skullguise

Highs and lows.....sorry if TL;DR The highs: I love my neighborhood, and the people within. I maintain a website for the "Bunco Babes" here, a group of women who would get together monthly to socialize, play bunco...and drink. Since Karen passed, much of the organizing has dropped off. But the OG's of the babes invited me to a get-together; little did I know if was partially to thank me for the web site and congratulate my retirement. Pics below. A low with a little bit of high: we have a local "Buy Nothing" FB group, for free things. I have refurbed and donated computers perhaps a dozen times now. Gave two laptops away this weekend, one to a gent who has been out of work for almost 4 years because he was in an accident where a Mack truck blew a red light and slammed into him. He is now in somewhat constant discomfort or pain, and can't do much physically; insurance fights every step of the way. He even gets PTSD driving long trips.... Yet still, he does a lot of nice small things for others, and we shared our stories about that. Oh, yes: we had one FB friend in common, a wonderful woman with whom I used to work. She passed away from cancer and pneumonia complications recently; it turns out this is her distant cousin, and he didn't even know of her passing. The lower low: another laptop I gave to a woman who has an autistic son (two other kids too, one of whom has pretty high functioning autism). I volunteered to bring the laptop and a full docking station with monitor setup I had over. This amazing woman and her husband spend almost 24x7 watching her youngest, as he has non-verbal autism and also has a potentially deadly condition where his digestive tract will get blocked. Constant monitoring and care, advocating for him at hospital and doctor visits, etc. Hugs and tears resulted. They don't even have a place right now to set up the full monitor, so I told her I will come and help when they do find the space. You can see the strain, yet the strength all at once. Humans are such amazing creatures. But the two situations above point out how much the system works against so many, though!

No worries at all! I had found your original comment funny too, but this is even better! BTW, forgot to mention that I even put "John" as my....nickname? And no one asked me about that as well! (For those that haven't seen the movie, the aliens, both good and evil/male and female) are all named John or some variant)

Last night Andrew made me dinner to celebrate my retirement. Also got to see his condo just about fully done with renovations. This kid did amazing design work for it! Even the Designer he worked with - who also did our bathroom remodels in 2024 - said he had an great sense of taste and style, doing some things even she didn't think about..... Dinner was awesome, roast seasoned chicken (amazingly tender), dan dan noodles with a decent kick/spice, and sauteed and seasoned spinach. Watched Buckaroo Banzai (*) and listened to a bunch of music and just chatted. A really wonderful night! (*) I updated my LinkedIn profile to list my "new" job as Laser Engineer, Oscillation Overthruster Division at Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems. That is the fictitious company in the movie. Only one person got it so I had to update my "About" section to tell people to Google it, and that I was retired.

Oh, man....I just had a triggered flashback (no drugs involved!). My grandparents used to take us 3 boys out to an IHOP near their condo many (many) years ago. Tuesday nights were 2-for-1 pancake nights; always super-busy with lots of "opinionated" older people. I would often order a huge apple pancake, quite good and could never finish it so would have leftovers. One time, the waitress delivers my dish, and my grandmother practically jumps down her throat, saying "...it looks sick, bring a new one...." (it DID look like one of those above). I saw the harried and worried look on the waitress' face and told her to leave it, I'm sure it will be fine. Relieved, she did, and indeed it was fine. Later I got a nice smile and a mouthed "thank you" from her. Since then, I will always give the "first" pancake the benefit of the doubt 🙂 Funny the stuff one remembers.....I must have all of like 10 or 11 years old.

Saw it on FB Peter. Sending shitloads of healing and health vibes!!!

I am officially fucking re-tired....and retired. A wonderful last week of work, topped off by a small celebration with some team members, and our CIO (blond-haired woman). The first couple of my cube, with the obligatory note that - as of today - everything is now MY fault. But a shirtload of notes on multiple cards and extra pieces of paper. I ended up topping the night off with a call with a hometown friend. She is a troubled soul and needed a supporting voice. We talked until 3:30am this morning! I wish I could do more to help people, but being a good listener and supporter is good for now.

Holy shit! Hope it was just a bonnie birthday!!

Belated Happy Birthday Doug! (and NOT Happy Belated Birthday. One of my pet peeves; the BIRTHDAY isn't belated, just my wish 🤣)

Few more from the interwebz via my drive. The one about chocolate I especially love because it is SO much Karen - sent it to her sisters and one said she cried she laughed so hard.

Saw a posting for this band on FB, checked more out and I like it! They do a couple of good covers on their album.... One original, one cover:

Very Happy Birthday!!!

My nephew is doing a space walk (his first, the woman he's doing it with is on her fourth)! Live link, think it will be saved as well: Trying to watch while at work, very cool stuff!

^^ Good band, got to see them live back in the day. Damon and Naomi's subsequent album was pretty good, too.

Gimme an F...... RIP to Country Joe McDonald 84 isn't a bad age, but still from complications of Parkinson's...so, yeah, Fuck that disease too.....

Such fun!