Archive

Hearing Things has quit Spotify: Our values as a publication—pro-worker, pro-artist, pro-active listening, anti-villainous corporations—did not align with many of Spotify’s actions and policies. I learned a couple new things via this article too. The book they reference, Mood Machine, sounds …

Jack White becomes the reluctant owner of a cellular telephone for the first time on his 50th birthday: Can’t wait to talk to you all soon. My phone number is the square root of all of our combined social interaction times Pi. HBD Jack! And kudos for lasting as long as you did. I wish you would …

I recently discovered the Forever ✱ Notes framework and have been experimenting with it over the last few weeks. As an Obsidian superuser for years, this new approach feels lightweight and efficient. It’s perfect for what I need my notes system to do for me these days.

Finished reading: The Future of Another Timeline by Annalee Newitz 📚 I feel like it took me forever to get through this book but I absolutely loved this punk rock Quantum Leap storyline.

We had a relaxing and restful family vacation last week in Southwest Florida. I managed to go the whole week without checking in on work or social feeds. As I reenter the real world this morning, I feel refreshed, rejuvenated and ready for a few intense work weeks coming down the pike.

One palm, endless sky.

“There’s not a shred of evidence on the internet that this band has ever existed” An AI “band” is racking up hundreds of thousands of monthly listeners on Spotify. What kind of world are we living in? Soon there will just be an opaque layer of robots between all human connection.

This Site in Perpetuity: Not to get morbid, but turning 47 yesterday started me thinking about the persistence and legacy of this site if I were to suddenly get gone. One of the main purposes of StaticMade.com for me is to leave a public mark or a detailed record of my time, thoughts and consciousness while on this planet. …

Forty-Seven Things: I begin my 48th trip around the sun today, so here is a non-exhaustive list of 47 things I’ve learned throughout those 47 years.

We all live under the same sun.

AllTrails has a new generative AI-powered feature that let’s hikers ask for shorter or more scenic routes: If a robot told you that walking off a cliff was your fastest route home, how close would you get to the edge before turning it off? What could go wrong?

Taylor Lorenz & Matt Bernstein on the beige-ification of Pride: From the aisles of Target to the Instagram feeds of big brands, the rainbow logos are gone & the merch shelves are empty. This is quite obvious when you stop & notice how retailers position inclusion with respect to their …

Texas is the Reason is reuniting for a run of shows and festivals this fall. Their 1996 debut (and only full-length to date) Do You Know Who You Are? was instrumental in my musical development and hooked me on the post-hardcore genre for decades. Stoked for the Pittsburgh show at Preserving …

This dude ate his way through the No Kings protest in Los Angeles, vlogging about the street food he encountered on the ground, and by doing so showed exactly how chill, measured and important the movement is. This is one of the best social commentaries I’ve seen I quite a while.

Sunday Service: For some people, attending church on Sunday morning is the spiritual space they need in their lives. I have never been one of those people, but I am someone who needs quiet, reflection and beauty to feel spiritually fulfilled. I find my spiritual space in the nature. This morning, as the church …

A Different Kind of Ultra: After ditching my smartwatch to track health metrics, I found greater mental clarity and a more enjoyable running experience focused on presence rather than numbers.

This Doomtree record was released way back in 2011, but this seems as good a time as any to revisit and play loud. Be safe out there. #NoKings

We had an amazing night at Founder’s Field for Steel City FC vs. Pittsburgh Riveters. The state of women’s soccer here in Pittsburgh is strong! It was a great game — these ladies played with such intensity — and Adeline got the chance to see the action up close as a ball girl.

A Dream for the Web: I dream of a web that’s small and strange and wonderful.

My friend Rob calls it my “no excuses jacket,” and it’s become my metaphor for acknowledging discomfort.

Happy Turnstile album drop day to all who celebrate! It’s a banger!

Joan Westenberg took off her smartwatch and wrote about how that small act has impacted her awareness and intuition: What returned: a sense of calm. I could go to sleep without being scored. I could go for a walk without a badge. I started noticing things again - how I feel after coffee, the way my …

The No Excuses Jacket: My friend Rob calls it my “no excuses jacket,” and it’s become my metaphor for acknowledging discomfort.

Solid bike commute this morning. Summer is definitely here in Pittsburgh and I am here for it.

Letting go is often harder than hanging on. It’s natural to grasp tightly to the people we love, but releasing the hold at times is also natural. It’s hard to understand that sometimes. Letting go requires trust & belief that the love we’ve given over time will endure across …

One chapter closes, another one opens. Proud dad over here.

Hearing Things has quickly become one of my go-to sources for discovering new music and as of today they are a journalist-owned publication: We are now proud to announce that we are now 100 percent worker-owned! This aligns us further with our values—we believe the future of journalism will be led …

Eight Words Instead of Six: I changed one question in my 1:1s and it transformed how my team responds. Instead of “Do you need anything from me?” I now ask “What’s the most important thing I can help you with this week?” Eight words instead of six. Completely different dynamic.

With respect and syrup, this dude hacked the Waffle House website as a hurricane barreled toward his home in Florida: The Waffle House Index is an (incredibly) unofficial tool used by FEMA to gauge the severity of natural disasters. Why Waffle House? Because they’re infamous for not closing even …

It’s a dew drop morning. Let’s slow down and notice the little things today — the small darts of beauty that strike our world.

How I Used AI Today: I’m starting to believe the thinking and narrative around generative AI is becoming too binary. The intent of this series is to keep me publicly honest and intellectually responsible with my use of this emerging technology.

Long Live the Zine: Pittsburgh’s PublicSource is experimenting with printed zines for hyperlocal journalism that doesn’t ping, scroll, or need an algorithm to find its audience. Maybe what modern media needs isn’t more reach, but more touch.

Just finished Red Letter Days, the debut memoir from Matt Pryor, guitarist & songwriter best known for his work with seminal post-hardcore band The Get Up Kids. I’ve been a fan of TGUK since 1997. It was great learning about the early days & little known stories of the road. Recommended!

We had a boutonniere issue that required a few moms to address, but they got it figured out and the couple looked sharp for Prom 2025.

Greg Storey on the binary nature of AI discourse these days: The assumption that tools passively rewire us, no matter our intent, no matter our context, no matter our discipline, is reductive at best and infantilizing at worst. Worth a read. This is more nuanced than AI is evil / AI is the future.

How I Used AI Today: I’m starting to believe the thinking and narrative around generative AI is becoming too binary. The intent of this series (How I Used AI Today) is to keep me publicly honest and morally responsible with my use of this emerging technology.

The Leadership We Need Right Now: The retail industry is tough business. It’s even harder when the political current is working against company values. As I survey the room of retailers and notice their actions related to the politics of the day, it’s very easy to see which companies are willing to sell out for political …

Fear not. The kids are alright.

All politics is local. Get out there and vote Pittsburgh!

Rearviewmirror: Reflecting on my decades-long journey to see Pearl Jam. My 33-year drought came to an end last weekend and it was worth the wait.

I’ve been working on a new coat of paint for StaticMade.com and pushed the changes today. It’s mostly small CSS stuff and template modifications. I’m feeling the simplicity. Let me know what you think!

It pains me The Center for Humane Technology posted this statement in opposition to the state moratorium on AI legislation on their Substack, but it is a good statement, so I’m sharing. A 10-year moratorium on state action fundamentally misunderstands the speed at which this technology is …

On Care, Craft and Quality: Our culture has evolved to value instant gratification, instant response and instant turnaround for most things. The faster your synapses get feedback, the better. It doesn’t need to be this way.

Earlier today, I saw a deer give birth in my backyard and then watched as the fawn took its first feeble steps. It was an amazing thing to see, right outside my office window. I was so consumed by the experience that I was late for my team’s morning stand-up. Worth it! The miracle of life!

I’m seeing Pearl Jam this weekend. Bucket list. First time seeing them, sort of. More on that weird circumstance in a future post. According to setlist.fm, they’re playing State of Love and Trust occasionally on this tour. Fingers crossed they play it on Sunday night. I will absolutely …

Let’s not let all the good the internet has given us over the years be overshadowed by keyboard warriors with virtual beer muscles who’d never say to our face what they type from behind a screen. There is still positivity online. Find it. Celebrate it. Share it. Let’s be the web we …

Protocols as Pillars: The social web is at an inflection point. After years of centralized platforms dominating our digital lives, we’re witnessing a resurgence of alternatives built on open protocols. I believe this is something to celebrate, rather than something to argue about.

404 Media found this passage buried deep in the Budget Reconciliation Bill, introduced late last evening by House Republicans under cover of night: “…no State or political subdivision thereof may enforce any law or regulation regulating artificial intelligence models, artificial intelligence …

Mother’s Day 2025: We had a wonderful day honoring and celebrating Jilly. First, we made our way to the South Side to check out the Neighborhood Flea. There were tons of vendors and people out and about, largely due to the splendid weather. I scored some artisanal Ginger Beer and the Jilly scored some prints from a …

Today marks my first double-digit run (10 miles) in more than 8 months. Grinding back, slowly and surely. The hip feels great. Recovering from injury is hard both physically and mentally. There are good days and setbacks. Today is a good day. It feels great to be on my way back to form. 🏃🏻‍♂️

Content feeds are infinite, but our time & attention remain finite. Each scroll becomes a small act of self-definition. Little darts aimed toward the mind. Over time we become what we ingest, resembling a collage crafted from moments we’ve deemed worthy of our focus. Choose these moments …

Seth Godin writing on AI’s inability to lie: AI is a tool, and judgment, for the foreseeable future, remains our job. It doesn’t matter how cool your hammer is, it’s still on you to decide which nails need hammering. I believe this rationale can be extended beyond AI, to most things in life.

