Done

** 10:32 Sunday, 14 December 2025**

Current Wx: Temp: 14.49°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 65% Wind: 12.86mph Words: 87

The sun was still behind the hill when I went out to the garage for some more screws. I thought the little ripples made by the windblown snow covering the tracks of where I turn around with the Maverick looked cool. It’s not enough snow to pay $50 to get the driveway plowed, but it sure looks pretty.

Inserts are all done. Call Mom in a few minutes, get some lunch and then maybe there’s a Tinderbox meetup at noon.

It’s a beautiful day in the neighborhood.

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Windows

** 07:36 Sunday, 14 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 13.69°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 72% Wind: 10.98mph Words: 467

Yesterday morning’s project turned out to be a most of the day project. We got the six large windows finished, we have two smaller, square windows to do this morning. The good news seems to be that we think we can already feel the difference.

Everything looks easier on YouTube, but it wasn’t hard. I tried a shortcut and just pre-drilled for the screws without counter-sinking. Since I was screwing into the thin side of the board, the screw heads split the wood. Oh well, lesson learned. Back out to the garage, brought in the counter-sink drill bits.

The trickiest part is getting the measurements just right. I knew I had to subtract a bit to account for the weather-stripping. We were using ⅜" thick foam, which would suggest ¾" reduction, not taking into consideration some compression for sealing, and a tight fit within the window. I ended up subtracting 7/16" though I probably could have gotten a good seal with ½".

They were all a tight fit. On the first window we did, I had to remove the foam from one of the long sides to get it into the frame, and I can feel a little bit of a draft near the top on the side, but it’s still loads better than it was before. That was the prototype with the cracked end of one board.

We also learned that every window was different, and the furring strips weren’t always perfectly straight; but the weather-stripping allows for a certain amount of variation.

Mitzi applied the shrink wrap. I’m not convinced it shrinks much, if at all. She used an 1800 watt hair dryer, and I couldn’t detect any tightening. She’s convinced it does. But you can see through it pretty well and know what’s going on outside. I wouldn’t try to take a picture through it, but I didn’t like shooting through the glass either, so no loss.

The worst part was that I spent a lot of time bent over, cutting, drilling and screwing and my lower back wasn’t happy. But after we did the first one, I figured out that I could cut both of the boards at the same time, which saved a lot of bending. The drilling was the worst, because I had to get low to make sure the bit was going in straight at the right spot on a narrow target. I could screw them together pretty much standing up, as the holes guided the screws.

Two more square windows to knock out and we should be better off.

The temperature above is correct for our location (it’s often a degree or two off), and we got about an inch or so of snow last night. It’s sunny and everything’s beautiful.

The beat goes on...

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One Step Up, Two Steps Sideways

** 07:57 Saturday, 13 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 20.88°F Pressure: 1016hPa Humidity: 84% Wind: 10.89mph Words: 1095

The external keyboard and trackpad arrived yesterday. It was a FedEx delivery, and they usually get here around 1700, so I had the lights on outside and kept the window shades open so I could see the truck backing up the driveway.

By 1845, there had been no delivery and so I started checking the status. Amazingly, or not I guess, you can’t check the status of an order from the Apple Store app on your phone. Because why would you want to, right? So I had to use Safari on the iPhone, and the store doesn’t give you tracking, you have to click on the tracking number, which takes you to the FedEx site. So convenient.

There, it reported the package as "delivered," to our address, with a photo of a box in the snow. The snow?!

Fortunately, they did include the gps coordinates, so you could look on a Google Maps view in the browser. That’s another horrible UI experience on the phone. After managing to get the scale such that I could figure out where that location was in relation to my house, I learned that it was up the road from here and I knew exactly what had happened.

Our address is 3740 South Hill Road. I have a neighbor up the road at 3470 South Hill Road. I discovered that when I made a typo that caused my SmallRig grip for the OM-3 to be delivered to my neighbor.

This was not a typo. This was apparently a different FedEx driver from the one that usually delivers here, who transposed the numbers in his head when finding the house.

So I got bundled up, jumped in the Mav and went up the road to visit my neighbor, who had been to our place today because the mail carrier accidentally delivered a piece of our mail to her address. I really need to get her number. Anyway, it’s very dark around here at night, so I was watching carefully so as not to pass her house. I needn’t have worried, she had all the lights on.

But I didn’t need to stop in at all. As I drove up the road, I saw my box lying there in the snow next to her mailbox.

Well done, FedEx.

I collected the box and headed back home.

