To my beloved Generation X, my fellow Xennials, & my dear, impassioned Millenials:

It’s time to wake up now, baby.

And a good Monday winds down. Was able to accomplish the one big weekly chore I delegate to Mondays: doing my personal laundry. And spent the rest of the day quietly reading.

posted Monday, Feb 3, 2025 at ~8:23 PM #QNFEB2025

Prayers, etc.: * 05:00 – Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel * 06:00 – praying The Angelus, * 08:00 – praying the Joyful Mysteries of the Holy Rosary, followed by the Memorare. * 08:30 – Readings from today's Mass include – Epistle: Rom 13:8-10 and Gospel: Matt 8:23-27. * 08:45 – making an Act of Contrition then making an Act of Spiritual Communion, followed by praying Archbishop Vigano’s prayer for USA & President Trump. * 09:00 – Thought for today from Archbishop Lefebvre: “There is no salvation outside our Lord” (cf. Acts 4:12) All those who work for the salvation of souls have to base their activity on this principle of the capital grace of our Lord. A thing done with no relation directly or indirectly to our Lord is vain and useless for salvation. * 12:00 – praying The Angelus * 15:00 – prayerfully reading The Athanasian Creed, followed by today's Daily Meditation found in Benedictus Magazine. * 18:00 – The Angelus * 19:10 – praying the hour of Compline for tonight according to the Traditional Pre-Vatican II Divine Office, followed by Fr. Chad Ripperger's Prayer of Command to protect my family, my sons, my daughter and her family, my granddaughters and their families, my great grandchildren, and everyone for whom I have responsibility from any demonic activity. – And that followed by the Saturday Prayers of the Association of the Auxilium Christianorum.

Health Metrics: * bw= 220.35 lbs. * bp= 145/87 (64)

Diet: * 06:25 – pizza * 09:45 – cottage cheese and applesauce * 12:30 – 1 seafood salad sandwich * 16:15 – crispy cookies * 16:45 – fresh mango

Chores, etc.: * 05:00 – listen to local news talk radio * 09:45 – start my weekly laundry * 10:00 – follow news reports from various sources * 14:00 – quietly reading

Chess: * 16:30 – moved in all pending CC games

posted Monday, 2025-02-03 ~20:20 #DLFEB2025

The place is just adrift in leaves like the below, but I did find a few piles with some of these other shapes.

I haven't yet found a good match for this acorn.

#PermacultureDesignCertificate #PDC #OregonStateUniversity #permaculture

The Weight Of Nothingness

I used to drown. I used to feel the weight of everything- Now, I feel nothing. Not the panic pressing against my ribs, not the burn in my chest gasping for a breath.

This should scare me. I should want the flood back, the proof that I am real; But there's something so easy about being empty.

Nothing pulls me under. Nothing tears at my skin. Nothing whispers in my ear at 3 a.m., telling me I will never be enough.

Here is a video about telling apart some common oak species. There are 34 native oak tree species in Mississippi, and then some folks have brought in oaks from other places trying to boost acorn production through interbreeding. So identifying oaks can be tough.

Plus, this year, the acorns are scarce. I've been looking for weeks, and I finally found a few along the fence line. I suspect they got hit with Roundup or something and that's how they were left alone.

So I recently learned that while pecans are like dogs — they come in infinite variety but they're all the same species — oaks come in lots of different species. And it's important for me to identify which ones are on the land.

The tons of fallen leaves appear to be from water oaks. But there are a couple of places that have more complicated leaves that are plainly in the red oak family, but I don't know who they are.

Until I found the acorns this morning I've been working from one acorn I found under my bed. That one probably came from the tree that I used to be parked under. Which also dropped a lot of water oak leaves but the acorn does not match the description.

I haven't yet tried to match the acorns from this morning. It's been a really busy day.

I have pictures. There will be pictures. But I need to go take the laundry out of the dryer.

#PermacultureDesignCertificate #PDC #OregonStateUniversity #permaculture

• Why didn't Japan invent generative AI? – Matt Alt

• The broligarchs have a vision for the new Trump term – Vox

• Hopeful Monsters: Movement Upsurges, Mass Protest, and Solidarity in Flux – Future Currents

#radar

(That's whatever four-word epithet you imagine it being, FWIW.)

