Thankfully, everything worked out fine. No accidents! She was pretty quiet too, I think she slept for most of the flight. I’ll also take a moment to mention that I had hoped to bring along a spare Sherpa cat carrier liner, but I couldn’t find the Medium size we needed anywhere. Once we arrived in Philly, I contacted PetWise and they shared that they aren’t currently available, but that they could ship me one for free until they came back on the market. Hooray! We now have a spare liner for our journey home, should we need it.

But on to our visit. I wish our first week in town had been quieter. We discovered some ants had started coming in via the second floor deck door (same thing happened last year) so immediately had to call the pest service to come out. The microwave we had fixed on our way out last time also started acting up again, so we had to call in a warranty claim, thankfully they came out the next day and there were no problems. Then on Thursday I got into a minor car accident, fortunately no one was hurt. I’ll talk about that once everything is settled, but it was all an incredibly jarring way to begin our stay here. I ended up taking the afternoon off from work on Friday so I could calm my nerves post-accident.

And then we could spend our weekend making the most of our time here.

Saturday morning we drove downtown and had pizza at a small pizzeria near the Penn Museum, where we had tickets for “Adventure Mode Activated,” a Minecraft-inspired workshop that afternoon. We ended up at Carters Pizza and Beer, where they had the Brazil World Cup game from the night before playing, and a bunch of board games! We played Sorry! while we waited for our beef pepperoni pizza to be prepared, and then enjoyed watching some of the game while we ate. It was a fun place.

After lunch I had planned to spend a little time at the museum before the workshop, but then started having second thoughts because I was worried the boys would get bored of museum-ing before the workshop began. Instead, we had 90 minutes to kill. You know… we’ve never been to Philly Typewriter!

Back in 2023, we all headed downtown to attend a type-in arranged by Philly Typewriter, and I’ve been a fan of them for some time. At the end of that event I had the pleasure of briefly speaking with the owner, Bryan Kravitz, and about his bay area connection. This time we finally got to see the shop! It started out as a regular visit, but then MJ got talking with Bryan while the boys and I poked around the shop, and once I joined the conversation he could see that I was a typewriter enthusiast, and offered us a tour of the basement!

The shop has an upstairs where some of the work is performed by the typewriter specialists in full view from the street, but downstairs is where they do some of the messier or more complicated work, and keep tools and hundreds of typewriters in various states of repair (or to be used as parts). Seeing this part of the shop was a real honor, and inspired Adam and I to clean up an Olympia I picked up at an estate sale a couple years ago. We managed to not buy any typewriters while we were there, but I was extremely pleased to hear that business is great, and they expected the blue IBM Selectric I was eyeing to be sold rather quickly.

From there we went to the Penn Museum, into the worst parking garage I’ve ever experienced, but thankfully we still made it in time for the workshop to begin. They had 2 hours booked for it, and it started in a classroom where the education guide set some expectations, and then it was time for her to bring a bunch of Minecraft kids around the museum to see how real life exhibits map to the experience we have in Minecraft.

The last time I was at this museum was in 2009, so I didn’t remember much, and it does seem like they’ve made some big changes. It all felt new to me! The guide first brought us all to see some gold weights and talk about gold and minerals used in ancient societies, and asked the kids about use of gold in Minecraft. From there it was over to an exhibit that had some obsidian, a very important material in Minecraft and the boys always ask a lot of questions to about it (especially because of it’s connection to lava, and lava is cool), it was nice to have someone else answering all their questions.

All the kids were getting a bit bouncy from sitting still at this point, so I was glad when we moved on to see the spectacular funerary ensemble of Queen Puabi, which has lapis lazuli! Lapis lazuli is used for enchanting items in Minecraft, so another important one there. I loved the story she told about Queen Puabi, so that was probably the most enjoyable stop for me. Our last stop was to see some armor from Etruscan Italy around 700 BCE. Minecraft characters use armor for a variety of things!

Back at the classroom, the kids got to learn a bit more about ancient civilizations and they looped in Mosaics as a topic because Minecraft has a very pixelated look to it and Mosaics are a bit like ancient pixels. So the craft that concluded the workshop had the kids armed with glue sticks and little squares of construction paper to make their own mosaic. We each left with a custom pin that said “I creeped around the Penn Museum” with a Minecraft-looking Sphynx. Love it. We spent a little time walking around the museum after the event concluded.

Our weekend continued with Father’s Day on Sunday. It started out with a really nice lunch with Grandpa, and then we drove out to Microcenter. MJ has been shopping for a monitor for the downstairs den/office area, so it was a nice opportunity for him to peruse some of the options. I managed to pick up of the official Raspberry Pi monitors that I’ve been eyeing for a while, and will come in quite handy if I manage to squeeze in some time to get the SBCs I keep here going again (one of the Raspberry Pis, and my RISC-V). The boys enjoyed playing on some of the computers they had on display, which is how they discovered some free online games that Adam later got going on the laptop we’re sharing here.

We also picked up a movie theater gift card as a Father’s Day gift so all of us can go out and see Toy Story 5 while we’re here.

It was definitely a mixed arrival week, but I’m glad we could end on some fun activities.

But first we had a visit to the vet with Zara. She’s been doing great! But hadn’t been to the vet since concluding her tail wound ordeal, so she hadn’t really gotten a proper physical with us. We wanted to get that in, plus get her rabies vaccine before bringing her to Philly for the summer. Since Adam was out of school, he was happy to join me on the vet visit to help keep Zara calm while the vet took a look at her. And she’s still great! We were all set to bring her as a carry on for our flight.

The weekend kicked off with a visit up to Brentwood for cherry picking. It was late in the season overall, but especially late because cherry season actually began early this year. The place we usually go to was closed for the season, which meant we had to look up another, and that’s how we came across Three Nuuns Farm, and I’m so glad we did! In addition to cherries, they had strawberry and peach picking! We skipped the peaches since the boys aren’t into them, but we began our journey with a tractor ride out to the strawberry patch.

