I’m currently listening to A Charlie Brown Christmas (Expanded Edition) by Vince Guaraldi Trio. I love this soundtrack and the associated Peanuts TV special. I’ll be watching it again this year. 🎄

The album cover for the soundtrack to A Charlie Brown Christmas with Charlie Brown, Lucy and Linus dancing around a Christmas Tree, with Snoopy on the top.

My wife: “I went into the bedroom to get my phone, now I can’t remember what I wanted it for.”

Me: “Count it as one less thing to do.”

I’m sitting by myself at home listening to a Windham Hill Christmas Collection.

An album cover depicting a snowy forest scene under the title “Windham Hill Christmas Collection.

Letting Go of What I Can’t Get To

I’m talking here of my online life. Over the years I have tried various Read Later services, in the process building up a veritable library of articles that I don’t have time to read right now and so will put aside, neatly categorized, ready to be read later. In time that list gets too long despite my best attempts at working through the articles, so I declare bankruptcy and delete everything or prune the articles, keeping those that I must have and to…read later.

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The Bunker: Friday 1st April, 2016

All credit to the artist(s) 🎨

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The Bunker: Sunday 27th December, 2015

All credit to the artist(s) 🎨

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The Bunker

On the north shore of the Hawaii island of Maui, in the middle of a field that sits on the edge of cliffs dropping down into the waters of the Pacific Ocean, sits a small rectangular brick building that I call The Bunker. I have no idea of its original usage. Whatever that was, it now sits empty and its walls have become a canvas for unknown artists, at least unknown to me.

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I’m sitting outside working.

First I hear the rain approaching from a distance, falling on nearby trees, rattling them like tracing paper,

Getting closer…

Passing overhead…

Moved on now…

Leaving just the sound of the water trickling down the downpipes.

The air cleared…awaiting the next burst.

The Cow and The Sheep

Our next door neighbours have a field of probably two acres that is very overgrown. As an example of how overgrown it is, the field is also home to a cow and two sheep. There are times when it is not possible to see them. In fact unless they are walking by the hedge bordering our house, we don’t see them. Initially there were two white sheep and a cow. The sheep stuck together and the cow became a bit of a loner.

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🎶 Christmas Time is Here 🎶

An iPhone Lock Screen showing the Peanuts character Snoopy sitting on a snowy doghouse reading a newspaper, next to a tall stack of bones.

🫰 Things change. After a few days of beautiful, still weather, Maui winter weather at its best, we now have wind and horizontal rain.

App Defaults 2024

Last year around this time, following Hemispheric Views’s podcast, Dual of the Defaults, many people shared their own default apps. Rob Knight curated them.

I was not one of those people, but with this year approaching its end and with some revisiting the status of their defaults from last year, I thought that I would right that wrong. So here are my App Defaults.

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I said to myself that it would not happen again, that I am happy withwhere I have laid my hat, but here I am doing my periodic tryout of Mastodon apps. I’m checking out web based clients as well.

The Mastodon iOS app has improved a lot since I last used it.

Finished reading: More Days at the Morisaki Bookshop by Satoshi Yagisawa 📚

The Phantom Ship

We have been going through a very dry spell on Maui. Being winter, the weather has been lovely to experience. Cool mornings, warm days, clear skies, no wind. There’s a little nip to a breeze and a reminder of the season when I step into the shade. Last night it broke. I woke up in the early hours and through the open windows heard a sound outside that sounded vaguely familiar.

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This morning’s partial rainbow 🌈

A grassy field is bordered by lush vegetation under a partly cloudy sky, with a partial rainbow in the distance.

All I want for Christmas is the use of a remote cabin, half way up a mountain.

Give me the key, show me the way, and I’ll see you in the New Year.

Dying peony flowers.

A white vase with dying white and brown peony flowers sits on a wooden table in a modern, minimalist room

Early morning sounds - birds singing, a machine tool running…silence. The sun rises on a new day.

Many years ago I remember reading an interview with a Western Buddhist monk. The monk was asked what he had got out of his years of meditation practice. I like the monk’s answer,

I know that I get angry.

Today I know that I was angry.