So this morning I tried setting everything up. Oy! 🤦🏻‍♂️

As it *was *configured, my 14" MBP was on the top of the workbench/desk, with the 27" Benq monitor on a stand behind and above it. When I was on Zoom, the camera on the MBP was always looking up into my nostrils. Yech.

I thought I could put the MBP on the same stand with the Benq and still use the camera from the MBP. Turns out, not so much. I’ve got it kind of kludged up that way right now, with the MBP to the right of the Benq. But the stand isn’t wide enough, or deep enough, to accommodate the MBP in a way that allows me to view the entire screen. As it is right now, the left edge of the MBP screen is obscured by the Benq.

Worse, the Benq speakers are trash, so I’ve been using the speakers in the MBP which are remarkably good for a laptop. With the MBP beneath the Benq, audio aligned very well with video and life was good. With the laptop to the right of the monitor, the speakers are now to the right of the main screen and the "soundstage" doesn’t align with the video.

Oh well, I use my AirPods half the time anyway. I guess I’ll use them all the time now.

Possibly worse, I haven’t typed on one of these Apple wireless keyboards in a long time. I used one with the 2019 27" iMac for a few years before I bought a MacAlly wired mechanical keyboard. I found that I did enjoy using the mechanical keyboard more than the Apple keyboard. But since we’ve moved up here, I’ve been typing exclusively on the MBP keyboard, and that has been a positive experience. No complaints at all.

I wanted the external keyboard so that I could use adjustable height feature of this workbench/desk as a standing desk. It worked fairly well with the laptop, but it was awkward to use the trackpad that way, and I couldn’t get the MBP situated just the right way to make typing comfortable. It only had a couple of inches of space behind it and the shelf for the Benq. I thought the external keyboard would allow me to position it to make typing while standing more comfortable, and use of the trackpad easier and more comfortable.

Well, I haven’t tried standing yet, I’m still trying to figure out if this sitting configuration is going to work for me. Right now, I’m not sure. I find I’m hitting these keys pretty hard, and they bottom out very quickly. I think they have less travel than even the MBP keyboard. So it’s really kind of uncomfortable for my fingers.

I’m hoping I’ll adapt to this and develop a lighter touch fairly quickly. The mechanical keyboard is in a box somewhere in storage, and I wasn’t looking forward to another wire on this desk anyway. Especially if I was going to try to mount the IIgs below the desk and keep its keyboard (and coiled wire) stashed beneath the monitor stand when not in use.

So I’m kind of limping along right now. Probably should have left well enough alone. But I’m not giving up yet. I ordered a laptop stand with a smaller base that might fit well on this monitor stand. That might allow me to move the MBP a bit more to the right, revealing all the screen, and angle it a little better.

Surprisingly, as it is currently configured, the MBP screen is right in the sweet spot for the middle-distance vision in my graduated lenses. Even though the text is pretty small, and fairly distant, I can read it clearly enough to hit the targets on the user interface. The MBP is a secondary screen, and most of the time I use it with the Forklift screen visible, and for Messages and Settings.

That’s probably more than enough about all that. Maybe a pic later, once I get everything put away. And we’ve got window inserts to make today too, so we’ll see if I get back to this today.

In the meantime, the beat goes on...

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This Is (Frozen) Water

** 13:46 Friday, 12 December 2025**

Current Wx: Temp: 29.59°F Pressure: 1017hPa Humidity: 63% Wind: 10.42mph Words: 455

This was a fairly productive morning, though not exactly in the way I might have hoped.

We’re going to make some plastic inserts to go into the window frames to add another layer of still air between the glass and the interior of the house. This video at YouTube is what we have in mind. Of course, it seldom goes as easily as a YouTube video, but I think I can work it out.

We bought a bunch of 8-foot 2x1 furring strips, trying to pick out the straightest we could find. They’ll all twist and warp anyway. They’re in the house right now, acclimating to the temperature and humidity. We’ll know how bad off we are tomorrow.

It’s too cold to work in the garage, so we’ll be cutting and screwing them together in the house. I’ll use the jigsaw so the sawdust doesn’t fly as much, and I’m less likely to chop off a finger. That’ll be tomorrow morning’s project.

We were going to pass through Montour Falls on our way home, (We went to Lowes in Elmira, rather than Home Depot in Ithaca. Change of scenery.) and I wanted to stop and see the falls. The result is above. Pretty damn cool, I think. Pun kind of intended.

Before we got to the falls, we passed by Jerlando’s Pizza and you could smell it even with the windows rolled up in the Maverick. So that’s where we went for lunch!

