At one point in my life, I had watched every episode of This Old House. I suppose that this is one of my few, guilty pleasure TV habits. I lost track of the show on the switch from analog to digital broadcasting format in 2010. This is because I used to record the show when it was live and watch it later at my convenience.
Around 2016, I realized that it was being streamed and so I started picking the show up again with the episodes that I could. Not every show or season was viewable. In fact, the show had significant technical issues like not enough server bandwidth and clunky commercial interruptions that sometimes never came back. I fought through it picking off hours to watch and restarting.
Somewhere around 2020, I just forgot about it. I think that I was hot and heavy remodeling then I transitioned into driving for Amazon with an irregular schedule and then I started working again and my free time was devoted to writing to AltF4 as well as all the other things I needed to do. Right before my Christmas break, I remembered that I was years behind. A large part of my break was binge watching the last four years of This Old House episodes.
I now have a gap of seasons (I think). Some of my gap years are behind the paywall and so I remember things about certain projects but I can’t actually view them to confirm. I don’t know if I caught an episode here or there during normal broadcast and now I am misremembering things. I have a feeling that I am going to pay for a short subscription so that I can catch back up.
Not all of my time was spent in front of a screen. I did a lot of cooking, reading, and something that is a small family tradition. We usually do some sort of puzzle. This year we bought a very large and expensive Lego set that we spent several evenings building. I also got my electrical run so that I can move my keezer and get started in earnest with my wine cellar project this year.
Home improvement was definitely on the mind. I had the siding in front of my house removed. We have had a leak in the front picture window every since the siding was done in 2015. It has gone on long enough that I was beginning to worry about the damage that it was causing. This actually occurred before Christmas but I had already had many articles queued before my break. I also plan on discussing this more in detail soon.
What I didn’t do was a lot of thinking about AltF4. This was by design. When I need to take a break, I need a real break. I have learned this about myself over the years, I do not give up easily. Because of that, I tend to keep after things too long. That is to say we all reach a point of diminishing returns and it is necessary to take a step back. I have solve many a programming problem in the shower after a late night of working much longer than I should have.
End Your Programming Routine: My break was closer to two weeks than one since I had most of the week before Christmas already written and published ahead of time. I don’t know if that is actually enough time because right now I feel charged and ready to go. That feeling waxes and wanes throughout the year and hopefully this isn’t a veneer. That being said, happy to be back and ready to go.
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