John Burkholder

 I made dinner tonight. Andi and Avery both suddenly like my old school macaroni and cheese. It is not a hard recipe, elbow macaroni, butter, milk, a jar of old English cheese, and 4 oz of Velveeta. The key is to put it in the oven after it is made for a almost brown crust.  I digress. I made fried chicken tonight. Stop, let me clarify, I tried to make a nice tender golden brown fried chicken tonight in the air fryer. It didn’t work. I ended up with a cooked piece of meat with a mostly white crust around it. As in, the air fryer doesn’t really fry anything. It is more like a hair dryer on high in a very contained space. This was the last time I will use it for anything besides small batch of fries. The oven actually does fries better too. I had high hopes for the newfangled contraption. But it, like the instantpot is a waste of time.  The instantpot makes an OK chili. But my slow cooker makes a better chili. In fact, every time we try to use the damn thing is takes all of the flavor it

Throughout my life I have always “gone for a...” bike ride, walk, or drive. It went so far that the kids didn’t want to go on bike rides or walks, and both of the wives have had to place parameters for a drive. I often ended up doing these things by myself. Even now, I go for a ride to attempt to clear my head and listen to my own music.  This year changes everything. The bike rides stopped many years ago. I don’t even own a bike anymore and my divvy bike membership I let go because I wasn’t using it enough. My walks continued, but I don’t have that as an easy option any longer now that everything is locked down and masks are more for my safety than anything.  Then there are drives. I still take drives although they are shorter than before. Trying to stay in the car to avoid contact with people does nothing but stiffen my joints and shrink my already minuscule buttocks. That relief of getting away from my current environment to balance out my need for trees, or need for people, has def

It is getting to me. I needed time to actually think about it, but I think I finally figured it out.  I have been working in technology for over 35 years. It all started with the Air Force as a Telephone and Data Circuitry Specialist. From there it has mutated from technology to technology, network cabling to SNA server to Exchange server to SharePoint. I have always had a goal... to be the best I can be in my field.  Now I am a manager. Even though I am still learning what that means in its entirety, I have lost the one thing that has kept me going for decades...motivation. I have nothing left to prove.  One of the hidden personality quirks for me has always been to prove to my birth parents that they missed out of a pretty fantastic, successful person. Well, it has been 4 years since I found my birthmothers side of the family and 3.5 years since I found the birthfathers side. I have nothing to prove to either of them. They are both dead. Their children all know who I am now and they