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It's Halloween 2026, or at least nearly the end of it here in EST. Today was a beautiful fall day and a perfect night for trick-or-treaters, not that there were many out in my neighborhood. I think I saw a group of 3.

Now I'm going to kick back and maybe watch some Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episodes before bed. I carved a pumpkin, albeit just now and not early enough to leave out, and ate a bunch of the candy I'd bought for the non-existent trick-or-treaters.

I'll probably leave my decorations up for a while, and probably carve the other pumpkins I have over the next few days as well. I had some stuff come up, like the installation of a new furnace, which sort of inhibited my Halloween activities this year, but at least now I'm hoping for a peaceful next few weeks.

This year, I managed to grow a medium-sized pumpkin. It is a nice pumpkin, except that it was attacked by squirrels. The markings have sort of healed, and it's not rotting, but it's clearly seen battle.

I'm still going to carve something into it, some sort of face. The scars will give it character. It may go somewhere outdoors this Halloween, and it might even go on the roof overhang of my back porch. This is visible from the street.

I also purchased some pumpkins, and will carve them as well. This is a time-honored Halloween tradition, even if my neighborhood doesn't get many trick-or-treaters. I usually keep the jack-o-lanterns around until they rot.

Summer has a couple weeks left as far as I configure – here in the northern hemisphere, Fall begins on the 22nd of September this year. Today, Labor Day Weekend, it is beautiful. Sunny with some clouds, and cool, dry air. Still good for swimming, and great for doing stuff outside.

The animals, at this point George and Tim (gray cat and Irish Wolfhound respectively), are enjoying it as well. George is mischievously meandering around on the dresser, while Tim is hanging out downstairs after being outside with us. I am staying with family, and their two cats are similarly enjoying the day.

To think that the summer went by so quickly... It feels like it was June not too long ago. Now we're on the verge of Fall, and the crazy thing is that it will be summer again before we all know it.

Projects

I'm trying to get back into working on a couple things. I nearly have the schematic for the Solar Pi controller done – the idea is to run a Raspberry Pi off of solar-charged supercapacitors, and the controller would basically turn it on and off depending on the voltage. The capacitors keep it running if a cloud goes overhead or something, but ultimately it just runs when there's sun. It would run a website, and other things.

Along with that, I've been toying around with a static website generator. Yes, these sometimes seem to rival hydrogen atoms in quantity, but I had an idea to do one and figured it would be a good project to do stuff with Perl. It will help me put together a site for the Solar Pi, as well as my main site, or whatever else.

After that, it's a tossup between a MPPT charge controller, and the inverter project I've been stewing over. I say tossup because a big blocker for the inverter is having a powerful microcontroller. I'd like to use an STM32, but I'm not familiar with the platform. The MPPT controller is simpler, and in my mind not a bad way to get a hang of things. I figure I can sort of do them in parallel.

Internet Upgrade

My home internet is now fiber! It's 500 mb, instead of the 1 Gb I had with cable, but it's symmetric, so that's up and down. It's pretty nice. Normal usage isn't really affected, but when downloading something remotely from my phone it makes a huge difference.

I do kind of miss having a public IPv4 address, but IPv6 works quite well. The caveat being that not everything implements it, so if you want to self host having some sort of workaround is desirable. I'm exploring that with a VPS.

This ISP is somewhat local, compared to the old cable one, which was of course all over the US. It's nice to support a smaller company I guess. Plus, fiber is just superior, and I'd rather get behind that. That said, if the cable company ever does get the high split upgrade done (which would provide symmetrical service), and can give a discount, I might be tempted to switch back. But maybe not.

Music

I bought a 6-string bass back in the spring. I haven't been playing it a whole lot, but I should be to get used to it. It's actually kind of fun. Yes, you really need the 4 for most things, and 5 is pretty good overall, but having the extra low and high range is a plus.

I need to get back into playing piano, too. I'd like to be able to comp and solo a little over jazz changes. I can plunk things out, but I'm not really fluent.

Phone tethering works well. 5G is available in a lot of places, and it's handy and fast. I was paying for it anyway.

Back in the day, I used this is my only internet connection, and it worked. Now I have separate internet.

It's cool out. Each summer for the past half-decade or so, it seems like we've gotten at least a few heat waves. We may still get one, but now it's cooler.

It's windy, not too windy, but a nice breeze. It's a good night to be outside messing around, or procrastinating this or that.

Tim is barking into the void, at something off in the distance. We'll go in soon, and he'll settle down for the night. Maybe the house will cool off.

I might try to do something, but it is late. I tell myself I can be productive with something, but I'm finding that sometimes that's just not a good idea. Sometimes you just have to enjoy the night. Maybe read or watch a movie or show or something, but it's not always the best time to try to get something done, unless you really want to do it.

Light

I'm out on my covered porch. I've got a string of lights, they're C7 Christmas-style lights, clear LED bulbs approximating incandescents, and they do a decent job. The light under here is warm, and it contrasts the porch with the dark void of the yard.

There are crickets going, and with the wind, the whole night just feels incandescent. It feels like the air itself is alive.

Tomorrow

I don't have anything scheduled for tomorrow. There's stuff I need to get done, but I don't have to be anywhere. I do have to look at some stuff for work, and do some basic Sunday chores, etc. But it'll be a lazy Sunday.

(Since it's just passed midnight, it's technically today.)

Escape

I'm hoping to catch some of the Perseid meteor shower, while there's a chance. I may drive out to a dark spot, even though I guess I should really just go to bed. The peak of the shower was last week, but I just didn't make it out due to circumstances.

Honestly, it's just nice to look at the sky.