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<p align="right"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font> •  T R A N S I T I O N]]</font></p>
<p align="center"><font size="6">[[Transition|<font face="Consolas, Courier new">claytoncastle.com</font>]]</font></p>
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=[[2020.08.21 "You made that up."]]=
=[[2026.03.14 Might MAGA Kickstart EVs?]]=
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"You made that up."
The immense orange MAGA bobblehead, by starting a war with Iran, is obviously idiotic and insane.  For all the reasons that they claim, none of them make any sense nor are likely to work out they way they want to.  But one, beyond all the others, rang in my head the most hilariously.  If you'll pardon my gen-X laughter at something so wrong.


I'm not sure how much my total lack of surprise is conveyed by whatever expression is on my increasingly-worn face, but I lift my spiny shoulders in a shrug-like manner.  "That part isn't important for the purpose of this exchange, but it does set things up well to help you understand what I'm trying to explain."
The claim was that, at the end of all this (like there's any exit strategy at all), that the US will "finally have energy independence".  Meanwhile, having the global oil, natural gas, and fertilizer supply destabilized in this way is going to make that horribly untrue before anything else.  More than just fuel prices, everything else but especially food prices are going to spike for a while.


The lean reptilian death-machine regards me through slitted eyelids.  "Look, ye crazy old monster, I ken that ye can murder me inna blink of an eye - yeah?  So I'll listen to whatever cockamamie tale you need me ta hear.  Just maybe leave out the shyte with magical humans with wings."
But the hilarious part is the re-realization that all fossil fuel reliances are fundamentally fragile.  I say "re-realization" because this was itself pretty evident after the cold war and the oil embargo of the 70's - but some boomers are too stupid to remembers lessons we've already learned.  Apparently.


"The lady with the bat wings that leapt into the portal wasn't the scary bit; it was the black telepathic robots that started hunting me.  That was what started me on this path."
So instead of doing it to save the world from global warming, which we've clearly failed to do, we might at least stop actively fucking it up quite so much once people start nationalistically embracing renewable energy.  Especially the renewables that they can have right in their own country - especially countries that have sunshine or wind.  Wait, isn't that all of them?  Why, yes.  Yes it is.
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The reptiloid adjusts all three of its pairs of holstered blasters to get more comfortable on its barstool perch. "A path for forcing random people to listen to crazy stories?"
=[[2026.03.06 Pecha Kucha Money Shot]]=
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Woo - suave.  It must have pinged the robotic bartender to start making a drink a few moments ago, because that casual reach backward without looking to receive that mug was pretty slick.  I wrinkle my snout.  "That's a by-product."  I tap one of my talons on the bar top to request a replacement drink of my own, in a more old-fashioned way.  Based on the crooked set of its mouth, I think it does not think I'm very cool.
<hr>


The robotic bartender gives me an ETA on my drink, which seems somewhat faster than I would have expected. I regard my captive audience some more. "At the time, I was rather skilled with a blaster, and well on my way to being a decent assassin.  Tough enough that people stayed out of my way, which let me move pretty quickly through various environments."
=[[2026.02.27 Toys]]=
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I like toys.  Especially cars.  They're fun for me because driving them becomes an extension of myself.


Ah - a nod.  This makes sense to it, as it probably aligns well with its own ease of moving through reality through brute application of paired blaster fire.
Today I was followed into the parking garage at work by a fellow in a gen-3 Mazda RX-7 - a pretty epic toy from the turn of the millennium.  And I got to chatting with the German driver as we walked out, and learned that it was his dream car.  To hear him talk about driving it, and how it exceeded his expectations not because of how good it was but because of all its faults being unimportant and highlighting what he cared about while driving.  Very cool, brief conversation.


I let my fangs show as I smile, to distract it.  "That almost got me killed too many times to count.  Because as fast as I could move on, the things hunting me could always find me."
Also: the D&D books and kaiju miniature we backed [checks watch] about 2 years ago finally showed up.
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"So ye'r shitty at sneaking an hiding.  So whaaaaaaat?!!!"
<hr>


The change of expression is just delicious as I brought one of its very-precious plasma blasters into view.  "That was jut the thing - I wasn't.  Kind of the opposite."  It is clearly reigning in its indignation as it respectfully retrieves the exquisite weapon from my open palm.  "My problem was that I was just a bit too... distinctive."
=[[2026.01.17 Dad Thoughts Evolved For Today]]=
 
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A bunch of half-formed expressions chase each other across the reptiloid's face.  "Have ye been hunting me down?"
So, I've written a bunch of Rants about my dad.  Some as I realized he was mortal - which was a weird realization to experience as a rational being.  More immediately when he died to metabolize my grief, and others over a period of a decade afterwards.  Many of those were reminiscences of childhood defining experiences and mythologies for my own catharsis, and with burgeoning hopes of there being a way for my kids to know something of him.
 
