In Summary: * Relaxing now to easy listening music for a few hours after a quiet Good Friday. Plans for the rest of this evening include surfing the socials then the night prayers and an early bedtime.

Prayers, etc.: * I have a daily prayer regimen I try to follow throughout the day from early morning, as soon as I roll out of bed, until head hits pillow at night. Details of that regimen are linked to my link tree, which is linked to my profile page here.

Starting Ash Wednesday, 2026, I've added this daily prayer as part of the Prayer Crusade Preceding the 2026 SSPX Episcopal Consecrations.

Health Metrics: * bw= 227.74 lbs. * bp= 145/85 (66)

Exercise: * morning stretches, balance exercises, kegel pelvic floor exercises, half squats, calf raises, wall push-ups

Diet: * 06:30 – 1 ham sandwich * 07:30 – 1 peanut butter sandwich * 09:15 – snacking on air-popped popcorn * 12:45 – Mongolian beef lunch plate, fried rice * 16:10 – 1 fresh apple

Activities, Chores, etc.: * 04:30 – listen to local news talk radio * 05:20 – bank accounts activity monitored * 05:45 – read, write, pray, follow news reports from various sources, surf the socials, nap, * 10:00 – watching MLB Central on MLB Network * 12:45 to 13:45 – watch old game shows and eat lunch at home with Sylvia * 14:00 – Listening to The Good Friday Solemn Liturgical Action, according to the 1962 Roman Missal on Pelican+ * 15:00 – now following the Texas Rangers vs the Cincinnati Reds MLB Game * 17:35 – and the Reds win 5 to 3. * 18:00 – listen to relaxing music

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

#002332 – 17 de Outubro de 2025

Antes de adormecer resolvo o cubo 5x5x5 que ofereci ao meu sobrinho. O que tenho em casa está partido. Ainda no campo das metáforas nerd, a minha vida familiar continua feliz e equilibrada enquanto na minha vida pessoal há peças que não encaixam, outras estão partidas.

For this is the best thing anyone has ever gifted me:

Paula, my granddaughter, was seven years old when what I’m about to tell happened. She had always been very clever and lively since she was little. She observed everything around her quietly, with those honey colored eyes of hers, absorbing everything.

She calls me “Li,” since she was a baby, a short for “groseli,” an affectionate variation from the swiss-german word for grandmother. The word entered into our family since my father Lorenz came from Zurich. Her name “Paula” honors my father’s favorite sister, who went to war as a nurse and never came back.

Paula and I always get along very well. We share so many affinities. We talk a lot about what happens in her world and in mine, things that, in one way or another, matter to us both.

I have fun with her quick thinking and her ability to understand things so easily, which often leaves me astonished. For weeks she had been reminding me: — “Li, it’s been so long since we’ve been to great grandma’s cemetery. Not even once since Christmas!”

I used to take her there to decorate her great grandparents’ grave, because she loves bringing them flowers and arranging them on the small plot. — “That’s true,” I replied, surprised by her memory. “But I think you mean ‘grave,’ not ‘cemetery,’ right?” — “Yes, Li. Are we going to decorate it or not?”

Since an important date for her great grandparents was coming up and it had been raining nonstop for days, I told her we should wait a little longer so we could prepare everything nicely for my parents, so their grave would look beautiful on their day. She agreed.

As we live far from each other, Paula asked me to let her know when the day came and “not forget to take her with me!”.

Her contact with my mother had been very brief. She never met her great grandfather, and when she was just four, my mother passed away. Yet, from that short time of occasional visits, Paula kept affectionate and respectful memories of a very old, fragile great grandmother to whom we devoted so much care and tenderness.

Paula loves her mother, my daughter Julia, very much, and she respects everything she is taught.

I remember the day when my daughter and I came back from my mother’s burial.

