Chris Martin

  • 2023 W36

    § I saw the Cleveland National Airshow for the first time in… 15 years? I really don’t consider myself to be an airplane guy but let me tell you: aerobatics is exhilarating. It just is.

    § I met with a group of engineering students who I will be advising on a large interactive project. Something along the lines of Daniel Rozin and Peter Vogel. It is all in the very early stages but I can’t wait to see what they end up creating!

    § Joining some photo sharing sites, years after leaving Instagram, has been a surprisingly fulfilling experience.

    I capture a lot of images—and I am proud of some of them—but they get lost in a monolithic photo library filled with momentarily useful screenshots and pictures of plants for use with Apple’s Visual Lookup feature, which I employ constantly.

    I’ve tried creating a separate iCloud photo album for my favorite shots but that never seems to stick. The social aspect of sites like Flickr and Glass, while not particularly important to me in its own right, has a knock-on effect of making me more mindful in my curation and editing process.

    § The great thing about running this website is that I can use it as a hub for everything that I post online—as they say, “publish on your own site, syndicate elsewhere.”

    In that vein, I set up a new photography page on this blog. It is its own little thing so you won’t see new photos pop up in the main feed. You will have to subscribe to its dedicated RSS feed if you want to stay up to date as I post new stuff.

    § After reading all of the above, it shouldn’t be a surprise that I brought out “the big camera” for the first time in a few months. The picture quality is unquestionably better than my iPhone but it is also distinctly less convenient.

    A standalone camera that automatically syncs with Apple Photos would go a long way towards alleviating that inconvenience.

    Not too long ago Apple began offering third-party device manufacturers access to their Find My network so this idea isn’t totally outside the realm of possibility.

    § Huh, my car trouble last week was because of a BECM issue after all. I am very thankful I was able to get this all sorted out before my warranty expires.

    Finally, to put a bow on this whole saga, I got a flat tire while driving down the highway in the loaner car. At least I still know how to change a tire despite not having done it since high school.

    The dealership promises that my car will be ready for pickup on Monday.

    I miss living somewhere with functional public transportation.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Tumeric rice
      • Fair warning: this website is really rough. It crashes Safari on my phone unless I use an ad blocker. The recipe is great, though!

  • 2023 W35

    § We have secured a wedding date: July 13, 2024.

    § It’s Labor Day weekend which means it is time for the county fair.

    ✓ Delicious milkshakes
    ✓ Adorable baby goats
    ✗ Pigs in tiny cages with names like “Porkchop”

    § The neighborhood park recently got pickleball courts installed. As someone who

    1. enjoys playing badminton and
    2. has never been remotely interested in tennis

    I am curious to see where pickleball falls between the two. One of these days I’ll purchase the equipment necessary to find out.

    § I watched The Peripheral after seeing how angry John Gruber was when he learned Amazon had canceled the show’s second season.

    Set in the year 2032, the restrained near-future speculative technology is the most interesting part. The glut of guns and violence would have benefited from a similarly disciplined approach.

    § Jury Duty was exceptional. I am sure all of the praise it has received will make it temping to create another season but I think that would be a mistake.

    One of the actor-jurors, Edy Monica, also directed and starred in the short film Nicole which is excellent in a sort of Ryan Trecartin type of way.

    § On Friday morning my Chevrolet Volt suddenly stopped working. The battery indicated that was fully charged yet displayed zero miles of available range. It was extremely loud and there was a concerning sluggish quality to each acceleration and deceleration.

    After I coaxed the car back home I tried restarting it and, suddenly, everything went back to normal? Bizarre.

    It could be a BECM issue? If so, it is comforting to know that BECM issues can occasionally cause a sudden, random loss of propulsion altogether. I have 5,000 miles remaining on my 100,000 mile warranty so good timing, at least?

    After calling—eleven—local dealerships I was able to find one with a loaner vehicle available—a 2018 Equinox.

    The shop won’t be able to look at my car until next week though. To be continued.

    § I set up a Flickr account. No guarantees I’ll stick with it but it is great to see that it’s still going strong after all of these years.

    I also started a Glass account which is the new hotness. It has much more of an Instagramy social focus which is a bit of a turn off but the interface is totally fun and modern.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Fresh mint ice cream
      • I zested individual chocolate chips with a microplane before learning the correct method to add flaky chocolate shavings to ice cream. This wasn’t quite as tedious as it sounds but it was close.

  • 2023 W34

    § I visited “the smelliest food festival in America” and purchased a handful of different garlic varieties that I’ll try planting in the fall.

    § More CNCing this week.

    I made a revised prototype of my Technic / Tinkertoy inspired modular architecture building blocks this time using strut channel nuts embedded between two layers of 3/4” plywood.

    I also placed an order for a Shopbot component that will increase my cut area from 2x4’ to 4x4’. I can’t wait.

    § I watched From which has big Haven vibes.

    One of the primary differences is that Haven has more of a “monster of the week” structure which is to its benefit. The show-runners are able to take their time to draw out a compelling central plot while each minor story arc provides a drum beat that keeps things interesting on a week-to-week basis. Watching From, I found myself feeling frustrated by extended character-building storylines, looking instead for resolution on the show’s central mystery.

    Ultimately, I recommend watching From if you enjoy mysterious location-focused shows like Lost, The Leftovers, and Haven. From might not be quite up there with the best of them but it is nevertheless a solid addition to the genre.

    § I finally had to fill my car up with gas for the first time in nearly two months. During the time that elapsed I used 7.27 gallons of gas and drove 2,190 miles for a total of 301 MPG. Not bad at all!

