I get that AI language models might take all our jobs and run the world, but I don’t know that I’ll discover a more entertaining use for them than pretending to be Don Draper. It helps that I can read things in Jon Hamm’s voice in my head.

As Don Draper, I would begin my pitch for bananas by setting the scene:

“Picture a bustling city street corner, filled with the sounds of honking horns, chattering pedestrians, and the hum of industry. Amidst the chaos, a vendor stands behind his cart, proudly displaying his wares. And at the center of it all, shining like a beacon of health and vitality, are the bananas.”

Then, I would launch into my Mad Men-style pitch, using the power of storytelling and emotion to capture the audience’s attention and highlight the value of bananas:

“Bananas are more than just a fruit – they’re a symbol of vitality and strength. With their vibrant yellow skin and succulent flesh, bananas are a sensory delight that energizes the body and nourishes the soul.

But bananas are more than just a treat – they’re a nutritional powerhouse. Packed with vitamins, minerals, and fiber, bananas are a natural source of energy that help you feel your best all day long. Whether you’re running a marathon or running errands, bananas are the perfect snack to keep you going strong.

And the best part? Bananas are easy to enjoy anywhere, anytime. Whether you’re peeling one on the go or slicing it into your morning cereal, bananas are a versatile and convenient way to get the nutrients and energy you need.

So the next time you’re feeling sluggish or rundown, reach for a banana. With every bite, you’re not just eating a fruit – you’re tapping into a source of vitality and strength that will help you conquer the day. And that’s the power of bananas.”

This is a lovely little English Christmas film from 1952, adapted from a 1950 play. A small-town parson’s family returns home to the vicarage for Christmas after he became a widower earlier that year: Son Michael (Denholm Elliott), serving in the military; daughter Jenny (Celia Johnson) who lives at the vicarage taking care of her father, Martin, the parson (Ralph Richardson); and eventually, daughter Margaret (Margaret Leighton), a fashion journalist in the city. Other houseguests include a voice-of-reason cousin Richard (Hugh Williams) and a duo of aunts, deemed by TCM host Ben Mankiewitz as “one grand, the other grumpy” (Margaret Halstan, Maureen Delany).

The ostensible conflict is that caretaker Jenny wants to marry a neighbor, an engineer being sent to South America (John Gregson), but feels she can’t abandon her father. But as the guests arrive it becomes clear the underlying issue is the three children believe they can’t communicate with their father on a personal level, given his religious calling.

Not to spoil a 70-year-old movie, but it turns out Ralph Richardson plays a reasonable man.

Richardson, a prolific English actor, performed from the 1920s to 1983 including as a member and co-Director of the Old Vic and on Broadway. He was nominated for three Tonys, two Oscars and a Grammy.

Leighton also performed with the Old Vic and made her Broadway debut in 1946 as the Queen in Henry IV, also starring Richarson as well as Laurence Olivier. Leighton was nominated for four Tonys, winning two, two Emmys, winning one, and an Oscar; her first Tony, in 1957 for ‘Separate Tables’ came the same year Richardson was nominated for ‘The Waltz of the Toreadors’.

Johnson performed between 1928 and 1981, including on Broadway. She was nominated for an Academy award for 1945’s ‘Brief Encounter’.

Elliott — I recognized him as Marcus Brodie in ‘Raiders’ — has more than 100 film and TV credits. Like his character, he served in the military. A member of the RAF, his bomber was downed in a raid on some U-boat pens and he spent the rest of the war in a POW camp. He debuted in 1949 and performed through 1992, when he died. He was nominated for an Academy Award in 1986 for ‘A Room with a View’.

Halstan debuted in theater in 1895 and acted in her first film in 1916. She performed ‘The Holly and the Ivy’ in both the stage and screen versions.

Delaney, an Irish actress, debuted in 1914. She was nominated for a Tony for 1959’s ‘God and Kate Murphy’.

There’s also a small cameo by William Henry Hartnell, better known as the first Doctor Who.

Richardson, as I said, plays a reasonable man, if a bit aloof. Leighton plays dark and sophisticated, but ultimately vulnerable. Johnson is her opposite: caring and sacrificing herself to keep the family running. Elliott is impish and impudent enough to (finally) speak the truth about the family’s dynamics.

There’s a delightful bit of framing when the Martin is confronting his son about drinking too much, where Martin is standing behind a sparse Christmas tree looking much like a priest concealed in a confessional, rather than a father talking to his son.

It’s such a cozy little play; theatrical even in the filmed version. I’d very much like to see it on the stage, but I sure am glad this film with these distinguished actors exists. At one point Williams’ character says “Cheer up Mick, old boy, in a hundred years we’ll all be dead.” As far as I can tell, everyone involved with the film is, in fact, dead. But their performances have brought me joy for several years now, and hopefully will for many years into the future.

“One regards oneself as an individual, Aunt Bridget. Types are other people.” — Margaret Gregory

“Don’t you know I doubt if half of them have the faintest conception of what I’m here for. They think I’m paid to marry them and bury them and sign their pension papers for them, just like a civil servant.” — Martin Gregory

“You can’t be told the truth. That’s the trouble, the whole trouble.” — Michael Gregory

“I’m out all day scribbling smart, highly paid nonsense that earns the rent of a wonderful flat that I can’t bear to stay in alone for five minutes when I get back in the evening.” — Margaret Gregory

Especially when you don’t know what you’re doing.

Owning your stuff in this context means controlling your content on the Internet, inasmuch as you can control anything about the Internet. When you post to Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, your stuff lives there. It isn’t always easy to get it back out or to switch services. There’s a tremendous amount of “lock-in” because of both your posting history and your developed social group. On the other hand, when I post to this blog, it lives — for now — on a WordPress installation I control, on servers I pay for, on a domain I own. The “for now” there is important because I can (and have) move the content to different platforms as future needs dictate.

I’d had an underused blog for a while, but the concept clicked for me when I started learning about Micro.blog. I’ve been using Micro.blog via this domain for more than five years (and I haven’t really understood it for most of the time). But conceptually, “owning your stuff” seems like a good idea.

I’m going to try to explain my (ongoing) effort to turn this blog into a Twitter replacement. As will become clear, I have very little idea how all this works, and so I’ll likely be using incorrect terminology as well as doing things that are incredibly dumb. If you’re able to kindly point these out to me, I’d sure appreciate it. And I probably still won’t understand.

