Sam's L33t Journal

I feel like I can't organize my thoughts about anything. The week's been so busy and I feel not recovered enough to enjoy the little alone time I have. I keep meaning to write and never writing.

I managed to see Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse, which was amazing, earned its cliffhanger ending, can't wait for the third installment.

Erica finished first grade, and we're on to the summer.

My parents are in town this weekend and this coming week, then we're going up to Sandy Island Camp. The past week, Erica was at Steve & Kate's Camp, a sort of freeform, no-set-schedule day camp. Erica enjoyed it a lot.

Tears of the Kingdom continues to be very fun. It's just wild what you can do with the game's physics system. There's a bit where Link builds a hydrofoil to ferry a band across a river. (At least that's how I read that puzzle, I'm sure there are a half-a-dozen equally crazy ways to solve it.)

The weekend wasn't bad, objectively, but I still felt pretty down. Got some good cooking done, at least. We would be going to Sandy Island at this time most years. Feel bad about missing it this year, though I'm not sure it would have been good to go, and definitely didn't know enough to commit to it when it was time to make a decision. (And my parents decided not to go this year anyways.) Maybe it would have been fine, maybe it's still a bad idea. I am hoping that we don't end up with a COVID variant that children are much less resilient against. The numbers at least continue to be locally good for now.

We could see some fireworks from our house, which Eris found exciting.

Monday was a bit better. I spent a lot of the day watching some of the SGDQ streams on the TV (put the Twitch app up on the XBox). Eris really enjoyed that, too, she was really excited to see speedrunners play games that she's played herself (like Mario Odyssey) or older games that are just visually interesting (like Shadow of the Colossus).

I also had today off, and was able to do relaxing things while Eris was at daycare. Though there was the usual feeling that time was passing quickly, more relaxing things I want to do than I have time, and the time goes so fast. But of course stressing about that would really defeat the point. Was able to get out while it was nice, if a bit hot. Everyone else was able to get home in the interlude before the evening rainstorms started.

Magic Arena has been too much of a timesink. I made it to Mythic three months ago on mono-blue control and two months ago on Winota, but last month I wasn't able to struggle my way to it, and since I've tried out a few different things that don't quite work. The new set (this one specifically based on D&D's forgotten Realms setting) in a few days will surely bring new possibilities. But I probably should balance that with taking a bit of a break.

I have been doing some other things. Played some Hades, watched some anime. Finished Odd Taxi, which was a great surreal subdued mystery drama with great characters. And I started Deca-Dence, a sci-fi action show with the sort of convoluted premise that I love.

Sandy Island was fun this year. Erica had a wonderful time and slept very well indeed. Making sandcastles on the beach was definitely the highlight of her trip, but there's a lot of outdoor fun to be had. The weather was good, if very hot, but it did cool off sufficiently at night. There was only one rainy morning, and only the last night was chilly. Very nice to spend time with family!

I did manage to get in some reading, too:

Two Years Eight Months and Twenty-Eight Nights (finished) - A surreal fantasy novel about a war between the djinni and the strangeness that brings to the world. Entertaining and well-written.

We Were Eight Years in Power - This book is simultaneously a collection of essays Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote for The Atlantic during the Obama Presidency, a memoir by Ta-Nehisi Coates about writing for The Atlantic during the Obama Presidency, and a bit of historical nonfiction that tries to get at the significance of the Obama Presidency in the broader picture of American history. The title is taken from a speech by South Carolina legislator Thomas Miller highlighting the achievements of Reconstruction-era government, unsuccessfully opposing the new state constitution in 1895.

The High Price of Free Parking - If you watch this interesting video and decide what you really need is 700 pages of detailed academic text on the subject, then I definitely recommend this book. I thought it was really interesting, but I've meaning to getting around to reading the detailed version for years.

New York 2140 (started) - 2312 was a sprawling novel with a lot of sprawling set-pieces, perhaps the most down-to-earth of which was a partially-flooded New York City. 2140 focuses on an earlier iteration of that one part of the setting. Definitely the setting and ideas stand out more than the plot and characters, but I really enjoyed 2312, and I'm really enjoying this one as well.

