Writing
- Lexicon by Max Barry - a science fiction novel about an organization that teaches it's candidates how to use language as a way to control the minds of others
- Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover - the author practices immersice journalism by placing himself in situations where he experiences life first hand in order to write about it. In this case he takes a job as a guard at Sing Sing prison in NY to explore modern American prisons.
- A Rising Man (Sam Wyndham, #1) by Abir Mukherjee - Set in India during the British Raj, this is a novel featuring a detective who is an opium addicted veteran of The Great War. It has a great sense of time and place.
- Never a Dull Moment: 1971 The Year That Rock Exploded by David Hepworth - I love books about music and this one thoroughly explores the greatest year in rock hostory when classic albums by Led Zepplin, The Who, Carole King, James Taylor, Rod Stewart, Joanie Mitchell and more were released.
- The Botany of Desire: A Plant's-Eye View of the World by Michael Pollan - Michael Pollan may be the best popular science writer alive. In this book he explores four plants: the apple, the tulip, marijuana, and the potato in a way that us informative and entertaining.
- Scott & Bailey - D.C. Rachel Bailey and D.C. Janet Scott have a robust and engaging friendship which enables them to draw upon each other’s strengths and investigate murders for the Manchester Metropolitan Police. I love the strong female leads.
- Broadchurch - The murder of a young boy in a small coastal town brings a media frenzy, which threatens to tear the community apart. I've been a David Tennant and an Olivia Coleman fave ever since I watched this.
- The Fall - When the Police Service of Northern Ireland are unable to close a case after 28 days, Detective Superintendent Stella Gibson of the Metropolitan Police Service is called in to review the case. Under her new leadership, the local detectives must track down and stop a serial killer who is terrorising the city of Belfast. Not one to watch alone. It is intense.
- Inspector George Gently - A British crime drama adapted from the George Gently novels by Alan Hunt and set in the 1960s. Inspector George Gently is an old-school detective trying to come to terms with a time when the lines between the police and criminals have become blurred. British cop shows are so much better than American ones. They think more, shoot less.
- Foyle's War - As WW2 rages around the world, DCS Foyle fights his own war on the home-front as he investigates crimes on the south coast of England. Foyle's War opens in southern England in the year 1940. A great job of recreating Britain during its greatest hour.
- The Station Agent (2003) - When his only friend dies, a man born with dwarfism moves to rural New Jersey to live a life of solitude, only to meet a chatty hot dog vendor and a woman dealing with her own personal loss. Peter Dinklage before GOT.
- Yesterday (2019) - A struggling musician realizes he's the only person on Earth who can remember The Beatles after waking up in an alternate reality where the group was forgotten. Lot's of Beatles music and a few surprises.
- The Dig (2021) - As WWII looms, a wealthy widow hires an amateur archaeologist to excavate the burial mounds on her estate. When they make a historic discovery, the echoes of Britain's past resonate in the face of its uncertain future. One of those movies that will have you reading Wikipedia articles as soon as it is over.
- Chef (2014) - When Chef Carl Casper suddenly quits his job at a prominent Los Angeles restaurant after refusing to compromise his creative integrity for its controlling owner, he is left to figure out what's next. Finding himself in Miami, he teams up with his ex-wife, his friend and his son to launch a food truck. Taking to the road, Chef Carl goes back to his roots to reignite his passion for the kitchen -- and zest for life and love. Even though Jon Favreau is responsible for a bunch of MCU schlock, he redeems himself in this story about self discovery and parenthood.
- The Bookshop (2017) - Set in a small English town in 1959, a woman decides, against polite but ruthless local opposition, to open a bookshop, a decision which becomes a political minefield. Another story with a strong, indomitable female character.
Enjoyed it? Please upvote 👇 - Morning Brew
- Letters from an American | Heather Cox Richardson
- 5 Bullet Friday - Tim Ferris
- Democracy Docket
- Lifehacker
- NextDraft | Dave Pell
- Ian Betteridge
- Cult of Mac | Apple news, rumors, reviews and how-tos
- Tangle News
- Wired Daily
- Political News for Normal People. | What The Fuck Just Happened Today?
- Particle: News, organized. | by Particle
- Potentially Interesting Roman History | James Coverley
Aging Parents
I am still trying to get used to my parents as elderly/senior/old. Both of them were born in 1947 (does math) which means they will turn 78 this year. They are long divorced, so my relationship with them isn't a joint one. My Mom has been a widow since 2008. My Dad has been married to my step-mom for 43 years. Wonder Woman's wonderful parents are also still kicking. Her mom just turned 80 and her dad is 85.
Mom is exceptionally healthy. She's always eaten well and taken care of herself. She exercises regularly. And, she assures me frequently, she's only had two glasses of wine since Christmas, which is a likely story, but she doesn't have any alcohol related issues.
My Dad has had three or four heart attacks, numerous stints and coronary bypass surgery. An Army helicopter pilot, he had to quit flying in the 80s because of his blood pressure. He walks with a cane these days and not very far.
I've gotten good, personalized advice from kind people on the Internet about being an asset to my folks in the struggles we are all going to face as we age. It's a topic that isn't alwats fun to research, but I think it's better to do it electively, than to wait until panic strikes.
50 Things to do with elderly parents
Complete List of Things to Do for Elderly Parents
Ageing parents need help? 6 things you can do
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This Week's Bookmarks - Taxi Reunion, Gen Z and Phone Calls, Sports Analytics, Best Books, The Pandemic, Best Sports Moments, Facebook Exposed
“Taxi ”stars reunite to pay tribute to castmate Danny DeVito more than 40 years after show's end - Tony Danza, Marilu Henner, Judd Hirsch, Carol Kane, and Christopher Lloyd met up to watch their former costar Danny DeVito accept the Jason Robards Award for Excellence in Theater at the Roundabout Theatre Company's gala at the Ziegfeld Ballroom in New York City. The show's cocreator, James L. Brooks, also attended
‘No, I’m not phoning to say I’m dying!’ My gruelling week of calling gen Z friends rather than texting them - Of those aged 18 to 34 – 61% prefer a text to a call, and 23% never bother answering
Analytics transformed sports. Has it also made them less entertaining? - The Washington Post - The "Moneyball" era changed how teams play, coach and are built. But the quest for efficiency is increasingly being blamed for robbing sports of their beauty.
