Evie Day 798

Good morning and a very happy Thursday to you all. Today is 22 May 2025.

Today is the last day of my training session. The guys have been great, very engaged, solid questions, and a high level of participation. Tomorrow will be a day of content creation work for another project, as well as an interview with a training company about my availability. Things might work out so I get to spend a little time with Evie tomorrow – Gracie might be able to get out of work a little early tomorrow with the three-day weekend.

I should probably plan a trip to Clay Center to see my mom, my sister and her family, especially my niece that I forgot to send a graduation gift to. Yeah, I messed up on that. Her graduation was on Mothers’ Day, and we stayed around here to focus on the moms here.

Next week I’ve got some work… a session on Tuesday morning with the content creation team, and at least one, maybe two, one-day sessions of remote training.

I’m expecting a package… I have a new fuel filter and air filter coming for my lawn mower. I took a chance and ordered the parts, figuring the fix might be easy, and if the YouTube videos are correct, even someone with my mechanical aptitude might be able to handle it.

Tonight, I will once again return to the virtual tabletop to hang out with the guys. We’re going to be missing at least one (high school teacher – awards banquet), but one of the other guys was able to get his computer fixed, so hopefully he’ll be able to return to the fold.

In the meantime, coffee…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 797

Good morning! It’s Wednesday! Give your camel a high five! It’s 21 May 2025.

Class is going well. No complaints. My guys were pretty engaged yesterday, and many taco emojis were handed out.

And yes, I did enjoy my Taco Tuesday. I picked up some spinach enchiladas for my spouse, and I tried something a little different.. their deluxe tacos with chorizo. They were very good.

Right now we have the robotic vacuum cleaner running in the dining room and living room. I slapped some cans on to keep focused… and right now I’m listening to Alien Love Child (Eric Johnson) playing “Zenland”. I could listen to this guy play guitar all day. This Pandora channel is nothing but my favorite electric guitar players. I have another for acoustic guitar as well.

The vacuum is rolling down the hall, and Lucy, senior dog, is following the machine around chuffing at it, making some sort of show of superiority so the vacuum knows its place in the pack hierarchy.

Starting next week or the week after, we’re going to have Evie on Wednesdays. Lisa will be home those days, and there will be weeks that I’ll have Wednesdays free as well. This summer is going to be fun.

OK, time for me to get focused on breakfast and coffee.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 796

Good morning, and a very happy Taco Tuesday to you all. Today is 20 May 2025.

Yesterday was a good day. I started my class on time, and we worked through all o f yesterday’s content with no surprises. I shared a short video of my granddaughter’s innovative flower watering method (garden hose to mouth, mouth to flower). It cracked folks up.

One of the nice things that popped up yesterday was a opportunity for a little more work next month. I might have some travel involved. It’s a one day class, but the folks I’m working with are going to try and string a few days together so the entire week isn’t fried with a single one-day class.

The rain has been coming through the last couple of days, and the thunderstorms have been loud. Lisa said they were pretty loud last night, but I popped in a couple of ear plugs – I’m a bit of a “sleep isolationist”, blackout the lights, stifle the noises. I hope there weren’t any more tornadoes. The Sunday storms did quite a bit of damage in Grinnell and Plevna, Kansas. One of the shots I saw was a flipped semi tractor-trailer rig on I-70 by Grinnell, and apparently, it was hauling cars… and not just any cars. Some farmer woke up to find a pasture full of tossed Ferraris.

Today is a normal day, I think. We’ll let the ground dry out a bit, and I won’t have to worry about watering any of the flowers or veggies we have growing. My peppers are doing just fine.

OK, time to make a pot of coffee and get a bite to eat before my class gets started.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 795

Good morning, and a very happy Monday to you all. Today is 19 May 2025.

I’m back in my virtual classroom in another couple of hours, teaching cloud solutions architecture. I look forward to a productive and informative week.

The weekend was productive around here, with Lisa very busy with graduation events around the university, and I was either working on this week’s class, or my next assignment working on content creation for an IT partner. Gracie came over yesterday for a few hours and did quite a bit of mowing on the tractor. The small riding lawn mower is stopping and spurting, coughing and backfiring. I’ve ordered a new fuel filter and air filter, and I hope that addresses the problem.

I saw that a federal judge in Texas has ruled that LGBTQ+ folks can be discriminated against in the workplace. What is it about some folks need for a group to hate? Why do folks have to point at another group and state that they are somehow “less” because of who and how they express love? Sure, I’m straight, but I have a number of friends that are aligned with the LGBTQ+ community, and they want the same thing everybody else wants… just to be accepted. I look at rulings like this and it just seems evil.

