Micro.blog added a Custom 404 Page feature. I had sent Manton a note asking for this feature just a week ago. Love it! 💛
Such a pleasant evening on Cannon Lake tonight.
Economic Club of Minnesota “Our Economy and Health in Crisis”
I was able to attend the Economic Club of Minnesota’s webinar today on “Our Economy and Health in Crisis”. My brother-in-law Hector Fernandez pointed me to some of their earlier events. It was moderated by Margaret Brennan of Face the Nation, and Neel Kashkari, CEO of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, and Dr. Michael Osterholm of the University of Minnesota were the two panelists. I recommend watching.
Their perspective was sobering.
- Real unemployment more like 25%.
- 2nd inning of a 9 inning game.
- 5-15% have had today. Need 60-70% for herd immunity.
- Consider pain and damage to get to 5-15%. But is this really linear? Doesn’t seem like it should be.
- Vaccine will also have to be weighed with potential side affects and what duration will it be.
- Childcare recommended by fall? Don’t have the info to know if that will be prudent or not.
- Critical question: what is our comfort level with these risks? Cannot shutdown everything, but cannot be unmitigated spread. Variable, not binary.
I didn’t take thorough notes throughout. I became pretty absorbed with the content itself.
We made the jump to an electric lawn mover tonight. We bought the 21" Self-Propelled EGO Power+ from Home Depot. Initial impression is amazing. Much lighter, powerful, easy to use, pretty quiet. Won’t miss pulling on that cord to get it started!
Nice spin session on Peloton this morning, 30-min Rock & Roll class with Emma Lovewell! Geeky fun looking at the mPaceline graphs. #FitByFifty
All data that I have read points to this pandemic lasting for a long time.
“The World Health Organisation warned that it might take five years to bring covid-19 under control and that the virus may never be fully eliminated. It could become endemic, albeit manageable, in the way that, eg, HIV is. Meanwhile an eagerly awaited study suggested that only 5% of 2m people tested in Spain have been infected; nowhere near herd immunity.” — Economist Espresso for May 14th, 2020
Great Season 40 of Survivor “Winners at War”. I wanted Natalie to win though. Tony played a strong game, but Natalie did something nearly impossible!
“The average number of passengers on a commercial flight within the U.S. right now: just 23. Every day, the airline industry is losing almost $400 million.” — NY Times Monday Briefing
Just upgraded one of my Pi-Hole servers to v5.0! All went completely smooth. The new group filtering is interesting. I may put all my Apple TV’s in a group and restrict the DNS dramatically for example. Maybe block all for some Smart Home stuff and only whitelist what it needs.
Lake & Irving is one of our favorite restaurants and they re-opened last week with a limited takeout menu. They have a great setup for getting it to your car and is completely contactless. The Cheeseburger is so delicious! 🍔
Family was craving for some Pavarotti ice cream tonight so Tyler and I made a stop at Sebastian Joe’s! Cold day but they were doing a steady curbside pickup business.
Happy Mother’s Day to my amazing wife Tammy! She is the center of our family. 💕 Our very first pandemic Mother’s Day! 🤠
A very Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom, and to all the Mom’s out there!
Just wrapped up my first attempt at doing pulled pork using the Sous Vide. I started the Sous Vide last night. I let it run for 20 hours at 165. When I pulled the bag out the pork had shrunk and there was about 3-4 cups of liquid in the bag. I poured the liquid into a sauce pan to reduce on the stove. I transferred the pork to the Big Green Egg and let it smoke for 3 hours at 280, with some good chunks of hickory for added smoke. 🔥
When I pulled the pork off the grill the bone pulled out clean and the meat shredded just by pushing on it. It had nice flavor. After pulling it I poured the reduced liquid over to taste. It was delicious and really easy.
Next time I will add more dry rub before putting it on the grill. Otherwise it was one of the best pork butts I’ve ever made. 🐖
Transferred the pork butt to the Big Green Egg after 20 hours in Sous Vide. Time for the finish smoke at 280 for 2-2.5 hours. Reducing the liquid from Sous Vide bag to add back to pulled pork.
A good newsletter is usually:
- Consistent in frequency
- Consistent in format
- Endlessly repeatable with new content.
First Peloton FTP Test
I did my first Functional Threshold Power test today. This is a good way to measure my fitness progress over time. Peloton doesn’t advertise it much, but they have some great built-in capabilities for power. After you do an FTP test ride for example, the bike automatically prompts you to store your average wattage and then in all rides going forward you get a realtime power meter that is customized to you.
There is no good or bad for this. I did struggle with holding my power over the course of the 20 minute test. I felt pretty spent by the time it got to the last exertion level.
The heart rate graph is a little off. I’m using mPaceline for this and it has my Max HR a little higher than it should be. The main thing I took away from HR was that I was giving it my full effort. I also think my HR was higher than it should have been for the Zone 4 and 5 sections.
I’m going to do one of these tests every 6-12 weeks to check-in on progress.
First time doing a pork butt using Sous Vide. Pork will cook at 165 in the water bath for 20 hours and will finish with a 2 hour smoke on the Big Green Egg tomorrow. Following Serious Eats directions. 🔥
Unemployment from pandemic.
I am so excited to hear that Bundesliga is resuming the season! Tyler and I will be cheering for Bayern on May 17th! ⚽️
