Yesterday was a demonstration of how even the biggest tech giants can have massive failures. Microsoft who is one of the largest business email providers in the world had a massive and prolonged outage starting around lunchtime yesterday which is still not fully resolved as of this morning. They claim this was not a malicious attack which caused the outage, rather some sort mass failure of backend servers caused by failing some sort of “health check”. I highly doubt we are being fed the truth and if it was some sort of malicious action that caused the failure Microsoft would not be very eager to reveal it. This is the longest outage of their services that I ever recall in my decades of time in IT.

It is the sort of event that shakes the assumption that your email will just work. In today’s IT environment the level of redundancy and resiliency is designed to make this very scenario implausible. To have it collapse like this and then stay down for 18-20 hours is a massive black eye for Microsoft. It is going to be very interesting when the truth is revealed about what actually has happened. The outage also affected my home email which I host via Microsoft as well. Email is so integrated into so many aspects of your digital life that when it is eliminated certain things just grind to a halt.

This weekend is looking pretty mundane, especially since the pickleball courts will be unavailable for public play since they are hosting a large tournament. At least the Eagles have a bye week so I don’t have to subject myself to listening to or watching them stink up the field yet again.

I have returned from my long 5 day weekend which went by quickly as they often tend to do. We had targeted doing a day trip to Universal on Tuesday but that didn’t pan out. I did get to play pickleball on Saturday,Tuesday and yesterday. I could not believe just how busy the place was on a Tuesday morning. I was there two hours and only got three games during that time period. It’s amazing how many people don’t work and instead play pickleball every single day.

I had a situation yesterday in a game that was funny. Me and an older guy named Hugh were playing two guys that included a tall, older guy who is there every day. I see him there often but have never played with or against him. He is a solid player but I think he thinks he is better than he is. My partner and I beat him the first game by a pretty large margin and he immediately asked if we wanted to “run it back”, code for I think we can beat you if we try again. We agreed.

In the second game they were ahead by as much as three points. There was some confusion while we were serving. The guy said we had already served with both of our players. I said that I had not served. Hugh agreed with me. The guy insisted we were wrong and it was their ball. He was being an ass about it. At one point he said something along the lines of “sorry your memory is bad but it’s our ball”. Now I was pissed. In rec play you should never take anything that seriously as this guy was. I offered “maybe your memory is bad, but that’s fine, you can serve” to which he said “that’s right, I will.”

Hugh was not happy with the guy’s attitude either. Without saying a word we both had a common goal, beat the jerk. That’s exactly what we did. We came back with many points being courtesy of the jerk making unforced errors, including the final point of the game, which we won 11-9. After the loss the jerk said “I have somewhere else to go…” and walked off. It was one of the more satisfying wins I have had in a long time. Always beat the jerk.

The Eagles put in yet another awful performance against the Giants, losing their 7th game in a row. At this point there are doubts if this team can win another game this year. The front office has clearly written off the season, trading Jordan Davis, a defensive lineman that they paid a fortune to the Jaguars, getting two high draft picks in return. The Eagles have a huge stockpile of draft picks to use in their rebuilding effort. The question is if they want to use that currency with Nick Siriani still in charge? There are even questions of if the Eagles want to move forward with Jalen Hurts as the franchise QB. At this point I really don’t care.

Yesterday I got out for a ride that I recorded, a rarity recently. I was on the Extreme Bull GT Pro Plus, a big and heavy wheel, weighing in at over 115lbs. During the ride while trying to do a tight turn I lost control and wound up wiping out on the grass. Luckily the low speed and grass made the impact less severe although I did have a cut on the back of my calf to show for it. Despite the spill it was nice to get out there. I had already done a conventional bike ride earlier in the day.

Over the 5 days I also spent a considerable amount of time leveling in WoW Forever. I am into the game so much that I am doing something I have not done in years, playing before work. Multiple times I have gotten an hour or so of play time in before prepping to leave for work. It’s pretty crazy. The last time I did that was probably 20 years ago. It goes without saying that I really am enjoying the game.

