What's it all about, Alfie?

Well... today is my birthday, and as a little (unexpected) present to myself I got a new washer and dryer combo at Lowe's yesterday after the dryer that came with the house gave up the ghost. It's been a great pair - but about three months ago, the kids overheated the washing machine motor, and then the dryer gave it up yesterday, so I took it as a sign.

Time to knuckle-down and just get a new set.

I have to admit, I'm a fan of the gas dryer - having grown up with electric dryers until I got to college, and then at the grad house they had gas, and I've never looked back. There's just something about the feel of the heat when you open the dryer and it's just done. It's very comforting to me.

One thing I'm kinda surprised that they haven't done yet is to have these devices on WiFi and messaging an app on your phone. I mean think about it - it can't be all that hard, and they put the electronics on these guys to do 57 different cycles and all that, so how hard would it be to text or message a phone?

And like my car, the manufacturer could make one chip/app combo for all their models... it just seems like something for the Uber/Swipe-Right generation.

In any case, it's 55 years today, and I hope that after the delivery this morning my day is nicely calm and uneventful.

I just finished watching For the Love of SPOCK on Netflix, and it was amazing. The people Leonard Nimoy worked with all in the film... the memories, both good and bad, were wonderful and full of love for this man, and the character he created. I grew up on Star Trek, so I could quote you every line they showed clips from. I knew of the failed pilot that became the two-part show with Capt. Pike... all the lines. All the smiles.

And then to see the actors talk about him. It was impressive.

If you have any interest in complicated relationships, and hope that one day they will repair themselves, even through tragedy, this is a story you want to spend two hours on. It's worth it.

It's that most wonderful day of the year. This morning I got up, watched a little TV, and went to church - the service was an hour later than normal because it was going to be just the one service for the morning, but that's OK. I'm flexible. And during the service, I remembered something the Senior Pastor had said several years before - on my first Christmas without my family. He had said "Be conscious of who is around you today - realize that today is the worst day someone's ever had. And it's also the best day someone else has ever had."

This morning, as I was texting all my family and friends, I realized what my recovery meant to me. It's that both those days - the best and the worst - were happening every day for me. There wasn't a day that I live now that isn't plagued with what I've lost. How my wife and kids simply can't stand me - and yet they will not tell me why.

"I never really loved you... You were just a better alternative than moving back home [after college]" - that was all I was ever going to get. The kids even less.

But at the same time, I still loved them, and wished them well.

I took presents over to my two youngest this week, and they took them and shut the door. I had asked them if there was anything they wanted - no response. I text them weekly, Sunday mornings, in fact, and nothing.

Yet today is also the very best day of my life. I could get up and go to this wonderful church. I could feel that I'm actually worth something. I could sit and create systems that make me feel the beauty and grace of all living things is in front of me when I do this - and it is a joy like none I've ever felt.

And it always has been.

So today I've realized that my life now is that every day is both the best day I've ever had, and the worst day I've ever had. It's not that it makes anything better, but to me, it explains so much. Why I can be happy about what I'm creating at work, and be so close to tears about what is not - and never likely will be again.

To understand our situation is to take the first steps of coming to terms with it - making peace with it. I hope that comes... but I'm not expecting it. Understanding is good enough for today.

Merry Christmas!

I'm watching Spectral on Netflix is not getting great reviews, but I think it's pretty slick. I'm not a big fan of the war movie genre, but this is a pretty decent take on that, and while I took exception to the main character being an engineer for DARPA - and carrying two packs (no engineer does that) - it's still not bad. He's not a bad character.

But there's also Medici, and other productions. Pretty impressive. But I don't want to see them stop showing the oldies - that's part of the reason for having access to Netflix.

Gotta say, this is impressive stuff, though.

I was sitting here today, and realized that I could make more of an effort to keep the journal up to date - even if it's just nice code I've done, or found, and a few little things thrown in as they come up. Life isn't going to just get better... it's going to be just like it is. For a very long time.

But that doesn't mean that it can't also be a time to get things done.

So I want to make more of an effort to write. About something. I don't know if it'll change anything, but if there's even a 0.01% chance, it's worth putting in the effort.

It's that one day in the year when we pack up and head down to Indy for that amazing family get-together that is Thanksgiving Dinner. Last year, it wasn't all that great. The food would have been more at home on a New York five-star restaurant table, that a family table in the Midwest, but that's my family (at times) - they never go half-way.

