Aim For the Gaps

Sports offer excellent metaphors that are used for general success in life precisely because they exist to be entertaining microcosms of life itself. Individuals or teams vie in a competitive landscape typically officiated by imperfect referees. Preparation is allowed, but on-field performance is all anyone remembers. Sports reflect real life in numerous ways, and each sport brings its own flair to the conversation.

Golf of any variety is a wonderful mix of planning, tactics, and execution. It’s about discrete decisions, managing each shot based on given strengths and the likelihood of success. I became overwhelmed each time I tried untangling these metaphors. It was too much.

Let me instead focus on one mindset adjustment I first jokingly heard in a disc golf YouTube video, but which I found impactful: The woods are mostly air. Aim for the gaps.

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The Sunday Paper

Wake up to a slight chill in the air, a quiet morning with leaves strewn across the sidewalks, brown and red and orange and yellow, preparing to crinkle later that afternoon once the morning dew glistening upon them evaporates. Throat is a bit scratchy. Pull up the covers for an extra moment of soft warmth before stretching out, rolling to the side, bare feet on wood floor.

Wipe eyes, grab some water, and go shut the window accidentally left open overnight leading to this moderate discomfort and grogginess. On second thought, it’s going to warm up today. Not too much. Just enough to keep the window cracked and let some warmer air make its way through.

Out the door, to the kitchen, striding gently and quietly so early in the day, trying to avoid the edges of the floor that habitually creak.

Ah, warm relief from the living room rug. Remember back, just a minute ago, when the sheets were pulled up, everything protected against the air that is fondly referred to as “crisp.” The thicker patterns in the rug shield against drafts from the windows—also left open—that spill across the floor.

Walk to the window and peer outside to see new piles of leaves collected on the sidewalk, listen to the birds chirping as the sun breaks through the mild canopy of the neighborhood, and smell the slightly humid air. Eyes cast about, taking it all in, then rest on the small red plastic bag at the base of the porch stairs.

The Sunday paper has arrived with its bold headlines, Associated Press blurbs, comics and box scores, and hyper-localized reporting. It is quaint and fun and supports a good cause; it is the perfect reading material to skim through on a calm, quiet morning.

We Are So Back with iA Writer on the iPad

With iOS and iPadOS 18 out, I decided to give iA Writer another shot on my iPad. I adore it on my MacBook, and it’s been frustrating not having a consistent interface for my personal writing.

Lo and behold, I discover that iA Writer has been properly working with Dropbox since May! Dropbox decided to hop aboard the “modern File Provider API” train, leading to a slightly worse experience than many years ago1That is Apple’s fault., but a significantly better experience than when using any Dropbox text file would result in errors and conflicted files.

I’m holding my breath—it takes a while for me to rebuild trust with tools that failed me so thoroughly, regardless of who is “at fault”—but I’ve been writing for the last twenty minutes and have clear indicators that my files are being saved. That makes me feel right at home.

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    That is Apple’s fault.

Slough House Book Series

Earlier this year I read the Slough House series by Mick Herron, prompted by rave reviews of its TV adaptation on Apple TV+ and my unwillingness to dive into such an adaptation until I read the associated books.

In short, I adore this series.

I’ve always jived with wry British humor that somehow mixes a superiority complex with a dismal outlook, all while providing cutting insights into the absurdity of life which are provided via a superb command of the English language, turning phrases that I could not have conceived of. Mick Herron hits all of this precisely right with his set of outcast characters, each with glaring personality flaws that range from endearing to horrific.

These books are hugely entertaining. I read all eight available books this spring. They have the enjoyable, exciting elements of a spy thriller coupled with tremendous dark comedic elements. If you can accept that objectional characters can still be enjoyed and rooted for, then you’ve made it over the first hurdle.

The first book in the series is Slow Horses, which is the namesake for the TV show that I’ve yet to begin. Read the first two chapters of the book and you’ll know whether it’s for you.

Impressions From Cross-Country Road Trips

Driving east from Minnesota is a lot of the same, but that sameness is plenty of forested beauty.

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Though my opinions may change after more of these journeys, I found it striking that there seemed to be so little difference as we crossed state lines. Parts of Pennsylvania had more hills as we went over a nominal mountain range, and the speed limits could vary wildly (along with the respective tolls) with each new border, but nothing distinguished Wisconsin, Illinois, Indiana, Pennsylvania, or New York from each other en route to Connecticut. They all shared gentle curves and slopes, tree-lined interstates with hefty medians, a calming aesthetic for a journey from where, to me, feels like a cultural halfway point between the East and West coasts when, in reality, I’m starting nearly two-thirds of the way across the country.

Contrast this with driving from San Francisco to Minneapolis. You leave the Bay Area and hit freeways with speed limits of 70 miles per hour that pour you into a hot valley. You see agriculture, you see nothing, then you hit the Tahoe area and suddenly there are huge hills and trees to give you one final bit of hope and beauty before Nevada.

There’s nothing but impossibly straight rows narrowing to the horizon, interminable and dizzying in their length. Suddenly, you pass into Utah, where salt flats bank the roads and great rocky outcroppings loom in the distance. You work through the interchanges of Salt Lake City and notice the rigid structure of the street exits marking your distance from the temple, then you’re back into wonderfully steep dips and climbs through rocks that hint of the red that is so well-known in the southern part of the state.

Eventually, you reach Wyoming, full of prairie and hills and thick winds and single-laned highways and barred interstates that could be closed without notice due to weather, forcing you to turn back to the town from which you came. If you brave that, you make it to South Dakota which is much of the same but with billboards attempting to bring you to monuments, stores, and corn palaces.

Finally, after a final long stretch, the speed limit eases as you pass into Minnesota and everything appears somehow lusher and calmer, kinder and cooler. There are suddenly lakes and rivers to drive across, small towns dotting the western expanse of the state where farmers and factories share the load of supporting their communities. Eventually, this becomes suburban and then urban as you approach the Twin Cities, but still rooted in a Midwest interstate system.

I’m used to that trip and its distinct views. As I drove east, I was waiting for the change in each state, something to really drive home that I was somewhere else beyond an adjustment in license plates and who was monitoring the toll roads. Instead, I received a range of speed limits from 50 to 65 miles per hour for no apparent reason and a sharp increase in speed traps in western New York.

When I hit Connecticut, everything condensed, speed limits dropped, and I was on local highways where I rarely exceeded 45 miles per hour. Those roads were covered in trees and most of the houses were set back a bit, providing what I assume is a good compromise between accessibility and noise for the homeowners.

It’s amusing driving around here compared to the Midwest. We are ten or twenty minutes away from most large stores we’d care to shop at, but only because there’s a bit of traffic and the speed limits are uniformly at or below 40 miles per hour. It feels like a scale-model version of where I grew up, yet there’s a glaring lack of cycling infrastructure that could fit so perfectly in a place with rigid driving speeds.

I’m excited to drive back and forth across the eastern part of the United States in the next couple of years. It’s a distinct vibe from driving in California, and the change of pace is refreshing.

Erin’s Completed PhD Thesis

My wife, Erin Gilbertson, officially has her PhD in Biological and Medical Informatics from the University of California, San Francisco. You can read her entire thesis, entitled Machine Learning Insights into the 3D Genome: Diversity and Gene Regulation in Human Populations, online here.

I’m incredibly proud of all of her work. It’s been amazing watching her grow, learn, persevere, and succeed in so many aspects. I’m thrilled I’ve been some part of that journey.