Bask in the glow

Wooden ducks in fine footwear

Visiting Homesense, a local home goods store took a picture of the duck in black boots.

Then kept seeing more. So I present to you the entire family.

Wooden duck statue wearing black boots stands on a store shelf. Surrounding objects include a stone-textured pot and wooden slatted item, with green foliage as background. Price tag reads 24.99.

Wooden duck statue dressed in blue hat holding a surfboard.

A wooden duck stands upright, wearing bright yellow rain boots.

Wooden duck sculptures stand upright on a shelf, wearing carved shoes.

Did you know by pressing on your upper lip in the center just below your nose you can stop hiccups?

It also works for sneezes.

Next time you’re hiccuping or need to sneeze take a finger and apply pressure to your upper lip and just hold it there until they subside.

A vivid mural of a bird in flight adorns a door, with its shadow forming a nest on the lower half, set within a red brick archway.

Cape Charles, VA on the Eastern Shore. I absolutely adore this mural. The way the bird is painted with the shadow of the nest really hits me every time I see it. The nest is there but not. A work in progress. The future being built.

A large red rooster statue, decorated with a Santa hat and scarf, stands in a modern cafe interior beneath a chandelier.

A large, festive bird I’m in love with. Too bad it wasn’t for sale. Santa Rooster is fantastic.

A King Kong action figure sits on a wooden surface near a waterfront under a clear blue sky.

Walking along the water and splashing through tide pools I looked down and saw a black pile I thought might have been sea weed or some kind of ocean plant. But instead it was King Kong with a power glove or some kind. I left it on the boardwalk’s railing hoping it would end up in a good home, original owner of not.

Victorian-style pink house stands with a front porch, surrounded by a neatly trimmed lawn and adjacent houses.

I love a pink house.

💡 Say the quiet part out loud: simplifying communication in high context environments, and more • Buttondown

“In-person is where decisions happen, remote is where work happens.”

This continues to be true. Every time.

I don’t know the person I am when I put books on hold in January. But it’s a different person that I am when the book becomes available from the library in May.

My brother and his wife just finished hiking across Costa Rica and offered his thought and tips on making the trip. While I lived vicariously through their beautiful photos.

Thoughts on the Camino de Costa Rica — Eric Holscher

Over a hike of 165 miles (~265 km), we climbed and descended over 30,000 feet (10,000 m) of elevation in 14 days, with some days having over 4,000 ft (1,200 m) of gain or loss. We ranged from the oppressive Caribbean coastal plain to chilly cloud forests at over 7,000 ft

Some nights we get really wild and have a good ol’ fashioned marker testing party!

Plastic boxes sit on a wooden floor, filled with various colored markers and highlighters. The markers are organized by color in the transparent and blue containers.

Box of Magic Stix markers sits beside a tumbler and a bottle on a table. Nearby, a paper displays colorful marker swatches. Text: “Lasts 7 Days with the Cap Off GUARANTEED 24 Bright Markers”.

Plastic cases contain colored markers organized neatly on a wooden floor. Nearby, sheets display multicolored marker swatches.

One day Siri will learn of Uncrustables. Today is not that day #Uncrushables #Uncrossables

My wife is going out with a friend. I have a free night. I’ll go see a movie.
pulls up movies for AMC and Regal nearby
Oh, all the movies I wanted to see have come and gone.

Guess I’ll go back to tinkering on the homelab and looking up where they’ll stream.

Destiny 2 Vault Cleaning with DIM

I’ve been playing Destiny since 2014 and Destiny 2 since 2017 when it launched. I talk about it weekly on Two Titans and a Hunter and have been complaining about how many things I have in my vault. I can never find what I need because I’ve stuffed it full of spikey armor rolls, exotic weapons I’ve not used in years and event weapons or gear that I “toss in the vault to sort out later…” and later is never.

I play mainly on my Titan but my Warlock gets some decent time so I’m only juggling armor for two classes. I don’t know what you all do who play all three classes. I have a Hunter. Mostly to open raid chests and to load in when I want to clean my vault.

I mentioned I had my vault down under 300 items (268 and dropping) and a friend just said “Teach me.”

Screenshot of Destiny 2 vault showing 268/700 items.

So here’s what I did.