It’s a beautiful day, and warmed up quite a bit from the 13°F this morning. It’s 30°F out there now.

Kind of following up on the 12-11-25 post, it was very pleasant to read this in the local news feed:

The list showcases Watkins Glen, Montour Falls, Canandaigua, Aurora, Geneva, Penn Yan, Skaneateles, Trumansburg, Hammondsport, Seneca Falls and Corning. Each was selected for its scenic beauty, historic character, outdoor recreation and calm small-town atmosphere.

After lunch, we stopped in Watkins to visit a thrift store going out of business. I bought a couple of pair of blue jeans that were practically brand new. Not sure I can squeeze into them, but at $1.25 a pair, I thought it was worth a shot. Also bought a couple of what appear to be Moscow Mule mugs. I need to do some more investigation on them. One is in better shape than the other, but each has a little sentiment scratched into the bottom. $1.50 each.

Then a quick stop at Walmart for some milk, granola and dark chocolate, and back up the hill to Winterfell. Now I’m overdue for my nap!

The beat that can be counted is not the beat, but it goes on just the same.

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Gruber Makes Me Want to Puke (Sometimes)

** 21:52 Thursday, 11 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 19.22°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 69% Wind: 13.85mph Words: 346

I haven’t been subscribed to Daring Fireball for several years now. But I do subscribe to 512 Pixels, which is where I occasionally encounter Gruber, and did so today.

I knew the State Department font kerfuffle would eventually make its way into the blogosphere, populated as it is by many "design" esthetes, Gruber being among the most prominent. All of which would normally mean that I wouldn’t bother to click through to Daring Fireball, except Hackett quotes Gruber, "It seems clear to me that The New York Times did Rubio dirty in their characterization of the directive."

Since he had the entire memo, because why wouldn’t he? I clicked through to see how the Times was unfair to Little Marco.

Apart from the fact that it would be hysterically funny if it weren’t so tragically sad that Trump’s State Department is supposedly concerned about, "the authority and solemnity of written text," it’s mostly just a bunch of bullshit bureaucratese that appeals only to these esthetes.

Was the Times unfair to Rubio? Gruber writes,

Rubio’s memo wasn’t merely “mostly framed as a matter of clarity and formality in presentation”. That’s entirely what the memo is about.

Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.

But thanks for sharing the memo, because that’s where you’ll find this:

And although switching to Calibri was not among the Department’s most illegal, immoral, radical, or wasteful instances of DEIA (see, e.g., Executive Orders 14151, 14173, 14281, and Memorandum on Removing Discrimination and Discriminatory Equity Ideology From the Foreign Service (DCPD202500375)) it was nonetheless cosmetic.

Kind of puts the lie to Gruber’s assertion that clarity and formality were "*entirely what the memo was about." *And again, anything from the Trump administration about morality would just be laughable if it weren’t so offensive.

I’m not going to suggest that Gruber is a fascist. I have no idea; but I do know that a certain horrifying fascist regime was fixated on "design." Symbols.

I mean, Hugo Boss designed their uniforms.

So while Gruber may not be a fascist, he certainly shares something rather significant in common with them.

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Behold! The Power of Sharing!

** 11:54 Thursday, 11 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 22.08°F Pressure: 1007hPa Humidity: 71% Wind: 14.36mph Words: 475

Found something else interesting in the feed-reader this morning. ldstephens shared a link to David Sparks’ update to his AppleScript, um, script, that copies the URL of an email message to the clipboard. That’s the core element to the email entry script in my Tinderbox file, Captain’s Log.

I wondered what might have changed, so I clicked through to MacSparky and read the script. At first, I didn’t think it really added much to what I was already doing; but further reflection suggested some improvements.

As the script was previously written, I had two dialogs to respond to after launching the script. The first created the $Name of the entry, and the second created the $Text. So I had two cognitive tasks to dispose of before logging an email, one of which was creating a title, and that’s often a challenge for me. Certainly it’s a pause in the workflow.

Using David’s script, I made the subject line of the email the $Name of the note, which eliminated one dialog. Then I added a few lines to add the sender to the $DisplayedAttributes. In Tinderbox, I created a new $Prototype, "p_Email" for recording email log entries. That’s where I created $Sender as a $DisplayedAttribute in that $Prototype.

Up until now, all entries shared the same $Prototype, "p_Entry" with the same $DisplayedAttributes. But an email entry is unique enough to merit its own $Prototype.

