Happy Holidays 2025

It is the morning of Christmas Eve, December 24^th 2025. I wish I could say that I am relaxing and gazing out at my bird feeder watching the house sparrows make one last attempt at adding to that layer of winter fat, but alas I am not. I sit in the basement smoking Haunted Bookshop in a Tim West Old West apple and sip black coffee with a whisper of Christmas cinnamon as I watch files slowly transfer off my old hard drive in the hopes of being able to access the pictures that I planned to include in this year’s Christmas message. I tried for about 3 hours to get the drive, now I an external USB case. To mount as an external drive on my new computer. For reasons I still don;t understand it simply will not allow me to access the files (something about the encryption method used on the old machine that I will not make you suffer). However I discovered something that is actually kind of cool. It turns out that if I plug the usb-ified drive into a port on the old computer (which has a fried SATA port) and boot, it recognizes the usb as a boot drive and just lets me boot into the old OS. So all is not lost…yet.

Enough tech stuff. But I do appreciate you letting me get that off my chest!

This year has been challenging for a number of reasons. And the lack of blog updates can, in part, be explained by the fact that life demanded my full attention for most of the year, and a number of significant changes have occurred. I know I won’t remember all of them, but I will try my best.

I’ll start with the hardest one. My brother Scott passed away in November. He was 6 years younger than me and one of the best people the world has ever known. He was a very unique person. I’ve told the story several times on my YouTube channel, so I will be brief. Scot had autism, and while I had a very rich and deep relationship with him and we would carry on long conversations, he was not socially “normal.” Scott would talk about what he wanted to talk about regardless of social cues. He would tell you about a funny commercial he saw, or his favorite game show host (he really liked game shows) or the latest Sixers game (he really liked Philly sports) or it might be a story about one of the semi-fictional characters we developed over the years in a sort of theater of the mind that never failed to get us both laughing at simply ridiculous scenarios. Like the local restaurant that closed then reopened under a suspiciously similar name. One of us joked that the owner couldn’t pay the rent so he just pretended to be another person. This led to endless skits about the landlord trying to catch him. Yes, rather silly for two guys in their 50s, but we had fun.

Scott was diagnosed with an unidentified colon mass back in 2024. He was up and down a lot and while there was some hope, it was never very good. He was not strong enough for surgical intervention and had essentially been on hospice support since his diagnosis. His passing was a bit easier to swallow since I knew it was coming. And I can make all the usual statements about how he suffered enough and is at peace now. But it does not help with the huge hole in my life. He was my best friend for over 50 years. And I am left with a lifetime of experiences that I really can’t share with anyone else simply because they only made sense in Scott’s world. But every time I see a commercial I know he would like, or watch the Eagles game, I thin of him, and the part of me that really is a part of him. And I realize that no one ever really leaves us because we always have a part of them incorporated into ourselves.

Scott passed away on November 13^th. On November 17^th I got the news that my company was restructuring and had decided to offer me an attractive severance package that essentially allowed me to retire a few years earlier than I had planned. My last day at work was December 5^th. Honestly this has not yet sunk in. I feel like I am on my usual long Christmas vacation. As a scientist working on the same things for over 40 years (25 in the pharmaceutical industry) I suddenly find myself fully expecting to go back to work in January, but knowing full well I won’t. I am overjoyed to begin the next chapter, and to do so early. But it just feels odd. Like there is another hole. It is not logical at all. I wanted out as I had become disillusioned with the industry and I was primarily working towards a point of financial security for my wife and I, and I had finally obtained that. I have everything I wanted. But for some reason because it was not my choice, it feels wrong. This last year at work had been challenging to say the least. I was busier than I ever recall, and was spending inordinate amounts of time doing non-science administrative type work just to keep the wheels turning. It was stressful, unsatisfying, and I am glad to be rid of it, yet I miss it. I guess part of it is that I feel less needed, somehow less relevant. But I am sure I will find a way to correct for that I the new year. Perhaps by making more pipes.

Yes, pipe making is still a goal, and I made progress this year despite the roller coaster described above. I completed number 5 -7 in my 10 billiard challenge and I am feeling much better about the overall process.

Workshop organization got derailed and while I was about 80% done I have manged to make a mess and bring that back to about 50%. I have a lot of workshop projects planned for the new year. In addition to organization, I have plans to replace the bearings and gears in my metal lathe, and I have a 1920 Dalton lathe courtesy of my good friend Eric S. that I plan to restore. Also I have purchased a new camera ( a retirement gift from my wife actually) that will allow me to document some of that work and future pipe making and pipe restoration work. The camera is still in the box because…computers (see first paragraph).

I have also been playing with staining methods and have nearly settled on a contrast method I like which is the one I used for billiard #7 above. And practicing freehand airway drilling on some pre-frazed stummels. This is to take advantage of a large number of stummels I obtained that are from a french factory and are all about 40 years old. They make great pipes (I finished 2 that are in my regular rotation) and if I ever sell pipes I will offer them as an economy line with a to-be-determined name. For a while I have been thinking that since CaneRod is my brand I might call these Fiberglass as a reference to the role that fiberglass rods played in the evolution of fly rods. But I am worried that people might thing that it is a reference to materials, and no one wants to smoke fiberglass. So maybe Fishing Pole?

So the year ahead is full of possibilities. And it should be one of the most active years for CaneRod pipes since the days of the restoration business. We will see what fate has in store for us in 2026. And as I draw this to a close I want to thank you all for your support, encouragement and prayers over the past year. And I wish you and yours a blessed and Merry Christmas and a New Year full of health and possibilities.