Back in Socal after a loooong travel day from Kona to SD. Made it home 11pm local time and crashed hard. Blurry eyes after hours of reading Neal Stephenson’s latest boat anchor of a book, Reamde. At 1000+ pages you better like Stephenson’s unique writing style (and I do).

The late fall / early winter here is perfect, if you like eternal sunshine. This is the time of year I always (a) really want some rain, and (b) am ready for bad weather hibernation. Socal’s endless dry sunshine gets old right about now.

The year is ending quickly, and what a weird year it’s been. Africa. Kidneystones and infections. Covid, again. A hurricane that hit Socal (that I missed). Got in the Turo business. 2023 wasn’t the year I expected, but then none of them post-retirement have been. Call me Perpetually Surprised.

Best news is that UK plays their first regular season basketball game tonight, and I am so ready. NM State isn’t expected to be a big challenge, but getting the season started is exciting. Thus begins four months of weekly drama – my favorite reality TV.

I’ve now downloaded my Hawaii pictures to the laptop, and I’m underwhelmed. Here’s a good one of the Mauna Lani golf course and a nice sunset, but in general I got nothing I’m that proud of. There’s a problem with about half the shots – I can’t see them at all in the Photos app. Might be the camera, might be the lens, might be the SD card – hard to know. They take up the appropriate amount of storage space, so something is there – just not a picture file that my software likes. I had better results in Africa with the cheaper cameras.