I woke up with this song in my head; not sure why. Blue Oyster Cult, The Last Days of May. Deep dark poetry set to guitar music, definitely my thing. Buck Dharma and Allan Lanier were guitar gods. Eric Bloom, a rock virtuoso. Their lyrics are unmatched – poetic, intimidating and memorable. They belong in the R&R Hall of Fame.

This was the longest, toughest door-to-door trip to Cabo in 20 years. Thanks, COVID!

Everything was slow, inefficient, late and frustrating. We did have a few Special Circumstances – a two-kid family behind us on the flight that took their behavioral cues from the old Tasmanian Devil cartoon, an hour waiting on baggage (!!), and a check-in process at the resort that can only be described as Escher-esque. One step forward, three sideways and two back. What used to be a relaxing transition from Socal to Cabo has become a long, patience-challenging slog through lines, risk management forms, and good service gone bad. One more example, our room service dinner order – we didn’t want to go out and brave The World again – is an hour late. Not just “it’s been an hour”, but it’s been an hour longer than promised. Two hangry travelers.

Yeah, OK, this is a (very) first world problem, but living in the first world used to mean something. So far this trip it means wait, wait, wait…and test your patience. Happy to say my patience has held up quite well in all my interactions with The World, but it’s challenging. No casualties thus far.

Today is a travel day. An hour to the airport, a short two hour flight to Cabo and about an hour to the resort. By 430pm Cabo time we hope to be watching whales and a sunset. Sounds pretty good to me.

Between the increasingly bad news about the South African variant outbreak and the continued dry, fire-danger Santa Ana weather in Socal, I’m a bit stressed out. Can’t do anything about either of them, but…perhaps a change of venue will make a difference.

It seems odd that traveling 1000 miles south would be a remedy for someone sick and tired of hot dry weather, but the ocean climate in Cabo is a far cry from the oppressive dry heat we’ve got in Socal. A smaller home in Point Loma, PB or even Oceanside is starting to sound a lot better to me.

I *am* looking forward to exploring the capabilities of my new Fuji S-X10. Some long photography walks are on the agenda.

Black Friday, indeed. So far today the stock market is down 900 points (about 2.5%) on the news that a new, vaccine-resistant COVID-19 variant has emerged in South Africa. This news triggers lots of questions:

• Is this situation now permanent? Are we stuck with SARS-CoV-2 in one form or another for decades? (Yes, probably).
• Is the overly agile mutation ability of COVID-19 natural or (a frightening thought) designed by humans in the Wuhan labs?
• Given that we’re probably going to see many more variants, how many people will COVID-19 actually kill before we get back to some new balance? We’ve recorded five million deaths worldwide so far (probably low), so where will we end up? 10M? 15? The Black Death (bubonic plague) pandemic of the 14th century killed between 75 and 200 million people, so COVID still has a ways to go to become the deadliest ever.
• What will authorities and risk managers (governments and corporations) do in response? Will we need to wear masks in close quarters (like on airplanes) forever?
• Is there something unusual going on in South Africa, something that generated the new variant?

On the last question, the answer is yes, probably. South Africa’s vaccination rate is really low – 28% of the population has had one dose, 24% two doses. So their population is pretty much wide open for virus spread and mutation. A large rise in cases, if not a variant, is predictable.

Sadly, this news will probably just adds fuel to the anti-vaxxer fire, as one of their favorite arguments is that “you can still catch COVID after vaccination, so why bother”. Perhaps we should just rename the variants as a different disease.

And the timing of this event is pretty bad for yours truly. We’re about to leave on trips to Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and Chile. On one hand I don’t want to over-react/panic, but on the other hand…yikes! Is international travel stupid at this moment?

