every monday morning, my work computer gives me hell for the first 2 hours of my shift. arguably, these are the most crucial hours on a monday morning.
BACK TO THEIR ROOTS: [Rochester Knighthaws Return to Iconic Teal and Purple].(https://rochesterknighthawks.com/knighthawks-return-to-iconic-teal-and-purple/) The original Knighthawks franchise used the color scheme until relocating in 2019; the expansion replacement team used a green, gold, and black scheme since.
Once again, good morning from Nashville Superspeedway! By now, I’m sure most have heard that today’s race has been shortened to last year’s distance – 225 laps. The official explanation is that there will be record heat this afternoon. The forecast is for a high of 90°, which is certainly not a record high for […]
Triad Hydrophilic Wound Dressing, Vashe Wound Solution OTC, and bandages. As much as I try to avoid them, I’m unfortunately familiar with the bumps and scrapes that come with mountain biking; typically minor injuries from brushing a tree of or falling over in the dirt. A few weeks back when riding at River Bends on a far-too-worn-out tire and working on faster, flat cornering, I ended up sliding out, falling over, and scraping the front / outer-side of my left shin / calf on some hard-packed…
I have a cashmere cardigan which is a real favourite. It is soft, cosy and comfortable and I have owned it for a very long time. Needless to say, the moment has arrived when it has developed holes at the elbow, as seen below. A hole in the sleeve of a cashmere cardigan, photo by Amanda Jane Ogden This is how I dealt with the problem: 1. I found a small dish in the cupboard that offered me a suitable shape for a patch. China dish, used as a template for a patch, photo by Amanda Jane Ogden 2. I…
Last year we brought The People of 1925 figuratively back to life in an article that went beyond the politics of the day to focus on ordinary people leading everyday lives. It attracted a wider readership than we expected, so we've decided to follow it up with The People of 1926.The research is taking a little longer than anticipated (just as it did last year), but look out for the article over the next few weeks. As before, we'll be exploring the faces, fashions, and fragments of ordinary…
The teen had taken over the TV. He was watching first-person action-cam footage of dirt bike jumps. “Wow, this really makes me want to play a video game about racing dirt bikes,” I teased him. Then I went silent. I frowned. Later, while throwing Aerobies with the tyke outside, I’d gone silent again. I guess she’d asked me a question, but I didn’t hear her. “Sorry,” I said to her, “I was just thinking.” I was thinking about how I’d never broken a bone before. Too scared to risk life and limb for…
Weekly cleaning and home improvement series. Late start today (it's 11:50). I spent too much editing Star Platinum's face in Tomodachi Life. In fact, it's still half done but I have to get the show on the road now. Lots of tasks to do before the first clean. Weekly cleanToday's focus in the living room. The dining table is piled up again, womp womp. So I'll be tackling that, along with the coffee table as it could use a wipe and a tidy. Home improvementMy (solely mine, not Daniel's, because he…
It was my second session with my coach. Thankfully, it didn’t leave me emotionally distraught, my brain scattered, my thoughts all over the place, or feeling like someone had just bored straight into my soul with fiber lasers the way our first session did. We were just about to close the call when she handed me an assignment of three questions to complete; the first was about my strengths, which was easy enough because I could just ask other people what they thought instead of having to figure…
Our tent is old. That's a good thing, I think. We've had it since we started this whole adventure thing, now almost exactly a decade ago. It's performed well during that time, and though I've often lusted after something GFC-ish, I can't say that the tent has ever let us down in any way that a much more expensive camper would have solved. In fact, there are really only three features I've found myself "missing" - if one can miss something they've never had - in well over 1,000 nights sleeping…
I am still baffled by the number of people who want to become influencers and share their "life" with 8 billion people on Instagram. You might think I am also sharing my life on this blog, writing my views and exposing my incredible soul to the world. While you might be right with my inclination towards "sharing" my opinions, I do not consider myself an influencer, and I have no plans to become one. Truthfully, I do not consider that I have anything extraordinary to tell the world. There is a…
Week 2^8 So, England failed to beat Argentina in their World Cup semi-final, owing to a tactical cock-up from our supposed super-tactician head coach. Irritating. No "second star" this time, then. The boys went to bed at half-time, and then shed a few tears when they watched the second-half highlights the morning after. Football: it toughens you up for future hope-then-disappointment events in life. Or it mentally scars you, I'm not quite sure which. I ordered a BUSY Bar in the early-bird sale.…
Thanks! Feel free to drop by this entry and leave a comment. The big mystery of this game is: What is giving genies the ability to break their bonds and act against the wills of their masters? It happened to Farid al-Mutan in times past, and it happened to my family's genie just recently, resulting in my mother, father, and sister being tossed into the caliph's prison. Meanwhile, the caliph (my future father-in-law) himself is growing increasingly tyrannical, suppressing speech and jailing…
I was awake at 5AM, previous experience said it was probably not worth it to try and get more sleep, so up I went for some coffee.It was a mere 75°F this early here in the Colorado Front Range so I sat outside on the driveway watching the eastern horizon begin to light up.The coolness got me thinking, once minimally caffeinated, that this was probably a good time of the day for a short ride. It was another torridly sunny hot day in the weather forecast (but at least not as humid as in the lower…
More very sad news. Kevin Keegan (left) has passed away from cancer at the age of 75. He made his reputation at Liverpool, and in Germany, but I remember him best as a player and captain of the Newcastle United team that got promotion to the (then) First Division in 1984. At that time I was a student at Cambridge and member of the local branch of the NUFC Supporters’ Club so I got to see him play quite a few times. Keegan retired from playing at the end of that season and bid an emotional…
