Ploafmaster General

Dredged canal waste

My 8-year-old kid just finished his first school play recently. He’d been excited to participate for years, watching his older sister perform in several productions, just waiting until he reached 3rd grade and eligibility to join the cast. Auditions have always been fraught for our oldest with each semester’s tryouts leading to complaints, tears, anxiety, and threats to back out the day of the audition, but she always persevered and enjoyed her time with her elementary school’s drama program.

As excited as our son was for his first plan and—crucially, having understood what these plays involve over the years—he was less emotional about auditions, but seemingly quite a bit more frustrated. Since last year, before he could participate, the drama director has required some choreography as part of the audition. Pretty much everybody that auditions gets some part, but you’re still required to submit a song and dance recording with your monologue. My son loves to dance on his own, but was both put off and frustrated by having to learn choreography when he just wanted to be on stage, acting. Over the past 1.5 months he soured hard on the whole enterprise, mostly because of the singing and dancing. I don’t blame him.

Every single production of our elementary school play has been a musical. Now, I’m not here to complain about a musical with untrained child singers (not in this post, at least), but singing—let alone dancing—is a different skill from acting. Must all children interested in acting be made to sing and/or dance in order to try it out? Should you have to learn to knit if you want to earn how to bake? I think this happens at our school because the director likes it, but also because the mass of parents likes to see their kids sing and dance on stage. But how many kids never audition because they don’t want to sing or dance, or are worried that they can’t? Shouldn’t one of the two yearly plays be a chance for kids to act without the additional pressure?

In the end, my son was happy to perform; something about making it to stage rehearsals and the actual performances rescued the experience for him a bit. He was bummed that it was over. But I’m not really sure whether he’ll be keen to audition for the spring play when it comes around. It’s another musical, after all.

Is this just my elementary school, or is this a broader problem with school/youth acting programs in general?

It’s fitting, really, that I hit 10,000 miles (16,000+ km) in the parking lot of Willow Lawn, a mall just outside of the Richmond city limits. I stopped in front of Dick’s Sporting Goods to text my wife that I crossed the mark and chuckled to myself about all the weird places I ride on my bike. I like to head out the door without a plan and, while I have some familiar routes, I tend to ride wherever I’m comfortable. Turns out that’s a lot of strange suburban roads and locations not particularly welcoming to cyclists.

I’ve written about cycling milestones before, but this one feels special. I’m in the top 1% of riders on Strava. I ride more than anyone else I personally know. I understand a huge reason for this is the luxury of time and life circumstances, but it’s also because of how much I just love being outside on my bike (or inside on the trainer when it’s rainy so I don’t lose cycling fitness). Will I ride this much next year? Not likely. But I’m sure it’ll be a 4-digit number.

I didn’t start 2024 with a goal of 10,000 miles. After 6,500+ least year, I started with a more modest target of 5,500 since I didn’t know what lay in store. But as the year wore on and I realized 10,000 miles was in reach, I got a bit intense with all my riding. I pushed my mileage at every opportunity, and by late November my hobby started to feel like a chore. Why ride for fun if it’s not fun? On the other hand, I wanted that feeling of achievement, so I kept grinding until today. And today’s ride was a relaxing victory lap with stops at a number of favorite spots and a leisurely lunch with a good friend.

Every ride after today until New Year’s Eve? Low key, exploratory, and always with a camera. I want to ride more off-road without worrying about the lower mileage that comes with slower speeds. I want to find new places and check out more alleyways. And in 2025 I plan to mix it up a little more with a couple days a week doing something outside other than riding, like hiking. Whatever gets me outside!

You folks know that the official NASA YouTube channel has an 8 hour “yule log” style video with firing rocket engines in a fireplace, right? RIGHT!? www.youtube.com/watch

Look, I know there’s a lot of heavy stuff going on right now and that’s why I just want to say that Moana 2 is extremely mid in a similar way to Inside Out 2, suffering from some similar issues while still having a few redeeming qualities.

Oh, but the songs in Moana 2 mostly suuuuuuck.

Watching one of the great holiday films: The Muppet Christmas Carol

Yeah, duh, something about bikes. Well the other day YouTube recommended a video by comedian/writer Chloe Radcliffe, of whom I’d never heard. I don’t watch a lot of stand up on YouTube, but I do watch tons of bike vids, and the video recommended was her first episode of a web series called In Tandem that she created. Think of it as a bicycle version of Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, but without the smugness of Jerry Seinfeld. Essentially, Chloe rides around on a tandem bicycle with her guest on the rear saddle while conducting an interview. Simple conceit, but the conversation (at least how it’s edited) is comfortable and funny. She has three prior videos called NYC Bike Diaries where she essentially monologues into her Insta360 camera riding around New York, and you can see the influence on the new web series.

