Welcome 2025

I didn't even get a chance to start my annual first post of the year before things went bad for us in the United States of America.  We attacked Venezuela over the weekend and are about to annex it, at least temporarily.  

Every year, I revisit what to do with this blog.  It takes more effort than it use to for me to write posts that even I'm interested in, but I also like the archiving feature of looking back on things I have pretty much forgotten about.

So on to it. Last year there was a noticeable decline in recruiters reaching out to me.  I still got some interviews and even had a job that lasted not quite a month (I  need to finish the writeup on that one).  But I think it is safe to say my Document Management SME career is over.

 The holidays turned out better than expected.  My BILs and I didn't have any clashes or agenda arguments.  It's not just that we were on our best behavior, but I think it's also because we are older geezers now and it's just easier to find a way to get along.  

That's not to say it was perfect, there were still some remnants of the old: talking over one another/struggling to be heard.  Trying to find the best way to achieve a desired outcome.  But it was a lot easier than in the past.  Confederate Jethro even tried to bond with me but his misogyny made it hard for me to go along with it.  

After the Adamas got back to Michigan, my wife and her sister talked.  Apparently I annoyed my BIL by putting too much cardboard on the Solo Fire Pit we "borrowed" from the Father-in-Law.  Now keep in mind I'm hearing what was told to my wife by her sister.  I'm sure BIL was annoyed if I put too much cardboard in and created too much ash.  But I wasn't the only one doing it.  And he likely said it more in a making conversation with his wife -- who still tries to pick fights with him whenever she can  -- way, than a pissed off way.  

Also, as he didn't talk to me about it, I really cannot be bothered to be upset about this information.  I have bigger things to worry about.

2025 Bears Predication Update: Early Results

The Bears clinched a playoff spot a couple weeks ago.  Then, last week, they clinched the division.  The only thing left was to try and score the First Round Bye.  Unfortunately, a loss in a close game against the 49ers eliminated any chance of that.  With the last game against Detroit, they are playing for either the 2nd Seed or the 3rd Seed. 

If Chicago beats the Detroit Lions or the Eagles somehow lose to the Washington Commanders, they clinch the number 2 seed and a rematch against the No. 7 Green Bay Packers at Soldier Field.  If the Bears lose, they lock down the number 3 spot.

Potential wild-card matchups for Bears

Bears vs. Packers: Chicago beats Lions OR Eagles lose to Commanders

Bears vs. 49ers: Chicago loses to Lions AND Eagles beat Commanders AND Seahawks beat 49ers AND Rams win out (at Falcons, vs. Cardinals)

Bears vs. Rams: Chicago loses to Lions AND Eagles beat Commanders AND 49ers beat Seahawks AND Rams win out (at Falcons, vs. Cardinals)

Bears vs. Seahawks: Chicago loses to Lions AND Eagles beat Commanders AND Rams lose to Falcons (Week 17) OR Rams lose to Cardinals

None of those games will be easy especially with our inconsistent offense and swiss cheese defense.  Plus we cannot count on the luck that we won all those come from behind last minute win games.

Winter Begins

There isn't really a lot to write about these days.  Which is why I don't write much here. I don't even bother with quick two paragraphs and a picture posts like I once did.  I guess I'm getting over blogging.

During the week it's simply get up, get the kids feed, dressed and to school and then pick them up at 3.  Feed them dinner, get them to martial arts or soccer and then get them ready for bed.  Wash, rinse, repeat.  

And now the kids are home for winter break so I have them 24/7 until after the new year.  

And hope they don't burn the house down over boredom

But hey, the Bears exceeded expectations and have clinched a playoff berth.  I'm guaranteed two more regular season games and at least one playoff game.  Given how lucky they have been, I have no delusions that they will go deep but maybe they win their first playoff game?  That's the price of being a Bears fan.  There was a not less than zero chance the Bears could have missed the playoffs even with winning 11 game this season.

Fortunately, they secured a berth with a miraculous win over Green Bay Saturday Night and a bizarre loss by the Detroit Lions the next day.

Many of my neighbors have ponds in their front or back yards so we have a lot of geese. I’ve started giving them the end pieces of bread that my kids won’t eat anymore (they actually used to eat them). It might be my wishful thinking but I feel like since I started paying tribute to my Widgeon Overlords, there is less goose shit on my driveway.

Whenever Facebook or even Google Photos shows me what I was doing X years ago, I get a little nostalgic for what was.  I guess I didn't really appreciate what I had and what I've given up to come down here.  There is no easy path back to Chicago and I have to learn to be okay with that.  