We all enjoyed the tractor ride, and there was a cute spinning strawberry ride that the boys thought was hilarious to spin us in because I don’t like spinning rides (thanks, kids). After the ride, MJ presented me with a dairy-free “Farmpop” – a cherry fruit juice popsicle that was one of the highlights of my day. It was so good. The strawberry patch was a little picked over, but we found enough to make the adventure worth it.

The tractor then took us back to the entrance where dropped off the strawberries in the cooler in the car and walked to the other side of the parking lot to begin cherry picking. It looked a bit dismal at first, almost all the red cherries we encountered were shriveled up, and a few too high up in the trees to pick. We then went much deeper into orchard until we found yellow cherries that were ripe and perfect for us to pick!

Four pounds of cherries later we were ready to head to downtown Brentwood for lunch, and a stop by an antiques shop where I picked up a record and some [not antique] cherry earrings.

On Sunday we drove north again, but this time to the west. We booked a glamping night at Safari West, and our tent with comfy beds awaited!

I’ve wanted to go to Safari West since I first heard about it years ago, long before we had kids. It’s a safari! Within driving distance! Situated on a 400-acre plot of land near Santa Rosa, they have all kinds of animals, mostly from the African savanna, and they do safari-style tours throughout the week to see them up close. I’ve followed them on Instagram for years, and held my breath as the fires in Santa Rosa threatened the facility several years back (thankfully, everything turned out OK).

I was so happy that everything aligned properly for us to finally go, we booked a Sunday night stay and a midday Monday tour. Our evening there began with dinner at their on-site Savannah Cafe, which I think I’d skip next time. It was expensive for what it was, which was a very limited buffet where they were overly stingy with the brisket, and the boys struggled to find things they would eat. Our waitress was nice though, and it was enjoyable to sit outside for a meal there at least once. Once we finished dinner we explored the animals they kept in a series of zoo-like enclosures around the central part of the facility.

Aaron immediately fell in love with the cheetahs, while Adam was quite taken with the lemurs and birds.

Around 8PM they put out supplies for s’mores back at the Cafe, which we all enjoyed.

The “tent” was a lot of fun. It was canvas-sided, but they were little house-like structures. They each have a large private bathroom, and the bed configuration was a King and a bunk bed all squished into the room. It was cozy, and the first time all four of us shared a room together! The boys were pretty excited to sleep in the bunk bed, with Adam (the oldest) on top. It got surprisingly cold overnight, so MJ ended up closing everything up and turning the heater on when he went to bed.

The next morning we got up to enjoy the continental breakfast that came with our overnight stay. They had pretty standard fare and everyone found things they could eat. It was then back to our tent for a little while so we could enjoy our final time there before check-out at 11AM, and our tour at noon. Once we were checked out, the boys had some snacks and MJ and I had planned on grabbing a sandwich at the on-site snack bar, Delilah’s Delights, but they were closed while staff was on a break until almost tour time! Thankfully we were able to grab a couple small things and eat them quickly before the tour began. It was also good to learn that food was allowed on the safari, which was good for Aaron who got hungry halfway through.

We had a fantastic tour guide who was not only knowledgeable and funny, but indulged all of Adam’s questions about the truck we rode in. I loved that the tour was unscripted and went along with where the animals appeared, how interesting they were being, and how engaged the guests were. At one of our first stops, we got to see a baby rhinoceros nursing! Eventually. He was clearly hungry but he’d grown almost too big to nurse comfortably, so was making frustrated sounds about this fact before he found the right position.

I loved seeing the big herd of Ankole-Watusi (African Longhorn). They have HUGE horns! And apparently they keep the grass on the sprawling property nice and tidy.

I think my favorite part of the tour was the zebras. I’m not normally a big zebra fan, but they had a baby who was only a couple months old and she was lovely, and I’m always entranced by how sharp the stripes are on adults, it was nice to get to see them up close. So beautiful.

Part of the way through the tour we were able to move from the main part of the truck to our turn up on the top, and that’s how we got to see the water buffalo, wildebeest, and so many antelopes.

The tour concluded by going past the giraffes, which were all closer to the main camp area of the safari, instead of being out in the broader property. I know sometimes they are (our first au pair has gone on this tour too, and she got to see roaming giraffes!), but maybe it was because there was a new baby? The baby was pretty cute. Once the safari part of the tour was over, we had a short break, during which our guide was kind enough to talk to the boys about the different configurations of trucks they had, and to pop open the hood of one of her favorites. Epic. Remember to tip your tour guides generously.

Once the break concluded, she took us on a walking tour of the facility we’d seen on our own the evening before, plus the aviary that you can only get into with a guide. Aviaries aren’t really my thing, since I’m a bit scared of birds, but I turned up the bravery and joined everyone on the bird adventure. It was also nice to see some of the enclosures with the benefit of a guide who we could ask questions of, and Aaron liked seeing the cheetahs again.

Our day concluded with a drive home and a dinner stop along the way.

The final few days before our trip included a walk over to the BART station in Castro Valley one evening for their “BART Mart” Anime Artist Alley Pop-Up, which was super cute. None of us are really into anime though, so the highlight there was the Railgood shop where I picked up some t-shirts for the boys and the new BARTy plushie keychain for myself. I also brought my laptop to the Don Castro Regional Recreation Area one afternoon with our au pair and the boys so they could go swimming.

Finally, I looked into our refrigerator and saw that we still had too many cherries – hah! At the edge of going bad, they weren’t something I could give away, but we could make cherry jam! So we did.

And we brought a small jar with us to Philly, which I froze but still triggered TSA to stop us on our way through security. Oops. At least they let us keep it. Onward to Philly Summer!

Saturday of Memorial Day weekend was spent doing errands, but one of those errands was going to REI and buying a couple cots that Adam and I could use for camping. Our first attempt at back yard camping last year was a bit rough, the small blow-up mats weren’t the best on my back, and we weren’t quite prepared for how chilly it got at night or how annoying the air conditioner would be. This time we brought lots of blankets, and MJ agreed to keep the air-conditioning in the house off for the night. Also, Aaron joined us. But the evening started once again with s’mores!

Inside the tent, Adam and I got the cots while Aaron happily plunked down between us on one of the small blow-up mats. It was a much better night than our previous attempt, but it was also a late night for all of us, and the boys didn’t get as much sleep as they usually would. Still, I think we’re ready to level up from backyard camping. Next stop: Camping at our local campground.

