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.

It is Wednesday afternoon, July 6, 2022.

I want to make something very clear to anybody reading this.

I think Joe Biden is not perfect. I think he is flawed, and I think he has made mistakes.

I still think he was a better choice than Trump, and I’m not going to change that opinion.

I look back at the times that Democrats were elected into the presidency in my lifetime. I know very little about LBJ’s campaign in 1964. I know he beat Barry Goldwater by a pretty significant margin. Considering Goldwater’s position on the Civil Rights Act, I doubt I could’ve ever supported him. Goldwater represented the new conservative in the GOP. Nixon would win in 1968, after his very effective dirty tricks campaign (hello Roger Stone!) helped George Wallace split the Democrats – Nixon won with 43.4% of the popular vote, but Humphrey and McGovern combined pulled in more than 9 million votes more than Nixon.

Nixon’s administration is a matter of record. He screwed up, got caught, ran away to California, and left Ford to solve the problems. Ford couldn’t solve the problems and left a pile of crap for the new President elected in 1976, Jimmy Carter.

Carter inherited 14 barrels of crap from his GOP predecessor. It would prove to be a trend.

I like the idea of leaving things better off than you found them. Reagan and Bush were great for the wealthy of America, but real wages stagnated, and Reagan chose to ignore a pandemic for years. Bush tried to clean up problems previous administration (see “Iraq”… Sadam Hussein rose to power with American backing). The economy slipped into a recession, and the governor and law professor from Arkansas was voted into office.

Clinton inherited about 6 barrels of crap from his GOP predecessor. Not as bad as Carter, and he had a couple of changes to the economy that created a very quickly expanding economy. He had his problems, no doubt, but I think it’s safe to say he left the country better than he found it – at least Jeff Bezos, Steve Jobs, and the guys over at Google probably thought so.

Then we had Bush – the W. 9/11, the continuation and expansion of our ongoing issues in the Middle East. Then the market collapsed in 2008, and the country fell into recession.

Barack Obama was elected in the fall of 2008, and he inherited 14 barrels of crap, too, although it might be more accurate to round up closer to 15.

Eight years of Obama got things turned around. The economy expanded at an almost predictable and steady rate. Call me nuts, but I like slow, steady, and predictable. Less drama.

In the fall of 2016, we, the American people, made the biggest freaking mistake in the history of democracy when we elected a reality TV host who was playacting the part.

Two impeachments later, we have Joe Biden.

Joe inherited 22 barrels of crap from Trump. How anybody could ever claim Trump left the country better than he found it. He crapped on it and then used the Statue of Liberty’s dress to wipe his ass.

Biden is not perfect, but the pile upon pile of residual crap he’s had to deal with could fertilize a desert.

And guess what is going to happen?

In 2024, I see a GOP candidate winning.

We’ll be right back here dealing with barrels in 2028. I’m pretty positive that after the GOP sits in the White House for 4 years, we’ll all be wondering what happened to our freedom. It will only be the treasured possession of the gilded set.

I hope the world is treating you better than deserve.

Peace y’all.

Good morning! Today is July 5th. Yesterday I think I forgot to post, but that’s ok, I get to take a break every now and then.

It was noisy in my little corner of Douglas County yesterday. Neighbors decided it was a good day for target shooting, and we live out in the country, so it’s a part of daily life. The dogs fought through their anxiety and eventually calmed down until more giant fireworks started going off in the nearby communities.

It’s the 4th of July. I get it.

We’ll likely have fireworks going off for the next two weeks from time to time, as folks shoot off their reserves or find that box of last year’s fireworks that were stashed after the owner polished off a 12-pack and later forgot about ’em.

I have a non-delivery week this week, so it’s a good week to book a trip to the eye doctor and get some new specs ordered. I’m wondering if ordering a pair of safety glasses might not be a bad idea. I’ll let that idea sit out on the front counter for a couple of days.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Sunday evening, July 3, 2022. It’s a little later than I usually write, but it is a three-day holiday weekend, and that’s going to be my excuse as long as I can use it.

So, my excuse until Tuesday

It was kind of a funny moment this evening. Lisa is acting like she’s going to call it an early night, so I started looking for shorter shows for us to watch. I flipped it over to “What We Do In The Shadows”, just as the energy vampire, Colin Robinson, is logging onto social media and sucking the energy out of people on Facebook. My wife thought that particularly funny, and let me know it.

I then paused a moment and logged out of Facebook.

Next scene, Colin Robinson starts responding to all of the troll comments on social media, and he realizes that he is not the predator, but the prey.

I thought it was funny.

After she heads off to bed, I’ll probably jump back into some serial sI need to catch up on. “Stranger Things” season 4, part 2 has come online and I have displayed surprising willpower not to bury myself in a binge-watch.

I’ll get to it this week… but let’s spread it out over a few days, shall we?

I’m going to go tend to my rat killing, as my dad would say.

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

Peace y’all.

It is a rainy Saturday, the 2nd day of July. Looks like it is going to rain all day so no real need to worry about the mowing. Might be a good day to daydream and work on my clothing situation a bit.

I am happy to have some time away from the classroom. I have some other projects I need to focus on (Klaxoon), and I have some additional training I need to get squared away.

We expected Bonnie to be moving into her new place in Missouri this weekend, but her landlord had some repairs they needed to attend to, so we’re putting her move off for another week.

With the rain, the dogs are a bit reluctant to do their bodily business outside… they just don’t like their fluffy bits out in the rain.

I’m going to see if my muse wants to come out and play today, whether it’s playing and practicing the guitar (I still need to work some things out in my signal chain), or drawing some pictures just to relax. Sometimes doodling can be good to settle an anxious spirit. It’s been a long time since 7th grade art class, but I still remember a bit about perspective and horizons.

I picked Dane up a book for his birthday on fantasy illustrations. Might be time to crack the spine on that and see what visions of castles and cities in the sky.

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

Peace y’all.

Good evening, or late afternoon. It is New Year’s Day. Well, new fiscal year anyway. And the dogs can’t shut up. Geez… it’s getting loud in here.

OK, a few of them just went outside, so now I can hear myself think.

It’s been a pretty casual day. Had some meetings earlier in the day. I was focused on some other work-related content.

Right now Lucy is barking her little head off on the patio. No sign of one of those murderous painted box turtles that the floors like to corner in the backyard. Just feeding time for Bonnie’s dog, Ruthie, and all of the other dogs like to voice their displeasure that she gets special treatment at meals while the others have open food and water.

Ordered an additional power supply for my personal laptop, and it was the wrong one. I’ve ordered another that should be right this time. I do like this Alienware M15 R6, but the power supply connector is pretty much the same sort of connector that was used thirty years ago. The Microsoft Surface power supply with the magnetic attachment is so much more practical than this traditional plug, and it’s also easier to get a good connection. The whole reason I’ve had to pick up another power supply is that on day one, I ordered an extra power supply to more easily move between rooms, and the third-party power supply connects, shows as connected, but won’t charge the battery. Kind of a pain.

I’m looking at my battery meter right now noticing my laptop power is just about dead. Better post before this unit rolls over and dies a gruesome death.

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

Peace y’all.