Retirement, trolling and boycots (5/25/2023)

Oh crap, I had 190 views of my blog yesterday! The previous week I had none, zero. What happened? Here I just read a few minutes earlier that Russia put a restriction or boycott on 190+ U.S. citizens, mostly enemies of tRump. Had the Russians been trolling my pages and have they been trolling me and put a boycott on me?

Nah, on further research on the announcement from Russia, I am not on the list (yet?) and I am still free to travel. This despite I have been strongly opposed to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and been even more critical of tRump in the various blogs I have written. I have had a lot of visits from the Russian Federation, but no, I have not been blackballed, yet.

Honestly, I do not think that black balling would stop me from criticizing either tRump or Russia and Putin. Moreover, I will always continue fighting for the environment and against global climate change. Yes, it is amazing that already from a distance, Putin is trying to influence the 2024 election by putting a boycott om tRump enemies, instead of only boycotting folks who have to do with trying to stop his crimes in Ukraine.

But this still makes me wonder why for a week or maybe a couple of weeks I have a trickle of visits to my blog and then all the sudden I get 190 hits. Crazy, but of the 199 views this past week, 100% were on Chrome, 189 were from Windows machines, nine Linux and one Mac. Most of my visitors were from Russia (190), eight from the U.S. and one from somewhere else. It makes you wonder, doesn’t it! The posts being viewed are all over the place, maybe I need to give better key words to some of my posts so my Russian friends can see where I talk about him or that twice impeached, recently indited and convicted sex offender who claimed to be a president was discussed in my blogs.

No, my blogs are varied but my retirement will be soon, and I can finally be let loose. I can do more for the environment and write more about my more liberal leaning politics. However, as I have been hinting at, during the past 5 or so years, I have been working on what might eventually become a book on stormwater. I am planning to publish some of my writings from the draft of this book idea that I think might be useful to my general readership and the public. Don’t worry, there will be occasional political, social, and environmental commentary peppered into my posts. Stay tuned. I will try to keep writing and continue being opinionated at times.

I took this photograph on the day before the last day of teaching.  I taught a photography class and showed the folks how to use the timer on my cell phone.

The End is Near (5/17/2023)

I guess I will be reporting on two weeks of my farewell tour. Two more to go! The past two weeks I spent in Norfolk (week one) and in Richmond (week two). Crazy enough, I was teaching the same classes at each location, in exactly the same order.

Items to report are that things are getting closer as I go, and more emotional or nostalgic and the end is getting nearer and nearer. In Norfolk, one of the members of the Virginia Beach gang started sending a retirement card around and everyone wrote something nice. It was very moving. Then, around the end of everything one of my students came over and asked if she could have her picture taken with me as a memory of taking my classes. Also, on day two I had lunch with the Virginia Beach gang.

In Richmond, I had another selfie taker at the end of day two. Furthermore, a lot of handshakes, well wished, going out to lunch as a group on day one and folks interested in my reading list (mostly or all my natural history books). At the end of day 2, I actually walked around a stormwater BMP with one of my students to evaluate it for potential maintenance issues. In addition, all four days ended in a standing ovation for me and a thank you for your service. I almost felt like I was coming out of the military service.

Food and drinks were somewhat uneventful these two weeks. The newest microbrewery on my visit was the Veil in Norfolk. The beer was good and the homemade pizza as well. Richmond was just in and out with a quick lunch.

A quick hotel review, In Norfolk I taught and stayed at the Delta Hotel, by Mariot, near the airport.  The only thing I can say is, that it was not bad.  Breakfast was better than most.  I was given the smallest room a king-size bed could fit in, but then, I paid State rate.  State rare is about a quarter of the going rate.

Things are getting more nostalgic and sadder. I am not sure if I am ready to call it quits. I enjoy teaching and working. As one of my colleagues mentioned, it seems I affected a lot of folks in our business. This makes me happy and maybe I should go out on top, when I have a lot of friends or folks that seem to respect me. But it is difficult to do. It was a good ride.

The next two weeks I am looking forward to a webinar and a trip to Abingdon before it is over, and I start the next phase of my life. Reading the obituaries, I am watching those ages of death creeping closer and closer. I am going to need to fight depression, loneliness and get a hobby. But then, I already have one and up to this writing I was not depressed! The unknown is both exciting and scarry.

Me with one of my students who wanted a selfie with her teacher.  It was so humbling! 

Hopefully this will be in my future.  More hiking outside.  During this hike, this past weekend, we actually saw a cottonmouth. 

A Bud Light please (5/8/2023)

A Bud Light please! I never imagined that I would be saying those words. However, I may actually do that, the next time I order a beer in a restaurant. I even bought a case the other day. It actually looks like water, and it tastes like bad water. The reason why I bought a case of it? Let me explain.

My wife is an inspector for the health department and as part of her job she needs to inspect marinas in the area. As you know I am (or used to be) a sailor, and no she is not allowed to inspect the marina our boat is at. That would be a conflict of interest. We are both retiring on the same day, so she has been tasked to finish all her marinas and swimming pools before we both close the employment door behind us and start the proverbial next chapter of our lives (that is what people call it euphemistically; I call it “getting really old and decrepit”).

Back to the story. Here I get a phone call from an (my) upset wife. She had just finished inspecting one marina in the same creek our boat is in. She mentioned that the marina looked like crap, not well maintained, dirty, you know it. The owner complained that he has not been making a lot (enough) money, and on top of that, no one wants to buy the Bud Light that he stocked up on for his marina store clientele. It seems that he has sunk quite a large investment in this particular beer and this appears to be drinking up his profit.

