Monthly Archives: June 2026

June 30, 2026: Thoughts on Early Summer and The World Cup

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I’m doing well overall. Most days I’m asleep by 10pm and usually wake up around 3:30 am. I play computer games for a few hours and then catch a few more hours of sleep after breakfast. We are now into summer and officially halfway through 2026.

Made a few new friends among the staff members. A couple of the staff members I was really close with moved on to other things. Many of the staff members I am friends with are immigrants.

One of the reasons I’m glad I moved to the downtown area is to get more exposure to different cultures. It’s paying off so far. In addition to immigrants, I made a friend originally from Indiana, another from Texas, a couple from Oklahoma, and one from Kentucky. Pretty good considering I haven’t travelled since I moved to the downtown.

My parents are doing well. They are enjoying retirement and spending time with the grandchildren. I usually see them a couple times a month. In addition to church activities, they enjoy binge watching series on Netflix and going to the movies at least once a week. A couple of years back they went to see Barry Manilow when he was playing in town. They also got to see the Husker basketball team when they played in the first round of March Madness and OKC was one of the host cities.

Been following the World Cup since it started three weeks ago. I love all the fan festivals and cultural activities. It was fun to see peoples’ impressions of my homeland. Made me remember that we humans have a lot more in common than we often acknowledge. The last few weeks made me remember that maybe peace on earth and goodwill to humanity is possible if we ignore the politicians and leadership caste. Maybe the path to world peace is cultural events like World Cup, music, art, and even things as mundane as international trade. It would be fun to see all three host countries make it to the round of sixteen. Canada has already made it and Mexico is currently playing right now. I really don’t care who wins the whole competition. I think the World Cup has accomplished one goal in bringing people together during these stressful times of crisis.

The World Cup has allowed me, at least for a few hours a day this summer, to forget about all the jobs being lost to automation, trade wars, real wars, stagnant wages, and general all-around uncertainty. It was the break from all the bad news I was desperately needing. I didn’t realize how bad I needed it until the fan festivals started right before the tournament. I guess only God knows how many friendships and potential romances were started in the last few weeks because soccer (or football to the 96 percent of the world not living in USA) allowed us as peoples of various nations and religions to forget about our current troubles and renew ourselves to face the ongoing challenges. Maybe our ‘elites’ are the real problem. Maybe that is the real benefit of the modern day ‘bread and circus.’ Not necessarily to permanently distract us from our problems, but to keep up from burning out over the long haul.

Reflections on Changes since 2015

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Final weekend in June 2026. Summer has returned with a vengeance. Fortunately, the air conditioning was fixed a while back. Looking like it will be a long summer.

One good thing about the heat and humidity is that my joints don’t hurt nearly as much now as they did in the winter. At least until the thunderstorms arrive.

I’m thinking a lot about my grandmother. She was born on June 28, 1918. She died in 2015. I’m thinking of all the changes she saw in her lifetime. I wrote a blog entry about this on this date in 2018. I’m now starting to think of the changes I’ve seen just since my grandma passed in 2015.

We had the world where Donald Trump was a real estate man and not a politician. Britian has had several prime ministers come and go. Brexit happened. We had a pandemic that killed millions of people all over the world. AI has become as common as smart phones. In 2015, AI was still mostly in the lab and not very good. Search engines were still a big deal before they branched into AI. Nvidia was known mainly by serious computer gamers. SpaceX and Tesla weren’t household names. Open AI wasn’t around. Drugs to treat obesity weren’t available to mass market. Podcasts were still niche. Self-driving cars were still experimental and not really available. EVs were mostly a niche luxury market. AI friends and lovers were science fiction. I liked Scarlett Johansen in the movie ‘Her.’ Turns out that is now science fact and not the science fiction it was a dozen years ago. Crypto currency was mostly limited to bitcoin and still very niche. Everyone (me included) thought 3D printers would be in every home the same way desktop computers were before the development of smart phones. Some predictions didn’t pan out.

As far as I know, I think more people in the world own smart phones than have easy access to safe drinking water. The level of AI we have today, well in 2015, was considered several decades away by most people. Hardly a day goes by where at least one company isn’t announcing layoffs (driven in part by automation and AI). China’s economy is probably bigger than even the U.S. economy. Most developed countries had birth rates decline below replacement level, whereas fifty years ago most people were worried about people having too many children. Turns out that prosperity and mass education reduced population growth to the point that many people are now worried that we won’t have enough people to keep civilization functioning at our current levels. Who can even guess what people of the 2070s will be worrying about in those regards?

