Happy Friday! Today is National Tattoo Day (I have many tattoo ideas and exactly zero tattoos), National Lottery Day (I always wish to win but never play), and another summer Friday off! I haven’t blogged regularly since July because I’ve been nose deep in work and true to me, I was letting it spill past the end of the workday/workweek. We have a big project that is rolling along until November, and I had to develop my department’s budget for the first time and then discuss my reasoning for it…
Birthday weeks is upon us!! I’m very lucky and thankful that my siblings and I get along and are good friends as adults - we all have birthdays close to each other (almost every other week) so have started our annual Birthday Weeks. All 3 of us live in the same city so we’re able to meet up on each other’s actual birthday. Our tradition is to have the other 2 siblings pay for the bday sibling’s dinner (their choice of restaurant). We do a belated celebration when our parents are in town too -…
I wrote this post on Facebook yesterday. In 1974 the U.S. enacted permanent Daylight Saving Time by moving the clocks forward in January. It proved to be wildly unpopular, because it turns out folks going to work in the dark and kids getting hit by school buses while waiting in the morning darkness aren’t a good thing. And the decision was reversed by the end of the 1974. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill yesterday to bring permanent DST back, because it provides “extra sunlight”.…
[The photographer sweated some blood about it.] This Sunday, soccer’s World Cup will end with world #1 Argentina facing off against #2 Spain. The day prior, #3 France will play #4 England in the third-place contest. Given how things wound up, it really seems like we could have skipped the 102 matches that preceded all this, but here we are. In that championship final, Argentina’s veteran superstar Lionel Messi will line up across from Spain’s up-and-coming 19-year-old Lamine Yamal. It will not…
On May 3, 2026, I spent the afternoon walking around the Brooklyn neighborhood of Red Hook with a friend. That walk led to my May 25, 2026 report on seeing a large warehouse fire in Belleville, New Jersey, from across the river. I took the photo of smoke rising from the Garden State that I used in my reportage at 3:59 PM. Now let us skip ahead 51 minutes to 4:50. After admiring the scenic water views (admittedly interrupted by the troubling smoke rising from New Jersey), my friend and I…
Exhausting week! I took on part-time moonlight editing work from an old colleague in Los Angeles. I haven't accepted extra freelance work in years, mainly because I didn't need the extra money and I was exhausted from doing double duty in 2021-2023 when I was finishing my degree while still working full-time (both were remote). However, the opportunity now is quite welcome. While it was awesome to be able to get a job in my field in Taiwan, the actual work isn't a boost to my career or for…
From The Complete Guide to Fasting. We have a bunch of conditioned responses to triggers like a thought of watching a movie, or a football match. The sizzling of veggies (or steak) on the pan. Time of day, and so on. We have done this same thing so many times. Even though we are not hungry at night, we would still make some food or eat, lest we get hungry at night. Hunger is ok. It feels like the end of the world - but it is not. Hugh Howey talks about it in his routine as well. We often don’t…
This turns out to be almost exactly the one year anniversary of me writing a letter of gratitude to a blogger whose work I really appreciate. The reply I got was roughly “Thank you! A note like this makes my day”. It’s something I absolutely can and should do more of. Recently I sent a note to a small musician when I realized their song had been popping into my head for nearly 15 years. I appreciate so many people in the world, but I don’t always say it. I had been procrastinating on setting a…
A couple of days ago, Casey Liss took a break from arguing about temperature scales to tweak me about the recent passage of the Sunshine Protection Act by the House. The Act would make Daylight Saving Time permanent, something Casey knows I disapprove of. A similar bill passed the Senate a few years ago, and Donald Trump has said he will sign this one, so there’s a decent chance it’ll become law. Let’s see what will happen if it does. First, of course, there will be a lot of cheering from the…
I used to be a colorguard director. I used to be a very good colorguard director. I've taken kids to Indy and Dayton (iykyk). I've won awards. I've trained champions. Normally, I'd be busy as heck for the next couple weeks, preparing for band camp at the start of August. But I'm not. Because for the first time in over 15 years and over 25 seasons, I do not have a program to direct this fall. The implications of that are only just starting to sink in. Today, though, what's hitting me is that I…
Words: Chris ArnsbyJakki Brambles: “Hello, good evening and welcome along to Top of the Pops on BBC1 and you can hear us in stereo on Radio 1FM. Well, it’s an all star line up on tonight’s show. We’re starting off with a lady who’s knocking ‘em dead on both sides of the Atlantic. Will you welcome, in the studio, Cathy Dennis.” [28] CATHY DENNIS: JUST ANOTHER DREAM. A very high concept start to this performance. Kathy Dennis stands singing while dancers wearing black raincoats and Fedoras turn…
07-17-26: found a pretty purple while on my hot girl walk
I have quite a few photos of this building, I pass it on the way to the office and I just like the stone and windows. On this particular morning I was actually waiting for a break in traffic because I liked the one garbage bin with its lid up out front of the Weird Harbour espresso bar. It wasn’t until I had taken the photo and lowered the camera that I noticed the man drinking his morning espresso in the window. I smiled and kept walking. Photograph tags: halifax, street, BelieveInFilm,…
It'll be a long process, so far I only changed the color scheme, added new images and rewrote the first tab! Please do a cache refresh to fully enjoy the cabbage makeover.
