20 hours ago, swt61 said:

Went to sleep last night with sniffles, woke up today with a cold or something. So much for Thanksgiving. 

For a guy who never gets sick, sure sounds like you're getting sick a lot lately.

You get all those vaccines? Prolly the 'tism acting up.

Damn delicious if I do say so myself!

41 minutes ago, MexicanDragon said:

For a guy who never gets sick, sure sounds like you're getting sick a lot lately.

You get all those vaccines? Prolly the 'tism acting up.

Yes, I'm going to be fine Brent. Thanks for your concern.

Jumpstarted the holiday cheer (winterless necessity) with a trip to lights. 

Had dinner with @cetoole and @MexicanDragon, who graciously drove out to meet me in Lake Forest Park.

I am also convinced Seattle is entirely too cold for me. Get me back to sunny California!

Glad that you got to see Colin.

Met @swt61 in the Costco parking lot. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

By Chance.

Saw that some people in Marin are making an effort with their  Christmas / Holiday decorations.

Edited December 4, 2025Dec 4 by Grahame

Have missed a few of our normal holiday events this year, so happy to see Mountain View went all out for last night’s tree lighting ceremony. 

Edited December 9, 2025Dec 9 by blessingx

I knew about street hockey but never knew there was street curling! Did you throw any stones?

26 minutes ago, Voltron said:

I knew about street hockey but never knew there was street curling! Did you throw any stones?

Didn't want to embarrass those kids. 

Just checking out the local river as a result of the atmospheric River. 

not a good video and YouTube forced it to be a short which I hate. 

🙃

Al and I just prepared Eggs Benedict for the Mayberry compound. I may have overdone it. See you all after a brief food coma.

 

 

Edited December 14, 2025Dec 14 by swt61

My plate was almost as decadent 

Yesterday I and my father visited my aunt at hospital. We haven't been seeing each other as families for more than 10 years. And before that it was like bumping each others on weddings, funerals etc and seeing each other wasn't pleasent. My mother and she has deep problems since I was born; long story...

Anyway, she had been diagnosed with gastric cancer as it turns out 2 years ago and she just wanted to say her goodbyes. She was in extremely bad shape, my father couldn't even look at her. Reasons for not seeing them is/was rightful but still I feel deep sadness. Shaken since, sleeping for almost 16 hours didn't help as well.

Made me think on things I'm angry with my parents, their desicions on my life which pushed me into the life I don't want to live since I started to school. Things I can't forgive them.

I didn't think seeing her evoke so much shit. I'd rather avoid it if I knew.

We didn't tell my mother about that visit cuz even my aunt is in deathbed we don't know how she is going to react. I feel really bad about it as well.

A certain 8TB drive was full, so I got a new 12TB drive, mounted it in a trusty external hard drive dock, connected by esata

Ran This

robocopy H:\ L:\ /E /COPYALL /DCOPY:T /R:0 /W:0 /MT:12 /XJ /LOG:C:\robocopy_H_to_L_full.log

And walked away (without an explosion in the background)

To get this 

               Total    Copied   Skipped  Mismatch    FAILED    Extras
    Dirs :      1966      1966         2         0         0         0
   Files :      7172      7169         0         0         3         0
   Bytes :   7.270 t   7.266 t         0         0   4.370 g         0
   Times : 309:01:27  21:57:50                       0:00:00   1:49:56


   Speed :           101043866 Bytes/sec.
   Speed :            5781.776 MegaBytes/min.
   Ended : Wednesday, December 17, 2025 6:02:03 PM

Some 22 Hours later.

Swapped the drives, and now I have

to play with, Matey.🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️🏴‍☠️

EDIT:

Of course, if the AI Bubble hadn't made cheap storage and ECC DDR5 unobtanium, I'd be expanding a ZFS storage pool on a NAS by  just adding a drive, but here we are.

Edited December 18, 2025Dec 18 by Grahame

^^^ Glad I got my first NAS updated to 40+TB (!) before the AI component craze......

Went to a Chinese restaurant for lunch.  Another Jewish friend joined, and a work colleague/friend who is Indian (and leans towards Buddhism).  Was a fascinating 4.5 hours (!!) of conversation: religion, philosophy, jokes, and just good stories!  Incredibly nice people!

Edited December 26, 2025Dec 26 by skullguise

I did Chinese takeout, as I do every year.

It was delicious.

Edited December 28, 2025Dec 28 by Grahame

Just finished my first beer and street tacos at 

I became full Vegan today. So no more dairy products as well.

Edited December 31, 2025Dec 31 by Sechtdamon

Happy New Year everyone!

Bit bittersweet for me.  The last few years Karen and I have had mixed celebrations: 3 years ago at some friends' place in NH, we went to bed early but watched the ball drop on streaming.  Two years ago, same friends weren't feeling well so we skipped, but watched the ball drop.

Last year, too tired, went to bed early.

This year, I fell asleep reading, but woke up at ~11:40 to turn on the TV and watch the ball drop.  When the clock struck midnight, I turned to the other side of the bed...and started crying.

The sweet side was some of my closest friends sharing pics and texts for the New Year, our bonds are ever closer.

Hoping that 2026 is a much better year....for me, for my family, for all of us here, and for our country and the world!

My aunt who was suffering from cancer passed away this morning, imho she was in extremely bad shape, her suffering end. Me and my father went ro their home for condolences, my mother didn't. People who didn't know what has happened between them keep asking for her. It was fucking sad and awkward. At least my mother isn't angry with me and my father for visiting them. Gonna attend the funeral tomorrow.

Other than that 1st day of being vegan was easy. Got some vitamin supplements for not risking proper Nourishment and plant(pea) based protein powder.