I have to work from 4p-11p today and I don’t really mind because the grand plan is to begin working on my book The Beginner’s Home Lab Book: Learning Linux & BSD By Building Real Systems. I’m going to follow the suggestion of my therapist to approach this as if I am writing a letter to a prospective learner. Despite being tired, I’m excited to get started. In preparation for writing today, I set up a PC to use for this purpose.

This morning I set up some routing so I can reach the PC remotely allowing me to write effectively. I’m actually really excited! The excitement is lessening the lack of desire to go into work today. I know time will pass quickly. My weekend worksite is at a building completely locked down so I will be able to use dictation without the appearance of being crazy.

I slept the day away and I still feel tired. I’m getting a huge resurgence of very intense nightmares that are effecting my sleep adversely. I’m even having nightmares while napping. It used to be that I could at least sleep during the day for a bit and it would be dream free. Not so much anymore.

Well maybe I will get some work on my book accomplished. Maybe a sense of satisfaction will lead to a night of better sleep. I feel mentally awful like it’s a 10 yard fight. But the fact that I am writing this while on the bus to work is sort of a win in of itself. I wanted to call out but that’s not in my nature.

This morning I had a really good therapy session. I am reminded of the importance of therapy in addition to medication when treating depression. My therapist, Nan, is nothing short of incredible. We talked at length about learning, passion, and education.

I told Nan about one of my goals which is to write a book about computers and networks. I shared with her my topic and intended audience but I was experiencing difficulty overcoming writer’s block. Since perfection in writing is impeding my progress, I had the insight that I would try speech to text. This may facilitate writing and lessen the tendency to seek perfection.

Then Nan gave me a truly brilliant idea. Since the intended audience is a beginner to the professional side of computers and networks, she recommended that I write it in the form of a letter to a potential student. I was blown away! The sheer simple elegance. Now I have a weekend project. I’m going to start writing and see where this goes.

Once I put words to paper so to speak, I’ll go back and edit my work. What if I could have the whole damn manuscript written and ready for publication!? That would be awesome. I’d love it if No Starch would take on publishing my book.

I truly left the session feeling much much better than before. I feel renewed and motivated. I dare say I feel positive.

I am not going to lie … last night was brutal for nightmares. They seemed to keep coming one after another so I am tired. Nightmares do not make for good sleep. Perhaps one day I will learn to control my dreams. I am honestly surprised because I had a decent day yesterday. Time to move on though.

I hope to hear from VGM today or Monday. I’d like to be earning more money and have more flexibility. First I have to try it and see how it goes. If all goes well, I will reduce the number of hours I am working as a security guard to 16 on the weekends. I am tired of worrying about money and $23 an hour is significant.

I don’t have any real grand plans for today other than going into work at 2:00PM instead of the usual time. This is okay with me and I don’t mind helping out the boss on occasion. I do have a therapy appointment at 11:00AM today which I am happy about because I need to talk to someone about some weighty issues. Perhaps I will find the concentration to work on my book, but if not, I won’t punish myself.

I know that tomorrow I will have some good opportunities to work on my book. Since I seem to have writer’s block, I am going to try dictation. I just sent out a quick post on Mastodon to ask what tools might be available. Perhaps writer’s block isn’t really writer’s block but perfection being the enemy of progress. This is one of my mantra’s but I still seek perfection. Seeking perfection is blocking progress.

Another day and another shift working and toiling to make someone else wealthier. There’s nothing quite like the United State’s definition of freedom: economic freedom only. Have you ever noticed that the same self-righteous MAGAts that advocate locking up as many criminals as possible in dragnets complain that their freedumb is being impinged if laws are passed to help them? I’m sick and tired of the hypocrisy.

Okay well enough whining on my part. I put Arch Linux – my favorite distro – back on my laptop. I don’t know why in the hell I was running Fedora. Clearly, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I’m happy to be back on the platform that I’ve grown to love. My desktop still uses Arch though. I had some dumb ass idea that Arch would not run that well on a laptop. I was very wrong. Arch is actually more battery efficient than Fedora.

Well, in any case, I feel good about kicking Fedora to the curb. They capitulated to the age verification movement and they’re allowing AI contributions. As one of my favorite cartoon characters would say, “Uh huh huh huh …. Nope nope nope.” Chicken Hawk was hilarious! I digress. AI writes very poor code. Who knows what security holes are going to open. A good distribution is going down the toilet.

I’m having fun being back on the fediverse via Mastodon. That’s the only social media that I feel is quality. If you’re already on it and want to follow me, just click on the link at the footer. Hope to see you there!