Yesterday I got together with some of the guys, the “small” Sunday game. We have a couple of guys that can’t often make it due to other responsibilities, or due to computer connectivity issues. The group varies from session to session, but a piece of good news popped up – one of the guys got his computer fixed and looks like he’ll be returning to the game. Woot!

OK, I’m going to get this posted, and get ready for the rest of my day.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 792

Good morning, and a very happy end to the Western work week to you all. Today is Friday, 16 May 2025.

I thought about writing yesterday, but just didn’t feel up to it. I had a long meeting that started at 7:30 yesterday morning, and I had a little prep work to attend to prior to the meeting.

It’s been a pretty good week, and relatively uneventful… no events with relatives. Sorry, sometimes I can’t help myself when it comes to puns and plays on words.

So a recap… my former employer handed 6000 people the sack earlier this week, and some of the names that popped up were pretty surprising. Some of the most respected people in the cloud space are making a long walk down the corridor for the last time today. It sucks, but at least this bunch received some severance. The group I was with last January were just punted.

I was able to spend some time with the guys last evening. We had one of our tabletop gaming sessions, and it was more about the comradery and laughs than the combat. We received enough experience points from a previous session to level up, so my archer is now more effective from a longer range – he’s not much for melee combat.

I’ll need to check my fuel levels for the mower and the tractor. Gracie is coming over to do some mowing for us, and she told me in no uncertain terms that she did not want me to mow… she would handle it. I know better than to get on my wife’s or my daughters’ bad side.

So, there’s a little billing, a little content editing, and the garbage needs to get out to the corner… I better get focused on the day ahead.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 790

Good morning, and a very happy Wednesday to you all. Today is 14 May 2025.

Yesterday was a good day. I got things done that I needed to get done, with one exception I suppose, and I’ll get that sorted this morning.

At one point yesterday, my daughter Gracie posted a short video of Evelyn watering the flowers. I posted it to my Facebook page. Evelyn would hold the garden hose, take water into her mouth, then spit it out onto the flowers. It was hilarious.

I made the taco run last night to Cascada La Golondrina. It was a nice visit, and a couple of the folks there asked me if I forgot my queso last week. I thought about it, and realized that maybe I forgot to order it… but no, it just didn’t make it into my to-go bag. That worked out pretty well, as I knew Gracie was going to pop by the house, and she loves chips and queso. We packed her a small bag to take with.

Looks like the big jet gifted to the White House by the Qatari government is getting a lot of attention… the wrong kind. Even Trump’s steadfast supporters on right-wing media are pointing out the bad optics of this deal. It’s funny to watch the cockroaches scurry when the light goes on.

Alright, time to get an expensive pot of coffee going…

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 789

Good morning, and a very happy and crispy Taco Tuesday to you all! Today is 13 May 2025.

I was working on content yesterday, and this morning it was gone. Ugh. Got up at 5:30, so I had some time to recreate it and get it turned in on deadline. Still, I was pressed. Glad I remembered what I wrote.

I’m looking at the number of days I’ve been alive… 22520… that strikes me as a nice number, and Evie’s numbers are consecutive, so that’s nice too.

My daughter took a little video of Evie watering flowers yesterday. She takes the hose, fills her mouth with water, and spits on the flowers. It was hilarious.

Today is going to be a good day too. I have some work to get done, some writing, some billing to get out the door. I’ve got some tasks around the house I should attend to as well. The dirty laundry isn’t going to wash itself.

It’s going to be interesting watching how this administration deals with the Emoluments Clause. The Attorney General used to make over a million dollars a year as an agent for the Qatari government, and now that government has “donated” a 747 for Trump’s use, and it’s ridiculous with the amount of gold decor on the inside of the thing. I bet Trump thinks he’s going to keep it, and I have a feeling there’s will be some push back. I also can’t help but wonder what he promised the Qatar folks in exchange. He’s a transactional kind of guy.

I’m going to get to work on some stuff.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 788

Good morning, and a very happy Monday to you all. Today is 12 May 2025.

My site has been giving me some fits of late… and now I think about the “correctness” of the expression I just wrote and realized that it’s a bit insensitive. I think it has roots in slang expressions directed at folks with epilepsy, and I now need to rethink that.

My WordPress site was not being as cooperative as I would like this past week, and I hope my authentication and posting problems are in the past.

