runtimeterror

Endtroducing...

2026-10-25T03:14:00+00:00

Last night I rode up to Nashville with a friend to catch DJ Shadow on tour to celebrate 30 years since his debut album Endtroducing..↗.. I've been listening to Shadow for probably 20 years; my companion for the evening had never heard his music (even after agreeing to join me).

Wick-It the Instigator

The show opened with a large bearded fellow who called himself Wick-It the Instigator↗ performing some fun hip-hop style mash-ups. He covered a lot of ground, pulling in bits from all sorts of genres and fusing them together. A highlight for me was Notorious B.I.G. x Cake↗.

This was a great set to get the crowd bouncing a bit.

Open Mike Eagle

Wick-It was followed by Open Mike Eagle who welcomed us to the rap show and promised us a "night of 1000 rap songs". He wasn't just rapping over a static track, though - he was also performing as his own deejay, smacking away at a small console to mess with loops and effects and whatnot.

I really enjoyed Eagle's set, and he indeed counted off one thousand rap songs (but I think he may have skipped a few). I spent most of today listening to his Neighborhood Gods Unlimited↗ album.

DJ Shadow

It was eventually time for the main event, and DJ Shadow got right into it with "Best Foot Forward", the short intro track from the album. Throughout his set, a big screen behind his setup (and smaller screens on the left and right sides of the stage) played animations synchronized to the music. Most of the animations included stylized depictions of spinning records; I got the impression that Shadow is like really into vinyl, for some reason.

He was very clearly into the music as well. He stayed very involved in the production work on stage, with loads of skillful scratching, looping, and stacked effects to keep the sound evolving. He played through each track on the album, in order. To someone who'd listened to Endtroducing... dozens of times, the performance was both familiar and all together new. It felt like we were getting to explore each track more thoroughly as he took us on a journey through these soundscapes. It was a super cool way to experience the album.

Between tracks, he told us a bit about how this tour was really the first time he'd been able to perform Endtroducing... live. First, back in 1996, deejays were either mixing tracks for an emcee or just spinning records in a booth at a club. There wasn't much opportunity for him to perform as a solo act. Second, he didn't really know what he was doing when he recorded his first album. He basically just captured the audio straight out of the sampler, without cutting any masters. So once it was recorded, that was it. And by the time that deejays started to perform solo gigs he'd lost track of all the samples he'd used on the album. It was only in the past couple of years that he found his original MPC60↗ sampler and boxes of hundreds of (unlabeled!) floppy disks holding (most of) the samples he'd used for the album. He was finally able to piece together the original sounds to recreate masters and stems for each track so he could perform them live for the first time.

After playing through the album, he returned for an encore with some of his other tracks before closing with "Nobody Speak" (featuring Run The Jewels).

This show was so much fun! I'm really glad I was able to go.

2026 TAC Autocross Event 9

2026-10-19T02:07:00+00:00

It seems like I'm only attending every other autocross event lately. I missed the July event for my partner's birthday, and I missed September as I rested following a big bike ride. I will also miss the first November event, but that's getting ahead of things.

I did manage to make it out for our club's October race. It had been long enough since our August event that I almost didn't want to bother with getting the car ready to race, like maybe I wasn't really into autocross anymore. That was kind of a scary thought. I guess I've been rather busy lately and my energy levels are in a bit of a slump. It was hard to get motivated to go do something this weekend, even something I've enjoyed so much for the last 12 years.

Fortunately those doubts went away as soon as I set out on my first run. But I'm getting ahead of myself again.

We had a bit of a cold front come through Friday afternoon, and that meant Saturday morning started out quite chilly. My tires were also quite cold, so my first run involved a lot of extra sliding around; it was fun, but not exactly quick. I got a bit more grip as the tires started getting heat in them, but a slew of timing tech issues ate up too much time in the morning so we only got three runs before lunch.

After lunch, the pavement was finally up to temperature and we started to get some good grip. We had more delays though so only got an additional three afternoon runs, for a total of six shots at the course.

I wound up putting down a 43.182 second run. I was the only competitor in the Solo Spec Coupe class (so I both won and lost, I guess), but my PAX indexed time ranked me 31 of 103 drivers which I guess is decent. Despite my earlier hesitation I did have a great time racing. And I also enjoyed offering pointers to a few other drivers. And I had a blast taking a newcomer for a ride - sharing the joy of racing is a great way to remember how fun it is!