The tension of the moment is piled on with a faint mechanical scream and a sudden thin plume of smoke rising from behind the bar.  Both I and the reptiloid glance over, and I get an updated ETA on my drink that is considerably further in the future.  An ugly snicker works its way out of my ragged vocal chords.
 
Turning back to regard the noticeably-more-tense reptiloid, I tilt my wedge-like head.  "Smart question.  But no, not exactly."
 
It doesn't look relieved.  "What do ye mean 'not exactly'?"
 
"Honestly, I wasn't looking for you.  Just someone like you."
 
"So, what?  A seasoned shock-trooper?"  I can see a thought sprout in its mind real-time.  "Or, are ye just looking for the toughest arsehole in the bar, to make a point?"
 
It's not far from the mark there.  "Let's just say that you are a means to an end, yes." And it wouldn't be correct to try to be any more reassuring than that.  Because this bristling hotshot is definitely at risk.  Imminently.  But not as much as I am.  That thought makes me smile, sardonically.
 
"Oh, yeah?  Wha' end is that, then?"  I'm guessing that my smile makes it even less at ease.  Which is fine.
 
I make a face, peering over the bar to try to get a guess at the progress on my drink, and hold up a single talon.  "It won't do to jump to the end.  There's a process to this, for it to work properly.  If we rush it, it might end up with unnecessary violence and fuss."  The reptiloid looks restless, so I push on.  "The tactic I stumbled on, for existing without being so easily discovered, was to diversify my methods.  I stopped relying on the blaster, and started developing expertise with hand-to-hand combat.  I wasn't very good at it, at first, but I kept developing the assassination ability alongside.  I got rather good at that, too."
 
"Did that work?"
 
"Nope!"
 
The impatience is almost palpable.  "Then why even mention it?"
 
"Well, it did work - a bit - for a while.  The problem was that the fundamental truth of what I am eventually shined through, and I became even more uniquely identifiable than before.  Because I ran into an age-old problem - finding things difficult enough to be enough of a challenge to actually improve my skills.  Shifting into a new type of fighting eventually highlighted the underlying assassin skills, which remain at the core of my fighting styles."
 
Oooh!  Drink is ready!  I tenderly pluck the crucible with the noxious fog roiling over the edge up off the bar.  The repiloid's expression of disapproval grows as it regards my favourite poison.  I gesture a "cheers" at it, and take an exploratory sip.  Oh, it burns!  The fumes etching my sinuses is particularly sharp.  Let me just dial down my pain receptors in my face even more so that I don't involuntarily shriek.  Hooooo - ahhhh.  Zark that was nasty.  It does have the desired effect, though: the warm sensation of a swarm of emergency nanoscopic robots involuntarily surging up my core.  Plus, you know, the painful reassurance that I'm not dead and can still feel.
 
I turn to my involuntary drinking partner - who has apparently forgotten their own drink while watching me with an exotic mix of horror and wariness. "Which essentially brings us to the part about hunting Missionaries."
 
"Oh, fucking hells!  More gorram fairy tale monsters?!"


Ignoring the snarl, I make a grimace.  "The problem with Missionaries, for being like me, is that they are very hard to find."
I think he would have really liked them both.  They have a lot of different parts of him, and his mom.


"That's because they don't fucking exist, ye daft prickle bush!"
Except doubts bubble up from the corners of my memory.  And I find myself working through extrapolations of the son-ward facets I could see into the person he might have actually been.


"...so I tend to use bait."
Obviously, my dad was pretty cool. And I don't just mean that in the idol-worship way sons have for their fathers - which I kind of do - but also he seemed to have an effortless way of making people want to be his friend. I don't actually know where he fit in the Letterkenny Spectrum as kid - hick, skid, or jock (definitely not a native or a christian, or Québécois for that matter nor a degen from up-country). But the vast majority of people I saw him encounter already knew him, or of him, and respected him if not overtly expressing happiness at seeing him.


