Rob Fahrni

In California we lived at the base of the Sierra Nevada. Right behind Exeter sits a hill called Rocky Hill.

In Virginia they would refer to that as a mountain.

We refer to it as a foothill. Those foothills get ever taller as you drive deeper into them until you’re into the Sierra Nevada.

Folks have never been west if hills are mountains to them.

The Sierra Nevada is extremely impressive.

Don’t take that as a slight. It’s what people know growing up here.

The Appalachian’s are also very impressive and I wish I had the stamina and time to hike the entire 2,000+ miles of the Appalachian Trail.

Looks like the cicadas are venturing out. I’ve seen a few now. Mostly a bunch of exuviae laying around outside.

But Kim found this dude outside.

Tom Warren ⦁ The Verge

US employees whose combined years of service added to their age totals 70 or more will be eligible for voluntary retirement, and Coleman says this will include “generous company support.” It’s not clear if this is a precursor to more layoffs at Microsoft, but it certainly looks like a method to avoid a bigger round of layoffs ahead of Microsoft’s new financial year in July.

Emphasis is mine. If I’d stayed around Microsoft until now I’d be able to retire. Take my 58 years plus another 30 years of employment (if I’d stayed) and I’d be taking that offer. 😄

My first go round with Visio was in 1993, I left for a spell and returned in May of 1996. Visio was acquired in November of 2001 and I left in August 2003 because I was a remote employee and Microsoft “moved” my job location to Redmond. I took the severance package.

First time seeing one of these in the wild. 😃

Things are starting to get really happy around here.

Beautiful day out. ☀️

Perfect for doing yard work.

Our Dogwood’s are extremely happy.

Ms. Gracie, living her best life.

OMG! My favorite IPA ever is back! 😍

Firestone Walker Double Jack IPA!

Geraldine McKelvie • The Guardian

The global publishing platform Substackis generating revenue from newsletters that promote virulent Nazi ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism, a Guardian investigation has found.

It is the proverbial Nazi bar. I’m glad more publications are talking about this. There are a number of us nobodies out here talking about it and it’s not making a dent in the business or convincing extremely great writers to leave the platform. Even Jewish writers like Robert Reich and Jennifer Rubin remain on the platform. I just don’t get it. It makes me wonder if they’re still using Space Karen’s X platform as well. I wouldn’t know, I’m not there.

Before all the Nazi kerfuffle I read there all the time. They support RSS so it was easy to point Stream at a writer and get their feed. I even subscribed to Michael Beschloss and considered others.

So why is it publications and writers love this platform so much they’ll go against everything they believe? Most of the folks I followed are for decency and democracy and rail against the Trump administration almost every day, but they turn a blind eye to the Nazis sitting at the bar next to them. In the end I’d bet it’s all about the money.

Encourage them to leave if you happen to stumble across this post.

Here are some of the amazing writers I’d love to see abandon the platform.

• The Contrarian - many writers
• The Bulwark - many writers
• Robert Reich
• Steve Beschloss
• Paul Krugman
• Heather Cox Richardson
• Michael McFaul
• Timothy Snyder
• Andrew Weissman
• Michael Moore
• Malcom Nance
• W. Kamau Bell

Another cold morning. This is the lowest I’ve seen the temperature since we move to Virginia in 2019.

Earlier in the week we were expecting negative temperatures. This is a bit better.

Of course Gracie loves it outside and it’s hard to get her back in the house. 🥶

I’ll probably be sharing these over the next few days because it’s cold. 🥶🤣

⚠️ Before reading any further I’m posting links from writers I really respect who have chosen to use a service that supports and publishes Nazi content. I won’t mention the name here but if you’ve followed me on this blog or on Mastodon you’ve heard me mention it.

I’ve encouraged both of them to leave and find better places to write but I’m a nobody so my begging goes unanswered (by unanswered they don’t interact with their audience much.)

I’ve made a rule not to link to these writers and others as long as they’re using this despicable service but with the murder of Alex Pretti I felt it necessary to ignore my own rule for the moment.

Paul Krugman

It has been clear for a long time, to anyone willing to see, that the people running the federal government — Trump, Miller, Noem, Bovino and more — are monsters.

Robert Reich

He’s coming after all of us who oppose his tyranny and brutality. All of us who defy his dictatorship. All of us who challenge his out-of-control, murderous goons.

Murder. Alex Pretti was murdered in cold blood for what? Filming ICE agents and trying to pick a woman up off the ground.

The man was shot 10 times. If that’s not an intentional act meant to kill him, I don’t know what is.

Our democracy is collapsing. When future generations of Americans and other countrymen write about the Second American Civil War they will name Minneapolis the event that catalyzed Americans to act. To use violence against violence.

Donald J. Trump, you are a thug, racist, pedophile, and rapist. You can now add murderer to that list.

It’s a dark time in the world and to have a once great nation fall this quickly is gut wrenching.

