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January 10, 2026

Today’s post has good news and bad news. First though, I am going to add a new category tab in my blog taxonomy. Yeah that was really the first word I thought of. I’m not normal. Thank God. Anyway I want a category for tech type things. I am definitely very much interested in tech. I’ve worked with tech of many different kinds in my video career, solid state tech and info tech of many different kinds. I’ve forgotten more about both than most people will ever even know exist. Even in my fifties I still am interested in keeping up with the trends to some extant. Tech, especially info tech is constantly progressing. Ones understanding of and ability to effectively navigate requires constant training, refreshing knowledge, skills and equipment. So anyway I’ve decided the new category is going to be #tech.

The bad news is in relation to what I think was my last blog post. It regards the trouble I was having with my old iMac. I struggled with the application Adobe Lightroom Classic specifically. As I explained then I spent several days trying to figure out what was happening, and I believed I fixed the problem. It turns out that wasn’t true. I was still having pretty serious problems. I was really worried my workstation was starting to give up the ghost. When I bought this iMac in 2017 I built it beefy hoping to keep it good to go for a long time. And really the 8-9 years it has served me is admirable for any info tech type device. As previously said that is really old for a personal computer or other computing device. But it seemed likely it had started to fail.

The good news is my trusty iMac 2017 isn’t failing. I’m confident this time I’ve figured out the gremlin that was causing my and my computer’s distress. I’ll explain what the problem ended up being shortly. But first, I want to talk a little about the process, which I personally find interesting.

I started trying to trouble shoot about a week ago, last weekend. I spent hours trying things that I’ve done in the past to try and isolate the problem, rebooting, reinstalling, purging caches, adjusting settings and whatever else made sense at the time. All of these are things that I’ve done many times. Oh I forgot to mention I went to Google which brought me to the Apple tech forums, which I used as a guide. I didn’t want to try to get on the phone with anyone, which is one of the first things I would have done when doing this for a job, but that was when whoever I worked for was paying for good tech support. I can’t afford that and frankly don’t really need it most times. Occasionally the problem is not on my end of the but something remote that needs attention, which I requires sitting through low level techs moving you up the food chain, often for hours, before the problem can be resolved. The Apple forums had some good information and I thought I had fixed the problem. But during the week I realized my victory was short lived when I actually tried to use Lightroom to perform it’s function and it balked. During the week I didn’t have the time or energy to really dedicate to continuing my quest for normalcy. And sometimes a little time away from the problem can lead to a new outlook and epiphany.

My big epiphany as I started trying to figure things out this morning was to use Chat GPT AI to help troubleshoot. Hot damn! I can’t say enough good things about AI today. It really helped a lot. That robot was a competent trouble shooting tech-support-agent right out of the gate. AI is pretty insane. I’ve got a lot of mixed feeling about AI. But I can’t say enough good about how it helped me with this problem that had been plaguing me for the last week. I hope robots and humans can live together in harmony.

So what was the problem bogging down my iMac? Turns out it was a bad cable between my external hard drive where I store my photos and the main unit/CPU/iMac. Something so simple causing so much trouble. I took several steps with the AI before coming to that conclusion, but it really didn’t take more than an hour I think. Compared to the weeklong ordeal I that had brought me no relief it was nothing short of miraculous. Now I can play with my photos again! Happy day!

Flag corp letting her flags fly

blog

January 10, 2026
January 6, 2025

Life has kicked my butt. That’s what I’m thinking and feeling at the moment. I’m just home from work for the day. Kicked my shoes off. Took a shower. Ate some dinner, a cheese burger. I guess compared to a lot of people I’ve got it pretty good. And I know it’s true, but what’s the real price of this lavish existence having a roof over my head and a board of food to slake my appetite?

I’ve been struggling with my iMac the last couple days. More specifically I’ve been struggling with Adobe Lightroom classic software. It’s taken a good part of three days to get it back where it should be. At least I hope it’s back where it should be. As I write this the software is still bogged down, but I think I know why, and I think it’s temporary until it finishes syncing with the cloud. I’m not really sure why I’m syncing with the cloud. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but I really never use the portable Lightroom version for pad and phone OSs. Maybe I’ll get around to doing that someday.

A couple days ago I was looking at some more marching band pix from a different event. I took upwards of 500 for this one. I was making adjustments to an image and selected an option I’d never seen before in classic Lightroom. This software is constantly being updated, upgraded, changed. You can’t stand in the way of progress, especially when it’s tech and there’s profit at stake. Anyway I selected an option called super resolution in the sharpness panel, the same panel with noise reduction. I had previously applied NR, which I’ve used a lot in the past. But then I saw the new super resolution option and thought super! So I clicked it to have a look. Lo and behold a box pops up saying it needs to configure ai something or another, and it was going to take an hour of processing. I honestly can’t remember if I canceled it immediately or let it run. This was three days ago. Either way it basically locked up my Lightroom software. It started some sort of chain reaction that devoured all of my computers memory and kept asking for more. Basically a memory leak, as I understand it.

This memory leak in my Lightroom classic was a massive pain in the ass. Every time I open Lightroom it just got hung up. It would sin its wheel and not really allow me to do anything. It took minutes to select anything. Then it seemed to not do anything when selecting an option, so I was unable to deselect super resolution. I tried several different things. Turning off and then tuning it on again time ten. I went to the adobe community for help and found a few articles that seemed relevant. It was painfully slow being able to try the suggested remedies due to the memory leak. I don’t think they helped much if at all. Then I had an epiphany.

