Soaring

Jun. 23rd, 2025 07:01 pm
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Erica is a rising fourth grader now.

For the long weekend, we took a trip to NYC for Emmett and Sonia Mae's wedding. Was such a happy occasion and an incredible celebration, plus we got to meet baby Roger, who is wide-eyed and adorable.

We took the train both ways. On Thursday afternoon, I got to stop by Clio's bakery with Erica (Clio is Emmett's sister, she's an extremely talented chef, she made an amazing wedding cake for Emmett as well). The bakery is so cool, it has a beautiful little cafe space.

On Friday, we went to Luna Park on Coney Island. The weather was hot, but we had a ton of fun. Erica went on her first full-sized roller-coasters with me. We went on Tickler, a spinny wild mouse, and Soarin' Eagle, a lying-down flying coaster. I was new to those ones, too, it was really fun to try it together.

On Saturday, we caught up with my Aunt Ellen and Uncle Mark, they had us over for a very nice brunch at their place.

The trip home Sunday evening went very smoothly, though it was certainly a late night for Erica, after another late night on Saturday. But she seemed to be rested well enough for the start of climbing camp this week. Then we head to Sandy on Saturday.

I finished reading Starter Villain on the train. And I've started watching Pantheon.

It's hot hot hot today and hotter tomorrow. Summer's here!
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Julie was in NYC this weekend for a bike ride event with her dad and Kristin and Emilia. I had a beautiful weekend at home with Erica. I belatedly realized that it was the weekend of Somerville Open Studios, and we wound up exploring several art galleries tucked into the Milk Row neighborhood on our way back from climbing on Saturday. On Sunday, we went to see the open house at the Friend Museum (i.e the home of Martha Friend; the exterior alone is a notable Somerville landmark). We caught a few more gallery and outdoor showings on our way back. Other highlights of our weekend included the art of Lexi Havlin, Kelly Ann Clark McCormack, and Akira Fujita. The scale of the event is really impressive, with over 120 places in the city participating.

The city is so beautiful in the spring. The moment that stands out most in my memory was standing under some overhanging wisteria that a whole crew of carpenter bees was busily foraging with an audible buzz.

There was some scattered rain this weekend, but the bits between were beautiful. We mostly managed to avoid getting caught out in it.

We did a lot of art activities at home, too: The big project was egg-decorating, from the Easter basket Mary got for Erica. Erica made a cord bracelet, and built some Lego.

After finishing Death's Door, I've started playing Spiritfarer . Which I guess takes a completely different take (in terms of game mechanics and whole general vibe) on exactly the same topic.
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This week is the week that the President decided to crash the economy intentionally, and it worked! Trump's new tariff policy seems to be totally bonkers, and predicated on the belief that trade deficits are the real de facto tariffs (he's described the US as "subsidizing" its trading partners before, so that's the other side of the same coin). The fact that the allegedly "reciprocal" tariffs are not reciprocal of other actual tariffs makes it hard to use as negotiating leverage, and the administration seems to believe several mutually-contradictory things about them (e.g. dropping tariffs will be negotiating leverage that will get other countries to make concessions and the tariffs will generate huge amounts of long-term revenue; the tariffs will cause a huge amount of import substitution and expand domestic production and the tariffs won't substantially raise prices).

There seems to be an assumption that trade deficits are the real in-and-of-themselves bad thing, equivalent to giving money away. But of course trade deficits are not giving money away, it's trade: You get goods and services in return! If there's one inclination of Trump's so deep that it seems like ideological consistency, it's that he's deeply skeptical of the idea of anything being positive-sum. He also seems to think have a Peronist or Maoist view that the country would be better off producing everything itself, and furthermore that domestic production will rise up automatically if imports are crushed. Crashing the economy will in fact reduce imports, but it could be short-term pain now for long-term pain later.

Meanwhile, people whose perception of economic reality seems to have become truly deranged under the Biden administration are jubilant. Crashing the economy is just revealing the hidden truth that the economy has been bad all along. That elation will last until... well, we'll see.

