After leaving Cadiz, our next stop was Gibraltar. It’s an outpost of Britain, the currency is the pound, the language English, and people born here of Gibraltar parents are considered to be British citizens. Note that, like every country except the USA, being born in Britain doesn’t automatically confer citizenship. There are 34,000 people living here, and another 100,000 or so come into the city from Spain to work in the city’s shipyards and shops. For this reason, most of the people here also speak Spanish. This isn’t uncommon in Europe, with many people speaking 2, 3, or as many as 5 different languages due to the close proximity of so many different peoples.

We paid a cab driver to drive us around and show us the sights. We went to St. Michael’s cave, and even interacted with the monkeys who live there.

There are a couple of legends about the cave: one being that the cave has no bottom, and the other that it is attached to a cave system that stretches across the straits to Africa and is how the monkeys got to the European side. Military officers attempted to see how far the caves went and were never seen again. The cave has since been extensively explored, and no remains or recent cave ins were found, so the men remain missing to this day.

During World War 2, the caves were used as a bomb shelter and hospital. Today, it’s used as a concert hall for musical performances and as a tourist attraction. There are some spots where you can look down and it appears as though the cave stretches down to the center of the planet. It DOES look quite deep.

As I was walking down a trail near the top of the mountain, one of them reached out and grabbed my shoulder. My wife was attempting to take a picture, and the little guy jumped on to my back and began grooming my hair. We continued to walk, and he stayed on my shoulders for a good bit. People walking by were taking my picture and also giving me advice on how to get rid of him. He wasn’t hurting me or anything, so I let him stay there until he decided we had walked far enough.

From the top of the Rock, I was above the clouds and got this picture of a mountain on the African side

After that, we went to a cliff overlooking the Straits of Gibraltar, where we could get a good look at Africa.

Back to the ship for dinner, and as the rock sailed out of sight, we also saw a US destroyer. It was the USS Roosevelt, heading westward to the Atlantic, and I presume to her homeport in Rota, Spain.

We went to a concert. The singer was Nicola Ward, a well known British woman, and she sang an absolutely beautiful rendition of Con te partirò.

After that, we spent some time in the casino, and I walked out of there up $1000 for the night, thanks to some great shooters at the craps table.

After Lisbon, we had our last sea day. My luck in the casino turned, and I won over $400. Well, I actually was up about $800, but one of the things I need to learn is quitting when I am ahead. By the time I realized the table had gone cold, I was lucky to leave the table up by $400.

The next day, we docked in Cadiz, Spain. We actually got on a bus and went to Seville. This city is absolutely stunning, and I learned on this tour the reason why streets in so many towns in that era are narrow and winding. I had always assumed that it was because they were designed for foot traffic and didn’t want to bother with wide, straight streets. That isn’t the case- they did it because it was more difficult for raiders on horseback to ride down the street. The absence of 90 degree intersections was because winding streets also facilitated the ocean breeze blowing through the town. Another factoid was poor people didn’t live near the beach because pirates and other ships would raid the waterfront. Add to that the fact that no one really swam in the ocean until after 1800, and no one with money wanted to be near the ocean.

Seville, like many towns on the Iberian peninsula, was heavily influenced by the Moors, who weren’t kicked out of the area until the time of Columbus. The Moors brought a lot of advanced mathematics, archeology, science, and education to Europe, which along with the Renaissance begun in Italy, helped in ending the “dark ages” of Medieval Europe. Check out some of the sights of Seville.

The following pictures are from the Palace:

One thing that annoyed me was when some of our fellow American tourists saw the brotherhoods for Holy Week, the first comment was “OOOh, the Klan.” By the end of this trip, I gained an understanding of why so many in Europe think that Americans are uneducated swine.

Seville was an absolutely beautiful city, and there were many examples of both Moorish and Renaissance art and architecture. I really enjoyed this tour, even though I didn’t see a single barber.

After leaving the Azores, we had a day at sea. We rode some bumper cars then played some games in the sports bar over a few cocktails.

The day after that, we spent the day in Lisbon, Portugal. No, the people who live here aren’t called Lisbians, but they probably should be. We had a good day touring the city, the people who lived here were friendly and gracious. The city was beautiful:

The cathedrals in Europe are filled with superior art and craftsmanship. The amount of skilled labor it took to build them simply amazes me. This one is over 300 years old:

Before returning to the ship, we stopped at a large shopping mall, and while we were in there, we got some lunch. That’s where a bit of trouble kicked in. Google translate allows you to point your camera at something that’s printed in a different language, and the software alters the image so it appears in English.