Spain won World Cup 2026 having suffocated Argentina. Beyond that there’s nothing that I, a non-watcher of league football, can add on the punditry front. But what I will say is that it was satisfying to see Argentina denied a repeat win. They wouldn’t have deserved it this round, especially not in the final against Spain. Enzo Fernandez, who won 2022’s FIFA Young Player award, behaved like a troll and was sent off. Leon Paredes ended up being sent off after the match, for being a sore loser…
It’s been almost a year since we started developing the original idea for what turned into The Consistency Journal. This post is intentionally brief and incomplete: Sometimes an experiment needs months or years to work out. Taking on work outside of an experiment can buy the time and relaxation you need to sustain it. It reminds me of how the Pokemon Company sustained itself by doing services work while making its first games, which delayed the process. Part of this practice involved not…
I've been reading 'The Drunkard's Walk' and it's been such an interesting read, I've always had an interest in randomness and so this was a standout for me. One of the things that the book mentions is that the probability of two events both occurring will never be greater than the probability of each event occurring individually. The best way I thought about this was as a Venn diagram, in which event A is circle one and event B is circle two, the middle overlap becomes both events happening…
2026/07/20: Rabies shots for everyone today! My vet friend came here to help me out, but I couldn't for the life of me find Chica's hiding spot, and we trapped Minnie inside the cat's room and she just exploded the cat door, blasting through it lol. I gave their shots myself later when they calmed down. We are months late for it, we gave their multivalent shot in April, but because of the amount of pets we have, we are paying in installments, and we had other expenses, and last month we ended…
They say that you can get stuck in the past if you keep looking back too much. However, I’ve recently learned that looking back to the past can help you move forward in life! Last night I looked up from the hot tub and stared at the Big Dipper, which immediately transported me back to Alaska. It was the state flag of Alaska in the sky, staring back at me. Thirty years after I took a chance and opened up a Sea Kayaking expedition business in Alaska, I look back and thank my younger self for that…
Resuming a regular practice of public reflection With the return of the Pika Pulse, I return to blogging, and ultimately, return to the act of public reflection. This differs from private reflection (typically, journalling) not so much as in the obvious nature of the audience but rather the form that the reflection itself takes. Private reflection is essential and the ultimate source of self-growth and realization, but for anyone dealing with conflict of any kind it seems to inevitably turn…
Firstly, thank you all for your get well wishes. The aches and pains has gone, to be replaced by itchiness. I take this as a good sign. The dressings have been changed daily, and the nurses seemed pleased, saying the wound ‘is very dry’. My appointment with the surgeon was to Friday, and he seemed pleased too. The dressing will now be changed every other day, and I am allowed to wash my hair. I can even get it cut, if the hairdresser is comfortable with it. Additionally, the surgeon didn’t a…
This post dedicated to the lovely Zmia Garinia. A continuation from this post, this time focused solely on the Barony itself. Baronials farm in sustainable and out-of-focus ways, because I don't know much about farming. The Barony is fairly sparsely populated compared to its neighbours, and its food requirements are not centrally organised. The Baroness takes a great interest in the possibilities of modernising this system, and imposing better state information-gathering and direct taxation and…
I shot these first, of the two post's worth, but they ended-up as the second post for reasons I've already forgotten, half the bagged/carded stuff, and a bit of detritus at the end, but all good stuff! Sorpresa . . . Italian for Sobre, Spanish for surprise! And Natale Luigi (NL) is a new one for the Tag list. I remember ten lira being about half-a-p in 1977, so it's not going to break
As usual, these kind of places are great but the experience is a test of patience. A reminder to avoid tours in tourist places 100% with no exception.At least everything is a pleasure in Thailand. Good (and tropical) atmosphere and nice feeling is a constant layer which brings happiness.
Summer is my very favorite season. The days are long and I am the absolute best version of myself . As you can tell by the sporadic posting, I’m deep in a writer’s block funk, so here’s a quick catch-up of the Summer of Forced Fun so far… Homemade vanilla syrup The older I get the more I dig a quality vanilla. I bought vanilla beans from Amazon a month ago and made my own vanilla coffee syrup! On my first try, the sugar re-solidified (I boiled too much moisture away), but the second attempt…
I attended a concert by highly accomplished students and teachers from a music camp nearby, and I was awestruck by their skill. And envious of their world of music. And grateful too, that I’d had some experience through my voice studies of what it’s like to settle deeper and deeper into a piece of music, to gain levels of intimacy with the music, the composer’s intentions, and with the other musicians on stage. I loved the process of the awkward first encounters with a piece, all angles and…
It was another busy weekend, with a baptism at church and lots of preparation, but I thought that I needed a morning out, so joined the Dawes bus to the Chatham show. A very pleasant morning, and a pretty good show. No layouts with a massive ‘wow’ factor, but a lot of very good ones. Perhaps too many OO roundy-roundys, running out of the box stock – but that’s a matter of personal taste, and I do prefer small, finescale layouts. After previous years fights with the in-house catering, we made…
Let's cut the chase* – oh dear, it's as I feared. Here is an update about the renovation of this marvellous example of 1960's architecture.It used to look like this, giving luxury airport vibes:In my previous post I had written that I had been told that the orange letters (Eurostile/Microgramma with gilded outlines and recessed centres) would be reinstated. Er. No. A few weeks ago I noticed that much of the scaffolding had been removed. I snapped this image:Here we can see that he orange…
This post is dedicated to the lovely Purple. The Forest of Worms stretches off endlessly into the east at the border of cleared Baronial territory. It houses the worms themselves, in their teeming, uncounted millions, and the roaming bands of Little Birds, and for these reasons is commonly acknowledged as impassable. This has not stopped people from trying it. In the ancient days of the pre-Imperial Barony there were great heroes, ten feet tall, fifteen feet, in monstrous bronze harness and…
