My wonderful partner in life celebrated another low-key birthday today--which is the type that she seems to prefer. While I like using my birthday to plan an event and invite people over, she enjoys seeing people at work and just relaxing when she gets home. For the past several years, Trevor has taken a liking to making Janelle's favorite dessert: tiramisu. This year, he made it a day early (as it was his day off), so we were able to eat some of it yesterday. Rowen, who also wanted to contribute, decided that he was going to make her a cake without using a mix, and produced a nice chocolate chip cake today. 

My primary contribution was bringing home Thai food and giving Janelle a present of a LEGO set of a rose bouquet. While she knew what it was going to be beforehand, Connor was quite interested in seeing her unwrap her gift as he was the only one there who did not know (Rowen had stashed it in my closet after I brought it home). At the rate we're going, we're likely to soon have more LEGO plants than actual plants in the house--a fact that she commented on after the unwrapping. 

While it was a bit quiet and uneventful for my liking, I think that Janelle enjoyed her day. 

This past weekend, I took down all of the upstairs Christmas lights. The downstairs icicle and snow lights remain, but I switched out the multi-colored Christmas lights for the red lights that I put up in anticipation for St. Valentine's Day. Strangely, we did not take down the tree. Thus, when I come up the stairs after dark, I'm first a bit disappointed that the lights are missing only to be hit with the pleasant surprise when I get to the top of the stairs of seeing the tree still lit up in the corner.

Although I already miss having the lights up--like the lights that I can normally see by just looking up or to the right while I'm typing, it's nice that actual daylight is making its way into the world. Even though the temperatures are hovering around zero degrees Fahrenheit (much like the recent cold snap that hit Michigan), the light is a promise of the coming spring and summer. In the end, the artificial lights are nice, but they can't hold a candle to the natural light that our sun provides.

I'm well over my fifteen minutes, and I really haven't chosen a topic that I am interested enough to write about. Here are some of the contenders in no particular order:

I know too many addicts who are the children of addicts who have succumbed to their parents' drug of choice because they wanted to prove that they were stronger than their parents. Worse are those who claim that they have beaten the problem because they managed to quite for a short time but are currently using. "I can quit at any time. I just don't want to," they say unironically despite not wanting to quit being a clear sign that they are fully addicted.

I would like to see a new Stargate TV series start up, but I'm also terrified of a new series starting up and it being horrible.

I realize that I have no room to point fingers at other addicts when I am clearly unwilling to give up sugar despite its destructive effects on my body.

I have envy for my many teacher friends in Michigan who are posting about snow/ice days. However, I realize that envy might be reversed once the school year ends for me on the 16th of May.

This coming summer break will be the longest summer break that I've ever had in my life (by a day or so, but still).

I had a full weekend, but I feel as tired as if it's the end of the workweek rather than the beginning. 

Watching people vote for Trump in the Iowa Caucus is proof enough that America's educational system is not sufficient.

I feel that many people misunderstand God's call to us. They want it to be a voice or a vast presence that fully and completely assure us that the voice is from the one and true, omnipotent and omniscient creator of all. However, even in the Bible, the voice of God is often not what one expects. Even hearing the voice of God call to him in today's first reading, Samuel thinks that it is his master Eli calling. 

Even when believing we hear His voice, we often seem to get the message confused. God clearly instructs us to take care of His world and everything in it, but time and again people decide to distort the message. In today's second reading, Paul instructs the Corinthians to not be obsessed with any sin except the ones which come from within ourselves. He, like Jesus before him, warns against being focused on following the old rituals that forbid the eating of certain foods or the idea of being made unclean by coming into contact with someone else. Rather, we are to focus on what working on cleansing our own hearts so that we can better serve those around us.

I find this idea difficult to follow. It is entirely too easy for me to ignore what God is telling me that I need to do and instead focus on the wrongs that I feel are in others. Too often, I hope to cleanse myself through ritual and tradition rather than to truly address my own failings. I feel that I am improving in this area, but I still fall so very far from what I know that I should do. Still, with God's continued encouragement, I believe that I can continue to work on being a better person. 