I am looking forward to my two day work week.

On Tuesday WoW Forever launched, Blizzard’s new version of WoW based on WoW Classic with a number of improvements and a totally different approach to the game. In traditional WoW you reach max level, do content meant for that max level and then a new version of the game is released that increases that max level and unlocks new content. WoW Forever has a level cap of 60 and it will never go higher than that. It is meant to be a horizontal leveling game instead of a vertical one.

In theory once you hit max level you start doing max level content. As time passes new max level content/gear will be released but you never have to do additional leveling to get there. It is a type of play that WoW enthusiasts have been asking for for years. There has been huge interest in the game since it came out. Despite a ton of people playing the game launch has been relatively smooth with very few issues which is surprising.

I have made three characters so far, a paladin, a warrior and a hunter. I plan to rotate through them, hopefully playing each while they have rested XP which accelerates leveling. Leveling in this version of the game is much slower than retail which in my case is nice. You get to slow down and smell the roses along the way. They have added some incredible ambient lighting and water effects to this version of the game which makes everything look absolutely beautiful. I have been playing quite a bit, for me. This morning I actually played some before work which has not happened in probably 15 years if not more. I am really enjoying it so far.

I had a taste of some beef liver for the first time in my life the other night. My mom used to love liver and would often order it at a restaurant. I am not sure if we didn’t prepare it right or what but I thought it was pretty gross. The taste wasn’t great but the worst part was the texture. It just sort of broke apart into crumbles in your mouth and took forever to chew. The experience did not make me want to try liver again although it would be interesting if it would come out better at a restaurant.

I took off next Monday and Tuesday to pair with having Wednesday off as well for Veterans Day. A five day weekend sounds pretty good to me. We may take one of those days to do an up and back the same day trip to Universal Studios. We will see how things pan out.

I am in my blog using an alternative method as my normal logon process seems doinked. I am hoping GoDaddy support can help me straighten things out.

Last night was a historic night as far as the election results. The number of congress seats that flipped and the way it happened in landslide ways has rarely if ever been seen before. There are now democratic senators and governors in states that have not seen that be the case in DECADES. The most incredible example is Kansas who for the first time in 94 years has a democrat senator representing them, wow. Even though Florida retained a republican senator and a new republican governor both of those races were much tighter than expected based on Florida’s recent history. The margin of victory in both races was only a point or two. Trump said foolishly leading up to the election that people should vote with the idea that he was on the ballot. They did just that. The emperor has no clothes.

For the last two years we have seen example after example of much of the population ranting and raving about Trump. But in the world of the internet you never can really know if what you are seeing is as widespread as depicted. It obviously was. If anything the push back against Trump was greater than anticipated. Texas has even gone blue which seemed next to impossible a mere two years ago, electing a democratic governor and senator. It’s crazy. It’s as large of a condemnation of Trump and everything he has done and what he represents as you could imagine. It’s beyond clear that the majority of the population want him and anything to do with him to be history. It is the beginning of the end of a long and disgraceful tale. I can’t wait until the final chapter is written.

Although it may be fun to gloat about the victory last night I am much more interested in what sort of action takes place going forward. Gloating and demeaning the losing party does not move the needle in a positive direction in the big picture. I want tangible change, accountability, and consequences when the rule of law is broken. No more hiding pedophiles just because they have stacks of money to hide behind. No more stealing from the poor to give to the rich. Nonsense should be an outlier, not business as usual.

Perhaps remaining republicans in congress will be less apt to cower in fear if they speak words that have not been blessed by Trump since most of his teeth have now been pulled. Hell a couple days ago Ron Desantis, the outgoing governor of Florida did an interview with Stephen A Smith where he was surprisingly blunt about the mistakes Trump has made, possibly laying the groundwork for his own presidential aspirations in 2028. Creating distance from Trump is clearly going to be a trend if you want to have a chance to ascend in your republican political future. Man, is that going to piss big D off, his massive yet frail ego is going to be taking a tremendous beating from now on.

