I guess it has been a while since I last posted.

I have learned that it takes too much out of me to work as a substitute teacher. One day of work, which feels great while I’m doing it and I love the kids, means 3 days of recuperation. I’m going to have to let the job go.

We’re still waiting for the debt to finish going away. Three more months at the most. Got another payday in a few days.

I haven’t been doing so well in my investments to date, although they may work out in the long term. The good news is I’m only doing small amounts, and the bad news is, even if I strike it big with each stock, I only did small amounts.

I haven’t had the energy or, sometimes, time to do any performing lately. I really wanted to two days last week and had something come up to keep me from doing so. My health has been close to poor, with a lot more pain than before. I’m still getting up and taking care of myself, but it’s not easy. I need to get a storage place and start moving stuff out of the trailer so we can clean more easily, and it will be easier to move with most of the stuff in storage already.

Otherwise, not much going on. I’m still doing two podcasts – one weekly, one approximately every 4-5 weeks – and getting good responses from various people about them. The new teeth are helping a little, although they are far from perfect.

Guess that will do for now.

Hugs,
Me

I just learned that my friend Paula Caplan passed away a week ago. She befriended me well over a decade ago and I worked with her on her activism in mental health diagnosis and care. I will miss her. I have not been in touch much since I deleted my Facebook account, where I used to manage a group for her. We shared many beliefs, spiritually and mundanely, and it was a pleasure to be associated with her.

The prospect of a move is fading away from us but we are keeping our options open. No money yet from the trust, but it should happen in the next week or so. Hope so, or we will have trouble getting through this month.

I have managed to write a couple more songs lately. Actually three this year, which puts it up there among my best years “not 1998”. I performed “Incomplete” for the first time at Eurofilk yesterday, and Gary McGath called is a “powerful song” and Karl Johan Noren was quite taken with it and thanked me for attending. I probably have another Eurofilk in me before school starts up again.

We have had two wonderful offers to move to places, rent-free if we keep them up. One of them is really too far away, but we have not rejected it. The other sounded too good to be true, in an area I already know well and from a friend I’ve known for decades. Sadly, it was too good to be true. We determined that we could sink tens of thousands of dollars into making the house livable — and it could easily take that much — and still have it all taken away should some county official come snooping around. I refuse to live my life hoping I’m flying enough under the radar, and, being someone who is somewhat visible for his views, I could easily become a target.

My wife has come to believe that our future is in western North Carolina, and I would be happy with that. We just need to find the right place and situation,.

The school year is over, to begin again August 4. My mother’s estate is about to get funded, upon the completed sale of her house. The company I’m working for has produce being marketed in a chain of 4 stores and another chain of 56 stores is trying to get on board, and the cell service resale company is only a few steps away from getting going.

We are hoping to find a house to move to in a safe location, with a lender who will look at our future. That may not happen. We will have the money to move soon, and take care of the remaining obligations. But we may be stuck here, because nobody wants to lend anything less than $80,000 and we cannot afford that kind of house payment long term. We are looking at all our options, but there are no options until the trust gets funded or income is flowing in.

Treading water. What I do best. Sad that it must continue.

Hugs,
Me

I have, with a heavy heart, decided to leave the team at mintCast podcast. I started with the rest of the team currently working (except for a couple newer additions) in October 2018. In terms of who has hosted this show, which has run since Nov 2008, I’m currently #9 on the list, although in a few months I could fall to #10 as my friend Tony Hughes passes me.

I still have Distrohoppers’ Digest, which I started with Tony Hughes and now also host with Dale Miracle, and am the solo voice of Full Circle Weekly News, 10 minutes or less each week of news of Linux and open source software.

I have been under increasing stress since the loss of my mother in January, and I did an evaluation of what I was doing and found I was taking 25-30 hours per month working on mintCast. Some of that was due to thinking I was underqualified and I kept trying to find things I could do to make myself useful, even indispensible. All I managed was to make myself feel less secure in my skills.

mintCast was my first ever podcast, although I had been lobbying Jupiter Broadcasting for many months for a podcast they apparently didn’t want to do. I learned more about Linux and open source software while on the show than everything I knew about it beforehand. Still, I could not manage to parlay that into a job in computers, something I’ve wanted since 1980. I do have a few sponsors at Sponsus.org, and am very thankful for all the friendship and support — and lots of free computer stuff — I’ve gotten.

