Weekly Ephemera #127

• This week we took down our Christmas decorations.  On Tuesday the tree came down and the Wife took down the rest of the inside decorations.  On Wednesday I took down the outside decorations including wreaths, laser lights, and the ornaments from the oak tree.
  
  Our Christmas cactus bloomed this week.  This was several weeks later than normal.  Even the bloom was trying to avoid the new year.
  

  

  First bloom of my 'Christmas" cactus.
  This is several weeks later than usual.

• New Year's Eve was quiet.  The Wife watched football and I watched the Times Square ball drop.  At 11:00PM after watching the east coast new Year's celebration, I went to bed and read until about 11:56Pm when I said to heck with it and turn off the lights - the Wife had given up about twenty minutes earlier.
• The most poignant part of the celebrations were the memorials for the people we lost last year.  I should have known that as I aged, more people who entertained and informed me as I grew up would start dying off at an ever increasing rate.  I should expect it but denial always ensures I will be surprised.
• The New Year started off with terror and violence.  Not an auspicious start to 2025.
• We had a slight dusting of snow on Thursday.  I shoveled it but it would have melted on its own if I'd just waited.  Not sure I can count this as our first snow of the 24-25 winter season since it was such a small amount.  We were supposed to get one to three inches today but ... there ain't no snow out there at all.
• I hiked twice this week.  I took the first two days of the week off before restarting on the first of January.  I walked 20 miles (32 km).  I have a blood test a week from tomorrow so I'm really going to try hard to walk three times this week.  It's going to be really cold early in the week so it will be a bundle up walk with many layers.
• I watched Marvel's "What If ... ?" season three this week.  It was interesting.  I wish Disney would figure out how to make the movies better again.
  
  I returned to the Alien world with "Alien: Romulus".  After rather crappy Aliens 3 and 4, This one was pretty good, returning to horror mixed with corporate malfeasance.
  
  We also watched "Cool Hand Luke".  As the Wife said, and I agree, it was better than the last fifty movies that we've watched.

Best Photo Of 2024

I went through my pictures taken throughout the year and selected my favorites.  This year that number was very small, only nine.  Far fewer than the year before.  I haven't been taking as many pictures as I have in the past.  This seems strange to me since I always have my phone with me so I always have a camera conveniently at hand.  I guess the small number of good pictures I took reflects my state of mind throughout 2024.

The picture I selected as my best was a picture of clouds over our house during a big summer storm.  The beauty and power of nature are on display in this picture.

"The Power of Nature"
by Bruce H.
(Taken the 12th of June, 2024)

We have more travel planned this year so I  hope to take more pictures.  Hopefully next year's Best Photo will be a harder decision.

A Homer's Travel's Look Back At 2024

"History doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes." - Mark Twain

2024 was going to be the year of the nap but instead it became a crappy echo of 2016.  2016 started with the loss of family members and friends and ended with a disastrous election.  This year we lost family members and friends and, once again, gained an incompetent government with a large side of corruption and stupidity.

I feel I was coasting most of this year.  Few things excited me.  Many things left me dumbfounded.  Eight months of this year were all about my Mom.  My schedule revolved around hers.  I think I lost a little of myself during those months.  The passing of my Mother was sad but a bit liberating.  Too bad the rest of the year fell apart thanks to ... stupidity ... selfishness ... apathy ... I guess a combination of all of those.  Overall, 2024 was not a really good year for me.

Let's look back at 2024, shall we:

