Happy New Year 2026!

New Year's Eve is upon us, and I just want to wish all of you a happy New Year.  By this time of the year, pretty much every year, I'm sick of the "year in review" shows on TV, so I'll just post a little about my year in review.  It's customary to start the New Year with a reference to the Roman god Janus - his name is where January gets its name - who could look both backward and forward at the same time, so we can do the same thing.

It seems to be a pattern of the last several years that a major part of the year revolves around some medical crap. Without a doubt the worst of 2025 was March 1st, when I woke to my little buddy Mojo, our old man cat, passed away in my arms. To be honest, I’m not completely over that. I don’t see him in his favorite places around the house like I did at first, but certain pictures or tunes still choke me up. We brought another cat into our lives in July, Independence Day weekend, but she’s not a replacement, she’s a completely different “personality.”

My semi-annual visit to my GP in February was boringly normal, but April’s annual visit to the cardiologist was the start of an “adventure” (only slightly sarcastic) that still hasn’t played out fully. I’ve mentioned this many times, but a short summary is that on my birthday in 2013 I started having weird heartbeat sensations that ended in being told I had various arrhythmias including afib, PVCs, PACs and more. At this April's visit, the technician doing an echocardiogram asked it I ever had trouble with my afib and I told her I don’t know that I ever had it besides that one time 12 years ago. She replied, “you’re having it now.”

After several visits with my “regular” cardiologist, that vocal exchange happened with other people. My cardiologist referred me to a cardiac electrophysiologist and the short summary is that I’m currently heading toward a procedure with him to burn out areas of my heart that are causing the improper heartbeat. I don’t have a date assigned, yet. The ablation uses a radio frequency source called a Farapulse to do the burning, which seems appropriate for a guy who designed radio receivers and transmitters.

The big thing of the year was I finally got my umbilical (belly button area) hernia repaired on June 12th. It was all pretty much by the book until about one week post surgery. Still living with the “don’t lift anything heavier than a coffee mug” I stretched out in bed to take a nap and I woke up, noticed my abdomen was covered in an itchy rash. I treated it with benadryl or calamine/benadryl mix and it would knock out the itch for a few hours. I was able to bump up my appointment with the Physician’s Assistant for the post-surgery checkup, and he just confirmed what I was doing. He said that I had never said I have allergic reactions to things they used, and I pointed out that never having had one doesn’t mean I ever had whatever it was they used that gave me the rash. Surprising to me is that one of the old suture incisions still gets itchy once or twice a week. Cortisone or those other things still work.

After a few months post-surgery, I started pushing toward doing core strengthening mostly with sit-ups. I’ve gotten back to doing a hundred situps on weightlifting days so like a couple of times/week. For a variety of reasons mostly related to the need for the ablation, I’ve gone from riding the bike three days/week to walking, which is unrealistically easy.

As for looking toward the future, my crystal ball is cloudy. I'm a "real money" guy and the gyrations of the central bankers have had me expecting economic collapse Real Soon Now for about 20 years - certainly before the '08 collapse. I had seen talk of the subprime crisis developing in '06, before it started and led to the '08 collapse. I've written so many times about economic collapse that haven't come true that I've stopped believing in myself - or my ability to predict it. I've also written about the collapse of technological civilization, the "new dark ages" so many times that the same conclusion happened. I'm just not going to put out wrong predictions again. I'll do a post on the collapse when it happens.

A couple of years ago, I thought (and still think) I could see the Crusades 2 point 0 approaching with Islamists openly attacking other countries. When we see the DEI mind virus pushing into STEM colleges and programs, when competence, hard work, and attention to detail are derided as "white supremacy" or whatever, will you ever feel safe crossing a bridge or riding a commercial jet? So few people actually know how to design the critical parts in the essential electronics we take for granted, if the semiconductor fab plants were suddenly gone - intentionally or by some natural disaster - could they be recreated?

I think it's going to happen, I just don't know when.

On the stuff we watch the closest here: space exploration, I expected that Starship would have reached orbit two years ago or maybe more. I remember asking if something as ambitious as Starship could reach orbit in fewer flights than the vastly simpler Falcon 1. On the other hand, they know vastly more than they did about making orbital spacecraft back then, but something as ambitious as Starship has never flown. That said, I think they make orbit this year. As for other predictions, Rocket Lab's Neutron will fly, and there's a rumor going around that Rocket Lab is going to buy the leftover-hulk of ULA.

Let me leave it there, along with a wish for a very Happy New Year to everyone who stops to read here. May it be healthy and fun for all.