christopher.news

...if folks are curious enough about this website or about me as a person they might end up poking around and ending up here, reading some blog entries/posts, blog posts are where i write about most of the real things that are important to me, and about other things to, sometimes things that bother me for some reason, and i also write about other silly ego revealing things that nobody needs to waste their time reading... but mostly its where i write about things that i think are important somehow, i'm not a professional anything, so there will be ignorance written below, but i trust that the reader can discern the baby from the bathwater, i do hope to stimulate your noggin enough to do some of your own research using your own critical-reasoning... i write for my own health, and to my offspring/kids, and to anyone else that cares to read. --  ct
 October 2022
10-30-22:  offline for a couple more days, home internet is shut-off until payday
10-27-22:  got jury duty today, gotta drive an hour to get there, during morning rush hour on the highways... i'm sure they'll probably hate me, i don't know if i've ever been interviewed by a lawyer before, should be fun... you know they don't even let you carry in the court, no guns unless you're a LEO, not even a knife, what's their problem.  --  ct
10-25-22: it shouldn't take the reader very long to notice that i'm not well-trained/educated/prepped writer, i'm still a bit dyslexic in structure, and i probably invent/create too many words, and probably use some incorrectly from time to time, and i'm sure that a trained person that specialized in reading/writing literature (like an editor) would discourage me from writing... run-on sentences, terrible miss-use--sometimes 'abandon' of punctuation, paragraphs that run on for a few chapters worth of ideas, and i don't like to capitalize proper letters... yeah yeah yeah, i get it, i appreciate all of the criticism that i receive, i'm a simple guy, what can i say, i don't own a PhD's vocabulary but sometimes big-boy words slip-out when i get excited, i mostly try to abide by the federal government's requirements to write everything to a fourth-grade level, in some respect it's about all that i'm qualified to communicate... keep-it-simple-stupid is a philosophy that many folks live by, it's neat to learn fancy words, and know when to use them appropriately and all, but this young lady from baltimore that was on tv did not impress me with some of her vocabulary, her big-girl words were mostly out of context... it's easy to critique someone else, but i know i must do it too, i'll have to go back and see where i let some big-boy words slip-out and see if i used them correctly, it's one thing reading smart folks that use specialized sub-sets of vocabulary/language, and then it's another thing applying it to writing at a fourth-grade level, the phd's use very precise language because they have to, most folks understand many of the same concepts contained withing the fancy words--but in more generalized terms with less-precise vocabulary... with that said, it's not always easy to restrict to fourth-grade either, it's easy to slip-out of it and write like a high-school graduate too, that happens sometimes... writing for fourth-grade doesn't necessarily mean writing to someone with less intellectual capacity, it just means using simple words that 'english for second language' folks tend to understand easier... the 'dumbing down of america' isn't just a concept based on educational material, it's pretty much guaranteed by the various language and cultural differences within america, we are diverse... various languages make america a sort of tower of babel, some folks see that as a beauty in diversity, but language variations are huge obstacles... i like most folks that i meet no matter where you are from, i'm not 'racist' like that, but diverse language is actually a huge challenge to really being able to understand one another, read street signs, understand directions, read ingredients, conduct certain jobs, etc... a socialist/communist nation could never have so many languages as america, they would enslave or imprison or dispatch 'the wrong' languages/races/religions, etc... america is a tower of babel, we took-off with technological break-through, as if to build jacob's latter, and now we are becoming the tower of babel where we can't understand one another despite our 'advances'... wish i were the type that could pick-up different languages easily, seems like the more of them you know the better, but i'm not that bright, as you can see, i have challenges with my own native language... stupid grammar, frickin punctuation, it's all a bit fancy for me really... language and sub-sets of it can mean something different between a zygote and a baby, sometimes 'keeping it simple' is just too hard for smart folks that like to use big-boy/girl words... anyways, that gal on tv today was trying too hard, and should have tuck to 'kiss' principle in her vocabulary selection, i'm a critic.  --  ct

10-25-22 later:  watching tucker tonight, wasn't sure if he was going to cut to live debates, he didn't, but he did show some footage of when his team was embed with blake masters who is running against one of the kelley twins... i don't like a guy that feels like they have to rehearse how to say 'hi'... i hated that shit about some of the sales folks that i worked with, they were confident because they acted/practiced enough to be confident, i was different, i was confident in our product, how to use it, and authentic, the authenticity is what sells, not the performance, i butted some heads with the big-shot representatives that felt a need to hear themselves say the same thing over and over again, talk about a boring life... look, i understand being a bit shy or insecure, and needing some routine to help get you through some temporary stage-fright, but eventually you have have to be confident in who you are, what you know, and what your convictions are... anyways, blake might be a good guy and all, but do you really have to practice saying 'hi', do you have to practice at all if you are genuine/authentic... give me a cue-card with a few bullet points any day, screw the practice, and scripts, and writers, and teleprompters, and rehearsals, and just be yourself, sure you have to prep a bit for a debate, but fools get caught-up in presentation perfection, gross... maybe the kid is younger than i thought, he has some attention and sponsorship, that much is evident... i like the interaction with kelly and the pen at their debate... but don't be a polished mannequin and groomed poodle, we all know what thaaat looks like, just be authentic... that shouldn't be hard mate.  --  ct
10-24-22:  the OT lady at the VA hospital worked on my wrist and shoulder today, when i left my shoulder was a bit weird but OK, but my wrist felt great, she did some trans-dermal anti-inflammatory using a tens device to slowly apply it over a fifteen minute period, i felt really good leaving there, and the whole ride home too, and then everything good that happened to my wrist was undone in just a few minutes of washing dishes, yes, seriously, it's pretty darn weak and tender, sucks getting old and fluffy... anyhow, hopefully we can get this wrist strong again... i dunno what to think about the shoulder, all indicators are that the accident in CO is probably when i first dislocated it, then i used and abused it for thirty years, and now it's loose and sore, and sometimes makes funny sounds like popping and clicking, i'm not going to get any surgeries over the shoulder or the hip (PT for the hip starts in a couple of weeks), so i dunno what they can really do for me and my middle-aged joints... i wonder what the guy on joe rogan would do (brigham something-or-other), or what they'd inject into my ailing joints, probably something similar to wharton's jelly (stem cells)... i'd still like to be chasing around a tennis ball at my age, but now i'm saving my joints for manual labor when i got to get things done (like the frickin dishes, etc.), but it'd be neat to run around like a young-in again, pain and injury free--what's that even like--i've long forgotten... anyhow, the OT lady did a good job today, it only took ten minutes at home to completely undo it all, i'm putting the brace back on for the rest of the night.  --  ct
10-23-22:  i'm working on this again, it's basically my resume, but structured in a way to use as a time-line to work on a type of an auto-biography... no one is interested in my resume, and i'm running out of physical jobs that i can still repeat for so many hours per week... so approaching a theoretical resume is a good exercise, and you usually categorize them in history/chronology, so it's low-hanging fruit... i think it's a good project/exercise for everyone to try periodically, it's a good way to keep you honest, in the moment, to organize your thoughts, to mention key events... it's good for your ego, a good way of leveling/grounding yourself... if you are going through a shit-storm it's good to jot notes even if you don't care to write much... but telling your story is a good way to see how you've evolved over time... i like the idea of looking back at each job with a 'what did i learn while i was there' sort of approach, not with much detail, but the whole experience... we look back at achievements and awards and accomplishments and education and certified measures and credentials as means to demonstrate that you ought to have some talent and potential, but each job that we had taught us something about life, they taught us something important for our self-configuration, every job and experience has taught us much, and so this is a project to recall lessons learned... i kind of want to write this book for my kids, maybe it will give them an idea of what to expect along their journeys, or the need to stop and pause and do a sit-rep sometimes too... i think i can write this pretty well with naming names or revealing any sensitive information, something that will be a 'dad's history' sort of thing... i should state that i don't really know any sensitive information anymore, i just mean betraying people's trust, not really NDL sorts of things, i think i can make it pretty good, i don't have much of an ego left, so i'm bound to reveal too much personal info, hopefully it won't embarrass the kids too much :-)

