Mike The Glum

Cheesy Olive Loaf

Sat, 28 Mar 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Olives belong in bread. And sometimes bread should be the meal. So I added olives to my cheesy bread loaf and upped the fats. This fat and gluten balloon is a celebration of my move back to America. Freedom. Liberty. Calories.

Building a 15-Year CrossFit Open Database with Claude (And Auditing the Results)

Mon, 16 Mar 2026 08:00:00 -0800

The 2026 Open just wrapped. And now that the gym is back to normal, I find myself doing what I always do: overthinking the Open workouts. Which movements keep showing up? Are AMRAPs actually more common than For Time workouts, or does it just feel that way? And is the rig ladder format — the one that ends every Open with a pull-up-to-C2B-to-muscle-up escalation — a recent programming method?

A Manager's Guide to Working with Claude

Sat, 21 Feb 2026 19:00:00 -0800

I start most mornings with my coffee and two (sometimes three) automated summaries waiting in Slack. One tells me what my team did yesterday—tickets moved, PRs opened, potential bottlenecks. The second checks upcoming releases and cross-examines those with our JIRA board, flagging changes stuck in QA or review. The third is a recap of my team’s weekly performance in terms of velocity and defects. By the time I’m at my desk, I have a good idea of where to put my focus and what to follow up on. These automations let me spend more time diving into PRs and resolving risks and less time pulling data to understand where the risks might be.

Buttery Brioche Loaf Recipe

Sun, 08 Feb 2026 08:00:00 -0800

Health be damned, this homemade brioche loaf features sugar, butter, and eggs to create a richhly soft bread ready for toasting or soaking up butter, jelly/jams, sandwich meat, etc. Not rich enough for you? Double the butter and eggs and replace half the water with milk and embrace the fats and cholesterol.

My Gene Cafe Journey So Far

Sat, 31 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0800

I’m 14 roasts into my home coffee roasting journey with the Gene Cafe and I’m starting to form something of a process. Along with a basic process I am also gaining experience with different bean types and origins. And while I’ve made zero effort understanding coffee roasting from a scientific perspective, I have started to isolate visual, audible, and aromatic cues of how the roast is progressing. The purpose of this blog post is to simply document my process and the results I’ve had with the 5 different types of beans I’ve roasted.

Garlic Bread Loaf

Sat, 10 Jan 2026 08:00:00 -0800

I’m not sure what possessed me to add garlic to my milk loaf recipe. I had obvious reservations, the primary one of course being my breath, and my secondary reservation being the versatility of such a bread. But doubt and fear are the enemy of creativity. So I put my reservations aside, chopped up some garlic, fried with some olive oil, and created a tasty bread that works great with butter (garlic bread!) and sandwiches.

How Claude AI Became My JIRA Assistant

Sat, 27 Dec 2025 17:00:00 -0800

I recently anointed Claude as my new JIRA assistant. As I am also a manager he is by extension my team’s JIRA assistant. I’ve learned that he is a pretty damn good one at that. This blog post is to highlight how I’ve been using Claude as my JIRA assistant, how I’ve incorporated him into my processes, and how I’d like to use him in the future.

First some context with one of my team’s struggles: user stories and acceptance criteria. This has been a persistent challenge for my team. Our stories rarely follow any set of principles to emphasize quality such as INVEST. Instead they are pithy two sentence descriptions that assume a deep knowledge of the products, underlying software, and existing architectural definciencies. In an effort to increase story quality I’ve employed Claude as my JIRA assistant. So far he’s kept me honest when creating tasks and I’m hoping he also keeps my team honest in the future. Here are some lessons I’ve learned so far.

Blackberry Prison Juice Cider

Thu, 25 Sep 2025 15:21:59 -0800

This is a fancy version of my prison juice cider recipe. With blackberries in season, I decided to experiment using fruit puree in this cider with fresh berries. The colour did not disappoint: perfectly pink with a purple hue. As it aged the colour took on more orange. Unfortunately, the blackberries don’t feature prominently in the taste. But it did offer a bit more depth of flavour than store bought apple juice provides and is a fun regional and seasonal variation to an otherwise boring recipe.

Home Coffee Roasting: Learning to Crawl

Sat, 13 Sep 2025 08:08:32 -0700

For the same reason I brew beer, bake bread, and shave with a straight razor, I recently started roasting coffee at home: to better understand, ritualize, and perfect the otherwise mundane things in my life. I don’t know why I have this need to iterate, document, and improve. It could be in me innately. It could have been learned from a career in software. Whatever the reason, I feel compelled to understand coffee from an artisan perspective and blog about this journey along the way. Much like homebrewing, the home coffee roasting scene is mature and there is all manner of coffee roasting equipment available across a wide range of price points. There is also a dizzying amount of information available. Because of that I’m utilizing a “crawl, walk, run” learning method to ensure I don’t have too many levers and adjustments available to me.

A promenade with Q. Building a social share toolbar.

Fri, 05 Sep 2025 17:33:42 -0700

This post is part 2 of using AI to add a social media share toolbar to each post in this blog. My first attempt getting Q to build a social share toolbar was successful, but an architectural disaster. Instead of being specific about what I wanted, Q was given a long leash. Free to roam and intepret as it pleased, leading to less than ideal decisions. This time I walk Q hand-in-hand through the flowery meads to our final destination. I also arrive at an unexpectedly optimistic conclusion about Q and its potential.

Britannia Mine Mill #2 - Canadian IPA

Sun, 24 Aug 2025 08:21:04 -0700

Britannia Mill #1 was built before the Britannia Mining and Smelting Compnay had a thorough understanding of how to efficiently process ore. It was also missing equipment required for efficient copper extraction. Fittingly my first attempt at this beer was brewed with an inappropriate yeast for an english ipa. At the time, Foggy London Ale from Escarpment was the only thing available to me and in a rare state of optimism I carried forth with a false hope that I could re-create Shotover Scholar with a NEIPA yeast strain.

