Microblog

Just because.

Went on the longest cycle ride, so far, this year, with a mandatory DQ towards the end. My friend had a two-for-one coupon to use before it expired. The DQ was closed, so instead we continued to Fletcher’s for first-rate lingonberry ice cream, a nod to the area’s Swedish roots.

We both walked over to Walgreens for second COVID boosters.

Last week a friend emailed: “Release 2 [of my pneumatic machine] should have some AI to know when there’s something to load and when it’s done.” He was teasing, but I liked the challenge. Today I got the AI working. Next, I’ll add code to operate the air valve with a servo motor.

On my drippy walk, “spose bagnate, spose fortunate”—wet brides, lucky brides. On Stone Arch Bridge a wedding party assembled under umbrellas. Later, a different bride leapt out of a car, dashed past me, and disappeared into the Guthrie, presumably abandoning outdoor photography.

As I sometimes do, stocked up for our weekly “Sausage Saturday” with smoky Ukrainian sausage from Nordeast Minneapolis institution, Kramarczuk’s. It was founded by a couple who immigrated in the 1940’s from Ukraine, a country which had suffered terribly under Stalin and Hitler.

Completed a proof-of-concept LEGO machine entirely powered by compressed air. Click through to watch the video.

Out walking with friends, came upon a man lying on the ground, unable to get up. A passer-by told us she’d seen him fall twice. While I called for an ambulance, Dwight talked with the man. He thought Dwight was a cop and commented on the kindness of Minneapolis police.

Defied the chill, wrapped up well, cycled with a friend. Almost cleared out Patisserie 46’s inventory of almond croissants.

On the day Elon Musk purchased Twitter, downloaded all my Tweets (over 3,500) and developed a scheme for loading them into WordPress as a custom post type. Did a test conversion of the data into a format that can be loaded into WordPress. I’ll continue to cross-post on Twitter.

Looked up bus and train times for a family trip this summer. I’m not traveling anywhere today, but I can still plan travel.

The unique sense of freedom that comes from hiking with everything we need in our backpacks had to end. Arrived home, fired up the washing machine.

For dinner we shared a surprisingly good charcuterie plate in a San Francisco airport hotel bar. Originally, we’d also planned to order a tonkatsu (Japanese pork cutlet) sandwich, but a couple cookies to take back to our room seemed plenty. We’d decided a red-eye to Minneapolis did not appeal. An 8:00 a.m. departure tomorrow morning… Continue reading Planespotting

It was a perfect day to walk across the bridge: sunny, light breeze, temperatures in the 50’s. Below us, engineers were installing a $207 million barrier to dissuade  people from jumping. Meanwhile, I felt unsteady, simply looking up at one of the two main towers.

Walked towards Golden Gate Bridge, 8 miles to go to Embarcadero BART Station, the end of our multi-day hike.  

Today, as we hiked across Marin County, we caught tiny glimpses of Golden Gate Bridge. Tomorrow, we hike across the bridge and into downtown San Francisco. This evening, in Sausalito, we went for an after-dinner stroll and admired the fading San Francisco skyline. Tomorrow, we’ll walk across that view, right to left, towards a BART… Continue reading Glimpses of Tomorrow