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Photo of a snow yeti in a blue and yellow shed decorated with holiday lights in front of a Brooklyn brownstone. The yeti is holding a sign with text: "We're all in this together ♥".

This week ended with what looks to have been an execution of an American citizen by federal agents on the streets of Minneapolis. In Heather Cox Richardson’s comments about The Killing of Alex Pretti, she says that 16 people have the power to put a stop to this nonsense immediately. All of us should be putting pressure on our elected officials in Washington now—especially if those officials are Republicans.

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Photo of a yellow trail blaze newly nailed to a tree. The round blaze has text on the top reading "Midwood Loop" and "Prospect Park Alliance" on the bottom. The Prospect Park Alliance logo is in the middle.

This week’s picture comes from Prospect Park. In all my years exploring this park, I don’t recall ever having seen a trail blaze. Judging from the shine on those nails, this one looked newly placed and I wondered if the trail markers were new. Well, through the magic of the information superhighway, I can confirm that these are (relatively) new: The formal nature trail system was launched in August.

Otherwise, it’s been quiet around here. I think I’m still trying to settle back into the day-to-day routine after the holidays and a bit of a break.

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Photo of a framed painting of a black cat holding a toucan in it's mouth, which, in turn, is holding a pint of stout in its mouth. The text reads "Lovely Day for Grimness".

I’m a full week late on this post. Partially because I’m having trouble not thinking about the events in Minneapolis and elsewhere. I’ve been asking myself if I should I bother writing about little side projects and such when government agents are murdering people with impunity?

This is the compromise I’ve made on this impasse: I’ll say my piece here, then move on to the typical, lighter fare in my next post. If you’ve had enough of people’s takes on this administration’s antics, feel free to stop reading now.

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Photo of a green moving truck parked on a Brooklyn street with the text "Otter Moving & Storage" and an animated Otter carrying a cardboard box.
Don’t otters crack things open on rocks?

Another relatively quite week around here allowed time to continue some projects. I reached a good stopping point on the jukebox project while waiting for the required hardware. The software, complete with a serviceable web UI, is done (for now). I loaded up 200 tracks and meant to press it into service for New Year’s Eve. However, on the night, I was too lazy to connect it to the Hi-Fi. I’m sure they’ll be another opportunity to test it soon though.

In the meantime, I moved onto another project I mentioned here almost a year ago. Embarrassingly, I did little with since. One of the many things on the todo list is to reliably source real time subway data. This MTAPI project should be better than what I had done previously. I added the service alert data to it and I hope the project owner pulls in my changes soon. That will allow me to swap out my old data source for this one.

Between the projects, a bit of socializing, some good food & drink and an excellent Friday evening jam, it was a great start for the new year. Until…

After just three days, my hopes of this year being less interesting have been dashed. The actions of the current administration in Venezuela fly in the face of international law, have killed innocent people and put us all on a path of uncertainty. Per usual, Heather Cox Richardson provides some good context.

We are living in interesting times, indeed.

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Photo of snow covered trees and the Meadowport Arch in Prospect Park, Brooklyn."

The last (full) week of 2025 is in the books. That means a wrap for the 2025 weeknotes. There are enough year end review type write-ups in the world—no need to include one here. Looking forward, I hope the coming year brings some ever so slightly less interesting times. I’m not sure what that would look like. Trump and the rest of his corrupt administration out of office and in permanent exile somewhere would be a great start.

As is often the case, it is pretty quite around here since so many people are out of town. We did get a nice coating of snow just after Christmas. it was pretty good timing (unless it derailed your travel plans). All weekend felt like an extended snow day. Warmer temperatures and rain are in the forecast, so it may turn out to be the be the best sort of snow—one that melts before it gets too grimy.

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