It is Saturday! TIme for my spouse and me to head into town to see what’s going on at the Farmer’s Market. We haven’t been this year, so this should be interesting. Might need to grab some cash, though.

I’ve got mowing and planting to get done today. Lisa has asked me to mow a couple of spots in particular so she has better access to the raspberry and blackberry bushes.

The AeroGarden has some life. I planted some starter peppers a few weeks back, and I’m going to guess I’m about two or three weeks away from transferring those peppers into some planters. Mostly jalapeno, habanero, and poblano peppers, along with some tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. Basically, we grow ingredients for salsa… and there’s nothing wrong with that.

I see Florida is getting interesting, with the Florida Governor trying to punish Disney and Orlando for taking a stand against DeSantis “Don’t Say Gay” ridiculousness. The plan to take away Disneyworld’s right to self-govern will raise the taxes on the local population by thousands of dollars per family. All Disney has to do is “bend the knee” and swear fealty to King Ron. I hope they go the opposite direction and Disney simply makes huge campaign donations to candidates whose perspectives and politics more closely align with the Disney organization.

OK, time to get my act together and head into town.

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

Peace y’all.

Happy Friday, everybody! It is the 22nd day of April 2022, and it is a good morning to eat that frog! (Obscure reference: Brian Tracy is a motivational speaker and author, and he wrote a book a number of years ago called, “Eat That Frog!” – the point being is that if you get up in the morning knowing that the worst thing you have to do that day is to eat a frog, do it first thing in the morning so you get it over with).

I’ve got some reports to write.

I haven’t always handled my tendencies to procrastinate well. There was always something in the back of my mind that whispered to me, “There will be time to do that later”. Now that I’m 58, I’ve come to realize that maybe there won’t be time to do that later. Better get it done now…

We’ll get a little more planting done around the property this weekend. It’ll be nice when the tractor gets here next week.

(Had to pause for a moment… or I had to “paws” for a moment to give Rosy a little attention… she can be a little needy)

Coffee at the ready, and I’m mentally preparing myself for the tedium of the workday. Reports, networking, presentation skills, exam prep.

At some point in there, I will work in lunch.

Time to get after it.

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

Peace y’all.

Hey folks! Not sure who is reading this, other than a couple of friends that I am quite thankful for (Hi Wayne! Hi Karla!), but I’m writing nonetheless. It is Thursday, April 21, 2022. I have completed my class for the week, and I have spent part of the day working on reports and some other paperwork, and I signed the paperwork for my new little lawn tractor, a John Deere 1025R, and I’ll take delivery on that next week.

Pooches are lying about the couch while a John Savill video on test preparation is playing on Youtube. I’m contemplating my next steps, and I’m inclined to pursue the Security and Identity certifications, as well as some more infrastructure topics such as Hybrid Deployment.

I’ve also picked up some power tools I need to get sorted. We already had some of the Milwaukee M18 tools around the house, but there were a couple of tools that we seemed to be missing, so Lisa and I talked it over, and I ended up with Father’s Day gifts a couple of months early.

I think I’ll still get a steak on Father’s Day though. Some things you just don’t get to change.

I probably ought to get back to working on my reports.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday, April 20. Oh no… thinks are going to be interesting in the public parks around Lawrence, today, I think.

I don’t focus on the April 20 (4/20) pseudo-holiday for the marijuana enthusiasts. Their choice. Doesn’t bother me out here in the boonies, so go ahead, just don’t get hurt or hurt anybody.

Last day of my networking course, and then I’ll transition into paperwork for the next couple of days, cranking out required reports for the managers and teammates that have requested such.

Last night was a little rough with dogs barking at all hours of the night. I think Lucy might be getting a little senile. She’s getting up there in years, and some drop off in her cognitive abilities is not unexpected.

Tomorrow I’ll also run over to the tractor dealer to sign paperwork on the new unit. It’ll be interesting, and hopefully productive, to have another piece of utility equipment for the property. Having something that can move a load of dirt or gravel will allow us to be a little more productive.

That’s about all I have for today, time to get ready for my workday.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday night, April 19, and I’m just wrapping up my day. My training partner and I have completed two days of our cloud networking course with one day remaining, and then I get to focus on some other responsibilities for the next week and a half before I return to the blended learning fold with an admin course stretched out over four weeks.

Life is pretty good today. Had some of the day to day tribulations that anybody has to deal with, and I had to let a student know that this advanced networking course may not have been the optimal course for him to take as an introductory class to the subject matter – kind of like trying to tackle Calc 3 before taking Algebra. I don’t think he’s going to hold it against me – I tried to steer him towards some fundamentals to build up his skill set before the challenge of this week’s subject matter.

I love teaching what I teach, but one aspect of it that is challenging to any instructor is learners and prereqs. Yes, it’s nice if people have met all of the pre-requisite experiences. I don’t care if you’ve taken a class on it or if you’ve worked on it in production – but it is nice if folks have some experience with the menus and the functionality prior to taking a class that depends on some fundamentals. I’ve been in the training field a few years and when you have participants that require that much more guidance and maintenance, it does adversely affect everyone else in the shared experience.

Yeah, maybe I’m being a little heavy…

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday morning, the 18th of April, and I’m getting going on my day, grabbing a couple of glasses of water before I throw my toast in the toaster oven and snag a cup of coffee. I’ll descend the two steps down into the sun room and prepare for my day, backing up my training.