• January:  The year would be dominated by the health of my Mom. This month she was diagnosed with parkinson's disease. I bought a new GPS. We left on a short vacation to Tampa.
• February:  We had a great time in Tampa. Very relaxing. We tandem skydived which was interesting but a bit of a let down (kinda like scuba was in 2016). Glad I did it though. I filed my taxes and went to see the Oscar nominated shorts.
• March:  The Wife went to New York for the Big East Men's Basketball tournament. We started planning our Great Britain trip. The start of multiple sprinkler system repairs started this month.
• April:  We went to see Omaha Supernova volleyball (one of the Wife's students will be joining them in 2025). We went to the GodSon's school gala in Minneapolis. We remodeled our bathroom.
• May:  The new bathroom was finished. My Mom had her last birthday.
• June: The Wife's student, the one ordained as a Deacon in Rome, was ordained a Priest in Omaha. We cancelled the Wife's Camino trip when we moved Mom's spinal surgery up. Mom's surgery was a success and her back pain diminished soon after her procedure. She would be at a rehab center for a few weeks. We were hit by a big hail storm this month. We would still be fighting the insurance company in November.
• July: Mom fell at the rehab center and fractured her hip. More surgery and more rehab to come. We celebrated our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary by taking care of Mom's finances and having burgers. On the way to celebrate the MoH and BM's birthdays our car got totaled by a semi. We had no injuries but OOF. We took the Wife's car and went to Minneapolis with a side trip to the Dignity of Earth and Sky statue. We tried to distract ourselves by watching the Olympics. July was a crazy a$$ month.
• August:   Mom went home from rehab. She was happy to be home. A week later I found her in her kitchen after she'd passed away. While we prepared Mom's memorial and burial we tried to live a normal life. I got a new car totally paid for my insurance. We went to a political rally, our first. Mom was buried near my Dad's grave. The Wife and I came down with COVID for the first (confirmed) time. Both cases were very mild. 2024 was not being gentle.
• September: Things started becoming more normal this month though this would be a brief respite until the real world caught up to us. We got vaccinated before our next international trip. We went on our trip to Great Britain (documented in October and November) and met with friends.
• October: We returned home from our Great Britain trip, a fun adventure. We voted by mail. The October weather rollercoaster resulted in our first brief freeze of the season. Eleven years have passed since the end of my second Camino. Not being done with us yet 2024 took one of my Aunts and one of the Wife's cousins. I had a follow up CT scan.
• November: One of the Wife's aunts and cousins visited this month and had a nice visit. 2024 had the coup de grȃce when the election crashed and burned.  After one phone call from the Wife we got a check from the insurance company to complete the roof repairs from the June hail damage.  I left Xitter and moved over to Bluesky.  We celebrated Thanksgiving with family,
• December: The house was decorated for Christmas including putting the balls in the oak tree out front.  Our TV died and was replaced.  We celebrated Christmas with family ... and Moose.
• Hiking: Like in 2023 my walking started off strong as I prepared to do the Camino with the Wife. Mom's schedule and our travel disrupted my walking until I somewhat got back on track in October.  I successfully pushed the length of my walks out beyond the ten mile mark.  In the end I managed to hike 605.4 miles (974.3 km) over 69 hikes. This distance ranks in seventh place and the number of hikes ranks ninth place since I started keeping track - an average showing I would say.   Definitely not a bad showing considering I really didn't hike much in the summer months.
  
  In early November I crossed the one thousand hikes recorded over seventeen years of keeping records.  Onward to two thousand!
• Books: I set a goal to read twenty books this year and, unlike last year, did not meet my goal reading only twelve books.  I read nearly everyday including while we were traveling (which is odd for me).  Despite this I think I read less per sitting and took a long time to finish books.  Here are my Goodreads Stats for 2024.
• Concerts, Shows & Music :  We went to a few concerts this year. With the Wife, I went to the Eagles, Peter Frampton, and Melissa Etheridge. I also went to Joe Satriani and The Offspring by myself.
  
  I listened to a lot of music this year - mostly during naps and on long airplane trips. According to Spotify I listened to 2,839 songs from 1,264 artists for 39,710 minutes.  Here is my Spotify 2024 Wrapped if you want to explore what the shuffle button did music-wise this year.
• I posted 96 times this year. Not as many as 2023 but good enough I guess.  I think I need to write more but I'm afraid of either going too dark, too political, or too preachy. 

What will 2025 bring? We are going to Guatemala early in the year to see where I spent my formative years and to visit parts of the country I've never been before.  We will be going back to Spain to continue, and possibly finish, the Wife's Camino in the summer. A trip in the fall is not out of the question but we are still mulling over possible destinations.  Other than that we will be trying to keep our sanity intact and brace ourselves for what 2025 has in store for us.

Here's to a Happy, Prosperous, and Healthy New Year for all.  May you all find happiness in 2025.

Book: Kelly and Zach Weinersmith's "A City On Mars

My last book of the year was a non-fiction analysis of the feasibility of building settlements in space, the Moon, and Mars.  The authors are skeptical of the venture at best.

The Weinersmith's "A City on Mars: Can we settle space, should we settle space, and have we really thought this through?" takes on all the arguments, justifications, and  'science' of establishing colonies on the surfaces of the Moon and Mars and in space and argues why most of them are either incorrect or hopelessly naive.  In a way the book is a buzzkill.

I can't say I totally agree with the author's conclusions but they do give compelling arguments.  I think they aren't saying it will never be possible but they are questioning the timeline many space settlement enthusiasts, especially President-elect Elmo, are peddling to the masses.

They also cover space law in detail.  My cynical self read this and thought "Like these yahoos will obey space laws.  They barely obey terrestrial laws."  I found this space law discussion interesting but not very convincing.

I gave this book four stars out of five on Goodreads.  I liked it ... it bummed me out a bit ... but sometimes we have to be hit over the head with the reality stick.