Oh, and as promised back in August, I dramatically simplified my datalogging setup. I ditched the problematic RaceCapture device and the over-complicated SoloStorm software in favor of the simpler RaceChrono app + RaceBox Mini GPS logger. And I manually triggered my GoPro camera to record the video. Syncing the video and data is a little more tedious than it was with SoloStorm (which handled everything, when it worked), but this setup has already proven to be far more reliable.

Furnace Fest 2026

2026-10-18T14:03:00+00:00

We didn't have a great time at our last metal music festival just a few weeks ago, and were hoping we'd have a better time at the more local festival that we've attended the past few years. So we returned to Sloss Furnaces↗ in nearby Birmingham, Alabama for Furnace Fest↗.

The festival had a kind of rocky start thanks to some weather but we did wind up seeing some great bands and having a fantastic time.

Saturday

We woke up Saturday after the storm rolled through to find that the day's set times were up in the air. There had apparently been since-deleted posts made on Facebook and Instagram late Friday night with news that the festival opening would be postponed until 2:30PM (from 11 AM originally)... but nothing official or that could be accessed without logging in to a Meta property.

They finally posted the updated schedule on the festival's website later in the morning which confirmed the delay. The festival organizers had no trouble sending near-daily emails in the lead-up to the festival but apparently forgot how to do that when it came to alerting attendees about important changes to the schedule. It was pretty frustrating to have to actively check social networks I don't use in order to know what was happening.

Anyhoo, with the delay, they also had to shuffle around and compress a lot of the set times to ensure all the available bands would be able to perform. Some of the earlier bands got set up with indoor performance as a nearby venue. Some bands (notably Koyo) weren't able to make it due to travel problems.

We got to the site shortly after parking opened and were within the first 200 or so people to get in once they finally opened the VIP gate (after waiting in the light misting rain for about an hour).

Emery

The revised schedule meant that Emery would be opening the festival on the main stage at 3PM, and only playing a 20 minute set. We got there with just a few minutes to spare. We pushed toward the front of the small crowd starting to gather at the barricade and got ready to rock.

Their brief set wasn't the most powerful performance we'd ever seen from the guys, but it was a ton of fun despite the brevity and the rain.

Blxck Sheep

I left my partner near the barricade and wandered over to the Pond stage to check out local band Blxck Sheep. Their set wasn't super polished but was really enjoyable. They were clearly excited to play a festival like this.

At one point, the main vocalist brought his mom on stage to scream with him. It was neat!

Hatebreed

I headed back to the main stage to rejoin my partner as Hatebreed was starting their set. The crowd had grown significantly in the half-hour I'd been away, and though I pressed toward the front I wasn't quite able to rejoin her.

But hey, it was a high-energy bit of thrashing!

Hail The Sun

Hail The Sun came up next and I pushed my way further to the front... and wound up exactly where the pit opened up. As elder emos, we usually hang back a bit to avoid that. I managed to avoid getting knocked down, and was able to help a few fallen moshers back to their feet.

Crowd surfing started up in earnest as the rain stopped for a bit; I must have passed at least twenty bodies over my head during the set. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot more interaction than I usually prefer at a concert.

Oh, and the music was pretty good, too. I do really enjoy HTS's prog-ish metalcore.

We Came As Romans

I had really hoped to rejoin my partner for the We Came As Romans set but the crowd just didn't want to cooperate. By this point there was such a dense mass of bodies pressed together in front of the stage that there really wasn't room to move any further forward.

The band kicked things off and played a really great set, hitting a solid mix of old and new stuff. At some point, I looked behind me and realized just how massive the crowd had grown. It was by far the largest audience we'd ever seen WCAR play for and very cool to see.

After their set, the rain picked back up and the temperature dropped a bit. We wanted to stick around for Underoath and ADTR but my partner was shivering so we opted for an early departure. WCAR was definitely the highlight of the day for us.

Sunday

Sunday brought much better weather: clear skies, temperatures in the low 70s, and a gentle breeze.

Valley of Doves

I started the day back at the Pond stage to check out Valley of Doves, another local-to-Birmingham post-hardcore band.

Synestia

I then moved into the Shed to catch symphonic deathcore band Synestia. Their set started with a recording of Pippin's song from The Return of the King, which was kind of neat.

