PZ has a post about an old pocket watch that he inherited that includes:

Not particularly rare or valuable, but I didn’t expect much — it’s value is all sentimental to me.

I thought of adding a comment, but it wouldn’t have been about watches, so rather than hijack PZ’s comment thread, I decided to write a short post of my own.

Years ago, my maternal grandmother found an old sampler in a trunk; and she put it in a frame and hung it on her wall.  I was the only grandchild who stood up on a chair, pointed to each of the letters, and said, “A-B-C-D…”, so I inherited it.

About thirty years ago, I showed it to a woman (I can’t remember her name) who was the curator of fabrics at the St. Louis Art Museum.  As soon as she saw it, her face dropped.  It’s in a rather common style for the time, and it’s unfinished.

But I got her to clean it up as best she could and mount it on an acid-free backing.  That cost me way more than the object is worth by itself; but, yeah, it’s sentimental.

I just heard that the Colorado Supreme Court has ruled that Trump will not be allowed on the ballot because of the 14^th Ammendment.

Now on to the U.S. Supreme Court.  There’s an outside chance that the Colorado decision might be upheld, but I’m not at all confident about that.  In any event, it’ll be fun to see what sort of hoops the Republican justices jump through to overturn Colorado.

Update 2023-12-20:  Mike the Mad Biologist has some thoughts on this.

I added a “subscribe” button just below the “About the Author” bit on the left like Great American Satan did.  Does that make me Satanic? 😎

OK, here’s my first post on FreethoughtBlogs.

I’m a retired computer programmer who continues to serve on the ISO standards committee for the C++ programming language.  One of the reasons that I retired from my day job after June of ’22, aside from being 76 years old, is that, for the last several years, I’d been writing nothing but Java, which I found rather frustrating.

I’m also quite the geek when it comes to riding on passenger trains.  I’m not at all nostalgic about them; I just think that trains are a good way to travel today.

I’ll probably write mostly about C++ and riding on Amtrak; but I reserve the right to become obsessed when someone is wrong on the Internet.

For my commenting policy, I’ll start out using PZ’s Pharyngula as a model.  We’ll see how that goes.  If a comment points out some error I made in a post, I’ll acknowledge the error in a comment of my own and fix it like Mano does.

I’ll begin with a very short rant from my wires-and-pliers days, just to have something out there besides this “Howdy” post.  Around the first of February, I’ll describe a trip that I’ll be taking to Issaquah, Washington, to attend a meeting of the ISO C++ committee.

Please feel free to suggest other topics that I might know something about, including digital electronics from the SSI and MSI TTL era (I haven’t done it in a while), and listener-supported FM broadcasting.  I’ve also worked for a couple of commercial radio stations, and I once had a 1^st Phone (which is no longer a thing), but I was always weak in the practical aspects of RF, being mostly an audio guy.