Andreas Krennmair has a new book out focusing on ‘Bavarian white beer’, AKA Hefeweizen, AKA wheat beer. And it’s reminded us to check in with this intriguing style. Out and about in Bristol’s pubs yesterday one thing that struck us was that German wheat beer is a style that’s become quite mainstream in the UK since the UK Weizen craze of the 1990s. The Barley Mow near Bristol Temple Meads station had a draught wheat beer from Ayinger and multiple examples in bottles in the fridge. But even…
Daily Drawing 903
I mostly spend this week up in Cologne. A bunch of in-person meetings, a bit of hanging out with friends and coworkers, good (and some not so good) food and the days went by very quickly. For the first time in quite some while I took the train instead of driving and frankly – when it works and once you’re in the train, it is really a nice way to travel distances like this. Train stations are a bit of a slog, though. Now over the weekend I’m slowly acclimating myself to the warm weather that…
I just noticed the posts lately have been few and far apart here - even if i promised myself to write most days as a goal for 2026. The reasons (excuses?) for the slow down are many: loss of interest in the shiny new thing (the blog) spring and summer in full swing demand of you to enjoy the sunny days while they are there (literally and figuratively) the internal monologue had no breathing room (days got very busy lately) overall, looking back, to few months ago, I’m happier and less in need…
The sky at 1:00am on 4 July 2017, Tuusniemi, Finland 21 June 2026 Happy Summer Solstice! By the time you read this the moment of the northern solstice will have passed in Pittsburgh on 21 June 2026 at 4:24 am EDT. We usually have only one longest day per year but sometimes the solstice lines up to give us two days with the same number of hours, minutes and seconds. This is one of those years with 15 hours, 3 minutes and 50 seconds of sunlight both yesterday and today. (The day lengths probably…
For Father's Day, I'm remembering Dad (Harold D. Burk, 1909-1978). Sis and I rediscovered this snapshot while assembling content for a photo book of our family's first decade.Dad has a big smile on his face while sitting at the Pulitzer Fountain, near the famous Plaza Hotel -- and opposite where the luxe Savoy Plaza Hotel once stood. Dad owned a travel agency located in the lobby of the Savoy Plaza Hotel. He and his brother (Sidney Burk, 1915-1995) arranged train and plane tickets for the…
I was mostly busy at work this week. I impulse bought a new watch yesterday (a Timex Weekender). I don’t know why; I’ve been watching videos of watches lately. I must stop before it gets too out of hand (pun absolutely intended). I’ve also been slowly making my way through The Count of Monte Cristo. Slowly being the operative word here. Other than that, this weekend was spent on the down low. It is cloudy / pleasant today and I’m definitely enjoying it.
Here's one for Father's Day, tangentially. A loose, joyful almost-sonnet, written by Gavin Ewart, sixty years ago this month...June 1966Lying flat in the bracken of Richmond Parkwhile the legs and voices of my children passseeking, seeking: I remember how on the13th of June of that simmering 1940I was conscripted into the East Surreys,and, more than a quarter of a centuryago, when France had fallen,we practised concealment in this very bracken.The burnt stalks pricked through my denims.Hitler…
"Hong Kong is a special administrative region of China. Situated on China's southern coast just south of Shenzhen, it consists of Hong Kong Island, Kowloon, and the New Territories. With 7.5 million residents in a 1,114-square-kilometre (430 sq mi) territory, Hong Kong is the fourth-most densely populated region in the world."
