Well, that was a year. The highs were high, the lows were low. I feel like I've aged several years. It wasn't all bad, but I have to really think carefully to remember the good parts. So without further rambling, here are the usual things.
Meh, I'm not sure why I even bother writing about this, except that I've been at it for 26 years. It's the usual thing, with more traffic and less revenue. After a relatively minor but positive correction last year, Google revenue fell off a cliff. Total revenue was down 38%, but traffic to PointBuzz was up 9%, and CoasterBuzz was up a staggering 45%. Despite AI summaries, something in the search algorithms benefitted the sites. But the revenue per page view was almost half of what it was last year.
I've complained for years about the Google monopoly for display ads, and a judge finally declared them as such. But it's unclear what the remedies will be, and if they're useful.
Obviously there has to be other ways for independent publishers to make money, and there are. But the reason I got away with this for as long as I did was because it was mostly passive in nature. I didn't really have to do anything, I just had to pay for the expenses related to hosting. Those, by the way, were down a little, as some of the things that I use got slightly cheaper (search, caching). So the joy these days comes from having no down time, and average page response times under 15ms. And to be clear, that feels very good.
Here I am about to celebrate a four-year anniversary, which is pretty crazy. Again, my previous record at tech companies is two and a half years. I stay because the problems are interesting, and frankly, the company has been stable enough to keep at it. There is no investor drama or private equity (that I'm aware of, but it's a public company). I also really like my team. I've had mostly the same team the entire time I've been there, which is pretty unusual. The year started off very difficult, with a lot of change, but it eventually moderated into stable routine.
I'd like to think that I'm a pretty solid technical manager, though I'm still learning. I still have blind spots, and between ASD and being remote, those can be frustrating. I learn from them though. One of the biggest challenges is that when I suggest things, or technical direction, they're often viewed as, "Do this," instead of, "Do this if it (and I) make sense." I assume that because I have no filter, others don't, and would tell me if my suggestion is dumb. Regardless, I still learn into servant leadership and do my best to enable the team. That definitely results in the best work.
Last year I mentioned how I would like to pursue theatrical and performance lighting as a third act of sorts, and I did make some strides there. I took down the lighting rig from my office (to make room for the pinball machine), but I spent a lot of time in Vectorworks designing rigs and such. I haven't used those rigs virtually, as much as I would like, and I feel like I might have to relearn some of the console programming. The long and short of it is that I know more than I did a year ago, but I'm not sure how or when I'll apply that knowledge.
I edited exactly none of my documentary, as that footage approaches three years. It hangs over my head, having spent all of the money on the production part, only to not follow through and cut it. But I think about it a lot, and I'm hoping that I get back to it. Hope is not a strategy, I know.
As I said though, I did spend a lot of time on the lighting stuff, and I ended the year with a big Gigi-Garbage-inspired virtual rig to mess with. Her show for the Garbage tour this year was fantastic and inspiring. She didn't have a ridiculous number of fixtures or anything, but she put them to great use with some great looks. The one thing that I wish existed was a good visualizer that was free and/or cheap. Vectorworks actually comes with one, but that's too expensive to license relative to the time I spend using it. Last year there was a great Black Friday deal.
Meanwhile, I did recreationally get back to coding a bit. My forum release this year didn't have much to it, but I subscribed to the low end Claude Code AI agent, and it's been a lot of fun to use. You still need solid dev experience to check its work, but a lot of more mundane work is easy to generate. I went back to that "social" app I was working on, and cranked out a bunch of stuff that was less tedious. Totally worth the $20 a month. I work on it in spurts, and mostly because I want a social-like app to post stuff to for my own amusement, now that Facebook banned my account (more on that later).
While not exactly making something, there was one other thing I was after that didn't work out. I didn't write about this before, but I had committed to coaching a club volleyball team last summer. We went through the tryouts and everything, and just as it went down in Seattle, they couldn't make up enough teams for me to coach one. Kids wanted the less experienced coach that they knew, or they wouldn't sign. So once again, I almost coached.