The epiphany seemed to me was one image with one bad selection was the harbinger of my sorrow. I realized maybe I can isolate that file and remove it. Basically I had to remove the .xmp file that was its sidecar. The .xmp is what holds all the information about changes to the master file. Which is good because I don’t have to loose the master photo, just the edits. I’m glad I decided to use .xmp when I learned about it. While this whole saga cost me several hours of watching my computer restart and have its wheels spin, I didn’t lose any actual files. Once I removed the corrupted.xmp file and uninstalled and reinstalled Lightroom it seems to back in business.

My iMac is a 2017, so it’s nearly ten years old now. That’s pretty ancient for this kind of tech at this time and place in the world. My computer’s age likely played a part in causing this episode. Lightroom won’t even let me fully upgrade to the latest and greatest due to my hardware being incapable of handling the heavier load that apparently comes with the luxury of ai tools. I don’t like falling behind the tech curve like this, but I chose to be poor or at least made choices that limited any chance of not being poor. My iMac can keep up with the newer versions of software up to a point, but clearly with this episode it is struggling anyway. I hope I can keep it going another year or two before I can afford a new computer. It’s not like not having it is going to loose me money, because I don’t make any money with it, and that’s what it’s all about. Isn’t it?

HOCO marching band

January 7, 2026
December 28, 2025
Christmas has come and gone. I enjoyed Christmas this year. I don’t think that’s always the case, owing my to cynical nature among other things. There were some uncomfortable and awkward moments this year, but I’m used to it and expect it. Happily there were fewer and less intense family conflicts than usual. I think we as a unit have become pretty good at putting it behind us and enjoying the rest of the day to come.

High school marching band competition

cropped detail version of High school marching band competition

Today is Sunday. I’ve decided not to go to church today. I like going to church, but don’t think it’s a requirement for my soul to find peace. I do find peace there when I attend, at least most of the time. I love to learn and love going to church because I learn new things all the time. I learn about the Bible, which is a fascinating book on so many levels. I learn from the preacher. I’ve learned that preachers are different, and that’s a good thing. It means more to learn. So far I’ve really only listened to two primary preachers since I gave my life to Jesus. I came around late, and depending on the denomination I’m probably not actually saved, but I feel saved and that’s good enough for me. I don’t care if you think I’m some kind of apostate because my view is different than yours or some scholars or leaders or even pew people. I’m not going deeper than that now.

Sheriffs chat and oversee band kids at competition

I slept late as I like to do when it’s a weekend. I slept even later than usual because it is Christmas break, or the holiday break, as I believe it is officially known from work/school. I get a nice two weeks vacation like the childrens do (sic). The school system have to remain inclusive to views other than Christian, of which I’m a firm believer. I can tell you no one is stopping anyone from wishing a Merry Christmas of Happy Hanukkah. It just can’t be forced down the throats of a captive audience, nor should it be.

Spectator in bleachers, enjoying the event

A slice of Americana with a flag, and Cloud, cross detail.

My normal schedule is going to bed around nine of the clock PM and waking up at four thirty AM sharp for work. My schedule tends to slip more and more towards being a night person as the break continues. I try not to let my nights get to late. I usually manage to go to sleep before midnight. I don’t want my circadian system too out of wack when I have to go back to work and force myself up at four thirty AM again. It’s hard enough to wake up then even when I’m doing it every day.

High school marching band competition

I took some time this morning to continue looking at the current batch of field trippin band pics I’ve focusing on lately. I’ve more or less gone through everything I photographed during this particular trip. There are many nice images. Many are very similar to each other, with small differences as time progresses. There are likely better versions and views than what I’m posting today, but I liked all of these, for some reason or another. So let it ride.

High school band sound system

Close up detail of tuba rim with reflection

I probably won’t revisit this batch of photos with an eye for finding new things for a good long while, years probably, maybe never. I’m sure I would find some good stuff I overlooked when and if I do. I may decide some of the things I liked enough to post today aren’t all that great. That’s part what this blog is about I suppose. It puts a time stamp on a moment of life, mine and yours.

Boss guy seems intense

That is another great thing about photography. It is a distinct moment in time from a distinct point of view that can’t be altered, at least not at this point in time. Future tech or even high end security may be able to alter RAW files, but consumers probably never will. Future tech will probably even be able to actually travel back in time to change events. I know Einstein said time travel is impossible, but I expect people will continue to try until they prove him wrong.

Cropped image is a detail of this parent image

I know it’s blurry, but I still like it

Hehe, I really went in a different direction there, didn’t I. I’m not going to expand on my thoughts about time travel and human ingenuity. But I will say that a RAW file is and always will be a RAW file to the best of knowledge. Which I just looked up and can confirm. RAW files are not able to be edited destructively, but they can be extensively edited nondestructively. Im pulling a quote directly from Google Gemini Ai to the question, “can raw files be edited destructively.” It’s answer corroborates what I thought when I thought started down this path of logic.

How RAW Non-Destructive Editing Works
- Data Preservation: RAW files capture all unprocessed data from the camera’s sensor, like a digital negative, unlike JPEGs which get camera-processed and data-discarded.
- Instructions, Not Pixels: Editing software (like Lightroom, Camera Raw, Capture One) interprets these RAW files, applying your changes (exposure, white balance, contrast) as instructions in a catalog or sidecar file (e.g., XMP).
- Reversibility: You can always go back and tweak or undo any edit because the original RAW file remains untouched.
There are probably ways or people looking for ways to invalidate that security, but for now, at least for consumer level users, there is no way to alter RAW files directly or permanently.
December 28, 2025
December 23, 2025

Christmas is getting close. My sister and her family are in town for the holidays. I very much enjoy seeing them and visiting. They’re all good people.

