James Pearl Thinks Blogging is Dead

December 23: Commence Ski Season

Today is the first full day of our holiday trip up north. We have a plan to stay until the 1st, but after a day on the slopes we may reconsider, depending on how the rest of the week goes. We hit Tremblant, first day of the 23/24 ski season. While it was fine, it's probably the least amount of snow coverage we've seen in our years coming up here. There's been a lot of snow this year, but also a lot of rain. The park is 35-40% open, and those are littered with pockets of ice, as you might expect. I enjoyed the day, probably a bit more than D did. But it wasn't the best we've ever had. In any event, it was a solid east coast day. When we got home I jumped in the hot tub which was apparently set to "BOIL" and almost fell asleep.

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December 24: More Skiing

Today we went back to the mountain. It’s the second day of what will likely be 4 in a row. Temperatures were a little warmer, so the ice was a little softer and everything skied a little better. We ended up being out there a bit longer for no particular reason. I didn’t crash at all yesterday and my only idiotic move today was when I leaned on a gate and toppled over in slow motion. While it was cloudy all day, visibility was good, as you can see below, a picture in which I’m not falling over like a spaz.

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December 25: Merry Christmas

Today we spent Christmas day on the mountain. It's a family tradition up here to go skiing on Christmas day. I know some people think it might be strange but I think it's an awesome idea. Consider this. You marry into a family that has a tradition of going on big mountain bike rides on Christmas day. This isn't exactly what happened to me but it's close enough. You take a tradition where you normally sit inside maybe watching television where the sports ball game of choice is on. And you eat a lot. You eat too much. And then you sit some more and watch more sports ball. I know this basically describes Thanksgiving but in a lot of ways it's sort of the same thing. Thanksgiving is football and Christmas has become a basketball thing. Imagine that you can still do all those things but in between say 10 o'clock and 3 o'clock you go skiing instead. You still get to sleep in, have a good cup of coffee, eat a big breakfast, and you get to open presents, and have a big dinner, and eat too many desserts. And if you really want you could still watch the sports ball game because it's still on the television. But you also get to go skiing and sit in the hot tub and sort of maybe justify a little bit of that food that you ate today. I hope everybody had a great holiday and you all got what you were hoping for. As you can see from the picture I may have forgotten to put a haircut on my Christmas list. Carson will be disappointed.

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December 26: Boxing Day

We hit the slopes for the 4th day in a row today, which marks the last day we’ll go skiing on this trip. Originally the plan was to have friends up for the second half of the week and get in a solid 8 days of skiing before the new year. Weather made short work of that plan. As of today there are only 46 trails open and with rain on the horizon that number is bound to go down. Already you can see dirt & rocks poking through the snow on a lot of trails. So we bagged the long plan and we’ll head home a bit early. The snow today was soft and a bit heavy, but I felt the conditions were pretty good considering. Problem is that at this point we’ve skied every run a half dozen times. We tapped it out. It’s been a good 4 days which is enough given the limited terrain. So now we box up this ski trip and move on to the next one.

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December 27: Wherever You Go

There you are. Some hippy said that. We didn't do anything today. And that's OK. Previous to today we had done four days of skiing. And that's enough. If we were in Utah or some other location like that I'm sure we would've done another day. But I think we're all about skied out. Today's going to turn out to be our last day on the ground here. We have adjusted our trip and will be heading back tomorrow. So today was pretty much a lot of nothing. And by nothing I mean we did a bunch of little things, none of which are really noteworthy. Stuff like taking the tree down or cleaning the basement or making Dutch donuts or going to the store and so on and so forth. I even ventured out to buy eggs all by myself in a country that speaks a foreign language. And I survived. I do actually know how to say the word eggs in French. But of course they all speak English here. And of course the supermarket is pretty much do it your damn self. Because you can check out in the self check out line. At the end of the day, which we all know is an expression that some people hate, it was a day. Much like Bear in the picture below, I did my fair amount of laying around. So as I mentioned before, just like that hippie said, wherever you go there you are.

