Catching Up

 We had a warm Christmas week.  It was so nice that the kids could be outside and we could have fires.  After the Michigan in-laws left, the weather cooled.  That Sunday (December 28th), we had a storm.  Sometime in the night, the winds blew down this tree.

I thought about renting a chainsaw from Home Depot and cutting at least the fallen part down myself.  But my lawn crew, ever eager to make a buck, offered to do it for me for $1500.  They actually offered to do it for $2600 back in Sept when the tree was still standing, but being unemployed, I opted not to, so I guess my cheapness saved me $1100.

As I get older, I've learned to outsource as much as I can possibly afford.  This same lawn crew offered to plow my driveway for $200.  My driveway is at least one football field long, maybe two, and it would have taken Nightingale and me hours to do it by shovel.

Because of the once a year bad weather, the kids have been home all week, and likely into next week.  Nightingale had Monday and Tuesday off, but had to use PTO for it.  She is also home on Friday for an unrelated to the storm reason. 

2025 Bears: We both went 11 and 6

The regular season is over and we Bears fans have one playoff game to look forward to.  With the way they played the Lions on Sunday, we fans aren't exactly holding our breath for a playoff win.  

They ended the season the way they started, by losing two games.  But in between, they won 11 games and that was good enough to win a division where every team had a winning record.

I had them going 9 and 8 but my prediction of how they would do for each game came out to 11 and 6.  

Of the 17 games they played, I was able to watch 12 of them.  It would have been 10 but I was in Chicago for the game against Pittsburg and I also have the streaming service the SNF game against the 49ers was on.

The Bears were mostly fun to watch this season and I said at one point, this team reminds me of the lucky 2001 team that also won the 2nd Seed (when it had a bye week same as the number 1 seed) and then went on to lose it's first game to the Eagles.  

This year the Bears play Green Bay in the Wild Card round at Soldier Field.  The Packers are banged up and lost 4 in a role, which makes them dangerous.  IF, if the Bears can get past them again, they could face the 49ers again, the Rams, the Panthers or the Eagles.  

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.