Yesterday morning, I replied to a message from a reader planning to obtain a vanity callsign. He asked, “Which [suffix] letters would make an easy callsign to send [in CW] and copy in your experience?” This is a great question. I do have a few suggestions. My previous call I suggest avoiding ending your callsign … Continue reading Choosing the Perfect Vanity Callsign: Tips for CW Operators →

I am so grateful to be sober today. I’m grateful for a fresh week, for my friends and family, for the holiday season, for comfy sweatshirts and slippers. I’m grateful to work from home, for AA, for my sponsor, for revelations, and for change.

Goooood morning my friends (: As always, I hope everyone had a wonderful weekend and an even better Thanksgiving!

I’m feeling a little under the weather today, so my tank feels particularly low on energy however I do have a few things to say. But we’ll keep them short and sweet today (;

1) It should be illegal to work the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas. I know, I know capitalism but seriously…. who wants to work. I want to be snuggled under blankets watching Christmas movies for the next three weeks please and thank you.

2) My parents and sister came into town yesterday and we did indeed get to do several Christmasy things which truly is a gift of sobriety. To be able to spend a nice day with my family is all that I can ask for. We stopped by St. Pats Cathedral too and it’s super easy to fall back into Catholicism during the holidays however, I haven’t really talked to any kind of a higher power in a long time. I haven’t really talked to my grandfather in a long time either.

3) The above said, my 3-year anniversary is officially less than a month away so just be prepared for some major reflection. Sitting in St. Pats and thinking about my lack of conversations with God and my preference of church basements just brought me all the way back to what is above all else the most important – that I am an alcoholic and HP whatever that is to me always has my back. HP loves me exactly the way I am, so why can I not love myself exactly the way that I am? The path is already made so why do I have to force myself along in the dark instead of just trusting that if I move forward HP will push me the rest of the way? Why is it that the place I feel so sure of myself, the place I DO feel exceptional is in a church basement full of other addicts and alcoholics? Because that is who I am, and I know that in my bones. There’s no fear of being kicked out, there’s no fear of being judged (99% of the time). There’s no fear of being alone. Because the rooms of Alcoholics Anonymous will always remain full of people who are willing to help, to love you until you can love yourself, who just want to see you stay sober and to succeed. Sometimes I think my anxiety, my sadness, the way I feel stuck actually IS God telling me in one of the only ways they can that something isn’t right. Something needs to change. And maybe I’m too tired, too confused, too scared to make any real changes right now. But I can listen – if I believe those feelings are HP talking to me the least, I can do is listen. January 1^st isn’t going to come, and the clock isn’t going to magically rest and the slate isn’t automictically going to be whipped clean and I’m not miraculously going to feel better. But maybe if I start really listening now, by the time 1/1 does come, I’ll be in a better place to make a change. To start over, move in a different direct, change my perspective, feel exceptional everywhere not just in basements. Who knows. The possibilities could be endless if I really do start to listen.

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Xx

Jane

Many thanks to Jonathan (KM4CFT), for sharing the following article about his portable field radio kit, which will be featured on our Field Kit Gallery page. If you would like to share your field kit with the QRPer community, read this post.  CFT1 Field Kit by Jonathan (KM4CFT) I thought I would supply my own field … Continue reading Field Radio Kit Gallery: KM4CFT’s CFT1 Field Kit →

I’m grateful for the beginning of December. I’m grateful for a great holiday with people I love. I’m grateful for living a different life. I’m grateful for knowing that all I have to do is my best. I’m grateful for seeing that I’m enough. I’m grateful to be sober today.

LAST WEEK ON TFLMS:

song of the week (perhaps “of the year”):

TFLMS Weekend: Where Sobriety Isn’t Just a Consequence…

(last weekend)

By Teri KO4WFP Fall weather has finally returned to Savannah, Georgia so it is time to get out for more Parks on the Air. Monday, November 18, I headed to a park I had yet to activate – the Savannah National Wildlife Refuge (US-0522). This park and I have history together prior to my involvement … Continue reading The POTA Babe Reconnects With Her Past →

Earlier this week, I mentioned that I purchased a Xiegu G106 in September. Its delivery was delayed because I had it shipped to my local post office, which, as you likely know, was flooded during Hurricane Helene. With all the post-Helene chaos, I haven’t been able to do as much POTA as I’d like, so … Continue reading Xiegu G106: From Unboxing to Your First POTA Activation (Beginner-Friendly Video!) →

All of the large ham radio retailers are offering Black Friday specials in 2024. Click the following links to go directly to their Black Friday pages: DX Engineering Gigaparts Ham Radio Outlet R & L Electronics Most Black Friday sale prices are within a few dollars of each other between the retailers. If you have … Continue reading 2024 Black Friday Deals from the Big Ham Radio Retailers →

I’m grateful for a rainy morning and grateful for another trip around the Sun. I’m grateful for Thanksgiving and time with my daughter. I’m grateful for a phone call from my far-flung son. I’m grateful to be sober today.

