To answer the coming questions, yes, I’m back for the moment. We shall see how it works, and if I can deal with the frustrations that go along…..I have some new tools that should make my experience better. I’ll leave it at that.

I can’t really describe what I’m feeling or what’s going on. Of course, my life has been busy since Tuesday with the associated problems…..work, friends, and especially school. One student’s mother was killed in the Pentagon, and another had a cousin killed and another injured at the WTC. To top all that off, the president of the university sent out a quite insensitive e-mail lecturing us that it shouldn’t affect us, and that we needed to concentrate on our studies so as not to let the terrorists win. Fuck him. I have no respect for him anymore. I didn’t have any classes on Tuesday, but I wouldn’t have been able to concentrate if I had.

Then on Wednesday, a student died in a motorcycle accident.

It’s just been hell.

I haven’t been able to quiet my mind or body since all this started. I feel like it’s important that I do something, but there’s not a hell of a lot that I can do. But if the United States is going to engage in war, I’m going to try to be a part of it. I cannot fulfill my dreams in a country where anyone has to worry about terrorist threats on a daily basis.

So I’m thinking about leaving school and joining the military.

But I’ll write more later.

I was trying to figure out really what to do for this morning, but I’m really not sure.

I’ll probably go watch some of the remembrance(s), but I’m really not sure how I feel about it.

This was half a lifetime ago.

I’m not finding the average male life expectancy, but it’s about a third of a life for most guys.

Very strange feeling.

But, yeah, I don’t have anything I wrote day-of, or just after.

I was listening to WNIS, preparing something to take to campus for the Student Senate.

The first plane hit just before I got in the shower; I was listening on a GE clock radio I had on the bathroom sink.

News of the second plane came while I was getting dressed.

I think I would have arrived on campus mid-morning, and the Student Center was jam-packed with crying students.

After I dropped off my bill, I hung around for a while, then drove to the stations. I vaguely remember they were checking cars at the Monitor-Merrimack.

I think I was doing some live assist, but I was mainly monitoring news feeds. Probably mid-afternoon, I went home for a few hours of sleep before my normal night shift.

I do want to watch coverage, but can I find something where side-commentary won’t set me off?

This happened. No, it wasn’t planned by the US. Loose Change was bullshit when it was released. Maybe I should be more disturbed that it’s getting wider circulation, but there’s a bit of reflection that says, “Don’t Be Old Man Who Yells At Cloud.”

I’m thinking I’ll flip around, but there’s reluctance.

Notably, I’ve been thinking about government and NGO programs. There’s always much kvetching here inside the Swamp when funding gets adjusted in a direction other than exponential growth.

But, as I’m thinking about it, one phrase kept coming to mind, “a government program is Truffle Oil on a problem.”

Where did this annoyance with Truffle Oil come from? Not sure, but I recall Anthony Bourdain talking about it. Bourdain On A Talk Show.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Atlantic City, himself, Trump is all about new programs, albeit without the practically-useless NGOs should surprise no one.

Gold-plate this. Let’s make the Reflecting Pool more blue than you’ve ever seen.

Perfect Atlantic City renovation. Throw another layer of paint on that crappy apartment, and put it back on the market for 30% more money.

But Bourdain’s criticisms of Truffle Oil do fit so perfectly when you’re trying to cover up things that are really rotten to the core, but fit so well with government.

• Using Truffle Oil is lazy. It’s a somewhat unusual flavor on top of not-very-good base food.
• Much like government programs, Truffle Oil is stupidly-expensive.
• If using Truffle Oil “fixed” one problem, using more of it will fix every problem.

But God forbid you ever exclude that essential Truffle Oil.

I could probably stretch this into an OWT entry….

I basically stopped paying attention to the internal workings of Germany, the country where I spent half my youth, after some of the outrageous Green policies it took during the mid-2000s, and its stance when it came to the GWOT.

Yes, the performance of the Bundeswehr were important, impressive, in Afghanistan, but they really moved away with Operation Iraqi Freedom.

AfD are being called Nazis.

But nobody is paying attention to the shit-sandwich that the KPD made of East Germany.

And, that the hulking remains of bad Communist industry are being reinflated with “migrants” feels oddly familiar to the US; “they’re eating the dogs.”

I don’t know. Nobody is actually a Nazi. But there’s more than a few Communists still around, even if the guy who’d be Chancellor was born after The Wall fell.

My phone, where my very-full pod queue resides. I’m hearing many people who are pissing-their-pants scared about this.

I’m just not able to be that scared; we’ll figure it out.

I think there really might be something wrong with me when it comes to being frightened.

