I decided to go forward with the workshop upgrades, so that has been taking most of my time outside of work this week.
The current plan:
Insulate with radiant barrier.
Diesel heater for heat.
Put a bench along the full back wall. 31.5″ deep, set up 36″ high. Top made out of laminated 2x4s on edge. Shelf underneath high enough for bins to slide underneath for storage.
Mounting my carpenter’s vice flush with the front of the bench for better full-length support. Probably left site, 1/4 of the way in.
Standard bench vice is probably going on the right side.
3 4×4 feet in the front, 2×4 nailers on the back and side walls.
Instead of a flip cart for the miter saw, I’ll build a platform to put the miter saw on top of my Shopsmith and use the tables on it to support the longer pieces. Saving the floor space.
French cleats on the walls for storage.
I may end up getting rid of the green cart/locker I’m currently using for storage. Every bit of floor space helps!
I spent a lot of time this weekend glueing together 2x4s and planing them for the bench top. After not pre-planing and jointing them in the first section, I decided to do the 14 remaining boards, which led to a much better result for the second section. I guess the first one will go in the back. As I write this, the third section is still curing in the basement. (This glue needs 55F to cure and it is in the 20F range here at night.)
I’m exhausted and sore, but I’m rushing to get the last section planed before the snow hits on Tuesday.
I’ve put up a third of the radiant barrier so far.
Charlie loves Home Depot. Good thing we’ve been three times this week.
Crocuses are starting to bloom!
Getting steadily earlier each year, according to my unscientific records:
The weather was sunny and warm on Friday, so we picked up pizzas and met up with another family at the playground after work on Friday. The kids loved it. Nice to have the days growing long enough to do that again.
Amanda and I started watching Griselda and we like it. So our two shows right now are True Detective and Griselda.
Charlie was home Monday and part of Wednesday because he was teething this week and had a cough in addition to the mouth pain. Unfortunately getting him to take any kind of medicine has been a struggle recently, so it was a tough couple of days for everyone.
He recovered by the end of the week and had a great Saturday: Gymnastics with some daycare friends in the morning, then a kids workshop at Home Depot where he got to build and paint a Valentine’s Card Box with some of the same friends. Panera afterward, then home for a much needed nap.
I got things started and Amanda helped Charlie finish. He loves using his tools.
Amanda and I had our friends Jeremy and Marie over for dinner on Saturday evening. I roasted a duck and used the rendered fat for roasting potatoes and sautéing green beans with garlic and breadcrumbs. Marie made kartoshka from her grandmother’s recipe, a Ukrainian truffle-like dessert that we all enjoyed. Afterward Amanda and J played some flute duets.
As I mentioned last week, I’m trying to improve my lathe turning skills. I realized that not using a skew is a serious skill deficiency, and in learning how to use one I found out that the 45 degree angle and straight edge make it pretty difficult to use for peeling and planing cuts. So I got a used Shopsmith-mounted grinder on eBay and reground my 1in skew to a smaller angle with a radius. It works much better now, and I used it exclusively to make this tool handle, without having a single catch. That might sound pretty normal to a seasoned turner, but it was a breakthrough for me.
I’m also proud of myself because I haven’t done much tool grinding or shaping. I started out with the bench grinder and got the profile I wanted, but found it hard to make a consistent bevel on a 1in tool and a 3/4in grinding wheel, so I cleaned it up on the disc sander.
Next steps:
I ordered some grinding wheels from McMaster Carr, which was the only place that had the combo of 5″ wheel + 5/8 arbor I could find.
I need to get some finer sand paper for the disc sander, or figure out another way to hone my tools.
Write up my sharpening techniques on my digital garden for future me
Perhaps I can mount the sharpening jig to the other side of the lathe for easy sharpening while I turn to keep things in top shape.
Figure out better storage close to the Shopsmith. I like the bottom shelf I have, but the sawdust and wood shavings are too much. Perhaps I need to enclose it.
Charlie climbing and checking out the lathe.
Before this he and I were looking at different kinds of maps (some local, some national parks) and drawing our own on paper. He is a lot of fun.
I’ve been thinking a lot about building a new bench, moving things around for better layout, and insulating/heating the shed so working out there in the winter isn’t so brutal. Some things on the top of my mind:
Diesel heater or small wood stove?
Diesel heaters heat up quickly and turn off instantly, so I don’t need to start a fire and worry about it while i’m not in the shed.
Wood stoves are quieter and put out a nice radiant heat.
Foam board or fiberglass for insulation?
Both are kind of annoying to install, but foam board might be less itchy.
Can I make a flip-top cart with a router one one side and miter saw on the other? That would minimize dedicated workbench space usage and help me get things out of the way if needed.
I need to think about dust collection, but have no idea where to start.
More to come on this. I’m talking to my Dad, some friends, and reading a lot online.
The Roberta’s frozen pizzas are the best frozen pizzas I’ve had. I don’t know what they do differently, but they are excellent. Great crust that crisps up in the oven and great flavor.
So many courses and membership platforms with private log-in built on WordPress are trivially easy to circumvent because they don’t lock down access to the REST API endpoints.
Related, Vimeo’s domain-level privacy setting is also trivially easy to circumvent as long as you know which domain it is supposed to be embedded on. It relies on the referer header, which you can specify with curl’s –referer option.
If you make course or membership plugin, don’t forget to restrict REST API access for your post types to authenticated users!
I started a new ferment this week after bottling my gin & tonic seltzer last weekend. I’m making an imperial hard cider, flavored with some oak and calvados. Should be ready in a couple weeks.
I spent two days in Manhattan this week—Wednesday and Friday.
Wednesday was a “I need a change of scenery” day. Amanda and Charlie had plans with another mom and toddler after work/daycare, so I worked from the WeWork in Union Square (terrible place to be productive, but great kombucha), got lunch at Halal Guys (chicken over rice white sauce hot sauce), dinner at Soothr (khao soi sai ua), then walked up to Kalustyan’s and explored before going home. I picked up some tasty hot sauces. Since eating that Paqui One Chip Challenge at Christmas, my heat tolerance is much higher than before. I’m now using habanero sauces like I used to use Frank’s, and when I want to heat it up I’m now reaching for ghost pepper sauces. My current rotation: Marie Sharp’s green habanero, Woodstock Ghost Pepper, Melinda’s Red Savina and Bhut Jolokia. Next time I think I’ll try Marie Sharp’s Belizean Heat and the Woodstock Scorpion.
The next day I learned that Matt was hosting a happy hour at the Automattic office on Friday ahead of his upcoming sabbatical, so I decided to head in and work from the Automattic office in NoHo (Crosby St). I had lunch at George Motz’s Hamburger America (onion burger, coffee milk, and fries). It was excellent.
Amanda and I went on a date on Saturday! We went to Goosefeather. The food was excellent, but the service and ambiance left a bit to be desired. I’m trying to recreate one of the cocktails I had.
Last week I mentioned some of my current interests in the shop. Here’s how I’m moving forward:
I got out an old book I have on wood turning to revisit the basics. I also checked a newer one out of the library to compare.
Found some resources online about wood turning.
Watched ebay for a bent gouge and a grinder that will attach to my Shopsmith. Won both!
I read a recent study about certain strains of probiotics reducing acid reflux, which I suffer from. It renewed my interest in probiotics, so I’m taking some again. If you have some that have been particularly effective for you, I’d love to hear about it.
Sunday was a rare rainy weekend day where I had some gumption, so I organized the basement, replaced some pieces of the floating vinyl flooring that had cracked down there, and cleaned out the small basement fridge. Then made pork enchiladas with tomatillo salsa from our garden tomatillos for dinner.
Charlie helped with the crow bar.
Worked on some SQL optimization last week. It is insane how much faster integer comparisons are than string comparisons. This is where my lack of a computer science background makes me miss things other people might think is obvious.
We went to the library! We go every other week.
