From Grumpy's Garage

Image: pxhere.com (This is the fifth in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth .  More information ) I’m frustrated with Storyworth. Or rather, I’m frustrated with the text editor in their web app. It doesn’t give me the control I like to have over formatting. It doesn’t let me chose the font (e.g., bold, italic or underlined), control the line spacing, or wrap text around images (or create image captions). It just frustrates me. I do like their prompts. I like that they let me add family members to a list and handle sending my essays to them, though just saying that out loud (err, writing it down for me to see) sounds narcissistic. (Another benefit might be that, once I move to another platform and remove you from the Storyworth distribution list, you probably won’t see sales pitches coming from them anymore.) But how is Storyworth different from subscribing to a writer’s prompt service (there are a few free ones) and pos...

"Put on then ... compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, ..." (Ephesians 4:32) "Love your enemies, bless those who curse you..." (Matthew 5:44) Compassion? Kindness? Meekness? Love? I know that it's the right thing to do, but do I have to? I really just want my enemies to burn in hell. Well, sometimes. But wishing ill on my perceived enemies wouldn't fix anything. I'm looking for ways to effect positive change in the world, not exact retribution. So, on April 19, I went into town to the steps of city hall. My First Rally Speaker after speaker rose to the microphone and exhorted us to unify with others who share our values and our passion for democracy, and to approach our enemies with love and compassion. I was at my first political rally.  We all seemed to have our pet peeves: "RISE UP!" "BRING GARCIA HOME!" "DEFEND DEMOCRACY!"  "HANDS OFF!" "WE STAND WITH FEDERAL WORKERS!" And ...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the fourth in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth .  More information ) P.E. Enough said.

Sunrise over Lake Union, near the Google Seattle office (This is the third in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth . This essay has been edited from its original.  More information ) I love early morning walks. Let me get ready for a busy day. When I worked at Google in Seattle, sunrises over Lake Union always gave me joy. Or, if I’m visiting family in Maine, I’ll marvel at a sunset over Flanders Bay. Those are magical times. Sometimes I like to just sit near the water’s edge and watch wavelets lap the shoreline. Or ships pass by, if there are any. On one of our several visits to Port Townsend, Stephanie and I found a wine bar with outdoor seating overlooking the anchorage. We captured the moment. It speaks to the simple joy of the moment. Being with my soul mate. Watching boats at anchor. Sipping wine. Port Townsend Bay I enjoy hearing my own thoughts. It seems that many people can’t just be with themselves in silence. ...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the second in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from  Storyworth .  More information ) I knew my maternal grandparents (Gowie and Grampa) better than I did my dad’s parents (Grandpa and Grandma Haney).  Grandpa Haney died of a heart attack when I was maybe five or six years old. My only memories of him are of his thumb. I could push on the face of his thumb and make an indentation, like it was Playdoh. I also remember seeing him wearing a carpenter’s belt, he was at church working in a project with other men there (Pilgrim Temple, Oakland, California). All of my other memories of Grandpa Haney were from photographs around Grandma Haney’s house, most taken on their missionary trips to Liberia, where my father was born. Grandma Haney was rather reserved. I’d even go so far as to say she was a little uptight. She had silver hair and a well-kept home in Oakland.  I recall that she had a contraption ...

Mr. Moneybags in politics Image: Google Gemini What is more democratic: letting people choose their leaders or forcing people to obey corporate executives? Would a "Democratic Party" candidate that has close ties to corporate power appeal to voters as an alternative to a supposed billionaire? In Naomi Klein's book,  No Is Not Enough , she posits that one reason Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election was because she has too many ties to corporate interests and old school power structures. Put another way, Clinton wasn't progressive enough. Klein is an author, journalist, filmmaker, and activist focusing on ecofeminism, organized labor, and corporate power [1] . I've been reading No Is Not Enough to help me understand how we got into our current political crisis and how we might extricate ourselves. The Progressive Guard: Sanders and Warren Klein contrasts Clinton's campaign with that of Bernie Sanders, the senator from Vermont and self-described progressive Dem...

Image: Google Gemini (This is the first in a series of essays that I wrote in early 2024 in response to writing prompts from Storyworth . More information ) I often don’t tolerate advertisements, whether they are on websites that I visit, videos that I watch, or commercial “yard” signs by the side of the road (on public property, I might add). If I’m in the market for something, I’ll search for it online, thank you. My web browser is armed with ad blockers (that I still must disable to get to some websites). That’s an eternal game of Whack-A-Mole. I pay extra to avoid ads on Netflix. (Amazon has just announced that they are going to start showing ads on Prime Video. I don’t watch Prime Video often enough yet to pay the extra $2.99 per month.) I’ve heard that some people get YouTube pop-up nag messages complaining about ad blockers. I say my first one this week. I often look for ad blockers that content sites cannot detect. Yet. In the last week, I’ve installed Pi Hole, a program runnin...

