I just get settled in to do a little writing, and then my phone starts up, playing the ringtone, and the one thought running through my head is “I really need to pick a better ringtone”.

Because that was the ringtone better suited to… well… not me.

Hello world, how ya doin’?

Something I used to have that I need to find was a site that would describe the emotions related to different scales and chords. Some sound complete, others unfinished. I think that sort of thing might be helpful in my musical experiments down the road.

I get to spend a little more time with my best friend this weekend than usual. Seems befitting that it falls on the weekend bookended by Valentine’s Day and our 24th wedding anniversary.

There are times, so many times, that I wonder how Lisa has put up with my nonsense over the years. Seems a little crazy when I think about it. I am a very fortunate man.

This weekend, I am going to wrap my mitts around the neck of a guitar and get back to playing a bit. I need to just reacquaint my fingers to the steel strings and wail away for a couple of hours.

Other than that, I don’t really have anything to share today.

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

Peace y’all.

Demons.

I’m thinking about them a bit.

I kind of like them as the big, bad, evil guy in a story. A friend of min wrote a funny tale about a guy summoning the wrong demon a few years back, Bob Simms, and his book. “The Young Demon Keeper”.

I’m thinking about other issues involving the the denizens of the abyss.

Just thinking.

And filling up space.

Kansas played West Virginia at Morgantown tonight, and I watched the blurry broadcast on ESPN+. It was a terrible picture, but it was good enough for me to see the Jayhawks pull out a win after trailing at the half by six points or thereabouts.

Tomorrow I’m having dinner with an old professional colleague. He’s been through some stuff the last few years, so it will be good to catch up.

I’m growing tired. The day is starting to catch up with me. Maybe next week I’ll get a chance to sneak in a nap or two over lunch. We’ll see. I’m going to have plenty of stuff to keep me occupied, including putting together a nice evening for Lisa and me on our anniversary.

Time to get back to the real world. I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s a Tuesday night, and I forgot to write last night. OK, maybe I should stop and check myself on that part – I wrote last night, but it was in a different project. The words I wrote don’t really count against my pledge, so I am behind, but the words I got in yesterday were pretty substantial, so I’m not going to beat myself up over it.

I have a lot on my mind, some personal, some professional. I haven’t hidden from anyone that I am a technical trainer, and I love what I do. There are times, however, where certain circumstances present themselves that can be, fr lack of a better word, trying.

I generally start off my day going over the basics about getting into the curriculum, setting up passes to use the cloud environment, and how to download and configure lab files. When there is a good sized class, it can take quite a bit of time to get through all of that.

And it seems that just after I get done with all the myriad responsibilities in the “module zero”… that’s when the rest of class shows up.

Now, I get it. There’s traffic. There’s weather. There’s dropping kids off at school. I’ve been there.

The thing is, I’ve just gone through forty-five minutes of getting everybody ready to proceed with the real content on the day… and some folks want me to start all over because they were late.

Some are pretty cool about it, they know what’s up, but sometimes you get some folks that are a little more insistent on getting caught up with everybody else.

Maybe I’m being a little over the top about it, maybe the real problem is my attitude.

Maybe I need to give myself a little check-up from the neck up.

Maybe I just need to roll with it and not let it get to me so much.

Maybe I shouldn’t get hung up on the little things when so many of the other things are going pretty well.

That’s what I should do… and integrate that into my mindset.

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

Peave y’all.

It’s a Sunday night in rural Douglas County, and all is quiet in the neighborhood. No sports today, just a pretty quiet day here at Casa del Bobster. We kept pretty busy with just the basic duties of the day, had the kids come around the house, Dane for lunch, and Gracie for dinner.

Tomorrow, we get back to the day to day grind, Lisa has class, I’ve got class. At this point, I’m really looking forward to a full week out of class during the week Lisa and I celebrate out anniversary.

