Longer Posts

Oct 6, 2024 ∞

September 2024 in 10 photos

Following up last month’s post with a similar one for September.

We started the month at an unlikely venue—a ballpark! We met up with our good buddy Doc, who was in town to watch his Dodgers play the Dbacks. We always enjoy catching up with him and we had plenty to talk about since we saw him in April in New Orleans.

We made it to Passport Health to get a medical assessment of what vaccinations we need for our upcoming 100-day trip. Here’s our country list, it’s a doozie—and so is the list of vaxxes we need for the trip.

Oooh, be careful what you offer, Walgreens! After paying an ungodly amount of money at Passport Health for the shots we need, I decided to do some sleuthing about how to get some of them covered by insurance. After a ridiculous number of phone calls and in person visits with insurance companies, our local pharmacy, and doctors, I was able to make it all work. I have probably talked with Walgreens Pharmacy (shout out to Chris!) no fewer than 50 times in this whole ordeal.

I haven’t been involved in any national monument campaigns this cycle, but that didn’t stop me from heading over to Arizona Wilderness Brewing to grab a couple of beers they had on draft—one celebrating the 60th birthday of the Wilderness Act, and another in support of the proposed Great Bend of Gila National Monument, a place I believe is quite worthy of permanent protection.

This summer has been pretty weird, as we’ve stayed in town nearly every weekend. In “normal” years, we’d have been traveling on at least one longer out-of-state trip and camped most weekends. Boy…I could use some time away (yes, yes, I know it’s coming). That said, one of benefit of being in town is that I finally got to try the Friday Fish Fry at Wren Südhalle, our favorite local brewery. Damn, it’s probably the best fish and chips I’ve had.

Jen spent much of the month still working down in Tucson, and I made a few trips down to keep her company after work. For me, the city is a weird mix of memories and foreignness. I was born and spent my early years there, then worked there regularly up until a decade ago—since which, much has changed. Both Jen and I have been reminded by how much we enjoy Phoenix so much more—though I wish we had more Eegee’s up here.

Another big focus of the month has been on finding appropriate travel clothes for our trip. We have limited space, irregular laundry days, and have to deal with a range of conditions across four different continents, so what we pack really matters.

And it’s something we need to get nailed down asap, as we’re planning to ship off all our clothes to be professionally treated against mosquitoes. Skeeters and water contamination are the two biggest threats we face on the trip.

We finally got our camera situation sorted out for the trip, which involved buying a Nikon z50 for Jen and a new lens for Scott. We still have a number of accessories to snag, but at least we have the general equipment in hand.

My usual weekly kayaking routine has simply not worked out this summer, which has been a big bummer. So I spent each of those Thursdays at the Südhalle doing some work on the trip and socializing with other regulars. It opened one year ago but quickly became our go-to spot.

That’s it for September!

Oct 5, 2024 ∞

Re: Annie’s “Feeling alive is where it’s at”

I agree with Annie’s assessment of feeling alive:

Because, I guess, not only do I want some amount of challenge but I want challenges that I choose, not just the random ones that happen.

Self-prescribing challenges—and then meeting those challenges? Yeah, that’s some good stuff. The liquor of empowerment, a sense of efficacy in the world. A feeling that you can, indeed, do hard things.

We had this feeling recently as our 4+ year challenge to devise a 100-day overseas trip finally came to fruition. While daunting, it’s also made us feel a bit more alive. That, yeah, we can pull off some cool shit. That we have choice in this world, and perhaps even in how things play out. We’ve re-inspired ourselves.

I’ve also learned (though I still don’t quite believe) that achievement is not the endgame here. The outcome is unimportant. The benefit comes from the process of tackling the challenge, doing the difficult things it asks of me. It makes me feel alive. It’s exhilarating. And exhilaration is worth pursuing, or at least exploring. Feeling alive is where it’s at. Not feeling good (although that’s nice, too). Feeling alive. Sometimes feeling alive doesn’t feel good. But it’s still good, somehow.

That sorta sums up many of my travel quests. Is it exactly fun flying around the whole damn world just to get to some tiny specks on the globe? Trying to visit every single goddamn county in the US? Nope, not really. Travel often includes significant discomfort, boredom, hardship, anxiety, and unease. Much of the value of one’s travels occurs later, sometimes years later, when those good moments are recalled, or perhaps finally appreciated.