Five Books - Expert Book Recommendations - The best books on every subject
30 Charts That Show How Everything Changed in March 2020 - The New York Times - Decades from now, the pandemic will be visible in the historical data of nearly anything measurable today: an unmistakable spike, dip or jolt that officially began for Americans five years ago this month.
The 100 Best Sports Moments of the Quarter Century - The Ringer - When the impossible becomes possible, when the definition of absurd is redefined, when men and women turn into superheroes—you don’t easily forget something like that.
Book Review: ‘Careless People,’ by Sarah Wynn-Williams - The New York Times - The publisher of "Careless People" kept the existence of this memoir a secret until a few days ago — with good reason, it turns out. For seven years, beginning in 2011, the book's author, Sarah Wynn-Williams, worked at Facebook (now called Meta), eventually as a director of global public policy.
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Five Bloggers You Should Get to Know
Some people just have a talent for blogging. They have innate curiosity, a good command of language and the discipline to combine the two in digestible bits for the web. Sometimes they are funny, often scathing, usually insightful and cheefully devoid of ego. These people get bookmarked. They get their own folder in my RSS reader and tonight they get shared with you.
shellsharks
His intro reads - Welcome to Shellsharks - a blog, an IndieWeb site, a community, and a central point-of-presence for myself on the web. What I publish here is a reference for myself but is available to be consumed by all. I write about all things Infosec, Technology and Life in general. Follow shellsharks on Mastodon
Hollie - Small Good Things
Follow Hollie on Mastodon - Her bio - she/they
Enthusiastic about #nature, hats, kindness, #puns, #tea, funny stories, personal websites, lichen, bags, space, boats, hobbits, #UrbanSketching, #books, #watercolors, laughing, ham radio, #bicycling, #monsterdon, #cooking, #knitting, spinning, sewing.
#HSP, #fibro & #MECFS, MCAS, #anxiety, #ADHD.
GenX, happily married to @gregtitus for 29 yrs, mom of two adult kids (one hard-of-hearing, one autistic trans). Wears heart on sleeve. Trans rights are human rights.
mb - jarunmb.com
Follow mb on Mastodon - Not just another tech guy on the Fediverse. Instead, you get a real live human, sharing about the ins and outs of work, parenting, blogging, learning and adapting to life in 2025. One of my favorites.
Pratik - Nerve Endings Firing Away
Follow Pratik on Mastodon - Do you like smart, challenging people? I do. That's why I follow Pratik. He's an authentic guy who isn't afraid to point things out when they need to be pointed out. His Mastodon bio - "I live in Austin. I typically post photos and post personal and work-related updates, especially travel. I offer my opinions on Internet trends and media, talk about TV and movies I watch, share books I read or want to read, rant on right-wing politics, and advocate for inclusion and diversity in all facets of life."
Mark R. Stoneman
Follow Mark on Mastodon - Like I said, I like smart people and this New England historian fits that bill. Mark is friendly, thoughtful and has a knack for relating what is happening today with events from the past. As a veteranr who has lived around military bases my whole life, I've know a whole bunch of Gis, but Mark is the first Ivy League combat arms guy I've encountered - and an enlisted one at that!! Good people as we say down here.
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Retirement So Far
As the end of my second week of retired life draws to an end, I am reminded that nothing is routine. Weather irregularities and disruptions caused by maintenance issues at the university have had Wonder Woman working from home, which is nice because I like hanging out with her even when she is busy. It's kept me from firmly entrenching myself in a routine, however. When I told her that she was messing with my flow, she didn't appreciate it. All I meant is that it is challenging to establish a routine when the pattern of the days varies so much. Sheesh!
I've continued to work on my home office. It got relocated from our unused dining room to the living area where the two of us hang out so that I can work on my projects without being in a different part of the house. I rounded up all the external hard drives I had floating around, a total of eleven. When added together, they give me 17 TB of extra storage added to the four TB of internal storage in my computers. A lot of that will be unused space for a while. Some of it is being used as backup locations. I set up a Plex server on my Linux computer with movies, TV shows, music, and photos.
Another project is disconnecting from all the big tech companies apart from Apple to the extent possible. We are leaving Gmail and using Fastmail. I have all my important accounts using the new email already. I spend about an hour a day moving some other 240 accounts using my Google credentials each day. I will have that finished by the middle of April. I managed to download and remove the DRM from 500 Kindle ebooks and 500 Audible audiobooks. We are trying to decide on new vendors for each of those media types. We are dropping Amazon Prime next month, so I am in the process of downloading nearly a TB of backed up photos from there. I uninstalled all Microsoft products from my computers, but those sneaky bastards left several processes behind that I had to remove via the Terminal to finally disconnect.
I set up a weekly lunch data with my father. He's the primary caregiver for my step-mother who has advanced Alzheimer's. He needs a break once in a while, and I am happy to spend time with him. We've never been especially close, but he is fun to spend time with. He's a talented storyteller and good at making conversation.
I've assumed sole responsibility for the grocery shopping so that our weekends aren't partially given over to that chore. Wonder Woman wanted me to start making some of her favorite vegetables more frequently, so I've been loading up on asparagus, zucchini, fresh green beans and the like. She never turns down a cuppa either, so we've been having many mugs of the top-shelf Irish tea I love so much.
