Steve Kemsley @stevekemsley@a2mi.social

Brown out. No heat! 🥶

The Arbor/Ypsi Reskilling (Skill Share) meetup group is going to get deleted in 2 days and is up for grabs for someone to take it over (and start paying for it). I’ve never been to one of the meetups.

I mention it here in case there’s interest. There’s over 900 members and while it’d take some work to make it active again, it seems like a nice opportunity.

https://www.meetup.com/Ann-Arbor-Ypsi-Reskilling/

Seen on ND: complaints about the millage and some 🔥

- - Non-paid advertisement - -

This hot sauce is really good. It's like a hot mustard but hotter (but not too hot) and has rescued the declining flavor of many a leftover. Would buy again A+++
(in fact, I just did buy again)

https://www.jerseybarnfire.com/product-page/indian-summer

Yesterday afternoon was unexpectedly lovely.

The absence of a dog is particularly felt when looking at the mess of food debris left on the floor after two kids plow through their dinners. That shit used to be *spotless*.

Using a VPN to get access to foreign language options for Netflix produced shows, but confused why that content is region locked to begin with. Presumably, they have the worldwide rights to anything they produce, no?

Even so, it's pretty amazing. I can watch Netflix in tons of languages now! (though I'll likely stick to just one, I'm no polyglot.)

Browsed a Nat Geo from my birth month (Oct 81) last week at John King in Detroit and snapped some ads.

Does the first from the gov lowkey admit that good health is a right? Geewizbang.

Really enjoying listening to Dorothy Ashby lately. She was a pioneer of jazz harp, a two-word combination that never occured to me before listening to her (and apparently didn't occur to much of anyone else before her). I listened to her for a while without reading her bio today, which is worth knowing. She was originally from Detroit.

Spotify link (or just search for Essence of Sapphire): https://open.spotify.com/track/0TMdhbXgecqb2zlTEzasYG?si=E8r01kjLTdeS56nCx1AM2A

Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dorothy_Ashby

My cool (and not incredibly cheap) light alarm clock that I thought had fried in the last power outage just came back to life in the most recent power outage.

I have no idea how that’s possible, but I’m happy it is.

The half-pretzel-dough everything bagels at DJ’s Bakery are off the hook.

That is all.

Your phone alarm goes off. The big primary action button should be ___ while the smaller secondary action button should be ___.

Is there an obvious reason not to get this relatively affordable e-cargobike? Starts at $1,499 (although is currently out of stock on their website). This is near the top end of my budget for a new bike, so the $3-5K bikes at the ebike store in town ain’t cuttin it.
https://www.theverge.com/2019/8/8/20791435/radwagon-electric-cargo-bike-review-car-replacement

Biked to work the other day for the first time in a while. Two near hits/wipeouts due to drivers not paying attention. Probably not surprisingly, both happened in neighborhoods and not on busier streets like Packard and State.

Going to attempt canvassing for Warren with a baby strapped to my chest on Saturday. Should be...interesting. Probably tough at times. If anyone will sway an undecided voter, though, it might be a cute baby.
If you want to come along with me, here’s the event link: https://events.elizabethwarren.com/event/110651

A great example of why designing to accessibility standards helps everyone, or in this case the reverse - ignoring color contrast makes it illegible to everyone. Not sure Superman could read this. From NYT. #universaldesign

Also, if you could let me know how you'd describe this music, let me know... genres, comparable bands, adjectives. I'm terrible at describing it and could use an outside perpsective, and I'll need to describe it soon to pitch it to spotify and apple music editorial teams.

I will say it's instrumental, so probably well suited to soundtracks to dish washing, working, walks outside, etc.

Here is the link:
https://menevado.bandcamp.com/album/kindling-beneath-us

It's only on bandcamp for a couple weeks because the streaming services need some lead time if you hope to have your songs included in auto-generated or curated playlists. So, they'll be there soon.

I kind of like the idea of a two week bandcamp exclusive. I see them as an ethical player in an otherwise shady market that sees music more as "content" than as... well, music.

I've released my new album on Bandcamp. This has been over a year in the making.

It started with a challenge to myself in January 2018 about whether I could make and publish a song a month, given the constraints of work and having a toddler. I did that for 8 months. Putting out songs one at a time made it so much less daunting than working on an entire album at once.

Anyway, about a year after the intial 8 songs, I've cobbled together 4 more songs and picked 10 that work well together.

Please give me your strategies on how to deal with a defiant and tantrum prone 3 year old. Cause the 3 year old is winning.