Curry/Curried Spaghetti Squash

I accidentally bought a spaghetti squash. I thought it was your old butternut style squash...don’t get on my case. I know in retrospect when I thought about it those are the ones that look like big dongs. It’s not my fault they don’t call them dong squashes so they’re easy to remember. Anyway...no butternut squash means no butternut/corn curry bisque. This made me sad. So I went looking or SOMETHING to do with the spaghetti squash and found this recipe. I’m going to modify it, and I don’t remember where I got it. But I’m going to record it here so I don’t lose it, along with some notes.

0. Prep time. Squash roughly an hour. Everything else, like ten minutes concurrent with the squash for the most part.

1. Cut your squash in half – try to be exact in a King Solomon ruling sort of way because if you don’t, your 45 minutes of cooking time ends up being closer to an hour fifteen to account for the larger half. Honestly, the recipe said 375 for 45 minutes. I think you’re fine at 400/425 for an hour. You won’t overcook it unless you’re trying. If I need to say it, place the squash face down. Flesh down, skin up. If you get it wrong...it probably does not matter too much. Just watch for it to be soft.

2. When the squash is ready…soft, make sure it’s soft. You should be able to poke a fork through the skin or the flip side and it should go through without much resistance.

3. In a large saucepan heat up 1TB of olive oil and 2 TB of butter.

4. Mix in 3 large chopped cloves of garlic and 1 small diced onion. Cook it all up good like you do with onions so you get browned onions, not rubbery white onion in your food.

5. Add 14 oz of coconut milk, 1 TB of curry (I used Penzey’s Now), ½ TB of paprika, and 1 TB of good soy sauce. Good – if you don’t know if your soy sauce is good, go to your local Asian market, buy a dozen kinds, and experiment. This picks up the flavor, so you want it to have flavor.

6. Scoop the squash into the heated mixture. I started to cut it up and then I remembered I could just use a metal spoon to scoop and scrape it out. It should come out in tons of little strings. If you get a few chunks, they’ll fall apart if you mix them around. Heat, BUT DO NOT OVER COOK ONCE THE SQUASH IS IN THE MIX. You don’t want to make it fall apart and turn to mush.

7. Serve

8. Couple of notes. a. Don’t serve it over rice, it washes all the flavor out. b. Do curry to taste. I suspect other curry powders might work nicely. Going to have to try that. c. Peanuts...yum. The squash will have some texture, but if you like some crunch, crumble some peanuts in that bowl. I thought it might actually work to add some corn kernels as an alternative much like the butternut squash bisque I usually make instead d. We were of the opinion it might be excellent with some chicken added, but probably cook that up first so you’re not overcooking the squash. e. I didn’t try it, but some red pepper flakes seemed like a good idea for extra flavor and color. f. The original recipe says optionally add 1-2 TB hot sauce and 3 TB cilantro. We don’t do cilantro around here because someone is allergic (not me!). And it was plenty spicy with the Curry Now powder and paprika. I’d be careful with the hot sauce if you go that route to manage the heat and avoid overriding the rest of the flavors.

The Champagne Drops, Sarah Morris and the Sometimes Elves, and Stray Gods (all musically related)

Been a busy week. Our most exciting activity was getting new doors and windows. At 6 below F with no window blinds it’s a bit cool near the windows, but given all the leaks that finally went away because the old doors and windows were so loosely set (they pre-date us) the lack of drafts makes it almost balmy. They’ve got some staining to do and a city inspection and then we can worry about blinds/treatments and moving on to bathrooms, floors, and the basement washroom. Among other things. The goal is to sort of get it all in order for the next 22 years. I’m not sure if we’ll live her that long with a split level and Pooteewheet’s knees, but it’ll at least be ready to sell.

Caught The Champagne Drops at Crooner’s on Thursday. Leslie and Emily were great and we hauled along Kyle and Lisa for dinner, drinks, and music. Pooteewheet was happy they did Perchta about the Christmas witch Lisa regaled us with stories about how a drink on the menu was known as “Russell’s Nuts” in her youth (because of the filberts...and Russell).

Last night we went to the Icehouse to see Sarah Morris. That was COLD. It was cold last year parking in that neighborhood for the Icehouse. I think it’s trying to one-up itself every year. -1F by the time we left. Packed crowd. I almost didn’t get seats and I went after tickets pretty early. We were way in the back, but it was a raised table with no one on the other side, so a great view. Not as good as eye to eye with Sarah’s Mariah Carey doll last year, but still excellent. The woman who started the conga line last year sat next to us and started it up again this year. I figure Pooteewheet can’t participate with the faux knees, so I don’t get involved. The couple whose yard we go to concerts at during the summer were there (we saw them at Leslie’s album launch at the Parkway as well) and we talked for a while about gin versus bourbon old fashioneds, the yard series being on hold because of a disgruntled neighbor, and them having lived in York (UK) at one point. They’re looking at an alternate place in their neighborhood and they have a cabin they can host at, but the latter sort of excludes all the kids and neighbors who can just wander over for free music. I’m glad my neighbors and I like each other. Admittedly, I don’t throw music in the yard events (well, once, and my neighbor hosted it for the kid’s graduation), but we have neighbors who have dozens of cars show up for family feast days and it’s a blast even when the music runs a little late. It was a great gig at Icehouse with the Sometimes Elves, Annie, and Hayley Rydell. I think Pooteewheet was dubious about a Christmas concert and music the first time we went – not her thing – but she really looks forward to it every year now at the Icehouse or Hook and Ladder.

Been playing Stray Gods: the Role Playing Musical the last few days. Interesting story driven game with some of the regulars from the role-playing scene in it (Felicia Day, Laura Bailey, and others). It’s amusing because Pooteewheet and I are watching The Mighty Nein on Amazon and the same folks show up as voice actors. I’m really enjoying the game, but it’s less game and more animated comic book (in my opinion). Given I read graphic novels from the library on my computer, it’s my cup of tea, but with extra sweetener. Additionally, it has a very War for the Oaks (Emma Bull) vibe to it, particularly when Pan shows up in Grace’s apartment near the beginning. Full on Seelie Court urban magical realism tone. If I see the Witch’s Hat in the game at some point, I wouldn’t exactly be surprised. I do think it tries to force a little interactiveness in places it doesn’t have to. When you see a room full of things, you don’t click on those things, but pick them from a list and it describes them, often with no option to do something in relation to that object. And the choices – almost like a Choose Your Own Adventure – are definitely interesting, although you can’t always tell if a decision had a specific impact compared to other possible decisions. The roll-back time mechanism in Life Is Strange (love that game) is a little more interactive. Speaking of rolling back time, I never think about Life Is Strange without also thinking about Riley Rewind with a young Anna Akana (https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLyVaF6bvPQ-RTWiPtOaC2CdvqhY53UFWF). Don’t trust my teen movie / series taste, however. I loved Sadie’s Last Days on Earth and The Map of Tiny Perfect Things and only one of those two is considered watchable.

