“Inside The Terrordome”: ‘Survive And Adapt!’

Surviving the monetary and life sucker punches from January and February… barely:

• I may need to rethink the design, layout, title (just so there’s no unintended copyright infringement with the Public Enemy track this title is based off of), and overall content of “Welcome to the Terrordome”. I’d like to keep the personal updates in here; outside of that, we’ll see. Stay tuned…!
• For Republicans in Kentucky: your Caucus is Saturday – pay attention to the voting hours and locations, as they are much different than when Kentucky had Primaries!
• March Madness is here! I am excited about what Purdue and Kansas’s MBB teams can do in the post-season. I’ll even throw in Indiana. However, for the first time since 2001, the University of Louisville won’t be in any post-season tournament… no NCAAs, no NIT, no CBI. It is a weird feeling.
  On the other hand, the UofL WBB will most certainly be in the post-season! They are rolling into the ACC Tournament, winning 21 of their last 22 games. Good luck to them and the other teams mentioned above!
• Speaking of the Lady Cards: I remember reading a few posts on Facebook, as well as hearing a few local media types, speculating if it was time for Louisville Head Coach Jeff Walz and IU Men’s Head Coach Tom Crean to go, after both teams got off to very sub-.500 starts. IU just won the Big 10 Championship outright; UofL was runners-up in the ACC. Where are those complainers now?

Things I’ve learned from Super Tuesday and the Trump rally in Louisville:

• There are a few pieces of garbage in this town that support Trump. If you are “man” enough to shove a woman, and call her the N-word, then you are man enough for someone to kick your teeth out. 
• Bernie Sanders may not be in as good of shape with his campaign as some of his increasingly-annoyingly-vocal/meme-posting supporters want you to believe. The biggest factor isn’t that the media is distorting the numbers towards Hilary (which they might be doing). It’s NAME RECOGNITION for Sanders. Sanders did good work during the Civil Rights Movement; he hasn’t been visible or heard from, outside of northern New England, since then. Clinton HAS been seen and heard. That’s an advantage that Sanders needs to overcome… yesterday… if he wants the Democratic Nomination.
• John Kasich, for me, looks like the Republican candidate to pick from that bunch: Dr. Carson looks overmatched and overwhelmed; Rubio: I need to research more; Trump: I would have to be at gunpoint, by 6 people, before considering voting for him; Cruz: is Trump, the Decaf Version. For the Democrats: I would lean very slightly to Clinton. I need to find more actual facts and policies about Sanders before solidifying that choice, though. I don’t know if Gary Johnson is still running on the Libertarian Party ticket. Waiting: the advantage of being an Independent voter, I guess. 
• I think Rand Paul made a mistake by not running as a Libertarian.

I didn’t realize that being a “Christian Conservative” makes you a better candidate and person than those who aren’t Christian or Conservative. Thank you for opening my eyes, Indiana U.S. House of Representatives candidate Trey Hollingsworth!

I also didn’t realize just how stupid the FBI and national government thinks the general population is. Raise your hands if you think that the FBI would take any software that Apple develops for cracking a phone and use it for just one phone involved in a criminal investigation….
…. I didn’t see any hands.

• A few months ago, a childhood friend and neighbor’s kid got hit by a truck; some reports were that he was playing in traffic, other reports were that the semi was speeding and hit him at an intersection. A couple of days ago, there was a shooting in the neighborhood that I grew up in (for those in Louisville, the shooting was on Madelin Court, near Broadway; I lived less than a block away, on 34th Street); yesterday afternoon, I found out that the victim was a childhood friend of mine and my sister. I don’t know what has happened to that part of the West End – or the city, in general – but it’s disheartening to have 2 tragedies happen to dudes that you grew up with, 1 of them losing his life, the other one fighting to keep his son alive.
• If you want a lesson in “changing plans”, try being on a moderate-to-moderately-high daily dose of Warfarin and coming up with a diet or using products that we all take for granted ;-). At my last checkup, I was told that Ibuprofen went from “take, if necessary” to “do not take, unless your life depends on it”. That pretty much leaves Tylenol/Acetaminophen as the only pain-relief option. I also found out that Vitamin E could raise my INR, as well as Garlic, plus Vitamin C could affect it slightly. I think I need to pull a World of Warcraft mage trick and start conjuring meals!

On the personal front:

• I know I am late to the party but I played the board games “Settlers of Catan” and “Pandemic” for the first time, within the last few weeks. “Pandemic” is a co-op game, where you are trying to cure (and possibly eradicate) 4 diseases before they spread too far and/or too fast. The best way to sum it up is: “Nothing Is Safe.” “Catan” is a race to gather resources for building roads, settlements, and cities, earning Victory Points along the way. You can trade resources with fellow players but that’s about all the co-oping involved in the game. If you’ve ever played “UNO”, and had a friend play a Draw 4 card on you when you had less than 3 cards in your hand, then that feeling you had is the feeling you’ll have throughout a lot of “Catan”. Fun games (with a shout-out to a friend for starting weekly game nights)!
• Too many blasted hoops have to get jumped through in order to remotely have a chance of claiming Unemployment Benefits! It has taken 2 months’ worth of filings, re-filings, delays, missing forms, and back-and-forths (between JCTC and the unemployment office) just to arrive at today… where I was denied b/c “[your] school schedule prevents you from working full-time”. Needless to say, I wrote and mailed an appeal. It was one of the very few times where I had to actively watch what kind of tone I wrote a letter in. Hopefully, they’ll rescind their denial while I wait for Kinetic work to come in and search for a 2nd job.
• Once Spring Break gets here, I think I’m going to start reviewing for the A+ Certification Test. I don’t know when I’ll be able to take it but I would like for it to be soon. I’m definitely glad that I held on to my Hardware and Software class textbook.
• Just past the halfway point in the semester:
  • I have an 88% (B) in “The World At War: 1939-45”, with Exam 2 still to be graded. There are only 3 grades: 4 exams, keep the top 3 grades. This is my only on-campus class; I’m really enjoying it.
  • I have an 85.9% (B) in my “Internet Technologies” class, with 2 assignments still ungraded. An early zero on an assignment (because a blank copy of a speed test was what the professor received, even though I sent 2 copies of the screen shot) is killing this average; many assignments coming up, including 2 exams, that could possibly swing this back towards an ‘A’. There’s still plenty of chances for grades in this class.
  • Unofficially, I have a 78.8% (C) in “Web Site Design”, with 2 assignments to be graded. No excuses – I had a 2 week span where I fell behind and have been scrambling to catch up since then, with the weekly assignments building on the previous week. Like the Int. Tech class, there are plenty of chances to bring that grade up; unlike the Int. Tech class, the grade recovery is going to have to come mainly from the exams.
  • I have a 92.5% (A) in my “Database Design” class. This class has pleasantly surprised me, so far. Let’s hope the last 7 1/2 weeks do the same.
  • I was one of the approximately 20 students to earn the “African American Students of Excellence Award” from Jefferson Community and Technical College a few days ago; the awards ceremony will be held on March 31st. What an unbelievable honor!
•  I need my own place again. I need my own place again. I need my own place again. I need my own place again. I need my own place again.

Trey Lewis. Damion Lee. We’ve got your back. #L1C4