What I’m Doing Now
Updated October 19, 2025
I’ve been my Mom’s caregiver since 2017. Mom’s 100+. She broke her hip in 2020 and taking care of her has of necessity been my primary activity since then.
Projects
My primary project since January of 2025 has been converting my sites from the bloat and Gutenberg annoyances of WordPress to static sites or to newer, simpler platforms than the current iterations of WordPress. This is slow work, in bits and pieces.
I am in medis res regarding moving my last two WordPress.org sites digitalmedievalist.com and lisaspangenberg.com to Ghost. The sites are better than twenty yeas old, so there’s a lot of clean-up to do first.
I’m watching Adam’s Neato CMS as a possible alternative for a site I’m currently hand-coding. I like Adam’s omg.lol project.
In Progress
Technology
I am learning to use Alfred on my Mac via the MacSparky Alfred Field Guide online class, and lots of reading and experimenting.
Alfred experimenting has been briefly side-lined as I adjust to macOS Tahoe and the new Spotlight.
Current Media
Reading
- I am re-reading the previous three J. P. Mallory books before reading Mallory’s recently released The Indo-Europeans Rediscovered: How a Scientific Revolution is Rewriting Their Story. Mallory is the only archaeologist I know of with a solid background in Celtic and other early I. E. languages.
- I’m still working my way through various “productivity“ books as research for my own book. I mostly hate them, and am taking a break until 2026.
- Reading Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations in two English translations (C. Scott Hicks with David V. Hicks, and Gregory Hays), and a Koine version, side by side. I started with the Hicks translation and then moved to Hays. A Claasics scholar friend encouraged me to try the Greek; it’s not Classical or Ancient Greek, it’s Koine. I have just enough Koine to manage reading the New Testament, with a dictionary at hand, very slowly.
- At the same time, I’m reading The Art of Simple Living by Zen Buddhist monk Shunmyo Masuno. It’s a little uncanny how similar the Stoicism of Aurelius (and Epictetus) is to Zen Buddhism.
- Still seeing similarities to John Donne in the Meditations, especially regarding Donne’s Devotions upon Emergent Occasions. Donne read Greek; and pretty much every thing in print in his lifetime. The first printed edition of Aurelius’s Meditations in Greek was by by Wilhelm Xylander in 1558 or 1559, and included Xylander’s Latin translation. It is likely Donne also had access to Epictetus’ since there were three printed editions of the discourses in Koine Greek available.
Current Obsessive Passions
- Stationery, still, particularly notebooks, fountain pens, and ink, and both woodcase and mechanical pencils. I took the Starter Fountain Pen Challenge, and discovered I really like to write with the Lamy ABC .
- Bird watching: still seeing are Northern cardinals including at least two adolescents, Black-capped chickadees, and Tufted titmice. I can hear but not see a pair of Barred owls. I have seen a Bluejay inspecting the premises, and am hoping it lingers
Links
These are some of the thought-provoking things I’ve recently read on the Web.