Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning – Dark Time, West Wing, MS Excel and MS PowerPoint

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Dark Time, Kyle Pew, MS Excel, MS PowerPoint, Star Carrier Series, Udemy, West Wing

Dark Time is currently describing the America boarding an alien vessel, using a contingent of Marines. They’ve discovered an alien race inside the ship, and they are beginning to interact with it. The suspense is terrific.

I’m currently watching the “Ellie” episode of West Wing. This episode has Bartlett’s Surgeon General talking about drug policy and gets into trouble with some of her statements. Ellie is President Bartlett’s daughter who puts him in a tight spot, when she says to the press that her father would never fire the Surgeon General. It’s a great episode.

I’ve been learning MS Excel. I have a presentation to give at a retreat this month, and need to bone up on PowerPoint, So, I found a course taught by the same guy teaching the MS Excel course. If you’re interested, look up Kyle Pew on Udemy. I plan on taking all of his courses. He’s that good.

Well, it’s Thursday. We’ve been getting a lot of rain and we have thunderstorm warnings until 9 am tomorrow. Have a great Thursday, friends.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, and Learning – Dark Time, The First American, MS Excel, and The West Wing

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Amazon Prime, Dark Time, George Washington, MS Excel, Star Carrier Series, The Revolutionary War, The West Wing, Udemy

Dark Time has the Star Carrier America closing with an alien ship and getting ready to board her with a contingent of marines. This is after the alien ship “swallowed” a USNA ship that got too close. It’ll be interesting to learn what happens next!

All, I just finished the Civil War series I’ve been watching. Now, I’m learning about George Washington, in “The First American” on Amazon Prime. It’s one long movie, so I watch about 10 minutes a day. So far, they are describing the difficulty with writing about a man like this, who was very quiet and did not say too much, compared to the others like Franklin, Jefferson, and Madison.

I learned about auditing an Excel worksheet. It’s pretty cool. You can see all the formulas, you can see which cells are impacted, and you can even use what is called a watch window to validate that a formula is actually working the way you want. Good stuff!

I am purchasing the West Wing season by season. In August, I’ll be watching season 4. I finished season 3 this month. My sister’s arrangement for work changed, so she is not living with us during the week. She started a new role at her company and this move required her to work onsite. I’m not sure if she’ll be fully remote like she was, but at some point, she may be back here during the week. Who knows? Anyway, I’m watching the series myself, and I just love the story. Season 4 will continue with the President’s reelection bid, and the fall out from assassinating the defense minister of another country who attacked America.

That’s it this week, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Reading, Watching, Learning – Dark Time, The West Wing, and The Civil War

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CJ Cregg, Dark Time, Ian Douglas, Josh Lyman, Josia Bartlett, Leo McGarry, Sam Seaborn, Star Carrier Series, The Civil War, The West Wing, Toby Ziegler

I’m still reading Dark Time, Book 6 of the Star Carrier series. Wow, what a ride. Currently, America, the central ship in the series is pursuing an alien ship that has just left earth, to try and figure out what this ship is and how it got to earth without being picked up by any of the security satellites and other protocols used to prevent this type of thing.

West Wing Season 3 has President Bartlett working on getting reelected. Leo McGarry just testified in front of congress, Donna got involved with the wrong Republican, and Josh is starting to get involved with Amy Gardner a woman’s advocate who is a big political player in Washington.

The Civil War series is talking through Grant and Sherman’s actions to get the victory Lincoln needs to get reelected. Sherman’s “March to the Sea” is highlighted, along with some other battles that occurred during 1864-1865.

I hope some of you find these to be good recommendations. I’m a huge war buff, so you’ll see plenty of documentaries about war, history, and sprinkled with some science. West Wing is my favorite show ever. I could watch and re-watch this series over and over again. I enjoy reading scifi and also action-adventure books. Every once and a while I’ll read a mystery novel or thriller, but typically stick with scifi.

Well, that’s it for now. Have a great Thursday, folks.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Gaming, Reading, Watching and Learning

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Amazon Prime, Call of Duty, Civil War, CODM, Dark Time, Diablo Immortal, Grand Master, Ian Douglas, Star Carrier Series, The West Wing, Udemy

The Call of Duty Mobile saga continues. I am currently at the Grand Master level in both Battle Royal and Multiplayer and have a few more levels before I hit legendary. It’s a real grind. For those of you who do not know what grind means in this context, it is the literally playing and playing and playing until your objectives have been met. I grind to get ranked and I grind to get my diamond camouflages for my weapons.

