J’Apprend Le Français

I'm learning French. It started with Duolingo, 1000 days ago. I know that number because the app gamifies your streak, and this morning I reached that milestone. Almost three years! C'est dingue.

I had always wanted to be able to speak and read something other than English. I can get by with my Spanish in a pinch, but it's rudimentary. I have German ancestry, so I had tried that for a short while. That didn't take either. But I love French music, French philosophy, French artists. Turns out I also really enjoy the French language. It’s like a sister tongue to English, so much shared between them. The more you learn of French, the more you end up understanding about English. The history of the two languages are so intertwined.

In December of 2021, I ran into a friend downtown Brooklyn who was having a one-on-one lesson with her French teacher. Having had a year with Duolingo myself at that point, stumbled through some passable français avec eux ... with them. I really liked the challenge, and I really liked the teacher, so we agreed to start lessons the following January. That was almost two years ago, and I can now spend a full hour conversing in ~rough~ french. Trés inégal. J'écorche le langue.

I listen to a few French podcasts for five to twenty minutes, most days. I'm slowly working my way through Sartre's Le Nausée in French (I've read it twice in English). I occasionally put on an episode of French TV on Netflix. And I listen to French music, from time to time. I'm getting a little better at understanding it. When I hear it on the street, en passant, I catch most words and generally understand the subject. That's fun!

Next is finding ways to speak French with more people than my teacher. In restaurants, at work, etc. There are French speakers all over my neighborhood in Brooklyn. I'm almost one of them.

Weekend In Montreal

We spent Thanksgiving in Montreal. A quick vacation in a new city, wandering new neighborhoods, eating good food. It's a very nice place and I'd love to come back in the summer when it's warmer and we could wander more freely. I was able to practice speaking French, which wasn't too successful since anyone hearing me struggle went immediately to English. Visiting the Drawn & Quarterly bookshop was on my list of things to do, and I walked out with one book, Mourir Pour Le Cause.

I only discovered later that the author, Chris Oliveros, was himself a founder of the bookstore. It's in French, as you can see, and I'm really enjoying it. I had hoped that a graphic novel would be a great reading-in-French learning experience and it is. I'm going to keep growing my library with books like these.

Atlantic City

Our good friends the Bobek's asked us to join them on an impromptu, one night trip to Atlantic City, staying at the Bogata. I'm not a gambler, but after watching Brian having a great time playing craps, I decided to join in. Started the night with $40 on the table and ended up with much more than that. The luck was with me. The winnings ended up paying for our steak dinner and the hotel, if you can believe it. Even Lisa ended up coming home with a little more cash, thanks to a Wonder Woman slot machine which paid out.

As for the boardwalk, can't really recommend it. It's clearly a couple decades past its prime. Perhaps one day, it'll find a second life, but that time is not now.

Jack-o-Lanterns 2023

Every year, we visit our friends in Yardly, PA to carve pumpkins with their kids. My pumpkin this year was this chomper. We also visited a rural theme-park of sorts called Shady Brook Farms. They had live music, a couple haunted houses, a gemstone prospecting thing, food and drinks, and a corn maze in the shape of Reba Macintyre's face. I deeply regret not recording our walk through it on my Apple Watch for the path drawing.

TWA Hotel at JFK

Last Saturday, during Labor Day weekend, Lisa and I booked a couple hours at the pool at the TWA Hotel. We took the A to the AirTran, which was fine, if not a bit laborious. Getting to JFK is always 50% more hassle than you’d expect. The travel to and from would have been much better with a car, but we don’t have a car and taxis are ~$100 each way. So, A train. It’s fine!

The Saarinen-designed space is incredible, an airline terminal that was in use for around 50 years. I felt so comfortable there, and in literal awe. It’s truly beautiful. Architected spaces could and should feel this way everywhere, but we’ve subordinated the beauty of public places to the profit motive. It’s a shame. Every wave of enjoyment I felt from the Saarinen terminal came with a secondary wave of sorrow. I wish we still prioritized the attractiveness of the places we share as communities. America would be better for it.

Another shame is why this beautiful terminal was abandoned: it was never designed for our post 9/11 TSA security needs. The building was built to accommodate flyers checking in and getting to their planes. There is no room for long, snaking lines and X-ray machines. So it goes.

I took a bunch of photos, but by no means captured it all. Photography isn’t the medium for appreciating the building, anyway. You have to visit to get it. Highly recommended! Plus, the pool is nice.

