A Weblog of Ephemera
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In Praise of Taxi queues
Is ride sharing really better than grandpa’s way?
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Some tips on making yogurt
A friend asked for my tips on making yogurt. It’s easy but has its quirks.
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Letter to a friend
A few thoughts for a new Canadian friend, who wants to know why Americans aren’t in the streets. Fair question.
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X, etc
After early enthusiasm and then years of disregard—sometimes deliberate avoidance—I recently decided to explore, and even engage again with Twitter. I mean X.
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UMLS Reading List
Gents: The page is pretty self-explanatory. I’m not putting a link to it here because we don’t want the whole world to join. I texted it to you last night, if you can’t find it, text me and I’ll send it again.
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Don Giovanni
Herding the cats for a DG field trip this fall. FAQs at the bottom.
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Met Opera Database 25-26
Back by popular demand (not really), here’s the fourth edition of the list of operas we plan to see next season at The Met. Like last year, we have tickets for seven. The whole season is listed; the ones we’ll see are in green, at the top.
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Met Opera Database 24-25
Back by popular demand, here’s the third edition of our list of operas we plan to see this season at The Met. We’ve splashed out a bit and have tickets to see seven, one more than usual.
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Met Opera Database 23-24
As I mentioned last year, Patty and I see a lot of opera, usually at The Met in New York. There’s much detail in the operatic canon, so when deciding which tickets to purchase from the long Met season schedule, it sometimes helps to have a summary of what’s on the menu.
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Valhalla Mountain
A brief account of some pretty crazy backcountry skiing I did in British Columbia with friends a few weeks ago. It was a bit out of my league but I’m going back.
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Ten quiet days in Barre
I attended my second meditation retreat at the Insight Meditation Society this month. IMS retreats are silent, meaning one doesn’t speak or otherwise communicate for the duration of the retreat. This might seem extreme to modern digital sensibilities, but the idea is that this is the best way to quiet one’s mind for the actual purpose of the retreat.
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Crushers VT '22
As promised, the Crushers came to Vermont in July ‘22. Jeff, Jeff, and Brian were here for five days, during which we took seven rides together, did some other stupid shit, and ate a lot of good food.
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Roaring Twenties
The idea that the COVID-19 pandemic (should it ever end) will be followed by the Raucous Roaring ’20s is something we can all get behind, but even spontaneity requires some planning. (?) To that end, here are some plans for The Crushers and our friends for the balance of this decade.
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No-Pain de Campagne
Here’s a quick illustrated walk through how I make Pain de Campagne (country bread) in the manner of Ken Forkish from his great book Flour Water Salt Yeast. I do it mostly as directed by the recipe, with a little more wheat flour than he uses, as you’ll see. You can find the pics alone in this Google Photos album.
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Met Opera Database 22-23
For people our age, Patty and I see a lot of opera, usually at The Met in New York. There’s much detail in the operatic canon, so when deciding which tickets to purchase from the long Met season schedule, it sometimes helps to have a summary of what’s on the menu.
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This is going to hurt. A lot.
The Crushers are coming to Vermont in July. It’s not going to be pretty. We intend to spend five days riding gravel and singletrack during the day, and visiting brewpubs etc at night. And sleeping, we’re going to do a lot of that.
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New Site
I finally decided to spruce things up around here, so following Carl’s advice, I set up jekyll and had a go. I’m no web designer, as you can see, but at least there’s a place for my stuff. I’m not interested in contributing to the Surveillance Economy any more than I must, which is why I have this site rather than using a more common social media platform. Less traffic, sure, but hey - you’re here, right?
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The Crushers
The Crushers did The Crusher together, but the Crusher didn’t care. The Crusher is a sufferfest run by the sadist Todd Poquette and his 906 Adventure Team. This year’s slog was an “enhanced gravel” test of will, but we prevailed.
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Three Going Up
Morning Moonlight Ascent - A pretty cool picture of Craig, John, and Fred from behind as we headed up Smuggs’ Sterling Mountain at 6:40 this morning.
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Not a Badass
But this pic, taken by my son Carl, makes me look like one, so I posted it here. This was a few weeks ago when Carl and I decided to go across the pond to Stowe.
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船を捨てるな!
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Don't give up the Ship!