Musings for the Shortest Day of the Year – 2025

Sunday, December 21, 2025, Orlando, Florida

It’s a nice early winter day here in my home state of Florida. Although it’s the winter solstice – the shortest day of the year and traditionally the first day of winter – it’s not uncomfortably cold. The temperature outside is 76°F (25°C) under mostly sunny conditions – a good weather outlook for both locals and tourists because it’s not bone-chillingly cold nor suffocatingly hot.

Since it’s Sunday and a day of relative rest, I don’t plan to resume work on my stalled Jim Garraty Chronicles omnibus project till tomorrow. I’m a bit fatigued, mentally and physically, and not in good shape to do any literary projects, much less one that’s sadly behind the ambitious deadline I set for myself a few months ago.

How will I spend the rest of my Sunday afternoon after I post this on WordPress, take a shower, and change into street clothes, you ask?

I don’t know, but now that I have enough of my movie collection (still mostly in boxes, but available) here, I definitely have more movies to watch or music to listen to on DVD, Blu-rays, or compact discs. Not all of my stuff is in this house, so I don’t have access to most of my Star Wars, Star Trek, or Indiana Jones movies. But I still have far more options available than I did at the beginning of December.

I also recently received my first “fun” holiday gift – a compact disc edition of Deutsche Grammophon’s John Williams in Tokyo, the latest installment in a series of live concert recordings by the Academy Award-winning composer-conductor and various overseas orchestras. (In this one, Maestro Williams conducts the Saito Kinen Orchestra in Tokyo.) My long-time friend Leigh sent it via Amazon and said I could open it before Christmas, so I did! I might listen to it later; I don’t know for sure, though.

I also may play a quick mission in Sea Power: Naval Combat in the Missile Age, although I’m not in the mood now.

We’ll see what develops!