Sing a psalm

As you’re no doubt aware, the Valentine’s Day celebration of the Kansas City Chiefs’ win in last Sunday’s sporting event ended with—quelle surprise—a mass shooting. One dead and at least 21 wounded; 11 of the victims are children.

God bless the NRA.

At time of writing, three people have been arrested; it seems to have originated in some kind of "personal dispute" among the perps. Which might have ended in a fistfight except military-grade weapons for everybody! Before learning this, I posited that, this being the land of Mah Freedumb, it could well be “I hate Taylor Swift;” or “There were all those targets;” or “It’s Wednesday.” And then it turns out that it was as close to motiveless as you can get and still send people to the hospital and the morgue.

So today’s earworm is Randy Rainbow’s “Thoughts and Prayers”. He recorded it in 2022, but it is, sadly, evergreen.

 

All in one day

A nor’ easter swept across the Mid-Atlantic states earlier this week. The forecast in the District They Call Columbia was for rain Monday night, possibly turning to the dreaded wintery mix and snow.

I wouldn’t have called what we got Monday night a storm—more like a soft drizzle—but here’s what I discovered when I got up Tuesday morning:

That turned to this:

But by mid-afternoon here’s what we had (with nothing left on the ground):

And the sunset was gorgeous:

 

 

 

Romance is all around

Not sure whether this heart is connected to the declaration of like I noted earlier, but it’s only a few meters away and appeared around the same time.

Regardless, seems like an appropriate thing to post on Valentine’s Day 2024. Happy whatever to all who celebrate.

 

 

Church & state

Let me preface this post by stating that no real estate in the People’s Republic of Reston is cheap.

So some years ago I was interested in a building calling itself Reston Study Center, next to a Kinder Care on one of my walking circuits.

“What is this?” I wondered. “Is it some kind of tutorial center? What do they study?”

Well—turns out that it’s a 21,000SF facility that supports that most endangered of demographic in the United States—White Christian men. Actually, it’s devoted to the Roman Catholic teachings of Opus Dei, those lovable whackjobs who brought us Leonard Leo, head of the Federalist Society, and his minions John Roberts, Samuel Alito, Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanagh and Amy Coney Barrett of SCOTUS.

The center seems to hold some kind of event every Saturday morning. And what I’ve noticed about the men who show up is that their vehicles are often covered in forced-birth stickers and they can’t be arsed to park on the street when their parking lot is full. They just line up on the clearly-marked no-parking yellow curb.

(Sorry about the video; I'm still learning this whole mobile phone thing.)

Seems like maybe they should be studying something besides Opus Dei living.

And they should be paying property taxes on that prime parcel of the People’s Republic.

 

 

 

Gratitude Monday: Thirty minutes

Last week I reconnected with one of my recent colleagues; we had a 30-minute video call.

AS was one of the first people in the company to welcome me by introducing me to many of the basics of threat intelligence. He gave me private tutorials and translated many of the concepts so I would be able to understand at least 17% of the conversations I heard on conference calls.

He also introduced me to the daily digest emails, an aggregation of news reports of activities by threat actors, along with brief analyst takes on what was happening. Those emails became my daily devotionals, and I learned so much from reading them.

Our half hour last week whizzed by in seconds as he gave me the gouge on what it’s like as part of the software megalith that acquired our company 15 months ago. Rounds of layoffs (mostly timed for a couple of weeks before bonuses would be paid) weigh pretty heavily, and that makes it a bit of a challenge to carry on. But he’s doing okay.

And I’m grateful to have had that 30 minutes, to see him, listen to him and laugh with him. That is such a gift.

 

 

 

Fear & loathing in Las Vegas

As some of you may be aware, there’s a sporting event taking place on Sunday. It’s driving MAGAts crazy because they consider that American football, in which teams of large male millionaires padded to the max crash into one another and millions of people bet their beer money on which one will leave the field with higher numbers on the scoreboard—“that’s mah game, man!”

But this year they’re conflicted, because of Traylor.

That’s to say, in case you’ve been in an ashram for the past year—Travis Kelce, a tight end for the Kansas City Chiefs (I don’t know what a tight end does, and I’m not sure why they don’t also have loose ends) is dating Taylor Swift.

If I have to explain to you who Taylor Swift is, we have no reason to be here. But she is everything MAGAts fear and loathe: smart, talented, powerful, successful, happy and richer than any hundred of them will be in their entire collective lives. And female.

They've also managed to cobble together conspiracy theories about how the Traylor thing is either a Pentagon psyop, an NFL hoax or a Biden manipulation. I am not making those up.

Well, not that any of them will be reading this, but today’s earworm is Swift’s “Shake It Off”.

Volume up.

 

 

 

Catering

If you wonder what you’re looking at here, it’s fat I trimmed from some meat I bought at Costco. It came off in strips, but—as I was giving it to Foxy—I cut them up into little pieces so he wouldn’t choke on the bigger chunks.

(I do the same thing with rinds of cheese.)

Which was probably a good thing, because not 15 minutes after I scattered them on the patio, they disappeared.

 

 

The front page

I made a Costco run yesterday—I was getting low on Greek yoghurt and down to eight pounds of butter, so it was time. I was gone about an hour (I do not dawdle in a shopping situation), and when I returned home, this is what the home page of The Washington Post looked like:

A few Thoughts:

The Kleptocrat will obviously appeal the D.C. Circuit Court panel’s (unanimous) decision. (The judges did not buy his lawyer’s argument that the Founding Fathers intended that a president have the freedom to order members of the military to assassinate a political opponent without worrying about criminal prosecution.) That will be two rounds of court appearances—before the full Circuit Court and then SCOTUS—and will no doubt effectively delay the federal prosecution for his attempts to obstruct Congress until after November’s election.

So it’s a win for him.

But I bet the ketchup is flying at Mar-a-Lago.

Also—I have no doubt that he’s added the names of the panel who ruled against him to his “retribution” list. That story is all about how the guy who once held the most powerful office in the world is waving his willie in the direction of anyone who hasn’t shown him sufficient adulation and obeisance. (In the end, no one will be kept off that list, because there’s never enough.) But he’s actually gearing up to use the power of that office to stomp every person on that list in the most humiliating way possible.

And there are millions of dumbasses who are happy to vote him into office for that purpose.

Third—“trust issues” in the GOP? Whatever next?

 

 

 

Sidewalk declaration

 Spotted on the path around the cluster tot lot: the alphabet person has found love.

Gratitude Monday: Partners

I spent a good deal of last week trying to deal with various aspects of getting healthcare coverage. In one case, it was the insurer wanting to charge me premiums based on my income from…two years ago. (I filled out the required form, attached proof of being laid off last may and now wait…six months for them to adjust.) In the other, it was the insurer claiming that I need to pay higher premiums for prescription coverage because I didn’t meet the prior coverage requirement. (I do, but CVS Caremark is playing silly buggers with Anthem about who needs to provide proof.)

So it was a welcome change to reconnect with a former colleague, who was laid off a year ago, to start an accountability partnership with him.

For one thing, I really like him—he’s a terrific product manager (how he won the layoff lottery when some others were left standing, I do not know), very smart and really funny. For another, he brings a different perspective to my job search from my two other partners.

Third—he’s been searching on his own for more than 12 months, and I know that having someone to check in with regularly will help reduce the sense of isolation and anxiety you feel when you’re in this cycle. And I’m grateful for his help, and for the help I can provide him.

That's not nothing these days, I assure you.