I’ve never said or written the word “tarpaulin” (until this post). I’ve only ever heard or said “tarp.” The only place I’ve ever seen “tarpaulin” is in books. I had to look it up the first time I read it because I had no idea that the shortened version is “tarp.”

It looks like my parents will be in the path of totality for the April 8, 2024, eclipse. We might need to take a road trip! https://www.greatamericaneclipse.com/

I usually say I started blogging in 2008, but that is just when I started on my own domain. I had a GeoCities, Xanga, and LiveJournal before then.

I made a bottle of this Black Christmas last December and only drank half of it, but kept the other half in the fridge for the past year. Decided to have some tonight and it is smoother and more complex after aging.

Black Christmas Bottled Cocktails

www.stirandstrain.com

Thinking about self hosting this to turn newsletters into RSS feeds.

I could also take Chris Hardie’s approach and use WordPress for this.

Some hosted alternatives:

The V-seal weather stripping I put up over the weekend fell off sometime overnight 🤦‍♂️

I guess I’ll go with the weatherseal tape again. It doesn’t look as nice, but it works.

Peekskill Brewing is closing. I’m sad about that because we go there frequently, and did so even before moving to Peekskill in 2019. It is in a great location and has kid-friendly outdoor seating, which has been a livesaver for us and our friend group.

I can’t help but think that one of the main contributing factors has been the decline in food quality and wait staff post-COVID. Pre-COVID the food was excellent and seasonal. Now it seems like everything is pre-made and reheated from US Foods.

I’m sorry the current owners couldn’t make it. I hope someone buys it quickly and reopens by spring. Maybe Hudson Valley Brewing or Sloop?

edit: Upon reflection, it is more accurate to say decline in service rather than wait staff. No one has ever been rude to us there, they just always seem understaffed and have high turnover and are constantly training new people who don’t know the ropes yet.

I think the most interesting and experimental sites on the web right now are digital gardens. So full of unique individual expression, interests, ideas, and life.

‪Three quarters of the sites in the last 6 months where I’ve thought “woah, this is cool!” have been digital gardens. They give me hope for the future of the web. ‬

Sometimes I find the coolest sites linking to my posts. https://researchpoems.com

I noticed today that Clarus the dogcow got an update! According to wikipedia that happened last year.

Test post!

From the homepage of Automattic.com:

We don’t make software for free, we make it for freedom.

Trying out Minstral-OpenOrca in GPT4All.

Just realized that when doing Wordle, I sound things out letter by letter, which doesn’t always match up to the English pronunciation of words. So today’s took me an extra step before it clicked.

Wordle 849 4/6

🟨⬛⬛⬛⬛
🟨🟨🟨⬛⬛
⬛🟩🟩⬛🟨
🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