Today I’m grateful for memes. Oh, I know, memes have been around for years and they’re really just a way to waste time on the internet, and they have no real redeeming quality in the advancement of the human race. But come on, they’re funny!
We have an ongoing “family group chat” consisting of me, Pepper, and the kids (including Kaitlyn). It’s a great place for us to coordinate on trips and visits, or share news, or occasionally talk about some completely random topic. And for some reason it’s also become a great place to share memes. In fact, I don’t think I’d be too far off if I said fully half of our “conversations” in the group chat are just trading hilarious memes back and forth.
Sometimes, though, it gets ugly.
For example, I sent this the other day.
To which Kyra responded:
I couldn’t let that go, so I whipped up a visual response:
I thought that would be the end of it. You can’t beat a giant flying wrestler, right? Well, Alex fired a salvo:
Ouch, that hurt. And by “that hurt” I mean “that made me actually bust up laughing”. These kids are pretty clever. My response to Alex was this:
And then Kaitlyn took up the torch:
And on and on it goes. Although I know in my heart that I spend far too much time cranking out these little visual jokes, it’s sure a blast to trade barbs with the kids.
Today I’m grateful for my hot tub. I consider this one of the “finer things” in my life… something I absolutely don’t need, but sure enjoy having. I never would’ve considered spending the kind of money a good hot tub requires. But hey, our house came with one, so it would be silly not to take advantage of it, right?
Granted, it was kind of janky and needed some repairs, but once Kyra and I got it running, it’s been a champ. It’s pretty magical on cold days, it’s fun at night, and as long as we don’t let it freeze, it serves us well throughout the year. Now that the weather is turning cold, it’s especially nice to sneak in a nice soak on a chilly evening.
Over the years, I think I’ve become a bit spoiled. If this janky 22-year-old tub finally gives out, I might have to consider replacing it. The finer things have a funny way of becoming a little more “necessary” than you’d think…
About a month ago, Pepper and I took a tour of Bigfork’s new Harrell Forest Trail. We rode our bikes a few miles and enjoyed the crisp fall weather and the changing colors. Well, today we went back but this time we walked the trail. Our friends Bob and Nancy joined us.
To my surprise, the larch were still quite yellow. Given the thick blanket of needles on the ground, you’d think they would’ve dropped everything, but the fall colors still had a little life in them.
Walking was quite a bit easier than biking, and we covered the same six miles. It’s nice to get out on a trail, especially one that’s less than an hour away…
Today I’m grateful for seasons. That might seem like a weird thing, but hear me out. I’ve met people who haven’t really experienced seasons. People from places like southern California, where it’s warm and sunny year-round. Or Arizona, where it’s a little warmer. Places where they haven’t experienced snow, or leaves changing color, or spring blossoms. I’m sure they all know about those things, but it’s not the same as having them happen all around you.
Autumn is probably my favorite season, but it’s a close race. Summer is a great time to be out on the water, or hiking a trail, or just enjoying a sunset. But winter means skiing and snow hiking and even bitterly cold days where the best thing to do is just sit in a warm, cozy house. And spring is when the flowers show up, and the shorts come out of the closet after a long hiatus. They’re all great in different ways.
So now, as I consider the beauty of autumn all around this area, I’m reminded of a simple photo I took a couple of weeks ago.
Seasons mean changes, and those changes can be a catalyst for self-reflection. As summer has faded into autumn, and now autumn seems to be gliding into winter, I’ve been thinking about what changes I could (or should) make in my life. That’s a topic for another post, but for now suffice to say that I’m thankful for the beauty of the changing seasons.
A few years ago, I wrote a series of half a dozen #givethanks posts in which I listed the big things I’m grateful for in my life. It was a good exercise, and an opportunity to reflect on what’s most important to me.
Yesterday Kyra asked me to create a blog for her, specifically so she can write a series of daily musings on what she’s grateful for. It sounds like her plan is to do it each day through the month of November, and if it goes well she might continue blogging. There’s a ton of research that indicates people who are more grateful are happier, healthier, kinder, and live longer. It’s really not all that surprising, but what is surprising is how seldom people really express their gratitude– either aloud to others, or silently to themselves.
So, inspired by my amazing daughter, I decided I, too, will spend this month writing a post each day about something I’m grateful for. Back in 2020 I wrote those six posts in which I called out my wife, my kids, my parents, and my friends. While those people are still the absolute best thing in my life, I don’t want to repeat what I wrote then. Instead, this month I’m going to follow Kyra’s example and just jot down some other things that come to mind. Here we go.
Today I’m grateful for my job. Well, technically what used to be my job. For twenty years I was a web developer, self-taught not only in the technology, but in running a company.
I poured so much time, energy, and passion into Zing. It was a huge part of my life, but not in the dreary dark soul-sucking way that some people talk about their jobs. I truly enjoyed the work I did; it was like having the chance to solve a new puzzle every day. Although the challenges I faced weren’t always “fun”, there was always a warm satisfaction in solving them. The clients I worked for were almost universally good, friendly, kind people. My team was invariably sharp, thoughtful, and talented.
