🎄 Merry Christmas, everyone! 🎅🏻
It’s been a while since I’ve written you all. Work became all-consuming back in October with a large pending project launch, and I burned out a bit after that. This newsletter became a casualty of my need to relax a bit more. But I haven’t forgotten about you!
When I started this newsletter earlier in 2021, I had a lot more time to pursue random interests and share it with you. Lately, a lot of my attention is becoming more focused on writing code. Some of you would find that interesting, but I think most of you wouldn’t. As I now discover fewer random things of general interest, I’ll abandon the old format. Most of you subscribed not because you wanted to see what interested me, but because you were interested in me. From now on, I’ll mostly share things that are more personal.
The wife and I are spending this holiday season back in my hometown in North Carolina. My Mom is getting a hip replacement two days after Christmas, and we wanted to be here to help her while she recovers.
Whoever coined the phrase “it’s not the destination; it’s the journey” never spent time in an airport. I’m hopeful that we didn’t pick up Omicron on the way down here. (No indication so far if we did.) We double masked—a bottom KN95 and a top surgical mask. But the airport was full of unmasked travelers, so who knows what could’ve been spreading. I can understand that some people were eating, even though I think they could’ve done that before coming to the airport. And I could even sort of understand politically-motivated anti-maskers, even though I don’t agree with or respect their views. But what truly baffles me is how many people I saw wearing their masks below their nose. It’s almost 2022—how are there so many people who don’t yet know how to wear a mask properly?!
Still, compared to my hometown in the American South, the airport was extremely hygenic. Almost nobody here is masking under any conditions. And it’s not like the population vaccination levels are that great either. Fortunately none of this is an issue, because there is nothing to do here.
I’ve been taking walks around my Mom’s neighborhood. It’s difficult, because there’s nowhere to go and few sidewalks to even walk on. My hometown is mostly a series of strip malls connected by stroads. Unfriendly to pedestrians, and aesthetically displeasing too. But I am getting to meet a few neighborhood dogs, which is nice. Oreo couldn’t come with us, because she loves to jump and that would be bad for Mom while she recovered from surgery. Seeing other dogs on my walks lifts my spirits a bit.
These neighborhood dogs are not like those in Alexandria, VA. Many of them are not fenced in or tied up at all, and are free to run up to me and bark. All friendly so far, but it’s hardly responsible dog ownership. They appear less pampered than the Northern Virginia dogs I’m used to. I’ve only seen one or two people walking their dogs, versus half a dozen every block at all hours around my house in Alexandria.
Oreo is spending the holidays with our neighbor and his dog Lily. Oreo and Lily are BFFs, and she’s going to have a great time playing all day every day. I’m worried she won’t even want to come home with us when we’re back.
With Mom in need of a new hip, some household chores have gone undone. So it falls to me to pick up the slack. Mom is appreciative that I’ve cleaned up all of the fallen tree branches in the back yard. But her reaction when I replaced several dead light bulbs with LED smartbulbs you can control from your phone was, “Oh no…” I think she’ll come around eventually. And considering some mothers’ sons are spending this Christmas “educating” them about crypto, DeFi, and web3, I think she got off easy.
The next few weeks will be interesting for us to say the least. But we’re optimistic that Mom’s surgery will go well and that she’ll be walking normally again soon. Before that, however, is today—Christmas Day—a time for us to celebrate and be a family together. We wish you and yours the best today, and in the coming year too. 🥳