Mystery ?? Button

Originally, I wasn’t going to write this week. I had decided that on account of Friday being the day after Thanksgiving (which this year is also the day after my birthday) it might be a good day to take off, maybe mail in a best-of with a few links to the podcast. But here we are.1

I blame the song of the week and a train ride for creating today’s special edition of Thanks for Letting Me Share. I’m headed to Boston to spend Thanksgiving with my lovely and imminently heir-producing daughter and her husband. I was riding down the elevator in my building, affixing the airpods for the walk to the subway, which, of course, includes a stop at the not-on-the-way, but always on the way coffee shop for the obligatory subway cortado.

I had closed Spotify, re-opened it and actually played a different playlist for a few seconds so that I’d get a good shuffle on the main playlist. Why the drama and rigamarole? Well, being as how it was the celebration of my annual pilgrimage around the Sun, this would be the first song of the next year. A fairly significant moment for me—what would the song be and what would it portend for this 63rd orbit. I was actually a little nervous and you already know that I think this is how the Universe communicates with me.

I hit the play button and actually felt my breath constrict in anticipation. And the first song of next year played and I laughed out loud in the elevator:

Hahahha. Oh, 2025, you have know idea what’s in store.

Is that perfect or what? You know what I think about what’s coming, how the Earth is moving under my feet, how this is my Caterpillar Year:

Even my special birthday horoscope augurs great and mysterious things in the offing. The advice is that things are about to happen and that I need to be ready because it’s going to happen fast!

This former Boy Scout is nothing but ready.

And that brings us to the second reason for this appearing in your inbox today: A long train ride. I fought through the crowds clustered for a very rainy edition of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade to make the train to Boston and once ensconced in the Quiet car on a delightful rainy Thanksgiving morning, my mind turned to, well, Thanksgiving. Not the kind with the turkey, but the kind that involves the actual giving of thanks.

The last time my birthday coincided with Thanksgiving was 2019. I was about 40 days sober and pretty much out of my head. While I wasn’t drinking, it felt like my life was unraveling. I was involved in what would charitably be called a catastrophic relationship; in fact, its demise in the Summer of 2020 was what set me on a collision course with my current life in New York.

How did I go from there to here? The short answer is gratitude. I started doing a daily gratitude list in November of 2020–at the behest of a sponsor. As my recipient list grew, I had the idea to put it on Twitter–where it remains to this day. Not to brag, but I think we are coming up on 1400 consecutive days of gratitude over there.

How did gratitude get me sober? Here read this:

The better question, how did gratitude change my life? Finding ways to be grateful every single day taught me:

• The point is the learning

• The things that are supposed to happen generally do

• There is beauty in loss and sadness

• Happiness is a consequence of courage and authenticity

• There is literally beauty and love all around me every minute of every day, I just have to let myself see it, or better yet, feel it.

And then on this fantastically rainy day of thanks, while I’m happily encapsulated on a Boston-bound train, I started to be overwhelmed by just how much there is to be grateful for. I’ve learned the best thing to do when that overwhelming feeling strikes is to make a list. So here’s a list, presented in no particular order:

Things I’m Grateful For (November 2024 Edition)

I’m grateful for train rides on rainy days

I’m grateful it’s Thanksgiving

I’m grateful for five years of sobriety

I’m grateful for this newsletter

I’m grateful for my sponsees

I’m grateful for my brave, funny son

I’m grateful to be closing in on being a grandfather

I’m grateful for a new career and a chance to build something again

I’m grateful for a beautiful apartment

I’m grateful for my cocoon

I’m grateful for easy access to snacks in my neighborhood.

I’m grateful for my neighborhood.

I’m grateful for playing basketball in the park.

I’m grateful for the people who read this newsletter.

I’m even more grateful for the people who subscribe to this newsletter.

I’m grateful for an apartment filled with books and music

I’m grateful for the life I’ve built

I’m grateful for my talented and lovely daughter

I’m grateful my parents are happy, healthy and independent

I’m grateful for surprises

I’m grateful for cooking

I’m grateful for Saturday trips to the Farmers Market.

I’m grateful for the East River Ferry.

I’m grateful for the Big Book and the people who have sponsored me

I’m grateful for AA meetings and the people who attend

I’m grateful to be healthy

I’m grateful for coffee, every single day.