10-23-22 later:  the kid came back with the weed-whacker today, brought his brother too... the machine had a kill-switch too, he remembered the choke today, but the kill switch was in the off position... i think those two guys know their machine pretty well now, they went to work with it right after they left, making some good fall weekend noise... wife's hand is driving her a bit nuts, the splinter-finger is on one side, and they did the tetanus shot on the opposite shoulder, so she can't get very comfortable no matter which side she rests on, the finger is an annoying injury, i've had plenty of them, the pain isn't the problem, it's having to favor a gimpy hand when everything else is fine and works like it should, it makes it too easy to over-due it, or bump it, or break it open again and again, so, you know, annoying... she's doing fine though, just need to get her a steel gauntlet for a bit of protection, the kids at the Y aren't going to take it easy on her when she goes back, i'll tape the crap out of it for the work days :-) ... i start PT tomorrow for the wrist and shoulder, and then they address the hip in a couple more weeks, some of the stretches hurt pretty good, my shoulder is pretty loose right now, i'm one fast-ball away from dislocation, talk about an annoying injury, i learned how to hit a tennis ball pretty good by manipulating my loose shoulder, now i'm paying the price for it, it sucks getting older and a bit weaker, the joints don't work like they should anymore... anyhow, i'm done complaining, enjoy the rest of your weekend, the weather looks good for the next week or so, sixties and seventies, it's perfect outside in rockingham county.  --  ct
10-22-22:  living on main street you never know who and why folks will knock on the door, surveys, petitions, deliveries, neighbors... today it was the neighbor's grandson, howdaya start a weed-whacker... he almost had it, he just didn't remember the choke... the little bulby thing injects the gas into your motor, and the little lever thingy (the choke) adjusts how much air will mix with the gas as they both go through the motor together to make the motor behave as it should... he almost had it, he pressed the bulb three times, but doesn't totally get the concept of the gas and air intakes yet, i think i can teach him the concept next time, i thought he was giving me something to fix when he first showed up knocking, i didn't realize there was a learning/teaching opportunity too... good kid, he's a hard worker that appreciates his time time outdoors, i know his parents generation, the grandparent's generation, and the great grand-parents generation, all great respectable folks, this kid is doing some chores around the house for great-grandma... nice day to do some outdoor chores, it's the kind of day that makes 'new england' worth residing, it's a rare beauty that only comes for a few weeks in october, it's a peak of sorts, each of vavaldi's four seasons has a crescendo and rockingham county is in the midst of one of them right now, you should see the trees and the sky, and feel the air... it's brilliant outside.  --  ct

10-22-22 later:  wife got the splinter out at an urgent care today, it was half an inch of pressure-treated, and stuck really badly, i couldn't budge it with our crappy cosmetic type of tweezers, so the pros did it... it's official, no dishes for Laura for a week or two, it's just taped together and will bust open... i've got some fallen leaves to wrestle with tomorrow, there's a bunch and it's only two maple's worth, we still got about a dozen more trees that haven't dropped much yet, but there's already enough of a mess to start moving them to the compost area... the wife gets a pass on that chore as well ;-)

10-22-22 laterer:  overall readers are waaay down all of a sudden, you can predict some spikes when i put a link on social media, but a huge dip is pretty weird... doesn't matter, i'm just going to keep doing what i'm doing and going about my writing routines... i hear that you don't get cancelled until you have over ten-thousand viewers, and i'm in no danger of doing that anytime soon, but maybe the substack thing effects this blog... i suppose you can only poke at rich and powerful so much before you get some weird drop in viewership, unless some folks are sick of hearing me cry foul... just going to keep poking the hornet's nest though... policy-makers need us little folks to push back with our opinions, so just doing my little part.  --  ct
10-21-22:  no plans to blog much today, going to focus on a couple of projects which should generate some income, maybe, someday, possibly... time will tell...

Wish that i Could

i wish that i could mail it to you,
or ship it to you,
or send it by pigeon,
or balloon-drop it to you,
or fax it to you,
or email it to you,
or text it to you,
... but none of that would do,
none of that would really be true,
none of it would truly equal the total sum.
a picture doesn't adequately capture a moment,
even video with it's sound lacks fullness,
pictures and sounds are incomplete,
they are one small aspect of reality.
sounds and pictures won't offer the smells,
and they can't give you the feeling,
and they'll never let you taste what i taste,
... sight and sound are incomplete.

i went for a drive to run a few errands,
the outdoor temps registered 66f in the sun,
wearing long-sleeves was plenty with the windows down,
the wind vacuum from the windows blew my hair,
and the wind tickled my face and hands,
hands vibrated with the road and responded to the turns,
the vacuum drew the smells from each new surrounding,
the dampness, the weeds, the herbs, the smoke
and the fruits and veggies of the harvest,
the wind offered the smells that video won't afford,
the wind gave it's temperate tickles and blowing hair.
 but you still can't taste it,
the taste is a faint remnant of minty tooth-paste,
you can still taste some of the coffee,
and they mix with the smells,
and you almost taste the smoked deer that i just drove past.
the sensation of the wind, along with the smell, and the taste...
well, sight and sound rule the day,
the northern hemisphere transitions into autumn,
and the leaves and trees and bushes and weeds respond,
the trees and their leaves are brilliant,
the purest and deepest reds, and the golden fluorescent yellows,
and the proud orange, there is even purple, and still bright greens,
there are shades and hues of blurred colors,
there are peach colors between the red and yellows, peach is bright today,
there are shades and hues between green and yellow,
all of them displaying brilliantly, boldly, and impossible to ignore.
the sky is a sapphire blue that's befitting for a ring,
there are rounded white clouds which contrast with today's bluest of skies.


in the other direction i see a beautiful gray-scale,
with it's brilliant whites and dark grays,
i don't know if a camera could capture the complexity of the cloud's textures...
but a soft rain is coming, it may not last long, but those clouds can't be ignored,
rain is coming, and it will bring it's own winds and smells...
it's almost here, can you smell the rain in the air yet, or feel it's winds yet?
God knows my appreciation for a day like this,
autumn in rockingham county is brilliant,
i wish i could text you a small piece of it,
but nothing can capture the full sensation of it,
not even the purest of pictures would do,
because you wouldn't hear it,
and you couldn't taste it,
and it wouldn't raise any 'goose-bumps' as if to feel it,
you 'd never smell the faint smoke or the impending rain.
God learns from all of those sensations,
i think He's even glad that we experience them,
we experience God's creation out in nature, not virtually,
virtual reality can never let you experience creation,
it can only tell a story with audio and visual senses,
it can never replace God's creation and reality.
It felt refreshing going for a drive today,
rockingham county feels perfect today,
the colors are bold and perfect,
and God knows this feels so right,
it's a transitional period that yields sights and smells like no other time of the year,
the spring's flowers may be brilliant in their own right,
but they pale to the tall proud trees of the fall,
the gold, and the orange, and the reds all mixed with the greens,
i wish i could email today to you, but i can't,
i wish you could feel and smell and taste and hear it too,
but you can't, maybe in a sense you can...
isn't it brilliant, and doesn't it feel great,
of course it does...
because it's autumn in rockingham county...
i'm going to have some apple crisp today,
i wish you could taste some too,
it smells perfect, the sweet apples and the spices, and all.
some folks like to say that a picture is worth a thousand words,
i'm not really sure how you could measure that,
other than pictures stimulate creativity...
it's a perfect time of year to get out and experience rockingham county,
it doesn't get much prettier than this...
today i celebrate the leaves, but tomorrow i'll be cursing them,
but i wish you could experience this sort of early autumn day in Rockingham County NH,
but it's impossible through a screened device.
A day like today offers easy communion with God the creator.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words,
this 'poem' is about 850 words...
but how many pictures did it offer you? -- ct
:-)
10-20-22:  i like bravo company's products, they do a lot of work with some patriots that you'd be proud and relieved that they are on your team/side... listen to this short on Tom Spooner " culminated with 10 years at 1st SFOD-D. As an Operator, Tom spent 40 months in combat, conducting over 1300 direct action missions. Tom's experience base includes Hostage Rescue, Kill/Capture and Helo based vehicle interdictions. "
... i have a lot of respect for special operations guys/gals, those folks are a wealth of knowledge, and the fact that they have survived a long time doing dangerous jobs is special in itself, here's Tom's BCM bio page:  https://www.bravocompanymfg.com/gunfighters/tom_spooner.php?
10-19-22: i posted this on substack, i call it my resume, but it's really just a crude outline for an autobiography, it might be a fun book/project, i'll structure it under a resume theme though, i posted it on this blog somewhere before, but now i'm updating it a bit... so back to the post:

I don’t have much of a background in anything, but here’s some history anyhow:

  --- 1981 thru 1991 ---

* moved/shoveled snow from driveways and walkways of neighbors

* moved/delivered newspapers for people that lived a bit further away than my neighbors

** graduated middle-school from a large suburb in MA

* washed dirty dishes and moved trash to dumpster at a restaurant

* moved dirty dishes from restaurant tables to dish-washing stations at a different restaurant

* moved dirty linens and trash from various locations within a hospital, also washed and waxed their floors

* moved dirt and sod for landscaing company, i was fired within weeks

* food-prep, dish washing, cashier, cook, and italian-ice server at a micro-restaurant within a shopping mall

** graduated high school from a large MA suburb, low GPA, also passed Intro to Psych 4 credit class at local community college senior year

* employed by DoD, US Army from 09-1987 thru 07-1991, combat engineer with a bit more training... had a relatively quick and easy deployment on the ground in ODS

  --- 1992 thru 2020 ---

* tennis product-specialist/retail sales at a few locations for a small chain of golf/tennis stores, also strung and customized tennis racquets, also learned to build customized golf clubs (eventually developed a respectable tennis and golf game), sub-contracted for some private tennis lessons

