Sequences — brandur.org

111 — Ladyslipper

2026-06-19T22:01:03-06:00

Bunches of ladyslippers in the Wagner Natural Area near St. Albert/Edmonton. Here we show a few of the hundreds just a few feet off trail. The flowers were nice but they’d better be – thousands of mosquitoes feasted on us as we made the walk. My kill count was in the hundreds and I still took dozens of bites by the end.

110 — Bull Creek Hills

2026-06-18T22:00:54-06:00

A mountain meadow along a hike up into Bull Creek Hills via Marston Creek, in Kananaskis Country, Alberta. Walked this one with my parents’ hiking groups, The Ramblers, and experienced a catastrophic failure of my 25-year-old hiking boots midway through.

109 — Monolith

2026-06-17T21:54:35-06:00

This building is called the “Marie-Elisabeth-Lüders-Haus”, near the Bundestag. I’ve never been inside, but its website says it provides “scientific services”, and houses the parliamentary library and archives. It’s one of my favorite buildings in Berlin – an enormous, imposing monolith towering up and over the Spree. Very Berlin.

108 — Canals

2026-06-17T21:53:10-06:00

Walking Berlin in the spring is one of the best urban experiences on Earth. I got in the habit of doing evening walks down into Kreuzberg and circling around along the Landwehr Canal, taking in sunset and walking the rest of the way back in the early night. This photo is the last rays of the sun near Lohmühlenbrücke, where two canals intersect.

107 — Fountain and Ruinenberg

2026-06-17T21:35:37-06:00

A fountain near Sanssouci and looking out to Ruinenberg.

Taken on a walk through Potsdam, something that’s become somewhat of an annual tradition when I go visit Berlin. Potsdam is a superior version of Versailles (less castle, more greenspace), and both Sanssouci Park and the surrounding town are some of the best places to explore anywhere on Earth.

106 — Vitosha Forest

2026-06-01T12:08:01+02:00

Forest in the Vitosha mountains near Sofia, Bulgaria, where I hiked recently after attending Balkan Ruby.

Poster for Nanoglyph 052, on life after acquisition, the minimum viable unit of saleable software, Balkan Ruby in Sofia, and hiking in the Vitosha mountains.

105 — Zlatnite Mostove

2026-05-31T12:41:38+02:00

Zlatnite Mostove (“The Golden Bridges”) in the Vitosha mountains near Sofia, Bulgaria, where I hiked recently after attending Balkan Ruby. The field of rocks is called a “bridge” because it covers an active river underneath it.

Poster for The Minimum Viable Unit of Saleable Software, on buy vs. build in the LLM age and the pricing zone where small software businesses can still survive.

104 — The Brooklyn Bridge

2026-05-18T20:39:16+02:00

Below the Brooklyn Bridge on a gorgeous day last summer.

Hot take: New York is overrated (especially given the expense). That said, this area around the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side is a staggering visit should the chance come up. From here, make sure to walk southwest through the park, up to the Brooklyn Heights Promenade via the Squibb Park Bridge, and down to Cobble Hill.

Poster for Nanoglyph 051, on being acquired for the second time in a year, and walking the perimeter of Manhattan.

103 — Piaynemo Geosite

2026-03-29T11:01:39-07:00

Piaynemo Geosite and its limestone islets in Raja Ampat. Dozens of karsts poke up above the water (porous rock worn down over millennia by rain and waves), and you’ll find some of the clearest water in the Pacific, beckoning you to jump in and snorkel around for a while. On Piaynemo’s “main” island there’s a dock and a few buildings making up a small park outpost, and attached to a tiny market specializing in coconuts, coconut oil, and instant ramen (?). From there, you can do a short hike up to the lookout where this photo was taken.

Poster for Nanoglyph 050, on the second wave of the API-first economy.

102 — Raja Ampat

2026-02-22T13:22:49-08:00

A marker just off the beach on the tiny island of Yeben in Raja Ampat. With its perfect beaches, crystal clear water, and gorgeous vegetation, Yeben is a prime candidate for paradise on Earth.

Poster for Nanoglyph 049, on the end of Heroku (?), things we could’ve done to stave off its untimely demise, and a brief trip report on diving in Raja Ampat.

101 — Lyon

2026-02-08T13:55:22-08:00

A bank of windows near our hotel in Lyon, France. We did a short team went on-site here last year to get the Snowflake Postgres project jumpstarted. Gorgeous city with incredible viewing opportunities.

