Tales of a Traveling Wiseguy

Seeing the Dermatologist for Scaling on my Forehead

canyonwalker — Tue, 16 Jun 2026 15:28:19 GMT

A few months ago I visited a dermatologist to look at a few skin issues. One was a lump that was growing on the back of my head, the other was little sores, kind of like acne, that would occasionally appear on my forehead. The acne-like sores the doctor zapped with a cold ray to kill off whatever they were. The lump required surgery to remove. Oh, and I had a few skin tags. She zapped those with the cold ray, too. A few days later they died and fell off.

I don't have a photo of the cold ray, but here's what AI suggests it might have looked like:

I left in the AI tells, like the incoherent text in the caption box. At least in this rendering everybody has a totally appropriate number of hands and fingers.

The occasional sores on my forehead did what occasional problems do. They came back. Actually, I think it was different ones that emerged. Sometimes they're there, sometimes they're not. It's like a noise in your car that doesn't rattle or squeak when the mechanic takes it for a test drive. When I saw the doctor for a followup a few months later she introduced me to a new term. The occasional bumps/sores on my forehead were scaling.

Scaling. "Great," I thought. "I'm turning into a lizard."

She also used another term that was scarier than turning into a lizard. That term was pre-cancerous. 😰 The scaling on my forehead was actinic keratosis (yeah, that's another new term, too, but it sounds boring). It's a skin condition caused by long term UV exposure. If left untreated it has a 5-10% chance of turning into skin cancer. Thus the term pre-cancerous.

When the doctor understood how my scales appear and reappear she changed her treatment plan. Rather than keep playing whack-a-mole with the Cold Ray— though she did zap me with it in three more places for good measure— she gave me a cream to apply to my forehead for two weeks. The cream would hopefully kill off the pre-cancerous cells.

BUT WOULD IT STOP THE LIZARD METAMORPHOSIS?
WOULD THE PATIENT SURVIVE?
STAY TUNED FOR NEXT TIME...

Halfway to a Month of #PoolLife

canyonwalker — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 22:31:20 GMT

I've continued my streak of using the pool every day. It occurred to me last night that I started on June 1. That means with today being the 15th... I'm halfway to a month of #PoolLife. I didn't plan it that way, though now that I've spotted the pattern I'm motivated to see it through.

Today the water was warm enough again to enjoy doing laps and floating in the main pool for at least 45 minutes before going for a soak in the hot tub and finishing with sitting on a deck chair in the shade.

(Yes, I've used this pic from the pool a few times now. I don't want to keep uploading new pool pics every day. It'd be repetitive like when my little sister was a kid, shooting 35mm film, and my dad would come back with the photos from the drugstore and complain, "I just paid for a roll of pictures and 22 of them are the damn cat!")

The Joy of NOT Getting Up Early

canyonwalker — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 15:18:43 GMT

As I started my retirement a few months ago one thing I wondered was, "Will I still get up early?" Over my life I'd seen/heard from so many other retirees who kept getting up at early hours of the day, like 6:30am. All said it was because the routine was so ingrained from years of working or raising a family that it couldn't be changed. Well, my routine the last 12 years had been a M-F 6:45am alarm (occasionally earlier). How long after I retired would I be stuck on that schedule?

To my pleasant surprise the answer was Not at all. Almost immediately after retiring I dropped any getting-up-early habituation and slept in 'til I felt like it.

But that was only part of my concern. The other concern is playing out right now, in the month of June, when the sun rises ridiculously early. The past few years in June I routinely got up well before my 6:45am alarm. The brightening sky had me waking up at 6, 5:45, or occasionally even earlier. And once I was up, I was up. How is that going now?

Again, I have been pleasantly surprised. While I have often woken up at about 6am with the sunlight pouring through the windows in our bedroom (we have a lot of natural light and a south-east exposure) the difference is I'm not woken up-up. I check the time, roll over, and go back to sleep with no problem.

A Walk in Byxbee Park

canyonwalker — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 22:29:39 GMT

This afternoon we went out for a hike/walk in Byxbee Park. It's part of the City of Palo Alto nearby and is a park we've been to many times. We like it because it's nearby, so easy to get to, and is a mellow location on the edge of the bay.

We had planned to go farther afield today, specifically about Russian Ridge up in the Santa Cruz Mountains. We've been putting that off for several days now, as something keeps coming up. Something came up again this morning when Hawk was feeling a bit ill and decided to lie down for a nap. So Russian Ridge goes back on the stack— we're talking about going as soon as tomorrow— and Byxbee became our activity for today after lunch.

One thing we noticed right off was that Byxbee recently got a "haircut". Actually, the first thing we noticed right off the bat was that Byxbee fuckin' stinks today. There's a wastewater treatment plant right next to it. They don't always stir the shit, but apparently today was a let's-stir-all-the-shit day, and the wind was blowing right past it, too.

But, hey, I mentioned the "haircut". The wild grasses have been mowed recently. It makes some of the displays, like the fence with the no-trespassing sign in the pic above, look pretty silly. It's not a scratch 'n' sniff pic, so you can use your imagination for the smell of sewage wafting over it.

Now, as if it weren't bad enough that the smell of sewage and shit wafts over the park, while you're in it you're standing atop garbage.

For decades up until 2011 Byxbee Park was a garbage dump. I mean, it wasn't called Byxbee Park back then. It was probably called "Palo Alto Dump, downwind from the sewage treatment plant". Lots of cities nearby all had dumps right up against the bay. There are similar spots in Sunnyvale and Mountain View. In the late 20th century they all realized that was kind of bad, and they started taking steps to convert the dumps to parks. They stopped accepting new trash then spent years covering it up, letting it simmer down, and monitoring it with pipes and gauges to make sure the methane and other gases from rotting garbage wouldn't explode. Then they called it parkland. Because the best parks are the ones built atop explosive poisonous garbage gas.

