lee.ourand.me: Posts

📝 Post July 06, 2025

Weeknotes 40

Installed some quality-of-life upgrades on the bike this week. We’ve now got a phone charger courtesy of the OEM cigarette port charger. Technically, this means I’m also prepared for all those times I need to light up a Marlboro inside my melon bucket. Also added a center stand, and a top box. I’m nearing 40 years old, my motorcycle now has a trunk, and I’m emotionally at peace with that.
Did a little more farm volunteering. Jess joined for this one. We put up a wooden picket fence at the back of the farm. The weather has gotten to the point where, after about 20 minutes of modest work, the charming fantasy of working a farm for a living quickly dissolves into, “Ok, air conditioning is among humanity’s finest achievements.” Desk jobs don’t seem so bad, afterall.
After farm work, we met up with Cyn, and went to Pho Tay Do for lunch. Still undefeated.
Met up with the guy I was trying to buy the used NX500 from. He was a total gentleman, and returned my deposit while the DMV continues holding his title hostage somewhere in the seventh circle of bureaucracy. Sure hope someone might someday get to own that bike.
Had a low-key Fourth get-together. Burgers, beers, and nobody lost a single appendage.
Did a tiny, slow Capital Trail bike ride with the gang Saturday morning, then followed it up with a trip to one of Richmond’s finest public pools. The pool was 95% good vibes and 5% genuine public health concern. Nothing like a quick dip punctuated by: “Hey, is that person overdosing?”
Really locking in that peak summer nostalgia, we re-watched Season 1 of Stranger Things

📝 Post June 29, 2025

Weeknotes 39

On Tuesday, we were invited to go watch the live filming of a local PBS gardening show, Virginia Home Grown, that our neighbor cohosts. It was really neat to see behind the scenes how a live tv production is made.
We’re close to ticking over 600 miles on the new bike, so preparing to do the first oil change. We rode down to Williamsburg today, and on the return trip got caught in a monster of a thunderstorm. Cyn and I both would’ve been less wet after jumping into a swimming pool. It kind of sucks riding in the rain, but once totally soaked, it sucks slightly less than you’d think.
Had a fun spousal cheese-related communication mishap. Context: Cynthia was making pesto.

Her: “Can you grate 3 or 4 cups of parmesan cheese?”
Me: “Dang! That’s a lot of cheese. You sure?”
Her: “Yup! I’m making a lot of pesto”
Me: “Ok then” <grates 3 cups of cheese>
Her: “Whoa! That’s a lot of cheese, man!”
Me: “Uh. Yea? You said 3 or 4 cups”
Her: “No! I said 3 of 4. Like 3 slash 4. How do you say that?”
We watched Squid Games S3. I don’t understand how the writing is so bad. I know it’s originally in Korean, and grant some room for translation silliness. But even the English-speaking characters’ lines are just so unbelievably cheesy. Like the Saw movies, it feels like so much of the success of Squid Games came from the initial shock factor. Then they just didn’t know what to do from then on, but plowed ahead anyway. Don’t recommend.
Edward Zitron’s essay titled Make Fun of Them is well worth a read.

A few gems:

“But Ed!” you cry. “You can’t just call Sam Altman an idiot! He isn’t stupid! He runs a big company, and he’s super successful!”

My counter to that is, first, yes I can, I’m doing it right now. Second, if Altman didn’t want to be called stupid, he wouldn’t say stupid shit with a straight face to a massive global audience.

Few things are more irritating than insisting Sam Altman is anything but a grifter. He’s a slightly less incoherent version of Donald Trump. It’s clear as day, he has no clue what he’s talking about. He is a con man, through and through.

[…] the reason the powerful sound like idiots is because, well, they’re idiots. They sound like Business Idiots and create products to sell to Business Idiots, because Business Idiots run most companies and buy solutions based on what the last Business Idiot told them.”

Ed goes on a bit from here, describing the monkey-see-monkey-do behavior anyone who’s worked in the tech industry has no doubt noticed. Fads must be followed. Why? Well… everyone else is doing it, and I want to look smart among my peers of business idiots, too!

