Author Archives: Patrick

Rise Against at the Redding Civic

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This was my first concert in quite some time. I think Nine Inch Nails in San Francisco was last show I went to and that was December 4, 2018. My memory is terrible, so we’ll just assume this is correct. I’m sure you’re thinking, but Pat the pandemic isn’t over what the hell are you doing being within 20 yards of another human that might be breathing out a deadly virus?!

It’s not a terrible question…but I have both reasons and rationalizations. When I first decided to go it was scheduled to be an outdoor concert and I had two doses of the vaccine (Moderna). Those two things alone made me feel pretty good. Then I got a booster and I was feeling even better! Then weather forecast drove the show inside and that made me worry a bit and this is where the rationalizations get layered on top of my vaccination status.

It was a calculated risk. Is it a risk worth taking to see a concert in an area that’s not that well vaccinated? The call that I made was yes. Why did I make that call? I was going with great friends and I knew hanging out with them for an evening would be good for my mental state (and it was!). The closest contact would be with other vaccinated people for the majority of the trip. Inside the concert hall was also pretty humid with the combination of rain and a bunch of sweaty kids moshing their precious little punk rocker heads off.

Oddly enough I’m getting my second booster dose today. I just took a COVID-19 home test (the iHealth ones from the first free batch you could order) and it’s negative. But I think it’s worth thinking about risk. I rode with 3 other people from Chico to Redding and back. How risky was that? The weather wasn’t great and the roads were wet. We were driving home at night, on wet roads, after an energetic show that had most of us pretty tired.

There’s no easy answer here. Everything we do has risks. I knew going in I was negative, so I wasn’t introducing risk to others at the concert. If I did catch COVID I would then be a risk to anybody I encountered after the concert. I’m not advocating a YOLO approach, but I’m trying to not tackle things in a binary fashion of “safe” vs “not safe” and rather weigh the risks with probabilities. Do I know the exact numbers to do this calculation or the math that it takes to do it right? No. So, honestly I’m kind of winging it…but I am using as many mitigations against risk while still doing things.

Rise Against at the Redding Civic Auditorium
Rise Against Setlist Redding Civic Auditorium, Redding, CA, USA 2022, Nowhere Generation

Edit this setlist | More Rise Against setlists

The actual show was awesome. Pennywise opened, which when you think about it, they’re a legit punk headliner so we really go a two-for-one with this show. It would have been fantastic if it could have been outside as originally planned, but I’m just glad the show went on.

And yes, I wore earplugs.

Replay 2015

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I use Apple Music. You may or may not. If you don't, you probably use Spotify. Here are two embedded playlists of my generated Replay 2015. I used SongShift to move the list from Apple Music to Spotify.

Apple Music

Spotify

Music in 2022 – A Follow-up

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Music has always been an important part of my life. I’ve had a few failed attempts to learn to play musical instruments. I was a borderline obsessive CD collector and having a college roommate that worked at Tower Records definitely contributed to that. I was a DJ at my college radio station. I’ve replaced obsessive CD collecting with a restrained vinyl purchasing strategy.

But this is the follow-up to my music recommendations from 2005. Yes, only 17 years later. I’ve grouped the bands by how I generally classify them. It probably won’t work for you, so just translate in your head. Since bands generally hate being labeled, I’m sure they would disagree with every single categorization I’ve made. That’s okay, I doubt they’ll see this.

The “Top Billing” Section

The Killers - By far my favorite band since 2005. Hot Fuss, Sam’s Town, and Day and Age are albums I can always put on and feel happy. Let’s not worry about all the albums that came after that, except the single Run For Cover, which is easily a top 5 Killers track…maybe even better that Mr. Brightside.

K. Flay - Life as a Dog is just fantastic music. The early stuff is here and there, with some absolute gems like Messin with My Head. The latest double EP Inside Voices/Outside Voices is very much aligned with my favorite sounds.

The “Pop” Section

The Naked and Famous - Passive Me, Aggressive You and the tracks Punching in a Dream and Girls Like you. I can put these on repeat.

Future Islands - I usually try to describe them as Joe Cocker covering New Order. I celebrate their entire catalog. Vireo’s Eye, from the album In Evening Air, is a particularly popular track for me.

Limousines - Internet Killed the Video Star, from the album Get Sharp, is a fantastic song and has an amazing video.

The “Hip-hop/Rap” Section

Delton 3030 - Deltron 3030

Kanye West - I never really got into Kanye, but My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy was on heavy repeat for a long time.

Kid Cudi - Man on the Moon: The End of Day is phenomenal.

Logic - I’m not a super fan, but I could listen to Overnight on repeat for a disturbingly long time. Do not miss the Rick & Morty appearance on Bobby Tarantino II.

