Two weeks ago, Ancestral Worm had their second show. We’re working hard to get a few more booked this fall. We’ve got a solid 40+ minute set and three more songs that are more than half complete to add to that, so things are going pretty well. I wish we were playing out a bit more often, but I’m still enjoying playing music with friends at least once a week.
I continue to acquire gear, which, if you’ll notice if keep an eye on my Uses page. My new, first, Gibson Les Paul is a shit load of fun.
The actual big news of the summer is the addition of Mae to our household. We’re still waiting for a DNA test to come back, but we’re currently guessing some kind of West Highland Terrier and Cairn Terrier mix. Maybe some Schnauzer? Anyway, she joined our home on May 31st at about 5 months old. So we’ve been spending a lot of time on long walks outside and learning her personality and cues.
I have spent significantly more time writing code at work – somewhat because it’s fun, somewhat out of necessity. I have to say, agentic AI in my editor has completely changed the game here. Because I have a manager’s schedule, it’s been quite hard to get focused time to contribute for the last several years. It’s much easier for me to be a strong editor and planner than executor, and the AI support makes this a reasonable approach to getting work done.
America is in distress, and I have no real means, way, or plans to get out or fix it, like so many others.
This year I’ve been reading quite a bit less, in part because I started reading Brandon Sanderson and his books are… long. I’m currently taking a break halfway through Stormlight to read some quicker/easier things before hopefully finishing that up this year and moving into Mistborn Era 2.
I never came up with a theme for my year. I have no word, no concept, no guidance right now. If anything, this year has been filled with a sense of just letting time pass and letting things happen. There nothing intentional driving my moves. I’m not trying to be better at any particular thing. I think maybe this year was about stewing in myself and having total comfort in that. The world is so out of control that I think I am not trying to control even the things within my reach. Each day I do some combination of what I can and what I want and I let that be enough. I have the security and safety to allow for that, and I want to let that luxury be a luxury rather than a burden.