Author: sean

One

I’m writing again this year. This is one of the few compulsions that you can associate with my OCD. If you travel through the archives on my site, you will see several writing streaks.

I started doing streaks for the month preceding my birthday when I was working at one of the successive really, um, low-quality jobs following an unceremonious layoff. It was something to do to settle my mind a bit.

Last year, and this year, I avoided the summer periods after cognitive behavioral therapy.

After shedding myself of the summer streaks, I’ve kept up with the winter periods.

The past couple of years have been, largely, trying to sequence things for heading into Christmas. Obviously, there’s a ton that goes on in November.

So, continue.

I think last year was the tenth year I’d done it. I was very much considering not writing this year, but here we are.

I’ve been attempting to go on long-term disability this summer and fall. To put it mildly, it’s been a struggle. Part of the reason I stayed in my last job as long as I did was the promise of being able to transition smoothly into disability. I kind of viewed it as a different way of doing things, and viewed it as kind of a retirement plan.

Of course, that’s providing it won’t work exactly as I’d sketched. I stayed at the last job for probably three extra years trying to help the company’s client despite really difficult physical ailments. I stuck around for years hoping to help get things modernized.

Now I’m working to get the benefit I’d been promised. I really am not excited by the prospect of Social Security Disability, and have been resisting it for the years since my diagnosis. The folks at the National MS Society have been trying to help. I absolutely appreciate them hooking me up with the lawyer, but my individual situation is different than most people’s.

That I muddled through for fifteen years since diagnosis should be remarkable, but, now, it’s a waiting game to see if I can breathe. I do have an attorney working on it, but who knows if the appeals will be successful, and how long that’ll take.

For this year, with all income being cut off, things are more than a little tight. My wife is earning good money, so not everything’s on me.

I do have some travel early this month; see how that goes. But it’ll be different than it has been the past few years.

My wife and I celebrated our fifteenth anniversary last month. Maybe that was part of the reason I’m continuing this year.

I do have all the days drafted out. There are fewer free write days this year; only three if memory serves.

I don’t know that I was looking forward to it as much as I was, say, two years ago. There’s a lot less planned, but I’m curious to see how things go.

I’m excited for cold weather, seeing the Lions on Thanksgiving, and some quiet time.

Here we go, November. Let’s see what happens.

Getting Luckey

I dropped a mention of his interview on Rogan in this entry. After being impressed with him on that interview, I delayed listening to the interview with Bari Weiss on her p0dcast. Here is the paywalled ep on TheFP’s site, but you can find the interview on Honestly.

I don’t c0mpletely agree with him on some things, but this sort of thing that makes me really regret my professional career.

There is only one way of doing things, and, regardless of what money it might save, it’s dictated how you’re supposed to operate. Thou shalt not deviate. If you do, your system’s going to be shut off. Information security is completely procedural on things that don’t work well at all, and you’re supposed to devote a significant amount of your time to adhering to procedure.

Put your solution through the following procedures, generate the following artifacts, and submit again for cybersecurity authorization.

Does the solution work? Well, it passed muster through an extensive waterfall engineering effort. It passed its cybersecurity scans. It cost a ton of money to create. It must be good.

The discussion of the time and materials contracts almost necessarily requires expensive solutions put together by people with expensive “educations.”

Getting back to Palmer, though, it certainly evokes memories of my time getting into IT/government contracting. On the Defense side of things, there seemed, to me, to be a resistance to doing anything at all that was cheap and simple.

I worry about being Captain Queeg with the strawberries.

But when I started, I was coming from an environment where I basically had no budget. I’d scrimp, and find a way to get things done with what I had available. Sure, there might have been many ways to do things “more correctly,” but how long would that have taken, and how much would it have cost?

Luckey’s discussion of designing his company’s products based on what they’ve got available.

There was a lot made of the OceansGate Titan’s use of a PlayStation controller. Watch this if you’re curious.

But the problems there weren’t because they didn’t engineer an expensive control system. The problems were because the hull collapsed. If Titan’s hull hadn’t collapsed, would anyone have said anything about the controller?

Crossing The Fs, Dotting The Lower-Case Js

Send that
Book that
Suspend that
Check that

That’s the sort of thing I’ve been doing. But November is starting Saturday, so there’s a bunch to finish up.

I’m getting through it all, but I’m not pre-planning all that closely. Read-and-react is where I am on so many things at this point.

I am actually looking forward to doing the writing this year. As has been the case in many past years, I’m hoping some of it will give me something to concentrate on other than the day-to-day worries I’m currently experiencing.

Unfortunately, the way I did it, I don’t have an easy way to get a good list of topics. I don’t have as many free-writes this year as I had in the past, but that’s probably okay. The first week I hope to be busy enough that it’s not much of an issue.

I’m making the mistake right now listening to information about the Federal shutdown, and how it might affect my plans.

Bad me.

But it’s getting cold. A couple of nights in the thirties, and it’ll really start feeling like the holidays are right around the corner.

Sifting The Data

OMFG. I’ve spent the better part of two days picking through doctors’ notes trying to get information for my attorney.

