It’s Saturday night, the 6th day of February, in the year 2021. I’m a little bit down about the probability/possibility that Kansas will drop out of the top 25 in college basketball come Monday following the loss today to West Virginia, but that’s to be expected.

Tomorrow is the day, the Superbowl, with the Kansas City Chiefs squaring off against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. My prediction is that the Chiefs’ defense will suprise a couple of folks, get a couple of key 3rd down stops, a couple of key turnovers, and the Chiefs will win, 38-33.

Hey, a guy can hope. Last year I was a nervous wreck. I left a watch party to watch the game in my hotel room in Seattle, then walked back to the watch party after the Chiefs’ pulled out the win.

Lisa has fallen asleep in her chair, and I’m watching people making scones on “The Great British Baking Show”. Yeah, my life is average.

And the carbs!

The menu tomorrow will be barbeque, veggies, and cheese. I’ve got a brisket in the sous vide, and the ribs will get their start in the Instant Pot, followed by a bark-broil in the oven to get a little exterior bite.

OK, that’s about enough.

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

Peace y’all.

It’s Friday night, the 5th day of February, in the year 2021. Hi, my name is Bob, and some of my friends call me the Bobster.

Every now and then I feel the need to write a post explaining why I write. Even as I ponder over the keyboard, I wonder if this is one of those posts, as I have a tendency to jam… I just start putting words on the page just as fast as they enter my brain. Then perfectionist brain kicks in and I feel I have to go back and edit something. Ah, the life of a writer that’s also an editor.

I write so my grandchildren can get to know a little bit about me as a younger man than they will ever know. If I had this sort of sensibility, I would’ve started writing this stuff down long ago.

OK, a note for the grandkids. I’m a guy. I’m 57 years old, but the things I liked doing when I was 17 haven’t changed. I can still look in the mirror and see that kid. The difference is the responsibility. I have them now. Everything I do now has an impact on my life… sometimes the impact is big, sometimes the impact is small, but that butterfly effect always prevails. That little decision to focus on that one Commodore PET in high school had a tremendous impact on the rest of my life. The fact in college I found myself moving from Computer Science to Business to Speech Communication to Journalism and Technical Writing in the English department would lead me to a General Studies degree that lead me to a wonderful career as a Technical Trainer, with side gigs as a Technical Writer and a Technical Editor.

I have a family. I have kids. I have responsibilities. But that’s the thing… that’s the difference between 17 year old me and 57 year old me. I’m not going to do stupid stuff on a Friday or Saturday night like I would when I was in college or in my twenties.

I’m in a committed relationship… a marriage… so I don’t feel the need to go out into new social situations to meet people. My focus is on my home and my career.

I wasn’t ready for this responsibility when I was in my twenties. My dad? Yeah. Me? Nope.

OK, that’s enough for tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

I think I just heard a baby bark.

It is Thursday night, February 4, 2021. I have completed my four-day class, and tomorrow will be my catch-up day where I take care of the rest of the weeks business, including my quarterly review with my manager.

One thing I find myself thinking about more and more is my personal evolution. I know I’m a better person now than I ever was ten, fifteen, forty years ago. Now I ponder that daily shift… trying to be a better person today than I was yesterday, and trying to improve in one area of my life right now so I can claim to be a better person tomorrow.

It’s some work. Reading, watching, learning, reflecting. Considering past relationships and conversations to focus on what I should have done better.

I think about my adjective choice… the way we describe things matters. I’m not a fan of extremes or unnecessary exemplification. Instead of “excellent”, talk about how something makes your work easier. Instead of “beautiful”, let’s pick words that focus on increasing productivity, or making the deployment of a solution easier. Define stuff better.

That’s it, that’s all for tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

Good evening, gentle reader (oh… that’s sounds horrible!). It is the 3rd day of February, 2021, and sometimes I wonder if putting in the date just seems like filler.

Third day of my class, and I think things are going well. We seem to be getting some praise from our students for our delivery style. I’m not going to complain about that.

After class, I ran in to town to grab a few things, and I have to confess… I have a favorite soft drink. It used to be Coca Cola with real cane sugar, but these days, cutting my sugar and cutting my caffeine, it’s Fresca. Seriously. I find it somewhat humorous, but the reality is, I like Fresca. It’s a citrus soda, it is sugar-free, and it mixes well with rye whiskey. So, there ya go.

I’m thinking about dedicating more time to learning. I love learning new stuff, and I need to keep moving in that direction. I know there are some gaps in my knowledge, but hey, recognizing is the first step in addressing the problem, right? I have no intention of backing away from my chosen path, There are so many really cool technologies that we’re going to see come into production the next twenty years, and I want to understand and be productive with them all!

Alright, it’s getting a bit late, and my routine calls for a 5:30 AM start on the day.

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

Peace y’all.