As it works now, I select the Mail to Log script from the FastScripts menu. I’m presented with one dialog, which is a note to myself about why I want to remember this email, then AppleScript and Tinderbox do all the rest.

This was also worthwhile from the standpoint that I needed something to kind of renew my interest in noodling around in Tinderbox. Last month I volunteered to kind of shepherd a community effort to develop a Tinderbox file for users of some level of experience that would identify ideas that might be called "best practices."

Well that got derailed by someone who objects to the superlative "best," because there are any number of "practices" one might use profitably in Tinderbox, and who am I to name this or that one "best"? Which then prompted some commentary about users and the next thing you know, it’s like, What’s the point?

Well, this, is kind of the point.

So we’re (I’m?) going to re-brand the effort to something more along the lines of "Tips and Tricks," or "Secrets of the Tinderbox Obsessives." I just needed something to get the sour taste out of my mouth.

And I need something to distract me from the way this faithless, immoral leadership is abusing our armed forces in a dishonorable program of murder, and the fact that the retired leadership of the armed forces seems incapable of rousing itself to object.

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12-11-25

** 08:28 Thursday, 11 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 17.87°F Pressure: 1006hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 13.42mph Words: 841

Because I can’t think of a title. Rather, I think of too many of them, and they all sound like bullshit.

Anyway, here I am.

I’ve been thinking about the guys who’ve been deployed in the Caribbean since at least September, missing Halloween, Thanksgiving, football season, and probably Christmas and New Year’s soon. All to blow up some small boats and kill about 80-some little men, without any authority from Congress. There’s undoubtedly a "legal" justification from Trump’s "lawyers" who will rationalize anything the Mad Orange King wants to do, in the context of a Supreme Court that has ruled that the "Unitary Executive" is the de-facto King of the United States. Awesome. So proud of their service.

I guess we’ve seized a tanker now too. Winning!

But that’s "service to your nation" in 2025. Killing people as spectacle. Posting the murders on social media, except when we think it might be a little embarrassing. I’m sure that video of the two guys being murdered in the re-strike was shared by that adolescent Hegseth on Signal with his "lethality"-porn homies. But he won’t share it with the American people.

I can’t believe more people aren’t pissed off about it, but that’s 2025 too. We all just shrug our shoulders and say, "Well, what can you do?"

Pretty chilly up here in Winterfell. Thought we were done with the Florida house, but our real estate agent mistakenly packed up the rotisserie equipment for the outdoor grill to ship up to us, along with a couple of pictures we somehow left hanging on the wall, the security camera and an AppleTV that was intended to act as the HomeKit hub, except I never set it up that way before we moved (almost) everything out in September. Now we have to ship the rotisserie stuff back to the new owners. All we wanted the agent to do was leave it on the island so the new owners could find it. It was tucked away pretty well in the pantry.

"No good deed..." and so on.

I’ve got to go to Home Depot and get some wood to make some window frame inserts we can attach that plastic sheeting that shrinks when you heat it with a blow-dryer. Creates another insulating layer between the interior of the house and the glass. We put some up with tape in front of the sliding glass door this morning. It’s not pretty, but it should help make a difference.

It’s interesting. We left Florida partly because of the insanity, but also because of the extreme weather events. And my early investigation into what the climate was like up here these days showed that snow and cold weren’t the ever-present feature they once were. We arrived in June at the beginning of hurricane season, and Florida didn’t have any hurricanes this year! And, of course, we’ve been getting polar’ed in the vortex up here all this month.

It’s ok. It won’t always be like this. The snow has made everything very pretty. I’m just disinclined to be outside as much, and working in the garage is pretty much a non-starter. I’ll look into installing a mini-split in the garage soon.

Not much going on in the blogosphere that seems noteworthy, but this is a nice piece that captures some of what we hope to be about up here. It’s early days, so we’re kind of light on the "community" piece, but we enjoy shopping locally. There’s a little place in Burdett called the Burdett Exchange, or just BEX for short, and it carries local goods. It’s pricey, but we think of it as investing in community and we’re privileged enough to be able to afford that investment.

We went to the Ithaca Farmers’ Market on Saturday and bought some ham hocks, bacon, collards, kale and spinach and a huge glass jar of buckwheat honey. It was supposedly only in the 30s, but it felt colder than that! They’ll be closing at the end of the month, but BEX is open year round. And there’s Crosswinds Farm and Creamery, not far from here.

When we’re not buying locally (EcoFlow batteries and so on), the FedEx guy now calls me "captain". He’s a navy veteran and we chatted a bit one day when he saw me wearing my Naval Academy sweatshirt. (I pretty much live in that thing these days.)

