Archive for the ‘under the fedora’ Category

Five Up too early for a Saturday Thoughts Under the Fedora: World Cup Highlights, The Hardest Part, Musk’s Trillions, Iran Trickling down and Big Finish to the Rescue?

Posted: June 13, 2026 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, doctor who, employment, Sports, under the fedora, war
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I spent some time watching World Cup Highlights yesterday and those highlights demonstrated why the sport is not worth my time.

The highlight reels ran 15-20 min with several replays in them so maybe 10-12 minutes of play. That from a match that runs 90-100 minutes. That’s 80 minutes of dead time where there is no much happening but a guy kicking a ball back to another while they look for a chance to make something happen,

Contrast this with Baseball which while not having a clock has the potential for a run to be scored & a highly happening on every single pitch.

Give me the pine tar & the leather any day.

The worst part of being out of work is the waiting.

Last time around in 2008 I couldn’t buy a job interview. This time I’ve had quite a few. I’m waiting on three companies right now 2 of which had told me I’d be hearing back from them up or down before this point.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m very happy that I’m getting interviews it’s the waiting that throws me for a loop.

It’s not easy at 63 to be competing for positions with people 20+ years younger than you.

Let me remind you of several somethings concerning Elon Musk’s soon to be Trillion dollar net worth.

  1. Musk employs tens of thousands of people
  2. Musk is actively using his wealth for some rather incredible things
  3. There are plenty of people who have never built anything who will critique his wealth for profit. power & clicks.
  4. There are plenty more who only started hating on him once he became a threat to the power of the left or to virtue signal to said left that they’re one of him.
  5. As the old saying goes, he will still be able to only eat one meal at a time & sleep in one bed at a time & will like all of us eventually die.
  6. The only think that really counts in the long run is his relationship with God, I’d worry more about that but I’m too busy worrying about my relationship with God.

But the real thing about Musk’s wealth is this: It’s nothing to do with me and not my concern. He has what he has and does what he does and what he so does is his own business, not mine. I have no more right or claim on what he has than the guy down the street has to mine.

Over the past two weeks gasoline has dropped .29 cents from it’s high in my area. About 9%.

While that’s nice it’s still up 57% from the low it had hit before the Iran War.

This causes me pain but it’s still worth it if Iran is emasculated. What the people who are complaining about the lack of a deal or Trump not getting said deal or bombing them on any given day either don’t understand or ignore is that every day that passes Iran grows weaker and we grow stronger.

As the tankers continue to come to the US & we keep getting tankers in the straits out Iran’s leverage continues to drop. Yeah if we were willing to commit 100,000 troops we could likely bring them down and take the country & the oil but at the cost of 1000’s of US lives that while justifiable in the long run to destroy once & for all the leading terror sponsor in the world, is a price our current society is unwilling to pay & unnecessary if Iran can be emasculated without doing so.

The price will keep trickling down slowly as the alternate supplies continue to open up. I suspect if things aren’t concluded right away it will take till the end of August to see gas at $2.99 again. By that time Iran will be capping wells and their ability to finance jihad outside will be practically finished, which frankly they are almost at now anyways.

That’s a lot less sexy than seeing the Mullahs fall just like winning the cold war over 50 years was a lot less sexy than Patton leading his army against the Soviets in 1945 would have been, but I’ll take less sexy with thousands of less casualties every day of the week.

Finally word is out that the Doctor Who Christmas special is nixed & the BBC is pretty much taking bids to see who wants a shot at running the franchise that they’ve driven into the ground once again.

Like the anti-thatcher stuff that killed it in 1989 the work stuff has made Doctor Who so Toxic that actors have no interest in the iconic role & fans don’t care.

In my opinion the solution is obvious, I’d give it to Big Finish which has been producing original Doctor Who stories for more than a quarter of a century & doing so without needing a government imposed fee to pay the way.