The reptiloid is abruptly quiet and alert - mostly watching me though.  Which is a mistake.
All of which I couch as being the basis for assuming that he was pretty comfortable in our pasty-white mostly monoculture small-town circumstances.  That sort of comfort breeds a sense of confirmation about one's own cultural identity.


"Because Missionaries like to stalk powerful combatants - for training of their own."  This seems like a ripe moment to have my ridiculously over-compensating-class force blade fly up into my hand and snap energized.  The tension in the entire bar is now cranked up nicely.
And, honestly, while my dad was great at talking philosophy with me - especially about the why of things - whenever topics of other places or peoples came up he was consistently dismissive and unkind.  And occasionally overtly racist, and sometimes simply xenophobic.


The reptiloid carefully reaches to his pair of widestroke blasters - which would be a good choice, if any choice he made would have mattered.  "What the fuck are ye doing?!"
Over the past decade, I've worried about how my boomer dad might have responded to the weird right-wing stumble of western civilization.  If I try to comfort myself with how he was smart and would be disgusted by the stupid lies, it's hard to deny the persuasive power that hate has had over people.  Especially boomers.


"You don't think I'm talking to you, still, do you?"
It occurred to me to try to talk my hypothetical conservative father away from the lure of fascism, but it just hurts my heart too much to think about it too much.


There's a brilliant flash as an assault cutting beam suddenly cleaves a leg off a way-too-fast human.  And only be reviewing sensor data afterwards is it possible to parse how very quickly said leg fled out of the bar on its own, hotly pursued by the transforming 3-limbed ex-human.  The reptiloid's blasters are out and he's pivoting to face the cowering remains of the bar - and leering Orbodun covering the exit with said assault cutting laser.
But then I imagine how he'd react to his grandkids both being non-binary and fabulous.


I glide off my stool, also carefully regarding the exit, and slink over to my partners. "That worked really well!"
The deepest well of my hope is that he would have spent a lot of time knowing them all through their lives and see how their development into who they are becoming is a lovely and natural extrapolation of the brilliant and lovely potential they've always had.  And that his love for them would ease any struggling conservative confusion he might experience so that he could be the same cool and inspirational patriarch for them that he was for me and my sister.


The super-stealthy Takolee appears at my elbow.  The Orbodun nods, "Except that I almost flinched when the rifle was slipped into my grip.  You are extremely smooth."  The Takolee gives a flourish of a bow.  The Orbodun nods in the direction of the flustered reptiloid still brandishing pistols.  "I think you owe that... guy? a drink."
That doesn't change the fear that he would have not been as close, or as accepting.  And that fear sits on my heart.
 
"It's truly androgynous at the moment, so neither a guy nor a gal, technically.  But, nah - I already gave it a great story to tell."
 
"Not that anyone will believe it's story, though."
 
"That's a feature of a really great story, isn't it?"
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=[[2020.07.07 Verbal Constipation]]=
=[[2026.01.09 Men With Hats]]=
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There's so much going on!
http://www.kvankii.com/gallery/IMG_0138_copy.png


And I have so little ability to make meaningful note of it. Sucks.
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=[[2020.06.30 Courage, Confidence, and Goodness]]=
=[[2026.01.02 First Day Of The New Job]]=
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<pre>Blatantly stolen from the interwebs...</pre>
Sadly, my epic new seat was not ready to set up. So I just admired the view for a minute - both out the across the river, and into my director's office at the giant Millenium Falcon LEGO set.
<blockquote>
If courage isn't the absence of fear but doing the right thing regardless of it, maybe confidence isn't the absence of insecurity but knowing you have real worth despite it.
 
By this same token, maybe goodness isn't the absence of bad thoughts or impulses, but the conscious choice to behave according to your moral ideals in spite of them.
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=[[2020.05.24 Pandemic Ponderings 4]]=
=[[2025.12.30 - 2025 Wrap-Up]]=
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==Fredmas Crash==
On the wet and rainy morning of Fredmas, Ember and Violet were commuting to Hillsdale for school when they were the tail-end of a 5-car pile-up. Speeds were modest, and the 2018 Subaru Impreza did all the safety-engineered things to sacrifice itself such that neither kid was injured in any way.


