I spent a little while preparing for our annual end-of-the-year celebration. Other than that, I continued working on LEGOs as well as my liberation of Yara (playing Far Cry 6). While I will have all of my LEGO sets completed, it seems much less likely that I will finish Yara's liberation before school resumes. Considering that my schedule is looking pretty full for at least this next quarter and through spring break, I have a feeling that Yara's independence from fascism might have to wait for a little while.

Meanwhile, since we're approaching the end of the year, I've been a bit introspective concerning what I have done and what I have failed to do this past year. For this past year, I had only two stated resolutions and a few stated goals. One of the resolutions--to return to my habit of writing monthly reflections on my blog--I've so far managed to achieve. However, that was my only success. My other stated resolution--to update my "Blog collections"--actually fell even farther behind this year. As for my three stated goals, my office has yet to be organized (although, it is slightly better than it was last year), I only took Janelle out on two dates that I can remember (which is ten shy of the goal of at least once a month), and I've made no progress on any kind of creative writing project.

I also failed on a few unstated goals: the big one was to get my study published, but I let the enormity of that task discourage me too much. Similarly, I have not really worked at eating healthier (as I also like enjoying food), being more active, and thus getting into better shape. We have also not spent as much time doing things together as a family (such as playing games, watching movies, or even just hanging out) as I would like. 

I could almost flip all of these into resolutions for 2023, but I'm going to want to give it some thought as I might want to return to the "point" system that I've used in the past. I will need to think about it.

Largely, nothing really happened. I spent a little bit of time putting together LEGOs, and a large portion of the day making progress in my liberation of Yara from a fascist, totalitarian dictator--otherwise known as playing Far Cry 6. There were some mild chores in there too.

On Janelle's return home from work, we watched Serendipity--a rom-com from 2001 with John Cusack and Kate Beckinsale (whom I had just seen in the Underworld movies). We hadn't seen the movie before, but several of Janelle's friends had recommended it to her, so she's been wanting to see it since the DVD arrived. It was a genuinely cute movie that I wouldn't mind seeing again. I do wish that they had kept the Christmas theme throughout as this could have been a solid holiday movie and would have been more in keeping with the overall concept.

Thinking about the movie sent me down the rabbit-hole of looking at lists of best-ever rom-coms. There are many different opinions on the Internet (although When Harry Met Sally almost always tops the lists) and certainly plenty that I don't share. We used to watch them more often--well, we used to watch movies more often in general (yes, I realize that I've had two movie marathons this break--I stand by what I wrote). There haven't been many lately that have caught my interest (although, Crazy Rich Asians was wonderful). I wouldn't mind revisiting some of my favorites again. Also, I wouldn't mind finding some new favorites, too.

I started the day groggy and in pain as the pneumonia vaccine had made my arm in enough pain that I had trouble sleeping. Some ibuprofen turned it to a dull ache. Thus I was able to plow (in the dark) the several inches of snow we received yesterday without much of a problem.

Starting at 9 AM, I watched, with friends, the five movies in the Underworld series. These are not great movies, but I enjoyed watching them nonetheless. Seeing them all together, I found it interesting how each movie had a slightly different feel in comparison to the others, yet they still managed to feel interconnected. It was particularly satisfying to watch them with a friend who deeply enjoyed the movies (and had suggested the marathon) especially since none of my boys wanted to watch them.

I also received a nice message from StarLink that includes two free months of service for my trouble. The message said that northern latitude users need a clearer line to the northern horizon to receive their signal as opposed to more southern latitudes that can focus more directly above. On the StarLink note, we've been finding that Disney+ struggles with our new Internet connection way more than Netflix or YouTube. We haven't tried Paramount+ or Amazon Prime yet, but I expect them to also be rather wonky.

I plan on taking another slow day tomorrow. 

I received a literal shot in the arm. Apparently, I was due for a pneumonia vaccine booster. It also took four tries for my veins to stand still enough for them to draw blood. The results have already been posted to MyChart and were better than I expected, but we will see what my new doctor (he is my seventh doctor in the seven plus years that I have lived here) will have to say about them. 

A year ago, I wrote a post expressing my concerns about the speed of our Internet provider. Now, a year later, I have great high-speed internet--with interruptions. My conversations with the StarLink tech ended with two main pieces of advice and a lot of frustration on my part.

One surprise is that they recommend not using a surge protector, but to have an uninterrupted power supply (UPS) as generic surge protectors can apparently cause some power-flow fluctuations that can affect the StarLink router's communications with its dish. I don't think that is the main issue, but it was, as I said, a surprise. Additionally, Freddy's doesn't carry any type of UPS, so it might be a bit before I get one. 

