Finally, Great Heart News

Great news today at my follow-up with my hypertrophic cardiomyopathy specialist. Camzyos is really starting to work. My most recent echo earlier this week was excellent, and so was the heart cath I had in late December. In fact, the heart cath showed that Camzyos is working well enough that I do not need to rush into an alcohol ablation or a septal myectomy. If I ever do need an intervention in the future, my doctor said I would be a good candidate for septal alcohol ablation. I also told my doctor that, if at all possible, I would prefer...

January 9th, 2026 personal

🍿 Watched The Pickup (2025) from Amazon Prime

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MILD SPOILERS When the heist goes right: Meet the trio behind the biggest score of their lives in 'The Pickup'. My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5 stars) The Pickup serves as a pleasant diversion with its fairly engaging plot and commendable performances. The film is entirely a work of fiction. A notable concern, however, is the excessive crude language, particularly from Pete Davidson, which seemed unnecessary for its comedic aspirations. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDb: https://www.themoviedb.org

January 4th, 2026 review

Spooky Full Moon January 2, 2026

I just had to snap a photo when I saw this scene. A full moon peeking out from behind those clouds. It was such a dramatic, moody sight with the silhouettes of trees just barely visible at the bottom. Isn't it amazing how nature puts on a show like this? This is a werewolf's nightmare 😉.

January 3rd, 2026 photos

Happy 2026!

I just wanted to put up a quick blog post and wish everyone a Happy New Year. Let's pray and hope that God blesses us all. I'm looking forward to this year on many fronts. I want to continue getting my heart under control with my Obstructive Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy, do more self-hosting with AI, and learn more coding. This is also my 25th year of proper blogging (more posts coming on that later). With all the computing power I'm putting together, I'm hoping to learn more about web development, self-hosting, and becoming less dependent on big tech. I'm one year...

January 1st, 2026 personal

My 2025 in Review

Amidst a cascade of light and time, a visionary crafts his dreams for 2025, blending art and aspiration in his timeless sanctuary. I thought I would give a roundup from my point of view for 2025 and share some thoughts on 2026. 2025 brought so many new things for me. I left InMotion Hosting and WordPress after 9 years with them. I probably would still be with them if it weren't for three factors. First, they had given me a discount for three years, and when it expired, they would not renew it and offered me nothing. Second, they had...

December 31st, 2025 personal

A Day of Celestial Discoveries and Misty Mornings

Today was a peculiar yet fulfilling day. It started with a dense fog but cleared up nicely. I managed to capture the sun through my telescope for the first time, and I also spotted the moon in broad daylight, though the telescope had some trouble pinpointing it. I hope you find the images as delightful as I did. They were taken with my Zwo Seestar S30, except for the fog picture, which I captured with the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra. Driving through a foggy night, the world blurs into a mysterious haze of lights and shadows. Birds dance around the...

December 29th, 2025 photos

🎬 Watched The Fantastic 4: First Steps (2025) on Disney+

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MILD SPOILERS Embark on a thrilling journey with the Fantastic Four as they harness their newfound powers to save the world in their first epic adventure! My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐½ (3.5/5 stars) Overall, the movie was decent. The storyline and the cast were quite good. What I found less convincing was the attempt to merge the 1930s-1960s era with advanced technology and space travel. This combination didn't come across as believable. If retro-futurism was a deliberate choice for the society depicted in the film, it needed more explanation. This product uses the TMDb API but is not endorsed...

December 26th, 2025 review

Finally getting stuff done

This weekend was quite productive for me! I managed to put together the Pironman5 Max and install a 16GB Raspberry Pi 5, and I also moved my 1TB NVMe drive from my old 8GB Pironman5, which served my homelab and home server for a year. I've owned the Pironman5 Max since June, but my ongoing health issues had left me too drained to assemble it until now. Thankfully, my new medication, Camzyos, has really helped me regain some energy. Compact and mysterious, this sleek black box hints at high-tech secrets within, standing ready for its next mission. I'm planning to...

December 21st, 2025 hardware

📺 Watched The Morning Show (2019)

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS Power and resilience shine through in the dynamic duo leading 'The Morning Show,' ready to face the bustling challenges of media life. My Rating: ⭐ (1/5 stars) Episodes: 1-10 | Aired: September 17, 2025 through November 19, 2025 I thoroughly enjoyed Season 1, found Season 2 to be decent, and thought Season 3 was lackluster but bearable. However, Season 4 was a disappointment, and I struggled to finish it. I didn't find it engaging and thought the plot was forced and unrealistic. I'm hesitant about watching Season 5, if it happens. Also, my free month...

December 18th, 2025 review

Utilizing Python to Streamline Social Media Interactions

In recent months, I've been building a social media aggregation platform using the Windsurf AI IDE. The platform displays a multimedia timeline that pulls content from Mastodon, Bluesky, Sharkey, Nostr, and Micro.blog. The goal was to centralize my social media interactions in one location instead of checking multiple sites. Developed in Python using AI coding assistants (Claude and ChatGPT 5.2 High Reasoning) to accelerate development, I designed the platform structure and verified the implementation through testing. The screenshot shows the current interface. Some posts appear duplicated because I follow the same people across multiple platforms. NASA's latest technology captures the...