This is not The Best Way. This is My Way. I’m frustrated with not being able to find things and holding on to them for no reason. I’m not a “But It Might Be Good Next Season!” player. I don’t need the best. I’m happy with good enough for me. If you want to deeply analyze your vault I recommend: D2 Checklist

Cull The Weapons
Open Destiny Item Manager. (You are using DIM to manager your game, right?) Enter this in the search bar.
-is:wishlist -is:inloadout kills:0

This will show you weapons that are:

Note: This only shows for the active kill tracker. If you have 10,00 kills in PVE but the weapon is set to the PVP tracker for some reason. It will show 0 kills, so be careful and don’t delete your beloved weapon.

Cull The Armor
Enter this in the search bar.
-is:wishlist -is:inloadout is:armor

First two are the same: No wishlist (👍) gear and nothing in any of your loadouts.

Final bit just says “Show Me Armor!” So it’ll remove anything else. No ghosts, sparrows, ships, materials, etc that you may have stashed away.. Then you can sort til your heart’s content, or just load up your least used character, remove their existing weapons and armor you want to keep and drag everything to them to delete in-game.

If you’re purging your Exotics, set aside some time it’s like 6 seconds to delete an exotic (on console).

Once you have a set of things selected, you can use DIM to:

Auto-generated description: A drop-down menu from an inventory management interface displays options such as Pull to Exo Titan, Send to Vault, and item tagging features.

Today my reading streak for weeks and days matched at 163.

A congratulatory message for breaking a record reading streak is displayed. A flame icon is at the top. The text announces 163 weeks and days in a row.

Brookside Gardens is always a beautiful place to visit.

Cluster of pink and white flowers blooming on a branch, surrounded by green leaves.

Turtles rest on a large, partially submerged tree branch extending into a pond, surrounded by greenery and a grassy bank at Brookside Gardens.

A wooden bench sits empty by a calm pond, surrounded by tall trees with sparse foliage, under a cloudy sky. Steps lead down to the water’s edge.

White bell-shaped flowers hang gracefully from a green stem in a garden, surrounded by blurred foliage and stone features in the background, creating a serene natural setting.

A large, leafless tree stands in a park, its branches extending broadly. Bright green grass and small blue flowers cover the ground, with two benches in the background.

Daffodils stand upright in a garden, their white petals and yellow centers contrasting against green grass and brown soil. Background features trees and blurred orange flowers.

Vibrant purple hyacinth flowers bloom amidst green leaves in a garden setting, surrounded by fresh foliage and blurred background trees.

A restaurant named Panida Thai & Sushi Bar, with illuminated signage, is situated in a small strip mall. The wet pavement reflects its lights at night.

Some nights are for warm noodles.

I just realized watching my 12 year old nephew navigate Fortnite whipping through menus at light speed is how people feel watching me navigate a computer with keyboard shortcuts.

I’ve finished the first 11 books in the He Who Fights with Monsters series and am eagerly awaiting Book 12 in May. I’ve enjoyed a combination of reading and listening to them.

Tip: If you borrow through Kindle Unlimited, then get the audiobook, it counts as owning the ebook so it’s much cheaper.

Longlegs was a beautifully shot movie. Unfortunately, that’s about all it was.

My wife is creating tiny jell-o molds of foods from the 70s. Today, she found LILEKS (James) :: Institute :: The Gallery of Regrettable Food And it’s… amazing. The logo jiggles.

Things like this: LILEKS (James) :: Institute :: Gallery

Really thinking about the new iPad. Just iPad that was released recently. I have an iPad Pro from 2016 that’s showing its age. As a benefit, more storage (128gb) and no Apple Intelligence. Win/Win.

Playing a game of how long can I go between hearing the President’s voice.

Days so far.

Books. Walks. Video games. Homelab tinkering. All far better for my mental health than hanging on every headline.

As I watch my coworkers families lose their jobs and get thrown into chaos. And wonder when.

If there’s one thing I’d hoped people had learned going into the next four years of Donald Trump as president, it’s that spending lots of time online posting about what people in power are saying and doing is not going to accomplish anything. If anything, it’s exactly what they want.

We had a good bit of F.A. Now it’s F.O. Day and the trucks are in motion.

White truck with F.O. day on the side in bright red all capital letters.

I’m really enjoying the subtitles of Alone Australia turning “saw sedge” into sausage.

They’re not out here making traps out of sausage.