Bob Wertz

Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

The last day of the year. It’s been a crazy couple of weeks leading up to Christmas and before New Years. A minor car accident complicated the already busy season. Everyone is fine, and it was the other driver’s fault, but now we are just waiting to find out if the damage is repairable. Thankful for good auto insurance.

Normally by now, I have a plan for the next year. And I guess I have some ideas, but I haven’t written it out yet. I probably need to go ahead and do that today or tomorrow, since, you know, 2025 starts tomorrow.

Feels

• Drained. So many things to do at the end of the year. I was productive, but have not rested enough over the last couple weeks. I have two more days of vacation before I head back...
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My themes for 2025 are essentially the same as they were last year. And the year before. I need to get healthy. I want to write and be creative. I need to stay organized.

It’s somewhat boring that my major themes have stayed the same for three years. I’ve made progress, but I still have a ways to go. I thought about changing them up, but these four goals still reflect what I need to work on so I’m sticking with them. Just some slight modifications…

• Get healthy. Once again, this needs to be my top priority. I made some good progress late in 2024, but I need to carve more time out for walking and exercising. And I need to continue to make better food choices. I turn 50 this year, and I’d like to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40. To pull that off, I...

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Our family has been going at full speed since Thanksgiving. Three birthdays, exams for the kiddos, a car accident (everyone is fine), parties, Christmas, family visiting… Thankfully, not much on the calendar for the next few days until I go back to work on January 2. I need some time to relax.

My daugther’s school has banned use of any unauthorized internet-connected device during school hours. She’s going to miss her music during study hall. I’m thinking about how to get her music copied over to my old iPod. Or even better, a cassette to use in an old Walkman…

Had to come back home this morning to pick up a package. And was able to confirm that my “Turn the Christmas Tree lights on when I get home” automation works as designed.

Thanks to the librarians at the University of South Carolina, I have a scan of my 1997 honors thesis. It’s not terrible… and it is full of fun 1997 acronyms, like UPN, CNNSI, ESPNET and CNET.

Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.

First up, Happy birthday Norah! My oldest turns 20 today. Two decades is a long time and so much has happened… and yet, it feels like it has flown by.

I’ve seemed to settle in writing these updates every other week instead of weekly. Since they are mostly for me, I going to be okay with it. But if you happen to be reading along, just a heads up.

Feels

• Excited. I’m excited for the Christmas season. Yes, most people started planning for Christmas early, but we have three family birthdays between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Hard to focus on Christmas when we are still celebrating birthdays!
• Proud. Of my kiddos. All three of them are growing up to be amazing people. I love them so much, but I’m also incredibly proud of who they are. I’m also very proud of...
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My favorite eight pictures from 2024.

I want to find a copy of my 1997 honors thesis.¹ I wrote it on a Power Mac 7500 in Word Perfect 3.5 on the classic Mac OS 8. It probably fit on a floppy drive, but I know I saved a backup copy of it on a Zip drive. At some point, I decided that I needed to move things off the Zip disks and consolidated all of my old files from college onto DVDs. I’m not 100% sure where that DVD is now, but I’m guessing it’s in my attic. Even if the disc hasn’t been ruined by the South Carolina heat, I don’t actually have a DVD drive to read it.

And then I remembered that the University of South Carolina library has the official copy in the off-site annex. I can request that they pull the physical copy for me to review in...

Listening to a podcast this week and I realized that my 1997 honors thesis about media branding in the age of cable TV and the internet is actually relevant as media branding continues to change. I might dust it off and turn it into a history of media branding instead.