When we read or hear or see the news, the bad stuff always happens elsewhere, right? We hear of a tragedy, feel pangs of sadness, have a spiritual moment or two, and then we rationalize that while quite sad, it happened THERE not HERE. And we go on with life.
This is a picture of me in 2013 when I was working for Frontier Communications. I had gathered with others from the company for a training seminar at the Allen, Texas office.
Of course, as of this writing the latest horrific mass shooting just happened in at Allen Premium Outlets in Allen, Texas.
I’ve been to Allen Premium Outlets. It’s 3.4 miles from the spot where I’m standing in that photo. 99.9% of the time, despite the vivid imagery shown on too many TV screens and computer monitors, I can’t picture the location of these senseless tragedies. It’s easy for me to picture this one.
We need to do something to stop these senseless tragedies. Screaming at each other is accomplishing nothing. Civil listening and discussion might get us somewhere.
Truman enjoys relaxing in the middle of the floor under the ceiling fan. His typical stance, when he wants to be totally aware of his surroundings, is one paw forward for balance. He seems content.
I’ve mentioned before that I’m very picky when it comes to keyboard. This drives my husband crazy, because we have too many keyboards in storage as I try something for a little while, realize it isn’t fitting the bill, and then in the closet it goes.
A couple of years ago I discovered Velocifire keyboards on Amazon. They are mechanical keyboards that are relatively cheap on Amazon, and other than an annoying space bar rattle, I like the way they perform. It’s probably because I learned to type when I was in elementary school and first used an IBM Selectric Typewriter at age 10, but I like a keyboard with a little bit of heft and the rapid-fire sound of fingers dancing on the keys for all to hear. It makes me sound productive.
I wanted to jazz up my keyboard with a new set of keycaps. I’m also pleased with that which is retro, and Drop offers their MT3 Dasher Keycap Set. Modeled after Data General’s “Dasher” terminal of the late 70s and early 80s, this keycap set has a delightful retro kitsch to it that makes my geek heart happy. The keycaps are compatible with any keyboard using Cherry MX (or equivalent) key switches, so it took just a few moments to pop off the original keycaps and pop these new caps in their place.
Mechanical keyboards are fun!
The upgrade in the feel and sound of the keyboard is a delight. I’m very pleased with this purchase, especially since this set was marked down from $120 to $39. A little pricey but well worth it.
These little things make my workdays at a geek that much more enjoyable.
We’re getting close enough to my annual storm chasing trip to where I can start pinpointing the area of the country I’ll be visiting. It’s going to be an interesting trip this year; this is the first time I’m chasing in May instead of June. I knew this would result in being a little farther south than I was last year, but with the odd weather patterns as we move from La Niña to El Niño, and the jet stream doing some interesting things, it looks like I’m going to be very well acquainted with Texas and Oklahoma.
I have absolutely no issue with that.
I like exploring areas of the United States I haven’t been to before. Small towns are fascinating to me, and it makes me a little sad to see them become a little more generic or cookie cutter as corporations do their best to make each town look the same with their big box stores and chain restaurants.
Like previous trips, I plan on staying way from the Interstates as much as possible (unless it’ll get me to a storm faster), and I plan on eating at locally owned restaurants as much as I can. I’ll probably listen to local radio stations as well. Having worked in radio in a former life, radio is always fascinating to me. And with some radio stations I get a really different point of view than what I normally experience in my day to day life.
I’m looking forward to the experience. My plan is to direct my content to this blog instead of relying on social media to share my experiences.
I enjoy the vibe of Downtown Tucson. While not a particularly large downtown area, Tucson has some great little restaurants and has made some good decisions in reusing old storefronts and the like throughout the area.
We met our friend Mike at the local gay bar for a drink. Mike and Bubba have been together for a long while; Bubba works during the week but Mike was able to hang out for a bit. Earl enjoys his Piggly Wiggly shirt. I brought my beer gut, though I wasn’t drinking beer.
Afterwards Earl and I went to a place downtown called The Drunken Chicken. It’s a small location but has a great vibe about it. Earl decided to cover up his Piggly Wiggly tank top for dinner.
When we left it was quiet out and about. I guess that’s typical for the area on a Wednesday night.
I am a dork. I freely admit this. And because I’m a Gen-Xer, I know what life was like before we had smartphones and tablets and even Windows and pretty graphical interfaces when it comes to interacting with a computer. Sure, when I worked at Digital back in the late 1980s and early 1990s we had DECwindows and even Windows/386 (Windows 2.0), but we spent a lot of time at a console prompt.
As a geek I am still very interested in the console prompt. This runs contrary to my status of a somewhat Apple Fanboy and aficionado of Linux desktops.
Sidebar: as much as I try, I don’t find Windows 10 nor Windows 11 that appealing. Yes, I can do plenty of things on Windows and I’m productive at work everyday using the mandated Windows 10 environment on the company issued computer, but it’s not really my cup of tea. To each their own.
Because of my typing or keyboarding abilities (I can currently type around 130 words per minute on a well tuned keyboard), I prefer to move files around in directories or folders by typing commands instead of dropping and dragging with a mouse. I even have a terminal prompt application installed on my iPad and that makes things work quite lovely for me. It’s a comfortable blend of ying and yang. Maybe as a Gen-Xer I should be saying, “I’m a little bit country, I’m a little bit rock ‘n roll”.
