On minds, in my neck of the woods, are how a group of adults could completely fail at their jobs running a school district and a city. I live in Philly. The mayor appointed school board voted to close amazing schools that were working. It took years of collective parent effort my wife and I were involved in just to get the school board to mandate recess not be used as collective punishment and that after lunch kids were ALLOWED to go to the bathroom. For 3 years we knew there would be a massive budget shortfall but no one did anything so now they're cutting teachers even though city council (who also could see the shortfall coming) waited to the last minute to pass extra funding for a single year. Failure from top to bottom.

My little town has this cool container village of businesses and restaurants at the waterfront with a few rentable shipping containers for temporary pop up shops. So for the second year I'm getting my own little shop & gallery to show off my work for a couple of weeks this month.

It's fun to play shopkeeper for these days, chat with people, and just have a space outside of my home to work. It's also the perfect time of year where it's not too hot, yet the crowds are busy enough to make the whole effort worth it. I'm really looking forward to it!

I'm heading off to see my son for a few days; we haven't spent any one-on-one time together since last summer, so I'm really looking forward to it.

I watched Vertigo last night for the first time and I liked it but also don't fully understand why it is considered one of the two or three best films ever made. 🤷‍♂️ I also recently watched Hoppers with my daughter, which was better than I expected.

Last year I launched a daily word puzzle that's been finding some traction (I'm resisting the urge to name the game, to avoid accusations of self-promotion), and today I've been receiving some guff via email about one of the words in the solution (I'm resisting the urge to name the word, to avoid spoilers). I think it's a perfectly cromulent word.

I'm finally reading Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance after having it on my list for 30+ years. So far so good.

Oh and I meant to ask in the post: did anyone end up making something from this fantastic recipe thread? How did it go? (I made the focaccia.)

I took my daughter on our annual just-us night away camping trip last night. We started doing this when she was three, she's now nine. We hopped across the bay, checked out a lighthouse, set up camp, read, ate hot dogs, and played Yahtzee and Go Fish.

Then she made up a combo card/dice game. The idea is you roll dice, combine like dice, and then pick a card. If the card matches any number of single or combined dice, you get to keep the card. If not, discard. Most card points when you're done with the deck wins. We talked through ways to make it not only luck on the way home on a beautiful Golden Gate morning.

The last couple weeks of the school year are always such a liminal time; half of the activities that structure my week are over but the kids are still in school. It feels luxurious to have a little more breathing room in my schedule.

My eldest is twelve and a half now and something has shifted in his brain. He is actually responsible now! We are fortunate to live in an area where he can bike himself to school and to the Y, and he can walk to a pharmacy (to buy candy), the library, and a trading card shop on his own, too. Gotta love urban living!

We bought him a dumbphone for his birthday to help enable this kind of independence (no small feat; the first attempt still had a youtube app on it!). He called me from the library to ask when he should be come for dinner. He never would have thought of that until like two weeks ago! It's incredible. He's basically a person now. He used to just be a hungry, crying little lump that wanted nothing more than to be back in the womb where life was simple.

Also, having a twelve-year-old is great because you can leave fart sounds on their voicemail and be unanimously elected mother of the year.

Yesterday I hauled ass to Sonoma after work to meet a friend to watch the Sonoma Stompers play the Petaluma Leghorns and it was just the absolutely perfect early summer evening, complete with hot dog, beer, and a passel of little kids tearing through the parking lot to shag foul balls which they exchange at the snack bar for a small bag of candy per ball. Those kids were HOPPED up on sugar by the 5th inning! (Oh, and the Stompers won, 6-3.)

First time posting here. I recently got back from a trip to Colombia and took a lot of photos I'm really proud of. https://www.aregularphoto.com/a-regular-photo/colombia-2026

We're buying an apartment here in Mexico City and lemme tell ya — the process here is slowwwwww. Such a difference from the United States, in so many ways.

Okay so since Jason says self promotion is fine I’ll go out on a limb here. I’ve been having so much fun vibe coding pretty much all of 2026. A few of those I’ve made as little web, iOS or Mac apps that I’ve made shareable. I have no idea what the audience is for these but they’re all free. They’re mainly little itches I’ve scratched that I thought maybe if someone has the same itch they’re there.

https://coefficiencies.com/apps/

I am a big fan of Armand Hammer, the song "Charms," and it's unreal video.

I did a short interview with the director Joseph Mault. The making of video is fun.

I broke my ankle back in January (I hate treadmills!) and it never healed up fully ... so I finally had surgery a few days ago. I have to stay off of it (non load-bearing) for 4-8 weeks, and have been really struggling with crutches so far. A family friend kindly loaned me their knee scooter — it has already changed everything!

Long story short: Don't sleep on the amazing knee scooter!

Long story longer: I've taken mobility for granted, for probably my entire life. This has been a really eye-opening experience about how we navigate in our mostly bipedal world. I can't drive, I'm afraid of stairs, and I loathe negotiating restrooms now. I'm lucky that my recovery will likely get me back to 90-95% in time, but I will never forget how much I've taken for granted.

