2026-09-27T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/ John SJ Anderson 2026-09-27T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/09/weeknote-104-20260920-20260926/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>I was <em>supposed</em> to be in the Bay Area this weekend, but an emergency situation in TheWife’s family led to her needing to go to Chicago <em>right now</em>, so off she went and home I stayed.</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>I’d already mostly cleared my decks in advance of my planned-now-canceled trip, and I mostly just left them cleared — which made for a nice week, I was able to mostly keep my head down and got a few things done</li> <li>Handover to replacement manager continues apace</li> <li>Finally got to the point with my long-running music cleanup project that I started <a href="https://git.genehack.net/genehack/metastatic/">metastatic</a> as a new version of some metadata management software — more here once there <em>is</em> more, I reckon</li> <li>TheWife returned Thursday evening — the emergency turned out to be a lot less pressing than initially feared (which was great news)</li> <li>Friday after work, we were having a pint down the local, when the owner’s wife came in asking if anybody wanted a kitten she’d rescued in their neighborhood, and so now, as of Saturday afternoon, we have a cat again. (When the Cat Distribution System comes for you, it is best not to resist.) His name is still being iterated on…</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://www.netmeister.org/blog/everybodys-lost-their-minds.html">“Everybody’s Lost Their Minds”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>AI is the tool that dulls its users; it incrementally replaces <em>understanding</em> with a new dependency and addiction as you actively de-skill yourself.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p>This is something I’ve been trying to work on in my personal speech, so I really appreciated <a href="https://buttondown.com/maiht3k/archive/how-to-talk-about-ai-without-adding-to-the/">“How to talk about ‘AI’ without adding to the anthropomorphization”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>De-anthropomorphizing language talks about computer systems in terms of their functionality (what people build and/or use them to do), assigns agency to people using systems and not systems, and avoids aggrandizing metaphors about cognition.</p> <p>We aim to find substitutes that are as self-explanatory as possible, so that you can just go ahead and use them without having to explain. (Though of course, if someone asks “Why are you calling it that?” that’s also a great opening.)</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p>Finished <em>Not Till We Are Lost</em>, the most recent Bobiverse book — solid effort, cliff-hanger-y ending but you kinda expect you’re signing up for that at this point. Started a re-read of <em>Swordheart</em> ahead of tackling the new one in <em>that</em> series</p> </li> <li> <p>unread bookmark count: 165</p> </li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <ul> <li>Danny Macaskill in <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdlxXM_AEGQ">“Endless Light in Norway”</a> (via <a href="https://kottke.org/26/09/danny-macaskill-plays-in-the-endless-light-of-norway">kottke</a>)</li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Sunday: grilled spatchcocked chicken, caprese salad</li> <li>Monday: grilled hot dogs, leftover caprese salad</li> <li>Tuesday: grilled chicken tacos with green sauce</li> <li>Wednesday: spaghetti with meat sauce</li> </ul> <h2>photo</h2> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260920-photo-of-the-week.jpg" alt="New kitty got a bath and was not a fan" title="New kitty got a bath and was *not* a fan" /></p> <h2>looking forward to</h2> <p>Gonna be in Austin for a few days next week, for a work training event — whee</p> 2026-09-20T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/09/weeknote-103-20260913-20260919/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>Another week, another “buy a plane ticket for a next-day flight across the country”-level event. Specifics aren’t really mine to share, but this is gettin’ pretty old, y’all.</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>The person who will be taking over my engineering manager role at work started on Monday, and hadn’t quit by the time Friday rolled around! Eventually, I’m going back to the IC (individual contributor) role I was originally hired for, over some period of time that’s still yet to be determined. Lots of time meeting with her this week</li> <li>Had a “working social” Hack Salem meeting on Wednesday, which ended up with zero work getting accomplished — but a lot of socialization. So it goes</li> <li>Thursday night run up to PDX and back so TheWife could catch a 7am Friday morning flight to Chicago</li> <li>The resulting Solo Dad weekend was mostly uneventful</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://stopomarchy.neocities.org/">Stop Omarchy</a>:</p> <blockquote> <p>Omarchy is a political movement disguised as a Linux distro. Over $18 million dollars from powerful men and companies are funding it.