New Shoes in the Rain

Since my last post, there have been multiple shooting incidents where people rang the wrong doorbell, entered the wrong driveway, went to the wrong yard to retrieve a basketball, entered the wrong car, and more. Most of the shooters have claimed in court appearances and otherwise that they feared for their personal safety, were worried they were about to be robbed, and other possible reasons. At this point I'm becoming worried about armed vigilantes patrolling their neighborhoods without accountability (not unlike what happened in Brunswick, Georgia a few years ago).  I get irritated at other drivers who cut me off in traffic, change lanes without signaling and such.  But I no longer look in their direction, for fear that they may be armed and are prepared to respond to my irritation with deadly force. What's more, in many of the states where these most recently publicized incidents have occurred, abortion has been either severely restricted or outlawed entirely.   I have...

My friends, I hope you'll accept my apologies for being absent from this space for, oh, a good while.  My convalescence from my bout with COVID was completed some time ago, and I dived back into my work life with two hastily constructed weeks, followed by two long weeks of travel.   But since my last post I've had lots to think about a number of things, and lots of time to think about them. First topic has to be the number of mass shootings in these past few weeks.  We had a church-related school in Nashville endure a shooting by a person who was apparently a student there many years earlier.  Three children and three adults associated with the school were killed.  Then Louisville had two shooting incidents on the same day, and another last night.  And this morning's news brought details of a shooting at a sweet 16 birthday party in a small town in Alabama. President Biden says he's done everything in his power as Commander in Chief to curtail the prolifera...

Greetings, my friends.  It's been a while, but I have a very good explanation. Two weeks ago tonight, I returned home from a three day business trip and didn't feel quite myself.  Felt like the beginnings of a cold or perhaps even a sinus infection.  Friday I felt worse, but soldiered through my day's schedule.  Didn't sleep well that night (didn't have any decent cough medicine in the house) but did better the next couple of nights, as I got some over the counter stuff to put that cough at bay. That Sunday evening my wife, who also wasn't feeling that well by this time, suggested we do at-home COVID-19 tests, just to be sure.  Worth mentioning that by this point in time we had both had two vaccinations and three boosters, the most recent administered in October 2022. We both did tests.  I tested positive for COVID-19, my wife tested negative.  Then I happened to glance at the test kit box and saw that the tests we used were expired.  Since we had...

It's Monday, and you've read the title for today's comments correctly. I first want to offer some observations about ChatGPT, an artificial intelligence chatbot that may or may not be revolutionary in some way.  That all sounds fun and rather innocuous in most respects, but since its capabilities have been reported in a widespread manner, there are now instances of companies using it to write advertising copy and some universities are screening entrance application essays to determine if prospective students are or were utilizing the service to write the endless essays necessary to apply to the college of one's choice. There are many more uses, most legitimate, for such a service.  A tech oriented podcast that I listen to regularly has spoken of it repeatedly and even had it write the intro to a recent installment.  And it sounded pretty good! Not to be left out Microsoft has revamped its Bing search engine (remember that, since Windows users really didn't have a ch...

Happy Monday, friends.  If you have today off from work I hope you enjoy the day, and, if not, well, welcome to the club!  We had two of our local grandkids sleep over last night, since they were out of school, enjoying having them here. But that's not what's on my mind this morning. How many consecutive days has there been a report of some sort of mass shooting event somewhere in the United States?  As so often seems to happen, the Michigan State shooting incidents seem to have triggered some activity in workplaces and in family scenarios since that time. Conspicuously absent this time has been the cascade of "thoughts and prayers," mostly from right-leaning politicians who are in deep with the NRA and other conservative causes. And one of the more appalling aspects of what happened in Michigan is that some of the students at MSU had already been through a mass shooting event in their high school in Oxford, Michigan a couple of years ago, and one or more had also sur...

Hello, friends.  Don't often post on Tuesdays, but it's not so that I can keep you guessing! I had originally conceived a pretty significant rant in the wake of the Kansas City Chiefs win over the Cincinnati Bengals Sunday night.  It seemed to me and my wife as we watched that game that the television announcers were squarely in favor of the Chiefs winning (by winning they qualified for their third Super Bowl in four years) despite some grudging compliments toward the Bengals, who started the game slowly but gained momentum and looked to be in position to win. The other group that seemed unfairly favoring the Chiefs were the officiating crew.  Several calls were iffy, to say the least, there was a do-over opportunity given them by the striped shirts, and in the end a penalty against the Bengals sealed the chance to win for Kansas City. With a little more time having passed since that game ended, I don't really think that the officials were in the tank for the Chiefs, but ...

Thank goodness we made it to the weekend, people.  I don't know about you, but I had a pretty hectic week, capped off by acquiring some sort of respiratory issue while on a business trip.  But that's not why I stopped by for a few comments. No, I'm going to vent for a minute or two about Twitter.  Not because they are not moderating incendiary content. Not because the platform is owned by a megalomaniac who is apparently open to allowing another back onto the platform.  Not because he's laid off the bulk of the workforce who kept the thing going for most of the time. I'm mad because I have to use the Twitter app. Let me explain.  Regular visitors to this space know that I've mentioned my Twitter tactics previously.  I routinely go through the list of feeds that I follow, purging those from whom I feel I gain no benefit in following, or those with whom I've become a little bored, or interests that have moved elsewhere. I've also mentioned that I prefer to...