We keep busy going out to eat for lunch and seeing some of the Hollywood provided entertainment currently on screen. I and my nephew went to see Five Nights at Freddy’s part 2. My sister, brother in-law and niece went with their grandma and grandpa to see Zootopia part 2, which they all seemed to enjoy. I heard nothing but good things from them.

I’m not going to do a full review of Five Nights at Freddy’s two or (FNAF2). I just want to say my nephew is super excited about the franchise. It was great to watch him be so happy and excited about something. He is looking forward to many more installments, which are basically already written. The FNAF franchise is apparently based on a video game series that has many installments and sounds like there could be many more. I expect as long as it continues to make money there will be FANF content to enjoy.

I’m continuing my exploration of the batch of band photos I’ve been recently parsing. This new installment I’ve prepared today consists of the actual on field set done by the Perry Panther Regiment. They were very good in my opinion. They sounded good. Had very good disciple and precision in the choreography from my perspective. If memory serves they got second overall in the rankings, which is pretty respectable I’d think. I’m sure like any competitive organization there was some post game criticism once they got back to school after the weekend. I doubt any chairs were thrown.

This first gallery shows the band marching onto the field, which is pretty impressive and probably part of the grading. Marching band I’d assume come from military tradition. It looks like an army marching into town. I could go on about my fascination for military history, or history in general, but That’s another post, maybe. I just wanted to note the impressiveness of first impressions as they march on to the field and take their places.

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

This last gallery is the same picture. I took only my 50mm lens with me for this event, and took all these photos from a seat in the bleachers. With the 50mm the shots are quite wide, as you can see. In the previous gallery I’ve cropped a few in closer. But with this last image I cropped very close on a specific couple of subjects.

I was really pretty happy and impressed with the technical results of the crop. My camera is a beast. It’s not the latest and greatest anymore, but it was at one time, and remains very impressive. It will never degrade in quality, at least until it ceases functioning all together, which is hopefully many decades from now. As I said it is a beast. Built like a tank as far as cameras are concerned. Tech will outpace it eventually, but as long as it remains functional it will be capable of creating very impressive photographs.

Perry HS band

Perry HS band

In this side by side view of the original full resolution image and the cropped view there are technical differences regarding resolution. The full version is 8209x5473px. The cropped version is 1097x731px. A very big difference as you can see mathematically and visually. The cropped version isn’t quite as sharp as I’d like. I expect that has more to do with how the shot was focused than the capability of the camera. Of course focusing is a capability of the camera, but it is dependent on my vision and other external variables. Sadly my vision is a bit blurry at long distances, I’m nearsighted, which is one of the prizes one wins for getting older. The cropped image would be more difficult to print out at large sizes without distortion, which is a downside to relying on your cameras megapixels to crop into the shot you want. It’s always best to get the shot right in the camera strait up. Depending on the circumstances, that’s not always possible though, so we do what we can. Happily technology is much more friendly that it was at at the beginning of the digital revolution, which I lived though.

December 23, 2025
December 20, 2025

blog

Marching into the future with my kind of weapons.

Another excellent photograph of a band field trip. I don’t know who this band is. It was just one of the many present to take place in the competition/celebration. I incorrectly identified the location of this particular event in my previous blog examining this batch of photographs. It seems I don’t have a notation on my calendar for this one, which seems strange. I generally try to put all my field trips on my calendar for a record and reminder.

This one is the Perry Panther Regiment that much is certain. One of the photos in this batch has a sign saying it’s around Lake Lanier, which it is. I remember driving over the lake to get there. The facilities at this event weren’t nearly as fancy as what I described previously. They were very nice though. A nice hospitality room in a facility that has been around some many years, but very well maintained. This was more like the school facilities I’m used to seeing than the band new facility I described previously.

I really appreciate band, bands, and even marching band. When I was a kid I hated marching band, and somehow managed to get myself kicked out of my schools marching band. I don’t think people get kicked out very often. I was always a special kid, lol. I hated doing it, but now I appreciate watching it, and wish I has more sense when I was a kid. Granted I wanted out because I really didn’t like the band director, but I know he was doing what he thought best. I never did go to one of these competitions. I’m not sure they even had them at time or in the different state I lived in at the time. I can see from my perspective as an observer the kids seem to really enjoy themselves on these trips. A sense of pride. A sense of camaraderie. Military level disciple, almost, without the aggression and violence of the military. I think my genetic heritage predisposes me to have a strong appreciation for well maintained discipline.

Bringing me to the today’s picture. A group of young people marching to their war/competition. A war without blood, but these kids take it pretty seriously, some much more than others. It’s interesting to me how some kids can be dead serious about their commitment to pure excellence in something that ultimately doesn’t make much difference to themselves or most anyone really. The drum majors are the best example. They work so hard to get that position and have to work very hard to make it work once they get there. The band directors are really the only ones with an actual tangible reason for the ability to project excellence. Their funding depends on it to some extant or another. Then the rank and file range from serious to apathy and probably in some cases actual dislike, but the ones that still find themselves there maintain a minimum level of competence or they wold be kicked out like I once was.

I love saxophones. I played saxophones when I was in band. I had an alto sax. I also played tenor and baritone saxophones that belonged to the school. At the time my favorite was the tenor. I think today I’d like the baritone the most. I love bass nowadays. I went on to get and play bass guitar after leaving band.

