How did the summer disappear? The pool is too cold for swimming, but the weather is divine. We’ll be having spritzes and apps on the deck soon. With Aaron off to college, and Joey commuting to school + working a lot at his new job, we’re effectively empty nesters.

I reflected yesterday, en route to Bellview Winery after a late lunch at Sharrott, that the familiar pattern of diversions of our lives have gradually reemerged, in an unsurprising way, to what they were before we welcomed the kids into our lives: shopping, nipping out for something to eat and drink, and domestic futzing around.

We were also reminiscing about all the fun things we’ve done as a family over the years, and the crazy, hyper-local, mostly free adventures I’d take them on when they were little. I saw the same brownies at a farmers market that I got for the boys after our first summer in Ocean City.

There are many more to be enjoyed, too, which is a joyful thought indeed..

Witch

Witch by Many Tricks Software is an alternative to the Mac’s default command-tab app switcher. It’s an ingenious utility that allows you to create a number of different kinds of switchers, and in my case, I was interested in making a Safari tabs switcher (although I still think Launchbar might be the best solution for me).

macOS’s default switcher is great, and as I discovered before, there’s a bit more to it than meets the eye. Pressing on the up or down arrow key while selecting a running application from this menu will show you the open application windows and hide everything else that’s running, and along the bottom row, shows recent documents.

Witch does something similar: invoking the app switcher shows a menu of running applications, but you can style the list such that it’s vertical, for example, or tabs from right to left (a test, perhaps, of a person’s sanity), and more.

Most salient, however, is Witch’s ability to search through your stable of running apps. Let’s say you’re using the excellent Bike outliner to take some notes, and you do a web search to understand a feature. In this situation, you have an app named Bike running, as well as a Safari tab or two with articles about Bike. Invoking Witch and smacking the escape key allows you to search for the phrase “Bike” and see all of it. That’s a pretty simple example to illustrate the feature.

You can create multiple “actions” in Witch and assign them to different keyboard shortcuts. I have a second action that shows only the frontmost app’s windows in a vertical array. It’s perfect for switching and searching Safari tabs.

MacSurfer

Way back in the 90s, when I was in college, my dad’s browser homepage on his enviable Centris 650 was MacSurfer. It was emblematic of that era’s webpage design: a white page, mostly text, very low rez. But it was the source for curated Apple News, and it became my homepage for a long time, too. I eventually replaced MacSurfer as my homepage with Google Reader (tuned to the Apple tag group).

And it’s back. Eric Schwartz interviewed the new owner, who has resurrected the site. It’s been a welcome return to a curated news page; I love my RSS collection, but this is fun, too. I’ve always appreciated how the page is organized

Starting Over

Being a beginner is fun. You’re expected to make mistakes and you improve quickly. Contrast, though, with “Expertise is not a Tombstone.”

Starting over has a similar charm, with caveats: you remember your past progress, have experienced the law of diminishing returns, but get a chance to start over in a quasi-noobie frame of mind.

I started rowing back in 2014 I think, and logging my efforts some time in 2015. I swapped out rowing for strength training in the late winter of 2016 after reading an article on the Art of Manliness about the Stronglifts 5×5 program. I purchased the app and followed the program and was very happy–even impressed–with the progress I made.

You can’t possibly do Stronglifts for much longer than six months or so. If you can put in the time, you go from zero to hero pretty quickly. I started, for example, with a 45-pound squat and finished the program with 305 lbs.

Once you reach that point, your body can’t recover from the serial work sessions at Stronglifts’ pace, so you have to back into a different program, which for me was Wendler 5/3/1. Wendler’s model backs you down to doing the four core exercises (squat, deadlift, overhead press, and benchpress) once a week, which is much less volume than Stronglifts.

I continued to make slow and steady progress using Wendler, almost reaching a 400 lb squat. But serial injuries (some back pain from deadlifting, should pain from overhead presses, and eventually some IT band issues from squats that were so bad that I couldn’t sleep at night) led me to slowly excise some of the movements from my routine. And then, in December of 2022, I started rowing again. A lot.

Rowing is a great exercise, engaging more of your musculature than walking, running, or cycling. I had been thinking about adding in the bench press and squats again, not necessarily looking to get back up to where I was before (at my current body weight, I’m not sure that’s even possible, and I’m well into being 50 years old now).

I’m just going to use paper logs instead of an app to make sure that I’m tracking how much weight I put on the bar. I’m starting off plenty heavy for a person who hasn’t been lifting for a couple of years, but well below my old PRs. My understanding is that you don’t exactly start over physiologically after a break; your body remembers your previous level of fitness and capability, and you can expect to reasonably return to a previous level of strength.

Part of my motivation is to add some muscle for aesthetics, sure, but I also want to juice my basal metabolic rate. I lost close to 90 pounds all told, but I’ve added about 10 more back on since last fall into winter. I’m less strict about how much I eat and drink during special occasions, but I have to be mindful about things, too. You don’t lose 90 pounds overnight–it comes off slowly, with deliberate effort. They can come back, too–not overnight, but slowly, with mindless sipping and chewing.