Run the Jewels - Again, very late to the game here, but I love RTJ4 and please please please don’t miss their collaboration with DJ Shadow on Nobody Speak and do not under any circumstance miss the video.

The “Indie” Section

LCD Soundsystem - Not all that shocking.

Sleigh Bells - While I enjoy most of every album, Kid Kruschev. Locust Laced from Texis is something that I have a hard time getting out of my head.

The Strokes - Not all that shocking, but also not that impressive after their first two albums, but The New Abnormal is definitely good.

Portugal. The Man - I was -probably- late to the game on this, but Evil Friends is a great album.

The Kills - Last Days of Magic from Midnight Boom. On repeat. Go.

Yeah Yeah Yeahs - A band that evolves fairly dramatically from album to album and still makes it seem natural. I’ll toss out It’s Blitz to start with.

The National - Perhaps a bit too moody on too many tracks, but when they get going they are sneakily rocking. Abel, Mr. November, and Sea of Love plus a ton more.

Interpol - Really they should have been on my 2005 list as Turn on the Bright Lights came out in 2002, but they weren’t and so they are now. There, I fixed it.

The “Brit Rock” Section

The Hives - One of the hardest working bands in rock ‘n’ roll. The Black and White Album and Lex Hives are top notch.

Franz Ferdinand - Three strong albums and then things get a little…I don’t even know. Franz Ferdinand, You Could Have Had It So Much Better, and Tonight.

Kasabian - West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum and For Crying Out Loud are my favorite albums, but don’t miss the track Club Foot.

The Fratellis - I don’t want to say Costello Music was a one and done, but it’s the only album I like.

The Vaccines - A band that’s evolved a ton from What Did You Expect from the Vaccines? to Back in Love City.

The “Chill” Section

DJ Shadow - Again, late to the game here, but Endtroducing….. and The Private Press are classics and then you can enjoy a great live performance that takes the best of both in In Tune and On Time.

Morcheeba - There’s 20 years between Big Calm and Blaze Away. I don’t think I’m ready to acknowledge that.

Massive Attack - Mezzanine. There are others, like Heligoland, but Mezzanine is my favorite.

Thievery Corporation - Again, they’ve been around for quite some time, but it’s great Sunday chill music. Pick any album, but you’ll probably get recommended The Richest Man In Babylon.

This is already too long and so I’m cutting it off here. I’m sure I have a lot more to write about music in the future. Maybe even the near future!

Music Recommendations…from 2005

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Way back in February of 2005 my buddy Warren was asking for music recommendations to fill his Nomad. Yes, he bought a Nomad. You remember those things, more space than an iPod and totally took over the mp3 player market…oh, right. Never mind. Anyways, he only wanted three albums (this was 2005 and even with a giant Nomad, space was at a premium) and I came back with what follows. Overall, I think it holds up well. I’ll follow this piece with an update.

Jeez, what's with the trick question? Top 3 could mean anything...all time? This month? This year? Last year? This decade? Last decade? I refuse to give a serious answer until you pose a serious question. So here are my top 3 non-serious albums for you to go buy immediately, if not sooner.

Public Enemy - Fear of a Black Planet (actually quite serious, one of the best sociopolitical albums of all time -- a must have)

Ned's Atomic Dustbin - God Fodder (Brit-pop, double bass guitar, hit single Kill Your Television, not a single skipper on the whole CD)

The The - Dusk (If you like Johnny Cash, this might intrigue you -- more blues than country influence. Also British).

and now for the rest of the stuff you should have

Ash - Trailer (The best rock band you've never heard of. This is their first album. Their second album was called 1977 because they're huge Star Wars fans. That's gotta be worth something.)

Billy Bragg - Don't Try This At Home (Socialist brit-folk-rock -- you'll love it Warren. Seriously awesome raw guitar playing though)

Chemical Brothers - Exit Planet Dust (First and best album -- another must have)

Descendents - Everything Sucks (Must have punk rock)

Electrafixion - Burned (Formed Echo and the Bunnymen members doing something a little more rock and roll and a little less foppy haired british 80's pop)

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year (Former Pixies front man. Easily a top 10 all time for me)

The Get Up Kids - Red Letter Day (only an EP, but some amazing indy rock)

The Housemartins - Now That's What I Call Quite Good (best of from one of the best bands from Hull ever - everything from drinking to gospel, you might think they were Irish...)