Charlie really likes Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. I love that he notices different things on the page than I notice. Reading with him is one of my favorite things.
The new season of True Detective is good, but not for the faint of heart. IMO it is more disturbing than the previous seasons.
The temperature has been bitter cold here all week. I don’t think it has gotten above freezing at all in the past seven days. I’m not complaining—I wanted a nice cold spell with some snow.
Charlie’s daycare closed on Tuesday due to the snow and ice. Amanda had to work in Manhattan that morning, so Charlie and I hung out and played until she got home around 2pm. I was chatting with one of the other daycare dads, and we might try to cowork at one of our houses during the next snow day so the kids can play together and the parents can get marginally more work done.
Charlie likes the snow. When I go out to clean off the car, he grabs the brush from his Melissa & Doug cleaning set and helps. Meg said that Miles did the same thing, but with the broom from that set. Perhaps M&D needs to make some snow removal equipment for toddlers.
Charlie and I decided to give the small hill in the woods a try for sledding. It is an old road that is no longer accessible to the general public and doesn’t get plowed. I was concerned that it might not be steep enough, but I was wrong! The sled glided over the hard-packed snow and we got some speed. I steered as best I could with my hands and feet and Charlie had a blast.
Speaking of Charlie, he’s been into having all three of us play little skits recently. The current set:
The couch is an ambulance. Someone is the driver, someone is the doctor, and someone is the person “with an ouch” who lays down on the “stretcher”. We rotate roles. A heart monitor (RC car controller), “checko-o-scope” (stethoscope, actually a bungee ball tie down), and fictional bandaids often pla a role. Sometimes Charlie also becomes a mechanic who fixes the broken down ambulance.
Dobie, his toy stick horse, is sad and crying because Cowboy Charlie lost his hat. Momma or Daddy comforts Dobie while Charlie goes to find his hat to make Dobie happy again.
This often morphs into Charlie “changing Dobie’s diaper” and wiping the very end of the stick with a wipe “wiping Dobie’s butt”. It is kind of strange, but sweet. Charlie is gentle and caring.
Charlie’s loader dump truck is stuck in the mud and we need to figure out how to get it out. Sometimes a tractor pulls it, sometimes an excavator digs it out, and sometimes a helicopter airlifts it out.
“Oh no! My brand new truck stuck in muck! What I do?”
We baked twice this week. Blueberry muffins on Wednesday and chocolate chip mini scones on Sunday. Amanda measures and orchestrates, Charlie dumps and mixes, and I narrate the recipe and fetch ingredients.
Looks like the temperature will rise again this week and we’ll get some rain. With the warmer temps, perhaps I’ll get back out in the workshop this week. A couple things I want to do:
Sharpen my lathe tools
Learn how to use the round nose scraper in the set I have
Some other things I want to do in the workshop over the next couple months:
Hand carve some bowls. I ordered an old #8 bent gouge on eBay to use. The Pfeil ones are really nice, but too expensive for figuring out what I need when starting out. So old ones from eBay will work fine until I outgrow them and need something better. (I have the same philosophy with Harbor Freight, I’ll start with the HF tool first, and if I use it a ton and finally need a new one, then I’ll upgrade. But often I don’t need to and the HF one serves me well for light use.)
Learn the basics of bowl turning on the lathe. I’m planning on watching some of Kent Weakley’s stuff to learn.
I think I mentioned it in another post. but I’m a recipe tester for a forthcoming book on making hard seltzers, ciders, iced teas, and kombuchas by Emma Christiansen (I have and like one of her other books, True Brews.) It is fun and not too work intensive. I bottled my first batch, a Gin & Tonic flavored hard seltzer that includes neither gin nor tonic. It should be carbonated and ready to drink in a week or two.
Next I’m testing an Imperial Cider.
I made a big batch of pork carnitas in the Instant Pot and some Chipotle-style cilantro lime rice for dinner tonight, with the hope that it would make for some easy lunches this week. It was a hit with all three of us, so I’ll probably make it again in a month or so.
The pork: Chunk up a small boneless pork shoulder and small pork loin (the idea is to mix some lean and fatty meats for variety) and marinate it with mojo. (Making your own is great, but I usually don’t have time so I grab a bottle of the Goya mojo.) Marinate for as long as you can, then drain and put the pork in the instant pot with chili powder, Mexican oregano, cumin, garlic, onion, and cinnamon for 45 minutes on high. Quick release the pressure, pull the pork out of the pot, and shred. Put 1/2 cup of the juice over the shredded pork.
The rice: Cook 2 cups basmati rice, then after it is done and off the heat, add in a little olive oil, 1/4 cup chopped cilantro, the juice of one lime, and some salt.
Related: My friend Erin and I share recipes regularly. She asked if there is a platform where we can share our meal plans and rate them afterward and leave notes. Probably going to set up a simple private WordPress blog unless anyone has a better idea. I like the flexibility of text with the commenting and ability to search that a blog offers. Perhaps I’ll turn on autotagging, too.
Resolutions check: I’m doing pretty well with the stretching, which has made me pay closer attention to my hydration as well. I am not doing well with the drawing… when things get busy or stressful it is the very first thing to go. Next week I’ll try a new tactic and put dedicated time on my calendar to do it.
This redesign started with a simple note in Obsidian:
Simplify. Keep the orange, but have less of it. Too much in nav. Move most of the extra info into pages linked off the About page.
I also wanted something with a sidebar again.
I wanted to stick with the Site Editor, so I used a child-theme of the Twenty Twenty-Four theme generated with Create Block Theme. I went with Twenty Twenty-Four because it purports to be extremely flexible and I wanted to use a theme with the most up-to-date Site Editor tooling and best practices.
The first thing I did was set up my own template parts, overwriting the defaults. It was a bit time consuming, but TT4 doesn’t have a left sidebar or sidebar navigation template or pattern. I made as much as I could reusable as a named template part so I can easily make changes later and keep them consistent across my various templates.
I used some very minor custom CSS (roughly 50 lines), mostly relating to my footer animation and some mobile styles for the navigation.
I decided to go with default system fonts rather than loading a web font. Simplify.
Everything non-essential got removed from the main navigation and either linked in the footer or somewhere more contextually appropriate on a subpage. Navigations on personal websites don’t need dropdowns.
I removed the custom PHP template I had for my Reading page and turned it into a regular page in the editor, and pretty soon I’ll probably remove the custom post type and custom fields that it relied on, too. I don’t think I really need a separate post type, just a list will do. Simplify.
Here is what it looks like:
Places I took inspiration from:
From Manuel Moreale and Steph Ango‘s post lists on their homepages. I kind of like how both of them have their latest post at the top, which I might adopt. We’ll see.
From Jeremy Felt, the right aligned titles and how to handle my h-card
From Footer.design, a bold footer that has a surprise
From James G, not being afraid to highlight specific sections of my site in my footer that I want people to look at. Things like /now, /uses, /meta, /blogroll
From my own digital garden, the idea that having the last updated date on pages is useful to understand how fresh or stale they are.
I’m sure there are more folks I took unconscious inspiration from, too!
I included a Meta page in the footer that explains how this site is built and has a rough history of the changes this site has gone through since 2007. It was inspired by Anh, Shea Fitzpatrick, and Jeremy Felt. Since I’m a digital hoarder, I had backups of almost every iteration.
I know it isn’t perfect, but I wanted to ship it and get it live.
Where I want to go next with this:
Customize some category archive pages with additional info. Things like Photography and Woodworking can use helpful contextful info on the archive pages.
Continuing to refine pages like /now, /uses, /about, and /blogroll
Keep improving the mobile styling
Refining block styles as I use them
Fixing old posts that now look wonky
Keep figuring out what I like and what is useful on the homepage
Style webmentions, pingbacks, and comments better
If you find something broken, please let me know. There are some templates I haven’t touched (though I don’t think anything actually uses them, but I should verify that.) 🚢
The snow melted by the end of the day Tuesday because of all the rain we had. More is forecasted for this week though!
