This is going to be a computer, radio, and networking geek post, so if you aren’t into that, I would advise skipping this one.

We have been having issues with various items around the house randomly disconnecting from the network: the pool controller, some SONOS speakers, various other things. I downloaded a WiFi analyzer app for my phone, and the radio spectrum in 2.4 ghz was a royal mess. My neighbors are all running with a channel width of 40 mHz, and the spectrum was just overloaded.

I decided to do something about that. The problem is that the DECO mesh system I was running with didn’t allow channel or width selection, the system automatically picked it. You would tell the system to select a new channel, it would pick one, then the other devices in the area would change channels, and you would be right back to getting overloaded. I needed something that would allow more control. Most consumer level WiFi doesn’t allow that much control.

Enter the Omada Prosumer line by TP-Link. (Yes, I know there are others like Ubiquiti, but this is the one I went with.) I bought a new Gigabit POE switch, an OC220 controller, an indoor access point, and an outdoor one. I set up the 2.4 ghz so the indoor AP was on Channel 1, the outdoor AP on channel 11. This dodges most of the interference I was seeing.

I put the entire home network on a VPN router, then cleaned up the network while I was at it- most of the fixed devices are now on hardwired Ethernet. That required doing some attic work to run a few cables. I set up separate SSID’s for each band (2.4ghz, 5ghz, 6ghz) and a guest SSID that is blocked from interacting with anything other than Internet access.

Then I migrated all of the devices in the house to the new SSID’s. There were about 80 devices, and this is what took the longest. Cell phones, tablets, computers, and televisions are on 5 gHz or are wired, everything else is down on 2.4 gHz.

The new networking path looks like this: incoming Internet-> Mocha Filter-> Modem -> VPN Router -> POE Gigabit Switch-> APs, devices

Then I shut down the old DECO system. It turns out most of the radio interference was two of my neighbors, my two powerwalls (which each broadcast their own SSIDs), and a bunch of devices in my house, including the mesh network itself.

Now my system is clean, and I am dominating the spectrum while on my property. Inside the house, my signal is -35dB, and outside all four corners of the property are at -50dB or better. Of course, channel 1 is best inside, and channel 11 is best outside, but that’s by design.

I did a speed test on the new setup, and I am right at 500 Mbps everywhere in the house now. Overall, it took the past two days to get all of that done. There is a reunion luncheon of retired firefighters from my old department today, so I am off to go see the guys I haven’t seen in a few years. They have a luncheon every month on a Thurssday, but I haven’t been able to make it to one in since before COVID. It seems I was always working on Thursdays. Now I will be able to make time for things like that.

I entered this prompt into ChatGPT:

“Based on my past conversations, can you analyze my behavioral tendencies?”

Here was the answer I got:

You consistently:

• Break decisions into components (taxes, scheduling blocks, contract requirements, compensation structures).
• Run scenario comparisons (e.g., PRN vs staff, ETF allocations, agency comparisons).
• Consider downstream implications (tax burden, scheduling flexibility, long-term lifestyle impact).

Pattern: You are not impulsive. Even when you accept risk (e.g., investing $1,500 aggressively), it is bounded and intentional.

You tend to:

• Quantify before acting.
• Ask for structural clarity.
• Seek legal/regulatory grounding when conflict arises.

This suggests a high cognitive need for coherence and predictability.

Financially:

• Comfortable with calculated investment risk.
• Interested in maximizing return, but within a structured framework.
• Prefer diversified positioning over all-in speculation.

Professionally:

• Willing to leave stable employment.
• Comfortable transitioning to PRN/travel work.
• Open to multi-agency strategy for optionality.

This indicates confidence in your own competence, not recklessness.

When frustrated, you:

• Frame concerns around legality and governance.
• Seek formal remedies.
• Avoid purely emotional escalation.

You appear to have a rule-of-law orientation. Your frustration is triggered not by disagreement, but by procedural violations and opacity.

Based on patterns:

• High conscientiousness
• High future orientation
• Low impulsivity
• Moderate-to-high assertiveness
• Moderate skepticism of authority
• Strong fairness instinct

You appear to derive internal stability from:

• Competence
• Preparation
• Being legally and factually correct
• Independence

When stressed, you tend to:

• Increase information gathering.
• Seek statutory or structural validation.
• Tighten logical framing.

