For nothing.
No, no, I kid. Only slightly.
For all the fi...wait a minute, I did that already. Well that just won't do.
But apparently this will become an every 5 year sorta dealy. Like many things, not by my own design, but more by happenstance.
Also included will be the entirety of my last entry, in draft form mind you, as I never finished it and honestly, it echoes many of the things that will already be contained here. Which is scary. And not scary, ah, you got me there! Scary like, oh dear.
Speaking of woowoo, just to clarify things, this is a post about Thanksgiving, among other things, mainly just a recap of the last little bit of time, from what I can only consider to be a relatively neutral view. Yes I know it's late, BUT, it also is exactly 6 months from the draft I was writing which also was focused on current events as shit was going down and it was only June.
Again, many things have happened.
I know it's easy to focus on the bad and negative things in the world. Frankly, our reality has been, so, strange and, uncomfortable lately that it almost seems natural to either pour all in and keep the negative in focus, or block it out to avoid the responsibility that may come with it. Neither of these options strike me as weak though. In a fight for your sanity, whether that be to sift through the lies and fight back against a false narrative, or understand that your mind cannot handle the weight of that fight and must internalize it just to survive, as long as you keep your own fire burning, you can get through anything. It is tough, even for me, especially for me, to understand that these fights do not have to be alone, no, they are never alone, as there are those that support you without you even knowing.
I have actually been playing a MMO in the nature of Elder Scrolls Online. To that, it is much like the divine trinity of Tank, DPS, and Healer. Without the support of others, your own fight is that much tougher.
Well that got out of order real quick.
Let us go over some of the events of this year and focus on a few points shall we?
Throwin it way back to the end of last year slash, the beginning of this year.
There was a lot of controversy surrounding the Dakota Access Pipeline.
Protesters have since been evacuated, dismissed, or arrested.
The construction stands unopposed.
We are totally off to a great start.
All the way back in 2014, Flint Michigan had a water crisis.
3 years later, the local government has finally realized it's a problem and are working to do stuff about it. So kinda yay! Progress! Eventually! It's like they modeled their governmental system after Internet Explorer.
Speaking of, at some point this past year Microsoft has officially retired Internet Explorer in favor of Edge in Windows 10. Because it's edgy. That is purely my conjecture.
These past years the Black Lives Matter movement has been fighting the good fight, against many odds, unfortunately. We've seen the rise of other, similar organizations like Blue Lives Matter and All Lives Matter. As is many a case, the original is quite simply the best.
We unfortunately saw the creation of another group which I personally believe was rather interconnected with all of these events: the Alt-Right. Or for normal people that don't like to add PR friendly titles to hate groups, new Nazis.
There was also the rise of the counter group to the Nazis, the Antifa. Ya know, when you think about it, it really does kinda play out like a comic book.
Anyway, things in these groups hit a peak with an event in Charlottesville Virginia. Where of course there was a totally normal gathering of very white males screaming hate slogans whilst carrying Tiki Torches. Then after that super normal event, the actual protest from the Nazis about taking down a statue of Robert E. Lee, the conflict of the Antifa, and then the murder of a counter protester by the protesters ala Nazi.
Since then some good things have happened, and some not so good. The then future events of the Nazis had been totally shaken up and broken, which is good. Our current administration failed to understand which side they should take and instead tried to label the Antifa as equal level terrorists. Which, if you may have guessed, was bad.
The Paris Climate Accord fiasco went down, more in the draft.
Still don't, scratch that, good ole reading. Apparently the resolution wouldn't occur until the end of our current Cheeto-Supreme's term. But, in a not so shocking twist of fate, the only other developed countries that were against it were Syria and Nicaragua. And they joined. Which leaves the US.
There are some cases where going against the grain is good, makes you a revolutionary, this is not one of those times.
More after a short break.
Sentient Moonrocks
Moving on,
Going a little out of order, there's a current tax plan possibly being enacted by our current administration that again, many people think is a bad idea and don't like.
And they are talking about repealing Net Neutrality. Which AGAIN, is not a greatly appreciated plan except by those whose lobbied for it, surprise, large scale telecommunications companies that as we know, do not like competition and yet, say that with the repeal it would allow competition to grow, therefore giving consumers more choices like would you want to pay 13.99 a month to one company to be on Facepalm or pay 10.99 plus 2.99 to another company to do the same, and will, in all likelihood, cause great upset to the consumer side of things.
Alright going forward to the past.
While there have been a ridiculous amount of violence, and shootings in particular this year, the one I really want to focus on is the Las Vegas shooting. At the Mandalay Bay hotel. That so far, has been the deadliest shooting, and terror attack, on US soil since a while ago I'm sure. And that is not a challenge for anyone to attempt more.
But, this event still has no explanation, from normal sources at least. Supposedly, a single man who may have been a high roller, loaded a relatively militia to small army size depository of weapons into a hotel room, without anyone noticing, and then proceeded to shoot out a window, fire into a crowd of concert goers, then kill himself as authorities arrived on the scene. His brother is adamant that this man was capable of this act. Which is, a weird thing to say when you think about it.
