Blog posts don’t have to be Atlantic-style essays, ground-breaking ideas, or heavily researched. Not everything has to be epic or viral. You can post whatever you want, whenever you want. Keep it low friction and hit Publish. Personal blogs are meant to be low stakes.
It can be a technical note to save you time in the future.
Ma.tt sometimes shares links or videos with one line of commentary, and the site currently has snow falling down the page. The color of the theme changes with the seasons.
Scripting News, probably the longest running blog on the web, has a stream of commentary and links on a wide variety of subjects every day.
Sometimes Manton just has pictures of a coffee shop or short commentary about new Lego releases.
DaringFireball.net sometimes just has links to Philly baseball articles.
I’m a big fan of blogging about what you do, kind of as a public journal. Weekly or monthly recaps are great!
Write about what you read/listened to/watched in the last month.
A Tweet or Instagram post can be a blog post. Just post them in both places!
What are your special interests? Right now mine are wood turning and fly fishing/fly tying. Write about yours! Do you bake sourdough? Try different whiskeys? Sew? Collect baskets? Know everything about the Arizona Diamondbacks? Write about it!
Post quotes from what you read.
Post links to things that capture your interest for a few minutes.
Don’t overthink it or get caught up in what other people might think of your post.
Social networks are walled gardens. They are closed networks that restrict how users interact, what they see, and how data flows.
Outside of the walls is the blogosphere. It is diverse and distributed.
If the web is Westeros, social platforms are the Seven Kingdoms, run by mad kings from their Iron Thrones, and the blogosphere is Beyond the Wall. Free folk, wildlings. There are clans that sometimes fight each other and othertimes unite against common enemies.
Just as modern Westeros has some of its roots beyond the wall at Fist of the First Men, the modern Web has some of its roots in the blogosphere.
The Seven Kingdoms (social networks), though at times opulent and tempting, are feudal and exploitative. No place for free folk (bloggers and creators) to live.
A room of one’s own
Facebook is where you post stuff you are okay with your great aunt commenting on. Instagram is where you post pictures of your family, the meal you cooked, and where you went on vacation. Twitter is where you post hot takes. TikTok is where you post dance videos. LinkedIn is where you make stuff up about your job.
Your blog is where you can be you. You post what you want, when you want. Algorithms and mad king tech overlords be damned.
Like Virginia Woolf said, if you want to create art you need a room of your own. On the web that is your blog, at your own domain name. (h/t Joan).
To keep the Game of Thrones references going, I’ll misquote Mance Rayder:
“The freedom to makepost my own mistakes was all I ever wanted.” – Mance Rayder.
The blogosphere is where creativity, individuality, and diversity thrive on the web.
People keep claiming blogging is dead. To that I say, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” Inside the Seven Kingdoms you are blind to the world Beyond the Wall. Out here we are living and blogging. Every day my feed reader is full of new interesting blog posts. Some times it is harder to blog than others, but we keep at it.
Blogging is very much alive, though it is constantly under threat, just as the web overall is. Some of the threats come from the nature of the closed social networks themselves, Other threats are from government overreach and censorship in some countries, AI, and centralized infrastructure like AWS and Cloudflare.
Where do we go from here?
Hodor!
Hodor! Hold the door against the things that threaten our independent blogosphere and the web in general: Closed networks, billionaires who want to own your content and attention, and AI White Walkers.
We need open standards, better independent blogging tools, and people willing to use them. People willing to step outside the closed networks and post on their own domain.
Unlike Westeros, there’s no Arya Stark in the blogosphere to save the open web. It is up to each of us. Keep blogging. Keep linking. Keep reading feeds. Encourage others to keep blogging, too. The open web depends on it.
Don’t have a blog yet? Set one up with WordPress or Micro.blog. Email me and I’ll help.
Earlier this year I started noticing some runout on the spindle of my 50 year old Shopsmith Mark V. I did some reading about my specific model and came to two conclusions:
The bearing has never been replaced and is probably worn out.
The quill in my machine is a single bearing quill.
What I also learned is a bit trickier: Replacing the single bearing might solve some of the problem, but won’t solve the entire problem. Later versions of the Shopsmith shipped with double bearing quills, adding a second bearing to further support the spindle. The spindle on the single bearing quill is still supported by the drive sleeve, but there is a bit of give there, which contributes to the runout.
The rabbit hole gets a bit deeper. It turns out that Shopsmith made many different kinds of quills. Everett Davis wrote an incredible guide to all the different kinds of bearings in 2017, which includes details about the different kinds of quills. I’ve reposted that here in its entirety:
To be certain what kind I had, Charlie and I pulled my quill out and took it apart. Looks like a 1970s single bearing quill, which matches with my machine’s serial number.
One design flaw of the double bearing quills that Shopsmith started shipping in 1984 is that the spindle changed from a single piece of machined steel to a two-piece spindle pinned together. According to James, this is prone to bending. Also, with the two bearings being so close together and the back one being smaller, the back one wears out faster, again causing runout.
So do you choose a single bearing quill and the runout, or a double bearing quill and risk bending it when doing heavy, unbalanced turning?
At first I chose the two-piece double bearing quill since I try to balance out my work pieces as much as possible. Then Shopsmith went out of business before they shipped it to me (and closed down all customer service avenues). I eventually got my money back through a chargeback, then went hunting for alternatives.
I was going to just order new bearings, change them myself, and live with it, until I came across this video from Skip Campbell:
Skip takes the one-piece spindle single bearing quills and machines them to fit a second bearing on the back. Great idea! Best of both worlds—same-sized bearings spaced far apart on a single-piece spindle. I ordered one from him at MKC tools.
Here it is where you can see the rear bearing and the
I put it in my machine and turned a small bowl. It works like a dream. No runout, and no chatter unless I’m using my bowl gouge incorrectly. With the old one the runout caused chatter even with light cuts.
Now that Shopsmith is shut down, I’m sourcing backups of critical non-standard parts, so I’m going to reach out to Skip and see if he’ll machine my original quill to fit a second bearing so I have a replacement. I’d love for this machine to last another 50 years.
