Been thinking about my Twitter lockout. I now think the 2FA code isn't coming through because it's looking for the sim card of my previous phone, before I ditched my ancient iPhone and the deteriorating T-Mobile service. So bad timing on my end. Wondering if I can put the sim card in an old iPhone, install the Twitter app, and request code. Will try tomorrow. #
I may be locked out of Twitter. I recently upgraded my phone. Last week, a new owner took over at Twitter and fired half the company. This week, two-factor authentication won't send an authorization code to my phone number (new phone, but same number, and I expected to get a code). Not expecting any quick response to my support ticket. Not sure what this means for my future use of Drummer and Feedland; thankfully, I'm logged in on both. Interestingly, in the Twitter login step I'm stuck at, there's what looks to me like a typo - 'enter it below to login in' - and I'm not sure if that's been there a long time or not.#
For the record, we moved four mobile phone lines (mine and our children's) from Sprint to Verizon. Erin has been on Verizon for many years and has had excellent coverage here at home and on the road. I was with Sprint for most of the last 20 years, but its merger with T-Mobile made for worse and worse coverage. The switch also allowed me to upgrade my phone from an iPhone 8 Plus to a iPhone 14 Pro.#
A busy day at the site of our new house: carpenters were framing the front porch, the plumber was working in one of the bathrooms, and the HVAC crew was putting in the air returns and supplies. The electrician arrived at the end of the day and we walked through the lower level to talk through the placement of switches and can lights and whips for pendants. Layton, our builder, showed up and said another crew will be here in the morning to install the rest of the windows. Meanwhile, Erin's been confirming our cabinet and counter and faucet choices with the various vendors. So many elements to building a house, but it's coming together and it is looking great.#
Update on the family passport renewals: Malia and Oliver received their new passports this week. Anna was in and out of the Carrboro Post Office this morning and her application is off to the Department of State.#
My personal news product -- the feeds I read each day -- are now displayed via Feedland at news.mistersugar.com. The current title is 'Nius i go long everiwan' which is Bislama for 'news for anyone' to read. The tabs indicate my main interests: what other bloggers are writing, what's happening in science and medicine, soccer!, and the software tools I use as well as a tab for my various writing spots. I hope to add feeds/tabs for food (and chocolate) and what's happening beyond the U.S.A.#
I've been blogging for 22 years and I thought I had exhausted my stories about my Peace Corps service in the Republic of Vanuatu. But Oliver mentioned drums the other night, and I couldn't find a reference to my music education project on Paama, so I wrote a blog post over at the Zuiker Chronicles.#
Over on Scripting News, Dave has announced Feedland, his new RSS project. I've been able to use it for the past couple of months, and it's been fun to watch him develop this. As I suggested in my post How we built scienceblogging.org, I like gathering newsfeeds toI've been using Feedland to update and rebuild the Duke River of News. It's much easier now to manage the Duke River with Feedland (I used Radio5 since 2016) and I've updated dukeriver.co to display this new version (with more feeds to add over the next few days).#
In Washington earlier this week, we went shopping in Georgetown. That allowed me to stop into Potomac Wine and Spirits to get two bottles of Yebiga rakija, a Serbian liquor that I will soon be enjoying with my slivovitz-drinking friend. I also asked about sour cherry liqueur, and Steven behind the counter recommended the Portuguese Ginja de Óbidos. I've just tried a sip of this, and it tastes like the DIY visinata I've made in the past, but better.#Scanning the Duke River of News, I see my friend Karl Bates has a story about the history of dugongs and manatees. And in the NYTimes, an article explaining that dugongs are functionally extinct in the coastal waters off China. Both caught my interest because I once swam with a dugong in Vanuatu; here's my post. #
I took Malia to the Carrboro post office to apply for a new passport. As opposed to our last experience, this was smooth as possible, and we were in an out in 15 minutes. Tomorrow is Oliver's turn.#
Erin, Anna, and I finished the six-episode Keep Breathing last night. We started watching it because we were intrigued about the setting, seeing as we'd just gotten back from Alaska. We watched to the end because of the cliffhangers and backstory. #
I'm patiently waiting for the ending to the Trump show. He's clearly guilty and a horrible man.#
Great segment on The World today: "Latin artists once had to sing in English to achieve global success. No more." Comes with a Spotify playlist. #