Paula offered me her bedroom so I could “rest.” She had noticed my sadness, that I was crying and withdrawn. She came close to me, gently, wanting to comfort me, telling me not to be sad because her mother had told her that great grandma had gone to join great grandpa in heaven. She stroked my hair and kissed me, trying to console me in her delicate way.

Her sensitivity amazed me. In her young mind, she must have imagined how painful it is to lose your mother. She understood my pain and tried to ease it with her innocent affection, so pure and sincere. Since then, she goes to the cemetery with me whenever possible.

Interestingly, my daughter never joins us on these “visits.” She cannot accept the tradition, somehow, it brings her distress. She refuses to follow it but does not impose her feelings on her children. I realized how difficult it was for her even to come to my mother’s burial. She is very sensitive, and I respect her way of feeling. Paula knows it too, yet she simply follows her own nature.

On the promised day, I went to pick her up, already carrying a bouquet of flowers. Paula immediately asked: — “Can I carry the flowers?” And off we went. She sat in the back seat, holding the bouquet tightly in both little hands, completely focused. After a while she asked: — “Great‑grandma will like them, right?” — “Yes, she will love them,” I replied.

As we approached the cemetery, she wanted to know in which section the graves were in. Surprised, I answered that I had actually never paid attention. And she, in a scolding tone, said: — “But Li… YOU don’t know?”

We arrived. As soon as I opened the car door, she ran off with the flowers toward the grave. The place is beautiful, slightly elevated, surrounded by large leafy trees. I let her arrange the flowers, because she feels very important doing so. She placed them carefully, perfectly, and then watered them. She always knows exactly what to do.

During one of her trips back and forth with the watering can, she found the sign marking the cemetery sections and came to tell me: — “Look, Li, your mother is in section C. Have you learned it now?” Then I asked her: — “I’ve learned. And do you think it looks nice?”

She quietly stepped back about five steps, hands on her little hips, examined it with great conviction, and answered: — “It looks very beautiful, Li.”

With her eyes turned toward the sky, as if looking for something, in a mix of worry and anticipation, she whispered facing up: — “Great‑grandma, are you seeing us from up there? We took so long to come… You were waiting for us, weren’t you? But now I know you’ll be happy.”

Marianne Fouquet Horwatitsch

It was a nightmare disguised as a dream: My wedding day. I “arrived” at this stadium, a sports complex only to have someone say “Surprise! It’s your wedding day!” I was swiftly informed that my groom (implied that it was JM) was waiting for me at a secret location, and that in the meantime I could get “ready” and meet the entourage and his friends before I make it to our ceremony.

I did not like the vibes of whatever it was I was stepping into. I was inexplicably already in a wedding dress. In a garment that didn’t feel like me, and when I had mentioned hair and makeup… they were dismissive. They insisted I looked fine. It’s my wedding day, RELAX! But I remembered I looked in the mirror and wasn’t please with the colours on my face. They insisted that all I had to do was show up to the as yet revealed top secret location. My man’ll be there. The dream dragged on. Every person I met along the way, was not a friend. It was not my kind of crowd. There were many faces of people in my past, in bodies that don’t feel familiar. And if it was a friend of the groom’s, they had such a toxic-bro vibe. There was also a great lack of diversity.

My sister made an appearance, and as she has been known to do, gently encouraged me to stay on this wrong path. She wanted me to contineu on with the sham marriage, in spite of my protestations. Even though I was resistant. She insisted. The whole thing felt so incompatible with my dream/desired life.

Something just shifted.

Not a small shift. Not a mood. Not a moment.

A shift.

I can’t fully explain it—but I can feel it down in the bones. It’s the collision of two callings. Pastor… and chaplain. Not competing. Not dividing. Merging. Like two rivers crashing into one current, and suddenly the flow gets deeper… stronger… unavoidable.

And here’s what’s shaking me—

I am profoundly rewarded doing hospice chaplaincy.