The game is musically driven and you make some choices mid song with a timer. The voice actors do the singing, so think of the quality as akin to the musical episode of Buffy or Scrubs. Not Neil Patrick Harris Singalong Blog level, but the amateur (and I mean still WAY better than me) nature of it definitely reinforces that urban magical realism vibe in the sense that a muse is pretty much nudging people into heartfelt song about the moment.

There’s a bit of a Boyfriend Dungeon (another great game) to it as well in that sometimes your choices come with an aspect of romance, although I haven’t been leaning in that direction (in Boyfriend Dungeon the goal is to hook up with the weapons, although some just become friends) and have pursued the “clever” storyline for Grace in the first act.

Don’t know if I mentioned it, but I’ve been teaching myself guitar. It’s going well. I swear I have sausage fingers, but that must not be unique. I’m six chords into it and focusing on the transitions, steady strumming, positioning (when I pluck each string on a chord is it unmuted and obviously working with the chord – that can be hard with an A where I have to stack my fingers close), finger strengthening, callouses (obviously – amusingly, playing keyboard games is harder if you callous over your fingers and try to use AWSD for directions), and some simple songs that leverage what I know so far. I’m not sure playing guitar is a comprehensive retirement plan, but I’d like it to be in that mix somewhere.

Tattersall Distillery, The Murder on the Links, and TMI

Been a busy weekend. Friday the family went to The Murder on the Links by Agatha Christie at Theatre in the Round. Might be one of my favorite Agatha Christie plays there so far. Not my favorite Agatha Christie story. But a really good adaptation by Kate Danley. A little shorter than some. Snappy. Good humor. A Poirot story with a foil in the form of Captain Arthur Hastings. I won’t ruin the plot, but in some ways it’s not that original. Then again, maybe it was when Christie wrote it.

Ben Tallen and Jake Leif as Poirot and Hastings, respectively, were excellent. Some real personality came through. I worried that Hastings was a little old for being as love struck and immature as he was in some aspects, but in places the not very old at all ex-military came through the performance/script, and it was a little more obvious how young and inexperienced with love he was supposed to be. Monsieur Giraud – which sounds like a spoof of Poirot out loud during the play – was the somewhat incompetent French inspector who was investigating the same case as Poirot. That’s a nice touch on Christie’s part. He added a lot of humor, someone to play off multiple misdirecting theories against, and quite a bit of interaction that wasn’t strictly Poirot and Hastings.

If you get a chance, I recommend it, although I think the TITR showings were running out of seating. We ended up in a non-standard spot for us and the place was absolutely packed.

Saturday I ended up at Tattersall Distillery to see Spiked! It’s a mixed revue – is that the right word? – with Brave New Workshop comedians, Ukrainian musicians, Leslie Vincent (jazz singer), and a host. I originally wasn’t going to go because Pooteewheet had a baby shower, so I’d be going on my own, but I reverted to my usual habit of “I’d normally pass, so that means I should go” behavior. Some of the best experiences in my life have been the ones where I just show up to something I’m not sure about. Not that I wasn’t sure about Leslie’s performing. That’s solid.

The distillery is over in River Falls. They used to be in north Minneapolis, not far from my father in law’s (and mother in law’s) old art studio. When they moved to Wisconsin, I figured it was simply an uprooting of the old setup plopped down over there. That is so far from the fact. The distillery is HUGE. Dining. Gift shop with all their spirit lines (and there are a LOT – their Tightline Vodka is my favorite vodka after getting a bottle of it after a Give Us Wings cycling event a few years ago; excellent taste, acceptable price point) and drink book by Bentley, their head distiller (and a really nice guy who’s into the local music scene – I spent an afternoon in his backyard this last summer listening to Surge and Swell, Emmy Woods, Bentley, and any kid that would come up to sing), among other things. And then a huge production facility and all sorts of space for dinner theater and meetings. Definitely want to go back for a dinner date with my spouse, although maybe it’s worth finding a hotel and calling it a whole thing.

I ended up at a table (it was a meal event) with two women from town, and we shared all sorts of favorite notes about area theatre and music. I’m not particularly charming, but I think I was at my best in my Santa-tee Manatee wearing a holiday hat Christmas sweater. The revue was fun. We got Ukrainian Chorus of the Bells, which was beautiful with a full band including a fiddle/violin. A mix of Christmas music in Ukrainian, English, and acoustic guitar solo. A huge variety of skits from four Brave New Workshop alum that included some audience participation. They pulled Brad onstage to be their therapist in a skit and after a few moments he asked for a pause so someone would fetch his drink from his table. The actor noted that their whole therapist relationship had a different tone now that he had a drink in his hand. They did a LOT of callback to Brad’s involvement during the event which helped tie together a lot of various holiday skits.

Leslie performed Joni Mitchell’s River, which I’ve heard her do before, and is a perfect non-standard Christmas song. And in the second half, she did Grinch (you’re a mean one). Grinch was a powerhouse performance. She went all in in this sparsely packed venue (there were quite a few people there, but the room was large, and it was nothing like her album launch at the Parkway) and when she was done both the audience and performers looked a little startled at how sexy and over-the-top a performance of Grinch could be. At the end of the show, one of the two women at my table, who’d seen Leslie say “hi” so she knew we were acquainted, said, “She is amazingly talented.” Then there was a just-long-enough-to-be-uncomfortable pause and she added, “I mean, everyone up there is talented. They’re all talented. But…”

Random note: if you like your Old Fashioneds sweet, the Wisconsin style with apple brandy is your jam. Good, but I’m not a fan, at least compared to the traditional rye version.

After the event, I put on my coat and wandered to the rest room before the 45 minute trip home. I found myself fussing with my jacket and noticed my Santa-tee sweater sleeves were sticking out weird. So I was tugging on my jacket sleeves. Tugging on my sweater cuffs. I was really confused and getting frustrated. After a couple of minutes I found myself wandering down the side hall and almost getting angry that I couldn’t get it all aligned and dapper. Which was because... it wasn’t my jacket. I’m looking at the buttons and thought, “those aren’t my buttons.” So I went back to the rack, and sure enough, there’s my jacket. I swapped and was walking away when a guy came over with a confused look on his face and started carefully looking at the rack. I confessed that I had pilfered his jacket, and he laughed and said it was his wife’s jacket and that she was so confused about whether she’d brought it in the first place, left it in the car, or misplaced it elsewhere. I didn’t steal anything out of her pockets, so everyone had a good laugh. Sorry there’s no photo of me in a woman’s coat so you can make your own opinion about how clueless I had to be to grab the wrong coat.