And if you do travel, take your vitamin D! This NIH study showed that vitamin D deficient people are 80% more likely to catch COVID than those with sufficient vitamin D in their systems

All this will be in the back of my mind as I spend today watching sports – The Match, which should be an entertaining golf event, a UK basketball game (go Cats!), and the Duke-Gonzaga basketball game (go Zags!). There’s nothing I can do about this unsettling Black Friday news, so might as well be entertained.

It’s Thanksgiving Day, an American holiday that is a little less warped by commerce than most. Thanksgiving was always and maybe still is my favorite holiday, with lots of food, football, relatives and naps. These days there’s a little less of each, but the basic outlines are still there, intact.

There’s a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving 2021. First, I’m thankful that it’s not 2020, an absolute shitshow of a year. The pandemic emergency is winding down, the disease isn’t the death threat it was a year ago. We have vaccines and therapies for those intelligent enough to get them. It appears we’ll never be rid of COVID-19, but it’s not the mysterious existential threat it started out as.

As always, I’m thankful for family and friends. One of the only good things that happened (great thing, actually) in 2020 was Jesse’s birth, so the immediate family welcomed a new member. He’s a joy, and so is grandson #1. And on that subject, very thankful that the pandemic that’s taken 800,000 American lives (!) has so far passed by my immediate family. Knock on wood. Get the booster. Wear masks, wash your hands. Whatever it takes.

I’m definitely thankful to be healthy (mostly) and strong, not something every 65+ person can say. I’m not really doing my part to stay that way, so that needs to change. And I’m especially thankful that my mind is still sharp. Now that I have time to reflect on life (post retirement), reading, writing and thinking are a real pleasure.

I’m thankful that Kathryn and I have the resources to travel and enjoy retirement. We live a privileged life, in the literal sense of the word. We worked hard to get here, but so do many others who still struggle. We are fortunate.

2021 was a much better year than 2020, and 2022 looks to be even better. Kathryn and I will venture to the top and bottom of the world in 2022, crossing North and South polar boundaries. In between we’ll see the grandkids a lot and try to stay healthy. That’s a lot to look forward to.

Aaaand, it’s the holiday season. I experienced my first season’s greeting while I was shopping for Thanksgiving dinner today at Costco.

Costco was packed – I expected that. I was patient, cruising around for a parking spot, expecting it to take a while and it did. I finally homed in on a lady in a Maserati (it’s Socal, natch) who was about to leave and parked myself in the right place to get her spot. I was there 2-3 minutes when an older woman came from the opposite direction and signaled like she was going to take the spot.

The geometry was such that I was able to pull up and speak with her through our open windows.

Me: “Ma’am, maybe you didn’t see me, but I’ve been waiting for this spot. This one is mine.”

Her, looking angry: “My signal is on. You saw me.”

Me: “Yes, that’s why I wanted to let you know.”

Her (angrier): “Well you’re very rude.”

Her, as she was pulling away: “You’re a f’ing asshole.”

Me, thinking as I pulled into the spot: “So I’m the rude one?”

Not a great way to start a holiday shopping trip. I just don’t understand people any more.

Strange day yesterday. Turns out it’s OK to carry an assault weapon in a crowd downtown and kill a couple of people if they frighten you. No consequences (other than a couple of families missing a loved one). I think US law needs to change on this one.

And we had a woman President for about an hour and a half yesterday. That’s an historic first, and the nation didn’t collapse or even notice. Good for us.

The House passed the second Build Back Better (man, I hate that phrase) bill yesterday, but now they’re sending it to Manchin and Sinema-land for edits and votes. That may take a while. But I have to hand it to Biden and Pelosi – they’re getting things done. If only the people they’re actually helping (low and middle income) would notice and give them credit.

The Cats won the game last night, but it was an ugly win. They looked bad in the first half, but thankfully woke up in the second. Lots of talent, but the jury is still out on this team.

