So I didn’t actually write this at this time, but rather 24 minutes in the future. Figure this was close enough to count. Think I’m all packed up for our Spring Break trip to New Orleans. Should be fun and interesting. Panda Express for dinner with my parents. Had to drive a bit through some remaining Cubs traffic, and I’m not looking forward to this season. Really annoyed with iCloud Drive. Works great with my iPads and iPhone, but my Mac mini? Pretty much non syncing. Super annoying.

Here in New Orleans. Had a Po’ Boy for lunch, delicious. Along with a sazerac. Great start. Walked down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Not kid friendly. Found some nicer streets to walk down and around. Ended up at the Mississippi River. Got some beignets. Pool time for the kids. Out to Superior Seafood & Oyster Bar for dinner. Enormous oysters, Still Austin bourbon flight. Good day 1.

Got to see the swamp today. Got to see a handful of alligators, racoons, and turtles. Rather interesting. Lunch at Willie’s Chicken Shake, fried catchfish. Napped the afternoon away. Took the Charles Street Trolley to dinner, ended up at Tacos & Beer. Really good Mexican. Ended up getting drinks at the hotel bar, Holmes.

Found my happy place in New Orleans, the Sazerac Bar in the Roosevelt Hotel. Had my first Ramos Gin FIzz. Yummy, and I’ll finally try making it at home. Hoping I get to go back later this week. Went on a paddleboat tour this morning. Managed to drop and break my Fujifilm X-E3, and lose part of it and the 55-200 zoom lens off the side of the boat. Kept most of the body so had all the pictures. Maybe a blessing in disguise. I’ve been thinking about upgrading, and it was 6 years old at this point. So I think a Fujifilm X-T5 is in my future. At least I’ve got all my other prime lenses still. Went in the pool for the first time this trip. My longish hair is pretty annoying. Will be much more manageable once I can keep it in a bun or a ponytail. Some pizza from Willie’s Pizza and Wings hit the spot for a late lunch. Twilight walking ghost tour was interesting. Nice to hear some background on Voodoo, aside from the references I read in Neuromancer and Wild Cards . Dinner at a little hole in the wall Italian place called Frank’s Restaurant. Nothing special.

Changing of the guards. Got to sleep in, which was nice. Got breakfast downstairs, had a nice breakfast sandwich. I’ve been drinking coffee all week. And not eating a lot of fruits or veggies. Although Tracy was nice enough to order me a fruit cup with breakfast when she saw how small my sandwich was. So that was nice. Had to scramble to pack, think we forgot Jackson’s pajamas, since we switched hotels. Jackson went with Hudson and Dave while I helped bring our suitcases to the JW Marriot. Then I went back and joined the boys for a trip to The National WWII Museum. Pretty cool, and could have definitely spent a lot of time there, watching and reading, but since we had the boys only hit up the guns, airplanes and tanks. Chilled a bit before Dave and Hudson left for the airport. Met up with the Thorngrens and went to dinner at Kingfish. Had some rice and beans and southern fried chicken, which was pretty good. Not sure what other New Orleans cuisine that I haven’t had yet, but haven’t seen turtle soup yet. Finally got some beignets at Cafe du Monde, and yeah, they’re pretty good. Finished the night off with drinks at the lobby bar while the kids hung out up in the kids room.

Got to sleep in again. Repeated breakfast, although at a different location, at Ruby Slipper. Had their Peacemaker bennie (Eggs Couchon and Chicken St. Charles). Pretty good. While waiting for a table I went back up to check on a couple things we forgot at the Hyatt Centric, but couldn’t check in the room or something. Took a bus out toe Lafitte for an airboat bayou tour. Saw more alligators this time. Wish we had splurged and taken the smaller airboat instead of the bigger one. Napped when we got back. Dinner was pretty good at Luke’s, and we left the kids again and went back to the Sazerac Bar. Was able to try an official Brown Derby (I like mine/Anders Erickson’s better) and a Paper Plane (better than mine)

Another day to sleep in. Worried about rain/thunderstorms all day. Took the street car out to Tacos & Beer for lunch. Street cars were also super packed. After the Thorngrens got on, they told us to take the next until Tracy was screaming out to the Thorngrens and then he let us on. Good tacos. Then it started raining, which put a damper on plans to walk around the Garden District. Audibled and went to Mardi Gras World. And of course it stopped raining. Back to the hotel with a brief stop for beignets at Benny’s. Then some swimming at the hotel (cold). Another Lyft to dinner at Saba and got a nice little Garden District tour on the way out. Food was amazing and ate too much before heading back. Looked for Belle Epoche, but they were closed for a wedding, and ended up at Patrick’s Bar Vin.

