apple juice

I wonder if we’ll ever get a new political party out of all the current mess.

Fetterman is an interesting case:

Fetterman, Breaking With the Left on Israel, Rejects ‘Progressive’ Label

“Can’t it be possible that it’s really appropriate to stand for both?”

That quote is out out of context – but the sentiment is there… all of this stuff is more complex than most of our public discourse has time for.

I just took quick notice of the fact that my climate change-related posts increase dramatically each winter as the warming of the planet is felt here in Minneapolis more than other places in the country.

They tell us that it is a “brown” Christmas about 30% of the time for as long as records were kept, however, I think that conflates the lack of precipitation with the warm temperatures. My phone tells me it rained about .4″ today – that should’ve been good enough for 4-6 inches of snow, but instead, we got mud and big ruts on the hill where the kids were practicing.

The impact on my kids’s (and my) psyche is pretty strong. The sound of rain all last night on the roof did not make for an easy wake up to go skiing this morning.

Four Takeaways From the COP28 Climate Summit

It took 28 years of climate negotiations for world leaders to agree to wean the global economy from the principal source of climate change: the burning of fossil fuels.

Great. They’ve been working on this almost as long as I’ve been blogging.

In the meantime – as I told the kids this morning, we need to keep on loving the things we love to do outdoors so we don’t lose the reason to keep up the fight for the climate.

As I sit here at my computer, there is so much to be thankful for. My family, friends and neighbors. Our careers and schools. Our city, and state and country. I’m thinking today about the many people in our country who might be celebrating Thanksgiving with much less, or not celebrating at all. And then, when I expand my thinking beyond our borders and seas, to the people in other countries who are searching for a better life, or who find themselves entangled in conflict, likely through no fault of their own. It’s a lot to comprehend.

I hope we’re still moving towards a future where the arc towards peace, safety, self-determination and freedom is as apparent and attainable as it is for our small corner of the world. Elections matter, the world over, and we’re seeing those outcomes play out, sometimes delayed, sometimes immediate. Nobody really reads my blog anymore, but I hope for anyone who does, that you are informed, involved, and take the responsibility of voting seriously.

I believe it is ultimately the free people of the world who can affect the change within our governments necessary to create equitable conditions for everyone. We won’t get there through violence, hate, intimidation, but simply through our love for each other and a mutual respect for our common humanity.

I saw a post recently on another long time blog celebrating their twentieth, or possibly twenty-fifth year of writing continuously on their blog.

That struck me and I checked on my blog, twenty-one years ago I started this thing. (It was a post about our then puppy, Yeti)

I can’t even come close to saying that I’ve written here “continuously” but I am marveling at the thought that this blog is basically still working.

With all of the obsolescence (planned, or not) out there in technology, to keep something running for twenty plus years does deserve to be celebrated, I think.

A fair bit of nostalgia for that simpler past on the web has been creeping in for me, once again. I miss a lot of the old sites I used to frequent, and the conversations that were happening. Perhaps a sign of getting older, perhaps it was actually better in some way back then. I know that feeling I felt back in the early aughts is still out there, but at least for me, my day-to-day revolves around all of the people right in front of me, physically, and it feels like there is far less time to connect online…

Music

My year in music marked a big return to mostly well-known albums and songs. Listening, and relistening to many of my favorites from 2021 and before. I’ve been reflecting on why this is. It might be sign of my getting older? Perhaps I’m listening to new music in Spotify and I don’t know actually what I’m listening to? (Algorithms, etc).

Whatever the reasons, my “Top 10 Songs” for 2022 as tracked by spotify only contains one song released in 2022! (Wild by Spoon). When I read Pitchfork’s Top 50 Albums of 2022, I honestly could say I knew only one of the top 10 albums.

Ah, but what does it really matter if the music is new? Great music is great music and here are a few things I really enjoyed this past year:

Concerts

We went to several great concerts this year. It was great to be hearing live music again.

Plains concert at First Avenue, November 18, 2022

Katie Crutchfield of Waxahatchee and Jess Williamson crushed this concert, playing some of their solo stuff, their songs as Plains and a few covers as well. Concert Review

The War on Drugs concert at The Palace February 16, 2022

I Don’t Live Here Anymore was one of my favorite albums over the past two years by far. This concert, coming out of the COVID lockdowns was just a happy, joyous, overwhelming moment. We grooved out hard and then got super tired and had to head home. We didn’t quite have our concert legs under us as of yet. Set List

Mt. Joy concert at Stubb’s in Austin – November 5, 2022

To celebrate our 20th and 21st wedding anniversaries (COVID put a damper on #20) – we headed down to Austin for the weekend. First time there! Mt. Joy is a new to me band this past year (the influences of a teenage daughter!) and this show, the last night of their tour, was a gem. Outdoors, ethusiastic crowd, really nice Texans, good food.

