Category: Uncategorized

Did you ever have something stuck in your mind or imagination – having no idea where it came from – maybe a dream or fantasy, so strong, that you truly believe it will happen regardless of your direction, reality or observation?

Looking at this post from a mid-February framework – get your head out of your ass you fucking dreamer. Nothing in life happens without preparation and hard work (some tough self love).

– Rat

I took last week off from work and have been getting ready for Lauren and Michael’s baby shower. During the week, I did a bunch of doctors’ appointments, ran errands, I took my hybrid into Richards to get the wheel fixed and put back on. Ill say one thing – the week flew by.

I am trying to do a couple of extra things from an art perspective. I am going to try and do some more of photography and do a color class in addition to my painting classes.

-Rat

(The Bad) No bike riding or at least its been limited. Never straightened the basement. No Tai-Chi. Got COVID for my birthday. Never put my new rims or cassette on. Have tried to get my power meter to work — to no avail. I did gain a crap load of weight (for me). I never got to use my micro desktop.

(The Good) I have… been painting watercolor. I have been working like a dog. I did go on vacation for a week and got to relax!. I did get to use my camera a bit. I did get rid of my old desktop (gave it to my nephew). I did start working out again after recovering from COVID. I did give my daughter a painting that I had to paint, mat, cut, and frame – and its been over 40 years!) as a going away gift. I have been bike riding once a month – and if you know me, that’s a 90% reduction – but at least I have been going. I am forever the optimist. 30 miles is better than no miles.

I have to get together a list of stuff to complete around the house before the weather turns to shit.

-Rat

My Dutch has been stagnant. I can’t imagine how some of the people on this app get the scores that they get. My meditation is non-existent, my breathing forgotten. Quite frankly, I’ve been stressed out for the last 3 – 4 months. Even my painting is non-existent. Not normal for me. I need to get over a few humps at work, take some time off, and de-stress. A massage would be good.

-Rat

Ive taken a first step towards my future business, but I have to keep up with my current business. Lots of stuff to do tomorrow. My FOID card is expiring soon, ugh. The website is very simple but odd. Doesn’t anyone change their cell phone? This is the second time that I am having difficulties with a changed cell phone that is linked to my email address and 2 factor authentication. What a pain in the ass. I will have to suppress Legal Zoom tomorrow morning also. I never should have done that but whats done is done. Now i have to follow thru with getting rid of it.

I started meditation with Sam Harris and HOF breathing as a daily practice, in addition to exercise and finishing up with a cold shower. Now if can just incorporate the Star Spangled Banner in 😉 We shall see. I am going to have to get up earlier so i can get all my stuff in.

-Rat

Thank you to all the veterans who gave their lives for our freedom and those currently serving in the military. An extra big shout out to the Army! 40-Rounds.

Worked on a deck yesterday and am just taking it easy today. Worked on taxes for most of the day today. Went to Home Depot this afternoon to get a replacement drainage hose for the dehumidifier. My neighbor helped me put on my pedals on my bike Saturday, so now I’m ready again to hit the trail. Had to work this morning so no trail today. Also, have to work tomorrow morning too. Maybe Wednesday morning – look out world. I went and picked up a used weight bench for the basement on Friday. I have to get some replacement parts to get it in usable shape. About another week ought to do it. It was cheap (the price was right). I’m glad I took an extra day off, my back was sore. Anyhoo, back to taxes….

-Rat

Sometimes, I just get an idea in my head and my imagination runs with it. The downside to this is that that idea is sometimes waaaaay off base. I need to start applying Occam’s Razor to the problems I run across, and not apply some conspiratorial logic. I apologize to all involved because yesterday’s initial middle-page rant was wrong. I was wrong. I apologize to my neighbors even though I’m sure they have no idea that I needed to apologize. Yeah, I’m human and imperfect. They are good peoples, and I needed to give them “the benefit of the doubt”. There is/was no real reason or justification for me thinking what I thought. Nuff said, I’m done brow-beating myself over my own stupidity – mission accomplished.

I got a bit of a scare this morning. I couldn’t find my admin page. Whaaat? Finally, I reviewed all my settings and voila! Admin page. I can breathe now.

-Rat

The subject line… that’s what SNL’s Rosanne Roseanna Danna would say. I am trying desperately to secure my network at home and my website. I don’t want to have to spend so much time learning crap that helps me do these things. It’s a waste of my time, money, and effort. I’d rather be doing something else besides keeping assholes out – who have nothing better to do than steal from me. What is it these days? My website – has nothing of value to anyone but me at this point. A blog that allows no one to comment or post, that is away from search engines, that uses no advertising – a fucking anomaly. But yet, like clockwork, some asshole’s bot is trying to guess my password 5 times per day via a some proxy. I only have 1 user. That’s the funny part, if it wasn’t so sad. WTF, asshole? I needed to whitelist my WAN IP address, which brings me to my next problem.

My home wifi. I also have that buttoned down, except for some crappy modem/router that I get to use from my cable provider. It’s like swiss-fucking-cheese. First, I had better slow my roll… I’ll post about this again tomorrow.

