2026-07-19 01:37:00
I have lived in RVA, and before that Fredericksburg, for over 20 years. I have looked at shows at The Tin Pan on multiple occasions. Every time I passed, because the idea of seeing a loud rock and roll show in a dinner club atmosphere just didn't appeal to me.
A couple of months ago, Robert Jon, one of my favorite artists, announced a show at the Tin Pan. He doesn't tour the East Coast that often, so I didn't think twice about buying tickets. In fact, I bought them a couple of days after going on sale. The Tin Pan only seats about 200 people. It's an intimate space, and there are not any bad seats. Only bad relative to the better seats in the place. It's allegedly first come, first served. The earlier you buy, the better your seats. Watch the video below. Does that look like one of the best seats in the house? The people we were sharing a 4-top with bought tickets at the last minute. Since they had the outside of the table, they had a better sightline than I did. I don't know why we were seated at one of the worst tables in the place, but clearly, they will play games with the first-come, first-served thing. So be warned if you ever plan to go to a show there.
The tickets were $45 each, $54 after fees. And then they impose a $15 minimum per person. I have no issue with minimums when there is no or a small cover charge. But if I've spent over $100 after fees to walk in the door, I do have an issue with a minimum. If I want to drink water all night after dropping $100 to get in the door, there should be no issue with that. Since we were forced to spend at least $30 there, we had dinner there. It was fine. You probably would not go there just for the food, but the portions were reasonable and the prices were slightly high but justifiable. More annoying was draft beer being $10 each.
My initial instincts about seeing a rock and roll show in a seated dinner theater atmosphere were right. The inability to get up and move with the music just put a damper on the feel of the night. The band was awesome. And I will give the Tin Pan credit for having a top-notch sound system. As a place to see a jazz trio or a girl at a piano, it would work fine. For a loud rock and roll show, it doesn't work. At least not for me. Robert encouraged us to "break the rules" and get up and dance for the encore song, and that song had the best vibe of the night.
Also, they auto-add a 20% service charge. I would have tipped 20% anyway, even if the server did dump food and water and my wife (she did.) My wife also witnessed a woman get her face smashed in the bathroom when someone pushed the door open, and it whacked some poor woman in the side of the head.
In summary, I spent $175 for us to see one of our favorite bands, and I'm not feeling great about that decision today. I don't think we'll be back to The Tin Pan.
2026-07-13 07:31:00
This is a new feature in which I will copy and paste my recent book reviews from my books page These are the last 5 books I have read. I will update in a month or 2 when I've read 5 more.
I'm Starting to Worry About this Black Box of Doom by Jason Pargin
Rating: ****
Uber driver and terminally online gamer Abbot gets offered $200K to drive a woman and her large black box from LA to DC, no questions asked. What results in the book is a madcap odd-couple road trip story crossed with a dark satire on online culture mixed with some very insightful commentary about what the black boxes of doom in all our pockets are doing to us. This is the YTD leader for my book of the year. I enjoyed it that much.
Relegated by Todd Smith
Rating: ****
Todd Smith runs a landscape supply shop in MN. He is also a big soccer fan. So it's poetic that the US equivalent of the "blue-collar soccer fan" took a couple of months off and wrote a book based on his travels through the upper and lower echelons of the English soccer system. From Liverpool to Grimsby, we see what the local soccer club means to their supporters at every level of the soccer tables. From immaculate pitches to barely level meadows, pubs and meat pies to pick up soccer games, it's a whirlwind tour that very effectively captures the special sauce that makes football fandom different.
Note: The author of this website is a Southampton supporter. I am all too familiar with relegtion.
The Faith of Beasts by James S. A. Corey
Rating: ****
In book two of this epic space opera centered on the enslavement of about 4000 humans (all that they spared when they attacked), the story again mostly builds on survival. The Carryx are brutal. Animals that don't prove to be useful will be exterminated. The parallels to slavery in US history are pretty damn obvious here. All the "Why didn't the enslaved rebel" questions have the same answer in US history that they have in this book. Likewise, just because you don't see a rebellion brewing doesn't mean that there isn't one brewing. I'm looking forward to book 3, which I think is supposed to wrap up the series.
