It’s been a few weeks since my last post. Nothing really exciting going on. Been getting ready for the holidays. Put up our tree, sent out our Christmas cards. We saw the new Miyazaki movie. It was amazing but he’s totally lost his mind. Lizzy was home for a visit for a couple weeks ago with her new boyfriend. They saw my origami elephants at the tree in the Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. Both girls will be home for the holidays soon. I’ve been trying to wind down work for the year, and been thinking about old friends I miss, and how I’d like to make the time to see people. Luckily, the plan for the end of the year is pretty laid back, so it looks like there’ll be some time for that.
It feels like it’s been dark all the time the last few weeks. Only a few hours of tepid daylight before the sun sets in the mid-afternoon. At least the weather has been mainly pretty mild, even warm, and there’s been a handful of sunny days mixed in with the cloudiness and rain. Been trying the get psyched up for skiing, but it’s not time yet.
We did go ice skating the other day, which was lots of fun, and good exercise. I haven’t been on my ice skates in years, and neither has Jeannie. It’s good to know our skates still fit and we remember how to skate. We’ll have to do that again soon, hopefully when it’s less crowded. It seemed like I spent all my time maneuvering around a kid who fell over in front of me, pretty much every lap around the rink.
Even though my energy level has been up and down, my strength is up these days. Usually the winter is a difficult time for weightlifting, but it’s been really solid since we got back from California. My elbow, shoulder and back all feel great, and I just went up in weight on my last few sets of exercises, and I’m going to up on the rest in the new year.
I’ve been trying to lean in to the season by getting more sleep, and although I must say I’ve never been good at going to be early, I find it easier these days. But try as I might, I remain very busy at work right up to the end of the week, which makes it hard to slack off too much. We’re into a new planning season, and things are always in motion. I compare myself to water seeking its natural level as I slosh around to the most needful tasks from day to day. Good news, I may have just gotten approval to add another engineer to my team.
And, just in time for the holidays, The Global Jukebox 3.0.1 is now live. This release was basically a hardening of 3.0, with numerous bug fixes and usability enhancements, an a beautiful new splash screen when you enter the app.
I’ve also been working on a new song, called Head Downtown, and there may a Spacecats record in the offing. More on that next.