Home. Actually slept through the night, and got up to pick up breakfast takeout from Streetcar Cafe. Normal diner food for the most part. Took the trolley out to The National WWII Museum. Busier than when I went earlier in the week. Got in the 2nd time for just $7, since we came back within a week. Did the Arsenal of Democracy and The D-Day Invasion of Normandy exhibits that we missed last time. Lucy and Emmy went through another section. Way too much information, could go back and spend a couple of days there easy. Ate at The American Sector for lunch again, one last shrimp po’boy. Then back to the hotel to pack before heading out to the airport. Security was pretty long, but no issues, except I was supposed to take all my electronics out of my bag, which was different from just having to put big electronic devices out separately like when we flew down from Midway. I guess next time to err on the side of caution and take everything out always. Made it home with no issues to a nice clean house and food in the fridge (Thanks Mom and Dad!). And now bedtime in my own bed after a shower in my own shower.

Pleasantly surprised. Not sure what I was expecting from New Orleans, but I’d go back. It’d probably be even better without kids, as the main draws are the food, drink, and The National WWII Museum, all not necessarily kid friendly things. Loved the Sazerac Bar. Would be willing to spend all my money there. Did I mention I spied some Pappy Van Winkle on one of the shelves? Oysters, local to the region, were amazing. Very very tasty. There’s lots more cocktail bars and restaurants to drink and eat through. Until next time. I haven’t run the numbers yet though, but I think it was a pretty expensive week. And tomorrow, back to the grind. Gotta get back on the exercise horse, and a proper regular diet. Hopefully won’t be too jarring.

Back to the grind. And grind it was. Dealing with some work stuff so didn’t have time to go to the gym this morning. If I can’t go in the morning, I won’t go. Then was planning on indoor biking, but got hungry instead, so had some lunch. I did try out rucking today, throwing some 10 lb plates in my Bullet Ruck and going for a brisk walk. Got me a little workout. Might keep trying that out. I don’t think I’ve mentioned how much better a hairbrush is for my hair right now. No tangles, and I even get some volume. It’s nice. Got some waves going on.

Think I need to figure out docker-compose for my various containers running on the Ubuntu box. About time I guess. Mostly because I need to update to newest, and also because that seems to be the preferred way to run them. Finally sent tax prep stuff to the accountant. Actually feels early this year. I’m a whole 7 days early. First time taking Lucy to swim practice at Latin. Pretty easy, and it was a Cubs Night game. Picked up Mariano’s and Nando’s Peri-Peri and Binny’s Beverage Depot after the drop off. On the way because I didn’t want to take LSD home. So I guess Binny’s will still be on the way home. Tried my hand at a Ramos Gin Fizz tonight. Not as good, not ever in the same ballpark as the one from Sazerac Bar. I’ve got to try a couple more recipes, and probably have to shake more too. Also got back on the indoor bike today. Baby steps.

Went bouldering at Movement Wrigleyville for the first time in 3 weeks. I’m out of practice and it shows. Didn’t even manage any V3s. Seriously out of shape. Also managed to rip 3 flappers on my right hand at the end. So yeah, might have to take another break, or see how climbing with band-aids is. Then I decided to get some Do-Rite Donuts & Chicken, glazed, cheese danish, and a hot coffee with cream and sugar. Good, but think I still just prefer Dunkin for my raised donuts. Ended up eating those late enough I skipped lunch. Drove the kids to soccer practice and waited there. Nice but windy.

