Archive for the ‘personal’ Category

Under the Fedora Thoughts: Hey Elon What about Robert Stacy McCain? Business returns to as Usual, Lauren Boebert nails it, What a difference One pick makes, My Popular Day

Posted: December 23, 2022 by datechguy in congress, in Ukraine, nfl, personal, Sports, tech, twitter, under the fedora, war
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A lot of accounts have been restored in to twitter over the last several months under Elon Musk from Donald Trump to Project Veritas to the Gateway Pundit and I cheer the return of these accounts and for a semblance of free speech for conservatives to come back. I must say frankly that I’m getting sick of waiting for the folks at twitter to restore the account of Robert Stacy McCain.

He was one of the first conservatives to be targeted by the twitter cancel crowd because like Libs of Tictok he dared to quote feminists directly using their own words against him to make his point.

I keep seeing these other worthy folks come back but there still remains no sign of Stacy’s @rsmccain account being restored. He had over 80K followers when he was tossed and as a writer no longer connected with major media the loss of such an account had I suspect a real effect on his reach and potential income which was the entire point of kicking him off.

I understand Elon Musk is a busy man but I urge him to take a few minutes out of his schedule and end this injustice against a reporter with thirty years of print media experience behind him and #freestacy

It’s the right thing to do.

A lot of GOP voters are rightly upset about the omnibus spending bill that just passed and the number of GOP senators who voted for this goody package for the left to make it happen.

While it outrages us it should not surprise us as I’m sure this bill contained a bunch of goodie packages for these individual senators and/or their states and/or contributors.

Unfortunately this has been the norm in congress for a very long time, it was the removal of earmarks that was a change from the routine and the people who paid a lot of money to get these folks elected expect to get their dough.

And if it means funding a bunch of stuff that helps the left in their culture war against the country, what do their care as long as they get their cut?

Lauren Boebert’s statement on Ukrainian president after his speech to congress was spot on.

She correctly acknowledged that Zelenskey is doing all he can to save his country from the Russians but also noted that it is our duty to make sure the billions we are sending to him to defend his country actually go toward that goal.

I don’t blame Zelenskey one bit, Ukraine was a land of graft and grift before the Russian invasion and if I was in charge of Ukraine and the US offered me dough but the big guy & his pals wanted their 10% or more I’d not care if thousands of grifters got their share as long as I got kept getting the dough and weapons that I needed to save my country from the Russian hoards. That’s got to be his primary goal.

But it damn well should the goal of a representative of the United States to make sure that the taxpayer dollars of Americans that are being spent to save Ukraine isn’t all about making the rich and connected richer and even if my own rep doesn’t care about it it’s nice that SOMEBODY in congress does.

We got out of work a couple of hours early yesterday so I had a chance to watch the 2nd half of the Jets Jaguars game which pitted Trevor Lawrence the 1st pick overall in the 2021 NFL draft starting for Jacksonville against Zach Wilson the 2nd overall pick in the NFL draft starting for the Jets. In two Seasons Lawrence has taken a bad team and put them within a game of their division lead and a game and a half away from the final wildcard spot this season.

Meanwhile Wilson in a year marred by injury got himself pulled shortly after the start of the 2nd half after taking a Jets team that had a lot of promise nowhere. It makes the 2nd time this season that Wilson has been sat down for poor performance but subsequent injuries to his replacements pressed him back into service.

This goes to show you how thin the line is between success and failure is in the NFL. Both of these two young men excelled in college and have physical tools to make the NFL, tools that 99.99% of the population don’t come near to. Yet one of them has the stuff to make it in this league and one did not. Meanwhile in San Francisco the # 3 pick in that draft Trey Lance is recoding from injury while Brock Purdy the 262nd and final pick in this years NFL draft Mr Irrelevant is about to lead his team to a playoff bearth.

Until the iron comes out of the forge you don’t know where it’s been.

Finally as I did last year at work I came in wearing a full Santa Suit for the final work day before Christmas. Given I have both a real stomach and a real Santa beard (that I will shave shortly after Christmas to the delight of my wife) which causes little kids to gasp when I walk into restaurants this time of year it’s very effective.

