Tag: Christmas

Tacky Light Tour 2015

On January 4, 2016

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is driving around to look at lights people put up to celebrate. After living in a high-rise building for the last few years, we’ve not had an outside front door or place to hang lights. So this year we changed that.

We have some lights and a small tree shining in front of our house. It’s not much but it makes me smile when I come home and see its warm light. Our artificial Christmas tree will stay up until February or March. I think it made it to spring last year.

This year, no one else in our townhouses put up anything more than a wreath. The neighbors in our community hung some lights and it was nice to see. But overall, there was nothing up.

A couple of nights we drove around and didn’t see any lights anywhere near us. There was one house near us that had some major decorations. But most people didn’t put up any lights at all.

So we did what any sane couple would do. We drove two hours South to Richmond, Virginia and the Tacky Lights Tour. This has been an ongoing listing of tackily lit houses for 26 years in Richmond.

I knew we only had one evening to do this so I wanted to get the most out of our trip. Being the nerd I am, I turned to Casey Liss’ Tacky Lights Navigator.

I took his original list and looks at a map view of the houses and listed them from North to South and we made our way through them.

It was a great night and we had a blast. Most of the houses were amazing. We caught a few unlisted houses and some of the ones on the list weren’t participating this year.

We saw about 30 hours in the 5-ish hours we drove around. Below are a few of the photos we took along the way. They don’t do any of the houses justice, but I hope you enjoy a bit of Christmas cheer in this new year. Click them to see the full-size version.

Man standing under a starry sky. By Greg Rakozy

Christmas as an adult

By Carl

On January 1, 2016

In Introspection

What is Christmas as an adult?

When I was a kid, it was a time of excitement and wonder. I loved decorating the tree and putting up lights. And of course, I loved the presents waiting in their glossy paper and getting to play with cousins I didn’t see very often.

As I got older and waking up the middle of the night was less common and the desire for gifts was less, it was still a good time. It meant a long break from school in high school. And in college, it meant an even longer vacation.

It was a good time to go home and unwind. It got me out of the daily grind. It was a nice change.

Now, as an adult, Christmas is a Friday. Christmas is an extra day off during a work week. It’s a time to sit with family and eat. It’s a time where traveling to see family more than a few hours away is untenable.

It’s a stressful time where traffic and limited time off has to be weighed against wanting to spend time with family.

Feelings are hurt. Money is spent. Christmas went from a time of wondrous merriment, to a balancing act.

I didn’t have much Christmas spirit this year. It was hard to muster much of it. I changed jobs right before the holiday so I had no paid time off. It wasn’t a long enough break to travel and even then, money would be tight and I keep finding myself asking, at what cost?

Christmas as an adult is summed up by John Siracusa on a recent Reconcilable Differences episode (48:35 into the show) where he said:

“You’re ruining your own holiday to fulfill the obligations put upon you by your family to do something you don’t want to do.”

I got to thinking about this because we don’t have kids so there’s no Santa Claus to talk about and no pile of presents to crowd under the Christmas tree. This year my wife and I didn’t buy each other anything. If there’s something we want, we buy it. There’s nothing that I wanted enough to ask specifically for it. And my poor wife’s birthday falls the week before Christmas so I got her a nice present for her birthday.

So Christmas morning didn’t hold any special meaning other than time off from work. It was nice to have a few days in a row away from work. And not to fill those days with fighting traffic, getting folded into an airplane and generally dealing with America’s travel infrastructure.

For people with children, Christmas is a very different thing. For me, the highlight of my Christmas time was driving around Richmond and looking at Christmas lights with my wife. It was a wonderful evening spent seeing about 30 houses from the Tacky Light Tour.

What would I like to do for Christmas?

A quiet day. Spent with my wife. At home. Quietly enjoying each others company. And eating. Pantsless.

Merry Christmas, you filthy animals.

