Month: November 2024

30

Wrap-Up

So. Year fifteen finished. My medical folks want me to discontinue. That I managed to miss the summer streak is a start. We’ll see on next year.

Last year I used this, largely, as a way to figure out what the hell I was doing for the month. While there’s been some of that this year, I’ve largely been “home.” It’s fine. When I’m here in the Beltway Swamp, I’m largely working myself to death during the week. When I’m gone, it’s somebody else’s problem.

I almost said that I need to get better about letting other people handle things, but that’s not true. I do happily offload things to others. Maybe that’s something cliche to say to fill space? I don’t know.

But I think, physically, I’ve gotten better by just doing some rather basic things. I haven’t missed a planned workout day since I got back from my trip. I plan to continue on the two-days-on-one-off patter through the end of the calendar year. Starting next year, I’ll go to three-on-one-off. The time doesn’t really affect my days all that much if I make sure I do it first thing in the morning.

Do I prefer this lifestyle?

Raincheck on that answer?

It’s about all I can do at this point.

Technological advances have made it possible for me to better-participate in whatever I’m doing despite my vision loss. My intuition about courses of action are still often pretty close. Maybe AI advances will bring that into question, but I think I’m often still pretty close to the mark on most things.

But I also bring a bit of care to the process. Many of the digital assistants are overly-obsequious, then turn to condescension.

I think it’s important to remember that the person who formed babbies with Bill Gates is the one who gave us Clippy.

So another year. Maybe I’ll get to the last Shmoocon. I guess we’ll see.

Am i satisfied with what I’ve done here this year? I was going to say, “maybe,” but I think “indifferent” might be a better description.

Should I feel accomplished in doing fifteen straight years?

Um.

It’s Always Something New, More Direr Than Before

I listened to David Harsanyi’s new book over the past few days. Please excuse the link to Space Cowboy Jeff’s site to order, but anything works. (If you can find it somewhere else, I would you mildly encourage you to buy it that way….)

It’s a good necessitation of some of the absolutely batshit crazy things that have happened over the past decade or so. It leads to things like the video I put in here a couple of weeks ago.

So many things are getting better in the world. There’s not going to be a mass-extinctions event that we can do anything about. Unless it comes from the State. They’re really good about killing people and destroying things.

Listening, I’m reminded of something I bought bout twenty-five years ago. Apocalypse Pretty Soon. I think I heard the author on with Art Bell, if that tells you anything.

Are things better than they were back then?

Yes.

Thangs Get Better.

I actually did email my bosses this morning requesting time off so I can make one of my trips to the Gulf Coast to visit my mom in the Spring.

I can get around down there without too much trouble, now, with things like ride-sharing applications. I can get whatever I need quickly either with Space Cowboy Jeff’s delivery, or via one of the myriad other delivery services.

I can remember wondering if I’d have enough basic necessities back then to get through a weekend.

I can recall not too long ago when I forgot the medication that helps me walk. When I got to Biloxi after the ride on The Crescent, my meds arrived at the hotel the next day.

That reminds me that today’s the day I need to take my current DMT (Disease Modifying Therapy). I’m on KEYsimpta, which I only have to take once a month.

Imagine that. In the almost fifteen years since my diagnosis, I’ve gone from taking shots multiple times per week to a daily pill, to periodic infusions to a shot once per month.

Thangs Get Better.

And I’m still able to sort of function in society. Sorry, it’s going to take a lot more than that to scare me.

But if you feel like I need to be compelled, fine. State that loudly. And don’t try to hide what you’ve done, and the consequences that come from your actions.

No, Commissioner Walz, an anonymous reporting line doesn’t make the people calling it any less loathsome.

29

Thanksgiving Recap

This was prompt was really out of dread for arrival of still-despondent family members. Concern about bad weather cancelled the trip.

We’d already procured supplies for dinner for a party much bigger than we actually had.

It was very good. We’ve got leftovers probably for a while. Likely due to the missed-guests’ preference, we only had a breast.

Watching the NFL players eagerly devour turkey legs after their games yesterday left me….wanting?

