When I was home all the time because of the vid I turned into a slipper guy. A big part of this was I work in the basement which just has a concrete floor. Also I could take the trash out. Plus the whole Mister Rogers thing of coming into the house swapping the jacket for a sweater and the dress shoes for tennis shoes is appealing. But I will add now sitting in the lounge putting my feet up on the adjacent chair in just socks is also lit.

My Grandfather was on the third wave at Utah Beach on June 6, 1944: D-Day he was a Staff Sargent in the 359th Infantry Regiment and was awarded the Silver Star, The Bronze Star, and other honors during his service. It’s long been a goal of my mom’s to make a visit to this place where he fought before he was married and had children. Just today we were able to do that and visit Utah Beach, Pointe du Hoc, Omaha Beach, an Omaha Beach museum, and The Normandy American Cemetery and Memorial for the Flag lowering ceremony.

I’m glad I got to be there for this and given the threat to my Dziadziuś’ life in WWII I’m glad I got to be at all.

My real goal here is to try and get some of the connection value I used to get out of Blogs and Twitter way back in the day. I know a ton of people continued writing their blogs and I’m hoping to re-enter that space with my boring takes.

I know this is a big mess, and probably there was no reason to use Angular other than I wanted to learn it. And I know there are broken links and posts everywhere and Blogs are dead, etc, etc. But I don’t care about any of that. I’m enjoying coding a side project. I know I’ll learn from it and I’m enjoying at least the prospect of some connection.

So I moved this off of SquareSpace. They were fine, but I wasn’t motivated to use it. Instead now that I have ownership of so much of the data and machinery in my Rube GoldBlog that I’m excited about it. If you have an interest in telling me I spelled something wrong, or the way I’m using typescript is terrible. (See the code here: mclazarus/logicaldisconnect) or any of the other things you’re dying to correct me on, simply tell me on The FediVerse. I hope to eventually support comments in this angular app, maybe they’ll post to Fedi or something. You can find me here: @mclazarus@jawns.club.

This post is what I call a two-fer. I post something and I also find out of the Drafts Action I wrote to post it works. If so I’ll be able to quick post from Drafts from my phone and that will be super fun.

I’ve mostly avoided looking at this for years. I assumed the neglect would make me feel bad. But I enjoyed paging through a few of the things I’ve written. And since social media seems to be a disaster lately but I still want an outlet for this sort of self-indulgent stuff I think I’ll try using this again.

Heck maybe I’ll even fire up an RSS reader too. I used to really enjoy the Internet.

Wonder if Alli & Ash will help me by updating the logo and making some other drawings.

Alli doodled the drawing to the left in about 30 seconds to try out my new pencil and iPad. She didn’t give me permission to post it but hopefully she won’t mind.

The last year especially has felt extremely hectic at times and I think one of the things I’ll focus on in the beginning of 2015 is trying to minimize that. To drop the comfort of busy and be even more ruthless in my priorities. And finally to regularly reflect on how things are going.

I’ve had a great twenty fourteen. Twenty fifteen will be great too.

Lights out!

n-tropy.com

Any startup facing an existential threat from regulation should remember these stories. The laws of the land are not laws of physics: they can be changed.

Jason Crawford’s article is a good read to inspire you that some fights can be won.  Or discourage you that the creative people trying to make awesome things often have to waste their time and energy fighting regulations that should not exist.

blog.jasoncrawford.org

I read something that said being lost is not about not knowing where you are, but giving too much focus and anxiety to where you are not. I don’t have any idea what the origin of this was, maybe some quote in my High School yearbook.

I think often the sense of anxiety that accompanies being busy is about knowing all the things you aren’t doing and letting that fill up your mind. Or allowing your mind-reading of other people’s expectations to dictate how you feel about your life. These things all are awful ideas.

Anyway I’m feeling a inspired to spend a more of of my time trying to relax, be realistic, and have some fun.

Update: I read what I wrote and was completely confused, so I reworded some things. See I was tremendously busy yesterday and my brain doesn’t work anymore.

calnewport.com

We are in an incredible hurry building important things and have no time for nuance. We’re impatient. We’re busy. We want everything to move faster, so we make huge, comforting assumptions and slap easy to understand labels on complex concepts.

