That is true.

My Grandma was just old though, she didn’t suffer from Alzheimers, at least she was never diagnosed with it. It’s pretty common on that side of my family for the short term memory to go. My Dad and Uncles all had the same issue the final years of their lives. My Dad died three years ago at the age of 88 and while he was still laying down long term memories, it was a struggle with him.

Even now at the age of 56 I find myself trying to remember words. I’m talking about common words too, not things tucked away in the basement of my vocabulary.

Machines speak to me.

Not literally of course. In my youth I discovered that I could hear changes in the sound machines make a LOT earlier than anyone else. Even people who spend hours every day with said machine and that was the first time I had been around it.

I can do it even to this day. I have worked in IT for the past 30 years and the number of hard drives I’ve predicted to fail and then they went on to fail is well into the thousands. All because I walked past the rack in the data center and heard something “off”. For those that work in data centers you know just how f’ing loud they are.

My wife’s last car was a 2003 Camry that I almost never drove. She was backing out going to work and she saw me give her car a weird look. She stopped, drove back into the garage and told me to look. At that time we had been together almost 10 years so she’s seen my ability numerous times. I looked under her car and sure enough the flexible connection between the exhaust manifold and exhaust system had a small hole. It wasn’t enough to be loud, it was just enough to change the note the car made. Even being told what to listen for, my wife could not pick out what was wrong.

For the record, while I’ve never been diagnosed it’s a given that I’m neurodivergent.

In 2004 my Dad and I went to visit his mother and celebrate her 103rd birthday. She had lived on her own until age 99, but had been in a nursing home since then. I hadn’t seen her for several years and she didn’t recognize me when I entered her room.

Her short term memory was completely shot. She could not lay down long term memories any longer. Which caused her to ask who I was about ever couple of minutes. But the long term memories she had were still there and Grandma had always had a sharp intelligence.

She was born in 1901 and had lived through one of the greatest centuries in human history. Even though she was a West Virginia born and raised farmer’s daughter she had seen a lot of things. Her husband, my Grandpa, served in WWI (before they met). Three of her sons served in WWII. Two came back. The third oldest died in the Battle of Leyte Gulf when an aircraft carrier his ship was tied to blew up. (For those that have studied WWII, yes he was aboard the USS Birmingham when it was trying to save the Princeton.) My Dad was born in 1935 and was too young to serve, as was his sister.

She had numerous stories and anecdotes about about life and how things changed over the century. She also told me about my third uncle and grandpa both of whom died before I was born. She had 5 children, with my Dad being the youngest. However, I discovered from speaking with her there was a SIXTH baby in the time between my Aunt and Dad, but he was still born.

I now have some of those memories from her stories and the people in them are remembered.

She died about two months later.

I’ve been with this group for 7 years, will be 8 in January.

This is only the second time I’ve DM’D. Not because I don’t want to, we have a person dedicated to the role and he’s pretty good. I’m doing this to give him a break and give the other players, who are all much younger, a look at what old school AD&D was like while playing modern rules.

Also, I’ve never considered myself a very good DM.

First time in a month my Friday night D & D group is playing. I’m DM’ing a homebrew campaign I created on various adventures I’ve played over the last 48 years.

Had to go through my notes today and adjust a few things.

Why the hiatus? We’re all adults with lives of our own.

Mitosis is connected to my fetuses.

Who?

Somewhat known fact:

In Return of the Jedi, Han throws a bag and knocks an Imperial Officer off the gangway falling to his death.

That officer was none other than Ben Burtt himself who was the sound designer for the Star Wars series and responsible for popularizing the Wilhelm Scream in modern cinema.

For chocolate chip cookies, go with Alton Brown’s newest version on YouTube.

That recipe is light years ahead of any other recipe I’ve tried. Just make sure to rest the dough in the fridge for a minimum of 6 hours. It really does make a difference. Also get them in the oven when they are still cold, don’t let the dough warm up.

Sleep

Why the hell do I sleep for 2 to 3 hours wake up then struggle to go back to sleep. It started when I hit 50 (56 now) and I’m lucky to get 4 hours of sleep on any given night. Once in a great while I’ll get 6 and once 7.5 hours (that felt great).