I’ve run out of writing steam. Enjoy the photos, and Merry Christmas season to you.

December 20, 2025
Yes, a Break!

December 18, 2025

I’m glad I was wrong about last night’s presidential address to the nation. Blessedly there was no illegal declaration of war, or a legal one. I still believe war’s coming though. It’s basically already on us. Most US citizens will be insulated from it.

Yesterday’s presidential address seems like it was mostly dear leader telling US what a great job dear leader has done. Apparently he was angry in his delivery, which isn’t anything new.

I didn’t watch the speech. It started later than I expected when I posted yesterday, otherwise I probably would have. I thought I was thinking I was wrong. I thought either I actually imagined hearing the announcement of a speech, or that it was canceled. Both possibilities, so I ended up going to bed about the time it actually began. Gotta wake up early to drive the bus, and I need my sleep.

I believe it was yesterday morning when the news informed US that a full naval blockade of Venezuela had been created with the mandate to not allow sanctioned oil tankers to depart their territorial waters. That fact was the main factor for thinking a declaration of war would be issued last night. I imagine that misdirection was part of the strategy to keep Venezuela and U.S. off balance. A power play to show who’s in charge of the dogs and toys of war. It feels to me that killing-machines are being treated as toys for amusement and enrichment.

It’s no new concept that simply having a huge stockpile of weapons and the soldiers to use them isn’t good enough, they must be used. Troops need on the job experience. I suppose experience is a good thing in most cases, but was seems a bit different to me. I’d like to think good training would suffice as an alternative to raining death upon whoever the enemy of the control matrix is at any given time.

It is the politicians and oligarchs and probably some generals who want war, or combat actions to project power and test capabilities. They want to keep a stable of experienced soldiers in the ranks at all times, which I I said is logical but also horrible. I imagine most believe they are doing good. Doing God’s work and are completely justified in the many military actions constantly occurring around the globe at any given time. I believe that unfortunately the control matrix dictating most of these actions are doing it for reasons I wouldn’t think appropriate. But who am I.

There’s the stockpiles of weapons and munitions. Stockpile that need to be depleted before they can be replenished. And a healthy defense industry requires a steady stream of contracts to replenish and upgrade current capabilities. Besides if you don’t use them then what good are they? And in our great and free country of the brave with it’s insistence on the virtue of work and improved productivity, the factories and shops and labs must be constantly running. After all war is one of the biggest pieces of the US economy, and by far the biggest part of the peoples of the US’s annual budgets, and will only become more so if things continue on the current trajectory.

December 19…

It’s a new day. It’s a good day. Today is the last day of school before the winter break. Last day of driving a bus full of young people to the indoctrination/educational facilities for the year. Most are good kids, and most teachers are doing their very best to teach them.

Today I include a nice picture of some school busses I took on a field trip. It’s the same band trip I referenced in my last post. I think this is very nice shot. I hope you enjoy it.

December 19, 2025
GIF REEEE

I’ve been playing with some pix the last couple days. I went through a batch of 239 I acquired on a field trip about three months ago. It was a band trip. I took the Perry Panther Regiment somewhere or another to compete. Looking it up in my calendar it was at East Coweta High School. It was a very nice new facility south of Atlanta. Very nice. I imagine it is probably a suburb with some high end residents.

One of the things that stunned me, and I didn’t think to take even a phone picture of it, was the hospitality room that was provided for bus drivers. I assume it was open to other people too, but I’m not sure who if anyone. Everything was new. The facility probably wasn’t even a whole year old. They had an extremely nice stadium set up. There was a two story building on one of the end zones where the hospitality suite was located on the second floor. Downstairs was a concession stand if memory serves. They also had food trucks set up in the area.

The hospitality suite had three food stations/tables set up. One had salty snacks. One had sweet snacks. And then there was a hot station where there was some excellent catered barbecue. It was all top quality. There were multiple volunteers keeping up with everything. From the room there was an excellent view of the football field. There was a balcony also that could probably have had twenty people right up on the rail, more behind. It was fancy for a high school.

Anyway I got many photos. I only took along my 50mm prime lens. I can’t really bring along much kit due to space restrictions. I only have my little overhead glove box to store personal items. The rest of the bus is filled to the brim with students, their uniforms, and various things like water flasks and snacks and bags and whatever.

I browsed through the batch and there are some nice shots. It takes a good while to parse that many images. I can only make picks of things I think are worth remembering whittling it down considerable. In this case 31 images. That doesn’t mean the other images aren’t decent. It just means based on gut instinct and a quick scan I narrow down the files I will spend further tine considering in the short term. I will undoubtably go back and find some more good stuff, but for now these are the ones I’m going to look at.

One things I’ve been doing in some cases at events like this is to shoot a sequence of images as something happened in real time. My camera can shoot a couple frames every second, which is much less than video, but can produce cool, I think they’re cool, animations. I’ve been playing with this technique and way to improve it, which you can see in some of my past blogs.

So there was a nice long sequence of this marching band walking past me that I captured. I have no idea who they are, but I loved their uniforms. I love purple, so these jumped out at me upon immediately seeing them coming. I think there were about 54 frames that compose the animation I made and am posting in the blog post. I saved it as a .gif file which I pronounce with a g.

I expect to continue playing with this batch of band pictures in the near future. I see some potentially cool stuff. But for now I am showing this.