Another move I’m keen to add in is the kettlebell swing. I have a 25 and a 50. I did a bunch of swings yesterday and today, and except for a little twinge in my back from my deadlifting days, it felt good and surprisingly hard. It’s an interesting contrast: I can row at a slow pace and not get winded at all, but there’s really no way to do kettlebell swings at a low intensity. If you’re swinging a 50-pound ball of metal, it’s all or nothing. I’m writing them down on my paper squat log and I did 100 today after a 20-minute row.

On September 3rd, 2023, I posted my first Sunday Serial. It was a perfunctory list indeed. In the early days and consonant with the spirit of this blog, it was Serial Sunday sometimes, and Sunday Serial other times, until I started checking it before posting to make sure i was being consistent. I don’t remember what caused me to decide on a dedicated weekly theme; I think I was driving, kicking some ideas for posts around in my head, and the idea that every Sunday, once a week, I’d publish a list of things I found noteworthy.

And save for a couple of Sundays, I’ve stuck to it.

Sunday Serial is emblematic of Uncorrected: it’s a list of things that compel me to write. My focus is broad, as is Sunday Serial. I often feature posts from the week as an item in Serial, and likewise, a mention in Serial might turn into a post later in the week.

I’ve dabbled with creating post categories, as I am guilty of following a link to a site and reading a story, but learning the contents of the site are otherwise not interesting to me. In these cases, I’ve wished for a category list or tagging system. I have a draft of categories that I’ve settled upon, but I don’t know if I’ll ever be so fastidious here.

I’ve never wanted Uncorrected to be fiddly. So far, no categories. I write about what I want to when the spirit compels me, and I make a list every Sunday.

It’s an old-school blog. Thanks to you for reading it.

Aaron was digging through some drawers and bins while packing for school and culling some accumulated cruft, and he popped out of his room with two keyboards: first, the terrible Logitech K480, which I never liked, and my old Logitech Keys to Go. It’s the original from around 2015, which has an Alcantara-like fabric coating and a great keypress. The keys are admittedly small, but it’s still nice to use on the go. He had them from previous vacations for his iPad.

The newer model  has a smooth, rubberized coating, and is both less satisfying to the touch and harder to press the keys. I haven’t used it very much due to this, so I’m pretty psyched to have the original back.

I also have the new Logitech Keys to Go 2, which I also really like, but it’s a much bigger piece of kit than the wafer-thin original. It’s nice to type on, but feels a plasticky. I’m sure if you stripped the cover off the OG Keys to Go, it would feel plasticky, too. It’s a touch more narrow than Apple’s Magic Keyboard, and noticeably lighter.

We moved Aaron into college today. It was a busy, hectic, emotional affair for everyone. We left at 8 am sharp and made it up to campus and his dorm by 10 am. There was plenty of traffic due to all of the first-year students moving in.

In addition to using the elevator, we took a lot of trips up and down the six flights of stairs to his dorm. We helped move the bunks and other redecorating, but I was definitely starting to get in the way.

We lit out together for lunch and a Target run to pick up some hangers and other necessaries we forgot.

We were all three of us choked up leaving.

Rhonda remarked tonight, after looking in his room when we got home, “He never made his bed. But today, he did.”

Whew boy… we’ve been packing Aaron up for his first semester at Rutgers. It’s spritzes and cheese now before a big crab fest for dinner.

Joe landed a gig at Walmart filling pickup orders, which is great for him! But we missed him at last night’s dinner at the Maplewood with the ‘rents and will at tonight’s shellfish extravaganza.

I will certainly (over)write something tomorrow to commemorate the big move in, so I hope you’ll check in here tomorrow, too. As always, here are a few things to check out, thanks for reading.

retroStrip

I saw retroStrip featured earlier in the month on MacWorld and was excited to try it out. retroStrip resurrects the old Control Strip from System 7 and beyond. I used the hell out of the Control Strip on my PowerBook G3 Lombard. This is a hackier affair than the original, but that’s the target market,

Hawk Haven Naked Chardonnay

Rhonda and I took Aaron to Sweet Amalia for lunch Friday, partly to celebrate his last Friday before going off to college, and partly just because we all love the place. We sat outside in the hard afternoon sunlight, baking away but lavishing in a stunning lunch.

We made the mistake of “just grabbing a bottle there” and paid close to 40 bucks for a 20-dollar bottle of Hawk Haven’s Naked Chardonnay. It was a perfectly gluggable and dry white, eblematic of the style. I enjoyed every sip.

Speaking of chardonnays, Dave Mullen has a great article on oaked vs unoaked styles. Worth a read.

Bellview Viogner

Speaking of white wine, we grabbed a bottle of Bellview’s Viogner this weekend, since it was 10% off. It’s a refreshingly different varietal: I detect the flavors that I often associate with dry sherry, a nuttiness that doesn’t always present in fruitier whites. Viogner is one of the grapes blended into their Astraea, which I enjoy on tap.

Aaron is off to college in two days! Sheesh. He had his last guitar lesson with his longtime teacher, Merritt, on Thursday. It was a bittersweet hour and sad but fond farewell.

