It’s Tuesday night. I had a delivery today, teaching most of the day then handled a certification exam following. I would’ve liked to had had more guys pass, but you can’t get a one hundred percent passing every time, right?

I do kick myself a little bit sometimes, but I generally stop when I notice that all of the guys in class are trying to take my class as well as get in a full days work writing code and solving their regular day to day problems. It gets so easy to get distracted when you have all of your work in one hand, and your trying to listen to a certification exam prep in the other hand.

Hopefully, the few than didn’t pass this time around will have a better run at it next time. And I’ll likely have a better class the next time I teach, getting back to a straight Instructor-Led Training experience, rather than a hybrid experience that requires I speak into the microphone and stay pretty stationary during my delivery.

The KU Jayhawks rebounded a bit tonight, coming into Norman, Oklahoma to play and beat the Oklahoma Sooners. I think our big man remembered the “poke a Dok” game, where they kept Udoka Azubuike at the foul line, and he couldn’t make a free throw if his life depended on it.

He hit 100% of his free throws tonight.

Ha!

About time for me to call it a night and hit the sack. I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Like anybody else, I worry about stuff. I worry about big stuff, like the state of the world, the state of the country, the division that is hurting our country, the environment, all of that stuff.

I worry about other stuff that is big to me, but certainly a little more personal in nature. My mom, my siblings, their families, my wife, my kids, and any number of folks that hold that odd position in my life referred to as “friend”.

And I worry about little stuff, too. What happened to that dotted red sock that I got for Christmas and I like so much? Why does my oldest dog go outside, walk around for ten minutes, then come back in the house and piss on the tile floor? (I think she just doesn’t like me).

But here.s the thing. I shouldn’t. Worrying might serve a purpose if it causes a person to take action in a positive direction to reduce the overall anxiety a person feels. That’s a good thing.

But…

Always some big “But”, right?

Most of the things I find myself worrying about are completely beyond my control. If I can’t make a change, then what can possibly be gained by worrying? It’s completely unproductive, and I need to do a better job dialing my anxiety back about that sort of thing.

What’s the “Serenity Prayer”?

“God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.”

I think I just copied that from a low-key cult site.

I’m not going to worry about it.

Peace y’all.

One thing you may have noticed about me is that I am a sports fan. I love my college basketball, and college football at times, and perhaps my favorite team for as long as I can remember has been the Kansas City Chiefs.

This is January of 2020. The Chiefs won their division, and came into the playoffs as the number 2 seed, behind the Baltimore Ravens. The Ravens lost yesterday to the Tennessee Titans, which means that if the Chiefs were to win today, they would host another home game for the AFC Championship. The Titans have had two game son the road so far, and coming to Arrowhead would be three.

The Chiefs had a bye week, and today played the winner of the Texans- Bills game, that eventually being the Texans.

To say the Chiefs started bad would be an understatement. I was in the car for the first quarter. The Chiefs gave up three touchdowns in the first quarter of the game. I have no idea to tell you about the things that were boiling inside me. It wasn’t going to be a good day, so I quite. I quit listening, I quit watching.

Pretty good thing to do I guess, if you happen to be a little superstitious about those sorts of things.

Chiefs eventually were down 24-0 to a conference opponent, at home, with everything on the line. Winner continues to play towards the SUperbowl, the other team goes home.

I focused on some work stuff, I got away from it.

Then Lisa checked on me. Worried. And the Chiefs scored a touchdown. I didn’t want to get my hopes up. She texted again, trying to cheer me up. And the Chiefs scored again. She told me to keep the faith, there was a lot of football left to be played.

And the Chiefs scored again.

By the time the two clubs went to their locker rooms at the half, the Chiefs were up 28-24. Unbelievable.

And people on twitter were sending status updates.

The said that the Texans started off incredibly well, but now they had just given up 28 unanswered points after dominating the first quarter.

And they looked shellshocked.

The Chiefs ended up winning 51-31. They normally shoot off fireworks after every Chiefs’ score at the stadium.

They ran out of fireworks.

Mine haven’t even started. I have read about the game, heard about the game, ran through the boxscore.

I haven’t seen it.

I know it’s recorded at home.

I’ll watch it when I can gather up the fortitude and keep my heart rate and blood pressure under control.

In the meantime…

Peace y’all.

One of those nights that leave me wondering if there’s something going on with my head.

Or maybe I’m just getting older, and I need to kick a few more old penguins off the iceberg so I’ve got room for some new penguins.

Yesterday I went to update my blog and I saw an error that I did not like to see, I have recently upgraded some of my blog software to automate the updates as well as configure a back up of my data to another location in the cloud.

