Before our dog Helo passed away earlier this year, Clay and I had decided that, whenever the time came, we would cremate our dogs but opt not to receive their ashes. We discussed it and felt good about our decision. And when Helo died, we stuck to the plan.

But god dammit it hurt. A couple days later we both looked at each other and knew we’d changed our minds. Luckily it was a one phone call fix and it felt like a huge weight had been lifted.

Grief just isn’t rational at all. Maybe years from now we’ll scatter his ashes somewhere, but for now, it feels right having them with us.

So then I went down a rabbit hole looking for unique urns and I found Barruntando Ceramics on Etsy, a Spanish ceramics shop that creates painterly, custom urns from photos of your pet. Truly adorable.

Ours finally arrived yesterday and it’s wonderful.

We love having this to look at and to remember our sweet Helo pup. 💚

I’ve been having trouble finding a bicycle helmet that fits well. I’ve got a pretty small head, the circumference measurement just barely making it into the Adult Small sizes for some brands and Kids sizes for others. It’s also quite flat in the back (hats and headbands never quite stay put either).

I tried a few brands that didn’t quite work. Some customer service folks and my neighborhood bike shop suggested DIY padding options. I posed the question on Mastodon and Gabrielle Wee suggested I search for Asian-fit helmets.

Interesting! That turned up a bunch of info and turns out, it’s not just a me problem. Here’s a diagram from Karmore Sports:

I did some searching but ran into a few obstacles:

• Stores in my area don’t carry them.
• A lot of online retailers only carried medium to large sizes.
• There were a lot of snowboard helmet options but not bicycle.
• The bicycle ones were for serious cyclists (definitely not me, I have a one-speed beach cruiser).

A bit of a bummer, but I was able to try some helmets on in person and turns out the ones with the little dial fitter in the back were a great alternative. I tried Smith brand ones and those were comfy, but I ended up with this one from Thousand because I liked the price and the look:

See the dial?

Maybe this dial thing is old news, but I’m new to bike helmets and none of the bike stores I talked to recommended it! It made the helmet really snug and it wouldn’t budge. I hope I don’t ever have to test it, but it feels great and I’ve been comfortably riding the last couple days.

So for my fellow flat-headed people, maybe try a helmet with the little dial in the back. 🚲

On Thursday Clay and I attended our first concert in over three years.

New Found Glory just released a new acoustic album. It’s a really great, emotional album written and recorded after Chad almost died and was diagnosed with Pheochromocytoma, a rare cancer that often goes misdiagnosed. Their accompanying tour is raising awareness and funds for the Pheo Para Alliance. I knew we had to be there.

They played Celebrity Theatre, an intimate venue known for its revolving stage (stationary for this show, though). It was incredible. A real gift of a show for longtime fans. I only teared up twice: once during Dressed to Kill and once during Kiss the Floor (my fave song from the new album).

Grateful to experience this show and for this music I’ve loved for so much of my life. Hopeful for Chad’s health and for more NFG in the future.

I grabbed some photos from their Instagram to remember the night. Shots by Ana Massard.

They played a lot of songs they don’t often play live, so I made a Spotify playlist of their set. Missing from the playlist is I’ll Be (Edwin McCain) which to my knowledge they never recorded.

Here’s to us fools that have no meaning
I tip my glass to you
Let’s toast the night away to friends
And forget about tomorrow

Neal Agarwal is one of my favorite people on the web. He makes weird interactive projects over at neal.fun and his latest is a joy to explore.

It’s called Wonders of Street View and drops you into Google Street View at curated spots. You can click around and explore for hours, trust me. There are a bunch of neat places and things to see and my favorites are...

The road side attractions:

The absolutely gorgeous natural wonders:

The distant places I will never see in person:

The captures at the perfect moment:

And of course I love a Google glitch:

Of course there are tons more delightful and beautiful places to explore, so check it out!

Wonders of Street View

The tech industry loves stickers and so do I. Lisa Frank really had us hoarding stickers at an early age. Like many others before me, I can never decide where to put them. There’s only so much laptop surface area and the permanence of it all feels daunting.

I looked into some ways of finally using them. I don’t have the courage to go full David Darnes and do the sticker desk, though I absolutely love how it looks.

Sticker desk from @DavidDarnes on Twitter

Of the options I saw, fridge magnets felt like a safe and easy thing to try. So this weekend I got some adhesive magnet sheets and gave it a go.

just a portion of my sticker hoard

It was pretty simple. Peel the sticker, peel the magnet, stick them together, cut.

Turned out decent enough. If you look too closely you might be like, did a child cut these? Related, I recommend extremely sharp scissors. The easier ones were the ones I could use a straight edge and X-ACTO knife. But, it’s better than having them sit in a drawer hidden away.

Should I cover the entire fridge? Just might.