Remembering the year

By Carl

On November 30, 2014

In Observations

Each year Annie and I collect Christmas ornaments during our travels. We write the year on them to remember it.
I always think I’ll always remember when we took that trip to __________. And the next year I never do.

This year was a good year for travel. Pulling them out at Christmas time reminds me where we went and what we did in the past year.

It’s a good reminder of the fun we had and places we visited.

Cherry Blossom Festival

Despite (or perhaps because) we are natives to the area, we usually avoid the festival. But this year we decided to walk around the tidal basin and see the blossoms. It was a lovely spring day and a perfect time for a walk and to enjoy the blossoms.

Being from a small town near Winchester, VA I always catch myself saying Apple Blossom Festival. It was closer than DC and it was also a time to avoid the city since thousands of people would flood the town for the festival just as people flock to the tidal basin to see the Cherry Blossoms.

Annie and I took this opportunity to walk around the Jefferson Memorial, which I had never been to, despite driving past it every day for years. We also walked through the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial It’s a moving tribute to the man.

But the most surprising thing of the day was walking through the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial. This sprawling memorial is one I had never even heard of, but is by far one of the most beautiful memorials in the city. It winds along the water and through the cherry trees. In full bloom, with blossoms covering the ground, it gave the whole area the feel of a snowy day in spring.

The monument is practically a biography of FDR’s life and accomplishments. It’s one I have never seen pictures or nor mentioned anywhere. Stumbling across a completely unknown memorial was a real treat. In the age where everything has been photographed, videoed and shared, it was refreshing to walk through something I had never seen before.

Our next trip was more of an impulse than planned travel.

Niagara Falls

Cave of the Winds
Maid of the Mist

We had talked about a trip to see the falls. And when our anniversary came around and we found a deal on a hotel we decided to go.

We drove up the same night a meteor shower was supposed to be visible to the east coast. But it was a cloudy night so we kept driving and driving and never did find any meteors.

We did finally end up on a rural road on some small town in New York sitting on folding chairs. We stared up at the sky on the chilly May morning. We hoped to see something shooting across the sky. But alas, never did.

We eventually found a truck stop to pull into and sleep for a few hours before driving the last leg of our trip. We had originally planned to spend the night somewhere halfway there. But because of the cloud cover and our determination we were about an hour from the falls. With no hotel until the following day.

The falls were fantastic. It was a beautiful thing to see in person. We took the Maid of the Most boat ride under the falls.

We went through the hurricane deck twice. It’s an area under the falls where the icy water splashed down upon us. It was such an amazing feeling to feel the power of the falls up close.

After exploring the falls on the U.S. side we decided to visit the Canadian side the next day.

There were fireworks and a daily light show that was better seen from the Canadian side.

The next day we took our car across the border and parked it. We walked all around the touristy Canadian Niagara Falls area and went up the huge Ferris Wheel there.

We didn’t venture more into Canada since this was only a weekend trip. But I can claim I’ve been there. And enjoyed the fireworks and lights on the falls that evening.

It was a wonderful trip and I am very happy we took it.

Bonnaroo

Bonnaroo was three days of being a musical nomad. I loved it.

Bonnaroo

This ornament we had made from one of the very few photos we took there. It was a blast. We had never been to a music festival before. We camped out in the Tennessee summer and loved it.

California

California was our last trip of the year. We went out for a friend’s wedding but made it a week-long trip to explore the state.

Yosemite National Park

Yosemite was beautiful. We took a day trip out there from San Francisco and it was absolutely worth it. I got a kick out of the weather report the morning we left. There was a forty degree difference between the bay area and Yosemite itself. I think we drove from the 60s through the 100s and landed somewhere in the 80s in the park itself.

Yosemite though… It’s absolutely stunning. Given the single day we had, we didn’t see much of the park or take any long hikes. We did hike back to one, small waterfall that was mostly wisps blowing in the wind.

