Happy Daredevil: Born Again premiere day, to all those who celebrate. Looking forward to watching the first episode this evening.
Grateful
Over the course of last summer, Dead & Company entered my regular rotation on Apple Music. I had never been a huge fan of Grateful Dead. In my youth, I maintained an unwarranted distaste for their music. I remember a visit to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, OH, in my twenties and I skipped the visiting exhibit, which was dedicated to Grateful Dead. I now regret that I skipped the exhibit. I cannot actually put my finger on why I disliked the Dead’s music so much, but for whatever reason, I was not a fan.
Dead & Company entered my rotation due to the presence of John Mayer. I am aware that John Mayer has had a few controversies throughout his career, but I have always really enjoyed his music. His talent on the guitar is remarkable. When he started touring with Dead & Company, I read an interview with him on how he became obsessed with the music of Grateful Dead. Some of their music started playing on a Pandora radio station and he could not get the music out of his head. In a later interview, he suggested that if one was not a fan of Grateful Dead or did not like their music, that the time was not right. In other words, everyone will eventually come to like at least some of their catalog when the time was right for it in their life. I feel like this describes my relationship with Grateful Dead to a tee.
Dead & Company has only published live shows. There are no studio albums or EPs to their credit. They are a true jam band. This can make listening to their catalog a bit daunting. Where should one start? I do not have the answer to that. I simply picked a few shows and just started listening. I chose the first few shows based on location or album artwork. After a few months of this, I eventually found myself listening to the original works by the Dead. I came to appreciate the evolution of the music, the different styles. I came to appreciate both versions.
Grateful Dead is, of course, a jam band as well. Their concerts are epic. Their followers are legendarily devoted. There are so many live recordings of Grateful Dead. There are websites devoted to tracking fan opinions on which shows are noteworthy. Honestly, every one I hear is good. There are some, however, that do stand out. Typically, it’s the feeling of the music. Maybe the atmosphere you can hear through the recording, the audience response. You can just feel when the band is really grooving.
I have been dealing with lower back pain since early 2020. I do not recall a precursor to the pain. I just remember waking up one day and being in quite a bit of pain. Initially, I received a recommendation of rest with pain medication. After a few months, I found that the pain was still present. Then I received a physical therapy referral. After a few months of physical therapy, the pain was still present, but less severe if I followed through with the proposed exercise regimen. I tried a chiropractor, which did not yield any significant change to my situation. During this time, I had fallen out of regular exercise. I typically ran or walked for cardio, but that proved difficult. I did not trust myself with lifting weights. Instead, I had only been stretching and doing exercises prescribed to me by the physical therapist.
After a bit of research last year, I decided to try riding my bicycle as exercise. My bicycle had been collecting dust in my garage for months. After some light cleaning and maintenance, I started riding. I needed music for my rides. It was only natural that I turned to Grateful Dead and Dead & Company, which were heavy in my rotation. The Dead kept my rides enjoyable and kept me motivated to keep on Truckin'. I event invested in cycling attire, complete with a Grateful Dead cycling jersey (the eBay seller even threw in a pair of Fare Thee Well sunglasses too, which I now always wear on my bike).
In August, my father passed away after a short bout with pulmonary fibrosis. I was devastated. In my grief, I once again turned to Grateful Dead and Dead & Company. The meaning of He’s Gone did not quite fit my situation, but the chorus resonated with me deeply, in particular the Dead & Company version which comes across as more somber:
Now, he’s gone, now he’s gone, Lord, he’s gone He’s gone, like a steam locomotive Rolling down the track, he’s gone, he’s gone And nothing’s going to bring him back, he’s gone
I would occasionally listen to Touch of Grey and just cry. I feel that whenever we are grieving, we just want something to bring us comfort; for whatever reason, the Dead brought me comfort.
The last unexpected turn in my journey with the Dead happened at the rink. I’ve been an ice hockey goalie for many years. I usually listened to heavy metal or hair metal before playing. Last year, I noticed how angry I felt while playing. I still had the metal music stuck in my head and I felt aggressive and, unfortunately, this aggression was not translating into better play. On the contrary, it was actually taking away my enjoyment of the game. At some point, I changed my pregame routine and, you guessed it, started listening to the Dead. It completely changed how I play and, more importantly, how I feel when I play. I typically remain calmer and I am usually in a better mood for it.