The watershed protection guy will be here this Tuesday to look at the property and give us some insight into where we can build on this piece of land. Apparently our current septic tank is sized for a two-bedroom home, which would be inadequate if we build a two-bedroom home on the property.

We need to understand this constraint to know how to site the new place, and what kind of footprint/floor plan might work within those constraints. Another septic system is a significant expense we’d hoped to avoid, but that’s how these things go.

And the beat goes on...

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Stand-up Guy

** 10:47 Wednesday, 10 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 31.59°F Pressure: 996hPa Humidity: 86% Wind: 16.6mph Words: 148

I spend too much time on this computer, seated in an office chair. So today I used the adjustable height feature and cranked it up enough to use it as a stand-up desk. I’m writing this on it now.

I’m not sure how much I like it as a writing platform. I’ve ordered a new wireless keyboard and trackpad, because I think it’ll lower the typing surface just enough, and allow me more flexibility in terms of where it’s located on the desk, to make it more comfortable than just typing on the MBP keyboard. I’m certain the trackpad will be more comfortable.

It’s windy and cold here, though warmer than it’s been in a few days. It’s supposed to get colder again. Lows in the teens, highs approaching 30°. I’m not complaining. Still adapting, but not complaining.

Well, that’s probably more than enough about all that.

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Duty of Care

** 05:11 Sunday, 7 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 30.06°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 97% Wind: 4.61mph Words: 1025

I have been criticizing the retired flag officer community in general, and retired ADM James Stavridis in particular, in comments on YouTube videos where he appears. Most recently, this one.

The reason for my criticism is because our country, that is to say, you and I, have a duty of care to ensure that the men and women who volunteer to serve us, our country, are not compelled to endure moral injury through the faithless exploitation of their service.

There’s a lot to unpack here, it’s important, and I don’t happen to think that it should fall to me, a retired O-5 with only 22 years of active duty service to try and educate you about something you probably know nothing about. I never achieved high rank, I never commanded thousands of men and women, I never walked the halls of power where the decisions to deploy and exercise combat power, to "kill people and break things," as our juvenile SECDEF would say, are made.

That doesn’t mean I don’t know or understand the concept of "duty of care," it just means that I am perhaps not the most authoritative voice to write or speak on it.

Why should anyone listen to me? I never had stars on my shoulders.

But these flag officers are silent, and the duty of care we owe our armed forces is being ignored. This is a grievous failure, a profound breach of trust. It shames all of us.

And it’s past time we began to talk about it.

Morality is a fraught concept. To the extent that it’s discussed in the public sphere, it’s used to divide us, rather than to find common ground in a search for "the good," in questions confronting our society.

"Moral injury," is a wound that a person suffers when they feel as though they have violated their own deeply held moral beliefs. This is part of the justification offered by intolerant people who don’t wish to decorate cakes for gay wedding couples, and for health care workers who would rather withhold medical treatment from women than to offer care to women seeking to end a pregnancy.

That’s quite a spectrum, from the trivial cake decorator to a doctor or a nurse confronting a patient seeking to terminate a pregnancy. It certainly extends farther than that, where you have members of the military being ordered to kill men in small boats, simply because they’re carrying drugs.

Now, someone is going to get all upset about the use of the modifier "simply," there. It doesn’t matter. Bear with me.

Presumably, in this country, there still remains a moral belief that it is wrong to kill. I say "presumably," because the NY Times recently interviewed some Trump voters, members of the "pro-life" party, and many of them seem pretty bloodthirsty to me. Here’s a link that’ll get you to the story, even if you’re not a subscriber. It’s not very long, but it’s very troubling. Here’s a taste:

“They should have done that strike regardless,” she said. “Every human being does have value, but if you’re caught up in something that’s very detrimental to society, I think that you should die.”

Let that one sink in for a while.

This is perhaps a result of the media diet they consume. In an opinion piece in the NY Times, which I strongly commend to your attention, Phil Klay writes:

The president’s supporters seem to grasp this. Fox News’s Jesse Watters responded with utter incredulity that the United States would offer quarter to an enemy. “We’re blowing up terrorists in the Caribbean,” he said on Monday, “but we’re supposed to rescue them from drowning if they survive?” Others went further. “I really do kind of not only want to see them killed in the water, whether they’re on the boat or in the water,” Megyn Kelly, the conservative podcaster, said, “but I’d really like to see them suffer. I would like Trump and Hegseth to make it last a long time so they lose a limb and bleed out.”

