The Most’est of the Post’est

Sunday, January 17th 2021…Everyday is a new day!…

I found out that I have tomorrow off! Hooray for me! I think I will spend some time today painting. I started a new painting in my watercolor class and while I began on a 8×10 sheet, I realized that it’s way to small and so I went to a full sheet which is 22×30. I will post my progress. The subject was drawn to scale and some minor painting has taken place. I decided not to do the virtual watercolor seminar. I will continue with my current class from McCord.

On a different note, I began listening to some lectures on Organic Chemistry. I have to divert my mind while on the octane (a recumbent elliptical machine). I finished the lecture series on “Why Evil Exists”. It’s about the history of evil and where it comes from, from philosophical, religious, and social viewpoints. It was a fairly interesting series. It was delivered by Professor Charles Mathewes, Ph.D. via “The Great Courses”. I have found that in this series though, since the explanations require illustrations to emphasize a point, i find myself re-watching the lectures because I miss quite a bit while exercising. Its interesting how much I have forgotten.

-Rat

Saturday, January 9th 2021…What to do, what to do…

I’m in a bit of a quandary with my watercolor skills. Do I sign up for a virtual seminar, take a couple of days off. Record the seminar and replay it at will, or skip it and just focus on my current watercolor class. It’s not very expensive, however I will need to take at least 1 weekday off and a whole weekend. Not that I get paid for weekends. The real quandary is that I only have 7 days to record the seminar. I only have one more day. I still haven’t recorded the meditation class. Just no time.

-Rat

Friday, January 8th 2021…”gotta love when a plan comes together…”

Bought a new keyboard/mouse at Costco last night since my old keyboard/mouse combination was burning through 2 AA batteries per week. This new combination can connect via Bluetooth to 2 computers and you can alternate/flip between them at the touch of a button! That’s sooo cool. Kind of like a Bluetooth KVM. Frankly, this morning I had my doubts. Thanks Logitech and thank you Costco! For a cool 59$ – sweet! Crap, I spent more on a watercolor #10 round paintbrush yesterday (and it was on sale) – granted it had real sable bristles and was a Kolinsky but damn!

Started a new watercolor painting Wednesday night on 8×10 paper – today, I decided it was way too small to show any nuance. So, I am going to redraw and begin again on a full sheet of 300lb rough. That even sounds more fun. Was cool to see Rick back in the groove in class (on of my classmates). He gave me an idea for a new painting – after I do my Tao&Zen logo on my iPad.

-Rat

Wednesday, January 6th 2021… art is da bomb…

I had my watercolor class after a stressful day at work. Something I look forward to. Afterwards, had a nice facetime call with my daughter and her fiance’. I like where they are going with the decision to elope. Makes sense with COVID and all the uncertainty of this year. Who is to say that we will return to normalcy by the end of the year. Why put money down on a wedding venue when there are no guarantees (crazy)? Will the venue even be in business when you get to your date? Too much money at stake for a business and for future couple. Got to run…

-Rat

Tuesday, January 5th 2021… What to do?…

I am trying a different WordPress theme. Nevermind, I had to revert – the theme was short lived. It seems like I couldn’t figure out how or where to read an actual post. Don’t know what to think. It was smooth but lacked usability. Something to try in development and staging. I like this WordPress block editor now. I wouldn’t like to go back to classic at this point. Started some basic categories and will retrofit all my posts with them. Should make it easier to sort. I need to create 2 things for the site – a logo and a site icon. I think I’m going to utilize a yin-yang symbol for the site icon and I don’t know what to do with the logo. Well, I have a basic idea, Heh, heh, heh.

Was hanging some of my art for my wife today. New and slightly old stuff that i never framed. Downstairs, I found all kinds of blank paper that I forgot I had. Getting back into it again. Watercolor class starts Wednesday night. Bought a new sable watercolor brush yesterday and unfortunately trashed a beautiful, long handled, flat, hog hair brush with purple acrylic paint (forgot to wash it out). I am pissed about that one. I liked to use it for oils. I just needed one in a pinch for some quick, basic touch-up on a acrylic paining that I never finished to my liking. Was pressed for time and forgot to clean the brush. We shall see.

-Rat

Monday, January 4th 2021…really Mr. President?…

What a dumbass. Like a toddler who can’t get his way. He’ll throw a tantrum… he’ll cry and he’ll get his ice-cream. Nope, no you don’t. All we (the American public) have to do is wait your dumbass out, and the country reverts back to being run by a lying sack of crap. Can January 20th come soon enough? I think not. We tried an experiment, it failed, is rotting in the garbage can and stinking up the kitchen. So much for the experiment. All you had to do was act like a caring human being, you didn’t even have to believe the crap that you needed to speak, what the public needed to hear, and you needed a filter. Nope. Couldn’t do it. Too big of an ego. Yes, i know you are a bad liar, and that is exactly why I voted for you. Nope. And the worst part was you couldn’t even keep your mouth shut on twitter. So much damage done and documented. Words and thoughts exposed like rotting fruit and roadkill on a hot day. And the American public had to drive the only road that passed by. We had to hold our collective breaths in our convertible with the top down. Listening to the drive-by media rightly crucify you. Spewing it’s hate speech couched in what the elitist liberals think the country needs with a sprinkling of division. You gave them all the ammunition they could ever want. They didn’t even have to look hard.

