Four

Write about someone you’ve recently lost (Flashback to 2016; this would have been just after my uncle had died)

I don’t know that I’ve got a good answer for this one. I’m listening to The Fifth Column where they’re talking about the crazy person who broke into the Pelosi house a few days ago.

He was crazy. The situation I’m dealing with isn’t that, but it is someone who’s very close who’s clearly “not there” anymore.

Gone, but not really yet.

The flashback to my uncle was my dad’s youngest brother. My dad’s younger brother had died a couple of years earlier. His wife, my aunt, is also my mother’s cousin. My dad was always worried that my mother, with her short-lived genealogy obsession would find that they were related. Thankfully, no, but my first cousins are also my fifth cousins.

So, yeah, I’m not going to elaborate too much on what I’m doing, but these things are top of mind.

Happy birthday to my grandpa. I’ll see him on tomorrow. 93 years old. I’m not even halfway there, but am not at all convinced that I’ll get anywhere close.

Three

Describe your year to date. (Form 2014, but it’ll be something I can really sink my teeth into while I’m on the train.)

January

Well, Shmoocon was delayed, so it was mostly watching Football, and working.

February

Looking back, it looks like the war in Ukraine and football were the things most on my mind. As far as the war goes, I kind of feel like one of the followers of Miller, and the Great Disappointment. (And this is really leading me down a path….). The Rams won the Super Bowl. I was really not that upset this way or the other. I don’t really like the Rams’ schema; — 3-4 Defense, West Coast offense, etc., but I’m still happy they[re back in LA/

March

Obviously, biggest thing was Shmoocon.

I had a good time, but I’m really not up to do that sort of thing anymore. I’m happy that the unanimity of thought that was there, say, 2009-ish.

Do the math, and show your fucking work. When someone reviews it years later, if it shows to be complete nonsense, that should be a point for self-reflection. Apologies; I’m distracted by the Marvelous Mrs. Maisel speech before the pandemic.

I guess I’m really bothered by certitude.

April

More stupidity from the new LP overlords. Preparation for medical tests. Lots of work. Following the start to the saga of my mother moving back to her hometown. (As I write this in November, I’m actually on the train headed down there again…)

May

Medical exam…clean. Good for three more years.

June

Some work certitude until February, so breathe a little easier. The only thing I wrote about what following the shitshow with the Libertarian National Convention. My initial reactions have proved correct, and I’ve withdrawn further.

July

I gave in to the compulsion to write ian the moth before my birthday. I felt like I had a few things to say. I was also minaking my first trip to deal with the mess surrounding my mother’s situation. And pick up the dog.

August

Lots of work, new dog adjustments, birthday. The steaks my wife cooked for my birthday were amazing. A coupon of notables — very long survey that I think was from about 1999. My original answers are in, with my updated ones.

September

Reading, now that I’m in the hotel room (please see back later when I give more details about the shit show that’s happened so far….)

October

Thirteenth wedding anniversary. Four-day weekend as a bachelor with my wife and dog down visiting her parents. It’s incredible the feelings I have my wife; I didn’t think that sort of thing was at all possible.

November

I’m out of town. I tried to write this before en route to my destination. I’m in a hotel room, which was not the plan, but it’s adjusting on the fly.

Two

Write about preparing

This one is because I’m preparing to head on my trip.

I need to stuff some clothes in the suitcase, but I think I’m pretty close. Weather is sitll supposed to pop into the eighties while I’m there. Comfortable nights.

(An aside, this predictive text stuff that’s in Edge now; I think Safari does it, too, is annoying as hell. Yes, I often type not looking at the screen, but seeing the word it thinks I should type is bothersome. You think you know what I’m going to say, but you have no idea; okay, Computer? Might be the same in Chrome, but, aside from the email where I’ve paid them not to spy on me, I still tend to eschew products from that totes-used-to-care-about-not-doing-evil company)

But more on preparations other than just travel, I’m trying to work through what I might need to figure out:

  • Absentee ballot completion, mailing
  • What I need to do immediately on the house
  • What I need to retrieve from it
  • How I should approach long-term relocation/storage
  • Paying my protection racket for the sheet of paper that lets me keep working
  • What to do when I stop working
  • Medical stuff for the rest of the year (Neurologists want three MRIs later this month instead of the routine one; I should ask for some something that’ll keep me from twitching; make me sleep)
  • Life insurance (I think I can keep paying on the supplemental policy I have with work after I leave…the primary one goes away, but the extra stuff I can keep paying on)

Still, I’m not obsessing about preparing. Everything’s going to work okay. I’m not going to die. I’m not going to go broke.

