Back to My Old Ways, Like 2022

    I'm old enough to have experienced many flooding events.  Fortunately, most of them have just been close calls or minor inconveniences.  However, there have been three pretty much disastrous floods that I have lived through.  The first one, that I can remember anyway, was in the spring of 1984, probably late April or early May based on what I can remember about it.  It was a Monday, and I was charged with bringing in a bunch of cupcakes for a class sale.  The house flooded.  I was out of school for a week and a day.  The sale was on the first day back, which I missed.  I honestly thought they would have delayed it.  It took weeks for the house to be cleaned up before I could move back in.  I personally didn't lose too much, but it was still hurtful.  The second flood was in June of 2003, a Tuesday.  This time, a lost so much more.  Pretty much every memory and keepsake from my childhood.  It ultimately cost the house as well.  While the house was cleaned up, we decided not to move back in.  We were keeping some things that did survive there while waiting to buy a new place to put them in.  Unfortunately, someone, probably a disgruntled neighbor, had the house condemned and it had to be torn down.  Most of the things being kept there had to be thrown out, even when they should have been saved, but there was nowhere to store them.  The most recent flood was just last year, July 2022.  Fortunately, the rental place where I currently stay is safe from flooding in all but the most extreme cases, but that doesn't mean there weren't' any consequences. It started on Wednesday night, eleven.  A line of storms were racing down Floyd county.  They had already triggered some flood notifications to the north.  However, they looked like they were moving so fast in my direction that I didn't think twice about going to bed.  I went to sleep to the sound of thunder and moderate rain.  I woke up about one that morning, and I wasn't sure why.  I would later learn that there had been a blip in the electricity and a beep had gone off on something when it came back on a second later. I went back to sleep. No thunder and just light rain, if any.  I woke up again at 3:30 or so.  The power had gone out, although it wasn't really raining at the time.  Phone calls to the power company went without much of an answer.  I looked outside as best I could.  Water was rushing down the street, which isn't that unusual as this happens even during fairly light rain.  I couldn't see much else or how bad it was.  I tried to go back to bed to sleep, but it was no use.  Not only did a neighbor have a generator going to provide power, but the last line of storms came rushing through.  There was moderate to heavy rain and near constant thunder and lightning for over an hour.  I ultimately got up around six when there was finally enough light to see.  The street and parking lot were covered in mud, although there wasn't any real rush of water any more.  The creek, little more than a big drainage ditch across from my place at this part of its course, may have gone over its bank.  There was no way to know exactly.  My car was safe, though.  Just some mud partway up the tires, barely an inch or so.  I tried my mother's cell to see if I could get any information, but there wasn't enough bars in the area to get anything.  About an hour or so later, we got out to start cleaning up the sidewalk, when we met up with others who did have information.  Many places had gotten hit hard by flooding.  A tree had fallen on some power lines, that is what caused the initial power outage.  The electricity was cut off an hour or so later to prevent more problems.  Multiple mudslides and near bridge collapses were also reported.  At this point, I knew I had to get to Pikeville to check up on my store.  We waited until ten to set out, to make sure any major road problems were cleared.  