Christopher Alexander
My 18-month-old sleeps great at night, but she has a hard time napping by herself during the day. My presence is usually enough to calm her anxieties so she can sleep, so I just hang out with her a bit after lunch on the weekends.
I’ve come to really enjoy this hour (sometimes two) of downtime with her while she sleeps soundly next to me. It’s a bit of a siesta and lets me focus guilt-free on reading, blogging, catching up on news, or checking Mastodon.
Just got home a little bit ago from a barbecue at my in-laws’ house. They had a Costco size bag of those Ruffles chips with homemade French onion dip. The kind I can’t keep at the house or I’ll obliterate them. Oof, I always have so many food regrets coming home from their place.
It’s been a while since I’ve had the time to conquer anything this big in terms of home projects. Honestly, I don’t have many full days to dedicate to projects like this, but I’ve been sneaking in an hour or two here and there. Even though it’s nothing fancy, it feels good to work with my hands.
Last week I removed a soffit, which previously held some cabinets I removed a few years back. Mostly I’ve just wanted to remove it because it was aesthetically ugly and functionally useless.
However, we’ve always heard a “knocking” noise from this area whenever anyone showers. It was just enough to be …
Exposé, Mission Control, Stage Manager….
I still use Hot Corners. Nothing can break me of it!
Here’s a photo of me (center right) and my brothers with my stepdad (~1992), rocking an undershirt in public at Niagara Falls. He was 30 when he took on 3 kids who weren’t his own. Happy Father’s Day.
I don’t know if it’s a result of my upbringing, or just a desire to do something with my hands in direct opposition to my desk job, but I love DIY home renovation. And boy, did I ever buy the right house to feed that desire. The last 7 years have been a lot of work just to get it to “passable”.
Given the weather at the coast was questionable today, we decided to head out to the Columbia River Gorge instead. Got some pizza at Double Mountain and now doing more exploring.
Few things bother me more than land use planners peddling the same ideas or practices over and over again that don’t work in the real world.
Fun fact about me:
I was named after my dad, but he left my mom when I was 2 years old. Later, he changed his last name in an effort to not be found. So I have a “II” suffix after my name for someone who no longer exists.
NYTimes:
Your special introductory rate is changing from $6/mo to $25/mo
NYTimes after I start the cancellation process:
Please accept our special offer, reducing your $6/mo rate to $4/mo for the next year!
They must know I was happy paying $6/mo, right? Right?
Doing my meal planning, I decided it’s been too long since I’ve had poutine. A lot of places in Detroit had this on the menu when I lived there, but I’ve only ever seen it once here in Portland. Not something you want to eat everyday, but it’s ok to have some comfort food once in awhile.
Started the gardening year late, but I think we’re gonna be okay. My tomato plants have grown quite a bit since transplanting. Just pruned the bottoms and put the side supports up.
One thing I really wish Apple would do is force in-app browsers to follow rules you’ve setup within Safari on iOS.
For example, if I have my local news outlets set to automatically convert to Reader mode when opening an article, it should also do that when I click an article in Google News.
Rule No. 1 as a land use planner: be very careful what you tell real estate agents.
Remember that the biggest predictor of work happiness is nonwork happiness. I have witnessed this throughout my own career, in myself and in others: When things are good in the rest of your life, they seem more stable and less bothersome at the job.
Despite getting a lot of rain 8 months out of the year, the PNW gets virtually zero precip during the 4 hottest months.
With worsening droughts, I’ve become a big water conservationist. 5 years ago, I had a 3,100 gallon rain cistern installed. I can burn through this in 2 mos. on just 3 raised beds.
People are often surprised to learn that I have Italian citizenship because I don’t look like a stereotypical Italian.
My great grandmother was fully Italian, but she and her family were from the Veneto Region, specifically Cadore in the Dolomites. She had blue eyes and blonde hair.
I created some iOS shortcuts awhile back that check Pitchfork’s Best New Music RSS feeds, presents a menu of recent items, and opens your selection in Apple Music if available.
Here’s the Best New Albums Shortcut I made, if anyone is interested: iCloud Shortcut Link
A peaceful morning walk with my first-born.
Current home improvement project: removing a soffit in my kitchen. It only took me 7 years to get this far after removing the cabinets when I moved in. Check back in 2026 when I have this thing patched.
Any other eldest siblings of the 80s and 90s wish they would’ve had some musical guidance during that time? Like, I should’ve been listening to Sonic Youth and New Order but instead it was Bon Jovi and Boyz II Men. I mean, I do appreciate the comedy of it all.
On the drive to school this morning, the kids were being unusually quiet, so I asked my 4-year-old son if he’d thought anymore about what he wanted to be when he grows up.
He’s been really interested in Spider-Man lately, so I was expecting to hear the usual stuff like ‘super hero’ or ‘fireman’. But he flipped the script and said he wanted to cut tumors out of people. That caught me off guard and tugged at my heart strings a little.
Unfortunately, I’ve had to have some tough conversations with him from a pretty young age. One of my younger brothers (his uncle) died in 2021 of a brain tumor at …
Hard to believe I’ve had my car for 10 years, almost a quarter of my life. Just waiting for that head gasket to go. (Photo from 2013)
Can someone create a guitar tuner app that’s accessible from iOS control center?
I did a Barre3 class with my wife this morning and it really helped me understand how my personal health has taken a backseat the last couple of years. I get out a lot, but rarely do full body workouts. Hope this helps motivate me moving forward.
