December 2025 Grab Bag

 Welcome to the last 2025 Grab Bag Update!

(Source)

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Some time this month I crept over into the "3,000,000" view category.  I put that number is quotes; it was only in July of this year that we surpassed 2,000,000 and a little over two years (October of 2023) since I hit 1,000,000.  

All of this proving, yet again, that there are liars, d*mn liars, and statistics.  

The daily count in the 24 hour period follow a post is a much more accurate view, I suspect.  While not nothing, it scarcely the 2,740 individual viewers that it would need to be for that to be a real number.

To all the real people, thank you.  To all the bots, maybe some of this will get pulled up into AI and propagated in some future scenario.  The idea of a computer trying to grapple with everything going on in my head gives me a hearty chuckle.

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We flew back to New Home for Christmas.  We had a very enjoyable time over four days (almost precisely on the mark:  we got up to leave at 0300 on 24 December and went to bed at 0230 28 December); besides all of Na Clann being present, we also had The Fiancé as well as his mother and younger sister.  Other than a slight issue with stockings (two people had the same individual for stockings, but it all worked out), a good time was had by all.  I received a combination of the needed and the unexpected, which is always a good thing.

Dinner was a turkey smoked by The Fiancé with cheesy potatoes, green beans, cheesy broccoli and cauliflower, and homemade sourdough bread.  It was delicious (especially the Turkey; I cannot recall having freshly smoked turkey before). 

One interesting change was for the first time either, neither I nor The Ravishing Mrs. TB really had a role in Christmas Day.  She helped with some of the food preparation and I passed out gifts (my traditional role), but that was really it.  The torch, apparently, has passed.

Other than a couple of shopping trips for post-Christmas items and a hunt through the storage locker (with the inevitable questions of "Do we need this stuff if we have been the last year without it?"), we did little but visit. We did meet Nighean Dhonn's boyfriend.  Nice young man: Environmental Engineer, fences (the sword kind) and is in the beekeeping club along with Nighean Dhonn.  Called me "sir".  Seems like a likeable enough young man.

As my mother always reminded TB The Elder, "Be nice to all the boyfriends. One of them may end up being your son-in-law".

I will likely not be back to New Home before June for an Iaijutsu seminar.  Which is fine.  Although we do enjoy seeing the girls, both The Ravishing Mrs. TB and I both commented that it does not quite feel like home anymore, just a place that we used to live.

Life, as they say, moves on.

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The harp playing at church went better than expected.

I realized as I prepared for this that I had not actually played in public for something like 30 years.  That is a little nerve wracking if you think about it, so I gave myself a test run at work on Friday playing in our lobby.  I wanted to test moving my harp, setting up, and playing with people watching, ambient noise, and the inevitable questions.  It was remarkably well received, cementing me in the mythos of my site as the man who seems to be able to do a great many things. 

The playing Sunday was equally as successful.  Although I was covered by a microphone at the soundbox, what I had not counted on fully was the amount of ambient noise going on around me.  I was a pleasant background (apparently), but my missed notes and resets went completely unnoticed in the scheme of things.

In other words, I stressed too much over perfection.  Fortunately that particular issue has never, ever come up before (ever).

This was a good experience and reminded me of how much I love playing (and performing).  I need to make an effort to keep this up.

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Our weather here in New Home 2.0 has been wet.  Endlessly wet.  This is The Ravishing Mrs. TB's first full Winter here and it is quite an adjustment. People she has met from the social groups that she is trying out have let her know the first year is awful, the second year is less bad, and then you just learn to move on.  Or as someone advised me when I came, "The weather will be what it is.  Get the gear and get out and do the things."

The price for 8 months of useable weather seems to be 4 months of less than desirable weather.

On the "bright" side, we have also entered the true season of cold.  "Wintry Mix" is currently predicted for this Friday and Saturday.

Any and all comparisons to the weather being in the high 70's/low 80's during our visit to New Home should be regarded as an interesting fact point in a larger discussion of "weather".

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This year's book count is just about done.  Counting those volumes that are daily readings and will finish with the end of the year, I read 125 books this year - which appears to be a new record since I started tracking this in 2014.  Over 50% were books I read for the first time.  I do think having the library card also spurred some of that, although I need to get back to borrowing the books instead of reading them on a screen (I spend enough time on a screen).

For the first time in a very long time, I am entering the New Year with no books in-flight and only a single book on my "to-read" list.  My goal this year is to revisit books I own; given that I think have something like 800 books in my personal "library", that should still fill the year.

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I have made a few catch up pages,

Thunder Falls is now a page with all entries, as is A Year Of Humility.  I also realized that my series on The Prodigal Son and our trip in 2021 to Costa Rica were not there, so they have been added.  The Collapse is caught up as well.

I need to remember to get these series on pages. Easier for you, the reader - and easier for me when I want to review things.