17 Years

March 28th 2008.
That was the day we arrived. And here we are, 17 long short years later.
Man, what a crazy crazy 17 years its been.

Normally at this point in the blog I would point you back to all of the past blogs I've written at each year or major milestone. But thanks to some stupidity (long before) on March 22nd 2024, I can't easily point you back to view those blogs.
My mate Gary reminded me about the wayback machine and how it has actually crawled my old site. If I get some time, I might go back and pull up a couple Turns out, the old site is sort of broken because of the way the wayback machine scraped the site, so I cant easily find the old key blogs recounting our adjustment time here on there so you can't continue to get depressed while reading about the miserable time we've had getting settled here.
Of course, all of that's in the past, so maybe we're better off just leaving it in the wayback machine and not going way back and reviewing it all.
Fresh start and all... 17 years later...

One thing that readers of this blog will probably remember is my difficulty turning on light switches. Let's get that out the way up front. Yes. That's still a thing. It's baffling.
There's a bank of switches in my house that, even after 15 years, I just do not know what they do or which way to flip the switch to make them undo what I don't know what they do do.

So how is the family doing?
Well, for starters, its bigger....

Amy is now a mum. Lee was born 5 weeks premature and was just 4 and a bit pound tiny little bloke, but he's really come along and is really growing like crazy.
That was 7 months ago, and Freddy, of course, is over the moon, and I'm still trying to figure out what it means to be a grumpa.
Cole is a great Dad. He's killing it with love, kindness, and support for Amy and Lee.

Terry is a whole new 2.0 reboot. He is doing much better than ever before. After a rocky few years, the kid has worked super hard to get back on his feet.
It was my happy pain and agony to help him move into his new apartment so he can continue to do the work with love and support. The fact that he's also got a 3rd floor upstairs balcony and so we can put an aircraft decoder antenna on his balcony rail sure helped my enthusiasm to shift all his boxes, couches, TV's and computers - so many computers - up 3 flights of stairs.

Terry also bought a bike. And a One Wheel (more on that one to come).

I think the plan is to commute on it more than drive the car, but he's only just moved out, so watch this space.

Freddy is doing great.
She has, via word of mouth, got about 5-6 houses that she does housekeeping for, and just about all the ladies have become firm friends with her, so that has really helped her settle into an empty nest and not feel lonely.
And, of course, her life revolves around Lee.

We didn't need a truck, but Freddy (really) wanted one, so she did a ton of research and saved up to buy herself a truck.
A Honda Ridgeline. Its name is 'Rocky' cause from the front it looks like a raccoon.

Terry talked me into running the Grand Canyon. Again. With him this time.
South Rim to up creek / River about 10 miles and back up the South Rim.

It was a truly remarkable father-and-son experience. Both doing the training miles together and the actual run.

So that leaves me I guess.
I duno. Most of you readers know me, and so you know how I'm doing.
Had a rocky few years in the middle bit like Terry. Still sorting this life thing out.
Mostly, life is just work and my aircraft messaging website.
Those two things are enough to keep me in trouble.

Somehow, I have fallen into the trap where work is more pressing than health, so I have gotten into the habit of working through lunch instead of going for my usual run.
Terry and I have also skipped more gym days than not.
Not happy about it, but that's the facts.
Still wearing my Garmin. Still love it. Still hate that it rats on me the next morning if I have a drink when I get home.
Speaking of drink. Still loving vodka and tequila - just a WHOLE lot less of it than in years past. Still not touching beer or stout. Wound back the red wine a fair bit as well.

My ACARS website is up and down. Mostly, it's a case of Node-RED buckling under the load. The site usually has around 300 visitors a day, but every time something happens in the aviation world, I get a rush of visitors. I've seen many days of 2k unique visitors.
A kind soul in Germany has helped me fix a lot of Node-RED issues.
I now run 11 instances of it just to spread the load out and thus not crash quite as often. Plus he has done some astounding work on the sqlite database that makes it possible to have a 1 week search depth (3 million messages) and yet still return most searches in under 0.01 seconds.
I've also managed to single-handedly get Iridium ACARS to be a thing. Just crazy to consider that I started a new aviation mode and have helped get a good part of the planet covered with Iridium ground stations feeding their data to a central site.

I'm told my enthusiasm and energy is infectious... I'm not sure I caught the infection.
Its a lot of work doing the social media, blogs, DM's (often have 30-40 of them on the go), emails, chats, code, database, dish tracking, new station on-boarding, networking and.... stuff.... so much stuff needs doing on the site...

Still driving the Bolt and still loving it. Just put new tires on, and finally getting quiet drives that don't squeak at every light when I send it. (Les Schwab no-names).

Still go to church every Saturday. Still doing the video editing and some of the streaming of services over the web each week.

Still very much an introvert, thanks to Covid for screwing up my meds, I now manage depression / bipolar un-medicated, still loving pure Trance (Even though I don't get as much time to listen to it as I'd like), hardly ever pick up my camera - trying to make do with the phone cam. Still fueled by anger. Still blah blah blah blah...

You get the idea. Same stuff, just 17 years later.