The next day we got to enjoy my belated Mother’s Day celebration by taking BART up to San Francisco to see a Giants game during Star Wars Day! We got there when the gates opened, partially to make sure we got our Grogu bobble heads, but we also just wanted to take in the whole stadium experience for our day out. Aside from a plethora of food, the Coca-Cola bottle in the stadium is actually a series of slides for kids, and the boys had a lot of fun with that, before and during the game. The Star Wars stuff was naturally a lot of fun, especially as we got to see Daniel Logan (little Boba Fett from Episode II) throw out a ceremonial first pitch. Having just been to Minneapolis for Star Wars night, it was fun to compare the two, and see that it was not a uniform experience, the teams really have a lot of flexibility in what they choose to do. No cookie-cutter entertainment here!

Now it’s time for me to make an aside about the use of AI in the stadium. They no longer publish a food directory, instead depending on a chatbot that you query to get information about where specific things are. It’s very, very bad. Like, I don’t know how they could have made it this bad. Looking for chicken tenders? They’re everywhere, but the chatbot will tell you about just the specialty spicy ones. Cotton candy? Everywhere. But it’ll tell you it’s just in an exclusive part of the stadium. Helmet nachos? Not great results. Asking where the Ghirardelli ice cream spot is? It tells you the wrong stall number. It felt like a tiny bit of RAG could have saved the whole thing, why didn’t they just train it on the directory and menus? The other place it was used was with scanning items you place on a platform designed for it. There was still a human standing there to make sure it got it right and check for any alcohol purchases. It did fine with our food, it missed an item when we were at the fan shop. In all, it was pretty much a disaster. We still found everything, but when things are this bad, forcing people to be beta testers for an experience we paid a lot of money for is not cool. Just publish a food directory, please.

The game was a lot of fun though, we got to watch the Giants win! And since it was a Sunday, the boys got to run the bases after the game! It was a long day though, and though no one fell asleep on the BART ride home this time, they did fall asleep pretty quickly when bedtime came around.

I told myself that Monday (Memorial Day) would be a much more chill day, but I rarely am effective at executing on that. The morning was spent with the boys helping me do some chores and projects around the house and making banana bread, before heading out to the park to toss around a baseball. Aaron’s t-ball season was coming to a close the next weekend, and we were trying to get some final practice in before that, since Memorial Day meant that practice with his team was cancelled.

Lunch was at a nearby all-you-can-eat sushi place we’d never tried before, and I was very pleased to see that the boys actually ate a reasonable lunch there. From there, it was over to our local go-kart place so Adam could do a race and both of them got to play some arcade games. At seven years old, Adam is one of the youngest kids there, but I’m really impressed with how quickly he’s gotten the hang of it, this was only the third time he’s been, and the first time I got to see him race.

With Memorial Day weekend behind us, the boys began their final week of school. For Adam we learned that the transition from 1st to 2nd grade will be a little easier than expected, since the large size of his graduating class means his 1st grade teacher will be teaching 2nd grade next year, and Adam will have him again! As for Aaron, they did a little graduation for the Transitional Kindergartners as they move up to Kindergarten, and that was the first time I got to confront the fact that he’s in the graduating class of 2039. That’s 40 years after I graduated high school. Oof. It was a cute graduation ceremony though, and I’m glad we could all be there, and to say goodbye to their classmates on that last day of school together.

Our weekend began Friday night with a leaky kitchen faucet. Because houses suck. We had to shut off the water immediately because it was leaking under the sink and Adam helped make me a sign to remind everyone not to use it. Thankfully, it hadn’t caused any serious damage that needed to be address, we just had to let the cabinet dry out. It did require an emergency trip to the hardware store so we could look at new faucets and pick one out, which MJ was able to install that night. Phew!

On Saturday Aaron said goodbye to his T-Ball teammates for the season. I’m hoping we can convince him to sign up again next year to re-join his team, but we’ll see where his interest and skill level lands. We’ll be practicing with him until then to try to help with both. Plus, playing catch is just fun.

After lunch we loaded up the car to spend a couple hours at the Cull Canyon beach lagoon in town. It was our first visit of the summer, and it wasn’t the warmest day to go, but I wanted to make sure we squeezed in a visit before leaving for Philadelphia for the summer. We still had a lot of fun, the boys played in the sand more than they usually do (it was warm) and as the afternoon progressed the water did warm up a little bit so we could properly enjoy it.

That evening we followed-up on those local-camping plans, kind of. We drove up to the Anthony Chabot Family Campground on the edge of Lake Chabot for a public Campfire Program. I learned about it last year, but circumstances arose that made it so we couldn’t go to any of the events then. It was nice to finally visit, since it allowed us to see the campground before we reserve a spot for the night in the near future. It was also a nice opportunity to explore a new part of the town. The program about animals was fun too, they talked about some of the local wildlife, how nocturnal animals operate, and they concluded the night with s’mores around the campfire!

The next day MJ left for a conference, so I decided to take the boys down to Ardenwood Historic Farm for their regular Wake Up The Farm event. That gave the boys a chance to use historic tools to grind up corn, and then feed it to the chickens, goats, and sheep around the farm. They had a lot of fun, especially feeding the chickens, much to my chagrin (I’m not a fan of chickens). Naturally, we also took a ride on the train while we were there.

Reading back through this blog post, wow, we do a lot! It’s true. But the boys are five and seven, and we all love adventures. As exhausting as it can get, having us all get out of the house to spend time outdoors and experience new things is really important for them, and us. They have plenty of time to ride bikes at home and play video games too.

Thursday I was able to spend time after the conference going to World of Coca-Cola, a Coca-Cola museum located just blocks from the Coca-Cola headquarters in Atlanta. I have mixed feelings about paying for a museum dedicated to a brand. And felt even worse about it when the introductory video to the museum was a montage of sweet human stories that make you cry, oh, and all these people have a Coke, because Coke is part of life. Wow, big ick. Couldn’t you just give me something informational instead of making me feel like I’m being manipulated?