A dialogue with Q. Build a social share toolbar.

Fri, 18 Jul 2025 20:36:55 -0700

I’ve been using Q at work for non-programming related purposes with mixed success. Primarily I’ve treated Q as 1) a rubber duck 2) an internal search replacement and 3) document summary and content evaluator. I figured it was about time I evaluate it on its coding merits, so I’ve asked it to add a social media share toolbar to each blog post.

First the prompt:

Create a “share this post” toolbar that displays on top of each page that allows the visitor to share a post to facebook, X, reddit, and linkedIn. The share this post toolbar should be displayed in a horizontal toolbar above the post image.

Pinus Ananus Comosus IPA

Thu, 10 Apr 2025 00:00:01 -0700

I’m not big on IPAs, especially the newer style IPAs that resemble pulped orange juice. Cold IPA, however, is a fantastic expression of the style: American pilsner and adjunct malts fermented with clean lager yeasts, combining to make a super clean canvas to let hops fully express themselves. I cooled and racked this beer directly onto an Imperial L17 harvest yeast cake that fermented my previous helles lager. At 64C it took no time at all to ferment. My planning for this beer wasn’t phenomenal, but the end result was a wonderfully drinkable 6% IPA with a strong dank and pine/cedar hop aroma that leads to a pine and pineapple finish.

Reclaim the grain - in breads

Tue, 25 Mar 2025 00:07:17 -0800

Deciding what to do with 5-6 kg of spent grains after a brewday is a bit of a problem. As I don’t want to encourage nearby mice/rats to make our house a home, I’ve been in the habit of bagging and freezing those grains, then leaving it out on the street on recycling day. Though I forget most weekends and the grains keep piling up. I ran out of space a couple months ago and since then have built a habit of incorporating those grains back into my baking. While I can’t use the whole 6 kg, I can repurpose about 10-15% of it back in my breads. It contributes a nutty flavour and chewy texture, turning simple white loaf recipes into hearty looking and tasting breads.

Gemütlichkeit Helles

Sun, 16 Mar 2025 16:31:23 -0800

I forgot how much I love lagers. Like an idiot it’s been close to a year since I’ve made my last one. As penance I brewed a classic Munich Helles, and a super simple one at that. I love this style: nice malty flavours, perfume-y nose, and just enough bitterness to make me want to drink five. This particular beer was supposed to come in around 1.047 to ensure an abv of more than 5%, however I completely forgot that I only get around 70% efficiency with pilsner malt. No matter though as the yeast fermented the wort down to 1.008 and I still hit my 5%. The finished beer reminds of Budweiser, in a good way, with more German character.

Milk Loaf

Thu, 13 Feb 2025 08:00:00 -0800

This is a simple milk loaf, made with milk, egg, sugar, butter, and oil. It is rich, fluffy, and creamy. I made a loaf out of this one, but these work great as dinner rolls as well. If you’re going for the Instagram look, brush the loaf with egg prior to putting in the oven to brown.

AvgBrü American Amber Ale

Thu, 30 Jan 2025 20:19:01 -0800

This quarter’s AvgBrü recipe from the Brulosophy homebrew club intrigued me: an American Amber Ale. I haven’t even seen an amber ale in over a decade, let alone brewed one. It’s been so long in fact that it feels like a new style. The recipe guidelines called for a mix of American or British malts, British yeast, and traditional American hops including amarillo, centennial, and cascade. I came up with the below recipe and fit the hop schedule to a process that works best on my Grainfather setup.

Cheesy Bread Loaf

Thu, 19 Dec 2024 09:07:11 -0800

This loaf is a replacement for a ham and cheese pull-apart from a local bakery my kids love. I’ve been making this loaf as an accompaniment to “slop” recipes like chili and soups. I’ve made variations of this style of stuffed bread over the years but was never thrilled with the results until I stumbled across a genius fold technique wherein the dough is stuffed, rolled, then cut in half and braided. This technique allows the cheese to spread and ooze throughout the loaf instead of being confined to a tight swirl inside the loaf.

Britannia Mine Mill #1 - Canadian IPA

Sun, 08 Dec 2024 07:45:09 -0800

I chaperoned my daughter’s 5th grade field trip to the Britannia Mine museum recently. The entire time I couldn’t help but wonder what all these guys drank after a shift or on weekends. What types of beer did they have access to? What types of beer were even popular at the time? Unfortunately beer drinking didn’t feature prominently in the exhibits, so I’m left to making broad assumptions based on research. According to a Beer Advocate article, at the turn of the 20th century IPA accounted for 74 percent of the beer being produced in Canada. Digging deep into the characteristics of these beers would be fun but time consuming and I’ll save for a later date. For the time being I feel like brewing something relatively to style, that I want to drink, and that captures the feeling of cracking open 3 or 4 much needed IPAs after finishing a long-ass day in a mine.

Knockoff Oatmeal Breakfast Stout

Fri, 22 Nov 2024 13:56:07 -0700

This oatmeal stout is inspired by some of the Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout recipes out there. Despite that, this is not a KBS clone recipe, and isn’t really meant to be. I wanted this beer to be smaller in alcohol and have a nice coffee/chocolate balance. Unfortunately the coffee overpowers any chocolate notes from the cacao nibs. While still a good beer it lacks nuance and complexity that a winter warmer like this should have. In the next iteration I intend to find those flavour complexities with increased alcohol, bourbon, and oak.

The BruSho Altbier

Sun, 10 Nov 2024 13:55:13 -0700

I stole this recipe from a recent BruSho episode. I was a little reluctant to brew it since commercially I haven’t found many examples of an altbier I liked. This particular recipe is solid though and makes a perfect fall or winter style beer. I fermented with Kaiser at 70F which is 10F warmer than recommended, and it definitely threw some esters. Because of that, the beer is less cleanly lager-like and something between an altbier and an english brown ale. Despite that I prefer this beer to other english brown ales and brown porters I’ve done in the past and I now have a couple of ideas to make those beers better. As for this beer, I’ll probably make changes to better suite my palate, which is to say cleaner with less caramel.

