Interesting looking job on LinkedIn; self-hosted application, though, is non-descript and does not mention the job title or function. And step two is:

Sign up for a paid monthly subscription and put some money, as little as $5, in it?

Erm, no. NO harder than job applications with subsidiary third-party applications of unknown provenance to determine whether the employer would get a tax credit for hiring me, applications which require my social security number right out of the gate.

You know, I “meet” a lot of my clients just via the Internet, and I always have some trepidation before I receive my first payment. But making a payment to apply? Yeah, no. I still avoid, for the most part, submission fees and entrance fees for writing submissions (which puts me out of the running for a lot of target outlets).

So my new BJJ school is a couple of doors down from the Nixa branch of the Ozarks Elder Law branch.

Last Thursday, I stopped at the Republic License Office to get tags for the car, and it is a couple of doors down from the Republic branch of Ozarks Elder Law.

As part of my tour of bill-paying errands, I ended up at the pool store in Nixa, and on the counter, I found…. business cards for one of the attorneys at Ozarks Elder Law. “Someone is telling me I need to make a will,” I said to the pool store employees, explaining the situation.

“You’d better take a card, then,” one of them said, and I did.

And, on Saturday, we sat on a curb in Marshfield for the parade….

….right across the street from Marshfield’s branch of Ozarks Elder Law.

I’ve seen a lot of billboards for them, too, with Lori Crook front and center (that’s a story for another day), but to find myself Thursday, Friday, and Saturday outside three different locations of the law offices…. Well, that’s detecting a pattern in something.

So yesterday, I mused about parades I’d been to since I went to a rather large parade this year. This year, we also had a bit of a fireworks show, of sorts: For the second year in a row, my adult children had some friends over, and they lit off some fireworks. My beautiful wife and I did not watch the show–she because she feared for their safety and me because, like Renaissance festivals, just don’t enchant me any more. Although I’m not sure if fireworks shows ever did; they were just family and communal things we did.

When I was a kid, Smith Park, the terminus of the parade that passed by my grandparents’ house, had a small fireworks show, and we attended it all the time more than once, enough to think it was an annual tradition, but I have no idea how annual it was. Maybe most of my life up until I was seven years old. As I recall, everyone brought blankets, and across the field, the “professionals” lit the fireworks. But it couldn’t have been every year to that point.

Because my father was, for a couple years, one of those “professionals” who had been drinking all day and then went to light fireworks shows over a couple of beers in the night time. He brought us to the shows, the whole family, but instead of us watching on a blanket with the other spectators, we got to watch the show from inside the car by where the “professionals” were. It meant the fireworks were right over us, but this was in the late 1970s, man. I watched parts of more than one show sitting the wrong way on a Chevy Impala bench seat, dangling my head into the foot well. Which was not comfortable even then.

I remember July 4, 1980, though. My mother was at an inpatient rehab facility, so my father took my brother, me, and Rosemary to a job site to watch the Milwaukee lakefront fireworks. Rosemary was or had been married to Bill, the first of my father’s circle to get divorced (and my father lived in Bill’s basement immediately after getting kicked out by my mother in 1981 for being the philandering sort–oh, yeah, now I get it). At any rate, the spot must have been a great view: It was on a sloping roof three floors up. Just the place to take an eight-year-old and a six-year-old for fireworks (although I guess it was not us he was trying to impress). Do I remember anything of the fireworks? No, but I do remember being terrified of falling off the roof.

In Missouri, after the move, we really didn’t go to fireworks shows–my mother was not one to go out after work–but in the trailer park, we managed to get some firecrackers, bottle rockets, ladyfingers, jumping jacks, and other spinning ground things, so that was our fireworks shows in the trailer years.

I went to the lakefront fireworks show once or twice in high school or college, but after college, I’m not sure I have gone to see fireworks since.

After we moved to Nogglestead, we had a clear view of the Battlefield city fireworks, except the ground effects, for a couple of years until the untended fence line across the road turned into an untended row of trees. For a couple of years, neighbors on the next farm road to our west put on shows, maybe even competing against one another, so we got a really nice display there.

In 2019, we spent the night in Poplar Bluff, and my nephew and nephew-by-marriage-by marriage (my brother’s wife’s daughter’s husband) drank, doped, lit off fireworks, and set a bad example for my boys.

