Driving my parents' GMC suburban home late one rainy night from my job, I took the turn into the driveway too tight. I scraped the side of the truck against the chainlink fence gate post. The hinge pin cut a gash in the side of the truck.
I knew my dad would be pissed. Everyone was asleep already, so there was nothing to do but do to sleep.
When I woke up the next morning and told my mom, she said she knew and she told me not to say anything to anyone and my dad was going to take care of it.
As it turns out, they were using me as an example of a good driver to shame my brother and my sister, and they didn't want them throwing it back in their faces.
A man I supervised died at work. He happened to die in his office on a Friday night when he has scheduled to be off work the following week. On Wednesday the cops where he lived called me and asked me to check his office. He was supposed to meet up with his brother on Saturday, but never showed.
I went to his office and found him there, dead and very cold.
I was scheduled off on the Thursday and Friday. When I returned his office had been emptied, the walls painted, and the ceiling and flooring replaced. We finally found out what it took to get one of our offices renovated.
The spooky part is I continued to see him walking in the halls after. Clear enough that I once ran down to the end of the hall where he turned, only to discover no one there.
I don't really believe in ghosts, although I'd like to. So, my explanation is that it was just my mind fucking with me.
The new story is just a little bit spooky.
My dad's birthday is the day after mine. I'm May 4th, he's the 5th. My mom didn't have to buy him a birthday present the year I was born.
Every year I'd get a birthday card for him. Always something goofy. I love my dad, but it's a complicated relationship, and all the sappy, "you're the wind beneath my wings" cards never sat right with me. So I'd always pick a joke card.
This year the first card I picked up was a sappy card. I read it and for some reason it didn't seem wrong. I still thought that I should get a goofy card instead, but I couldn't find where I pulled the sappy one from to put it back, so I bought that one.
My wife noticed and questioned me about it, but I said it was what I wanted to give him.
We decided to go to my parents early on the 2nd to celebrate the birthdays.
It was a nice visit. My dad and I drove to a sandwich shop to pick up lunch so we had some time together in the car, and then my wife and I spent the rest of the day with them.
We also had a conversation about opening the card before his birthday. He said it wasn't his birthday, a sentiment that I would normally agree with, but I told him that we were celebrating early and he should open it, so he did.
Early the next morning, my mom called me to tell me he died. It was Sunday morning, and he had insisted on going to church. They got there, but he was having trouble walking up hill from the parking space. My mom told him to park closer, and he got nasty with her (one last opportunity to verbally abuse her), so she got out and went into church without him.
When he didn't show up, she went out to check on him and found him sitting on a short wall trying to catch his breath. She went over to make sure he wouldn't fall. He stood up and they walked into church and sat in the pew. As soon as they sat down, he leaned over on her and died.
So a bit spooky that I got him the first "I love you, dad" card in more than 30 years for the birthday he didn't make it to. Also spooky that he was so unusually insistent on getting to church that morning.
To really freak people out, I have to make sure that when I eventually die it's on May 2nd.
He also pointed blame at the media for its coverage of the USS Abraham Lincoln, saying outlets " are trying to paint our warriors as victims. Not only is that dishonest, but it takes away the focus on the enemy and the threat it poses against our nation, people, and way of life."
Which enemy? Trump? Because I have yet to see any evidence that Iran would have been a threat to our nation, people, or our way of life if President Pedo hadn't just left Obama's deal in place.
Unfortunately, some people care. Bigots and transphobes care. Those are the people they are courting.
They've failed at everything they said they would do. They've broken every promise about the things most of their supporters cared about. The economy is shit, prices are high, they started a pointless war and fucked that up.
The only things they have succeeded with are hurting the people that their most racist, transphobic, homophobic, and nationalist-Christian supporters hate. It's the only thing they don't have to lie about doing. Of course they are going to push harder.
I used to think that way, and then in the past year I just changed. Now I make my bed every morning and I'm happier. I don't know why.
I think it is just the clearest indicator that I've transitioned from aging to old. I made it 55 years thinking making the bed was a waste of time, but in my 56th year my attitude suddenly and without warning flipped.
I live in an old brick house with lath and plaster walls. It also was built before air conditioning was a thing.
It does amazingly well in summer. Cool downstairs on all but the absolute hottest days.
Definitely not earthquake proof. If there's ever an earthquake they should just put a couple tombstones on top of the pile of rubble and leave it be, because there's no way my wife and I will survive. Not worth someone risking tetanus trying to dig us out.
However, we're also on the East Coast of the U.S. As I understand it, earthquakes here are on a kind of millennial cycle with lots of time to build up to an apocalyptic level of destruction, so if it happens to be time for one of those, it probably doesn't matter what I'm living in.
Strange, because the allies get their asses handed to them. However, I like it for the line spoken to a German soldier sent under a flag of truce to discuss surrender with the outnumbered and surrounded British forces.
Major Harry Carlyle: "We haven't the proper facilities to take you all prisoner! Sorry! We'd like to, but we can't accept your surrender!"
Back in the before time, I was having a problem getting a new ethernet card working in Linux. I posted a question in USENET, and got a reply from the guy who wrote the driver for the NIC. I supplied the info he asked for and he got the driver working for the new NIC.
I loved USENET back in the day, but it doesn't do what it used to.
Pure, or nearly pure text boards are still useful, but that's how I use Lemmy now. I just wish it had more general buy-in.
Honestly, you could look at USENET as federation before federation needed to be a thing. Way back when it was all hosted mostly on university servers. Lemmy seems to me to be very much the heir to USENET.
That 'r' is doing a lot of work.