I appreciate why things are the way they are, but it’s still a royal pain.

thankfully, i think things are going to progress more quickly than I anticipated.

Ai would be great for picking through all these massive PDFs to find the interesting bits.

I think, though, I do have things set up for next month’s writing compulsive streak. I am looking forward to it, though I feel like there’s less opportunity for just longform bloviation.

I need to get better about scribbling down at least something with the drams I have.

OWT

For a variety of reasons, I haven’t written much after the last post.

I never really wanted to focus on economic issues, here. I am as much an expert on economic issues as the Uber drivers from Auburn are on foreign policy.

Honestly, though, my attention has largely been focused on personal matters. Though I was ardently opposed to doing it, it seems that I am going to have to apply for Social Security disability. Though I haven’t done that, and will delay it until I’m forced to do it, it appears that I’m going to have to do it.

There’s also a lot of disruption with the government “shutdown” here in the Beltway Swamp. The what appeared to be a somewhat sparsely-attended “No Kings” rallies yesterday showed that to the paid protestors, the only thing that’s acceptable to cut from the Federal Government is Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But, on the economics issues, there have been a couple of other reports coming out that explain why the Bureau of Labor Statistics is having to significantly-restate more numbers. The money folks say that the lack of numbers really won’t affect market performance. I think the biggest story that’s come out is the massive restatement of job numbers for the period preceding Trump’s inauguration. Things were not as rosy as the Biden Administration was trying to say they were.

I was trying to get to the bigger point here — if you’re not good at your job, there’s nothing wrong with you getting fired. It’s not the end of the world, and things will continue without you continuing to put out your low-quality work.

The fundamental reasons for the economy’s performance are unchanged — interest rates that don’t even approach inflation combined with incredible government overspending. Senator Paul continues to be the Republican against reopening the government, though he wants to pay the govvies and troops.

Again, though, the government shutdown is being used as a rationale for all sorts of omissions on data. I can understand with the big news about the Gaza cease-fire. I’m not sure there’s a way you could really overstate the importance of that. No, I don’t think that it automatically meant that President Trump should have won the Nobel Peace Prize, though the kvetching doubt him not winning overshadowed the announcement a couple of days later about the Nobel Prize in Economics.

Here is the announcement.

My biggest take on it? Things, including innovation, happen in spite of government and regulation. Listening to Palmer Luckey on Rogan served to reinforced that.

You can’t plan everything. I’m okay with that.

Innovate Despite

I’ve been looking some today into the work that went into the Nobel Prize for Economics award for this year.

Two things crossed my mind with it. The first was a comedy bit, Marc Steyn, maybe?, about cleaning up a broken compact fluorescent bulb. The switch to CF bulbs was something that was bit in the early Obama administration.

I didn’t hate them as much as some people, though I did think the light was a little off. There were some people who really hated them, and I think there was some Tea Party folks who ran on bringing back the regular incandescent bulbs.

Meanwhile, white LED technology progressed to completely obviate the need for the ordered CF bulbs.

Technology progresses. Government can’t stop it.

Check the tagline

On this blog.

This has fallen off pretty rapidly today after nosing to the top last night. I have memories of seeing some of Officer Harris’s campaign questions about mandating abortion in Catholic hospitals.

Her take was, yes, we’re going to do that, because abortion is part of women’s health care, and health care is a human right. Rep. CIA came to prominence in amongst the crazy things that were going on with the Progressives.

So mandating such things, putting people in prison for living by their convictions, is absolutely okay.

The Hyde Amendment was never repealed. It is still against Federal Law for taxpayer funds to go towards Abortion.

But things like this show Deep State Abby’s unwillingness to do things through a legislative process. Things that are explicitly-prohibited by law, as well as by a religious hospital’s moral bylaws, we must enforce via administrative fiat.

There are things at the Federal level that push back against this sort of thing, but it’s still the temptation.

I’ll refrain from tossing out my initial reactions, but I’m not at all shocked. You will be our slave, and there’s not a damn thing you can do about it.

I am heartened that it appears Jay Jones’s expression of his engrained barbarism is now on full display, and it seems to be negatively-affecting the party of Harry F. Byrd.

Memories Sparked

Watching Thursday Night Football last night featured an interview with Christian Cooper taking Marshawn Lynch around Central Park for birdwatching.

Did they really just do that after what he did to “Central Park Karen?”

Yep. It pissed me off. That Amazon actually featured him pissed me off. Really, Jeff?

Today I went back and reviewed some of the reporting on it, and stumbled back across this from Fred Phelps’s granddaughter.

I appreciate her push for forgiveness, but I kinda think basically-permanent “cancellation” of him seems justified.

She really didn’t do anything wrong, saw her life ruined, and he gets featured on an NFL game? Really?

I Am Speaking

This is something that’s been nauseatingly-repeated in Abigail Spanberger’s campaign ads.

