Good morning! Today is 6 February 2023, and in the world today Turkey is in the news following a 7.8 magnitude earthquake that has likely caused the death of thousands of people.

This last weekend was exciting and fun. On Saturday, there was a baby shower for my daughter and her boyfriend, as we all anticipate the baby’s arrival next month. My sister and mom drove in, as did several of my nieces that live in the area. It was a lot of fun, and I lost a blindfolded diaper-changing contest with my future son-in-law.

This week I am back in my virtual classroom but as a student this time rather than the instructor. One of the things I try to weigh is the popularity of new classes relative to the number of available instructors, and try to address a need at work. To that end, a new security class is on the docket. There are other classes having to do with data processing, artificial intelligence, and business intelligence that are popular as well, but those are a little outside the scope of things I normally teach.

Tonight we’ve got a basketball game, and things have not gone that well for the Kansas Jayhawks in the conference this year. The Texas Longhorns are the team to beat right now, and they’re coming to town. The home team will have their work cut out for them – we usually do well at home, but we have lost at home this year, and Texas has been effective as the visiting squad on the road. I’ll give credit to Texas – they have adapted to the loss of their coach who was fired following a domestic violence incident with his fiance (who has retracted her statement).

I’m glad we don’t see quite as much drama in Lawrence as other programs see… at least not lately.

I’m going to grab some breakfast and start getting my head wrapped around the day. Learning is serious business around these parts.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Good morning, folks! It is Friday… and I am thankful. 3 February 2023.

Next week I get to sit a class, and I will welcome the break. Yeah, I’m still in my virtual classroom, but I get to be on the receiving end rather than the giving end. I’m trying to build out my security catalog, so next week’s class will be a good foundational course for some other certifications down the road.

Took a tour of the comments section yesterday. Not the comments on my blog posts – y’all are great and I love the support and the perspectives. When I open my web browser, my home page opens to a news aggregate site that permits people to post comments, and the comments I read vary from news story to news story. Lots of comments from left-leaning folks, and lots of comments from right-leaning folks.

Some people seem to be chuffed up for a scrap.

It amazes me how tough people can be when they can hide behind the anonymity of the internet. Fake names, fake accounts, and private profiles equate to zero consequences for people that make veiled threats – and sometimes that veil isn’t there.

Oh well.

I’ve got some things to do today, so now is as good a time to get to work. The sooner I get going, the sooner I can start enjoying my weekend.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday, 2 February 2023, and today is the last day of my advanced role-based course on cloud security.

I have to admit, teaching in my current time zone will always be my preferred method. East coast time, an hour ahead isn’t really a problem for me either. But Pacific? I’ll tackle it when asked, but of the three time zones we normally teach in for the Americas team, Pacific is my least favorite.

It’s weird starting a class so late in the morning and finishing in the early evening.

Meanwhile, the news is on and the GOP revenge tour continues, as Kevin McCarthy and company plot to throw Democrats they don’t like off of committees for not bending the knee.

So petty.

Next week I have another 4-day class, but I’m attending, not teaching. One aspect of my job (career?) I try to focus on demand. If I pick up some new courses to teach, I try to find out which classes have the greatest demand and the fewest instructors to address the demand. There are some other areas that have more demand than security, but they are in areas outside my normal infrastructure-centric scope.

So, more security.

Time for me to get focused on the day ahead.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Good morning, folks! It is the first day of February in the Year of Our Lord 2023… otherwise, it’s 1 Feb 2023. A new month, a new set of goals, and new opportunity.

I’m starting off this day with some gratitude. I have so much to be thankful for. Yesterday I renewed my certified trainer status and shared that on LinkedIn, and I was surprised by the responses. These days I am not the most social guy on the planet. I’ve almost completely eliminated beer from my diet (carbs!), so going to a bar and having a beer isn’t anything I do these days. Keep in mind, living rural creates some natural isolation as well. Most of my social interaction is through work… my coworkers, fellow trainers, and the learners that sit in my class.

And you.

It’s ok. One of the things I’ve reconciled is that I’m not naturally social. A lot of my social interaction is forced, as I seek acceptance and validation. Thing is, I’m learning to live beyond that need for outside validation. People can be a lot of fun to be with, but people can also be a pain in the ass.

Enough about that.

I have a career I love. I have a loving wife and family. I have five noisy furballs that give me entertaining looks. I have my health, and my family is healthy as well. I am about 6 weeks away from becoming a grandfather.

There is so much in my life to be thankful for, but I’m not going to dwell on it. I hope you have things going in the right direction in your life and you have a lot to be thankful for as well.

I’m going to get this in the can and get started on my work day.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It is Tuesday morning, January 31st, the last day of the month, and, happily, payday.