Tomorrow night the Adamas arrive and will stay with us until Saturday or perhaps Sunday.  It use to be us arriving to spend time down here but now we host.  All because we came down here to meet our new niece instead of waiting until Christmas.  Nightingale is the one who bought SIL a Match dot com subscription for Christmas one year and that's how she met Confederate Jethro.  He was on good behavior, more or less, until after the wedding and then he let his racism, misogyny and homophobia flags fly at full mast.  

2025 Bears Predication Update: Third Quarter Results

The NFL season is three-quarters over, with most of the teams completing their bye weeks and the Chicago Bears are 9-3.  I don't know whether to go with Wow or OMG.  

My pre-season predictions had them at 6-6 and I've never been happier to be so wrong.

and Swept Pennsylvania too

There are a lot of haters out there saying the Bears haven't played anyone.  Yet they just played a complete game against the Super Bowl Champion Eagles and beat them soundly.  

The thing is, we Bears fans just wanted a better season than the last few years.  They went 7 and 10 in 2023 and 5 and 12 in 2024.  That was literally the floor.  At the start of the season, we ambitiously hoped for 8-9 or miraculously 9-8 and a wild-card berth.  

That they are already at 9 and 3 with 5 more games to play is a Christmas Miracle.  It has been fun to watch them go from 0-2 to being in the Wild Card Hunt to leading the division and now, with the LA Rams losing to Carolina yesterday, being top of the NFC!

Can they keep it up?  Who knows.  

Per the self-inflicted rules,  I'm sticking with my predictions.  For their last five games, I predict the following:

If these predictions are correct, that would place them at 12-5, surely enough to get into the playoffs.  Will it be enough to win the division?  Unknown.  If New England and Denver can win 8, 9 games in a row, why not the Bears?

On Social Media, I've pointed out how this year seems like the magical 2001 year when they went 13-3, but then blew it in the playoffs against, ironically, Philadelphia.    In fact, on Friday we watched the first quarter of the game at a bar in Skokie while meeting up with former neighbors and it had 2001 vibes of when I had a group of people ever week meet at Donovan's to watch the game.

On a personal note, I have been able to watch 8 of the 12 Bears games so far.  However, one of those was because I was in Illinois at the time.  While driving up, I was streaming the game against Pittsburgh but missed most of the 4th quarter because my kids were using my hotspot and ran through my data.  Fortunately, we got to the hotel in time for me to run up to the room and see the last few minutes.  

The game against the Eagles was on Black Friday, so I would have been able to see it down here.  The game against the 49ers is on Sunday Night Football, so I can watch that one.  Since they flexed next week's game against the Packers to 3:15, I suspect I can watch that one too, though I cannot confirm until Wednesday afternoon.  

Update: Yes, the whole nation gets to watch the Bears play in Lambeau Field while Arizona and half of California, get to watch the Cardinals play spoiler to the LA Rams.  

The last game of the season against the Lions hasn't been set a time.  I suspect the NFL is waiting to see which games are playoff impacting, but it wouldn't surprise me if this game gets flexed to SNF, which means I get to watch that one too.

I guess my prediction last year that if I didn't pay to watch the games, the Bears would be good has come true.  I just hope it continues.  

The Morning Routine

With the exception of preparing their lunches, which Nightingale does, I am in charge of getting the kids ready and off to school.  Almost every day is a challenge, but different than the day before.  I get them up at 7 and ask what they want for breakfast.  They rarely, if ever, want the same thing.  

Once they are sitting and eating breakfast, I pick out Boris's clothes.  Natasha picks out her own, but left to his own devices, Boris would put on the worst mismatching clothes possible.

Then they brush their teeth and have some screen time.  Then it gets tricky.  Some days they are ready to go, other days I have to keep after them to finish getting ready.

I try to leave the driveway by 8:00 AM.  If I catch both traffic lights (small town, yo!), we get to school -- or prison, as they affectionately refer to it -- in exactly six minutes.  They call it prison because school hasn't been fun since the 3rd grade.  They are restricted on when they can talk among their peers.  They have a very short amount of time for lunch relative to everything else.  And they have to carry everything back and forth in their backpacks (11 lbs) because the school refuses to provide on-site storage like they did in previous years.  

Drop off takes exactly 1 minute, even with Boris dilly-dallying.  And I'm back home six minutes later.  

Pickup takes longer.  It took me over a year to realize that if I leave the house later (say 3 pm) then I don't have to wait in line so long because it does move quickly once they open the doors.  We generally get back around 3:30 pm and even earlier if I do get in line sooner.

