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- October 27, 2025
- Navy Day 2025
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I recall the somber mood and overt saddness my learning of the passing of Master Chief Wayne Mead placed on me recently.
I feel that dark funk continues to pervade my soul. It seems that my icons and heros are falling by the wayside continually as I proceed on my journey.
When I was in the Navy I was likely your worst nightmare.
I had to keep "showing my ass" to a bare minimum lest word get back to Master Chief Williamson (my daddy) and there be trouble on the homestead.
Today is Navy Day.
It is observed under the auspices of the Navy League of the United States each October 27 in honor of naval service members, both past and present since 1922.
It commemorates both the founding of the Navy in 1775 and the birthday of Theodore Roosevelt who was an advocate for sea power of our nation.
Armed Forces Day replaced it as a formal holiday in 1949 but Navy Day remains dear to the hearts of too many to be ignored.
While not a formal national holiday, many people and organizations still observe the day like me.
So that legacy of the Navy remains with me. I have tried to make amends for not being the exemplary sailor my dad was. The thoughts of my performance have followed me and caused me to participate in programs with which I might have avoided otherwise.
Happy Navy Day.
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- October 26, 2025
- National Pumpkin Day 2025
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Today is National Pumpkin Day.
The pumpkin has been both decoration and food for as long as I can remember.
The 26th of October brings all this to the fore with the gourd being the inspiration for competitions and festivals all over the fall season.
One of the oldest domesticated plants there is evidence for their cultivation back as far as 7500 to 5500 BC.
You can roast and eat the seeds, use the flesh for all manner of pies and pastries and such.
The blossoms are popular food items as well.
There is even a johnny come lately coffee drink which has gained autumn popularity with the faddish coffee outlets around.
Dried and hollowed out shells make highly practical bowls and storage containers.
So consider the pumpkin.
A versatile and highly useful plant species we have enjoyed for eons.
Happy National Pumpkin Day.
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- October 25, 2025
- International Artist Day 2025
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Back in the day when I thought I might live forever my personal last word in artists and the artistic was Eldon Dewitt Casey. Yes, my friend could wield a pen or pencil with authority and use any medium on the planet in pursuit of his creations and the day he left my presence for things beyond this Earth found me wanting more — but never to regain it .
Though he called himself a "sign writer" he was an illustrator and craftsman who forged new creations from his mind to the wood, paper, metal, and paints he would apply so diligently and with the utmost care.
Pen and ink, watercolors, oils, wood carving, intricate constructions, sculpting tree trunks, whatever he had going on you could tell it would be special.
Today International Artist Day.
The day celebrates those essential contributions of artists to society and culture. Contributions like those of the late Eldon Dewitt Casey.
Celebrated on October 25th, this day was created by Canadian artist Chris MacClure in 2004.
The day promotes art and artists and also encourages communities to support creative individuals and appreciate how artists shape experiences, challenge norms, and foster connection and emotional well-being through diverse artistic mediums.
Though he has been gone these many years, I still have examples of the fine art he created over the 30 some odd years we were best friends. I was lucky to have known such a talented individual and fine fellow as Eldon Dewitt Casey.
Rest in peace.
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- October 24, 2025
- Autumn Leaf Color Peakage
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We've reached the general time of peak coloration of the fall leaves round these here parts.
Shucks, y'all, I never make it up to the Blue Ridge Parkway anymore. There was a time where I could be found riding the Pigsah Range segment up through Craggy Gardens often and it was something quite close to what I construe heaven to be like.
So anyway, the autumn leaves peak around mid October through early November and we're rapidly approaching November.
I find myself being beckoned to return to yon Asheville way. Perhaps I'll stop at Fletcher and visit an old friend if she is around.
My main concern is perhaps catching a few leaves with vibrant fall color still in the trees.
Wish me luck !
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- October 23, 2025
- National Slap Your Annoying Coworker Day 2025
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During my career I was always one to joke about bitch slapping my co workers.