Set hard resource limits, and make sure the OS enforces them.
Set hard time limits.
Implement roadblocks that have to be performed manually; the PEBKAC can actually be a good thing. (And if he fucks something up, you can now send him an I’m-really-not-angry-with-you coffee wherever he or she is in the world…)

If you’re not doing those basic prudent things, you are the problem. I understand that your guidance counselor might not have told you that, and your shrink certainly hasn’t, but it’s the truth.

But, sorry, I just can’t bring myself to be frightened about this. Humans will figure out a way to constrain new technologies and employ them to our benefit.

Don’t you know, there’s a continuous series of explosions happening under the bonnet of that carriage making a shaft rotate thousand of times per minute!
And any of those explosions could easily kill you!

That’s enough for this morning, I think.

No, you’re not correct about me, but I’m exhausted trying to disabuse you of your assumptions. It’s exhausting.

I did finally get the problem with the disability payments straightened out Friday. Though I won’t get cost of living adjustments on the private supplement, I will get them on the Social Security Disability benefit.

The SSDI payment, comes from a different fund than the soon-to-be-cut regular Social Security Income fund. The Boomers’ mismanagement of the retirement fund isn’t going to negatively-affect my benefits. For now.

Hmmm.

Initial line of self-degradation deleted; maybe the psychological therapy treatments are working.

The study is going well. I have no idea if I’m getting a medication or placebo. The discomfort I was experiencing the first few weeks seems to have disappeared; not sure I can really attribute it to the drug (or placebo), as it kicked off before I started taking the pills.

The physical therapist is very pleased with my progress. I am moving better.

So, prompt….

When have I listened to my gut and it was right?
What helped me trust it in that moment?

I really don’t know. I made so many bad decisions since my layoff in 2013. Not trusting my gut on the salary on the first gig following was really a mistake. Could I have waited for something better? Maybe. But I didn’t.

The ensuing hard times led us to where we are now.

*resigned shrugs*

Could I have stopped working sooner than I did? Sure. But I thought I could help, and I wanted to see the changes.

But my body didn’t let me do that.

So, what’s left?

That quite the correct word for how I’m feeling after what happened to me yesterday.

So this is going to happen, and I’m not terribly worried about it. The optimism implied by “sanguine” isn’t really there. It’s a change, and I’m okay with it. I’ve done what I can do, and the change needs to happen.

Despite arguments otherwise, nobody can actually control the weather.

I’m very much comfortable with the idea that I’ve done the right thing, and things will turn out okay.

So, I spit that out in April of 2025. It’s taken an awful long time for it to all be resolved.

But, finally, Thursday night it was.

How does that make you feel?

Spent. But ready to see what else the rest of the year has in store. I do still need to figure out some money stuff, but my original assumption about what I was going to have to deal with is pretty much true. It’s actually better than I thought it’d be just a few months ago. I will get COLA increases, but they’re only on the portion I have to get from Social Security. So, fixed chunk of insurance money each month, then the increasing Social Security disability payment. I get Medicare some time in 2028, but it’s really irrelevant as all my MS care is being covered through my participation in the clinical study.

After that, Medicare would be a supplement to whatever insurance comes from my wife’s job.

Things get better.

I’m not sure that the feeling could be described as optimistic. That’s not quite right, but I can’t think of a better word.

What else to do?

• Figure out TV and Intertubes. The complex where we live is basically giving up on its old copper wire connectivity. My building has something like 25 separate apartments. Okay, the copper was probably sufficient when it was installed in 1999, And the wires inside the units, themselves, aren’t in great shape. When we moved in, there was always weirdness with the TV in the front room. We didn’t really want the cable modem out there, so that got moved into the bedroom we use as an office, but the TV out front still didn’t work. The Comcast Xfinity guy came out, tested the signal, and couldn’t figure out what was going on. Until he pulled off the wallplate, and found that the cable inside the wall was basically severed. Call the community’s maintenance department to get it fixed; that’ll be four weeks. Screw it. We’ll just use a WIFI device. So many people, myself included, missed what was happening technologically with wireless networking. Bubuhbut they’re keeping me from getting Netflix on my parents’ cell plan!!1! HOW DARE the evil guy tear up Net Neutrality? So, the community is going to have shared WIFI all of the residents. To use it, you’ll have to pay $50/mo., but that’ll be rolled into new leases. And the next time the walljack quits working, oh well. Use WIFI. Your TV service is delivered over the Internet, anyway. (Random aside…. Totes-didn’t-do-evil-Co’s browser now marks WiFi as a misspelling if I don’t capitalize the whole thing….)
• Speaking of TV, that’s been the other things I’ve been trying to figure out. I’ve been an AT&T Wireless customer since I had to switch to buy an iPhone 3G. My mother’s house has AT&T fiber. Yes, there is a CATV provider, but I’d have to pay to have a line run from the box on the street. And AT&T bought DirecTV. The streaming product is so so much better then it was when I tried to get it for our last apartment in Norfolk. I bought service for my mom’s house, and am satisfied with the quality. I also might use it to watch Saints games during football season. The folks in the house barely use it, and I’d planned on cutting it off when the promo pricing expires next spring. Ehh…fuck it. They’ve got an app now for our Smart TV. Maybe we’ll just go with that for home, and update the service location so we get DC channels instead of Biloxi. Except that the app doesn’t work on the TV after it’d finally been released. Comcast Xfinity would allow me to consolidate everything into one bill, too. Though it comes close on the offerings, Hulu doesn’t completely cover everything. YouTube is the same deal. So. Discussion to be had. Leaning towards going with Xfinity Stream, then adding on an AT&T hotspot to serve as backup to what I anticipate will be subpar community WIFI. *cringe of discomfort typing that in all caps*
• Fantasy football. I joined a Yahoo regular league. I almost feel like I ought to let it do an auto-pick draft; maybe I’ll do that for the other leagues I join. Need to figure out a Pro pick ’em league. Also wondering about College. But it’s happening. The Saints looked good last night. The For(mer)skins not so much.