Busy times at home. We're all (mostly) healthy again, but preparing for Anna and Malia to go off to college, and Malia's graduation party this Friday, and Oliver's soccer starting up again. But Erin and I are sneaking away for dinner out tonight to celebrate our anniversary (#26).#
Erin took the day off to take the children (and her sister and her children) to the amusement park in Charlotte. I stayed home to work, but used my lunch break to cook up a batch of hot sauce. After work, I put on my GORUCK 15L Bullet pack with a 20-pound weight and a water bladder and then went for a hike in the woods behind our house, and then in the woods behind the high school. I came home, made Gazpacho Andaluz with the yellow tomatoes I bought at the Carrboro Farmers Market on Saturday. While the soup chills and I wait for the family to return, I strained the cherry bounce that my friend Rose had brought over after her trip to pick cherries in June and put the bottle into the fridge.#
I asked the Micro.blog community for recommendations of bloggers and writers -- my river needs to expand with more voices and perspectives.#
Malia's turn to be ill. Last night Erin and I had to drive to camp to get her. This morning I'm sitting in the Duke Health urgent care waiting room as Malia gets tested for COVID and influenza. I'm grateful for the COVID rapid tests that make it easy to test at home, and thankful the health system has this clean, cool clinic open every day. #
More heavy rains tonight. The country's divisions are deeper than ever, and people (and some of my own family) are crazy as shit. But on Apple TV+ the adorable show Trying is back, so it's not all doom and gloom in the world.#
A song from the 80s, and still a good message for today: Common Ground, by Rhythm Corps. #
The USPS passport appointment site is one of the most frustrating sites I've used of late. But eventually I made appointments for two of my three children. Their passports, which went with them to Australia and Vanuatu, are expired.#
- Dave Winer has been working all year on a new RSS project (RSS 2.0 will mark 20 years in September). I'm excited to see what he builds and what community grows up around it. #
- Back in 2010, as we were preparing for the annual ScienceOnline conference, a few of us launched a site to harness the many RSS feeds coming out of the blossoming science blogging world; scienceblogging.org pulled in the top headlines from blogging networks and collectives, group blogs, news sites, and more. Here, for instance, is the August 2011 Wayback Machine capture of the site. (Later, we built a better mousetrap at scienceseeker.org.)#
- When I look back at that, I feel proud of what we built then; that site, and our conference and the global community that grew up around it, were exhilarating. Since then, I never stopped using RSS, and I have been probably the loudest voice for RSS feeds at Duke University (see my Duke River of News).#
- Let's see where RSS goes over its next 20 years.#
I do the Wordle every day, and I have persevered through the last week of COVID illness. I'm feeling much better, but my guess just now in Wordle, in which I spelled a word I know quite well with the wrong vowel, tells me my brain fog isn't quite clear. Wonder if NYTimes will find a way to correlate the Wordle data to COVID and help us understand this illness more.#
On the ship last week, while we were heading north for 36 hours of ocean cruising up the coast of Canada and Alaska, I took a walk on the top deck, where the swimming pool was. A huge screen above the pool was playing Spitting Distance, a Red Bull Explorers episode about a team of volcanologists climbing into Benbow crater on Ambrym Island in the Republic of Vanuatu. I'll watch this during my COVID quarantine and think about when I hiked to Benbow's twin crater, Marum. I blogged about that adventure here. #
New header image is of the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska.#
I tested positive for COVID the same morning (yesterday) that President Biden tested positive. He says he has mild symptoms. I wish him the best. I, on the other hand, shivered in bed yesterday, my body aching, and my mind recalling how I felt when I had dengue fever during my Peace Corps service in Vanuatu. Today no aches or noticeable fever, and I'm at the stage of infection in which the virus has programmed my body to infect others: I'm sneezing and have a runny nose. I'm quarantined to the bedroom; Erin, who also tested positive and feels crappy, is spending most of her time in her office or down at her sister's house. #
Erin and I are back from our trip out west. The cruise to Alaska was fun, we had great weather, we saw eagles and whales and bears and more, we had a delightful date night in Victoria, and we're home now trying not to get sick (Oliver got flu and pneumonia last week). #
New header image shows the boats at the docks below the house we stayed in (Jerusalem, Rhode Island).#