Anyway, I do appreciate the historical aspect of Coca-Cola as part of Atlanta and American history and I like history. And even though I’ve joined the bandwagon of eschewing soda consumption these days for health reasons, I do really, really like Coca-Cola. Sigh. So I enjoyed walking through history a bit and learning about the company and the “secret formula” story was amusing. Worth the time and $25? No. I probably should have looked for a more interesting way to spend my afternoon. But at least I can answer in the affirmative next time someone asks if I’ve been!

Still, I got the $5 cup which allows you to take a full cup of whatever region soda you want to-go. Royal watermelon soda from the Philippines is pretty great and I enjoyed it as a treat as I sat in the Centennial Olympic Park for a little while to read.

That evening I hopped on MARTA to meet some family for dinner at Fox Bros Bar-B-Q. I was actually born near Atlanta because that’s where my father was working for a few years, and it’s not too far from where my uncle (father’s brother) and his family lived, and still live. I was able to reach out to them and gather my aunt and uncle, as well as my three cousins. It’s been a very long time since we’ve all gotten together, so I was grateful they were able to make the time. Plus, we’re basically a whole crew of liberal tech nerds (my uncle retired from IBM), so I truly enjoy spending time with them.

I woke up around 3AM the next morning to catch the first of two flights that would take me to Minneapolis. It was an easy journey, even with a connection, and I was in Minneapolis by noon. That gave me time to check into my hotel, walk over to Target for some breakfast food to have during my stay, and then hop right back on the Metro for my first adventure: The Mall of America.

It’s an unusual destination for me because I don’t really like malls, but it’s the biggest mall the country so it’s also a bit of a tourist attraction too. The big draws for me were the M&M store and the Lego store, both on behalf of my kiddos. Aaron’s favorite clothes over the past couple years have been his LOTS OF M&Ms hoodie and pants, and he was pretty sad when he grew out of his M&M hoodie (twice, I bought a second when he outgrew the first). I bought him pants when he outgrew the hoodie, but he was also outgrowing the pants! I was thrilled to find everything at the mall.

The Lego store was honestly a bit underwhelming. They had some big Lego builds on top of the store, but inside? Just a Lego store. It would be fun if stores in interesting places did exclusive things, but the only thing they had was custom mini-figs which had the city on it, which was fine. I made a couple of those for the boys.

I think a big draw of the mall is that it basically has a small amusement park inside it, complete with indoor roller coasters. That’s fun, but I’ve also been to the West Edmonton Mall which also has a lot of this and I did ride a roller coaster there, so I didn’t feel compelled to partake this time. I 100% would have done Moose Mountain Adventure Golf if I wasn’t there alone though, that looked like fun.

On Saturday I decided to go to the Minnesota Zoo. It’s a large zoo and I was able to pretty easily take public transit there (train + bus), even if it took a while. I realized as I was plotting out my route that I wasn’t actually crunched for time for the first time in a while, so I brought along my ebook reader and enjoyed reading during my journey through the Minneapolis suburbs. It was nice. The weather was nice too, it was sunny and in the 70s, making it perfect weather for walking around. I only spent a couple hours there, and started by checking out the penguins. From there, I decided to walk the 1.25 mile loop on the Treetop Trail, which gives you a pretty good glimpse of several of the exhibits from above. I was delighted to be able to see a tiger taking a swim with my lofty view!

It’s also just a nice nature walk, and Minnesota has some really nice nature to enjoy. From there I walked down to Grizzly Coast where I got pretty close to a big bear. Very cute. I concluded my day by having lunch at the zoo cafe and got my first round of fried cheese curds and local root beer. Yum. And then it was back on the bus to make the journey back.

Saturday night I had tickets to a Twins game. I enjoy baseball games, and I have gone to them on my own, but I wasn’t sure about this one because I also enjoy resting and it had been a busy couple of days! Then I learned it was Star Wars night. Well, now I have to go! I’m glad I did, it was a beautiful evening for baseball.

And I might not have gotten the Star Wars night Grogu bobble-head (those tickets were long sold out), but I did get a cool Luke and Leia Twins t-shirt (you see, they’re TWINS!).

And with that, my side quests came to a conclusion. Sunday I started meeting with folks who were in town for the Open Source Summit, which is how I spent the rest of a great week.

But sometimes it feels like all any of us really wants is to sink into the couch and play video games ;)

It probably doesn’t help that I’ve not been feeling well lately. In mid-March something started going wrong with my “stomach” and it isn’t getting better. I’ve seen three doctors and had a bunch of diagnostic tests and a couple procedures and biopsies. I’m on a prescription that’s mostly helping, but it’s not a long term fix and I need to go back for an MRI, which I can’t get until mid June. I’m chugging along in spite of it, but some days are pretty rough.

Activity-wise, one of the first things we did when we returned from Philly last month was head up to the Chabot Space and Science Center to see the Artemis II splashdown with a bunch of other space fans. We met up with my friend mct, and got to spend a bit of time inside and out exploring exhibits before we went inside to the theater to see the final hour of preparations being streamed for the splashdown.

The boys were unusually chill for this as we talked through things that were happening on screen and they got excited for seeing the capsule land in the ocean. Then, about a minute before splashdown, the laptop running the stream showed a battery warning. They rushed to fix it, but it was too late, 30 seconds before splashdown the laptop shut off. People immediately pulled out their phones to watch it on tiny screens. It was disappointing, but it was also funny enough to counteract that somewhat. At least we were all there together to celebrate.

One of my diagnostic tests took us our to Dublin on a Saturday, where MJ ran some errands with the boys during my appointment, and then we met up to try to get a slot at our local go kart place for Adam, which we didn’t manage to get. The next day we had better luck though, and after Sunday school MJ took Adam directly to the go kart place. He’s having a lot of fun with it, and I’ve been impressed with how quickly he picked up the controls and rules on the track. Aaron and I split off and went back home to get his T-Ball pictures taken with his team, which were super cute even if they couldn’t find his jersey, oops. Fortunately, they had a spare, even if it was a little too big for him. The two of us then enjoyed a massive brunch before meeting Adam and MJ back at home.

