What a stunningly bad speech to have to listen to as I wait to pick up my family at the airport.

In the pre-dawn dark
a single sound in forest
weak squawk of a baby owl

With the morning light
forest trees shrouded in mist
call the adult great-horned owls

Erin, Anna, and Malia are in El Pescadero, Mexico visiting relatives. The other day they swam near a whale shark in the Gulf of California. Today they watched baby olive ridley turtles get released to the Pacific Ocean. 🐒

baby leatherback turtle

Waiting in the orthodontist office with Oliver. He tried an AI app for first time by asking for six paragraphs about Rick Astley. Oliver is 12 and is constantly playing that damn song (you know the one) on his sax.

Last day of this winter break from work but that doesn’t mean I suddenly learned how to relax. The warm weather had me outside making another firewood rack.

firewood

Justin Watt has time on his hands in a new city, so he let Craiglist know that he wanted to help others with their projects. Justin wrote a detailed blog post about why he did this, and what happened next.

Firewood stacked in the new rack. Very satisfying.

firewood

Sunday soccer this morning, great weather for a pickup game. I scored three goals mostly by being at the face of the goal when the ball came in.

Day dawned in mist, then turned to rain, so I worked under the carport to make a firewood rack from a pallet. I used two electric saws, a drill, and a hammer, and felt quite handy when I was done.

firewood rack

Oliver had just healed from the navicular fracture in his foot. Now he’s got a possible navicular fracture in his wrist. He’s bummed, to say the least.

Heard the news of Pele’s death while I was driving my son to ortho urgent care to get his wrist evaluated (fell while ice skating yesterday). We looked at each other and took a moment of silence for the great one.

Dropped family at the Duke Chapel for Christmas service and I went to walk the Al Buehler Trail. Halfway way around came upon an older woman who had fallen and broken a wrist. Stayed to wait with her daughter for paramedics. Hope that family is able to be warm and well later.

These cinnamon rolls were out of the oven before any of the family had awakened.

cinnamon rolls

Family in other room watching Little Women, with a fire warming the house. I’m enjoying a cortado and the winter sun reflecting off the dining table. Dough for tomorrow’s cinnamon rolls rising in the kitchen corner.

Test post to see if my linking to my Mastodon account let’s me see this post over there (in the side panel in Vivaldi browser).

Stepping through the instructions to connect my Micro.blog posts to Mastodon: my Mastodon-compatible username is @mistersugar@smol.zuiker.com - I also have a Mastodon account @mistersugar@opalstack.social but do I need both?

Power has been out for a few hours. Wheeled the generator to side of house and plugged into panel. First time since we remodeled in 2018. It worked! House has electricity. Alas not enough for heat so we’ll make a fire.

Just paid into omg.lol, where I’ll be mistersugar again.

Cutting our Austin trip a day short to beat the arctic bomb cyclone. Weather here was cold and gray, but we enjoyed the warmth of family and visits to coffee shops, a brewery, and food trucks. Yesterday’s drive to Fredericksburg was nice, saw Nick’s AirBnB, shopped on Main St.

On this rainy day in Austin, I chilled at the house; went for coffee at Radio; bought a sweatshirt at the UT co-op; bowled three games at Westgate Lanes (Oliver & I had a blast); and now at house laughing with the little ones and my dad, who flew in from Rhode Island.