The funny thing is I have no problem falling asleep when I go to bed. It’s only when I wake up in the middle of the night that the problem starts.

It’s driving me nuts.

Yes, I’m doing my research and did learn that older adults have issues with sleep. Which really does not seem fair. I’m actually jealous of how my teenage boys sleep.

56m here and I look like a simple farmer, a person of the land. The common clay of the Midwest, you know… A moron.

The reality is I don’t own a gun although I can handle one. My vocabulary is quite broad and I can use sesquipedalian words rather adroitly. I drive a hybrid Camry and my wife is highly intelligent and educated. She actually holds two doctorates. I didn’t have a problem staying at home with our two boys while she got her career off the ground. Our oldest is starting at Northwestern in two weeks.

My political leanings got me disowned from my Maga loving family and I’m just fine with that.

But I still look the part of a Midwest redneck.

I like both to be honest.

With that said, I actually lean more toward the Fi end of things, because when a book or movie gets something obviously wrong it’s really grating. Where as with technobabble it’s true in that universe, so who am I to contradict it. It’s easier to stay in the moment.

As a case in point, I actually turned Prometheus off at the point when it’s stated the ship traveled a billion miles… Or you know, out to Jupiter. The writers could have taken 10 seconds to educate themselves that as far as distances in space go, a billion miles isn’t even out of your own yard yet. Much less an interstellar distance. Given the reviews on the rest of the movie, I apparently didn’t miss much. Yes, I’m aware that Prometheus is solidly in the Fi end of the spectrum, but come on… Some one actually thought a billion miles was an interstellar distance? JFC education is really going down the tubes.

Paper route when I was 14.

Yes, I’m aware that paper routes aren’t really a thing any longer… I’m old.

Used to buy the 12 box from a local chocolatier that is absolutely fantastic. The owner was trained in France and Belgium and her creations are as good or better than anything I’ve eaten.

Six years ago, the price for a 12 piece box was $24. Today it is $36. I used to keep a box around almost constantly. Now it is only for holidays and birthdays.

Personal Computers: As an IT professional, I’ve always been a miser when it comes to computer hardware. I usually buy something 2 or so generations old and refurbish it myself, then use it for several years till it suffers a catastrophic failure. I’m not a serious gamer, so I don’t care if it can run the latest games at trillions of frames per microsecond. Now, even 4 generations back the machines are abhorrently expensive. Costing as much as they did when new, which is ridiculous. The manufacturing burn through due to AI is idiotic. When the investment into AI finally crashes, which I’m shocked hasn’t happened yet, these manufacturers are going to be scrambling to get back into the consumer market.

I love me some cookie dough…

With that said, it isn’t the eggs that are the problem in raw dough, it’s the flour.

You can get seriously sick from eating raw flour.

With that, you would change your tune if you had one of my cookies.

Chocolate chip cookies with brown butter.

It’s based on Alton Brown’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, I just added brown butter and replaced some of the milk with soy sauce…

Yes, soy sauce… Trust me it works wonders.

This one

Back in the early 90’s I managed a Radio Shack and had an employee that could get away with murder talking to customers.

One day he was at the counter showing one of our regular customers programmable police scanners. One thing about this regular customer was he was dumb as a brick. He often brought back items because he flat out could not figure out how to use them. My employee was DETERMINED to sell this guy a programmable scanner, not the easiest bit of kit to use, and not have him return it. On the 4th time trying to show the guy how to program it my employee looked the customer straight in the face and said this gem:

“Don’t worry, you just have to be smarter than the product.”

Fortunately, he was the only customer in the store. I was standing at the other end of the counter working on a display when I heard that. I had to run to the back room before exploding with laughter.

The customer never caught on. He even walked out with one of the most expensive scanners and he never returned it.

Flip Over Read Directions

Home Despot

Blood Bath and Beyond

Wally World: But not for Walmart. When I was a teenager I worked for a garden center called “Walnut Ridge” and everyone that worked there referred to as that.

That’s exactly why my current employer hired me. I have 30 years experience in my field in a wide variety of environments.