It is Wednesday morning, May the 4th… and May the Fourth be with you. Yeah, this day has been adopted by the Star Wars fans, and why not? Stepping away from the subtle religious nod to the Jedi, all you’re really doing is saying, “I hope the universe grants you a little grace, today”.

I’ll take it.

We say a lot of things without thinking about them, and, for folks like me, those phrases come from comic books, novels, movies, and TV shows.

May the Force be with you.

Live long, and prosper.

Never give up, never surrender.

To infinity, and beyond!

It’s all fun, it’s also a little weird that I hear those last two lines in Tim Allen’s voice.

Yes, I am wearing a Star Wars-oriented t-shirt today, an intersection of a mandala, a form of sacred geometry, and a couple of characters from the series, “The Mandolorian”. Seems to be appropriate today, and even if I run out later to pick up some stuff for supper, I have my doubts anyone will look too closely at my shirt to see what’s up with the design.

I’m back in the virtual classroom here in another half hour or so, recording my partner’s session on Identity. I’ll cover the balance of the day with lab support and another session this afternoon.

Time to make the donuts…

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, May the 3rd, 2022. I’ll be kicking off my class in about another hour and a half, so I thought I’d ponder the day for a moment before I get going in earnest.

Overnight there was some big news. Apparently, there has been a leak in the Supreme Court, and a draft ruling has been disclosed that overrules Roe v. Wade. The opinion was written by Justice Alito, who was a conservative appointed by George W. Bush.

I believe in the equal application of the law regardless of gender, race, religion, etc. What applies to men should apply to women and vice versa. I am in opposition to this potential ruling due to the fact that it only applies to women. There are no laws out there that affect men’s reproductive freedom – just the opposite. There are any number of insurance plans that refuse to cover birth control, but I just about every plan out there will cover Viagra or Cialis – it’s ok to help guys out with erectile dysfunction so they can impregnate a partner, but the support for women is really lacking.

I’m pro-choice – but that does not mean pro-abortion. Women should be able to control their bodies the same way men can. This just smacks so hard of patriarchal overreach by an old white guy.

Margaret Atwood … wow. What a writer. And now here we are on the verge of fulfilling one of her darkest visions for the future.

I’m going to make some toast and get ready for my class. Coffee, do your thing.

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

Peace y’all.

It is a gray Monday, May 2. Thanks for opening up this post and giving it a look.

I’m feeling grateful today. I think about what’s going right in my life, and I have so much to be thankful for. My health seems OK. My wife’s health seems OK. The kids are alright, and at least one of the dogs shows some marginal improvement with house-breaking. I have a very good career with a great company, and we’ve got some veggies sprouting both in the garden and under the grow lights here in the house.

I’m going to run into town after a bit, grab a couple of things for my own consumption, as well as grab an item or two to add to tonight’s menu. Not sure what that’s going to be, but I have a feeling that whatever protein and veg I find on sale will satisfy that need.

Tomorrow we have the first day of another Blended Learning journey, teaching a four-day admin course over an entire month. Everybody on my training team needs to get used to this modality, because it’s going to be a big move, and a necessary move to accommodate our learners. This almost has the feel of an EdX delivery of a college course. I should give that a little more thought.

Anyway, the tasks on my to-do list aren’t going to take care of themselves. Time to get after it.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Sunday, well, heck, it’s Sunday night, and I’m writing about as late in the evening as I’ve written in quite some time.

So, the date is May 1 in the Year of Our Lord 2022. My wife and I have had a good day, with a solid breakfast to start, church online (still not comfortable going back to regular mass), then some work around the yard. I jumped on the new tractor with the cutter set to about 4 inches off the ground and took a few turns around our place and I was quite pleased with the results.

Living in Kansas, growing up as we did, there are always moments in the high school summers that you would work out on somebody’s farm, whether throwing bails or repairing fences or whatever needed to be done. I threw a few bales back in the day, and I respect the work. Dad repaired tractors and had one around our place in Salina, so I knew the basics.

Today I really had a little fun. Did some more cutting, and learned a little more about my tools.

Tonight, I’m relaxing, getting my wife caught up on “Yellowstone”, and enjoying the company of floor… the Sisters Von Floof… Rosy unt Lily.

I get back to my blended learning regimen tomorrow. Planning day is tomorrow, and the show begins on Tuesday. I’m hoping we have a great delivery. We’ll see how it goes.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday morning, April 30, and I’m going to start off with an apology. I forgot to write my blog entry yesterday. Thursday night was a nice evening with my spouse at a reception, yesterday was a flurry of frog-eating and meetings that tied me up so much that I didn’t even notice the delivery of my new Tonka – I took receipt of a John Deere 1025R lawn tractor. It’s a little bigger, diesel, and comes with a loader, so, yay! Time to get some more work done around here.

Last night I was with Lisa as we attended a banquet for honored alumni and outgoing seniors. Later in the evening, as we were wrapping things up, the news came around that there was some nasty-looking weather heading into the area, with evidence of tornadic activity (we got rotation!). A friend posted pictures of a tornado that was just outside of Wichita… base was so solid I thought she was showing me a water tower at first.

Today we have some mowing to get done with the newer unit, trees to get in the ground, and other objects to get moved around… and I need to spend some quality time with the owner’s manual. Lisa wants to go check out a different lawn and garden store in Bonner Springs, so we’ll get rolling here pretty soon.

Once again, apologies for missing my entry. First missed entry in months.

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

Peace y’all.

