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.

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Keychron.

I have the Keychron V6 QMK with Red keys and love it. I do a lot of typing, which the Reds are not optimized for, but once I got used to them I’m not going back. The build quality is top notch. The software works well, my only complaint is that it only works on Chromium based browsers.

The nice thing about mechanical keyboards is you can always change out the switches. Or even have different switches on various parts of the keyboard.

Was at a bar with some friends and talking with one of them, who happened to be a rather attractive woman. She was not my girlfriend, I’ll explain the relationship below…

The bar was a dive in the town that we frequented often on Saturday nights. A guy walked up and started talking with my friend and pointedly getting in between us, telling her that he was a “Skydiver” and that he had just jumped that day. She acted suitably impressed and made ooh and ahhh noises when he told her about the Tandem jump he had done that day.

My relationship to that woman? She jumped the tail slot on my 4-way team and we had done 11 training jumps just that day. She also was also north of 2000 jumps at the time and jumped with me competitively.

Oh and the guy’s tandem master that day was her husband.

It didn’t take long for the guy to run away with his tail firmly tucked between his legs. She had a very sharp tongue when annoyed.

In middle school I had something similar happen to me. The bully hit me on my upper back as hard as he could. The thing is my upper back is the least sensitive part of my body. He left a bruise, but I barely felt it in the moment.

I turned and looked at him and asked; “Do you feel better now?”

He never looked my way again.

It either depends on my mood, or if I have to focus on something.

As far as focusing on an activity, if it’s something that does not require a lot of thought, such as the audits I do at work every day, I’ll pretty much listen to anything. If I need to actually focus and think, then I’ll put on classical music, in particular Debussy, or Mozart.

There is an in between where I need to focus, but I have already figured whatever I’m working on out and just need to become adept at doing it. In that case I will listen to Rush for the most part. I’m not sure what it is about their music, but it engages me enough that I’m not bored doing something repetitive, but also allows my brain to quickly jump back to the task at hand when needed, then jump back to listening to the music. No other band works for me in that way. It’s really weird and I’ve spoken with multiple psychologists and other mental health professionals as to why. None had a clue, other than one speculated that their precision playing is the reason.

Hiking: I’m in my mid-50’s and did a lot of hiking and backpacking in my youth. I have chronic back issue that precludes me carrying a heavy back pack for days on end. However, I do still love to go for day hikes. Mainly because I love being in nature, but also it’s good exercise for my old bones.

Audio Electronics Repair: I like to take old amplifiers and pre-amps and bring them back to full function. Satisfaction is what I get out of this. It can also be a puzzle that needs to be figured out.

Her happiness is a part of my own.

And that is a choice I made.

I have two teenage boys 19/16.

A long time ago a friend of mine, who had kids way earlier than me, said this; “My kids are the best thing that has ever happened to me and also the worst.”

At the time, I was still several years from becoming a parent myself and was a bit aghast that he said it. Fast forward a few years and my boys have come into the world…

I understand what he was talking about completely.

Being a parent is one of the few things that at one moment make you feel like you’re on top of the world and in the very next instant the biggest pile of crap that has ever been in the entire history of humanity.

That’s what is called “Parenthood” and there are just some things about it a person will never be able to understand until they experience it for themselves.

Repairing distressed audio equipment. I’m particular to early 80’s to mid 90’s gear.

Role Playing Games: I have three groups, two virtual and one in person that I play a variety of RPG’s with.

Hiking: Mainly for health reasons, but I’ve always loved going out on a new trail and exploring. My days of backpacking are behind me, as I have a back injury now, but I’m still able to do day hikes.

Here is my latest electronics repair. It’s a Carver TFM-15CB stereo amplifier. The power supply filter caps (two black with silver top cylinders in the middle of the photo) went bad. Which is just something electrolytic capacitors do when they get old. So I replaced all the electrolytics (13 in all) and replaced the meter’s lights with LED units. The amp is 40 years old and is probably good for another 40 years. I’m actually listening to it as I write this post. As far as how I learned to do this, I’m self taught. Just read a lot of books and then started working on things that I didn’t care if I blew up, or fixed. Then moved onto things I wanted to keep as my confidence and skills grew.

We have very different music tastes unfortunately. However, I will try to be some help.

Have you heard our lord and god… Rush?

Especially their older albums such as; 2112, Farewell to Kings and Hemispheres. They are solidly Progressive Rock and not Trance.

After Hemispheres comes “Moving Pictures” which is probably their seminal album as it marks a departure from the format of the previous albums. They become a bit more conventional in the structure of their albums after that period.

I have to admit, I am someone that gets stuck listening to the same songs over and over as well. My music server is well north of a terabyte in music and I find myself listening to the same thing over and over again. I wonder if I’m wearing a hole in the hard drives sometimes.

So I can empathize with you.

Perhaps, I’ll give the artists you mention a real listen and try to expand my horizons. Sometimes it just takes a single song that is pretty awesome to make that happen.

It’s technique that impresses, not the food. Starting with good ingredients goes a long way toward making tasty food. With that said, if you have a two bunches of fresh asparagus that looks wonderful and one cook saute it and the other boils it… Guess which bunch will be more appealing…

My Mother-in-law (MIL) is not my biggest fan and never has been. I, a mid-west redneck, had the audacity to marry her east coast highly educated (multiple dotorates) daughter 21 years ago.

Fast forward to one of their many visits. My wife and I’s two boys are early teens, early double digits and it’s dinner time. My FIL and wife decide they want the BBQ Shrimp Cocktail out of the “Grill to Perfection” cook book. FIL, Wife and oldest son and I will eat that. My MIL hates shrimp and wants cedar planked salmon and my youngest wants a hamburger.

All of the dishes can be cooked on the grill, but all of them take very different techniques and time to cook… So I just did it. I managed to get all 4 dishes onto the table, as well as a side veggie which was brocolini, hot perfectly cooked and on time.

My MIL now always looks forward to visiting and having me cook for her and FIL. They usually host Christmas or Thanksgiving, but the last several years I’ve actually been the one doing the bulk of the cooking.