Every now and then I hear a Trump supporter explain why they voted for him: "Because he'll bring market discipline to running the government. He'll run it like a business." But is that really what we want? What would that look like?  Are we seeing that now (April, 2025)? What Trump, Musk, and DOGE Have Done So Far President Trump, "Prime Minister" Musk, and DOGE have:  Identified various divisions (bureaus, agencies, and departments) that they want to eliminate, such as USAID Begun massive layoffs of workers in those divisions Begun massive layoffs even of divisions they intend to keep Started consolidating functions of divisions they want to close with divisions they want to keep Started closing field offices and consolidating functions in larger regional offices Canceled leases and identified properties to later sell off Canceled labor union contracts, including for TSA Canceled contracts and programs that would provide "non-essential" services, ...

Designed by Wannapik Back in December, 2023, my eldest daughter bought me a subscription for my birthday. Storyworth would send me a writing prompt each week for all of 2024. The prompts were always framed as a question, and I was invited to login and write a short essay to answer it. At first, I was intrigued. My kids and grandkids might learn a bit more about who I really was.  While the prompts often seemed trivial, I often found it challenging to write a good answer. The first prompt was, "What are some of your biggest pet peeves?" I know that I have pet peeves. Lots of them. And anyone who spends much time with me quickly learns what they are. But sitting down and simply listing them is kinda hard. For starters, I had to look at my personality and habits from an external perspective. I had to put myself in the shoes of people around me. That requires a certain level of self-awareness that I don't often practice. As I identified some of my pet peeves, I found myself ...

Image: Leonardo.ai Whenever I hear that the Christian right supports Donald Trump, I cringe. Jesus didn't teach what Trump is preaching to the world. Even when he doesn't say anything, Trump's actions speak volumes about his worldview. Jesus called his followers to be humble, forgiving, generous, and loving to one another. He didn't call for followers to spend their time and energy preparing for life after death. Focus on the here and now, not the hereafter. It was about living what you believe by serving others. I especially appreciated how this was captured at the church I attended before COVID. Their motto: "Life is a gift, and love is the point." That pretty much summarizes what Jesus was getting at. Here are a few of Jesus' teachings from the Gospel of Matthew (with one deviation into the Old Testament Book of Leviticus). Compare them with how Trump manifests these Christian values: Turn the other cheek "But I tell you, do not resist an evil pers...

Robert E. Lee statue on a pedestel. Image: Public Domain I've just finished reading Chapter 5 of Naomi Klein's book, No is Not Enough . In that chapter, she outlines how Donald Trump leverages social divides in his predominantly white, sexist, bigoted voter base and the "others," those groups who have historically enjoyed less privilege. Klein, writing in 2017 about the rise of the MAGA movement in America, tries to paint a picture of why Hillary Clinton failed to win the 2016 presidential election. Clinton leaned into identity politics, explicitly calling out women, Black and Brown minorities, LGBTQ voters, and others who have been marginalized by the white majority. In doing so, according to Klein, Clinton alienated white, Christian voters who then cast their votes for Trump. But that's not what I found most impactful. At one point, Klein wrote something that struck me hard. In a section titled  "Racial Capitalism" , she describes how America's cap...

Image: Created by Google Gemini AI As I watch the news, I can't help but be overwhelmed by the leadership counterexample that Donald Trump is presenting to the world. He does not seem to be consulting with people around him. He does not seem to be taking the impact of his actions on other people into account. He certainly is not delegating power to others. (Exercising power is not an inherent attribute of leadership. Quite the opposite: exercising power is usually a sign of the absence of leadership.) Trump's actions as the "Leader of the Free World" are comical. When asked about the impacts of his recent tariffs on imported automobiles, he is quoted as saying, "I don't care if they increase prices on imported cars." No recognition of how this will likely result in somewhat higher prices for domestically manufactured cars. No acknowledgement that this will be a shock to the entire automobile market. No apparent realization that this will impact the lives...