George Pickens traded to the Cowboys in exchange for multiple draft picks. Not sure how I feel about it to be honest. Part of me wanted to see both GP and DK on the field at the same time for the Steelers, but I realize this next season will likely be a rebuilding year. 🏈

Designing for Chaos: I’ve found the best retail tech product managers develop a kind of zen-like mindset. We learn to let go of digital perfection and embrace analog reality. We don’t build for the ideal conditions of the demo environment. We build for the beautiful disaster that is actual retail.

This morning’s run put me over 30 miles for the week for the first since September 2024. This isn’t a lot for some, but I’ve been having a hard time clawing back from a hip flexor injury the past few months. I’m feeling good about this progress and improved consistency.

It was a rainy morning for soccer, but Steel City FC played hard and tough to a 0-0 draw with Pittsburgh FC. Addie had a couple shots on goal but couldn’t get one to drop in.

Andy Cush in Hearing Things on quitting artist-abusing platforms like Spotify: Music just sounds better when you’re not streaming it. Not only because the audio quality is often literally higher, but because you’re forging a connection with what you’re hearing that’s strengthened by your choices.

We’re headed into Marathon Weekend here in Pittsburgh. I’m not running this year, but I’m thinking about my experience running it in 2023 and how it is my most memorable running experience to date. Good luck to everyone lacing up and toeing the line on Sunday. The hay is in the …

Going on 6 hours without power. Lots of trees and lines down in the neighborhood. We are making lemonade. Once the storms passed, we grilled out and played cards. School is already delayed for the kids, but I wouldn’t be surprised if we’re still without power come sunrise. UPDATE: 4/30/25 7:00 AM We …

In a conversation earlier today someone used the phrase “feed two birds with one scone” and I absolutely love that vibe so much more than the popular alternative.

Quick day trip with the family to State College yesterday. We stopped by the Blue and White game at Beaver Stadium after Adeline’s morning soccer game and spent some time cruising around campus so Elliott has a lay of the land when he lands there this fall. Also: ice cream from the creamery!!

Like most emerging tech throughout history, GenAI promises to save time & create efficiency. But at what cost? The pitch is freedom through automation, but the grift is capitalism probing new corners of our lives, optimizing us for more output. The hamster wheel’s new, but we’re still running.

I made the move from 28mm slicks to 30mm GravelKing tires on my Synapse. After the first few rides I really feel the drag when I’m on the road, but I also feel the increased grip when riding the trail. I might get another wheel set and keep 28’s on that one for quick change out based on the ride.

The Elemental Hour: Over the past few years, I’ve developed an essential daily practice I call the Elemental Hour. The idea is simple – I commit at least one hour each day to being outdoors, regardless of weather or circumstance. No phone. No music or podcasts. No technology. Just me and whatever elements …

The Dutch Headwind Cycling Championship looks absolutely awesome, in a type-II fun sort of way: Because not only are humans literally pushing against the storm and saying, ‘We can beat you," they’re on a physical monument to doing just that. Adding this to my bucket list.

Seminal post-punk band Swing Kids reunited for one show in their hometown of San Diego last month and there’s a fantastic documentary that captures the performance, rehearsals leading up to the show and candid interviews with the band. It’s a fun watch.

The cycle of life continues. Each spring, I enjoy watching the journey from empty nest to empty nest.

I’ve been listening to Rage Against the Machine today while I’ve been getting stuff done around the house. Because, you know, moods. It’s amazing, in a very sad way, that every syllable Zach utters is as relevant today as it was decades ago. The catalog aged very well, unfortunately.

Elliott is nearing HS graduation and preparing to head off to college, so I feel like it’s important that he leave home with some cultural prerequisites. Lately we’ve been binging 1990s cinema together. Last week we watched The Big Lebowski and The Usual Suspects, and last night it was Fight Club.

Spring has sprung here in Pittsburgh! With the kids home from school this week for spring break, I needed to get out of the house so I decided to bike commute to the store to work from there today. It was an absolutely glorious ride. Sunny, warm and with a slight breeze to keep it cool. If that …

Finished reading: Dear Dickhead by Virginie Despentes 📚 I just could not gain traction with this one. That likely had to do with the format of the prose: an extremely long chain of emails written back and forth between the main characters. A novel and experimental approach, but ultimately I think …

I just learned that Perfume Genius is playing in nearby Cleveland on Father’s Day. You’re damn right I’m playing that card and packing up the whole family for a roadtrip to the show.

Ben Werdmuller touching on a sentiment I shared in my post yesterday about helplessness: One voice doesn’t change a great deal, and over time the risks to dissent grow larger. But if there are many voices, and those voices translate into peaceful protest on the streets, and they translate into …

For my money, Joan Westenberg is publishing some of the most poignant writing on the internet these days. From How Small Networks Build Stronger Ideas: The best ideation networks are asymmetric. They aren’t little echo chambers. They’re cognitively and temperamentally diverse. They combine the …

Turning Helplessness Into Something Helpful: I’ve been feeling helpless lately. Maybe you have too? Here are some tactics I’m employing to turn a feeling of helplessness into one of helpfulness.

I absolutely love Craig Mod’s newsletter Ridgeline, which is all about walking. In the most recent edition, Craig shares his experience walking the French Camino de Santiago, the 110 kilometer pilgrimage across the Pyrenees. The descriptor ‘French’ is added here because …

Greg Storey in Kindness Feels Radical: Somewhere between the launch of the iPhone and the cultural fallout of the pandemic—we lost the human currency of kindness. These days a simple act of empathy can seem so extraordinary. It doesn’t need to be this way. Let us become radicalized by kindness.

The April Pink Moon will be in full effect tonight. Get your Nick Drake records ready.

The new Mars Volta record, Lucro sucio; Los ojos del vacio, is out today. For selfish reasons, I wish it had been released one week earlier because I saw the band last Friday and their set was comprised entirely of this new collection of songs. They sounded great and these songs translated well in …

Apologies to other uncles out there, but apparently I am the GOAT.

Hearing Things has a great series called Credit History, where they ask musicians to review & explain a recent credit card statement. The newest installment talks to Mike Hadreas (aka Perfume Genius). It’s a cool read & shines a new light on the man behind the fantastic songs.

Jamie Thingelstad in Blogging is a Gift: Who is this for? You. Yourself. Your family. Your friends. Your friend’s friends. Your neighborhood. And they can have it whenever they want. As a gift. A gift from you to them. Not a gift to be measured in engagement, but instead as a body of work. A gift …

Finished Reading: Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brené Brown 📚 With the shift into my new role, I’m re-energizing my people leader brain. This was a quick read and I love the perspective on vulnerability Brown brings to leadership. Daring leadership is a …

There’s something about the combination of vocal texture, unpredictable songwriting and impeccable production that hooks me on just about everything Perfume Genius releases. Glory, out last week, is just so effing good. It feels timeless and familiar, but also alien, as if it’s from …

In Pursuit of Ordinary: Joan Westenberg examines the alternative to a hyper-connected and ultra-performative lifestyle.

A Professional Transition: I recently transitioned to a new role at REI, focusing on enhancing retail technology and customer experience while embracing leadership responsibilities.

Exploring Fell’s Point in Baltimore between soccer tournament games. Historic row homes, cobblestones and a killer farmer’s market. Super cool neighborhood.

Patience, Moonbeam – the new full-length from the Seattle-based quintet Great Grandpa – is out today and it’s absolutely fantastic. I’ve been a fan for a long time and this record is now filling the void of smart songwriting left by Pinegrove’s breakup a couple years …

Life is moving fast. Big change at work that’s consuming the majority of my capacity and lots going on personally. Dipping in here quickly to say I miss you, open web. I hope to be back soon.

War Plans is a p good band name tbh

I don’t follow college basketball and know almost nothing about March Madness, but I filled out a bracket this year. First time doing it. I’m dropping it here for posterity. Let’s see how long we remain unbusted.

A friend turned me on to the new record Gut from Baths, and I like it a lot. More electronic/glitchy/pop than I typically listen to, but the songwriting is ace and production is fantastic. Recommended if you’re looking for something with substance that’s also dancey and fun.

I’ve always found capacity planning for UX design and research efforts to be difficult, primarily because sizing tends to be an engineering-focused exercise. This framework by Jeremy Bird looks like it has a lot of potential. Can’t wait to try it out with my team.

Happy Pi Day to all that celebrate. In honor of the occasion, here are my top 5 pies stack-ranked in order of subjective deliciousness: Key Lime Pie Blackberry Pie Coconut Cream Pie Pecan Pie Dutch Apple Pie Related: Has anyone tried Huckleberry Pie?

The Steelers did Justin Fields dirty. Benched after a 4-2 start and handled it like a champ. Dude deserves to get paid and play for a coach that trusts/believes in him. Now, who’s going to be leading the offense next fall. Options are getting thin.

I’m stoked about the Steelers acquiring DK. He and Pickens have potential to destroy most secondaries. But I’m nervous about the news they’re meeting with Aaron Rodgers today. All-time great for sure, however his off-field stuff gives me pause. Sign Fields already and be done with …

It’s been a crazy week visiting stores in SoCal. More on that later, but I did get to close it out with a chill hike from Griffith Park up into the hills above LA. Saw the Hollywood sign and a rattlesnake. Both firsts!

Why did I come all the way to LA for it to be rainy and 50°? Very Pittsburgh of you, SoCal.

Yesterday was a travel day, but the REI store technology team made it to the SoCal market with some time to explore San Diego before we’re visiting stores the rest of the week. We dipped toes in the Pacific, explored Ocean Beach, watched the sunset at Sunset Cliffs, and ate some amazing tacos.

We finally had the chance last night to check out Novo Asian Food Hall in the Strip District. Very cool spot. Since it was our first time, we grabbed several dishes and shared. Solid Banh Mi, delish dumplings, amazing sushi, exquisite ramen and a great bar with local spirits. Highly recommended.

