Chris Martin

2026 W40: Less accordion music

Sun, 04 Oct 2026 08:51:34 -0400

§ Hi. I’m having a hard time believing it is already October.

§ Early on in the week Caroline and I borrowed my mom’s old pressure cooker. We’ve never been particularly interested in cooking gadgets—air fryers, sous vide, etc.—but thought we may as well give it a try.

Over the course of the week we made a pot roast, carnitas, and a particularly good vegetable and red curry paste soup along with some less successful experiments including rice (which was fine but not worth the trouble) and cheesecake (which was awful).

I have to admit, being able to quickly make bulk batches of food is convenient, especially with a newborn.

§ I learned that a coworker of mine has a small pawpaw orchard on their property so I was able to get my seasonal fix of the strange, delicious fruit.

I also saved the seeds and buried them in various spots across my back garden. I don’t have much hope that they will germinate but if they do it will be very exciting.

§ On Friday we went to the area’s second Polish festival of the year. This one had equally delicious food but 100% less accordion music, which was a bit of a shame.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W39: Sweater season

Sun, 27 Sep 2026 08:02:57 -0400

§ Hello. Summer has officially ended and sweater season has begun. Appropriately, it was a cool and rainy week in Cleveland which was an especially nice change of pace after spending a few days in Phoenix last week.

§ I finally upgraded my ailing Apple Watch Series 4 for a new Series 12. This time I got the cellular version to try replacing most of my phone usage with it.

I have to say, nothing feels dramatically different on this new model compared to the eight year old watch it replaced. More than anything else, it feels like all of the core features have gone through nearly a decade of iterative upgrades.

The watch can easily handle most of the day-to-day tasks that I would typically use my phone for. Every so often, though, I hit on a seemingly simple capability that simply isn’t possible. Most recently it was casting music to speakers over AirPlay. Bluetooth works fine. AirPlay? Impossible.

§ The family and I were planning to take a trip to Pennsylvania visit some friends on Wednesday. Plans fell through at the last minute so Caroline and I spent a nice week together at home, tidying up the garden for fall.

Later in the week we picked out and planted a Rising Sun Redbud tree for the baby. The idea is that the tree will grow and get bigger while he does, assuming the deer don’t eat it before it gets properly established.

§ The Traitors Ireland finale this week was incredible. Honestly, the entire season has been easily the best of any Traitors series I’ve seen so far. Give it a watch.

§ I’ll be back at work on Monday after nearly two weeks away from the office. Oh boy.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W38: Phoenix

Sun, 20 Sep 2026 08:27:43 -0400

§ This week we got to try our first few ripe maypop fruits and figs. We also blended up a big batch of pesto with the basil we’ve been growing all season.

§ Last Sunday Caroline and I took the baby to the Village Peddler Festival at Lake Farmpark. There were way more vendors than we expected and it was a nice alternative to the county fair that we skipped this year. Our favorite part was visiting the park’s “Plant Science Center” greenhouse with demonstrations on hydroponics and aquaponics.

§ On Wednesday I flew down to Phoenix, Arizona to attend a conference. On the morning I was set to leave flash flooding in Phoenix canceled a bunch of flights, including mine. In a mad dash I was re-booked on three different flights, ultimately connecting through Nashville and I landed in Phoenix at 4:30 PM, only an hour later than I was initially expecting to.

This was my first real visit west of the Mississippi and certainly my first time in “the desert” which has always been an environment I’ve wanted to see. I was immediately struck by the red-brown landscape and all of the different native plants lining the roads. My favorite were green-trunked palo verde trees which were everywhere.

§ I left Phoenix early Saturday morning and rode in my first driverless taxi to get to the airport. It was far less frightening than I expected it to be although I’m sure it helped that there were basically no other cars on the road at the time.

§ Next week the family and I are planning to take a quick road trip to Pennsylvania to visit some friends at their new home. We’re looking forward it it!

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W37: Physical affordances

Sun, 13 Sep 2026 07:33:02 -0400

§ On Labor Day the family went down to the lakefront to watch the Air Show. Everyone had a good time although the show featured some new over-the-top pyrotechnics that felt like they were in bad taste. We all spent a good fifteen minutes thinking we had witnessed a catastrophic plane crash before getting word that it was all part of the theatrics.

