Holiday Thoughts
Happy holidays! This is probably my last post for 2024, as I am taking two weeks off work after today, and usually when I'm not at a computer for most of the day I tend not to be online a lot at all. I may check in with social media (probably Mastodon) and read RSS items while I'm off, but I think I'm going to turn off my notifications - especially for Bluesky - and access things on my terms. Everyone deserves a break and this is the first time I've taken two weeks off from work (in a row), so I'd like to take a break from everything.
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I'd really like this to be a post about reflecting on the year, things I've done, things I'm proud of, etc. But to be honest...my memory in that regard is crap. I have to rely on things that have been saved to really look back on. Photos are great in that regard! Sometimes the year is so long, I just don't remember what happened until I see a picture and remember, "oh right, I did that!" Or talking to somebody about things that have happened throughout the year.
Just last night as I was talking with someone at a Christmas party, I remembered that I took a tour of Canada's senate building, the former Union Station where the train stopped downtown. It felt like agest ago. But it was just this past winter, this year! It was a cool tour, and something you can do for free. You can also tour the Parliament buildings - maybe we'll do that this winter. A new annual tradition, perhaps?
I also turned 40 - and partly to mark the occasion, I joined my wife on a trip out west to Langley & Vancouver, BC. This was my third time to Vancouver, but first time ever to Langley. Langley isn't anything special - you need a car to get around and it's a lot of stores. But there are mountains everywhere, which actually does make it special. I have tons of pictures from the trip. I should post those on my photo blog.
Speaking of which...I launched two websites this year: my personal site, and my photo blog1. I think I'm most proud of the photo blog, which I built from scratch and added things in iterations. I wasn't originally planning on doing it, but I got excited and it came together to launch in just a couple of weeks. I've been working on it steadily (you can see the [changelog](https://photos.srgower.com/changelog/ for a timeline) and I've gotten it to a point where I've stopped, for now.
2024 has also been a bit of a bumpy ride as far as weight loss is concerned - an ongoing thing I've been working on. Getting into regular calorie logging has been an off and on project. I worked on it in the summer, and then again in the last two months. The plan for 2025 is to focus on sticking to my calorie budget, rather than simply making sure I log every day. I've publicly posted my progress for people to keep me accountable:
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We decided not to put up Christmas decorations this year, so I wonder if that's what has led to not really feeling like it's the holiday season. We see Christmas lights and displays everywhere, and hear the holiday music...but it's like Christmas has snuck up on us. We're (mostly) ready, but it doesn't quite feel like we're 5 days away from "The Big Day". The reason we decided not to put up the decorations is because we are going to be away from home for two weeks. We could put up a tree, and re-arrange our living room to make room for it, but we won't actually be here to enjoy it. And then we're stuck with taking it all down when we're back in January.
It just felt like a chore to think about it, so we opted not to do it. I may suggest to my wife we re-think this next year, depending on our plans. We'll see.
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Back to things I've enjoyed this year - I have interacted with so many more people through email and Mastodon than I have in YEARS of blogging. It's great. I love hearing from people who are reading my stuff! It makes me feel so much better about not really achieving "commercial success". All I've ever wanted is to get my writing out there, and know people are reading it. I don't expect I will ever write professionally (i.e. get paid to write), but I would still like to make regular contributions in some form beyond blogging. Maybe one day. Veronique keeps encouraging me to start a zine; who knows, maybe that might be a 2025 project? (Go read her stuff by the way!)
I also launched a tiny podcast: Weeknotes by Stephen Gower
It's basically an audio version of the weeknotes I write over on my personal site. I've released three episodes so far, and the plan isn't to publicize it to a wide audience. I told people about it a few weeks ago, and now just pushing things to the digital airwaves. I'm taking a break until January, but it's a fun thing to put together. I'm also using it as an outlet for some audio experimentation.
Oh, that's another fun thing I did: make an audio mixtape. It's called Dreamy Sounds and I went all out, creating a proper J-Card and a semi-decent job with applying a label onto the cassette. There is still room on the tape for a bonus track, and I think I have one in mind. I can't tell you the title or the artist, because it's Lostwave!.
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I think that's about enough for today. I hope everyone has a safe and happy Holiday season.
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Technically I also launched Random Contrasts but that's just a fun side project that is probably getting only one more update, when I get around to it.↩