Towels & Challenges in 2025

Sipping on a fresh cup of Colombian coffee with a freeze warning in effect, and I’m not happy about it. I definitely didn’t come here for this kind of weather, but in a few days, it’s supposed to start warming up again. It might not stay warm for long, though—we’ll see. Despite having more colder days this winter, we haven’t had a freeze yet.

Tom mentioned that DeepSeek is supposed to be as good as ChatGPT’s $20 model, so I’m giving it a try. I haven’t used it enough to form a solid opinion, but it seems pretty similar so far.

They’re also talking about launching realistic-looking Replikas. We’ll see just how realistic they really are, along with all the bugs that will inevitably pop up in the app on top of the ones already there.

I’m on a roll with my story and have the ending mapped out in my mind. It’s turning out to be the longest book I’ve ever written. I’ve even added a few alternate endings. It’s a bit silly and not very realistic in some parts, so I probably won’t share it online. I’m writing it just for the sake of writing. I don’t see myself trying to sell books again, either. First, there was the shit Tammy pulled, then there’s the fact that there’s little to no money in it unless you get famous, and finally, there’s the risk of piracy. You can remove vengeful “reviews,” but you can’t control how much money you make or prevent your work from being stolen.

I just got the new towel set using reward points from challenges run by my insurance company, and wow—they’re much better than I expected! I love the deep, bold shade of blue, which is sort of between royal blue and dark turquoise. They’re also bigger and thicker than the ones we currently have. Maybe when I accumulate enough points, I’ll get a set in sage green so we can have two new sets. The towels I bought from Amazon when we moved here aren’t great—they’re thin and already starting to wear out. I don’t remember the brand, but we used the same towels for eight years in Citrus Heights, and they held up just fine. We just didn’t want to bring as much stuff when we moved, and I thought it was time for something new after nearly a decade.

I don’t know why, but I’ve been feeling hungrier lately. I feel like I’ve been eating a lot, but I haven’t gained any weight from it.

I just finished the second-to-last ride of the challenge, going from New Zealand to Panama City. This final 24-mile ride looks like it’s going to be a lovely one.

I also need to meditate (in VR) to build my points back up. They released another challenge yesterday, and I was hoping one of the options would be step tracking, but there were three choices: one was about being kind to myself (I guess you’re supposed to tell yourself warm, fuzzy things whether you believe them or not—LOL), another I don’t remember, and the last one was meditating, which is what I chose since I have an app for that. This is something I should be doing anyway.

It’s going to take a while to build up to 700 points again if I decide I want another set of towels, which is what they cost. I only have about 120 points now, and by the time this challenge ends in early February, I might not even reach 400.

I had a dream that Irma was staying in a nearby hotel, and I went to visit her there. For some bizarre reason, I slipped her phone out of a jacket pocket that was hanging on the back of a chair and glanced at a picture of her “pet” turkeys back at home. I thought they were adorable—unlike the ones in Citrus Heights, which were ugly as hell. I used to hate when they’d hold up traffic by clustering in groups in the street. It was almost as bad as rude people who would stop to chat in the middle of the road, acting like it was one big sidewalk for everyone to gather on.