Writing

I don’t write a whole lot, especially long-form. But I do like having a place to put stuff when the urge strikes. I like being able to share stuff — photos I took, links I find interesting, etc.

I write here, on this blog. The theme I’m using, SemPress marks up stuff to the microformats spec. I have JSON and RSS feeds. I ping Micro.blog, where you can follow me @brentajones.

And then here’s where it’s fuzzy.

Stuff also shows up under @bjones@blog.bjones.net if you search for it at mastodon.social. I think this is happening because of the Activitypub plugin.

Recently I started trying to figure out more about how to be sure people could read me via Mastodon as well as how I could interact with others (following, favoriting, replying, reposting). That led me to Bridgy Fed, which I don’t quite understand. My username there seems to be @blog.bjones.net@blog.bjones.net. And in fact if I search that username at the journa.host mastodon instance, my info shows up (though not my posts). Searching the “other” username on either instance returns nothing.

I searched around a while and found some Bridgy Fed documentation about customizing your username via an h-card with a property using the “acct:” protocol. I attempted to add that to my h-card, but either I did it incorrectly or it seems to not have affected Bridgy Fed. (Update: It now seems that Bridgy Fed recognizes me as “@bjones@blog.bjones.net”. Don’t know if publishing this post gave it a kick or if it was just a timing thing or whatever. But that seems to be resolved. Consequences TBD).

I also seem to have to include a link to the site in every post? Or just when I’m interacting? I dunno. None of that really affects the writing here, just the ways people can discover and read.

Reading

I’d like to replicate a Twitter-like timeline with folks who’ve jumped ship from Twitter. I’ve successfully used Aperture to create a list of folks and Monocle to read it. But I’m not sure I’m doing it right. For one thing, I’m adding each person’s feed manually in Aperture. I think ideally sending a u-follow-of webmention should add them to the list? Or something? I don’t know. Secondly, if I just paste in their Mastodon profile link, Aperture finds a feed but one that doesn’t have any posts in it. I have to manually add “.rss” to the end. And these don’t seem to have profile photos included, and may be limited in other ways.

Interacting

No idea how any of this stuff works. I gather it involves webmentions.

If I make a post including u-follow-of, Bridgy Fed registers that as a follow…but I don’t really know what that means. I don’t seem to show up as a follower on anyone’s Mastodon account. And I don’t know if there’s a way for me to access a list of everyone I follow. Or how to unfollow.

I attempted a repost (u-repost-of), and Bridgy Fed registered it, but said there was an error. But that’s all it says, so I don’t know if the error is something I did (or didn’t do) or on the receiving end, or what.

I don’t know if any of this stuff is working, or how it’s supposed to work. I don’t know what would happen if someone tried to follow or repost or reply to me.

I have a section called “Followers (Fediverse)” under my Users menu in the WordPress backend. Maybe from the Activitypub plugin again? There are a couple people in it (who I recognize).

Conclusion

Owning your stuff is (at the moment, anyway) a lot harder than typing into a 3rd party site and letting someone else figure all this stuff out. But it seems worth it.

If anyone has any good tutorials on any of this, let me know.

It’s Nocino tasting day! Made up a cocktail tonight with not one but two homemade liqueurs. Don’t have a name for it (maybe it already exists); feels like it might still be missing a note.

• 2 oz. Scotch whisky (I used Johnnie Walker Red)
• .5 oz. nocino
• .5 oz. krupnik (spiced honey liqueur)

Build in highball glass with ice, top with club soda.

It’s pretty good. I’ve made it without the nocino and the honey and whisky work together just fine. The nocino adds a nice deeper note to it I like. Pretty sweet though. Maybe some bitters of some kind. Doesn’t need much else.

Even figuring out how to begin is a challenge. Was it for him? I don’t know.

News of Stephen Sondheim’s death hit me unexpectedly hard. Unexpectedly, because who am I? I enjoy musical theater. I appreciate good writing and good music no matter the genre. Those are my qualifications, I guess. I was in a couple shows more than a decade ago and although I sometimes dream of performing in more, I also dream of owning a pinball table, so. And the shows I was in weren’t even Sondheim shows — JOSEPH and The Fantasticks.

As far as I can remember, the only actual experience I have of performing Sondheim in front of other people is bombing “In Praise of Women” for a vocal test or audition or something in music school at Indiana University shortly before failing most of my music courses, transferring schools and entirely changing my career path. I still feel badly for my accompanist, who did his absolute best helping someone who had no business being there. Sorry again, Eric.

I don’t know when the first time I heard a Sondheim score was, or the first time I saw a performance of one of his shows. I have a vague memory of watching the filmed version of the original Broadway cast of ‘Into the Woods’ in a music class in school maybe, because that seems like the sort of thing we did in the 90s, but that’s not definite.

I think I’ve only seen two productions live: a production of Sweeney Todd by Opera Theatre St. Louis in 2012 and a community theatre production of A Funny Thing Happened on the way to the Forum by KTK here in 2013. I remember discovering the 2006 Broadway revival of Company on Netflix. I saw the 2011 filmed version with Neil Patrick Harris, Stephen Colbert, Patti LuPone, Anika Noni Rose, et al. at, I think, the Tivoli.

I picked up “Finishing the Hat” from the library one day — I recognized the lyric, and of course the author but otherwise I didn’t know what it was — and was engrossed. I was pleased to find a copy at the St. Louis Book Fair earlier this year. It is inscribed “To Bobo, from Isabel” and while I don’t know who they are or why Bobo would donate such a wonderful book, I am grateful to them for it, and thankful Isabel gave such a thoughtful gift.

The book (and its counterpart “Look, I Made a Hat”) encapsulates something I almost always discover about people who do great work: The amount of thought and care and labor they put into making something, and something that when it makes its way into your brain seems like it could never have been anything else. But of course it could have. I discover it every time, and I am surprised by it every time, and it is the most obvious thing in the world. Every note, every rhyme, every syllable was cared for. It was not inevitable, it was hard work. And not only did he do the work, he told us how he did the work.

It’s a special kind of magic, really. A magician can perform for you and you can experience it and be amazed by what you’ve just experienced. But there’s another level to it when the magician can explain what they’re about to do — really explain the trick, how it works, the moves and misdirections — and then perform it and not only are you still fooled and amazed, but then you can begin to consider the thinking, the repetitions, the perfection it must have taken to pull off. And the man wrote 19 shows.

