Friends,
If you mess around with the aperture and exposure settings in the camera, has the photo technically been manipulated? Probably!
It’s still cool looking and I thought I’d share.
Your pal,
– bob
File Under: Progress, Art
No Zero Days
Friends,
I joined the hundreds of thousands of people across the globe who essentially took 2020 off. Not from work, at least not on purpose, but from the creative pursuits that we used to enjoy before the darkest year in living memory. Now that that The Orange Menace has been stopped at a single disastrous term in the White House, it’s time to get back to it.
Was I actually waiting for an election? Not really, but it does seem like a good place to plant a marker for a new start. Besides, being sad, out of shape, angry, cooped up in the house, and jobless (Twice! For the same pandemic!) has to end sometime. Why not now?
That’s why I’m taking the opportunity and nudge from C. Spike Trotman of Iron Circus Comics on Twitter to do something creative every day. Writing is the thing I’m doing today. Yesterday it was reinventing my old vegetarian chili recipe to make it gluten-free after almost a decade hiatus. I made it every New Year’s Day for fifteen years or so based on Carrol Shelby’s Chili Mix but without the meat. Now it’s got a big helping of Impossible Burger browned and mixed in. Pretty good!
Tomorrow, I start working on a special project that I’ve been hoping get off the ground for years. This year is the year. It’ll be stupid. I hope you like it.
More later.
Your best pal,
– bob
The 2020 Jaunty Election Guide – How’d We Do? Edition
Friends,
It’s time to tidy up around here and where better to start than with a bit of self-flagellation for our lack of sway over the electorate. Apparently, besides voting for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris at the top of the ticket, you pretty much ignored the rest of our thoughtful advice. This is going to be bad news for a lot of people pretty quickly, but as we know, reading is hard and it’s sometimes a thrill to vote against your own interests to “own the libs.”
So let’s check in with the Big Decision Tally-Uppers™ to see how we did:
Candidates
Here, we’re three for four. It’s encouraging.
- President of The United States – Joseph R. Biden, Vice President – Kamala D. Harris
Winner! Although they won by over four million votes, it seemed like a squeaker because of the Electoral College tally. It’s probably way past time to ditch that and elect presidents based on the popular vote. This will make sparsely populated states in the center of the country feel bad, but they’ve been telling us for four years that they don’t care about what we think. It’s probably time to return the favor. - United States Representative, District 36 – Dr. Raul Ruiz
Also a winner, by a pretty big margin. - United States Representative, District 50 – Ammar Campa-Najjar
Mr. Campa-Najjar has conceded defeat to Darrell Issa in CA-50. Issa ran an attack ad-heavy, fact-light campaign that people apparently believed. A lot of people. - San Diego County Board of Supervisors, 3rd District – Terra Lawson-Remer
Winner! There’s now a progressive Democrat majority running the County, which is a big change from the last few decades. They’ve already been told by Republicans how to behave in the few days since their victory. Being a gracious lot, they have yet to recommend that their colleagues pound sand.
California Propositions
There’s a big list this year, so let’s get to it…
- Prop 14 – Authorizes Bonds Continuing Stem Cell Research – Initiative Statute: We picked this one, and it was a winner with 51.0%
- Prop 15 – Increases Funding Sources For Public Schools, Community Colleges, and Local Government Services By Changing Tax Assessment Of Commercial And Industrial Property – Initiative Constitutional Amendment: This one lost, only getting 48.2% of the vote. The GOP’s plan to destroy civic structures by calling taxes theft is still working.
- Prop 16 – Allows Diversity As A Factor In Public Employment, Education, And Contracting Decisions – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: This one lost, getting only 43.5% of the vote. It looks like 56.5% of Californians are pretty sure that institutional racism isn’t a thing anymore. Or they’re okay with it continuing.
- Prop 17 – Restores Right To Vote After Completion Of Prison Term – Legislative Constitution Amendment: This won with 58.9% of the vote, which is great, but I’m still not sure Duncan Hunter should get his voting rights back.
- Prop 18 – Amends California Constitution To Permit 17-Year-Olds To Vote In Primary And Special Elections If They Will Turn 18 By The Next General Election And Be Otherwise Eligible To Vote – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: 44.5% said yes to this, not enough to let fired-up teens vote in the primary.
