It’s actually been a pretty good week, even though the swelling and pain in my hand is no better after hitting those balls last weekend. Think I’ll shut down the golf game for another month. Then, if things are no better, it will be back to the hand quack for another assessment. I’ll admit to being a little worried. OTOH, we got our patio door fixed for $300, saving us anywhere from $4K to 11K for a replacement solution, the new landscaping lights in the front and back look great, and we hit our first financial target of the year on schedule, which will make our Edelman Financial guy very happy. In the meanwhile…

Will you be watching? I will:

On the evening of January 20, the moon will undergo a full lunar eclipse. This eclipse occurs when the orbit of the Earth passes between the sun and the moon. This alignment causes the shadow of our planet to be cast upon the moon giving it a distinctly red hue. The common name for the moon during this full lunar eclipse is the Blood Moon. This will be the last total lunar eclipse until 2021.

And then if you’re fortunate enough to survive that, you’ll have Monday the 21st to look forward to – the date so-called “experts” say is the roughest day of the year for folks to handle psychologically. Why?

The “Blue Monday” theory, as it became known, was derided by scientists who said the equation made no sense, as well as by psychologists who felt the theory diminished the nature of clinical depression. But the truth is that, for a lot of people, the third Monday of January (which falls on January 21st this year) really does feel like a grim day—and for good reason. The holidays are truly over, the days are short, the weather is less than awesome, and there’s still so much more winter to come. Most people have already abandoned their New Years resolutions by now, so motivational levels are low. You’re in between pay days, which might leave you in a tight squeeze if you really splurged on Christmas gifts. And while doing Dry January has tons of amazing health benefits, it doesn’t exactly lend itself well to going out.

I guess that makes sense, but my Goodboys pal “The Funny Guy” and I always considered the day after the Super Bowl to be the low day of the winter. So we’d do a bar crawl through downtown Lowell and try and lift our spirits by, well, lifting a few spirits. Ahhh…those were the days. Speaking of the Super Bowl, “Blue Monday” won’t feel so blue in New England if the Pats are able to beat the Chiefs and make it to the Super Bowl. Wouldn’t that be something?

It’s right around this time of year that one really notices the days are getting longer. (Unfortunately, the mornings are still lagging – my 7 AM calls with the India folks are still starting while it’s dark outside.) And here in the Valley of the Sun, it’s just not humans – the mourning doves have obviously noticed as well, since just this week we’ve seen a noticeable uptick in dove activity. A few days ago I heard the first dove cooing at a gawd-awful 4:30 AM (too early and too damned dark if you ask me!), and the doves outside my office window are obviously both mate and house-hunting. I can see and hear them all day long, and it tells me spring ain’t too far away.

…it’s still too early for our feathery acacia bushes – no sign of buds on them yet, but they’re the first ones to bloom around here. Give ’em a another week or two and the buds will be there.

…but already the Valley is gearing up for the Waste Management Phoenix Open. Between that and its finish on Super Bowl Sunday before the Big Game, it makes for quite a healthy vibe here in the Valley.

Article: 60 Years On: Reflections on the Revolution in Cuba. I’ll save you the time and trouble reading. Castro was a paranoid sociopath and the Cuban people got taken for a ride:

Almost nothing remains of the Revolution’s promises of opportunities and civil liberties for all, for which so much blood was spilled. On the contrary, a strict system of surveillance and control has been its most durable “achievement.” For Cubans, the promise of liberation remains a dream, endlessly deferred.

But socialist morons like Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren will always get all the free press they need. You want to know the difference between capitalism and socialism? Capitalists walk dogs. Socialists eat them.

Someone’s gonna need a bigger boat…

The Eades’s have been preaching this gospel for years. I was never much of a label-reader until I went on the Eades diet. Fortunately I’ve never been much of a “sweets” or a soda guy, but once you start looking at the vast amount of products out there containing HFCS it shouldn’t surprise you the obesity problem this country has.