The main piece of advice is that they want me to move the dish to a "better"--preferably, a higher--location. While this is partly due to the mild obstruction from some of the trees that I left standing, it is also to get me a better vantage on the horizon. Apparently, the horizon is one of my main obstructions--this is likely due to us living in a bit of a valley which is also why we cannot use SpitSpots or ASC's FiWi. I left a message with the company that worked on our roof earlier this year. 

We also re-watched The Holiday, a cute holiday-based rom-com that Janelle and I enjoy. I was quite surprised to see Kathryn Hahn (who also was in WandaVision as Agatha Harkness and in Glass Onion which we watched last night) and John Krasinski (of The Office and Jack Ryan fame) playing bit characters in the movie's opening. It's not a great movie, but it's cute with some nice heart. Also, it thankfully isn't Love, Actually. 

I don't have much to write today as it was a wonderful, lazy day filled with the smell of cookies baking in the oven. In fact, aside from losing at today's tricky Wordle, I haven't even played my daily morning brain-wakening games for the past two days. On hearing about how bad the roads were/are due to the current ice rain, I am even happier that we did not have any reason to go anywhere today. 

Thus, the only real item to mention (aside from how fantastic Janelle's four different types cookies turned out) was that we decided to watch the sequel to Knives Out today. Although Rian Johnson's choices in The Last Jedi are still a deep frustration to me, I loved the movie Knives Out and was thus quite excited to see this sequel when it was announced. Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery released for a limited run in the theaters around Thanksgiving and came out on Netflix on my birthday. I wanted to see it before any part of it was spoiled for me (and managed to avoid spoilers on the Internet). 

It was certainly worth watching. If anything, Johnson (who wrote and directed this movie as he did for Knives Out and [grrr] The Last Jedi) made an even better movie with sharper humor, better developed characters, well-placed cameos, and excellent twists on the murder mystery genre. Somehow, he managed to do so while also providing an interesting glimpse into our world and its political climate. 

In short, it was an enjoyable cap to a wonderful day.

I hope that everyone had a merry Christmas and managed to find moments of joy in their day.

Due to our concern that our kittens would shred the Christmas presents, we did not put them out last night like we traditionally do. This meant that we also did not hold to the "don't wake us up until 7 AM" rule, as we still wanted to have the gifts under the tree before Rowen woke up--which we managed to barely accomplish by waking up at 5:30. I've been spending a good deal of the day yawning.

Everyone seems to enjoy their presents [I should really own stock in LEGO]. Personally, I have been entertained every time Janelle has jumped with surprise due to a notification from her new Apple watch. I had thought that she would have been used to such notifications due to her years of experience with FitBits, but apparently, the Apple watch's vibration is different enough to make her squeak in surprise.

We had a guest over for Christmas dinner who brought her dog and disabled cat to visit. The dogs were getting along fine until Starbuck managed to break off one of her claws. After that point, she was downright waspish towards our doggie visitor--especially when that visitor started playing with Starbuck's favorite ball. 

Due to Christmas falling on a Sunday, Janelle does not have to go in to work tomorrow as it is a paid holiday. This means that today was not as rushed as it can sometime be since she was able to put off making cookies until tomorrow. I'm not going to say no to cookies, but we still have the pumpkin pie from the previous Sunday's pie auction, some of my birthday cake, cinnamon rolls from this morning, the two pies that Janelle made today (lemon chess and dark chocolate meringue), and the assorted Christmas candies from our stockings. Still, she loves making the cookies, and they are quite delicious.

At present, I can hear someone in our neighborhood setting off fireworks, but I'm a bit partied out at the moment. I think that it's time to close the book on this first day of Christmas. I'm looking forward to the second. 

On display in the Rotunda of the U.S. Capitol is a painting of George Washington resigning his commission as commander-in-chief of the Continental Army. This painting stands in the Rotunda because it was a pivotal moment in our nation's history of becoming a nation (and happens to fall on my birthday). There were those who were calling on Washington to not only retain his command, but to take control of the failing government at the time. Years later, Washington would become the first President of the United States under its new Constitution, and again, he would peacefully step down from power after serving two terms rather than trying to serve for life.

While Washington was not perfect and certainly had plenty of faults, he understood the importance of stepping down from power, of becoming small. In doing so, he demonstrated his greatness. He served when it was needed, but he was willing to step down and trust in others to continue the great work that he had started.

Perhaps this seems like an odd posting for a Christmas Eve, it is tied directly to one of the messages of Christmas. In his homily, our pastor told us, "To be great is to be small." God humbled Himself by taking on human form and living a human life. He did so to make the world a better place, and after a time he trusted in us to continue His great work. 

