Category: Uncategorized
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Funeral
One of Joyce’s great-aunts past earlier this year. We had a Memorial for her in June. Lots of extended family was up at Itasca State Park. The visitation the night before the Memorial was very nice. Lots of stories, laughter, and tears. It was good for those grieving and for those a little further away.…
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Car Companies over the years
I was researching the number of car companies over time for an update to my IT books. I asked Gemini for some numbers and it gave me the below table. I presume that the numbers are off, but from the verification I did, they aren’t far off and are certainly correct from an order of…
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Interim Trash
At the last couple of jobs I had, I had a concept of interim trash. This was mainly in Outlook as there wasn’t much actual trash. Instead of deleting messages I didn’t need, I created an Outlook folder called “Keep 6 Months” and moved everything there. Well, not everything, if it was a legit email…
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A weak moment
Had to run errands the other morning. There is a coffee shop near the post office that also sells old school candy and amazing chocolate delights. I was having a weak moment anyway and had driven by the new donut shop, but they aren’t open every day. I was going to get a cup of…
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Trio
A friend of mine was playing in his jazz quartet at a coffee shop the other day. Musicians especially jazz musicians seem to thrive on a combination of structure and improvisation that doesn’t exist in many other arts. All the songs they played were well known jazz standards. But in the nature of jazz, the…
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Assume misunderstanding
Assume misunderstanding Seth Godin hits another one out of the park. In all but the most extreme situations, starting with this assumption gets you further. “Clarity, not grievance, is the solution to misunderstanding.” Excellent post.
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At least tell me!
I recently had someone damage something of mine in the course of using it. Not a big deal–stuff happens. I could just have easily done the same thing. The problem was that I wasn’t told. I discovered the damage my own. Initially, I worried that I had done it. But then realized that it was…
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Arnold and building your passion
I believe passion is built, not found. Yes, there is often a moment when a person realizes the connection with a thing. In the video below, Arnold mentions seeing the body building magazine. But I believe that if he hadn’t run across that magazine, he would have found something else to become his passion. It…
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Baseball under the lights
This is a different kind of baseball diamond from the one I posted the other day. The family went to a St. Paul Saints game and had a delightful time. Beer and brats were consumed. Good baseball was watched. We walked around the whole field trying to get the 10-minth old to sleep and took…
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The Phone In Your Hand
https://everythingmachine.io/phone/ The above link is a cool view of some of the fundamental technologies built into a cell phone.
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Field of Sadness
We were driving back from Milwaukee the other day and stopped at a casino. Me to give Luna a chance to walk around and do her business and Joyce to verify that the slot machines were still on their (terrible) payout ratios. (Spoiler: they were). Luna and I drove around back to a park and…
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Fortune Cookie, Aug 2026
An actual.fortune! A rare occurrence as most are just wise sayings. This one will likely become true. We camp a lot, even going into October this year which is getting late for glampers like us. The hard core go all year, but in Minnesota, that is more than we want to deal with.
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Primary voting
Luna could not vote. Something about insufficient voter registration. I didn’t have a problem though. First time I ever voted against somebody. Not something I’m happy with, but….
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Novel Name Change
My novel, formerly known as The Chess Game has a new name
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Barnes & Noble Maplewood, MN Aug 13 2026
At my home B&N, my future bookshelf slot is back to being next to Ray Bradbury. Either they haven’t restocked the other authors or they didn’t sell. It is a brutal business.
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Luna somewhere else
This is Luna finding a place to hang at someone else’s house. Two cats live there so Luna tries to stay inconspicuous.
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Small Pets
This article made me smile. I write a bunch of short stories about small pets. They are a set of science-fiction stories that take place long after humanity heads to the stars. Unfortunately, we can’t take our dogs and cats with us. So we figured out how to make pet-sized versions of lots of animals.…
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Artemis II Supercut
An 8 minute video using the hi-rez images and video from NASA. (h/t J. Kottke)
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Bruce Schneier: Should You Use AI for a Task? Work and the Gym
Whether or not to use AI–and for what tasks–is a question most of us answer on a regular basis. This article presents a new way to think about it. I’m not sure if I agree with it as a foundational way to decide, but it does add another thought to the mix. https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2026/07/should-you-use-ai-for-a-task-heres-a-simple-way-to-decide.html
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“I’m retired but not really”
“What I’m doing each day is what I’m choosing to do.”
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Baking for the County Fair
Joyce enters stuff into her childhood county fair every year. Mostly baked goods and photography. The photo is of this year’s entries. Everything she bakes has extra: at least one extra loaf of bread, lots of cookies, bars, donuts, lefse, pies (which I have mentioned in another post), etc. It is all very delicious, especially…
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Running Aces
We went to the horse track the other day. Harness Racing is the feature at this track. We brought some friends of ours. The amusing thing is that two people loved horses and two people loved betting and there was only some overlap between those two things. Since I was the only one that wasn’t…
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Challenging Scrabble Day
I’ve mentioned before about the regular scrabble game I play with my mom and her friends. The image is of my first-draw letters for the first game this week. Not a great start. I have not memorized all of the vowel only words so I was stuck connecting consonants other people played. I did not…
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Pies for the county fair
My wife is baking for the county fair competition up north. Last night was fruit pies. The best part was that she took all the left over filling, combined it, and made a, well, I’m not sure what to call the kind of pie she made. Perhaps “delicious” is the best phrase to use. I…
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Questions that really are Directives
“Are you going to wear that shirt?” “Are you going to take the trash out?” “Are you taking the dog for a walk?” “Will you fix the garage door tomorrow?” “Will you call the shop about the camper?” These are not questions regardless of who asks them.
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Pretend Moving
I remember a comment my dad made when I was in my early teens. People should move every few years to clear their houses of stuff they don’t need. This came up again when we were talking to friends of ours that are moving. They did a deep clean/toss/donate of their house and are very…
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“It’s time to start Christmas shopping”
My wife uttered this phrase today as we were in a coffee shop (of all places). She was making a perfectly serious comment about a little something she saw that would be good for someone in our family (sorry, kids, no hints). She is one of those people that is very good at getting the…
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Spamwich!
Yes, it was good. No, I don’t feel guilty. Yes, I will buy it again. #spam #spamspamspam I toured the Hormel plant where they make Spam in southern Minnesota a bunch of years ago. We didn’t see the production floor (obviously–visiting a food factory is now a terrorist prevention zone), but they had a big…
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Solid State Batteries explanation
https://open.substack.com/pub/constructionphysics/p/why-is-everyone-trying-to-build-a
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Goldilocks Zone: Filename version
https://x.com/i/status/2082728893820395554
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Spray cheese
There is no good reason for spray cheese. Except it is very tasty and very convenient. I’m sure it is an affront to cheese lovers everywhere. I don’t care because it is delicious. Especially with the Chicken in-a Biskit. Another tasty thing that snobs turn their nose up at.