Name checking “The Valley of Hearts Delight”? Check. Heirloom stone fruit? Check! I now want to live in the South Bay again just to grow fruit trees!

Does it?? I’m, uh, asking for a friend…
Seriously, though, it gets a little overly romantic as it goes on, but how many articles do you read that talk about Philip Glass as a plumber?

Washington Post

Here is your feel good story of the week. The title says it all. Well, it leaves out an important stat line: playing in an NHL game for the first time, Scott Foster had 7 stops in the fourteen minutes he played.

From the article, “Foster is one of a small group of ’emergency backup’ goaltenders who are kept on hand, usually in the press box or the stands, in the highly unlikely event both regular goalies on the roster are hurt or otherwise unavailable.

‘Among hockey’s great quirks,’ as Hockey News explained, ‘is that it’s the only pro sport with the potential for someone not on the roster to come out of the stands and actually play in the game.’ But, ‘it takes a very rare set of circumstances to open that door.'”

Pod Save America

On a Five Things a few weeks ago I recommended NPR as a relatively balanced place to get in-depth political insight. Pod Save America is unabashedly not balanced. It’s hard left, but in an incredibly thoughtful way that is largely missing. One of this weeks podcasts is given over completely to an interview with former Vice President Joe Biden, and it gives me hope. Well, it makes me sad he didn’t run, but it gives me hope that some day politics can return to normalcy. Some day…

“Co-worker got his lunch stolen and they’ve agreed to let him watch the security camera tape.”
Twitter
This thread is one of the reasons I adore Twitter. Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot of terrible stuff on Twitter, but I maintain it’s who you follow. I have a wonderfully eclectic list of folks I follow that almost always make me smile. And then there’s gems like this. Please, click on it, follow the thread, enjoy.

Co-worker got his lunch stolen and they’ve agreed to let him watch the security camera tape. This is the most excited I’ve ever been at any job ever. Ever.

— Zak Toscani (@zaktoscani) March 29, 2018

I still owe you the third and final installment of “Utterly Unexplainable”, but it’s been a rough week for a number of reasons, one of which was that the internet went out at my house mid-week. The cable modem is upstairs and I’ve been using, well…

This thing has been working wonderfully for some time. Rather than running a CAT5 cable from upstairs, this uses the house’s electrical wiring to carry the network signal down to my wifi access point. Turns out, it doesn’t work very well when people working on the unit upstairs unplugs it upstairs.

Oops.

Plugged back in, literally and figuratively, let’s move on to the rest of the list…

The Choctaw people, who had just been forced from their land to to an Oklahoma reservation, who had everything stolen from them, still put together funds to donate to the Irish during the potato famine. Another instance of those with the least giving the most of themselves. This lifted my spirits after a rough week.

The last two Bullitt tribute Mustangs were beautiful, and I absolutely adored the reveal of the forthcoming 2019 Bullitt Mustang when it was revealed during the North American Auto Show next to… the original Bullitt Mustang. Here’s the fascinating story of how that car went from being “lost” in a garage to the brightest stage in the automotive world.

Meet one of the best Ferrari mechanics in the country and how she persevered through some rough times.

If you’re a car nerd, then this is pure car porn. For most people it’s just a new engine that’s going into some of the top-of-the-line Mercedes, but like so many technologies that start at the top, this engine provides a preview of what’s to come for the future of the internal combustion engine: the conversion of the engine electronics from 12 to 48 volts; the addition of a particulate trap (like on diesels) to offset an unintended consequence of the increasingly-necessary direct fuel injection; an electric supercharger that spools up almost instantly to negate the larger down-stream turbocharger. It’s a beautiful, brilliant piece of engineering.

I’ve been seeking out a great keyboard for my keyboard-less devices since I first bought a folding keyboard for my faux Palm Pilot, the Handspring Treo Prism back in the 90’s. I’ve tried a number of keyboards with iPads over the years, but I love this one with my iPad Air. It matches the Apple aesthetic and looks like a little laptop — I’ve had more than one person mistake it for a MacBook Air. I won’t pretend the keys are the finest in the world, but they’re responsive enough, they’re backlit, and most days I take the iPad with the Brydge instead of lugging around my laptop. Love it. 

Retractable Lightning/Micro USB Cable

As you might have guessed from above, I’m in a predominantly Apple-tech universe. However, I have plenty of devices that require Micro USB for charging, too. Rather than carry two cables around, I carry one similar to this (the one I have isn’t made anymore, but this is pretty close). It’s not super long, but the convenience more than makes up for the short length, and having both types of connector ends has allowed me to help Android-using friends when their batteries run low.

I don’t know if this the best power bank out there, but I’ve had it for the last four years and — with the state of the battery on my ancient iPhone — I rarely go anywhere without it. The wonderful thing is, with 10,000 mAh I don’t have to recharge it all the time. Oh, and the ability to charge two devices at once is handy, too!

I’ve always wanted a Moleskine notebook but haven’t been able to justify the price. One of these days. In the meantime, when I was shopping for a notebook, I decided to give the AmazonBasics notebook a try (it’s almost six bucks cheaper). Like I said, I haven’t used a real Moleskine, but this is a great little notebook. Rediscovering writing (with awesome colored pens!) has been a lot of fun, and the pages don’t bleed through — I’m not using Sharpies, but the ink is still heavier than a traditional ball point.

Above I mentioned that often I just carry my iPad with the Brydge these days, this is what I carry it in. I’ve tried a lot of gear bags over the years — oversized messenger bags, gear backpacks, tactical bags — and they all have their benefits, but this guy is great for its size — and price. Usually I carry everything above, along with whatever paperback I’m reading and more. It’s small enough that it’s barely noticeable.