It's just been one of those weeks. Kid's was sick for about 6 days straight, spouse was busy with classwork, trying to dodge the virus that took down most of extended family, trying to keep things from going to hell at work, watching everything go to hell in Washington, and just when it seemed like things might've been looking a bit better on a whole different front it, well, clearly wasn't.

It can be really hard to remain optimistic and positive when everything seems like it's on fire around you (mentally insert “itsfine.jpg” here), especially for someone like me who is a natural pessimist and general misanthrope. We've got planes transporting sick kids falling from the sky into residential neighborhoods, military helicopters flying into commercial jets over the nation's capital, a president who blames air traffic accidents on DEI, an unelected South African Nazi getting to pull the plug on parts of our government just because he gave an angry yam-man a bunch of money, oh, and then one of the people I love most in this world has seemingly decided to literally just give up and well, I don't want to think about that in too rich detail right now.

It can feel like too much. It does feel like too much right now. I tooted earlier today that I wanted to just quit and go live in the woods somewhere, and yeah, that does sound really appealing. Hollow out a tree stump, live with my pet falcon, and leave the world behind (I'll take my wife and son with me, but it'll mean I might have to upgrade to a cave instead of a tree stump =/)

View of Kendall Mountain photo by Ansel Adams, Silverton Colorado

Ansel Adams and Silverton

Silverton, Colorado, is what a person interested in light dreams about. Ansel Adams knew this, as evidenced in his photo in the summer of 1951.

I don't know how to describe this, but a watercolorist or photographer knows what I mean.

If you were to have stopped by Andy Darr's Silver San Juan gallery several years ago and asked why he is here, listen to what he says about light and how he paints skies, especially capturing what one feels in Silverton.

Better yet, look at Ansel Adams's Silverton and Mountain West photos from 1948 to 1954.

The most often discussed photo locally is one he made in 1951 while in an alley behind Reese Street

Ansel Adams

Reportedly, Adams was watching the phenomena of “alpenglow” swirl around Kendal one evening and wondered if it could be captured in black-and-white format (it cannot). Still, the timeline of an absence of snow on Kendall points to a late August / first week of September moment in the few short weeks that no snow is on Kendall. That photo is not about “Alpenglow” but about Silverton. Also, if you notice the shadow lines on the two buildings that frame the photograph, you can estimate that the photo was taken in the morning, probably around 10 am, while the sun is to the left of Kendall's peak.

Adams had just come off winning a Guggenheim fellowship, which he used to travel around the mountain west taking photographs; the work was so phenomenal that the foundation renewed it for another year in 1949. Silverton was one of Adam's favorite places. Adams exhibited the Silverton photo in 1955 when Adams and Nancy Newhall organized an exhibit at the Le Conte Lodge called “This is the American Earth.” Better yet, look at Ansel Adams's photos of Silverton and the Mountain West from 1948 to 1954. Ansel described it as the first endeavor of its kind to relate to conservation at “both the sociological and esthetic level.” The exhibit was circulated in the United States by the Smithsonian Institution

Below is a video from the Adams Foundation of Adams describing his image making process shortly before his death. https://youtu.be/qZlovMptjyQ

Discussion about this post

Believe me or not, but games are super important with distributed teams. We do not meet in person that often. Hence, it's crucial to provide opportunity to socialize. And nothing better for that than playing games together! Here is my subjective list of proven (by me 😜) games that work well through a video conference meeting and are SFW.

Codenames

This is easily the best, I guess. It is usually well received by everyone, does not require any special hand-eye-coordination, and has the perfect pace. It only really makes sense with at least four people, though. Check it out here: https://codenames.game/

Gartic Phone

That's always a good ice-breaker. From my experience, people are confused about it in the first round. The second round is hilarious and from then on, it wears off kind of quickly. Hence, I usually suggest it at a very early stage in the “bonding journey” of a group. Also, because there is no competition. There is very little opportunity to affront someone. Find it here: https://garticphone.com/

Make it Meme

Falls in the same category as Gartic Phone, but is very flexible in terms of how much time it consumes. It can only be a quick 10 minutes round and still provide good laughs. What I also like about this (same goes for Gartic Phone, btw!) is, that you create digital assets that you can archive in your Slack channel etc. There were often times when peeps created emojis out of these. See who is the spiciest meme lord: https://makeitmeme.com/

