Sam's L33t Journal

Things have been going all right. Hectic travel schedule. Last weekend we went to Dallas to visit Julie's parents and sister and her family. Was a nice time and the travel went well.

I finished reading Vernor Vinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, which was a delightfully weird sci-fi tale.

I've been reading various things to Erica for bedtime story over the past few weeks. We finished the last bit of The Jungle Book a few weeks back, after wrapping up The Wind in the Willows. A few days ago, we finished The Arkadians. We just started reading Kiki's Delivery Service. The Wizard of Oz is in the to-read pile, though haven't gotten to it yet.

We're not making it into the path of totality for the upcoming eclipse, just too much to fit in. But a week later we're going to the Netherlands (two nights in Utrecht and two in Amsterdam) for Erica's April break. That's the first international travel I've planned since before the pandemic. It's a longer trip than Erica's made since she was young, and her earlier travel was before boredom was an option, so we'll see how she endures it. Hopefully the night flight and subsequent jetlag won't be too deadly.

Some other stuff has been going on.

I had my second date in court on condo business last Thursday. Same stuff, but this time with the case recaptioned and served again against the association (plus the same individuals "as an agent of" etc.). A three-hour wait for a fifteen-minute hearing. At least the hearing itself was quick, the testimony was all done last time. Will see what the ruling is when they send it. (Small claims does not rule from the bench, except in the case of a default judgment.) Nothing's up on the docket yet, but there's probably some time set aside periodically for case review.

1369 had a jazz night on Friday, a bit of a throwback to the 1369 Jazz Club days. And a more recent throwback to when cafes were sometimes open at night. The music itself was interesting but confoundingly avant-garde.

On Saturday, I did a bunch of cooking, including a project with Erica that Erica suggested: We made homemade cheese and bean papusas. Made the dough from scratch, filling was all-but-store-bought (that is, it was a can of seasoned refried beans and a bag of shredded cheese, which we mixed). Erica shaped them by hand and I cooked them in the cast iron. Turned out pretty good! Maybe I'll try making homemade tortillas some time.

Sunday, I spent the day out with Erica. We went climbing and got new shoes. And we dropped by the new Beard Papa on Newbury Street for cream puffs. They're new at that location (and newly back in town) and the weather was great so the line was out the door.

Julie has been sick early this week, but seems to be on the mend. So far Erica and I seem to have dodged it. Fingers crossed.

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.

Busy, busy week. The solo parenting is going swimmingly. Erica went to a friend's birthday party Sunday, and I got to catch up with my favorite bartender, Fred Yarm, who's now at Josephine, right in my neighborhood. (Unfortunately, this week also came with the news that Fred's previous venue, top Boston cocktail bar Drink, closed abruptly, along with Barbara Lynch's other Fort Point restaurants, amazing counter-seating fancy Italian diner Sportello and try-hard French-cuisine Michelin-in-exile Menton.)

There are more layoffs at my employer today. I'm still employed (for now lol), but there are more dismaying cuts on my former team.

The election year buzz heightens as the prospect of another four years of Trump madness approaches, capped off with a debate between the two final also-rans. The January 6 rhetoric was also quite a bit louder this year, with Trump all but saying he'd do it again, and even a bunch of Republicans reversing course on very obvious truths said January 7 three years prior. We're in an election year where the one remaining anti-Trump Republican on the ballot is running on a blanket pardon and total impunity for Trump.

And the sort of person who can't state the extremely obvious when it's politically inconvenient, as a brief aside to another Republican scandal of the week. But of course she's speaking to people for whom it's inconvenient what their ideological predecessors were fighting for freedom to do. (Hilariously, the discourse about Haley's "gaffe" led to this response by Trump, for whom nothing is politically inconvenient.) Anyways, the Confederates have truly had their revenge on the Republican Party. I suppose if you told them the way that had come about was "strange coalition politics", they couldn't be too surprised.)

Speaking of Confederates, it's extremely strange (and seems extremely perilous) that the application of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment might have an impact on this year's election. Sort of blame the drafters of that amendment and also I guess of the Amnesty Act of 1872 for not being more forward-thinking on this one. Poorly drafted legislation is always the trouble of the courts. But in a sane world, it would be irrelevant as Trump would have been impeached, convicted, and removed and barred from office in emergency sessions of Congress on January 7, 2021. (Putting aside that in a sane world he would have been convicted and removed earlier, and also not elected in the first place.)

It's an odd situation that the President of the United States, having exhausted all legal methods of challenging those elections, sought to just throw out the elections from whichever states were his closest losses, as many as it takes, whatever it takes to get there: Maybe get Congress to ignore the states' duly cast votes, or the Vice President unilaterally, maybe it legally counts as "disputed" if you put forward some other election results that are just fake (!), or like maybe if stuff gets delayed other stuff can be done (???). Raise a mob to be there, some voicing nebulous willingness to kill someone, if that helps. (The mob never got the chance to drag Pence or whoever to Schrodinger's gallows, so it remains somewhat un-collapsed how serious that plan was.) Shambolic is the word of the day when Trump's around, but as shambolic as that coup attempt was, it was an attempt. And our nation is politically unable to deal with such an attempt when it's short of success. Still. (An attempt that comes less short is, of course, not going to be "dealt with".)

It's madness. The lack of imagination. I wish Republicans could imagine what if Gore (as VP and candidate) or Clinton (as incumbent President) did anything even remotely like that in 2001. These people will pretend they can't or say it was like that. It's deranged. Why are we doing this again?