The reality is far simpler: we have an industry that has spent nearly half a trillion dollars between its capital expenditures and venture capital funding to create another industry with the combined revenue of the fucking smartwatch industry. What I’m writing isn’t inflammatory — in fact, it’s far more deeply rooted in reality than those claiming that OpenAI is building the future.

Brutal.

📝 Post June 22, 2025

Weeknotes 38

Fixed the busted washing machine. Here’s to hoping this pump lasts longer than the 10 months the last one made it.
Week 9 for the DMV title fixing process, and we finally heard back! Unfortunately, that message was one of rejection. The motorcycle was originally purchased in Michigan, and Michigan is where the title’s VIN was originally goofed up. So Virginia’s DMV requires Michigan to fix the title first, then re-submit the application.

So, this week, I officially bailed on trying to buy this bike. I’ve wasted 9 weeks of prime motorcyclin’ weather waiting for this, I’m not going to waste another 9.
So, relatedly, I bought a new motorcycle! Frustratingly, there aren’t many used NX500’s for sale, and I’m pretty much sold on acquiring one. So I bit the bullet, and got one new (2024 model) from a dealership a couple hours away. Got to put it to good use on a delayed Father’s Day ride with the whole fam’.
Mugello pizza + limoncello + affogato MotoGP party was a success. I tweaked the dough prep a little bit, and used a poolish I let ferment in the ‘fridge overnight. Not sure it made a noticeable difference flavor-wise. But it is maybe a bit more convenient timing-wise.
Guess that’s pretty much it. Not much else going on in the world this week, right?

📝 Post June 15, 2025

Weeknotes 37

What a week…
Cyn passed her real estate tests on her first try 🎉 I helped her study a bit, and the questions were written in some kind of bar-exam-meets James Joyce dialect, with quadruple negatives and the occasional logic trap. I can’t imagine sussing that mess out in a second language, but she managed to nail it. 我的老婆很聰明
Went to the No Kings march here in Richmond. Haven’t seen official numbers, but there must’ve been at least 12, maybe 13 billion people there. My favorite sign I saw:
You’re not going to believe it, but this week will be week 8 of waiting for the DMV to correct a motorcycle title with one missing 0. One of the things I was most looking forward to, when I bought this bike 8 weeks ago, was going on a Father’s Day motorcycle ride with my dad. Thanks for ruining that for us, DMV! If this new title isn’t hand-chiseled into a slab of granite, I’m going to be very upset.
Around 9 months ago, the pump on our washing machine died, and I got a new pump, and replaced it. That replacement pump just kicked the bucket, so I get to do it again.
Speaking of water-removal-apparatuses failing: our new dehumidifier arrived. I installed that bad-boy this week, and it hasn’t yet burst into flames or flooded the house. That feels like a small success! Considering how much cheaper it was than the last one, I’m now excited to find out whether I actually got a deal or a humbling betrayal awaits me.

🔗 Link June 09, 2025

Marines activated to deploy to Los Angeles amid ICE protests

Secretary of State Pete Hegseth said Saturday night he had placed Marines at Camp Pendleton — located south of Los Angeles — on “high alert,” and they would be sent into the city “if violence continues.”

Ah, yes. The classic “We’ll only crush dissent if they make us” play.

Fortunately for Hegseth (and his orange overlord), their base are the most gullible dipshits ever assembled. These are the people who think Seattle was burned to the ground and that Antifa has an HR department. Never mind that Trump and Company have been very open about their intent to manufacture an excuse to use The Insurrection Act. The only way this would’ve been more predictable is if it was a scheduled event.

