Sorry folks, I think I forgot to post yesterday. Today is Sunday, May 15, 2022, and yesterday I got some stuff done.

The first thing I did was run into town to get ten gallons of diesel for the tractor. I still haven’t come up with a name for the machine yet, but I’m considering a few.

Anyway, got the fuel, fueled it up, and spend a few hours mowing with it, and listening to an audiobook. Almost all of my mowing is on a flat surface, and the inclines aren’t going to get me anywhere close to a rollover, so I made a modification to the roll cage so it would fit in the barn – and it did, by the way. Got the west side mowed out to the orchard and the spot north of the barn out to the raspberry bushes.

It was convenient to throw four bags of soil into the loader and just drive it around back to where we’ve got the raised garden beds. Also, drilled some holes into the tomato plant pots Lisa had on the front porch – the rains this week filled them up with water and wasn’t draining out, so power tools to the rescue. The only down part was the liberal use of manure in the tomato soil, so my shoes got a little stinky.

I was wiped out by about four in the afternoon, so I cleaned up, and started prepping for dinner. We had a bit of an end-of-the-semester celebration for dinner last night, with tiny potatoes, grilled vegetables, and filet mignon. That was a great way to close out the day.

Today, it’s coffee and breakfast, then church online (we’re still not comfortable returning to in-person Mass … COVID isn’t over yet). I’ve got some gaming this afternoon with friends,

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

Peace y’all.

It is Friday the 13th! The 13th day of May, 2022, and I am just trying to chill out on a Friday night and post a blog entry I forgot about.

Life is good. I’m in a good place, my family is generally in a good place, so that’s our starting point. From here, we build.

One note: If you receive a shipment of sugar-free strawberry licorice, 12 8-oz packages, don’t sit down and eat an entire bag that in one shitting…. um… I mean sitting. I think you can get my vibe.

The semester’s end means any number of things around our house. I could mean that my wife is dialing things back for the summer as demands upon her time recede just a touch (Nah!). I could mean that my son will be moving from his dorm room back to the family digs (Likely).

Other than that, who really knows?

I received some new power tools this week, the highlight being the Milwaukee Pole Saw extension. I’ll hopefully have a chance to stretch that out this week.

Other than that, I’ll just focus on doing as I am asked.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is Thursday, May 12, 2022, and I am going to get this entry cranked out before I settle in for breakfast.

Yesterday I had a couple of interesting interactions. On a Facebook post by a Kansas Senator (Moran), where the Senator decided to rail against the Biden administration and inflation (as if our President had the power to create worldwide inflation with the snap of his fingers), I suggested the unthinkable – I suggested that when producers are faced with additional tariffs, those producers would pass along those costs to the consumer. It’s a strange economic thought for some, I suppose, that those tariffs, those additional expenses, would indirectly be passed along to those that buy the product at a… wait for it… inflated price.

I was challenged to back up my argument, but the irony is that these strong conservative voices found my proposition preposterous. I pulled up half a dozen (sorry, that’s Imperial, not metric) stories from veterans’ groups to Forbes addressing that, but Moran’s web feed will not allow the posting of links to other articles. To be honest, that’s probably a good thing, as those that seemingly dwell in an alternative universe would most likely flood the zone with links to Alex Jones’s Infowars and the latest manipulative propaganda piece by convicted felon Dinesh D’Souza.

I took a pause in the debate to get some work done, and one of my antagonists aggressively posted about my absence for a couple of hours, and I had to reply that I have a career, and I was delivering a lecture on advanced cloud networking concepts.

We’ve got too many people that lean too hard into their confirmation bias. They start with the goal in mind, then manipulate the facts to support their beliefs. That’s not the way it works, folks. You research, you gather new information, you verify the truth behind the findings, and you modify your beliefs in light of new information.

That’s what I am going to try to do.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday morning, May 11, and to my right, Odin is begging my wife for some sort of food item, as dogs are wont to do. I’m getting started on my day, as I return to my virtual classroom in about another hour for a discussion on networking in the cloud.

I’m not in the most enthusiastic of moods… I’m pretty neutral, really. Typical of a humpday, I suppose. The weather has been windy and warm the last few days, and we expect highs back in the 90s again.

I keep track of the weather on my own weather station, an Accurite that allows me to participate in crowd-sourced weather reporting. My weather station can be found here.

Odin is just whimpering to whimper at this point. He’s right at Lisa’s feet just sounding like the whole world is against him… but in reality, he’s just manipulating my wife, trying to get a snack from her. He’s becoming pretty notorious for that.

Lisa ordered some more trees for me to get in the ground. We’re going to be busy planting again on Saturday.

Oooh… jut had a thought. I get a new pole saw delivered today. That’ll make some of the trimming easier. It’s a Milwaukee M18-powered unit, and I’m sitting pretty good on batteries and chargers. Drain the charge on one, get it on the charger, and replace it with fresh. Lather, rinse, repeat.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday night, MAy the 10th, and I’m about tired of fools tonight. One of these days I am going to learn my lesson and not avail myself of the opportunity to correct people that have their facts wrong.

Just went back to check the thread, looks like one guy has called me brainwashed, so he’s accepted he can’t debate me with facts.

People have a tendency to cherry-pick their facts, and latch on to anything that aligns with their confirmation bias.

Dear Lord, I’m debating with people that have little grasp of the facts and would likely have thrown in with Putin and the Russians against Ukraine.

