Oh boy do I feel heard. ⛺
Well, hmmm…
We just pulled the trigger on buying new windows 💸 something we’ve needed to do for…like 7 or 8 years now? Half are broken; we haven’t dared to even open them in ages. We’re also springing for plantation shutters and new sunscreens. Perhaps we’ll have a whole new house vibe after installation!
I’m currently purging some old hiking guidebooks and happened across this old entry when my ex-wife and I got engaged while hiking in Yellowstone. We got engaged in Yellowstone NP, married in Yosemite NP, and divorced in Hohokam Pima NM—each on a July 15th. Feels like a lifetime ago at this point!
Woke up very early and can’t get back to sleep, so decided I might as well go enjoy a sunrise walk in the mountains…until I saw that it’s still over 90° outside.
Bummed to hear that Arizona political cartoonist Steve Benson has passed away. He was a fixture here in the state for decades.
I responded to a blog post about how LLMs could destroy small niche online communities. I don’t buy it, not one bit! Call it my #JulyReply2025.
Met Jen and Becci at Roses By the Stairs Brewing to celebrate 70-7 Day.
What’s 70-7 Day, you ask? A little commemoration of the time ASU utterly destroyed its rival from Tucson by 63 points, an epic Territorial Cup victory. A few of us even chipped in for a billboard on I-10… 😈🔱⬆️
I don’t follow music news closely, but was surprised to see a message from Pearl Jam that drummer Matt Cameron is moving on. Though 27 years is certainly a long run in a single artistic pursuit. Definitely bummed we had to bail on their Vegas show last year after my dad’s passing.
HUGE thanks to @lmika for entertaining my requests for his awesome Postlist plugin for Micro.blog.
I can now have a dedicated page for each of my trips that displays each full post in chronological order, so you can view the full content of all posts in the same order as the trip unfolded. 🙌
For this upcoming Canadian Rockies trip in Aug, I’ll drive from Phoenix, pick Jen up in Calgary, and send her off from Seattle.
Here’s the rough driving path I might take (between the red lines but not in the black area). Please let me know of any suggestions, or hop on my “let’s meet up” list.
Peter West Carey discusses what it took to get one-half second his footage into a major motion picture. Congrats, @pwc@mastodon.online!
🏕️ Woo! Got our campsites booked in Banff, Jasper, and Kootenay National Parks for our Canadian Rockies trip in August. Still plenty of planning required, but am glad we could snag reservations during busy season.
If you live in Phoenix, you are often told that—especially with a warming planet—the city will soon be uninhabitable. Here’s a counterargument:
Despite the flood of east-coaster think pieces, I think there’s an argument to be made that Phoenix is well-positioned to thrive in the climate crisis.
…
When it comes to redesigning our civilization around renewable energy, it makes much more sense for people to live in places where the big temperature-based energy needs come during summer days, when sunlight is most abundant, rather than needing that energy on winter nights, when photons are scarce.
…and that’s when everyone’s phone at the brewery blared the emergency message tone to alert us that a haboob was incoming…
Guess I’ll have to “shelter in place,” for uhh…safety.
A few shots from Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve. We needed to get into the primitive BLM-managed portion for Jen’s Treasured Places quest, then boogied on up to Yellowstone, so none of the classic shots from the NPS side of things. 🏷️25.06B
We’re plotting a possible two-week trip to the Canadian Rockies in August, likely via Calgary and Vancouver. Any recs on things I shouldn’t miss?
Interesting Q&A conversation this morning with Rutger Bregman and the School of Moral Ambition community. (And here’s your regular reminder that there’s a massive Grand Canyon-sized gulf between complaining to your own tribe on social media and taking meaningful action to solve problems.)
Well damn, we did not win the ticket lottery for the “behind the fence” tour opportunities at Los Alamos. We’ve been trying to visit for years and years now, but the Oppenheimer movie has exploded the ticket request—thousands are now applying for the 25 slots a day (only offered 3 days each year).
On this day in 1864, Pres Lincoln signed the Yosemite Land Grant act, often regarded as the birth of the national park idea.