Posted by Chuck Grimmett. Learn more on his About page.
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2001 was a great year for albums
I started noticing the last couple years that many albums I remember fondly were released in 2001, so I got curious: What other albums did I listen to at one time that came out in 2001? The list was longer than I thought! It might have been because these albums were popular during formative time…
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Month of January 2026
January was a cold, snowy month. We had three snowstorms this month and average temperatures well below freezing, sometimes dipping into the negatives overnight. This is the coldest, snowiest January we’ve had since moving to Peekskill in 2019. Beginning of January: Mid-January: End of January: We’ve spent a lot of evenings snuggled on the couch…
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Breaking the ICE
The ICE protests and strikes today inspired me to write out some of my thoughts on those frozen-hearted bastards. In the last decade, I’ve strayed away from politics, having burnt myself out pouring so much of my time and attention on it from ~2006-2014. Now, I’m more pragmatic and less idealistic now than 15 years…
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Thinking of Spring
With temperatures in the single digits and sixteen inches of snow blanketing the world outside, my thoughts turn to spring. In my mind, I’m wandering alongside a stream, looking for telltale signs of a rising trout, or at least a place one might be hiding. Here are a few places I’m drawing inspiration as I…
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Three tiny snowballs
I thought about making these monotone, but I love the subtle blues that come out in photos of snow.
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In Praise of Mink Oil
I’ve spent hours this winter shoveling snow, making snowballs, packing snowmen, and pulling a sled. My hands have stayed dry thanks to Fiebing’s Golden Mink Oil. I bought these buckskin gloves a few years ago, but when they are brand new they aren’t waterproof. I needed a solution. After just one coat of Fiebing’s Golden…
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Digging out from Fern
Winter Storm Fern ended up dumping 16″ of snow on us in 24 hours. I’m spending much of today digging us and a neighbor out with the fourth round of shoveling. Thankfully we still have power and we didn’t get ice here. This is the most snow we’ve had at one time in our six…
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Christmas Lima bean, fennel, and sausage stew
This week I planned on making some green lentils in mujadara for my weekly bean dish, but with the blizzard, we needed some hearty stew. I found this recipe in the Rancho Gordo Heirloom Bean Guide. On the blizzard: Just before eating this, I measured 11 inches of snow. We have at least 3 more…
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Tehching Hsieh Exhibition
This week in Slack, Matt encouraged us to visit a museum for a couple hours during the work day. We live ~30 minutes from Dia:Beacon, which I visited twice even before we moved here. I messaged a couple coworkers who live in the area to see if they were free and wanted to join me.…
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Hand drawn maps
I love hand drawn maps. I’ve been digging through old guidebooks looking for trout fishing spots, and two of them have hand drawn stream maps, complete with names of specific pools, runs, eddies, and points of interest. Newer digital maps, often based on state GIS data or Google Maps, are great for easy mobile access,…
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Cozy places photo walk
As part of my goal for this year to get back into photography, I charged my SLR’s batteries and went on a photo walk in the woods after a big snow. I gave myself the theme of “cozy places” that small woodland creatures might hole up during the storm. I couldn’t help but take a…
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Snow day dessert
One of the things going around on Instagram right now is people making ice cream out in the snow. It sounded fun, so I pitched the idea to Charlie. I didn’t have to ask him twice! To speed up the process, I opted for a recipe that didn’t involve adding eggs and heating everything up…
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Habanero harvest 2025 sauce
Life was busy in late September/early October when the habaneros in our garden ripened, and I didn’t have the gumption to make a batch of hot sauce out of them. Charlie and I bagged them up and froze them instead. We ended up with ~60 orange and red habanero peppers, about twice as many as…
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Snowy Weekend
It snowed here all weekend. It is hard to tell exactly how much we got because Saturday the snow was fluffy and the wet, heavy snow on Sunday compressed it. There’s six inches on the porch railing as I write this, and it is still snowing. Charlie and I spent a few hours playing out…
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2016 trend
You’ve probably seen the Instagram trend of posting selfies from 2016. Here are some of mine. Visiting the Sol LeWitt Retrospective at MASSMoCA. I spent hours in this building taking notes on the wall drawings. LeWitt is my favorite artist and this retrospective is well worth your time if you like his work, too. Taking…
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Chili with Vaquero beans
This week’s bean dish was chili with vaquero beans. My original plan for this week was a lentil dish, but after rummaging around in the basement freezer, I realized we had tomatoes, tomato paste, and beef, so a nice hearty bowl of chili came to mind. Perfect for today’s snowstorm, which dropped four inches of…
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Discernment
The hard part isn’t learning the finer points of prompt engineering, how to set up and use agents, or how to connect the right systems for necessary context. The hard part is choosing when using AI is appropriate and when it isn’t. Choosing which output is acceptable and which isn’t. Choosing what to work on…
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Shopsmith is back under new ownership
An email went out to the Shopsmith mailing list last night saying that they are under new ownership. Here is a link to the browser version of the email from Mailchimp. TL;dr: This is good news! Their website hasn’t been updated yet, but I bet that will happen soon. Here’s a video with the new…
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Cassoulet bean gratin
This week’s bean dish was a gratin made with cassoulet beans, fennel bulb, onion, garlic, thyme, and breadcrumbs. Recipe from Rancho Gordo, which I’m sure you read about in the WSJ this weekend. Amanda and I both loved it. Charlie wouldn’t try it, but he was very curious about what fennel bulb is, how beans…