This is the category closest to just being a plain diary. Places I go, things I do, people I see, what’s happening in my life.
Here it is, the last post of 2025! Not gonna lie, I’ll be glad to see this year gone, though I don’t really expect much better for next year.
Anyway, we’re getting ready for our New Year’s Eve shenanigans, and Anne and I went out and got our costumes for Saturday’s big (and themed, by decade) family party.
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Almost the end of the year, not many more opportunities to post, but here are some things…
It’s not really a new toy, not even new to me, but I’ve been playing a lot with GnuCash (an open-source accounting program) lately. I’ve been using it to help with my mom’s finances. It’s been a real learning curve, but it’s also been fun and I finally get how the program works.
Anne got me a book for Christmas — Telling of the Anthracite: A Pennsylvania Posthistory, by Phillip Moseley. I’m not much past the introduction, but it’s already fascinating.
My shoulder is now to the point where it has no pain or twinges, I think I am finally healed.
The holiday season has been a whirlwind — we’ve been getting together to watch Christmas movies; we went to the Christmas Eve bonfire at Jeff & Kristen’s farm; celebrated Christmas here with Ben & Jenny, Joe & Laura and Rick & Shari (Emmi & family were in Peoria visiting Kyle’s mom); Boxing Day was at my Mom’s, with my brother & family and my Uncle Pat; and this morning we’ll be doing a small gift exchange with Emmi, Kyle & Iris. New Year’s Eve is coming up, and finally the big Christmas shindig next week. Yikes!
So CAT is moving to their new headquarters early next month, and part of the preparation is to get all the donated bikes, about 400 of them in (mostly) walkable condition, from their basement home in the current headquarters to storage at the future one.
That move happened yesterday. The “bike train” was about 100 or so volunteers walking the bikes about two miles, from the place on West Broad Street to the newly-built Walnut Street parking garage, where the new headquarters will be. We went over a little early so Anne could take up her position as a crossing guard along the route, then Joe & Laura and I joined the train in basically the first wave.
It was pretty easy and quite fun, and though Joe & Laura made for home after that trip, I went back for more. The walk back was, if anything, even more fun, as I got to greet so many of my friends doing their part.
For the first trip I took just one bike; I thought that walking two might be easy enough for the first few hundred yards but two miles might be a bit much. The walk was easy enough though, so for the second trip I did take two. That was fine, except for the very last block when one rear wheel locked up — I carried that bike to the finish line.
So two trips, three bikes and eight miles walked, and I hear that all 400 bikes got moved. Hurray!
These were our last few days in Scotland. We got in one more hike along the coast, I walked about town one last time taking pictures, and we spent some time at John & Donna’s new place. Then it was finally, officially time to head home.
This was a section of coast to the west of Banff, between the towns of Portnockie and Cullen, with some picturesque rocks (and scary surf) just offshore. The main trail was a fairly mellow path, but you could also go exploring the rougher terrain if you wanted.
These are some shots I took while walking around town. The first photo was from a walk between Gardenstown and Crovie, of some rocks that made cool sounds banging together in the surf, and the others were from a walk down and onto the harbour.
I took a few interior photos of our cottage, and some external shots of John & Donna’s new house.
And finally it was time to go. This first photo is on a touristy, decorated old fishing boat in town, planted with flowers and festooned with local kitsch — the little saying on the fish decoration is (supposedly) an example of Doric, a local Scots dialect. We passed this boat every day, and I took this on on our last night in town.
The seagull photo was the last one I took in Scotland; we were waiting for our ride and I couldn’t resist when the bird just landed outside our cottage.
And that was our trip!
We had a small Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday, just us and Ben & Jenny — they came over late morning, with some waffle batter, to cook brunch and help with the big meal. (Jan & Marty also stopped by but didn’t stay for dinner.) Dinner was the usual: turkey (no stuffing), mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and for dessert a pumpkin roll stuffed with cranberry-orange cream cheese.
We worked it off with a Friday morning ride in Lancaster, the “Hush Money Fall Fuckaround,” which was listed as a gravel ride and a Gran Fondo, but we did the short (39 mile) road option. Several of our friends also did the ride, as well as Anne’s brother Joe, but we didn’t see much of them after the start, and we also bagged much of the ride, short-cutting the ride loop and ending with about 18 miles. Windy day! Anne actually got blown off the road into a field, where we looked up to see two bald eagles flying around.