As I have shared, I was dismissed from my role with a big company last January, and I’ve been looking, as well as hanging out my shingle to get some freelance work. I didn’t have a whole lot of choice in the matter, as my state unemployment benefits never appeared… so it’s time to get productive.

Reminder – a need to get a bill out to a client later this morning.

One of the things that has happened is that I have had any number of questionable characters offering me job search services, resume review services, and other “opportunities”. One that caught my eye this past weekend was a message on LinkedIn from a gentleman named “Franklin Burns”. I read it and thought I recognized the game. I replied and was immediately (I mean AI-immediately – like my response caused a trigger in a logic app) messaged about how busy the individual was and that I should reach out to some other contact that I never heard of.

It took me a few minutes…

And then I realized….

I was being spammed by Frank Burns… the doctor from M*A*S*H… originally played by Robert Duvall in the movie, then Larry Linville on the TV series.

I need to pay closer attention to that.

This weekend was Mother’s Day. I sent a gift to my mom, and tried to call, but had to fall back on text messages. My wife had a pretty good day with the kids around, and Gracie had a good day with Evelyn in tow. I was able to spend some time with all the kids as well as this little gift and I am thankful.

She does like orange sherbet.

Today, I have work to complete on a content creation project, and then I’ll take care of dinner this evening. I need to ponder the meals we had over the weekend so we can mix it up a little bit when I’m tackling the menu.

OK, so my site is back up, I’m in a better mood, the lawn mower is running, and I have writing to do.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 784

Good morning, and I’m back. Today is Thursday, 8 May 2025.

OK, so I had a little outage on my site. Sorry about that. I was having some problems getting authenticated so I could write and post. It seems to be working ok this morning.

I have been busy this week. Sunday I flew out to Denver for a day of training, cloud fundamentals. I flew back that night, getting home about 2:30 Tuesday morning. While I was there, I was still able to game online with the guys on Sunday as well.

Tuesday was a bit of a wash – getting home so late from the business trip set me back, and some if it was a little jet lag, but for the most part it was just the lack of sleep.

I’ve got some content work for today and tomorrow, creating some study materials for folks pursuing certification.

Lisa has “Columbo” on this morning. Vito Scotti is back in this episode… kind of funny how often he shows up as some side character with an important piece of information that can help solve the case.

Tonight, I’ll be gathering around the cathode ray tube with the guys once again… ok, it’s not a CRT, but an LED display on my desktop back in the sunroom. If it stays sunny today, there might be a chance to mow with the tractor. My little riding mower needs a new battery and some fresh fuel. The new battery should arrive tomorrow.

OK, that’s enough to get me back into my writing habit today. I’ll stretch it out a little more later.

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

Peace y’all.

Evie Day 781

Good morning and a very happy Monday to you. Today is 5 May 2025.

Cinco de Mayo!

The 5th of May, another manufactured holiday to cause a temporary spike in the sales of tacos, Mexican beer, and tequila. I would like to add that some of us don’t need a special holiday for that – it’s just part of the lifestyle.

I’m back in front of a live audience today for the first time in a while. There’s a conference I am speaking at, with two sessions this afternoon on cloud technologies. It will make for a full afternoon.

Yesterday was a pretty good day. I had a nice break in my afternoon to hang out with the guys online and slay a couple of big bads. The dice were falling my way, and any gamer can tell you, those rolls make for an enjoyable afternoon. Come Wednesday night, I will likely fail a dexterity save while attempting to tie my shoe from a seated position.

That’s a good reason to wear Skechers Slip-Ins.

I thought of a funny commercial that we could make. There is one Kansas senator who doesn’t hide his affinity for Trump’s regime, and has bent the knee every chance he gets. “Ol’ Doc Marshall’s Boot Rub! Sprinkle a little on that leather for a more complete boot licking experience! All friendly, ranch-style flavors, except for the Chipotle Ranch…”
“Didn’t Bruno make the Chipotle Ranch?”
“We don’t talk about Bruno!”.

The other thing that caught my attention over the weekend was the concept of a plan to reopen Alcatraz. I was on Alcatraz island a few years back, and folks, there is no way that prison is getting reopened. It would cost more to refurbish that prison than it would to build a new prison on an artificial island. He seems obsessed with inflicting cruelty on people… which explains the El Salvador prison locations.

It’s pretty sad. We’re only 3 and a half months into this regime, and it’s mentally and spiritually repulsive to ponder how much we’ve lost in so short of a time.

My mind goes to odd places from time to time.

OK, time for me to forage for a cup of coffee, and maybe a bagel.

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