Chelsea Grin

We popped over to the main stage for Chelsea Grin.

The Dark.FM

And back to the Pond for The Dark.FM.

Suicide Silence

We caught Suicide Silence on the main stage.

Norma Jean

And Norma Jean played the big stage as well. I'm pretty sure that this band (if not all its members) has performed at every Furnace Fest since 2002.

Emmure

I headed to the Shed to catch Emmure, but the place was packed by the time I got there. I still really enjoyed the music, I just couldn't see much of what was happening on stage. They played a really gnarly set.

Bleeding Through

Bleeding Through set up on the Shed stage next and they put on a really great show. There was so much stage-diving happening!

Slaughter To Prevail

We returned to the main stage for Slaughter To Prevail's set, and this was the unexpected delight of Sunday for us.

Neither of us had really listened to much of their music (at least not intentionally) so didn't know what to expect. And when they all took the stage wearing demon masks and dark track suits (minus the vocalist (who I later learned goes by "Alex Terrible"), who only had on track pants) we were further unsure. But then they started performing and it was all kinds of awesome. Tons of heavy energy, and Alex's unclean vocals were incredible.

At one point before a building breakdown they all held a finger in front of their mouths to shush the crowd. When the breakdown hit, Alex went into a scream... while holding the microphone at his waist. Dude managed to project an un-amplified metal scream so that it could still be heard by the crowd of 20,000 people. It was insane.

I've now been listening to the band's music off and on for the past week. I'm a fan.

Motionless In White

Motionless In White took the main stage next. We always love getting to see this band, and Chris Motionless and crew didn't disappoint. They played a great set including some tracks from their 2010 debut, Creatures as well as plenty of newer stuff. Some of my favorite tracks were missing from the set (I can't remember the last time we saw them and they didn't play Voices), but it was still a really solid set. Plus we'll get to see their headline tour in a few weeks!

We had planned to stick around for at least some of Bring Me The Horizon's set to close out the festival, but we couldn't find a spot that wasn't covered up by obnoxious (and intoxicated) fans... Bring Me does seem to attract A Type. Plus we remembered being rather underwhelmed the last time we saw them so we bailed early (again).

The Festival, as a whole

Ownership of the festival changed hands since last year, where it was transferred from a team including the original founders to Peachtree Entertainment, a huge company with a ton of experience putting on primarily country music festivals. There were a lot of questions about how this new era of Furnace Fest would go, and, honestly, we probably wouldn't have bought tickets at all if WCAR and Motionless weren't in the lineup.

The early experience with attendees not being notified about important schedule changes didn't get things off to a great start. We were also disappointed by the VIP amenities, which were significantly lacking compared to previous years, and by the changes to the merch setup which did away with band-managed merch tables in favor of a giant consolidated festival merch booth.

Once we got past those changes, though, we were really impressed by how smoothly the festival itself ran. Every set on every stage started right on time, while in past years the schedule always slipped throughout the day. And none of the stages had the technical sound problems which have haunted the festival in the past. Every stage sounded great, and we got to enjoy a lot of great music. The main stage did have barricades (something notably missing in past years) but the smaller Pond and Shed stages were still as welcoming to stage divers as they've ever been.

Attendance was definitely up from past years, too. I saw some discussion of 25,000 tickets being sold, which is huge. I feel like there were half that many people in previous years (which was still a good crowd!). The area for the main stage was a lot bigger, and took up basically that whole portion of the property (which had previously been split with parking). I mean this still wasn't anywhere as big as the crowd at Louder Than Life, but it was still a properly big festival. I spoke to folks who had come from Canada for this. It's nuts.

So while some of Furnace Fest's hardcore soul did seem to be missing, it was still a well-run and enjoyable festival. I hope that they'll improve communication for next year but we'll definitely plan to return. It's hard to say "no" to a weekend full of heavy music, particularly when it's less than two hours away.

My second metric century

2026-09-28T01:32:00+00:00

On Saturday I set out with a friend to tackle the Spring City Cycling Club's annual All-You-Can-Eat Century↗. Like last year we opted for the 60(ish) mile / 100(ish) kilometer "Metric Century" route. Unlike last year, I had a proper road bike for the ride.

My friend and I had done a lot more training over this summer to get ready for the ride, and that (plus the right equipment) really paid off. We finished about 40 minutes after than last year, and held a 2.5 mph higher average speed across the entire distance.

