In what is absolutely no surprise to anyone, President Trump managed to make a number of major errors in his executive orders this week. By errors, I mean errors from his own perspective, not errors in that nearly every one of his executive orders weakens America and its standing in the world. Two of the biggest errors (within errors) highlight the importance of having experienced people double-check your executive orders before you sign them.

You see, it turns out that Trump did not intend to actually pardon the 1,500 convicted felons who stormed the Capitol on January 6tth, 2021. In an interview yesterday, he tried to argue that he had not pardoned them, but granted them clemency for their actions. Apparently, the difference was not made entirely clear to him and, after the interview, he looked into the options of revoke the pardons of at least some of the more violent criminals ... only to discover that Presidential pardons cannot be revoked--at least, not without an "oopsy daisy" Amendment to the Constitution getting passed. 

Second, in his hurry to make certain that the federal government only officially recognize two genders, he accidently made it so that the federal government can only recognize all people as female. The wording of the executive order that he signed said that "'Male' means a person belonging, at conception, to the sex that produces the small reproductive cell." The problem is that there is no "sex that produces the small reproductive cell" in the timeframe of "at conception." At conception all embryos are female, differences in sexual organs do not appear until months of embryonic development. Unlike the pardons, executive orders can be amended rather easily; although, Trump has a tendency to cover his mistakes with larger distortions of the truth.

Now, I certainly make mistakes--on a regular basis even. Still, when one is trying to change (or attack) fundamental elements of our nation, one should probably have some fact-checking done. Oh, I forgot that this administration doesn't like fact-checking--my mistake. 

One of my DDF students was working on a project for another teacher's class yesterday. The project included spoiler information about season 2 of Arcane--an animated series on Netflix that Janelle and I started watching together a couple of month ago. I halted discussion that other students were having about the show until they made it clear that they were only talking about episodes from season 1. However, they teasingly threatened me with revealing spoilers for season 2.

I was told that I just needed to watch the show so that it wouldn't be an issue. I said that it was a show that I was watching with my wife and that it is rare for us to watch anything after dinner (as the show is not appropriate for my grandchildren). I was then asked why I didn't just watch it myself. 

The fact is that I don't like watching things by myself nearly as much as I do with others. I like seeing other people's reactions and being with them. I like being able to posit theories, talk about trivia, or even just have someone to share an emotional (triumphant or sad) moment.

This is why I invite people to movie and TV marathons. This is why most of my YouTube watching is focused on videos of people reacting to or talking about shows or movies. This is why I have so many movies and shows that have gone unwatched. This is why I've been glad that Rowen has been willing to watch stuff with me during these past couple of summers.

​I don't know; perhaps I should start watching more things on my own. 

Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Day / Inauguration Day 2025
This was a difficult day for me to celebrate with my tradition "Happy" followed by the holiday. "Happy Martin Luther King Day" is already quite a mouthful even before I add in the Dr. and Jr. to make it "Happy Doctor Martin Luther King Junior Day" as I address nearly every student whom I see. However, it was saying "Happy Inauguration Day" that was particularly difficult for me to say today. I did so anyway, alternating between the two with the help of my classroom neighbor. 

As I have told my students who ask me what I find so happy about Mondays when I say "Happy Monday," it's not that I expect them to be happy that it is a Monday, but that I hope that they will have have the chance to be happy during that Monday. The same was true with me today. I told my students that Inauguration Day is worth celebrating because it shows that Americans can have a peaceful transition of power at the highest level of government (although this was put to lie a bit in 2021). Unfortunately, I've had to stand by today and watch as our great nation returns to the downward spiral it was in during 2020. 

President Trump is only the second President to be elected for two non-consecutive terms (Grover Cleveland was the first). He is the first President to be reelected after being impeached (let alone being impeached twice). However, history will likely note some other unique elements from today. 

The most amazing to me is that America elected a convicted felon to its highest office before it elected a woman. This is the equivalent of the DC storyline where Lex Luthor became President. In this case, President Trump immediately showed his disdain for justice when he pardoned 1,500 criminals who were found guilty in courts of law for their illegal storming of the Capitol, many of whom also committed violent actions that wounded 174 police officers. In an event filled historical irony, he then, with no sense of irony about him, signed an executive order returning capital punishment to federal cases--specifically citing attacks on police officers as being a crime where the death penalty should be pursued.

