We watched the Reading Rainbow documentary on Netflix tonight. It is wonderful. However, we realized that we never watched that show with our kids. We had literally thousands of books in the house and both kids were reading way ahead of their peers even before kindergarten. They watched Sesame […]

I've had Tuck Smith and the Restless on repeat play all week. I've bought the latest EP and the preceding album, and I'll be buying more of his back catalog soon. #music https://youtu.be/IaHXUY6CXSg?si=IVwoyRIuO7N_MpZJ

RE: https://hachyderm.io/@coreysnipes/115856890850905684 Like Corey, I just reserved this book at the library because of this one paragraph. There is no waitlist, so I should have it by Monday.

My TSA Pre check renewal was approved the same day. Apparently they aren't reading Mastodon. 🙂

This seems fine.

That's not a bad way to start the new year. Wordle 1,661 3/6 ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ ⬛🟨🟨⬛⬛ 🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩

Based on the commercials on all these digital channels I can get OTR, the station owners believe nobody under 65 watches. They are probably correct.

Things I'm looking forward to in 2026. 1. Surviving. That's it. If I'm still around on 12/31 with my health and personal finances intact I will call it a win.

My home Internet crapped out yesterday due to a hardware failure. Verizon will be out tomorrow. Using my offline time wisely. I've watched 5 episodes of Storage Wars on one of those weird digital channels I can pick up with the antenna.

Do I know a web designer here, ideally someone with some agricultural or rural design references? I need a designer for a WordPress redesign project for a low budget non-profit project that I'm pursuing. #FediHire

From this day in 2018, but still 100% relevant. https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/3-reasons-to-blog-more-often-in-2018.html #blog #blogging

Updated both the blog and the phlog today.

https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/happy-new-year-2026.html #happynewyear #blog #blogging #birds

Its New Year's Eve, 10:48 PM. I'm in bed with a book. I'll see y'all in 2026.

The NYE ball drop in NYC changed for me when I learned the people are there for 6+ hours and there are no public restrooms. Many of those people are wearing adult diapers.

New Years Eve paella is kind of a tradition.

I've been doing this for 30 years. https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/30-years-of-blogging.html #blog #blogging #SmallWeb #indieweb

RE: https://vmst.io/@jalefkowit/115810225825481448 1. If you want to feel a little bit of positivity going into 26, Mayor Pete has you covered. 2. His plans for 2026 sound like "I'm running for President." We could do worse.

So, I just spent 15 minutes on Zoom talking to MSNOW (MSNBC) about healthcare premiums. I'm curious to see how bad I sound when they chop it up into a 90-second sound bite. :)

The best books I read in 2025 https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/My%20favorite%20books%20of%20the%20year.html #books #bookstodon #blog

$6.79 for 1/56 of an oz. works out to $6083 per pound. It's the most valuable item in my home right now.

The Richmond Symphony has a half-price deal on tickets to "Band Geek Date Night" in April. I'm not a band geek, but my wife was and we wanted to attend a symphony event in 2026. Also, we can barely attend a movie for $16 each, maybe we can't. It's been a few years since we attended a movie […]

#footpathfriday under the Blue Ridge Parkway

I've been running @Waterfox as my daily driver on Debian for about a week, and I can report zero problems. Not a single webpage has caused any sort of issue. Also, the fan on my System 76 Meerkat has been much, much quieter since moving from Chromium to Waterfox.

Merry Christmas. Or happy Thursday. https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/happy_holidays_2025.html

[Dickens, poverty] I’ve watched a few versions of A Christmas Carol during this most festive of seasons and especially last night I kept thinking about how unbelievably wealthy and privileged Dickensian England was during colonialism. All of this suffering and child labor and disease and filth […]

My son trounced us in Scrabble and then we won at Pandemic. I think that means COVID is cured. It's a Christmas miracle!

Last book completed this year? Maybe. https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/midnight-garden.html #books #bookstodon

Tonight's game was Betrayal at the House on the Hill. My wife ended up being the traitor. We managed to kill her, but her monster proved victorious in the end.