Last weekend, I also checked out James Lapine’s new book “Putting it Together” about creating Sunday in the Park with George with Sondheim. I was speeding pleasantly along through it this week. I enjoyed the interview style, like sitting off to the side while Lapine and Sondheim were having a conversation. It will be odd to pick it back up and finish it now, I think.

Coincidentally, perhaps because I was reading that book, as my wife and I were looking for something to watch on TV to wind down on Thanksgiving evening, I turned on the 2014 Disney version of Into the Woods, which neither of us had seen. Generally enjoyable, though I was disappointed “No More” was cut.

And in another coincidence, this time just after I heard the news, we turned on the most recent episode of the UK game show “Only Connect” — it was from a few days ago. In one of the rounds, the players are given a board with 16 short clues, and they’re challenged to make four groups that each have some connection between the clues in that group. Some of the clues on this one happened to be Into the Woods, Company, Follies, Passion and Saturday Night, which I pretty quickly realized must form a group of Sondheim musicals. (The “Company” clue was a red herring that fit into another group, and the team correctly identified the group and the connection).

I’m not sure why I’m writing all this out. As I said at the top — I appreciate musical theater, but I’m not a theater geek or even a performer in that way, really. I never met the man, but I was briefly in the same room as him. He came to my radio station for an interview in 2018. He made a bit of news by saying he thought protests calling for color-conscious casting were “ridiculous”. A disappointing moment.

I remember last year, when everyone was all shut in their houses, watching Sondheim’s 90th birthday celebration live-streamed on YouTube. It was a little more than a month after Broadway shut down. I remember thinking how incredible it was, seeing all these big names reduced to a rectangle on a screen, as we all had been. They experienced technical difficulties, as we all had. And they were getting by as best as they could, as we all were. And then Mandy Patinkin sang from Sunday in the Park with George IN a park, and for just a brief moment that was all we needed. Following along the livestream and the hashtag on Twitter was a communal experience folks were aching for even after — looking back now — such a relatively short time into dealing with all of this.

I never even wanted to be a performer, as such. I was going to school to teach music. Specifically, choir. I know now, and not just from that failed attempt at the A Little Night Music song, that I would not have made a very good choir teacher for a number of reasons. So instead, I became a journalist. Specifically, a data journalist. I try to use data, and often graphics, to explain to an audience what’s happening in the world and why they should care. I’m not sure when Sondheim’s lyrics and music found their way so deeply into my brain. But I guess maybe that’s why. I’ve banked my career on the concept that it’s worthwhile to help people understand the world around them. I appreciate it when something helps my brain makes sense of something it doesn’t initially understand.

That’s what I get from Sondheim’s work, more than any other composer or lyricist so far. Among other things, he writes about art, the act of creation, growing up, parenting, wish fulfillment, death, truth, being alone, relationships, evil, grace. He makes them make sense.

The world is a confusing place. I’m lucky if I can help a reporter explain how the population of the city has changed over the past ten years, or how students in local school districts did on achievement tests, or where all the money went. To explain the passion to create? That’s a whole different level. And it rhymed.

I appreciate that Sondheim was around for 91 years and so diligently, passionately dedicated his life — to the end — to exploring and explaining what initially doesn’t make sense about humanity. I am glad that his work will go on inspiring a long time from now. I am thankful that he generously taught and encouraged and worked with so many of the next generation of storytellers, who continue to explore and explain why we are how we are.

Trouble is, son, the farther you run
The more you’ll feel undefined
For what you have left undone, and more
What you’ve left behind
We disappoint, we leave a mess, we die, but we don’t
We disappoint in turn, I guess. Forget, though, we won’t

Stephen Sondheim, “No More”, from Into the Woods

Stephen Joshua Sondheim, 1930 — 2021

One of the things I’ve been watching throughout the Pandemic is Adam Savage’s ‘Tested’ YouTube Channel, particularly the tool tips and one day builds. I enjoy the idea of making stuff, being able to bash together some solution to a problem or make an idea into a real thing. I enjoy the idea of that. The reality hasn’t been realized, quite.

Still, I can on occasion make myself useful.

For Father’s Day, I got an anemometer for my Netatmo setup. I got the rest of the Netatmo suite for Christmas this past year, and I’ve been enjoying being able to see what’s going on, environmentally. If you’re unfamiliar, the base set comes with an indoor module that connects to wifi and plugs into the wall. It measures temperature, humidity, pressure, noise level and CO2. Then there’s an outdoor module that communicates with the indoor one and runs on batteries. It measures temperature and humidity. I also got a rain gauge at the same time.

As you might imagine, where you place the rain gauge and anemometer is pretty important. Up to now, my rain gauge has lived on a side table on the patio. An OK spot, but it did get knocked/blown/etc. off the table at least once. I had to put a few pieces back together, and I’m not sure it’s worked incredibly precisely since. It does pick up rain, I’m just not sure it’s as sensitive as it used to be.

Anyhow, particularly with the anemometer, which has to be pointed a specific direction, I figured it would be a good idea to mount these things somewhere more suitable. Importantly, they both have a standard “tripod mount” socket on the bottom (1/4″-20 screw).

Netatmo does sell mounts for the instruments, but they’re relatively expensive and I’d have to wait for them to arrive. I briefly considered mounts for outdoor security cameras, but these too are not inexpensive. Money aside though, I’d decided the best place for these was mounted to the top of my kids’ playset. And I wanted to try to avoid permanently attaching them.

Then I hit on the idea of using a PVC pipe with a cap, drilling a hole through the cap and then poking the screw up through the cap, holding it in place with a nut and washer. With that setup — essentially a PVC pipe with the instrument stuck on the end of it — I could even raise the anemometer up above the height of the playset.

With the design of the mount itself figured out, I then had to work out how to attach these to the playset. I complicated things for myself by planning to attach the anemometer to the aforementioned upright — a vertical post. But I wanted to put the rain gauge on the end of the crossbar holding all the swings and such, to give it as much clearance from any rain-blocking obstacles. And again, I wanted to do this without screwing into the playset itself.

One thing that popped into my head was “those things that are like long metal strips with holes and a screw contraption, and you slip the end under the screw, turn the screw and it tightens like a slip knot”. Unfortunately that’s not a thing that googles easily. Took me a while to figure out those are called “hose clamps”. I thought I’d cut some slots in the PVC, run the hose clamp through the PVC, around the post/crossbar and tighten it down.