I’m grateful for dark mornings waiting for the sunrise

I’m grateful for old friends

I’m grateful for the peace and calm I feel every day

I’m grateful for yoga and meditation

I’m grateful to live in the most beautiful city

I’m grateful for Central Park.

I’m grateful for used record and book stores.

I’m grateful for all of the dogs.

I’m grateful for the secret coffee place.

I’m grateful for swagger on the subway.

I’m grateful for the Compleat Strategist on 33rd Street

I’m grateful for the library

I’m grateful for Academy Records.

I’m grateful for the way people have come into my life.

I’m grateful for all of the lessons I’ve been taught.

I’m grateful for the moments of quiet and being able to stand them now.

I’m grateful to love the moments of quiet now.

I’m grateful for the leaves in Autumn and walks in fresh fallen snow

I’m grateful for long walks with no purpose

I’m grateful for pirate-y bad-assery and swagger

I’m grateful for the pirate balcony.

I’m grateful for a swanky umbrella and the memory of a trip to Paris.

I’m grateful for everything that hurt

I’m grateful for feeling lost and getting lost

I’m grateful to have found the path and grateful for every day on it

I’m grateful for the view from my desk

I’m grateful for afternoons in Bryant Park drinking coffee

I’m grateful for not knowing what’s next

I’m grateful for mystery and surprise

I’m grateful for chances to see things differently

I’m grateful for accepting myself

I’m grateful for seeing that the only thing I could change was me

I’m grateful for the way the city looks on rainy days

I’m grateful for the museums and the chance to get lost in them on a regular basis

I’m grateful for the chance to write

I’m grateful to get to share my experience, strength and hope with others.

I’m grateful for the apple crumble I make after trips to the farmers market

I’m grateful for my kitchen

I’m grateful for pennies in the street and chance encounters

I’m grateful for building faith and never losing hope.

I’m grateful for not giving up.

I’m grateful for what I had to lose.

I’m grateful for my piano and starting to play again

I’m grateful for art and beauty

I’m grateful for Apple Jacks and Hostess Donut Gems

I’m grateful for my view of an island that could be named after me

I’m grateful for seeing that love is usually at the bottom of disappointment.

I’m grateful for rebirth, renewal and redemption.

I’m grateful for letting things be

I’m grateful for seeing what’s worth holding on to

I’m grateful for willingness and more chances to get things right

I’m grateful to realize most of the stories I tell about myself aren’t true

I’m grateful for chances to help other alcoholics

I’m grateful for sunny days, too

I’m grateful for the people who make me laugh

I’m grateful for the people who left love behind for me

I’m grateful for the people who showed me my own reflection

I’m grateful for Elvis Costello and the Cars

I’m grateful to sometimes see the purpose in things

I’m grateful for the ways things unfold, when I let them

I’m grateful for hard work and knowing that I can still do it

I’m grateful for my office in the sky

I’m grateful for hearing train whistles from a long ways away

I’m grateful for chances to make amends to the people I hurt

I’m grateful for finding the path meant for me

I’m grateful to be leading the life meant for me

I’m grateful for what happens when I let go of the things not meant for me

I’m grateful for fear and grief and mourning

I’m grateful for the hard days and what I can learn

I’m grateful for what the hard days teach

I’m grateful for sitting through the hard days

I’m grateful for the Pirate Balcony herb garden

I’m grateful for honey bees in the Lavender

I’m grateful for gratitude lists

I’m grateful for Moleskine notebooks

I’m grateful for inspiration and intuition

I’m grateful for taking risks and trying new things

I’m grateful for hints from the Universe

I’m grateful for Spotify playlists

I’m grateful for loving myself and seeing what I almost left behind

I’m grateful for all of the chances to get back up again

I’m grateful for letting the game come to me

I’m grateful for late-inning at-bats and the sound of a double off the wall

I’m grateful for the people who love me and fill my life with beauty and laughter

I’m grateful for nearly 1400 days of gratitude lists

I’m grateful for five years of sobriety

I’m grateful to be sober today.

There have been very dark days in my life. Today is not one of them. Sure, outside it’s gray and gloomy and the rain is falling. But that’s just the weather. My life is filled with light and love and peace and calm and more than I could ever have imagined or asked for. I’m on the way to be with people I love for my favorite holiday (and my birthday, to boot). In a few short weeks there will be a grandson for me to adore, spoil and corrupt. There is no question but that I’ve been blessed.

