Happy Thanksgiving, all ya’ll.

Much to be thankful for. Healthy family, generally speaking. Great wife and kids. Employed. Still married after twenty pretty good years. Latest book published with good reviews. Hillary is still not president. Car is still running. Weather is not bad. Roof’s been reshingled. Hollywood is imploding, and it looks like congress might be next.

So, overall, life’s not bad. Oh, sure, there are things I could complain about, but they are pretty small potatoes in the historical big picture.

Give thanks, and carry on.

In response to a post by Vox, here are a couple of recipes, totally unrelated to TSCB beyond Kwon cooking lots of strange things, and these are often viewed as strange. Enjoy! Continue reading Recipes →

All y’all, actually. Hope you have a good one. Pray, do good, hope you do well, stay warm, and carry on.

The school year is over, and yet another leave-replacement contract is done. Back on the search path for something in teaching (which I love, and most of the kids in my classroom like me), or maybe it’s time for a career-change if the money is right. My tech is a little dated, but I’m a fast learner, good speaker, decent writer, and can explain things to almost any audience. Anyone know of any open positions?

I’m doing all the normal job searches in the school districts that are a reasonable commute distance, but they mostly seem to want specialists (like a BS in bio to teach a bio class) and special ed, and while I’m “highly qualified” in five things (including science, math, and social studies) my MS in computer science doesn’t seem to be enough to generate much interest when they are winnowing twenty applicants down to the five they’ll interview. I’m good at connecting the classroom to the real world, if anyone wants that, and connecting different subjects that are usually taught as stand-alone and disconnected from any real meaning to life.

Eh, I’m sure something will turn up. But if you know of anything, a pointer in the right direction would be most appreciated.

Oh, the joys of home ownership.

Need to install a new garbage disposal (old one made it about 18 years). Done.

Need to fix a broken bathroom faucet. Need to replace the valve/float system of a toilet to stop it running. And that’s on top of replacing a septic pump last August. Houses are sort of like boats in slow motion – an endless repository for money and time spent on maintenance and repair. Yet what is the alternative? Renting, where you are at the landlord’s whim, and gain no value from money spent? Trade-offs, always trade-offs.
I.e., life happens.

I quite imagine that a space ship, even a sentient one, is in many ways the same. Especially if it’s a warship.

Went well. Parents and family are here.

One funny bit – when we sat down for dinner, I asked “who says grace? I asked, so I don’t have to.” The 9-yo son says “I can do it.” And he did a fine (if rather short) job.

Well done, sprout number two, well done.

I have much to be thankful for. All the normal things, like friends and family (neither are particularly numerous, but they make up for that in quality), the fact that I live in the greatest – if flawed – nation in the history of history. I have tremendous material comfort. Amazing technology. Generally good health among myself and family.

And of course, all my readers who thought that my mental meanderings and story were good enough to not just read, but buy and recommend to others. I’m humbled. For that I truly give thanks. And my publisher. I mean, how many people accidentally get one of those?

Going back to the earliest thanksgiving, what were they celebrating? Making it through the year. Why was that such a thing? I mean, all their ancestors had made it through the winter time and again, yes? So what’s the big deal, other than being in a new place? They’d tried something that sounded good –  communal ownership – and it had nearly killed them as each person tried to find gold or enrich themselves quickly while letting someone else do the hard but guaranteed method of survival and success called farming doing what needs to be done. Scrapping proto-communism and getting back to the fundamental reality of the world that there is no free lunch is what saved them.

Cargo cults always fail. Always. It is part of human psychology. We are flawed. We have huge brains, but it has few correct instincts, and it takes  a LONG time to program / train correctly (a couple decades of an ~eight decade life), and there are a lot of places it can go wrong. The more comfortable the world you live in is, the easier it is to not get the correct “how reality actually works” programming.

So – be thankful for what you have, tell those around you you love that you do, and never let comfort become too comfortable. But on this day – just enjoy the day.

Now, off to roast the bird!