As a pastor, I’ve tasted it. Sunday mornings. Hands lifted. People coming forward. Tears breaking loose at the altar. I’ve taken those hands, prayed those prayers, felt that holy moment when heaven leans in close.

But hospice?

That’s different.

Those people don’t have time the way others ‘think’ they do.

They’re not circling the runway.

They’re landing.

And because of that, everything changes.

They slip—quickly, naturally—into end-of-life reality. Into decisions most people spend their whole lives avoiding. No pretending. No delaying. No spiritual procrastination.

It’s like when the word came to Hezekiah:

“Set your house in order… for you shall die.”

That’s not poetry when you’re in hospice.

That’s not a sermon illustration.

That’s now.

And yes—there are affairs to settle. Legal things. Financial things. Important things.

But those are not the greatest things.

The greatest affairs…

…are the affairs of the heart.

Forgiveness.

Reconciliation.

Peace with God.

Are you ready?

Not ready to talk about it.

Not ready to think about it.

Ready.

Ready to meet Jesus.

And when I sit with them—when they begin to pray, not politely, not rehearsed, but raw… when tears come from a place deeper than words… when they call on God with everything they’ve got left—

You can feel Him.

Not theory. Not theology.

Presence.

Thick. Near. Undeniable.

The palpable Presence of the Lord settles in that room just as real—just as powerful—as any altar call in a Pentecostal service.

Maybe stronger.

Because there’s no crowd.

No performance.

Just a soul… and eternity… and God.

And this Easter—

I can’t just talk about resurrection.

I’ve felt it.

He didn’t just rise from the grave.

He resurrected something in me.

Things I thought were buried—hopes, desires, callings I had quietly laid down and walked away from—He brought them back to life.

The call to chaplaincy.

The hunger to go deeper.

The desire to grow, to train, to sharpen—to even pursue counseling, to stretch this calling further than I ever planned.

He put me here.

And I’m not turning back.

So this isn’t just a blog.

This is a prayer.

Thank You, Father.

Thank You, Jesus.

The Great Shepherd.

The true Comforter.

The Chaplain who never leaves the bedside.

The One who walks people all the way through the valley…

…and brings them home.

Thank You, Jesus.

Last week, Alpha School had an informational meeting for prospective parents in Boston. If you don’t feel like clicking, Alpha School is “reinventing education’ with the help of AI, something something disruption, something something personalizaton, “crushing” academics, etc.

Now, Alpha School is a private school charging between 40k and 70k a year, so at least they’re not trying to tap into public money. Yet. More on this later.

But there are a number of HUGE red flags about this place that folks should know about. I mean, apart from the whole “The magic of AI will transform school” nonsense, which would be a red flag for many people. If you want to read what this looks like in practice, here’s a Wired article from last year. It’s kinda harrowing stuff. (And here’s an article about the article, expanding on some extremely problematic stuff that’s only mentioned in passing in the Wired article).

But even if that doesn’t convince you that Alpha School is a bad idea, dig this:

The school was co-founded (and presumably funded) by billionaire Joe Liemandt. It should by this point be axiomatic that billionaires are people of low moral character, but in case you think Liemandt is an exception, here is an article from Forbes about how Liemandt’s second career was starting a “digital sweatshop.” Yep, he made his money by firing tons of people and replacing them with low-cost overseas workers who he subjected to constant digital surveillance.

The only way you become a billionaire is by treating people like things. Achieving billionaire status indicates an empathy deficit that is most likely pathological. Such people are simply not to be trusted around other people’s children.

Note—I am not saying Liemandt is in the Epstein Files (he’s not—I checked); I’m saying that it is extremely unlikely that he is capable of viewing Alpha School students as human beings rather than as numbers on a spreadsheet, and this cannot be good for them.

But maybe you still want to pay tens of thousands of dollars for your kids to go to a school run by a probable sociopath. Well, consider this. Speaking at the info session were Liemandt and a guy named Michael Horn that the Alpha Boston website identifies only by “Harvard GSE.”