We did see Half Dome from Glacier Point and got a panoramic view of the valley belong with a couple of water falls. We also saw something else that wasn’t common in our trip, green. We passed so many dead hillsides en route to the park, the green was a welcomed change.

We finished the trip with a short trip to see the Redwoods in the southern part of the park. Words don’t describe just how massive they were. To see trees so many hundreds of years old and growing so massive was awe-inspiring. Unfortunately, due to time, we didn’t get to hike as far into the area as I would have liked, but what we did see was worth it.

If you’re ever close enough to take a day trip to the park, you should. It’s worth the trip!

Muir Woods

Before going to California, I didn’t properly understand the difference between a Sequoia and Redwoods. Now I know. Redwoods grow huge trunks. They’re the trees that can be wide enough to drive a car through. The sequoia on the other hand are tall and slender trees.

You could never hug a redwood, but you could wrap your arms around a sequoia.

Muir Woods was a peaceful experience. It was a very quiet park and I felt serene the entire time we were in the woods. I would have loved to spend the day sitting under the trees. Due to their height, they covered the sun and made a hot day, very cool and pleasant.

I would visit Yosemite for the splendor and Muir Woods for the serenity.

Cable Car

This last one is a bit of a cop-out. I have never ridden on a cable car. Sure, we saw plenty of them in San Francisco. But we mainly walked around the Fisherman’s Wharf area and went out to see Alcatraz. We did visit Ghirardelli Square, where we purchased nothing more than ice cream cones and this chocolate-filled ornament.

Look back at the trips we took this past year can help with the holiday blues. I tend to feel down over the holidays so it helps to remember the great things we’ve done over the past year.

There are also small trips not commemorated by ornaments this year. Skyline Drive in the Shenandoah National Park mostly obscured by fog was a wonderful day. I have pictures from that day to remember it.

Our tree is covered in ocean life from trips to the beach and Baltimore Aquarium. There is an ornament from our first Christmas together as a married couple. Some are gifts from friends and family. Others we bought because we liked them like the multiple octopi and the original bird in hat.

When I wake up on a cold winter day and the rain and gloom is overwhelming, I love to sit by the Christmas tree, with its lights and good memories reminding me of all the great things we’ve done. And how lucky I am to have everything I do. To have found the most wonderful woman who agreed to marry me.

We have a couple of Dave & Busters things we’ve made into ornaments on the tree because that’s where we went the night before I proposed to Annie.

I never thought much about traditions and when I thought about it, I’d be hard-pressed to name many I treasured from my childhood. But I love this tradition we started. We didn’t start it our first year of marriage, so we don’t have anything from our Honeymoon in St. Thomas, though I remember looking in a K-Mart where we shopped before the hurricane blew across the island knocking out our power.

I love our Christmas ornament tradition. It’s a fun challenge to try to find something when we travel. Not just any old ornament or attraction, but something we’ve actually done. This isn’t to show off. This is something special for Annie and I to share and enjoy.

And I’m sharing it with you because making traditions with your family can be a lot of fun and rewarding. If you had asked me what holiday traditions I have now, I would struggle to remember anything. But since it’s on my mind as we decorated our tree last night, I’m sharing it with you now. Hopefully you can make your own tradition with your families, old and new.

2013 Holiday Gift Guide

By Carl

On December 20, 2013

In Observations

Are you excited about all the new gifts you’re going to receive this year? Take a moment and think back to last year. What did you get? How much of it do you still use? I have a gift guide won’t end in buyer’s remorse. My holiday gift guide to you is a mostly a collection of free things I like. I think you’ll like them too. We don’t buy things, we buy into things.

Read at your leisure

instapaper

Instapaper. It’s a free service that lets you save things to read later. It isn’t the only one but it’s simple and I’ve used it for years. Whenever I run across something I want to read, like a long article, interview or just something I can focus on during my subway trip home it goes into Instapaper. I’ve started forwarding some of the newsletters to Instapaper because it’s a nicer way to read them. The app is not free but the service is, so I’m still counting it.

