Hi Jason,

I will likely get back into D&D soon. Once a few things settle down at work I’ll have a bit more energy to play.

Hobbies come and go. I’ve known that for a long time. I’ll have interest in one, then move to another, and another, eventually coming back to the original. Often I max out on one as it has my interest, then I move one.

I’m a couple of days late on this one. Will just make it within the month of June. Time since the Covid lockdowns has been weird. I had a keen sense of time beforehand and that has gone now. Getting older brings with it the sense of time going quicker. What I’ve lost is my sense of distance with time. An event that’s 2 weeks away feels like it’s later than something 3 months away. Makes me a little sad. Makes it hard to look forward to something.

Today has been a long time in the car. 5 hours as I headed NW to visit a couple of clients and return home. Good audiobook time. I’m listening to “Three Body Problem” off the back of the Netflix trailer. I read the book just 18 month ago and couldn’t have told you what it was about (yeah, ok maybe there is a pattern here) but the memory is returning as I listen to it. Years ago I would have dismissed audiobooks. Now I enjoy them, blending with my Kindle reading and my podcast listening. There is something different about a story being told to you. The slower pacing, even for a book I’ve read, means I often pick up nuances I missed first time around.

I will write up some thoughts on our letter writing in a separate blog post and send you a link when done.

Thanks for the conversation, David

Hi David,

It’s funny, I have been talking a lot about the Three-Body Problem lately. Must be due to the trailer. The idea of the dark forest haunts me.

I have never been able to get fiction audiobooks to click. I listen to tons of podcasts, and I can listen to some non-fiction audiobooks (sped up), but my mind drifts while listening to fiction. For some reason, it doesn’t stick, even though I much prefer to read fiction. I think it’s that slower pace causing me not to focus on details I missed, but instead, drift into the my own thoughts.

One hobby I’ve been dong a bit more of lately is cooking. Of course, I am always at least cooking sometimes. What I’m doing now is taking care when I cook. I’m not slapping cold cuts on cold bread. I’m spending that extra time making a small sauce, toasting my bread, chopping veggies to go inside of it. I’m just being a little less lazy about my food. It feels good. Sometimes I forget that it takes less than 10 extra minutes to make something that’s twice as good.

Sorry I’m late on this response.

Last weekend, this time, I was pretty certain our older dog Gracie had just days to live. She’s home now, comfortable, after 3 nights in the ER followed by a couple of days spending 8am to 6pm at the vet. She’s reached the point where she’s not going to get any better, but she’s mostly stable and seems to still have some time with reasonable quality of life. Thankfully once she was home for a couple of days and out of the anxiety of the overnight pet ER and vet, she seems to be about 80% her normal self. We have to give her fluids at home and she’s on a host of medication. But she’s eating, she still likes going for walks, and she loves us.

All that to say, I’m a bit late at least in part because other than work, the gym, and volleyball, I have done little else lately. My thoughts are, well, preoccupied.

Thanks for chatting with me in June.

Jason