Oliver and I are sitting in the Washington Dulles airport and waiting for a late-night flight back to North Carolina. Our visit with my father and stepmom in Rhode Island was very good, and I'll have a full report with photos in tomorrow. Our flight out of Providence today included a two-hour delay on the tarmac -- and then an extra half hour on the Dulles tarmac because the thunderstorm meant we couldn't safely exit the small CR-26 jet down the steps and into terminal. No matter. We're safely inside, and sitting at the quiet gate area for next (uneventful, we hope!) flight. #
- At work, my colleagues and I help each other improve our "brief ins," which are the memos and messages to others that we use to describe an assignment, request a review of a document, or define a request for the layout and design of a report.#
- When I write my brief ins, I have to remind myself to write more than I initially think and to add details before I send it off. I know this about myself: I usually say too little, either because I haven't fully thought out what I want to say, or because I'm assuming or expecting that the other person will know what I'm thinking.#
- Some of my friends and colleagues are the opposite; they provide a lot of detail and many layers, often too much and too long for busy leaders or peers to be able to quickly scan.#
- The goal for us all, of course, is to communicate with just the right amount of information, definition, and detail to help another person understand the context of what we're requesting, what we need to happen, and when we need it to happen.#
- I appreciate how my colleagues help me improve my writing, and how they respond to my edits and suggestions. We have a great team at DCRI Research Communications and Engagement, always improving and progressing.#
Thinking about all that, recently, I figured I should tell my colleagues about what I've learned from Dave Winer about how to write good bug reports. Over the last decade, Dave has helped me write focused messages about what I encounter when I'm testing or using his software. His request is that I always answer these three questions:#- I was nervous when I first started submitting bug reports to Dave, but I've come to welcome the rigor of that three-part test. I have used what I learned from Dave to improve my work brief ins, too.#
- I also want to tell my colleagues about Dave's Narrate Your Work. That's his way to keep track of what he's developing day to day and to show others what's he working on. Every now and then, Dave gives us a view to his development worknotes, and I'm always fascinated by how disciplined he is in noting the day's progress and planning the next day's first task or focus. #
- For example, here's his Change Notes for Drummer, his great new outliner-based blogging system. (Last year I helped Dave test Drummer; I contributed bug reports, some better than others.) #
- Drummer, I've been thinking, could be a good way for me and my colleagues to narrate our work according to the performance goals set for us by our managers. I can imagine how an outline of my worknotes can make it easier to write my self evaluation next spring. The better I can show how I met and exceeded those performance goals, the better my chances at a raise or a future promotion.#
Waking up Oliver for his last day of sixth grade. Playing Best Day Ever by Sly and the Family Stallone.#
I missed the U2 channel on SiriusXM by one number today and got to hear the Ramones sing I Wanna Be Sedated on the First Wave channel.#
Dr. Mary Klotman, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, gave the annual State of the School of Medicine presentation this evening. The past two years, her address was only on Zoom, but tonight the school's Great Hall had seats set for in-person attendance. Alas, I was one of only about 40 who showed up. I'm glad I went, because this was one of her best presentations, and I was proud to be a part of this school at this university.#
Allen from the Sound Speeds channel on YouTube offered to make high-quality XLR cables over the holiday weekend, so I decided to invest in a couple of cables (one blue, one orange) to improve my home podcast studio. Cables arrived today not long after I visited the cool new Studio Four in the Bryan Center at Duke University, where I recorded a short message of gratitude to my colleague Stephen Toback.#
Stickermule was unable to deliver my new stickers to my old work address (my fault for not reviewing the order closely), so I had to go to the UPS distribution warehouse in Durham this evening to retrieve the packet. A worker in the parking lot pointed me through an open bay and told me to walk down the steps, under the conveyor belt, and onto the other side of the floor. While I waited for a woman to track down the packet, I watched a handful of workers loading trucks or receiving undeliverable packages. Watching them work in the dusty, noisy warehouse made me appreciate how efficient their system usually is, nearly always getting packages up the gravel road to our house in Chapel Hill. #- My sticker, by the way, is one of a series of four icons designed in 2001 by a Cleveland friend, Paul. I used those icons on a short-lived website called VanAmericanNius Online ("Serving the Volunteers of Peace Corps Vanuatu"); I also have used the tamtam as my avatar on Twitter and Zoom.#