Another thing we noticed was different this visit is snails.There are snails on all the signs in the park. I wonder if trimming the grasses has driven them to other places. The sign in the pic above, BTW, is an identifier for one of the making-sure-this-shit-doesn't-literally-explode monitors.

It's not really wildflower season anymore; we've had a few months of dry weather now. But some of the hardier plants up here are still green and flowering. Plus, this garden area is actually watered. You can tell because there are purple colored utility chests (not shown in the pic) that indicate pipes with recycled water. Mmm, probably fresh from that sewage treatment plant!

Almost 1 Million Miles on AA... Quick, Spend Some!

canyonwalker — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 01:26:31 GMT

Recently I realized that my American Airlines Aadvantage balance had reached over 972,000 miles— nearly a million! The most recent boost came from the latest AA-affiliated credit card I opened three months ago. As I've explained many times before, carrying a huge balance with points programs is a bad idea— and nearly 1 million definitely puts the "ug" in "huge". 🤣

An opportunity to take a bit off the top appeared yesterday morning when I was doing my airline book-o-rama. I found a deal on CLT-SFO tickets for just 10,500 miles each (one-way). That's a steal as flights haven't been that cheap in... well, practically forever. Even the days of 12.5k one-way/25k round-trip are over a decade behind us at this point.

To be sure, taking 21k off the top of 972k does not materially change the risk of carrying such a huge balance. It also doesn't set me far back from topping 1.0 million. ...Not that that's actually a goal, or anything. It's just something that would be amusing to log into my account and see.

You might recall the many times I've written about Million Miler status with United and wonder why I'm not more excited about this. These are not the same. With American I have nearly 1 million redeemable miles. On United I earned over 1 million elite qualifying miles. What's the difference? Elite miles come primarily from butt-in-seat travel. Redeemable miles can come from partner activity, like using the airline's affiliated credit card. Indeed most of my nearly 1 million AA miles are from the nearly dozen AA credit cards I've owned over the past 20 years. AA does have a million miler program like UA, and I do have lifetime miles in it... but fewer than 300k, versus my now 1.2 million with United.

That aside, I really do need to spend more of these still-nearly 1 million AA miles. I aim for this pair of cheap one-way tickets home from Charlotte, North Carolina in August to be just the tip of the iceberg.

Airline Book-o-Rama. Status Chase Locked In.

canyonwalker — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 17:11:17 GMT

Yesterday morning was like the school book fair for me. Though instead of it being 5th grade me figuring out the best combination of books I could buy with my $7.35 saved up from allowance, it was today me (well, yesterday me 🤣) booking flights for trips over the next few months.

Visiting my inlaws in July

The main impetus was that Hawk and I were planning our next visit to her parents. Her mom is currently doing better, with her cancer treatments still on hold (though that's not really good news). We'll go out to visit her mom and dad in late July, catching them while MIL is still on an upswing in health (fingers crossed) and being there with her for the next string of doctor appointments when she gets assessments of what'll happen over the next few months.

Planning this trip was made more complex by the fact that prices for travel are going up. Prices on everything are going up, of course, so it's no surprise that travel is getting spendier. But oddly it wasn't flights that were so expensive. It's the cost of a rental car that's obscene. I spent easily 3 hours exploring different ways of getting to her parents' place to try to keep the car cost to something merely very expensive, versus holy-fuck-is-that-a-mortgage-payment expensive. 😨

Southwest Status Chase / Wild Goose Chase

Regular readers of my blog know that when it comes to travel I've always got multiple plates spinning at the same time. I'm solving simultaneously for cost, and time/effort, and... points and elite status. 😅 In particular I've been working on renewing Southwest A+ and CP elite status.

Going into yesterday's book-o-rama I needed 3,000 more points on Southwest— in addition to everything I already had booked/forecasted— to cinch both statuses. That's just one good, paid one-way trip on Southwest. But the flight I booked gave me nearly 6,000 points. That's 3k more than I needed. The optimizer in me thought, "Hmm, maybe I can change another booking from cash to points and still hit the numbers,." 😅

So I crawled through all my other Southwest bookings, looking for places I could rebook or make other tradeoffs. I found one. On a flight home from Charlotte, North Carolina in August I could cancel a Southwest flight with a poor schedule and book a nonstop flight on American for the hideously low price of 10,500 points per seat. Ooh, I had to jump on that 10.5k fare. They don't make 'em like that anymore. But canceling that Southwest flight pulled 5,000 points off my forecast. That swung me from 3k over target to 2k short. Oh, no, what do I do now? 😰

Southwest Plan Locked In

Last year I faced the problem of, "Dang, I'm a little short"— in December. It being late in the year my options were limited. Southwest offered a deal to buy status outright, but it was ridiculously expensive. I ended up flying a mileage run. I thought it would be drudgery but ended up mildly amusing. I thought I was flying to LA for dinner. Instead I flew to Los Angeles just long enough to piss and got back in time for dinner with my spouse.

As amusing a story as that December jaunt turned into, I don't care for a repeat this year. That's why I'm working to lock in status earlier in the year. That last 2,000 points I needed to make up after yesterday's bookings and rebookings? With several months left to go in the year I have lots of options. I decided yesterday I can do it with credit card bonuses. I just need to shift some big expenditures I was going to put on another card over to my Southwest card— et voilà! I'll now cinch both A+ and Companion Pass by mid-September.

