Ideapad

Blogging since 1998. By David Wertheimer

Category: Personal (Page 4 of 25)

A light visual refresh

January 16, 2023 /

Regular visitors of the Ideapad (hi, Mom) may notice something different: I’ve updated the font. Ideapad now renders in Avenir Next.

I have actually been using this font elsewhere for a number of years. Earlier today, though, I stopped by furbo.org, and the crispness and easy readability of his site literally stopped me in my tracks. I didn’t recognize it at first, so I popped Craig Hockenberry a note, and he kindly told me what font I was looking at. Of course! Avenir Next is gorgeous, and it’s preinstalled on Macs, too (which is why I’ve been able to use it in, say, my old desktop Microsoft apps).

Many years have passed since design was a focus of my work here—this WordPress template is called Twenty Eleven, if that’s any indication—but I’ve been bothered for awhile by the readability of Helvetica Neue, the previous default Ideapad font, which was too thin and narrow for longer form text, at least as your author’s eyes have aged. Upgrading user-friendliness and visual appeal is a win-win.

One thing I noticed upon updating is that Avenir Next has a rather aggressive boldface. I need to explore demibold fonts and relative font weights at some point, but in the meantime, I’ve turned off a lot of the bold on these pages, including the post titles (which, if you’re truly into these sorts of things, have morphed from 26px Helevetica Neue bold to 30px Avenir Next regular).

If inspiration strikes again, I may find a whole new template for the blog, too. But in the meantime, enjoy the font update.

The year in cities 2022

January 2, 2023 /

Somehow I’ve been doing this for eighteen years. This past year was a good one, as I got back on an airplane for the first time since the pandemic started, for both work and fun, and took multiple interesting road trips. Away we go:

New City, NY *
New York (home base) *
Richmond, VA (somehow we did that more than once, too) *
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
Plymouth Meeting, PA
Las Vegas *
Zion National Park, UT *
Bryce National Park, UT *
Grand Canyon Village, AZ *
Sedona, AZ
Scottsdale, AZ
Mexico City
Owls Head, ME
Greenport, NY
Gloucester, MA *
West Tisbury, MA *
Surfside, FL
Boston, MA *

My social media parenting journal

September 22, 2022 /

Way back in 2009, I had an idea: I wanted to post my young son’s utterances on Twitter.

At the time, Twitter was a fairly new service, and still open to experimentation. I wasn’t the first person to post his precocious kids’ quotes there, but it was a bit of a novelty nonetheless. I actually started a little too early to be social-media-level interesting; the first few tweets I posted were about individual words.

It wasn’t long, though, before my son got wordy, and clever, and hilarious. I kept grabbing my phone and jotting things down whenever he made me smile. I thought, at the time, that it’d be funny, maybe go viral a bit, or at least give my friends a laugh.

What I got instead was something different. The tweets stayed fun, but also started capturing the sweet, the poignant, and the magical. As he got older, it inadvertently started to chronicle not just his progress, but his personality.

I soon spun up a Twitter feed for my younger son, too, which captured his own distinct character, including his growth (for example, how he went from individual words to full sentences in a matter of weeks) and his own takes on the world.

And so it went, for years and years. My sons got increasingly sophisticated but no less quotable. And I kept tweeting. It got tougher as they got older–we try not to stare at our phones when we’re together as a family, and they didn’t always want to be recorded. But the feeds endured and grew, for more than a decade.

In recent months, I’ve realized we’ve basically outgrown it. My boys are too mature now, their humor contextual and nuanced, and no longer the stuff of pithy short-form text capture. (Indeed, they’re old enough to have their own social media feeds, should they want them.) But once in a while I’ll catch and record a gem. And as it stands, the archive is wonderful. The boys enjoy reading their own histories once in awhile, and each other’s, simply because it’s such a delightful way to revisit the past.

Alongside the photo albums, the videos and the mementos, my children’s Twitter feeds are, unexpectedly, one of the most cherished items of their formative years. 

Best of all, they’re easy to share: https://twitter.com/nathan_says and https://twitter.com/says_eli. Have fun exploring.

My covid

April 27, 2022 /

For two-plus years, I have been a model of safety, consistency and restraint in the face of the covid-19 pandemic. I was among the first to stock up on supplies for the lockdowns; one of the first to acquire, and rely on, KN95 masks; one of the most cautious in public spaces. I made my family mask up in the most innocuous of situations and maintained a useful wariness everywhere I went. Everyone in my household was vaccinated and boosted at the earliest eligible moment.

We let our guard down when we could—socializing more during the summer 2021 ebb, throwing my son a mask-free bar mitzvah reception in October (negative tests required)—but to this day I am easily identified as the guy with the mask hanging around his neck, putting it back on as soon as appropriate. Never mind that many people are moving on from masks; never mind that in many parts of the country, covid-19 infection rates are fairly low. Better safe than sorry.

Two weeks ago, when we embarked on eight days of outdoor activity in the national parks of the American Southwest, guess who brought his mask everywhere? Me, that’s who. Stuck on a line? Talking to the hotel concierge? Mask up. My younger son joined me, two lonely beacons of caution in an increasingly carefree world. Covid’s still out there, and we weren’t going to be caught off guard.