How very odd that the top four countries ranked in terms of cases of infection, demonstrating that they are the least capable of dealing with real world facts and situations, all happen to have governments lead by populist leaders.
Communication was not stellar, but Violet managed to let us know right away.  So without actually having all the details up front, Amy and I knew they had a problem and could see that they were in the middle of the Fremont freeway bridge and jumped into Velma to go help.  When we showed up they were the only ones there - shivering in the rain on the side of the freeway.  Amy onboarded the kids to drive them the rest of the way SW, and I stayed in the shivering sideways rain for a couple hours with the wreck to wait for the tow truck.  Fun times.
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<hr>
Some lessons learned, and Ember has yet to get back in that saddle.  Scheming about how to proceed with commuter vehicle plans is still ongoing.  It seems like a logical time and place to make a plug for the replacement to be an EV, but probably shouldn't push too hard.  Because reasons.


=[[2020.05.17 The Hole]]=
==Work Transformations==
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December as a whole has been weird with trying to finish handing work batons to their new responsible engineers.  It's been the longest that I've been in any group - 10 years! - and recognize that it's going to be a long time to ever fully extricate myself.
Back when I was turning 30, I was tormented for a couple years with a new sensation of being ready to be part of a family.  I discovered in myself a capacity to hold another in a trusting way, to be a partner.  It ached to be unfulfilled.  But then I did find a partner, and it blossomed into a family, and the sense of completeness is one that I know in my bones is how my best life can be realized.


So I know that such a thing is possible.  And the ache I feel now can be soothed, with patience and care.
At the same time, the new Vehicle Level Engineering role is both exciting and boggling.  Frankly, it's a lot.


Except now there's a new space in me, beyond the socket that I might find a partner to fit.  I've been eroded by the knowledge that it ends.  It always ends.  My trust can never be safe.
Simultaneously, Amy is changing shifts to stop the 5 12-hour shifts in 6 days marathon every couple weeks and jumping into 3 shifts every week with her best non-Clayton friend.  We're all very excited for the shift in energy.


Which is why I'm here, alone with my feelings, grieving the version of me that I may never get to be again.
==Other Stuff==
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This winter break had been bookmarked for a bunch of reading and writing plans, all of which have basically unravelled as I'm actually spending most of my time just mouth-breathing my way through the exhausting cold/flu that Ember gave me.


<hr>
Now that the kids are back, I do intend to inflict all kinds of old but beloved movies on them.  So there's that.  There's also a butt-tonne of sugary foods from all the sources to keep me overfed while I quietly lament how few bike rides I actually went on this year.


=[[2020.05.09 Define Well-Being]]=
So it goes.
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Before the pandemic started, I signed up for an online psychology course from Yale: <i>The Psychology of Happiness</i> with Doctor Laurie Santos.  It was meant to augment my therapy, but has turned into my only therapy.  And, honestly, it's been some of the most helpful therapeutic work I've done.


My week 7 homework is a short essay: Define well-being.
Things I'm looking forward to in 2026:
<blockquote><i>"Think about your own definition of well-being and share it with your classmates. What does living the good life mean to you personally? Has this course changed your definition at all?"</i></blockquote>
* bunches of Amy+Clayton adventure time regularly
* diving into a dream job (should probably write a separate post about that thought alone)
* defeating fascism


Here goes.
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<blockquote><b>
<hr>
Well-being might shift definition based on where you view it from, in time.


Looking forward, well-being feels defined by a sense of affluence and ease. We imagine our future selves as having well-being with goals achieved, and needs met, and being safe.
=[[2025.11.30 Movember]]=
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In the moment, well-being is all about how in-touch with ourselves we are.  Sensing the alignment of our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and sensations are the most tangible understanding of immediate well-being.  These are the immersive experiences of well-being that are the pixels that make up the picture we're painting of our lives.
Not my best effort.  I suspect that the grey makes it incrementally less impressive.  Plus I kept trimming to avoid poking Amy so much, and the surrounding scruff softens the effect even more.


Looking back, well-being is filtered through our evaluation of our own equanimity with whatever our challenges were, and the level of acceptance we have gained.  If we're wise, maybe we see how our own well-being is tied to the degree to which we were sources of well-being for the rest of the world.
Gone now, but not missed.  Other than the daily startle of seeing my dad in the mirror.
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=[[2025.10.18 No Kings]]=
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40,000 people in Portland sending a clear message.
 