The official story has been changed multiple times from the testimony of a security guard at the hotel who may or may not have been shot, and who may or may not even exist.
The argument over this event has mainly been over the use of a bump stock.
The only theory I've heard is that it was a coinciding assassination attempt on a prince of Syria? I think, can't remember exactly. Anyhoo, the attempt goes south, and to disguise the event, other members of this attempt are given the task of taking out the gun runner who is the main suspect of the actual investigation, and create a massive diversion, which, if they were willing to murder one person known to them, what would it be to kill many they don't know?
Also add in the conflicting testimony of the people on site at the event that mention multiple shooters, people herding them like cattle, and other such things, that is no longer carried by or mentioned by the media covering the story.
It's one of those events that I truly wish that the truth would be revealed, but in all honesty, will be buried by the sands of time due to purposeful diversion.
Which segues into conspiracy theorists quite nicely. I promise I will only touch on this somewhat briefly. The draft was to have more, much more, but I will consolidate.
My only point really is that people as a whole dismiss conspiracy theorists so easily. Never mind that many of the topics that the people who claim that title have researched have turned out to be a deception to the public. Sure, not all happenings, but I just implore normal people to think: Just look at the reality we have currently, there are so many things that don't make sense. It is our duty, as free thinking individuals, to ask questions, however strange they may be, instead of blindly following what other people say is the truth.
My current example is our presidency. Let's take a look at the figures.
Richard Nixon
Bill Clinton
Donald Trump
Eww, it felt dirty just typing that.
So, Nixon deliberately used the assets of the US government to manipulate the US government in his favor, which I feel very confident could be called treason, and was allowed to resign, and was pardoned after the fact. A slap on the wrist if you will.
Clinton had his knob polished, to coin a term from an old friend, among other things and was impeached specifically on the terms of perjury and obstruction of justice.
Cheeto, I feel fairly confident to say has obstructed justice, on many occasions, and has probably performed perjury. And yet he continues. I wonder, will he receive a pardon like Nixon, or continue, get reelected and form a monarchy down the line. Only time will tell. And battles, many battles.
I did help a friend change a tire recently. That was a good and really interesting event. Had never seen a donut fall off before.
In the most recent of news from local events, people have been throwing rocks off of bridges to damage cars below.
Yeah, there's that.
Yay humanity!
To end, I wish to hit on a very good thing, and a very not so good thing really. I guess it depends on how you look at it.
So the good thing is that after a very long study time, hours burned, stress managed, and effort spent, my sister has officially become a lawyer! My entire family is proud, of course including myself. I wish her well in the future of mainly veterans affairs and any trouble I might get into.
And I lied, slightly, back up!
Ok so the not so potentially good thing is about my dad. For those not in the know, he passed away earlier this year. I'll go a little more in depth but I'll do that thing where I match the color and you have to highlight it to read it. Then draft after the end.
Oh goodness, time is a bit of a blur with all of this. To jump around a bit, Dad passed away around September 21 of this year. Melissa and I went down around October 12 for the service. What can I say, my family has always moved slowly. Ah yes, thank you Facepalm and my own posts. I had traveled down to Florida the end of August, beginning of September. Dad had become sick with an infection we think was from a cut. It was a staph infection and he was pretty rough. I remember Mom had been talking back and forth like it was possibly a serious thing but still was urging me to make my own decisions of travel. And I was most certainly glad I decided to go. There was a lot of decision making on the doctor side of things. In general, the prognosis was optimistic while his condition was not the best. It was optimistic enough that while I was down there, we researched, and visited the various sites around the hospital for rehabilitation centers. Dad had been in the hospital for about 3 weeks at this point and would need some extra support after. It was funny because he originally really wanted to go to the Manor as his mom had worked there in years prior. That place was no beuno. The Towers were lovely, and we talked him into going there. Other than that my time was mainly spent working at our house and bouncing between Jami's house. There was a storm approaching and the house had already previously flooded due to rain, so we were doing our best to prepare for even worse scenarios. We cleaned up limbs from trees, mowed some of the yard. Cleaned the previous flooding and checked for damage. The two major things we discovered was that one of the pipes to a shower was broken and had been leaking water underneath the house for goodness knows how long. That we couldn't fix, and will most certainly play into the future of that plot of land. The other thing, which oddly enough we couldn't fix either, is that Dad had never gotten home insurance. So if the storm had completely decimated the house, it wouldn't help anymore that if it didn't. But a lot of progress was made, the house was in as best a shape as it could be, a tarp was added over a spot on the roof we figured out was super damaged, and the plan was to salvage it after the storm and Dad's discharge. For one spoiler, the house survived, in no condition any worse that what it was. What really hit me, at that time, was just how much stuff my parents had at that house. And in reflection, how much stuff was at my sister's house, and our current house. It was sobering to say the least. Well as it was nearing my time to leave, Dad had had some tests run, back to back, some pretty seriously demanding tests. It was progress on decided what to do in the future, but it taxed him greatly. It produced a breathing problem that the doctors just couldn't figure out. He was losing oxygen at a not so good rate. Supplied oxygen helped, but once