This weekend a friend texted me a screenshot of a Pinterest link his wife sent to him.
It was a link to my climbing wall post. She wants him to build one for their son. He recognized Charlie and my blog right away. Someone had pinned it and it gets a decent amount of traffic.
In a nutshell, that is why I blog. It warms my heart that people are building swing sets and climbing walls for their kids after reading one of my posts. I know of at least eight swing sets built from my post, and I assume there are more based on how many views the post series gets.
I share things on this blog in an attempt to inspire others to share things on their blogs, too. I often get ideas from the blogging community for things to read, projects to make, dishes to cook, and places to go. Sometimes this sparks conversations in person, too!
I also blog things for future me. I am probably the single most frequent consumer of my old posts. I could keep it all buried away in Obsidian or Evernote, but I like sharing it.
I’d love if you shared the things you make, read, and do, too. Preferably on your own blog instead of locked inside a walled garden (Facebook, Instagram, etc.) When you do, send me a link. I’d love to read it.
I also blogged about blogging a couple years ago in Why Blog?.
One of the things I want to do in 2026 is to cook more beans. It occurred to me a few nights ago that I should try to make at least one bean dish each week.
For the past three years, we’ve started the new year by going for a walk in the woods to collect pinecones and make a little treat for the birds. We roll them in peanut butter and birdseed, then go back out the next day and leave them on logs, tree stumps, and branches for the birds.
It has become an accidental tradition and a fun way to start out the year by being out in nature, doing something together as a family, and being kind to the wild birds we enjoy watching in the woods.
Collecting:
Making:
Distributing:
While both collecting and distributing, we were fortunate to see the resident pileated woodpeckers hard at work hunting for bugs. The seed mix we used included sunflower seeds and peanuts, and we stuck a few pinecones in their trademark oval holes, so we hope they found them and had a snack.
We started the month by getting rid of the Thanksgiving decorations. Charlie wanted to run them over with the car, so we did.
We set up the Christmas Tree in stages. First the tree + train, then the lights and ornaments Amanda and I prefer, then Charlie’s additional ornament picks, rearranged daily throughout the month.
Charlie and I went to the NYBG Train Show with Jeremy. It was amazing!
I turned a French rolling pin for our friend Marie out of a log (spalted maple) from their property.
I also turned a few Christmas tree ornaments out of the same log.
Charlie helped us with Christmas cards this year. He drew vehicles on at least half of them! It was fun having him customize them. It was the first year he’s helped.
There was snow and sledding. It was the coldest, snowiest December we’ve had so far living in Peekskill.
Walks in the woods.
Winter festivities at Charlie’s school. Charlie wanted to help pass out food at the solstice party, so we volunteered at the bake sale table.
Christmas parties, too!
We spent Christmas in Ohio and there were lots of family festivities. Here’s Charlie and Nora clowning at Great Gram’s:
A new birdhouse ornament from Dad, this year with a fly shop theme:
On the way back we stopped at Erin and Tyler’s house in Pittsburgh. Charlie and Gus were fast friends and played together the entire time. I wish we lived closer.
We closed out the year by baking some bread on NYE and then Amanda and I watched the new Knives Out movie.
I’m not big into resolutions, but here are some things I’d like to do in 2026. Many of these are getting back to old interests I’ve moved away from for one reason or another.
Sketch more.
To make it fun, maybe a little sketch in Charlie’s lunchbox every day? Or more art time together?
Keep stretching.
I feel better when I stretch daily, but I haven’t made it a habit.
I have an okay understanding of how certain kinds of engines work, but I’d like to get a more intuitive understanding of them. Perhaps I’ll start with some of Bartosz Ciechanowski’s work.
I noticed that the books I think about and reference most each year are non-fiction. I’ve been defaulting to fiction, but I think this year I should switch more into non-fiction.
I have wood set aside for this, I just need to start. I should approach it as a multi-month project that I work on in short stints rather than trying to do the whole thing in a weekend. My life isn’t compatible with spending full days in the workshop right now.
Get my SLR back out and start taking photos again.
Maybe start by grabbing the camera for woods walks with Charlie?
First step: Putting the batteries on the charger.
I know that adding more means that I’ll have to do less of something else. I’d mostly like to scroll less social media and spend less time looking at screens outside of work.
Happy New Year! I like to do a more narrative recap on my birthday, so at the end of the calendar year I make lists of top things in multiple categories. See also: 2024, 2023.
Meals
Dutch oven coal cinnamon rolls
When camping with my parents, they said they wanted to try cooking in a dutch oven over coals. None of us had tried it before, and it gave me some ideas. I haven’t tried it again, but I plan to this coming year.
Onion rings in Cape Cod
Piles of thinly sliced, battered onion rings were a hit in Cape Cod this summer.
Picnics in Charlie’s fort
Not a specific meal, but we really enjoyed having picnics with Charlie in his fort this spring and summer.
Shows
Slow Horses
Gritty spy thriller in modern London
Black Doves
Sleeper agent spy thriller, also in modern London
Yellowstone
New to me, and I really enjoyed it while being laid up earlier this year.
Non-fiction Books
The Death and Life of the Great Lakes by Dan Egan (2018)
I learned a lot about the great lakes that I didn’t know, even though I lived a few miles away for the first 23 years of my life.
Reading Trout Water by Dave Hughes (2010)
Excellent book on reading water. I’m rereading this before the start of the season.
Trout Fishing in the Catskills by Ed Van Put (2007)
I listened to this on audiobook while driving around the Catskills. Highly recommended.
Fiction Books
Murderbot Diaries series by Martha Wells (2017-current)
I read the first five of these this year and enjoyed both the stories and inner dialogue.
James by Percival Everett (2024)
Retelling of Huck Finn from Jim’s perspective. The two books should be read back-to-back in literature classes.
There is no Antimemetics Division by qntm (2025)
Mind bending.
Bonus: Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz (2025)
Cozy robot sci-fi that is positive and humanizing instead of depressing.
