Good morning, friends! It is Wednesday, April 13, 2022. Last night we had some severe weather blow through Douglas County, but we seem none the worse for the experience, although the sun has yet to rise, so even if there is some blown trash lying about the yard, I haven’t seen it yet.

The storms that came through last night progressed to the east, and they are expecting that same storm system to wreak a little havoc as it heads out to the Atlantic. I hope everybody is safe.

Dogs are barking in the background. Odin doesn’t have the capacity to stop yapping some mornings.

Class is going OK. Second day was a little easier than the first. I encourage folks to learn how the document system works so they can find their own answers, as we all know that I’m with them for a four-day class, but what do they do after class when they have questions.

It’s going to be a cool day today, highs only getting up to about 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Just one of those gray spring days with clouds as far as we can see across the sky.

Time to grab a bite and a cup, and get rolling with the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning, folks! It is Tuesday here in rural Douglas County, April 12, and I’m watching the news.

This also means I’m watching commercials, like watching Mike Huckabee selling vegan sleeping pills, not approved by the FDA because apparently, his MyPillow has stopped working,

Yeah, I know, I’m a smartass.

I’m getting into the second day of my admin course. It’s a private class. The class is scheduled 9-5 (there’s a song in there somewhere) Central Time here in the US, so UTC -6. I’ve got about 23 learners in the class, and the majority are located in India, so I made a decision yesterday to handle all of the lecture of the class in one block, then having a lab block in the afternoon. That will give my students working on India Standard Time some flexibility about when they do the labs.

I probably ought to step up and take care of dinner tonight. I might need to take an inventory of available meal components and figure out what I can put together. There will be a protein, there will be veggies.

Probably not much going on in the way of dessert… I might need to put some thought into that.

OK, about time to get a cup of coffee and a bite of breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.

Good morning, all! It is Monday morning, April 11, 2022. I’ve got a cloud administration class starting here in a couple of hours, so I’m getting out ahead of the day a little bit, writing my blog entry so I know that I’ve accomplished something other than talking all day today.

My oldest daughter just came up from the basement with her dog, a half-poodle, half-Great Dane beast that is very playful and is quite capable of taking me down at the knees if she seeks a little attention with her standard degree of enthusiasm. Lisa is already up and out of bed, and I think she may have passed back into a gentle slumber here on the couch. I’m not going to give her a hard time about that, as it is only 6:16 in the morning, and she has been up since 5:00 or so.

After spending the last 6 or 7 weeks doing either non-standard deliveries or having prep time, I’m looking forward to getting back to basics this week and next. It’s kind of like “touching base”.

Pausing for a moment while the dogs cease their relentless barking. When all six pooches cut loose, their barks can bore into my ears like an ice pick.

Just remembered… I need to check the coronavirus numbers. We’d been over 5k American fatalities the last couple of weeks, and following some of the large get-togethers in March, I’m worried about an up-tick in those fatalities.

I just ran those numbers… they are looking pretty favorable. We had 13,377 deaths the week of February 27th (the week, prior, actually), and since then we’ve been on the decline, with 3427 fatalities over this past week in the US. We had gotten down below 4k the week prior to March 20, then spiked back over 5k deaths for a couple of weeks, and we’re back down again. I hope those numbers keep moving in that direction.

OK, time to grab a cup of coffee and take a long hard look at a couple of eggs and a tortilla for breakfast.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Sunday, April 10. Lisa and I have already watched Mass coming out of the Catholic Archdiocese out of Denver – we used to watch the local broadcast from our regular parish, but making the switch the Denver broadcast has made our Sunday “required viewing” a little bit easier to deal with.

Right now on “Reliable Sources”, the pundits are discussing the impact of Elon Musk’s huge buy-in for Twitter and how his influence will affect the platform. My only concern is the injection of his own personal biases into the social media giant. Elon Musk might be the wealthiest man on the planet, but that doesn’t make him the wisest or most insightful. He’s just another guy in that regard – I’ve read some of his posts and comments, and he doesn’t have to worry about sainthood anytime soon.

I’ve got some more yardwork to do today before I get into my gaming afternoon with the guys. I’ll also be getting my content ready for my delivery tomorrow – a cloud administration course for a big multinational consulting and accounting firm.

Dogs just came back in the house – the barkest ensues.

All in all, it’s been a good weekend. It’s been a good couple of weeks. I went from delivering a four-day class over four weeks to a couple of prep weeks, and now into back-to-back weeks of standard deliveries (standard for the pandemic, anyway). First week is a solo delivery, just me, and the second week I will be delivering with one of my favorite coworkers, Abu.

Time for me to get focused on the tasks at hand.

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

Peace y’all.

Good evening! Sorry for the late post! It is Saturday night, around 9:45 pm my local time on this, the 9th day of April 2022.

We’ve had a somewhat productive day around here. I got some raking done out front, a little bit of mowing, and I drove around the property on the mower and checked out the state of the place by hitting the four corners. Took some time to trim some branches on a couple of nuisance weeping mulberries and willows.

