Category Archives: Paul

December 2, 2025 · 23:16

No Context For You – December 02nd

Choose your Hell…

Concentrate on those important tasks for hour after hour after hour? End up exhausted, barely able to keep your eyes open and capable of staggering to bed, little or no energy or time to do anything else, anything enjoyable.

Work hard but put down your labor when the allotted time comes? Feel okay, have the time and energy to read a book or watch the hockey game – but the whole time your brain is racing about your deadlines and how you’re risking failure, and trying to sleep is futile and troubled.

In between somewhere? There’s a reason it’s called “work/life BALANCE.” Some days it feels like that balancing act is being done with you as a last-minute substitute for Philippe Petit, on a high wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

Which, if you’re tired enough, becomes an allegorical phrase from the Tamarian language. “Paul, a poor substitute for Philippe, on a high wire between the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.”

IYKYK!

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Filed under Memes, Paul, Photography

December 1, 2025 · 23:41

Bots?

“A spike in your stats” indeed! Apparently something or someone was visiting this site this afternoon causing a 13,250% increase in traffic. No messages or comments were left and other than the alerts from WordPress and Jetpack I don’t see any signs. I haven’t gotten any huge jump in subscribers, just the usual “couple a month.”

One of the social media posts that kicks out every time I post something new (like this, my usual “daily” post) goes to LinkedIn, and I have had a few new folks joining the company who have asked to connect to me there, no doubt prompted by the Linkedin algorithms when they update the information on where they’re employed. I give them fair warning that I don’t post “business related anything” there, just the more-or-less daily connections to my personal blog, and if they find it bizarre or boring I won’t be offended if they disconnect. It’s possible that one or more of them finally actually looked at what’s posted here, but still… 275+ views is quite a bit.

My suspicion is that it’s a bot or digital agent of some time that started “scraping” content and for reasons unknown picked a large but not complete batch of posts. Who knows?

I, for one, WELCOME our digital overlords! If they want to sign up as subscribers, or better yet, PAID subscribers, so much the better!

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Filed under Paul, Writing

November 14, 2025 · 23:29

Trains In The Night

One thing I’ve heard a lot in the last few nights working outside after dark, and again while I was sitting outside listening to the rain, are the train whistles off in the distance.

Talk about a legendary and well-earned trope, the touchstone of countless country-western ballads. That lonesome call off in the distance, a few million metric tons of freight heading off through the night to an undefined someplace off over the horizon.

The proximity of this neighborhood to two separate main rail lines between SoCal and points east was a big factor on choosing it for me. There were a handful of other houses we looked at which were NEXT TO the train tracks, and while that had a certain attraction, really FEELING them rumble by and having the horns rattling the windows, I was also conscious of some of the potential downside to that after the novelty wore off.

Here we’re about two miles away in separate directions, there are railcams online where I can see what’s coming and going, and I can hear them off in the distance, even when I’m inside. It’s a comforting sound as I’m falling asleep at night, and a little source of joy repeatedly through the day.

And again, tonight when I was out on the porch, sitting and listening to the substantial rain shower pounding on the tin roof of the porch, running off into puddles out on the turn and rocks, it was wonderful to hear the train sounding off.

It’s one of the little pleasures.

Gotta take ’em where you can find them!

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul

November 13, 2025 · 23:46

Proof Of Life – November 13th

I’m alive. No picture, I didn’t even have time or the energy today to take one.

Okay, I lied, now there’s a picture.

I’m exhausted, but we’re ready for the rain. All of the stuff that came out of storage two weeks ago and got stacked up in the back yard is now sorted and either in the house or on the back porch under a roof. We’ll see if that’s good enough.

I also hit (-ish) all of the critical deadlines at work and there aren’t any meetings tomorrow, and there’s nothing on the schedule at all for this weekend, so after a whole slew of busy days with way too much physical and mental labor and way too little sleep, there will be (I’m praying! at least as much as a confirmed athiest for the past 50+ years can be) a few days to kick back and sit my ass on the couch for a nap or two (or five).

Too old for this nonsense.

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul

October 29, 2025 · 17:18

Yeah! But You Should See The OTHER Guy!

Oh, let’s get real! I was unloading crap from the Uhaul truck and lost in a fight with gravity.

It was heavier than I expected, I was on the ramp, I went down, hit my head, and it came down on top of my head to add insult to injury.

Good thing I have a really thick, hard skull. Only minor damage to the gravel next to the driveway.

Tomorrow the young, strong, professionals come in to finish the job. I might be stupid enough to do this at age 69 – I’m not stupid enough to try to finish the job after getting my ass kicked.

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Filed under Forever Home, Health, Paul, Photography

October 28, 2025 · 23:04

Silly Faces – October 28th

What did Bilbo say just before he gave up The Ring and went away to live with the elves? Something like, he felt “thin,” like too little butter scraped over too much toast? Yeah, I get that.

Facebook gave me a prompt today, a “before” picture from nine years ago…

A memorable day, this picture was taken just before I got murdered. (We were in Raleigh, NC for our neice’s wedding and we were doing a family cosplay murder mystery. I was the lying, cheating, evil bastard who soon was to be covered in blood on the kitchen floor. It was fun!)

Of course, for the “after” picture from today I needed something equally silly…

Maybe not QUITE as silly, but I was on a tight schedule. One of those things where you do the best you can and move on.