Primarily those I found exceedingly annoying — which was a fair number of them in retrospect and YES they found me offensive on occasion and were further annoyed by the fact that I did not take their offense to heart.
Today is National Slap Your Annoying Coworker Day.
It is an unofficial holiday on October 23rd that is meant to be "tongue in cheek" and is NOT a day for actual physical violence, regardless of the restraint you must exercise to keep from actually popping some evil bitch who richly deserves it upside his or her stupid head.
The day is about making a joke of workplace frustrations.
If you get carried away in your celebrations and actually slap another person you may suffer fairly serious consequences on the order of termination or even legal actions.
So as you curtail your violent impulses in the context of the day you otherwise observe this in the manner of your choosing. You can get a load of some slapstick humor — or other modality which does not feature actual physical assault.
Moe - Larry - Curly - Shemp - Joe.
Enjoy the day but maintain your decorum in the workplace, please. If I could do it, you can do it.
Happy National Slap Your Annoying Coworker Day and maintain the true spirit of the day !
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- October 22, 2025
- National Color Day 2025
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Today is National Color Day.
It is observed each October 22nd in an effort to acknowledge and appreciate the impact color have on our lives.
The focus of the day is noticing how colors influence our mood, productivity, and behavior. It is also in celebration of that creativity and esthetic appeal colors bring to the world.
So I would surmise that the day raises awareness about the psychological effects of colors, and acts as a vehicle of inspiration for the creativity and self-expression they make possible.
Reflecting on the colors around you, engaging color theory, wearing your favorite color, or participation in any activity that involves color, such as art or design is a suitable way to spend the day.
It is said that different colors can have specific associations and evoke different feelings. I'm not one to question the propriety of expertise but the color I personally experience is much more subjective and subdued.
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- October 21, 2025
- Reptile Awareness Day 2025
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When I was a child in the remote rural Aiken County South Carolina area in which I lived I was more "reptile oriented" than I am now ...
Or even was later in my late childhood.
After all, there were always a number of turtles and snakes around and I could toy with these to my heart's content and I did so until a paycheck became my prime focus in life.
Today is Reptile Awareness Day.
It goes down each October 21st and is meant to promote reptiles as a facet of learning in people — including their habitats and threats they face in an ever encroaching world which humans occupy and make all attempts to take from them.
It is said that the number of reptilian species is in excess of 10,000 and that they live worldwide except in Antarctica. I have often wondered if this count includes the Reptilian humanoids who consider themselves to be Native earthlings or the treacherous Draco reptilians who are untrustworthy manipulator mercenary agents from another extraterrestrial culture and like to dine on very young blonde blue eyed female humans.
These utilize what is said to be "mind control" to keep humans in place. I would like to state publicly that hypnosis and mind control does not work with me and never has. If I ever discover I have a terminal illness with inevitable and rapidly approaching death I intend to pick an alien base built by the US in conjunction with aliens in Colorado, Nevada, Arizona, Alaska and take them out with extreme prejudice. Dead is dead and I prefer to go down fighting the good fight. Stupid majestic 12 traitors.
So the terran reptiles are our focus during Reptile Awareness Day. I would like to bear witness to the day and apologize to those reptiles I abused before I knew better.
Observing this day involves little more than educating yourself and others regarding various reptile species and including the sharing of any facts you may have. Donations are a nice touch and zoos and sanctuaries may be visited if you want to learn even more.
The responsible pet ownership angle should be approached and if you go that route a reptile veterinarian is a good first contact. Practice ethical herpetoculture by learning the responsible care of reptiles kept as pets.
I dare say my interaction with reptiles ended a number of years back unless you're talking Draco Reptilians which I have been studying for years and may or may not consider to pursue in the name of showing just who is whom in the world domination game.