§ Apple held their annual iPhone keynote on Tuesday. This was their first event with John Ternus as CEO but it didn’t feel like a radical change from the Tim Cook era in any way. I had hoped they would return to their old live-on-stage event structure but it was the same pre-recorded infomercial format they’ve used since the pandemic. Change takes time though, I guess, and I still have hope that new leadership at Apple might shake up a company that feels increasingly stagnant.

I’m not planning on upgrading my iPhone this year. The smaller form factor of the new Duo looks interesting when closed but I don’t see how having a giant fold out inner display will help my effort to reduce screen time.

§ I haven’t really done anything with Home Assistant since setting it up a few months ago alongside my other home server infrastructure.

On Tuesday I set up an otherwise unused Lutron Aurora button to play RTÉ Radio on my kitchen speaker. A short press starts playing the program, a long press pauses, and rotating the dial adjusts volume. Having physical affordances for common digital tasks is really nice.

§ I’ll be flying to Phoenix next Wednesday for work. The trip snuck up on me in a major way and left me panic-buying last-minute plane tickets.

This will be my first trip away from the family since the baby was born which is something I am not looking forward to—both missing my family and saddling my wife with all of the extra work that comes from solo parenting. I took off the week after I return to try to make up for it

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W36: Neighborhood goldfinches

Sun, 06 Sep 2026 08:16:12 -0400

§ Hello. It is hard to believe it’s already September.

§ In the garden we finally got our first few ripe tomatillos of the season and our three cayenne pepper plants are providing us with generous quantities of peppers. Early in the week I dried a sheet tray full of them and I’ve already picked enough ripe chilis to start drying another tray of them any day now. I’m hoping to build a large enough stockpile to last us until next summer, at least.

Our clematis vines are suddenly full of flowers which seems to make the bees happy as they search around for sources of late-summer nectar.

Our anise plants—which have slowly begun to take over basically every bare patch of soil as a result of our new-parenthood-induced neglect of the garden—are full of tiny seeds that all of the neighborhood goldfinches seem to go crazy for.

§ At work, the giant five-foot cylinder I started building a couple of weeks ago is finally finished.

We ended up painting it with a few layers of magnetic paint before applying a top coat of chalkboard paint in order to make it into a giant magnetic chalkboard writing surface. It has been fun to watch our museum visitors play around with it and get creative.

§ Later this morning we’re all going down to visit the Cleveland Air Show. We skipped going last year but saw the Blue Angels fly back in 2024.

Typically, we would also visit the Geauga County Fair over Labor Day weekend but we decided to skip it this year do to a growing measles outbreak in the area. Very disappointing, on multiple levels.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W35: Custom music box

Sun, 30 Aug 2026 08:31:33 -0400

§ This feels like the last big gasp of summer before autumn starts creeping in. In the garden our first dahlia finally bloomed and our sweet autumn clematis is suddenly full of tiny flower buds that are threatening to open any day now.

§ Last Sunday we took the baby to the zoo for the first time and then on Friday we visited the Natural History Museum for the first time since they finished its enormous renovation last year. One thing I appreciate about Cleveland is that it punches above its weight when it comes to museums and other cultural institutions.

§ As a side project I started researching how to make a custom music box and mobile with Aphex Twin’s surprisingly cute song Avril 14th for the baby’s birthday which is, fittingly, April 14th. I got as far as cutting together a seamless 24 second loop of the song’s melody before I found out that apparently a pre-made music box movement for Avril 14th already exists? I still haven’t decided exactly which route I’ll take.

§ As I contemplated doing last week, I installed Rockbox (and Rockpod) on my old iPod Classic. The experience was as janky as I expected (read: 24 year old open source software) but after quite a lot of tweaking I landed on something pretty nice. Most importantly, music syncing between the iPod and my Navidrome library was surprisingly easy.

But after a couple of days small details started bugging me—especially the weird, non-default navigation and the lack of support for inline headphone controls. So I reverted back to the stock iPod firmware synced with iOpenPod. I guess I never fully appreciated how well optimized the native firmware was until experimenting with alternatives.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W34: Frighteningly frayed

Sun, 23 Aug 2026 07:50:09 -0400

§ Last Sunday I found myself at a baseball game for the second time in as many months. This time it was for an end of summer get together caroline’s school organized for all of the teachers.

