Take 5, D.

Weekly Update 2026-04-12: Tom Petty Advisory Edition

What happened during the week of April 6th - April 12th, 2026:

πŸ‘΄πŸ» When comparing last week to this week, the winner was clear. I took Tom Petty's advice to heart by handling adult situations like an adult, and that's what made this week the better one for me. While I don't like the term "adulting," as it seems rather childish in retrospect, I understand the sentiment behind it. I can make many excuses as to why I don't feel like carrying out "mature" tasks, but sometimes there's a point when these excuses run out, and I'd be better off completing the tasks instead of delaying them. This week, I reached that point.

πŸ’΅ On Sunday 04-05, after I had published last week's update, L. napped for an hour in the afternoon. While she snored away, I decided to file our taxes, using FreeTaxUSA for the first time. I can guarantee there will be future uses of this service, as it is significantly cheaper and easier to use than TurboTax, and you're also not being bombarded with in-site sales pitches and upsells at the same rate. My Missouri refund has already been processed on Thursday 04-09, so I expect my federal refund to follow shortly.

πŸͺ¦ On Wednesday 04-08, my second EAP took place. It wasn't as intense as last week's session, but in place of the emotional intensity was...a homework assignment: stop my delays, contact the cemetery where I wish to bury my mother's ashes, then report back at the next session with the status. The following day, I made my first call to get the process started. The tombstone for my mother's mother will be inspected for wear and tear, and I will find a couple of certificates that should have been provided by the crematory. We ended the phone call with a promise to talk again in a couple of days, which will likely be on Monday 04-13.

πŸͺ— The music post, "Yeah Yeah Yeah, That Bottle's Empty," went live on Wednesday 04-08. I'm still not too thrilled with its title, but it's the best I could come up with at the time. I enjoyed digging through a couple old LiveJournal posts to quote from, so that was a pleasant flashback of its own to have.

πŸ§ͺ My on-call shift this week at work was quiet. I neither received any urgent phone calls nor any Urgent-level support tickets! It's been a long time since I had zero support issues during on-call coverage, but unfortunately, I'm not fully out of the weeds just yet. Starting at 4 AM on Saturday 04-11, Beaker will go live at my employer. I have been assigned coverage slots for Saturday and Sunday that are nearly identical to being on-call, though I have no idea of how things will unfold. My boss said that there will either be a massive amount of work for our team, or we will have very little to do. He's okay with me taking four hours off on Sunday 04-12 to celebrate Pascha, aka Orthodox Easter, so once noon rolls around, I'll have my work phone on and my laptop at the ready. Lather, rinse...repeat?

Items Of Note From Last Week:

Outbound Actions

More Info About The Media Selections From This Week:

After a couple weeks' worth of limited selections, I feel energized enough to tackle a typical media load. Let's get into it, shall we?

My podcast selections have a common theme this week, reflecting on past events and explanations as to how we got here from there. Upgrade takes the 50th anniversary of Apple's founding as a time to present somewhat familiar stories in a different way: how Apple came to be; how both Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were deeply influenced by growing up in what was then Santa Clara Valley; and how Santa Clara Valley (what we now call Silicon Valley) came about as a result of wartime expansion, both civilian and military, which then grew hand-in-hand with the influence of Stanford University1. The third founder of Apple, one Ronald Wayne, receives a rare bit of attention though his time at Apple is often presented as a footnote in a very long and interesting life. Patrick Wyman has nothing to do with Apple, but he has also led an interesting life of podcasting, historical studies, weightlifting, and being one of my favorite guests on Trashfuture. He had already announced that the Tides Of History podcast will be winding down this month, and in what is undoubtedly its last-ever episode, Patrick explains why he believes history is worth studying, how the past can be a guide for what's possible in the future, that we can learn lessons from the past but not every lesson is worth emulating in the future, and that we should remember that those in the past were neither better nor worse than us, but simply different people in different circumstances trying their best. Podcasts don't usually have a defined end, as quite a few of them simply fade away for numerous reasons. If Patrick deliberately made this episode his last, he went out on a high note.

From diving into history, let's change tactics and enjoy some birds. RyuzoArts features a Japanese couple with four largely indoor call ducks: three females and one male. One of the females is Piko, who is my favorite and I will shed many tears if anything bad were to happen to her. I do like the other three ducks, but I'm on Team Piko here, and lucky for the viewer, there's a fair amount of time where she's on camera. If your birding interest is in rare spottings, you'll be in luck with the latest video by Bob Duchesne as he visits one of the most remote parts of the lower 48 states: Dry Tortugas National Park, west of Key West, Florida. Dry Tortugas is the only place in the contiguous US where you can see the nesting Sooty Tern, Brown Noddy, Masked Booby, and Magnificent Frigatebird. Sure, there's an old unfinished 19th Century fort on the island, but Bob is literally there for the birds, and the birds do not disappoint.