I kinda hate to go there, but I feel compelled. Today President Trump has announced he will address the nation tonight at 6:30pm, I’d guess eastern time, which is about 40 minutes from when I type this. Im very worried that he is going to declare war on Venezuela. I know nothing has been said about congress voting on this in the news, which seems nearly impossible for something that big to go unreported by someone. Granted I’ve only been watching mainstream news tv since I got home from work.

Without congress it would be illegal as I understand it for him to declare war or invade a sovereign country. He’s already been playing with the law in ways that are at best debatable concerning his ongoing campaign against alleged drug boats, which has gone on longer than it should based on the law. That is to say the president has the legal ability to use the military for actions in emergency circumstances up to a certain number of days without getting a declaration of war from congress. I’m worried he is going to thumb his nose at the law and go in illegally. I suppose it’s possible he went through congress as legally required. I’m not sure what exactly is required of congress to make it official. I’m worried that with the majority the MAGAs currently enjoy they will simply go to war without any Democrat support. It may be dubious but the majority MAGAs wouldn’t do anything nor would the MAGA Supreme Court. That would open up a whole new world of bad things that I won’t go into now.

I want to post this before he makes his address. I will look at typos and edits after the fact. 30 minutes until the nationwide address.

December 17, 2025
A little bit

Today I’m using the Apple Journal app versus the app I normally use the Apple Notes app to write my blog entry. What I’m blogging is in essence a journal of sorts, so why not use the app with that specific name and design. I’m just typing or dictating my thoughts that’s basically a journal as I understand what journals are. Though it’s written with the intention of ending up on my blog. The ability to keep an extra layer of protection which seems to be one of the intended features of the journal app isn’t relevant to me.

(December 13) I’m going through the things I wrote on the 11th, and editing them. I’m also adding some new thoughts, like this paragraph, which has been annotated.

(December 13) I’ve decided I don’t like the journal app for what I’m doing with the blog journals. It is annoyingly difficult to get from the Journal app to a way to post on my blog. I had to jump through several hoops to be able to use the copy I wrote and edit it in the app I’m using now, Notes. I’ll not detail it. It’s not that important. I wont be doing it again. As I suspected in my initial post it seems to be a layer of security, or perhaps it’s just that my iMac is so old it’s unable to communicate with my newer model iPhone.

(December 13) It seems relevant to add a little about that last sentence. My iMac is a 2017 model. it is about 7-8 years old now, a long time in the world of information technology. It seems that the hardware in my humble 2017 is incompatible with the new requirements of the newest iterations of the Apple Mac OS. Artificial intelligence (AI) has become ubiquitous where in 2017 it was entirely experimental. AI requires significantly advanced hardware compared to what was available in 2107, so I’m not upset my iMac had become deprecated. I’m not sure of all the things Im missing out on with the Mac OS, although I have some inklings like the journal app. I know that Adobe Lightroom won’t let me update the newest version either. They are both still supporting the older hardware for the time being, but that will be limited for who knows how long. I suspect deprecated tech won’t be supported as long as it used to. Progress is paramount, especially when profit is involved. Ahh yes the world is driven entirely by profit. I suppose it always has been, but I digress.

Okay this journal app let me say I’m slightly irritated and then added it to the entry as a whole, which is pretty slick. The app also lets you track your location and various other kinds of metadata, which is also pretty slick. But my irritation is with the part of the app that tracks/documents my mood. It’s not fleshed out enough yet in my opinion. The thing that prompted me to pick I was feeling slightly unpleasant didn’t have a good second level menu option for why I’m feeling slightly unpleasant, which is I’m both tired, worn out, and tense. None of which are options for unpleasantness heading. There should be an option to type your own short reason for answering the
how do you feel question. Then possibly have the software study and determine common answers for the pre made menus available. I suppose the app is designed with teenage girls and their diaries in mind for a target demo.

Changing gears. I can’t remember if yesterday’s post mentioned the hostile takeover of a Venezuelan oil tanker. I don’t think I did mention it. I pretty sure I mentioned how Trump is trying to give US a war for Christmas.

I saw this war coming months ago. It hasn’t happened yet, but I’d bet money I don’t have there will at least be a ground invasion using military troops. There is undoubtedly already CIA operations within Venezuelan boards. I’m pretty sure I heard on mainstream news some weeks back that the CIA had been officially set loose to do what they do, and that’s officially. It’s been documented they’ve been playing there for some time. I’m not sure if it goes as far back as the Biden administration, but I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised.

I posted on Facebook some time back as a comment on one of my posts, where I got into a spirited debate with one of my FB friends, a war with Venezuela seemed inevitable. I hope the second
part of that comment doesn’t come true also. I’d hate to civil war in the US in my lifetime. I doubt it will, but things are pretty tense and a large part of the population are feeling very angry at the other part of the population they don’t agree with.

I hope positive change can occur without a civil war, or any violence. Unfortunately I’m not so sure it can. There already is violence. There is always violence. I just hope it stays contained and under control. I’m pretty sure the people who actually run things and carry out the bad things the President Trump decrees are smart enough to not push that hard. I don’t doubt for a second that there are a lot of people, left and right, who are dying for a civil war, and doing everything they can to instigate one. I pray sanity prevails and such a catastrophe is avoided, at least for now. I’d be very surprised if it doesn’t come to that in US at some point in the future. I just hope it’s long after my lifetime. And I hope that the total subjugation of the opposite ideology isn’t realized either, like I see the current regime trying to accomplish. It’s pretty scary. So many people have no clue what is happening right in front of their noses. Everyone in the US is concerned with the things that everyone must be concerned with to simply live another day, specifically the cost of living. Keeping people focused on materialism is a wonderful distraction technique keeping majority of the people more concerned about their standard of living than thinking about the minority that is barely living or what kind of political machinations are afoot. As applies to the US control matrix.