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p>unread bookmark count: 165</p> </li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <p>Couple CHVRCHES video links:</p> <ul> <li>what looks like a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCm7pn_lza8">teaser video</a> for a new album</li> <li>fan vid of a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr_U78CjFjQ">“I Would Die 4 U”</a> cover</li> </ul> <p>Also finished off Reacher S4, and watched the Timbers stink up Providence Park one more time.</p> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: grilled hamburgers and asparagus</li> <li>Tuesday: grilled pork butt steaks and corn</li> <li>Saturday: grilled spatchcocked chicken with a caprese salad</li> </ul> <h2>photo</h2> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260913-photo-of-the-week.jpg" alt="Sometimes the Effin' Birds daily calendar is just a warning you don't recgonize yet…" title="Sometimes the Effin' Birds daily calendar is just a warning you don't recgonize yet…" /></p> <h2>looking forward to</h2> <p>Looking forward to TheWife getting back home, whenever that might happen…</p> 2026-09-13T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/09/weeknote-102-20260906-20260912/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>A short week that didn’t end up feeling all that short, in the end. Long but unexceptional, mostly work, mostly routine. Meh.</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>Sunday, I updated my <a href="https://genehack.org/now">now page</a></li> <li>Monday, Labor Day laziness bled into day-delayed Sunday scaries</li> <li>Thursday, our team took third place at pub trivia again — but not until I won a <em>dance-off</em>, because we were originally tied with another team</li> <li>The garden is pretty close to officially reaching “disappointment” stage — some of the cherry tomatoes are fine, we got some decent basil (but it overflowered and I’ve been lazy about pinching those back), but most of the larger tomatoes have blossom end rot, the Romaine all bolted after the first heat spike, and the pepper yield has been pretty low. I think I <em>learned</em> things, and hopefully next year goes better…</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p>Finished up <em>Heaven’s River</em> and started the new Bobiverse book, <em>Not Until We Are All Lost</em></p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://spectrecollie.com/2026/09/05/bad-vibes-coding/">“Bad Vibes Coding”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>When I write something that I have a dozen times before, and it works the first time, that’s the purest dopamine hit I get as a programmer. It’s all of the rewards of having something working, without the struggle. And it’s mine. It takes me back, Ratatouille-style, to when I was sitting in front of a Commodore 64 hooked up to an old TV set, typing in programs from a BASIC tutorial, learning how it all works. Being able to do it without thinking much about it means that I’ve learned it, that it’s a part of me, and there’s been a point to all of the repetition.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://emilygorcenski.com/post/our-age-of-silicon-is-collapsing/">“Our Age of Silicon is Collapsing”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>It strikes me that the culture of the technology sector has preserved so much of the contemptuous, isolated nerd culture that thrived when computer science was still a niche discipline. When I grew up, being into computers made you a geek and it was not exactly a recipe for popularity. Subcultures tend naturally to grow via exclusion, but some foster egalitarianism while others tend to reify the hiearchical structures that pushed them to the fringes in the first place. Nerd culture was certainly the latter. It was competitive instead of collaborative, contemptuous instead of complimentary. That culture has persisted through the various generations of waging war on codes of conduct, DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion), or even on <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google%27s_Ideological_Echo_Chamber">women in the workplace</a>.