** i tried a semester at a state college for biology and chemistry, i got more out of English Composition than anything else, abruptly ended my ‘academic career’ before the first semester finished, in fact i quit shortly after the ‘withdrawal date, so i have a 0.0 gpa

*** sometime between working at the golf/tennis store and trying college i had a 'religious conversion' to a semi-generic form of Christianity (life-changing sort of thing), it’s actually what led to me quitting college

* warehouse 'stocking/re-stocking' books (the very heavy kind) during the overnight shift for a large book distribution company (a humbling start to my christianity)

* customer-support/service/order-entry for the same large book distributor, where i met my wife-to-be (married almost 26 yrs now) while working in the call-center

* tried working at a frozen food company as direct sales, i hated it after a few weeks, and the book distributor took me back for a temporary basis

* editorial assistant (eventually mgr) for a SaaS tech company that specialized in digitally organizing previously published materials for online search/research, i started learning about computers there

* pre & post sales technical support for the same SaaS tech company

** passed one crummy microsoft certification test which enabled me to work part time at a start-up technology company, which evolved into a ‘managed service provider’

** also worked part-time as independent contractor cutting grass for a landscaping start-up company that dissolved a few years later

* sales associate for that same SaaS tech company, eventually fired/laid-off after second year of sales, worked for exaclty 12 years at that ‘publishing’ company

* worked part-time for that start-up MSP tech company (again)

* customer support for a different SaaS technology company that emphasized spacial/geographic/demographic products, got fired after speaking my mind to senior level folks about simple things that they did not understand, like adequate management

* worked part-time again for the MSP tech company that i worked at previously

* customer service (and ‘whatever’ guy) for a truck repair company owned by my father and his cousin, and the huge retarded dog named bear

** healthcare doctors prescribed and modified various medications a few times during this period, some changes were a bit helpful, others were more problematic than helpful

* firearm sales for an outdoor outfitting retail company

* worked part-time (again) for the MSP tech company, got fired after speaking my mind to senior level folks about simple things that they did not understand, like adequate communication and management

* operations supervisor/mgr for transportation company, my emphasis was establishing and maintaining a fleet of delivery drivers for a start-up same-day online shopping/delivery service (google something or other)

* firearm sales (and ‘whatever’ guy) at a local firearm and archery store

* sub-contractor hard-scaping/landscaping for private home-owner

* sub-contracted apprentice for small electrical contractor, it beat the crap out of my middle-aged body, but learned a lot there, although much of the learning was of the boss's idiosyncrasies/flaws

--- 2020 covid-19 reaction period ---

* unemployed stay-at-home dad for my remote learning students

** weened off of four Rx’s that were no longer ‘helping’ me (feel much better now)

* sub-contractor for odd jobs by local small business owners

* part-time sitter and mentor for two remote schooling children, and their puppy too

* started christopher.news website as a therapeutic ‘journaling’ outlet/blog)

* currently unemployed (actually/partially self-employed) stay at home dad of one more school-aged child, still doing christopher.news, and still sub-contracting for local small business owners, working on multiple publications for future release

^ many certifications, awards, achievements... none of them are relevant and probably all out-dated, they just helped with the jobs that i once held—they suggest things like, i can string a tennis racquet pretty well, i can administer certain life-saving techniques, i can blow things up, i can help with certain computer issues, i can shoot certain guns, i know how to hunt safely, i was allowed in certain locations and could consume top-secret info, i could use heavy equipment to breath and swim underwater, i could jump out of planes at lower altitudes, i could drive in dangerous conditions, people appreciated some of my actions… etc., nothing much useful for now… my most prized award/achievement was created from scratch by people who know me the most, there were multiple certificates (and t-shirts too) all stating that i’m ‘the world’s best dad’, at least i was for a season of life… credentials are interesting, they speak to certain levels of work and understanding, but they never tell you the full story of anyone, in my case it’s best to assume that i have no credentials, don’t understand anything very thoroughly, but have a capacity to learn news things, and can use creativity to think and operate outside of most boxes… sometimes i’m the village idiot, other times i’m the smartest guy in the room, but it’s best to assume nothing about me, other than i have an eclectic employment history which makes me the perfect candidate for absolutely nothing… i’m done advertising and selling my experience and achievements, none of it counts for much really, and this resume ought to suggest as much.

^^ i have a ton of hobbies, interests, and responsibilities, but not really worth mentioning, but i do love to read

^^^ as stated above, no horns to toot, life presented many opportunities during different periods, none of them seem relevant now, so why not write… God bless — ct


... i don't how 'employable' i really am anymore, there are too many businesses that i won't work for, because they either did--or currently still--mandate experimental serums that the CDC called 'vaccines', which means that i am also undesirable from their perspective... i'm also well away that my body's 'soft tissue' and tendons and joints has limitations which i simply ignored or just complained about, but i'm getting physical limitations that i simply can't ignore or pray about... and then i'm not a specialist at anything, so i'm certainly not desirable from that perspective... and don't forget that i have some moral/ethical standards that i simply can't compromise as a steady source of income... and transportation is also an issue, we could barley afford the piece of crap car that we got in the spring, never-mind another one for me to commute with, and to afford to maintain multiple junk-boxes, insure them, and fuel them... so this exercise is more or less a small picture of reality, and that being that my employment opportunities are dwindling, i should have saved our pennies and bought a humble place in a quiet setting years ago, and now that's about the only desirable thing i can think of, i don't like driving to busy places to accomplish hurried tasks--it's a form of torture to some degree... so right now i'm trying to work on some communication/writing-styles and techniques, and hope to sell a book or two to get that home on a few acres in a quiet place where i can focus on growing and raising and harvesting physiological needs... i think i'd like to get this 'resume' book ready shortly after my 'conversation' book is ready, and then a third shortly after, but i'd like to move, and then work more on other passions/projects... i just don't know how employable i really am anymore, i don't do well in office settings, don't have the physical stamina for labor jobs anymore, can't commute very far--and won't battle rush-hours either, and then even remote jobs are mostly established companies that mandate emergency-release only experimental serums, so there is that to...
... anyhow... last daughter graduates in june, there aren't any prospects on the horizon, so i really ought to wrap up these first two publications, it shouldn't be that hard though, but it is, sometimes there just too many regular responsibilities, and that gets the adhd (maybe it's just ADD now) going and it's hard to get back into the writing zone, so there is a discipline that stephen king encourages which i haven't developed, but i don't want to write novels really, i'd rather write like this than with a narrative, which is one of my writing obstacles, i'll write some novels because i can and could use the money, but i'd rather write about current events, and making associations with 'religious' principles, and some self-help sorts of things, but i'll do the books because they might be my only opportunity for any income in the future... that sort of work is supposed to be hard, and i get that from many angles, but the hard part is balancing structure with creativity, and figuring-out exactly what you want to communicate when inspiration hits, and then how many times your going to re-write and edit as you go along as opposed to finishing your first draft first (seems like a rookie mistake), structure versus story seems like the hard part, and being purposeful with forward momentum, and not too much side-to-side movement with the story, i can get hung-up all day long with lateral movement with no progression toward an end...
... so, i'll get cracking on the resume themed auto-bio, now that i started a public post it will help with motivation and priority... i don't think i want to name any names, or mention actual company names, or too much detail, just some of the chores and take-aways from those experiences/jobs, i'm sure folks have already done that, but i'm going to do that too, i don't i'll try to make it very entertaining, just something that my family will appreciate in the end, one of those knowing your ancestors type of things, maybe i can pass along some useful information to my off-spring, and future generations... some folks think there will be some great rapture, or that the end is near, or that the anti-christ is coming, or that Christ's second return is coming close, i've heard too many people say something to the effect that there won't be much of a future, but i'm still planning for there to be one, and to be the most authentic, useful, appreciative, realistic person that i can be, and knowing and communing with God is essential in being that type of person... right now i've got to get better at writing, and see if i can support my family in/through it, time will tell what was worth the effort or not, but for now i know i have to get better at communicating, and writing in general... i might be adding and modifying this post for the book/project, or maybe find the original one and work from there, either way, i want to get some momentum going on potentially fruitful projects, in-between life's chores and responsibilities.  --  ct
10-18-22:  woke to a weird dream, i was working for a previous employer, and they had a major deployment of a new product... all of the technicians and engineers had to install and test the product on various machines, i protested because i had an appointment and had to leave early that day, but the boss wasn't having it, who knew the events would coincide, no one warned me that the deployment was going to roll-out that day... so i had to do this major chore before i left for the appt, i get to the machine that i was responsible for, and it didn't have a monitor (it used to, but it was gone), apparently most of didn't either because a wave of employees started heading to a room and i followed them, i saw plenty of monitors, but we couldn't borrow them back to our servers, it was actually a different business, it was a computer lab, so i had to rdp to the server that i was responsible for, but then i didn't know the name of the computer, so i had to fight my way back a few buildings over to get the name... that's when i started to wake, i woke-up when i got frustrated... a few recent dreams i woke when i was emotional for one reason or another, this morning i woke when i was trying to hurry to finish a project that was holding-up another important matter, frustration = emotion, and emotion woke me from the sleep/dream... so weird and vivid... i actually liked that job most of the time, the project manager was an ass, and so was the lead developer, and so was the owner's daughter, but i liked every other employee there... it was my intro to GIS, some of those guys i worked with had special degrees in GIS, i learned it by full immersion into a semi-dysfunctional small family-owned business, and i wouldn't have wanted it any other way (except without the dysfunction)--but it's just a series of networked databases really--where EVERYTHING was done the hard way... i'm pretty sure that the lead developer purposely kept 'his baby' clunky and difficult to learn on purpose, i think it was a combination of job security and forcing most of the customers to have to pay for training classes and custom work... after a year or two of employment--and had a decent grasp of their clunky database full of lines, polygons, and points--i showed them a simple wizard that would save tons of time for beginners, by answering multiple-choice questions to create their 'map', they thought i was an idiot (maybe i was/am, but i doubt that)... that job took a bit to comprehend how to establish points, lines, and polygons, and then go a step further to link to various databases, and query the demographics within those areas or points, and radius--but it was still a pretty cool job, they paid pretty well, and it was a good learning opportunity... i wonder if they ever simplified their product, or if it's still a clunky interface... it's just a series of databases with a clunky system to link and query them... anyways, i met some good and respectable folks there... they originally hired me for pre-sales, used me for customer support and odd-jobs, and eventually used me to help customize products for a re-seller... i was laid-off after months of helping a developer automate most of my job, talk about 'writing on the wall'... i hope those folks are all doing well these days, even david and alex, and who know's what became of derek after he left, but i hope he is well too, i never took issue with anyone other than those three, although tony defended david and alex no matter what (to a fault), he was a pretty loyal owner/president... aussie's can be a strange folk, keeping their product clunky may have been smart for the training and custom work, but they could have reached far more customers if they humbled themselves a tiny bit and simplified it... anyways, weird dream, and i hope those folks are all doing well today... OK, i've got a first cup of coffee to deal with now. -- ct
10-16-22:  woke this morning with a couple of things on my mind, thoughts are still vague, so require more thought, just want to jot down for now... the new political measure that places some cap on certain Rx (insulin i think), pharma (and medical devices) is about the wealthiest industry in America, i don't think agriculture is even close, and of course there is energy/oil/gas/electric, there is entertainment/sports/movies/tv (advertisers/marketing/news/media), there is financial/loaning/investors/economy, there is also government as an industry (including actual and privatized)--which is huuuge (you see their budgets lately), and who can forget technology--which is integrated in all of the others, especially education--education is pretty darn big too... anyways, the brandon administration is patting themselves on the back for 'standing up to pharma' with it's cap on certain Rx's, nice sales pitch, i'm sure that's exactly the wording that pharma lobbyists allowed him to use to keep the tax-payer distracted... BTW, pharma got tons of free taxpayer money for making fake vaccines, so the brandon-in-chief's selling point is that folks that were only making 1,000,000,000,000 dollars/euros last year are going to have to settle for 990,000,000,000 this year... nice sales pitch brandon, i'm sure it's the one that your campaign-donors/lobbyists crafted for you, cute/clever... as a country we shouldn't spend one fvcking penny bailing-out any industry, especially the one's whose business dealings/manufacturing are done outside of our border (yes, i'm what they call a nationalist, doesn't mean you hate the rest of the world, it means you show your own country and citizens preferential treatment)... brandon and his handlers and sponsors are just shuffling around who they give our money to, which industries need it the most... grampa won the lottery, now who needs/wants some of the windfall, the only catch is that you have to come up with a sales-pitch that let's everyone else know why you need it the most... and that's why you have lobbyists  --  ct
10-14-22:  reading a weekly newsletter from Anne-Laure Le Cunff, the founder of Ness Labs... this article is really good, she interviews someone who created some software, the full article revolves a product for developers, it's found here: https://nesslabs.com/stashpad-featured-tool
... but, these two paragraphs spoke to me in a few ways...
"