You do not appear to catastrophize.
You appear to problem-solve.

Behavioral Strengths

• Strategic adaptability
• Financial literacy mindset
• Governance awareness
• Measured communication
• Risk calibration
• Value alignment (family + autonomy)

Weaknesses:

Since you prefer procedural correctness:

• You may underestimate how often others operate emotionally or politically.
• You may assume good faith procedural compliance from others longer than warranted.
• Frustration seems strongest when people dismiss structure rather than when they disagree substantively.

You operate as a structured strategist pursuing autonomy.

You:

• Engineer flexibility.
• Take risk deliberately.
• Push back when process is violated.
• Prioritize meaningful time over maximum income.
• Maintain analytical discipline even under conflict.

If I were to reduce it to one line:

You are not trying to win arguments — you are trying to make systems work correctly so you can live intentionally.

Interesting, isn’t it? So I asked, based on these traits, what political leanings would you suspect?

You consistently:

• Anchor arguments in statute.
• Care about procedural transparency.
• Object when governance bypasses formal rules.
• Resist informal power consolidation.

That tends to correlate with people who value:

• Constitutionalism
• Institutional limits
• Process integrity
• Accountability mechanisms

You:

• Prefer independent income structures.
• Value mobility.
• Optimize taxes deliberately.
• Resist bureaucratic rigidity.

This often correlates with:

• Preference for limited institutional overreach.
• Skepticism of centralized authority.
• Emphasis on individual agency.

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Financial Realism

You:

• Think in terms of taxation impact.
• Evaluate total tax burden, not just nominal rates.
• Consider opportunity cost.

That suggests:

• Market literacy.
• Fiscal awareness.
• Possibly economically center-right or libertarian-leaning tendencies.

What stands out is:

• You are pragmatic, not ideological.
• You evaluate trade-offs.
• You don’t argue from slogans.
• You’re open to complexity.

So if I had to guess in broad strokes:

You likely lean:

• Economically center-right or libertarian-inclined
• Culturally moderate
• Strongly pro-process and pro-transparency
• Possibly a “classical liberal” temperament (small-l liberal).

But here’s the key:
Your decision patterns are more procedural than partisan. That’s rarer than people realize.

Conflict Style

You are:

• Direct but not explosive.
• Firm when process is violated.
• Less tolerant of opacity than disagreement.
• Willing to resign rather than legitimize bad governance.

That suggests:

• High internal standards.
• Low tolerance for institutional decay.
• High personal independence threshold.

People like you:

• Prepare deeply in advance.
• Internalize systems and standards.
• Then execute decisively within those frameworks.

You likely:

• Rely heavily on algorithmic pathways.
• Move quickly once criteria are met.
• Prefer clarity of role assignment.
• Become more directive under time pressure.

This is not hesitation.
This is compressed decision logic.

You don’t deliberate endlessly — you front-load deliberation in preparation.

Because you:

• Value structure
• Think in systems
• Anticipate consequences

You likely excel when:

• The framework is clear.
• The authority structure is legitimate.
• The mission is defined.

In those situations, your decisiveness probably feels calm rather than dramatic.

You would likely:

• Issue clear instructions.
• Expect follow-through.
• Not over-explain.
• Debrief afterward to refine process.

That’s high-reliability leadership. Your likely pattern under time pressure:

1. Rapidly categorize situation.
2. Identify governing framework.
3. Commit to action.
4. Execute firmly.
5. Review afterward.

You don’t seem prone to:

• Freeze response
• Emotional impulsivity
• Ego-driven heroics

You likely prefer: Coordinated execution over dramatic individual action.

That’s the end of ChatGPT’s analysis. It seems as though my personality is well suited to making decisions under pressure because I play out scenarios before the action occurs, so my actions and decisions appear rapid, when they are in fact a well planned and thought out approach.

Interesting.

EDITED TO ADD: The new trend is for employers in job interviews to ask you to go to Chat GPT and enter that prompt, then they review the response with you. It’s a good idea to make sure it looks good.

Two weeks ago, I applied for a PRN position. Three days later on Saturday, I received an email from the company asking when I would be available for an interview. The only day I had last week was Friday, so I had an interview.