- Prop 19 – Changes Certain Property Tax Rules – Legislative Constitutional Amendment: This won with 51.3% because it was billed as the Meemaw Gets To Keep Her House Proposition in the ads.
- Prop 20 – Restricts Parole For Certain Offenses Currently Considered To Be Non-Violent. Authorizes Felony Sentences For Certain Offenses Currently Treated Only As Misdemeanors – Initiative Statute: This one lost by big margins, with 62.2% voting against.
- Prop 21 – Expands Local Governments’ Authority To Enact Rent Control On Residential Property – Initiative Statute: This one failed as well, with a 59.9% vote against. (hey, for all your wailing, you’re not doing to badly. -ed Just wait. It’s downhill from here.)
- Prop 22 – Exempts App-Based Transportation And Delivery Companies From Providing Employee Benefits To Certain Drivers – Initiative Statute: Ridesharing companies poured a ton of money into this with wall-to-wall misleading ads, and it worked! This measure passed with 58.5% of the vote. Sorry gig workers! Looks like you’re going to be wage slaves forever.
- Prop 23 – Establishes State Requirements For Kidney Dialysis Clinics. Requires On-Site Medical Professional – Initiative Statute: This failed with 63.9% of the vote against the measure.
- Prop 24 – Amends Consumer Privacy Laws – Initiative Statute: This passed with 55.9% of the vote, which is going to be a problem if you want your data off of the Internet. This Google and Facebook-sponsored measure means you have to opt-out of data collection, and can only appeal to a new agency. Sorry privacy advocates!
- Prop 25 – Referendum On Law That Replaced Money Bail With System Based On Public Safety And Flight Risk: This failed with only 44.2% voting in favor. I can’t tell if it was a victim of its scary ballot language or if the scheme itself wasn’t fully baked. Proponents will probably try again when they have an actual plan.
Looking back, we only had two really wild misses with independent contractors and with privacy. Good thing nobody needs those things.
Also, the 45th president needs to get packing, so that’s pretty good.
Your pal,
– bob
Creaky Old Weirdos
Friends,
An update on Le Musée des Ordinateurs Anciens:
- The Toshiba that caught fire after I soldered on the battery jumper backwards—in my defense, the battery terminals were mislabeled—is still on hold. Once burned, twice shy, I suppose.
- The Toshiba Satellite I started work on has a bad and expensive to fix display, so that’s on hold for a bit as well.
- But look here! The old Amiga 1200 is working! Sorta!
I cleaned up the Amiga after it spent some unfortunate time in the garage and it started right up. Its whopping 170 megabyte hard drive made a lot of clicking and clacking noises, but didn’t boot the machine. Time for a new hard drive.
Luckily, there’s a seller in the UK that sells brand new CompactFlash cards with the Amiga Workbench installed, and the hardware needed to hook it all up. I ordered it up and it arrived a month later. Can’t wait to see how the old gal runs after all this time.
BTW, got a spare a 72-pin 128 MB SIMM laying around? I’ll trade you a box of double density floppy disks.
Stay safe. Wear a mask, please.
Your pal,
– bob
What Are You Doing? Worldwide Quarantine Edition
Friends,
Like everyone else on the planet, we’ve been holed up in the house for the last month (Could be a few weeks, or two months. Hard to tell.) and I find that the years spent sequestered in my Secret Alpine Laboratory served me well. What started out as temper tantrum to withdraw from big cities/life/commitment turned into a meditation. “What do you do when you’re by yourself for a couple years?” First, particularly when it’s snowing outside, you get depressed. “What happens when you’re alone and it’s snowing and you have no real income?” That’s much worse
What that means now, that it’s pretty important not to go out and mingle, but to have the benefit of a job that can easily be done remotely and the benefit of a sweet and loving partner, is that staying in is easy. The state’s Stay At Home order isn’t going to last long enough to forestall another huge wave of infection because politicians will cave to the loud minority agitating to get a haircut and line up at Golden Corral. That’s bad news for people like me who, by my latest count, are vulnerable times three. Too old, too asthmatic, and too diabetic.
