I broke out the old drawing tablet, fired up Photoshop, and just let my imagination fly. This happens with a single model and about 12 filters.

New year, good or bad?

OK, so the night did not go as I planned. These things happen. I worked as hard as I could, got to my limit, and headed home first thing in the morning. I took the time to create a new piece of artwork and gather my thoughts for the year. So, to start the year off properly, here come the little boxes. There has been a smattering of these through the previous year, but I figured I would take the time to update everything.

Got some stuff done.

I visited the new doctor's office to make an appointment, and they immediately saw me. I sat down and talked with the doctor about the changes in my medication from the previous visit, and he disagreed with the physician's assistant. We discussed some of the ongoing issues, and I was taken aback by the fact that he offered the same resolutions as the previous doctor. I cannot help but wonder if this is a male-chauvinistic thing that is shared among doctors. But I got the medication straightened out, and they should be available at Walmart in the next day or two, so I can get that taken care of. I have one more day to run for the week, and I will be done.

Some time down.

When I got off and hit the house, I was low on energy and tired as hell. I still took the time to hit Costco and set up my account and then hit four of the Gyms on the new deal. The only one that I did not join was Crunch because it was quite a bit of a meat-market. I got set up with ATC, LA Fitness, and Planet Fitness. Each one has something to offer. I am set up with a fitness consult tomorrow with LA Fitness, so that should be interesting. I am curious to see how I fare in a professional environment.

Now for something completely SUCKY.

So, I started out rough and it went downhill from there. I did excellent at the LA Fitness evaluation, but when I got back to the house to do the tire on the Spark, the world collapsed. I patched two holes and it was still leaking. I found a small screwdriver wedged between the rubber and the metal in the bead. So I had to take that to Firestone. Thankfully, it was covered by the road-hazard warranty. That adventure took over four hours. And then came the BAD news...the really bad news. Last year, I took Ancient Pathway and Triumph Media offline. They sat while I rebuilt CWKlein.com. The intent was to forward the two sites to the new site. I have had these two for over two decades. And somehow, I forgot to renew them. So, I have lost the foundation of two companies that were founded in 1989. It tossed me into a spiral of depression and I have a feeling it is going to last for a while. The problem is that it is compounded with some serious physical distress of a private matter that I have absolutely no way to resolve and that is potentially going to feed the depression. Not a good thing. It may be an interesting week, or couple of weeks, depending on how things play out.

Feeling not well.

At the present time, I am facing some physical ailments and it is impeding my ability to get anything done. I can barely stand up and walk across the room right now, and mentally I am feeling off kilter. I'm trying to deal with it, but it is taking a lot of energy. I spent the day trying to meditate, to no avail. I have a feeling it's going to be an endless week. I made it up to Walmart and got some Chinese food for dinner, and i watched a movie. I caught up all my emails and caught up the blog. But I did not get the webcast completed. That is going to haunt me.

Still feeling off.

The day at work took forever to pass, and when I got home, I still did not feel very well, so I spent some family time with the family and did my best to relax. It is going to be a long week, and people are already freaking out about the potential for snow on Friday. It is putting everybody on edge.

Being Tested.

It is quite possible that the universe is testing me to see what I can handle. I am pushing through the day, and it is not the most significant work day, but it got worse on the home front. I was exhausted when I hit the house, and the wife told me that the check engine light had come on in the Spark. I pushed through the tiredness and took the car down to AutoZone to have the engine diagnosed. It is a failing intake manifold gasket. That is not the worst thing that could happen, but it is nowhere near the top 10 things I want to fix. There is a minor chance that it is simply the cold making the manifold gasket retract, and then it will get better when the engine gets some severe heat on it, but it's something that will have to be addressed sooner or later. They take a couple of hours and a lot of money to repair.

By the time I got home a second time, it was time to relax, and I did just that. Tomorrow is another day, and with the snow coming in this weekend, people are starting to freak out. I do not see it getting any better anytime soon, so we are just going to have to deal with it. My muscles are still tight, and I really need to get down to the gym, but I don't know when that's going to happen right now.

I hate being moody.

Being Moody is complicated, even though I have dealt with it most of my life. I am used to the pendulum swinging back and forth between two extremes, but it seems to be stuck on the negative side of the line right now. There is no real cause that I can find, and that makes me think that the issue may be hormonal. After all, I am getting old. I may joke about it occasionally, but it is a relative fact.