December 14th, 2025 personal

🎥 Watched Superman (2025)

⚠️ SPOILER WARNING: FULL SPOILERS Superman returns with unwavering resolve, his eyes set on a brighter tomorrow. My Rating: ⭐½ (1.5/5 stars) Let's start with the positives. I appreciated the fresh faces portraying Superman, Lois Lane, Lex Luthor, and Jimmy Olsen, particularly in the later scenes and action sequences. The special effects were impressive, and the soundtrack was a highlight. However, that's where the praise ends. Unfortunately, this film might be the weakest Superman installment to date. Despite a promising cast, the storyline fell short. The inclusion of the Justice League characters like Green Lantern, Mr. Terrific, and Hawkgirl felt...

December 14th, 2025 review

Divorce maybe in the Future with Microsoft and Windows

I have been a loyal Microsoft Windows customer since I've owned a PC and MS-DOS was a thing. I went to the events they had for major OS releases with my Dad. We both went to see the exciting things that happened when they used to stream them at movie theaters. I was there for the launch of Windows 95. But it is my opinion that Microsoft has totally lost its way with regards to the consumer and Windows. Yes, this is a rant, and I believe it may be too late for Microsoft and Windows with consumers. I know...

November 25th, 2025

The Path Forward a HCOM Update

This has taken me so long to post because I am still trying to process a lot of stuff and weighing a lot of pros and cons. I went to my HCM Cardiologist (Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy Specialist) recently. I had an ECHO first then saw him. It was not good news from the ECHO. Even though I feel no symptoms with the Camzyos, I will need to take drastic measures in the future, though the timeline wasn't really given. But my gradients are not improving. Last time my gradient at Valsalva was significantly elevated with 100% obstruction. This time it was...

November 10th, 2025

That "Something Wonderful" I was working on

I posted a vague toot recently saying I was working on "something wonderful." Time to explain what that actually means. I got tired of manually posting the same content to multiple blogs, so I'm building a Python program that does it for me. The problem is simple: I have several blogs across different platforms, both free and paid. Each one has its own quirky web editor, and none of them talk to each other well. Micro.blog hosts my main site, but I want to publish everywhere at once without copying and pasting or relying on unreliable RSS feeds. I already...

September 26th, 2025 AI

10 Years of World of Warships

I’ve been playing World of Warships, a free-to-play naval combat game focused mainly on ships from World War II with some from earlier and later eras. It’s my most-played game, and I’ve been with it since the very beginning. I first started on July 2, 2015, the first day of the open beta, just before the official launch that September. For me, the game is a way to relax. I usually stick to co-op battles against bots, since random battles with other players often get too competitive and sometimes rude. I don’t play for competition. I play to unwind and...

September 6th, 2025

To Feature Image or Not

I have been debating lately whether feature images are a good idea. I think they are, because I am a very visual person. Even though I often read materials without pictures, an image grabs my attention and interest first. I first discovered feature images when I started learning WordPress. The feature image option was one of the only parts of WordPress I liked, even though I struggled with the block editor. The challenge was always finding the right image. Now, with AI, I can usually get about 95 percent of the way there. I have received some pushback about using...

August 31st, 2025 AI

Free Streaming TV and Pesky Ads

If you’ve been following or reading my blog over the years (and many people probably haven’t), you know I like watching TV. I love Star Trek (all the iterations except TNG) and older shows like Green Acres, All in the Family, MASH, Bunker’s Place, Barney Miller, and British series like Doc Martin, Grantchester, and Foyle’s War, along with many others. I really enjoy how new streaming services like Amazon (MGM), Pluto TV, Tubi TV, and Plex make so much of this content available for free. One of my favorite features is when they turn a show into its own channel....

August 24th, 2025

My Battle with Subscription Fatigue: Mid-Year Update

I figured I’d give an update on my ongoing battle with subscription fatigue. This is a mid-year check-in, and I might start doing these quarterly just to keep myself accountable. Over the past few months, I’ve whittled down my subscription list by several more services. Most were dropped by choice because of price or lack of use, while one disappeared on its own when my cell phone plan changed. Gone by choice are Netflix, SiriusXM, Yahoo! Mail Plus, Mail.com, Pocket, Peacock, and Protopage. The only one I lost due to my Verizon Wireless legacy plan was Google Play Pass. Why...

August 8th, 2025 subscription-updates

Old Tech, New Posts: My Most Productive Blogging Year Yet

I have so many ideas running around in my head. I've been blogging more than ever this year, and it's been my most productive stretch since I started blogging and building my own website—23 years ago. Although I don’t think I have many readers, and what I write may not be interesting enough to spark much interaction, I still enjoy doing it. I remember when ISPs gave you what seemed like generous personal website space. My first real ISP was GTE, now Verizon. Before that, I had dial-up with AOL and those limited minutes, but I mostly used it for...

July 21st, 2025

Ed Zitron Might Be Right, But I’m Still Using AI Every Day

Lately, I’ve been listening to Ed Zitron and his podcast Better Offline. He’s not shy about his views: he believes that most AI companies are burning through cash and are likely to fail because they don’t have viable products. I respect his perspective. He clearly understands the tech industry and sees AI as mostly a kind of “magic trick”—a system that assembles words in ways that appear intelligent, but in reality don’t demonstrate real understanding. That’s my paraphrase, not his. As for me, I don’t claim to fully understand the business models of these companies or whether they’re financially sustainable...

July 20th, 2025 AI