Stashing quick ideas as you’re going about your day is key to maintaining flow and momentum. If you don’t have a good way of doing this, you either get sidetracked wondering what to do with this idea that came up, or you try to stow it away in your mind — but it may very well continue to vaguely take up some of your attention and prevent you from fully focusing on what’s in front of you.

As Sophie Leroy, Associate Professor at the University of Washington Bothell School of Business, puts it: attention residue is “when our attention is focused on another task instead of being fully devoted to the current task at hand.” By getting things out of your head and into written form, you can reduce the chances that attention residue from one task will pollute your focus in your next task.

"
sometimes i need to stop for breaks, if nothing more than to help reconcile ideas/thoughts and set priorities, and sometimes i work through problems when i can briefly escape chaotic stimuli, get alone, close my eyes, get horizontal for a bit... sometimes i take a nap when i know that i'm very tired, but sometimes i don't need to really sleep, i just need to reconcile some of the thoughts/tasks that i'm juggling, and some sort of sensory deprivation is beneficial, some folks hate quiet, i thrive in it... too much stimuli in waves and barrages are distracting, and 'attention residue' prevents you from every finishing anything well, and 'being present' with adequate situational awareness... anyways, i like the article, professional smart folks use special/structured terms for certain things... a great deal of folks subject themselves to so much regular stimuli that attention residue followed by exhaustion is inevitable, it's a way of life for many folks... personally speaking, i don't think it's healthy at all, it's a handicap if anything at all, how can you do anything well if constantly trying to adjust in and out of varying thoughts... anyways, good article... i got turned onto ness labs by the folks at mega foundation's 'CTMU teleologic living', it's a wellness-centric resource.  --  ct
10-13-22:  woke up to a weird and vivid dream... i was in a hospital, mostly waiting rooms and offices, and spoke with a bunch of people/doctors who were explaining some of the aspects of my curiosity/consideration about donating my heart--in real life i recently donated a pint to a big non-profit group, and the dream almost seemed like the next evolution of donating blood... some of the dream seemed almost 'normal', but then parts of it got very weird, one of the wings/departments that i had to go to was named after hitler (excuse me, but can you tell me how to get to the hitler wing) , and it's where some of the folks that donated their hearts were currently housed, and they could all do some very weird things now that they were a type of 'cyborg' considering they now had mechanical hearts, it was almost like 'miss peregrine's home for peculiar children' ... in my mind i still had to reconcile why the little girl that was going to get my heart couldn't just get one of the mechanical one's herself, i worried that my heart might have been too large for her, and did they even check me to make sure that i had a healthy one myself, those were some of my thoughts, what a weird dream... but the weird explanation for why she couldn't get the mechanical heart that i'd end up getting had to do with what insurance would or wouldn't cover for her... pretty creepy, but that's how i woke up this morning... weird dream man, i sleep terribly, and with the sleeping pill i don't remember dreams at all, but i went to bed very early last night, so the sleeping medicine was pretty worn-off by the crack of dawn, which is when i started waking up from the dreams. -- ct

10-13-22 later: i don't try to analyze dreams very much, i think some of them are just our heads/minds trying to resolve--and store--a bunch of information, but with that said, i have been reading more on trans-humanism lately--no, it's not gals dressing and behaving like dudes, and it's not dudes dressing and acting like girls/women, it's basically when folks use medical devices to 'enhance' human performance via medical technology--wait til you see how elon's nueralink will be exploited someday, it's the type of stuff that darpa drools over--part of the problem with that sort of technology are things like: who get's to decide what information and algorithm is utilized for such trans-human 'enhancements'? who decides what actually should be enhanced/manipulated, do they put in a backdoor to hack at their own discretion, what are the motives for 'sponsoring' such expensive technology, what are they to gain from it themselves, sponsors don't always put their resources behind something for the recipient's sole benefit, some folks do that to bless others in other way's, but when folks who make their money from med-tech or pharma seemingly sponsor folks it's not just from the goodness of someone's heart, same thing holds true for political sponsorship, major donors/sponsors don't just automatically donate out of pure motives, they typically expect some ROI for their efforts or resources... it's not always easy to discern who is trying to 'bless or control', and if they are of the controlling-type, what are their motives, and how do they stand to benefit from their 'sponsorship' at the cost of others... anyways, i don't like the bio-tech trans-human movement at all, humans don't require significant enhancement, cool if you are helping someone that lost limbs maybe, i know someone with the hearing implants, that's pretty sweet too, but people want to exploit and weaponize bio-tech/pharma-tech, i'm not cool with that... anyways, Malone and Langan and some others have been writing about these matters for years now, i think part of my dream was trying to resolve some of that, some of the reasons why people would do that, what some of their selling-points/propaganda is... anyways, dreams can be weird, this morning's dream fit that bill... you should have seen the folks that had the mechanical hearts in the hitler wing of the hospital, weird semi-robotic folks that could do some weird things with their so-called enhancements... be careful with things that bill themselves as 'enhancers', decent nutrition, hygiene, exercise/movement, sleep are all ways to enhance your current condition, supplements should also help keep us healthy, but i'd be weary of enhancers, they want to go beyond healthy and hack physiology in different ways that usually come with negative effects/costs/side-effects/fine-print/consequences, enhancers have moral/ethical lines in the sand to consider, are the enhancers hacking to exploit, or are they actually restoring health or balancing a deficiency... there's a whole sourcing ethics to consider too... one example in pharma-bio, and ethical sourcing is stem cells, they can help heal, but also be harvested from unethical means, abortion-harvesting, from consensual/donated post-birth umbilical cords, etc (other ways too). sourcing can be a medical ethics debate til the cows come home, crossing ethical lines to 'save' some folks at the expense of others, or not even knowing the full consequences of actions--as well as hiding negative consequences/re-actions ought to be obvious too, but it clearly isn't... pharma and tech bio is a slippery slope full of moral and ethical holes and gray-areas, much of it is constant experiments/manipulations, and long-term trials... i think we can relate to that a little bit lately... damage control for unethical practices is a carefully crafted manipulation of the mind using carefully crafted words/language, you know, from the lawyers and spokes-people, etc... anyhow, dreams can be weird, i think they are mostly people resolving information, and storing it into longer-term memory, that's just my crude/limited/narrow opinion.  --  ct

