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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 2nd, 2023

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  • English natively, enough Spanish to make friends, enough French to stay out of trouble, and enough Italian to get into trouble. I also have some transactional German (groceries, tickets, coffee, etc). I’m American.

    It would take me a few months of daily practice to prepare and get comfortable with anything but Spanish. I haven’t studied the other languages formally, only independently, for travel.




  • I just spent almost two weeks on vacation in an apartment with an induction stove. I’ve had gas my whole life. I was impressed. It heated the pans faster and more evenly, the temperature was more tuneable and it was easy to clean.

    While standard resistive stoves do get those rings, the inductive one almost certainly wouldn’t, because the glass only gets heated by the pan, rather than the other way around.

    The only difficulty was the Samsung UX. It was a bit of a chore to get the pan centered on the coil, and there was insufficient feedback when you got it right or wrong and if it wasn’t in the right place it just wouldn’t work. I got used to it, but I’d have liked some better markings, and an LED ring that would show when it was on. It also didn’t automatically heat the pan quickly on startup. You had to set it to 9, then back off, otherwise it would heat the pan on a duty cycle.

    If I were to upgrade my kitchen, I’d absolutely go with induction. However, even beyond my usual research, I’d make damn sure I got the best option on this. I love cooking too much to screw it up.





  • I’ve been traveling for the last 22 days. I’ve been to both countries before, so there might be fewer firsts than one might expect.

    I did get to see the Large Magellanic Cloud. That was definitely on the list. I crossed into Chilean Patagonia for a day, if only to soak in some hot springs. I got to see Lago Llanquihue, Volcán Osorno, and visited Bariloche. That was all new.

    Beyond that, it’s mostly details. Where I stayed and such. It’s been a fantastic trip.

    I’m in Buenos Aires for a couple more days, and there really isn’t much I haven’t seen before here. It’s just nice to be away, relaxing and enjoying all the little differences.

    I suppose the big first is that I did all these things sober. I really, really wasn’t in that condition 20 years ago. In that respect, it’s an entirely different (and for me, a much better) experience.