This has been an insane week at work & I feel like I’ve been neglecting you, Fediverse. Next week is shaping up to be equally crazy (traveling), but I am looking forward to dipping my toes in the Pacific Ocean (Do we still call it that?) for the first time & eating some solid tacos in …

New tunes from Great Grandpa! And a forthcoming full-length due next month! Love this band. Thought they were over. Thankful they’re not!

Holy crap, I slept so hard on this new(ish) Merce Lemon record Watch Me Drive Them Dogs Wild. It would have easily made my top records of ‘24 had I jumped on it sooner.

Finished reading: The Tusks of Extinction by Ray Nayler 📚 I just could not get into this one. The story was too futuristic and far-fetched for my tastes, and I was unable to generate any traction on the page turns.

Let’s Go Pens!

I’m trying really hard to claw my way back to a consistent running regimen. It’s been tough sledding, with lingering injuries being the story of the past year. I got 5 miles in this morning, but I feel like I’m back at square one after so much time away. The journey begins anew I suppose.

Awesome day on the slopes with Elliott. High 20s. Bluebird skies.

I’ve started importing some very old posts from my previous blogs into the current iteration of Static Made, because historic preservation, ya dig? Revisiting some of these, I’m struck with how much photo quality has progressed in 20 years. This post & photo are from Halloween 2004. …

I want less real-time, more real time.

Pittsburgh dark-pop outfit Animal Scream released their new EP, Otherworldly Pictures, last week and it’s very good. Featuring x-members of The Juliana Theory and The Takeover UK, the new songs are layered, dense and carry some really great melodies. Worth checking out if you dig this vibe.

Bring the Whisper: On soundbite culture, megaphones, and the need for nuanced understanding at scale.

I must admit, the new Light Phone III has peaked my interest. Have any of you used Light Phone? Thoughts? I currently have my iPhone 12 Mini configured similarly to the Light Phone, but it is starting to die on me and any of these new iPhones with AI slop all up in ‘em turn me off.

Happy Birthday Dad: Remembering my father on what would have been his 73rd birthday.

Finished reading: Make Something Up by Chuck Palahniuk 📚 This was a nice change of pace from my previous few reads. I’ve always been a fan of Palahniuk’s style and this collection of short stories did not disappoint. True to form, it was a wild ride, particularly the story about a …

A thoughtful post (as always) from Naz about the importance of carving out your own digital space: I don’t need to be in a walled garden but I’d love to have you over at my place. This sentiment is exactly how I’m feeling these days. Fewer, richer interactions in a space that’s built …

Achievement unlocked. I handed down a domain I bought decades ago to my son today and he will be using it for his portfolio site. Super cool to see the next generation of the surname URL taking shape! Will drop a link when it’s published.

Some white knuckle driving through snow and ice today, but we made it to Penn State’s admitted students day and toured the new digs. We also serendipitously got to see PSU lacrosse take on Princeton. Super cool to be on the sideline for the game (it was moved indoors due to weather).

It’s 3pm on a Friday headed into a long holiday weekend. Why not rip some Neutral Bling Hotel? Finish strong.

Finished reading: The Mountain in the Sea by Ray Nayler 📚 OK, there is a lot going on in this one. Taking place in a futuristic dystopia where AI has run rampant, we follow three seemingly disconnected stories – a biologist studying sentient cuttlefish, a slave trade vessel controlled by an …

How long until login.gov is deprecated in favor of authentication via X?

Next-Generation Journalism: I’m posting today with some exciting family news: my son Elliott has been accepted to the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University where he’ll study journalism starting in the Fall of 2025. The timing of his entrance into the field of journalism and media …

Less than stellar bouldering session tonight. No flow. Not feeling it. Rather than pushing for more and frustrating myself further, I called it quits early. Sometimes letting go, acknowledging it wasn’t your time and saving yourself for a new day is the best move.

Destroying or creating access barriers to data that was once freely and publicly accessible is the modern equivalent of book burning. History will hold these people to account.

The Greater Pittsburgh Arts Council will begin serving AI slop to their patrons via a customer service chatbot and auto-generated events calendar. This is a bad look for an organization whose mission is to grow “a more resourced, connected, and informed arts sector, empowering artists and arts …

Back in 2010, Robin Sloan wrote about the concepts of “stock and flow” as they relate to digital media. This economic metaphor draws lines between the ephemeral stream of updates (flow) and the durable lasting content (stock) that builds value over time. I think this piece is more important now than …

Flow, Stock and the Open Web: Fifteen years ago, one of my favorite writers Robin Sloan wrote about the concept of “stock and flow” as they relate to digital media. His metaphor, borrowed from economics, distinguished between the ephemeral stream of updates (flow) and the durable lasting content (stock) that builds …

Huge shout out to the folx at Masto.host for the amazing support delivered during my migration to a self-hosted instance. I am not super technical & they made the transition easy. They replied to support emails within minutes. Recommended for anyone considering self-hosting a Mastodon server.

GREASE THE LIGHT POLES

Kendrick Lamar is an American hero.

Rolling up to the party with some Philly Cheesesteak Sliders. Go Birds!

Come work with me at REI! If you are passionate about the outdoors & product strategy, our Customer Experience team is hiring a Principal Product Manager who will set the course for key customer journeys, including our foundational offering Co-Op Membership. LMK if you have questions!

I got chased by — not one — but two different dogs on this morning’s run. Both left their yards, ran into the street & followed me until I turned around & returned them to their owners. Luckily they were both friendly & there were no passing cars. People, please keep your dogs (& …

Bandcamp Friday Snags: Jake in the Desert reminded me earlier that it was Bandcamp Friday with 100% of company proceeds going to LA fire relief, so I picked up a couple things I’ve been both anticipating and eyeing for a while. First, I grabbed the new release from FACS, Wish Defense, which dropped today. I …

Super cool! Counterforce has published a punk rock guide to Mastodon & the Fediverse. IMO the Fedi is so tightly aligned to the punk / hardcore / underground ethos and I’m surprised there isn’t more of a punk community established. Maybe this is a start.

Wish Defense, the new release from Chicago-based FACS, is out today. These guys have been in my heavy rotation the past few years and I’m stoked on this new record. Recommended if you like angular, minimal, slightly weird, art rock.

I added a cool little micro-post callout on my site’s home page that displays my most recent status with a link over to Mastodon. Really like the way it turned out!

I’ve been on a Deftones bender the past few days. Turns out I may be seeing them 2x next month (on each coast…just how work travel pans out) and I’ve been revisiting their complete discography. Underrated in the annals of rock music!

You can’t post your way out of fascism, writes Janus Rose over at 404 Media: We don’t need any more irony-poisoned hot takes or cathartic, irreverent snark. We need to collectively decide what kind of world we actually do want, and what we’re willing to do to achieve it. This is easier said …

Walmart buys Pittsburgh-area mall for $34M | Retail Dive This is an interesting move for the U.S. based mega-retailer. The Monroeville Mall has been struggling for years, but Walmart as a buyer is a surprise. It will be interesting to see how redevelopment shakes out. Personally, I have many …

Ya Gotta Keep 'em Separated: Props to the folx over at The Iconfactory on the release of Tapestry, a unified feed reader that brings together open social platforms like Mastodon and Bluesky, with other sources like RSS and YouTube. The concept of a unified reader like this is interesting to me, but after trying Tapestry, I …

Affirmations: Be Here Now: This post is part of the February 2025 Indieweb Carnival, where Joe Crawford invited us to share personal affirmations - the sayings and mantras that help guide our lives. Be Here Now. Three simple words that have carried me through the darkest valleys and highest peaks, both literally and …

Finished Reading: Walking by Erling Kagge 📚 This one was in my queue for quite some time and when my Libby hold came free I jumped on it. What a wonderful, spirited read! I’ve been struggling recently with my inability to run and this book worked wonders on my mental perspective. Movement is …

If you’re in Pittsburgh or Western Pennsylvania, the Outdoor Inclusion Coalition has some great programming coming up in February.

Daddy / Daughter bouldering date! This might become our new Friday night routine.

Heads up: I just migrated Mastodon instances from Mountains.Social to a self-hosted instance using the StaticMade.com domain. Big thanks and props to @bergmeister for the admin support over the past few years. You’re a real one! I’m looking forward to staying connected with my Mountains …

Test post from staticmade.com to see how it flows through the new self-hosted Masto instance.

“There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting.” – Milan Kundera in Slowness

Finished reading: Sourdough by Robin Sloan 📚 This was a fun read. Walking away from a career in technology and transitioning to an artisanal career is something I think about a lot. I found myself living vicariously through Lois (the protagonist) as she gave up coding to throw herself into baking …

The drums on Scentless Apprentice get me. Every. Single. Time.

Favorite Concert: Schoolhouse Spazcore: 

I really enjoyed reading all the blog questions challenge posts from a few days ago and while I was drafting mine it sparked an idea to kick off a new one. I follow a lot of music blogs and folx on Masto with a music bent, through which I’ve discovered some really great artists. I’ve …

I binge-watched the American Primeval series over the past couple of days and all I can say is – OMG what a show! So intense. I’m not usually one for westerns, but the story is engaging from the start and the cinematography is absolutely beautiful. It’s shot to perfection. There …

Is anyone else getting soap opera vibes from all this DeepSeek / OpenAI drama? Time to update my muted terms list…

Blog Questions Challenge: 

I saw this challenge making the rounds last week and thought I’d give it a go. Back in the day, challenges like this were really fun and helped draw connections between interesting corners of the open web. It’s also a productive exercise for me to reflect on blogging as a practice. From …

I’ve learned which side of the plane to sit on to get the best views of Tahoma. It was a great week in Seattle for work, but I’m ready to be home.

Office vibes.

I’ve been offline today for obvious reasons – and I’m about to board a 5 hr flight – so just sliding in here to say keep your heads up, kids. It’s going to be tough sledding, but if we stick together and keep each others' backs, we’ll be OK.