In the world of soccer, the English Premier League gets vast amounts of attention from sports media coverage, but there's more fun with exploring the lower divisions of English football. The Athletic looks at Lincoln City, a team that's on top of the third-tier EFL League One table (and no, I can't explain why a league with "one" in its name is merely a third-tier league), earning itself a promotion to the second-tier EFL Championship League next season. Many of these smaller teams have interesting and unique stories behind their names (the Imps, which you can find in the city's namesake cathedral), and with their stadiums that are throwbacks to earlier years of English soccer--not hard, given that Lincoln City's stadium dates from 1895. Unfortunately, the article neglects to mention the famous poacher in Lincoln's countryside...oh well, maybe another time.

Boards Of Canada has used a recording of a numbers station for one of their songs, just not the Lincolnshire Poacher linked above. The band, comprised of two Scottish brothers, have a long history of hiding messages within seemingly cryptic media releases, with last week's surprise videotape release being no different. Imagine that you had ordered some of BoC's music from Warp Records years ago, and that your contact information was still accurate. Now imagine receiving a surprise package from Warp Records, featuring a VHS tape within that has some murky images and even more distorted sounds, both of which could have come from our friends at Local 58. The Quietus briefly discusses the implications of this videotape, as it could be the prelude to a comeback by BoC, though if you really want to dive deep into the weeds, there's always r/boardsofcanada (I'm still hoping that I'm on the BoC mailing list). Also by The Quietus is the third and final podcast reflecting upon the past, in which the hosts review the 1977 UK children's show "Children Of The Stones." I have not watched it myself, but the show has acquired a semi-legendary mythology as being one the scariest children's shows ever aired--and that's saying something, given that this was also the era of Tom Baker's gothic-horror Doctor Who, the similarly disturbing The Tomorrow People, and public information films that often rivaled these shows in terms of intensity and fright. The hosts missed an opportunity to link "Children Of The Stones" with one of my favorite Tom Baker-era episodes, "Image Of The Fendahl," as it can be seen as both a tonal and topical companion piece.

And now for something completely different, courtesy of our friend travelgeek. The video starts with him in the city of Himeji, located in Hyogo Prefecture and known for its remarkable Himeji Castle. Instead of touring this well-known complex, his sights are focused upon a two-thirds replica of Neuschwanstein Castle at a largely empty amusement park on the outskirts of the city. Taiyo Park features replicas of famous landmarks around the world, operated by residents of a nearby nursing home for whom the park is dedicated. The idea behind the park was to give those with disabilities in Japan the opportunity to "see the world" despite their potential issues with traveling. Money raised by the park goes towards caring for the residents, but if this video is any indication there's not much money coming in due to low attendance levels. Many of the replicated landmarks honestly appear shabby and neglected, so it's not too far off from the sights of abandoned towns or ryokans in rural Japan. It's a unique park with a notable twinge of sadness to it, so your mileage may vary.

Finally, I'll end on a somewhat disappointing note. I was an early backer of the Caira project, as I liked the idea of supercharging my iPhone with a better set of lenses and a bigger sensor. Initial write-ups of the idea seemed promising enough for me to invest into it, but now with the camera entering production, there's an early review from PetaPixel that's a downright pan of the entire concept. The review says they appreciated the manual focus options with attached lenses, but they had problems not just with the mechanics of the camera, but with its actual purpose. The review couldn't really articulate who should be the audience for Caira, which right there isn't the best sign. I'm still going to use the camera once I receive it, though I may struggle a bit to get this negative review out of my head. More to come once I have the camera in hand.

Picture time!

Let's try a new feature to reward folks who've made it this far in the blog entry. I think I can safely cross out "new" at this point, given how photos have been a regular feature of the Weekly Update for almost all of 2026.

Just in time for Easter/Pascha, it's time for a goose update! Gertie has new outfits in her wardrobe, but she's wearing one of her favorite spring dresses and hats. Gordie is in the Easter Bunny spirit, but he's still in need of more shirts than this nice Hawaiian one. Meanwhile, the Untitled Goose gets to play with colored strings to go with his bell and bowtie.

Holiday festivities with the indoor geese!

  1. A really detailed and deservedly harsh write-up about the history of Stanford University can be found in Malcolm Harris' book, Palo Alto.↩

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