This has been a wild weather week around the US. On a single day, US folks on my team shared in Slack that they experienced tornados, flooding, heavy wind, and heavy snow. A couple days later there was more snow and extremely low temperatures.
If you don’t have backup plans for heat and some emergency preparations, now is probably a good time to start thinking about that. I don’t think this extreme weather is going to improve.
Charlie was home sick from daycare most of the week, and Amanda caught the bug as well. I was mostly spared except for some sore throat, but it did throw a wrench in the week nonetheless.
Working from home with a sick kid is tough. I work best when it is quiet and I’m alone, which makes it impossible to an eye on Charlie and get real work done. Unfortunately, Amanda’s work tends to be call-heavy, also impossible to do and keep an eye on Charlie. We trade off, so neither of us gets enough done.
Charlie recovered enough to daycare on Friday, but Amanda and I had dentist appointments. After mine, I took a walk down to Bruised Apple BooksArchived Link while Amanda finished her appointment. I picked up a couple Edward Abbey books and a book I’ve had my eye on there for over a year: The Internet Atlas by Richard Dinnick. Subtitle: Your indespensible guide to the best 1000 sites on the web. Published in 2000. I love flipping through the screenshots of the web 1.0 sites. I experienced them, but it is a reminder of what the web used to be like.
I spent a couple late nights working on a blog redesign. I have a few more templates to make before I move it over to this site.
The weekend was better. Saturday morning we took a trip up to Lagrangeville to pick up Amanda’s flute from a music shop where she had some maintenance work done on it. Saturday afternoon Charlie got a haircut (so handsome!), then he and I did some grocery shopping while Amanda got her nails done.
Sunday we all did some yardwork together (emptied and put away some straggler terra cotta pots, filled the bird feeders), I put up a pull-up bar on the back side of the swingset (not visible from the front, which is a win), then I made a mallet in the shop, and revived some dead tool batteries while Amanda and Charlie took a nap and baked banana bread.
I want to share my process more here on the blog, so here is how I made a carving mallet on Sunday.
I made this mallet so that I can use it to strike gouges for bowl carving, which I want to experiment with. This style of mallet is easier to use for striking gouges than the larger joiner’s mallets I made. This one is pretty similar to the kitchen mallet/ice crusher I made for my friend a couple years ago.
Using a large gouge, I roughed it out to make it a cylinder.
Next, I used a bedan to remove a lot of material to rough out the handle.
Then I used three different sized gouges and a skew to shape it the rest of the way.
For the final step on the lathe, I sanded it. First with 80 grit on a few rough spots, then 120 grit all over and then 220 grit all over.
Off the lathe, I applied a 2:1 mixture of jojoba oil and beeswax to the outside, first rubbing it in with my hands, then heating it up over an open flame on the stove burner and buffing it with a cloth.
I chose to leave the tool marks on each end:
This is just for me and I kind of like being able to see the tool marks.
Making a piece without the tool marks involves a longer piece of wood and more steps.
If I ever mess up the mallet and need to resurface it, since the tool marks are still in place I’ll be able to throw it back on the lathe and sand it down easily.
It is drying in the house for a couple days, then I’ll start using it for bowl carving!
New Year’s Day feels like the only real rest day we had during the holiday break.
We made peanut butter bird seed pinecones for the birds.
We took a walk in the woods.
Charlie took a long nap and Amanda and I sat on the couch together for a while. I blogged and Amanda got ready for the week.
I made pasta for dinner.
This week was back-to-work. Tuesday night we made pizza and calzones from the extra NYE dough. I’m really getting the hang of shaping the dough and using the Ooni.
My daily stretching and drawing resolution is going well. I’m staying on trackToo soon to see benefits IMO, but glad I’m sticking with it and it doesnt feel like too much of a drag.
We went to Feed the Birds! in Croton and got a new bird feeder. Charlie likes filling it up.
He also likes helping put out the recycling. He is generally a helpful guy.
Not a lot else to say about the rest of the week. We went back to work and kind of eased back in while a lot of people were still out. Amanda and I had a lunch date on Friday (Benny’s sandwiches at the waterfront). We re-joined the local wine shop’s wine club.
The east coast finally got some snow this weekend. We enjoyed playing in it. We started in the yard in the morning, then my friend Jon came over after naptime and we went for a walk in the woods. Charlie enjoyed the sled a lot more this year then he did last year.
Some snowy scenes.
I stumbled upon this and I absolutely love it. A cozy little place for a mouse or chipmunk to eat some nuts and seeds and keep out of the snow.
I feel fortunate that none of us have gotten sick this winter. Big difference compared to last year when we were sick all the time.
Taking care of an infant was physically difficult. Parenting a 2.5yo toddler is emotionally difficult. On one hand there are tons of meltdowns and independence struggles, then on the other hand they tell you they love you unprompted and very sweetly thank you for doing small everyday things for them.
Charlie’s use of function words has ramped up in the last couple weeks. They make his speaking sound a lot more natural. But he also still says things like “unga brella” for umbrella and “Magawine” for Madeline (which we’ve been reading a lot of), and it is super cute.
He amazes us and we are so proud of him, even if we go to bed emotionally exhausted every night. It can be, and is, both.
Matt Mullenweg’s birthday wish is for people to blog. I thought I’d blog about how blogging has connected me with all different kinds of people, most of whom I’ve never met in person, just through the simple act of writing something on my own domain and hitting “Publish.”
Here is a non-complete list of blog posts I’ve written over the years that complete strangers have emailed or messaged me about.
I didn’t write these with SEO in mind. There has never been ads on this blog. I wasn’t paid to write any of these posts. I just wanted to share what I’m doing/thinking/working on in hopes that it might help someone later. They mostly help me later, but I’m delighted they’ve helped other people, too.
The emails and messages from some of these posts have turned into IRL friendships, freelance work, speaking gigs at conferences, real job offers (including two I took!), news quotes, and having my art included in shows.
This still surprises and amazes me whenever I stop to think about it. I’ve only been blogging for ~15 years, most of that using WordPress. Starting blogging in 2008 felt like I was late to the game. Compared to Matt, I was, but doing things consistently for years adds up.
Now, 15 years after deciding to blog, I’m proud to have a job working for Matt at Automattic where I can help other people create their place on the web.
The internet is what you make of it. Blogging is what you make of it.
Happy Birthday, Matt, and thanks for doing what you do.
The end of both the autumn season and the calendar year. On the shortest day of the year we celebrated our friend Meg’s birthday at The Central, where her husband set up a surprise party and urged us all to get sitters and have a night out. We are glad we did. It was fun to be out with friends, sans kids, in a place where we’ve all been many times but in a completely different context. We dressed up, too!
We’ve been going to the library every other week or so to pick out new books with Charlie. This last time he confidently stated he wanted a book about firetrucks, so we asked the kind librarian to help us find firetruck books and they delivered. Charlie enjoyed one on the ride home.
We went back to Ohio for Christmas and had a nice trip.
The drive out was easy. Despite leaving late because we had a busy week and hadn’t packed much, the weather was nice and traffic light on the drive, so we made good time. Listened to Birdseye, Adventures of a Curious Man by Mark Kurlansky.
Some highlights from the trip:
Making Dutch Babies on Christmas morning. We used Smitten Kitchen’s recipe and did one savory and one sweet.
Making Sean Brock’s rabbit stew with black pepper dumplings recipe. We brought a rabbit from Hemlock Hill.
Seeing Charlie play with his cousins.
Charlie getting time with his grandparents and feeling completely comfortable at their house, opening up and being silly like he does at home.
Working on a project with my Dad: Refinishing the top of an old work bench and mounting it to a cart with wheels. We took off about 1/8 of an inch of old wood with a power plane, evened it out with a belt sander, tightened the through bolts to squeeze everything back together, cut a straight edge, added a carpenter’s vice, and then put a mixture of beeswax and mineral oil on top.