Ain't No Party Like a Pool Party

canyonwalker — Sat, 13 Jun 2026 04:04:04 GMT

You may have noticed that I've been writing about the pool a lot lately. There's a very simple reason for that. I've been at the pool a lot lately! Today was 12 days in a row of going to the pool.

Today we had our friends, Barbara and Jesse and their son, J., over. It was a great day to relax in the water. Well, we four adults relaxed; J., age 12, was a fountain of energy as usual. The temperature here in Sunnyvale peaked at 88° today. That's cooler than yesterday's 99° F (37° C)— which made yesterday the hottest day of the year so far, beating even our March heat wave.

With the water still extra warm from yesterday I stayed in longer than I expected. It was "bath tub warm", Barbara and Jesse said. With that I didn't even need a soak in the hot tub. Instead after 90+ minutes in the main pool I took my turn sitting out for a bit and cracked open a cold beer.

It was great reconnecting with old friends we hadn't seen in several months— not since pool season last year! 🤣 One topic of conversation was retirement. Jesse left his last job early this year, a few weeks before I gave notice at mine. At the time he called it a "soft retirement", expressing the possibility he might look for another job after a few months of semi-retirement. While he says the jury's still out on whether going back to work might be an economic need, he sees absolutely no need in terms of sense or purpose or fulfillment in life. On that, he and I are 💯. I quipped, "Within ~~weeks~~ days after retiring I found there is absolutely no job-shaped hole in my life."

I figure we'll all see more of each other now that we're all retired. 🏝️ I mean, except the 12 year old. Someone's going to have to work to pay our Social Security checks 15 years from now. 🤣

Chattanooga Choo Choo LIED to Me!

canyonwalker — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 23:51:10 GMT

Lately I've had an earwig of The Chattanooga Choo Choo, the 1941 song performed Glenn Miller and His Orchestra. Y'know, the Big Band Sound classic that goes

Pardon me, boy
Is that the Chattanooga Choo-Choo?
Yes, yes (Track 29!)
Boy, you can give me a shine

I'm not sure why this song has been stuck in my head the past few days. I've never been a fan of Big Band music. My partner's dad was, though, and she has some of the classics from that era loaded on her music player. Maybe that's where I heard it.

Anyway, I was singing the lyrics to myself the other day, and I choked after the second stanza.

You leave the Pennsylvania station about a quarter to four
Read a magazine and then you're in Baltimore
Dinner in the diner
Nothing could be finer
Than to have your ham and eggs in Carolina

So the first few lines of this stanza are okay. ...Though from Pennsylvania Station— which is in New York— to Baltimore (where the main station is also called Penn Station, BTW), likely with a few stops along the way, via 1940-era train, it's about 3 hours. So that must be a pretty engrossing magazine. 🤣 But the real problem comes with breakfast (presumably, for ham and eggs) in Carolina. That's where I choked on it.

Famous orchestra leader and musical liar Glenn Miller

You see, I lived and traveled the first 25 years of my life in the mid-Atlantic region. I was picturing the route on a map as I sang the lyrics to myself, and I was like, "WTF? You would not travel south from Baltimore to, say, Raleigh (or even Durham), then west to Chattanooga!"

There are two big problems with routing that way. One, that's way longer than traveling down the Shenandoah Valley in Virginia and crossing directly into Tennessee at the state line town of Bristol. I fully understand that rails don't always traverse the shortest route between two points; costs of construction and operation matter a lot. But that's problem number Two: the route described in the song requires rails crossing the steep Appalachian Mountains in western North Carolina. Not only is that route 200 miles longer, those miles are way more costly to traverse.

A quick Google search confirmed my objections. The actual train service from NYC to Chattanooga, TN did pass through Baltimore but then jogged west, over to the Shenandoah Valley, then followed that southwest through Virginia and across the border into Tennessee. It followed the same route as modern day interstate I-81. It never entered North Carolina.

As a historical note, the original interstates were often built along the same routes as railroads through mountain passes. That's why the route the rail followed in 1940 looks a lot like the route you'd drive today. That's also why I-40, which does cross through the mountains of western NC, was one of the last of the originally planned interstates to be completed.

BTW, this breakfast-in-Carolina lie isn't the only falsehood Glenn Miller peddled in his famous song. 🤣 That "Track 29!" call-response in the first stanza? In 1940 Pennsylvania Station had only Tracks 1-21. And of the three trains that went to/through Chattanooga, none departed at 3:45. 💩

4.5 Hours without Power (and Being Forced to Do Business with a Convicted Murderer)

canyonwalker — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 15:11:42 GMT

We had a power outage last night. Around 9pm the lights went out. 30 seconds later they came back on for a moment then died again. Moments later, another quick flicker on then off.

"Oh, that's not good," I remarked mostly to myself. When the power comes on briefly after an outage then snaps back off it usually indicates that the system tried to bridge from one main to another— and failed. And when such failures happen they are more difficult, costly, and time-consuming to fix.

Indeed it did take a while for the power to come back on. Hawk says the lights came back on around 2am. PG&E, our utility company and a convicted murderer 💀, reports on its website that the outage was fixed at 1:30am. Of course, convicted murderer PG&E was also still texting me as late as 6:30am that the estimated fix would be completed at 4pm today. 🤣

This 4½ ~ 5 hour outage wasn't too inconvenient for us. When it hit at 9pm we were already winding down for the night. We stayed up together until 11, surfing the web on our computers on battery power, tethering to our phones for network. We saw on convicted murderer PG&E's site that the outage affected several blocks around us, but apparently not wherever the cell towers are.