I saw much of the damages as I drove out.  I even saw how the spot where my house had been devastated.  More slides and downed branches as I drove up to Abner mountain.  Suddenly, I saw something in the road.  It was an old barbecue grill and a toy baby carriage on either side of a break in the road that went about halfway.  I drove further to the top of the hill, avoiding the worst of the debris, when I saw someone parked at the top.  I stopped and found out from the driver that a delivery truck for a 'certain' discount chain had gotten stuck again, about an hour previously.  I decided to park at the top, staying about an hour with nothing happening.  The other driver left after about ten minutes.  I decided to take the long way around, as I didn't want to wait on the top of Abner any more, again without enough cell service to go online.  I starting driving north, surveying the same washouts and debris, until I hit Price.  There were major mudslides, still moving, washing across the road.  Just before I hit McDowell, the road was flooded and impassible.  I had to turn the car around and head back home.  I almost went via Big Mud, but I was afraid that it would be just as bad. (I may have been wrong.  I had to go that way barely a week later due to another wreck, and it looked like it had barely been effected.  Definitely not as bad as other places.). It was about noon by the time I got home.  My mother started calling people she knew in the road department to find anything out.  Nothing about the wreck, but plenty about how hard Whitesburg and Letcher county were hit.  By that time, the water tanks had run dry, even though they lasted over twenty-four hours during the Easter outage of 2020. (No power to the pumps and no back up generators, yet.) We decided to try again at one.  We passed the power crew on the way out of town.  When we got to Melvin, we noticed a road enforcement vehicle leading the truck and the wrecker off the mountain, meaning the road was finally clear after four hours.  The Pike side of Abner was a little clearer than the Floyd side, until the bottom.  A tree had come down, blocking the road and a crew had just finished taking down the 'road closed' signs.  At least that explained the long wait.  About halfway down Indian Creek, there was another break in the road, almost the entire lane this time.  The crew was getting ready to put up more signs just as we drove past.  The rest of the way better.  All through to Robinson Creek, there was hardly any debris and none of the slides I had seen elsewhere.  Even the creeks didn't seem to have gotten up that high.  By the time I hit Pikeville, you couldn't even tell there had been any rain.  The store was safe, at least after this storm.  I was finally able to eat something warm and go online to tell people I was safe.  I also got to see posts of all of the flooding.  It was even worse than I had imagined.  We stayed at the store for a few hours before heading back home.  We passed the power company leaving as we drove in.  They did the least amount of work they could do involving the tree as they could considering it was on private property, abandoned but private.  When I finally got to see the news, I found out what happened.  The storms that had been going south when I went to bed had started to train west to east approximately after they passed Price, explaining why Mud Creek and Pikeville had been spared.  The south tip of Floyd county had been hit hard, as well as points south.  I lucked out this time, just a very muddy car that was pretty much cleaned up after a huge downpour a week or so later and a few spots on my clothes.  If this cycle repeats itself, then the next bad flood for that area would be around August of 2041, a weekend.  Maybe early September.  All I can say for certain is that I will not be there for it.  I will have definitely moved to somewhere safer by then.