So, the plan: The anemometer would be perched at the top of a vertical PVC pipe, cut a couple sets of vertical slots and use two hose clamps to attach. The rain gauge is slightly more difficult. I was figuring on small diameter PVC, and I didn’t know if trying to stand it up on top of the crossbar beam would work. So I thought maybe perch the rain gauge on a short pipe, then go into a tee or elbow with short lengths for a little more stability on the base. Buying the parts, I settled on a three-way elbow (think the three edges coming out of the corner of a cube).

Another wrinkle in buying the parts, turns out hose clamps are made for hoses. Which are generally smaller than the beams making up play equipment. For some reason I assumed those things I was imagining weren’t specific to hoses and would be made in any number of lengths, like zip-ties or something. Why aren’t they? I checked the store app and saw sometimes these are used on flagpoles, so I stopped by that area, which turned out to be a red herring. After another lap of the store I managed to stumble on the HVAC aisle, realizing that sometimes ducts are also made up of hose-type structures and are generally larger than residential-use water hoses. Bingo. They had clamps labeled 4-inch and 6-inch. I assumed this is diameter of the hose it’s meant to clamp. The upright was about 3.5″ square (total distance 14 inches, plus allowance for going through the PVC on one side) and the crossbar was 5″ tall and 3.5″ wide (total distance 17 inches, plus allowance). I don’t know anything about how the clamps are measured, but I do know the circumference of a 4-inch diameter circle is only a little more than 12 inches and a 6-inch diameter circle has a circumference of a little more than 18 inches. So I figured the 4-inch ones were too small for both and the 6-inch ones would be just large enough for the crossbar.

So, I bought four of the 6-inch clamps. And then upon returning home I discovered that they’re not built so you can tighten them down to nothing. The 6-inch ones were far too large for the upright — I wouldn’t be able to tighten them enough to hold the PVC to it. But they were more than large enough for the crossbar, so I thought the 4-inch clamps might work for the upright. My second trip of the day to the home improvement store ensued.

Final equipment list:

• 1/2″ x 2′ PVC pipe (2)
• 1/2″ PVC el with side outlet (1)
• 1/2″ PVC slip cap (4)
• 6″ Adjustable Metal Worm Drive Clamp (2)
• 4″ Adjustable Metal Worm Drive Clamp (2)
• 1/4″ x 1″ Stainless Machine Screw (2)
• 1/4″ Stainless Flat Washer (2)
• 1/4″ Stainless Hex Nut (2)

Total material cost before tax, $16.53. The single most expensive component was the PVC el fitting at $2.15 (I briefly considered making some structure that would support the rain gauge and anemometer on the same PVC structure, but those fittings really eat into the cost).

Now that all the equipment was squared away, making could commence. I drilled 1/4″ holes in two caps, and put a washer on each screw, then slipped it through the underside of the cap, tightening a nut down on top of it. Probably could’ve gone with 3/4″ or even 1/2″ screws.

The anemometer tube was simplest. I used a cutting wheel on a Dremel to cut a slot in opposite sides of the pipe a few inches from one end. I then made another set of slots just below the halfway point of the pipe. I slipped the hose clamps through the slots, popped the cap on top and done.

The rain gauge tube was slightly more complicated. I put the PVC in the el fitting and cut off a couple inches above the fitting. This would be where the rain gauge sits. Next I cut off a very small length of pipe — just a couple inches. This would run perpendicular to the direction of the crossbar (and parallel with the direction of the hose clamp). Finally I cut a longer length of pipe, maybe four or five inches, to run parallel with the crossbar and serve as another attachment point for a clamp. I cut a slot in this longer pipe for a clamp, and a slot in the first pipe just above where it fit in the el for the other clamp.

Took everything out to the playset, tightened it down, attached the instruments to the caps, then put the caps on their pipes and everything seems to be working OK. I did need to calibrate the height of the wind gauge in the Netatmo software, but other than that, everything seems to be working OK. We even had a big storm early the next morning and although the wind overturned some patio furniture, the anemometer registered it and was still standing the next morning.

So, that’s how I made a couple mounts for my Netatmo devices for less than $20. Might take them down and spray paint the PVC or something. But overall I’m pretty happy with this hour-or-so project that solved a problem.

In 2020, I got less gas.

As a result of the global pandemic, I didn’t drive my car, a 2013 Mini Cooper Clubman, much. My last regular work-week was at the end of February. I then flew to a work conference during the first week of March, returned via train, and immediately began working from home. A college course I teach went to online learning. Even occasional short trips to the grocery store were usually made in my wife’s SUV, so we could stock up and therefore go less often.

Driving picked up toward the end of the year. After buying a new house about 12 miles from the old one, I made many trips between the two, doing work. I also made one 460 mile roundtrip to my hometown.

Conclusions

Fuel consumption and miles driven dropped about 40 percent between 2019 and 2020, and owing to lower gas prices, money spent dropped by more than half. Average miles-per-gallon in 2020 was higher than it’s been over the life of the car. I filled the tank 23 times in 2019, but only 13 in 2020.

Note: Some data was lost spanning the end of 2019 and beginning of 2020. See Methodology section for details.

Detailed stats

My car’s fuel consumption dropped more than 40 percent — from nearly 300 gallons in 2019 to about 169 in 2020. In the six full years I’d owned my car prior to 2020, I’d never bought less than 200 gallons.

My total expenses for gas dropped by about half, from $773 in 2019 to $383 in 2020. The quantity I bought only went down 40%, but the average price dropped too — I paid an average of $2.58 / gallon in 2019, but only $2.27 / gallon in 2020. Between 2014 and 2019, I’d never paid less than $550 to fill the tank for the year.

I drove about 4,000 fewer miles. In 2019, I drove about 9,485 miles, but in 2020 I drove just 5,435. This again is a significant drop-off during the life of the car. Between 2014 and 2019, I’d never driven under 7,000 miles in a year.

My average miles-per-gallon went up as well. In 2020 I got about 32.33 miles per gallon. I’d never cracked 32 before, though 2019 hit 31.96 mpg. This can likely be attributed to a greater percentage of my miles being long-distance driving. In 2020, more than 40% of my total miles driven can be attributed to trips to the college I teach at and the one long trip to my hometown. In 2019 long trips accounted for less than 40% of the total miles driven.

