Books: Winter 2025

When I started posting quick reviews of things I’d been reading back in 2014, I didn’t commit to any regular schedule. As it turns out, that’s a good thing, because my first follow up was a year later, my second was two years after that and, as far as search can tell me, it’s been eight years since I last checked in.

Which means whittling down a list to check in about was a job in and of itself, because eight years is a lot of books. Some of these are more easily covered than others because they’re series – there are twenty complete Aubrey Maturin novels, for example, and I have no intention of trying to comment on them individually. Even so, I’ve had to leave off some recent reads like Holly from Stephen King (entertaining) or Death at the Sign of the Rook by Kate Atkinson (convoluted but worth it) simply because the list was getting too long. There are also a number of books that didn’t make the cut simply because they weren’t any good, but that readers would be unlikely to run into and thus didn’t warrant a warning unlike a few of the books below.

Anyway, I mostly post these reviews for my future self, because the following are not exactly fit for the New York Times Book Review. But in case you find yourself in need of a new read – or just want to know what to avoid – the following is for you. As always, I’ve added Amazon links not for the pennies I’d earn but to see whether any of the recommendations work, and if so which ones.

The Good

The Aubrey-Maturin Novels, Patrick O’Brian

Most people who’ve read any of the Aubrey Maturin series are shocked to discover that O’Brian was not a sailor, and had no naval history background at all. For those that have not, it’s an incredible discovery because these books are comically dense with nautical, naval and historical terminology, customs and events. Aubrey is the dashing but occasionally buffoonish English sailor and eventual captain; Maturin is his slender, Irish naval surgeon / naturalist / spy and best friend. Together they have a great series of adventures set against the backdrop of Napoleonic Europe. If you like historical fiction, this series is among the gold standards. And there’s no shortage of material.

The End of the World As We Know It, Anthology

Released this summer, The End of the World As We Know It is a series of short stories set in the universe of The Stand, the post-apocalyptic novel by Stephen King. King gave this effort his official blessing, in fact, in return for one condition: that none of the short stories could leverage the main characters in that novel or change their fates. Which, as it turns out, is absolutely no impediment whatsoever from a creative standpoint, as this anthology traverses the post-Captain Trips world from Florida to Pakistan, from the Northeast to the Deep South. What would it be like on a small island? How about in a big city? If you enjoyed the Stand and want to return to that world viewed through a dizzying array of perspectives, this is the book for you. Like all anthologies, some efforts are better than others (the mermaid one was pretty weird), but overall it’s worth your time.

Fatherland, Robert Harris

As someone who studied Nazi Germany in college and reads more than his fair share of historical fiction, it’s not clear how I missed Fatherland for so long but I was glad to remedy my error. In tone and subject, it’s almost like a cross between The Man from the High Castle and V for Vendetta. It isn’t great literature in the way that the next novel is, but it’s well researched, the plot moves and isn’t entirely predictable, and it captures a plausible alternative future neatly enough that the resonance with the world around me at present was uncomfortable at times.

Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry

I’ve read Lonesome Dove two or three times previously, but every time as with my most recent re-read I was struck by what an incredible achievement it is. It is putatively a Western, but it is at least as much an incredibly diverse and three dimensional set of character arcs, an unvarnished and unromantic history of the West and a novel which implicitly and unpretentiously shows off its understanding of a very different time and world. How many Westerns, for example, turn on the difference between horse qualities or knowledge of water sources? Lonesome Dove is, inarguably, a staggering achievement.

What I had not known, however, was that it has both two prequels and a sequel. The bad news is that none of them are on the same level as Lonesome Dove. The good news is that there are few books that are, and both the prequels (Dead Man’s Walk and Comanche Moon) as well as the sequel, Streets of Laredo, will either spell out why some of the characters from Lonesome Dove are the way they are or explain how they died. The prequels are worth at least to see Call and McCrae as inept rookies who have absolutely no idea what they’re doing.

Tackling the four books is a lengthy task, however, so if you just read one, make it Lonesome Dove. You’ll be glad you did.

Pillars of the Earth, Ken Follett

I’d read several of Ken Follett’s thrillers growing up – Eye of the Needle first and foremost among them. But I’d somehow never gotten around to Pillars of the Earth, which according to the author at least is his fans’ favorite book of his. The scope of the plot involves the construction of a cathedral, and it is a work covering, ultimately, decades of 12th century history. While Follett had clearly done his research – particularly when it came to the construction of cathedrals and the rise of early mercantilism – this is not a novel that rubs that history in the readers face in the way that, say, the Aubrey Maturin novels do. Follett is ultimately more focused on the character arcs than the history they’re traversing, and overall it’s a novel with twists and turns and a good deal of historical context.

Fair warning, however, Pillars is a bit like Game of Thrones, both in its levels of violence – and especially sexual violence – and its propensity to put its main characters in harm’s way.

Piranesi, Susanna Clarke

Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell is one of my all time favorite novels, so I was both elated and a little anxious when Piranesi was released. On the one hand, a new Clarke novel was exactly what I had been waiting for for years. On the other, it had no relation to the Strange and Norrell universe and, well, what if it wasn’t up to that standard? In the end, these apprehensions were silly, as Piranesi is an excellent novel, and entirely original. It’s a little bit like the Matrix, in that the opening is confusing and difficult to process, but as the novel progresses it picks up speed and all is revealed. It’s worth reading just to step into an entirely different universe, and Clarke writes so well.

Project Hail Mary, Andy Weir

In my first review of books, I recommended the Martian for its precise technical detail and its immense sense of humor. I’d recommend Project Hail Mary for exactly the same reasons. While both novels involve space and spaceflight, however, and a protagonist – willing or unwilling – with a sense of humor, they are very different books. If you’re like me and the novel has not been spoiled for you before you get to it, there’s a point in the book about halfway through where you’ll think: this could go one of two ways, good or bad. I’m delighted to say it was the former.

One other note: if you can, listen to this on audiobook. I don’t usually say this, but I think it’s better than reading it in physical form. Once you’ve read it, you’ll understand why.

The Terror, Dan Simmons

AMC thought enough of Simmons’ novel the Terror to turn it into a TV series, though my understanding is that it’s only the first season that’s based on the book. The Terror is a fictional account of the lost vessels Terror and Erebus which were attempting to find a Northwest passage through the Arctic ice. At the time the novel was published in 2007, both the Terror and Erebus were still undiscovered, but by 2014 both had been located – and likely would have been far sooner if Inuit testimony had been accepted at face value. This novel has shades of the Aubrey Maturin novels in its level of historical detail and if they were on a polar expedition, but is also a creature feature as its revealed in the opening pages that something on the ice is killing off the men of the Terror and Erebus. If you like a horror novel with painstaking historical research, this is for you.

The Complicated

Remembrance of Earth’s Past Trilogy, Liu Cixin

There are many people who consider the Remembrance of Earth’s Past trilogy one of the finest works of science fiction ever written. Netflix certainly saw something in them, as they turned the Three Body Problem into a series. And it’s not hard to see what they saw. They are intricately plotted, and each novel is something of a tightly wrapped puzzle to be slowly revealed. Their scope is also wildly ambitious, using plot devices like hibernation to skip through thousands of years of history. I personally struggled with the novels, however, for a few reasons. There’s definitely a streak of misogyny to them, there are passages particularly in the first novel with its video game sequences that are very dull and many of the character decisions just don’t make sense. If you’re looking for a sci-fi series that zooms all the way out to look at and answer the Fermi Paradox, however, this will be right up your alley.

Sapiens, Yuval Noah Harari

On the one hand, Sapiens was interesting because most of the histories I read are focused on a few decades, a few hundreds of years or at most a few thousand. Sapiens, on the other hand, attempts to cover a million plus years of history, and that exercise is both novel and has value in terms of trying to gain new perspective on the passage of time. On the other hand, the challenge with covering that much history, and anthropology, and sociology, and botany and, well, you get the picture, is that you have to be an expert in every field. And no one, Harari included, is. As a result, there are people who…don’t think much of Harari’s existing knowledge base, or his research. For my part, even as a layman, there were whole sections that seemed either intuitively wrong, or in some areas where I have some specific research background, were wrong or at least misrepresented. And there were other sections that were borderline imperialist, racist or both. I’m glad I read it, in the end, because the exercise of zooming out was valuable as mentioned, but I had to take more or less the entire book with several grains of salt.

The Bad

The Historian, Elizabeth Kostova

I won’t spoil the antagonist here, but suffice it to say The Historian is something of a horror novel. Unfortunately, while there was enormous hype around the release of this book, it seems to exist more as a travel guide than fictional story. The publishers apparently thought they might have the next DaVinci Code on their hands, and while it didn’t match that success, the quality of the writing was similar. The characters are relatively two dimensional, their relationships are implausible and the plot requires a constant suspension of disbelief. And the ending is anticlimactic, to put it mildly. Overall, one to avoid.

Angel of Darkness, Caleb Carr

Speaking of implausible, this sequel to the Alienist – Carr’s novel which has an Alienist, or proto-psychologist, turn detective – lurches from implausibility to another. Combined with the decision to have a narrator who is theoretically uneducated but essentially just reverts to the same stylistic crutch phrases over and over, I didn’t enjoy this one. The Alienist has its issues, but is worth a read. The Angel of Darkness, not so much.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig

At some point when I was in college, I remember people raving about Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, so I decided I’d finally give it a read a couple of months ago. It’s entirely possible it’s my failings as a reader, but I found this an absolute slog. There are effectively two parallel narrative tracks; one part is a father and son motorcycle trip, which is complicated by some serious mental health challenges all around. The second is a lengthy, dense and – for me, at least – tedious philosophical discussion on the nature of “quality.”

As mentioned, it could just be me, but I do not understand at all what people see in this book.