My cousins, uncle, and I eating Paqui One Chip Challenge chips. I eat a lot of hot stuff, but this was rough. It made me hiccup involuntarily for the first five minutes while I sweat like crazy.
One of the bigger challenges this year is that Charlie got overstimulated and clingy at most of the bigger get-togethers we went to, so either Amanda or I spent a lot of 1:1 time with Charlie. It makes sense and is developmentally appropriate for 2.5 years old. We also think he is going through another leap right now because his language skills are increasing almost every day right now. His nap schedule was way off, too. Nonetheless, it is tiring for us and frustrating when we only see certain people once or twice a year and spend a huge chunk of that time not able to socialize. But we are reminding ourselves that this is a stage and we are thankful for the time we did get, and for the dedicated time with Charlie.
My cousin Ryan filled me in on Smokin’ Ed Currie. He is the one who cultivated the Carolina Reaper pepper and now has a new world’s hottest pepper: Pepper X. It apparently takes about 10 years to make a stable cross-breed chile.
On the way back from Ohio we stopped in Pittsburgh to visit our friends Erin and Tyler, which is becoming a tradition. Some highlights:
Charlie and Gus playing outside with the chickens
Charlie getting to pet some cats. We don’t have any pets, so he was thrilled and surprisingly gentle.
Tyler gave me a couple nice pieces of black cherry wood to turn on the lathe.
Erin shared some gardening advice and a book recommendation (The Old Way).
Having a fantastic meal at Nicky’s Thai in Sewickley. I had Khao Soi and loved it. I’ll probably try to make some at home.
Tyler played Bon Iver’s 22, A Million on the record player while the fireplace crackled and snow flurried outside.
I enjoy the vibes that putting on a record gives, and love when someone puts one on when we visit, but I have no interest in getting a record player or collecting records.
Making Black & Green Manhattans (Manhattans with Zirbenz) and tasting some double oak bourbon. Tyler recommended seeking out Old Forester 1910.
Playing Trivial Pursuit. The guys won.
One theory of Poe’s death is that he was so distressed about being forced to participate in Cooping that he had a panic attack and died
Playing Monopoly Deal. Amanda won.
Just chatting and laughing with old friends.
Every time we visit Erin and Tyler I’m tempted to buy a Moccamaster or Bonavita coffee maker, but I’m stubbornly attached to our hand grinding and manual pour over.
Every year I try to get Erin and Tyler to blog, to no avail. Erin is an incredible artist and I think she’d write great blog posts. We share a lot of common interests, but completely diverge on the blogging front.
Some choice quotes from this year:
“No, I haven’t read your blog. In fact, I’ve never read any blog.”
“I don’t know what you internet people do.”
“The collective has a hard time getting people to document their work because we are all too busy actually doing things to blog about it.”
Erin
“Your blog is about nothing… I mean, you blog about whatever is going on in your life at the time…nothing in particular.”
Tyler
The drive back home was decent. Lots of rain, but Charlie was in a good mood and actually napped. Listened to Carlo Rovelli’s The Order of Time. Had a surreal experience where I thought we were both an hour further ahead in the audiobook and an hour further in our drive than we actually were. Losing an hour while listening to a book that challenges our standard conceptions of time is weird.
We had a NYE get together at our house with Erica, Trevor, and Zoey.
We made pizza in the Ooni. The dough came out great and was easy to work with. I’m getting the hang of the Ooni.
We made Tiki drinks. Nui Nui (rum, cinnamon, vanilla, orange, lime) and Yuletide (tequila, cranberry, lime, orange).
We had many appetizers and dips.
Amanda made a toddler charcuterie board just for the kids.
The kids made art and danced.
Zoey made herself at home and tried to sleep on the couch when her parents said it was time to go home and go to bed.
It was a nice time. We started in the afternoon and were all in bed before midnight.
Over the break I finally finished the eighth book of The Baroque Cycle. The series took me two years to finish. Which giant Neal Stephenson book should I read next? I’ve read over half of his fiction bibliography so far. We’ll see what strikes my fancy in a couple months when I’m ready to start another, but right now I’m leaning toward Anathem.
I had big plans for overhauling this blog over the break, but didn’t do them. I took a break and hung out with my family instead. I’ll get to it eventually.
I used to be against making New Year’s resolutions (2009). I’ve eased up on that in the last decade and have tried some other methods, such as listing out 20 specific things I want to do for a yearly task list or setting a yearly theme. Both of those worked pretty well.
This year I want to keep it simple. My two 2024 resolutions are:
Stretch every day
I’m tight, not getting any younger, and starting to get a little bit of lower back pain and a bad posture. I want to correct this and be able to keep up with Charlie as he gets faster. I don’t want to feel stiff when I get up out of a chair.
Sketch every day
I’ve wanted to learn to draw for years. I attempted it in 2017 with Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, but it ended up being too involved/detailed for what I really want to do. I want to make quick Jason Polan-style sketches and simple line drawings. I want to doodle. I want to post stuff like that here to this blog, draw with Charlie at the coffee table, and make fun sketches on my chalkboard. I hope it helps me see the world in a different way, too.
Why daily?
Small daily actions add up over time. These probably won’t take more than 10-15 minutes each and I think both will have a positive impact on my life.
Progress is radical over time yet incremental in time.
Ronald Heifetz in The Practice of Adaptive Leadership
Also, it is easy to know whether I’m on track or not. It is a binary “did I do this today or not?” question rather than a nebulous one. I have the Reporter app set up to ask me about this after Charlie’s bedtime each night, which gives me enough time to do it if I haven’t yet.
So, to start it off, one of the first things I did this morning was stretch my legs in the living room with a stretching strap, then my back with a Child’s Pose and Thread the Needle pose. Charlie joined in and stretched with a resistance band. He is much more flexible than I am.
And here is my daily sketch:
This is from our walk in the woods today. I have a lot to learn.
I started answering the 40 Questions this year, then realized about a quarter of the way through that I didn’t really want to answer them. Not my preferred format.
Instead, I’m trying something else: Making a list of Top 3 things in various categories for the year.
Having some of my art printed on postcards and distributed to hundreds of people at WordCamp Europe.
Moderating photo submissions to the WordPress Photo Directory
Testing out a hard seltzer recipe for an upcoming homebrew book by Emma Christiansen
Making Falernum and various syrups for tiki
Driving Big Sur and 17 Mile Drive for the first time
Recipe testing for a new book and learning how to make hard seltzer
Charlie discovering hot chocolate
Tomatoes from our garden
Posting Likes and microblog notes here first instead of another social platform first.
Having one of my photos hung in a gallery at WordCamp US.
Pushing Charlie on the swingset
Charlie pointing out trucks, animals, stars, etc. He is so observant!
Getting comfortable furniture for the back deck.
Rowing on the Croton River and the Hudson in all different seasons.
Making some rabbit stew with black pepper dumplings with my parents
Getting perspective on how well maintained our 95 year old house is
Taking Charlie down to the riverfront walk to ride his bike.
Playing in the sand with Charlie on the beach
End of summer vacation in Cape Cod
Charlie throwing rocks in the river.
Working with my Dad to restore an old workbench top for his shop
Walks in the woods with Charlie and Amanda
Christmas lights walk at Harvest Moon Orchard
Getting the desk for my Ikea Poang chair. I use it every weekday. I’m writing this at it now.
Reading physical books.
Attending Gwen and Jacob’s wedding in Monterey. Reading Cannery Row while there.
Trick or treating with Charlie and friends in Lake Peekskill
Charlie riding his bike along the riverwalk and cruising down the hill.
Making pizza and tiki drinks at our house with friends on NYE
Morning breakfast sandwiches with Charlie
Growing more of a local community here in Peekskill
Wandering around Depew Park and exploring with Charlie for almost two hours on Saturday. Making sure Charlie has space to make his own decisions and explore.