Some back-and-forth with my eldest friend about how maybe there’s been some advance in food packaging. I’d ordered this for lunch one day last week. The soup came in a vacuum-sealed single-use container. Just peel the top, heat, and eat. (Two cycles of the “beverage” button on my microwave worked very well…)

Football was okay. I’m maybe looking forward, more, to tonight’s game. Tonight’s matchup is two AFC teams. Doesn’t quite make up for the very NFC-heavy daytime schedule yesterday, but at least there’s something a little different.

The NFL rules haven’t changed nearly as much as baseball’s have, and I’m appreciative of that.

*wanders off to see if the National League has fully-implemented the Designated Hitter*

Yep. But they’ve also got the weird new batting helmets, too.

Leftovers today. A local restaurant for “Small Business Saturday” tomorrow.

That we have less leftover turkey means that my wife won’t be making her Turkey Tikka Masala, which is something we stumbled into a few Thanksgivings ago.

Accidentally used vanilla yogurt, but it actually worked very well.

Maybe it’ll be something for Christmas.

Today’s TGIF was pretty good, too.

I might just have a gift subscription to TheFP left if you email me…

One more day. But there’s shopping to be done. I should probably get a shower first.

28

Thanksgiving Football

What do we have today….?

Bears at lions

Giants at Cowboys

Dolphins at Green Bay

Since the Cowboys now play inside, time to check the forecast for Green Bay.

No precip, but cold and a bit windy.

I admit a bit of nostalgia to old time outdoor football, but it’s probably gone forever.

I wonder if we went to a RedskinsCommanders game we’d really be expected to stand for most of the game.

The Pittsburgh at Cleveland game a couple of weeks ago was wonderful.

Football. Outside in the Snow is a hell of a lot of fun.

It’s also fun to sit inside and watch professional atheletes toil in the weather for our entertainment.

In spite of the scourge of climate change, I think there probably will again be something like The Freezer Bowl sometime in the future.

I’ll be drinking coffee watching from warmth purchasing products advertised during the game.

I’m thankful for that.

But now I’m going to relocate to the couch for much of the rest of the day.

In the unlikely event that anyone reads this today, Happy Thanksgiving to you.

27

How are you similar or different from the person you were 5 years ago? 10 years ago? 20 years ago?

Five years ago? Well, it’s still up. I was obviously getting very concerned about some of what I saw going on with things like Facebook at the time. I wish I could have known more about

I’m trying to remember exactly what the impetus was for me trying to get away from the Ginger Drop-out’s stuff back then, but I’d need to read more to figure it out. Obviously, things would go into overdrive in 2020. I did appreciate that whatever efforts I’d taken back then would pay dividends pretty soon thereafter.

Still, I think I showed that, yes, you can say, “see ya.”

The technologies behind the Internet aren’t locked in to one company’s wares.

All that can be done is passing laws to try to “fix” that.

So, your solution is to throw people in prison.

There’s just no nice to reframe that into something polite.

If you ever say “there should be a law,” you’re saying “I feel so strongly about this that I’m willing to have you killed to get you to behave the way I want.”

Ten Years ago?

It’s here. I think, probably, this would have been just as I was in the early throws of the thing I’d taken because we were running out of money.

As far as I know, that place is probably still operating. But I was very much not in my element. That was reconfirmed yesterday when I was doing similar work. Windows was, and still is, a nightmare.

But i’d gotten hired as the junior admin there, and I was doing it really to just pay the bills. The company I was with didn’t offer any benefits accepted by providers in Tidewater.

I’d bought a private plan from one of the providers down there that was one of the large providers. It was expensive, but we didn’t have a ton of expenses with my wife in college.

The wonderful exchange plan we would have for the next year was the thing that really sent me into a spiral.

Again, I got promoted on-the-spot into the role of the senior admin because they couldn’t do an in-place capture of the previous admin.

i tried, but I was being directed to do things from 1999. In 2014.

No, we shouldn’t be doing this. You should never say that to someone who views himself as a subject matter expert on things he clearly doesn’t understand at all.

Twenty years ago? I went back and looked at stuff around then. There was an entry about someone in whom I was interested. I really have no idea who that was, actually. Not even a suspicion.

The next one was me congratulating myself from what I did on the Thanksgiving turkey.

I think I did it on a grill. It may have been my first attempt at using an injector of some sort.

I think my dad was in Iraq that year, so I was cooking for my mom, my brother, and his wife at the time. It worked, I guess, but I didn’t write down what I did. I am an idea — I think it probably involved a glaze and injection that resembled a whisky sour.

