The Book of Daniel Vol. 2

December's been a tough month - nothing catastrophic, but lots of annoyances, many revolving around the weather.

A few weeks ago I got home from work on a windy day. It was a Thursday, which is my "Friday" (my "weekend" is Friday and Saturday). I was sitting there minding my own business when I heard a crash outside - it turned out that the wind had torn the chimney cap completely off my house. After a few calls through my heating oil company (the chimney goes to the oil furnace), I was able to get somebody out to fix it. That actually went well - it was originally going to be the following week, but they kept calling back and saying they could come the next day, and then that night, and the repair was only $70.

My plow guy from the last few years is no longer doing snow plowing, so I theoretically got somebody new - theoretically because the first snow storm they never showed, saying when I finally texted that something was wrong with their plow, and then with yesterday's storm saying that they no longer worked my area. So last night I buckled and ordered a snow blower, which will ultimately pay for itself pretty quickly after three or four uses versus paying somebody to do it. Of course, it didn't come in time for last night's storm, so I had a lot of shoveling to do today - fortunately a neighbor let me use their snow blower for the worst of it.

Also, some car--related expenses - first two new wheel bearings, then I kept getting a tire pressure indicator (despite the tire pressure being fine) which of course turned out to be bad sensors, the replacement of which was another $1k. I guess I should expect some of these sorts of repairs to be needed; despite my car being a 2019, it already has nearly 126k miles on it, but it doesn't make the expense any more fun.

That said, the holiday itself was very nice. Small gathering at my mom's. Because we always used to end up with way too much food, the last several years we've just done a mix of various hors d'oeuvres and desserts rather than a formal dinner; this year I made two pizzas to contribute to the spread (one a white pizza with a shallot/garlic/olive oil "sauce," the other plain cheese). We still ended up with way too much stuff, and I defniitely ate way too much of way too many things that I shouldn't, but it's one day a year. Our trinity of Christmas movies (A Christmas Story, Christmas Vacation and Home Alone) was also screened (I also watched Story, or had it on in the background, a few times on my own since that's my #1).  Amusingly, my mom actually got me the Sound Machine featured in my last post, 35 years after I first asked for it and didn't receive it.  I guess she finally figured that, at 42, I'm finally old enough to not be completely obnoxious with it - of course, the downside is that I can no longer use not getting it in 1990 as a (lighthearted) guilt trip anymore.  It was a good time - but I do always hate when the holiday ends; despite not being in any way religous, Christmas is probably my single favorite time of year.

Hopefully next month will have fewer petty annoyances, aside from the general national-level existential dread - and the same goes for the rest of 2026.

I'll leave by mentioning my "current music" for this post, which is  one of my favorite songs for the holidays.   "Aspenglow" is really a winter song, not specifically a Christmas one, and to that end I don’t think they come any better - and its second release *was* on a Christmas album, so I count it.  Hearing it just makes me feel like I’m under a warm blanket in front of a fire, glass of good port, sleeping cat or two, nowhere else to be and nothing else to worry about. Someday I aspire to achieve this vision.

While driving to work on Monday, I happened to see some junk set out on the side of the road, and somehow managed to spot that one of the things there was an old CRT TV.  I've been looking for a backup TV for my game room, as well as a larger TV with a curved screen.  My current primary game room TV is a 2002 Apex flat-screen 20" CRT, which is great for the most part, but some light gun games play a little wonky with it.  The only other CRT I currently have is a 13" Daewoo, also from the early 2000s, which works OK and has a convex screen, but is very small, cheap and only has a monaural audio input; it also has a crack in the upper right corner of the bezel that, years ago, I jokingly put a band-aid over that's still there.

Of course, nowadays it's very rare to find CRTs on the side of the road; when people were first getting rid of them in the 2000s they were everywhere, but today people tend to try to sell them online as "retro gaming TVs" for $150 or more.  

Anyway, after noticing this TV I found a place to turn around and went back to check it out.  It turned out to be a 20" Hitachi from 1992 with stereo audio inputs on the back, so it's pretty much exactly what I've been looking for.  There were, however, a few negative points: first, this TV was absolutely filthy; it looks like it's been in somebody's shed for a decade or two, and second, it was laying on its side and had clearly been left out in the rain for an indeterminate period.  Still, the screen appeared to be intact, so I decided to take a chance and grabbed it.  When I got home, I put it in the basement near the dehumidifier to dry out.  

