Twin Cities IndieWeb - BlogFlock

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-03T17:47:47.000Z

Here’s the adoption agency’s glamor shot of our new family member, Ernest Ducky Rhone. We’ve only had him for a couple of days but he’s already settled in. A happy little good boy who loves to play and snuggle. He’s sleeping right up next to me as I type this.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-03T13:52:05.000Z

This Airbnb in St. Augustine has a great vibe. The tiny pool is actually a “cool tub” with a chiller for the hot summers.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-03T13:43:42.000Z

I have the concepts of a plan for today…

First: Coffee and Breakfast.
Next: finish client project.
After: Email triage (Crouching actions, hidden projects).

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-03T12:34:38.000Z

Blogging as a Gift | Jamie Thingelstad

I would encourage bloggers to not think about the individual post. Instead, think about the collection of writing, over weeks and years, as a body of work. It is a body of work that you are constantly adding to. Growing and improving. The individual post is but one breath. It comes and goes. But over the course of time this adds up. It is the cumulative action that creates something truly great.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-03T12:23:17.000Z

I remember 10-year-old me being envious of the cool Pinewood Derby cars my cousins Josh and Jarvis had made in Scouts. “It’s strange the stuff we remember” — indeed.

Blogging as a Gift - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-03T12:05:22.000Z

Engagement is the powerful drug of social platforms. Sometimes it is blatant and in your face, such as a notice that your post is trending. More often it is wrapped as a feature, such as analytics as addiction letting you know how many views, likes, and other such engagement your post receives. This feedback loop is a slot machine: random, addictive, and unpredictable.

Being a blogger removes all of that. As Manton Reece, the creator of micro.blog, recently shared no one cares (for now), and that is okay. This is writing on the web. First off it is almost always harder to write a blog post. This post has structure, sentences and paragraphs, not just a “blurb” spewed into the melee. Actual thoughts strung together with English grammar. The open web lacks engagement devices such as those views, likes, and “re-whatevers”. You may trigger an email. I got one of those this morning from Manu on a post I wrote yesterday. That’s rare. And no one else knows. No one sees that I received a “❤️ 1”.

So why do it? Why write post after post into the void with nobody engaging? Why bother with a more difficult approach?

I’ve been blogging for two decades. It isn’t all that different from journaling, but it is completely open and world readable. I would encourage bloggers to not think about the individual post. Instead, think about the collection of writing, over weeks and years, as a body of work. It is a body of work that you are constantly adding to. Growing and improving. The individual post is but one breath. It comes and goes. But over the course of time this adds up. It is the cumulative action that creates something truly great.

But who is your audience? Who is this for? You. Yourself. Your family. Your friends. Your friend’s friends. Your neighborhood. And they can have it whenever they want. As a gift. A gift from you to them. Not a gift to be measured in engagement, but instead as a body of work. A gift to the web, which is a gift to people.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-03T02:30:24.000Z

The work of the eyes is done. Go now and do the heart– work on the images imprisoned within you.

– Rainer Maria Rilke

On this day for weblog.lol - Eric Walker

2025-04-02T16:21:27.000Z

This is a delayed write up, or should I say I have been testing it for the past couple of weeks before I shared it. First off I want to ~~blame~~ thank Jason for the shove in the right direction on trying to create my own script for weblog.lol instead of just complaining that I have the “On this day” link on my Micro.blog site and it sure would be nice if I had it on my currently mirrored weblog.lol site. He really just gave me the quick answer of “I am sure it is possible” and there I went down the rabbit hole to figure out how to make it possible with my limited technical knowhow as well as well as various GPT’s at my disposal.

If you just want the script click her to go directly to the bottom of this page or feel free to read though the short story.

I will say the first crack I had at this was much easier than I thought as I dug into whatJonathan LaCour did to create Micro Memories for his wife that was specific to Micro.blog.

However, with that as a baseline I was able to tweak his code in some cases and rewrite other parts as the weblog.lol was structured differently on the Archives page that is standard.

My first version worked great but only listed the links to the post, which really could have done the trick but I really liked how the version Jonathan created actually had the full posts show up so after a little more hacking away I was able to figure that out as well as making sure that the title would or wouldn’t show up and where things were placed.

All, in all I was happy enough with the results now and using it that I figured I would share it out and or feel free to take a peek at mine to see how it looks.

So there you have it, now if you have a weblog.lol site and have been wanting a “On this Day” link you can snag this script or link it as described below and have the same.

It is is actually simple because for now you can just create a new page in weblog.lol and put the code snip below in there and save it. This is assuming you are using a standard /archive page as well because it does pull information from that in order to get the on-this-day feature.