While they have their share of woke they are experts at making stories that people are willing to pay actual money to hear, and while they don’t have experience in TV that doesn’t matter as the special effects and or cinematography are not the problem here. it’s the stories and as Big Finish says: Big Finish, We Love Stories!

Let Big Finish supply the scripts and Doctor Who can thrive again, or let the TV show die and let Big Finish run the Time Lord as strictly audio. Remember it was six years of Big Finish stories starting a decade after the final show that caused it to return. And even if it dies here, remember the first episode was broadcast in 1963 when I was six months old.

Not a bad run.

Five “A Week Without Work” Thoughts Under the Fedora Fortunate Timing, The Interviews Keep Coming, The Craziest interview end I’ve ever had, No Pain and Surprisingly no Gain and the Preview of Coming Attractions Trap

Posted: May 16, 2026 by datechguy in business, culture, personal, under the fedora
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As a general rule there is no good time to be unemployed, however just as my last day became in stone my wife’s Asthma which had been pretty much under control flared up something horrible to the point where she ended up unable to function without multiple nebulizer treatments and a bunch of new perscriptions.

She ended up home sick for a week and it turned out I was very available to help her and keep an eye on things.

If you’re going to lose a job that’s the time to do so.

Last week I had three job interviews and a job fair. This week coming I have a 2nd interview at the job I want the most, and two other jobs that I can move to the “next step” on. I have also not double check availability on a third position that a friend clued me into.

To say that this is a huge contrast to the 13 months with only a single job interview during the Obama years is the understatement of the year.

Apparently it’s a buyers market for Job seekers, even in Massachusetts.

How good is the market? I went to one interview last week for a national company that has local warehouses. The job itself seemed pretty straightforward although requiring a bit of physical labor and the pay is very good it unfortunately is a 12 hour shift FIVE days a week.

If I was turning 43 on Monday instead of 63 I think I would have jumped at it as that would have pretty much doubled my pay and put all my debts in order in no time. It’s the type of job a young guy who wants to buy a house should rush to grab. Being an honest bloke I told the interviewer that I don’t know if at 63 I’m physically capable of a 5 day 12 hour shift that ends at 5:30 AM anymore, but if I found nothing else I’d certainly consider and would like to be kept in mind on that basis.

We shook hands and I headed to the exit and out the door into a pouring rain, when I was half way to the car he literally came running out into the rain calling me back. I presumed I had forgotten something but instead he mentioned that there is an opening on that shift for a supervisor and that while I might not be physically able to do 5 days 60 hours of serious labor I might be able to do those hours as a supervisor. He urged me to apply for that position.

That’s one hell of a boost to the ego when it comes to self worth, but it also illustrates the difference in the job market when a 63 year old guy gets chased into a rainstorm to be asked to apply for a job.

This week I’ve had a lot of time to be with DaWife, cook for DaWife and go out to eat with DaWife but due to the weather have not had time to walk and it goes without saying that the physical aspects of my previous employment are not taking place.

I found myself dreading weighing myself as I suspected I had put a bunch weight back on. I had gone into my final day down needed 2.2 pounds to complete my diet (down 51.1 out of the 53.3 goal). Today I weighed myself fully expecting to be outside of the five pound window and having to go hard, but instead found myself 3.8 pounds from completing my died (down 49.5) which is basically in the 2 pound range that I’ve been for a couple of week as those final pounds to officially end my diet just won’t go.

It was a pleasant surprise but I have to make sure I don’t get comfortable with it. That’s the danger.

Speaking of danger there has been one thing apparent over this week.

I’ve done the math & figured out that if I we work to age 70 both my wife and I can retire off of social security alone & cover all our regular bills and still go out several times a week without an issue while reserving all we’ve saved for retirement for special things, maybe a day trip or two, perhaps some season tickets to the woo-sox, maybe another quilting trip etc etc etc.