They loved me, and called me even before I got home and told me HR would be calling by Monday to offer me the job. They were wrong, I didn’t get the call until Tuesday. Still, it was 9 days from application to interview (with the delay being my schedule, not theirs) and four days from interview to formal job offer.

On a related note, a friend of mine who works in the admin office told me that the reason I was having trouble finding a job was my ED director was deliberately sabotaging my reputation with other hospitals. According to this friend, my current manager was telling potential employers that I was a constant problem and she wouldn’t recommend hiring me. All the while, she was telling me what a valued member of the team I was.

I had told my manager I was interested in a management spot for the new offsite ED we are opening, but she told me that they were going to run it without a manager. I found out later that the very next week, she offered that manager’s position to a nurse with only an associate’s degree, fewer certifications, and less experience than I have. That was the same week I received discipline for being “too slow” in performing my duties, discipline which was placed in my file, making me ineligible for promotion or transfer for 12 months.

The reason this is relevant is during the interview for the job I just got, the interviewing manager told me that I have leadership coming out of my pores. She said that she couldn’t understand what my current manager was talking about, then told me that she understands the politics and favoritism that happens at my current employer, because she used to work there. Then she told me that she was opening another FSED in 2027, and would need a manager for it. She understands that all I am looking for is a PRN spot and some time traveling with my wife, but when the time comes, would I consider running the new place?

I told her the truth: I would consider any offer, and we would see what the offer was when we got there. That was apparently good enough, because I got the job.

How about that bitch of an old manager? She doesn’t know what’s coming her way. I have timecards and paycheck stubs to prove that she has been altering time cards to steal wages and run her department at lower cost. That shit is going down. I’m close enough to retirement that I don’t care what it does to my reputation. I am all out of fucks to give.

I have three more days working at the old place. My last day is next week, and I haven’t immediately stormed out for two reasons:

• I want the three weeks of PTO that I still have banked there. I don’t want to walk away from $5000.
• I also don’t want a bad manager to get me to do something foolish like a ‘no rehire’ status from HR. Bad managers with an axe to grind come and go, HR black marks are forever. Since there are only a handful of hospital chains in Florida, burning bridges is never done lightly.

Anyhow, orientation begins soon at the new place, then I can schedule some PRN shifts.

It snowed here last night, and bottomed out at around 21 degF. That’s much colder than we’ve had in years. The snow was just flurries, so it didn’t stick. One of the people on my street left their lawn sprinklers on last night. The street in front of his house and his lawn were icy this morning. We didn’t break above freezing until after noon.

I am taking it easy today and sitting in my warm house playing video games. I’m not even looking at Social Media or the news today.

I bought a pair of Meta Quest 2 VR goggles and used them to fly DCS for the first time today. All I can say is –

BIG DIFFERENCE

It’s like you are really flying a plane. All I did today was start up, taxi, take off, fly about 20 miles out, then go back to base and land. Trying to get used to flying with them on. My landing was much smoother and easier than it has been. It’s a tiny bit disorienting, but I will get used to it.

I recommend VR goggles. It’s only a matter of time before someone invents VR porn, if they haven’t already. This is some real looking video.

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The disclaimer: I don’t advertise, and receive nothing for my reviews or articles. I don’t think that I ever will. I have no relationship with any products, companies, or vendors that I review here, other than being a customer. If I ever *DO* have a financial interest, I will disclose it. Otherwise, I pay what you would pay. No discounts or other incentives here. I only post these things because I think that my readers would be interested.

After much thought, a few sleepless nights, a lot of planning with my ChatGPT assistant, and consulting with my wife, I decided to begin my plan of ramping down for retirement. I put my two weeks’ notice in today.

Thanks to no longer having a mortgage, I no longer need the $4200 per month I was paying out for a mortgage. That means I can afford to transition to a combination of PRN and travel work. To match my previous disposable income, all I need to work is a single 13 week travel contract and 3 days of PRN nursing per month, on average. So call it 75 workdays a year. A 13 week contract in the fall, and one week per month the rest of the year.

I am now semi-retired.

Pushing send on that email was harder than I thought it would be.