Awkwardly, the current administration has also been sending a clear, fascist message.
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=[[2020.04.25 Pandemic Ponderings 3]]=
=[[2025.10.04 Federal Troops In Portland]]=
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The immediate reality of existence is that I'm stretched really thin.  Being the lead parent for homeschooling for most of the weekdays makes sense, because my work is not fragile with respect to interruptions - unlike S.  But it does mean that I have to make up time on evenings and weekends to compensate, productivity-wise.  It is ablative on the soul, and I'll have to moderate some expectations in order to make all this sustainable.
It's really weird.  Just, you know, profoundly weird.


But there is a poignancy to these times.  I love how this global experience, that we'll recall for the rest of our lives, is saturated with me spending time with Simon and Violet.  We'll all have shared experiences, with greater-than-usual bandwidth of interaction existing in my little apartment and trying to figure out how to thrive with our arrayed pursuits.
Acknowledging for a moment the footage from 2020 looked bad - as shown on cable news.  But even then that was basically constrained to a couple blocks downtown for actual protests.  Meanwhile there were other simultaneous marches about police brutality throughout the city that were completely peaceful and not newsworthy.


Future Simon and Violet - who I hope are reading this someday - I know I seemed grumpy some of these days, but I want you to know how much I love all this time with you both.
I suppose that if one were to conflate the "hundred days of protest" in 2020 with the rising homelessness problem, one could squint and see the folks cowering in tents and vehicles and pretend there's a direct connection of some kind.  I mean, other than the systematic violence done to the worker class both strip mining us for wealth and trying to overtly pit us against each other.


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But in context of what is actually happening right now - which amounts to a group of 6-16 people regularly taunting ICE agents at a single building - it's wildly disproportional.  Especially with the Portland Police Department stating, in court, that all the altercations they have evidence for so far are mainly cases of untrained federal agents trying to instigate meme-worthy moments with the peaceful protestors.


<hr>
So the federal activation of 200 National Guard to "pacify Portland" is, well, purely for show.


=[[2020.04.12 Pandemic Ponderings 2]]=
Which makes Portland's main reaction one that endears this city to me even more: to be silly. Dressing up in harmless costumes, dancing, and handing out cookies. Doing whatever it takes to make the video bites nearly impossible to weaponize politically, as the fascists so clearly desire.
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Oh shyyte: here it comes.
And to the person in the inflatable costume that had the inlet of their suit sprayed with pepper spray: I hope you are OK. As much as that must have sucked, and possibly could have caused serious medical repercussions, you embodied the shallow idiocy of their position.  In no way could a bumbling inflatable costume be considered a threat, and to assault you was to show the cowardly and loathsome depth of their antisocial motivations. 


To the federal fucknugget that used pepper spray on an obviously-harmless person in an inflatable costume: Now we all know why you have no real friends and your life is empty of meaning.  You obviously don't belong in Portland.
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=[[2020.03.25 Pandemic Ponderings 1]]=
=[[2025.09.17 Bertrand Russell On Fascism]]=
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As mentioned on BoingBoing today:<br>
In 1962, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, invited Nobel-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell to a debate. Mosley aimed to persuade Russell of fascism's merits.


So, yeah.  That's the last frame of Taika Waititi's fascinating movie [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jojo_Rabbit Jojo Rabbit].  It resonated with me, as it shook loose a bit of my congealed feelings I've been burdened by.
Russell, who was 89 at the time, replied:


Weeks ago, I had been meaning to post a jokey entry about how the apparent response to the Pandemic is mostly suggested to be: <i>Be Like Clayton</i>.<br>
<blockquote>
*OCD hand washing habits - CHECK
*Larger than usual personal space - CHECK
*Avoid gatherings with more than a few people - CHECK
*Have essentially no social life - CHECK


...but even though I used that joke a few times with some friends, it never really felt all that funny.
Dear Sir Oswald,


The larger worries about how the world is facing a major hurdle, combined with increasingly-confirmed fears that those in power are ill-equipped to face it, have cast my little sadnesses into sharp contrast.
Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.


Which, of course, just makes me feel insignificant on top of sad.  Which is, itself, funny - but only to the part of me that is not particularly helpful.
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.


Meanwhile: Since working from home and single-parenting kids will eat my soul, I've decided to take a psychology course from Yale online. Brilliant!
I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.


