Too Tired for Blogging, Too Tired for Everything 😵

For the last many years on this blog I've looked at my posting frequency as a matter of how many posts per day. And for years I've averaged close to 2/day. This past week that ratio's been upside down. I've averaged day/2.... Meaning, 3 posts in 6 days. One post every two days.

What's up with that? I wish I could say it's because I've been too busy— too busy doing things to pause and write about them. But I have not been busy. At least not that busy. Alas the reason I've posted so little this week is because I just... haven't... cared.

A big part of it is I've been tired. I'm not sure why I'm tired. Again, I haven't been super busy. I haven't been putting in 12-14 hour days at work, and I haven't been running myself ragged with things outside of work. Frankly I've been lying around like a bump on a log a lot.

A week ago I fretted that I hadn't done much over the weekend. This weekend I managed to do even less. I just couldn't must the energy... or the caring... to get out and do anything. 😞

What's got me down? I don't know. Maybe it's just a reality of getting older that I struggle so much to find energy.

I'll see if I can at least get my blog rate back up. 🤣 I do have a ton of things I want to write about. I just have to choose to spend the time writing. My energy to write comes in bursts, though. To make that work for blogging I'll start drafting blog entries when I have a spurt of energy, then post them at a steady rate. It's a technique I've used before when I've been pressed for time. Now I'm just pressed for energy. 😞

Amex CEO Admits "We Made Benefits Hard To Use On Purpose" (VFTW Blog)

Frequent flying blogger Gary Leff posted a blog Sunday on his View From The Wing (VFTW) website, "Amex CEO Admits: ‘We Made Benefits Hard To Use On Purpose’". As a person who's been playing the game of milking credit cards for airline/hotel points and benefits for years I found none of it surprising. I've noticed the changes Amex CEO Steve Squeri is referring to, even if he was saying the quiet part out loud.

For example, when I opened a costly new Amex Hilton card a few months ago I thought really hard about whether the newly raised $550 annual fee would be worth it. Yes, the card has more benefits that ever before, in absolute terms; but those benefits are structured in ways that limit them and make them more difficult to use. And Amex Hilton is hardly the only card making these kinds of changes. It's happening broadly across American Express, of course, but also with its main competitor in the points-and-loyalty space, Chase.

I'm not the only person for whom Leff's blog is more of a "Well, duh" moment than a wakeup call. From my reading on sites like FlyerTalk.com I'd say that most people who are serious players of the points credit card game have been seeing these changes coming. Cards are getting to the point where there is value there, if you fit the right profile of being able to use enough of the benefits, but the value is so close to break-even that it's arguably not worth pursuing anymore.

Is the airline/hotel loyalty credit card gravy train coming to an end? Could be. If so, it was fun while it lasted. Maybe soon I'll just use my 2% cash-back cards all the time.

Hiking the Crack in the Ground

Oregon Cascades Travelog #14
Christmas Valley, OR - Thu, 3 Jul 2025, 4pm

This afternoon we're hiking the Crack in the Ground in the dry, volcanic bluffs of eastern Oregon. This hike has been a long time coming... and I say that not just because it's taken me over two weeks to move this blog from my backlog but also because this is a hike that landed on my hiking backlog a few years ago.

"Check out this amazing volcanic crack in the ground!" and Oregonian friend texted us a few years ago.

"Looks awesome, are you planning a trip?" we asked.

And from there the conversation fizzled out. 🙁 But while our friend may have forgotten about this fascinating geologic feature, I did not. So when we planned this July 4th week trip to Oregon this hike was on my short list of things I wanted to do.

Watch on YouTube

On this hike I recorded both photos and video. As I prepared this blog I thought about which to include— or both. Ultimately I decided in favor of video as it's way better at conveying the immersive experience of walking through this narrow canyon.

In beauty I walk.

And this is only part 1 of, like, four, so stay tuned for more!