Niche Market Gaming

    Last week, I mentioned my 'lost years' of the late 90s and how I coped through those times by finding new interests.  One of those new interests was roleplaying games.  Although I didn't have anyone to play with, I still wanted to check them out.  Particularly one such game system and all of its individual game lines.  No, it wasn't 'Dungeon and Dragons.' That system just didn't call to me, even with the dragons.  No, it was from a smaller company, but one that was trying to make it big.  It almost worked until multiple problems lead it to break down.  Back in the late summer of 1996, I picked up my first book.  A few days later, I went back to my local gaming store and picked up the first supplement to that core book.  I was instantly hooked, and I would spend the next few months picking up each of the core rule books and major supplements that I could find.  By the spring of 1997, I was buying the newest titles as soon as they were available.  Soon, I was pre-ordering them as soon as they were announced, while still searching for older works whenever I could.  When I was forced to open my own business by my mother, I chose a bookstore, just so that I could order my books on a more reliable basis than I could at the gaming store.  Too bad that my main distributor didn't carry that company, but the secondary, larger one did.  Things were going great until June 2003, when a flood came along and destroyed over half of all my collection.  Adding insult to injury, the company announced that August that they were ending the game lines and replacing them with an updated new system the following year.  I managed to replace a few of the books, as well as copying some of the best information from most of the ruined books.  It was not easy going through so many water and mud-damaged books while having to wear gloves and a face mask.  At least it was good practice for 2020.   It took months, and I know I wound up missing some crucial parts, but at least I had something.  At first, I liked the new books, even though almost all of them would be hardcover and therefore more expensive overall.  I was also getting all of them new, soon after they were published.  I had gotten a new distributor for the store that would carry the new system, which turned out to be a godsend as my local gaming store would wind up not getting my pre-ordered books for an entire year.  Then came 2010.  The company was going to change their business model.  Instead of selling through retail stores, their new products would be digital, as either PDF download or print-on-demand from a partner site.  As I didn't have a computer, or a credit card, at the time, I was out of luck.  I would follow their releases for the next year or so, but I basically gave up the interest, just as the news came out that they would be coming out with a special twentieth anniversary edition of the rulebook for the original game line.  I pretty much ignored the company after that, totally missing out on how the company got bought out by a video game company from Northern Europe and dissolved.  A second company founded by one of the original creators brought many of the other game lines back for their anniversaries, with extra supplements funded through crowdsourcing, as well as continuing some of their follow-up new game lines. However, yet another video game company from Europe purchased the IP rights to all three game systems, with the intent of bring out a new, fifth edition of the 'classic' original games, with the new company being allowed to continue to produce new material for them until the new edition came out.  With the video game company's approval.  The other game systems were mostly left alone, for now.  When I finally got my computer, and a credit card, I realized I could start enjoying these games again.  I could only purchase the PDFs though, as I wanted to save money, and I doubt I get easily pick up physical copies in the mail.  I even joined in on a few crowdsourcing campaigns. I joined in online groups about some of the games.  I even anticipated the new edition of the first game, but it wouldn't last.  While the original game stayed mostly the same, so much was changed that it divided the community, with almost half hating much of the new decisions. The company hired to produce the new edition made some bad decisions, possibly from the video game company's fiat.  An entire section had to be rewritten as a preview contained possibly offensive material to some groups.  While some supplements were made by the original creator's company, a second different company was chosen to make further books, only to replaced by a third company for unknown reasons.  With this, new product slowed down coming out.  The second game line was delayed and a new edition of a different game line came out instead.  It wasn't to well received, as it totally changed to original game into something else.  Then, last fall, the official announcement of the third game to get update was made.  While there were a few expected changes, based on leaks, a few other changes weren't, and these didn't go over that well.  Answers from an online interview explaining these changes, actually made public opinion worse.  Not many of the changes went over too well with long-time fans.  When the official previews started to come out this spring, more controversy erupted.  The first art pieces were obviously traced by the artist from other sources, including an identifiable public figure who doesn't like to have his image reproduced without permission due to his tattoos.  The art was changed, but more copied work came out.  More changes from the original material were introduced, much of it seemingly counterproductive and contradictory.  An entire sidebar of material appeared to have been lifted directly from a previous attempt.  Online posters are wondering if the original author will be getting credit for it.  People are now wondering if the book will even come out when it is supposed to next month, although many fans had already decided to skip it and stick to previous editions.  I have ordered the book through my local gaming store, as the company making the book stopped going through my book distributor last year, I didn't pre-pay, so I won't be out anything if the book is delayed or if the store has a problem receiving it.  At one point in my life, I seriously considered going into game design as a profession, specifically involving these game lines, as it merged both my creative and analytic interests.  Nowadays, I know that it would be very, very difficult to make a living this way.  Still, the idea piques me.  I made a bare-boned attempt at making up a basic supplement years ago, although it barely went past a partial first draft.  I've had other ideas for fan-created work, but I just don't have the skills to make a useable draft and post it for sale.  Yes, there is a side-industry for this sort of thing, as well as a dedicated market base.  You can't earn much, but it would be an opening to bigger things.  It's just so sad to see something that has been so close to my heart begin to self-destruct due to corporate decisions.  It makes me want to find a way to buy the property out, somehow.  A huge pipe dream, but I remain hopeful that someone helps these games find there way back.

Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Meatballs

    During my "lost years' of the late 90s, I took up quite a few interests, such as weightlifting.  One such hobby that I developed was Italian cooking.  This interest actually started in high school, as evidenced by a personal narrative I turned in for a writing contest involving my difficulties making a lasagna for dinner. While I never got too deep into the cuisine, I did explore many dishes in both traditional Italian culture as well as the Italian-American versions.  One dish I quickly adapted was a ten/fifteen minute meat sauce that I served over rotini with garlic bread.  I was so good at that recipe that my mother suggested that I move on up to actual meatballs and spaghetti.  Yes, that's Italian-American, but she really wanted me to try it, so I did.  As luck would have it, one of the first times I tried out my recipe was on Independence Day.  Because of how long it takes to prepare, at least an hour with a twenty to thirty minute gap in the middle, I could only ever fix it on Sundays or other days off.  I now fix it on almost every Independence Day.  Including yesterday.  I start off with making the breadcrumbs.  I put some slices of bread in a pan into the oven and toast each side.  I didn't have a toaster when I first developed my recipe (and I still don't), so I use an oven.  It's better for the next steps anyway.  After toasting the bread, I tear it up into smaller pieces and then toast those, breaking them down into smaller bits.  I would then repeat this process two more times, ensuring that the crumbs are all but completely browned and small very fine particles.  I then cool the breadcrumbs and the pan down for at least twenty minutes before the next step.  I check the crumbs are finely ground and cool before adding my preferred blend of herbs and spices.  I won't tell you which ones or the amounts, as both sometimes vary a little.  I will mention that I use the same herbs in my sauce as in my meatballs, just in different proportions.  I use larger amounts of the spices that work better in the meat than in the sauce, and vice-versa.  In this way, the meatballs and sauce taste different, but similar enough to still match.  I then add the meat, along with some milk and Parmesan cheese as binders.  I'm a tad sensitive to eggs, so I try to avoid those as much as possible.  I make the balls and then let them rest for a few minutes while I start the sauce.  First, I sauté some onions and mushrooms, occasionally fresh garlic as well when I have it.  Yes, I should have some carrot and celery to help balance out the flavors, but I don't always have them fresh, so I have learned to make do without them.  I then add the tomato sauce, sugar, and the herbs and spices.  Again, no specific one or amounts.  I want to keep a few secrets here.  I let the sauce simmer as I put the meatballs in a hot pan and start boiling the water for the pasta.  If the timing is just right, the meatballs will just be about done with frying when it is time to add the spaghetti to the boiling water.  I sear one side of the meatballs, and then, after a few minutes, I flip them over to the other side.  I usually turn them over one more time before I add the pasta to the water.  Just before the meatballs are fully cooked, I add them to the sauce to finish them off.  In this way, some of the sauce gets absorbed into the meat, making sure that the balls are fully cooked as well as moister than they would be otherwise.  I then deglaze the pan, reduce the liquid, and add it to the sauce.  This adds a depth of flavor to the sauce, as well as some color and thickness.  It also increases the volume ever so much to make sure there's enough.  Once the pasta is done, I drain it, plate, and toss it with some more Parmesan.  I then spoon some of the balls on top of the pasta, covering them with extra sauce.  To finish it off, I sprinkle some mozzarella over the sauce and watch it melt.  All there left to do is eat.  This really is a special meal for me, and I am sorry that I couldn't give more exact details, but I don't want to give everything away.  I need to hold something back for later, after all.

