Musical Throwback: A Virginia State Song

16 years ago today, I released my submission for the Virginia State Song competition.

• Listen to Hail Virginia (590KB MP3)
• Listen to the marching band arrangement (560KB MP3)

I think it stands the test of time quite well, especially given the fact that it took another 8 years for an actual song to get selected!

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

That 90s Show:
This sequel series to the original (which went on for way too many seasons) hits the sweet spot between nostalgia and being able to stand on its own. Occasional cameos are nice, but the new characters are pleasant enough too. It's nice that this show is exactly what you'd expect -- no unnecessary modernization or obligatory edginess.

Final Grade: B

The Sandman, Season One:
I'm not familiar with the comics or graphic novels so I went into this show blind and was very impressed. The show balances a lot of different tones successfully and is very visually creative. Some episodes are more traditionally plot-based while others feel like standalone anthology fables, but the disparate threads ultimately wrap up in a satisfying conclusion. There's also a bonus episode that's not part of the main storyline which I will review separately in a feeble attempt to stretch my website content to its absolute limit. On Netflix.

Final Grade: A

Everybody Hates Chris, Season Two:
We petered out on this season and never finished it -- it ultimately fell into the old sitcom trap of treading water with no real reason to stay engaged. On Hulu.

Final Grade: B-

Turning Red (PG):
This Pixar movie about a teen girl who turns into a red panda when she can't control her emotions is so ridiculous and unexpected that it ends up being surprisingly good. All of the swirling controversies when it was first released feel utterly contrived -- this is just a fun movie that doesn't take itself too seriously. It's definitely a movie targeted for the pre-teen audience, not younger kids. On Disney Plus.

Final Grade: B+

Cooking Date Day

On Friday night in the midst of the polar vortex, we went to a Couples Cooking Class at Culinara in Vienna. We arrived early and tried walking around Vienna a bit, but froze almost immediately and took shelter in a Dunkin' Donuts (my first time ever inside a Dunkin' Donuts). In search of a snack to warm me up, I tried these weird Egg Bites, made of egg and cheese but shaped like a doughnut. I was not impressed. They should have been called "doughnots".

The cooking class took place in a warm, bustling teaching kitchen with 6 couples and numerous assistants helping the instructing chef. It was soup night (and the perfect night for soup!) and each couple chose 2 soups from the list of 12 to create. We chose Barley Mushroom Soup and Lentil Sausage Soup.

After a few quick knife skill demonstrations, we went to work prepping our vegetables and dropping them in the pot. By virtue of the fact that both of our soups had grains or beans that needed lots of cook time, we were the last to finish with each soup. We also learned that we greatly underuse salt and don't need to shy away from it as much.

As the soups finished cooking, the assistants doled out sample cups so everyone could try them. Every soup was good, from the Manhattan Clam Chowder to the Hot and Sour soup. However, by the 9th soup of 12, I had to tap out and only took little spoonfuls of the remainder. I had so much soup that night that my pores radiated chicken broth for the next 24 hours.

Overall it was a fun, atypical date night that ended with some recipes that we might actually make (starting next week when we're no longer sick of soup). I also appreciated that each recipe relied mostly on the ingredients put in the pot rather than painstakingly figuring out proportions of different spices.

Memory Day: Snapshots

This picture was taken 9 years ago today, on February 8, 2014.

Rebecca had just gotten her very first iPhone and laid down on the living room floor to figure out all of its features. Booty liked this game.

This was a much quieter February than many of late. Big "INs" of the month were the Winter Olympics in Russia, no kids, huge snowstorms that kept us indoors for days, House of Cards on Netflix, and the release of a quaint little online card game, Hearthstone.

It would be another two years before I finally got my own smartphone (the phone I had in 2014 slid open to reveal the tiny keyboard inside), and another six months after that before I actually took my smartphone anywhere -- it mainly sat on the corner of my desk like an anachronistic landline.

