7.1.25
After working with our cable company for several days to try to get their system to recognize my new TiVo device (using the same card to connect to their network that we had used in the previous device) and not having any success, and then doing a trial of several streaming services that included live television with most of the same channels that we get on cable, we unanimously decided to go with YouTubeTV.

But a few days before our trial period was about to end, Will happened to turn the TV on and go into the cable input and noticed that our channels seemed to be working again. He quickly told me, and then I verified it to make sure we were actually getting all the channels in our package, and so now it looks like we'll be able to stay with the same setup and I won't be forced into a streaming service (which admitted is a little cheaper than cable, although with our internet bundle, the difference isn't significant) until the new TiVo device dies.

7.2.25
I was dreading going in yesterday, as I was supposed to have four in-person meetings back-to-back. But three of them were being hosted by my boss (who has been out of town for the past few weeks), and when he bowed out due to a family situation, they all disappeared from the calendar. And since I had proactively rescheduled the other one that morning just so I could get through the day, I actually ended up with a completely clear schedule and was able to make progress on some summer projects instead.

This will instead end up being a pretty short, stress-free week—I took last Friday and yesterday off to burn my vacation so I could continue to accrue it, and then we have Friday off for Independence Day. I had a couple of meetings today (including the one I rescheduled from yesterday), but they're all virtual, and tomorrow I've kept meeting-free because I need to take Julie to a doctor's appointment that could last anywhere from two to six hours (I'll be able to keep up with email and do some query and configuration work on my iPad while I wait).

7.3.25
I just finished reading the recently released R.E.M. biography, The Name of This Band Is R.E.M. by Peter Ames Carlin. I read a different R.E.M. biography a few years ago—Tony Fletcher's excellent Perfect Circle: The Story of R.E.M.—so I was curious to see if there was a different approach to the subject that would yield further obscure facts and revelations about the band and their body of work.

Fletcher's book relied heavily on quoted interviews with R.E.M. guitarist Peter Buck, whereas Carlin's creates a third person narrative that obviously relies on first person accounts but rarely quotes the subjects directly. There was a lot that I already knew about the band's early history from both the Fletcher book and Grace Elizabeth Hale's Cool Town: How Athens, Georgia, Launched Alternative Music and Changed American Culture, but there were still some new stories and facts that I hadn't heard before. And once we got past the point where drummer Bill Berry left the band after the tour for their 1996 album New Adventures in Hi-Fi, the anecdotes were almost entirely new to me, since I stopped following the band as closely after that point.

This is a great book for R.E.M. fans, even if you're read previous books about the band. A very complete, coherent narrative about both their music, their touring history, and the intertwining biographies of all the band members that will make you want to revisit their mostly-great catalogue and remind yourself why this band was so important to so many people.

7.8.25
Julie had a minor outpatient surgical procedure first thing in the morning on Thursday, and although I had planned to work remotely from the waiting room, I decided instead to drive back home (the clinic was about 45 minutes away) when it seemed probable that she would be there until at least noon and could be there until well into the afternoon. So of course, she called me pretty much as soon as I got back to the house telling me they were wrapping things up and I could come get her now. That was good news overall, but of course if I had known it would be that quick, I would have just stayed there and saved myself an extra round trip.

Because of her surgery and the instructions not to do anything strenuous for a few days, we skipped the Peachtree this year. Even though we would have just walked it anyway, it still would have been a lot, especially with the heat and humidity. So we had a pretty chill 4th, making bratwurst and kielbasa with peppers and onions at home, and serving it with potato salad (from the deli aisle) and corn on the cob.

After dinner we were going to walk to downtown Decatur to see the fireworks there, but I wasn't feeling well, so just Julie and Will went. When they got back, we each had a little bit of a cookie cake and watched the PBS airing of the DC fireworks together.

7.9.25
Will had a great first year at his high school, but we honestly don't know at this point how things are going to play out in year 2. A lot of people who were in his grade either left during the school year or are not intending to come back, including a few of the people he's closest to, and it's looking like he might have as few as six or seven students in his grade because they only managed to recruit one new person that we're aware of. They have also lost a couple of upper school teachers and haven't been able to replace them with experienced, certified professionals.

