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June 14, 2021
Flag Day 2021
Flag Day 2021
Today is Flag Day in the United States. The day commemorates the adoption of the US Flag by the Second Continental Congress on June 14, 1777. Though National Flag Day was established by an Act of Congress, it is not a federal holiday.

There are those among us who make their disdain for the flag known in no uncertain terms. These same people seek entitlements and generally want to reek havoc and cause destruction to The Republic because of their indoctrination by the left as the results of attending public schools.

These persons should beware for there are those of us who will not tolerate such stupidity in our midst.

This is Flag Day. Respect the flag or cart your unappreciative unpatriotic self somewhere else to live. See how far your hatred gets you there.

God Bless America.

Tags: politics, people, places, things
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June 13, 2021
Revisiting Paul Lynde
    Paul Lynde
In my childhood there was Paul Lynde. He was rather ubiquitous and appeared in many of those television programs which populated my viewing habits during that kinder, gentler, more fantasy prone time in my life.

He was born June 13, 1926 in Mount Vernon, Ohio and became a comedian, television personality, actor, and voice artist behind the scenes of animation for a long period of time and was known for comedic improvisation skills second to none.

My favorite role he portrayed was Uncle Arthur on Bewitched ... mainly because of that personality and schtick which permeated each and every appearance. He was also quite enjoyable as a Hollywood Square where he was regularly positioned in the 'center square'.

Most of all I liked Paul Lynde because he made me laugh in times where that emotional outburst was far and few between for me personally.

He passed at 55 years old on January 10, 1982 at his home in Beverly Hills and was found when a concerned friend investigated a missed birthday party.

So like all things which come to an end too soon, we add Paul Lynde who was as funny as people get.

Rest in peace.

Tags: people, endings
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June 12, 2021
Remembering Gregory Peck
Gregory Peck    
I wasn't a movie buff as a child. My interests fell in and about the SCIFI and horror genres and of course fantasy flicks like The Wizard of Oz and so forth and so on.

Every so often a drama would catch my interest for one reason or another and the Gregory Peck portrayal of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockinbird was one of those exceptions to my rather narrow interest spectrum at that time in my life. I might say it is one of my favorite performances of all time ... perhaps.

Sigourney Weaver's portrayal of Ellen Ripley in Aliens is really difficult to surpass in that 'favorite of all times' category, however ! But I digress ...

Eldred Gregory Peck was a star of film in the United States. His popularity was second to none spanning a 20 year period from the 1940s through the 1960s.

He was born April 5, 1916 and died June 12, 2003.

He has received accolades from multiple institutions as one of the finest film stars ever.

My aforementioned favorite performance by him is that of Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird for which he won an Academy Award for best actor back when it actually meant something.


He was a politically active democrat before the libtard left took over and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1969 by President Lyndon B Johnson.

He passed in his sleep from bronchopneumonia at the age of 87.

Rest in peace.

Tags: people, things, endings
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June 11, 2021
Someone in China Sniffing Around
    Don"t Tread on Me China
The system logs have been showing a slight upswing in the number of visitations from Chinese IP addresses. Experience reveals that access from those addresses are typically up to no good and of an exploit nature.

They are always entering some errant URL in an attempt to circumvent the web protocols in effect ...

Further attempting to exploit structures they have found elsewhere to gain entry to what I may have to offer their thieving whim.

The first thing you need to do in the course of being firewalled from my network in perpetuity is let me determine you're a feline and canine eating punk ass Chinese national or some dirtbag domestic ISP leasing IPs to China which is even worse.

You're banished in a heartbeat. It's a pleasure to deprive you of my resources opportunistic Wuhan disease laden thieving chinese bastards.

This is the beauty of a separate firewall independent of your upstream provider. Traffic they may permit doesn't necessarily have to become my problem.

One thing dealing with the Chinese has taught me is they will smile in your face and steal your intellectual property at the drop of a hat. It is my personal opinion that all chinese nationals should be deported along with the Biden family criminal organization and all those who do business with them.