No personal time.

Because of the collision, I had to take a significant amount of personal time once I got off of work to take care of the issues that had been created by that accident. This left me very little in the way of personal time, and it has put me behind for the week. Quite annoying.

I am just playing around with some new filters and my drawing tablet.

Use time well.

When I get free time, I try to use it well. That did not happen today because I was very stressed from driving in the snow all day, so I put on some music in the background, and I fired up Photoshop. I have absolutely no idea what made me do a cat, but I like the way it came out. I tried to relax, but that was not in the cards. I think that I have a bit of a cold, and that is no fun at all.

Relax dude.

It is very strange to work on Saturday and have Sunday off, but I think I'm going to be able to adjust to it. When I got home, the ladies moved the Christmas things into the attic, and Laura was trying some new recipes. This week, she tried to make hamburger buns, which came out excellent. Today, she tried to make hot dog buns to go with the Bratwurst, and they beat the hamburger buns, hands down. I am curious to see how long they will hold. We also got together and played a new game called Tapple, and it was a lot of fun. The only problem is that I am not feeling well and I think I have a bit of a cold. It is high in my sinuses and quite uncomfortable.

I am just twiddling around with some of the new assets for my 3D software and my tablet.

Wasted days.

I have sinus pressure, and that is making me kind of Moody. Of course, that is on top of the typical mood: the pendulum swinging back and forth. That is no fun at all. I had lofty goals for today but did not come to be. I took the time to cook the ribs, which came out excellent. I also checked the tire on the Kia. But other than that, I sat with the novel and stared into space. This is a highly wasted day, but I will try to own that and move past it. I just had no drive to get anything done. I could not contemplate, and I could not meditate. Yoga failed me, and all attempts at exercise were met by stabbing pains in the forehead from the sinus pressure. I finally called it a day and just sat and stared. Tomorrow is another day.

No, seriously, Rough!

I was out the door early this morning, so I had little time to take care of personal stuff. I did my yoga, exercise, and meditation, but that was about it. I took a small break in the middle of the day to nap, but it did not help with my headache. By the time I got home, the light sensitivity was off the scope, and I felt like there were tiny gnomes trying to mine for brains inside my skull. I ate some leftover ribs and barely remember heading off to bed. Hopefully, tomorrow will be a better day.

Off, but okay

I pushed through the day the best that I could, and when I hit home, I stared at a wall while I ate dinner. Then, it was time to climb into bed and hope this headache and the sniffles disappear.

The attack of AI

The workday was very frustrating, and when I got home, I felt very antsy and could not go to bed. So I watched a show on Dailymotion. This is the second show that I have watched on this platform, and I see what I consider an unhealthy trend. Late in the 19th century, a fiction genre was called Pulp Fiction. It was named this primarily because of the type of paper used for these fictional works. This genre lasted up until the 1950s and was mostly quickly written mass fiction of questionable quality. The characters were highly shallow and poorly developed and the storylines were repetitive and often nonsensical. Pulp Fiction has intruded into many types of writing, including science fiction, crime drama, and even some comedy. Even though they were fascinating, they offered little to the reader other than the ability to waste time.

With the emergence of artificial intelligence, the technology has been used to write screenplays. These are available as short reels on platforms such as Dailymotion. The acting is questionable, the storyline is highly predictable, in the plot is like Swiss cheese. One of the ways that you can identify this is that the characters, even with their limited development, do not act in a way that any reasonable human being would act. Please don't get me wrong, I use artificial intelligence in my writing. But I do not use it to write my story or come up with my plot. I use Pro Writing Aid and Grammarly, Which are both classified as artificial intelligence. I use them to check my grammar and spelling, and once in a while, I will allow them to rewrite a paragraph if I do not feel that the flow is correct. But that is rare. The fact that they are writing screenplays and, in some cases, novels using artificial intelligence is disturbing. A friend has churned out six novels in under six months. I read the first one and it reads like Pulp Fiction. While this might be OK if you are trying to turn a quick dollar, it is not going to turn you into a Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, or William Shakespeare.

Still under the weather

I have been rocking one hell of a headache for about 5 days. I am not concerned with this because it is a sinus headache. I can tell this because of the location and the fact that antihistamines will temporarily beat it into submission. With some luck, the headache will resolve as we head into the weekend, and I will have a decent weekend. I have shifted my work schedule to work Saturday instead of Sunday, and I hope to have better luck. Since I got home late this evening, I hit the house, ate dinner, and jumped into bed.

