Tag: updates

Fridaz Theme Music

Say, are we are the moors? Gloomy fog is dulling the morning’s edge. Tattered golden leaves brown, slumping and slipping, waiting for their day’s end. Today’s present, high, and low come in a compact range of 47, 53, and 40 degrees F. Without sunshine bursting through the windows, the house feels cold and listless. Here’s a photo of an early August morning in Yachats as counterbalance.

Mom’s continued improvement keeps reaching new heights. Frank’s death really shook her into a stumbling, falling, thoughtless wreck. I’m so happy sis noticed and moved her. Mom was ready to move by then, having experienced days of relative solitude and helplessness. One amusing sidebar to this whole tale. While I was over collecting papers and tidying, I came across a wooden box full of coins. Knowing Mom, I knew she’d be worried about it and took it to her. When I showed it to my sister, she said, “Yes, Mom was asking about her box of coins.” Sis cashed in it for almost $200. Cracked me up to see her still saving her coins like that. So Mom.

Mom & Frank, circa 20 years ago, Florida. She would have been ’bout 70, and he was ’bout 75.

The Neurons surprised me today with a beat from my early rock ‘n roll years. Looking out into the fog brought “Into the Sun” by Grand Funk Railroad into the morning mental music stream. With its simple progressions, you can see why it was one of the first songs I learned to decently play. Video of this early rock and its style fires up The Neurons. It’s an upbeat song, too, about better days ahead.

Ate oatmeal today, and apple sauce and tapioca pudding last night. Progress!

I have been reading about politics and news. Many disturbing trends continue under the Trump Regime. The economy and voters are both reacting in negative ways. Trump will probably double down and get crueler. He thinks he’s inflicting severe damage on blue voters and believes that red voters will endure despite their sacrifices and hang with him. I think that base is smaller and weaker than he realizes. Affordability, not inflation and not prices, are the new watchwords, and affordability is falling fast. Meanwhile, the Epstein Shutdown slogs on, now doing far more harm than good. Coupled with the pressures that AI is putting on the infrastructure, especially the power grid, and the job market — see the record layoffs reported by Challenger — disaster is looming. We are circling the Trump drain. I know I’ve been saying that since the beginning. It’s not been as fast as I thought it would be; part of that was that some countries and stores were offsetting tariff increases by sucking them up. That was never sustainable. Nothing I see emerging from this current mess changes my mind. One key that Trump and his Project 2025 minions don’t appreciate is the economic workhorse that the Federal government is. As it slows, it casts a shadow across the nation. With air travel now also impacted, airlines will see less revenue, pay less taxes, and might be forced to reduce staffs.

Smirking BFFs, J. Epstein and D.J. Trump, so happy together.

The bogus Walmart comparison about Thanksgiving for 2024 compared to 2025 does nothing. Critical thinkers already noted that there were far fewer items in the cart. Yes, classic Trump Republicanism: do more, spend more, and get less value for your dollar. Classic enshittification. I note that the red publications reported Trump’s claim almost verbatim. No critical thinker there, or the falsehoods will be on full display.

I saw that Fox News’s selection of Melania Trump as the ‘Patriot of the Year’. Sure demonstrates their cynicism. By the words and deeds, they so devalue patriotism that it’s now a full joke. Sadly, MAGA will probably not see how the joke is on them.

This was what the first criminal said when accepting the award.

“Let’s embrace the spirit of ambition. Let’s celebrate everyone who dares to think differently. For it is these courageous Americans who are the heartbeat of our civilization.”

It’d be ironic if she and Trump and MAGAland had any self-awareness that she’s ‘celebrating everyone who dares to think differently’ while the Trump Regime works so hard to whitewash all history and success and cancel anyone who was or is different, such as blacks, Muslims, women, gays, trans…well, you get it.

Have the best day you can. Many peace and grace will do a pop in on you. Off to my first cuppa coffee in a few. Cheers

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Wednesday’s Wandering Thought

Microsoft updated his computer. He supposed it was a good thing. Needed to repair security holes, misfiring features, and add new stuff.

Took so long, though. Bricked his computer for almost half an hour. He watched as it went through the process, shut down, and then started again.