What else, let's talk something more local, more pastoral. Spring weather has finally arrived. It's nice to see all the birds singing in the neighborhood again. We've seen a woodpecker working insects out of some of the nearby trees, a variety of eagles. There have been some owls sighted nearby, I haven't seen one but I think I've heard one a few times.

Erica's friend George's grandpa visited her class a few weeks back. Meant to write about that but didn't. He's currently the poet laureate of the town of Arlington. The class had a good time reading some poetry and writing poems together. Meant to mention that earlier, but missed it.

I read The Two Princesses of Bamarre by Gail Carson Levine to Erica, and to continue the theme (sort of), we're now reading Princess Academy by Shannon Hale. Both recommendations/gifts from my sister.
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Some of my extended team was in town this week, so there were some team social things. Went to Flight Club in the Seaport, a darts place with bowling-alley-style computerized scoring. I'm probably better at darts than bowling, but pretty terrible at both. Still was fun, the food was quite good there, too.

The weather has been a little more overcast and foggy and cool, but reasonably nice.

This weekend, I did a bit of cooking on Saturday afternoon. Made homemade refried beans and seasoned beef and tortillas for tacos. The tortillas turned out as good as I wanted this time, I got the consistency right and prepared the pan right and didn't forget to add a little salt.

We decided to have a family movie outing, so we went to see Paddington in Peru at the Assembly AMC this afternoon. And we watched the previous installment in the series at home yesterday, which I paid half attention to while I cooked. Those movies are not at the top of my recommendation list, but they're okay.
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This week is Erica's school break, and I took Erica to Cleveland to visit my parents while Julie gets a focus week back at home. Had the Monday holiday off, but the rest of the week was "working from elsewhere" for me.

Last Sunday, our travel day, was very snowy overnight and rain and heavy clouds all day in Boston. Bad weather in Cleveland, too. As a result, our 10AM flight became a 4PM flight. Erica had bought a matching sweater-and-sweatpants set with her allowance at Target on Sunday which she wanted especially for the trip, she definitely got the most use out of her airport loungewear. Still, overall it was a reasonably pleasant travel day. And it was in a way lucky that we had to wear boots in the morning to wade to our airport ride, and thus had to have our boots and couldn't neglect to pack them. It's been snowy all week here, so we've been wading through snow all week.

There was another brief delay in our flight as the plane had to do an abrupt go-around before landing on the second attempt. It was a pretty dramatic maneuver, and someone a few rows back form us was overcome by motion sickness and lost their lunch. But of course it could've been worse.

On Monday, we got to catch up with Dan and Anne and Isaac and baby Naomi, who has doubled in size since I last saw her and become extremely engaged and vocal. I also got to catch up with Markos Monday evening, played a bit of kitchen table Magic. Took me back, though I kept embarrassingly misreading the cards.

On Tuesday evening, we went to a concert at CIM featuring Olga and Daniel Kaler with Michelle Bushkova. Was really great. Had to duck out at intermission because of kid bedtime (but had thought that might be the case).

On Wednesday evening, we saw a "Picasso and Paper" special exhibit at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

On Thursday evening, we went out to dinner at Tita Flora's, a Filipino restaurant which was really good.

Friday evening, had a nice Shabbat dinner at home and my Uncle Jonathan came over.

And of course Erica has been up to all sorts of activities with my parents during my workdays.

For lunch, I made excursions to a bunch of places nearby, mostly on Larchmere. I did get to Michael's Diner in Shaker Square, which I love (it's a wonderful, classic train-station diner). But Shaker Square does seem, as always, a bit cursed. A new cafe will be opening in the again-vacant cafe spot soon, at least. Brandon Chrostowski's restaurants Edwins Restaurant and Edwins Too closed on Monday, relocating to the former Nighttown jazz club space. Didn't get to go there again, but fancy for a random weekday, but at least I did get to go a few times. Lovely memories. I'm sure they will make the most of the Nighttown space, too, it's a great space. I did go to the other Edwins restaurant in the area, their bakery and deli venture, which as far as I know is staying put. Had an excellent pastrami on rye. The restaurants are all run by Chrostowski's nonprofit, which has a mission of helping former prisoners with reentry support and job training in the hospitality industry.

