I had a great week driving the Miata back and forth to work. Whatever compunctions I had about the straight-line power are vanquished. No, it’s not as fast as the Mustang, and where I live, in southern NJ, we have a lot of long, straight roads. A big old American muscle car is perfect for these roads.
2026 MX-5 Miata
But hey: so is a Miata. I can get to 60 in about six seconds if I want to. The naturally aspirated four-banger revs up readily, and the RWD pushes the ass around with authority. It’s just a blast to drive, and I look for excuses to do so. I tore down some Hammonton back roads on Thursday on the ride home and I think I’m gonna do that again from time to time.
Also: we have a convertible queen! She liked sniffing the sniffs on the ride home from the groomer Saturday. I took the Miata up Route 55 for a highway cruise and I’m happy to report that you can drive 80 mph and not feel like the car’s getting shifty.
Moscato in the Miata
Mel Brooks Turns 100
Mel Brooks is 100! Wow. My first exposure to his work was Young Frankenstein, which I recognized as a parody of the Frankenstein movies when I saw it as a kid. It seemed loony and little ribald. Later viewings of his films brought an appreciation of how one can use humor to pillory racism and anti-Semitism. He portrayed the marginalized as cagy heroes, while the villains were buffoons who harbored the worst impulses in humanity. Some of his oeuvre is funny for its own sake, but there’s real depth to his work, too.
Leslie Neilsen got a lot of mileage out of Brooks’ style.
Longtime tech journalist Om Malik passed away last Wednesday. I was a longtime reader of his blog, GigaOm, and was glad to see him start another blog, Om.co. He thought big thoughts about technology and society, not living in the speeds and feeds of the moment. He was a digital photography enthusiast, as well.
The Bear Season Five
Rhonda and I binged most of the fifth season of The Bear last night. The season is almost wholly focused on one night in the kitchen, with the staff trying to pull off a final night of legendary service in the throes of a storm, with attendant leaks and food shortages. It’s typically intense for the show, and the compressed setting amps up the tension.
I took a half day today and visited Rhonda’s third-grade class. Instead of guitar, we launched model rockets that the boys and I have flown before. I took these to one of the middle schools in Vineland back before COVID.
Der Max
I launched this rocket first, using a small “a” class engine, which isn’t very powerful for this fairly heavy rocket. That worked out well–the kids got to see it shoot up into the air, but at a very visible distance, and tumble back to the earth. This one will fly again.
Der Max Estes Rocket
Big Bertha
I launched Bertha using a larger “b” class engine, and it made a marked difference. Big Bertha always stayed within eyesight, but it rose nice and high, and the parachute deployed faithfully. We then watched her sail off into the trees. Alas.
Big Bertha Estes Rocket
Star Trooper
These tiny-sized rockets might be my favorite. On a tiny engine, they disappear in a flash. We’ve made a handful of them over the years. One eagle-eyed third grader even spied the grounded rocket on the field, so despite a fin repair, the Star Trooper shall fly again too.
Another Father’s Day! Joe got me this cute little He-Man minifig at a nearby toy show.
Happy Father’s Day He-Man!
We’re not really doing much since Aaron has to work and won’t be home until close to seven tonight. The pool and some spritzes beckon, though. I cooked a nice picanha roast last night for our dinner after he got home after a lengthy soak in the sous vide tank.
macOS 27 “Golden Gate” Developer Beta
iPad is usually where I’m OK installing a beta OS: I need my Mac to do work, and I need my phone because it’s my phone. iPads are ancillary (which doesn’t mean I don’t love using them for everything), but they are a third category and a third rung on the needs vs wants list.
But I have an older M1 MacBook Pro from work, and while it has taught me that a Mac can, in the era of Apple Silicon, last you a long time, it’s not my main machine, and is ripe for usage as a beta testing machine.
I have modest needs as a computer user, but the things that I was excited to see in Golden Gate are the visual tweaks to Liquid Glass. First up: the layered side panels. Here’s notes in Tahoe:
Notes Sidebar in macOS 26 Tahoe
And then Notes in Golden Gate:
Notes Sidebar in Golden Gate
Golden Gate fixes the unnecessary side panel crowding in Notes (and other apps).
Things are still a bit crowded, even on the generous display on this MacBook Pro. Liquid Glass looks a lot less horsey on a 32” display, but this isn’t a setup for most MacBook owners; the OS should look tighter and smaller than it does now. Even in Golden Gate, I find application toolbars ugly. Going text only (where available) looks weird, contrary to macOS pre-Tahoe.
Safari Toolbar in Golden Gate
I’m still on the waiting list for the new Siri. Everything I’ve heard sounds great, and I’m looking forward to something more intelligent. If it can see OmniFocus, Notes, and Fantastical, as well as files on my Mac, I think Siri AI will be very interesting.
