I’ve been referring to the break between Christmas and New Year’s Day as “The Week Between” ever since I found John Roderick’s version of the songhttps://youtu.be/x5dlcUGZqGY?si=-mLBmvLWpsjqtbz5 by the same name on YouTube. I have been lucky that for much of my adult life, I have been able to take the week off and be home with the family, most appreciably since becoming a father.

The Week Between is a time to make some plans and do some things that you might not otherwise have time to do, although we are not inclined to do anything exotic or costly.

I have the lists of things I’ve spitballed doing in both DEVONThink and even Workflowy, and it’s fun to look at the notions I listed there. Usually we don’t end up doing many of them, but I like to have a list to check if we get bored.

This year’s Week Between was emblematic of our typical fun, with some new twists:

• True Detective: There’s not much new on that’s been interesting to watch, but in her style, Rhonda found herself watching the first season of True Detective while we prepped for Christmas dinner. I loved season one but never got back into the show after that, so we finished off Season One and then watch the second as well. I liked the second season much more than I thought I would have.
• Wonka: I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and also Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator when I was a kid, and both novels were magical escapes. I didn’t even know about the original Gene Wilder movie until I was well into adulthood! This musical, starring Timothy Chalamet (from the most recent take on one of my favorite novels, Dune) plays Willy Wonka in a non-canonical prequel to the original story. It’s excellent and dreary and colorful and magical and a lot of fun to watch.
• Bellview Winery: I’ve been sniffish about local wines for no good reason until recently, when I attended a celebration of life for a retired VPS employee at Bellview. I had a nice glass of their dry rosé and was well impressed. Rhonda and I have been meaning to go back and check it out, and our recent jaunt to Willow Creek Winery was so much fun that we resolved to get to Bellview. We went earlier this week and are getting ready to go again as I write this. It is considerably less expensive than Willow Creek but is quaint, charming, and offers equally good wine.
• Pitman, NJ: Pitman didn’t have much going for it when I was younger, save for a cool hobby shop and the Music Museum, but it has experienced a downtown-shopping-district renaissance along with other notable downtowns in South Jersey in the last decade or so (like Collingswood and Haddonfield). We went about a year ago while Aaron was at the Deptford Mall with his girlfriend and tried lunch at Merryman’s Pub (meh), a beer at a now-defunct brewery, browsed the guitars at Just Antiques, and bought some cookies from Just Cookies. This year, we hit Crave and the Crazy Cat for cookies and cupcakes, and grabbed a pour-over at Endgrain. The coffee took a while to brew, and because they were single origin, only served black. I asked for milk, and the barista repeated, firmly, that they only serve the single origin coffees black. OK, fine. (I can’t argue with the end product, which was delicious.)
• Leave the World Behind is an apocalyptic Netflix original film. It is complete with some very cool camera moves, a bleak and urgent vibe, and a wholly unexpected ending.
• Bonesaw Brewing: After Pitman, we hit Bonesaw for a German altbier, and an IPA. My alt was interesting and I was wholly unaware of the history of the style, which includes an age-old competition with another of my favorite styles, Kölsch.
• Toy Stores: The boys still collect, so we hit both House of Fun and Play with This, as so often happens with our Camden County trips (Joe even called ahead to find a coveted Mezco Dr Doom).
• I should be writing my essential software lists; I have macOS to cover, as well as iOS, but this year, I’m adding Windows software to my list. I really like Windows 11 and am keen to write about it and the software I’ve been using.
• Umi: We tried this sushi-forward buffet as part of our Camden County trip. It’s a good self-serve buffet experience if you’re into that kind of thing. It’s not gourmet or chill, but it’s kinda casino style. Fun.

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¹ “The Week Between” is originally on “One Christmas at a Time” album by Roderick and Jonathan Coulton

This recipe looks amazing in all the wrong ways. I was thinking about trying it tomorrow but I’ll wait for another time.

@groarkboysbbq

My Christmas present to you! #macandcheese

♬ original sound – TheMeatTeacher

This will be in my next Sunday Serial for sure but I’m jumping the gun in case anyone is looking for booze suggestions for the holiday. Make a Manhattan:

• 3 oz rye
• 1/2 oz sweet vermouth (Carpano Antica if you can)
• Dash of bitters
• Maraschino cherry

Stir over ice for one minute and strain into a glass. Simple and classic.

I saw the Holiday Challenge on the e2 app and thought maybe I could participate. The question was, do I row 100k a month?

Why yes, it turns out I do, from the first month I started using the app to track my progress.

My Season So Far

It’s no surprise, then, that I was able to complete this challenge. Excited to participate and help raise money for charity!

