Election night

I’ve been tagging photos and doing some Groceteria updates all night. I’m about to read a bit of my Expo ’67 book and go to sleep. I have been on a complete social media, messaging, and broadcast blackout since I finished teaching a class at 7, so I can avoid the election returns till morning and get some sleep tonight. I have no idea right now what’s going on.

Two years ago, I spent election night in Ottawa, vowing not to watch the returns. I broke my vow and had one of the worst nights of my life. I will not relive that.

I’m fucking terrified.

After 15 years…

…your risk of heart disease and pancreatic cancer are the same as for someone who never smoked.

I quit smoking fifteen years ago today. You can do it too.

What was I thinking?

Why do I start doing things that will make me crazy at 9:00 on a Friday night? In preparation for getting this site SSL compliant (which actually was easier than I expected, despite some weirdness stemming from two very old WordPress plugins I should have gotten rid of a long time ago) I ended up doing a global find and replace. There were problems, and to oversimplify, when I finished the process, my site reverted to a state from sometime in 2009. I’m not entirely sure how that happened; it seems a bit random.

And then I tried to restore from my nice, fresh backup…which was apparently corrupted.

Anyway, after lots of SQL and FTP and SSH and all those other acronyms I’m glad I still remember how to use, I’m back up now for the enjoyment of all three of my fans! And everything should be pretty SSL compliant by later tonight, so you will stop seeing those “not secure” warnings that really don’t matter because you’re not submitting data anyway.

And I have a good, clean backup again. I know because I just restored from it.

Yes, I could leave the server stuff to someone else, but I don’t want to.

Anyway, I’m glad I did this site before the other one, at least.

At least be honest with yourself

You can say that you’re a Republican who doesn’t support Trump all day long, but if you continue to vote for candidates who do support him (or don’t do anything to stop him) then you are supporting Trump, whether you want to admit it or not.

If you can’t bring yourself to cross the aisle in this extremely important referendum on our country’s future, at least have the courage to admit what you’re doing. This is a terrifying point in our history, particularly for those of usĀ who don’t look, love, or worship in a manner acceptable to the current administration. It’s not “just politics” for us and it’s not about saving a few dollars in taxes. It’s life and death.

Just make sure you understand all the implications of what you do in the voting booth on your loved ones and on the very system of government that Americans hold dear. It’s not a game and it’s not a fucking reality show.