Yours sincerely,
Bertrand Russell
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=[[2020.03.09 It's Been One Of Them Years.]]=
=[[2025.08.15 If Not Stupid, Then Why Stupid-Shaped?]]=
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Seriously, there is so much political stupidity going on.


[https://g.co/kgs/ZtzSpL It's Been On Of Them Years].
ETA:<br>
Examples?  Hell no. It would be like admitting a vampire into your home to post anything like a meaningful set.


If there is permitted to be accurate news and history recorded of this era, simple searches will reveal enough to explain.
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=[[2020.03.06 Reflecting On Who My Daughter Is]]=
=[[2025.06.25 Corporate Culture]]=
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Big changes at work. Not going to talk about that overly much - it's too boring to even write out.
 
I think I already knew, but the actual word churns up emotional trouble inside myself that I admit I am afraid of.  <br>
I should be braver, like she is.  <br>
And see the fascination within it, like she can.


We'll see where we are, and go from there.
BUT.  An aspect I find interesting is who is excited about these major changes, and who is worried about them.


Now, obviously, both reactions are simultaneously valid and possible.  I feel both myself.  But whether the excitement is more important compared to the various individual level of concern does speak to where many of us are.  Which, in turn, is strongly indicative of the sense of trust we have with the company - or our sense of trust in ourselves to offset any lack of trust in the company we have.
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=[[2020.03.02 Too Many Fucks Given]]=
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Basically, I am still struggling with how to process the notion that I will never get a leadership position in engineering at DAIMLER.  My internal drives motivating me to excel have long included management ambition in engineering.  While I know that logically I should find a way to leverage this as a form of freedom, and re-kindle some of my long-neglected interests.  But it still squats on my soul as sense of hopeless frustration.
Perhaps it would be easier to hold if the managers in engineering were more, on the whole, obviously better at managing.  Such that I could see how I do not measure up.  But it's not like that.  At all.
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Some people need to find the edges of things, instead of assuming what they might be.
RESISTANCE STATUS:
 
* US citizenship:  APPLICATION (still) PENDING
* local politics:  NULL, homeless situation correctly one of the main foci
* global politics: NULL, wait - Justin is dating Katy?  Nice.
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Latest revision as of 22:06, 14 March 2026

claytoncastle.com

2026.03.14 Might MAGA Kickstart EVs?

The immense orange MAGA bobblehead, by starting a war with Iran, is obviously idiotic and insane. For all the reasons that they claim, none of them make any sense nor are likely to work out they way they want to. But one, beyond all the others, rang in my head the most hilariously. If you'll pardon my gen-X laughter at something so wrong.

The claim was that, at the end of all this (like there's any exit strategy at all), that the US will "finally have energy independence". Meanwhile, having the global oil, natural gas, and fertilizer supply destabilized in this way is going to make that horribly untrue before anything else. More than just fuel prices, everything else but especially food prices are going to spike for a while.

But the hilarious part is the re-realization that all fossil fuel reliances are fundamentally fragile. I say "re-realization" because this was itself pretty evident after the cold war and the oil embargo of the 70's - but some boomers are too stupid to remembers lessons we've already learned. Apparently.

So instead of doing it to save the world from global warming, which we've clearly failed to do, we might at least stop actively fucking it up quite so much once people start nationalistically embracing renewable energy. Especially the renewables that they can have right in their own country - especially countries that have sunshine or wind. Wait, isn't that all of them? Why, yes. Yes it is.

2026.03.06 Pecha Kucha Money Shot

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2026.02.27 Toys

I like toys. Especially cars. They're fun for me because driving them becomes an extension of myself.

Today I was followed into the parking garage at work by a fellow in a gen-3 Mazda RX-7 - a pretty epic toy from the turn of the millennium. And I got to chatting with the German driver as we walked out, and learned that it was his dream car. To hear him talk about driving it, and how it exceeded his expectations not because of how good it was but because of all its faults being unimportant and highlighting what he cared about while driving. Very cool, brief conversation.

Also: the D&D books and kaiju miniature we backed [checks watch] about 2 years ago finally showed up.

2026.01.17 Dad Thoughts Evolved For Today

So, I've written a bunch of Rants about my dad. Some as I realized he was mortal - which was a weird realization to experience as a rational being. More immediately when he died to metabolize my grief, and others over a period of a decade afterwards. Many of those were reminiscences of childhood defining experiences and mythologies for my own catharsis, and with burgeoning hopes of there being a way for my kids to know something of him.