Theming OmniOutliner
I’ve been using OmniOutliner since it was bundled with my PowerBook G4 in the early 2000s. There’s a lot to love about OmniOutliner, if you love (or even just like) outliners. (I find it funny to this day that when teachers suggested that outlining was a good way to start a paper, and required the class to create outlines, I would absolutely bristle). These days, I almost think in outlines; I reach for Bike or OmniOutliner the moment something comes up and I need to take notes. And if I’m writing, as I often do, in Notes, I follow a loose outline style/format.
I’ve never found theming to be terribly accessible in OmniOutliner, though, and my earliest forays into crafting my own were fraught with difficulty, such that I never really made any. I was farting around with version six and was delighted that the small bit of experience I’ve gained with styles allows me to facilely create some nice-looking outline templates.
One of the Drafts styles I like is called “Six Colors,” referencing of course the original Apple logo, and Jason Snell’s post-MacWorld website and sundry digital goods. I thought that something like the Six Colors theme would make for a nice OmniOutliner template.
My Six Colors OmniOutliner Template
I started off with a blank white canvas and added text color stylings, but then I thought it might be fun to create a theme where the rows are colored, too.
After that, it was off to the races! I found a website, Figma , with 100 thoughtfully crafted four-color designs, and started cobbling together some more templates. Happily, OmniFocus stores themes in iCloud if you’re using it, so they sync across devices.
My Own Cobalt Theme for OmniOutliner
Mazda MX-5 Miata ND3
My mind is not to be trusted. I wrote about some test drives I’d done when thinking about trading in my 2013 Mustang GT last week. I had notionally settled on keeping the mustang and repairing the things that ailed it; meanwhile, I found myself continually researching cars, car prices, and engaging Copilot in a lengthy discussion about my “perfect” car. (The answer was the BMW 2 Series, more specifically the 230, which confusingly sits price wise and procedurally above the BMW 228. The 228, I learned, is actually a Mini Cooper, and sold as a 1 series in Europe. Copilot did not recommend the 228 for me, although it does have the JCW engine in it. It seems to be a car reviled by BMW purists, but for a person for whom the JCW seems like a great car, I was kinda into the idea. But: no manual.
My 2026 Mazda MX-5 Miata ND3
You can now very easily draw a small circle around the new cars you’d buy if you just factor in two data points: cost and transmission. Do you want a car that costs around 40k and has a manual transmission? Your options get narrow fast. You can cast a wider net by ignoring price constraints, but if price is your cardinal factor, then it gets pretty easy. For me, it was WRX, BRZ/G86, Miata, or something used.
I had conceded to myself that I was going to have to consider non-manual options if I were in fact to purchase a BMW 230, but the prices are so high that I abandoned the idea.
I have loved the MX-5 Miata since it came out. My Dad, an inveterate namer of four-wheeled things whilst driving, always exclaimed “Miata!” back in the late 80s and early 90s when we’d see one on the road. I remember thinking that if he was enthusiastic about something, it was suggestion that he’d buy one. Once, we went to a Nissan dealership where his college roommate worked, and checked out a moon glow yellow Nissan 300 Z. I was sure we were there to buy one. We were not. But that car changed my opinion about yellow cars, and made me want a Z to this day.
Anyway, the decision to buy a new car vs repair the Mustang was complicated for me. There are a couple of truths about the Mustang: I never considered one in any previous car-buying situation; the platonic ideal that the mustang is chasing is not a part of my lexicon. When last I shopped for a car, in 2015, I had narrowed my search down to a Ford Focus RS, Subaru WRX, or a GTI. The AWD in the WRX was the final selling point.
That I got to drive a GT for the last 10 years was a gift, though, materially and spiritually. Just because you wouldn’t normally consider something doesn’t mean you wouldn’t end up enjoying it. And the experience of the GT was an eye-opener. Yes, it was big and heavy, but it was fast and stable at highway speeds. The aftermarket exhaust sounded like a dream, and the car was a heard turner on noise alone. I loved that car, and I can now say that I absolutely enjoy a big American muscle car, borne from a decade of experience.
Farewell, Old Friend
But we all have preferences and notions. If I had to plant my flag, I’d want this car:
2-dour coupe or roadster
Naturally aspirated six-cylinder engine
Manual transmission
Low body weight
That car doesn’t actually exist anymore outside of the Porsche 718 Cayman and Boxter, which Porsche isn’t taking orders for anymore.
The Miata is pretty close, though, looking at that list. It’s only strike is the four-cylinder engine. Yet, after the first test drive, I thought, “I can’t daily this car.”
But as I continued to research, Copilot did make one comment that resonated with me: You’ll think it’s too small for a week. And that was my experience with the Toyota MR2 Spyder that I bought back in 2003 and drove for about four years before having to trade it in on a more practical family car, as we had two small children. I was driving the Spyder home on the day of the purchase, barreling down route 55 with the top up, all the crap that I’d been carting around in my more capacious Ford Contour that I’d just traded in for pennies piled up on the seat beside me, the front end bouncing up and down like an exuberant kangaroo, and I thought: what did I just get myself into? It was so small, so light, and utterly unfamiliar to me.
