The end of my holiday break… tomorrow, I’ll get up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed to resume my role as a trainer for a really great company, and, no, I don’t write that just because this is my public blog and I might have co-workers or customers read it. I’m a very happy person, professionally speaking.

Just like anybody else, I have things that just hit me wrong, and sometimes I’ll write about them, sometimes I’ll just bite my lip and keep my mouth shut.

I am focusing on myself this year, and counting the time I have left, trying to be as productive as possible – trying to find that best version of me. It’s never too late to try and get better. My opinion is that when you think you can’t improve or learn something new, entropy kicks in. Order moves to disorder, organization moves to chaos. It happens for all of us, I think. The trick is hoping everything falls apart at once and you get to move on all at once rather than being taken in small pieces.

I will step on a scale tomorrow morning and cringe… I haven’t been following the low-carb ketogenic lifestyle for some time now, and most of the weight I worked so hard to lose in 2019 has once again taken up residency in my gut. Tomorrow, we get back on the train. Eggs, water, coffee for breakfast. bratwurst in a low-carb tortilla for lunch, more water, and then a salad tomorrow night for dinner. My dumbells are in my training space, so I can crank out a few sets when the Q&A slows down. I’ve got my mindfulness program to help me with my head… home office has a corporate discount with “Headspace”, and I have found it helpful.

Goal setting, goal management, managing the size of my world… all things I need to spend some time on. I just need to exercise a little discipline and maintain my focus… I know I left it around here somewhere.

That’s good for now.

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

Peace, y’all.

Today is January 1, 2022. It is the first day of the new year, and I’m settling in with some barbeque, little smokies, and later on, there will likely be a Manhattan added to the mix.

Snow and sleet have graced us with a small coat of nature’s WD-40 on the roads. We’re going to try and stay in today as the snow continues to fall, interspersed with the click-clack of icy sleet crystals tapping on the window.

Dogs aren’t very enthusiastic about doing their business outside today. I’ll be cleaning up messes from time to time.

Oh, by the way, the anti-vaccine propagandists and misinformation spreaders are not helping my attitude right now. So many lives being taken thanks to idiots out there pushing bad information. If we had reached 70% vaccinations last summer, we wouldn’t be going through this perpetual rise in unnecessary deaths. Almost all of the folks that are dying from the coronavirus today are either unvaccinated or under-vaccinated. Just makes me cringe when I go to a sports forum about my favorite pro team and I read idiots pushing fantasy and science fiction as truth. Maybe I ought to just stop going over there… it doesn’t seem to do anything positive for me. Only side effect is raising my blood pressure.

I’m going to take a few minutes and spend a little time with my planner. Try to get my head in a better place.

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

Peace y’all.

Eight thousand, seven hundred, and nine days left if my life is of average length.

I’m off to a decent start. Today is my oldest daughter’s 25th birthday, and we’re going to go out to lunch after bit, along with the youngest of my three kids, my son, Dane. I think sushi will be on the menu… my wife isn’t a big fan, and Dane and I can tear up some raw fish. Add in a couple of errands to run – prescriptions, topping off the tank, grabbing some premium cuts for dinner – and that’ll keep us tied up for a couple of hours.

I still need to get the Gator in the garage, though. We’re under a winter storm watch over the weekend. Highs today will reach the 50s, but we’re heading into cooler weather tonight.

Might be able to use the grill for dinner, though.

The emphasis is currently on and will continue to be about time management. I need to plot out my days in fifteen-minute increments, and really buckle down on achieving certain goals as they pertain to advancing some skill sets I’d like to stay focused on.

My guitar playing could always use work.

In the meantime, I should clear some stuff out of the Flex so Bon and Dane won’t have to fight my steady accumulation of receipts and other paperwork that somehow find their way into my my car and never find their way back out.

But to close today’s entry, a very happy birthday to my first child, the child that made me a dad. I’m very proud of you and proud of who you are and who you are becoming. You’ve got a great new career on the horizon, and I wish you a lifetime of happiness and fulfilling experiences.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday morning, December 30, 2021. The new year is right around the corner, and I’m keeping one eye on the weather, one eye on the Omicron variant of the coronavirus, and one eye on my wife sitting next to me… she can be kind of sneaky, so I need to be prepared for any inevitability.

Just kidding, honey… I don’t have three eyes.

I’m pondering my habits again. I think I really ought to try and do a more comprehensive job keeping my daily schedule up to date and scheduling my “me” time. I should start off the day with mindfulness, and end the day with it as well. I should schedule my time to practice my musical instrument, and identify my weaknesses as part of a cyclical process.

It all comes down to discipline, and January is as good a place to start exercising that discipline. I should take time to be introspective and make deliberate efforts to turn some weaknesses into strengths. There are some things I likely won’t tackle – learning how to sight-read sheet music is likely not in my future, but getting my head straight on chord forms and chord scales is.

Databases… I could use a little work there. Functions, Logic Apps, runbooks… there are so many things I ought to lock down and improve upon.

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

Peace y’all.

Yeah, it’s a Wednesday. This is the 21,289th day of my existence on this realm of existence. It has been a good day. Had a nice poke bowl for lunch, and some barbecue for dinner, with burnt ends and pulled pork. I prefer the hot barbecue sauce.

