§ Every winter I round up all of the plants that wouldn’t survive the outdoor temperatures and set them up under a few full-spectrum UV lights in an otherwise unused basement shower. The goal is just for them to survive through the winter but each year, it seems, a few of the plants actually do better down there—pretty much ignored by me—than they do outside all summer. This year our lemon tree started flowering and our small fig plant—that I had resigned myself to thinking was a lost cause when I first brought it in—is now growing a bunch of fruit.
§ Prompted by Merlin Mann’s recent blog post (side note: Merlin is blogging again!) I’ve been thinking about how I can borrow some ideas from desire paths and bring them into physical interface design. Like, if your bedside alarm clock dimpled and squished just a little bit every time you slapped your hand down on the snooze button, what would it look like after a decade? What about a video game controller made out of some kind of hard-but-malleable clay that slowly erodes over the course of years to perfectly conform to the shape of your hand?
§ To my own surprise, I’m still going strong using a little Field Notes notebook everyday. I flew through my first notebook and, taking a cue from Stephen Hackett, I digitized it before stashing it away. I’m well into a second book now. It’s nice to have a little scratchpad with me everywhere I go. Also, I’ve found it has helped me with my long-running and often ill-fated goal to draw more frequently.
§ For at least the past year, each time I ask my HomePod a question, Siri ends every response with an apology. This is not a joke. I can’t help but to think that it is some kind of midwestern impulse it learned from me.
§ CAM International Market has long been on my list of places you should visit in Cleveland but over the past few weeks I’ve been shopping there much more frequently. It is truly worth a visit if you happen to be anywhere nearby. I’ll admit that I cooked bulgogi four days in a row this week, ate upwards of 48 ounces of my new favorite brand of kimchi, and have been methodically exploring all of the different brassica rapas I can get my hands on.
§ My sourdough project continues. The starter mixture isn’t bubbling, rising, or really doing much of anything at all as far as I can tell. Nevertheless, I’ve been dutifully feeding it each morning like some featureless gooey pet.
§ For the past few years my wife and I made a tradition of having dinner at Amba on Valentines Day. This year, we saw that the same chef had just recently opened a new restaurant nearby so we decided to check it out. A surprising standout was the roasted broccolini with pickled kumquats, which I want to try to recreate someday.