Spent my afternoon playing old DOS games via eXoDOS. I still have my sweet swing for PGA Tour 1994. #retrogaming

The weekly-ish update, which has been weekly for the last 4 weeks! #blog #blogging #weeknotes https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/sunday_links_35.html

Wasted 5 minutes trying to get the YT Roku app to play a blues Christmas station or playlist. I'm not sure stations or playlists are even accessible via the Roku. Meanwhile my wife's Pandora account has been playing classic blues tunes for 90 minutes.

Tonight's heartwarming and romantic Christmas movie is Gremlins.

Dear retailers, I know your URL, as evidenced by my recent purchase. I don't need 3 daily emails to remind me of your existence. Signed, Me, and everyone else.

It's late 2025 and I'm reading a government website RFP that requires AMP. They may or may not appreciate my suggestion to not support a dead proprietary standard. #webdev

"Blogs in 2001 were much like a 2-year-old. They were often frustrating to manage, likely the throw a tantrum, and not do what you want. By 2006 blogs were teenagers. They'd try anything. Photo blogs, micro blogs, link blogs, you name it. Pretty much any sort of web-based publishing was forced […]

Surfing from Waterfox. It seems much quicker than Chromium.

I've spent the day redoing my freelance site. Hoping to diversify that in 2026, as today it's highly concentrated with a couple of clients. Bonus points to whoever spots that typo that has eluded my multiple proofing passes. https://codcomm.com

The weekend update, actually published weekly for 3 weeks in a row! https://odonnellweb.com/pelican/sunday_links_34.html #blog #blogging #weeknotes #indieweb

Tonight's movies was the new Knives Out flick on Netflix. I was entertained, even if was about 15 minutes too long. #movies #netflix

Big news - I was accepted into the 2026 Virginia Master Naturalist training program. I start 14 weeks of classes in January. It's roughly the equivalent of the college course on VA Ecology, with labs and 40 hours of volunteer work required to get certified, then 40 hours of annual volunteer work […]

USPS - literally operating slower than the Pony Express. That's 4 days for a package to go about 100 miles. Dec 13, 1:25am RICHMOND VA DISTRIBUTION CENTER Arrived at USPS Regional Facility Dec 12, 12:00am US In Transit to Next Facility Dec 9, 3:06pm MERRIFIELD VA DISTRIBUTION CENTER Arrived at […]

I never thought I'd be posting that I know exactly how Mila Kunis feels, but as President of my neighborhood HOA, I know exactly how she feels. Mila Kunis says her neighbors send complaints in 'all day long' as head of HOA, admits they have no gratitude Mila Kunis says her neighbors send […]

That moment when you are getting angry because a single account is monopolizing your feed....then you realize you've accidentally clicked into their profile.

I give up on A Farewell to Arms. I'm about 1/3 of the way into it and I just can't read more. The love story is weird and stilted, and the deep meaningful look at war is pretty damn pedestrian. Maybe it was deep and shocking when it was written, but it does not hold up today. #books

Tonight's movie was Strictly Ballroom, an early 90s flick from Australia set in the over competitive world of ballroom dancing. It was highly entertaining. It's streaming for free on Pluto, or rentable on all the usual platforms. Shout out to @scalzi for the recommendation. #movies

Got another free year of credit monitoring due to BCBS Illinois, which I haven't used since 2021, getting hacked earlier this year. The credit monitoring service, which I've never heard of, sent me a long complicated ID code to track who I am but still wants me to put my social security number […]

I'm about 2/3 of the way through Nuclear War by Annie Jacobsen. It's a minute-by-minute account of what the government would be doing in the 30 minutes it takes a North Korean ICBM to make it to the US and in the immediate aftermath. As a cold war kid that grew up on SAC bases where […]

🎉 My wife took me out for dinner to a local crepe place. We started with empanadas . Then I had a savory crepe filled with chicken, a cranberry and mango compote, caramelized onions, and a magno creme sauce. It weighed about a pound. I ate the whole thing. Then they brought me a Nutella crepe on […]