summer and fall 2024
Catching Up
First, let me acknowledge the newsletter has been a bit more “irregular” than originally intended. Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get them out on a slightly quicker cadence going forward.
Summer Vacation – Sunny Palm Springs and A Visit Home
Last spring Em and I took advantage of her work trip to Orange County to spend a long weekend in Palm Springs. Freddie and I drove down with her, spending a night in Santa Barbara along the way. I worked from the hotel for a couple days and explored the area a bit on my own while Em worked and went to vendor dinners. Then we made the drive to Palm Springs on a Friday afternoon alongside what seemed like half of L.A.
We went to Palm Springs in search of heat. We only get about two weeks of it in San Francisco, and that’s in October, so by April we sorely miss the sun. We sure found it. It wasn’t the height of summer, but each day was still near 100 degrees F. Mostly we lounged at the pool (doused in sunscreen). I think I finished 3 or 4 books. One morning we braved the heat to walk around some nice areas of town with shops and restaurants. Em even visited the famous luxury outlets one morning and scored a few deals for me at Wilson.
Sometimes I want an adventure, but sometimes I just want a vacation. This was definitely the second and a good one at that.
In late June and early July the timing of another work trip for Emily worked out well for a visit home. This time we boarded Freddie, and I flew to TN while Em worked from New York. She met me for a couple days in West TN before we made our way over to her family in East TN. We always love trips to see our family and this time had two new members to meet. For a time we were getting a new cousin every few months!
Seeing our friends Nicole and Philip in Knoxville and celebrating Em’s 30th birthday with them was another big plus!
Outside Lands – Isn’t that sweet, I guess so
So far we have enjoyed living near a music festival. Each year the Outside Lands weekend is a little bit loud. We get an influx of visitors to our generally sleepy neighborhood. Some people complain, but really it is kind of nice to have some crowds around for a bit.
Best of all, we can easily just buy a day pass for whatever day suits us best. We walk down to the park for the day, listen to music, eat some festival food, and then walk home to sleep in our own bed. Soooo much nicer than a sweltering tent at Bonnaroo after (maybe) a bucket shower.
There is low pressure on which artists to see since we don’t have to make a full trip out of it. No stress, no hectic running from one show to the other, and rarely any schedule conflicts. We just pick a few artists that sound interesting and make sure we have time for the headliner.
Speaking of which, Sabrina Carpenter absolutely killed it! No notes. If I’m not mistaken this was her first big festival performance. She even brought out Kasey Musgraves for a song. All in all, it was an excellent way to spend a day in Golden Gate Park.
Back into Bikes
In this last year I’ve had the pleasure of diving back into the world of bikes, this time with a new fervor. I used to really enjoy mountain biking and did just a little of my own maintenance on my 2012 Giant Talon hardtail. After we moved to Oakland I found myself biking much less and really only to get around town. The mountain bike was a bit overkill, and I was devoting more time to climbing instead of riding. I made the decision to sell the bike and buy something simpler like a rigid frame commuter not long before we moved across the bay. I wanted something cheap and easy to maintain that wouldn’t get stolen.
A year and a half flew by, and still I had no bike despite Em and I often talking about how nice it would be for getting around our neighborhood. One day I stumbled upon the xbiking subreddit and immediately knew I had found a new hobby. The sub was full of people who bought (usually) cheap and (usually) old bikes and fixed them up as solid cruisers/rat bikes. Occasionally more capable builds pop up from gravel and trail oriented enthusiasts. Mainly they all just like to ride and wrench on bikes in their free time.
Inspired, I picked up a free hybrid GT from the early 90s and got a good deal on mid 90s Specialized Stumpjumper (the names from this era are especially entertaining). I learned a lot from these two bikes and eventually got to riding. I picked up a few more bikes, rode more, and wrenched more. I got onto some gravel trails, tried bikepacking, and re-ignited that childlike joy that bikes can bring.
Emily started riding with me around Richmond and Sunset, and it quickly became clear that her heavy beach cruiser wouldn’t cut it on the San Francisco hills. Time for a new project!
After watching Marketplace and Craigslist for a few months, I found a steel 90s Bridgestone CB1 in need of work and offered at a good price. Best of all, it was red. I had a few other bikes to fix up at the time and tried my first oxalic acid bath. I got a free kiddie pool from a coworker, mixed up the solution, and soaked three bike frames to remove all their surface and internal rust. I clear-coated Emily’s bike and spray-painted the exposed steel on the others. Then came the rebuild.
Emily’s bike originally came with black bars and an ugly stem. I switched those out for silver ones. Also moved some nicer components and brakes over to her bike. Now for the fun part. I got some chartreuse cable housing and teal grips and pedals for a nice pop of color. Added a rack, basket, and the bell from Em’s cruiser. Bam, top tier xbike if I do say so myself. The final touch will be some teal tires that I spotted at a bike shop not too long ago.
I have a couple other projects in the works, but mostly I’m looking forward to racking up some miles now in Marin County.
Check out some photos from summer and fall 2024
Thinking Deeper
Our Attention is Under Siege
In my last newsletter, I laid out a framework for intentional living that I call The Attention Matrix. Why go to such effort? Is this pedantic framework necessary? After all, if you have important things to do, just do them, right? Who needs to think about how or why? Unfortunately in today’s world of information overload and ubiquitous digital media access, most of us have to think about this to some degree. Rare is the individual who remains unaffected by social media, 24 hours news, mindless web surfing, binge watching, or addictive gaming. Even if you are the cool guy/gal who has completely disconnected or never plugged in at all, there are other forces working subtly behind the scenes to steal your attention and time. We are all besieged.
Some of us feel like we are hunkered down behind castle walls, sheltering in place and trying desperately to focus. Siege engines fire upon us from outside, occasionally launching a pile of severed heads or a video of a cute dog right over the wall. That steals our attention for a while, but we clean up the mess, pass the dog video along to our friends, and fight on.
Others accept their fate and open the city gates wide, allowing the enemy to stroll through waving vibrant banners laden with ads for the latest Shein trend or the mobile video game all their friends are playing. Who can blame them for embracing their perceived fate? We have all been sold the same myth of the inevitability of technological “progress” after all.
Many people never even realized the invasion happened. Their city was taken quietly by clever political maneuvering. Strangers were welcomed in as simple merchants offering new and exciting wares. The merchants stayed and slowly inserted themselves into positions of power. They now run the city while the old ruler sits on a throne staring at a screen all day, believing they are in control, delusional to the reality.
Sometimes the war for our own attention feels hopeless. That is by design. That is why this fight is important. The constant battle against distraction doesn’t have to be a way of life. There is a possible future in which we don’t have to claw back our time with a strategy worthy of Napoleon (or maybe we’re the Russians in that analogy). But for the present, that is our reality, and we must deal with it.
To fully reclaim our attention, we first have to recognize and understand our besiegers. Who are they, and what are their strategies, tactics, and weapons? The newsletters to follow will provide a very short overview, a briefing just to get us up to speed.
The first question (Who besieges us?) is probably the easier one. Our attention is under siege by Profiteers. By this, I mean the entire advertising industry and the tech companies who feed it. They profit off of a model of attention extraction that is detrimental to our individual and collective autonomy. Although less obviously, our attention is also besieged by our Cultural and Physical Environments. In the next newsletter we will start with the profiteers.
If you want to know more about this newsletter, just check out the idea issue and please subscribe for future newsletters.