Nothing has really changed since last year regarding my physical health. Triglycerides are still high despite historic low cholesterol. Among the causes for this could be weight or my hypothyroidism. In the latter case, my levothyroxine dosage is low relative to my weight, even though it gets the hormone levels correct. I pointed this out to my doctor, and she blew it off. So I decided that I'm going to switch doctors. I feel like she's trying to check the boxes to make the lab numbers work, and while I appreciate that it has mostly worked, I think it's time for another opinion.
Meanwhile, I still haven't seen an eye doctor, even though I know I need reading glasses, especially later at night. This is actually fascinating to me, the way that aging affects the eyes. It's called presbyopia. Despite inheriting genes from parents with very poor eyesight, mine has been solid for fifty years. If I'm reading the Internets right, it seems like it's not the shape of my eye that has changed necessarily (though obvious a doctor would have to determine this), but it's more the mechanics of the eye and how it focuses. As the day goes on, my minimum focus distance increases, presumably from fatigue. I start at about maybe 16 inches away, but as the day goes on, the distance and brightness requirement increases. The brightness makes sense to this photographer. When you "stop down" the aperture (iris), the depth of field gets smaller. Fortunately this phenomenon seems limited to near-sight, because everything at a distance is sharp even at night.
I'm still taking medical marijuana (gummies) at night. The 5mg of THC is still plenty to make me tired and reduce the brain spiral. It seems to keep away restless legs, too. It doesn't work quite as well for the sleep, but 10mg still makes it harder to wakeup. That's kind of a last resort. It looks like they're changing the classification of weed, so it can be researched more. I hope that's the case.
My mental health has been challenging this year, but I can't easily narrow it down to why. It's been a mix of parenting, reconciling mortality and trying to identify purpose. I feel like I should be an artist, or doing something that makes people happy. A large part of it is just the state of the world, which I'll get to later. Hate, mistrust and violence are everywhere, when it felt like we were going the away from it for so long. And when you consider the ephemeral nature of our lives, you wonder why that's what people choose to lean into.
This was the hardest year we've had, I think, and yet, it came with some serious wins. We weren't sure if Simon was going to actually pass grade nine, even in April, but he got through it. The start of high school was a disaster, and ironically I think the things in place to accommodate neurodivergence were a lot of the problem. In a school with 3k+ kids, he was not set up for success. But the biggest problem was that the accommodations and IEP lacked accountability. He always had an "out" for anything that even made him uncomfortable. Even in the place where you'd expect "weird" kids to find their people, the theater, he was largely cast out, and the teacher was a lot of the problem.
As that school year was winding down, we learned of a very small school in the district where he might be able to thrive. There's less homework, and the volume of individual attention is extraordinary. It was a relief when we finally learned that he was in, but we didn't know what to expect. The social aspects have still been difficult, but he has been far more self-sufficient, especially with biology and geometry. All of those diagnostics that kept telling us that there was a smart kid in there turned out to be true. He's getting A's and B's, not because any of it is "easier," but because he actually knows the things. He just needed the space where teachers could figure him out.
Things at home have been tough, in part because his therapist thinks he might have oppositional defiant disorder. That's what it sounds like, that his natural instinct is to defy everything that you ask him to do. That sounds like just being a teenager, but I get it. Instruction to him seems like a personal attack, which is a bummer. We've had some serious shouting matches, which sucks, because it's so hard to try and stay above that. I think he sees his relationship with us as transactional, but not realizing that we pay for everything, and his end of the bargain is to just do as we ask. He has these moments later where he realizes the harm he's doing to relationships, but it doesn't translate to change in the moment.
In addition to some autonomy with school work, if not the level we'd like, his free-ranging activities that began on the cruise ships at age 9 have expanded to solo theme park visits. We did one of our biennial staycations at Disney around my birthday, and allowed him to bus to whatever park he wanted while we did adult dining and stuff. He was responsible and returned at the times we asked. He would like to do it more with us, but we're less about doing all of the attractions than we are eating, drinking and seeing entertainment. So this isn't quite a social opportunity, but it gets him away from the computer.