Going to San Juan, PR, for a work team meetup
Taking Jay on his first Hudson paddle
Charlie having an excellent time whenever he got ahold of the garden hose.
Burgers and french fry sauce at Meyers Old Dutch, Beacon
Family walk with the sled in the snowy woods on a winter day in February
Getting a pellet ice machine. We use it in cocktails, iced coffee, iced tea, etc.
Putting up the climbing wall on Charlie’s swingset and watching him figure it out and master it over the next 8 months. Amazing.
Cape Cod vacation. Charlie playing on the beach and exploring. Whale watching.
The cardinal pairs in our backyard
Snuggle time with Charlie
Giving a talk on debugging with Logstash and Grafana.
Wrapping up the attic insulation project
Going to some art shows at the Center for Machine Arts
Going to Malaga, Spain, for a work division meetup. Jumping in the cold sea at night.
Listening to the windchimes
Making hot sauce with my red jalapeños
Alex Kirk’s Friends plugin with the Send to Kindle tool. Getting more into the indieweb in general
Taking Charlie out in the guideboat on Lake Sebago
Learning how to recharge the AC on my car.
Night out with Amanda celebrating Meg’s birthday. It was in a location we go to at least once a week, but transformed into a party space, at a completely different time of day, and filled with people we are friends with, it felt completely different in a magical way.
Taking Charlie out in the guideboat for the first time
Making Shortcuts workflows to make posting here easier
Having a little helper for all of our house projects
Blogging more
Wood fired Wednesdays at Pizzeria Baci. It was here that Charlie decided he liked pepperoni
Birthday in Kingston and Woodstock. Bookstore to get copies of Sandman signed. Trying Moonburger and Dixon’s Roadside.
Integrating AI tools into my daily workflow.
Eating Khao Soi at Nicky’s Thai in Sewickley
Charlie’s kind, sweet, and curious disposition
Looking for pinecones in the woods with Charlie
Charlie has grown so much this year! Photos from 1 year ago are recognizable, but feel so long ago and like a different kid.
Charlie’s love of breakfast sandwiches
Many, many hours at playgrounds with Charlie, running around with him, pushing him on swings, giving him high fives when he reached the bottom of a slide.
Doing things I’ve been putting off, such as getting the heater maintenance done before the cold set in.
Making Christmas cookies as a family.
Visiting the Claytons in Walnut Creek, CA
Running the Harvard Blog Archive preservation project.
Observing the hockeystick growth of Charlie’s vocabulary
Having a local artist design Christmas cards for us for the second year in a row
Celebrating holidays and birthdays with local friends
Trick or treating with our friends and their kids
Getting birria tacos from food trucks
Tending to the garden with Charlie
Reading When an Elephant Goes Shopping with Charlie, my favorite book when I was a toddler.
Building things out of blocks with Charlie. Vacuum trucks, bulldozers, semi trucks, hammers, etc.
Putting in the glass rinser in the sink. We use it all the time!
Taking Charlie to the playground, running, and having fun with him
Making art with Charlie and Amanda at the coffee table
Finishing 29 books
Picking out pumpkins in the rain with Charlie and Amanda. He was happy to stomp in the mud, sit on a tractor, and ride in the pumpkin wagons.
Talking to the Praxis students about using AI tools
Getting out on the river and paddling/rowing
Helping Jon build a woodshed
Coming out of the fog and feeling more like ourselves
Having lots of people over in the backyard for Charlie’s second birthday. Things like that are why we wanted a house to begin with!
Friendsgiving at Jeremy and Megan’s house
Putting book shelving in my office and changing the ambiance in there
Visiting the Desmonds in Salinas
Starting the generous coaching program that Automattic offers all employees
Working with Dave Winer on FeedLand
Charlie showing in interest in music and instruments. He wants to play a trumpet.
Visiting Erin and Tyler in Pittsburgh
Sandwich Fridays at Benny’s Brown Bag. We meet another couple for lunch each Friday at noon.
Getting back out in the woodshop and making dreidels and christmas ornaments on the lathe
Observing Charlie figure out the alphabet and his basic numbers this year.
Mornings at Peekskill Central getting breakfast with Amanda and Charlie before one of us gets on the train
Why Tunk? We initially thought we’d try Euchre or Cinch, but both of those needed four players for partner pairs and Amanda was engrossed in a good book, so we needed something that three people could play. My Dad mentioned that Northeast Ohio Ford workers used to play Tonk, so we looked it up in Hoyle (called Tunk there) and found it could accommodate 3-7 players, so we gave it a shot.
Tunk is a variation of Gin Rummy. The classic version uses 7 cards, but a faster version with more people can use 5 cards. There are a lot of variations we found online with slightly different rules, so we followed the rules in our Hoyle rulebook.
Cards: 52, Aces are low and count as 1, King is high, and Deuces (2) are wild.
Deal: Each player is dealt 7 cards. Remaining cards go to the stockpile in the middle of the table and the top is flipped to start the discard pile.
Play: Clockwise from dealer. Each player takes a card from the top of the stockpile or discard, then discards one from their hand. The goal is to create sets of 3-4, as in Gin Rummy (same card of different suits 3♠️ 3♥️ 3♣️ or sequence of the same suit 3♠️ 4♠️ 5 ♠️). A matched set may have no more than four cards and must include two non-wild cards. When a player has deadwood (cards not in a set) that total less than 5 (Counting: Face cards count as 10, deuces not in a set count as 25, all other cards are the number value), they can Tunk (knock). The player who Tunks then lays out their sets and separates the deadwood. All other players then have one turn to lay off their unmatched cards on the Tunker’s sets if they can. If the Tunker’s hand has no deadwood, there is no lay off round.
If a player gets 50 points at the first deal, they shout “Tunk!” and automatically win the game.
Scoring: The non-Tunkers count their deadwood and tally it up. (Face cards count as 10, deuces not in a set count as 25, all other cards are the number value.) The first player to reach 100 is out, others keep going until only one player is left and they are the winner.
Some variations have the Tunker counting, too. In some variations, if the Tunker’s deadwood is not the lowest, it counts double. In others, if they have the lowest, it doesn’t count.
We found this game much faster and easier to pick up than last year’s Pitch, probably because we all know how to play Gin Rummy. I bet we’ll continue to play this in the future because it is fast-paced and it is easy to teach to new players.
We primarily played the 7-card version, but decided to try the 5-card version for a few rounds and it went very quickly and the wild deuces really came in handy. I think I prefer the 7-card version if we have only three players and Tunkers don’t count deadwood, but the 5-card version if we have more players and the Tunker counts their deadwood (and has the double penalty if it is not the lowest.)
BJ Homer taught a bunch of us Automatticians how to play the Four Letter Word Game at a meetup. I taught my parents how to play today and I haven’t found a writeup of it that I could refer to, so I thought I’d make a quick post on how to play.
What you need: Two people, each with a piece of paper and a pencil.
Gameplay:
Each person picks a four letter word.
They take turns guessing a four letter word. After each guess, the other person tells them how many letters they guessed are in the word.
When one person thinks they’ve figured out the other person’s word, they need to take a turn to explicitly ask, “Is your word….?”
More details
Figuring out how many letters to tell the guesser that they got right:
You go through each letter in the guessed word and compare it to each letter in your word. If the letter you are comparing appears anywhere, even if you’ve already “used” it, that counts. Getting four letters right does not mean you’ve guessed the word… see SASS vs CATS for example:
It doesn’t matter how many of that letter are in my word; it’s just a “yes/no” question:
Image credits: BJ Homer
You don’t give the other player any info about the order of the letters, or which letters they got right. That is what they need to figure out on their own.
I played this game with my Mom yesterday and found it helpful to write the alphabet along the top of a notepad page, then draw a line down the middle. The left side I write my guesses and scores down, the right side I write my word and the other player’s guesses and scores down.