Well, guess what.

I woke up Saturday morning in Phoenix with a pesky cough. (I also threw my back out in the shower; I don’t believe it was related, although it made things much more interesting.) I had virtually no appetite but chalked it up to the cough and the backache. I flew home uneventfully, masked in my KN95 all the way.

Sunday morning, my cough was worse, and seemed like a sinus infection was brewing, so I popped across the street to my local urgent care. They took my vitals and swabbed my nose. In came the doctor: “What seems to be the problem today?”

“Well, I sometimes get sinus infections, and I have all the signs of one, so here I am.”

“You don’t have a sinus infection,” he said, with just enough levity, “you have covid.”

The ensuing days have been… tiring. I began isolating immediately, although I’d already spent the evening and morning with my family unawares. Urgent care helpfully pescribed me a course of Paxlovid, which Alto pharmacy unhelpfully delivered three hours late, whereupon I headed to my in-laws’ empty house in suburbia to isolate. Too late: on Monday, my wife tested positive, and on Tuesday, my younger son, he of the diligent masking, got it as well. I brought him out of the city to ride out the virus with me.

It’s Wednesday, and the three of us have experienced a full slate of covid symptoms. I will personally remind you, dear reader, that covid-19 is no joke, no matter how many people tell you it’s “just like the flu” and “not a big deal.” We have coped with fever, chills, achiness, congestion, coughs and substantial amounts of fatigue. I think the Paxlovid made a real difference in reducing my viral load, but it still wiped me out, and I’ve had waves of tiredness all day today, my fifth day of symptoms.

“Covid sucks,” my son keeps saying. He has been a model of perseverance and good-naturedness despite (in adult terms) really feeling like shit. I’m on the mend but there’s a ways to go for us all.

Next week, I look forward to leveraging my brief immunity around New York: I’m going to dine out, get a massage, go to WeWork without unease. But I’ll still have my mask around my neck, ready to wear. Because if the last thing I wanted was to get covid-19, the last thing I want going forward is to get it again.

The year in cities 2021

December 31, 2021 /

Seventeenth year! Despite not getting on a plane, because 2021, we managed to take half a dozen trips out of town, see several new places, and spend a whopping 58 nights sleeping somewhere besides my apartment. (That’s a remarkably high total for me, and is due largely to our pandemic snowbirding in February.)

Richmond, VA
Palm Beach Gardens, FL *
Savannah, GA
New City, NY *
Pittsfield, MA
Asbury Park, NJ
Newport, RI *
Gloucester, MA *
West Tisbury, MA *

Interesting firsts from this year include: throw my son a triumphal bar mitzvah; drive from New York City to Florida (so NBD we almost did it twice); play tennis on grass, in tennis whites, on the showcase court, at the Tennis Hall of Fame; get an entire new sunroof, headliner and carpet for our car at no cost; work 8-4 with daily tennis or golf for an entire month; run errands on a Citibike e-bike, and on a Revel scooter; bring a dog on the beach at the Jersey shore; eat Rhode Island clam chowder; turn a side hustle into a career opportunity; break 100 on a round of golf (for the first time in several years); find a starfish in a Bass Rocks tide pool (first time in at least 20 years); play paintball (first time in 29 years); get a virus vaccination at the Javits Center (first time ever).

Ring ring ring (ha ha hey)

December 20, 2021 /

Basic services are often compromised when living on an island. Living on, say, Nantucket, one probably gets used to losing power or phone service every now and again when the weather gets in the way.

That’s not supposed to happen when the island is Manhattan. So when our phone line went down for two full weeks, without notice or apology from our provider, we decided to switch our service.

This is kind of a big deal in my household. We possess a 212 phone number that we don’t want to lose, so doing a successful number port between service providers is critical. And more notably, until our switch, we still had a phone line served on copper.

I have long espoused maintaining an old fashioned land line. It doesn’t use electricity! In a blackout or an emergency, we can still make calls! (And, yes, tradition.) Heck, even during the signup for VOIP you have to acknowledge that your phone may not work in all circumstances—not true for copper.

And yet, pretty much everyone we call has a cable triple play now, and heck, maybe the police department does, too, not to mention the people and places that dropped their centralized phones entirely, in favor of their cell phones (of which we now have—gah—four. Although the children live on text and video chat, and barely need a number at all, but that’s another blog post).

So we accept the march of progress, and the roughly $700 a year in savings, and we move not-so-boldly into the future. I called Spectrum (with whom I have cable TV and internet service, through a bulk rate building package) and added our phone to it. There was lots of waiting for my rep to cheerfully set me up, then lots of saying “yes” to an automated verification system, then more waiting while Verizon and Spectrum did their number portability dance, and without fanfare, the phone would begin working through the cable modem instead of the copper line.

That led to an additional six weeks of limbo, as Spectrum needed Verizon’s signoff, and Verizon was unsure about our personal signoff, so nothing happened. Secondary prods didn’t help on either side, until we got billed by Spectrum for a month of nonexistent phone service, which prompted an impatient call from me, demanding a refund. That miraculously unclogged the pipes, and two days later, our phone number switched services.