- The Coconut Wireless is what I called my blog at mistersugar.com. As I explain in the tooltip on antonzuiker.com, "It's sort of a joke: On an island, information moves down the coconut wireless, like the game of telephone."#
- Stickermule's weekly deal was 50 stickers for $9, so I used it for the coconut wireless icon. I love it. I'm excited to share these with family and friends, and will explain that the image is a reminder to stay connected to each other.#
- It's a holiday, and we're spending the day cleaning, painting, arranging. We don't expect to move out until next year -- the foundation piers for the new house will be dug only this week -- but there's a lot we want to throw away and touch up. #
- I looked out the window this morning and saw a stranger walk by.#
- I went outside and saw him heading east down the driveway toward the construction site. He was wearing headphones. #
- "Excuse me," I yelled. He stopped, turned around, took off his headphones.#
- "Can I help you?" I asked.#
- "No," he answered.#
- "This is private property," I said.#
- "Is it yours?" he asked.#
- "Yes."#
- Only then did he start to walk back my way.#
- "You just out for a walk?" I asked him. "Nice day for a walk."#
- "Yes. I'm going to the Hornet's Hill trail."#
- He was walking the wrong way.#
- "Well, if you kept walking down there, you'd be in Southern Village," I explained. #
- "I see they're building a house," he said.#
- "Yes, we live in this old house and we are building a new house there."#
- "There's no cut through to the trail, so if I walked that way would I get there?" he asked, pointing south.#
- "Well, you'll run into the neighbor's deer fence. You should walk down the gravel driveway and then cut over."#
- At that, he put his headphones on, turned, and walked south into the forest across our land.#
- Later, I recounted this for Erin, and she and I agreed that this was yet another example of the white privilege that we keep encountering here in Chapel Hill, well-off white folks just happy and comfortable enough to ignore a Private Property sign and walk across land that they know they shouldn't be on. #
- A few weeks ago, I made an appointment for the whole family to visit the Pittsboro post office so that my children could apply for new passports. Their previous passports have expired and because those first books were issued when they were under 16, they can't get new passports by mail. #
- So, we drove the 25 minutes to Pittsboro and arrived 15 minutes early to our 9 a.m. appointment, only to be told that the person who handles passports wouldn't be arriving until at least 9:15 and anyway she'd need to attend to the pile of mail that came in over the weekend, so we'd just have to wait. #
- Oliver had a math test to get to and Malia had a class assignment to turn in, so we couldn't wait.#
- The family piled back into the minivan and we drove northward, crossing the Haw River and back to schools and home and work. We voiced our frustration with the U.S. Postal Service, and made a new plan: we'd get each of the kids into an individual appointment at the post office closest to us. #
- Fortunately, we have not international trips planned.#
Can't recall what I did to shake Drummer to display my latest Radio3 items in the Links tab. #
Home again, and cleaning out our suitcases after the late-night arrival. Last night we watched most of the UNC-Duke Final Four game in the Charlotte airport, and celebrated the thrilling final minutes just as the next airplane was up off the runway and ascending toward RDU. (The American Airlines app streamed the game for free.) Now I'm watching the Tottenham-Newcastle match, having just completed the routine back-from-the-islands washing of the hammocks.#
- We're on a family spring break trip, again visiting Dad and Dot, enjoying the glorious West End of the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. We've already been on Sandy Point for the final public Sunday (hot, sunny, stunning) and then the next night (cool, starry, calming) to accompany Kelly Stewart (the subject of my Duke Magazine story) on she and her research crew monitored the beach for sea turtles. #
- Alas, no turtles that night, but today we did sea green turtles as we snorkeled above the wreck of a tugboat. We were on a morning sail along the coast, just the six of us and the crew of the Jolly Mon catamaran, enjoying cool drinks and the expansive views of the island. #
- We'll be back to Sprat Hall beach in an hour after we've rested by the swimming pool (the house next to Dot's has an amazing guesthouse that we've rented for few days), and maybe will walk over to Rhythms at Rainbow Beach for more mojitos. #
- Erin and I were at Rhythms for fish tacos and key lime pie yesterday after we had massages at the Fred, a boutique hotel on the Frederiksted strand.#
- It feels good to be on vacation and to be relaxed#
