Happy Thanksgiving!
It is important to say thanks. So, I’m just going to say thank you. Thank you to my family for putting up with me. Thank you to my buddies who have been with me through it all. Thanks to all of those people who have supported me throughout the years. And finally, thank you for reading this.
First off, Happy Thanksgiving to my American friends. Second, yes, this post is being written on turkey day, despite being time stamped the day before. I’m not cheating, I’m adapting. Or so I tell myself.
I spent most of today cooking for family. We did Thanksgiving meal really odd this year. We had so many things we wanted, we started cooking on Sunday. We’ve been eating stuff all week. All we have left to cook is the bird itself and some potatoes. So we’ve had part of the dinner already, and then leftovers, and then we’ll cook some more and then have more left overs. It was good in that we didn’t have to do everything all at once, but it also feels very odd. Every day this week has felt like Thanksgiving.
Free at last?
My last day was Friday. Well, technically it was my last day of work. I decided last Monday that I wanted Turkey Week off, so I put in a series of 14 hour days so that I could get my work done. And I am done. The entire company gets December off, which is why we always work so hard in November, so while I’ll get two more checks, I’m officially unemployed.
This is my 200th post in 2025. There’s still over a month to go in this year, so I’ll have more. When I started this blog, it was going to be nothing but books. I wanted a place where I could talk about books I’ve read, what I was going to read, and other book related things.
If you go all the way back, which you can do by going to my Archives Page, you’ll see the first few posts are all about the books. And for sure, I’ve written a lot about reading this year. But I’ve escaped that niche and this has turned into a blog about whatever I want to talk about. It has been freeing in a way I didn’t really think was possible when I set out. And as time goes on, I discover more and more things I really love about blogging.
For years, I’ve just used the Kindle app to read on my Android or iPhone. It was easy, and send to Kindle is awesome. The UI, while cluttered with Amazon nonsense, was pleasing enough to get along with. But I now host all of my own eBooks, and I am trying to divorce myself from Amazon as much as I can. The issue I’ve had is that there are no great eBook readers for Android.
So, I used to read a lot more. The last two years I’ve slowed down some, mostly because of some truly epic reading slumps. I’m kind of back on track right now, but I still have days where I just don’t want to read a book. Sometimes I want to read some fanfiction or just watch a movie.
This got me thinking about the pressure I feel to read every day and to read a lot every year. I wondered where that feeling comes from. And the answer is social media. I like to follow book YouTubers and Instagramers, because they give me ideas and it’s entertaining to watch other people’s reading journey. But they all read a hundred books a year or more, and often read 7 books a week if they push themselves. It’s not all of them, but if you get into BookTube, you’ll see the number of super readers on there far outpaces the normal paced readers.
I had more fun watching this than I should have.
So now that I’m actually self hosting my own music collection (which I’ll write more about soon), something I’ve noticed is that music sounds better now.
It isn’t actually better, though. I always listened to lossless when I could and close to it when I couldn’t. Besides, I’m no audiophile. But it does sound better now. I’ve decided the reason behind this is entirely because now it’s being streamed from my own server and it’s music I own.
I’ll admit, that I like having a lot of subscribers. I’m also pretty realistic in knowing that I’m never going to be Mr. Beast. It’s unlikely that I’ll ever get to 1 Million subscribers.
But I will also admit to being human and being a bit jealous of Linux YouTubers who started well after me and have done better. I’m not saying they don’t deserve it. They most definitely deserve their success. My jealousy isn’t about them so much as it is about disappointment in myself.
I’m going to start sharing some of the music I’m listening to. I’ve finally moved away from streaming music services and I’ve found it very nice to listen to my own music for once. I talked a few days ago about albums vs playlists, but I’ve actually found myself listening to a few albums. It’s been very nice.
I love this entire album, but Life After You is by far my favorite track. I love Daughtry’s voice, I think he’s probably one of the most iconic singing voices of my generation.