Jackson lost his scooter, so he took his bike out today when playing with Finn and started trying to learn how to ride a bike. Makes me feel like I’ve failed as a biker myself, that my 9 year old hasn’t started biking yet. But he’s starting now. And had a couple runs where he seemed to get it. Probably headed out this weekend to try some more. Found a baseball/trucker hat I’ll probably be wearing all summer long, as my hair gets longer and longer. It’s a Blaine hat, might be a little small, but looks cool. Better summer hat than the Anders Erickson dad hat I got. Oh, got a couple ruck plates, so planning on doing another ruck tomorrow, since I don’t know how long it’ll be again before I got bouldering. Want to wait until my flapper holes heal up. Tracy cleaned up the back patio for a mom’s wine night, so looks pretty good. Also, started season 4 of Orphan Black, and seems like it’s getting a bit more crazy and off the rails. Wonder where the 5th season is gonna go.

I’m all in on UI Protect. Just switched over the 2 remaining indoor cameras (a Foscam and a Eufy) over to G3 Instants like the other indoor cams. Went pretty smooth. Had to do some homebridge tweaking, and finally updated the docker image it was running as so I can actually update to the newest version of the plugins I’m using. All in all, might keep me running smoothly for another year? Also got another UAP-AC-Pro for use on the porch/parkway, where I might be spending more time now that the weather is nicer. Getting much better performance and stability so far, compared to when I was trying it with a UAP-AC-Lite. Also made a little stand out of LEGO so it sits up and pointing out the window. Yeah, bit of a spending spree, so got to rein it in for the rest of the year. Got to go in to Lane Tech for the first time today to pick up Lucy early. Curious what the rest of the school looks like. Would love to wander around in there.

Had to drive out to Edison Park for Jackson’s soccer game. Couple of things: turns out Jackson’s allergic to pollen and spring stuff, so he had itchy eyes and a running nose, so that affected his play; and they won today. I think they moved down a division since the fall. Maybe. We’ll see tomorrow for the 2nd team game in the same division. I guess Edison Park isn’t really a suburb, but took 30 minutes to get out there, and probably even longer to get back, and we didn’t even take the highway. Also weird because I didn’t have a camera and didn’t take any photos. Games seem longer when I’m not taking pictures the whole time.

Ok, I really need to start using docker-compose to keep my containers up to date. Just used it to update abando.social to Mastodon v4.1.2 and it was 2 commands. That’s pretty cool. Maybe it is time to update this site, or at least the plumbing maybe? Jackson’s soccer game was unpleasant today. Cold and rainy. Not fun at all. And they lost. Weather definitely different than yesterday, about 30 degrees different. Assuming it snows overnight or in the morning, that’ll be just about complete opposite days like 48 hours apart. 84 and sunny to 32 and snowy. Go figure. Finally making progress on the giant pile of laundry from vacation and the last week.

Finally got my new camera, a Fujifilm X-T5. Reading through the manual and charging it up. Gonna have to see if I need to update firmware on it, or on any of my lenses. I haven’t checked on those ever. Excited to have a real camera again. Bigger but feels lighter than the Fujifilm X-E3. Also realized I was supposed to send the X-E3 in for service/repair check. I thought I was waiting on a box they were going to send me, and no, they sent a shipping label that I need to print out and pack myself. Went on a pretty long ruck today, something like 4 miles, but on and off with shopping stops in between. Not sure if it’s a real workout, but I like it. I might have to upgrade my shoes and get another ruck plate, eventually. We’ll see. My flappers look fairly healed, so I might try bouldering on Wednesday. I put my indoor cycling trainer away, so I might try and get outside and bike tomorrow.

Just now I dropped Lucy off at swim practice and took the non LSD route home so I could drop by Dom’s Kitchen & Market to pick up one of my favorite desserts, and they were all out. No Napoleon for me. I’m not sure why it’s one of my favorites, but it is. I think I tried making it at home, but wasn’t any good at it. I also realize my other favorite is cheesecake, so maybe I need to try combining them into a cheesecake napoleon. Sounds tasty. Oh, wait, maybe toss in another of my favorites, and turn it into a Black Forest cheesecake napoleon. Hmmm, the wheels are turning. Went on an outdoor bike ride for the first time in a while, actually since I got hit by a car (not including bike rides on the xtracycle to pick up food or bring Jackson to soccer practice and games). So that’s like a 2 1/2 year gap. Took me long enough. I should probably plan out a route before hand though, instead of just winging it. Also made sure to go in the middle of the day so no sun blinding drivers at any point. Definitely more defensive biking too. But gonna try and keep that up. Maybe even go back to the fake bike commute to work again.