Our next weekend kicked off with an elementary school sponsored showing of Super Mario Galaxy at our local single screen theater. It wasn’t as chaotic of an affair as The Minecraft Movie the year before, but it was still a… boisterous showing. Adam loved seeing it again and Aaron definitely enjoyed it, even if the rest of us now have to live through him shouting “I’m YOSHI!” all the time now, hah!

The next day after Aaron’s T-Ball game I headed south with one of our former au pairs to attend the baby shower of our first au pair, who is expecting her first child this summer. Baby showers are not my thing (I didn’t even have one of my own!) but our au pairs have been like family to us, so I put my apprehension aside and really enjoyed catching up with everyone.

The rest of our weekends have mostly been filled with house projects. We’re still cleaning out the garage, and have started turning the utility closet into a server room by adding some ventilation. Moving furniture, installing fans, creating holes in the walls, moving outlets. The boys have even been helpful here and there, our first weekend was spent doing some cable and pipe tracing under the house, and they jumped at the chance to do some spelunking in the crawl space under the house. Now every weekend they’re enthusiastically asking, “can we go under the house again?” I’m glad someone is excited about it. It’s also required more than a few stops at hardware stores, which the kids are less enthusiastic about. It’ll take some time to get the server rack in there and the systems moved, but we’re making good progress.

Other adventures lately have included visiting the Meta office one Friday afternoon were we could all enjoy the rooftop gardens, ice cream, and video games. I really wish I had been feeling better for that, I had to skip the ice cream (and I never say no to dessert!) and it was a bit of a tiring day.

That Sunday was the last Sunday school before summer break, and after some local errands, we drove over to San Francisco to shuffle around some storage we keep in our old condo building, and we also grabbed some dinner at the Metreon and enjoyed a few minutes on the roof deck with the gas fire pit.

The gas fire pit reminded me yet again how much the boys and I enjoy them. So in the midst of all these activities and projects, I made the case for getting a simple, propane-powered one for our own back yard. I’m glad we did. It’s nothing fancy, but the one we had delivered from the Home Depot was reasonably priced and easy for me to set up one evening. Everyone has been enjoying toasting marshmallows and making s’mores, and I look forward to some lovely summer nights coming up where I get to enjoy it while reading or playing video games.

That was my second mention of video games in this post. I’ve recently gotten back into Dreamlight Valley, and both of the boys are enamored with Minecraft. I’m playing on my Switch 2, and the boys were swapping off playing on the PlayStation 5 or my original Switch, but contention was building for mobile Switch usage when we’re traveling or doing something “boring” (like digging around storage in San Francisco). So ultimately we decided to stop by Tony’s Retro Games in Hayward to pick up a Switch Lite for Aaron to use. It was cheaper and honestly feels sturdier for a younger user, and it was there that I learned about the joycon drift issue for the Switch I had. Indeed, I’ve noticed it some, and it was getting increasingly irritating to the boys when they were playing, so I boxed my left joycon that was acting up and shipped it off to Nintendo for repair last week. I also set up one of my old laptops so Adam could play some of his school games over the summer, and we attempted to install Minecraft on it, but I think we’ll have to revisit the laptop I chose for it, because I don’t think it’s going to be powerful enough.

In my own tiny carved out space for hobbies, I’m making progress on my 3d printed index typewriter, slowly. I also was able to pitch in a little bit to the Xubuntu 26.04 launch by shipping out the stickers and Xubuntu 20th anniversary coins to winners of our wallpaper contest. As always, it’s a pleasure to work with that team and I wish I could make more time for it.

We spent the second Saturday in May attending Aaron’s t-ball game, and then walking through the Castro Valley History Festival on our way to an early Mother’s Day dinner at our favorite local restaurant.

And now I’m back to business travel! I’ve been writing this blog post on the plane, the night before my first event, and breaks I have from the booth at the Red Hat Summit in Atlanta. From here I’m off to Minneapolis for the Open Source Summit.

We flew out on Friday, so we were able to attend a birthday for their cousin Sam. The birthday party took place at an large indoor playground with all kinds of fun stuff for the kids to run around and play on. It was a lot of fun for them, and I enjoyed the Godzilla theme and cake.

Afterwards we did a bit of shopping nearby, but it was a pretty long day having just arrived the day before! It was nice to check off some shopping things off our list at the beginning of the trip though.

The following day we made our way over to New Jersey to visit with some family and continue a TV setup process that MJ started over the winter holidays. It was nice to visit them again, and the boys enjoyed playing on their power lift recliner.

Since MJ and I work while we’re there, the weekdays were pretty normal with our au pair, who travels with us, watching the kids during the day. The weather was beautiful for most of the time were were there, so throughout the trip the kids got to visit lots of interesting playgrounds and Ana also brought them to a K1 go kart place one day, which Adam hasn’t stopped talking about (Aaron isn’t big enough yet, but he enjoyed the video games!).

One evening I took the boys to the theater to see Hoppers. They’re getting a lot better at being quiet and focused during visits to the theater, which is nice because I enjoyed taking them, even if they weren’t huge fans of the movie. I was surprised at how expensive it’s become though, I clearly need to find a cheaper way to do this in the long term, but in the short term I found a pile of AMC ticket vouchers that MJ bought YEARS ago that should still be valid. With all the great movies coming out this year, we’ll have a summer full of theater adventures!

I already wrote about spending the next Saturday at CPOSC. On the way home we took the scenic route down 340 and the boys enjoyed seeing all the horses and Amish buggies, counted farms along the way, they stopped when they got to 100. We haven’t properly done Lancaster with them, so maybe that’s an adventure we’ll embark on over the summer. On the way home we needed some dinner, so we stopped in King of Prussia and went back to the Netflix House and had a surprisingly chill dinner at NetFlix Bites.

On Wednesday I took the day off from work to prepare for a Passover Seder. I’m glad I did. Even though I wasn’t cooking the meal, I did have to pick up the catered food, and I made Charoset for the first time! Making Charoset is actually pretty easy, I looked at a few recipes and then settled on a version of My FAVORITE Passover Charoset where I simplified it spice-wise, swapped out the walnuts for almonds, and wine for grape juice, so the recipe ended up being:

• 1/2 granny smith apple
• 1 gala apple
• 3/8 cup sliced almonds
• 3/4 Tablespoons honey
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 Tablespoons grape juice

For chopping the apples I pulled out the food processor that I got a couple years ago for latkes.

