Last week I found Blue Moon NA at Food Lion. On first sip I thought it had a weird after taste. Then I decided maybe it was more carbonated than a traditional Blue Moon White Belgian Ale, and was coming off more "soda-like" than a NA beer. But all that faded and by the 2nd beer it tasted fine and when I drank the last two last night it just tasted like Blue Moon to me.

So I don't know what was going on with that first can, but I think this NA beer is good. Maybe I'll try another six pack to be sure.

?I made my first attempt at a de-Googed life in 2011, and wrote this final update in 2013. Long time noted online citizen Tim Bray is writing about de-Googling in 2024, which caused me to think about my post, and that led to this update 13 years later.

I still use Duck Duck Go as my primary search engine, and also as my browser on an Android phone. I use Chrome with the DDG extension on my Linux desktop. I'd prefer to use Firefox, but it got very crashy and I got tired of dealing with it.

In 2018 I did a PHP cleanse and converted my web site to a flat file format. I have completed zero security patches on my website since 2018. When I did that I stopped using TT-RSS and experimented with a number of RSS solutions before settling on simply using Thunderbird as an RSS client and not worrying about having access to my feeds from any device. Today, I'm using a browser extension called FeedBro, which is a fine RSS reader, but a terrible name for software.

Also around 2018, my web host sold out to Go Daddy, so it was time to make a change there too. I ended up putting the website at NearlyFreeSpeech.net, and email is with PolarisMail out of Canada. I do still have my Gmail address from 2004, it simply forwards to my domain account. I still use it when providing an email address verbally because it is so much easier than insuring odonnellweb gets spelled correctly.

Calendar services are also provided by PolarisMail, as my $24/year email plan gets me CalDav services.

Photo sharing is one thing I still kind of struggle with. It doesn't make sense to pay for Flickr for my use case. I've tried NextCloud several times and something always turns me off that solution. The Photo sharing kind of sucks and it's very basic. I do let my phone sync to Google Photos, but that is mostly for backup. When I want to share a photo album I create it off line with a Perl script called FGallery and then upload to this website. I am thinking about going back to NextCloud though, as Dropbox is all-in on the AI bullshit.

File sync and general backup is via a paid Dropbox account. I also archive MP3 and photos on an AWS S3 account. Having typed that out I realize that I don't need to back up to Google Photos at all.

I have tried to move away from Google Maps but the reality is that on Android, none of the other options measure up. I've tried several OSM powered flavors and also HereWeGo. HereWeGo maps as well as Google, but does not have the POI and business database that Google does. I also tried Copilot, which is paid and includes RV routing, but didn't like it either.

Premium YouTube did not exist in 2011, and we watch a lot of YouTube videos these days. If we count that as "using Google" then I'm using more Google than I was in 2011. If we ignore YouTube, then it's about the same.

So I'm going with using Google about the same as I did 13 years ago.

I've been looking forward to trying this one for a while. Back in December I picked up the Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Habano and Espinosa Knuckle Sandwich Maduro, both in the Robusto vitola.  The Knuckle Sandwhich line is the result a collaboration between chef Guy Fieri and Erik Espinosa. I'm an admitted fan of the boisterous celebrity chef, and hoped the cigars would be representative his personality. Not just another celebrity putting his brand on a product, Fieri is a longtime cigar enthusiast. 

Loudermilk centers on Sam Loudermilk, an alcoholic who runs a support group at a Catholic Church in Seattle managed by a foul-mouthed priest. Sam is a cranky misanthrope who still isn't over his ex-wife, he's an ex-Rolling Stone music journalist with several published books that can't write sober, and he's played wonderfully by Ron Livingston.

This is a comedy, and although it gets silly at times, the addiction of the support group participants are almost always central to the stories, making it a dark, and sometimes very dark comedy about how managing your addiction is sometimes the easy part of life as an addict.

It only had a 3-year run on Netflix, meaning you can binge all 30 episodes fairly quickly. We finished this week, after starting maybe 3 weeks ago.

We watched The Last Tourist, which is a documentary on Hulu about how unsustainable the modern tourism industry is. I was expecting 2 hours of ignorant western tourists and their selfie sticks, and there was some of that before it went in a much darker direction, diving into animal abuse in SE Asia and orphanage tourism in Kenya, and how demand from the developed world makes these problems worse. It got pretty damn dark and depressing before focusing on some success stories and how tourism can be a force for good. The overriding message of the documentary is that tourism inevitably changes the places people are going, so it's incumbent on us to work to make sure those changes are positive. As it stands today, only about 15% of the tourism dollars stay in the underdeveloped places westerners are visiting.

I hate the idea of cruise ships and all-inclusive resorts, two things that were criticized in the movie. I don't understand why anyone would go someplace interesting like Jamaica and then spend the entire trip on a resort with other well off tourists. That sounds more like hell than a vacation to me.

I'd rather be out in the woods or at the beach in my camper, preferably with limited people around, but that is hard to accomplish sometimes.

I tried this while at a concert last weekend. I quite enjoyed it. It doesn't have the nose I would expect in a West Coast IPA, but the flavor was there. It's a worthy addition to list of NA beers you'll enjoy drinking.

More warm weather, means more cocktails and cigars on the deck. As I was perusing the virtual stack of drink recipes I've gathered over time, I came across one for a Grenadine Old Fashioned that sounded interesting.

March 1 marked the first day of "meteorological spring." The actual start of spring is still three weeks off, but the days are getting longer and warmer. The bulbs are sprouting in the garden, and the birds in the trees are active. And it's pleasant enough for a smoke on the deck. 

All the social media things reminded me that Tuesday, February 27 was "National Cigar Day." On February 27th, 1883 Oscar Hammerstein I recieved a patent for an automated cigar rolling machine. While our preference is for hand-rolled cigars, Hammerstien changed the cigar industry with some 80 cigar related patents. As an aside Oscar Hammerstein I was the grandfather of Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II, of the famous Rogers & Hammerstein duo. 

Today, February 27, is the Feast Day of St. Gabriel Possenti.

Legend holds that Gabriel Possenti was a Catholic seminarian in Isola del Gran Sasso, Italy. In 1860 he is said to have used his skills with the pistol to drive off a band of marauding soldiers who were terrorizing the town. Possenti faced the troublemakers after grabbing revolvers from two soldiers. As they laughed at the young student, he took aim and accurately shot a lizard that was running across the road. Impressed, the soldiers left the town, escorted by the seminarian, who had become the hero of the town.

Like many Saints, there's an unclear line between the facts of the Saint's life and the tradition associated with him. However, this story about Gabriel Possenti has led to him being promoted as the Patron Saint of Handgunners. The St. Gabriel Possenti Society was created for the purpose of promoting the Saint's cause. The society promoted the study of the historical, philosophical and theological bases for the doctrine of self-defense. Sadly, the founder of the group died in 2017 and it appears the organization is no longer active.


A few years ago, our parish was presented with a relic of St. Gabriel Possenti, under the title St. Gabriel of Our Lady of Sorrows. It was an exciting moment when I saw the blurb announcing the displayed relic in our weekly bulletin. Since then, I've enjoyed sharing the story of Gabriel Possenti with many parishioners. I dare say most of our Catholic friends who also enjoy the shooting sports are now familiar with the Saint and his story.

In another interesting "coincidence," my Virginia Concealed Handgun permit was originally issued on February 27, the Feast Day of the Patron Saint of Handgunners!

St. Gabriel Possenti ora pro nobis!