Monarch lighthouse emoji, pickle emoji, cracked face emoji I don’t know how you’re gonna last another year without a Lighthouse. This coastal beacon functions as a literal guiding light through the dark night of your soul.
Victoria Square Deansgate Newport Street Even on the warmest of days, a flat cap seems obligatory for some folk. Perhaps it is the distinguishing feature of proper northern folk?A ride on Daddy’s shoulders always looks like a good way to get around town, and even after the national team’s disappointing performance, football still matters to kids, just as it should.
Landlord's Super is fascinating - it's an incredibly fiddly construction game where you build shitty, low-rent homes and then rent them out to tenants in a tiny town meant to represent Thatcher-era Bristol, UK. The game begins with a text monologue where an older family member lectures you on the morals of the time - greed, sneakiness, "getting your bit," making sure you get ahead. You then select your character model by determining what type of immigrant your father was - a migrant from the…
Even mediocre conditions can make great sessionsI saw a surfer in the water smiling big. Conditions were middling. Closeouts. Pretty choppy. There were some corners to be had, but a lot of fierce paddling by surfers ending in not-ridden waves. The smiling man was smiling SO BIG. He looked like maybe he’d burst into song–like a 1950s Hollywood Musical. Not a young guy. Not too old. His ebullience was intriguing. I saw him take off on a wave. I moved a bit away. When I go out and bodysurf with…
I’m going to get on my soapbox again and call out Apple once more on the extremely limited HomeKit automation experience–and how they can fix 80% of the gripes I have with it by just cloning a small subset of the Shortcuts user experience. The most infuriating, they-are-so-close annoyance I have with it is that automations can only have one trigger, and extremely basic conditions, to the point where they are effectively useless in real life. Right now, HomeKit automation is effectively as…
Another day, another Cirrus SR22T (reg. N16EU) in EKSN.
It's turning out to be a bonanza summer for beekeeping. The third heatwave has conveniently coincided with the flowering of acres and acres of Phacelia, and the colonies are furiously piling in the nectar.Actually, that's not quite accurate … there's nothing furious about it.Even colonies that have previously been a bit temperamental are decidedly 'mellow' thanks to the consistently good weather and ample nectar.Instead, they are single-mindedly filling the supers, and studiously ignoring my…
Would you trust these two men with your investment? Jeff Braun and Will Wright shortly before Maxis’s IPO. This article tells part of the story of Maxis Software. Maxis came into 1994 riding high on the wings of SimCity 2000, the hit of the previous holiday season. They followed up that success with… SimHealth: The National Health Care Simulation. This may sound like satire, but it was all too real. To be clear, SimHealth was not, say, a playful look at the life of a hospital, with eccentric…
Back in 2018 or 2019, our Necromunda group played a big multiplayer rolling road game - everyone mounted their gang in one or more vehicles. Jason used an old beat-up 40k civilian truck he'd made as scenery some time previously. The paint job was tired, it was missing a wheel, a mudguard and the entire rear section was detached, but it served the purpose in speeding his gang around the board.After the game he gave it to me to repair and rebuild, as he knew I'd use it. Embarrassingly, the truck…
Dream. I’m giving some kind of lecture to grad students with not fully prepared slides. There are slides that I made some time ago and have forgotten whe I meant by them. But what feels important is an image that’s just the number “7”, in black, sans serif font, against a plain white background; this is meant to suggest an unequivocal decision, something that just is a certain way, without ambiguity. When I woke up this morning I found this dream and its central image puzzling. But it’s…
We were pleasantly surprised to hear the musical stylings of the incomparable Nick Doneff during lunch on the MV Northumberland crossing from Wood Islands to Caribou this morning. He really is a musical treasure.“It’s times like this that I’m proud to be an Islander,” Lisa said. Agreed.
Overall, a good but hectic week. I spent time planning for the next few months. Planning is my comfort zone. When things are planned, I sleep better. It doesn’t mean I can’t do unplanned things; I can, and I often do. But I like the regular parts of life to have a thought-out routine. Lately, I’ve realized that simply having a routine has been relaxing. After DEXA we got some food at Ssp Eating House. I had a DEXA scan done at Vital Insights. Overall, it shows improvement from last year. My BFP…
I am not staying up to watch the third-place match. I don’t feel there are real stakes involved. But I am staying up for the final. 2022 was one of the most entertaining World Cup matches I’ve ever watched. And I hope 2026 will be just as wonderful. I will temper my expectations in terms of the number of goals, though. Let’s see how Spain’s impenetrable defence deals with Argentina’s attack waves (and Messi)!
A short update after a trip to visit family ft. more sci-fi, movies, and Zelda. Took the trip to visit my family over the weekend and now am back and getting back into normal routine. It was a filial piety visit, but for my own enjoyment I had a few goals while I was there that I managed to achieve: See the ocean Walk around and do touristy things Go for a nature walk/hike See the stars Visiting my family is generally a stressful, depressing thing, so now I feel like I need another vacation to…
Emma, John and Rowan finished school for the term which of course means we’re now in Hell. I plan to switch to working from home two days a week rather than three but I’m not sure what we’re going to do to keep them occupied. Oh, and the summer heat is oppressive enough that I think we might actually be in Hell. Rowan wanted to go out on a shinkansen and so I made a deal that if we did that, we had to go to a museum first. I thought the easiest choice (given its relative proximity to Tokyo…