I need to dial it back… I’m already getting a little pissed off at the world, as a story pops up on the morning news about gun violence in America. My opinion? Nothing is going to change. We have a portion of our population that believes that as gun ownership approaches infinity, gun deaths will approach zero. That math doesn’t work for me.

I get guns. I’m a gun owner. Haven’t put rounds through any of our guns in a while. Part of it is that I just don’t feel compelled to do so. I get that shooting is a sport, and there are competitions, and there’s a need to protect one’s property – I have predators that wander onto my property every year, coyotes, foxes, but I don’t look at them as a real threat. They don’t go after my dogs.

I don’t know. I’ve had people around me fall to gun violence. Friends, roommates, co-workers. I’ve also had friends in law enforcement that had to draw down on the bad guys. On the other hand, I’ve known guys that would conceal carry and march fearlessly into confrontational situations they would likely never have walked into if they weren’t packing.

It’s a tough topic. And this is America, where the gun culture is deeply embedded.

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

Peace y’all.

Good afternoon. It is Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Lisa and I are hanging out in the living room before we all gather for an Easter dinner in another half hour or so. Thought I’d crank this out before I settled in with family.

Tomorrow I’m back in the virtual classroom for three days, co-delivering with one of my favorite guys to deliver with. I’m looking forward to it. I’ll spend my day Monday shoveling supplementary info into the chat, and then we’ll swap places on Tuesday. Wednesday is a straight split.

It’s been a pretty gray day around here. It’s rained intermittently, and generally pretty chilly, with temperatures in the low forties. We’re expecting a freeze tonight, but if the calendar is right, tonight’s freeze should be the last of the spring, so we’ll soon be able to get the rest of our plants in the ground. Add in the pending arrival of the new tractor with the loader and bush hog, and there will be plenty of yard work to focus on.

OK, it’s about time to get the table cleared and set. I’m looking forward to this meal. I might even eat some things that I’m not supposed to eat.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday night, April 16, 2022, and I have to admit, that if it wasn’t for something my son said, I may have completely blown off getting my blog entry in altogether.

It’s Easter weekend in the US, and I was surprised by a block move by an old high school friend. OK, Gary and I didn’t share lunches together or hang out together during Friday night high school dances, and I don’t think he would’ve been down with the Saturday night Dungeons and Dragons get-togethers at an anonymous Eagle Scout’s house. But, in this reality, I got blocked by a minister on Easter weekend.

So, for whatever it’s worth, earlier today I posted a statistically correct analysis of the first quarter 2022 Biden administration. Now, in his defense, I have no idea if that would have set him off, as opposed to my tweet regarding Marjorie Taylor Greene’s rally, where I stated I would rather have my asshole bleached than listen to her post some lame-ass excuse as to why she supports Putin over the democratic republic of Ukraine.

Meh.

I’ll live.

But if any of you all want to have a talk about the most hilarious moments you ever experienced in high school track and field, I’ve got a couple of stories to tell, and this minister is at the heart of a couple of ’em. God wants us to be humble, and these are a couple of stories that will remind us all to keep our pride in check.

See, the nice thing about being somebody that never accomplished much is that the worst thing folks can remind you of is that time you chose to be humble.

Be humble. Fewer embarrassing moments.

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

Peace y’all

It is Friday, and I have been remiss in my blogging obligation. OK, it’s not an obligation, it’s a choice. I wrapped up my four-day class yesterday, and watched my next six weeks of training get turned upside down, but, I’m not going to complain. At worst, it’s a lateral time commitment. At best, it’s a couple of extra days out of the classroom over the same period of time.

With one problem… the third week of May, I was scheduled to participate in a training event that I was rather looking forward to… one of those sharpen the saw moments that we don’t get as frequently as we would like, but it will be rescheduled.

Tomorrow, Lisa and I get to head over to our favorite area nursery to pick up some plants to generate a few vegetables… you know how it is – buy a $100 worth of vegetable seedlings and maybe yield $30 worth of food. I know, it’s a trite statement, probably very inaccurate, but it sets up a punchline, so that’s what I’m going to roll with.

Russia lost its command-and-control ship in the Black Sea. I have to take a bit of morbid pleasure in another failure for Putin. That’s gotta piss him off. Ukraine turning boats into submarines.

Watching “Emma” with Lisa and Bonnie on a Friday night. After this, I’ll flip it over to something with better jokes and/or more explosions.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning! It is Thursday, April 14, Holy Thursday for those in the Christian community, with Good Friday tomorrow, and Easter Sunday on Sunday… ok, you probably could’ve figured out Easter was on a Sunday without me pointing it out.

Last day of my admin course today. Caught an email from one of my learners late last night, so I’ll have to go over that lab with him later today. We’ve had a pretty good class, but sometimes the cloud environment changes a little faster than we can keep our lab instructions up to date.

That said, I’ll be happy to have this wrapped up so I can focus on my networking class next week.

Putin is still pursuing conquest of Ukraine. Innocent people are dying. We’re sending more weapons. I hope the karma train does a slow roll through Red Square and unloads a couple of cars of divine justice right in Putin’s office.

Lisa and I talked a little bit last night. Looks like we had our last freeze last night, so we’re going to head over to the nursery Saturday to pick up some plants to get in the ground. We also talked a bit about our plans for the weekend, hopefully having a nice dinner on Sunday for the holiday.

Freya is sitting on Lisa’s lap. She hasn’t been feeling well the last couple of days, with some sort of cough and occasional horking up of something. I hope she’s feeling better soon.

On that note, I think it’s about time for me to refocus on the day.

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

Peace y’all.