Life is what happens between phone calls. By logical extension, no phone calls, no life.
Joking aside, I’m feeling a bit empty and solitary of late, leaving it to unstructured happenstance to cross paths with random acquaintances and not be alone for an hour or so. Fully-formed adults don’t do this, right?
I should schedule time with people and then show up.
Coordinate. Collaborate. Compromise. Companionship.
It’s disheartening when I see blogs disappear, go 404, totally vanish because the author closed up shop. I’m a big fan of blogging as a great activity to do, a good thing to keep doing. I want blogs to persist because I believe in them.
I’ve had this domain for 25 years and have been writing journals of some form online since 1997. I’ve been writing paper journals since 1991. I don’t intend to stop.
When I see a blogger turn off the tap, remove all history, completely disappear, or worse, leave it all up and never touch it again, I feel a little piece of the Internet die. It reminds me how ephemeral this all really is.
I always wonder about the end of this site, how soon after my demise will the hosting shut off, how quickly my domain will get snapped up by porn spammers. Will there be any loved ones to back it all up?
Called mother to wish her a happy father’s day. It’s our in-joke. Funny-ha-ha. I don’t have a father. Obviously, I do, but he has never been my father. I have never been his son. I’ve written about this before.
Has that made me less of a man? Yes, it has. Every bit of being forward and aggressive and truth-seeking, I’ve had to collect from context clues, from hearing what the people in my world had to say about it. But it is overshadowed by the regressive side of having a single parent, one who is given to notions of, “well, if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen,” and the learned helplessness that comes along with it.
It’s taken a lifetime to catch up and build my other half. Life is hard. Having two parents who can raise you in a balance will make you more of what you could’ve been without.
It’s a weekend day, and I find myself absolutely not wanting to be in my apartment. I get up, make breakfast, clean up, get dressed, and as soon as I can, I gotta get out the door. Where? Not home. Out there.
My apartment is fine. It’s not a bad place. But it’s just where I sleep and store my shit. Shit I don’t use anymore. A cave of dead hobbies. Airless, stale, staid, boring, hungry.
I’m hungry. Hungry for what? What is out there that I’m throwing down the hole? What do I hope to achieve by not being at home?
Will I ever find myself willing to just…sit still on my couch?
Turned on the Austin TX weather radio WXK27 just in time to hear an unusual message:
Public Information Statement
National Weather Service Austin/San Antonio TX
117 PM CDT Thu Jun 5 2025
...NOAA WEATHER RADIO OUTAGE DUE TO A SOFTWARE UPDATE NEXT WEEK...
The Austin/San Antonio National Weather Service office will be conducting a required, scheduled update to their Advanced Weather Interactive Processing System (AWIPS) system from Monday, June 9th through approximately June 11th. The NWS uses the AWIPS computer system to display and integrate weather and water information, and to send life-saving information, such as weather and water warnings, to the public.
During the time of the update, forecast operations will be conducted in conjunction with our service back-up office in Corpus Christi to minimize any potential interruption to services. No impacts to our core services of forecast products and weather watches, warnings and advisories are expected during this period. However, all NOAA Weather Radio transmitters maintained by NWS Austin/San Antonio will be off air through the time of the install.
This includes the following transmitters: Austin, Carrizo Springs, Del Rio, Dilley, DHanis, Gonzalez, Kerrville, Lagrange, Llano, San Antonio, Seguin, and Uvalde.
The forecast office in Austin/San Antonio will remain open and staffed throughout this period for public and partner phone calls and additional functions that can be completed without AWIPS.
Source as of 1:17 PM CDT Thu Jun 5 2025
Since January, I’ve been terrified of the NWS weather radio system being permanently turned off and dismantled. Lord knows the Apps want it that way. They want it so hard.
So I get a bit touchy when there’s any disruption, like, “Oh god, this is it. They did it.”
I think this is required because with the software updates going on in the regional office in San Marcos, the transmitters would be running headless, without anything sending them updated conditions and forecast messages. I’m not sure why the backup office in Corpus Christi can’t take over that role, but I guess system upgrades are hard, especially in government.
The message states it’ll be back on the air by midweek, but I’m half wondering if there’s some upper-level bureaucrat at the NOAA toeing the party line who will say, “See? They were off the air and nothing bad happened! Let’s save some money!”
Everything precious about this Rome thing we call the United States of America is but a candle in a window sill, so easily snuffed out by any crude bastards with an agenda.
