…and we’re back.

I never managed to put up anything like my traditional year-end wrap up post, but honestly, I’m not that worried. It’s more work than it’s worth most of the time. I put almost 2200 miles on my bike tires and/or boot soles, which isn’t bad, and I think I’m a net five pounds lighter than I was this time last year.

Otherwise, I put in way too much time at work, played a couple of good gigs, and was on the whole a little more depressed than usual. Let’s just leave it at that.

The holiday break was fine. Low-key Christmas at home, new year’s trip to Muncie, Indiana to spend time with friends, drink too much beer, listen to some tunes, and visit The Bob Ross Experience, which was a nice way to spend an afternoon.

I started up work again on Thursday, which involved mostly digging out of email and planning upcoming test efforts. Beyond that, it’s continuing to try to satisfy auditors by tightening up business case documentation (or, ideally, getting the folks whose responsibility it actually is to tighten up the documentation).

The house is currently in a state of flux, as we start the new year off with some significant interior redecoration/renovation, including paint, new trim, and replacing the ancient carpet with laminate. Currently, a lot of the living room is in other parts of the house or in the trash cans outside, but the paint looks nice so far.

I also got my first bike ride of the year in yesterday, since it’s flirting with the low seventies in terms of temperature again. 11 miles up and down the single tracks at Pocahontas, where I met a few friends on my final descent:

Hoping the weekend’s quiet; I need it, as next week the office work really begins in earnest, as everybody else ought to be back, and that’ll lead into Marscon next weekend, which should be fine, if interesting, as the new management is bound to piss some people off, though I’ll see friends, and will have limited responsibilities, as they didn’t bother to book me either solo or as a Humdinger (that second bit has already pissed some folks off), and I’ll be attending as a civilian unless somebody invites me to sit in in a way that makes sense. We’ll see.

In the meantime, I’ll just keep watching to see how many more votes Kevin McCarthy can lose…

Today’s algorithm-driven Spotify playlist definitely shows the influence of having my youngest child DJ on a couple of drives recently; the beginning definitely has some showtunes energy, but by the end, mostly settles back into the americana and indie we’re all used to:

1. “Old-Fashioned Love Song” – Paul Williams
2. “Taste the Biscuit” – Vincent Gargiulo, Toasters ‘n’ Moose
3. “Princess Andy” – Petrojvic Blastinc Company
4. “Let Her Dance” – The Bobby Fuller Four
5. “Some of My Lives Are True (Sooner Or Later) – Huey Lewis & The News
6. “I Can Hear Music” – Freddie Mercury
7. “So Says I” – The Shins
8. “The Room Is Filled With People Who Love You” – Foresight
9. “Indianapolis” – The Bottle Rockets
10. “Didn’t Have Time To Think” – Math The Band
11. “Mainstream Kid” – Brandi Carlisle
12. “I Wanna Be Your Dog 2” – AJJ