She’s funny, she’s a nerd, and as she indicates in a few of her videos, cycling is a massive part of her life. It’s cool to see how she’s found a way to weave together a part of her work and her hobby. If only there was a way to be a bike-riding IT consultant 🙃

They done me dirty.

Pure anecdotes, but I have noticed the rise of vests in outdoor activities this year. Of course there are hydration vests. These aren’t new, but they seem to show up everywhere outside - runners, hikers, and cyclists (though mostly off-road since they surely aren’t “aero” enough for roadies). I get it; you don’t need to carry a bottle or figure out where to shoehorn one into your full-squish mountain bike, and you can usually tuck some snacks in the included pockets as well. It’s just interesting to observe what appears to be a surge in popularity.

I’ve also noticed what seem to be weighted vests, surely for general strength and speed training? The first few times I saw these I wondered why some runners were wearing bullet proof vests jogging on the James River trail. It wasn’t until I passed closely that I realized they were covered in many pouches of uniform size, full of some sort of weight (sand I suppose?). These also make sense to me if somebody is working on strength training, and for speed it reminds me of using drag chutes to add resistance. Again, I’m merely wondering why I’m starting to see these all over the place this year…and seemingly coincident with the rise of hydration vests.

Maybe it’s just that I’ve noticed something novel and now my attention is heightened about these things. Or maybe a variety of manufacturers have decided that vests are the hot new trend in physical fitness :-P

What other types of useful vests are out there (that aren’t simply outerwear)? Cooling? Impact detection?

Brought my bike down to my mother-in-law’s near Wilmington, NC for the Thanksgiving visit, but it looks like it’ll be raining and SUPER windy tomorrow all day. So I also brought my dang Wahoo so I can “ride” on the screened-in porch :-P

Heard for the first time today on a client call: “brand architecture”

Update: I have purchased Young Frankenstein on Blu-ray.

There’s a particular beauty to a damp, late fall day where it isn’t raining, but the overcast light and moisture somehow add an impossible vibrancy to those remaining leaves on the trees. Gingko, maple, oak, and sycamore; all contrasted against their faded siblings piled up in drifts along the curb.

Young Frankenstein isn’t available to stream or purchase digitally anywhere!?

Today I crossed 9000 miles (14484 km) on my #bike for this year!

I’m within reach of 10000 before the year ends!!!

Mastodon (okay, really AP) feels the least at risk to capitalist money pressure, though Bluesky is way more fun for me right now since people are actually interacting more over there. But I still need to remind myself to post to my website first and cross-post to social so it all stays in my hands.

Something that Mastodon (and Twitter—at least when I was still there over 2 years ago) gets right that I sorely wish Bluesky would implement soon is the ability to toggle quotes/reposts at the individual account level.

Looking for recs on TTRPGs I can play with my 8YO and/or 11YO. I missed out on DND as a kid (conservative religious parents), but I probably would have been all over it. Now my kids are super interested. Doesn’t have to be medieval fantasy. Okay if most of the fun is filling out character sheets 😛

Oh, you know. Hit by a car today on my bike.

I’m fine, my bike is fine; the person wasn’t looking while trying to turn right on red. She was a sobbing, apologetic mess, but I (unfortunately) have too much experience getting hit by cars, and politely said her car is fine, but I might not have been.

If you are a fan of The Katering Show, it appears the Kates have uploaded their series Get Krack!n to their YouTube channel: youtu.be/sHPrWGOn1…

I’ve always found it quite misanthropic for one to take a call on speakerphone in a coffee shop.

Distracting myself from national-level outrage with local-level seething about Kenya Gibson bringing her procedural clown show to Richmond City Council.

Virginia early voting ended Saturday, but we’re still waiting on those results for the city of Richmond? How is it that we’re seeing over a third of in-person precincts report before those numbers? I need these local results to distract me from national stuff.

Oh, hey! 12:45 Eastern Standard Time came and went.

I’m 43 now!

Hot dayum, Lewis Barbecue in Charleston is as good as some of the ‘cue I had in Texas! And that cheddar/green chile sausage! The tallow fries! www.lewisbarbecue.com