<div id="on-this-day">
Loading...
</div>

<script src="https://scripts.brebs.net/on-this-day.js"></script>

</body>

For the full script if something isn’t working or you want to modify it to fit your own need you can find it here.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-02T14:41:29.000Z

Crucial Tracks 008: Annie Mueller

My soundtrack for the day.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-02T13:30:00.000Z

My wife talks about organizing our bookshelves with egg cartons.

Post on Eric Walker - Eric Walker

2025-04-02T04:29:35.000Z

Needed to get this run in before a early morning and day of travel. I didn’t expect this amount of snow coming down, already down and the amount blowing in my face. Other than that it was pretty out in the night with bright white snow.

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-02T00:23:42.000Z

Tammy and I at sunset on Anna Maria Beach. 🥰

Post on Jamie Thingelstad - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-02T00:04:42.000Z

Sunset from Anna Maria Island.

Florence: Davide, Le Chiese e i Dottori - Barry Hess

2025-04-01T21:13:26.000Z

Not much writing tonight as I need to get to sleep.

Ava had class all day, so we were on our own to run around town. The big event was seeing David at La Galleria dell’Accademia di Firenze. We did a guided tour. It was well worth the information and the line-skipping advantage. David, you guys. Seeing the statue in person is beyond words.

The museum also included a small section of musical instruments, including several instruments built by Antonio Stradivari. And the first upright piano.

We had an excellent lunch at Rocordi. We shared a unique crostone ribollata “soup” on bread. Ribollata is a traditional Tuscan vegetable soup, thickened by stale breadcrumbs. In this case, it was thickened to the point that it could be placed on crostini, not runny, and eaten as an appetizer. It was like if you took an inside-out spring roll and made it taste a bit like Thanksgiving stuffing. In other words, great! I didn’t need much more food, but that didn’t mean that my gnocchi di patate al pesto wasn’t coming out. To our surprise, some dolci bites were shared with on the house. Nom nom.

We continued to walk around, visiting Basilica di San Lorenzo, doing some light souvenir shopping, and eventually ending up at Piazza della Santissima Annunziata. There we heard some ghost stories from a local, relating to a bride waiting for her warrior husband to come home from war, how that warrior is represented by Statua equestre di Ferdinando I de' Medici, and how the man in that statue is looking into the very window where his widow had waited for him; a window that has never been shuttered over the past 500 years. A tall tale, but fun! We were also told that the most beautiful church interior in Florence is in the Basilica della Santissima Annunziata. And, well, this free-entry church was quite a surprise. Gilded!

From there we made our way to the east. Our youngest has been fighting a sinus and ear infection for weeks now, and while the pain is nonexistent, she is still having trouble hearing. We figured getting her into a doctor before we head out to the Tuscan countryside for the long weekend made sense, so we found an English-speaking pediatrician (Cesare Cocchi) to visit. It was a pleasant walk to a more residential part of Florence, though perhaps not everyone in the area was interested in our presenece?

“Yankee go home!” wasn’t the only such message in the neighborhood

Park!

Waiting in the doctor’s office

We ended the night with aperitivo and an epic meal. Drinks and snacks were at Giacosa. This bar claims to have invented the negroni, one of my favorite cocktails. The environs were hip (perhaps too hip for our group 😆). We got the negroni tasting sample of three different renditions.

Old fashioned negroni

We ended the night at Il Latini. This restaurant was recommended to us by my friend, Brando, and it did not disappoint. This really felt like our vacation “celebration” meal, and we spent the entire time laughing and thinking about Brando and his father, Bruno. We were seated next to an unused wine window, so we joked with the waiter that we needed to order a full bottle to make sure we had enough supply for the passersby. 🤣 This was our night to try bistecca alla fiorentina, as three of us split it along with a couple of sides. Melt-in-your-mouthy!

It was a good night. It was a good day!

Post on Eric Walker - Eric Walker

2025-04-01T03:40:50.000Z

Well after a very interesting day of trying to work with no official work laptop. I was ready to get this long run in before we head out on vacation. I want sure how this one would feel so late in the day but it was great to get out and chase the sunset.

Project 11:11 — There are ice cream boats? - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-01T02:02:00.000Z

We were hanging out on Anna Maria Beach around 5:30p today and saw a boat coming close to shore playing that unmistakable ice cream truck music. It had two flags in the back and we wondered “Is that an ice cream boat?” It was indeed an ice cream boat. AN ICE CREAM BOAT! How awesome is that.

The boat was a bit down the shore from us but how can you pass up getting ice cream from the very first ice cream boat we’ve ever seen. We made our way over to the boat. As we got closer I saw that not only was this an Ice Cream Boat, but it was also raising money for vets. All of the proceeds from these ice creams were going to support vets. We made a couple donations and got a couple of ice creams, and I asked for more information about this organization.

The organization is Project 11:11 started by Erin Gallivan from Bradenton. They have a bunch of profiles on various sites to check out, as well as a GoFundMe to help raise money.