Methodology

I most often fill the tank when it’s nearly empty. In 128 out of 136 purchases, the average amount purchased was 13.28 gallons, with a standard deviation of .69.

I try to log all my gas purchases, and am mostly successful. Over the 7+ years I’ve owned my current car, I’ve logged information for 136 fuel purchases. Most of these include date, gallons purchased, price per gallon and current odometer reading.

However, due to a technology error¹, information was lost for an assumed eight fill-ups between 2019–09–21 and 2020–02–05.

Reconstructing the missing data

I am assuming eight purchases were lost for two reasons:

1. I’m able to identify eight gas station purchases during the missing time period in credit card records.
2. The odometer readings before and after the gap, divided by the size of the gap, yields a reasonable average mileage.

I was able to recover the mileage only for three of these events, so the odometer gap is only five purchases. This gap is 2,336 miles — dividing by six (that’s five unknown fill-ups) gets 389.3 miles. This would be in the upper 20th percentile of all known distances driven on one tank of gas. Attempting to distribute the 2,336 miles over four fill-ups gets more than 467 miles per tank, which would be in the 90th percentile.

Estimating amount purchased

For the eight transactions, I simply assumed the amount of gas purchased each time was the average amount I’d purchased over the life of the car — 13.275 gallons. As mentioned, this number is fairly stable — a standard deviation of about .7 gallons.

Estimating price per gallon

From the credit card records, I had the total amount of the purchase. I divided this by the estimated amount purchased.

Estimating odometer reading

As I said, I was able to recover mileage for three of the eight fill-ups. Therefore the gap where the mileage is unknown is five. I evenly distributed the total miles driven among these five, resulting in an odometer increase of 389 miles for each fill-up.

Effect of data reconstruction

Five of the eight purchases missing data were in 2019, with the balance in 2020.

The 66.36 estimated gallons purchased is 22.2 percent of the total amount of gas in 2019 (including the estimated amount). For 2020, the 39.8 estimated gallons represent 23.6 percent of the total.

The mileage and gallons work out to 29.3 miles per gallon for the estimated data. This would be significantly lower than average — just under the 30th percentile for the known 2019 data and just under the 20th percentile for the known 2020 data.

Bought a new house. Worked from it (and the old house) a lot. Oldest kid started kindergarten (remotely). Went on a couple trips. That’s the highlights.

New house

Most prominently, my family bought a new house. It’s only about 8 miles as the crow flies from the old house. The process was a struggle, partly because two kids and a global pandemic makes it difficult to visit as many options as easily as we’d have liked. Partly because the market was extremely hot — we were outbid on the first house we made an offer on, and we’d offered asking price (or maybe even more, I forget). We also had at least one showing canceled because the buyer accepted an offer between the time we scheduled it and when it was scheduled for, and we visited a house for a showing that had — unbeknownst to us and our realtor — already been sold shortly before.

Still, we eventually found a great one that backs onto common ground woods and a creek, with more woods behind it. We’ve seen deer and turkey, and a wide variety of birds, among other animals. Collected some neat rocks along the creek. We’re pretty happy with it.

Which leaves the old house, which has been a bit of a pain to deal with. I haven’t had much luck in finding people to do some fairly light work that needs done before putting it on the market, so I’ve been getting done what I can myself in bits and pieces. Things like resealing the basement walls, patching and painting, etc. Probably the biggest bits are replacing light fixtures, replacing carpet upstairs, and removing sticky vinyl tile from the bathroom floor to reveal — as our realtor suspected — the original 1940s tile floor in great condition underneath. Great condition other than needing to remove all the adhesive, clean and probably regrout the whole thing. I hope I will not be writing about the old house in the 2021 in review other than to say we sold it.

Trips

Went on a couple trips this year.

In January we drove to Minnesota for a funeral in my wife’s family.

At the beginning of March, I went to New Orleans for the 2020 NICAR convention. There had been some question leading up to it whether or not it would happen, but the organizers were pretty consistent in saying it would. And it did.

The conference itself was fine. I’d never been to New Orleans. I flew down, wandered around the city a bit as usual, before the conference. I led sessions on GitHub and file organization, as well as helping out in a sort of “office hours”-type session. Played Wingspan with some folks one night at the hotel bar. The party was at the aquarium on the waterfront, which was quite nice.

After the conference, I took Amtrak back to St. Louis, via Chicago. I visited with Pete in Chicago and ate, if I recall correctly, my last meal in a restaurant in 2020 — March 9 at Breakfast House. I also managed to find Anderson Pens’ Chicago location (new to me). It would close (“temporarily” — but it’s still closed) a little more than a week later.

When I arrived home, I asked my boss whether he thought it might be best if I worked from home for a week, just as a precaution. Later that evening I got an email announcement that a conference attendee had tested positive (another would follow several days later, but that was the last we heard of spread related to the conference). And shortly after that, everyone was working from home.

Other than that, I haven’t been much of anywhere. I took the kids for a drive through Lone Elk Park but we stayed in the car. I also traveled back to Danville for an estate sale at my grandparents’ house, but I went by myself.

Hobbies

(Other than surviving a global pandemic). My singing group, the Greenleaf Singers put on a concert on January 5. And then that was it. We haven’t been able to sing together since. Though the St. Louis Renaissance Faire still went on, we didn’t perform. The Christmas concerts we normally sing were cancelled. I’ve made the least music this year in at least a decade, and I miss it so much. Our group has gotten together on Zoom a few times, just to hang out, but the singing doesn’t work so well.

Photography has been on the upswing, especially since buying the new house. The variety of things to see, plants and animals in the woods and along the creek is great for taking pictures.

The kids and I have been down to walk around the creek a few times to go rockhounding. There are some fossils and other interesting rocks to be found, and the creek floods quite a bit so I think the rocks should turn over a fair amount.

A very new hobby (like within the past few days) is birding. After noticing the large variety of birds at the new house, I anticipated getting a feeder at some point. Then I saw a sale on 20 lb. bags of mixed feed for $5 just after Christmas, and jumped on it. I hung a tube feeder, which was successful, and then built a crude platform feeder for larger birds, which has also been ok so far. This is in turn allowing for some fantastic photos (I set the feeders up not far from a convenient spot) and even live-streaming.

Geekway to the West was canceled this year, so we didn’t get to go to that. Consequently (and between moving, et al.) we haven’t played a lot of games this year. We did buy Wingspan for Tabletop Simulator and play through that a couple times.

