I am Santa Claus ~

As my four children grew up we enjoyed the Christmas holidays. The decorations, the lights, the stories, the legends. 

Each of my four children believed in Santa Claus in their early days. As they grew older they would ask me and their mother if Santa Claus was real. My wife would tell them that Santa Claus was real and he was at the mall waiting to take a picture with them. When they came to me and asked me about Santa Claus I would smile and say I am Santa Claus.

I told them I was Batman and the Easter Bunny. That I was the tooth fairy. That I was all the mystical creations. And they smiled and laughed and told me know when that I couldn't be all that. And they didn't believe me.

Until they got older. And they discovered that I really was the one that replace the tooth with the dollar. I was the one that filled their Easter baskets with their mother. I was the one that filled their stockings on Christmas Eve after I encourage them to go upstairs and stay in their bedrooms with the door closed so they didn't spoil the surprise. I was the one that got them the surprise that they needed.

I love being that person. Part of me is sad that I was so honest with them, but one of my core values is that I don't online the people. Including my family. So I never lied to my children about Santa Claus. Or any of the other characters that we grew up with. 

Now on Christmas morning when they get a gift from the Grinch they know that it's socks or underwear. When they have a gift labeled from the president they know that is probably going to cost them money. Recently with the stupid virus reactions when they get a gift from Dr. Fauchi or the CDC they know that it's probably a mask or something silly like hand sanitizer.

I love being honest with my family. Especially my children. I hope they appreciate it.

Holly leaf spikes ~

Over the years, I've loved looking at and taking pictures of holly bushes and trees. Since my last name is Holly, I love to see those things and celebrate them and use them in pictures and postcards and other things, wallpaper on my computer.





I don't do it all the time, but when I do, especially during Christmas season, I really enjoy it. One of the things that I read about holly trees and the leaves is that normally holly leaves are smooth around the edges.





I know that most of the pictures that I've seen show spiky leaves and I've always associated my gruff side with those spikes, but holly trees, when you look at them as they get taller, have smooth leaves.





The article went on to explain that when a holly tree or bush is being nibbled on by critters all the time, it reacts in a defensive way by putting spikes on the leaves. It's almost as if the plant senses what's going on and reacts to its environment, which ought to give vegans pause because that means plants are conscious of what's happening and react to defend themselves.





As I thought about that article, I realized I'm a lot like that too. When I'm in an environment where I'm not being nibbled on or attacked all the time, I tend to be smooth and easy to get along with and not as volatile as people think I am.





But when I start getting attacked or put down or ignored and left out, I become defensive and the spikes start showing up. I tend to be a little bit faster than a holly tree or a holly bush, but it's still there and it's still what I do.





It was an interesting article. You can check one out at https://earthlymission.com/holly-trees-ilex-aquifolium-leaves-nibbled-by-deer-makes-lower-ones-spiky-regrow/



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Making email more useful ~

I have used email for a long time. I remember when email started to grow and become used by more people. It was good to have an email address.



I made sure my wife and I had separate email addresses because we live separate lives and we are separate people with different interests. I remember others being frustrated because they would send an email to my wife and then wonder why I didn't know about it. They just seemed boggled by the idea that we would have separate email addresses. AND not read each other's emails.



Fast forward to today where email is clogged with spam. I subscribe to several different newsletters and I also have a bot that goes and gathers things for me and emails those things to me. I find email very useful for passing information around to others in a form that almost everybody can access now.



But I always keep in mind that email is like sending a postcard. It is something that passes through several different servers and is wide open for whoever owns that server to read it and save it. So I'm careful about what I send. Sending account numbers, ID numbers, passwords, and that sort of thing is a no-no for email. Unless you zip it up in an encrypted file and password protect the file or send encrypted email. And even then I'm kind of thinking it's risky so I don't do that if I can avoid it.



But that's not what I wanted to talk about. One of the issues that I kept running into is it all running together. Especially at work. As I would scan through the emails that I got I couldn't really tell when I was on a different day and how long it had been since this email had come to me. I tried tagging things. I tried setting up rules to tag things automatically. It all seemed to run together in one big blur.



One day I had a thought about divider lines. When you look at posters or letters or anything printed there's usually a line or a boundary between sections. It makes that section stand out a little bit and know that you're looking at something that's different than the rest of it. Especially in a one-page thing a header line or divider line between the sections helps a lot.