Joe & Laura came over last night with Ben & Jenny and Alex too, and we played pinochle and a game called “Neanderthal Poetry,” which was a hoot.
And now we are waiting for people to come over for leftover turkey sandwiches; dessert will be at Joe & Laura’s.
It’s been done before so I won’t put up any videos, but Happy Thanksgiving! Here are a few things I’m grateful for:
It is interesting to contemplate an entangled bank, clothed with many plants of many kinds, with birds singing on the bushes, with various insects flitting about, and with worms crawling through the damp earth, and to reflect that these elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex a manner, have all been produced by laws acting around us. These laws, taken in the largest sense, being Growth with Reproduction; Inheritance which is almost implied by reproduction; Variability from the indirect and direct action of the external conditions of life, and from use and disuse; a Ratio of Increase so high as to lead to a Struggle for Life, and as a consequence to Natural Selection, entailing Divergence of Character and the Extinction of less-improved forms. Thus, from the war of nature, from famine and death, the most exalted object which we are capable of conceiving, namely, the production of the higher animals, directly follows. There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.
Charles Darwin, “The Origin of Species”
I saw that quote when I was looking at what I wrote ten years ago — no idea why I quoted it back then, Darwin Day is in February. Meanwhile, this is what I wrote twenty years ago. Strange to think that the two main characters (other than myself) in that long-ago Thanksgiving are no longer with us.
It’s been months since our trip and the details are getting blurry, and I still have a bit more to get to, so here’s basically a mashup of several days where we did the tourist thing.
Distillery tours! This is a must-do in the part of Scotland we visited. Aberdeenshire, as one local pub denizen emphatically told another while I eavesdropped, is not the Highlands, but we were very close to several famous distilleries, and I think this day trip was one of the highlights for Donna and John as tour guides. We hit two on this day: Balvenie and Glenlivet, to see how whisky was made. The big parts of their presentation had to do with malting and drying the malt, and the barrel aging of the whisky — the coopery that maintained their barrels was a point of pride for Balvenie. Needless to say, we got to sample what they had, from almost-raw whisky through the world famous finished products. (To be honest, I didn’t think I’d make it through the sample flight at Balvenie, but I’m glad I did.) Very educational, and super fun.
This was a day I had to myself: John needed to do some legal/financial stuff for the house they were buying, and Donna & Anne were off on a shopping trip to Banff. I just spent the morning walking about Gardenstown, taking pictures of the different little sections: High Green where we were staying, Seatown where John & Donna’s rental (and new vacation home) were, and the harbor itself. (Mind you, all of these parts were withing spitting distance of each other — it really is a small town.)
I joined John in the afternoon, and we all went to dinner when the ladies got back.
This was another highlight, especially for Donna! She really like showing off her local discoveries, and this was an unexpected find from several years back when they were looking for fun things to do with Iain and Finn. It was fun for us too, and a real “touching grass” moment: the views all around, the look of the birds up close, and especially the feel of them landing and taking off from your hand…
The woman who owned the place was really nice too, she showed us around after the demonstration and then invited us in for tea.
Stay tuned for just a wee bit more, I have maybe one or two posts left in the series.
Happy GIS Day! Also, happy 163rd Anniversary of the Gettysburg Address!
I’m currently hanging out at a coffee shop (Bitty & Beau’s) downtown. They have some big, floor to ceiling windows, and I’m enjoying the view of the Fall weather outside: it’s sunny, and a a bit breezy, and many trees still have their foliage — which finally turned spectacularly colorful the last week or so — but there are a few leaves blowing by every so often, just like the groups of little brown birds also flitting about outside. The weather outside is pleasant enough, I walked over and it was really nice, but sitting in here and watching is even nicer.
I’ll head home in a bit, then walk over to Southside to meet Doug at Wishful Thinking (formerly the Bavarian Tavern), then I’m meeting Anne at Bonn Place around 6:00. Ironically enough, we’re meeting at Bonn Place to see a show featuring artists named Doug. (Another friend, and you can guess his name, is one of the exhibitors.)
We have Iris tomorrow, and we’ll probably take her up to Jacobsburg for a trail walk.
This is what I wrote five years ago, and this is what I wrote ten years ago.
