Personally, this year could not have been better. Home life is a joy. Work is always satisfying. My hangar life has been mixed but generally fun this year. 2025 overall though? An absolute travesty of a year. It was worse than COVID. Worse than 2001. Worse than 2008’s credit crash. Worse than the Nixon years. Russian and China are ascendant. Europe and America are in shambles. AI promises to fix it all by paving the world in data centers. 2026 bodes hardly better. Discuss.
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Dang it.
Here I am, fixing my morning coffee, thinking I won the lottery nearly seven decades ago 
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By “discuss” I guess I meant “tell me how I am wrong.” I’ll start. More people are out of poverty than at any point in history. That’s been a trend for centuries but it has accelerated rapidly in the last 10 years. Africa, for example, is on a logarithmic rise. People in Africa, China and India are, as a whole, probably happier in 2025 than they were in 2024 or any year prior. So that’s the bulk of the world’s population that would vehemently and correctly disagree with my 2025 hate. I am not saying that I am right to feel this way. But I doubt my mind can be changed when I consider the year selfishly, as I am doing here.
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To each, their own - I guess…
My 2025 ended a little on the minus side of things, or maybe it’s on the plus side depending on how I look at it. Sure, it’s never fun to be grounded. On the other hand, I am now dealing with matters of health, that I have slowly grown aware of but not cared about. So that’s good. Nothing wrong with a kick in the butt, if administered with a little love…
My blood pressure is much lower and my weight is slowly coming down.
The weather is nice and there’s a beautiful moon that cast a delightful blue hue on the snow covered ground. What more can one ask for, on this the last day of the year.
Here’s to a healthy 2026! May the coming year heal many wounds.
Happy New Year, friends!
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I have just got home from a day of carpentry in the cool, fresh outdoors. Doing what I do best for a guy who paid me well and whom I’ve grown to love a lot over the process of building his thing. The thing is very nice and I’m proud of it.
My little business is doing great. Just humming along financially. Not all of my people are doing so good, but that can’t be helped I’m afraid. Only so much I can do. The others are doing great though!
My boy is halfway through his first year at high school. He seems to be rocking it, as well as the transitions that came with it. He loves his PC and has gone full geek on modding minecraft. It’s been impressive to watch.
My girl is doing ok, humming along (literally if not very harmonious 
). She still tends to throw tantrums however like a four year old and her lack of playdates worries me a little. Deeply i to Pokemon at the moment.
My wife is knocking it out of the park at the bank. She’s having a great time being the best at what she does and getting recognition for it. Perhaps 2026 will be the year she becomes a home owner and can finally show her family she f’in made it. Our relationship is perfect, we talk and listen and come together despite having such different outside lives.
Me, I’m feeling age starting to show. My joints and ligaments complain a lot. My belly refuses to shrink. My hair is starting to thin. I refuse to give a F about any of that I made green belt (yonkyu) in judo and are very happy with my dojo. It is named “Tomoda” which means friends and that fits the bill just perfectly and I love it.
As for the world… ah. If only this current awful wave of alt right or conservatism or whatever would break. We as a society could do with a whole lot more love and curiosity and boldness instead this current of fear and hate and disdain.
But I have hope. It is always darkest just before dawn. I do not know that the sun will rise again, but I have an unshakeable faith that it will.
Edit: Oh I completely forgot about you guys 
you are my flying friends, my brothers in aviation. You make my world more interesting and provide a home for a side of me that would be homeless and lonely without you. Thank you for that and here’s to another year of very muddy spiking!
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Beautiful post, @schurem! I was thinking of you recently as a read an article in the Economist about how the current generation is eschewing college. I’m not saying you did. The ultimate point of the article is that young people today are favoring QOL and skills over cash. “Good luck getting AI to wire your house!” You are ahead of the pack and I’m glad it’s paying off.
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Ah, kicking back and listening two of my favorite muddy prognosticators, @smokinhole and @schurem.
I’d be content, if it weren’t for the war in Ukraine and the amped up saber rattling over Taiwan, both of which threaten to drag the world into conflict or annihilation.
I spent the first half of my life worrying about a similar catastrophe, which we incorrectly thought was significantly diminished with fall of the Berlin Wall.
But here we humans are again, no further along the path to civility.
What to do, but take delight in the things that we have created or brought to fruition, intentionally or otherwise.
My wife and I find ourselves simultaneously unemployed for the first time in our 30 year relationship, which we would have viewed as liberating, had we not chosen to become parents later in life, me 53 when our first of three lovelies arrived. Now we feel compelled to continue creating wealth, lest five not enjoy the lifestyle previously afforded to two.