And, I snuck in a lot of Zwift riding end of week/weekend. I was telling Sank over beer and games at North 20 – bit of Azul, bit of Alhambra – when he told me about his poetry blog feedback, that there was always someone with a contrary opinion, and I thought I might get one when I blogged about bike training RPMs. So here it goes, a TMI moment. I’ve found that I’m not putting out quite as much power this season as I did last season, particularly in races. My average over an hour last year was about 240 watts. This year I’m closer to 220-225 and it cranks my heart rate up to 172. That probably says good things about my heart in the sense I’m not dropping dead off the trainer at my age. I can place in the lowest race category still – again, I’m not a spring chicken, so no racing with the super fit 20-30 year olds – but there’s a clear gap between where I am and the 2.4 watts/kg racers. Part of that is a couple extra pounds that are quickly going away. Part of it, after some contemplation, is that my RPMs suffered from summer riding activities. Puttering around the Twin Cities does not contribute to high RPM maintenance even if I had power meters on my pedals to track it. Looking at my metrics, I’ve gotten into the habit of 68-75 RPM, and a constant 85+ RPM is definitely something I feel. But 85 (or better) is where you want to be to race. It simply generates a lot more power. So once or twice a week I’ve been focusing on keeping my cadence up. But...and here’s your TMI...what I’ve found is that if you’re out of practice with your cadence, getting back into the flow of things can really stress your testicles. They’re simply not used to that aggressive spin. Your cycling shorts keep them mostly tucked and safe, and standing now and then helps, but it’s really a different level of friction. It’s already abating – but it was certainly uncomfortable for a few days. My men’s health Ted Talk – maintain your testicular habits instead of engaging in significant changes, they’ll appreciate your consideration.

The Island

When I watch something while I’m cycling indoors, it generally has to be fast paced. Action movies tend to have a lot going on between the dialogue, so I don’t miss anything if my heartbeat hops to 150+. And I DO miss things if my heart beat really gets up there and the sweat is pouring down and my brain stops working quite as well. Not so long ago I watched the Spartacus series, if that gives you a feel for what cuts through the calorie expenditure.

So I picked Michael Bay’s The Island as I’d never watched it and I enjoy dystopias, having majored in them at Hamline. I hated this movie. I like Logan’s Run. I even like Parts: The Clonus Horror when MST3K is riffing. But The Island... This was not a good movie, no matter how many “it’s the hidden treasure of the Michael Bay movies” apologists there are on the internet.

From the non-stop product placement, to the “the island is us” sex scene, to the weird objectification jabs at Scarlett (and they were really strange – like construction worker pickup lines and peeking down her shirt when her organs are going to be harvested, although maybe you could make the case that’s about all parts of a woman being on the table as a commodity – but I don’t think he goes anywhere near that deep philosophically or ethically), to everyone just sort of wandering outside at the end and the well off folks who know there’s a problem at the facility and didn’t have a problem with harvesting thinking beings sort of throwing in the towel and giving the breakdown of the system no mind, there was not much to love about this movie. Although this syfy write up disagrees with me and says you can’t really go wrong with twice the Ewan MacGregor. https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/47-thoughts-we-had-while-watching-the-island. Fine, although douchey original Ewan is really damn annoying. I recommend that syfy list of 47 thoughts. It sums things up better than I could on a 15 year (2020) rewatch.

Thanksgiving Bollywood Binge

I’ve been on a bit of Bollywood kick lately. I’m currently re-watching Don, which I watched a long time ago. But I haven’t seen Don 2 and wanted to catch it before it leaves Netflix, so I’m reacquainting myself with the movie despite remembering it fairly well.

The two movies I watched over the holiday weekend were Crew and Shehzada. Crew was amusing. Three women work for an Indian airline, aren’t getting paid, and decide to start smuggling gold. Eventually the airline goes bust as the well-off owners abscond with the assets. At that point, the movie takes a turn and the women start to develop a conscience. I preferred the first half where they didn’t worry about the consequences, other than to themselves, and were busy bonding with each other. It had a working-class versus owners vibe. Where they tried to be blatant about it, I don’t think it worked as well. Where it snuck in like the chairman of the airline complaining about his taxes while living it up, and the flight crew commenting on taxes while trying to keep kids in school, food on the table, and elderly parents cared for…that was much more on point. It was a nice parallel that highlighted the ridiculousness of the owner class concerns about taxes.

A small nitpick. I did not like the scene where they went to the middle east to Oceans 8 the gold, and the Bollywood dance scene involved women in beaded face veils that were very middle eastern in nature. Although it did push the point that the chairman (and lackeys) had fled there for a life of debauchery in a place known for religious anti-debauchery. So perhaps I had less of an issue with the veils than an issue with that the whole scene didn’t seem too far off as far as wealth-related hypocrisy in all things.

If you draw the lines, you’ll see that the next movie I watched, Shehzada, has an actor in common. Kriti Sanon. She reminds me a little of a cross between Anuskha Sharma and Alia Bhatt. I enjoyed her in Crew, but she pretty much vanished after the first part of Shehzada. Short version / TLDR; don’t watch Shehzada. That’s a bad movie. Although in some ways it was an interesting foil compared to Crew.

It’s a classic mixed up babies story, although in this case the not-so-poor dad purposefully swaps his son with the rich son and almost kills the nurse in the process, putting her in a coma for 25 years. The kids grow up and there’s a gangster subplot, but as near as I can tell the WHOLE theme is wealthy genes will win out over poor genes. The poor kid in the wealthy household is named Raj and the rich kid in the poor household is named Bantu, to further stress their innate qualities coming through despite their circumstances.

Rich kid made poor, Bantu, he can fight like a superhero for no reason we understand. He can give relationship advice, for no reason we can understand (and people innately listen to him, for no reason we can understand). He can pick up Kriti Sanon the lawyer by working for her as an intern, for no reason we’re ever made to understand other than “it just happened”. And he can pretty much ignore her for 2/3 of the movie as she vanishes, and she still wants to marry him. That all-over-the-place no real rationale for anything feels like it applies to the whole movie which is haphazard and hops from scene to scene in many way.

I don’t think I’ll ruin it for anyone, but the ending is also completely unsatisfying. It’s tied up with a neat bow. The poor son made rich, he finds his path via the rich son made poor and he overcomes his genes with the help of the “prince’s” advice. The poor dad, who basically murdered a nurse who dies after 25 years in a coma and spends that time bring her apples once a year to make sure she doesn’t talk...he mends his relationship with the son he stole and comes out ahead at the end. The only people who lose out are the gangsters who get beat up to a soundtrack pushing the Prince-ness of the son.

There’s also a scene where all the help/servants from the rich estate dance and sing when the misplaced kid comes back for the first time (when no one knows he’s the real heir). In their working clothes and some of them in band uniforms (wtf) they praise him, he praises himself, and they make a little crown for him out of their hands repeatedly. I love Bollywood numbers. I hated that one.