Now back up. What exactly happened? A few months ago, Bud Light hired an adverting person, or an influencer, or maybe there was an influencer (whatever) whose face appeared on a can of Bud Light. Whether this was real, for fun, meant as advertisement, or photo shopped, who cares. However, this influencer, Dylan Mulvaney, is transgender. This resulted in an uproar in the conservative groups and MAGA folks. They decided to boycott Bud Lights. Hence the slumping sales at the marina which caters to the more conservative levels of society in our county. If you don’t take care of the marina and don’t do maintenance, you cannot expect millionaire boats, classy people and therefore would expect Bud Light drinkers.

Somehow, ever since tRump, the Republican party and conservative movement seem to attract two polar opposites: the super-rich and the people they take advantage off, the lower middleclass and the poor. This is still a conundrum to me, because it is the rich who get richer over the back of these guys. The working class has not caught on that they are being taken advantage off, and I think they never will. They don’t understand that tax cuts for the wealthy don’t work, these folks can buy everything their hearts desire already, while they get shafted. It is the lower middle class and the poor who need higher wages, health insurance and alike. However, the rich have them in their spell and are able to bamboozle them in thinking more conservatively from a financial and social standpoint.

The marina owner in question was telling my wife that his misfortunes were all the fault of this transgender influencer who according to him was the scum of the earth. My wife told him to tone it down, and the guy blew his top telling her that all trans folks were immoral and should die. At this point she moved away from the situation since we state employees should not get in a fight with our clients. Moreover, nowadays you can no longer predict what conservative racists will do when they get angry. They seem to be itching to pull out their AR-15 and start a massacre.

So now you know why I have started a new habit of ordering a Bud Light in restaurants. I do this in support of and solidarity with the trans community, the restaurant owners, and use it as a social statement in public.

Celebrating Cinco de Mayo at home having a Bud Light!

Compromise (5/4/2023)

During our lunch meeting at work, Kevin our supervisor asked me what I have learned during my long career. We had gotten takeout and most of the staff members were gathered around the conference table eating our salads, pizza or sandwiches. The question made me think back to something we talked about at our UU church yesterday: write a letter of apology to yourself for something you did to someone else. At the time, I could not think of anything I was sorry of.

So, what wisdom could I impart to this group of colleagues and friends now I am a month from retiring? I could not leave them hanging, like I did in church, or really haven’t learned anything in life.

After a few seconds it dawned on me: mellow out, compromise. I have mellowed out over time. As I described to the gang, I have always devoted 100% the company, organization, and colleagues I worked for and with. This devotion was sometimes to a fault. The fault was that I would not compromise. I used two examples that I told to my colleagues, which I’ll recount here.

I entered required military draft in 1976. When my wife graduated in the US in 1977, she moved to the Netherlands to be with me; however, to be allowed to live there we had to get married. In addition, marriage allowed me to live off base and tripled my salary. We were able to rent a mobile home near the barracks and we moved in. The guys in the group I was working in (mostly career soldiers) started making fun of me before we got married and making crude jokes like: “Don’t come knocking, when the trailer is rocking,” and this was a mild one. Instead of taking this in jest, I got pissed and after extensive teasing I blew up. This got so bad that the Army asked me to file for Section 8 (or insanity). I refused, partially because I knew I wasn’t insane and because I wasn’t looking for a compromise. I threated to kill them. Eventually the solution was to make me the base photographer for my remaining time. I was the only private first class with a private office and free to roam the base to take photographs. It helped that I was the leader in the photography hobby club. Compromise might have been OK and gotten me out early.

The other example I used took me back to Uganda. My first job out of the Army. If you are a regular reader, you would know I worked there as a farm manager for a leprosy center in 1978 and 79. This was at the end of the reign of one of the most ruthless dictators Idi Amin. We stayed in the country during the civil war that ousted him. Right after our liberation one of my friends and top assistant, a local young Ugandan man went crazy and tried to attack all the white (European) staff at the center except me and my wife. The rumor went around the entire hospital that I sent him. It was known that I had quarrels with the European medical superintendent and the European hospital administrator because they were funneling profits from the farm to pay for the hospital expenses. I understood that this was one of the reasons the farm was there; however, in my mind they were taking too much. It seemed that everyone in the hospital knew of the issue and when the guy stated running around with a machete trying to kill all the white folks, rumors started flying. This made it impossible for me to maintain my position at the center and I had to return home. Of course, I did not send him, and had I taken a less public, less strong stand, the rumor might not have started, and I would have been allowed to stay.

These two examples are among a few where a harsh or hard stand had some interesting results. I can mention many more. Finally, in 2002 after two quick consecutive layoffs and a minor bout of depression I decided to go for a few counseling sessions and it was there, by talking with a complete stranger, that I finally became to understand that a strong, hardline opinion might not always be the best, especially if you express it and put your foot down. Lessons learned.

When Kevin asked me, it took me a few seconds to figure out what I had learned in the course of my career. The day before my wife and I were listening to a radio show where they were talking about the term: “That’s a great question.” My wife commented that it was such an overused meaningless sentence. But I had to contradict her, I told her that as an instructor it gives me just enough time to consider the question and come up with an answer. Then came the answer over the radio and they answered it the same way as I told my wife. The question from Kevin was such a good question that needed a few milliseconds of thought to come up with the answer. That was a great question, Kevin!