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p>Current unread bookmark count: 169 (cheated a little here and deleted a handful that started 404-ing since I originally saved them)</p> </li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <ul> <li>Finally finished off S3 in our Ted Lasso re-watch and moved into S4; by the end of the week we were caught up</li> <li>Timbers versus St. Louis City on Wednesday was a wild ride; the Saturday match versus Dallas was a sad one</li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: grilled sausages, caprese salad</li> <li>Tuesday: mesquite-grilled tomato-tomatillo salsa, for mesquite-grilled chicken tacos</li> <li>Wednesday: hamburgers</li> <li>Friday: seared tuna</li> </ul> 2026-09-06T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/09/weeknote-101-20260830-20260905/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>Due to a couple people being out on PTO, it was an oddly busy-but-quiet work week — I kept a lot of plates spinning, but didn’t get much done beyond that, but that was also kinda okay?</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>Aside from work, not a whole lot else happened — we were without careworkers for Ms24 for most of the week, which def put a crimp on some of my plans</li> <li>See below for details, but this was also kind of an ambitious cooking week, which also kept me busy</li> <li>Thursday TheWife and I med up with another couple and took third in the pub trivia at my local, which was fun</li> <li>Friday I did a little bit of retail therapy (new low-top Chucks!) but less than I had hoped/intended, because I just couldn’t find the things I wanted</li> <li>Saturday I checked out <a href="https://punxwithpurpose.org/punxinthepark">Punx In The Park</a>, which is always a fun event</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p><a href="https://deadsimpletech.com/blog/no-such-thing-as-just-a-tool">“There’s no such thing as Just a Tool”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>But well… if you’re going to be using a tool like that, it’s incumbent on you to know what you’re doing and be very careful about it. You need to be aware that extended use will change how you see the world and put protections in place to mitigate that (it’s an interesting observation, by-the-by, that regular militaries tend to put quite a bit of effort into that kind of mitigation when it comes to firearms, while police forces often don’t). You generally want to make that kind of compromise as infrequently as possible, and you only want to make them when the problem that you’re facing is drastically bad enough that making that manner of compromise makes sense.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://signalandsilence.substack.com/p/i-think-someone-hacked-the-commissary">“I Think The Military Commissary’s Freezers Were Hacked”</a> is a <em>very</em> interesting read; no pull-quotes but give it look</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://joeyh.name/blog/entry/Debian_and_the_sirens/">“Debian and the sirens”</a> is Joey Hess on Debian’s recent decision to allow LLM-based contributions. Worth reading regardless of how you come down on the issue, IMO (and TIL that Joey does not have a Wikipedia article, which seems …wrong)</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://drewdevault.com/weird-guys/">“Weird little guys of FOSS”</a> — via <a href="https://www.flutterby.com/">Flutterby</a></p> <blockquote> <p>This is a list of weird little guys in the free software movement and adjacent spaces.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p>current unread bookmark count: 182</p> </li> </ul> <h2>listened</h2> <ul> <li>New Spanish Love Songs! <a href="https://purenoise.bandcamp.com/album/future-nausea">“Future Nausea”</a></li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <ul> <li>The Timbers not only managed to eke out a W against the Loons Saturday night, they also broke their hat trick drought! Good match…</li> <li>The video for Sigur Rós’s <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95Jlz0iMPyg">“Fall”</a> starts with just the best example of positive masculinity and support</li> <li>Nice version of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qJIjmW9Uz1M">“Heard That Sound”</a> from MxPx, with some <em>amazing</em> backing horns from Five Iron Frenzy</li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: Ro-tel nachos with leftover grilled chicken (from last week)</li> <li>Tuesday: mesquite-grilled steak tacos with mesquite-grilled tomato/tomatillo salsa</li> <li>Wednesday: chicken pesto pasta with fresh pesto</li> <li>Friday: <a href="https://www.foodandwine.com/recipes/slow-cooker-mexican-pork-and-tomatillo-stew">Asado de Puerco</a></li> </ul> 2026-08-30T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/weeknote-100-20260823-20260829/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>Wow, weeknote 💯. Please clap. Are folks still getting value out of these? Am <em>I</em> still getting value out of these? 