Daynotes On A Budget, V6.0

I know, one of the quickest ways to lose readers is to stop posting regularly.  Since I've "returned" I haven't been at all regular, so there's the problem.  And of late, it is compounded by a number of factors.  Factor the first being the impending end of my current employment, factor number two being very well summed up by one of my currently-soon-to-be-former-coworkers - "They're breaking up my work family."   Yes, it hurts.  Fully half of the people on my ... well, former team are folks whom I saw daily when working in the office back in early 2020.  Y'all have those vague memories about them pre-pandemic days, right?  Yup.  Anyway, about a quarter of my team had been working from home then, already, as my employer had a policy which stated that if you maintained your productivity at a certain level, you would be able to work from home, so long as you maintained that level.  I was working towards it, but I was still in full-on learni...

That's right, I may not be the sharpest nail in the can.  Or whatever container you use to keep them around.   Almost a week ago now, on July 14, a young man was in his apartment, when he was shot by the Minneapolis police .   The usual headline, after the George Floyd murder last year, would be "Police Murder Another Black Man".   Thing is, see, this particular young man was in his own apartment.  Which isn't a crime.   Where the wheels go off-road on this story, however, is where we add in the fact that this young man was apparently struggling with personal issues, and had a gun.  That's right.  So the family has hired a noted civil rights lawyer who is looking to blame the Minneapolis police for another murder.  While the young man's next-door neighbor was simply trying to make dinner for her children when bullets came crashing through the walls into her apartment.  She thought she had been grazed by one. Now, I do...

Like usual, no deeply profound thoughts roiled my head this past week. Like usual, the challenges around here were pretty close to that which we could handle.  The weather has been one challenge.  I live in an older rental townhome.  Last summer the air conditioner completely gave up the ghost, and the landlord had to replace it.  Which means that we're rather sufficiently cool on the upper floors, but in the basement, well, most days the indoor/outdoor thermometer on my work desk reports indoor temperatures in the low 60s.  Which is what it takes to keep the upper floors in the low 70s.   Yes, we've tried a variety of fans in various locations.  I put fans in front of cold air vents upstairs to suck some of the air out of the basement.  I also put fans at the bottom of the stairs, blowing up.  Not much different than the usual state. The new challenge this week was something that I've been dreading for about five years now.  Leo, o...

Almost everywhere you go these days you can find another ... Well, you can get more information about becoming a better leader.  And nearly all of it is useful, sometimes if only to serve as a warning on how not to do things. But in seeing an awful lot of the stuff, there's a bit of a gap between "you are here" and "senior leadership position" - and that's always struck me as a terrible gap leaving people to question a lot of things. And look, I'm older, so that means I've made plenty of mistakes.  I've done a lot of things right, as well - but sometimes you learn a lot more from your mistakes.  Especially if you have the time and the opportunity to review them. For many years, as a much younger man, I hung my hat on the old Eagle Scout thing.  Ya know, because I was once a young man who was driven to do something, I earned myself a badge which tells the rest of the world I once did something special.  And in many ways, I did.  I overcame some in...

I will admit to feeling some anxiety this past week with regards to the highest court of the land going Rogue on our legal system and all, but given my experience this evening, the Fourth of July, I'm heartened by the rather flagrant flaunting of lawbreaking exhibited by my neighbors.   Mind you, I am not a professional pyrotechnician.  I am, in fact, someone who does possess a Boy Scout Fireman's Chit, so I'm trained in what to do when one is responsible for a campfire.  Because I'm a relatively cautious individual, I do some interpretations based on that knowledge.  I am, for example, inclined to insure that any fireworks that I would be lighting would be at least ten, and more likely twenty, feet from any witnesses.  I would also, for example, stick with what are known as ground fountains, because they're legal.  They're not designed to fly into the air and explode.   I would not sit small children - children under the age of three, I esti...

I for one am a bit thrilled by the recent mediocre Court ruling that the government cannot regulate power plant emissions. It is the first news we can see that there are some of our fellow human beings who do not live on this planet.  Clearly, it is not in our best interests to regulate emissions if we have another place to live, and so I'm happy that this group of nutbars has decided that the emissions coming out of power plants aren't subject to government control. You see, when I was a kid, the basic idea of having a government was to do those things jointly that individually, we cannot do.  I mean, things like build roads, because if I go and build my own road, then it's mine, only I can use it, so that will get rid of the traffic problem - for me.  For the rest of you, well, build your own damned road.  So long as it doesn't interfere with mine, we're fine.   And there's the whole regulation thing.  I don't mean like what you can or can't do in th...

When I was a kid, it was fairly reasonable to expect that decisions announced by the highest court in the land represented careful review and thought by nine ... well, men, who seriously considered all sides of the issue.  Today, I see that former spot now occupied by rote philosophical vermin, and a few judges.  No, I do not feel that court is supreme, in any way other than they have a fancy building with a lot of history.  Unfortunately, today they showed just exactly what they stand for.  Nothing.  That is, they did not review the law based on the precedents set in the prior court rulings.  They rather chose to change the law of the land after it had been confirmed by most every one of the vermin during their testimony before Congress that it was settled law. Look, I'm no lawyer.  I married a lady who is far far more interested and captivated by the law than I am, but even I know what stare decisis means.  Nope, it's not "Stare at a ten-sided ...