Week of November 4, 2024

Short post this week. I need to get some sleep. It has been a long week and I am tired. This work week was stressful and parenting was difficult. Optimistic that next week will be better.

I made my own rosin and fly tying wax this week.

Making Rosin and Fly Tying Wax

I tied a few flies this week, too. Four different kinds of nymphs.

I picked up my first bobbin on September 12. In under two months, I’ve tied 111 flies, made a bunch of my own tools, gathered some of my own materials, and learned a ton. Mostly in the evenings after my son goes to bed.

I plan to tie more nymphs this week. Probably some with soft hackle, and probably more of the Dave Whitlock Red Squirrel Nymph.

It occurred to me that “get a rise out of” is a phrase from fly fishing! Trying to get the trout to rise to the surface to take a fly.

I don’t look at my blog’s traffic stats much. I checked tonight for the first time in a while and the top post for the past six months is about building a climbing wall for my son. That brings me so much joy. I hope that post has led to climbing walls getting built for kids.

Adding a Climbing Wall to an A-frame Swing Set

My friend Jeremy Wall did a public reading of some of his recent writing at Stanza Books in Beacon on Thursday. I went out to support him and hung out with some of the other writers afterward. Half of them were young parents like Amanda and me, and we had a great conversation about making space for your art and hobbies as a parent.

I spend Saturday at the WordPress NYC meetup, which was hosted at Automattic’s office. I was the staff rep for the day. The organizers are trying to reboot the meetup again. We hosted a helpdesk, and had 10 people show up with a wide variety of WordPress questions.

Being in Manhattan gave me the chance to pick up some things for Amanda’s birthday (a cake from Milk Bar and a gift from Charlie).

Birthdays look a little different with a toddler. Amanda and I coordinated ahead of time to get her out of the house for a few hours so Charlie and I could decorate and he could do the surprise. It was precious to see him show Amanda the decorations and give her a gift.

Our tradition used to be going to one of the NY steakhouses for a birthday, and we are keeping that somewhat alive by cooking a classic steakhouse dinner at home.

Sitters are hard to come by. We had a nursing student who was great, but she got a job as a full time nurse. The high school student who was also great is now at college out of state. Another high school student who we liked is at college a couple hours away.

Some limited thoughts on the election:

I was surprised by the results, which I guess means that I need to update my priors.

My prediction: It won’t be as bad as the left thinks, but it will be worse than the right thinks. That was my prediction in 2016, and I think it held. I’m sticking with it.

I hope this breaks the two party system.

If you are a longtime reader, my political beliefs haven’t changed much, I’m just less outspoken and radical about them. My focus is elsewhere after wasting too much of my 20s on that. I’m more pragmatic and less idealistic now, which I think is mostly a symptom of being older and having more life experience.

I’m listening to the rain while writing this. It is the first rain in two months, and it is very welcome.