Prison Juice Cider

Thu, 31 Oct 2024 15:21:59 -0800

This was my introduction to brewing ciders and this recipe is basically prison juice. SunRype apple juice, yeast, and nutrient: that’s it. My brew day took about 15 minutes. It was so short I almost felt guilty. Despite the simplicity, the product is super drinkable and my wife seems to like it. It also makes for an interesting canvas to play with fruit and other additives. I’d like to make it a regular brew and keep playing with different fruit, hop, and spice flavors.

Ale Tales - Cold IPA Recipe

Tue, 01 Oct 2024 16:00:58 -0700

Iterating on my dry-hopped cream ale, I evolved the style into its more alcoholic and hoppy successor, the Cold IPA. The malt bill was recycled, increasing total grain 2 kg and upping the alcohol a percentage point. For a clean fruity and citrusy west coast ipa I went with Mosaic, Citra, and Nelson hops. 1 oz each of Mosaic and Nelson were added to a 20 minute 80C whirlpool. At the very end of fermentation, 1 oz each of mosaic, citra, and nelson were added to the fermentor for 5 days. Water was left largely untouched which was a mistake for an IPA. (see notes) The end beer was mostly what I was shooting for: a juicy, clear, and fruity IPA that showcases some interesting hops but isn’t so big or hoppy that I can’t drink more than one.

Throwback Dry Hopped Cream Ale

Fri, 05 Jul 2024 16:00:58 -0700

Continuing on my lager quest I saw it fitting to brew a classic American Cream Ale, BJCP category 6A. This recipe is as standard as an American Cream Ale can get, except for the 1 oz charge of cryo-Cascade at the end. Despite the dry hop, this beer has all the lawnmower feels I love about American beer: it is plebeian, boring, and crushable. I would recommend you try this beer if you too appreciate thirst quenching lagers.

Basic Vegan-Friendly Sandwich Loaf

Tue, 17 Oct 2023 08:00:00 -0700

My family’s weekly sandwich loaf. This recipe is as simple as I can make it and vegan friendly as well! The recipe is flexible enough to dial up/down the whole wheat flour to your liking and oat milk can be replaced with cow milk if desired. I have found this particular shaping and baking method key to consistently shaped sandwich loaves. Happy baking!

Ale Tales - Bohemian Pils

Tue, 20 Jun 2023 20:00:22 +0000

I decided to start my pilsner journey with a known recipe this time from Brewing Classic Styles. Putting my own preferences aside this recipe is solid ground to build upon (obviously). I adjusted the malt and hops to better fit my brewery utilizations, specifically I toned down the hop additions and decreased the base malt. The beer turned out fantastic and it won’t last long. Unfortunately I’ll need to wait another 4-6 months before I can brew pilsners again!

Weekday Sourdough Bread

Mon, 22 May 2023 20:10:05 -0700

A weekday sourdough bread recipe that follows the same schedule as my daily yeasted loaf except for an overnight preferment. The preferment is important for yeast vigor and taste. Because the dough isn’t left to ferment a long time at cold temperatures, the sourness is subdued and “rustic” might be a more appropriate descriptor. The recipe is dead simple to make during the week, it just assumes you already have a healthy sourdough starter.

Ale Tales - American Pale Ale

Fri, 21 Apr 2023 15:06:41 -0700

This is the second beer on my journey to finding a house American Pale Ale. What I’m looking for in an APA is a beer that first pleases my eyes and nose; for me that means a clear golden to copper colored beer, nice tight white head, and mostly floral and tropical fruit notes on the nose. Though I like tropical fruit, I explicitly steer clear of hazy or “juicy” style beers. The second requirement for an APA is that I can drink four pints and wake up relatively coherent. As far as taste goes, I’m looking for a firm bitterness but mellow floral, piney, and stone fruit notes throughout.

Practice Makes Perfect - Hopefully

Fri, 07 Apr 2023 18:45:59 -0700

I’ve determined that I need to practice around the greens if I’m to consistently shoot in the 70s. A couple of statistics gathered from The Grint confirmed my suspicions as I haven’t made a single putt outside of 5ft in three rounds. According to The Grint, from 5ft I only make 50% of my putts. To confirm I spent about an hour on the putting green testing myself from 6ft and the results were depressing. Giving myself the same shot 18 times (lining up as if I were playing) I only managed to make 61% of the putts, suggesting I am unable to put a ball on its intended line. I then tested myself from the same distance uphill left-to-right making 50%, and right to left only making 22% of putts! Going downhill from the same distance I could barely make anything, with only 11% of downhill left-to-right putts dropping for me and 17% of right to left putts dropping for me.

Our Daily Bread Updated

Sun, 02 Apr 2023 20:17:38 -0700

I’m updating my daily bread recipe as it has drifted a bit over the past year. The changes I recently made were minor but significantly improve the loaf appearance. Since sometime last year, I’ve increased the baking temperature to 475F to darken the loaf. I’m much happier with the look of the loaf now, especially the burning around the ear. I’ve also doubled the amount of olive oil to half a cup. The reason for that change is simple: I think it tastes better.

Ale Tales - Festbier

Sun, 12 Mar 2023 16:00:58 -0700

All I want to drink are lagers, but good german style lagers are hard to come by in Vancouver. So, taking matters into my own hands I’ve started a journey to create a festbier. This recipe is beginning life as something between a marzen and munich lager. The intention is to let it drift over time, most likely however it will end life pretty close to a modern festbier: golden in color, 5.5% alcohol, and a moderately bright hop flavor. I’m aiming for something highly drinkable, low in alcohol, and easy on the hops.

Brew Day Standard Operating Procedures

Mon, 06 Feb 2023 20:45:46 -0900

I recently began utilizing standard operating procedures for my brew day: step-by-step instructions of everything I need to do on brew day from setting up and filling my kettle to cleaning it and putting it away. I recently started this practice after forgetting to treat my sparge water. While not a critical step to the brew day, it nonetheless highlighted that left to own devices I will inevitably forget steps. Apart from fixing my forgetfulness, having a written set of instructions has had two unexpected but welcome side effects: first, by having the mundane written down my mind is free to focus or wander as it pleases and second, it has sped up my brew day considerably.