Vacation for Just One Day

     My mother has never been the type of person to travel.  It was one of the reasons why she took early retirement.  As such, I never got to go anywhere special when I was a kid.  The one time we had planned on going anywhere, she flaked out the morning of the actual event because she thought I was going to overheat.  Didn't really believe her, even then, but I could do nothing about it.  Even after I got my own car, she wouldn't let me go anywhere on my own.  Okay, sometimes I would find ways of going a little out of the way when I could, but rarely anything more than a half hour away when I was doing something else.  Nothing interesting or special, but it was a good way to rebel, especially during my "lost years." Now that I technically own my own business, I literally can't afford to take long periods off.  Therefore, I am forced to just take day long shopping trips. Yesterday was one such trip that had been scheduled for a few weeks, after having been delayed due to possible bad weather on the original date.  Well, things went off bad.  I had a hard time sleeping due to a storm passing through overnight and a neighbors lights being on for well over an hour.  I woke up a few minutes later than expected, making me late in all of the things I had to do to get ready.  Not cool.  I wound up leaving at least fifteen minutes late, which I hated.  It also meant that I would probably have to forego a few spots.  At least I saw a heron in the creek as I was leaving.  That is frequently a good omen for me.  The storms weren't bad enough to cause any damage, but there was widespread fog for the first hour of driving.  The roads were fine, until the never-ending road work an hour in.  I really can't see why there is a speed reduction when the actual work is nowhere near the road.  About two hours in was the rest break.  For the first time ever, I was experiencing pain in my shoulders from having them up for so long.  Now, I can perform a unilateral overhead dumbbell shoulder press with a fifty-pound weight.  My delts can handle the work, but holding them out steady for that long was taxing me.  My back was strangely fine.  Usually, I can get sore or discomfort after so long, but not this time.  I switched over radio stations for the last hour of driving, trying to catch a morning show that was no longer available locally.  Somehow, there was only one short segment, about six to eight minutes, during that hour.  It was mostly songs and commercials.  When I could hear it locally, I thought there was more content than that.  Maybe it was their vacation?  Who knows.  My first stop, after navigating more road work and a near collision on city streets, was a book store.  Yes, I own one myself, but it is a tradition for me.  My fondest memories for these trips was always getting a comic or book and looking at it while my mother shopped, reading it in the back seat on the way home.  I always try to pick up a magazine whenever I go on one of these trips, as proof that it wasn't in vain.  However, pretty much every magazine I used to read has moved to digital.  I found one, though, that should have been found locally, but was strangely absent everywhere I looked.  I also tried to check on bargains as well as anything I wanted for my store.  Nothing.  I had to skip my second planned stop due to the slight lateness, and I went on to the mall for the real shopping to begin.  I did a quick peel at the first store before having an early lunch, before checking out the rest of the mall before I actually shopped.  Well, while there were a few stores that looked great (more on one of them next week), the only thing I picked up was a CD that I wasn't even looking for.  I finally got to the department store where I was planning on most of my shopping.  They were out of my aftershave, but I was lucky to pick it up at the other end of the mall on my way out.  I found some new pants I have been needing.  Then, I saw a great new shirt.  Yellow-orange.  On sale for $21.  My favorite higher-end brand.  Someone actually talked me out of it, and they then talked me into getting a much cheaper shirt in a style and color I really didn't like.  Why this always happens to me, I don't know.  They looked for their own things, but wound up getting nothing.  They even put something back because they were waiting in line too long and they were afraid a storm might come while we were out.  There was only a brief shower, and that was when we were almost back hours later.  Wildfire smoke, not storm clouds.  Eh.  I stopped at a supermarket for a brief look at a different spread of products from back home, where I picked up a new product that has been out for awhile but absent locally, and then it was the drive home. I stopped off for a rest and another snack (I make sure to eat every two to four hours to maintain metabolic goals), with one last stop to drop off some books at the library and print off some pages before arriving home only a half hour or so later than normal.  After all of the prep and travel, I still had to put off a few of my normal daily activities last night just to make sure I got something done close to my regular schedule.  Now, I'm back at my store, behind schedule with this post because I watched YouTube.  How anyone take more than a day off at a time, or even a week, is something I have yet to grasp.