Hopefully tomorrow's return trip will go smoothly. Weather will be better this time at least.
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This week we had all sorts of weather.

On an extremely foggy Tuesday, I took Erica and her friend George to a robotics night at the Somerville High School. Despite the fog, it was a pretty nice day, and the holiday lights in the neighborhood are really beautiful.

On Wednesday, there was pouring rain. One of the Big Dig tunnels flooded in downtown Boston, which was a bit of a mess.

This weekend, Julie and I took Erica to the Saturday matinee of The Nutcracker by the Boston Ballet. Was even better than I expected, and I expected it would be very good. The Ballet also has a pretty large children's ensemble, which they put to funny and adorable use in the performance.

Winter break fast approaches. Hard to believe the year is almost over.
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Long weekend this weekend. With Julie busy with startup life, I was on parenting duty all three days.

Saturday, I took Erica to her swim lesson, then convinced her to go to cafe meetup with Ingress teammates with the prospect of frozen custard at Abbot's after, only to realize after that it was closed for the season. What sort of Boston ice cream place closes for the winter?! We tried to go climbing later in the afternoon only to find that was also closed for a competition. So we went to Hub Comics for a bit and then home.

Sunday, I did go climbing with Erica, and also ice skating at Veteran's Rink. So I was pretty sore after.

Today, Erica visited a friend in the morning while I did my usual workout, and then we went to the science museum. After, we took a walk across North Bank Bridge and the Gridley Locks to have a snack at Night Shift. Beautiful day, the fall continues to be unusually warm.
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It was a warm day today, but windy, and it seems all the trees in Cambridge that were late to the party decided to shed all their leaves at once. Pretty, but seemed like enough sharp, swirling edges to be downright perilous.

I had a dentist appointment today, which went all right.

I have so many things to ramp up on at work. Emscripten is confusing. WebGPU is fun but graphics programming is always confusing. Another of my more senior teammates is leaving the team, moving on to another thing at Google that's a great fit for him, but I'll miss working with him. So much churn this year.

Other links:

My brother now has an Etsy store for his wildlife photography.

Bop Spotter (h/t SMTM)

Cargo airships might be a big deal soon. Nifty if it pans out.

Hollow Eve

Oct. 31st, 2024 09:54 pm
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Well, I got in a few days of regular writing before I dipped beneath the waves again.

Today is Halloween, and it's not even the scariest day in the next week. I really do want the madness to end. 2017-2020 was objectively nuts, and that was before the realignment within the Republican Party had really completed and Trump was still being arm-twisted into hiring people to important questions who resisted his dumbest ideas (a major restraint for someone so bad at in-person confrontation). Stuff like this is going to be hilarious if he loses (Four Seasons all over again), but for now I just can't deal with the fact that it's so close.

Took Erica trick-or-treating and she had a good time time, except for encountering someone in one of those stilt ghost costumes that she found completely terrifying. The weather was warm today, high of almost 80, so the evening was summery.

Work is very busy, and once again one of my more senior colleagues is changing teams. Too much churn this year.
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As the election approaches, I continue to be filled with dread. The rhetoric from Trump and co is so much worse than it was in 2016. Which would've been kind of hard to imagine in 2016, but the "moderate Republicans" Trump felt he had to appeal to somewhat in 2016 are nonexistent now, at least as far as he's concerned.

The flood damage from the last hurricane was severe, the next hurricane looks terrifying. And it seems like the GOP will lie about and outright sabotage the federal response to any disaster because they believe an effective response would be to Harris's political advantage.

On the world stage, the now-year-long war between Israel and Hamas threatens to widen into a wider regional war. This reflection by Israeli-American historian Omer Bartov has been on my metaphorical desk for some time. I think it's insightful, though I don't have insight to add. I also want to share Scott Aaronson's post here and second his call for nations offering refugee status to those who seek to leave the conflict zone. (But I'm pretty much always in favor of more acceptance of refugees who seek to live their lives in peace.)

I really don't want another Trump Presidency. I really don't want to have to explain any of this.
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It's been an unseasonably warm week, yesterday so warm that I was leaving my winter jacket at home.