Do you think that this image reflects the potential for fear and rage?

On the upswing

I am feeling much better today than I have been, and I even got to work early. Therefore, I got off work early and got home to relax. For this entire week, I have been unable to do my daily exercises, yoga, and meditation. This is detrimental. When I got home this afternoon, I tried to meditate but failed miserably. So, I switched my thinking and fired up my 3D software in Photoshop. I am trying to put into an image what people have been talking about all week. As a matter of course and professionalism, there are specific topics that I avoid in conversation when I am driving. These include things like religion and politics. This week, I was unable to avoid politics. With the pending inauguration of Donald J. Trump, this is something that people want to discuss. Out of 70 rides this week, the topic has come up more than 50 times, even on the short rides. When I am asked for my opinion, I can sidestep the question. But that does not stop people from stating their views. When you consider that more than 50% of the American people supposedly voted for this man, that at least 30 people who wanted to discuss the issue are facing, for a lack of a better emotional explanation, fear, and rage. I tried to put that into a piece of art; that was how I spent the evening before I wandered off to bed. If you want my opinions on these types of things, I will do my best to get the webcast submitted this weekend. I have many topics to discuss, including my exodus from US Xpress, but the state of the union will be a significant topic for a while. I will post the link here when I get it up and running.

Time to relax

Since I did about 1/2 a day's work, 6 hours, I came home and relaxed. It was nice and warm out, or so I thought, so I vacuumed out the car. Halfway through this task, I had to wear a hat and gloves because it was not nearly as warm as I thought. Tomorrow, I want to see if I can find a car wash to run the car through. It needs it. I also have to change the oil tomorrow morning, so I can do it all at the same time. At least in theory.

Once I finished with the car, my wife and daughter returned from their journey around the area, and they had all kinds of stuff. The wife made a killing and gets some new clothes, and the daughter got more stuff for her artistic creations. They also brought home fast food from Wendy's. I have not been in the mood for fast food, but it hit the spot. Even though I must admit, they are getting skimpy on the baconator fries. Hopefully, this is just a negative trend, and things will return to normal. I tuned up my guitar and got my list together for tomorrow. I have two lists, and they are both very long. I poured myself into bed early, hoping for a good night's sleep and waking up in a positive mood for a change. I am very tired of being on the wrong side of the pendulum. With a little bit of luck, I will wake up in a good mood, and I will get a lot of things done. One of the most important things I must do is figure out a schedule for getting to the gyms.

I continue to experiment with the different aspects of the 3D software and Photoshop. The look I was going for here is a character hurting inside but attempting to hide it from the world. She fights a daily battle and is losing, but she will not give the world the satisfaction of seeing that, even though some of it breaks through.

Go go...rest... Go go.

I started the day with an extensive double list and did pretty well at pushing through quite a bit. Most of the day I watched the temperature drop. When I went to Firestone first thing in the morning, it was actually snowing. The sky was Gray and overcast, looming like some Sentinel waiting to pounce. But that passed by quickly and it just became bitter cold. So I busted into my lists.

The usual list was easy enough, and I could update my three-dimensional software, Adobe, and other programs I use weekly. I cleaned out the air fryer, but it is already a mess again, and I will have to clean it out shortly. I took care of the Kia and worked on my file system. I even printed a 3D model to hold my USB keys. But that is for a project I am working on now and will probably take until the end of the year. Fun times.

The secondary list was a little more interesting. It started with the guitar, the violin, and the saxophone. I cleaned and tuned them all. I still have a little more work on the violin because I have one peg that wants to be stubborn. But I will get it sooner or later. Then, it was time to play with them a little bit, and time passed very quickly. I did some more work on the novel, did some 3D printing as I stated above, and worked on the file system. I know that is a repetition from the previous paragraph, but it does come from the secondary list. I spent some serious time on the VR, twice. I cranked up a business plan for something entirely off the wall, but you never know what might happen, and I'm keeping that one a secret. I started designing a specialized desk for my area in the garage and it is relatively inexpensive. I think that it will go very well with the new curtains that I should be able to buy in about two weeks. But we shall see. TikTok went offline today and came back before the end of the day. Once it came back, I went over and checked to see if my account was still there, and it was. Granted, I have never used it, but with the looming webcast, I probably will as long as it sticks around. I also double-checked the other social accounts, and they are there. So, I am ready to do the webcast, and this week, I'm going to concentrate on putting together the format for a 20-minute show. I will probably record that next Saturday evening and get it online.