I’ve been thinking about the pandemic a little bit more these days. I find it interesting that there are people out there that believe that Biden and Fauci are responsible for the pandemic, that Biden and Fauci are behind the big push to get vaccinated, therefore Americans shouldn’t get vaccinated… also Biden and Fauci are pushing for masks.. keep in mind, there are no federal mask mandates, and the support for mandated federal vaccinations are waning… but these same folks that oppose mask and vaccine mandates are also the same bunch of yutzes that blame Biden and Fauci for not doing more to lower the infection rates of the general population.

These people are idiots.

Seriously. The same idiots that protest in the streets about vaccines and masks are blaming the guys telling people to wear masks and get vaccinated are responsible for the problems.

Serious bizarro world bullshit if you ask me.

Get vaccinated.

Wear a mask when it seems appropriate or mandated by law.

Don’t blame others for your own stupidity.

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

Peace y’all.

Working on creating a habit, once again. I’m resolving to do this regularly, and I must admit, tonight is not one of those nights that I really feel like writing. On occasion, I simply feel like closing the windows, drawing the drapes, and just letting the world go for the evening. Maybe I’ll play a game on my laptop, maybe I’ll read, or, like tonight, I’ll just kick back, fix myself a cocktail, and watch above-average college football teams pound the stuffing out of each other in bowl games named after sponsors or fruit.

But, I’m doing it. May not be the most entertaining literary work, but it’s something.

Tomorrow I’ll spend some more time with my 2022 planner, get to focus on goals for the year, and try and clarify my pursuits. I probably ought to do laundry, too.

I’ll also be contemplating tomorrow’s dinner. Kansas ruled out one opponent due to COVID protocols and rescheduled with another, so there was a game, then there wasn’t a game, then there was a game.

Pandemic eligibility rules can be complicated.

I probably ought to call it a night, though. Lisa went to bed a good hour ago, so I should navigate my way in that general direction.

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

Peace y’all.

Yeah, I’m back. Time to refocus on writing and getting things down with the remaining days, months, years that I hopefully have remaining.

Just to ponder… we have about 30,000 days. Since I have been born, 21,286 days have passed and today is the 21,287th day that I have breathed on this plane of existence. If I make it to 30,000, that day will fall on November 4, 2045, about six weeks after my 82nd birthday.

I’ve got almost 24 years left.

I should try to make the most of it.

I also realize that there are a number of medical advancements that could come to light between now and then, and obviously those medical advancements could extend my life. I might make it to 90, 100, or beyond. Who knows? By then we might be able to upload a consciousness into vast arrays of computers and keep the experiences of our friends and family around for perpetuity.

In the meantime, I need to do a better job of managing the time I have ahead of me. I’m 58, will likely work another ten years or so, then let the chips fall where they may. There are things that could happen between now and then that might accelerate the process, or slow it down.

I’ll be honest in my assessment of my reality.

In the meantime, I’ll get back to putting words on the page, and try to record some of my thoughts for posterity.

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

Peace y’all.

It’s been awhile, literally months since I posted my last blog. Life has been a little weird. Life is good, job is good, kids are as well as can be expected.

Over the course of the last couple of weeks, I’ve begun the process of dialing back my social media presence. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not healthy. I read stuff, it affects me, I can feel my blood pressure elevating, and I just gotta say – it’s not worth it. None of these idiots on the internet are worth stroking out for.

I write, don’t mistake me on that front… but I have started doing more handwritten notes to myself, and other avenues for self-expression. It is kind of funny, though. A long time ago I was so focused on drawing attention to myself, and these days, not so much.

I do understand my own irony. I’m writing a blog on a publicly available web site, but I also am aware that the readership on my site is pretty small… even smaller if I don’t tell people I’ve updated my blog.

I used to take such pride in writing then blasting my words out to the world, but I need to reconsider that approach. My purpose behind writing is more of a chronicle for me, and one day, I hope, any family that wants to get to know what I had on my mind during my late fifties.

Maybe I’m back, maybe I’m not. Now that I’m not posting my highly regarded opinions on other media, maybe I ought to just channel my thoughts in this direction. Brain food, I suppose.

That’s about enough.

So… how did I close before?

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

Peace, y’all.

Opening up the day with a little tip of the hat to George Lucas and the Star Wars fans on this day… May the 4th be with you.

Back to my Architecture course today. Looking forward to working with this group again.

I need to figure out all of these options in WordPress. Some of the options can be a little confusing.

__________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

The day is flying by. Just delivered three modules on Azure, and it’s going pretty well. One thing about this line of work is that you never can rest when it comes to adding to the skill set. Part of the conversation today centered around encryption, and I’m usually pretty good with that subject, but I got challenged a little bit today, and I need to consider a refresher on that subject.

There’s always something new to learn.

I just need to figure out what I can forget to make brainspace for the new things I need to continuously learn.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Didn’t post this on the day of… posting now.

It’s Monday morning, and I’ve got a class to teach. I’ll be busy most of the day, but I’ll pause to write a sentence every now and then.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

First break update… seems like a pretty cool group.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Lunch is over, into labs for the balance of the day. Pretty well-behaved group. Let’s go over and take a look at Facebook posts that I’m not going to respond to on Facebook.

An old friend posted about the passing of favorite teachers, and she mentions one that would be prominent among my teacher constellations. Thanks for casting me and teaching me, RJ.

Another post once again questions the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election. Get over it. Trump was the worst president in US history. His two impeachments prove it.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

I love what I do, but sometimes the questions can rile up my sarcastic nature.
“Why does Azure do that?”
“Well, when I was originally designing Azure, I envisioned it working a little differently…”
Yeah, I’m a bit of a smartass sometimes.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

(Finishing up and posting Tuesday AM… I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve .Peace, y’all)