Traeger Grill

My brother-in-law got a Traeger Grill a while back and he found he was never using it. They decided to get a Blackstone Flat Top and I volunteered to provide a good home for the Traeger they didn’t want. I got it fired up for the first time tonight.

Why get this when I’ve got a perfectly good Big Green Egg already? Brisket. I’ve never been able to do brisket acceptably on the Big Green Egg and I’m hoping I can get a great product off of the Traeger. Sure is simple to get going!

Got to do a firmware update on the Traeger Grill. πŸ€“

TeamSPS at the Cristy Rey “Ungala” tonight celebrating our long-standing partnership with the organization. It is a great program and amazing results. Proud that SPS Commerce can be part of it!

We put a Phyn Plus in our home and I had to celebrate getting to do a firmware update. The unit is now inline and it is super interesting to see the data on water consumption. I’m really curious to see what this shows over time. Plus a solid discount on homeowners insurance for having it. πŸ’§

I’ve been a bit obsessed thinking about AI agents and this definition shared by Willison from Anthropic’s Hannah Moran works for me.

Agents are models using tools in a loop.

Perfect. I might add “and have a memory” to that too, but that isn’t required.

Omnivore announced they were shutting down last October, but it wasn’t until this week I saw a group of Omnivore addresses subscribed to the Weekly Thing bounce. Seems they turned off the email addresses now.

Dave Winer today…

Where AI fits in

  • The Beatles
  • Personal computers
  • The web
  • Napster
  • AI

It is interesting and I’ve made similar comparisons lately myself. It matters who your audience and point is for such a list. For technologists I keep saying it is like…

  • GUI
  • Internet
  • Cloud
  • Mobile

I think of those because they changed nearly everything about how technologists do their craft. And I believe AI is going to do that too.

It is of course bigger than all that, but that is a different audience.

I went looking for this photo that I knew I had of my by an SR-71 Blackbird. I found it and then selected map view. It is cool how you can see the plane in the aerial satellite view. Location is pretty accurate at U.S. Space & Rocket Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Nice dinner at Oceanaire with our partners from Cognisive visiting from Hyderabad, India.

Robin decided that a nest would be great on top of our irrigation controller. Hmm… trying to leave this be until the eggs hatch. 😬

Sauna fired up for a morning sweat.

First smash burgers of 2025! πŸ”

Getting the pool ready for summer!

It was awesome to see @davoh for a delicious coffee at Five Watt today! The conversation covered much ground and could have continued on if not for a lack of time. 🀝

I’ve never had an Apple TV require this Recovery Mode. It seems to be working fine to fix it.

This is a bit goofy but I like goofy. 😊

  1. Received email β€” there is an Internet Phone Book? πŸ€”
  2. Used site lookup search to see if I’m in it. βœ…
  3. Ordered a copy of Internet Phone Book. πŸ›’

The initial run of 500 copies sold out in less than 24 hours.

I am glad we can support Zero Line on their next convoy of aid to Ukraine and their continued work to support the people of Ukraine. πŸ‡ΊπŸ‡¦

At our Q2 #TeamSPS company meeting I was honored to share the stage with Elizabeth Neuville and Christy Sovereign and announce our support of the 2026 Special Olympics USA Games β€” SPS Commerce is the official Bocce sponsor! Why Bocce? It needs the most volunteers and TeamSPS values volunteering!

Pirates of the Spanish Main at Enigma Adventure

We capped off Mother’s Day with a trip to Enigma Adventures in Maple Grove to do their Pirates of the Spanish Main room. This room was the top recommendation of the folks that run Copper Cat Escape Games and it held up to the recommendation. The room has a wonderful mix of puzzles and multiple “reveals” that were very fun surprises. The pacing of the puzzles and challenges was good. With just the four of us we were challenged to keep the pace fast and sadly we didn’t get there in the 60 minute deadline, but we did finish just a minute or two past that.

We had previously done Istanbul Gambit at Enigma’s other location and they should get very high marks on how well these rooms are executed. They are very good, imaginative, and the mechanics are top notch. We gave Pirates a β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜…β˜… rating for sure. It is also nice that they don’t make you sign waivers. They could do better with the overall ambiance and it feels like colocating with Whirly Ball isn’t pulling in visitors.

Highly recommend giving this room a go β€” we had a great time! Room 69!

We went to a live recording of The Object podcast at the MIA today. Dessa was the special guest discussing Salvador DalΓ­ and the surrealists. She is always engaging and entertaining.