I had a fantastic trip in May where I spent 5 days fishing small brooks in the Catskills for brook trout.
Upper West branch of the Croton River
Closer to home, I enjoyed catching the small brown trout in the upper west branch of the Croton River. One of the few streams in Westchester where you can enjoy seclusion (probably because the trout are small). I love fishing there.
Blue Mountain Reservation
This is at the end of our street. Charlie and I spend a lot of time there in all seasons. I’m thankful that such good nature is a short walk away.
I feel like an old man posting this, but this pillow is so good. I have a hiatal hernia and frequently have acid reflux. This pillow allowed me to stop taking medication for it six months ago and get a good night’s rest. (Though it took me a month to get used to sleeping on it.)
Shopsmith went out of business and stiffed me on my new quill order. Skip from MKC came through and quickly shipped a custom machined quill to add another bearing to the old style single-bearing quills. It works great and eliminated my runout problems.
On Monday after work and school, Charlie and I took apart my Shopsmith quill to figure out exactly which parts we needed to track down, since I’m pretty sure I’ll never get that replacement quill from Shopsmith. I filed a credit card dispute and ordered some secondhand parts. More on that soon. I also gave Charlie a broken lantern he could take apart himself.
Wednesday Charlie and I ran a lot of pre-Thanksgiving errands while Amanda tidied up the house for guests. That afternoon Charlie helped us with some food prep. Amanda drew out a recipe for green bean casserole, and Charlie put it together all on his own! As one of Charlie’s teachers put it, even if you can’t read words yet, you can still read through pictures.
Thanksgiving day we had the Crisante family over for a second year. That morning Charlie helped us prep and decorate. While Amanda made the cheese board, Charlie went and grabbed some of his favorite pretzels from the pantry and put them on the board. We weren’t planning on pretzels, but when your 4yo adds them himself and is excited to help, you leave the pretzels. We all munched on them. An hour before our guests arrived for lunch, we had some energy to burn, so Charlie and I went down to the pier to run around.
We kept the menu the same as last year (and split up the work again) and had a great time. We started with a root vegetable soup for lunch, then went out for a walk in the woods. The kids played in the backyard while we cooked the turkey. We ate dinner, had some mint tea, then some apple crumb pie for dessert. The kids played together really well. Looking forward to it again next year.
For dinner that night I repurposed the leftover turkey into red curry soup, which I think I’ll do again next year. Much better than reheated turkey and gravy. Red curry paste, mushrooms, shallots, scallions, turkey, broth (which you can make from the turkey carcass!), coconut milk, cilantro, rice noodles, lime juice.
Saturday we went to the Home Depot kids workshop to build an ornament, then we floated around Peekskill for a couple hours, hitting up the library (closed because the heat was out), Bruised Apple Books, and lunch at Copperhead Club. Charlie and I spent about an hour and a half outside while Amanda went horseback riding, then we made some cast iron pizzas and watched Despicable Me 4.
Check out the excellent store map from Bruised Apple.
Sunday Charlie and Amanda made cookies and I tidied the workshop and processed a log into blanks so I can turn some Christmas ornaments soon. Charlie came out to the workshop to tell me the first batch of cookies were ready, and he ended up helping me split the log and he took the bark off for me.
Rainy day.
Quote from Charlie this week, when he walked into the room while Amanda and I were chatting:
Are you talking about me? I heard you say “cute”!
I didn’t have a chance to make my batch of hot sauce over the holiday, but perhaps I will this week.
The past couple years I’ve written this post at the end of December as kind of a year-end recap. This year I thought I’d change it up and do it on Thanksgiving instead.
Here’s 100 things I’m thankful for this year. Happy Thanksgiving!
Foraging ramps. I found a great spot this year near a river I like to fish. Win/win.
Improving my sleep and almost entirely getting rid of my heartburn and off of medication with the Medcline pillow.
Starting a workout routine (Crossfit) again after ~8 years of not working out.
Bike riding with Charlie.
Charlie-led walks in the woods.
Charlie’s new school. He is having a good experience with really great teachers who are kind, gentle, and teaching him how to name and handle his emotions, Spanish, and how to collaborate with others. It has been a challenging transition, but we think we are in a great, supportive school.
Vacation on Cape Cod.
Seeing a Great White shark in the wild for the first time.
Seeing a Fisher and otter in the wild while fly fishing.
Collecting shells, acorns, leaves, pinecones, and more with Charlie.
Workshop time with Charlie, letting him tinker and try out various tools.
My health. I had a big scare in March, a blood clot in my kidney, but it is resolved now and I was able to get off of blood thinners.
Improving my cholesterol through diet and exercise, no medication.
S’mores on the deck with Amanda and Charlie.
Movies with the projector in the basement.
Going to the “movie snack store” (the gas station) to get snacks for the movies.
Slinging pizzas in the Oonis with Jon at Kristen’s birthday.
Seeing a rosy maple moth in the wild!
Birds finally nesting and having babies in our birdhouse.
Replacing the siding on our house and painting the foundation.
Still being employed. Lots of layoffs this year, but thankfully Amanda and I still have our jobs.
Walking on the abandoned train tracks in Beacon in the rain with Charlie.
Our Peekskill-area friend group. The parents support each other, the kids play well together, and we each host and invite people places. Good to have a community.
With my shifted work schedule (now 7am-3pm), Charlie getting home earlier, increased work stress, and needing weekends to put our lives back together and get ready for the following week, the last couple months have felt pretty busy and my weekly blogging hasn’t made the cut. My regular time for writing this weekly post has been Sunday nights, but now I’m going to bed earlier than I used to and need to find a new patch of quiet time to write it. Perhaps I actually get up when my body wakes me up at 5am and write this with some coffee while the sun comes up? We’ll see.
Here’s a brief recap of the last two months:
We’ve been spending as much time outside as we can after school while it is still light…
…and even sometimes after dark.