The game itself was ultimately canceled when a biblical rainstorm swept through the city but it was still nice to catch up with coworkers and introduce them to the baby.

§ The green bean plants have finally rebounded after our heat wave in late July. On Tuesday I harvested a big handful of beans to eat with dinner.

I thought I had given up after a long string of unsuccessful attempts to grow groundcherries but this week I suddenly noticed a volunteer nightshade that has popped up among the green beans. Until its fruit ripens I won’t know for certain whether or not it is a groundcherry but it looks suspiciously like one.

§ I dug out my old iPod Classic and a frighteningly frayed 30-pin cord. Even multiple decades old, the device still works perfectly well. The only thing that feels dated is the spinning hard drive. I’m considering installing Rockbox on it so that I can sync it with my Navidrome music library.

§ On Friday, Caroline and I went to a barbecue for the returning FIRST Robotics coaches. We still need to figure out the logistics of how we are both going to approach coaching now that we have the baby. Still, I’m excited to see what this upcoming robotics season brings.

§ On Saturday we took the long drive out to Holden Arboretum in Kirtland. We walked around the gardens for a good fifteen minutes before another biblical rainstorm ended our visit early. Hopefully the weather is kinder to us next week.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W33: Melancholic falsetto

Sun, 16 Aug 2026 08:37:41 -0400

§ Hello

§ At work I spent some time experimenting with a low-pressure sodium vapor lamp. It emits a very narrow spectrum of light that makes everything look monochromatic. It took three attempts but I finally managed to order one that didn’t arrive shattered in transit.

I also continued my previous experiments with 2D anamorphic art and built a quick three-dimensional example of a similar principle.

§ Using some extra plywood I CNC-milled a custom play gym for the baby. It is super simple but I am happy with the way it came out—I probably spent more time sanding it than designing and machining it combined.

§ I’ve been listening to a lot of Talos this week, especially his collaborations with the composer Ólafur Arnalds. Think intricately-produced orchestral electronic music with melancholic falsetto vocals. Kind of like an Irish James Blake. Highly recommended.

§ On Friday Caroline and I watched a friend perform in a live outdoor rendition of Macbeth. Neither of us are theater people and so I have to shamefully admit that this was the first time either of us had seen the play. We had a great time! I still don’t think I would consider myself a “theater person” but I have to admit that there is something special about bare-bones outdoor theater without microphones and speakers or fancy effects, just actors on a stage.

§ Yesterday the family all went to the lantern festival for the third year in a row. The baby seemed to particularly enjoy looking at all of the lights so I think it’s safe to say this tradition will carry on.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W32: A lot of caprese

Sun, 09 Aug 2026 08:11:18 -0400

§ Another week has flown by before I was able to get a solid grasp around anything. At this rate it feels like I’m going to wake up next week and it will already be mid-autumn.

§ At work, I started building a five-foot-diameter, seven-foot-tall column that will eventually become a large round dry-erase writing surface in the museum. It has been a fun, one-off project but deceptively difficult to piece together out of standard 4x8’ sheets of plywood.

§ It turns out I didn’t have to wait long to try a tomato from our Cherokee Purple plant after a deer chomped into the first ripe fruit last week. A few days later all of the largest fruits began ripening all at once. Suddenly I have more tomatoes than I know what to do with. Such is life. I see a lot of caprese salads in my future.

§ The baby passed two big milestones this week. He started rolling over from back to front and he gave us his first big laugh which has got to be one of the greatest sounds I’ve ever heard.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W31: Wild carrots

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 08:34:12 -0400

§ The first fruit on our heirloom tomato plant finally ripened this week. Unfortunately I left it on the vine one day too long and a deer decided to take a big chomp out of it. We were devastated.

Elsewhere in the garden the passionflower vine has suddenly popped out a number of quickly-growing maypop fruits. I finally discovered last year that fully ripe maypop fruit is incredibly delicious so I won’t be picking them until the very last moment. Fingers crossed the deer don’t suddenly get a taste for these too.

§ I’ve been seriously debating getting some sort of dumb phone ever since the baby was born. The problem has always been finding something that satisfies all of the small but important things I use my smartphone for throughout the day. GPS, reminders, and tap to pay, to name a few.