I could practically not punch in as about half of the woman (and a few men) punching out for 1st shift wanted a picture and my first hour on the job while I was in theory trying to pick orders was in fact spent taking pictures with groups of very attractive women, many dressed for the season, who all wanted a picture with Santa Claus.

It’s slightly ironic, As I’m one of only 4 white English speaking white Americans on my shift and with very few exceptions old enough to be the father or grandfather of just about everyone in the place it often makes for a lonely & silent work day (the “silent” bit will shock folks who know me) since I have few conversations during the day and can’t understand the conversations around me in Spanish, Portuguese (Cape Verde) , Creole or French (Haitians you know) everyone knows who I am and says hello but I’m generally left alone

But one day a year, for just a few hours when I come in and during the Christmas party I become the most popular person in the place.

DaTechGuy’s Quick Commentary: A Quiet Life

Posted: September 6, 2021 by datechguy in culture, DaTechGuy's Quick Thoughts, personal, podcast
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On this Labor day I talk about a something many who labored hard in the past dreamed of

Only people who have no grasp of history fail to appreciate it.

The 2nd Best Non-Move I ever made Anna Maria College 12 Years Later

Posted: July 10, 2021 by datechguy in catholic, Church doctrine, culture, personal
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Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and decay destroy, and thieves break in and steal. But store up treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor decay destroys, nor thieves break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.

Jesus via Matthew 6:19-21

My oldest son turns 30 next week and when I was writing my under the fedora piece for today (that is going up tomorrow instead) I touched on a story that brought this to mind.

Back in 2009 he had been offered a big scholarship to Anna Maria college and we went to visit the place. What I saw at the “catholic” college was less that overwhelming:

My problem with the place is one of my pet peeves. The college is a Catholic College There are old crosses on buildings and portraits of older bishops in one or two places, but I saw nothing affirming their Catholic identity. No portrait of the pope, no schedule of Masses (although they do offer daily Mass).

There were pictures celebrating the new president all over the place, banners celebrating diversity, announcements of the woman’s study courses but nothing on the March for Life later this month in Washington. The concert was a “holiday” concert. In the Anna Maria in the news bulletin board at the admissions office there was an article talking about protesting the pope in the US. That was the extent of any recent mention of religion.

Of course that was written in the days when “Is the Pope Catholic” was a one liner rather than a legit question but I digress…

When he was offered a full boat at the local Fitchburg State college (before it became Fitchburg University) which never pretended it wasn’t a secular organization he jumped at it allowing him to live at home and continue in our parish where his faith was well formed. I was going to let it go at that until we got a letter from the Bishop congratulating us on being accepted at Anna Maria and the Scholarship and the importance of a Catholic education.

At that point I wrote a letter to the Bishop that said in part:

We were excited when Sam was accepted at Anna Maria; even more so when they offered the largest (in dollars) scholarship of any of the nine colleges that have accepted and attempted to recruit him. We looked forward to the visit to the college and liked the prospect of a college that would expand both his faith and his educational horizons.

Then we actually visited the college.

Comparing your description of the college as a “great example of a Catholic institution…” and my experience I thought of George Weigel’s line commenting on the differing press releases concerning Speaker Pelosi visit to the Holy See: “Were Benedict XVI and Nancy Pelosi in the same meeting, or even in the same city?”

it continued:

When I talked to the gentleman from admissions after the tour he informed me that this was not unusual at Catholic colleges and seemed to stress diversity rather than the Catholic identity, in fact seemed happy to reassure the next visiting student that he would not have to take any courses having to do with religion. Continuing my quote from the blog:

…It would be nicer if Catholic identity actually meant something. I’ve spent much more than I can afford over the last 10 years giving my sons a Catholic education. If I’m going to spend a whole lot more for a Catholic College then I expect a Catholic College.