10-13-22 more later: hearing/feeling encouragement/coercion/temptation to use writing/communication to promote things for rich folks, as a way to use rich folks, because they have resources, used as an argument in favor of doing what you have to do to to survive, and for justifying moral compromises... i don't look at things quite like that, using/exploiting rich folks is the same as exploiting poor folks, or anyone else for that matter... if you think you might look back and cringe at your work someday, then it's probably a moral-compromise that you need to resolve before acting on it, or continuing with it... rich--or not rich--tell me what you are trying to sell, who your target audience is, and why--otherwise, i'm just a semi-skilled laborer and fix-it guy with a few decent skill-sets that i don't do very much, i don't want to make some moral-compromise to earn a few bucks... anyways, if i'm to use communication and creative-writing to earn a buck then there is cause and effect, and not selling someone's lie... call me a dummy if you want--if you can't see logic in my approach then don't make the offer, i don't find selling a flaming bag of dog-shit--or, distortion of reality--an effort worth pursuing, it's why being self-employed is cool, you get to make the final decision of accepting or rejecting offers, that's how i work, i actually like those who i work for... if you are in survival-mode and lack good character you are bound to make moral-compromises--you feel like you have to do whatever it takes no matter what the cost, i don't really like that argument, i think everyone has some regrets as we get older and evolve, but when you premeditate the events with the intent of exploiting others you need an ethics class, and maybe a good dose of religion too... my 'political activism' has actual conviction behind it, and it's all been for free, call me stupid for doing anything for free if you want, and assume that i'm simply a useful idiot/tool (maybe true to some extent), but there is much conviction behind it, i'm one of those idealists in some respects... not taking the bad advice to exploit folks, i'll call out the fakers and anti-Americans as i see them, i'll actually work with anyone if their motives seem decent (i get to discern for myself, not some corporate boss), but i'm not going to target 'rich folks' just because they have resources that poor folks don't have, you can't blur lines in wealth-class just as you can't based on skin-tone as you champion, it's the same thing really, isn't it, you're making assumptions and stereotypes, and acting like the fentanyl -dealer to some degree, same moral-compromise... exploitation should be an easy moral controller, doesn't matter who it is, it's a very simple 1 OR 0 equation, so c'mon maaan... i was thinking of posting this on my politics section, this clearly isn't a political post, but it's a post that political whores ought to read. -- ct

10-13-22 later than before:  i just edited last post, and i forgot what i was going to post this time, i'm listening to the news, and writing during commercials... anyways, whatever it was--i'm sure it was just complaining about something--i didn't appreciate some 'encouragement/counsel' that i received, and it bugged me for a bit, but it makes you understand why you don't do what you don't do, and why you do certain things that you do... anyhow, there are plenty of political things to write about, the democrats and their media wings (i don't know who the exact advertiser is), but they are projecting (which shows fear) that if 'the republicans win prices are going up', or some shit like that, progressive/communists, and their global network greenie-democrats have attacked and destabilized industrialized economies, they have declared war on fossil-fuels, and they know that's driving inflation, they fvcking know that, and they are projecting that on republicans, it's beyond hillaria, it's a very scared way of politicking and advertising... hellooo dnc 'messagers' we see your bull-shit a mile away, you're just fvcking sad at this point, nice defensive reaction, it's almost as terrible as saying that 'ultra-mega-maga republicans are the biggest threat to our 'democracy', it's just terribly psychology and advertising, it's a huge sign of fear, when you project/accuse others of your own sins as a distracting defensive measure, distorting reality show's an inability to live in it yourself, quit making excuses for your truth/moral-compromise, makes you look the prodigal son slopping around in pig-shit before he got his act together... think i'm done venting for a bit... look, some folks are 'positive-psychology centric', i'm more the opposite really, a cranky old bugger :-)  --  ct
10-11-22: sort of picking-up from yesterday's post (below)... who has the formula to place an accurate value on an individual/person's life... some folks are rewarded by doing things that other people appreciate, they earn someone--or a group of folks appreciation/celebration, others are sentenced to die for their actions, some folks die immediately--in real life situations--at the hands of people because of their misdeeds/actions/sins (street justice)... not everyone who does good and valuable things gets rewarded, they usually just their pay-check for it, most normal folks do good things all of the time, because 'good' is to be expected, it's what's 'normal'... and not everyone who sins is caught, or punished for it (as far as they know), most folks will push boundaries at some points, and will find-out quick enough if they over-stepped acceptable words/actions/deeds, and the self-correct/adjust to continue to live/survive/evolve/grow, pushing passed obvious limits repetitively is abnormal... there are ten pretty simple commandments that a majority of people are fooled into thinking that they shouldn't be taught to everyone, they give you a bunch of example of crossing over boundaries, and then a few ideas of things that are good and normal... somehow, the ethics that are obvious usually come from religious principles, yet i know seemingly good folks that are fooled to believe that there is to be nooo part of some simple religious teachings in public schools, they consider that state-sponsored 'grooming', yet they think abnormal sex behavior and practices, and anti-American and Christian propaganda hatred and shame should be taught to public school k-6 children...
... i got a bit side-tracked there, but it should be obvious why it's worth mentioning, at least for normal folks it is... back to my question, who knows how to put a value on a human life, and what's their equation look like, i want to see what history/events/tables they pull from, as well as the query/logic variables/operators... show me your algorithm, what sort of history and qualifiers and predictors do they use... i have to know this much, someday i might, but i'm not holding my breath... but if you found-out the magic formula as to why-death, and why-life, and purpose, and potential, and value, and utility, and decent use of free-will... if you found out that value, would it change your perspective/thinking/lifestyle/convictions, would it change you when you had his new insight, would it change your thoughts/words/actions, or would you just look back down at your phone/computer/device and carry-on with your routine...
... is there some insight that you have about fairness, and fairness versus logic or predicted/assumed/modeled interruption, 'bad-computing' if you like... you could only be a bad weather-forecaster for so long before people figure out that your ability to process information along with your observation abilities are quite poor, so they watch the other channel for the weather report... ask some of the financial gurus about their unbiased assessment of the future looks like, and a looot of those folks have good track of history, smart use of variables/operators, and predict when history is seemingly getting ready to repeat itself, indicators or something like that, some smart folks can go beyond canned computer models, they connect different dots that computer models miss, even if they don't have all of the relevant history that some models consider... some folks are the opposite, they think their computer model/predictor is the only one that's right, and even die of dehydration while sitting on a raft holding an umbrella in the middle of a desert, it worked-out for Noah and his family though, depending on how literal your interpretation of scripture is... anyways... who knows the perfect formula to calculate the value of individual human life, does God ever sort of 'shake his head' at human-directed death, and think 'that's a shame that they let that one go to waste'?... i don't know how this stuff really goes, i don't know what to think of these matters sometimes really... but, i am of the opinion that no matter what someone has done in the past, they still have the possibility of doing good until they take their last breath, it's never too late to do something good for both man, even if you never 'served God'.  --  ct
10-10-22: this sort of thing probably incites many feelings that abortion does, euthanasia is the decision to eliminate the individual's life, whereas abortion is the decision to eliminate another individual's life... anyways, a young twenty-two year old woman chose to end her life assisted by physicians after trying twice on her own, the decision revolved around the amount of grief that she wasn't able to control well on her own, she was initially traumatized being a witness to a terrorist bombing in an airport, and had a very hard time recovering from that... a psychopath can contrive/order/execute the bombing and never empathize but applaud their actions, other folks on the opposite end of the spectrum are severely impacted by the psycho's actions... i don't know what to think about euthanasia, in the US some folks can waive their rights to certain life-saving procedures, some states even allow doctors to assist... i don't really know how to place a value on a life, i know that i should have been dead many times over the course of my fifty-something years, but still going about my business and getting along with life, trying to make sense of it, trying to use it wisely and not just comfortably, trying to teach the next generation lessons learned, and certain theories--but i don't know what to think of the abortion and euthanasia arguments, and who and why is death and life decided and given to, or taken away... i sort of wished that i could have helped that young lady get off of the 'anti' drugs that she was on, and helped her understand some different aspects of life that a young twenty-something probably hasn't grasped yet, just like i sort of wish that i could help a young mom considering abortion to see other options a bit more clearly, but life and death, and who decides/dictates them and why, well they usually come down to something between them and their maker, accidents happen, injuries, sickness, attacks also happen... folks that debate/grieve life and death are on to a great subject/topic/debate, it's a big-boy and big-girl topic for sure... some folks are exposed to untimely death at young ages, and have to learn the reality and inevitability of it at young ages... life = 1, and death = 0 isn't always the easiest equation, i like to think it is, but 'nature, the universe, humanity, God' doesn't guarantee anyone any amount of built-in years, there are averages for certain regions and lifestyles and diets and lineages, etc., but odds and statistics don't dictate reality, odds don't guarantee who gets to live, and for how long... grieving and accepting things/wild-cards and unexpected variables, and things that we can't control, and some of life's shit-sandwiches that come in mega-large sizes sometimes, wait, do the harsh traumas and huge obstacles/challenges that we might be subjected to, do they leave you stuck in time, stuck in neutral and medicating and scratching your head, and trying to make sense of some harsh new sense of the illusion of fairness, do they make you appreciate and remember folks that we lost, do they make you want to redeem shitty events, and move forward with a new determination, to not only survive, but to have the audacity of even thriving under your new circumstances and understandings... i don't know how certain triggers/stimuli trigger/effect genetic-predispositions, or how mental health is established/understood and treated, she did experience the trauma at sixteen, and symptoms continued and progressed into her early twenties, which is when she finally chose to die, that's not an uncommon age for certain physio-psycho conditions to really manifest, so her age and complexity of the trigger/event isn't terribly unexpected, it's not high-percentage, but it's not unheard of either, unfortunately... i don't even know how to value/de-value human life, and some of the factors/variables behind life and death decisions... i know that life happens to most individuals whether we try or not, and then there is an unknown amount of time/life that happens, and death generally happens whether humans plan it or not, and that the only thing that's guaranteed in life is death, death is the only certainty... i don't know what to think on this morbid subject really, but i sort of feel for the young belgian lady that chose death instead of fighting for survival and redemption, but you don't think of surviving and redeeming shit-storms when some folks are in a new shitstorm, nothing makes sense, and there is no sense of bearing... don't know why i'm even writing about this really, it shouldn't be a difficult topic, or formula to understand, maybe it is easy to understand, but who can place a value on life, is it a simple matter of life=1 and death=0... anyhow, glad to stir the hornet's nest... makes me wonder if God ever lets people see what might have been, if folks chose life over death, if he shows us what we could have done with our potential, and how the aborted baby may have positively impacted the world, or how the suicide victim--despite nasty experiences and limitations--still had remaining utility and potential to positively impact the world... i don't know how those conversations really go, or if they ever happen at all... i don't even know my own value, or my real utility and potential, so it's hard to place or judge another person's... what is equality, anyways?  is everyone's life/value 'equal', probably not, we probably all start with the ability to positively effect humanity to our individual capacity, but how we utilize our intelligence and free-will changes the course of direction/focus, how we self-configure/adapt to our environments/stimuli and reality changes our trajectory... forgiveness and the ability to change course, and to begin life with a new mindset seems to be value-added in God's eyes, at least that's what i've come to understand, but who can place a value on someone's actual life or death, i don't know if there is a math formula that places a monetary value, or a potential versus actual utility non-monetary value... just a few things i've been thinking about lately... different things have different value to different people, i'm not sure how God determines value, but there are scriptures that talk about that sort of stuff, maybe i'll read some today, if nothing but to satisfy some of my questions.  --  ct
10-09-22:  done with my first vent of the day, i vented on the 'political' section of the blog... it's cold, but pretty this morning in rockingham county, yesterday was sort of my sabbath-rest, today i have some air-conditioners to store for the winter, the two that i took out already are just sitting in the way, got to get them out to the shed, so i have to make room in the shed, so i have to get motivated to make room in the shed, because the shed isn't pretty, it's only mildly-controlled chaos, and the air quality isn't great either, wish me luck, or pray for me please, my back, eyes, nose, and lungs will appreciate the prayer, i'll mask-up for that chore. -- ct

