2026-08-02 21:50:00
Dogwood Dell is a 2400 capacity amphitheater in the middle of a city park owned by the City of Richmond. Every summer Richmond does free shows just about every weekend as part of a summer long Arts Festivals that has been happening longer than I've been alive. Tim Barry is a local musician probably best known as the lead singer of Avail. But he has also released about 10 folk-rock albums since Avail released their last record over 20 years ago. It made for one of more interesting mixes of people I've ever seen at a concert. There was a healthy representation of current Avail fans, averaging 12 piercings each and dressed completely in black leather. There were a lot of middle aged folks with families that likely attended a few Avail shows back in day. And there were some grandparents with their grand kids that I suspect live within walking distance and just habitually wander over to the Dell for live shows. They may have gotten a few more F-words than the bargained for on this one.
His overarching theme for the night was that now, more than ever, we need the sense of community and belonging that comes with gathering to support music and art. The fact that all those diverse groups I listed above were able to co-exist in the same place enjoying a shared experience is strong evidence that he is right.
His guitar cable failed during the encore song, so he just pulled the cable and turned it into a sing-along, from the audience. It was kind of a magical moment. The art behind him was created over two days by local artists just for his show, and it was painted over black during the last song as a reminder to focus on the present and appreciate what we have.
The video is blocked from embedding, so you'll have to click through to see it.
2026-08-02 04:43:00
Sing it to the tune of the Bee Gees Night Fever.
I mentioned last week that I was using the modern incarnation of Mozilla Livemarks. It works okay, but it creates a bookmark for every blog post, which caused my bookmarks folder to balloon to over 1000 bookmarks quickly. Also, the limits on number of bookmarks per site did not seem to be operating properly. As I thought about it, I realized I don't want 1000+ links to individual blog posts, I wanted an indicator that a bookmarked blog had new posts. That Firefox functionality does not exist.
Correction. It didn't exist. It does now.
I vibe coded a Firefox extension that checks all sites in a specific folder on demand, and puts a bold black dot next to any that have new posts. The dot is removed when I click on the link. It does exactly what I want, and nothing more. It runs locally only for me. I thought about getting it signed and approved by Mozilla but decided against it. I'm not a coder. I vibe coded something that works for me but nobody else should use very lightly QA'ed code that I created by giving instructions to an LLM. Normal Firefox can't run unsigned code, but Firefox ESR can. So I switched out by Firefox version and installed my extension. I've been using it for 3 or 4 days and so far there are no issues.
And this, I think, is where the real power of "AI" is. It's not in enterprise software, it's in enabling people like me to create one-off apps that do exactly what I want. Give it a few years and everyone may decide they prefer to run completely bespoke apps locally that work exactly as they want, without a monthly subscription fee. That might kill the venture-backed SaaS market.
2026-07-30 06:59:00
Trip: 60
Nights: 198-199
Look at that. 60 camping trips at $82.66 per night. Buy a camper they said. You'll save money, they said.
I'm kidding. I knew buying a camper wasn't going to save money.
Anyway... we had reservations for Loft Mountain Campground but I wanted to go to Big Meadow because we like birding at Big Meadow. The NPS saves a handful of campsites that can't be reserved more than 4 days in advance. E 175 is one of those sites. Try to avoid it if you can. It's off-level in two planes, and way too close to the neighboring campsite. That said, any campsite in a National Park beats no campsite in the National Park. I would camp there again if it were the only site available.
The forecast for the weekend was low 70s (22C) daytime, low 60s (16C) at night. Little chance of significant rain. Perfect camping weather. What we got was a solid night of rain on Friday night, followed by a Saturday that featured heavy fog that never burnt off, and temps around 62 (16C) all day. But that did not stop us from having fun.
We got into camp around 530 PM and I spent the evening by the campfire listening to the Red Sox beats the Blue Jays at Fenway. Your favorite team's radio feed is the best way to experience baseball if you can't be at the park. I will die on that hill. After the fire burnt out we retired to the camper to play cards for a while. It was then I realized I had left my book at home. We did have a spotty signal at the campsite so I was able to download an issue of ClarkesWorld on the Kindle app that I had not read fully, and SciFi short stories were my reading material for the weekend.
On Saturday AM we out by 8 AM to bird Big Meadow. It was tough as visibility was measured in 10s of feet. But we did manage to watch a male goldfinch teaching his two offspring how to fend for themselves in a meadow of native wildflowers. It was super entertaining. We also saw a bunch of sparrows (Field and Song) as they like to hang out in the grasses bordering the path. After killing some time at the visitor center we went back to the camper for lunch and cards and Yahtzee. Michelle won all the games on Saturday. She was 6-0 across rummy, Yahtzee, and Boggle. The fog killed my plan to hike to the highest point in the park so we decided to drive 15 minutes to another trail that is good for birding. That was an adventure as visibility was near zero in pockets of fog. The birding was pretty average and by the time we headed back visibility had improved enough that you could actually see the mountains off of some of the overlooks. We went to the lodge at the campground and I had a couple of beers at the bar before heading back to the campsite for dinner and another evening of chilling by the campfire.
Sunday was go home day, but not before we hit Big Meadow one more time. There was a group of about 8 younger 20-somethings camping directly across from us. When I got up Sunday morning and went out to the car they were all asleep. However, their campsite was spotless. Not a single beer can, soda can, cooler was to be found. Shenandoah is black bear country and there are bears in the campground just about every day. So campsite hygiene is super important and I was admittedly surprised, but very pleased to see how clean the campsite was. So kudos kids, you give me hope for the future.
2026-07-22 05:48:00
A month ago, I read an article from someone who had quit RSS and gone back to visiting blogs one by one. It stuck with me. A little poking around revealed that the old Live Bookmarks feature of Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox lives on as an extension. I imported my feeds into the LiveMarks extension.
So now I'm using RSS to see when new posts are available on a blog, but to read them I'm clicking through to the blog itself.
I think I like this approach.
2026-07-19 22:59:00
After Friday night's less-than-stellar experience, we tried again. Yep. It was a two-concert weekend for us. The day got off to a good start as I completed my first Bird Friendly Habitat Certification (not counting my own yard). So now we have two certified yards in Sandston! We got whacked by a severe thunderstorm around 4 PM and lost power around 4:15 PM. After a couple of hours with no power, I fired up the generator and plugged the fridge into it. It handled the fridge and saved me the hassle of trying to fill up coolers with ice and food. The power came back after about 5 hours while we were out.
So, back to the band. The Dave Kline band is an insanely talented jazz/blues/funk band, and I have no idea how Senator Kaine hooked up with them, but they play a few shows together every year. Kaine plays harmonica and sings, and he isn't bad. The theme for the night was celebrating Nelson Mandela's birthday, so all the songs centered around the concept of freedom. They started with Dave Kline doing his electric violin version of Hendrix's version of the National Anthem. Then they jumped into Kaine singing lead on a CCR tune before Abena Koomson-Davis took over for a couple of spirituals, which, as Tim pointed out, were songs that presented as gospels when what they were often singing about 175 years ago was freedom from slavery. We also got a Tim Kaine original, and the show finished up with a Stevie Wonder cover followed by Takin' It To The Streets by the Doobie Brothers.
It was an insanely good and uplifting night of music that cost me 1/2 of what Friday night cost. So yes, we did spend a lot of money this weekend. YOLO! Also, to tie the night to Friday in one other way, Michelle got wine dumped on her when the couple who we were sharing the 4-top knocked her full glass of wine over while attempting to be friendly and shake hands. Weirdly, they did not offer to replace the glass of wine, but the bartender replaced it gratis because the staff at Révéler is just that awesome.
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.