SIU Job

I taught data journalism at SIU for the second time. It went well, despite meeting virtually for the second half. For the upcoming spring semester I’ll be teaching that again as well as a visual communication course.

STLPR Job

It was, no surprise, largely focused on the pandemic. I built a dashboard and a bot for our Slack that helps broadcast the stats to our reporters daily. Also worked on the election, of course. Flew the drone a couple times, including at a drive-in open for business during the pandemic. Among many many other things.

I think I’ve been into the newsroom a total of three or four times since the end of February.

Media

Some media I enjoyed this year, in no particular order:

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra played Beethoven’s 9th. Enough said.

Chris Thile and Andrew Bird played an incredibly joyful rendition of ‘Blue Skies’ on Live From Here. Also Live From Here got canceled, which is still disappointing to me.

I greatly enjoyed the streamed Sondheim 90th Birthday Concert.

Watched the filmed version of Hamilton on Disney+.

Speaking of streaming services, when we moved, we canceled DirecTV and got Hulu’s live TV service. So far, so good.

I watched the Cardinals play on opening day, which I’ve always enjoyed but was particularly significant this year amid the uncertainty.

I highly enjoyed AppleTV’s Central Park animated series, as well as Ted Lasso. My kids have also enjoyed Helpsters.

I didn’t read a whole lot. I borrowed the biography Weird Al: Seriously, and The Office: The Untold Story of the Greatest Sitcom of the 2000s: An Oral History from the library.

I watched a lot of YouTube:

• Cracking the Cryptic’s sudoku, which I’ve been enjoying the challenge of attempting every so often. The Miracle Sudoku is what introduced me and many other people to the channel.

• Late last year, we’d started watching the British comedy game show Taskmaster, and continued that as they posted new episodes.

• Richard Osman’s House of Games, Only Connect, and Pointless (and the celebrity edition) are other British game shows we’ll watch when new ones show up.

• Adam Savage, formerly of Mythbusters, has been doing a fantastic job during the pandemic on his channel Tested.

This is probably common enough knowledge if you use Siri often, but I don’t so here I am: If you ask Siri, at least on HomePod, “how long until my next alarm”, the answer will include alarms that are turned off.

This morning, my kid set an alarm for his next school meeting, but got the time wrong. I told Siri to “cancel the alarm”. Siri confirmed the alarm had been turned off. Then my kid correctly set an alarm.

A while later, my kid asked how long until his class. So we asked Siri “how long until my alarm”. Siri gave an incorrect time. Took me a minute to figure out the time was until the first, canceled alarm.

I asked Siri “what are my alarms”, and it listed both (but confirmed the incorrect one was turned off). I deleted the incorrect one.

Now asking “how long until my alarm” gives the right answer. It was confusing to me that asking “how long until my alarm” would include an alarm that’s turned off, but maybe there are situations where that would make sense.

The biggest change in the new year of course is the birth of my second child. I also applied for and was chosen to teach a data journalism class at SIU-Carbondale beginning in the Spring. Other than that, I don’t know. After reviewing the year, I mostly just feel exhausted.

Personally

The aforementioned child was born by the time February was here, so we spent most of the year adjusting to raising two kids instead of one.

Trips

Took mostly small trips, in town.

In April, we visited the St. Louis Science Center during an exhibit featuring the command module Columbia from the Apollo 11 mission. It was a surprisingly moving experience to be in the presence of it.

Also went to a Cardinals game with my Dad in April, to the Zoo in May, the Transportation Museum in June, a Cardinals game in June, Grant’s Farm and the Arch in August, the Arch again in September, and the Garden Glow at the Botanical Garden in December.

A couple larger trips my family took were to take the new baby to visit my family in May, another trip back there in Christmas and a trip to Carbondale, Ill. to fill out some paperwork for the job, when we also took in a football game and spent a day at Giant City State Park.

In June I also stopped by Chicago for a day on my way home from a work conference and got to hang out with a friend and his family.

Home Improvement

Didn’t do much to our house this year, unfortunately. Did clean out the back fence line again this fall, and dug out an old lava-rock-lined flower bed on the north side of the lot. Also bought a new battery-powered lawnmower and weed trimmer, which are working out well.

Hobbies

The singing with Greenleaf continues, beginning with a concert in January, as well as singing a bit at one of our member’s weddings. We also performed at the Renaissance Faire in Wentzville for three weekends, the concert at Eliot and our own concert in December. We finally sold tickets online for the first time for our own concert and that seemed to work well.

In February, I made a weather status indicator out of a Raspberry Pi and a Blinkt! module. Later in the month, I used a Scroll pHat HD and a Pi to animate a customizeable rainstorm. Inspired by the movie ‘Desk Set’ and its 1950s computer mainframe prop, I also coded up a version of that.

I think I played exactly one round of golf this year, at the Prairies in Cahokia.

In May, Pam and I went to “Geekway to the West”, a board game convention in St. Charles. They have a game library with all different kinds, vendors and publishers running demos, and lots of door prizes. Between Thursday and Sunday, I played 22 games. It was a lot of fun — we plan on going back again this year.

In August, I managed to finally use some scrap leather I bought at the Renaissance Faire the previous year to make a lcase for my AirPods. Turned out pretty good, and it was fun making it, although I haven’t done anything else with it.

In August, I also went bowling for the first time in a half-decade.

In September, I somehow got it in my head to go thrift store hunting. The first time out went pretty well, yielding a Gitman Bros. blue oxford shirt, a Land’s End pink OCBD, a Brooks Bros. broadcloth shirt and some Banana Republic Traveler Jeans. Around the same time I also nabbed a deal on a pair of new Levi’s for $13. Later in the year I got a couple new Jos. A. Bank corduroy jackets for $20 each, so I was feeling pretty well dressed by the end of the year.

In October, Pam and I went to a board game cafe, Pieces. It was a good time. We played Jaipur, Hive, Medieval Academy and Potion Explosion.

I keep on taking pictures. I bought a used Rokinon 85mm f1.4 lens, which I really enjoy using. Also got a 12mm f2 for Christmas this year, so I’ll be trying that out more too.

Arts

A NYT article in early January led me to ‘Force Majeure’ a weird, dark movie about relationships in a Swedish family on a ski trip. It was good, and one of those splinter-in-your-brain-type movies. It was a 2014 movie, so nothing new, but new to me.