What if millions of Americans today realize they don’t need TikTok?

Good morning. It’s a great day to touch grass.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the tagline “wherever you get your podcasts” and how it has permeated the popular vernacular. Nothing technical. No mention of RSS. Normies understand. The Fediverse could learn from this. Follow me “wherever you get your social updates.” Something like that could be …

At REI, we get a few days each year to just go play outside. Well, today was one of those days for me. A foot of fresh pow was calling my name this morning, so I jumped in the Jeep and took off for the mountain. Got on the first chair and took in some epic runs. 🤙

Which is worse, the moral panic by a government over TikTok’s foreign ownership or the moral panic by its addicted users over it going away?

Finished reading: The Memory Police by Yoko Ogawa 📚 Just wow. What a strikingly beautiful, yet surprisingly alarming story. Surreal in a sense, but threads throughout give nods to our current reality. Dynamic, layered and written with rhythm. Loved it.

Where we’re from, the birds sing a pretty song and there is always music in the air. RIP David Lynch. I remember seeing Blue Velvet in the student union theater my freshman semester as an undergrad. It blew my mind. After that I went on a pretty significant Twin Peaks bender and I still think …

I’m considering migrating to the Proton suite of products (Drive, Mail, PW manager, etc.). Any thoughts from those of you who use it?

There’s something about a Western Pennsylvania winter that demands your full attention. For those unfamiliar, our region gets locked in an embrace with sub-zero temperatures for a few months. The wind whips with an unforgiving fury, carrying an icy mist that stings your face. The sun rises …

Radiohead was wrong. The computer is not OK.

Today I learned that Sheetz sells sushi. Say that five times fast. No, I did not purchase the gas station fish.

Onramps to the Open Web: Jared White articulating quite clearly the biggest obstacle facing the Open Web: …never before has The Indie Web been such a glorious platform for building anything you might dream of and sharing it with anyone you like, yet never before has The Corporate Web been so awful and damaging to the body …

Layers of Interpretation: In the shifting landscape of our digital commons, the words the leaders of these corporate social platforms use have become shapeshifters, their meanings bending like light through murky water. As we witness the transformation of our shared online spaces, I find myself creating a new dictionary for …

my general rule of thumb is to avoid use of any social platform that’s run by an oligarch resembling either 1) a fraggle, or 2) a toad

This record just came on my shuffle and I totally forgot: It was in my collection, and What a freakin' banger it is Flickerstick might be the best band to come out of a reality/game show. Bonus points for music nerds: Without Googling, what was the name of the TV show that was their ‘big …

Finished reading: Our Moon by Rebecca Boyle 📚 A superbly fascinating deep-dive into the role our moon has played in Earth’s history and present, and its impact on our future. This had a great narrative flow for a NF title. Highly recommended for any astronomy nerds (lovingly said) out there.

Just a little bit chilly out here.

At work, we started implementing server-driven UI patterns in the iOS app used by REI store employees. This has allowed us to move faster and respond to employee feedback in near-realtime, without shipping app updates. My colleague and engineer-extraordinaire David Allison breaks it down in detail.

Living Well as a Practice: Each December as the year comes to a close, I find myself reflecting not just on where I’ve been during the past twelve months, but more importantly, on where I want to go during the next twelve. The past few years have brought unprecedented changes to how we live, work, and connect. …

My Favorite Records of 2024: I thought 2024 was a fantastic year for recorded music. It seemed like every few weeks another absolute banger was released. As an avid listener, this year also saw my personal transition away from Spotify as a streaming source to a more intentional discovery and direct purchase model that I believe …

Finished reading: It Lasts Forever and Then It’s Over by Anne de Marcken 📚 Simply the best book I’ve read this year. Part zombie apocalypse, part love-laced pilgrimage, the story is told from the perspective of an undead narrator yearning to be with the partner they left behind in the world of …

I’ve got a Bandcamp gift card burning a hole in my pocket. What record have you absolutely loved this year?

The Perfect Fold: The eggs must be room temperature. This isn’t negotiable—it’s the foundation everything else builds upon. I learned this the hard way, through countless mornings of broken, rubbery attempts that ended up more scrambled than folded. Cold eggs straight from the refrigerator never …

All we want for Xmas is a Steelers win!

‘Twas the night before Xmas and all through the gym, not a soul was bouldering except for him. When what to his wondering eyes did he see, a challenging problem — a holiday V3.

Waxahatchee playing the Tiny Desk? Yes please.

I haven’t missed much about my decision to stop measuring health and activity metrics, except for the fact that I now have no idea what time it is without looking at my phone. So now I’m on the hunt for a reasonably priced analog watch I can use as an everyday wear. Have any …

I’ve been using Reeder to listen to podcasts the past few weeks (via RSS) and I really like it. It’s minimal, but it’s also nice to have a unified feed of audio, site subscriptions and saved links. It’s become my one-stop shop for incoming media.

If you would have told me in August that Ben Skowronek and Mycole Pruitt would be making plays for the #Steelers in week 16 against the Ravens for the division title, I’d have called you crazy.

📍 Penn Avenue, Lower Lawrenceville, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

It’s pretty freaking cool that Barack Obama even knows who Waxahatchee and MJ Lenderman are, let alone put them on his favorite music list for 2024.

I Can Haz Your Copyright?: Even though I’m curious about the potential for AI and exploring small language models (SLMs) at work, it’s stories like Noor Al-Sibai’s reporting for Futurism’s The Byte that give me pause and feed my internal conflict: OpenAI is begging the British Parliament to allow it …

The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing an entire society that the “For You” feed was actually for them.

Finished reading: I Hope This Finds You Well by Natalie Sue 📚 I wanted to like this more than I did. The teaser gave me “modern Office” vibes, but unfortunately it didn’t meet those expectations. I also found the plot to be a bit contrived at times.

CarsonAI: As a product manager on REI’s store technology team, I spend a lot of time thinking about how we can make life easier for our employees. Our team builds Ascent, an iOS application that helps more than 10,000 REI store employees access product information and accomplish tasks on sales floors …

It doesn’t seem like it, but ultrarunning is a team sport. This new film from Adidas highlights the importance of a solid crew during an ultra. Shoutout to my crew chief, Nic, who’s gotten me across numerous finish lines & also helped steer decisions to DNF when that was the safest …

Running Away from Quantified Self: After two decades of religiously tracking every step, every mile, and every heartbeat, I’ve decided to take off my fitness tracker. My health metrics tracking journey began in the aughts with a Jawbone (remember those?), then evolved to a Fitbit, an early generation Apple Watch, and then most …

Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro is getting into sporting events on the lobbyist and donor dime. PublicSource reporting: There are “many ways money can flow” from special interests to elected officials, Michael Pollack, executive director of the good-government group March on Harrisburg, told …

Jason Koebler – focusing on platform independence – for Nieman Lab’s Predictions for Journalism in 2025: Media companies that replace their writers with AI, continue to chase traffic by doing the same articles everyone else is doing, and focus heavily on appeasing social media …

It was one of those nights at the bouldering gym where I spent the better part of part of an hour struggling with a problem, and then — while I’m in deep thought studying it — a ten year old comes along and flashes it in 30 seconds.

A Little Housekeeping: I did a little housekeeping on the site over the weekend. Most prominent is a move to a new domain: staticmade.com. This isn’t a new domain per se, but one that I’ve been holding in my back pocket for several years. It actually used to be my primary domain and online identity circa 2007. …

I sort of despise the term “frictionless” when used in the context of digital experience, and think this is where we’ve wandered astray from creating healthy experiences. Give me “just enough friction” so I can question if this is the best & most productive use of …

As someone who’s relatively new to bouldering, one of the mental hurdles I need to get over is trusting my toeholds. It’s hard for me to believe a toe edge will support me as I get higher up on problems. I’ve been focusing on this the past few sessions and it’s helping tremendously.

Holy smokes, this cover of Tool’s Stinkfist by Summer Woods is fantastic!

There’s a lot of news coming out of Altoona, PA, this week. Perhaps the most surprising and unnerving of all is the surfacing of Altoona Hotel Pizza, which tops its think crust with sliced yellow American cheese. I mean, I’ll try anything once, but this looks pretty gross.

In honor of International Mountain Day, I’m sharing a photo of my favorite mountain – Tahoma – that I took the last time I was in Seattle. Here in Pittsburgh, we have hills, not mountains, so any chance I get to be near or in the highlands I’ll take it!

Hack Away: Hack Days are occurring at REI this week. This is an annual event where employees working in product, design or engineering get some flexibility to pursue ideas we think have potential, but aren’t officially on the docket. My team is working on an AI-powered voice assistant for store …

The Gestalt of You: You are an awful developer. In fact, to call yourself a developer is a complete fabrication. You’re not formally trained in code or capable of building anything more sophisticated than a rudimentary website. You’re a self-taught hobbyist whose curiosity has led you far enough to be …

What happens when an AI company goes out of business and the robots they built to help autistic children begin to go permanently offline? Parents are forced to have truly modern conversations about death with their kids.

Archive Under Attack: A diverse coalition of artists has united to voice objection to a $621 million copyright infringement lawsuit against the Internet Archive. The lawsuit claims the Archive is violating copyright rules under the “smokescreen” of their Great 78 Project, which aims to digitize vinyl records …

I hate linking out to Substack, but Kyle Chayka’s New Rules for Media are fantastic. One of my favs: The traditional metrics of success don’t matter. Don’t rely on the old regime to recognize the achievements or potential of the emerging one. Hot tip: If you hate Substack too, you can …

📍 Monument Circle, Indianapolis, IN, USA

I suppose now is as good a time as any to let y’all know that he committed to Penn State. University Park next fall. Class of ‘29. #WeAre

The son and I are roadtripping to #Indianapolis today for the BIG10 championship game between Penn State & Oregon. Looking for a good spot for a pre-game dinner. I hear pork chops may be a thing in Indy? Recommendations welcome! #WeAre

The Mastodon toots from Merlin Mann the other day have prompted me to spin my Elliott Smith collection tonight. A perfect dark, winter night for it. The copy of XO is signed!

