Aaron's blog

2023 was an exciting year.  First in our minds is the joy of watching Alice grow from a 2-month infant to a 14-month almost walker.  And Anna doubled-up on her stay-at-home-mom duties for the first couple months of the year by babysitting nephew Xander as well. 

Anna's grandpa in Minot passed away at the end of January so she spend almost a week in Minot spending time with far-flung relatives and planning the funeral.  Aaron went up a couple days later, having used his evenings alone at home to work feverishly on installing a new range hood.

Next on the project list was installing radiators in the nursery and guest bedroom.  The baby was getting cold!  With that plumbing work done we were able to close up the wall in the dining room and mostly finish the built-in cabinet below and surrounding millwork. 

It was a winter with a lot of snow!  We were very thankful to have a snowblower and completely filled the backyard with snow.  As a fun winter activity Aaron made an effort to make bread once or twice a week, and eventually found some good recipes.  Aaron also started some purple coneflower seedlings from seeds that Grandma Jean had picked.

In April we closed on the shared purchase with Aaron's parents of a 10 acre lot in south Bismarck.  Aaron's sister and parents simultaneously closed on an adjoining 5 acre lot.  Due to some complications this closing had been in process for exactly one year so it was a relief to finally have it done.  We hope to build a home there in about 5 years. 

In June Aaron traveled to Daytona to be best man in Simon and Madalyn's wedding.  The wedding of course was great and exciting, but also Aaron rented an electric car so had some fun with that new experience. 

Early summer saw a lot of changes to our front yard.  Aaron fixed many leaks on the sprinkler system and moved many sprinkler heads that the new (2-year-old!) fence interfered with.  Then he dug in landscaping edging for flower beds around all of the front yard fence and for mulch circles around a few trees.  New grass in the front yard sprouted nicely and now we finally have no dirt piles up there.  Eight new daylily varieties purchased at the annual Daylily Society auction went into the new flower beds along with some hostas, and then they were completely filled when the neighbor started thinning out her greenery and brought over ferns, irises, daisies, and many more.  The highlight of the flowers this year was trying dahlias for the first time.

The porch had one remaining project—the skirting.  Through July and August Aaron worked away on that and it turned out great.  So the porch is officially complete now. 

In the back yard, the eye-sore shed was torn down with Eliot's help when his family visited. But we didn't get that corner of the yard completely cleaned up yet...maybe next year!  Now with no shed, garage space is more valuable.  Aaron sold a motorcycle which helps with that. 

Anna met her friends from Minnesota and Colorado in Medora for a long girls' weekend and had a lot of fun.  We also went out on the pontoon a few times, including sandbar play time. 

We bought part of a tractor for use at the south Bismarck lots.  We planted some oak trees there and rigged up a watering trailer for the tractor.  Aaron moved his horseradish plant there and also started some rhubarb there which was donated by a neighbor. 

Over Labor Day we spent a full week visiting Eliot, Caroline, and Felix in the Boston area.  They were just moving into a new house, extensively renovated in the previous weeks with more to do.  So we had a lot of fun enjoying the new scenery and helping out with many projects and unpacking boxes.

Alice had a big birthday party in November and it was great to have so many friends and family join in the celebration.  Also Anna's grandma Isabell has been visiting frequently.  She comes from Minot on the senior bus with door-to-door service so it is very convenient. 

We had a great Thanksgiving in Rosemount, MN with Anna's family, and Christmas in Mandan was a lot of fun too. 

I have used suggested replies for a few years.  Everyone has.

Lately I have felt a little slimy using the feature.  It isn't really me replying to that person that I have some relationship with.  Don't they deserve five seconds of my time?  Some programmer/system/"learning" is actually changing the tone of my conversations every time I tap a reply that is close enough, instead of typing out what I usually would.

So I disable this feature now.  I'm not ruthless about it, but if I notice it and don't mind the effort then I will take the time to turn it off.

Surely AI in the news lately has influenced my sensitivity on the topic.  I haven't tried any of the cutting edge GPT products.  Maybe this is where I become the grumpy old man or hippie-type.

My mom has not asked for me to write up a Christmas card section yet but I thought I would anyways.

We had a great time at our wedding to start out 2022!  I think most of January was just recovering from wedding things.  Anna stayed busy at home babysitting niece Brita and family friends' baby Roxy.

In February we went on a ski trip to Red Lodge.  And we found out we were pregnant, due November 9th.  Anna soon started working on tearing out the old carpet in the room which would be the future nursery.  I made several batches of deer jerky in our new dehydrator.  We went to a few concerts--Winger + Firehouse and Buckcherry + Alice Cooper.  I went to St. Louise and Cedar Rapids for work.

We went to the daylily society's spring auction of daylily plants and got seven new varieties.  People go crazy for some of them!  We enjoyed seeing the new flower types bloom later in the summer.  And our trees and other landscaping is coming along nicely.  A couple pepper plants grew large and produced a lot.  Our neighbor seemed to have a bottomless supply of cucumbers to leave for us.