Back to war with Venezuela, which would be a travesty of epic proportions. It’s blatant imperialism, just like the war in Iraq. I suppose I’m happy being on the strong side of empire by virtue of the birth lottery. I was born here and couldn’t leave if I wanted to, at least not legally by my own device. I’m unhappy with the sad state of virtually every metric and dominant ideology associated with my country at the current time, but at least it’s not unbearable, at least not for me. I’ve got it pretty good actually. Even so, I can still be upset about the injustice and corruption that seems so obvious to me. However, there’s no such thing as Utopia. It’s quixotic to yearn for a utopia that’s impossible, but I’m quixotic I suppose. Quixotic and Irritated.

I’m never going to throw any bombs to bring down the system. Not physically anyway. The system actually works half decent, so long as you’re in this country, so long as you’re a white, Christian, male. I can’t stand the white males that think they are unfairly oppressed in the US today. The US has always been oppressive. It’s just that it historically has been oppressive to the benefit of white Christian males. Now there are laws to attempt to balance hundreds of years of oppression that somewhat inconvenience the average white male in some specific cases, and they act like they are being whipped for looking at the masters daughter.

(December 13) I myself have probably experienced some bias in hiring because I’m a white male. That’s based only on my impression of the situation, but there is not any kind of proof to support it, which is a key to systematic oppression that’s been used and perfected by US systems and probably others. And even if I was discriminated against to fill some quota or whatever the reason, I’m not upset about it. It’s not like I’ve been black listed or red lined for being white.

Marginalized groups aren’t and haven’t been treated to well in this land. I don’t have first hand experience of different places, so it’s possible this really is the best possible place in the world humans can devise. Which is pretty sad in my opinion.

My general opinion of humanity is we are pretty bad. Humanity does have some redeeming qualities though. There’s no doubt humans have done some great things, built some great things, and are the only known species capable of such feats. Unfortunately the worst of us humans tend to be the ones who lead us, and too often they lead us entirely for their benefit and damn the rest. That’s not always true but seems to be the general rule.

Back to Venezuela. The pretext that’s been set up for months, probably since before Trump was
voted into office, is Venezuela is some drug capital of the world, or at least the western
hemisphere. The powers that be in the control matrix certainly have been using whatever involvement the country has with drugs to convince US a full scale invasion complete with regime change is needed. You’d think the Venezuelan leader Maduro was some
kind of kingpin cartel. Maybe he is. I don’t doubt drugs move through Venezuela. They’re
hardly the only player in drugs in this hemisphere.

The US is generally considered the largest consumer of drugs illicit or otherwise. Is that going to be another excuse to release troops on our own population? The rather extreme and brutal deployment of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has certainly laid the ground work for government resources being used against citizens almost indiscriminately. National guard being deployed as police force. Which may have done some good, but at what cost?

Trump just pardoned the Honduran ex-president Orlando Hernández https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/IN12621 for smuggling 400 tons of cocaine into the U.S. There were also gun related charges, but guns never made the news here that I saw. It’s a middle finger to anyone with enough information and brain cells to grasp the hypocrisy of using the full power of the President of the United States to start a war on one hand and release a drug dealer tried and convicted because he was “treated unfairly.”

So if drugs aren’t the real reason Trump and his Department of War (a whole other insult to
U.S., but that’s another rant) what is the reason? Well oil is the big one isn’t it? Besides oil the
fact Venezuela has a socialist government is unacceptable to many in the control matrix. Combined oil and socialism are unacceptable to most of the US control matrix. Most of the billionaire class are vehemently opposed any form of socialism enjoying any kind of growth anywhere. It impedes their ability to exploit the people and resources ;under their control. Now those of that mindset have complete control of every branch of the US government for at least a little while longer, and they appear to have intention to do everything they can with that power to further their own interests to gain more wealth and power. It seems to me they are working hard and hoping they can retain control indefinitely through nefarious means, which is an entirely different journal entry.

The Venezuelan government doesn’t want to rollover and let US oil companies take over their oil production on their own land. The US control matrix is upset the bastards think they own it, want to run it how they want to run it, and can use the proceeds how they want. The land of the free doesn’t seem to like it when other people exercise their freedom and choose not to cooperate with US. There are wars, police actions, and coups by the dozens that support this argument.

So the US is attempting to gain more control over the control matrix by using mass violence in Venezuela to achieve their greedy ambitions. Full fledged American empire seems to me the end goal, like Rome. It seems to me some the techniques used to change Rome from a republic into an empire are being used here, but what do I know?

It would take generations, but I believe they (the control matrix) want total domination over
the western hemisphere. An extension of manifest destiny, a rather nebulous idea the US should continue growing its power. It’s something the easily led population can rally around. How could being more powerful be a bad thing after all? The controller already have a lot of control, but it’s never enough for them. History shows nothing is ever good enough for those whose entire reason for existing is the consolidation of power until reaching the inevitable point of total domination of the world. Something never before accomplished, but the stratagem is forever evolving and seems likely to eventually happen.

Look at how Trump talked about Mexico the first time he was president. He seemed to think, or
at least gave the false impression he believed, the Mexican people/government would gleefully pay
for his stupid wall. I don’t think he wasn’t stupid enough to actually believe that was within
the realm of possibility. I don’t doubt that he and those like him wished it was something they could force the sovereign Mexican people to comply with. A preview of the near future they hope to achieve.