As far as the rest of the day goes, I focused on a couple of creative outlets and figured a few other things out as far as the best way to manage part of my creative processes. Picked up a few more ebooks on just that topic. I should write more, try and create some stories, and I hope that with a little more study, I’ll be more productive in that regard.

Tomorrow, I’ll get focused on my Monday course delivery and also enjoy a little downtime. I probably ought to take a little time to get some trees planet as well.

Other than that, it’s time to wrap this one up and get it published to the web.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Friday, April 8, and the end of the workweek is nigh. I’m going to pose in my early afternoon to crank out this post, then, once again, go tend to my rat killin’.

Went to lunch in town today, and grabbed the fish and chips over at one of my old hangouts, 23rd Street Brewery, I don’t go there as often as I used to as I don’t drink beer like I used to a few years ago. I still like beer, don’t get me wrong, but beer and low-carb lifestyle plans aren’t the most compatible of interests.

So, I’m sitting there, eating the leftover fried (yeah, I know, fried aren’t compatible with a low carb lifestyle either, but when you order fish and chips, the chips just appear on the plate through some sort of divine manifestation). I hear a familiar voice behind me, and it’s KU’s head basketball coach and some other guy, probably a staffer or a program supporter.

It was just kind of a cool moment,

Later today I need to join my wife for a dinner thing, and I get to be the arm candy, so I’ll sit down and shut up and be that guy.

The weekend will soon be here! I look forward to the planting.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday, April 7… and it is my youngest brother’s birthday! Happy Birthday, Dan! I did everything in my power to get the Kansas Jayhawks to win a national championship for his birthday, so there’s that.

Today has been a day of prep work for next week’s class, as well as a little advance work for the networking class I have the week after that. I’ve got a long day tomorrow with meetings.

We’re getting our utility vehicles returned tomorrow… I guess they couldn’t get them out to us today with their busy spring schedule. We’re taking a long look at a small utility tractor for some more intense work around here.

The dogs are losing their collective minds right now, and the barkfest has begun.

I’m not sure how much more I’m going to write tonight. The dogs are all being a little bit more needy than usual, and I’m thinking that getting off the system and paying attention to them might be all for the best. On the other hand, if I drop everything else to pay attention to them, they win, I give up some control, and it becomes some sort of weird reverse Pavlovian thing.

No worries… hit the mark. I’m good to go.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday, and I’m pausing from my workday, on this, the 6th of April. Time to get these words cranked out so I can go back to digging a little deeper into some new software than I’ll be using in my deliveries. I’ve got to take time to sharpen the sword, sharpen my axe, sharpen every knife in the drawer from time to time. I’ve got to keep learning, so I don’t stagnate.

I’m waiting to hear about our lawn vehicles. We’ve got the riding lawn mirror and the gator in for annual service. Never fails that they pick up the vehicles on one schedule and perform the service on a different one. It would be nice if there was a coordinated schedule, so it didn’t take three weeks to get the maintenance turned around.

Halfway through my lunchtime… let’s focus.

I’m back in the classroom for the next couple of weeks, teaching cloud admin and cloud networking. After that, we’ll have some team meetings, then back into the delivery cycle.

Might be time to check a couple of sales, see if there are any deals that I just can’t turn away from.

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

Peace y’all.

OK, later in the day post once again. It is Tuesday, April 5, and I was up a little late last night. Kansas drew first blood, going out to an early lead, but North Carolina took over the first half and went into the locker room with a 15 point lead over the Jayhawks. Kansas came out in the second half with newfound resolve, eventually winning 72-69, the largest halftime deficit ever overcome in tournament championship history.

I had given up.

When they went in at the half, I was convinced that we were going to lose the game.

And I was wrong.

Kansas played outstanding defense in the second half, and forced the Tar Heels to turn the ball over.

And now the Kansas Jayhawks are NCAA National Champions in Men’s Basketball.

It’ll hit me in a couple of days, about the time I go downtown to see if there’s any merchandise hitting the local fan stores. I expect there will be quite the demand in the coming days.

We’re going to watch the second half all over again this evening. My son is coming over for dinner, and Lisa has made chili from smoked pork. I’m looking forward to this dinner.

Overall take on this day – positive.

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

Peace y’all.

Monday, Monday, Monday…it is the 4th day of April, and I’m taking a short respite from reading about Kubernetes and Design Principles to crank out this entry.

Life is pretty high strung in Lawrence today. Tension and excitement in anticipation of the basketball game tonight… Kansas and North Carolina square off for the national championship of college basketball. In the meantime, I just find myself reading and taking a look at some other parts of the job.

Lisa’s car is in the shop, getting a flat tire taken care of. I’ll head in after a bit to take care of her car and pick up the keys, then pick up the barbeque order I’ll place later today.

Other than that, it’s another day. Looking forward to what the rest of the day brings, but no real problems to address, no pending problems that demand my attention right now.

I’m pondering squeezing in another certification exam soon. There are a couple of security certs out there on the horizon that might be good additions to my list. I’ve got a few others I need to get renewed in the coming weeks.

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

Peace y’all.