We also felt a lot better at the end than we did last year. The big hill wasn't as big of a challenge as I'd remembered it being, we didn't get passed by nearly as many groups, and we got to the finish with plenty of time to enjoy the promised all-you-can-eat barbecue.

Oh and while on course I rolled past 1500 miles on the new bike!

I'm thinking we will try for the full (imperial) century next year.

Well, Louder Than Life kind of sucked (for us)

2026-09-25T02:46:00+00:00

We hadn't initially planned on it, but when the lineup for Louder Than Life↗ dropped back in February, I knew that my partner (C) and I needed to go. There were just so many bands we love playing that we really didn't have a choice.

I mean, seriously:

Gojira
A Day To Remember
The Prodigy
Babymetal
Rise Against
Ice Nine Kills
Taking Back Sunday
Dance Gavin Dance
Nothing More
Lindsey Stirling
Dethklok
Underoath
Starset
Thrice
Bowling For Soup
Thursday
We The Kings
Fit For A King
GWAR
Atreyu
Lit
Blue Medusa
Erra
After The Burial
Currents
Alient Ant Farm
Scene Queen
Haste The Day
Hail The Sun
Mac Sabbath
Alexisonfire
Emery
Born Of Osiris
Icon For Hire
Dark Divine
Future Palace
Set For Tomorrow
and like a million other bands

How could we miss that? So, anyway, I immediately bought tickets↗, splurging on a hotel package with VIP passes and prepaid festival parking in a reserved lot to ensure things went as smoothly as possible.

Spoiler: that didn't quite work out.

Day Zero (Wednesday)

We drove up to Louisville, KY on Wednesday and settled in to our downtown hotel room. Traffic was a little dumb but we managed the drive in about five hours without any incidents or drama. We settled in to the hotel and turned in at a reasonable hour to rest up for the anticipated four full days of loud music.

Day One (Thursday)

We got up Thursday morning and drove the ~15 minutes to the festival lot and were immediately directed into a spot and then loaded into a golf cart for the short ride over to the festival proper. (I knew the lot was about a half mile from the festival entrance and had assumed we'd just be walking there; the golf cart shuttle was a really nice surprise!) Once there, it took maybe ten minutes of waiting in line before we got through security and scanned our wristbands on the way in to the festival itself. Off to a pretty good start!

This was a pretty large festival. There were seven stages spread throughout the site. It could be a bit of a trek to get from one end to the other, but you could realistically traverse between any two stages in less than ten minutes. There were also a bunch of food, drink, and merch stands as well as portable restrooms spread between the stages. Additional merch areas were inside the buildings at the Kentucky Expo Center, which offered a great air conditioned way to beat the heat in between sets. Our VIP passes also bought access to further shaded areas (and air conditioned restrooms!) to help us try to keep cool, an ongoing challenge with a heat index around 104°F (40°C).

Anyhoo, we kicked things off with Set For Tomorrow playing inside of a tent with surprisingly decent airflow thanks to big ass fans. This was our second time seeing this band live, after seeing them open for Dark Divine back in March.

After that set wrapped, we went over to the VIP area to watch some of the bigger stages from shaded comfort. Mac Sabbath played a number of Black Sabbath-inspired songs about fast food while dressed as fast food mascots, and their vocalist (clad in yellow and red like a certain fast food clown) maintained a pretty solid Ozzy-like delivery throughout. He even bit the head off of a (rubber) bat!

We also got to see another heavily-costumed band: GWAR. I knew of these guys but didn't really know what I was in for. All the members wore elaborate masks, prosthetics, and costumes to make them look like disgusting alien monster characters, and they all suffered various wounds during the performance, causing them to spray gallons of red, blue, and green "blood" all over the crowd. Their music was pretty forgettable but I was amused by the stage show. And it was fun to see people dyed red and blue later in the day.

One of the bands we were most looking forward to was Dark Divine, and they played a killer (if all too short) set. I swear they get better every time we see them, and they were pretty awesome the first time. Their performances are just always so much fun.

Bowling For Soup played fan favorites like "Teenage Dirtbag" and "Stacey's Mom" (and some of their own music, too).

I always love seeing After The Burial, but my neck always feels sore afterwards for some reason.