Error.

Ugh.

I went through my hosting services interface to ask them to take a look at it. I’m guessing one of two things went on – either my update did not get properly applied, or I was checking things out in the middle of the update process and it was simply offline for awhile.

Today I had a good day at home, went into town to get a few things squared away, and took care of some necessary communication. Lisa, Dane and I had a very nice dinner, fajitas, and then we had some fun playing board games for a couple of hours.

The weather is going to be nasty for the next day or two. Rain here, quite a bit coming down throughout the course of the day. All of that water is going to freeze tonight, so it will end up being slicker than snot in the morning.

And I don’t need to tell you, snot can be pretty slick .

I’ll spend a little more time playing catch-up tomorrow. I’m sure I’ll have time to get some word counts up.

More tomorrow.

Peace y’all.

Here’s a little tag-along, coattail thought on a post I had the other day. I’ve been thinking about what I posted the other day and how people reacted to it. Maybe I dwell on these things a little bit, and that’s ok. That’s what being empathic is all about. It is important to understand how people feel, and how words and phrases affect them – differences in degree exist when we talk about how words affect people versus how actions affect people. Actions can leave scars that never heal. Words.. well, maybe, but it has to be just about the worst thing a person can say from a trusted source before it’s going to do any long lasting damage.

I can be blunt. I’ve told people on more than one occasion that I can be an asshole. It’s true. I sometimes spout off and say things without putting as much thought into it as I probably ought to. That’s part of the package.

But here’s a thing. I hear people grunting, groaning, bitching, and moaning about people being “PC” – politically correct. People want to be able to be blunt, and make racist jokes, and act out bigoted humor without repercussions.

It doesn’t work that way.

I posted this line, “People post some pretty stupid shit on social media”. I stand by the statement. I think it’s pretty easy to call that a truth. Could I have been more diplomatic about it? Probably. I could have posted, “I don’t think that post will stand up to deep scrutiny”, or “The verifiable facts of this situation don’t support the conclusions drawn”.

But, I didn’t. I said what I wanted to when I wanted to. I treated someone as a peer, an adult, rather than some waif that needed to be protected from the cruelty of the world.

I was blunt. I’ll likely still think about that from time to time, and I might even go the more politically correct route the next time I feel compelled to unload on somebody for posting bullshit on the internet, trying to pass it off as the truth.

Or not. Maybe I’ll just let Bob the Asshole back out to play again.

“Here, little Bob, here’s a book of matches and a gallon of unleaded gasoline.”

I’m not going to worry about it too much now. Kansas won… beat Iowa State pretty bad tonight. I’m jut going to kick it and wonder of the missiles launched at the US troops by Iran happen to be the same one’s Ollie North sold to them during Iran-Contra during the Reagan administration.

Peace y’all.

It’s Tuesday night. I’ve completed my first delivery of 2020, and getting ready for my next one. I hope everyone out there travels safely.

Things in the middle east have become more tense. Trump is an idiot and has no business leading out country in to a new was, this time with Iran, but he’s been impeached, and there has been a spate of court losses dealt to him as he tries and tries to hide his financial statements and tax returns from any and all investigating his possible (likely?) crimes both prior to and after the election.

Iran launched missiles against a couple of sites in Iraq where use troops are staying. It’s a pretty screwed up situation, but Trump has a full-on #murderboner, and people are going to die.

I’m worried about our troops. I’m worried about civilians in the area. This could bet real bad, real fast.

I’m going to try and get a decent night’s sleep and worry more about this sort of thing in the morning. I’ve got a busy schedule the next few days, so I can’t let this stuff get to me. All I can do is send out some positive thoughts to those in harms way, and hope that the threat of terrorist attacks here and abroad against American targets remain threats and not events that make the front page of the news.

Meanwhile, Trump is going to keep killing people. Some will be bad people, and he’ll write off the civilian targets as collateral damage.

I guess Jared Kushner’s middle east peace plan isn’t working out very well.

Peace y’all.

“People post some pretty ignorant shit on social media”

Simple expression. Pretty easy to prove. And it’s an expression that can stir up some strong emotions apparently.

An old friend (well, that person may not be calling me that after today) reposted a political meme that had zero facts in it other than possible spelling Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s name correctly (heck, I don’t even know if I just spelled it correctly). The original poster was a high school classmate that I have to admit I never recall speaking with nor sharing a class with, but that person has apparently turned out to be quite the supporter of Trump, a president that I consider to be a criminal enterprise.