I also got around to watching some of the videos from this year's SGDQ. The race between the top two players of Celeste and the TAS (pre-constructed optimized) playthrough of the same game are both wonders to behold.

Sandy Island was a good vacation for everyone, but a fantastic vacation for Eris, who was phenomenally excited about both the activities and the food. The weather was beautiful (almost no rain, mild days and cool nights), and she got to spend a lot of time outdoors, mostly with me and Julie and my parents, but also a bit with the Sandy Island staff. While Erica is still too young for the morning children's programs at camp, they added a few hours of "toddler time" for the age bracket starting at 18 months, which Erica just reached this week, featuring playtime on the smaller-scale playground and painting with dot markers at the Little Red Schoolhouse (the building for the little kids' program at camp).

She also enjoyed a few boat rides, a lot of time on the swing and slides, dancing, playing catch (toddler version, sans catching), running all over the main area of camp, all of the food, and a brief dip in the lake with her grandma (briefly, before the chilly water got to be a bit much for her).

I really enjoyed the quality time with family, and was very grateful that we were able to travel with my parents to and from camp as well.

Eristic improvements: Climbing a playground ladder with static support (handrails), sliding down the slide by herself (or with minimal support). Walking up steps with minimal support, walking down steps with minimal static support (as little as a hand flat against a doorframe for balance). Climbing into and down from chairs. Vocabulary continues to expand as well, especially regarding colors (she seems to be more adept with toys that involve color-matching).

Unlike previous years, this year's trip to Sandy Island Camp wasn't a digital hiatus. I didn't leave my phone at home this time. For one thing, I wanted to have the camera, and for another, I was driving and wanted to bring the phone for nav. But unless I'm really committed to taking a complete break from the internet (and I wasn't), I won't do it, so I spent a lot of my time at camp listening to podcasts or huddled in the shadow of the internet shed.¹

But it did mean a lot of time to relax, particularly as the kid had two grandparents and an aunt who wanted to make the most of quality time. Early on, it was, "Can I watch the baby? Change a diaper? Take her for a walk?" Sure, if you insist! Later in the week, it was more like the kid would just vanish and I'd look up and think, "Where did the baby go?"

Eris is still determinedly working on improving her mobility. This makes her extra interactive, but also extra tired and hungry. Introducing her to new foods is fun, and she eats not nearly as messily as I would have expected. Aside from rice cereal, we've gotten in some banana (her favorite) and plain yogurt (which she also liked).

I did manage to get in a bit of reading at camp (though I notably did not read any books from start to finish):

Piketty's Capital - I started reading this at Sandy last summer, planned to find some time to finish it during the year, and failed to do so. It's pretty interesting, though, as a historical account of the conditions that caused inherited fortunes to dominate the landscape of wealth in Europe in the 18th and 19th centuries and why those conditions were notably absent for much of the 20th century. It's also interesting as a bit of futurism that predicts a return to low growth, extreme wealth inequality, a shrinking middle class, and the reemerging dominance of inherited fortunes. The last part, concerning policy recommendations, will be of interest to liberals, horrifying to libertarians, and probably politically infeasible in any case. Still, I agree with Bill Gates that the book is worth your time if you're interested in the topic.

Haidt's The Righteous Mind - Started this book some time before camp. This book's subtitle "Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion" promises more than the book delivers, and Haidt has blind-spots you could drive a truck through, and for all that he notes that he's a former liberal, Haidt seems to think that some of the moral intuitions he cites are absent from liberal politics instead of employed in different ways. Still, it's not bad as a pop-science book about moral psychology.

(If the author's name sounds familiar, Haidt has most recently gotten a lot of attention for writing conservative "what's wrong with the kids these days" think-pieces, including this one in The Atlantic.)