I try to be honest in my blog entries, and what ever is going on in my noggin tends to find a way from this electrified gray matter onto the page simply through the will to exist. My thoughts have a mind of their own… and for the most part, they’re just like anyone else’s dreams. Wishes for health, wishes for a reduction in worry and stress. Sometimes it’s simply the wish that my blog will miraculously write itself.

Tomorrow is another day, and another chance to organize my brain into something with a tidiness level somewhere between Marie Kondo and pressure cooker oatmeal explosion.

I’m done for the night I think.

Peace y’all.

I just noticed that I am on the verge of my one-thousandth blog post. That’s a pretty amazing achievement for me. When I started this almost three years ago, I had no idea how long I would be able to maintain a 200 word-per-day pace, but I’ve done OK. I made the decision to focus on getting my word count to an average of 200 a day over the course of a month, and I think that has helped me keep my pace.

I heard a guy speaking this morning about the topic of “mindfulness”. I’m going to explore that more in the coming weeks, what mindfulness is, and how I can implement it to improve my life and be a better person. I think my situational awareness is above average, and I hope I approach my life from a position of gratitude. That said, one of the things I work at every day is trying to improve myself as a human being, and being one of the good guys, a white hat, somebody people can rely on.

I haven’t always been the guy I aspire to be, and that is part of my mindfulness… I have a bit of karma to work off.

I’ll get better, one day, one decision, one interaction at a time.

That’s enough for now. If I come across a decent article on mindfulness, I might post it.

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

Peace y’all.

If my may math is right (and it is frequently wrong), this is my 20,606 day of existence outside my mother’s womb. I am 56 years old, and am currently an employee of a great company, the husband of the most wonderful wife a guy could ever hope for, and the father of three kids that make me proud every day.

I am an American citizen. I have freedoms that are secured by the Constitution, and through a number of amendments. Many of my peers think that the 2nd amendment is the most important, but I’m a little more inclined towards the 1st amendment, as that’s the one that grants freedom of speech and freedom of religion.

I am a bit frustrated with our political environment now, as are many of my fellow Americans. I am in the camp that believes that the current administration is a fraud, and that Trump might know how to boss people around and bully people, but he doesn’t have the first clue on how to lead, let alone set a good example for anyone else.

He’s an international punchline.

I’ve got a busy day today, with sessions and a presentation of my own to give right after lunch. I am very happy to be where I’m at and where my career is going, for whatever is time I have left. I think about that now, at the age of 56. One of the guys on my team just lost his brother, who was 56. I can’t help but wonder where I will be in 10 years, or even if I will “be” in 10 years, rather than a “was”.

Roll with the good things, roll with the bad things… the main thing is to just keep rolling.

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

Peace y’all.

Every now and then you have to give yourself a bit of a check up from the neck up. Where is your mind? How are you doing with your empathy? What personal factors affect your decision making processes?

I am guilty of some negative thoughts in my life. I’m a bit older and a number of things have changed in my life having to do with inclusion and diversity.

I’m an old white guy that has benefitted from the traditional privilege associated with being an old white guy, formerly a young white guy. I’ve seen people that don’t look like me get treated poorly due to their skin color, their heritage, their faith, their gender identity or sexual orientation.

No more. I’m not going to put up with it. People that bully others in such a fashion are going to have this old asshole to deal with. I will speak up. I will try to handle the situation as maturely as possible.

Keep in mind, one of my beliefs about the way some people treat others is straight up all about what those people want to do with their sex organs. Young guys will viciously assail young gay women because of what they want to do with their penises. They want to have sex with just about anything with a vagina, and finding out they have no chance with a woman due to her orientation drives them up the wall.

They also fear that which they do not understand, which leads to rather inappropriate behavior around people from foreign countries and cultures.

Stop it.

You are being an ass when you mock people from other countries and cultures. Someday you might very well have to work closely with, or better, have to answer to someone from a different country/culture when they become your manager.

Oh, the young man in the third row is wondering how that person with the different skin color and the accent got promoted over you. Let me tell you.

