Racing Through The Snow

There’s no actual snow, but December is always a weird mix of running around in a blind panic and odd, dreamy pauses, so here’s a few highlights of what’s been going on:

Disney+ won the Internet, period. I’ve been watching some Apple TV+ content courtesy of my recent iPad Mini 5 purchase, but nothing they have comes within a parsec of The Mandalorian.

I have The Expanse queued up for viewing over Xmas break (and have high hopes for it, if only because I miss the exquisite portrayal of Chrisjen Avasarala‘s character), but I’m a sucker for the Star Wars universe, and what I’ve seen is very, very good.

Not the doll. The whole thing, including the amazing concept artwork shown during credits.

I’ve kept mostly mum on that particular insanity, but it looks like the English have gone irretrievably bonkers. I expect Scotland and the Isle of Man to join the EU in due time, and England to become even more of an island upon itself.

Like I wrote the other day, the way things are going the US might well acquire a 51^st state by the end of 2020, and the “Area 51” moniker might well take on a whole different meaning…

I have been stripping out and setting up my home office again, from furniture to networking, and my back still aches. There’s plenty more to come, but let’s just say I’m trying to pack a lot into a very tight space with hopes I will be spending a lot of time in it.

Best laid plans, right?

For a number of reasons I won’t go into I’ve been embroiled in the dark side of Azure data services (i.e., the “legacy” SQL stuff, which I am hardly enthusiastic about) and am really, really looking forward to changing scope and going back to my usual mix of Kubernetes and “nicer” things in the AI space.

It bears noting that (amidst wholesale chaos and family illnesses) I managed to have dinner with some of the people I worked with at Netcetera, which was remarkably fun (even if constrained by time and interactions). I have been drafting the second instalment of that saga piecemeal, but have no set date to post it.

And, of course, there are more dinners and lunches dotted throughout the calendar…