Seriously, read the whole thing, as we used to say back in the day.

I’m going to give you one more piece of homework, and ask you to read this piece by David French, which includes this paragraph:

Trump has put the military in an impossible situation. He’s making its most senior leaders complicit in his unlawful acts, and he’s burdening the consciences of soldiers who serve under his command. One of the great moral values of congressional declarations of war is that they provide soldiers with the assurance that the conflict has been debated and that their deployment is a matter of national will.

French alludes to moral injury when he writes of "burdening the consciences."

Moral injury is real, and it has genuine consequences.

People often regard military service as a duty, "a moral or legal obligation," to one’s country. But that works both ways, and the reciprocal duty is seldom discussed apart from the seemingly ubiquitous notion that service members are owed gratitude.

"Thank you for your service."

We don’t get off the hook that easy. We also have a duty of care, an obligation to uphold the trust placed in us when a person takes an oath of military service. Trust that their service will be used in honorable ways. Keeping faith with the values we supposedly share.

We have ignored our duty, and in so doing we are inflicting moral injury, wounds to the souls of our sons and daughters in uniform. We elected an immoral leader as president, appointed an incompetent person as Secretary of Defense, and surrendered the authority of the Congress to act as a check on the office of the president. We have abandoned our sons and daughters’ souls to the greed and ambition of men not fit to polish their boots.

Shame on us.

And shame on the retired flag officers, who probably understand all of this as well as I do and probably better, for not speaking out. For not educating the public about our duty to safeguard the moral integrity of our soldiers and sailors.

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Yelling at Clouds

** 06:12 Saturday, 6 December 2025**

Current Wx: Temp: 22.82°F Pressure: 1013hPa Humidity: 83% Wind: 6.26mph Words: 907

It’s impossible to know what effect, if any, personal writing on the web has on the world at large. Or even at smaller scales. "Social media," is less uncertain in my mind. Its effect seems undeniably corrosive.

For a long time, I thought that it may have some positive effect by adding to a "net vector sum" of the zeitgeist, or "public opinion." Now I believe the only real value is some small personal satisfaction that I wasn’t silent.

"About what," you ask? Well, climate change, the Iraq War, Donald Trump the First, Donald Trump the Second, using the United States military as a mercenary force for conducting extra-judicial killings, stuff like that. And since all of those things keep going on anyway, it’s mostly been just a pointless effort in futility.

Which isn’t much of an antidote to the profound sense of despair that is constantly threatening to overtake me.

It’s hard to quantify the degree to which Donald Trump and the fascist, white-nationalist, reactionary incompetents that surround him are accelerating the collapse of this civilization.

But we only have moments to live, so it’s probably wise to try to live them in the moment, rather than focus on the unmistakable trajectory hurtling us toward catastrophe.

In that vein, some lighter notes.

We were guests at my wife’s daughter and son-in-law’s Thanksgiving, and their other guests were a couple who had met a Kenyon College. I asked them if they were familiar with David Foster Wallace’s commencement address, now popularly known as the essay, "This Is Water."

Not only were they familiar, they were present. They also knew one of the students on the speaker selection committee and felt as though they had some role in encouraging his selection, the other candidate being John Glenn.

So that was pretty cool, in a "six degrees of separation"-adjacent sort of way.

Selling the Florida house has genuinely given me some sense of relief. We split the proceeds, and since we don’t have a project for the new house underway at the moment, we put our respective sums to work doing other things. In my case, I paid off the Maverick, so I own my truck now; and should I shuffle off this mortal coil anytime soon, it’ll pass to my kids without a lot of unnecessary paperwork and financial rigamarole. I was also paying 4.03% interest on it, so that’s also a net gain. I stuck the balance in a 10-month CD at 4.07% interest, expecting/hoping that that aligns with our new house, whatever that may be.

I have been distracting myself playing around with retro-computing, specifically either with my Apple IIc or in Virtual ][ on the MacBook Pro. It recalls a more innocent time, when computers kind of promised a better future. To the extent that they have, I suppose it’s mostly behind the scenes as part of the infrastructure in things like MRI machines and CAT scans, emission controls in internal combustion engines, and navigation systems. In terms of the "personal" nature of "personal computing," I’m less convinced.

Anyway, I’ve been trying to figure out how I can use some actual hardware in my constrained environment here. I can use the IIc, but I have to store it in the closet when it’s not in use because it occupies the same space as the MacBook Pro on the desk. That kind of mitigates against spontaneous "play." It’s also not ideally situated for typing on it in that configuration.