Did another ruck today. Gonna give my flappers the rest of the week to finish up healing before attempting bouldering again next Monday. I did figure out how to attach my 10 lbs ruck plate to the 20 lbs one, so I’m did 30 lbs today. I’d have to say it feels great the rest of the day after the backpack comes off. Also glad I’m finally using a GORUCK bags for its intended purpose, in this case an old style 10 L Bullet Ruck. I recently watched both Pacific Rim and Pacific Rim: Uprising, so I figured I should complete it and started watching Pacific Rim: The Black. Finished season 1 (only 7 episodes) and only 30 minutes, so they go quick. Also decided to start Glass Onion, since there’s a podcast episode in my queue on it.

Back outside for another bike ride today. Wore a jersey and a bib. It was hot out. But nice and brisk and a little windy by the lake. Did a short little 10 mile loop. Will eventually try and extend it out a bit and do more of the Lakeshore Path. But nice. DIdn’t want to go out while it was raining (whereas before I would relish going out int he rain on my bike). Was scared of it being slick out. I’m definitely on the more cautious side now. Got my spare 2 batteries for the Fujifilm X-T5 so I’m all kitted out again with a “real” camera again. Time to start taking some pics.

Totally spaced and screwed up my Knotwords and Wordle streaks. I should be able to get my Knotwords back since they have that nifty (complete a new 7 day streak and we’ll forget you missed a day) workout. But annoyed, very slightly, about the Wordle one. Oh well. Can’t even say I have this Daily Dose streak either, since I’ve cheated multiple times and predated entries. Shhh. Still trying to figure out what to post where, just in terms of Mastodon vs. Micro.blog. Thinking Micro.blog is more bloggy, while Mastodon is more conversation, ephemeral, feeling/emotional, maybe political? Not sure. Anyway, got to bike Jackson to/from practice today due to some logistical errors. A bit much after rucking earlier today. But did get to try out Little Goat Diner for the first time. Good, but not what I expected. I guess I was thinking more diner, less Goat, but still good. However it has me craving some actual diner food. All that’s left for that spot is to try GGs Chicken Shop.

Almost forgot about posting. Did a short ruck this morning to pick up Dunkin. So not sure if that counts at all. Introduced Lucy to French Crueller. She likes ‘em. Finally folded my pile of laundry. Only took 2 weeks. Took Lucy out to do some birdwatching homework. Got to try out the Fujifilm X-T5. Pretty sweet. If I got into birding, I’d want an even bigger lens, but don’t think that’s going to happen. Still got some pretty cool pics of birds. Also, it was pretty cold out. There was even some hail. Dinner with my parents at Sushi+ Rotary Sushi Bar. Didn’t have my saba or Spam nigiris out on the conveyor belt, so had to order. As soon as we did, started seeing them come out. Movie night at home, finally watched Chip n’ Dale: Rescue Rangers. Pretty good, and way too many in jokes on screen, in the background, or mentioned in passing.

Not enjoying this spring season of soccer so far. Although we’re 1-2-1, and we had 1 game in absolutely beautiful weather, the other 3 have been cold, and 1 of those was absolutely miserable because it was cold and rainy. I even wore my lined pants to the double header today, and a winter coat, and was freezing. Should have sat and put a blanket on. Not really doing the pictures/game commentary well though. Often missing things. Wondering if I should actually start using dictation to do the game updates. Headed to St. Louis next weekend for a soccer tournament. Hopefully the weather will be warmer down there. Finally watched The Mitchells vs. the Machines. Pretty good movie. Very enjoyable. Also starting to make some real dents in my Redwood Empire Cask Strengths. Think I’ll go back to Old Grand-Dad Bonded Bourbon and Rittenhouse Rye Bottled in Bond for cocktails. Maybe stop with completing distiller brands.

Went bouldering today, and still have all the skin on my fingers. So I’ll take it as a win. Took it easy though, nothing higher than a V3 and only did one of those, and didn’t end on a 4x4. Figure I’ll take a week to ease back into things, and start ramping stuff up next week, if I can still ramp stuff up. I did use a headband while climbing. Hair’s long enough that I need to do it. Had my favorite meal, longsilog for lunch. Used some old rice finally. Pretty good. Better than mixed greens, that’s for sure. Also did an Apple TV+ workout as well. Been a while. Felt good though. Moved my mat down to the basement, and used my iPhone to Airplay to the Apple TV instead of using the big iPad for it. Worked out pretty well. Annoyed that I still can’t use my Apple Watch directly with the Apple TV. I guess the bluetooth isn’t strong enough to reach down the hall. If only it could just use WiFi to do it instead.