While translating the menu, there was an item called lagartas, which Google dutifully translated to lizards. We weren’t feeling all that adventurous, so we ordered the pork and pineapples.

It turns out that Google is a bit literal. Lagartas is a dish made from thinly sliced Iberain ham, and has nothing to do with reptiles. The hazards of dealing with other languages.

On the way out of the mall, we stopped at a small bakery and got a traditional Portuguese egg custard tarts, Pastel de Nata. These things are incredible. I’m glad we only got a few of these, because I could easily gain some weight with these things.

With our stomachs full, it was time to leave Lisbon, but I would not mind returning at all. As we left port, I snapped this picture:

More ports, more travelling- tune in tomorrow as we enter Spain.

The Seventh Day of the crossing, and we arrived in the Azores at Ponta Delgada. We spent the day on a bus tour of the island. The Azores, being volcanic islands, are rocky islands. Still, there was a fairly large amount of farmland.

On our tour, we wound up at the top of the caldera of a large volcano. From there, you can see the city at the bottom, Sete Cidades. It’s breathtaking. The city is next to the lake that is located at the bottom of a large caldera, 3 miles across at its widest, and 1300 feet from the rim to the bottom. The views from the rim are amazing. This picture doesn’t do the view justice. Those homes you see in this picture are more than 1000 feet below, and a mile away. The wind blowing up from the bottom of the caldera is fairly strong, I would estimate around 30 miles per hour or so.

After spending the day here, the ship left port, headed to our next stop. More on that later.

This is installment two of my three week vacation. The first day is found here. If you aren’t interested in my travels, you are free to skip this one, I won’t be offended. Once I am done with this post, I need to finish my taxes up, so the next post might be later in the afternoon or evening.

Having spent the night at a Marriott hotel in Jersey City, we got up early the next morning and went to breakfast at a Krispy Kreme that was a block over. Went back to the hotel, showered, and headed out to the port in an Uber.

The ship was the Odyssey of the Seas. After checking in to our Junior Suite, 200 square feet of living space. The room has a queen bed, plenty of cabinet space, one and a half baths, a desk, and a small 80 square foot balcony. The best benefits are access to the suite restaurant and the double points you get. A 15 night cruise gets you 30 points. Since we have over 400 points, we get 5 free drinks anywhere on the ship, and as frequent gamblers, we also drink free in the casino.

I am going to just compress the first six days of the cruise into one post. We didn’t stop anywhere since we were crossing the Atlantic, so all of the days were pretty much alike. Being that we were sailing on the North Atlantic in the spring, the weather was a bit rough. Since this was the North Atlantic in the Spring, we were in some rough seas for the crossing. I’m talking 40-50 knot winds and 15-20 foot seas. That means the outside decks were closed. I wouldn’t want to be in the pool anyhow, because temperatures were in the mid-50s. Here is a video I shot from a lounge that was on the 4th deck, meaning we were about 40 feet above the ocean. Due to a lack of scale, those waves look smaller than they were, but you get the idea.

The meals were great. I ate things like duck confit, filet mignon, veal pasta, sea bass, onion soup (my favorite soup), and other gourmet dishes for dinner. The best soup of the cruise was seafood volute, and it was a very silky soup with a distinct lobster flavor, almost like lobster bisque. We rarely had lunch, but on those days we did, we had sushi, a nice surf and turf, and hibachi. Breakfast was usually just something small like a donut or something. Here is a picture of the second course of day three’s lunch.

I had forgotten to take a picture until I had eaten some, but you can see that the food is fairly good. I can’t believe that neither of us gained any weight, eating like this.

During the day, we did things like ride bumper cars, play laser tag, or sit in the sports bar playing games like Jenga and connect four. There was also a British pub onboard, as well as plenty of activities like bar trivia and the like. The laser tag was great. I think we played 4 or 5 times, and it is great practice for clearing rooms and moving around corners.

In the evening, we spent time in the casino but these first few days was rough. I had one night where I was ahead by $400, and 4 or 5 nights when I lost my ass. All in all, the casino was rough. By the end of the six days, I was down about $2000. We also had time to see a number of shows. The entertainment was pretty good. A few nights we sat in the music hall and listened to the band- called the “High C’s Horns.” The band was pretty good. I thought I had video of them, but can’t find it. Instead, here is video of the entrance to the casino:

The crossing ended on day 7 with our first port visit, which I will cover tomorrow.

