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!
2025-12-24 13:00:00
I finished Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil last night. It ends up being a good book, but it takes a while to get there. It's a narrative non-fiction story covering an alleged murder in Savannah, GA. The book is highly atmospheric in a Southern Gothic way, representing Savannah as a quirky town full of genteel Southerners, but also a place where anything goes.
I really don't understand how it's one of the longest-running NYT bestsellers of all time. The murder that drives the story doesn't happen until about 40% into the book. Before that, it's a meandering story of a NY writer moving to Savannah and the hijinks he gets into with a too-crazy-to-believe but 100% real cast of characters. Once the (alleged) murder happens, the story picks up through the trials of the alleged murder.
All I can think is that in 1990, before travel videos on YouTube and Vloggers, 98% of America knew absolutely nothing about Savannah and thus were just totally captivated by the atmospheric storytelling in this book. When I visited Savannah a couple of years ago, the local tour guide referred to Savannah as Slowvannah, and I have to admit, I was a little underwhelmed by the city. Also, I lived in Atlanta from 1989 to 1998 and never once visited Savannah. I thought about Saint Patrick's Day in the city a couple of times, but it never worked out.
So I'm glad to have knocked off a "classic." If you have not read it, I would not necessarily jump it to the top of your TBR list. The exception is if you are planning to visit Savannah. I would definitely read it first in that case. I read South of Broad before visiting Charleston, and it added to the experience.