But the next day, the car unburdened by the weight of my hoardings, zipping up to the dealership to drop off my old car’s title, top down, I realized that I was having a blast–an experience in a car I’d never had before.
The Spyder only had 138 horsepower. It was not a fast car, but any metric. But it was a true mid-engine runabout, with variable valve timing that kicked in pretty high up in the rev range. I remember one time Dad and I went out for a drive in his new 5-liter Pontiac GTO, and he let me take the wheel. After a long cruise in rural south Jersey and a couple of beers at a friend’s house, I got back into the Spyder and drove it back home. The contrast was striking–the Spyder felt like the tiny toy car that it was. That did nothing to dampen my enthusiasm for the car, but it did put its proper place in the pantheon of cars I’ve driven.
In time, I came to see the Spyder as a kind of automotive albatross, uniquely ill-suited to my current needs as a family man. I replaced it with a Subaru Legacy with a manual five-speed. It was fine. It was what I needed at the time.
But I always missed the Spyder, and serially lined up replacements in my mind, should the time ever come when I might want something like that again.
That time has come, and the Miata fits the bill. Like a glove.
The last couple of weeks before the end of the school year are always hectic. Joey and Sorayah went on a business trip to Kentucky for her work, and are back now. We’re celebrating my Mom’s birthday this weekend, and Father’s Day a week early, with some BBQ chicken thighs and sides.
Test Driving Cars
I test drove a couple of cars this week before dropping the Mustang off for service; I wanted to feel out if I would rather have a new car or keep the GT, anticipating some costly repairs. I drove a yellow Subaru BRZ, and a Mazda MX-5 Sport (a Miata, of course).
Subaru BRZ
I loved the BRZ; it wasn’t loud in the way the Mustang is, but it’s small and quick and tight. I don’t think the four-banger would ever knock my socks off, but it was a great ride. I think I could live with one of these.
MX-5 Miata
The Miata was a lot of fun, too, but it immediately sounded like a toy when the salesman started it up, and it did nothing on the test drive to make me think it wasn’t. Fun to drive? Absolutely. A daily driver? Not for me.
Me in the droptop
I was surprised by my impression of the Miata: I once owned a Toyota MR2 Spyder, which was a mid-engine roadster and a Miata competitor. I know what these little cars feel like.
Andy Inhatko’s “Loitering at tech’s intersections”
Andy is a self-described “beloved tech pundit” who wrote for MacUser and MacWorld, and is a regular contributor to MacBreak Weekly. It’s great that he’s launched a new website, and I’m looking forward to reading more of his writing. Andy knows a lot about tech, photography, and cinema.
Hector Simpson’s Wavēy and XIV Cosmos and Horizon Wallpapers
Most days, I fire up the Dizzypaper app and select a wallpaper that suits my mood. I added Hector’s Wavēy and XIV Cosmos and Horizon wallpapers to my collection this weekend, because the collections are beautiful and fit my preferenceph for wallpapers: vector graphics, tasteful colors, and clever masking.
What a beautiful weekend! Saturday and Sunday were chilly in morning, sunny, and then exemplars of a warm, dry May weather. You could do worse than have a glorious, full-throated, naturally aspirated American V8 engine in your car on a day like today.
Bellview Winery was an obvious choice for our Saturday, considering the weather, but they had a ticketed event, so we stayed home and had cheese and salami and raided our cellar (which is on the second floor in a cheap fridge). Joe was working, but Rhonda, Aaron, and I nipped out for dinner at the Turkish joint around the corner. It’s really good!
It occurred to me that the genesis of Sunday Serial was to recommend things to my readers. I haven’t invoked the mission in writing for a while, so here it goes:
Here are a few things to check out!
BetterTouchTool
I’ve been using BetterSnapTool for over a decade to manage the windows on my Mac. It originally was one of the few utilities to add Windows Snap-style functionality to the Mac. Apple did eventually add a similar feature to Sequoia, but there are still advantages to third-party utilities, such as programmable keyboard shortcuts..
BetterTouchTool has long offered the same features, in addition to giving users a path to creating custom mouse and touchpad gestures. In a recent blog post, the developer described a new beta feature: a Spotlight-like Launcher. His hopes were high that Apple would eventually add third-party support to Spotlight, and while the latest version of Spotlight that ships with Tahoe brings some feature enhancements, it was not what he was looking for. With that, BetterTouchTool joined the crowded field of excellent third-party launcher utilities.
BetterTouchTool’s Launcher
You can use BTT’s launcher to fire off custom actions, launch apps, see running apps, create and use widgets, search for files, use Soulver to make back-of-the-napkin calculations, and lots more. I’m excited to finally create some custom gestures with my trackpad, and avail myself of BTT’s ability to manage windows.
