Shallow Thoughts : : misc

Best Books I Read in 2024

My annual "Best Books I Read Last Year" is a little sparse for 2024. When I look at my reading record, I see I only finished 17 books all year, the lowest count by far since I started keeping track in 2004.

There are a couple of reasons for that, some good, some bad.

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A Lovely Christmas Eve Present

I just had the greatest Christmas Eve present.

Yesterday we went exploring bike trails. We drove the length of Buckman Rd (a little over 10 miles of dirt washboard and sand, which I'm happy to say the newer Rav4 handles much better than the old one did) to explore the trail along the river. But we hit a washout about a mile and a half in, and Dave didn't want to try to find a way around it. So we went back to the car, packed up the bikes, and drove over to the La Tierra Trails, which turned out to be a wonderful mountain bike playground, about which I may write at some point.

When we got home, though, I realized I no longer had my Rav4 key.

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How to Move Around More (Being an "Outdoor Person")

I like to think of myself as an outdoor person. I like hiking, mountain biking, astronomy, and generally enjoying the beauty of the world.

Except — let's not kid ourselves here — I'm really more of a computer geek. Without some sort of push, I can easily stay planted on my butt in front of the computer all day — sure, looking out the window and admiring the view (I do a lot of that since we moved to New Mexico), but still sitting indoors in the computer chair.

Earlier this year, the science podcast "Short Wave" played an NPR series called Body Electric that had a lot of interviews with scientists who have studied some aspect of the health benefits of motion versus sitting, and specifically, the idea of getting up and moving around for five minutes every half hour. They challenged listeners to try it, and featured statements from listeners about their improved health and energy levels.

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Transposing a Song in Audacity

I've been learning guitar. I've tried several times in the past without much success, concluding that although I love music, making it is just not where my talents lie. But this time I'm following a course (Justin Guitar), doing things more or less in the recommended order rather than jumping around randomly. It's fun, and I'm practicing regularly and feel like I'm making progress.

So far I know about five chords, and surprisingly, there are a lot of good songs you can play with only three to five chords. But if you want to play along with a record, some songs need a capo (one of those little dinguses you can clamp around the guitar's neck) to map the chords to ones that are easy for beginners to play.

I don't have a capo. Justin Guitar has a phone app that supposedly can transpose songs, but I wouldn't know about that, because it doesn't work on my phone, just spins forever any time I try to load a song. But I do have a computer; can't I just take a recording and transpose it?

Yes! It's easy in Audacity.

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Best Books I Read in 2023

2023 was a good year for books, especially nonfiction.

I only finished twenty books this year. I think that's mostly because I read a lot more nonfiction than usual (tending toward long books and slower reading), and I had no re-reads. Still, quite a bit lower than past years. I guess I've been pretty busy with other things, and tired and zonking out early instead of reading well into the night.

Here are some of the books I enjoyed most this year.

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New Hobby: Crochet Earmuffs

With the cold weather upon us, I've been cranking out a lot of crochet earmuffs.

I'd made a few knitted earmuffs back when I was learning to knit a few years ago. I liked the way they felt and worked — no pressure on my head or ears like with the kind of earmuffs that have a band that goes over the head — but they're tricky to knit, requiring circular knitting with small double-pointed needles and a lot of increasing and decreasing. I'm still not that good at knitting and have a hard time with increases.

It turns out earmuffs are much easier in crochet.

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Appreciation for Running Water

We were visiting relatives in Colorado when Dave's phone rang. Someone from county utilities, letting us know we had a major water leak at the house, it had been happening for more than a month, and this month's water bill was going to be over $700. Yikes! And ... gee, thanks, for waiting a month to let us know about it.

(Aside: the county recently force-upgraded everyone to new "smart meters" which are supposed to send alerts for problems like this. However, that only works if you can log in and set up an email address — and we'd been going back and forth with the county for months about why the system wouldn't let us set up an account, but nobody in the utilities department seemed to know much about how the online access worked.)

We had them send someone to turn off the water to the house. When we returned home a few days later, we called again to have the water turned back on briefly so we could see what was going on. The leak was somewhere between the meter and the house, making it our responsibility (natch). The county said they had no way of telling precisely where: it could be somewhere under the driveway, or under the garage (ouch!)

It was Friday, so of course there was no chance of persuading anyone to come out and take a look.

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Painting the Water Tower

I saw a notice in the paper that they're planning to paint the Barranca school water tower, something it has badly needed for some years. It made me wonder, though, how they did that.

Today I happened to be in the neighborhood and saw the preparations. It's quite an elaborate rig, with a crown of long poles from which hang separate lines that go all the way to the ground. Do the painters rappel down the lines and paint while hanging? What do they do once they get below the "golf ball" and need to paint the ball's underside or the stem?

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