Agent Palmer

In October 2023, the iconic Sydney Opera House had a birthday festival to celebrate the 50 years since it opened its doors to the world.

The Sydney Opera House website, under “Our Story,” explains why this building should be a little more celebrated than most in their short three paragraph history, which is honestly one of the more accurate and succinct art building histories I have ever read.

Max was my producer, my unexpected friend, and part of my sanity.

Most of all he was my friend, and I will miss him.

Since I wrote about our unexpected pairing a couple years ago, things had maintained our balance until he got sick. Last fall, he was just having bad day after bad day. He couldn’t keep food down, so we took him to the vet where we heard the word that no one wants to hear as a prognosis for anyone they care about… cancer.

Twenty Twenty-Two. No jetpacks, no faster-than-light traveling, no flying cars (at least not mass produced and widely available or reliable). In short, this isn’t the Jetsons future we thought it might be.

Why does that matter? Because by any metric for arguably anyone born on the other side of Y2K, 2022 was the future. Well, the future is now, and it’s not living up to expectations, I can tell you that. So let’s look back on the year as it was, and ignore the things it would or should have been.

I’ve written about it here and spoken of it on my podcast in various episodes. In high school, I was a shapeshifter. I was in marching band, jazz band, pep band, and symphonic band. I ran cross country and track. I was in a classic rock cover band and a metal band.

I did Science Olympiad and hung out with the gifted kids even after my grades kept me from officially joining. I messed around with the school paper and yearbook.

I haven’t done a Geek Space post in a while, and while the “Two Bakshi Walls” post is in this house and this office, to be specific, the last time I wrote about a shelf, it was back in my previous living space.

So I decided that I would focus on the shelf that is literally behind me when I sit at my desk to write, podcast, edit, work, all of the things. This shelf is pretty cool, though I’m in front of it and it isn’t seen much. This post will change all of that.