Good afternoon, whereever and whenever you might be. I am writing this in the afternoon of April 28, 2022, and it is Thursday. The sun is out, the wind is blowing lightly, and my weather station says it is 71 degrees outside. I’ve got five sleeping dogs in the room, with soft music coming from a Youtube channel designed to keep dogs calm.

I’m going to have to get cleaned up here shortly, as I am attending a function with my spouse this evening. We’ve got stuff going on tonight and tomorrow night. I’ve been wearing jeans and polos so often over the last two years, that it’s always odd when I have to put a little more effort into my appearance. I can’t just blame the way I look on poor camera resolution or bad internet connectivity.

I might even have to strain to find two decent semi-pro-looking ensembles to wear two straight days that aren’t the same outfit.

Odin is sleeping on one of the dog beds, tummy facing the sky… I like that he feels comfortable and non-threatened enough that he can lay that comfortably.

The floors, Rosy and Lily, are laying on the couch beside me. Rosy has this odd way of laying with her head almost 90 degrees in the wrong direction, but that’s how she sleeps. Looks like her little neck could be broken… gives me the willies sometimes just to see her lay like that.

That’s about enough. Time to ponder the wardrobe question directly.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday, April 27, 2022, and I’m enjoying a little more relaxed day with a few meetings, but more of an open layout on the day.

I’ve already started working on some of the logistics for my delivery that starts next Monady. My training partner and I have hashed out a few things that required a little attention, and we’re off to a great start. One of the things I like about our Blended Learning approach is the pockets of time that open up for conversations within the team. I’m not always the most outspoken, but I can listen with the best of ’em.

This blog entry is really just a temporary distraction. It doesn’t take too long to crank out a couple hundred words, so let’s get this boat to float.

I did see a piece of news I liked with the release of US Citizen Trevor Reed being released. Sounds like he’s sick… I doubt the Russians want to let this guy die in their custody… corpses don’t have a lot of trade value. Just ask the Chinese.

Well, I’m just about there. It’s about time for me to point my nose in the direction of technology so I can cram a few more worthwhile bits of info into my noggin.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is Tuesday, April 26, 2022, and I’m doing OK. The second day of my virtual on-site for work, and then I’ve got some planning to do for my next Blended Learning delivery starting next Monday.

Came across a covey of idiots last night. Made the mistake of commenting on some idiot’s t-shirt that blamed the pandemic on Dr. Anthony Fauci. I spoke up. Next thing I know I was being barraged by anti-science idiot Trump supporters that think the entire pandemic was a myth. After I stated that I was confident that there was no degree of evidence or peer-reviewed articles that could change their mind, they claimed victory and celebrated.

By all means, revel in your stupidity.

It’s kind of funny – the friend’s page I visited (who shall remain nameless) once talked to me about getting a vanity tag that read something like “CYBRPNK”, trying to pass himself off as some 1337 h@x0rz, when, in reality, the guy needed to RTFM to figure out how to copy and paste. He’s a nice enough guy, gave me a tip on where to take my wife for dinner on our first date, and attended our wedding. I just didn’t know the guy was going to go down the science-denier road. He always had a group of friends, almost universally white conservatives that had inherited money, that played the right-wing victim.

COVIDIOTS.

I’m not too worried about that bunch of folks. They have their little echo chamber filled to the brim with bullshit and lies that reinforce their narrow worldview.

I’ll stick to science and folks like Dr. Fauci. People that get their news via the right-wing bullshit filter that twists things into something unidentifiable get what they deserve… in my case, that means “ignored”.

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

Peace y’all.

Hey gang, it’s Monday, April 25, and it has been an interesting day. I’ve been in meetings today, but that didn’t keep the world from turning.

One of the big pieces of news that has come out has been the purchase/buyout of Twitter by oligarch Elon Musk. He has made this move in an effort to promote free speech, and to stop the suspension of popular posters when they post unpopular and sometimes dangerous opinions.

I’m not going to drop Twitter. I use it daily to let folks know that I have updated my blog, and I also chime in from time to time about timely topics that catch my attention. It is kind of funny right now that some folks on the far right are claiming victory for this “free speech” movement, but you can bet that a little bit of hypocrisy will come to the forefront as soon as somebody wants to talk about pronouns for the transgender community, or Critical Race Theory and the role of racism in the colonial Deep South. Yeah… those conversations will get killed off pretty quick, I’m sure.

People suck, sometimes.

I decided that I’m going to append all of my posts on Twitter with support for taxing the rich and promoting the unionization of Tesla employees… let’s see how long I get to stay on Twitter, shall we?

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

Peace y’all.

It’s Sunday, April 24, 2022. It’s been a day. We started off our Sunday as we have for the last couple of years, with breakfast and watching the Mass out of the Archdiocese of Denver. Decent production, straightforward, and to the point.

After we got done with church, it was time to get to work. Had to run into town to get some fuel, and I exploited my HyVee gas discount to get about 60 cents off per gallon… and with 10 gallons going straight into the mower and gator fuel tanks, The rest of the available 20-gallon limit went into the Flex, and that’s just fine. These days I’ll be spending more hours on the mower and the gator than I will behind the wheel of my old Travellall wannabe.

We’re reaching the end of the road with the Flex as a daily driver. She’s got a couple of years left in her as a utility vehicle, but the reality is I’m going to need something at the end of this year or early next year. We’ll see what the future holds, but I’m starting to get some ideas.

Starting tomorrow, I have a series of meetings with the folks in Redmond… well, somebody is there, I suppose. One manager is in Seattle, another in the Bay area of San Francisco, and many of my team members span from Chicago all the way out west.

Did get a nice care package from work last week… I’ll have to break out one of those new shirts tomorrow.

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

Peace y’all.