Daynotes On A Budget, V6.0

Yup, I've gone missing for a few days.  Sorry about that.  New puppy, overtime, big changes around here, and ... well, life in general.  I do recall them telling us as we finished high school that we were ready for the world.  Hardly. I do know that my children did get a better education than I did, in part from me, and in part from their schooling.  I mean, I left high school never having had to balance a check book, never really exposed to difficult concepts like "which bills to pay when money is short" and the like.  I've learned, over the years.  First step is to insure the roof over your head stays there.  Second would be to insure you can get back and forth, if needed, to the thing that continues to permit you to afford that which you can.  Then worry about utilities - heat, electric, water are kind of essential in that they keep the area under that roof livable.  Food is good.  Healthcare is good.  If you haven't been fa...

I am fortunate in that I grew up with my father alive and in my life.  I don't know that I could quantify the depth of influence which he had on me,. but attention to detail, logic, science, and respect for facts are, I am sure, some of the things he taught me. What if anything, is running through that lump on Robert Kennedy's shoulders that passes for a head is likely not the same things that go through mine.  Granted, I do hear wild conspiracy theories, but like most people with at least half a functional brain, I evaluate them based on the evidence which is presented with them - if any. That RFK continues to "grace" the public discourse stage after so many years of bullshit is undoubtedly due to some media groups seeking to discredit his family name that was already in a pretty sorry state, but that's mostly his own fault.  The absolutely baseless bullshit he peddles to stay in the public eye remains ... well, bullshit.  100% pure direct from the cow bullshit....

  Well, this is the Freyja Monster.  Cute as can be in pictures, and challenging as can be if you're an old man happy with the amount of sleep you had been getting. She's settled in nicely to Casa Dominik, though her disruptive nature is utterly belied by that face.  What a darling cutie, but my God what a monster.  She enjoys us, and really enjoys getting outside.  The idea may have been successfully planted in her regarding the outdoor bathroom situation.  We will be working on it for at least another few months to reinforce the idea, and get a good, solid read on her signs, but yes, she's a smart little girl. Where she needs some improvement is on our walks.  She is slightly better behaved for my wife, for me, she's a dead weight tugging at rapidly-changing vectors on that leash, in her mouth.  Her's, her sister's, it matters little.  That leash only slightly serves to keep her close, it is one of her favorite tug toys.  The actual tu...

It's not the end of the world, but rather the likely end of the United States which we're likely facing these days.    I am not blameless - none of us in this country is.  And we have a few external threats, as well.  The true irony here is that a Department of Defense project may end up being a proximate cause in the end of these United States.  I'd laugh if it wasn't true. Yeah, I know, the DARPA team at DOD had no way of envisioning the current social networking as arising from their quest to speed information transfer.  Who could have?  Hindsight is as always at least 20/20, the saying goes, but a deeper look makes it pretty darned clear.  And the Pandemic, occurring in the midst of an incredibly divisive Presidential Administration, was both easy to see why, and even more clear in the external threats to the basic construction of our form of government. So yeah, I see it that way.  Not that I'm going to convince anyone to shut down ...

Pretty damned terrible of me to promise pictures of a puppy then disappear. To be fair, that last post was written in between two over-sixty-hour weeks.  Due to a rollout of a new piece of software at my employer which I have been using for the last two years, but almost 30 of my co-workers and almost 70% of the company was not, I was a resource.  One that got pretty popular. On the home front, we're awash in pee pads, carpet surprises, and, well, we've become a teething toy for someone.  She is adorable, I will admit that, but it hasn't been the best of time. A week after we picked up Freyja, my son and his wife returned to pick up the promised kitten that the woman had been fostering.  One of the joys of just-outside small town living when you're well-known for animal expertise, I guess, is that people bring you pets they do not wish to keep.  Which, in this case, often seems to be kittens.  So this poor woman is the local dumping ground for spare kittens...