But what about books?

bookgorilla
You need a Book Gorilla. Go to the site and choose genres you like to read. Then the gorilla will send you a daily email with deeply discounted or free Kindle books.

I look forward everyday to receiving a list of things I might like to read for free or at least cheaper than usual.

Listen at your leisure.

If you had asked me yesterday what I use for this, I would have said Huffduffer. It’s perfect to one-off podcasts or a single episode of a certain podcast or it could be an audio file someone posted of a talk or interview that’s not a podcast.

It’s Instapaper for audio. But I’ve never used any of the social features of HuffDuffer and today I found Latr. It has a sparse web page that once you sign up provides the same thing.

Add an audio file. It will create an RSS feed you can then add to iTunes or your favorite podcast player and it will update with new things you put there.

I’ve heard about podcasts but how do I find ones I like?

iTunes is still the biggest and best place for new podcasts. Head on over to the podcast section and look at what’s popular or search for things you’re into. I guarantee you whatever you love, someone else does too.

5by5

If you’re into computers/comic books or related things, I highly recommend the good people of the 5By5 Network There are a ton of shows about working from home, movies, web design, pens, android and quitting your job.

Another place to look is Huffduffer. Since it’s a collection of saved audio, search for what you like and see where it leads you. It can be less overwhelming than iTunes.

Can’t you just give me some recommendations?

Sure can, there’s a few shows that I listen to as often as they’re released. I tend to be geeky so a lot of mine are about tech what else did you really expect from me?

Do you like radio dramas? Remember those old-time radio shows? I used to listen to Gunsmoke in the car with my dad on Sunday nights. If you love radio dramas, I can’t recommend this first one enough.

WereAlive
We’re Alive.
It’s a story of survival that begins in California right after the zombie apocalypse. The voice acting is superb, as are the sound effects and music. The tale follows our survivors through their struggles and triumphs. Before you recoil at the thought of zombies, it’s far more about the people surviving than being eaten.

I’ve become attached to the characters and each time we lose one of them I feel a little sad. It’s a wonderful story that I can’t recommend enough.

Where to start: Episode 1. You have to start at the beginning of the story.

SupportsOps
The Support Ops Podcast interviews people working in the trenches of customer support. Chase writes:

Customer support is not a hard concept. Someone has a question/problem and it’s your job to fix it and make them happy. Not just satisfied but happy. And if you do it wrong, it can leave a bad taste in everyone’s mouth.

Customer support is everyone’s job. Even if you don’t work in support, you could learn something from those who do. Those fine people who deal with angry customers and impossible situations. If nothing else, remember there are other people on the other side of that phone line, email or twitter handle.

I would start with Episode #18 – Tech Support with Carl Holscher because it’s me and I was completely blown away when Chase asked me to be on the show.

TechnicalDifficulties
Generational / Technical Difficulties Podcast

This show had an identity change as the hosts tried to figure out what the show was. But I recommend starting from its beginning. There are some great episodes about technology with kids, being the IT guy in your family and even some great travel tips.

The show reborn as Technical Difficulties features some beautiful show notes. Seriously, they’re little novellas for each episode.

Where to start: There’s no way to choose just one, so here’s a few to get you going.

Reinventing yourself with Merlin Mann on the heels of his interview with The Great Discontent is wonderful. Advice about life, work, doing what you do and defining yourself.

Configuring IOS for Others has some great advice on helping friends and family setup and use their new iPhone or iPad. This is particularly useful around the holidays.

CMD+SPACE

Myke Hurley, who founded and ran the 70 Decibels Podcast network until it merged with 5By5 has a way of putting his guests at ease and asking great questions. You can tell the man does his research. He knows who he’s interviewing and has a way of getting good stories out of them. No matter who the guest is, the show is a joy to listen to.