    I realize that I am way off from my initial goal of “no more gasoline before Thanksgiving.” I am sure that if I were to only use my car for my regular commute to and from work I could have accomplished that goal—a majority of my gas usage came from out of the ordinary trips, drives out into the country, a trek across the state, etc.—that just isn’t particularly feasible though. A lot of the fun stuff here requires a bit of a drive! I’ll be totally satisfied if I can maintain an average around 300 MPG.

    § I guess there was a tornado in Cleveland Thursday night? I slept through it.

    Possibly related: I’ve definitely caught a cold.

    § Links

  • 2023 W33

    § We harvested five pounds of produce from the garden this week, nearly all of which were tomatoes. The san marzano, while still suffering from blossom end rot problems, is our heaviest producer by far.

    § My barber casually referred to my collection of random interests—building a greenhouse, growing and preserving food, making bricks, etc.—as “prepper stuff.” My reaction was to distance myself from the characterization but, thinking back on it now, I don’t know if I can pinpoint exactly what exactly I felt was so wrong about it.

    I guess it is the popular association of peppers with end-of-the-world disaster scenarios, weapon stockpiling, and distrustful “every man for themselves” worldviews. Self-sufficiency is great, it is the underlying motivation that can cause problems.

    I am fascinated by how things work. Bread making isn’t some innate ever-present skill. It is an arduous process that had to be invented, iterated, perfected, and passed down through generations. I am not going to grow wheat and then harvest, thresh, winnow, and mill grain every time I get a craving for fresh bread. Understanding the process, however, gives me a unique appreciation that I do not think I would otherwise have.

    § I have been enjoying Dark Noise, a white noise “sound machine” application.

    The killer feature is the ability to create custom sound mixes. So far, I have make myself two primary mixes: a sleep mix and a mix to play during the day as I work. My sleep mix includes sounds like “rain on tent,” “windy trees,” and “crickets” while my daytime mix has “birds,” “wind chimes,” and “creek.”

    As someone who likes to have audio playing in the background throughout most of my day, I am surprised I hadn’t given Dark Noise a shot until now.

    § I’ve only recently learned about the pawpaw tree which grows “the largest edible fruit indigenous to the United States.” It is native to Ohio and its fruit is said to taste similar to a banana or mango.

    They ripen only during a short window of time in late September and early October. I’ll need to try to track some down then. If it tastes good I may try to grow one next to my maypop, another surprisingly tropical midwestern fruit.

    § I got a long-neglected Shopbot CNC machine up and running at work.

    The cut area is only 2x4’ which is extremely limiting compared to the 4x8’ machine I’ve used in the past. Regardless, there is something deeply satisfying about drawing something on a computer and then watching as a robot cuts it out for you in real time.

    § Links

    § Recipes

  • 2023 W32

    § The soil in my yard is something like 80% clay, 20% large rocks. The process of creating my hügelkultur left me with plenty of each.

    The rocks were easy. I was able to add them to the dry stacked walls that define my garden beds.

    The clay is the hard part. In the past I’ve collected it, along with all of my other unamended soil, in an unceremonious pile in a back corner of my yard.

    I’ve always been interested in learning how to extract and purify the clay for pottery making, though, which is exactly what I tried this week.

    It wasn’t as difficult as I anticipated it would be and the result was a large ball of clay that was, to my eyes, nearly indistinguishable from professional earthenware.

    The plan now is to process the clay into bricks then use those bricks to make a small kiln.

    § I took Friday off to look at wedding venues. We have a date or, at least, an array of possible dates orbiting mid July of next year.

    § I didn’t know it was possible for blossom end rot to manifest inside of tomatoes. Like, the outside looks totally fine and then, once sliced, you’ll notice that the seeds are covered in a black goo.

    I noticed this happening with my San Marzano tomatoes. After throwing out at least a dozen fruits with obvious exterior end rot, I finally picked a few nice looking ripe fruits but then only noticed the gross center after slicing them.

    This is mostly annoying because I originally intended to can these tomatoes whole which I now won’t feel confident doing until I can resolve this issue.

    § I’ve been playing the New York Times Mini Crossword. Full-sized crosswords have always felt like too large of a commitment. Their bite-sized counterparts fill a nice sub-ten-minute niche right next to Connections.

    § I’ve been evaluating Lego’s new(ish) Spike robotics platform. I am inherently suspicious of proprietary systems like these although, after a couple of hours fiddling, I am beginning to warm up to this set. There is enough modularity and flexibility built in that I don’t feel pigeon-holed into particular pre-defined projects.

    § Links

  • 2023 W31

    § Fresh peaches might be the best fruit. The key is to pick them ripe which makes shipping them next to impossible. This means you will need to find them locally. Now is the time to find for your local orchard. I promise it will be worth it.

    § I harvested all of the garlic that I planted in early May. I now realize that spring was the wrong time of year to plant garlic but, nevertheless, I am happy with my eight small, though well developed, bulbs.

    § I’ve embarked on a huge deep dive on modular architecture this week starting with Lego bricks and culminating in a prototype that aims to answer the question: “Can you build a house using enormous, wooden, Technic-style, 2x4s?”

    § Cabel Sasser wrote a fascinating post about the challenges that arise when designing public artworks.

    This has been one of the most unexpectedly interesting facets of my job designing exhibits for an interactive museum.

    some designers are amazing at imagining things, but not as amazing at imagining them surrounded by the universe. […]

    It almost seems like there’s a real job here for the right type of person. “Real World Engineer”? Unfortunately, the closest thing most companies currently have is “lawyer”.

