I look at my 4 year old boy and I find it incredibly heart wrenching that I cannot figure out a way for him not to have to go through this.

From Dan Sinker

Asked the kid what his highlights from school were today and after kickball at lunch and gym he said "and we had a lockdown drill today, which is the best drill because you get to hide in the corner in the dark with your friends" and I'd like out of this collective nightmare please.

I had no idea that UsaFacts.org was a thing nor that Steve Ballmer was behind it until I listened to Jon Stewart interviewing him. I’m impressed that he took this on and I love the format of the site.

Thoughts on the iPhone 13 mini after two days: bloody amazing. Time to sell off the 13 Pro Max I’ve carried these past two years.

As we ease into September, I can feel autumn making it’s way to our trees. The light already feels different from just a week ago.

I’ve been enjoying the hot Nebraska summer days and nights since we moved here. In particular working outside and enjoying some ice cold NA beer after yard chores or some other activity. I don’t have a lot of access to NA beer brands (Athletic Brewing was my goto when we were still in Seattle) in my small rural central Nebraska town, but compared to last year the options have opened up. Here’s my top 5 list for the beers I’ve enjoyed this summer, hopefully more brands will make it to stores here next year.

1. Run Wild IPA (Athletic Brewing Co): Just a great hoppy, crisp IPA. Not always in stores but I stock up when they appear.
2. Stella Artois Liberte: Ice cold, comes in glass bottle. Tastes like the real thing.
3. Heineken 0.0: I love ice cold glass bottled Heinekens.
4. Just the Haze IPA by Sam Adams: This one was a surprise, I never liked Sam Adams before but this has been regularly stocked and doesn’t overwhelm you with malt like the real stuff does. A crisp, lighter IPA.
5. Busch NA: Another surprise (and always stocked and cheap). These are crisp, flavorful (light bitterness a la pilsner). I keep these near freezing and am pleasantly surprised that I would be touching a Busch beer product.

In the coming months I will be shifting to Guiness NA as temps cool down.

I am first in line to celebrate the demise of twitter and I have a hunch it won’t be long. This situation in Brazil though, is not the blessing that people believe it to be. This sets a bad precedent for Brazilians and internet availability in general.

Ok, I get that there are layers here, but not lawyers because #Musk failed to appoint one by the deadline heyoooooo 🥁

The most important layer being that I have next to zero understanding of the events and politics involved with #Twitter and #Brazil.

All I want to point out is: look how easy it is to ban Twitter. You just need a judge to be like "lol you're awful and everyone knows it. Bye"

We could do this people. We could be the change we want to see in the world.

https://apnews.com/article/brazil-musk-x-suspended-de-moraes-46c9d5c5c895e17d9adfac43e6ac20fd

Man, this hits hard. Arstechnica and AnandTech were the primary drivers for me in my tech education in the late 90s. RIP AnandTech

End of an era. I literally started reading this site in middle school. RIP. https://www.anandtech.com/show/21542/end-of-the-road-an-anandtech-farewell

I haven’t recorded in a bit. Was futzing around with tuning, it can be meditative at times to tune a drum and other times it’s the most frustrating thing one can go through.

Glad to see Apple are finally selling the refurbished iPhone 13 mini. Just placed my order to downsize from my 13 Pro Max. Portability, music, reduced screentime, and texting. Those are my goals. No YouTube, minimal web browsing (probably just NetNewsWire and micro.blog feeds).

During these next few weeks my focus is going to be staving off burnout.

Balancing crazy work hours and making sure I’m available for family has resulted in very little rest or pursuit of hobbies and such.

I’m not really stressed but can feel my body starting to reject the status quo I’m in.

Poser.

Dave Abbruzzese, Pearl Jam drummer for the Vs. and Vitalogy albums dropped a comment in one of my YouTube covers.

I’ve been going down a Pearl Jam rabbit hole, especially the Vs. and Vitalogy albums with Dave Abbruzzese on drums (my favorite PJ records and all time favorite drummer).

I’ve never really played along to or tried to learn their songs in my youth. I’m focusing on learning Vs. first, starting with Animal. Such a foot work out. So much energy in this song.

Purple corn, with occasional flowers.

I have nothing against streaming music (I do so on occasion), but I prefer buying my music and downloading on to my device. iTunes used to be really great at this. In the last two or more years, I keep running into this glitch where 1) I buy an album from iTunes on my iPhone. 2) The tracks all go through the “Downloading” motions and successfully download. 3) New album or songs don’t show up on my Apple Music library for anywhere between 2 - 24 hours.

Rebooting or killing Apple Music process does nothing to accelerate anything showing up on my library.

Yesterday, while accidentally deleting a song off of a playlist, the album I purchased not 3 hours prior magically showed up.

“Could it be that by manipulating a track list in a playlist resets the library somehow to show the recently downloaded track(s)?” - my brain

Yes, my friends, this is indeed the case. I tested this by buying a track, creating a playlist called “Test” and adding a random song from my library.

Bam, track shows up in my library immediately.

What was once a service I never had to think about on my phone, now requires multiple steps to get a purchased piece of music to show up in my library.

Man, I sure miss Bowie.

Today I posted a Stone Temple Pilots drum snippet and a lame attempt at playing samba.

My go-to beer is the Run Wild IPA from Athletic Brewing but it’s hit or miss finding it in the stores here (or any NA beer besides like O’Doules). Today they had Stella NA and I was skeptical but it tastes great!

Summer, signaling its beginnings.

I’ve been enjoying posting little short snippets of my drum playing on YouTube but I think I’m going to transition to hosting them here instead.

Frozen fruitcicles

Friday last week, we installed the pedals on my son’s balance bike and he didn’t skip a beat, was successfully pedaling on his first try.

I posted another drum cover short on YouTube. Jimmy Chamberlin (Smashing Pumpkins) is a great drummer but I never loved the Pumpkins that much. This song is from Jimmy’s jazz/fusion/rock band Jimmy Chamberlin Complex and Billy Corgan provides the vocals. Wonderful song.

Trying this out, my first YouTube short playing drums.

Incredibly disappointed I missed Godzilla Minus One in the theaters but super happy it was released on platforms today. It was excellent.

My (other) tribe