When I got home today (Thursday), finding it fully dried out, I decided to go ahead and plug it in to see if the thing is actually functional, and - perhaps miraculously - it is!  Came right on; the "image" (just static) looks good.  I have to take the cats to the vet in the morning tomorrow, but I'm planning on spending a few hours after that cleaning the TV up and then will see how it performs with a game - I'll probably hook up an NES with Mario 3 and try it with both an RF adapter and with RCA cables to make sure all the inputs are working.  But it's looking good - I think I hit the vintage-TV jackpot!

[Originally posted on my Facebook, 9/11/25]

I took this photo of the NYC skyline from Liberty Island with my photography-class Pentax camera during an 11th grade field trip in 1999.  When developing that roll of film, I somehow messed up the chemicals and part of the film got stuck to itself, and the result was this rather ghostly effect.

I've had the same alarm clock for more than half of my life - closer to three quarters of it, in fact.  As I recall, it was given to me by my grandmother when I was... I don't know, 11?  12?  13?  At any rate, it's carried me through high school, college, grad school, every job I've ever had.  From my bedroom at home, through various apartments, now to my own house.

It's nothing fancy.  Just a little Spartus digital from the early '90s or so.  Nothing fancy; just a clock with an alarm, no radio or anything like that.  But it's served me well all this time, and never failed, unless I forgot to turn the alarm on, or the power went out.

Well, this morning I managed to knock my clock off the little shelf I set up for it above my night stand.  The front fascia came off and the board the buttons on top connect to dislodged.  The clock part itself still works fine, but the alarm on/off switch doesn't, and I'm not sure about the snooze and time/alarm set buttons.  I attempted to fix it but wasn't able to quite get it working right.

It probably could be fixed fully, and I might just try to do that sometime as a quickie small-electronics-repair practice project, so I'll keep it around.  I don't think I could bring myself to toss it out anyway.  So if I ever fix it, it can maybe find a new home in my home office, or I could take it to work for my desk there.  

For now, though, I ordered a new clock, which should come Monday (I'll just have to rely on my phone until then, and of course the striped gremlin that usually wakes me up before the alarm anyway nowadays).  The new one should, frankly, be a lot better, as it has a phone charging pad and a bluetooth speaker built in, so I can consolidate space on my little shelf by not having to keep my existing charging pad and speaker on it (the speaker can go to the living room).  

But pour one out for my little Spartus, and its nearly thirty years of impeccable service.  It might seem like a silly thing to put this much though into, and it probably is, but it's been a constant for so long, I think I will miss it.

I recently "fixed" the charger port on my phone, which hadn't been working right for awhile - the connection was "loose" enough that the charger wouldn't stay connected, which was especially an issue in the car, where hitting a bump could disconnect it (not ideal for podcasts, even less so when using GPS).  It seems the issue was nothing mechanical, but instead a buildup of impacted pocket lint in the port; I cleared it out and it's been working fine for a little while now.  Well, that'll hopefully save a trip to the Apple store (or comparable mall kiosk), since the nearest is all the way in Albany.

I picked up a few old Nintendo books from ThriftBooks and they arrived with a few nostalgic price tags on them, from Babbage's and Software Etc.  Haven't heard those names in a long time.  I believe those are both among the various stores that were eventually absorbed into Gamestop, along with Electronics Boutique, FuncoLand and some others.  (I still remember ordering games by mail from Funco's paper catalog... and there's definitely some that I should've picked up for cheap back then that aren't so cheap anymore!)

Tabby's been a holy terror the last few mornings.  She is effectively my alarm clock now, for which there is no snooze button until she's been fed, but sometimes it goes off early and she starts in with trying to wake me up at 5am or earlier.  (Hopefully the time change tonight will put that back on track...)  Then this morning, after feeding, she messed with Adrian a bit, then jumped on my barber stand by the door and knocked a bunch of mail onto the floor, which scared her; she then ran into the living room proper and proceeded to puke on the rug.  I don't know how a little cat that weighs 8 pounds at most can have as much energy as she does.

Staying up past my bedtime to watch the Royal Rumble.  Hey, I've watched wrestling since the late '80s; no reason to stop now!  And this is one of my favorite events of the year - even with all the current controversy.

I remember, especially in high school, always wishing the pay-per-view events would be on Saturday night instead of Sunday, since then I wouldn't have to get up early the next day for school.  Now, in the last couple of years, they've switched to having them on Saturdays... and guess who has to get up early on Sundays for work.

Anyway.

