January's been a month to get back into the groove with work. At least as much as I can while also dealing with the house construction.

One thing that was neat. Last year, I was out of town when a better one came through, but we had another aurora borealis appear in the skies above Arizona again. I think I could have gotten a better shot if I had been outside earlier, but this is what I saw once I remembered it was going on.

Purple aurora borealis

Health Update

After a long time of ignoring routine checkups, knowing my blood pressure has been on the high side for a while, I decided to finally pay attention to it and get checked out.

Getting started on blood pressure medication wasn't a shock, and I just started taking it yesterday. We'll see how that goes. Other than my cholesterol being a bit high, which I'll attempt to address via diet, everything else looks good.

House Construction Update

Still many decisions, like little details like the shape of baseboards, how they run down the steps, and door stops. As trivial as some of that sounds, it's not without stress.

Kitchen with cabinets and countertops in progress

We have cabinets and countertops, and by the end of February our deck and inside flooring should be in place. We'll have pavers started for outside and maybe even have our hot tub in place. A lot coming down to the wire as we're still anticipating being able to move in some time in April.

Movies

  • Marty Supreme had some great acting, and I can see how it's up for some awards, but it's not a very enjoyable film. The main character is just an awful person all the time and you can't help but want him to fail.
  • 25 Cats from Qatar is an excellent documentary about the incredible number of feral cats that roam Qatar. A city with more than enough money to help deal with the issue, but it does not. The film shows some of the few people who do care and try to help out as many cats as they can. Disclaimer: I'm a friend of Director Mye Hoang, but I honestly loved this documentary.
  • Only The Brave (2017) was really good. My wife and I were prompted to watch this since it's based on firemen from Prescott, AZ. We'd recently visited there and came upon a shop owned by the wife of the man who the main character of this film is based on. Made it much more of a personal experience for us.