Cities and Space: The Future Use of Urban Land - Started but haven't finished yet. A collection of essays that was a product of an academic symposium, published in 1966. Interesting so far. Notably, it leads off with an essay that predicts the main problem of urban land in the future will be its ever-declining value as transportation and communication costs trend towards zero (the author also predicts that automated freeway navigation systems will allow traffic to flow at 150 mph bumper-to-bumper).

The weather at camp was pleasantly cool, and that continued on our return. (Had to get out a jacket, unusual for July.) Julie's dad was in town for a conference, and that Sunday was my 30th birthday, so we had some fun celebratory meals. Not a bad milestone. I did seem to manage to check all the boxes just in time for the end of my 20s.

Since then, summer has once again turned on the heat.

The handyman is scheduled to do some work on the house related to baby-proofing and climate control, but that's been delayed because he's sick. Hopefully the delay won't be too long.

I've been playing Undertale, which really is as good as people have claimed. And I have played a bit of that new Pokémon game that everyone (kind of shockingly close to literally everyone) is talking about.²

Eristic improvements: Substantial increases in mobility. Maintaining pre-crawling pose, reverse-gear backwards scooting, improved rolling. I'd say the kid is almost to crawling. In fact, she just got in her first bit of what might technically be crawling, which involved taking a lot of wind-up bounces before flinging a leg forward. She's also become more talkative. Definitely making the transition from cooing to babbling, some of her vocalizations are now recognizably featuring syllables and consonants. Some improvements in skill at manipulating objects, particularly those spoons.

1. The camp office, sole source of wifi on the island. There is some cell reception but it's terrible, particularly on T-Mobile.
2. I joked that it turns out that all Ingress needed to be wildly popular was to be combined with the most successful video-game franchise of all time. Of course, that's not really a joke, and it shouldn't really be so surprising that's a winning formula. (Though I do wonder if the game will have staying power, or if its popularity will be a brief fad.)

Vacation accomplished!

At Sandy Island Camp, I spent most of the time relaxing and reading and catching up with my parents (neither of my siblings made it this time). I didn't get out on the lake at all. It was beautiful, though, and I enjoyed reading on the beach.

Late in the week, I came down with the worst cold, like an Everlasting Gobstopper of disease, a different flavor every day! (Including some of the worst congestion I've ever had, plus bizarre symptoms like persistent hiccups.) And then Julie also caught it just in time for international travel. Got through it somehow, with a lot of cough drops and mint tea.

(My mom thinks I'm sick all the time now... it's just that when I'm under the weather I tend to take the time to write something in my blog.)

Despite being under the weather, the London trip was certainly fun. Julie's folks put us up in a really nice hotel, and it was good to spend time with family and friends. I enjoyed seeing the niece again, she's going through a shy phase but seems as cheerful as ever. (Hopefully we avoided this cold jumping to her or anyone else.) All the adults in the family seem to be spectacularly busy with work, though in a good way. We got in some London tourism that I had little time for on my first conference trip (Tower of London tour, viewed the city from the London Eye, climbed the Monument to the Great Fire, went on a pub crawl, window shopping at Harrods). We even got the chance to catch up with Xave and Sarah on their London sabbatical (in the moments before they headed off for a holiday in France).

I'm back, as of earlier this afternoon.

Sandy Island was fun. Read a ton, played quite a few games of cribbage, and took a nice kayak trip around Ragged Island. The weather was unusually good this summer, mild days and comfortable nights most of the week. On Thursday night, Hurricane Arthur brought in intense thunderstorms followed by at least thirty hours of continuous rain.

The island had an unusually high deer population this year. Normally if there are deer on the island, they try to stay out of sight, but this year they were grazing on the ball field during the day and foraging near the cabins at night. Lots of ducks, too, though no groups of ducklings yet this time. Also seemed to be an unusual number of spiders. Saw the biggest spider I've ever seen at camp and chased it out of my cabin; I think it was a male tan jumping spider from its huge size, kind-of-tarantula-like appearance, and alarming jumping ability. And watched a smaller spider (some sort of orb-weaver, probably) in the process of constructing a large spoke-and-wheel style web. Always cool to watch something small build big structures.

