There was a version of this post that combined my 2025 wrap up and my 2026 kick-off, but after writing it I kept thinking about it and it kept pulling at me.
In the final week of May I came here and lamented not posting. Then I posted a bunch, for about a week, then vanished again. It’s my way. I did decide to abandon Substack without writing another post, and I’ve migrated almost all of my reading to other platforms where available. I figured it was time to stop supporting people and businesses who support Nazis, especially when it is very easy to do so. It’s not always easy because a lot of rich people and business owners are capitulating, which make it hard to avoid them.
This first year of the second Trump administration feels like a decade. I am fighting where I can, amplifying voices where I am able, and challenging “my people” whenever I see them out of line. That last bit means that I am making an effort to call out white dudes where I witness white dudes doing shitty shit.
My work has a bunch of ERGs (Employee Resource Groups) around a number of marginalized and underrepresented groups. None of them apply to me, and yet I have joined every one as an ally, because it is important to me to read about what is important to them on the company Slack. On social media, I seek out diverse voices so that my feed is full of theirs. I hope this helps me, and I plan to keep doing it.
In 2025 I voted so many times. I’m pretty sure they do all these various special elections, run-offs, and other stuff at irregular times, in ones and twos, on purpose to keep the turnout low, so that people don’t know when they need to show up. We had cases where I would go vote, and then later that day I’d get a mailer about an election and notice it wasn’t the one I just voted in, but one happening in a week or two. Anyway, I do my best to keep up, research the candidates, and vote every time the opportunity avails itself.
Last year I wrote:
My wish for 2025: May the worst people get none of what they desire and all of what they deserve. For the rest of us, I hope we can all avoid being collateral damage, and success in our resistances.
The absolutely failure of this wish to be delivered in any way is just so sad. With all the deportations and the rolling back of rights and blowing up fishing boats… sorry, I’m tired of listing things already and I only barely scratched the surface. I didn’t even cover any of the blatant quid-pro-quo and bribery going on. Just… ugh. Only at the end of the year did we finally get something with the release of the Epstein files, though that’s been a bit of a cock-up too, what with all the redacting, failure to redact, inclusion of fake stuff, etc. I’m not sure this is going to matter. You can already see people ignoring it. They are ignoring all the old crimes and the new crimes, it is like crimes don’t matter any more, if you are rich white conservatives anyway. Lots of people are learning that they were just useful idiots to elect the administration, one that is turning their backs on them now.
In part due to the constant barrage of misery, and a couple of personal family issues I’m not going to get into in any detail here right now, 2025 was a pretty unaccomplished year for reading, and writing, and exercise, and a whole lot of things. Think back on it now just reminds me of how much water I treaded, but also amazed that I managed to keep treading water.
It wasn’t all bad though. We took two vacations this year, the wife and I. In March we went on our first JoCo Cruise which was just all around amazing. We loved it so much we booked for 2026 while still on the boat, and we’ve already booked 2027. Assuming 2026 is as good as 2025, we’ll probably be doing these for as long as they have them. We also did an Alaskan cruise, which was incredible, and also sad. It was quite warm in Alaska, and while watching chunks fall off a glacier is awe inspiring, the receding and collapse of the glaciers is heart breaking. But it was beautiful to hike through the Tongass National Forest. We want to go back and do more than just the Inside Passage, maybe in a couple of years.
I don’t think I’ve mentioned it in this year end wraps ups before, but I work for Dragon Con as a volunteer. My wife is the director of Charity Events for the con, and I work as her second. Each year Dragon Con picks a local charity to partner with and then at the convention we hold events, like auctions and a virtual 5k with a medal, and sell items, like a coloring book, and the various programming tracks hold events of their own, and we pool all the money and Dragon Con matches, up to $150,000. We raised over $350,000 for NAMI Georgia in 5 days. It feels good to do that every year. And I’m pretty proud of my wife, who came in to take over Charity Events in 2018, and she has made it better and more successful every year.
My work life in 2025 was pretty great. I like my job, I enjoy the work, I took vacations, and they were very accommodating when I needed a lot of erratic time off and work from home days outside my schedule due to those issues I said I wasn’t going to get into. Other people’s experience may not be the same, but my experience at my work has been pretty much all positive. Except for the push for us to adopt AI tools, but that’s a can of worms for another post.
I’m writing this on Christmas Day, and it’s been a weird one. I’ve been sick, my wife is recovering from one of those things I said I wasn’t going to get into. The decorations got halfway out, and I never carried the empties back to storage so the front room is piled high with totes. But the main room with the tree looks great and we even put the LEGO train around the base of it. Our childhood dreams coming true despite all the weirdness.
Anyway, I’m going to go watch a few last Christmas movies to finish out the season, and the next post will be in the new year.
Merry Christmas.
