Nobody:

My Apple Music: serenading me with a mix of Taylor Swift, Converge, and Cocomelon, all within a 10-minute span at 6 a.m.

Read a comment on a post tonight that said:

“Europeans travel an hour for vacation. Americans travel an hour to get medication refilled.”

In all seriousness, not one European (or otherwise) I met on my trip knew where the hell Oregon or Washington were.

When I’m down in the dumps, I like to watch 80s and 90s movies. They always cheer me up.

Took me far too long to find the true purpose of these.

I feel like I’ve been cheating the system this week. I’ve been plugging my car into the free EV chargers at Walgreens and just going for a walk on my lunch break. My commute has been free this week.

My son, yelling from downstairs: “Dad! Can you muffled child’s voice?

Me: “What? I can’t hear you. I’m upstairs shaving!”

Son, yelling: “You can’t hear me because you’re upstairs!!!”

The cheapest tickets to Chris Stapleton are $200 for general admission, way in the back. This is so common now, not sure how they command these rates. There are so very few people I’d pay that much money to see live. I’m almost to the age where you’ve got to pay me to stay out that late!

Normally, my wife is pretty minimalistic, but she’s big on gifting souvenirs to coworkers and family upon return from traveling.

I find the whole practice very strange. Like essentially we’re saying, “hey, here’s something for you to remember this vacation I went on without you…”

I took the opportunity to watch both Barbie and Oppenheimer, back to back, on my 10 hour plane ride from Amsterdam to Portland.

Despite the leg room, wife and I both thought it was like a mini vacation just being without kids, being served food and drinks, and watching movies of our choosing.

Braving the conditions on Sauvie Island for some of spring’s sweetest treats: Hood strawberries.

I recently saw a reply form on someone’s personal Micro.blog post (at their own address), allowing readers to login from M.b, Mastodon, or Bluesky to comment. Anyone know if this is new, or where I can go to learn more about how to make this work with the Marfa theme?

When in Rome…

…Goodnight.

Roma is the filthiest large city I’ve ever visited, but the food is good. Walking a lot (20,000 steps before siesta) and eating our way across the città. Breaking a lot of social norms and embarrassing myself with my poor italiano.

Yesterday we hiked in the Alps, today we hiked the Cinque Terre. We burned a thousand calories hiking from Monterosso to Vernazza. The weather has been great. Resting for a bit before a night out in La Spezia.

In Italy, halfway through our trip, and I’m thinking about modifications to my own home based on my experience thus far. Such as real shutters. Bidets. Heated towel racks. Not giving up my American size fridge, however.

Lunch in Austria

Cortina d’Ampezzo.

Benefits to your circadian rhythm being way off given the 9 hour time difference: waking up at 4 a.m. for morning views.