I left up our winter holiday wreath a little too long and House Wrens set up a nest there.

All five eggs hatched and the babies are a good mix of cute and dinosaur.

I have a home project in the works of building some cabinets under our basement stairs. In preparation I've been watching YouTube videos and trying to figure out some simple projects to practice the cuts and techniques I'll eventually need. I've been really enjoying 10 minute Workshop for this and am hoping to make a few simple boxes over the week or so based on some of the simple projects he's done.

My wife's band, The Honey Empire (she's the one on the right), is playing tonight. They are opening for Bob Schneider this week in Ft. Collins and Denver. She and a friend started taking lessons together about seven years ago. They started a little cover band. Then they started writing songs. There were some Jefferson Airplane moments. Now, they're a tiny bit of a thing. But most exciting, I'm playing with them. It's only one song, but I'm so excited. I started playing guitar during the pandemic, and here we are. Anyway, amazing how life progresses sometimes.

Wife and I are traveling to Munich, Gaz (Red Bull Ring) and Vienna at the end of June. Anyone familiar with these cities and have any recommendations?

The rise of AI in the world of programming hit me hard this spring (TL;DR: I hate AI), and I decided to retire a few years early, rather than deal with retraining and reshaping my work. It's been a very bumpy ride on the financial and emotional roller coaster for the past few months. It turns out that the rise of AI made me richer than I thought (thanks?), so I can do this without worrying about money. I'm still finding it hard to accept that my career died such an unpleasant death, but I'm starting to get excited about my upcoming freedom. Last day at work is July 2nd...

A couple of good things happening lately. At the top of the list, I started a new job in nonprofit work with a significant bump in salary and the chance to build something significant for an important group. It's only been a couple of weeks and I'm still in absorb/learn mode but I can see a lot of places to make things happen here and I'm pretty excited about it.

Playing Lincoln Center next week with a volunteer army of 100 guitar players. It appears to be sold out, though! Here is what it sounds like.

Just found this cool live feed of the ballot processing center in Los Angeles. Definitely needs a Boards of Canada soundtrack! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OS1R1fycO9E

Taking Jason's prompt of something I've listened to recently: Some months ago I cancelled my spotify account in response to some of their policies. So, I've had to gradually rebuild playlists that I'd curated over years, which has been surprisingly pleasurable.
Like anyone, my tastes have evolved, so what was a "must have" song 10 yrs ago may not make the cut now. And I get to add newer stuff (latest new-to-me is everyone on the Sinners soundtrack and a lot from Pluribus), as well as dive deeper into older material that I some-crazy-how overlooked before. Reacquainting myself with Pink Floyd and Peter Gabriel ("Plays Live" from 1983, soooo good, c'mon with those drums) has been so enjoyable.
Admittedly weird playlist: called "9-10", it's an incoherent collection of any piece that - to me - is perfect/nearly perfect. It includes a trumpet concerto, songs by more well known artists like Temple of the Dog and by Lizzo, and "Nano" by the obscure band Sweet Snacks (I'm not a promoter, just an enthusiast).
I would love to hear anyone else's quirky playlist organizing approaches!

I got to see Yo-Yo Ma at Red Rocks two days ago. It was a bucket list show!

I'm back on the job market and I'm so very sad that once again I have to prove my worth to a bunch of strangers, using forms that do a horrible job of reflecting what I contribute.

When you've just been laid off, and you're stressed about money and your family and your future and your sense of self — it's hardly the perfect time to try to capture the last 6 years of work you've done (how?) and promote yourself to the small handful of business you found that can pay you enough to cover your mortgage and that you feel you could, in good conscience, contribute to.

Not the best.

Thank heavens for cats and the forest and sitting in warn grass in the sunshine.

Not a fun and positive thing, but my afternoon at work got broadsided, out of nowhere, by an announcement that Visa and Mastercard are shutting down all card processing in Cuba, as of tomorrow. Thanks for the advance notice! And I don't live in the U.S. -- so annoyed that my afternoon was derailed by asinine policies set by the U.S. president for no good reason. So we hustled to get a notification out there for our customers. Fortunately I have some amazing colleagues and we turned it around quickly.

That said, I really feel for the people of Cuba. They didn't ask for this.

I don't know if being trained as an historian helps with my mental state these days, or not. On the one hand, I see the historical precedents and know that the pendulum swings back. On the other hand, I see the historical precedents and they are not good.

I just soft-launched CloudCat (https://cloudcat.works) - an artwork catalogueing app for artists (shameless promotion) - it feels like I can slowly emerge again from outside my computer. As a celebration I went to the Kgalagadi two weeks ago - and I too - for the first time learnt that an Aardwolf is a hyena - we didn't get to see one, but we saw a pack of African Wild Dogs tear apart a small ungulate in the cool early morning, all quiet, faces bloody, a few dogs always checking the perimeter, and after some time they leapt back onto the road and trotted along for a bit before disappearing into the bush, so since returning I have been watching so many BBC nature clips of wild dogs hunting, and - it's brutal out there - they don't even seem to kill their prey first like cats do, they just take it down and start eating it.

