I’m pretty sure there are no longer any 7-Elevens around where I live anymore (a quick search tells me the closest one is about 10 miles away from me). But if you have one near you, you can go get a free Squishy Slurpee today, because it’s 7/11. It also happens to be my anniversary – 18 years. I’m celebrating by being back at work after 10 days off (though I was on call this weekend, so I was only “off” in the sense that I wasn’t getting paid). Fortunately for my wife – this, coincidentally, is her anniversary as well – and the dogs, she’s off today.

We had an unusual day yesterday – for the first time in longer than I can recall, it was actually cool out and it rained (a little bit – just enough to make the weeds reach for the sky – the grass is still brown and brittle, especially over the leach field). It felt very strange (and enjoyable) to be cool for a day. Sadly, it won’t last long. Today is supposed to be normal (mid eighties) and then it’s back up into the nineties again for the rest of the week. And no rain, except for maybe a pop-up thunderstorm here or there, which will just make it even muggier out.

We’re not really used to things being this hot and dry around here. I mean, if I wanted this nonsense, I’d move to Texas or something. But I think I’d stay away from Texas ‘cuz I think there’s gonna be a race riot down there (but not limited to there, unfortunately) pretty soon.

Of course, once President Trump takes over, he’ll clear all this nastiness up. I hear he’s a race uniter.

AS if the prospect of a Trump presidency wasn’t chilling enough, according to Cris Cizilla, Newt Gingrinch is the favorite (amongst a group of thoroughly depressing prospects) to be chosen as Herr Drumpf’s running mate. Though I take everything I read in the Washington Post with a large pillar of salt ever since Jeff Bezos took it over, the prospect of Professor Pollygrip being one fat old guy heartbeat from the presidency probably even scarier than I find the prospect of a Trump presidency.

After all, Trump appears to be a loudmouth moron (as Archie Bunker might have said – except Archie would probably be the first guy in Queens to get himself a “Make America Great Again” hat – Donald is a meathead – dead from the neck up), but at least nobody on either side seems to like him. Newt is an evil little bastard who I could see being in cahoots with Paul Ryan from day one – killing social security, and eliminating taxes altogether for anybody with a few million bucks.

Of course, nobody who would be willing to run with Trump is gonna exactly be an exemplary human being. Either a total moron or an insane sociopath (or combination thereof). If I had to bet, I’d bet Trump goes with Mary Fallin ‘cuz she’s just the one to get the ladies on board for Trump, plus she’s from “real America” unlike Chice “Rice” Christie. I mean, is the heartland really ready for a team of loudmouth New Yorkers (yeah, I know NJ isn’t NY, but close enough – as long as all the bridge lanes are open, anyway). Whomever it turns out to be, it’s gonna suck, so may the Flying Spaghetti Monster help us if Trump gets elected.

And as inept as the Trump campaign seems to be (whether unintentional or not – I’m still not convinced this wasn’t all a money-making scam on his part), Republicans will goosestep in line behind him, and Hillary (and Bill) don’t seem to be doing Hillary’s campaign any favors. The best thing the Clinton campaign has going for it right now is Elizabeth Warren, and I really would hate to see the Republicans get a chance to nominate a Republican to the Senate when we need all the Democrats (especially real Democrats) we can get in the Senate.

I don’t know who that leaves as a Clinton running mate, but you can never go wrong with Joe Biden, right?

Well, now that the summer solstice has come and gone the days are getting shorter again. It sure seems like the days get shorter a lot faster than they get longer after winter sets in. It was a tough weekend for me last weekend. Not just because I had to do a major upgrade on Sunday morning (always nice to work for free on Sunday), but because my trackball’s scroll wheel stopped working.

This may not seem like a big deal, but, man, as Joni Mitchell sang, “… you don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone.” It was beyond annoying to have use my keyboard arrow keys or grab the scroll bar and drag it down. Thanks goodness for Amazon – I ordered a new one on Sunday morning and damned if it didn’t get here yesterday.

Every time I want to disavow myself from all things Amazon, they drag me back in again.

