Updates to My Exciting Life

 Here's the exciting details of my so-called life:

Physical Therapy;

My physical condition continues to improve with Focus Sports Therapy in Hollister, California.  I can walk better and longer than when I first started back in March. I have discovered through experience that even a thoroughly decrepit body can react to exercise and improve greatly in many cases.  

Learning Spanish:  

My strategy for learning Spanish is immersion, sort of.  I watch lessons, stories and examples of Spanish on YouTube, and do not write anything down.  Once I have covered the same vocabulary, words and phrases as before, it begins to stick.  I use Google Spanish to English translation for new words and phrases, which are translated instantly into English at no cost.  This is a great tool when reading stories only, to learn new words and expressions.

I used to try and listen to Spanish broadcasts, songs, news, advertisements to see how many spoken words I could recognize.  It wasn't very many at all.  Then one day recently the fog began to clear and I could understand various words and phrases, a lot more than before.

Back to Making Graphics

 Since I broke my hip two years ago I have lost energy and mobility.  However, I am undergoing some great physical therapy and it has done me a lot of good.  So this week I have reactivated my favorite Abobe programs, namely Photoshop and Illustrator.

To get back into the swing of things and learn the newest updated versions, I am selecting some projects to work on.  Here is a repair of a picture I found on FaceBook, of  a Civil War era sailor.  It was a tintype image and had corroded badly.  I wanted to see what the sailor looked like without all that damage.  Here he is.

The original is below.

Time To Reinvent Myself

At 81 years of age my working life has come to an end.  Now I need to devise a plan for the rest of my life.  I don't want to spend it on the couch watching TV.  Not exclusively, anyway.  I don't want to feel useless.  

My priority for the time being will be to regain my physical health.  I start a new round of physical therapy tomorrow.  PT has done a lot of good for me so far but I have a ways to go.  I have an exercise table that I bought from Amazon several weeks ago, still in its cardboard packaging.  I need to install it in my spare room upstairs and start using it. 

Tax Season Ends Next Week

 The Tax Season is winding down and this may be my last hurrah.  

I will soon be free to do other things.  

But what?

Fighting for Good Health

 My fight with my body goes on.  Physical therapy helps a lot, but on days between workouts my painful joints and weak legs reassert themselves.  Today Tess drove me to an appointment with my orthopedic surgeon in San Jose to undergo some nerve tests to detect possible neuropathy.  After a grueling drive through traffic, we arrived but the doctor’s computer software failed to operate so the whole trip was a large waste of time.

 I bought a physical therapy table but haven’t had the time or strength to set it up.  There is one more month of the tax season and I will have more time to accomplish what I need to do. 

Learning to Play Violin

A few days ago I was browsing YouTube and happened upon a violin maker and repairman and found the subject of violins to be compelling.  These tiny instruments are made of Maple and topped with Spruce and even those two or three hundred years old can still sound beautiful.  Famous brands like Stradivarius sell for millions of dollars, even though very old.  Antonio Stradavari, the maker, died in 1737.  About 650 Stradavarius violins still exist and are sought after by collectors who are rich enough to buy one as an investment.  Great violinists seek to play them whenever they are offered the chance.  

Intrigued, I bought a beginner violin off of  EBay, a German 4/4 full size violin made of Maple and have been slowly getting it, and myself, ready to operate the instrument.

My first tasks were to rosin the bow and tune the strings.  Rosin is something like tree sap that is rubbed on the horsehair of the bow, otherwise the bow cannot make any sound.  The rosin grips the strings and makes them sound when the bow is drawn across them.

The second task was to tune the strings.  Seeing how thin violin strings are, I became worried about breaking a string if I tuned it too tight.  So I bought an electronic tuner from Adobe and proceeded with caution.  Now the violin is tuned.  The next task is to make nice sounds with the bow, then start practicing scales.  It should be fun and there is plenty of videos on YouTube to educate me in each task.

Weird Stuff Is Happening

 I haven't posted in a while.  Tax season has started and I am in my last tax season as I retire after April 15.  I should have done it sooner.

Some passing thoughts:

1.  Adam the Woo died from natural causes, according to his autopsy report, per his father.  It appears Adam had an enlarged heart.  I am no doctor but it sounds to me like congestive heart failure.  

