Take 5, D.

Weekly Update 2025-12-07: Christmas Island Edition

What happened during the week of December 1st - December 7th:

🇨🇽 Welcome to the last month of 2025! As has been the custom of the past few years, I started the exciting task of mailing Christmas cards to nearly 60 addresses in the US (and one in Mexico). Also as is custom, I shall include a holiday letter that sums up the year that was for both myself and L., though this year's letter will feature one of two of my photos. Most folks will see a train, but a select few will view a sunset off of Dauphin Island. Who gets what has not been determined as of this writing.

👨🏼‍🎓 The senior tech on my Epic Infrastructure team will move to a different IT department at the end of the month. My job will become more active as a result, as this tech's responsibilities will be disbursed amongst the rest of the team. It's a slightly double-edged sword, as I will be happy to be more involved with the team's activities, but at the same time, I will be sad to lose the immediate expertise of this tech.

🖨️ I am also involved with a printer project at work that requires name changes within Epic. Because hospitals don't really have times when they're off, many of these changes will happen outside of regular business hours. One change is even scheduled for 8 PM on a weeknight! I guess I wasn't doing anything else that time, right? ¯_(ツ)_/¯

🔭 On Sunday 12-07, my brother and his wife will visit me and L. for a 24-hour whirlwind tour of St. Louis. We have some plans of how to entertain them, though nothing fully determined as of now. Next week's update will spell out what went down during their quick time here.

🎞️ The 35mmc community blog has started a series highlighting their members' favorite photo of the year. In this particular case, the members clearly state the photo is one they took themselves, then they explain why that's the case. I will have some surprise free time on a couple Saturdays this month, so my oft-promised photo entry may become a two-parter: one with photos I liked, including from the recent Alabama Getaway; with the other being my favorite photo I've taken this year.

A Couple Two Tree Items To Note From Last Week:

External Actions

Internal Labor

Media

Obligations:

More Info About The Media Selections From This Week:

Music and podcasts were this week's theme. I caught up on a backlog of podcasts from Thanksgiving and the Alabama Getaway, just in time for many best-of reviews for 2025. I usually point towards the good folks at The Quietus as a great place to start for Albums of the Year, and this year is no exception. In addition, you should also check out Treble, Bandcamp's three-part review, and finally, Pitchfork. There are many albums that overlap between these three lists, but the order and importance varies wildly, which after all is the point of all these year-end summations.

As for the podcasts, I had to include the "First Snow" episode as it was released appropriately enough on Monday 12-01. Both the Monument and ABV Chicago episodes were part of my backlog, and if you want a summation of their take on Bourbon County this year, a look at the record of the Texas Rangers this year will suffice. Staying on beer, the VinePair article about Rogue's sudden collapse was a quick post-mortem of a beer brand that grew really fast, grew rather arrogant and staid in the process, yet couldn't make enough changes to meet the market. Not being a big beer in your home state of Oregon--which yes, is a competitive market, but a surprisingly cheap one at that--was the first red flag in retrospect.

I kept the videos to a minimum this week, with only the bird cam and car review standing out. The cycle of life begins anew in southern New Zealand, as returning Royal Albatrosses come back to land to mate, lay one egg, and hopefully raise a youngster to fledge. Meanwhile, the Ford Taurus broke a big cycle of malaise and misfortune for Ford, as this car was truly revolutionary for its time. The model in the video is one I didn't know existed: a stripped-down, high-mileage variant with an engine and 5-speed from the Taurus' little sibling, the Ford Tempo. Well worth your time to watch, particularly since Brian keeps his X-rated talk to just a few seconds here!

Liechtenstein has fascinated me as a concept ever since I was young enough to understand that such a small country existed. As I've gotten older and learned more about the peculiar ways in how Liechtenstein survives as an independent entity, the fascination has been somewhat taken over by puzzlement and sadness. The reality of the country isn't as charming as I may have believed it to be, and the Jacobin article goes into some details as to what it's like to live in an oddly feudal microstate. Similarly archaic yet persistent is the MUMPS database and programming language, as discussed in the Hackaday article. Epic still runs on code heavily derived from MUMPS, and if you dive into the comments, one Hackaday user links to his blog detailing his experiences with programming at Epic.

Finally, in keeping with the upcoming holidays, Desert Oracle Radio takes a deep dive into the Chelsea estate, which was in the 19th century located north of what was then New York City. Its owner, one Clement Clarke Moore, is best known today as the author of "A Visit From St. Nicholas," which we nowadays simply refer to as "'Twas The Night Before Christmas."

#Documentation #Jobs #Life #Photography #WeeklyNotes