It is helpful to keep track of all words and scores. To quote BJ, “Your partner will almost certainly lie to you at some point. They probably won’t mean to, but they’ll make a mistake.”
Here are some example sheets from both players in two games:
Christmas tree update: We added cranberries. We consider our tree a work in progress for all of December.
I got out in the shop and made some more ornaments on the lathe. That might be it for this year.
Charlie’s daycare class had a Christmas luncheon and Amanda made the menus and flowers.
We made some more Christmas cookies. Charlie stamped them. Using a circle cutter as a guide helped tremendously.
Charlie and I spent two hours exploring Depew park in a very open-ended way. As long as he wasn’t in danger or about to jump in the pond, I didn’t interfere with where he wanted to go. He loved it.
Charlie and I also took a night walk in the woods with his flashlight.
We sent out the last batch of Christmas cards today. We need to start writing them a bit earlier next year ðð¬
I joined a local Discord group and got included in some local Twitter lists. I am starting to feel like that was a mistake. The complainers tend to congregate there and complain together because no one else will listen to them. There they feel heard. Not really my kind of place.
To quote Frank Chodorov, “One is a crowd.”
I’m looking forward to some time off next week. I need it this year. The last six months feel like a blur to me.
Made by Alex Kirk. The Friends plugin allows you to follow content from other WordPress sites, and interact with them on your own site. You can follow friends and others via RSS. If you also have the ActivityPub plugin installed, you can follow people on Mastodon and other ActivityPub-compatible social networks.
+ Friends Post Collection and Friends Send to E-Reader
I use these to make collections of posts that I then send to my Kindle and read offline. Very niche, but very useful.
I made this one. It takes items from an RSS feed and automatically posts Likes to them on my site, using the IndieBlocks Like functionality mentioned above.
If any of my coworkers are reading this, know that I cringe about having this on my site, too. I’ve removed most uses except for the Reading section of my site, which I intend to rebuilt from scratch on the next iteration of my site. Consider this my personal Data Liberation project.
I’m blogging later than usual because during my normal blogging times I was either out in the workshop turning things on the lathe, baking Christmas cookies, writing Christmas cards, making natural Christmas decorations, or at a Christmas party. All good things. ‘Tis the season.
The Christmas party in Lake Peekskill, hosted by our friends Jeremy and Marie, included live music and caroling. That’s Amanda on the flute, Jeremy on the piano, and Detra (who you might recognize from HONY) singing in the background.
I spent a couple evenings in the workshop this week making things. First some dreidels for Hanukkah gifts (see also), then some ornaments and a dry vase. A little helper came to visit.
It is really nice to get back out in the shop and make things again. Trying to make it a regular thing.
I’ve pretty much switched to the Arc browser now. I’m still getting my pins set up and a few work tools figured out, but it is a huge improvement over any other browsers I’ve used, except maybe for the web browser on Palm’s webOS. (That Palm Pre was by far the coolest phone I’ve owned.) See also.
We’ve been going to the library with Charlie every couple weeks to pick out new books. He loves picking some himself and insists on carrying them back to the car. In addition to the cars and construction vehicles, he loves Madeline. Très bien!
Some books he’s been enjoying:
Madeline’s Christmas (which he calls Magawine Christmas)
Construction Site on Christmas Night
Construction Vehicle ABCs (which he calls Excavator Dump Truck Book)
Cars Go
I’m not done with it yet, but Ray Nayler’s The Mountain in the Sea is a prime candidate for the best book I’ve read this year.
State of the Word looks like it went well today. I’m curious to see how the community responds to the Data Liberation focus. I played a small part in getting some things ready for that behind the scenes. More to come on that front later. I’m excited about this focus, as migrations are a big chunk of my job and better tooling would be a huge help. I’d love the end user to be able to migrate everything on their own without calling in our team!
I’m also in love with the Playground project. I wish the blueprint.json convention there would make its way to regular WP installs. I’d love to send someone a json file to include with a blank WP install and have everything installed and generated in a matter of seconds.
Oh dreidel, dreidel, dreidel, I turned it on a lathe
Not quite how the original goes, but more fitting for a woodworker.
I turned three dreidels on the lathe over the past week for Hanukkah gifts. It was nice to get back out in the shop and make a couple things after a long hiatus.
One of these is going to a coworker without any finish so he can paint it and add the Hebrew letters with his young son. One is going to our friends’ son who is Charlie’s age. Those two are made of cherry.
The other is going to my close friend and is intended for decoration. It is crafted from a piece of white cedar originating from the same tree used to construct the arbor under which he and his wife exchanged wedding vows. It has a separate walnut handle.
I used the lathe, rasp, disc sander, and belt sander.
I’m still trying to decide the best way to finish and put the Hebrew letters on two of them. This is one of those times I wish I had access to a laser engraver, because I think that would look really nice on these.
I installed Arc today for the first time after hearing about it from a lot of folks over the past month. Here are my initial thoughts:
I both love and hate browsing without actively seeing the URL bar at the top of the window.
I love how tidy it is without the top URL bar. It makes the webpage a true canvas.
I prefer having the sidebar hidden. It is kind of fun.
Would we design webpages differently if we didn’t assume having the URL bar and controls at the top? ð¤Â
I hate not having the additional context the URL provides. Sure, you can still see it, but you have to take an action instead of having it there by default.
I’m writing this in Arc right now!
Unfortunately I’m also getting weird autosave errors and network connection errors with the WordPress editor that I’m not getting in Chrome.
There are some conflicts with shortcuts Gutenberg uses and what Arc uses, such as command + S for the sidebar.
This is the universal Save shortcut though, so what did they expect?
I like the ability to take screenshots in the app itself. Handy, especially the ability to select what is essentially certain divs.
The onboarding experience is pretty good. Importing some stuff from Chrome helped instead of starting from scratch. Seeing how things I already understand work in a new context is very useful.
Easels and Notes are neat, but I already have notetaking apps.
I imagine if this had deeper support within the app itself I’d be tempted to use it. Something like collecting quotes, links, and images quickly into the most recent note with links back to the source.
It needs better share support than just the standard macOS share sheet. I’d love to draft something here and 1-click publish to my blog, or Twitter, or Bluesky, or Mastodon, or all of the above. (I guess Dave Winer made me a textcasting convert)
The link previews in the Max feature are really useful. I love them already. I’ve helped implement this on single sites I’ve built, but having it in the browser is wonderful.
I’m going to give Spaces a try tomorrow. I’ll set up a space for each project I work on that day to collect related tabs. I know some Chrome extensions had the concept of tab groups, but I didn’t like how the grouped tabs look. Perhaps this will be better.
I think Boosts are brilliant, and a nice interface to let users customize the internet to their own liking. It is also much simpler to include custom CSS and JS on a page than in any other browser. I can see this fitting into my development toolkit pretty quickly.
Companies need to start watching if any uses make and share Boosts of their sites/products. There is a lot to learn here from how users choose to customize the look and feel of your site.
Chrome already looks outdated after a couple hours of using Arc.
The command bar is nice.
I wonder if I can create my own commands?
Similar to Raycast, which I also use. There is already an Arc extension for Raycast.
The ephemeral nature of “Today” tabsArchived Link is interesting, but so counter to what I’m used to. I hope it doesn’t bite me.
There is a lot more I haven’t discovered yet, but so far I love it.
Using Arc + Raycast + Obsidian makes me feel like I’m working in the future.
A first for us: We decorated the Christmas Tree at 7am. That is when Charlie got up and was ready to go. We still need to dry the grapefruits to add to the tree. Every morning Charlie turns the tree on when he comes downstairs, and he turns it off before we leave. He loves it.
Charlie playing trains.
Charlie helping make Christmas cookies
We went to the Harvest Moon Orchard Festival of Lights on Saturday. They had lots of great displays and a well-paced, self-guided path with calming music. We enjoyed it. Charlie’s favorite was the tractors.