Though I’ve been thinking little about the idea of oversimplifying and therefore over or under estimating the contribution of a new employee. Rather the quoted section made me think about how much is often missed in the “incredible hurry” when building products and the systems and processes to support a business.

It would have resonated more with me if he had written the exact same article but if it were not about an employee, but a new technology being integrated into the same busy-worshiping company culture.

randsinrepose.com

Get comfortable with the idea that you won’t know what’s good until it’s already happened.

It’s a very good article on working when you don’t have any idea what your doing.

It’s convinced me that I should be listening to the whole back catalog of Radiolab.

transom.org

Definitely worth a read.

thisblogisaploy.blogspot.ca

I don’t advise playing the game Sheryl Sandberg was playing trying to look like she was working more than she was, but I certainly understand the pressure.

Also really liked the idea attributed to Marrisa Meyer.

If you resent the fact that you don’t eat dinner every night at 8 then you will get burnout and your work will not be as good.

The fact is you can only do so much so you have to ruthlessly prioritize. And if you resent the fact that you can’t do everything with unrealisticly high quality you’ll just invite more pain and anxiety.

thegrindstone.com

threepanelsoul.com

I completely understand the need to continue working on an active problem—especially when all the distractions are gone. But I suspect he probably paid for that hard work in more ways than being insulted by a co-worker.

red-sweater.com

Also along that front I’m thinking I should blog consistently about the things I do and learn while working on the game so it forces me to really solidify my understanding.

I’d also like to really get my health to a better place.  On Saturday Allison’s karate school, East West Karate, had a class for parents of new students to learn a few basics so we can experience some of what they are doing first hand.  It really made me miss my training.  Now I haven’t been to the gym or done any serious workout in months so I’ve been sore now for two days.  But on top of that I’ve gotten the best nights of sleep that I’ve had in recent memory due to actually using my body a bit.

So I’m considering joining their adult classes.  As I’ve already earned a black belt, they would allow me to wear it to their school and help me have an accelerated version of their curriculum.  But I have mixed feelings about that.  I did work hard and earn it, but I am severely out of practice and wouldn’t want to embarrass myself or the school who awarded me my black belt by showing up there next week.  Also I’d want to do it only if I really am sure I’m committed to it.  So I’m thinking I’ll set myself a target of June to get myself into better shape through a concentrated training program at the gym, and probably 2 or 3 days a week run myself through some exercises trying to recall and practice some of the martial arts skill that I had earned through hard work and let slip away.

Also I have plans to attend a Thinking Directions pilot class in New York City on Saturday from noon — 3, and I’m also very excited about that.  I’ll have to see if I know anyone in New York that wants to grab dinner before I catch the NJT back to Trenton.

BIG THINGS COMING YOUR WAY!  WATCH OUT!

Culver City Conmen

Ran into the Buzzsaw of the Rearden Steelers in week 6 and despite the despair of having played me still managed to get 43 points out of Darren McFadden the next week and a win.

Sedalia Sea Monkeys

Diana has been on a tear! Two wins and I think most importantly defeated Paul’s Geekpress Generals handily this past weekend.  I imagine that Chez Hsieh was a battleground and it’s probably better for Paul that he lost.

GeekPress Generals

Paul has somehow coaxed Greg Jennings into consistent play two weeks in a row, however he managed that he deserves to have won the championship.  Also if I failed to mention it, he lost an epic matchup to Diana.

Dr. Ego Spengler

Mike’s team won in week 6, but more importantly he lost in week 7.  Leaving literally nothing on the bench he was crushed by Amy’s Gentlemen, who was so confident in her ability to win she taunted her opponent by starting Arian Foster while on a bye and still scored 109 points!

Portland Agents Of Fortune

2 weeks, 2 wins, good team management nothing left on the bench and big scores.  I’m hoping this trend doesn’t continue.

KC Money Barons

Got the big first win of the season.  I think Corey has aspirations of going 7 - 6 the hard way.  Considering I’ll probably lose my next 6 we can finish the season tied!