The Meh

Bone Clocks / Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell

These are two different novels by David Mitchell, with some minor overlap in characters. While they have their moments, and they’re inventive, I didn’t particularly enjoy either one. Part of it is that Mitchell has a gift for writing unsympathetic and at times, repellent, characters, and part of it particularly with Cloud Atlas was the structure. The latter was an attempt to mimic If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler by Calvino, which I’ve reviewed previously. I’m glad I read Calvino’s book but I didn’t enjoy it, and I enjoyed Cloud Atlas even less – though still more than The Bone Clocks. It’s also worth noting, for whatever it’s worth, that Mitchell is not terribly optimistic about the future, and his books reflect that.

The Abominable, Dan Simmons

The Abominable is a novel released after Simmons wrote The Terror, and the initial conceit (don’t skip the introduction, because it’s not actually an introduction) demonstrates pretty clearly that the author is trying to ward off claims that he’s just rewriting the Terror in another extreme setting. Which shouldn’t have been necessary, because while they have weather elements in common, this was a very different novel, not just because it substitutes mountain climbing detail – and boy is there a lot of that – for naval detail. The Abominable is much more of a thriller than horror story, though there are elements of that as well (please no one suggest a sky burial for me). Ultimately it’s not a bad book, but there is a lot disbelief to be suspended and the central MacGuffin of the story really doesn’t make much sense if you think about it. If you like novels about mountain climbing, however, this will definitely be your jam.

The Exorcist, William Peter Blatty

Easily the most surprising reaction I had to any of the books on here was the Exorcist. As someone who enjoyed the movie as a kid, and the third sequel as a college kid, and hadn’t read it since maybe high school, I expected a lot more from the book. Instead, there were long stretches were I was simply bored – a reaction I never would have anticipated. Either it hasn’t aged well or I haven’t.

Walking Hurt

Over the past few years, I’ve been relatively fortunate with my health as I’ve gradually ramped up my walking mileage. I’ve gone from an average of 8.3 miles a day to 8.5 to a tick over 8.6 so far this year. It’s not that walking doesn’t have wear and tear on your body, far from it.

As Dean, the person responsible for getting me into this habit, and I were laughing the other day, something always hurts. Particularly as you get older.

In that, it’s a lot like the organized sports I played growing up, in which I was taught that there was a difference between playing hurt and playing injured. Injuries were things like broken legs that couldn’t be played through, that you just had to let heal. The hurts were smaller injuries: bone bruises, broken fingers (or ribs), lacerations and so on. And while you couldn’t play injured, you had to play hurt because something was always going to be hurt.

Walking not being a contact sport, the hurts these days are usually – if not always – less dramatic. But a couple of them have been new to me, and for my future self if not some of you who’ve also started walking, this is how I’ve tackled them so far. I’ve haven’t figured them all out – I’m currently dealing with a tight psoas muscle that I haven’t found a good approach for other than stretching – but below is what I’ve tried and what’s worked thus far. Maybe something in there will help you.

Blisters

While Hoka has updated the Bondi shoes I walk in and I thought I might have been developing a hot spot on one heel this morning, I’ve generally been lucky and have historically had no blister issues with them with one exception which I’ll come back to in a bit. It probably helps that my socks are all wool and wick moisture, but mostly it’s because the shoes I wear are comfortable and fit well.

On the couple of occasions I have had blisters, I’ve used duct tape on my foot before a walk if the issues were minor, or two pairs of socks if it was a little more serious.

I’ve had to use moleskin and so on years ago with hiking boots, but so far with walking I’ve been lucky. Here’s hoping my new Bondis don’t change that.

Feet Splitting

This may or may not be a problem that any of you have had, but I used to have major issues with my feet drying out, cracking and splitting. My solution to this has been simple, if regrettable. I no longer wear flip-flops. If I’m outside, I’m wearing shoes of some sort, and if I’m inside around the house – particularly in the winter when our wood stove sucks all moisture out of the air – I wear slippers.

This was a major change for me, as I used to wear flip-flops year round, but it just wasn’t worth the hassle. If you’ve got cracked feet, then, I’d think about what you’re wearing.

Calf Strain

The Monday before I walked fifty miles, I pulled a calf. As I noted in Strava at the time, it came out of nowhere. I’d never done that before, and I was actually taking it easy on my walk in preparation for the longer distance.

I was lucky in that it abated and I was able to get in my long walk, but I’ve had this problem a couple of times since with both calves. I don’t know what causes it or how to avoid it – I haven’t noticed any particular patterns that lead to it.

But I have had success mitigating the impact by using compression sleeves for the calf and/or compression socks. I don’t like them because they’re a pain in the ass to take on and off, but I always keep two spare sleeves in my pack now in case one of my calves gets cranky out of nowhere. I feel kind of like a jackass in the summer with a weird sleeve around one calf as if it was a fashion statement, but it beats the hell out of not being able to walk.

Knee Pain

So far I’ve only dealt with this a couple of times, and it’s frankly terrifying because I don’t want to deal with complicated issues and that’s knee issues. The last time I dealt with this, it was mostly lateral motion that was the problem, but I stopped rucking – which is to say walking while carrying around a weighted backpack – to avoid putting additional pressure on my knees.

My best advice here is to listen to your body, and take it easy. I’ll probably end up adding knee braces to my pack alongside the calf sleeves just in case.

Plantar Fasciitis

The first time I got this was many years ago at a conference in Portland, OR, in which I walked something like seven and a half miles in flip-flops. For weeks thereafter, I had periodic spikes of pain shooting through my foot. That was the other reason I gave up wearing flip flops; no footwear is worth jeopardizing my ability to get out and walk.

The best mitigation for this that I’ve found came by way of recommendation from my distance mentor Andrew. He’s an ultramarathoner and pointed me towards insoles. Specifically, I get these from our local Fleet Feet because I have a high arch in one foot and a borderline high arch in the other.

Over longer distances, that can contribute to the kind of pain I was feeling. The insoles haven’t completely solved that problem, but it is a night and day improvement. For what it’s worth, I replace these after about a thousand miles, or after the second set of shoes.

One very important note: they need to fit your shoes precisely. The blisters that I mentioned above, as it turned out, were caused by insoles I got from Amazon that were the right size for my shoes, but didn’t fit perfectly. This led to sliding and movement in my shoes, and thus blisters on my feels. Now, I get the people at Fleet Feet to cut the insoles to fit when I buy the shoes. The result? No blisters.

Broken Ribs

The best way to deal with broken ribs is not to break them. If you’re unlucky enough to do so, however, there’s not much you can do except grit it out. The typical recovery time is six weeks, and that’s what it was for me though I could feel the broken rib(s) when I slept on them for a couple of weeks after that. Unless you have problems breathing, which is indicative of a punctured lung and something you need to get treatment for immediately, there’s not much anyone can do about broken ribs. I found walking was fine as long as I didn’t move the arm on the side where I broke them.

But honestly, just try and keep your feet if you can. These are no fun.

My 2024 in Pictures

As years go, 2024 was one. It had its share of wonderful moments, its scary moments and some devastating lows – you probably know the worst of them. It was a year of some family travel, as we got to visit London, Paris, New York and Nova Scotia – though not without some notable complications. It was a year with some health scares, and the usual end of year holiday break spent with at least one of us feverish and coughing uncontrollably for more or less the entire vacation.

In the wider world, meanwhile – well, actually I’m going to skip that. It’s my year in pictures, and sadly I’m sure 2025 will have its own brand new set of fresh horrors. For this space, I’ll focus on the things I actually want to remember, not the ones I’d like to forget.

Travel

For the second year in a row, my travel ticked up, but not unreasonably so. From the immediate post-lockdown total of 24K miles flown in ’22 to 30K in ’23, 2024 clocked in at 39K. I would have preferred to hold around 25K, but it’s still a far cry from my 85K years, let alone the 100K+ hellscapes.

The goal for 2025 is to hold at that level or even drop it a bit; we’ll see how that plays out.

Health

My overall health in 2024 was fine. I’d hoped to come out of the year lighter than I went in, but I more or less held steady. That’s not the worst outcome, however, given the stress of trying to get through the run up to the election and its aftermath. I can live with that, but the goal is to enter next year lighter than I did this one.

In better news, I completed my goal of walking 3K miles in a year for the first time, finishing the year at 3137. That was just shy of the distance from our house to San Francisco, but as noted over on Instagram it was enough to walk from our front door to Seattle and Vancouver to the west, Oaxaca and Tijuana in Mexico and Fort Providence in the Northern Territories in Canada.

Walking remains a highlight of my day, and has kept my health steady even when other habits have slipped. Making it even more rewarding is that after years of effort I finally started making progress in making friends with the island crows when I’m out walking. They now recognize me and fly over for peanuts. Puts a smile on my face every time.

With all of that said, on to the pictures.

January 1

For New Year’s eve 2024, Kate and I did a date night down in Portland. When we picked Eleanor up from my Mom’s the next day, she fell asleep almost before we were out of the driveway.

January 3

We made a trip to the Maine State House as part of a protest against gun violence. A picture of Eleanor at the protest actually ran on the front page of the Press Herald the next day.

January 7

First snow walk of the year.

January 10

Maine got absolutely hammered by the first of two major storms. The tides were so high that multiple buildings got swept away, and the local ferry pier was totally submerged

January 12

In preparation for more storm flooding and astronomical tides, I made a flying trip down to our office which was right on the wharf down in Portland to get mine, my Dad’s and his Dad’s Williams chairs home so that they weren’t damaged.

January 14

The anticipated flooding nearly destroyed the ferry wharf.

January 22

Got a nice sunset, at least.

February 2

After he got fixed, Sully communicated to us that he did not like the Cone of Shame by eating it.

February 3

At Artisane Studios down the road, Eleanor made herself a bench for her room.

February 11

We watched the Super Bowl this year as a family from the hot tub. Part of it, anyway.

February 14

We all celebrate pitchers and catchers in this house.

February 21

Nice little birthday dinner at Pai Men, my favorite place in Portland.