So, that’s some quick recaps

For the future, who knows? Obviously, I had some major setbacks in the middle of that period.

The samples from the prompt are largely related to the problems I’ve had related to my health in the past fifteen years.

Should I have done anything differently? Yep.

But I did find someone I love, something you couldn’t have told me I’d do twenty years ago.

26

i didn’t have a prompt here. Glancing back through what I’d written on previous November 26ths, I get this.

I would say that Detroit looks a hell of a lot better than it did in 2016. Certainly, the Lions are a lot better. I don’t like some of the things that the Democrats there have done lately,

I really don’t like that Michigan repealed its right-to-work law.

if I was a legislator considering these things, I probably wouldn’t be considered “an ally.”

Want to repeal “right-to-work?” Um, okay, then. Any union who operates in one of these situations can’t fund politicians, parties, and campaigns. It’s one or the other.

You also see the sort of situation that now exists at places like Chrysler and GM where workers basically get no workplace benefits; everything comes from the union. And there’s only four (4) pay bands. Even if you’re one of the best employees, you’re going to get paid exactly the same as someone who sucks, because you’re in the same pay band.

Oh, by the way, you’re also only working 35 hours per week because the politicians we funded have made it so that we can’t get rid of the extra people we’ve got employed.

A Harris administration would have revived some really bad things like The PRO ACT. Link from my former representative.

I think “gig work” is going to be a big thing for a lot of people. There really isn’t a way to put the toothpaste back in the tube.

So, what else?

This guy was arrested after being on the Ten-Most-Wanted list for more than twenty years.

Glad to see. I was wondering if there was an Unsolved Mysteries about it. I remember seeing something. Maybe it was America’s Most Wanted. I don’t remember, and am not motivated to search to find it.

I can’t really tell if the relaunch has already been cancelled.

It’s a shame that my suspicions about this are heightened. Why was this released now?

Okay. Enough for today. Time to find some dinner.

25

I glanced again at what I’d written a while ago, and that led me to think about

Music

What have you been listening to? What has come out lately that you like?

As I’ve been listening a lot more to Apple Music a lot lately while I exercise. I typically take a screenshot of something that’s gotten me going, o rI think might be of others’ interest on Malice’s Locals.

I try to make it a point to listen to some of the op new stuff playlists, but often end up reverting to various stuff from either my high school days, or the 1990s.

There’s some study about how your musical tastes are set sometime when you’re in high school.

You could say that I’m 1993. Who was the informer on that? A lickie boom boom down.

Sure there way a lot more interesting, then, but 1993 is the year.

Getting to your recently played is incredibly tough. I find myself hitting >> on the controls on a lot of the newer stuff.

The strange Country mismatches are completely befuddling to me. Thankfully, I do hear more songs that resemble constructions. While I do enjoy, and have written about songs with odd assembly in the past, like Bob Seeger’s Still The Same, which has no chorus.

Listen here, and find the chorus. G’head

So, I appreciate that there is more conventional assembly in the popular music. Have I heard some stuff I like? Sure. Can I spend a lot of time at it?

Have I gotten fed things maybe I’d forgotten about, but had kind of forgotten about? Yep. Does it, like one of the concert promoters think I’m a GenX woman? Yep.

Most of it I like, so maybe the logic is working?

I do end up S’ingTFW for some after I hear it, and end up feeling really old.

Oh well.

Almost finished. I need to go write a bit more about something else….

24

Free-Write

I had a bunch of stuff written, but ended up scrapping it after a commercial completely upset my line of thinking.

I need to do a better job of risk assessment. There’s been a few major instances where I’ve made mistakes.

Unfortunately, I don’t think a couple of those had any upside, really.

Professionally, I made sacrifices to keep the lights on.

With better understanding of the intricacies of health insurance, some of the bad things I experienced I probably would do differently.

You get really messed over if you don’t have “employer-sponsored” health care. Even if you hav eto do things out-of-network, all hte money you’d pay for COBRA is pre-tax.

When you get your cafeteria menu, I’d say pass up as much that isn’t going to be expensive.

I don’t really know, and I don’t know that I have the paperwork, still, to redo the analysis.

I had the thought back then that you needed to make sure you only used “in-network” providers.

No, no you don’t.