🤔</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>With TheWife out in NY helping Mx19 migrate to their dorm for the next year, it was Solo Dad Week here — always a tiring exercise…</li> <li>Really didn’t do much other than keep up with work (actually, managed to catch up, a little, maybe…) and keep me and Ms24 whole (and randomly missed Sammy a whole bunch)</li> <li>Picked TheWife up at the airport Saturday night, which was a nice way to wrap up the week</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p>Still re-reading the older Bobiverse series books, currently on <em>Heaven’s River</em></p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://notoai.org/">NOTOAI.org</a>, by old skööl blogger Jessamyn West</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://brettcodes.com/im-done-using-ai/">“I’m done using AI”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>Upon reflection, I’ve come to believe that quality software is not about how many features something has or how quickly it is built but rather how cared for it is by the designers, developers, and product people who work on it. There’s an ineffable aspect to my favorite pieces of software where I don’t think of it is as feature matrix but rather as an interface made by a human for humans that’s a joy to use. And when you build software with AI, it leads to worse software. Sure, it’s faster to build initially, but I think to the detriment of the quality of the code and the user interface and the user experience.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://jennifers-newsletter-9cb7e2.beehiiv.com/p/all-about-reacher">“All About Reacher”</a></p> <p>Maybe you (like me!) are re-watching <em>Reacher</em> the TV show from scratch before watching the new season 4 that just dropped …and maybe you (like me!) are interested in maybe picking up the books — all 24 of them. If so, this blog post is for you.</p> </li> <li> <p>current unread bookmark count: 185</p> </li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <ul> <li>Watched most of the two Leagues Cup quarterfinal matches on Tuesday; both MLS teams were spanked by their LigaMX opponents</li> <li>As I mentioned above, I also re-watched <em>Reacher</em> seasons 1 through 3, and then the available episodes from season 4</li> <li>Another great cover, Minus The Bear taking on <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hju3F4YGSCw">“Waiting Room”</a></li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: reheated leftover steak from last week — first time trying this approach, and I think it’s my new go-to: 30 minutes at room temp, 30 minutes in a 250°F oven, then about 45 seconds a side in a smoking hot skillet</li> <li>Tuesday: mesquite-grilled tomato-tomatillo salsa; mesquite-grilled marinated chicken thighs, for tacos de pollo (<em>nailed</em> this salsa, I think…)</li> <li>Wednesday: grilled sausages and hot dogs, caprese salad</li> <li>Thursday: grilled shrimp tacos with an <em>amazing</em> avocado/garlic/mayo/Serrano green sauce</li> </ul> 2026-08-23T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/weeknote-99-20260816-20260822/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>Monday was the day we said our goodbyes to Sammy. Luckily I had a fairly meeting-light day, and I was also able to shuffle some things around, so by 11am I was “working” but only on pretty easy things that didn’t require a lot of concentration. Sammy and I migrated out to the porch, and whenever she wanted to walk around the yard, I indulged her. TheWife came out when she could, and we generally all enjoyed a pleasant afternoon in the shade of the porch. Around 4pm, we packed up and went to the vet, where Sammy was euthanized. It was about as nice a process as it could be, and we were able to get Mx19 on the phone so that they were present for it too.</p> <p>And then we came home, and here we are, one family member down, with new holes in several hearts.</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>The rest of the week was a little bit of a blur; it was hard to focus on work, and I kept getting reminders that Sammy wasn’t around anymore, which was sad</li> <li>Friday morning I ran TheWife up to PDX to fly out to NY to help Mx19 move into their fall dorm</li> <li>Last cheesesteak pop-up of the season was Friday evening; it made things a little less bad</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li>Still working on the Bobiverse re-read</li> <li>Unread bookmark count: 212</li> </ul> <h2>watched</h2> <p>I ran across several cool videos this week:</p> <ul> <li>Sigur Rós - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qEw--v19WyI">Andrá</a></li> <li>Rakim &amp; KRS-One - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0er0kCw_bk">No Weak Rap</a> ft. Ice Cube, Black Thought, Mos Def</li> <li>Daisy Dreams – <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxXIJzpfUmo">Paper