February 22

Eleanor and I built a cedar bench for the hot tub. The mitre saw was my grandfather’s as well, so multiple generations were involved.

February 24

We watched the first spring training game together, as we have every year since she was a baby.

March 14

Got back to the sister event to the Monktoberfest in London, the Monki Gras. It was off the hook as it was every year.

The only complication was that Kate and Eleanor arrived on Friday, which was fantastic until the latter woke up crying with a terrible ear infection at 3 AM in our hotel room. She and I then hopped an Uber over to the hospital which was hard to navigate as a non-citizen and took over three hours, but to the NHS’s credit we were treated at absolutely no cost. Same at the pharmacy.

March 17

We then hopped the train down to Paris for my next conference and Kate and Eleanor’s next leg of vacation. Trains are so much more comfortable to travel in than planes.

March 20

While in Paris, we did not need to visit the hospital, which was great. The downside there, however, was that the hotel we checked into only had a queen bed. And not only did they not have a cot for me to sleep on, they couldn’t even come up with extra blankets and pillows. So I slept on the floor for the duration using my suitcase as a pillow.

But the girls had a good time, which is what matters.

March 24

We’d only been home for a couple of days when we got hit with another massive storm, only this time it was ice. It downed trees everywhere, but the biggest issue was that it snapped off the utility pole on our street knocking out our power and internet and trapping us at home.

Fortunately school ended up being out until it got repaired and our neighbors couldn’t have been better about offering to pick us up groceries, offering to drive Eleanor to school use of their car, etc. Thanks Ashley and Trevor!

March 26

Best of all, our propane held out just long enough to power the generator until the power was restored. It was very, very close though.

April 4

Speaking of storms and propane, a couple of weeks after the last storm, we got a blast of snow that knocked down a tree. It missed hitting our propane tanks by less than three feet, and its branches miraculously fell in between the tanks themselves.

I don’t know if they would have exploded if they took a direct hit, but I’m very happy we didn’t find out.

April 15

Got to take in a Mariners game with our friend JT. First time at the park, and it’s great place to see a game. I even got to hand off a foul ball to two little girls watching the game with their Dad, which I’d never had the chance to do before.

April 19

I don’t love getting up early to get out for walks, but when I get to see the sun rise it takes some of the sting out.

April 20

Got to introduce Eleanor to the joys of using a brad nailer.

April 26

While on a combination work visit for me / birthday trip for Kate (the room had two beds this time, thankfully), I got to visit the MLB offices for the first time and see the room where instant replay is reviewed. Thanks Justin!

May 1

Speaking of NYC, I love walking the High Line trail while I’m there. It really is a great city to walk in.

May 7

While out in Denver for a work trip, RedMonk bought beers for people we know – two of whom happened to be college buddies of mine. Thanks coming by Andrew and Nat.

May 11

Spent the weekend after snowshoeing in the Sangre de Cristo mountains with one of said friends, Andrew.

May 22

Someone asked me how I walk when I travel, and my response was that I generally find the nearest water, then walk along it. This time it was Boston.

May 26

The Seadogs do a great job making a trip to the park fun for kids.

June 1

Eleanor’s first violin recital.

June 3

Back in San Francisco, this time with a good view of Karl the Fog rolling in.

June 14

Got to celebrate the last day of school with a few of Eleanor’s besties and their families. Kids jumped in the water fully clothed, because of course they did.

June 15

First doors off day of the year.

June 20

Was down meeting a friend for dinner at our local waterside venue when a squall rolled in and dumped rain on me.

June 26

Annual pilgrimage to the secret beach. Thanks Whitney!

July 3

Whatever else it was, 2024 was a banner year for the hydrangeas.

July 4

Fireworks with friends, per the usual.

July 17

Riding bikes and picking flowers (per the big sign saying PICK ME with clippers) with the kiddo.

July 19

Clamfest’s Stephen King game was strong this year.

July 26

Circus Camp recital was very different from her violin recital.

July 30

Might not be the last time, but this was the first time I had to hide out in the ferry building to get away from a thunderstorm passing directly overhead.

August 4

We took a ride up to Nova Scotia for a reunion with Kate’s family and her parents rented a house with a pool. Predictably, it absolutely dumped rain one day, and just as predictably as soon as the threat of lightning had passed the kids were back in the pool – rain notwithstanding.

August 5

Rode the ferry back from Nova Scotia.

August 16

Eleanor started feeling crummy on the way back from Canada, and a couple of weeks later she ended up in the hospital with pneumonia and, as it turned out, Lyme disease. It was scary and wrecked August for all of us, but once they got her on the right meds she was back on her feet and good to go.

August 30

My little helper and I converted an old hall closet into a craft closet with shelves.

September 6

Took a run up to Absolem to finalize Monktoberfest planning. If you visit Maine, you really need to hit this place. It’s gorgeous, not far from Portland and no one knows more about spirits – any of them – than Ryan Travers.

October 3

Another Monktoberfest in the books. No major disasters this time, though our dinner venue was tripping breakers all over the place.

October 10

My first time seeing the Aurora Borealis. Absolutely bonkers.

October 16

As happens to me every couple of years, I went to a conference in NYC and ended up with a crazy hotel room with two bedrooms, two bathrooms, three fridges, a foosball table and a sizable balcony.

That I was in for maybe nine hours total.

October 18

Our little Irish dancer got up and danced to the music of the local Irish music group while they practiced.

October 31

We recruited a couple of Eleanor’s besties to come trick or treat with her on our island.

November 1

Kate was in the water every month this year. Personally, I think it’s crazy, but it’s also crazy bad ass. Got to share in the experience this time – from the shore, not the water.

I’m not crazy.

November 9

With the girls off to Canada for a cousin’s birthday, I snuck in one last trip out to Colorado to see my best friend. The timing was good, as I really needed to laugh at that time.

November 19

Successfully fermented a hot sauce with habaneros that I grew. While I learned from last time and pulled the food processor outside to grind them up, boiling the sauce still ended up tear gassing the house and the girls upstairs.

November 24

Spent a good part of the year dodging these guys, who have decided that island skunks don’t need to be nocturnal. Regrettably.

December 22

Everyone was too sick for us to get together to put it up with them, but our neighbors down the street got the little holiday tree up on the bridge which is a delight every time you pass it.

December 31

Ended the year with fireworks at a friend’s house, Trading Places and an Orval. As one does.

I Have Squandered My Days With Plans of Many Things

Things were going pretty well with our summer until Eleanor ended up with pneumonia. Eleven days later she was hospitalized with a high fever and a partially deflated right lung having not responded to a double course of azithromycin and amoxicillin. After she slept the first night in her hospital bed hooked up to an oxygen tank and Kate and I “slept” in chairs in her room, I went in to brush my teeth the first morning and came out to the scene above, what Eleanor sleepily called “a doctor party.”

The mass gathering of doctors and nurses had been assembled because Eleanor’s blood oxygen levels were scary low and her resting heart rate was scary high. One of them, from under his mask and full gown, said “don’t be alarmed.” I stood there blinking and stupid from no sleep and tried to imagine a world in which anyone would not be alarmed under the circumstances.

But that’s the bad news. Or most of it, anyway. Sure, there was a weird 3 AM allergic reaction that had Eleanor’s lips looking like Angelina Jolie’s, intermittent vomiting, a prescription mix up that sent us home with a potential overdose of thyroid medication rather than the appropriate antibiotics and an eventual diagnosis of Lyme disease on top of the pneumonia.

None of that is as important as the good news, however, which is that the second morning we were at the hospital the high end antibiotics (as in: used to treat anthrax and the plague) they’d put her on had kicked in, and her blood oxygen and heart rates numbers had come back not quite to normal, but to levels that were at least regarded as safe and no longer required the poor thing to trail an oxygen tank behind her to use the bathroom. We got to go home, and while she may have been carried in there, she walked out on her own two feet.

The whole process took a lot longer than anyone wanted, then, but with time and medicine she eventually got back on her feet and started school without incident or restriction yesterday morning. All of which is thanks to the miracle of antibiotics, the high quality care we received from urgent care to our pediatrician to the hospital and, I say with no small amount of pride, our daughter’s toughness – you would have made my Dad very proud, Little Bear. Seriously. I did not have “my daughter will pull her own IV out of her arm when it was time to be discharged” on my summer bingo card, but here we are.

Oh, and before I forget, let me also give a special shout out to Kate’s parents and her sister and family who swung into action while we were all staying at the hospital to feed and walk the dog, clean the house, take our garbage to the dump and have Eleanor’s room (and stuffies) neatly organized for her return. They’re the best.

Anyway, before we spent August driving to and from hospitals and waiting for chest x-ray results and prescriptions to be filled, however, we did manage to have some fun. Here are a couple of shots from the non-medical crisis portions of our summer.

Wouldn’t be summer without a trip to the secret beach up in Phippsburg.

Hosted friends to (belatedly) celebrate Midsommar in honor of my and Eleanor’s Scandinavian heritage.

Other friends, meanwhile, hosted us for the 4th.

Stopped to pick flowers at one of the island houses (whose fence has a big “PICK ME” sign on it with clippers, don’t worry).

Speaking of flowers, it was a banner year for our hydrangeas.

Started growing our own hot pepper plants.

Finally sourced whole, unshelled peanuts to begin the recruitment of my island crow army.

The girls weren’t in it this year, but Clam Fest was a lot of fun.

Boarding

Took the Cat over to Nova Scotia for a family reunion with Kate’s side of the family.

With Eleanor unable to go to camp for a couple of weeks, there were a lot of 5 AM wakeups to get my walks in. Good news was that I got some decent sunrise shots, though several mornings it was nothing but dark and fog.

One day when she was able to go to camp, I managed to sneak in an even longer walk.

Turned some of those hot peppers into my first (successful, non-moldly) fermented hot sauce. Mistakes were made, but it’s a) edible and b) non-toxic.

My little helper and I put new shelves in the craft closet, so we don’t have another “beads down” incident.

