Dan Bailey

Parental Failure: Books

by

One of the hardest things for me to deal with as a parent is that neither of my boys likes to read. Language has always been difficult for Eddy, as I’m sure I’ve detailed elsewhere in this blog, and Sam had a good chunk of kindergarten and first grade curtailed by COVID-19, and that’s impacted … Read more

Well, Fuck

by

This will be my first update of any sort in months. I’m not going to blather about the following topics: the pandemic the Minneapolis riots the elections the insurrection my marriage/separation the kids First off, let me just say that 2020 was fucking weird, yo. What would otherwise would have been the Shittiest Year on … Read more

Nugget: Scars

by

I originally left this in a comment on Gloria Liu’s blog. Scars are trophies of a life well-lived. It’s no different than a book with dog-eared pages, really — there’s a certain degree of love and respect for material things (bodies included) that results in a bit of damage-by-familiarity. Those little imperfections, the same things … Read more

What I Believe (2020 Edition)

by
Beliefs

I believe — with evidence — that the Cars movies are set in the same universe as Maximum Overdrive. I also believe — without evidence — that The Golden Child and Big Trouble in Little China are set in the same universe. I believe in beer. I believe in persistence. I believe in the concept … Read more

Book Burnout

by

For the first time in my life, I think I’m getting sick of reading. Maybe it’s just bad selection of books right now — I’m stuck in the middle of three different books — and I just can’t seem to find any traction with any of them. Maybe it’s that in 2017, I absolutely crushed … Read more

Maker Stuff: March 2018

by

My inner maker was pretty happy in March. I got a lot done, most of it on the coding side of things. Part of the credit here has to go to the last place I was contracting at, which didn’t have enough incoming work to warrant keeping me around, and so I wound up “on the bench” — which means no office time, but no pay, either. That means I was at home for a good chunk of the month and working on these things (when I wasn’t job hunting, interviewing, or doing housework).

Read more

Tinkering/Nerdery: February 2018

by

So. Tinkering. This month was productive, but it also wasn’t. How to best explain that? Well, I had a freelance gig that I had to build out, and I learned a ton about the WordPress back-end, ZURB Foundation 6, and jQuery, but it wasn’t for personal hack-y projects. I did manage to get some geeky going, though, which is nice.

Read more

Awesome Web Reads: February 2018

by

GQ had a great interview with Quincy Jones. John Perry Barlow, founder of the EFF died early in the month. Kottke shared his 25 Principles of Adult Behavior In saecula saeculorum was a thought-provoking look at the eras of an empire. Tim Ferriss has a great (and short) podcast called The 9 Habits to Stop … Read more

Other Chili, Other Stuff

by

This blog is supposed to be focused on tinkering/making/hacking stuff. So why am I posting another chili recipe? Well, mainly because I can’t stop tinkering — every time I try a recipe, I mess with it a bit. My Unholy Good Chili recipe started fairly simple and grew over many iterations into a burn-the-hair-off-your-feet monstrosity. It wasn’t something I wanted to cook up for the Birchwood Bike Team Superbowl Party, as I wanted something more mild. So I found a different recipe, and scribbled it down. Then I edited the hell out of it to formulate my own take on it. I’d say about 60{3b4d110c5d1596d2297e6430d163d306168bc3d03da137601e3ed8beb4b12205} of the original recipe remains, if that.

Read more