Science.org, a reputable source, has a new article out that says COVID originated in the Wuhan live animal market after all, and thinks they’ve identified Patient Zero. Interesting. Their research indicates that the zoonotic vector was racoon dogs (what the hell is a racoon dog, and why would anyone eat one?), not bats. Even more interesting. But I still can’t get over the coincidence that a virology lab experimenting with SARS coronaviruses was right down the street.

It’s strange to think that in December 2019, the world changed dramatically and no one knew it. A disease infected humans and animals in a Chinese market. No matter where it originated (nature or lab), it escaped into the world and the human population. Two years later millions of people are dead and the disease is only moderately under control. Where were you when the world changed?

In December 2019 I was in KY trying to find a way to get my Dad under some kind of care, beginning his transition to assisted living. That was incredibly lucky – he and Phyllis would not have survived the early days of the pandemic alone (can’t prove it; just know it). In those days he was drug-addled and in poor health, making poor decisions. The timing of it all is…strange.

And finally, strange human behavior. I’ve stumbled upon the Youtube channel “Karens in the Wild“, with a stream of entertaining, horrifying, and depressing behavior caught on video. I’ve become pretty cynical about people post-Trump and post-pandemic, and the Karen channel just reinforces that cynicism. There are a lot of disturbingly hateful people out there.

This just in. Episode 1 of The Wheel of Time was very, very good. The screenwriters did a good job portraying the events of half a book in the first 30 minutes. Moraine and Lan were perfect, Perrin, Egwen and Mat pretty good and Rand…the jury’s still out. He reminds me too much of Christian Haydensen, the awful precursor to Darth Vader.

But the scenery, the trollocs, the visualization of the One Power…all good.

Episodes 2 and 3 will have to wait – Kentucky plays hoops in a little while, so off to Parlour we go to get some crowd vibes. But this first TWoT sample bodes well for the series. Jordan would be happy.

UPDATE: Parlour was a bust tonight. Two on a scale of ten. Had to work hard to get the UK game on screen (their reputation was a big UK hangout), and waited over an hour for no pizza. Server and bartender blew it off as “normal”, while people all around me got their food and left. Not happy, but managed to leave with grace. No casualties.

Walked down to Fork and Barrel and had the exact opposite experience. Great service, great food, a chat with the owner, the game on TV at my request – all while they were dealing with a much larger crowd. Management matters. I voted with my credit card and F&B was the big winner. I’ll give Parlour another chance sometime, but this was a bad night for them.

Well, it’s finally happened. I’ve hit peak charging. I have so many devices to charge that (a) something is *always* out of power, and (b) I’m running out of places to plug them in. I travel with an iPad, a MacBook, an iPhone, an Apple Watch, a standalone camera, the Bose noise cancelling headphones…it’s out of control. And we wonder why Apple is worth a trillion dollars.

I do like my gadgets. It’s a side effect of being an electrical engineer – every one of these things is a modern miracle, in terms of the electronic design and manufacturing. It’s an age of wonder – except for all the damn batteries.

And speaking of “age of wonder”, the Wheel of Time premiers today! I could watch it right now if so inclined. Fingers crossed that it doesn’t suck.

The temperature dropped about thirty degrees on my second day in KY. It definitely felt like Autumn today. Fortunately, the heat pumps on our new place work just fine. Brisk outside, cozy inside.

Tomorrow I get to see my first UK hoops game while in the state, in quite a while. Not sure where to watch it, but Parlour is reputed to have a strong UK crowd. It’s been a long time since I saw a UK game in a rowdy crowd of fans, and I’m looking forward to it. Go Cats!

On a completely different topic, a movie I saw on the flight here was unexpectedly great. It started slowly, but got better, and better…the last 10-15 minutes were epic. The Good Liar, starring Ian McKellen and Helen Mirren. Highly recommended.

Tonight I’m watching a semi-demented Netflix movie called “The Trip”. It’s Norwegian, dubbed into English and stars Noomi Rapace. It’s a very dark comedy set in a cold, remote Norway forest. Remind me to not buy a wilderness cabin. Not exactly “Chariots of Fire” or “The Way We Were”, but I’ve seen those a few times.