Poster for Nanoglyph 048, with mixed thoughts on LLMs, Ambon, and psychedelic frogfish.

100 — First snow

2026-01-19T12:50:11-08:00

The backyard of the Stainless townhouse in Brooklyn on the morning of one of the first snows of the season.

Poster for Nanoglyph 047, on joining Stainless, six months at Snowflake, and Komodo dragons.

099 — Ambon

2025-10-17T06:44:08+09:00

Docking after a dive at Spice Island Divers, a resort in Ambon, Indonesia which muck dives exclusively. The downside of these dives is having to wade through the literal tons of trash Indonesians have thrown into the bay. The upside are the spottings of otherwise rare frogfish, seahorses, and rhinopias. Our grail fish for the week is the “psychedelic frogfish”, one of the most distinctive looking fish there is, and endemic to only this specific bay in Ambon.

Used as the poster for my latest now page update, on Snowflake, Nanoglyph, San Francisco, and River.

098 — Over the hill

2025-10-09T06:45:12+08:00

A look down onto the bay where SCUBA Junkie Komodo is located after climbing the very large hill behind it. The footing around here looks better than it actually is, and as our feet disappeared below the deep grass, it was hard to stop thinking about the pit vipers that we’d been told lived in the “jungle” behind the resort. The air was still, and I was half-blind as half the sunscreen I’d unwisely applied to my face was now swimming in my eyes. We made it, just in time for our descent before the sun set.

Poster for Nanoglyph 046, a short issue on Kubernetes and progress through Indonesia.

097 — Loback Meat Co.

2025-09-28T22:48:37-07:00

Pike Place market in Seattle under a sign for the historic Loback Meat Co., circa 1946-1989. Gone 35 years now, but memorialized by a period neon sign that with luck, will last generations. I expected Pike Place to be busy, but on a beautiful Sunday before we enter the rainy season, it felt like half of downtown was in there. It didn’t surprise me to find cheese, flowers, and fish on sale, but the coin shop and magic shop were unexpected.

Poster for Nanoglyph 045, on a few features from Postgres 18 and a note on upcoming travel to Indonesia.

096 — STRAAT

2025-09-22T07:09:54-07:00

The STRAAT museum in Amsterdam Noord. A giant warehouse of 86k square feet showcasing ~180 of the best pieces of street art and graffiti.

Poster for Nanoglyph 044, on a visit to the STRAAT museum in Amsterdam Noord and thoughts on the iPhone Air.

095 — The Globe

2025-09-21T09:26:42-07:00

The welcome globe at Rails World, surrounded by a crowd just leaving from DHH’s opening keynote. As they’ve done in years past, this was an interactive exhibit where attendees could place a pin at their home location. You can see in this photo that there was a lone attendee from Anchorage.

Poster for Nanoglyph 043, on a visit to Amsterdam for Rails World 2025, CI loops measured in days + why to make sure that CI can run locally, and a visit to the Ruby Embassy at Beurs van Berlage.

094 — Sky blue

2025-04-04T14:01:42-07:00

A random shot of the high towers of the Financial District in downtown San Francisco. Used as the poster image for my latest now update, which touches lightly on journaling, OpenTelemetry, and transaction anomalies.

093 — Eighty-Eight

2024-12-29T16:14:26-07:00

I’ve been hearing about Eighty-Eight for years, but didn’t visit until yesterday. Named for the year ‘88 when Calgary hosted the Olympic winter games, it’s two levels of taprooms with the brewery on site right next door. An 80s vibe pervades the space, complete with tube TVs (bunny ears open wide), boombox, and retro console. The special holiday theme is Home Alone. See the infamous Wet Bandit duo on screen here, but also with themed menu, Kevin McCallister traps visible around the room, and flying fox line soaring above the brewery’s enormous stainless steel vats.

092 — Tori Bar

2024-12-20T12:56:01-07:00

This one was new for me, Tori Bar in Calgary’s Inglewood, a tiny place serving Japanese yakitori off a single grill, the skewers cooked right in front of your eyes. We ended up ordering roughly ³⁄₄ of the menu, I can heartily recommend the tako wasabi (octopus) starter, skin-on-thigh yakitori, pork belly, and shishamo (smelt, a tiny fish served well done).