Bill Roper's Journal

It was a lovely Christmas Day here. We got up at a leisurely pace, opened gifts, had some lunch, and eventually started on dinner. We had a great rib roast (two bones consumed so far, which has made the dogs *very* happy), mashed potatoes, and green beans, along with homemade bread that Julie made and a key lime pie that K made.

We are very full.

And everyone is happy, which is good.

It is December 23rd and all of the Christmas gifts are wrapped, unless we missed something. This may be a new record. Mind you, if Gretchen and the kids hadn't agitated to get it done, I would still be dilly dallying.

Having had to poke around in Square, I took the completed inventory from the basement, combined it with the Square inventory, and have now made a good start on the 2025 taxes. There is still a lot to do, but they are *started*. Our sales are up this year, largely on the back of having issued two new CDs. This is not a trick that I can do every year, so we need to figure out some more ways of boosting sales, which may -- in the current environment -- be impossible. The number of titles on the table that appear to have sold zero copies in the last year is distressingly large. And that's distressing to me as a seller of CDs, but also as a maker of CDs among other makers of CDs who would like me to buy some more of their stock because there's really a limit to the amount of insulation that they need in their garage, it's *also* a bad thing. Sales are driven by new products, but the folks making CDs are doing a better and better job of capturing more of the retail sales, which is admittedly good for them, but bad if you're trying to move product for them in places where they aren't.

There's also streaming, which is good for the artists if they can manage to capture some revenue from it, but not a solution for keeping the dealer table running. And figuring out how to capture revenue from streaming is a black art, I think.

Ah, well. This is not a problem that will be solved tonight.

Instead of finding a solution to this problem (which probably wouldn't have worked anyway), Gretchen and I watched "Thunderbolts", which turns out to be yet another Marvel movie that I was just as happy to have watched from the comfort of my living room rather than paying to watch in a theater. This is a problem for the theater owners that is remarkably similar to my problem with the dealer table...

It has snowed a lot here today. A ruler in the back yard carried by younger child measured in excess of six inches at around 6 PM. It is still snowing now. Happily, the snow is supposed to clear out by 6 AM which means that the roads should be clear for K to take her bus back down to Ball State for Monday classes. All I have to do is get her to the pickup site before noon. Assuming that I can get out of the as-yet-unshovelled driveway...

The tree was purchased and placed in its stand yesterday. Late today, the lights and ornaments were added and it is very pretty. We are not sure what Calvin the Very Hungry Dog is going to make of the tree, but I am sure that we will find out. I really wanted to get this done this weekend, because I wanted K to be able to help decorate and I didn't want to wait to get a tree for another two weeks. And so it is done. :)

The news came down the line yesterday that Leslie Fish was very ill and in home hospice, followed today by the news that she had passed. I was never particularly close to her for a wide variety of reasons, none of which were particularly anyone's fault. Nor was I likely to have ever agreed with her politics in general, although I might have agreed with one thing or another at one time or another. This is somewhat akin to two blind squirrels discovering the same acorn.

But there was music. So *much* music! And when Off Centaur Publications was being a tremendous force in the filking community and being built on the contributions of so *many* different people, well, to filk Kipling, "It was Fish, Fish, Fish." And that made a difference in my life and that of many other people. She wrote a lot of songs and some of them were great ones.

Maybe that's not a bad way to be remembered.

I ran into my neighbor as she brought her dog out to do its business today. As we were chatting, she mentioned that she was waiting to see our Christmas tree at the curb, officially signaling the end of the holiday season.

Tonight, we took down the Christmas tree and it is now at the curb waiting to be picked up.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! :)

It was a crazy day at work today. Sam, Bonnie, and Jerry were coming over for cider and cookies around five. I had hoped to be done with work by then, but it took a few minutes longer. Eventually, I made it downstairs and the conversation was fine. :)

In the meantime, the "Liftoff to Landing" CDs arrived from the duplicator, four days earlier than forecast. I was happy to see those too. One of them has been opened and is being tested in my car, where everything is fine so far.

Tomorrow, I hope to catch up on the shopping that I didn't finish today. Happily, that does not involve a trip to the mall -- just to the supermarket!

I now have a Christmas gift for everyone in the household, not counting dogs and cats. I am, as usual, being difficult to shop for, but I have pointed out that I have this big expensive new computer sitting on my desk, which should count for something.

This weekend, I plan to go out and get the Christmas tree, which means that some serious cleaning is in order first...

The gift wrapping is finally begun and done and we are ready for Christmas morning. I think.

If Christmas is your holiday, have a very Merry Christmas! And, if not, have a wonderful holiday.

We went out today and picked up a Christmas tree. The selection would have been better last week, I think, but this one is tall, if not broad, so it should be fine once the ornaments and lights are on it.

Next year, we'll do this a bit earlier.

It's Christmas Eve and almost time to go to bed. For those of you who celebrate the holiday, a Merry Christmas to all of you. For those who don't, have a wonderfully happy holiday.

Gretchen and I are giving a Zoom concert tomorrow as part of the Festival of the Living Rooms at 7 PM CT (6 PM MT), so it was important for us to actually have a place to set up for this. We selected the living room, which is where the Christmas tree is, which meant that getting the lights and ornaments onto the tree was a good idea. This was mostly accomplished this evening.

I have allocated several hours to get the performing space ready. This *should* be plenty of time to correct anything that tries to go wrong. :)

We'll see some of you there!