10-09-22 later:  thinking/reflecting on a guy that passed last year, we met in an unlikely way, and it began as what could have been a tragic experience (probably for me maybe)... despite tony being at least one and two-thirds the muscular density of me, i got in his face and expected to throw down with the big guy in the middle of the street in front of the house... he was about my height, but also a self-confessed steroid-user about as ripped/jacked as you can imagine, and i think on a season of partial psychosis (my own diagnosis), it's a long story that only happened in a two-to-three hour conversation with him one day, but i was looking out at the drive-way tonight, and thinking of the day that tony had his car stereo cranked-up with some nasty head-banger really evil sounding music across the street, he was there to intimidate my neighbors, but i didn't know that at first, since i've been writing pretty harshly i had assumed he was there for me actually... i just asked the guy to turn down his radio please, i was outside trying to get ready to have a fire that night, and he pulled-up across the street, jacked-up his stereo, got out of his car, and acted like he was looking for something in his trunk, that lasted for about five minutes, he was fvcking around with the neighbors across the street because they had a BLM sign in their front yard, the sign never bothered me because they aren't a militant family, but they bought the narrative following the floydd riots, 'police-violence against black folks and equality' sort of narrative, so their sign didn't bother me at all (i wished they knew the origin of the movement i suppose), but maaan, did it bother tony, and i thought we were going to be fighting about it, thankfully we didn't, and frankly i didn't have much of a strategy when i approached him either, he was a big ball of muscle, so my strategy would have been to not let him kill me before he got too winded to defend himself against my counter attack, not necessarily a winning strategy, but i'm very glad that we didn't fight... i'm not sure why/how he physically passed, but he was exceedingly stressed, and the roids maybe weren't the best for his heart (or mind), i dunno, but as much as i didn't agree with tony on some levels, he did express himself pretty well, enough that i had some respect and appreciation for him, but he was in a bad head-space when we met, somehow i was a free therapist for a couple-two-three hours while he expressed himself, i honestly didn't things were going to work out well for him given his state, but i hoped better for him, first his therapy-dog died, then a week or two later he did too... i was remembering tony tonight, still wondering what happened to him, in his head and body, and still appreciating the guy despite his actions that day, there was a guy that lived a pretty tough life, i knew the area where he grew-up, he didn't have it easy, and i don't know if he ever did... i thought he and i were going to throw down, i could have gotten my ass handed to me, but the neighbors would have had it on tape, they recorded the confrontation, i could have been good for a few thousand hits if a fight actually ensued, they didn't even know that i was actually standing up for them and defusing the situation at the time, i told them later that day that he was there to intimidate and fvck with them over the sign, and told them to let me know if they experienced shit like that again... politically speaking tony and i were one-hundred percent on the same page, but in the big picture we were different enough that i had to stand up to him and let him know that the neighbors weren't the militant activist types, they were regular people that bought the narrative, and took BLM for the literal words... anyways, weird thoughts remembering tony tonight, i hope he's in a much better place tonight, he was kind of going through the ringer last year, something was malfunctioning in his thoughts and actions during his last season, i'm not qualified to DSM-5 anyone, but i can tell you that he was sort of malfunctioning at the time... Tony.  --  ct
10-08-22: not much to write about really, i need to go back and clean-up the 'communism talk' post, i might be seventy-five percent done with content, but not much through the editing, i had some tangents that came through when i was bickering with a lefty from an unofficially (voters) town's website, too smart for his own good, or just a die-hard team player for DNC, and then the whole subject of some vehicles racing and putting on tiny exhibitions, thay really pissed me off too, i've already explained why in other posts... so my commie post started to reflect the level of frustration i think i was going through this week... it was also a great trip down memory lane regarding some old army buddies, i came across a few old photos, and lists of names dor different re-assignments, and so i remembered some of the guys that i only met for some training periods, the guys from the last couple of years of my enlistment were a pretty cool groups/groups of guys (i keep saying 'guys' because we were a combat arms/engineers and it was only men that were allowed to do that, not sure what they do now though)--some of their wives were cool folks too, but i lived mostly in the barracks (studio apartment-like buildings), so i spent the greater majority of the time with other young men, we would entertain ourselves a bunch of different/funny ways, i have a zillion funny stories, and a few sad one's, and a ton of regular conversation in between, it was a pretty educational and maturing and challenging experiences, i wouldn't have changed much of it if i could, i served at the ages where a bunch of my peers were closing in on their first bachelors, or my other buddies were getting enough trade experience to get their various licenses, i got out when i was just about twenty-two, so those kinds of impressionable years, when most of the guys were just getting away from home for the first time... so anyways, i had to find the dd-214 for a particular thing with the VA, and stumbled across a bunch of things that triggered some really good memories--learning/practicing, and many of the friends and mentors/influencers you met, some of those guys have reconnected on web-based networking platforms so i've kept up with some, but there weren't cell-phones back then, i found this one picture of me standing between a couple of training buddies right after qualifying at airborne school, we were wearing our brand-new raspberry berets, i only wore the fancy floppy hat for three days, and was sent to a mechanized unit attached to the fourth-id, no more jumping for me (five jump-chump), good memories, though... it's cold in rockingham county today, the high is supposed to be mid-fifties, i picked a bad time for a short hair-cut, probably will be wearing a hat most of the day... this time of the year get's really hard to keep the house warm, the furnace is pretty new, there's just no insulation, so we try to keep the heat at a relatively cool temp, and then a few rooms get supplemental electric heaters, literally taking air-conditioners out overlapping with using heat, that kind of sucks, we hardly needed the a/c's since the last electric bill, so we will have a month or two of manageable bills, but our electric company is going up seventy-seven percent--i think in december--so we are in for a shit-storm with the colder temps coming in, that's a bit nerve-wracking, we should hopefully move by next winter, and will have different challenges and environment to learn--in the meantime--it's fixin' to get cold in NH
10-07-22:  i'm not going to post yesterday's comments on faceybook, the reality is that this house is located in a bit of an echo-chamber, if you don't like lot's of noise you won't do well here, in my youth i probably wouldn't have minded it as much... it's a painful process of me learning the many lessons as to why we need to move, the noise level isn't desirable... that's all, plain and simple, no need to dwell on it any longer, it's more motivation for our future... but with that said, the amount of street-racers has increased a bunch recently... i don't define 'racing' as a competition with more than one vehicle, it's the mentality of the driver, and how they push the vehicle, which is easy to discern based on noise-level... so anyways, i'm done complaining about the matter now, we are heading into the quiet season,so things are looking up... energy costs are climbing, so that's not something to look forward to, we will be paying a ton to heat the house before we know it.  --  ct