Actually it was amusing using convicted murderer PG&E's outage side. It's one of the first things I thought to do; check the site for known outages and report ours. The site said, "Nope, your power is ON!" So I clicked the button to report, "Nuh-uh, it's OFF." And they gave me a spinning ball icon while they said, "We're checking your power meter." Seconds after I clicked the button on my browser, Hawk got a text from convicted murderer PG&E (her name is on the bill to pay for power and murders) "AN OUTAGE HAS BEEN REPORTED IN YOUR AREA". Meanwhile I was still getting the spinning ball icon for another 30 seconds until convicted murderer PG&E said, "Yup, you're right, your power's out." 🤣

Anyway, it wasn't too inconvenient for us. We were basically like, "The power's out, what a shame. Well, anyway...."

Years ago there would've been a scramble to find flashlights. That issue was mooted by the fact we already carry flashlights with us constantly. They're our cellphones! Hawk still wanted me to tell her where all the flashlights in the house are. We do have several in various places. I navigated downstairs by the light of my cellphone to retrieve a less-powerful flashlight for her.

Another "now vs. then" difference is that power outages are so much less common nowadays. When I was a kid, in a different part of the country, we'd have outages at least once a year, usually in the summer during rough weather. Here in Silicon Valley they're rare. A quick search through my blog shows a 14-minute outage 2 years ago and a 30-second outage in 2017. There have been other outages in between those two, but typically not lasting more than a few seconds. At 4½ ~ 5 hours this one was extremely long. Even the notorious rolling blackouts of 2001 only hit us for about an hour at a time.

Pool Life, 10/10

canyonwalker — Thu, 11 Jun 2026 03:03:22 GMT

Last week I quipped that with my next planned trip not until August I had nowhere to go... except the pool. Now I've extended my streak of using the pool from 5 days in a row to 10 days in a row!

Today the weather was hot again so I spent awhile in the pool, doing walking laps and then just floating to rest, before moving over to the hot tub for a soak. When it's not warm enough for the pool, like the several days beforehand, I just use the hot tub.

Here's a pic from a few days ago I've been waiting to post. Oh, and yes, I bought a pack of Coors Banquet beer to enjoy on these warm summer (technically almost summer) days. And on days when it's cool outside but it's summer in my mind. Coors Banquet is a survivor from the bad ol' days of American macrobrews that's actually reasonably good. Of course, in the really bad ol' days it was so amazingly good that it inspired a blockbuster movie that became a cultural touchstone for years.

Progress & Trouble on Day 60

canyonwalker — Tue, 09 Jun 2026 17:11:49 GMT

I've now finished two months on Rybelsus, the pill form of Ozempic, a GLP-1 medication. Recall I had good results after the first month on the starter dose then doubled up to what is considered the normal dose. How's it gone? Mostly good.

My blood glucose level has continued to decrease. It's now averaging about almost 25% lower than before I started the pills. Meanwhile I've continued losing weight. I'm now down 18 pounds total.

As for side effects... I was all set to boast of how side effects have been kept minimal. I did have one instance of almost throwing up (I had dry heaves). That was three weeks ago. Since then I've been mostly worry-free, except for the occasional gas-like stomach discomfort, thanks in large part to eating responsibly. But then I got sick this morning. At 6am I awoke to the feeling of churning in my gut. As I stood up and reread the signals my body was sending I wondered if it was just gas again, or maybe gas and diarrhea. I took a gas pill and went to the toilet. I had a bit of gas... and then I realized I had planted the wrong end of my body on the toilet. 😰 I threw up. And this time it wasn't just dry heaves, it was some of the dinner I'd eaten 12 hours earlier.

I cleaned up and went back to bed, napping it off for 2½ hours. I feel better now. I had a suspicion last night I'd eaten too much for dinner. ...A suspicion because my body never sent me signals like "Whoa, that's enough food, you're feeling stuffed!" I may have to redouble consciously knowing when to say when, because my stupid animal hindbrain is still all like "Fooooood! Delicious fooooood! Eat! Eeeeeeat!" 🙄

This Soda Machine Gets Me!

canyonwalker — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 22:58:01 GMT

I've been a fan of Coke Zero since it came out 20-some years ago. In a can or a bottle I'll pick it 💯 over my #2 choice, Diet Coke. Yes, the taste is that different, and I prefer it. But in a soda fountain, the stronger taste of Coke Zero hits a bit too hard. I mix it 50/50. Finally, recently, I ran across a soda fountain that gets me.

Yes, this fountain had my two favorite flavors side by side. Is that so hard? There's absolutely no reason why it should be, but for whatever reason I've pretty much never, never in those 20-some years, seen the two choices on side-by-side spigots like this. Fairly often they're on opposite ends of the row.

The Sunnyvale Art & Wine Festival

canyonwalker — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 02:04:00 GMT

This weekend the Sunnyvale Art & Wine Festival came back around. For years we've been going to it, or the nearby Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, or Santa Clara's, or Los Altos's, or even Fremont's. They've been the same 1 or 2 organizers that run these events around the region.

Over the past couple years, though, there's been some change in the organizers. Last year's show frankly sucked. A lot of the vendors of jewelry and photographic art we'd enjoyed seeing exhibit in the past were no longer there. (Vendors were complaining the organizer's booth fees were way too high.) Instead we enjoyed the show in Los Altos, where Hawk even was an exhibiting artist! Would the Sunnyvale show be better this year?

Alas, no. The show has virtually none of the artists or craft vendors we remember from a few years ago. The number of artists selling larger works, as opposed to ubiquitous toe rings and artisanal olive oil, is way down from before. Though come to think of it, I believe there were fewer artisanal olive oil vendors, too. And wine— supposedly so important it's surname of this show? There was one company's wine being sold, and it's a crappy supermarket wine I can buy for under $10/bottle at Safeway and CVS.

