What I’m Doing Now

Updated January 28, 2026

I’ve been my Mom’s caregiver since 2017. Taking care of her has of necessity been my primary activity. She passed a few days ago, two weeks shy of her 102nd birthday. She will be missed.

I will be closing her estate and moving, not necessarily in that order.

In Progress

• Site conversions from WordPress.
• Creating a small private site for residents of the senior community where I live.
• Clearing an apartment, moving, and figuring out what’s next.

Projects

2026 Changes.

• I posted a bit about Twelfth Night, Or What You Will
• We got about 15'' of snow in 24 hours, proceeded and followed by wicked cold temperatures in - F territory.

Technology

• I expect to finish the MacSparky Alfred Field Guide online class this week.
• I plan to start the MacSparky Apple Productivity Field Guide 2025 next week.
• I am having fun with a FujiFilm Instax Mini Link 3 photo printer.
• I lost several files on iCloud. I am fairly certain that the data loss was a syncing failure, and inclined to blame the local WiFi (which I do not control) at least as much as Apple. I’ve subscribed to a paid DropBox account.
• The new Kobo Remote for turning pages is fabulous. I can place the Kobo on a stand close enough to easily read it, and turn pages with the remote.

Reading

• I am re-reading the previous three J. P. Mallory books before reading Mallory’s recently released The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting Their Story. Mallory is the only archaeologist I know of with a solid background in Celtic and other early I. E. languages.

  I’m still reading the first, of the three In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology, and MythIt’s very slow going because I keep following up a reference he made in this 1991 book, to check the current research.

• I created a reading plan for 2026 to re-read Tolkien’s The Hobbit followed by the LOTR trilogy. This will be the first time in decades that I’ve read all four books in close succession.
• I am emphasizing using the stationery I have, and re-homing what I don’t enjoy or use.
• Re-reading Tom Shippey’s books The Road to Middle-earth (2005 3rd edition) and Author of the Century.

Links

These are some of the thought-provoking things I’ve recently read on the Web.

• Via NPR: To keep AI out of her classroom, this high school English teacher went analog

Were I still teaching, I’d probably do much the same, though I might use LLMs at the final draft stage.

My Now page was inspired by David Sparks’ Now page, itself inspired by Derek Sivers.

You can see previous Now pages, AKA Then pages.

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