Tag: Information

Flooftet

Flooftet (floofinition) – Small group of animals of different species, sizes, and ages. A flooftet is considered more than two but less than nine. Origins: Internet, circa 2015.

In Use: “When Maria entered the living room, she discovered a flooftet looking at her. The bird and rabbit seemed floofchalant, but the cats and dogs wore guilty expressions, as if she’d caught them plotting.”

In Use: “Movies about flooftets, such as Homeward Bound: the Incredible Journey from 1993, often attract audiences who enjoy warm and humorous adventure romps starring animals.”

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Monday’s Theme Music

Mood: darkcoffeefresh

I was hoping for a sunny day outside my window. But it’s raining again. And there ain’t no sunshine.

It’s October’s final Monday. The month’s 28th day. Still 2024 for just over two more months.

Rain keeps a light, steady background staccato to the morning rituals. Clouds from mountain to mountain rule outside my window. Mountain tops wear gothic lighting as they fade behind sullen gray moisture-bearing behemoths. While it’s 42 F now, it feels like 48 F, which is the day’s hopeful high. This is this week’s weather prototype.

The cats send mixed signals about the season’s new weather setup. Papi the ginger blade goes out and endures on the covered patio in his carpeted condo. Tucker (pronounced Tuck-ah) goes out for a test and nixes an extended stay, arthritically humping back into house’s warm offerings. Eventually Papi will beat on the door and return inside and then head to a sleeping position to pass the day. That’s become his new pattern.

Fun fact: on this day in 1886, the Statue of Liberty was unveiled. Yeah, I didn’t know; just saw it in my feed.

Another fun fact to offer: crowds didn’t stay for Trump’s speech last week in PA. The article also states, “He bizarrely walked out on stage to the Undertaker’s WWE funeral theme music, while wearing a black hat and coat.”

Yep, just the weird guy to be the POTUS.

He also lamented poor Abe Lincoln’s loss of Ted during Lincoln’s presidency. Ted: the forgotten Lincoln boy. His supporters of course, insisted that we give him a break, because he was close enough to knowing that it was Willie who died while Lincoln was in the White House.

That’s his supporters’ style: give him a break for being ‘close enough’ to things. Meanwhile, they demand perfection of Kamala Harris. Hypocrisy’s stench covers the GOP.

The Neurons are feeding me Pink Floyd as the gray light floods and stills over the day. They have “Brain Damage/Eclipse” looping the morning mental music stream (Trademark cut). I’ve always had a fondness for these songs, the first about the lunatic, the second about everything under the sun.

[Verse: Roger Waters]
All that you touch
And all that you see
All that you taste
All you feel
And all that you loved
And all that you hate
All you distrust
All you save
And all that you give (All you give)
And all that you deal (Woah)
And all that you buy
Beg, borrow, or steal (Hey-hey)
And all you create
And all you destroy (Woah)
And all that you do
And all that you say (Hey, yeah)
And all that you eat
And everyone you meet (Everyone you meet)
And all that you slight
And everyone you fight (Ho-ho-ho)
And all that is now
And all that is gone
And all that’s to come
And everything under the sun is in tune (Everything)
But the sun is eclipsed by the moon

h/t to Genius.com

They do go hand in hand with thoughts of Trump these days. He’s always talking up hating, enemies, and destroying, along with everyone he meets, while we speak of all that he begs, borrows, and steals. He’s the con of the deal, the madman on the stage, offering trinkets to support him, riffing on fake history, making vainglorious claims. Really, though, the enemy within is the enemy in his head.

The cats are in and my coffee is snuggling into my body’s systems. Be strong, remain positive, and vote blue. My wife dropped off our votes at the ballot box this morning. Here’s the music.

Cheers

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Sunday’s Wandering Thoughts

Spent part of yesterday & today answering friends’ call for help.

Short story: someone was on the net and was duped into some ‘click here’ bait. A warning sprang up with an number and a directive: call here for help. Social engineering took over after that.

Sometime in the course of being fleeced, the user awoke to something nefarious happening and shut it down. The resulting question was: how bad was it?

He called his daughter and SIL in LA for help. They enlisted my assistance as hands and eyes on the infected machine. I picked it up, did some top level examination of what’d been downloaded, installed, and accessed. Worse culprit was the Supremo app. That’s an app that let’s others remotely access and control the machine. Downloaded but never installed, I trashed that thing.

Then I set it up so that the SIL had remote access by installing an IT app that he requested I install. He sorted through files to confirm nothing had been seriously compromised. Some banking log in information had been compromised. Fortunately, the new location wasn’t recognized and the log in was challenged and denied. That two-factor authentication paid off.

Bottom line: fresh and clever scams are out there. While others have tricked people with banking issues or special offers, this friend was tricked into clicking on an offer to see what new childhood classmates had been found. On my end, I was tricked through a offer for flowrs for Mom’s birthday.

With so many scams hitting us, remember to be careful out there.

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HOF: Human Opportunity Floof

HOF: Human Opportunity Floof (floofintion) – An animal who enjoys any and all people they encounter or will beg for treats and/or attention from any person they met. Origins: Internet, first noted use in 1999.

