Personal Log 12.19.24

This year went by way too fast, it was a long Winter, followed by a tease of Spring then a late frost that killed the peach blossoms & some other plants that were just beginning to show life; it was a bit discouraging. We did get some apples this year though. However, once the weather evened out, we had a pretty good crop of tomatoes & hot peppers; my new favorite hot pepper is the Thai Pepper. It's supposed to be 1/3 as hot as a Jalapeno but I've had some that were hotter so I guess it just depends on the variety.

This year I finally built a fence around my mom's blueberry/raspberry/blackberry garden & doesn't look too bad, 'just need to staple some chicken wire to the inside of it & put in a brick walkway for her. I'll do what I can for her while she's still with us...

At times, it seems like the Men's Ministry is floundering, 'not sure what the guys want but no one really shows up. I'm doing the Men of the Bible series which I wrote & this year we covered Eli, Jonah, Gideon & Mordecai, again, the attendance was sporadic. They seem to come to events when there's food so as a last-ditch effort, I'm holding four monthly breakfasts for them; if they don't show up then I know they're just not interested in meeting together with the other men. 

Our virtual Men's Ministry somewhat faded this year too as there's only one other guy who's interested in that & he's been extremely busy with work so that's that... for now. I'll revisit that next year but to be honest, our geriatric congregation is very set in their ways & virtual ministry is more for the younger crowd of which we lack.

The Worship Team changed leadership this year & overall, it's been a really good change. I lead worship once a month, which is causing me to grow in both my playing & in my patience. I tell people we're not doing the songs like the original artists do them, but that concept has a hard time sinking in with some of them. I have my challenges but it's all being sorted out.

I'm laying the groundwork to start a virtual teaching for our Worship Team on the topic of worship. Many teams in many churches have zero training & teaching on worship, it's mainly if you can sing or play & you're saved, come join us! I feel there needs to be a basic understanding of what worship is & what worship isn't. 

Our church social media team is basically just media, it's informs, but there's no interaction (hence the word social); 'not sure what to do to increase engagement both within & beyond our congregation...

Speaking of social media, after 20 years it seems Skype is coming into it's own. Many people blow off Skype as a has-been video conferencing app & favor Zoom, WhatsApp or Teams but it really should be revisited. Skype Meet Now is fantastic, I believe the limit is 50 people & 24 hours (the info varies on that). It's integrated on my Outlook ribbon so I can create a meeting anytime. I'm on Skype virtually (no pun intended) every day for a few minutes to check my messages & it's been very solid.

I have a friend in Germany who Skypes her nephews quite often & I suggested in lieu of emailing me when she wants emergency prayer or words of advice to just leave a message on Skype or live chat & she replied "I don't have time for that." That kinda jerked my chain so I haven't talked to her since. That's basically my life story = people have time for other people but not for me & usually only when they want something like prayer, encouragement, advice... It reminds me of a few Christians I know who only call on God when they're in trouble or need help. No one I know has a relationship with their paramedic... it's tiring being the one who puts in all the effort in a relationship & I'm finished with "people". 

My birthday came & went, I did get some birthday greetings on FB but I basically yelled at everyone for sending me birthday wishes but not keeping in contact throughout the year. I told them if that's the only time I hear from them I'd rather not hear from them at all. FB has fostered a culture of narcissism where no one reaches out anymore, it's all about them. I don't feel bad at all about yelling at them as I despise FB & really want nothing to do it but to be honest, it's not really FB as it's people in general (though FB does foster an atmosphere of "self"). I'm only on there for our Men's Ministry page & for my relatives but that's it. I'm just not interested in every excruciating minutiae of detail of everyone's lives.

X (formerly Twitter) is my social media of choice, I only have it on my laptop not my phone as I like to keep my phone as clean as possible, but X has really taken off & improved especially since it now has a new owner. Many liberals have left it for Bluesky which is quite okay with me but I do see what's trending, the headline news, etc. I'm looking into the spaces feature but not sure about it as I only have two friends on X, that's it. 

My cousin Jim died in July from a heart attack, he was only 48 & it was quite sudden. The funeral was nice, I talked to my cousins & they said it's tiring only getting together when someone dies so I'm looking at starting a cousin's video chat with them but then again, why am I the one to do that? Why is everything left up to me? I have enough going on. Ugh...

So, my elderly folks are on Linux, Windows are not in their household anymore; we've had enough of that nonsense with endless updates & security issues. If they can do Linux Mint, so can anyone. Linux Mint is the best distro (in my opinion) to migrate from Windows to though my friend Nathan is an OpenSUSE mega-fan.

I think next year I'm going to try to be more android-based or at least explore that option. 

'Looking to revisit some writing & recording projects, 'just have to make the time while exploring something called rest & sleep...

I'm taking care of my elderly mom & there's a special grace for doing that. A month ago she was ready to end it all as the pain was just too much for her to bear. She looked at the bottle of pain pills & said, "If I took them all at once it would all be over..." & I asked her if that's what she really wanted & the delayed response was "no...".  Since then, she's changed doctors & the new medication has helped her tremendously; she's more encouraged now but there's still a long & somewhat uncertain road ahead. As my friend Nathan always says, "Software can be upgraded, hardware eventually breaks down" & that pretty much sums it up.

A lot of prayers were answered on November 5th; that's all I'm going to say regarding that.

Though there was family loss this year there was also family gain: my nephew Dustin became a father a week ago. He & his wife lead worship at Hosanna Heidelberg in Germany which makes it a little hard for weekend visits. I remember when Dustin was born & now I feel "ancient" & there's no other word for it. Generations come & generations go, at some time in the future we'll welcome another child into the family & eventually someone will be saying goodbye to me.

I had fun with AI this year, asking questions in X's Grok, DuckDuckGo's Mixtral & Skype's Copilot, 'very interesting answers... between these three, Skype is the only one that asked me questions back. 

At the time of this writing, we're in the Advent season & the Christmas season is coming, though some would argue we're already in the Christmas season; it's all kinda muddied... though I'm very much a lover of Christmas, it's different this year; there's this undercurrent I can't quite place my finger on.

That's about it, nothing more to be said on 2024 & to be honest, I'm not sure how I feel about 2025; I quit making resolutions as I would rarely follow through with them; I'm shooting for short-term goals & taking everything one week at a time, but I do need to make some major changes & minor changes or several minor changes to make a major change, whatever...