Protestors rally in front of the Capitol in DC. Ted Eytan. CC BY-SA 4.0 I don't think I've ever called my U.S. Representative before. Well, today, after seeing Cory Booker complete 25 hours and 4 minutes in a speech on the Senate floor, I felt I had to do something , no matter how ineffectual it might feel at the moment. So I followed a link to 5calls.org , chose a topic (firing federal workers willy-nilly), and called Rep. Susan DelBene's office in Washington, DC. I didn't follow the 5calls script precisely. I identified myself and where I lived, then shared my personal experience as a federal employee in DoD, and that I had felt like I was doing something worthwhile for my country. I asked that DelBene do something to rein in Trump, Musk, and DOGE. The staffer asked me to provide a few more personal details (name and email address -- which means I'm on her mailing list now), then we ended the call. So I got my name on a list of potential campaign donors for the 2...

 I've started reading Naomi Klein's book,  No Is Not Enough . After an introductory chapter in which she gives an overview of how Trump is (in 2017) shocking the political landscape in the U.S. (and, she forecasts, will continue to do so), she points out that Donald J. Trump is a well-crafted "Superbrand," a type of phenomenon that emerged from the rise of business mega-branding in the 1980s. To understand Trump and his strategies, Klein says that one must understand how Trump leverages the psychology of modern commercial branding to influence large populations. Mega-branding gets people to attach their sense of personal identity to the brand. The human psyche has a fundamental need to connect with others, to belong to tribes. Corporate brands seek to create a tribe for their followers to join. It's brand loyalty on steroids. That is the premise of Chapter 1, How Trump Won by Becoming the Ultimate Brand. She starts with the history of how, in the 1980s, corporatio...

 About a week ago, I was assuaging my angst about Trump, DOGE, and the current political crisis with wine -- a lot of wine. It didn't take long for me to realize that this wasn't a sustainable strategy. I had to find a way to have a positive impact on the situation, so I sent an email to my most trusted family members (my wife, four daughters, and son-in-law) asking for advice. I've already posted about what my eldest daughter and my son-in-law (husband of #2 daughter) said. Wise advice from both. And I was blown away by what #2 daughter sent me next. (It should have surprised me; she's the most politically active of all of them.) Her advice: Clarify my goal. (In my own words, "What does success look like in this situation?") Don't try to act alone. Connect with a group that shares my vision for success. Pool resources. Having an impact doesn't have to be hard. Just because I find that something comes easily doesn't mean I'm not being effective...

 In an earlier post, I shared how my eldest daughter encouraged me while I despaired over the fate of the U.S. government as I watched being it ripped apart. Her advice: focus on your Circle of Control (or, Circle of Influence). There is little (read: nothing) to be gained by lamenting over things beyond my control. Shortly after that advice from my eldest daughter, my son-in-law shared how agency, connection, and community counteract trauma. Agency : As my daughter had shared, focus on the things within my power to control. Connection:  Don't suffer alone. Seek out others who share vision for the world we hope for. Community : At a larger scale than connection, link arms with others to take action. By ourselves, we each are powerless. Even in small groups, that powerlessness is profound, but less painful. But in sufficient numbers, we have a shared voice that commands attention. And that attention can attract both allies and enemies. Spoiling for a Fight? Attracting both alli...

 Ever take your nice, calm Labrador retriever for a walk in the park when a squirrel innocently bounds across the path ahead of you and up a tree?  Your nice, calm dog becomes hard to control. It might take a while to get them away from that tree. Well, this week, the nice, calm, mainstream news media found a squirrel. They seem to have lost focus on the big news (and still hasn't gone away): DOGE is taking a chainsaw to the U.S. government. Instead, news this week has been dominated by "Signalgate," a kerfuffle surrounding a group chat of the "Houthi PC small group." I don't need to go into the details of Signalgate. But  how  it has dominated the news may be more relevant. With all this attention on Trump's senior security advisors and their "amateurish" handling of sensitive information on  Signal , a commercial messaging app, the destruction that DOGE is wreaking on government agencies hasn't been the lead story. I wouldn't be surpr...

 I felt powerless. The Trump administration is taking a wrecking ball to the federal government, and there is nothing I could do to stop it. "Of course not," I reminded myself. "I am but one voter among many. Over 155 million votes were cast in the presidential election." I take voting as a moral obligation, but when I consider that mine is but one in 155 million, I do ask myself, "Why bother?" I found myself wanting to squelch that internal voice of despair. So I poured myself another glass of wine. And another. And another. I could tell pretty quickly that this wasn't a healthy way to manage my anxiety over political issues in Washington, DC. I imagined that there must be other ways to channel my energy besides dissipating it in a drunken stupor. So I reached out to the handful of people that I trust the most: my wife, my four adult daughters, and a son-in-law. I sent them an email expressing my frustration at feeling like there wasn't anything I...