Washington Oppressors

Dwayne Bowe showed up!

Connecticut BNS Brawlers

Too many Cincinnati players to win, even if they keep scoring points.  Marvin Lewis has suffered from this problem for years.

Fairport Diehards

Ugh, 79 points left on the bench this week, and a ton last week.  Sometimes fantasy is just like that.

Philadelphia Freeloaders

The last two weeks they’ve let their opponents score too many points.  Work on it!

Virginia Gentlemen

Amy can’t lose a game when she scores over 100 points.  Unfortunately when she scores under 100 she tends to lose by 6 points or less.

Next week

I promise to write stuff going forward on some schedule.  And I suspect it may be somewhat useless but I’ll enjoy it, and that’s what counts.

In a matchup where Vince Young outscored Matt Schaub by 13 points and Mike Tolbert outscored Arian Foster by 5 points there is no other way for it to end except by being decided by 1 point.  The worst part for Amy, manager of the Gentlemen, is that if she had not started a Defense she would have won the match.  But I agree that the Rams looked to be a great start against the Lions.

Fairport Diehards (3-2) 85, Sedalia Seamonkeys (2-3) 78

And Diana’s Seamonkeys get exactly what they want out of Ray Rice, finally, but when your second leading scorer is your Kicker it’s hard to finish with the W.  And running into an on-again Chris Johnson and hated (by me) Cowboy QB who was racking up points playing from behind meant that Tom Stone’s Diehards took the win.  Both teams can look at the high bench production and play that age old Fantasy football game of second guessing yourself.

Connecticut BNS Brawlers (3-2) 77, GeekPress Generals (3-2) 58

The Brawlers victory gives me the opportunity to talk about my favorite subject and that is me winning fantasy football games.  Because his victory and mine came in lockstep due to the huge day by Malcom Floyd which necessitated a huge day by my QB.  Paul’s Generals who have been solid all season, had the typical fantasy week where almost nothing goes right which was capped by Aaron Rodgers going down with a concussion at the end of the game.

Dr. Ego Spengler (4-1) 69, Washington Oppressors (1-4) 53

The good Dr. Spengler led by Mike King has been the most consistent JGLer over the past two years.  But this is ridiculous to get a victory where the top scorer is TE Marcedes Lewis with 17 is illegal, and I plan to use my commissioner powers to correct this miscarriage of Justice.  However I will insist that John Britely’s Oppressors still retain their loss as well due to the fact that he snagged LeSean McCoy on waivers on Sunday morning when I am the one who’s supposed to have the best player on my favorite team.  Unfortunately for the Oppressors in the best possible week to defeat the Ego got nothing from their team.

Portland Agents Of Fortune (2-3) 109, Culver City Conmen (2-3) 88

In true fantasy football fashion the Conmen have a solid week from many of their starters even with 4 players on BYE, but still manage to run into a team that had an even a better week.  As Brian Reich’s Agents managed to put together huge numbers despite starting my least favorite Manning.  Yes I must admit Cooper is my favorite Manning.

Rearden Steelers (5-0) 99, KC Money Barons (0-5) 74

I am considering changing both of my daughters names to Philip Rivers as his consistency this season is the main reason I am 5 - 0, also a timely Falcons pickup before last weeks games helped me quite a bit here.  All I can say to Corey and his Money Barons is the winner of the league last year had a losing record, so anything can happen.  Also to illustrate this I’m 1 - 4 in the fantasy league my brother runs.

Virginia Gentlemen 116, Culver City Conmen 109

In week 3 the Conmen put up a solid 109 with good performances from most of their players. Only the Patriots D (1) and Matt Forte (3) underperforming. Unfortunately their opponent the Virginia Gentlemen had great performances particularly 31 from Adrian Peterson who ran all over the Lions. Here the Conmen were handed their first loss. This was the Gentlemen’s first win.