Positives? Kriti at one point early on, while talking to Bantu in a cafe, makes this clicking acknowledgment noise that is so sexy I had to go back to see why it caught my attention. Sometimes you have to find the little bits of enjoyment in a movie when the rest of it is awful. Kartik Aaryan (Bantu) also does a fun little moon walk with his butt in the closing number that my wife and I debated about because it wasn’t obvious if he had a wire attached to his back. Regardless, it was a cool dance move/visual.

I went letterboxing afterwards and discovered Shehzada was a huge flop. So it wasn’t just me. My favorite review, and I paraphrase, was about Kartik Aaryan in the movie who gave a lackluster perforamnce, “Shehzada was proof you don’t need a nepobaby to ruin a movie.”

Biking and More

I watched a clip on YouTube today where someone talked about racing in the Brompton race on Zwift and being absolutely knackered. I sympathized. I entered that race and placed something like 33 out of 34. Ah, per Zwiftpower I was 23 out of 24, but I was D category and there were a lot of E cat racers that did better than me. Mostly, that tells me Zwift’s race cats are sus. The absolutely lowest end of the D cat in general is about 2.2 watts/kg. The upper end of E is 2.2 but there are a few in the 2.8 range. 2.2 is about my max at my weight for an hour, and I REALLY have to push it to maintain that output. End of last season, after six months of hard riding November through early April, I was at about 2.4-2.7 when I was at peak. I suspect it thinks I’m still pulling that level. Probably should be – but this was the first year where I transitioned from Zwift and hills to outside and not monitoring power/effort over the sprint/summer/fall. Lessons learned. Anyway...I tanked at the Brompton ride, although it was nice to pick up the (virtual) bike as the third bike to level up a frame on.

Am I talking about politics or work reorgs yet? No. I’m not talking about board games either, although maybe next time. I have three new board games and I’ve only played one of them so far. I’m excited about the bicycling game that came with huge race track mats as part of the Kickstarter. I’ll have compare that to Flamme Rouge next time. Might be worth queuing up for Con of the North.
Wait...maybe I will mention something about the reorg. I shifted from cloud to desktop after 12 years in the cloud space (best guess). Since my days working on WestKM and the TR desktop tools. This is Thanksgiving week and for the past decade when it was a holiday week I’d spend the time cleaning up the backlog, getting it hammered back into shape, reviewing things that were out of date...all while tracking the pager and release myself so my whole team could just go enjoy their holiday. Well…that’s not a thing when you’re only releasing twice a year. There is no immediate fix, outside a patch that takes a concerted effort from several teams. I don’t think there’s even a pager, because there’s no need to start before the next reasonable workday because you’ll need to coordinate the patch, the installers, the signoff, and more and it still is on a fairly stable schedule instead of weekly (or in the case of my last company, multiple times a day). It’s a significant change in responsibility.

My kid finally finished up the last Dungeon Crawler Carl book, so I need to quick finish Enshittification and Medieval Nuns at War (nonfiction, in case you think I’m reading some sort of smut) and move on. I’d claim I wasn’t reading much lately because I’d been waiting on that to be available, but it’s definitely the reorg at fault.

Ah...I played a LOT of Monsters are Coming: Rock and Road! this weekend. Too much. I recommend it as a diversion if you can justify the missing gap in your weekend/evenings. It’s tower defense with a moving city, resource collection, and a hero independent of the city who can level up weapons separate from the city adding weapons and resource bumps and leveling them up. Hard mode is HARD (and not even the hardest), but like Hades/II there’s a progression of skills, so you can keep playing and losing until your hero and city get stronger and collect faster/more. I like the roughly 30 minute time per run/round. Keeps it bound and any multiple runs you have to acknowledge as your own inability to say “maybe not one more right now”.

Reorg Birthday

We have a birthday and service anniversary card system at work.  It lets your team know (and your manager) that they might want to give you a virtual congratulations.  Generally, I don't care at all about the card.  It's more uplifting to hear it "in person" from coworkers via a Teams meeting or Slack (given I'm fully virtual).  Still, people sometimes put some time into the card to prove they know you well enough to know you beyond the bounds of your roles.  Pets, children, hobbies, et al.

But I have to say, after the recent reorg where they divvied up my team to other managers and did the Workday cutover two weeks before the actual reorganization...well, I think my birthday card is a bit of an anti-morale card this year.  To be clear, the ONE person that said Happy Birthday isn't even on my old team OR my new team.  She's a friend from the company.  At least she knows I like to bike.

I have an Outlook reminder set for every team member I've had for the last three years (and a few others I care about to boot) to track where Workday and the org are failing me.  I can look them up in the system much like Facebook's birthday queue, but a nice biweekly reminder of what's coming up works better and then I can get to their card in advance despite the lack of system memory.

I say this as a software delivery manager.  Software sucks.  Don't trust it.  In all cases it could be better.

Trying Something New...

[post-post observation...it's unusual that it inserted some formatting differences given they don't show up in my Libre Office document.  Eh...I think anyone reading this will cope.  Maybe I'll figure out a better way to cut and paste next time.]

So I’m focusing on a bit of a new approach here. We’ll see how long it lasts. I’ve got some of my writing going on locally rather than on the web, but rather than keep two separate, sometimes overlapping, narratives, I’m going to tag some of the writing in my personal space for the blog. Not all of it, but I’ll see if I can evolve what I care to post. I find when writing locally I spend less time on photos...none...so my writing gets a little more involved than simply describing, “I was going this in that photo.” Not sure it it will derail talking about some of the things I’ve done lately that are photo heavy, let going to see Leslie’s record launch at the Parkway Theater and having my birthday dinner at the Creekside Supper Club next door (which was so much like the Monti Club that sat atop the hill in my home town when I was younger and that I last went to for a dinner for Matthew where someone made a joke about his hair and Flock of Seagulls, so you can draw some timeline assumptions).

Leslie’s gig was great. We were front row which might have been a bit close given Mitch’s trumpet was pointed straight at me and he didn’t wear out his lips like he did at the Dakota. Her album is getting a wider release, so the release party wasn’t an official release as there was minimal run of CDs and no vinyl, until everything goes wider earlier next year. I did pre-order a copy for Sank and Alex, however. A Christmas present they can look forward to next time I see them.

Been pedaling indoors on the Zwift. Moved in a little earlier than usual. It’s generally not the cold, it’s the lack of light after work. I was surprised how much my power had atrophied doing lackadaisical pedaling over the summer. Minnesota doesn’t lend itself well to pushing power levels on mountains like the Zwift does. I think I was at about 244 FTP and could reasonably hold 220 watts at the beginning of the season in spring. End of season I’d guess I was 225 and could hold 205 watts. Getting it back up there, although it’s slow. I picked up the Brompton (those little travel bikes) frame in the game so I can do some racing. Fortunately, it’s recommending the lowest cat, so I won’t keel over panting on the floor like I did after two of the races last year. I finished off the 165000 feet of climb challenge as well, just a few days after my birthday, so almost exactly a year. That scores me the “Tron” Zwift bike which is this shiny, neon lights on the wheels and frame, piece of kit. Zwift introduced leveling up frames this year and to level up that frame I have to level up three other frames. Got 1.5 down, although I’ve been doing harder high-end frames. The Brompton is a simple frame to upgrade and then I can start climbing around looking flash like the big boys.