In our own lives, improving the world around us often requires humility and a willingness to do what we can without hope of recognition. Will we, this Christmas, rededicate ourselves to making the world better without desiring greatness itself? Can we learn to recognize that greatness is truly achieved through humility and placing our trust in others? 

Merry Christmas.

Before anything else, I want to thank everyone wished me a happy birthday today. 

Forty-nine seems like a special number. It's seven (often considered a lucky number) squared. It also makes this my final year leading up to my half-century mark--a benchmark that does not seem to bother me as much as other people I know.

Today's birthday was rather low-key. In a sense, this was a throwback movie marathon as it only included three movies and thus did not require that I get up super early or late. This left me with time later in the day to play a bit of a couple of my games (Far Cry 6 and Tiny Tina's Wonderlands--which I'm playing with Rowen) and put together a couple bags from my new LEGO set: a Tallneck from Horizon Forbidden West. I may have also overindulged with snacks.

The Nolan Batman Trilogy was a great choice. Although the novelty of the movies has worn away, they are still a pleasure to watch and seem to have aged rather well. I even found myself enjoying the third movie more than I had on previous viewings. I suppose that it is easier to deal with its shortcomings now that I know that they exist. 

49, eh? That's a long time to be trapped with the maturity of a 16 year old. 

At this point, I'm not certain who (if anyone--aside from my younger sons, and I'm not even certain of that) will be attending my Birthday Marathon of Batman Movies. Regardless, we did a house cleaning just in case people decide to show. Aside from the standard cleaning, I also warmed up Scarlet (my ATV) and pushed back the snowy edges of our driveway with the intention of making more parking available--should it be needed.

I also ran a dump run, picked up our mail at the post office (thankfully, there weren't any package slips), and stopped by the store. I picked up sandwich fixings and some snacks for tomorrow. Again, I tend to go a bit overboard, but the good thing about doing a "fix-your-own sandwich bar" for a party is that the food is still good for a long time afterwards.

While I would be happy to have people attend, I am also just eager to see the Nolan Batman Trilogy all together. The first two movies are two of my favorite superhero movies, let alone Batman movie, with the second one making the list of one of my all-time favorite movies in any category. Even though the third movie does not quite measure up to the others, I still quite enjoy it; although, subtitles are mandatory for me to understand what Bane is saying.  

Currently, the schedule for tomorrow is:
9:30 AM - 11:50 PM        Batman Begins (2h 20m)
​12:00 PM - 2:35 PM        The Dark Knight (2h 32m)
  2:45 PM - 5:30 PM        The Dark Knight Rises (2h 44m)

It's strange that those extremely cold temperatures were technically in the Fall and that things warmed up a bit (about 30-40 degrees) with the start of winter. It makes me wonder what our winter will be like. I've heard multiple people say that the Farmer's Almanac has been predicting a lot of cold and snow for these next few month; so far, it's been right on target.

For the record, the sun rose at 10:11 AM and set again at 3:53 PM with the solstice landing at 12:47 PM (Alaska Standard Time). We are now set to regain the light that we have been losing since June. It will be nice when we leave the trend of going to work and arriving back home in the dark.

Today, I worked on small projects. I finished wrapping the presents (that I know of) and then went to Freddy's on two separate occasions: once with Rowen and once with Connor. We usually give them the chance to pick out presents for the other family members, but we usually don't wait this long. Both boys then wrapped the presents that they picked, albeit with a little guidance from me. 

I also used my roof shovel to knock snow off of a couple trees that were bending rather precariously. I hope the effort helps them survive the winter. I didn't quite have the will to work on the roofs themselves. However, I did move the StarLink wire so that it is no longer in the path of the roof runoff from the garage or the arctic entryway. Additionally, I spent time liberating the country of Yara from its autocratic dictator Antón Castillo in Far Cry 6 (not so small of a project).

Tomorrow will be the final house cleaning before my BiM BaM (Birthday Marathon of Batman Movies). I plan on starting up Scarlet and pushing some of the snow edges back a bit more for parking purposes. I will make one more run to the store to pick up lunch meat and snacks for the food browsing. Finally, I need to practice with the guitar so that I have the music ready for Saturday's 5 PM mass. We are nearly ready for the festivities to begin.

I'm hoping that this will be my last post on my StarLink situation for a while. A day after my adventure with the trees, StarLink finally admitted that our dish was free from obstructions. The connectivity was still a bit spotty, but it was clearly running more consistently, so I decided to hook in my Linksys Velop WiFi mesh system into the StarLink router.