We got his first guitar at the now-defunct Music Central nearby. It was one of those my first guitar beginner kits and the guitar was predictably terrible. He upgraded to my old electric in short order after his first teacher gave us the thumbs up to do so.

His first teacher, Devon, left teaching at the end of 2018; he moved over to Merritt’s Music Service in Millville when Guitar Central closed, and we followed him there. Merritt took Aaron as a student after Devon’s resignation, and that worked out for everyone. Aaron even played at a big recital back in 2019. The COVID shutdown in 2020 led to lessons over Zoom, which proved helpful even after things started opening up after quarantine–in situations where we couldn’t make a lesson, we could pivot to virtual and not miss.

Merritt eventually moved his operation to his house, and we would roll over to his house and play on the enclosed back porch with Rufus, his dog, and occasionally Mr. Gray, a big ‘ole cat. Once, Merritt handed me a bass or an acoustic (I can’t remember which) and I started playing during the lessons, too. That really made it fun for me and I learned a bit myself after nearly 30 years of noodling.

I was tempted to keep the time slot for myself and take lessons until Aaron was home on breaks and the summer, but I don’t really have that much time to practice in between Thursdays. Or it’s not enough of a priority.

For the Stoics, the ideal state of mind was tranquility, not the excitable cheer that positive thinkers usually seem to mean when they use the word ‘happiness’. And tranquility was to be achieved not by strenuously chasing after enjoyable experiences, but by cultivating a kind of calm indifference towards one’s circumstances. One way to do this, the Stoics argued, was by turning towards negative emotions and experiences; not shunning them, but examining them closely instead.

Oliver Burkeman, The Antidote

The word “equanimity” comes from the combination of two Latin terms: aequus, meaning “even, level” and animus, meaning “mind” or “spirit.” Equanimity is characterized by the ability to remain calm, composed, open, and non-reactive in the face of challenging or distressing situations.

Equanimity: The Holy Grail of Calmness & Grace?

We are in the end who we are, that there seems to be a certain essence in us that we must allow to guide us through life. If we defy this compass, we can end up in places we don’t belong. But if we trust it, follow it, we might do something as grand as fulfilling our purpose.

Rebecah Toh, vague, inchoate feeling

Another week vacationing in Ocean City, NJ concluded! It’s always sad to leave vacation but it’s nice looking forward to finding your old rhythms, too. For my part, I walked and swam a lot (I did row once, when we came home on Wednesday before our dinner at Knife and Fork) in place of rowing. My weight stayed consistent despite some allowances in the fermented grape department, a few desserts, and pizza and fries + other requisite boardwalk eats (salt water taffy, anyone?). Rhonda wasn’t up for some of the walks, so I took half of them alone this trip. I of course love her company on a walk this summer, but as an only child I have cultivated a tolerance at least, and an appreciation even, for being with myself. And hey–I have my own mission.

An additional benefit of striking out alone: I checked out some places I was curious about.

Positively 4th Street Café

One of those was Positively 4th Street Café, which is a cute coffee shop on the north end of the island, close to Ocean City High School. It’s got a kitschy, cozy vibe, with art installations including guitars and other mixed media, elevating the space. I have a feeling the joint gets packed; I managed to get there just before the line to order was snaking out the door. My Americano was serviceable but I enjoyed sitting outside, beneath the awning, amongst the mix-and-match furniture, and calling the office for some business. I logged 18,000 steps that day (we went to Wildwood as well).

Cathy’s 14th Street Bakery

Another spot I was curious about was Cathy’s 14th Street Bakery, which a mentor of mine who lives in OC raved about but decried their sporadic hours. I was in maximal indecision mode once in the shoppe; I didn’t want to overbuy, but I didn’t want to come home without a decent sampling of their donuts. I ended up getting a mix of things, including two different kinds of jelly donut (cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar), a Boston creme (the last of the day in fact, much to another shoobie’s chagrin), and some rings, including their cider donuts. I had a half of a glazed and a half of a cider and they were good.

Bright Lights, Little City

Thursday night into Friday was a little wild; we had a lightning strike on a transformer outside our room around 5 pm, and the hotel lost power until about 1 am. All of us: mom, dad, me, Rhonda, joey, Aaron–had different recollections about what happened, but there was some serious shit that went down.

I had a hotspot so we were able to stay on the internet and get updates about what the estimated restoration of power would be (and refresh our RSS feeds, of course), but we housed our takeout in an increasingly stuffy dining room. Nipping out for Gyros and Greens allowed Rhonda and I time to soak in some Subaru air conditioning, and we found a few minutes for a quick pint while dinner was being prepared. These are the digressions that make vacation vacation.

Back in OCNJ, Aaron and I sat outside for a while to keep cool later in the evening and were treated to seeing some line workers in buckets fixing the problem. We heard some shop vocabulary, including “I’m in the hole!” And the response, “Yeah, get out of there.” It was so nice outside before the crew arrived that I fell asleep. The power came back on and we all enjoyed the return of the air conditioning. Aaron and I reflected that the job of a lineman must be both physical and intellectual.