I’m typing this blog entry in a text file on my repurposed 2011 Mac mini. Apple has deemed this Mac mini too old to run a modern version of MacOS, so I’m using it as a file server running Debian Linux. I don’t have a GUI (Graphical User Interface) installed on this machine, I just get to the console via one of my computers or by using the small keyboard and monitor I have attached to the computer in my office. The program I’m using to write this entry is called vim, a newer version of vi, which has been around for decades. Just for kicks I also have WordPerfect from the early 1990s installed on this server and I’ll use it once in a while. When I worked at Digital we used a word processor called “WPS-PLUS” or “WPS-8” (depending on the machine I was using at the time) and I created many beautiful documents through a plain-text editor not much more robust than this text editor I’m using right now. It wasn’t WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), but it was enjoyable and it didn’t cause me eye strain.
Embracing my inner geek keeps me sane. And as I get older and slowly tip-toe away from sanity, anything to keep me grounded is always a good thing.
After writing about my fondness for the GE logo last week, I decided to see if there were any vintage polo shirts with the GE logo available online. I found a shirt from the early 2000s that fit the bill and it arrived a few days later.
Today, I shall model it for you. I really like vintage golf and polo shirts these days. Even though I work from home, I tend to still dress a “loose” version of business casual.
A random photo I found on the Internet. I enjoy its “Bliss” like qualities.
I wonder if I’m going to see a “post-social media” world in my lifetime. Society has become so obsessed with social media over the past decade, it’s hard for me to figure out if this is a long, drawn out fad, or if society has made some sort of dependent shift on social media.
One of my reasons for my musings on the subject is because of me leaving Twitter a few months ago, moving to Mastodon, and now seeing Mastodon use wane a little bit. There are several folks I enjoyed following on Mastodon a few months ago but they’ve become quiet, their timelines not showing any updates for several weeks. I didn’t know some of these people outside of Mastodon and for a brief moment I was compelled to write them an email asking, “Are you okay?”, but then I thought their only response might have been “Who is this loon?”
So I didn’t send an email.
My Facebook account continues to exist merely for a couple of groups I follow and for the occasional update as to what’s going on at our home for folks back east. It’s a lazy approach to staying in touch with the goings-on with the family, but Facebook traffic seems to be down as well. Perhaps the algorithms have figured I hop on there maybe once a day and are subsequently shunning me accordingly.
Looking back at Mastodon, I went a week without doing much with my account, posted a few updates over this past weekend, and then am quickly losing interest again. Many Mastodon folks like to chat about what’s going on with Twitter. By the way, the fire continues to burn at Twitter. Over the weekend some of the Mastodon chatter had shifted to the shiny, latest thing and that’s BlueSky, which is an invite only Twitter clone by one of the Twitter founders Jack Dorsey. I have no interest in that.
Instagram gets an occasional flight photo or selfie of the husband and me, but that doesn’t really bring much in the way of blowing up my skirt.
I have been thinking of things to write about here on this blog and on my more “professional” blog I’m starting to put together. Long form writing is starting to feel appealing to me again. Reading actual books is also becoming appealing to me again. I don’t like reading books on my iPad that much anymore, holding an actual book that isn’t illuminated by blue LED light is just what the doctor ordered on my eyes.
I’ve also been seeking out other blogs to follow again and have been enjoying that very much. It’s very reminiscent of 2009 and I like that. Maybe I can get to my 2009 weight again, though that was 14 years ago and my weight has nothing to do with reading or writing blogs.
Maybe it’s my interest in social media in general that’s waning versus social media itself waning. When I go on my storm chasing trip in a couple of weeks perhaps I’ll use that opportunity to move away from the platforms and just stick to blogging.
It’d been a while since Earl and I had gone a day trip. Some of our best memories together have been on these impromptu little trips, so yesterday we decided to set out and have some fun.
Our first leg was through the Green Valley Pecan groves between Sahuarita and Continental. This area always amazes me because of all of the greenness surrounded by the desert. From there we made our way to the top of Madera Canyon in Coronado National Forest.
We stopped at the gift shop at one of the little lodges and had some unsweet tea and a cookie. We also watched the hummingbirds do their thing. They move too fast for photo opportunities.
From there we made our way along Interstate 19 to the border at Nogales and drove along the wall. Interstate 19 will remain signed in metric units, a hold over the planned conversion back in 1980. New signs are going up, replacing the old signs from the late 90s. Though this old sign from back then is still in great shape.
From Nogales we made our way up through Patagonia to Sonoita, where we participated in an impromptu wine tasting. Marilyn was our hostess at Desert Ride Winery. We had oyster crackers between each wine taste and we ended up buying four bottles of wine. The view from the front porch, where we were tasting our wine, was pleasant. I like that area and it’s nice to see Southeast Arizona’ wineries starting to get some traction. Marilyn was very pleasant and I left her a 5-star Yelp review.
We then made our way over to Tombstone and then down to Bisbee, where we had dinner at Bisbee Taste. We had been there once before when we first moved to the area, and our experience was quite enjoyable.
After a lovely meal we may our way down the mountain and across the open desert under the night sky to make our way back home in Tucson. One more peek at the lights in the historic district in Bisbee.
Overall it was a very pleasant day and just what the doctor ordered for our mental health.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 28 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
