Untitled post from August 23, 2025
After Friday’s good news from my cardiologist, I’m celebrating by cooking dinner for my parents and me: Chef Jean-Pierre’s pot roast recipe👨🍳🥩🥕🧅🥔. The house already smells amazing 😌…
2025
Untitled post from August 23, 2025
Two wins this weekend 🎉: set up Webmentions and Bridgy Fed on my old Blogger site (now www.michaelponders.com) after a week of troubleshooting 🛠️, and updated my Micro.blog theme to…
Untitled post from August 22, 2025
Saw my cardiologist today 🩺 (visit 2 of 3, monthly echocardiograms). EF is up: 51% in May → 74% in July → 77% today 📈. Gradient keeps improving. I feel better and mostly symptom-fr…
Summer Gratitude: A/C
Lately, especially in the heart of summer, I’ve been thinking about air conditioning and the inventions I’m most grateful for that have matured over my lifetime. I don’t think I c…
Is the World Marching to the Same Tune Again?
We may be about to repeat history in ways that will not be obvious tomorrow, next week, or even next year. This post discusses politics and history; if you prefer to avoid that,…
📺 This TV Week’s Watchlist
From Paramount+: 🎬 Star Trek: Strange New Worlds – Season 3, Episodes 3–5 ⭐⭐⭐½ No spoilers! Continues to be a solid contender and, for me, the best of the Star Trek series on Pa…
The Most Reluctant Convert: The Untold Story of C.S. Lewis, 2021 - ★★½
This review is not about C.S. Lewis himself or his books, but about the movie. The actor was fine for the part, but his dialect threw me off. It kept shifting, and at times it sou…
What Jack Baty’s Blogging Anniversary Post Reminded Me Of
I was reading Jack Baty’s blog the other day via RSS and saw his post, “25 years of blogging”. That was three years before I started on Blogger, in the pre-Google days. I had a we…
My Battle with Subscription Fatigue: Mid-Year Update
Reviewing the long list—trimming expenses brings a mix of relief and challenge. I figured I’d give an update on my ongoing battle with subscription fatigue. This is …
I Didn’t Need a Report to Know Tampa Traffic Is Bad
I already knew Tampa traffic was awful — but I didn’t realize we ranked this high nationally. Here’s what commuting here is really like.