Diana enrolled Simon in a tech theater workshop that ended in a week of rehearsals and performances of Beetlejuice Jr., and it was a huge success. Unlike the shitty experience with the shitty teacher last school year, here he was led by professionals and a working part of the crew. I can't think of anything this year that was as big of a win as this. It gave him belonging and purpose, as well as responsibility.
This isn't usually a top onto itself, but the loss of Finn this year was pretty devastating. Just seeing pictures of him makes me sad. I can't really put in words what a great personality he was. He wasn't really a big cuddler most of the time, but definitely "lap adjacent." His brother Poe fortunately has similar qualities, including the "flop and stretch," a demand for belly rubs.
We foster a lot of cats, but none of them have been "keepers." They blunt the pain of losing Finn to an extent though. We have a couple of girls right now that are particularly charming, but I don't think they're a good fit. They're little, but total badasses toward Remy, which I assume would get worse when they get larger. That seems karmic, given his bullying of Finn, but it's a warning sign. Maybe Remy is actually the problem, but he's not going anywhere. I think what I'm looking for is a kitten that fully takes to Poe, and Poe is willing to "adopt." I know it's projection, but I hate that he lost his bro.
After a work trip to Denver, we started the year entertaining a guest from... all over. Our Estonian friend Kairi, chosen family, spent a few days with us on her way to New Zealand to work at a ski resort. That felt like a vacation, because we did all of our favorite things with her, including a Broadway show (Mamma Mia!), eating, drinking and having many great conversations. I imagine that it felt a lot like vacation because of that last part, which on cruises involves meeting a lot of great people from all over the world. That's appropriate I guess, since we first met her on a cruise.
Speaking of which, some people collect states in travel (35 for me), but what I'm after is 50 cruises, for no other reason than to get our name on a sign board on Castaway Cay. So we did four this year, which puts our count at 33. They were on three different ships, too, including the new Treasure, which started doing the Caribbean itineraries this year. Those ports aren't really that interesting to me, but that ship is gorgeous. The decor, design and theme is next level. Simon was particularly fond of the Haunted Mansion bar, where one of our bartender friends from two previous cruises was working. We also did a few days on the Fantasy, which was very much needed after Finn and serious school difficulties. We reunited with the bartender who made us cocktail enthusiasts seven years ago. Two weekenders on the Wish rounded out the year.
Beyond the cruises, we stayed put in town, but I think we did a better job of utilizing our Disney passes. Didn't get to the Food & Wine Festival enough, but still made many appearances. In July, as I mentioned, we stayed at Coronado Springs. It was a pretty rainy week, so Diana and I skipped the parks a bit while Simon did his thing. But the resort has three of our favorite spots, including the Three Bridges tapas and sangria spot, the Toledo restaurant which is amazing, and the Dahlia Lounge. Collectively, these are the most cruise-like experiences, at a fraction of the cost. After much waiting, we finally got a reservation for Geo-82, the bougie new bar behind Spaceship Earth. It ain't cheap, but it's the kind of high-end experience that's fun to do from time to time.
The year in the theater was mixed, because last season was a lot of "meh" jukebox shows, representing the gap in development caused by the pandemic. But outside of that, we saw so many great things. We saw the OPO perform the Jurassic Park score to the movie in Steinmetz Hall, which was borderline life changing. Just seeing it with an audience was special. A few months later we saw them do a John Williams set. We saw Alan Cumming in Judson's. We saw Kevin Smith do a Q&A after showing Dogma. Garbage played Hard Rock on what may be their last headlining tour. We saw Joss Stone, and Lindsey Stirling returned for her Christmas tour. It was a great year for live music. We also saw "lesbiana blanco" Kristin Key, and in the Walt Disney Theater we saw John Mulaney.
