Mind over Matter: Stuff I cared about at the time

Category: Life

  • Weekend Away

    Weekend Away

    We went away this weekend to spend time with two other couples, and log some good biking in Western Mass. We rented a house in Amherst that was near the Mass Central Rail Trail. Late on Saturday morning, we hopped on our bikes and rode 14 miles to the Williamsburg Snack Bar where we had…

  • Oliver!

    Oliver!

    For what you are about to receiveMay the lord make you truly thankful. from the lyrics of Oliver! from the musical Oliver! Last night, we went to see John Oliver perform standup comedy at the MGM Music Hall at Fenway. We used to watch The Daily Show pretty religiously back when Jon Stewart (cousin Jon,…

  • The Ultimate Trip to England

    The Ultimate Trip to England

    You may be sensing a theme here in my titles. This time, we have followed Clara to Merry Olde England to watch her play in the WFDF World Under-24 Championships in Nottingham. Each (interested) country fields up to three teams — a Women’s (W) team, a Mixed (X) team, and an Open (O) team. The…

  • The Ultimate Road Trip

    The Ultimate Road Trip

    Well, we finally did it. Susan and I managed to get to watch Clara play in this year’s USA Ultimate Collegiate Championships. Her Northeastern University team, the Valkyries, have played at nationals 3 of the 5 years she’s been there, and of course, there were no nationals (or much of anything else) in 2020 and…

  • Design for Serviceability

    Design for Serviceability

    About an hour into a brief, twenty-four hour getaway, I received a not quite panicked call from my mom, letting me know that her microwave (a Panasonic NN-SN733W, bought in August 2015) wasn’t working. She uses the microwave all the time, for heating up water to make tea, and even making a good percentage of…

  • Another of My Favorite Things

    Another of My Favorite Things

    Maybe this is a series? Growing up, my parents had a 14 speed blender — I think it was a Hamilton Beach. Each of the speeds had a name — things like blend, whip, puree, mix, etc. I think it had 7 buttons for the speeds, and a “High/Low” range switch that selected one of…

  • The Blizzard of ’22

    The Blizzard of ’22

    Late on Friday evening, 28 January 2022, it began to snow, and it snowed for about 22 hours straight. By the time I walked the dog around 7:00 a.m. on Saturday, there were a few inches in some spots, but a lot was bare, owing to the winds. The bulk of the snow came during…

  • The Mains Problem

    One night a few weeks ago, we lost power briefly. And then apparently again that night, but while we were asleep. A couple of weeks after that, we had a strange occurrence during the day which I first noticed because I heard some relays click like when power is turned off on some appliances. I…

  • A Shard of the Truth

    Have you ever caught some bright spot of light out of the corner of your eye? You move your head around to try and catch another glimpse; to find its source, but it’s gone. Maybe you forget about it, or ignore it, then all of a sudden it’s there again. It’s elusive, like a rabbit…

  • We’re an American Pant!

    As I started to write this, I searched for my previous post on the topic, and turns out I’ve not only written twice before but I already used a variant of the pun in the title. Sigh. Old habits… Anyway, what brought me back to the writing desk is that my two current pairs of…