I have a lot to do today – yard work mostly, but also a doctor appointment, errands to run, etc., etc., so I’ll keep it short. I noted something funny from “Rage”, the Donald Trump book I’m currently reading:

Regarding the accusation that Trump was in collusion with Russia,  Trump said “I’ve done a lot of bad things, but I didn’t do this.”

“I agree with you on both counts” said senator Lindsey Graham.

Trump went on to say “I did not work with the Russians.  I did not make those phone calls.”

And Graham said “I believe you.  I really believe you, because you can’t work with your own government, so how could you possibly have been working with the Russian government?”

I have been getting constant text messages, supposedly from Joe Biden, asking me to donate, make sure I vote, and even some that ask for a few bucks for a chance to possibly receive a personal call from him after the debate.  I’m not a Democrat, nor am I a Republican.  I would expect constant texts from someone like Donald Trump, based on his tweeting history, but not Biden.  I know most, if not all, of these messages are scams and include links, so I have them muted so they don’t actually interrupt my day (and night), but I do glance at them occasionally when catching up on my texts, just to get a laugh.

I don’t get ANY Trump texts, they’re all from Biden.  Now THERE’S some texts I’d be willing to read!  That sounds like a blast, based on some of that guy’s tweets!  I could learn more new words, like Covfefe, and learn how to really rant like a leader!  That Wikipedia page is hilarious, by the way.

With all those texts and the constant TV ads we’re forced to endure, we’ve been moving more and more to just letting YouTube TV record all of our shows and we watch them a day or more later, just so we can skip through the commercial breaks.  Now it seems like both campaigns make sure if one has an ad at any point in a program, the other ALSO places an ad in an adjacent timeslot, so they’re always both in the same commercial break, most of the time back-to-back.  It really drives us nuts trying to tolerate the lies and slanting of truths on both sides.  They can’t just say what they’ll do and be honest about it, they have to attack the other side.  And if they DON’T do that to defend themselves, they’ll be perceived as weak.  There’s no winner.  The only winning move is not to play.

Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave and close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

If you didn’t recognize it, that’s a famous poem by Dylan Thomas and you might have heard it in one of my favorite movies: “Interstellar”. That poem is what I always thought of when the word “Rage” came up, at least ever since I first watched Interstellar. But I think that’s going to change now that I’m reading Bob Woodward’s new book. I’m learning a lot of things about Donald Trump and his administration that are pretty disturbing, especially when Trump gets angry. I’ve never heard anything like what’s in this book, especially from someone who is the leader of our country. I’ve always respected the President, whether he was a Democrat or a Republican. Some would do some random odd thing occasionally, it would make the news and possibly get them in trouble, but then things returned to their normal state. But not with Trump. It’s just a constant, never-ending “what will he say next” bizarre, unpredictable and goofy state that we will probably/hopefully never experience again in the history of our country.

You’ve probably already seen the stream-of-consciousness tweeting rants he can go off on, with absolutely no filter. This alone drives several members of his staff to lose a lot of sleep and spring into action instantly, at all hours of the day or night, depending on the time of the tweets, trying to determine how best to handle the press and everyone else they are bombarded with every time it happens. I’m only about two hours into the book though, there is much more ahead.

Bob Woodward goes into great detail about our country’s Defense Secretary Mattis, who was working for Trump when Trump was trying to negotiate with North Korea and Kim Jong-Un regarding their nuclear missile program. Mattis had tons of staff, electronic equipment and devices installed in his home and everywhere he went just so that he would be notified within a few seconds any time a missile was launched from North Korea. Even in the shower – he could even been instantly alerted when he was in the shower, and within seconds he’d be deep within the updates and connected to the “conference” that would instantly begin each time this happened. Then, starting almost instantly, he would be constantly updated on trajectory, location, and possible impact areas near or in the US or on its coasts as it progressed, and our own military would be at the ready to fire our own missiles in an instant if necessary. He worried a great deal about being in charge of possibly killing millions of people if he had to launch missiles. All this is explained in great detail and was completely top secret. I’m enjoying it so far.

Today’s episode is brought to you by the color Yellow.

