The sensor for this thermometer is hanging in the porch of our condo, so it is sheltered a bit and tends to be a few degrees warmer than the weather app reporting. However, this is the first time I’ve seen a below zero temp on the screen.
Phone says that it is 2 degrees Fahrenheit this morning. The furnace is running a lot and that is driving the humidity down in the house despite having a humidifier on the furnace. Looking for ways to boost the humidity in the mean time. I see that it was colder on this date back in 2019. A benefit of having a blog
Good Teams Have Painful Loses
There is no consolation today for lifelong Detroit Lions fans. A loss in the first playoff game after having the best regular season record is particularly painful. Detroit fans can look back to the Detroit Red Wings, who had similar heartbreaking losses to the Devils in the 94-95 Stanley Cup finals and to the Oilers in 2005-06. The loss to the Devils was particularly hard because the Wings had not been in the finals for so long, had the best regular season record, and got swept. The next year the Wings again had the best regular season record and then lost to the Avalanche in the conference finals. Finally, the Wings won the Stanley Cup in 96-97.
Being a lifelong Cubs fan, I know the feeling of rooting for a team that were perennial losers to finally become a good team. I learned I would much rather feel the pain of a playoff loss than the feel the frustration of the Cubs being out of contention after the first month of the regular season. Painful loses are part of the consequences of being a good team, otherwise you are never in position to have such loses.
The Lions have built a firm foundation and there is no reason to not believe that Holmes and Campbell will learn from this and continue building upon that foundation. There are no guarantees next year will be just as good as this year, but there is every reason to look forward to next.
I tried to post this from the coffee shop yesterday but it just wouldn’t happen over 5G. Not sure why.
“Political parties are to democracy what monopolies are to capitalism, both corrupt the founding principles of their institutions, and those who enjoy the privileges of the power these oligarchies provide do everything they can to preserve those privileges.” 1984 Is In The Past
About a half inch of powder fell over night, making for a satisfying crunch during my morning walk.
Looks like Pixelfed.social is broke, probably due to the volume of new sign ups. Currently cannot login via the mobile apps.
Today is the first day I’ve been able to take a walk in 2025 due to having COVID since New Year’s Eve. We got a few inches of snow over night.
Manton has created a low cost version the environment I used for my primary blog called micro.one. I honestly think the $5 per month I pay for micro.blog is a good deal, but if you want to dip your toes in to blogging and the fediverse then micro.one is a very good way to start.
I haven’t posted here since the day after Christmas and in many ways the picture below explains why.
Days after Christmas I traveled to Grand Rapids for the annual Great Lakes Invitational college hockey tournament. Michigan Tech lost their first game to Western Michigan and won their second game in overtime against Northern Michigan.
Despite Tech’s loss, I had a great time, however I started feeling congested on New Year’s Eve and confirmed via home test on New Year’s day that I have COVID. I’ve been isolating since then, but have to be back at work today.
It’s my first experience with COVID and this has been one serious cold. The symptoms have improved and the fever broke a few days ago. I’ve had all the symptoms but no loss of taste or smell. I wouldn’t be surprised if I am feeling the affects for a while.
NFL On Christmas Day
Yesterday (Christmas day) is the first time that Netflix streamed live NFL games and I was happy to have a sports alternative to the NBA, which historically has been the only professional league playing on Christmas. Netflix’s production did not go without a hitch for me using an Apple TV. I went in to the app and selected “Watch Live” which I expected would take me to whatever was the current place of the stream, but instead it started at the beginning of the stream an hour earlier. Worse, for some reason it got to a point where it just kept showing non-stop commercials, like it was stuck in a loop. I was screaming in frustration/anger because I knew the game had started and I was not able to watch it. It then dawned on me to look at the progress indicator at the bottom of the display and I noticed it mostly at the beginning on the left rather than the right, so I tried fast forwarding and that enabled me to catch up. I don’t know what happened, I searched to see whether anyone else had the same experience and I did not find any reports.
Christmas day 2024 in southeast Michigan. Merry Christmas 🎄
Finished reading: The Awakened Brain by Lisa Miller 📚 I believe the way to understand world around us is to understand ourselves. Awareness of how our ego demands to be in control and forces us to see the world and either/or. The studies discussed in this book support a deeper knowing that the world is not nor intended to be perceived as either/or but rather both/and. If you are familiar with Richard Rohr’s writing you will find much of what he says supported by the findings described in this book.
Right now there is no way to add a photo to a collection using the Android version of the micro.blog app. At least I don’t think there is as I am use dark mode on my phone and when I tap a picture in the Uploads section of the app all of the text appears to be black on dark so i can’t read anything.
Hopefully some time in the future there will be a way to add a photo to a collection at the time of upload.
Squirrels on a cold roof.
Finished reading: Invisible Jesus by Scot McKnight 📚 I think this book is targeted at professional christians, but it does make good points.
A good start to the holiday week.
Major League Hypocrisy
Generations of people in the United States have grown up under the thumb of institutions that they believe are corrupt. The only solution now, these people believe, is to blow up the institutions. The focus is on the destruction of the institutions with little thought about what comes next. Who decides what comes next and why? This is the opportunity the billionaire class sees for themselves, which is why people like Elon Musk are willing to “donate” their time go the new U.S. Presidential administration.
New Photo Collections
A new feature has been added to micro.blog that automatically generates pages of photos that one groups together in to a collection. I found the instructions for creating my first collection did not work, as I had to create a new page and embed the shortcode. Looks like after creating that first page I can then create new collections as per the instructions, but you still have to create a page with the collections shortcode in order to make them available.
I have created a Photo Collections page that will be the index to my collections. I wish that the Photos page automatically listed the collections rather than making me create and maintain a page.