What a great thing to do to bring smiles to people on the beach and do good for veterans. Way to go! 🇺🇸

Florida Spring Break: Day 3 - Jamie Thingelstad

2025-04-01T02:00:00.000Z

Up early at 7:00 am.
Head to The Donut Experiment to start the day.
Tammy, Mazie, and Tyler go on C Ponies horse riding activity.
Jamie goes to Orange Blossom Coffee to tend to some SPS stuff he needed to do.
Jamie picks up everyone and head back to Airbnb.
Walk around the shoreline of the island to lunch.
Long and relaxing lunch at The Waterfront.
Tammy and Mazie shop. Jamie and Tyler return to Airbnb.
Overcast and cool day, so head to the beach.
Lots of throwing football, sand feet.
Got treats from an Ice Cream Boat!
Cleaned up and went out on bikes to dinner.
Went to The Porch for late dinner.
Ride bikes back to the Airbnb in the dark.

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-04-01T01:13:01.000Z

As I’ve been saying for {checks post date) 12 years now, tomorrow is a perfect day to take a digital sabatical.

Florence: Giornata Libera - Barry Hess

2025-03-31T22:21:46.000Z

Our daughter is back to school, so today we were a mix of “on our own” and meeting up to do some things together. To start, a tasty breakfast and cappucino at Ditta Artigianale (Via della Sprone). Most of us had the American pancakes, but I went with the soft scrambled eggs.

Then we hit a bump in our plans. Today’s weather was the best we’d yet seen on the trip (and the weather has been great so far), so we were very excited to be visiting Giardino di Boboli. We had confirmed that the gardens were open on Mondays, but we did not read the fine print closely. “Closing Days: First and last Monday of each month.” Oops!

So we kept walking south of the city center to Giardino delle Scuderie Reali. These gardens were…fine, but I speculate that they are but a shadow of the Boboli gardens. It was interesting discovering an arts high school on the site, with students milling around in front.

Not the school

We walked past Porta San Fradiano and back toward the city center along Mura di Firenze. (I honestly could not figure out if these walls were hundreds or thousands of years old. Guessing the former.) Our new destination was Giunti Odeon for some book browsing while movie viewing.

Oh, Boboli

Crenellated wall

Alas, Giunti Odeon was also closed, this time for some unplanned book restocking. Bummer! Thankfully Florence has no lack of things to do. 😀 We marched into a chain bookstore (Feltrinelli Librerie) and browsed a bit. Then we headed over to Officina Profumo Farmaceutica di Santa Maria Novella. “Our oldest fragrance; Catherine de' Medici's wedding gift to her future husband, Henry II of Valois. Created in 1533 by Renato Bianco.” The roots of this perfumer actually go back to 1221. That’s a lot of scents! While we spent nothing there this time, I have a feeling this place will cost us some money yet before we leave.

Sidewalk level wine window…for mice?

All the scents

(An aside: did you know about these wine windows? They were created during the black plague to allow for safe wine serving during the contagion. I also think that hundreds of years ago Italians lauded the health benefits of wine, encouraging its heavy consumption during illness and especially pregnancy. I’m not sure if these eras of wine history overlapped. In any case, demand for wine windows diminished over time, and the window service all but disappeared. With the most recent pandemic, windows reopened and they certainly still seem to be going strong based on our observations!)

We then walked Ava back to school and settled in for a little afternoon break. I did some restaurant research to plan a couple of upcoming dinners. Then I went back out to see about some lined leather gloves, as Florence is renowned for its leather work.

The view from our apartment

Jesse and I then met up for an aperitivo. Volume was our destination, and I must say this is a tradition I could get used to quickly! We started with spritzes (rosso sgambari and arancione traperol) and ended with a couple of cocktails (“02.48,” a gin/basil/lime concotion, and “Carlo Monni 25,” a gin/rosemary/lime/fire mix).

One of the kids was feeling pizza, so we met at ‘O Munaciello to give pizza Napoletano a try. Guess what? Really tasty! Everyone picked out a different pie: margherita, scarpaccia, sciosciammocca. Jesse and I shared patate e salame. It ended up not being our favorite topping selection, but anything is amazing on that crust. We finished the night off with gelato (back to Sbrino), and my combo of fior di campo (more on insta) and amarena croccante (black cherry crunch–more on Insta) was the best I’d tried yet!

And that’s that. A rather full day. Aimless walking around means more city photos…

So they extract the hidden garbage crates from beneath the street?!

Post on Patrick Rhone - Patrick Rhone

2025-03-31T20:58:22.000Z

The End of College Life?

Seems that Jason Kottke is having a similar crisis and questionings about [the]current and only gonna get worse crisis for colleges and universities as I am](https://www.patrickrhone.net/the-known-unknowns/).