The Midnight Train by Matt Haig
Rating: ****
Haig returns to the somewhat familiar landscape of what happens when you die. In this book, you get on a train that runs you back through the most important moments of your life to allow you the chance to really know yourself before you head off into eternity. You are just an observer. But what if you realized you screwed up badly in life and blew the only love you ever had? What if you decide to ignore the rules and try to change the past, to give yourself the life you should have had? And what if the price of that effort is losing your shot at eternity? Would you trade eternity (whatever that is to you) for another shot at an earthly life with the one you love?
Would you take that trade?
Trailed by Kathryn Miles
Rating: ****
We spent the July 4th weekend camping just two miles off the Appalachian Trail. I did an 8-mile hike mostly on the AT. Back at the campsite, I read this book in less than 24 hours. It's the story of Lollie Winans and Julie Williams, a young couple that was brutally murdered while on an AT section hike in 1996. The book is beautifully written, with lots of backstory on the victims and a detailed account of just how badly the FBI and Park Police screwed up the investigation. The book details how the FBI fixated on one guy and ruined his life, a guy they never had any real evidence on, even though they went to great lengths to manufacture something useful to their case. The book ends suggesting a serial pedophile from NC might be the real perpetrator, but he was killed by police in the commission of another crime. In researching updates since the book was published in 2022, I learned that a private lab using newer DNA tech was able to tie yet a third serial killer to the crime, but he died in jail in 2018, so even though the FBI has named him the killer, we will never know for sure.
In other news, what's up with all the serial killers hanging out on the AT in the late 90s?
2026-07-07 04:50:00
A heatwave hit the east coast just in time for the July 4 weekend. It was over 100F (38C) in RVA. Luckily we were 240 miles away and 1 mile up camping, where the 80F (27C) temps also constitute a heat wave, but one I can handle.
We arrived on Thursday, July 2, meeting up with friends for the weekend. After our traditional arrival night dinner of WaWa subs, we retired to the campfire with our friends.
On Friday I took everyone out to see the wild ponies that are the star of the show here. There was only 1 mare and her goal in the first half-mile where most people go to see the ponies. My wife and our friends headed back to camp after that, and I continued on towards Mt. Rogers, the highest peak in VA. Ultimately I stopped short of the peak at an AT shelter and turned around there, turning the planned 9-mile hike into an 8-mile hike. I've bagged the Mt. Rogers peak several times, and there is no view from the top, so that final climb seemed pointless on a hot and sunny day.
I've done this hike 5 times in the last 20 years, and it gets more difficult each time. What's up with that? While on the trail, I saw more than enough examples of poor decision-making to fill up a couple of bad hiker bingo cards. I hope there were no rescue calls on Friday, but if there were, I probably saw the victims (of their own bad decisions) earlier in the day.
Once I got back to camp, a shower and nap were my priorities, in that order.
While headed back, my wife saw and heard a Vesper's Sparrow, which would be a lifer for me.
On Saturday we took our time getting up and going, eventually going out birding, searching for another Vesper's Sparrow. We didn't find one. That afternoon we explored more of the park, including the homestead of the farm that was here originally. There are several original buildings still standing.
On Sunday our friends headed back home, so we decided to drive into Damascus for lunch and a beer before they continued on home. There is not much in Damascus, so after lunch and browsing (and buying) at a couple of outfitters, we headed back. The road from the camp to Damascus is 24 miles of switchbacks. It was a fun drive, but I'd had enough by the time we returned. The rest of the afternoon was spent lounging at camp. I mostly read, finishing my book, a true crime novel about an unsolved murder of two young women on the Appalachian Trail. Did I mention that my hike on Friday was mostly on the AT, although the murders occurred over 100 miles north? Maybe not the best choice for reading material, but it is very well written, and the multiple failures by Park Police and the FBI mean that the families will never get real closure.
The new camper that rolled in across from us on Sunday had an Escape, which is made in British Columbia and is on my short list of possible upgrades from the Ascape someday. It's slightly larger and has 1 of the 2 features we lack today that I'd like in our next camper, a bed separate from the dining area. The other feature is a dry shower/bathroom, but that may be a stretch if we want to stick with small campers. He came over to say hi as he had looked at Ascapes when buying, and I got a tour of his camper.