Nothing worked after he logged in but the task manager said the machine was busy. He rebooted.

Everything came up. Now the experience would really go live. What would be broken, moved, added, relocated?

Updates were usually a trying experience. It was really just more first world blues, though.

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Thursday’s Theme Music

Hey, all you sons and daughter, mothers and fathers out in cyberland, how is your world?

Today is Thursday, October 14, 2021. It’s the third Thursday of the month, out of five. Likewise, we have five Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays in October. Must make Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday feel lame, to have less than the others.

Sunrise is at 7:22 AM. It’s a good one, exuding a strong sun presence – you know, light and heat. Really brings out the reds, gods, greens, yellows, and oranges in our valley, a large change from yesterday morning, which looked like a set for Wuthering Heights. Our temperature ranges from 39 to 56F today with a stop at 44, where we now sit. Sunset will come at 6:30 PM.

I have a PC computer, and use Microsoft Windows. Which means it was time for another security update yesterday. Which makes things different. It’s humorous and odd. On WordPress, for example, I have a different default font this morning. I made no changes; the computer powers did this for me. The spacing and size are different, too. I’ll just go with the flow on this because it’s workable. Nonetheless, it’s a shade annoying when these things are changed for me.

Which brings me to the music. “Heartless” by Heart — ironic? — is playing in the morning mental music stream. The clue for why is in the lyrics. “Never never out of control.” Because I’m not in control. Not of my ‘puter. You see? The mind just played with those ideas and up bubbled the 1978 song by Heart. Well, it’s a good throwback sound, a little hard rock with some pop nuance.

Stay positive, test negative, wear thy mask as need be, get thee the vax when and if you can. I know it’s not all simple on the vax front. Underlying conditions and meds can be game changers in the vax world. My sympathies if you can’t get it for those reasons. The world must be a terrifying place, to have COVID-19 out there raging, a vax available, and you not able to get it because of your health.

Here’s the music. Listen while I go for coffee. I think there is also one last pumpkin spice muffin in there. I call dibs!