I've wanted to catch a Starset show for 10 years or so, and I'm glad to have finally done so. They played some great tunes and put on a very cool performance as well. I was pleasantly surprised by the violinist and cellist playing on-stage the whole time!

Also, they had neat fire.

We wanted to stick around for Currents and Fit For A King but we're old and it was wicked hot on Thursday so we turned in early to get ready for the following day.

Day Two (Friday)

That, uh, didn't work out.

This is where it gets kind of gross.

The short version is that my partner had a medical emergency which caused us to spend the remainder of the weekend in the hospital. We're going to talk a bit about blood and stuff which might be somewhat traumatic. I won't be offended at all if you just stop reading here.

C got up Friday morning to go to the bathroom and returned to report she'd had "some" blood in her stool. She had a colonoscopy the previous week and they'd removed and cauterized a few polyps, so we assumed one of those spots had started seeping. And then she pooped again and it was basically just blood. And then again.

I declared that I was taking her to the ER (against her protests) because bleeding out your butt is decidedly not okay. Fortunately there was a hospital about four blocks down from the hotel so it was pretty easy to get to.

We only had to sit in the ER waiting area for about thirty minutes before they called her back, and the nurses and other staff were all really helpful and friendly. They checked all her vitals and drew some blood to check that too, and gave her some fluids since she was a little dehydrated after spending the previous day out in the obscene heat. Her blood pressure and hemoglobin numbers were both fine so they weren't overly concerned, but did perform a CT to confirm that they didn't see signs of further active bleeding.

We were released after about six hours and advised to take it easy that evening but that we should be fine to return to the festival on Saturday. We had an early dinner, lounged about the hotel for a bit, and went to bed kind of early.

Day Three (Saturday)

But we didn't make it back to the festival on Saturday, either. Instead, C continued to have bloody bowel movements early Saturday morning. The last one was accompanied by a loud thunk from the hotel bathroom.

I trotted over to check on her, and heard her faintly groan my name as I approached the bathroom door. I opened it to find her sprawled on the hard floor atop a growing puddle of blood. She was moaning a bit but not responsive. Her skin was pale and she was kind of sputtering a bit while taking fast shallow breaths. Her pulse was rapid and weak.

It was pretty damn scary for those of us who were conscious. I managed to roll her onto her side, made sure her airway was clear, and told her I was calling an ambulance. I knew she was in really bad shape when she didn't object to that.

She came to while I was on the phone with the 911 dispatcher and even managed to call out the hotel room number that I was struggling to remember. The puddle beneath her slowly grew into a pool that reached from her knees to above her head but she also become more alert and responsive while we waited for help to arrive.

It seemed like ages but was probably only 6-7 minutes before the EMS team arrived and made their way up to our hotel room. The medics seemed a bit surprised by the amount of blood on the floor. They hooked C up to a portable monitor to check her vitals and found that her blood pressure was very low (particularly for her). And then they lifted her onto the gurney to roll her down to the ambulance waiting on the street. I grabbed some extra clothes and such on the way out the door and followed them down.

Once in the back of the ambulance they started a saline IV and we got on the way. The ride to the hospital wasn't long (again, just a few blocks). Upon arrival, they wheeled her straight into the emergency department while I was directed to the same waiting area we'd sat in the previous day.

A nurse called me back to join C a few minutes later. By that point they'd added another IV in her other arm with something to help promote clotting, and she began looking a little less pale. She was alert and coherent as she talked to the nurses but it was clear she was still in a bad way. Her blood numbers (both pressure and hemoglobin count, I guess, idk I'm not a doctor) were still really low so they also added a bag of blood to the mix.

After about an hour she seemed to be doing a lot better thanks to the blood and drugs and fluids (and my comforting presence, obvs). The nurses wheeled her off to get another CT scan, and I called the hotel to let them know that our bathroom looked like a murder scene and see if they could maybe clean it up a bit (pretty please). The woman I talked to was really understanding and said they'd take care of it.

C returned from the CT and the doc reported that the scan still didn't show an active GI bleed, but clearly the blood was coming from somewhere (even if she wasn't actively bleeding at that point in time). After a brief consult they decided to schedule another colonoscopy for the following morning so they could identify the source of the trouble and (hopefully) resolve it for real this time.

Let me tell you, C was not thrilled by the prospect of having to prep for another colonoscopy so soon after the last one.