Here’s the fun part: Will my employer be indemnified from providing unemployment insurance to people who are vulnerable to infection who demur from a return to work order? What choice will that leave me, a person terrified of being broke and sequestered once again?
I’d just begun a program of going out and mingling now that I’ve identified some folks at work who I’d like to mingle with. I’m certainly not going out to mingle any time soon.
As I write this, more than 75,000 Americans have died from complications from a SARS-CoV-2 infection. Some people online have wondered why, as a country, we’re not mourning. Why no big obituary pages? Why no profiles on teevee with sad violins in the background? I think the answer is simple: The slow-motion tragedy isn’t over yet. The car is still crashing. The towers are taking months to collapse.
The Federal Government is doing not much at all to help. Political donors were made whole, but the response was late and not enough. Scientists who dare speak out are removed. Doctors who complain are dismissed. A vaccine is months away and I’m not going to play this game of Hot Lava Where Everything Is Lava Everywhere until there’s a safe vaccine that works, and I’m able to get one.
So, anyway, it’s been a while. How are you doing?
Your pal,
– bob
What Are You Doing? Warblogging II – Electric Boogaloo
Friends,
This very blog started a very long time ago as a reaction to the Iraq War and now Orange45 has started a new war with Iran this January 2020. Asking “what was he thinking?” implies that the president is capable of reasoning. He ordered the assassination of the second in charge in Iran, which is illegal, and suggested that if Iran retaliates, he would order the destruction of cultural sites, a war crime. Meanwhile, the entire Australian continent is facing an unprecedented heat wave and is ablaze. CalFire is sending folks there to help out, but the Department of Interior? Who knows!
Let’s hope that cooler heads prevail. Hell, let’s just hope for a worldwide cool-down.
Much more soon!
Your pal,
– bob
Filling In The Blanks – Dark Mode Edition
Friends,
I know I’ve been awfully quiet lately and I’d like to be able to tell you there’s a good reason for the silence. I almost dropped the cliché “life got in the way” nonsense, but really it’s been a result of me changing up the editorial stance here. (not so fast, buster. there’s only one editor here. -ed That’s not what I meant.) When you find out that the boss is reading, one might think it’s time to tone it down a bit. I’ll leave it to you to decide if I’ve actually toned down much of anything.
A brief, but very important note: My nephew just got his first car. It’s one of those Toyota Camry wagon things and he’s pretty excited about it. Despite its official name, it has little or nothing to do with Scotland, and nothing at all to do with this. Also it’s should be mentioned at this juncture that this development makes me feel very old.
If you look in the right middle 2/5ths of this shot, I’ve since cut a bunch of that down. You see, the Idyllwild Fire Protection District folks stopped by and observed that the weeds were too high and the branches were too low and all that had to go. I filled up four 5’x9′ trailer’s worth of leaves and pine needles and branches to haul to the dump. It took all weekend and I was left feeling like a human-sized cramp. Or a bruise. Or maybe an enormous scrape.
We headed to the desert a couple weeks ago for my uncle’s 80th birthday. If you had told me he would’ve hit his 70th, I would’ve been surprised. The party was fine, but everybody’s looking pretty frail nowadays.
More later, like trip planning, cheese graters, tiny cars, and maybe a little something about organ music!
Now how excited are you?
Very. Right?
Your pal,
– bob
What Are You Doing? Digging Through The Photos Edition
Friends,
One of the big reasons I’ve started taking a lot more photos is to be able to have something for every post here. Recently, it’s been the reverse. I find that I’m digging through albums to find something interesting to write about.
This is not one of those times. I just saw this glassware in a resale shop lit with a black light and snapped a quick shot.
Oh! This here Internet fever dream received a nice endorsement today from my boss…
“https://www.bobtherieau.com/ is good blog to go to if you want a fun read.”
Granted, it was mentioned to me in a private direct message and apropos of nothing, but I appreciate the sentiment. You know, you can actually like this thing too. Comments are open, or you can go old school and send links this way.
Keep doing that thing you’re doing. It’s really working for you.
Your pal,
– bob
Filling In The Blanks: What Are You Doing For Fun?
