It’s the last day of 2021, another pandemic-dominated year. In fact, another year where the real news was pandemic, politics and climate change. I hope we whittle that list down to two for 2022.

And today we get a UK basketball game (and a UK football game tomorrow!). Every game right now is a gift. My big fear on this front is that the basketball season will be cancelled or ruined by COVID breakouts across NCAA schools, in a year when UK could go to the Final Four. I know, I should worry about people’s health more than the basketball season, but…I can hold onto both thoughts simultaneously.

My heart goes out to the people of Boulder and Louisville CO who had wind-driven wildfires yesterday. About 600 homes burned down, so about 1500-2000 people left homeless and possession-less on the last day of the year. Brutal. I’ve lived through a couple of those wind-driven firestorms (the worst one in 2007), and they are horrific. You have to experience one to really get it. The 2007 fire left me with a permanent scar – a psychological one, not physical. But I’m pretty sure I was operating with some PTSD for years after that.

I got my 2000+ words written yesterday, and plan to keep doing it. I know the story, the characters and backstory so well from my previous drafts. This time it’s about getting the story down in a proper structure, and once I do that I’ll move on to another book and story. This one taught me that being able to write a good scene isn’t the same as writing a novel, with plot and structure. But I always have been a sprinter, not a long distance runner.

I’m writing this next month to finally finish a book I should have finished a year ago, but also to distract myself. 2022 is off to a rough start – the CO fire disaster, a million new US COVID cases per day (more like 600K officially, but many MDs say the numbers are vastly under-reported), regional health care systems again overwhelmed, travel anywhere is now problematic (again), and the Doomsday Glacier hangs on by a melting thread. Other than the US economy (for the top 75% in terms of income), it’s hard to find any good news. So…keeping my head down and pounding keys until further notice.

As we leave 2021 behind, here’s an appropriate photo. Sunset from the west coast of the Big Island, May 2021. Aloha.

OK, one little resolution. I’m declaring January 2022 as NanoWrimo, January version. I’m committing to 2000 words per day, every day. Keep that up and I’ll have rewritten my novel completely by the end of February. That’s the way I want to start the year.

It’s the morning of Dec 30th, only 40 hours left in 2021. Most of the news this morning is pretty gloomy. I think I’ll just get these off my chest before the New Year and try to be more positive after that.

• The January 6th investigation has accumulated a lot of evidence of conspiracy by elected officials to overthrow the 2020 election and federal government, but there’s no indication that the Justice Department will take any action.
• The giant asteroid really *is* about to hit the planet, according to a lot of climate researchers. In this case the asteroid is the the Thwaites glacier, a chunk of Antarctic ice the size of Florida (!?!). It is almost certainly going to drop into the ocean within the next five years, bringing a sea-level rise of 2-10 feet. The upper end of that range leads to world-bending disruptions. Goodbye Miami, New Orleans and Houston. Goodbye, Venice and a lot of Pacific islands.
• The Omicron COVID variant is burning through the worldwide population rapidly, and no one has a clue as to its long-term effects. It *does* seem to affect multiple organs, not just lungs. That’s nice. So it’s probably time to hunker down again for a while. No New Year’s Eve parties, no international travel. Maybe no travel at all for a few months.

It’s a good thing I’m a generally positive person. Or maybe I just have the very-human ability to ignore facts that I would prefer to not deal with.

Good, relaxing day today. Spent some time reading my new Moon encyclopedia – a nice Christmas present from K. Maybe it’ll inspire me to restart and finish my Moon novel. Ate the last of the holiday ham and took a nap. Spent some time editing my Storyworth book, a last-year present from Emily that’s come to fruition now. At 175 pages, it’s become quite the autobiography. And now I’m getting ready for the UK SEC home-opener against Missouri this afternoon. Can’t wait for that.

These 3-4 end of year days, plus January 1st, are always a nice period. We are seldom busy in the week between Christmas and New Year’s. Time to reflect back on things, time to look ahead to the coming year.

Looking ahead to the New Year, it looks a lot like 2021. COVID complications. Climate change challenges. Ongoing political complications from the Trump years. Some good choices for how to spend my time. Nothing urgent other than making some lifestyle changes. So it could be worse – it could be 2020.