Fairport Diehards 106, Connecticut BNS Brawlers 73

A huge game by Anquan Boldin, and great performances by Romo and Chris Johnson vaulted the Diehards to a win over the Brawlers despite their Cedric Benson’s big week and Mike Wallace having a huge game down in Tampa. The Brawlers unfortunately left Peyton Hillis on the bench for his huge game not having to share any carries with Jerome Harrison and LeSean McCoy had his worst game of the season so far.

Sedalia Sea Monkeys 65, KC Money Barons 51

The Money Barons continue to have a hard time manufacturing points where Colston, Celek, DeAngelo Williams and Steve Smith (Carolina) are all not producing consistent with where they needed to be drafted. Drew Brees is the only bright spot this week as the Barons fall to 0 - 3. The Sea Monkeys get a huge game from Dustin Keller and manage to scrape together enough points to top the Barons bringing them to 1- 2.

GeekPress Generals 114, Portland Agents Of Fortune 66

The Generals put up big performances from Collie, Mendenhall, Rogers and the Steelers Defense to post huge numbers in week 3, which was more than enough to top the Agents of Fortune who aside from Michael Vick and Steven Jackson couldn’t get anyone else in double digits. The pair of Calvin Johnson and Larry Fitz who strike fear in the heart of fantasy opponents continue to frustrate.

Washington Oppressors 75, Philadelphia Freeloaders 59

The Oppressors had solid performances from Turner, Charles, Bowe and Cutler riding the Chiefs 3 - 0 record and overcoming a bad outing by their Bucs defense to their first win of the season. The Freeloaders who grabbed the Chiefs defense and were rewarded by a good game were hurt by their reliance on the Houston passing game and Schaub, Walter and Andre Johnson that didn’t post big numbers this week.

Rearden Steelers 105, Dr. Ego Spengler 92

In a high scoring matchup the Steelers got good performances from Rivers, Maclin, Bradshaw and their newly added Cardinals D, to offset strong performances from Peyton, LT and DeSean Jackson. Luckily the Chiefs were able to hold Frank Gore down to 14 points and help the Steelers to their 3 - 0 record and hand Dr. Spengler his only loss.

Additionally the Steelers are 3 - 0 against doctors this season.

Week 4 The First week of byes, which leads to all sorts of scarcity and fun in trying to decide who to start or pickup.

GeekPress Generals (3 - 1) 87, Culver City Conmen (2 - 2) 79

In week 4 the Conmen had a solid performance from their Defense but put up goose-eggs from the Moss tandem at WR as Washington had success running on my Eagles and had no reason to even look at Santana and Randy was on the outs in New England. Two zeros in a line up when playing a consistently solid GeekPress Generals usual spells disaster and this week it made the Conmen fall to 2 and 2.

Philadelphia Freeloaders (2 - 2) 66, Fairport Diehards (2- 2) 57

Oddly the second game of the week where a team posted nil from the wide receivers, but in this case they managed to win as the Freeloaders got solid performances from Mike Tolbert, Matt Schaub and Zack Miller. And the Diehards were only able to get double-digit points from Flacco and Ryan Matthews as Denver was able to hold Chris Johnson to only 4 points

Virginia Gentlemen (2 - 2) 106, Connecticut BNS Brawlers (2 - 2) 74

And you can tell it’s a bye week as yet another team manages to post a pair of zeroes, but even more impressively the Gentlemen still manage to put out 106 points as they are the top scorer this week. Helped by a combined 56 points from Antonio Gates and Arian Foster (who took 1 quarter off for missing a team meeting). The Brawlers who did have some solid performances from Carson Palmer and Peyton Hillis but also had the misfortune of running into the 2nd highest scoring team in the league.

Sedalia Sea Monkeys (2 - 2) 90, Washington Oppressors (1 - 3) 46

The Sea Monkeys continue to get good performances from Dustin Keller and finally their other players posted some solid numbers as well as they finally hit on a QB that was going to give solid numbers as Sanchez put up 14 and Reggie Wayne and Joseph Addai turned in good weeks. The Oppressors hurt by byes and missed updating their lineup and started the out Pierre Thomas and Shiancoe on a bye only managed 46 points and Jay Cutler was absolutely manhandled by the Giants posting a -3.