Jason Isbell at First Avenue September 24, 2022

This concert was amazing. The band was so fired up and the crowd was electric. It was a gift to have the opportunity to go to this show on the night that they received their star.

There were several other fun and amazing concerts this past year: The Wild Hearts Tour at Surly Festival Field. The National at Surly Festival Field. Golden Smog at First Avenue. Ryan Adams at Austin City Limits. The Elovaters at the Ford Amphitheater in Vail, CO (an especially beautiful setting).

I love live music.

Albums

Despite the spotify Top 10 songs not being a lot of new stuff – I did love a bunch of new albums from the past year:

Gemini Rights by Steve Lacy Honestly, I’m intimidated by this album. I can’t write intelligently about it. There is so much happening. I keep listening to it. He is clearly a genius.

Wet Leg by Wet Leg This debut album was super fun. Bummed I missed the concert at First Ave.

Every Shade of Blue by The Head and the Heart I loved their first album and “Virginia” was a constant fixture on our family playists.

Palomino by First Aid Kit I’ve been a fan of their since their first album – it seems like everyone else caught on in town here because tickets were impossible to get.

Lavender Days by Caamp #daughterinfluences This album connects through time for me… I can envision myself, freshman year in college, just completely jamming out to this one.

Cruel Country by Wilco Of all the Wilco albums, I would not say this one is my favorite, but the esteem with which I hold Jeff Tweedy and the rest of Wilco continues to grow. It makes me happy knowing they’re out there making music.

A few other Music favorites:

Okay, I’m an unabashed Taylor Swift fan now. She is on heavy rotation in our house.

I also love the new Blends feature in Spotify. It’s been great connecting with my family and friends over shared favorites and discovering new songs.

Do you get goosebumps when you listen to music? I was surprised to learn that this doesn’t happen to everyone! (~50% of people?) The song Phoenix by Big Red Machine gets me every time. Right at the beginning, and then as soon as Justin Vernon’s voice comes in at the refrain.

There’s more, to be sure. Despite not listening to a lot of new music this past year, I listened to a ton of music. Looking forward to more great music in 2023.

This post is pretty much spot on:

Amtrak should build a good train:

Amtrak released their new vision for passenger rail expansion in the United States, and I don’t really know what to say except that it sucks. They’re proposing incremental expansion of a national network of slow, infrequent trains that I guess will serve the needs of weirdos and hobbyists who want to ride a train from Birmingham to Shreveport or from Athens to Fort Wayne via Columbus but serves no particular transportation purpose.

I get the politics of this idea — spreading a lot of money around to a lot of different places and making modest upgrades to existing legacy rail lines and thus avoiding any difficult engineering problems or potential land use conflicts.

I just want something big to happen with our national rail system. If I could wave a magic wand we’d nationalize the railroad right-of-ways (like a public utility) and begin upgrades for electrification and higher-speeds across the entire system. The only point of disagreement with the Slow Boring post I have is that connecting smaller places with better service will help them survive – and I think that’s both better politics and economics than assumed.

I’m back coaching skiing again after several years off. I love being out there on the hill and teaching this sport. There aren’t many sports out there that are as dynamic, fast and fun as ski racing. It’s a place where we see real progression with the kids through the year.

I last coached in 2009, and the thing that is blowing me away this time around is the quality and quantity of videos on YouTube about the subject. Here’s a small sampling of what I’ve found so far…

Mikaela Shiffrin breaking down her keys to a good training session:

I’ve watched Dahron Ralves lay out his warm up sequence.

Deb Armstrong just being an awesome and enthusiastic teacher:

And I’ve just recently watched “Ski Dad” (love that) break down carving in his family room with some chairs and kitchen stools.

One of the ideas that Mikaela Shiffrin spoke about above in her video was being a student of the sport.

This such an important concept for anyone who is training for a sport. Being in the mindset of a student speaks allows one to be coachable. Beyond all of the physical qualities that contribute to success, I’ve come to believe that being coachable is one of the best qualities to have – it constantly puts you in the mind of continual experimentation and improvement.