    The challenge—and the fun—comes from the reality that the public will always interact with your work the way they want to. Your job is to guide their experience through thoughtful design, without the luxury of direct instruction.

    § Infinity Pool was wild. With Alexander Skarsgård, Mia Goth, and Brandon Cronenberg you just know you’re in for quite a trip.

    Brandon Cronenberg’s previous film, Possessor, had similarly striking visuals but ultimately didn’t stick with me as much as I expect this film will.

    § One of our quails was attacked despite being in a coop that we reinforced with two layers of 1/2” hardware cloth. It was all very upsetting. For now we’ve moved them into the greenhouse. While it isn’t ideal, in terms of heat, as far as I can tell it is basically avian Fort Knox.

    § Links

  • 2023 W30

    § Our first red cherry tomatoes have ripened. They are a few weeks behind our crop from last year but no less delicious. We’re still waiting on the yellow and black cherries.

    I also ate my first home grown summer squash of the season. The plant has been uncharacteristically prolific but, for whatever reason, many of its smaller fruits are suffering from blossom end rot. I tried supplementing with calcium and we will see if that helps.

    § OpenAI took its AI detection tool offline due to low accuracy. This isn’t surprising—I’ve seen a number of stories about professors rejecting student essays after they were inaccurately flagged as being AI written.

    I suspect OpenAI primarily developed its AI detection capabilities for internal use, to avoid “model collapse” by filtering today’s AI generated content out of future training runs. When used this way, an overzealous classifier is totally fine. Sure, you might filter out some genuine content but that isn’t a huge deal. When the same classifier is used as the sole means to judge the authenticity of student work, however, false positives start to become a lot more impactful.

    § We got a new stove! It is a lot like our old stove except, in this one, the oven actually functions properly. The burners supposedly have a higher BTU rating too but that hasn’t had any noticeable impact, in practice.

    § I started digging a hügelkultur which I have been mistakingly calling a hinterkaifeck.

    You might recall that I have been spending the summer sawing down a lot of tree branches and overgrown bushes.

    The volume of branches this has produced has been challenging. Sure, making a wattle fence has been great fun but that only uses so much wood. I’ve started to annoy my city’s garbage collection service with the bags upon bags of sticks and leaves I’ve been attempting to throw out each week.

    So, hey, maybe a hügelkultur would be perfect. You just bury some wood in the ground, plant things on top, and, as the wood breaks down, it feeds the growing plants above with a continuous supply of carbon.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    I tried making cheese with raw—scratch that, “pet”—milk that I purchased from a local Amish grocer.

    I spent a while trying to decide between a queso fresco and a farmer’s cheese before I realized that they are essentially the same thing. Mozzarella felt a bit too ambitious as an entry point.

    The whole process was not as difficult as I expected. Warm up the milk, add acid, wait, scoop out the curds, drain. That is really it.

    I also made ricotta with the leftover whey. I still have so much more whey left to use, though. I’ve read that you can use it in place of water in bread doughs. It is also supposed to have some unique qualities when used to soak beans. Some people make whey lemonade.

    This whole experience, while fun, makes me disinclined to ever want a dairy cow. At more than seven gallons of milk per day, I would need to get way more into dairy before that ever became anything more than burdensome.

    A goat on the other hand…

  • 2023 W29

    § Each of our pepper varieties—jalapeño, cayenne, poblano, banana, and Hungarian—are all growing fruit.

    Thanks to some early pruning help from the local deer population, two of our cherry tomato plants are still a manageable size. The San Marzano, however, is as vigorous as ever.

    I don’t even know what to say about the blackberry. It has already totally outgrown the patch I planted it in last year. I am both proud and overwhelmed.

    Our purple passionflower, which I had thought hadn’t survived the winter, has come back with a vengeance. There are shoots popping up as far as four feet away from the original plant. Researching more now, I see that it is considered invasive in some areas.

    Humid weather earlier in the week gave way to a violent, cathartic, storm Thursday night complete with thunder, lightning, and hail. Relentless sheets of rain flattened our young, top heavy plants.

    By the next evening, just about everything was able to perk itself back up. The only casualty was a large, fruit bearing stem of one of the cherry tomato plants.

    § I rode an e-bike for the first time. As an exercise device it was, of course, less effective than a traditional bicycle. As a means of transportation, however, it might be unbeatable.

    The experience considerably expanded what I can see as a viable car-free commute. Unfortunately, my current commute would be upwards of an hour each way. Even on an e-bike that is not exactly viable.

    § After some struggle, I’ve finally made a breakthrough on my capacitive touch wall mural music sampler project. The turning point came when I decided to stop using MIDI altogether and instead use the Touch Board as a basic USB keyboard.

    This was all made possible by finally finding an application I had been searching for this whole time—a simple, keyboard focused, sampler app.

    The next step for the project is to start prototyping its physical design.

    § I’ve been playing Connections, the latest Wordle-esque puzzle game from the New York Times. The goal is to categorize a four-by-four grid of words into four separate groups based on their commonalities. Sometimes the solutions are straightforward—flute, clarinet, harp, oboe, all musical instruments—but often there are a few words included that make things a little more ambiguous. Each game takes less than five minutes to complete and it isn’t ever difficult enough to be frustrating but never so easy that it feels mindless—a tricky balance to strike for a game of this kind.

    § The Queen’s Gambit was captivating and further evidence for my theory that limited-run series’ are always better than their indefinite counterparts.

    § Links

  • 2023 W28

    § My makrut lime plant has started growing a handful of tiny little fruits for the first time. I originally bought the plant for its aromatic leaves that are frequently used in Thai cooking. In my decidedly non-tropical climate I never expected to actually get any fruit. Exciting!

