Last night (2026-October-10) my wife and I were watching bad television, and we kept hearing music. My wife assumed it was our neighbor to the Northwest where there is a revolving party with a side of hip-hop music. I heard it coming from the East. I kept hearing trumpets… Sure enough the Renwick Mansion was hosting a quinceañera or a wedding. Maybe something else… They had a mariachi-style band there. All of the lyrics were in Spanish, and they were excellent. I’ve never heard live music from four blocks away that was this loud or clear. At 10:00 p.m. everything stopped. I have a former teaching colleague that owns the mansion. I hope his staff and the participants had a great time. One never knows what we are going to hear in our neighborhood… That is the beauty of diversity…

In 1996 my father purchased a new Black and Decker drill. The inaugural job for that drill was a deck for his home in Silvis, IL. I helped him build the deck. He got in trouble for not having a building permit or pre-inspection approval. Which resulted in a small increase in the building permit. Well this week, thirty years later, and seven years after my father’s passing the drill died. I became the owner of the drill, when my father moved to Florida. I think I used it more than he did. They don’t make tools like they used to. It was a corded drill. I bought a replacement Craftsman corded drill. Craftsman and Black and Decker are made by Stanley Tools. Stanley also creates DeWalt tools. The Illusion of choice. I hate the battery-powered tools. The batteries are too expensive. I’ll buy a gas powered generator if I need portable power… Farewell Mr. Black and Decker…

I find it incredibly amusing that a politician is celebrating their vote for an act that never made it to $47 desk to become law in their campaign commercials… I’m sorry, it doesn’t explain your $8M increase in net worth over four years… corruption still smells like corruption…

My 17-year-old son understands the political landscape better than the entire MAGA movement. This includes a clear understanding that transgender claims by MAGA are full of shit… I’ve never seen a group of people so obsessed with another person’s genitals… He can’t understand it either… We also had a nice discussion regarding the 2000 election and the peaceful transition of power as Al Gore allowed the Senate and House to certify the vote… He thinks Gore is a better American than $47. He most certifiably is…

College football is just a revenue producer for colleges. It has nothing to do with education, and sparks more controversy in upper education than a gender studies program. If most of the conferences are more interested in winning and cash, then maybe they should just form the NFL developmental league and have each football team rent the facilities from the colleges… That way conferences that are concerned with a quality student-athlete, like the Big Ten, could actually play the game for fun and produce scholars that change the world rather than worry about making revenue…

For as much as Disney profits off of college athletics through their ABC/ESPN programming, I think they need to reimburse schools up to 50% of their gross dividends. Let’s fund some academic scholarships instead of profiting off of the college athletes… Is anyone else tired of the world profiting off of the student-athlete? Indentured servant for the purpose of private sports revenue… …and gambling revenues… I want a return to scholarship…

Three small market baseball teams are still in the running for the World Series championship. One is guaranteed to be playing in the actual World Series. I imagine if we have a Rays/Guardians versus Brewers World Series it will throw a wrench into the salary cap negotiations for the next union contract. Players will have the argument that small-market franchises can still compete with the luxury teams. I like the idea that the frugal owners still want to compete. If a salary cap is lost in negotiations, then maybe a revenue-sharing luxury tax is the way to go. It forces the Yankees, Mets, Dodgers and premier franchises to give up profits for spending so much money to shore up the small market teams… Who knows… I just want to see baseball have a 2027 season, in spite of the billionaires arguing with the millionaires…

I poured my fried rice into Mack’s dog food dish. It also had the remains of Mango Habanero Chicken within it. He hasn’t taken a drink yet. I find it humorous that I have a mastiff that is unfazed by spicy food. He will come up for air, eventually… I’m just glad food is his motivation for all things in life. It has made him easier to train and socialize…

I find it difficult to listen to the mid-1980s Huey Lewis and the News and not mistaken them for Tower of Power. After all, the Tower of Power horns played with them regularly in the studio and on tour…

I did some maintenance on some geocaches today, and I found an Earth Cache to earn a virtual souvenir. The second cache on my list for maintenance was indeed missing. The whole tree the cache was attached to was missing. All that is left is a one-foot stump. No other tree nearby could match the terrain rating, so sadly I had to archive that cache. I’m not sure why they removed the tree. It wasn’t threatening any structures, roads, etc… It was a healthy pine tree… Whatever… It made me a little sad…

My eldest son keeps sending me videos through Facebook Messenger. Ever since I told him about my dream sports car he keeps sending me videos of rebuilt versions of the car that cost between $30-150K. Oh, that dream sports car is a 68 or 69 Plymouth Roadrunner. Any color is fine, but I prefer Jet Black. My secondary dream car is an 1986 Chevrolet Monte Carlo painted black with red striping. I thought this was the sharpest car available back then. My oldest loves automobiles. At the age of eight it took him an hour to select a Hot Wheels car. It had to match certain specifications. It ended being a 1975-6 Pontiac LTD Station Wagon with a dog in the back looking out the window or something close to that…

The sun is setting earlier and earlier here in the North 40’s. It always makes me sad to see darkness fall before 7:00 p.m. It also makes for a very bright classroom from the E/SE in the morning as the angle of the sun is perfectly aligned through the window right at my face until standard time returns at the end of October. I know I am not alone this time of year, because seasonal depression is common amongst people. I don’t think I could live in Utqiagvik, AK USA. 70 or so days of darkness would just crush me. I want to visit this place someday, but during the summer when there is 24 hours of full light. I think it would be incredibly cool to see the sun low on the North horizon.

Naps are highly underrated… with that, I may take one…

Have a great day… so it goes…