Ponderings and Musings

So tomorrow it’s back to work and we’re off and running in a New Year. I’m hopeful this year will not be as crazy as 2022 but we live in a crazy world. It’s all about how we manage the crazy. Sometimes I worry about these things too much.

It’s a quiet start to 2023 and it’s the perfect start to 2023. Earl is watching football, I’m relaxing by messing around with computers, making sure things are “just right” for the New Year. We are going to Target in a bit to pick up some odds and ends. Thunderstorms are in the forecast for later this afternoon. The rest of the family is relaxing as well.

It’s a great start to this latest trip around the sun.

If you’re still following along, or even if you just stumbled onto this corner of the Internet by accident, Happy New Year! May you find what you’re searching for this year.

I’ve decided to re-read one of my favorite sci-fi novels, “The Demu Trilogy”. I believe this could be my 37th or 38th time reading this collection of stories by F.M. Busby and I’m very much looking forward to the experience.

I’ve written about this book a couple of times before, and you can see the entry from 2020 here, which leads to an entry from 2007 here_.

I’ll let you know how it turns out.

I just signed off of my work computer for hopefully the last time in 2022. I’m not expected to work until Tuesday morning and it’s a wonderful feeling. On Friday afternoons, even on quiet weeks like this, I usually run out of mental bandwidth by lunch time on Friday and getting through the rest of the workday can be a chore. I decided to let everyone on the team go a little early today to get a jump start on the weekend.

With the New Year rolling around, I’ve been thinking about resolutions and things I want to do better in 2023. Go back over the 21+ years of this blog and any mention of resolutions are the same, whether it be 2002, 2012, or 2022. I am who I am and that’s all there is to it.

I am making a couple of adjustments in my ways to try to make it in a healthy to 2032. Actually, I’m more selfish than that; I want weight and balance in the airplanes I fly to be easier to calculate, so I’ll be a little more focused on my health in the coming year. Solidly beyond the half-century mark, it’s not as easy as it used to be, so my expectations have been adjusted accordingly. I’m never going to climb Mount Vesuvius, but I’ll continue to hike around the top of Mount Lemmon.

Over the past couple of years I’ve finally accepted that my thought processes are not what one would consider “normal”, whatever that is in this day and age, and I’m no longer enduring an internal struggle because of this. When it comes to the numbers, I’ve finally accepted my whole spectrum of thought. Gone are the sixth grader worries of “I can’t play that game with John, he’s too weird”. I’m sorry if your eyes glaze over if I start talking about the history of all the cash register systems at a given coffee shop chain over the years if we meet up in person over a cup of coffee. Don’t worry, even though I can tell you that the license plate number on my dad’s 1971 muscle car (819-OST) and my grandparents’ 1973 Buick Electra 225 (510-OSB), I won’t, but please don’t ask me what I had for supper last night. No clue. However, I will instantly notice if you’ve changed hairstyles or modified your facial hair in any way.

In 2023 I’m going to make more of an effort to eschew the negative rhetoric so prevalent on social media. I’m going to punt the conversations from the pundits and stop using technology that folks in the industry keep telling is better when it’s really not. Sorry, Apple, you’re not who you used to be. Oh, I’ll keep using your products because I have them, but I’ll be weighing my options carefully when it comes time to make a new purchase. And gone are the days where I put all my apples in one crate. One step toward this is the deleting of tech oriented podcasts. My podcast selection is more focused on brighter things, and I’ll be sharing my listening list shortly.

I’m not ready for the 2024 Presidential Election. I don’t care about it at all and I’m really not going to care if it’s just a slate of a bunch of Baby Boomers that are WAY past their prime. I’ve barely recovered from the Trump years and I’m still not over the 2022 midterm elections, especially as an Arizona resident, since we have such sore losers when it comes to certain Republicans in this state.

And I’m finally going to give up my task management system of 13 years, which was designed by someone else, because earlier this month I discovered I was spending way too much time keeping that task management system organized. A text file with a list of my to-dos is just fine, thanks. And text files with to-do lists don’t need a $50 subscription or a $79 periodic upgrade fee.

At this moment I seek out the happiness and try even harder to spread it far and wide. With this mindset I feel like 2023 is going to be a good year in many respects. Just don’t read about La Niña or El Niño predictions for the year. If you do, pack a lifeboat and a seat belt.

I hope anyone that stumbles upon this blog finds peace, joy, and most importantly, happiness in this New Year. We all deserve to be who we were meant to be.

I love Pam Ann. Welcome to Qantas, Spirit of Australia.

I’ve kicked off the Resolution Revolution for 2023 and I’ve been focused on finances. Over the years I have accumulated some recurring subscriptions (redundant?) in Apple’s App Store. They are for apps that I use with some regularity and quite frankly it’s unfortunate that the tech industry has moved to this recurring charge model.

I wiped out a LOT of little subscriptions today. To the tune of savings around $1000 a year. $50 a year for web access to a task manager? Gone. Nearly $400 a year for aviation software that does practically everything but fly the jet? Reduced to General Aviation levels. Linux servers in the cloud? Relocated to home, where they run for free.

I get that developers need to make cash but our bank account can’t afford to be so gratuitous to these folks. If there’s an open source version that I can support and run on my own server I’m going to do it.

I feel like there’s some turbulent times in the financial world coming for all of us 2023. It’s time to get things in a row so we can weather the storm.

It’s been a wonderful Christmas morning here in our desert home.

Chris and Jamie lit the pool room with a hundred tea lights and other ambient holiday themed lighting. It was very nice.