One year, I bought some fireworks–the kind I bought in the trailer years–and I realized those are fireworks that are fun to shoot off, but not fun to watch. The next year, I got some of the rockets that burst and whatnot. Eventually, I let my sons light some fireworks themselves once they were teenagers–and they had a blast, literally, even though I made them wear safety glasses. And, in the years since, they’ve taken over their own fireworking. They did it on their own two years ago. Last year, a couple friends from their Lutheran school days came over, and it was the same this year. Enough for them to think every year when it will have been only a couple of times.

But I got to see a couple of the fireworks from the deck, directly overhead. And when my youngest came into the house to secure soft drinks for everyone, I was pleased to see he was wearing safety glasses.

Last Independence Day, I mowed my lawn. We don’t generally do much with on the holiday. But last year, while mowing the lawn, I heard the radio station on location at the Marshfield, Missouri, Independence Day Parade, billed as the oldest continuously running July 4th parade west of the Mississippi. And I thought it might be an interesting thing to go to an Independence Day parade. For we hadn’t been to one since… what, 2009?

When I was a kid in Milwaukee, it was just a thing. A small neighborhood parade went past my grandparents’ house on 33rd Street and ended in Smith Park, so we did that all the time at least a couple of years so I thought of it as “all the time.” The parade was chock full of marching bands, veterans’ groups, and neighborhood kids on their bedecked bicycles and Big Wheels. When the parade had passed, the neighborhood fell in and followed them to Smith Park for little ice cream cups with wooden spoons.

After my parents divorced, we came to Missouri, and… Nothing happening down here, parade-wise, but a lot of times where we kids convinced, easily-because-they-wanted-the-money, operators of the fireworks stand up the hill from the trailer park that we were 13, and so we did that instead. Many summers, though, we spent in Wisconsin with my father, and his new neighborhood might have had a parade–but I know think that they had a festival, with ice cream and wooden spoons and all, up there. But a quick search indicates that those parks no longer have events, probably to save money and probably because neighborhoods are temporary these days, so who would go to a neighborhood event? Also, they’re probably not very safe these days anyway (say, why isn’t this footage being seen on stateside news outlets?).

After that, what, 1994 ish?–I didn’t go to parades, Independence Day or otherwise, very much. We went to the St. Patrick’s Day Parade in St. Louis around the turn of the century, downtown whilst we were living in Casinoport. That was at the invitation of one of my beautiful wife’s co-workers, although we never saw him there.

After we had a baby (and moved to Old Trees), we could walk down to the Old Trees parade, and we did in 2007 and, maybe? 2009. It was the first of the modern parades: Light on bands and marching and elaborate floats, and heavy on cars–the Corvette club, the Mustang club, the old cars club. They had a good representation of old military vehicles, jeeps, two ton trucks, and whatnot. Political candidates and local organizations and probably youngsters from the high school vying for a crown of some sort. I rather enjoyed it, and it made me feel like a dad in a family, for sure.

But when we moved to Nogglestead, we’re a bit afield of parades. I don’t think Battlefield, the closest town has one, nor to my knowledge does Republic. So we went through another long draught, for sure, broken by attendance at a Christmas parade in Springfield the year after we arrived (where my oldest saw a girl in his class in one of the Corvettes, so he really thought Springfield was a small town) and one or two in Republic, including one that a couple when the oldest marched with the high school band (the youngest was supposed to his only year in the marching band, but he turned up at the parade without his band shoes and was kept out). It doesn’t help that many of the parades are time-shifted–the Independence Day will come on a Saturday before or after July 4, the Christmas parades are sometime in the beginning of December.

But this year, ah, we would make the trip. Marshfield is not so very far–although it does seem a long ways from home when we are coming back from St. Louis, and Marshfield is almost home but not just minutes away–but our trip to an estate sale last year (already?) put it into its rightful orbit around Nogglestead: A little under an hour by car, so as close as Aurora or Crane, but it seems further because we have to swing out and around Springfield to get there. We left a little after 8 to get to Marshfield, leaving plenty of time to find parking and to walk–which turned out to be just the right amount of time because by the time I hit the head and we walked the (crowded) parade route to find a spot which turned out to be a curb right outside the city courthouse (not the federal courthouse on the corner to the west or the county courthouse on the corner to the east). Right outside…. Well, that’s another story.

The parade itself was two hours long, but: Only one marching band, the high school band. A couple of veterans’ groups on flatbed trucks or trailers–with very few veterans from the mid-20th century wars left. Not depicted: Desert Shield/Desert Storm, Iraq II, or Afghanistan.

But depicted: The Sons of Confederate Veterans:

With a confederate flag and all. Wikipedia unhelpfully sermonizes:

The Sons of Confederate Veterans (SCV) is an American neo-Confederate[1] nonprofit organization of male descendants of Confederate soldiers[2]: 6–9  that commemorates these ancestors, funds and dedicates monuments to them, and promotes the pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy.