We camped in Stanton with parents and sibling for Memorial Day.  Friends Jason and Bobbie visited for July 4th and we had a really good time.

Lots of home improvement activities again.  In winter, Aaron worked quite a bit on the basement.  New flooring and lighting really improved the feeling of the space and then he set up all sorts of desks and computer things.  He built a custom fit server rack under the stairs to hold equipment too.  Early in the spring Aaron and Randy spent a lot of time finishing the inside of the detached garage.  With pine carsiding walls, white metal ceiling, and lots of lights, it was a great improvement.  In early summer Aaron worked hard on the porch columns and roof, getting it closed in by July, painted by many helpful parents and siblings in August, and various other details until essentially complete in November.  September saw two weeks of activity as we hired the install of an air conditioning system.  We were able to use it for one hot day!  And squeezed in Aug-Oct Aaron gutted the nursery of plaster and lathe, insulated and sheetrocked, and trimmed it out.  Not quite done when baby arrived, but close enough!  And finally, all 400 feet of fence got painted over the course of the summer…little by little by little.

Alice Magdalena arrived a few days early on November 2nd, weighing 6 pounds 5 ounces.  She has been keeping us busy every since, healthy and growing, nearing 9.5 pounds for Christmas.  We spent a week in mid-December in Arizona so several relatives there could meet her and so we could escape winter for a bit.

At home

My first coffee maker was a two-mug Gevalia.  It used one small filter one each side, to brew directly into the included mugs.  If you forgot to set the toggle on the top to "1" when you only wanted to make one mug, then water would pour out side two and make a mess.

I'm pretty sure Grandma Jean gave this to our family.  I had it in my dorm room in college, and had it through my time in Medora in 2018.

As some point of living in my West Fargo house I acquired a green regular (drip brew, 10-12 cup size) coffee maker.  Probably this one:

The glass pot on that broke for some reason, so that was the end.

A black Mr. Coffee took its place.  Very close to this, but I'm pretty sure it is not grey on the bottom.

I still have that one, but it only gets brought out when I need to make coffee for several people.  At some point I had a metal filter for this, which is fine but annoying to clean.

In 2018 I got an Aeropress before going sailing.  This was my first time making above-average coffee myself.  Eventually (while on the sailboat) I got a hand grinder so I could grind my own beans too.  It wasn't until just a couple months ago I saw in a YouTube video that I could just hook my drill onto the grinder shaft to run it.  Pretty good idea which would have saved me a ton of time.  Making coffee for guests on the sailboat was incredibly tedious with the hand grinder and single-serve-producing Aeropress.

I still have the Aeropress but don't use it much any more.  BTW cleanup with the metal filter is significantly worse than with paper filters, so I do not recommend the metal filter for this.

As a wedding present from the in-laws, I got a Breville "the Bambino Plus".

This makes very good coffee.  I don't think I even knew coffee could be this good until I went to buy my Honda CR-V and the seller offered me a cup of coffee.  It was so smooth, rich, not bitter, etc.  Actually I don't know if I have even reached that level with the Bambino.  I don't know exactly what machine she had.  I believe the brand started with a G, so quite likely Gaggia.  I think it had a copper-look housing, and with a sort of house shaped profile from the front (with peak of roof flattened).  Maybe it wasn't Gaggia--I seem to remember that the logo was written out in cursive and rising towards the right, which I don't see in any Gaggia logoing.

Anyways, I mostly make Americanos and they are quite good.  Milk-based drinks are fun to mix it up every once in a while.  London Fog drinks are a solid choice too.

I also got a Breville "the Smart Grinder Pro" as a wedding gift and that is a really nice machine.

At work

The law office that I worked at had a Keurig, which was a pretty new and fancy thing to have at the time.

At Microsoft they had three full-auto grinding/brewing machines.  I think these would just make regular coffee, no added milk or whatever.  In fact I'm sure that is the case, since there was occasionally drama about someone leaving an opened/half-used tiny milk carton in the fridge, and whether it should or could be used by other people.  Nonsensical.  The machines had Seattle's Best coffee in them.  During my time at Microsoft is when I first developed a strong daily habit of drinking coffee.

In Medora there was just a Mr. Coffee in the breakroom, with Folgers grounds provided by TRMF.  Katie was known for making the coffee ridiculously strong.

At Cloverdale there was a "syrup-based" Farmer Brothers machine.  Pretty good for syrup coffee.

At NISC there are syrup machines on each building/floor.  Mostly they are just OK.  But in the cafeteria there is a full-auto machine that grinds and does espresso, cappuccino, cafe mocha, etc.  Top notch, until it broke and they couldn't get parts for a few months.  A few months of the OK syrup coffee.  I brought in some K-cups to mix up my days with something a little better.  It was eventually replaced with a machine that eats hotel-style single-serve filter bags of coffee grounds.  It can do all the cappuccino type things too, not quite as tasty as the old machine but still good.