We'll All Dr Pepper Float on Anyway

    Whenever I'm asked the age-old question, "Coke or Pepsi?" I always have the same answer--Dr Pepper.  It's been that way ever since I was a kid.  Sure, I would choose Pepsi if there was nothing else, but I never really liked the flavor of Coke.  Fortunately, Dr Pepper is frequently a choice at many fast food place that focus on one of the 'big two' soda, so I rarely have a huge problem.  My favorite soft drink of all time just might be Dr Pepper's Cherry Vanilla flavor.  It's just too bad that I haven't seen it in years, even if the website claims that the drink still exists.  Anyway, when news broke that Bluebell was coming out with a Dr Pepper Float flavor, I was overjoyed.  It would take a few weeks for the product to hit store shelves, so I started making plans of getting a pint to taste.  Mostly, I was making sure that I could get it at a store close enough to home to prevent major melting.  That's when I realized that only one store carried Bluebell anywhere in the area.  I could've sworn I saw it in more than one location, but I guess I was wrong.  Just last week, when I clicked on an article about the roll-out, I found out that this part of Kentucky wasn't even supposed to be part of the Bluebell distribution chain.  So, I guess that makes my usual grocery store a unicorn of great proportions.  (By the way, that store is the Pikeville Food City on Cassidy.) I planned my trip accordingly, checking that the ice cream was still in stock, getting everything else on my list first, and having someone get into the checkout line early while I picked up a pint from the back of the freezer.  I quickly rolled the cart out the car and placed the pint into a freezer bag with another cold thing (more on this later).  I drove safely but quickly back to my store to drop off a few things and pick up other stuff, and then I drove home with the air conditioner on all the way.  I rushed to put the ice cream in the freezer immediately before going back out to the car for the rest of my things.  The thin layer of frost was still on the pint, although the carton was a little squishy.  I managed to wait until after dinner to try some, as I wanted the ice cream to firm up.  The first thing I noticed when I got it out of the freezer was that there was a clear plastic window on the lid allowing you to see inside.  Odd.  Next, I had a hard time taking the lid off.  Apparently, the freezer was super-efficient in refreezing the pint.  While the Dr Pepper-flavored sherbet swirl was still a little soft, the vanilla ice cream portion was rock hard.  I could barely scoop enough out for an even halfway decent serving, but it was worth it.  The vanilla portion may have had a speck of vanilla been peeking through.  It was a standard quality vanilla, but not the star.  The sherbet was the maroon color associated with Dr Pepper and very soft.  It takes just like the soda, with a slight metallic hint as well as a slight buzz similar to that of carbonation.  Overall, the pairing did mimic the taste of an actual float.  For a second serving two days later, I left the pint on the counter a few minutes before eating.  While the sherbet was still fairly soft, the vanilla ice cream was unaffected. (Just a note on my refrigerator.  It is almost an inch shorter than me, just of the many benefits of my current place that make me feel taller than I actually am.  The freezer reaches down below my chest, causing me to have to bend down even to reach the top shelf in the main section.  The thing is fairly deep too.) While the swirling could have been more equal, I still recommend the product.  Now, I purchased another frozen product that day, Eggo Chocolatey Chip Banana Waffles.  Years ago, Eggo used to make a banana bread variety which was my all-time favorite flavor, but it has been discontinued for some time.  While similar products have been out before, this one came out quite suddenly.  Normally, I don't like chocolate for breakfast.  However, I do love the taste of chocolate and banana, which has caused me to break that rule a few times.  (Best banana and chocolate pairing--Entemann's mini banana muffins with a room temperature partially melted Hershey's kiss.)  I normally have strawberry jam with my waffles, as strawberry pairs great with both banana and chocolate, but I had my first bite without it.  The first thing I tasted was a hit of cinnamon.  Now, cinnamon is one of my least favorite flavors, just above mint and coffee.  However, I can tolerate cinnamon in small amounts.  I also could be wrong, but banana is paired with it in banana bread frequently, so who knows?  The banana flavor was subtle, but there.  The chips might only be flavored chocolate, but the did melt some in cooking.  The two flavors balanced nicely, with the strawberry jam I added going very well with each.  I've only had one serving so far, so I can't really reach a final verdict yet, but this could be put into my regular breakfast rotation if things work out.