I have managed to get a few shots of nice Fall colors – just a bright tree here and there, maples and ginkos. Pictures to follow.

Had an unexpectedly good foody day yesterday in Louisville, my first full day after arrival. I was pretty tired, having arrived after midnight. But that didn’t stand in the way of some fine local cuisine.

As usual, first up was Con Huevos. It was good to be able to walk there, because with my late arrival, no rental car kiosks were open and I had to take a cab to the house. No wheels for me. The breakfast was as good as remembered – eggs over easy, atop two nice enchiladas and covered with the Con Huevos picante sauces. Their sauces are the best – no wonder their chef is a James Beard award finalist.

After a visit with the grandkids and a much-needed nap, I took a walk around the neighborhood and discovered another gem – Eat Your Bourbon Marketplace. A weird name for a great place – a cafe, a bar, a gift shop, a place to hang around and visit with locals. Bourbon-themed, but also specializing in some Kentucky classics like pimento cheese sandwiches and country ham. And five dollar Old Fashions all day, every day. I had the perfect country ham sandwich and took some pimento cheese home. I think I’ll be a regular there.

Finally, Son-in-law Greg and I took the boys out to Crestwood for an evening meal at 3rd Turn Oldham Gardens, a beautiful spot with some good BBQ and brews (for us, not the boys). The grandkids loved being able to run around and play while we ate, and we enjoyed the food and an unseasonably warm November evening. It was a great finish to an unplanned foody day.

Today I’m thinking some healthier food might be in order, like Green District.

I’ve been away for a couple of days running a business meeting/weekend. Sixteen hour day yesterday – now I remember why I “retired”.

But it all went well, we accomplished what was needed, and today we take the team out for a wine tasting adventure in Temecula wine country. In retrospect, we should have planned something not involving wine, as the dinners the last few nights have been awash in good wine. 20-20 hindsight. So while I would rather just hang around the house, we’ve got guests to entertain so off we go to the vineyards. Cheers?

It’s 89 degrees at 11am, harsh bright sun, in the middle of November. Days like this make me long for a classic, cool Fall day in the east.

(Update at 1pm – 91 degrees. Damn. Another all-time high for this date.)

We have a ton of projects we’re trying to get done before Christmas guests, but getting anyone to work on home improvement projects these days – companies or individuals – is almost impossible. The few people we can convince to come out and give us a bid on a project (door replacements, plumbing, irrigation work, window shades, etc.) show up once and we never hear from them again. If/when I track them down again, I get the “we’re just very busy” excuse and “we’ll get to you when we can”. The media is all up in arms about inflation, but I’m more frustrated by the sheer difficulty in getting anything done these days.

Pre-COVID I took for granted that there was always someone I could pay to do a job. I might not love the price, but there was always someone ready/willing and parts/supplies were never an issue. Seems like a completely different world and economy now.

Remote product and repair services, it’s a different story completely. For example, I’m getting great and fast service on a broken camera, and great products with rapid delivery from Leatherology (gifts for an event I’m hosting). And Amazon orders continue to flow in normally, so far. It’s the tier of small, come-to-your-home service providers and installers that seems to be broken in Socal, maybe all over the US. What happened?

Well, this is interesting. A bit frightening, but surely a godsend for paralyzed individuals. The frightening part is that once this technology improves, our species’ slide into some kind of cyborg culture is very likely. Maybe inevitable. A working mind-machine interface will be very useful and *very* dangerous. Brains are hackable via chemistry (alcohol for example, and hundreds of other molecules) and machines are hackable via other machines (software). It’s a security nightmare, and opens the door to mind control and inability to be sure of the reality of one’s perceptions. Perhaps I’m overly dramatic, but…once you can’t be sure that your thoughts are yours, or that what you see/hear is real, what then? Maybe yet another schism in societies – one side embracing the interface, and one side staying “natural” humans. Next-generation Amish, of a sort. There’s a science fiction novel in here somewhere.