Though I'm sure murdering your own people and harvesting their organs for resale becomes insufferably tedious over time, China — a single thing to remember is:

Don't Tread on Me China.

I'm that fed up. I hate china. I hate the chinese. I don't eat chinese take out anymore.

Tags: technology, people, places
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June 10, 2021
World Art Nouveau Day 2021
Debbie Harry Art Nouveau    
I am one of those who have always practiced art appreciation. I like the notion of creating more than we are and having those creations remaining for posterity.

However, my standards are not those of many of my peers.

The subjective nature of art in general renders it 'junk' to some and 'treasure' to others. Thus is the nature of humanity and individual taste.

Art Nouveau is an international spin on the style of art, architecture, and other applied and decorative art.

It is known by various name in different languages. Suffice it to say in the US the genre is known as "modern style".

World Art Nouveau Day is dedicated to art nouveau and has been celebrated annually on June 10th since 2013.

While I am all for art and artistic pursuits, some of those examples of Art Nouveau appear somewhat tawdry and of lesser appeal that say ...

the classics.

I am compelled to pursue those avenues in my own perception of what is new and remains art.

Not anything nor everything qualifies in my mind's eye. It's rather like a novel by Stephen King.

Eventually some examples appear to simply stop trying to be art.


Tags: things
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June 9, 2021
Feast of The Venerable Bede
    The Venerable Bede
When I was a kid in high school, my senior English teacher, Mr Charlie C Miller, spoke of a person known as 'The Venerable Bede' and his reference was to some of the poetry and poets we were studying during the progress of his project which he called a 'lap' that we dutifully completed.

Sadly I don't remember the specifics in this my ever advancing age; only that it took a great deal of class time and covered many topics.

Bede was an English Benedictine monk at the monastery of St Peter and its companion monastery of St Paul in the Kingdom of Northumbria of the Angles.

He was born c 673 in the Kingdom of Northumbria which was an early medieval Anglo Saxon kingdom in what is now Northern England and southeast Scotland and passed on May 26, 735 in Jarrow, part of that same kingdom.

He popularized the use of Anno Domini – in the year of our Lord when dating forward from the birth of Christ.

It appears that Bede's main claim to fame was as a writer, historian, and poet largely based on his Historia Ecclesiastica and he is recognized as being one of the first academic historians.

He was declared a Doctor of the Church in 1899 by Pope Leo XIII in Rome.

He holds many accolades and european edifices are named for him to this day.

The list of his writings are quite impressive even for a modern man much less the ancient scholar which he was in his time.

Tags: people, things, places
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June 8, 2021
World Brain Tumor Day 2021
brain    
In tribute to all brain tumor patients and their families the the German Brain Tumor Association, Deutsche Hirntumorhilfe, has declared World Brain Tumor Day beginning in the year 2000 as an international commemoration each June 8th.

Neuro-onocology is the branch of medical science concerned with brain tumors.

World Brain Tumor Day attempts to bring this research to the fore and make it known internationally in an effort to stem the tide of suffering secondary to the devastation for which this disease process poses causality.

One of their goals is to find a cure for brain tumors.

Another is the transfer of knowledge, cultivation of expertise, and the promotion of interdisciplinary approaches to treatment.

Tags: people, things, places
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June 7, 2021
Memories of Prince
     Prince Rogers Nelson

Prince Rogers Nelson was born June 7, 1958 and passed prematurely on April 21, 2016. He was known in professional circles and to his fans as Prince.

His career was that of a singer-songwriter who played many instruments, a record producer, actor, and director. He was one of the brightest musical stars the world has known.

He is regarded as one of the greatest musicians of our generation and was famous for those genres within which he chose to play — and often performed most or all of those instruments utilized on his recordings.

He was known for his flamboyant and androgynous persona, and that exceptionally wide vocal range which included a far-reaching falsetto and high-pitched screams.

The tragedy of Prince is how his ending came. He died at age 57 due to an accidental fentanyl overdose while he was at his home compound awaiting previously scheduled treatment for substance abuse.

