⚾️ Baseball I grew up watching baseball. I remember watching Cleveland Indians on television on those humid late summer Ohio nights. I still love listening to the games on the radio. Cleveland Guardians (MLB) — My number one top favorite sports team Columbus Clippers (MiLB) — My home town team. Plus, I love minor league baseball in general. ⚽️ Soccer/Football I became a soccer fan when the MLS…
The rising sun is hidden by a storm on the horizon. Bits and Pieces I was walking through the mall to kill time one day when I came across some kind of manga or gaming shop. I don’t really know, they had stickers and keychains so I popped in. While I was browsing they guy behind the counter asked me if I ever thought about cosplay. Surprised, I simply said, “no.” He then told me that if I grew out…
High temperatures in the 100’s were the norm all week. A Little Bit of This, A Little Bit of That… It’s was hot all week, but getting out a little bit in the mornings and evenings, and getting a lot done inside during the day. I spent a few hours every day working on my two university classes — grading labs and writing content for a new course. There were plenty of chores here at the Arizona place…
After getting a half sleeve tattoo a few years ago, I thought I’d like to get a companion on the other arm. I didn’t know immediately what I wanted, except that it should have some color. It took a few years, but I began to home in a design based on Baroque filigree ornamentation. I found a local artist named Steve and I made an appointment to share my ideas and get his thoughts. That was July…
A while back I wrote a post about my first tattoo . I’ve since gotten two more. I’ve mentioned them in a few weeknotes posts, but I thought it’d be nice to have a dedicated post about it. So here’s the story about my second tattoo. Every December, AWS hosts an enormous conference in Las Vegas called re:Invent . I attended for the first time in 2021, but it was pretty overwhelming and I missed a…
This is a follow up to an earlier post in which I shared a few phrases that I use regularly, but that actually came from movies or television shows. Since then, I’ve been trying to keep track when I use such phrases and realized that I have quite a few! So here are a few more, in no particular order. “Right you are, Ken.” Most Extreme Elimination Challenge (2003-07) If you haven’t seen MXC, you…
Home for the Week I spent the week back at home in Ohio, while the spousal unit was away on a business trip. It was my first week at home as a “retiree,” although that’s a misnomer because I am still employed — albeit only part-time — and am still as busy as ever. I admit though that I do not miss my “day job.” Rough Week for Charlie Charlie , our 8-month-old puppy, had her appointment to get…
Tucson Notes I arrived in Tucson on Sunday, fresh off my retirement. I wouldn’t ordinarily come to Arizona in the summer, but my mother is contemplating a move there full time. I told her that she must first spend some time in the summer Arizona sun. She agreed on the condition that I accompany her and help her get situated. I spent some time cleaning and getting my mother’s place to a sort of…
My Last Week of Full Time Office Work After years of planning and months of counting down, my retirement from full time work finally arrived! I hadn’t thought about how the week would play out, so I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that is was a strange week. Monday was sort of a normal day. I worked from home, as I had done for most of the last nine years. I say “worked” here, but my…
The Haps My boss sent out an announcement about my retirement . I thought I’d start getting a lot of frantic requests for help with last-minute things, but not so much. Plenty of congratulatory messages though and that’s really nice. I have a few thank you notes to write. There was a post on the AWS Machine Learning Blog about a project I was part of last year. We built a system that located and…
Goings On ⏱️ The big personal highlight is that I tendered my resignation ahead of my upcoming retirement. I’ve begun gleefully declining meetings. 🚘 We accomplished something we thought we never would: after four years in this house, we can finally get a car in the garage !. 🧩 We attended another Puzzled Pint , an evening of problem solving with longtime friends over beers and pizza. If you…
Here is another late dispatch. You haven’t missed much, to be honest, but I’ll make a go of relaying the highlights since my last update . 🐕 The new doggos are beginning to settle in. We try to give them two decent walks a day, and plenty of stimulation. Fortunately, we have a nice fenced back yard for them to roam. Charlie occasionally gets the zoomies and that’s a lot of fun. Still a long way…
