So last night I watched “Dances with Wolves”. I can understand why it won a bunch of academy awards. Life in the United States in the mid 19th century wasn’t pretty. And the movie did a fairly accurate portrayal if only brief of the utter hell that is war.

I’ve seen it before but it was a long time ago so I watched it again. It’s a LONG movie but it definitely sets up the story. In it Kevin Costner plays Lieutenant John J. Dunbar. Through the element of curiosity he meets the local Sioux tribe. And then is dubbed his Sioux name Dances with Wolves. Now I know I have a few percent Native American floating in my DNA and I sort of know how it got there. In a brief way it’s because one of my ancestors some ways back went Native. Likely between the 17th and 18th centuries. Which by some little prestidigitation means I have roots in the part of North America that is now the United States going back some five centuries.

And October – while it’s the 10th month on our calendar the OCTO prefix means it’s eight. In fact if you look at the months you can kind of see where ego cases from long ago inserted themselves. But it starts in September or the 7th month, then October the 8th, November the 9th and December the 10th. So where did July and August come from – yup old Roman emperors.

And it’s Monday. What’d I do I got 100 pages into a book on SSL/TLS/PKI. Yeah yeah I know, exciting reading. Very applicable to the job too.

In the past I’ve griped about the South. And here I am living in Georgia, more specifically Decatur, GA.

Granted I’m learning where everything is. To the point I don’t have to rely on Google Maps anymore when going from here to Kroger, or here to where I work and back. Also learning that while I-75 has a reputation for being a horrible highway I think the award goes to I-20 where one moment you’ll find yourself doing 85MPH and the next 45MPh. No rhyme nor reason to any of it. I’ll be one happy camper once the true AI’s are driving us around. They won’t suffer the distraction and idiocy of we humans.

But I will say the south has something going for it. The whole county system amuses me. And I have no clue who my elected representatives on the local level happen to be. Oh wait, I found them. i have to introduce myself sometime.

And I’m happy to say we ARE net connected. I know back a few years ago net penetrtion in the south was bad. But not this part of the south.

So this morning I had some coffee and fired up Spotify. So it recommended a group based on Zaius, Rhythym Slaves and Kid Massive Radio.

Surprised me. it had Jamiroquai, Soul II Soul, and a bunch of slightly up tempo music. Nice.

He’s actually 16 years old – in 11th grade. He’s also like Keyron and I a gay boy. Well, we’re no longer boys but still.

I try to help as much as I can. More of the story emerged tonight. His mom is Christian and giving him static about being gay. And of course who does he come to but the gay couple who just moved in a few weeks ago.

Now we both feel really bad. When we get some furniture oh who am I kidding. We don’t need to be adopting a 16 year old. I gave him $20 tonight and told him he’s ambitious and to follow that. Also asked him what he planned to do once he graduates from high school. Suggested he look into a college.

Right now I feel really awful about this whole thing.

So this weekend I did a few omelets. I’ve gotten pretty damned good at it too and my favorite is in cast iron. But a non-stick pan works too. And I can do it with a silicone spatula or hard plastic spatula.

That’s one thing as I learned to cook I learned to improvise. It plays well with omelets. Those are about the preparation. If you’re going to do mushroom, onion and cheese it helps to prepare those items ahead of time.

So one of my principles about Halloween is KISS or Keep It Simple Stupid. Masks are my thing.

Here’s a picture of my latest – it incorporates two things I love masks and EL wire.

It has three modes – on solid, slow blink and fast blink. I plan on passing out candy with that on. It also cost about $7 so low price, maximal effect. Nice!

So this young man by the name of Dante he’s maybe 12 years old. He’s got the ambition to make money that’s for sure. Knocks on our door, for $3 he’ll drag our trash over to the dumpster about 1200 feet away.

Then I realized this kid – he was hitting everyone up. That my friends is the mark of ambition. I’ll have to introduce him to crypto currencies. Teach him how to invest a portion of his earnings. What the hell, he’s doing us a solid why not do him one too.

Plus I was thinking, if we give him $3 a week times 4.33 weeks in a month is $12.99. I might do a deal with him, $25 a month and he hauls our trash every Friday/Saturday. That solves my problem, makes him a little more money and we’re all happy.

Which means her first service interval. Change the oil and filter, do a basic inspection and then 7,500 miles is the next stop.

I’ve been checking the oil – it still looks good even though the car says it’s at 50% life. I’m tempted to take a sample of the oil and send it for testing and see what they say.

In the Atlanta Metro area is interesting. Between we two we have blindness and gimped leg to deal with. So this meant certain constraints are placed upon us. We finally did find a place where the price wasn’t too awful thought and it’s only eight stairs to content with. We have been in the place for eighteen days thus far. It’s a nice place, not a basement apartment but first floor – the entrance is down eight steps and the place is VERY quiet.

Must say though one of my neighbors, a woman saw me at the mailboxes and chatted me up. Guess she didn’t pick up I didn’t give her the once over. But still it’s very nice. The property is a big complex of buildings all in a wooded area. Meets my approval.

However the commute to the office is 30 miles. It’s all highway of course, I-20 to I-75 and the stupid constantly astounds me. I realized early on if we all just paid attention to the rule – one car length for every 10MPH of speed – in kilometers it’d be one car length for every 16.09KMH. this makes me wish we’d gone metric in the 1970’s. Then we wouldn’t have to convert everything and maybe not even lose a couple of spacecraft because of conversion errors.