I have been called both “Big Bird” and “School Bus” when I wear this shirt. I’m not quite sure how to take that. Both seem to mean I’m huge and yellow. I am both, don’t get me wrong, but hmm. I don’t think they’re trying to be insulting, but who knows. I know it’s a bright shirt, I thought it would be nice for a change. I needed some new work shirts, so when ordering time came this year, I ordered five new shirts, each a different color, just to change things up. Some departments here have a specific color requirement, but not ours, so I like to mix it up. Let’s see… what else is bright yellow? Ah, there we go… I should paint a smiley face on my shirt!

Today I start reading this book on Audible. I still have about 2 hours of “9/12” to finish, but I think it’s more important to make this one a priority. I’ll get back to that one soon enough. Right now, this one is all the… well, you know.

Last night we watched “This is Where I Leave You”, a movie from 2014 that I somehow missed. It stars Jason Bateman, Tina Fey, Jane Fonda, Adam Driver, Dax Shepard and several other good actors. It’s about a large dysfunctional family who’s father dies and they’re all forced to come back to their childhood home and live together again for a week.

It’s a comedy/drama and I thought it was really good. The entire family is pretty screwed up and the chemistry between all of the different family members is very funny and sometimes awkward and emotional.

Kevin was actually key to me finding this movie. He showed me a clip from the Internet of a key fight scene in the movie and it looked pretty funny. I recognized Jason Bateman right away, and I assumed it was a scene from Arrested Development. I later realized that Adam Driver (Kylo Ren from Star Wars) was also in it, but I don’t recall Adam Driver being in Arrested Development, so I looked into it further on the web. I quickly found the one movie that both of these actors were in and I knew this was it. I watched a few more clips and the trailer, then decided we needed to watch this one. It didn’t disappoint.

I also found another Jason Bateman movie in the process that sounds pretty good that I want to watch too: “Bad Words”. I’ll be watching that one in the near future. These should give me a good JB fix until Ozark returns with Season 4.

We’ve been cleaning more this weekend. This time in the house. A “few” boxes of things were brought in from the garage when we clean that, so now we have to find room for everthing in our house. And since a few areas of the house have gone neglected, we’re addressing those areas now to further improve our situation.

I am cleaning out a closet and Sandy is working on an area of the basement. Both areas are coming along nicely and we’re making good progress, we both just need regular, frequent breaks. The scanner’s been nice and quiet except for the usual stuff, which is a good thing for Kenosha, and very relieving for us. But little time to post much, so that’s about it. Just needed to get my 59th day in the bank.

One other thing: I found out Wil Wheaton was in The Secret of NIMH, a favorite animated movie from my past that Linda and Melissa loved to watch when I babysat for them way back then. Holy crap! I had to go back and watch it just to see how I missed that, and it turns out it was easy to miss. Even after watching it again I would never have known that was him without someone telling me. He was a little kid and his voice was totally different so I didn’t even recognize it. He played Martin and it was his first movie. Shannen Doherty was also in the movie and played his sister. Again, never knew.

We watched Rent-A-Pal last night. I had been looking forward to it for awhile, since Wil Wheaton was in it. It’s about a lonely guy who lives in his mother’s basement. Sounds like a setup for a oft-used Ready Player One line, doesn’t it? Anyway, the movie takes place in 1990 when VHS videotapes were the medium of choice for movies and videos.

So this lonely guy is using a dating service to try to find a mate. With this service you purchase videos of people of the opposite sex who you (or the service) think might be a match, you take them home and view them, then fill out paperwork on who you’d like to meet.

Well, this guy finds a tape in a bargain bin at the store called Rent-A-Pal, which promises a virtual friendship. He’s pretty lonely and can’t seem to find a match, so he buys it to try it out. This is where Wil Wheaton comes in. Wil’s character is the “Pal” in the video. A simple guy who just sits in a chair and seemingly converses with you in the video, pausing at the appropriate times, nodding, saying “mmm hmmm” when it’s your turn to speak, etc., etc. But there’s something eerie about this that you can’t quite grasp.

You’ll repeatedly wonder “Did he actually just respond to the guy?” and “Is he just going to come to life and talk to the guy one-on-one for real eventually? I won’t spoil that aspect for you, but I thought they did a great job keeping the audience wondering, building and building, right up until the climax of the movie when things just go horribly wrong.