I can’t reconcile your description of Anna Maria with what I saw and I can’t believe you would make that description after visiting the college yourself. While academically I believe it would be strong I don’t believe attending would foster his faith, in fact I suspect if he choose to wear his faith proudly it would go hard on him there.

The Bishop forward my letter to the president of the college who wrote me to dispute my impression and I posted both letters on the blog trusting readers to make their own decision.

Because I was referencing this story in the post I took the liberty of visiting the Anna Maria Web site curious if things had changed in twelve years and under a different president.

The front page like many sites has a rotating gallery highlighting many different things none of them involving the faith and while on other tabs you could find a reference particularly on the Campus Ministry page you will be hard pressed to find a sign of it. For the fun of it I did a search for the phrase: “Jesus Christ” on the site here were the results:

search result 7/10/21 10:20 am

two of those are blog posts from 2020 and the other two are programs offered.

Now if you search for “diversity” however…

Search 7/10/21 10:24 AM

You’d have to go to additional pages to see all the results you can find but I figured the 1st page was enough to make my point. If you search for LGBT…

search result 7/10/21 10:26 AM

Well at least Jesus does equally as well as LGBT in the search results. I’ll wager there are plenty of Catholic Colleges where he doesn’t.

Well that’s Anna Maria College 12 years later. As for my son twelve years later last week I had a rare Sunday off and so I had the pleasure of my wife and sons all with me at the 6 PM mass at our parish. Neither of my sons received communion but both went up to the priest arms crossed for a blessing. When the mass was over they asked him for confession. When they had both received the sacrament the pastor took them to the tabernacle and they received Holy Communion after mass. I can imagine my mother & father punching the air in heaven at this and as their dad I can’t adequately state how proud I was to see this.

The best non-decision my wife and I ever made still remains not moving to the Portland Oregon area after our Honeymoon there 33 years ago but I’m thinking giving Anna Maria a miss twelve years ago comes in as a pretty solid second.

A personal Story that has nothing to do with Big Tech, Big Media & Election 2020

Posted: February 20, 2021 by datechguy in personal

I have a hatred of thieves that comes from personal experience.

It had been my dram as a kid to own a comic book store and in 1985 long before the days when Chuck Lorie & Jim Parsons would make it cool, I opened that store at age 22 having saved enough between setting up at flea markets as soon as I was old enough to drive and working full time at Raytheon in the Scientific Computer C/enter to do so without debt.

Alas even in those pre-gang and pre-drug days of Fitchburg my store was broken into regularly and stock (mainly baseball cards) whose bubble was just beginning) stolen.

The police were rather indifferent on the subject as it was “only” baseball cards. Neither the fact that I had paid cash for them nor my lack of insurance didn’t seem to provide any motivation on the cases.

After the seventh time I was hit my big brother arranged for a friend to weld an iron gate over the front door that I would secure nightly with a large iron chain put on my front door (we used to call it the home of the caged collectables after that) until a car taking the corner of the street too fast crashed into it and took out my gate and door.

It was a discouraging thing and it put me in a big hole for a long time which caused a lot of tension early in my marriage. When a large established comic book store bought out my competition (which had suddenly opened a month ahead of me just after I bought a large collection which delayed my open opening but that’s another story…) my days were numbered.

This is the origin of my visceral hatred of thieves. To this day the easiest way to activate my temper and one of the things I find hardest as a Christian to forgive is stealing from me, even if it’s just food from the fridge at work.

But I’ll say one thing for the thieves and gate crashers that helped put me in the hole that I was never able to climb out of and the police that never found any of my stock or the people who stole it and even for the people that broke into the indoor flea market where I set up with a stock of Magic Cards years after I closed my business to rob my booth and my booth alone or even the folks who for a while at work found it amusing to steal the lunch of the only white guy in my building not in management before the camera were installed in the new building

None of them after having robbed me or aiding and abetting or covering up for those who did or being completely indifferent to my being robbed when it was their duty to right that wrong insisted that I publicly declare that I was never robbed nor put a disclaimer on my statements that I was.

If you wonder why my tolerance of the left has evaporated over the last few months, wonder no more.

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