As the days grow shorter and colder it is challenging to keep a 4yo entertained indoors while keeping the house from becoming a chaotic mess. We might switch to Monday swim class instead of Saturday, which will help one night a week. Other nights we sometimes go to the library, sometimes go grocery shopping, sometimes do art projects, sometimes bake. Lots of reading. Accepting any and all ideas!
Swim class has been going well. Charlie is more independent and confident than the spring session!
Charlie is going through a lot of growth right now. Physically, emotionally, intellectually. It is really great to witness and help foster that growth. We have such a wonderful kid and we feel so grateful to be his parents.
Our new schedules and the longer school commute is finally starting to feel like normal after three months.
For Halloween this year, Charlie wanted to be a Spider Plant. Amanda loves making costumes and does a great job at it, so she made houseplant costumes for all of us. She was a String of Pearls and I was a Ponytail Palm.
One fun thing we’ve been doing more recently is doing “family movie night” together in the basement with a projector on the weekends. Charlie’s attention span is now long enough for a full movie, and he loves the ritual of making a snack tray, popcorn, and snuggling up together. We love it, too. Some of his favorites: Toy Story, Cars 1 and 2 (but not 3), Despicable Me 1, 2, 3, and 4, Arthur and the Haunted Tree House, Curious George: Cape Ahoy, and WALL-E.
Charlie had a canon childhood event last week: Cutting his own hair with scissors. We were able to cut it a bit shorter so it isn’t too noticeable. Thankfully picture day was the week before.
One thing of note at work is that we soft-launched a project I’ve been working on: the Internet Archive Wayback Machine Link Fixer plugin. The plugin automatically fixes broken links by replacing them with archived versions from the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
I’m pretty excited about its potential! We still have a lot of work to do to improve it and promote it, but it is off to a good start. Over 100 active installs and growing with very little promotion so far.
I’ve had beta versions running on this site for months. It does what it says on the can!
At home I’ve done very little woodworking and no fishing, but a little bit of fly tying and lots of reading. I also did the fly swap and wrote the recap post, which will be published soon over at Tenkara Angler.
We didn’t have plans today and wanted to get out of the house and have some quality family time, so we hopped on the train and went down to the Intrepid Museum. Charlie was jazzed about going on a big ship, getting to see a real space shuttle, and getting to see some planes. We all had a good day. Now he is old enough that spontaneous half-day outings like that (lots of walking, multiple forms of transit, two meals out) are totally doable and fun.
Looking forward:
We are hosting some friends for Thanksgiving again this year. I’m hoping to have enough free time over the long holiday weekend to make this year’s batch of hot sauce from my habaneros and to get out in the workshop and try to turn something.
Speaking of turning something, I’ve learned that Shopsmith is shutting down. I’ve been waiting on new quill since May and now it looks like I’ll probably not get it. Their customer service phone number and email are no longer working. Wondering how long until I should file a chargeback?
The fun illustrations highlight some of the infrastructure underground that keeps a city running: Water, electricity, sewers, gas, tunnels, subways, foundations, and more.
Here are some of the spreads, which are rotated to provide a tall portrait view underground. Charlie really liked that.
The book is great. We’ve read it every night this week. It seems to be out of print now, but see if your local library has a copy! We put a hold on another one in the series, Peeking Under the Hood.
I’m writing this from bed, sipping some Sleepytime tea and listening to the wind and rain from the tropical storm hitting the northeast.
Days and weeks have been going by so quickly. Is this turning into a biweekly post? I’m not sure.
My 7am-3pm schedule has its ups and downs. I’m going to bed earlier than I used to, but I also have more daylight time to be outside with Charlie in the afternoon. I’m thankful I can timeshift.
We landed on a way to limit Charlie’s time watching shows that has been working well: Pick one allowed time and stay consistent. Previously we were inconsistent and it led to a lot of frustration on both sides. Now he can watch some shows in the morning until we start our day and that is it. Three weeks in and it is totally fine! Listening to audio while playing is a decent substitute, and we also find ourselves reading with him and playing together more in the evenings after dinner.
Charlie switched classrooms at school and is having a better overall experience. He is coming home happier and we are all breathing a little easier than the past month. We are thankful the school took notice and adjusted to his current skill level.
Another week of swim class without me or Amanda in the pool went really well. So proud of this kid.
Amanda and I both noticed that something changed slightly this week and Charlie is more able to be reasoned and negotiated with. He is more willing to accept alternative suggestions without fuss.
It finally feels like autumn! I made my first soup of the season on Friday: Potato & Leek.
Amanda and Charlie made some Apple Pie Cookies.
Charlie and I spent some time in the woods. As I had hoped the last couple years, we’ve reached prime rock climbing and stick/leaf/bark/nut/rock collecting age.
I spent a day in the city helping out with a WordPress training. It has been a long time since I’ve looked at WP through the eyes of a beginner. It is surprisingly complicated to set up a WP site from scratch. How on earth would a beginner know to go to Settings > Reading and switch the homepage setting from posts to page if they wanted a website and not a blog?
I chatted with someone we know on the train to NYC and sat with someone else we know on the train home. A couple days later Charlie and I ran into two different people we know around town while running errands. After almost 6 years here (the first two years restricted by Covid and having a newborn), it finally feels like we are part of a community here.
Checking out the sign by the lake at FDR state park. Charlie can identify some of these fish!
I’ve tied flies two nights in the past two weeks. One more night, I think, and I’ll have the flies for my uncle and me to enter into the exchange. Feels good to be back at the vise.
Despite growing up not far away, this book was my first time hearing about the Great Black Swamp that stretched from Fort Wayne to Toledo.
I knew about Zebra mussels, but not Quagga mussels. To be fair, they look very similar.
I didn’t know that the water turns over almost completely in the lakes every 3 years.
It is encouraging to hear that native species are adapting to eat the invasive goby and mussels.
Goby spread botulism, causing bird die-offs.
The lack of lake ice formation in recent years has led to a larger than expected increase in water temperatures and evaporation in the lakes, dropping water levels and causing more algae blooms. Things because water not covered in snow and ice keeps absorbing the sun all winter instead of reflecting it.