Speaking of said little helper, check out this stool she made at camp. Kate and I figured she just built the frame and they dropped in the seat, but no: she wove that herself. Studio Artisane rules.

Ultimately, there were lots of other fun activities: bike rides, birthday parties, island dock jumping and even an unplanned sleepover or two. We saw lots of animals from foxes, raccoons and skunks to eagles, owls and ospreys to a surprise giant salamander. We had movie nights, fires in the firepit, drinks out on the deck with friends and hot tub time. A shocking number of baby teeth were lost.

And not, we think, because of the summer’s s’mores.

The crazy medical scramble notwithstanding, then, it was all in all a good summer, because we eventually came out of it one piece. Here’s hoping fall is just as much fun but with a lot less drama.

How to Chemically Treat a Goodland Hot Tub

About a year ago, we bought a wood fired hot tub – specifically this one from Goodland. We love it and use it every day it doesn’t rain and some days when it does. And It’s utterly amazing in the snow. Anyway, for those that want the background, I went through our thoughts around buying the tub and our initial experience in a lot more detail here.

When I wrote it up, however, I promised to follow up with details on how we treat our water. To do that, I’m going to lay out our process for filling and treating the water in our Goodland. For those of you in the same boat as we are, then, hopefully this is helpful.

Why treat the water at all?

We save time not repeatedly filling and draining the tub – not to mention saving water – but mostly we treat our water because we’re on a well. It’s a good well and reasonably deep, but we don’t want to overtax it. The average bath tub is something like 50 gallons. The Goodland is around 250. If you filled it every day, in other words, it’d be like taking five baths a day – not that you’d have to. You can usually get at least a week out of a given fill even untreated. We’d probably be fine, then, but when it’s the water source for our primary and only residence, why take chances?

If you’re on city/town water or if you have a handy source of water nearby – creek, river, lake or ocean – that will unquestionably be easier to do.

But for us, treating the water in our Goodland makes the most sense.

How is the water treated?

There are two components to our water treatment approach: chemical and filtration.

What’s filtration?

It’s not enough to just treat the water with chemicals to keep it bacteria free. Even if you have both covers for the Goodland as we do, you’re going to get debris in there: leaves, pollen, ash, insects and so on. You can’t easily remove those via chemicals.

What do you use for filtration?

The bad news is that I have yet to find a perfect solution to this problem – there just aren’t many commercial options available. My assumption is that there’s not a major market for external hot tub filtration systems because the majority sold come with inline filter equipment built in. Whatever the case, you basically have two options: internal units that sit in the tub, or pumps that sit outside of it.

There are many more external options than internal ones, and they’d be much easier to integrate. We ruled those out, however, because we use our tub heavily in the winter and an external filter is much more likely to freeze.

So instead we got an oversized combination filter/skimmer unit intended for above ground pools. Specifically, we got a Bestway Flowclear 680. It’s too big for the tub, I have to clamp it into place and you have to remove it to fit more than two people in, but that’s a thirty second chore.

And the upside to having the filter in there is that it automatically circulates the water as it heats up, so I don’t have to keep mixing it with the Goodland paddle.

Do you still have to clean the tub manually with a skimmer net?

Yes. The Bestway’s filtration system is better than its skimmer function. But skimming a hot tub the size of a Goodland is not like skimming a regular sized pool; it doesn’t take that long at all.

Ok, so what about chemicals?

While I’m no expert, and there are alternatives, the most common two options for chemical treatment are bromine and chlorine. Bromine is a little gentler and has less odor, but is more expensive. Chlorine is a little harsher and you get a faint chemical smell, but it’s cheaper.

We opted for chlorine, but via a salt water system.

What’s a salt water system?

For this system, you add pool salt to regular water to achieve a salinity level that is substantially lower than seawater, but still feels softer and gentler on the skin. An electrically powered salt water system then uses the salt in the water to generate more consistent, lower levels of chlorine than is typically found in a hot tub which makes for a gentler experience. I was sold on the Salt Water idea by this video from Swim University.

As for which system, we use the Saltron Mini for our Goodland.

Can the Goodland handle salt water?

Yup, there’s no issue whatsoever. Neither the aluminum nor the cedar are impacted by salt water.

One caveat, however: if you use your Goodland in the winter and you use a salt water system, do not buy the pond de-icer that Goodland recommends on their website. The stand for it is steel and it will rust immediately and stain the cedar it sits on and color your water.

How does the treatment process work?

Let’s divide that into stages. There’s the initial fill, and then there’s the ongoing maintenance.

The fill is very straightforward. You simply filter the incoming water; for that, we use one of these attached to our garden hose. In our case, it pulls out the iron and other minerals present in our well water.

The filter doesn’t slow the process when it’s working – it takes us about an hour to fill the tub. That filter is rated for a couple of thousand gallons before it’s shot, but ours slowed to a trickle after two or three fills. Turns out if you shake it a couple of times, performance goes right back to normal.

What about ongoing maintenance?

That can be divided up into three parts: skimming, filter maintenance and chemical treatment.

If you’ve ever been around pools, skimming is simple: it’s a mesh net that you use to fish medium to large debris – i.e. leaves, bugs and so on – out of the tub. With both covers on our tub, I have to do this maybe once a week. Twice in the summer.

How about the filter maintenance?

That’s also not that complicated. Changing the filter on the Bestway is a thirty second chore. The filters last a couple of weeks, and when you notice reduced flow out of the unit you turn it off and pop in a new filter.

Lastly, what about chemical treatment?

Once you get past the initial setup, treatment is very simple. Our Ph, hardness, salinity etc doesn’t tend to change much once it’s established.

But out of the gate this one’s more complicated and depends on your water composition. The first thing you’ll need is test strips. We use two types: this one to test Ph, alkalinity, chlorine, hardness and so on and then a second to test salinity.

Incidentally, I do not recommend this test unit: it’s slow to read and the results tend to vary pretty widely from our strips.

What is the first thing to add to the water?

The first thing we add is salt. Our well water obviously has no salt in it to start. Our Saltron system is optimized for 2000-2500 PPM salinity (by comparison, seawater is 35,000 PPM). To get to that level, I add 5.25 lbs or 2265 grams of pool salt. There’s no chemical difference between pool salt and table salt, apparently, but it’s optimized for quick dispersal and dissolution.

What comes next?

Next comes adjusting the alkalinity. Out of the well, ours is 80 PPM. To get to the recommended 100 PPM, we add 2.5 tbsp of alkalinity increaser. Notably, that’s a Spaguard product, and that’s what we use across the board a) because it’s designed for hot tubs and b) it’s easy to adjust the doses to a Goodland sized tub.

After getting the alkalinity where we want it, there are just two more adjustments to be made before getting to the all important chlorine.

First, we adjust the Ph. Our water is 7.2, and we want to get to 7.6. To do that, it’s 2.5 tsp of Ph increaser.

Second, we need to add calcium to the water to make it harder. Our well water is zero PPM, so we add 14 grams of calcium hardness increaser.

How does chlorine treatment work?

The Saltron system mostly takes care of this on an ongoing basis, but it’s like a battery trickle charger – it can’t establish the baseline chlorine level on its own, it can only keep it topped off.

So after taking care of the rest of the water chemistry, we add 1.5 tsp of Spaguard chlorinating concentrate. That gets us to a 3+ chlorine level and then the salt system takes it from there.

If the tub is exposed to the sun which destroys chlorine, or if the salt system is left off for a period of time, your chlorine may go back to zero in which case a reapplication of 1.5 tsp is required.

What other chemicals are necessary?

Every so often, most often following heavy use, heavy rain or some combination of the two, the tub begins to get cloudy. At that point, we “shock” the tub using this enhanced shock product. I believe the dosage is 4.5 tsp for the Goodland, but definitely check my math on that before applying it.

Whatever the dose, applying this once a week or every other week keeps the water very clear.

How long will a given fill with the above treatment regimen last?

As a rule we cycle our water after six months, but typically it’s still clear at the time we do that. We’re also pretty strict, however, about being clean and showered before we get into the tub.

How much time does the above maintenance take on a weekly basis?

Not more than an hour. The only things that are really required regularly are skimming, testing and correcting the chlorine if necessary. Everything else is mostly an up front setup cost in time.

Anything else to add?

Just be aware that all of the above measurements are specific to the water chemistry of our well – you’ll want to adjust the amounts to your particular water source.

Is treating the water worth it?

Easily. First, it keeps our well safe and unstressed. Second, it’s really not that much work on a weekly basis. And third, once you have your doses dialed in, it’s just not that complicated to treat your water.

In a perfect world, we’d be pumping creek water or seawater in for every soak, but given that those aren’t options for us treating it is the next best thing.

My 2023 in Pictures

If 2022 was a year of cautious re-emergence from lockdown for myself and my family, 2023 was an acceleration of that trend. One that came with benefits, but also a personal cost for myself as I’ll get to. It was indisputably a cost worth paying, however. Life was not back to normal, to be clear. Much as there was a permanent demarcation between what travel was like pre and post 9/11, so too is travel in the wake of COVID a fundamentally different activity. There’s a lot more overhead to travel these days, the least of which is masking. But if 2023 was a reminder of anything it was that physical, face to face connections are priceless, and therefore worth that overhead.

Every year involves a certain amount of sickness, loss and tragedy both on the personal and global scale. This year was no exception in that regard, but that was balanced by an appreciation for what I have, both for the time spent with the people close to me and for an opportunity to reconnect with friends I had not seen, in some cases, for decades.

It was a complicated year, then, but a good year. As always then, these are the moments – significant at times but mostly not – that characterized my year personally. Before we get to the pictures, however, a quick check-in on travel and health.

Travel

For better or for worse, my travel in 2023 was a mild escalation from the year prior. While thankfully falling far short of my hundreds of thousands miles a year peak, my 2023 travel schedule ticked up from twenty thousand miles to around twenty five. A couple of extra trips in the fall and spring travel seasons, no more, but the trajectory’s slope was up. That bears watching for 2024, because while my current travel load is sustainable, it’s important to me that it not escalate to anything like my pre-pandemic slate.