I think he would have really liked them both. They have a lot of different parts of him, and his mom.

Except doubts bubble up from the corners of my memory. And I find myself working through extrapolations of the son-ward facets I could see into the person he might have actually been.

Obviously, my dad was pretty cool. And I don't just mean that in the idol-worship way sons have for their fathers - which I kind of do - but also he seemed to have an effortless way of making people want to be his friend. I don't actually know where he fit in the Letterkenny Spectrum as kid - hick, skid, or jock (definitely not a native or a christian, or Québécois for that matter nor a degen from up-country). But the vast majority of people I saw him encounter already knew him, or of him, and respected him if not overtly expressing happiness at seeing him.

All of which I couch as being the basis for assuming that he was pretty comfortable in our pasty-white mostly monoculture small-town circumstances. That sort of comfort breeds a sense of confirmation about one's own cultural identity.

And, honestly, while my dad was great at talking philosophy with me - especially about the why of things - whenever topics of other places or peoples came up he was consistently dismissive and unkind. And occasionally overtly racist, and sometimes simply xenophobic.

Over the past decade, I've worried about how my boomer dad might have responded to the weird right-wing stumble of western civilization. If I try to comfort myself with how he was smart and would be disgusted by the stupid lies, it's hard to deny the persuasive power that hate has had over people. Especially boomers.

It occurred to me to try to talk my hypothetical conservative father away from the lure of fascism, but it just hurts my heart too much to think about it too much.

But then I imagine how he'd react to his grandkids both being non-binary and fabulous.

The deepest well of my hope is that he would have spent a lot of time knowing them all through their lives and see how their development into who they are becoming is a lovely and natural extrapolation of the brilliant and lovely potential they've always had. And that his love for them would ease any struggling conservative confusion he might experience so that he could be the same cool and inspirational patriarch for them that he was for me and my sister.

That doesn't change the fear that he would have not been as close, or as accepting. And that fear sits on my heart.

2026.01.09 Men With Hats

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2026.01.02 First Day Of The New Job

Sadly, my epic new seat was not ready to set up. So I just admired the view for a minute - both out the across the river, and into my director's office at the giant Millenium Falcon LEGO set.

2025.12.30 - 2025 Wrap-Up

Fredmas Crash

On the wet and rainy morning of Fredmas, Ember and Violet were commuting to Hillsdale for school when they were the tail-end of a 5-car pile-up. Speeds were modest, and the 2018 Subaru Impreza did all the safety-engineered things to sacrifice itself such that neither kid was injured in any way.

Communication was not stellar, but Violet managed to let us know right away. So without actually having all the details up front, Amy and I knew they had a problem and could see that they were in the middle of the Fremont freeway bridge and jumped into Velma to go help. When we showed up they were the only ones there - shivering in the rain on the side of the freeway. Amy onboarded the kids to drive them the rest of the way SW, and I stayed in the shivering sideways rain for a couple hours with the wreck to wait for the tow truck. Fun times.

Some lessons learned, and Ember has yet to get back in that saddle. Scheming about how to proceed with commuter vehicle plans is still ongoing. It seems like a logical time and place to make a plug for the replacement to be an EV, but probably shouldn't push too hard. Because reasons.

Work Transformations

December as a whole has been weird with trying to finish handing work batons to their new responsible engineers. It's been the longest that I've been in any group - 10 years! - and recognize that it's going to be a long time to ever fully extricate myself.

At the same time, the new Vehicle Level Engineering role is both exciting and boggling. Frankly, it's a lot.

Simultaneously, Amy is changing shifts to stop the 5 12-hour shifts in 6 days marathon every couple weeks and jumping into 3 shifts every week with her best non-Clayton friend. We're all very excited for the shift in energy.

Other Stuff

This winter break had been bookmarked for a bunch of reading and writing plans, all of which have basically unravelled as I'm actually spending most of my time just mouth-breathing my way through the exhausting cold/flu that Ember gave me.

Now that the kids are back, I do intend to inflict all kinds of old but beloved movies on them. So there's that. There's also a butt-tonne of sugary foods from all the sources to keep me overfed while I quietly lament how few bike rides I actually went on this year.

