Category: Weeknotes

Posted on
by
Photo of a new, R211 series subway on the B line arriving at 7th Avenue Station in Brooklyn. The electronic sign displays the letter "B" in an orange circle with the text "CONCOURSE LOCAL".
New B!

I was pleasantly surprised to see one of the new R211 trains running on the B line.

A new train on one’s regular line is like getting a new car. Well, the new car smell isn’t quite as pronounced and it doesn’t require ponying up tens of thousands or dollars or crippling debt.

On second thought, it’s better than getting a new car.

Links

Posted on
by
A low quality photo of a full moon over the downtown Brooklyn skyline taken from Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge is also visible.

This week’s random photo comes from a show at Pier 17. The full moon was spectacular. This picture doesn’t do it justice, sorry for the low quality I’ll also apologize for the weird crop, but I didn’t want to feed a bunch of concert-goers faces to our AI overlords.

The show was Dropkick Murphys and Bad Religion on Saturday. Excellent show, and it’s a nice change to see a punk show in an outdoor venue on a beautiful night verses the dark clubs in which I’ve seen every other show like this. By the way, I think this show ended with the biggest pit I’ve ever witnessed. Well done, Dropkicks.

Links

Posted on
by
Photo of a black moving truck parked on the street. There is an image of the Tasmanian Devil holding a grand piano over his head and text that reads ACTION PIANO MOVING 1 800 480-6683 WWW.ACTIONPIANOMOVING.COM PIANOS BOUGHT AND SOLD.

This week’s random photo is of a piano moving truck. In hindsight, a picture of the grand piano these guys had artfully wedged into a service elevator would have been more impressive. But, this is all I got. Maximum respect to the piano movers of the world. Death Wish Piano Movers of Boston takes the cake for the most aptly named business though.

It’s been an exciting week here (more on that later), so it’s a very light weeknote. Enjoy the links…

Links

Posted on
by
Photo of a sign advertising Rockaway Beach Surf Shop attached to a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. The advertisement is a cartoon of five people with pompadore hairdos surfing. The text above the cartoon is "ROCK ROCK ROCKAWAY BEACH". Below the cartoon, the text is "Since 1972, Rockaway Beach Surf Shop, 177 Beach 116th St, Rockaway Park, NY 11694, 718-474-9345." There are other, smaller signs attached to the fence around the surf shop sign and there is ivy growing on the fence, obscuring some of the signs. There is some industrial landscape in the background.
It’s not far, not hard to reach

We spent a couple days at Rockaway Beach. It was nice to get away, even if away means a different borough. It was very hot on Friday, so it was good to be near the water and not needing to ride the subway. We ate some delicious food and took in the local vibe. Plus, we got to engage in a bit of plane spotting. We can do that at home too as the LaGuardia arrivals flight path is over the neighborhood. But, the flights departing JFK in the evening tend to be going to more exciting locales than those arriving at LGA. Think Amsterdam vs. Atlanta.

Links

Posted on
by
Photo of a sign in an apartment window. The text is "President are temporary. Wu Tang is Forever".
President are indeed temporary.

This week’s random photo comes from an apartment window in Windsor Terrace. While the subject and the verb might not agree, personally, I agree with the sentiment.

I read Deep Work a couple months ago and have since put some of his recommendations into practice. For the most part, it’s been about taking control of my calendar, which–combined with some other practices–has carved out a fair amount of time for me to get more meaningful work done. I also (re)subscribed to Cal Newport’s blog, hence the trio of links below.

We had a particularly good jam session this Friday. I attribute part of that to the fact that I’ve been good about picking up the bass (almost) every day, even if it is just to run scales for a few minutes. The lead singer having sampled some cava prior to the session may have had something to do with it as well. None of these sessions would happen without Jamulus, such an amazing piece of software.

Links