Health

Overall, my health and fitness in 2023 was steady. I lost some more weight in the first half of the year, added a bit of it back in the second half and didn’t end up exactly where I wanted to be but I’ve been able to more or less hold the line.

That was possible in large part thanks to my continued love of walking. I was active 334 out of 365 days, and I just missed hitting 3000 miles walked this year at 2,973, a number which was almost 500 miles ahead of my 2022 total. My BFF and I have a joint 3K goal this year, so fingers crossed time, availability, weather and health permit us to hit that goal.

With all of that said, on to the pictures.

January 1

As is my custom, rang in the New Year watching Trading Places and drinking the world’s best beer.

January 2

As literally no one could have predicted, Kate got absolutely hooked on the World Junior Hockey Championships while watching it with her family, so we watched a lot of that.

January 9

A year later, I finally finished rebuilding our basement after it flooded.

January 18

With a “write a persuasive letter” assignment at school, the great dog campaign of 2023 was launched.

January 23

First big snowstorm of the year.

January 24

The dog campaign’s pressure kept ratcheting up.

January 29

First visit of the year to our friends up at Absolem Cidery.

February 4

It got cold. Very cold.

February 12

Ate terrible food and beer with friends for the Super Bowl, then had to walk 12 miles the next day. Suboptimal.

February 18

Borrowing an idea from my friend Lewis, we did a Dad’s “Best Day Ever,” in which we sat around in robes, drank beer and ate terrible food.

February 25

First Red Sox game of the season.

March 4

Saw college friends I hadn’t seen since before the pandemic – at the usual venue.

March 16

Family outing to Bluey’s Big Play.

March 18

Annual St. Patrick’s Day event at our place.

March 25

To all who celebrate.

March 26

Kate’s mini portable projector makes its debut.

March 29

Frogs were back.

March 31

From a still undetermined source, I got COVID for the first time. I was fortunate, first in that it was not too bad for me – roughly 36 hours or so of a very sore throat and mild fever – and second that the girls were in Boston, so I was able to successfully quarantine myself in the basement without them getting it. Oh, and lucky for the vaccines that made my case mild.

April 8

Finally tested negative.

April 22

Kate and I did a spa weekend. No one had told me spas had outdoor hot tubs, saunas and steam rooms. I thought they were just for manicures, pedicures and the like. I like spas now.

April 28

Traded in my Apple Watch for an Ultra because, after testing, it was clear that the former wouldn’t last me through a long distance walk I was planning.

April 29

Missed brush pickup day in town by a matter of hours and had to take all of the winter’s downed pine tree limbs over myself.

May 1

Last training session for my planned long walk, and also my longest distance up until that point.

May 6

First doors off day for the Jeep.

May 12

First Seadogs game of the year.

May 19

Thanks to a strained calf, it wasn’t clear that this was going to happen, but I managed to walk 50 miles for the first time.

May 25

Got to see some old friends in Colorado.

May 28

Eleanor got to run the bases at Hadlock. She came in dead last, all because she wanted to help a little friend.

June 8

Chaperoned Eleanor’s schools’ Beach Day. I was responsible for keeping an eye on a mere four kids, and my big takeaway was that teachers should be paid seven figure salaries.

June 10

Eleanor had her first Irish step dance recital and was great, in spite of one of her fellow dancers who almost tripped her up.

June 21

I had to meet him via Facetime because I was traveling in NYC, but the inevitable outcome of the great dog campaign of 2023 – a black lab named Sully – arrived on this day.

June 22

Speaking of NYC, walked the High Line trail there for the first time. Great little park.

June 25

Missed the first day of summer because I was away, but got our annual Jaws viewing in nevertheless.

June 27

Not sure if the video will ever see the light of day, but in one of the more surreal work experiences I’ve had an entire film crew flew into the Portland to shoot a video with me and a client. It was absurd.

July 4

Turns out trying to get someone to come out and address your complete lack of water pressure is challenging on a beautiful 4th of July day – hence the bike pump (worked the first time, not the second). The entire well tank ended up needing to be replaced, and the guy who installed it a week later said he had no idea how the old one had not started a fire.

July 6

Sully was not sad that we live just up the road from a beach.

July 19

We got a wood fired hot tub. Lots more on that addition here.

July 22

As cool as it was to get a hot tub that was how miserable it was to deal with a sewage back up. And as with the well tank situation, trying to get someone to come out and address a septic system on a gorgeous July Saturday proved to be impossible, which is why I now know a lot more than I’d like to about how septic systems work.

August 19

Last time Ferd and I saw a show together, it was Pearl Jam. This time around it was Sigur Ros in Boston. They’re so good live.

August 22

Made the annual pilgrimage to the falls with my little sidekick.

September 5

Not sure how this happened, but we had a second grader on our hands.

September 7

Like everyone else these days, we got our share of Canadian wildfire smoke.

September 9

A friend turned 40 so it was time for a lakehouse.

October 5

Another Monktoberfest in the books.

October 7

The timing couldn’t have been worse coming on the heels of our event, but I kept a promise and flew down to NJ the day after to attend my high school reunion. And while I grumbled about the flight, it was beyond worth it. Catching up with the first friends I ever had – some of whom I hadn’t seen in literally decades – was an incredible experience. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a long time, and we all picked up as if we’d seen each other yesterday. Just a delight from start to finish as I got lucky with my high school friends.

October 15

Got back up to Bremen for a cider pressing for the first time in a few years.

October 27

Maine is a safe state in most respects, but we are, sadly, no more immune to gun violence epidemic than the next state.

October 28

As with our St Patrick’s Day party, we’ve continued our Trunk or Treat Halloween party begun during the pandemic. The best part was when the costume parade turned into a costume race.

October 31

Speaking of Halloween, no one takes it more seriously than the island.

November 2

Hit my annual walking goal for the a couple of months early.

November 11

Time for the Biggest Little Game in America.

November 20

Last year was the first time I’d walked the distance of the Appalachian Trail. This year it was the Pacific Crest Trail distance.

November 22

Had a fantastic Thanksgiving out in Minnesota with my brother’s family.

December 19

The island got crushed by a windstorm, with trees down everywhere including large limbs in our yard.

December 31

To ring in the New Year, Eleanor had a grammie sleepover, we boarded the dog for the night and Kate and I headed down to Portland. Kate did a cold dip with a friend, which I noped right out of, then we had dinner at Street and Co and a quiet night on the town.

We Bought a Wood Fired Hot Tub

Let me be clear about this up front: we were not hot tub people. If someone had told us a year or two ago that we’d end up buying a hot tub – much less a wood fired one – well, I can’t speak for Kate, but I would not have believed it. Neither of us grew up with a hot tub, lived somewhere that had them or belonged to social scenes in which hot tubs were a regular method of socializing.

Not that there’s anything wrong with being a hot tub person, obviously. It’s just that that was not a descriptor that would have applied to us. And yet we are now technically hot tub people, of a sort. How did this happen?

Three things conspired to turn us into the proud owners of a Goodland wood fired hot tub.

First, and most importantly, was our move to the island. One of the things that happens when you move to a beautiful place is that you’re not inclined to leave it for anything less than exotic destinations. As we shifted away from spending a summer week at cottages on the coast up north, then, we decided to deploy some of that vacation budget to exaggerating the vacation-like characteristics of our existing house. How could we make it even more enjoyable to spend time here during vacations? As we might put it in tech, how could we give our regular house new features? That led us to begin considering various additions like saunas – something we still might do eventually. We did some research, and that’s when social media kicked in.

Second, then, was YouTube. As we started casting about for ways to upgrade our house, YouTube’s algorithm inevitably led me to this video about a family that purchased a Goodland wood fired hot tub. Not only had I never heard of Goodland, I didn’t know wood fired hot tubs existed. The idea of a wood fired hot tub, which is an experience quite distinct – for better and for worse – from a traditional electrically heated hot tub, however, seemed intriguing. They’re not for everyone, as I’ll come back to later, but we were at least in the target demo as wood is our primary heat source for the house in winter.

Last came the unexpected and improbable discount. Knowing what we know now, which is that the hot tub gets basically daily usage, I wouldn’t have waited on a discount. We’d pay full fare, and happily. Not being hot tub people at the time, however, we were intrigued but on the fence, skeptical as to how much we’d use it. Then, having signed up for Goodland’s newsletter, I got this email.

Over a thousand dollars off because it literally fell off a truck and got scratched, and the tub was already here in the great state of Maine. That seemed an awful lot like fate, so we pulled the trigger. And since it arrived in July, at least one of us has been in the hot tub nearly every day that it hasn’t rained. Also, a couple of days when it did rain.

If you’re at all curious about the Goodland, you probably have questions. I certainly did. To Goodland’s credit, they’ve answered a ton of them here. But here’s what I’ve figured out thus far after six months of usage. If there’s anything I missed, drop a comment or email me and I’ll update this. I’ll also do a follow up post on our water treatment process later; that’s involved enough to need its own space.

Why get a hot tub?

Everyone’s reasons here will differ. For many, as mentioned above, it’s socializing. While you can technically fit four adults in this tub, however, that’s not why we bought ours. What we were looking for was an opportunity to spend time outdoors, in all seasons, in a place that is inherently screen-unfriendly. Whether it’s the whole family, Kate and I, or just one of us individually, hot tub time is a time to sit, soak and take in the blue sky or the night sky. Particularly if you’re in a relationship with someone, a hot tub – at least in our experience – represents an opportunity for more focused, less distracted one on one time. It’s an investment, in that way, in your relationship.

I’ve also found that if I’m quiet enough while I’m out there, it’s like being in a blind for watching nature go by. So far I’ve seen foxes, raccoons, deer and several neighborhood cats saunter by no more than twenty feet away – totally unaware of my presence.