So, we throw ourselves back into the grind, she a bit more urgently than I, not that I am confident of finding gainful employment. But this time, I SWEAR, it will be something that I enjoy, says he who recently asked a similarly aged person if they enjoyed working at Lowe’s home improvement 
.
Life goes on. Thankfully.
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This.
Some of my regular golf partners and I teamed up a while back. A 4 v many thing.
One [that day, on that team] is a ‘high-roller’ to say the least. Classic, to me, success story: born in a central american country; immigrated + assimilated; worked hard to become a really good scientist (chemist) - now has enough money to buy me (hangs out with heads of state when not rolling through our 1-horse town) :grin.
The other is a younger guy that worked hard; became good at what he does; has his own small town landscaping business.
I made the comment that day, something like, “…dudes respect someone that is good at what they do. Period. What that is doesn’t matter”. A good lansdcaper, plumber, bio-chemist; pilot; carpenter; etc.
Now, it took some time for me to grok this I’ll admit. Perhaps it comes with experience.
As for me: my new baby granddaughter is walking now - grandpa tried his best to accelerate the process last month so she could become ‘hell on wheels’ sooner (she can get in trouble faster walking than crawing). My son said, “thanks dad 
“
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Ugh. I hate this part of getting old. The degredation seems to increase exponentially too. Pushups in the morning hurt now (shoulder joint, old back injury, etc), every time, instead of just being strenuous.
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The world needs to get OFF social media IMO.
Had an observation recently: I recalled the end caps in grocery stores from years gone by; tabloid section. Ya know, “3-headed goat predicts the future…” kind of stupid stuff (he was wrong BTW 
) . The internet has become one big tabloid.
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I was wrestling with a toilet, on the living room floor (needed the space as the ‘water closet’ was pretty small) a while back. I won by the way. Took 3 rounds. They over-complicated them for one thing. After replacing a couple of gaskets/seals I had the same thought - “Ha! lets see Siri do THAT!”
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True. I can’t even read the paper. One dude dominates every story for the 1st 2 pages. Sometimes more. My other go-to is The Economist. That same dude gets about half the airplay there which is nice. In the end I am paying $20/month to do the crossword and read the book review on Saturday. A few years ago I theorized to myself that information is bad. Not MIS-information. But all information. The ignorant and the uninformed are often happy and content. The well-read are often neither.
In my list of happy, growing countries above, I failed to mention Korea among others. Add Canada, Australia and much of Latin and South America as content if not overly happy and you have a world that is pretty well set.
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Eh. Shouldn’t complain. But will.
On paper, everything seems OK. Business humming along, family life is awesome. Kids are growing and becoming wonderful little people.
Got everything I want, aspiring to expand and grow things, both Business and military vehicle passion projects.
Got to see @schurem this year, which until I saw him and his beautiful family, didn’t realise how much I really really needed. No shame in admitting that I was extremely close to tears. Like…actually I was leaking a bit but styled it out (shut up @schurem I wasnt crying, it was the dust) when I realised how ■■■■■■■ lonely this country is.. I have absolutely zero people here apart from my family. Like none. If I shut down my business tomorrow, my phone wouldn’t ring (apart from @tempusmurphy and @komemiute sending me messages) thats a sobering thought for someone colliding with the number 40 in 18 days.
My dad AND my grandad both died at 47. Which although irrational, feels like an artificial timestamp on my own life. It ■■■■■■■ sucks.
Depression? Maybe? But why? Is that selfish? Had a great year! Better than most, nothing to complain about, man up etc. Work my absolute arse off, but December sucked. Really struggled to stay motivated, do paperwork, even answer the phone some days.
Feels like a crisis, but its more than likely nothing. Perhaps a Combination of the world news, politics and the general ruination of the order of things plus a bit of burnout.
I really do my best to stay out of the talk thread. That one does NOT make me feel better. If I was a bigger person, I’d ask @Troll to block me from there.
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This. Sorry to make a mental health thread wrapped up as a year-in-review thread. That wasn’t my intent. But yeah, the friendship thing is a tough one for me too. I don’t think I am capable of “attracting” friends in my current state. I am too annoyed and annoying. The men I am around, and I am around plenty, are also pretty damn annoying. I think maybe we are all vibrating some odd frequency that makes social interaction unappealing. Teens are having very little sex these days. They too seem to find other humans less attractive.
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