    § The Exploratorium Cookbook is such an unbelievable resource for building interactive educational experiences. Given my field of work, I am both shocked and a bit disappointed that I hadn’t heard of it until now.

    A crucial detail is that the book doesn’t prescribe regimented, step-by-step projects. Instead, it sticks to cataloging broad concepts and suggests ways one might go about presenting them.

    The way the book is structured as a series of numbered “recipes” reminds of the sequential architectural and cultural “patterns” from A Pattern Language. I wonder if they both could be used in tandem…

    § I have been working with MIDI this week, prototyping different approaches towards creating a capacitive touch wall mural that acts as a musical sequencer / drum machine.

    It has been frustrating to learn that microcontrollers with great capacitive sensing capabilities, like the ESP32, are unable to send MIDI messages over USB. As I wait for a purpose built device to arrive, I’ve been using an old Circuit Playground Express which, frankly, doesn’t work particularly well for this use-case.

    If you ever find yourself in a similar position, using MIDI in uncommon ways, I can’t recommend the application Midi View highly enough. It displays all of the information sent by connected MIDI devices in a straightforward, no-nonsense interface.

    § After resisting for a while, thinking it was just another quirky comedy, I started watching Beef. It’s much better than I expected! It helps that the episodes are short enough that the drama isn’t too heavy and the comedy isn’t too cloying.

    Honestly, it may have been the title cards that first grabbed my attention. It turns out, the wild, maximalist, Egon Schiele-esque imagery was painted by David Choe, one of the show’s lead actors.

    § Does CVS employ cashiers nowadays? Surely they must, if only to approve alcohol sales, but I am not sure I can recall the last time I saw one. They have leaned heavily—more so than any other store I’ve visited—into self-checkout kiosks. The truth is that the future will almost certainly look less like Amazon’s fully autonomous corner stores and more like this.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Ginger-teriyaki beef kebabs
      • I still unintentionally overcook my beef but I am gradually getting better. This recipe was delicious, especially with fried rice. I make it twice this week.
    • Lemon butter feta chicken pasta
      • This was one of my favorite meals in quite a while. Cream + chicken broth + lemon juice are a great trio.

  • 2023 W27

    § I touched a floppy drive for the first time ever.

    A lot of my new job, at the moment, involves contending with a huge library of interactive Adobe Flash programs.

    As with floppy drives, I had never worked with Flash before although its legacy has always loomed large in the Creative Coding circles I frequent.

    There is something beautiful about it: an accessible way to create programs that are self-contained, cross-platform, multimedia, and interactive.

    I still really need to find a good, modern debugger, though.

    § Going from working in a single-story building to somewhere with four floors has had a dramatic impact on my “flights climbed” Health metric.

    § Apple’s marketing stunt worked, I watched Silo.

    Some details of the environment were great—I really liked the computer interface design—overall, however, the artificiality of the set was a bit of a turn off.

    I kept finding myself imagining what the actors were experiencing as they were filming each scene. How big was the set? How immersive? Was it just an enormous wall of LCD screens? Watching the later seasons of Game of Thrones was a similar experience.

    Despite finding the design slightly off-putting, the story itself was original. I found myself genuinely surprised by the ending of season one and am sufficiently interested to see where the writers take the show from here.

    § By and large, the new season of Black Mirror feels silly. It also doesn’t seem particularly concerned with technology—you know, the reason it was named “Black Mirror” in the first place. An interesting choice.

    § The day after Meta launched Threads, their Twitter competitor, I finally got an invite to Bluesky.

    Frankly, I am not sure I see a future for Bluesky once Threads enables support for ActivityPub, the underlying protocol behind Mastodon (and this blog). Effectively everyone already has an Instagram account which means they now automatically have a Threads account too. If you don’t have an Instagram account you can join any Mastodon instances and will still be able to communicate with anyone on Threads.

    Bluesky, in comparison, will look insular—even after it leaves its long invite-only phase.

    § Caroline and I took down a large, ungainly juniper bush in our front yard. This gave us two things: a bunch of wood that is naturally rot-resistant and room to start growing a patch of watermelons. In the past, we haven’t had much luck growing pumpkins, America’s second favorite oversized cucurbit. We are hoping for better luck with watermelons and their shorter growing time.

    § Our quail all managed to break loose from their enclosure in the middle of a rain storm.

    Frankly, I am not entirely sure how long they were loose for. It wasn’t until I spotted Tumbleweed’s unmistakable dusty orange plumage as she was looking for shelter under a backyard tree canopy that I realized what had happened.

    Take a moment to picture me, frantic and soaking wet, chasing five small birds around my tiny, unfenced, yard, attempting to catch them with a cheap Amazon.com butterfly net.

    Miraculously, I was able to round them all up and return them back to safely of their enclosure.

    § Links

  • 2023 W26

    § It has been a bit of a hectic week.

    I started my new job which has been great but, you know, it’s a new job with new routines, procedures, and coworkers. I have a new Outlook account. I configured all of the shared calendars. I know where the mail room is.

    All of this means the garden has begun falling prey to nature’s entropy.

    I think we will all pull through.

    § Fluctuating with outdoor temperatures, my car gets anywhere between 30 and 45 miles of pure electric driving before switching over to its gasoline engine.

    My new job is closer to home and the parking garage has EV chargers. The last time I filled my gas tank was June 25th. Barring any unexpected road trips, my goal is to make it last to Thanksgiving. Stay tuned.