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December 28: Coming to America

As you can see, today was a banner day for the weather, which of course drove a lot of our decision to come home early. After we crossed the border we stopped at the usual exit, the first/last in the US depending on your direction of travel, and got gas as well as some snacks & teas from D&D. While waiting for the tea, they were playing Sublime on the sound system (an expression I use lightly, of course). I don't know how I feel about that, But when I got back in the car I subjected everyone to a listening of the album of the same name, which was probably the most enjoyable (near) hour of the trip. I put 40 Ounces to Freedom on after that, but it just doesn't carry the same magic/memories for me. I also came up with an interesting idea for a science fiction book, in which a von neumann probe exists in the solar system and goes through a series of stages that it's programmed with as a series of rules of engagement. By the end it has no choice but to seemingly end a main character in an effort to carry out it's next-to-last step and avoid the last step, which would be obliteration. This would also be the end of the book and pave the way for book 2. I will never write this book but I think it's an intriguing idea. I love the idea of von neumann probes as well as Dyson Spheres. Maybe book 2 will explore that aspect, which is another book I'll never write.

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Was the song Santeria or What I Got? 40oz still hits me, definitely a desert island choice.

Don't be surprised if a tour is announced in '24. Jakob, Bradley's son, just did a fundraiser show with Bud and Eric. And Rome announced he's leaving Sublime with Rome.
 
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JDurk said:
Was the song Santeria or What I Got? 40oz still hits me, definitely a desert island choice.

Don't be surprised if a tour is announced in '24. Jakob, Bradley's son, just did a fundraiser show with Bud and Eric. And Rome announced he leaving Sublime with Rome.
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I never knew he had a son. I also never really got in to Rome, just not the same to me.
 
JDurk said:
Was the song Santeria or What I Got? 40oz still hits me, definitely a desert island choice.

Don't be surprised if a tour is announced in '24. Jakob, Bradley's son, just did a fundraiser show with Bud and Eric. And Rome announced he's leaving Sublime with Rome.
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IDK which song it was. Well, I knew at the time but forget.

Rome announced he's leaving Sublime with Rome - meaning what?
 
December 29: Alex & Mark

Tonight we had Alex Mark over for dinner. Originally the plan was for us to be having dinner in Canada after we had all gone skiing. As I've previously said, conditions and other factors made this somewhat of a less ideal week for that. So with our early exit from Canada we now have some newly found time to spend with friends locally. Like I said, we had always planned on spending this time with friends. Just one set of friends. So tonight we had them over for dinner and we made them an array of different things. I like the style of dinner, where you try five or six different things and make small plates over the course of the evening. They seem to like it as well - it was a good night. Unfortunately, we didn't go skiing today but that's ok. I believe it was raining in Canada again anyway. Of course, one of the topics of conversation was our next vacation together and then another after that. Both of which will be ski trips. We touched briefly on a couple of bike trips that we'd like to plan over the summer but that's not really a hot topic at this moment. There's always tomorrow for that. As you can see from the picture below I give no warning when I take pictures sometimes.

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December 30: The Ski Jacket Returns!

Continuing our social engagements on our second night of found the time, we went to have dinner with Jason and Elizabeth at their place tonight. Jason had mentioned he was disappointed with my ski pictures, specifically that I was wearing the new coat and not the old coat. Not wanting to disappoint my good friend, I broke out the old coat and wore it to the occasion tonight. I also got a haircut, which is probably fairly obvious from the picture below. Dinner was great, as it always is with these guys. They are excellent cooks and we love going up to hang out with them for both the culinary aspect as well as the social aspect. Great people, and a great time. It's also good to see Jason walking about and being reasonably mobile considering he had his entire knee replaced last month. So far this weekend has been pretty excellent with some great food and great company. And of course a marvelous ski jacket.

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December 31: Ramen Out the New Year with the Utahs

With that another year comes to a close. For the third straight evening we had dinner with friends. Tonight it was our secret ramen recipe with the Utahs. Now, 4 of you can you say that you've had it. We wrap up this 2023 with a third straight night of good friends and good food. The weekend has been really enjoyable, especially since none of this was planned. We came back home with no plans, no expectations, and a wide open schedule. It worked out pretty well. I guess traditionally you might run down all of your goals from 364 days ago. I see no real need to do that, but I will say that I ended up hitting five of my eight primary goals, and three of my five secondary goals. I also don't put a lot of emphasis on these goals. It's just something to aim for in a general sense. I feel like it was a good year. And it was a great ending to a good year. I hope you had a good night, a good holiday break, and a good 2023. Talk to you next year.