It was a long journey, at times frustrating and difficult, to retirement. Those twenty years were filled with long days, late nights, and weekend work. Family vacations often involved popping open my laptop after everyone was in bed, so I could rewrite some code or troubleshoot a server. Managing a team sometimes meant hard conversations and difficult decisions. Yet through the myriad of things that made my job hard, there was a constant undercurrent of excitement and fulfillment.
Even after I stepped away from the daily responsibility of work, I continued to be involved in small ways. I closed the page on the latest chapter of Zing a few weeks ago when I shut down our office in Colorado. The guys continue to do good work, and it makes me proud that I was able to create an environment where they can thrive and (hopefully) enjoy their work. For the four years since I retired, Nick has done a great job continuing and building upon the traditions that made Zing what it is.
If I’m being honest with myself, there are definitely days when I wish I was back in the thick of web development, sharing an office with a group of like-minded programmers, hammering out PHP code in my latest effort to give a client a tool that will help them expand or even transform their business. I didn’t expect that. When my retirement was official on May 30, 2019, I wondered whether I was doing the right thing. And, reflecting on that and the intervening four years today, I know it was the right thing. But I also know I was truly blessed to have a job that was so rewarding and fulfilling.
Well, I’ve started working on this year’s Christmas cards. It began with a photo shoot in Utah when we were visiting the kids. Although our cards have featured only me and Pepper the last few years, I felt like it would be nice to include all the kids (and Ollie!) this year since we happened to be together.
Last week we happened to be at the post office to send a package, and decided to grab some Christmas stamps.
And today I’m beginning my work on the card itself. As always, there’s a lot of graphic design work to be done– no simple portrait photos for this guy! I’m laughing as I do it, and I hope it draws a chuckle from the 350 or so people who will be receiving it…
Pepper and I wanted to go to the downtown Bigfork trick-or-treat event, as we did a few years back. But it’s a little awkward just wandering around as adults, and more to the point, we can’t get much candy that way.
I joked that we should rent a couple of kids and take them around town. Pepper laughed and then promptly called our friend Brandi, who happens to have a couple of kids. We offered to take them trick-or-treating and give her a break for the evening.
And so it came to pass that we went around town with a little Transformer and princess in tow, getting candy (and popcorn, and hot dogs) from the various shops.
I managed to score a few treats myself, although Lily and Will ended up with the lion’s share. It was a good time, and fun to be reminded of the joy that free candy brings.
… but in fact it’s Kyra’s “class” at the daycare where she works. These are her four toddlers, and for Halloween she brought in some small pumpkins, foam paintbrushes, and some (hopefully non-toxic) paint. Although one of the babies is working on painting his masterpiece, I can’t help but notice another is already eating the paint, and two more are considering it.
At the end of the day, Kyra said everyone had a good time, they managed to get some amount of paint on all the pumpkins, and no one barfed from injesting it. So I guess it was a success.
For me, the really fun thing about this is how much Kyra adores these little kids. She truly enjoys spending her days with them, and is always thinking of fun little activities like this.
This spring, we burned our brush pile. It had accumulated over a few seasons, and had become quite the mess, so we enlisted the help of our friend Allen to torch it. He brought his handy flamethrower, which is basically a metal tube connected to a propane tank.
This fall, we’ve accumulated another big pile of brush. Our summer yardwork, and the fall cleanup, left us with a lot of plant debris. Obviously we’re going to be burning this stuff every year (twice a year, in fact), so we decided to invest in our own flamethrower.
Today was the day. October is open-burn season in the county, so we went to work. I connected everything, lit the end, and stepped up to the pile of somewhat wet brush.
Although it looks like all that grass and little twigs would go up in a huge inferno, there’s been enough snow and rain that everything was kind of damp. It took a bit of work shoving the flamethrower into various parts of the pile, but finally the flames caught.
We felt like we were becoming true Montanans when we bought a chainsaw, and now with the addition of a flamethrower, we can feel even more like the natives. How cool is it to stand next to a huge pile of flaming grass holding a twenty-pound tank of explosive propane?
Apparently AT&T overcharged us on a recent bill. I have no idea how, since we just use auto-pay every month, but whatever. They “refunded” us the overage by sending us a prepaid credit card. It’s a MasterCard that we can use at any store, and it’s been loaded with the amount we overpaid.
There’s just one problem: the amount on the card.
Yeah, it’s worth eighteen cents. This is ridiculous on so many levels. First, the postage required to send us this 18-cent card was over three times its value. There’s also the cost of the plastic and printing for the card itself. Whenever you use a credit card, MasterCard and the rest of the cabal charge merchants twenty cents plus some percentage of the amount (typically around 2.5%). So the fee to simply swipe the card is greater than the amount on the card!
Why AT&T couldn’t simply credit the money to us on our next bill is beyond me. Ugh.