Sandy and I both enjoyed it and thought it was good. If you grew up on VHS tapes and lived through that era, I think it’s a good one to watch. If you’re of Kevin’s generation–born in the 90’s–I’m not so sure you would “get it”.

Well, it’s that day again.  0.8181818181818181 ad infinitum. Hey, my post title looks like a math problem. Ignore it, Jim, ignore it. Move on.

Everyone’s re-posting everything possible about 9/11 on the web today, so I’ll just re-post my favorite 9/11 posts previously posted on my website, right here.  Nothing redundant about that, is there?  Here they are, in chronological order:

2010: Where were you on that fateful day? – This one’s my Favorite.  Ok, it was the day before 9/11, but still my favorite 9/11-related post on my site.

2014: Always Remember – Just a photo, that’s all.  But it’s worth a thousand words.

2015: Never Forget – Eerie snippets from that day.

2018: Bandage Off – 7 days after my right knee replacement.

The saddest original thing I’ll post today: I somehow misplaced my 9/11 Flag that I raise for the week surrounding 9/11 every year. I’ve been looking for it all this week and haven’t been able to find it anywhere. I’m sure it’ll turn up soon though. Most likely on 9/12. I found a small image of it on the web though. It’s the thumbnail image I used at the top of this post.

We’re watching the new TV show “Transplant”. The second episode aired recently, so we watched it last night. We’re hooked already. It’s a medical show about a doctor who came here (actually Canada, I just read, so not actually “here”) from Syria seeking a better life. I’m pretty sure he’s the titular “transplant” too, or he and his young sister who apparently came with him.

The first episode was pretty crazy with a truck crashing through the front window of a restaurant injuring several people. As it turns out, Bashir, the aforementioned doctor, worked there, and ended up saving the lives of everyone injured in the accident with his medical skills. One of the injured also just happened to be a big-shot at a hospital who had actually interviewed Bashir in the past and didn’t hire him. So once things settled down after the accident, the big-shot doctor decides to reconsider and re-interview Bashir. I’ll stop the spoilers at this point. But if you like medical dramas, I think this is one to watch.

Yeah, I work in a hospital… and I really enjoy medical shows. I work with computers and tech full-time and also really enjoy computers and tech the other 16 hours a day when I’m not working.

I’m currently reading/listening to the book “9/12 – The Epic Battle of the Ground Zero Responders”.  It’s the story of the thousands of First Responders and others who ran to the aid of the 9/11 disaster in New York and continued in the search, rescue and cleanup for weeks and months after 9/11.  Some of them paid for it with their lives, having since gotten cancer from the toxic debris in the air that they constantly breathed in, not having proper protection (PPE) and how all of the authorities consistently denied and rejected every notion that there might be anything toxic in the air after the disaster and didn’t provide proper protection to anyone who responded, for all of those months, resulting in far more deaths (and those still suffering an dying) than those lost in the disaster itself.

It’s really very sad, culminating in a huge class-action lawsuit that has taken years to build.  The actual final result I haven’t gotten to yet, I’m only halfway through the story.  It’s pretty long-winded and technical, but I am fascinated with all of the details and just amazed at how many first responders are actually willing to give everything – even their lives – to save and help others in need. I’ll probably post a little more once I finish it.

I will be SO glad when all this election crap is over in November.  This election season, more than any other I’ve been through in the past, has divided so many people and brought out the anger and frustration in so many people on both sides of every issue that it’s just crazy.  I don’t know what’s going to happen in November, no one does, but a lot of people THINK they know, and that’s scary.  Those people are the ones that talk about go good everything’s going to be when their candidate wins, and how the country will go to hell in a handbasket if the other candidate wins.  The issues and complaints on both sides of the fence are totally different, yet the outcome both sides think will result is about the same, but opposite.  If that makes any sense.  Everything will be awesome if their candidate wins and everything will be a disaster if their candidate loses to the other candidate.  