Maia's Art Day

Notable artwork from November 2022 - February

Another collection of scary monsters.

Various buildings in Cattown. Some have flowers growing out of the roofs.

A vertical map of a bunny's burrow. The mommy bunny is asleep in the bedroom but the baby bunny's butt is on the mommy bunny's face.

Maia's kindergarten teacher is currently trying to nudge Maia towards making less flamboyant As.

The last smudgy bunny is Olaf Bunny.

Groundhog's Day!

Chad Darnell's 12 of 12

12 pictures of your day on the 12th of every month

6:26 AM: Up early to do proofreading on Janny Wurt's unpublished fantasy novel.

8:21 AM: Showered and ready for Sunday.

8:28 AM: Making Birthday and Valentine's cards.

8:32 AM: Bagel for breakfast.

10:15 AM: Watching cousin Sam play hockey in Rhode Island.

12:29 PM: In Harper's Ferry at Uncle Steve's house.

2:36 PM: Enjoying time with Aunt Carol.

3:22 PM: A chilly rainy hike through Bolivar.

3:35 PM: Celebrating birthdays.

4:16 PM: Hoping kids will nap on the way home.

5:36 PM: Recovering from car naps while the Annie's Mac and Cheese cooks.

6:27 PM: Unimpressed by the excessive run-up to the Super Bowl kick-off.

Data Day: Real Estate Assessment

The value of my house and land has officially reached new heights (like a bird in a spaceship). The graph now resembles one of those GRE spatial puzzles that asks you to fill in the negative space by folding the positive space in an Origami-like way.

Since linear extrapolation is 100% guaranteed to be correct, I should be living in a million dollar home by the year 2043. At that point, I'll probably sell it and buy Twitter or something.

Kotlin Day

One of my personal growth projects for 2023 is to become fluent in a new programming language. I've spent the past few weeks immersed in Kotlin by solving old Advent of Code puzzles.

I like what I've used so far -- Kotlin gets away from the unnecessary strictness of Java boilerplate without straying too far into the "by convention" magic of a language like Ruby. When I need to do something new, the docs are clear and the end result looks logical. And when I'm in a hurry or don't want to reinvent the wheel, I can always fall back on the whole Java ecosystem of 3rd-party libraries called from within Kotlin code.

Here are three features I'm really enjoying (which may be old hat for aficionados of other modern languages).

1. Dramatically reducing boilerplate code with the use of data classes.

2. Adding code to existing classes with mix-in extensions instead of heavy inheritance or static utility classes.

3. Cleanly incorporating functional lambdas in procedural code without the stilted method chaining required in Java.

Easy Photos Day

Following a whirlwind run through the Container Store, we had dinner at Not Your Average Joe's in Reston. Unlike the last, and only, time we went to the (average) one in Landsdowne, the food was delicious.

Not Your Average Joe's has done very little to remove the style of the previous tenant (Macaroni Grill). Here, I am getting head kisses from abstract art (this was not planned).

Maia spent the weekend with her grandma and grandpa in Alexandria. Here, she is dancing on the stage at my elementary school playground.

My dad purchased a household Switch for kids to enjoy. Playing Mario Kart is serious business with all of this hardware!

Ian Year 1 Month 10 Battle Report

Ian is 2 months away from his 2nd birthday! I haven't weighed him in awhile but he's notably heavy. He has worn size 4 diapers for the past six months (the same size that Maia was wearing near 3 when she finally stopped wearing them).

Meals currently consist of "yobaby" yogurt as an anchor food, whatever he deigns to try from our real meals, and an endless stream of pouches. He doesn't want to drink milk and rarely drinks water, so the pouches (while not optimal) at least keep him hydrated.

His singing pitch remains on point and he's learned plenty of new words. Although he doesn't say many, his understanding is obvious. Yesterday, I asked him, "Can you go run your fingers under the couch to see if the toy train is under there?" and he ran over to do so.