In 2015 we weren’t spending trillions of dollars on building data centers and upgrading the power grid to power AI. In 2015, global trade was still relatively easy. Russia and Ukraine hadn’t gone to war. The US at war with Iran and Venezuela was unthinkable. Groceries were probably less than half the price they are now. Housing was still somewhat affordable. Gig work was mostly for younger people and retirees looking for extra income and not the necessity it is now. The idea of a person having a net worth of over one trillion dollars was the stuff of dystopic science fiction. Multi generational housing wasn’t common. Now it’s a necessity for many people. Heck, even I lived with my parents for two and a half years looking for a permanent home I initially thought would come open in only a few months.

I think the biggest change most people, me included, didn’t expect by 2026 was that white collar office jobs would be easily automated by AI. I figured it would happen eventually, I didn’t think it would happen by 2026. So now we have people who have tens of thousands in student loans because they were told that office jobs were safe from automation as recently as five years ago. The kids who would have never thought about the trades in 2015 are seriously looking at them now. The idea of Universal Basic Income was radical. Now it’s starting to look like might be needed if we don’t want millions of people in the streets starving and rioting.

Even though millions of jobs have been displaced and millions of people died during the pandemic, the stock market is doing better than ever. I imagine some people made more playing the stock and crypto markets than they ever did in a regular forty hour a week job. The stock market has gone from a rich person’s activity to almost a necessity for anyone wanting to manage money. Heaven knows banks won’t pay enough interest on savings accounts to even keep up with inflation. So much for the internet revolution making life cheaper. That was definitely the big prediction I personally got wrong.

A heck of a lot has changed since my grandma died in 2015. It seems like almost a lifetime of change was forced into barely over a decade. No wonder people are withdrawing and discouraged. I understand why many fear we are already living in a cyberpunk dystopia in 2026. We literally have near Star Trek like technology with the political and social leadership that hasn’t updated since at least the 1990s. Too many of our politicians, at least here in the west, still think like it’s 1996 and not 2026. In fact, many of the politicians we had in 1996 are still in power.

Improved Health and Longer-Term Thinking

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It’s kind of odd that the older I have gotten the longer term in my thinking has become. I did not expect this ten years ago.

I think one of the reasons I’m more of a long-term thinker is because my health has dramatically improved in the last few years. I’ve been at this long-term care facility for almost ten months. The biggest goal I haven’t accomplished yet is being able to walk again. I want to lose some more weight before I try physical therapy again.

I’ve lost around 120 pounds in the last ten months overall. I’m almost the same weight now as I was at my grandmother’s funeral in 2015. And I was in good enough shape then to serve as a pallbearer for my grandmother and a groomsman at a friend’s wedding that same summer.

I sit on the side of the bed every day for at least a couple hours. It helps rebuild my balance and I think it helps my back muscles. The only thing really limiting how long I can sit without back support is my bad tailbone. I injured my tailbone in a high school football game when I was a teenager, and it never completely healed. At least I don’t have nerve pain anymore, thank goodness. I suppose the tailbone is one of those chronic aches and pains from the misadventures of my younger years.

Thankfully my ankles, knees, and feet don’t hurt anymore. For a while I occasionally got cases of gout that wouldn’t allow me to walk much except to go to the bathroom. It started in my early thirties. But I haven’t had a case of gout since I moved to the downtown.

My knee pain cleared up over the winter. Even the weather changes don’t effect my knees as much as they did a year ago. I still have some stiffness and limited range of motion, but I can easily lift my legs and knees and hold for several seconds. Sometimes when the nurses’ aides are helping me clean up, I’ll lift both legs and hold them for as long as twenty seconds just to show off. I almost brought one kind hearted aide to tears of joy with how much I have improved over the last several months a few days ago.

I no longer have swelling in my lower legs. In fact, my calves are kind of skinny now. My feet haven’t been swollen for a long time. I can even cut my own toe nails again. I don’t need to keep the call button on my bed. I can reach it on the wall now. I don’t need the extended cord for the call button or even the regular length one anymore.

Most days the meals are pretty good. Just today we had biscuits and gravy for breakfast, roast beef for lunch, and jalapeno cheeseburger for supper. I eat three hot meals a day and I still lose weight most months. Whoever designed my diet is doing an incredible job. I eat home cooked meals three times a day and I still lose weight most months. I think it helps that I hardly ever eat sugary snacks and never ask for second helpings. First few weeks were kind of rough. But I eventually adapted.

Sleeping most of the night anymore. I usually wake up for good around 5am. That’s usually when the night shift makes their last check in for the night. Breakfast usually arrives around 730am or so. After breakfast, I usually fall asleep for another couple hours. Anymore I sleep through the morning cleaning staff cleaning my apartment.