I didn't know what to expect about the Echo superhero show on Disney Plus. I know almost nothing about the character from the comics, and what little I do know is from commentary during her appearance on the Hawkeye show (which I like). I also was unsure about what kind of show that it was going to be. Would it focus on her past? Would it explain her gaining her comic book powers--which she did not have in the Hawkeye show? Would it deal with Native American culture and her connection to it? Would it focus on her relationship with Kingpin--whom she shot at the end of Hawkeye? It turns out that the show creators were a bit confused as well because they went with all of the above.

Basically, I enjoyed the show, but I feel that it was one of Marvel's weaker entries. The plot often felt muddled with character motivations requiring a large suspension of disbelief. It also frequently shifted its tone with some parts going for comical and downright campy to others attempting a gritty, mature-rated feel in reminiscence of the Marvel shows on Netflix (which are still the best Marvel TV attempts). All the way to the end, I did not understand why characters did what they did or acted the way they did.  

While Alaqua Cox did well in the titular role, it was Vincent D'Onofrio and Graham Greene who were the real scene stealers--and who did not have enough screen time. I was also happy to see Tantoo Cardinal again, especially with Graham Greene. I loved their chemistry in Dances with Wolves, and it was nice to see that same spark again when they appeared together here. Unfortunately, many of the other characters felt underdeveloped. With only five episodes in this season, and many of them quite short, I suspect that there was a great deal that was left on the cutting room floor as Marvel through Disney has been making course corrections to its approach to the MCU. 

With Daredevil: Born Again pushed back another year due to a complete change in the shows direction--including the return of the other actors/characters from the Netflix Daredevil series--I'm hoping that the next time that we see Echo, she will be a little more firmly rooted.

Facebook notified me today that it has been one year since Janelle surprised me with my long-asked-for "wallet holster." I believe that the Amazon name was something like a "hip drop  motorcycle leg bag." However, my favorite term has come to be the one that was used to describe me when I was one of the "intruders" during our ALICE drill which I believe was: "He's wearing a thigh pouch."

As it has been a year, I figure that it's a good time to reflect on my experiences with my thigh pouch, and in general, those experiences have been positive. I wanted (and even designed) a thigh pouch decades ago to deal with my wallet (and later my phone) problem. Basically, keeping my wallet in my back pocket while sitting was torqueing my spine and hip and keeping it in my front pocket was uncomfortable and impractical. This meant leaving my wallet or my phone (or both) in my coat pocket, or in my bag, or in a compartment of my car--and sometimes forgetting and leaving it (them) there. 

The thigh pouch allows me to keep my wallet and phone (and sometimes other items, like a pen) on my at all times. It also provides easy access to them even when seated in a car at a drive-thru. It does not get in my way as chest or belly bags can tend to do. Most of the time (except when I was having difficulty with my left arm), I keep it on my left side which has worked well for me from an ergonomic standpoint, especially since the pouch hangs at the perfect reach distance for my arm.

There are a couple of downsides. One is that it is a bit too bizarre for me to take to church, especially as I stand in front of the congregation for the singing of the Psalm. For that matter, it draws a good deal of attention, and sometimes in ways that make me feel that people are uncomfortable around me--perhaps thinking that I have a holstered weapon in it (which is one reason why I have moved away from my earlier name of "wallet holster"). Another is is that at first, there had been a squeak from some of the metal clasps, but thankfully, WD-40 solved that issue. I also do not cinch it too tightly, so the pouch tends to more around my leg a bit if I'm walking too fast (let alone jogging or running). It also tends to loosen over time requiring me to readjust it with noticeable regularity. 

However, all told, the positives have certainly outweighed the negatives. It's made a real difference in both my access to my wallet and phone, and my piece of mind in knowing that I have them with me. Even when travelling, it was tremendously helpful to have my wallet, phone, Air Pods, and charging block and cord all contained in the one pouch that I could easily remove and put in a bin to be scanned, and then just latch them back on. Basically, it's precisely what I wanted.