Started learning guitar. We’ll see if I stick with it. Put in about 3 hours with a guy on Youtube, but I didn’t like how slow he was getting past the theory. And I like theory. Obviously, if I put up with 3 hours and barely touching a string. Switched to justinguitar (.com). I’m on the second module working on chords. I’ve done some chords in the past when I had lessons for a month, but I gave that up when I sent my kid to lessons instead. Limited budget back then and all. Not sure what I want to get out of it. Honestly...maybe writing a little bit of my own music. Leslie played a minimally chorded guitar with one of her songs and I was amazed how fast she’d picked up guitar as I knew she hadn’t been taking lessons long. Then I remembered she already knew the uke. And she mentioned she was taking lessons from Zachary Scott Johnson. We met him during a gig we went to that Sarah Morris was at for Art-a-whirl this summer at the Wolf House (Bella Luna studios) that was him, her, Matt French, and Jillian Rae. The video for it is actually recorded by me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WtC91-V3Ris&list=RDWtC91-V3Ris&start_radio=1. You probably can’t go wrong getting lessons from a guy who has like 4700 days in a row of songs on Youtube.

I’m not going to talk about work or the reorg. Not yet at least. Everyone is off in Colorado this week except me. It’s nicely quiet. And I’m not going to talk about politics. But I’m thinking about them. *^(&$#*.

Finally, I switched phone apps today. That doesn’t sound important, but as part of the stress from the reorg I just mentioned, I watched a LOT of violent television while cycling (Spartacus, The Witcher) and played a LOT of Yahtzee on my phone. It’s an addictive little app with multiple Yahtzee-style games all rolled up, including Yahtzee bowling. Anyway, today I killed it and, in its place, installed Hank Green’s (yes, the Youtube Hank Green who’s got wonderful things to say most days and runs a great store that raises millions for charity, with his brother) Focus Friend. It’s an app where you have a little guy – I named mine Numpty – that knits as long as uninterrupted. It’s literally the opposite of Yahtzee which begs for your attention and checking for matches and throwing new challenges at you to eat up your time. Instead, Numpty knits and encourages me NOT to use my phone. I found myself picking it up by habit once or twice, and then setting it right back down so Numpty could knit more socks I could trade for some nice room upgrades later. But I don’t have to DO anything to get Numpty to make more socks, other than tell my little bean-based focus friend how long I want to ignore my phone. Even without a sub, that’s a mentally solid improvement to my phone use. I even found myself leaving my phone in my pocket on my walk. There are a few things I can’t avoid – some checking for work, my guitar tuner, a little bit of social with friends – but I can definitely sandbox that time. I really, truly hope that sticks. I’m looking forward to seeing if it keeps me off a phone when I’m out and about and bored. I’d much rather read a book.

Juneteenth Ride 2025

I had Juneteenth off and I have for quite a few years.  I have some opinions about who I work for, so that's not surprising.  I took a ride in the afternoon up into Minneapolis and back, just over 42 miles. Not a very fast 42 miles given downtown it was a bit stop and go, lots of turns, and I was parking myself here and there to enjoy the day.

On the way "up" I pedaled past the Juneteenth celebration near Lake and the burned out third precinct they're turning into a voting and community action center.  That's a good use for it.  It wasn't very hopping, but I was there in the first five minutes of the celebration, so not surprising.  When I came back four hours later it was packed with people and I sat at Arbeiter for a while having a beer and enjoying the crowds of people all dressed up for Juneteenth.  Most of the photos below are from my way up, although I managed to capture a photo of the communal mural going both ways.

Downtown I was going to go to Modist [https://racketmn.com/bri-smith-modist-first-black-woman-head-brewer], but realized when I got there it was around 2 p.m. and a Thursday, so Modist wasn't opening for another two hours.  Fortunately, right across the street is Bricksworth although I could have saved myself 32  miles and just pedaled to the one over in Burnsville.  I refueled and turned back toward Lake Street, although I got lost on the way and ended up at the field entrance to Target Field.  Just as I was turning around to avoid the No Trespassing sign onto the field a guy came out of the Target office.  He must have been vaguely important because he had a corporate SUV and looked like an ex ballplayer.  He saw my RAGBRAI jersey and was super excited.  He went on it for the first time last year and is going this year again.  He mentioned that this year it's sneaking up into Minnesota on one of the days.  That's a smart trick on their part to make it feel less like an Iowa ride and more like a midwest ride.  Iowa irritates me ... lately [a long lately, my "all lives matter" experience with them was a long time ago now] ... and that's kept me riding in Minnesota instead of spending my money there even if the Register tends to be more liberal than Iowa on average.

I didn't realize downtown was making their LEDs pride flags for the month.  That's a nice look.

Juneteenth Soul sign with Arbeiter Brewing and Moon Palace books in the background.  A smarter person would have picked up the book waiting for him at Moon Palace but I didn't put it on a list, so I was distracted by all the other things going on.  Maybe I'll have time to pick it up tomorrow.

Drums and dancing.

Community mural in the morning.

Community mural later in the afternoon.

Million Artist quilts.  The burned out precinct is right behind me here.

Bonus bit...after I sat at Arbeiter people watching, I headed for home.  I was only half a dozen blocks south of Arbeiter or so when a car tried to left turn into me on a green light while I was in the bike lane.  I couldn't tell for sure, but she seemed to look up from her phone, and then jittered a bit and went past me to continue her turn which would have almost put her on the sidewalk.  She accelerated hard....right into the side of another SUV with five people in it.  Green light, she was turning.  The SUV on the receiving end was totaled.  Both wheels were crooked and a big pinch in the side.  Big.  I went back to make sure people were ok and three other cyclists, two pedestrians, and a few cars stopped to ask everyone if they were ok.  The woman taking the left hand turn?  Came out of her car furiously tapping on her phone and asking loudly, "You're an Uber aren't you? You're an Uber driver?"  I don't know if that was some attempt to go on the attack, but she's going to have a hell of a time explaining that one to insurance.  Everyone was ok, surprisingly. Cars are fixable.  People generally not as much.

However, that wasn't my only brush with death yesterday.  I also took a tumble at the of the hill/trail going from Minnehaha Falls/Park to Fort Snelling.  Entirely my fault.  I lazily commute most of the time, so I know the rule about not pedaling into a turn, but I forgot.  So I cam down the hill and turned right and started to pedal to take advantage of momentum for the hill.

I heard a "snick".  And I thought, ut oh, pedal, down.