The National at MSG

The National last night at MSG. Always a great show. The new songs were actually the highlights for me, surprisingly. The guitars sounded so great in them.

Can't believe it's been 10 years since Lisa and I saw them last at Barclays in Brooklyn, June 2013.

The Smile

Music night at Forest Hills. First time there and it was to see the Smile. Nice outdoor venue; great show! I wasn’t sure what to expect, which was a nice way to go in. I knew the record, of course, and so was prepared for it to be jazzy and loose. Was pleasantly surprised that it sounded great loud, too. 
The band was too far away for a great shot, but the crowd looked really cool flooded in red. 

Tidbyt

A month ago, I bought a Tidbyt. It's a fun, beautiful little lo-fi display screen for displaying micro content. The thing is really well designed and looks great on the shelf. I have six apps in rotation, so there's also a nice variety in what's displayed. A 3-day weather forecast. A photo of Lisa and I. A pretty Day/Night globe view. A fuzzy clock ("Twenty-Five Till One"), a day/month/year progress thing, and an MTA train tracker for the F line. There are a ton more apps, but these are the ones working for me at the moment. Being a relatively new product, I'm sure more great apps will be added as time goes on. I'd love to design and build one myself if I can think of something new to make.

On mornings when I go into the midtown office, I check the F train time to see if there were any delays. Yesterday, there was! Imagine that. Signal malfunctions on the line meant the train ended up stuck on the track for a long while. So I knew to walk to Jay Street to catch the A/C instead. It's a silly little techy box, but I love it. Highly recommend buying one for yourself or someone else.

Anatomy of a Scam Call

I just received a "scam likely" call from the Netherlands. First time I remember getting spam calls from outside the country, and my parents just so happen to be in Amsterdam today. Provides a super weird clue to how scam callers designate who gets called and from what numbers. I knew spammers have email contact lists from purchased/stolen data lists. I hadn't considered that phone spam calls would have the same kind of origin.

What must be happening here is that one of my parents' numbers are in a spammer's list, and the spammers know where they're currently located. Creepy. Sending me a phone call from the Netherlands today is supposed to catch me worried that something has happened to my parents, that I would instinctively answer out of concern.

Most of my scam calls come from Indiana. Before now, I thought that was because I have an Indiana area code for this long-held phone number. Now I suspect those calls are somehow attached to friend or family who have been caught in a data breach somewhere.

I'm also assuming this was automated, and not a person manually cross checking data tables. Scam artists are clever and always improving their methods. Automation. Location. Batch calling. I knew better than to answer this call, but I can't say the same for any of the older folks in my parent's contact list. One of my senior family friends was recently scammed out of a thousand dollars or so. I wish I could do more to protect the people I know. There's only so much you can do.

Planting on the Roof Deck

On Sunday, Lisa and I planted a mix of plants in the boxes left for us on our roof deck. It was the first time for us doing any kind of gardening for ourselves and it went pretty great. I'm really happy with how it came out. The boxes could have used another couple inches worth of soil, which she pushed for but I wasn't sure about. I thought the mass of roots and soil which came with the new plants would make up the difference, but I was wrong. She was right. I'll probably buy some more soil soon to raise everything a bit.

I watched a bunch of YouTube videos trying to learn as much as I could about rooftop gardening, and gardening in general. A couple tips were really helpful. Originally, I had only thought about planting a single type of flower, maybe two. I hadn't considered mixing grasses, herbs, and bushes with flowering plants. That's known as polyculture, which promotes healthier soil. It's also more attractive! And it introduces another level of design into the project. I'm really looking forward to thinking through the arrangement more fully next year.

I also learned that for a windier location like our roof deck — and it does get really windy, sometimes — it's a good idea to plant bushes or taller grasses which shield smaller plants from the gusts. I've done that a little with a boxwood bush in the western-most corner. Not yet sure that's enough. We'll see.

We only shopped at the Lowe's in Gowanus, which didn't have as much variety as we hoped. The didn't have any ornamental grasses, for instance, which I wanted to incorporate. We did come home with a good variety, though. Next year, I'll do more shopping around to get what I want instead of only what's available in one shop. Here's what we planted: yellow daffodil, mediterranean pink heather, english daisy, grace ward lithodora, early bird radiance dianthus, begonia, and green mountain boxwood. Also some mint, rosemary, and basil.