I’m fading already, and need to make some phone calls. So, prompt…

Write a letter to your younger self.
What do they need to hear from you right now?

Dear Sean, stop being so cautious. You will screw up. Stop trying to be perfect. You’re going to miss out on things because you’re worried about being embarrassed. Your time to do fun, interesting, things is incredibly short. Eat the oyster. Maybe don’t just say no to drugs.

Alright. Until next time…

Does kind of fit with what I was writing about in my review of buck’s book.

Things weren’t as great as you might think you remember them. Actually, there were many things about the 1990s that really sucked.

This dovetails nicely into last night’s Twi^H^H^HX find that Casey Anthony came out sorta in support of Lindsay Clancy.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?

One of the younger folks in the WTF conversation didn’t know who Casey Anthony was. My response was to have him ask his favorite AI tool to tell him more about Nancy Grace. Grok did a pretty good job, actually.

*Search X for Nancy Grace*

And, yep, there’s clips about her analyzing the case.

That the crazy discussion has moved from Cable News to various social media platforms doesn’t really change much.

Something something doesn’t repeat itself but rhymes something.

Or you get big analysis pieces on places like TheFP. Kat Rosenfield’s piece was pretty good, too. (Though I do have to say that I think Kat might be turning off her core audience last couple of months; those convinced they’re afflicted with perimenopause tend to be a bit sensitive….)

Really, Gen Z, you don’t need your own OJ. Isotoner gloves were good. Hertz Rent-A-Car was okay. The Naked Gun movies were funny, but they’d have been just as funny without him.

I was actually in my afternoon class in a plurality-Black government class in high school when the acquittal came down. Either way that turned out, there’d have been people very unhappy.

The 90s wouldn’t have been any better if OJ hadn’t killed people, and believing that he didn’t doesn’t make it any better.

What’s kind of surprising to me is that there’s such narrow focus with the algos when it comes to feeding content.

Meta’s properties decided that I really need to see a lot more Nixon content.

Do I have conflicted views about Nixon? Absolutely. Do I think he was the worst president ever? No. That distinction would go to Wilson or Buchanan, depending on whichever side of the coin came up. LBJ and Carter were also pretty lousy.

I’m sure that government isn’t going to fix the problem. California is thinking about the babies, Nancy. Whichever way that comes out, the verdict isn’t going to “fix the problem.” But a lot of lawyers will get rich. And a lot of politicians will be able to cut campaign ads explaining how much they care about the kids; almost as much as Nancy Grace, even.

Interesting way to spend a birthday. It’s an odd experience, but I suppose I understand what they’re doing. Various standard neurological tests, blood tests, ECG, vision tests, cognitive tests, etc. They’ll pair those with the MRI results to see what’s happening in my brain. brain stem, and spine.

I’ve only taken two of the pills so far. Not a lot to report on those, really. A bit of gastric discomfort, but that could also be what I ate yesterday.

We’ll see how it goes.

Next physical exam should be around Labor Day, though that might have to wobble a bit because of the holiday.

Interesting how the teachers’ union goons want May Day as a “Day of Action” where they can fill their rallies with students who can’t choose not to participate, or state their opposition.

It’s disgusting. But, you know, UNION YES!

So I don’t know exactly when I’ll get back to do the fall follow-up.

Still need to figure out a bit better what the actual schedule of exams is going to be, but they seem willing to work around my schedule.

