Life. Don't talk to me about life. Archives

Skiing – I used to love this. Now I’m not sure.

I posted this over on reddit, but this is some personal stuff, so…

I’ve been skiing since I was 4. It was a huge part of our family culture, with seasonal rental houses every winter in New England for large groups of people, weekends spent at the mountain and at the house, and as the kids grewup, we went as well, though it was starting to get expensive.

Now, we’re post-pandemic, and the mountains are… jam packed. Lift prices are astronomical, and you can’t rent a house for love or money (fuck you AirBNB).

I live in the northeast, and my local mountain is charging $75-ish for a 4 hour lift ticket. Note that they do not have sufficient parking, so you can’t actually park and walk into the lodge, you have to park in a remote lot, get on a bus with your gear, ride to the lodge, THEN you might be able hit the slopes.

I’m also hearing of further up-country places charging for parking (sorry, charging for VIP parking. If you want free, youi have to get in line behind the people paying for the better parking spots) – as well as charging $150 for a single day pass.

At my age, I can’t hustle crap around the mountain just so I can get a coupld good runs in. I’m losing the excitement and joy of the sport, as it’s being monetized within an inch of it’s life.

Is it the end of the golden age? Should I just give up on this sport and move on to something that doesn’t have a major corporation buying up everything in sight and hiking the rates through the roof?

My Herman Miller Aeron Chair is probably Beyond Repair

So I’ve had an Aeron C for, oh, 15+ years. It’s been awesome, and I’ve done a a variety of repairs on it, including replacing the seat pan and the above linked repairs on the recline mechanism.

A month or two ago, I noticed the chair would not stay fully upright. A little weight backwards would cause it to go ‘clunk’ and move back to about 10 degrees recline. I knew this was probably a broken or damaged cam, so I ordered a replacement, and last week, took the chair apart to replace it.

Unfortunately, it looks like the post the cam is on is bent. I’m not that surprised, I’m a big person, and leaning back in the chair puts an enormous amount of pressure on that post.

I tried hammering the post back into vertical, and was able to straighten it most of the way, but couldn’t quite get it right, and in the process, probably weakened the frame and post (they are one unit, not something that can be taken apart, as far as I can tell).

I put things back together as best I could, and it was slightly improved, but still ‘shifting’ when i leaned back, and wouldn’t hold in place. Turns out that post is weakened and out of place, and won’t hold. Taking it apart again shows the post has shifted again, so I have to assume the mount is weak to the point of not being able to hold its shape. Not only that, but it looks like the entire frame is bent and twisted out of true.

This makes me super-sad, because the chair is so repairable otherwise, but as far as I can tell, this is basically the main frame that’s damaged, and while I could probably get a new frame, that’s really a ton of work to basically replace the body of the chair.

It breaks much of my “buy it for life” models, but I will probably part this chair out and replace it. I may get another Aeron, but I’m also looking at the Autonomous chair (i’m very tall, choices are limited).

Edit: it’s now a month after I originally wrote about this issue, and I’ve replaced my Aeron with one of the Ergo 2 chairs. So far I’m quite happy with it, and it fits my 6’6″ frame just fine. I’m hoping to modify the Aeron to disable the recline mechanism completely so it’ll be useful at my workbench, but as my primary office chair, it has been put into retirement.

Chasing Things That Bring Me Joy

I really don’t like making New Years Resolutions. It always strikes me as something people do because.. “it’s a thing you do”.

This year though, I inadvertently made one, and it’s turning out to be a good thing.

Over the winter vacation, I had a great conversation with my wife that ranged all over, and was one of those conversations that can be a turning point. The topic was “What is it that’s important to you? What makes you happy?”

Turns out, something that made me happy was definitely not taking a bigger role. I wasn’t making time for it, so it was falling behind.

Music.

Fifteen or so years ago I was in a blues band, playing bass, and having a great time. We were gigging out, we were playing the most god awful bars you could find, but it was fun, and while there were times it was challenging, there were also times of great joy… those moments when things just come together and we rocked the place.

Because of my work schedule, I had to leave the band (lots of travel makes it hard to stay on the performance schedule), and music sort of fell on the wayside. I still had my guitars, I still played… a little, but I definitely stopped growing and learning. Things slowed down.