I've been particularly happy to see all the people out and about. It's especially a joy to see people out with their dogs. (Even though I've never kept a dog myself and never felt up to it.) It's nice to see all the families and kids out and about. I was biking back home on Friday and the daycare on Gore Street was walking their toddlers to the playground when I passed (a kind of group I always think of as "the ducklings", all wearing their yellow vests and holding onto a line, it's too cute).

Yesterday, I took Erica to the library to meet a friend in the afternoon. We had lunch at S&S in Inman on the way, I hadn't been there in ages. Checked out some more books, though I haven't finished the ones I'm in the middle of yet. I've been reading Erica Bruce Coville's "Rod Allbright and the Galactic Patrol" series, the one that begins with Aliens Ate My Homework, and we're on the fourth (and final) book in that now. (While waiting for the next one to come in at the library, I've also been reading her chapters of The Jungle Book.) I got the first book of Garth Nix's "Keys to the Kingdom" series, which I remember liking and started rereading while hanging out at the library, but I'd forgotten basically all of the plot's details since I last read it ages ago. Maybe Erica will want to read it some day.

After, we went to pick out and assemble some valentines for Erica's class. Erica really took the lead on the plans there. She really does like holiday stuff. (And by coincidence we ran into a bunch of Erica's friends who were on their way to Gracie's so we all got ice cream together.) For dinner, got takeout sushi from Ebi.

Today, took Erica climbing, and she helped me get groceries. Later in the afternoon we went to a Valentines card-making get-together at the Culture House community center popup in Union. Then I made burritos at home for dinner. Erica helped, we made guacamole following a recipe she picked out from one of her cookbooks.

There's so much more on my mind, some of which I can't write about really and some of which I never seem to get around to putting to page.

Toast Ghost

Nov. 5th, 2023 05:47 pm
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Last weekend was warm, but by mid-week trick-or-treating it was getting chilly, to the point that I was getting out my winter jacket and putting on the longjohns (winter coziness tech that's a go-to for me from like November to May). But then this weekend was pretty warm again.

Saturday, I took Erica climbing while Julie went for a bike ride. Played some Mario Wonder in the morning. In the evening, went on a date with Julie to Oak Bistro in Inman while Erica spent some time with Mary at home.

Today, Julie took Erica to see the Frozen stage play, while I had a quiet day.

I tried to write a post for my essay blog, but things didn't really come together. But have some interesting links that have been rattling around my head for a few days:
l33tminion: iScree (Music Metroid)
Going to work backwards-ish for this one. Or just jump around at random.

Today, I'm watching Erica while Julie is making a day-trip to NYC for company things. Feeling a bit sore because I got COVID and flu vaccines with the family yesterday. (For me, drinking a bottle of Gatorade and plenty of water after the shot is sufficient to head off more annoying side-effects.) Erica got a flu shot, but the pediatric dose for the COVID boosters isn't in yet and they don't know when it will be. I'm also on the tail end of an unpleasant but brief cold. (Not COVID, at least doesn't seem like it from the symptoms and a negative antigen test.)

Erica's playing Mario Odyssey now after a leisurely breakfast.

The wall/fence repairs at the condo are getting close to done, though there's still logistics to handle.

Last night, went out with Julie for supper at a cool new Vietnamese restaurant at Bow Market, then to Bronwyn for dessert. Their apple strudel really is great. Erica watched movies at home with Mary.

On Friday, I took the day off to go to Breakaway Boston. Was a great line-up, I especially wanted the chance to take in a Porter Robinson DJ set in person. I really like his music and he's a great DJ and performer. (And producer, his mid-pandemic Secret Sky music festivals were really something special.) The festival was outdoors at The Stage at Suffolk Downs, I'd never been there before but it's right off the blue line. The path to the venue cuts across the historic race track. The main stage itself was quite the audiovisual setup. A lot of planes track over there from the nearby airport, and I bet it's quite visible from the air. Really was a memorable experience.

The weather was pretty nice on Friday and yesterday despite the approaching hurricane. Very windy yesterday, though. We're super lucky that wasn't 100 miles further west. Definitely a near-miss.