2025 Pinewood Derby
Our Cub Scout Pack, Pack 2301 held their Pinewood Derby tonight. Max finished first in his den, but did not place in the pack championship. I was honestly a bit bummed for him. I feel like I should have added additional graphite to his wheels and axles before the pack championship races started. I felt that he responded well to both the highs and the lows. I did not know how I’d feel about this Derby. Max is now an Arrow of Light and this was his last Derby. I’m happy that I got to experience three Pinewood Derby events, but a little sad that I likely will not experience another (unless Adelaide changes her mind about trying Cub Scouts).
We had a scare before the race even started. Max placed his car on the table and it rolled off onto the floor, knocking a wheel and axel out. Unfortunately, the fall also damaged the actual wood around the axel notch. All this happened while I was trying to help Ashley with handing out pizza. I was incredibly flustered. Luckily I had some glue, found some scotch tape, and got to work. I had to avoid a test run with his car to give the glue time to set.
Today was a very stressful day though. I placed the main order for our pizza last night. After submitting the order, I realized I had missed a pizza. I placed a second order this morning, but received a cryptic error message, requesting that I call the store. I called the store and discovered they did not have my order. After some back and forth, I noticed that my Amex was refunded yesterday, meaning the website silently cancelled my order. I drove over to the store after lunch and placed my order in person. An hour or so later, I received a phone call from Papa John’s online tech support telling me that my online order had been cancelled. I thanked them and let them know I had already placed an order in person after discovering the cancellation.
The joke ended up being on me, however, when I arrived at the store and discovered that my order had been cancelled. The tech support person wasn’t talking about last night’s order; he was talking about today’s order. I laughed and asked how quickly they could make pizza. It must have been the manager, because she laughed and said she can make pizzas fast. She then proceeded to discount my order 50% and she got to work. Fifteen minutes later, I was loading eleven pizzas and two orders of breadsticks into my car. I am somewhat surprised by just how calm I remained and how well I handled the situation. I was also relieved at how helpful the people in the store were.
🔗 Here at DOGE, We’ve Streamlined Every Aspect of America’s Collapse - McSweeney’s Internet Tendency
I promise, America will soon be the Cybertruck of countries—uglier than you could have imagined, built for rich chuds, borderline inoperable, and on fire.
Finished reading: Intermezzo by Sally Rooney 📚
🔗 The LBJ the Nation Seldom Saw
Any jackass can kick a barn down. But it takes a carpenter to build one.
Finished reading: If You Can’t Take the Heat by Geraldine DeRuiter 📚
Out of my wheelhouse, but I enjoyed the book. There is humor (and it hit me just the right way) and seriousness (that is thought provoking). I enjoyed the book.
Finished reading: The Reptile Room by Lemony Snicket 📚
I received a limited edition “Retro Record Player” Lego kit for Christmas. I started building the kit alone, but Adelaide joined me halfway through. We worked on the kit together while listening to the Louisville v. North Carolina basketball game. I had so much fun working on this kit with her.
🔗 An Unreasonable Amount of Time - Allen Pike
Sometimes magic is just someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect.
Apple paying respect to a real one.
OpenAI’s board now stating “We once again need to raise more capital than we’d imagined” less than three months after raising another $6.6 billion at a valuation of $157 billion sounds alarmingly like a Ponzi scheme — an argument akin to “Trust us, we can maintain our lead, and all it will take is a never-ending stream of infinite investment.”
👀
Winter is my least favorite season. The lack of sun or being able to enjoy the sun is difficult. The days at short and the amount of time to enjoy being outside is even shorter. The temperature is usually on the colder side. Even in Tennessee, the temperature ranges from the mid 20’s to the mid 40’s. For most people, temperatures in the 40’s probably don’t seem so bad. Unfortunately, my extremities become ultra sensitive in these conditions.
I have been diagnosed with Raynaud Syndrome which is described as, “a medical condition in which the spasm of small arteriescauses episodes of reduced blood flow to end arterioles.” While the condition typically only affects one’s fingers, it can also affect one’s toes. Unfortunately for me, it affects both. I have tried describing the condition to those who do not suffer from it, but it’s difficult to describe the sensation of only certain fingers or certain toes rapidly becoming numb and suddenly having difficulty controlling those extremities. You just want the numbness to go away, but once it does it is replaced with searing pain. Thankfully, the pain typically doesn’t last a prolonged period of time.