So my big idea was getting a divider line into my email inbox. I thought about that for a couple of days and then came up with an idea of having my bot send me an email every night in the middle of the night with a bunch of dashes as the subject.



A bunch of dashes. It sounds silly when I talk about it but it's been revolutionary for me. I added the date to the front of the line of dashes. Now has I scan down through my email I can distinctly see where each day of email starts and ends. It's amazing! It's so silly and sounds stupid but it's amazing.



It's helped me scan through things and find stuff a lot faster. When I go to search for specific days or or try to focus on one or two days of emails that I'm trying to dig something out of instead of having to search using their between two dates functions I just type in the date space ��� and it comes right to that day and I can quickly scan that these emails and find what I'm looking for.



Here's what it looks like



Today's date---------



Such a simple idea. And it's been so helpful to me.



Just thought I'd share!



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#email #idea

Changing the game ~

A recent post/email from an online guru that I've read for years started with the line:



Don't play games you can't win.



That has been a theme of mine since I was a kid. I learned early on that others were better than me, so I had to change things up. Star Trek reinforced that idea with Captain Kirk and the crew changing the game so they could get to a better outcome for everyone involved, even their opponents.



For a long time in my career I kept bringing new things in because I knew I would never be "as good as" the old guys that didn't want to change. I remember when I developed a web-based log system for my workplace some of the old guys were still saying "nobody uses that" as I implemented it's 24/7 use. Instead of fighting against their bias and opposition I went with the people that actually wanted me to do it and succeeded. It was an amazing feeling!



I've had to do that in relationships, too. People have made assumptions about me that were wrong and pushed me away for years. Instead of continuing to wish things were different I've learned to accept things as they are and go in my own direction. I don't like the feeling of loss but have learned to accept and live with it.



The article by Seth Godin was good. You can check it out at

https://seths.blog/2025/09/system-architect-system-victim/



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Picky about outcomes ~

One of the things that I have learned about myself is that I am picky about outcomes. It's not that I'm picky about brands, it's about how they're going to act or what kind of effect they're going to have on me and my family.



When I was a kid, my mother told me that Skippy peanut butter was the best peanut butter, that the others just weren't the same, and Skippy was the best. I carried that into my adult life until late in my 50s.



If we didn't have Skippy peanut butter, I didn't eat peanut butter sandwiches or peanut butter and crackers. My wife tried over and over, she would buy the cheap stuff, the store brand stuff. I would taste it and think it tasted bad, and I would go and buy my own peanut butter.



Same thing with canned vegetables. My mother taught me that canned vegetables by Del Monte or one of the other brands were the best. The no-name store brand generic canned vegetables usually had bad stuff in them, or they weren't the same thing, they were lower quality.



I got over that one pretty quick. Green beans are green beans.



When my wife and I would travel and we had all four kids, or just three, or just two, we would always pack a cooler with ice and drinks and cups and snacks in the vehicle. Because when you stop at a convenience store to fill up with gas and four kids and your wife go into the store, you end up spending 50 bucks in the store on top of the gas that you bought. Money was tight at times because kids are expensive and the cooler worked out great in the car.



Now that my children are adults and they don't travel with us, I really prefer not to do the ice in the cooler deal and prefer to just stop and grab a bag of peanuts and keep rolling.



I like my green tea and because it's green tea, I can drink it either at room temperature or in the car temperature or cold or even hot.



When I go somewhere and the forecast calls for rain, I tend to take my umbrella. It's not because I'm scared of getting wet, it's because typically when we go out to do things a one-hour jaunt turns into a five or six hour ordeal that just goes on and on. And if I get wet I'm going to be unhappy! My hair will be damp my clothes will stay damp. I will be grumpy and irritable more than I usually am.



And so I carry an umbrella just in case it rains I Prefer the outcome of being dry over taking the chance and being wet.



Because I retired from a job where I was a highly trained pattern matcher I can sometimes predict what's going to happen. Sometimes way further in advance than my wife or others around me. I Just pick up on things. I've been around a while And I like the outcomes that I like.



I'm picky about the outcomes of my endeavors. I don't like to fail. I fail a lot and I really don't like it.