I've been having fun playing limited of the new Magic set on Arena. Even managed to 7 two sealed pools and a draft. In constructed, I've been enjoying red-white aggro and blue-black control with the new Ashiok. There seem to be a fair number of new competitive things to try despite the deferred Standard rotation, with many of the old best cards still haunting the format.

So I've been busy, but life is pretty good.
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Summer isn't done with us yet.

I've got this Nest thermostat, and if you're not familiar with that sort of "smart" thermostat, it does two things re AC in the summer:

1. Try to learn what temperature you like it.

2. Set it to much warmer than that temperature to save you money.

The feature that sets it warmer when you're actually not in the house is fine, but the "rush hour" feature that sets it a little warmer at "peak" times (i.e. when you, too, most want your air well conditioned) is a bit more aggravating. This year especially. It seems to me like in past years it would set things a few degrees higher, but when my schedule says 73 and the thermostat is like "how about 79?" that seems a bit much.

Actually, there are a lot of ways I wish Nest was a bit smarter. There's no way for it to look at my calendar and pre-cool/warm the house when I get back from a vacation. Or even have me tell it when I'm getting back manually and have it take that into account. It doesn't adjust the schedule to my preferences that well. It supports multiple temperature sensors, but only supports looking at one at a time and only can switch between on a fixed schedule. It can't do anything based on the difference in temperatures (in particular, I'd like it to run the fan if only some of the sensors are as cool as I want). The fan can be run automatically if it wouldn't otherwise be on, but only on a fixed schedule.

All right, enough rambling on that topic. Summer is coming to an end one way or another. My mom brought Erica back to town, had a wonderful time doing stuff together, she got to go to school dropoff for Erica's first day of second grade. Then she got COVID after returning home. At least she's feeling better after a prompt course of Paxlovid. We haven't gotten sick yet, but school year's started and stuff is going around.

Had a good long weekend with some extra climbing and a trip to the Science Museum. Also took Erica to the Boston Tea Party Ships and Museum (touristy, but educational, hadn't been in ages). Erica -acted very closed-off and shy, but then said she enjoyed it.

This week, some of the computer systems are down at kid's school after some sort of security issue (a ransomware attack, maybe, they haven't been real forthcoming with the details).

I had one of Erica's friends over on Tuesday and Erica's at his house today. Nice to have a break, but sometimes I get stressed out when I have a break. So much to do, so little time. (And yet I manage to get to some things, like hammering some words onto the virtual page here. It's good.)

I'm enjoying the new Magic set, though I feel like I haven't figured out a deck to do well in new Standard. Want to play some limited of the new set, haven't had the time.

Also been really enjoying the Netflix One Piece. I'm not real familiar with the anime or manga, but people more familiar seem to think it's a good adaptation in addition to being generally good. Amazing how well you can do with that sort of thing when the people doing the adapting clearly like the source material and understand why it's good.

I was up a bit late with Erica last night after Julie ducked out for early bed, and Erica was very upset about something about a game; big feelings about little problems. But eventually she helped me finish cooking a batch of beans (which I enjoy because I'm finally figuring out how to get those really good in the Instant Pot). I appreciate her help on that, she's the #1 fan of beans in this household, so I really want to be able to make them up to her standards. We had some good conversation about all sorts of things, including how to describe different kinds of spices and computer security.

'Sno Storm

Mar. 14th, 2023 10:05 pm
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After school activities were canceled today for a late noreaster. This was the sort of weather where the plausible range for the forecast was something like 0-12" of snow (center, and it turned out towards the nothing end, with no accumulation to speak of so far and the weather not even getting down to freezing tonight (and up to 40 by noon tomorrow). We did have a brief power outage in the evening, though. The really hairy weather was further west.

Watched Lu Over the Wall with Erica in the afternoon. Was pretty great, definitely my favorite movie about vampire mermaids, a story told with Yuasa's characteristic verve and bubbly animation style.

I took Erica on a climbing playdate with one of her school friends last weekend. And I'm arranging a movie night at our house tomorrow.

