Obviously, if you’ve followed me on Mastodon, you’ll know that US politics has been top of mind for me lately. In the last 3 weeks or so I’ve gone from feeling pessimistic and hopeless, to optimistic and 100% confident that Kamala Harris is going to win this election. A few weeks ago I was certain that Joe Biden needed to stay in the race to defeat Donald Trump. I was convinced that running Kamala Harris for President would be a repeat of 2016. Now, I’m thankful that Joe did the right thing and stepped aside, because I haven’t seen momentum and alignment in the Democratic party since Obama’s first campaign. I’m feeling much better about the state of the country going forward with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz at the helm. It’s been a joy and a relief to listen to them speak and watch them interact with voters.
Work has been going pretty well. We’ve been working with a bare minimum team, so with people taking vacations during the summer it’s been a little rough. I admit I’ve been really stressed out over the last couple of months. On the bright side, summer vacations are coming to an end, we’ve got the whole crew back on the clock, and we’re about to hire at least one new person, maybe two. And I got a small raise, so that’s nice.
Summer for the kids is coming to an end. Our youngest daughter starts middle school this week, and the twins start 11th grade next week. I feel like we haven’t done as much this summer and as we usually do. For one thing, it’s been way too hot all the time to do anything outside. As for the budget, we did the big trip to Seattle last summer after the wedding, so we wanted to keep it simple and inexpensive this year. We did make it down to the eastern shore for a few days in July and had a nice time. We did a little bit of hiking, though not as much as we would have liked. My wife and I visited some new wineries this summer, and a few that we hadn’t been to in a very long time. We took the kids for a day trip to the National Mall in DC in June. This past weekend we went to a nearby county fair and watch a demolition derby. Other than that, we just did a lot of movie watching and playing badminton in the yard. The twins are almost 17 and they started driving in June so they spent some of the summer making their own plans with their friends, which was new for us. With school starting in a matter of days it’s going to be another adjustment, since we’ll see even less of the twins because they will likely also be getting part time jobs. But we do have some fun things planned this fall. I’m taking one of the twins to see Billie Eilish in October. Their birthday is in September so we’ll do something fun for that. We always do fun stuff for Halloween, like haunted houses, corn mazes, horror movies, and fall farm markets. Then the oldest’s birthday is in October and the youngest’s is in November. Lots to look forward to! Not to mention the pleasant weather for hiking and other outdoor activities.
Other things I’ve been up to include doing a Howl’s Moving Castle puzzle, building a fire pit seating area in our back yard, and listening to lots and lots of Bilmuri and Sleep Token. Anyway, I’ll be trying to post on here more often. Hit me up in the comments if you want, or mention me on Mastodon!