I am doing well. Five years ago, I wasn’t sure I would make it to 2026. But here I am and, other than not being able to walk without assistance yet, I am in better shape now than I was ten years ago. I keep as active and positive as I can. I want to lose more weight before I try physical therapy again, ideally in a few more months. But now that a lot of my health has stabilized and improved, I can see that I probably will be able to walk again someday.

June 17 2026

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We are now almost officially into summer. The hot and humid weather has been easier on my sore joints. After three years of living in Oklahoma, I’ve adapted to the hotter weather.

Still working on my Spanish a little every day. Been working on my simulation games like Civilization and Railroad Tycoon. Enjoying watching the World Cup matches. I enjoy the reaction videos on YouTube from the foreign visitors experiencing the US for the first time. It is interesting to see how the Japanese respond to Texas barbecue or watching Scotland’s fans watching baseball at Fenway Park in Boston. I still can’t believe that little Cape Verde tied Spain. The only reason I know Cape Verde is off the western coast of Africa is I had a few readers from there over the years. The US plays again on Friday against Australia. Should be interesting.

The food here in the complex is pretty good. As good as the winter menu was, the summer menu is even better. Quite a bit of barbecue, chicken fried steak, and picnic food setups. We even had barbecue ribs on Memorial Day.

Been three months since I last needed my CPAP machine. I need to take only one blood pressure medication these days. My joint pains are more manageable than even a few months ago. I’d like to lose some more weight before I start back into physical therapy. Weight wise, I haven’t been this low since 2015. It feels odd to be in better health at age 46 than I was at age 36. But I’ll take it.

Living Alone Again and Middle Age in Summer 2026

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After over nine months of living in my own place and getting healthier than I have been in several years, I feel like the second half of my life has officially begun. So far I’m liking what I’m seeing.

It feels great that 90 percent of the aches and pains I was experiencing a year ago are now gone. I credit it to weight loss, healthier eating habits, giving up most sugar, and getting out of constant stress. That stress, it’s a killer. And I’m convinced it makes people make bad decisions.

I’ve always enjoyed living on my own. After two and a half years in the suburbs I am on my own again. Feels good to have some privacy again. Sure, I may need around the clock health care. But at least I can, for the most part, write, read, watch documentaries, run simulations in my computer games, etc. without someone hanging over my shoulder all day every day. Feels great to not have to listen to a blaring tv or people just walking in at random several times a day.

I have a pretty sweat deal set up where the aides only bother me a few times a day and usually at scheduled times. I despise surprises and unannounced changes to my routines. It took some convincing and explaining, but I have pretty much convinced most of the regular staff to allow me to have some alone time every day. It feels great that I’m not even guilt tripped into not wanting to go to social activities anymore.

This is the 2020s. Why do I need to socialize in person several times day, especially with people who don’t share the same interest? No, I’m not interested in talking about politics or the weather. I can discuss the Thunder, the Huskers, and the Rockies but only for a few minutes per day. And I imagine some people get annoyed when I try to discuss history, economics, or philosophy. So let that sleeping dog stay asleep.

I’ve also found that some people seem to really have a tough time following my train of thought or even understanding my voice. I do have a pretty low and deep voice that actually carries well. But even after three years of high school speech, some people still can’t understand what I’m saying. I find myself having to repeat myself quite often. It’s kind of annoying. Kind of tough to have a meaningful conversation when even your own family can’t understand your voice. It’s why I don’t do a YouTube channel, even with voiceovers.

It’s good to be left alone by most of the outside world. I totally understand why some people joined monasteries and temples miles away from civilization. A life of study, prayer, relatively simple meals, not much money, celibacy (which doesn’t bother me as much as it would most men), and isolation is the perfect life for me. It’s a pity I didn’t figure this out until I was well into my thirties.

Currently my life is pretty good. Took a long time to make my peace with life without a wife, children, a career, or my own house or land. But I survived and adapted. And that is why, in spite of all the chaos that is the world of 2026, I’m doing better now than at any point in my life. I do love being middle aged. I’m actually comfortable with myself. I’m actually comfortable telling people ‘No’ and sticking to my guns at this point. Pity this wasn’t a thing for me even 10 years ago. But better late than never.

Songs That Put Me in Good Moods (Part II)

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?
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Now for the songs with words

Even Flow by Pearl Jam

About A Girl by Nirvana (especially the Unplugged Album)

Fortunate Son by Creedence Clearwater Revival

Desert Rose by Sting

Songs of The Heartland by George Strait

Man on The Silver Mountain (Ronnie James Dio version)

Working Man by Rush

Ride On by AC/DC (how can you not like Bon Scott’s vocals?)

