2026-01-23 13:00:00
I've noticed that by about 10 AM most days I am done with the news. I'm deleting unread email newsletters and skipping over blog posts or Mastodon posts that have anything to do with current events. I just can't take it anymore. Then I feel guilty about not staying up to date. But really, how is an article about yet another ICE atrocity in Minneapolis going to make my life better? I'm already at maximum outrage.
Speaking of Minneapolis, can I just say how fucking proud I am every single person resisting in that city. What little hope I have left for the future of this country is hanging on primarily because of the actions of the people of Minneapolis. You folks fucking rock. Keep on resisting. You way outnumber the Nazis and you can wear them down. As a resident of a state capital with a newly elected Democratic Governor I'm wondering if we are next. If we are, I hope I can live up to the example set by the people of Minneapolis.
In other news, I'm officially a Virginia Master Naturalist volunteer. I attended my first class last week. It's a long road to getting the Master Naturalist title but I expect to do it before the end of the year. The volunteer opportunities are amazing. There are so many opportunities to do cool stuff outdoors in support of conservation around RVA. The hard part is picking what to do. I want to do it all.
We went out for dinner tonight because we don't expect to leave the house again before Tuesday. We are hunkered down for the incoming winter storm. I've got a camp stove for cooking if we lose power, and I'm going to fill up the bathtub with water this evening so that we have flush water if a local water main blows. That happened last year and we were totally unprepared. This time we've got a stock of drinking water in the garage and the bathtub water for flushing the toilets. I've also got a generator, but I realized too late today that I never replaced the portable space heater that died last year. The house is well insulated, I think we'd be fine with extra layers if it comes to that. We live in a new neighborhood with underground utilities, so really we only lose power if something more central goes, and those issues tend to get fixed first since they affect a larger number of people.
Bring it on SnowMageddon 26. We are ready for you.
Also, check out my friend Ryan's interview over at the People and Blogs series. I was interviewed last year.
If you are in the path of the storm this weekend please stay safe, and warm.
2026-01-09 13:00:00
Yep, I've stopped pretending that these will ever be weekly on a consistent basis. I simply do not have Andreas time management skills. He never misses a week. I'm going with Ryan's approach.
If 2026 came with a 14-day warranty, I'd be asking for money back right now. What a shitty start to a year. It's fucking embarrassing to be an American. It's also exhausting.
I worked about 7-10 hours in each of the last two weeks of the year. So that was a nice little break. It'd have been better to completely disconnect from work, but I'm not that established in self-employment yet that I can afford to just take two weeks off. Maybe next year.
Right before the end of the year, MSNOW (MSNBC) reached out and conducted a 15-minute on-camera interview with me about healthcare in the US. They used about 20 seconds of it in the story. The reporter sent me the video, but I've never found it on their website, and they never said my name, so it's not searchable. I'm anxiously waiting for Fox News to contact me so that I can tell them to go fuck themselves.
In other news, I've been running Waterfox as my daily driver since Dec 26, and it is fine. No issues at all.
Blog
I wrote a few blog posts in my downtime at the end of the year.
I reflected on 2025, and 30 years of blogging
A silly thing that I do every year. 2025 in selfies
Reading
I've already completed two books this year. The Society of Unknowable Objects by Garreth Brown is a worthy follow up to The Book of Doors. The Comic Book Story of Beer relates beer's impact on history from the dark ages to the modern craft beer revolution. It's a lot of fun, and you will learn some stuff too.
Watching
We watched The Four Seasons on Netflix this week. It's the most GenX show imaginable. But we are from the older end of GenX, so we enjoyed it. We also watched the Reading Rainbow documentary on Netflix. It is wonderful. LeVar Burton is a national treasure. My wife and I realized that somehow, our kids never watched Reading Rainbow growing up. They watched Sesame Street and Blue's Clues, so I'm not sure how we missed it. They both grew up to be enthusiastic readers, so no harm, no foul, I guess.
We tried to watch the movie Wine Country but bailed after 20 minutes. I'm not sure how they got all those talented comedians in a room and made such an unfunny movie. We also tried to watch Derry Girls. It's fine, but we really have to concentrate to understand the accents, and I'm not sure if it is worth the effort. We are also slowly working our way through Star Trek TNG. I bought the box set so we can take our time.
Listening
I discovered Tuck Smith and the Restless Hearts via a blog post, and I've had them on repeat play for the last week. I've bought the new EP and the 2024 album, and I've going to buy some more of their back catalog. It's a throwback sound, kind of a mix of Cheap Trick and The Replacements.
Future updates as events warrant.
And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.
2026-01-01 13:00:00
Happy New Year. I hope this blog post finds you well, or at least not hungover. I went to bed at 10:40 PM last night, and turned off the lights around 11:30 PM. I was woken up at midnight by the commercial quality fireworks show somebody nearby was shooting off.
I spent most of this first day of 2026 working on a secret project that I can't share yet. But I will tell you I was building a website. I will share it soon.
It's cold here today, just barely 40F (4C). We went for a birding walk in the neighborhood park and checked off our first 16 species of the year. For the record, the first bird I recorded in eBird this year was a Downy Woodpecker.
Side note - woodpeckers are symbols of good fortune in many Native American cultures, as well as Celtic and Roman traditions. I could use some good fortune this year.
Continuing the effort to bring forth some good fortune, I'm making jambalaya with black eyed peas and corn bread for dinner.
2025 sucked. I'm tired of looking back. Onward to 2026, whatever it brings.
2025-12-31 13:00:00
30 years of blogging. I don't even know what to do with that. The word blog had not been invented in 1995 when I launched this site, but from the early days I recognized the utility of giving people a reason to come back. So I was posting regular essays from day 1. I also used to redesign the site regularly, as that was a thing we did in the 1990s when all sites were hand coded. Meanwhile, this site hasn't changed since I launched this version 8 years ago.
2025 certainly did not turn out as I expected. I started the year with a new job with one of the old-school A-list Drupal shops. Or so I thought. It turns out I was working for the smoldering shell of a flamed-out A-list Drupal shop that would cease to exist as a functioning entity by mid-year. 2 weeks into my summer job search, I had a lot of feedback from companies that would like my help, but not full-time. So I dusted off my freelance business plan, ran some projections, and went FT freelance in late June. I hit my 2025 projections, and if not for the fascists in Congress raising my health insurance premium 157%, I'd be feeling fantastic about 2026.
Last year I had the following plans in my EOY post.
So how did I do?
I created my own company, so I'd call that one a win. I did not do more hiking, but that is directly related to starting a company. We only camped 20 nights, which is by far the least we've done since buying the camper. I think I'm going to have to work from the camper or a nearby library or coffee shop while camping if I want to camp more this year. We definitely did more birding, as documented by my eBird list submissions. Finances would have cost me the Marv 3 show if I hadn't bailed earlier. It was an outdoor show, and driving 8 hours for a late afternoon show in late summer in Atlanta is just asking for it to be canceled due to a thunderstorm.
Given all the changes in my life in 2025, that's not a bad end-of-the-year result.
So, the actual numbers.
So, what is coming in 2026?
Some sanity in the US government would be nice in 2026, but that is likely too much to wish for.
If you are celebrating the New Year tonight, please do so safely. The odds of me even being awake at midnight are slim.
2025-12-25 13:00:00
On to bigger and better things in 2026. If you are celebrating something, happy holidays! If not, happy Thursday!