In addition to the aforementioned Mamma Mia!, we had A Beautiful Noise, which I had to skip because I was sick, MJ, which was entertaining as hell but glosses over Michael's adult weirdness, Mean Girls, which was a stripped down version of what we saw on the first tour, The Lion King, which I've seen I think three other times but love it, Stomp, which did not impress me, and the one truly original show last season, Shucked. I really liked that, even with all of the corny jokes (see what I did there?).
The first half of this season has already been much better. It started with The Wiz, which was more entertaining than I expected, in no small part because the music lends itself to great vocal performances. Water For Elephants wasn't bad, though the music didn't really grab me. Hadestown came back, and despite being a non-Equity show, featured some outstanding performances. It will always be one of my favorite shows. Just last week we had The Outsiders, which was the kind of performance and stagecraft you wish every show had. It was so good.
We saw 20 shows/concerts/comedians this year. We don't have particularly nice "things," but I'd rather have the shows.
Oh, and it's worth noting that we bought a pinball machine. I believe we've clocked in over 2,000 games on it so far, in just over two months. It's Stern Pinball's Star Wars: Fall Of The Empire, and it's been a great opportunity for us to hang out and play together. I've been wanting to pull the trigger on a "new in box" machine for years, but just didn't want to spend the money. I was apprehensive, and still am, but I saved my pennies and it has been totally worth it.
It was another good year for saving. Diana working full time has fundamentally changed how much we're able to put away. On top of that, she's diligent about figuring out the most economical ways to buy things that we need. We also got through a year without any serious unexpected expenses, which we haven't enjoyed in many years. Once again, our biggest line item that came close was HVAC repairs, but instead of replacing the whole downstairs system, we band-aided it. It's annual run time is a fraction of the upstairs unit, so I'm crossing my fingers that it'll hold up until we leave this place.
Next year is going to be trickier. Part of the reason I'm saving the way that I am is I plan to buy a car. Simon will be of driving age, and I think that having reliable transportation is key to his transition into adulthood, whatever that looks like. I don't look forward to the insurance cost. I don't know what specifically I'll do, but what I'm leaning toward is gifting my car to him. It'll be over five years old, but it has new tires and less than 30,000 miles. I'll get something for me, with so many (better) choices now available among electric cars. Or I could buy him a used Leaf and keep mine, but I kinda hate my car and all of the rattles and squeaks it makes. That first year for the Model Y was crap in terms of build quality. At least the drive train is solid.
I'll be honest, I'm worried about the markets, and their irrational exuberance. There's an AI bubble in tech, for sure, inflation is getting worse, unemployment is ticking up, and a lunatic is in the White House. I fully expect everything that I've invested to shrink in value at some point, and all I can do is hope that it's temporary.
I don't even know where to start. People are mean and outwardly racist (homophobic, antisemitic, religiously bigoted, etc.) now, with little consequence. No one cares anymore about genocide in Gaza, or war in Ukraine. We have a bizarre white nationalist movement in the name of Christianity, with principles that are the opposite of those practiced by Christ. The government is actively cutting off resources for disabled people because apparently that's "woke" (which I'm pretty sure just means "being kind"). There's not a lot of reason to be optimistic.
I can't relate to people who expend so much energy toward hate, and the associated stupidity. Do they realize how little time they really have?
So while I don't entirely recognize the world right now, I have to be optimistic. I said the same thing last year. I can only keep being curious, interested and in awe of what the universe is. It's like the thing in Hadestown, where Orpheus could make you see how the world could be, in spite of the way that it is. It's optimism in the face of tragedy. I like that.
Yes, mostly. As frustrated as I may be with the world, I continue to benefit from the birth lottery and a number of choices that happened to make me comfortable. Something could change in the blink of an eye, and understanding that incentivizes making the most of things, to the extent that we can. Sure, there are days that I just find it hard to deal with life. Everyone is entitled to bad days. I just have to avoid wallowing in them.
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