Boomer Technology Opinions I Agree With

canyonwalker — Sat, 06 Jun 2026 17:07:29 GMT

Boomers have long been derided as technology-phobic. That's not really true anymore. Nowadays most Boomers (and even many of the Silent Generation) use modern technology such as mobile phones and the internet on a daily basis. I mean, these things have been around for 20+ years now. That's long enough for even reluctant learners to become familiar with them. The gap is they're often clueless when things don't "just work", as any Gen Xer or Millennial who routinely has to play tech support for their elder relatives well knows.

Where Boomers remain technology averse it's generally no longer because they're afraid of technology but because they don't see it as solving a problem. That's familiar to me, as I've long asked the question of new technology, "What problem does this actually solve?" The difference, though, is that I come at it from the perspective of a tech insider. But one net result is the same: We're frustrated when poor technology, technology that doesn't solve our problem— and perhaps creates new ones instead— is forced upon is.

Here are some Boomer technology opinions I agree with:

1. Give me a real menu, not a QR code

In the depths of the Coronavirus pandemic 6 years ago, driven by hygiene concerns, restaurants started swapping out printed menus for QR codes you scan to browse a menu on your smartphone. That never solved a problem for me as (a) I didn't dine out in restaurants for over a year until I could get vaccinated, and (b) I adopted— and continue to practice— the discipline of washing my hands after holding a menu. The problem it created is that it's a nuisance having to doomscroll though a tiny menu that can only list a few items per screen. Imagine if restaurants offered a printed menu that was the size of your hand and 53 pages long. Bring back nice, big menus where I can see lots of options at once.

Closely related to that....

2. Turn on the damn lights in the restaurant

Turn up the lights in the restaurant so we can read the dang menus! I'm not that old, mid 50s, and my eyesight is still better than that of most people my age, but more and more I have to use my phone's flashlight to read the damn menu.

3. I don't want to create an account to buy something once

Look, I get the importance of accounts to secure information. I have had computer accounts (name and password) since 1985. I have been buying things online since 1993. But if I'm just going to buy one thing, once, No, I don't want to have to make a new account. Just take my credit card number and let's complete the transaction.

4. I don't want to download an app

If I own something that's physically in front of me, I don't want to have to download and install an app to use it. If the controls are that complex that they can't be managed via a small number of buttons or switches on the device, you can damn well put a lightweight web server in it and let me manage it through any common browser— like the way routers have worked for more than two decades now.

For example, a few years ago I bought some LED light bulbs with selectable color temperature. They required an app! I returned them and bought another brand that features a simple, physical, 4-position switch on plastic housing at the base of the bulb.

5. Give me knobs and buttons in my car for commonly used controls

"This car has too many buttons and knobs on the center console" is a valid complaint... but worse than that is a car that has too few physical controls because everything has been disappeared behind a touchscreen with a menu tree that goes 5 levels deep. I'm fine with infrequently used controls, like audio balance L/R and F/R, being in menus. Give me simple, physical controls for things I need to adjust frequently like audio volume, radio station presets, air temperature, fan speed, etc.

This is a safety issue as well as a convenience nuisance. A driver can learn & use good tactile controls without taking their eyes off the road. Navigating menus is a dangerous distraction.

6. I like physical media

I have a library of 100s of music albums on CD. Partly that's because I started collecting it long before digital downloads and streaming existed as music-listening alternatives, but partly also it's because I prefer to own the copy of music I buy, not just rent it. With streaming and even downloads, your right to keep listening to the music is retained by the distributor. They can take it away. Or they can raise the price. So when I want a complete album of something new, I check the price for a physical album vs. a download. It's almost always the same. BTW, I rarely play the physical CDs I own. I've digitized most of them into my pocket-sized supercomputer. But the copies are mine and nobody can take them away or raise the price.

7. My TV, my refrigerator, my toaster do not need wifi

There are some useful use-cases for wifi connected appliances. The TV might be the strongest use case, as a wifi TV can connect directly to streaming services— which in the 2020s are what having cable TV was in the 1990s. But an inexpensive device like Roku TV can do this, too. And having wifi directly on major appliances is often not primarily for your benefit as the consumer; it's for the vendor's benefit, as they use the connection to spy on your habits, sell your profile data to advertisers, and cram ever-more advertising into your limited attention span. Wifi-enabled TVs already do this. Friends of mine who've bought TVs with wifi have chosen to disable it— to prevent intrusive advertising— and fall back to earlier gen solutions like plugging in a Roku, Amazon stick, etc., to an HDMI port.

The use case for the consumer is even weaker for wifi on other appliances. What's your fridge going to do? Text you, "Fam you outta OJ"? What's your oven going to do? Your toaster? And of course you'll need an app to set them up. The fact is that wifi on these devices is a Trojan horse. It's all about two things: 1) Advertising... and 2) Charging you more to use your damn device. Manufacturers build in features but turn them off when you don't pay your monthly subscription. Like a convection oven that will stop... convecting... without a $4.99/month fee. Screw that!

Another Day with Nowhere to Go... Except the Pool!

canyonwalker — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 23:00:59 GMT

It's another day at home with nowhere to go... except the pool! I've extended my streak of afternoons spent at the pool, previously 3/3, to 5 out of 5 now.

I don't have anything on my calendar until a trip in August. That's... still over two months away. I don't expect I'm going to stretch this streak to 60 days. Heck, it might not even make it to six days as tomorrow's supposed to be significantly cooler. Plus the Art & Wine Festival is in town this weekend. Hawk and I will be going to that tomorrow afternoon. And I'm sure I'll have other trips out of town before mid-August. It's not in my nature to stay home that long. I've just got to figure out where I'd like to go, then plan it.