The air today feels a little fresher and the sun a little brighter. All may not be lost, after all.

Oh, I made a video regarding my latest pickleball paddle addition.

The last two years has been a political circus that has reached levels unheard of before in history. It all revolves the magic con-man/cult leader Donny Trump. If you attempted to list all of ridiculous/insane/criminal/embarrassing acts that have happened since he took office 2 years ago you would have a full length novel in no time.

With as terrible as his first four years were you would think the bar could not have been set much lower. Big D somehow managed to bring that bar into subterranean levels. In case I haven’t been clear, I think he is an awful human being and the fact that he somehow got elected by this country not once but twice is a testament to just how f’d up our society is.

I don’t care that he is a republican, I care that he is a terrible person who preys upon the darkest parts of human beings, fear, greed and anger. He lies with reckless abandon, confident that his followers will swallow and believe every word of it like a baby bird eating a worm from it’s mother. It’s crazy to see this type of blind loyalty in individuals in 2026. I remember thinking at one point of my life that human beings have evolved to the point where maniacal leaders could no longer control minds through propaganda. Wow, was I wrong.

So anyway here we are at the mid-term elections, an opportunity to neuter Trump’s ability to do even more damage, at least somewhat, over his last two years. There are so many members of congress who behind closed doors will admit they think Trump is a mess but publicly they are forced to toe the line else feel the wrath of the extremely stable genius. They are loyal via fear not because they are acting on behalf of their constituents.

Of course the root cause of the disaster which has been the American political system was the Supreme Court Citizens United ruling in 2010. This allowed a constant and unlimited stream of money to be funneled by corporations to support candidates that were willing to carry out their agendas. This IMO was the worst ruling the court has ever made. Individuals are limited in the amount they can donate to a candidate because we didn’t want wealthy individuals to have undue influence. Why does that not apply to Super PACS? It makes absolutely no sense and is the biggest reason that we are in the boat that we are in today. Until Citizens United is overturned/eliminated this country is destined to keep sliding down the hill towards absolute chaos. Will it ever happen? I doubt it because the money that controls everything doesn’t want it to.

I know there has been erosion in Trump loyalists, the people that woke up to the reality that almost every promise that was made by Big D was a lie. I commend them for doing so. It isn’t an easy or pleasant thing to admit you were fooled by somebody. Trump basically wants people to believe it’s raining while he pisses on their back. He asks people to not believe the news, not believe their bank accounts, not believe their very own eyes as to what is going on in the country and the world. Some do exactly that but hopefully a large enough portion of the population have awakened from their trance to allow us to vote out some of the cowards that have supported this terrible leader.

I have been waiting for the concept of accountability and consequences to be applied to the executive branch of government for a very long time. Perhaps this can be the start of it. Please vote.

I had my first live stream in a month on Friday night. I started early and kept it to two hours because of the pickleball tournament on Saturday. The stream was not really announced in advance so turnout was light.

The tournament on Saturday overall was a disappointment. We finished 4-1 in our pool and made the playoffs but then lost both of the playoff games to finish 4-3 for the day. The first playoff loss was against a team that was blatantly sand bagging, the second loss for the bronze medal was against a mixed team that we should have beaten. As is usually the case, unforced errors were the biggest issue. I don’t mind losing a point when the other team hits a good shot but when the point is lost just because you didn’t execute a pretty basic skill it frustrates me.

I have gotten better over the years at not getting as pissed off as I used to when I make a mistake. I know that carrying that mistake over to the next play makes more mistakes probable so I try to flush errors out of my mind but it still affects me more than I would like. I didn’t walk away from the tournament with a great feeling, knowing the outcome could have been better. The biggest positive was although my knees were somewhat sore, overall I came out of the tournament physically in much better shape than the last time. I was ok enough to do a 7 mile bike ride yesterday morning.