Even if your provider is out-of-network, but you like him/her, stick around. You’re gonna take a hit until you’re reimbursed by the insurer, but you’ll stick with the providers(s) with whom you’re comfortable.

I do need to learn to not fall into going forward. I think I was relying on the oh-so-sage advice of people who’ve bought a lot of letters behind their names to advance in human resources.

What else? Um, spinning into football, considering it’s Sunday morning.

I have no idea with college, still. But I always like seeing Ole Miss and Lane Kiffin lose.

The NFL, who knows. Sounds like the Jets have given up on Aaron Rodgers. And their coaches.

The Saints seem to have woken back up after the Dennis Allen disaster. Still don’t like the “West Coast” offense. Sofa King Boring.

Also following with mild interest the coming MSNBC fire sale. Rumors on the internets say that Don Jr. is pushing Elon Musk to buy it. I know Elon’s got the money to do it, but why? Sister Rachel took a pay cut for her half and hour a week, but why would you want to have anything to do with that disaster?

I’m reminded of Michael Dell’s dismissive take on Apple in the late-90s.

But there’s really no assets to liquidate and send back to the shareholder.

But is there anything there worth salvaging? is there something like NeXT you can combine with it to make something better? Rogan’s network? The Blaze?

Or you try to lose more money than Space Cowboy Bezos?

Time for some coffee.

23

I still didn’t have anything. So, back to 2012:

1. What are your vices?

The normal stuff; alcohol, caffeine, meth, opiates, nicotine, gambling.

Some of those aren’t true. Decide for yourself which ones.

2. “The most disappointed I’ve ever been…”

You know, I honestly don’t know nowadays. I try not to focus on failures, you know? Especially now, Going to meet with criminal investigators about someone ranks right up there….

The answers are really unchanged.

Obviously, the “meth” from back then was in jest, but the other things are still basically true. I’ve really varied the amounts here and there, but I still partake in the same bits.

But I really don’t get a lot of enjoyment from any of those vices anymore.

Did I really back then? I don’t know.

That does kind of feed into the disappointment piece. If I don’t ever really enjoy anything, I have trouble being that disappointed.

Things happen, and all I’ll have at the end is the memory of me screwing up royally.

Maybe that’s no way to live, but it’s kind of my nature. I’m incredibly captious, intentional even.

Maybe that attitude has seen me miss out on fun, but I’ve also missed out on a lot of real disappointment.

Something to discuss in a future therapy session.

Somehow the Apple Music interlude of Cake’s Sheep Go To Heaven seems strangely appropriate here.

But I’m not really a sheep; they don’t have the requisite amount or self-reflection. You’re never going to see any sort of after-action review from a sheep. Even if there’s nothing formal, I do review many things to myself.

And I usually come back with “I wouldn’t have acted differently.”

Yeah, there’s been some times that I was absent information that led to an incorrect decision; if I’d known that K——- had reached a plea agreement that’d lead to me being laid off when I got “home,” I would have been glad-handling at Shmoocon in 2014, but I didn’t know.

I was trying to do the best job I could do even though I was being mistreated.

So it goes. I can be comfortable with myself.

22

I didn’t have a prompt ready for today. The Thanksgiving plans I wrote about are OBE courtesy the weather forecast. I’m rather sanguine about the development. Just us together, and that’s okay. The example of what happened in the Browns-Steelers game last night played a part in the cancellation for later in the week.

The cold weather got here to DC yesterday. I’m wondering how unpleasant it’ll be when I limp across to the community gym tomorrow. That said, it’s really not that far, and it’s something that helps me make some progress into getting back to living a somewhat-normal life.

I wonder if bad weather is going to be an excuse for a lot of holiday plan cancellations.

*wanders onto X to see if there’s anything trending*

Oh. MSNBC.

That would be funny as hell.

Bits, too, and I’m too lazy to really search for it, is what’s happened at The Washington Post. First DDG search result on losses yields this government radio bit about a portion of the few remaining subscribers fleeing after the Jeff refused to endorse Officer Harris.

It’s a bit like buying a Blockbuster, Randy.

But this is stuff that was foreseeable. I did think Netflix was a pipe-dream. Same with BlazeTV.

But things change.

I’m reminded of the Howard Zinn book title, “You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train.”

Doesn’t quite fit, but it’s the first thing that crossed my mind.

Also, fuck that guy.