Which is technically true, but he’s an adjunct at Harvard GSE. His main career is thought leader huckster. He is the founder of the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, which is apparently a real thing, though it’s certainly giving “Montgomery Burns Award For Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence.’ Anyway, listing his only affiliation as Harvard GSE is techically true but also kind of deceptive, which is a bad way to start a relationship with parents.

In search of more red flags, I looked up Alpha School’s Form 990 to see how much they’re paying people and where their money comes from. And guess what? There isn’t one! That’s because each Alpha School is incorporated as a for-profit entity in the State of Texas.

This has several really bad implications. One is that these schools’ primary purpose is to generate a profit. So when doing what’s right by students conflicts with making a profit, students will lose every time.

The other concern is the complete lack of transparency that a private LLC affords. Nobody outside the company can see the financials. But it’ll probably be fine! What could possibly go wrong?

Since the ed reform grift has been always primarily been about getting access to that sweet public money, it’s a little odd to me that the new grift seems to be setting up private schools that are “disruptive innovators.” But I think this is really just a long con.

Here’s how it works. Since the SAT primarily measures household income, people who can pay 40-70k per year will probably have kids who score pretty well on it. So then the private, for-profit schools can take that data and go, “Look, our disruptive AI-centered teaching leads to high SAT scores!” and credulous local politicians will presumably fall for it and start writing them checks to run public schools. Especially since none of their other data will be public. How many kids leave the school? How many are suspended? How many English Language Learners and students with disabilities does the school serve? The public cannot know the answers to these questions, so all we’ll have is smooth talking hucksters and some anecdotal evidence in the form of testimonials.

It’s kind of funny how the “data driven education” people are now deliberately obscuring their data. Presumably because they’ve figured out that their disruptive innovation doesn’t actually work very well.

Which, of course, doesn’t matter. Because these schools are in business to generate a profit. So it ultimately doesn’t matter if the product is good, as long as you can get the marks to keep lining up to buy it.

Notes on Andy Revkin's chat with the authors of AI and the Art of Being Human (from 4/3/26)

Initial thought: The authors seem credible and serious, but because I've never heard of them, it's harder to trust them fully with my attention. This experience points to the importance of trust and reputation (the rhetorical notion of ethos) in the current milieu. I do trust Revkin, so I guess that gets me in the room.

Also, this book seems to emphasize the practical, with “tools” and “exercises.” This kind of thing tends to turn me off a bit. I'm suspicious of formulas and being a “follower” or joining a “movement.” Echoing the above thought, I suppose I'm slow to trust such things.

A few other quick takeaways:

1. They used AI (Claude, specifically, which they said was much better than ChatGPT) extensively to write the book, something like I have thought about doing with a book idea.

2. They (or one of them) sponsors a movement of AI Salons. This seems like a fun idea. I've had the notion of hosting some petite salons and pretending to be 17th century French proto-feminist intellectuals.

3. Andrew's opening demonstration of Suno (music generation) was pretty wild.

4. They have tools geared specifically for educators. This is something I plan to explore further.

5. They seem to be asking many of the same kinds of questions I am, and doing so from a similar standpoint (AI agnosticism). E.g., “What makes me me, if AI can produce everything I can produce?” “What does my individual path toward thriving look like in the world that is emerging?”

6. They are well aware that AI is not “just a tool” (not that tools are “just tools”).

7. But as they are drawn back to the default framing of “what it means to be human” that is expressed in their title, I am struck by how rapidly this framing is being reduced to a vacuous cliche. Part of that is the simple ubiquity of the question: the more we hear it, the less it resonates. But beyond the emptiness of the question, there is an almost AI-like sameness and flatness to the answers that are proffered. The discourse of “being human” lacks historical, cultural, and philosophical depth.