Where to start: That’s like asking your favorite flavor of ice cream. There’s so many so here’s a few to get you going.

#53: Being Pseudonymous, with Dr. Drang is a great talk with the good doctor about the balance of using your real name and a handle in the online world.

#44: Apple and Education, with Fraser Speirs is a good talk about just what it says. Fraser has a deployment of 1:1 iPad to student at the school where he works. He talks about the successes, challenges and joys of such a deployment. He is doing really interesting work with technology and education and co-hosts his own podcast Out of School.

Enough
Special mention: The Enough Podcast
Enough deserve a special mention. Even though the show recently ended, it was the one show I eagerly looked forward to every week. Even though it has ended, there is an archive available.

Each week was a conversation between Patrick Rhone and Myke Hurley about what is Enough. Enough is different for everyone. Enough is also a book. I recommend. For some people it’s a big house and fancy cars. For others it’s a backpack and an airplane ticket. Enough is personal. Enough is individual.

Every episode would teach me something. It would change the way I saw people. It would help me find things in my life I could change. It made be a better person for listening.

It helped me find Enough for myself. Enough was not a destination but a journey. And while this chapter of it has ended, the journey goes on.

I love interviews with interesting people!

The Setup is a wonderful collection of interviews I’ve written about before. Each person is asked four questions.

Who are you, and what do you do?
What hardware are you using?
And what software?
What would be your dream setup?

The answers to those questions are as varied as the people being asked them. There are years of interviews available so I’ll recommend you start with these to get you going.

Brad Fitzpatrick, LiveJournal developer
R. Stevens, Cartoonist
Warren Ellis, Writer
Adam Lisigor, Video Director
Paula Pell, , Actor (30 Rock, Parks and Recreation), writer (SNL)
Mc Frontalot, Nerdcore rapper
Richard Stallman, Freedom campaigner

My eyes hurt from using the computer late at night.

flux
You need f.lux. F.lux, as well as being a clever name, will warm the colors of your screen after the sun goes down.

This will give your screen less of a white/blue glow and more of an orange glow that’s easier on the eyes. I use it on all my computers and wouldn’t work without it. It has a setting to disable it if you’re doing work where the color matters. But for me, when I’m typing words on a screen, color doesn’t matter.

Give me something new and interesting to read.

You need the pastry box project. Described as 30 People Shaping The Web. One Thought Every Day. All Year Round. Sugar For The Mind I’ve always enjoyed reading it.

There is something new from someone new everyday. Some articles I like, some I ignore, but the rotating cast of writers keep things fresh and interesting.

Sssimpli, “a conscious approach to geekery” is always filled with something new and interesting. If you’re interesting in automating your web there’s a pile of goodness for you. I keep a book journal in Evernote that’s powered by GoodReads.

I love a good email newsletter!

The Listserve is a fascinating idea. There are now 24,886 people subscribed to the list and everyday, one of them is chosen via lottery to write to the list.

Everyday, I receive one email from the list. The emails are wildly different. Some talk about a cool project or charity. Another could be a heart-wrenching story and tribute to a grandparent. Another could be a list of advice.

The writers are young and old and from all over the world. Recently, I recall seeing people from San Francisco, Iowa, London, Paris, and The Netherlands. It’s an interesting experiment and experience. All submissions are sent from the creators so you won’t be spammed, nor subjected to hate speech or other nastiness.

What about something shorter?

I love 3 Things from Sid O’Neill. Every one of them has three things. There is a sample letter on the site when he mentioned a great iPhone app, an article about keeping your day job and a new project called WritingMusic which is a collection of music to write to.

Everyday it’s different and only three things long so it’s a little burst of interesting for your day.

Do you have a good news roundup?

NextDraft
Next Draft is the news, everyday. You can download the iOS app or simply receive it in email as I do. Here’s a taste of the most current newsletter. It truly is a collection of news from across the web about anything and everything.

I read it everyday and always find a couple interesting things in it.