Why get a wood fired hot tub?

Part of it is cost. For a traditional hot tub we’d have to have an electrician in to do potentially expensive work. For us, on the other hand, as a household who already deals with firewood on a daily basis, there is no additional cost to a wood fired hot tub. But there is also an almost meditative benefit to using a wood. It’s inarguably less convenient than a regular hot tub where the temperature is maintained constantly – it can take a couple of hours to get up to temp. But the process of building and starting a fire has value in the same way that heating the house with wood does. For me, at least, the ritual of heating the tub is an enjoyable one, a contemplative one. Your mileage may vary on that, of course.

Why buy a Goodland?

For us, at least, it was a couple of things.

Aesthetics: the Goodland hot tubs are beautiful to look at. Aesthetics are generally more Kate’s concern than mine, but even I appreciate the way it looks.
Company: the company, which is very small and Canadian (a plus for Kate as her Mom is Canadian), encourages via their products a slower, more thoughtful approach to life – an approach that resonates in a world that gets more sped up by the day.
Design: the hot tubs are well and thoughtfully designed, and not only are easy to take apart and set up, but can be moved and installed by two people. They’re also built with materials intended to last.
Price: at ~$6300, the Goodland is not cheap. But given that quotes for a lot of the traditional hot tubs start at $10,000 – and that’s before the requisite electrical work, installation charges and so on – the Goodland was more affordable for us even absent the discount. And it has no impact on our monthly electrical bill either, unlike the traditional alternatives.
Size: not being hot tub people, as mentioned above, we did not want a huge tub that would seat half a dozen or more people. We also don’t really have the space for that. The Goodland’s size fit our needs best.

Is it worth the money?

Everyone’s answer to that will be different. For us, it was about usage. If we spent that much money and we used it every so often, as a special occasion, that would be a waste of money. If we used it multiple times per week, on the other hand, that would be worth the money.

If I buy a Goodland, do I need the cover and end covers?

If you’re going to reuse the water at all, you definitely need the covers. Even with them it’s amazing how much crap ends up in the tub. If you’re not going to reuse the water, you probably want them anyway to keep leaves and other debris out of the tub when it’s empty.

They’re an added expense, yes, but it beats having everything the wind blows ending up in your tub.

Speaking of reusing the water, is the hot tub’s water treated with chemicals?

The short answer is that you can do either untreated or treated water. And as the tub is cedar and aluminum, you can also do salt water which is what we do.

Which should I do?

That depends entirely on your situation. In the video I linked to above, they pump water into their tub from a nearby lake when they need it, and drain it when they’re done. So they don’t treat their water. If you have a nearby water source, be that fresh or salt water then, you can just use that. This is much simpler and lower cost.

We don’t live on a lake, and we’re on a well. Our well is good and deep, and the tub’s capacity is comparatively small at ~250 gallons, but we don’t want to run the risk of overtaxing the well at our primary residence so we treat our water.

I’ll save the process for another post, because while it’s simple enough once you figure it out there are a lot of moving pieces. Detailing all of that would take more space than I have here.

How long does it take to heat the tub?

It all depends on your starting temperature. When I’ve got residual heat left over from the day before, and it’s a temperature in the sixties or seventies, it’s maybe an hour and a half. If temps are in the thirties or forties, however, it’ll take several hours. Instead of starting a fire in the afternoon, then, I just do it in the morning.

I’m concerned about the water freezing in the winter: how long does it take for the water to cool down?

Longer than you’d think. If you’re heating the water every day or every other day, it’s not an issue unless you’re dealing with extreme cold. In our case – with only an extra layer of rigid foam insulation sitting under the tub – here’s an example. Firing up the tub one afternoon, the temperature peaked at 103.6F at 2:30 in the afternoon. The low temperature that night was 17F. By 8:30 AM the next day the temperature was down to 65.3F. And that’s a more extreme example; typically if the overnight temps are in the twenties and thirties you might see the hot tub temp the next day in the seventies.

The takeaways, then, are that extreme cold can bleed heat reasonably efficiently, but even in very cold weather a heated tub is not going to freeze overnight. And you can slow that further by deploying insulation on top of the water and/or a tank de-icer (though as I discovered, you can’t use that with salt-water because the stand is not stainless).

What are comfortable temperatures?

Everybody’s tolerances differ, obviously, but speaking personally the sweet spot is 98-101F. 102F is hot, and 103F is too hot for me for more than a few minutes.

To maximize time in the water, however, I’ll get in at any temp north of 90F and comfortably wait for it to warm up.

How do I manage temperature?

There’s a bit of a learning curve here, but it’s not too bad. Generally, you use a Goodland like you would a wood stove. I generally line the bottom of the stove with small logs, light a firestarter like fatwood on top of those and then place kindling strategically around that.

That will typically burn for an hour or two, then I just feed it until I get close to my target temperature and back off. When I want combustion to stop or slow, you can either close the opening entirely or leave a slim crack at the back open.

How do I get the temperatures even at the top and bottom of the tub?

Left to its own devices, any body of water will stratify into layers of differing temperatures. To ensure that you’re not stepping through a top layer of hot water into much cooler water, the contents have to be mixed. In an electrical hot tub, this work is performed by jets. In a Goodland, you have two options.

First, you mix it by hand. Goodland includes with the tub a nicely designed paddle which will ensure the water mixes top to bottom.

In our case, however, because we’re treating our water, we have a filter that sits in the tub and circulates the water as part of its normal operation.

Surprisingly, however, because most traditional hot tubs come with their own filtration system, it was difficult to find one appropriate for a wood fired hot tub like the Goodland. I eventually settled on this one designed for above ground pools. It’s a little too big and attachment is wonky, but it works and keeps the water clear.

What other accessories do I need to budget for?

Aside from the chemicals if you’re going to treat the tub, and filter system mentioned above, there are a couple of things that we use. Some of which are necessary whether you treat your water or not; others of which are optional.

Hose Filter: our well water is full of iron, so this screws on to our garden hose and pre-filters the water before it hits the hot tub.
Water Temperature Sensor: we have an Ambient weather station in our house, and this floating wifi temperature sensor pipes our current temperature into our display at home. As a bonus, you can also check the tub temperature via the Ambient app, and via their API you can pull a JSON feed which I use to display the hot tub temperature on our family dashboard.
Smart Power Cable: in order to be able to remotely turn on and off our hot tub filtration system and our salt water system, I picked up this smart outdoor power plug. I can schedule them and turn them on and off as necessary from my phone.

Do you happen to know how much a fully loaded hot tub weighs?

The tub weighs approximately 275 pounds with all of its parts, and the 257 gallons of water weighs approximately 2143 pounds, so before any people are in the tub you’re looking at a weight of around ~2450 pounds.

Can my deck support that much weight?

I was curious about the answer to this myself, because a lot of the Goodland videos you see have the tubs deployed on decks of varying heights and design. Because my wife is a lawyer, however, I’ll note that none of the below constitutes advice and I have no idea what your particular deck may hold. But I can at least tell you how I looked at the question.

The first thing I did personally was inquire with an engineering company as to what it would cost to get a professional assessment. Their quote was $2K, which meant that I could spend a third of the cost of the hot tub only to be told that my deck could not support the weight. I opted out of that.

Google research, meanwhile, told me that a deck approximately our height off the ground could support up to 100 pounds per square foot. My conservative math said that the Goodland would represent between 125 and 150 pounds per square foot, so our original plan was to drop in four new posts to over-reinforce the existing area of the deck.

Given that this would have mean trying to dig four foot deep holes under the crawlspace of our deck, however, we decided to punt on the matter and simply set up the tub on the ground. That was a good decision, because I no longer have to worry about load capacities and so on but more because I didn’t have to roll around under the crawlspace under our deck for a week.

What should I know about a wood fired hot tub that isn’t obvious?

The amount of work that goes into it, especially if you treat your water. It’s worth it for us, but if you’re the kind of person that just wants to get in and get out with no work on your part, this tub isn’t for you.

Anything else to add?

Just that we’re very happy with our Goodland and highly recommend it for those willing to put in a little work. For those with Goodlands already, meanwhile, I’ll follow up later with a post on our water treatment plan if there’s interest.

50 Miles

Last fall, I made the mistake of looking at how much I was walking per week and comparing it to a marathon training program, and as one of those maxed out at 38 miles a week and my weekly goal was 40, I began to wonder if I could do that. Which is why, in December of last year (and as a side note to anyone who wants to try this, I don’t recommend scheduling it for December in Maine) I walked a marathon distance for the first time.

It left me tired, but not totally debilitated, at which point I started to wonder what ultramarathon training schedules looked like. Turns out the training for that maxes out at a 32 mile long walk, so you can see where this is going.

Long story short I got up early this morning, walked for a little over 14 hours and completed a 50 mile distance for the first time. I’ve mentioned that this was in the works to friends over the last few weeks, and the three most common questions were:

Why?
Is this a part of an organized event or program?
Where did you do it?

The latter two are easy. There was no program. When I asked for advice about sharing my location data on Twitter, in fact, everyone assumed I was doing this as part of some organized effort and said "oh, the race organizers will have that." Instead, it was just me, walking out my front door and rather than walking an extra long loop I do on the island here from time to time, doing that and then adding two more on top.

People are always surprised that I walk the distances I do on two islands that are less than three miles square combined. But I honestly think walking the same trails is what makes it all work. It’s beautiful where we live, which is a bonus, but more importantly walking the same trails repeatedly rather than having to navigate an unfamiliar track or trail means that I can just tune out. Whole sections of my long walks are done on autopilot, where I might as well be in the world of whatever book I’m listening to rather than the actual trail I’m walking on. To the extent that I often can’t remember if I did a particular section of a trail or not unless I’m paying attention.

