A fuzzy horde of bumble flower beetles has taken up residence in our herb garden, to such an extent that Amanda has all but abandoned the area. At least these are beneficial native pollinators and the plants appear unaffected. Still, what are they even doing in there? They’re so easy to spot—dark little shapes against the white enclosure—always tucked into the nooks and crannies near the top, crawling along the shade cloth, never actually on any leaves. I’ve been gently evicting them for a few weeks now, but without fail, they’re back the next morning. Are they gathering for protection from birds? What makes an uninteresting herb garden home when there’s a whole world out there?
Life
After saying goodbye to Kilian last December, we both knew it would take time before we could even consider another dog, but we also understood that we wanted Finn to have a companion. With Kilian, we had waited far too long—he was already nine years old and slowing down when Finn arrived—and we didn’t want to make the same mistake with Finn. After a near miss with an American Eskimo litter that, unfortunately, didn’t work out, we’ve kept our ears to the ground without actively searching, as much of our focus has been on the renovation and our likely business plans.
On Monday, Amanda unexpectedly came across a listing from an animal rescue group that specializes in dogs rescued from South Korea. Though we had our hearts set on another Eskie, we’d often talked about welcoming a rescue into our home, and this felt like the right moment. We filled out an application and completed a video interview on Friday. The interviewer was thoughtful and diligent, clearly devoted to the wellbeing of the dogs they place. The process felt a little daunting, but it made sense: many of these dogs arrive with challenges, and they want to make sure each finds a safe, loving home. The dog we expressed interest in shows some signs of anxiety, which, given our experience with Kilian, somehow makes us feel even more ready.
Our application was approved just a few minutes ago, and if all goes well, Finn’s new friend will arrive at JFK Airport on September 3rd. Meet Ejin, a Japanese Spitz–Corgi mix, just under twelve pounds and a year old.
Although the garage renovation officially wrapped up after six weeks, a few lingering details carried over, along with a new, tacked-on project: painting. Progress was slow, with our contractor stopping by only once during the week and again over the weekend. The original work is now complete, though the changes are more subtle: two lights beside the garage facade were added, two outdoor outlets finished, and the patch at the base of the facade was feathered for longevity. The contractor then shifted focus to preparing the space for paint: filling gaps and nail holes, adjusting the exterior door frame for better alignment, and applying the first primer coat to walls and ceiling. With that underway, I expect the painting to be finished by the end of next weekend.
We finally set up one of the outdoor eufy cameras, and our feelings are unfortunately mixed. Capture quality of the S3 Pro is a clear improvement over our old Nest, with the difference most noticeable at night. Images are higher resolution, far less grainy, and overall much sharper. We’ve chosen to keep the camera continuously powered for 24/7 recording, but scrubbing through the history is frustratingly slow. This is a side-effect of encryption, which currently cannot be disabled. Losing the ability to quickly move through past recordings may not be a dealbreaker, but it was a feature we really valued with Nest.
Listening
Sometimes I need to hold off on discovering new music and instead let existing albums marinate. This week, that meant spending more time with BABYMETAL’s METAL FORTH and Ninajirachi’s I Love My Computer. I’ve also been drifting through lofi mixes while reading Infinite Jest, letting the music simmer behind the words.
On a whim, I dug up an old Third Eye Blind album, Out of the Vein (2003), which I doubt many people even remember. Aside from their debut, the band never gained much traction, and as I recall, their lead singer is an egotistical jerk. Still, there’s something about nostalgia that sticks, and “Blinded” hit me in just the right way—a reminder of how memory, mood, and music can blend into something unexpectedly vivid.
- Shedfromthebody – Whisper and Wane (2025)
- Uncaught (in Promise) – Revenge Fantasy (2024)
Reading
The journey through David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest continues at about the same pace I mentioned last week. Not counting the footnotes in the back, one of which stretched to eight pages, no exaggeration, I’ve made it to page 160. I shared a few thoughts on social media, including a passage that struck me as a surprisingly accurate commentary, one that could just as easily apply to generative AI. In response, I received a handful of replies wishing me luck with the book, usually from people who had tried more than once themselves and eventually given up.
This is a book that invites both glowing praise and sharp criticism, and I haven’t yet read far enough to form a definite opinion. What I can say is that the story so far is dense, the prose challenging, and my head is often left spinning after a stretch of reading. I’m persistent, but I can already see how easy failure would be. For now, though, I’m curious enough to keep going, even if much of the time I find myself asking, “what exactly was the author on when he wrote this?”
I’ve gotten into the habit of snapping photos of passages that catch my eye, and even though so many threads in the story still feel scattered, I’ve already collected quite a few. The novel was first published in 1996, yet so much of it feels uncomfortably relevant today. Overindulgence and addiction—chemical or informational—keep surfacing, and I can’t help noticing how prescient so much of it is. I just read a section on the rise of video teleconferencing that was almost unsettling in its accuracy.
The ideas about masking, filtering, and retreating map eerily well onto the world of social media, TikTok, and even the recent wave of digital minimalism as a kind of backlash. Of course, I’m reading this with hindsight, and not every detail lands, but in broad strokes, DFW really nails how devices, media, and endless streams of information can slip into addiction. There’s even a passing note about avoiding interaction altogether through delivery services. I found myself pausing—a little unnerved, a little impressed—at how sharply some of these observations still hit.
The person who first suggested this book mentioned that the narrative threads start to converge around page 200, so I’m getting close. I’m not fully invested in every storyline, but the moments centered on Hal and the “Entertainment” keep drawing me back. Those alone are enough to make me want to keep turning pages, at least for now.
Work
The highlight of my work week arrived when an engineer shared AI-generated suggestions he claimed could jumpstart the mandated migration of some SQL queries, only for me to discover that the suggestions included hallucinated fields, breaking one of the queries entirely. Granted, this particular query was an edge case and tricky to migrate, but still: watching AI confidently invent columns that don’t exist was a reminder that, in production, “trust but verify” should probably be shortened to just “verify.”
Writing
Another disappointing period of minimal writing, as I apparently wait for lightning to strike.
Links
Things I favorited in my RSS reader this week:
- Holding hands behind the driver's seat
- Navigating the Obvious Shoulds
- new blog title; present and presence
- thoughts about chasing joy
- A walk in Baltimore
- A Whisper I Carry Everywhere
- you can stick with it
This space is for rent—not really, but I can’t seem to fill it this week.
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