📝 Post June 08, 2025

Weeknotes 36

Entering week 7 of waiting on the DMV to correct the single missing 0 on the title of the motorcycle I’m buying. An entire government agency stumped by a single digit.
After reading Thomas Ptacek’s My AI Skeptic Friends Are All Nuts, I figured it was time to give the ol’ “vibe coding” a try. I spent a couple hours just goofing around with Zed’s offering. While it’s impressive at times (e.g., it was dropping debug statements like it knew what was up), it pretty quickly painted itself into a corner. Maybe there’s a better order of operations for “prompt engineering” that would’ve avoided this outcome? I’m not sure. My belief remains: it was neat to watch, but I probably wouldn’t choose to build software this way today.
Played pickleball on Thursday. Played some doubles with a random older couple we bumped into there. They completely dusted us, 11-0. Very humbling!
Some schmuck has been digging up / stealing plants from the community garden I’ve been volunteering at. Going to help the owner get a security camera system up and running this week, hopefully. Imagine getting caught on tape committing plant theft.
Started the limoncello steepin’ process, so we’ll be properly ready for Mugello GP in a couple weeks.
Cruised out to Ashland to check out their strawberry festival. I hadn’t been to Ashland since college. Forgot what a cute little town it is, and the strawberry fest was a surprisingly big event.
I finally pulled up the lone carrot that’s been growing in our garden, and it looks like one of the space carrots from that one Bugs Bunny cartoon.
Still waiting on some full-throated Happy Gilmore style apologies from the very “moderate” Trump experts who confidently assured me none of what’s now happening would happen. Should be coming any moment now. I’m holding my breath in anticipation!

This is your periodic reminder: it’s peach season. Go get a few.

June 03, 2025

🔗 Link June 02, 2025

Louisiana Passes Bill to Ban 'Chemtrails'

Luckily, this only bans weather-altering chemtrails. Us leftists are still free to put the chemicals that turn the frogs gay into the water supply.

📝 Post June 01, 2025

Weeknotes 35

Took a little hiking trip out to Shenandoah National Park for the first time since Cynthia’s knee started having issues. Overheard some random dude there explaining to his ~5 year old son that “actually, if a baby fell from this cliff, they might just survive. See, they’d reach terminal velocity pretty quickly, then probably fall into a tree. There was a story about a baby falling 15 stories in NYC, and…”. Who among us hasn’t bonded with our fathers over what scenarios would and would not kill an infant?
A few short months since the last Richmond water crisis, we had another one this week. Fortunately, this one only lasted 3 days. This is, of course, ignoring the whole “oops, we forgot to fluorinate the water” and the “oops, we accidentally dramatically over-fluorinated the water” fiascos.
Speaking of Richmond water projects: the construction project on the sewer line on our block officially goes into its 4th month.
Speaking of slow Richmond government projects: the work of fixing the single missing “0” on the VIN number on my pending motorcycle’s title continues into its 6th week.
Acquired the first of my motorcycle gear: got a helmet and some glovies.
Yanked our dehumidifier out of the crawlspace (pain in the neck) and tested it out a bit with some breathing room. Confirmed it’s dead. Think all the refrigerant leaked out somehow. Of course, it’s just out of warranty, so we need to get a new one. Ordered a relatively cheap guy that seems to be well-regarded. Seems like lots of folks have problems with the model we have now.
🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ Happy Pride Month to all you Pride Month celebrators. Know that this particular mediocre cishet white dude is in your corner. ❤️

📝 Post May 25, 2025

Weeknotes 34

Our crawlspace dehumidifier seems to have kicked the bucket. I first thought maybe the filter was too clogged, and that was causing the coils to freeze. But after replacing the filter, giving it a couple hours to rest, and re-starting the thing, it still ran at full tilt, doing precisely nothing. It’s far too cramped down there to do any real troubleshooting, so next step is to yank it out, and see if I can figure out what’s wrong.
Our three-year wedding anniversary was on Tuesday. ❤️ Did our traditional Mexican lunch feast at our new favorite local Mexican joint.
More farm work this week. This time we put down a bunch of lime to try to boost the soil’s pH from its current ridiculous three-point-something level.
The motorcycle titling fix wait continues. Going on week 5 now… It’s one missing zero, Michael, how long could it take?
Went ahead and acquired a helmet and gloves for this still-anticipitory motorcycle.
Silverstone GP weekend 🇬🇧. Wild races all around. Poor Quartararo’s ride height device giving out while he had a ~5 second lead is one of the crueller outcomes we’ve seen.
Dan Sinker’s latest The Who Cares Era is so good.

In the Who Cares Era, the most radical thing you can do is care.

Go give it a read if you haven’t already.

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