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My favorite music

My favorite music

2020-02-13

People always ask “what’s your favorite music”—a harder question to answer than it might seem. Rather than try to stab in the dark, I resort to data analytics. Obviously.

I recently found this wonderful website called Skiley that you connect to your Spotify account and it spits out all sorts of wonderful data.…

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My best photos

My best photos

2020-02-05

Just so people don’t think I only take pictures of birds, I thought I’d share what I consider some of the best photos I’ve taken.

There are 16 of them and they are all from trips to New Zealand, Hawaii, Costa Rica, and California.

Based on this, the most beautiful place in the world is the South Island of New Zealand.…

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My life with parrots

My life with parrots

2020-01-24

At one point recently, I had 23 parrots of 7 different species. How did I get here? I’ll start with an exchange with my Mom over Christmas:

Mom: So how many birds do you have now?

Me: I have 23

Mom: Oh, that’s not many

That should give you some insight into my family.…

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The perfect album

The perfect album

2020-01-12

Everyone likely has their list of greatest albums. But what I’ve always been obsessed with is the perfect album. We’re all probably familiar with buying the new album from our favourite band and being thrilled. Except for that one song. Or two songs.

I define a perfect album as:

An album you can listen to from beginning to end, at a medium to high volume, and you never feel like skipping a song.

…

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Little Dinosaur

Little Dinosaur

2020-01-07

I’ve had this idea for a long time to start a non-profit to promote bird keeping as a way to raise awareness about the plight of birds in the wild. Here is my business plan. I’m half hoping someone will just take it and run with it as it would be a huge undertaking.…

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David Byrne playlist

David Byrne playlist

2019-12-09
Photo: David Byrne at Coachella, 2018

Short version

I created a playlist of David Byrne songs spanning his career and you can jump to the end if you’re not interested in my ramblings. I could talk endlessly about him.

Before 1983

At the beginning of 1983, I was listening to a steady diet of artists like this:

  • Hall and Oates
  • Human League
  • John Cougar
  • Chicago
  • Toto
  • Foreigner
  • The Cars
  • Men at Work
  • Journey
  • REO Speedwagon

Not that these bands are terrible or anything, but they have one thing in common: I haven’t intentionally listened to any of them since then.…

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Favoritism in men’s tennis

Favoritism in men’s tennis

2019-09-04

For those that follow men’s tennis, you know it’s been dominated by 3 players for more than 15 years. Out of 60 grand slam tournaments that have been player, 85% of them have been won by these three players.

If tennis is not your sport, imagine that a single team or player won 85% of every major event for 15 years.…

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My favorite musical artists

My favorite musical artists

2019-06-27

When someone asks me this, I can always rattle off a few I’ve always loved, but then everything else is this giant soup and I can’t really rank them. So, I like to take a scientific approach.

I looked at songs I’ve liked in Spotify and found the artists with the most likes and this is the list I came up with for my Top 10:

  • VAST
  • Ludovico Einaudi
  • Enya
  • David Byrne
  • Brett Dennen
  • R.E.M.
…

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Dialogue in TV shows and movies

Dialogue in TV shows and movies

2019-06-12

So, I’ve analyzed a number of TV shows and movies and found 40 common lines of dialogue that I listed below. If we banned all of them, we could spend more time looking at the pretty pictures and listening to the soundtrack.

  1. Thanks.
  2. For what?
  3. I’m sorry.
  4. There’s nothing to be forgiven.
…

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Exam for contractors

Exam for contractors

2019-05-04

I’m working on an exam that contractors can take to become licensed. I’m open to suggestions.

To set this up, let’s say the exam is Monday at noon to 2pm. You fail the exam if:

  • You arrive before Tuesday
  • You call and let those running the exam that you will be late
  • You clean up any mess you may have made
  • You take less than 72 hours to complete the exam
  • You kill only one plant walking from your car to the exam
  • You have a vacuum, broom, or level in your car
  • You discard any of your trash into the correct bin when leaving
  • You write down any important things you are told
…

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About Me


I’ve been a bird breeder, a bicycle mechanic, bookseller, and a Software Engineer at Apple for 20 years.

Friends tell me I have interesting things to say.

You be the judge.

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My Other Blogs

  • Free Range Parrots
  • Tech Reflect
  • Little Dinosaur
  • Contact Me

Recent Posts

  • A very long review of Portland
  • Burger King realizations
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  • 2021 in words, pictures, and movies
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