I know it’s dead simple and all you do is mix everything together, but I’m no chef, so anything is a win. I think I will double the recipe next year so we end up with leftovers.

Then it was time to prep the dishes! I decided to pull out nice china that belonged to MJ’s grandparents, a set of glasses that my father-in-law explained came from a trip to Italy, and took some polish wipes to the silver utensils, also inherited from MJ’s grandparents. We didn’t have a Seder plate in Philly, but I solved that the week before with a drive down to Jerusalem Israeli Gift Shop. The women who own the shop were incredibly helpful, and I left with a Seder plate, a matzoh plate, a matzoh cover, and a couple bottles of wine. The last bit of shopping was picking up some endives from Acme. Finally, I had to roast the lamb shank bone that we picked up from House of Kosher, along with the hard boiled egg, both for the Seder plate.

It was a lot to do for a day when I’m “not cooking”. All worth it though, things came together really nicely and the boys enjoyed having grandpa come over instead of just doing a Seder with our immediate family in California.

I wanted to make sure I slowed down to enjoy our time too, so we didn’t really focus on home improvement projects. However, a built-in microwave repair was thrust upon us a couple days before we left. I wasn’t a microwave person until I had kids, and now we use it all the time. The switch inside the door had stopped working properly, so it could no longer reliably sense when the door was open or closed, which meant sometimes it would work. Thankfully, an appliance repair company was able to come out the next day and get it fixed. I still have mixed feelings about repairing it verses replacing it for how much we paid, but I kept an otherwise perfectly fine appliance out of a landfill, and saved us all the stress of shopping and coordinating a mounted installation, so it was probably the right move.

And I wasn’t completely idle. I realized one of the ways I want to enjoy our home there is by using our deck. We’re coming up on our 9th year with the townhouse, and we’ve never had deck furniture! Sometimes I’ll haul a folding table out there for a “picnic” or the boys will use it to run around, but effectively it wasn’t a space we could really enjoy. To change this I did a minimal amount of searching and found a nice patio couch and coffee table set that I could pick up at the Home Depot right away, and got that assembled one evening. Hooray!

Coincidentally, a neighbor also posted on the Facebook group for the development that she was looking to get rid of her patio table and six chairs. It’s a nice set, so I reached out and arranged a pick-up time. That’s how MJ and I ended up hauling a table over a deck railing and into our house the night before we left Philly, hah! It’s on the larger side, but I think I found an orientation that will work for us on the deck. I’ll take some better pictures when everything is set up over the summer.

Super Mario Galaxy came out while we were in town, we planned on having all of us go, but Aaron fell ill with a stomach bug that slowly made its way through our household, and so I just took Adam. It was a fun movie, and it turns out the whole family will get an opportunity to see it together at the end of this week when we go to our local single-screen theater to see it with their elementary school.

As the visit wound down, we managed to get lunch with cousin Lauren and her husband and new baby. I think we’ll be seeing a lot more of them over the summer, as they’re only about 40 minutes away now and they have pools at their development. And what do our kids love? Pools. And we got to see Aunt Irina and cousin Sammy one last time before we left, we picked up some takeout sushi and had a nice time in her recently renovated back yard, and then down in the playroom basement where I got to play with Lego. Oh, and the kids played with Lego too. I also managed to successfully make matzoh brie on the Saturday before we left, even if MJ and I were the only ones who enjoyed it.

In all, it was a really nice visit that didn’t end up feeling like too much, in spite of how much we packed into it. The kids had plenty of down time to play video games, and I did too. I finished reading a book while we were there, and definitely got some springtime enjoyment out of that new couch in the back, from nighttime playing on my Switch to having breakfast outside with the boys. We also had a deck umbrella delivered which will fit nicely into the hole in our new table, we’ll just need to get a small umbrella base when we get into town so that it stays put during our visit (we’ll bring it inside between visits).

Honestly, it went better than I expected. During most of the sessions the boys decided to ignore the presentation entirely and focus on their phones or Nintendo devices (we brought my old Switch and DS for them). They only forgot a couple of times that they were supposed to be quiet and would louder-than-full-volume ask me a question, but I tried to sit in seats where that would be the least disruptive, and I think we succeeded. There was one moment when a presenter was showing his Minecraft-inspired TNT toy he made on the screen and Aaron shouted “MOM WHY IS THERE MINECRAFT TNT ON THE SCREEN?!” but that was met with laughs from the rest of the audience (and the presenter did ask the audience if there was familiarity with Minecraft, so it was arguably appropriate). MJ and I also switched off on kiddo duty for a couple sessions, but that gave us some time for snacks and to explore the rest of the activities at the conference.

But on to the talks! I really enjoyed the “Where AI Meets Hardware: Designing and Building a 3D Satellite Tracker” talk by Tom Courtney. He’s a retired technologist who has been spending a lot of hobby time over the past year+ playing with LLMs to help him build devices. He’s effectively been using AI as a collaborator to bring his ideas to life based on his strict criteria for what he’s looking to accomplish, and used his recent device that tracks the ISS orbiting Earth as a use case. He begins with a design phase where he goes back and forth with the AI to determine the base hardware he should buy and basic electronics, and even design the CAD files (with FreeCAD) for the enclosure he 3D printed. He then uses the AI to do a lengthy debugging phase where he checks where any failures are and goes back to the AI to see if it can figure out where there are wiring problems, or why a brownout occurred, and other issues. And then the final build-out where things like app support and other finishing touches are applied. He shared that you can’t expect the AI to spit out a perfectly working device, and you still have to have the “hacker mentality” to stick with it over the iterations, but that the AI ultimately helped him get past issues that would have doomed the project in the past if he were doing it entirely himself, or even with the help of volunteers on various Maker forums.

After the session, Aaron got to get a close up view of the tracker, and was even invited to press the button to turn it on!