Letterjam

A bit harder to learn I would say, but once understood very lightweight. It is a viable alternative to Codenames, but can as well played with two people. Once people got the concept, it's loved. My advice would be to provide rules upfront. Jam here: https://letterjam.game/

Vote's Out

That's a very cool game if you want to introduce people. I heavily recommend it in groups where peers are new to each other. It can reveal a lot about a person in a fun and non-intrusive way. Other than that, I would prefer Codenames etc., but hey, try it out. Start voting here: https://votesout.com/

Squabble

That's one of my personal favorites, but not everyone's cup of tea, unfortunately. I would describe it as competitive Wordle. In my experience, it's definitely worth trying out, but do not get disappointed if people do not like it too much. It's one of those “love it or hate it” games. Wordle with damage: https://squabble.me/

Boring

A tedious game! No, that's, of course, just the ironic name. It's actually super cool and unique. You have to find words of a certain category and the other players vote if it's a fit. The clue is, that you do not get any points, if you have the same answer as someone else. This game is usually perceived well, albeit usually not the group's top favorite. Get bored: https://really.boring.website/

Spyfall

Finally, an absolute classic. As far as I'm concerned, the original was taken down, but there are a gazillion of clones that are often even better. Check it out. Everyone loves it. Falls in the same category as Codenames: everybody's darling. Find the spy here: https://spyfall.adrianocola.com/

That's my curated list of games. We try to have a game session every three weeks or so in my teams, but whatever works for you, of course. I really think they are an essential tool (as ridiculous as this might sound) in distributed teams. Getting people together on a social and emotional level is super hard in a remote environment. Do yourself a favor and make it, at least, fun.

Is there a better balm for the soul in troubled times than watching people get suplexed, dropkicked, and clotheslined? I think not!

Back at the Sons of Italy Hall in scenic Watertown MA for another Chaotic Wrestling show, still Boston’s best entertainment value at 20 bucks for second-row seats for three hours of wrestling entertainment.

The show opened with the team of Paris Van Dale and Dante Drago vs. up and comers The Shooter Boys. Paris did fantastic character work when she was a solo act, hamming it up as a diva who loved being champion but didn’t much like actually wrestling to defend the title. It was a great gimmick, and yet I enjoyed her face turn as she warmed up to teaming up with Dante Drago, but she’s now been relegated to standing in the corner of the wring calling for the tag while Dante gets the stuffing beaten out of him. In short, she’s not being given an opportunity to do what she’s best at. So when the Shooter Boys asked her to ditch Dante and become the first Shooter Girl, I hoped we were in for a heel turn, but sadly, she remained loyal to Dante. They won the match, but I hope this is setting her up to betray Dante in epic fashion.

Tag team champs The Monarchy hosted a “beat the clock” challenge. Rules were incomprehensible, but basically the Monarchy (King BMT and Queen Ariel) sat on chairs with cardboard thrones behind them and watched four matches. Blue collar Seabass Finn took on fabulous Armani Kaos and won. Glamour girl Livyah (my daughter: “she must have money. Her hair is expensive.” beat Jose Zamora, who seems to have cribbed Paris’s “influencer” act, Greasy, arrogant DJ Powers took on Tony “The Big Cheese” Navarro, whose entire gimmick is that he’s Italian, which I love. Anyway, that match took too long so they were both disqualified (I told you the rules were incomprehensible). Spike Nishimura beat preening narcissist Kalvin Dumont in 16 seconds, so that meant that Spike and Livyah (I don’t know, something to do with time) won the right to face off against The Monarchy for the championship. (After the 16 second match, King BMT said “in even less time than it took Rich Palladino [the beloved ring announcer] to conceive his last child, Spike wins.”)

A word about Spike: she’s the lone female wrestler in the promotion leaning into “tough” rather than glamorous. I love glamour and glitz but also athleticism, and I like that Spike is bringing the tough kid energy. Her costume looks like she’s on her way to the gym rather than a pageant, and though she’s not physically imposing, she very much looks like she could beat your ass and enjoy doing it.

Great stuff. And then we got 3 members of God’s Greatest Creation facing off against Anthony Greene and crowd favorites Trigga the OG and Mortar. GGC’s gimmick is that they’re kind of a creepy religious cult led by Arcturus in face paint and a pope hat like the Papa Emeritus you ordered on Temu. This was an absolutely kickass match that had the crowd on their feet and screaming. GGC won, which was disappointing (as my friend Greg said, “If I want to watch creepy religious fanatics beat the good guys, I’ll turn on the news!”), but it was an absolutely fantastic match.