Today is going to be an interesting day. I started a new course yesterday, Pacific Standard Time rather than Eastern or Central, working with an old friend. I am a little worried that some of the folks taking this course may not have cleared the prerequisites for the course. The questions that we received in class were pretty clear indicators that folks weren’t up to speed on some pretty basic security principles, and those questions take time away from the new stuff we need to cover in the class for the folks that are prepared.

It’s a challenge sometimes. About the eighth time we get a question that the learners should know going in, I start posting lessons to the chat from the class they should have taken beforehand.

I wonder how that sort of thing lands with the folks in the class.

I’m not a bad guy. I think I’m pretty level and steady, but that can be a test… and then there are the folks in attendance that have to be staring off into oblivion when they hear another elementary question that folks ought to know going in.

Oh, well. Let’s refocus on more pleasant topics.

Kansas Jayhawks host the Kansas State Wildcats tonight at Allen Fieldhouse. We owe them one… the Jayhawks lost by one point in Manhattan two weeks ago, so a little payback is in order.

That’s enough for now, time to get the coffee brewing.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Good morning, folks! It is Monday, 30 January 2023. I am back in my virtual classroom again this week, and my class is running on west coast time, so I’ve got a little more “morning” in my morning, with my class beginning at 11:00 AM, rather than the typical 8:00 (East Coast) or 9:00 (Central).

Yesterday would’ve been my dad’s 82nd birthday. Thanks for the lessons and the freedom to do my own thing, Dad.

It was a good weekend for sports fan Bob. Kansas broke their 3-game losing streak by knocking off Kentucky as part of the Big 12-SEC Challenge. There 10 total games between SEC and Big 12 schools. This series has gone on for several years, and this is the last in the series, with this weekend’s games going to the Big 12, 7-3. The other sports fan Bob win was yesterday, as the Kansas City Chiefs defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 23-20 to advance to the Super Bowl and the right to face the Philadelphia Eagles – the team Andy Reid coached for years before coming to Kansas City. That game will take place on February 12.

Other than that, there isn’t a whole lot more to discuss. I am thankful for today. I am grateful for each breath. I am thankful for the nutrition I put in my body and the water that sates my thirst. I am filled with gratitude for the love that is in my life, human and otherwise.

I am thankful for my friends. I don’t say that enough. I’ve become significantly more isolated over the past few years with the pandemic and other changes. It is always heartwarming to know that folks outside the walls of my house care about me.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all!

Good morning, and a Happy Friday to you all! It is 27 January 2023, the last Friday of this first month of 2023, the last day of my blended learning class, and the beginning of an exciting weekend.

I’ve shared with folks who read this that I’ve been practicing healthier, introspective habits this last month. I stopped drinking for “Drynuary”, and will toast my dad on what would have been his 82nd birthday – I miss you dad, and I promise, I’ll toast you with the good stuff. In my more reflective moments, I’ve done my investigation into neurodiversity and the likelihood of ADHD in my life. I’ve talked about it with my mom, and we spoke about my dad and his habits, and other family members tendencies as well. I know I am not alone in my family with neurodivergent tendencies. I have spent the last month focused on my memories, my behavior, my actions, the way I behave in loud situations, and the way I behave in crowds.

Note: I’m not always a big fan of self-diagnosis. Far too many folks come to a conclusion based on inadequate data. I started this journey at the behest of a family member that is neurodivergent and has been focused on their mental health for several years. This family member asked me to take a test, which led to another test, a survey, a questionnaire… and if I answered those questions honestly, and I believe I did, I am neurodivergent and I have ADHD. I will go to my medical doctor and discuss it the next time I get in.

There’s other stuff going on in the world, of course, the world doesn’t revolve around me and my squirrel brain. There was a killing of a young man in Memphis by police officers. Social media firms seem to be turning a blind eye to racists threatening people on some platforms. The economy isn’t doing as badly as some folks want you to believe.

And for sports fan Bob – The Kansas City Chiefs host the Cincinnati Bengals for the right to move on to the Super Bowl. (Wayne – we need all the positive energy we can send from Arrowhead Australia to Patrick Mahome’s ankle). The playoff game is late Sunday afternoon. Also on tap, the Kansas Jayhawks try to break a three-game losing streak against the Wildcats of Kentucky. KU has back-to-back games against the Kentucky Wildcats, then a match Tuesday night against the Kansas State Wildcats.

Time for me to get the trash out to the corner. Garbage gets collected in a couple of hours, so time to get the two other bags out of my office, as well as some cardboard boxes that seem to accumulate when you do most of your shopping from the couch.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It is Thursday morning, 26 January 2023.

I have today and tomorrow remaining in my month-long blended learning course. Yesterday my training partner was ill – not entirely unexpected as I knew she was under the weather the previous afternoon – and an old friend jumped in to fill the gap and provide some cover. I am grateful, and I hope my training partner is feeling better today.

