2023 Annual Report: Where is Wisdom when We Need It?

As usual, we have included one of our traditional “Big Tree” photo. We also have some cartoons appropriate to the year. However, this year these items have migrated to The Family and Friends Report, sort of Executive Summary.

Linda's Thoughts 2024

Our family has been lucky, again, to have weathered the year with good health and sanity mostly intact.

As Jim relates in the Travels Page, we went on three birding trips on 2023. Jim suggested that it might be time to taper off. Linda responded with, "We'll see." We have 2 trips planned for 2024, with another being talked about. We know, "Shocking!"

1. Quick trip to Baja California to see whales and whale sharks, and a few birds.
2. A much longer trip to Texas for the Total Eclipse, visiting friends and family, and some birding.
3. Another trip still under discussion.

Jim's Thoughts on 2024

Side note: The first of these reports went our as a Christmas Letter in 1977 or something like that. So we have documented about 45 years of 20^th and 21^th centuries' history or a bit more than 16831 days, meaning that we have long ago eclipsed Pepys, whose diary covers only a decade. I don't know how many more of these reports I have in me. It's getting harder each year as the number of photos explodes and the software quits working in places. For example, The KDay calculator suddenly quit working, requiring several exchanges with tech support. (And you thought I was tech support.) But, we'll keep soldiering on for a few more years. We've changed to format this year by putting more into PDF files, instead of web pages. This has fewer ways to screw up.

Once again, we have tons of photos, a tribute to the advances in photographic equipment more than any inherent talent. Each photo has a short description on the (i) panel. See A complete list of albums

Back in 2010, I wrote a novel (unpublished) about rebuilding civilization after a pandemic that wiped out most of the world's population. COVID forced a few revisions. Linda suggested that I spend my time during lockdown working on a sequel. That done, I had some further ideas and put them into a third book in the series. I have put PDF versions on the web in case you want to offer some critiques. A fourth book is rattling around in my head, about half finished.

1. Reluctant Messiah.
2. California Dreaming.
3. Chloe Herself.
4. The Random Factor, a work in progress.