Anyway, the meme had no basis in fact, and I posted my comment. People got offended. I stood by my statement, and double-down and made another comment that a person would have to be ignorant with a room-temperature IQ if they couldn’t recognize the obstruction taking place by this administration.

Then, I didn’t back down. I do believe Trump should receive a fair and impartial impeachment. I do believe he committed fraud through Trump University. I do believe he has committed sexual assault and rape on a number of unwilling victims. I do believe he paid hush money to insure that two affairs of his would not leak in the run up to the election. I believe he’s enabling racists and bigots to perform hate crimes in this country.

And I’m not going to apologize for it. It’s a matter of principle.

My opinions are my own. They do not reflect any position of my friends, family, business associates, or my dogs… but I think Lucy would likely bite Trump.

(Currently wondering if that last line triggered something at the NSA… Don’t worry guys, neither me or my dogs are welcome at a Trump rally, we’re not members of that flock)

But seriously, none of us know how much time we have left. I’m not going to live out the years I’ve got left as the living embodiment of Casper Milquetoast. I’ll be diplomatic most of the time, but I’m not going to just let ignorant bullshit go. I’m going to either say something or write something. Maybe I’ll share it, maybe I won’t. Maybe I’ll just sit on it for a more appropriate time. Maybe I’ll post it later as a reminder that…

… people post some pretty ignorant shit on social media.

Peace y’all.

It’s been a Saturday. Started off the day with a piece of sad news regarding my friend Carole in Wichita. She was a coworker when I first started in technical training, and she’s the one the originally started calling me the Bobster – and it stuck. Today she passed along that her husband had passed, and I am terribly sorry for her and her family. She’s had to deal with too much tragedy lately.

Bonnie left to go back to Columbus today. She let us know when she got home and I was able to share a piece of news with her – I’ve been assigned a class in Columbus, and she should be around when I’m around, so we’ll have ourselves a visit.

Dane went out later in the morning, still in his pajamas, to check out his new rig in the Honda. I guess he found it interesting – he was out there sitting in his car for an hour checking stuff out and getting his phone/stereo situation synced up.

Watched some good sports today. The Jayhawks had a rough first half, but later got things squared away to beat West Virginia at Allen Fieldhouse. I have a feeling it’ll be a tighter game at their place.

The first round of the NFL playoffs kicked off today as well. The Buffalo Bills played a great first half of football. Unfortunately, football has two halves, and sometimes overtime. The Bills ended up losing to Titans. Later on, the Titans beat the Patriots. That all means that the Ravens face the Titans next weekend…

… and my Chiefs host the Titans.

Go Chiefs!

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

Peace y’all.

It’s Friday night. I didn’t write yesterday, as we were kicking back and enjoying some family time. Today I have been a bit under the weather, with some nasty chest congestion and a serious headache.

Here in another half an hour we’ll head off to go pick up Dane at the train station in Kansas City. He’s been in St. Louis for a few days visiting his girlfriend and her family. He’ll be excited to see the changes to his car after he gets back, with the new car stereo and the license-plate mounted rear backup camera.

Bonnie stayed an extra day, and she heads back to Columbus tomorrow. We’ve already made arrangements for her to visit home during spring break, so, that’s a plan.

I’ve got plenty of things to keep my mind occupied (my body, too). Laundry, training, prep details to get squared away prior to my virtual deliveries in the upcoming days.

I know I’m behind my writing pledge by a couple hundred words, but I’ll live with that for now. I’ll end up going on a tear here in the next few days. There’s plenty of stuff going on the world. Looks like we’re gearing up for war.

That’s all I’m going to do for now. I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s a new day, a new year in rural Douglas County. I’m going to uphold my pledge and crank out a blog entry, then go back to watching football.

I’ve been taking a break from my keto life, eating some of the delectables that somehow find their way onto snack trays here at the house. Chocolate, baked items, cake, cookies, peanut brittle – all the stuff folks normally associate with the holidays.

But… the holidays are about over. Tomorrow is the second of January, and I need to focus on getting back to a proper work schedule before I get back to training next week.

Virtual classes next week, teaching from the comfort of my own home. I am thankful. Travel will happen, but there’s nothing really pressing quite yet.

The pile of kleenex is building next to my chair, now with that special biological gift that comes with the cold and flu season.

Tomorrow I do have some running around to do, getting some final car things resolved with Bonnie and Dane. Lisa and I got each of them new car stereo packages with rear-view backup cameras. I’ll be getting one, too, but not until February.

That’s about all I have for now. I hope you have a great new year.

Peace y’all.