76 books read
I surpassed my Goodreads goal by 1 book as of this writing. I averaged just under 6.5 books per month for 76 books this year.
Best: Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War. Few books go from 0-100 in about the first chapter and keep the foot on the gas the whole way through. And it’s a fun play on narrative nonfiction blending research with some obvious, if as-yet-never-happened situations.
Least favorite: “What’s Next” by Melissa Fitzgerald. It’s a bit of a ham-fisted rah-rah reunion of The West Wing cast.
Class work from students
I care a lot about making sure students have a good online experience and not a simulacrum of a class. My North Star remains “Make this the class I would have wanted when I was in school.”
My Photoshop students are starting to fall into the “Here’s a lot of AI stuff cobbled together” and I have a strong dislike for the look. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that even a semester or two ago the submissions were more humane, creative, and authentic. But there were some bright spots this year and I’m still impressed by a lot of their interests and desires.
I also care a lot about rethinking and reinventing what an online class can be. Students routinely rate my class highly, I think, because as several have said it was nothing like what they expected. Its unscalable, though, since most of that value comes from me giving students individual weekly feedback. I can do that with 20-30 students. I can’t with 100+.
Here’s some of the work from this semester’s Photoshop class, including a bus wrap for IndyGo, a movie poster, and more:
Sites that made big progress
I still don’t feel very successful in my web development work. I increasingly call myself a “web consultant” because most of my development work is actually writing out and publishing data, reports, stories, and other material for consumption.
The bigger winners this year in terms of growth were:
Moved to Michigan
Cardinals never seemed so red or trees so elegant and full bodied as they do here in Michigan. We continue to downsize and improve our own self-reliance. I think our environmental impact is lower, too.
Staying in contact with people
I have long tried to maintain close connections with people by texting and emailing them directly. I don’t like relying on social media, which I now largely use as a syndication for this site.
This takes work, though, and I find myself frustrated and saddened that some (most?) people do not strike up conversations with me, they merely reply. I know people get busy, but this is increasingly more and more important to me.
My new book was published
My book, The Great Tri-State Tornado was published in July.
I’ve been doing radio interviews and appeared at several book fairs, including the Indiana Authors Fair in December. This March I’ll be speaking in Evansville on March 16th and March 18th in Princeton to mark the centennial since the storm.
You can order a copy directly from me and it ensures I get most of the margin.
Over 1,550 consecutive fitness days
My Apple Watch seems to have lost count sometime in October. It says I completed my 700 calorie Move goal and my 60 minute exercise and 12 hour stand goal, but seems to have given up on counting. I need to add up the actual math, but it’s over 1,550 consecutive days. I’ve read this is a bug and prior bugs like this have been fixed.
That’s about 4 straight years, including the pandemic years, of staying active every day.
Tech stack consolidation and software consolidation
I am on a bit of a “tech reduction” bent lately. I am tired of constantly shuffling hardware, even if I do sorta like it. And my tools are genuinely important to me. But I started to feel a little stifled and corporatized by some of the apps, services, and hardware I was using. For instance, I don’t like being told by Apple in so many words, “Yes, you should just buy a tablet, a watch, a phone, AND a laptop. Also, here’s some more stuff.”
Following Matt Birchler’s model, here’s my latest stack:
- Mail service: HEY
- Mail client: HEY
- Tasks: In flux. Currently a mix of Apple Reminders, Basecamp, and Obsidian. I miss Things.
- RSS service: Feedbin
- RSS client: Feedbin
- Launcher: Windows’ PowerToys launcher
- Cloud storage: Dropbox
- Photo library: Apple’s
- Photo editing: Lightroom, Photoshop
- Web browser: Firefox
- Calendar: Fantastical (I’ve been in early beta testing with the Support Team for Fantastical for Windows on ARM. Getting there!)
- Reading: Actual books. I tend not to favor my Kindle that much.
- Weather: Carrot on iPhone, Tempest for local weather station readings
- Podcasts: Overcast
- Music: Apple Music, some Spotify
- Clipboard manager: Windows’ default
- Passwords: 1Password
- Budgeting: None
- Transcriptions: None
- Mastodon: None
- Movie discovery/tracking: None
- Social: None:
- First game I play each morning: Nothing (I have no games on my phone)
- Screenshots: ShareX
- Video editing: Premiere, I guess, but not a big need for me
- Notes: Obsidian
- Code editor: Sublime
- Terminal: Default
- Search: Kagi
- Flight tracking: None
- Package tracking: Parcel
- Al chatbot: ChatGPT free
- Hardware: iPhone 16 Pro, Surface Pro 11
Continuing to reign in consumption
I’m unlikely to set a reading goal for 2025 because I find it puts me off reading really long books. But I expect to read somewhere between 70-100 books.
I’ve subscribed to my local daily newspaper, The New Yorker, and The Atlantic. I don’t read digital news, and given the state of politics I’m unlikely to pay much attention until the next election. I’ll read a few print pieces each week or month to stay abreast of things. I figure if it’s printed, it must have been reviewed and vetted to be important, accurate, and tightly edited. All of these can be recycled, too.
Journaling
I took a Hobonichi for a spin in 2024 and it is a nicely made piece of analog paper. But it wasn’t for me. I tend to write down notes or a schedule or thoughts every day, but on days I don’t I feel like I wasted a piece of paper. So I’m switching back to a simple Moleskine for 2025 again, as was the case prior. One less thing to carry.
Likewise, I continue to use the Day One app to include photos and longer entries. They can be printed into nice bound books, which is the killer feature for me.
Photo trips
We made several trips out and about in 2024 for photos. Some of my favorite photos include these:
Plans for 2025
- I want to share more of my day-to-day work on social channels like Facebook, LinkedIn, and Mastodon. But I worry it’ll feel forced and like a series of ads. So most likely I will continue to do nothing there and instead just lean on my site.
- I’m seldom a resolutions person, but this year I’m looking to eliminate added sugar from my diet for the whole year. It’s time I start recognizing sugar for what it is: an addictive molecule that, like drugs, has a negative impact on how I feel and live.
I may move away from the Apple Watch in 2025 as my battery fails and they’ve not released a red version, instead leaning on blacks and blues. I dislike the temporary-ness of the Watch and its environmental impact, recycling be damned, too. I’ve always worn a watch since I was a boy. So I may go back to a mechanical or solar-powered device. They last forever!
This may be the last year I stick to an annual upgrade cycle for my phone and other tech and seek out larger, more significant improvements to reduce the environmental impact.
My podcast consumption shifted in 2024 as I moved away from news. This may continue to evolve as I’ve grown weary and weirded out by people listening to other random people yammer about niche topics. I get the appeal. But if I told my grandmother, “Yeah, I listen to this show called ATP where three guys talk about random tech in their life,” she’d have an understandably hard time with why. It’d be like if I said, “Yeah, I listen to some guys unaffiliated with anything talk about the railroads. Just new rates and pricing and rail lines and stuff.” That’d be weird.
Much of my guiding light this year has been, “Would my grandmother do this or understand this?” And if the answer is “No,” it’s probably worth a little closer look. This goes for my actual diet, my media diet, and my day-to-day movement and lifestyle.
I’m also looking around for a new book topic. I have a couple of very early ideas, but like my last book, I doubt it rises to the level of Harry Potter anytime soon.
