December 30, 2021 Welcoming 2022 Damn its cold. It was -24 F yesterday, and a balmy -4 F right now. The days are very short and very cold here in Minnesota. Its times like this that make me take stock of whats good in my little world. I want to thank you and everyone else who has made gopherspace a fun place to be. Expanding Magical.fish in 2021 has been lots of fun for me. It has helped teach me python coding, given me a taste of different technologies, such as dns, TOR, web servers, Linux, networking, routing, and more. Without having the goal of building Magical.fish, the learning wouldn't have happened. And without the enouragement of people who actually USE Magical.fish, well, then what's the point. I have enjoyed learning, building, and then engaging with you folks. Whats fun about gopherspace is that it is small. Every person who uses gopher is important, to me at least. Gopherspace reminds of a carnival ride where you must be 'this tall' to get on, except with gopher, you have to be 'this knowledgeable' to get on. It takes some effort and understanding. As a barrier to entry, I think it plays well to gopher's strengths and the sense of community here. I hope to find some new things to build in 2022. If you have ideas, post them in the Magical Live Chat, or leave them in the guest book comments. I'd like to add things that will help you disengage as much of your life from the WWW as possible. For me personally, I find I can get my stock quotes here, which saves me a trip to the web. I also look up movies on gopher space, and I consider every little bit of useful info I can use to be a small victory of some sort. I hope 2022 will be kind to us all! Wishing you a great new year! Congrats to the Minnesota Gophers football team who won the oh so prestigious Guaranteed Rate Bowl late last Tuesday night, besting West Virginia 18 to 6. Ski-u-mah! After decades of neglecting their Big 10 football team, it warms my extremely cold heart to see the University of Minnesota team capture any sort of bowl victory.