My kid is getting pretty serious about their music, and has been steadily pushing me to play more. I’ve been resisting under the normal arguments “I suck, I don’t know enough, I’m embarrassed). We’ve played a few times, and it made me sad, because what I knew was too limited, too constrained. And my fingers hurt.

Over the winter break, after that conversation with my wife, I decided it was time to change that. Music is something I truly love, I just never made the choice to dedicate time and energy into learning in all the things I didn’t know, and… of course, I needed to PRACTICE.

So, since somewhere around New Years, I’ve thrown myself into finally learning guitar properly. YouTube is a wonderful source of lessons, demonstrations, and backing tracks. That, coupled with help from Zach, and lots of practice, I’m starting to fill in the gaps in my guitar knowledge that was sorely lacking.

But, most importantly of all, I’ve been sticking with a regular practice schedule with a very simple rule. Play every day. Even if it’s only 10 minutes… pick up an instrument, and run scales, run fingering exercises, play some part of a song. Keep your fingers active, keep the knowledge alive, and keep building.

Since January, I’ve held to this schedule. I play every day. Sometimes 10 minutes, sometimes an hour or two. What’s happened is my fingers are building up calluses, and I’m learning pick and finger control – things I never had before. I’m learning to solo, something that’s always been a mystery to me. Music theory is filling in, though very slowly, and with the possible pitfall a lot of guitarists fall into. A lot of theory on guitar matches to patterns and arrangements on the neck. The theory is subsumed by learning patterns and relationships between positions, rather than the theory itself and how the neck represents it. I’m okay with this for now, but I recognize I’ll need to fill things in later.

I’ve also invested in a new (to me) guitar. It’s an Ovation Balladeer, made in 1972. I’ve always had a weak spot for Ovations, and even though they’re not the magic they were once considered, I still love the feel, styling, and sound of them. I found one on Craigslist that, unfortunately, had a broken headstock. It’s currently at the luthier being repaired, hopefully done soon. For acoustic practice, I’m using a Takamine 6 string I inherited from friends over a decade ago. It has horrible action, an uncomfortable neck, but it sure is strengthening my fingers and building up my calluses. 🙂

My goal is to keep this up through the year. To get to the point where given a key, I can solo and play along with it comfortably. There’s a long road to this, but now, after 2 months, I’m starting to see progress. I spend an hour playing over a backing track on my SX electric guitar (a yard sale find about a year ago), and it feels… good. Still not the expressiveness I want, but it sounds like music, and feels a bit like music. Progress.

At some point, I’m sure I’ll be able to share some things I’m playing – not yet though. But I’m cautiously hopeful that sometime I’ll be able to stand up in front of folks with some friends, we’ll play a song, and at some point we’ll start a go-around for soloing, someone will nod to me, I’ll kick my pedal, and I’ll solo… in a way that will make me smile, and make others smile, and… hopefully… give me joy.

And Life Settles a Bit

The past 6 months have been quite the whirlwind. I’m sure I don’t need to do the rundown, most of ya’ll know what’s been going on, but I have to say, today is one of the first days in a long time where I feel things are settling back to normalcy.

I’m sitting in my living room listening to piano music on Spotify, my dog is happily snoozing on the couch next to me, my family is out of the house – one is at school, the other is out visiting a friend. The summer weather heat has broken and I’m able to sit in my space, doing my job, and just… relax.

It’s a nice feeling.

We Can Haz Dog

In May, we adopted a beautiful little 8 year old beagle named Daisy.

We’d been haunting adoption / rescue organizations for several months, trying to find a dog that fit our needs. We were close to adopting a greyhound, but something at the last minute pushed us away. A lot had to do with our history with our last adoption… so we were very nervous about getting our next dog.

Daisy was the last unclaimed dog at an open adoption event down in Forever Home Rescue, in Medfield, MA. The folks there were surprised – it’s rare for a dog to not be adopted during their open houses. Daisy was extremely shy and best described as timid. Anytime she meets someone new she immediately goes down on her belly, and sort of ‘shoulder rolls’ over, putting her head on the ground, whining faintly. She wasn’t the bouncy happy dog that most places present for adoption, so when we arrived, we were concerned. “Is.. she okay?” Adopting an older dog is something we had considered, but we weren’t sure what it would like bringing in a new member of the house who has had a long and busy life before meeting us… would she be able to adapt to being with us?