Anything from the Metallica ‘Black’ album

Anything from the 311 ‘Blue’ album

Money by Pink Floyd

Americano by Lady Gaga (she’s one of my guilty pleasures)

The works of Deadmau5 (especially ‘Animal Rights’ and ‘Some Chords’)

Still Dre by Dr. Dre and Snoop Dog

Anything by DMX

Anything of the Rocky soundtracks

Songs That Put Me in Good Moods (Part One)

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Daily writing prompt
What’s a song that always puts you in a good mood?
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For today’s entry I’m going to do a list of songs that put me in a good mood. This is by no means a complete list, just something to get conversation started. I’m doing only instrumental pieces today. I will branch out and include songs with words in another post.

Four Seasons by Vivaldi (look it up on Spotify and Youtube. Insanely brilliant Italian violinist from I think the 1700s).

A Fifth of Beethoven.

Grand Funk 49.

First Breath After Coma by Explosions in the Sky (from the ‘Friday Night Lights’ soundtrack).

Theme Song to ‘Hell on Wheels’

Theme Song to ‘Hoosiers’

Call of Ktulu by Metallica (both the Ride the Lightning and S&M albums)

Sarajevo 12/24 by Trans-Siberian Orchestra (a must for Christmas)]

Exodus by Henri Mancini

Theme Song to The Dark Knight

The Cloud Atlas Sextet (I so want this played at my funeral, hopefully very far in the future)

Time by Hans Zimmer

Askeaton Farewell (theme song to Ken Burns’ Civil War documentary)

Relearning Spanish and Getting Ready for World Cup 2026

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Middle of the week in early summer. It’s hot outside but at least the air conditioning is working again.

One of my summer projects is relearning Spanish. I took some classes in high school. To aide in this I watch some Spanish language tv every day, usually in the afternoons and evenings. I’m pleasantly surprised at how much is starting to comeback after watching Spanish language tv for less than two weeks. I have found watching evening news and even Spanish language commercials are helping my Spanish the most. I almost never hear a sentence without being able to pick out at least one or two Spanish words I remember.

World Cup tournament starts in two days. I plan on watching as many games as possible, at least the knock out stage games. I’m thinking of seeing if the Spanish language cable channels I can pick up here in Oklahoma cover games played by Mexico, Spain, Argentina, etc. Would be cool to see how much of the Spanish I can pick up from watching soccer. That and this is probably Lionel Messi’s last World Cup tourney for Argentina. I imagine for soccer fans that will be like watching Michael Jordan play in his last playoff series was for basketball fans here in the US.

Speaking of World Cup soccer, I got a cool message from a reader saying he was watching the construction of a fan forum pavilion tied in with the World Cup in his city. Small world isn’t it?

Building Self Confidence

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Daily writing prompt
What’s the best way to build self-confidence?
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From my own personal experience, lasting self confidence is never built quickly. I suppose that isn’t the answer many people in our same day delivery society want to hear. But it’s true. Please let me go into detail.

I will be turning 46 years old this summer. And I have more self confidence than I did at age 25 or even age 40. One of the things that built my confidence is surviving tough situations and realizing that ‘Even though it sucked going through, I came out better, wiser, some extra skills, and an interesting story or two.’

During the pandemic I didn’t go out much, had groceries and medications delivered to my apartment, kept in contact with friends and family. Sure it was a long two years, but I survived. Not only survived, but wrote a lot of material, read books I never had time to previously, binge watched documentaries on youtube, lost weight, and even improved my finances. It wasn’t very fun going thorough, but I’m glad I did. Made more less fragile. Taught me I could handle prolonged adversity even with a mental illness. It taught me how to think and act during a time of crisis.

I was diagnosed with congestive heart failure in September 2021 in addition to the schizophrenia diagnosis I’d had for over twenty years. It was touch and go for a while. Spent several days in the hospital with really bad blood pressure that required in IV nitro drip for a few days.

In May 2022, I moved out of my low-income apartment and into the first long term care facility in Nebraska that would take me until my parents could arrange for me to move to Oklahoma. After several months of treatment, physical therapy, getting a wheelchair, and losing even more weight, I was physically able to make the move from Nebraska to Oklahoma in my dad’s pickup truck. February 2023. Surviving heart failure, going through physical therapy, and getting to accomplish one of my ‘bucket list’ entries of moving to the suburbs at least once added to my slowly but steadily growing reserves of confidence.