On a different note (like the transition?), I just put the new guitar strap on with the locks. Started practicing – from the beginning (again). Hopefully, I can keep up the momentum. That’s one thing that my language app “Duolingo” taught me. That slow and steady wins the race. I’m learning Dutch! I will see if i can get my new inexpensive, plastic pedals on today. Did I mention that these pedals only cost me $14 dollars? The first pedals that I picked up were very sexy but were $119 – Yikes! They were metallic black and very industrial looking – machined to the hilt. They used words like “Black-Ops” and “Chromoly” (whatever the fuck that is). I think it’s a made up word actually, because chrome is one thing (shiny plating) and “moly”, short for molybdenum (a whitish-silvery metal that is an element and highly ductile, corrosion resistant and has a really high melting point) is another. I digress… that’s the problem with having a science background (I find everything interesting). Also, the problem with ADD is I get easily sidetracked. What I was going to say was, that I want to get my bike – trail ready for tomorrow morning. Also, i started looking for a used bench for working out in the mornings. I need something sturdy, not cheesy. I think “Letgo” will fill the bill.

-Rat

I think we should change “OK Boomer…” to “OK Mule…” Because, if you are one of the multitude of tele-workers of this economy, you are being overworked and burnt out. Companies have figured out or are figuring out that they don’t need their offices. You can work from home just fine now, they can save money, you can have no life, they can utilize no boundaries, and guess what? You don’t like it? Quit. Hahahahahaha…… Piss off!

Ok, I’m done with my rant. BTW, I also hate audit. Everything that makes sense, gets the microscope. Stuff that makes no sense. Who cares? Well I thought I was done. Ok, now I’m done.

It was raining all morning today and I still have 1 meeting left and need to go to Costco by 5pm. Ugh. A place I would like to avoid.

No light on my bike yet, no new pedals, no clean basement, my life is a mess. At least I have my work ethic. I did however order a new guitar strap and some Schaller straplocks for my Epiphone ES-335. Ive been scared to play it because it wont sit nicely on my lap like my Strat without guitar straps. It’s been “sitting” on the wall collecting dust for several years now. I don’t need a broken neck. I am motivated to practice and learn from listening to Billie Eilish this afternoon.

It’s also been interesting learning security stuff about my site and associated applications. I would have done it earlier but i just never made time to. It always worked – until it didn’t.

-Rat

It’s been a month >crickets< - Nice! Anyhoo, my site still works. So, I got a pre-driven Trek Madone 5.1 road bike. I used https://www.bicyclebluebook.com and bought it from a gent in South Bend, Indiana. Sweet! It’s light as hell (carbon fiber). Did the trail last weekend with my neighbor, Chris. Was my first time out on a path this year. The cardio part kicked my butt. Did it again Friday and wasn’t too bad. Still a butt kicker but not as bad. I think I am going to put my light on the bike this week and see how 5:30am feels on the trail. Been working like a dog still. Got some more vintage stereo stuff and bought a Topping DAC D50s (see https://drop.com/buy/topping-d50s-dac) with a linear power source. The thing is built like a brick shit house. You could beat someone to death with it. It’s that solid. I’m going to pair it with my DVD changer. My mini-disk players have built in 192kHz 24bit DACs and they sound killer. So, this should work just as good since it has a Toslink optical up-link. Need to get some new cable with banana connectors for my speakers and run them to different places in the basement. I like sonics. So, I have 6 speakers, 3 pairs in different parts of the basement. I’ve been listening to vinyl lately and occasionally, flip to CD/DVD however, I don’t typically like the sound due to the low bit rates and crappy channel separation. The streaming sounds really good if I can find the right album version. I’m a bit of an audiophile.

The sense thing has been fairly interesting and enlightening. Had to hire an electrician to install, which was good because to get it on, he did have to take the central neutral off to get the induction clips on and that sucker is a huge wire. My circuit box is an upgraded 200amp. I bought this gizmo almost 2 years ago when it was in the prototype phase. You can check it out at https://sense.com I was using an electric space heater for the laundry room which is part of the currently unheated garage. It turned out to cost us an arm and a leg. I think this year I will re-pipe the existing garage heater. Last year at the beginning of the fall, I was hell-bent on getting it to run. I almost blew up the house in the process. Luckily I have a gas shut off valve for that line in the basement. In any event, I found out that my average vampire power is around 213v per second. Which as it also turns out, is pretty good. I was able to identify almost all electrical appliances in the house. Its kind of nifty with it’s own app and up to the second power consumption/real time information via my iPhone. Vampire power is the power that your “turned off” electronics use to keep their IC’s up to date with your last channel, channel line up, clock, configurations and settings, time, etc..

On a sad note, my friend Father Peter Jarosz passed away on April 26th, 2020 – I think from COVID. Nowhere is it really stated, nor disproved and frankly, I wouldn’t trust the data anyway. Using common sense and looking/thinking concerning the things that happened and length in the ICU on a vent, COVID-19 makes sense. Anyway, he was just a good guy to spend some time with or just sit and talk to. Rest in peace Father Peter.

I am praying for our first responders including my paramedic nephew Mike, my niece Megan who is an addiction counselor, and my friend who is a nurse at Rush.

-Rat