Thoughts, links, and project updates

I just got through watching “Lucy and Desi” It was a documentary about the couple and the media empire they started together. I had no idea how dignity they really were in Hollywood. If course, I’ve heard of “The Lucy Ball Show” but I just always thought of it as just an old show from the 50’s…. and never gave it much thought. I also didn’t realize that Lucy and Desi were divoy after being married 20 years and had their own studio…. Where several shows were filmed.. Their daughter said they were married to their second spouses longer than they were married to each other. They had two children, who gave interviews. They played tapes that Lucy had recorded a journal of sorts on…. I thought that was pretty neat. Lucille Ball was born in 1911 and died in 1989. Desi was born in 1917 and died in 1986. What a story!

I just got through watching “Modern Marvels: How Las Vegas Became a City Like No Other” about an hour and a half ago…

It was very inspiring, it motivated me. It originally aired in Aug of 1998… Eric, Aaron and myself first went to Las Vegas in Jan of 1998. That was such a nice trip. We wanted papa pierce to go but he wouldn’t. We didn’t have a lot of money but managed to rent a car one day to look around the city some. We stayed in Circus Circus. I remember it being so nice and modern. It smelled good too. I would go in the hall where they had the conventions and walk around. I loved it there.

I remember the wind blowing real hard that day. What good memories. I don’t think we have any pictures of it. I went again with my former romantic partner and Eric. That was a good trip as well. I also went with him and his friend Tammie….. Ahhh Las Vegas. I’m not a gambler, but there is just something about its energy.

This is what Huntington, WV may have looked like from 1873 to 1878… according to ChatGPT.

I was researching if there were any indians living in the Huntington WV area before it was settled by colonizers…. and there were several….. Some of the main groups connected to the area include: Shawnee, Mingo, Cherokee and the Iroquois Confederacy. I think asked if it could create an image of what the Indian settlements may have looked like on the Ohio River, and this is what it came up with… very interesting.

This isn’t about solving equations.

It’s about discovering the hidden mathematical patterns that may already be shaping your life.

If you’ve ever wondered why some habits stick, why motivation comes and goes, or why small actions can eventually produce massive results, this video offers a different way to look at the world.

Your life is more than a snapshot.

It’s a curve in motion.

Saw a deer family today, they are such peaceful animals.

We can use math to predict about anything.. it’s a powerful tool if you can learn the numbers behind it… You don’t have to be a math whiz either…

For decades, researchers have studied thousands of relationships looking for patterns that separate lasting connections from those that eventually fall apart. What they discovered is remarkable: the future of many relationships can often be predicted with surprising accuracy—not through mind reading or personality tests, but by observing patterns of change over time…. Basically, the Calculus of relationships….

Calculus isn’t scary, it’s just the study of rates of change… and it can help us to understand ourselves better and our relationships with other humans… among many other things…

Whether you’re thinking about a marriage, friendship, business partnership, family relationship, or professional connection, the same underlying principles often apply.

Relationships are not static. They grow, stall, accelerate, recover, and sometimes fade.

The question is: can we learn to recognize the patterns before the outcome becomes obvious?

Can math help predict burnout before we reach the breaking point?

Burnout usually feels as though it happens suddenly—but the pressure, exhaustion, and stress have often been accumulating for quite some time. In this video, I explore how dynamic calculus can help us think about burnout as a changing system rather than a single event.

It’s another fascinating example of how mathematics can explain experiences that seem deeply personal and difficult to measure.

Have you ever looked back and realized the warning signs of burnout were there long before you noticed them?

Watch Predicting Burnout Through Dynamic Calculus here:

@johnhigginbotham2

We use calculus to predict the motion of planets. Could the same ideas help predict human burnout? #burnoutprevention #stressmanagement #mentalhealth #productivity

♬ original sound – John Higginbotham

Have you ever almost given up… only to have something unexpectedly good happen shortly afterward?

It makes me wonder how many opportunities we miss simply because we stop one step too soon.

In my newest video, The Mathematics of Hope, I explore a fascinating idea: even a small probability of success can become surprisingly powerful when you keep showing up over time.

Hope isn’t just about optimism—it may also be about understanding how probability, persistence, and time work together.

💬 I’d love to hear your story:

Have you ever had a moment where sticking with something longer than you wanted to ended up changing your life?

Maybe it was:
✨ Finding a new job
❤️ Meeting someone important
📈 Growing a business
🎓 Learning a new skill
🌱 Recovering from a difficult season

Sometimes the biggest turning points begin with what seems like an impossibly small chance.

I’d love to hear your experiences—they might encourage someone else who’s wondering if it’s worth taking one more step.

@johnhigginbotham2

If the odds of success are only 1%, is hope irrational? Not necessarily. In mathematics, even small probabilities can produce life-changing outcomes when given enough time.#selfimprovement #math #calculus

♬ original sound – John Higginbotham

I didn’t want to scare him, so the picture isn’t the greatest, but he’s so tiny. His mother was nearby.