Inspiral Carpets - Revenge of the Goldfish (another top 10 all time, brit-pop)

James - Best of James (brit pop)

Jane's Addiction - Nothing's Shocking (must have)

Jesus and Mary Chain - Automatic (must have brit surf-pop/shoegazer)

Knapsack - This Conversation is Ending Starting Right Now (driving punk-pop out of Davis initially)

Leftfield - Leftism (one of the best "dance" albums ever, although it's not the crap dance you're used to hearing 'Yall ready for this' samples in. 10 top all time)

Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing to Taste (one of the best "industrial" albums ever)

Operation Ivy - Energy (pretty much everything this Berkeley punk band ever did on one CD -- great stuff)

Pixies - Surfer Rosa/Come on Pilgrim or Doolittle or Trompe le Monde (One of the best rock bands to come out of the US)

Reel Big Fish - Why Do They Rock So Hard? (great pop-rock-ska)

Sheep on Drugs - One for the Money (hard to describe duo from the UK, technically "industrial" but much more fun)

Therapy? - Troublegum (often overlooked Irish hard rock band)

Underworld - Underworld 1992-2002 (famous for the ending song in Trainspotting 'Born Slippy Nuxx 1995' also on the Trainspotting soundtrack which is a great one)

Violent Femmes - Add It Up '81-'93

What would I drop off?

  • Electrafixion
  • Get Up Kids
  • Inspiral Carpets
  • Knapsack
  • Reel Big Fish
  • Sheep on Drugs
  • Therapy?

To be clear, I still love these albums, but they were important to me at the time and not so much today. Everything else though...I think I nailed it.

The 2021 NFL Betting Spread

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Once again I've compiled the season into this quaint little overview. Maybe someday this will be replaced with GPT3, or GTP4, but for now it's still handcrafted.

Overall:

Underdogs beat the spread 140 times (51.5%)
Favorites covered the spread 130 times (47.8%)
There were 2 pushes (0.7%)
Last year was 132/116/7

A pie chart that shows the betting spread is really close to 50/50

Large Numbers:

The largest spread was 17.5 in week 7, Arizona vs Houston, which Arizona covered 31-5. This breaks the NY Jets two year streak of being involved in the largest spread.

Common Numbers:

Jumping from second to first in the race for most common spread was 2.5, narrowly edging out 3 this season, 30-29. Unsurprisingly the 3 point spread was a dead heat with favorites covering 15 times and underdogs beating 14 times. Now, 2.5 got weird with only 9 favorites covering and 21 underdogs beating the spread. As they kids say these days…daaaaaaaaang.

Odd Numbers:

So 2.5 should get mentioned here, but I already gave you the details. Next up is 5.5 with 2 favorites covering and 9 underdogs beating the spread. A single point saw 9 favorites cover and only 4 underdogs beat. 10.5 was 8 favorites covering and only 3 underdogs beating the spread.

Favorites:

Coming from seemingly out of nowhere, Dallas took the crown with an 11-3 record at covering the spread. Way to go, Big D! KC slightly reversed their situation from last season (5-8 as favorites) with a 9-8 record when favored.

Baltimore was our top loser, failing to cover 9 times. Nine times… Cleveland, KC, and Tampa Bay all tied with 8 failures in this category.

Underdogs:

Detroit, a not very good football team, managed to beat the spread 10 times this season, but failed 7 times. Yes, that means they were never favored in a single game. This should shock nobody. Pittsburgh was 8-4 beating the spread.

Jacksonville had a very, very hard time beating the spread, going 5-10. Chicago, Houston, NY Giants, NY Jets, and the Washington WTF’s all tied with 9 failures to beat the spread.

A Look Back at the Lindo Channel in 2021

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I live across from the Lindo Channel, which is just a dry ditch most of the year. It's an overflow for Chico Creek, so the only time we have water running is when the city doesn't want downtown flooded. There is a tree in the middle of the channel and for some reason I started taking photos of it back in 2017 and since I'm a creature of habit I have continued to take photos. I miss days here and there, of course, but more often than not I get down there and grab my shots.

Lindo Channel 2021

All of these photos are Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike Creative Commons licensed. Maybe you will do something cool with them. If you're thinking hey, I know! I'll make a time lapse video! Well, good luck with that. These are handheld photos, so the tree is not exactly centered, much as I tried. So, there is tremendous jitter when you try to do things the "easy way", by which I mean just use ffmpeg to squish them in sequence into a video. The results are a bit...jarring.

Browse the entire collection of years if this suits your fancy!

Adventures in Diabetes

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Type 1 Diabetes is an infuriating disease. The short version is that special cells in your pancreas stop producing insulin. Insulin is needed by your body to get glucose (energy) into your cells. Without insulin, glucose builds up in your bloodstream and does terrible things. Without insulin, your body starts to starve and you die. Before 1921, when insulin was first isolated and used as a medication, type 1 diabetes was a death sentence. The long version is you become an endocrinologist. If medical schools seems like more than your want to take on, a dive down the Wikipedia type 1 rabbit hole will probably fill many of the gaps I’ve left.

