Antarctica Starts Here.

Windbringer's internal clock tells me that, as I write this the calendar date is 27 December 2025. To be honest, I kind of lost track of the date just before Christmas of this year. Everything started blurring together around that time, in part because it had been raining so much in California and in part because my schedule - my usual sense of how things are supposed to happen - no longer exists. I'm still searching for a new job and while I might have one or two leads I have no details. Plus, hanging one's hat on a single option is never a good idea because, if it winds up not happening it always kicks you that much harder. So I'm trying to skim just a little power off of the top and let it move me along, so I can save my strength to course correct as necessary. It's more efficient to steer than it is to propel.

A couple of weeks back somebody broke into our storage unit. We got a phone call from the manager early in the morning and, after getting out there to take a look were reminded that locks are not the weak point of any secure structure; the walls are. Our crates had been thrown around, some had been opened and gone through, and we're still in the process of taking inventory. Some things have been taken but we're not completely certain of the list yet. The rain out here (the high winds that came with them, really) have made driving out here tricky so getting to and from the storage facility has been somewhat more difficult than usual. I think I've said about as much as I can before everything's settled, so I should probably stop here.

I'm still looking for a job out here, which may as well be a full time job in and of itself. If you count unemployment (the first time I've ever qualified for it in my career) it may as well be. I'm obligated to apply for a few jobs every week and, in California at least, I have to document what I applied for, where, and contact information every week or two so they know that I'm not just sitting on my ass watching Netflix. ¹ A few weeks back I had to go to a mandatory review of my progress (thankfully done as a video call ²) that involved looking at the last dozen or so jobs I'd applied for, looking at my resume, and having me pick a mandatory class that I have to attend somewhen around the time this post goes live. Toward that end I copied all of the text out of the Office document that I've been using for the last fifteen years into Markdown files, checked them into a Git repository on my laptop, and using mdBook to render them into a PDF file (with a little CSS to make them less book-like and more like a resume. This has had the side effect of making it easier to maintain multiple versions of my resume which are optimized for different kinds of jobs ³ because I can cut a Git branch for IT work (let's say), switch to it, edit the files, and then generate a PDF out of it. Switch to another branch, rinse, repeat until I have a directory of different variants of resume. ⁴

I'm trying not to worry. As I write this, it's the holidays so I'm trying to take it as easy as I can.

Which, paradoxically, reminds me of something else. Pretty much all year in 2025.ev I'd been in the process of getting my mandible rebuilt again. I'd finally gotten the implant installed in the bone graft, which was capped with what amounts to a little hex screw to keep the inside of the implant clean and hold the hole in my gum open. Lyssa and I had to fly to the east coast for Thanksgiving and, while out for dinner with Hasufin and Johanna it came out. Needless to say, my hearts were in my mouth when this happened. I somewhat sheepishly spat the implant out, carefully wrapped it a paper napkin, and tucked it into a carryout sauce container for safekeeping. Upon arriving back at home my dentist was able to reinstall it, and as an encore the replacement tooth had arrived so he bolted it into place using what amounts to a tiny torque wrench and put a tiny filling on top of the bolt head. One less thing to worry aboupt, or so I thought,

Two days later the matching molar on the opposite side of my jaw started hurting, and an x-ray confirmed a) the presence of an infection and b) the need for a root canal. Cue a week of antibiotics (which ruined my ability to digest anything) and painkillers. Much to my surprise, when I showed up for the root canal they knocked me out with nitrous (which I'd never had for dental work before) and I slept through the whole thing. As I write this I have a temporary filling in that molar and an appointment to finish the job in a day or two. So it goes.