The Return of Hockey

The NHL started it's COVID-shortened 2021 season last night, and tonight marks the return of Caps hockey!

It still doesn't seem real.

Another Day That Will Live in Infamy

Today started off a good day. I got out of bed. I had breakfast. I logged into my work account and graded some papers, responded to some emails, filled out some paperwork. 

I helped a student understand valence electrons and ion formation a little better, and conferred with my paraeducators about how to better support some students. 

I graded some more papers, worked on some lesson plans. 

Then, for some reason, I decided to search out how the elections in Georgia had gone. When I went to sleep last night, pundits were calling both races for the Democrats Ossof and Warnock, but I wanted to see what the vote tallies were looking like. 

What I saw across the Internet was terrifying. 

People who were protesting the election had become -- no, revealed themselves to be -- terroristic fascists, pushing past Capitol Police and forcing their way into the Capitol building while the senators were running their mouths instead of just certifying the election. Congress had to be disbanded, the electoral votes had to be protected, and everything went into a lockdown. 

All because the man-child in the White House can't accept that he lost the election, and his man-baby supporters have fallen under his cult-spell and can't think for themselves. 

The images from today will be forever seared in the minds of the American public... or they should be. There are still a lot of seditionists out there -- as evidenced by attacks on state capitol buildings in Kansas, Michigan, Oregon and other states. It's time to stop accepting sedition as expression of free speech and start prosecuting it as treason and hate crimes. 

Some images. 

Portland 2020 D.C. 2021 pic.twitter.com/10rAjb2mia

— Megan Reyes (@megreyes_) January 6, 2021

Cops are taking selfies with the terrorists. pic.twitter.com/EjkQ83h1p2

— Timothy Burke (@bubbaprog) January 6, 2021

Mitt Romney yelled “This is what you’ve gotten” to Ted Cruz and his fellow Senate colleagues as protesters swarmed the building. https://t.co/Yt8ZPArYpE

— David Freedlander (@freedlander) January 6, 2021

That’s the confederate flag flying outside the Senate chamber pic.twitter.com/1XB5TlAsuv

— Igor Bobic (@igorbobic) January 6, 2021

The same House chamber doors where the armed standoff took place hours ago is being cleaned for members to return for the joint session: pic.twitter.com/JlZgzwci8n

— Daniella Diaz (@DaniellaMicaela) January 7, 2021

There are some stark differences here between what we saw during the summer and the Black Lives Matter protests after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, and what happened today, and everyone sees it, at least anyone who isn't a racist. 

The Day of Reckoning has begin. Even the Vice President, Mike Pence, is trying to distance himself from the insanity, going as far as to change the cover photo on his Twitter profile to a picture of Biden and Harris from their victory speech in November 20202. 

After doomscrolling for a good two hours, which made me feel more and more sick to the stomach as I watch the terrorist attack unfold in real time, I had to step away from the computer for a few hours. It's still terrifying, and this image is going to haunt me for a long time. 

Day 1 vs. Day 1,448 pic.twitter.com/OohffkCQrc

— 11th Hour (@11thHour) January 6, 2021

There are Senators back on the floor of the Capitol, running their mouths (and in some cases, trying to covering their asses) about unity and democracy and all that. STFU, really. Get the vote done, then expel the assholes among you. 

We need to be done pulling punches. Fascists, racists, Nazis, anti-Semites, misogynists.... they all need to run and hide if they are unwilling to be rehabilitated. Every Single One Of Them needs to lose their jobs and fear never being hirable or desirable again. EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM. Shame them. Call them out. If they can't accept the world in 2021, they need to find themselves alone and crying, homeless in a cave with no friends and no money. 

This really needs to end. Now. 

Dateline : January 5, 2021

Georgia on my mind. 

The political insanity in this country has to end. 

Fraud Alerts Suck

Winter Break is over, and so I woke up with an alarm this morning. To be honest, I didn't sleep much at all anyway; I get super anxious on Sunday nights anyway, and knowing it was "back to work" today didn't help. 