Planes / Straight To Hell</a> (M.I.A./The Clash Cover) — the bass lines on this one are <em>awesome</em></li> <li>Cursive &amp; Cymbals Eat Guitars - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMIecwPGWc8">Hey Jealousy</a> (Gin Blossoms Cover)</li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: chicken nachos</li> </ul> 2026-08-16T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/weeknote-98-20260809-20260815/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>Obviously, if you’ve read <a href="https://genehack.blog/2026/08/a-quick-note-about-sammy/">“A quick note about Sammy”</a>, you’re already up-to-date on the big event of the week here…</p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>Monday I took a sick day — partially mental health, partially feeling worn down from travel. Had planned to use this as “catch-up” time for work, and ended up sleeping most of the day instead, so I guess I needed the break?</li> <li>Tuesday and Wednesday were both decent work days — Tuesday I had a lighter-than-usual meeting schedule and was able to get caught up on a lot of organization things (not much <em>doing</em>, but a lot of cataloging and accumulating). Wednesday was a more typical 6-8 meeting day, but I also managed to finish that processing, going from 4-5 piles of stuff to do, down to one large pile — which is progress even if it doesn’t sound like it</li> <li>Thursday was the start of the Sammy saga, and that kinda consumed most of the rest of the week, as you can probably imagine</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li> <p><em>Rappaport</em>, the new Murderbot novella</p> </li> <li> <p>There’s a new Bobiverse book out, so I’ve gone back and started re-reading the series. I finished <em>We Are Legion (We Are Bob)</em> and <em>For We Are Many</em> and am currently on <em>All These Worlds</em></p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://goodnameforablog.com/posts/very-average-prototypes/">“Very Average Prototypes”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>LLMs are averaging machines. Every answer they produce, everything they do, fundamentally comes down to the most likely result. Meaning for every tiny creative decision you cede, however small, the decision will be “made” by the LLM and given the most average possible answer.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://www.liberalcurrents.com/the-interracial-cuck-porn-theory-of-everything/">“The Interracial Cuck Porn Theory of Everything”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>What I propose today is perhaps even more important than a physical theory of everything: a theory that can connect and explain the wide array of right-wing psychosexual neuroses. The theory is that right-wing political narratives are significantly influenced by porn—specifically interracial cuck porn—and conversely the narratives of said porn are significantly influenced by right-wing politics. Pornography is the unseen dark matter molding and shaping how the online right speaks and thinks about politics, on anything from immigration to transgender people to higher education. Call it the interracial cuck porn theory of everything.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://www.worseonpurpose.com/p/your-cookware-got-worse-on-purpose">“Your Cookware Got Worse On Purpose”</a></p> <p>This went around a few weeks ago and you probably already read it; I’m sharing it here so I can quote this bit about Made In — we have plates and flatware from them and it is been <em>excellent</em>. Second the recommendation here.</p> <blockquote> <p>One DTC brand deserves the exception flag. Made In never raised the money that ruins these companies. Its documented funding totals <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/aprilhamilton/2019/04/03/with-growth-skyrocketing-made-in-cookware-raises-5-million-seed-round/">about $8.3 million</a>, against roughly $70 million at Caraway and the $100 million Gordon Ramsay’s studio put behind HexClad. The founders still run it. A company that can’t afford to buy its customers has to earn them, so the budget went into the product: family-owned partner factories in France and Italy plus American mills, a win in <a href="https://www.americastestkitchen.com/equipment_reviews/2045-cookware-sets">America’s Test Kitchen’s stainless rankings</a>, and pans in actual restaurants. Its nonstick warranty even admits the coatings are <a href="https://madeincookware.com/pages/warranty">“consumable by nature”</a>, which is perhaps the most honest sentence published by any cookware company this decade. Buy their stainless and carbon steel and treat every nonstick pan from anyone, at any price, as a consumable.</p> </blockquote> <p>Also appreciate the shout-outs to Lodge and Nordic Ware — those recommendations are also seconded here.