The control matrix want there to be countries in South America, in my opinion. They don’t want to turn them into states or territories. States have too much power already. They want to turn the entire western hemisphere into a protectorates. Canada was recently discussed by the current regime as a potential new state. It’s pretty obvious they would allow that because it is majority white and its government is already based on English and liberal ideals. Central and South America would get no such “honor.” They would retain their countries in name. They would retain some small autonomy. But they would ultimately be subjects to the ever expanding empire.

The MAGA Republicans say they want more state power, but if you watch what they actually do that’s doesn’t seem to me to be reality. They seem to want a King and the ability to do damn near anything at damn near anytime to damn near anyone. So they want countries, but not independent countries. They want puppet countries, protectorates. They want governments that let the control matrix so what ever they want. US controlled corporations and companies would come into the protectorates and enslave the population. They would strip the countries natural resources. There wouldn’t be any pesky need for pollution control or any kind of dignity for the vast majorities.

The puppet leaders of the protectorate countries will of course be well taken care of, but they won’t have any real say over anything that really matters. They won’t be a part of the control matrix, at least not at first. The puppets can’t have enough power to challenge the control matrix. The puppets can pick what color to paint their tanks and helicopters. They can even use them how they want, so long as they don’t use them in ways that displease the control matrix. They can war amongst
themselves. Sure they would have to scheme with the CIA or whatever entity controls the puppet states. Healthy competition is the American way. And keeping puppets at odds with each other and dependent on the benevolence of the US and its control matrix is the perfect way to ensure none of the puppets ever achieve too much power.

(December 14) At some point yesterday I stopped playing with my words. Today I took them up again to finish editing. I made some pretty significant changes to syntax, but the general thoughts from the original are intact. Any this is how I think. The topics I think about are all over the place, but recently politics has been on my mind quite a bit. For better or for worse I tend to think a lot about politics. I think it’s an affliction that runs in the family, on my fathers side mostly. There will b e no photos posted with this edition of random thoughts. I don’t have anything remotely appropriate. I’m adding a political tag starting today.

December 14, 2025
Panther ladies’ b-ball

It’s cold out today. I’m out in the cold. It’s Georgia so it’s not really that cold compared to a lot of places. But I’ve become accustomed to the hot of this place.

I’m sitting in a school bus. It’s 8pm and I’m doing a field trip for the cheerleaders for the basketball team, the Perry Panthers. I’ve never done this type of trip before. I’ve done band trips to football games. I’ve taken cheerleaders to their competitions. I’ve taken some various smaller sports, like swimming, places. But this my first high school basketball ball game. I don’t think I ever went to a HS basketball game when I was in high school. Sports was never my thing. It’s a new experience.

Not really knowing what the event entails, I’ve been surprised. There were boys playing already when our bus full of cheerleaders got on scene. They didn’t come out and cheer for the boys at all. I was like, huh? Then the cheer squad came out making noise for the ladies team. I was like okay, they’re cheering for the girls team. I kinda thought since the boys already played the girls were the main event. I thought that was interesting and progressive. I was a bit shocked.

Well the lady Panthers game was wrapping up. At about 2 minutes left on the clock I went back to my bus to get it warmed up for the ladies after their work cheering and dancing. I sat here with the bus running for probably a half hour. I noticed, when I stopped looking at my phone, there were people still going into the gym/venue. More people were going in than were coming out. I realized the ass-umption made an ass out of me.

After seeing the light, I realized the boys playing after the girls. When I came in at first it must have been junior varsity team playing. The lady Panthers weren’t the top of the bill after all. Of course the lady’s team wouldn’t be the top bill. That’s just too progressive, lol. the main event was the varsity boy’s team.

Anyway I turned the bus off and now sitting outside waiting for the fun and games inside to finish up. With the bus off, the heater is off. My toes are getting nipped by the frost. Actually there’s no frost. It’s 40f outside right now. That’s about 4.5c. People that live in actual cold climates probably think this is a nice spring day. It’s not really too bad, but I’m thinking I may need to heat the bus up again soon. I wonder how much game is left?

I was looking at Threads and Facebook before I decided to do something creative instead of stagnant. I don’t really think being a big social media commentator is in anyway a worthwhile use of time. But I do like to check the comments on posts that catch my attention. Is that counterintuitive or contradictory? I don’t necessarily think so.

Making a comment on a popular post is like pissing in the ocean. You could take the most important piss and it would be diffused and gone almost instantly. At least when I make a comment on anything I don’t expect much to come from it. I’m not an influencer or someone whose job is to make commentary. There are undoubtedly many people making and trying to make money by getting likes and views and whatnot. Such has no interest to me, so I know very little about that world.

Reading comments can give a less and less over time understanding of the zeitgeist. I say less and less because with time the evil powers that keep their thumb on the scales are figuring out how to manipulate this semi-free-speech platform. It’s so free it can be bought and paid for. It’s as free as anything else in this free world. That’s to say not really free at all. Sure you can say whatever the hell you want, but it won’t amount to a hill of beans. That is unless you’re well funded.

Entire industries have been created to maintain control. Control of the narrative. Control of hearts and minds. Control of the world, or at least our sector of the control matrix.

Control matrix, hmm. I like that. I’ve never heard it before. It’s probably been said before though. It quite possibly has an entire academic study underway as we speak. Actually I’m sure it does, but it’s just probably called something different.

So what do I mean by Control Matrix? That’s probably something I could spend a lot of time on, but this basketball game is probably getting close to finishing. I’ll try to say what I can.