I had to return some pants Rhonda got for Aaron at Staples today, and I browsed the pen aisle to see what they had; Staples has always been an OK spot for Fisher Space pens and more. I spied a Lamy Safari Ballpoint in bespoke packaging on one peg, and gave it a quick ogle. I didn’t take me long to decide to purchase one.
Lamy Rollerball
It’s preloaded with a black ink cartridge, but I’ll order a refill in the near future and make it blue. It’s got that great thick barrel that I love from my Safari fountain pen, as well as the rounded wire clip. I was hoping for a gel pen, but this does write nicely.
Lamy Safari Clipped to my Field Notes Notebook
Shoreline Vintage & Toy Show 2026
Joey and Aaron clued me in to Shoreline Vintage’s show this weekend; since adding Farpoint IIto their collection of vendors, they’ve been throwing great shows every summer, usually around Memorial Day. We got up early because Joe had to work and headed over for a bit of shopping.
Shoreline Vintage and Toy Show
Toy Shows are always an eclectic gathering of enthusiasts. There were people in costumes, some cross dressing, and plenty of eagle-eyed shoppers. Joe and Aaron split off and browsed the tables. It was, as usual, a great show with lots to see.
Shoreline Vintage Vendor Table
I’m excited that Aaron’s eye was bewitched by a used Nikon DSLR. We went back to the table a few times to try to get more info about the camera, and as we walked the grounds, I learned that the Nikon D3500 is not a new camera, but is one of the last in the line of consumer-focused DSLRs and not mirrorless. It was a kit with an 18-55mm f/3.5-5.5 lens, probably a standard Nikon kit lens, but also a 70-500mm f/4.5-6.3 zoom lens. That’s pretty close to all you’d need, save for a nice prime lens with an aperture around f/2 or a little lower.
Nikon D3500
I told him we could figure something out if he wanted to buy it without exhausting his budget; my notion was that we’d eventually get him a Panasonic or a Olympus so he could use my lenses, but he seems to be drawn to Canon and Nikon. I’m curious about APS-C and Nikon’s software interface on their cameras, as well as the physical controls, though. I suggested that we could negotiate the price, and Aaron went for it: he suggested a price, and the seller readily agreed. Proud of this guy!
Shoreline Vintage Show Star Wars Game
So yeah: he’s got a Nikon, and there’s an f/1.8 35mm on the way from Ebay.
Musings from a Tangled Mind, taking on some of our language’s strangest words:
Some words are just silly. “Queue.” Now this is nonsense I can respect. A queue is, fundamentally, just a line. A very simple concept. Yet the word itself contains four silent letters standing around doing absolutely nothing. Kind of like the poor suckers at the back of a line.
Q is carrying the entire operation on its back while U, E, U and E trail behind like middle management. It’s absurd. It’s inefficient. It looks like it should take several minutes and a French lesson to pronounce. And yet… there’s something almost impressive about it. That level of confidence isn’t a spelling choice. It’s a decision. A theatrical little power move.
It’s the top of the summer, and we have a full house once again: Aaron is home from college. He’s got a neat job lined up at the NJ Motorsports Park as a marshall. He’s going to see a lot of cool cars in the next couple of months.
On a related note, Rhonda and I nipped out to Maplewood for diner Friday, as the boys both had plans to go to the food truck festival at their alma mater. I spied a couple of marked up Porsche Caymans in the parking lot, likely having just come from the track.
Porsche Cayman
I keep a list of cars I’d consider buying in the event that I had to replace my beloved Mustang (MX-5, BRZ, Nissan Z, and some others), but the Cayman and 911 sit up there in the “if a pile of money landed in my lap…” fantasy.
I was up near Trenton Wednesday for work, so I lit up to Rutgers after work to pick Aaron up. He finished his final just about when I was pulling into New Brunswick, so we loaded up the Mini and nipped out for some phô, which was what he was craving. I stopped and got us a couple of Tsingtao beers to go with the meal. Asian beers are generally thin, watery affairs, enjoyable with just about anything. If you like juicy beers, Tsingtao is not for you. But it’s a great refreshing beer after five or so trips from the dorm to the car.
Dormitory ElevatorAaron giving his room one last lookTsingtao beers
Bellview Winery’s Argento
Last summer, Rhonda and I enjoyed Bellview’s private party to celebrate their 25th anniversary. We had a great time, and got to try their newly released Argento, which is their take on a Bordeaux. It features their Cab Franc, San Marco, Petit Verdot, Blaufrankisch, and Merlot. It’s a great blend: pronounced berry, with some tannin and pepper on the finish. One of the ladies who works there tempted me with a taste a couple of Saturdays ago when I was filling up the growlers, and yesterday I made good on my resolve to pick up a bottle sooner than later.
