I deactivated my Facebook account on Saturday. Things I expected from doing that included not missing it all, and exactly zero Facebook friends noticing and reaching out via other channels, like email. I've owned this domain since 1998. Anybody that knows me knows how to find me.

What I did not expect was Facebook changing my wife's status to single, because if she is not married to an active FB user, she is not married. I heard from a Mastodon user that she had the same issue years ago when she quit FB and they made her husband single, so this is not an unknown bug. I'm guessing it's a feature. Forcing her to single status opens up a whole range of new ads to serve her.

So, I guess if you've been lusting after my wife on Facebook, now is your time to take your shot.

Good luck with that. /s

Based on the amount of pollen on my car windshield, I'd say that Spring has sprung in RVA. It's that lovely time of year when everything is covered in yellow dust. Everything includes my home office, as I've had the window open and now everything in here is covered in a layer of yellow dust. Ugh. I guess I'll be vacuuming today.

I spent most of yesterday prepping the camper for camping season. I drained all the antifreeze from the plumbing system, then sanitized it with bleach water for a couple of hours while I was doing other stuff. I gave the camper a nice hand wash, and also cleaned out the gray water tank and the hot water tank. After the pipes soaked in bleach water for a couple of hours I drained and rinsed everything really well. Then we went through our camping checklist and moved all the stuff we moved to garage for the winter back into the camper, and made a shopping list of supplies we need to buy. The systems test was 100% good, with the AC, heat, and stove all working properly. So we are ready to go camping.

Saturday night we went out to our favorite club for jazz. I know nothing about jazz. Perusing the artists Wikipedia page between sets told me we were listening to bebop, or maybe post-bop or hard-bop.Every song was about 12 minutes long and was structured as a serious of solos. I never want to hear anybody complain about indulgent solos in metal again! It was really cool though and I enjoyed being exposed to a genre of music that I had absolutely no familiarity with. And of course, it's always fun to get dressed up (for very liberal definitions of dressed up) and go out with my lovely wife.

On to the links.

I wrote about the realization that I've been a baseball and Red Sox fan for 51 years.

I also wrote about not letting the walk-on actors in the play of your life linger.

Justin Pot wrote about how chasing external validation (likes, clicks, money, etc.) is ruining, well, everything.

How to make a one-page mini-zine seems like a useful life skill.

This Wikipedia page of unusual articles provides unlimited options for reading stuff on your phone instead of doomscrolling.

Owls in Towels delivers exactly what the title advertises.

An unknown photographer took thousands of amazing photos documenting the anti-war protests in San Francisco in the late 1960s. Maybe you can help figure out who took this amazing collection of photos?

If you struggle with the amount of time you spend staring at your phone this guide to giving your smart phone a lobotomy may be useful.

This fascinating article reviews some studies of urban animals that are determining how living in close proximity to humans is changing coyotes, raccoons, etc. Spoiler alert, it makes them bolder and smarter.

This article argues that olds can expand their minds by listening to new music, but we need to know where to draw the line, because a 50-something listening to whatever is popular today is fine, but recognize that you'll never be of the current generation. You are still an old and should behave like one.

The protesters guide to phone security. Just posting this due to academic interest. I am absolutely not the type of person that that would protest the current regime in the US. I'm a loyal subject.

Are they gone? Good.

Fuck Trump, and every single person that supports him.

That's all for this week. In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind.

While working this afternoon, I had the Red Sox game on audio streaming. It's opening day at Fenway, and they were honoring the 50th anniversary of the 1975 team.

I started following baseball with the 1974 Red Sox. That means I've been a baseball and Red Sox fan for 51 years.

I'm not old. You're old!

The Red Sox have been an important part of 89% of my life. You now have all the data you need to figure out my age. ?Math will be required. Hint, the Red Sox lost a World Series to the Cardinals just a month before I was born.

My very first memory of baseball is my parents allowing me to sleep on the floor in the living room when we lived in Spain. Evening games in the US started around midnight in Madrid. So I'd lay on the floor and listen to the Red Sox games when they were broadcast on Armed Forces Radio. My first memory of a specific game is the Red Sox losing big to the Royals. I've gone back and looked at Red Sox vs. Royals games in 1974, and I can't pinpoint the exact game. Other than the occasional game on the radio, I followed the Red Sox via the sports section of The Stars and Stripes.

We moved back to the states ?in Spring of 1975, toward the end of my 3rd grade year. We were at Grissom AFB near Peru, Indiana, so I could get all the Cubs games on the little B&W TV in my bedroom. Yes, I had a TV in my bedroom in 3rd grade. Today's parents giving their kids phones at age 7 is just a new take on a questionable parenting decision, although the phones are more of a problem than a B&W TV that picked up 4 or 5 channels. Looking back, I wonder why I didn't become a Cubs fan. I could watch every Cubs game. The Red Sox were only on TV if they were the Saturday Game of the Week or on Monday Night Baseball. I assume I watched the 1975 World Series, although I can't claim any specific memory of watching it.

The less said about 1978 the better.?

As I got into my high school years I was still a fan, but girls, music, and partying took precedence in my life. In the early to mid-80s. Also, my last two years of high school (83-85) were spent on Kwajalein Island in the Marshall Islands. Following sports back on the mainland was a challenge. Not that I would have, as I lived somewhere with amazing beaches, and it was 87F 365 days a year.