10-07-22 later:  man, i've been extra bitchy this week, i must be a terrible patient, dealing with some physical crap that effects the mind a bit (sinus congestion and a few nasty tendons here and there), but looking at some of my posts from a different perspective, well, i've been really bitchy this week-- technically i'm a male, so the female aspect that we typically associate with the 'bitch' doesn't apply, but the attitude that we associate with the word most certainly applies, i'm trying to own my dysfunction her... some of my bitchiness was a little bit 'in your face obvious' and some it much more subtle, but i think i'm done complaining for a bit (hopefully)... dealing with some 'poor folks proving as much to government' issues, i have to do some paperwork explaining why 'a' equals bad, and 'b' equals good... it's also frustrating, but that's part of life, frustration shouldn't be often and/or extended, but life ain't easy, and it shouldn't be even if it could be, maturing is evolving, and evolving has a 'survival of the fittest' aspect to it's reality, so 'count it all joy' is a sort of grounding, equalizer, ballast to it... frustrations aside, it's been a great week, the leaves are getting pretty, the past couple of days were in the low-to-mid-seventies, the sky has been a beautiful blue--when it wasn't overcast... the past few days are the reasons why living in the north-east is special in the fall... i wish i could email the full sensation of today's weather to you, but hopefully you get the idea.
10-06-22:  preparing this vent-session to put on faceybook, it's for a town page where there is some debate about car and motorcycle noise-pollution... i live on a main street, in a house that is set about twenty feet from the edge of the road. The house has little-to-no insulation, and single-pane loose fitting windows that are prone to rattle with wind or sound vibration. The house is between two side streets where people/vehicles have to come to a stop, and where many people like to race-like accelerate when they get on to the main street... the house is also close to the gas stations and the convenience store, where people exiting those places also like to speed/race as they get on to the main street. Not every car/truck/motorcycle is made to be fast and/or loud, or designed for racing, but those that are, and whose operators like the excitement from thrust and sound, may or may not understand the startling distraction and noise-pollution that the rest of the world is now subjected to, it comes down to the majority having to deal with the dysfunction of the minority. There are plenty of trucks/cars/motorcycles that are on the fast and loud side, whose operators do not drive with high-rpm, and do not rob the peace of others, they find enjoyment riding from riding itself, not in how quickly they can accelerate, or how much noise they can generate, or how much attention they demand from everyone around them--they are definitely the majority. But the immature operators who are the minority are the primary reasons why our roads need policing. It's one thing to be young and immature, and not realizing why your actions bother other people, enough hand-slaps and they might eventually learn better--but some people with little social-intelligence never grow up, they don't care about their dysfunction, and they celebrate the level of asshole that they have become with other like-minded socially-moronic individuals... i know we have the option to move from this old house situated on a perfect half-mile straight-away on a main street, and someday we will... in the meantime, i will continue to exercise self-control, and not use noisy morons for target practice--despite moving targets being a decent challenge.  --  ct

10-06-22 later:  OK, so maybe i should respond more like this:  Many of my gear-head friends and family will eventually give me crap about my comment when they read it... as diverse a bunch of friends that i have, most can tell/discern when folks are being @ssholes, maybe 'extended adolescents' is better? 
I've had a few powerful vehicles in my past, and like to test their abilities--and mine too sometimes.  I've have enough spankings from the police with moving violations (white males get pulled over too you know) to have finally realized that the public--and police--don't appreciate me driving my car like it's an extension of my body and want to test the road, after a bunch of decades of experience i can confidently tell you that it isn't cool... fantasy-land begins when we assume that public roads are closed tracks, they aren't, if you aren't on a track or deep off-road then don't fvcking pretend that you are, you are delusional and should stay home and play a video game if that's how you fell like driving... OK, back to the excessive noise that i complained about in the faceybook post... if you are making off-road and closed-track hobby vehicles that you know is fvcking extra noisy then keep your vehicles deep off-road and on closed-track where people expect noisy vehicles and most fans know enough to wear earplugs, but public roadways (i'm talking 30 MPH in this case) are no place to test and experiment, and push your race-cars/trucks/motorcycles... main street has this nice half-mile stretch where it's too easy to speed through, and then you have the side-streets where folks have to come to a stop, and the racers like to get up to speed quick getting on to the mains street, and being between those streets you get the excessive noise, but then being on the straight-away you also get racers driving high rpm's, they fvcking shake the windows, and the echoing effect sort of amplifies the effect where the houses are dense and close to the street... you get enough inconsiderate fvckers dealing with your dysfunction that exercising self control


, and loved the exhileration, the cops don't like that, because it's not normal, and the greater population doesn't either... if you aren't completely off-road, or closed-course/track, then you probably don't comprehend the safety concerns fvcking around with your vehicle on public roads... the social media facey-book thread that brought up my response started with 'does anyone know why there are these weird circles and patches are on some of our roads?', and then it quickly evolved into 'yeah, its' motorcycles leaving patches doing donuts in the middle of the streeets and intersections', ans so i torn in venting that racing types are now rampant in our little town, i couldn't give a fvck about motorheads that get into tuning vehicles

, if the shoe fits then own it... the vast majority of folks that have nice vehicles and drive them

10-04-22:  ... i moved most of my first post over here...  