Bellview’s Argento
Schwinn 430 Elliptical
I bought an elliptical at our local Sears (remember Sears?) probably 20 years ago; it was on clearance, and I paid maybe $500 bucks for it. It was a nice low impact cardio machine, and I got a lot of miles out of it. Rhonda started using it, too, combining it with some hand weights, and really liked the results.
I’ve gotten into cycling, rowing, lifting weights, and then rowing again in the intervening years, and while I could see the use for an elliptical in our home gym, I didn’t see the need to buy another one. Rhonda, however, has lamented the fact that it doesn’t work anymore (the computer broke, and replacing it would require finding something on eBay; the last few times I looked for one, they were incredibly rare and expensive).
I was circumspect about buying another elliptical, as the second Concept2 rower I bought was originally intended to be hers, but she doesn’t really like rowing. (Not true for me, though: I use it pretty much every day).
Schwinn 430 Elliptical in the upstairs bedroom
I did end up ordering a Schwinn 430 Elliptical from Best Buy for her; it’s a reasonably priced model, and I think will do the trick. I was tempted by a NordicTrack model, which include a more fulsome computer with video workouts, a la Peloton, but I didn’t want to pay the price.
Schwinn 430 Computer
I put the Schwinn together last weekend, and make a few last adjustments this afternoon after hearing some squeaks while I was testing it out. It’s all set and ready for action. Here’s hoping it sees some usage! It’s nice having the upstairs apartment vacant and available for our use. It’s a separate hangout space for the kids, a seasonal closet for our wardrobes, a place for an extra refrigerator, and now a home gym annex.
Kagi Snaps
I tried Kagi search on John Gruber’s recommendation, and recently, he posted an article about their “Snaps” feature, which are similar to their Bangs, which are similar to Duck Duck Go’s bangs. The difference is that they restrict the search to a particular website.
I’ve never actually looked any of these up. I just guessed at the ones I most want to use and they all worked on the first try. @nyt returns results from The New York Times; @wsj is for The Wall Street Journal. Take a guess what @df does.
Turned out to be a beautiful day. We were saving up all of the yard work and other necessary maintenance tasks for today; Rhonda mowed the lawn, I did some weed whacking, changed to oil in Joey’s car (I’m too cheap to go somewhere for an oil change), and in filling up Aaron’s Mini’s tires with air, I broke the rear passenger-side valve stem. So the Mini is jacked up in the driveway, and the wheel is in the trunk of the Mustang so I can drop if off for repair. No good deed indeed.
Stokelan Estates 2025 Myra
Rhonda and I took off on Friday and journeyed north to replenish our salami supply at Bagliani’s, and then lunch and a sip at Stokelan Estates Winery, (which was just reviewed on New Jersey Uncorked). We were disappointed to learn that their stock of the 2024 Myra dry rosé was exhausted, but the cheerful server mentioned that the 2025 was cellaring after being bottled. She snuck down to the cellar and gave us a bottle with a gentle reminder not to open it for a couple of weeks due to bottle shock, a phrase I had not encountered yet (Jimmy at Bellview did say once that a new stock of a varietal was “settling” and not yet for sale though). Stokelan Catspaw
So we have one in waiting and are very excited to try it when the time is right! We enjoyed both of their Chardonnays (the Catspaw, which is unoaked, and our favorite, as well as the Crossroads, which is lightly oaked version). We had their excellent sausage and fennel flatbread again, too. Sausage and Fennel Flatbread Mugging at the Winery
Sweet Amalia Oysters
One of the two local seafood shops (fishmongers, if you’re a market romantic) has been posting that they have Sweet Amalia oysters in stock. Rhonda and I were out in the vicinity of Dad’s Seafood, and she suggested we take a peek. They had crabs, but they were from Virginia and North Carolina and selling for 60 bucks a dozen. It’s early in the season, and that’s pretty typical.
Sweet Amalia Oysters
Anyway, we decided to just get a dozen of the oysters (they were 20 bucks a dozen) and have them with spritzes and cheese + salami yesterday afternoon. They are always excellent, and this batch was no different: small to medium in size, soft and assertively briny.
Shucked Oysters
Lane Keep Assist
I was talking to one of the school psychologists at work (and a friend from grad school to boot) and she mentioned a button on her Subaru Ascent’s steering wheel that steers the car for you on the highway or turnpike or freeway or expressway or… you get it. I declined the overview at the dealership, and I’m not good about reading the manual until I have a question, so I never knew what it was. I figured the new WRX had cruise control just like the last one, and it worked the same way: it’s on and you have to adjust as you encounter traffic.
Subaru Lane Assist
This shouldn’t surprise me considering all of the safety goodies even Joe’s base Impreza has (lane assist and crash detection). I tried it out on the ride up to Stokelan on Friday, and while it didn’t do anything on an earlier stretch of Route 206, once we got a little farther north and the pace of traffic picked up, I noticed how the car was using the lane markers to keep me centered. As my colleague had mentioned, it took curves and bends in the road on my behalf. It was wonderful. I sent her a text with a picture of the button on the wheel and sung the feature’s praises.