Stay silly, folks!

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Silly Shit

October 24, 2025 · 23:38

One More Time With FEELING & Four-Part Harmony

Sort of winging it after one idea cascaded into another and suddenly starting late last night my plans for the weekend starting radically changing.

I was really hoping to sit on my ass and catch up with my naps. Instead…

After scrambling all through July to get ready to move and get packed and close escrow and get two PODS containers packed and then doing the last-minute sprint at the end of July to get out of the old house, then spending seven weeks getting the two PODS containers emptied and everything put away in the house, all while trying to keep current at work and getting settled in the new house and trying daily to not explode, AFTER ALL OF THAT…

There’s one major loose end. (Probably dozens of minor loose ends and “honey do’s,” but those can be tackled one at a time.)

Seven years ago when we moved from the 5-bedroom, 3300 square foot house where we had lived for over 30 years into the 3-bedroom, 1600 square foot rental home which was intended to be an interim home for “a year or two” we went through a HUGE freakin’ process of culling, tossing, pruning, throwing out, donating and we still ended up with WAY TOO FREAKING MUCH STUFF to fit into that half-sized house. So everything else went into three large storage units.

The Forever Home has enough room for all of that and we need to stop paying extra for those units. So everything in there needs to get here, and since we kinda wanted it here by the end of July and the end of August at the absolute latest, the coming of the end of October is applying some mental stress to “get ‘er done!” Some plans to get a big chunk of that done later this week fell into place, so the balance of that task was either this weekend or “sometime in November.” For reasons that I can’t quite explain, especially given my desire for naps and ass-sitting, there’s now a HUGE U-Haul van in the driveway. The two-hour-plus drive each way factors in and somehow this made the most sense.

Once more into the breach, friends! There will be plenty of time for naps when I’m dead. Or in November. Whichever comes first.

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Filed under Forever Home, Paul, Photography

October 8, 2025 · 23:50

Proof Of Life – October 08th

That was close! The day almost got away from me without a post – 15 minutes to go!

Especially when there’s a critical deadline, especially when it sort of gets popped up on my by surprise or due to a schedule shift, I tend to “knuckle down” and get really, REALLY focused. And the next thing I know it’s 2:30 AM or so.

The good news is that it’s a mode that I can shift into most of the time and actually get things done. The bad news is that anything that isn’t “THAT project” tends to get steamrolled.

How was your Wednesday? Thursday looking any better?

Yeah, this is about the size of the universe when I get into that locked-in mode. Good tunes on off in the background, maybe the hockey game or something, but unless the building is on fire…

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Filed under Paul, Photography

October 7, 2025 · 23:52

Proof Of Life – October 07th

A common question I see being asked of various social media commentators regarding today’s world (i.e., the ongoing destruction of the US government and fascist, right-wing, white “Christian” supremacist dictatorship being put in place) is, “What can I, as a simple, normal, powerless individual do?”

I see the same answers over and over, and I don’t know that they’re wrong. I wish that I felt better about them actually working, but it’s all along the lines of 1) write letters and make calls to your political representatives 2) volunteer to help where you can 3) join a peaceful protest 4) talk to your family, friends, and neighbors 5) spread facts and fight misinformation and outright lies and propaganda.

All good ideas. And finally, 6) don’t let them beat you down mentally, don’t let them make you give up, don’t allow them to steal your joy.

Excellent. Easier said than done, however. I’m finding joy to be in short supply.

But I can still find it in simple things, like looking at the clouds and the birds every day. Look at the stars every night, and the sunrises and sunsets every morning.

I was reminded by a good friend the other day that it’s fun to blow bubbles. Ausgetzeichnet! I’ll have to remember to get some ASAP.

I joined the local astronomy group. I’ll have to get my telescope re-aligned and set up again.

Bigger picture, what would it take to start flying again? It’s a long shot, but I hear that we need to set “impossible” goals. (I don’t know if that link to an Instagram post will work here, it’s the first time I’ve tried to do one on this site. If it doesn’t, jut look up “Mace Curran” and immediately go get her new book “The Flipside.”)

This might all be just whistling past the graveyard, but it’s got to beat just giving up and lying down to die. At least, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it!

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Filed under Paul, Photography, Politics

October 3, 2025 · 23:30

Double Shot

The latest  & greatest COVID vaccine on top, this fall’s flu vaccine on the bottom.

Being over 65 and, more importantly, in a state where sanity and real science still outweigh ignorance and kissing the cult leader’s ass, it wasn’t difficult to get access to the vaccines. I’m hoping that the anectodal stories I’m hearing from hither and yon are true and it’s easy enough for those younger to also protect themselves and their health.

I’ve heard it postulated that we got kicked onto our current batshit insane timeline back in 2016 due to the Cubs winning the World Series. That makes as much sense as anything else. The hope is that if the Cubs win the World Series again it will bring balance to the Universe and we can return to a timeline where ignorant Nazi chucklefucks are forced to crawl back under their rocks and hide from the light of the Sun and the company of normal people.

GO CUBBIES!! Fly the W!

In the meantime, ignore the heroin addict with the worm in his brain and the orange makeup queen with the adderal addiction, get your shots by any means necessary, and keep yourself safe and healthy.

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Filed under Health, Paul, Photography, Politics