Category Archives: Paul

August 1, 2026 · 22:07

Moody

 

Me. Not the critter.

It’s all tradeoffs. The good news is that I finally dove into one of the bigger “back burner” tasks that had been getting more and more on my nerves by the day. Had a good idea that seems to be working on how to organize it and make good progress. It’s not done (it has been festering for a while) but it’s respectable and I’m happy about it.

The bad news is that I’m still soooooooooo tired, in large part because I got so wrapped up with this task. Plus, when I did take a break I made the mistake of looking at the news. Between the psychotic, evil chucklefuck in the White House, his cult of pedophile protectors and criminals and sycophants, the shooting in Idaho, the fires in Washington, it’s just exhausting.

So I’ll go with the pissed off, feral, possibly rabid opossum as the symbol of my psyche tonight.

It could be worse.

It probably will be, tomorrow.

 

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July 21, 2026 · 23:46

Twenty-Five Years

Let me introduce you to The Long-Suffering Wife, Ronnie:

She’s now been suffering with me as her husband for twenty-five years, one of those big, milestone anniversaries.

Wow! I had hair, and it was still black!

In the past I’ve rarely mentioned her by name to protect her privacy, but she has agreed that twenty-five years is enough of a reason to break a few “rules.”

We’ve had a lot of adventures in a quarter century.

 

We’ve traveled across the US and Canada, and cruised down to Mexico.

It’s been a slice. And now, on to the next twenty-five years.

Paul & Ronnie. We’re a cute couple. A couple of WHAT remains an open question.

 

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Ronnie, Travel

July 18, 2026 · 23:50

Proof Of Life – July 18th

It was a very long day.

I may have overdone it. I’m stupid that way sometimes. Like, on days that end in “Y.”

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July 13, 2026 · 22:11

Grey vs PPPH

You can’t argue with time or Mother Nature. Well, you can, but you’re never going to win!

You might recall that, for my birthday in March, turning one of those milestone ages, I went nuts with my hair before we went off to Spring Training in Arizona.

At this game, a little girl, maybe 4 or 5, pointed at me and said, “Daddy! That man has pretty, pretty princess hair!” (PPPH!) I was delighted, that was exactly the vibe I was going for!

The color lasted for eight or so weeks and then started to fade. Once it got pretty dull, I went and had it re-dyed. The second time it only lasted five or six weeks, then faded. I got it re-dyed a second time. This time it only seemed to look good for about three weeks, and I’ve really noticed it being not just faded, but CONSUMED by my (now) naturally grey hair.

The blue side still has a bit of tint to it, but not much.

The purple side? There might be 1% or 2% of the color left, but the other 98%+ is grey.

It’s been a TON O’ FUN, and I’ve truly enjoyed it, but it was time to face the inevitable. The other side effect has been consistently been having my hair longer than I’ve had it in forty years, and there’s a reason that I always keep it short, shorter, or shaved. I find even a little bit longer hair to be an annoyance. Fun’s over! I want my old, short, grey, easy to care for hair back.

Done! A quick trip to the local Great Clips and it’s the old me.

Time to start plotting what color, style, or other batshit crazy shenannigans I’ll try to pull off in ten years!

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June 30, 2026 · 23:22

June Gloom

Here we are, at the end of yet another month. I feel like there were some victories this month, some good things that happened, but for the life of me I can’t really pin anything down. The Long-Suffering Wife’s birthday last weekend was fun, and I somehow hit a deadline or two and didn’t die, but all of that seems to pale in comparison to the total shit show that is going on outside.

July will be busy, if nothing else. A red-letter wedding anniversary and trip. This upcoming weekend’s holiday and some baseball and fireworks. I’m in the middle of the annual audit at work and sorta holding my own (ish?) but we’re shorthanded to begin with and got some nasty, bad news about a personnel thing, so we’ll have to see how that plays out next week. The 22nd is also the anniversary of us buying our Forever Home, and there’s a long “to-do” list of things I would really, REALLY like to get done before then.

Either way, it’s gonna be a slice.

So, FUCK OFF, June!

July? Hit me with your best shot!

(Taunting the Fates and the Gods is always good storytelling, but rarely a good idea.)

(Long story…)

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Filed under Deep Thoughts, Health, Paul, Photography

June 22, 2026 · 23:58

Proof Of Life – June 22nd

Watching the LOTR movies after watching World Cup soccer all day, every time we wander into some castle or fortress where there’s a bunch of statues, I wonder why the statues doen’t all have orange traffic cones on top of them.

