Just a quick post to start the New Year (and the New Decade) off in good form…

I had a relatively quiet New Year’s Eve, spending it at home finishing up some bookkeeping and other end-end-of-year tasks. I did venture outside at midnight and watched the fireworks erupt over Phuket Town. It seems like almost everybody I know was out-and-about as I saw their Facebook postings for many hours afterwards. I went to sleep around 2 a.m. and woke up just after six (a bit late for me!), immediately going to “work” on stamp updates. I also managed a bit of puttering around the house — a bit of laundry, some cleaning, and even a couple of hours of relaxation reading a book. I am currently plowing through 1,001 Movies You Must See Before You Die and usually read a few of the capsule summaries before going online to track down one movie or another.  I had planned to watch one of them tonight (Mr. Deeds Goes to Town) but got involved in other things.

Our offices are closed tomorrow (which means I will not receive my salary until Friday, if the boss comes to work that is) but I am “on-call” in the morning as one of our contracted schools has classes scheduled.  I do hope that all of the teachers show up for work as I need to go to the post office for the release of Thailand’s Year of the Mouse stamp.  This year is the official start of my new career as a stamp dealer (of sorts) and I’ve already pre-sold several sheets and first day covers for this issue.  I am anxious to make my purchases and mail the orders. In addition to that, I have a number of items on my massive “To Do” list that need to have some progress made on them.

Selfie made using the Open Camera app for Android (v1.47.3) with flash, no filters. Photo taken by Mark Joseph Jochim in Phuket Town, Thailand, on 1 January 2020.

Among my “goals” for 2020 is to take at least one photograph every day (there were A LOT of undocumented days over the past three years or so). Thus, I present my first two “selfies” of the Twenties (one using my phone’s stock app, the other using a third-party app).  Which one do you prefer?

Selfie made using stock camera on Realme C2 mobile device, with flash but no filters. Photo taken by Mark Joseph Jochim in Phuket, Town,, Thailand, on 1 January 2020.