I remember exactly where I was for the Buckner ground ball. I was a sophomore in college, and we had roadtriped to a nearby campus where our fraternity had a chapter. We were watching game 6 on a big screen TV and the Red Sox had a comfortable lead after the top of the 10th inning. With victory apparently assured, we left early to beat the crowds to the bars. I remember walking into the bar and seeing the Mets celebrating on the TV screens, and wondering what the hell had happened while we walked from the frat house to the bar.?

I graduated from college in 1989 and moved to Atlanta. So Red Sox games on TV were relegated to the Saturday Game of the Week, as Monday Night Baseball was off the air by then. So through most of the 90s, I paid more attention to the Braves than the Red Sox. In the days before interleague play, you could have a favorite team in both leagues without worrying about any rooting interest conflicts unless they both made the World Series.? My baseball memories of the 90s are more centered on Sid Bream's slide into home and dominating pitching performances by Maddux and Glavine than anything the Red Sox did.

2003 about killed me, and then, of course, 2004 was redemption. I did the Red Sox parent thing and got my then 10-year-old son out of bed to witness the glory that was the Red Sox finally winning a World Series. Neither my grandfather nor father, both born in Woburn, MA, lived to see the Red Sox finally get over the hump.? Then I got spoiled, with the Red Sox winning the World Series in 2007, 2013, and 2018.

In the Spring of 2018 I wrote about my changing relationship with baseball. I was still a fan, but it was more casual. We were friends with benefits. I didn't live and die on the ups and downs of the Red Sox trip through the schedule.? In the Spring of 2022 I wrote about my relationship with baseball again, this time trending even more into casual fandom. I went as far as to not sign up for MLB.tv and just deal with whatever games were on whatever collection of streaming channels and OTR channels that we could watch. The Red Sox have not been a playoff threat the last three seasons, so barely paying attention worked well for me.

This year, I've decided to re-engage with the Red Sox. It's not that I'm expecting them to win, but more that I need the distraction from everything else. ? I wrote about this, too, back in February.

I need to end this, but I don't really have an ending. Happy first game of the season at Fenway to all who celebrate. ?

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I skipped last week. Did anybody even notice?

I was in Atlanta for work (and play) last week. DrupalCon North America was Mon-Thur this week, and having lived in Atlanta for most of the 90s, with my mom and brothers still there, I took advantage of the situation and flew down a few days early to visit family and friends before work started on Sunday night. And by "work," I mean the pre-conference happy hour party at a brewery. The conference kept me busy with the conference all day and industry parties (free food and drinks!) in the evenings. In what may be a sign of maturity, or maybe old age, I was in bed before midnight every night, and before 11 PM all nights except one.

I really didn't do much in Atlanta other than conference stuff. The preceeding weekend I did catch up with some old friends and have dinner with my mom and brothers. The Sunday before the conference started I wandered around the Atlanta Botanical Gardens and took pictures. I was probably about two weeks early for peak Spring blooms (no Azaleas in bloom and the Rhododendrons were just starting) but it was still plenty of pretty flowers to see.

One thing I noticed is that by being busy at the conference or socializing at the parties, I did not look at the news at all for 4 days. I was very happy those 4 days. Those two statements are probably not unrelated. I constantly struggle with finding the balance between engaging with the shit show that is my country's government right now, and just tuning it all out to benefit my mental health. Timothy Leary may have been onto something.

My flights both ways were uneventful, which is not a given in the US these days.

I came back home to delightful weather and wore shorts for the first time this year yesterday. Looking at the forecast, it looks certain that we are done with freezing temps until November. So you know what means...

Camping Season is here!

I will pull the camper out of storage next weekend and spend an afternoon testing all systems and getting it in order for camping season. We don't have any camping trips booked before Memorial Day (last weekend in May for my non-US friends) but we will certainly camp at least twice before then.

I have no links to share this week. If it's nice outside where you are turn off the computer and go get some natural Vitamin D.

That's all for this week. In a world where you can choose to be anything, choose to be kind.

If our lives are a movie or play, then many of the people we meet are walk-on actors. They are not central to the story. I'm talking about people like:

• The guy you met at a conference for 15 minutes in 2006 that is still on your LinkedIn contact list
• That fun German couple that you shared a table with in a Dublin pub while on vacation in 2012
• Most of your high school graduating class

Before social media, those people were just memories after their "scene" in your life. And that was fine. It's the natural order of things. Nobody thinks about the actors with walk-on roles once they are off-screen. And back in the day, you really didn't think about the walk-ons in your life after their scene, either.

But now, you are connected with the walk-ons on multiple social networks, and the algorithm tosses them into your view once in a while. Is that a good thing?

I'd argue that it is not. Our ability to juggle hundreds of social relationships at a time is much, much worse than we believe. The walk-ons in our lives are not supposed to stay front and center in our minds. Also, you may learn on Facebook that the nice German couple are actually neo-Nazis. In option one, you have the great memory of the night at a pub table, with little to zero chance of every running into them again. In option two, the memory is ruined when they post a picture with their new Cybertruck on Facebook.

Yes, every once in a great while, a walk-on makes it to Broadway. If that is going to happen in your life, it won't be because of a Facebook connection. It'll happen regardless. So relax and let it happen, or not. But stop trying to manage 1200 Facebook friends in the process. 50 meaningful relationships > 500 "Facebook friends."

Focus on the 50.

Note: I borrowed this concept from an article or maybe a post in the Fediverse. But I didn't note the source with my note about it. If you recognize it and know the source please share so I can provide proper credit, as this is not my original idea.