Recently I’ve started to think that maybe an Apple Watch is the most prudent solution? Especially a cellular model so that I can leave my phone behind? For the past few years I’ve been wearing a WiFi only Series 4 and increasingly battery life is becoming a serious hinderance. Even on days with effectively no use it is at 20% by 4:00 PM. The big question is whether should I wait to see the new Watch models when they are released in September or if I should just pull the trigger now on a refurbished Series 10.

§ On Friday I visited the local nature reserve for the first time in a while. It is always fascinating to see how dramatically it changes between visits. Now there are fields of wild carrots all in bloom and the tree canopies suddenly erupt into the song of countless cicadas. Along the path I picked a handful of ripe black raspberries (shh, don’t tell anyone!). I’m pretty sure I had never eaten them before—they’re tasty!

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W30: Still coasting

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 08:21:37 -0400

§ The garden seems to be bouncing back after the intense weather we’ve had over the past few weeks. I’ve noticed a handful of new flower buds on the green beans and it seems like all of our cherry tomatoes are ripening at once.

Earlier this spring, I bought a fennel plant on a whim. At the time I assumed it was a variety that would produce an edible bulb only to later realize that bronze fennel isn’t one of those varieties. Nevertheless, the young fronds have an intense anise flavor that works great as a garnish and just this week I learned that fennel pollen is considered a prized spice. I’m excited to try harvesting some once our plant reaches full bloom.

§ At work I started prototyping a tiny version of a very large installation I’m hoping to build in the coming year. I have no doubt the final design will evolve quite a bit before the project is complete but it is fun to see everything start to take shape.

§ Over the weekend we started the process of ordering Kieran a passport. It required going to four different places across the city but I think we finally have a proper appointment scheduled for Sunday afternoon. Fingers crossed.

We are still coasting off of the surprising success of our trip to Chicago last month. Maybe a long weekend away in Canada is in our future?

§ We had dinner at our local polish festival yesterday. Great accordion music, even better food, plus some eye-watering homemade limoncello. We will be sure to visit again next year.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W29: Reluctant detective

Sun, 19 Jul 2026 09:29:21 -0400

§ Monday was Caroline’s and my two-year anniversary. I took off work and we spent a nice relaxing day together. For dinner we went back to the boat shaped restaurant we ate at last year while the in-laws watched the baby.

§ Thursday was Caroline’s birthday. We woke up to the city blanketed by smoke from the Canadian wildfires. We were looking forward to spending the day outside but this changed our plans drastically.

The smoke didn’t fully dissipate until Saturday. It made me appreciate how much it must of sucked to live in a large city during the Industrial Revolution.

§ I was so excited about all of the beans I planted however it seems like they did not take to our recent heat wave particularly well. We haven’t had new fruit or flowers in a couple of weeks and most of the lower leaves are sad and yellow. I’m sure this week’s wildfire smoke isn’t going to help at all in this regard either.

§ Now three months old, baby Kieran has started showing interest in his toys. Mostly he wants to put them in his mouth but it’s been a fun development to watch nonetheless.

§ Just in time for season two, I caught up on the first season of Ludwig. It’s David Mitchell as a puzzle constructor turned reluctant detective. The perfect kind of low-stakes evening drama.

§ Yesterday my dad came over to take wet-plate collodion photographs of the family. It is a fascinating process to watch but it’s also very difficult to keep a newborn still for the long exposures.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W28: Coriander, vinegar, and salt

Sun, 12 Jul 2026 08:45:35 -0400

§ This week brought the first few ripe blackberries and tomatoes of the season. The Cherokee purple and San Marzano plants are both growing really well but I noticed a number of their larger fruits are suffering from blossom end rot. It’s not unexpected but still disappointing.

§ On Thursday I harvested a big pile of fresh green coriander seeds from the rest of my bolting cilantro plants. I also finally tasted the cilantro capers I started brining a few weeks back. They taste exactly how you would expect: intensely of coriander, vinegar, and salt. I’m just hoping they mellow out with age. In the meantime I’m not planning to make any more with the coriander I just picked. So far the plan is to just keep them in the freezer as a substitute for fresh cilantro leaves.

§ I finally got around to starting Widow’s Bay. It’s no Twin Peaks but I understand the comparison and let’s be honest, I’ll watch almost anything with Matthew Rhys in it.

§ Yesterday Caroline, Kieran, and I went to the Cain Park Arts Festival where we ran into an old art teacher of ours. It was nice to catch up with him.