Last evening’s college basketball kickoff was fun, but KY came up short. We played well, but not well enough. I hate starting the season with a loss, and a loss to Duke is especially rotten. Which is pretty much how I feel this morning (did a little intentional brain hacking watching the game).

This story and picture of an original Apple-1 computer selling for $400K is startling, even to me. Not the price, but the packaging and finish. I had forgotten how primitive these first machines were. I owned an Apple IIe, and it was a fairly modern-looking plastic case with a decent (for the time) keyboard. But this thing…it looks like something from a steampunk novel. We’ve come a long way since 1976. The Apple laptop that I’m using to write this entry is functionally similar to the A1, but at least a billion times more complex.

One more thing. Great article today from BBC on traveling to Malta. We loved our visit to Malta, and I’d go back in a heartbeat. The fact that they’re doing so well post-pandemic is wonderful. Malta has old-city urban charm, plenty of great outdoors for hiking and swimming, great food and nice people. Highly recommended.

After three days of forced laziness, I’m definitely feeling better. Maybe back to 75% of normal. Colds are a bitch. Especially with the Socal weather being perfect.

My big project yesterday was to take stock of my photography gear and make some decisions about what to take on our upcoming travels to KY, Cabo and S America. A bit of good news – I found a place to fix my broken Lumix ZS-100 for only $120. That’s a no-brainer, as the ZS-100 is a high quality lightweight piece of gear, but unusable with the rear display broken (highly-integrated electronics don’t like being bounced off concrete). Even taking potential sunk cost bias into account, I can get a $400 20 megapixel device back in service for $120. Done.

A tougher decision is the main camera, my X-T30. It’s a great camera, but the one thing I didn’t get when I bought it in 2019 was image stabilization. Consequently, I do get more blurred images that I would like. There are two main types of stabilization – OIS, or lens-based optical image stabilization, and IBIS, or in-body image stabilization. I figured I could just buy some OIS-enabled lenses with the X-T30, but they’re really expensive. So far the lenses I’ve bought don’t have that feature.

The big benefit of IBIS is that it provides stabilization to ALL of your lenses, including the ones I’ve already bought. So for the cost of one good OIS X-mount lens (like this), I can upgrade the X-T30 to something like the the X-S10, with features and form very equivalent to the X-T30 – plus the IBIS feature.

Will have to think about this one a bit, but I can also sell the X-T30 and pay for more than half of the new body’s cost. That would make the move to IBIS really cheap. Done (probably).

Here’s an update on this season’s big TV premiers (“big” as defined by my personal interest and expectations):

• Yellowstone! – begins again Nov 7, tomorrow! I expect it to be less disappointing than most of the science fiction releases. Costner rocks in this role. And please don’t kill off Beth.
• Dune – released a couple of weeks ago. Seems that everyone loved it but me. I tried.
• Foundation – released Sept 24. HUGE disappointment. Nice effects, some nice scenes, but an incomprehensible plot. I expected better.
• The Expanse season 6 – will premier at the beginning of winter, on Dec 20. This and Yellowstone are the big ones for me. They’re can’t-miss series, with stories and characters that I wish could go on forever.
• The Dexter reboot – also preniers Nov 7. I don’t have big expectations for this, but I sure loved the original series. And seeing Michael C. Hall as the oddly-likable serial killer again, though 20 years older, will be interesting.
• The Wheel of Time – premiers in about two weeks, on Nov 19. The trailers have been encouraging, but this would be another SFF series very easy to screw up. So fingers crossed.
• Raised By Wolves – season 2 to premier in early 2022. This is probably the least well known of the list, but I really liked the premise and production of season 1 in 2020. It’s a Ridley Scott gig, so it has some real director/producer-power behind it.