All our holiday guests are now either home or on the way there. Some of them are traveling to areas with massive snowstorms, so I wish them luck and safety. But we had a good Dionne-family holiday with some good memories.

This afternoon I’m reading a book and watching the latest Expanse season 6 episode. It feels like a Saturday, but it’s weirdly Tuesday. I know a few folks who are back at work, and I don’t envy them.

I miss the grandsons and hope to see them soon, but my MD cousin in Louisville tells me that COVID cases there are sharply rising. In his hospital there were no hospitalized cases two weeks ago – now there are 70! So I’ll have to keep an eye on that.

Four days left in 2021, including today. I plan to make them four quiet, peaceful days.

I woke up early this morning thinking about mortality. Unsurprising, as the holidays have been full of news from friends and acquaintances about their serious illnesses. (And oh yeah, the pandemic).

One old friend from Ohio was just diagnosed with esophageal cancer, and of course COVID is complicating his treatment plan. Another close Socal friend just had cancer surgery, still waiting to hear her prognosis. An entire local family of five has come down with COVID, at least two severe cases – I worked with the father in that family for 11 years and consider him a friend. Another of my eastern KY high school football coaches just passed away. And Robert over at Blue Heron Blast continues his fight with bladder cancer, also anxiously waiting a prognosis after yet another procedure and treatment.

I ache for each and every one of them, and my unconscious mind keeps sending an urgent message – “you’re not unique, this is going to happen to you sooner or later, so get your shit together…”. Or something like that. And I’m getting the message.

So this year’s New Year Resolutions are a bit more than that, a bit more than something to accomplish in the coming year. They’re more like “Final Coming In For a Landing Checklist”, or things that must be done to avoid an awful crash at the end of a journey.

I won’t talk about my resolutions, but they’re crystal clear to me. And that’s encouraging – I like having a plan.

Final full day of the family visit. It has stopped raining, so here’s the plan for today. Whales.

We’re now in the home stretch – six days left in 2021 including today. What a year!

Today is the last day here for our guests. It’s been a marathon of cooking, cleaning and chatting. But it’s been good. If the pandemic has taught us anything, it’s that the good things and people in life should not be taken for granted. Seize the day…

In spite of COVID, we managed to do some traveling:

• Kentucky, ten times (!)
• Hawaii, the Big Island
• Cabo San Lucas, Mexico
• Seattle, for a very short weekend
• New Orleans (just me, golf trip)
• Oakmont, PA (another golf trip)
• Pagosa Springs, CO
• Napa Valley, CA
• Gardnerville, NV

The breakthrough was getting vaccinated and feeling OK-ish about flying again. Looks like we’ll go through a similar cycle this coming year, as we sit January out to see what the latest variant does in terms of travel risk. I fully expect another good travel year in 2022.

There was a lot of tragedy this year, beyond the millions of COVID deaths worldwide. Modern media and communications systems make it possible for us to hear about any/all tragedies across the globe, and the net effect is that we get numb to it. Every day we hear stories about a hundred people dead here, another dozen there, thousands upon thousands homeless and hungry. Another species extinct, hundreds more endangered. They become statistics and fail to summon up our empathy. I don’t know what the solution to this is, other than to define your tribe, your circle of friends and family, and take care of each other. The bigger the circle you can define and support, the better.

On a happier note, the rains have finally come to Socal. We’ve had about three inches of rain this week, with more on the way. The decades-long drought isn’t over, but in the short term the plants and I are happy.

Finally, according to WordPress I’ve written over 63,000 words in 2021 on this blog. That’s about 2/3 of a normal-length novel. I’ve got a lot of work to do in 2022 if I want to do both.

Christmas dinner for a group of 14 is a great excuse to break out the big guns from the wine cellar. Here’s tonight’s lineup.

And we’ll have some food, too.

Ahhhh, Christmas Eve. Torrential downpours, thunder and lightning, trees blown down. A classic holiday.