§ Next week is a big week. Monday is our two year wedding anniversary, on Tuesday Kieran will be three months old, and Thursday is Caroline’s birthday.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W27: 35 scrobbles

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 08:53:32 -0400

§ Northeast Ohio saw a brutal heat wave this week with temperatures in the upper 90s each day. Our fig plant must have enjoyed it—its branches are suddenly covered in tiny budding fruits. The one breba fig I found at the end of May still isn’t ripe though.

Elsewhere, our passionflower vine is blooming and our bush bean plants are full of fully-grown green beans.

I picked the first couple of garlic bulbs of the season. It turns out I am a bit too early but, well, I was out of garlic and needed some for dinner.

§ I stumbled across an old Last.fm profile I last used when I was thirteen. Who knew 35 scrobbles could exude so much embarrassment?

It prompted me to download all of my 2017–2026 listening history from Spotify and Apple Music and feed it into an open source scrobbler. Apparently over that nearly nine year period I listened to more than 1,100 hours of music from 1,700 different artists.

Even though my list of most played albums is very skewed from a big hyperpop phase I had around 2020–2023 it is interesting to see everything compiled together in one place. I’d like to see what other tools I can find to dig into all of this data in more detail.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W26: Cute little certificate

Sun, 28 Jun 2026 09:19:23 -0400

§ The return trip from Chicago was even more uneventful than the drive there. Caroline and I feel emboldened to do more traveling with the baby in the near future.

§ On Monday we picked up a nice pair of new (to us) couches to replace our previous set that was older than we are. It’s a genuinely dramatic upgrade.

§ The neighborhood lightning bugs have finally emerged and little by little raspberries are beginning to ripen on our little bush. It’s starting to properly feel like summer.

If the weather forecasts are to be believed, next week might feel too much like summer with temperatures all week in the upper 90s. I just hope the city fares better than it did during last year’s early summer heat wave.

§ Last night Caroline, Kieran, and I met some friends at Progressive Field to watch a Guardians game. It was both the baby and my first time going to a baseball game. Kieran got a cute little certificate commemorating the occasion while I tried to keep the fact that it was my first game on the DL.

§ This week marked my three year anniversary at my current job. I’m feeling less reflective than I was at the one and two year marks. More than anything else, I’m thankful for the flexibility this job has accommodated my with during these early days of new parenthood.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W25: Chicago

Sun, 21 Jun 2026 09:45:22 -0400

§ Hello there. Happy summer solstice, Father’s Day, Juneteenth, etc.

§ In the vegetable garden our bush beans have started flowering and the tomato plants are all fruiting happily.

Did you know that saffron comes from a crocus that is perennial in zone 6? Well I didn’t until a few days ago. It is now near the top of the list of plants I want to track down for our garden.

§ The trip to Chicago for a family wedding went considerably better than I expected with our two month old in tow.

The six hour drive from Cleveland to Chicago was uneventful. The baby slept all the way through Ohio and Indiana. He started waking up as we arrived on the outskirts of Chicago and then got a bit fussy during stop and go traffic on the Dan Ryan expressway but honestly we were all a bit fussy by that point so I can’t fault him for that.

I wish we had more open-ended time to spend in the city. For our one non wedding-related dinner we went over to Lincoln Square for burgers at Bad Apple, naturally.

§ We will be driving back to Cleveland later this morning. Fingers crossed the trek goes just as smoothly as the way here. As always, I’ll miss Chicago dearly. For Father’s Day Caroline got me a copy of Fire and Clay: How Bricks Reveal the Hidden History of Chicago which perfectly captures the unpretentious, practical beauty that exists in so many facets of the city.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W24: Cilantro capers

Sun, 14 Jun 2026 08:26:14 -0400

§ On Monday I picked our first few ripe strawberries of the season.

§ Later that evening I installed the new iOS 27 beta. For the most part, it is full of a large number of tiny everyday improvements. All of the big marquee features are behind a wait list that I only got access to yesterday. So far I’ve been pleasantly surprised by how well everything works.

§ On Friday I picked all of the young coriander seeds from my bolting cilantro plant to make cilantro capers, something I’ve been interested in since I first heard about it a couple of years ago. I’ll let you know how it turns out once they’re ready in a few weeks.

