullible.

Here in my corner of the world, I return to my virtual classroom in about an hour, and I will spend most of the day covering networking topics. The only question is whether I get all of the lecture addressed first, and then have a large block of lab time, or if I stick with a more traditional lecture-lab structure, where I deliver a module, do the related lab, then move on to the next module. I’ll ask my learners about it later.

Weather is starting to warm up here, which is a good thing for Lisa. The pool has been open almost three weeks, but is only now getting warm enough to enjoy. I’ll be the first to admit that I prefer the water to get a bit warmer before I take the plunge.

Tuesday is a good day for tacos… so I think we’ll have dinner squared away. The Mexican restaurant on the edge of twon offers dollar tacos today, and we polished off fourteen of them last Tuesday. That seems to be a good number.

OK… time to think about work.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday, June 6th, 2022. It is a crisp late spring morning, my oldest daughter has driven off to her job in Kansas City, Lisa is up and making her breakfast smoothie, and I am thankful for my morning coffee.

Today I’m back in my virtual classroom, doing a private class for a big customer on administration. The first day of class is always the longest, with students getting things set up, and getting introduced to the lab environment. By Thursday, the labs will be a breeze, but on day one, we’ve got some things to cover.

Yesterday was a good day with online gaming with friends. We finished a major portion of an adventure that seems like it was going on for months… because it was. We’ve got two different game masters and four different campaigns running with combinations of veteran and starter characters… but that’s ok. It gives me chances to play different styles and learn the ins and outs of each race and class. It’s been fun, and now that we’ve added a Wednesday night session, we’re getting more out of our sessions, and more time with friends.

I’m not going to digress much for now. It’s early in the week, and I have a feeling there will be some interesting experiences… this afternoon, for example. I am getting involved in a fun event for work, a “tournament”, and I go up against one of my best buds at work in round one. He’ll probably trounce me.

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

Peace y’all.