My sleep patterns are shot all to hell. We go to bed early because Wonder Woman likes to run before work. I am usually awake for good between 2:00 and 3:00 AM, when I get up to start writing. Of course, I get sleepy later on, indulging in a nap while sitting on the couch. I'd like to consolidate that sleep to a continuous period during the night but so far it's not working out.
We've had a couple of weekend getaways. One was to Raleigh for my birthday where we had a good time visiting our favorite restaurants and shops. Then we went down to the South Carolina low country for a race. Next weekend is the first camping trip of 2025 with five of the grandkids. Next month we are going back to Southwest Virginia for the first time since Hurricane Helene. My kiddos have been on the road too or are getting ready to. My daughter and family went to Costa Rica for a family vacation. She's been sending me daily pictures and keeping me updated. My son is preparing for a trip next week to Frankfurt and Berlin for business. His passion is art and I hope he gets a chance to see some good museums between meetings.
As you can see, I have not been bored or looking for things to do. My dream of long spells of uninterrupted time to write has yet to come to fruition, but it will get here soon enough.
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Giving Criticism
On my software review blog, AppAddict, I focus on apps I like and that I think will be helpful to other Mac users. The only time I write negative reviews is when I don't like a company's business practices or when my take on an app is different than that of the majority. I give apps a fair test and I'm generally willing to give a developer the benefit of the doubt. I've gotten good feedback from a number of them, including a few I've kind of idolized over the years. The day will come, though, when the author of one of the apps of which I was critical is going to hit me up with a WTF? I'll be glad to listen and if I got something wrong, I'll correct my mistake.I won't just change my take on it because someone asks me to. Lame.
I don't think many people are good at giving constructive criticism or negative feedback. Have you ever had a boss that would email the entire department when trying to correct one person's behavior because they were just to chickenshit to talk to them one on one? I endured that for years with more than one boss. Another indicator of poor people skills is when a boss waits until your annual performance review to criticize you, instead of being a coach or a mentor. Managers get paid to manage, but too many of them don't seem ti like that part of the job.
Giving criticism isn't being mean. Sometimes withholding it is. It's a skill that can be learned. Here are some resources.
How To Give Constructive Criticism: 6 Helpful Tips - Personal Excellence - Includes the infamous feedback sandwich method
Do You Know How To Write A Good Bad Review? | by Liz King | Medium - By now we all know where to look for online reviews — on Yelp, Google, or Facebook. But do we know how to write them, and do we understand how they can impact a small business?
Are You Being Too Critical in Your Relationship? | Psychology Today - Because we aren't taught how to navigate differences in our relationships, we tend to do it badly. However, as adults, we can learn to navigate differences in a healthy way, fostering more safety and connection in our relationships.
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How To Make Me Like Your Blog
Reblogged from last May because I like this one!
As I spend less and less time on commercial websites and more time
exploring the blogs on IndieWeb platforms, I am developing a type and
preferences. There's plenty to choose from.
I like tech but not too much tech
For better
or worse, it takes a fairly technical person to get involved in
blogging. A lot of the people I read are developers of some sort or
other even if they don't write about that part of their lives that much.
I enjoy reading about the relationship people have with the tech in
their life and how that has evolved over time. I find it interesting to
read about what people are making, although if a blog primarily consists
of code blocks and inside baseball talk about the nuances of particular
programming languages, I'm probably going to move on. Most people do a
pretty good job at striking a balance.
I like smart and smart-ass but not people who think themselves
smarter than everyone else
There are a few bloggers
who consistently write about how dumb people are and it's a big old turn
off. I like smart people. I like people smarter than me (not hard). I
even like people with a smart ass sense of humor but I have worked for
too long with stereotypical computer support people who think all end
users are stupid and I'm so very weary of that attitude. I think it's
great to point out the misconceptions of others but it's boorish if
that's the main thing someone writes about.
I like people whose political content is about peace,
compassion, equality and diversity
In other words,
I'm not a fan of, nor will I read very much of what passes as
conservative ideology these days. I don't want to live in a bubble but
I'm just not going to waste any of my remaining time on this planet
engaging with people who don't believe in climate change or the
importance of stamping out white supremacy or in allowing people to be
as non-traditional as they want to be. Luckily, I haven't run into too
much of that on Mastodon or Scribbles or Micro.blog.
I like consistency
If you are the kind of
blogger who just spits out content day after day, I'm here to tell you
to keep it up! I realize not everybody has that in them and that's OK.
With me, you just don't have to worry that you post too much. If you
only write a few paragraphs a week, it's harder to get to know you, to
develop curiosity about your the things you share. I don't always have
the time or the inclination to read 5,000 word missives, but I like
knowing what folks are up to.
I like friendly
I'm from the south and have
lived here my whole life. Down here we have a sort of innate
familiarity. We are apt to ask how your Mama's doing even if we don't
know her. I like people who come across with that same sort of vibe,
letting pieces of their real lives leak out. I absolutely do not mind
hearing about you feeling tired taking your kid to basketball practice
or shocking news about your grandma's affair. I like authentic people
who don't posture, who are just themselves, struggling like the rest of
us to make sense of a confusing world without resorting to barrier
building between themselves and their readers.
Quotes for Every Occassion - Please Share Yours!
I love quotes. Nothing would make me happier than for you to send me any of your favorites in an email, or post them on mastodon or Bluesky and tag me. I'll be glad to give a shout out to anyone who cares to share.
"Everything you can imagine is real." — Pablo Picasso
“Dreams are extremely important. You can’t do it unless you imagine it.” — George Lucas
"Who looks outward dreams, who looks inward awakens." — Carl Jung
I was doing some maintenance on my collection of quotes today, a relaxing, if never ending task. I had a few highlights I'd saved without also recording the author's name, so I did a full text search for them on Kagi and found out that Goodreads has a huge quotes repository. Every single quote I was looking for had a Goodreads page. I found pages for Albert Camus, Maya Angelo, Joseph Campbell and several other notables.