So…a big season for some of my favorite shows and books. The biggest in quite some time, actually.

Woke up to some good news today. First this, summed up in three facts:

1. Feb. 2021: Nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projects we will get to 4.6% unemployment by the end of 2023.
2. Mar. 2021: Democrats pass the American Rescue Plan Oct. 2021 (zero Republicans voted for it).
3. Nov. 2021: Economy reaches 4.6% unemployment two years ahead of schedule.

Then, in even better news, from Heather Cox Richardson:

At about 11:30 p.m., the House of Representatives passed the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) by a vote of 228–206. Biden promised to pass a bipartisan measure and after nine months of hard work, he did it: thirteen Republicans voted in favor of the bill; six progressive Democrats voted against it. The measure had already passed the Senate, so now it goes to his desk for a signature.

This bill is a huge investment in infrastructure. Axios lists just how huge: over the next 8 years, it will provide $110 billion for fixing roads and bridges, $73 billion for the electrical grid, $66 billion for railroads, $65 billion for broadband, $55 billion for water infrastructure, $47 billion for coastal adjustments to climate change, $39 billion for public transportation, and so on.

I really believe in the benefits of government stimulus of damaged economies. It worked in the Great Depression, it worked after WW2, and it worked after the 2007 mortgage and banking meltdown. So for all those who have been whining and wailing about government spending during and post-COVID…let’s hear the macroeconomic facts and examples that support your point of view (I’ll save you some time; there aren’t any).

It took the Dems long enough, and they still have some cleanup to do in their camp. But they got it done, as opposed to the previous administration’s often-promised-but-never-realized “Infrastructure Week”. Now, every week of 2022 will be Infrastructure Week.

“Yesterday
All my troubles seemed so far away
Now it looks as though they’re here to stay
Oh, I believe in yesterday

Suddenly
I’m not half the man I used to be
There’s a shadow hangin’ over me
Oh, yesterday came suddenly”

With apologies to the Beatles, but the first two verses seemed appropriate. What a difference a day makes. Woke up today feeling like crap. Congestion, some cough, just weary. Pretty sure I’ve picked up whatever K had a while back. Had real trouble with focus/concentration earlier, but this afternoon a bit more clear-headed.

Just in time for the weekend. Perfect weather, places to go, lots to do – but I suppose I’ll stay in and rest. At least there’s UK sports on TV today and tomorrow. Only four days until the UK-Duke season opener! The first game of Coach K’s final season, arch-rivals (actually, out-and-out enemies), and the first game for both programs after a miserable previous season. The stakes are high.

It’s been a good, satisfying and wide-ranging day today. So far I’ve:

• Participated on a really interesting panel at an online tech conference, opining about analytics, security, artificial intelligence and machine learning. I managed to avoid embarrassing myself or other panelists.
• Planted a few trees on the Socal property.
• Created a new model for our financial planning, looking at some almost-worst-case scenarios.
• Read a lot of another excellent crime novel set in San Diego by Matt Coyle.
• Updated the materials for an upcoming tech meeting that I’m organizing and hosting.

When I’m experiencing a day like this, I realize that I’ve spent a lot of time lately being bored. Not really fulfilled or engaged. Need to fix that.

All I need to do to take this day right across the finish line is to get some exercise (beyond lifting a few potted trees). We’ll see.

I think that Biden and the Democrats will come to regret the announcement today that all Federal employees and all employees of companies with more than 100 employees are required to be vaccinated by January 4, 2022.

Consistent with my earlier post on this subject, I don’t think the government should be able to mandate vaccines. I get the “for the greater good” argument, and I sympathize with it. But just like the government should not be able to stop you from eating too much or too little, or piercing your ears, or terminating a pregnancy that you don’t want, “your body, your choice” is logic that must be applied consistently. I own my body and I control what is done to it, period.