I heard this song “What Is Love” yesterday and a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It came out in 1993… I was so lonely and isolated in the 1990s. I spent a lot of time daydreaming of having friends and socializing, but of course I had no friends and I never socialized. It wasnt until I met my first love that the cycle of loneliness was broken, but it was short lived…. It did reappear briefly decades later.. only to disappear again and never return. Such is life I suppose, right?

I’ve been building a money manager WordPress plugin… There is still a lot to do, but it’s coming along…

I watched Madonna’s two hour podcast interview yesterday…. She said in the beginning that she wasn’t there to sell or promote anything… But she ended up around halfway bringing out her Kabala religious mentor (not sure what his title is) and they talked about it the rest of the time… It seemed like she was actually trying to shove the religion down everyone else’s throat.. It appeared to be a promotion or endorsement of Kabala… I didn’t know she was still practicing…

I did like a lot of the things she said, but it still felt salesy or gimmicky… Maybe it was just the mood I was in.. She’s still very pretty though and very interesting as always.

I heard this song “What Is Love” yesterday and a wave of nostalgia washed over me. It came out in 1993… I was so lonely and isolated in the 1990s. I spent a lot of time daydreaming of having friends and socializing, but of course I had no friends and I never socialized. It wasnt until I met my first love that the cycle of loneliness was broken, but it was short lived…. It did reappear briefly decades later.. only to disappear again and never return. Such is life I suppose, right?

Today was another productive day on the Money Manager EX project. I continued building what started as a simple clone into something that is beginning to develop its own identity.

I started by improving the transaction register. Earlier versions had several layout problems where fields extended beyond the widget, scrolling didn’t behave correctly, and the interface became cramped as new features were added. Throughout the day I tracked down each issue one by one and fixed them instead of working around them.

One of the biggest additions was the new Search & Filters system. I can now instantly search transactions by typing, and filter them by type, payee, category, and date ranges. The results update automatically without needing a Search button, making the register feel much more responsive.

While testing, I discovered that adding search controls reduced the amount of space available for the transaction register. That led down an interesting path. Instead of trying to squeeze everything onto one screen, I introduced the idea of separate working modes.

First I created the ability to hide the filter panel. Then I added the ability to hide the transaction entry form. Once I saw how much room that gave back to the register, it became obvious that this wasn’t just a workaround—it was a better way to use the program.

That led to the creation of two distinct workspaces:

• Entry Mode, where the focus is on creating and editing transactions.
• Browse Mode, where the focus is on reviewing, searching, and filtering transactions with a much larger register.

Browse Mode gives the register far more space, making it much easier to review financial history. Entry Mode brings the transaction form back whenever I’m ready to add or edit transactions. I also designed it so the software remembers which mode I last used.

Throughout the day I also continued improving the overall user experience. I fixed multiple scrolling problems, corrected layout issues caused by my Windows 95 desktop theme, improved register sizing, refined viewport calculations, and kept everything working without breaking existing data.

One thing that stood out today was that several of my best ideas came from solving problems I hadn’t anticipated. The Browse Mode concept wasn’t part of the original plan, but it ended up becoming one of the features I’m most excited about. It makes the application feel much more like a real desktop finance program rather than just a
form.

By the end of the day, the application felt significantly more polished. It now has a stronger workflow, better organization, improved searching, cleaner navigation, and a much more usable transaction register.

Looking ahead, I think the next major improvements should focus on making the register behave like Windows Explorer or a traditional desktop application. That would include sortable columns, resizable columns, remembered layouts, frozen headers, and double-click editing. Those features would move the project another step closer to feeling like a professional desktop application running inside a browser.

Overall, today felt like an important milestone. The project is no longer just recreating Money Manager EX—it is becoming its own application, designed around the way I actually work. It was one of the most productive development sessions I’ve had so far.

I just got through watching “Andy Warhol Diaries”. It was very dark and depressing, but I enjoyed learning about him. He was a spokesperson for Commodore in the 1980s, something I was not aware of… I didn’t know he even existed at that point in life. Even with all of his success, he was still insecure and depressed most of the time. He worried a lot. He did not die from AIDS, like a lot of people, including myself, thought… But from complications from gallbladder surgery. Two of his brothers successfully sued the hospital and doctor…

This song (One (Your Name)) by Swedish House Mafia is 15 years old and I’m just now hearing it… It’s edm.

I want to do a custom wordpress theme for my history blog because I can’t find anything that really suits me… After I get this mini blog (feed) plugin perfected, I’m going to work on the theme for the hfbp site…. I’m going to incorporate this mini blog feed on all of my websites… I think it will help with pSEO by offering related, self (written) mini posts about anything related to the website’s subject… Anyway, I’m going to do something like this…

I found out that Marshall has a database online of all their student newspapers, the Parthenon. So guess what I’ve been doing?