Saturday night we went to see Street Fighter, a movie based on the very popular fighting game that I played a bunch of in my younger days. It was corny and silly in many ways but I still found it entertaining. My girlfriend liked it too despite knowing zero about the video game. I’d give it a B. They did a good job of bringing elements of the game into the movie.

My Sunday for the second week in a row was pretty low key. Besides the bike ride I just took care of tasks around the house. I got to wrap up my weekend by watching the Eagles once again shit the bed, losing 27-10 to the Redskins who had one win coming into the game. The team is lost, they are ineffective in all aspects of the game. The special teams gave up big kick and punt returns and then after making a 36 yard field goal the points were taken off the board after a 5 yard penalty and a re-kick that hit the post.

The offense scored 10 points in the first quarter and nothing the rest of the game. Tanner McKee is a pocket passer with very limited mobility. He also doesn’t seem to be very good stepping up into the pocket as edge rushers collapse. But to be fair the offensive line is awful too. Number 72 who is something like 6’9″ and 340 pounds was being run over all game. The Redskins were blitzing all game and the Eagles were defenseless. It was hard to watch. Saquon Barkley is trying to play but you can tell his injuries are slowing him down and the O-line sucks at run blocking as well.

The defense was better than last week but overall still were bad, allowing the Redskins to run and pass effectively most of the game. Giving up 27 unanswered points is a pretty good indicator of where this team is at, lost. Siriani looked like a he had nothing in his eyes on the sideline. He looked clueless and low energy. In his post game interview he came off as a defeated man. The Eagles have a bye week coming up. I have a feeling there is going to be a lot of activity before the trade deadline as it has become pretty clear that the 2026 version of the Eagles is not going anywhere.

I was saddened to see that Patrick Stewart died. He was best known for his role as Captain Picard in Star Trek Next Generation. IMO he was the best captain of any Star Trek series. He also played Professor X in the X-men movies, another favorite of mine. I was surprised to hear he died of Alzheimers and “lewy body dementia”. He has a role in the yet to be released Avengers Doomsday. If he did so while also suffering from stages of alzheimers that would be crazy. He was 86 years old. I’ll miss him.

Tomorrow I am throwing my hat back into the pickleball tournament ring. This comes after getting more or less smoked in the last tournament we played. There were reasons for that though. My back was really bad at that time so it affected my mobility. We also played at night at a facility that had poor lighting which made it very hard for me to see after the sun went down. Don’t get me wrong, neither Brian nor I played well but in normal circumstances I think we would have won a few more games than we did.

So we are dusting ourselves off and trying again tomorrow morning. Tomorrow happens to be Halloween so there may be some people playing in costume. I won’t be one of them. I am hoping for a more competitive day.

We don’t have any big Halloween plans this year. The pumpkins we carved Sunday are already looking pretty sad. I thought they would hold up better but I guess I need to wait until closer to Halloween to carve them. Last year we walked the neighborhood with Mia and Elsa, both of them in costume. With Elsa not being here anymore it just would not feel the same and bring more sadness than joy..

I got my results from my Rythm blood test incredibly quick. I dropped off the blood sample to Walgreens Tuesday morning and had my results already last night. I was happy to see the cholesterol numbers that I have been concerned with have come down since my insurance blood test several months ago. My LDL cholesterol was now at the very high end of the normal range and my overall cholesterol had dropped from 220 something down to 201. The four tests that were outside of average range but not terribly so where the cholesterol, ApoB, Remnant cholesterol and surprisingly, cortisol. All of these were only slightly out of range but it’s good to know as it provides reinforcement for making better choices.

I have been considering if I want to start applying large lump sum principal payments towards my mortgage to get it paid off prior to retirement. My interest rate is on the higher side at 6.25%. I owe around 100K on the house so getting that paid down in four years seems doable in my mind. On the flip side, the mortgage payment on that 100K is very affordable so I am weighing if it’s better to have that money in reserve, especially in the environment we are in where it seems like we could slip into complete chaos at any moment. Like a lot of big decisions I will probably just pull the trigger when the time seems right.