See Also:
National Iguana Awareness Day 2024
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- October 20, 2025
- National Day on Writing 2025
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I once fancied myself a writer. I had to settle for 'wordsmith' because I never had the ambition to sit down and work out any magnum opus though the thoughts were there and I was able.
Today is National Day on Writing, aka National Journalism Day. It is held under the auspices of the National Council of Teachers of English and was recognized in 2009 and 2010 by Senate resolutions. It is meant to bring the role of writing in everyday life.
However, when I noticed how the teachers stopped teaching hand writing altogether in the local school systems I knew that they only give mouth service to education and are in essence just a bunch of libtards out to indoctrinate rather than educate the children of the world.
I will likely never regain respect for another teacher in the public school system again. Those with whom I worked who didn't bother to check their facts before spouting off their ignorant mouths might do well to watch their dumb asses.
The NCTE says the holiday exists to:
1. highlight the remarkable variety of writing we engage in today;
2. provide a collection for research on whether writing today has risen to new highs or sunk to new lows; and
3. help us help others to write better.
Boo teachers.
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- October 19, 2025
- October in Transition 2025
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So we're two thirds through October, one of my most favorite months.
It's been this way since my earliest harvest festivals and Halloween parties at Irving School in Blackfoot, Idaho so very long ago.
It was there I had my fondest memories of Mrs Ilene Rowe, my first grade teacher whom I revered as an icon of learning.
This was well before I became jaded by gaining employment and working with a lot of woke idiot educators the democrats have cultivated in South Carolina who can't even manage to get their facts straight prior to judging their peers in public and who utterly lacked Mrs Rowe's integrity and pursuit of excellence.
It's said that October is a time of transition with the end of the harvest and the beginning of winter approaching. I for one look forward to the continuing progression of the year. It's been this way since I was a child in Blackfoot, Idaho and the anticipation of all that fall and winter presents.
Mrs Rowe and Mrs Stalker at Irving School guided those times in my budding school career. I am left wanting to revisit those times although I know this can never be. It's a difficult matter to simply discard those memories as they revisit me when I least expect them.
So happy October to you.
The best is yet to come.
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- October 18, 2025
- It's Jean-Claude Van Damme's Birthday
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In my mind, Jean-Claude Van Damme represents the innocence of my youth. I recall cheering then losing abruptly that martial arts talent named Bruce Lee. Others filled the void as one might expect but so many were simply lesser in my mind.
I was a big fan early on in the career of Jean-Claude Van Damme and I really continued to take the martial arts film as a serious art form whereas it might have waned in my interest otherwise.
Something about his performances just clicked with my inner redneck. All that ass kicking was simply appealing at a personal level.
This naturally diminished as career considerations came to the fore and yes indeed I was so worried I wasn't going to make it in the workaday world that I forsook Bruce Lee and Jean-Claude without a second thought. Unfortunately, the lure of the "almighty dollar" caused billable hours to become first and foremost in that limited focus of my mind.
Born Jean-Claude Camille François Van Varenberg on October 18, 1960 and known professionally as Jean-Claude Van Damme he is a Belgian martial artist and actor.
He has been married several times and has three children.
At the behest of his father he studied Shotokan and rose to second dan black belt.
He had a string of popular action film star and followed up with a number of commercially successful films. I think the last film I saw him in was Cyborg, which I enjoyed.
He is a conservationist and all round good guy and today is his birthday.
Happy birthday to you !
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- October 17, 2025
- OPEC Oil Embargo 1973
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In response to Western support for Israel during the Yom Kippur War, on October 17, 1973 Arab oil producing nations launched an oil embargo.
This resulted in significant shortages and long term economic consequences in the United States and Europe.
I had graduated high school the previous May 30th.
I recall the tall prices and long lines. I drove a VW Bug at that time so I was able to squeak by. However, it adversely affected training I was undergoing via distractions and a need to work instead of study.
I subsequently withdrew to the chagrin and incredible anger of my father, whom in retrospect I feel was totally justified.