I just watched a clip of an interview with Madonna discussing paying attention to the subtleties in life. She says they are out there… and mentions the word clocking (which I had never heard of when this interview came out in 2000) and says she thinks sensitive people can pick up on subtleties and nuances.

She says there are a lot of things out there that people aren’t tapping into… I think she’s exactly right…

I like Bjork’s music, especially from the 90s… But I’m not impressed with her as a person… She’s rude and has a shitty attitude towards her fans..

This is a clip from sometime mid 90s where an interviewer asked her if she felt she had a responsibility being a role model… She said “No, that’s their problem” very smug like. I’m just not impressed with her.. there have been many other instances of her acting like an ass towards people. It turns me off to even listening to her music.

I stumbled onto this video where Pete Burns sang live in 1997 on a VH1 show titled “Dance, Dance, Dance Pointer Sisters”. Of course I got instantly nostalgic thinking about my life in 1997. I was still living with nanny and papa Pierce on Rotary Road. I had started UPS in March of that year. I remember being lonely and wished I had friends. I was so extremely shy, never even had a drink or gone to a bar.

Anyway, this is the dance version, I’ve already listened to it a million times. I’ve watched several interviews that Pete Burns did, they were very interesting, I really enjoyed what he had to say.

I just got through watching “Wonderland, 1997, Documentary about Levittown NY” It was about a community that was built in the 1950s after WW II in response to the housing shortage after the war. It was very interesting but sad to think most of the people in this documentary are no longer here, at least physically. Many of them were my grandparents’ age or older. I would love to know how it all turned out after this documentary in 1997?

Kathy Griffin said that Mel Robbins is a sham in her latest YouTube video… Around the 15-17 minute mark… Interesting.

I just watched “5 Things From the 1970s That Made Us Sleep Better (And Why We Lost Them)” on YouTube. They talked a lot about how things just shut down in the evening… There were blue laws on the books where stores weren’t open on Sunday and had to close at a certain time in the evening…

I lived in Germany growing up, and it is still like that to this day, they take their days of rest very seriously. I also lived downtown for several years in my hometown of Huntington, WV and the city was always quiet during the evening… There was a rhythm to it, a defined start time and a defined end time, something which I am drawn to.

I had heard this morning that Madonna’s song “Into the Groove” is back on the charts. She made the song 40 years ago. I looked it up and found out she made a documentary in 2005 that I wasn’t aware of… I added it to the watch list.

Tina Turner always tried to get 10 hours of sleep according to this article… I remember watching an interview that Oprah Winfrey did with her where she said the same thing.. She goes to bed late and gets up late…

The squirrel 🐿️ I’ve been talking about had not left for about 24 hours. I looked up to see how long squirrels sleep, and I discovered that it’s anywhere from 10 to 15 hours a day.

She finally left the little nest she made in the window, and I saw at least two baby squirrels. I didn’t bother them or try to open the window. I didn’t want to scare them or their mother. The funny thing is, there was a squirrel that came to the window a couple of weeks ago, sorting paper, cloth, etc…i thought it was just building somewhere to hide, but come to find out, she was building a nest.

I took a video, but it’s not great..

I’m watching “I’m Scared Of Spending the Rest of My Life Alone | Age of Loneliness | Only Human on YouTube”  They are talking to a 100 year old woman who says she is lonely and that she’s afraid of dying alone. The interviewer asked how she could be feel alone since she has so many children and grandchildren. They are interviewing people who have lost their partners as well. They interviewed all ages.

one young woman 39 years old said that she has tried internet dating but it was just another platform to get rejected on. She said that it’s exhausting to stay on there and she thinks its better just not to be on there.

One man said he dreads every night going to bed alone.

One guy who was 42 says he starts his day about 4pm, plays video games and goes to bed about 330am. He lived in a small apartment by himself. He said he would love if someone would knock on his door to visit.

The end of the program was very sad. A widow whose husband had died and had no children died 5 weeks after they interviewed her. She died alone in her home.

I swear, I just don’t know about life. I hate to see people suffering in this world, I really do. I have to limit my intake of this. But it helps me to realize how short and fleeting life really is.

I can’t let this happen to Mom. I worry about her being alone or feeling alone. I get mad at her and say mean things and I always regret it. I want to see Henry but I also hate leaving mom.

The little Squirrel that has been coming to the window was still there when I woke up this morning, he was washing himself. He’s still there as I write this. I didn’t realize this, but squirrels will sleep 10 to 15 hours a day.

We are supposed to have some bad storms today, I hope they don’t scare him. I think he will be ok where he is, the way it’s setup. I’m so glad he has found a safe space here, he looked right at me when I opened the curtain to check on him. He’s so cute, it brings me peace to watch him.

The image attached is the calm before the storm. I hope it’s a peaceful day today…