(This is a now page, and if you have your own site, you should make one too.)

Last updated Monday, September 5, 2022

Work

I’m a staff writer at the East Bay Times, usually covering breaking news and public safety. Here’s my Authory archive. 

Books

Earlier this year, I renewed library cards in a couple of nearby cities, and am getting the hang of what to check out online. I belong to a local book club that meets every four to six weeks.

Drink

A “dry January” this year led to the following:

• Athletic Upside-Dawn Golden Ale
• Greenbar Distillery Earl Grey Bitters + Soda
• Hoplark Sparkling HopTea with Chamomile and Citra Hops

Since then, I’ve been trying out:

• Bravus IPA (their Blonde is good, when I can find it; their Stout is YMMV)
• Hairless Dog Black Ale and Citra Lager (when I can find them locally)
• Two Roots Helles (solid)
• Barrel Brothers’ Dark Sarcasm Porter
• Heineken 0.0 (regular tipple) or Guinness or Bitburger non-alcoholic beers
• Greenbar Distillery UnRum & Cola
• Hoplark Hibiscus Tea

Language

I’m learning Spanish in Duolingo (after dabbling the last year and a half with Portuguese, French, German and Yiddish). I didn’t think I was at it a lot, but the app seemed to think I was in its top 0.1 percent of worldwide learners for 2021. I’m also trying to follow some social-media accounts by non-English speakers on a limited basis.

Location

A year ago, A. and I moved from where we were in Oakland, a few blocks east of Lake Merritt, about a dozen miles north to a city called San Pablo. Our place is one room smaller, but there’s more light and a little less noise. There are still boxes that need unpacking and a couple of big projects that want doing, but it’s home.

Music

When not buying Bandcamp releases, I’m still using Last.fm to track streaming songs. You can usually find my recent albums on my solo project’s site or earlier versions, demos and experiments over on my SoundCloud. After some curating, most of those will end up on my Bandcamp). And I promised a friend we’d turn some songs we’ve written over the last decade or so into a streamable project: let’s see if it happens …