I hope you’ll keep listening to my other podcasts, and I also hope to lasso another newscast if I can manage it.

Hugs,
Me

I’ve been getting 10 or 11 days of work (some half-days) per month as a substitute teacher. It’s not enough but better than nothing. More work is getting done on It’s Moss, I’m still doing my biweekly mintCast episodes and my almost-monthly Distrohoppers’ Digest episodes. I’m hoping to get more podcasting work. Hey, I’m almost famous!

We still don’t know the status of my mother’s estate but assume we will shortly. It is holding up things quite a bit, but I’d still rather have my mother to talk to. I’m leaning on friends I’ve only had for a few months or years.

I haven’t done any music for a few months. I have a few songs in my head, and am working on an old Pete Seeger song nobody plays anymore.

If you’re reading this, I’d love to hear from you.

Hugs,
Moss

My mother was interred today. The funeral ritual was very much in keeping with her beliefs, which meant they were either tolerated by or upset at least half the family and friends in attendance. But it’s over. Once we get the actual death certificate, we can move on. Gotta get done with the details and paperwork or we will be grieving forever. This has been more painful by the delays and paperwork, mostly caused by Covid in Los Angeles, than it should ever have been. Thank all the gods for cousin Judy, who has been handling absolutely everything first-hand.

I’m deeply offended by the way the Democratic Party tucked away all their furor and decided once again – this time when they had the power to do so – to not call witnesses in an impeachment trial. They are saying that those 7 Republican votes are an adequate moral victory. The Dems had a royal flush… and they folded.

The only way to prove it was a victory is way down the line: will those 7 get re-elected for their courage and the other 43 get voted out of office for their cowardice? I don’t see the GOP doing that.

The Dems do not know how to stick to their guns. Never did. And so there are still no consequences to the actions of powerful people.

In nature, there is no right or wrong, only consequences. This proves again that politics in Washington is unnatural.

Actually, I’m not dealing with it, much. My cousin Judy gets to do all the heavy lifting. I don’t even know whether there’s anything in it for me, other than a couple of oblique comments.

So I’m just plugging along. It’s difficult to work when you have two jobs. Worse when one of them is usually closed due to covid issues and the other hasn’t really gotten started yet and is not funded.

Life has been real at least. We cringe at every drop of news about the outgoing President, get cheered up by talk of covid relief funds, are surprised when someone donates an item or some money through my Sponsus account.

I missed the last mintCast podcast because I had an online concert to do, which, despite all my instruments rebelling and refusing to stay in tune, did not go badly. We almost had a team meeting today, might have a team meeting tomorrow, I have another podcast to do on Wednesday morning (Distrohoppers’ Digest) before next Sunday’s mintCast. And I keep breathing, and probably eating too much. A very minute percentage of whatever I’ve been drinking actually had any alcoholic content, and I don’t feel any need to increase it.

My home studio is in flux right now. One computer has been determined to not only be underpowered for my use but also have a short in it which messes with sound quality, the other has an obsolete video card which will be remedied shortly when a friend sends me a different one and I get a power cable to accommodate it. I have been given another laptop, a small, light one, to go with my big-heavy laptop. The big laptop is serving as my main machine right now, and it’s more than up to the task despite it being a late 2014 model.

I still have two guitars in need of light repair, and one of my cars has been hanging on for dear life for quite a while after sacrificing much of its lifes-blood over a lot of years and miles. But it’s enough. And I’m being cared for as much as is needed, although not much more.

I have hopes and dreams of finally launching the plans for the future of the bardic college, which will likely remain on hold for the rest of 2021.

That’s my life. How’s yours? My email has not changed unless you haven’t checked it for 8 years…

Hugs,
Me