The nurses eventually got C moved out of the emergency department and into a private room for her overnight stay. After she got settled in, I wandered around the hospital for a bit until I managed to find an exit that didn't lead to the parking deck (where I'd driven us on Friday) or the ambulance bay (where we'd come in that morning). I then walked the four blocks back to the hotel so I could shower, change clothes, grab a quick dinner, and drive back to the hospital to spend the night in a recliner helping her stumble between the bed and the bathroom.

Day Four (Sunday)

Neither of us got much sleep Saturday night. The colonoscopy prep was a part of it, but the nurse also came in every hour to recheck C's vitals and every 3 to draw more blood to monitor her hemoglobin numbers. So Sunday came very early for us.

Of course, being the weekend they weren't able to schedule the procedure extra early like they normally would during the week. We just sat around trying to grab tiny naps until they finally came to retrieve her at about 11:30 AM, at which point I slipped down to the hospital cafeteria to grab a quick bite. C returned to the room at about 1PM. She'd been told that the scope procedure "went well" but we didn't yet know if that indicated they had successfully found and stopped the source of the repeated GI bleed.

We had to wait another couple of hours before the doctor came by with the post-operation report. They had identified and stopped the bleeds by applying clips to the previously-cauterized spots where the polyps had been removed. Apparently it's not uncommon for cauterized cuts to bleed again a week or so after surgery, while clips are somewhat less prone to such complications.

After some quick convincing, the doc agreed that C was doing well enough to be discharged rather than requiring her to spend another night. So we hastily gathered up our stuff and made our escape back to the hotel before they changed their mind.

We went to bed early and slept quite soundly.

Coda

We got up and checked out of the hotel Monday morning, as originally scheduled, glad to head back home and for C to be on the mend. Her stomach was pretty wrecked from all the diarrhea followed by not eating followed by colonoscopy prep, so she had to ease back into eating again. She's finally feeling like herself again, which is such a huge relief.

Finding her bleeding on the bathroom floor was one of the scariest things I've ever faced. I'm so grateful that she's okay.

We really enjoyed the one day of the festival that we got to attend, and wish we'd been able to see more of the bands we'd wanted to. Fortunately we do have another, smaller, closer festival↗ lined up in a few more weeks. Hopefully that weekend will be a little less eventful.

Double the mesh

2026-09-06T02:14:00+00:00

I've spent the past year and a half or so tinkering with Meshtastic↗, an off-grid decentralized mesh network which operates on inexpensive LoRa¹ radios. I started with the LILYGO T-Deck Plus↗; I was impressed by the Meshtastic capabilities but rather underwhelmed by the initially-compelling promise of a true standalone device. I then picked up a Seeed Studio T1000-E tracker↗, a rugged card-sized radio that's perfect for my everyday carry needs. I also added a RAKwireless RAK4631↗ with a big fuck-off antenna↗² as a base station mounted up in my attic.

It's been neat to connect with a bunch of folks on our local mesh, and I've even met some interesting meshers while traveling as well. But I recently decided I wanted to check out a newer mesh protocol called MeshCore↗. MeshCore is similar to Meshtastic in that it also runs a mesh on cheap LoRa radios, but the implementation is pretty different³. Meshtastic messages traverse the network because every node (by default) rebroadcasts every message it receives (up to a limit: default of 3, maximum of 7). This makes it really easy to grow the mesh, but also adds a lot of overhead broadcast traffic which can make it harder to send new messages in a saturated area. MeshCore imposes more rigid roles where only designated infrastructure nodes will retransmit message. This can result in a much more efficient network and the potential to cover larger distances due to much higher hop limits (64 versus 7)... but that can't happen until an area is sufficiently blanketed by infrastructure nodes doing that repeating.

Anyway, I wanted to give it a shot and see how it worked in my neck of the woods. I started by using the handy-dandy web flasher↗ to load the Ripple GUI↗ on my T-Deck Plus and was immediately impressed by what a more polished experience it offers when compared to the more basic Meshtastic UI. The Ripple GUI really focuses on the standalone experience⁴ and it ensures that all the radio capabilities are easily accessed through the GUI (and not buried under hidden keyboard shortcuts).