A mechanically-inclined relative and I created a makeshift automated pump system for our guest house yesterday. Our infrequent big rains have tended to pool up in front of it and seep water into the foundation and carpet. We removed bricks from the front area, dug a hole, installed a sump pump and added a float switch to it. Then had a helluva time finding the right PVC parts to mate the pump with a garden hose. Two trips to the hardware store. But checked it this morning and it’s working perfectly. Score one for the mechanics and engineers.

We had an emergency this morning. Not Enough Bacon. It’ll be on CNN later today.

I exercised my emergency homeowner powers and appointed one especially responsible relative as today’s Guardian of The Bacon, an august position never before conceived or enacted. This person ensured that:

• Each person takes only two slices of The Bacon. Two and only two.
• No violence ensues as people covet others’ Bacon.
• Anyone exhibiting BDS (Bacon Derangement Syndrome) is quarantined and counseled.
• All recrimination for The 2021 Bacon Shortage is immediately shamed and deflected.

Later today I will slink out and find enough Bacon to satisfy the hordes through Christmas. Porcine animals, beware.

It’s hard to understand why 54% of Americans – including a lot of my personal friends in business – think that the Biden administration has done a poor job with the economy, when the actual numbers show precisely the opposite. Biden’s first-year economic numbers are some of the best in history. From Heather Cox Richardson’s Letter From an American:

Year-end accounts of the U.S. economy are very strong indeed. According to Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal—which are certainly not giddy media outlets—U.S. economic output has jumped more than 7% in the last three months of 2021. Overall growth for 2021 should be about 6%, and economists predict growth of around 4% in 2022—the highest numbers the U.S. has seen in decades. China’s growth in the same period will be 4%, and the eurozone (which is made up of the member countries of the European Union that use the euro) will grow at 2%.

The U.S. is “outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century,” wrote Matthew A. Winkler in Bloomberg, “and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years….”

In February, Biden’s first month in office, the jobless rate was 6.2%; today it has dropped to 4.2%. This means the Biden administration has created 4.1 million jobs, more than were created in the 12 years of the Trump and George W. Bush administrations combined. Wages in America are growing at about 4% a year, compared with less than 1% a year in the eurozone, as worker shortages and strikes at places like Deere & Co. (which makes John Deere products) and Kellogg’s are pushing wages up and as states increase minimum wages.

The American Rescue Plan, passed by Democrats in March without a single Republican vote, cut child poverty in half by putting $66 billion into 36 million households. More than 4.6 million Americans who were not previously insured have gotten healthcare coverage through the Affordable Care Act, bringing the total covered to a record 13.6 million. When Biden took office, about 46% of schools were open; currently the rate is 99%. In November, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will repair bridges and roads and get broadband to places that still don’t have it.

Support for consumers has bolstered U.S. companies, which are showing profit margins higher than they have been since 1950, at 15%. Companies have reduced their debt, which has translated to a strong stock market.

The American economy is the strongest it’s been in decades, with the U.S. leading the world in economic growth…so why on earth do 54% of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy (according to a CNN/SSRSpoll released yesterday)?

Frustrating. It has to be the media echo chamber. If you watch Fox news, you think the economy has gone to shit because they tell you it has, over and over. It’s just difficult to have a conversation with folks who ignore basic facts and lean on anecdotes and propaganda. One of my close friends has gone completely down the Qanon rabbit hole, believing all kinds of complex conspiracy stories about how the Bidens, Clintons, Obamas and others are working together to tear down the country and enslave us all via the COVID vaccine. It’s sad, because otherwise this is a fine, rational person.

I swore off religion a long time ago because I couldn’t ignore the obvious conflict between facts (things I can observe and prove) and the many religious narratives, some tame and some crazy. I’d like to do the same with politics, but politics can have an immediate effect on my life, positive or negative.

Part of the problem is labels. You’re a Baptist. You’re a Catholic. Joe is a Conservative. Mary is a Liberal. Labels cause us to stop thinking and start stereotyping, start behaving tribally. My tribe versus your tribe.

I don’t know what the answer to this might be. But it’s a problem.

The Christmas guest season is upon us. The first guests arrived last night, and almost all the others arrive shortly. My morning and evening job as chef, cook and dishwasher has begun. I actually enjoy cooking for 10-12 people – you can do some things at that scale that don’t make sense for two people. Like a giant rib roast, or smoked pork shoulder.

