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Photo of the Statue of Liberty (from the back) against a bright blue sky.

Seeing the After Dark screensavers (link below) after so many years reminded me of an old Mac game I used to like. For the life of me I could never remember the name and I could never summon it in a straight search. Enter Chat GPT: Spin Doctor is the name of the game. After playing the demo, I’ve discovered that I’m much worse at it now than I thought I was.

We have some family visiting from out of town. Ellis Island was on the must-do list, so I was an reluctant tour guide for the day. A couple observations:

  • You don’t need to be an athlete to ascend 215, unless you’re experiencing mobility issues, I suggest giving it a shot, it’s more fun than the elevator.
  • Are tourists trying to emulate their idea of stereotypical New Yorker by being pushy and rude? Chill out people (and stay out of my way).

We also caught a few action-packed minutes of the South Slope Derby. I wondered why any Brooklyn parent would allow their child to race down the hill on 17th Street atop one of these contraptions. However, after seeing this KoKo NYC video with the kids building those contraptions using power and hand tools, I see that they know what they’re doing. The kids are alright.

If you use OMNY (NYC’s transit card), you’ve probably noticed that charges can hit your credit card at odd times on occasion, sometimes days later. If one gets suspicious about being overcharged, the OMNY site isn’t very helpful at lining up charges with the trips, not at a glance anyway. I threw together this page that compares OMNY charges and trips so I could see if I was getting ripped off (I wasn’t). If you have a similar question, feel free to use it. Have fun!

Progress continues on v3 of the Good Morning Display. I ordered most the hardware needed to piece things together. If you care about such things, the parts list is here. I suspect the final cost for this (not including labor) will exceed an off-the-shelf solution. But, where’s the fun in that?

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Photo of a family wearing shopping bags as rain ponchos in a NYC subway station. The bottom of the bags are cut out as head-holes. The bags have a spooky, Halloween theme that includes a dark mansion, bats and a jack-o-lantern.
Any bag in a storm.

Another week with some really intense rain in the city. This photo of a family’s creative rain gear is from Thursday evening when it absolutely dumped for at least the better part of an hour. They may look ridiculous, but at least their shoulders are dry, mine were soaked.

Between storms, I managed to get out on the new bike four times this week! I’m still working to reclaim my urban riding skills. Some of these have less to do with riding than others. For instance, after a few shaky trips, I’m able to navigate the bike room and get on and off of the elevator with aplomb. However, my first time locking up was less than graceful. At least I provided some entertainment to the guy that was watching me while enjoying his morning coffee and smoke. I could almost hear his inner voice saying “what a jackass”.

As for the riding itself, is great—other than being sore in a few places I wasn’t before. So, there’s some truth to what they say about never forgetting how to ride a bike.

On Saturday, to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn, there was a reenactment in Prospect Park. We went to check it out. There was a respectable turnout with a lot of spectators around Long Meadow. A battle ensued before the Continental Army’s retreat. We decided that the most exciting looking part to play was whomever was on horseback. How often does anyone get the ride around Long Meadow on a galloping horse unimpeded by volleyball nets, picnickers, dogs and cricket wickets?

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Photo of a super sweet, orange bike propped up against a stone wall with green foliage in the background.
Tangerine Dream

I bought a new bike this week. I immediately took it for rip around the park followed by a quick, golden hour photo shoot. It’s been a while since I’ve ridden anything other than an acoustic Citibike around town. This bike is so much lighter and more nimble than those blue beasts—it feels like flying.

On the project front, I made good progress on V3 of the home dashboard. The visual redesign had been on my todo list for ages, but I was stuck on creating the overall aesthetic. Rather than letting that continue to block me, I worked on wiring up the data. Now there is a working dashboard that is getting all the data I want. While it won’t garner even an honorable mention at a design competition, it feels good to have built something. The hardware is next. Perhaps I’ll get some inspiration for the visual design whilst I work on that.

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Photo of a well worn 1916 dime in a metal and plastic case with the text: "NEUTRON IRRADIATED - AMERICAN MUSEUM OF ATOMIC ENERGY"

This was one of those weeks that felt like it was dragging at times, but flew by. Yes, a total contradiction, but maybe you know what I’m talking about. Maybe “flew by” is my excuse for not having anything top of mind to write about. I didn’t even take a random picture this week, so we’re digging into the archives.

The irradiated dime pictured here turned up while we were packing earlier this year. I had thrown it in with a pile of other, random coins at some point and forgotten about it. These irradiated dimes were a popular souvenir in the 1950s and 60s. My grandparents had visited the American Museum of Atomic Energy in Oak Ridge, TN during that time. Years later, I was given this encased coin to help fill out my meager coin collection.

Grandma didn’t have a lot of information about this dime other than where they got it. She certainly wasn’t prepared to answer any safety questions about a potential radioactivity. We didn’t have the Internet back then, so I was instructed to do what people did before they could just search it up: Write a letter.

To my—and perhaps my parents—surprise, someone from the museum wrote back. They included some history of these irradiated dime souvenirs, and assured us that the dime was safe to handle. While this was surely a relief for my Mother, I had hoped that it was still a little radioactive. The idea that this old dime was shooting out invisible energy was kind of cool.

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Screenshot of a map showing the NYC area. A 35.5 mile route is superimposed over the map with numbered markers for each mile.

When I say walking around Manhattan, I really mean around, for the most part anyway. This was supposed to be a 32 mile journey, but we ended up clocking over 35. Believe me, I felt every step of those extra, three miles. I’m not even sure what motivated my friend Jonas and I to embark on such a trek, but we’ve been talking about it for a couple years.

I had some history with this. My previous Manhattan circumnavigation attempt several years ago ended unceremoniously around West 86th. My shoes weren’t up to the task causing some painful blisters and I hobbled off to the subway. My walking partner at the time forged ahead only to succumb to a mysterious and sharp foot pain in Inwood Hill Park.

I mention this only because the truly wise man learns from the mistakes of others. While my blisters healed quickly, the other guy limped around for the better part of two months. Thus, my one stipulation for agreeing to this at all was “I’m going to stop at the first sign of any blisters or sharp pains.”

However, on this journey, the blisters didn’t really kick in until about 2/3 of the way in. By that point, the thought of having to retread those miles at some future point helped propel me to the end. For those last few miles, I was a bundle of misery. My usual, brisk pace was reduced to a kind of shuffle. All but the slowest of tourists were passing me. It wasn’t just my feet—though, they were the worst—my whole body was protesting with minor pain and major fatigue.

This will paint the picture of how beat I was: A quarter fell out of my pocket when I was retrieving my apartment keys. I began to bend down to pick it up and almost immediately said, “screw it, I don’t need 25 cents that badly”. At the time, I don’t think even a crispy dollar bill would have motivated me. A five? Maybe.

Who’s the wise man now? Certainly not me. But, we accomplished something As I write this, I’m happy to report that I’m back to 100%. The body is a remarkable thing, even this one.

So, to answer the inevitable “Would you do it again?” question: Maybe. But, I’m going to stop at the first sign of any blisters or sharp pains.

By the way, I’ve included a few observations and lessons learned below, in no particular order…

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