Hello Gopher, an update 10/01/25
----------------------------------------------------------------------
I don't have anything particular to write about, but that's no reason
not to write. Writing can be a pleasure, especially when there is
nothing to say.
My file timestamps tell me that it has been about three months since I
last wrote. Now, that's about two months more than I would like, at
least. I enjoy gopher, and it works better if we all write something
regularly. It's a small space, and it needs our content.
---
Some life updates:
1. I had to drop Pair.com as a hosting provider. I've worked with them
since 2001, and thought I'd never leave. But then they sold the
company in the last couple years, and the service started going
downhill. The final nail in the coffin was breaking email out from
their hosting, and charging exoritant fees for it. That happened
several weeks ago. And so, I switched to a VPS elsewhere on the wide
internet. Goodbye Pair, and thanks for all the fish.
(I just have to add this: my Pair account came with 500 mailboxes and
unlimited recipes. All of a sudden I get this email that says
something like, "our system has detected that you are among Pair's top
users of email boxes". I had 11 email boxes configured, out of the
500. There was a lot of back-and-forth. I told them we couldn't
resolve it and I had to move. Only after I had my VPS almost fully
configured, did their "retention" team reach out to offer me some big
discount to stay. I hate retention team policies. If you want people
to stay, treat them right from the beginning and all along the way.)
2. My daughter got engaged. I am getting older as the years go by, it
turns out!
3. My wife found out she has intermittent hydrarthrosis. She has had
this problem for over two decades, and no doctor has ever been able to
diagnose it properly. It was a friggin reddit post that finally
revealed it. Turns out, it has been studied since the 1800s. No
solutions, of course, but lots of research. Acupuncture and lymph
massage are helping!
If you have cyclical knee swelling without pain, and without
arthritis, have a look at intermittent hydrarthrosis.
4. Have you seen 3i/Atlas? Man, the universe is interesting.
5. My mom had a stroke. Can't recall if I wrote about that, but it's
about the biggest thing that has happened in the last three months.
She was on vacation at Disneyland with my brother. What a pain that
was. Getting her out of the state of CA to a place where she could be
near family was a bear. Don't have a stroke on vacation, folks.
She is doing much better, but it was a bad one. She is still in a care
facility, and only had movement on her right side starting two days
ago. She can speak, but it is mostly single words (though she can sing
the whole Happy Birthday song, go figure. I guess that gets embedded
into all the different segments of the brain, or in other parts of the
body, because it's there even when other things don't work at all).
6. My youngest son is a senior in HS. He's doing college concurrent
enrollment as well. Like I said, the years are moving along just fine!
----
That's about it. I mean, not really, but the rest is boring. Dental
work, bills, yard work. I've met some new people, got to know others
more. Some people I know are depressed. Others are sick. Still others
are happy (the majority!).