While in Chicago for a work trip, I got to multitask and go to a Mac Power Users meetup and meet David Sparks, Katie Floyd, and Kourosh Dini, among many other fans of the show. It was a good time.

I watched ‘Jesus Christ Superstar Live’ on NBC on Easter Sunday. It was quite good.

Also in April, I was lucky enough to win the lottery to see Hamilton at the Fox. Pam and I went, and it exceeded expectations. Just incredible.

In August, I got to go see a couple friends performing in R-S Theatrics’ Light in the Piazza, which was delightful. I wasn’t familiar with the show or the soundtrack, and it was quite good.

In October, the “Rushmore of Nerdcore” tour came to the Firebird, with Schaffer the Darklord, Mega Ran, MC Lars and MC Frontalot. I heard MC Frontalot on his last trip through St. Louis, and I’m glad I went again.

I saw the Coen Bros’. Ballad of Buster Scruggs when it came out on Netflix. Not without its issues, but beautifully shot, and thought-provoking.

Finally, in December I happened to catch that TCM was playing White Christmas in a few theaters on a couple nights, so Pam and I went to see that. She really enjoys the movie, and it was nice to see it in a theater.

Food/Booze

My first restaurant meal in 2018, according to my Twitter, was a Courtesy Diner Slinger, so it was pretty much all downhill from there.

I also made it to Squatters Cafe several more times before it closed toward the end of the year. The chef is opening a new restaurant nearby, so I’m looking forward to that.

On the aforementioned Chicago work trip, I went to Portillo’s for the first time. I also went to Eataly, which was a couple blocks down from the hotel and Shake Shack a couple times, which was right across the street.

In September I got to take a VIP tour of the Schlafly Brewhouse downtown. It was interesting to see behind the scenes and in the basement, as well as taste some in-production stuff.

I made Krupnik again, and it turned out great. I took some to one of the Greenleaf cast parties and it seemed to be a hit.

I made some chili for our work chili cookoff in November. It did not win, but I thought it was pretty good. Got to make chili powder from scratch, too.

On Black Friday I managed to nab some bottles of 2018 Bourbon County Barrel Stout at Schnucks, so now I have bottles going back to 2015. Due to accidentally getting some extra 2017, I also cracked open a bottle of that, and it’s delicious, as expected.

Work

Got a new boss, got a new (side) job. Flew the drone a bunch, did a bunch of projects.

New Job

I saw an opening posted for a temporary part-time person to teach a data journalism class at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where I earned my degree from. It sounded like a good fit, so I applied, and I got it. I’ve been preparing for it ever since, and the first class is in two weeks. I’ll be commuting down there one day a week. So we’ll see how that goes. I’m excited.

Projects

Worked on lots of projects this year: A 10-year look back at the Great Recession, a major project on the 25th anniversary of the Flood of 93, a neat little graphic tracing the path of a baseball at Busch Stadium, our election night graphics, a investigative piece on Northside Regeneration, and a year-end Best of 2018 project.

And those are mostly just the larger projects, let alone the analyses, maps and daily graphics, tools, etc.

Trips

In March, NICAR was in Chicago. It was good, and more of the same. I helped lead a session on “Learn From My Fail.”

In June, I also got a spot at SRCCON in Minneapolis. A bit higher-level/more conceptual than NICAR is (also smaller), it was great to be able to take a step back for a few days and focus a bit wider than usual.

Drone

We finally got the drone and all the approvals and everything we needed to fly this year, so I got to take it out several times. I flew mostly in St. Louis, taking pictures of the new NGA site, the former Pruitt-Igoe site and St. Louis’ water towers. I also flew at a house that was flooded in 1993, though you couldn’t see the river from the house using the drone. I got it out over the Mississippi River to take some photos and video of the Merchants Bridge. And I took it out after a snowfall in December and got some footage and photos of the Mississippi River from the Illinois side just south of Chain of Rocks Bridge.

I was also on our radio talkshow in May to talk about the drone and how we’d use it, and again in July, this time live, to talk about Temporary Flight Restrictions in place around the President’s visit.

Thursday
Atlantis rising
Rising sun

Friday
El Dorado
Azul
Hardback
Sagrada
Cottage Garden
Rising Sun
Whistle Stop

Saturday
Sentient
Photosynthesis
Indian Summer
The Networks
Palace of Mad King Ludwig
Topiary
The Thing: Infection at outpost 13
Jaipur
Bottom of the Ninth
Settlers of Catan: Dice

Sunday
New York Slice
Topiary
Blueprints

I haven’t really done one of these before, so here goes.

Personally

The biggest news was finding out we’re having a second kid. That should happen within a month, so we’ve been anticipating it most of the year. Decided this time around to not find out if it’s a boy or girl, thus doubling the difficulty of choosing a name.

The current kid grows up more and more each week (as happens, I suppose). One of the most surprising things was when he began singing more: On the way home from school one day he knocked out a pretty good rendition of the National Anthem, and toward the end of the year he started singing a handful of Christmas carols including about three verses of Deck the Halls as well as more words of Feliz Navidad than I know. He keeps saying he wants a baby sister but we’ll see how it goes.

Trips

We took a few trips this year: We all took Amtrak to Washington D.C. for a week in May/June. I had a work conference there and Pamela and Maxwell came along. We got to see the sights and met up with Kate, Kevin and Ann, friends of mine from high school. Went to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History, which was pretty cool. Bought a bunch of rocks as souvenirs. Flew back, Maxwell’s first time on a plane. He did fine — didn’t really realize what was going on, I think.

Also went back to Danville in July for my aunt’s birthday party. The hot-air balloon festival happened to be going on then too, so we went out to the airport to see that. Also went back in November for Thanksgiving, instead of for Christmas, because of the new baby.

Not really an out of town trip, but we did go over to Columbia, Ill. to see the eclipse. I really enjoyed it. Not sure how to put it into words.

Went on a couple other work trips.

Home improvement

Got some work done around the house: Took a tree down in the backyard that was pushing the fence into the neighbor’s yard and got the one in front pruned. Also cleared out much of the invasive honeysuckle bush along the back fence, hoping to plant a hedge there in the spring. My friend Katheryn offered us a swingset that her kids had outgrown, so Pam’s parents and we went over there to break it down. Put it up in our backyard a couple weeks later when my parents came to visit, so my dad could help. Finally got the deck on the back of the house replaced. Also working on getting the upstairs in shape to move some of the kids’ toys up there and make a little more room for us down here.