I didn't pick up any other nodes that first evening at home. I carried the radio with me to work the next day and was pretty excited to discover a couple⁵ of repeaters. I even found one kind of near my house. That seemed promising, so I decided to go all-in and convert both my everday carry T1000-E and the RAK in my attic over to MeshCore as well. I selected the typical Bluetooth Companion firmware for the tracker and the Repeater firmware for the attic node⁶, hoping that maybe I can be a part of the change I want to see.

With multiple nodes running MeshCore I was able to experiment a bit more with the network's capabilities. Messages between my client nodes were delivered very quickly, and I could reliably ping my attic node from a mile or so away - as long as I stayed in my little valley rather than venturing to the other side of a crest. Remotely managing that infrastructure node over the MeshCore network works very well, too.

Of course, after several days I came to accept that MeshCore is quite a bit lonelier than Meshtastic in my area. The repeater in my attic is able to see regular advertisements from another repeater I estimate to be about a mile away, and I've seen a few discovery adverts come through from other client nodes but two-way comms seem somewhat unreliable so far. I think MeshCore has a lot of promise, and I like using it more than Meshtastic, but the infrastructure just isn't here to support it. Yet.

Still, I like MeshCore enough that I'm not going to give up on it; maybe the fixed repeater in my attic can help to grow the network as others (hopefully) come online. Until then, I wanted to get back onto Meshtastic so I could keep in touch with the existing local community for now. I was thrilled to discover that my local nerd store↗ recently began stocking a small selection of LoRa radios↗. This is knowledge I should not have⁷. I stopped by after work and picked up another T1000-E tracker card for everyday carry and a ~$15 Seeed Studio XIAO nRF52840 & Wio-SX1262 Kit to use as an additional attic node⁸.

I hope that MeshCore adoption here grows in the not-too-distant future, but until then I can keep nodes in both networks.

For "Long Range", typically 2-8 miles depending on line of sight and obstructions. ↩︎
I later realized that the giant antenna doesn't actually do me a ton of good since my house sits in a bit of a valley. I can't really overcome the line-of-sight limitations of the ~915 MHz LoRa radio band just by increasing the gain. If a signal is blocked by a mountain/tree/building, it's blocked, and that's all there is to it. Ah well, it LOOKS really impressive at least. ↩︎
This post↗ does a good job of comparing the two networks. ↩︎
A good decision since this particular firmware variant only supports the standalone device type. There's no option to connect a phone to use it as a companion node. ↩︎
Literally: two. ↩︎
With Meshtastic, you don't really want to set just any node as a router/repeater role since that can have an adverse impact on the network's health. That's not really a concern with MeshCore which should make it easier to set up infrastructure. ↩︎
Now that I know I can pick up cheap mesh radios locally I'm going to really struggle with the urge to start building and distributing solar nodes↗ to help improve the coverage. ↩︎
Even with the tiny antenna that comes with the XIAO kit, the extra elevation does help. ↩︎

2026 TAC Autocross Event 7

2026-08-11T02:09:00+00:00

It seems like ages since my last race way back in June. Our club's July event happened to fall on my partner's birthday and I decided to spend the day with her instead of ~~in the hot July sun~~ playing racecars. But it's August now¹, and our club hosted our seventh event of the 2026 season on Saturday.

We took on a challenging course which made full use of the stadium parking lot's workable surface (and really pushed the wireless timing system to its line-of-sight limits).

I struggled to put down a good time - but my SSC competitor also struggled with putting in a clean lap. When we broke for lunch, I was leading the class with a 47.285 compared to his 45.529+1.

When we returned for the afternoon session, he jumped in front with a 47.130, and then I regained the lead by putting down a 47.015. It was pretty exciting!

Of course, he then managed to drop almost a full second and got down to 46.323. I only shaved a few thousandths and ended with a time of 47.006 on my fifth run.

I totally would have beaten him on my sixth run but we had to end the event early due to lightning from an incoming storm system. Maybe next time!

Oh, and while I struggled with the course all day, I also struggled with my datalogging setup as well. My RaceCapture device has become pretty unreliable and its Bluetooth² connection kept dropping in the middle of a run. So no pretty gauges on the video this time. I'll switch to a simpler setup going forward.

Um, yikes. ↩︎
The worst tooth. ↩︎

2026 TAC Autocross Event 5

2026-06-21T00:00:00+00:00

After a short break, I returned to the ~~race track~~ parking lot yesterday for another exciting round of local autocross competition. The forecast had once again called for thunderstorms all weekend, but the weather took pity on us. We had just some light sprinkles during setup and the first set of runs but that quickly cleared up, and we then had scattered clouds and a nice breeze the rest of the day. It was hot, but not uncomfortably (or dangerously) so; June autocross weather could be a lot worse than what we got.