Even the cruise control has come a long way. The cameras in the car watch the car before me, and the system moderates my speed to keep a safe distance between me and the car ahead. I’m looking forward to trying this out when we go up to help Aaron move out of his dorm in a couple of weeks.
Spring break is just about over! I’ve treated myself to a lot of extra calories over the last ten days, so I have some restricting to do! Ahem.
I mentioned Dredge+ last week, and I have been playing the game all week. I just love it. I haven’t felt compelled to play a game this much since Limbo (and Balatro maybe). I described it as a fishing game, which is the grind mechanic you need to do to stay solvent, but it’s not really a fishing game. Lots of descriptions are “Lovecraftian,” and in that vein the game reminds me very much of On the Rain Slick Precipice of Darkness. I used to play that game on our Mac in the living room with Joe sitting on my lap. What a blast we had. I ran the keyboard but consulted with Joe before each move.
The Bagliani Salami
It occurred to me that while I mention our ongoing love affair with Bagliani’s spicy salami, I never say much more than that. This is because I know nothing about the salami: the provenance, the ingredients, nothing. The red rubber band means it’s spicy. They sell them out of a deli case and by the pound. One of the checkout girls remarked, “you got an extra slimy one” when ringing one up once. My father, an aficionado of these things, has gleefully marveled about the possibility that they’re not legal in the normal sense of the word, as it applies to groceries.
Bagliani’s Salami
Stokelan Estates Winery
Nothing new here and I’m conflicted about including it here in this week’s post, but we had such a nice visit over break, cementing the primacy of their 2024 Myra as one of our very favorite rosés.
White Horse Winery
Hammonton, NJ, has a tremendous variety of wineries within and just beyond its borders. Rhonda and I tried their oaked Chardonnay after our visit to Stokelan. It was pretty good, although a little tart on my palette. Something in the flavor profile reminded me of Cedar Rose’s Chardonnay.
Togethering
Rhonda and I spent the whole break together, taking Aaron back to school after making Easter dinner on Saturday, and then running errands and finding pleasant diversions.
There are a number of benefits to marriage that people overlook all the time. I have a built-in best friend I can try all kind of experiences with, often negotiated at the very last moment.
That’s me being glib; our relationship surely resembles some others, but is entirely unique. I remarked the other day that while some of the locations have changed, we don’t do anything that different compared to our twenties, when we first met and we’d find places to eat and brew pubs to try, which were new to us back in the late nineties. We’ve known each other for 30 years. You can’t fake that.
Rhonda and I took flight yesterday to recharge our salami supply at Baglianis, and then rolled up to Medford’s Stokelan Estates winery to split a bottle of one of our favorite rosés from the Outer Coastal Plains. We are happy to report that the flatbread crust at Stokelan is much improved. I directed our entourage to White Horse Winery thereafter, in the spirit of exploration; we thought to visit Tomasello, but the operation was scheduled to close at 5 pm, leaving us little time to browse the stock. White Horse, happily, was open until six, so we were able to review the menu at our leisure and grab a bottle of their barrel-aged Chardonnay.
One of the downsides of having the kids in college is that they don’t really have any time off for Easter. Aaron came home for the weekend with a friend, and we’re scheduled to make the return trip in a couple of hours. Rhonda and I will drive Aaron and a friend back to Rutgers, and then our spring break commences. We made a rib roast for dinner last night, since Joe had to work and we wanted to have dinner without worrying about driving back in the same day. I followed Kenji’s recipe this time, forgoing my usual sous vide method. It came out great. Rib Roast Going into the Oven Rib Roast Hot off the Grill
PCalc
My favorite calculator app for the iPhone has long been Calcbot; it’s the perfect size and design for my elementary needs, and the conversion feature is both useful and thoughtfully designed. Alas, it doesn’t work on the Mac anymore, which saddens me. I just don’t like the official Apple calculator very much.
PCalc is a famously fun calculator for macOS (and iOS), with a gazillion customization features, and a deep set of features for more demanding use cases. The About screen even had a game stuffed into, which was wild; developer James Thompson pushed it out into its own app, though.
PCalc
Thompson’s blog is a great read, too; he’s shared many great stories about working for Apple as a developer during the switch from OS 9 to Mac OS X, and he wrote the original Dock. That was an exciting time for Mac nerds.
Dredge+ on Apple Arcade
I tried the demo of Dredge a while back on my iPad, but didn’t take the plunge of a purchase; it had a great art style, and simple mechanics, but I didn’t spring for a purchase. I tried it again when it came out on Apple Arcade, and it’s incredibly enjoyable.