Having said that, I *am* OK with private employers requiring vaccination or wearing masks for safety reasons, and I’m OK with their firing employees who refuse. That *is* a reasonable choice – you can choose to work for that employer or not. And some employers will have very good reasons for such a requirement. Imagine a surgeon who refuses to wear masks and gloves during your surgery because “she doesn’t want to”, or her phony baloney religion says not to. Your risk of infection and deat from that surgery increases, the hospital’s risk increases, the doctor’s liability insurance cost increases…everybody loses. Hence, masks and gloves for surgeons just aren’t negotiable.

And I’m very OK with the government taking a bully-pulpit leadership role in promoting the scientific and societal value of mass vaccination. Educate us, convince us. Give us the tools we need. But don’t make any form of body invasion or modification the law of the land. It really is a short distance from “US law says you must be vaccinated or <some form of punishment>” to “US law says you females will wear veils and never get a tattoo or <some form of punishment>”. Slippery slope.

The Biden pronouncement blurs the line between government and private employment. OSHA is tasked with enforcement, and the company can be fined $14K per violation, and more when “willfullness” is involved. So the company gets the fine, and the company becomes the government’s enforcer.

The more I think about this, the more I believe that this will haunt Democrat candidates for years to come. The MAGA-right and even moderates hate the idea of a nanny state, of being told what to do. This top-down mandate will be their poster child from now forward. And while I don’t agree with much on the far right, I *do* agree with them on this. Let private industry make a logical, market and risk-based decision about requiring employees to take protective measures, especially body-invasive protective measures like vaccination. Employers set the requirements for their workers. And then let employees decide if the job is worth that requirement.

I’m pretty sad to have missed Halloween with the grandkids this year. Pictures are great, but being there is better. A bumblebee and a robot/transformer seen below.

I’m still in my whole-lotta-shit-to-do week. But it’s going well. The estate planning turned out to be a lot bigger job than expected, but…it needs to be done.

Good news, I did manage to find a cache of my favorite wine in the world – D66 Pharoan from Maury, France. It ain’t cheap, but it sure is special.

My writer’s group is restarting post-COVID, and it makes me sad that I’m not writing anything (except blog posts) right now. I have thought of a good way to rewrite the Lost Hope book and get it into better/publishable shape, and I have a couple of ideas for the next one floating around. But I’m having a hard time committing to the writing.

In other depressing news, CNN just ran a story about how terrible air travel is and that it’s going to get worse. Just what I wanted to hear when I’m all-in on a two-residence, cross country lifestyle. My timing has always been bad.

Finally, I will mention a book I just finished: The Life We Bury. It’s not my usual fare, but I enjoyed it a lot. Compelling characters and story. The authors did a great job taking a simple idea and turning it into a great story. Recommended.

I have a busy week ahead. This being retired isn’t as simple as it used to be.

I’m doing an online panel discussion at Techvision Research’s 2021 Chrysalis event. Our subject is “Pragmatic Security and the Evolving Role of AI/ML/Analytics”. I didn’t select the topic – it’s a little too broad IMHO, but I can opine about it.

We’re meeting with a lawyer this week to update wills, family trust and estate plans. And maybe take action on the damnable fire suppression system.

There’s at least one World Series game and one UK basketball game to watch.

I have to go to Temecula and check on the resort / meeting space for an upcoming 4Liberty event, and finish the content we’ll use for a full day of discussions with technology advisors. Lots of deadline pressure here.

I have a meeting with another company to discuss starting a new project with/for them. The project involves new data center equipment.

On the home front, I want to make some time to buy a truckload of plants that we can plant on the property ahead of Christmas and the winter rains. And I have to install a new electronic water softener at the house. And hope it works as advertised.

I need to make some travel reservations for our upcoming, post-Thanksgiving Cabo trip. Fishing trip, some restaurant reservations, transportation to and from the resort.

Finally, I wanted to do a full NanoWrimo month. That’s looking unlikely given the other pile of stuff I’m committed to.