For those who have been following along, I haven’t posted an update to this site since last October. For now, I’m just checking in to let everyone know I’m still around. I’ll also give an update on a few things I’ve been up to.

Consulting – scaled back for now

After working 60-hour weeks at my primary employer for the month of September last year (immediately following an attempt to launch my consulting side hustle earlier in the summer), I took a step back and decided that there were other things in my life I wanted to focus on instead of working such long hours. I left this site as it was while I considered the long-term plan.

While cooling my heels on website content and scaling back my side hustle gig postings, I also turned some attention toward diet and exercise. Over the past five years, I’ve gradually “softened” in the midsection as well as in cardiovascular health.

Setback

November and December of 2024 flew by in a flurry of activity, as they do. I was successful at incorporating physical activity into nearly every day. The weekend immediately preceding Christmas, Jessica and I undertook the effort to clean out and set up our finished basement space, converting it from storage to a basement family room. By the end of the 12-hour stint, I knew I was in for some lower back discomfort.

After a week or so, my back started to ease up, true to form over the past 25 years. But it was at the beginning of the second week of January that my next challenge presented itself. It all started with a dull ache in my left shoulder…

I’ll present the Cliff Notes version here. For the past three months, I’ve been through X-rays, an MRI, physical therapy, and an epidural steroid injection. In a few days will be doubling up on an EMG followed immediately by Trigger Point Therapy.

The initial diagnosis leaned toward a pinched nerve base due to a deteriorated disc in my C6-C7 cervical spine. A combo of physical therapy and an epidural steroid injection was prescribed as an attempt to alleviate the rather significant pain and discomfort that grew out of that original ache.

While physical therapy has provided hours of relief at a time, it has only reached a point of pain management, whereas the epidural steroid injection was utterly ineffective. This has brought my care team and me to the point where we believe my cervical spine, though showing the effects of age, probably isn’t the root of my shoulder neuralgia.

For the past 3+ months, I have been very conservative in my physical exertion where my neck and shoulder are concerned, which has completely derailed the progress I’d made fitness-wise toward the end of 2024. In the past two weeks, after we all realized my cervical spine is what it is and I’m not at any (apparently) significant risk of my “neck falling off”, I’ve started to ease back into some walking with Jessica. I fully intend on continuing that trend for the foreseeable future, and I’m hopeful my shoulder complication will eventually get worked out.

What I’ve Been Up To

Thus far in 2025, aside from managing my shoulder situation and working a lot of extra hours at my primary employment, I also began serving as the Amateur (Ham) Radio Net Control Operator on 146.610 MHz W8BLV on Wednesday nights at 8 pm for DIAL Radio Club in Middletown, OH.

One of the intended benefits that has borne fruit is that having this responsibility ensures that I will spend some time operating in my shack at least once a week, even when I may not feel like it. I was originally licensed in May 2020 and have been in and out of the hobby multiple times since. Early last summer I even sold my HF radio and VHF/UHF radio to fund my Vintage Stereo interests, and expected to spend some time away from Amateur Radio.

What brought me back?

Late September through early October brought a couple of exceptionally strong hurricanes, Helene and Milton, to the Eastern United States. After learning the extent of devastation in Eastern Tennessee/Western North Carolina from the weather systems in that region over a six-week period, I considered my unique role as one of only 750,000 living licensed Ham Operators in the United States. Not only was I licensed/qualified to provide communications assistance if something similar happened where I live, I also wanted to be able to be that lifeline for my family, friends, and community should some sort of regional disaster ever occur here.

By the end of October, I had purchased a new HF radio and built my shack out in the basement. I had the help of an “Elmer” from DIAL in getting a new antenna wire strung through some trees (it involved a compressed air-powered tennis ball launcher – yes, every bit as cool as it sounds).

Through the end of 2024, as I got acquainted with my new HF radio, I started reaching out to a few organizations in my area to provide some sort of EmComm assistance. Because of where I work, I was able to get hooked up with Hamilton County (OH) ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services). While I am still working around the demands of my career right now, I am working toward completing all the required training to move from being a Provisional Member to an Active Member by the end of this summer. Even while all of that is in progress, I am scheduled to provide communications coverage during Cincinnati’s Flying Pig Marathon next month.

What’s Next?

Work will keep me extra busy through mid-summer, then I hope to be able to finish up any remaining training for Hamilton County ARES, and also study for and obtain the Red Hat Certified Engineer certification by the end of the year.

I’m looking forward to us getting the swimming pool opened up and in use in the coming weeks, and Jessica and I are in discussion about where I’m going to install an antenna tower on our property to get better range on my radio equipment.

I have a few ideas for some fresh website content that I’d like to start producing over the next few weeks or months, schedule permitting. I’m no longer interested in any sort of monetization or advertising revenue for this site. I’ve lowered my service level to a plan that I’m comfortable with eating the annual cost of. I had tried that last summer into fall, and I kept running into obstacles that ultimately dissuaded me from providing an advertising venue for any of the ad networks out there. They seem to want a lot and aren’t willing to pay much for it. Not to mention I didn’t want to deter or alienate what readership I do have.

New posts may come in spurts, and then be few and far between. All I really hope for this site from here on out is that visitors may occasionally find something useful and have a good time doing so. Thanks for reading!