A nice Friday morning in the Heartland despite a little rain. It’s supposed to rain and be cool this time of year, and it is. It’s a balmy 52F right now, but we’re expecting frost over the next few nights. I did a bunch of yard work yesterday and feel justified in just sitting in the shack, puffing on the pipe, sipping morning coffee, and watching it rain while the world keeps rolling along.

Today is the Zero Retries Conference in California. I should have gone. I have a buddy from out this way who did make the trip to California with his wife for a few days and he plans to take in that conference today and Pacificon tomorrow. I haven’t been to northern California since the late ’90s when I spent six months working on a project in Hayward. I enjoyed the time I spent there very much, but that was at the time of the tech bubble and Silicon Valley was the liveliest place on the planet. I wonder how it fared after that bubble burst?

Weather prognosticators are saying to expect a mild winter here this year thanks to El Niño. Of course I’m rooting for just the opposite. I wouldn’t mind being snowed in from December until March but folks literally “boo” me whenever I suggest that so I’ll just keep it to myself - along with my theories on the character-building properties of a good blizzard…

I’ve been reading a lot about old time radio (again) lately and that’s bound to start leaking out in the blog. The earliest days of radio discovery were a grand adventure and I find it all most enchanting. It’s a form of time travel to be immersed in all the old stories, but the tangible elements usually lead me to wanting to build, or resurrect, an old 1930s style ham radio station. I’ve avoided that to this point, but being retired with nothing but time to spare, you never know, something might eventually emerge from this cloud of nostalgia.

Tomorrow, once the rain clears, I have some antenna work planned. Antenna work is like owning a home; you’re never completely caught up on the many projects that require attention and tending to them is a lifelong job. I think that’s one reason I enjoy the colder months. You can’t do as much because of the shorter days and the weather so it provides a natural break in the forever work. Annual hibernation is a pretty good method of survival and renewal.

You should try it some time.