8. Maybe this is an outcome of the imperative to make discourse broadly, even universally, legible (to paraphrase Nguyen's The Score, which I'm currently reading). What if, at the individual level, the best answers are the least legible to others? What if the meaning of being human is the capacity to generate answers to that very question that make sense, at least initially, only to the person who is doing the answering? The absolute refusal to be value captured?

9. This could be a kind of definition of art: something is a work of art just to the extent that it is maximally legible to the artist and minimally legible to anyone else — to the extent, that is, that it refuses translation.

10. This hardly forecloses the possibility of its subsequently being translated, of course. Everything can be translated. Everything can resonate. And some art will resonate broadly. But it will not have been created for that purpose. The words, the colors, the rhythms, the textures — these will have been chosen for reasons that elude reason, that are ultimately inscrutable, that are of the heart, not the head. The resonance, the translation, will follow after.

11. Of course, this is all super naive. There is no self, no pure origin from which original ideas could spring. “We are a dialogue.” We are thrown projections. We are fragments, remnants, pieces of kintsugi (wabi-sabi pottery).

12. But still. We are each unprecedented, unforecastable, unique filters through which what has been flows into what's to come.

#002331 – 16 de Outubro de 2025

Menos de dois meses depois de ter caído um pedaço da A1 perto de Coimbra, passo por lá de carro. Uma cegonha esvoaça uns metros perpendicular ao carro e a seguir vejo vários dos enormes ninhos destas aves. Daí a meia-hora estou a jogar basket com os meus sobrinhos e o meu cunhado. Foram só 25 minutos de dribles e suor, mas ainda assim mais tempo seguido do que em qualquer outra altura nos últimos 35 anos.

Another year, another update. This turning into a cadence.

I’m a year older, a year (hopefully) wiser, and a few traumas richer since I the last time I wrote. I did not expect to find myself at this place at this point in my life, but—to be honest—I didn’t really imagine much at all. The strife of recent years in my personal and professional life has made me incapable of projecting and planning long term, and my life has been reduced to that of survival of a yet another day. It was not a life for a while now, it was living.

Now, at the tail-end of this turmoil, as the healing continues and the things feel like they are settling into place, I have hope that it does—indeed—get better. One of my biggest concerns is how all of this affects my child as she’s in the middle of it all without any choice of her own. Kids do tend to be resilient, or so people say, but as parents we want to eliminate all the pain and hurt from our kids’ lives. It is hard to admit that some of this harder experiences shape the beautiful people we hope help raise.

My child is already my favorite artist of all times. Inspired by her creativity, I’ve noticed my own drive to create. It has fizzled out over the decade plus that I’ve spend in the corporate software development for “performance advertising” businesses (real-time ad space bidding.) To say it was soul-crushing would be an understatement. All the things I cared about, like honing the craft and creative problem solving, simplicity and elegance over ease, were sacrificed chasing the all-mighty OKRs. Creativity was killed by timelines that didn’t allow it.

I’m excited to create again, after what feels like a lifetime hiatus. I remember having a great response back when I was doing it back in Croatia, and I feel like I have even more to offer these days. I don’t have a label for what I do now. Artist, maybe? Maker? Designer? Creative? Artisan? In an effort to provide some info to those who don’t know me yet, I’m billing the whole effort as a “transdisciplinary artisanal practice.”

I have many project in various stages of development, of varying complexity and timelines, and seeing them finally moving forward, no matter how slowly, is encouraging. There are things I’m excited to share with you, things that I’m excited to learn, and interesting people that I’m yet to meet and/or collaborate with.

I feel fortunate to be in this place at this time in some ways. Detroit has become my hometown, and I’m glad to be here, despite (or maybe even because) all the horrors that are happening in this country. The city makes me feel like the better future not only possible, but there for the taking.

Stay safe 💜

Although the chaos of everything has been, well, a lot, to say the least, I have been painting. Some of the completed pieces are below.

I guess these are easter eggs, or from a very strange bird. It’s amazing the direction a painting will go. A couple more, if you’re interested, below the cut.

