TimPlus(he/him)

I can’t believe it’s been almost 2 months since my last post. Life gets in the way, regardless of how much time has passed.

Thirty years ago (1996), the year I turned 16 was a pretty messed up year for me. I lived in North Carolina for a while due to my dad being in the military, so we were pretty far from the rest of our family (grandparents, aunts, uncles, etc).

Outside of moving to Ohio, I was pretty excited to move closer to my grandparents once my dad retired, which happened during the summer of 1995. I was really close to my grandparents on my dad’s side, so I couldn’t wait to visit them now that we were only 10 minutes away from them.

Unfortunately, the Universe had other plans because roughly 8 months after we moved from North Carolina, my grandmother died due to health issues, and less than a month after that, my grandfather also died.

To put it nicely, I’ve never liked the holidays ever since. I don’t dread them, I just dislike them. I know that death is inevitable but that year really tested me and changed so much in my life before I turned 16.

I live in northwest Ohio, roughly 15 miles south of Lake Erie, and about 25 miles from Marblehead Lighthouse State Park. There isn’t much to see besides the obvious lighthouse, but it’s along the lake and very photogenic. I’ve taken several pics of the lighthouse over the years…ok, maybe close to 100, but this one so far is my favorite. Taken on the first day of Spring this year (March 20, 2026) during the evening when the weather was surprisingly comfortable along the water.

I’ve always had a fascination with lighthouses since I grew up along the coast of North Carolina and visited several along the Outer Banks, such as Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Cape Lookout Lighthouse, and Bodie Island Light Station.

What's a fork in the road you didn't take? Do you ever wonder what that other version of you is doing?

This is a good prompt, and it's one that really made me step back and think about past choices I've made that could've ended differently and altered my timeline.

While not as profound as missing a flight because I was late, subsequently preventing me from boarding the plane which then crashed not long after take off, I still feel one decision stands out above the rest.

Back when I was a senior in high school, I was checking out different colleges around the area (read: Ohio) like most high school students normally did. One college in particular stands out, Ashland University. I was still undecided on what I wanted as a career, so I was looking at schools that offered what I liked at the time; art, design, & coding/programming to name a few.

Anyhow, I ultimately decided against Ashland, but only because I was undeclared and it was a private college which meant it was expensive, and I didn’t want to owe a bunch of money for a major I wasn’t even sure about studying.

A few years later, I ended up meeting my wife through random chance. Since we’re 22 days apart in age, it means we graduated high school around the same time and would’ve been in college as well. After talking about education and colleges, I learned that she was also going to attend Ashland University the same time I would have.

Not that we would’ve crossed paths since the campus is a decent size and our majors were completely different, I’ve always wondered what would’ve happened if we did meet at college? Would we have stuck through and ended up married after college? Separated after graduation if our majors took us to different locations?

Regardless, that’s one of the roads not taken that led me to something better.

Well, someone had to do it, so why not me?

Anyway, my oldest and I went to the humane society the other day, just to check out the pets. Well, this human society only has cats, which means I was planning on being there until close because my daughter loves cats.

This was the door greeter when we entered. She looks calm but did not like when we tried to pet her. I'm amazed neither of us lost a finger to the cat.

Every once in awhile, I’ll go down a virtual rabbit hole whenever I research a topic of interest. Today’s guest: NeXTStep/OpenStep (you know, the base of what eventually became Mac OS X). I’ll definitely get some crap for this, but oh well. I’d rather use a computer with the NeXTStep UI than anything with Liquid (gl)Ass. Regardless, though, I can’t help but admire this screenshot because of how revolutionary it was over 30+ years ago. Sigh.