New Worlde streak milestone of 150. Weird to think I have only missed 5 words in almost 600 games played. Note: I use a copy of the OG site which is why the font and style may look odd compared to the NY Times site.

We spent a week in the Adirondacks and had a lovely time. The house we rented was on Fern Lake, about 30 minutes southwest of Plattsburgh.

Always fun going through the post vacation ritual of making HomeKit happy again. Half the switches that are supposed to stay on were turned off and other random Hue failures.

The way the radar images load in the Apple Weather app is so frustrating. I never know if there isn’t precipitation or if the image of it just hasn’t loaded yet. Can they bring back the old Safari checkerboard loading style while the images load? Don’t even get me started on the animated loop.

California Vacation 2023 Part One: San Francisco

Golden Gate bridge in a little bit of fog

Our big vacation this year was to a new state for me, California!

We spent three nights at Hotel Del Sol in the Marina District. The neighborhood was fantastic with pretty quick access to the restaurants of Union street and only a couple blocks from a MUNI bus stop.

The first morning we went to Alcatraz Island National Park and checked out the old prison, but also enjoyed seeing the bird sanctuary part of the island.

Inside Alcatraz Prison with view of cells

External view of Alcatraz island from a ferry boat

After Alcatraz we wandered along the waterfront. We had some delicious crepes for lunch at Crepe Cafe on Pier 39 and then took our chances with Magowans Infinite Mirror Maze people in a mirror maze at Magowans Infinite Mirror maze

The last thing we did down at the waterfront was Musee Mecanique, where there are hundreds of old arcade games and mechanical entertainment devices. an old photo viewing machine

For dinner we went to Roam Artisan Burgers and followed that up with ice cream at Swensen’s

On Saturday morning we woke up, grabbed breakfast from the hotel and then made our way towards the Presidio. On the way there we did stop for a little drone flight from the top of one of the hills.

View of San Francisco from a drone

We explored the Presidio national park site on the morning of our last day and wandered under the eucalyptus trees while exploring different Andy Goldsworthy sculptures.

eucalyptus trees along lovers lane in the Presidio Park of San Francisco

Lunch at Golden Boy Pizza Waiting for pizza outsie Golden Boy Pizza

After lunch we spent the afternoon at the amazing Exploratorium and only left because they shut the power off to all the exhibits at closing time.

On the last night we had some delicious mexican food from Los Hermanos

Our go to coffee for the entire visit was Equator Coffees

We picked up our rental car down by the waterfront and started our journey towards our next vacation destination near Yosemite. On the way there we took a little detour near Santa Cruz to visit Harry Cowell Redwoods State Park We walked around the entire park and took in the amazing trees and even got to go inside some of them. It really was an unbelievable sight.

Redwood trees at Harry Cowell redwoods state park

photo loop of clouds passing by a tower of the Golden Gate Bridge

I’m watching the iOS 17 portion of the WWDC keynote wondering how each of the features will fit into the headset story.

Iced Brown Sugar Vanilla Latte

  1. Add 1.5 tablespoons of brown sugar
  2. Add 1 teaspoon vanilla syrup
  3. Add 1 shot of espresso
  4. Froth it with a frothed for 30 seconds
  5. Add five ice cubes
  6. Add ½ cup milk
  7. Enjoy the mix of coffee and brown sugar

I spent a good part of yesterday playing Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. There are a lot of similarities with its predecessor including its ability to suck me in for really long stretches of time.

Pizza Pot Pie Recipe

  • 2 20oz oven safe bowls
  • 1 lb bag of premade pizza dough from the supermarket
  • 10 slices of mozzarella cheese
  • 24oz jar of bolognese style pasta meat sauce
  • 8 white button mushrooms
  • 10 pepperonis
  1. Remove the pizza dough from the refrigerator and let it get up to room temperature and rise a little bit.
  2. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit.
  3. Split the dough into two sections.
  4. Roll out the dough to the a size where it drapes over the side of the bowl and kind of wraps around (it will probably be a little thick).
  5. Set the dough aside.
  6. Grease the inside of a bowl using butter, olive oil or cooking spray so the cheese won’t stick to the bottom of the bowl.
  7. Line the bowl with the slices of cheese. They should overlap to prevent gaps and should also cover the entire bottom of the bowl.
  8. Add 4 of the mushrooms into the bowl on top of the cheese.
  9. Place 5 pepperonis into the bowl in between and on top of the mushrooms.
  10. Pour the meat sauce into the bowl (I used a little less than half of the container for each bowl).
  11. Lay the pizza dough over the top of the bowl so it drapes over the edge almost to the counter.
  12. Grease the outside of the bowl with butter, olive oil or cooking spray so the dough won’t stick to the bowl.
  13. Press the dough against the sides of the bowl to form a nice sealed package.
  14. Repeat for the second pie.
  15. Place both bowls on a baking sheet in case there is spillage.
  16. Put the baking sheet with the pies in the oven for 35 minutes.
  17. Remove from the oven and let stand for 2 minutes.
  18. Using pot holders or oven mitts place transfer the bowl to a plate.
  19. Hold a large spoon between plate and the bowl and with an oven mitt on top flip the bowl over.
  20. Use the spoon to separate the dough from the sides of the bowl and remove the bowl.
  21. Scoop any extra cheese out of the bowl into the pie

Trip to Chicago

Last weekend, my wife and I went on a weekend getaway to Chicago and had a fantastic time. I think it was the first time we went on a flight somewhere without the kids since our trip to Iceland back in 2014. We flew Southwest out of Manchester, NH on Friday night and landed at Chicago Midway around 8:30. On the ride to the hotel, I ordered my first pizza of the weekend from Giordano’s. It took about an hour for it to get delivered to the hotel, but it was really good. a slice of chicago deep dish pizza

In the morning we woke up and went out for breakfast at Goddess and the baker. I had a cinnamon roll cruffin and had a hard time figuring out whether to use a fork and knife or just use my hands.

We checked out Cloud Gate sculpture, aka the Bean exterior picture of the cloud gate bean in chicago reflective picture from underneath the cloud gate bean in chicago

I had another slice of pizza from the The Art of Pizza Slice of deep dish pizza

Next we went to the Field Museum

SUE t-rex from Chicago field museum

Wandered by the waterfront before dinner. couple along he waterfront with the Chicago skyline in the background

Had an amazing tapas dinner at Mercat

woman sipping a cocktail in a restaurant booth

The capstone of the visit was checking out the famous Pizza Pot Pie from Chicago Pizza and Oven Grinder Company chicago pizza and oven grinder’s famous pizza pot pie

Another highlight was seeing riding bikes along the lakefront using Divvy rental bikes. woman laughing while holding a bicycleselfie of a man riding a bike with a woman riding closely behind him

My 2022/2023 ski season just came to an end with a fantastic final weekend at Sunday River. Thanks to the Slopes app I track my activity. I skied 501 runs across 26 days and reached a top speed of 56.6 MPH. Here is a video I put together for the Last Ski Weekend