This past week, posting has been light. That’s because I have been orienting at the new job. I’ve been attending classes this past two weeks. There was the normal HR bs that you have to endure, some of it required by regulations, some of it the “rah-rah, this is the best company ever” garbage, IT policies, network security, social media policies, etc. That was two full work days.

Then there was compliance training for the new nurses at four different hospitals training on things like stroke protocols, HIPAA compliance, that sort of thing. It was all of the disciplines- medical/surgical, ICU, PACU, PCU, outpatient surgery, and more. Another three workdays. It was during this training that the nurses bound for the ED and the ICU argued with the nurses headed for other units, and with the nurse who was teaching the class. It was during the segment on testing blood sugar. The instructor said the unit can’t test blood sugar on a patient in cardiac arrest, but even if you could, it wouldn’t matter because you can’t give IV medications to someone without a pulse because no blood is moving. I was the first one to speak up. I pointed out that this is false, because we give all sorts of IV medication during a code- to include Calcium, Epinephrine, and even dextrose. The instructor told me I was wrong. The rest of the ED and ICU nurses chimed in their support, and the argument escalated from there. I pointed out that I am an ACLS instructor, board certified nurse- and I told her she was wrong. The instructor countered with “I am an instructor, too.” I bit off my first instinct to say “Not a very good one, then,” so instead I replied by reading directly from the American Heart Association’s page, proving her wrong. She still wouldn’t bend. That was when I noticed the woman who was standing in the corner, having walked in during our disagreement: My new boss, who was there to take me to lunch.

My new boss was cool with it and told me not to worry about the instructor and pointed out that there is a reason why she has never been in a critical care unit. The rest of the day went by quietly. The next day was spent in online training on ER specific policies.

We moved on to the second week- this one was in our actual workplace under instruction precepting and learning hospital protocols and procedures. What this meant in my case was my preceptor sat at the nurse’s station while I took care of our patients. Halfway through the day, I overheard the director telling my preceptor: “It’s his first day, you can’t just sit here without giving him any help our guidance.” To which the preceptor replied “He’s doing great.”

I worked four days in week two. My only weekday off (Thursday) was spent finishing up my network upgrades. I installed a supervised gateway and switch. Things went badly, and I wound up crashing the entire network. I spent over 8 hours getting everything back. A frustrating way to spend a day off. I was going to post about the left’s reaction to the submarine SINKEX, but Miguel beat me to it, so that post got tossed.

Monday starts my third and final week of training. There is a lot of information: Protocols, procedures, medication standing orders, those sorts of things. In the ER, there is too much going on, with much of it being time sensitive, so ED nurses enter their own orders for things. It’s one of the things I like about being an ED nurse- we have a lot of autonomy. It’s also why I carry a million bucks in malpractice insurance.

Since this is a PRN job, I already told them that, once my training is done, I am taking three weeks off. Three weeks of full time hours equals three weeks off. I am not about to work full time hours in what is supposed to be a part time position.

Blogging to resume on Sunday.

For the past couple of weeks, I have been transitioning from full time employment at one hospital to part time employment at another. There were physicals, credentialing, fingerprints, and background checks. What do you know, my new employer tells me that I had a positive quantiferon test. What this means is I have been exposed to Tuberculosis at some point since I was onboarded at my last job in 2023, and I now my body is manufacturing antibodies.

That’s pretty common in workers in emergency medicine, thanks largely to our homeless shitbag population. Contrary to what you have been told, being homeless isn’t something that happens to people through bad luck. No, the people who are homeless have a substance abuse problem, a mental health problem, or both. The person who just falls on hard luck is rare, and those who are homeless from bad luck rarely stay there for long. When I was homeless, it was caused by my ex-wife taking everything in the divorce, and I was homeless for less than a month. I think it was two weeks or so.

Anyhow, my old employer says that I could have been exposed to TB anywhere and I can’t prove otherwise, so they aren’t doing crap about it. This means that I will have to get a chest x-ray every year for the rest of my life, to make sure I don’t actually have TB. I’m gonna be like Doc Holiday.

After all of that was done, I had to begin my orientation and onboarding. It turns out that I know some of the instructors and a couple of the managers. The rest of the onboarding class was wondering how I seemed to know so many people.

Now I have to precept for a couple of weeks so they can finish training me on the new hospital’s policies and procedures. Then I drop down to working 4-6 days per month. Easing into retirement, as it were. I’m waiting to see if my old employer tries to screw me out of the PTO that I had banked (110 hours worth, so about 3 weeks’ pay).

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.

---

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.