odditudes-and-weirdities

As I've (more or less) successfully managed yet another trip around the sun, so lets discuss what happened. This should be similar to what I did in 2022 and 2023 , so if those bored you nearly comatose you should be warned that this will be more of the same. Photographic evidence that I exist. (Almost certainly not an AI generated image of a random old guy.) Health : It wouldn't be a year in review without a passing mention about my left knee. Although I don't recall it swelling up like it used to do, these days I'll sometimes get a fairly sharp pain if I bend it weirdly (which is harder to avoid than you'd think it would be). Still, I go jogging most mornings ... so how bad can the knee really be? I hurt my back this summer. I attribute this to stupidity. At Duke Farms we were cutting down (mostly invasive) plants that were tangling into or just very close to some of their fencing. Since we were cutting on both sides of the fence but were only collecting the debri...

Since it's my birthday, I figured I'd catch everyone up on (the little?) that's happened in the last year. (I'll probably forget to mention something.) Like many of you, COVID-19 hampered and hindered some activities. At this time last year I was unvaccinated, a little too young to be targeted early for the vaccines. In March I got my first Moderna dose, and in April I got my 2nd Moderna dose. I had virtually zero reaction to the 1st one, but the 2nd one definitely stirred up a reaction. Fortunately the worst of it was over about 24 hours after the shot, and 48 hours after I felt essentially normal. I remember thinking at the time that life might go back to normal. In November I got my booster, this time the Pfizer shot. The reaction was similar to my 2nd Moderna shot. I didn't go out of my way to mix-and-match the Moderna and Pfizer shots; they were just the most convenient ones I could get each time. (I'm a little bit glad the Johnson & Johnson shot wasn...