As you can tell, I’m having trouble getting to these weekly posts right now. I’m going to have to change the timing, I think. Sundays have been filled with shopping, cleaning, and meal prep. I’m writing this post while our breakfast for the week finishes cooking.
The transition to Charlie’s new school (mixed age 4 and 5 pre-K) has been challenging for all three of us. For Charlie, it is much more structured than the daycare he went to before this, with entirely new teachers and classmates. For us, it is the new schedule and longer drive. We are still figuring out what our work schedules look like now that he is back home by 3pm instead of 5pm. The past couple of weeks have been a lot of time shifting. We’re going to continue experimenting with different schedules and perhaps hiring a sitter for a couple hours twice a week until we find something sustainable. This week’s experiment: I’ll start earlier and shift my workouts to after work instead of the morning. We’ll see how it goes.
We’ve been completely focused on Charlie and work during the week, then catching our breath a bit and marathoning chores to get ready for the next week during the weekends. I have very few photos on my camera roll from the last couple weeks. Just trying to keep things going.
Despite the challenges, we are feeling great about the school Charlie is going to. They have a big emphasis on building community, so we’ve gone to a playground meetup, a curriculum night for the parents, and a Friday afternoon assembly. His teachers have been so kind and are dedicated to helping each child learn and grow individually. Even though Charlie is the youngest in his mixed age class, we’ve seen him grow and open up as the month progressed. He confidently walks in the front door of the school on his own and has told us a few Spanish words he’s learned. He’s learning to name his emotions with The Mood Meter. There’s still a few challenges I won’t write about here, but after meeting with his teachers, I’m feeling confident that they (and Amanda and I) will help our little guy work through it.
Amanda and I went to the school’s Friday afternoon assembly this week because Charlie’s class was one of the ones presenting. I love that they have kids as young as 4 standing up and presenting or performing in front of large groups regularly. By the time they are teens, it will feel like second nature for them.
One Friday after school this month I took Charlie to get ice cream and ride his bike along the river immediately after school. It was just what we both needed.
In general, afternoons have been a lot of playing outside and unstructured play time (magnatiles, sandbox, legos, mud kitchen, water hose, walks in the woods.) One afternoon we even got to play with some dry ice that came with something we ordered.
I’m feeling really proud of this kid this weekend. Saturday we showed up to the first swim class of this season, only to learn that the skill group times had shifted and we weren’t notified. Instead of the parents going in the water with the kids, the kids in this skill group did the class solo. Charlie and I talked about it and decided to give it a try, with me on standby ready to jump in the pool with him if needed, but he did great by himself, and was patient hanging on the edge when it wasn’t his turn. Towards the end of the class, he was comfortable enough that he started bobbing himself up and down while he waited. I left the class dry. Next week I’ll be in the bleachers.
I’m certain that being challenged regularly at the new school had something to do with his confidence in being able to do swim class alone. At the last session in the spring, there is no way he would have tried doing it himself. He is growing physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Saturday night Charlie and I camped out in a tent in our backyard. We made hotdogs for dinner, s’mores for dessert, then read a few books in the tent and went to sleep. While we were making s’mores in the chiminea on the porch, an owl was hooting in our neighbors’ tree, so Charlie started hooting back. They answered each others’ calls a few times! It was magical.
We stayed out in the tent the entire night. Charlie wasn’t scared at all. He woke me up gently at 5:30am to tell me that he “had a BIG dream!” (all about truck chases, fire extinguishers, and rockets blasting off), then we listened to some Daniel Tiger stories on his Yoto and played with some toy cars until the sun came up.
I’m trying to decide between tying flymphs, peacock futsus, squirrel and gingers, or maybe change it up and do dry flies, perhaps the Fran Betters Haystack or Usual. A stretch goal might be learning how to tie kenbane kebari.
I’ll decide once some arrive and I see what we have!
Children definitely have interests of their own. Charlie loves monster trucks, trains, and any kind of construction vehicle. Just as often, they pick up our interests and become interested in them, too. When thinking about what “second person birds” meant to me as a theme for this month, I couldn’t get that second-hand interest out of my head.
Amanda and I try hard to include Charlie in our interests, showing him what we like about them, discussing them with him, and letting him try them out to the extent possible. It isn’t that we are trying to get him to like the things that we like, it is that we are trying to introduce him to as much as we can and model for him what being interested in something looks like so that he can learn to explore and nurture his own interests.
I love pointing out different kinds of birds to Charlie when we are outside, and I have a few tri-fold guides that we both look at frequently. I’m amazed at the birds he can correctly identify, and I love seeing his face light up when he points them out to me as he notices them, which he often does before me:
Robins
Doves
Pileated woodpeckers
Hawks (in general)
Geese
Ducks (in general)
Crows
Hummingbirds
Cormorants
Turkey
Barred owls (he does a great job on their call, better than mine!)
These are all Second Person Birds. Birds learned and identified by my son, picked up from my interest. These might even be third person birds, as I probably picked up the interest from my Mom.
The picking up of interests goes both ways, too. I’ve learned more about different kinds of construction vehicles and their jobs through Charlie than I knew before he was here. Amanda and I often notice them even when Charlie isn’t with us, and we can’t help ourselves from telling him later what we saw. Those, too, are Second Person Birds.
I went into this blogging breaking thinking I’d just skip a week while my parents were visiting, then it turned into over a month.
The first week we were focused on getting ready for Charlie’s birthday party, which turned out great. We put up a 20×20 tent since it rained unexpectedly the last couple years, but we didn’t really need it. The weather was cooler than previous years, too. Kids played on the swingset non-stop and the bbq we ordered from the Little Cabin was great. Charlie requested a piñata and picked out a yellow baby chick as big as he is, which was popular.
Next weekend we went to an outdoor concert in Ossining on Friday with Kate, Ben, and their kids, then Sunday we had Jay and Marie over for dinner.
The next weekend we got Charlie a haircut, we went to a birthday party for Hayden in Lake Peekskill, then we met the Jones family at the Natural History Museum in NYC. It was Charlie’s first time on the subway and he loved it.
