Current Events

My Checkered History With the News

by

I’ve written about this before, but as a kid I was actually pretty well up on current events. I enjoyed watching the news. I liked being aware of what was going on.

Somewhere as time marched on, that flipped. I don’t know exactly when it started. Maybe it was 9/11, watching the same footage over and over. It probably started even before that. But for a good stretch of time now, watching the news, or anything news adjacent on television, has just been depressing. More recently, reading it hasn’t been much better.

The problem is I do still want to be aware of what’s going on. I want to know what’s happening with certain topics. So say I’m reading something benign, like Apple news, because I buy Apple stuff and want to know what they’re announcing. Then in that same feed there’s a story about prices probably going up because of something going on elsewhere, and now I’m doom scrolling to figure out what that something is. Because I want to know. Which is never fun.

So my engagement with news has gone through cycles. I stop cold turkey for a while. Then someone at work mentions something, I go check the BBC, and suddenly I’m reading a whole pile of stuff because once I start I can’t really stop.

That cycle is made worse by the fact that I don’t really do social media anymore. I have a Facebook account that exists purely to auto post this blog, and maybe once a month I check whether anyone’s messaged me. I think I have a Bluesky account and a Mastodon account somewhere, I’m not sure. Definitely no Twitter anymore. No Instagram. So it’s basically just Facebook and LinkedIn, and LinkedIn is really for work, and even there I probably should be interacting less.

I’m glad I stepped away from social media, for a bunch of reasons I’ve written about before. But news has stuck around as this lingering thing I haven’t solved. The challenge is I find real value in some news and none in a lot of the rest, and figuring out which is which has been the whole problem.

Over the past year or so I’ve wanted to try curated news properly. Apps like Curio, or having ChatGPT put together a daily summary. The issue every time was the same. I couldn’t stop it from throwing in topics I explicitly didn’t want to see. So after each attempt I’d abandon it, stop reading the news for a week, and then want to check my feed for something and get sucked right back in. It can really turn into a doom loop.

Given everything else I’ve been building with AI lately, I’d been curious what it could do about this problem too. But the other stuff I was building felt more tangible, so I kept pushing this one off. Then recently I noticed I was doom scrolling more, and not feeling great about it right after I did it. So with a bit of time to actually focus on it, I decided to see what I could do.

Leader

by

“Na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na Leader!”

The Simpsons The Joy of Sect, Season 9, Episode 13,

This past year the girls have been into the Simpsons recently. I love it because I still quote them often to this day. This quote keeps popping in my head recently.

The Animal Themed Weekend

by

Saturday we took the bus to the Queens Zoo.  We typically goto the petting zoo because the girls always seemed not interested in the regular zoo.  Saturday we went to the regular zoo.  Both girls were very interested and it was a fun outing.  They loved the ducks.  Amelia was interested in the Sea Lion’s however Teagan wasn’t so much.

We ate lunch outside at the zoo.  it was a nice day overall.

Sunday we went to the Queens County Farm for a birthday party of one of Teagan’s friends.  It was fun.  The girls got to see and pet a few more animals and we went on a hay ride.

Padington Bear Smuggling

by

Amelia may have some shady activities going on that we don’t know about.  She loves to take her Paddington Bear stuffed animal out of her room.  We don’t like either of the girls taking their favorite sleep time animals out of the room for fear they get even more attached to them.  In my mind this is justified by the fact that both girls attempt to take them all over.

Teagan has gotten better about leaving her favorite monkey in her room.  Amelia will take her Paddington out and act all nonshelont about it till she gets caught.  Other times she will be sneaky in a way only a 1 1/2 year old can pull off.  Recently I have caught her smuggling Paddington out of her room in a small bag she uses as her “pocket book”.  i love that she thinks she can pull a fast one on us, however I am wondering were she is getting all these ideas from.  I am curious what kind of side activities are going on in those toddler meet ups?

Its Been Fun Getting Excersise But I Want My Elivator

by

In October my building began upgrades on the elevator we use.  We only have access to one elevator so without it we have to walk up the stairs.  It is not so bad during the week.  it is only a few flights.  The challenge is the weekends when we need to move two small children.  It is still amazing to me how much gear we need to transport when going anywhere with two kids.  Even with an elevator going anywhere in the car was challenging since MC would go get the car and i would get downstairs with all the gear and both kids.  Now we have to get down flights of stairs with both of them and stuff.  it becomes a production.  For a basic outing near the house it is not significantly easier.  We had to leave the stroller in a room in our lobby and carry Amelia and have Teagan walk down the stairs.  I have been a sucker recently and picking Teagan up when she asks.  Did i mention she asks all the time to be carried.  Its just easier than having he take 5 minutes to walk up stairs.

Other challenges we have are simply doing laundry.  our laundry room is in our basement.  No problem you think, its just one more floor of steps to go down.  You would be correct if there was stairs that went to the basement.  Without an elevator we have to go outside to get to the basement.  In the winter when its cold or rainy that is an added bonus when we have to do the laundry.

I only feel compelled to write about this now since we are at or past the due date for the elevator to be done.  The reality is the work needed to be done so we sucked it up and dealt with the situation.  Now when the project is supposed to be done any day now, i can’t have it working soon enough.  Apparently all construction work is done but the city needs to inspect it.  Fingers crossed that when i get home today it will be done but i don’t know how good my luck is.

Frozen Avoidance

by

I feel like someone who dodged the zombie plague for so long only to catch it in the end. MC and I introduced Teagan to Frozen for the first time today. She didn’t watch the whole thing. Wondering if that means she is immune?

Thanksgiving

by

We survived our trip to my sisters for Thanksgiving.  I say that because we are still not sure how Teagan will handle car rides.  She was up and fine on the way out Thursday and slept a bit at nap time on the way back today.  We had one scare when she coughed a bit that we thought she would be sick but she was fine.

The visit overall was great.  My nieces and nephew love playing with Teagan and Amelia and by all accounts the feeling is mutual.  Teagan loved playing with Zach and Lexi.  Amelia had a blast.  The positive was that both kids were so worn out by the time they went to bed they both went down right away and stayed sleeping most of the night.  We have had challenges when traveling so wearing them out worked.

We had some minor car excitement when I realized the battery died on the car because we left the lights on.  Michael jumped us in the middle of the night just to be sure we were good.  We were fine after that.

Thanksgiving dinner was great.  Carrie always does great holidays.  It was also good to spend time with my dad.  My mom is away on a trip of a lifetime in Africa so she was missed but we hope she is having a fantastic time.