But I recently bought a ROM 3 Apple IIgs that looks to be in pretty good shape. I haven’t actually turned it on, because there are some filter capacitors in the power supply, known as RIFA capacitors from the manufacturer’s name, which have a propensity to fail and expel a significant quantity of smelly gas popularly referred to in "the community" as "magic smoke." Since we’re in a confined space, it would be inconsiderate to risk that indoors here, so I need to open up the power supply and remove those capacitors, which I haven’t done yet.

But what makes the IIgs a candidate for retro-computing play in this confined space is that it was the only "modular" Apple II, with a detached keyboard. So it occurs to me that I could mount the computer vertically on a piece of plywood, and make a kind of shelf/bracket arrangement to rest on the rigid metal cross-beam that connect the legs of this workbench-cum-desk. The I/O connectors are all in the backplane, which would then be at the top of the computer, so I could connect to the HDMI port of the 27" Benq monitor, while the keyboard could sit under the monitor stand when it’s not in use, not interfering with the MacBook Pro.

There are mass storage solutions that don’t require connecting a floppy disk drive to the machine, and I have a number of them, which eliminates another space requirement. So all this seems rather doable. I need to figure out whether I want to conceal the machine behind the mounting board, or have it exposed so I can use the power button. That would be visually unappealing. I think I can conceal it, the power cord, and the keyboard cable and use a power strip with a switch on it to turn the computer on and off. Something to think about anyway.

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Free At Last

** 11:20 Friday, 5 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 18.59°F Pressure: 1022hPa Humidity: 66% Wind: 11.74mph Words: 133

The sale of our Florida house closed. Deleted four home automation apps, the gate access app, downloaded the lifetime data for the Powerwalls and deleted the Tesla app. Deleted the IQ Fiber app.

Canceled the homeowner’s policy. On a whim, asked about the flood insurance. They transferred me to another desk and it turns out that I was (happily) wrong. So we’re getting about $900 back from that premium, which was an unexpected surprise.

And in the vein of "irony is the fifth fundamental force of the universe":

**Mission accomplished. **

(IYKYK)

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Out the Front Door 12-5-25

** 08:12 Friday, 5 December 2025**

Current Wx: Temp: 6.87°F Pressure: 1026hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 6.58mph Words: 122

One of the upcoming challenges is likely to be building a new house on this property. The back of the property is higher, and we think we can get the house to the point where the power lines and the sumacs are below the line of sight to the far hills. That’s what I’m hoping for anyway.

But we’re keeping our minds open right now. Everything is on the table. Build here, or buy some land and build somewhere else? Buy an existing home somewhere else? We’re not ruling anything out at this point. There are constraints to every approach.

We’re not in very much of a hurry. But I think we’d like to have a course of action decided by spring.

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In Other News

** 07:02 Friday, 5 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 6.62°F Pressure: 1027hPa Humidity: 85% Wind: 6.35mph Words: 530

With a little bit of luck, we should be closing on the sale of our house in Florida today. Kind of a mixed-emotions thing. We’re very happy to be financially liberated from the ongoing clusterfuck that is the state of Florida. We’re pretty disappointed with the price and the process.

The house ended up selling for about 10% less than what it was appraised at when we put it on the market, which we thought was low then. But the reality we were facing was one of new home listings coming on the market each week with a price/square foot lower each week. That is to say, it doesn’t seem as though we’ve reached the bottom of this price decline. So the house represented a stranded asset, one that was depreciating, and one that remained something of a risk given today’s climate extremes.

At the first showing, the buyer was accompanied by her son and while she was thrilled with the house, "Love it, love it, love it," he *wasn’t *thrilled with the price. We have a security camera in the house because it’s our house, it’s vacant, and we’re almost a thousand miles away. While we’ve observed many of the showings, we didn’t actively watch this one because they were usually disappointing. The camera automatically records several seconds of video whenever it detects motion, so that’s how we learned that the buyer loved it, while her son didn’t like the price.

We later learned that her daughter-in-law was the agent representing her. That’s supposed to be disclosed to the sellers, but she never let that slip. We figured it out from the gate access records and an internet search. They bargained very hard, and brought their kids into the house the second time they viewed it, and they were running around, out of control, very unprofessional. During yesterday’s "walk through" the son turned the camera around. So we turned it back. Our house, our rules.