The next weekend we were off to Cape Cod for a week of vacation with Grandma and Grandpa.
When we got back from vacation, we went to a birthday party for Lorenzo at Fishkill Farms and an end of summer party at Jay and Marie’s, then it was straight into Charlie’s first week of pre-K at a new school and Amanda running a work conference in Miami. It was a tough week, but Grandma stayed with us for the week to help out. Friday night we celebrated getting through the week by going to King Kone for dinner and ice cream.
This weekend we took Grandma to the airport, went shopping for some new shoes for Charlie, and hosted an impromptu play date at our house with some of Charlie’s friends from daycare that he was missing. Amanda got home later that night and we are all trying to catch our breath on this rainy Sunday before we get back in to our (new) regular schedules tomorrow.
In between the above, there was lots of outside time, bicycle riding, and ice cream. Soaking up the end of summer.
In this busy month, I didn’t do any of my hobbies. When things are busy, you’ve got to focus on being a parent. By bedtime each day I was zapped, so all I had energy for was reading a bit before bed. Though perhaps I should be kinder to myself and reframe that reading is a hobby, too. I finished eight books:
Orbital by Samantha Harvey (2023)
Armageddon (Expeditionary Force Book 8) by Craig Alanson (2019)
How We Got to Now by Steven Johnson (2015)
All Systems Red (Murderbot Diaries 1) by Martha Wells (2017)
Artificial Condition (Murderbot Diaries 2) by Martha Wells (2018)
Common Ground: A Naturalist’s Cape Cod by Robert Finch (1981)
The Cape Cod Mystery by Phoebe Atwood Taylor (1931)
Rogue Protocol (Murderbot Diaries 3) by Martha Wells (2018)
I’m currently reading:
Automatic Noodle by Annalee Newitz
Midnight Assassin by Skip Hollandsworth (though I think I’m not going to finish it right now… details about gruesome murders aren’t my vibe at the moment)
Children of Ruin by Adrian Tchaikovsky
I’m on the lookout for good audiobooks for morning and afternoon drives. Send me some recommendations, please!
Bluesky is the only social media I’ve been on in a serious way this month. Removing Instagram from my phone has been good. Might need to remove Bluesky, too, and just read RSS feeds. My Bluesky feeds are full of our country’s slide into authoritarianism and, while true, that isn’t what I need to see when I’m taking a break. Instead, I probably should just go outside for a bit or tidy up around the house.
I don’t like to comment on politics much now. I got that out of my system in high school, college, and the first couple years after that. But I do still think about it (how can one not right now!) and one thing is clear to me now: I used to have faith in the checks and balances of the three branches of government, but their fatal weakness is that they rely on good people to stand up for those checks and hold their ground. We can’t rely on the spineless people we’ve voted in and let be appointed.
This was a problem in previous administrations, too. In my time being politically conscious, I noticed the slide toward authoritarianism under Bush, Obama, and Biden as well, but there was also more checking and balancing being done during those times. Not only do we have the Trump administration stepping on the authoritarianism gas pedal and reaching unprecedented speeds, we also have a spineless congress and inept judiciary letting it happen. Disgraceful.
Work has been challenging, and the state of US politics highly concerning and disheartening, but I’m proud of the sweet, smart little boy Charlie is growing up to be. I am grateful for our family and thankful we live in a relatively peaceful place during a relatively peaceful time.
Mostly photos with a little bit of commentary this week.
Trying to get outside when we can, though it has been a week of heat, humidity, and haze. More of all three on the way this coming week, too.
Daddy, I’m having fun playing catch!
Quotes like that, unprompted, will melt your heart.
Sometimes I wonder in the spring whether or not to go through the effort of putting in a garden that year, but later that year I’m always glad I did. Going out to pick tomatoes for our salads each night is so nourishing.
We gave up planting sunflowers a couple years ago because the groundhogs and rabbits ate every single one for multiple years in a row. This year, we got some surprise volunteer sunflowers, probably from birdseed, and nothing has bothered them!
Charlie cooked one of our favorite summer dishes, Corn, Tomato, and Basil Salad with Old Bay almost entirely by himself. Amanda cut the corn, he ripped the basil and cut the tomatoes, put everything in the pan, and stirred it while it cooked. He was pretty proud of it.
Nasturtiums are perfect for garnishing negronis.
Our veggie box finally started up! Lots of good stuff in here from a farm over in Orange county. They also included some great stonefruit (plums—my favorite!, and peaches).
I’m surprised at how often framing something as a race will get an otherwise reluctant 4yo to commit wholeheartedly to the thing. I know this one will eventually wear out, but we are getting a lot of mileage out of it right now.
I revisited some Black Sabbath this week after I heard about Ozzy passing away. Black Sabbath was formative for my musical interests and probably started my anti-authoritarian and anti-war inclinations, both of which persist today.
Of course, the next morning the gym was blasting various Ozzy hits and covers during the main workout. Must have been on the daily mix, because this particular trainer didn’t strike me as an Ozzy fan.
So I’ve listened to more Ozzy this week than I have in the last ten years. Sabotage came out in 1975, and I first listened to it in 2002, 27 years after it came out. Must have been a strange experience for my parents, seeing me listen to something that came out when they were 15. I wonder what Charlie will listen to in ~25 years that came out when I was a teen? Maybe Sum 41 or Blink 182? Green Day? Foo Fighters? System of a Down?
On a related but unrelated note, I think I’ve finally come to terms with Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned being my Prodigy album, despite wanting it to be Music for the Jilted Generation for a long time.
Trying to model kindness and empathy to raise a kind and empathetic child while not getting completely swept up and overwhelmed by awful things going on right now (ICE, Gaza, etc) is like walking a tight rope without any padding on the ground to break your fall.
I finished Jeff VanderMeer’s Annihilation this week and started Samantha Harvey’s Orbital.