I'm also making today a bit of a "cheat day" from my diet and fitness routine.  It's not much of a cheat, since my calories and macros are all still within my range, but I did allow more calories than I've been generally taking in lately.  I also drank a Wild Cherry Pepsi that's been staring at me from the refrigerator since August.  (And I didn't enjoy it as much as I thought I would - maybe my taste has changed from that kind of thing?)  I've hit kind of a plateau for the second time recently - I'd stalled out for about two weeks, then dropped three or so more pounds, and am stalled out again.  I've heard that a cheat day here or there can actually help break those plateaus, so I'm giving it a try.  We'll see.  At least it hasn't meaningfully gone *up* recently, and I'm still at nearly 57 and a half pounds down since the beginning of August, but I'm kind of anxious to hit that 60-pound mark (and then continue from there).

Nothing too terribly interesting going on otherwise lately, other than some work schedule craziness, hence why I haven't had a "journal" post in awhile.  I've finished a few books lately, though - up to 6 for the year in total so far - so I'll probably put up a post breaking down thoughts on those soon.

Well, back to the show.  The Women's Rumble is over; now it's time for the 4-way title match.  Hope I can actually stay up late enough to see the whole event... but we'll see.

On a lark I signed up for the NYC Midnight microfiction challenge, which went live today.  I think I got fairly lucky with the draw of prompts - "horror" for Genre," "pressing a button" for Action and "love" for Word.  I already have what I think is a good idea in mind; just have to write it and see if I can get it in in under 250 words.  I'd like to think that I stand a decent chance in the contest, but there are around 4,500 entrants and I'm sure that includes plenty of legit talent, and most of my writing to date has been nonfiction, so who knows.  I think it'll be fun anyway.

Maybe I'll post the end result here after the contest, although if I do I might make it friends-only in case I actually decide to do something with the piece down the line.  

 Also as mentioned in my "comeback" post (one before the last), I have two cats now, a 200% increase from my previous amount of cats.

They came to me at the end of my own previous life, last December.  Both from a person who no longer had adequate space for them, along with their two other cats that these two didn't get along with.

They're very much a study in opposites, and while they coexist they don't always fully get along with each other, but they're both extremely lovey towards me.  I also kept the names they came with.

Adrian is about seven now.  A former stray, who left the streets with a tipped ear, a once-broken tail and a very nervous disposition.  She's gray with white trim, including a white triangle on her face with a gray chin and black nose, and is on the chunky side as (as the vet told me) often happens to strays that become housecats.  She could best be described as a furry potato, though occasionally I do succeed in getting her to play a little, or catch her batting a toy that's been left out around.  She generally doesn't want Tabby getting into her space.

Tabby, about three, is, as the name suggests, a gray/brown tabby, with white tuxedo markings and a white streak down her left back leg.  She looks like a perfectly-formed storybook cat, but in miniature - according to the vet she weighs 8 pounds, but I question that, as she's tiny for a fully-grown cat and there's nothing to her.  Despite her size she has a seemingly endless supply of energy and can be quite an agent of chaos; very talky (though her meows sound like squeaks, and her purring is usually too soft to hear).  She's very much the extrovert of the duo, which Adrian doesn't always appreciate.

Getting them was initially meant to be a group effort, but I unexpectedly ended up a "single parent" to them soon after they came home.  But having them helped me through tough times earlier this year, and now I can't imagine life without them.

It's been awhile since I've posted in this journal, and much has changed.

As of December of last year, I have two cats.

Also as of December, I have to sleep attached to a piece of luggage.

As of about New Years, I'm no longer engaged.

As of August I've been back to teaching, at least for the present semester.

Also as of August, I've begun a campaign to become healthier in all ways, the physical component of which so far has me down 40 pounds as of this writing.

As of September I'm now 40 years old.

It's been a strange year to be sure, but I think - and hope - that I'm currently poised to leave 2023 better than I came into it.  I hope to use this journal more going forward, both for general personal thoughts as well as whatever random stupid stuff I come up with.

Stay tuned - this book isn't closed yet.

 I owe virtually everything I have to a man who died almost 122 years ago.

His home is now the museum that I've worked in for almost 20 years.  It was there that I was set on my career path, that I met my fiancée, that I earned the money to buy my home.  The above statement is really without exaggeration.

How would he have felt to know that?  How would you react if you were told that, 83 years after you died, a person would be born who, when they reach adulthood, will owe their entire lives to your existence?

What a strange concept.