$6 Gas is Here

canyonwalker — Fri, 05 Jun 2026 00:11:05 GMT

$6/gallon gas is here. I snapped this photo of a local gas station a few days ago.

It shows the cheapest grade of gas is just $5.999, if you pay cash. Add 10 cents to use a credit card, add 50 cents if your car needs premium fuel. And look at those diesel prices.... Diesel could soon be over $8/gallon.

Nationwide it's reported that gas averages $4.24/gal, with diesel averaging $5.39. Prices are always higher here in California because of real estate costs, taxes, and market dynamics. Of course, the national average was much lower before President Trump's wasteful and illegal war on Iran. Earlier this year gas averaged just $2.98 across the US.

Fortunately I'm paying less than the prices in the photo. Currently Costco gas at the nearest Costco is a whopping $.84/gal cheaper. Independent gas stations in the area have prices in between that and this brand-name store. But some other brand-name stores are more expensive. And, for whatever reason, Sunnyvale is one of the cheaper cities in the area for gas. So plenty of people out there in the SF Bay Area are paying over $6.

Pool Days, 3/3

canyonwalker — Thu, 04 Jun 2026 00:32:28 GMT

The past few days have been pleasantly warm. After feeling down that I couldn't motivate myself to get out to the pool on Sunday I wondered whether my chances were better than 50/50 of going on Monday. I'm glad to say I did get out to enjoy the pool on Monday— and on Tuesday and Wednesday, too!

Monday was the warmest of the recent three days. The pool water was surprisingly warm; I could walk right in. Edited to add: This was the first time I've used the main pool in 8 months!

Yesterday was a tad cooler and I didn't find it enjoyable to swim or wade so I hopped out and soaked in the hot tub instead, then enjoyed the warmth on a patio chair. Today was the same. Hawk said the pool water was warm again, but I'd already set my expectation on "It'll be too cool to swim, I'll just enjoy the hot tub" so straight into the hot tub I went.

Tasting Leffe Blond

canyonwalker — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 18:00:33 GMT

With this week's warm weather I've been yearning for a light, easy drinking beer to enjoy outside on the patio— or, better yet, at the pool and hot tub. The beers I've got in the fridge/crawlspace, though, are heavy, richly flavored beers, leftovers from when the weather was much cooler. Thus it was time to go shopping.

I couldn't quite find an appropriate summer beer at the store so I went with Plan B: try a new beer. Then at least I could tick another box on my beer tasting comparison. Yes, I'm still doing that. Yes, it's going slowly. Yes, it's the project I originally named Beer Tasting 2022. (See what I mean about going slowly?)

What I grabbed at the store is Leffe Blonde. It's a Belgian Abbey Ale. It pours a beautiful golden color with a head that's a tad too fizzy. Seriously, getting half a glass of foam doesn't say "fresh" to me, it says "waste".

Problems of getting too much head aside, Leffe Blonde is a lightly flavored ale with a few unusual flavor characteristics that stand out. Kind of like with a German hefeweizen (literally "yeast-wheat") there are strong notes of clove, banana, and coriander. Well, strong may be too strong of a term. 😅 These flavors are well under control.

Leffe Blonde is sometimes compared with Blue Moon here in the US. Blue Moon is a Belgian-style wheat beer, so it's in a similar category. And it has those fruit/spice flavors. But with Blue Moon those flavors hit more strongly. They almost taste fake, like they're chemical additives. With Leffe the flavors are softer, just strong enough to be clear without being overwhelming or seeming artificial.

On the whole Leffe is a quality beer. It's not really what I was itching for this week, though, as a summer beer. And it's high ABV, too, at 6.6%. That's not really a "laze around in the sun" kind of beer. It's more like "Drink 3 and I'll pass out and get sunburned." 🤣

Voting in the Jungle Primary

canyonwalker — Wed, 03 Jun 2026 02:59:32 GMT

I voted today in today's primary election in California. It's a significant election for us as all state government elected offices are up for election. And many of the incumbents are termed out. There are a lot of new names and faces.

Compounding the difficulty of choosing this year is the state's "jungle primary" system.

It's a system we voters enacted several years ago to wrest king-making power away from political parties and put it back in the hands of the voters. All candidates who wish to compete in the general election in November run in an open primary in the spring. The top two vote-getters for each office advance to the general election. Really this is properly called an open primary but this year the moniker "jungle primary" stuck because of the number of candidates running.

In the race for governor there were 61 candidates on the ballot. That includes a whopping 24 Democrats and 12 Republicans.

The moniker "jungle primary" especially stuck after Eric Swalwell withdrew from the race several months ago. Opinion polls had him taking a commanding lead early on as the favorite. For some time after his withdrawal no Democrat candidate had more than single-digit support in the polls. Pundits were worried that Republican support solidifying around two Republican candidates could result in the two of them taking the top two spots in the primary, locking out all Democrats from the governor's office for the next 4 years. This, in a state where Democrats enjoy a nearly 2-to-1 registration advantage over Republicans.

Over the last several weeks the probability of a Republican sweep and a Democrat lockout have fizzled. Voters have coalesced their support around two of the 24 Democrats, Xavier Becerra and Tom Steyer, with each polling in the low 20s recently. One Republican, Steve Hilton, has also polled in the low 20s recently. So it looks like the general election will either feature one Dem and one Repub or possibly two Dems.

The race for Lieutenant Governor is also jungle-y. There are 16 candidates, of whom 8 are Democrat.