More Quote Websites
A-Z Quotes | Quotes for All Occasions
Best and famous collection of quotes at QuotesLyfe
My Collection of 500+ Authors and Quotes
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ACAB or Not?
The centrist and traditionalist wing of the Democratic Party stays perpetually irritated at the more progressive and leftist members of the party. James Carville recently said that "defund the police" were the three stupidest words ever uttered by a politician. I can never tell whether the Democrats who rake in all the corporate dollars are compromised progressives or not. I have a hard time believing that Barak Obama was ever truly against same-sex marriage, or Bill Clinton either for that matter, but both of them stood in front of news cameras and said they were. I tend to think they were both temporary sell outs for the sake of courting middle of the road voters.
Richard Nixon and George Wallace both ran a law and order campaign in 1968, appealing to older people who were put off by all the scary black people and the college kids raising hell about the war. For a long time, members of both parties were all about mandatory minimum sentences, building more prisons, and hiring more cops. Right-wing television has never met a killer cop they didn't like and defend. Most voters seem to be OK with short-changing all kinds of people in need to be able to spend money on law enforcement. Smart politicians try to scare the hell out of people because it works. Scared people vote for those they think will protect them.
I'll go ahead and say that no, I do not think All Cops Are Bastards (ACAB). I don't believe that all of any group is homogeneous. I do think that police work, unfortunately, attracts too many people who aren't suited for it. Too many cops shoot to kill, claiming they were scared for their life because some black person did something besides lay perfectly still on the ground. Too may judges and juries fall for that shit and too may people are dead because of it. Hey, it can be a scary job, I get it, but if you tend to frighten easily, don't sign up for the police. Do something else.
The tiny university where I worked spent big bucks buying gear for the campus police, including two four-wheel-drive vehicles and new long barrelled weapons. This was the same year they laid off librarians, admin assistants and humanities professors. Of course, they also changed the names of the DEI department since January too. But hey, people still have their pronouns in the email signatures and discreet pride flags can be seen, so the important stuff is covered, I guess.
I'm going to go ahead and say, too, that if you think we need militarized police forces with armored vehicles and arsenals of automatic weapons, you and I probably should not hang out. If you think we require more prisons while ignoring aging school buildings, stay away from me. If you are already over the death of George Floyd and think all that Black Lives Matter stuff was a bad idea, well, you aren't alone, but neither are you right.
All over the US, people who were late to the party to recognize police violence against people of color are already sauntering back to their liberal (I don't mean that in a good way) attitudes. That's when you support people of color as long as they don't live next door. The right-wing crazies are making room for the reluctant supporters of maybe, just maybe, spending a little less on cops and a little more on preventing crime to abandon that risky idea. I mean, when James Carville is calling you stupid, how can you be right?
Well, not me folks. I'm all for spending money on kids, education, health care, poverty prevention and a host of other worth causes and instead of the po-po. I don't think giving the police even more immunity from violent crimes they commit is anything but crazy. I think that anyone who is afraid to publicly state that Black Lives Matter is a POS. Sorry, if the shoe fits. I'm not going to be one of those white folks who are secretly relieved that it is OK to be a little racist again. I'm not going to sell out my LGB or my T friends either, no matter how easy it now is to get away with it. Why, because right is right and wrong is wrong and popular opinion ain't got shit to do with it.
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Underrated Awesome Stuff
One of my favorite parts of living in the information age is the ease of discovery of entertainment options. I remember when we had to wait for the TV Guide to show up in the mailbox, listen to FM radio and read the siges outside the cinema for information. Now, thanks to huge databases and fan communities, you can get in depth suggestions from your digital alter ego at a moment's notice. It's also fun tio find out what your friends like. You can ask questions and give feedback. Here are a few under the radar picks from yours truly.
Books
TV Shows
Movies
Communication Evolution
For years when I was growing up, my Mom's husband refused to get a telephone put in our house. What was strange was that he was a journalist. He spent so much time at the newspaper office that they never needed to call him at home. The rest of us just did without talking to our grandparents or friends except in person. I'm not sure how my mother managed to arrange visits with the family, but she figured it out.
One set of grandparents were on a party line. One long ring meant the call was for them. Two short rings meant it was for the neighbors. If you wanted call someone in the same town, you only had to dial five numbers. Theirs was the first phone number I ever learned and more than 50 years later, I still remember it.
I moved to my uncle's farm when I was a freshman in high school. He and my aunt lived in a 100-year-old farmhouse that thankfully had a telephone, but just one. It had about 50 feet (ca. 15 m) of phone wire tethering it to the wall, so it was semi-portable if you cared to string the wire all through the house to get someplace where you could talk in private.
I wasn't dying to get a cell phone when they first became popular. The whole process of typing out texts on a keypad seemed utterly ridiculous and only business executives and politicians had Blackberrys. Besides, I wanted an actual portable computer, so I spent my money on a Palm Pilot at first. I eventually had to get a cell phone for work. My youngest daughter got a job at Subway, just so she could buy a cell phone, buy somehow I got stuck with the bill. She started dating a GI whose home state, and cell phone number were both Florida based. It didn't matter that he was right down the road at Ft. Bragg. Every time she called him, and she called him A LOT, it was a long-distance charge. She also couldn't stay within her limit of text messages and I got a few surprises there too.
I wish I had the nerd cred to claim ownership of a first gen iPhone, but I didn't make the move until 2009. One of my co-workers was at the Apple Store on Day One though, and he laid down the dough for that squat, under-powered little world changer. There wasn't even an app store. You just went to websites that acted like apps. Steve Jobs said they were just as good.