The more you read about type 1 the more you’ll hear about the challenges and uncertainty that we face. We’re always searching for “the answer”, the one true way that’s sure to keep our blood sugar steady and in range, with minimal effort of course! The more you search, the more you’ll find that there is no one true way and trying to nail down controlling type 1 is like trying to nail jello to a wall. It’s hard work and the only way to stay healthy is to do the work. Every day, all day.

While everybody with type 1 has to deal with it differently, we all have the same tool set to work with: exercise, diet, medication, and data. I list these in the order that I feel they’re accessible (read: affordable). Exercise is almost universally accessible, in one form or another, while the data from a continuous glucose monitor (CGM) can be prohibitively expensive. If you’re wondering why diet isn’t as accessible as exercise, next time you go shopping, try to buy all fresh, non-processed foods with minimal carbs/sugar. Your bill will almost certainly be much higher than average. Medication, mostly insulin, depending on your insurance can be reasonable or making you wonder if you should eat or refill your prescription. Too many people have to make a choice of one or the other.

This is the beginning of me writing about my adventures with type 1 diabetes. This isn’t advice, just anecdotes from my life about how I do my best to manage this chronic disease. What works for me may very well not work for you and visa versa. Caffeine may not spike your blood sugar like it does mine! The variations are seemingly infinite, but it does boil down to 42 factors.

To start, I’ll briefly run through the tools as I use them and maybe they’ll give you some ideas on how you can adapt these tools to your life. As I continue to add to my adventures we’ll get deeper into each area. Standard disclaimer that you should talk to your doctor about what you plan to change in your self-treatment practices. I can promise you one thing, whatever I’m doing won’t work the same way for you. Because diabetes is a jerk.

Exercise

I pretty much only have two routines: walking or running. I know, I should throw in other things like core workouts, biking, swimming, or, you know…literally anything else. But this is what I can fit into my life right now.

Exercise has a dramatic impact on my blood sugar and insulin sensitivity. That dramatic impact can be in both directions, because diabetes is a jerk. The longer the distance or more intensity to run, the more there will be a blood sugar bump after I finish the workout. I assume this is because my liver is working full time dumping glucose into my bloodstream to power my muscles and when I stop using my muscles the glucose just piles up in my blood.

On the insulin sensitivity front, I have to be very, very careful while I’m out walking or running. I rarely try to never go anywhere without glucose tabs, but for my longer runs (10+ miles) I have to carry a lot of snacks. Currently I’m using SuperFat and Verb energy bars. Occasionally I’ll use some UCAN Super Starch before I head out.

Diet

I’ve settled on a very low carbohydrate diet. Some might call it Keto, but I’m not aiming for a state of ketosis, just strictly limiting my carbohydrate intake. Gone are the dinners with pasta and bread. Protein and fat are my macro nutrients of choice. I do allow myself one or two “glucose excursions” (a phrase I borrowed from Peter Attia) .

Medication

I’m fairly bland here, I have two types of insulin, fast acting and long acting. Fast acting I take prior to eating or to control any elevation in blood sugar during the day. I take the long acting when I go to sleep for better overnight control. I'm a fan of the "kwik pen" style and have never used a real syringe or insulin from a vial. I've also never used an insulin pump and plan to stuck with multiple daily injections for the forseable future. From the book Dr. Bernstein’s Diabetes Solution, I use The Law of Small Numbers, which is that fewer grams of carbs means fewer units of insulin I need to inject. It also helps to “flatten the curve” of my blood sugar, avoiding peaks and valleys on my Dexcom continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) graph.

Data

Speaking of CGM, I’m fortunate to have coverage for the Dexcom G6. It provides me with near real-time readings 24/7, with the small exception of the two hours a new sensor takes to warm up after I put it on. Before the Dexcom I was limited to only getting readings when I did a finger stick. Doing this more than 6 times a day and trying to do it at night was doable, but having a system where the measurements just happen is an absolute game changer. A finger stick will get you a point in time reading. If you want a trend you need multiple readings, which means multiple sticks. While you get used to piercing your skin to draw blood, I don’t think it ever gets comfortable. Or maybe I just have really sensitive fingers. Regardless, having a reading every 5 minutes from the Dexcom has made managing my blood sugar easier, but still not easy. Because diabetes is a jerk.

I hope this has been helpful, even though I’ve barely scratched the surface. There are so many sources of information, and I’ll try and highlight as many of the ones that I trust as I can in the future. I don’t do comments here, because the internet can be a very horrible place, so if you would like to reach out I’m @pberry on Twitter or you can email me at pberry @ gmail . com.