It’s the year of our lord 2024 and we have new music from Thursday. And I spy Norm (of Texas is the Reason fame) on guitar!

Krampus nacht in Pittsburgh!

I just reviewed some SQL code and now I’m spinning Coalesce at 8am. It’s gonna be a productive day. \m/

Finished reading: The Universe in a Single Atom by Dalai Lama 📚 This was a dense read and I didn’t completely grasp the entirety of it, but nonetheless it was a great perspective on balance in the universe. We are all equal parts science and soul!

#Whamageddon 2024-12-03 @ 6:39PM EST

The Aging Athlete: I recently stumbled upon this post from Andy Jones-Wilkins about aging & running, and it prompted me to reflect on my own experience as a 40-something runner. Needless to say, I’m not as speedy as I once was and my body needs longer & more frequent recovery than it did even just a …

Your Bluesky Posts Are Probably In A Bunch of Datasets Now (via 404 Media)

#GivingTuesday Short List: Today is #GivingTuesday, a campaign designed to maximize contributions to mission-based nonprofits during the traditionally-corporate holiday shopping season. I always try to make a point to give if I am able. This year the independent web and independent journalism are top-of-mind for me. My short …

This is an insightful perspective from Benjamin Sandofsky that’s part history lesson about dying networks and part analysis of the three-way race between Bluesky, Mastodon and Threads to pick up the text-based social network baton.

The 2024 Inscho family X-mas tree has been secured. It was very cold, but we got a nice one. We’ll decorate tomorrow.

#OptOutside 2024: While most people know today as Black Friday (the retail industry’s busiest shopping day), those who work at REI know it as #OptOutside day. Every year on the day after Thanksgiving, all stores and offices are closed, and employees are encouraged to get outdoors, connect with nature and avoid …

For the love of God, make your own website: I have my own website, and it is mine, and I get to own it completely. I hope someday soon I can visit your website. I love this thoughtful take and internet history lesson from Gita Jackson at Aftermath.

Polly Jean, Phoebe and Connor

IYKYK 🤙

Jilly and I have a tradition of taking off the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and grabbing a boozey brunch at our local watering hole (that flips their decor to full-on Xmas overnight), before heading home and preparing the house for hosting 20 guests for Turkey day. Cheers!

This is crazy. 404 Media is reporting that X has filed a legal complaint against The Onion’s purchase of InfoWars, claiming they have ownership of the InfoWars X accounts. A great reminder that unless it’s decentralized and portable, you don’t own anything you post online.

There was so much great music released last Friday! Lucky for me, I roadtripped to Baltimore this weekend, so I got a good chance to really digest the new albums from Kim Deal, Father John Misty and Kendrick Lamar during eight hours behind the wheel. Three very different, but very solid records.

Product management is largely about communicating and selling what you aren’t going to do vs. what you are going to do. This can be effective – if accomplished – but it is often the much harder sell.

First snow run of the season in the books! As we say here in Pittsburgh, it was a bit slippy. It started off like running through a gentle snow globe, then turned into an icy blast chiller to the face. I love this time of year to get out and feel nature.

I got some amazing news yesterday. It’s not my news to share, so I can’t post details here, but it is a great reminder that sometimes the universe smiles on you. It’s hard to see sometimes, but there is still good in this world. Positivity never goes out of style. Actively choose …

Anyone else reppin' hard on work calls today? #HereWeGo

John Gruber piling on the anti-Substack thread by focusing on the platform’s homogeneity & lock-in: I really don’t get why any writer trying to establish themselves independently would farm out their own brand this way. It’s the illusion of independence.

Perplexity is entering the ecommerce space and offering merchant tools: Merchants will have access to Perplexity’s API to refine how their products appear in search results and use a custom dashboard to offer insights into search and shopping trends. This is interesting; I’ll be following.

Robin Pecknold (Fleet Foxes) covered Elliott Smith’s Pitseleh at his NYC show last weekend and it is awesome. One of my favorite Elliott songs and he does it justice.

A Shield Against Enshittification: I’ve noticed a lot of talk about hyperlinks lately. A post from Nilay Patel initially caught my attention yesterday and it was followed by a wonderful article from Anil Dash about the ways corporate social media platforms like Substack work hard to co-opt open protocols and keep users inside …

Quantified self is a myth. Aspire to be equal parts science and soul. Thanks for attending my TED Talk.

Solid bouldering session tonight. Topped a V3 problem I’ve been struggling with the past couple of sessions. That felt good. The gym was so crowded tho. I need to get back to early morning sessions when it’s just me, my thermos of coffee and the wall.

BIG Steelers win over the Ravens today! Brings the record to 8-2 with a 1.5 game lead in the division. Let’s go!

I took the last couple of weeks off from running to rest some overuse niggles that were just getting worse. First run back today…an easy pace 10k. This was the first time I can remember in quite some time that my body felt better after a run than before. Great to be back.

Let’s go Pitt!

Manuel Moreale thinks we should celebrate smallness. I agree.

You’ve heard of bikepacking, but have you heard of skatepacking?

Target debuts ‘weirdly hot’ Santa named Kris in new holiday campaign: The modern-day take on Santa Claus is introduced in a 30-second commercial, “Born to Be Kris,” where he rides out to a Target in a red Ford Bronco truck (with license plate “Sleigh”). C’mon Target, is nothing sacred?

Slow Web Now: I’ve spent the last week detached and disconnected from political discourse. This is different for me. I’m normally extremely pugged in and engaged but I just can’t follow this train wreck of a transition. I can’t watch the news. The podcasts in my queue remain unheard. My …

Mike Thurk is a photographer and outdoor adventurer who is gaining notoriety for his high-contrast, black and white photos. I like his take on the similarities between athletics and art: I feel the creative process for athletes and artists runs parallel. It’s often I hear athletes discuss the need …

Tal Raviv believes the role of product manager is an unfair one, therefore we should work unfairly. I respect Tal greatly and admire his approach, but in my opinion these aren’t unfair tactics. They’re mostly common sense, efficiency-driven and modern PM workflows.

I’ve been with my with my wife for 28 years today. It feels like forever and mere moments, simultaneously. That’s the sign of a great relationship I think. Here’s to 28 more.

Pittsburgh City Paper makes the case for a national park in Western Pennsylvania. It really is a travesty we are without one considering the natural beauty of this area. My vote would go to shifting Ohiopyle State Park to the Federal level.

Finished reading: Small Game by Blair Braverman 📚 An intense story of a group of survivalists selected for a Survivor-like reality show that ultimately goes off the rails. The group must not only survive in the wilderness, but also among themselves.

Trail runner and endurance coach David Roche is having one heckuva year. I’ll be curious to see if his streak continues and he can achieve his goal of a sub-14 win at Western States next year.

An insightful post-mortem from Taylor Lorenz on the media ecosystem built and funded by the GOP to propel the ‘Bro Vote,’ which ultimately won them the presidency. This piece shines an important light on why the left always seems to be trailing in messaging and media strategy.

Naz Hamid went for a run and put some things in perspective for me: My breath settled back in and the legs found their beat again and took me home. 5 miles down. 5 miles to keep the systems in check. 5 miles to strengthen this body, sharpen this mind, and create momentum. As I walked through the …

An Open Letter to Amerika: I’ve spent most of today trying to rationalize the irrational as I attempt to understand how we ended up here. Political scholars will study this for years and I surely have no answers. Yes, the price of milk and eggs is high. Yes, illegal immigration is a problem that needs to be resolved. …

Singer-songwriter Mathew Sweet suffered a debilitating stroke last month while on tour in Canada. He has no medical insurance and required an ambulance transport plane with onboard medical staff to get him back to the U.S. His friends & family have created a GoFundMe to assist with the expenses.

Greetings from the Epicenter: This election cycle has been difficult to weather. I’m speaking for myself when I say this, but it’s also been a common sentiment in discussions with friends and family. Here in Western Pennsylvania, where pundits believe the race may be decided tomorrow, you can’t go five minutes …

Finished reading: Dear Edward by Ann Napolitano 📚 I really enjoyed this one. It’s definitely not a light-hearted story, but I found myself identifying with the protagonist and his post-traumatic journey. I also found the narrative flow to be engaging. Thanks to Jilly for recommending it to me.

The Algorithm Takes Hold: As we made the journey to our seats in peanut heaven at Acrisure Stadium the other night before the Monday Night Football game, I noticed something interesting out of the corner of my eye. Out beyond the open end of the stadium near the point of confluence, a swarm of drones lit up the night sky. At …

Toward Collective Action: I have school-age kids. Enabling stricter gun laws and eliminating mass shootings from our society is a top issue for me this election, ranked only behind preserving democracy and the U.S. Constitution. Thank you to The Verge for having the guts to publish this piece when other spineless & …

Harris Walz drone game is on point at tonight’s Steelers game!

Maria Popova shares 18 life learnings from 18 years publishing The Marginalian. This piece is full of amazing & profound insight, but this gem from learning #9 (Don’t Be Afraid To Be An Idealist) stands out to me: Supply creates its own demand. Only by consistently supplying it can we …

This is awesome for Pittsburgh! Allegheny County has cut the ribbon on a new outdoor bouldering park, offering more than 6,000 square feet of mixed-ability problems and walls up to 15 feet high. I love climbing indoors at Iron City Boulders, but I will definitely be pulling up to this new spot.

Today is the annual Twinkie Roast at REI, where employees all over the country sacrifice golden snack cakes to the gods in exchange for a cold and snowy winter. It’s 80º here in Pittsburgh today, so I’m not lighting my fire pit, but I will toast one over my grill later. Bring on winter!