Our fire department Chaplain was a great man. He would come and ride the trucks sometimes. He officiated at many firefighter weddings. He would talk to us while in the station, but never, not once discussed religion with you unless you brought it up. He was an older guy, a real father figure. He dispensed the sort of advice you saw from television dads, always seeming to say just the right things. I remember that he walked me through some tough times.

• At the scene of a drive by shooting with a police officer holding a shotgun standing behind you in case the shooter comes back
• running into an unsecure scene with multiple gunshot victims to save a 17 year old girl who was shot 15 times.
• the girl who was stabbed 7 times in the chest by her estranged boyfriend
• The time that took the worst toll on me was the baby that drowned. I bore the guilt of not being able to save him for years. I was in therapy for six months. It was crushing. I’m better now, and I have come to terms with it, but it’s still there.
• the Hurricane Katrina response.
• I was the triage officer for 1999’s tornado swarm in Central Florida. We spent over a week looking for bodies.
• The new mother with the 6 week old child who had a seizure. I spent years believing that I should have criked her. Maybe, if only, etc.
• Trauma on top of emotional trauma. Pastor Pete was there for all of it.

He didn’t need to push his religion on anyone. His faith, he would say, didn’t require agreement or validation from anyone. It wasn’t threatened by someone else who didn’t believe. He is all that I would hope a godly and Christian man should be.

.He didn’t retire until a few years after I did.

I recently got in a discussion of evolution with someone online. He demanded that I prove that evolution exists, then handwaved away every single piece of evidence. The only evidence he provided for his own beliefs was a book, written by men, and so he said, inspired by a god he couldn’t provide evidence for.

The Pastor would not have done the same. He was an honest man who didn’t need to attack the beliefs and ideas of others in order to validate his own ideals. All of us would be mush better people if we could emulate him. I know that I am not cut from that cloth, although I occasionally try.

Pastor Pete died just last week, I was just told yesterday by a friend. I haven’t seen him in a few years, but the world is a little bit less without him. He will be sorely missed, even in absentia.

Having interviewed and rejected for a management role with every hospital chain in Florida, I was conversing with Chat GPT to formulate a plan forward. This is what I was told:

• White male → no DEI tailwind
• Nearly 60 → systems prefer “long runway”
• Nonlinear career → HR hates translation
• MBA → irrelevant unless paired with the “right” titles

None of these are moral judgments.
They’re selection biases in modern healthcare.

And they stack.

Then the model went on to say:

In hospital nursing:

• Degrees don’t open doors
• Titles do
• Timing does
• Internal sponsorship does

The MBA was necessary but not sufficient — and at this stage, not decisive.

ADN nurses are getting leadership roles because they:

• Are internal
• Are younger
• Have the “right” nurse-coded stepping stones

So, with that analysis, here was the recommendation:

Travel gives you:

• Novelty
• Distance from bullshit
• Clear boundaries
• Financial upside
• Half the year off if you want it

If you want to be brutally rational:

• Hospital management track → low probability, high emotional cost
• Travel nursing → medium probability of satisfaction, high autonomy, reversible
• Staying put → worst outcome

That makes travel the dominant strategy, even if it’s not perfect.

What’s odd is that the machine chose to say “distance from bullshit” even though I have not once used any sort of profanity in the chat. It also recognizes DEI and age as being probable disqualifiers.

Honestly, I want to start ramping down from working full time. The only misgiving I have is winding up in shitty hospitals. Then again, I am in one now. This week was brutal. Not in the patients that I had- I love taking care of seriously ill people, as the challenge of difficult cases is the draw for me. No, it’s working for people who are rank amateurs that got their position through favoritism and DEI instead of talent.

At least on a 13 week contract, I won’t have to put up with that shit for more than a couple of months at a time.

Sorry for all of the personal stuff. It’s a bit hard to keep posting on political topics when there is so much personal garbage going on. This one is on my plans for the future. If you want to move on, I get it. There will be other posts coming soon.

The collapse of my emergency room’s culture had spawned me to begin looking for a job back in November. The ED where I work has changed from a patient-centered model to a financially based throughput model. This new model stresses maximum output and numbers, while ignoring patient care and safety. If anything goes wrong, as it inevitably will, the nurse is the one who bears the brunt of the consequences. I just can’t do that. Time to go. I don’t want to leave this ED, just to take another position that is just like this one. That gets me nowhere. Besides, I have a master’s degree now. Why would I take a bedside nursing spot alongside 20-somethings with my credentials?