I also took the belay training class at the climbing gym last Sunday. Definitely needed the refresher.
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Too much going on, here and around. So multipost time:

The Biden docs - So it turns out that Biden and everyone left classified docs everywhere in the course of their work? It definitely seems that several things are broken with how this sort of stuff is managed, but it's super-aggravating that's going to be the basis for equivocation between Biden (and Pence, and whoever) misplacing a few confidential things in the course of their work and Trump (who AFAICT did not work) just walking out the doors with boxes and boxes of the stuff because he thinks he's still President, and then trying like seventeen contradictory coverups when people noticed he was just waving the docs around to whoever. At the very least.

Been meaning to say something on the topic for ages and failing. Why does the situation have to be so dumb?!

The SOTU - Seems it went well for the Democrats, when it garners feedback like this and this. Even Trump had some positive words. (What happened, he watch the speech alone? Get Trump into a one-on-one with Biden and Trump will wind up liking the guy. Temporarily, anyways. He's malleable.)

Google's AI push - Gonna be "fun" with the "Google goes all-in on something" push, hope it goes better than last time. So far this hard steering (maximum chaos layoffs, product launches timed by external factors) does not seem to have helped the company in investors' eyes. The most amusing framework (though not exactly totally accurate, it over-implies the market does things for reasons) is that the James Webb Space Telescope managed to cost Google more than NASA.

On more prosaic work notes, the new desk space is working out pretty well. Same building, higher floor, but just across a connector from one of the new building's new cafeterias.

Weathering the weather whatever the weather - For February, this weather is wild, and that first letter is upside-down. Might make it through the whole winter without a significant snow-day, we'll see.

Tunic - I started playing a new game, an old-school Zelda meets Dark Souls number and it is glorious. It's fun and beautiful and charming. The aforementioned mashup of elements aside, a key feature of this game is that it captures one of the interesting aspects of exploration in old-school gaming by putting much of the interface in mysterious runes, not really explaining how things work in the game's normal flow, and giving you a beautiful but partially-complete manual, written in an unknown language with a few familiar words, with penciled-in margin notes. Some real nostalgia there, I suppose (it's potent anemoia in my case), for those who had some experience playing import-only games from a nation with a long tradition of video gaming innovation and also throwing in a few English words for spice.

The further twist is that the pages of this manual are a collectible item in the game. Don't ask too much about how that works diagetically, I don't know that there's a coherent explanation for that at all, but it's really effective in making knowledge about how the game works (whether figured out through collection and interpretation or unguided exploration) a well-won prize, while still handing out key bits of knowledge that end up being as much "the thing that unlocks the next area" as the in-game items.

Magic - New set's out, as the ancient evil that wants to compleately perfect Magic's multiverse by turning everyone into Geiger-esque cyborg monstrosities has broken the shell of the world (of Mirroden) and launched their omninvasion, with the heroes' plan to stop that definitely not going as planned. The set's pretty fun so far, at least there's some new stuff to shake up Standard. I played two rounds of sealed today, cratered 1-3 in the first but went 7-1 in the second (limited matches in Magic: Arena go to the first of seven wins or three losses). That second match had it all: Managing to overcome an opponent who played two copies of The Eternal Wanderer (wish my sealed pools were like that, that's for sure), braining an opponent with that third ability on The Filigree Sylex, and combining Paladin of Predation and Sylvok Battle-Chair to defeat my last opponent two ways simultaneously.
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I've been feeling under the weather this week, though maybe better as of today.

Packed up for a desk move at work at the end of the week. Now that the new building is open, everyone's getting shuffled. Feels like the end of an era even though I've only been at current desk for a year. It's a new Google Cambridge with the shiny new building coming online, and it's a new Google post maximum-chaos-layoffs.

A whip of arctic air drove temps below zero yesterday night and today is extremely cold and windy, but it's back up to 40 tomorrow.

Mystery Hunt puzzles and solutions are up now, so here are some of the fun puzzles I worked on this year:

Scicabulary - The first step of this puzzle is figuring out what's in common between clues like "doughissant", "uationedy", and "foon".
Apples Plus Bananas - Grocery store math logic.
Diary - A couple of layers of figuring out what the puzzle is about, one of which I helped my team solve.
Baking Bread - Time to cook!
Dispell the Bees - For once a relatively straightforward (if still quite tricky) puzzle, once you solve the first clue.
l33tminion: Join the Enlightened! (Enlightened)
Temps in the 80s yesterday and in the 90s today, before descending to something more normal in the coming week. It's not even June yet.