§ Caroline and I will be taking the baby to Chicago next weekend for a family wedding. This will be by far the biggest event and longest car trip we’ve taken the baby on yet. Let’s all collectively hope everything goes smoothly.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W23: Fascinating & monolithic

Sun, 07 Jun 2026 07:25:09 -0400

§ As is tradition this time of year, I found a baby deer in my yard on Monday. This one was more skiddish than most. We can only hope less ravenous towards the tomato plants too.

§ At work I spent some time trying to emulate Tristan Duke’s fascinating and monolithic Aperture Lucida project, just at a much smaller scale. After making two different rudimentary jigs I dipped my toe into the overwhelming prospect of re-learning Rhino3D/Grasshopper so that I can eventually automate the process with a laser cutter. I had forgotten how unapproachable node-based visual programming can be, especially at first. Once I get into the flow of things, though, I find it to be a uniquely fun playground environment.

§ I finished reading the first installment of Septology. It’s one of the best examples of accessible experimental writing I’ve seen. It is just quirky enough that I considered giving it up right before it hooked me. I’m excited to continue in on the rest of the series.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W22: Hard pressed

Sun, 31 May 2026 08:33:54 -0400

§ The baby is almost seven weeks old now which is a fact I find hard to comprehend. In one sense it feels like he was born only yesterday, in another it feels like he has been a part of our lives for as long as I can remember.

§ In the garden I can see a number of tiny blackberry, raspberry, and strawberry fruits starting to grow. A couple of budding tomatoes as well. On Friday I bought and planted a few cayenne pepper seedlings which just might be the final missing element in the vegetable garden this season. The only mainstay I haven’t planted yet is squash but I’d be hard pressed to find any space for it at this point.

§ At work I continued my experiments from last week and started messing with some super black paint and LED lights to make a piece of hanging artwork inspired by James Turrell.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W21: Anamorphic

Sun, 24 May 2026 07:35:51 -0400

§ Almost exactly 14 days after sowing and at the first sign of warm sunny weather, the beans I planted all suddenly started sprouting.

Also, I found a lone breba crop fig on our tree. It’s obviously not much but maybe a sign of more to come in future years?

§ I went to another native plant sale yesterday and picked up a new black tupelo tree to replace one that I lost as an innocent casualty during last year’s oak tree saga.

§ I’m now over halfway through the first two-book installment of Jon Fosse’s Septology series. I was on the fence when I first started the book but now I can wholeheartedly recommend it. I still find the prose fascinating and weird but most importantly, unlike many “stream of consciousness” novels, Septology actually has a coherent and compelling plot line that continues though the book—at least so far.

§ This was my first week back at work since the baby was born. Getting back into the swing of things was a bit of an adjustment but far less than I feared. I started experimenting with different forms of anamorphic art for a possible future project.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W20: Free pockets

Sun, 17 May 2026 09:14:08 -0400

§ In the garden our raspberry bush is flowering and it looks like the blackberry will follow suit any day now.

I picked up some tomato, tomatillo, poblano, basil, and rosemary plants from the nursery and planted them in the few remaining free pockets of full-sun garden space I have left. I’m truly running out of suitable space at this point.

§ On Mother’s Day Caroline and I took my mom and the newborn to the Cleveland Botanical Gardens. The plants weren’t all in full bloom like they were when I was there last July. Still, it was nice to get out of the house for some springtime sun.

§ I got my new glasses on Friday. What a joy it is to once again be able to see things that are further than twelve feet away. Unfortunately they also arrived with a giant scratch across the left lens.

§ Later on Friday Caroline and I took the baby to Rockefeller Greenhouse to see their iris garden in full bloom—an event we’ve somehow managed to just miss every year until now.

§ Saturday was rainy but we managed to make it down to Hale Farm to see their annual plant sale. I got two more tomato plants plus a fennel, which we’ve never grown before. I’m excited to see how it goes.

§ I’ll be back at work on Monday after more than a month away. We will see how that feels.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W19: Hypnotic rhythm

Sun, 10 May 2026 08:43:00 -0400

§ It was a week of almost nonstop rain—the downside of the spring season that I always seem to forget about.

On Monday I planted ten small patches of different pole and bush beans. It’s a week later than I planted them last year but I hope the result will be just as successful.

§ As I mentioned last week, I got a new fiber internet connection installed Wednesday morning. The installation itself went smoothly enough but re-setting up my hodgepodge of smart home devices has been a nightmare that I’m still not entirely finished with. Sonos is the worst offender by a mile.