A couple of months ago, due to my rise in overall blood sugar levels, I was put on a new medicine: Trulicity. Since then, I have been regularly dealing with one of it common side affects: low level nausea. It can be particularly bad when I lie down, which has made my sleep less restful.

I have also been feeling more gassy or bloated which has led to me belching more often. Unfortunately, with the nausea also involved, I'm concerned that any given belch could lead to stomach acid going into my throat and mouth. This, in turn, has led to my taking heavily deep breaths as doing so seems to push down and clear the nausea for a little while. Unfortunately, it makes it sound like I'm sighing deeply from despair or exhaustion, which has raised the concern of some of the people who have heard me do it. That concern makes it so that I have become more self-conscious about when and where I am doing those cleansing breaths, which has led to me dealing with more nausea.

The good news is that my body seems to be adjusting to the medicine more so that the nausea is less pronounced and more infrequently present. 

Pretty much all of my time at home so far (aside from dinner) has been spent trying to deal with switching in the new thermostats that we purchased. There's a bit of a Catch 22 in the process of installing that I wanted to jumpstart for all of them. The issue is that I need a power adapter for each thermostat, but to get the power adapter, one has to go through the process of installing the thermostat. As an extra level of confusion, once you have the adapter, you're not supposed to install it until you have installed the thermostat as the thermostat needs to update to recognize the power adapter. However, the thermostat cannot be installed if you say that you have not yet installed the power adapter. Basically, the process requires starting the installation to order the adapter (and it turns out that only the first one is free; the rest cost $25+ each), lying to it by saying that the adapter has already been installed, allowing it to update, and then installing the adapter.

Installing the adapter (I had one from my first installation process) was made more difficult because my zone control board does not have the nice labels that correspond to the labels on the power adapters. Hours of research later, I discovered the correct ports to use. As I only have one adapter, I chose the thermostat with the most issues--the one that I just installed in the boys' room. It took about an hour (and more research on the internet) because, despite following the directions, I kept seeing that the thermostat was not receiving power. It turns out that whoever initially installed the thermostats put the white wires into the red wire's ports on the control board and vice versa. This wasn't a problem when the system only had two wires, but the third wire added by the adapter meant that power could only flow in one direction. I fixed that ridiculous error, and the thermostat seems to be working fine.

The issue with Google charging for the adapters despite their instruction booklets saying that the adapters were free has made it so that we only have one more adapter on the way. We now have two of the more expensive "learning" thermostats because they can use remote sensors to regulate the temperature. As two of our zones have their thermostats in areas that are heated by other zones, we need them to run off the information from parts of the rooms other than where the thermostats are located (which was one of the main reasons I bought these new thermostats to begin with). Ironically, the more expensive thermostats use less power than the less expensive ones (like the one in the boys' room), so we are holding off on getting the power adapters for them for the time being. 

We also decided to return one of the thermostats that would have required an adapter. Originally, we were just going to exchange it because it was clear that we got one that had been returned after it had been opened (and possibly used). However, since it was for a room that already had a programmable (if not app controlled) thermostat, and due to the extra expense of the adapter, I figured that it wasn't worth the bother.

We've already noticed improvements in how our house is heating. I hope that it turns out to be worth the effort.

In the win column, my school's accreditation team (of which I am a part) had our presentation to our accreditation organization today. I am grateful that the process seems less invasive and more congenial than it did the last time our school was up for accreditation. Basically, the presentation went well. Our evaluator not only thanked us for the presentation, but said that we made her day. We will receive our final scores in a week or so, but it seems like everything will run smoothly. I have to say that I'm grateful for our amazing administrative team not just for the work that they put into this accreditation process, but also for all of the positive work that they have done for our school, work that was evident in the many great initiatives that we were able to promote in this presentation.