The weather here is quite good today, sunny and mostly clear, but the predictions for the rest of the week have just been updated and we’re in for a big storm on Christmas Eve morning. One of those “atmospheric river” types that the media is so fond of talking about. No White Christmas here, just downed tree limbs and a wet day. But we need the rain, even if the date is inconvenient.

This morning’s sound track is Jackson Browne, one of his live concert recordings. Very peaceful, unlike the hours to come. Calm before the storm, as it were.

I’m on the second half of Neal Stephenson’s new book, Termination Shock. It’s a big book, and as usual with Stephenson, esoteric, wide-ranging and crammed with ideas that will likely soon become reality. Nobody else prognosticates as well as NS – his seminal 1992 book Snow Crash predicted many, many things now normal in the digital world and in culture. He has a singular genius for telling stories of how technology reshapes the world. I didn’t like this latest book at first – it jumped around among 3-4 seemingly unrelated settings and character groups, but now they’re all coming together and I’m hooked.

I’m glad today is the shortest day of 2021 because I feel like crap. Poor sleep last night; lots of bad dreams. Not sure why – I’m not dreading anything, and I’m not feeling guilty about anything. So why the dreamscape punishment?

Must’ve done something bad on the winter solstice in a previous life. Karma is a bitch.

Will it be safe to go on a cruise or international trip in September 2022? Or November 2022? Will we need to cancel our regular February trip to Cabo (again) due to Omicron?

Last year around this time I made some predictions about when the pandemic would be over and when travel would get back to sort-of normal. I was wrong – didn’t see Delta and Omicron coming. The big impact of that was cancelling the S America / Antarctica trip. That was a bummer, and a complicated one – lots of moving parts to that trip. But with the way Omicron seems to be burning through countries right now, I think it was a good move. Trip could have been a shitshow, or worse.

I’ve had good luck canceling travel without penalty, but the accrued air travel credits are starting to pile up. Credits with SWA, United and American all need to be used in 2022.

Regional travel by car (and camping) may be the best plan for Q1 2022, while Omicron burns through. Or just staying home and exercising, which is sorely needed (pun intended) but doesn’t sound like much fun.

Well, this explains a lot. And anyone who says that race doesn’t affect politics or public opinion much should take a look at these maps. In 1860 a lot of the country supported slavery, and we went to war over it.

In 2020, the map of Republican vs. Democrat looks almost exactly the same?!? Some of the issues may be different, and the race-related issues are framed differently (almost no one will come right out and say they’re OK with slavery), but…there it is. Free states and slave states; red states and blue states. I know that correlation isn’t causation, but this is pretty damning.

Maps and concept first seen at Hullabaloo.

This also reminds me that we’re still a young country – very young. Only seven or eight generations since the Civil War. The world, its problems and issues, are evolving faster than our culture.

My, my. Tiger Woods and his son almost won their tournament this weekend. I have to hand it to Tiger, this is the most unlikely comeback I’ve seen yet. He’s a force.

Speaking of forces farces, Joe Manchin just shot down a huge relief bill that would have helped almost all of his WV constituents. And they’ll probably love him for it. The rural folk seem to love a cowboy-politician who rides into town and stops Big Guvmint. I know, I’m stereotyping, but still – people voting against their interests always amazes me.

We’re getting the house and windows deep-cleaned today in anticipation of guests. Big job, all-day job. The place is looking great. I worked on the outdoors all day yesterday – just in time for another rainstorm to come along in a few days and throw stuff all over the property again. But I won’t bitch about rain.

I’m still glowing after the UK massacre of North Carolina. The TV pundits all picked NC to win – oops, kinda got that wrong. Somehow UK has to show up every game with the energy level they had yesterday.

I watched an interesting movie during last night’s insomnia. Becky. Imagine Home Alone done very dark, very bloody. As one not too squeamish, I liked it a lot. Kevin James of Paul Blart fame was fantastic as the lead bad guy. Completely different role for him and he nailed it.

