I’m driving around Phoenix this afternoon. It’s an unplanned trip and I’m having fun just meandering a bit. I’ll be headed back to Tucson in a while.
While driving around the Arizona State Fairgrounds, I stumbled across this (renovated) familiar sign and associated location.
Mel’s Diner is open 7:00 a.m. to 1:45 p.m., so I did not get to visit today. Early to rise, early to bed indeed.
About 18 months ago I purchased an external CD drive that I’ve been connecting to my Linux-based desktop computer. I’m enjoying owning my music again, and have been ripping my legally owned music onto my NAS (Network Attached Storage) device, which hosts an instance of Jellyfin. Coupling the Jellyfin server with Tailscale, I can access the music on my server anywhere in the world courtesy of Finamp on my iPhone.
This is geeky and awesome.
This desktop was given to me a number of years ago and cranks right along. It’s basically been set and forget. Originally my flight simulator computer, I repurposed it to my primary Linux desktop a while back and it hasn’t missed a beat.
Last night I relocated the desktop up to the “Observatory”, my upstairs office and geek lab. Having a personal desktop in my work office is a distraction that I don’t need, so I figured it would be better for all involved to have it upstairs where I tend to hang out when I’m not working.
As I was moving the desktop, I noticed a little bit on the front that I hadn’t noticed before. There’s a built in DVD-ROM drive and better yet, it’s a DVD-RW drive. Not only did I not need the external drive I purchased a while back, I could be making back ups of my data on physical media!
Mike gave me the desktop about four years and I mentioned this to him. He said, “I could never understand why you bought the external drive”. He then proceeded to give me a few spindles of blank DVDs he’d never used.
I just ran a test burn of my “basics” directory in Dropbox. This is the directory with all the standard stuff I use when I setup a new computer (favorite wallpapers, fonts, etc). It worked flawlessly. I hadn’t burned a DVD in about 15 years but going through the exercise and then hearing the DVD drive eject itself after a successful completion was music to my ears.
My retro heart is so happy!
I set up the cot in observatory a while back when we had a guest visit. Truman took a liking to it, so the cot remains in place, ready for some cat naps.
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, there’s something very comforting to me to see a cat so engaged in their cat nap. Their moment of peace and relaxation brings me a moment of peace and relaxation.
Truman has lived with us for seven years. I think this is the first time I’ve seen him put his paw in this position while he was sleeping. He seemed very content.
I spotted these contrails in the sky during my afternoon walk.
Now, if I were one to embrace conspiracy theories, I would state that this was obviously a ploy from Kamala Harris to make all the people in the greater Phoenix, Yuma, and Blythe California area to start loving Taylor Swift.
However, contrails in the sky are not part of my conspiracy repertoire. I’ve flipped the magic switch while in the cockpit. I know what contrails are made of.
Nothing showed up on ADS-B (probably too far away for my receiver). So it’s obviously some folks were having fun up there.
Or, the winds aloft were pushing some straight lines around. Obviously in an attempt to make everyone noticing this not straight.
Earl is in Palm Springs with Jamie and friends for the weekend. There’s a bear gathering going on, and since they won’t be back until late on Monday and I just started a new job, I gave my blessings for them to have a good time in the desert of California.
Chris and Mike are home and busying themselves around the house. I went out and browsed around the local Barnes and Noble after not being able to find the books I was looking for at our local Bookmans.
While I was out I stopped by one of my favorite fast food chains, In-N-Out. Now this is a reason to live near the west coast!
I have always enjoyed the service, the vibe, and the food of this fast food establishment. The menu is simple, and the food seems to be always fresh.
I situated my solo traveling self at one of the bars with a stool and had an open view of the kitchen. There was a lot of positive teamwork going on behind the scenes.
And the food was delicious!
Lucky and Jinx enjoy their afternoon walks with their uncle. (That would be me). We usually go out after the UV Index gets below 3 and it’s below 90 F. At this time of year, it’s not really a problem, but they’ll be complaining more as the warmer weather moves in.
We’ve been going out for a walk about 4:00 PM Mountain. Today they started grumbling about the situation around 2:30 PM, and wanted to know why we weren’t out walking so they could check their pee-mail. Lucky has mastered the “OMG life is chaotic dog whine”. Jinx on the other hand, will once in a while muster up her husky energy and let out an energetic groan.
We managed to get out 3:30 PM. They seem to be posing for the photo, but in actuality they’re expecting a treat at this location, because that’s the purpose of good uncles.
When Earl says he’s making me a sandwich for lunch, he occasionally goes all out.
Yes, it was delicious.
I believe this is a male desert cardinal. He was hanging out on this ocotillo and providing the world with his song.
Such beauty.
I have mentioned before that I am interested in the teaching of Stoicism. Every day I receive an email called “The Daily Stoic“. Ryan Holiday is the author and I find his thoughts on the world around us to be interesting.
A couple of paragraphs from today’s email really struck me.
We must make sure that we are not allowing bad people to make us bad people. Governments can take a tyrannical turn, but we do not need to cede control of our thoughts and moods.
Let them be awful. Let them waste the opportunities they have to do actual good in this world. Just don’t let them waste your opportunities, too. Our power lies in the agency we have over the only empire we control—ourselves.
We must remain vigilant and vote and protest and do all the things we’re doing. But we can not cede our well-being to those that don’t even know nor care as to who we are.
Expanding on Ryan’s thought in his email today, history will judge today’s leaders as people who completely wasted an opportunity to make the world a better place.
Edit: I just saw a blurb elsewhere on the tubes that says Marilyn Monroe never actually said this. I never know what to believe on this most untrustworthy Internet these days, so I’ll just go with the vibe that if she did or did not say this, it’s still a bunch of good vibes.
Laugh it off.
Just a guy with a husband. We’ve been together 29 years and he still makes me see fireworks on a daily basis. Hiker. Storm Chaser. Private Pilot. Tech Guy. Hackerish.
Weird? Eccentric!