Made it

I made it through Christmas.  It's always a little in doubt, you know.  Get-togethers with family can be unpredictable.  And while there were some stressful moments, I survived without losing my temper or my sanity.

My health has improved these last few months, too.  I've been drinking more bottled water, and I think that's doing the trick.  Maybe 2025 will be a good year for me.  I think the last good year I had was 2019.

On the financial market front, I've been expecting a correction/crash for a long time now.  It hasn't happened.  My best guess is that the AI boom dragged us all along for the bull-market ride just a little longer than would have happened otherwise.  I don't know what to expect next year.  When the usual indicators stop working, and it seems they have, what can anyone foretell?

It's been a colder December than normal, and I'm already dealing with chapped hands and face.  Luckily, some warmer temps and some rain are on the way this weekend.  I simply can't deal with dry winter air the way I could in my younger days.  My DNA is optimized for the wetter winters of northwestern Europe, not the dry ones of southeastern America.

Anyway, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas that was free of disasters and other assorted drama.

Notre Dame looks nice, mostly

I'm actually kind of surprised by how good the cathedral turned out.  The interior stone was dingy and gloomy before, but now it's white and gleaming.  The cleaned artworks have more "pop" to them.  The whole interior is brighter and more cheerful-looking.  Removing centuries worth of grime makes a difference.

The repair and renovation crews deserve a lot of applause for what they've accomplished.  And the French government deserves credit for not finding a way to muck things up.

The new altar sucks, though.  It's a Modernist nightmare.  Its flat metal surface could pass as a griddle.  When the priest was pouring oil on it, I half-expected him to start frying up some hash browns.  This sort of modern ugliness--which unfortunately applies to some of the other accoutrements, too, not just the altar--is about how I expected the whole renovation to go.  

But the building itself was fortunately spared that fate.  It looks the best it has ever looked in my lifetime, and the workers did a fantastic job on it.

Perhaps a future generation can replace the altar and other Modernist doodads with something that's actually handsome.

A baleful winter?

There's a scene from Groundhog Day where Bull Murray's character is in the doldrums.  He gives his speech to the camera and says his prediction is for a winter that will be cold and hard and last for the rest of your life.

I don't think things will get quite that bad, but winter has definitely come on strong these past few days with sub-freezing lows at night and bitterly dry air that threatens to turn everything to dust.

The good news is that Sunday is predicted to be a little warmer.  The low that day is just 45, and the high is projected to be 58.  But it's a long way to Sunday, and forecasts change frequently as you get closer.

My gut tells me that this winter will be no milder or colder than any other and probably fairly average.  But my cynical side is telling me to be prepared for an arctic blast that hits like a sledgehammer.

Worst coup ever

So the South Korean president decides that his government is full of guys who are conspiring with the North Koreans.  He then declares martial law, presumably to root out the traitors.  He has the support of the military.  He could become a dictator-for-life sort of thing in South Korea if he wants.

Then the parliament tells him to knock it off, so he does.  The tell him to resign or be impeached, so he resigns.  And that's apparently the end of the story.

I don't get it.  What was the point of it all?  Why take such a big gamble if you're just going to fold like a lawn chair at the first sign of resistance?

This all happened so fast and to such trivial effect that the price of gold didn't even spike higher.  Lol...

Lest We Forget

In Flanders fields the poppies blow

Between the crosses, row on row,

    That mark our place; and in the sky

    The larks, still bravely singing, fly

Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago

We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,

    Loved and were loved, and now we lie,

        In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:

To you from failing hands we throw

    The torch; be yours to hold it high.

    If ye break faith with us who die

We shall not sleep, though poppies grow

        In Flanders fields.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NQmMqZlLFVc

eBookDaily does me a favor

They promoted my book for free.  Pretty cool, huh?

Check it out:

https://ebookdaily.com/free-kindle-ebooks/2024-10-25/B075SRFYV8

I can confirm that I saw a spike in free downloads, so this site is legit.

Thanks, eBookDaily!  :D

No damage here

I haven't blogged since before Hurricane Helene, so I figured I should state for the record that I'm fine and have suffered no property damage.  A bunch of sticks and a few large limbs were in the yard, but that's it.

I missed the northern lights last night.  Apparently, I could have seen it from here.  I found out about it too late.

I know the season is changing because the toilet mechanism is making some clicking and groaning noises.  Man, I hate plumbing.  It's better than not having it at all, but it still sucks.

I've been seeing some odd holes in the ground.  They look like acorn holes dug by squirrels, but they're deeper than the usual holes the squirrels dig.  Further from the trees, too.  Makes me wonder if this is one of those folklore signs about an unusually cold winter approaching.  Or maybe it's not squirrels at all and some other critter is responsible.

The response from volunteers helping out in Appalachia in the wake of Hurricane Helene has been a rare ray of sunshine in an otherwise gloomy decade.  Nice to see kindhearted folks donating their time, money, and effort for selfless reasons.  It's way too easy to forget that such people exist.