New Shoes in the Rain

Good pre-Halloween Friday to everyone.  Hope you're ready to trick or treat, or hand out candy, or go to a Halloween party, now that it's safer to have one of those.  I don't have a costume, at least not yet. I just returned from getting my COVID vaccine booster.  Why did I?  Well, for one thing, this horrific nightmare scenario is not yet over.  I have been most fortunate that no one in my immediate family, extended family or circle of friends has had it with any long-lasting effects.  One such friend tested positive, suffered only a runny nose and eventually concluded that this might have been a false positive test. Another reason is that I have underlying health issues.  I'm overweight and have some medical history that makes it essential to get as much protection from this virus as possible.   The third is that my wife also has some existing medical circumstances, so the last thing I would want to do is bring the virus home to her without know...

Happy Friday, my friends, we've almost made it! I've been making some mental notes, for all of the good that usually does, about things I've seen during my travels that made me pause, or laugh, or feel uncomfortable, or, well, all of the above.  For instance: I followed what I believe was a food truck for a few miles not long ago, until we both turned onto a four-lane highway and I pulled alongside of it.  I don't know if the name of the entity was in another language or was simply painted so poorly that I just couldn't read it.  I suppose if the food's any good that this would have a following, cult or otherwise, but why wouldn't you want to put the name of your business on the thing legibly? I was in a town a couple of hours away earlier this week and saw signage for a restaurant.  "Wasabi Mexican and Japanese Cuisine," the sign read.  I'm not sure how I feel about that. Outside of the same community, near Lake Cumberland (a man-made lake tha...

Good Tuesday morning, friends.  I am at home today and off work, and will explain below. Before I get into what's happening here, let's talk about a few things happening elsewhere. I'm not a Facebook user, as my stock excuse is that "I graduated high school."  That used to be a much more accurate statement than it is today.  I don't use Instagram too much, although I post a picture there once in a while and have a handful of friends I follow there.  Another very good friend decided to try living in Panama for a few months and so I'm communicating with her via WhatsApp. All owned and operated by Facebook. Yesterday's outage was rather amusing to me, given that so many people spend SO MUCH TIME on the main Facebook app.  There were numerous funny items I saw on Twitter about what people were doing with their time without Facebook or Instagram to weigh them down. But I find the outage to be just a little suspicious, as a former Facebook manager appeared o...