I finished up with some work on the garage and my lists for the backlog of the blog. That is a significant project, but it gets closer and closer each day. I put a considerable amount of time into the novel today and am getting closer to the end of that project. I think that I have decided to self-publish and go from there. This is another reason that I should get the webcast and the socials back up and running. It has been a long year, and we are only three weeks into it. Tomorrow, the face of the country changes, and everybody I have talked to is scared. Since I am trying to remain positive this week, I will not dive deep into those types of statistics. So for now, my gentle readers, I will bid you farewell, and we will go from there. Tomorrow is another day.

Cold and other things.

I wore my new gloves all day in the car, and they worked well. They were excellent at Goodwill or the bin store, wherever Willow and Laura found them. I can even operate my phone without removing them. It was bitterly cold all day, so I did my best to stay warm.

I am doing my best right now to stay out of politics, but it is very difficult. The new porcelain king has taken control, and it is worse than anybody could have anticipated. The man is simply a vile creature with delusions of godhood. So far, he has signed sweeping orders that are going to remove people from the country by force. He has used his power on high to declare that there are two genders and remove health care and other support for anybody who disagrees with him. Side note, he should burn in hell. He has done a sweeping pardon, something that he said he was not going to do, of more than 1500 aggressors from January 6th. He said that as long as you kiss his ass, it is OK to attack the police. Finally, he reversed the Biden order, which reduced and limited the cost of medication for recipients of Medicare and Medicaid. His friends can get rich and the poor can die because they cannot afford their medication. I was asked to give him a chance when he won this election. Everybody said the exact same thing eight years ago, and he made his friends rich. Not even a whole day into his reign, and he has proven that he will do the same thing. It is difficult to stay out of it.

Now that I have that off my chest, we can delve into the evening. The ladies and I headed down to Goodwill to look around since they are running 40% off today. We looked at the furniture and there was nothing of genuine interest available. I did, however, get a nice pair of country boots and a pair of spats. Willow got some fun items, and Laura got some comfortable shoes. It was quite an adventure, and we had to stand in line for about 1/2 an hour before we could get out of there. There was supposed to be a yummy dinner from a new recipe, but we got home too late, so I ate a pizza and went to bed. I was not feeling great, and I hope a good night's sleep will take care of that.

Keeping cool in the cold.

The primary issue with things going on is a political upheaval, and the new Czar is in charge. Even though I am attempting to avoid the subject, it seems to be the only thing anybody wants to discuss. The greatest irony is that very few people see these actions positively, even though 54% of the country wishes to do this. I will not go into details here because I am trying very hard not to. This weekend, I will be doing the webcast, and it may be included there, but not nearly as much attention will be given as it feels it deserves. It was a long day, so when I hit the house, I ate dinner and went right to bed.

Warming up.

I am not feeling perfect today, but I could push through it. Due to the early morning reservations, I got off work early, and it looks like that will be the trend for the week. I headed home to relax, and that was easy enough to do because I was not feeling well. Nothing to worry about, I don't think; it is just my stomach. It acts up from time to time.

I am doing my best to ignore the news right now because there is nothing good coming across. There is a Bishop who called out Donald Trump to his face on national television, which I find hilarious. She came across with a message of Christ, and Christians are coming down on her for questioning the almighty Donald Trump. She spoke the words of Christ. What has this world become? And with that, I am going to drop the subject. If you want to hear more, there might be some in the webcast this weekend. And maybe not. I may tell a few jokes. You never know.

Uno Mas.

With the end of today, I am at just one more day until the fun money weekend day and then a day off. With a little bit of luck, I can run enough on Saturday to afford my curtains for the garage. When I finish that, it will be back to putting money in the Kitty, and then I think the next thing on the list will have to be filament for the 3D printer. Between Willow and me, we are pretty much out. I'm going to have to take care of that.