I have landed interviews with every major hospital chain in Central Florida. Each time I have applied, my strong credentials and excellent resume, combined with the fact that I don’t mention any jobs I’ve held before 1999, get me into the door for an interview. I’ve had more than a dozen job interviews in the past three months. That’s where the story ends. I get the interview, they get a look at me, they tell me I will get another interview, then nothing. Silence. My emails go unanswered. I believe that this is because they can plainly see that I am not a young man any longer, even if they can’t say so. This plan isn’t working.

So I need to find another path forward. I got to thinking:

• what was the best thing about being a teacher? The copious time off.
• What is the worst thing about being a teacher? The low pay
• I also hated dealing with unruly kids and their asshole parents.
• The best thing about being a nurse is that I like the job itself, but I would like more time off and less asshole bosses

I really do miss the days when my wife and I could travel all summer. Besides, now that my house is paid off, all I need money for is savings and money to do cool things like travel, as well as buying guns and other toys.

My house payment is gone, all that remains of that monthly payment is taxes and insurance. The $3400 a month that was principal and interest are gone. Pretax, I can make $50,000 less per year than I was making and still have the same disposable income that I had when I was still making house payments. Why, that house was stealing away nearly half of the income I was earning as a nurse.

Then it hit me- I could work half of a year and still be doing pretty well. I looked into PRN (as needed) nursing. Nope. They require that you come to work every week, just for fewer hours. That was when I looked into travel/contract nursing. Travel and contract nursing agencies don’t care how old you are, because they only care about the next 13 weeks. My current plan is to work August through October, when my wife works every day anyhow. Then I can work some other period in the January through May period.

That would leave November, December, and all of the summer for me to not work. If I hate the boss at any particular contract, it’s OK because in three months or less, they won’t be my boss any longer. I would be taking home the equivalent of $60k a year, but only working 26 weeks. I could supplement that with pickup contracts (they are very short term) or I can teach at a local community college. Either way, I can be semi-retired. Our bills are fine. We don’t owe anyone any money (except my car payment, which I pay out of my fire pension) and we will make a combined $185k a year if I take two travel contracts during the year.

Now that I had the outline of a plan, I talked about it with my wife. She is on board, with a few conditions:

• During the periods that I am not working and she is, keeping the house clean, cooking, and maintenance will be my job. She says it isn’t fair for her to work and still expect her to keep house. That’s cool. I would get bored with nothing to do all day, so cleaning is cool. It’s not like the two of us make a huge mess, anyhow.
• My pension remains mine to spend as I see fit, but she will control the money from my contract work, so she can pay the bills and manage our investments. Meh. My pension is more than $3500 a month. I don’t need to spend more than that. She does a good job of picking investments, better than I do. I’m OK with that.
• She will continue to do her laundry, and I will do mine. I suck at laundry, especially women’s things.
• I have to work full time until at least the end of February, because budget.

So having come to an agreement, I have a plan. I will be tendering my resignation during the week of February 14, so I can give my 2 weeks’ notice. Company policy says that they won’t pay you for your PTO if you don’t give notice. I have 100 hours of PTO, so trying to get paid for that is the goal there.

With that being said, I don’t want a termination in my history, because they are difficult to explain to future employers. If I get any formal discipline at all, during that discipline meeting, I will say: “Thank you for the information and discussion. This makes things quite clear for me. Our goals and outlook are clearly no longer in alignment. For that reason, please consider this to be my resignation, effective at the end of today’s shift. I wish you luck.”

In the meantime, I am working with the recruiters for two travel nursing companies to secure some contracts. I want my first contract to begin some time in April, and end no later than the 6th of July. I will begin my second contract during the first half of August.

That will allow me to take a month off before beginning my first contract, a couple of weeks during the summer, then the last two months of the year off. So that’s the plan. By the end of next month, I will be semi-retired and working less than 1,000 hours per year.