Things went pretty well for class, though. The students were engaged, and even had a few who I hadn't seen for weeks (not counting the break) show up. I had some work to grade that was turned in over the break, and I did that during my planning period, and go around to doing attendance and course recommendations after that. 

That's about the time I received the text from my bank, asking about a "suspicious charge." I immediately responded that it was not a valid transaction, and I get an auto-responder telling me that I should call, which I did. 

These fraudulent charges seem to happen to me at least once a year, and every other time, I've received a call and/or text from my bank that I immediately respond to. The bank stops the transaction, cancels my card, and then I need to go around and reset all of my auto-payments. As I sit on hold for ten minutes waiting for "the next available representative," I assume that the conversation will go just as the previous ones had. 

But it doesn't.

I don't know if policies have changed or if it's because I had to wait so long to talk to a person, but the representative informs me that the bank can't do anything because the payment has been processed. So, I'm out nearly $300 at least until the payment posts, at which point I have to call them to initiate the fraud proceedings. Excuse me? 

So, now I need to start off the next few days checking online to see if the payment has posted, then once it does, call the bank and tell them (again?) that the charge is fraudulent, even though they tagged it as fraudulent from the start! Worse yet, it seems that I might not even get the money back this time, at least not until a "full investigation is done." 

In the meantime, I just get to hope that this doesn't cause an overdraft situation. 

Sigh. There is a special place in the afterlife for thieves. 

COVID Reading List

Since the pandemic hit the US and shut down school buildings, I've gone through phases where I read a lot. I've gone through phases where I haven't read enough. 

On March 29, former Washington Capital Brooks Laich posted this on Instagram :

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Brooks Laich (@brookslaich)

I decided to take the challenge.

I couldn't necessarily guarantee that I'd go to sleep by 9PM and not wake up until after 6AM; going to sleep that early is beyond my circadian rhythms, and I often wake up in the middle of the night for no apparent reason. Last night, for instance, I woke up at 4:21AM, and flopped around for at least a half-hour before I could fall back asleep. 

The other two, though, yes, I would embrace. 

I had bought a small step machine off Amazon a few months prior, and I started using it in earnest. Then I joined Centr and started using their "Centr Unleashed" program. 

But I also started reading again, at least for a few months. Then, at some point, I fell off the wagon.... but I'm back on it again. 

Here are some of the books I've finished reading recently, if you're interested! 

• Recently finished : Moon of the Crusted Snow (a new take on an old story, an Indigenous story by an Indigenous author)
• Currently reading : Hex Life : Wicked New Tales of Witchery (short stories by a variety of women authors)
• Next Up : Unsanctioned Experiments (short stories by a friend of mine, Ben Credle)

Also finally finished in 2020 :

• A Guy Like Me (John Scott's story to the NHL, which had to be told after the All-Star Game fiasco)
• Confessions of a Teenage Zombie Queen (a short read, and exactly what the title implies)
• Trailer Park Fae (Lili Saintcrow always has interesting takes on urban fantasy)
• Roadside Magic (the followup to Trailer Park Fae)
• Dead Astronauts (not sure how to explain this trip by Jeff Vandermeer)
• North American X-15 Owner's Workshop Manual (Pat bought this for me for my birthday; I love it)

And this isn't counting the books that I constantly refer to for road trips! 

• Rand McNally National Park Atlas (I love my atlas, and I buy a new one every year!!)
• Atlas Obscura (Pat got this for me in 2019, and there are so many places I want to visit still!)
• 50 States, 5000 Ideas (Pat got this for me this year, and I already have ideas written down for #roadtrip2021)
• America's National Parks (an Eastern National book I picked up at Cuyahoga Valley during a #404family trip, still inspiring!

So, can you take up the challenge? Read at least one chapter of a book every day? 

Full disclosure -- if you do buy any of the books I've linked to here, I do receive a pittance of a referral fee from Amazon.