Friends,
I’ve been having a good time taking a lot of pictures to fill out this hot mess of a blog, but lately I’ve been taking it a little more seriously. By serious, I mean that it is my intention to figure out what all of the Fs are stopping and the ISOs are in search of. I’m also very keen to get out to take trips specifically to take photos. The new DSLR (Dark Salad Lettuce, Romaine) camera is complicated but fun to use. Expect a lot more of shots once I get a little more comfortable with the thing.
This shot, however, is of a new Hot Wheels Jeepster that was taken with a macro lens clipped onto my phone. Also fun.
Your pal,
– bob
Filling In The Blanks: What Do You Do All Day?
Friends,
I used to dream about what I would do for a living. Long before viewers fell in love with the 60s misogyny and lung cancer glamorized by Mad Men, I wanted to be a copywriter. I wanted to sit in a bullpen with a group of writers to craft the perfect pitch and build marketing campaigns that resonate. My goal was to use language to convince people to reward my clients with their business. Pretty straightforward.
When I first cultivated this dream, I was monkeying around with 8-bit computers, but I really thought my future looked like a family in New Rochelle, New York.
Some of that happened. Most of it didn’t.
I married the sweet girl. That part worked great. What didn’t was the professional writer part. During my hiatus from this bloggy trash fire, I worked for a global publisher, a county, and a medical device manufacturer. And imagine how surprised I was to find myself eventually working at a university. But not writing. I’ve been spending my time trying to convince users—mostly callers—that they’re not dumb. That the computer problems they’re facing aren’t their fault.
In some of these places, I’ve spent enough time to make friends. Some of these places have only served as waypoints on the way to the next thing. Some didn’t know what the job should be. And some of these places made the job as ridiculous as possible. Couldn’t get hired for the job I dreamt about though, so I’m just going to keep doing this.
Right?
Your pal,
– bob
Filling In The Blanks: Castle Edition
Friends,
When you say to your fiancé that you’re not so much interested in making the event into a spectacle as much as something grand, the obvious reaction is, “Yeah? Like what?” Better have something in your pocket ready to go.
“How about a big outdoor wedding? Something big, like a castle,” I think I said. Then it was time to find a castle.
Scotland? Ireland? A destination wedding was voted down. I tried to stick with something grand somewhere close, but local wineries and other venues in the Wedding Industrial Complex just weren’t doing it for me. Then I found this place—a real castle! Who knew?
The upside is that the company that manages the venue also provides catering and other services. The downside is that they’re very firm about who else can provide services on your wedding day. This meant that my dear friend and talented photographer had to jump through hoops. That meant no ponies, pets, or piglets. This also meant that we had to use the approved disc jockey. An affable fellow with an unfortunate middle-aged dude ponytail afforded us the opportunity to create our own playlists. We used a food-themed jazz playlist for dinner, then one filled with dance tunes for the reception.
We chose a cake and flowers and dresses and suits and colors and entrees and liquor and quotes and vows and got married on a beautiful spring day. How about that?
As the one year anniversary approaches, it’s hard to believe it didn’t happen last week.
A lot happened between then and now. It should keep us both busy for a while.
See you tomorrow.
Your pal,
– bob
So, Where Was I?
Dear friends,
It’s been a little while since I added something to this mess. How long? To me, it seems like I last wrote a lifetime ago. You’ll have to bear with me here, since I haven’t written anything longer than a Twitter post or a cover letter for a resume for ages.
A resume, you ask? You sound surprised, but I’ll explain.
You may recall that I was working for McGraw-Hill answering phone calls from their salespeople to fix computer problems, reset a password, connect to the Internet, and hook up a printer. Sometimes this was a tough job when the caller was crying or when the systems causing the problems should have been out of my reach. Luckily, people don’t change their router passwords like they should, and sometimes they try to connect to hotel WiFi networks that are actually well documented. Given a bit of time, it’s easy to look stuff up and appear to be a genius. This wasn’t rocket surgery, as the kids say.