Keep in mind there are other options besides those two candidates.  If everything’s going to be so great or so horrible either way, what’s the point of voting for either one?  Nobody wins.  How did WOPR put it in WarGames?  “The only winning move is not to play.” He was referring to Global Thermonuclear War.  Each side completely obliterates the other with nuclear weapons and it’s a tie–no one wins, no one loses.  Like every Tic-Tac-Toe game.  Maybe things can be even better with a totally different candidate rather than Biden or Trump.  How bad can Kanye be?  Bipolar shmypolar…Just picture the first lady!  Yowza!  LOL.

Seriously though, I just pray that no matter who wins, we can get over all this ridiculous negativity and violence and start getting along as one united country, all on the same side.  And some regular silly commercials would also be a relief.  The political back-and-forth during short commercial breaks is the worst I’ve ever seen this time around.  Both sides just spend millions of dollars to totally skew everything in their favor.

All I know is a good portion of Kenosha was recently destroyed.  Literally destroyed–buildings and businesses burned to the ground.  Why?  Because some people are angry.  People drawn from many different areas outside of Kenosha come here and destroy everything they can because they are outraged about a recently police shooting that they saw on Facebook that went viral.  What is that?  How does millions of dollars in property damage and additional injuries and deaths help at all with the state of anything?  I sit here trying to listen to and take in all of the different sides and views of the issues, trying to make sense of things, but this just doesn’t make sense to me.

With a three-day weekend for Labor Day, I decided to…labor. We decided to finish up the rest of the garage work today and git ‘er done. So we finished sorting the tools and got the workbench all done, then cleaned up all the debris and even slipped a little something in the middle just to see how it fit…

Nice! And if we weren’t storing Kevin’s kayak, we could easily fit both of our cars in there. Right after we finished, I closed the overhead door and opened the pedestrian door to see what the dogs would do. Shadow was eager to come on in and explore everything.

Tiger, on the other hand, refused to come in and just stood at the doorway looking in. Maybe next time.

Today is Beth & Tom’s Fish Fry! If you’re in Kenosha, come on by, you’re welcome. If you need the address, send me a message and I’ll get it to you. It’s always a good time, kinda like an annual Trottier Family & Friends Reunion. Just hang out and catch up with everyone and eat some awesome food.

Nintendo recently announced a ton of new Mario content coming to the Switch–even several classics I love. First, completely free, they released “Super Mario All-Stars”, which isn’t actually a game in itself, it’s a package of original SNES classics, including Super Mario, Super Mario 2, Super Mario 3, and a Super Mario Lost Levels collection for the Switch. All are the original games, free to Nintendo Online subscribers. Then there’s “Super Mario 3D All-Stars”, if that’s not too confusingly close to the other package. This package includes Super Mario 64, Super Mario Sunshine, and Super Mario Galaxy, the classic Nintendo games, however, they’ve all been enhanced with updated graphics and widescreen format, so they’re actually a bit different. I’m hoping they also kept originals intact so you can play either version of any of the three games. That would be awesome. I haven’t heard word of that yet though, it’s just wishful thinking.

The latter is also only available as a “Limited Edition”. In this case, that apparently means it will no longer be available after March 31st, 2021. That sounds weird. Why would they limit sales like that? One journalist suggested maybe they will re-release them as separate games in the future for a higher price, but he was only guessing. That would make sense, actually. Nintendo always sells their most popular stuff at the highest price point they can get away with. I like to think of them as the Apple of the console gaming world.

The free Super Mario All-Stars is available now. Super Mario 3D All-Stars is available for pre-order and releases on September 18th. Yes, I pre-ordered it. Right now I’m playing Super Mario, already getting as frustrated I did when I was younger, back in 1983 with I was 20. I’ll get past it though. I have tons more patience these days than I did back then.

We had our first pickup with Kenosha’s new garbage & recycling containers, so I thought I’d share. Pretty boring footage compared to everyone else’s Kenosha videos these days… Even a bonus BULK pickup at the end from our garage cleaning!

I really didn’t know that it was like a giant hand with three fingers that grabs the entire can. I was thinking it grabbed the can by that bar that faces the street. I wondered how that little bar could constantly handle all the hundreds of pounds of weight repeatedly lifting the full garbage can. I figured it would easily snap at some point, but after seeing this video it all makes much more sense.