Cheers

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March Monday Madness

  1. Thinking of the post’s title brings back memories and a smile. Pre-pandemic, I used to regularly visit a coffee shop. I usually ordered mochas there. So, it was Michael’s mocha. Going with the alliteration scheme, Michal’s Mocha sometimes became Michael’s March Madness Monday Mocha. It also took place in May. Just harmless fun, banter between me and the ‘ristas.
  2. The skunk under the house was active last night. Lots of squeaking under the master bath and then arose that smell. We admire this skunk for her persistence and tenacity. She’s like a writer, never giving up, you know?
  3. I shut down the skunk’s activity last night — well, it was this morning, really, one twenty-five AM by all the standard references — with the iPad. Turning it on, I called up a video of David Frost interviews. Setting the iPad on the bathroom floor with the volume turned up, I plugged it in so it wouldn’t run out of juice, and closed the door. As soon as David Frost began speaking, the squeaking ceased.
  4. Just to make home life more interesting, we now have what seems to be a gopher hole in the back yard. Investigations are ongoing. More reports forthcoming. We’re a no-kill household, so I’ll probably be turning to sonic stakes to drive them away.
  5. I’m always fearful of calling down the muses’ wrath when I mention that writing is going well, that I’m enjoying the process and entertaining myself with what I write, so I won’t mention it.
  6. I really enjoyed the 60Minutes interview with Colson Whitehead that aired Sunday. First novel rejected twenty-five times and never published. He writes for himself but hopes that one person will identify with and like what he writes, and maybe one will become ten, etc. That’s me paraphrasing, based on what I heard, and perhaps what I wanted to take away from his outlook. He’s won two Pulitzer Prizes, which, great, congratulations to him. More importantly, those two books are in the house in my reading pile. My wife read both and recommend them to me. I seriously trust and respect her judgment in these matters. So, I’ll put those books higher on the pile.
  7. The reading pile is always growing, it seems. Books get recommended or passed on. Reviews are read and chords are struck. Friends publish new books and must be read. A new favorite author is discovered and other works are hunted down for reading. Then, there’s the non-fiction side. Reading is a constant requirement. I’m fortunate to have the time to indulge myself.
  8. I was reading in the living room yesterday afternoon. The book at hand was Countdown City by Ben Winters. It’s a quick, engaging noir adventure. Sunshine bubbled in over my shoulders through the blinds. Sitting, listening, in a pause from reading, I heard no electronics running. No lights were on. The furnace and refrigerator were silent. Radios and television were off, though clocks are running. The home weather station was running, and so was the net and laptops and the associated equipment. But none of these things made sounds. I enjoyed the sunny stillness.
  9. Thinking of clocks…four ‘clocks’ are in the house. Two are in the kitchen, in the microwave and range. Another is in the bedroom. The fourth is a battery operated clock in the snug. But then, we wear Fitbits, which offer us the time. So do the phones, the thermostat, and laptops, printer, and tablets. We track time everywhere.
  10. I’m fussy about synchronizing the clocks, too. I think, or at least, pretend, that it harkens back to my military career. Being synchronized to the second was important to us in that life.
  11. Also to keep life interesting — because these are such boring, tedious times — credit card fraud struck us. I was reviewing my credit card billing last week. It’s a weekly habit for me to go online and review all the finances, a time-killing activity to fill space when I’m putting off doing something else. It just takes a few minutes. Well, lo’, there was a small charge that I didn’t recognize. After verifying it didn’t belong to my wife, I challenged it with the company. They responded by cancelling that card and sending me a new one. However, they didn’t tell me that they were doing that. First I know of it was when the credit card was rejected. That spun me up fast. Suspecting it was related to the fraud that I reported, I checked into the account to look for notice that such is what happened. No notice. A chat with an agent was required to verify cause and effect. It would have been nice to be warned or notified that they’d done this, right? Irritating customer service policy, to say the least.
  12. We have only two credit card accounts. Each is used for certain activities, to help limit exposure. That meant, though, that we are down one credit card. Momentarily, yes, but it’s a domino effect. Emails arrive, hey, your card was rejected, what up? No idea when the new card will arrive so some activities are on stuck in a queue. Whereas I had reduced checking the mail to once a week in general, sometimes twice in one week, I’ll now be going to the mailbox daily.
  13. Also, I knew that credit card information. I could rattle off the number, expiration date, and security code without hesitation. Now I’m forced to learn a new number and particulars. Yeah, I like whining, don’t I?
  14. Got my coffee. Ready to write like crazy at least one more time.
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Moving Targets

Quick updates on the writing and submitting fronts.

  1. I’d originally hoped to complete It Begins by January 15th. I’d begun it on November first. Writing had progressed to the point that I really thought I had a chance to finish it by the end of 2019. Now, though, I think it’s more realistic to believe that I’ll finish it by the end of January. Fingers crossed.
  2. More dismaying, I had a target of three hundred pages for the first draft. I’m on page 292, and I can see that it’ll be more than three hundred pages. I’m hopeful that I’ll finish it with less than three hundred fifty pages. I can then edit it down.
  3. I responded to the agents who requested more material on the last novel, April Showers 1921. After I finished editing it in October, I’d submitted it to agents. I’ve had some response but, knowing how long it is before one says yes or no, I decided to submit to more agents. I kicked it out to ten more. I have good feelings about several of the agents, but I tend to be an optimist.

Those are the main things. For background, the completion target of January 15th was simply a spur of the moment decision, a whim to provide focus, grab my attention, and stimulate my discipline. It seems to be working.

The page count was a more practical matter. I tend to write long books (or books that turn into a series of books). April Showers 1921 is six hundred pages and one hundred eighty thousand words. Incomplete States, the series that I completed at the end of 2018, is five novels and four hundred twenty-eight thousand words. I felt like I needed to write something smaller.

It was another excellent day of writing like crazy. Let me give credit to the muses; I couldn’t do it without them.

About the only detail that marred it was that I had to work at a counter in the coffee shop, sitting on a stool. I don’t like sitting on stools. Nothing personal against stools, but I can’t get comfortable on them. Due to that, I ended up standing for most of the writing session. Now my dogs are barking (an expression that I’ve always enjoyed).

Time to call it a day. One, there are other things to do. Two, the coffee cup is empty. Three, I’m very hungry.

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