Through the final few days of September and for the start of October, I took a motorcycle trip up into New England to explore the fall foliage and visit some of my favorite places. Unsurprisingly, many of those places were craft breweries. Also snuck in a good hike, some historical monuments, and a jaunt through downtown Albany. A productive long weekend, to be sure. Kristin came along with her Honda Rebel, and we made a good time of it. ...
Tools such as iMessage, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc have become the modern way to communicate about trivial things that were once fodder for occasional small talk. It is simply a truth of the world today; I can shoot you a text far more easily than I can connect with you physically, face-to-face. However, that is causing some issues for highly regulated industries, as Matt Levine relays in his column Money Stuff on 28 September: ...
Getting cooler out and losing daylight in the mornings and evenings, which certainly slows down the pace of outdoor riding. Vacations and other family activities kept me from riding too much on the weekends, as well. Am on track to close out the year in the 2,000+ mile range - which was my goal! - so there are things to enjoy about another season of biking. ...
From The Atlantic: The texts are juicy, but not because they are lurid, particularly offensive, or offer up some scandalous Muskian master plan—quite the opposite. What is so illuminating about the Musk messages is just how unimpressive, unimaginative, and sycophantic the powerful men in Musk’s contacts appear to be. Some secrets to success: Luck. Timing. Proximity to other successful people. Being born wealthy. ...
From The Verge: Telescopes around the world (and a few in space!) are now turning their attention to the scene of the collision. They’ll be watching to see how much the impact changed the movement of Dimorphos. The crash is part of the first practical planetary defense experiment — a trial to see if humanity might one day be able to redirect the path of an asteroid headed toward our planet. ...
Jason Diamond writing “Good Coffee Is Now Bad”: But it’s all part of a larger problem, about how everybody thinks they’re a coffee snob now because supposedly “good” coffee is easily attainable. It’s the same with beer or wine and especially with cocktails. 15 years ago, most bars’ versions of “cocktails” were two-ingredient drinks, but then owners caught onto the “mixology” trend and saw a new way to charge more for drinks even if the quality or care wasn’t there. All of a sudden every other bar had “cocktails,” but the bartenders maybe didn’t know how to make them or they just didn’t have the same amount of time or space afforded at places that were owned and operated by disciples of Dale DeGroff or vets from Death and Co. But the price didn’t reflect that. It was still 13 or 14 bucks for a not-so-great Old Fashioned. ...
Lots of early morning rides this month, out in search of a bagel or a croissant. Nice to get out before the sun makes the pavement too hot and the air takes on that feel of being “too humid”. The year is starting to wind down. And that’s sad. ...
From 512 Pixels: In my head, I know that the 14-inch MacBook Pro is the right notebook for me and the work that I do when away from my desk…. There’s something about the design of this machine [the Air] that I can’t escape. The footprint is pretty similar between the two notebooks, but in my backpack, there’s a huge difference. Don’t get me wrong: I am thrilled that the MacBook Pro has beefed up to be a better computer, but I’m drawn to the clean, simple look of the Air. I know the Pro is a better match for my workflows, but the Air can do everything I need — if just a little bit slower. And I don’t care about that speed difference any time I pick up the Air to take it with me. Something about it just clicks with me in a way I didn’t anticipate. ...
Jim Vorel writing at Paste: If you’re a drinker whose induction into the world of craft beer came fairly recently—say, in the last few years, or in what we’ll surely still be calling the “pandemic era” decades from now—then it’s entirely possible you’ll have no conception at all of the concept of the “beer growler.” Great read. Good to revisit that history. I never owned one of the fancy CO2 pressurized growlers, but I did own some double-wall insulated ones and plenty of glass ones. Someday I’m going to gaze back in time and wonder when I first came to craft beer. As best I can recall today, which is probably as best I’ll ever be able to recall it, this happened at some point during my college career at Rutgers University. Campus life had plenty of beer pong and while we weren’t filling cups with 8% IPA’s the not-crap you drank between games was closer to craft beer than to the commercial swill you see advertised during American football games today. ...
About doubled the mileage from June. Not much traveling in July, and the trip to Asheville involved a lot of bike riding. All good news to help bump up these stats. Quite a bit of variety, too, with rides and hikes across many parts of NJ and PA. I’m already a week into August and I do not think I’m on track to beat the month of July. Oh well. Bike riding is about enjoying the time you spend doing it, and not worrying about spending more and more time out on the bike! ...