It either depends on my mood, or if I have to focus on something.

As far as focusing on an activity, if it's something that does not require a lot of thought, such as the audits I do at work every day, I'll pretty much listen to anything. If I need to actually focus and think, then I'll put on classical music, in particular Debussy, or Mozart.

There is an in between where I need to focus, but I have already figured whatever I'm working on out and just need to become adept at doing it. In that case I will listen to Rush for the most part. I'm not sure what it is about their music, but it engages me enough that I'm not bored doing something repetitive, but also allows my brain to quickly jump back to the task at hand when needed, then jump back to listening to the music. No other band works for me in that way. It's really weird and I've spoken with multiple psychologists and other mental health professionals as to why. None had a clue, other than one speculated that their precision playing is the reason.

You can also buy used items as well.

I am an audio enthusiast and an IT Professional. The newest piece of audio gear I own was built in 2000 and I got it for free, because the front channels were out. Three hours of soldering brought it back to life.

The newest computer in my house is the one I'm typing this post on and it was built in 2021... I think... All I know is it came to me non-functional. A couple hours work and it's like new.

Hiking: I'm in my mid-50's and did a lot of hiking and backpacking in my youth. I have chronic back issue that precludes me carrying a heavy back pack for days on end. However, I do still love to go for day hikes. Mainly because I love being in nature, but also it's good exercise for my old bones.

Audio Electronics Repair: I like to take old amplifiers and pre-amps and bring them back to full function. Satisfaction is what I get out of this. It can also be a puzzle that needs to be figured out.

Her happiness is a part of my own.

And that is a choice I made.

I have two teenage boys 19/16.

A long time ago a friend of mine, who had kids way earlier than me, said this; "My kids are the best thing that has ever happened to me and also the worst."

At the time, I was still several years from becoming a parent myself and was a bit aghast that he said it. Fast forward a few years and my boys have come into the world...

I understand what he was talking about completely.

Being a parent is one of the few things that at one moment make you feel like you're on top of the world and in the very next instant the biggest pile of crap that has ever been in the entire history of humanity.

That's what is called "Parenthood" and there are just some things about it a person will never be able to understand until they experience it for themselves.

Repairing distressed audio equipment. I'm particular to early 80's to mid 90's gear.

Role Playing Games: I have three groups, two virtual and one in person that I play a variety of RPG's with.

Hiking: Mainly for health reasons, but I've always loved going out on a new trail and exploring. My days of backpacking are behind me, as I have a back injury now, but I'm still able to do day hikes.

Here is my latest electronics repair. It's a Carver TFM-15CB stereo amplifier. The power supply filter caps (two black with silver top cylinders in the middle of the photo) went bad. Which is just something electrolytic capacitors do when they get old. So I replaced all the electrolytics (13 in all) and replaced the meter's lights with LED units. The amp is 40 years old and is probably good for another 40 years. I'm actually listening to it as I write this post. As far as how I learned to do this, I'm self taught. Just read a lot of books and then started working on things that I didn't care if I blew up, or fixed. Then moved onto things I wanted to keep as my confidence and skills grew.

I am unable due to having signed an NDA.

But let's just say the world is still here. You're welcome.

A few years ago my wife and I decided to finish the basement. The first step was to clean it out, which involved going through all the junk that I had inherited from various family members. My mom always asserted that all of it was very valuable and CONSTANTLY checked that I still had it all and was taking good care of it.

I went through each item one by one and looked them up. Dishes, nick knacks, all of it. It took me hours. The highest value item was maybe $10. Several large and heavy boxes that I had been obligated to haul around to all of the places I lived for the last 30 years, as my mother constantly asked me about them. It was all worth maybe $100, if I made the effort to attempt to sell it. Which would have taken a lot of time as we're talking dozens of fragile things. It just was not worth it.

I shoved it all into the trunk of my car and took it to the dump. My Mom died in 2011, so she wasn't around to check up on all that crap.

God damn I was so pissed. 30 fucking years of hauling that worthless junk around probably cost far more than it was worth. My mother was so insistent that I even had it sitting around taking up space in my basement 12 years after her death. Just another one of her little power plays.

Wisconsinite here where the badger is native and the mascot for the University of Wisconsin is the Badger.

This meme is inaccurate.

The American Badger will also remove your kidneys and sell them on the black market as well, to support their meth habit.

And where...

THE FUCK...

Is the FBI?

If that's not a terroristic threat, then what is?

Over 150 Major Incidents in a single month.

Formerly, I was on the Major Incident Response team for a national insurance company. IT Security has always been in their own ivory tower in every company I've worked for. But this company IT Security department was about the worst case I've ever seen up until that time and since.

They refused to file changes, or discuss any type of change control with the rest of IT. I get that Change Management is a bitch for the most of IT, but if you want to avoid major outages, file a fucking Change record and follow the approval process. The security directors would get some hair brained idea in a meeting in the morning and assign one of their barely competent techs to implement it that afternoon. They'd bring down what ever system they were fucking with. Then my team had to spend hours, usually after business hours, figuring out why a system, which had not seen a change control in two weeks, suddenly stopped working. Would security send someone to the MI meeting? Of course not. What would happen is, we would call the IT Security response team and ask if anything changed on their end. Suddenly 20 minutes later everything was back up and running. With the MI team not doing anything. We would try to talk to security and ask what they changed. They answered "nothing" every god damn time.

They got their asses handed to them when they brought down a billing system which brought in over $10 Billion (yes with a "B") a year and people could not pay their bills. That outage went straight to the CIO and even the CEO sat in on that call. All of the sudden there was a hard change freeze for a month and security was required to file changes in the common IT record system, which was ServiceNow at the time.

We went from 150 major outages (defined as having financial, or reputation impact to the company) in a single month to 4 or 5.

Fuck IT Security. It's a very important part of of every IT Department, but it is almost always filled with the most narcissistic incompetent asshats of the entire industry.

My family watches several Youtube channels on the main HTPC. It had Chrome for them to use, as that is what the kids and my wife are familiar with from school/ work. Then this BS started. I use Firefox on my personal PC and have yet to have a problem.

So I dumped Chrome off of the HTPC.

It would be amusing if Chrome lost a ton of market share to Firefox and other browsers.