I’ve also had a ridiculously sore neck for the past couple of weeks. Not the normal annoying pain that I’ve become accustomed to in various parts of my body (either individually, or in concert with one another), but a super pain in the neck that’s forced me to sleep on my back with a heating pad wrapped around my neck.

And of course in this nanny state we live in, the goddamn heating pad shuts off after a while, so I have to keep on restarting it (good thing I don’t actually sleep much). Plus my ear bud cord gets all tangled up with the heating pad cord which (because I tend to toss and turn a lot) gets wrapped around my neck.

Every time I have to get up to take a leak (which, fortunately, is only about 27 times a night), I damn near strangle myself.

The worst part about the neck thing is that it hurts to look down, meaning I can’t sit outside and read for very long, which is about the only thing I like to do these days after work (especially now that Game of Thrones is over – can’t believe I have to wait another year for that to come back).

And then yesterday my seemingly never-ending foot issues resurfaced, so I’ve been hobbling along like a 90-yr old man. So even if I was able to sit outside and read, the walk back and forth to refill my beer would be intolerable.

I always knew that getting old would suck, but I didn’t know what a maliciously sadistic process it would be.

On the bright side, I’m taking next week off (first week I’ve taken off in, I think, a couple of years), and if things stay quiet at work, I think I’ll take Friday off to make up for working on Sunday. So that’ll be good. Until I have to come back to work again, at which point I’ll feel like cutting my throat.

But no meat pie for me, thanks.

It’s a big day around here today. Not because I have a (living) dad, and not because I’m anybody’s dad (stepdad, yeah, but that doesn’t really count for much – let’s just say I’m not anticipating any cards, ugly ties, or phone calls today). No, the big thing for me is that it’s the Father’s Day Fly-In Pancake Breakfast at the little airport in our town. That means that the skies will be full of single-engine planes, ultralights, and maybe even choppers (last year they were doing helicopter rides that flew over my house every 20 minutes or so).

Otherwise, it’s gonna be hot (again) around here. We haven’t had a lot of rain lately, and the grass is getting kind of crunchy (and not growing, which I consider a bonus). So there should be lots of pool time today. I really ought to brew a batch of beer, but I don’t think that’s gonna happen. If I’m really ambitious I’ll get one kegged. Otherwise, I think I’ll just hang out by the pool and watch the airplanes.

And try not to think about having to go to work tomorrow.

For those of you who are dads, or have dads, or have dads in your lives, have a happy Father’s Day.

Well, it looks like Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for President. It of course has actually been looking like that for quite a while, but now, even though she doesn’t have enough pledged delegates to win the nomination, she’s got a majority of them (even if Bernie were to get all the DC delegates in the final primary) and barring an indictment, I don’t see any super delegates (who are actual party members, as opposed to people who are just registered to vote as Democrats) changing their minds. It’s been a foregone conclusion for a while now, but I think you’ll see Bernie conceding shortly (once he gets whatever relatively meaningless concessions he can get – a prime time convention speech, at the very least, I would think, and maybe a promise from President Obama today to force the Florida Payday Loan Queen out of the DNC Chair).

I think Bernie’s been good for Hillary, having pushed her to the left ever so slightly be being in the race (ThinkProgress has a decent article about the ways that Hillary changed post-Bernie – and a few ways she didn’t like Capital Punishment, Fracking, and a Carbon Tax). Not that her “evolved” policy stands necessarily mean anything of course, but I think Bernie helped show anybody who was paying attention that taking stands against corporate greed and for working people are actually politically expedient.

I have to admit to being disappointed (though not surprised) by the results. I don’t have the animosity that some people seem to have for Clinton (both male and female – it’s not all misogyny or “boy crazy” young women – my wife, for one, is not exactly a Hillary fan, and my mother-in-law absolutely despises her. Mostly, I think, because she felt personally insulted when Hillary mad that comment about not staying home and baking cookies). After all, I voted for Clinton (twice) for Senator and again in the 2008 NY State Primary. I’m just sad because no matter how the election turns out, we once again won’t be getting a Liberal President – and I honestly think we need one.