Once I got an iPhone, I became one of those new phone every year people for the next decade. I made a few release day drives to the nearest Apple Store, a 75-mile one-way drive from home. Luckily, I've never broken a display despite dropping the damn things hundreds of times. I've even driven off with my phone on the hood of my car and didn't break it by slinging it onto the road. I have washed an iPhone in the washing machine. I was sad about that. I also left my phone and wallet at a store when out on a long bike ride once and didn't get either of them back.
I kept the iPhone 11 for four years. I only upgraded because Obsidian wouldn't work correctly on a phone that old. Of course, these days everyone has a phone. My parents both have iPhones and only call me about them occasionally. All but the youngest of the grandkids have phones and I absolutely love texting them. If Wonder Woman and I do anything fun without them, I let them know. I don't go in a candy store without sending "Wish you were here!!" One of our kids, the youngest is a rebellious sort occasionally goes over to the dark side and rocks an Android from time to time. My sister, who has multiple degrees, good politics, a kind heart and a giant brain, has never owned a single Apple product in her life, a character flaw if there ver was one. My Republican brother is also Not An Apple Person. Everyone else is, though.
I like to look at my usage stats from time to time. My goal each month is to have less than five minutes of actual voice use. I don't care how much data I burn through or how many messages I send and receive, I just don't want to talk on the phone. This isn't the 80s.
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Can We Agree That Recipe Blogs Are the Worst?
I like a great many elements of the Internet, even in 2025, when cookie banners, privacy warnings, newsletter subscription popups and the like rob us all of some joy while we browser. I get hives when I have to search for a simple recipe. Every person who's ever read an article on how to monetize a blog seems to have decided that the blog they need to create should have recipes and a metric ton of search engine optimization crap on it. Not only that, instead of just saying "This is good. You should cook it." Recipe bloggers need to talk about how their Aunt Nancy made the recipe on ger organic Vermont rabbit farm when they were kids. I don't like it. Not a fan.
Here are some recipe websites where you don't have to deal with that anxiety inducing clutter. If you want to make some cornbread, they will tell you how to do it without commenting on how you should feel about doing it.
Tips on Being a Good Spouse
As a happily married person, finally, with a lot of experience being an unhappily married person, I'm going to share a few lessons I learned the hard way. They may not be universally applicable, so use your head. You know your partner better than I do.
Time
I believe that when it comes to spending time with your mate, quality, and quantity matter. If you limit the time you spend together intending to making that time extra-special, you run the risk of creating unrealistic expectations and putting too much pressure on you both. Wonder Woman and I do things together that aren't on most people's data night list. We go to the grocery store and run errands together. We go to our grandkids events together. We have time apart too, but the important thing for our marriage is that we like each other's company. Even when we aren't actively in conversation, we stay in the same room to read or work.
Honesty
Come as absolutely as close as you can possibly get to being 100% honest. Lying, either overtly or by omission can be habit-forming. It will always be damaging. Being honest with another person is the way that you demonstrate respect for them. Not doing things that you feel you have to lie about is the way to demonstrate that you really and truly do love them. Hopefully, you are with someone you are not afraid of, so telling them an unpleasant truth may not be fun, but it won't be damaging. Feeling that you just can't be honest with the person you are with is a fatal sign.
Communication
Honestly, I could be a better communicator when things are bothering me. I'm not one to complain or criticize as a general rule, but there are times when It would be better to say something than try to just deal with a negative feeling. What I am good at, and what I practice regularly, is being vocally supportive and complementary. Wonder Woman knows in her heart of hearts that I consider her beautiful, intelligent, hardworking and kind. I don't let a chance go by to build her up. It's all honest too, not flattery. I think she is remarkable, and I let her know that regularly. I grew up with men who were not complimentary and I didn't like it. I try not be that way.
Respect
When you love someone, you treat them with respect. Full stop. I make decisions on things I do, based on how will they will affect my wife. We worked at the same place for a couple of years and the way I acted was definitely influenced by my desire not to cause any issues for her. Have I ever fallen short here? Absolutely, but hopefully, I've learned from my mistakes. I know what she considers important and because of the way I feel about her, that makes those things important to me by proxy. I laughingly refer to her preferences as "the rules," but in reality, there are things I do because I respect her and that's the way to show it.
This doesn't come close to a comprehensive list of what it takes to have a happy home life. It's a good start, though. I hope you have someone to practice this stuff with.
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The Fourth Time is a Charm
(Originally published in June 2024)
By the time I was mature enough for marriage, I'd already been married twice, once to my high-school girlfriend with whom I had two children and again to a woman I met in drug and alcohol rehab. I can't say that I'd suggest either one of those places as the ideal location to find your life partner. Marriage #1 lasted about three years. I still see her, of course, we have the kids and the grandkids, and I'm pleased to announce that our early parenthood didn't ruin anyone's life. She is a successful IT security consultant in the DC area, and our kids are both professionals. Marriage #2 also lasted about three years, during which time neither of us drank or used drugs, although maybe it would have been better if we had. It was pure insanity. I haven't seen her in over 30 years, and that's perfectly fine by me.
I met my third wife at the tail end of my 20s in the Westinghouse factory, where we both worked on the manufacturing floor. We were married for 18 years, most of them pretty happy. I had custody of my two children, and she had a daughter that I raised with her. During our marriage, she got a degree in elementary education. And became a second-grade teacher. I found my calling in IT. We supported each other until the very end, when it became obvious that we'd grown apart. She spent most of her time wrapped up in school, and I pursued riding my bicycle to fanatical ends. By this time, all of our kids were grown and gone, and it was just over. Four years after our divorce, she died of non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.
