Jeff Keen

The Eighties documentary (available on Netflix) is fantastic. I binge-watched the eight episodes in an evening and a morning, and this one on the tech boom was particularly interesting (for me). The conclusion to the episode kinda blew me away, so I recorded this video and texted my friends about it.

Oh man, this is a long video but it’s worth the watch. I can’t think of another president/vice president combo where their friendship seemed so geniune. The stuff they say about each other in this video will break you.

This is what my Electrical Engineering classes felt like in college. My professors were alledgely teaching real knowledge and not making up words like these guys are, but still, the feeling was the same.

This guy is a master. The chuckle before he says “as you may remember from your high school days” is priceless.

The original video was apparently made by Bud Haggart, an actor who filmed industrial training films in Detroit. Apparently he was so tired of not understanding the things he was talking about… he filmed this as a joke.

In the 70s my dad was a weather man in Milwaukee. He took this photo during that time and I just love it! He’s the guy on the right.

After 24 days of holding out hope that some troubling symptoms were curable, followed by 22 days of watching the realities of an awful incurable brain disease take shape, my mom died Tuesday evening. My dad, my brother, and I were close by when she passed on December 20th, 2016.

The 46 days leading up to this event have been heart-wrenching. Watching someone you love suffer and wither away before your eyes is an experience I hope none of you have to face. And if you’ve done that already: my deepest condolences from a place of unfortunate understanding.

I’ve been fearing the death of my parents since I was ten or so. I was probably more tuned into it than most thanks to my Mom’s sense of morbid reality — like when she reminded us during the Christmas of 1988 that we should talk with our grandmother in Australia because she “doesn’t have much time left.” And then reminding us again in 1989, 1990, 1991, and the next fourteen Christmases until she died in 2006. You’d think that after a lifetime of thinking about death, I’d be more ready for it. But who is ever ready for this?

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New favorite twitter account, described as “COFFEE LOVER. GRAPHIC DESIGNER. DEFINITELY NOT A WOLF PRETENDING TO BE A MAN”. This is solid gold.

Here’s a list of the 25 best tweets.

This sort of stuff really makes me wish I did more of a Liberal Arts education instead of a strictly-science-state-college-electrical-engineering-character-building-experience.

The US made a video in 1947 to protect and educate people against the “divide and conquer” propaganda tactics used by the media, and everyone should rewatch this today. History repeating itself.

These guys are the weirdest. I’m a fan of what creative stuff they pull on guests, and none of it is staged or known by the guest beforehand. Worth going down a youtube rathole if you like this. Surreal and bizarre.

My mom has been battling a mystery brain ailment since the beginning of November, and earlier this week we all just found out that she’s one in a million and has a very rare and fatal brain disease called Creutzfield-Jakob disease (CJD). It’s in the family of Prion diseases and is alarmingly progressive, horrific, and incurable. In 26 days it’s gone from her not being able to recall individual words to barely being able to communicate and needing help to be fed. To quote my mom: “It’s a bugger. It’s a real bugger.”

I’m thankful for my family being in Austin, and how any gripes we’ve had with each other have been swiftly put into clear perspective: irrelevant. I’m also thankful that despite the upcoming brutal days, weeks, or months of decline we’re having the chance to get some closure, receive some last minute words of wisdom for the future, and to say goodbye—things a sudden event would rob us of. That all being said, this experience is in a new category of difficult and terrifying for all parties involved.

When I’ve been on your end of this grief/consolation equation, I’ve often been at a loss for words and haven’t known what to say. I don’t expect you to know what to say. What can you say? What can you do? Consider this me letting you off the hook, and accepting that nobody is good at this and everyone gets a little weird. I feel a little more than weird about it, and you’re allowed to as well. I don’t really need any help with the matter at hand, and lying on the floor and crying into the rug is an activity best done solo.

The only reason I’m even making this public announcement and telling you all this is a) in case you know me well enough to have met my Mom, b) if I seem a little off in the next couple of months you’ll have some context, and c) in case you’ve been hiding a secret cure for prion diseases.

Thanks for the support, I appreciate you, and I hope all your loved ones live forever.