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://www.theregister.com/ai-and-ml/2026/07/19/using-ai-makes-people-less-likely-to-admit-they-dont-know-something/5274567">“Using AI makes people less likely to admit they don’t know something”</a></p> <p>If you’ve got any LLM superusers in your life, this will probably be the least shocking finding ever, but I’ve saving for posterity.</p> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://davetang.org/muse/2026/07/18/bioinformatics-and-ai/">“Bioinformatics and AI”</a></p> <blockquote> <p>I can’t remember when the realisation hit me that Perl and bioinformatics back in the day is just like AI and bioinformatics right now. I wanted to write about it then but have put it off until now. Once again, we have a tool (AI) that helps us get work done quickly and this time almost effortlessly. You simply describe what you want to get done in a prompt and all the code and documentation (if you also included this) is outputted. You may argue that Perl and AI are two completely different tools, and they are, but to me, the issue is fundamentally the same: you have somebody without the background knowledge trying to create something that requires the background knowledge. Like Perl, you can use AI to speed things up but only if you are that seasoned sys admin.</p> </blockquote> </li> <li> <p><a href="https://lalitm.com/post/git-history/">“The git history command deserves more attention”</a></p> <p>I really need to try to remember that this <code>git history</code> command exists — I feel like every time I want to split a commit, in particular, I have go review docs; this makes it sound like <code>git history split</code> would be hella easier</p> </li> <li> <p>Current unread bookmark count: 210</p> </li> </ul> <h2>listened</h2> <ul> <li>A great <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YvL-CHU_fKU">Bizarre Love Triangle cover</a> by Fukushima Dolphin</li> <li>A collection of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY74n7D4x6w">Joy Division covers</a> by NIN — particularly awesome because a couple of them are more obscure, rarely covered tracks; the “Disorder” cover is especially great</li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>Monday: grilled sausages, caprese salad</li> <li>Tuesday: mesquite-grilled chicken tacos with mesquite roasted tomato-tomatillo salsa</li> <li>Wednesday: grilled burgers and corn</li> <li>Thursday: grilled albacore with chimichurri; I experimented with a soy/fish sauce/green onion/garlic/lime marinade on one filet, and it come out very nice!</li> </ul> <h2>photo</h2> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260809-photo-of-the-week.jpg" alt="One more Sammy picture, just because…" title="One more Sammy picture, just because…" /></p> 2026-08-15T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/a-quick-note-about-sammy/ <p>If you’re a reader of this blog, or if you follow me on social media — hell, pretty much if you interact with me at all, you’ve heard about Sammy. Maybe you’ve seen some pictures of her, maybe in one of the talks I used to give, back when conference speaking was kinda-sorta part of my job.</p> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260815-sammy-1.jpg" alt="Sammy, back in the day" title="Sammy, back in the day" /></p> <p>Sammy joined our family late in our first year in Salem, after the two elderly cats that had been with us for almost 20 years passed away. I was firmly in the “maybe another cat?” camp — and I think TheWife was too — but the kids were adamant that they wanted a dog, so off we went, to the Humane Society, and we found a brave little puppy that had been picked up off a busy commercial street in Salem (Lancaster, IYKYK…), and she ended up coming home with us.</p> <p>Now, the kids went to school during the day, and TheWife went into her office, but I worked from home — so, while I might say, “the family got a dog”, really, <em>I</em> got a dog. She’s been a pretty constant companion for almost 14 years at this point, and on the odd occasion when I’m working in my office without her, it just feels …empty. I was thinking, recently, that she’s really my oldest Salem-specific friend — the first new person I met here, and really got to know.</p> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260815-sammy-2.jpg" alt="Sammy displaying her &quot;resting stoned face&quot;" title="Sammy displaying &quot;resting stoned face&quot;" /></p> <p>Sammy has always been an interesting character — laid back when it’s just the family, fiercely protective whenever she hears a knock or a ringing doorbell, barking her head off <em>and</em> wagging her tail vigorously whenever somebody comes by the house. She was pretty reactive to most other dogs — probably an artifact of her early life on the streets — and we never managed to get her trained to the point where we could take her out with us in public, unfortunately.