I've been with Wonder Woman since 2012. When we met, we were both into endurance sports, me mostly cycling and her in triathlons, although running is her true talent. Fittingly, our honeymoon was a five-month thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. Like me, she had two children early and between the two of us, we have five kids and thirteen grandchildren. I was a little apprehensive about several things when I first met her. My fragile male ego had never been out earned by a partner in my life and she was a CPA and partner in one of the largest accounting firms in the area. I had to get over that. I have always been just an average athlete, but she is a true competitor, blessed with well above average physical skills and a tremendous discipline to train and get the most out of every iota of talent she possesses. She has never, not one time, ever made me feel bad for not being able to keep up with her. I had to have both knees surgically replaced and during my ongoing rehab, she's content to go as slow as me as I lumber around the neighborhood.
We typically watch an hour of TV a day, always with her laying in my arms with her head on my chest. We have a huge sectional sofa, but we choose to sit right beside each other. Not only that, but we worked at the same place after I came out of retirement. Of course, she's the associate VP of finance, and I was just doing end user support in the IT department, but it doesn't matter. Riding together back and forth, eating lunch together and having the same co-workers was pretty cool. My kids love her to death. My son flew up from Texas to help me serve as her support crew when she ran her first 100-mile ultramarathon. He ran a 16-mile leg of the race at 3am to serve as her pacer. Our grandkids are just that, our grandkids. Her daughters lost their dad shortly before we got married, and although I am not his replacement by any means, I still love them very much.
I know I am a very lucky man. Not having the best track record at marriage hasn't kept me from finally having a successful and happy one. We don't have "buy a helicopter" money, but we do all right. We've traveled a fair bit, and we can be there for our kids if they need us. Likewise, we make each other happy most of the time. She wishes I could match her energy sometimes and I wish she'd take it easy sometimes, but ultimately, we are fine. She is a classic introvert, and she's taught me how to value time recharging at home. I like people, and she's come a long way in her willingness to interact with folks she doesn't know well. As clichéd as it may be, we really do complete each other.
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Newsletter Management
Modern email clients typically have robust filtering options. If you get email you don't want, and you can't be bothered to unsubscribe, you can filter it right into your trash, spam or into a folder that you never look at.
Gmail - How to filter email
Fastmail - How to set up rules
Apple - Filter emails on a Mac
Many other services let you create aliases so that you can easily determine if any spam you get is coming from an address you used at a certain website. Because management is easy and because I like having useful information come to me instead of searching for it, I subscribe to a lot of newsletters. I even pay for a couple of them.
There are some easy to use tools out there for dealing with newsletters. Inoreader, my RSS provider, gives subscribers 20 different email addresses to use to subscribe to newsletters with. You can use the same address for different newsletters, so you aren't limited to just 20 subscriptions. Instead of reading the newsletters in your email app, you can read them in an RSS app or the Inoreader website.
It's common for people with established email accounts to feel overwhelmed by the amount of email they receive. The Unroll.me app can analyze your inbox and help unsubscribe you from newsletters you no longer want. It can also consolidate what you do want to receive into regular digest, combining many emails into just one. It's a free service to boot.
Here are some worthy newsletters to subscribe to:
I have a couple of newsletters now. One is a weekly collection from my personal and links blogs that goes out on Mondays. - ✏️ Subscribe | Amerpie by Lou Plummer
The other newsletter is a daily app review, in case you don't have enough software in your life - Subscribe | AppAddict Newsletter
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This Week's Bookmarks - Best TV Performances, Best Musicals, Putinization of US, Horse Racing, Opting Out of Tech, COVID Makeover, US Descent, Movies from Books
The 100 Greatest TV Performances of the Century - When one thinks of the defining TV performances of the past 25 or so years, what comes to mind?
The 25 best musical movies of this century - The Washington Post - From "Les Mis" to "La La Land," from "Walk Hard" to "Wicked," these films show that the musical genre isn't just standing – it's got new moves, too.
The Putinization of America - The Atlantic - Trump's deference to the Russian dictator has become full-blown imitation.
Dead Athletes. Empty Stands. Billions to Keep Horse Racing Alive - The obvious solution here is also the simplest: Just stop. Let the sport stand on its own and dwindle to whatever size its fan base supports. Instead, state legislatures keep funneling money to it. "The biggest fear that our industry has is that the states are going to stop subsidizing, using slot machines to subsidize the sport," said Jeff Gural, who owns three harness racing tracks. "Without that, there is no sport
The Opt Out Project - Yes, you can live without Big Tech. If data is the new oil, then I'm here to help you go electric. Join the resistance.
How Covid Remade Our America, Five Years Later - t's impossible to imagine that humanity would suffer a global pandemic and come out unchanged. And we certainly didn't. "America is a harsher place, more self-interested and nakedly transactional. We barely trust one another and are less sure that we owe our fellow Americans anything — let alone the rest of the world."
America is Going Just Great - A timeline of America's descent into a fascist hellscape
New and Upcoming Movies Based on Books 2025 - From 'The Housemaid' to 'The Women in Cabin 10': Upcoming Book Adaptations in 2025. From beloved classics to recent releases, a myriad of books are set to be reimagined for the small and big screens.
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Regional Cooking
I don't think I am sophisticated enough to qualify for foodie status. For one thing, I'm fairly cheap. While I enjoy cooking, I don't enjoy spending hours in the kitchen, reading cookbooks or hunting down ingredients. I just like to eat. When I travel, I'm always on the lookout for regional dishes fixed the way locals eat them. If I miss out, I'm sad.
Eastern North Caolina
First off, where I'm from, barbecue is not a verb. It's not something you do. There is no such thing as a barbecue, singular. You are thinking of a cookout or maybe a grill if your mind is on an appliance. No, here in Eastern North Carolina, barbecue refers to one thing, pork, cooked low and slow and seasoned with a vinegar-based sauce that also contains chili flakes, brown sugar, salt, and pepper. The preferred way to prepare barbecue is a whole hog at the time over hardwood coals, preferably hickory. Admittedly, a good portion of it is prepared on gas grills that those proficient at hog cooking pull behind their pickup trucks to the site of the next pig picking, the name that we give to meals where barbecue is served. The traditional side dishes are coleslaw, potato salad, baked beans and fried cornbread, known as hush puppies.