The SCV was founded on July 1, 1896, in Richmond, Virginia, by R. E. Lee Camp, No. 1 of the Confederate Veterans.[3][4] Its headquarters is at Elm Springs in Columbia, Tennessee.[2]: 29 

In recent decades, governors, legislators, courts, corporations, and anti-racism activists have emphasized the increasingly controversial public display of Confederate symbols—especially after the 2014 Ferguson unrest, the 2015 Charleston church shooting, and the 2020 murder of George Floyd. SCV has responded with its coordinated display of larger and more prominent public displays of the battle flag, some in directly defiant counter-protest.

Some of that is undoubtedly true. But not all of it.

At any rate, again, it was heavily motorized–the marching band might have been the only marchers in it. The Springfield Shriners were in heavy rotation, with a variety of motorized vehicles including little trucks, barrels on wheels, motorbikes, and motor trikes spaced throughout the parade. A number of candidate presentations, but few actual candidates. And, at the very end, a number of horses and carriages, mostly promoting a local cowboy church–but nobody scooping horse poop, which was unfortunate. One of the early horses left a deposit right by us, and the rest of the horses decided that was the official horsebox and started going in the same place. Within minutes, our spot smelled like a barn, and if they hadn’t been at the end of the parade, we would have left anyway.

But, in addition to the normalcy of the stars-and-bars: So. I was gorging on the thrown candy that came our way (except the suckers), and I tucked the wrappers in my shirt pocket. I took a couple of photos and stuck the camera in my shirt pocket. I sent my youngest looking for cold drinks with a couple of Jacksons, and when he came back with free cold water, I stuck the money in the shirt pocket. When I was going for candy, the phone fell out of my pocket, so I put it back into my pants pocket. And when the parade was over, I went to a trash can to empty the pocket, and I mindlessly tossed the money into the trash. Fortunately, another guy was throwing something away, and fortunately (by design), we’re in southwest Missouri where people are generally good, and he said, “Someone’s throwing away money.” So I was able to recover the cash. I mean, he could have just grabbed them himself, but he did not. So I’ll trade having to see “evidence of pseudohistorical Lost Cause ideology and corresponding white supremacy”–just the celebration of regional heritage, and if you know your regional history, you’ll know it was not homogeneous and it was awfully bloody–for honest people.

But: Having been, we will probably not go next year. It was a whole family excursion, and I think my oldest is coming to realize how few of those we have left now that he’s looking, at a distance but in sight, at moving out.

But: I see on the local news sites stories about a local neighborhood Independence Day parade with kids on bedecked bicycles and Big Wheels. Maybe that’s where the real action is. Maybe next year.

Ah, gentle reader, this story is already a week old, and it’s actually the source of the “Pop Pop” schtick (we’ll get to that by-and-by, youngin).

But a week ago, the last weekend of June, my youngest and I went to the White Hart Renaissance Faire just south of Hartville–that is, about an hour east by northeast of here. Now, I have, from time to time, seen flyers for the faire in years past, and I’ve read about them in local media, and I have even put the flyers on the refrigerator. But in years past, the faire has been a single day or a single weekend in June, and many times something else has come up or the day has come and gone before it reached my attention. And, in recent years, I have not seen the flyers for it–my seeing the flyers probably coincided with the years I visited the Comic Cave comic book store fairly frequently.

But the faire has expanded to weekends throughout June, which means I could plan ahead–and delay if needed, which happened this year. I had decided that would be our Father’s Day outing, but storms threatened, so we demurred. But that left only the weekend of the 28th this year, so despite some trepidation about how muddy the faire might be, my youngest and I headed out.

Hartville is in Amish country, so you have to be careful on the county roads out there.

The shoulders of Highway 60 as it runs through Webster and Douglas Counties are wide enough to accommodate the buggies, but you have to anticipate that you’ll find one around every curve and over every hill.

And, you know what? That’s normal here in southwest Missouri. A bit of hubbub has been made around how the Europeans have discovered America, again, and I get the sense that a lot of the Internet is reacting, but they’re still of their previous mindsets that there is one normal for America, but, really, there are many. And it’s interesting to experience the various normalities, and it’s kind of interesting to be reminded of what your normality is.

At any rate, it was a fairly small Renaissance festival, but of course I’m comparing it to the really large on in Bonner Springs which I have attended, what, six or seven times? I went once with Scott, Todd, and Lisa; once with Mike and Scott?; once with my beautiful then-girlfriend; once with my boys, my brother, and nephew; and once with the whole family and my brother’s new wife and his old son. So maybe only five times.