It’s not because of the resulting achievement, though. It’s because you did the thing. You experienced it. You lived it. It was something new, and it changed you. The process of doing, of enduring, of experiencing, of growing…that is, indeed, “where it’s at.”

When I finished my nearly-lifelong quest to visit all 400+ national parks in the US, I expected to feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment. I had made it, completed something very important to me, and also something quite rare. When I followed it up a few months later by being the first person to visit all 490 Treasured Places? You’d imagine that I was over the moon with joy.

Nope, not really. Sure, I was proud of doing all that. But living was being in the middle of it, not having done it. That’s what was exciting, that’s when you felt more alive. Accomplishments were in the past, and being alive…well, that’s in the present.

Sep 5, 2024 ∞

August 2024 in 10 Photos

I saw this post by Matthew Haughey and liked the idea, so here’s 10 photos from August 2024. You may also be interested in my recaps of the month: Mid August recap and End of August recap.

At Sun Devil Stadium after ASU’s 48-7 victory. It’s my 38th year as a season ticket holder. Jen has been joining me at the games since 2016, and I believe my bestie Becci has sat with me since 2010ish.

With my mom and her new (to her) Nissan Kicks after she drove it home for the first time. Thank goodness she finally has wheels again; she’s been without transportation for ten weeks after a vehicle ran a red light and totaled her old vehicle.

An art piece at the Art Museum on campus in Tucson. I grabbed a free admission Culture Pass from the Phoenix Public Library and finally marked it off my list.

A view from the Catalina Highway, in the Coronado National Forest near Tucson. I grew up at the mouth of one of the canyons in this shot. I made stops at my old house and school.

The Gordon Hirabayashi Recreation Site off the Catalina Highway. This was once a “Federal Honor Camp” (aka prison camp) for various offenders, most notably Gordon Hirabayashi, who was confined there after refusing to admit himself to a Japanese Internment Camp during WWII. His conviction was ultimately overturned in the 1980s and the federal government finally apologized for that whole unAmerican episode.

My wife spent much of the month working in Tucson, so I’ve gone down to keep her company after work. We’ve been trying to hit some classic Tucson restaurants. On this night, we went to my parents’ favorite restaurant back in the day: the entirely kitschy Pinnacle Peak Steakhouse.

We’ve had to file several documents with the Maricopa County Recorders Office, and we really enjoyed using this video service kiosk at the local library. Super convenient, but also feels a bit weird to file important documents at the library.

Another classic Tucson restaurant, often described as the original home of the chimichanga.

I had to get two old crowns replaced in August. This is a 3D image of all of my teeth that they used to make the new crowns. Man, that’s so much better than those awful goopy trays they used for impressions.

My buddy moved to Denver, so we had one last hurrah at our old local watering hole, Paradise Lounge. Man, we created so many crazy memories at that dive bar, back when we were young enough to get away with a long night of drinking.

Aug 6, 2024 ∞

Owning your music. Again.

Kelly Sims wrote some thoughts on Ownership in the Rental Age:

And so I find myself once again thinking about ownership. I owned this music, as much as anyone can really own anything these days. I took time to curate the music and time to carefully rip the CD’s into a portable format. Now, as I look through the songs I had added to Apple match, a large portion of them are now DRM’d as Apple Music files. I can’t ever take them to listen on some other player, which means I do not own these anymore. I effectively sold them to Apple for free. And in exchange for this “sale” I get to listen to some of them some of the time, all when Apple and the music licensing gods decide.

I’m right there with you, Kelly. This was the same issue I’ve faced. And for much of the last decade, I had essentially given up on the whole damn thing.

Until earlier this year. I upgraded my computer, added a home NAS, and decided that I was going to reclaim my music library. A branch of the Phoenix Public Library is just a couple blocks away from my house. So a few seconds to set up a hold request on some music I used to own, select the local branch as the destination, and a day or two later, walk over and pick up the CD, and via a $25 external cd drive, rip it to my computer.

And thereby, own it once again.

Aug 2, 2024 ∞

Blaugust 2024

I’m participating in Blaugust 2024, though I’m not intending to post every day. But it’s always fun to have a bit of extra motivation to hit the publish button.

I’ll collect all the relevant posts here, as I’ll likely post on more than one site.

