It’s been a while since I posted. Pacific Northwest weather has been, well, to put it mildly, bad. For the past two months its been raining or snowing or both. Apparently there is this phenomenon called atomospheric rivers that has been dumping moisture to our area. That has effectively ruled out both my hobbies. I did manage to keep myself current by doing touch and goes on the one-off relatively dry days we saw during this timeframe. There were one or two partly cloudy nights that I could have leveraged to do some astrophotography but given that I have a new mount that I haven’t taken out for a test run, I decided against it. I want enough clear-night time to be able to play around and make sure I understand the working of the mount well, and be okay to have the night not produce useful data. So, the plan is simple, just wait and twiddle thumbs till better weather arrives. I could be doing other things, like updating this blog, which I haven’t done in a while or upload the video I did of trying to re-grease my old mount but I’ve been lazy!! Well, that’s not really true 🙂 . With the holidays and omicron, we did not send our son to day care for the past three weeks and having him home keeps us on our toes all day leaving me with little energy to do anything but watch TV! Prior to that, it was work that was keeping me busy. Anyway, hoping to get caught up on all of that soon.
The purpose of this post, just like last year is to reflect on the past year and list out the things I am thankful for. First off, Happy New Year. This has been another tough year for everyone with the pandemic still very much on everyones mind and a yearning for normalcy that may never come. I will not get into the details of how this past year panned out for me as there were both ups and downs but will just list out the things that I am thankful for.
I’m thankful for my health and my family’s health. I’m thankful for a job where I like my boss and my team. I’m thankful for my wonderfully patient (well, most times) wife. I’m thankful for finally getting permanent residency in the United States. I have been in the US for more than 12 years, I have earned two masters degrees here, have a house, pay my taxes, spend considerable amount of money on my hobbies but yet the system is such that, based on the country you were born in, the wait time to get permanent residency could be up to a few decades if not more. Without green card, there was this cloud of uncertainity hanging over my head where my stay in the US was tied to my employer (same thing for my wife). If anything had happened on that front, we would have had 60 days to find a new job or ship out back to our home country. Permanent residency doesn’t change my life on a day to day basis but just removes that cloud of uncertainity. I’m also thankful that both my brother’s family and my wife’s brothers family were able to visit us during the summer. Finally, thankful that my parents who got COVID despite being fully vaccinated, got only mild symptoms and have subsequently tested negative and have fully recovered.
I was hoping 2021 would have a couple of more things that I could be thankful/happy for but unfortunately they did not materialize 1. my folks or my wife’s folks meeting their grandson, 2. a holiday trip that we had planned to meet my brother but had to canceled last minute due to omicron scare and the weather. I’m hoping in 2022 that will change. Hoping that covid receedes and we can travel and meet/get together with our loved ones more often. On that hopeful note, I’ll sign off!
Here’s wishing everyeone a wonderful and healthy 2022!
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