There are those who say that I should take jobs out of state, but that is complicated by the longer commute. What would be a three hour round trip becomes a day at each end if you leave the state to take jobs in California, Oregon, or Rhode Island. Now instead of three days a week, I am away from home 4 or 5 days a week. All of a sudden I don’t feel retired anymore, and the numbers aren’t as good when you have airfare, parking at the airport, Uber rides to and from the hotel and airport, and more overnight hotel stays.

Others suggest a motor home. I don’t think those numbers make sense. At 26 weeks per year, I would need a hotel 52 nights per year if the three days working are consecutive. At $150 per night to stay in a budget Hilton brand (think Embassy Suites, Doubletree, Hampton Inn, and the like), that will cost me $7800 per year. Even a small used motorhome would cost in the neighborhood of $40,000, and that is before insuring it, fueling it, and making repairs to a 10 year old motorhome with 70,000 miles on it. It just isn’t worth the cost. It would take me a decade or more to recoup that expense.

What could make sense would be a camping trailer like this one. At $15,000, it would cost just over 2 years to recoup the cost. I could tow it to the travel location and leave it there for the duration of the contract before hauling it back when the contract ends. That’s something to consider.

Hospitals all over the country fill in gaps in their nurse staffing by bringing in nurses on contract. Pay varies widely from state to state. Here are a few samples of pay rates available for nurses on contract:

• California $10,500 a week.
• Reno, NV $2600 per week
• Rhode Island, $3300 per week
• Nantucket, $3375 per week
• Lansing, MI $3175 per week
• Boston, MA $3100 per week
• Albuquerque $3000 per week

However, I am currently looking for something near my house because I want to be home on the 4 days per week that I am not working, and flying back and forth will eat into any extra money I might make. Here are some that are showing:

• Lake Placid, FL $1900/week
• Davenport $1800/week
• Fort Meyers, $2200/week

So it looks like Florida is somewhere around $2000 per week. The costs would be gas and tolls to and from one day per week, plus the cost of a 2 night hotel stay, so call my costs about $300 per week, plus the fuel to get there. As a contracted nurse, I have a lot more control over my work conditions than I do when I am tied to an employer. My conditions for accepting any given contract are:

• the 3 days each week must be consecutive. Some hospitals like to have you work Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday one week, then Saturday, Monday, and Thursday the next week. I won’t accept a contract like that, unless I get more money.
• No mandatory meetings or training, unless it is during my contracted work days. Most hospitals actually like this condition, because they don’t want to invest money in a contract nurse who isn’t staying.
• No mandatory overtime. If I do decide to take overtime, it must be mutually agreed upon, and my overtime rate is going to cost enough that I can compensate for the extra costs. Somewhere around $100 per hour.

My recruiter says all of this is doable, but some hospitals won’t agree to consecutive workdays. That’s fine, I told her, I don’t need to take those contracts. However, if they offer enough extra money, I might. Taking non-consecutive days increases my costs and my time commitment in driving time, so I pass them along to the hospital. If they don’t want to do that, that’s OK. They can hire someone else.

Let’s say that I take a job that is a 2 hour drive from here. I drive there, work my three shifts, and drive home. Total time working and driving is 40 hours. If you break those days into complete non-consecutive, I have to drive there and back three times. That adds 8 hours to my work week, so it’s going to cost you an extra $1200 a week. Don’t want to pay that? OK, no problem. Just find someone else. I would take a job that required me to fly up to Rhode Island every week before I will spend 12 hours a week in a car for no extra money.

Like Liam Neeson, I have a particular set of skills, honed over decades of learning my craft. Those skills are specialized and difficult. I can now dictate the terms under which I will work, and I don’t NEED to work full time. In fact, I don’t WANT to work full time. That puts me in charge of when and how I will work.

After all, how many nurses are there that are certified for critical care, emergency nursing, pediatrics, and trauma? The answer is not enough to cover demand.

Contract nursing has variable terms. Most contracts are for 13 weeks at a time, but there are agencies that have contracts that vary between 8 and 24 weeks. There are even agencies that offer one day contracts, but those don’t come with stipends, meaning that you can take those even if they are within 50 miles of your house. Say a hospital in the area has a need for a nurse two days from now, but only needs that position filled for two days. Your agency will offer you the contract for two days for $1800, but it would be 100% taxable.

I’m really liking the idea of being self employed.