January 2023 – AmazonFrown, Museum of Illusions

I realize I’ve neglected this blog and I’m going to try to be better about it this year.

I’ll start with the bad; I was quite disappointed to read Amazon’s announcement that they are abolishing AmazonSmile next month. I’ve been giving to Doctors Without Borders for years, and it was one of the primary things keeping me shopping at Amazon instead of seeking other alternatives to the behemoth (even if price/shipping were worse). Now I guess I have that much more reason to ween myself off of Bezos’, well, you know. In spite of their marketing spin, personally, I think senior leadership just didn’t like the charities a lot of people were picking, and want to focus on organizations we wouldn’t necessarily pick.

The girls had a day off school while Nicole was off hot springing in Colorado, so we went to the Museum of Illusions in Charlotte. It wasn’t as expansive as I expected, but it was still a pretty impressive collection of visual tricks, and the staff were very helpful explaining what was happening and helping with taking pictures.

January has been fun, and I turn almost 50 in a few days, but I’m really looking forward to March. I made several T-shirts to commemorate finally returning to our annual curling bonspiel in Powassan, the Can/Am Cup.