Control Matrix is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. It is the spheres of control of the world. Using Orwell’s work it would be East Asia, Eurasia, Ingsoc, I forgot the others. The Orwell version is actually pretty accurate for the most part, at least at the macro level.

I see the USA, Russia, and China as the biggest players. Europe probably is too, but they have been leaning on the USA a lot. That’s something I kinda agree with Trump on. Haha my phone automatically capitalized Trump.

Yes Trump undoubtedly put is taint on the world by dominating US politics for a very short time period at this point. I hope it stays short and people can shake off this parasitic scourge of MAGAs. I hope my worst fears don’t manifest in his declaring martial law or some other bullshit to hold onto power after he looses the next cycle of elections.

Trump’s been setting the groundwork for nefarious schemes to get and keep power since Obama was president. The invasion of Venezuela is in the works and will probably be MAGAs gift to the world this holiday season. Another bullshit scheme.

TDS or Trump derangement syndrome is one of the many bullshit schemes I’m talking about. Apparently TDS is something he made up while talking shit at his shit-talking rallies. Did he think of it, or did he just work it into the conversation? Probably a marketing team came up with TDS. Anyway according to my Dad there are apparently actual doctors and therapists who are saying TDS is a real mental illness, at least was my understanding. I’m sure it’s well studied and not just the result of getting a check to go on the news with an expert opinion. Imagine the ego to think you are the reason a new mental illness has just popped into existence. I can’t imagine anyone would earnestly think that, but it is a damn good tool to divide people.

I don’t watch news all day or absorb propaganda for my entertainment Like some people I know do. At least I’d like to think I don’t. There are people whose whole job is to absorb as much of the shit then try to make a tasty pie for public consumption.

I do doom scroll Facebook more than I should. I try hard to keep a clear view of reality, but it can be very difficult. The many different people pulling leaver and pushing buttons in the control matrix are very good at what they do. I remember being exposed to a thought that seems relevant here. Imagine all of the genius putting all it’s effort into marketing products or ideas, instead of using their genius for doing something constructive or beautiful. Of course the need to eat and live in a house and buy a car and wear designer clothes and keep up with the Jones’s requires selling your genius and your soul to the machine and the wielders of power in the control matrix.

I definitely don’t have my finger on the pulse of right-wing propaganda. My bubble definitely leans left, but I go out of my way sometimes to see what the other side is saying. This includes comments where you can often get a robust debate. By debate I mostly mean ass holes yelling and calling each other names. Occasionally you come across something not too terrible. Rarely you find something good in the comments.

Anyway the Control Matrix controls social media. There was probably a little actual freedom in the beginning, discussions and debates of an organic nature among actual people with actual interest in a given topic. Now you can’t trust comments even come from an actual human. I don’t entirely understand how bots work and just how sophisticated they are, but with ai I have to expect they are pretty sophisticated. Of course not everyone can afford high end bots to spam your message all over the internet world. That’s okay there are marketing companies that hire people to do it too. I know the US government hires or did hire actual people, presumably some actual Americans, to sit on the internet and pretend to be something or someone or many someone’s they’re not. I remember they are called sock puppets. One operative could have dozens of alias accounts and have a conversation with themselves to steer a conversation in a comment thread the direction desired by the employer of the sock puppet. I know a lot of the hired hands of marketing companies have been outsourced to foreign countries where labor is cheaper. There’s a lot of people in India, for example, happy to learn enough of the English language to not starve to death.

It looks like people coming out of the gym. Hopefully we can go soon.

December 10, 2025
Okay

It’s Sunday. I got a nice long rest last night. I woke up and fixed some things on my site. It’s still very much a work in progress. Lately I’ve been making changes quite a lot. Sometimes there are pretty obvious errors that need fixing. Sometimes I just don’t like the way something comes across. I want to be as clear and concise as possible while still conveying a little of who and what I am. Who and what I am is changing daily, so it can be difficult to nail down how I want the copy to read.

I did a good bit of work in Lightroom today. Not sure what inspired me to start playing with the meta data, but that’s what I did. I refined and reorganized my presets. First I had to remember how to make changes as it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything with them. That kinda led into trying to clean up my keywords. That’s a very difficult thing to do after the fact when you have forty thousand files in your library, and it’s constantly growing. I’m going to need to think about upgrading my storage in the next year or so. But with the keywords I started out using Adobe Bridge as a file manager, which was a mistake. I thought I was being proactive and making things easier and more streamlined for myself in the future by creating a keyword hierarchy. Turns out it just a made a mess when Lightroom looks at the meta data. I don’t think I’ll ever make it how I want it without undo time and effort. It just isn’t reasonable.

I did play around with some experimental shots I took several nights ago. They were taken from the comfort of my couch. I appreciate comfort a great deal, and wish I found myself in more different comfortable situations where I could just shoot random things in different ways.

The pictures I’m posting with this entry are variations on a ceiling fan. It’s all the same image. It’s just manipulated a little bit in each frame. A very little bit actually, but the looks are very different. I find it fun to play around/experiment with images sometimes. I’m probably being foolish to post things like this, but oh well. I doubt anyone will even look at this post.

I need to work on my negativity. I suppose that this blog project is sort of a way to navigate my issues. Writing things like this help me order my thoughts. Archive them. Putting them online could be dangerous in some ways, but I will continue until I see reason not to. In the mean time I’m enjoying and probably getting some therapeutic benefit from creating these posts. It’s interesting to see it evolve.

December 7, 2025

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