In addition to Raynaud Syndrome, my feet and toes remain in a constant state of hyper sensitivity. The sensation of the tips of my toes rubbing against my socks can actually trigger a pain response. To avoid that discomfort, I will remove my socks. However, that just leads to cold and numbness in my toes; rinse and repeat. The sensitivity is magnified into excruciating pain if, for example, I stump my toe or someone steps on my toes. In particular, my beagle has a bad habit of accidentally stepping on my toes when coming in or out of the house. Thirty pounds and sharp nails pushing into sensitive toes is torture.
I have been trying to find things to enjoy during this season, but it’s difficult to find enjoyment when you spend so much time in a hyper sensitive state or when you’re in pain.
Finished reading: A Series of Unfortunate Events #1: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket 📚
My younger sister loved this series and wanted to share it with Max. They have been reading these books together. I had not read the series and decided to start reading them as Max finished them.
Finished reading: When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron 📚
I believe I saw this recommendation on kottke. This title felt necessary after the last few months.
This is a distinction with which I have struggled. I am prone to whining. Years ago, this was something brought to my attention. Ever since I became aware, I have tried to become mindful of what I’m upset about and I now try to avoid whining. “Try” is the key word.
LLM Exposure
I had abstained from using AI assistance since the initial ChatGPT announcement. I understood, at a high level, how large language models (LLM’s) worked. I assumed that they would not be that useful to me. However, at this point it is almost impossible to avoid it. Random Google searches will occasionally include Gemini content. Gemini content in a web search was actually my first use of LLM generated code. I was trying to do something relatively simple in Bash. I knew exactly what I wanted to do, but was unable to recall the Bash syntax to achieve my goal. I do not typically write scripts in Bash and it is always a series of web searches to get the syntax correct. I was honestly using Google to eventually find StackOverflow posts when Gemini suggested a generated script that would, allegedly, do what I wanted. I paused and read through the snippet. It seemed reasonable. I did a few more searches to verify what each line of the script would do. Everything checked out. My needs were fairly low risk, so I opted to use the suggestion. I left comments in the script to ensure I would remember where it came from, just in case I ran into issues later.
A few weeks later, I was in the process of migrating my blog to Micro.blog hosting. I could have just manually edited each markdown file to cleanup my custom front matter for Micro.blog’s import feature. However, where is the fun in that? I started putting together a script to cleanup my front matter. After a bit of researching, I realized I needed a few sed commands. Unfortunately, I find sed to be difficult to use. I struggle with the syntax and I always have to make a few searches to piece together what I need. This seemed like a good candidate for LLM assistance. I used Gemini and its suggestion resulted in an error. I then tried ChatGPT. The response seemed so confident, even broke down what each part would do. This also resulted in an error. I tried to follow-up with ChatGPT and indicate the first suggestion resulted in an error (with the error message). It apologized (ridiculous) and suggested a slightly different approach, which also resulted in an error.
Unfortunately for me, my blog migration script required quite a few sed commands. I did not get one working sed command out of an LLM. I had to experiment and tinker with each one until I got the desired outcome. This wasn’t a dealbreaker and honestly wasn’t unexpected. Whenever you’re dealing with a series of slashes, it’s understandable that an LLM would not spit out a working implementation. However, the suggestions at least put me in the same zip code as a solution, which I did find helpful. My experience was largely what I expected: somewhat helpful, but not a silver bullet. At this time, I think I will include these tools as a tool in my toolbox, but I will continue to give its suggestions a critical look.
Also: I really detest the nomenclature of these tools as “AI”.
🔗 The confusing reality of AI friends
Lengthy, but fascinating. I’m not sure how I feel about it all. I would like to think I wouldn’t get wrapped up in an AI companion, but I also think about online relationships that I cultivated as a teenager and how those people were spinning their own narrative and I was none the wiser.
📺 I used 1980s technology for a week
Loved it. Clever challenge and amazingly creative execution.
Basketball and Loss
Louisville’s men’s basketball team has not been competitive over the last three or four seasons. I love cheering on my alma mater, but until this season, I haven’t had much for which to cheer. That outlook started to change after the offseason hiring of Pat Kelsey, our new head coach.
I was excited for this hire, but tried to temper my expectations. After all, I was very much onboard with the Chris Mack hype train, and I felt that Kelsey very much exuded Chris Mack energy: both were energetic, excited, and on the younger end of the spectrum. The Chris Mack era came to a halting end a few years ago. I don’t even want to get into the Kenny Payne era that nearly took away my enjoyment of Louisville basketball.
