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Photo of hot pink with white lettering banner on a cinder block wall on a NYC subway platform. It advertises a florist with the text "OH MY GOD FLOWERS... Dude, she deserves beautiful flowers, make her happy today! 1-929-309-5719 www.ohmygodflowers.com 2413 Coney Island Ave"
Effective advertising on the subway.

Including a random photo this week. This may be one of the most memorable ads I’ve seen on the subway, ever.

It has been about two months since the Youtube ban of 2025 went into effect. While I still have Youtube blocked on my computer at home, the ban hasn’t yielded a massive amount of bass practice and I am still far from reaching James Jamerson levels of skill. Instead, I’ve been watching more HBO and Netflix, oops. It’s not all bad though. My Youtube consumption is down sharply and what I watch now is of higher quality. Also, with longer form entertainment, think I can be more intentional with my viewing than with the random, short videos on Youtube. Going forward, I’ll put some more thought into what I’m about to do before I click play.

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The July 4th holiday, and the number on this weeknote post provide a potent realization: “Crap, halfway through another year…”

Yeah. Time really flies.

Due in part to that realization, I was thinking of a way to remind myself of things–goal oriented things, not a todo list things. Perhaps a personal, daily newsletter will do the trick. I do check my email in the morning, so that’s a good place to get something in front of me. There are myriad ways to do this; I chose to create a little Python personal newsletter mailer script, mostly for fun. A very basic version is getting sent to my inbox every morning. I’ll see if it helps…

This also gave me a chance to try out Codeberg as a replacement for github. So far, so good on that front. I don’t notice much difference since Codeberg seems to have the github features I use most often (git repos and issues).

In US Political news, congress passed a spending and policy bill this week that seems destined to drive this country off a fiscal cliff so that the most wealthy among us can become more wealthy while the rest lose what meager benefits they have. Also, they opened a concentration camp in the Florida everglades and gave it a cute name to distract people from the fact that they are warehousing people in cages, in tents, in a swamp. I really hope the hurricane resistance of those tents aren’t put to the test.

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This week brought a heat wave, thankfully for only a couple days. I can’t recall a time where it felt this hot in New York. The temperature was like working in a commercial kitchen, in front of a broiler. It’s only June, so I suspect we’ll have more of the same before the summer is over.

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Went for a sail in a buddy’s boat on Long Island Sound this week. It was a somewhat late shake-out sail. While smooth sailing is far from guaranteed on the first sail of the season, nothing broke or fell apart on this voyage. In fact, it was a lovely sail. We got back in time to watch the afternoon thunderstorms roll through from the deck of a local yacht club. This was followed by some home pizza making, good conversation, and a just a couple sips of wine.

The following day, I went for another sail (lucky me). This time in New York Harbor was much more spirited with a gusty 15 knot wind and accompanying chop. It ended up being a short sail due in part to my own schedule. We did manage to have a quick beer after, which is almost mandatory.

While we were having that beer, I noticed that almost all the serving items in use at this busy restaurant were disposable. Cups, glasses, plates, napkins, all used just once then bound for the landfill. This seems both unnecessary and irresponsible. Perhaps the cost of these plastic and paper goods plus the disposal fees are slightly cheaper than proper dishes and the staff required to clean them. However, I expect better, especially from an establishment located in a park with a mission statement touting “…innovative, and sustainable management and design.”

I won’t return to this place, nor any other that needlessly uses so many single-use items for dine-in service. They won’t miss me, but there will be one or two fewer plastic cups carted off to the landfill or becoming litter on my behalf.

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What a week. It’s difficult to watch the current administration turn the National Guard and Marines on people exercising their first amendment rights in Los Angeles. Heather Cox Richardson’s post from June 8th outlines the events that led up to this escalation. That escalation seems designed more to fan the flames than protect anyone.

Later in the week, Senator Padilla was shoved to the ground and handcuffed by agents for daring to ask a question at a press conference. Once again, Cox Richardson’s summarizes the events and points out that Noem’s comments about “liberating” Los Angeles from the democratically elected government are as shocking as a US Senator being roughed up by someone’s security detail for asking a question.

Then, early Saturday morning, a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband were assassinated in their home and another lawmaker and his wife were shot several times in their home. If the President denounced this political violence, I certainly haven’t heard it. The President denounced the shootings. Then, staying true to his character, he called the Governor “grossly incompetent”.

This is just a bit of what happened in the US. Meanwhile, things are far from peaceful abroad. Yet the President seemed most focused on his birthday military parade.

On a somewhat brighter note. Thousands of people all over the country took to the streets on Saturday in an overwhelmingly peaceful protest of this administration’s many encroachments on our freedom.

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