I guess these are bottles?

From Valentine’s day, a love tree. It had not started out to be a tree. It had not started out to have anything to do with trees, or flowers, or… anything mushy. But here it is.

Another working day

I hate this fucking world. I need a place to say it. Is this a manifesto? Only if I do something bad. My convictions/principles say no, but my heart has festered long with hate. I wish to hurt and commit evil. But I will impose on these feelings and contain them. Will this lead to self-imploding? Time will tell but who cares. No one does in this disgusting world. I crave attention. Don't you? Is it because I want someone to listen? Is it narcissism? Is it because I want my words to have meaning and otherwise they are meaningless? Maybe a combination of those. Regardless. I have to vent off. For the sake of my sanity. Don't you? You probably have a loved one to speak to don't you. You probably are here to find poetry or on some linguistic enculture-ment, aren't you? I'm here to let go of this boiling tar of a soul. To let it fill you up with discontent, misery and hate. Hopefully. That's what I want. I want you to share in my suffering. You deserve it because I suffer too. No one should. And if one does then everyone else deserves it.

This is pure emotion speaking. A drama-queen child, set free to speak as it wishes. There is no logic in what I am saying. I am aware of that. No one is actually reading this right? So what am I doing.. why am I even writing this. Does it achieve venting if no one listens... I got no other outlet. This is all I have for times like these. Might as well. Writhe and simmer with hate is what I know at times like this. I can't have a friend to speak to because they would grow tired of my bickering. Who wouldn't be fed up with this repeating somber monologue.

I hate that regardless of my efforts, I fall into the same pitfalls. I see them everyday and I repeat the same mistakes. Sometimes accidentally. Most of the times aware of them. I am too weak to save myself. And I have created a reality of loneliness unable to ask for someone's help. Not that they would understand anyways. Everyday, I will convince myself today will be different. And every night I will face regret for failing to stop making the same mistakes. And the cycle repeats without end. Ever closer to death. Decaying consistently. I can notice the strain of this way of living on my psyche. I am growing more forgetful and fragile. A noticeable cognitive decline. Will I last years like this? Will anything ever change? How much time has it been so far? 1? 2 years? Was 3 years back the same. My state of mind feels the same as this page. Pitch black with some white letters of what remains of me. Same as my room. Dull and blank and dark, with feint light. As if the letters and the light are barely noticeable hanging by a thread and the darkness dominates. Dominates my vision.

Everyday I try to have this simple schedule. So simple in essence. So hard in execution. 8.5 hours of sleep, 1.5 hour of workout, 7 hours of work + 1 hour of food-break, 3 hours of fun, 2 hours of productivity and 1 hour of random responsibilities. My fun is video games and such. And my productivity should be (but I miserably fail to do so) some form of learning. No room for family, walks, friends, venting off. If I do any of those I sacrifice time from the other ideal routine. Oh how I crave for this perfection. But the world isn't perfect. I get stressed out at work and I need to vent off. I get sleepy after food and I want to dose off. I get horny at night and I want to jerk off. Weekend has responsibilities. Everyday mom calls asks how I am and I lie that I am fine. I am not fine. I am descending into madness. Into the inevitable end when health problems etc, accumulate too much to shove under a rug. So much so that you can't handle them and you pay the toll. Until it's too high. Until you die. Of misery. And with regret. That is the world. That is living. That is working to survive. Survive to live another day of the same torturous cycle.

And you know the craziest part? I have it much much much much better than the average person... I am privileged and still I am stifled. Probably because I am weak. How do you manage? I don't understand how you can manage...

Anyways the time is nigh again. I can't expend more venting lest I sacrifice time of my fun, or sleep, or productivity. I'd rather have more fun. No amount of fun is ever enough. I am a junky for it. I don't want to sacrifice my precious fun. My precious, precious fun. My precious fun is a drug that keeps me near. To the childhood I lost replaced by fear.