I’m surprised more orchards and farms don’t do something like this. I know it is a lot of work, but this place is raking it in on what is the typical off season. They not only charge for admission, but they have 3 refreshment stations where you can buy hot chocolate, coffee, and booze while going through the lights, then food and fresh hot donuts at the end. Quick napkin math, I expect they are bringing in at least $30K per night on the weekends.
One more for good measure.
I spent Saturday morning helping Jon frame out a woodshed at his place. We work well together. We usually drink our coffee and discuss the plan, then divide and conquer. We don’t waste much time.
I learned a new trick for squaring things like the bottom frames: The 3-4-5 rule. Mark 3ft on one side, 4ft on the other, and adjust until the hypotenuse is 5ft. This makes perfect sense, but I hadn’t thought to use it before.
I’m feeling the itch to redesign my website. The homepage and archive pages need it. I’ll probably start by surveying other blogs I like and taking screenshots for inspiration.
Reading
Amanda and I usually spend Charlie’s naptime on the weekends trying to get some stuff done around the house. Today we brewed some coffee, snuggled up on the couch together, and read for two and a half hours. It was nice.
Currently listening to the eighth and final book in The Baroque Cycle, System of the World.
I gave up on the third book in the Red Rising saga. I liked the first, the second wasn’t as good, and just couldn’t stay interested in the third.
Spotify Wrapped 2023
For as long as Spotify has been doing Wrapped, Tycho has been my number one artist, and that hasn’t changed. Though, I’m thankful that Spotify opts out kids music, because Blippi or Twenty Trucks might have taken the top spot this year…
Some new artists made it in my top songs list:
Frou Frou (an Imogen Heap project)
Sudan Archives
The Hold Steady
Some old favorites resurfaced this year:
Mighty Mighty Bosstones
zebrahead
Mutemath
Foster the People
Some are no surprise:
Rancid
The Strokes
Less Than Jake
I made Japanese curry tonight, a cold weather favorite in our house. If you haven’t tried it, get some roux blocks and make a batch. We like the Vermont Curry brand, which is easy to find in the US. We make it with chicken, potatoes, peas, carrots, and onions, but it works well with ground beef or vegetarian, too. One batch is good for multiple meals.
Twelve Days of the Rings
Seven swans to rule them all, Six geese to find them, Five rings to bring them all, And in the pear tree bind them
📝 Notes:Obsidian (longer term working notes) and Drafts (short term temporary notes–nothing lives in Drafts long-term, it is more like Grand Central Terminal). Public notes get posted to https://notes.cagrimmett.com/
📁 Cloud File Storage: Dropbox, iCloud Drive, and Google Drive for various files. Backblaze for full computer backups.
(I’m not happy with this approach that has been cobbled together over time. If anyone has a better one and has done consolidation migrations, I’d love to chat.)
🛒 Shopping Lists: Reminders on iOS and macOS, in a shared list with my wife
🍴 Meal Planning: When we do it, it is mostly on an index card at home that we stick to the fridge. Occasionally a shared Reminders list.
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Google Sheets for high level tracking over time, otherwise we don’t track closely. We follow a 50/30/20 approach (50% of income goes to fixed expenses, 20% to savings and investment, 30% to everything else) and automate the 50 and 20, so we don’t have to closely track the 30.
I’ve been mostly offline this Thanksgiving. I haven’t checked anything for work, checked Twitter (or Mastodon, Bluesky, or Threads), read my RSS feeds, or checked any news sites. I did play Wordle, text some friends, and research microwave sales (the power supply on ours died). This was good for me, and I think I need to keep it going on weekends as much as I can.
Weekly Charlie photo dump.
Charlie likes learning about things, and recently anything with an engine is interesting to him. So I thought, why not show him our car’s engine? He liked it. He also loves starting the car whenever we go somewhere.
We joined the Richer family for Thanksgiving this year. It was nice enough that some of us opted to sit outside. Charlie and I also took a walk. Amanda and I were in charge of vegetables, so we made a dish of roasted butternut squash and a dish of roasted root vegetables (parsnips, rutabaga, onions, carrots, celeriac, and potatoes). With the leftover root vegetables we made a shepherd’s pie on Friday.
Charlie took his first train ride this weekend and he loved it. We took a short 20 minute ride up to Cold Spring to see how he’d do. Since he liked it so much, we think rides down to Manhattan are doable.
Charlie likes shopping at wholesale clubs.
I feel imbalanced.
I frequently work evenings after Charlie goes to bed.
I’m not reading as many books as I’d like.
I feel a little bit stuck at work.
We have some house & property projects we need to figure out but keep putting off.
I find the two year old phase as challenging as it is gratifying. Watching Charlie learn and encounter the world for the first time is incredible. Teaching him new things is gratifying. Yet, the tantrums that come with him pushing the boundaries of his independence are incredibly frustrating. These past two weeks have been tougher than usual. Amanda and I are exhausted.
My friend Jon asked me during Thanksgiving whether or not I’m turning any Christmas ornaments this year. I sheepishly said that I wasn’t and didn’t have time, but that didn’t sit right with me and bothered me the next couple days. I haven’t made much in my workshop since Charlie was born.
I feel in a rut with what I’m cooking for dinner regularly.
In short, it is time to make some changes.
I signed up for Automattic’s coaching program and scheduled my first couple coaching sessions.
I spent a couple hours this afternoon cleaning my workshop, which I used as storage for most of the past two years.
I made chicken stock tonight for the first time in almost a year.
Get in a regular stretching routine so I don’t feel so tight all the time.
Get back to regular meditation to help deal with frustration and anxiety.
I almost didn’t blog this week, but I think it is important to keep documenting things for my future self and keep putting things out there to start conversations.
I think a new theme is in my near future. Maybe using TT4. I’m trying it out for a project at work, so we’ll see how I like it. Looking at the current patterns, I think it needs one for a standard blog homepage with full content posts, so perhaps I’ll open an issue and put in a patch.
I’m sipping a Fall Back from Sasha Petraske’s excellent posthumous book, Regarding Cocktails, while writing this.
1oz Rye
1oz Apple Brandy
1/2oz Amaro Nonino
1/2oz sweet vermouth
Stir in a mixing glass with ice, strain over fresh ice into a rocks glass.
I started this year’s versions of 100 things and 40 questions. Doing them gradually over the next month should be easier than trying to jam in them between Christmas and the new year.
Busy couple of weeks. I didn’t write last weekend because I spent the whole weekend doing work around the house: Putting things away for the winter and mulching in the leaves outside, and moving things in the basement, garage, and attic in preparation for getting foam insulation in those spaces.
We were out of the house Wednesday through Friday morning to let the foam set and outgas. We got an Airbnb here in Peekskill. The house we stayed in was built around the same year ours was built, but not as well maintained. The basement was damp and dingy, the paint was peeling on a lot of trim, the floors were largely unlevel, and it had a base smell of old cigarettes (though obviously covered with a lot of primer.) It makes me thankful for our home.
I’m really looking forward to seeing what kind of difference the added insulation makes. Before we had bare rafters in the attic! I also need to put the weatherstrip on the doors and windows. The goal was to cap off the main place where heat was escaping (roof) and the weatherstrip will deal with the incoming drafts. Then we’ll reevaluate.
I’ve been bouncing around a lot with my book reading, starting lots of books that haven’t stuck. I think I’m scrolling too much on social media again. I started a new book (Candle by John Barnes), which I’m now halfway through. I credit that to putting my phone on the other side of the room while reading this week.
Attention span is a muscle and sometimes it needs retraining.
With it getting dark so early, it is time to start prioritizing morning walks again, as well as restarting my D3/K2/magnesium supplements.
WordPress Site Editor question: I know how to set default site-wide padding for certain blocks, but how do I pick which block style is default for the site? For example, for the Separator block, I want to set the Dots style as the default.