The parking lot was definitely muddy, but the grounds themselves were not bad. The festival featured several stages where medievally themed musical acts, with a preponderance of pirate portrayers, and magicians performed. We got roped into helping out with various tricks. My boy drew a picture on a slate along with others doing the same, and after mixing them up, the magician gave each intrepid artist his slate back. I got to help with the bed of nails bit–the magician laid on a bed of nails, and he asked me to stand on his prosthetic, weight-distributing belly. No problem, I train these balance ball drills at martial arts classes all the time. The only thing, though, is that I’m awful at them. But after a few attempts, I got up on the rotund belly to complete the trick.

The booths were the crafts you would expect. The forge-and-swords tent had a couple of broadswords and a couple of small axes, but nothing I needed for my collection, which was fortunate as they were pretty expensive (although probably I’m pretty cheap). And we did stop by the axe-throwing booth, which led me to my first recent Pop Pop moment: The guy running the booth asked for my son’s name, and then he gestured to me and said, “And this is your…. Grandfather?”

We were there under an hour, all told, and then we wended our muddy way to the highway for a return trip home.

And you know what made me feel the most Pop Pop? I really wasn’t that into it.. Years Decades ago, I enjoyed the festivals much more. I guess I was younger. I was playing role-playing games and perhaps reading more fantasy novels, so I was more in-touch with the lifestyle. I was going with friends instead of family, and to be honest, I was hoping to meet an attractive girl in period costume. A different place in my life.

I won’t say I won’t ever go again–after all, maybe I’ll be able to convince my brother to meet me out there one year–and maybe it won’t be muddy, and maybe I will be with someone who appreciates the thing more than is just going but is counting the time until the next trip into the online mines.

Or maybe Pop Pop is just too old for a good time.

Sorry, gentle reader, if you’re getting tired of the Pop Pop schtick, but….

Today at my second BJJ class of the day, which featured more advanced belts than white belts and focused on a variety of escapes that involved explosively folding your body in half, I received the “Bless your heart, do the best you can, old man” from the instructor who I think said he is only a couple years younger than I am.

Meanwhile, please remind me in a couple of days that I am not actually coming down with a stomach virus. Any time I have a good ab workout (which, clearly, is not often enough), the stiffness/soreness makes me think I’m getting sick instead of stronger.

Is AI in recruitment a ‘race to the bottom’?:

It’s my first job interview in more than eight years. Even though it’s a video interview, I’m still keen to impress.

When I log on, my interviewer, whose name I didn’t catch, looks relaxed and friendly.

He asks carefully articulated questions, listens intently, and even asks follow ups regarding particular examples I mention.

But then, strange things start happening.

He takes a while to process what I’m saying, and his facial expression remains unchanged. Then, halfway through asking me to explain a particular work scenario, he disappears without another word. He’s an AI – and he’s crashed.

Just yesterday, I used Indeed Apply for what looked to be a startup job which was right in my wheelhouse. However, immediately after submitting, I got a text and an email from an AI-based job board–it liked my resume and wanted to schedule an AI-screener call and have me complete an AI-assessed technical screening. I’ve avoided the particular job board, which posts a hella lotta job listings on other job boards, because I realize it was a third party trying to gather resumes and submit them to jobs to try to glean finder’s fees, and the more resumes it gathered, the better for it. I then looked closer at the company I applied to on Indeed, and it looked like a third-party platform gathering resumes to submit to the AI-based for its fee. Neither showed me the job description I had applied for. Ah, what a fool I was!

I’m working hard to dodge those job postings, which are a majority of the job boards these days–at least the big ones. These companies use technology to exceed the worst of recruiters out there who gather resumes like lottery tickets, who send out cold emails for jobs wildly incompatible with one’s background just in case, and who generally don’t follow-up after getting the resume.

I’ve done one-sided video introductions, and I’ve done on-camera, screen-sharing recorded live-coding assessments–not to mention the take-home assignments–and I’ve started to just ditch some applications that require them.

Pardon me for a moment while I ignore another text message from AI recruitment firm. Ah, now where was I?

Oh, I guess I was just going on again about the state of job-hunting and the layers of grift getting built atop it. But, as the Philosopher said, “A strange game. The only winning move is not to play.” Or, in the words of the Philosopher (a different one):

(Link to the story from…. Somewhere. I couldn’t find the source link this morning when I decided to post.)