Dr. Ego Spengler (3 - 1) 76, KC Money Baroons (0 - 4) 70

Spengler riding a huge game by LT against the Bills was able to hang on for a 6 point victory over the Money Barons who were hurt by an oddly ineffective Drew Brees at home against the Panthers and Steve Smith who went out with an injury.

Rearden Steelers (4- 0) 92, Portland Agents Of Fortune (1 - 3) 63

MJD finally put up some big numbers to justify his pick at #3 overall, and got consistently good numbers from Philip Rivers and Roddy White putting together another solid game to go to 4 - 0. The Agents of Fortune got a huge game from Calvin Johnson but Vick going out with an injury held him to two points and Mike Sims-Walker continues to disappoint with a 0 point week.

In the closest game of the week the Steelers got strong performances from Philip Rivers and Roddy White for the second straight week and are concerned about MJD who managed only 2 points and 12 for the season.  The Generals got solid performances from most players although the Rodgers to Jennings combo has yet to really pay off.  This came down to the Sunday night matchup between New York and Indianapolis, where both Dallas Clark and Austin Collie scored TDs for the Generals but it wasn’t enough to overcome Ahmad Bradshaw’s points helped by a Brandon Jacobs benching for an awful run followed by a temper tantrum where his helmet ended up in the crowd.

Dr. Ego Spengler 90 Sedalia Sea Monkeys 64

While the Sea Monkeys got many solid performances, they had no outstanding performances and are having a real problem at Quarterback with Kolb injured and now benched in favor of Vick and Garrard having a very rough game at San Diego.  The good Doctor Spengler got huge games from from Gore, Manning and DeSean Jackson which offset some lesser performances by the rest of his squad putting him over the top.

Portland AgentsOfFortune 98 Virginia Gentlemen 92

In a close matchup this week the Gentlemen had good numbers across the board hurt by poor QB play from the veteran Favre who is finally showing his age against an underrated Miami Defense.  Unfortunately the Gentlemen this week’s third highest scorer had the misfortune to face the AgentsOfFortune who were this weeks second highest scorer.  Helped by my favorite team, the Eagles, who are apparently unable to tackle anyone when Stewart Bradley is off the field which gave Jahvid Best a huge 40 point week. Also cashing in on that Eagles v. Lions game Calvin Johnson finally scored a TD that counted helping the Agents to a big win.

Philadelphia Freeloaders 106 KC Money Barons 42

The Freeloaders rode Houston’s massive game against the Redskin’s where Matt Schaub and Andre Johnson combined for 50 points.  Also worthy of note is the Freeloaders had Kevin Walter on the Bench who also had a giant game and those three players combined would have been enough to beat 4 other starting lineups this week.  The Money Barons had the game that nightmare game that every fantasy owner can count on, where nothing goes right.  Totaling only 42 points for the week and going into Monday night (with 2 players left) had only 18 points.  They did have a few solid performances and I expect they’ll turn it around going forward.

Culver City Conmen 68 Fairport Diehards 54

The Conmen improved to 2 - 0 on the season despite the tough game their patriots had in New York.  Putting together a handful of good performances and Darren McFadden trying to answer critics with a big game was enough to top the Diehards who had a tough week with nobody in the starting lineup finding the end zone and Chris Johnson being held in check by the Pittsburgh defense.

Connecticut BNS Brawlers 83 Washington Oppressors 75

The Brawlers are another team that cashed in on the Eagles-Lions game where LeSean McCoy went off racking up 30 points and making up for a handful of low scoring Bengals in his lineup.  The Oppressors fall to 0 - 2 despite some good performances from Jay Cutler, Dez Bryant and seeing Shiancoe and Pierre Thomas be real workhorses for their teams.

Transactions

The Steelers were frustrated by their 2 - 0 record on the waiver wire this week being unable to grab Tolbert or the Dolphins Defense due to the waiver priority enjoyed by other savvy owners who snagged these players.  A few teams worked the waiver wire to bolster their teams, I think the top one being Tolbert who looked solid in Ryan Matthew’s absence and whoever owned Michael Turner last year will know the dreaded high-ankle sprain is not an exciting injury for a top RB on your team to have.