He declared an emergency on our border and authorized the use of military force to build a wall and deal with immigrants. He closed any avenues for people to seek asylum in the U.S. and said that people born in American are no longer citizens unless they were born to American citizens.  He declared a "national energy emergency" and rolled back incentives for green energy programs while lifting many regulations and safeguards to promote mining and drilling. He lifted the ban on expanding private ownership of prisons. He removed the U.S. from the World Health Organization, severely decreasing the U.S.'s international status, and from the Paris climate accord. He removed portions of the Pendleton Act that requires governmental positions to be given to people who have proper experience or education in their jobs to clear the way for people unqualified, but loyal to him, to take those jobs. He even renamed Denali, returning it to being federally recognized as Mount McKinley (another champion of tariffs), and the Gulf of Mexico (now federally recognized as the Gulf of America). He also declared that a 25% tariff will begin on our largest trading partners of Canada and Mexico on February 1st unless some as-yet-unestablished agreements are made.

All of this (and more) on day one. Were I a foreign power who wanted to destroy the U.S., these are sorts of executive actions that I would want a President to enact. Yes, it was difficult to say "Happy Inauguration Day" today.

We all have our roles to play is the message from today's second reading. Not everyone's talent or ability will be of the same kind or to the same degree, but they all come from the Holy Spirit and are all worthy of celebration and praise. It is by working together with our varying gifts that makes us capable of doing truly great things.

This was true even for Jesus in today's Gospel about the wedding at Cana. Jesus completes the most noteworthy task of changing the water into wine, but it is others who fill the jugs with water and bring them to Him. It is the steward who makes the proclamation about the wine. It's even Mary who gives puts Jesus on the path of this first public miracle. For that matter, had the newly wedded couple not invited Jesus (or whoever invited Him--I'm uncertain of the custom at the time), everything would have turned out quite differently.

It is in working together and using our gifts, no matter how mundane they might seem, that miracles can happen.

It's been a long time since I've lost track of time this badly. I started playing The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom and got lost in it immediately. It has a surprisingly satisfying gameplay loop that had me just exploring more and more. I have been doing "just one more thing" well past my bedtime!

I know that I've only just scratched the surface of this game, but it's already had me belly laughing and whooping out loud at some of the things that I've been able to do in it. I'm really looking forward to playing more. For now, however, I should probably call it a night ... or early morning.

In a rare occurrence, Janelle decided to take the day off of work on her birthday. She wanted to be able to spend the day relaxing, reading, and baking her complicated chocolate and coffee layer cake. She said that she wanted to spend time playing board games rather than getting any gifts, but I still brought her some roses and a LEGO kingfisher set that Rowen had suggested that we get for her ... oh, and a balloon that says "Happy Birthday."

Katrina decided to try and get as many candles as she could onto Janelle's cake. She was still short a few from Janelle's full age, but it was still quite a conflagration--well, it melted the chocolate. Because Janelle is still recovering her lung capacity from her earlier illness, she needed multiple attempts to blow them all out. As I am certain that she wanted such a heroic effort to be fully documented, I'm sharing the photos that I took of each of those attempts.

I'm certain this will be her favorite present this year.

I just finished another of the substantial LEGO sets that I received for my birthday (or Christmas, or both): The Great Deku Tree from The Legend of Zelda series. While this build did not have the technical complexity of the ornithopter from Dune, it was still quite a fun set to build. In fact, at present, I would rank it as my second favorite LEGO set that I own--and that's saying something since I have quite a few sets that I love. The only set that I enjoy more is the fantastic Rivendell set from The Lord of the Rings.

I've long been a huge fan of The Legend of Zelda game series, with a number of the games sitting at the top of my all-time favorite games to have played. This Deku Tree set had two build options that allows builders to either create the original Deku Tree from The Ocarina of Time or the more recent one from The Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. Honestly, the two-in-one build concept is one of the things that I don't like about the set. While I'm glad to have characters and elements from both of the games, I don't like the idea of having bags of unused LEGO pieces left over. 