    § Season two of The Bear feels less electric than the first season.

    The first season was chaotic, stressful, and claustrophobic. Watching it was, at once, both exhausting and energizing—like the feeling in the air walking home from a late night concert.

    Season two has space, tenderness, non diegetic music… It no longer feels cramped, shoulder-to-shoulder, to the tight confines of a hot kitchen. We follow characters as they leave Chicago and experience the wider world. Although the story is driven by an impending deadline, it feels like we do more waiting than rushing.

    The Bear continues to be a special show to me, but, now, I think it is more about Chicago nostalgia than unique story telling.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Rosemary sea salt caramels
      • Cooking is art, baking is magic, candy making is an unforgiving science. Timing is critical and temperature variations of less than 5 °F can be the difference between soft, chewy caramels and a non newtonian amorphous gloop. My candies fell somewhere in the middle. I need a better thermometer.
    • Authentic(?) chili con carne

  • 2023 W25

    § I will be starting my new job next week. There is no denying I will miss these past few weeks of vacation but, at the same time, I can’t wait to see what comes next.

    On a related note, I am not planning to post daily articles until I get settled into my new routine. I will, of course, continue publishing weeknotes each Sunday.

    § I saw Ari Aster’s new movie Beau Is Afraid.

    Wow, now that is a movie!

    Is it the best film I’ve ever seen? No, but it’s inventive and strange, deeply discomforting and hilarious.

    I wasn’t blown away by Ari Aster’s two previous films, Hereditary and Midsommar. They felt like well-executed examples of generic horror movie tropes.

    Beau Is Afraid is an entirely new idea. It is Ari, like the titular Beau, leaving his comfort zone.

    § More movies —

    After finding Synecdoche, New York way too depressing, I watched Wes Anderson’s two animated films: Fantastic Mr. Fox and Isle of Dogs, looking for a change of tone.

    Previously, my primary association with animation was movies and television directed at children. Without consciously intending to, I consequently viewed it as a less serious medium.

    I failed to appreciate that animation gives artists an enormous amount of control and the freedom to create exactly what they imagine, unbounded by the typical constraints of reality. When you give this technology to a filmmaker as precise and detail oriented as Wes Anderson, the results are spectacular.

    § My san marzano tomato plant, which I am growing for the first time this year, has a distinctly different growth pattern than any other tomato variety I’ve seen before. It is super dense and bushy with very few suckers. Comparatively, my cherry tomatoes are almost lanky and sparse.

    Spider mites have been an absolute garden menace this year. I’m not sure what prompted their sudden invasion.

    § Old honeysuckle blossoms are great for cyanotype printing.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Caldo verde
      • A new favorite. It’s very similar to kapusniak, another beloved rustic potato soup, but lighter and simpler overall.
      • I made a few alterations: I used a mix of both leek and onion and added some lemon juice at the end. I also couldn’t find the special Portuguese sausage the recipe called for so I substituted it with chorizo. I’ll be on the lookout for proper linguiça moving forward.
    • Cajun gumbo
      • I definitely burned the roux. I realized it early on but, for whatever reason, decided to just keep going. Big mistake. I ended up letting it simmer on the stove all afternoon—like five hours—and that helped reduce the bitterness. It still had a distinctly burned flavor, though. I’ll try making this again another time. If I hadn’t burned it at the beginning I think it would have been amazing.

  • 2023 W24

    § I harvested our first sugar snap peas and strawberries of the season. There isn’t much, this early in the season, but eating something you’ve grown yourself is always a great feeling.

    § While sawing down tree branches a few weeks ago I set aside a couple of the larger branches, intending to use them to make a cat tree.

    I finally got started building it this week!

    I chose one of the branches, stripped off all of its bark, and wrapped the base in a thick green jute. The cats have already taken some interest in it.

    Unfortunately, the whole thing is attached to a 16” round base plate that is, I’ve come to find out, nowhere near sturdy enough. It looks like I’ll need to learn how to pour concrete to make it new base for it all.

    § I saw two movies, Blackberry and Tetris, which feels like two different takes on the same general premise: ”Follow a scrappy upstart technology company as they risk everything to bring their vision to life.”

    There was something endearingly quirky about Tetris that I found really fun. Instead of using chapters, the film was broken out into “levels” with funky pixel art animations preceding each one. In comparison, Blackberry was conventional—a modest retelling of an interesting story rather than an interesting retelling of a modest story.

    § …Speaking of blackberries

    The blackberry bush I planted last year is doing amazingly well. I never expected it to come back this spring with such a vengeance. It is already at least eight feet tall and is covered in dozens of tiny white blossoms.

    It is doing so well, in fact, that I decided to buy another raspberry bush after loosing two of them to a mysterious disease last summer. Fingers crossed it fairs better this year.

    § I would love to play an alternative “roguelike” version of The Depths in Tears of the Kingdom.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Gluten free pierogis
      • Amazing. One of the easiest gluten free doughs to work with.
    • Sauteed morel mushrooms
      • Ever since unexpectedly getting way into mushrooms this spring, I have been looking forward to trying morels for the first time. Well, I was so excited when I finally found a bag of freshly picked morels at my usual grocery store. After finally getting the opportunity to try them it was, overall, a rather upsetting experience. Take a look at the third paragraph under the “cleaning morels” heading above if you are curious to know why—gross!

  • 2023 W23

    § I can see fruit beginning to develop on our blackberry, strawberry, and snap pea plants. I can’t wait for the rest of the garden to fill out—I planted two more tomato seedlings and six different types of peppers.