I don't like to look foolish even though I'd look foolish often So I do things to influence the outcomes so that none of those things happen to me. Or I minimize the possibilities of it happening to me. I'm not picky about brands I'm picky about outcomes.



Shirts have been a fascinating thing. For so long cotton shirts were the way to go and I would sweat in them and the sweat would stay and I would look foolish. So I wouldn't go anywhere or I would have to change shirts.



I discovered that quick dry Under Armor shirts don't show the sweat that I have pouring out of my body. At least not as much as cotton shirts do. And they are lighter and feel better on my skin. So I like to wear Under Armor shirts.



I prefer shirts with a button-down collar if I'm wearing a dress shirt. When I wear a shirt with an open collar it just feels like I'm in the 70s in a disco outfit and look like one of those advertising executives out on a Friday lunch. I don't like looking like that so I'm picky about the outcome when I wear clothes. I even found shirts that I really liked but a lot of them were sold as open collar shirts. So I bought a quick button attacher and I turned them into button-down collar shirts myself. It worked out great!



I don't see anything wrong with being picky about outcomes. If other people see it as a mental illness or as something that you're just hard to get along with that's their issue not yours.



I'm just trying to protect myself from what might happen if the outcome is bad.



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Guyana Trip Thoughts ~

I recently visited the country of Guyana. My wife and went with some friends who grew up in Guyana and some other people doing missionary work there.



Guyana is a beautiful country that is 500 miles north of the equator in South America. Georgetown, the capital city, is on the coast beside the Demerara river. The city is actually below sea level so they have a sea wall that protects the city from major flooding.



We had lots of fun there! The food was delicious, with a lot of mild curry and jerk seasonings. The people were nice, especially in the open markets. We got to ride all the way to New Amsterdam and back one day, enjoying the floating bridges they used to cross the rivers. And we got to ride all the way to Parika, known as the "end of the road". We even went on an adventure and flew to see Kaieteur Falls, the tallest drop waterfall in the world - the tannic acid filled water was beautiful, giving the waterfall a brownish hue as it flowed and fell.



I learned some things that I didn't know while we were in Guyana: :



- Some people put necklaces and bracelets on their children to ward off evil spirits.



- Almost every tree in a home's yard is some kind of fruit tree.



- Several fruits and teas from Guyana have cancer fighting properties.



- "Take it from she" is a valid sentence meaning take it from her.



- The kids call you "Uncle" instead of "sir" after getting some time with you. Nice.



- Time is relative. My five minutes is usually not the same as their five minutes.



- Many of the homes are also businesses.



- Houses are built on stilts. Then the lower level is filled in to expand living space. Not always closed in.





Because Guyana was a British colony they mostly speak English, just sometimes with a strong Caribbean accent that makes you pay attention. And they drive on the left side of the road with a lot less space between cars, motorcycles, scooters, big trucks, and horse-drawn carts than I am used to.



Guyana is a beautiful country. If you ever get a chance to visit I highly recommend it!



Map:

https://maps.app.goo.gl/GvcTYxkWmu1yHgqy6



Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guyana?wprov=sfla1



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Coding by hand ~

I recently read an article working through the claim that AI is writing 90% of all programming code now. The article explained the claims and then talked about how programmers end spending too much time checking and fixing the code generated by whatever artificial intelligence was used. The conclusion was that the human coders are more creative and adaptive and do things "by hand" rather than rely on the machines.



I'm not sure if I believe all of that but the story reminded me of something.



During my career as an air traffic control specialist I did a lot of things to support the operation. I earned a degree in Computer Information Systems and used it to develop small applications to "automate" some tedious things. It was a lot of fun!



A job in headquarters for controllers with programming experience opened up in headquarters. They were assembling a team from the "front lines" to develop business knowledge applications that made sense to the field facilities. A co-worker that was not a programmer applied for the job.. His justification was that they were using Visual Basic to develop the programs and he had learned how to click options in the VB menu and then auto-generate an "application". He couldn't do anything with the code after it was generated but still wanted the job.



He was selected for the job. As he prepared to go to headquarters things changed in his life and he had to back out of the offer to work headquarters. They chose me to go in his place. And I got to help develop applications that we used in feeders l facilities nationwide.



I never used the auto-generate function in VB. Because it was too much work to wade through all the junk the program generated so I could adapt it to what we were trying to do.



So I tend to agree with the conclusions in the article..



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