Been thinking about my Twitter lockout. I now think the 2FA code isn't coming through because it's looking for the sim card of my previous phone, before I ditched my ancient iPhone and the deteriorating T-Mobile service. So bad timing on my end. Wondering if I can put the sim card in an old iPhone, install the Twitter app, and request code. Will try tomorrow. #
I may be locked out of Twitter. I recently upgraded my phone. Last week, a new owner took over at Twitter and fired half the company. This week, two-factor authentication won't send an authorization code to my phone number (new phone, but same number, and I expected to get a code). Not expecting any quick response to my support ticket. Not sure what this means for my future use of Drummer and Feedland; thankfully, I'm logged in on both. Interestingly, in the Twitter login step I'm stuck at, there's what looks to me like a typo - 'enter it below to login in' - and I'm not sure if that's been there a long time or not.#
For the record, we moved four mobile phone lines (mine and our children's) from Sprint to Verizon. Erin has been on Verizon for many years and has had excellent coverage here at home and on the road. I was with Sprint for most of the last 20 years, but its merger with T-Mobile made for worse and worse coverage. The switch also allowed me to upgrade my phone from an iPhone 8 Plus to a iPhone 14 Pro.#
A busy day at the site of our new house: carpenters were framing the front porch, the plumber was working in one of the bathrooms, and the HVAC crew was putting in the air returns and supplies. The electrician arrived at the end of the day and we walked through the lower level to talk through the placement of switches and can lights and whips for pendants. Layton, our builder, showed up and said another crew will be here in the morning to install the rest of the windows. Meanwhile, Erin's been confirming our cabinet and counter and faucet choices with the various vendors. So many elements to building a house, but it's coming together and it is looking great.#
Update on the family passport renewals: Malia and Oliver received their new passports this week. Anna was in and out of the Carrboro Post Office this morning and her application is off to the Department of State.#
My personal news product -- the feeds I read each day -- are now displayed via Feedland at news.mistersugar.com. The current title is 'Nius i go long everiwan' which is Bislama for 'news for anyone' to read. The tabs indicate my main interests: what other bloggers are writing, what's happening in science and medicine, soccer!, and the software tools I use as well as a tab for my various writing spots. I hope to add feeds/tabs for food (and chocolate) and what's happening beyond the U.S.A.#
I've been blogging for 22 years and I thought I had exhausted my stories about my Peace Corps service in the Republic of Vanuatu. But Oliver mentioned drums the other night, and I couldn't find a reference to my music education project on Paama, so I wrote a blog post over at the Zuiker Chronicles.#
Over on Scripting News, Dave has announced Feedland, his new RSS project. I've been able to use it for the past couple of months, and it's been fun to watch him develop this. As I suggested in my post How we built scienceblogging.org, I like gathering newsfeeds toI've been using Feedland to update and rebuild the Duke River of News. It's much easier now to manage the Duke River with Feedland (I used Radio5 since 2016) and I've updated dukeriver.co to display this new version (with more feeds to add over the next few days).#
In Washington earlier this week, we went shopping in Georgetown. That allowed me to stop into Potomac Wine and Spirits to get two bottles of Yebiga rakija, a Serbian liquor that I will soon be enjoying with my slivovitz-drinking friend. I also asked about sour cherry liqueur, and Steven behind the counter recommended the Portuguese Ginja de Óbidos. I've just tried a sip of this, and it tastes like the DIY visinata I've made in the past, but better.#Scanning the Duke River of News, I see my friend Karl Bates has a story about the history of dugongs and manatees. And in the NYTimes, an article explaining that dugongs are functionally extinct in the coastal waters off China. Both caught my interest because I once swam with a dugong in Vanuatu; here's my post. #
I took Malia to the Carrboro post office to apply for a new passport. As opposed to our last experience, this was smooth as possible, and we were in an out in 15 minutes. Tomorrow is Oliver's turn.#
Erin, Anna, and I finished the six-episode Keep Breathing last night. We started watching it because we were intrigued about the setting, seeing as we'd just gotten back from Alaska. We watched to the end because of the cliffhangers and backstory. #
I'm patiently waiting for the ending to the Trump show. He's clearly guilty and a horrible man.#
Great segment on The World today: "Latin artists once had to sing in English to achieve global success. No more." Comes with a Spotify playlist. #