Emily stumbled onto some old pictures of me. Here’s one from about 1980 at the Red River Gorge. I’ve changed a bit, though even in those days I carried a serious camera around. Need to find those pictures.

Kentucky beat North Carolina by 30. A dominating win, just when we needed it. Ho-ho-ho!

It finally feels like the holiday season – it’s been a relaxing couple of days. Played golf yesterday with three good friends, had some drinks afterward and laughed harder than I can remember. Funny guys; great guys.

Today we sent the wire that paid off the house, seventeen years after purchase. Pretty interesting feeling, having this place with no mortgage. Lighter, somehow.

Finished Xmas shopping, at least I think I’m finished. Amazon lets me shop in fits and starts, pretty much when I’m in the mood. But I think I’ve covered all the people I should.

And finished some financial work for 211SD that needed doing before year’s end. That always feels good. Right now I’m having some Woodford and listening to random people cover BOC’s Then Came the Last Days of May, via Youtube. I think my fave is a guy named David Gibson (born to be a guitarist, that one). Turns out I’m not the only person who loves that song. It’s been in my head for a couple of weeks now.

Talked to an old friend at Sempra today who’s retiring soon, and let her know that life on the other side of full time work is good. Actually, great. I told her that while working full time, I defined myself and my worth via the job. After retirement, things changed. My identity and self-value are no longer tied up by a job and an organization that could care less about me. It’s more about enjoying each day and doing the right thing (a right thing?) as I consider each situation. Taking time to be thoughtful, or creative, or to be lazy, is wonderful.

Sent a couple of pictures to Robert at Blue Heron Blast for inclusion in his blog’s annual reader’s picture show. Robert is an expert blogger and photographer – an inspiration for a hack like me. He liked this one; I do too. Very rich color, good bokeh.

We had a little wakeup call yesterday – a little taste of what life would be like without electricity. Our power went out at 236pm, just minutes after I had finished my last Zoom call of the day. Not a big deal; these things happen. SDGE’s outage map (accessed via phone, as cellular service was still up), indicated that power would be restored by 430pm.

At 430 the same outage map said 630pm restoral. And then at 630 it said 4am. So an inconvenience became a small exercise in life without power. The massive fusion reactor we all depend on for light and heat was working just fine, 93 million miles away, but the Earth was inconveniently rotating us away from our reactor friend. Bummer. So we built a fire, gathered up the flashlights and settled in. Fortunately the flashlights and lanterns all worked, and we used my cool Cat battery pack and air compressor (basically a car battery with plug interfaces and a compressor) to keep digital devices charged.

Dinner was no problem – we took some salmon out of the freezer, thawed it in front of the fire, and then cooked it alongside an iron skillet full of mashed potatoes and peas in the grill. Delicious.

Power was eventually restored around midnight, and so far no repeats or repercussions (freezer stayed frozen). But it was a great reminder of how tough things will get if you’re out of electricity for more than a day. Our little process would work fine for a day or so, but then things would go downhill fast. Batteries die, you lose light and communications, and then…hello Middle Ages. You need to be ready for these things with a checklist something like this:

• A stockpile of batteries, all types
• Candles
• Matches and/or gas lighters
• Flashlights and lanterns, maybe a headgear light
• A generator or big battery bank
• Firewood
• A fresh water source (our well doesn’t work without power, so we can switch to city water if needed)
• Extra (and filled) propane tanks

Do that, and you’re probably good for a week without power. Beyond a week, let’s hope you’re on good terms with your neighbors.

This post is particularly relevant today, as the media reports that 500K Midwesterners are without power right now due to high winds and storms. I hope they were ready.

2021 was a busy year. Better than 2020, but still complicated. Here are some highs and lows from my point of view.

