Origins
Last week was the Origins game con. The folks running it seemed pretty disorganized this year and I was tempted to bail after the train wreck of…
Monica
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Outstanding customer service
A couple months ago, one of the other players in the D&D campaign we play in ordered a custom 3D-printed miniature for his character. The campaign…
Tikkun leil Shavuot
Shavuot is the holiday about the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai (matan torah). There is a tradition of late-night study called tikkun leil…
Washington Oaks Gardens
On our last day in St. Augustine we visited Washington Oaks Gardens State Park. It was a great way to relax and take in nature's beauty before…
Peacocks and other creatures
Last week we were in St. Augustine and visited the Fountain of Youth Archaeological Park. We were hesitant, suspecting hype and fluff, but I was…
Goodbye MinoanMiss
I've known Ny (MinoanMiss on Dreamwidth, previously Browngirl on Livejournal) online for decades, and got to meet her in person twice. She turned…
Laptop dinosaur
My father had an ancient Macbook -- not sure what he used it for, since he had not one but two newer iMacs as well as a couple tablets, but my mother…
Talmudic dilemma on the way to talmud study
Today while driving to meet someone for talmud study, I came to some road construction. The road was reduced to one lane, with flaggers [1] at each…
Solar, day 2
Last year we replaced our roof, which unlocked solar panels. (We didn't want to put in panels and then have to lift them to replace the roof. And it…
Congress: don't chicken out again
Constrained by the limits of the web form, this is what I sent Senator Fetterman on Sunday: Senator, In October, you joined Republicans to end a…
Neighbors
We got a bunch of snow on Sunday and paid someone to clear the sidewalks, but as expected, there was a lot more snow overnight. This morning I…
Frick exhibit of Scandinavian art
This afternoon we saw a traveling exhibit at the Frick Art Museum, The Scandinavian Home. It's only there for a few more days; we kept meaning to go…
iPhone, day 3
In my last post I talked about the sudden death of my Android phone (again) and my pursuit of an iPhone, which was stymied not by Apple but by…
Gremlins
Today while I was using my phone (Pixel) in a perfectly ordinary way, the screen went black and soon after the phone stopped responding at all. I…
Signal boost: US health insurance, time-sensitive
If you are in the US, don't have employer-provided health insurance (hello layoffs, among others), and are thus buying your insurance on healthcare.g…
N things make a post
I tried a new-to-me CSA this year, Who Cooks For You Farm. The summer share (which we got biweekly) was great, so I signed up for fall (weekly) which…
Avram before Lech L'cha
At the shabbaton I led a text-study session that I called "Avram before Lech L'cha" (which was the week's portion). It was designed to be…
Final (?) Sinai shabbaton
My now-former synagogue has an occasional shabbaton (Shabbat retreat), nominally once a year but sometimes the gaps are longer. They had one this…
Yom Kippur
Yes. More like this, please. Today is busy, building the sukkah and preparing for Shabbat, so brief notes will have to suffice for now. I had no…
Rosh Hashana at my new synagogue
I joined Beth Shalom in August. I'm still time-sharing Shabbat between there and my minyan, though that's winding down. (Sorry, minyan, I love my…
Strange credit-card pitch
I've had my Visa card for a very long time (decades). I've been happy with the provider, and the few times I needed the weight of Visa behind a…
September, still
The other day, I saw something cute and reposted it on Mastodon: Overheard, and for Internet old-timers: "Today is the 11,691st day of September…
The tomato that conquered Pittsburgh
This year I got three (different) tomato seedlings, all container-friendly, along with some peppers and other things. Having failed to do proper…
Desk experiments
Dani and I both concluded, at about the same time, that our office chairs were past their use-by dates. We both also want to test a chair, not just…
Inherited iPad
My mother has never learned to use computers, aside from a smartphone that she uses for calls and texting with the grandkids. After my father died…
Neat sky!
Last night I looked out the window a few minutes after nominal sunset and saw an unusual and impressive color in the sky. Naturally, I ran outside to…
Origins: other stuff
We went to Origins Game Fair last week. My previous post covered the games we played; this post is about everything else. The convention was,…
Origins: games played
We got home from Origins Game Fair today. As usual, we focused on games we don't already know, which means we expect some winners and some losers.…
Synagogue alternatives
My synagogue is being acquired [1] and this was the final nudge to find an alternative. This past Shabbat they cancelled our services in favor of the…
Goliath usually wins
About a year and a half ago, the president of my synagogue started a project to merge ours with another synagogue. We were supposed to be exploring…