Hey, I hope you are well. It is the 2nd day of February, 2021. I’m in a fairly good mood, as my Jayhawks won their basketball game tonight, and I’m weary from a long day, and my wife may have had an even longer one, as she sits near me in her recliner, completely oblivious to the waking world as she is very obviously asleep.

We’ll have to gather the puppies and head back to our bedroom for the night in short order.

Lots of news about the upcoming impeachment trial. It’s starting to look like there is more and more evidence to support conviction as we start seeing all of the references by Trump to the big lie.

I am so ready to never see Trump in the newspapers again.

No other news, really.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Monday night, February 1, 2021. The dog is barking at elephants on the TV set, and I’m fairly confident that an elephant wouldn’t think twice about turning Odin into a smashed doggy pancake.

I don’t want to see Odin get hurt, but the constant barking whenever some beast shows up on TV gets a little old. He’s just about a year old, so I know there’s a lot of puppy still in there.

And with the word, “puppy”, my thoughts turn to the two young girls in the crate, now five weeks old. At first glance, it is easy to assume these darling little creatures are the product of a cross-breeding experiment between Ewoks and Tribbles.

Had my first day of class today, with my partner covering two modules, and I handled the introductory content and the middle module. I’ll have a longer day tomorrow, as I have two modules and my partner one. I love the second day of this class… network day.

I was sitting here a moment ago watching a documentary on India, and I started to remember an odd dream I had a long time ago, with lots of water and a very long shoreline that had been developed into business and resort space. Oddly, there was also a pneumtic tube style shuttle going from spot to spot. Odd that I would remember than just now, but I can see chunks of that dream rather vividly. Funny how dreams work like that. I can’t remember them in the morning, and then I’ll have this ghostly memory pop up when prompted by some visual trigger.

That’s enough for now. Time to get a good night’s sleep before I tackle networking day in the morning.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Sunday night, January 31, 2021. It has been a rather uneventful day, to be honest with you.

Tonight I’m pondering tomorrow’s delivery, and thinking about heading off to bed sooner rather than later. There are puppies to attend to, and alarms to double check before calling it a night.

There is a peace in the quiet moments, pausing to reflect on my family, my career, some stuff that’s happening in the world. Everybody needs a little vacation from all the noise that goes on around us. I’m happy when I can get a break from dogs barking… the neighbor pooches run free, and they like to come crap on my lawn and get my dogs riled up. They’re bigger breeds, and out dogs are snack size for them. I think keeping them inside is the wise choice, but I wish I had a more effective way of running them off without hurting them.

That’s all I’m going to go for tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Saturday night, the 30th of January, 2021. It’s been a rough day for this sportsfan, as my favorite college basketball team is in a slump. Worst slump I might have seen in all the years Lisa and I have lived in Lawrence.

So, that’s the kind of thing that happens sometimes. KU has had a cloud hanging over it for several years now. That cloud isn’t going to go away anytime soon.

There’s other clouds gathering as well, and I have no control over which way the wind blows.

I’m going to head off to bed here in a few minutes and ponder life, the universe, and everything. Might watch a little Saturday night live, too.

It’s just not a great day for me to write. It’s an odd sort of mindfulness, but the reality of it is, sometimes I have it sometimes I don’t. Better to pause and back away, with the purpose of being better tomorrow.

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

Peace y’all.

Hey gang, It is Friday night, the 29th day of January, 2021, and this old dog is ready to hit the sack. It’s been a work week, and I’ve done the work, and now I’m ready for a Friday night bedtime reward.

Don’t take that the wrong way. Sleep is the reward of which I speak. I’m not going to start writing a blog about the intimate details of my marriage.

Wait… how much money?

Just kidding. I love my wife, but I love her and respect her enough to never go into such prose. There’s plenty of that out there already.

Yeah, and then I start thinking about what I want to write about tonight.

I guess the respectful retrospective on my dad has kind of flown the coop at this point.

Our puppies are cute. So, there’s that.

This weekend might be a fairly unadventurous one. I probably ought to get a little more work done anyway. I have my High Performance training that I don’t want to get too far behind in… (Right? I signed up for the class, I need to fulfill the obligation, it’s good training, and I could stand a refresher).

OK. That’s about enough drivel from the Bobster tonight.

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

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday night, January 28, 2021. It’s been a day, some good things happened. Lisa and I had a nice dinner, we watched some basketball, and we spent some wonderful time with dogs.

Not too shabby.

Fireplace is kicking out more than a couple BTUs right at the moment. This sweater is keeping me one notch above cozy, and edging towards a being a little too warm.

Tomorrow will be a tough day, as it likely will for years to come. It’s my dad’s birthday. He passed away in August of 2019, and I think about him a lot. I wonder if he was proud of the man I grew into. I’m a dad, like him. I’m a flawed human being, like him. I do what I think is right in the situations that present themselves, like him.

I’m thinking about doing some more writing. There are other blogs to be written, and some other things I need to do to set down. Part of my brain is kind of locked into writing as if my future grandchildren’s memory/knowledge of me might depend on it.

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

Peace y’all.