A WiFi mesh system uses multiple nodes to spread a WiFi network over a larger area. Because our house is a good size and has twisting hallways, a WiFi signal has difficulty pushing its signal from one side of the house to the other. With the mesh, we have six nodes placed strategically around the house that "talk" to each other and extend the WiFi so one can get a good signal from anywhere in the house. Most of our devices are already connected to that network (called Firefly--after the show), so I figured it would be nice to keep them on the same network albeit with a different connection to the Internet.

I moved the "parent" node from the office (where our ASC Internet comes in) to the garage (where our StarLink router was located); it needs to be directly connected to the router with an ethernet cord. I then had to reset each of the "child" nodes around the house. Already, I could tell that it wasn't working quite how I wanted it to. I felt that part of the problem was that it was sharing WiFi signal with the StarLink's built-in WiFi network, so I used the app to set the StarLink router to "bridge" mode.

We clearly had a connection, but it was not as strong as it should have been with my phone only getting download speeds of about 3 to 4 MPS when I checked Internet speed test sites. I rebooted the network and had it scan its channels for faster access, but with no real improvement. The only other thing I could think of was that the parent node was too far removed from the rest of the network as it was sitting in the garage--even if that hadn't been much of a factor for the StarLink's internal WiFi. As it was dark (and cold), I decided to wait to make that change until Monday.

On Monday, I--with some help from the boys--moved the StarLink router and Linksys parent node from the garage to the living room with the cord from the satellite dish attached to the eaves of the garage and arctic entryway before entering the house through an upstairs window. I still need to do a bit of adjustment to make it so the cord--which is hanging between the two buildings--is not in an area where the snow from the roof can fall and hit it. Unfortunately, even this physical change had little effect on the signal. I set the PS5 up to download a game (the free update of The Witcher 3 to the PS5 version) to test its signal, but it was only downloading at about 6 to 7 MPS. In comparison, Ghost of Tsushima's update had downloaded at 10 times that speed, albeit spottily. Meanwhile, my phone was now only getting about 1 MPS or less. It tried another reboot and channel scan, but I was pretty frustrated. I decided to sleep on the problem and either have a solution in the morning or to switch to StarLink's internal WiFi.

Sleeping on a problem often leads to a solution. In this case, this morning I noticed that the Linksys parent node was registering download speeds well over 100 MPS (at times about 200 MPS), but the PS5 was still downloading at that consistent 6 to 7 MPS and my phone was still low. This suggested that there was something in the Linksys Velop system that was causing the problem. Sure enough, I had prioritized the PS5 and a couple of other devices to make certain that our streaming videos would not get as interrupted when we were on the slower ACS service. Linksys had kept it locked at those low levels, dishing out bandwidth based on an average download speed of 7 MPS. The moment I turned the prioritizing section off, the floodgates opened. The PS5--which had said it had 10 hours of downloading still to go--finished the download in 20 minutes. My phone was speed testing above 20 MPS.

Now, I would like to say that everything is golden; however, even though the WiFi mesh system is running smoothly, we are still having some issues with StarLink itself. It has been MUCH more consistent in the past 48 hours, but just today I had a two-hour blackout which only ended half an hour after I rebooted the system. While it's been purring along nicely for the past two hours, just before then we had a section of about an hour where it was "searching" for about 75% of the time. 

StarLink says that those disconnections will happen less and less as they launch more and more satellites. They predict to have it running completely smoothly by this summer. For now, it is good enough--and we have our phones as backups--that I'm going to give ACS a call tomorrow to end their service with us. 

As mentioned in today's homily, the readings talked about the signs of Christ's arrival. I cannot help but think about one of my favorite, underrated rom-coms: Fools Rush In. In it, the idea of signs being everywhere shows up multiple times. In the end, it's only when Alex (Matthew Perry's character) embraces that idea that he finds the determination to make his relationship with Isabel (Salma Hayek's character) work. Sure, it's just a movie--and a fairly cheesy one at that (but I still love it). Still, one of my favorite lines comes from a random priest who initially says, "There are signs everywhere." When Alex questions him, the priest elaborates: "You look lost. There are signs everywhere to help you find your way."

I do believe that God gives us signs of both encouragement and warning in our lives. I have felt this deeply in my own life. Sadly, there have been times when I deliberately turned away from the signs given because it wasn't how I wanted things to go. In fact, I encountered that just yesterday when cutting down trees. The pain in my leg is a direct consequence of my overall impatience and specific refusal to acknowledge the signs I was receiving.

We often ignore the signs in our lives out of stubbornness, but we sometimes do so out of fear. I've received plenty of signs that I need to embrace a healthier lifestyle, but my fear of the work that it will take often holds me back. Sometimes, we ignore other signs of poor health as though by not acknowledging the problem, we can pretend that it doesn't exist. 

