We had a great fall cruise on the Lady Liberty at Big Cedar. I live boat cruises. Fall colors are a little late this year. ๐Ÿ‚

We had a fun round of mini golf this morning at Big Cedar. Great course and the large bass was a nice signature hole! ๐Ÿ•ณ๏ธ

Giant pretzel from Uncle Buckโ€™s at Big Cedar. ๐Ÿฅจ๐Ÿ˜ฎ

Driving through Springfield, MO and into the Ozarks so have to listen to Big Smith (Apple Music). Great Bluegrass music! ๐ŸŽถ

Found some mathematically significant road signs on our drive for Road Sign Math! ๐Ÿค“ There were a few good ones I wasnโ€™t able to get a photo for too. ๐Ÿ˜”

(On micro.blog @roadsignmath and note the MathJax doesnโ€™t render on the timeline.)

On our way to Big Cedar Lodge for MEA weekend. Departed at 6:07 am and will be driving for 9 hours with a lunch stop at Culverโ€™s in Liberty, Missouri.

Halfway through the day and I just realized Iโ€™ve had my undershirt on backwards. ๐Ÿคฆโ€โ™‚๏ธ

We all made 60 Winter Wonderland candles for the 2023 Things 4 Good Candle Fundraiser tonight!

We went to Cookinโ€™ at the Childrenโ€™s Theatre today and it was incredible. 90 minutes filled with action, story, and fun. This is a traveling performance and worth trying to go to! ๐Ÿ”ช

Mazie is home for a short break and made some fresh St. Olaf Cookies tonight. These are so delicious! ๐Ÿคค

DeFi with Agave sDAI on Gnosis Chain

The recent announcement that Agave launched their Savings xDai on Gnosis Chain piqued my interest. This is connected with MakerDAO, the backers of the Dai stablecoin amongst other things. I generally find MakeDAO interesting and already had some xDAI so I deposited 100 xDai and now have have Agave sDai tokens that earn interest. Current APY 7.521%.

The DAI Savings Rate (DSR is an addition to the Maker Protocol that allows any DAI holder to earn savings in DAI. It is a premium reward by MakerDAO for users depositing DAI, bolstering user benefits and rewards in the ecosystem. sDAI tokens represent DAI stablecoins deposited in MakerDAO’s DSR module. With the launch of sDAI on Gnosis Chain and SparkLend, users can now deposit xDAI to receive sDAI on Gnosis Chain.

I don’t do a lot of DeFi experimentation but this being native on Gnosis Chain I wanted to give it a try and see how it worked.

Comparing Sleep Stages with Eight Sleep and Oura Ring

I find sleep data to be notoriously hard to correlate to reality. I’ve used a variety of devices over the years to track sleep and sometimes it is really hard to correlate it with my actual experience. Thus far, the Oura Ring has been better at this than any other device I’ve used. What it shows me aligns well with my perceived experience.

This week we setup the Eight Sleep and just like the Oura Ring, it also tracks your sleep and gives you a view of the various stages of sleep. I was super intrigued to see if the Oura Ring and the Eight Sleep would agree at all. I was skeptical and was expecting that they would produce very different data. I looked at three nights of data and to my surprise it was more correlated than I expected.

Some observations:

  1. The Eight Sleep generally interprets more Deep Sleep than the Oura Ring. I have no independent way to assess Deep Sleep.
  2. Generally the Oura Ring sees my waking periods much longer than the Eight Sleep. This is a little easier for me to asses, and I think neither is spot on. Both got some of this right and some wrong. Overall, the Eight Sleep data seems closer to reality.
  3. On the whole, the Oura Ring data presents a “less good” picture of my sleep patterns.

There isn’t a conclusion to draw from this since this isn’t a controlled study. However, the two data sources align much more than I expected. Comparing price of the two solutions isn’t meaningful since they do very different things. However, it is notable that a little ring on my pinky finger gets pretty close to a grid of sensors that is under my entire body as I sleep.

Youth in Music 2023

We went to the 2023 Youth in Music Show at US Bank Stadium today to see my nephew perform in the Marching Band competition for Grand Rapids High School. We saw all the AAA and AAAA performances.

  • Papillion-La Vista South HS (Papillion, NE)
  • Grand Rapids HS (Grand Rapids, MN)
  • Farmington HS (Farmington, MN)
  • Irondale HS (New Brighton, MN)
  • Marshall HS (Marshall, MN)
  • Millard West HS (Omaha, NE)
  • Brandon Valley HS (Brandon, SD)
  • Millard North HS (Omaha, NE)
  • Sioux Falls Lincoln HS (Sioux Falls SD)
  • Eden Prairie HS (Eden Prairie, MN)
  • Eastview HS (Apple Valley, MN)
  • Rosemount HS (Rosemount , MN)

The performances were impressive and each one is like a 10 minute show. For the finale, Iowa State University MB (Ames, IA) gave an exhibition performance with a Metallica theme that was incredible.

We got our Eight Sleep setup and ready to use. First night using it! Currently cooling my side, and warming Tammyโ€™s. Iโ€™m very hopeful that this helps me get better quality and duration of sleep. ๐Ÿ˜ด

Making another batch of candles for the 3rd Annual Things 4 Good Fall Fundraiser!

I did my 400th Peloton spin class this morning! 30 min Classic Rock Ride with Matt Wilpers. ๐ŸŽ‰

Look up.

We found this Thankful Tree on our walk and Mazie took the opportunity to add one.

Sidewalk poetry found walking from Carleton back to St. Olaf.

Homecoming Battle: Carleton Knights vs. St. Olaf Oles! ๐Ÿˆ