I've gone from weekly updates to bi-monthly to monthly. That is not a good trend line. I need to work on that.

My birthday was on Tuesday, celebrating my 58th trip around the sun. I always say I don't feel my age, and physically that is true. A lot of GenX friends talk of always dealing with some low level nagging pain. I don't have that issue. I feel pretty damn good most of the time. However I am looking at my life and thinking about when I get to slow down a bit. Due to two layoffs and starting my own company in a 7 month period this year, we took no vacation time in 2025. The best we did all year was a couple of 4 day weekends timed to coincide with a national holiday. I've worked harder since going freelance than I have in a long time.

My workload has caused me to start playing with numbers and thinking about how I can exit the rat race sooner rather than later. If I lived somewhere where I could live on $4500 a month I could mostly check out tomorrow. I'd need to hang on to one PT consulting client, otherwise I'd be free and clear. It's tempting. Very temping. For comparison, $4500 is the sum of my mortgage and health insurance effective January 1, 2026. There are a lot of countries where $4500 a month all-in would be a very comfortable middle-class or better life (for two people).

Anyway, I had a very nice birthday. Michelle took me to Les Crepes, a Latin inspired crepe restaurant. It was fabulous. My crepe had chicken, mango-cranberries mix, caramelized onions, caramelized apples, brie cheese, and a sour cream-mango sauce. It weighed about a pound. And because it was my birthday they gave us a Nutella dessert crepe on the house.

On Thursday my smiling face was on the front page of NPR.org for a few hours. It has been an interesting couple of weeks for me online. NPR interviewed me then featured me in both an audio segment during Morning Edition and in print on the website. Also, George Takei commented on something I posted online.

Also on Thursday we attended the annual Thanksgiving potluck with the Richmond Audubon Society, which is highlighted by a slide show of bird photos taken by members during the year, many from far flung locations on birding trips. There are many seriously talented photographers in the club. I was inspired to try to up my bird photography game.

The shit status of the country is ruining my Christmas mood, so far. I'm just not feeling it at all. We don't do a lot for Christmas anyway, it is normally just a quiet day at home with controlled gift giving. But I seriously haven't been able to even think about it for a minute without it depressing me. Maybe I need to plop a nickel on Lucy's desk and have a chat with her, or volunteer to direct the Christmas play, or something.

Last weekend we attended the annual Christmas light show at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. It was pretty, as always. We go every year as our membership gets us in free on member preview night. It was 60F and we were walking around in light jackets. Not exactly Christmas weather.

We do have a date night planned for tonight. We are going to go out for drinks then attend an Improv comedy show. And we plan to go birding in the morning and then hit a couple of fall festivals in the afternoon. With me glued to my desk 8-6 every day I need to do a better job of getting more outside time.

Watching

We binged season 2 of Nobody Wants This on Netflix this week. It was not as good as season 1, but entertaining enough. The previous week we binged season 3 of The Diplomat, which was exceptionally entertaining.

Reading

Make Me Commissioner by Jane Leavy is a humor learning look at the state of baseball today, and what needs to change to make the game more entertaining.

Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen is a deeply researched scenario of one way we might destroy the planet with nuclear weapons in the near future. The scenario is terrifyingly plausible.

More detailed reviews of both books are on the books page.

Listening

I've got Kevn Kinney's catalog on shuffle play as I'm writing this. I also just discovered Jesse Welles and I'm obsessed with his Woody Guthrie / Dylan vibe. The guy has released 4 full albums this year and a hard-left folkie getting Grammy nominations is something that gives me a little bit of hope for the future.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.

I’ve gone from weekly updates to bi-monthly to monthly. That is not a good trend line. I need to work on that.