I lived with my parents in a good suburb of OKC while I was waiting for a permanent place to come open. It took a few months just for all the social security and Medicaid paperwork to stabilize after the out of state move. It was a pain to not know what was happening from one month to the next. Found the case workers not very helpful in transferring my accounts from Nebraska to Oklahoma. Took a few months, but eventually got everything transferred across state lines. Navigating that mess of paperwork and conflicting agencies and advice was a major headache. But it was one I survived and learned from. Taught me how to navigate agencies and conflicting systems that, in reality, no one person has all the answers to and never will.

Between February 2023 and August 2025, I anxiously waited for a new home to come open. Naive me thought that it shouldn’t have taken more than a few months in a metroplex the size of OKC for a home with handicap accessibility to come open. Oh my God in Heaven, was I completely wrong. Instead of a few months, it took almost exactly two and a half years. And we were looking all over Oklahoma.

In August 2025, the place I’m currently in came open. It is a facility in urban OKC and a huge one at that. We even have on site eye doctors and an onsite dentist. Since it was in a city, I got to cross off another item on my bucket list, live in the downtown of a big city. Sure, it’s not New York or Shanghai, but it was what I was looking for my entire life without even realizing it.

I did gain some weight during the time I was at my parents’ house. What I gained in two and a half years was lost in only eight months. Currently I’m at the lowest weight I’ve been in 15 years. I also got cured of sleep apnea and anemia. It was a long and painful process. But it was more than worth it. Oh my God the payoff was more than worth it.

I’ll be turning 46 later this month. In September 2021 I wasn’t sure I would make it to age 46. I’m thankful and grateful to have made it through several crisis over the years. That’s what taught me self-confidence. Took a long time, but the lessons and confidence will help me no matter what I face in the years ahead. My life didn’t turn out as I expected. But after surviving struggles and crisis, I now realize it turned out better than had my twenties and thirties been smooth sailing. Here’s to struggle, survival, rebirth, and the second half of life.

Question of the Day: Soulmates

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Do you believe in soulmates? Why or why not?
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No, I do not believe in the idea of soulmates. At least not in the sense that popular culture often understands the idea. Granted that is just my personal opinion. I’ll go into the further detail.

The idea of soulmates, at least in a lot of people’s minds, is that there is only one person on an entire planet of over 8 billion people that is perfect for another. In reality, humans are not perfect. Even at that individuals change over time.

For example, a person at age 60 is probably not the same person they were at age 18. If they were, that would mean that forty-two years of life experience didn’t change them in one way or another. What a waste of a significant portion of life to have not grown, changed, matured, and let go. We accept that we as individuals are free to grow, evolve, and change over the course of years. Why not apply the same logic to partnering, let alone to a world population of 8 billion in a world that has changed more in the last 25 years than most entire centuries?

In my mind, if the idea of soulmates existed, the divorce rates would be much lower than they are. I totally agree with someone getting out a marriage where the other spouse is abusive, unfaithful, really bad with finances, or a really bad influence on the children.

Speaking of the idea of soulmates, it doesn’t seem to take into account that most marriages eventually produce children. The idea of children in context of much of what is relationship advice in our current era completely ignores that children often result from marriages and sexual relationships. That’s basic biology.

Traditionally, in many societies, marriages were often arranged years in advance. This was to combine family finances, power, prestige, alliances, land, and even with consideration to what kind of traits the children resulting from said marriage would possess after they grew up. Sure, many of those marriages were more stable than many marriages are now. But they may not have been happier than couples today in stable relationships. In those societies, people married more for survival then they did for happiness.

As far as marrying for survival or happiness, neither approach is 100 percent right or wrong. Just because a marriage might last well over 70 years does not mean it was a happy union or the best-case scenario considering the number of choices the two spouses involved before they committed to each other.

At the same time, just because a marriage ends in divorce does not necessarily mean the relationship was pointless and never should have happened. Many divorces involve unions that produced children. Seems kind of heartless to suggest the children resulting from a union should have never happened. Leonardo da Vinchi was born from an out of wedlock pregnancy. Many of us, me included, have lots of friends that were from unions that ended in divorce or from out of wedlock relationships. Really heartless to suggest that those people should have never happened.

If soulmates, at least as the term is popularly understood, do exist, would that also mean that soul friendships or soul children or soul parents exist? Would spirit animals also exist? Would spirit plants also exist? Would spirit oceans and lands exist too? Many societies believe spirits are in everything.

In closing, I’m not convinced on the idea of soulmates, at least not in the sense that popular culture understands it. I fear the idea of soulmates as it’s currently understood is leading to unnecessary unhappiness and strife. Of course, as with all things spiritual, I’m willing to admit I very well could be wrong. My opinions and thoughts are not craved in granite. The ideas I had about how even basic things work at age 45 are not the same as at age 25 or even age 40.