100DaysToOffload

My quest continues in 2024 to find better social media platforms! While Mastodon is currently my favorite social media platform for engagement, it's unfortunately not the platform many of those that I followed or followed me on Twitter. Many of these friends and acquaintances have either migrated to Bluesky, Threads, or stayed on Twitter/X. I've been busy looking at these other alternatives.

With a Friday off on December 22, 2023 I took a short ride in the afternoon on my three-wheeler. For a near-Christmas ride in South Dakota with no snow on the ground, no wind, and temperatures approaching 50F...it couldn't have been a more perfect ride on my 2017 Can-Am Spyder RTL. The ride only totaled 30 miles but gave enough distance to ride west out of Sioux Falls to Wall Lake and then head north making a round trip through Hartford.

I can't recall ever having this enjoyable of a ride this close to the end of the year. With rain and snow in the forecast for Christmas, I likely won't have any more opportunities to ride in 2023. That doesn't make me sad, because I already got my Christmas miracle...a motorcycle ride in South Dakota at the end of December. So for now, I'm just going to look forward to discovering where the roads take me in 2024.

In the early years of our marriage, my wife and I bought a lighted Christmas wreath. The wreath was two feet in diameter and was strung with the old incandescent cluster lights. This wreath hung in our picture window of our first house and would make its way to the transom window above the front door of our second house. Over the years this Christmas wreath had become my favorite decoration to hang during the holiday season.

Despite our above normal temperatures this December, I finally accepted the undeniable truth that the temperatures now are just too cold to enjoy our patio. The patio furniture has been covered and moved into position to face the South Dakota winter with its fury of wind and snow.

Just a brief video below of this year's Christmas decorations in the front of my house. Along with the ride is our family dog, Jasmine!  Nothing else special to see here, but since I posted this video on my social media accounts, I decided it should also be posted on my blog.

In the video, I sound like I'm out of breath I don't know why except that I started putting up the decorations too late int he day and needed complete the task before sunset. 

Holiday greetings to all that find this post!

I have come to both hate and love social media platforms since joining them in the early days via Google+, Facebook, and Twitter. There are some days I just want to quit all social media. Yet, social media has become an indispensable tool for communication, connection, information sharing, and in some cases building community. For years Twitter was my favorite for microblogging, but as X, for better or worse, it's no longer the valued social network it once was for me. Like many of you, I've been looking for an alternative to Twitter.

I spent this weekend upgrading my "non-personal" websites from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10. There are four of them which include socPub, CMS Report, INFOTECH Pub, and After Work Pub. These websites share some of its content from one another using the Domain contributed module. Managing four websites under one database and one Drupal install provides some advantages but also presents some unique challenges. Luckily, the beta version of the Domain module was developed enough to not present too many upgrade obstacles for me.

I have ran this website of mine on Drupal since 2005 starting with Drupal 4.6. This past week I upgraded bryanruby.com from Drupal 9 to Drupal 10. This being a Drupal upgrade, I'm happy to report the experience was an average event for me. After installing countless versions of Drupal over the years since then, the upgrades have not always gone well. 

The older I get the more positive I have become. Yea I know, this surprised me too as I expected it to go the other way when I was younger. The negative of being positive though is recognizing that the world could use a lot more positive people.

This past month I replaced a line of Hi-Fi speakers I've listened to and enjoyed for the past 20 years with a pair of new floor speakers from Klipsch. It's an acknowledgment that my hearing and tastes have changed and it's time to listen to my music through a new stereo system. This recognition of needing to do things differently has become a common theme for me lately. I'm finding the old ways aren't working and perhaps joy can be found again by doing something new. With this theme on change, instead of blogging only when I'm inspired by great ideas or events, I decided to blog every few days as I take part in the 100 Days to Offload challenge.