I Think I Know Where This Is Headed

 Yesterday, I guess to ring out the old year, Janet binge watched a nature series on big cats (lions, leopards, cheetahs) in Africa. This inspired her to dig out my Namibia and Botswana travel guide, which she leafed through while watching. Later she had me show her every picture that I had taken on my Namibia trip. In turn, this led to research on flights from Palermo to Windhoek - and guided tours in Namibia and Botswana - and concluded with her astonishment/pleasure in figuring out that Namibia is in the same time zone as Sicily (no jet lag!). I think WE ALL KNOW where this is headed.

Janet was fixated/charmed/amazed at the number of wild beasties that you saw just out roaming, such as these zebra who were galloping down the road.

It Just Never Ends

 Yesterday one of my late Christmas presents arrived, a sweet Montreal Alouettes jersey. I had my old-fashioned souvenir Alouettes jersey (which features the plucky Alouette, and which you can see featured in any old blog post about a Montreal game outing - and which always received praise at the games). Janet determined that I should go ahead and finish out my acquisition of all the CFL team jerseys, because, well, we're running out of time. The last one should arrive in a few days, and then I'll be prepared to visit any CFL game and not look like a rube. Great gifts from my lovely wife.

This is a great jersey. The more traditional Alouettes jersey sort of looks like an old school New England Patriots jersey, but I like version better.

Sure, Pringle is a CFL Hall of Famer (as recounted in an earlier blog post), but this is also the number of days left that I have to be on campus at Champlain (which means I should wear it on the first day of class).

The rendering of CFL in French is just one of the many reasons why the CFL is better.

Movies in 2026 1

 

Lost in America, (Albert Brooks, 1985)

OK, so I've finished the Year of Books and have started the Year of Movies. Of course, every year is a year of books and a year of movies, but I liked last year's experiment where I recorded all the books I read. This inspired me to designate 2026 as the Year of Movies, and I'll take the same approach. This morning I watched Albert Brooks's Lost in America, which I hadn't seen in forty years or maybe had never seen in its entirety. Considering where Janet and I are personally, and where America is on the macro level, it just seemed like a really good choice to start off this year of transition. Now, I just need to remember to not pass through Las Vegas so that Janet doesn't pull a Julie Haggerty and gamble away our next egg. The film is very funny, but also works as a not too subtle critique of the Reagan years. It's featured in a great collection on the Criterion Channel this month. Highly recommended.