I don’t know, but maybe I owe a lot of my approach to many things to Bob Zubrin/The Case For Mars.

(Aside: The search results on the book yielded this video. I’ve never done any psychedelics, but I wonder if that’s what it’d be like…)

In that situation, people might well die. With what I’m doing, almost certainly not.

Just Do it. Git ‘er done. Whatever your chosen catchphrase….

Similar idea about writing every day in a month.

One

I’d started writing a long entry on this, but I felt like I was meandering.

Intro/Background, etc.

This is the thirteenth year I’ve done this.

It gives me a chance to really congeal my thoughts as the year comes to the end of the year.

This year portends to be a little crazier than normal in light of what’s going on in my personal life. Still, there’ll be things that I do in November that really get me ready for the holiday season, even if it’s not going to feel like a holiday season.

Writing is a compulsion for me. Perhaps I should pay as much attention as I do, but it does give me a chance to focus on something else.

Watching the Bengals play in Cleveland last night, I really realized how excited I am about football in the snow.

Still not there, yet.

And I’m looking at days of highs in the eighties on my trip.

But…let’s go.

I’m ready.

I think I’ve built enough in to really do this, and bet prepared for the end of the year.

One day at a time.

Going to be some disruptions, really, the first third of the month. I hope to be able to make every day without interruption, but I won’t make any promises.

More tomorrow…probably just after I’ve left on my travel.

Because November

What I’m going to write about next month.

  1. Intro/Background, etc.
  2. Write about preparing
  3. Describe your year to date. (Form 2014, but it’ll be something I can really sink my teeth into while I’m on the train.)
  4. Write about someone you’ve recently lost (Flashback to 2016; this would have been just after my uncle had died)
  5. Of which libations do you partake? When were you last drunk? What’s in your glass now?  What will be later?
  6. Write about your writing tools. (Flashback to 2004 post about the switch away from MovableType)
  7. Write about when you were tarted unfairly. (Flashback to writing from 11/7/2013 where I was writing about what happened at the four-letter company)
  8. Plans for Election Day
  9. Election Day Reax
  10. Free Write
  11. What are some qualities of bad bosses? What would you not do if you were supervising others? (Reachback to 2015)
  12. Veterans’ Day
  13. Travel Recap
  14. 2022 Football So Far
  15. Halfway
  16. Health Update (After l0oking at my entry from 11/16/2016)
  17. Write about an experience that changed a long held belief you had (Flashback to 2013)
  18. Callback to prompts from 11/18/2012
  19. Tube Cruise
  20. What opportunities that you’ve passed up do you regret passing? (Flashback to 2015)
  21. Thanksgiving plan
  22. Dates that will live in Infamy
  23. Radio Reminiscence (From September 23, 2004 about Air America)
  24. Thanksgiving
  25. Free Write
  26. Small Business Saturday/Christmas Shopping
  27. Describe what you’re doing for the rest of this year. (Flashback to 2014)
  28. Is there someone you were close to at one point in time, that you can no longer stand to be around? (From 2020…)
  29. What are you most proud of this year? (Flashback to 2015)
  30. Wrap Up

Because Sunday

Writing on Sundays is what I do.

Watching football after the Saints’ disastrous performance on Thursday night.

Still trying to figure out what I want to attack next month. I seem to have deleted my list of prompts while I was trying to free up space on Google before I chose to give them some money, so I don’t have to worry about being out of space anymore.

I should be searching the fine web to find some ideas, but I’m also tempted to look through some pas years to sample.

What can I do — I’ve been busy as hell trying to get a bunch of stuff finished by the end of the day tomorrow. I worked yesterday, even.