His number one favourite activity is being read to. If you sit on the couch with him, he'll happily bring books to you to read in succession until the pile teeters. When he's full after dinner, we'll also excuse him early and he'll occupy himself with his books until the rest of us finish. He can also get lost in solo play with Maia's Duplos, mainly creating "ladder trains", a mash up of fire trucks with ladders and trains. I've noticed him do pretend play moves, like moving the little cat figurine into the house we built for it or having the cat drive the ladder train.

Ian's down to a single nap per day, usually lasting about 90 minutes, but still tends to get overtired in the evenings after 5 PM. He had a good streak of sleeping through the night but has recently woken up with night terrors around 3 AM. He will call out, "Mama, go to bed" to beckon Rebecca to the crib, and will go back to sleep after some snuggles. He has a joint bedtime story with Maia which is starting to introduce him to the Berenstain Bears and other classics. He really enjoys Mo Willem's Elephant and Piggie books.

He remains obsessed with vehicles, and has various routines that he falls into -- if drawing paper comes out, he wants us to draw a bus. If the playdough comes out, we have to build a ladder truck followed by a police car.

Review Day

There are no major spoilers in these reviews.

The Sandman: A Dream of A Thousand Cats / Calliope:
Marked as "Episode 11" in Season One of The Sandman (which I graded with an A), this is a set of two anthology stories that take place in the same universe as the main plot line. Both are fresh and fun, even if they don't push the main story forward. On Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

Banshees of Inisherin (R):
This movie tells of two friends on a remote Irish island and the fallout that occurs when one wakes up and decides he doesn't want to be friends anymore. The muted premise is buoyed by dry (sometimes black) humour, interesting characters, and nice cinematography of the Irish countryside. I normally think that period movies like this tend to drag, but this one held my interest all the way through.

Final Grade: B

Cunk on Earth:
This five-episode mockumentary about the history of the world is a perfect blend of British, deadpan, and absurd humor. Diane Morgan as Philomena Cunk is a perfect narrator and there are plenty of memorable laughs, like her thoughts on Galileo. On Netflix.

Final Grade: B+

Hustlers (R):
"Strippers reacting to the drying up of business during the 2008 financial crisis" seems more like a Whose Line Is It Anyways? prompt than a movie synopsis but this movie actually pulls it off. It's engaging to watch until the final act, where it seems to peter out without knowing what it's trying to say.

Final Grade: B-

End-of-the-Month Highlights Day

New photos have been added to the Life, 2023 album.

• Events
  • The first snow of the season gently dusted the grassy areas around our house on W 2/1.
  
  
  • Date Night at a cooking class (Culinara in Vienna) on F 2/3.
  
  
  • Rebecca and Maia went to a 7th birthday for Fatima on S 2/4.
  
  
  • Maia was invited to two next-door birthday parties for Jax and Elizabeth on S 2/11.
  
  
  • Went out to Harper's Ferry to see the Whitmer clan on S 2/12.
  
  
  • Went to the monthly HOA meeting on W 2/15.
  
  
  • Maia went to the grandparents' for the weekend, F 2/17 - S 2/19.
  
  
  • Dinner at Not Your Average Joe's after a trip to the Container Store on F 2/17.
  
  
  • Snow flurries in the morning on S 2/25. Dinner with Car and Jordan (kale, lentil, and sausage soup).
  
  
  • Visit from my parents to celebrate my dad's birthday on S 2/26.


• Projects
  • Got new tires for my Accord on M 2/6 after the year-long slow leak in one tire finally became a fast leak.
  
  
  • Continued learning Kotlin by redoing Advent of Code puzzles from 2015 - 2017.
  
  
  • Finished providing proofreading services for the final volume of The Wars of Light and Shadow by Janny Wurts.


• Consumerism
  • Enjoyed watching Cunk on Earth and Abbott Elementary this month.
  
  
  • No amazing new music or books.
  
  
  • Still playing Overwatch 2.

February's Final Grade: B, feels really busy but pleasant overall