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January 1: A New Hope

It's a Star Wars reference. But it's fitting for many people. You wake up on the first day of the year with a clean slate. All your Strava numbers are 0. Wow, you can really dance. Or ride.

New Year's Day is one of the easiest days of the year. When D asked me what I wanted to do today, I said not leave the house. She went to walk the dog and I laid on the couch and read. I lifted weights inside, and rode my bike inside. Technically, I went outside to go into the dungeon to cut some 1x4s for a project she's doing. But I was never more than 10 feet away from the house so I'll count it. We also finished season 1 of Reacher and started season 2. The main point on this day is that we needed to do nothing. So we did whatever we wanted to. Our streak of people-dinners came to an end today. Well, we had dinner, but just with ourselves and Bear staring sadly at us as usual.

We also started a puzzle. We used to do a lot of these, then we stopped. Today we did half of a 1000-piece and if we really wanted to I am sure we could have finished it. I do enjoy them but I often feel like I don't have the time to spare on them. Today we had time to spare.

It's also resolution time, of which I have an assortment of the same stuff I tend to have every year, plus or minus. Just like yesterday, I will not bore my reading audience with the sordid details of how I am going to lose 50 more pounds and bench press a VW Beetle. Or maybe buy a VW Beetle and bench press 50 pounds. At the core, I don't necessarily need to make significant changes. I just think it's healthy to engage yourself mentally and physically. Especially when you're old.

If I had to pick 1 trip I would like to make a priority this year, it's a Quebec City-area mountain bike week. They have done so much building up there, I'd love to head up and spend some quality time riding that stuff. I would also like to say that 2024 is the year I will prioritize learning French. But I'm not entirely sure that's going to happen.

Welcome to 2024. May all your puzzle pieces be in the box and may your pictures come together splendidly.

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January 2: WLFOM

I don't want to tell you what your 2024 resolution should be, but it should be WLFOM. This is something that came out of a text exchange I was having today, which means Work Less Fuck Off More. We would all be well-served to do that. Not only does it promote mental health, but it promotes mental health. I don't want to suggest we should all quit our day jobs and try to become SM influencers - after all, "influencing" is a job, is it not? And to be honest, some of those people seem to work more than most of us. In any event, there should be more time in all our lives to simply not work more than you're working in any given day. I understand that this has diminishing returns, though I suppose you can cut something in half an infinite number of times. So perhaps not. In any event, when it gets small enough, just retire.

I didn't have a picture for today, so I went and finished the puzzle before posting this. D had done some through the day, so there wasn't too much left to do. See, she is trying to WLFOM than she did in 2023. So there we are. Some of you will be here on Saturday for our annual holiday party, where this table will be covered in food and not puzzle pieces. After last weekend when we saw many of our friends, I recommend doing this more as well. When we all retire, we can work less, fuck off more, hang out, and do puzzles together. Until then, try not to let the man get you down too much.

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Norm said:
January 2: WLFOM

I don't want to tell you what your 2024 resolution should be, but it should be WLFOM. This is something that came out of a text exchange I was having today, which means Work Less Fuck Off More. We would all be well-served to do that. Not only does it promote mental health, but it promotes mental health. I don't want to suggest we should all quit our day jobs and try to become SM influencers - after all, "influencing" is a job, is it not? And to be honest, some of those people seem to work more than most of us. In any event, there should be more time in all our lives to simply not work more than you're working in any given day. I understand that this has diminishing returns, though I suppose you can cut something in half an infinite number of times. So perhaps not. In any event, when it gets small enough, just retire.

I didn't have a picture for today, so I went and finished the puzzle before posting this. D had done some through the day, so there wasn't too much left to do. See, she is trying to WLFOM than she did in 2023. So there we are. Some of you will be here on Saturday for our annual holiday party, where this table will be covered in food and not puzzle pieces. After last weekend when we saw many of our friends, I recommend doing this more as well. When we all retire, we can work less, fuck off more, hang out, and do puzzles together. Until then, try not to let the man get you down too much.

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Love the anacronym, part of my plan this year too.
 
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