I think I’m ready for fall. I would ask, “you?,” but I’m pretty sure nobody is reading this.

So very much of politics, now, really relies on pointing out the unstated answer to that question.

Since 2015, there’s been variations on one answer, but the important information hidden in the other questions is not raised.

Viewing things like this on the woman who won the Democrat nomination for Florida Senate. Does she have some wacky positions/political beliefs? Yes. Does that provide any insight for the future of the Party, umm. That she beat Vindman probably should send a bigger message, but the story has little explaining who she beat, what he’d done, or why he might have had 25 times her funds.

Why did Niedermeyer lose? Doesn’t matter; he’s Doug Niedermeyer.

I don’t want to wander too far off into space with this. Writing this month was something I didn’t need to do, but wanted to do.

More in November, of course.

I think I’ve gotten a better handle on how I can use the AI writing tools to improve my content. This is different than having it write it for me. Sure, there’s some of that going on, but I’m using it very much like I’d use spellcheck or grammar check.

The thoughts are out of my scarred brain through a keyboard.

I’ve also experimented with the nifty advances in OCR. I’m not sure these advances are something that many people are appreciating, but I’m seeing how to use them.

Is it to feed one of the few Compulsions in my “Pure O” OCD.

Final set of prompts, then a break for a while, I think. Maybe I’m back this weekend; we’ll see.

How do I show people I care about them?
Is it aligned with how I want to receive love, too?

Geez. This is tough to answer. If I’m still around, considering my propensity to just leave, that says a lot.

As far as being on the receiving end? I really try to never expect anything; no one owes me anything. Have I cemented a few relationships that I won’t just skip out on? Certainly. Whenever I feel owed something out of them, I try to reconsider….

That feels unfinished, but, yeah, I’m finished with this. Time to relax some; tomorrow sees an incremented age-in-years, and a day of more medical testing.

The temptation to begin conversations with a movie quote will be difficult to pass up…

Stay cool; it’s rather warm here in the Beltway Swamp.

And Physical Therapy for this afternoon after I get back from DC; it had been scheduled for early this morning.

Oh well.

Can I figure out the Dunkin app so that I can pick up an order as they wheel me out of the hospital? And make the town car smell like coffee as I roll back to Virginia.

Scouring the promos, I’m only seeing one, maybe, that might be of any interest. Lunch, maybe?

Glancing through old entries, I think the first one I have is on intoxicants. My general take on it was similar to Pelosi’s take on the 2020 riots:

My indifference is slightly different, I think. But it also fits with my writing from The Summer of Love. Things were crazy.

But I also found this one from 2010.

08/19/2010 - 8/19/2010
---------------------------------------------------------------------------



So, after last night's knot, tonight's was a gusher.  Must have hit a vein or something.

My mother has discovered she likes text messaging on her iPhone.  I'm not sure this is a good thing.  Neither is my dad, considering he's having to modify their plain to support it......

Work is a mess.  I'm just not sure why I'm doing the work they have me doing.  It's nothing but frustration.  The processes are insufficient, so you bolster them, so people just ignore the processes, which means more processes are needed, etc.

Systems engineering is perhaps a bigger pseudoscience than homeopathy.  Why am I doing it?  I can read, write, and speak.  Many other IT people can't be bothered to do the first, and simply can't do the last two.  A year ago, I might have recoiled more, but at this point, I'm operating under the realization that it's something I can continue doing if my body further fails me.  But it also means I probably ought to think more about grad school.  Ugh.

I am halfway tempted to see what additional accommodations I could get as a "disabled" student.  Is that wrong?  ;-)

That one is really interesting, actually. It’s from when I was new on Copaxone, actually before Sarah and I married.

Obviously, things got a lot worse. But it’s interesting to see that there was a sliver of time when things didn’t seem all that bad.

Okay, that’s enough reminiscing. The AI reviewers are going to bitch at me for jumping around time. Whatever. Prompts!

What lights me up inside, even when I’m exhausted?
How can I protect time for that passion?

You know, this actually fits nicely with the past entries. The answer, sadly, is really “nothing.”

I do play along, and force myself through whatever it is. I understand I shouldn’t be doing that, Doc, but it’s how I operate.

Is there anything that’d light me up inside? No, not really. I probably ought to find something, but there’s so many dark harbingers around, and it seems like I’m so busy stamping out fires that I can’t really plan anything. Also, the almost a year’s worth of no income at all really trimmed my sails. I could be planning something fun, but is one of these other things going to cook off and ruin it?

Chilly weather. Football. Oysters. Pfft. But none of this is in my control, unfortunately.

That’s enough. Cut this all off tomorrow.