Of course, god forbid we get Trump. It’s one thing to get basically more of the same, but if that loudmouth conman gets elected, I shudder to think what might happen. Hillary’s “foreign policy” speech the other day was a good start at attacking him, and I think you’ll see most of the “BernieOrBust” folks get in line the same way the “PUMAs” did in 2008.

It’s these “independent” and young voters I worry about. I don’t know that they’ll break for Trump so much as just become disinterested and not get out to the polls. ‘Cuz you know that teabaggers and Republicans – no matter what they say right now – will all fall in lock step behind anybody with an “R” after their name (especially an “R” that’s running against Hillary).

It would be nice to get finally get over the “a woman could never get elected President in the United States” thing (the same way – no matter how you feel about Obama – that it was nice to get over the black guy getting elected hurdle). I’d just prefer it was somebody like Elizabeth Warren (who I hope doesn’t run as VP because I think she can do a lot more as a Senator and I’d hate to think that Charlie Baker would get to appoint a Republican Senator at a time when it’s crucial to take back the Senate).

Whatever happens, it’s gonna be a long, ugly road to November 8th. I don’t think I can stand listening to (and looking at) Trump and his idiot followers for the next five months. Heaven help us if we have to look at him for the four (or eight) years after that.

It seems to me that when I was a kid, the D-Day anniversary was a big deal. I guess that’s because it was a mere 20 years (give or take) after the war and things were still pretty fresh in our parents’ mind. Now, 72 years later, there aint many of the Greatest Generation left, and there’s barely a mention of the Normandy invasion. D-Day always fascinated me (not as much as teh Civil War, though), because try as I might, I could never (and still can’t) imagine myself running across that beach with the Krauts dug in and trying to kill me. I mean, basically they just had to choose who to shoot – not a lot of cover on a beach – and if they chose you, you were dead. I suppose when they drive the LST up to the shore and drop the front door open, you don’t really have much choice, but, still…. I’m glad I didn’t have to do it (and I’m glad that truth, justice, and the American way didn’t have to rely on me, ‘cuz we’d all have been screwed).

So to any of you old-timers out there who are still left – good job, and thanks. I think the least we could do to celebrate your heroics is make this a holiday so I can get another day off. Coming a week (more or less) after Memorial Day, it would be a perfect way to get two four-day weeks in a row. There really aren’t enough summer holidays anyway. I mean, you got Memorial Day, then the fourth of July (which they fuck up by insisting on having it on the fourth every year instead of making it a Monday holiday), and then it’s all over on Labor Day.

At the very least, they ought to add VE Day on May 8th and VJ Day (which could either be August 14th or September 2nd – or, what the hell, why not both?).

No, it’s not the summer solstice. It’s just that I took last Thursday and Friday off, and here I am back at work after five days off so this day should prove to be excruciatingly long. And even though it’s a Tuesday that feels like a Monday and a four-day week, I guarantee this week will be torturous. I caught a frog in the pool this morning. Thought I was doing him a favor by keeping him from drowning, but when I chucked him over the fence and into the yard. he landed on his back and wasn’t moving. I don’t know if he landed on his head or broke his neck (do frogs have necks?) or what. Then there was a huge dead snake in the driveway (had to be at least 5 or 6 feet long) when I pulled out this morning. I don’t know if these are omens or not but if you’re a reptile or an amphibian, you might wanna steer clear of my place.

According to the BBC, “[h]undreds of millions of hacked account details from social networks MySpace and Tumblr have been advertised for sale online. In both cases, the logins appear to have been stolen several years ago but only recently came to light”. So, if you used to have a MySpace page (and, who didn’t, am I right?), you might want to see if you can remember what your password was. I know that way back in the olden days, I tended to use more or less two passwords – one for sites I didn’t really give a crap about, and another one for more important things. Of course, I quit doing that a long time ago and started using a password manager that creates unique (and impossible to remember) passwords for me and I use two-factor authentication on everything that will let me (even though it’s a bit of a pain in the ass at times).

The issue isn’t so much that somebody might hijack your MySpace page (until this morning, I wasn’t actually sure I even still had one – turns out I do!), but that you might have used the same password for other things (and the username is an e-mail address, so that might follow you around).

Turns out I even have Tumblr login, though I don’t think I’ve ever actually done anything with it.