It all reminded me of the keynote I saw at GitHub Universe back in October where the presenter pulled an old Bluetooth-enabled Furby out the closet and brought it back to life with modernized code, and some vibe-coded enhancements. These are projects that are fun and fulfilling, but as busy adults they wouldn’t have even been attempted if the AI hadn’t made the finish line a lot closer. It opens a lot of doors for me too, there are TONS of projects I’d like to work on with my kids to get them into an engineering mindset, but between my limited time and their attention span, the projects we can tackle are quite limited and may not succeed in creating the curiosity and Maker spark I would love them to have.

At lunch I was delighted to meet up with some of my old pals from PLUG and elsewhere in the eastern Pennsylvania tech scene. I don’t get out to events much even when I am in town, so I treasure the times I do have.

After lunch I went to a talk by Dr. Stephanie Schwartz, “From Hype to Habit: How Software Engineers Are Using Generative AI”, and this really drove home what I love about regional open source conferences. Professor Schwartz teaches right there at Millersville University and did a survey of her community regarding how everyday developers are using AI assistance in their work. After all the hype and very future looking big conferences I go to, it was nice to find some grounding in her survey results. She discovered what we suspected, that a vast majority of developers today are using AI to some extent, and there’s no going back. There’s still a lack of trust in the code the AI generates, so expertise and reviews are still essential to any adoption. One slide in particular really struck home for me, and it was quotes from more senior developers implying that it’s increased their workload because there is sometimes a disconnect in understanding the code from the more junior developers submitting it so the review burden is more onerous. I can personally speak to this additional pressure and frustration, but my hope is that this will ease as we develop a better, more thoughtful way of using these tools. It was also a complementary talk to the one later in the day by Erica Windisch on “The Vibe of Agentic Infrastructure” which did give that more future-focused tour of the emerging technologies available and being developed, with a keen eye on things like security.

From there, I took the advice of Joshua Boyd and brought the boys over to the Retro Hardware room, which was a lot of fun. A local group had brought in about a dozen vintage systems, all loaded up with games. They got to play Super Mario World on an SNES connected to a color portable TV, and then Aaron and I got to play Oregon Trail on an Apple IIe and Adam played Pac-Man on a Commodore SX-64.

The final talk of the day we went to was by our friend Walt Mankowski on “A Brief History of Time Syncing” where he talked about history of time in general, and then some of the internals of NTP. He was even kind enough to add some bonus slides at the end because Adam was curious about how time worked in space, I made sure he had put his phone away by the time we got to that part.

The event concluded with some lightning talks. I gave one on using GitHub Actions across architectures, where I demonstrated using GitHub’s free bare-metal runners for x86_64 and arm64, and then s390x using qemu in a container for emulation, and finally the GitHUb Actions runner service for s390x and ppc64le that a team I’m on launched last year. I kicked off the workflow when I started my talk, ran through my slides, and was done in time to see successful results of the test show up in GitHub. Woo, a successful live demo! Slides from the talk are here: GitHub_Actions_x_Multiarch_-_CPOSC_2026.pdf (140K)

Thanks to Tom Swartz for taking a photo during my talk! (source)

And then it was time for the farewell!

The CPOSC team held an after party at a nearby office, which I’ve enjoyed attending in the past, but with a pair of tired kiddos who were eager to find some dinner they had a bit more control over, we decided to start on our journey back to Philly. It was a great day, and I’m glad I could attend with the whole family this year.

But first, the boys helped me make the Hamantaschen at home!

This year we used cherry pie filling, home made plum jam (from our tree!), and Nutella for a few, upon Aaron’s request.

The boys had a lot of fun at the carnival at the synagogue. They dressed up in their Halloween costumes from October to join all the other kids (and some adults) in the costume parade and songs before the carnival. Then there were jugglers, a bouncy house, lots of games, and they both even agreed to eat hot dogs for lunch there. And they really loved adding up all their prize tickets at the end to pick out some prizes.

The following weekend I was at SCALE, but MJ brought Aaron to his first t-ball game, and I had the pleasure of joining them the following weekend. Watching a bunch of 4-5 year olds scattered around a baseball diamond trying to do something resembling a baseball game is absolutely adorable. They’re not great at hitting, or catching, or throwing, or knowing much about game mechanics at all, but they’re all having a lot of fun outdoors with some new friends. At this second game we also had our first au pair and her husband join us to watch him play, and go out for lunch afterwards.

I am practicing catch with Aaron in the evenings when we have time and the weather cooperates (it’s been HOT!), I even picked up my own baseball glove. He’s also still got practice with his team on Monday evenings too. Lots of baseball!

Getting into the routine of baseball and religious school over the weekend will take some getting used to. I’m usually scouring email and websites for the latest activities at our local parks and museums to keep us busy. On the one hand, it’s nice to not have to do that, but on the other, will I miss our constant adventures? We’ll see!

The rest of our weekends have been taken up by obligatory errands and chores, including our continuing project to clear out and reorganize the garage while the boys ride their bikes outside.

Aaron and I have also been doing a lot of Lego together, most recently we’re working our way through a set with four Star Wars astromech droids wearing costumes. The boys have also started playing video games together a bit more, with Adam showing Aaron how to play the games, which is super cute. They’ve even brought me in to play sometimes, especially when they’re playing on Realms and the two of them join on the PS5 and I can hop on with my Switch (how many copies of Minecraft across devices are we going to end up owning?).

F1 season began too, and though we’ve never watched it before, Adam asked if we could this year. Sure! That means putting on some practices here and there, and then watching the 30 minute race recaps each week. It’s been a lot of fun. They have so many questions about cars that I don’t know how to answer, so we’re learning a lot too.

So as much as I love adventures, bonding with them over things we can do at home from the couch is really nice too, and gets me at least a little of the rest I need over the weekend.

This week I’m packing for us to head to Philadelphia for a couple weeks. We’re aiming to attend a cousin’s birthday party, go to an open source conference, and Passover host a Seder at our house with as many family members as we can convince to come by. Packing has me a little overwhelmed, as always, but I’m sure we’ll have a nice time once I can settle in.