As jobs go, it wasn’t all that difficult. Sure, it meant not living full time in the mountains, mostly abandoning my piney paradise, but my colleagues were great and it represented a steady paycheck. It meant that I could finally dig out of the financial hole I’d wallowed in since leaving the Festival of Dirt<™> during my largely unsuccessful attempt to build a private computer repair practice. With the very notable exception of developing great friendships, starting an independent business in a small mountain resort town seems doomed to failure.
The downside of working for a book publisher in 2018 and an academic publisher in the age of Republican ascendancy, is that these fortunes are tenuous and education of the populace is not as cherished. That’s probably why they closed our office in California and off-shored our work to a third-world country right to work state that pays minimum wage for the same work—Ohio.
The upside of working in Northern San Diego County is moving in with my lovely sweetheart. We’ve been dating for over a decade and she’s been waiting and waiting and waiting for me to settle down and take a moment to think about what’s really important—sitting in a cold cabin, broke and sulking, or spending sunny days with a sweet girl. That’s when I called up the courage to propose marriage.
And that’s exactly what we did.
We got married at a real, bona fide castle and made up our minds to live happily ever after. Being as non-committal as ever, I made clear my intention to review this whole marriage thing on our 50th anniversary to see if things were working out as planned. This seems like a fair compromise and should serve to keep both of us on our very best behavior.
I subsequently got a new forever job working for a California state university. One of them. It’s up to you to guess which one.
There’s an awful lot of stuff in the middle of all of this that I’ll get to in a little while. What’s also coming is, essentially, me figuring out how to work a new camera. I hope it’ll be worth your time, but it’s pretty important to note that it may not be.
Let’s waste your precious time together, shall we?
Yes, lets.
Your pal,
– bob
Have You Left A Comment Lately?
Friends,
Just a housekeeping note. If you’ve tried to leave a comment, which I appreciate immensely, it may not have shown up for a very long time. The reason for this is two-fold. Even though the comments are moderated by me, I don’t have a mechanism to notify me if something’s awaiting my approval and because of the limitations of the platform, I never will. Second, on top of my lack of diligence in writing things here lately, I also have a less than stellar record of maintaining this joint—including moderating comments.
It’ll get better as I get back into the swing of regular updates. Thanks for your patience and continued readership.
Your pal,
– bob
An Ungodly Early Hour
Friends,
It’s been six weeks, so I suppose I should finally spill the beans: I decided to take a job off the hill and away from my lovely forest. The decision was easy to make since I was as broke as a joke, but it’s been a tough transition and doesn’t seem to be getting easier.
Waking up at 3:30 every morning is beating me up. I don’t know how people do it. The new coworkers in the new office in the new town at the new job are nice enough, but I’m so sleepy that I don’t feel I’m holding up my end of the bargain. Yeah, you read that right. Three-effing-thirty.
Thankfully, a sweet girl I know has been more than generous in playing along with this absurd schedule shift. She’s been a good sport, but she surely must be growing weary of my alarm going off in the middle of the night.
However, I have a plan…
Your best pal,
– bob
Several In The Bush
Friends,
It’s been a little while since I’ve posted an update, but what a little while it’s been. Since I last wrote some words here and you’ve read them, I’ve taken a position working for the company that contracts to the company that provides Tier III tech support to an enormous multinational publishing company. The office I’m working in near some flower fields and a small regional airport is staffed with good folks who seem to like each other, which is a wild departure from my last office gig. What is not a departure is that the executives do not seem to know what happens in this office. It’s all a laugh though and I’m enjoying my time there.
This means that I don’t get to see my chunk of forest in person very often, so I’m with you having to make due with the webcam images. All of this could change at any time, of course. The people at the new gig could label me a fraud and a sham, sending me packing. A new company could call and offer me uncountable wealth for agreeing to share small pearls of wisdom with them. A large meteor could strike tiny Aguanga, California rendering the roads impassible (like they need any more grief. – ed It’s just an example.). These are things that could potentially happen, but will they? Probably not, don’t count on it, and surely not.
What I do know for sure is that recruiters keep calling and I keep picking up. At this point, though force of habit. They might have something else for me to do soon, but in the meanwhile, I’m happy to spend my day taking apart Dell laptops and resetting passwords.
Your pal,
– bob