Here’s this week’s list of recommendations:

1. The Oatmeal: I haven’t read the Oatmeal in a long time, but we were doing some shopping yesterday for Rhonda’s class and I chanced upon a collection of Inman’s cartoons in the book section. This one in particular, about running, made me laugh and see myself at the same time (see the cartoon below). I too am an introspective person full of self-doubt and insecurities, and the net effect of rowing for me does help with that (plus I look better, generally speaking). While physically rowing, I go into dark corners of my mind. I anticipate this, but the me that emerges from the basement is a better version of me. It’s a kind of est or cathexis or primal scream. I flipped open to this cartoon in a moment of synchronicity, perhaps, a delightful, ephemeral, human moment that only great humor can invite.
2. Headway: I’ve seen the ridiculous Blinkest “Be the Most Interesting Person in the Room” ads and was wondering what Blinkist was. Turns out, it’s a kind of Sparknotes or summary service for books you want to read but maybe don’t have the time to. Headway is basically the same thing, and this month, there’s a big sale. So I took the leap.
3. Blackstone Griddle: We picked up one of these four-burner models at Walmart a couple of years ago, and it’s the size of the professional grill at which I toiled in my long-ago part-time high school job at Atkinson’s Takeout. I make all kinds of things on it: eggs, stir fry, burgers, salmon, stir fry. They are great and worth having, even if you usually grill on a charcoal or gas grill most of the time.

The Oatmeal

Headway

Blackstone Griddle

I wrote recently in “Thoughts on Turning 49” about the Stoic principle of not having an opinion. As Jungian synchronicity would have it, I chanced upon a TikTok interview featuring Pete Holmes ranting about the navigation app Waze, and he mentioned what I later leaned was the Third Chinese Patriarch of Zen:

The Great Way* is not difficult for those who have no preferences.

Third Chinese Patriarch Of Zen

Here’s Marcus Aurelius on opinions:

“It is in our power to have no opinion about a thing, and not to be disturbed in our soul; for things themselves have no natural power to form our judgements.”

Marcus Aurelius on Opinions

Professional explainer of all things Stoicism, Ryan Holiday, expounds further:

The point is: One of the most powerful things we can do in life is to limit the amount of opinions we have. To say: “I don’t have an opinion on that.” (Even if deep down we do!) To focus on the things in front of us that matter, or more importantly, that are in our control. There is plenty there for us. Plenty to keep us busy, and not miserable.

The Curse of Having an Opinion About Everything

Our culture places great value on deciveness and action, hot takes and big opinions. But maybe we’re betraying a healthier version of our potential in so doing. Ride the wave.

I’m not sure when Microsoft added drag and drop support of images into OneNote for iPad, but it’s there now (at least in TestFlight build 16.80). The lack of this feature was a bother for me and had me peeking at Bear again tonight. So glad to see this!

Between the weekend getaway and a toy show I promised to take the boys to, a 10k wasn’t in the works for me this Sunday. I did manage to squeeze in a 5k and set a PR by a hair. Behold:

Nothing terribly exciting, although I will point out that I was able to pull with more power at a lower stroke rate;. If you look at the third split, most relevantly, today I pulled at 198 watts at a stroke rate of 25 strokes per minute, while I pulled 198 watts on my previous PR in November on the third split… at 31 strokes per minute. It’s a small bit of data but it’s exactly what I”m trying to do: row with greater power, but more slowly.

If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.

HL Mencken

Yesterday’s 10k row was not a personal record, but I would like to direct your attention to my stroke rate:

While I was not as fast some previous efforts, I did keep my stroke rate pegged at 28 strokes per minute. Compare that to last Sunday’s:

• Last week: 10k at 30 s/m, 186 watts
• This week: 10k at 28 s/m, 184 watts

My goal, besides rowing a 10k in 40 minutes, is to cap my stroke rate below 30 s/m, so that will mean keeping power up more consistently. Fewer, but harder, pulls. Feasible? Dunno. But I think the slower rate will preserve my aerobic capacity.

Quick note: Rhonda joined me again this Sunday, but instead of her usual 10-minute Apple Fitness+ workout, she opted for a 20-minute row. I did the 20 minute alongside her, pulling around 28 s/m with good power for the “hard” sections and ramping up the stroke rate to 33-38 s/m for the “all out” efforts. This means my warmup led to me having 5k in the bank before I even sat for the 10k. With a light warmup and cooldown, that’s 00:27:50 and 279 calories burned before the 00:41:17 and 640-calorie burn during the 10k.

Them’s some meters!