Grainfather - Lessons Learned

Sat, 16 Jul 2022 20:43:41 -0700

This post documents a couple problems I’ve had with the Grainfather. I also document my attempts to overcome those problems. To be clear, the Grainfather is a slick homebrewing appliance that automates away a lot of the mundane work of brewing. I absolutely recommend one if you have some extra cash burning a hole in your wallet. It does come with its own sets of quirks though and these two are the primary quirks causing me most grief.

Back to Homebrewing

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 20:07:55 -0700

I have rekindled my love for homebrewing. I’m once again back in a house with space and I have room for all the toys and necessary equipment. In my giddiness I couldn’t help myself and purchased all new brewing equipment. As is common with hobbies I went completely overboard and upon receiving this last month’s credit card bill I felt a tad guilty. However, after a brew day under my belt and my first keg of Founders Breakfast Stout clone kegged and carbonated, I feel vindicated in my irresponsible purchase decisions. This post will simply highlight the new brewing setup. As I learn more about the equipment I’ll go deeper into likes and dislikes.

I Aged Myself Out of Software Development

Sat, 04 Dec 2021 09:34:29 -0800

2021 will mark the year I aged myself out of software engineering roles. About a month ago, on a Sunday, during an on-call shift, I considered a priority I told myself was unacceptable: staying home during an on-call instead of taking my kids to their activities. Had I stayed home instead of taking my kids out, I would have sent my resignation letter the next day. I told myself I would. Instead, I took my kids to their activities. The experience, however, made it evident that I can no longer work as a software developer with an on-call rotation.

Weekend Ravioli

Sat, 20 Nov 2021 08:32:07 -0800

I recently became addicted to making ravioli. My kids love butternut squash and mushroom ravioli and campaign for both every week. It only recently occurred to me that making ravioli was straight forward and if you ignore most of the disciplines of baking it is similar to making bread. This is my weekend ravioli recipe. I call it my weekend ravioli recipe because it takes a bit of time to make and is a bit of a mess. That said you can get your kids involved and the process itself can be entertaining. This recipe makes about 60 ravioli. Whatever you don’t eat can be frozen for the following week. Do yourself a favor and get a bench knife for this. It makes cutting, moving, and shaping the ravioli a lot easier.

Passive Analytics Collection - Methods

Sun, 14 Nov 2021 08:25:48 -0800

This post is a continuation of my previous post introducing a strategy for passive UI metrics collection. In that post, I highlighted why metrics collection is hard, how I see metrics collection commonly done in the wild, and outlined a strategy I think is superior from both a technical and business perspective. In this post I will demonstrate this strategy with a live demo and summarize the types of UI metrics commonly helpful when understanding how people use your software.

Our Daily Bread Recipe

Thu, 04 Nov 2021 15:36:41 -0700

My standard bread recipe is simple. It is simple because I make it during the week while juggling work, kids, and dinner. The primary requirement for this bread recipe is that the process is reproducible without maths. The second requirement is that the flour bill is flexible and the process constant. I want to swap any grain for any other without having to tweak hydration levels and the like. Meaning the hydration levels are high but not too high and specialty flours are low but not too low. Cynically, it is trying to be the crossover SUV of bread recipes. And here it is.

Passive Analytics Collection - A Strategy

Sun, 24 Oct 2021 10:14:37 -0700

I’ve come to learn that collecting application metrics is tricky to get right. Developer needs, product needs, design needs, and senior management needs differ. There is no one-size-fits-all solution to gathering and organizing those metrics. A consistent theme throughout my career has been that while we have the best intentions when collecting UI interaction data, we rarely provide the depth of data sufficient to answer critical business questions from product and design. Furthermore, without a generalized approach to metrics gathering, metrics tend be logged explicitely, in code, for every desired action/click/etc. This post explores a generalized strategy for collecting UI metrics that is both clean and comprehensive.

Standard Preferment

Sun, 17 Oct 2021 12:07:33 -0700

I’ve been experimenting with preferments lately using a poolish left to sit overnight and have determined that the quality of the bread, in nearly all aspects, is superior to the same bread made without one. Starting with the taste, it makes a much more complex flavor. I’m not sure how I would describe the taste difference, but it has a deeper taste than bread that hasn’t had time to develop. Working with the dough is also a lot easier. The dough is much stronger and the gluten structure feels more developed. Finally, the dough seems more predictable; my bulk fermentation times and oven rise have both been more predictable.

Basic Dill Pickles

Sun, 18 Apr 2021 17:14:50 -0700

My favourite purveyor of pickles closed up shop recently. Their product, while expensive, spoiled the very idea of store bought pickles for my family forever. With their shop shuttered and my kids clammering for decent pickles, I was left to go it alone on a grand pickle excursion earlier this year. Turns out pickles are trivial to get right. Thanks to a short turnaround time it is also trivially simple and cost effective to experiment. There is no secret, no tricks, all that is needed are a combination of the right ingredients in the right amounts. Here is what I’ve found to be a popular dill recipe among my family.

Cinnamon Raisin Oatmeal Loaf

Sat, 10 Apr 2021 13:11:44 -0700

I’ve spent years trying to make a decent oatmeal raisin loaf. I’ve finally succeeded and I couldn’t be more pleased. This loaf is quite sweet and best for breakfast with jam or butter. I haven’t yet tried french toast with it yet but I imagine it would work well. For this loaf be sure to pay attention to process and refrain from hastening rise times. Soaking the oats and raisins in water is critical to creating the correct texture and ensuring nothing dries out or burns near the surface.

