2023 Year in Review · 2:21am January 6th
2023. What a year. I keep getting this feeling... this thought that, "Okay, once I get through this, then I can settle down. I just need to make it to the weekend. I just need to finish this busy end-of-the-month. Once I get through this quarter. Oh, it's 2024 already..? Fuck."
Anyway... to pick up where I left off last time, I got a new job in March as a facilities engineer for a pharmaceuticals manufacturing company. It somehow came with a 50% raise over my Laser Engineer job. And I know when you hear "facilities", you might think janitor. But as I have repeatedly made clear, I am a mechanic, not a janitor. Unclog your own toilet! I'm mostly tasked with making sure the assembly line machines keep running smoothly and keeping the building's lights on. It's the kind of job where if I do it right, it's invisible. I like the job. I like the work and I like my coworkers. I'm actually on track to be the department head once my supervisor retires in about 4-ish years.
At home, we are still happily living with my aunt in her in-law apartment. Her house is enormous. It has to be. There are nine people living in it, not counting my family. We successfully sold our old house back in May at the peak of the housing market for a tidy profit. But I'm not going to celebrate until I see how much is left after Uncle Sam bends me over and fucks me for Capital Gains tax.
Still, I sold the house because I didn't want to be a home owner any more. Renting definitely blows, and I don't recommend it if you can avoid it. But I was tired of cutting the grass, raking the leaves, shoveling the snow, and doing the never-ending list of house repairs. I sold the house to walk away from several expensive problems that were going to come up in the next five years, like replacing the siding and the roof and the retention wall in the back yard. Our next move will be a condo in ten years or so.
The other big life event was going to Alaska for two weeks to climb Mt. McKinley (Denali) and see the Arora Borealis. Aside from that, life has been pretty steady. Steady at home, steady at work. More money going into the bank each month than coming out. And that's good enough.
Online, 2023 started off strong.
I finished up my Last of Us series in February.
Daylight Savings Crime to keep my fingers typing in March.
Middle Mare for my April Wincest contest.
Then I went to BabsCon, which was probably the highlight of my year.
I started writing Essence for Mother's Day, but unfortunately didn't finish it until Jun 4th.
You Jelly was the grenade request I caught when nobody else wanted to write it for Summer Sin'23.
After that I went to Everfree Northwest and had a blast.
And although I started writing it before Jelly, I didn't finish writing my Father's Day story, It Takes a Family to Raise a Flurry, until August 19th.
Then I went back to finish my sequel to A Volatile Mixture, An Explosive Combination. Dustchu was very happy with the way it turned out, and so was I.
On the theme of continuing work on incomplete stories, I decided to un-complete Anon's Deep Tissue Massage to continue that story. Hopefully I'll have a new chapter of that out this weekend.
And last but certainly not least, I once again hosted Jinglemas'23 to great success.
You know, when I sat down to start writing this, it really felt like 2023 had flown by in the blink of an eye. Like I wasn't paying attention and I had missed out on so much. But when looking back at everything that I've done, it really was a banger year! So let's keep this party train rolling!
Onwards to 2024!
An election year
Assembly line maintenance?
Ow
Either the stuffs dead simple, reliable, well built and easy to work on.
Or its the latest greatest bult to perfect tolerances and as soon as the wrong fly farts in the wrong room it decides its time to set itself on fire and run around screaming like a terrified lambkin?
I really hope you got reasonable stuff cos Ive heard of and used some nightmare stuff over the years.
Having to do chemistry with goggles, visor and fume cupboard glass door aint no picnic. Especially with my spectacles keeping fogging up. Thank god I dint have to mess with the cyanogens. Molecular assembly of amine containing polymers back in the 80s was fun.
mechanic huh?
How's the Celestiabot coming along?
Sounds like a fun year.
Let's go to the better times in the future!
So, second month in. People are dying in barbed wire at the border, Israel is giving a few solid rib kicks into some feebs who mistook the medical scrap he bought from who were told were honest injun Russians whose uranium was totes the real mccoy, and Americas revving up the F 22 as China collapses in on itself like a bad souffle.
Matters continue apace then
Any thoughts on the state of affairs thus far, my good man?
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no
5767959
Ah well. Well, regardless, I hope your years going well so far at the very least
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Thank you.
5767961
Not at all.