The greatest blessing: The capacity to see this beautiful world around me and find new things to be grateful for every single day.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Many thanks to John (N3AAZ), who shares the following notes from a recent antenna project: Hi Thomas For what it’s worth, here’s an easy, cheap, very lightweight, multi-band, no counterpoise antenna for portable ops. This build took place on a rainy day at a campground in an 18ft RV and was inspired by an article … Continue reading John’s Rainy Day Antenna Project Notes →

I’m grateful for an early run where the streets were super quiet and I was able to focus on recording higher than usual elevation gains. I’m grateful for my mobility on a daily basis. I’m grateful for a reading about instincts and how they’ve changed since my addiction ended, how old ones still rear their head, and how I can practice better ones moving forward. I’m grateful for new, welcome additions to our gallery wall and lighting fixtures that provide much needed brightness to certain rooms. I’m grateful for how much joy it brings me to keep iterating on our home, it feels like a cool puzzle I can keep tinkering with to optimize aesthetics and utility. I’m grateful for new passions that are discovered in sobriety. I’m grateful for understanding how quickly my state of mind can shift as that realization keeps me seeking equilibrium rather than dwelling in the extremes. I’m grateful for the extra exercise I get playing catch with Harper.

I hopped on the pop culture bandwagon this weekend and watched Wicked. It was a fun ride! Ever since the pandemic I no longer go to the movie theater much. Steeper ticket prices plus not wanting to leave Harper home alone for long periods means when I do go it has to be for something special. Wicked, in this case, was something special. Not only does it feature one of my favorite pop stars in Ariana Grande, it is also the first Broadway musical I ever saw – as an adult. I have a vague recollection of going to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat on a middle school trip, but I’m not going to count that seriously because it’s such a blip in my memory.

Back to the point though – Wicked – it was amazing. There are several deep, dark themes in the story (perhaps too many, but I’m not writing a critical review here). One of the themes I wanted to touch upon is empathy. Without delving into spoilers, a big character shift occurs when the two competing protagonists come to find each other’s humanity, each other’s vulnerability, following a pivotal event at a dance hall. For someone who feels like they are decent at keeping it buttoned up, I was shedding some silent tears in that theater.

There are a myriad of reasons why I was moved during the film, but a primary one is because it reminded me of a time in my life that has long since passed. I saw the Broadway musical back in 2006 as a college senior with one of my best friends who I’ve lost since due to my alcoholism. Till that point I hadn’t even had my first drink. I had remained pretty strait-laced (no pun intended). I had hidden myself from a lot of the world because I was hiding my sexuality. That would change soon once I graduated, began drinking, and moved to San Francisco.

There is a lot of advice I would give to my younger self now as I hit 40 in a couple of months. I would say to not be afraid of embracing my authenticity. To not constantly mold myself to what others think the best version of me is. To not let fear and anxiety overwhelm every short and long term decision I make. Honestly my mid-20s to mid-30s is quite the blur, but a constant I can recollect is that I didn’t like myself. Drinking only exacerbated the feeling, especially as shameful acts started piling up. As they say in the rooms to build self-esteem I need to do esteemable acts. Those were few and far between for the better part of a decade.

But back to empathy. It has taken a very long time to come to a place where I have gained empathy for my past self. Vodka made it easy to be categorized as irredeemable. When I finally put the bottle down, shame decided to settle in for a while. However I slowly learnt to let other thoughts enter. As I infused my mind with the constructive, caring language brought upon by being in AA, I learnt about the work I needed to do to repair my relationship with me. I had to clearly look at my past to comprehend what I was thinking and why. I had to uncover the root causes for my insecurities and maladjusted actions.

That is where self-empathy stepped in as a crucial savior. I had to find ways of dropping the shame and be kind to me in the way I would to another person who’d gone through hardships. I had to create a gentle, safe space when it came to reliving painful experiences in efforts to discover ways to move past them and be stronger. After watching Wicked I was once again transported to a mindset where I had to practice self-empathy. Thinking about who I was in 2006 there were so many missteps I had yet to make, but I was a ticking time bomb. I hadn’t procured the right tools around living an informed, sustainable life. I was at the whims of this world’s harsh realities. In many ways I needed to experience the pain and be pushed to uncomfortable limits. Luckily through the grace of some Higher Power machinations, I managed to not only survive the tumultuous journey, but also find a place in AA that shows me how to reflect on it productively. Now when I’m reminded of old transgressions, or even older versions of me, I have the ability to demonstrate empathy for myself first. In doing that I am gifted the opportunity to perform a self-appraisal that permits me to learn and not linger in regret. Seeing Wicked again was an unforeseen, but welcome exercise in reminding me that while I can never change the past, I can find ways of embracing it and thereby embracing me even tighter.

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