In Dredge, you play as a fisherman whose job it is to catch fish, sell them, and use the money to upgrade your boat. There are a gazillion mini-missions that you are tasked with, as well: delivering dredged supplies, catching specific fish, and delivering packages. All of this happens in the backdrop of a story about a mysterious red glow in the sky, and malicious creatures in the water. It feels a bit like the side missions that you encounter in a Zelda game.
Living Colour
I was coming up with material for last weekend’s Sunday Serial, and “Nothingness” by Living Colour came on the HomePod while I was researching. It’s one of my favorite songs by them, and one of my favorite songs of all time. I got to thinking that Living Colour wrote a number of my favorite songs. I remember in high school, our religion teacher tasked us with bringing in an example of a song that represented a certain version of love. I chose “Solace of You” and she agreed that it was a good choice, and exemplar of the kind of love she was talking about.
I listened to Living Colors debut album, “Vivid,” over and over when I was finishing middle school and starting high school. I’d ride around on my Haro BMX bike and listen to the cassette using my walkman. It’s a great album start to finish, and I love their cover of the Talking Heads “Memories Can’t Wait”; I learned it on my guitar in college.
Their second album, “Time’s Up,” includes another of my favorite songs of theirs, “Under Cover of Darkness,” which featured Queen Latifah on the track. Their third album, “Stain,” might be my favorite of theirs. I love “Nothingness” most of all, but eight of the first nine songs are incredible.
I had to nip out yesterday morning to Home Depot to return a case of drop ceiling tiles that we ordered for Aaron’s bedroom (it’s the only room in the house with a drop ceiling). The tiles were delivered after the first order never materialized, and when we finally did get the tiles, they were broken, which I learned yesterday when I opened the case with the intention of replacing some of them. I returned them and got a new case and shot back home so I could try to get a few replaced before Aaron got home for Easter next weekend.
I also replaced the drive belt in our washing machine yesterday; Rhonda noticed that the spin cycle wasn’t ringing out the clothes as well as it should, so I ordered a new belt from Amazon. The particular model makes it easy to replace the belt; the only problem I had was actually getting it onto the pulleys. I cribbed a trick that I’ve seen the boys do a thousand times with action figures whose joints are too tight: boil some water and sit the item in the water for a few minutes. That worked nicely, and I got the belt on after my initial frustrations.
Things that you think are going to be easy often turn out to be a bit more difficult, while things you imagined are going to take a lot of time are often done in a few minutes. Ultimately, there was plenty of time to hit Bellview for wine and cheese, after squats and bench presses, which I do on Saturdays.
Check Your JND
Jason Anthony Guy linked to this gamewhich tests the smallest color change you can see, which is called just noticeable difference.. I tried it yesterday in bed on my iPad mini, and I got a pretty good score on the first test, but a more average score on the “hard” version. I recall the concept of JND from college, I think from the experimental psychology class I took in my sophomore year, but I can’t remember for sure.
Bass: How Low Can You Go?
Joey’s girlfriend let us borrow her bass guitar (I think she’s open to selling it), so I ordered some Ernie Ball strings for it, as the ones on there are a bit rusty and the G string broke when I was tuning it up. I’m pretty excited to have a bass guitar to play around with. I really would like to record some tracks for songs I’ve already recorded in Logic. There are also a few songs I’d really like to try to learn and record, where I’ve appreciated the base lines. I was working on Promises Promises by Incubus a while back, and since it’s not much of a guitar song, I’ve always really paid attention to the bass line. I really love the line in Mr. Brightside by The Killers too.
Me Checking Out a Bass Guitar
Penny Skateboards
Grip-taped Penny Skateboard
Inspired by Sal’s post about (not) being to old to start skateboarding, I checked to see if Penny skateboards were still a thing. And happily, they are. I bough a couple of them to skate with the boys, and we had a good time; I wrote about it 13 years ago. There was a hardware store around the corner that sold them, and disc golf supplies as well, which I also bought and Aaron and I tried at nearby Landis Park. But back to the skateboards, I purchased a small 22” yellow penny first, and then a larger 27” at a Zumiez in the mall.
I put grip take on the 22”; it was, much to my surprise, my favorite of the pair. It’s much smaller than the decks I was used to as a kid, but it’s tight and responsive. I see them every time I go into the shed, and think I should grab the 22” and roll down the street just for fun.
I make grilled chicken drumsticks all the time. It’s just a couple of hours over indirect heat (charcoal of course), and some sauce in the last 30 minutes or so. Nearly effortless. I threw a couple of turkey drums in the mix last night, and they were a treat. I had one with my salad today for lunch.
Aaron’s been home for spring break this past week, but he’s headed back to Rutgers later today. Since Rhonda and I have been working, we didn’t do much save for a few meals out. Aaron met me Thursday for phô near work, and last night we tried Carmella’s Cucina in Mays Landing. It’s a new Italian BYOB. I’ll probably write it up for Yelp; our dinners were excellent.