State Senator in my district has 5 democrats running - out of 6 candidates total!

OTOH some races have slim slates of candidates. The race for Attorney General— the most consequential state official after governor— has just 3 candidates; 1 Dem, 1 Repub, and 1 Green. Secretary of State has 4 candidates: 1 Dem, 1 Repub, 2 Green. Controller has 3 candidates: 1 Dem, 1 Repub, 1 Peace & Freedom.

Measure Frequently, Judge Less Frequently

canyonwalker — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 15:18:25 GMT

A few weeks ago I was chatting with my friend, David, about our experiences using GLP-1 medications. (I'm taking Rybelsus, the pill form of Ozempic; he's taking Zepbound.) I mentioned, "I weigh myself every morning" as a segue to talking about the results I'm seeing so far.

"Oh, you're not supposed to weigh yourself every day," David admonished, gently. "I was weighing myself every day at the gym, and one of my gym-friends there saw me and was like, 'Nooooo! You're only supposed to weight yourself once a weeeeek!'"

I understand why that friend-of-a-friend thinks you should only weigh yourself once a week. He's almost certainly aware that there are mistakes people make when weighing themselves every day. Thing thing is, "Weigh yourself just once a week" is the wrong solution. It's better to understand what those potential mistakes and work to avoid them. I call it Measure Frequently, Judge Less Frequently. (Okay, that doesn't quite roll off the tongue. I'm working on a snappier version of it! 😅)

The basic problem with checking your weight every day when you're working on losing weight is that weight loss doesn't happen smoothly and evenly. The first phenomenon that trips people up is that your body plateaus. The body tries to maintain equilibrium, so even if you're eating right and exercising to lose weight you'll see yourself weighing in at the same rate for 3 or more days at a time. Then your body will shed a week's worth of weight loss over a few days, then you'll plateau at the next level down for several days.

There are also instances where you'll actually gain weight, like a pound or two, while on a losing-weight plan. Those instances can be really frustrating! Thus it's important to understand they can happen even when you're doing everything right and not overreact. What can cause weight gain? It could be as simple as water retention. Eating salty food can cause the body to retain a bit more water. You'll lose it later; you've just got to get past the blip in weight.

I know my body tends to retain when traveling. I'm not sure why; I just know it does. So when I get back from a trip I know I'm going to weigh in at least 2 pounds higher than when I left. I know it's another type of blip so I don't overreact, e.g., by punishing myself with an austerity diet— "OMG, 2 pounds?! I can only eat rice cakes and celery sticks for the next week!" I know if I continue doing whatever's normal for my weight loss plan, those extra pounds will come back off soon.

So, yeah, go ahead and weigh yourself every day. Just don't overreact when you see plateaus and upward blips.

Out of Sight = Out of Mind, Fridge Edition

canyonwalker — Tue, 02 Jun 2026 04:06:19 GMT

On each of our last two visits to Hawk's parents we've spent time clearing old & expired food out of their refrigerators and freezers. Yes, those words are plural. This pair of 80-something empty nesters have a large kitchen fridge/freezer combo (bigger than the one owned by the family of 6 I grew up in), a large commercial stand-up freezer, and two mini-sized (about 3' tall) dorm/office fridge/freezer combos. And all four of these devices were packed full.

Not only did Hawk and I throw out 3-4 bags of food during our April visit but we started our recent visit clearing out another 2 bags of food— including things that had been left to rot since our April visit. Then, late last week as our visit was winding toward an end, we cleared out yet another 2 bags of food into the garbage.

Part of the problem IMO is "out of sight, out of mind". Their fridges are not just "full" the way most people use that term.... They are literally packed so every cubic inch is occupied. Every shelf is filled 5 layers deep. And you cannot see any of the deeper layers until you peel off what's on top of them. As we dug through the topspoil into the permacrud in the commercial freezer we found food dated from 5 years ago. Nobody remembered it was in there. Once it got pushed behind 2 layers of newer stuff it became an artifact for archaeologists from the future to discover.

We sifted through the layers to figure out what to keep and what to toss. What we didn't toss, Hawk reorganized. She sorted things onto different shelves by theme. For example, "Frozen dairy products". She even took pictures of the freezer and diagrammed them with zones numbered 1-12 (yes, twelve) so FIL could figure out what's where. 🤣

While Hawk was doing some of the reorganization I patiently explained to FIL what freezer burn is and why it makes food unsatisfying to eat. Apparently he thought putting things in the freezer was like casting Time Stop on them. I showed him examples of bags with air in them that resulted in moisture being leached out of food in just a few months, while carefully vacuum-sealed foods might last a few years. I don't know if the lesson stuck. He seemed to be looking for a simple rule like, "Freezing any food makes it good for n months/years."

Another thing we did during the 11 days we were out there recently was focus on eating through food already in the fridge/freezer. We went out for dinner as a family exactly once, the first night we were there. And we did go grocery shopping for a main dish to have the second night, but after that it was all, "Hey, this thing we found in the freezer from [mumble] years ago looks good still, let's cook it." And we made sure leftovers got eaten, too. Eaten within 2 days later, or tossed out. Because leftovers that got tucked away and saved for months or years until they looked disgusting and nobody was sure what they were anymore, made up a big part of those 7 bags of food we trashed.

By the time we left Saturday, between throwing out multiple bags of food, eating through some of the stuff, and reorganizing the rest, we got to the point where a person can actually see what's in the fridge. Hopefully that will help them actually eat the stuff they've got, instead of constantly buying new stuff because they can't see 80% of what's in there.