Where I’m currently at with social media:
Twitter is a dumpster fire and the “For You” tab recommends burning trash optimized for getting engagement for blue check payouts. I mostly avoid it now. Bluesky is my Twitter clone of choice. I occasionally log in to Mastodon, almost never Threads. I’m not even sure I know how to log in to Nostr anymore, and whenever I succeed it gives off a weird vibe.
So easy to scroll forever on Instagram, so I’ve kept it off my phone for a while.
Facebook proper has been dead to me for years.
Reddit is too easy to scroll, so I blocked it at my router level for my computer and phone. Hard enough to undo that I need a specific reason, which I probably won’t encounter.
My current take on Twitter and Reddit is that I think it is a mistake to have easy access to the opinions of millions of people that have almost no cost to sharing them. If I wouldn’t talk to these people in person, why am I reading their bullshit online?
Reading blogs is better—more curated, costly to post, bloggers for the most part use their real name. I would, and do, hang out with bloggers AFK!
I haven’t made much progress on doing any hobby projects. I underestimated what it takes to start a workout and stretching routine (lots of energy and soreness), and we’ve been focused on getting ready for Charlie’s upcoming birthday party. We’ll see what August holds on that front.
On my What I’m Reading page, I decided to add who recommended a book to me, if someone recommended it.
It has been a hot week and we are all pretty tired.
The main things to report on Monday and Tuesday are that I feel like we had a couple pretty good days with Charlie. Fun playing outside with the hose and on his slide fort, watching a movie together on the projector in the basement, playing with trains as soon we woke up, dancing in the living room, lots of snuggles. Good couple of days.
Wednesday after work we went to the Our Lady of Mount Carmel Feast in Verplanck with the Crisantes. We all ate some sausage & peppers, the kids went on some carnival rides, and we had some ice cream. We did take another family photo there like the last for years, but not sharing it because Charlie really didn’t want to take it, so I don’t think it is fair to him to post it.
This week Amanda and I did the Good Inside (Dr. Becky) Deeply Feeling Kids workshop. It gave us some tactics to help us handle and reframe some of the intense meltdowns Charlie has been having. We recommend it if you are dealing with them, too.
Thursday I went into the Automattic office in NoHo and worked with some coworkers who were in town. After work I had dinner with Chris at Shukette. Pretty much everything we ordered was good, but the stand-outs were the frena and kofte. I’d definitely go back.
Friday we finally got a reprieve from the heat and humidity, so we grilled hotdogs and played outside until bedtime.
Saturday we got up and out to go get Charlie a haircut, then we did a little bit of shopping before coming home for lunch. In the afternoon I took advantage of the cooler weather to mow and run the weed eater, then tidy up inside with Amanda. We got pizza for dinner and watched another movie together on the projector (Cars 3).
Sunday (today) we got the car washed and the inside cleaned, went grocery shopping, and cleaned more of the house. I unclogged our two Dysons and vacuumed (it is amazing how fast the various attachments can clog up), tidied my office, and schlepped some stuff down to the basement.
This piece in the local paper broke my heart and made me angry:
That night, Lituma said her four-year-old child did not sleep, wet the bed twice, and woke up repeatedly, terrified, looking for his mother.
How awful! It is going to be a long time before that little boy sleeps soundly again. Why did these thugs arrest the mother and a child when looking for someone else? Why force her to call the person they are looking for? Why take them away without a car seat (child endangerment!)? I don’t care what the husband/father did, this isn’t how you treat innocent parties.
I finished Matt Ruff’s 88 Names and enjoyed it. Fast read, good twists. I started Jeff VanderMeer’s Area X series, and I am enjoying it, but it is kind of intense for my pre-bedtime reading. I might have to sub in some light Wodehouse occasionally (like tonight).
Charlie likes to listen to Thomas and Friends Storytime in the car, and one episode mentions a calliope, which I hadn’t heard of, so I looked it up. Pretty interesting instrument. Here is a video of one: https://youtu.be/urInNOQz1u0
Tomatillos and plum tomatoes are coming along nicely.
I need a project outside of work to focus on. I paused fly tying because I had everything I wanted to fish with and no more time to fish, and I’m waiting on a replacement part for my lathe to start turning bowls again. I want very little to do with my computer after work, I prefer to do something with my hands.
Maybe I start tying hoppers or bass flies? Not sure, but feeling a little unmoored lately, and I notice I get that when I set my hobbies aside for a while.
That is all I have this week. Going to read for a bit before bed. Good night!
I am settling back into our regular work & school, dinner, and bedtime weekday routine, so these updates are less interesting than the last couple months.
We got our car back on Wednesday. The problem was the coolant valve, which needed to be replaced. Thankfully it was covered under warranty.
It was a hot, humid, sticky week here. My least favorite time of year. Thankfully once the sun is behind the trees after dinner, we can usually get Charlie outside to play again and move around (burn some energy, get the sillies out, etc) before bedtime.
Today we got up and did some yard work in the morning (mowing, pulling weeds), but by around 1pm it was just too much. The sun was intense and the air was soupy. I finished mowing and pushed Charlie on the swing for a while, which is about all you can do.
I finally have my heart monitor off! I’m glad to be rid of it after a month of annoyance. I won’t know the results for a couple more weeks. I’m hoping to have an all-clear and get off of blood thinners.
I mostly feel back to normal after the clot issue, with one notable, frustrating exception: My energy levels are lower, and I’m tired by 7-8pm now. During my sabbatical that wasn’t much of a problem because I did my hobbies during the day, but now that I’m back to work it is a drag. I used to tie flies or being in the workshop for a couple hours after Charlie goes to bed, but now at best I read for a little while and then fall asleep. I don’t know if it is the blood thinners, the result of part of my kidney atrophying, or what, but it is frustrating. I’m trying to be patient with my recovery, but my patience is wearing thing.
I hit the tipping point some time last week to start an active fitness routine again, after not having one for the last seven years. I was chatting with a coworker who does Crossfit, and I mentioned how I hate exercising, even though I know I should. He said he hates it too, but doing a class like Crossfit works because all he has to do is show up and someone tells you what to do and when to do it. An hour later, you are back home.