An Agent from Anthropic: AI startup Anthropic yesterday announced an update to the Claude 3.5 Sonnet large language model that brings a new feature called ‘computer use’ to the forefront of the user experience. Available to developers via the API, users can now direct Claude to use computers like people – …

The Web Needs Words: Ryan Broderick writing in yesterday’s Garbage Day about the state of the social web as it relates to text-first platforms like Bluesky, Xitter and Threads: Unless something truly miraculous happens, it is reasonable to assume that every day there will be fewer people reading words on the …

This XOXO talk from Cabel Sasser and his recommendation to ‘appreciate everything endlessly’ resonates with me. A story told through the lens of an influential but under-appreciated designer, it’s a great reminder to make sure the people who create the things we enjoy feel seen.

Thriving as a Practice: Beck Tench is a designer and researcher who studies the way technology impacts our lives at Harvard’s Center for Digital Thriving. Her mission is simple: begin to understand what it means for young people to thrive in this increasingly digital and connected world. I’ve been a fan of …

Cory Doctorow loves RSS. So do I. His ode to the decades-old syndication protocol is a perspective we need right now as we attempt to avoid the enshitification of the web. And I never thought to use RSS for email newsletters! Super smart!

It was a chilly bike commute this morning. The temp read 39º F when I set off from the Millvale trailhead. Beanie and gloves were a must at the start. By the time I neared the Hot Metal Bridge, the full sun confronted me. Beanie came off. I unzipped the nano puff and it flowed like a cape.

Garbage Day for Crazy Uncles: Ryan Broderick has some theories in today’s Garbage Day newsletter about why Republican disinformation isn’t completely gumming up the works this time around: Is it because the media has gotten institutionally smarter about giving these stories oxygen? Is it because industry-wide …

The Kids Are Alright: A few articles about the shopping habits of Gen Z have caught my attention over the past few days. As someone who works in retail technology – leading a team that focuses on sales floor operations – I keep a close eye on consumer trends. These two pieces, published within days of each …

The Cost of Vinyl: According to TechRadar, vinyl record sales dropped 33.3% between 2023 and 2024. Before I dive into the substance of this, the reporting outlet must have taken a slight liberty with the 33 1/3 percentage drop, right? I mean, what are the odds that the vinyl sales dip would equate precisely to the RPM …

Earlier this year, Olympian Ben Blankenship ran the Rabid Raccoon 100 mile ultra here in Western Pennsylvania. This documentary highlights his transformation from a 1-miler on the track to a 100-miler on the trails.

These girls played their hearts out this weekend to take home the U13 championship at the WAGS (Women & Girls in Soccer) Memorial Tournament in Alexandria, VA. Addie fed the assist for the championship-winning goal as time expired to give Steel City the dramatic win. Great work girls!

Did you know that every REI has a survey marker out front? I am in Virginia for my daughter’s soccer tournament & today I stopped by the Bailey’s Crossroads store to say hello & gather some feedback from the amazing team there. It’s the 3rd oldest location on the east coast!

Death to the algorithm.

At XOXO a few weeks ago, Erin Kissane proposed that we – people of the internet – come together to brute-force a fix for the broken social internet. It’s a wonderful, thought-provoking talk that has me fired up to help create a better internet for future generations.

Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground: Running trails in Western Pennsylvania in the Fall can be glorious. Crisp temperatures, bright sun and fall colors combine to create ideal running conditions. That said, hitting the trails this time of year can also be somewhat treacherous. The changing leaves are beautiful, but the falling leaves …

Interesting take from Marty Cagan on the topic of Product: Art or Science: There can be real art and beauty in the engineering, real art and beauty in the design, and real art and beauty in the solutions we build, and this beauty can contribute to the value and desirability of our products. …

I bought my first pair of Birkenstocks and have been wearing them non-stop the past few weeks. What took me so long to get on board? I am finding them to be great active recovery shoes, in addition to casual everyday wear.

Andrew Schmelyun gets his daily news from an ’80s era dot matrix printer. Awesome.

Choice Cuts for Bandcamp Friday: Heads up! Tomorrow is Bandcamp Friday, where Bandcamp waives it’s fees and passes those funds on directly to artists and labels. Here are a couple releases that have caught my interest and will probably make their way into my collection tomorrow: Dulling the Horns by Wild Pink: Just. Wow. The …

Molly White puts a name to the practice of syndicating posts from a personal/owned domain to external social media platforms: The short-term solution to these problems is a little-known acronym called POSSE. Short for Post (on) Own Site Syndicate Elsewhere, it’s not a protocol or even a piece of …

Bright Eyes cancel their remaining 2024 tour dates. Pitchfork reporting a statement from the band: Over the past week, Conor has undergone multiple tests to determine the cause of his recent vocal problems. It’s come to light that he has developed a condition that is exacerbated by excessive …

Buddy enjoying a lazy & rainy Sunday morning. Contrary to popular belief, he is extremely well-read.

I’m lucky to work on a product team that builds solutions in close partnership with our users. David Allison (engineering lead on our team) describes our process on the REI Engineering blog. This approach creates such a high signal to noise ratio, and it shows in the work we are able to …

As an avid cyclist, how can I be this bad at marking all the reCAPTCHA squares that contain bicycles?

In my continued effort to eradicate algorithmic recommendations from my life, I am exploring alternatives to Spotify for music & podcast streaming. Current thinking is a local file library with iTunes Match enabled (music) and freestanding podcast app. How are y’all doing it? Advice …

Finished reading: Filterworld by Kyle Chayka 📚 This book scratched the right itch for me at precisely the right time. It affirms my choice to walk away from corporate social media and go all-in on the indie or open social web. Chayka’s thesis asserts that proliferation of algorithmic …

The ultrarunning community is usually super chill & we are typically very supportive of others as they crush epic runs. This report of Camille Herron removing accolades from the Wikipedia pages of Courtney Dauwalter and Kilian Jornet - and ‘fluffing’ her own - are surprising and …

I was digging through an old hard drive today looking for something and I stumbled upon this pic from the night Jilly and I got engaged in 2003. Pre-cell phones. Pre-selfies. This was at our hotel on 48th & Broadway, I think. Notice the vintage Juliana Theory patch on my bag. Good times.

Facing tremors, insomnia and pain, Pittsburgh-based artist John Peña searched for answers — and came to blame the noxious air in his neighborhood. Read John’s amazing chronicle of his shifting ailments captured through several years of daily sketches. (via PublicSource; support independent …

The Outdoor Inclusion Coalition is hosting it’s first annual BIPOC Climbing Festival. Taking place November 8-10 in New River Gorge National Park, the festival’s mission aims to bring together BIPOC climbers to build meaningful community in nature. Looks like a fantastic event with great …

Current status.

Welcome to town, Pittsburgh Riveters! It’s great that we are adding a pre-professional women’s soccer team to our city’s incredible sports legacy. Our family is looking forward to supporting when the season kicks off next spring. Update: Dani on Bluesky rightly pointed out that the …

I am not a huge baseball fan (my Pirates are forever cellar dwellers), but what Shohei Ohtani did last night was something for the ages. Cresting fifty home runs and fifty stolen bases in one season, via a 3 home run (10 RBI) game. Unbelievable.

Can we all agree public libraries are awesome? Whenever I walk into a library, I feel a profound sense of calm. This photo essay by Brian Sholis highlights some really interesting library spaces from all over the world. BRB…I’m going to go update my travel bucket list to include some of …

Tomlinisms hit different when the Steelers are sitting atop the AFC North. Coach Tomlin responding to a question about motivational tactics used in a closed-door locker room after Sunday’s win over the Broncos: I can’t give you all the ingredients to the hot dog. You might not like it. …

I think fall is absolutely the best season for trail running here in western Pennsylvania. This morning I ran party pace on the orange loop in North Park, starting at the church and cruising through the sunbeams as they pierced through the trees.

William Peterson breaks the Long Trail FKT and becomes the first person to complete all 272 miles in less than 4 days: On the morning of September 1, William “Sisyphus” Peterson reached the Vermont-Massachsetts border and set a new Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Long Trail. Peterson completed the …

I got out for a nice little sunrise city rip this morning. The weather has been absolutely perfect here for getting out on the bike lately. This is Pittsburgh’s Color Park, a short stretch of river trail on the city’s south side where graffiti and street art abound.

American Goth (2024)

The climbing gym is rocking vintage PJ Harvey on the overhead this morning and I am here for it.

I missed the aurora last time around. Looks like tonight will be another chance to see it for people in 17 states and most of Canada. Sharing in case you’re north enough to see the northern lights tonight.

For the love, not the likes: A couple months ago, my GPS watch stopped syncing with Strava. For whatever reason at the time, I was unable to restore the connection. I was also not in a position to spend $$$ on a new GPS watch, so since this disconnect was introduced my activities have no longer been pushing out to the popular …

Modern Retail blaming the Starbucks mobile app strategy for the increasingly poor, mosh pit-like customer order pickup experience: Orders are coming in quickly, but there aren’t enough baristas behind the counter to prepare drinks. Wait times are climbing…about 8% of Starbucks customers …

New kicks day! After 1,200 road miles on my Topo Phantom 3’s, I just picked up a pair of Topo Magnifly 5’s. The Phantoms probably could have gone another 1,200 but they were just out of bounce. IMO Topo is killing it with quality and durability. What running shoes are y’all wearing these days?

A study performed by Amazon for the Australian government finds humans outperform AI in every way when summarizing information. In fact, the study posits that utilizing AI in it’s current state may even create more work for people doing certain tasks: Reviewers told the report’s authors that …

Absolutely primo bike commute today. Crisp air and full sun. Almost bailed on work and kept peddling.