My brain is weird.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

June 21, 2026 · 23:42

Proof Of Life – June 21st

I’m enjoying the World Cup matches, but I feel my brain melting and brain cells dying from the collection of truly STUPID ads. Gambling apps, which are simply evil incarnate. Royal Match & Candy Crush & all of their endless copycats, which are lower than whale shit in terms of redeeming value. Lotions and potions to cure non-existant conditions and make us miraculously all more beautiful, less wrinkled, in better shape, and with better hair. Lawyer ads that make all of the other ads look like film classics from Scorsese or Spielberg. And the worst of all, Scientology ads.

Normally I won’t watch shows that attract those kinds of ads – I figure if the advertisers are targeting that demographic, and I desperately want to avoid being part of that demographic, I’ll just move along and watch something else. I’m a little bit baffled to see the soccer games being targeted by these ads, but figuring the whys and wherefores of that one is above my pay grade.

It does help a lot to watch the Spanish networks. I know enough Spanish to pick up about one word in twenty, and they talk REALLY fast, but I can follow the game from the level of screaming and in the end that’s all that really counts. They may be having some ads for really stupid stuff (telanovas?) but I can just ignore them and let ignorance be bliss.

Which, in the bigger picture, is not a bad strategy. With everything going on in politics and the psychotic lunatics running our country into the ground, ignorance has a lot of appeal.

Hell is not being able to turn away and accept that ignorance, while also not being able to change anything or fix any of the problems.

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Politics, Sports

June 20, 2026 · 23:37

Happy Solstice 2026

In about two hours as I write this, at 01:21 AM PDT on Sunday, June 21st (08:24 UTC), we’ll be at the summer solstice, where the Sun appears at it’s most northern point and the hours of daylight are at their maximum in the Northern Hemisphere and at their shortest in the Southern Hemisphere.

I spent much of the day making plans and reservations for July. Since we’ve been up here in Hesperia, we haven’t been to an Angels game in Anaheim, and we haven’t seen fireworks. With the upcoming July 4th weekend, we’re going to go down the hill for the entire three-day, three-game series against the Red Sox, with fireworks every night.

July 21st will be our 25th wedding anniversary for the Long-Suffering Wife and me, we’re looking at a couple of days in Las Vegas (where we went on our honeymoon) to celebrate.

And July 22nd is the one-year anniversary of us closing escrow and moving into our Forever Home, that we’re still in love with. Not sure how to “celebrate” that – maybe by finishing up some of the still pending unpacking tasks…

What else can the next six weeks hold in terms of celebrations and joyous occasions? I can think of a couple of my wish list, for which we have multiple bottles of champagne chilling 24/7/365. C’mon Fates, let’s make it happen!!!

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June 6, 2026 · 23:48

Old Stories, New Updates – June 06th

Jupiter & Venus (upper left) have gotten a bit closer together (closest next  Tuesday, but “close” and spectacular looking for another two weeks or so) but Mercury’s still there just above the roof.

I was hoping to see a SpaceX Falcon 9 launch out of Vandenberg about 45 minutes after these pictures, but never saw a thing. The launch did NOT scrub and went off the pad just fine, it just wasn’t visible here, a hundred miles away, for whatever reason.

But many of the new neighbors got to see me standing out on the sidewalk with multiple tripods and cameras, staring at the sky, so there’s that!

 

On another ongoing front, I went and got my hair gooped up again, blue on port, purple on starboard, starting the third chapter of this wacky adventure.

The bottles said “Strawberry Leopard Teal” and “Arctic Fox Violet Dream” – I don’t know if those are brand names, product names, or both.

Let’s see how long it takes before the inevitable gray takes over again.

 

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June 4, 2026 · 22:44

Yet Another Of Life’s Little Disappointments

I had such high hopes!

Is it not reasonable to assume that the filling would be green? I could let them get away with it not actually glowing, a little artistic license and marketing is allowed. But it’s not green at all, it’s brown.

It tastes pretty much the same as always, but it’s boring and brown.

A month or so ago we had some kind of superhero themed Oreos with blue filling – it made our tongues blue, moved through the intestinal tract, and made things more colorful coming out of the other end. It was FUN!

I was looking for glowing green poop out of this one, but no such luck.

Back to the double stuffed Oreos. If they’re going to be boring and plain, I at least want extra sugar!

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