But I’m also occupying time watching what’s going on with politics. Not going to make any predictions about what happens in a few weeks, but I really don’t think I’ll be negatively surprised.

So I’m still taking ideas for next month. I wanted to have this all wrapped up by next weekend, but we’ll see.

Sunday Morning Musings

Not really ready for a new week at work, but whatever. I have things that I’m behind on to accomplish, and I think I can probably get pretty far on those.

But first a Sunday of football. Since the FormskinsCommanders won on Thursday, the TV games hwere in the Beltway swamp are largely focused on a really subpar Ravents team, and whatever the big national games are.

*shrug*

Still a considerable amount of the season left. Washington is going to be going back to the ODU product under center since Wentz broke a bone in his hand.

Some big candidates for the Crystal ChandelierChris Chandler, award recently.

Otherwise, it’s been a matter of trying to figure out what I need to do early next month, and over the end of the year.

Interspersed, there, too, is following events with the world and politics.

A group of Mises Caucus members calling themselves the Libertarian Part of Virginia invited me to some rubber chicken affair in Richmond in a few weeks to modify the party bylaws.

Problem is the party dissolved itself; it doesn’t exist, legally. How the fuck do you lobby to participate in electing politicians when you haven’t followed the basic rules?

Fuck you, nerd. RON PAUL 2008!!1!

Still trying to formulate a response to their very delayed response back to me. It can wait.

With their destructiontakeover, however, there’s been a notable silence from the NeoHippies in Alabamastan about what’s been happening in Iran for a month.

Yeah, tha’ts because Mossadeq! The JCPOA would have prevented all of that if Orange Man Bad hadn’t pulled the US out of it.

Or you take a look at Twitter or some of the MSM sites that have been covering it. (I’ve been getting most of my information from the BBC, though CNN at least has covered it a little. Not sure if the silence is as deafening as the silence from the LPMC folks, but….) Good hashtags if you want to search for yourself…#IranRevolution, and search around for Evin Prison to see the video and photos.

Okay. Time for some more coffee, and football.

Late

My schedule is all out-of-sorts. Four-day weekend is really strange.

But it’s been okay, I guess. I miss my wife. I miss our dog.

I’ve gotten a lot accomplished, but I’m definitely feeling end-of-dose fumes.

But tomorrow.

Am kind of following news, but all it seems to do is reinforce my skepticism about some of what I’d been consuming over the past couple of years.

There’s an interesting confluence of really stupid shit from the Cold War rebranding itself as Libertarianism and actual evidence of what’s happened. Predictions really have failed in so many instances, but if we move past those incorrect predictions, everybody will get to Valhalla. Or something.

Still on the to-do list:

Figure out L2TP setup for various VMs, sites, etc. on my personal stuff. Figure out what I want to write about next month. Figure out what the trip/next month look like.

But the weather’s getting cold, at least. I turned on the heat yesterday. Seems to be working.

That’s What You Get

Kind of slept in today, but woke up to a call to the spare phone I’ve been monitoring.

The big news overnight? The Libertarian Party’s official Twitter account got 0wner3d by some NFT peddler trying to hock weird fractal artwork.

Yes, the images look kinda neat, but the whole thing shows that the LP is run by amateurs.

Infosec procedures are fucking tedious a lot of the time. I will willingly admit that, but this is the sort of thing that happens when you’re staffed by complete amateurs.

The folks in Alabamastan are reaching out hard to Rep. Amash to get him not to peel off.

I still have reservations about him, but he’d be better than anyone the edgelord kids have been floating.

Whatever.

I live in a state without a chapter.

Why? Because paying attention to procedure is difficult, so we’re going to just do whatever we want; go fuck yourself.

But we’re not going to start from scratch. We’re just going to use what do what we want with what other people put together.

*resigned shrug*

I used to find myself most closely-aligned with the Libertarian Party. I can’t say that at this moment. Am I aligned with the Republicans or Democrats? No. But I think it’s possible that either of those parties will deliver the least bad candidate going forward.

Whatever. I live in Virginia, which has largely returned to being Blue just the way the Byrd Organization intended. I’ll vote in the Democratic primaries against the worst ones out there. It wasn’t hard for me to vote against Elizabeth Warren in 2020.