I chose to build The Breath of the Wild version because it connects the various items, it can incorporate some of the unused pieces from The Ocarina of Time build, and it just looks better overall. I still ended up with a bag and a half (out of 23 total bags) left over. This is considerably better than the four to five bags that The Ocarina of Time build is left with at the end of its construction. 

The end result has so many little details. I love the Master Sword's grotto the most. In a close second is the interior of the Deku Tree that includes a mushroom shop, cook-pot, and leafy bed. Tiny potions, hook-shots, shields, slingshots, Sheika Slates, Koroks, and fairies ("Hey! Listen!") provide details that carry me on a wave of nostalgia. This is a set that was designed by people who clearly had a deep love for the games.

We arrived home from church on Sunday and found that our house was bereft of power. This made opening the garage door and parking Janelle's Pilot difficult (we had only taken one vehicle as Janelle had to be to the Church early--as did I since I was playing guitar at Mass). The turkey who had adopted us was gobbling up a storm and trying to either get into the house or the garage as we were unloading our groceries. Thus, someone (I believe Katrina) shooed him away--as we tend to do in these situations.

I watched as he waddled past the front deck and around the side of the house in what I can only describe as a huff. I heard him continue to gobble to himself almost like he was grumbling about how badly he felt he was mistreated. I could hear him every time I went back and forth.

After we finished unloading our groceries, I manually closed the garage and reengaged it to the garage door opener to keep it secured. As I came out of the garage, I could hear the turkey gobbling again, but from what sounded like the neighbor's yard--and then I heard another turkey respond. We know that our neighbors have turkeys and had asked if they were missing one with this turkey first appeared, but they said that they had all of theirs. Thus, I was not surprised that there was another turkey responding, but I didn't think it a little weird that I had not heard the turkeys talk to one another in the month or so that the turkey had stayed in our front yard.

However, that was the last that I've seen of the turkey. It's been three days, and he seems to have disappeared as mysteriously as he arrived. A cursory check of our yard has brought forth no evidence of foul (or fowl) play. I wonder if he just decided that he had enough of us rudely not inviting him in and continually shooing him away, or if he found new friends that he would rather hang around. I hope that he has not met a more grisly (or grizzly) end. I also wonder if he will come gobbling back at some point in the future.

It would be perfectly fine if he doesn't.

We finished watching Skeleton Crew's eighth and final (assuming that this is a one season show) episode today. I can't speak for other members of my family, but I was largely underwhelmed, and yet still oddly charmed, by this show. It probably helped that my expectations were low going into the show--largely because Star Wars has always had a bit of a problem when it comes to integrating child characters into its stories.

I was both irritated and happy that there were not any cameos from any of the other shows or movies (well, there's one quite mild cameo of a side character-lackey who had showed up in a Mandalorian episode or two--Do you remember Vane?). It is nice that this story can stand on its own without having to know anything other than the basic Star Wars lore. However, I had thought that a pirate-focused show should have a least a small appearance by Hondo Ohnaka (from the Clone Wars, and no, the brief shot of his ship in the background at one port does not count). Also, not having any real tie-in to the rest of the "Mando-verse" makes this an easy-to-skip show.

Still, this series was an interesting dip into the Star Wars universe with some fun, Goonies-style pirate (and kid) adventure mixed in with interesting mysteries and characters. My favorite characters were the side characters of Neel, KB, and SM-33. I also really liked the pirate lore that was built the ship that was the primary focus of the show: The Onyx Cinder. Some of my favorite sci-fi shows are the ones that make the ship a sort of character of its own, and the Onyx Cinder as a great addition to those ranks--even providing crucial elements to several points in the show's story (although, I'm still interested to know where the autopilot was originally trying to take them before they were knocked out of hyperspace).

There is a LOT of suspension of disbelief in this show--much like The Goonies and other 80s kids movies from which this took a great deal of inspiration. Still, if you're willing to put up with some not-quite-logical aspects and some outright goofiness, it's worth watching this entertaining space adventure that wears its heart on its sleeve. Just don't expect anything deeply profound from it.