I heard the start of a "screeeeek" and there seemed to be a lot of time to literally say, out loud, "Oh."  Followed by the full on scrape.  Followed by me saying, "S^%t."  At which point the whole bike stopped on a dime and popped almost straight up 4 plus feet in the air, arresting all forward momentum.  I did not lose my momentum.  I flew forward landing head first, skidding along the pavement on the back of my head/helmet for what I think was about six feet on my helmet before finally bouncing a bit.  I'm glad I have a helmet.  I think this one would have killed me or been close.

Here's a nice photo [immediately above] of my bike actually bouncing around.  Not me - I was separated from the bike at this point without the digital odometer on me sort of skidding uphill. 

And here's me being really wobbly and having a hard time pedaling a straight line to get moving up the hill after the crash.  A nice guy who was coming down the hill stopped to talk to me for a while, which was really helpful to get a read on whether I had an obvious concussion.  I had my family watch for an unobvious concussion later.  I didn't actually do too bad finishing out the 7 miles home, but when I got to where I could check myself out, I had relatively minor scrapes.  But....a big bruise on my left ankle and a lot of ache in my right which seemed to be more related to the pedals stopping suddenly and throwing me than to any visible wounds.

I slept fine later, only waking up now and then when I rolled an ankle.  And today I feel pretty good.  Little bit of a neck ache, and I took a thirty minute walk on the ankles, although I'm being super careful on stairs because balancing on the left is tricky.

I seem to get in one round of ouch each year, so hopefully this is the end of it and it's not like Final Destination where the deity of cycling injuries will be hunting me down the rest of the summer/fall.

Gaming Day St. Peter 2025

Took the day off yesterday to get in some three-person gaming down in St. Peter.  I had a basket of games and Klund had a bunch either me or Mean Mr. Mustard hadn't played before, but we only slotted in three.  We are becoming old men, and a day of gaming requires a large, healthy breakfast, and an early end-of-day so we don't have to be too tired driving back or drive in the dark.

Mr. Mustard and I ate at The Feed Mill in Jordan.  The river was really galloping along.  I highly recommend it as a stop.  Great small time vibe.

Our first game was Klund's Cthulhu: Death May Die.  It's one of the games I've stayed away from because it has a pile of miniatures, so it's not cheap, and games with lots of minis usually mean a f-ton of follow up expansions.  It has like three pages of expansions on Board Game Geek, so it's no exception.  It reminded me a bit of Betrayal at House on the Hill crossed with Arkham Horror.  Decorated with a lot of minis.

Cooperative.  We lost.  The trick is to go "just enough" insane that you max your perks before you go fully insane or die.  We played the first scenario and our problem mostly came down to the fire everywhere. If your character can sneak past monsters, it doesn't do them much good if they can't sneak past fire.  Despite what looked like a hopeless scenario, we still got Cthulhu down to about 7 of his 36 points and offed a pile of minions and acolytes.

In between, we played Bonsai, which I've talked about before because I play it on Boardgamearena.  Klund one that one with a tree branch that went straight right and just kept going right.  I think that was on me partially because the "goals" I added for points weren't really a mix that included encouraging going left, right, and down with your tree to score a bonus.  Straight made playing fruit much easier.

And finally, we played a round of Cosmoctopus.  There were some things I noticed playing on BGA that hold true in person.  Luck of the draw [what you have available to buy] can be a little lopsided.  It goes slow, then really fast, but then can drag for a bit again as you try to get your last tentacle or two.  That happens in the solo mode and, when it does, the private investigator "bot" doesn't encounter that slowness and simply surges ahead of you.  Couple folks recommended a house rule or two to clean up the pace and aspect of luck.

My strategy was an early +3 resource play for stars, so I pulled six each time, which meant I had a lot of excess resourcing to work with.  I used it to buy a few cards that made my whispers pretty much free, which meant I could play a lot of red cards which give tentacles and can give some play-another-card bumps you don't get from the other suits/resources.  Mean Mr. Mustard had a few rounds where he played half a dozen cards and yanked down a pile of resources, but just couldn't get anything in play that delivered on the tentacles.

Whoa Nellie, Mae West, and Pride Fest

I know I Pooteewheet and I had been going to a lot of plays and music lately.  This is just a small subset of the culture lately that in some way involved Leslie Vincent or folks adjacent to Leslie like Allison and Blake.

It might be a fact that I was a little stalkery as far as attending Whoa, Nellie at the St. Paul History Theater.  I saw the script title in the background of an Instagram post and wondered what Leslie was up to.  When I realized it was a play and she was going to be Annie Oakley I made sure I set a reminder to get Pooteewheet and I tickets.  The play was wonderful.  It was all about Nellie King, a midwest criminal with issues with drinking, drugs, and more, and a habit of getting arrested for crossdressing.  There are a couple books about her you can pick up from the local MNLink library loan system.  The play took the form of several contemporary historical actors playing the various parts like Annie Oakley and Nellie Bly, almost like a play within a play, but with a certain amount of overlap between the actors and the historical figures.  Made it very interesting, and the musical numbers were excellent.

A fun time.  My folks caught a follow up performance.

More recently, we went to Mae West and Trial of Sex at the Walking Shadow directed by Leslie's wife.  I wasn't sure what to expect.  It came across my radar when we were watching Leslie during Art-a-whirl at the A-street Lofts and Pooteewheet bought a felt cat named Mae West.  I mentioned I  had noticed in my cultural feed a play was coming and when we got a flyer, Pooteewheet noticed it was being directed by Allison.  We actually met the writer/producer of the play [John Heimbuch] at Whoa, Nellie, so we recognized him at Mae West as he greeted everyone at the door.

I didn't know much about Mae West, so it was a fascinating look at many of the same themes as Whoa Nellie.  Although less music.  In some ways, it could have passed for one of the plays I used to see at Westlaw where a lawyer did productions other lawyers could attend for CEUs [they let us go to them on work time: the Trial of Sir Thomas More and the Scopes Monkey Trial; an enjoyable break from coding].   

During the first act, there's a scene from the play [that Mae wrote] within a play where a character takes a feather out of his pants to be risque.  The actor's pants split and there was a pause and he quietly said, "I split my pants."  He started to laugh and then recovered and moved on.  Reminded me of splitting my pants at my first ever manager picnic while diving for a volleyball.

Second act I was confused about the rain soundtrack and wondered why they were including it and why it was so loud, until I realized it was the rain outside falling on the metal roof.  It got so loud for a while it was actually hard to hear the actors.

A photo of a statue from the theater, unrelated to the play.  

A very uncomfortable looking pipe chair.  Also not related to Mae West, but an interesting piece of art to consider while eating my baklava at intermission.