Motivation begets motivation

Mon, 15 Feb 2021 09:00:00 -0800

The older I get the more I find that motivation is the limiting factor to starting just about anything. There seems to be a minimum amount of motivational momentum or fuel required to learn something new. Paradoxically, the only method I’ve found to generate motivation is through motivation. I don’t think I’m unique in this either. Looking around it seems the older and more comfortable humans get the less motivation we have to challenge ourselves either physically or mentally. The rest of this post is simply a prattling on my discoveries regarding motivation.

The Trouble with Smart Home

Fri, 25 Dec 2020 19:06:36 -0800

This year I used the extra COVID time at home to experiment with smart home products. The goal was to identify rooms and spaces I used often, make them smart~ish, then simply live with it for a while and develop an opinion on the product space (e.g. setup, maintenance, reliability, troubleshooting, value-add, etc). There are plenty of obvious drawbacks to the tech including fragmented apps to control the devices and cost to name a couple. However, I found three limiting factors that no one warned me about but make these products no smarter or superior to the items replaced: my wife and two kids.

How to make great pizza sauce

Sat, 02 May 2020 20:41:20 -0700

Last year I shared my [family’s pizza recipe] ( https://miketheglum.com/post/2019/authentic-italian-pizza/). We’ve been working on that recipe for close to a decade now. Last year I posted a how-to of sorts for the dough, but in my negligence have yet to follow up with the sauce recipe.

There isn’t a secret to pizza and pasta sauce. It really is dead simple to make and requires very few ingredients. The right ingredients however are important. So if you leave with just one takeaway from this blog post, let it be this: use plum tomatoes. Only plum tomatoes will do and nothing else is acceptable, especially if you’re using canned tomatoes. So on to the recipe:

What I'm Drinking: Bearface

Sat, 07 Dec 2019 08:47:53 -0700

As fall turns to winter, my liquor cabinet fills up with brown liquors, usually scotch. This year I decided to fill it with whiskies of the Canadian variety. The cabinet was looking pretty bare, so the purchase of a cheap everyday whiskey was prudent. I know nothing about Canadian whiskies, so I blindly perused the shelves and picked bearface based purely on packaging and gut feel.

I was surprised at how easy drinking the whiskey was. From the lips to the throat, it went down smooth with very little burn. As it goes down I get a lot of oak, a bit of spice, and maybe stone-fruit. The finish is a heavy vanilla. I did a bit of research and I was surprised to find out it was a 100% corn whiskey. So the finishing really makes this whiskey. It is finished in three different types of barrels, one of which is a wine cask. The process is well documented so I’ll spare the reader any details, but it seems quite complicated and that shines in the final product.

Working Remotely: Lessons Learned

Sun, 27 Oct 2019 20:56:34 -0700

I’ve worked my entire career in tech from either a satellite office, as a remote employee, or a combination of the two. Through several life events, working remotely has been both a blessing and a curse, and this post is to highlight some of the ups and downs of working remotely as a tech employee as well some lessons learned along the way.

To set the stage, my experience has been with two of the four FANG companies (doesn’t really matter which ones, just that these are big shops), working in satellite offices, for remote teams, but in major US and Canadian cities. In both cases, the satellite offices I worked in were small at the outset but grew to exert a significant presence over time. The first satellite office was in New York. The mothership was in the Valley and I was one of the many tech kids flying the JFK to SFO circuit on a frequent basis. This brings me to point number one.

Making golf fun again

Sun, 22 Sep 2019 09:16:03 -0700

My five year old showed interest in golf this year. Excitedly, I did exactly the wrong thing and took her to a local pitch and putt. After some reflection I came to the same conclusion my daughter did: golf is objectively boring, especially for a child. After a few swings she was more interested in naming the worms than playing golf. The good news was that I now had a problem to solve: how to make golf less boring for a kid. This blog post documents a few things I discovered that make golf less boring.

Traveling With Golf Clubs

Sat, 10 Aug 2019 20:19:00 -0700

I recently flew to California to visit my dad and brought my clubs so we could play golf during my visit. Before this trip I had been renting clubs on my visits and simply got fed up with the worn out clubs that the vast majority of courses and even country clubs provide. I decided it was time to start bringing my own clubs on these trips. After a couple weeks of research I purchased the Club Glove Last Bag collegiate travel bag. The purpose of this post is to simply detail my experience and offer some advice to others thinking of doing the same.

Traffic Avoidance - Victoria Day

Tue, 25 Jun 2019 19:21:42 -0700

I’ve been crossing the Peace Arch and Pacific Highway border crossings on a regular cadence for over a decade now. In fact, I’ve crossed the border so many times I know a few border guards at Pacific Highway by name and have learned which days/time slots to avoid. But regardless of how much experience I might have crossing the US/Canada border, some days just suck. Victoria Day, unsurprisingly, is one of those days. This year I thought I’d try using historical data to help me pick the best travel time and help me avoid long waits.

Fundamentals: Frontend Developer

Sat, 25 May 2019 16:02:48 -0700

I’ve been conducting a lot of interviews this year helping organizations in my company hire front-end developers and it is proving a challenge. The primary issues in my judgement are an industry trend toward “full-stack” developers as well as a heavy reliance on frameworks across the industry. The majority of applicants applying for front-end positions (at least at the company I work for) are only front-end developers in-so-far as they are familiar with React/Angular and are moderately competent in Javascript. The majority of the applicants I interview have only a basic understanding of CSS and the browser and struggle significantly when the frameworks are taken away.

I know why we have a Butt Crack

Sat, 13 Apr 2019 17:37:16 -0700

This week my pilonidal cyst was surgically extracted. Last year it decided to get infected again and was literally a pain in my ass for a month. It took nearly a year to get scheduled for the surgery (this being Canada), but last week the fateful day had come for me to rid myself of this embarrassing predicament. As it turns out, getting a pilonidal cyst removed is more undignified and embarrassing than having to explain to people why your butt hurts in the first place. And now that the procedure is over, I can say unequivocally that our butt cracks serve an important purpose (more on that later).