The estimate for our power restoration was a moving target yesterday, through the night, and into the morning. Several of us had taken on the hobby of opening up the outage map and clicking on the little dots around the map to see what other people's restoration times were. While we occasionally expressed our frustration when we saw that people who had not been out of power for as long as us already had it restored, I have to acknowledge that there were other people who had to wait significantly longer than us to have theirs restored.

Without power, we spent much of Sunday building LEGO sets while there was still enough daylight to see (and even when there wasn't). When it got darker, we lit our camping lanterns and some candles to play several rounds of Codenames. Dinner was Caesar salad with chicken strips that were fried on our gas stove. When it was darker still, our children played hide-and-seek with our grandchildren throughout the house (no flashlights allowed) for quite a while. As Peter remarked, in some ways, it was nice to have the power off.

​I'm still quite thankful that it came back on this morning before I had to head in to work.

As our pastor said in his sermon, baptism is the representation of our salvation through Christ. There is no earthly power that we have to defeat the eternal death that comes from sinfulness. Instead, it is God who saves us, and He saves all who are willing. 

That feeling of powerlessness was accentuated today when we lost power in our home. Hurricane level winds have hit more unprotected areas of our state. Thankfully, we are largely isolated enough to not have too much damage, but the storm has knocked down trees all around us, taking out many power lines. 

We have to rely on others in situations like this. We pray for their safety as the work (often in difficult conditions) to bring light and warmth back into our lives. We also pray that the second storm, that has come in this evening, will not delay the return of our power more than it already has. 

I was gifted several LEGO sets for my birthday and Christmas. Today, I finished construction of an ornithopter from the latest Dune movies. While it is a large set, I did not expect the level of complexity for its inner workings. Unlike many LEGO sets based on movies, there are not a lot of hidden details in this model's construction. Instead, the majority of the build is focused on the mechanisms within it. 

All told, it took me about five hours to build. As straightforward as its outward design appears, the interior is devoted on three complex systems. One allows the landing gear and entrance ramp to lower simply by twisting a knob. A second system makes the eight wings move up and down by pressing an elongated portion of the aircraft. A third system, which was by-far the most intricate, uses a single switch to either sweep the eight wings back (and immobilize their flapping) or to extend them out.

Like the movies, I didn't expect to like this set as much as I do. Also similar to the movies, it's the hidden complexity that really appeals to me. That, and it just looks cool! 

Today, the decision was made that we would watch a movie instead of a TV show for dinner (and after). We have a wide selection to choose from considering that we are subscribed to four streaming services and have two bookcases filled with DVDs. The selection process looked to go on for a while, so I preemptively chose an old (I was surprised to find out how old) favorite that I had not seen in decades: 2010.

There were complaints. The DVD is old enough that one side is sets for "standard" and the other is set for "widescreen." In both versions, the actual display is in the old 4:3 ratio, making the "widescreen" mode an even smaller rectangle within that box. We had the option to either watch it zoomed in, or to be able to see the subtitles (which were displayed below the "widescreen" format). I chose the latter after a little while due to the amount of commotion in the room (which is why subtitles are my preferred way of viewing anyway). 

I really liked getting to watch the movie again. It was like meeting up with a good friend whom one hasn't seen for some time, but still deeply enjoy being together. The pacing is slow, but not nearly as slow as 2001 (of which I have never seen the entirety). The story relies on knowing elements from that earlier movie (or book), but has enough information at the beginning and clues throughout to still work well as a sci-fi mystery suspense drama without any horror elements that many other similar movies rely upon. 

I believe that the primary reason that 2010 has largely disappeared from our society's zeitgeist is that it was released in 1984--at the high point of tensions in the Cold War--and presented a message of peaceful resolution in the future. In reality, our space program would significantly slow its pace two years later due to the Challenger disaster and the Soviet Union would dissolve within seven years, making this story even more divergent from our current lives and thus requiring more of a stretch in believability. I still enjoy its more science-sided science-fiction, its believable (if extraordinary) answers to its mysteries, and it well-developed characters. 

I'm not sure what my family thinks about it. Hopefully, they at least felt that it was tolerable. After all, that's sometimes the best that I can hope for their feelings about me.