In the loss column, I'm not going to get first place in Amethyst League on Duolingo. I've been in the top spot quite easily in nearly all of the past leagues with only a couple where I would get notifications that I lost my spot, only for me to retake the position again. I thought that the same was happening this time, and I went to bed last night with a comfortable lead of a couple hundred points. I woke up this morning to find that my main competitor had more than doubled my score, putting 1st place over 6000 experience points out of reach (and that's if the person does not do any more lessons). The competitive part of me wanted to spend my entire evening making up the difference and putting another thousand points between us--a task that is possible for me to do, but would take multiple hours of rather repetitive lessons. Thankfully, I had set a mental limit of 10,000 points and the person was well past that. It still makes me rage a bit inside, but I've decided to let it go.

In the uncertain column, my installation of Nest thermostats seems to have regulated the areas where we made the switch. It was a positive enough of an improvement that Janelle picked up two more thermostats so that we can have all of them interconnected through a single app. Unfortunately, the thermostats are all saying that they need a C wire adapter for them to properly function. I have one, but it turns out that I need one for each thermostat. I've spent a good part of the last couple of hours (rather than playing Duolingo) figuring out how I could get them to work once I have them. I also did get ahold of a licensed electrician who might have a better solution, but he has yet to get back with me. 

It's been a day of contrasts.

Oddly, it was Rowen who suggested that we watch the limited Netflix series, The Queen's Gambit. Considering its drama basis, mature rating, and embarrassing moments, I asked him why he wanted to watch it. He said that he saw parts of it advertised and that he really likes chess. I thought that he wouldn't keep watching as the show went on, but all of us ended up really like the series. It certainly gave us plenty of conversations regarding alcoholism, drug use, sexual promiscuity, the lack of opportunities for women (especially in the 1960s), child prodigies, the Cold War, and the difficulties of fame ... oh, and chess.

The show is an immaculately constructed period piece following a fictional character as she becomes the first world-class female chess grandmaster. Her story is often tragic, especially in regards to her parental figures, but it is also a story about resiliency, dedication, and friendship. The final episode is the perfect culmination of the many threads that were woven in the episodes before, giving an extraordinarily satisfying conclusion in a way that so few few show have managed to do.

The sets, costumes, music, direction, and acting are all astounding. Anya Taylor-Joy truly shines as the protagonist, Beth Harmon. I can certainly understand why it received so much attention and so many awards, especially since it came out during the height of COVID. While I wonder why Janelle and I didn't watch it sooner, I'm glad that we watched it now and were able to talk about it with Rowen (it turns out that Connor had already watched it on his own). For those who have not seen it yet, and who can handle some mature themes and situations, I highly recommend it.

One of the biggest mistakes we make as humans is that we try to box the universe into a form or system that we believe we can understand. In doing so, we ignore the absolute vastness of the universe along all axes of scale. It makes sense that we do so, as we are wondrous, but extremely limited, pieces of creation who have a narrow range of senses at our disposal. We are always looking at only a small morsel of the reality that is presented to us, and thus we try to bind the universe itself to those same confines. 

By fathering Jesus, God did that for us. He made Himself bound by our limited view of eternity, making Himself available and understandable. This was no small feat. We have the Magi as witnesses that He literally moved the heavens to bring Himself into our world. In doing so, He showed us that God is within each of us--that how we treat one another is how we treat Him. He could have arrived in the grandeur that was expected of a Messiah, but instead He presented Himself through the most humble means. 

The universe has a scale that continually defies the expectations of our greatest minds. It exists throughout all of time. There's no limit to its scale that we can discern. Still, the creator of something so immense made Himself knowable to us out of a love for us that is similarly beyond our understanding, and He did so for people across the world. For me, that's quite an Epiphany.