As I’ve mentioned before I’m the son of depression era parents with a father who served in World War Two and the grandchildren of a bunch of folks who were born in Sicily in the 1800’s with very little to their name who came here 120 years ago for a better future. I find a life spending the day with my wife at home, cooking for her, maybe hitting daily mass, punctuated by a few dinners or breakfasts out & shooting the breeze with strangers at a lunch or dinner counter while reading a book to be a pretty nice life.

I don’t need big flashy trips, expensive stuff or anything else much. I know enough about history to understand that a nice quiet life with a few comforts is all a person really needs.

Alas this week I’ve had a preview of that life and I REALLY like it, however I can’t have this life until I work another seven years to get it, so it’s no time to be lazy about finding work, however comfortable this time living off a severance package and unused vacation time seems.

It’s a trap & I have to make sure I don’t fall for it.

Five Quick: 0-3 Trying to Kill Trump Thoughts Under the Fedora: Methinks the Left Objects too much, Who Moi?, Trump Now 2nd on the All Time List, Don’t know much about the “Teacher of the Month” from CA, A class closing act

Posted: April 26, 2026 by datechguy in Always look at the bright side of Trump, media, Uncomfortable Truths, under the fedora
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I was in a middle of a full screen game when DaWife told me about the attempt to kill Trump and when I checked my feed on the subject the first things I saw was the left either

  1. Claiming Trump had faked this
  2. Objecting to the right being blaming them for trying to kill him a 3rd time

I’m sorry but if you want people to not think these things perhaps go lighter on the whole “Trump is Hitler” thing, but in fairness given what we’re seeing these days in Maine if Trump WAS Hitler the left would likely support him.

Speaking of what we’ve been seeing

Here is the right response from someone who doesn’t like Trump

The summit of this nonsense was this:

Although the best answer was of course this:

Let’s go to the video

Grok’s Pointed gun standard which doesn’t count Palm Springs not withstanding this puts Trump two behind Lincoln for 2nd place on the attempted assassinations all time for Presidents.

It would be nice if he doesn’t get a chance to break the record but given the left being the left and that we’re not even half way into this 2nd term I think he might do so

Of course in fairness the idea that at an event full of people who would privately cheer him being killed someone would try to do so isn’t all that odd. BTW can you imagine if the assassin succeeded yesterday how difficult it would have been for the assembled press to feign public outrage with all those camera running?

It was interesting enough to see the general silence since the attempt took place with them there and nobody had a chance to establish the left’s desired narrative nor feed it to those in attendance.

We don’t know much about the teacher of the month who has been arrested except that:

  • He’s fast
  • He shot a Secret Service agent who fortunately had body armor
  • He managed not to be shot and killed, how I haven’t figured out
  • If this guy was “Teacher of the Month” it’s more proof you need your kids out of public school

Given the use of AI these days I’m going to be a bit more careful about what gets spread today about him as the technology to manufacture a narrative has exploded but I must say I think this take is pretty good:

.Already we are seeing people trying to say he’s Mossad or that it’s all about an excuse to start shooting in Iran again (he doesn’t need an excuse btw Actually it would be more legit if he was an Iranian agent instead of just the avg loony lefty, after all we’re fighting a war against them and in war the other side gets to shoot back.), but we can expect everything from gay fanboy of Tucker Carlson trying to impress him to fanatical Catholic upset at the clash with the Pope.

No matter how wacked some narratives are there are fools online who will buy them if it fits their worldview.

The trial will be interesting but I alas think Van Jones is right about one thing:

“I’m starting to worry about something, though, which is that the shooter survived, which means on Monday he’s going to court, which means there is a danger that people try to make him some sort of hero. You watch what happened with Luigi [Mangione], who shot a CEO to death and somehow became a hero. So, they said tonight you saw the worst of America. You saw the best of America. Tonight, you definitely saw the best of America. I hope on Monday we don’t see the worst again. 

The chances of this not happening are so zero.