We attended a Friendsgiving at Meg and Jeremy’s on Saturday. Amanda baked a Milk Bar Pumpkin Pie cake, I made a punch bowl, and we made a sweet potato side dish. The kids provided the music.
We had a nice sous vide pork shoulder, pastrami and rye dressing, roasted potatoes with fennel, homemade butter, crusty bread, and roasted cabbage. Good meal!
An appetizer I enjoyed more than I expected was breaded and baked Boursin, served with water crackers. IMO much better than baked brie.
Charlie got to ride a pony again today after Amanda’s lesson. He was excited about it for the past three days. The English saddle was hard for him to hold on to, probably need a Western next time. I bet he will want to take real riding lessons in a couple years.
More Charlie photos from this week:
This NY boy loves a bacon egg and cheese.
Charlie loves to be included and help with whatever we are doing. While we were picking the last batch of tomatillos for the season, I noticed that he liked peeling the paper off the outside, so when it came time to wash and peel them, I asked him to help. It kept his attention the entire time and he helped with the entire bowl. Afterward, he enjoyed sorting them into two different bags. (Ignore the messy sink and kitchen. We did dishes after Charlie’s bedtime, I promise!)
The Peekskill Library has a children’s room with lots of great books. Charlie enjoyed picking some out this week, so I think we’ll be there a couple evenings a month. We discovered that the deli the next block over also makes a great chicken over rice platter (which Charlie absolutely houses), so we go there afterward and pick up dinner.
This OpenAI situation is wild. I don’t have any commentary other than I’m looking forward to finding out more real details about why sama was ousted. Did Ilya get spooked by new research, try to pump the breaks while Sam charged forward, and coordinate the board to push Sam out?
I love that the firing went down over Google Meet. Even OpenAI with Microsoft as a huge investor, doesn’t use Microsoft Teams 😆
I took apart my dryer for the first time today. It started making and awful squealing noise, which my Dad said is most likely the idler pulley. Changing that requires taking the whole thing apart, including pulling the drum out. I’m thankful that there were a few YouTube videos to watch and that Dad was available to FaceTime a couple times to answer my questions and talk me through a couple steps.
I wish I had paid more attention watching Dad take dryers, refrigerators, and ovens apart while I was growing up. Half the battle was trying to get the thing taken apart in the first place, and having seen someone do it would have made replicating that easier. That said, I probably did see Dad do that a couple times (I know I was always by his side, holding the flashlight, and interested in what he was working on), but seeing something 20+ years ago is tough to recall. I guess so much of learning is doing something yourself and figuring it out. Next time it will go a lot faster because I figured it out this time.
Charlie woke up from his nap and wanted to check it all out. I always appreciated my Dad being patient with me and showing me how stuff worked, so I took some time to show Charlie. He helped blow out the blower housing with the air compressor, too.
I’m surprised that old dryers, especially gas ones, don’t catch on fire more often, given how much lint gets past the lint screen and packed around the blower assembly and in the bottom. I took some time to vacuum the whole thing out and blow out the blower housing with the air compressor while I had it all apart.
When I put it back together, the squealing was gone, the drum still turned, and it heated up, so I think I did it right.
Charlie wanted to help me put the screws for the control unit back in. “I fix dryer too!” I got the final screws started and let him finish them.
I’m really excited about FeedLand‘s implementation of Reading Lists. The general idea that you can subscribe to an OPML file of feed URLs that gets regularly polled and resynced. So you are subscribing to a list of feeds rather than individual feeds, and you see the items from the feeds on that list in your reader. Cool stuff.
Since FeedLand generates OPML for each user, I’m also able to subscribe to other people’s subscription lists and their changes flow downstream to me. I’m busy subscribing to as many blogrolls in OPML format as I can find. That is where the best stuff comes from.
I followed links to your site from Dave Winer’s Scripting News site, your digital garden site is cool! I am interested in what theme you started with to create that site.
Andrew Shell has developed some tools for creating feeds for Federated Wiki installations (https://feeds.fedwikiriver.com/). I am interested in your thoughts about how to create feeds for wikis.
Thanks, Andy! I hope you don’t mind me writing a full post as a reply instead of an email. I’ve received other questions about this recently and I find it useful to document this stuff so it is searchable and linkable.
If you want to use the theme and templates I’ve set up, I can try to package it up for you. I didn’t want to do that here because it isn’t in a state I feel comfortable releasing publicly, but happy to share it privately and get your feedback on what would be good to add. I consider it an ongoing experiment and subject to change at any time.
Theme and templates
For notes.cagrimmett.com I used the Blockbase theme. I picked that one because it is barebones but has nice Site Editor support, and I didn’t want to fight existing conventions. I wanted something that would stay out of my way but give me modern WP tools.
If I were to do it again, I’d probably use the new Twenty Twenty-Four theme. It is super flexible and has the lastest-and-greatest Site Editor and blocks support.
As you can tell, I’m all-in on the block editor.
If you haven’t used the Site Editor yet, the main way it differs from classic themes is that it gives you the ability to customize templates right in the block editor, which is very powerful.
I customized the templates in the Site Editor for the Blockbase theme, so I thought I’d call those out:
Homepage
I have two lists at the top of my homepage: Recently Created and Recently Updated.
One is a list generated by published date and one is a list generated by post modified date. I like to be able to see not only what is new, but what has been updated recently. I use the more powerful query loop in Generate Blocks to sort by post modified.
In the garden metaphor, I think of these as Planted and Tended.
Page Index
I opted to use Pages instead of Posts because I liked the hierarchy of Pages and thought I’d use that. I think this might have been a mistake and I’m considering moving everything to Posts and forgetting the hierarchy altogether. The hierarchy does make things easy to find, but so would better tags and categories.
I do have some private pages that only I can see when logged in, so there is a section on the homepage for that, too.
This is generated by the Page List block. If I moved to posts, I’d probably have a bunch of query loops for different categories.
Categories
Self explanatory
Tags
Self explanatory
Single Page
At the top I’m trying to surface relevant metadata:
Hierarchy (basically breadcrumbs from the hierarchical pages)
Categories and Tags
Published date
Last Modified date
Some pages have a sidebar with links to child pages to try to show the note’s context within a similar group. I don’t think I’ve nailed this yet.
Pingbacks and trackbacks to surface cross-linking between posts. I don’t think the bottom is the right place for this… I think I should put this in the sidebar instead.
Cross/backlinking are handled via enabling trackbacks and pingbacks on pages.
Tags are topical and freeform, auto-linked by TaxoPress
TaxoPress only has posts turned on by default. You need to go into the settings and enable for pages.
Making use of the GenerateBlocks plugin, which has a great replacement for the core Query Loop block with the ability to customize the query just like you can in code with WP_Query
I am interested in your thoughts about how to create feeds for wikis.
I have some thoughts in the WordPress ecosystem, and some cross over to wikis.
WordPress has incredible feed support already. Categories, tags, and search queries have their own feeds, which is quite helpful for people only interested in subscribing to certain topics.
Wikis have categories, so they could have category feeds, too.
It would be great if RSS feeds could surface updates to existing content, too. I’d like a feed for my recently updated list. My colleagues at Newspack have a plugin that includes an <updated> tag, which is a step in the right direction. It might require a different sorting mechanism for the feed reader. I’ll float it by Dave for FeedLand 🙂
Wikis have a great history page, so it is theoretically possible to have an updated element in the feed for the most recent updated time.
Future additions/ongoing work
I want to better surface cross-linking within the site and inbound links from around the internet.
I want neat previews for outgoing links. Transclusion. I have some code for this that Jeremy Felt wrote for perell.com, but need to integrate it.
I want better context. On each page I want to show related content by category and show page ancestry siblings rather than just children. This would be easier if I moved to posts rather than pages.
I want to show revisions and/or changelog to show how notes have changed over time. I’m working with the WordPress Gutenberg team to figure out how to do this.