But we took the plunge, and we’re so happy we did. Daisy has turned into a wonderful member of the family. Every day she gets more comfortable, more expressive, and more dog-like. She’s been with us two months, and in the last day or two, she’s started hopping up on the couch next to us without us needing to coax her or lift her up. She’s snuggling in next to us when she wants companionship, and is just being a great dog.

That’s not to say there haven’t been challenges. She came to us with some serious medical issues that required immediate surgery, several rounds of medication, and a lot of care just teaching her how to be a real dog. She’s definitely had several litters of pups, and her body shows she’s had some other rough times. But every day, she gets a little happier, a little more engaged… it’s been a great journey.

Welcome to your new home, Daisy!

After 22 Years, I Have a Chin

This week is shutdown at work, so I’m technically on vacation. My wife and I have had several conversations about me shaving off my beard. It’s literally been 22 years since I had a cleanshaven face, I honestly wasn’t sure what I looked like – maybe vacation is a time to explore something new?

Welp, two days ago I took the plunge and shaved. It feels weird, and actually being able to feel air on my chin is pretty bizarre. I don’t think I’ll stick with this in the long run. Partly I’m just too lazy to keep shaved, but the bigger reason is I like my fuzzy face, and the cleanshaven look just doesn’t feel like me.

Many folks have said I look a lot like my dad… not so sure about that, but either way, it’s been a nice experience seeing my real face for once.

I Fixed a Thing

Is it weird that I feel relaxed and accomplished after repairing a desklamp at the end of a day of super geeking?

Never done this before. The pullchain socket had disintegrated. So a quick stop in Lowe’s, and $4 later (with some soldering and fiddling) I have a repaired desk lamp.

A Busy House Day

I guess it’s getting closer to spring. We spent most of today moving furniture, cleaning, rearranging stuff, etc. The house has been really crowded since M moved in and between her stuff and my old furniture we were just tripping over everything.

So today was “get the stuff out we don’t use”. It was a carefully choreographed process of…

Friday get the storage unit ready to receive furniture.
Saturday morning move everything from the attic and second floor that’s leaving out to the front porch.
Go get the truck from Uhaul.
Get awesome neighbors to load up the truck, follow us to the storage place and Tetris the furniture into place.
Return the truck, tidy up, and fall into a death like sleep for 2 hours
Get up and go to a cohousing meeting
For evening entertainment, assemble the new kitchen table and chairs (smaller and better suited to the space).

Now we’re finally collapsing into bed after a damned busy day. But? It felt good. We worked hard, and made the house better without going crazy doing it.

Win.

Next? Tuesday we get a washer dryer. We’ve never had one in the house and while I lived by myself, it was ok taking things to the common house. But now that there’s three of us, we really need local equipment. Yay upgrades!

I saw the Paris Protests today and I’m fine

So, I’m sure folks have heard the news about protests in Paris today. That did happen, and in fact I was right in the middle of it for a good part of the day. How could I miss the opportunity to take my camera into a real live protest?

The very short version is, yes, I was at the protests. Yes, there was tear gas and water cannons and lots of people moving around. There were really only a handful of instigators that were egging the crowds on to do damage, but that was enough.

I primarily stayed outside of the major crowds, but I had my camera with me the whole time. Pictures are here:

And yeah, now I know what tear gas feels like. I don’t recommend it.

Relocating to France

So I guess it’s official now.

In mid-September, I’ll be relocating to Paris.

Okay, that’s a little dramatic. I’m not moving permanently, just for a couple months.

Earlier this year, my employer asked if I’d be interested in relocating to Paris for a while. After talking it over with my family, I enthusiastically accepted, and the wheels were set in motion. Since my last trip went so well, I was looking forward to returning. It took a month or two of wrangling with Visa application documents, US records offices, and other red tape, but last week I received my travel documents. It’s on!

So, stay tuned for more missives from the City of Lights!

Bye Bye Volt

Alas, all good things, etc etc.

