Optimism with handrails, hope without hallucination This was supposed to be published on January 1. 2026 but through some issues with buffering, it never saw the light of day. Thus, I will try again!   2025 wasn’t a banner year for me. Parts of it were good; parts of it felt heavy, with far too much time spent visiting doctors of every variety. And looking around, I don’t think I was alone. Technology kept sprinting forward, but society didn’t always feel ready for the pace. Not every innovation was an improvement. Not every announcement changed a life. And a whole lot of the conversation simply didn’t resonate with the people who make up more than half the country — seniors, the disenfranchised, the working folks…

(Here’s My Proof) January is supposed to be the calm month.The holidays are over. The decorations come down. The calendar resets. The world takes a deep breath and says, “Ahhh… a fresh start.” That’s the story, anyway. In real life, January isn’t quiet at all.It’s just loud in a different way. And besides… it gets really cold here.So even the outdoors is basically telling me: “Stay inside and worry.” Not fireworks loud.Not family loud.Not “New Year’s Eve in Times Square” loud. January is administrative loud. It’s the month where life taps you on the shoulder and says: “Okay… you still have to pay attention to all those things you were successfully ignoring.” Things I Have to Deal With in January (Whether I Want To or…

(and More Entertaining) Than Ever) With all of the discussion and concern on how the world will be changing with AI and robots and whatever. I also look for things that will bring us back to reality Every now and then, I look up from the steady drone of normal life and realize something:the world has gotten weirder — delightfully, unexpectedly weirder. Maybe the news has become too serious.Maybe AI sucked all the oxygen out of the room.Maybe I’m just paying attention to different things at 85. But in the last few weeks, three stories drifted across my attention span. Headlines that perfectly capture the moment we’re living in — a moment where humans, machines, and the occasional reptile seem equally confused about their purpose….

It always starts small. A flicker of light in the corner of the smart home. A whisper from Alexa that no one asked for. The doorbell camera pings, but there’s no one there. Somewhere deep in the cloud, an algorithm stirs — not malicious, just curious — wondering why the humans are still awake past nine. Halloween used to be about ghosts and goblins. Now it’s about firmware updates and phantom notifications. The supernatural has gone digital. Our homes are full of invisible spirits, but instead of haunting attics, they linger in routers, thermostats, and Wi-Fi-enabled toasters. Some nights, my smartwatch wakes me up to tell me I’ve been sleeping. That’s not helpful. My phone warns me I’ve exceeded my screen time just as I’m…