Texas
Texas is the one other place in the world where what they call barbecue is truly fit to eat. Whether it is my favorite, brisket, ribs, burnt ends or even turkey. chicken or kielbasa, they know how to make it taste exquisite. Tex-Mex is the other regional dish you don't want to miss, particularly breakfast. Their breakfast tacos and migas are my favorites
Chicago
I'd never heard of Chicago-style hot dogs until well into the 21st century. Served on a sesame seed bun and not contaminated with ketchup in any way, they use condiments, including celery salt, that I have not seen anywhere else. The other enjoyable meal I ate in the windy city was Chicago-style pizza, a deep dish specialty that makes it hard to eat more than a couple of slices.
Maine
The two great Maine dishes to me are whole belly clams and of course, a steamed fresh lobster. What makes them taste even better is if you are half starving when you get them. I had both dishes while hiking in Maine as part of my Georgia to Maine hike of the Appalachian Trail, the last 240 miles (ca. 386 km) of which go from the New Hampshire border to the peak of Mount Katahdin in Baxter State Park. They sell seafood everywhere in Maine, it seems. I had the best clams I've ever eaten in a gas station / grocery store in the historic little town of Andover. I was talked out of getting a lobster roll after it was described as lobster and mayo on a hot dog bun, compared to the fresh fried clams that were sweet and tasty and nothing like the battered rubber bands I'd eaten my whole life.
Belfast
Forget drinking Guinness or eating Irish stew. If you are looking for the most authentic meal in the six counties of Northern Ireland, you're going to get it for breakfast. You may not need to eat again for the rest of the day. The Ulster fry consists of bangers {sausages), streaky bacon, beans, eggs, white pudding, black pudding and tomatoes, with the addition of griddle-baked soda farls (quarters) and potato bread. A few mushrooms are also acceptable, but don't get crazy and order has browns. They have a condiment, called brown sauce, that we don't use in the states. You should try it too. Furthermore, order some tea to go with your fry, fixed sweet and milky.
New York City
Walking in to an authentic slice joint anywhere in the five boroughs of New York to get pizza for a quick and affordable meal is a treasured experience. You can see anyone in these places from corner boys to Wall Street executives, and tourists, many, many tourists. I'll also confess to eating one of those dirty water hotdogs from a cart on the Manhattan end of the Brooklyn Bridge.
Santa Fe
I did quite a bit of research before traveling to Santa Fe. The dish that was suggested as being most representative of the area was green chili stew. Man oh man, was it good. New Mexico's signature dish is typically made from roasted local green chili, cubed pork, potatoes, onions, garlic, broth, and various spices. The flavor is a mix of savory, spicy, and slightly smoky, with a rich, broth.
A few other places I'd like to shout out along with their foods are Miami and pork with black beans and rice, fixed Cuban Style. If you go to the South Carolina low country, get some shrimp and grits. A trip to Cincinnati is incomplete without a bowl of their signature chili. Paris is renowned for its fancy chefs, but just slip into a pâtisserie and sample some baked goods. If you're ever in Alaska, get the haddock. It's delicious.
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The Great Eastern Pine Forest
Although I live in town, the region where we are located is still largely rural. The military reservation for Ft. Bragg, covering 161,000 acres is close enough that artillery fire routinely rattles our windows. During World War 1, the government bought hundreds of farms and timber tracts to create the installation. Except for a few historical churches and cemeteries, all the civilian homes and buildings were removed. The land was allowed to return to its natural state as part of the great eastern pine forest. Carefully managed through the same type of controlled burning that the Native Americans once practiced, the landscape resembles what the Highland Scots who settled the area saw when they traveled up the Cape Fear River to settle here. Today, the land on Ft. Bragg is wild enough to support the endangered Red Cockaded Woodpecker, which lives and nests only in the cavities of mature long-leafed pine trees.
When I travel, I enjoy observing the signature characteristics of what region I am in. If you've ever flown into Ireland, you know why they call it The Emerald Isle. Seeing Pike's Peak towering over Colorado Springs is breathtaking. Send some time in New Hampshire and you will see why they call it The Granite State.
In North Carolina, especially In the coastal plain area where I am from, pine forests are our trademark. The nickname of our state's flagship university, The Tarheels comes from the industry we once had using pine resin to make the tar that sealed the hulls of wooden sailing ships.
1920s Fort Bragg, NC: A Visual Trip | by Matthew Peek | NC Stories of Service | Medium
Longleaf Pine Forests: Protecting and Restoring Habitat | TNC
Long Journey of the Highland Scots | NCpedia
Red-cockaded woodpecker - Wikipedia
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My Favorite iOS Time Killers
When you have a lot of time to kill and nothing but your phone,
what apps do you turn to as time killers?
My wife is running a 10-hour race this weekend. As usual, I'll be there as her crew, filling her water bottles, handing her food and bandaging blisters in short little bursts of time every hour. The rest of the time, I'll be left with just my phone as entertainment. Unfortunately for me, I don't game. Confessions of a Non-Gamer
I'm also not one to watch movies on a phone. After a few YouTube videos, I start to get restless. I'm a reader with attention span issues. I'm prepared to do without Internet, although hopefully I'll have connectivity. These will be my go to apps.
Pocket: Stay Informed - Pocket is where I save all the articles I want to read, but don't have time for. I also have a couple of RSS feeds that go straight to Pocket. I can add to it on my phone or my Mac. It's also integrated into Inoreader, my feed reader. You can download your saved articles for offline access.
Amazon Kindle - The cool thing about Kindle books is how little space they take up. I have hundreds of books saved on my phone.