he was off, his body couldn't make it back up. The last days I was down there, they moved him to a new room, one of the many times, and hooked him up to an assisted breather. It was working, but it was a lot of work for his body too. It literally forced air into and out of his chest. Kinda painful to watch to be honest. in both a physical and mental way. I had to leave and said my goodbyes while he was still there. I will admit, through all the time at the hospital, the entire family made the best of it. Dad joked with the doctors and staff, we all talked about funny stories and sort of relived the past. It wasn't bad, all bad at least. And again the outlook was promising. That treatment among others continued for about 2 weeks, then I got a message from my sister that his fight was over. Then, and even now I consider it bittersweet. I know he wasn't happy with what was going on. He never liked being sick and especially didn't like being in the hospital, so it was definitely a relief from that. But it's never a good time for the living, however prepared you might think you are. He took with my his life, a lot of which I knew, much of I didn't. Quite a bit no one will know, which I think is probably one of the worst things. Again, we left later for the service and to start more work on the house, cleaning it for what we could salvage, getting it ready for us to no longer have it. I feel it will be one of the last times I visit that house, which again is bittersweet. It didn't become yet another burden, but has so many memories attached to it. My sister and I had said that if he hadn't gone when he did, he would have when he had to deal with the house. So again, a strange benefit. The service was nice, but in Oyler family tradition, a bit odd. Other than the officials of the church, there were only 3 people who spoke, now mind you, so many people showed up. I didn't even see and official number, but such an outpouring was rather incredible. But, our uncle Keith, my sister, and myself were the only family members to share words and memories. Well, Mom did but through a video we recorded the previous night. Ah yes another tradition of the Oyler family, take forever on a thing and do as much of it at the last minute. Now, we had decided not to include friends to speak, just family, but it amazed me, in I suppose a bad way, that we were the only ones to stand up there. Oh well, what's done is done. The service itself was still very nice. We had pictures everywhere. Great food was served to everyone and again many stories and appreciation was shared to us. Also of strange note, while we had stopped at a Target to pick up some things, we totally scored a Snes Classic which was random as all get out. So we came back after that and life took off again like it always does. But things changed, not for the better I suppose but I'm sure they will be fine in time. My birthday passed within this last month. Mom sent a message instead of calling and singing. Going to admit, I missed that. I understand it would be tough, and I do hope it happens in the future, but I understand if it takes a long while. This is also the beginning of all the major points of the year with my Dad, Thanksgiving as I mentioned just passed. Christmas and New Years is coming up fast. It's not going to be easy, but we will get through it. The next year will be the same I'm sure. I love my Dad, even now, but miss him terribly. Life goes on though, and I hope more than anything it prevented any more suffering he might have endured.
There, that's the best recap I'll give for now.
And I lied again! The best thing to happen recently is that Mom got a new car! And we did too a while ago! Cars and houses for everyone!
I jumped back up again. Last time, I swear. Now for the draft. Boy this has been a long one. Lot's of words that needed to come out, although I'm sure I missed things. Other posts will be made, be assured. Be good to each other, and I leave you with two things:
Always look on the briiight side of life ::whistle::
Sexy, word-vomiting all over the place.
Draft (so you can see pretty much how a lot of my brain works):
Dated: 6/2/17
Title: Taco Fueled Perception
Labels: /Idon'tneedtoworkwithchaos,2017isdoingjustfinewithoutme/
Body:
This one is surprisingly about current events. I'll even keep the aliens stuff to an absolute minimum.
First, let's of course address the elephant in the room.
Republicans.
Specifically Donald Trump.
I can see how both journalists and comedians have had a rather easy time with material recently. This shit literally writes itself!
So in case you haven't seen anything over the past few days, Trump has made the decision to say that the US is going pull out of the Paris Climate Agreement. Now it's not the end of the conversation as he would probably be blocked by trying to just flat out leave the incredibly long acronym institution UNFCCC or United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change for short?
His other option would be to ask the senate, and from the looks of it, most people are pretty against the idea. Including but not limited to:
People he feels should be in the goverment
His daughter
Quite a few notable business men
And taking it even further, even if he was to succeed in ditching responsibility, most officials seem to plan to ignore him and carry on.
Bravo indeed.
Now, I'll be straight with you, I had not paid attention to the Paris Agreement at all when it was going down. I mean to be fair, all of us were unknowingly preparing for the horror that was 2016.
I've been reading up on what the plan was, who and what it affected, and the reception to it both at the time, and the most recent lashings out.
But here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement
To which I will bring up first. I must say I love that the people who are for this reversal of the agreement are pretty much like,"Yeah, see I told you this was a bad idea back when Obama did it."
Elephant in room, republicans
whats in the media
paris climate accord, the good, the bad, and the meh
opposition to both now and previous
comparison to conspiracy theorists
ooh almost forgot, climate change deniers, climate deniers, seed vault
moving on
guy who wrote congressman, wait, governor, mayor maybe? i think to complain about woman showing of wonder woman
citing specifically the line of women inventing things
also compare to conspiracy theorists
epic reply
i think those were the main points. if more come up ill add. And of course expand the current.
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