RIP Sam Ash Music. After a hundred years in business, the east coast music retailer is going out of business. This view into one of their liquidating stores from Retail Dive breaks my heart. I basically lived in my local Sam Ash store as a young punk growing up in ’90s New Jersey.

As other retailers divest from curbside order fulfillment, Target continues to go all-in by deepening its ties into mobile ecosystems like Apple CarPlay: Once connected to CarPlay, the Target app will automatically display the Target store where the purchase was made on the car display. Then, …

Craig Berry on the political economy of the Oasis reunion and working class nostalgia: This is folk music, at its best and truest. Stood in a field with your arms around the lads who bullied you at school singing about Sally needing to wait is pretty much the same as singing about dead relatives in …

Looks like Russell Wilson will miss the Pittsburgh Steelers' season opener, which means it will be the Justin Fields show against the Falcons. I’m honestly really excited about this development. Question: If Fields plays lights out and brings home the win, how could they take QB1 away from …

While we originally didn’t think we were going to make it, Jilly and I were able to see The Lemonheads last night at Mr. Smalls. What a strange show. Parts were brilliant and parts were a complete disaster.

If You Love It, Set It Free: It’s release day for my team at REI. We’ve been working tirelessly for the past few months to build a tool that makes pricing product in our stores easier and less painful for employees. Our goal is to replace an archaic, manual & paper-based workflow with a modern, scalable, digitally-supported …

Testing something out. Can some of y’all shoot a quick reply to this post?

The City of Pittsburgh has published it’s generative AI usage standards. (via Public Source)

On Marshmallow Longtermism: Cory Doctorow – writing for Locus Mag and using the Stanford marshmallow experiment as an allegory – tears down the inherent flaws of the conservative premise that self-discipline is a determining factor on someone’s chances in life: On average, the kids who “fail” and eat the …

We took advantage of the spectacular weather in Western Pennsylvania today and made a day trip to Ohiopyle, a cool little adventure town located about 75 miles southeast of Pittsburgh on the Yougiogheny River. Lots of hiking, biking and whitewater to enjoy there.

Green Day was absolutely fantastic last night. They played 37 songs (Dookie and American Idiot in their entirety, along with some other bangers) and blew the doors off PNC Park for nearly 3 hours. It’s so great to see a band kicking ass like that after three decades.

Dang, the Bluesky product teams have been crushing it. They just dropped some very good anti-toxicity features like detaching quote posts, hiding replies, improved user controls for notifications & blocking lists.

Mouthful of Trail: We have some pretty technical trails here in Western Pennsylvania and I’m usually reliable for a good fall every few months. In my mind, it goes with the territory of running on top of rocks, roots and mud. Even the best and most accomplished trail runners bite the dust. It’s been quite …

I really like Brad Stulberg’s six pillars to stay grounded in a crazy world: Adopt a mindset of tragic optimism Create daily and weekly anchors Respond, don’t react Stay consistent on what you care about Use behavioral activation Be rugged and flexible

There was a significant step forward for the Fediverse yesterday with the launch of sub.club, a payments platform for the social web. After a brief onboarding process, Mastodon users can post premium content to subscribers. It’s not something I’m looking for, but it could be a big unlock …

A public request to my REI colleagues regarding our next work retreat: Please don’t leave me behind to summit a 14’er solo, only to get lost and then spend the night alone weathering a storm.

Uh oh. The Grand Canyon has had a water main break that is impacting overnight stays this Labor Day weekend: The Arizona park’s Transcanyon Water Distribution Pipeline is 12½ miles long, providing water to both the North and South Rim, and it’s about 50 years old. It has had 85 major breaks since …

Someone is cruising Pittsburgh’s downtown and North Side neighborhoods to tag fresh piles of dog excrement with political paraphernalia and the Pittsburgh City Paper needs some answers: I wasn’t expecting to nearly step in bedazzled dog doo on my way to Le Gourmandine. It was a bizarre sight: …

Heads up, Pittsburgh. The Gobblerito returns on September 16th. Gobble gobble, yinz.

The Standard asks, “Why does Gen Z have such bad concert etiquette?” I dunno. What did boomers think of mosh pits in the 90’s? What did Gen X think of the cell phones that popped up at shows in aughts? All of this seems like a bit of generational hand ringing to me. The kids are …

Working from my daughter’s orthodontist’s office. Here Comes Your Man comes on over the waiting room speakers. All the Gen X parent heads start nodding.

The New Slang: Jason Fried making an analogy that companies are like complex languages where new executives sometimes struggle to gain proficiency: A casual browse through LinkedIn at C-level folks will unearth many short tenures. 2 years. 3 and a half. Sometimes just 1. It’s incredibly hard to become a …

Death to the Algorithm: As someone who was born on the blurry border between Generation X and the Millennial generation, I remember a time before the internet and I fondly recollect my curiosity surrounding the emerging internet in the late-90s. The infant internet was an extremely strange place. There were very few rules, …

I’ve been in retail technology for a long time, and this is the first time I’ve heard the term Summerween: For many retailers, the weeks between July 4 and Labor Day have customarily been all about stocking up on lunch boxes, crayons and notebooks for back-to-school shopping. Now, store …

I love this photo taken by Cover Three Athletics of my son (playing center, #63 in white) from last Friday’s WPIAL Week 0 matchup between Shaler Area and Butler. 📍 Butler High School, Butler, PA, USA

How will Project 2025 impact the things you care about? 25and.me is an innovative website that lets you select areas of interest. Then it breaks down exactly how it will effect those areas, with page number citations. It’s extremely well done and worth a share.

It was an absolute glorious morning to be in the woods trail running. I had the red trail mostly to myself, except for a few mountain bikers. 📍North Park, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Friday night lights! The first game of Elliott’s senior year season is in the books and they came home with the win. Shaler Titans 20, Butler Tornadoes 14. I’m a proud papa bear.

Sylvan Esso has remixed The Postal Service classic The District Sleeps Tonight. It’s a glitchy slice of heaven that does honor to the original, but adds some interesting flavor.

Today’s Indie Media Circus track at XOXO looks🔥. Of particular interest to me is the discussion between Jason Kottke and Craig Mod, two ‘people of the internet’ I greatly admire for their sustainable approach to independent publishing online. The good folx from 404 Media are also …

The new CEO of Starbucks will be supercommuting three times per week via private jet from his home in Southern California to company headquarters in Seattle. Seems a bit hypocritical for a company that touts its environmental efforts to customers.

Implications and Insights of the Modern Product Leader: I’ve been a subscriber to Implications, a monthly Substack newsletter written by Scott Belsky, for some time now. The issues I’ve read so far have been quite enjoyable, as Belsky provides deep analysis that explores what we might expect to come from rapid advancements in technology, …

Legendary punk photographer Jim Saah will give a talk tomorrow (8/22) at The Government Center in Pittsburgh. The talk will be followed by a performance from J. Robbins of Jawbox. Looks like an awesome event.

Just got back from my morning run. As I was cooling down and stretching in my driveway, my neighbor yells from across the street, “What’s up Olivia Newton Jeff?” 🤣

Slow going this morning. The Obamas had me amped up until after midnight as they closed out night two of the #DNC with some hopeful energy. Hope is making a comeback!

This #DNC roll call is lit.

One of the greatest rewards we get as product managers is seeing the thing we’ve built create joy in the lives of those who use the product. I don’t consider myself in the operational efficiency business; I’m in the delight creation business.

A crisp, cool, fall-like bike commute this morning. Thankful to not be sweating profusely when I got there. Bring on Fall!

Jason Isbell is performing at the DNC tonight! Super cool. Will he play Cumberland Gap or King of Oklahoma?

Pittsburgh-based Giant Eagle Inc. is selling off their GetGo banner, a move impacting 270 locations and more than 3,000 employees: www.post-gazette.com/business/…

North Shore, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Alpine Connections: Kilian is bagging 4,000m peaks in the Alps: Kilian Jornet began his adventure in Bernina, in eastern Switzerland. From there, he made his way to Grimsel Pass, linking up with Mönchjsoch Hut and finally reaching Blatten. Along the way, he summited ten Alpine peaks, including …

Hear No Evil: Jesse Welles, slimdan, Font, Glass Beams: As summer winds down, here are a few artists & records that have been in my heavy rotation lately. Jesse Welles is like an angry Josiah & the Bonnevilles. His new album Hells Welles is a cathartic teardown of modern society. Think Arlo Guthrie singing about Boeing whistleblowers. Second …

2024 Rabid Raccoon Midnight Half Marathon: The concept is simple: Show up at midnight and run 13.1 miles through the woods in complete darkness while dealing with serious elevation, unpredictable weather conditions and sleep deprivation. How awesome is that!

2023 Pittsburgh Marathon: It was not my day time-wise, but it became – hands down – my most memorable and meaningful race.