I got home early but was utterly exhausted, and I wound up taking a two-hour nap. Usually, that would be a good thing, but not today. The Uber app started blowing up after I got up and started working through a couple of projects. I had early morning reservations, so I needed to get to bed early. With that 2 hour nap in there, that was not an easy thing to do. I was restless, and everything was amplified. I could even hear the cat purring over my ambient music. This is going to make for a highly rough day tomorrow. But I did knock some things off my list, so I will take it and push onward.

I like my mind wandered today, and I decided to delve into some aspects of Photoshop that I don't usually use. I would not say this is Cubism, but it is as close as possible. I think I am getting strange in my old age, but I like this.

Some rest...just a little.

I had to push to get outside of my head. Something has distracted me today, and I do not like it. For most of the day, I had trouble focusing, which is not a good thing when you are a driver. I figured I had a lot on my mind, even though I could not figure out what that was. When I got home, I assumed that it would clear, but it didn't. As you can see above, I took a little time and played with Photoshop, but even that did not help. I do not want to get into a rut and get Moody again, so I am going to do what I have to do to stay out of that. It is entirely possible that the negative aspects of everyone around me, with the exception of the household, are blowing my concentration out of the water. I am avoiding the news because of the circus on fire that is going on around us right now. But just because I am avoiding the news does not mean that everybody else is. And people want to talk about this dumpster fire. For the first time in as long as I can remember, I do not want to talk about it. If there is any luck left in me, on Sunday, I will put out the webcast and put my feelings in there. If you don't like what I am saying, you can close it down. But for now, I need to focus on the self.

Cooking days.

I have not had a good, old-fashioned cooking day in a very long time. After I got home from half a day of work, that was my concentration. I spent most of the day working on three dishes. I made crab cakes, jalapeno bread, and Chinese beef with snow peas. All three dishes came out excellent, and I even cleaned as I cooked, so a minimal amount of cleanup was required. I was initially going to do this cooking tomorrow, but I had the time today, and now I have the entire day tomorrow to work on the big list. We ordered the curtains for the garage, and they should be here tomorrow at some time. If they arrive early enough, I may work on that and put everything else aside. But we shall say. I watched one movie, Resident Evil, and I did some VR. Also, Resident Evil. I am not feeling well, but I have not been feeling well for a while, and I am hoping that it is all related to my tummy issues, which seem to be resolving themselves. That would be nice.

Focus - Good or bad?

I woke up in the morning with a laser focus. Normally, I wake up with some scattered thoughts or fragments of a song or image, but that does not happen today. Everything fell into place, and it was a day to get things done. However, I found that having that type of focus destroys my creativity. That is quite an interesting conundrum.

What I mean by that is that even though I could knock quite a few things off my big list, I could not work on the novel or do anything else that I consider highly creative. Since I had an entire day and was well-rested, I figured doing a piece of artwork might be a nice day. I fired up Photoshop, and there was no inspiration. I looked at my prepared canvas, and nothing came to mind. I could not proofread the novel because it seemed mundane, and I could not work on any other stories, even those that usually excite me. I had even scheduled to do the webcast today, but I could not do it because the words would not come. Interesting side effect.

However, what I got done was significant. Everything is all caught up as far as the big list goes. That does not mean that everything is done only that I am up to speed on everything. I updated my resume, and it has been uploaded to all the major job sites. I got the Jeep up and running, and it has been sticking in my craw for quite a while. I still have to take it out and get gas, but I can do that at a later time. For now, it is running. My new curtains for the garage came, and it took three hours to straighten out the runners that hold them in place. They are hard plastic and must be stretched out because they come coiled. If you bend them too hard, they will break. But I managed to get them straightened out and am now working on a new format for my work area. I think I have an idea, but I must mull it over in my head. I spent a good two hours on the saxophone. And it is good to be back into that. I have been moving data around and trying to get everything for one of the big projects that's coming up, but even with the laser focus, I was having trouble keeping all that information straight.

On a political note, there is now a 25% tariff on anything coming out of Colombia because they would not bend their knee and worship the great and powerful orange one. That man does not understand that it is not the country that pays the tariff but the people of the United States. He feels he is punishing the country when he punishes his own people. To top it off, he is demanding an apology from a bishop who called him out for being a Jackass. She used the words of Christ, and he felt that it was an insult. She was talking about immigrants, and people who act or love differently. Just like Christ would have done. And while I do not subscribe to the teachings of the holy Bible as a whole, I am amazed that the Christian right is cheering this man while degrading the Bishop. Revelations do warn us about false prophets. The sad thing is that people will not recognize it when it is staring them in the face.