It’s the end of the school year. Happy to have our youngest with us most of the day and our middle back from college. This weekend our oldest, a college grad, is home as well. The three of them laughing and campfiring and street-tennising. 🥰

It’s odd to have a daughter who is a college grad now fully living on her own. But it also feels natural as she is miles ahead in terms of planning and responsibility. I’m very proud of how she’s stepped into the world.

The coming weeks will be filled with attending soccer games and marching band competitions. The activities will never let up until suddenly they do. So we’re continuing to do our best to enjoy this manic phase of life for the next few years.

On Sunday I’m heading back home to attend an uncle’s funeral. We’ve also entered this phase of saying goodbye to our elders, and even more sadly the occasional too-soon contemporary. It seems to be a phase that won’t end until we end. All my siblings will be back as well, giving us a rare opportunity to be together. In that sense it will be nice!

Bit of a tangent/tmi but I got non-invasive heart surgery yesterday. (an ablation, for afib). That puts questions of aging on the table which I bet is starting to happen for a fair bit of the kottke readership. The Kottke site (blog? what is this anyway?) has always felt quite youthful to me, and yet it follows the journey, mostly, of one person. I’m interested to watch that evolution.

A while back, a friend asked me how much a particular guitar would cost him, and on a whim I said, “how about I just make you one?” I’d never done it before but something in me needed to try. I built it from raw blanks of lumber, entirely by hand, and it took nearly two years. It was an humbling lesson in patience and iteration, but somehow I wound up with a beautiful, musical instrument that I’d be proud to hold up against the name brand guitar it was inspired by.

My small town has its Southern LitFest this weekend; I was able to attend the opening panel last night, reporters who became authors. (It was more interesting that I expected.) And of course, I have to get off my butt and freshen the back yard for the summer solstice in a couple of weekends. Plus cocktails.

Cleaning out my home office after a recent move, I discovered an old iPod (a couple of them, actually) that still worked. I hooked it up to a speaker and have been listening to the songs on shuffle ever since. It's great to revisit some things I can't find on streaming.

The thing won't hold a charge and it's constantly plugged in, but I hope I can keep it running.

I'm finishing a graduate program at the end of July and am facing a lot of uncertainty about what's next. I have felt really anxious about all that uncertainty all spring, but I am trying to tame that anxiety into something more akin to curiosity and excitement. Who knows what's going to happen next!

Coming up on a year in our new home of Taos, NM (relocated from DC) and haven’t looked back.

Working on a garden that’s consuming my curiosity and creating lots of reason to be outside in this beautiful place.

Continuing to build out my coaching practice (focused on helping policy/advocacy leaders stay sane in insane times).

Halfway through the year, sticking with New Years Resolution to have all weeknight dinners be vegetarian. Hetty McKinnon’s amazing cookbooks Tenderheart and Linger make it exciting.

Loving Widow’s Bay on Apple TV.

I'm moving, again, this time from Galicia to Stockholm — something of an emotional strain as I love the Iberian peninsula but want my kid to have better education opportunities. It wakes a lot of identity issues and questions of where home is. I was born in the US, a place which hasn't been my physical home for decades and was never somewhere I felt at home anyway. I guess a lot of people in the US may be struggling with this at the moment. I feel for you.

Anyway I actually came here to talk about chai — since Jason mentioned it. I just started drinking it a few months ago. I use 50/50 water + oat milk and eyeball the rest of the ingredients: some cinnamon stick, a few cloves, a few crushed cardamom pods, a bit of chopped ginger, a drop of honey. Because I have no prior experience with this, I wonder if anyone has a recipe to share?

Dark Days in Chicago - There are Cub fans in Chicago, White Sox fans, Bulls, Black Hawks, Fire. . .all sorts of fandom. But, EVERYONE is a Bears fan. It’s in our DNA. We live and die with the Bears and have for over 100 years. And now, because the McCaskeys can’t get a “deal” they are moving our beloved Bears to, I almost can’t say it, HAMMOND INDIANA! This is gross. An NFL team gets a check once a year from the networks for $312 million dollars. That’s before you sell a ticket or a beer or one box of popcorn. The McCaskeys are already billionaires and could find some land in Chicago or suburb and just build a stadium. But, no. Like all Billionaires they think they should get some kind of ‘deal’. They are dead to me. (Virginia McCaskey was the daughter of George Halas - one of the original owners of the original 8 teams in the NFL)

A political fundraising org I trust that funds down ballot candidates in red states has a new tool where you can spread your donation out to even more candidates. (Legislatures are so important, this is where gerrymandering starts.) As a former rural legislative candidate in Kansas I would have been THRILLED if this had existed when I ran. They are also focusing on seats that recently went uncontested. If you are unsure if Ossoff needs another $20 from you, this is a great place to donate.
https://everystateblue.org/first-in-line/