Our Saturdays will also soon be spoken for, as Aaron started T-Ball practice at the beginning of February. Monday evening they have practice, and Saturday they play a game. In preparation for all of this, we also had to go shopping. Aaron is now equipped with cleats, a bat, a batting helmet, and a glove, and it’s been a lot of fun to do with him. Adam is less enthusiastic since he comes along to practice with us, but we’ll find another activity for him to do soon.

Zara the cat has also really been enjoying post-cone life as her wounds remain healed and the fur slowly begins to grow back at the end of her tail. Now we just need to stop her from trying to run outside for an adventure every time we open the door.

In mid-February the boys had a week off from school for “ski week” where we did not ski. In fact, the storms were so bad that they advised no one to head to the mountains to ski due to dangerous conditions, including a deadly avalanche. Besides, we don’t ski, so instead we invited my mother to visit! The weather meant that for the second time here, my mother had to spend time in uncharacteristically soggy conditions, but we made it work. The first day she was here was forecast for the nicest, so we took the boys out to the Oakland Zoo and while cloudy, the rain was kept at bay.

On Sunday morning it was over to the Chabot Space & Science Center where we have a membership. The boys have gotten a lot better at sitting through planetarium shows, and that was definitely a highlight of our visit. The boys also had a lot of fun upstairs doing some of the more interactive exhibits. It was nice getting early before the rain picked up and it got busy, and it meant we could leave midday and still have time to go out to lunch elsewhere.

I took off from work for the next couple of days to spend with my mother and the boys, and those were a bit less exciting and gave us all time to relax and spend time together. On Tuesday we went to an indoor play area and then we off to swim class where Aaron graduated to the next level! It was nice to have my mother there for that, he was so proud to show off his graduation ribbon and the card he received for advancing. On Wednesday morning we got the sad news that one of her cats had fallen gravely ill, so that was quite the downer to conclude the visit with as I took her to the airport. Still, it was a nice visit overall, I’m glad she was able to get some nice time with the boys.

Work has been going well, and after a cooped up January, I made my way down to the IBM Silicon Valley Lab for a day to catch up with a colleague and attend a on-site division all hands. That same week I went up to San Francisco to meet up with a university student I met through an open source webinar back in December, which was a lot of fun. It reminded me how lucky I am to be in a role that gives me the opportunity to work with students whose curiosity and brains are always inspiring. Don’t listen to the “get off my lawn” types, our future is in good hands with the “kids these days”.

The day I was in San Francisco I met up with MJ in the evening to go to The Exploratorium for an after-party for the NANOG conference he was attending and was taking place locally. It wasn’t quite a date night, since it was a work event for him and I wandered off to explore exhibits on my own while he talked shop, but it was still nice for the two of us to go out as adults without the kids for a bit, and we did have some nice vintage streetcar rides together before heading home for the night. Unfortunately, we didn’t have the opportunity to catch up on time for a date night over Valentine’s Day either, since that’s when my mother was visiting, and MJ was fighting off food poisoning for several days anyway. I hope we can do something nice together soon.

In all, I’d say February was a nice on-ramp to the coming months that look to be quite busy. March begins and ends with travel for me, and the spring and summer are always full of activities.

So we did the really logical thing this month: We rented a temporary storage unit nearby and started cleaning out the garage so we could begin using the space more effectively.

WHAT?!

But actually, it’s not the worst idea we’ve ever had. And it’s all part of a master plan. We’re going slowly, and it’s finally moving the needle on several projects inside the house that we need space in the garage for. It’s also requiring us to slow down a bit on weekends and not pack in so many adventures and outings that need to be planned. We build Lego, we do a storage run, the boys ride their bikes, I read for a bit, we start a 3d print, and get some satisfaction from actually making progress.

At least, that’s the idea. It doesn’t feel like we’ve gotten much done, and I really don’t enjoy spending so much time on our stuff, but I think we’re heading in the right direction.

But you know us, we haven’t actually stayed home all month.

We went up to San Francisco early in the month for a couple of quests. First, was to get Aaron a Clipper Card. Now that he’s five, he has to pay for his bus rides on AC Transit and for BART, though at reduced rates. A Clipper Card allows for this to be done easily, and since the boys love public transit, the ritual of getting their first Clipper Card is a whole adventure. For Adam we got it at Embarcadero Station, but this time we went up on a Saturday and the hours at Ferry Building were much better for our visit, and that’s where we got Aaron’s card!

From there we took a vintage streetcar and a bus over to North Beach where we had lunch at Original Joe’s, which struck me as a bit fancy for a lunch with kids, but surprised me with the family friendly feel and good Italian American food, which I’ve struggled to find in California. I suspect we’ll be back. But why were we in North Beach? The second quest! I happened upon a Smith Corona Skyriter on Facebook Marketplace, and made arrangements to buy it from the fellow selling it in North Beach. I don’t need another typewriter. It’s a model I already have! But I love the Skyriter, this is a different year and case than I have, and it came with the original manual! It needs some cleaning and a new ribbon, but otherwise seems in find condition. I’ll write about it once I get it going.

Then one evening when MJ was working from home (no evening commute!) I fed the boys dinner early and we went over to the Oakland Zoo for the Glowfari. The boys and I went with a couple of our au pairs, past and present, back in November, but MJ hadn’t seen it yet. We forewent tickets to the actual zoo grounds, and instead did the zoo train, which didn’t require zoo admission, just ride tickets and with our membership parking was free. Plus, the boys and I didn’t see the ride area or take the zoo train on our last visit! We kept the boys up a little late that night, but it was a lot of fun, and I’m glad we got to loop MJ in on the lantern fun too, even if it was just a taste.

And did you notice that passing mention of a 3D printer? MJ and I have talked about getting a 3D printer for years. Of course we have, we’re totally the kind of people who would have one. But we also knew the burden it would bring. We didn’t want a cheap one, so we’d invest in a nice one. We needed to have space for it, and all the stuff that comes with it. So MJ dove into research mode for a few months and we ended up ordering a Bambu Lab H2D and a bunch of filament over the holidays. I’ll write about this more too, including some of our first prints, but it’s been a nice diversion from storage and some of the more stressful life stuff lately. I’ve started playing around with FreeCAD to for when I’m ready to transition from silly toys and things to some things I want to create myself.