So, what else is up on this weird Hurricane Ian-remains weekend?

  1. Now that’ it’s October, I probably should figure out what I’m writing about next month. If anyone has any suggestions, I’m open, hoping to have the list close to finalized by about 10/28. I am looking forward to writing, now. Might be a bit of an odd month, because I’m locked in to be out of town for a substantial trip. We’ll see how that goes. Even though I’m thinking it’s pretty useless, I think I’m going to spend a significant amount of time when I’m down there working to pay my protection racket.
  2. i need to go do some stuff around the house. Writing, listening to podcasts, etc. is a kind of lame way to avoid addressing things. Get things done. But that can wait a few minutes.

So. Now that I’m on full charge for the phone, off to get on it.

Listen Without Prejudice

I summoned myself to listen to Angela McArdle on with Chrissie Mayr. That I’m summoning up a 1990s George Michael record title reveals my Generation X coming to the surface.

Take-aways:

  1. Shaking my head at the RONPAUL love. No. Even if you can make a bit of 9/11 being “blowback” per RONPAUL(pbuh) in 2004, it’s not the full explanation for everything. I haven’t written about it, here, but I was opposed to the Iraq operation until I heard Tony Blair make arguments for it to Parliament. I suppose the absolute adherence to this explains some of why people thought differently than I did about the Krystol-Horton debate last fall, but I still don’t think it’s correct. There are bad people who do bad shit without regard to US foreign policy. Whether the adherence to this position is out of willful disregard of evidence that doesn’t support the conclusion, or intentional avoidance of being exposed to that evidence is not for me to declare/declare. The invasion/occupation of Iraq was probably a mistake in retrospect. At the same time, you have to stipulate that there’s instances where it might have worked. Not everything the US has done has been with ill-intent. But you’re not supposed to even consider that.
  2. I could write more about the blind adherence to Austrian Economics, but I’m not sure that anyone would care about that. This is something that I haven’t fully worked-through; I admit that. I do agree with some of the things that Andrew Mellon did to deal with the Depression of 1920, but there’s not a single politician who’d take the sort of steps he did to address what was happening then. I mean, there aren’t any similarities. No global pandemic. No end of a big war that had diverted a bunch of resources. Nope. Wasn’t anything like that. (But, again, you have to willfully ignore the realities of “The Great War.” (I’m very much of the opinion, at this point, that government spending needs to be slashed, interest rates, and taxes need to be substantially-raised. So you hate the Federal Reserve. Great. Can the private market actually raise interest rates to above inflation? And it’s not just the Federal Reserve; it’s pretty much every central bank in the world. Every bank is printing too much money. Every government is spening way more than it should.)
  3. It might be unpleasant, but you are known by the company you keep. Folks in the Mises Caucus spend far too much time paying attention to what particularly-awful people. It’s not been long since I turned off, and withdrew my financial support, a host I’d listened to for a while who had on a 9/11 Troofer. I’ve said this, using Ron Paul as an example, he might sometimes speak to a questionable crowd, there is never a question about whether he, personally, shared the crazy extreme views. Know that everybody is watching, and act accordingly.
  4. Her take on what’s happening with The Libertarian Party of Virginia left me very disappointed. If they were alive, why is the website gone? Why have there been alternate social media accounts set up? No, it’s dead. If you’d, you know, paid attention to the law(s), maybe this wouldn’t been the case. But, no, we can just take over, and go fuck yourself if you don’t agree. Yeah, about that. I just got my absentee ballot in the mail, but I haven’t opened it. Virginia doesn’t have a Senate race this year, but I seriously doubt there’ll be anyone on the ballot other than the incumbent Democrat, and a Republican who’s got not chance at all. Whatever. (Being one of those hated “Beltway Libertarians, you’d find an excuse not to spend money here, anyway) You had your chance, and i hope you’re satisfied with what you got. I know, if we had an edgier message, the rich people around would totally get on board. Really?

So I’m tuned out. Enjoy, and do what Ron Paul did in 1992….and give us Andre Marrou.