What I'm Drinking: JJBean

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 08:47:53 -0700

I’ve chosen JJBean as the supplier of my morning coffee beans for a couple years now. Whether out of a moka pot, aeropress, or french press, beans from JJBean never cease to keep my taste buds occupied while the rest of me attempts to kickstart my day. If purchased at one of the local cafes around Vancouver the beans will have been freshly roasted, usually in the past couple days. If there was ever doubt the roasting date is conveniently printed on the bottom of every bag. Furthermore, the single origin beans offer a nice range of flavors and a simple rotation is enough to stave off boredom.

My Daily Coffee Obsession: The Routine

Sun, 31 Mar 2019 12:15:57 -0700

My coffee obsession has taken a sharp turn toward addiction. And I’m OK with that I think. It’s my morning routine and it goes something like this:

Grind beans from local roaster with Haribo burr grinder.
Three heaping tablespoons of coffee into espro press.
Water in kettle to 200C.
Slowly fill espro press until just covering the beans. Allow grinds to bloom (about 30 seconds).
Fill up the rest of espro press.
Have Alexa set an alarm for 4 minutes.
Plunge filter and pour.

The process takes about 10 minutes in total. If I continue this routine for the rest of my life, that’s about 116 days out of the next 16,700 that I’ll happily spend making my daily bean juice.

Vancouver Weather Analysis: Umbrella Days per Year

Sat, 16 Mar 2019 18:19:42 -0800

From fall to spring Vancouver receives upwards of 1000 mm of precipitation on average and is a legitimately gloomy place to live from October to March. Mercifully, since the bulk of our rain falls between fall and spring, our summers (usually) cannot be beat with often little rain and relatively temperate weather.

All of this rain translates to about 185 days per year with precipitation. In other words we carry an umbrella for half the year. Especially in November. November sucks.

Vancouver Weather Analysis: Beach Days per Year

Sat, 09 Mar 2019 22:02:44 -0800

How many days per year can you comfortably lounge at the beach in Vancouver, BC? We from the Pacific Northwest tend to be optimistic with weather and shed our clothing at the first hint of warmth, while those in equatorial climates have less need for such blind optimism.

This analysis defines a “beach day” as any day without recorded rain and with temperatures above certain given thresholds. To accommodate a range of temperature tolerances the number of beach days is calculated for temperatures between 22C and 30C in 2C increments. Data is for years 2000 to 2016. Box plots show the average number of rainless days above the given thresholds. The reader is left to decide their place in the tolerance range.

Vancouver Weather Analysis: BBQ Days per Year

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 16:22:14 -0800

It rains a lot in Vancouver. And while your beach-going days will be numbered and cherished there are a surprising number of barbeque days thanks to temperate climate. In fact, since 2000 there have been an average of 112 days per year you can comfortably grill a dead animal outside.

This analysis calculates a barbeque day as a day at or above 15C without rain. These light jacket days define the Northwest, Vancouver in particular. The number of days in this temperate range are also consistent from year to year with 2015 being the only exceptional year.

Silly British (Columbian) Design: B.C. Speculation and Vacancy Tax

Sat, 16 Feb 2019 08:20:13 -0800

I’ve yet to start a Canadian equivalent to my “Silly British Designs” blog series. But there is no time like the present, especially since British Columbia just sent out the B.C. speculation and vacancy tax declaration…to everyone. No I’m serious, to every single property owner in the taxable region - 1.6 million people. This opt-out pattern is so absurdly ill-conceived that the declaration itself couldn’t hide the stupidity. I’ll just go ahead and quote two sentences that are nearly adjacent in the declaration form.

Authentic Roman Pizza

Fri, 01 Feb 2019 08:20:13 -0800

Since our last trip to Italy, I’ve spent an embarrassing amount of time and energy contemplating the virtues and characteristics of Roman style pizza. In fact, my search has been borderline obsessive in that every place we’ve lived since, including Oxford, New York, Seattle and now Vancouver, I’ve searched out pizza places that share those same characteristics, for both nostalgia’s sake and to continue my analysis. My conclusion about Roman style pizza, I think, is admittedly dull: it is an art. And like all art, there isn’t a single style. Classifying a pizza as “Roman style” simply isn’t possible.

Using Typescript with AWS Lambda

Wed, 26 Dec 2018 08:20:13 -0800

My 2018 side projects have nearly all included the use of AWS Lambda. From Alexa skills to APIs to notification services, I’ve become adept at building and deploying Lambda-based services this year. As a front-end developer in my day job, I’m most comfortable coding in Javascript. But Javascript feels like the wrong tool for a middle tier or back-end service. The lack of types make these services unnecessarily difficult to read and reason about. Instead of switching to a reasonable language (read golang) I decided to write all my Lambda services in Typescript, and I haven’t once looked back.

Turns out my kids listen, just not to me

Tue, 18 Dec 2018 20:07:21 -0800

I learned last week that my four-year old can listen and follow instruction. This is reassuring as a parent since she starts kindergarten this coming school year and we’ve already had a bit of a disaster experience putting her into ballet. That isn’t to say that my four-year-old is a disobedient child, on the contrary, as four-year-olds go she does an average job of being attentive. But we were pleasantly surprised when we sent her to Whistler Kids adventure ski camp last week and on the last day she came down the mountain in full control of her skis as if she’d had a full winter’s worth of practice. On her end of camp report card she was even given an “excellent” score in listening. After looking back on the week, talking with the instructors, and spying on her from the base of Whistler Kids, I think I’ve stitched a few learnings together.

Tropical Milkshake IPA

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 07:24:21 -0800

There is a trend in the North American beer scene toward low-bitterness, hazy pale ales and IPAs, no doubt propelled forward by the success of the New England IPA. I can’t tell if people here in BC genuinely like these tropical fruit milkshakes masquerading as beer, or whether the style has somehow become a differentiator between craft beer and big beer. As for me, I’d prefer not drinking it. The problem is that it cannot be avoided: it is literally impossible to tell off a menu if the beer will be bright and crisp, or resemble milky orange juice.