I've also missed signs because I was too wrapped up in the business of my own life and problems. Perhaps this is the reason why nearly all philosophies about being more satisfied with life suggest that we slow down and take the time to observe what is happening in the present moment. I suppose that is precisely what the season of Advent is about: taking the time to look at the signs around us.

I know that I'm spending too much time on this topic, but I really do want it to work. We just cannot afford to keep paying for two Internet plans, but right now we have the tortoise (Alaska Communications' DSL) and the hare (StarLink's dish). The tortoise is slow--it took a while for this blog to even open up--but it is largely dependable. The hare is fast--it downloaded 60 GB in just a few hours (as opposed to days)--but often loses its connection--just a few hours ago, it was "searching" for over 50 minutes.

This morning, I took down the offending trees that were leading to its "partial obstruction." It was -8 (Fahrenheit), and I had to spend about half an hour shoveling a path to the four trees that I was targeting--a process that included shoveling steps on both side of the snow berm left by the front-end-loader that had cleared our driveway on Monday. I planned out the order that I would take down the tree based on both their locations and the directions that I expected them to fall.

The first tree was a black spruce whose branches had intertwined with the birch tree that was my primary target for this hunt. It's trunk was already tilting in the direction I wanted, but it's "hug" made it so that it not only didn't fall at all, but it trapped my chain saw's bar and blade. I disconnected the bar from the body of the saw, trudged back to the garage, put on a backup bar and blade, trudged back, and then cut down the birch. It, too was leaning in the correct direction, so the two tree fell down together--right where I wanted them. I retrieved the bar and blade that I had left.

I then moved to the third tree. This one was smaller in width but taller, and also seemed to be leaning in the direction that I wanted it to fall. Unfortunately, as I was making the final cut, the tree decided to tip in my direction. I heard a snap and felt it grab my chain saw blade. I immediately let go of the chainsaw and ran down the path that I had shoveled which happened to be near a tree that had fallen on its own years ago. I didn't take the time to look behind me, but I could hear the tree falling faster in my direction, so I dove into the snow next to the fallen tree with the hope that it could stop the other tree from crushing me. Just then, the tree fell just a few feet to my right, leaving me mostly unscathed. I say "mostly," because while diving, I landed on a hidden branch and injuring my left thigh--even though I haven't seen a bruise, it's feels like I hit it pretty hard.

I looked back and couldn't see my chainsaw. After a bit of digging, I found it under the tree that had just fallen. With some more digging, I was able to extricate it and was gratified to find that it still worked. I needed it as the tree had fallen over two places of my meandering snow trench. 

I decided to still take on the fourth tree despite being injured and feeling a bit shaken. This one was also clearly leaning in the direction that I wanted it to fall. However, once again, it fell 90 degrees from my intended landing--this time directly away from me. This was actually a more fortunate falling as, with where the last tree had landed, I would have had to do even more cutting to get back to my paths, but this way I didn't have to.

I then rebooted StarLink. We won't have its "map" of obstructions until tomorrow, but I'm already a bit concerned. As I noted above, it's still going on those long "searching" runs. That said--and this might just be my imagination--it has seemed more stable when it's been up today.

Today felt a little anti-climatic since the school day sort of fizzled away rather than having a more defined ending. It just doesn't quite feel like we are about to begin a slightly more than two week break. Perhaps Christmas still being over a week away contributes to this sense of unreality.

There are a few things that I want to accomplish in these two weeks:

I have two movie marathons set up: My birthday marathon of Batman movies (on the 23rd) and a random marathon of Underworld movies (on the 28th). 

I want to see the Jacks for our annual New Year's celebration. 

I would like to play through the majority--if not the entirety--of a video game.

I want to restart an exercise habit--at least for the break.

I plan on cutting down the trees that are "obstructing" my StarLink. On further examination, I believe that the dish is in the best possible position on my property with the trees as they are. Figuring out how to place it on my house might give it more height, but it also puts it closer to even more trees. Thus, the only real solution (at the moment) is to remove the two or three trees responsible for that bit of obstruction.

I might try to remove some of the snow from our roofs.

I want to have the five different courses that I teach planned out for at least the next quarter--if not the next semester. In particular, I have new materials that I want to create for my AP World class. My plan is to spend at least one day at the school so I can do this with the materials right at hand and a minimum of distractions. 

I want to get in another D&D session on January 2nd. 

Sleep.

Of course we have the Christmas masses (and music) to prepare and enjoy.

Already, two weeks doesn't seem like enough time.