In that context, we don't know if he's going to get an experience that's worth the cost of what we're paying, or even if the basics of the classroom/academic experience will be met. We're also concerned that this isn't sustainable, and that we could invest another year of tuition and another year of his time only to have the school shut down the high school (the elementary and middle schools are thriving), making him transfer to a new school in his junior year.

So we're making contingency plans, both by looking again at other private schools but also doing everything we need to do to quickly enroll him in our local public high school if we decide he needs to move mid-semester. We've already paid a significant portion of the tuition for the upcoming year, but we would get some of it back if he doesn't end up completing the year. He has to attend for at least two weeks in order for that to kick in, so if we do end up moving to the public school, we'd likely have to wait until early September to make that change.

We're still hoping it will all work out and there will be a decent number of new students, both in his class and in the larger high school, but unless they pretty quickly fix their enrollment and staffing problems, I don't see how the high school can continue.

7.10.25
Today is my son's 15th birthday, and that's a pretty big deal to me. That was a pivotal year in my life—that's when my grandmother passed away, when I made the decision to apply to a public magnet boarding school when my mom told me she was moving to Florida (where I absolutely did not want to live), and when I started to develop the musical taste that has become such a big part of my life (I purchased my first albums from bands like the Smiths, Talking Heads, New Order, the Violent Femmes, XTC, and R.E.M., all of whom I still listen to regularly today).

I hope his 15th year won't be filled with as much chaos and change as mine was, but I do hope he has some of those positive formative events and friendships that shape who he becomes as an adult. He's at a theater summer camp today, but we've got some stuff planned to celebrate with him tonight and this weekend.

7.15.25
As has been his habit for much of the summer, Will was still up at midnight when the day turned from July 9 to July 10, so I woke Julie up and we went in to say a quick happy birthday. He had camp the next day, so he had to get up relatively early, but Julie decorated his door and got him doughnuts before he got up.

The camp he's in this week focuses on writing, acting, directing, and editing comedy skits, but they were mostly done with their projects by noon that day, so Julie picked up Will early to go get his learner's permit. He passed the written test (which is all you have to do at this stage), and then Julie took him to practice driving in the local elementary school parking lot (where he used to go as a kid).

That night, we took him out to Top Golf (giving him a choice between Top Golf and Puttshack), which I'd never been to before. I'm also the only one of the three of us who actually knows how to play golf, but that didn't matter (in a very audience-appropriate way). You can just use their range as a basic driving range, but they also have lots of games that you can choose from that track the ball and give you points for things (and not for actually hitting the ball well or far). I did win a couple of games, but Will and Julie both won more than I did (and I think Julie might have won the most). We ordered dinner and drinks as well (Will got a mocktail), and ended up staying for about two and a half hours.

It was getting pretty late when we got home and we were all pretty tired, but we did stop to give Will a little gift of a Minecraft bee night light (his major present was the Switch 2, which he's had and has been using since it was released) and eat a small bit of the Ben and Jerry's ice cream cake we got for him.

On Saturday we drove out to see my mom and my sister (bringing Julie's mom with us) so they could celebrate his birthday. My sister (who is VERY picky about food) chose a Mexican restaurant near her house, and Will got sopaipillas with a drizzle of chocolate sauce and got to wear a gaudy sombrero while the staff sang happy birthday to him. We then went back to my mom's house to hang out with her for a few minutes before we headed back to Atlanta.

7.16.25
Will's doing a few day camps this summer, and his first one was a video production/writing/acting camp at the Museum School over in Avondale estates. He and a small group of other kids spent the week working on writing skits and then learning how to film them and act in them.

They had a session for parents last Friday afternoon, and I had pretty low expectations. But even though a couple of the pieces went on for a little longer than necessary, they were pretty well-produced, and they were more entertaining than I thought they'd be. My main goal for the camp was to get him out of the house and interacting with new people, and that seems to have been pretty successful even if he doesn't develop a friendship outside of the camp with anyone.

He's at another similar camp at Georgia Tech this week, and we'll have another viewing session this Friday. He seems like being on the Tech campus more than the Museum School, but from what he's told us, he's having a similar experience in terms of helping create short comedy video pieces and meeting some new people.

7.17.25
We had a great time at the Hopscotch Music Festival in Raleigh last year, the first time we'd ever been to that event and the first time in almost 20 years that we've been to a festival. So we were excited about the possibility of returning this year.

