Happy New Year

I anticipate a quiet New Year’s Day, 2019, at home:

http://kgbudge.com/videos/NewYears2019snow.mp4

I tried embedding the video directly, but apparently that capability comes only with the Pro version of WordPress, for which I have to pay money. I actually understand and am okay with that, though I’m not ready to make the leap yet. It’s an important bit of Internet wisdom that, if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.

This is certainly true of YouRube and other social media sites. Not quite true of sites like WordPress; I think the free versions are a business model of getting you to like the product enough to start paying for the more advanced versions. I have my own hosting site already that I pay a regular subscription for (HostRocket.com), and it’s some comfort to know that I’m not the product there.

So what big plans do I have for the coming year?

I will almost certainly hike Obsidian Ridge north of the San Miguel Mountains, both because there’s interesting geology and because there’s actually a chance Cindy might come with me — though she may be wanting just the photographs; she mentioned in a comment earlier here that she’d love to see what the area is like now.

I will also almost certainly drive up to Rio Puerco Campground, if only because it’s deep in territory I have never visited in the northwest Jemez. Would make a good birthday wanderlust, except this year it will almost certainly not yet be open then.

As soon as the weather is a bit warmer and drier, I plan to go with Gary Stradling to visit Kilbourne Hole in southernmost New Mexico for an overnight camp out and hunt for bits of mantle xenolith. I plan to invite Bruce Rabe along as well.

I also have plans to join Bruce and Gary for a trip out to Delta, Utah, to visit the Wheeler Formation trilobite beds. They’re just north of the old Topaz internment camp, so I’ll fold in a little sad history as well.

If my mom is perceiving things correctly, it sounds like there might be at least one wedding in the family this year. That may determine the timing of the Delta trip, or it may mean a second trip to Utah this year.

All depends on how my health and finances hold up, of course. So far, we’re told that LANL is still going to be in business after the winter break. (Which may be delayed by snow; we’ll see.) The government shutdown does not immediately affect us because we’re technically not government employees, but if it drags out long enough, it will affect us sooner or later.