Chris Brooks Newsletter 042
Hello reader! Julie and I are settled in Napa, living with our extended family as their home remodel project nears completion. We had an amazing adventure driving from Keuka Lake to Napa.
1. 🚘 Where I've Been Traveling
We departed Keuka on September 11, driving the short distance to Erie PA for an emergency golf lesson with coach Erik. Overnighting in Sandusky after that was a treat as we enjoyed the lakeshore and some birding. Our northerly route took us into central Wisconsin where I golfed at Sand Valley for a few days; Julie joined me for the 17 hole short course.
Then began our national parks adventure, with a first stop at Theodore Roosevelt National Park. The weather wasn't great but we made the most of it. Glacier National Park was just about perfect, staying warm enough for us to do everything we wanted and the skies opening up at times for some great photos.
North Cascades was not so perfect: fires and remnant smoke turned what was going to be a 2-3 night stay into a drive by. We pivoted that allotted time to Olympic National Park, doing a short backpacking trip and enjoying some rain forest hiking.
We meandered along the Washington coast for a few days then stayed in the Portland area for four nights. The stay was too short as we saw a lot of folks we wanted to see but not nearly everyone on our list. Next time we'll stay at least a week.
Our last big stop before arriving in Napa was Bandon Dunes for some golf and Oregon coast enjoyment. We also did an overnight stay in Ashland to see some old friends, play some boardgames, and enjoy an amazing dinner in town.
2. 📖 What I've Been Reading
Articles:
- After reading these notes on The Greatest Night In Pop I want to watch it again.
- I haven't seen the new Spinal Tap movie but enjoyed Cheese, Glue, and Skiffle: Spinal Tap & Marty DeBergi on "Spinal Tap II: The End Continues". If you want to see some inspiration Christopher Guest used for Nigel, check out this Jeff Beck interview.
- We all can't wait for the Springsteen biopic, amiright? To hold you over, read "The Best Musician Biopics, Ranked". I simply must find a way to watch Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story. I think my #1 is Walk the Line.
- Palantir and their Forward Deployed Engineers have been all the talk lately. "How to Build Your First Forward Deployed Engineering Team" is a very opinionated article on the subject. As a product CTO, I fought against this idea vehemently in the early 2000s, largely because our "FDE" was a friend of the CEO who knew just enough ASP and SQL to be dangerous. He would be sent on missions to implement custom solutions to appease big banking customers. Guess who got left holding the bag to clean up his messes? Still, given how poorly we handled product management (and innovation), I wonder if we had used a more managed process along the FDE lines whether we could have achieved better outcomes.
- Some good national guides in guide world that I've captured for future reference.
- First known wild ‘grue jay’ hybrid spotted in Texas.
- "Big-Tent Liberalism" -- Because liberalism is a big tent, some people, under that tent, will have serious objections to other people who are also under the tent.
- I'm trying to learn from what some leading universities are doing to get better at AI incorporation in my CS curriculum. The Stanford Foundations of AI class is a good start.
- Here's a very helpful article on designing agentic loops.
- I installed this nice Finder add-on to my Mac and find it very useful: Folder Quick Look.
- I'm just starting to grasp the value of DSPy for crafting and evaluating AI prompts. I'm not sure it will be terribly useful for my work (and hobby activities). This video was also helpful.
- More good stuff from Chris Arnade: "Four Years of Walking the World".
- I'm a list junkie so enjoyed "The 250 Greatest Songs of the 21st Century So Far" (sorry about the ads, ugh). I had to check the list for credibility to make sure some songs I would put on it are there. So far so good: "Impossible Germany", "Cover Me Up", "Times Like These", "Lost Cause", "The Scientist" all there. Now I can work through the list and create my own playlist; there's so much there that I either haven't heard, or don't know that I've heard because I don't link the title to the song. Reminds me that I need to complete my latest vibe coding project (see below) to ease the playlist creation.
Books:
- I finally finished Gardens of the Moon but it was a bit of a chore. Apologists for the book talk about how it was originally a screenplay, gradually reworked into a novel. I had a very hard time following along; I don't need exposition for everything, but some of it would have been nice. The Gardens of the Moon Guide was helpful. I've decided not to continue with the series; sorry Jim 😓.
- During our many hours of van driving I listened to Say Nothing. Exceptionally good and I look forward to watching the short TV series.
- Daughter-in-law Lauren gifted me a book from her book agency: Turning to Birds by Lili Taylor. Fun read about another birder's enthusiastic launch into the hobby. Learned a few things along the way too.
3. 🍿 What I've Been Watching
TV Shows:
- I think Adolescence will be the show of the year for us both. Watch it first without spoilers and pay attention. What do you notice about the filming, the acting? Then watch the behind-the-scenes as a postlude.
- Julie and I enjoyed the 3rd (and sadly final) season of Wheel of Time on Amazon. Each season got better from a scattered start.
- I found a good credit card deal to renew Disney / Hulu for a bit so we watched Andor season 2. Excellent TV. The pacing on these is so much different than the movies!
Movies:
- Of course we had to rewatch (third time maybe?) Rogue One after watching Andor.
4. 🎶 What I've Been Listening To
Music:
- Our album for the month was Billy Joel's The Stranger. Still holds up and Jim and I have both been fans for a long long time.
- Hit new album for me is Brian Dunne's Clams Casino: heartland rock I guess. Mellencamp, Isbell, Springsteen, etc.
- I'm a proud Swiftie and am enjoying the latest album. Lots of naysayers out there of course! I mistakenly and randomly fell into a subreddit of Taylor haters. Switched on Pop created a handy "how to actually listen to the album.
5. 🎮 What I've Been Playing
Boardgames
Back in the swing of boardgame playing after my Oregon pass-through and residency in Napa.
- Harmonies
- Flip 7
- Star Wars: The Deckbuilding Game
- Combat Commander: Europe
- Foppen
- The Gang
- Sagani
- SETI: Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
- Ticket to Ride Legacy: Legends of the West
Videogames
- I started an Avowed adventure on the Steam Deck but it just wasn't holding me. Hard to measure up to Baldur's Gate 2.
- On the other hand, Hades II is everything I hoped for in a sequel. I hope to play through more of this than I did the original (which was on the Switch).
6. 🏗️ What I'm Attempting
- Still working on my playlist generator app on the Mac. Hope to have something to share next month.
- I'm going to make a small investment in home audio: a turntable, likely a pre-amp, and some vinyl to restart a physical music collection. I don't want to go crazy here, but there have been some recent Wilco re-issues with notable liner notes that I want to own, read, and listen to. If you have tips to share please reply to this!
- I'm drafting a Botswana self-driving plan for my African adventure next summer/fall. Friend Ken has carried all the planning burden in the past I want to help him out, especially as he's occupied right now with 5 weeks of guide field training in South Africa.
Have a great fall and spooky season. See you next month.
-Chris