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Andy Arthur

Already it's the second half of the month. 🍁 September is rapidly fading into October, with lots of color and cooler weather for the coming weeks and months. I'm so busy these days, but look forward to many adventures in changing seasons.

I’m pro-eating cuy!

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I am sure in the preveted mind of some the leftist politicians like Donald Trump, roasted guinea pig is the same as cooking a dog or cat.

But guinea pigs are vegetarians, fed on grass and grain, have a good feed conversion ratio, are very sustainable and can be a good farming venture even in a small urban apartment. They produce a healthy, lean meat, not unlike rabbit or quail. And are supposedly quite delicious. They really a good homestead animal for providing healthy protein.

In contrast, most dogs and cats aren’t vegetarian, they are loaded with pathogens and often drugs. While some parts of the world farm dogs for food, usually they have a fairly restricted diet, compared to crap most Americans give their dogs and cats. And even so, I doubt the feed conversion ratio is particularly good.

Honestly, if there is one thing I hate about Trump is his far left-wing positions he adopts, seemingly at random. He also embraced the left-wing extremists in Palestine Ohio, many of those who claimed to be harmed by the chemical spill even though there was zero scientific evidence.

Thomas, West Virginia

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Thomas, West Viriginia at one time was known primarily as a coal mining town in northern West Virginia, although nowadays near Canaan Heights, Dolly Sods and Blackwater Falls, it's more known for tourism. A fun, small little town to poke around.

Sun coming over New York City, school bus driver in traffic jam, staring at the drivers in rearview mirror 🌅

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Only in America, dreaming in the Red-White-and-Blue. I know what song I’ll be playing a lot today.

Those days of Brooks and Dunn seem like yesterday 🇺🇸 but really were 23 years ago now. So distant but so close. I still remember that crisp September day like it was yesterday, watching the buildings fall on 9/11 from that classroom at Hudson Valley Communication College, the classes dismissed early and I went up to Partridge Run, found myself wandering around off of High Point Road in Berne, noticing the airplane free skies. 🛬 I was looking at the album covers of Brooks and Dunn and the promo pictures, and I couldn’t help but think what a long time ago that was,  an era all but completely hauled to the local garbage dump.

Looks like another beautiful day is ahead for today, ☀ and I greased the bike up 🚲 and I will ride in this morning. Hopefully that will stop the creaking issue I’m hearing until the bike warms up. Maybe listening to some Brooks and Dunn, with memories of that day so many years ago now. It’s kind of funny how things come full circle, 🌕 how I used to be a Macintosh computer geek 🤓 but then had such bad grades in math 🔢, ended up studying political science and a quarter century later are now the Director of Data Services, writing R code like a mad man, filtering and joining data, householding mail lists and generating label 🔖jobs. Only in America.

I am still really digging those truly wireless ear buds. 🎧 I thought loosing the original wire to the earphone jack was a big change when that technology became affordable a few years back, but now the completely wireless earbuds are so awesome. I am a late adopter of technology the kids have had for decades, but it doesn’t make it any less awesome. ☺ It may not be branded with an apple 🍏 but I’m good with that. I used to like Macintosh OS stuff but that was a long time ago now, like back when Brooks and Dunn were a thing, though after 1998 I’ve been an almost purely open source guy.

I still want to escape to Vermont this weekend, 🏕 and work remote on Friday and Monday, but I will be so busy with work as I have so much data processing to do. Literally, I was going through my list and starting at 8 AM or maybe earlier, I have at least 5 different tasks scheduled to run. Fortunately, most of them don’t require a lot of additional coding, but they do require scripts to run, outputs to be proofed, lists to be requested, 📃 and mail jobs to b run. ✉ Basically all the things you might think a data person would do. And I don’t see things slowing for the weekend, though I could see finding time for riding the bike, maybe floating on the Deerfield River and some campfires. 🔥 Rensselearville would be a safer, easier choice though. I have to decide today, as I’ll probably want to pack and leave after Thursday’s meeting.