Holy shit, Taharka Bros. I mean come on.

Back on my bullshit.

What a pleasure to be able to take a 3 mile stroll in Wyman Park .

The carnitas I made yesterday at 2pm were so good that Elsa and I didn’t eat again for the rest of the day.

First, this inexpensive stud finder works pretty great.

Second, this self-leveling laser makes the job easy once you find a stud. Just line up the cross hairs and you’re ready to go.

Finally, I’ve always sworn by Ook picture hangers. Super easy to install, never fails, easy to remove.

My life is so hard. I beg for bacon 20 times a day but successful only twice. Maybe three times if I trick one of the suckers

Grandma! Give us bacon!!!

Good mornings!

From @atomicbooks

Our first picture, from before we were seeing each other.

I want the world to know that I guessed that Molly would do Back to Back and Claire would do It’s Alive as soon as the Gourmet Makes went up.

Surprising even myself, this was my first ‘rona beer. Quite nice. I think I like it better than both the 60 and 90.

Yah think?!

Fizzy water, but with mood lighting.

All I keep doing is staring at these top shelves and thinking of all the local bookstores I can support by filling up to the top.

“Not bed, sun!”

“Come spend time with us.”

It’s a great time of year.

Garlic soup, for some easy eating today.

What I’m thinking about and working on right now. This page will be updated semi-regularly as seems appropriate. The post date reflects when this was updated, and all Now pages will be archived and linked to from this page.

Here we are in 2020 facing down COVID-19 and expecting to spend the next several weeks if not months primarily at home. Luckily, we have a room in our home I was able to turn into an office, and I can comfortably work from here. Still, it’s hard to stay productive and keep my fears and anxiety even as we face so much uncertainty. For now, I’m taking some solace in the fact that I can continue to work, I am safe, and my family is safe. But I am afraid that a lot of change is coming, and it won’t result in a safer and better world– that’s the kind of too-honest, invasive thinking that I’m hoping to ignore for at least a little longer.

I not-so-recently got engaged.

I had spend the last couple of years working out quite diligently, lifting weights three times a week about 80% of the time and twice a week the remainder. In the end, although I enjoyed it, my inability to control my eating saw my weight and health decline to where I wasn’t happy. I started counting calories again and I’m seeing results I feel good about. I’m going to try and reintroduce exercise now that things feel a bit more under control, and I’m hoping to have finally turned a corner on a lifelong battle with weight. I’ve done better than I’m doing now before, but this time feels easier and more sustainable than it’s ever been.

Some of that is helped by my obsession with the Bon Appétit cinematic universe, which has me enjoying cooking again, something I lost with the move from Providence to Baltimore. It’s kind of amazing, but the stress of the year we moved combined with spending a year in a kitchen that felt cramped really hurt my enjoyment of cooking. But slowly in the last two and a half years since we moved to our current house, I’ve felt more and more interested in being in the kitchen and eating food we make again. It’s a big difference.

And in truth, as difficult as this period of social distancing will be, the end of work travel for a prolonged period of time for the first time in six years means that routines are going to be easier to build and easier to keep than ever before. I miss the travel– a lot– but if I have to create some kind of silver lining, I think it has to be that routine feels possible again.

Current home screen

Top Ten Artists (Last 90 Days)

Previous Now Page - November 2018

We hastily moved some things around at home in preparation for both of us needing to work from home full time for the foreseeable future. I still have a lot of work to do in this room, especially considering we started to move post-isolation protocol time, but thought I’d share a look at my current desk setup

Some notable gear:

• 13" MacBook Pro (about 3 years old now)
• LG 5K monitor
• Amazon Basics monitor arm
• ScanSnap S1300i
• Ergodox EZ Keyboard with Godspeed MiTO MT3 keycaps
• Logitech MX Master 3
• Rode boom arm
• Audio Technica ATR 2100 microphone
• Kanto YU5 speakers
• Philips Fidelio X2 headphones
• Steelcase Gesture chair

There’s some stuff not pictured key to my home technology setup, including a Synology 1810+ disk station and Ubiquiti networking gear.

The wiring is a mess, but overall, this set up has worked quite well for the past few days. When I am at my office, I bring the Ergodox and the laptop and that’s it– I have an LG 5K there and MX Master 3 there as well so my setup is fairly “drop in”. I also use my Sony WH1000XM2 headphones there since the office is loud. Ideally, I would have a second Ergodox, a second boom and ATR2100, and a better pair of closed-backed headphones, but I can’t complain.

Oh, and here’s the guitars (pedalboard and Weber Mass 50 attenuator not pictured) that I have behind me in case I need to unwind for a bit.

• Valvetech VAC22
• G&L Legacy with Fralin pickups (SP43 in the hum bucker)
• Fender 48th Street Special Strat (with the G&L pickups)
• Larrivee DV-03R