Under Par!
A hole in one gets a lot of kudos and admittedly I’ve never had one. But today feels even better to me because over the course of four hours I played well, not just one lucky shot. So yes, I’m bragging because I shot my first ever 18 hole round under par. A score of 71. Par is 72.

Three birdies, two bogies and the rest pars. My partner, Yaz, also had an amazing round of 78. We ended up winning Today’s Men’s club event, and I won a skin for a birdie on hole 12, a hole that I almost never even par! It was a tap in after I hit my heaven wood to about 10 inches from the pin.
But maybe even more important than the score was that I played with three other guys who were so nice, and gracious! It was really a great day all around. Thanks Yaz, Art, and Vic!! Yaz was a great partner who covered every mistake. And Art and Vic are just great people.
Is this what appeasement looks like in 2025?
Friday night was happy hour followed by game night at the clubhouse. At happy hour I noticed that Pedro our longtime server was no longer wearing a name tag that read “Pedro” but instead read “Bruce” It immediately caught my attention as both our daughter and daughter-in-law had commented on our family message stream earlier in the day that they had had meetings about their rights if ICE were to raid their workplace!!! Both said something like “I never thought I’d live in a world like this.” Neither did I!
When I asked Pedro about it, he looked a bit sheepish, thanked me, and said something like, “this name is probably better now.” The reactions of people I thought were my friends were just to shrug their shoulders as if “too bad for him.” or “I guess that is his choice.” A couple were incensed, but not in a way that made me feel like they really understood the underlying issue! It really took all I had to even stay for games after that. I slammed my fist on the table and explained why I thought this was so wrong but I got no response, blank stares, as if I was worried about nothing!!!
This is not nothing! this is appeasement in the 21st century! This is what prime minister Chamberlain did in the prelude to World War II. We cannot appease Trump, or we will all lose our rights!!
In case you do not get it, the point of my post is this: We have millions of people in this country who pick our vegetables, serve our food, take care of our yards, and do hundreds of other jobs that “regular” Americans will not do. Yet, we rely on their work. Let’s not demonize them but rather understand them! Appreciate them!
Please write your congressperson or governor or senator and let them know how you feel!! I know the majority of us want justice but we need to make our voices heard!
Please note that I have changed the names, of servers and others to protect them!
Brad
Gratitude
In the era that started this week, I just want to say that I think it is especially important to express gratitude and to appreciate the people who help us out in our day to day life.
I keep seeing posts like, don’t use Discord for your open source project. But when you user base is 99% regular folks (not open source zealots) why put up barriers to interact with them? Make it easy to know your users.
I love living on the golf course. After 2 weeks back in Minnesota, I looked out today and nobody was on the course. OK, I’ll just go play four holes quick. turned out I played 7 and it was beautiful! Not to mention warm!
Wow, hallucinations as new scientific hypotheses. www.nytimes.com/2024/12/2…
Six days back in Minnesota and I have yet to see the sun!! Only 12 days until I can return to Indio.
Trying advent of code, in Rust, but with help from GPT this year. Definitely takes the sting out of coding in an unfamiliar language. I’m not interested in it solving the problem for me, just helping with the mechanics.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Although there is a lot I am worried about in this post-election season, I’m focusing on the good today. I’m here in the beautiful Coachella Valley for the winter, playing golf in the morning, playing games and having Thanksgiving dinner with friends. Working it all off with some pickleball in the evening.
We have an amazing daughter and son, who married other amazing people. They are all making the world a better place in their own way. We have two grandchildren who are precocious, loving, and thoughtful, yet they are only 2 and 4 years old.
I have a wonderful wife who has somehow loved me for more than 66.66% of my life! I’ve had more than my share of successful careers, and now I get to work on a project that I love, that helps students who need it most, (Runestone Academy) and I get to do it on my own schedule, when I’m not too busy doing other things I love (see above). In short, I have a lot to be thankful for!

Turkey prepped, broth simmering, mayo-herb rub, ready, pasta sauce for tonight simmering… Gonna be a great 24 hours!

Downloaded the Windsurf Editor today… It’s built on VSCode, but with a super-advanced Co-pilot. Its truly amazing so far… Really making me think about how CS is going to be taught in the near future.
Love our new Samsung “Bespoke Fridge” especially the Whisky ball feature… It looks like it might use an ice press to turn large cubes into the balls, but I can’t confirm. If anyone has a link, please share.