I’m so tired of these idiots. These are the kind of folks that would intentionally hurt people and find a way to blame liberals out of spite.

I’m done for the night.

And then…

Ugh…

So our plants are coming up nicely, so there’s that. Internet speed improved.

Yeah, I’m just not feeling it tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

It is 9:25 on a Monday night, the 9th day of May 2022. To my right, the sisters von floor are chomping down on these Pavlovian snack sticks that have completely captivated all of our beloved pooches. To my left, the TV is filled with a lecturer on “How Science Fiction Works” on Wondrium, right after I noticed the quarterly Wondrium change on my Paypal account, and contemplate whether or not to pay for the college lecture channel or drop it.

Right now, I’m leaning strong “keep”.

I’m a lifelong student. My whole purpose is to learn and pass along what I have learned and do so across as many forms of communication as possible. I love the spoken word. I practice that skill. I love the written word… and I practice that as well. The part about being in front of a camera can create a little anxiety. I have been known to pull some on-camera pranks with either glare coming off my dome, or grabbing a handy floor for an extreme puppy closeup. It’s a way for me to keep things a little loose and manage stuff.

It’s a weird thing. When I was younger, I was pretty forward about seeking attention. And… right now I’m thinking about the fact that I’m writing about attention-seeking on a blog entry that is legit attention-seeking but I promise not to pay search engines to promote my bullshit, ok?

I’m going to get this rolled out before I confuse myself too much.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Mothers’ Day, May 8, 2022. I took a little time earlier today to make the trip to Clay Center, Kansas, to see my mom, and got the additional benefit of seeing my brother and my sister, and her family, as well as extended family member, Bryan.

We had barbecue, watched a little baseball, shared a couple of stories, and had a few laughs. I had the pleasure of being introduced to my youngest brother’s puppy, a 12-week-old dachshund that he has named Ro.

I have this number in my head of how many words I want to get into each post, and most days I get to that number without a great deal of effort. That whole stream of thought writing style works sometimes… other times, not so much. Gotta have a little more fluid in the riverbed before you can call it a stream. I guess that’s just part of the process. Sometimes I’m pretty engaged, other times not so much.

I’m home now, hanging out with my wife and oldest daughter, and all of the dogs. I’m pretty tired. I’m going to put this to bed.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday, May 7, and it’s been a longer day. Not that there was one thing that took up the majority of the day, but just a series of activities spread out over a day that just sort of ate things up.

Tomorrow is Mother’s Day, and there will be travel. I haven’t seen my mom much during the pandemic, so when the time is right, it’s good to get in the car and go.

I’ve got some stuff to take along for the trip… there will be family, and I have plenty of food – pulled pork, hot links, burnt ends, and, of course, adequate sides. My brothers will be around, as well as my sister’s family, so I hope I have enough for everybody.

I’ll wait until the end… get everybody else fed first. If we run out, I can grab something on the way home later that day.

Right now we’re hanging out and watching Val Kilmer’s autobiographical documentary about his life. Pretty impressive. I think he had to check a little ego at the door at times. For all of the ups and downs, he’s an interesting person.

Alright… I’m sure there’s plenty of news to discuss, with the Supreme Court leaks and all kinds of other stuff happening around the world, but for now, I’m going to chill and stay focused on the family.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Friday, May 6, 2022, and let’s get out a “whoop, whoop” for surviving another work week. (Well, most of a workweek… I still have to get through to 5 o’clock).

Yesterday we received a quote to get Bob Ross removed from the backyard, my globe willow that split April 29 during the wind storm, and completed his collapse last weekend. I did not see that coming – about 5 grand to remove a tree. For that kind of money, I can buy myself a pretty nice chain saw and a wood chipper.

OK, true confessions… my modus operandi would be to buy the chain saw and the wood chipper, do nothing, then eventually hire the guys to remove the tree anyway… and keep the chain saw and the wood chipper.

We’ll have to make a plan. I’ve got to be able to mow around that place where Bob collapsed.

Banquet season is over for this spring. Next, Lisa will have graduation a week from Sunday. None of our kids graduating this year, with Bon and Gracie both done, and Dane being a year-and-a-half away from finishing.

OK, time to think about breakfast and getting the trash out to the corner.

Watch the new Star Trek… fans of the classic show won’t be disappointed.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday morning, the fifth day of May 2022. Today, some folks will be celebrating Cinco de Mayo, which, in the United States, is another excuse to drink beer.

But my people won’t be celebrating Cinco de Mayo… my people have something more important to focus on.

My people are Star Trek fans.

Today, the most anticipated new Star Trek series since Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted way back in 1987.

“Star Trek: Strange New Worlds” is a prequel, exploring the voyages of the Enterprise based on the original pilot that was made just about the time I was born. There are some old familiar characters, like Spock and Uhura, and the main characters include Captain Christopher Pike, played in the original pilot by Jeffrey Archer, now being played by Anson Mount.

I’m excited about it.

Right now Odin is sitting on the back of the loveseat whining about something. He probably wants a piece of bacon or something. Rosy is curled up over my right leg, demanding a pet from time to time.

OK… just to close this up, yes, I am thankful for a new Star Trek series that will follow that episodic style of the original Trek back in the 60s. There might be some story arcs that last a season, but I think this will be less of a serial than what we’ve seen with Discovery and Picard.

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

Peace y’all.