The first question I can’t really answer, though, other than to say that I just wanted to see if I could do it. This wasn’t some 50 for 50 challenge – I’m not 50 yet. It wasn’t trying to match my ultramarathon running friends, because they go farther than I do and are running those distances rather than walking them as I am. I just enjoy walking, and this seemed like a logical next challenge. Most folks I talk to think it’s crazy, but Walking Is The Way for me.

Admittedly, this time around was definitely more taxing than either the marathon walk or the 32 mile training prep. Both of those were tiring, but not too bad. Today, as I approached 40 miles my feet were in some pain in spite of my Hokas, my lower back was sore and I definitely felt the extra miles energy-wise – in spite of last night’s pasta dinner and the variety of bars, peanut butter packets and wraps I brought with me on the trail. The last ten miles were more of a grind than I’m used to while walking, but nothing like the wall that marathoners hit from what I’m told. I was just more tired than usual.

To those that think this was a little crazy, Dean – the guy who got me into walking in the first place – told me that the women’s record holder for fastest completion time for the Appalachian Trail did 54 miles a day for the entire length of the AT. That objectively seems crazy, and after having done this today I take my hat off to her because it is legit bonkers. If today was crazy, then, it was small time crazy, but more to the point fun.

Once it was done, anyway.

Before I forget, there are a bunch of people I need to thank:

My girls for taking good care of me, checking in on me regularly, encouraging and tolerating my crazy habit and a special shout out to Eleanor for my cool bracelet which helped get me through.
My distance mentor, AKA my best friend Andrew, for patiently fielding a continuing stream of dumb questions on my part concerning everything from gear to diet to injury recovery. Also, for getting me the new pack that I used for this that has like 50 front pockets for sunglasses, sunscreen, multiple headphones, gloves, empty bar wrappers and so on as well as an easy set up for a Camelbak-style bladder system. Also the recommendation for a bladder system.
My other distance mentor, our friend Condor, for his general advice and specifically his recommendation of anti-chafing gel which came in super handy around mile 38 when my feet started to fall apart.
My friend Dean, the OG walking expert here who’s the one who got me into walking in the first place. Was great to run into him today, and true to form once he found out today was the day I was doing 50 he shooed me along saying we could catch up later.
All of my coworkers, for making it possible not only for me to get in today’s effort, but also adapting to my sudden absence today rather than yesterday due to injury (long story) as well as my various training walks.
All of the folks here on the islands who have gone out of their way to stop me on my various walks to express their support. I never understood how islanders pull for each other until I got out and started walking the islands every day. Apologies to those folks as well if they saw me circling their houses today over and over and were confused.
Pearl Jam for getting me through the last half mile.

Unrelated to the above, a couple of quick notes on battery life if only for me, at least, in the event that I try something like this again, but also for anyone else that wants to do longer events:

Phone: you can’t necessarily do this if you’re running or cycling and you definitely can’t if you’re swimming – or at least it’s less practical – but I always bring my phone and run my audio (almost always audiobooks) off of that. I have an iPhone Mini, which probably wouldn’t make it through 14 hours of running Bluetooth audio so I brought a battery pack and charger and fueled it up after mile 30 or so.
Headphones: technically, the Airpod Pro’s I have will do the 14 hours – but only with a lengthy charge in the middle from the case. So instead, I bring along the old, depleted first generation Airpod Pro’s I have and swap them in when the gen 2 unit dies and thus I’m never without audio. They don’t last long at all now, but it’s long enough for the other set to recharge.
Watch: I ended up very relucantly upgrading from an Apple Watch 7 to an Ultra specifically for this and similar events. Even on low power mode, the 7 lost a quarter of its batter life in two and a half hours – and worse cannot be recharged by a battery pack while continuing to record a workout. The Ultra’s results, I’m happy to say, were much better. I charged it to 100% capacity last night – note that by default it doesn’t fully charge unless you tell it to – and after 14 and a half hours of outdoor workout with GPS today in low power mode (i.e. the screen’s not always on) the battery life was 50% when I finished. I’m not happy to spend $800 on a Watch that doesn’t really offer me much in the way of new features, but it did what I needed it to do here.

All in all, today was a good day, and my kid was responsible for both the best and the worst things I’ve heard. The best was "GO DADDY!" The worst was, "what’s next, Daddy, 80 miles?"

I’m sore enough right now that I’m making zero commitments, but I appreciate her faith.

Cheers.

Rebuilding the Basement

A year ago this March, our basement flooded. As life experiences go, I don’t recommend it. It could have been a lot worse, because the water never got above a couple of inches deep, which meant that we didn’t lose furniture, electronics and so on. But it also could have been a lot better.

That Saturday being my morning to sleep in, Kate and Eleanor came downstairs to hang out in the playroom they had just reconfigured and discovered water. Everywhere. Very kindly, they let me continue to sleep because it didn’t appear to be getting actively worse, but when I woke up I had no idea I was going to spend the day first hauling water out manually with a shop-vac up the basement stairs and out the front door, then actually thinking the situation through and using a pump, only to give up and let the professionals take over on Sunday.

Professionals who had no more luck than I did, at first. Even with the addition of three more additional trucks over the course of the day, the water was flowing in faster than their professional gear could haul it out – so you can imagine how effective my little 14 gallon shop-vac was.

Fast forward a day and they discovered the cause, which was a frozen pipe in our perimeter drain system. Like a lot of houses built in the past twenty years, our house has a series of french / curtain drains around the perimeter of the house to ensure proper drainage. Little did we know that one of ours was either improperly installed, had become exposed over time or both, and frozen solid. With no way to exit the system, the water backed up and, with nowhere else to go, flowed back into our house.

Eventually someone – not me – figured out that might be the problem, and we called the guy who’d done the excavation for our generator and within ten minutes he’d found the drain pipes and punched a bunch of holes in the one that was frozen. That created a very small geyser in our backyard for maybe twenty minutes, and when the professionals came back they cleared the basement in maybe a half hour.

The lesson here? If you have perimeter drains, make sure they’re not frozen. Just trust me on this.

Anyway, I bring all of this up now because over the last week or so, we’ve finally completed – according to some definition of completed, anyway – the final repairs. Specifically, we re-paneled the basement hallway and beer room / pantry. We were lucky in that most of the basement, the entirety of which is finished, had wood paneling which warped a little but otherwise dried out eventually. The middle of the basement, however, was sheetrock, the bottom three feet of which had to be extracted by the same folks that (eventually) drained our basement.

For them to get at the sheetrock, however, we had to move our considerable beer collection into the downstairs shop, and move all of the shelving the beer used to be on into the middle of the room with all the drywall. This left both the shop and the beer room more or less unusable.

Until this week.

We decided, in large part because drywall is heavy and a pain in the ass to deal with, that rather than replace the missing three feet we’d simply drop in manufactured wainscoting panels. For a room that is in our basement and sees no traffic, our general feeling about the overall aesthetic was a shrugging emoji. What follows, then, is what happened and what we did.

Here’s the hallway with the water beginning to seep in (I have video of it sloshing around, but it’s too painful to watch).

And while it’s tough to see, here’s the water on the floor of the beer room. All of the dark on that carpet is water.

So here’s what the hallway looked like after they got done with it.

And here’s the beer room.

Again, and I can’t stress this enough, it could have been a lot worse. But if you’re used to having walls around, having half of them isn’t all that enjoyable. Now let’s fast forward nine months.

Still no walls.

Worse than no walls, we had more water. Which wasn’t my fault. Or entirely my fault.

When we had our furnace removed, I was told that part of that process would be draining the system. Which I presumed meant the baseboard pipes with water in them. Imagine my surprise, then, when I took a sawzall to one and water began aggressively spraying me in the face and all around the room.

My timing was unfortunate as well, because while Kate was out when the pipe was initially cut and thus didn’t hear me run around yelling, she came home to find me suspiciously wet and covered in damp drywall. I told her we’d had a bit of a minor problem, and she said, “Ok, just tell me it’s not water again.”

I wasn’t sure how to answer that question.

Anyway, let’s skip past all that and never speak of it again. Eventually the residual water in the system was drained – the shop-vac was much better draining the finite amount of water in a limited pipe system. And I was thus ready to go in putting the basement back together, so I moved a bunch of beer boxes from the shop, managed to dig out my brad nailer and I got to work.

As mentioned before, the old wood paneling and trim was warped, but more of less survived intact so I was able to salvage that. So that went in, and then the wainscoting panels on top it, topped by some obviously not stain-matched new pine trim (there was no top trim before).

If you’re looking at it from a distance, or if you did poor work quickly, at night, and you want to hide said poor work by being strategic about your camera angles, it’s passable. Ish. For a room in the basement, at least. I should note, however, that while I hold this opinion, it is by no means the consensus opinion in the household. My only hope is that no one – particularly another member of the household – takes a camera and looks more closely at that horrific trim transition, the trim being proud of the door jam, or the gap in the paneling.

To me at least, the thing we should really be focusing on is that we have walls again.

Next up was the beer room. And if you thought I’d take the time to paint the new trim where the old steam baseboard used to be to match the old trim in that room, you obviously weren’t paying a lot of attention to the quality control on the hallway. The best thing that can be said about the work in here is that it is better than having half a wall missing.

Probably.

With the room more or less back in shape, it was time to focus on what was important: getting the beer room back online. Step one, the Allagash shelf.

Step two: the sour and dark beer shelves. Though I still need to find a storage mechanism that doesn’t hide them away in boxes, but also means that a bumped shelf doesn’t cost me irreplaceable aged beers.

With the most important task out of the way with the beer re-shelved, it’s time to start picking up the last pieces from the flood, and rebuilding and reorganizing the shop. Once that’s back up and running, after all, I can do a lot more poor quality carpentry.

Besides “don’t let your basement flood,” the only other takeaway I’ll leave you with, for the two of you that have read this far, is get a compressor and a brad nailer. Out of all the power tools in existence, it might be the most fun to use.

Enjoy.