Just big "entitled" vibes from these people. No courtesy. No respect. So, once it’s closed, we’re done with it. I had intended to facilitate the transfer of the flood insurance, at no cost to them because it’s already paid for and I was pretty certain they wouldn’t pay for it anyway, so screw it. They know we had a policy on it, but they haven’t asked. If she buys flood coverage on her own, I think she’ll still get the "continuous coverage" discount, but if she’s like everyone else there, she won’t.

Given today’s rainfall extremes almost no place in Florida is immune to flooding. There are areas of isolated "high ground" here and there, but the Nocatee development is all pretty flat and much of it had to be raised with fill. If they get 24" of rain in 24 hours (like Fort Lauderdale did a few years ago), they’ll flood. There’s no place for that much water to go fast enough to keep it from rising.

So, well, good luck with that.

Anyway, it’ll be good to finally have that off our plate. More challenges lie ahead, but hopefully they’ll be more rewarding.

And the beat goes on...

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Questions for the Administration

** 10:58 Thursday, 4 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 26.76°F Pressure: 1020hPa Humidity: 80% Wind: 13.85mph Words: 66

Although I believe these are wholly unnecessary to establish the unlawfulness of the program of murder undertaken in the Caribbean and Pacific against alleged drug smugglers, this is a relevant list of questions to establish that fact unequivocally.

And never forget the wisdom of Mack Bolan:

The only problem with killing sons of bitches who deserve it is it’s so hard to know when to stop.

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Gen. Hertling

** 09:57 Thursday, 4 December 2025** Current Wx: Temp: 29.05°F Pressure: 1019hPa Humidity: 76% Wind: 14.81mph Words: 71

General Mark Hertling has also been late to speak out, but it seems to me that he has been more direct in his criticism of Hegseth and the administration with regard to the Venezuelan boat attacks.

But this piece from The Bulwark (I’m sorry it’s on the Substack platform.) is relevant to everything I’ve been harping on, or, as I’ve sometimes mentioned here, "Ranting into the void to no discernible effect."

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Sunset 12/3/25

** 09:26 Thursday, 4 December 2025**

Current Wx: Temp: 29.39°F Pressure: 1018hPa Humidity: 75% Wind: 11.7mph Words: 611

Moderately entertaining sunset last night.

YouTube brought this video from yesterday to my attention this morning. I don’t know anything about Michael Smerconish, I think this is the first Sirius YouTube video I’ve ever seen. Apparently he’s a columnist for the Philadelphia Inquirer and has a Saturday spot on CNN, so not a complete unknown but not an A-lister either.

I offer all that because I was surprised to see his guest was Stavridis, and I was definitely interested in what he had to say.

If you watch the video, I think you’ll find that he’s very circumspect in his comments. A little more to the point than heretofore, but still very "diplomatic."

So I commented on the video, and here is what I wrote in case it’s not visible in the comments to the video:

The men and women of the United States Armed Forces should NEVER have been placed in the position of having to evaluate the legality of orders to employ deadly force against non-combatants in what is in every respect a law enforcement operation. Drug cartels are criminal enterprises, they are businesses. Illegal businesses, but nevertheless businesses with a profit-seeking goal. They are not political or ideological non-state actors with political or ideological goals that threaten the United States in any meaningful way. They provide an illicit product to a market with an enormous demand in this country. This would have been an interdiction operation conducted by the Coast Guard, often in cooperation with, or supported by the United States Navy. Never a "seek and destroy" mission.

Retired flag officers, in my opinion, should have been speaking out from the moment of the first attack, asking what the lawful basis for these killings was. They owed it to the men and women of the armed forces to question this policy and demand answers, and to alert the public to the risk of moral injury to our soldiers and sailors from this administration turning them into murderers. Instead, they were silent. Why? Protecting their self-interests? They had the knowledge, experience and expertise, even absent the purported "intelligence" data the administration has been alluding to, to know that this was an unprecedented use of military power with a high risk of compromising the moral integrity of the armed forces. This is bad business, and they should have been screaming about it to the media and the public right from the beginning. Now we will witness the embarrassing efforts of this administration to justify this abuse of power. I am ashamed of ADM Stavridis and his fellow retired flag officers for failing to speak out, to defend the moral integrity of the young men and women who entrust us with their lives and their honor, that their service will be used in lawful ways in keeping with the highest standards of military service. Instead, they allowed them to become mercenaries.

I’m a retired Navy commander, a graduate of the United States Naval Academy, with 22 years of active duty service. I was a plebe in 1975 when a Navy chaplain, a captain, gave us a lecture about moral courage, less than five years after a court martial was convened to address the My Lai massacre. Ostensibly about