Intermission should have come after this tough act to follow, but instead we got JT Dunn vs. Jariel Rivera in an absolute snoozefest of a match. The crowd got so quiet that I could hear the conversation of the frat boy dickheads behind me, so that kind of killed the vibe. Here’s the thing about JT Dunn—he’s probably the best technical wrestler in the entire promotion, and his character seems to be a genuinely nice, hardworking, humble guy. He introduced his infant son from the ring and we all cheered! Definitely the kind of guy you’d like to hang out with. But this persona generates basically zero heat in the ring. So this match featured good wrestling but got almost no reaction from the standing room only crowd.

After the intermission we got the tag team match of The Monarchy vs. Spike and Livyah. The Monarchy do top-notch character work, and so even though they’re the heels, I didn’t mind seeing them win. Side note: every Chaotic show I’ve been to in the last year has had a kid in a banana costume in the crowd. In the past, she’s always had a hand-painted sign that said “DWEEB” that she would hold up at appropriate moments, but this time she had a sign that read, “BMT PEED HIMSELF” which was brilliant. Viva banana kid!

Ricky Smokes beat John Walters to retain his championship belt, then put Waters through a door. Smokes goes from arrogant sneer to terrified disbelief in a heartbeat and is just a great heel. He is a WWE ID prospect, and I suspect folks will soon be paying more than 20 bucks to watch him wrestle.

If you’ve read this far: please support the independent artists of your local wrestling promotion as well as all the other independent artists: musicians, authors, artists, filmmakers, fiber artists, whatever. Go see a show! Buy an album on bandcamp! Keep artsists making great art that makes reality bearable!

My own viewpoints have felt extreme to me for a while now. It’s something I’ve been struggling with because I’ve been unsure about what to do with them. To be honest, the more the world starts to blow up, the more far out there I begin to feel. I’ve been missing for the last couple of weeks because it started to catch up to me and I had to make myself sit with it to figure it out. Procrastination is very real and it’s also a great self-defense mechanism that keeps you stuck for a long time if you let it. Just saying… I know somebody who’s had this experience lately, namely me! ;)

I’ve taken on philosophical and spiritual perspectives that are immensely helpful in my day-to-day life. They make navigating my personal life much easier but they have started to inform my political viewpoints, My very left-leaning younger self is having a meltdown because many of my viewpoints are shifting much farther to the right than I ever anticipated.

To be clear, I still believe that everybody should have access to a basic level of food, clothing, and shelter regardless of income, while also having free access to education and healthcare. It’s most of my other views that have shifted to the right.

I’ve been building an info site called The Rebel Philosopher’s Notes, from which you can download a free PDF version of my blueprint for how I would rebuild the world if I could wave a magic wand. It’s my vision for how I see the world. Feel free to check it out if you’d like. I have no plans to start a cause around this, however my vision for the world came about as a direct result of my spiritual and philosophical beliefs. I’ve been grappling with how to share those beliefs without sounding tone deaf to the realities of the world around us right now.

I’m going to be honest, I don’t have answers. In typical Della fashion, I’m probably going to have to write it out because I write to think. Making it make sense means sharing it, talking about it, and writing it. It’ll be a departure from my self-help type content and move more toward introspective and philosophical musings as I ponder all the changes that have come about for me lately. As part of that, I’m considering writing a manifesto, another way of helping me clarify my own ideas.

I ended up in a place I didn’t plan, talking about things I didn’t plan to talk about, writing about things I never thought I would, embarking on a journey I didn’t see coming. Sounds about right, doesn’t it? Just another day in the world of spiritual awakenings!

Anyway, I’m going to try to get back to my regularly scheduled routine with writing, talking and sharing. I hope you’ll join me on what promises to be a very different journey from the one I’ve been on.

Love to all.

Della

Hello, Internet! I hope you had a good weekend; mine was fun and relaxing! As usual, I try to treat every weekend like a mini-vacation: not thinking about work or (especially) politics; only working on personal projects that I enjoy; and disconnecting from news and social media.

This weekend: I hung out with my brother; got to have lunch with my sister and catch up; played a couple of video games; and did a lot of writing for – and ran – a session of Offworlders for family game night.