So it goes.

Things I'm looking forward to in 2026:

  • bunches of Amy+Clayton adventure time regularly
  • diving into a dream job (should probably write a separate post about that thought alone)
  • defeating fascism

2025.11.30 Movember

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Not my best effort. I suspect that the grey makes it incrementally less impressive. Plus I kept trimming to avoid poking Amy so much, and the surrounding scruff softens the effect even more.

Gone now, but not missed. Other than the daily startle of seeing my dad in the mirror.

2025.10.18 No Kings

40,000 people in Portland sending a clear message.

Awkwardly, the current administration has also been sending a clear, fascist message.

2025.10.04 Federal Troops In Portland

It's really weird. Just, you know, profoundly weird.

Acknowledging for a moment the footage from 2020 looked bad - as shown on cable news. But even then that was basically constrained to a couple blocks downtown for actual protests. Meanwhile there were other simultaneous marches about police brutality throughout the city that were completely peaceful and not newsworthy.

I suppose that if one were to conflate the "hundred days of protest" in 2020 with the rising homelessness problem, one could squint and see the folks cowering in tents and vehicles and pretend there's a direct connection of some kind. I mean, other than the systematic violence done to the worker class both strip mining us for wealth and trying to overtly pit us against each other.

But in context of what is actually happening right now - which amounts to a group of 6-16 people regularly taunting ICE agents at a single building - it's wildly disproportional. Especially with the Portland Police Department stating, in court, that all the altercations they have evidence for so far are mainly cases of untrained federal agents trying to instigate meme-worthy moments with the peaceful protestors.

So the federal activation of 200 National Guard to "pacify Portland" is, well, purely for show.

Which makes Portland's main reaction one that endears this city to me even more: to be silly. Dressing up in harmless costumes, dancing, and handing out cookies. Doing whatever it takes to make the video bites nearly impossible to weaponize politically, as the fascists so clearly desire.

And to the person in the inflatable costume that had the inlet of their suit sprayed with pepper spray: I hope you are OK. As much as that must have sucked, and possibly could have caused serious medical repercussions, you embodied the shallow idiocy of their position. In no way could a bumbling inflatable costume be considered a threat, and to assault you was to show the cowardly and loathsome depth of their antisocial motivations.

To the federal fucknugget that used pepper spray on an obviously-harmless person in an inflatable costume: Now we all know why you have no real friends and your life is empty of meaning. You obviously don't belong in Portland.

2025.09.17 Bertrand Russell On Fascism

As mentioned on BoingBoing today:
In 1962, Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, invited Nobel-winning philosopher Bertrand Russell to a debate. Mosley aimed to persuade Russell of fascism's merits.

Russell, who was 89 at the time, replied:

Dear Sir Oswald,

Thank you for your letter and for your enclosures. I have given some thought to our recent correspondence. It is always difficult to decide on how to respond to people whose ethos is so alien and, in fact, repellent to one's own. It is not that I take exception to the general points made by you but that every ounce of my energy has been devoted to an active opposition to cruel bigotry, compulsive violence, and the sadistic persecution which has characterised the philosophy and practice of fascism.

I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.

I should like you to understand the intensity of this conviction on my part. It is not out of any attempt to be rude that I say this but because of all that I value in human experience and human achievement.

Yours sincerely,

Bertrand Russell

2025.08.15 If Not Stupid, Then Why Stupid-Shaped?

Seriously, there is so much political stupidity going on.

ETA:
Examples? Hell no. It would be like admitting a vampire into your home to post anything like a meaningful set.

If there is permitted to be accurate news and history recorded of this era, simple searches will reveal enough to explain.

2025.06.25 Corporate Culture

Big changes at work. Not going to talk about that overly much - it's too boring to even write out.

BUT. An aspect I find interesting is who is excited about these major changes, and who is worried about them.

Now, obviously, both reactions are simultaneously valid and possible. I feel both myself. But whether the excitement is more important compared to the various individual level of concern does speak to where many of us are. Which, in turn, is strongly indicative of the sense of trust we have with the company - or our sense of trust in ourselves to offset any lack of trust in the company we have.









































































































RESISTANCE STATUS:

  • US citizenship: APPLICATION (still) PENDING
  • local politics: NULL, homeless situation correctly one of the main foci
  • global politics: NULL, wait - Justin is dating Katy? Nice.

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