More recently, like Sunday, Pooteewheet and I went up to Dual Citizen Brewing to the St. Paul Pride Fest to see Leslie and Blake do a thirty minute set.  That was a very mellow Pride Fest despite all the paranoia about the political murderer still on the loose in Minnesota.  Afterwards, while we were having a beer with Leslie and Allison, the news came that Eagan was on lockdown.  We thought it was the the murderer on the run at first, but it was a separate incident [ironically, the cop holding a rifle in the press photos for THAT incident was - I'm fairly certain - the cop who'd been getting coffee at Dunn at the same time as us earlier that morning].

Seems obvious I should talk about the murderer.  I'm not going to.  Enough ink wasted on that f^%^er elsewhere.

On the way to Dual Citizen, we ended up talking to a woman who worked for Ramsey County in the nearby parking lot for 20 minutes because she heard us talking about the murders.  She'd been at a funeral with Melissa the day before her murder.  We talked politics, the Pride Fest, etc.  Just a friendly event.  Even the cops, who seemed perfectly at ease, and one of them even brought a flower into the brewery to decorate the bar counter.

The Pride Fest gave Leslie a very nice award for being part of the Festival for a number of years [I saw her at Como last year when there was a dress up parade and more].

As a final photo, I asked this guy at Pride if I could take a picture of his ankle for a friend.  He was very amused.  I  have a coworker who loves all things octopus [pin ball machine, background in Teams meetings, more].

Addendum

Bicycling, music, beer, reading, games...you might ask, Nod, are you avoiding talking about ICE and Minneapolis and LA?  Yes, yes I am.  Because I'm likely to swear and post memes and my doomscrolling is sufficient that cycling is a chance to put down the phone / social media.  Music, I put the phone down most of the time, but not always.  So I'm going to talk about things that aren't politics, although you can read all my posts knowing that under the covers there's a constant thread of burning anger.

Hastings Ride - x2

These aren't in order, but that's ok.  You can wander around freely in my bike rides.  Ironically, I was talking earlier about so many things going on I can't entirely keep up, and then I decided to post this instead of the music in a yard gig I was at last night.  Guess that'll have to be a tomorrow thing, although I'm going to Mae West tomorrow, so I'm already adding more to my queue.  I ponder frequently how I had time to post so many things 20 years ago.  Just a more consistent habit, I guess.

Larry, Ming, and I took the trail system from Inver Grove Heights down to Hastings for lunch two weekends ago.  About 45 miles.  I repeated the ride this last weekend, although I headed to the trail connection over by the trash mountains and processing plant via Eagan, which wasn't quite as nice.  But, I did it early in the morning so a. it was cooler and b. there was breakfast.  Turns out Ze's isn't too far off the trail - just a few miles and one really steep hill.  Although you don't get too much scenic going to Ze's.  It stays away from the waterfront and takes you past the court building.

Still....worth it, despite bonking my head on the sign I locked my bicycle to hard enough that the cut on my head bled for a few days and still hurts over four days later.

And a bonus of going in the morning....bison. We didn't get to see them the first time.  As I was headed to Hastings they were in the back pen and just coming out, but by the time I came back they were lounging in the sunshine.

This gal was also hanging out near them.  I also saw snakes [two kinds - one baby, one very large], turkeys including one trying to coast airborne, deer, bald eagle, and more.  Nice trail for some nature.

The turn to go to Ze's or go into downtown/riverfront Hastings is right after this sculpture garden.  I've got a few more below.  It's not in the foreground, but that Wright Flyer in the back left is pretty cool.

There is one sizeable hill on the way to Hastings [and back, but not as much] and you can get a nice scenic view.  I was disappointed the second time I wasn't there to get the sunrise bouncing off the water.

If you go into the riverfront area of Hastings you can go to the far end of the artsy part of town and catch another trail that takes you to Vermillion Falls.  There's a bridge over the water and it has become an area for folks to put love locks on. I know it looks like Ming and Larry might be up to putting a love lock in the collection, but they did not.

Here's the outflow of the falls from the locks bridge.

And here are the falls up close.  It's cool the mechanisms for the water power machinery are still attached to that building, even if they're not in use.

Headed back, the sculpture garden...

The sculpture likes his animals...

On a stop on the way back, we ran into the Society for Creative Anachronism.  Ming talked to them for a while about axe throwing.  That looked fine, but that woman in the background is throwing knives and that looked damn near impossible.  I'm not sure if Ming is going to join and try to get elected royalty.  His kid is out of the house, so anything's possible.

Come and See

Sunday afternoon, Kyle, Lisa, Pooteewheet, and I went to the Trylon to see the movie Come and See.  It's a pleasant romp through the Belarus countryside in 1943 by a playful tween boy, Florian.  At least until the stacks of dead bodies.  And burning people alive.  And gang rape.  And...and...and....holy ^^^^ did that ever live up to the Bleak Week: Series of Despair category.  Anti-war, anti-German...it didn't pull any punches.  2.5 hours that flew by as it threw atrocity after atrocity at you.  By the time you get to the end, there's a German who knows he's going to die, maybe burnt alive, still saying, "Some nations just shouldn't exist."  At which point the ending is German war footage and footage of Hitler rolling in reverse, almost Wizards-esque, until we get to Hitler as a child, highlighting both the allegation by that same German that "it starts with the children" [he told the adults they could leave the building before they burned it with them in it if they left the children behind] and that some nations shouldn't exist.  

I like the part on Wikipedia that says, "Roger Ebert posted a review of Come and See as part of his "Great Movies" series, describing it as "one of the most devastating films ever about anything, and in it, the survivors must envy the dead."  That's damn accurate.

Pooteewheet didn't get to see it because her ulcers kicked in so she went home in case they got worse, but came back to pick me up later at Arbeiter Brewing.  I took an hour to slough off the despair by picking up my four pack on my Arbeiter beer sub and a buy one get one free Stonewall beer. [wheat, fruited]. A very good beer.  They're having their release party for it tomorrow.    I gave away 3/4 of my four pack to my brother, who showed up because he was just down the street at Venn, my neighbor, and the host of the yard parties we go to, and it was still a really good subscription deal just for me.  I recommend Arbeiter highly.

Here's a nice phot of a bird that seemed to want my beer, or something I had, and a cyclist to wash away the despair.  If you ever get a chance to see Come and See, maybe don't.  Or do like we did and watch it with a large group so you have some ambient social support.

Too Much

I have officially run into the season where there are more things I want to do than I have time to do them.  There's the movie I want to see at the Trylon. The Eggroll festival.  Emmy.  The DJ Dance Party [cycling].  Edina Art Fair.  Sarah Morris AT the Edina Art Fair.  Bike rides to various places that are not any of those places.  KevFest to celebrate Kevin the Squirrel [seriously].  Farmer's markets.  Chalkfest.

We live in a hell of an area.  I know Eagan isn't officially the city, but I'm glad I live close enough to almost everything Minneapolis/St. Paul and first-tier burbs to be overwhelmed with choice.