10-04-22 later: totally NOT related to previous post, just have to note how weird of a day it was when i finally found a bunch of old Army paperwork while trying to get the old dd214... i had a pretty boring enlistment really, it was mostly full of boring training, some good times with old friends and colleagues, and then some decent training occasions every now and again, but it mostly seemed like a series of repetitious things... anyways, reading some of the details from a zillion years ago was brilliant, i might have been a career-guy if i didn't get some injuries that kept me from physically performing at a level that i was used-to, it was pretty frustrating actually, it was sort of a 'got to use your brain and not just rely on your body' type of moments in my young life, and i experienced my first bought of depression during a physical injury recovery... and then the freakin' knee-thing was like the icing on the cake, skin heals, but tendons, and the shit attached to them aren't so easy, especially in a 'rub dirt on it' environment and mentality, i think my knee was actually my final reason to get out after my ETS, the deployment to Saudi Arabia (and eventually Iraq) was unique, and the ordeal had me extended nine months beyond the expected ets-date, but everything in between my basic training up until the fourth of july weekend that i finally went 'back home' was a bit funny to look at from a paperwork perspective... you grow-up a lot in your late-teens and early twenties, and what you experience and learn during those impressionable years can really form a foundation for the rest of your life... i think i really appreciated the confidence that the Army helped instill, a young man that was raised by a single mom and knew that i needed some more education and discipline because i didn't know shit about the world really, i think that's sort of why i enlisted... plus, i was eight when America celebrated it's 200th anniversary, i walked in a parade that year, and had a boxed fried chicken meal afterward at the big park in point-shirley winthrop... so i think having some military family history, and the 1976 celebration, and knowing that i didn't know shit were all sort of reasons why i enlisted... anyways, good find with the paperwork today, i've felt like crap the past week or so now, and having that history to look over was good in some respects.  --  ct

10-04-22 more later:  today has been so weird, just got through a bunch of old army paperwork, then i find a couple of pictures of some old army buddies in a different par of the house, and now i pick a used book that i got over the summer... 'the iraq study group report  --  the way forward - a new approach'... i'll try to get through it tonight if i can stay awake late enough, been up since too-early-o'clock... but the font is unfortunately small, i might be asleep before the 'letters from the co-chairs', not my favorite bunch of bozos really... but what a weird day, why so much old army stuff all at once, it's just too weird.  -- ct
10-03-22:  here's a good essay from R. Malone in today's substack, you can subscribe to his newsletters for free, but to make comments you have to be a paying subscriber, it seems like a good model to keep your average everyday troll from littering your comments sections... one of the reasons that i didn't add 'commenting' functionality to this boring website is similar in nature... keep the trolls with nothing better to do with their time from littering the comment section, and detracting from some of the pillars of the topics covered... ya just use my 'comments and criticism' form to tell me why i may have fvcked-up some important info, or what info i missing/ignorant of... anyways, Malone's essay is good, and i feel for him with 'checking his text' just before he went on stage, unless the text is from your security team or your family it can wait until after your engagement, but it's just we do as a 'wired society', checking text or email is so routine it's almost like an involuntary action, like breathing, glad that he caught that, albeit after the fact.  --  ct

10-03-22 later:  i'm listening to one of joe rogan's interviews for the third or maybe fourth time, it's podcast number 1873... Brigham brings up the theory that some penny-pinching folks subscribe to... depreciation... i used to do a bunch of different things for a company that republished other people's publications (i know, smart right), and my opinion is still that there is value-added service in the products that the customer never see's... but a good illustration is that one particular customer (or maybe it was a potential customer of mine, i don't remember) but he used the theory that 'already published' work looses value over time, and so instead of going along with our annual increase of single-digit increase of price percentage--he wanted to pay less every year assuming that we didn't have to pay as much for the royalties... i was never one of the folks that tried to get publishers to allow the company to republish their works, but i understand some of the techniques that they employed--usually offering the sun, but reality is they had to settle for space-junk instead... but i knew that we were also paying royalties on future publications, and that always demanded top-dollar from the royalty-holders, and tried to explain the dilemma in his assumptions as to how much we had to pay for our product... my apologies if none of this makes sense, but when Brigham explained that the hospitals only offered five-percent decrease for medical devices every year it sort of hit home, i guess i can sort of see both sides to that 'value-coin'... pharma says 'we had to invest a lot of money in producing this screw', and the hospitals say 'yeah man, but aren't your costs controlled by now that you still make profit?'... i think that's sort of the argument, but leaving out much of the details/pros/cons for each side... shit man, i'm not a broker or an attorney, and don't have to argue my bosses point of view... but the podcast is a good eye-opener for folks that think insurers and medical companies have our backs, that perspective is naive at best, and fvcking scary in reality.  --  ct

10-03-22 more later:  question for the reader... how much do you really like money, how much are you motivated by collecting it... i din't think there is a right or wrong answer, but folks that 'labor' from making money off of other people's money is somewhat disturbing to me, it's one thing when you barter a 'this for that', but it's another thing when industries are developed and run based on other people's money, 'well your money is just sitting there collecting dust, so why don't you put some of your money here, Here and THERE so we both make money from your money... talking to an economist is like explaining his wrong-doing--to Judas Escariot--enjoy your bag of silver you fvcking whore... it's kind of like that, only worse, because they are utterly convinced that there is nothing wrong with their business model... you can only deviate so much from the source before you're drowning in unsustainable pipe-dreams... good fvcking luck to banksters and their wide-eyed salesmen, unsustainable models are near-sighted, but you already know that, don't you?  And, wealth redistribution is only sustainable to so many generations, it degrades at an alarming rate, but you probably already know that too... most money-people aren't worth the skin of their circumcised, well, you get the picture... don't mind me, i'm just a poor boy that's crying broke, because i'm not motivated by collecting resources, that's a rich man/fools game/folly, but they will tell you how unmotivated and lazy you are because you haven't achieved their 'level of success'... banksters are the parasites of capitalism.  --  ct
10-02-22:  you may not have heard this truth lately, but you are more capable than you understand, you really are... maybe you need another season of learning what you don't know yet, a season to be brave despite obstacles, a season to draw closer to our Creator... it might be a season of new understanding, and having the clarity to understand that there is plenty that you still don't know yet, but this is sort of how life's cycles/seasons go... but you are more capable than you understand, maybe a little lazy in some respects and for some priorities, maybe you've spent too much time thinking about thing's that aren't as important as you used to consider them, maybe you haven't connected with God in a new fresh sense lately, maybe all you've been focused on is the shit-storm of obstacles in front of you... but sometimes we have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death in the presence of our enemies to grow/evolve/mature and to strengthen that which is good... it usually hurts like hell, but these seasons come to pass, and so they will, and you are stronger and more capable than you realize, i can tell just by looking at you that you are... ask God for clarity and to stay grounded through the shit-storm, He is more capable than you realize, and together you make a great team.  --  ct

10-02-22 later:  parents helping our kids to see the world as it really is, and passing on the wisdom and knowledge that we've acquired to our children is one of the ways that we better the future... i fvcking puke in my mouth when i hear someone call their daughters 'princess', or feed them hours of 'make believe land' that does nothing but distort reality instead of embracing it and teaching our kids how to navigate reality... one year of teaching about 'santa claus' is cute, but several years is pathological and does no one any good but to distort reality instead of teaching it to folks that need truth lessons and not make-believe lessons... your children are your gift to change the world for the better, better to keep them in reality and not the path for destruction, there are plenty of scumbags that will try to teach them make-believe, but parents must do better by their kids so they can discern true and false, right from wrong, and a flaming bag of dog-shit from a candle-topped birthday cake, someone is try to sell your kids flaming bags of feces whether you are aware of it or not... are you helping them, or fanning the flame?  --  ct

10-02-22 later than before: this is entirely too much personal information... but, i didn't even realize that i was slightly constipated, until the plug came out late yesterday, being a guy i'll never know what it's like to give birth, but i think i have some idea now... i don't know how theses topics or the tools really work, mostly because i'm not a gastroenterologist, and i certainly don't even know all of the working parts on an endoscope, but if those things come in various sizes, well, that hard fertilizer that came out of me basically gave me about two more lower-GI sizes up... i haven't been feeling well with sinus congestion lately, so this new symptom wasn't welcomed at all, but i must have lost over five pounds today, and it wasn't from sweating to the oldies... going number two at least half a dozen times by noon wasn't my idea of a good sunday, but maybe it was for my better somehow, glad i can opening joke about it now, but this morning was a totally different story... my gut is making all kinds of noises now too, probably need to get something probiotic-like in my belly, and soon... i wonder if i caught something at the blood drive earlier this week, i've felt weird since then, but just assumed that it was due to losing the pint, but i may have caught something while i was out, it started in the head for the first few days with sneezing and congestion, and then the gut last-night and today, and not loose at all, just a whole bunch today, and my gut is getting noisy now, weird appetite, i started eating around two today, and not much after that... i'll have to read-up about bugs that are going around tomorrow, i think i ran into one of them, maybe... haven't really read or written much today, just bits here and there, mostly been thinking about--and praying for--some old friends mostly, and family too... it's always good remembering old friends and distant relatives... today was pretty weird, but pretty good too, despite the rapid weight loss and the sinus congestion...   -- ct
10-01-22:  decent night sleep, but woke up with some gluey head/sinus congestion, feeling a bit airhead too...  plan on taking in two of the air-conditioners today, and get rid of mom's nursing-home clothes (the ones with her name written or ironed on), so i have some chores today, nothing too challenging, i don't think.  --  ct

10-01-22 later:  trying to stay away from news/media/politics, at least for a day or so, hopefully... i don't like this head congested feeling, the pressure has a bit to with it, sinus pressure brain fog, at least i don't have the headache, just unwanted pressure... allergies suck, so does the congestion that typically comes with them, and then so does being sensitive to barometric pressure, it's like the worse of autumn really... done complaining for now, probably, maybe, hopefully.  --  ct
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