Nice Weather on Tap. Maybe I'll Enjoy It.

canyonwalker — Mon, 01 Jun 2026 16:35:15 GMT

Today's the first day of June. And finally the weather looks like it'll be seasonally appropriate... no more spring in February, summer in March, and winter in May. Look at this beautiful 10 day forecast:

Ah, all this beautiful weather on tap. Maybe I'll even be able to enjoy it.

...What do I mean by that passive-aggressive sounding remark? Sigh. Yesterday was a beautiful day, too. And I set one goal for myself: Go outside and enjoy the pool. And I failed. I was too tired. Too tired even to go outside and relax by, or in, the pool. 😞

Guess what my goal is for today? Yup, same as yesterday. Guess what my chances of success are. Sigh. Right now I'd call it about 50/50. ☹️

I shouldn't be this tired.

Back from our Trip Within a Trip

canyonwalker — Sun, 31 May 2026 17:57:40 GMT

May Family Visit Travelog #14½
Centralia, PA · Tue 26 May 2026. 9:30pm.

This blog got lost in my backlog a few days ago. I'll post it now because it's a good summary of the "trip within a trip" Hawk and I took in Pennsylvania while we were visiting her folks.

Tuesday evening we got home from our "trip within a trip". Well, home as in the home of Hawk's parents— which, for now, is our home away from home. We took a two day trip, just the two of us, to enjoy some hiking and also take a break from being with her parents 24/7. Where did we go/what did we do?

From near Harrisburg we drove toward Hickory Run State Park. We braved rain and heavy fog on the drive then considered hiking the SHADES OF DEATH trail... but it was more lame than metal so we skipped it.

We hiked Hawk Falls at Hickory Run. Thankfully the rain had stopped though everything was still wet and the sky gloomy... which is actually good weather for enjoying waterfalls.

We hiked the Seven Tubs trail near Wilkes-Barre.

We stayed overnight near Wilkes-Barre. We could have day-tripped it out and back both days but decided to save some time, and give ourselves more of a break from family, by spending a night in a hotel.

Tuesday we visited Ricketts Glen State Park, where there are an astonishing 21 named waterfalls on one loop trail. With the recent rains we saw more falls than that, plus we added official falls #22 after a late afternoon ice cream stop.

We detoured slightly on the way home to the town of Centralia, where an underground coal mine fire has been burning for 64 years! Our notion of disaster touring came up a bit short as there was no sign of the underground fire we could see, just a town abandoned and razed so long ago that most of what was once the town center has returned to nature.

The one bit that's new since all of those previous blogs is that we stopped for dinner on the way home this evening. We could have stopped at a popular looking small-town drive-in burger stand in the next town over a few miles south of Centralia, but we didn't. I don't know what better option I was holding out for... because once we got out of that and back onto the interstate the options were basically McDonald's and Burger King. We ate at McDonald's. It was my first time at a McD's in 10 months. It was... not as bad as the sad McDonald's visit 10 months ago. Maybe I'll be ready to go again in 6 months after this.

Now we're back home... well, home away from home... and it's an empty house. MIL, FIL, and BIL are out getting ice cream. Hooray that MIL felt well enough to get out!

Home from Harrisburg

canyonwalker — Sun, 31 May 2026 05:33:15 GMT

May Family Visit Travelog #20
Back home · Sat, 30 May 2026. 10:20pm.

We're back home from visiting Hawk's parents in Pennsylvania for the past 11 days. We walked through our own front door 20 minutes ago. I quickly unpacked my bag, now Hawk is unpacking hers after partially sorting through the mail. We have a lot of mail, almost all of it political mailers for highly contested races in next week's primary.

The trip home today was easy if a bit boring. We had all kinds of time in the schedule so we didn't have to rush or fret over minor delays. We left her parents' place after lunch then promptly made a pit stop for road snacks and drinks. We drove down to Baltimore for BWI airport. As I've explained before, BWI is the most logical airport for traveling to my inlaws even though it's ~90 miles away from them. We had a few hours of slack time at the airport.

The nonstop flight to SJC was long and boring. We landed a bit late but, again, it didn't bother us much. The one thing that was perhaps most frustrating about the trip was having to wait 30 minutes for our checked bag. Southwest Airlines at SJC seemed to have just one baggage team at 9pm, and there were 4 arriving flights stacked up. That wait would be more frustrating if we both had to be up early in the morning for work, but we don't— today's Saturday. And we're both retired. Every day is Saturday. 🤣

Packing to Leave, Planning the Next Trip(s)

canyonwalker — Sat, 30 May 2026 20:34:53 GMT

May Family Visit Travelog #19
At my inlaws' house · Sat, 30 May 2026. 12pm.

Our bags are all packed. We'll be leaving my inlaws' house in an hour or so. We've been here for 11 days. Well, minus the two days we took a trip-within-a-trip, just the two of us, to a park with, like, a bazillion waterfalls and a town that's on fire.

Before we leave today we're planning our next trip(s). We've agreed our next visit to Hawk's parents will be TBD for now. We'll figure out timing after MIL's next followup with her cancer doctor about two weeks from now. We're all hoping she'll be able to resume treatment after that, and we'll plan around her treatment schedule. But that's not the only trip we discussed this morning.

We're also planning a trip to Hawaii! This is something we've been discussing for about a month now. I've been waiting for some hotel points to fall into place so we can book a nice place on Maui on points. We'd been planning to book reservations for December, but when we looked at availability today and cross referenced it with weather averages we landed on dates in September. So, it'll be a late summer visit to Maui for us!

We've got trips planned in August and September now. Nothing yet in June or July, though. We'll have to get busy figuring out what to do for the next 10 weeks. Though right now I'll be happy to get home and spend the next few days taking it easy and lounging around the pool.