On January 20th, 2021 the presidency pendulum will swing the other direction back to the Democrats. Not that it really matters anymore. That’s the greatest irony here. That’s what this experiment taught me in no uncertain terms. It doesn’t matter who is in the White House, the outcome is mainly the same – its a slow box step set to a discordant dirge that never really goes anywhere – in a circle, by design. We had one of the the biggest megalomaniacs that walked the planet in the presidency (bills still got paid and no one died) and nothing really changed, now the pendulum swings back the other way. To a guy who couldn’t hold a thought in his pocket. Not too much change mind you, we need to give the public the allusion of change without real change. Same with Obama, same with Bush, same with Clinton, wash, rinse, repeat. We are rearranging the proverbial deck chairs on the American Titanic. Republicans, Democrats, they are 2 heads on the same coin. Does it really matter if the coin flips? Not really. The American public loses.

Just find the approximately 11 thousand votes somewhere? Really, Mr President? I had to laugh at the Washington Post – you were set up, dumbass. And essentially, they said that Congress needs to work fast before the American public wakes up. No worries there congress. The American public has been asleep since about a year after the World Trade Center attack. Social media under the guise of “media” has been slowly dividing us and keeping us at arms length for the purposes of arguing with each other. Fanning the embers of discord and hate. Just look at the Election ads playing on the media if you needed a reminder. Watch the nightly news on the major channels and compare what you don’t see on the BBC news. Sprinkle a bit of the daily-mail in for good measure, and you’ll start to see that our news isn’t news at all. It’s filtered entertainment with the Weather and Sports. Actually, weather and sports anymore are the only fact driven segments that come with check-able facts.

I for one, am glad that this experiment is almost over. I will go back to quit wondering what would happen if we didn’t have a professional liar in the presidency, I am resigned to it. My liberal friends can relax and go back to just grumbling about their lives instead of railing about the dumbass in the oval office. They still make sense, we all want the same outcome, and although we don’t agree on the path – our destinations are still the same. We still have to get through life together, supporting each other, and doing all the things that we don’t really want to do – in our jobs. I think we all can eventually find joy in the process.

-Rat

Sunday, January 3rd 2021… “And now, for something completely different…”

A working blog site with functioning plugins, all playing together nicely? Everything working in perfect harmony? (9:30am) Ok, maybe that is a bit melodramatic and overblown, but its close. I am getting there again. Now if I can only get VaultPress connecting and functioning correctly. Actually, it may be working. I just haven’t looked at it yet. I have that to test along with a WordPress migration tool.

Later today (7:26pm), VaultPress seems to be working correctly. The security scan picked up something that may be unresolved. Don’t know but everything seems to be working. Ill check back in 30min

-Rat

Saturday, January 2nd 2021… Two steps forward, one step back…

Weird – I have been having problems with my site for the past couple of months (actually for more than a year). That’s a shitty, sobering thought, a lost year of blogging. This wants to be updated, that wants to be updated, use this plug-in, use that plug-in, this works, that works better, this does that, that does this, try this, try that. What I figured out by trial and error is that if I go to the latest version of php that my ISP offers, my site breaks. It’s not backward compatible with everything. Now truth to tell, it’s not the most current or stable version of php, but its what I have to play with. So much for my upgrading to the next release of php from my ISP. I tried Elementor to customize my site, it doesn’t play nice with Akismet, or Vaultpress via Jetpack. Have to get rid of that. Liked Imagely’s current NextGen Gallery plug-in, doesn’t play nice with the free “basic” Twenty Sixteen theme which is 5 years stable and updated. Have to get rid of that. Having difficulty installing/activating a migration plug-in, doesn’t play nice with the suite of crap that I am using from a security perspective. WTF? Doesn’t this stuff get tested? With current and backwards compatibility? I am hell bent on getting all this stuff to play nice together without site errors and downtime!

-Rat

Friday, January 1st 2021 – Happy New Year!

Trying out this new block editor thing. I think I’m going to like it. If it’s what I think it is (it reminds me a bit of quattro pro – if you remember that, or was a spreadsheet experimentalist). Actually, 2020 was a fairly decent year for me. I really enjoyed staying and working from home – it gave me time to focus on the things that are important and it gave me time to reflect on things that I thought were important. It was kind of a reflection year.

One thing that I figured out was that – art was important to me. Not that it was a big surprise, but I liked doing it often, and can probably make something out of it from a career perspective. I honestly wasn’t so sure. I think that ill take to retirement like a “fish to water” was another thing that I figured out. I also wasn’t sure about that either. My daughter calls me “The man with a thousand hobbies” which I think is true. It may stem from the fact that I love to learn new things. There are so many things in life I want to learn and experience. I wish I had forever. But why do I love to learn new things? I don’t really know. Do I think that I have to master them? No, I do not. I guess I just love the process.

What do I want from this year? I would like to lose some weight, bet back in good shape. Start Tai Chi again, continue my painting, begin meditation, get my ham radio license, continue my studies of WordPress, php, and content management systems. Survive work for another year – this year is going to be a bitch. We are moving the datacenter, migrating off the current hardware to another newer updated platform, migrating the current legacy business applications to our DR providers hosting platforms, patching our current business application to a new tools release, and god knows what else. All while keeping a 1.5b$ company running. I will need my sanity and a diversion or 2.

-Rat

Sunday, December 20th 2020… COVID, Schmovid…

Taking the next 2 weeks off work. Yay! Hooray! Going to work on some painting, finish learning php and wordpress. Gonna do the octane, workout when i can, and listen to some albums. Probably work on the “Honey-do” list. Cook some, eat some, loose some weight, and maybe ride a bit if the weather holds. We shall see. Hopefully I’ll get to see the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. Maybe even photograph it. Isolating has not been fun, but its part of our current life. Just got to deal with it. Kind of like cold weather. No big deal.

-Rat