all done and checked

I actually finished captioning and commentary on the walk blog last night, but I've gone through the last few days' worth of new material today, and it's all done. Any remaining mistakes will eventually be caught and rectumified.

So—done before Christmas! That's a first. I normally finish polishing these blogs in January. I hope you enjoy the images and extra material. Each of these walk blogs is a labor of love. 

I'll be sad not to do a big walk next year, but who knows? My brother Sean lives in a Chicago suburb near Lake Michigan; it could be that there are walk routes by the lake. There'd have to be, right? I might find myself along the lakeshore next year, dodging gunfire. My brother David lives out in Angel Fire, New Mexico, and I'm sure there're plenty of walking trails out yonder. So it's not as though I'll be sitting on my expanding ass next year. Also: my goddaughter and her sister live close to a river in Virginia, so there will have to be walking/hiking trails out that way, too. Plenty for an old guy to do. And since there's a chance I might be going to France, too, next year, I already know of one long trail that leads from Le Vanneau-Irleau to the city of Niort. So there's no lack of chances to walk next year, and if nothing else, I'll still be walking locally, so while there might not be a walk blog, per se, there will doubtless be plenty of walk photos.

It's been a mostly turbulent, suck-ass year for me, what with two trips to the hospital, but at the very least, this year's walk ended well. As I also discovered, walking in the cold presents its own special challenges; if I ever do a long walk in the winter again, I'll try to prepare better. Not that I'd prepared badly this time, but things like wearing gloves and taking photos need some work. And I'll try to be more mindful of my feet.

Tomorrow's Christmas. I still don't know whether I'll have a job in the new year. I think, at this point, it's a 70-30 chance that I won't. So I'll likely become a full-on renter of my studio and will spend a few months, maybe until May, using my free time to acquire new skills, to exercise, etc. While I'm not rich, I've been saving money since I paid down my major debts in 2020, so I have the equivalent of several years' salary to sustain me for the nonce. Perhaps by the time I've acquired some skills and set up a SquareSpace site, I'll just be my own boss and not even bother rejoining my current team. We'll see. My immediate future ought to be interesting, even if heart failure means I have a 50% of surviving to age 60.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. But don't worry: I'll still be blogging over this final week of 2024.