2. Grisly Ghoul robs graves of skeletal remains.  A 34 year old man, Jonathan Gerlock, is chaged with robbing graves in Mount Moriah Cemetery in Yeadon, Pennsylvania.  He broke into crypts and graves and took human remains, both skeletal and otherwise, of around 100 bodies, apparently to sell.  The remains were from infants to adults who were deceased for 200 years.

3.  The Mess in Minnesota.  Billions of dollars in fraud is reported from America's kookiest state, where Somalian immigrats there have received government funding for non-existent childcare facilities.  Ex-governor Tim Walz is said to have known about the fraud but did nothing about it.  Meanwhile, massive rioting and violence against ICE agents has occurred as Minnesotans fanatically oppose the removal of illegal immigrants from Northern La-La Land.  Minnesota's extreme rebellion against federal immigration law borders on secession from the United States.

4.  The Epstein Files.  Democrat activists have been frantic and obsessed over the release of all of the Epstein files, which are not all in one place and not all identified as such, so have not all been released pending redacted to preserve victim privacy.  Since the files number in the millions, this redaction takes a lot of time.  This isn't good enough for the frothing-at-the=mouth crowd who hope and believe the files will prove Donald Trump was a pedophile engaged in child rape and abuse.  Meanwhile, the only top politition so identified as a probably culprit is Democrat Bill Clinton, who refused a Congressional subpoena to testify about the controversy and was hiding in Scotland to avoid it.

Thoughts on Adam the Woo, 1974-2025

Adam the Woo

Adam the Woo, well known vlogger and YouTuber, was laid to rest on January 6, 2026, in Mount Peace Cemetery in St. Cloud, Florida. There is a lot of vloggers who have dedicated memorial posts to him.  I have watched his YouTube posts from time to time, and this past week noticed just how good they are.  You can still watch them on YouTube, dating back nine years or maybe more.

This week I watched his visit to Hollywood, California where he remarked on historic spots therein, places where famous scenes from films were made, the Walk of Fame with Stars dedicated to actors and others, and concrete impressions of famous actors at Grauman's Chinese Theatre.  This is where famous stars like Marilyn Monroe wrote their names in wet concrete along with their handprints and the dates of the impressions.

Another post was on a visit to Adam's birthplace in Tupelo, Mississippi, also the birthplace of famous singer Elvis Presley. You can see the tiny house where the Presley family lived, the store where Elvis's mom bought his first guitar, among other places. 

Adam's posts are described as "adventures" and watching them is like having a visit with a friend, seeing and talking about interesting things.  They are enjoyable.

NEW YEAR'S EVE: 2025 Fades Into the Sunset

7:43 PM -- So the year 2025 fades with the setting sun.  It's cold and raining.  We won't go out to celebrate, just watch the festivities in New York's Time Square on television.  My God, modern popular music is so terrible now, the acts and singers are just atrocious. 

Time moves on, taking my precious Pomeranian Kodi with it.  I sometimes wish it would take me too, in my sleep, like it did Adam the Woo.  I have little enthusiasm for life anymore.  It's the same old boring routine day after day.

Adam the Woo, Popular Vlogger Dies Suddenly at 51

Adam the Woo

Adam the Woo, aka David Adam Williams, a popular YouTuber and vlogger, just got back from a European trip, home again in Celebration, Florida.  He arrived home on, December 18. 2025, and began touring Celebration and filming Christmas decorations on houses in his town, as well as setting up decorations of his own on the front lawn of his home.  

Adam's last videos on YouTube showed no illnesses and he seemed as fine as he always was during the sixteen years of his vlogging career.  But on Monday, December 22, Adam suddenly passed away in his home.  A friend was supposed to spend the day with him but couldn't reach him.  The friend borrowed a ladder and looked in the third floor window where he saw Adam laying still on his bed.  He called the police for a welfare check and Adam was discovered deceased.  A cause of death has not yet been released.

Adam's vlog was very popular. It dealt with cultural events and holidays, and a variety of different locations, like Disney World, abandoned sites along Highway 66, and a variety of urban locations across the United States and recently, Europe as well.  He did not deal with politics or controversy and his content was suitable for all ages.

Adam was a nice guy, a pleasant online friend to many.  If I could guess about his first day in the afterlife, he probably complained that they would not let him bring his camera so he could vlog the place.