Yes, I’m failing at keeping this blog up to date. But here’s another summary of what I’ve been up to as of end of 2024, to follow up on what I did in 2023. I’ve posted about some of these things, but not all:
In January, Cyndi and took an unforgettable trip to Costa Rica with some of our friends from MIT. I repaired our backyard birdfeeder by designing and 3D printing replacement parts. They’ve worked out well.
In February and March, I replaced two control arms on the Mustang, due to prematurely worn out ball joints, one of them in the lateral link, and the other in the tension arm. Oddly, only two of the four arms had this trouble at 62k miles. As of this writing, the car has over 87k miles, and the other two links/arms are perfectly fine.
In April, I visited my mom and brothers and my high school friend, Michelle, in Texas, in order to observe the total eclipse. Although it was cloudy, it was still a beautiful and moving event.
I also took a big trip to Colorado to visit Aria. Along the way, or while I was there, I visited the Golden Spike Tower in Omaha, drove up Pikes Peak, and visited the Raptor Education Foundation and Wings Over Colorado aviation museum. I also visited another good high school friend, Karen, and one of her daughters, Grace, who was performing in her senior choir concert(Karen, I know I still owe you all the rest of those pictures and videos…)
In May, Cyndi and I met our MIT friend Anna for a weekend in Nashville. This ended up being a scouting trip for a larger Russki Dom reunion in Nashville later in the year. We were also treated to a spectacular Auroa Borealis in May, which was visible in our backyard in southwest Michigan. This was a rare treat! For Mother’s Day, I drove quite a ways to purchase native Michigan flowering plants for the wet spot in our backyard.
June was a whirlwind month for me, mostly because of a large East Coast Trip: I drove out to Vermont to meeting my family for the wedding of Danika and Will. Danika is the daughter of our close MIT friends, Vadim and Justyna. After my family flew home, I drove down the east coast to visit a few friends in CT, NY, NJ and VA. When I got back, I bit the bullet and bought a new mountain bike.
In July, Cyndi and I celebrated our 31st anniversary at the Whitney, a posh restaurant in Detroit. I got braces, and repaired my friend’s truck
In August, we celebrated another wedding, Robert, the son of Rochelle, who was the daycare provider for all three of our kids. I made my annual pilgrimage to IRCHA. We held our Russki Dom(Cyndi’s college dorm) reunion in Nashville, and I got lucky enough to witness and capture a raptor in our backyard(eating a Blue Jay, sorry Jay).
In September, Cyndi and I went to Wilderness State Park to enjoy a beautiful rustic cabin in Northern Michigan. We also visited Mackinac Island. I flew to Texas for my mom’s birthday. Mom and I also visited the San Antonio Botanical Gardens.
While I was in San Antonio, I attended two reunions(middle school and high school) with a friend from middle school, Christa. The middle school reunion was really touching, since we’re talking about people I’ve known for over 45 years! Christa also went karting with me, my brothers and my nephews. San Antonio Karting has very fast karts, fast enough to drift!
My brother Mike and I went to my brother Mark’s house for a jam session, where I got to play Mark’s keyboard and their new 5-string Steinberger headless bass. I had planned to fly to Florida to visit more friends, but hurricane Milton put a dent in those plans.
Later in the month, I finally, finally took my Mustang drag racing at Milan Dragway. I had not been there since the late 90s, when I raced my 63 Chevy. The fastest time I ran with that old boat was 16.4sec @ 89mph, whereas my Mustang blew through the 1/4 mile at 13sec @ 114mph!
In October, was also very busy, but for different reasons. It was time to finally replace the siding on the house, and part of the roof, in order to address water leak issues. Shortly after we did this, our old furnace went out after 30+ years, so we replaced that and the A/C. Finally, although the water heater had not failed, it was due, so we replaced that, too. And it was also time to replace the upstairs toilet with a more water efficient one. October was turning out to be expensive!
In the fun department, I was able to capture Comet C-2023/A3. In the picture below is what it looked to the naked eye. You’ll have to click on the picture and zoom into the center to see it. This was a big deal for those of us into astronomy and astrophotography.
In November, I drove to Texas again and met my family for Thanksgiving. We took mom out for dinner one night. I also replaced the roof on one of the green houses my late father built decades ago. It was bittersweet to work on something my dad built. He taught me how to work on/build many things around the house and cars, and I was able to see what he was thinking when he put this structure together. In a way, he was still teaching and helping me do the job.
In December, our MIT friend Anna(See Nashville, above) asked me to accompany her to a resort in Cancun. She had earned an all-expense paid week, but had no one else to go with. So of course, I said yes! It was really amazing, and I plan to write this up later.
Back at home, we needed to replace the chimney flue for safety reasons, and we redid the masonry work around the cap in order to finally solve a water leak issue there. So far, so good. The new flue is a stainless steel one, compared to the ceramic/clay tiles that came with the house.
For Christmas, we went to Florida to visit with Cyndi’s folks and her sister, Debbie and her dog, Violet. We all stayed with Debbie in an AirBnB close to her folks’ house, and took a short trip to the beach, despite the cold temperatures and wind.
