As always, Crown and Buckle has the classy NATO straps.
Fun new watch band for summer!
Monthly Archives: June 2021
Dehd‘s “Flower of Devotion”
I forgot which wax-variant I was getting until I opened it.
It looks wild over the Swami slip mat.
(Sounds great, too. I 100% recommend this record.)
Mmmmmm
“If you want Beer Sprite then, by all means, enjoy Beer Sprite.”
Blomerth Wallpaper
Brian Blomerth was the featured artist in the latest Smoke Signal from Desert Island Comics.
I really loves this guys work. It’s playful and psychedelic. This wallpaper selection is neither, but it made me laugh.
Big Tennis Weekend
Got out with some of the guys to Wintergreen last weekend to play some tennis and hang out. That’s me in the back. With the beard.
I started playing last summer when the pandemic shut the gyms. I needed to get out and do something and tennis was a reasonably distanced activity.
It was a great weekend, obvs., but now I think I’m battling some tennis elbow. It’s not ideal. I’m curious to see how weightlifting affects it.
Drama Llama
Sometimes, the hand-painted hood branding fits the general aesthetic.
Father’s Day MTB session
Got out with some Dad-bros for an early, early, MTB session at Pocahontas. That’s me on the right. With the beard.
It was steamy and my memory may be faulty, but to my recollections we went Blueberry-> Gateway-> Bell Lap-> Bell Return-> Corkscrew-> Sunsetter-> Bell Return-> Blueberry Return.
It is always better to go ride.
After we went home and caught a shower, we met again and watched some Euro 2020 at Final Gravity.
Mare of Easttown
****I’m going to talk spoilers, so scroll past if you want to save it****
I don’t particularly enjoy feeling bad while I’m watching tv so the whole “bad things happening to people in a tough situations” setup of ep01 had me ready to jump ship. Fortunately the second episode dipped into some recognizable tv Drama beats, so I was in. Bad things still happened, but it seemed less real.
Really great show. We remembered Angourie Rice (Siobhan in Mare) from The Nice Guys, which is overlong but underrated, IMO. She’s terrific.
The baby-in-danger scenes were the most harrowing for us (specifically the pillow in the recovery room and the bathtub scenes). That stuff skeeves me out. No bueno.
Also, the bits where we came in at the end of conversations were like you’d find in a novel: the dad making the kid promise to keep the secret, the older brother making the other brother say he did it, etc.
I thought the last twist(s) got a little Scooby Doo/Agatha Christie, but not so that it ruined the experience.
Kate Winslet was so, so good. This is one of my favorite things about prestige TV. Good writing in the hands of capital-A Actors is really something awesome.
I recommend it.
2021 Ford Maverick
This new Ford Maverick seems designed specifically for me (as opposed to the old Ford Maverick, which had a great name badge). A 21-Century compact pickup, which is as big as full-sized pickups were when I was coming up. This is exactly what I’m looking for in a truck. I don’t need to pull a boat or haul a ton of bricks. I just want to be able to go to the dump a couple of times a year and to take my bikes to the trailhead.
I hope it is a hit so they’re still around in a few years when I’m in the market again.
Or even better, maybe this will kick off a compact pickup renaissance, and I’ll have a bunch to choose from in 2024. That would be the dream.
~240lb stone to 52″
Coming into the last couple of sessions before the contest. I’m tired and sore. I’m also a good bit stronger than I was when I started. The stone above is ~40lbs. heavier than this one from a month ago and it felt a lot easier.
Feeling beaten down and sore leading up to the contest is par for the course in my strongman training experience. I’ve stayed injury-free, which is always Goal 1. There is some more heavy training this weekend and then a relatively chill week to rest up.