My girlfriend and I got out to see Heart of the Beast last night. It is a movie about a retired military dog and his handler, Brad Pitt whom get stuck in the wilderness. I had hesitation to see it in a theater because dog movies typically pull at my emotions and even more so now with the passing of Elsa. I also like pretty much any movie Brad Pitt is in. He is such a good actor IMO. I don’t want to give anything away so I will only say it was really, really good. Yes it made me emotional at times. It’s solid A film for me.

So I watched the Eagles/Cowboys game into the fourth quarter. I turned it off after McKee threw the interception with about 7 minutes left and the Eagles already trailing 28-21. Evidently somehow the Cowboys tacked on another 10 points in those last 7 minutes to crush the Eagles 38-21. To be honest the score could have been worse than that. There were multiple times early in the game the Cowboys extended drives for the Eagles with dumb penalties. Without those the Birds could have scored 10 points less probably.

The offense did some good things, putting on a number of long drives, one of which was 17 plays at the beginning of the third quarter. McKee was ok and the Eagles ran the ball effectively for a good part of the game. That is the end of any praise I can offer for this effort though.

The special teams sucks for some reason this year. They gave up another touchdown on a return which was negated by a holding penalty. I don’t understand why there are all these huge holes for other teams to run through. But of course the biggest SUCK award goes to the defense.

Most of the season the narrative has been the defense was pretty good. This was said despite time and again the defense collapsing at the end of games to allow opposing teams to win. The truth is they were the 27th ranked defense coming into the game and surely slipped a couple more spots after last night. Being “good” for half of a game is not being good IMO. Well last night they were bad the entire game. Hell I don’t know that Cowboys punter even took the field. The Cowboys marched up and down the field the entire game.

They allowed the Cowboys who were the 31st ranked rushing team to amass over 200 yards on the ground. They didn’t sack Zak Prescott at all, hell they hardly touched him. Most of the game the Eagles only rushed four, refusing to blitz to get some pressure. Their secondary got torched repeatedly. With no pressure on Zak he was able to find holes in the Eagles zone easily. For whatever reason Cooper DeJean looks absolutely lost in his third year and has played terribly all season. The defensive lineman are all underperforming. It was just a mess. Where does the team go from here? I have no clue. Their next game is another prime time game against the Commanders who actually have a worse record than the Eagles. If they manage to lose that game as well, the season will be all but done for this team.

This morning I did my first blood collection using a service from Rhythm. Ever since my last blood test that was taken for insurance revealed my cholesterol had jumped quite a bit I have been concerned. This is an at home blood test where you extract a small vial of blood which gets sent in and analyzed within a couple of days. You then get all of the data which is tracked and managed in their app.

They set up the subscription so it’s monthly but you can skip a month or cancel completely very easily. Right now I imagine myself doing this every 2-3 months. Data and knowledge is crucial in being proactive about your health, especially as you get older. I am hoping to see that LDL number come down. Seeing the cold hard numbers on a regular basis is good motivation to keep making better choices. The test is around a $100 which includes a prepaid Fedex envelope to send the sample back in.

The entire process this morning took maybe 20 minutes. The extraction device gets attached to your upper arm, an odd place to me. They advertise the extraction process as pain free and I can confirm that is the case. It seems like there is a very small blade which breaks the skin. The longest part was waiting for the vial to fill which in my case took 8-9 minutes. The stream of blood is small. I dropped off my sample at Walgreens this morning which is a FedEx collection point. I have been trying to modify my diet somewhat ever since I saw my LDL was high. I am hoping my numbers have started to creep down as a result. Knowledge is power.

I signed up this morning for another small pickleball tournament with my buddy Brian on Halloween. Our last tournament did not go well but I was also playing that one with a very sore back. I am hoping for better results this go round.