HIGHS

• We no longer had to worry each day about what crime or insanity the President would initiate.
• Almost all of our family and friends got vaccinated.
• Kathryn completed and published her 12th book. Congrats!
• I completed a quantum encryption project for a friend’s company, and learned a lot.
• I made many trips to KY to see family. And we bought our second home in Louisville.
• We took nice trips to Hawaii (the Big Island), Napa, Reno, Cabo and southern Colorado.
• We paid off our California home. Now free and clear!
• We sold the one Louisville rental property that was a money pit, so now that business is going great.
• I got to play Oakmont again with friends, and actually enjoyed it (for the first two days).
• Jon Sessions and I won our flight at the Tchefuncta golf tournament in NOLA.
• I completed my first year as Chairman of the Board for 211 San Diego, and the organization is in the best health in its history. (Most of the credit for that belongs elsewhere, but hey, I didn’t screw it up.)
• I completed my 2021 reading challenge, finishing 80+ books.
• I wrote over 50 essays for a Storyworth autobiography.
• Emily, Greg and the grandsons came to CA for a nice long visit.

That’s a pretty great list. But now for the other side of the coin.

LOWS

• Kentucky had its worst basketball season ever. Ever!
• The Coronavirus keeps mutating and spreading. It becomes clear that normal isn’t coming back anytime soon. 800,000 Americans now gone due to COVID. Unreal.
• The very recent western KY tornadoes and the damage they caused.
• The January 6 insurrection. Yikes!
• My pandemic weight gain became…a bigger number. Unacceptable.
• I didn’t write much, other than in the blog and the Storyworth essays.
• I had to apply for Medicare. Not fun.

But all-in-all, a good year. Still healthy enough, still solvent and still having some great experiences in life. Can’t complain about any of that.

My dad came a little unglued on Sunday, waiting for a server to bring his ice water. It was amusing, though a little embarrassing. But he’s 86, so pretty much anything goes.

I know exactly how he felt. I was promised heavy rain in Socal by 7am this morning. It’s now almost 9am and all we’ve got is some drizzle. I want my damn water, and I want it now!

If you’re interested in getting educated about what’s happening with Covid and its variants, I recommend subscribing to Dr. Eric Topol’s Substack newsletter. Topol is one of the most reliable sources of biomedical information, explained in mostly-layman’s terms. From Wikipedia:

“As a researcher, Topol has published over 1,200 peer-reviewed articles, with more than 310,000 citations, h-index 235, elected to the National Academy of Medicine, and is one of the top 10 most cited researchers in medicine. His principal scientific focus has been on the genomic and digital tools, with the use of artificial intelligence analytics, to individualize medicine. He also pioneered the development of many medications that are routinely used in medical practice including t-PA, Plavix, Angiomax, and ReoPro. He has led clinical trials in over 40 countries involving over 200,000 patients (first in series – GUSTO trials).^[5]He has edited over 30 books, including the Textbook of Interventional Cardiology (8th ed – Elsevier, 2020), and the Textbook of Cardiovascular Medicine (3rd ed – Lippincott Williams & Wilkins).”

His analysis of the Omicron variant is…not good. Looks like it’s going to burn through populations fast, and while early data shows that the disease severity may not be as bad as previous strains, that data is corrupted by the fact that Omicron is encountering a partially immune population. It’s complicated, which is why we need to have people like Topol think through things and let us non-medical-professionals know what’s likely coming.

The speed with which Omicron is burning through populations makes me happier about cancelling the SA/Antarctica trip. New facts are coming out every week, and by mid-January things could be ugly. Particularly travel.

Thanks to all my friends around the country who reached out to me and made sure I was nowhere near the tragedy in western KY last weekend. Thankfully, Louisville is 100+ miles away from the impacted area, though Louisville did get some edge-effect lightning, high winds and rain. I can attest that it was a weirdly warm storm in December. But the family in Louisville and eastern KY are all fine.

I haven’t written about the folks who got wiped out by the tornadoes because, what can you say? Awful. Tragic. And that assclown Rand Paul now is asking for Federal relief funds for KY – he should, that’s his job – but after his lobbying to block relief for tragedies in other US regions because “we spend too much money”, it’s a bit much. He’s a hypocrite, an embarrassment and KY voters should dump him. They won’t, but they should.

Had our first tastes of Emmy Squared this trip (weird name; gotta be a story there). Their chicken parm sandwich is simply amazing – a huge serving of tasty breaded/fried/parmed chicken breast on a pretzel bun. Easily in top five sandwiches.

