Beware of Leopard ⁽²⁵⁵⁾

Brian Bilbrey September 23, 2025

23 September 2025

New Phone I'm not one who needs the newest phone every year. I tend to go four to five years between refreshes. The improvements in hardware, and the software that takes advantage of that newer hardware have a much bigger impact over that time scale than the incremental speed/capability bumps that annual phone replacements bring. So this year I traded in my iPhone 13 for a 17. Not a pro, not a pro max, and certainly not an Air. But more storage and much more capable CPU as well as improved battery life make it a worthwhile update for me…

Brian Bilbrey September 21, 2025

21 September 2025

Meteorological Fall While tomorrow is the advent of astronomical Fall, meteorological Fall started on September 1 ... and overnight last night we had our first low temp in the 30's (F). That brings the temps in the house low enough that it was also the first night that our pellet stove kicked on in the wee hours - this is the primary heat source for the main floor of our house: We have backups in the form of baseboard heating driven by a fuel oil furnace, and a small mini-split heat pump mounted on the wall in the living room.

Brian Bilbrey June 13, 2025

13 June 2025

Happy Friday the Thirteenth Yeah, it's been a while. Theoretically it is almost summer up here. But Spring was, quite literally, a wash-out. So, so much rain. Good thing for coming out of a drought, good thing for everything being green. But I got the boat out of storage on May 1, with the intention of getting it on the lake ... and it started raining. And kept raining. Water came up enough that even though the dock was in, we had to pull all the dock boards off before they floated away. Eventually they let water out of the…

Brian Bilbrey January 15, 2025

15 January 2025

For the Mainers that love pond hockey, it's a good start to the year. It's been really quite cold up here. Not a bunch of snow, but cold. The dog and I continue our 2-1/2 mile daily walks, but next week when the lows will be below 0° F, and the highs a couple of days in the single digits (not counting wind chill), we may do somewhat abbreviated outings. We can stay warm, though - our pellet stove does well for us. A couple of bucks worth of pellets a day keeps the main floor at an even 70°…

Brian Bilbrey November 13, 2024

13 November 2024

Yeah, so Friday the 13th falls on a Wednesday this month. That happens. Every time I receive an email, or see an advertisement for a car touting the safety features, it makes me want to go out, buy an old Lamborghini, and drive like a hoon with four outstanding ASBOs. We got a survey about Subarus recently. We really like our Outback, but the Driver Monitoring System (which can be temporarily disabled, but not permanently) drives me bonkers. I said as much, noting that it would probably keep me from buying another Subi.... but then I bet ALL the freaking…