And that is enough of that. I am prepared for the new week, and I am slowly working on my curtains and work area. I have asked my wife to order me some filament for the 3D printer. Another extensive project is about to start. Speaking of projects, today was supposed to be the release of the webcast and the start of the series, but that did not happen. The hyper-focus of the day took away the creative edge, and while I have noted, I do the webcast spontaneously. The mood for today was not conducive to that type of broadcast. It would have been a rambling mess. So it will probably be another week. But once I get rolling, I am genuinely going to roll, I am sure.

Very tired.

It is only Monday, and I am exhausted. However, I am exhausted because of the conversation with my riders. The only topic of conversation, like lay, seems to be the newest incarnation of the would-be king. They will not relent. I know this was the intention because His Highness wants to be immortal, so he has to be on everybody's lips every morning. The only way he can do this is by performing more complete, irrelevant, and ridiculous actions. It is exhausting.

On a different note, I have started planning the new garage setup. I think I have an idea that will work, but we shall see. I made a mistake when I measured for the curtains and think I will need a third set. However, I'm going to see if I can design it in a way that uses my green screen as the third panel. If I can find a way to secure it to the ceiling, that might work, and it would also serve a secondary purpose. If I place it correctly, it could be a backdrop for my photography if it faces the big door of the garage. I have to consider this a little bit more. Along a similar line of thinking, I sold the utility cart today, and we got together and ordered a new lawn mower. It should be here later in the week, and I'll be able to test it and go from there. The temperature is on the rise, so with a bit of luck, I'll be able to get out and do some fishing this weekend, as well as a few other things.

When I got home from work, I was exhausted. I wanted to move the garage around, but I did not have the strength or the will. So I called it a day and headed off to the land of Morpheus. Tomorrow is another day.

Accomplished.

Since I did not get home and had to go to bed, I moved part of the garage around, and we shall see if I'm comfortable with the new design. The daughter put a nugget in my brain about possibly doing Twitch. I need to look into this because I know that Rebecca makes a living using Twitch, but she has a few advantages that I do not. I have to look into the platform's criteria for becoming a producer. One of those things for the future. For now, I have the new area set up, and I will see if I can acclimate to it or if I need to make more changes.

Grumble and grrr.

I made it home, but I was still annoyed. I am running behind for the week, and I am tired. But the new lawn mower came, and Laura and I ordered a new bed. I have been pushing an eternally tired envelope for way too long. Part of this may have to do with the fact that I am not sleeping well, and maybe the new bed will take care of that. It should be here in under a week, and we shall see what happens.

Now, we will move on to the next annoyance. I have reactivated my account on many of the job boards, and I have updated my resume. The first annoyance is that I get about 25 emails daily with requests to apply for the lowest positions available. By low positions, I mean entry-level. These are critical jobs that need to be done, but they can be done without education or experience. And since they require no education or experience, they also have extremely low pay. Ironically, they were not as low as I had thought they would be. These are cashier positions at fast food restaurants, warehouse workers who do not operate a forklift, and other such positions. The second annoyance is the invitation to apply to all of the sales positions. These are usually things like cellular service or insurance, and they are generally second to come down the list. Those are expected and easily avoided. When it comes to the job boards themselves, there is the infamous ghost job that pops up all over the place. These are jobs that usually have long-term listings, and they are nothing more than data-gathering devices. You have to click through to them, and they usually have very lucrative reimbursements, but the job itself does not exist. You go through an extensive application process; it is nothing more than a demographic grab. But there is something more insidious that has popped up recently. Because people are aware of the ghost jobs that I mentioned above, they know how to avoid them. So now, there is the quick-apply middleman. Most job boards have a quick apply button for many of their jobs. You push the button, and it will send you a preformatted resume and cover letter over to the company. The information goes into the artificial intelligence processor and goes from there. But now, there is a new breed of quick application. You push the button, and you immediately get an e-mail that says thank you for your interest. Go ahead and click this button to fill out your profile. And then they want your credit card information, of course, so that they can find you a job that is right for you. But I clicked on the job that was right for me. What are they talking about? They are head hunters trying to pull you into their company and get you to pay to find your job. I submitted 25 applications this afternoon, and 19 returned with this technology - just another set of scams.