Charlie (left) and Teddy are both pretty chill. 🐶 Two New Canine Family Members. This week’s big news is that our family grew by two this week. Teddy is a 7½-year-old brown lab who needed a new home. Charlie is a 6-month-old lab mix who was a rescue. In just a few days, they’ve already begun to settle into their new surroundings. We, on the other hand, are still getting used to having four-legged…
In the mid-1990s, during the early years of our marriage, my wife and I accumulated a modest collection of art pieces — paintings, photographs, lithographs, linocuts, posters, ceramics, and more. No art-as-investment stuff, just things that caught our eye at local galleries and arts festivals. Many of the more commoditized pieces have since found other homes or have been discarded, but a few…
Bulgaria is this year’s winner. But Denmark was my overall pick. For the Grand Final, I carried my scores over from my initial rankings . In the case of ties, I ranked in order of my personal preference. In the table below, I’ve also included the finishing order in the contest and the difference between my ranking and the official finish — positive values show where I ranked an entry higher;…
This year I used a rubric to score all the entries. Ranking Order Country Artist Song Notes Camp VocPyr Costume Shrug Budget Earworm Lore Inexpl Total Outcome 1 210 Denmark Søren Torpegaard Lund Før vi går hjem We are now passing through the red light district. 5 5 5 5 4 4 5 5 38 ADV 1 206 Armenia Simón Paloma Rumba I found my retirement anthem. Cover me in sticky notes and take me to Armenia. 5 5…
Celebratory luncheon with the family before Abigail’s graduation ceremony (from left to right: Eli Burkhardt, Abigail Burkhardt, Vera O’Neil, Marilyn Everhart, Marlene O’Neil, Mary Ann Burkhardt, Michael Burkhardt) Highlights 🎓 This week’s big highlight was our daughter Abigail’s graduation from Kent State University. We started the festivities by attending her senior retrospective show on Friday…
Last night we attended Abigail’s senior retrospective show at Kent State’s Taylor Hall gallery. Today she’ll graduate with a BFA in Photography. So proud of this kiddo! Abigail’s announcement, as it appeared on Instagram: Meet Abigail! Abigail Burkhardt is a Photography major and Arts Entrepreneurship minor from Columbus, Ohio. With her love of sports, she developed a strong interest in sports…
Every now and then, we like a Chardonnay with that rich, buttery flavor produced by malolactic fermentation. You can spend almost as much as you want on wine, but we wondered whether you really need to. So we picked up six Chardonnays ranging from $8 to $46 per bottle and ranked them from favorite to least favorite. We are not wine connoisseurs, we just like drinking wine. We didn’t use any…
Shopping ⌚️ I stopped wearing my Apple Watch a few months ago when I realized that it didn’t function correctly with my new sleeve tattoo. I miss having a wristwatch so I’ve been thinking about an alternative. When I got an email from Casio that the G-Shock GW5000HS-1 had become available, I impulsively ordered it on the spot. This one sets the time and date automatically and is solar powered. 📷…
There seems to be a lot of outrage with respect to generative AI lately. Well, friends, prepare to be outraged. I use an AI virtual assistant nearly every day. In my experience it works well . A lot of people report getting crappy results from virtual assistants, but when you dig in you often find they are using a free model rather than one of the more modern paid versions. I have a Claude Pro…
We capped the weekend off by watching our daughter’s club soccer game in Cleveland. 🎤 This year’s Eurovision Song Contest is just a few weeks away, and I was delighted to learn that I’ll be able to watch for free on YouTube here in the US. I’m disappointed that some countries have opted out and that’s understandable, but I like the idea (even if that’s all it is) that music can unite us in ways…
As I write this, I realize that I haven’t posted a weeknote in almost a month. I used to be so disciplined about it, dutifully posting something every week. Alas, 2026 has been different. 🎒 Having spent a week or so in Puerto Rico and nine weeks in Arizona, I’ve been away more than I’ve been home. I suppose that was enough of a disruption to my routine to throw me off. Now I’m back home and no…
Christopher Hitchens Today is the birthday of one my favorite authors, the late Christopher Hitchens. (He’d have been 77 years old.) How I wish he was still around to layer the current goings on with his profound erudition and incisive wit! Alas, he is not, so we celebrate his memory and the rich body of work he left behind. One of the cornerstones of that work is God is Not Great: How Religion…
These are my thoughts on some of the biggest firms in the technology industry. Some are informed by my own experiences with these companies over the course of my 35-year career. Others are just observations. This is not intended as an exhaustive academic or financial analysis, just some random observations and opinions. Nvidia ( NVDA ) Market cap: $4,300,000,000,000 CUDA is an impressive and…