Daynotes On A Budget, V6.0

 Yeah, I'm a big fan of history.  On some rare occasions, it permits me to attain experience I might have had to earn the hard way, through my own sheer stupidity.  God and most of my family are aware that particular resource is something I possess in a huge abundance.  But when I see it in others, my own dumbitude allows me to identify it in others, and it's a rather convenient way to...  well, identify their path forward, if they choose. This past two weeks had me chewing over a rather obvious little parallel I identified in history a couple of years ago.  It didn't really come into full figure until about two weeks ago, but there ya go. I've had a real WTF relationship with Russian history.  That is, I do not understand what the hell is going on over there, and I do not comprehend why they do not see it - unless the depths of moronity there are aided and abetted by the totalitarian regime in power that deprives them of the knowledge - which ain't ex...

 So my wife celebrated a birthday this past week, and in doing so, we were out of town.   We went to a nearby town a little over an hour away, and as she wished, we stayed in an historic old hotel.  I learned a few tricks. The hotel is rather widely rumored to be haunted.  That is, there have been news stories about the alleged haunting of the building.  When we arrived, I thought the place was rather spectacularly kept up and had some pretty impressive features.  To begin, the place is a little cramped on a city block, and the apparent parking was either across the street, or on the street.  But there it was - the entrance to the hotel's parking ramp.  So we pulled in, and unloaded.   In the lobby, a large, round table stopped me in my tracks.  I am a wanna be woodworker.  That is, I do make things out of wood, and enjoy the process.  I imagine I'm somewhat more competent than I probably am, but I've had some bits of...

 Been feeling ... well, old lately.   I do authorizations for a health care provider.  Which means every day I am asking your insurance company if the therapy your doctor says will prolong and improve your condition of life will be paid for within their rules.   And every single call I make or web site I use requires me to listen to or accept the notice that an approved authorization request does not promise my employer will be paid.  It simply increases the odds that we will be paid for the medication and supplies - and sometimes nurses, too - that we send to you. While I see a lot of kids due to the particular market I'm primarily assigned to monitor, I do see older folks.  I see some folks born in the 1930s, which does make me pretty happy - some of these treatments can be pretty harsh, and so when we're putting someone who is in their mid-80s through it, that does bode well for them and their families.   I also see a lot of people wh...

 I am somewhat suspicious of most translators.  Not because I think they're lying, but because I do believe that when a translator stumbles into a particular phrase or topic where their own internal checks and balances start screaming "what the 1$%^6`1 did that nutjob just say?" they may find themselves playing down the overall lunacy. I found myself truly wishing that was the case the other day when old Vladie decided to drop the "living room" and "ethnic Russian" bombs on the world.  Now, as my son often says, had someone only bought a few of Hitler's early paintings, what would the world have become if that absolute evil had instead spent his lifetime as a painter?  I'm not certain he wouldn't have found some way to create hell on earth for some people, but I don't think he'd have gone full Hitler.  Had wee Vladie perhaps found something constructive to do with mud or crayons or his hands, perhaps we would be spared of what is li...

 Well, this is unlikely to be fun, but it is what it is.   We're being told we're staring into a double-barreled storm threat coming over the next two days.  Being a lifetime Minnesotan, I knew it.  Because today I was out and about in a light coat - in February - because we were near 40 degrees.   Yes, much melting.  And I spent a bit of time working over the front step and front yard.  The rental unit we live in has a wonderful side door sidewalk, but it's got a bit of a slope that rises/drops about eight inches over maybe six feet.  So not ADA compliant, but it is what it is.    The front yard avoids that by not having a sidewalk at all.  There's a landing pad at the bottom of the stairs, but no sidewalk at all.  And once again, I found myself staring at Lake Dipshit in the driveway.  It has been there for five years now, and I believe every late/winter and early spring I announce to my son that we should...

 I am no statistician.  I'm not even a conspiracy theorist.  I don't wear a foil hat, and I'm not particularly clued in to either side of most political debates. But the thought rolled through my head the other day when I saw news of yet another young man gunned down.  He was on his way to a bus to protest the police shooting of another young man.  Both of these young men were not law-breaking citizens by any stretch of the imagination.  One had his own firearm which he obtained legally and had all the necessary permits.  The other was an honors student, an athlete, who was according to most who knew him a good guy.  Just in the wrong place at the wrong time. And then I started to think back about it a little bit.  It occurs to me that, most of the time when I see the faces of people who are killed, or who are accused of doing the killing, there are some things that tend to be similar.  The first is that if the shooting is not at the han...

 I am still here.   Not a whole heck of a lot going on in the world of ... well, Ground Hog World, honestly.  Just like everyone else, the world is still there, I get occasional rare glimpses of it out the window, and it is getting ... well, brighter - but we're still stuck in the midst of yet more winter. I do love living in Minnesota, even though we seem to have some real problems.  I will freely confess that due to my white privilege and some rather obvious choices I've made over the years, I don't have to worry, too much, about encountering trouble.  Though we all know I'm pretty sketchy. So the latest bit of stupid and sad news is that we had an outside-school-shooting the other day, a couple of kids got into an argument, and unlike when I was a kid and that sort of shit was handled at the end of the day outside the back door of the school where one kid punched another and the other landed on his back stupidly, these days, it seems that these disagreem...