Winter Soul Stitch

Jack Frost nipping at your

Researchers say it’s a myth that there are more suicides during the holiday season. But the first thing they do when reporting it is tell you to get help if you need it.

How are you feeling? The sudden onset of winter hasn’t made me glum, but I am a bit stressed from planning for holiday activities. I have been hiking in the morning and freezing my tuchis off, but enjoying myself. I may invest in a pair of snowshoes, if we get any snow this year. It feels good to be outside, even on a gray morning. Look at the fire of the sun over Timber Creek pond, glazed with ice like a stained glass window:

Joyce Carol Oates shared a fittingly bittersweet poem for the season:

The Miraculous Birth

I have a road trip planned soon, and after scrolling through the r/IdiotsInCars subreddit, I went and installed a dash cam. Once I can afford a drone, my pivot to video will be complete. The dash cam can also be used as a trail camera, which will let me cut between angles so you don’t have to count my gray beard hairs, in videos such as this.

In autumn, I tried to make it to a place the off-roaders call Funtown, a sand pit where they can have fun without destroying any habitat. Unfortunately the washouts were a little too deep for me to try following the big Ford F-250 that plowed through them. Not after seeing that Subaru ambassador vapor lock his engine. But I did manage to have some fun up there. This video is set to a tune by one of my favorite bands, ArnoCorps.

The thing about Reddit is that it’s moderated. But you don’t even need to go there. Much like TikTok, the best of Reddit escapes its confines and is shared on other places, presumably on Twitter—which has become unusable because the algorithm is now run by the same shitty AI that is making all that crap art you see posted everywhere—and Instagram, which is one third ads. Reddit is about 1/10th ads, but it is full of narcs. If you read r/AmItheAsshole long enough, every suggestion seems to be call the police. And while it may seem satisfying to use the full brunt of the state to solve your neighbor’s peccadilloes¹, it can backfire in spectacular ways. And many police shootings of unarmed people begin with a 911 call that never should have happened. So, just don’t.

Everyone on Reddit needs to be more like Woody Woodpecker²:

I felt like sharing a few videos and viewpoints. I’m working on the eagle videos, from the mashup crossover I had with Hannah of WanderFinder last weekend. That will go live on Sunday. Check out her post on it while you’re waiting! She took some great photos.

Writing in the vernacular

1. A peckerdillo is a male armadillo. See also armordildo.

2. Did you know the yellow-bellied sapsucker is a woodpecker, and not something Yosemite Sam calls Bugs Bunny in a mustachioed fit of pique?