Richard Nixon was president of the United States during this interim and he was entirely too preoccupied with his criminal behaviors to be involved in something so essential to The Republic as affordable fuel for the tax payer.
Suffice it to say that the weak leadership we have suffered as a nation has contributed greatly to the problematic nature of being an American citizen.
As hard as it is for me the grasp this concept, we've had even worse presidents than Nixon since that time.
God Bless America.
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- October 16, 2025
- Barbara Billingsley passed in 2010
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I was an early fan of the sitcom "Leave it to Beaver" and watched it for most of my childhood. Along with "Dennis the Menace" the two programs were the bulk of those staples I enjoyed outside of the de rigueur westerns which I watched as well.
Barbara Billingsley played Mrs June Cleaver. She was an actress who was born December 22, 1915 and passed on this day in 2010. Mrs Cleaver was a pillar of my childhood due to my television entertainment habits.
Ms Billingsley began playing uncredited roles and then appeared in serial roles as well. She will always be remembered as the mother of Beaver Cleaver from 1957 through 1963 — and I have fond memories of her since childhood.
She was born Barbara Lillian Combes on December 22, 1915, in Los Angeles, California. She was the daughter of Lillian Agnes and Robert Collyer Combes whow was a police officer.
She was married three times and had two children. She married Glenn Billingsley Sr in 1941 who was a restaurateur. They had two sons and divorced in 1947.
In 1953, she married British-born movie director Roy Kellino who passed of a heart attack in 1956. About six months later that she was handed the pilot for what would become Leave It to Beaver. Her third and final marriage was to William S Mortensen in 1959 they remained together until his death in 1981.
Barbara Billingsley died of polymyalgia rheumatica at her home in Santa Monica, California, on October 16, 2010, at age 94. She is interred at Woodlawn Memorial Cemetery, Santa Monica.
Rest in peace.
See Also:
Barbara Billingsley born this day
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- October 15, 2025
- Fortan is introduced to the World in 1956
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Back in the day I learned programming with a dialect of PL/1 called DUCHSS.
PL/1 is derived from elements of both Cobol and Fortan and as such I found the implementation very logical and fairly swift to acquire.
Fortan, like Cobol is a high level compiled programming language.
That which makes them "high level" are their dependence of a "low level software" to interface with and control the hardware and interoperational aspects of their work.
These low level elements are referred to as "system software".
Whereas Cobol is primarily business oriented, Fortan finds it's base in the realm of scientific and numerical computation.
My interests have always been first and formost scientific therefore it is fitting that I studied a smidge of Fortan during the course of my introduction to PL/1.
On this day in 1956 Fortran was introduced to the programmers of the world. It remains dear to my heart for all it allowed me to bring to the table in the technical realm.
Both languages remain in use today but I have moved on to the Fourth Generational Languages.
A Fourth Generation Language (4GL) is a high-level programming language designed to be closer to human language which enables more rapid development and utilizes precoded automation built into the compiler.
These languages are typically specific to the area in which they are utilized such as database query languages like SQL, report generators, and tools for data manipulation, analysis, and web development.
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- October 14, 2025
- National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk
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A national day of remembrance is an annual observance for a country to officially commemorate and remember a significance in our midst.
The days are designated for a variety of reasons, such as honoring the military, memorializing victims of tragedy, or recognizing ongoing struggles and trauma faced by a community.
The observance can involve solemnity, ceremony, moments of silence, acts of service, or personal reflection.
The US Senate has unanimously passed a resolution designating National Day of Remembrance for Charlie Kirk to be held each October 14 annually.
Mr Kirk was speaking at a debate hosted by his nonprofit political organization.
Immediately before the shooting, Kirk was taking questions from an audience member about mass shootings and gun violence.
That irony has never been lost on me personally, and I am living for the day when 22-year-old Tyler Robinson faces the music for his horrific murder of someone whose only wish was public discourse and interpersonal understanding.
Rest in peace.
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