Two (7/21)

Before I start in to the prompt I’d selected, I was reading through some of what I’d written last summer.
It totally seems like a different life.
I was unemployed, prior to my re-entry into the cluserfuck that I’d left a little more two years before.
During my thing yesterday, I mentioned that when I was in the clusterfuck managing the Windows Server environment, I was digging through my scarred brain to recall things I hadn’t done in about fifteen years.
Yet, that’s what was still being used.
Also, never engineer from scratch.
Colonel Boyd actually addressed this.

The payoff isn’t until about the six-minute mark.  Essentially, though, he told the Air Force higher-ups that they had a choice between making something that was only marginally-better than the F-111, or building something correctly from scratch.
Do you think you can ever trust a politician’s word
I really don’t have malevolent suspicions about others.
Maybe that’s a character flaw.
But I really don’t think most people are out to hurt others.
Politicians are, first and foremost, people.  In the vast majority of circumstances, they’re not to do anything bad.
The geriatric folks running Washington, aren’t trying to mess with anyone.
No, they may not understand Facebook or Bitcoin.  To me, that says they just shouldn’t try to control those things they don’t understand.
But, hey, let’s have the fucking FCC regulate the Intertubes!!1!
So, with the basic assumption that the vast majority of people don’t leave the house every single day looking for ways to screw others, you have to say that politicians aren’t either.
Would you be hesitant to ask a politician with a cell phone in his hand what time it is?
Well, he’s a politician, so he can’t be believed, amirite?

One (7/20)

Description of what I’m doing, and why
I’m writing every day until 20 August.
Why?  To get back into the swing of writing.
This is something I’ve done for the past few years.  It’s kind of a summer version of National Journal Writers’ Month.
I’m plunking away on this while I’m rewatching training videos for the fourth time.  Most of these have multiple-choice tests where they’ll show you which ones you missed.  This one, however, doesn’t.
It’s frustrating.  Both that I have to spend so much time on this, and that I have to keep watching it until I manage to pick the right tile in the Minesweeper game.
It does make me happy, however, that I’m no longer in Norfolk, where, professionally, your ability to buy chances to play Minesweeper determines your career potential.
But, hey, Virginia Beach actually topped a list!  Negative Equity
So, got sidetracked writing this.  It may be something very positive.  The ability to use the phrase, “make the magic smoke come out,: says a lot.
We’ll see what happens, I suppose.
To quote Forrest Gump, “and that’s all I have to say about that.”
So.  Back to the writing.  No, I’m not going to post my prompts ahead of time.  I have many of them, already.

Twenty-nine (8/17)

I thought earlier today, counting on my fingers, that I was okay on the days.
Nope, I’m still a day early.  Oops.
That said, at least someone actually did read some of what I said yesterday.  If I was petty about it, I might complain that it only took 28 entries.
So flashback time….


8/17/2011

Pffftbt….
So, the nurse lied to me over the phone last week. I have two new lesions since December, one of which was active during the scan.
Staying on the Copaxone for three more months. Anotehr MRI in November.
There’s now a blood test for the virus that causes PML associated with the Tysabri. I guess about half the population have been exposed to the virus, and, therefore, shouldn’t use Tysabri.
Pfffftbt.
I don’t really know what more to say. Don’t like waking my wife up with less-than-good news.🙁

That definitely feels like another time in my life.  Copaxone sucked for a variety of reasons, but it wasn’t the hell that the next two DMDs would be.  (Disease Modifying Drugs)
The second seriously had me considering taking the Red Line like Kate Mara on House of Cards.
The third completely screwed up my lower half, and gave me nice hives.  I did have another exacerbation on it, too, though the neurologist kept me on it because the flare stopped after IV steroids.
Then I had to find new specialists because none of the ones I’d been seeing accepted my plan from Healthcare.gov.  It was awesome.
Back to the Copaxone, though.  I wrote that a few weeks before my wife and I went on our year-delayed honeymoon.  (Yes, we had our first anniversary in New Orleans.  She’d forgotten about it, and was more than a little surprised when flowers were delivered to our hotel room….)
But it was some nice time away.  People at work today were razzing me about something NOLA-related.  I called someone a Saint. compared to someone else.  (I think I called Bill Gates a saint when you look at him next to Larry Ellison.)
So.  My usual line about the Saints — “I’ve been a Saints’ fan since before Jim Mora was famous for ‘Playoffs?!'”  So before the information about Greggggggg’s bounty scandal came out.  Before the hiring of Buddy Ryan Jr.-B.  Before #BlewDat.
“Blew Dat” is actually the name of one of my fantasy teams this year.  I need to figure WTF is going on with the other league(s).
Something to do this weekend.
But, all in all, a pretty successful week, I think.  My ticket queue is nearly empty (and all but one of those is almost finished)  I got my Tysabri infusion.
So time to go do weekend stuff.

On Writing

I’ve been picking through past writings.  Words used to come so easily;  my diary would show that, if you could read all of it.  (And, no, even if you’ve got an account there, you can’t.  Much of it is only for my own consumption.)
I’m trying to remember how easily this stuff used to come to me.  Perhaps my inability to really read many things stops the thought flows.  Who knows?
I listen to lots of podcasts.  I’ve not dug out my radio from where our stuff is stored.  I do listen to some things that are broadcast, but much of it is Intertubes-only.
I also might not have as much time to think as I’d like.
Getting closer on my work setup in the temporary landing spot.  Maybe I’ll get it finished soon.  *shrug*
Reading old entries, I have to wonder if I actually could handle law school now.
Yes, I can’t see worth a damn.  My speech is even slower than ti twas before they know what was wrong with me.  But I can still listen.  I can still write.  Could I be lawyerly?