November 2023

There’s a small room off our upstairs office that serves as my man cave. I sit in here often when I want to just have some alone time, something critical to my mental health. The room is stucco covered cinder block on three walls. When the house was built it was originally going to be the home to a telescope for the observatory intended for this side of the house. Directly below this room is a wood working shop that Chris and Mike keep busy in.

My telescope lives in here, ready to be taken out on the roof when I’m ready to gaze at the stars at night time. I do this several times a month, usually when the moon isn’t lighting up the sky.

We are lucky to have places to engage in our hobbies and the like. Continuing the theme of the week, I am thankful that we were able to find the ideal location in the desert and live together in relative harmony.

I’m sitting in my space right now as I type this blog entry. Truman must come in and sit next to me, occasionally looking up to see if I’m ready to dispense treats. I can hear him purring.

It’s a good way to start this weird workday, the day after Thanksgiving.

Chris made some napkin holders for us last night.

Preparations are underway for the grand Thanksgiving meal here in our desert home. I just ran to the liquor store for a couple of bottles of wine to complement the experience. This was after I prepped the table and cleaned up the space a bit.

Today I am watching a video from 1960 featuring the beauty of an all-electric home, A Medallion Home.

My dad built his own all electric home for us beginning in 1975. We moved in September of 1977, the day before my first day of 4th grade, as a matter of fact. I can easily remember my night in my own bedroom. The hallway light fixtures hadn’t been installed yet and we had “pig tail” lightbulbs hanging down in the appropriate places. There were bare wires where the smoke detector was to go. And while my sister and my ceiling light fixture in our own bedrooms looked identical, one of them had a pull chain that was cut off in the very center of the shade while the other did not. I believe it was my sister’s fixture that had the pull chain. I also had to use the Nutone Central Vacuum outlet in her bedroom to vacuum my bedroom. I found this upsetting; why wasn’t I worthy of my own plug? Occasionally she would get angry with me about something and then I’d have to use the one in the hallway that didn’t allow the vacuum to reach the far reaches of the room. No one would notice.

Our family’s all electric house didn’t last for very long in that a wood stove was added a few years later because electricity prices skyrocketed in the late 1970s and the bills became a challenge. Years after I moved out on my own Dad installed a forced hot air furnace for the first floor but the second floor retained its electric baseboard heat.

I often write about the world inspiring me in ways just when I need inspiration. As mentioned in my previous entry, I’ve been struggling a little bit and I’m always looking for ways to alleviate that struggle.

A quick aside: there’s a part of me that struggles with the fact that I share my feelings like this in a public forum such as this blog. Just to let you know where my head is at.

Anyway, another bit of inspiration that fell into my lap was this excellent blog entry from The Original Mac Guy. It’s called “Garbage In, Garbage Out“. Jim writes about we are what we consume. I really enjoyed his blog entry and it’s just the reminder I needed today. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Here’s another link in case you didn’t see the one above.

I came to a realization over the weekend. While I don’t necessarily like spending copious amounts of time with people, I do like being in the vicinity of activity that involves people. Online activity is a poor substitute for this sort of thing.

I’ve been struggling with less than happy feelings for a little bit, and I’ve determined this is because working full time at home and then not going out for some sort of activity on a regular basis is living a little too much like the pandemic days.

While I survived the days of COVID just fine and found ways to live a healthy, happy life, it’s not the same as the days before the pandemic.

After supper I told Earl I was going to go out for a ride and stop at Starbucks to write a blog entry. I actually finished up a couple of drafts I had waiting for publication and am now finishing up this blog entry. There’s a young man to my left typing away on his iPad Pro and an older gentleman wandering around the store looking for his lost cell phone. Loud music that I don’t recognize, even with the copious amounts of auto-tune strung through the music, blares from the overhead speakers.

While not my favorite public experience, it is a public experience and it’s fulfilling a need I have been ignoring. Let’s get out there and get some happy.

I could tell by the landscape that we were somewhere over Kansas as UA 531 made its way from ORD Chicago/O’Hare to TUS Tucson International. I’m seated in the very last seat on this Airbus A319, seat 35F. I’m not uncomfortable.

As I watched the landscape go by I noticed the placement of the streets and the adjacent airport of this small town and said to myself, “wait, I’ve been there before”. Sure enough, in June 2021 I had chased a thunderstorm through Cimarron, Kansas. I Quick Look at FlightRadar24 confirmed our flight path and I was indeed looking at Cimarron.

I’ll have to stop by again and say hello the next time I chase storms in the area. It’s a totally random memory but it has made me smile.