Alex "Gus" Gustafson

  • Nice Things To Ask the Knitter in Your Life

    I’m doing some of my fastest knitting ever while on vacation. I’ve finished the ribbing of my sweater’s front and have started the stockinette.

    My fastest knitting ever
    My fastest knitting ever

    But it’s funny, because I casted on while on the plane and my flight attendant took a couple jabs at me. She noticed how lovely Amber’s socks were coming along (and they’re seriously awesome) but then saw my one row and said “what’s that going to be?” I told her I’m working on a sweater. “Hard to tell with how small that is!” Later on in the flight: “that’s going pretty slowly isn’t it?” And also a final “when is my sweater going to be done?”

    I’m sure she meant all this as playful and human. But as a slow knitter who knits for peace, stress relief, and something to keep my jitteriness to a minimum during socially uncomfortable situations… I really didn’t appreciate it. This is the the fastest I’ve ever knit, and here’s someone with no clue how this works telling me it’s slow.

    Rather than unintentionally mock me, there are a number of things this woman might have asked which each would’ve been accepted, appreciated, and lovingly referred to. Feel free to use these for the knitter whom you next run into:

    • What kind of yarn is that?
    • What’s that colorway called?
    • Is that for you, or is it a gift for a friend?
    • Did you get that pattern on Ravelry?

    Every knitter will beam and answer each one of those questions and then be impressed that you asked such nice things. Bonus! If you can’t tell the difference between knitting and crochet (hint: needles vs. hook) these questions apply to both. So now you’re kind and you look smart. Win-win.

    You could also compliment how fast their project is coming along out of principle.

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  • Early Morning in Portland

    Thanks to jet lag and a 6am train departure, I was tasked with finding us breakfast at 4:30am today. I enjoyed it and we made it to the train on time.

    Pearl District
    Old Town / Chinatown Entrance
    Voodoo Doughnut (one)
    Good things come in pink boxes
    The Loop, Captain My Captain, Old Dirty Bastard, and Old Fashioned Glazed
    To Trains
    On board the Amtrak Cascades

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  • Happy Hour Menu

    “Notice, the smoked pork poutine is not on the Happy Hour menu.”

    We’ve arrived at our AirBNB in Portland, Oregon, and plan to eat an early dinner at Pints Brewing Company before promptly passing out. We’ve got a train to catch in the morning!

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  • Packing Light

    Amber and I are officially ‘on vacation’ – since I normally work Sundays, but today I am not.

    We’ll be visiting Oregon for the next week and mostly living like locals. Lots of hanging out, walking around, and just basking in the joy of living are the highest priorities and we expect frequent changes of venue during the day. AirBNB rentals will be our home because I’ve had such good experiences with them on Automattic team meetups. We also plan to see the Portland “T2” USL soccer team play (scouting them out in case they meet Louisville City FC in the USL championship.)

    Since we don’t really have too many specifics planned out beyond sleeping arrangements, we’re traveling light. Turns out for me that amounts to the following:

    Packed up and ready to go
    Packed up and ready to go
    • 4 days worth of clothes
    • Macbook Pro, Nexus 5 and their chargers
    • My Jetpack external phone battery
    • Knitting (starting on the front of my sweater since the back is now complete)
    • Book (Plan to start and finish The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho, on my 2015 Reading List)

    I find that small list incredibly freeing. The numerous options of ‘stuff’ that I face every morning at home are shed down to just a few small things, with a lot more new options to choose from when we arrive at the destination. Really needed this vacation for that clearing of my mind.

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  • Amber at the Kentucky Derby Festival Mini Marathon

    So proud of her!

    image

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  • Ingress Recruiter Badge Done Right

    The Ingress Recruiter Badge
    The Ingress Recruiter Badge

    Level 4!

    That’s a text my mom sent me yesterday. My wife, dad, and mother-in-law have sent me similar messages. Leveling up is a common mechanic to video games but my mother doesn’t play video games so I’ve never had the chance to see her excited with new powers gained and an ever-climbing amount of experience points.

    Ingress has changed that.

    Some agents shun the Recruiter badge because it can feel a little forced. No one wants Ingress to go the way of Farmville and annoy the friends of its fans into playing. I embrace the badge because I can immediately see the value in having a network of friends that have a similar stake in the game. My parents live in another state, and I honestly look forward to swapping keys with them to pull off a big operation one day. My wife’s best friend lives in town, but she frequents very different areas from my wife and I and that can prove valuable too.

    A group that already knows how to work together socially is incredibly powerful in this game.