It's in September as usual, but they revealed their lineup months later than they have in previous years (I wonder if this was in part because Atlanta's Shaky Knees Festival got moved to the week before in September instead of its usual May dates). And now that we know who's going to be there, it looks like we won't be going back, at least for this year.

Last year there were a ton of bands on the lineup we wanted to see, including two of the headliners (Waxahatchee and St. Vincent), and a bunch of North Carolina acts, including Wednesday, Indigo De Souza, the dB's, and MJ Lenderman, along with several other acts that we wanted to see (like Guided By Voices and Feeble Little Horse).

And while there are a few bands I'd like to see, like Godspeed You Black Emperor, Nilufer Yanya, Superchunk, and Les Savy Fav, I'm not interested in any of the headliners, and there aren't enough cool undercard acts to make up for that. Given the expense and the time we'd need to take off to go up there for a few days, we can't justify it given the paucity of bands we really want to see.

I'm going to look at this festival every year going forward, though—we really enjoyed our experience last year, and if the lineup is enough of a draw, we'd be happy to return. I just hope next year they get the act together a little quicker and give us the lineup with a longer lead time than two months.

7.22.25
Will went to his second summer camp last week, and it was very similar to his first one in that it was about writing, shooting, and editing short form videos. This one was a Georgia Tech, which he enjoyed quite a bit more in terms of the campus setting, especially with all the little delivery robots roaming around.

Like the first one, there was a viewing session for family on Friday, and again I was very impressed not only with the overall quality of what the kids created, but with Will's part in it as a writer, an actor, and an editor. I don't know if he'll do anything with this in college or professionally, but he certainly has a knack for it, and it's fun getting to see him explore this world with other creative kids.

7.23.25
Julie and I went to see fabled British country punks the Mekons last night, the first time I've ever seen them. They played City Winery, which we used to go to more often but which has shifted to hosting mostly C-tier R+B acts and which now has more onerous requirements for food and drink purchases in addition to the cost of the tickets themselves.

The band was great though, and I'd absolutely take the opportunity to see them again in the future no matter what the venue. They have a solid new album out this year, Horror, which is their 25th full-length studio release since their debut in 1979. They played five songs from that record, but most of the rest of the set was from the early part of their career, including several from both Honky Tonkin' and Fear and Whiskey.

The old person in me always appreciates having someplace to sit or a railing to lean on, but even though we were pretty close to the stage, I still might have preferred to see them in a smaller sold out venue than a half-filled large room. It didn't affect their energy level though—there was still real power behind their songs, and they seemed to enjoy performing together, even after nearly 50 years.

7.24.25
After the house fire, we put most of what we were able to salvage in a storage unit while we rebuilt our house, partially because the rental house we were in didn't really have any extra storage space, and partly because that saved us from having to move that stuff a couple of extra times. While we were still in the rebuilding phase, insurance covered the cost, but once we moved back into our house, we had to pay the monthly fees.

Originally we thought we'd only keep it for a few months until we got settled in the new house, but here we were over two years later with virtually none of the storage unit boxes moved back into the house despite ample storage space in the basement. So a few weeks ago we finally got focused and made a push to get it cleared out so we could take that bill off the books and get everything either unpacked for use or put into long term storage in the house where it wouldn't cost us anything.

The process was to load up one or both cars with as much as we could, take it back home, and then get all those boxes sorted—repacked into plastic bins if necessary, inventoried, and labeled—before we went back for more, just to prevent us from piling up everything around the house where it might remain for weeks or months more. I tended to do this in bursts, making serious progress for a few days and then needing a break for a bit.

But over the weekend we brought the last load home, and although there's still a decent amount of work to do in order to get the final couple of loads ready for the storage area in the basement, pretty much everything that remains to be inventoried fits in the non-storage area of the basement, so it's mostly out of the way. It still might take a while for me to go through all of that, but at least we're not paying for the storage unit any longer, and it feels like a major step to getting closure from the impacts of the fire.

7.29.25
As I often do, I am taking the next couple of days off simply because I'm at my max number of vacation days and if I don't take them now, I'll lose my August accrual. Ideally we'd actually be using these days to take real vacations, but I'd rather have a couple of unplanned days off than see those vacation hours go to waste entirely.