Day: January 29, 2025

More basketball stupidity, at both the high school and college levels, yesterday that I prefer to avoid for now.

So, I’m launching a new series that promises to be randomly occasional: a few words about some of the favorite things in my life at the moment.

Olukai Kekaha Boots
It is a little weird that a Hawaiian company, famous for making casual shoes designed to be kicked off at a moment’s notice, has made some very nice cold weather boots. After several years of searching, and failing, to find a solid pair of boots to get me from October to March, I finally decided to splurge and give these a shot.

A wise choice!

Super comfortable, great looking, warm enough, and with the bonus of being water resistant. I thought the “natural distressing” was unnecessary and cheesy, but the effect is pretty minimal. And once you’ve worn them a couple weeks, those factory scuffs blend right into whatever wear and tear you’ve put on them yourself.

Where the cheaper options I tried the past couple winters failed because they were either poorly constructed or uncomfortable to the point I couldn’t wear them, these have been one of the best things I’ve purchased in the last six months. And they seem like they’ll hold up so I won’t have to worry about replacing them for at least a couple more years.

The Bridge
I included this Kansas City public radio station in a media post a year or so back, but drifted away from it. However, this past fall I made a major switch in how I listen to music when I’m in the house. Where my default in the kitchen used to be either iHeart Radio’s Classic American Top 40 station or a Spotify playlist, I’ve switched to exclusively streaming The Bridge. Now I leave it on our kitchen speaker most of the day, saving Spotify for other parts of the house and driving.

This is a near perfect radio station, at least for my tastes. The best internet radio option I’ve found since WOXY.com died nearly 15 years ago. If I owned a radio station, I bet my playlist would have around 90% similarity to what my KC homies spin. Here’s what they’ve played while I’ve been typing this post up:

Bluesky
I created a Bluesky account right after the platform publicly launched, but never used it for more than a few moments before this past fall. Then there was a flood of folks migrating from the service I had been using for 15+ years, led by several prominent NBA writers. Over about six weeks I split time between the two services. By January, I was only launching the Bird app during KU games or if someone sent me a link. I’ve now cut out the KU game connection, so rarely checking out what is going in that cesspool.

Bluesky isn’t perfect, and there are still a lot of accounts I followed at the old place for years that need to come over. But it sure is better than what the Tech Toddler turned the old place into.[1] The auto-muting of idiots is a wonderful feature. I’m sure the Nazis, wingnuts, and trolls will figure out a way to ruin it eventually, or some asshole billionaire will buy it to appease our Beloved Leader. For now, though, it’s where I spend most of my social media time. Which, to be honest, is way less time than I was spending four months ago. Another obvious bonus.

Hot Roast Beef with Onion Jam sandwiches
Holy shit, these are awesome! Simple to make with a tremendous depth of flavor. I was a little nervous about dropping them on the family, as the ladies don’t always enjoy beefy meals the way I do. But it was a hit with them all and I’ve added them to our rotation of dinner meals.