Bask in the glow

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.

Fix local DNS when upgrading pihole and using unbound for your homelab

Now that I’ve gotten my pi-hole instance working, I realized I wasn’t able to load any of my local DNS entries. I have a domain.com that I use for a couple of things that are exposed to the world. Mainly my RSS reader. I also keep a *.lab.domain.com wildcard domain so I can have wiki.lab.domain.com internally so I can make notes to myself without worry about the outside world seeing them.

Well, nothing on my lab subdomain wasn’t loading. It’s DNS. It’s always DNS.

It has been documented by the pi-hole team, but I had no idea where to find these options they showed. V6 – Post release fixes and findings – Pi-hole

Either enable misc.etc_dnsmasq_d to restore the “old” behaviour, or if you have only a few lines you can add them directly to the misc.dnsmasq_lines setting instead. Both of these settings can be found in either the toml file, or on the web interface under All Settings -> Misc

Login to your pi-hole install. You may need to use the IP address instead of the domain name if that’s also broken for you. First, you need to go to the Settings in your pihole. Second, locate the *Basic button and slide it to Expert.

Auto-generated description: A dark interface displays System Settings with a green Basic button on the right. Auto-generated description: A dark interface displays the text System Settings on the left with a red Expert button on the right. The button should be up near the System Settings header.

Once you do this, you will see an extra option under Settings menu, All settings.

Auto-generated description: A dropdown menu displays options for settings such as System, DNS, DHCP, Web interface/API, Privacy, Teleporter, and Local DNS Records.

Moving the slider to Expert is the option I had to figure out on my own, as it wasn’t mentioned when accessing the All settings menu. So I’m telling you now.

Now that you have the menu, click it. On the All Settings page, click Miscellaneous to filter the results. Now look for misc.etc_dnsmasq_d

Auto-generated description: A configuration setting window is displayed, where the option for loading additional dnsmasq configuration files from /etc/dnsmasq.d/ is enabled.

Once you find it, enable it. Click Save & Apply.

Now you should be able to access your local DNS entries again.

Fix pi-hole login behind nginx proxy manager after upgrading to pi-hole V6

If you’re running pi-hole behind a reverse proxy and upgrading to pi-hole 6 you are not able to login. You need to make one change in your reverse proxy.

I use nginx proxy manager and you need to expose the /api.

You should have already added /admin to your reverse proxy. You need to click the add location button at the top and then add /api to port 80 on the IP address of your pi-hole.

Credit to jclendineng in this thread: How to configure Nginx Proxy Manager correctly to use v6? - Help / Community Help - Pi-hole Userspace reported the same problem and then, like a hero, came back to report their fix: Edit: you have to expose /api

Trying out Finch as a way to track some habits. And furnish my little house and bird friend.

On the way to the pig. And the pig. From the Brandywine Museum of Art

Painting of a pig hangs on a wall, illuminated by spotlight. Viewed through a doorway with brick floor tiles and wooden doors.

Painting of a large pink pig standing on straw, surrounded by a wooden fence and dark walls. Artist name: Emile Claus, year: 1884.

After seeing the embroidery of Solitaire and minesweeper on Instagram we learned the show was going on currently in Delaware. So off we went and the entire museum was incredible.

A red and black sign displaying “The Delaware Contemporary” stands on a wet pavement, surrounded by modern buildings and bare trees on a cloudy day.

A pixelated bouquet of flowers is arranged in a white vase, sitting on a wooden table with scattered pastel color swatches around it, against a dark background.

A blindfolded woman in a yellow dress sits on a table holding a lamp against a brick wall with a large circular window design.

A ceramic figurine of a flamingos neck and head on the body of a brown dog sitting on a shelf.

A ceramic figurine with a rabbit’s head and rhino body stands on a white shelf, blending animal features creatively. It has large ears and a prominent horn.

A vintage Macintosh computer sits on a wooden desk displaying flying toasters. Woven tapestries depict minesweeper, the Sims 2, neopets and solitaire on surrounding walls, with colorful threads creating a networked effect throughout the gallery space.

A crocheted tapestry depicts a colorful fantasy village from neopets.

A tapestry depicts a pixelated figure with a green diamond overhead, resembling a video game scene. It hangs with loose threads below, set against a plain wall.

Two woven tapestries depict pixelated computer game screens of minesweeper and solitaire. The larger one shows a Solitaire game with stacked cards; the smaller one resembles Minesweeper with numbered blocks.

A painting depicts a lone house amid tall, bare trees under a warm, fading yellow sky. It is displayed on a gallery wall, labeled “Nicole Parker, The City of Ember, 2023.”

A wooden table with two chairs sits under a lit pendant light in a dimly lit room; a window casts a shadow. Text reads: “Nicole Parker, Dinner is Still Warm, 2021, oil on linen mounted panel.

Abstract artwork features geometric shapes with green and pink hues intersecting over a striped, triangular form, set against a gray backdrop. A label reads: “Jennifer Small, Kitchen Design Shop and a Neighborhood Garage, 2025, $2,800”.

A broken wooden chair is precariously positioned on a white pedestal, with its legs akimbo and pieces scattered. It is set against a metallic, industrial-looking wall.

There are so many Teslas near us. We counted a dozen just going down a mile or two. And I see a Cybertruck nearly everyday.

Passed a protest today at our local Tesla dealership. Probably 40-50 people with antifascism science shouting and making noise. Lots of signs and shouting. #TeslaProtest

Finished reading: I Who Have Never Known Men by Jacqueline Harpman 📚

A unique story that tosses you right into the pit and leaves you there. A very dark, dystopian book that’s a dark as it is mysterious.

Saying I enjoyed reading it feels wrong. But I was riveted by the story and could not put it down.

My niece just released a cover of Bon Iver’s Roslyn that is incredible.

youtu.be/0yOElWmqO…

The Fifth Light is her band and she’s incredible.

We had some freezing rain overnight which iced over the trees, shrubs, cars and everything else. It’s beautiful but treacherous.

Branches covered in ice hold clusters of dark berries, with icicles hanging beneath. The background is blurred, creating a cold, wintry atmosphere.

Icicles hang from the edge a car’s roof, sparkling as they form a line after a freezing rain.

Twig coated in ice, hanging still, with icicles forming at the tips.

Ice-covered shrubbery branches glisten as they encase dried flower clusters, creating intricate patterns.

Branches coated in ice hang still, forming icicles that dangle downward.

🎮 Fae Farm (2023)

Fae Farm poster

I picked this game up with my wife on Xbox and we tried it out… and have now spent 22 hours playing it. Most of it over the past two days. It’s perfect.

Crafting. Questing. Friendship. Courtship. Adventuring. Farming.

Do you remember A Softer World? This is one of their comics that sticks with me.

asofterworld.com/index.php

This is delightful. Open it in your browser and enjoy the beautiful pixel art.

New research backs up what gamers have thought for years: cozy video games can be an antidote to stress and anxiety.

Screenshot of pixel art and the title and subhead of Cozy comfort. New research backs up what gamers have thought for years: video games can be an antidote to stress and anxiety.

This is a beautiful piece about local art museums.

The Wonder Of The Regional Art Museum

Visiting a small art museum on Maryland’s Eastern Shore led me to a university art museum for an embroidery exhibition it and another in Roanoke, VA earlier this year.

Every museum in is its own treat.

Roast some really good chick peas tonight. Washed. Dried thoroughly Then roasted for an hour at 400. Olive oil and salt. Spices are for later. Once I get the timing down.

They came out very crispy and I can’t stop snacking on them.