4/31

Jul 21, 2024 ∞

I wrote a bit about The Two Futures of Social Media: as social media fractures, two distinct futures are unfolding—two entirely different ways to participate socially online, a fundamental divide between viral entertainment and personal community.

Jul 13, 2024 ∞

Following the lead of several others, I wrote about the 15 Books that Most Impacted Me. What an interesting self-reflective exercise—you should do the same (ping me when you do).

Jul 4, 2024 ∞

Early Twitter: the golden age of social-to-IRL community

Early Twitter was amazing for social community building—the absolute golden era of social media, imo.

I was reminded of that when I ran across some photos from a coworking space’s anniversary event that happened 14 years ago today.

Here’s a photo of about half of our #cwmn group—aka, Co-Working Monday Nights—which was just a dozen of us who had self-organized on twitter to show up at a particular coffeeshop after dinner every Monday to get some work done while also getting in some social time.

It was one of many social groups that formed here in Phoenix via twitter in those early years—back when it was primarily used for social purposes, not content distribution, newsmaking, doomscrolling, or mindless entertainment.

These “tweetups” were free and open to the public, and you generally introduced yourself by your twitter handle, not your actual name (unless your handle was, say, “rscottjones”).¹ The only real thing that connected us together was primarily that we, well, used twitter and lived in metro Phoenix and were willing to meet other people who did too. You just ran across a tweet about something and decided, yeah, sure I’ll go to that.

There was #smunch, a monthly Saturday morning brunch that often took over smaller restaurants. And a series of Phoenix Friday Nights get togethers scattered across the Valley, including #dtfn (Downtown Friday Night), #evfn (East Valley Friday Night), #wvfn (West Valley Friday Night), and #nvfn (North Valley Friday Night). I co-hosted that last one, #nvfn, with someone I met at a monthly #smcphx gathering (yep, another tweetup). #FirstFriday gathered twitter users each month for Phoenix’s art walk. And #NightOwls, a #cwmn-like event held at the coworking space this photo was taken at. I also participated in #commpose, which was organized by copywriters but seemed to focus on writing in general. There were also plenty of one-time or irregular events, such as the charity event #Twestival, plus other minor get-togethers that were advertised nearly exclusively via twitter.

I met soooo many people during those events, many of whom have remained dear friends—people I truly love. It was a big personal stretch for me to just show up to random events where I knew no one, but there was such a welcoming vibe at each of them that any initial angst disappeared almost immediately.

I miss those times.

It’s funny how those usernames have stuck. I was texting with @design_gal and @clowerpower this morning, and am grabbing bbq breakfast tacos with @wayneswhirled tomorrow morning.ngr) ↩︎

Jun 17, 2024 ∞

On This Day back in 2017, I visited what was then-claimed to be the World’s largest and, perhaps, oldest living organism.

While it’s since been relegated to second largest living organism, and understood to be closer to 16,000 years ago, this video will still blow your mind. (read more)

Jun 5, 2024 ∞

While reading @mlanger@mastodon.world’s post today about taking a photo of her boat in front of the Statue of Liberty, I was reminded that small social networks are everywhere (still). They’ve always been here—and even with federation and interoperability—small, theme-based communities are just better communities. They always have been.

Jun 4, 2024 ∞

Homemade music videos

I’m a fan of homemade music videos for ridiculous songs.

Not the influencer-quality videos you can make today, with a fancy iPhone and great editing apps. Nah, I prefer the ones from yesteryear where the tools had no auto mode and people weren’t routinely filming themselves for Reels or Tiktok.

I came across a great one yesterday when I went searching for a song I like that occasionally pops up on an Irish drinking sing-along Pandora station we enjoy. It’s a short but catchy song called The Gates by Da Vinci’s Notebook¹, which details an IT disaster via “comedic a cappella” (is that a thing? I guess it’s a thing).

So I went on Youtube, searched for the song, and a high school student’s class project from 12 years ago came up. It’s hilarious in all the right ways, including easter eggs in the credits.

🎥 If you have 2 minutes, have ever lost data while using a Windows computer, and want a few laughs, click this link.

That kid seems fun, doesn’t he?

The video has probably overtaken my previous favorite: a much more poorly produced family tribute video for Weird Al’s song “Biggest Ball of Twine in Minnesota."

As an official twine ball aficionado—yes, I’ve visited all four of them (each of which involves a fun story²), and even owned BallsOfTwine.com for a while (a never-quite-launched project dedicated to fun Roadside Oddities)—I really loved that video.