I recommend a subscription to The Racket.  Their Freeloader Friday / Weekend list is off the hook.  https://racketmn.com/freeloader-friday-104-free-things-to-do-this-weekend-3

Board Gaming on Board Game Arena

I've been playing a lot of board games on Board Game Arena lately with some friends - and old boss - from the UK.  We are currently playing Agricola, which may be one of the oldest games on my shelf.  I think the last time I played it was gaming with Sean before either of us had kids.  Kids who are now in college.  My current strategy involves eating everyone's sheep.  You can't really win by having storehouses of food, but it does make it easier not to worry about starving with the extra family members.

We played Beyond the Sun, which I played with Klund IRL once.  I'd pretty much completely forgotten how to play.  The first round I lost because I didn't start fiddling with the ships/colonies until too late.  In the second game, pictured below, I had a nice early colonization and heavy on the tech tree which left others having to catch up by chasing further afield colonies and jockeying against each other while I relaxed and aimed for that fourth tech which really gave me a bump.

We played a couple games of Ark Nova, which I've generally avoided IRL because the setup looks exhausting.  I took second both times but really enjoyed it.  Since then, I've probably played 100 solo games treating it like solitaire.  I win more than I lose, so my strategy isn't too bad.  The expansion involves fish and some modifications to the core cards, but doesn't change things too much.  This win, below, was peculiar because I went so light on conservation points and made most of my points with a ton of sponsors and research icons/victory. Very little of the zoo built up - but I talked a good gam to investors.

I should add, I got a lot of value for their annual BGA fee.  I think a copy of Ark Nova would run me sixty dollars or so, so I pretty much bought a game I play semi-obsessively without having to keep it on my shelf.

And speaking of solitaire, I enjoy the solo variation of Bonsai, a game I played at Con of the North.  It's not particularly complicated.  You're crafting your bonsai tree via tiles and a combination of resource + play, play, extra resource, extra capacity, bonus, and victory cards with only a certain number of turns at your disposal.

I have to say, the bonsai you cultivate is not always very pretty.

This might be the ugliest one I've grown.  I don't think this  would be a good look if you had professional bonsai visitors.

Wow....so much...

Didn't I post yesterday? OH, I did not. I updated the munchies post.  I have like a million cycling and music posts to add.  I think going to something or riding something every damn day really makes it difficult to keep up.  I'll start making the effort...with, um, 67 photos I just uploaded that don't include the music event I was at tonight.

Something not to lose...amount of sealant for tubeless tires

Got a flat today.  The flat sort of sealed, but I really should have had a spring top off, because it wasn't a full seal and the tire stayed mushy.  So my wife picked me up at St. Peter's church and I hauled the bike home to try my first ever tubeless tire goo addition.

Item one: per this chart, I need 3 oz per tire.  My kit had a total of 4 oz.  So I'll need to get more.

Item two: don't try to just spritz new goo in there through the valve stem.  That's a mess.  The caps for the valves double as tools to remove the valve cores.

Item three: you still have to haul along a pump or CO2 [this I knew].

Item four: if you flip your bike over and the leak is at 12 o'clock, then all your goo will be down on the bottom at 6 o'clock and it won't seal.  You need to rotate that side of the tire downward [which it would do many many times if you're actually riding] so it sprays sealant out and gets a good seal that will allow appropriate air pressure.

Item five: not new, just a reminder, Minneapolis/St. Paul streets are littered with pointy bits this early in the season.  An absolute freaking mess.  I think I get a flat in April every year.

Item six: at least I found the hub-mounted hex wrench for the bike I gave my brother while I was looking for other bike bits.

Item seven: at least now that the bike is inside and resting, I can give it a good cleaning.

Item eight: at least I got 20 miles in before it went mushy and I've got a back up and the Zwift should I prove challenged at getting more goo in the tire soon [someone on line said "I like to hear it slosh" which is probably valid advice...it needs enough in there to spray and still have a lot left].

Item nine: I did feel VERY good riding into Minneapolis and back.  I keep thinking outside is way different than the Zwift.  And it is.  But when I remind myself to increase my cadence and that the hills are only a fraction of what I do on the Zwift, I barely feel 20 miles and 417 feet even stomping it a bit.

Some Generic Things I've Read and Am Reading... [articles, not books]

Needed a list because they're sort of all over the place.  And it includes some watching.

• https://www.openculture.com/2025/03/when-dietrich-bonhoeffer-a-german-pastor-theorized-how-stupidity-enabled-the-rise-of-the-nazis-1942.html
• https://www.youtube.com/@IBMTechnology/videos
• Watching the latest ones on RAG, CAG, etc
• https://futurism.com/the-byte/chatgpt-dependence-addiction
• https://racketmn.com/inside-cafe-yoto-the-north-loops-hot-new-japanese-fast-casual-spot
• https://zwiftinsider.com/bike-upgrade-details/#Distance-Based_Upgrading
• https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/5-fatal-genai-mistakes-could-destroy-your-business-2025-bernard-marr-qocee/
• https://machinelearningmastery.com/the-roadmap-for-mastering-language-models-in-2025/
• https://sourcegraph.com/blog/revenge-of-the-junior-developer [via Rob]
• https://jsdev.space/howto/mastering-js-closures/
• https://python.plainenglish.io/10-essential-python-concepts-you-need-to-know-in-10-minutes-2c5bee3a2412
• https://github.com/vinta/awesome-python [this is a HUGE list of Python-related assets]
• https://lornajane.net/posts/2025/better-rest-before-graphql
• https://www.fastcompany.com/91269286/data-science-most-innovative-companies-2025
• https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-digital-self/202503/ai-and-the-three-stages-of-cognitive-collapse
• https://www.techradar.com/computing/artificial-intelligence/openai-just-launched-a-free-chatgpt-bible-that-will-help-you-master-the-ai-chatbot-and-sora

Zwift Month Four

I did some big climbs this month, although I'm still 60000' from finishing up that climb challenge and getting access to the Tron bike.  I did finish all the rides for the [Ultimate] Tour de Zwift.  That was rough.  Not quite 500 miles a month, but close. And almost exactly one day per month.

Also did a full race set [Shimano: Find Your Fast] of four races and placed twice: gold and bronze.  I should have done better on the last one.  I definitely wasn't pushing as hard as I could.  That FTP at / above / below seemed to give me some extra strength, so maybe by next week I'll try working that one in once a week.

Before I sign off for the spring summer fall, I have some goals:

• Climb Alpe du Zwift
• Do the 25 loops around the lava loop - I think that 62.5 miles in one go.
• Zwift Games
• Zwift Big Spin - both are pretty much March 3 to end of March.

My avatar on his Aeroad 2024 and Zipp /Super 9 Wheels.  I also tend to ride the Specialized Aethos S-Works and Scott Addict RC.  I like that last one.  Sort of karma.

And finally the little graphic that shows I am no where close to complete on the climbing challenge.  Oof.  I've done some big, big hills.  That one is some effort.