Link to eyewitness statement.

It’s pretty darned cold this morning and the wind definitely doesn’t help.

12F with a feels like of 4F and you can feel every bit of it. 🥶

Coffee with Bug.

My wife brought these home for me a couple weeks back. Boy oh boy are they dangerous! 🤣 Eating one leads to two leads to… You get the picture.

Daring Fireball

But I want to add another note. The main footage here comes from bystander Caitlin Callenson. Here’s her full 4m:25s footage, uncensored, hosted — with credit, and I hope, permission — on the YouTube account of Minnesota Reformer. Be warned that it shows Good being shot to death (albeit sans gore), and contains many loud profanities. This is very good and clear footage. It is difficult viewing but you should watch it. Callenson was very close to Good’s vehicle. I’d say about 30 feet or so. You can see why she thought to start filming before the murderous agent drew his gun and fired.

Go watch that video. When the ICEholes get out of their vehicles you can hear Ms. Good tell them “go around.” One agent approaches aggressively and tries to open the door. The other one is saying something but it’s hard to make out.

Then the asshole agent shoots her on the face. Once he does that he walks to the SUV, checks it out, turns around and walks away, ultimately LEAVING THE SCENE.

That man needs to get out of this kind of work if he’s that afraid.

He also needs to be brought up on murder charges, which he won’t, because the Trump administration is full of sissies who must’ve been bullied on their grade school playground so they hate everyone and have to carry a gun to feel safe.

In an email today from RetroSnap. (This site for this link may disappear soon.)

Alex here, founder at RetroSnap and the geekiest geek of retro gadgets. You may be receiving this message as part of a store-wide notification. If you have already received your order, please disregard this email.

We’re writing to share an important update regarding our store.

Due to recent increases in international import tariffs and related cross-border compliance costs, we’ve been forced to make the difficult decision to close our store and discontinue operations. These tariff changes are outside of our control and have made it impossible for us to continue operating sustainably. Please note that our business email will also be deactivated shortly.

So, I ordered one of these for Kim in early December, for Christmas. It still hasn’t arrived and I was really worried it wouldn’t get here, but I just checked and it’s due in Richmond, VA today. That’s a relief.

Also, thanks you damned Jackass in the White House whose last name rhymes with Dump. Those tariffs have been a real boon to the economy, right? 🤬

Jackass.

I’m mostly well now. I still have a cough that’s working hard to get those last remnants of irritation out of my lungs but I’m mostly whole. 🤧

I made it to the coffee shop this morning because I really need to work on Stream. It’s been three or four weeks since I’ve been able to work on it and I miss it.

I have lots of thoughts swirling around in my pea brain this morning. Mostly around a strong desire to retire. Retire from working for someone else, not retire from working. At this time of the year I always think about what it would be like to work on my own stuff full time. Stream and top secret project would get so much attention. I looked at top secret project last week for a moment and realized it’s been over a year since I touched the code. That didn’t seem possible but the dates don’t lie. My brain though it had been a few months, not over a year. It was a shock to the system. I’m not gonna be here forever and someday I may not want to write code any longer. Who knows? I certainly don’t. The way I feel about things now I can see writing code until I drop dead behind my keyboard. Someone finding me face down, my computer in some weird state from my face unintentionally issuing a command. 😄

Of course, as it stands today, I still need a job and I’m very happy to have one.

Oh, sorry for missing Saturday Morning Coffee yesterday. My body needed the sleep. I managed to sleep until 4:30PM and still sleep last night. I’m still tired this morning. This darned bug took it out of me.

I know I’ve said this many times but the weather in Charlottesville is completely unpredictable. It can be 30F and snowing and 80F and sunny the next.

When I got up with the dogs this morning it was 13F. According to our forecast it’s going to be 60F and sunny Christmas week.

It’s been cold and snowing off and on for a few weeks now. I was hoping for a white Christmas, instead it’s gonna be warm and sunny. 🤣

I’m outside putting up Christmas decorations and it’s cold, 35F (2C), but I really am enjoying it. I’ll take this over 80F with 80% humidity any day.

It reminds me of being a kid in the San Joaquin Valley of California on days with dense Tule fog.

Finally got a little snow. ❄️

Does anyone ever take honest pictures of their desk setup? Seriously. They’re alway super clean and uncluttered.

Mine? Mine is a mess, all the time. With random trinkets and junk all over the place.

I moved one item before taking this picture because it had my address on it. Other than that, this is how it looks most days.

This biting horsefly landed next to me and the darned thing is huge!

I’m tellin’ ya, east coast bugs are scary.

I think it’s planning on eating me. 😳

Kim hangs two ferns on our porch every summer. She has to hang new ones because the birds that nest in them destroy them.

As I was taking pictures of the two babies in this shot the one on the left flew away. The other one is still hanging out.

On the other side of the porch we still have two smaller babies hanging out.