After several days of nice sunny weather we woke up this morning to a chilly rain. The forecast is for it to remain like this all day with up to two inches of rain possible. That makes it a good day to stay indoors and catch up on other things, like maybe our taxes. I think we have received all the needed paperwork to pile it up and dump it off on our tax preparer. The process has become simple enough, but I always seem to wait until the last minute to get it done. Another bad habit.

Price increase ahead. I’m a long time customer of Linode, it hosts this web server. About a year ago the company was purchased by Akamai, one of those events that rarely makes current customers happy. And now I’ve received notice that prices will be going up:

As we expand our cloud product portfolio and work to improve the resiliency and reach of our network, we face the same challenges as many of our customers: a tough financial climate with growing costs for data center space, energy usage, and newer hardware. We have resisted making changes to our offerings for as long as possible, and we understand this may not be the news you wish to hear from us, but we are announcing price changes for certain compute services effective April 1, 2023.

No more social media. I had intended to drop an article in the blog this week about my use of ChatGPT to create one tweet per day about amateur radio. That worked well and its impressive technology, but before this week ended I deleted all my social media accounts including Twitter. It’s no big deal as my participation has been waning for a long time. It might seem cheesy, but what compelled me to finally pull the plug was this video from a late night television program. It was too much truth packed inside one comedic video to continue.

Out of power. I received a surprising bit of feedback from this recent post. Lots of good suggestions and ideas in addition to the warm fuzzy feeling that comes from knowing others contemplating this same issue so I’m not alone. I’m strongly leaning toward installing a multi-fuel stove in time for next winter season. This seems to make the most sense for staying warm when the power goes out and to provide supplemental heat if it doesn’t. I’ll be writing much more on this subject as the project progresses. Thanks so much for your continued feedback.

Fish Fry Friday. Congratulations! We’ve arrived on the doorstep of another weekend, this time in another month. We’ve been scouting the local parishes and look forward to enjoying a fish fry dinner this evening. Just an FYI, I noticed most won’t be cooking on Friday, March 17 - St. Patrick’s Day. Go early and go often - but check the calendar!