Weekly Ephemera #126

• On Christmas Eve the Wife and I went to see "A Complete Unknown".  I thought it was ok but the Wife thought it didn't tell us anything about Bob Dylan leaving out "why he cut ties with his family, why he was in and out of relationships, and why he was such a dick to the folk movement."  She suggests waiting for it to stream instead of paying to see it in the theatre.  This means it will probably win some Oscars.
• I went on a mini Godzilla/Kong Marathon this week watching three of the last five Godzilla/Kong movies.  I've seen the first Kong movie and the first of the new Godzilla movies is not on streaming it seems ... unless you want to pay.
  
  Also watched "Civil War" (ok), The Doctor Who Christmas Special (ok), "Inside Out 2" (enjoyed it), and "Asteroid City" (WTF was that ... remind me not to waste my time on a Wes Anderson film ever again).
• I walked twice this week.  I was going to walk three times but the gloomy/foggy/drizzly weather kept me indoors on Friday.  I still walked 20.9 miles (33.7 km) which isn't bad.  I'm done walking for the year.  My next walk will likely be Thursday or Friday.
• Christmas decorations come down this week.  If things go as planned everything will be put away by the 1st.
• They say it may snow this coming Monday-Tuesday.  If it does it will be the first real snow of this winter.  I'm not holding my breath though.
• Question:  If I put this thing in a Museum of Modern Art, how much would it sell it for?

  

  Is this art?  If it is, would it be worth more than a banana duct taped to a wall?

  
  

Merry Christmas!

Weekly Ephemera #125

• Today we celebrated Christmas with the Wife's niece's family.  We met their new dog, Moose, who is a sweetie and watched the kiddos open presents.
  
  It's kind of nice celebrating holidays before the actual holiday.  It lets the actual day of celebration be relaxing and quiet.
• I walked three times this week doing 32.4 miles (52.1 km).  I prefer doing three shorter hikes than two longer ones.  Of course your definition of shorter might be different than mine (10 - 12 miles).
  
  I listen to podcasts while I walk.  This week, for the first time in a while, I ran out of podcasts and had to switch to music.  I will have to find new podcasts to add to my list though listening to music while I walk is not a bad thing.

  

  "In an age of performative cruelty, kindness is punk as f*ck.  Please, be punk as f*ck"
  - Signed ☮,❤, Anarchy!

• On Max I watched "The Penguin".  While I'm not a big DC comics fan I did like this show.  Batman and Batman adjacent shows have always been done well.  I think it's because they are grittier and more 'realistic'.  Also watched "Dune pt 2".  It met my love/hate relationship with the Dune series.

Happy Winter Solstice!!!

Winter has started but here the snow has not arrived yet.  Next week is going to be practically balmy.  Enjoy the shortest day and remember, it all just gets longer from here.

Happy First Day of Winter!!!

Book: M. R. Carey's "The Fall Of Koli"

My eleventh book of the year was the end of the Rampart Trilogy.  M. R. Carey's "The Fall of Koli" continues the adventures of Koli who we read about in "The Book Koli" and "The Trials of Koli".

This trilogy is ... mediocre at best.  The third book fills in a lot of the history that explains the dystopian version of England.  In doing so, though, it almost 'jumps the shark'.  The story takes a sharp turn before returning to its original story and it feels a bit discordant.

The third book definitely has more action and mystery than the other two books.  I did get into it near the end of the book but it still did not reach any heights.

I gave this book four stars out of five on Goodreads.  There really wasn't anything wrong with it, and reading the whole series wasn't a waste of time or anything like that, but it was just a middle of the pack reading experience for me.

Weekly Ephemera #124

First off, I want to correct an oversight on my part.  In last week's Weekly Ephemera post I left off meeting with the Matron of Honor and Best Man in Des Moines for food, drink, and conversational catch up.  We had a great time and I am not sure why I left it out of the post.  Sorry!

Now, for this week's stuff:

• On Monday we did our annual setting up of our health insurance for next year.  The price nearly doubled from last year though it was nearly a hundred dollars below the estimate the insurance company had provided a few months ago.
• I was going to walk twice this week but I ended up cancelling the second walk.  The one I did was one of my longer ones and my legs really didn't recover as fast as I expected.  I walked 14.8 miles (23.9 km).  I'm trying to lose weight this month and I have been combining long walks with a cutback in food.  This combination may explain why my legs were so achy and slow to recover after the walk.
• We still haven't had any snow beyond a light dusting but we did have a light glaze of ice Saturday morning.  I spread some deicer even though it would have melted off on its own later in the day.
• We canceled Netflix this week.  Before it ended I watched "Godzilla Minus One" - very cheesy fun - and "Spaceman" and ok but weird 'Man meets Alien, Alien saves Man' story.  Not a huge Adam Sandler fan but his dramatic performance here was pretty good.  We are subscribing to Max for the next month or so.