We went to Boston the first week of August. The planning for this was unique as the first step was securing tickets to watch these young men perform in one of three cities. See, the closest city to us in which they are performing is Chicago, but the timing of those shows did not work for our schedule. Boston (well, Foxborough) won out, and that was a good thing because there’s very a lot of things…
Parking a vehicle for a concert at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, is quite a challenge. Before heading to the BTS concerts this past week I did some research, even asking Chat GPT about how to handle parking. To its credit, with my hints about what I wanted, it ended up putting us at a pretty good spot in someone’s yard. The spot was a 25-minute walk from the stadium. We were…
It’s been a hot minute. Time for a Barry update! Last week we spent some time by the lake at a rental property. Lots of relaxing and a few activities. Part of the location choice was because our youngest took part in a five-day goalie camp nearby. Goalies are very much under coached in youth soccer, so she really enjoyed getting specific goalie training by world class coaches. Though she was also…
This past week was filled with July 4th, a lovely visit from family, and lots of music. The music in this case took the form of drum and bugle corps, of which me and my family are big fans. To the outsider, it’s like paying money to go watch marching bands. The whole concept is likely alien to them. I contend if you put almost anyone in a seat up high on the fifty yard line, they would be…
We have collectively been recovering from a physically and emotionally draining two weeks of marching band. We all were caught napping at some point throughout the early days of this week! It’s been nice to have activities wind down this week, and we’ll have a bit of relaxation for a few weeks going forward. It’s been raining a lot around here. No flooding in our area, but I think there’s been…
The past two weeks have been full of marching band. We’ve been following our kids attending parades for eight or nine years now, chaperoning for most of those. It’s a fast and furious summer competitive parade season, and they’ve had a blast with it. Jesse and I marched when we grew up. All of our kids have marched. We are a marching band people. As a result of the above, our summers don’t really…
A significant portion of the population in the USA still thinks of Reaganomics as certified fact rather than a largely discredited theory. By this mindset the engine of our economy requires people to strive for a ton of money. A rising tide lifts all boats and all that. First, I got to wondering, were US billionaires even a thing at the end of Reagan’s term? As a tween at the time, I couldn’t…
It’s our 26th anniversary today. We had a nice lunch at Jesse's favorite restaurant. Very nice meal. I've never had a banana split and have been trying to get Jesse...
The biggest event of the past week? Ava’s college graduation! Truth be told, she graduated last December, but the ceremony was last weekend and it was a great time. Quite a few family were able to make it to Des Moines to spend a fun weekend celebrating. I got a little sidetracked early this week when I discovered there is an account that is basically using Pika as a nice dashboard for their…
Sometimes the national anthem at high school track meets can be a bit painful to listen to, but we were fortunate to hear a fantastic one by a high school junior this week. I must say the effects at Harry Potter and the Cursed Child were fantastic. The play was good for those of us who are steeped in the lore. I imagine it was inaccessible for those who aren’t.
Why am I thinking about dipping back into Mastodon and Bluesky? I’ve been away for six or seven (!) months and it’s been good. I feel a bit like I’d like I’m curious if I could do it in a way that would only be a fifteen-minute commitment each week. I have doubts, but I suppose then I could just eject again. Hmm…I think I’ll resist a bit more. How Everest Has Changed Since Into Thin Air (archive):…
Spent this morning at Minnebar. This year was the 20th anniversary. I’ve had several posts about Minnebar on this blog through the years. I’ve only been able to go a...
This is a fun brainstorm about snail mail sign-ups. I’ve been trying some snail mail things to thank a handful of Pika customers. Unfortunately it hasn’t been very effective. There’s been almost a complete lack of response. I’m not even entirely sure if most people received my mail. So I think snail mail sign-up would effectively be no sign-up. Still this could be fun for a personal project or an…
Since building Pika I’ve wanted to incorporate a “now and then” sort of now page with dynamic history. With the recent flurry of updates to Pika variables, I realized that...
Did you know that the Apple HomePod can recognize alarms in your home and alert you about them? We discovered this a few weeks ago while we were vacationing in Phoenix. While relaxing in the sun, every member of our household received an alert on their phones. I cannot remember exactly what it said, but it was in notification center and said something to the effect of, “An alarm is sounding in…
It’s a weird state to be in with my work feeling like a vocation. I love doing it, I love making progress on Pika, and I’m super grateful to be in this position. Yet there are some things I enjoy in life that I can’t seem to find time to do these days. I see movies, but not as many as I’d like. I’d like to spin some records and just listen. Ironically I’m having trouble finding time to blog. Etc.…
I did a telehealth call this week about some third-party blood test results. As with most things in your forties, the cure is to lose some weight, exercise, and get better sleep. For whatever reason I feel like this might be the year I pull it off. 🤞 My brother-in-law told me about a woman who was arrested and jailed for over five months based on AI facial recognition. I definitely was listening…
Short, and late, rendition of Friday this week as I’m traveling. We took a spring break to Phoenix and were able to fit in a Project Hail Mary IMAX screening. It was excellent! Two of us have read the book, and we enjoyed both versions of the story on their own terms. We got in to Phoenix late on a Friday, stayed at a hotel, and kicked around the city proper on Saturday before checking into our…
If you are even a mild St. Vincent fan, I recommend her fantastic new live album: Delta Air Lines…responded to the continuing shutdown by suspending special services for members of Congress, including airport escorts and red coat services. I applaud Delta for doing this, but why the heck do members of congress get special services in the first place? Sure, for certain situations I could see it,…
Ava is traveling and shared this from the Victoria and Albert Museum: A lengthy, imperfect article on how much Minnesota mattered this winter. (archive) The challenge of this work week...
I learned about Johnny.Decimal from Pika blogger Michael Borland. The last post on his blog clued me in. Sadly he has since passed away. RIP Michael. ❤ I’ve dipped in...
I’ve been sick for half of this past week, so not much drivel to share this Friday. The core of my love for reading grew through affordable mass market paperbacks. While it’s not new news, it’s a little sad to see them leaving. Still, I really would prefer not to read that tiny, cramped print these days. I saw this a few places, so now you get to see this:
A couple months ago I put together a fairly lengthy post about getting an old MacBook set up to be a writing machine. It was pretty encouraging, the idea of...
I really enjoyed Justin Duke’s thoughts in “The death of software, the A24 of software”. “A24 didn't succeed despite the streaming era — they succeeded because of it. The explosion of mediocre content created...
It’s snowing and I’m doing taxes. I’ve mentioned the photographs of Ragnar Axelsson (Rax) a couple of times here in the past. I recently discovered the availability of the short BBC documentary featuring him: Last Days of the Arctic. Having studied hundreds of his pictures by this point, it was fascinating to see him and his subjects moving through the very environments where the photos were…