    We also picked an almost burdensome amount of lettuce. Just as I was starting to ready myself for a week of enormous salads, Caroline had the ingenious idea of using them in our long-neglected juicer. That quickly lightened our load.

    § Speaking of my inability to stick to reading one thing at a time, I started reading The New House by David Leo Rice after seeing James Reeves’ passionate recommendation.

    Frustratingly, I can’t find a digital copy of the book anywhere so not only am I jumping around too much, in this case I don’t even get to use the reMarkable tablet to help.

    § I tried to savor the new season of I Think You Should Leave and still finished it in less than a week. My favorite sketch was The Driving Crooner.

    Overall, I feel like this season was maybe slightly worse than the previous two. I still highly recommend watching it, though.

    § I thought this might be the first year that I would skip the iOS beta. I made it two days before installing iOS 17 on my phone. Playing around with the updated autocorrection engine has been interesting but, overall, there is really not much to see.

    § Since its introduction at WWDC last year, I haven’t seen much mention of Apple‘s RoomPlan API. Try it out if you want a taste of the technology behind the upcoming Vision Pro headset. You can watch your iPhone construct an accurately scaled 3D model of a room—in real time—with each architectural element and furniture item segmented and tagged. It is shockingly impressive.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    We had a lot of quail eggs we needed to use so Caroline and I made a big batch of lemon curd with the yolks and angel food cake with the egg whites. The lemon curd had a bit of a grainy texture. I am not sure if that is due to the recipe or a just a consequence of not having a proper double boiler. Regardless, it tasted great, especially as a part of lemon curd ricotta pancakes.

  • 2023 W22

    § School is out. Classes are now completely finished for the year.

    I just have a few meetings and some loose ends to tie up this week. After that, I have set aside a couple of weeks to enjoy the summer before my new job starts up.

    § Now that Succession has concluded, I can easily say that this final season was their best. I can’t recall that being the case with any of my other favorite shows.

    Fingers crossed for a Better Call Saul-style spin-off series starring Greg or Connor.

    § I have been sawing down some stray tree branches in the backyard to give the plants access to a bit more sunlight.

    Using all of the extra pliable branches I have been attempting to construct a small wattle fence. The process couldn’t be more straightforward but it is still a lot of work.

    § The video game developer Hideo Kojima is rumored to be working with Apple on a game for their upcoming XR headset.

    Although I don’t think of myself as a particularly avid video game player, this is actually the news that has made me the most excited about the headset so far.

    A few years ago I purchased a PlayStation 4 just to play Kojima’s previous game: Death Stranding—it isn’t impossible something similar will end up happening again here.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Jaeyook Kimchi Bokum
      • While not technically related, there is a sense in which this feel like a better version of Phat Bai Horapha which I linked to a little while back.
      • I’ve seen alternative recipes for this where cabbage and carrots are included. I am definitely going to try adding those next time.

  • 2023 W21

    § This was our last full week of school. There are only two more days of classes next week and then that’s it.

    This might be a good time to mention that I will be starting a new job at the end of June. It is a new position at my city’s science museum that touches on a little bit of everything: some programming work, new interactive exhibit design, even some curriculum development and teaching. I am excited!

    § I have spent this entire fourth quarter of the school year teaching my third and fourth grade students using the Circuit Playground microcontrollers.

    I started simple: light up the onboard LEDs. Then I added a new tiny building bock each lesson: buttons, switches, RGB color codes, how each of the built-in sensors work…

    Throughout the quarter, I had three big projects.

    First: Take the knowledge you have of all of the Circuit Playground’s sensors and devise a method to detect when someone picks up the circuit board.

    The students came up with so many creative solutions. Some used the accelerometer, others used the photoresistor, a few even used the capacitive touch pads that surround the board. Most students realized that using a combination of multiple sensors works best.

    Everyone had lots of fun testing each other’s projects. I got to take on the role of “the mastermind Circuit Playground thief”. It was great.

    The second big project was to recreate the classic arcade game Cyclone, step by step. The students loved creating their own gameplay variants.

    Finally, all of this is culminated in a big end of the year project that I am especially excited about.

    Each student thought of a research question—Is the lunch room louder on Mondays or Fridays? Which group gets more exercise at recess—those playing soccer or football?—then they used the Circuit Playground boards to collect relevant data. After collecting their data, they analyzed it to see whether or not their hypothesis was correct.

    Overall, I have immensely enjoyed teaching with these boards.

    § One week later, I still really like the reMarkable tablet. You can really only do two things—read and draw—so it is hard to get distracted while using it. I have been reading much more than I typically would.

    It is actually easier to get new articles and books on the device than I anticipated. For the most part this is great, but it doesn’t do much to encourage me to stick with reading one thing at a time. Consequently, I have been jumping around a lot, reading a bit of everything.

    § I got beta access to Google’s new generative AI search features. The UI feels a bit busy and confusing, particularly on mobile, but the overall functionality is actually better than I expected.

    Unfortunately, it only works in Chrome and the Google iOS app right now. I can’t wait for it to come to Safari.

    § I am getting dangerously close to becoming a mushroom forager. I’ve got the books.

    § Links

  • 2023 W20

    § My birthday was on Tuesday!

    § I finally caved and bought myself a reMarkable 2 tablet. Some initial thoughts after a few days of use:

    I have previously used the iPad with an Apple Pencil which is still undeniably the best touchscreen experience available today. It is also unmistakably digital. I spent a lot of upfront time fruitlessly configuring it to limit outside distractions. It became an attractive nuisance more than a tool.

    The reMarkable, on the other hand, feels like “magic paper.”