The news is depressing. I should have never turned it on. I’ve got my second glass of water, a low-carb bagel and cream cheese ready for breakfast when the moment comes.

I’m trying to wrap my head around my day, and get focused, but I have to admit, I am having some challenges right now coming up with things I want to write about. Yeah, there’s some stuff floating around my noggin, but some of it needs a bit more fleshing out, some research, a little more reading.

Next week is going to be a little different. I’ve been teaching on east coast time for the last couple of months, and next week we shift that over a couple of hours to a pacific time zone delivery.

I guess that means I don’t have to get up at 5:30 AM next week.

I still will.

I need my structure. I need a routine.

Part of my routing is making a fresh pot of coffee… that’s what I’ll focus on next.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

It is Wednesday! 25 January 2023… and I just realized that I forgot to post something last night for work. Guess what I’m going to do just as soon as I’m done with this little blurb?

Yesterday was a good day. I’m glad I wrote yesterday’s post about validation. I’m 59, and it’s about time I validate myself. I have great people around me, a supportive family, and wise friends that remind me that I have value and I am accepted. They all know I blurt out stuff at the most inappropriate times, and others overlook my flaws and recognize that I do more good than bad.

I’m complicated.

As I have shared, I’m taking January off from consuming alcohol. This has led me to more introspection, and some realization about the way this mass of gray matter lodged in my skull reacts. I dive into articles about neurodiversity and ADHD, and I recognize the people and the symptoms… it’s me. I’ve flipped subjects so many times in my head during the course of a regular conversation – you all might be familiar with that idea – somebody says something about a topic, that topic leads to something else, and that, something else as well. By the time a person gets something in their head that they blurt out, that person is fourteen interrelated topics down the road, and no one has any clue how they traveled from point A to an obscure landmark in the Lepton Ovula galaxy in an unknown parallel universe.

I have done that more times than I can count.

Today I get back into my virtual classroom for lab support for a couple of hours, then prep. This afternoon I have office hours to talk with our learners about their progress, fielding questions that span three weeks of content.

I love my career.

It’s kind of amazing how we fall into certain careers. I’ve always enjoyed working with computers and showing people what they can do. I’ve joked around for years that my job is to learn stuff, then tell people what I’ve learned. Hopefully, I can present that info in a fashion that folks can understand, and if I can make them smile in the process, that’s another win.

Thanks for reading my stuff. This has all been therapeutic, and it’s a record for my granddaughter and other grandkids that might add to whatever legacy I leave behind.

My first grandchild arrives in about 6 weeks. Her name will by Evelyn.

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.

Good morning… well, “good” might be subjective, but in my time zone, at least the concept of “morning” isn’t subject to debate.

It is 5:53 AM in the midwest, this 24th day of January 2023, one week remaining in the first month of the year.

For a few days now, a word has been at the top of mind – the word “validation”. “Validation” has to do with something or someone being perceived as valid, legal, or acceptable. For me, the word definitely applies to “acceptable”. This is one of those things that I think about when I’m not drinking.

Taking a month off from drinking sends my brain to weird places.

I moved as a kid. When I was four, we moved from Sioux City, Iowa to Topeka, Kansas. Three years later, Omaha, Nebraska. Six months after that, Kansas City, Missouri. One year after that, Salina, Kansas. Three years after that, a move from one part of Salina to another, changing schools, and once again starting over trying to make friends. That move was impactful, as I had transitioned from elementary school to junior high, then between 7th and 8th grade I not only changed residence from living in town to living rural, I went from one junior high to the cross-town rival. One year at that junior high, and I transitioned to high school. 7 different schools in 9 years.

Every time I made a move, I tried to fit it. I said silly kid stuff and did silly kid things to try and make friends. I was seeking validation. In retrospect, I think I did a lot of things to try and get along, whether it was playing sports (modest results) or get involved in theater (great experience, but still very much a “look at me” validation experience).

Whether it was sports, theater, radio, stand-up comedy, or even my current career as a technical trainer, so much of my life has been spent simply trying to be accepted by groups of peers.

These days, I stick to my classes and my work peer groups for the most part. Whether it’s a case of growing up or simply not caring as much, I’ve put much of my need for validation in the rearview mirror. I think these days, at 59, I would rather be honest and say what is on my mind and how I really feel than try to fit in or get along.

But I still have lapses where I focus on trying to make a joke or say something in a particular way to draw attention to myself. Now I am trying to catch myself and check myself before I say something silly.

I know. I’m weird.

But at least I’m thinking about the things I can do to make myself a better person. That doesn’t mean I’ll succeed, but I hope my goals are aligned with something positive – acceptable… valid?

I hope the world is treating you better than you deserve.

Peace y’all.