    And if you treat the Recruiter badge like a Farmville — spam all your friends and family with links — I can assure you it will not work. The signup flow from your recruitment email isn’t that great and it’s definitely not convincing.

    Here’s how you can rock the Recruiter badge and your friends and family will thank you for it.

    Play the game for a while first. Show them what fun you’re having, and ask if they want to come out sometime.

    That’s it. No pushing, no explaining. Have fun and ask them to join in on your next afternoon. You can promise drinks afterward if that’s your thing.

    One of the reasons I think the Recruiter badge is done well is that you don’t “score” any of your recruits unless they hit Level 3. This is easy to accomplish if you go out with them, neutralize a few portals for them, let the new player capture them, and setup a few small fields at a local park. That might be underwhelming your Level 16 greatness, but I promise a new player will get an endorphin hit for throwing those links. If you get their account setup, say “Do the tutorials” and let it go… it’s less fun for everyone and they might give up before they hit level 3.

    And that’s your fault if they do, and you don’t deserve to call yourself a recruiter.

    Ingress is all about the meta-game agents play behind the scanner. Embrace that in your own social structure, and I think you’ll have fun earning that Recruiter badge the slow way: one agent at a time, one jaunt at a time.

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  • Elevensies

    My wife's Bourbon Buttermilk pie with coffee in my dalek mug.
    My wife’s Bourbon Buttermilk pie with coffee in my dalek mug.

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  • Ingress 1.75

    Ingress 1.75 is ready to go on Google Play and it offered this awesome changelog:

    What’s New

    Version 1.75.0
    * Bug fixes

    But there’s a much better breakdown of the changes here:
    Ingress APK Teardown [1.75.0] || Fev Games
    Biggest change for my usage? Sharing profiles got better. So of course I had to test it out 🙂

    wpid-wp-1429722030011.png

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  • Why is My Custom CSS Not Working on WordPress.com?

    I’ve seen this problem come up a lot recently in the WordPress.com forums.

    “I’ve added some CSS to my site, but the changes aren’t showing. What should I do?”

    Staff and volunteers can help with CSS on your WordPress.com site in the CSS Customization Forum.

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  • Cooking with Blue Apron

    Have you ever watched a cooking show and thought to yourself, “Sure! If someone would do all the shopping for me and put all the separate ingredients into little bowls like that, I could cook this dish too!” Amber found Blue Apron and I immediately thought of that situation. It’s a service that ships ingredients and recipes to you that are really easy to cook but use fresh ingredients and reasonable portions.

    Part of me says a service like this is foolish. Any good that comes out of buying ‘farm direct produce’ in New York goes out the window when they ship that produce in a plane to Louisville, KY. But the reality is that Amber and I have been cooking less and less and that’s not a good thing for our health or our budget. We needed some kind of kickstart back into the cooking game and like it or not, Blue Apron really did that for us.

    Neither of us really enjoys cooking, but Amber likes the social aspect of cooking with another person and I like having decisions about everyday events (like meals) just made for me so I can keep it off my mind. We both really get what we want out of a dinner with these meals.

    Most surprising of all? We’re cooking better than ever. Most of these meals have ended with us being full but wishing more was available because it was so tasty. Our normal cooking rarely gets that reaction from either of us. At worst, we occasionally have a meal that one of us flat-out refuses to eat more than one bite while the other is so hungry they force it down anyway. Blue Apron hasn’t failed like that yet and I’d be surprised if they do.

    Seriously! Our food looks like the professionally cooked food on their website. Last Sunday we made Lemon and Black Pepper Shrimp with kale, fava leaves, and linguine.

    Ber doesn’t like the famous side of cooking
    The fresh bits
    Lemon and Black Pepper Shrimp in a skillet

    Blue Apron said it would look like this:

    Blue Apron's example
    Blue Apron’s example

    And our’s looked good too:

    2015-04-12 18.35.20
    Our plating

    We both have not stopped talking about that meal. So tasty.

    Also last week we had their Potato & Leek Chowder and Wednesday was the Brown Butter Spaetzle. Those were good too:

    Potato & Leek Chowder with cheddar baguette
    Brown Butter Spaetzle with Celeriac, Apple, and Fresh Horseradish

    The Mustachian side of me still says that one day, this needs to progress back into biking to the grocery store with bags of fresh produce in the bike trailer. But we’re really happy with how this is working out right now. When dinner comes and goes without frustration, with good nutrition, and the price is still cheaper than dining out — we’re beating where we were. Steps in the right direction eventually get you to your goal.

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