§ Later that day I finally got tested for a new eyeglasses prescription, something I’ve been putting off for almost a year now. As part of the process they also, somehow, took a picture of the inside of my eye which is, understandably, pretty freaky looking.

§ I started reading Jon Fosse’s Septology series. So far it has been fascinating. The structure, with its lack of paragraph breaks, makes the writing feel dense and impenetrable at first but as you get into the flow of reading it breaks way into a sort of hypnotic rhythm on the page.

As interesting as it is, I have a hard time believing I’ll be able to keep up with another 800+ pages with almost no line breaks but I’m not ready to give up yet.

§ My birthday is next week. It’s a big one: my first birthday of my thirties and my first as a father. Absolutely wild to think about, honestly. But first! today is Mother’s Day so I better get going.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W18: Sleepy, drizzly

Sun, 03 May 2026 07:28:16 -0400

§ It is Sunday already? This week flew by in a sleepy, drizzly haze.

My paternity leave is more than halfway over which makes me feel a bit panicky when I think too hard about it. I haven’t checked my email since the baby was born and I’m dreading its inevitability.

§ Out in the garden I found the first signs of new growth on our brown turkey fig plant. So far it looks like the garden is growing a week or two ahead of where it was this time last spring.

§ I have installation scheduled next week for a shiny new fiber internet connection. It’s something I’m particularly excited about with all of the home server stuff I’ve been tinkering with recently.

§ Until next time—

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W17: Hubris

Sun, 26 Apr 2026 07:14:08 -0400

§ I’m risking hubris here but I have to say, when you average it out, the first nearly two weeks of parenthood have gone more smoothly than I feared. The highs are higher than I would have guessed and the lows are just about as expected.

Each day alternates between utter exhaustion and a kind of half sleep-deprived new-parent euphoria. I can understand why, years later, parents looking back at this time remember the euphoria and not the exhaustion.

I’ve taken off work for the next few weeks. It is quite nice to have my days dedicated to a single focus. I imagine juggling everything after I go back to work will be a significant challenge.

§ With 2500+ unread items in my feed reader, I’m officially declaring RSS bankruptcy. Having a newborn was also the thing that finally broke my ~900 day streak of completing the daily Puzzmo crossword. It was Inevitable and very much worth it, obviously.

§ On Saturday Caroline, Kieran, and I stopped by our local ramp festival. Encouraged by the ramps I planted last year coming back this spring I bought another pound at the festival, ate half and planted the other half.

§ In other news, the alliums and strawberries are blooming and I’ve started thinking through the vegetable garden for this season. We won’t be starting anything from seed this year but will take the trek over to a nearby nursery for seedlings once the weather warms a bit more.

I’m excited to grow tomatoes and peppers again after taking a break from them last year in an attempt to ward off pests and give the soil a chance to recuperate. It will be interesting to see if the break helped at all.

Last year we grew a variety of beans for the first time and it was a big hit. I’m hoping we can recreate that again this year too.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023

2026 W16: Kieran

Sun, 19 Apr 2026 06:42:14 -0400

§ Hello. I’ve been keeping a secret from you for the past, well, nine months. I hope you can forgive me.

Early Tuesday morning my wife gave birth to a beautiful baby boy—Kieran. Mom is healthy, the baby is healthy, and the three of us have been nesting at home since Thursday afternoon, slowly getting acquainted with our new life together.

§ Some miscellaneous notes:

When you are forced to sleep in two hour bursts, a hospital bed is just about the worst place to do it. The nights got much easier when we came home.
I almost caved a mentioned the pregnancy here months ago just so that I could have a venue to complain about how unnecessarily complicated stroller/car seat “travel systems” are. In the end we chose an ecosystem more or less at random.
Speaking of the pregnancy, the first six months felt like six years while the last three months felt like three days. Time is silly sometimes, isn’t it?
Leading up to the birth I was excited to try the various newborn tracker apps. However, it turns out that at 3am that last thing I want to be doing is poking around at my phone. Pen and paper for me.
I finally found a use for my Kobo: convenient one-handed reading is suddenly super important to me
I’m lead to believe he has way more neck strength than he ought to for being less than a week old. I’m not sure what to make of that.

Previously: 2025, 2024, 2023