It was nice to have some time with my folks and some vacation with Julie. Unfortunately, my siblings were both away from Sandy this year. My sister was busy, and my brother was not feeling up for the road-trip. I hope they'll be able to make the vacation at some point in future years.

Enjoying the weekend, looking forward to my return to work.

I'm back from camp!

My week away from everything was very relaxing. Mainly, I did a lot of reading. My reading list:

• VALIS by Phillip K Dick: Phillip K Dick's book about how Phillip K Dick is crazy
• REAMDE by Neal Stephenson: My one Neal Stephenson book per year, a pretty quick read for a thousand page book
• 2312 by Kim Stanley Robinson: Weird-topian sci-fi, good, very strange
• Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber: Fascinating economic history, really cuts to the heart of some of what's wrong about modern economics
• Cooked by Michael Pollan: Not as good as The Omnivore's Dilemma, but if you liked that you'll probably like this as well
• The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi: Dystopian biopunk novel, suspenseful, clever, and disturbing

I also spent some time watching the wildlife (unusually bold deer, a mother duck herding a dozen ducklings, a very angry sparrow attacking a fleeing squirrel), went on a shopping trip to Wolfeboro, played cribbage, and had some long conversations with my parents.

I was back from camp last Saturday, and went immediately back to being completely swamped with work and wedding logistics.

It's been good weather for biking, so I've been enjoying my new Hubway membership.

My birthday was yesterday, Julie treated me to a lovely birthday dinner at TW Foods.

Getting married in a month!

Sandy was good! Took some classes in the craftshop, enjoyed a shopping trip to Wolfeboro, saw some spectacular fireworks, went on some kayaking adventures, played cribbage, spent time with my family, and read on the beach.

Reading list was relatively short this time:

Lamb by Christopher Moore - Enjoyed it, but maybe Moore's style of humor isn't quite my preference?

The System of the World by Neal Stephenson - What a trilogy the Baroque Cycle was! Amazing stuff, though it took me some time to get through.

What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami - A simple, existential memoir about art, discipline, and the course of life. Well worth reading, especially if you're a fan of Murakami (and especially if you like his more contemplative stuff, like After Dark (which I read at Sandy last year)).


Also, today is my birthday. It's been a good year, and I'm looking forward to the next.

I should be asleep, but it is hot and muggy here, so a quick post while the air conditioner labors to cool my room off.

Sandy Island was awesome: Lengthy conversations with my family (save for Melissa, who was off to London, though I got to see her a bit in Boston before), watching the ducks (so many ducklings this year, also unusually old ducklings; wonder what made this a particularly early and prolific season) and other wildlife (several loons nesting near the island, which is unusual), a bit of swimming and kayaking, some crafts, movies, dancing, touristing, a ton of reading.

The reading list for this year:

The Transparent Society - The basic argument (that enforced mutual transparency is a superior solution to the sort of problem that could (allegedly) be solved by regulation or technology that enforces the bounds of privacy or secrecy) is interesting, but this book probably is far longer than necessary to express that argument. Read it or not.

The Confusion - Great, but made all the more confusing by the fact that it's a sequel to another 800-page book that I read a full year ago and consequently remember very little of. Still, great.

Postsingular - I do love stories about crazy post-singularity futures, but Accelerando was much better.

Yes Means Yes! - While this collection of essays is by no means a comprehensive overview of modern egalitarian (fourth wave?) feminism, it's definitely a must-read.

Feel-Bad Education - Read Punished by Rewards instead.

After Dark - A quick and compelling read. Not as good as some of Murakami's more involved novels (e.g. The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle), but still great. I'd also bet this story (2004) is one of the influences for the story and setting of Persona 4 (2008), though can't find any reference to the devs mentioning it.

After I got home: Saw Page One with Julia (interesting documentary, interesting in particular given my new employer), finished Red Dead Redemption (the ending is great, Rockstar really does westerns well), finished watching [C] (global economic crisis, the anime; wouldn't really recommend it to those who aren't already anime fans, but worth a watch if you like the particular genre conventions of the show).