My birthday was on Tuesday, celebrating my 58th trip around the sun. I always say I don’t feel my age, and physically that is true. A lot of GenX friends talk of always dealing with some low level nagging pain. I don’t have that issue. I feel pretty damn good most of the time. However I am looking at my life and thinking about when I get to slow down a bit. Due to two layoffs and starting my own company in a 7 month period this year, we took no vacation time in 2025. The best we did all year was a couple of 4 day weekends timed to coincide with a national holiday. I’ve worked harder since going freelance than I have in a long time.

My workload has caused me to start playing with numbers and thinking about how I can exit the rat race sooner rather than later. If I lived somewhere where I could live on $4500 a month I could mostly check out tomorrow. I’d need to hang on to one PT consulting client, otherwise I’d be free and clear. It’s tempting. Very temping. For comparison, $4500 is the sum of my mortgage and health insurance effective January 1, 2026. There are a lot of countries where $4500 a month all-in would be a very comfortable middle-class or better life (for two people).

Anyway, I had a very nice birthday. Michelle took me to Les Crepes, a Latin inspired crepe restaurant. It was fabulous. My crepe had chicken, mango-cranberries mix, caramelized onions, caramelized apples, brie cheese, and a sour cream-mango sauce. It weighed about a pound. And because it was my birthday they gave us a Nutella dessert crepe on the house.

On Thursday my smiling face was on the front page of NPR.org for a few hours. It has been an interesting couple of weeks for me online. NPR interviewed me then featured me in both an audio segment during Morning Edition and in print on the website. Also, George Takei commented on something I posted online.

Also on Thursday we attended the annual Thanksgiving potluck with the Richmond Audubon Society, which is highlighted by a slide show of bird photos taken by members during the year, many from far flung locations on birding trips. There are many seriously talented photographers in the club. I was inspired to try to up my bird photography game.

The shit status of the country is ruining my Christmas mood, so far. I’m just not feeling it at all. We don’t do a lot for Christmas anyway, it is normally just a quiet day at home with controlled gift giving. But I seriously haven’t been able to even think about it for a minute without it depressing me. Maybe I need to plop a nickel on Lucy’s desk and have a chat with her, or volunteer to direct the Christmas play, or something.

Last weekend we attended the annual Christmas light show at Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens. It was pretty, as always. We go every year as our membership gets us in free on member preview night. It was 60F and we were walking around in light jackets. Not exactly Christmas weather.

We do have a date night planned for tonight. We are going to go out for drinks then attend an Improv comedy show. And we plan to go birding in the morning and then hit a couple of fall festivals in the afternoon. With me glued to my desk 8-6 every day I need to do a better job of getting more outside time.

Watching

We binged season 2 of Nobody Wants This on Netflix this week. It was not as good as season 1, but entertaining enough. The previous week we binged season 3 of The Diplomat, which was exceptionally entertaining.

Reading

Make Me Commissioner by Jane Leavy is a humor learning look at the state of baseball today, and what needs to change to make the game more entertaining.

Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen is a deeply researched scenario of one way we might destroy the planet with nuclear weapons in the near future. The scenario is terrifyingly plausible.

More detailed reviews of both books are on the books page.

Listening

I’ve got Kevn Kinney’s catalog on shuffle play as I’m writing this. I also just discovered Jesse Welles and I’m obsessed with his Woody Guthrie?/?Dylan vibe. The guy has released 4 full albums this year and a hard-left folkie getting Grammy nominations is something that gives me a little bit of hope for the future.

And that is it for this week. Remember, in a world where you can choose to be anything, you can choose to be kind.

As members of Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, we get to see the annual Christmas light display at no extra cost the weekend before it's opened to the public. It was light jacket last night, so certainly not "Christmas weather," and last night did nothing to get me into the Christmas spirit. With all the shit in my life and the world currently, I'm not feeling the holiday spirit at all.

As members of Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, we get to see the annual Christmas light display at no extra cost the weekend before it's opened to the public. It was light jacket last night, so certainly not "Christmas weather," and last night did nothing to get me into the Christmas spirit. With all the shit in my life and the world currently, I'm not feeling the holiday spirit at all.