Tonight I returned the Chevy Volt I leased three years ago. In the intervening time I drove 54,000 miles, at an average of 98mpg, using 550 gallons of gas. Had I continued with the Passat wagon I had before that, which got about 28mpg, I would have burned 1928 gallons. That 1400 gallons saved 28,000lb (14 tons) of CO2 from being emitted. That’s about a years worth of emissions for a fairly efficient house.

Nowadays I work full time from home, so my daily mileage has gone from 70-75 miles a day down to about 6. In a sort of weird reversal of history, where in the above article I lamented trading in my Jeep for the Volt, I now have a 2000 Jeep TJ as my only personal vehicle. Of course Mrs. Geek has a Subaru wagon, which we use for most errands, trips, etc, but the Jeep is mine, and I adore it.

I did have a reservation in to buy a Tesla Model 3 when they were available (which is now), but given the low miles I’m driving, and that I’m spending more and more time out of the country, it doesn’t make sense to have an expensive electric vehicle just sitting at home.

So here I am in mid-life with “nothing but an 18 year old manual truck in the garage”.

I’m okay with that.

Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Five Rules of Science

I was excited to hear that Neil deGrasse Tyson’s Cosmos has been renewed and will be airing new episodes next year. When I was in high school, I was absolutely transformed by Carl Sagan’s original series. I cannot understate the impact it had on my worldview and personal development as a critical thinker and supporter of science.

At the end of season two of Dr. Tyson’s series, he closed with, well, okay a slightly preachy, but still impactful commentary that included Dr. Sagan’s “Pale Blue Dot” quote. This was given during a lecture in Cornell in 1994. As Voyager 1 completed it’s mission and was getting ready to leave the solar system forever, Dr Sagan convinced the JPL to turn the Voyager camera around and take one last picture of earth from a distance of 3.7 billion miles.

I hadn’t heard the entire piece in quite some time, and it still brought me to tears.

That’s here. That’s home. That’s us. On it, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever lived, lived out their lives. The aggregate of all our joys and sufferings, thousands of confident religions, ideologies and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilizations, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every hopeful child, every mother and father, every inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every superstar, every supreme leader, every saint and sinner in the history of our species, lived there on a mote of dust, suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of the dot on scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner of the dot. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light.

Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. It is up to us. It’s been said that astronomy is a humbling, and I might add, a character-building experience. To my mind, there is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly and compassionately with one another and to preserve and cherish that pale blue dot, the only home we’ve ever known.

This, by itself, would have been a wonderful end to the series. But Dr. Tyson continued and presented his Five Rules of Science. In so many ways, these points build on Dr Sagan’s deep philosophical thoughts, and add concrete rules and guidelines. These are the foundations we should build our debates, our discussions, our ideas on….

Only a few centuries ago, a mere second in cosmic time, we knew nothing of where or when we were. Oblivious to the rest of the cosmos, we inhabited a kind of prison, a tiny universe bounded by a nutshell.

How did we escape from the prison? It was the work of generations of searchers who took five simple rules to heart.

Question authority. No idea is true just because someone says so, including me.
Think for yourself. Question yourself. Don’t believe anything just because you want to. Believing something doesn’t make it so.
Test ideas by the evidence gained from observation and experiment. If a favorite idea fails a well-designed test, it’s wrong. Get over it.
Follow the evidence wherever it leads. If you have no evidence, reserve judgment.

And perhaps the most important rule of all…

Remember: you could be wrong. Even the best scientists have been wrong about some things. Newton, Einstein, and every other great scientist in history — they all made mistakes. Of course they did. They were human.

Science is a way to keep from fooling ourselves, and each other.

There will, naturally, people who pick and choose from this list to simply further their personal agenda. These things cannot be taken in isolation. Either you accept, embrace, and follow them all, or you’re doing it wrong. Humility must go hand in hand with discovery. No one has all the answers. Be a searcher. Learn, grow, and explore.

I Made Electronic Clocks with my Son

It’s always a challenge to find things to do with a teenager just going through his first year at college. What could ye ole dad provide that more interesting than his new experiences with friends, classes and living away from home? So it was with some trepedation I reached out to Zach and asked if he’d be interested in taking a soldering class with me at MakeIt Labs, the makerspace I’ve been frequenting the last two years or so.