He was one of those performers who was an acquired taste for me personally, but I grew to appreciate that talent which he couldn't help but prominently display as both time and performances went on.
 

 

Tags: people, places, things, endings
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June 7, 2021
Exploit Upswing
firewall    

I've noticed a lot of exploits from western Europe and Russia lately. They don't concern me much because all I do is firewall those offending subnets immediately then go about my business.

The present setup provides for a single firewall rule to control the entirety of LAN and WAN access.

The general thrust is either hijacking a remote desktop connection or meaningless web access via spiders.

Either way, I'm not there to be walked by some dummy with a spider they wrote. The thought of gaining remote access to my network is pretty laughable given the hoops through which jumping is required ... it's all looking like some young hacker wannabe trying to flex technical musculature which simply isn't there. Duh.

I remember having the same thoughts when I was a youngster in the beginning on the West coast accessing forbidden resources and getting into trouble.

Back then they would come and see you if you went to the wrong place because everything was dialup. With the advent of internetworking I suppose there simply are few resources for maintaining order ...

Or the impetus given that the bulk of jurisdictions are too preoccupied with lining their own pockets with taxpayer dollars much how the democratic party of the United States is presently engaged.

It's all okay though because maintaining control is fairly easy as long as you can whip up a firewall rule in short order — and I can.

As I always say, the resources are there for public access but behave or begone.
 

Tags: technology
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June 6, 2021
Shrek the New Zealand sheep passed in 2011
    Shrek prior to shering

I don't have a lot of experience with sheep. When I was younger I became attached to a goat given to my daddy upon his retirement by his best friend. It was a horned nanny named 'Gem' and I encountered this goat when it was quite young.

Gem didn't know that she wasn't a human child. She would play with the nephews and nieces whom mama would watch during the day and would leap and frolic with them as though she was just another niece.

Shrek being sheared

    
My daddy never understood the pain I went through when he took the goat to market and sold her. I understood that getting caught in the fence continually was problematic. But then there was the issue of the goat identifying itself as a family member and having that reciprocity from me made the issue of taking Gem to the market more problematic for me personally.

While I had formed an emotional attachment to the animal, Daddy just saw her as another goat.

On this day in 2011 Shrek, a 16 year old castrated male Merino sheep from South Island, New Zealand passed away.

Born in 1994, his claim to fame was remaining unsheared for 6 years and subsequently grew a gigantic fleece.

    Shrek after shearing wearing a blanket



Typically Merino sheep are caught and sheared annually.

When he was finally caught he was not recognized by his owner.

He looked like some biblical creature.

John Perriam, Shrek’s owner commenting on his discovery after 6 years of growing wool.

It would appear that good grooming goes beyond the human realm into those of sheeples.





Tags: things
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June 5, 2021
Hot Air Balloon Day 2021
One of those things in life I believe I'll forego is a hot air balloon ride. It's not that I don't trust the technology per se ... it's primarily my wish not to be high up in the air. I have similar feelings about airplanes, helicopters, spaceships, and so forth. I remember returning to Chicago after leave from the Navy and thinking just how high up in the air 45,000 feet appeared. Shudder !

It's not a fear of heights so much as a fear of falling. I even have issues with tall buildings. I recall going to the observation deck at a very tall building in the Post Oak area of Houston adjacent to the Bechtel office building where I was working. It felt as though the building were swaying in the breeze ... and I had problems awaiting the elevator's return to the ground floor.

Travel in a hot air balloon is about as old as flight gets for human beings. The first manned flight in 1783 by the Montgolfier brothers in France not withstanding; it simply has not been something for which I found allure.

Hot Air Balloons

Each year Hot Air Balloon Day comes and goes. Each year I decline to involve myself in the ecstatic pleasure of being suspended from an envelope in the basket of a gondola hoping that the thing doesn't catch on fire from pilot error or come into contact with some set of high tension wires. Both present opportunities for abrupt drops to the ground and subsequent mortality.