That resonated a lot with me, because I’ve tried bodyweight workouts in the backyard, but inevitably fall off after a couple sessions because the mental overhead of deciding the routine is too much. A class also has the added benefit of social accountability because you don’t want to be the one person who stops halfway though.
So, I started Crossfit this week. I went on Tuesday and Thursday mornings, and those days are going to be my weekly routine to start. I’m sore, but not as sore as I thought I’d be, and I finished both workouts. On Thursday, I wasn’t last in the row or the mile run. I’m proud of myself for going, and proud of myself for being in slightly better shape than I thought.
I did Crossfit for a little while 13 years ago, but what is different now is that I have a family I need to be around for and I recently had a health scare which brought that into stark relief.
I also started a stretching routine before bed, which I did 6 out of the last 7 days. I took a similar approach to Crossfit: Signing up for a service (Pliability) so I don’t have to think about what to do, I just follow the video for 20 minutes. So far, so good. My main driver here is that I want to keep up with Charlie. I don’t want to be stiff and have trouble with mobility. I’m still young, so I’m not there yet, but I’m far from flexible, so the time to work on that is now. It is also helping combat the Crossfit soreness.
Some family highlights from the week:
We went to live music after work at the Yorktown Library with friends on Wednesday. We brought a picnic. It was fun! We’ll probably go again before summer is over.
Charlie and I picked wineberries in the woods. They are invasive, but fun to pick and eat. We picked about the amount of a regular raspberry clamshell container, and Charlie ate them all for a pre-bedtime snack. It is very rewarding to be able to taste the fruits of your own labor.
On Saturday, I needed to get Charlie out of the house for a little while, so we went over to the Sylvan Glen preserve for the first time. It was hot, so we didn’t hike very far, but we did get an idea of the place and will definitely go back when it is cooler. We mostly climbed on some nice rocks. There is an old granite quarry there we can explore in the future.
Charlie got out his scooter two nights in a row and rode it to the end of the street and back. This was big because he hasn’t touched the scooter for months, and until now didn’t really have the hang of riding it. Now he looks like a natural.
We met up with some friends at the TaSH farmers market, which is the best in the area. It is about 25 minutes away from us, but worth the drive. Great vendors, sometimes live music, set in a nice park with a loop path and a great playground on one side. Charlie wanted to take his bike, so he rode that while we walked.
On Monday, my final day of sabbatical, Jeremy Wall and I paddled up the Croton River from the Echo launch at the train station up to Fireman’s Island, which is about the farthest you can get without carrying your boat. Beautiful day and the water was ice cold.
We were off the river by noon when it started getting hot, then Amanda and I went out to lunch. Late afternoon I put the AC in my office and cleaned up the space so I could start work the next day.
Later that night Charlie had fun playing in the kayak. I can’t wait to make him one when he is a little older!
Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday were a whirlwind of calls, trying to get caught up on what happened at work while I was out, learning new systems, and reading P2 posts.
I am moving into a new role, leading the operations team instead of the engineering teams in the Special Projects org. This will definitely be a change for me and will take some time to adjust to.
It is also taking me some time to readjust to my working schedule, being inside most of the day, and scheduling errands, tasks, and hobbies for evenings and weekends rather than just whenever. It is harder than I thought it would be. (Cry me a river, right? I was just off work for three months!) Anyway, I’m settling back in.
Wednesday night we picked up woodfired pizza from Baci and ate it at the Verplanck waterfront, so Charlie could play on the playground for a while.
Friday, July 4, we went over to Erica and Trevor’s house in Lake Peekskill for a late breakfast and to row around on the lake for a bit. The community has a little party at the north beach and people from all around the lake paddle their boats over to hang out. There is a boat decorating contest that the community votes on. It was fun!
We originally planned to go down to the Peekskill waterfront that night to listen to the live music and watch the fireworks, but when we realized that Charlie would be overtired by that point, we opted to stay home, do some sidewalk chalk, go for a walk in the woods, and go to bed at a regular time.
Saturday we drove up to Rhinebeck for an airshow at the Old Rhinebeck Aerodrome. We all had fun! Their Saturday “History of Flight” program highlights the Pioneer era before WWI, a WWI Show teaser, and the Golden Age of Aviation in the ’20s and ’30s. They did stunts like tossing a toilet paper roll out of the plane and seeing how many times they could cut it by flying through it before it hit the ground and trying to pop balloons released from the ground.
One of the visiting pilots, Mark Meredith, didn’t learn how to fly until he was 47. Never too late to pick up a new hobby!
Afterward we had dinner and milkshakes at Del’s Roadside.
Unfortunately, on the way back we had some car trouble on the way home. About 30 minutes out the Check Engine light came on, the car started automatically braking, and we had to quickly pull over. I turned the engine off, but couldn’t get it to turn back on. It would try, then just start to shake the whole car, and then stop.
So, this was my first time actually using the AAA service we’ve subscribed to for 9 years. Thankfully the tow truck was there in about 40 minutes. And thank goodness that Uber was available in the area, so Amanda and Charlie could get home quickly while I dealt with the tow.
I thought we were out of luck, given that it was a holiday weekend, but we were able to get a rental car the next morning so we can still get around until the dealership can look at our car.
The time may have finally come for us to get a second car.
I finally read James by Percival Everett. It is as good as people said it was with some interesting twists, though some definite heart wrenching parts.
Next I think I’m going to read 88 Names by Matt Ruff, since I think a cyber thriller will be a good change of pace, then possibly David Mitchell’s Cloud Atlas, which I’ve wanted to read for years.
We harvested our garlic! Charlie helped me plant it last fall and he helped me harvest it today.
We all went outside to watch a storm roll in after dinner, then Charlie and I got caught in it while putting some stuff away in the yard, so we ran up to his swing set/play fort for cover.
I really enjoyed the sound of the rain on the roof of his play fort, so I recorded it. Here is 40s of rain in a play fort:
Charlie ended up running around in the rain for a bit and we took advantage of a lull in the rain to head inside.
Good thing we did, because it ended up dumping over an inch of rain in 15 minutes.