    Most of the time, it is just like writing in a notebook. But then you remember you can undo a mistake or duplicate and move a shape—it is paper+. It is by no means perfect—there are still things like accidental input that immediately break the illusion—but it is good. Most importantly, it isn’t fiddly. There are no apps to install, no settings to tweak. You can read, write, and sketch. That is it.

    Unless there are particularly meaningful iPadOS updates come WWDC, I plan to sell my iPad Pro.

    § Six years after Breath of the Wild, its sequel, Tears of the Kingdom, was finally released last week.

    The first game was easily my favorite Nintendo Switch game so I have been nervously anticipating this follow-up for quite a while.

    Honestly, I would be happy even if Tears of the Kingdom were simply an updated version of BOTW with an expanded map. Tears is so much more than that, though. The new construction mechanic, alone, opens up so many new opportunities for play and experimentation.

    The new map is enormous, too. It takes all of the familiar locations from the previous game and expands them both underground with a giant network of caves and through the air with a series of sky islands—“skylands.”

    Here is the bottom line: BOTW is a game that is worth purchasing a Switch for. I can say the same thing about Tears, without hesitation.

    § I didn’t realize scallions were just the greens from normal onion plants that you pull from the ground early. Well, the Spanish onion bulbs that I planted a few weeks ago are now providing me with an effectively unlimited supply of them.

    § I’ve caught a cold. But at least, with Zelda and the reMarkable, there have been much worse times to be stuck at home for a little bit.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • I made baked ziti for the first time in quite a while. It is good fresh out of the oven but it is the king of leftovers. It might be twice as good the next day.
    • In some sickness induced delirium I started really craving buttery dinner rolls. I found a gluten free recipe that was quick to make and turned out amazingly well.

  • 2023 W19

    § Now that we’ve finally had some nice weather, I have been able to measure that, on sunny days, the greenhouse is consistently 15-20 °F warmer than the average outdoor temperature.

    The next step is to work on insulation since, right now, all of that extra warmth dissipates almost immediately once the sun sets.

    § I’ve started reading—or, more accurately, listening to—Corey Doctrow’s new book Red Team Blues. Aside from a vague self-righteousness from the protagonist that rubs me the wrong way, I have found the book unbelievably fun so far.

    In the past, dry audiobook recordings have made it hard for me to absorb content as fully as I would if I were reading. Wil Wheaton’s energetic and unorthodox performance here was just what I needed. I can’t wait to finish it.

    § I finally got access to the ChatGPT Code Interpreter plugin which gives ChatGPT the ability to execute the code it writes. It is all extremely impressive.

    In one of my first tests, ChatGPT initially wrote buggy code that resulted in a runtime error and it was able to detect the error, fix the bug, and re-execute the program all without any intervention on my part.

    § We had ten more yards of compost delivered on Monday, after going through five less than a month ago.

    There is something meditative about filling a wheelbarrow by the shovelful while you watch the pile steadily shrink. It is a great way to get a little bit of exercise and a lot of sunlight. Caroline and I spent our afternoons doing just that, dispersing more than half of it throughout the garden beds before the weekend.

    § Speaking of the weekend… Caroline and I visited Fallingwater on Saturday! The guided tour was certainly worth it but the best part was freely wandering the grounds afterwards. There is a reason the house was built in that location; it is gorgeous.

    § Oh, and I got engaged!

    § Links

  • 2023 W18

    § Rabbit rabbit. Happy May.

    § I drove a pickup truck for the first time.

    I needed to rent one from the local big box store to bring home 4x8' polycarbonate panels for the greenhouse’s roof. The surprisingly good visibility made the drive a much less anxiety inducing expirence compared to similarly sized cargo vans I have driven in the past. The downside was that I kept forgetting how long the vehicle really is—this is where a backup camera would have helped tremendously.

    I managed to install the new roof right before the start of an endlessly rainy week. This was good for testing the roof, I suppose, but bad for getting any other garden work accomplished.

    § Caroline and I are planning a weekend trip to Confluence, Pennsylvania for my birthday later this month. The plan is to visit Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater house and the Ohiopyle State Park. Exciting!

    § Caroline brought home a bunch of porcelain tiles she made. We are trying to figure out a fun way to incorporate them into the greenhouse.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    I finally got the opportunity to use a bunch of the—extremely prolific—chives from the garden in a mushroom risotto this week. Would it have been better to make this recipe when I was growing my own mushrooms? Absolutely. Why didn’t I? Who knows!

  • 2023 W17

    § Caroline and I went to the local nature reserve for the first time in a few weeks—it is suddenly all so green! We placed a few wild grape vine branches in the creek to soften. The hope is that they will still be there next time we visit and they will be flexible enough to use for basket weaving.

    § We spent Saturday at the Geauga County Maple Festival. On the way home, we got some milk from a small dairy farm and eggs from a farmer down the street who has found himself in Ohio by way of San Francisco.

    § I saw a wild turkey in a neighbor’s front yard. I didn’t know we had those here.

    § Barbarian is one of the most creative horror movies I have seen recently. Sure, the villain is a bit hokey but the filmmaking, storytelling, and atmosphere more than makes up for it.

    I would love to see a House of Leaves movie by the same director.

    § Caroline made a giant, 36x12 inch, stained glass window for the greenhouse. I finished the last big wall and made a door.

    The whole thing is nearly complete. The last big task is to finish filling in the wall surrounding the new window. Other than that, I would like to replace the roof with a better sheet of polycarbonate and add more gravel to the floor.

    § Links

    § Recipes

  • 2023 W16

    § It was snowing on Tuesday and then 80 °F on Thursday. That just doesn’t feel like something that should even be possible.