In Use: “Quinn of the blackfoot clan, with his long silky fur and sweet face, was a true HOF, eagerly greeting people who passed by his house, letting them shower him with scratches, compliments, and back strokes.”

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Friday’s Theme Music

Mood: Freshcoffeesion

Oh, it’s Friday. October 25, 2024.

Fall is bracketing our valley. Clouds sprawl across the sky at different altitudes. Several cloud styles are in evidence, and they wear fifty shades of gray and blue. Sunlight finds cracks and rushes down in bold pools of bright light but the air is chilly. 62 with a sullen wind, we expect 72 to define today’s high temperature.

Empty Bowls to raise money for our local food banks is tonight. My wife is busy setting creating the centerpieces for the tables. I used to be involved with it, but she gently moved me aside and replaced me with Barb. Barb just celebrated her 96 birthday, but she loves making centerpieces. It all works out.

I have daughters in my mind today. First my current novel in progress deals with mothers and daughters. And sisters. Those are important and complex aspects of the story told. Second, I have four sisters, and several of them deal with Mom as my proxy. Mom can be challenging and often frustrates my sisters. Frustrates me, too, but my sisters reach out to me to vent.

Third, I have another friend who was talking about her daughter. Her daughter irritates and annoys her; they clash in multiple arenas of thoughts. It surprises me. I know both women. They’re intelligent and good-humored individuals. Yet, they exasperate each other. I struggle to understand how and why that happens. But I’ve witnessed their interactions. Just an oil and water thing.

Thinking of daughters prompted Der Neurons to fire up Pearl Jam’s 1993 song, “Daughter”, in the morning mental music stream (Trademark streaming). It’s a song about a misunderstood child. It’s ending refrain is “The shades go down”, which reinforces the idea that something is going on that is hidden from the rest of us. The song always hooks my thoughts about the things which happen to children.

On that cheery high, I’ll press on to find my way through another day. Coffee has come onboard my effort and will help guide my energies. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue. Here’s the music video.

Cheers

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Friday’s Wandering Thoughts

I had a medical appointment the other day. Met with a PA about my upcoming surgery. We had a good time with the young guy. My wife had helped host a birthday party for her Y exercise class instructor and brought home some goodies, so we were on a sugar high, cracking jokes at him. He, for his part, confessed that he wanted another cup of coffee and shared a story about how he’d once unwittingly consumed the ‘half caf’ that his parents brew.

Part of the directions to me for my appointment was to bring all my medications.

I ignored that directive. My PCP is with Asante; my surgeon is independent but working with me through Providence. Both use Mychart to track me and communicate. My medical prescriptions are in those records.

I’ll tell you, I like Mychart. I go in there whenever I want to check on my history or look at what’s upcoming. It’s a significant improvement on filing a billion pieces of paperwork like we used to do in the military.

Number two with not taking my meds with me, I’d filled out a paper questionnaire at my first appointment. That’s what folks call a ‘hard copy’. I was required to list my medications on it.

I figured my meds were pretty covered. If their systems were having trouble tracking them, we have much larger problems, Hal.

Of course, my med list contains two items: Flomax and Amlodipine. Many men over fifty are on Flomax for prostate gland issues. That includes me. People experiencing hypertension are often prescribed Amlodipine, and I fall in that Venn diagram.

I know of patients who have a complex array of prescriptions. Like Mom. Even after helping her sort her medicines, pain killers, and aids several times, I don’t know how many she has. I’d guess over twenty. They help with her pain, breathing, sleeping, bowel movements, lungs, heart, digestion, blood circulation, side effects of the drugs, and side effects of the side effects of the drugs. She’s in network but it’s a couple networks.

If you’re seriously developing us bots and AI, I think a smart app to help track drugs for people and the healthcare industry needs a hand.

I suspect this medication business is going to get increasingly complex. We’ll need whatever help we can to manage it. I know Mom would certainly appreciate a bot that tracks her pills and tells her when to take what. Given the potential for mixing drugs that don’t get along, I’d like that for her, too.

One thing about my appointment the other day that I noticed was that my PA never brought up my information on the terminal in the examining room, and he barely glanced at the stuff I’d filled out. Nope, instead, he had a small fan of paperwork that he consulted.

The change from paper to computer is underway but it’s gonna be a long haul.

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Friday’s Political Thoughts

A friend sent me this via Messenger.

“I were just talking to another girl at the Y who also supports Kamala and was saying that her brother who lives in Florida is a Republican and got hit by the hurricane and seemed like he was very stressed out so she sent him a couple of linksfor help I guess and he told her to take her crap and burn in hell.”

Reviewing Trump’s long yet growing destructive path, he’s inflicted several deep gashes. With his lies and seeds of hate, he’s made it okay to be hateful, racist, and sexist. Anyone outside of the MAGA circles of delusion are aware of this.

But he turned Americans sharply against one another. Republicans and Democrats could and can always be distrustful and suspicious of one another. But we were usually able to work together. Certainly we came together in times of disasater and need.