Citizen Sleeper 2

I don't play many new video games but since I have been writing a new setting for the Offworlders TTRPG (more on that later), I've been looking for space sci-fi ideas—so an NPR article about Citizen Sleeper 2 caught my eye last week. Now that it’s out and I’ve been playing it I’m disappointed, I guess?

Maybe it's just because I'm new to the visual novel genre, but I'm definitely not doing something right as I've gotten stuck twice with a full set of broken dice and no fuel (or dice to roll if I had it) to get materials to repair said dice on the easiest difficulty setting. The game is getting “very positive” reviews on Steam so obviously the problem here is me and my n00bishness. Maybe I’ll take another stab at it some time after there’s been a few patches but I’m over it right now.

Offworlders

A large portion of my free time last week and Saturday morning was spent world-building for a setting to play the free, rules-light Offworlders TTRPG in with our family games. What I’ve come up with is a beautiful hodgepodge that’s got some Battlestar Galactica, Expanse, Star Trek, Star Wars, Stargate, and Warhammer 40k all thrown together, along with some D&D/Tolkien-style fantasy, and I'm running a story that is inspired by “Lost Mine of Phandelver” and the Progenitors from Star Trek.

We played on Sunday afternoon with my wife playing a human tech geek, our teenager playing a human ex-soldier type warrior, and our 8-year old playing a good Ork. The first session of the story, which I've titled the “Lost Ruins of the Ral'i,” was a success with the crew tracking down the pirates who kidnapped their employer and defeating one of their captains. Looking forward to continuing this adventure!

Final Fantasy IX

Still frustrated by Citizen Sleeper 2 but with my video game itch still unscratched, I remembered that I bought a remastered edition of Final Fantasy IX on Steam several years ago. Seeing as I remember the characters so fondly but the story has mostly faded from my memory, AND the fact that my aging relic of a laptop is more than capable of playing it, I installed it and put well over 4 hours into my save file before grudgingly going to bed far too late last night.

Playing this game, and also staying up irresponsibly late, brought back so many good memories and felt like a real return to my childhood. My memory of Zidane being my favorite protagonist of any Final Fantasy entry that I've played held up, plus the steampunk vibes—perfection.

Anyway…

As of writing this, I’ve only skimmed today’s newsletter from 1440 so I don’t yet have a good idea what the week ahead has in store but I’m feeling fully R&R’d and ready to face it. Let’s go!

Also, if you want to follow what I’m up to, you can find all of my current social links over on my website. While the links are all there, it’s currently in the midst of a gradual revamp so please excuse the dust. Have a good week!

“What do you want with me, Jesus, son of the Most High God?” (Mk 5:7 RNJB) I have the same question as the demoniac. What do you want with me? With any of us?

Mark's gospel today presents Jesus as more than a religious teacher with a message. His ability to command spirits reveals a spiritual authority over the unseen world and the intelligible beings that influence us from beyond this world of sense. As the esoteric Christian Community states succinctly in its creed, “he is the Lord of the heavenly forces upon earth.”

That lordship, though, works through us, over time. It doesn't end with the healing. The past and the present are connected in the now of God, so that what we do now fulfills what began before. In his letter to the Hebrews, Saint Paul reflects that though the great heroes of his faith had “acted righteously and earned the promises… they did not receive what was promised.” (Hb 11:33, 39 RNJB)

It took Christ’s incarnation to catalyze that change. Those of us born into faith at this end of history, on the other side of the Resurrection and Ascension, are as instrumental to that work of salvation as the prophets, priests, and kings of old. “God foresaw for us something better, and they were not to reach perfection except with us.” (Hb 11:40 RNJB)

Christ works in us, for all, across all time. What we do now in him echoes through history in both directions, perfecting ourselves, our world, and all who lived in it. So “go home to your people and tell them all that the Lord in his mercy has done for you.” (Mk 5:19 RNJB)

There are people that want to take my right to live to erase people like me to force me to live in misery

I know they aren't all evil But they don't want to understand me And they do want to control me So how can I trust them?

Especially when They bully me into compliance Threaten me into hiding Force me to follow their rules

But one thing they will never do is make me give up

I refuse

No matter what else they take from me they will never take my hope my will to fight

I refuse

When they try to smother me I will scream out louder

When they try to keep me down I will rise up stronger

When they try to break my spirit I will refuse to give up

#Poetry #TouchTheClouds #Determination #Hope #Trans #TransRights