    § We got three new female coturnix quails. They were mailed to us at about one month old, nearly their fully grown size. I was initially nervous about the idea of getting live birds shipped to me like this but I guess it’s pretty common, according to my local post office. They were all totally fine upon arrival and quickly adjusted to their new home.

    § I’ve discovered that my neighborhood has two bubble tea shops that recently opened within three miles of each other on the same street. I am certainly not complaining, but I would not have pegged my largely Eastern European retiree suburb as such a hot boba market.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    The Chicago restaurant I miss most has got to be The Bad Apple. I finally broke down over the weekend and tried to recreate their Even Cowgirls Get The Blues burger. I used Kenji’s burger technique and then added blue cheese, arugula, caramelized onions, and hot pepper bacon jam.

    It would certainly be better for my health if this meal didn’t turn out well but nope—there is no denying how good this was. I’m going to have to make it again ASAP.

  • 2023 W15

    § This week was a nice sneak preview of summer. Every day was in the mid-to-high-70s and sunny. Most days Caroline and I would be outside from the time we got home from work until sunset. We got a lot of yard work done—weeding, edging, expanding the garden beds. We went through five yards of compost in two days.

    § The seeds I planted a couple of weeks ago have all sprouted—first the tomatoes and tomatillos, then peas and basil. Finally, a few days later, all of the peppers popped up.

    I also started some summer squash and groundcherry seeds. I am especially excited about the later after eating them for the first time last summer.

    § Until now, you have only known Winter Blog. Summer Blog will have much more gardening. Don’t say you weren’t warned.

    § Succession episode three!

    I don’t think there is anything I can say that wouldn’t be a massive spoiler but… wow—watch it.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • We made pizza in the Ooni more times than I care to admit.
    • Earlier this week, I purchased a small kaffir lime plant which prompted me to make Kenji López-Alt’s beef with basil recipe again. Adding the lime leaves made a bigger difference than I would have expected!

  • 2023 W14

    § Happy Easter

    This was my first week back at work after a blissfully long spring break. It was honestly nice to see my students again—do I wish I had another week off, though? Absolutely.

    § I harvested and ate the oyster mushrooms I planted last week—they grew so much faster than I expected them to!

    § For the second time in just over a year, our washing machine suddenly decided to stop working. Home appliance shopping is always a pleasure.

    § Throughout the process of building my greenhouse, I keep going back to the daydream of owning some giant tract of land where I can build and experiment without concern for permits and zoning and neighbors. The freedom and space to create was one of the biggest motivators for me as I was moving back here from Chicago; it feels good to finally take advantage of that and I look forward to doing more.

    I still want to visit Ryan Trecartin’s rural amusement park.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Spring orecchiette pasta with burrata
      • Really good but quite difficult to make well with brittle gluten free pasta. I’ll certainly try again another time with a different brand of pasta.
    • Moroccan chicken bowl
    • Mushroom pesto pasta
      • This is how I ended up using most of the aforementioned mushrooms. It was good, but perhaps it was not the best way to showcase them—the pesto was pretty overpowering.

  • 2023 W13

    § I got a bunch of seeds planted and set up under grow lights in the basement.

    Here is what I am starting with: cherry tomatoes, Cherokee purple tomatoes, purple & green tomatillos, shishito peppers, jalapeño peppers, Thai chili peppers, snap peas, and Thai basil.

    I am also starting some herbs and salad greens directly in the cold frame outside.

    Finally, I am trying to grow oyster mushrooms for the first time. Stay tuned for how that turns out.

    § Despite deconstructing and moving the entire greenhouse to another location in my yard, I was able to finish the framing, the roof, and a couple of the walls. It has been really exciting watching this project finally come together. All that is left is to finish the walls and the doorway.

    § I have been rewatching Succession in preparation for season 4 and I found I am enjoying it much more this time around. Maybe give it another try if you are in the same boat.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Baked feta pasta
      • I am excited to make this recipe again in the summer once my garden begins overwhelming me with cherry tomatoes
    • Miso glazed salmon
      • Not a fan of this recipe. It could have easily been something I did wrong, though.

  • 2023 W12

    § Spring break update: one week down, one to go.

    After almost a year of slow, puttering progress, I have finally made significant headway on my greenhouse project. The foundation in place, the primary window bay is complete, and the framing for two of the walls is finished. By the end of next week, my goal is to finish the remaining framing and the roof.

    § The team behind Rewind.ai (remember “lifestreams?”) has announced a new product called ChatGPT For Me. It is almost exactly what I would like to see Siri evolve into. Here is the issue: this announcement has made it clear to me that I wouldn’t trust any third-party company with such a privacy sensitive feature. Needless to say, I didn’t sign up for their waitlist. Nonetheless, I hope Apple is watching them closely and will eventually either Sherlock or acquire them.

    § Links

    § Recipes

    • Fish tacos
      • Extremely good. Honestly, much better than the fried fish I made last week.
    • Chicken adobo
      • I didn’t anticipate how sticky the sauce would be which made everything a big chore to clean afterwards. It was really delicious, though.
    • Chicken tikka masala
      • This turned out to be much heavier and more filling than my other tikka masala recipe. They almost don’t share any ingredients in common, though, so I don’t know how fair it is to try to compare them.
    • Roasted potatoes
      • I had been meaning to make this for a while. It was quite good — was it worth all of the extra effort, though? Probably not.
    • Lemon garlic pasta
      • I had this alongside a very similar oyster mushroom dish. The mushrooms were great, the pasta was fine.

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