</p> <p>Recently, over the last couple months, Sammy has been showing her age. She’s had periods where she refuses to eat — deeply concerning because she’s always been extremely food-oriented and motivated, willing to eat <em>anything</em>. She’s had various GI-related difficulties, vomiting, loose stools, that sort of thing. We’ve worked through a couple of those periods, adjusting her food, adding probiotics, wetting her kibble, and those changes have gotten her back eating. Earlier this week, however, she started leaving her bowl full again. After a couple days of that, we got an urgent care appointment at the vet on Thursday, and ended up getting an x-ray, just to rule out any sort of blockage or obstruction. The x-ray came back clear, but the vet had also taken a peek with an ultrasound wand while Sammy was sedated for the x-ray, and he reported that her gall bladder looked like it might be inflamed. We ended up getting blood work done, primarily to look at her bilirubin levels and see if they were off.</p> <p>We got the blood work results back yesterday. Friends, they were not good — her bilirubin levels were okay, but her kidney-related numbers were very much not — her kidneys have basically shut down. She’s had some kidney issues in the past, but a few months ago these numbers were much closer to normal — whatever is wrong, has intensified rapidly. We discussed some treatment options with the vet — hospitalizing her for a few days so they could push a lot of fluids, that sort of thing — and in the end decided that we were just going to take her home instead. The vet said pretty clearly that the hospitalization was not likely to make any real difference, and instead of having her away from family and home, we’re going to make her as comfortable as possible for as long as possible — some appetite stimulants and anti-nausea meds to hopefully help motivate her to eat, and to keep the food down when she does eat it. The vet assured us she’s not in any <em>pain</em>, just feeling crummy and uncomfortable, and overall <em>old</em></p> <p>So, we brought her home. We’re doing what we can, and we’re waiting. Obviously, if things take a turn, we’ll help Sammy along, but for the moment, we’re giving her lots of pets and walks, letting her tell us what she needs. I suspect she’s going to decide it’s time to move on pretty soon, and then I’m going to have a Sammy-shaped hole in my life, and I’m not sure how I’m going to deal with that. Hug your loved ones, friends, whatever shape they happen to be. Enjoy them while they’re here, and while you’re here with them.</p> <p><img src="https://genehack.blog/images/20260815-sammy-3.jpg" alt="Sammy resting on my lap last night" title="Sammy resting on my lap last night" /></p> 2026-08-09T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/weeknote-97-20260802-20260808/ <p>Flew down to Austin Sunday afternoon, and was there all week for work. Work was work, 'nuff said — some wins, some …let’s say “not-wins”. So it goes.</p> <p>Austin was hotter and more humid than I like. I stayed downtown this time instead of out in the Northern boonies where the office is, and that was a distinct improvement on available evening options. Had some decent food, found <a href="https://www.sanjacsaloon.com/">the place</a> that would be my local if I ever ended up living in Austin, saw quite a few good live bands.</p> <p>Short update this week, just because.</p> 2026-08-02T00:00:00Z https://genehack.blog/2026/08/weeknote-96-20260726-20260801/ <h2>meta</h2> <p>This was a long, dragging week, but I’m also somehow struggling to remember much of anything specific. <em>sigh</em></p> <h2>did</h2> <ul> <li>Sunday I did my semi-annual wooden utensil oiling. It was pretty satisfying</li> <li>Got paged out for work around 0230am Tuesday morning, and ended up being up <em>much</em> longer than necessary for reasons I’m not even going to get into</li> <li>Friday evening we went out to Bryn Mawr Vineyard for the member BBQ, which was great!</li> <li>Saturday we tried a new chop cheese place for lunch — the first time I’ve ever had one, and it was good!</li> </ul> <h2>read</h2> <ul> <li>Finished <em>House of Suns</em>; trying to figure out what to read next…</li> <li>Unread bookmark count up to 239 <em>sob</em></li> </ul> <h2>cooked</h2> <ul> <li>monday: grilled wangs and corn with new knock-off vortex</li> <li>tuesday: thai basil chicken with (some) garden basil and a few garden cherry tomatoes</li> <li>wednesday: chicken penne with pesto using fresh local basil</li> <li>thursday: red rockfish ceviche</li> </ul> <h2>looking forward to</h2> <p>I’ll be in Austin for work for a good chunk of next week, I’m looking forward to seeing some work friends …and I’m not looking forward to the heat.</p>