Credit where it’s due, literally: Verizon was helpful after the switch, voiding our last month’s bill, and even sending a $2.93 debit card for a slight overpayment relative to the transition date. Spectrum fixed its extra bill, too.

And now? Our phone seems exactly the same as before, with the added perks of on-screen Caller ID if we’re watching cable TV when the phone rings, and a special ring sequence if the call is from our building lobby. These are not innovations, but they’re new to us, and still amusing. Otherwise, it’s the same old same old.

Until the power goes out, at least.

Twenty years past

September 10, 2021 /

Tomorrow is the 20th anniversay of the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York. You know this, of course. This weekend, many corners of the internet will be commemorating the occasion.

I have never been one to look back on the event in great detail. Many people do (Anil Dash, for example, every year) and I appreciate their reflections without feeling much need or desire to add my own. I lived it, I wrote down my reactions in real time, and for me, that has been enough.

Speaking of which, my memories of the day and the week were chronicled here on the Ideapad, and I still recommend reading them; the page is both contemplative and raw, and it holds up. Also, for really raw writing about the event, my friend Adam’s firsthand writeup is chastening.

At the newsstand

August 11, 2021 /

It was a blazingly hot summer afternoon as I walked the dog. We walked down Broadway, where an electronic sign announced that both interstate lottery jackpots were around a quarter-billion dollars. I felt like daydreaming on my dog walk, so I stopped at the newsstand with the lottery terminal.

“One Mega Millions and one Powerball, please,” I said to the older man working the newsstand.

“One of each?” he said.

“Sure,” I replied, “maybe they’ll both come in.”

He paused a beat while the tickets printed. “One is enough,” he said.

Le Tour 2006

July 18, 2021 /

I caught the replay of the end of the 2021 Tour de France on TV today, and remembered that I inadvertently attended the finale of the 2006 tour.

Floyd Landis celebrating his victory.

How does one inadvertently crash the victory lap of the world’s most famous bicycle race? First, one gets sent to Paris on business; then, one flies early, to cope with jet lag and to enjoy an extra day in Paris on the company dime (thanks, Clarins!); then, one chooses to go for a walk on a beautiful summer day, and then starts wondering what all the fuss by the Champs Elysses is about, and keeps walking and watching.

Not speaking any French, I didn’t ask anyone for clarification, I just kept looking around, and I must have spotted a “Le Tour de France” sign that clued me in. I stayed by the Arc de Triomphe for a small parade, then saw the riders do their laps on the Champs Elysses, then meandered with the masses to the main stage, where I was able to see Floyd Landis accept his trophy from a remarkably close distance, maybe 100 feet (30 meters) away from the presentation (albeit from the back, which allowed me to get pretty close, as evidenced here).

It was a pretty wild thing to attend, especially by accident. I’m not a big cycling enthusiast, but I am a bike rider and I know the sport, so I enjoyed this very much, Landis’s subsequent dethroning notwithstanding. I have a hundred or so photos of the afternoon. Who knew?

I liked working for a French company. Nice travel perks. (Usually.)

George Thorogood feat. very special guest Tommy Conwell and the Young Rumblers

May 7, 2021 /

Opening acts create regrets, don’t they? I went to a good amount of rock concerts over the years, and I always, always arrived in time to see the opening act, even though I rarely cared about them. What’s interesting in retrospect is the moments where I should have been more dialed in, and realized what a treat I had seen (Tommy Conwell notwithstanding, although I did buy his first two albums).

For exampe: I saw Sonic Youth and Social Distortion open up for Neil Young in 1990 or 1991 before I knew who either band was. Sonic Youth! Supporting “Goo!” But I thought their set was meh, a wall of guitar noise but not my thing. Sigh. Social Distortion had some catchier tunes (one was on the radio at the time), so I didn’t mind them, and it did have the effect of keeping them in my brain for many years after, so I guess that’s something. Neil Young was good that night which redeemed me a little bit—I believe this was the “Ragged Glory” tour, with Crazy Horse, so the wall of guitar noise just kept on coming.

I went to the H.O.R.D.E. Festival in the summer of 1992, to see Blues Traveler (good call) and the Spin Doctors (guilty as charged). We spent the day and saw all five acts. The middle band was Phish, in their trampolines-on-stage period, which was fine enough, and if I’d paid more attention or smoked pot maybe I’d have caught a 30-year wave, but instead I still listen to “But Anyway” and not the Phish station on Sirius XM.

There were plenty of bands that didn’t matter, of course. Good old Tommy Conwell, for example. Forgotten names like My Sister’s Machine, who opened up for King’s X one time (and whom we ran into at a rest stop on the way home). And some marginally interesting moments, like seeing Angelfish, who opened up for (I think) Live, then broke up, leaving Shirley Manson free to join Garbage, and me free to say I saw her in concert before she was famous; and the lucky ones I actually dialed into and enjoyed, like Living Colour at Shea, opening for the Rolling Stones.

But then, in 2013, I went to a Justin Timberlake concert, and the Weeknd opened, in support of his debut album. We knew at the time that he must have been talented to get picked for that slot, but we thought he sucked. Shows what I know.

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