Trump has maligned that ability away. He’s introduced an element of deep distrust and outright hostility. He’s made it okay to not only distrust and even hate our Federal government, but to actively attack it as if it was the enemy.

Trump has turned Democrats and Liberals into ‘an enemy’. He frequently employs belllicose tones and theater to declare how Democrats and Liberals ‘hate our country’. Evidence is not offered but the relentless repetition has taken hold.

He declares, if people are not for him, they are the enemy and must be fought. Embedded in his targets of hate are anyone who doesn’t think, act, and look like him. Anyon who doesn’t kowtow to him and worship him as wonderful and great. He picked up that many people struggle to understand transsexuals, pansexuals, and gender and sex issues, and used that as an attack wedge to unite his base in hate.

Beyond what he’s done to women’s rights as a champion of anti-abortion, beyond what he’s done with making lying acceptable, beyond what he’s done to treat others as enemies, he has amplified our differences and declared that these people who are different are dangerous.

This is what makes him most dangerous. His lasting impact on our nation, regardless of the 2024 election results, is the great divide he has created in America in service of his greed and ego. That will take generations to mend. It can only be mended with education, exposure to one another, and trust.

The actions that he’s pledged to understake make it clear that he doesn’t want that divide mended. And the GOP that serves him agree.

This is why he — why they — must be stopped.

Vote blue.

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Thursday’s Wandering Thoughts

I witnessed a coffee house conversation that threatened to escalate into violence.

It was a mildly busy day as people gathered and socialized with pleasant autumn weather outside. Many were bent over phones, laptops, or notebooks.

One table hosted an octet of chatting women not far from me. Their age hovered around my own, which is to say sixty to seventy-five years young. They were mostly laughing and talking about books. Somehow their conversation rolled into the important question everyone wants to know, “How much paste should you put on your toothbrush?”

I haven’t read any books on the subject, and I didn’t study it in school, but I agreed with one brunette woman. She said, “Oh, I read that you just need a dab. Especially with an electric toothbrush.”

“No, no, no,” a red-haired woman erupted. “That is wrong. You need to cover the bristles from end to end with paste.”

Coffee shop conversations dropped off a cliff. Focus went to the table of women.

Other women at the table started disagreeing with paste woman. You’d think they were assaulting her grand toddler from her reaction. Voice rising into a screech, she declared, “No! No!” It was like she was channeling Khruschev addressing the United Nations. “The paste must be on all of the bristles! Anything else is wrong!”

I expected a duel to erupt. Pistols at twenty feet on the sunlit sidewalk outside.

Maybe she’d had too much caffeine. Maybe she didn’t have enough. The other women, wide-eyed with alarm, were backing down fast, trying to placate the redhead before she whipped out a sword to defend her toothpaste position.

Thank God they weren’t discussing politics.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Mood: Weathwonderizing

Today is Thursday, October 24, 2024. This kicks off October’s final week. Just seven days remain until November is asserted. Once November kicks on, it’ll be a ride. Time change in America, election in America, Thanksgiving in America…then the December holidays in America. Sorry to give the rest of the world short attention. That’s not my intention. It’s only that I expect November to be intense in the U.S. for multiple reasons.

Peering out the window, fog twirled and swirled, stealing in and out of the scene. But brave sunshine soon burst onto the scene.

With the fog, we were creeping through the low thirties. Sunshine kicked in and managed to kick the fog out and prop up a vividly blue sky. Now we’re romping through the forties, racing toward a high in the low 60s. This is autumn for sure but winter is slanting in.

Eyeing the fog’s weave around the trees, houses, and accoutrements of modern urban life brought up Foghat. Just apparently how my brain works. Soon “Fool for the City” rose in the morning mental music stream.

But as I watched, I rejected the song. Just didn’t feel right for the moment. The fog keep shifting, slinking in and sneaking out, coiling around trees and releasing. I kept judging the visibility. Now I could see further away…ah, but it’s back in and I can only see the houses and trees directly across the street.

From that litany of thought arose “What A Wonderful World.” The 1967 recording released by Louis Armstrong was the first, and it’s hard to top. But a while back, I heard a version by Chris Botti with Mark Knopfler. It was used at the end of an episode of the television series, “Bosch.” It struck me and I went off to hear it again on the net.

Besides Armstrong and Botti’s version, Willy Nelson’s soulful rendition and Joey’s Ramone heartfelt fast paced rock version captivated me. It’s hard to go wrong with the song’s words and the sentiments, if you like that sort of thing.

It is a wonderful world. I worry about humans screwing it up. We adjust it to our needs. Sometimes we’re pretty damn cruel and arrogant. I always have mixed conclusions about us exploring other worlds for that reason. I want the technological achievement, and I want to satisfy the intellectual curiosity of what else exists beyond this planet. But I don’t want us to ruin the other places. It remains a conundrum.

Coffee has invaded my body in a benign takeover. Stay positive, be strong, and vote blue. Here’s the music, friends and neighbors. Cheers

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