They worked. They earned it. They busted their ass, and worked within the corporate culture to advance the interests of the company.

And they didn’t mock people that were different than them.

Get along. Everybody can make a contribution. Everybody deserves a spot at the table (yes, Biff, that includes the person in accounting who is transitioning their gender).

I still think a lot of the consternation by young white men, and old white men, when it comes to dealing with others centers on sex. A lot of guys don’t know how to set aside those primal instincts and think without bringing their testicles into the process.

Being a good person, a person focused on inclusion and diversity, means you have to check a couple of things at the door.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve, and I hope you are treating those around you with all of the respect they deserve.

Peace y’all.

Just another Monday in the books. Tried to just be a happy guy today, enjoying the afterglow of yesterdays sportsball event (“Yay, sports! Move the thing to the other thing!”).

Spent most of the day focused on work, took a little time this evening to watch the Kansas Jayhawks take on Texas at Allen Fieldhouse. KU won. I am happy.

Another good day.

I’ve got a presentation tomorrow with one of my professional friends. I’m looking forward to it. I’ve known Neil a long time, and have always enjoyed out repartee.

I’m just kind of floating through the evening at this point, still tired from yesterday’s and today’s events.

This is the part of the blog entree where I pause and ponder the nature of life, and reflect on the good things that happened today.

Good things happened today. Some will require additional follow-up, but things seem to be going in a good direction.

I’m going to wrap this up, but on a little music, and call it a night. I’m going to need a little bit of extra energy tomorrow (for at least an hour. 😉 ). It’s probably the wise choice to hit the sack and get a good night’s sleep.

So, that’s it for tonight. I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It’s Sunday night.

Today was Superbowl Sunday. For those of you that never heard of that, there’s a sport in Ameriaa called “Football”, which you do not play with you feet much, but tonight was the championship.

My Chiefs were in the championship.

And that means tonight, I am currently removing the expression “Long-suffering Chiefs fan” from social media profiles.

My team won. It’s been 49 years since the Kansas City Chiefs beat the Minnesota Vikings in Superbowl IV.

The Chiefs beat the San Francisco 49’ers, 31-20.

The Chiefs, once again, came back from being down by double digits, and then came back to win by more than 10 points.

I am awestruck by this team.

I’ve waited for this for a long time, and there were any number of times I never thought it would happen. My fanaticism goes back to the days of Len Dawson, Buck Buchanon, Willie Lanier, and Bobby Bell. I’ve seen a lot of games, even went through a period of time as a season ticket holder.

And there were many seasons where the playoffs were a dream, let alone playoff wins.

The Chiefs won the Superbowl.

I want to keep it humble, be a good neighbor, and try not to come across like an arrogant dick.

Today was a good day.

The world treated me better than I deserved.

Peace y’all.

starting to think that I need to back away from certain social media platforms, or, at a minimum, be much more selective about the topics I choose to post on. Things are getting real dicey, and that is exactly what Putin wants. He wants division, he wants dissention, he wants Americans fighting with Americans. He wants us at each others throats so we’re so distracted by the grip around our trachea that we ignore the whispers and the backroom deals that are the hallmark of Putin’s style of corruption with his oligarchs.

People are drinking that Koo-Aid like it’s holy water. Then they ignore the obvious acts of corruption under the guise of party loyalty. All some folks seem to care about is that today’s GOP stands up and hates the same people they do.

I am all about inclusion, equality, and diversity. I believe we are stronger when there are more of us with different experiences and perspectives. I was born in the midwest, and I’ll likely die here. I am fortunate to work for a company that recognizes that gifts and contributions towards the best solutions come from anywhere and everywhere.

A lot of folks have a problem with that concept. They see people that look different from them, speak different from them, worship different from them, and they get scared.

They live in fear of that which is different.

They need to snap out of that mindset. We can’t advance as a society without diversity.

Ask any geneticist – in-breeding isn’t good.

Peace y’all.