Erik MH:

home

The road goes ever on…

The Delta counter at BTV 2¼ hours before depar­ture – boy, I love our airport!

He did not tell Gan­dalf, but as he was speak­ing a great desire to fol­low Bilbo flamed up in his heart — to fol­low Bilbo, and even per­haps to find him again. It was so strong that it over­came his fear: he could almost have run out there and then down the road without his hat, as Bilbo had done on a sim­il­ar morn­ing long ago. — LR §1.02.178.

I left my hats at home, inten­tion­ally, though I did leave behind a couple of items I’d meant to bring. Delta Air­lines warned me that because of “increased travel,” I should report to the air­port in Bur­l­ing­ton three hours before my flight. Know­ing it was Bur­l­ing­ton, we took that with a grain of salt and arrived at about 2¼ hours early. Snow plows slowed us down; they and the 5ºF tem­per­at­ure (-15ºC, for those of you sens­ible enough to use Celsi­us!) reminded me that I shouldn’t feel too homesick! .…

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In which I explain my motiv­a­tion for not win­ter­ing in Vermont

The (unre­mark­able) weath­er fore­cast just before I leave for Peru.

End­less cold, dark­ness, & snow. I can’t stay warm. I can’t get enough light. I don’t ski.… And as I’m post­ing this ret­ro­spect­ively in mid-March, I real­ize that I can­not remem­ber wheth­er my weath­er app was dis­play­ing tem­per­at­ures in Celsi­us (i.e., these tem­per­at­ures are cold) or in Fahren­heit (i.e., these tem­per­at­ures are bloody cold). Either is entirely pos­sible. Either would be entirely unremarkable.…

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Test­ing work set-up for Peru

Nomad code war­ri­or setup for Peru

Two weeks from today will be my first full day (out of 55!) in Peru! The inten­tion is that my trip will be a true blend of work and relax­a­tion; I’m hop­ing to work indus­tri­ously for sev­en five-hour days each week, leav­ing the bal­ance of the time for sampling food, espresso, drinks, music, art, and the ocean. But those work hours will be cru­cial, and I’ve worked out an effi­cient, port­able work­sta­tion in order to make that time as use­ful as possible.

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A new year…

Rocket Cinquantotto espresso machine
Rock­et (of Mil­an) Cin­quan­totto espresso machine

Long COV­ID essen­tially rendered me use­less from June of 2022 through Septem­ber of 2023, and everything suffered — even the prop­er care and main­ten­ance of my beloved espresso machine. To launch the new year, I per­formed a full clean­ing and main­ten­ance on my Rock­et Cin­quan­totto. I had reli­giously cleaned and pol­ished it bi-weekly from its arrival here in August of 2021 through May of 2022, but it — as with so much else in my life — lan­guished over the ensu­ing months. Since Septem­ber (and my low-dose Nal­trex­one pre­scrip­tion) I’ve been slowly catch­ing up on my to-do lists, and today seemed the per­fect day to finally give the Cin­quan­totto its long over­due deep-cleaning.…

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Albino squir­rel!

Albino squir­rel on West 6th Ave. in Columbus

I’d heard they had albino squir­rels in Ohio. Now I’ve seen one!

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