Anyway, I put together the lawn mower and I will need about two hours to charge up the battery, and then it is ready to test. The first Test is going to be the leaf-gathering abilities. But the damn thing sounds powerful. Once I got that assembled, and I ate dinner, even though it was the middle of the afternoon, I did the resume thing, and then I headed off to bed nice and early so that I could start out very early in the morning. I need 13 more rides to make my first challenge, which is worth $75, and 33 more rides before Friday morning at 4:00 AM to make the second challenge. I will make the first challenge, I have no doubt. But I don't think I can touch that second challenge, which kind of sucks. I am considering taking the weekend off, getting my head together, and maybe doing some fishing. But I will wrestle with that demon at a later time. Right now, I have to make $485 before I sign off for the weekend. Here is wishing me good luck.

Cannot get ahead.

I am not feeling it this week, and it is getting on my nerves. Regardless of what I do, I cannot get ahead. I do not like running this far behind, and there's very little that I can do about it. I continue to work on the job boards, but many of the offers out there are bogus. I hope this is not a trend but a little hiccup. One more day to play catch up, and I went to bed early today to start out very early. There are a significant number of reservations for early in the morning. Most of them are going to the airport because of the recent event in Washington that shut down the Reagan International Airport. A helicopter and a commercial jet collided, apparently killing all of those on board. This has a political aspect, but I am too tired to go into it. Tomorrow is another day and I plan to do some fishing on Saturday. At least for an hour or two. It helped significantly the last time I did it, and I'm hoping that it will do the same thing this time.

Feeling okay.

I am still rolling on the Moody train, but I think that I have it by the horns. I will stick to my guns, take the weekend off, maybe do a little fishing tomorrow morning, and devise a plan for the coming weeks. Part of the issue right now is the ongoing onslaught of the garbage coming out of Capitol Hill. Every day is a new challenge, and the empowered mock Caesar is doing everything he can to destroy the world. He is trying to negate anything that is not old, rich, and white. It has everybody on edge and it has everybody scared. I shared something on Facebook and got immediate backlash from several people. That several people are no longer on my friend's list, but it says quite a bit about the world we live in right now. I will share this story here, and you can do what you want with it. If you feel that it is necessary to stop following this blog, and by extension, me, then I wish you luck with your life, and I hope you get everything you deserve.

Grandmother, mother, daughter sitting in my Uber. The daughter is crying because the school "educated them" on what to do if I.C.E. "visits" the school. The daughter is crying because her best friend is Mexican, and she is afraid of the guns that the "police" (who are supposed to protect everyone) bring. Grandmother says, "ze kora shuv" and rubs her lower arm where you can see some almost faded numbers.
My heart stopped for just a moment.
This is America today.

If you are unfamiliar with the phrase from the grandmother, it is Hebrew, for "it is starting again." It is politically incorrect and socially awkward to compare the current regime to what happened in Germany in the 1930s. But that is because we have been programmed that way, and when we do not remember the past, we repeat it. This interaction was complicated. And it was not the only one. I also carried an educator from one of the preparatory schools here in Bartlett. She says about 70% of their students are immigrants, and they received an extensive letter from the director of the school about what to do if the authorities visit the school. In other words, they are preparing for an invasion. This is her words, not mine. The educator was Armenian and a documented immigrant.

That will be enough of that for now. But I have a feeling that is not going to be the last entry like this, on to better things. Because I started work so early, I got home nice and early. I ate a big lunch, took a nap, and then started on the garage. I am torn between building an extender for my curtains or creating a cozy cubby. I am leaning toward the cubby because it will give me a feeling like the truck, and I was very productive over the road. I have a slight agoraphobia, but it may be a distraction because the garage is in disarray. I think I have decided to create the cubby, but I recognize that I can quickly move it if necessary. I worked on some of my big list and I charged the lawn mower battery. The only downfall I have found with the new lawn mower so far is the loud battery charger. But it only has to be plugged in when it is actively charging, so that should not be a big deal. Laura Made an excellent dinner of fish with scallions. It was the perfect end to the day. I pulled out my fishing gear for tomorrow morning, and I think I will get up, get my morning stuff done, and head down to the Wolf River for an hour or two. Since I am taking the day off, I will start it by relaxing and going from there. Finally, the new filament came for the 3D printer, and I let Willow know that it was here so that one of us could test it this weekend.

February 2025 is here! Take a peek