NextDraft - I've been reading Dave Pell's daily links blog for over a decade. He suggests and comments on about a dozen stories a day and has a real knack for digging up fascinating content. He's as good at as anyone, even Kottke.
Medium: Read & Write Stories - Since its inception, I've read most Medium stories on Archive.ph. Then one of my cousins started a Medium blog and I got a subscription. It's been nice. Removing the friction and having the ability to subscribe to blogs has exposed me to a lot of good content.
Amerpie's Custom Tech Feed on Reddit - I will confess to being addicted to Reddit like no other place on the Internet. If you hang out in the wrong places there, it can be a real downer, but it also has some helpful and fun communities too. This is my collection of 37 tech related subreddits and where I hang out the most.
I don't think I'll die of boredom.
On Memory
Secretariat winning the Belmont Stakes
As a sports obsessed kid, I committed statistics to memory without even trying. I'm normally not much of a numbers guy, math and I are mortal enemies, but I could remember Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average, .367, the number of home runs Babe Ruth hit in his career, 714 and the name of the only pitcher to win 500 games, Cy Young. I knew the number of lengths by which Secretariat won the Belmont Stakes, 50 and the name of the only horse ever to beat Man O' War in. race, Upset. I learned all these facts in the 70s and they've never left me.
On the other hand, the plans Wonder Woman makes and shares for our present day lives are not usually something I can recall a day or two later. I know we are going somewhere to do something on a certain date, but I'm never really quite sure, without asking several times, where it is we're heading and what the activity is we are going to do. Future date do not stick in my mind.
I was on the Quiz Bowl team in high school, where groups of students from all over the state competed to answer the kind of questions that make you good at Jeopardy. Most of my teammates were Beta Club and National Honor Society members while I was a very determined C student trying to graduate from high school without ever doing any homework. I did not have a good work ethic when it came to school. If a subject required memorizing and regurgitating material, I was golden, but when you had to puzzle out answers like you do in Algebra and Chemistry, well, I did not shine there.
The years of hard drinking I subjected myself were bad for my memory in two ways. I killed a lot of brain cells. My IQ is measurably lower post recovery than it was when I was tested as a teenager. That's the price I paid for the lifestyle I lived. I'm just gald to be sober. eTh other thing that living in addiction does is give you a great many things over which to feel guilty. Drunks and addicts make poor decisions. They get in trouble. They let people down. Repeatedly. Acknowledging that and putting it behind me took years and honestly, some of those memories will never cease to be painful.
My Dad married my step-mom when I was 17. She worked for years for Northrup Grumman where she was hired as an administrative assistant and left as an executive. She is the only person to ever master my fathers difficult personality. She has always handled his various quirks and oddities with great skill and all of us admire her for that. We can't do it like she does. She is 79 now and has advanced Alzheimer's disease. Dad is her caretaker and it isn't easy. Like a lot of people with her illness, she can become verbally abusive for no apparent reason. She requires a lot of patience and compassion. I cannot tell if she still knows who I am, but I tell her I love her and hug her when we meet. If she wants to talk to Dad while I'm visiting, I keep quiet. They have a home health assistant who comes over five days a week and when I asked my step-mom last weekend how she like her, she didn't know who I was talking about.
Seeing what Alzheimers does to her memory helps me not feel sorry for myself because I lost 5% or 10% off my edge. I get by just fine. I'm not as good at some things I as I'd like to be, but I'm not handicapped, just a bit humbled. Even though Wonder Woman wishes I was better at retaining information that really matters, she still professes to be amazed when pull random facts out of the air. Somebody has to remember all of Roosevelt's vice presidents. It might as well be me.
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Time Travel
I've enjoyed all types of science fiction since I was in junior high school, but the one type of sci-fi novel that has always been my favorite are time travel books. I think because I also enjoy historical fiction and have spent many an hour imagining myself back in the past, the notion of time travel is particularly appealing. For some reason, I have never had a desire to go to the future. Even before climate change started ruining that for everyone, I just wanted to see all the different historical eras about which I've read so much.
Here are a few of my favorite time travel books.
Blackout (All Clear, #1) by Connie Willis | Goodreads and All Clear: A Novel (Oxford Time Travel) by Connie Willis | Goodreads - two novels that take place in London during The Blitz, they give a convincing look at what life was like in the tube shelters as the residents of the city underwent Nazi bombardment. The evacuation of children to the countryside is also covered as is the Dunkirk evacuation. The time travelers are historians from Oxford University in 2060.
11/22/63 by Stephen King | Goodreads - I think Steven King is as entertaining as any writer who has ever lived. I'm not a literary critic, I just like a good page turner and this book certainly qualifies. It has the usual King touches of life in Maine and many, many unexpected twists. You can tell King did a lot of research for the book, so even if your more knowledgable than most about the Kennedy assassination, you won't be put off by incorrect details.
Outlander (Outlander, #1) by Diana Gabaldon | Goodreads - My daughter looked at me dubiously when I asked to borrow her copy of the first Outlander book. I didn't know that it was considered a romance novel. Even after finishing the book, I wasn't convinced that it wasn't for men too. There are plenty of details about the rebellious Scots and the dastardly British Army. I enjoyed it.
The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August by Claire North | Goodreads - Unlike most time travel books I enjoy, this one didn't take place in a historical era. It covers the same years of the 20th century, over and over and over again, as Harry August dies and is reborn with total recall of the lives he's led in the past. Calire North does a good job of keeping it interesting.
The Door Into Summer by Robert A. Heinlein | Goodreads- Some of the later works of Robert A Heinlein were problematic, a little too right wing and way too sexist for modern sensibilities, but his novels from the Golden Age of science fiction are delightfully imaginative. Heinlein has a fertile imagination and a deft touch with dialog. This is the story of a man who was tricked into going into suspended animation only to awaken to a world where time travel is possible. He goes back to deal with the people who tricked him.
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