Late for the Party Again, If I Even Was Invited

    There is a term called "fear of missing out."  However, if one has already missed out on something, how can they then also fear it?  I've missed out on so many things, I can't really fall into this type of situation.  Take this example.  I've really enjoying a certain YouTube channel for a few months now, after discovering their rebroadcast on Facebook, albeit in a shortened, edited format.  When I finally saw the episodes in their original format and freshly posted, I was amazed by how innovative they were.  Sure, many of the episodes were way longer than I cared for and some of the content just wasn't my thing, but I still loved the fact that I could see them as they were intended.  Well, this past Monday, I found out that the channel was once one of YouTube's biggest subscription stars!   Years and years ago when the service first started.  Here I thought I was discovering something that was just getting ready to hit it big, when I really was just very late on the bandwagon.  I kind of knew that they had been around for awhile, but it wasn't until this week that I realized just how far behind on the trend I was.  Even if I had known about the channel when I got my MacBook five years ago (the anniversary is next week), I still would have been behind on the trend.  I used to consider myself as someone who could get ahead of a trend before it even others started to think it up, but this skill has fallen into disuse, as this latest revelation has proven.  At least I can take some consolation by believing that this stand-up comedian I follow on Facebook is a sure thing.  I might not have been among the first to notice him, but I have been an early supporter.  I really feel that this guy might be onto bigger things, even if I don't exactly line up with his views all of the time.  Still, I do feel that I have missed out on so many opportunities in my life for one reason or another.  With May and June bringing the anniversary of so many events that are  important to me, this desire to experience such things just grows.  For the last few weeks, I have been working on something to help me out with this, but I just keep putting off finishing it.  I currently plan to finish it soon, in time to start it next week.  I'm just afraid that I will mess it up like I have done with many other opportunities in my life.  It just feels so manipulative to ask for what I want, but I just don't want to miss out on anything else.  I just need to ask the right person/people for help, and then find a way to let them know what I need in a way that feels natural but not too out of place.  I just hope I will get invited this time, and that I go through with it.

Planning on Obsolescence

    Earlier this week, Apple made their yearly announcements about upcoming products.  The biggest one was about their new augmented reality headset, due out next year.  Among their other announcements were the new Mac Pro, updates to the MacBook line, and tweaks to the Watch and AirPods lines.  The new updates to their operating systems were also announced.  The new version of Apple's OS will be called "Sonoma."  I feel that Apple is soon going to run out of cool-sounding Californian geographical features to name stuff out of.  Apple already ran though so many big cats with their original naming system.  Some of the new features include the following:  in-picture framing for live presentations when you want to work on something else simultaneously, a special 'game-mode' that re-directs power from background apps so that any games will work faster, and the removal for the need to say "Hey" when one wants to use the Siri app.  This last feature will be included on iPhones and iPads as well.  Unfortunately, none of those features will work on models as old as my MacBook Pro, only newer models.  That's fine, as I wouldn't normally need any of those feature anyway.  On the other hand, it also marks the end of OS updates for me, as next year's update will probably not work on my MacBook.  I'm not even sure if I'll be able to install this update when the time comes.  While the previous update worked fine, I had to make a lot of extra room just to get enough memory for the previous update.  I was fearing I had to do worse for the current one.  Sierra I believe it is called, but I rarely pay attention to such things any more.  I just allot a good hour or so one day a few months after the update drops a click.  When I finally try to install this last update, it will surely be the last one, as the specs for it suggest that the next one won't work on my soon-to-be six year old computer.  I first got my Mac five years ago due to my online grad school classes, that I still haven't completed my degree.  Maybe this fall, or not.  That was the period when the magnetic cord connectors were replaced by c-ports, but only two.  Nowhere near the amount previous models had.  No disc reader either, rendering many functions that I would have liked to add obsolete.  These features have slowly come back in more recent models.  I feel that I will have to upgrade in the next year or so, just to make sure I can keep computing.  My iCloud storage is running close to full, and I keep being notified every few days about buying more space, something I just don't think I can manage at this time.  I delete old photos every few weeks just to make do with what I have left.  I worry about every download, if it will be the one that breaks the barrier.  I'm not looking forward to going to the Apple Store in its new location, if it doesn't move again in the interim.  It was in a somewhat high-end location with plenty around to go to as well.  Its new spot is even higher-end if possible, with pretty much nothing else around that sounds intriguing to me.  I definitely can't order on online.  That is way more money than I would like to transfer electronically, but I'll just have to see.  When I first got my MacBook, I 'knew' that I would have to get another computer one day, but it just started to affect me this past year.  I've done so much on what has become my first computer that I just hate it that I'll need to replace it soon.