Still, it was nice to see everyone - even those relatives that you're actually glad you don't see all that often. Face it - if you wanted to see them, you would, so the fact that you don't has to be saying something.

So down I go, and it'll be a fine day. But I'll be glad to get back home.

Today I finally upgraded my 2002 Volvo V70 XC to a 2016 Volvo XC70, and wow! is it a nice car. I've been looking for a few months because my old V70 was over 193,000 mi, and it was making some noises that were going to be several thousand dollars to fix. There was nothing wrong with the car - other than old age, and a lot of miles. It has served me very well these three years, but it was costing about $400 to $500 a month in repairs, and there were plenty of signs that a long trip to Indy was not a really advisable journey.

So I looked at the same car - just newer - and there were some really good deals on year-end clearance at the dealerships around me. So I decided that today was as good a day as any, and went and drive the new model.

What a dream! Now, to be honest, the 2002 V70 was a great car to drive. Even with the age, it was smooth, easy to drive, and very comfortable. The newer model is on a different chassis, and with a different power-plant and lots of interior goodies, it is just an amazing car to drive. But then it's a Volvo - and to me, that's amazing engineering.

Plus, with the new frame, I've got about 15% more storage in the back which means I can really sleep in the back with a few blankets. And it's got all the goodies. Very nice.

Today a friend came to Naperville to walk around and see the town. It was fun because we got to go to Eggs, Inc. for a really nice breakfast, and their omelettes are really quite good. Then we just walked around, talking about the town and a lot of nothing. We stopped at Einstein Bros. Bagels and sat in the outdoor area - it was nice. Chatted about college, decisions, things.

Walked into a new outfitting shop next to Barnes and Noble, first time for me, and it was a lot like REI. Interesting. Fun to see things. We walked around more... down on the Riverwalk, and then up through the park. It was a nice time.

After that, we went to Home Depot and picked out some flowers and things for their patio. It was fun talking about planting, how many, what colors. It was just plain fun.

I had forgotten what fun with another person felt like. Bittersweet in many ways.

I've finally decided that I've had enough with the sad state of my wireless networking. To be honest, the wired networking is going pretty well. I've got the best DOCSIS-based Comcast service (75Mbps) and I'm on the list for the 1Gbps. I've thought about the 2Gbps fibre, but that seems like a steep $300/mo for the service. I'd really like to see what 1Gbps works like, so we should be able to see later this year.

Anyway, the service is not all bad. It comes into their modem/router/hotspot, and then out the back of that I had an older WiFi Router that just kept giving me issues. Sure, it was 3 yrs old, but it shouldn't have had that hard a life - but it's just not that reliable. And the coverage in my bedroom is really pretty disappointing.

So it was time to upgrade. But to what?

I looked at a lot of the "Best of" lists, and they were all nice, and then I read another review saying why folks might want to buy Apple's AirPort Extreme networking - configuration simplicity. And he was right.

Yes, their network equipment is not the best price/performance of all the routers out there. But face it - it's Apple - so it's going to be easy to configure... easy to monitor... easy to upgrade... all the things that I've not done a lot of with my old router because it's just not that simple. Sure... I know how to do it, but it's not as clean and easy as Apple's work.

So I went to the local Apple Store, and got a 3TB Time Capsule, and an AirPort Extreme for the bedroom, and set down to setting them up. What an amazing experience!

The Time Capsule properly detected that the Comcast router did NAT, so it didn't set that up. It also picked everything up for nice defaults. All told - it was a few minutes on my laptop, and it was very easy. The AirPort Extreme was just as easy. It detected the Time Capsule and suggested a bridge, and it worked perfectly! Just as simple as could be.

This is why I got the Apple equipment. I can look at things from my iPhone, monitor things, update code... it's simple. It's powerful. And it works like a champ.

Fantastic.

I was just sitting in my office at home and heard the sound of a train rolling by my house. I can't be 50 yards from the tracks, and I just love it. When I was a little kid, I'd visit my grandparents in a little town in upstate Indiana, and from the room we'd see in, we could hear the trains go by. They were a lot further away than the trains that run by my house, but I loved the sound then, and maybe I love the sound now because of what it meant to me then.

Memories are powerful things. I'd like to hold onto the good ones, and let go of the bad, but life isn't like that. You have to accept the bad ones, and enjoy the good. That's what life is about.