Chris Brooks Newsletter 020
Greetings from Napa, CA, where it always seems to be sunny. We are in final preparations for our next grand adventure: 3 months in Spain.
You probably notice that this newsletter comes from a different service, Buttondown. My previous provider TinyLetter is being shut down by MailChimp / Intuit (I guess it was inevitable) so I moved on.
1. 🚘 Where I've been traveling
When I last wrote you we were hunkered down in the Portland, Oregon area. As Thanksgiving approached we packed up the van (and loaded some items from storage to hand off) to begin our journey to Bandon Dunes for a week of family and golf fun.
We started by meeting up with Jacob and Kaitlin near Brookings Oregon, positioning ourselves close enough to Bandon to play a preview round (just Jacob and I) before the rest or the family arrived.
Jacob and I played Pacific Dunes on Tuesday afternoon as folks flying in from points east arrived. We stayed in one of the Grove Cottages at the resort, a nice choice for our group as it had four separate bedrooms with a large common area for hanging out.
On Wednesday Dave, Jacob, Matthew and I played the 13 hole par 3 Bandon Preserve for a warmup, then began our full 18-hole adventure at Bandon Trails. On Thanksgiving we teamed up for a brothers competition at Old Macdonald and played a rematch on Friday at Sheep Ranch.
The week wasn't just about golf -- we transitioned to a beach house south of Bandon where we played boardgames, cooked meals together, and had some epic beach walks.
2. 📖 What I've been reading
Articles:
I had some fun enhancing and simplifying my Nintendo Switch and Steam Deck setups using this advice
Please read The Big Fail with an open mind. Not every response we had in this country to COVID-19 was science and evidence based, and it might be the case that our young school children were the most harmed. At the same time it can be unfair to second guess every decision made at the time, it is unconscionable to not look closely at public policy choices and try to do better next time.
Kendall Baker left Axios (my guess is it wasn't his choice) and now does a sports newsletter at Yahoo. My favorite way to stay caught up with the wide world of sports.
My pending death (hopefully at least 40 years in the future) has been on my mind, and Julie and I talk about this from time to time. Turns out the gentle art of Swedish death cleaning covers a specific topic I think about a lot: how to unburden those left behind as much as possible. I don't want them to have to go through boxes, sort out my finances, etc. Since we never know when the event will happen, it seems to make sense to try to make that a permanent state of affairs starting about... now.
There's a new short course at Streamsong: The Chain. I love innovative designs like this and look forward to returning there to play it (I've played the three full courses there).
"Pars, bogeys and birdies don't exist at The Chain, which is designed for casual match-play. In fact, each hole's winner is supposed to decide where to tee off on the next hole."
Books:
Tress of the Emerald Sea was so good! It is likely a violation of my nerd credo, but I think this is a better Princess Bride than the original.
3. 🍿 What I've been watching
Not much with our travels and busy social calendar: we finished the latest season of The Morning Show and started the currently running season of For All Mankind.
4. 🎶 What I've been listening too
Almost exclusively A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs, and I'm up to about song 50. It is so so hard not to jump ahead as I see him recently publishing "Astral Weeks," "The Weight", "Daydream Believer," et al. I'll be patient and enjoy his deep dives into rockabilly and jump blues.
5. 🎮 What I've been playing
Between my return to Portland and a week with family, I played a lot of boardgames:
Obsession is my new obsession. Played it with Portland friends then immediately purchased it and had it delivered to Napa. Played with family here, and Julie and I tried a 2 player game on BGA.
Played the fairly light Cascadia a few times. Fun game but don't think I need to own it.
Greg and Matt taught me Forest Shuffle, a fun tableau building game.
Played the roll and write game Rolling Realms a few times -- easy to teach but thinkier than you'd expect.
I spent the day in Albany OR playing Holland 44 with the BIG Map.
Took another run at Dune: Imperium, the worker placement and sorta deck building game. I think it is very good but I'm still not sure how to play it well.
6. 🇪🇸 Preparing for Three Months in Spain
Tonight Julie and I head to San Francisco to overnight in a hotel near SFO and will board an early flight to Atlanta and then on to Madrid.
As usual, we will have just our carry-on bags. We think of a 12-week trip as a series of 12 1-week trips. We'll almost always have access to laundry facilities, and the middle of our trip will involve shuffling throughout southern Spain, to Morocco, Gran Canaria, then back to Barcelona. Lightweight travel keeps us flexible and avoids the pain of luggage separation.
I purchased two 90 day eSims from Airalo, which should give us all the mobile bandwidth we need and avoid Verizon international roaming charges. iMessage and WhatsApp keep our texting on the data pipes (and not SMS) helping the cause. The eSims won't have phone numbers but we rarely place calls anyway.
Our first month in Madrid will have intensive Spanish classes M-F, 0900-1300, for four weeks. We both hope the time and money will be worth it. We are committed to speaking more and making this learning stick.
I'm sure we will forget something, but I've heard there are over 3 million people in Madrid that shop from time to time. We can buy anything there that we leave behind.
If all goes well my next update will be in the new year as we close out our first Madrid stay. Have a great holiday season!
-Chris