*****

I'm a little giddy because the Bears are 6-3 and tied for first place in the division.  They are doing about how I predicted at this point, though not the way I thought.  Except for the game against the Cowboys, every win was close and could have easily gone the other way.  In a way they are looking like the 2001 team that went 13-3 but got exposed in the playoffs.  Heck, the last two games could be the equivalent of the 2001 Browns and 49ers games (whom they play later this season).

When the Bears win, I spend the week reading everything about them.  When they lose, I avoid the write-ups like the plague.  if the Bears play like they did in the last four games, they will lose this weekend because their luck has got to run out.

I have been able to watch at least half of the Bears games down here and will be able to watch at least three more that I know of, including this week's game against the Vikings.  This validates my decision not to invest money into being able to watch all the games.

*****

On 10/28, the recruiter for Big Bank called me.  He said they hired the person who got the contract job and wanted an additional member for the team, and asked if I was available.  I said I was, but big surprise I have not heard anything in the last 16 days,  I don't expect anything from that one anymore.  

Meanwhile a new recruiter has reached out to me about another contract role but I'm not holding my breath on this on either.  He reached out to me late Wednesday afternoon wanting to talk "today" and when we talked yesterday, he didn't really have a lot to ask.  He seems like he was just collecting resumes.  

Update from the future: He actually reached out late Friday via LinkedIn Messaging:

apologies for the delay in feedback. They are going to pass for now, but will circle back around for more functional roles open up! I will send you out to all our other Account Managers for openings!

Nightingale insists it's okay that I don't have a job and focus on being the primary child care person.  But I sense judgment from the family and a loss of power from not bringing in a paycheck.  While my kids refer to school as prison, I refer to Living in Mississippi as being in purgatory.  

Grill Deep Cleaning Time

 Last week, I finally got around to doing a really good deep cleaning of the grill my FIL gave us four years ago when we moved down here.

The reason is one part laziness and two parts, not doing it during the window when it’s not too hot and not too cold down here.  To be fair, I'm certain FIL never deep-cleaned it either. 

There was a lot of dirty, caked-up grease, charred food bits, ashes, and carbon.  

I watched a few YouTube videos on the best way to do this, and while most of them are fairly the same, there are some nuanced differences between content creators.

Some say it's okay to use an Easy Off-like product; others are purists and say to avoid chemicals.

I will note for next time that it is better to take the grill apart and work from the inside out instead of outside in, like in the videos.

Also, you are never going to get your grill to look like it did before you used it the first time, or even how it did the first month.  you have to decide how much effort you want to put into it and I decided six hours of scrubbing, scraping and brushing was sufficient to get me through another season.  I also opted to replace the rusted heat shields (or falvorizors as some call them).  

I will make an effort to deep clean more than once every four years, though.  Ideally, twice a year but since we don't really do as much grilling as we did back in Chicago, once a year might be enough.   

2025 Bears Predication Update: Second Quarter Results

The NFL season is about halfway over, and the Chicago Bears are a surprising 5-3, which is what I predicted them to be at this point of the season.  I'm 6 and 2 in my predictions.  The Bears could conceivably be 7-1 were it not for the meltdown in the season opener and the anemic offense against Baltimore.  They could also be a lot worse because three of those wins could have easily gone the other way.  Woulda, coulda, shoulda.

What's important is that after a 0-2 start, the Bears won four in a row, before choking against the Ravens.  Yesterday, they made it up with a nailbiter against the Bengals that should not have been that close.  

If the Bears can go .500 the rest of the season that would be 9-8 or even 10-7 which I think could earn them a Wild Card.  The division isn't off the table yet, but they probably need to win at least three of the four remaining division games and get a little help.  

For their next four games, I predicted the following:

Team        Record    Streak    Prediction

Giants              2-7        L-3            W

at Vikings        4-4        W-1            L

Pittsburgh        5-3        W-1            L

at Eagles          6-2        W-2             L

 

As always, I'm sticking with my predictions, but I'll be very happy to be wrong on two of these. These are not weak teams.  And the Giants won't want to lose a fourth game if they can help it.  The Bears' secondary has to get healthy fast.

It will depend on which Vikings team shows up in two weeks.  Hopefully it's the bad one.  

The Philadelphia teams are the strongest, but even they are showing some cracks in their armor. 

The Bears have played eight games, and I was able to watch 4 of them.  Three of the next four are Sunday nooners, with the Eagles game being on the Friday after Thanksgiving.  I should be in Illinois, headed toward Chicago, and be able to catch some of the game against the Steelers.  As for the Friday game, it's at 2 pm, which is prime in the middle of our last full day in town.