I have also started a game called Diablo Immortal. Boy, that is a great game. All kinds of things to do, all kinds of weapons, gear, gems, and gold to collect. I am really enjoying the Role Playing Game (RPG) genre again. These guys at Blizzard really know how to create great games.

I’m started reading Dark Time, another book in the Star Carrier series. It’s another great read so far. The way Ian Douglas writes is terrific. The characters are awesome. The weapons and military craft descriptions are the best. I highly recommend this series if you are a SF fan.

My sister and I are in season 2 of The West Wing. It’s terrific. I never grow tired of The West Wing. The characters are so terrific! Sam, Toby, Josh, Donna, CJ Craig, Danny, President Bartlet and Leo are terrific. I won’t give away any spoilers, in case any of you are interested. The entire show is on Amazon Prime Video, but you’ll have to pay. It’s about $25 US per season.

I’m watching a new documentary on the Civil War and continuing with my Excel class on Udemy. Yesterday I learned about HLOOKUP. Today it will be INDEX(). I enjoy this class because of the short session lengths and the easy example files to work with.

Have a great Thursday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Gaming, Reading, Watching, and Learning – CODM, Star Carrier, The West Wing, Udemy – Excel Course

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CODM, Excel, Hobby, Learning, Reading, Season 5, Star Carrier Series, Total War WW2, Udemy, Watching, West Wing

Happy Thursday, folks!

Season 5 of CODM is upon us. They have loaded up some new challenges, updated rewards and goodies for completing them, and I am continuing to work on Diamond Camouflage for weapons. The Clan Battle has started up again, where specific games are set up for clans to compete. It’s all great fun! To make this easier to understand, I’ll begin uploading photos next week of various screen shots within the CODM portal.

I’m still reading the Star Carrier Series. The story so far has our hero locked in battle with a new alien enemy known as the G’rdock. It’s a crazy story so far.

I started watching Total War WW2 on Amazon. It’s a new take on WW2 that covers themes of things, instead of battles, like normal documentaries. Topics like mobilization, the aerial war, and other topics. It’s great!

My sister and I finished Better Call Saul. Season 6 doesn’t come to Netflix until July, so we moved over to one of my favorite television series–The West Wing. I just bought season 1. It’s been a great ride so far.

I’m still in the MS Excel course offered by Udemy. This week we are learning about conditional statements, like IF functions. It’s terrific to learn about all these things I did not know and it will make me more proficient when I begin creating better spreadsheets that will help me be more organized and efficient in both my work and my personal life.

Well, that’s it, folks.

Have a great Thursday!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Hobbies, Games, and Movies – CODM, Better Call Saul, and Dark Matter

Tags

Amazon Prime, Better Call Saul, Dark Matter, documentary, Ian Douglas, Star Carrier Series, WWI

So, here we are again, folks. It’s Thursday and it’s time for an update on all things watching, playing, and reading. I just started Dark Matter. It is a book in the Star Carrier Series. I’m taking a break from Remo because I started this series way back when and want to finish it. It falls within the Sci-Fi genre and is one terrific book.

We are in Season 4 of Better Call Saul. Wow! What a great series. It’s great to watch this character’s arc, along with all the rest of the characters sprinkled in from Breaking Bad. I wanted to touch on a documentary series I started watching yesterday. It’s on WWI. If you have Amazon prime and interested in military history, here’s the title: The First World War. So far, it’s been pretty informative. I enjoy watching one documentary a day, so when I hit a series like this, it’s terrific, because it’ll last 10 days (10-day series). I watch an episode a day.

Call of Duty Mobile continues to satisfy. There’s a new challenge in Battle Royale that I’ll be starting today. I’m still continuing to work on weapon camouflages. I work through all the weapon classes – sniper, shotgun, assault rifle, submachine gun, and melee weapon. It’s great fun! I didn’t play as much with Zombies this season, but will get right back to that next season, which starts in June. Well, that’s the update on the gaming front.

Have a great day, folks!

Until next time…

Dave