Hobbies

Played board games with friends a few times, and learned some new ones: Good Cop, Bad Cop; Arboretum (both played with Barb and Jim); Tiny Epic Galaxies (which I got for Christmas); Lost Cities (which Pam got for Christmas); Tournament at Camelot (bought for a game night with Barb and Jim). Also built a couple Kallax shelves from IKEA to hold our games and books and such to replace some decade-or-more old shelves we had in the dining room.

Didn’t golf at all. Pamela did a bit, but I don’t think I got my clubs out once, even to go to the driving range. I did take up woodcarving for a couple weeks. When I was clearing out the yard I got a branch that I thought might make a good walking stick, and rather than leave the bark on as I did last time, I stripped it. I then got it in my head that it might be nice to carve a design into it. I picked up a basic set of chisels and a hunk of basswood (which I later found out is also Linden, which is coincidentally one of the trees I have) to practice with. Didn’t really get anywhere with it (I have block of wood with something roughly approximating a leaf in low relief on top), but I still have the walking stick branch in the basement so maybe next year.

Kept on singing with Greenleaf. I handled our contract for the Renaissance Faire, which went okay. They insisted on five weekends, which was a bit overwhelming for our group. We took on a couple extra singers just for faire which helped immensely. We also finally nailed things down for a recording and did that in September. Got to sing at Eliot after missing it last year for Pete’s wedding. Also did our concert at Prince of Peace, did the St. Charles Christmas Traditions parade again and sang at the Daniel Boone House in an old chapel lit entirely by candlelight.

Got a new iPad (the 9.7″ iPad pro), and upgraded my phone from a 6 Plus to an 8 Plus. Also backed a Kickstarter by Loog and got a cherry red 3-string electric guitar. Kid likes it too. Got a macro lens for my camera for Christmas and I’m having a great deal of fun with it so far.

Arts

Read fewer books than I should. Borrowed Raven Rock after hearing an NPR interview with the author. It’s about Cold War preparations in the U.S. for nuclear war. Quite thorough, and interesting. I enjoyed it. I also read Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections and liked it.

I got to see Chris Thile when he came to the radio station to play a show. I met him before he played and told him how much I enjoyed his hosting of The Show Formerly Known as A Prairie Home Companion (it wasn’t “Live From Here” yet) as well as his collaboration with Brad Mehldau, which I’d been listening to a lot of. I’ve mostly just kept up with podcasts — Merlin’s (Back to Work, Reconcilable Differences, and I started listening to Do By Friday), Marco’s (ATP and Under the Radar) and Pete’s (How to Be Awesome at Your Job) as well as some others (99% Invisible, Broadway Backstory, Mortified, The Moth, The Omni Show, etc.). Also S-Town.

In live theater, there wasn’t much. Pamela and I saw The Moth on stage at The Sheldon when our station brought them in, and then I saw my friend Ann in New Line’s The Sweet Smell of Success. That’s about it, really — I need to see more shows.

Food/Booze

Most notably, I got to try some Pappy Van Winkle 12-year at the Royale in January. Pam had taken Maxwell up north to visit her grandparents, leaving me behind. There was a big ice storm here. Steven Smith posted a photo of the bottle on Twitter, saying “A good reason to leave the house. It won’t last long.” I was there in 10 minutes.

In other booze news, I nabbed some 2017 Urban Chestnut Wolpertinger and the 2017 release of the Bourbon County Brand Stout.

I had several notable meals. Anew, an event space near my job, had several “test kitchen/popup” things this year. I went to one in March put on by The Social Affair with some delicious biscuits and gravy. Then there was one in December by Café Osage, where I had a pork schnitzel sandwich on challah bread. Both delicious. And a new place opened up down the street from work, inside KDHX: Squatters Café. I’ve only been twice, but each time has been great.

Work

Did some stuff at work. Lots of staff turnover. A couple trips. Lots of stuff to look forward to.

Projects

Probably the biggest project I worked on was our Millennium Mayor project. It was a limited-run podcast focusing on a handful of days in the tenure of Mayor Slay, at the end of his run. I made a stand-alone website for it, and it turned out not too bad, I think (mostly because of the content, not my work, but still).

Also put together a one-page mayoral candidates guide for the primary race that I particularly liked how it came together.

Did a thing where we graded Missouri legislators. It was…okay. I like the idea, but there’s so much intangible that it would take a lot more human intervention to do well than we allowed for it.

Published our “NFL Tweets” project — an idea by a reporter to ask who St. Louisans were tweeting about in the NFL since the Rams left. It also turned out alright — my largest dataset in a project to date. But that data came with some shortcomings that made it tough to draw conclusions from.

Also did election graphics (of course), census graphics, a timeline of the East Saint Louis riots and a quiz to help figure out if you have the right ID to vote.

Trips

Kicked off the year with a trip to Jacksonville, Florida for NICAR 2017. Good times. The hotel was a bit less conducive to hanging out than in prior years, but overall it was great. It’s always nice to be able to hang out with the folks I usually only ever see online. I also remember the river was just outside half of the conference rooms, so you could see the boats going by.

In May/June I got to go on the aforementioned trip to D.C. for the Education Writers Association conference because We Live Here’s stories on racial disparities in suspensions was nominated for an award, and they asked me to present on it. I got to be on a panel with Nathaniel Lash, who presented on his Pulitzer Prize-winning project Failure Factories.

And in July, I filled in for coworkers at the Missouri Urban Journalism Workshop, a week-long “journalism camp” for high-schoolers at Mizzou. Most of the other instructors had some connection to Mizzou, but not me. Still, I had a good time and it was refreshing to get my head out of the code and get back to basics again. Also I got to meet some friends from KBIA for the first time, so that was nice also.

Drone

Toward the end of 2016, when the FAA was getting ready to enact Part 107 to make commercial drone use easier, I went to a boot camp to learn what I needed to learn to get licensed. I pushed to get one at work, but it never materialized. Until this year.

We got a donation earmarked for the purpose, so I took the Part 107 test (passed with a 95%), and spend the end of the year ordering, then testing the drone as well as putting together all our documentation and procedures about it. I’m presenting on it to the newsroom next week and am looking forward to using it in the coming year.

Other stuff

I got to meet and interview Jer Thorp when he was here installing a project of his called the St. Louis Map Room. It aired, one of a few times I’ve been on the radio. That was fun.