Busy times at home. We're all (mostly) healthy again, but preparing for Anna and Malia to go off to college, and Malia's graduation party this Friday, and Oliver's soccer starting up again. But Erin and I are sneaking away for dinner out tonight to celebrate our anniversary (#26).#
Erin took the day off to take the children (and her sister and her children) to the amusement park in Charlotte. I stayed home to work, but used my lunch break to cook up a batch of hot sauce. After work, I put on my GORUCK 15L Bullet pack with a 20-pound weight and a water bladder and then went for a hike in the woods behind our house, and then in the woods behind the high school. I came home, made Gazpacho Andaluz with the yellow tomatoes I bought at the Carrboro Farmers Market on Saturday. While the soup chills and I wait for the family to return, I strained the cherry bounce that my friend Rose had brought over after her trip to pick cherries in June and put the bottle into the fridge.#
I asked the Micro.blog community for recommendations of bloggers and writers -- my river needs to expand with more voices and perspectives.#
Malia's turn to be ill. Last night Erin and I had to drive to camp to get her. This morning I'm sitting in the Duke Health urgent care waiting room as Malia gets tested for COVID and influenza. I'm grateful for the COVID rapid tests that make it easy to test at home, and thankful the health system has this clean, cool clinic open every day. #
More heavy rains tonight. The country's divisions are deeper than ever, and people (and some of my own family) are crazy as shit. But on Apple TV+ the adorable show Trying is back, so it's not all doom and gloom in the world.#
A song from the 80s, and still a good message for today: Common Ground, by Rhythm Corps. #
The USPS passport appointment site is one of the most frustrating sites I've used of late. But eventually I made appointments for two of my three children. Their passports, which went with them to Australia and Vanuatu, are expired.#
- Dave Winer has been working all year on a new RSS project (RSS 2.0 will mark 20 years in September). I'm excited to see what he builds and what community grows up around it. #
- Back in 2010, as we were preparing for the annual ScienceOnline conference, a few of us launched a site to harness the many RSS feeds coming out of the blossoming science blogging world; scienceblogging.org pulled in the top headlines from blogging networks and collectives, group blogs, news sites, and more. Here, for instance, is the August 2011 Wayback Machine capture of the site. (Later, we built a better mousetrap at scienceseeker.org.)#
- When I look back at that, I feel proud of what we built then; that site, and our conference and the global community that grew up around it, were exhilarating. Since then, I never stopped using RSS, and I have been probably the loudest voice for RSS feeds at Duke University (see my Duke River of News).#
- Let's see where RSS goes over its next 20 years.#
I do the Wordle every day, and I have persevered through the last week of COVID illness. I'm feeling much better, but my guess just now in Wordle, in which I spelled a word I know quite well with the wrong vowel, tells me my brain fog isn't quite clear. Wonder if NYTimes will find a way to correlate the Wordle data to COVID and help us understand this illness more.#
On the ship last week, while we were heading north for 36 hours of ocean cruising up the coast of Canada and Alaska, I took a walk on the top deck, where the swimming pool was. A huge screen above the pool was playing Spitting Distance, a Red Bull Explorers episode about a team of volcanologists climbing into Benbow crater on Ambrym Island in the Republic of Vanuatu. I'll watch this during my COVID quarantine and think about when I hiked to Benbow's twin crater, Marum. I blogged about that adventure here. #
New header image is of the Mendenhall Glacier near Juneau, Alaska.#
I tested positive for COVID the same morning (yesterday) that President Biden tested positive. He says he has mild symptoms. I wish him the best. I, on the other hand, shivered in bed yesterday, my body aching, and my mind recalling how I felt when I had dengue fever during my Peace Corps service in Vanuatu. Today no aches or noticeable fever, and I'm at the stage of infection in which the virus has programmed my body to infect others: I'm sneezing and have a runny nose. I'm quarantined to the bedroom; Erin, who also tested positive and feels crappy, is spending most of her time in her office or down at her sister's house. #
Erin and I are back from our trip out west. The cruise to Alaska was fun, we had great weather, we saw eagles and whales and bears and more, we had a delightful date night in Victoria, and we're home now trying not to get sick (Oliver got flu and pneumonia last week). #
New header image shows the boats at the docks below the house we stayed in (Jerusalem, Rhode Island).#