Yesterday, Julie was able to arrange for a vaccine booster for kid, and we dealt with various errands in the morning. In the afternoon, we regrouped in Arlington for an Ingress Anomaly, the latest in their series of in-game events. Wasn't much of a game, since our blue-team opponents didn't show! Which is odd, it's not like Boston Resistance has been dormant lately, they've shown up for smaller events and for the previous round of this series. Was still fun to wander around Arlington Center with our teammates. I went to Abbot's Frozen Custard, which was great. On the way home, we stopped in Davis Square for dinner. Patios were packed, but we found a spot at Out of the Blue, which I've been meaning to try for ages. Had a fantastic time.

Today, there was one of the Fancy Dress Teas in the Park organized by my friend Sarah, this time in a park near the Mystic River in Everett, and I took Eris to that. Was great to meet Sarah's baby, a fellow Sam (named, it turns out, at least in part after Diskworld's Vimes). Was great to see people in general, well worth braving the heat.

Julie made a great dinner, a root vegetable larb with some of the selections from this week's vegetable box.

One of the big bits of local news for this week was the MBTA's announcement of their bus network redesign plan. It reminds me rather a lot of a similar recent redesign in Cleveland, improving frequency of service and overall network connectivity in exchange for a bit more space between routes. For my neighborhood in Union Square (always a transit hub, now more so with the new green line connection), the redesign seems like it will improve connectivity to almost everywhere I go. The exceptions are that the connection out to Arlington is a little less direct, and direct options for my commute to Kendall are pruned (but those were already less frequent and weekday-only, and the indirect options are improved enough that overall convenience might be about the same).
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Last weekend I took Eris to the aquarium. Might do science museum when the Green Line Extension opening next week puts that two T stops away from our door.

I made a Saint Patrick's Day dinner of corned beef and veggies in the Instant Pot, which was fun and surprisingly easy. Baked some soda bread, too.

I keep meaning to write something about kid's idiosyncratic way of pronouncing some things. Not sure where she gets all of her Erisisms: "Intertresting", "rememories", "geanz". I'm forgetting a few funny ones, I think.

Today, the weather was beautiful and we got food from Littleburg and ate in the park. And then got ice cream from Gracie's afterwards.

Mask requirements have lifted at kid's school this week, though some of the parents (including us) are playing it cautious. There are still cases of COVID in the school. Fewer this week than last, so at least that's not immediately taking off. But another in kid's class.

I like the Caltech approach over MIT's.

I've been watching more movies with the kid lately. Digging into the Ghibli catalog: My Neighbor Totoro, Ponyo, Kiki's Delivery Service, The Secret World of Arrietty. And also Cartoon Saloon's Song of the Sea.
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Yesterday it snowed a whole lot. Waded to the park with Eris yesterday, then spent some time today digging out our door/garage. Our condo pays for snow removal, but like last time our snow removal service (functional last year) had big problems.

The COVID wave here seems to be waning.

It really frustrates me to see the lack of unity on pandemic mitigation. Like I read Angie Schmitt's stuff on Twitter, she's a person who writes a lot about pedestrian safety, really gets how bad health outcomes that are caused by doing things "the normal way" just get swept under the rug. But she's become a person whose number-one priority is having hard precomitments about when we can just stop trying re pandemic mitigation. Like I get it, I'm very glad schools are open here. "Schools closed, bars open" is insane, children shouldn't (and can't) do pandemic mitigation alone, it's terribly unfair just to cease the inexpensive public gatherings. But I'm glad that the kids are expected to try to help with pandemic mitigation here along with everyone, it seems like the right thing to do given that the pandemic is still ongoing and the long-term effects of COVID, even on kids specifically, are still unknown. It seems insane to me the degree to which people play up the mental-health impact of things as relatively innocuous as masking, while downplaying the mental-health impact of the pandemic itself. And the fact is, children's mental health wasn't all sunshine and roses pre-pandemic. Just insisting everything is normal now isn't a quick fix.
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