My Steelers pulled out a 73 - 61 victory over Diana’s Sea Monkeys while I was sleeping but Phillip Rivers was going strong, overcoming a solid WR showing by the Sea Monkeys but zeroes from the injured Wells and Kolb who left early held them back in the lowest scoring match of the week.

The reigning champs the Geekpress Generals managed to be the only team that broke three digits even with posting a zero from Darren Sproles as they defeated the Virginia Gentlemen 110 - 79, an inconsistent performance from the Gentlemen’s starters and drawing a tough matchup put Arian Foster’s monster week to waste.

Peyton Maning was playing from behind all day and was forced to throw which helped push Dr. Egon Spengler ahead of the Philly Freeloaders 77 -73 who despite a great performance from Miles Austin but had too few players find the end zone in week 1.

The Fairport Diehards benefited from the Jets CB Daryl Revis, first in having his defense post big numbers but in forcing Flacco to look away from Mason and find Anquan Boldin for a high scoring week netting him 87, the Agents Of Fortune couldn’t keep up, as too many top guys didn’t deliver and they only managed 69 points.

The BNS Brawlers and Money Barrons fought the tightest contest of the week each getting some solid performances but a low scoring opening NFL game meant Brees couldn’t come up wtih the numbers to overcome Palmer’s garbage time stats playing from behind after getting blown out by New England, the Brawlers won 78 - 76.

Finally the Culver City Conmen had some huge plays out of Matt Forte, and lots of points from his beloved Patriots which gave him more than enough to overcome the Washington Oppressors, who suffered the biggest injury of the week losing Ryan Grant for the season.  Despite some solid performances from Jay Cutler and Pierre Thomas the Conmen prevailed 93 - 72.

Week 2 News and Preview

Despite the fact that the commissioner forgot to send a waiver reminder a few teams put in claims, the Agents of Fortune snagged Vick for a favorable matchup and The Oppressors laid claim to Brandon Jackson the expected replacement for his lost Ryan Grant.  Next week get your waiver claims in Wednesday night because early AM (ET) ESPN will process claim requests based on priority order.

Most of the match-ups (based on current lineups as of 10:30 PM on Friday) are fairly even based on the ESPN projections except for the BNS Brawlers and The Oppressors where the 0-1 Oppressors are currently favored by a whopping 59 points.

So everyone get your lineups in, check your injuries and enjoy week two of the John Galt League.

Ashley stops Michelle singing saying, “Wait! You forgot to put Minnie in my song.”

Michelle: “I put her in, I said Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Daisy and Pluto”

Ashley: “Oh! I thought you meant Pluto the planet.”

Allison: (immediately and with obvious exasperation) Ash, Pluto’s not even a planet!"

So I hope you don’t think of: this and this and this is required for [Objectivism] … I wouldn’t even think about what’s required for Objectivism.

Just think about “what’s true?” And then if Objectivists don’t believe it, it’s tough on them. You could say, Objectivism is good but it has this mistake.

You can’t think, with the idea that the answers are in the back of the book given by Ayn Rand.

It really shouldn’t take me more than 15 minutes to empty the email inbox. I should rifle through each message spending about 30 seconds to read, decide if it’s actionable, what I’m going to do about it and file the action reminder appropriately. If it’s an email that is longer than 30 seconds to ready, I can decide if I am ever going to read it and file the reminder to read it somewhere.

The other is the John Galt League, where I am the acting commisioner, brought together by the common fact that we all are fans of Diana Hsieh’s blog NoodleFood.

I also have played in Ryan Grier’s league for the past few years where I tend to be terrible.

And finally as always I picked up a Yahoo public league in order to practice drafting before the TMCFL, although given the awesomeness of the ESPN mock drafts I may stop that after this year.

I am currently fantasizing the fame, fortune and prestige of winning both the JGL and the TMCFL as I watched my Eagles whup an overmatched Panthers and noticed my top pick in both of those leagues, Adrian Peterson, racking up the points. I am now convinced that he will score at least 3 touchdowns every week and I will dominate all of the competition.