Women of Music volume 19Nikki Corvette on cover Abbe Lane - A Good Man Is Hard to Find.mp3 Ailish McBride - Scania 164.mp3 Brenda Lee (& The Vocaltones) - Ain't Gonna Give Nobody.mp3 Eileen Barton - Fujiyama Mama .mp3 Lorin Dean - Fi Fo Fum.mp3 Marsha Lyn - Tennessee Homesick Blues.mp3 Maxine Davis - Another Man.mp3 Nikki And The Corvettes - Honey Bop!.mp3 Scooter Lee - Barefootin'.mp3 Tanya Tucker - San Antonio Stroll (Single Version).mp3 Terri ''Cup Cake'' O'Mason - Cup Cakes.mp3 Winfield…
💬📚 “I am a brain, Watson. The rest of me is a mere appendix.” Arthur Conan Doyle, The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes
Hey, Bear. It started at the morning yesterday at 9:30. The first fpv entered our treeline from behind. We never used that entrance, but our antenna on a tree was exactly there. That's the moment when we were doomed. It detonated somewhere at the roof of our digout. It was looking for our neighbors, who are stupid and arrived to our chill and far place just a day before. They were uncovered and already opened up. I packed all (unfortunately almost all) my stuff immediately, the mac, the clothes…
Oyster Catchers at Ross Priory flickr photo by NomadWarMachine shared under a Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) license
I aim to improve my Chinese reading through regular practice. This video represents a point on that journey. Text: Friend’s Tea - Chapter 5 (小绿不高兴) Source: Du Chinese Level: Elementary
Sent out a new issue of my newsletter
The Quicktake 100 and 150 have the same layout on that level. Problem with this Quicktake 150 was that it didn’t respond to the computer. It sent its Hello when DTR went down, but then did not reply to the first computer init message. I supposed it meant its RX pin was somehow disconnected. This was true. The Quicktake is an assembly of multiple PCBs (at least 5), connecting to each other via flat flexible cables, ribbon cables, bare wires, and PCB-to-PCB connectors, either angled or stacked.…
I got to go back for the usual comics jam for a pride-themed potluck! I brought along a friend that I haven't gotten to spend time with for a long while, which was incredibly nice. We talked a lot about what's been going on in our lives, and how we're coping with the realities of being chronically ill in more ways than one. I'm happy to see he's doing well despite both our difficulties. (he's an artist like me, you can find his portfolio here! Anyway, one of the things I did was finish an…
Expiation by Elizabeth Von Arnim published 1929 There is one book by this author that I really love: Fraulein Schmidt and Mr Anstruther. Others – not so much; My notes on one of them read: Dreadful. Absolutely awful. Two horrible girls. Dire. I didn’t like Enchanted April, or her Garden. I do like the fact that her books are numerous and very varied: Vera (1921) was an unexpected, compelling read, a very accomplished & not at all cheerful picture of a marriage, supposedly descriptive of her own…
It is the Summer Solstice apparently so it feels like a good time to reflect on the first half of my 2026. — TL;DR It has been a bit on the bleak side. — The Good It hasn’t all been bad. I started the year very excited to be back as a ‘real’ Civil Servant at GDS and to be working on a big, high profile data initiative. The team is lovely. Talented, committed, determined and just cynical enough for me to fit in with. It has also been nice to spend some time in the offices in Bristol, Manchester…
Some goats, just goating around, watching me mow the field. Thanks for reading this post via RSS. RSS is ace, and so are you. ❤️ You can reply to this post by email, or leave a comment.
A dull cloudy day with rain at times. Washed B2 and K cars. Brushed the drive up. New joiner started here today. Pumped tyres up on the moped.
I wanted to read something about aliens and possibly a bit trashy… Maybe I found it? 👀 *Still in progress* 🏃Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!
That was just OK. Perfect cast and amazing location, the finale and plot twist were a bit foreseeable, I guess. Anyway, I liked it! Rating: 👌Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!
Three episodes in, and the rhythm is already oscillating. I am a big fan of the Part II videogame, I can see it must have been hard to put some connections between characters on screen. We’ll see how it goes. *Still in progress* 🏃Hey, thanks for reading my blog via the RSS feed! Feel welcome to get in touch!
It’s not long until the solar sharer offer comes into force in many states across Australia, so while I am a little miffed by the fact that none of the retailers seem to be openly publishing their pricing ahead-of-time, perhaps fearful of a mass exodus, I’m still working towards being ready-to-go from day one. Part of that is the automation of loads. If you’re using power stations to gather energy during the free period, you might have noticed that the majority of units don’t have any…
I’ve been doing the Weekly Challenges. The latest involved . (Note that this ends today.)
A reader messaged me last week with a question about a topic that has been in my backlog for a few months now, AI and the physical world. The request was the following “Can you elaborate on the rate of adoption of AI for the physical world? We see [it] operating almost entirely in the digital realm. The Tesla FSD vehicles are examples of AI moving in the physical world. We are also beginning to see other machines such as humanoid robots move through space by interpreting the visual field. But…
Emma Warren's 'Up the Youth Club: illuminating a hidden history' is an enthusiastic account of 150 years of recreational provision for young people. This has taken many forms, but she identifies a number of common themes:'A central quality connects all the spaces in this book, whether they're attended by five young people or five hundred, in a shed or a purpose-built centre. A youth club, as far as I'm concerned, is a broadly warm and welcoming space where those who are in their second decade…