Their pizza, not so much. They desecrated my pepperoni-sausage-jalapeno order by drizzling honey on the pizza. Honey!? Whoever decided that was a good idea needs to find another career. If I wanted honey on my pizza (not likely), I’d order it. The sticky sweet taste was awful.

Con Huevos was great as usual, though they do seem to have trouble with poached eggs. Too well done. Weird flaw for a restaurant built on egg dishes.

Game was fun, but not as good as I remember. It’s been a few years since I was last there. My brothers and I did a sampling of some of their menu on this visit. Their scotch eggs and pork belly, I’d give a B. Just OK. Their Waygu burger, another B. Just wasn’t as rich as expected. Their dry aged burger, a definite A. Had the texture and flavor we were looking for. Finally, the duck fat fries were disappointing – a smallish basket, and hardly discernable from plain old fries. So I’ll go back to Game at some point, but can’t say it was a must-visit.

On Sunday night we were looking for a small dinner after a long day on the road, so we ended up at Joella’s. I broke tradition and tried their kale crunch salad – wow! Winner, winner, chicken dinner (literally). That salad with some hot chicken chunks on top is my new favorite, even better than their classic sandwich. So that was a win.

All in all, a pretty good culinary lap taken around Louisville in just a couple of days. And consistent with my diet.

Last night’s UK basketball game versus Notre Dame was discouraging. Ugly loss. We lost by two points, needlessly. The Cats couldn’t hit a three, couldn’t hit the front end of any pair of free throws. And then Calipari failed to take control of the final possession and let a freshman rush down the court and make a bad decision.

I’ve been a huge Calipari fan over the years, but I’m losing faith. His system is not resulting in the wins we need. He’s a great recruiter, but I’m starting to question his real-time coaching decisions.

I know, I’m just a spoiled and impatient fan. But the highest-paid college coach in the world should be able to win the close ones, particularly this close one. Get your shit together, JC.

Who says diets don’t work. I’ve been on a diet for the last couple of months, and it’s working just as expected. About two pounds per week.

And it’s easy. No special foods or fasting, and I’m up the expected 20 pounds. Simple!

The genius of Amazon is apparent every holiday season. I just finished Christmas shopping for most of my tribe in about an hour, sitting at my desk sipping fine KY bourbon (Noah’s Mill, if you must know). That beats the hell out of driving around from store to store and clawing through merchandise. And then figuring out how to ship items to a family spread over three time zones. The family members and friends who got gifted toward the end of my two finger pour may have made out a little better.

It’s “raining” in Fallbrook today. I should be happy about it, but I put “raining” in quotes because it’s a pitifully small amount. About .06 inches over eight hours. We’re still in deep, deep drought.

All three of my brothers and I will be in one place on Sunday, in Ashland, KY to wish Merry Christmas to Dad and Phyllis. That convergence doesn’t happen often enough. Here we are at my Dad and Phyllis’ wedding, also in Ashland, in 1999. A motley crew. We haven’t changed all that much since 99, other than Dad. The last few years have been tough on him, health-wise.

This CNN headline today had me doing a double take. Camels ejected from beauty contest for Botox…it’s a strange world out there. All those years in the desert have made the Middle Eastern tribes…different. But to each his own.

I’m pretty bummed out about not being able to see Khraungbin, again, this time in Louisville on Sunday. In theory I could, but I’d have to leave my brother in the lurch. Bad form. I missed them in San Diego, and now in Louisville. This must be some kind of karmic payback, but I don’t know what I did to incur the cosmic debt. I’m listening to/watching their 2021 tour on Youtube as I write, and while it’s great it’s also adding to my ennui over missing them.

One more phrase jumped out at me on the CNN front page: “Nocturnal Tornadoes”. A solid rock band name, for sure. CNN says it’s something folks in the Midwest need to watch out for tonight, but hell, I’d buy a ticket.

Final thought. I spent about an hour getting my chain saw started and then cutting down some dead tree stumps. I have to say, when did wielding a chain saw become something that felt like a hard, hard workout? I know I’m in bad shape, but…yikes, an hour doing routine yard work has become a “well, I’m through for today and now it’s time for a nap” kind of event. Getting old is definitely not for sissies.