The drive home on Monday was uneventful, just the way I like my drives.
2026-06-28 12:00:00
Friday evening we were on the patio at our local brewery when my wife overheard a young person expounding to his two friends about how people wear CGMs to manage their sugar allergies. My wife wears a CGM because she has Type 1 diabetes.
Sugar allergies are not a thing. That would be like an oxygen or water allergy.
My wife was not drinking, which is probably the only thing that saved this kid from an unpleasant encounter with my wife.
Then this morning in the checkout line at Publix, the guy behind her in line, most likely in his 40s, asked her if she was allergic to sugar. When she explained to him she has Type 1 diabetes, he said, "Well, didn't you get that from eating too much sugar?" The store pharmacist, who knows her well, happened to be right there, and he stepped in to try to educate this ignoramus.
So that is two "sugar allergy" encounters in one weekend. I suspected social media, and Claude did confirm that there are a number of wellness influencers, most notably Brittney Bouchard, wearing CGMs and claiming they prove extreme sensitivity to glucose or sugar.
Please don't get your health info from TikTok, unless the influencer also happens to be a medical professional. And even then, be careful. There is a 50% chance the doctor on TikTok finished in the bottom half of their class in medical school.
2026-06-27 20:56:00
Just capturing this thought from an online friend.
You are not going to fix anything, until we find some other core principles to build on. Like cooperation and collaboration rather than competition. Like community rather than individualism. We are all in this together, and none of us is getting out of here alive; but some billionaires are going to get to live in a bunker on an island, or maybe on Mars, when the whole rotten edifice collapses under the weight of its falsehoods and misapprehensions.
2026-06-23 12:00:00
Trip: 58
Nights: 191-193
Last weekend was the annual Aliner Ascape rally, which has settled at Laurel Hill State Park near Somerset, PA. We missed last year when my career blew up 3 weeks before the camp out, so it was great to get back this year to see old friends and a make new ones.
The park is kind of in the middle of nowhere. We had to drive 40 minutes to find a brewery. The town of Somerset is about 20 minutes, and that is really the closet store or gas station. However, it is very worth the effort. It is an old CCC camp with a really nice lake, trails, streams stocked with trout, and picturesque mountain views. Also, there is a stand of hemlock that got missed when we clear cut SW PA (and the rest of the country) in the 1800s. So the trees are 250-300 years old. They were there when PA reported to the King.
We arrived on Thursday and quickly settled into catching up with friends. The campsites are levelish with power. Thursday night was a group campfire with about 25 friends. On Friday we went out birding in the AM and made the trek to the "local" brewery on Saturday afternoon. The weather was perfect all weekend, sunny and breezy with highs around 70F (20ish C) and lows in the 50s (13ish C). I may have logged some hammock time on Friday and Saturday afternoon. On Saturday we again went birding in the AM and in the afternoon I went to visit that stand of old hemlock.
The stand is only about 6 acres, and it's an easy 15 minute hike to get there. When I arrived I had the place to myself. I was standing and enjoying the magnificent trees when I realized I was alone. No people anywhere. There was a flat rock perfectly situated to meditate under one of the larger trees. The rock looked natural and not placed there. I accepted the invitation and took at a seat on the rock. I suck at meditation, so I mostly failed at clearing my mind. But I did greatly enjoy about 15 minutes of nothing but the wind rustling the leaves, the nearby stream, and one very chatty blue-headed vireo before anybody else showed up. However it was there that an idea popped into my head. (I know, like I said, I suck at meditating.) I've thought about an extended multi-week camping and working from the road trip for the last few summers, but for various reasons the timing was never right to do it. A lot can change in 12 months, but looking forward from now, we can do that trip next year. So I'm thinking of making this annual camp out the first stop on a 3 week camping tour of the NE US. I can work in some mooch docking with family, and my first camping in Vermont and NH before visiting more family in Boston before heading home.So it was at least a productive idea.
After communing with the large trees it was time for the group potluck dinner where I ate too much and also accepted the offer of moonshine. It would have been rude to refuse, right? By Saturday night we were peopled out so we retired to the camper early to play cards but actually ended up calling it a night early too.
Sunday was go home day.