Did a bike ride (and missed a work meeting because of it) and did my Apple Fitness+ core workout and tried to do my Gravity Push-Up Workout. Both were really hard today. Bike ride not so much. I probably dressed appropriately for the weather on the ride, but could have gone either way. Picked up a mophie Wireless Charging Vent Mount with MagSafe from the Apple Lincoln Park store, for upcoming trip to St. Louis this weekend for a soccer tournament. Borrowing my parents car, which doesn’t have Car Play, so needed a better mount for my iPhone, and that one looks like it’s got a pretty secure method for attaching to a car vent. We’ll see. Dropping Lucy off for swim practice was fine, the ride home after that is super annoying. Night Cubs game could explain some of it, but if you were trying to head West, it was slow. At one point Apple Maps said I had 900 ft to go on North Ave. and my estimated arrival time was 9 minutes. Also, thought about taking Lake Shore Drive on the way back after picking her up, but audibled when I saw the stopped traffic northbound right before we were going to get on, so thankfully was able to loop back around and go up Lincoln instead.

One benefit of dropping Lucy off at Latin is shopping on the way home to break up driving through traffic. Today I picked up some Vanille Patisserie, because it was sort of on the way as I zig zagged home. Been too long since I’ve been back, and they were already putting stuff away, but still managed to get some treats. Went back in and took some pics of the labels, and took some time to make a collage of the 4 I got as I waited for traffic to clear up a bit. Skipped exercising today. Too tired (took a nap in the morning). Sipping on a Bourbon Renewal at the moment. Not a bad cocktail. Pretty much just working my way through any cocktails that take 2 oz of bourbon or rye.

Did Jackson and my laundry. Got my parents car. Installed a MagSafe car mount. Put chairs and a blanket in the back. There’s already an umbrella back there. Camera batteries charged. Firmware upgraded. Still have to pack (gotta bring a whole range of stuff, just in case). Don’t forget bathing suits. Wonder if I should bring some whiskey, or a premixed cocktail? Weather looks decent, mid to low 60s, high 50s. Supposedly some wind on Sunday. Drive down will probably be annoying, deal with traffic and construction. Expecting to come back by afternoon on Sunday, think we won’t make the finals. Ordered Jackson a tourney t-shirt, just getting it delivered so we don’t have to deal with it. A little surprised he actually wanted one. Not sure if we need to bring a cooler for snacks or anything. First travel soccer tourney (not counting the ones in Montegomery) since I missed out on last year’s. Hopefully it’s as fun as it sounded last year.

Down in St. Louis, or outside of it for Jackson’s soccer tournament. Drive down was fine, leaving during rush hour was annoying. Took 1.8 hours to go 55 miles out of the city. All in, took 5 1/2 hours? Normally should take 4 1/2. Didn’t get to the hotel until after 10pm. But pretty easy drive. Nice that Jackson had headphones on the entire time, so I got to listen to podcasts the whole way down. The phone mount worked great, no issues there. Tried out the cooling fans in the seats for the first time. Pretty nice. Even on the lowest setting and wearing pants could feel it. Schedule is pretty nice tomorrow, first game not until 11:15, and at the main set of fields. Only about 10 minutes away. Same location for the afternoon game. Sunday game is in a separate location, but also not too far away. Hopefully it’s a fun weekend.

So Jackson’s team tied their first game today, 0-0, and won their second, 3-1. My normal game reporting wasn’t working because my cell reception was so poor. Thought I had done it for the first one, but when I checked before the second game, everything I wrote was gone. So at least I got to concentrate on watching and trying to take photos. It all depends on our first game tomorrow to see if we have to stick around for a 3pm final. Half hoping they don’t, cause it means getting home late, but then again, would be nice to get another win on the board. Good getting to know some parents of teammates. Ended up at a hibachi restaurant for dinner, so that was fun, if late. Lunch was really good as Westport Social, and there were plenty of games to keep the kids busy. I’d saw pretty successful so far.