Finally Trump’s press conference was both informative and gracious you can watch it here:

This was likely the best dressed news conference in the history of Presidential press conferences.

Could you imagine giving such a press conference less than an hour after someone tried to kill you? This guy has ice in his veins.

The security for the new event in 30 days should be interesting.

I’ll close with a quote from Stonewall Jackson:

He who does not see the hand of God in this is blind, sir. Blind!

Five Iran War Thoughts Under the Fedora: Ignorance is the rule, Yes they get to shoot back, Ukraine gives a hand, The only two advantages Iran Has, Israel’s big Drone Endgame

Posted: March 13, 2026 by datechguy in middle east, under the fedora, war
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One of the disadvantages of the all volunteer army is that you have 1% of the population serving so that the vast majority of people in the nation have absolutely no idea how the military or how war works.

A good example of this is the fuss over the meals for the troops but a better example is the shock, SHOCK that the enemy gets to hit back in war.

Without history being taught properly combined with only movies & TV to give them a reference means people don’t know what they’re talking about & are easily taken.

We have pretty much destroyed the air & navel arm of Iraq and have done so at a cost so minimal that military historians will be writing about it for centuries.

Yet because of the ignorance that I mentioned above, the slight amount of causalities we have suffered are being treated as a disaster by the left & being sold as failure.

This is war, the enemy gets to shoot back and occasionally they will get lucky and occasionally we will get unlucky with a failure of equipment or even human error.

Additionally our enemies (Russia & China) while not providing direct aid are undoubtedly proving whatever intelligence available

This is war and in war some of our troops are going to die. This is a reality and the price that’s necessary to destroy an enemy who has been killing our people since I was a teenager.

Ukraine has gotten a lot from us over the last 4 years to help in their war vs Russia (and not just the graft either) and until now they had little that we needed.

But there is one thing that they have in abundance that we do not have & would be most useful in the effort to destroy the Islamic republic: years of practical experience in drone warfare, both in offence and defense.

It is reported that Ukraine is now sharing that experience with us and those that are being hit by Iran.

This is a smart move by Ukraine, if Iran falls one of Russia’s key allies goes with it and thus weakens Putin further. Additionally such help make it more likely that Trump will be more amenable to releasing more aid with less questions is a helping hand is given.

Nothing builds an alliance more than mutual self interest.

To say Iran is getting pummeled is the understatement of the year. No level of propaganda, tweet farms & paid influences spinning makes all of this any less of an absolute disaster to the Iranian Muslim leaders and their networks.

Combine this with Israel’s use of intelligence to use drone attacks on small checkpoints to eliminate those whose job it is to repress the people and all the cards look poor for them.

They do however have two advantages one tangible and one not.

The tangible advantage is the clock. The war powers act gives Donald Trump 60 days to do what he can without a vote in congress. While there is every chance he would win such a vote (no matter what the MSM says) the longer the war goes on the better the chance that any kind of reversal can be played upon by the left or that the cowards in the congress will be subject to their fears.

The intangible advantage is Islam itself.

I suspect there are plenty of people in the Iranian government working for the Mullahs or the secret police that are IINOS (Islamic in name only) who are doing what they do for the money and/or doing it out of fear for their families or even to “be somebody”.

But I also suspect that there is a percentage of these people who are true believers in radical Islam, Who think that “Death to America” isn’t just a chant but a holy command.

Those true believers will fight to the death because they think they’re serving God. If there are enough of them it will be real trouble for us because people who don’t care if they die are capable of anything.

Granted neither of these are big advantages but you have to play the cards you have.

Finally when it comes to drones Israel has made it an art.

With information given via Iranians in Iran they have been able to strike at individual checkpoints within cities. In other words at the people who actually do the killing of protestors who want the Mullahs gone.

Even if the US stops bombing if Israel can keep this up then the game is up and done. Without those guys holding the people back there is no way to stop a popular revolution.

I think the Mullahs might lose their country before I officially lose my job

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