Bulk Pickup is still totally old-school I see… LOL. There was also a separate little city pickup truck that zipped through and grabbed an old rubber truck tire we had out there, but that happened so fast I didn’t bother to include it. (The mice had made some interesting nests inside that thing!)

I cleaned up my website today. By that I mean I deleted all user accounts from humans or bots who have never logged in. These were either legitimate users TRYING to create accounts or bots just creating accounts to spam my comments section with ads and garbage.

My apologies if I deleted anyone legitimate in this process. I know my website wasn’t sending e-mails for quite some time, so if you created an account before and you couldn’t activate it, it’s gone now. Please feel free to create a new account using the same e-mail address and it should work properly this time and you’ll get the activation e-mail. I promise. I get e-mails for all site activity now, so I know it’s working properly.

I deleted over 500 accounts in this process. Man, you Russian and Ukrainian hackers really need to get a life. There’s gotta be something better to do than to hammer on every possible vulnerable WordPress website you can find just so you can post garbage and get a few pennies out of it. Mine’s up-to-date and protected, so just move on, buddy. Nothing to gain here. Thank you.

Last night was the first night that the curfew was lifted. Things are relatively much quieter now on the scanner. I went to Menards in the evening and the parking lot was nearly empty. So much so that I wasn’t sure the store was open. It was though, and I think the staff outnumbered the customers. I stayed for quite awhile, searching for a few things… I’m one of those guys who hates asking for help, so I’ll just keep looking and looking. I finally had to ask someone where the pegboard hooks were and I was taken to the garden section and there they were. Silly me–I thought they’d be in the Tools section, since they’re used for hanging tools. I never would have thought they’d be in the Garden Center.

Then I spent some more time searching–this time for something to cover the workbench in the garage. It’s stainless steel and heavily stained and marked up after having been buried and unmaintained for seven years, so I thought I’d look for something to place on top of it to make it look better. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for this time, so Menards’ staff couldn’t help me. A rug? Maybe some tile? I didn’t find any viable options, so I left and decided maybe I’d just try cleaning it up some more and possibly painting it. I just want a functional workbench again.

Well, I had planned to post some interesting scanner audio today from Trump’s visit. I figured it’s a pretty rare thing for a POTUS to visit Kenosha, even if it is under such circumstances as this, so I thought I would capture all of the KPD and KFD radio traffic for the day, find a few interesting clips and post them here.

So I left my scanner on at home with a fresh battery, with my wife. As long as the scanner is ON, I always have it set to record everything, so it was a simple as that. I asked my wife to “just keep the scanner on all day, it will record everything” and she said OK. She knows how to change the battery and where the spare is, so I figured it would be fine.

Well, I came home to a dead scanner. I asked Sandy what time it died and she said “I don’t know, I was out for awhile.” I had no idea she was going out or I would have plugged it in! It turns out the battery died at 12:04 PM, just shortly before Trump’s arrival in Kenosha. He was scheduled to land at Waukegan Airport at 11:55 AM. Shit. It was a total loss.

I listened to the scanner the rest of the evening while working on a project for work, and there a few large protest groups having conflicts with officers and vehicles, including a few tense moments when crowds tried to trap or surround officers when they were found to be alone, several calls about suspicious activity and suspicious people, etc., but nothing juicy enough to share the audio from.

Oh well, maybe next POTUS…

Oh boy, Donald Trump is coming to town today. You can just imagine my excitement. I am so glad I’ll be a decent distance away, in Waukegan at work, and away from all of the chaos. Hopefully. It actually depends on exactly what time he’ll be in town, that is. Hopefully it’s during the day some time, when I’m working. Some support his visit, others say he shouldn’t come, so already we have more division and bickering on both sides of the fence.

I sure didn’t agree with this tweet. As usual, he makes himself the hero and he saved so many lives and saved Kenosha from certain total annihilation. Like I said in my previous post, just go read that book – this entire tweet is straight out of his playbook.

Just a couple samples of interesting things I caught on the scanner today. My scanner records everything it picks up now… I just need the time to pick through the hundreds of daily recordings to find the good stuff. I didn’t realize until today how easy it is to just drag and drop them into a post like this. Enjoy, this is just the beginning.