I’d resolved that I wasn’t going to vote for Abigail “Deep State Abby” Spanberger long before the debate last night. Am I thrilled with Lt. Gov Sears? Um, no. Yes, I’ve previously voted for her, and think she often had good things to offer. I was excited to vote for her when she ran against Bobby Scott whenever it was. Her race and gender is very unimportant to me; she’s a MARINE. The Lieutenant Governor in Virginia is kind of an afterthought office, but she, and the Republicans who’ve been running Virginia for the past four years have done an okay job, despite the Democrat-controlled General assembly.

One might think that the identity-bound Democrats might be less-critical of the 2025 Republican slate consisting of an immigrant woman, a gay guy, and a first-generation son of Cuban immigrants, but you’d be wrong.

There was the first, and probably only, debate last night at Norfolk State. Spanberger did not, even when asked repeatedly, to withdraw her endorsement of Jay Jones. What Jones said was absolutely disgusting. Do I think it disqualifies him from holding office? Absolutely. Does it matter? Not really. Virginia is being reshaped back into the Harry Byrd reliably-Democrat enclave of the mid-Atlantic.

Jones made his horrible comments in 2022, which was right in the middle of the post-Trump frenzy. In the US Congress, that ended in November, with the Republicans retaking the House, but….

Jones didn’t take the prescient advice in Tropic Thunder.

You fantasize about shooting a nearly-meaningless Republican Delegate while leaving Hitler and Pol Pot?

Just reinforce that you don’t belong anywhere near politics.

I think there was, too, something to do with the Charlie Kirk assassination. As I said, I knew next to nothing about the guy. But it was fucked-up that he was assassinated. This is true regardless of whatever minutes-long promo video you might have seen trying to explain how he’s a white nationalist.

He wasn’t. Jay Jones isn’t a violent extremist, either. Should he face electoral defeat for his stupid 2022 remarks? No, not just for those, but if there’s someone who’s not paid attention is persuaded not to vote for him, that’s okay by me.

Similarly, my reasons to not vote for Deep State Abby are because of her background. She proudly touts her public service in her ads.

For the CIA.

Where they did things like murder US citizens without a trial.

I will mail my absentee ballot in the next few days. I’d decided who I was voting for long ago. I got an absentee ballot without specifically-requesting one. Probably because I was travelling last election day. I’ll be on the road again this year, but I didn’t request it.

In 2024, I voted for one of the worst LP candidates in history largely because Trump’s speech to the LP National Convention reconfirmed my promise to never vote for him.

But the reason Deep State Abby won’t withdraw her endorsement is people are already voting. If she comes out, now, despite the really retched shit Jones said, it’d be replay of things with the Hunter Biden laptop.

Just a guess that Deep State Abby knows more than a few of the people who put out that the Hunter Biden Laptop story was Russian disinformation.

I was watching the Eagles at the Giants, but I’m going to guess that that didn’t get brought up at all last night.

Take Your Medicine

I’m listening to the Taylor Swift album. You could offer many reasons, but I kinda feel like I should know what the negative thoughts are.

I am absolutely not the target demo, but i don’t find it horrible. This past weekend, TheFP’s Things Worth Remembering wrote about the extended version of All Too Well. Again, not really my cup of tea, but I have some fuzzy memories of hearing it from the passenger seat of my wife’s car just around the time that things really went to shit for me in 2012/13.

No, it’s not really my speed, but I’ve been trying to listen to the lyrics sorta closely.

Maybe if I really was invested in some of her previous lyrical output, I’d be disappointed, but it was never really something I would have gone out of my way to hear. I wasn’t going to pay money for it before streaming services, so, aside from rides in my wife’s car, it’d have been something that completely escaped me.

Not terribly broken up about that. I know that I heard some lyrical chops with her early country work, but really hadn’t paid that much attention after she’d been Little Orphan Annie on SNL.

The past few years has been almost-nonstop attention with her boyfriend, now fiancée, on NFL games. Whatever. The Chefs really fit with what was going on in the NFL the past few years. Back to late-90s/early-00s West Coast Offense and Tampa-2 defense.

I can see how her cavorting around a creaking Arrowhead Stadium might bring a few more eyes, make people forget Coach Romeo.

But back to the reason for writing — the album.

Is it underwhelming? A bit, I guess.

*gets distracted by a callback from a lawyer I’d reached out to like three weeks ago*

Somewhat that doesn’t feel completely inappropriate. Maybe I’m projecting my own attitude lately onto it, but it almost feels like a retirement album. I’ve done what I needed to do, now I can go off and do domestic things.

Maybe that’s part of the backlash? She went and did incredibly big things, and now she’s interested in doing other things. (And I’ll refrain from elaborating on what those things are. Though Kennedy might have laid it out pretty well on her pod. You enjoy parts of his physique. Great. Nobody needs to know about it!)

Am I a little empathetic based on what’s been going on with me, personally? Could be. Did I think I’d be retired before 50? Nope. Am I really that broken up about it? Again, nope. I’m going to try to enjoy what’s on tap for the rest of my life.

I hope the future Mrs. Kelsey is happy. She shouldn’t feel guilty for going and doing that.