In other news….

Donald Trump? Really? Are we really gonna have to put up with a Trump presidency? As little faith and respect I have for We the People, I still can’t believe that this mook is being taken seriously and for crissakes really appears to be on the verge of winning. I honestly don’t know what to make of this. I mean, this meat head makes Dubya look like a statesman.

I might have to start drinkin’ the hard stuff.

After a relatively mild (yet persistent) winter, I’m cautiously optimistic that summer is finally here. Or at least that we’re done with frost and snow. Last weekend was slightly on the crappy side, but things have gotten steadily warmer all week and they say it should be in the upper 80s by Friday. A shame that the pool’s not open yet. Even if it was miraculously free of algae when I pull the cover off, it’ll be way too cold to swim in. And there aint much propane in the tanks, so I don’t know if I can get it warmed up by Memorial Day. We’ll see, I guess.

The only drawbacks to the warmer weather are bugs (the black flies seem to be viciously carnivorous this year), lack of time to brew beer (what with all the lawn mowing and whatnot), and of course neighbors.

We happen to have one very lovable but loudmouth dog who barks at pretty much everything – deer, turkeys, foxes, crows, people, trucks – you name it. And while we are mostly free of neighbors, there is one corner of our back yard that’s somewhat adjacent to the neighbors back yard (separated by about 20 feet of woods). So when they go outside, he likes to bark at them.

Normally I keep on him to shut up, but sometimes I’m not home and not everybody is as diligent at keeping an eye on him as I am. So, the neighbor came over and bitched at the wife the other day, which made feel absolutely terrible for a couple of reasons. I hate to bother other people (I mean, even though I’m up before the birds most days, I wait until after 10:00 to do things that make noise, like cutting the grass and swinging a hammer), and I felt really bad that our dog was such a burden to them.

I also felt pretty depressed because the reason I moved almost six years ago was to get away from neighbors, and here I am having to worry about them again.

So we’ve contained the dogs to the front side of the house (which is fine until we want to hang out by the pool) and my wife bought a bark collar, which, frankly, I don’t really approve of (but you can’t fight city hall). We only put it on him when we’re outside and since I’ve made a point to be out with him when I’m home, he doesn’t really get the chance to yap too much. Plus I’m not convinced that it’s actually doing anything, but maybe it’s a deterrent just handing on his neck because he seems to have quieted down quite a bit. It’s supposed to start out with a warning tone. The a longer tone, followed by an even longer tone. Then the zaps start, with increasing frequency.

I of course tried it on my arm (I wouldn’t do anything to him that I’d be unwilling to do to myself), and by about the third zap my arm muscles were twitching like crazy. It’s not excruciating, but it’s no exactly pleasant either. Of course, he’s used to being dragged by his neck off the porch and into the yard by his brother all the time, so I don’t know how touchy he is.

Otherwise, things are going just swimmingly. Trump and Clinton seem to be running neck and neck (except Trump doesn’t actually have a neck), so it should be a thrilling election season. And it looks like pretty much everybody wants to dump Debbie “The Payday Loan Queen” Wasserman Schultz as DNC Chair. Except to replace her before the convention, Obama would have do the dirty work and he’s apparently reluctant to start a war.

So maybe Clinton can get her to resign by promising her a cabinet position.

Personally, I’d just like to get an ambassadorship to some low-key, American-friendly country. Like maybe Sweden or Switzerland (or Grand Fenwick). Someplace warm would be good, but folks in the warmer-weather countries tend to hate us (not that I blame them – I’m not too crazy about us most of the time myself).

But since an ambassadorship doesn’t seem forthcoming, I guess I’d better get back to work.

On the way to work this morning, I was behind a flat bed truck hauling a burial vault. I hope that’s not some kind of omen for the type of day it’s gonna be. Now matter how terrible things get today, at least it’s finally Friday, and what a big week we’ve had.