The class was presented as a 3 hour introduction to soldering techniques and best practices. The lab would provide all the tools needed (soldering iron, tools, solder, and other bits), as well as the parts to build a nice little LED clock. This isn’t a ‘here’s your parts, you figure it out’ event, it was a guided walkthrough of basic technique, pitfalls to watch out for, and detailed instructions on assembly. Sounded like a great way to learn how to solder, as well as something we could do together.

“Sure Dad, sounds great. Lets go!”

So I signed for the class, and on Saturday Zach and I headed up to the lab and settled in at our stations.

Each of us had our own kit, consisting of about 30 parts, a printed circuit board, red retro LED displays, and a powersupply. The workstations were well supplied with a very good soldering iron, solder, wire snips, flux, needlenose pliers, board holder, and other small tools. Zach and I, along with 6 or so other students, got started. I had some experience soldering, having done lots of drone builds that require a fair amount of soldering work, but nothing this detailed, and certainly not mounting components on a PCB. Zach had none at all.

Our instructor had prepared well, with a full presentation on what we were going to do, what tools we’d be working with, and basics of how to use the materials and follow the instructions. After a 15-20m introduction on the hazards we should be careful for (“Soldering irons are hot, mmkay? They make other things hot too. Be careful!”) we got started. The first couple components were dirt simple. Just jumper wires across the board. After that we moved on to more and more detailed things, culminating in mounting the socket for the CPU and installing the chip. Through it all, Bill, our instructor, was patient, detailed, and obviously an expert on the subject. He answered all questions professionally and patiently, and, along with lab assistant John, helped the students when problems came up, or simple inspected work to make sure it was going okay.

Finally, after 2 hours of assembly, we were ready to test the boards out. Bill used one of the lab bench power supplies, and one by one, each student brought their board up, and it got powered up. Zach’s worked on the first try, showing bright glowing red LED digits ticking away time perfectly. Mine, of course, didn’t, and we quickly discovered 3-4 bad solder points. I went back to my bench and fixed these, and my clock came to life as well.

The kits were from a standard hobbyist supplier, and were meant for student workshops like this. they didn’t come with mounting hardware, so before the class started, Bill and John thoughtfully used the labs laser cutter to make some acrylic display mounts. A couple screws, standoff posts, and acrylic plates later, and lo, we had a lovely, hand built, LED clock!

The class was a great experience for both Zach and I, and we both had something useful we took away together. Each of us has an identical clock that we made at the same time, together, on a cold day in December.

Thanks MakeIt for providing a great learning environment, thanks Bill for putting together a great class, and thanks Zach for spending a cool day geeking out with his old man.

Quiet Sunday Morning at Home

There’s something pleasant about a quiet morning like this.

It’s Sunday morning. It’s rainy and cold outside, but nice and cozy inside. I can hear the water dripping on the porch and the windows… it’s soothing and relaxing. Some quiet jazz is playing on the Echo in the living room while I’m parked on the couch doing geeky things on the laptop. A nice cup of coffee sits at hand…

We’re dogsitting this weekend, which has been going just fine. Her name is Nessie, and she’s super-low key and enjoying hanging out with us.

These times are super-special to me, and the last few weeks haven’t allowed many of them. I’m grateful I have a peaceful, safe, comfortable place I can relax and recharge.

Living in the Future

Today, while hanging out at home, I realized I was out of coffee. Being part of the Keurig Nation, I happily order San Francisco Bay One Cups on a regular basis (these cups have far less plastic than the standard K-Cups, and the coffee is delicious).

As I was reaching for my laptop to order some more, I remembered that Alexa is supposed to be able to do online ordering. So….

“Alexa”
(bading)
“Order more coffee”
“According to your order history, I found two matching items. The first is San Francisco Bay One Cups, 60 count. it is $31. Would you like to buy it?”
“Yes”
“Okay, ordered. It will be delivered Sunday August 6th”

Aaaand done. I checked the order history later on, and sure enough, there it was.

I did make a note to my partner, who was listening to this interchange.

“So, that’s pretty cool. Um, so, please don’t ever do that when the nine year old is around.”
“Hm? Wh… oh.”
“Alexa, order a pony!”

Etc.

Planet Geek!

Category: Life. Don’t talk to me about life.