This past Wednesday, the Sports app reminded me that Louisville was playing No. 14 Indiana. I no longer subscribe to a service to reliably watch live television and the game was not being broadcast over the air here in Nashville. I was busy and didn’t expect much anyway. Well, around the start of the second half, I had a moment and checked on the score. Indiana 40, Louisville 74. I was gobsmacked. I was in disbelief. I assumed there was a data error in Sports. I looked at the box score. Louisville had zero free throws. How was this even possible?
I enabled the live activity in Sports so that I could follow along on my iPhone’s Lock Screen or on my Apple Watch. As the final score update came across, I was speechless. I then started to wait for a phone call, but this phone call would never come. It was then that my excitement gave way to sadness. I expected my father to call, as he always did, when Louisville pulled off something miraculous.
My father wasn’t a diehard Louisville fan. I would say he was passionate, but he was a passionate sports fan. He watched any game that was on, but always kept a keen eye on anything Kentucky-related (meaning any team that called Kentucky home). His father, his brother, and then his son (me) all attended the University of Louisville. I think it’s safe to say he had a soft spot in his heart for Louisville athletics.
I don’t think my father and I really ever butt heads, but we did not always agree or see eye-to-eye on everything. However, one common thing that we could always share was sports and, specifically, University of Louisville athletics. I wanted, very badly, to share this moment with him.
Louisville’s victory came in the Battle 4 Atlantis in-season tournament. They would go on to beat West Virginia on Thursday, but lose to Oklahoma in the championship game on Friday. While I was sad to see them lose a heartbreaker to Oklahoma on Friday, I was still feeling good about this run and the beginning of this season. It is bittersweet. I have so many fond memories around Louisville athletics and connecting with my father. I am thankful for that.
📺 Twin Peaks: All the pie and coffee
Happy pie for breakfast season, to all those who celebrate.
🔗 Tesla owners turn against Musk: ‘I’m embarrassed driving this car around’ | Elon Musk | The Guardian
Another uncertainty is how Tesla will be affected by policies pursued by Trump. The incoming president has called the shift to electric cars “lunacy”, said that supporters of such vehicles should “rot in hell” and vowed to strip away incentives to purchase them.
As a Tesla owner, I have considered whether or not I should sell. I do not see a sale of my vehicle as punishment to Tesla (they already have my money). I would not currently consider another though if this one fails.
Housekeeping
About a month or so ago, I realized that I had become stifled with my previous blog setup. I had been maintaining a Jekyll based static blog since 2015. The first iteration was hosted via Github Pages. Eventually, I migrated the site to NearlyFreeSpeech.net. I moved the git repo from Github to the server on NearlyFreeSpeech.net and that server would run the Jekyll command to generate the site and copy it over to the public folder. This worked fine. Eventually, I fiddled with it a bit more and moved the repo back to Github, but left the hosting duties to NearlyFreeSpeech.net. Every push would trigger a Github Workflow that would build the site and rsync it to the host. This worked fine.
The biggest issue was the publishing hurdle. If I was on my Mac, publishing wasn’t too bad. I could create a post, commit it to the repo, then push it up; a few minutes later, the post was published. If I was on my iPhone though, then I had a few hurdles. I played around with a few ideas. I had a few Shortcuts that would publish to the Github API. I used Working Copy for a bit as well. All of these methods produced friction for me. Additionally, if I wanted to post a photo to my blog, that added a whole other layer of complexity.
A few years ago, I signed up for a hosted Micro.blog account. Initially, I used it for photo blogging. I enjoyed the frictionless posting. Then, I migrated my self hosted micro blogging posts to it and started posting short notes to my Micro.blog account. Again, the posting was frictionless. I found myself sharing more thoughts and notes online. I’m not really sure if anyone really reads them, but it became a public journal of things I found interesting. When I would write for my blog, I found myself being a bit jealous of how easy it was to post to my Micro.blog account.
I considered migrating everything to my hosted Micro.blog account. While the name of the service might be Micro.blog, it can handle short and long form posts with ease. As October wound down, my anxiety was looking for an outlet. It was then that I decided to migrate everything to my hosted Micro.blog account. I am happy to announce that the migration has been completed. If you are reading this, you are reading my blog which is now hosted by Micro.blog. I hope this incarnation of my blog results in more frequent sharing. If the site withers now, it’s not due to friction, but rather my occasional apathy to sharing online.
🔗 I have some notes on Sam Altman’s note-taking advice - The Verge
Finally, blue ink is unserious. Use black like an adult.
I don’t really have strong opinions about note taking, other than I wish I could get into a better habit of taking notes. Every time I have tried, I always approach it haphazardly and it never sticks.