Category Personal Message

After I removed the social media sharing links from my website, I realized something else; I haven’t actually used my social media accounts in literally years. Facebook? LinkedIn? (I already wiped out my Twitter and Reddit accounts) All of this information about me just sitting there for years being harvested over and over again. I’m out, they’re now all deactivated. So, if you can’t find me that’s why, it is nothing personal about you, it’s about them. The only remaining account I have is my BlueSky account @GldRush98.com.

I can’t see myself rejoining in the future. I see a lot of it as the root cause of a lot of problems our society is facing today, and I no longer want to be a part of that system. Peace and love. 

History will see that he manufactured chaos because he had nothing good to offer. No vision. No ideas. Just tearing down what  others have built, and blamed others for his shortcomings. Generations will be taught he was nothing but a pathetic conman and a failure.

I have become extremely disillusioned with massive social-media sites, as well as supporting large corporations in general. I only see them as doing bad and evil in this world and I am done participating in their games.

As such, I have removed all social media sharing buttons and interactions from this site and have also removed all Google tracking tags from my websites. I haven’t even logged in to those Google dashboards in years, so why am I continuing to send those assholes free data? I’m done. I’m pulling out as much crap from Google as I can, they’ve lost the rights.

I will no longer be handing the tech-oligarchy a single bit of traffic. If you’d like to share something you see here some place else, you’re more than welcome to. I’m just not providing you the buttons to do it.

DOWN WITH BIG BROTHER.

– George Orwell

Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
“Keep, ancient lands, your storied pomp!” cries she
With silent lips. “Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Emma Lazarus
November 2, 1883

It took an immigrant congressman to standup and finally say, this is not right, this is not normal, Trump must be impeached immediately. Shri Thanedar has introduced articles of impeachment against Trump. The President is NEVER above the law, and as Shri outlines in his articles of impeachment, none of this is legal;

1. Defying a 9-0 Supreme Court Ruling
2. Dismantling Federal Agencies
3. Imposing Damaging Tariffs
4. Violating First Amendment Rights 
5. Creating an Unlawful office
6. Dismissing criminal cases of donors
7. Denying due process and other constitutional violations.

Read more details in his press release here.

Thanedar seems to be the only congressman willing to defend the constitution and this country. Why is he the only one with a spine? Why are we 100+ days in to this utter insanity and congress has only been sitting around twiddling their thumbs? I’m taking note Illinois congresspeople. I will vote accordingly. 

On December 1st 2018 a freak warm front swept through the area bringing with it 29 Tornados. One of those Tornados was a devastating EF3 Tornado that completely destroyed many houses in my town. Over 400 homes were damaged by this Tornado which had wind speeds estimated at 155mph and was a 1/2 mile wide. Our house was in this Tornado’s direct path. We were fortunate enough that when the Tornado reached us it had lifted off the ground but the official storm track still put it coming right over our backyard. As a result we had extensive shingle and siding damage done. No face of the house was spared and we took damage from the extreme winds and flying debris on literally every side. My daughter and I were home at the time and ran to the basement as soon as we realized there was a Tornado nearby. We both suffer from PTSD from it to this day, with Tornado sirens setting off a near panic-state in her, and having adverse effects on me as well.

I had been a client of Country Financial since the day I turned 16 and got my license, only because that was who my Dad used at the time. As I grew, I continued to use them for multiple vehicles, multiple life policies, and our home policy. I had made some small auto claims in the past, none my fault, and had always been satisfied with how it was handled. I wish I could say the same for the Tornado damage to my house, but my experience was the exact opposite. Country Financial weaseled out of tens of thousands of dollars in necessary repairs and stuck me with the bill.

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Seriously, what a mess of a year. So many fun summer activities my wife and I look forward to every year, just GONE. Car shows, concerts, musicals, dinners out with friends, pool parties, family get-togethers, birthday parties, just all gone. We usually try and hit at least 1 or 2 summer shows, whether it is a Breaking Benjamin concert, or Phantom of the Opera at the Fabulous Fox Theater in St. Louis. We’ve basically lost what feels like a year to the Covid-19 pandemic.  The scary part is that it has only been 6 months, and there is no realistic end really in sight. I don’t know how things return to normal with out a vaccine, which as of right now doesn’t exist. It just plain old sucks. You have to at least try and retain some forms of normalcy. My wife and I even went out to eat a meal for the first time since March. We’re only dining outdoors, but it was a nice change of pace, even if it’s still not normal. We also are fortunate enough to have family access to a condo down in the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri, so we took the kids down there for a long weekend before school started back up (all remote learning for now).  That was definitely a nice break from the mundane routine of sitting at home. Also, never underestimate what some online retail therapy can do for yah (also the reason you’re going to see some more flashlight posts from me, my hobby got a little carried away during lockdown). It gives you something to look forward to, and something to enjoy when it arrives.

I guess I’m just saying to try and enjoy the smaller things that break up the routine that you’d normally take for granted. There aren’t many upsides at all to this situation, but maybe that could be one of them; appreciating the smaller things that would have just been another day before.

I hope everyone is staying safe, and I look forward to returning to normalcy as much as you. Hopefully that can be soon?

13 years is a long time, especially for something to exist on the internet. 13 years ago this October I launched this WordPress powered blog and began mashing out random rants, raves, musings, pictures, and the occasional helpful bit of information.  This site launched on WordPress 2-point-something in 2007, and I have used the same OLD theme ever since then.  The backend has been maintained and I run the latest WordPress 5 release, but the front end has remained steadfast.  I’m a creature of habit in a lot of ways, and that combined with my free time being at a premium these days resulted in the same theme for 13 years. Over the years sticking with the same old style WP theme created some growing pains, but it was always just easier to patch or hack around an issue than redesign. Today that changes and I am launching a whole new look for my blog. Not out of any particular necessity, but more so I think it’s finally time to grow up a bit. It is time for a cleaner look, and a website with a responsive design that actually looks good on mobile devices. Using a modern theme will also make the site much easier to maintain/change/customize going forward, as well as avoid an potential issues that could crop up in future backend updates.  Really, running the same front end for 13 years, and it still being 99% functional from an ever-changing backend is pretty damn impressive to me. Kudos WordPress, kudos.  All of the original features and my long history of posts are still here and still at the same url’s, so everything should function more or less how it did before. It just looks a whole lot nicer now. I’ve even got a couple new blog posts planned out that I will hopefully be posting soon, so stay tuned!