Our house has always had odd heating issues. There are five zones, each with an entirely different thermostat. According to the box where the wires lead to, the zones are:
1. Downstairs bedrooms
2. Upstairs Master (the studio and office)
3. Downstairs Livingroom (the dining room and kitchen)
4. Upstairs bedroom (boys' room)
5. Upstairs Livingroom

One of the first issues that we noticed is that the thermostat for zone 3 is directly above a heater for zone 1. Another is that all the thermostats used mercury switches except for zone 2 which has a digital sensor. A third is that all of the bedrooms on one side of the house run warm even when the heat for their zone is not engaged. 

I fixed the first issue a couple of years ago by purchasing a Nest thermostat that could use a sensor from a different location. The third problem seems to be due to the hot water pipes that run through the bedroom walls, but I'm not sure how to fix that. I was working on the second issue today.

In 2022, I bought a couple more Nest thermostats, but they weren't quite the same as the one I got for our dining room. By the time I got them, Google had bought out Nest and had a different system for its Google Home setup. It was complicated enough that I avoided dealing with them until today.

With Rowen's help, I managed to install the new thermostats in my bedroom and in the living room (which had two of the older thermostats). Apparently, I need to get an electrician to hook up a power connector at the main panel for the thermostats to make certain that they don't lose their functionality. I tried taking a look myself, but was more than a little baffled. We'll see how this works, but I've kept the old thermostats just in case.

Tomorrow is the third anniversary of Trump's attempt to overturn our democracy. I'm still absolutely stunned that he went so far as to incite a riot on our Capitol as part of his temper tantrum at losing the election. For me, one of the most disturbing things are the number of Republicans who say that the events of that day weren't that bad. It's like a child abuser trying to tell people that he didn't hit the kid that hard and that everyone should just ignore the bruises.

It doesn't matter how clumsy the attempted coup was, there are transcripts, phone recordings, as well as multiple witness testimonies under oath that demonstrate that Trump and his cronies knew that they were pushing a lie, knew that their attempt to bring in false electors was illegal, and knew that they would be inciting violence in our Capitol days and even weeks before the event took place. Hundreds court people have been found guilty in criminal courts--some completely decided by judges and others by juries--for their actions that day. If Donald Trump had not been President with the rabid following that he has garnered, he would already be serving jail time for his role. 

Now the Supreme Court needs to decide if it will actual rule based on the text of the 14th Amendment and disqualify Trump from holding any public office again or instead demonstrate their fascist-like loyalty to the man who put three of them on the bench. It's not a question of whether Trump's actions disqualify him or not based on the language of the Amendment; the text is clear. The question is whether the Republican judges are so desperate to keep ahold of Republican power at any cost that they will exonerate a man who has done nothing but tear America down since he was first sworn in to office. We should see by the end of the month.

By the way, attacking a building at a country's capitol in a failed coup and using the court cases as a means to create a cult following is a play straight out of Hitler's book, literally. Hitler wrote Mein Kampf  while in prison for his attempted coup in Munich. He used the press to spew his propaganda and gain enough of a following through his lies and manipulation that he had complete control of Germany (and then much of Europe) by the time he was done.

Usually, I have some outline in my mind about what major events I have lined up for a given year. Strangely, 2024 is a bit of a blank page for me. There are only two items that I can think of that are coming up.

The first is my and Janelle's 30th wedding anniversary. We haven't really talked about it or what we might do for it, but as a multiple of 10, it seems like we should do something significant. It's on a Tuesday, but after the school year has ended.

The second is the AP World Reading. While I was pretty certain that I was going to attend this year (assuming that I'm invited), the fact that the College Board changed the rubrics after our school year started makes me feel that I need to attend to see how these changes affect the Reading. Official invitations usually don't go out until the end of this month or the beginning of next month, but not only am I pretty certain that I will get an invitation, I'm wondering--due to a survey question that was sent out--if I will receive an invite for the AP U.S. Reading as well. I believe that they are both in Kansas City this year (one week after the other).

And that's it. My Japan trip isn't until 2025. Unless I'm forgetting something, I don't believe that there are any other plans for any of us here to head "Outside" or for anyone to come up to visit us. If so, that will be a first for us since we moved up here. I'll have to see what other plans come about as the year progresses.