Annual Golf Report 2018

Tue, 04 Dec 2018 20:10:50 -0800

I played more rounds of golf this year than in my previous 15 years combined. As I have two young kids at home and something lightly resembling a career, I’m calling this a resounding success regardless of any improvement (or regression) in my game. Despite the success, I wanted to recap the year, look at my game by the numbers, and see how my game has changed if it has changed at all.

AHA beer rankings - Obliterating Taste Buds since at least 2010

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 20:18:05 -0800

In 2011 I began ignoring the AHA beer rankings after it became apparent my walk in beer, and those of my AHA brothers, are following very different paths. After the better part of a decade I am confident that we will never find ourselves hand-in-hand through the flowery meads. I am sure of this fact as I sit here reading the 2018 AHA beer rankings, 7 years after the last time I looked, in pessimistically dulled expectation of little change.

Fall Golf and Lowered Expectations

Sat, 17 Nov 2018 14:48:24 -0800

It is now halfway through November and I have managed to maintain a weekly golf schedule despite our Northwest courses resembling a Louisiana mud pit. And even though November rain in Vancouver is downright oppressive, it has mercifully been dumping its load during the week and clearing up on weekends, allowing me to get out on the course regularly. This being the first fall I’ve braved the weather in hopes of a lowered handicap, I thought I would make a few observations.

Things I will miss about England

Sat, 02 Jun 2012 11:51:00 +0000

The time is fast approaching: in less than three weeks, I’ll be picking up my life in Oxford and moving back to the New World. After all my agony and misery and kvetching about life in England at the outset, I’ve quietly come to love it. People often ask me what I’ll miss about England, with that special wry English undertone that seems to smirkingly say, ‘if anything.’ Well England, there are a lot of things I’ll miss and none of them particularly more than others. Today, on the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, I’ll celebrate this charming country by listing a few of the things that I won’t be able to replace when I return to my own glorious land.

Fighting Modern Aristocracies or What Occupy Wall Street is Probably Trying to Communicate

Tue, 15 Nov 2011 10:07:24 -0800

The Occupy movement has had a couple of months to organize and communicate its desires, thoughts, and solutions. While I still don’t think there is a coherent set of goals or grievances, and certainly no solutions, there is definitely a passion and belief that something isn’t right alongside general feelings of discontent with the proverbial Bogie Man. Because of poorly defined arguments and largely reactionary (read left wing) ways of communicating ideas, more conservatively minded folks, myself included, tend to roll their eyes when such a spectacle of complaining is set before them. To more traditional Americans, the answer to the 99% (see The 53% Tumblr page) is simple: try harder, work harder, pick yourself up by the bootstraps and quit crying to someone for handouts. But these differences can be reconciled in such a way that even the far right and far left can agree: a common hatred of Aristocracies.

Silly British Design: The Magic Roundabout

Wed, 19 Oct 2011 21:16:00 +0000

They can be found all over Europe and Europeans generally approve of them. To an American, roundabouts rarely make any sense, but in some specific circumstances, it is possible to see the cleverness of them. While weaving through vineyards in Southern France for example, the roundabouts keep you moving as traffic is generally sparse. This is not to say I approve of a road system that requires traffic circles, but for the zig and zag roads that span most of Europe, roundabouts often make sense. But then there are some situations where it just doesn’t work. Situations where adding a roundabout to a junction is kind of like trying to square a circle. A prime example of this exists in Swindon, England. It is by far the most ridiculous and yet oddly magical roundabout ever conceived. My description won’t do it justice, so below is the Wikipedia description of this roundabout.

Tradition: We're Doing it Wrong

Sat, 23 Jul 2011 10:37:00 +0000

Every year AHA members vote on their favorite beers, and every year is just as predictable as the next. See if you are able to spot the patterns of the 10 most desired beers as rated by AHA members.

Pliny the Elder. (8% ABV) American Double/Imperial IPA.
Bell’s Two Hearted Ale. (7% ABV) American IPA.
Dogfishhead 90 Minute IPA. (9% ABV) American Imperial IPA.
Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout. (11.2% ABV) American Double/Imperial Stout.
Bell’s Hopslam. (10% ABV) American Double/Imperial IPA.
Stone Arrogant Bastard. (7.2% ABV) American Strong Ale.
Sierra Nevada Celebration. (6.8% ABV) American IPA.
Sierra Nevada Torpedo. (7.2% ABV) American IPA.
Stone Ruination. (7.2% ABV) American Double/Imperial IPA.
Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. (5.6% ABV) American Pale Ale.

You can have anything you want as long as it is a high alcohol citrus hopped IPA or Imperial [fill in style here]. This is annoying for two reasons. First, this list never changes. In fact, Pliny the Elder has been at the top for 3 years running (I think). Second, only one beer comes in at a reasonable session strength. Not a single beer on that list, save Sierra Nevada Pale, I would want to drink more than one of in a sitting.

Criminal insanity as a defence to wounds inflicted during rental process.

Wed, 29 Jun 2011 14:05:08 -0800

We’re in the process of renting a new flat. I’m also in the process of studying for two straggling exams, one of which happens to be on Criminal Law. We received our new Tenancy Agreement and were surprised to discover that it includes what effectively amounts to a £500 move-in fee. At the same time, I happen to be on the “Criminal Insanity” section of my revision. This prompted some timely considerations.

Roma: Great Food, Fantastic Wine and... Terrific Beer?

Thu, 24 Mar 2011 21:28:00 -0800

Our expectations of Rome were those of most people before they go: old buildings, great food, bold wines, long lines, crowded piazzas, and trains full of thieves. What I wasn’t expecting was to be able to find craft beers from all over the world served in the tiniest little beer cave surrounded by Italians watching football pretty much all day long.