Oliver and I are sitting in the Washington Dulles airport and waiting for a late-night flight back to North Carolina. Our visit with my father and stepmom in Rhode Island was very good, and I'll have a full report with photos in tomorrow. Our flight out of Providence today included a two-hour delay on the tarmac -- and then an extra half hour on the Dulles tarmac because the thunderstorm meant we couldn't safely exit the small CR-26 jet down the steps and into terminal. No matter. We're safely inside, and sitting at the quiet gate area for next (uneventful, we hope!) flight. #
- At work, my colleagues and I help each other improve our "brief ins," which are the memos and messages to others that we use to describe an assignment, request a review of a document, or define a request for the layout and design of a report.#
- When I write my brief ins, I have to remind myself to write more than I initially think and to add details before I send it off. I know this about myself: I usually say too little, either because I haven't fully thought out what I want to say, or because I'm assuming or expecting that the other person will know what I'm thinking.#
- Some of my friends and colleagues are the opposite; they provide a lot of detail and many layers, often too much and too long for busy leaders or peers to be able to quickly scan.#
- The goal for us all, of course, is to communicate with just the right amount of information, definition, and detail to help another person understand the context of what we're requesting, what we need to happen, and when we need it to happen.#
- I appreciate how my colleagues help me improve my writing, and how they respond to my edits and suggestions. We have a great team at DCRI Research Communications and Engagement, always improving and progressing.#
- Thinking about all that, recently, I figured I should tell my colleagues about what I've learned from Dave Winer about how to write good bug reports. Over the last decade, Dave has helped me write focused messages about what I encounter when I'm testing or using his software. His request is that I always answer these three questions:#
- I was nervous when I first started submitting bug reports to Dave, but I've come to welcome the rigor of that three-part test. I have used what I learned from Dave to improve my work brief ins, too.#
- I also want to tell my colleagues about Dave's Narrate Your Work. That's his way to keep track of what he's developing day to day and to show others what's he working on. Every now and then, Dave gives us a view to his development worknotes, and I'm always fascinated by how disciplined he is in noting the day's progress and planning the next day's first task or focus. #
- For example, here's his Change Notes for Drummer, his great new outliner-based blogging system. (Last year I helped Dave test Drummer; I contributed bug reports, some better than others.) #
- Drummer, I've been thinking, could be a good way for me and my colleagues to narrate our work according to the performance goals set for us by our managers. I can imagine how an outline of my worknotes can make it easier to write my self evaluation next spring. The better I can show how I met and exceeded those performance goals, the better my chances at a raise or a future promotion.#
Waking up Oliver for his last day of sixth grade. Playing Best Day Ever by Sly and the Family Stallone.#
I missed the U2 channel on SiriusXM by one number today and got to hear the Ramones sing I Wanna Be Sedated on the First Wave channel.#
Dr. Mary Klotman, dean of the Duke University School of Medicine, gave the annual State of the School of Medicine presentation this evening. The past two years, her address was only on Zoom, but tonight the school's Great Hall had seats set for in-person attendance. Alas, I was one of only about 40 who showed up. I'm glad I went, because this was one of her best presentations, and I was proud to be a part of this school at this university.#
Allen from the Sound Speeds channel on YouTube offered to make high-quality XLR cables over the holiday weekend, so I decided to invest in a couple of cables (one blue, one orange) to improve my home podcast studio. Cables arrived today not long after I visited the cool new Studio Four in the Bryan Center at Duke University, where I recorded a short message of gratitude to my colleague Stephen Toback.#
- Stickermule was unable to deliver my new stickers to my old work address (my fault for not reviewing the order closely), so I had to go to the UPS distribution warehouse in Durham this evening to retrieve the packet. A worker in the parking lot pointed me through an open bay and told me to walk down the steps, under the conveyor belt, and onto the other side of the floor. While I waited for a woman to track down the packet, I watched a handful of workers loading trucks or receiving undeliverable packages. Watching them work in the dusty, noisy warehouse made me appreciate how efficient their system usually is, nearly always getting packages up the gravel road to our house in Chapel Hill. #