We Make the Road by Walking: Roads, as we know them today, are common necessities. These manicured paths we traverse day-in and day-out have become public infrastructure that allow societies and culture to grow and thrive throughout the world. While trade routes and migratory paths existed as early as 5000 BC, the Romans are …

The Untethering: The internet is intentionally pervasive. His far-reaching tentacles evolved through Darwinian-like design. The internet is also persistent. He is ubiquitous, pwned by no one. He is everywhere. All the time. The network will not apologize. The network is proud of this persistence. This ubiquity. …

We Hacked an Amiga 1000: I’ve been so busy at work and home that I completely forgot to post about a cool project we shipped at the museum last week. We hacked an Amiga 1000 and are letting visitors use it to explore some of Warhol’s digital experiments created with the device in the 1980s. Me, over on the …

Not Content with Content: Earlier this week at work, we published (and effectively open-sourced) a digital strategy that will guide us for the next several years. I wrote about it on the museum’s blog and if you’re into this kind of nerdy stuff, I’d love to hear your thoughts. Shortly after we made the …

My Fifteen Minutes: When Jilly and I were considering a move to Pittsburgh in the winter of 2001, we came into town for the day to explore the city and its many amenities. The first place we went on that fateful day nearly 15 years ago was the Andy Warhol Museum. I’ll never forget my first experience there. …

Refragmenting the Web: I got my first taste of publishing to the web in November 1996. I was a first-semester undergrad, still wet behind the ears. It was a life-altering experience. For the life of me I can’t remember the URL of that first Geocities node. A damn shame though, because if I had it today, I would …

Digerati Dads: In a recent article for Quartz entitled How Technology Can Make Better Fathers, Alexandra Svokos takes a surprising look at how the proliferation of digital technologies is impacting the way fathers connect with their kids. Structured mainly through the lens of her own experiences growing up with a …

Impossible Questions: Earlier this week, my team at work announced a large-scale project that will consume a large portion of my professional life over the next few years. Art Tracks: The Provenance Visualization Project is a facinating concept and an opportunity to make a valuable contribution to the museum sector. The …

Ich bin ein Berliner: I recently wrote about the first leg of a European trip, which found me and a team of colleagues working and exploring Geneva and its neighboring French countryside. For the second leg of the trip, we hopped on an EasyJet and flew over to Berlin to spend a few days filming a series of interviews …

Vague, but Exciting!: I’ve spent the past few weeks traveling around Europe for work. While that may sound super glamorous and exciting, it really wasn’t. We worked nearly around the clock and that left very little time for exploring or sight-seeing. On a few occasions, however, we did manage to put down the …

Viva la France: Jilly and I recently had the opportunity to spend a few days in Paris. One of the things we love to do together in a new city is set out early to walk, eat and drink our way through the unfamiliar streets. We usually tackle a different direction or neighborhood each day. This approach allows us to …

The Singular Museum Experience: There have been several articles published in recent weeks assaulting the role technology has grown to encompass with respect to art museum visitor experiences. All of these pieces take a similar tack: mobile devices distract us from thoughtful looking; visitor photography of artworks does nothing …

Museums as Digital Citizens: In preparing for our Museopunks @ MCN sessions, Suse and I have stumbled upon an area of investigation I think warrants some real thought. After discussing it briefly in a conference session brainstorming call, my mind has been racing ever since. Our conversation centered around the concept of …

Technology That Disappears: Over the past few weeks, I’ve been working on some pretty intense projects at work in anticipation of big exhibition opening this weekend. One of the projects shipped today and I’m extremely proud of the work my team did to bring this concept from a loose idea to a delightfully useable thing. The …

Gone Fishin': I turn 35 today. As a birthday present to myself, I’m currently on a plane headed far away for some much needed downtime. In the coming days I will live completely off the grid. I will read books made from paper and I will avoid glowing screens. I might even try to make something with my hands. …

The Perfect Television: This post is a riff on Koven Smith’s A Secret Thread From MW2013: Design and inspired by a John Roderick rant. Over the course of the past six decades, technologists have been building the perfect television. Black-and-white and vacuum tubes have evolved into internet-enabled and on-board CPUs. …

The Punk and the Museum: Describing something or someone as punk can elicit a wide range of responses. It’s a polarizing term. From punk music to punk culture, it seems we all have different opinions about what punk is and whether or not we identify with it. I’d suspect most people have no strong association and remain …

Experimenting with Open Authority: Nina Simon over at Museum 2.0 invited me to write a guest post about our current photography experiment Oh Snap! and why I think it’s successful when most crowd-sourced exhibitions and photo-response projects fall flat. Big thanks to Nina for allowing me to hijack her most wonderful site.

Oh Snap!: This is a sneak peak at a cool project I’m developing at work. We have an exhibition of recent photography acquisitions opening next month and we wanted to experiment with ways visitors (on-site and online) can participate with the works. We’ll be inviting visitors to respond visually to the works …

The Greatest Threats Come From Within : Suse Cairns expounds upon her most dangerous idea about museums in the coming year: The greatest threats to museums come from within. On the surface this statement may seem pessimistic, but I feel the best part of the essay comes when Suse highlights the positive potential for the sector moving …

Betterment in 2013: I struggle to understand the concept of the New Year’s Resolution. Every year, millions of people select an arbitrary date to start obsessively modifying lifelong behaviors and habits. They hedge their bets on a metaphorical flip of a switch and hope the current of willpower remains flowing in the …

Flickr is Dead. Long Live Flickr.: I created my Flickr account in March of 2005. It was relatively early in the image sharing platform’s lifespan and right around the time Yahoo! paid big bucks to bring Flickr within its portfolio of web services. At that time, Flickr was a revolutionary tool primarily used by bloggers to host and …

Not Real-Time: Joshua Gross exploring the idea that the future of the web is not in real-time information flow: The real-time web is a bit like a fire hydrant—either the valve is opened or closed, but there’s no filter to stem the flow; we become the filter for the massive flow of information. Content should …

On Museums and Professional Callings: I can clearly remember the first time I set foot inside a museum. I was seven years old and it was with my second grade class on a field trip to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. I remember the building’s gigantic scale and the timeless nature of the artifacts on display. I remember the smell …

Juxtaposition: Experiencing both profound sadness and immense joy within the same 48-hour period has taught the importance of mindful balance and living fully in the present moment.

Emails to My Unborn Daughter: There’s been a lot of talk lately about email. The majority of this recent writing has been about Google’s acquisition of Sparrow, a much-heralded Mac and iOS email client. Bloggers, tech pundits and average dudes are waxing philosophical about the health of the independent developer community, …

You Shall Know Google by its Trail of Dead: Sean Gallagher at Ars Technica on Google’s acquisition of Sparrow: Like most Sparrow users, the news caught me off-guard; the application had recently been updated in Apple’s App Store, and the latest version had widened its performance lead on Apple’s Mail.app and other Mac OS mail software. But …

We Are All For Sale: If we learn one thing from the Facebook – Instagram merger, it should be that we are all for sale and there is no such thing as FREE. These services we use every day are not free services. When we do not directly pay for a service with real money, we pay for it with our data. We pay for it when we …

Word of the WeeK - Enthusiastic: Now I feel really old. Elliott brought home his first-ever homework assignment. The word of the week at preschool is enthusiastic and he was tasked with completing several statements describing how it feels to be enthusiastic. Jilly transcribed verbatim, but all the responses came straight from his …

We had a white Thanksgiving, the first I can remember. Elliott and I were out early trying to catch the snowflakes on our tongues. The gentle blanket of snow added a layer of comfort to the day.

Back in the Saddle Again: Some of you may know that I lived a previous life as a songwriter and musician. Almost a decade ago, I gave up the recording and touring life for one that fosters stable relationships and is conducive to raising a family. During the past ten years, I’d pick up a guitar every now & then, or sit …

Conversations with a 3 Year Old: ELLIOTT: Dad, did you get fired? ME: No. Do you know what “getting fired” means? ELLIOTT: Yeah, it’s what happens when you talk a lot at your job. Instead of doing work. ME: Daddy didn’t get fired. I resigned. ELLIOTT: Oh. What does “resigned” mean? ME: Resigning …

This is our first summer in the new place and to our surprise we have a cherry tree!

Sadness, Sweat and Sometimes Blood: I used to make music quite regularly and for a (modest) living. I poured sadness into song, and spilled sweat and sometimes blood on stage for handfuls of people who paid a few bucks and honored us with their attention. We were often paid in booze and low percentages. I spent weeks at a time …

Mellon Arena, Pittsburgh

I forgot how great Superchunk was. Going through my CDs this morning looking for something different to get the day going, I picked up Indoor Living for the first time in about 8 years. Good stuff. They sure don’t make ‘em like they used to…

Father's Day #1: Rounding the corner to my first Father’s Day is kind of blowing my mind. All my life, Father’s Day has been something I’ve associated strictly with my Dad. Both Grandfathers passed early on in my life, so up until now, this day has been basically exclusive to my father. Granted, …

I’m going to try to make these entries more frequently because these early days in Elliott’s life should be documented. Maybe someday he’ll enjoy going back through these posts and reading about my perspectives on being a father. Kind of a public commentary from my point of view on …

I’m a father. Elliott Lucas Inscho born 05.25.07 at 7:22 PM. Seven pounds, seven ounces and 21 1/4 inches. More to come.

Girl, You're So Groovy I Want You To Know: I just had one of the most amazing experiences in my life thus far. We started playing music for the baby by putting headphones up to Jilly’s belly. We keep the volume low, making sure it wasn’t too loud. Everyone we’ve talked to has said that this is a great way to instill rhythm, …

Mirrors: The day began like many others before it. A pulsating buzz married to an excruciatingly loud, painfully blunt Top-40 song sliced through sleep like it was never there to begin with. The room is dark, shades drawn, but the forcibly contrived scenario performed by the airtime-embellished voices now …

When you think about it, life is ultimately about change. Evolution, adaptation and transition are fundamental elements of survival, and a vital personality trait if we (as humans) are to succeed in various endeavors. I’m extremely happy to report that today marks one such transition for yours …

So, as fate would have it, we meet again. Some might say that this rebirth is just in time for election season, but we have yet to see if the tone of this interactive space becomes overtly political. The god’s honest truth is that I can’t bare to keep from piddling with this site. …

The Long, Hard Road: After too many years, off and on, my undergraduate college career came to a close this afternoon. I’ve written my last term paper, made my last commute, and taken my last exam. The time I spent at IUP holds many great memories for me. I made many lasting friendships, including meeting my wife, …

Mr. Mullett and Mary Katherine Gallegher. We both had headaches this morning.

Alone on Stage: I just received word that I’ll be opening for the amazing Bob Mould. The show is on Tuesday, November 16th at the Rex Theatre on Pittsburgh’s southside. Hope to see alot of you there. For those of you unfamiliar with Bob’s work, he was a member of two great bands before going solo. …