Ma Che Siete Venuti a Fa was rated best beer bar in the world in 2010 on ratebeer.com. A quick peek at the top rated beers on ratebeer.com and it is easy to see why this bar topped the list: only one beer came in at 5%, the rest were hovering around 10% with a barley wine topping 15%. There were 10 or so taps with mostly beers from overseas and 3 casks, all serving near-as-made-no-difference ethanol. They also had a decent selection of vintage lambics that looked very tempting, but at 30 Euros a pop a bit too pricey. The bar itself was very cozy and not exactly sparkling, but fit the area of Trastevere quite well. I visited twice and both times the bar was packed with lubricated Italians watching football and crowding the doorway. All stereotypical fans present, complete with the guy in the corner yelling drunken obscenities at the TV. It was an interesting bar to sit and have a few drinks in. While it is obviously very well known around the world, it has somehow managed to remain Italian. So Italian in fact that tourists generally seemed uncomfortable and rarely stuck around for a drink.

Bleroni Cafe

Sat, 18 Dec 2010 10:26:00 -0800

Julianne and I stumbled upon Bleroni cafe in Jericho a few weeks ago while walking into town. It’s a quaint little cafe in a cute neighborhood with good food and great coffee.

The first thing we love about this place is the coffee. It’s probably some of the best in Oxford and it’s sold at a very reasonable price. Second, and more importantly, we can find an American breakfast complete with maple syrup. We were especially excited about this because maple syrup is impossibly exclusive in England. We can buy an equal amount of Scotch for less than the cost of tree sap. So with our American breakfast we get a big American style waffle, bacon (English cuts), and real Canadian maple syrup all for about £5 a plate. While not completely authentic, it makes for a much needed taste of home every now and again at the most reasonable price in town.

Budget airlines and cheap European travel

Sat, 27 Nov 2010 11:09:00 -0800

I write this half asleep on a midnight budget flight from London-Luton to Prague, apparently over Frankfurt Germany though that’s difficult to confirm with the thick cloud cover over the whole of Europe right now. Budget airlines are a brand new experience for us - this is the first time we have traveled anywhere far enough from London to require a plane.

At 80GBP return from London to Prague, the price is certainly right and makes travel to anywhere inside of Europe cheaper than I think it will ever be for us. One of the downsides to the low prices is that the budget airlines tend to fly out of budget airports that are about as convenient as an 8am wedgie in a Tokyo subway. Luton airport, where we flew out of today, is nothing more than a glorified hangar two hours by bus from Oxford somewhere on the outskirts of London. It is cheap and cheerful, if there ever was such a thing, and is super easy to get in and out of, once you’re there. The security is surprisingly light for an international airport and with the recent foiled bomb plots I feel as though I should be worried. Like all post 9/11 American men though, I know that any flight with me on it is the safest plane in the sky. Luton has all of the usual things you would want in an international airport, several restaurants, a dozen bookstores, a few bars, and a duty free that carries everything from chocolate to Johnnie Walker blue label.

Czech out my Trdlo

Wed, 10 Nov 2010 15:46:00 -0800

Like most tourists in Prague, we spent the majority of our trip in Old Town, a place where time (at least for the buildings) has stood still and has somehow managed to skip being obliterated by two world wars. Well, perhaps not entirely, apparently the Americans destroyed a few buildings mistaking Prague for Dresden… we were never well known for our geography. But I digress. In the main square there are cathedrals and buildings from the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries as well as an old clock tower with a very famous astronomical clock. This is not unusual for Prague as nearly every building in Old Town dates back to a time so inconceivable to an American that the exact date makes no difference.

Oxtoberfest

Mon, 01 Nov 2010 12:36:00 -0800

We have unfortunately not been to very many pubs while in Oxford, so Oxtoberfest, a four day charity pub crawl event, was a good excuse to go check out some of the places we always walk past and never go into. It also gave us a chance to see the English in their natural environment, slightly drunk but happy instead of the usual sober and sour. The challenge was a fairly short order: a pint from each participating pub and we would get a free t-shirt and brewery tour which I thought would be fantastic. The five participating pubs and our experience with each are below in the order we visited.

Silly British Design - The horizontal can opener

Thu, 22 Jul 2010 08:32:00 -0800

This can opener design might win the triumphant perfection of inconvenience award for reasons you will see in the video. If you’re from the States, and have never seen a horizontal can opener, it is for a very good reason: they suck. Granted this isn’t necessarily a British design so I can hardly blame them, but we are here and it’s the first time we’ve seen it. When figuring out how to use it, Julianne sat in the kitchen for 30 minutes trying desperately to get the can open. Instead of cutting the top of the lid portion of the can, it cuts below it completely taking the lid off. As you can see in the video, it also fails to actually cut the damn can without a force keeping the can still or turning in the opposite direction. So in essence, you need three hands to effectively use the can opener. You also get the added bonus of slivers of can inside of your soup, peaches, or coconut milk in the case of the video. An unwelcome surprise during your dining experience. In celebration of our move from a very uncivilized part of town to a perfectly civilized one, we have retired our horizontal can opener for one that functions as advertised.

Paris je t'aime

Mon, 19 Jul 2010 15:36:00 -0800

I’ve been reading a bunch of books lately that happen to involve historic Paris – first “A Tale of Two Cities”, when Parisian heads are getting cut off, then “Les Miserables”, when French butt gets kicked by English people at Waterloo and then by French people in the streets of Paris, and most recently “Vanity Fair”, when French politics ruin the main character’s dad. Victor Hugo’s book especially made me excited to visit Paris, since he can’t stop talking about how great it is. So I was the most excited of the three of us when our train arrived at Paris Lyon from Avignon.

Silly British Design - Cardboard juice carton

Tue, 08 Jun 2010 12:38:00 -0800

For my first installment of Silly British Designs, I am reviewing the juice carton: a rather simple everyday item designed to provide a solid container you can use to store and pour liquids. A simple idea that has been around at least since the flask and, I imagine, longer than that. Unfortunately, a few companies seem to have oversimplified the design a bit and opted for a lift tab rather than a liquid tight screw top. Why they chose a spout design that does not adequately hold liquid at bay is beyond me.