As everybody surely knows by now, barring some sort of terrible mishap Donny Drumpf is the next Republican nominee for President. Imagine that. The electoral map isn’t looking too good for him right now, but there’s a long way to go until November and I wouldn’t overestimate the intelligence of the ‘merican people. You’ll gradually see all the GOP elites supporting the Don, I guarantee. And as Trump “moderates” himself, Independents and all the “maverick” types will start becoming more enamored of the Don (especially after the Republicans start pulling out some feces to fling at Clinton from their E-mailgate and Benghazi bags of tricks).

Why, Donald even “loves” Hispanics now!

Happy #CincoDeMayo! The best taco bowls are made in Trump Tower Grill. I love Hispanics! https://t.co/ufoTeQd8yA pic.twitter.com/k01Mc6CuDI

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 5, 2016

Of course, when he says he loves Hispanics, he means as an ingredient.

It promises to be a busy weekend at my house. First, I have to drag Bud in to the vet for his Lepto/Lyme vaccination (that it really would have been a lot easier for him to get when he was there a couple of weeks ago). And then the grass has grown approximately 2 feet since I cut it last weekend.

Plus I didn’t brew last weekend, so I need to cook up a batch this weekend, lest I fall behind in my quota. And then there’s all the usual trip tp Costco and laundry and all that shit – and then it’ll be Monday again.

Oh, and I’m on call so who knows what fun surprises are in store.

Then Sunday is Mother’s Day, though since I’m an orphan, I guess I’m off the hook for that one.

Today is the start of National Nurse’s Week (ending with the 196th birthday of Florence Nightingale on May 12). They make a big show of it where I work, pretending to value nurses by handing out some useless trinkets to them all.

I’d say that if you know a nurse, to wish her a Happy Nurse’s Day today, but odds are at best all you’ll get is a surly grumble about bullshit and hypocrites, and at worst, well…. If you’re not careful you could get hurt.

There is no such thing as DBA day (let alone week). At least, not one that anybody pays any attention to – especially around here. IT people are basically considered overhead. If we manage to keep things going without any catastrophic failures, then clearly we’re not needed and they’re just wasting money by paying us. And if something goes wrong, then we’re clearly incompetent and useless.

You just can’t win. As we (and by “we” I mean “me”) say around my house, nurses work from sun to sun, but DBA’s job is never done.

Well, looks like Primary season is all but over now, and soon we’ll turn our attention to the General Election. Actually, for me, I’m going to do everything in my power to divert my attention from the General, because I’m really not looking forward to what it’s going to be like (it’s going to be downright icky, IMHO). I’m very conflicted on this whole thing. On the one hand, I can’t believe I live in a country that would make Donald Trump a serious candidate for President. One the other hand, it doesn’t surprise me one bit. Either way, it’s pretty shameful.

It’s also a sad fact that I know people – people that I consider to be reasonably intelligent and decent people – who think that Trump is “what we need” to “shake things up” and “turn things around.” I mean, you expect that sort of thing from the mouthbreathing idiot types, or from my ex-Nazi father-in-law (though he probably doesn’t know what day of the week it is at this point – not sure he even remembers that “that colored fella” is President) but when people you actually like and respect (or at least used to respect) come out with this shit….

Well, I’m just at a loss.

In other news, today is my mom’s birthday. She’d have been 92 today, though she’s been dead for coming up on 17 years now I guess it is. Though I miss my folks, there’s something to be said for going out while you more or less still have your shit together. My big fear is that I’ll somehow overcome my genetics and less-than-stellar food, beverage, and exercise routines and outlive everybody. I’m fairly certain, that won’t happen, but it’s still a scary thought – to be left alone to rot (first figuratively and eventually literally) in front of the teevee until somebody notices I haven’t paid the taxes in a while.

Or worse, get shoved into some roach-filled nursing home somewhere – left mumbling over in the corner in my wheelchair hoping for the red jello instead of the green.

On the bright side, I’ll probably croak about a week after I retire (or maybe the week before, which would be better for the wife, since if I croak while I’m still working she gets decent chunk of insurance money).

Then again, with President Trump and his gang in charge, retirement might just be off the table altogether.

Too bad, because I really feel like retiring right about now. My tractor’s got a flat tire, and the grass needs cutting.

Plus it’s been damn cold lately. When I got home yesterday, it was 58° in the house, and I actually have to turn the heat back on.