I find myself (almost) surprised that July of 2025 is nearly over. The year seems to be slipping by quickly. One’s sense of time really does change as one gets older [see Perception of Time].
More to the point, this is the last Friday in July, so if I’m to get a Friday Notes post out this month, today is the day. While my notorious pile is much reduced, I still have two ancient notebooks full of very old notes to get to.
So, let’s get to it, shall we?
The last post, Smoke Alarm Saga, concerned the frustrations with my smoke alarms and the service vendor who installed them — a company whose failings apparently put them out of business.
It wasn’t just the service; the product was bad. Three of the four smoke alarms they installed failed after seven months. In the midst of that frustration — after I’d removed the two my ladder reached but was still plagued by the one 13 feet up — I had a rather strange morning.
One that seemed to fit right in with everything else going on…
Almost exactly six years ago — in September of 2019 — I began having electrical problems. Power outages affected half the lights and plugs in the place. Getting an electrician in to fix it led to what became my worst experience with home service — a six-year saga with a disappointing ending.
More precisely, five-and-a-half years. The unsatisfying conclusion came last May with a faint echo in June. Some fallout persists, a task left unfinished, but the stress is thankfully past.
Here’s what happened…
About a month after I started this blog (on July 4, 2011), I wrote about my first and second skydives — which were tandem jumps — as well as my first (semi) solo skydive. A year later, I wrote about graduating my training to a full-fledged solo jumper as well as a particularly enjoyable skydiving “boogie”.
My last jump was in September of 1999 when the owners of the drop zone suggested that — because I wasn’t putting in the time needed to improve — that it might be best if I considered another hobby. They were right, and I did.
At that point I had made 50 jumps in two years. Here is my logbook.
So, if a fortnight is 14 days (but counted as nights), then a fortjuly should be 14 years. I suppose it should really be a fortwinter to align with the counting nights aspect. But that would mean we’re on the 13th “day” (year) of this blog, and this post celebrates the blog’s 14th anniversary, so fortjuly it is.
As in: “It has been fourteen years — a fortjuly — since I started this blog.” By other metrics: 1,438 posts (42 pages); 1,996,695 words (damn, just missed it being a cool two-mill); 287,266 sentences; or 63,337 paragraphs.
As usual, there are charts and lists.
Posts pertaining to programming!
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