Ka-boom 31st

For the past few years, my wife has doubled up on our 4th of July fireworks. Half of them are saved up for New Years Eve, but I've already covered this. Once again, it's been an unusually warm (but this time, unusually sunny December), so there wasn't any snow to clear.

Doing the fireworks at the 4th of July isn't as fun. Oh sure it's cold right now, and the chance of rough weather is much higher, but... I have kids, and I want them to go to bed. My youngest is 6, and she doesn't stay up late. When she's tired, she just goes to bed, no cajoling required. But she doesn't want to miss out. The beginning of July, the sun doesn't set until 9pm. She's out like a light by then, but fighting it hard for those fireworks.

December 31? The sun sets at 4:30. She got a light show, dinner, and tucked in on time. I swear that girl loves her sleep.

The Matrix: Regurgitation

I haven't done a movie review in awhile. I normally don't have a lot to say about movies, but this one... good grief. 

Eighteen years ago, the Matrix trilogy ended. The original in 1999 was an absolute game changer. The sequels in 2003 were... meh. I liked them because I wanted to like them. The original asked more questions than it answered, and told more of a story than it actually told, whereas the sequels just answered them among a lot of action sequences. 

Like I said, I liked them because I wanted to. Beyond that they lacked the soul of the original.

But this fourth movie did nothing. It asked no questions it didn't quickly answer. The action sequences were a jumbled mess. People that died in the last movie were somehow alive (dues ex machina retconning the ending, always sucks).

It's just a mess. Nobody asked for this movie.

Left shoulder

Ah yes, injury.

I saw no reason for my shoulder to, while doing nothing, just... hurt. I honestly can't pin down when it started. It was low at first, like background noise 8 inches from my ear. It would feel worse when I did certain things, so I just didn't do those things.

That didn't work out in the long run.

I was telling this to a friend of mine (who just happens to be *a* doctor, just not *my* doctor), and he asked me to do a few little movements. See what directions things move and what hurts when I try.

Rotator cuff. Now I just need a doctor with some fancy look-inside-me gear to see just how bad the damage is. Meanwhile, what I miss the most is being able to sleep on my side.

The most overscheduled time of the year

There are many, many things that happen in December. My wife, of course, has us doing it all. But through a fluke of scheduling (accidentally buying event tickets for the wrong day), we ended up doing everything in the first week and a half.

This past week has been quiet. She admitted that it was nice 'getting it out of the way', implying it was a chore to be dealt with.

Half of it is nonsense and the other half is just pomp and circumstance. The former can go, the latter I can dress up for so it stays.

It sumps as it pumps

So.... the house again. This time, as I was going through my basement, I heard the unmistakable sound of the sump pump. At first I ignored it, until I realized the sound wasn't stopping.

The sump well was dry, but the pump was still going, and going hard. I tried triggering the switch to see if something was stuck, but it was not. I cut the power and let it cool off, but the problem persisted. It pumped, so that wasn't an issue, but the motor was going to burn out if this kept up.

A Christmas light timer makes a wonderful stop-gap measure until the issue is resolved.

So anyway, after realizing that fixing the switch inside the pump was impossible without taking the entire casing apart (and breaking the thing, because it's 50 years old and covered in barnacles), I just got a new one.

This house keeps testing me.