My 2022 in Pictures

Whatever else it might have been, 2022 was a better year for me than the the one that preceded it. It was a year marred by worldwide tragedies major and minor, struggles on a personal level for myself and of many people close to me, all of which played out against the backdrop of the ever present invisible menace of a pandemic gone endemic. A pandemic that was and remains deeply traumatic, and whose trauma continues to be made manifest across the population in ways both predictable and not.

But while life was not back to its pre-pandemic normal, the reality is that – barring a universal vaccine which is not on the near term horizon – it never will be. What we’re left with instead is a world of constant risk calculations, a world in which, as one doctor put it, before the cautious among us go to an event we have to decide whether it’s worth the possibility of getting COVID to attend.

In several cases this year, for myself and my family, and for the first time in years, that risk was accepted. Which lead to a number of fun adventures, both here in state and out of it, that we’d have ruled out in years past. Whether that’s the appropriate calculation or not is, of course, a matter of perspective. But it’s what we did, and it was a good year. The best year out of the last few.

So as always, these are the moments – significant at times but mostly not – that characterized my year personally. Before we get to the pictures, however, a quick check-in on travel.

Travel

How much I traveled in 2022 depends on what it’s compared against. Relative to my pre-pandemic travel heydey, I traveled virtually not at all. But relative to the last two years, I was a globe trotter. Between my first visits to Colorado and San Francisco in three years (yay!), and my first visit to Las Vegas in the same amount of time (sad face emoji), I had to figure out how flying works again. It’d been so long that I’d forgotten the sequence in which I need to put on the messenger bag and Patagonia backpack I travel with typically, and thus got completely tangled up in them while taking them off to clear security my first flight out.

And not only did I get on a plane, I left the state multiple times again for the first time in years.

I have mixed feelings about this, to be honest. I actively don’t want to resume my prior heavy travel schedule and have no intention of doing so. But it was genuinely delightful to see so many people in person this year for the first time in ages, and the realization that I will not be doing so as often is a bit sad. But as the man says, compromise is about being “halfway happy.”

With that, on to the pictures.

January 1

As is our custom, we spent the New Year’s holiday drinking fine beers with friends.

January 3

Which then necessitated us following up with drive by COVID tests before school resumed.

January 7

Got some good snow and was first out on the trails that morning.

January 14

Pretty nice little sunset.

January 17

Almost got blown off the bridge. Not for the first time.

January 22

Cold enough to mark the opening of the skating pond on the vernal pool next to our house.

January 29

Went out for a walk in a blizzard.

Came back to practice my traditional nor’easter tradition of reading Night Shift by the fire with hot cocoa that may or may not have had bourbon in it.

Also came back – in what is typically referred to as foreshadowing – to some minor water intrusion in our previously dry basement.

February 12

Two weeks later and it was “warm” enough that we went down to the beach.

February 13

A day later, it was cold enough that everything iced back up, I fell (again) while out walking and broke at least one rib.

As injuries go, it could have been a lot worse, but I do not recommend it.

February 17

The good news with broken ribs is that other side of my body worked just fine, and while it took a lot longer not being able to use my left arm at all, I got the firewood loaded with basically no problem. If you’re going to break a rib, I do recommend breaking it on your off hand side.

February 19

Went ice fishing with friends and got to see a bald eagle grabbing fish off the ice not fifty feet away. Did not get a usable picture of it, however.

February 26

She called it a “beauty day,” but I believe the UN considers having things repeatedly jammed under your fingernails torture.

March 9

More foreshadowing: minor water intrusion in the basement shop. It was not a lot of water, but it was a very “ominous portents” kind of day.

March 13

Woke up the next day to full basement flooding. I spent something like two hours hauling it out manually, another three rigging up our brewing pump to pump the water out, but whatever I pumped out flowed right back in. Tried to call our insurance company and couldn’t get through. My only guess was that it was blocked gutters, and I made an emergency visit to rent a tall ladder from Home Depot, which I got home in sleeting rain only to discover that – my measurements notwithstanding – it was a good five feet short of being tall enough.

Eventually I got through to the insurance company who told me to have Servpro come out and pump it out. Servpro started with one truck. Then another arrived. Then a third, and a fourth.

When we went to bed that night, they had had no more luck clearing the basement than I did with my shop-vac.

March 14

As it turned out, the basement couldn’t be cleared, because the end of the french drain system that surrounds our house had frozen. Which mean that as water drained down along the sides of the house and collected in the drain system, it could not exit the system and instead flowed into our house.

Once we figured that out, an excavator punched a bunch of holes in the pipe, there was a geyser of water and Servpro subsequently cleared the house in a half hour.

That was the good part. The bad part was that our insurance company initially told us we weren’t covered at all, and it wasn’t until our broker got involved that they allowed that there might be some coverage. Which there ultimately was, but not nearly enough to cover the damage and it took months for the carpet to be replaced and patching the sheetrock they extracted is still pending, though hopefully soon.

The lesson here is: if you have french drains, check them to make sure they will not freeze. Just trust me on this.

In a fun bonus, it turned out that the first leak was a totally different problem that had to be discovered later: a partially blocked valve in our septic system that overflowed when high volumes of water were passed through it, as in a shower. Not good times, bad times.

April 2

After a long delay thanks to COVID, we finally had a service to celebrate my Dad’s memory. It was as crushing as it was needed.

April 10

The debut of a brand new soft top for the Jeep.

April 15

Red Sox home opener with my little fan.

April 21

Windstorm did a number on the island.

April 24

Sacrificed the beard as part of a birthday present for Kate. This has elicited a wide variety of commentary, the most notable of which was “DUDE! YOUR FACE!” She was appreciative, at least.

May 7

For better or for worse, we’re all in on heat pumps now. Furnace and tank were removed.

May 14

First doors off day with the Jeep.

May 17

First time on a plane in 894 days. As mentioned above, it was a bit of a rough reentry.

May 20

First time seeing my BFF in three years, was immediately Tom Sawyered into demoing a deck.

More seriously, I never again want to go a year let alone three without hanging out again.

May 27

The wait was excruciating, but finally Stranger Things Season 4 dropped. And what a season it was.

June 9

Awful day. What I thought was a minor dental issue for my cat turned out to be a tumor, and I had to say goodbye to my feline companion and friend of almost twenty years. You were loved, Pook.

June 11

Went to my first reunion in years, and got to see the BFF for the second time in a month, my college buddies and a host of other folks over a couple of days in an absolutely bonkers setting.

June 15

Lucky enough to be up the coast a bit for a week with friends at one of the best beaches in Maine.

June 21

First day of summer.

July 4

Fireworks with friends.

July 15

The girls were featured players in the local parade.

July 16

Pretty nice little sunrise.

Followed by a visit to an incredibly cool private island in Casco Bay, one that features WWI and WWII military bunkers including a climbable submarine tower.

July 21

Went to see The National for our first concert in who knows how long.

July 23

Excellent visit with Crazy Uncle Corey in Vermont.

July 29

Went camping with friends. That absurd amount of gear is what we brought for a single weekend.

August 5

Someone made her theater camp debut as a “flying squirrel,” in a costume that she made herself.

August 27

Family outing with my mom, brother and his kids to Splashtown Funtown. Other than the Tilt-a-Whirl, which was a terrible mistake, a good time was had by all.

August 30

Took the best kid in the world to one of my favorite spots in the world, completing my annual pilgrimage in the process.

September 6

Said best kid in the world enters the first grade.

September 17

Our down the street neighbors, whose two little girls have the most adorable tiny beekeeping suits, invited us over for their honey harvest.

September 18

The next day it was time for our annual cider pressing.

October 6

For the first time since 2019, we were able to host our conference, The Monktoberfest. This one was special because my Mom was a guest of honor to commemorate the 10th year, and because my BFF gave a talk about his own event, the Flyathlon, which has raised a half a million dollars for local conservation efforts. It was a lot of blood, sweat and tears holding an event in the COVID era, but it was legitimately incredible to see everyone.

October 22

Hard top: reactivated. Sadly.

October 27

In 2021, I set a goal to try and walk 40 miles a week for the year. It seemed ambitious, but as it turned out I enjoy walking so much I hit my goal two months early. I got up early to get the walk in, and shotgunned a beer to celebrate the mark. If you’d told me a few years ago that any of this would have happened, I would have said you’re crazy. But it did.

October 31

No one takes Halloween more seriously than the island. No one.

November 2

pic.twitter.com/NXhteWFm21
— steve o'grady (@sogrady) November 3, 2022

RedMonk had a significant birthday, which we thought we could sneak past people, but instead which our coworkers conspired against us to generate reactions which were literally overwhelming.

November 8

My daughter’s stuffie Tiana Sprinkles visited San Francisco for the first time and I visited it for the first time in three years and it was so, so good to catch up with work friends I haven’t seen in far too long, and even more to the point one of my best college friends.

November 19

Celebrated the kiddo’s bday at the climbing gym, an inspired idea of Kate’s, clearly, not mine.

November 27

As happy as I was to be back in San Francisco, that’s how sad I was to be back in Las Vegas. The cabana we rented the first day eased the blow, however.

December 20

As I’ve been stretching out the distances I’ve been walking this year, it occurred to me that I might be able to complete a marathon distance walking. After I saw that the training plans maxed out at 38 miles a week – or two less than I’ve tried to average – I decided to try it. Thanks to logistical support from Kate ranging from assuming drop off and pickup duties at school to drive by checkins with me, guidance from my BFF on how to best manage plantar fasciitis and distance events, and advice from coworkers on local footwear options I was able to complete a marathon distance walking.

It’s not running, obviously, but it was still a fun undertaking, and if nothing else I have to be the only person ever to complete that distance on this two square mile island.

December 25

Quiet Christmas at home. Note how my wrapping skills have dramatically improved.

December 27

Went on a post-Christmas ski vacation with our family, Kate’s family and my Mom. A ski vacation that included a lazy river that sold Heady Toppers.

December 31

As is our custom, celebrated the New Year with our friends and fine beers.