I've been on the tail end of a chain of colds for some time now. I feel pretty well today, but the last bit of residual congestion is still really annoying.

Thanksgiving break went well. The travel was pleasant, and it was great to see my parents and siblings. My nephew, Simon, is two now and talking quite a bit and seemed excited to see us. We all went to the children's museum and he had a blast.

I've been so, so busy at work and on the home-front, both with condo logistics (hassling people about getting snow removal figured out as winter disaster impends) and with the usual cleaning / organizing / planning for the household.

I know I had more to write but I'm too tired to recall.

I did get a post written on my essay blog (complexmeme_feed) the other week, about Effective Altruism. Maybe I'll get around to updating that more than once a year, or maybe not.

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:

• An interesting review of the book Going Infinite, about about-to-be-jailed fraudster SBF
• "The Talk: a brief explanation of sexual dimorphism", about why all complex organisms spend so much effort to pass on only half of their genes, which goes beyond the first-take explanation about the downsides of cloning

This Friday and Saturday, I went to Olin Alumni Weekend (15 year reunion for my class). Took Erica on Saturday. They were trying to make it a kid-friendly event, but there weren't quite enough kid activities for the day, I thought. She had a good time nonetheless and enjoyed seeing the school. Julie was able to join us in the evening after a cycling event Saturday morning. She'd been expecting to be busy all day originally, but her event was shortened due to weather.

Erica went to a friend's birthday party at SkyZone trampoline park Sunday morning. Julie and I had a light lunch at a Moroccan bakery nearby (CasaBlanca Pastry), then dropped by Night Shift. (Viva Habenera is back!)

Sunday afternoon we went to Union Square's annual Marshmallow Fluff Festival. This had been postponed to the predicted to be less rainy (but maybe actually significantly more rainy) day of the weekend. Which was fortunate for Erica, since she actually got to attend.

Masala Square's fluff samosas were pretty good, but Carolicious served fluff arepas so tasty I think they need to put dessert arepas on the menu. Counter Culture Coffee was serving some delicious drinks (including one made with their new coffee concentrate) out of their Union Square coffee school. It was fun despite the wet weather, and there were definitely a lot of people out in the rain.

Enjoyed watching an episode of the second season of Is It Cake? with Erica in the evening, though she really didn't want to go to bed after.

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.

Just got back from a weekend in Baltimore. Was great to see Melissa and Elliott and Simon (that baby was G R O M P Y, at least some of the time, but his communication skills are really coming along and that stage of development is really amazing to see). My parents were also visiting there before heading off with Erica on second grandparent trip of the summer. On Sunday, Erica and I took a day-trip via train to DC with my dad and Melissa. We saw the sights Erica most wanted to see (views of the Washington Monument, a visit to the Lincoln Memorial, and the National Children's Museum) and made it back to Baltimore for a sushi dinner. We had a great breakfast Monday at Golden West (wanted to go to Paper Moon, but that's closed Mondays, another time). Then saw Erica off on a trip with my parents. They're going to Cascade of Music and Dance and then back to Cleveland for the end of the summer. I hear Erica is already having a great time.

The trip to Baltimore was smooth, and generally Erica was a great traveler and good company. Was traveling on Southwest this time for the first time in a while, and they really do so many things differently. The trip back, on the other hand, was plagued by delays. I managed to switch to an earlier (also delayed) flight that was just before departure when I arrived at the airport (again, yay Southwest for being so nice about same-day changes). But the flight was delayed on the tarmac by weather for almost an hour, then had to return to gate to get more fuel after their route was changed. Then the flight was turbulent and they couldn't serve beverages or snacks. I arrived still at least an hour-and-a-half earlier than I would have on my original flight, and somehow not too hungry. But my bag didn't make the last-minute transfer. I went home for dinner and bed and swung by the airport this morning to retrieve that from the baggage office.

The last two weeks, Erica's been on an epic road trip with her Grammy and Grumpy (Scott and Heather, Julie's parents) and her cousin Emilia. They took quite the journey up to Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island, back down along the Saint Lawrence to Quebec City, on to visit some extended family in Toronto, stopped at Niagara Falls, swung down to Cleveland for a consulting job for Scott and some tourism with all four grandparents. Then back to Boston. She just got back today. Two weeks out of town for Erica, and her first journey away from parents. (And I still didn't write the whole time.)

The two weeks were pretty uneventful work-weeks on the home-front, though did have quite an eventful weekend with Julie, we saw a play (Evita at the ART) and a movie (Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, for the second time for me and I did not at all regret the rewatch) and got in line early for a delve into a high-concept cocktail bar (Hecate, not an everyday thing and the concept done possibly to the point of silliness, but still very interesting drinks). And some quiet time and cooking, too.

I've mostly fallen out of the habit of playing Magic Arena with the last set, a "Universes Beyond" set themed after Lord of the Rings, since that set doesn't go into the N-most-recent-normal-sets format, Standard, which is the one I mostly play. Instead, it's in Alchemy, which is Arena's Standard plus "rebalancing" (having slightly different versions of cards) plus whatever the opposite of rebalancing is (having wild digital-only-mechanics nonsense). And, of course, Limited, with the set just by itself. Which has been fun, but not enough to keep up the play-every-day (well, most days) sort of habit I had before. With longer before the next Standard set in (and even longer before the next out, with Wizards having widened the window for "rotation" just recently), that's started to feel more same-y, too.