Grilled Porkchop Veal Chop Bronzino
Inkwell
Manton Reece recently released Inkwell, a new RSS reader that works in your browser. There’s a Mac app, too. It’s more of a river-of-news style reader, with “Today,” “Recent,” and “Fading” panes.
Inkwell
There’s an iOS app that works with Inkwell too, called Silverleaf Reader.
Silverleaf RSS Reader
Tab Finder 2
Tab Finder is a great little app that lets you search and open browser tabs. Developer … has a new version coming out, in beta now. Tab Finder is the simplest, macos-iest tab switcher I’ve tried in my search to add Chrome’s tab search feature to Safari. I think I’m all in on Witch, but I still like trying other options. Tab Tab has been great, too.
Kagi Bangs + Launchbar = 🤓🩵
I kinda forgot about Kagi’s Bangs, which are like those employed in Duck Duck Go. I don’t generally use Bangs, but thought that I might be missing something. I was reviewing some of the bangs available this morning before leaving for work, and I saw that there was a bang to invoke Kagi Assistant, which I use all the time.
All day long, I am invoking Launchbar, typing “k,” and then entering my search text into the resulting text box, which fires off a Kagi search in my browser of choice. I really wanted to be able to do this with Kagi Assistant, too (instead of opening a new tab and clicking on the Kagi Assistant bookmark).
If you want to use this, create a new search template in Launchbar, and use this as the template URL:
The most recent version of Arthur Brooks’ Office Hours_discusses running the bulls… _your bulls, specifically, ie, living a better life by taking measured risks.
As an example of a study that investigated risk-taking behavior, Brooks’ mentioned skydiving and white water rafting as examples.
It reminded me of the time I went white water rafting in college with my former roommate. He had been a guide on the Lehigh River in PA, and the guides were going on a trip to Canada to raft the Ottowa and Rouge Rivers. He suggested that I come along, with the stipulation that I come up and get my feet wet, literally and figuaratively, on the Lehigh for experience.
I readily agreed, and visited him twice in Jim Thorpe for a couple of days of rafting, once after a dam release, and another time later in the summer for a sleepier version of the river. It was fun and easy; we paddled down the river in a two-man raft, helping kids who got stuck and offering encouragement to those who needed it.
The Ottowa, however, was a different experience. Someone described the river as a series of large lakes connected to each other. Big lakes. The holes, such as they’re known, were really big. Our first day featured the fearless crew floating down the river in six- or eight-man rafts (I don’t remember which). They were entirely too small for this adventure.
Going into the first hole, I vaguely recall seeing someone’s helmet coming at my face before I was thrown in the water. I came up to the surface still holding my paddle in my hand, as the owner had warned all of us not to lose them. I also saw one floating before me, and I grabbed it and made my way for the raft. The agitation of the water created a layer of sudsy foam, upon which a lifejacket will not float. I swam over and was hoisted out of the water. One of the owners complimented me for keeping both my paddle and for grabbing another one. Score some points for the n00b!
While that was an inauspicious start to the journey, the remaining holes proved more navigable until we reached the Colisseum, known for its entertainment value to those shorebound gawkers who watched more reckless souls cast their fates into a giant washing machine.
Our group paddled into the hole, and at some point, the raft folded in half bow to stern, jettisoning everyone on board save for me (lucky!) and the owner. After a Tom-Hanks-storming-the-beach-at-Normandy moment of echoey, swirling consciousness, I heard the owner, the only other man left in our boat, yelling my name over and over again until I oriented myself to his cries, follwed by an invective to paddle. And so paddle I did. He and I made it out of the hole and onto shore while the rest of the crew was rescued. There were rescue jetskis, to give you some sense of the seriousness of this hole.
One of the guides, “Hairman,” who went over the side, described being dragged along the river bed by the current. He was happily retrieved alive and well, but utterly rattled by the experience.
On our second day, we comandeered much larger rafts from the operators of the river adventure, and with sound planning and even some motivational speaking (“visualize success!” one guide shouted as we dipped once again into the Colliseum), made it out without any men (or women) overboard.
Hairman watched from the shore.
We slept for a week under the stars. My roomate and I were out laying on the ground one night, our last before heading back to an apartment outside of Quebec, and traced satellites in the dark sky. There was no light pollution to block our celestial view.
Upon returning home, that first night, I went to bed in my childhood bedroom, and for the first time in my life, I felt hemmed in, contained in a too-small, too quiet, climate-controlled box.
I had taken a significant risk, and lived to tell the tale. I even enjoyed a brief moment as a bad-ass who not only kept his paddle, but collected that of another. I stuck it out after the first day and dropped into the Coliseum once again; I faced my fears. I in turn treated the Rouge like the mini-river it was in comparison to the Ottowa: a place to splash and play, and try silly stunts.
That first night at home, I got out of bed, grabbed some blankets, and slept in the back porch of my parents’ house, under the skylights, the stars and the moon illuminating the back of the house. I was still me, but different.