I suppose I just don't feel lucky. If you do and are so inclined I hope you'll take any opportunity which may arise for a hot air balloon ride. I won't ever knock anything just because it may not appeal to me personally.

Happy Hot Air Balloon Day to you !

Tags: things
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June 4, 2021
Remembering Tiananmen Square in 1989
This entry concerns the concept of the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989 Memorial Day which are in effect memorials for those lost in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests.

My personal exposure was via the television back in a time when I felt that the main stream media actually had conscientious news agency goals and not the libtard presenter of democrat misinformation which preoccupies them presently.

History will likely frown on the government of Communist China who would just as soon murder their own citizens with armed military as kill us with viruses they cultivate in the Wuhan laboratory so they can better steal technology and other secrets courtesy of the Biden family criminal organization and the rest of the democrats.

Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989        Commerative Medal for the Tiananmen Square Protests of 1989

The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 are known in China as the June Fourth Incident. These were student led demonstrations held in Tiananmen Square, Beijing during 1989.

The Tiananmen Square Massacre ocurred when troops armed with assault rifles and accompanied by tanks fired at the demonstrators and those trying to block the military advance into Tiananmen Square.

These protests began on April 15 until forcibly suppressed on June 4 when the government declared martial law and mobilized the People's Liberation Army to occupy parts of central Beijing.

Estimates of the death toll vary from several hundred to several thousand, with thousands more wounded.

The popular national movement inspired by the Beijing protests is sometimes called the 1989 Democracy Movement aka Tiananmen Square Incident.

Tags: people, places, politics, weapons
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June 3, 2021
New UPS units for the servers
APC Back UPS Pro 1500 VA 900 W    
Both of my UPS units being well beyond end of life, one started giving a battery failure ... in the middle of the night no less.

I took this opportunity to replace the server UPS units in a preemptive manner.

The new units are the APC® Back-UPS Pro 10-Outlet Tower Uninterruptible Power Supply, 1,500VA/900 Watts 1,080-joule, BN1500M2.

They have the benefit of only having to back up the actual server. None of the associated infrastructure will be loaded onto them as I have a third UPS for that.

These units are designed for medium sized offices and should help to keep the electronics protected in the event of power spikes, surges, as well as outages. My tiny implementation should be a walk in the park for them.

After all, the web and mail servers remain mission critical because these boxes connect me to the outside world in my old age.

I just hope they last the same 10 years as the last two have.

Good luck with that !

My up close and personal inspection has revealed quite a bit more dust than should be there. I'll be hitting that with the vaccum, damp cloth, and electronics wipes directly.

Tags: technology
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June 2, 2021
I remember Leave it to Beaver
    Jerry Mathers
When I was a kid, one of those early programs I could be found watching was the latest episode of Leave it to Beaver, a family oriented sitcom of my early childhood. The lead was Jerry Mathers, who portrayed the various antics of Theodore "Beaver" Cleaver along with his brother Wally and various friends and schoolmates featured in the episodes.

I followed this program for a rather extended period of time, well into syndication after the run had completed ... mostly as a function of missed episodes and that failure to absorb a lot of that which I watched due to my various preoccupations.

Gerald Patrick Mathers was born June 2, 1948 and became a performer at he age of two. I lost track of him after his enlistment in the Air National Guard. I saw him with shaved head and in uniform and pretty much wrote him off as a performer at that time.

I never really engaged his acting again but he was an important part of my life during the Leave it to Beaver years. It is my understanding that he is an accomplished singer as well but I have never seen him engaged in this type performance.

His divergence from my existence saw him marry three times and have a few kids. He also developed type 2 diabetes (such as that I have) and he was the first male spokesperson for Jenny Craig.

He has had a weight problem with which to contend and I note that every time I see him in the media he is smiling and appears quite happy.

I miss the old days when we were kids and I lived vicariously through his character's antics on the television program. I dare say that Beaver was certainly no more troublesome a child as I and I'm glad that Jerry Mathers has been able to enjoy his life after being a child star.

Tags: people, things
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