The course was our fairly standard layout with a few tweaks to make it a bit of a challenge. There were several areas when you really had to give up speed in order to set up for the corner exit (and entry into the next feature), and you were punished with severe understeer push if you didn't heed that. It was a really fun course to drive, and I had a blast!

My best time was 41.493, putting me "just" 0.7 seconds behind the SSC class leader; that's an eternity in autocross, but I usually trail him by more than a full second so this loss still felt like an accomplishment. I finished 28th of 112 in PAX (the SSC winner finished 16th).

We've got another full month before the next race.

Yellowcard: Up Up Down Down Tour

2026-06-11T21:56:00+00:00

Back in November, my partner and I got to see Yellowcard open for A Day To Remember on their Maximum Fun Tour↗. We were somewhat disappointed by ADTR's performance (and their over-reliance on those giant distracting video screens that I've been complaining about lately) - but rather blown away by Yellowcard's set.

So we jumped at the opportunity to see Yellowcard on their own headline tour, this time accompanied by New Found Glory. I've listened to both band's latest releases (Yellowcard: Better Days↗, New Found Glory: Listen Up!↗) a lot lately, and I was really looking forward to this show.

The date finally came on Monday, and we drove up to Nashville's Ascend Ampitheater↗, hoping that the looming bad weather would clear off and we wouldn't get wet. It did! And we didn't!

And the show was really great!

Plain White T's

Plain White T's got things started. I honestly hadn't thought about this band at all in twenty years. They did fine, but definitely not anywhere near the energy levels we typically see at shows. Their performance brought big "middle-aged dads decided to start a band, again" vibes - which I guess is fair given that several of the members are likely middle-aged dads at this point.

Still, I enjoyed hearing Hate (I Really Don't Like You)↗ and that other song↗.

New Found Glory

The tempo picked up quite a bit when New Found Glory took the stage. They sounded great and were full of energy, and it was cool to see Chad¹ join the band on stage for a few songs.

NFG played a bunch of old favorites (including Understatement↗ and Hit or Miss↗) and new favorites (like Laugh It Off↗ and Beer and Blood Stains↗) before closing with My Friends Over You↗.

Yellowcard

Yellowcard's set was similar to the last time we saw them in a lot of ways. The theme leaned heavily into 80s nostalgia, with clips from movies and TV shows playing on a (relatively) small display on the sage throughout the performance. It could have been distracting but it somehow wasn't; it really complemented their music and presentation rather than drawing away from it.

And their music was incredible! They sounded so good, and delivered every note with passion and energy.

They played a well-balanced set with old classics as well as plenty of new stuff. Highlights for me included Better Days↗, Way Away↗, Love Letters Lost↗, Lights and Sounds↗, and Bedroom Posters↗.

They ended the night of fantastic live music with Ocean Avenue↗.

Yellowcard's live performance definitely ranks among the best that I've seen lately. I heartily recommend catching one of their shows if you get the chance.

Founding member and long-time guitarist Chad Gilbert has been fighting cancer for several years. ↩︎

2026 TAC Autocross Event 4

2026-06-07T21:05:00+00:00

Our local car club returned to the track¹ yesterday for our fourth² autocross of the year. The weather was quite warm, though a steady breeze and some welcome cloud cover in the afternoon kept it from being terribly uncomfortable. We had a number of new faces joining us, either first-time autocrossers or experiences racers visiting from other regions.

We got to race on a tight and twisty course that wound up flowing a lot better than I'd anticipated based on my morning course walks.

It was a fun course to drive, and I really wish we'd gotten more than six runs. I managed to get down to a 40.903s on my last run. I was pleased with that since I'd been struggling to get out of the 41s all day, but it still wasn't a super competitive time.

(Also, my datalogger acted up so here's the raw video with no pretty overlays.)

I finished 2nd (of 2) in the Solo Spec Coupe class (down by 1.6 seconds - an eternity), and 33rd of 115 in PAX. (The SSC winner finished 7th PAX. Dude is quick.)

Parking lot of an athletic stadium. ↩︎
Last month's two day event only counts as one. ↩︎