The Big Freaking Week is now safely retired to the annals of history. Or, actually muddled in the grinding of the massive plate tectonics on which we ride to our personal dissolution amid one much larger. And eternal.

And so we start the first working week of Fall, with the Middle of the Week taking on a sort of majesty, unveiling a month to the elections and the signs of how we will deal with the rest of this restive year.

The spectrum of experience in the Creative Section is an eclectic mix that combines unique access to how our national cavalcade of daring-do lunches forward and have institutionalized some of the lessons in the shadow production drills we have the interns doing. Which includes how to get the Mandolin slicers to get the Russet potatoes just right for either au gratin or scalloped dishes.

But the Big Deal is the one Vic recalls with a laugh, since he once directed a budget staff valued at around a dozen billion dollars, all piled up in neat stacks across the Future Years Defense Program. I gave him a measured perspective on the current Defense request, which was around $1.5 Trillion, which is a pile of digits against which his old program was only decimal dust.

So, there are going to be a lot of digits moving around this week. Don’t get hurt! It can wait until tomorrow when the new digital counters are supposed to show up down on the loading dock!

Copyright 2026 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com