Year: 2026

Heather 8th-grade Spring Orchestra Concert

May 22, 2026 7:08 pm

On May 9 the orchestra competed in “Music in the Parks,” received a “Superior” rating, 1st place in their division, 2nd place overall, and the esprit de corps award. On the same night (May 21) as Corinne’s choir concert was their Spring concert. So as soon as Corinne’s performance was over we booked it over to Junction to watch Heather. They played a “Bella Ciao” (combined with the choir), “Allegro” (from Handel’s Concerto Grosso Op. 6, No. 1), “Silver Skies Breaking,” “Legends of Glory,” “Pirates of the Caribbean” medley, and “Viking” (combined with beginning orchestra).

Corinne 5th-grade Choir Concert

6:28 pm

The choir director decided to arrange a special concert on May 21 for the schools at which she teaches choir specifically to invite the mayor to attend. I don’t know–I guess it was to get the kids excited about their first concert? It worked for Corinne, she was stoked.

Her school sang a song (“Moon”), then another school sang a song, then they combined for another song (“This is Me”).

Games April 2026

April 30, 2026 9:20 pm

Completed Quest 8 of Kinfire Chronicles: Night’s Fall with my group. Another victory for the team.

While Mom & Dad were in town we played a few games

We played half of a game of Keep the Heroes Out with Corinne. We were victorious.

Played Harmonies, a game of somewhat-abstracted habitat creation. Given to us by friends for Christmas this was the first time we managed to get it to the table. I’d played once at the board-game meetup in the past. For practice, I read the rules in French and managed to figure it out correctly. I believe Mom won.

A quick game of Cat Fluxx. I won.

Followed by a quick game of L’Oaf, which I also won by virtue of being the only baker not fired.

Books April 2026

8:51 pm

Countdown to Zero Day by Kim Zetter

A deeper dive than I was expecting into the discovery of the Stuxnet attack and its believed impact on the Iranian nuclear-weapon program.

The forensic analysis effort of the code was well told. I found it interesting.

Crisis Engineering by Nitze, Weaver, & Dickerson

Lessons learned from a team brought in by organizations to help resolve technology-related crisis situations. For example the botched roll out of healthcare.gov and California’s Covid-era unemployment system collapse.

If you’re in the tech industry the case studies will be unnervingly relatable, but also a little cathartic to know you’re not alone. The dysfunction all around you is, sadly, common.

I would read an entire book of similar case studies to hear more stories like: the unkillable 3AM status-update phone call, the call center that doesn’t know it’s a call center, and why aren’t you using the operations center built for this?

Full disclosure: I am related to one of the authors

Jurassic Park by Michael Crichton

After two technical, non-fiction books I wanted something light. So I did another read of Jurassic Park.

While it’s almost a truism that books are better than the movies, I think the movie actually does a really good job of cutting out some distractions and telling the core story really well.

For example, the book has a slow opening presumably intended to build some mystery, but the title rather gives away where it’s going so I’m not sure the slow-burn opening is beneficial. And then it ends with an unnecessary excursion to find the raptor nests. Which might have made sense to set up the sequel, but the sequel has nothing to do with the migrating raptors plot line (as I recall).

Anyway, I still enjoyed it.