2025 Wrap-Up

In some ways, 2025 was a mercifully dull year.  OTOH, not a lot to blog about either.  Month by month, let's go:

• Winter Field Day Wrap-Up  Too cold to go camping and do it right, but still learned things.
• Port St. Joe Repeater is Back Up  Go check out the coverage maps.
• Santos Fat Tire Fest report  Yearly happening.
• iPhone Satcoms  A useful tool in the toolbox, and surprisingly easy.
• Pirates!  Only a book about them, not actually coming ashore here.
• Announcement of upcoming Project Hail Mary movie  Yee-hah!
• How Generative AI Works  Slides from a non-hand-wavy talk.  Informative AND comprehensible.
• New Gravel Bike  Things are working out well with it.
• Sentience, Self-Awareness, and so much more.  At least, in book form.
• Slow Scan TV, Finally  Been wanting to get this working for years.
• Air Show at the Apalachicola Airport  Definitely worth going.
• Holman on Deep Future, Deep Tech  Way out there, in both podcast & book form.

And finally, the Best Damn Post of the Year: 

If You're Going to Move to Apalachicola, Then Please Look Into These Three Resources

The most popular?  How to program several different radios; FT-60's, FT-70's, etc.  You can search for those.  No biggies, no surprises.

Finally, picture of the year:

Look at that August humidity in the background.  If you move fast, you may still find either this or something similar more to your liking on sale by following this link.

And with that, Happy New Year, and I'll be back in a few days.

Wright's Lake Trail, Once More

With the cold weather finally here, I drove north and hiked the Wright's Lake Loop Trail again.  It's looking a little rough, needs some trail TLC, but it's still perfectly hike-able.  Tried out new gaiters and permethrin-treated clothes, and the ticks didn't seem to like that at all, which means that I did like these items quite a lot.  Why gaiters?  Boots aren't high enough to tuck pants legs in, so gaiters just sealed up everything and kept the little creepy-crawlies out.  Treated the gaiters and boots with permethrin as well!

Brought along the FT-70, and made a few contacts through the local SARNET-FL repeater.  When I first pulled up to the user pay kiosk, the campground host saw my call sign hat and immediately asked if I could help him with his Baofeng radio.  Well yeah, of course.  He's not licensed, but enjoys scanning for and listening in on deer hunters, and now he can listen in on SARNET-FL as well (nb: I didn't program in the CTCSS tone code, so there's no chance of him transmitting into it).

Not a lot else to say beyond some earlier posts (1, 2, 3).  Here's pic of the bridge over Coffee Creek, a full four feet less water than I've earlier seen it.  Not much of a creek today, just a slowly meandering remnant in the bottom of the streambed.

Finally Watched 'A Christmas Story'

It was one of those astounding facts that turned heads at Christmas parties, but I'd never watched A Christmas Story until last night.  I hardly need to review it here, but the sweet, nostalgic, slightly askew, fond regard in which it's generally held seems about right, now that I've finally seen it.

Picked it up on the double-feature DVD that includes its 2022 sequel, A Christmas Story Christmas.  Maybe I'll watch it before New Year's, maybe I'll save it for next Christmas.  There's only so much sweet, slightly askew nostalgia I can take in one week.

ps: You might want to pick up a pack of these.  I was always a stickler about such when my kids were young.  Still am, for that matter.

pps: As if on cue, this showed up: Could A Red Ryder BB Gun Be Lethal?  15 minutes of interestingness.  Or if you don't have the time, just apply Betteridge's Law and move on.

Don't Gaze Too Long

A Coded Message for Christmas

At The Times, The coded message in our newspaper

And with that, I sincerely hope that you're having a very merry Christmas.  And I also hope that you're not in jail.

Hoo Boy

Legislators push for state takeover of Apalach water at The Times.

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Can't Wait Until Next Christmas...

... when this book comes out.  Here are a couple of teasers:

• A New Christmas Fable
• Joyous Noel!

Because this is how you get new scientists, engineers, and innovators.