In addition to all of that, I changed the backgrounds, logos and everything. I'm still tweaking little things here and there, based on visitor inputs, and my two beta tester friends, who I hope will give me a review soon.

I rewrote the intros on the Home Page to read a little better, rewrote the Author Bio, which is now located in a drop down tab on the last menu tab at the top of each page.

I moved the podcast and donations pages under that tab as well.

I used digital photos from my vast collection of photos taken during our around the U.S. vacation tour last spring on nearly every page to give visitors a breathtaking view of some of the famous national parks around the country.

As for the future? It's my intent to update the galleries and digital photos in the online store every few months as I get out and take more photos.

The galleries that are full of old digitised 35 mm photos will be replaced at some point as well, as soon as I feel like people are tired of looking at those old photos. Come chat with me in the contact page to let me know what you think. I would like to start up a little online community with all of this.

In addition to all of that, I am slowly working myself into a new vocation, which is landscape photography. For as long as I can remember, I've toyed with this hobby in between all of my other life things, such as work and taking care of my family. Now, since I'm moving farther into actual retirement as I pass the 70 year milestone in my life, I plan to pursue this hobby a lot more.

We're planning to travel around the country more as we can afford every year, before we can't anymore. I still have a few good years left so I plan to make the most of it and I'll show people everywhere what they may be missing.

Given that the United States, according to some journalists, is entering a recession now, I want to do as much as I can until things get so bad that I can't anymore. By bad, I mean the economy.

There is no more doubt anymore, we're all heading for bad times ahead. I'm not just talking about the U.S., but Europe as well. Especially western Europe.

Between Trump and the MAGA cult in the U.S. and the EU council bound and determined to start a war with Russia out of an imagined fear, the global economy is heading for a major reset.

The U.S. is quickly heading for near insolvency, or as close to that as they can get, without actually declaring bankruptcy to the world at large. European leaders are using all of their money to buy arms and add more troops to their rosters because they're imagining Russia pouring across Europe much like Hitler did in WWII. While they're taking taxpayer money to do that, the social services money is being sacrificed on the military altar.

I have been hearing stories on social media from Europe about how bad it's getting for the regular people there, with regard to health care and groceries and it isn't pretty. For some, it's becoming existential.

Britain's state run health care is falling apart dramatically now, along with several other European countries, like Austria and Germany. France is also on the verge of financial collapse due to its national debt. Portugal is experiencing nationwide labour strikes over government economic policies right now but you rarely hear anything in the U.S. press about that. Italy is also having some unrest in the streets now.

Then there's Ireland. They're going through some serious growing pains over their stupid immigration policies, just because they (as in Fine Gael and Fionna Fail) wanted to kiss the EU's ass and make nice. The EU has this open border policy between member states that allow people to travel across the EU with no passport or papers. The North of Ireland, being a part of the UK commonwealth, had no choice but to accept all of the spillover coming from an overcrowded Britain regarding refugees from the global south. Then these refugees, looking for something better than the poorer north, stepped across the soft border into the Republic and now, the Irish are protesting in the larger cities citing overcrowding and higher crime rates.

Ireland is just one example of the greater struggle to handle the influx of refugees and asylum seekers that have been flooding Europe for decades now. Something they caused with their colonising dating back centuries, that's come back to haunt them now. Britain is the largest perpetrator and I think they deserve all of the hell this brings them. Serves them right.

I hope the British monarchy collapses under its economic weight and Britain becomes just another impoverished European country living on the fringes, crying over lost glory.

In the U.S., they have a different problem. Not only do the Americans have a massive economic problem, they also have a serious government problem. This quick turn to authoritarianism. We've been talking about this for the last couple of years so I'm not going to go there today. Trump gets way too much attention as it is so I don't want to contribute to that anymore.

Lot's of people are writing and creating video content about all of this and, as some have noted, that's likely deliberate. As the bad guys have been saying, "Flood the Zone" with so much bullshit, that it distracts the public from what they're really doing while few are looking. It's working. Those who have been and are looking, are too few and we're having a hard time convincing the people to quit looking at the spectacle of Donald Trump and company, and start looking at what they're doing to things like eliminating future free and fair elections.

Trump doesn't want anyone looking at his past paedophile record with the late Jeffery Epstein, or his total lack of financial acumen to keep the U.S. economy humming along. So, he creates all of these media worthy distractions, like a massive shell game street con. Only instead of a few rubes from the streets, he is trying to use sleight of hand to try and fool the whole world into letting him steal anything he can get his hands on. It's worked so far but people are starting to see through the con.

Meanwhile, while all of that is going on, more and more people across western countries are losing their jobs as their employers go belly up. Thom Hartmann is now telling people in his news broadcasts, that he thinks the U.S. is already tipping into a recession. The signs are there. Trump will do everything he can to try and convince the American public that everything is just fine. Nothing to look at here, go back to work. For those who don't have jobs anymore since last January, they have the time now to look beyond the fake smile and see the B.S.

There were two mass shootings this weekend that got everyone's attention. The one at Brown's University in the U.S. will get the usual few days news media attention, then everything will go back to normal. The one in Sydney, Australia at Bondi Beach will be in the news feeds from Europe for some time as they sort all of that out. Simply because mass shootings rarely happen in these countries due to their more stringent gun laws. Australia and New Zealand have only experienced two within the last couple of decades, including this one. Does anyone remember the nut job who shot up the Mosque down under a few years ago?

I haven't read any new stories about this yet today as I write this, other than they think it was racially motivated because they think the target was a Hanukkah celebration on the beach. I'll learn more as the days go by. I'm sure The Guardian will have a few more stories come out about this over the next few days. Although I caught the story on Al Jazeera this morning over breakfast.

In keeping with that thought, last week, I also quit/retired from my IT gig job company after the last disastrous job they sent me on. After five years, and at my age, it was time. They can screw over someone else a lot younger than me from now on. More on that, and the economy coming up next Wednesday. Until then, Sláinte

PS: I'm going to add last week's podcast at the bottom here just to show you that I haven't been slacking all that much, just not writing here until I finished the remodel of the website.