Stay tuned for too frequent updates of my fantasy prowess or complete silence if my team collapses into disarray.

As is typical when I receive such self-glorying proclamations from my elected representatives I take a moment and compose a letter responding to them and encouraging them to uphold individual rights as an absolute as is the necessary and only purpose of a rational and moral government.

I began writing my response somewhat lethargically but when I organized my thoughts it brought to mind a particular passage from Atlas Shrugged which provided the fuel to complete task. I decided then to look it up and to share it here.

I could say to you that you do not serve the public good–that nobody’s good can be achieved at the price of human sacrifices–that when you violate the rights of one man, you have violated the rights of all, and a public of rightless creatures is doomed to destruction. I could say to you that you will and can achieve nothing but universal devastation–as any looter must, when he runs out of victims. I could say it, but I won’t. It is not your particular policy that I challenge, but your moral premise. If it were true that men could achieve their good by means of turning some men into sacrificial animals, and I were asked to immolate myself for the sake of creatures who wanted to survive at the price of my blood, if I were asked to serve the interests of society apart from, above and against my own–I would refuse, I would reject it as the most contemptible evil, I would fight it with every power I possess, I would fight the whole of mankind, if one minute were all I could last before I were murdered, I would fight in the full confidence of the justice of my battle and of a living being’s right to exist. Let there be no misunderstanding about me. If it is now the belief of my fellow men, who call themselves the public, that their good requires victims, then I say: The public good be damned, I will have no part of it!

Hank is the man!

Since we all know that sacrificing the strong to pay for the mistakes of the weak and then pretending there wasn’t an underlying problem always fixes everything.

As a side note tomorrow will be a full month since I committed to greatly reducing refined carbs in my diet and I have lost 11 lbs. This is with never finishing a mealy hungry and with my only extra exercise being a few lunch time walks, going to the gym one time and some snow shoveling.

Michelle had talked with her earlier about voting and told her about my decision to not vote for any of the Presidential candidates. So she said, “Mommy said you didn’t vote for one.” I told her, “If you had to vote for food, and you had to pick tomatoes or sausage (two things she doesn’t like) which would you pick?” She said, “I wouldn’t vote for either.” And neither did I.

In other news the barbie lamp won in a historic vote, defeating fish by a narrow margin of one vote and “play games on iPhone” defeated “go to sleep now” by a similarly narrow margin.

He gave some additional brief commentary as to why none of the Presidential candidates is fit to take office. If you think there is still some reason to choose one over the other but aren’t sure which you may want to listen, it could give starting points for further investigation.

I decided some time ago that I will not vote for any presidential candidate. It was with that decision in mind that Dr. Peikoff’s statement takes on a tragic humor and does cause me a brief chuckle.

When thinking of yesterday, I remember the greatness, the courage, the independent judgment of a man.

With the economic controls and the sacrifice of individual rights to the nation, we are putting a motor on our drift from freedom to fascism.

It’s in encouraging the push for independence, and growth.

My wife sent me a snapshot of Allison before running her to her first day of pre-school. And I felt quite a strong bit of emotion. I am still not sure if it is reluctance, fear, sadness, joy or all of them pushed together.

Happy first day, Allison!

By the way, please don’t interpret this as support for the Republicans. Their allegiance with the Religious Right is an outright attack on the first amendment and until they renounce this partnership I cannot even consider supporting their candidates.

If life seems all empty and useless without it And all that you scheme and you dream is about it,

If gladly you’ll sweat for it, Fret for it, Plan for it, Lose all your terror of God or man for it,

If you’ll simply go after that thing that you want. With all your capacity, Strength and sagacity, Faith, hope and confidence, stern pertinacity,

If neither cold poverty, famished and gaunt, Nor sickness nor pain Of body or brain Can turn you away from the thing that you want,

If dogged and grim you besiege and beset it, You’ll get it!

BERTON BRALEY

Obviously some things only come from experience and making enough of the same mistakes, but get the experience early enough it may click in faster.

An example of a broad topic here that I wish I had understood sooner, is money, investing and compound interest. How about you?