It’s extremely amateurish, which is a critical component of its charm. The camera work is terrible, the “actors” aren’t exactly hitting their lines, and the husband clearly owes his wife immensely for putting up with the whole thing.

And of course, it’s an entire damn song, a seven-plus minute song, dedicated to a Twine Ball, so of course I’m in. Did I mention that it seemingly wasn’t even produced for distribution? Nope, this was a passion project, pure and simple. A “Great Family Adventure,” as they called it in the opening title. The only way we can watch it is because the sister of the protagonist³ uploaded it to her own Youtube account.

It reminds me a lot of the personal websites many of us built before social media platforms took over personal expression online (then enshittified themselves).

I hope we don’t lose ~~dare I say~~ triumphs like this. But I suspect that we have, as modern apps + our cultural fascination with publishing highlight videos of our lives + the casino of virality + side hustle culture probably dustbins most uniquely pure hobbyist efforts like this.

I mean, it’s sorta like the whole endeavor of making a twine ball, as I mentioned in an article written about the song (Medium link):

Jones felt this too, especially compared to the heavily advertised presence of other roadside attractions. As he explains, “That’s got to be a hobby of love to start that. You don’t start wrapping a twine ball thinking you’re on to a million-dollar business venture. That’s not how that starts. I really appreciate, especially in today’s side hustle culture, that there are big endeavors people do just because it’s a fun hobby to them, it’s something that they just enjoy doing.” Just like the video that inspired him to go in the first place, the important element of the twine ball is the passion, not the product.

If you’re pursuing a similar hobby of love, really anything of that sort—and especially if it’s some wacky shit like a twine ball—I’d enjoy hearing about it!

If you enjoyed The Gates, you might also like two of their other songs: the also catchy Another Irish Drinking Song, and perhaps Enormous Penis, their “hit.” ↩︎
Ok, it just occurred to me that my twine ball quest is literally ~~briefly mentioned~~ enshrined in the US Congressional Record, which is absolutely fucking hilarious. Also, damn I need to write a blog post on each of those first Twine Ball visits… ↩︎
That makes the video sound way fancier than it is. ↩︎

Jun 3, 2024 ∞

I wrote a post about how our bowling team’s shame trophy came to be.

#blogging #bowling #trophy

Jun 3, 2024 ∞

I ran across this photo I took during a quick fast food stop in a small rural Texas town during a road trip last month. It reminded me of something I’ve been thinking about during my travels the last few years, so I wrote a little bit about it today.

#blogging #america #ruralamerica

Apr 30, 2024 ∞

I use RSS as a buffet, not a task list

I ran across this (very well done) post on hating RSS feeds yesterday.

It’s really well done and I appreciate the underlying notion: rss feeds can feel like “work” to be done.

But I’ve always viewed them as a buffet from which I can sample. Not as a task list. A place to graze.

I have absolutely no desire to consume everything on the buffet. Yes, I have some things I’ll eat nearly every time. But in general, it’s a broad selection from which I can sample, depending on my mood. I have no obligation to eat it all, and in fact, that might be considered unreasonable.

The stuff I always put on my plate first is in one folder. The stuff I don’t eat that regularly goes into another folder, from which I only occasionally peak. I even have feeds from my friends' blogs that I never read, as they’re not on topics I care about, or are a bit too influencer-y for my tastes. But I’ll occasionally pop in to mark those as read, giving me a second or two to scan for a (rare) life update or something surprisingly interesting.

There’s simply too much to consume in the modern era to ever consider some grouping of content as a task list. If your default is to view that as such, I think you’re going to feel especially overwhelmed in the modern world.

Apr 29, 2024 ∞

Reposts from my Hey World blog

I reposted several posts from Hey World to my personal website.

How to make driving across Texas more fun - a quick discussion of how a somewhat ridiculous new travel quest is making the boring parts of travel more fun.
Friends for the sake of memories - re-examining some online friendships and choosing a path forward.
I paid $100 for the privilege of travel today - taxing your own privilege.
The last years of your life suck - a reminder of what your final years might look like.
The only possible way to drive directly from Missouri to Kentucky - weird geography meets a weird quest.
How can a digital camera from 1999 change your life? - purchases that change how you live.
How many countries are there? - it’s more complicated than you might think.