Unmotivated to do much of anything today.
I was a bit repulsed by this state's governor shutting down bars shortly after he reopened them.  I don't go to bars often, it's the idea of the government dictating business when they can and cannot operate because - reasons - pandemic - "state of emergency".  What a wonderful way to authorize authoritarian control over your fellow citizens and ruin their livelihoods in the name of "safety".

A bar 2 towns away had it's liquor license suspended after the bar owner told Texas authorities she wasn't going to shut it down.

Whatever the case, I was invited to go to Longview today with everyone to celebrate a friend's birthday at Texas Roadhouse.  Not my personal friend - we have talked alot but we're not friends in the sense of being close or anything like that - I said no thanks.  Just wasn't in the mood.

I ended up watching the boys - they were going to take them to Maria's.  They have been cranky and crying and getting in trouble all day long before parents left.  So I wasn't exactly thinking that was going to change. But after about 30 minutes after mom and dad left - and sending one of them off to their room for 10 minutes- they came around, settled down and stopped all  the bs.  I am quite serious, they were getting into trouble alllllll dayyyyyy long. Doing things they know they aren't supposed to do, mom and dad getting on them all the time about it.

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That was Sunday, now Monday morning.  I would expect a run to be sent for tomorrow since this is day two of being off, but who knows now that we are all being handed over to yet another dispatcher in Amarillo Texas.  The one that I am getting knows what she's doing, but there is room for problems in making that kind of handover.  I really wouldn't care yet another day off as long as I get another run before the end of the pay period on the books for next week's pay.

The 5 year old here passed tests to enter into the STEM program, which is described as follows: "STEM is a curriculum based on the idea of educating students in four specific disciplines — science, technology, engineering and mathematics — in an interdisciplinary and applied approach. Rather than teach the four disciplines as separate and discrete subjects, STEM integrates them into a cohesive learning paradigm based on real-world applications."

Those are good fields to learn, can produce a very nice annual salary and has some value to it.  These people going to college and getting degrees in art and useless stuff that only a fraction of the people getting degrees in such fields actually find employment are wasting their time and money.  But this is early on training, which is great.  I dunno how they teach a 5 year old science and such, but then again, I haven't been in school in many decades. 

And you have the news. Constant Trump bashing. Constant new narratives such as the NYT coming out saying that Trump did nothing about intel that shows russians paid to have US military personnel targeted and that x amount were killed.  Then it comes out that Trump wasn't briefed on it. After the bashing of his alleged incompetence, it comes out that it wasn't a credible story, hence he wasn't briefed.  This is endless.  It's an election year and the haters will invent stories to make him look incompetent and always attempting to make him look as tho he is in bed with Putin.  It's pretty outrageous that news organizations are no longer interested in simply providing the news and let the viewer decide, they are now engaged in nothing more than sheer propaganda. 

So, I shut the news off after maybe half an hour of it, just don't want to hear it.  The Dow Jones is up 329 points 15 minutes into the session.  I have no idea how this economy is going to play out with states shutting down again - and the effect it will have on the stock market.  I'm not necessarily worried - retirement is a long ways off for me. At least 9 years.  We just went through a "crash" that had the market down into the teens and now it's in the 25k range.  I know I am not "supposed" to, but check my 401k's after every DJ session.  Just because it lost so much money in such a short period of time and then just like that, it came all the way back up - and for a few days a bit more.

Okay, so Taylor is going to her dad's wedding next month, James was going to be going to Missouri with the boys to visit family during that time. Work, however, has panned out to stop him from that endeavor.  I thought I would be having the house to myself lol.  I even thought about travel. There are some great deals to be had - but where can you go?  Lol, no thanks on wasting the money.  Today I'll call about the boat instead and see if they're ready for me to take it on a test run.  Get out on the lake - someday.  Boating has become very popular, but if you want a new one, you best be loaded with cash. If you get an old one, you likely going to have to do work to it.  Not really a win situation either way.  I didn't want to go into payments on something I didn't know how often I would be using it.

Anyway, there are some things to do here today that I want to get done.  Namely, patches of bare ground out front. We got organic compost and a bag of seed. Just need to till up the ground, put the seed down and cover it with the compost. Nothing to involved, it's not a huge amount of area that needs it. 

With that, time to get about the day's business.