- My sticker, by the way, is one of a series of four icons designed in 2001 by a Cleveland friend, Paul. I used those icons on a short-lived website called VanAmericanNius Online ("Serving the Volunteers of Peace Corps Vanuatu"); I also have used the tamtam as my avatar on Twitter and Zoom.#
- The Coconut Wireless is what I called my blog at mistersugar.com. As I explain in the tooltip on antonzuiker.com, "It's sort of a joke: On an island, information moves down the coconut wireless, like the game of telephone."#
- Stickermule's weekly deal was 50 stickers for $9, so I used it for the coconut wireless icon. I love it. I'm excited to share these with family and friends, and will explain that the image is a reminder to stay connected to each other.#
- It's a holiday, and we're spending the day cleaning, painting, arranging. We don't expect to move out until next year -- the foundation piers for the new house will be dug only this week -- but there's a lot we want to throw away and touch up. #
- I looked out the window this morning and saw a stranger walk by.#
- I went outside and saw him heading east down the driveway toward the construction site. He was wearing headphones. #
- "Excuse me," I yelled. He stopped, turned around, took off his headphones.#
- "Can I help you?" I asked.#
- "No," he answered.#
- "This is private property," I said.#
- "Is it yours?" he asked.#
- "Yes."#
- Only then did he start to walk back my way.#
- "You just out for a walk?" I asked him. "Nice day for a walk."#
- "Yes. I'm going to the Hornet's Hill trail."#
- He was walking the wrong way.#
- "Well, if you kept walking down there, you'd be in Southern Village," I explained. #
- "I see they're building a house," he said.#
- "Yes, we live in this old house and we are building a new house there."#
- "There's no cut through to the trail, so if I walked that way would I get there?" he asked, pointing south.#
- "Well, you'll run into the neighbor's deer fence. You should walk down the gravel driveway and then cut over."#
- At that, he put his headphones on, turned, and walked south into the forest across our land.#
- Later, I recounted this for Erin, and she and I agreed that this was yet another example of the white privilege that we keep encountering here in Chapel Hill, well-off white folks just happy and comfortable enough to ignore a Private Property sign and walk across land that they know they shouldn't be on. #
- A few weeks ago, I made an appointment for the whole family to visit the Pittsboro post office so that my children could apply for new passports. Their previous passports have expired and because those first books were issued when they were under 16, they can't get new passports by mail. #
- So, we drove the 25 minutes to Pittsboro and arrived 15 minutes early to our 9 a.m. appointment, only to be told that the person who handles passports wouldn't be arriving until at least 9:15 and anyway she'd need to attend to the pile of mail that came in over the weekend, so we'd just have to wait. #
- Oliver had a math test to get to and Malia had a class assignment to turn in, so we couldn't wait.#
- The family piled back into the minivan and we drove northward, crossing the Haw River and back to schools and home and work. We voiced our frustration with the U.S. Postal Service, and made a new plan: we'd get each of the kids into an individual appointment at the post office closest to us. #
- Fortunately, we have not international trips planned.#
Can't recall what I did to shake Drummer to display my latest Radio3 items in the Links tab. #
Home again, and cleaning out our suitcases after the late-night arrival. Last night we watched most of the UNC-Duke Final Four game in the Charlotte airport, and celebrated the thrilling final minutes just as the next airplane was up off the runway and ascending toward RDU. (The American Airlines app streamed the game for free.) Now I'm watching the Tottenham-Newcastle match, having just completed the routine back-from-the-islands washing of the hammocks.#
- We're on a family spring break trip, again visiting Dad and Dot, enjoying the glorious West End of the largest of the U.S. Virgin Islands. We've already been on Sandy Point for the final public Sunday (hot, sunny, stunning) and then the next night (cool, starry, calming) to accompany Kelly Stewart (the subject of my Duke Magazine story) on she and her research crew monitored the beach for sea turtles. #
- Alas, no turtles that night, but today we did sea green turtles as we snorkeled above the wreck of a tugboat. We were on a morning sail along the coast, just the six of us and the crew of the Jolly Mon catamaran, enjoying cool drinks and the expansive views of the island. #
- We'll be back to Sprat Hall beach in an hour after we've rested by the swimming pool (the house next to Dot's has an amazing guesthouse that we've rented for few days), and maybe will walk over to Rhythms at Rainbow Beach for more mojitos. #
- Erin and I were at Rhythms for fish tacos and key lime pie yesterday after we had massages at the Fred, a boutique hotel on the Frederiksted strand.#
- It feels good to be on vacation and to be relaxed#