Following up on the soft launch post, I thought I’d share a few more things to document and credit some of the incredible people in the WordPress community that have taught me so much. This post by Nick Schäferhoff was the kick in the pants I needed to just build off my last theme instead of trying to start with someone else’s theme and trying to make it mine. That article really helped me focus on reducing the number of theme files (now just have index.php, single.php and page.php) and finally cleaning up my CSS style sheet.

Mobile-optimized hamburger navigation menus seem to be everywhere, but it took me a while to pick Rui Guerreiro’s WP Mobile Menu plugin. This seemed to be one of the most popular options, with both free and premium versions available. My problem was that it wasn’t the easiest to set up and customize, but all of the people that participate in the support forum (especially Rui) really helped get me across the finish line on that aspect of the project.

Speaking of plugins, I encountered a few issues that needed to be resolved. There were two plugins that I’ve been using for a long time that do not appear to be supported any longer, one breaking with PHP8 (timeago) and the other apparently pulled from the WordPress directory (add-meta-tags). I’ve been using the excellent WordPress security plugin Wordfence for many years and it now alerts me to issues like this, which is very handy. Timeago hadn’t been updated in 13 years and was based on a jQuery plugin of the same name (which was last updated in 2014). Decided to drop the custom dates and just use the standard get_the_date() call for now.

Add-Meta-Tags started development in 2006 and has officially been deprecated and is no longer recommended for production sites. It was easy enough to find another tag plugin – decided to use Meta Tag Manager, by Pixelite (which also has free and paid versions). I thought I previously wrote about the PHP Everywhere plugin issues, but in any case replaced that with Insert PHP Code Snippet by xyzscripts.com a while back. Looks like the Gmail SMTP plugin might be next on the hit list, according to WordFence…

Welcome to the long-delayed new theme for 7 Minute Miles! I’ve had a number of design goals for quite some time, the biggest of which was making this site appear better on mobile devices. A few months ago, I set up a test environment using the excellent WordPress development tool Local, by WP Engine. While there is still a lot of tweaking to do, it’s time to make the switch and make updates to production (I know, I know).

So what were some of my key goals?

• Responsive design
• Dark theme
• Larger fonts/easier to read
• Hamburger menu navigation
• One design for all devices
• Clean up and simplify code
• Full PHP8 support

There were a number of things I initially had on the list that I decided to drop. I still really, really like the three-column newspaper look on larger screens and it was hard to let go of that Masonry codebase that I’ve used for quite a long time. Also decided I just don’t like Gutenberg and don’t want to switch now. That will change if/when the Classic Editor plugin reaches end of life, but I’m comfortable modifying the underlying theme code directly when needed.

So what’s left to do? Lots of testing across different devices (iPhone, iPad, iMac, Windows) and a review of all my previous sub-pages (some of which may not come back). Now that this is live, I need to review the demise of Tweetbot/Twitter and decide how often I want to post here and what format that will take. As always, you can find the RSS feed here and I still highly recommend NetNewsWire for following people.

Thanks for visiting!

Today the Star Tribune ran a story on the 25 foods that should be in a Minnesota State Fair food hall of fame. I really enjoy reading and admire Joy Summers and Sharyn Jackson, but having an inaugural class of 25 seems too large to me. Here would be my ballot choices for the founding class (in my preferred order):

• Pronto Pup
• Fresh French Fries
• Corn Roast
• Danielson’s and Daughters Onion Rings
• Dairy Goodness Malts
• Sweet Martha’s Cookie Jar
• Tom Thumb Mini-Donuts

Let’s start with seven and see where we go from here…

Headed up to Grand Casino Hinckley today to test a theory about Black Orchid – that the top Orchid Progressive has the same odds on a nickel bet as it does on any other bet (see my recent long-form post on the Orchid here). On our last stop at Hinckley, there was still one machine with an unusually large top progressive on a nickel bet: a little more than $10,000. Unfortunately, someone beat me to it and that machine reset down to $500 (same as the yellow progressive).

Grand Casino is one of the only properties I know of that has tried to educate guests on volatility. They used to place stickers on the machines with a 1, 2 or 3 so you could tell how the game played. I don’t think they use those any longer, but Black Orchid was always marked a three for high volatility. After my multi-hour session playing nickels, I have to say that playing only one line boosts the volatility through the roof. I think I might’ve had a stretch of 100 or more losing spins before winning anything. Probably not the experience most players are looking for in a slot machine.

Of course the flip side of that is that when you do win, it’s usually for higher multipliers. The closest I came to getting a normal progressive was four cats, which paid $20 (400x win). Also had four jacks once, but that only pays $2.50 (50x). Very few three of a kind wins, although I did get three black orchids once. One of my free spin sessions re-triggered multiple times, for a total of 60 spins (total win: $3.00). Based on play today, I’d say that the frequency of black orchid symbols is the same as other bet levels. All of the other progressives hit much more often with the 40, 80 and 99 cent bets, however.

One last note, nickel orchid is probably not driving the level of play that the marketing department wants from their promotions. The August flier I received offered $5 of free play for every 20 points earned during the day (valid up to three times). I’m only first tier with their players club (“Preferred”) and am not sure how much play is required per point (the Grand Rewards page doesn’t really say). I think I played nickels for almost three hours and earned around 12 points. I prefer to be a low roller in general, but will enjoy going back to “regular” orchid at Mystic Lake next week…

I’ve turned into a marketing executive’s dream. Here are seven of my current favorite brands:

• Apple
• Descente
• Disney
• Johnston and Murphy
• Mizuno
• Polo Ralph Lauren
• Sony

Most of those have been on the list for years and years too…

As I get ready to go back into concert mode tonight for the Rollings Stones, I realized I never posted my pictures from the Morrissey show last month at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace. This was a last minute impulse trip (booked the Wednesday before) and we were really glad we did it. This short five night residency had been postponed during the pandemic and we caught the last show of the rescheduled run.

First time for both of us in the venue built for Céline and we were very impressed – great sight lines and amazing acoustics. We were about 15 rows back on the main floor and loved the production. Second time seeing him live (and we will never forget the run-in at the Las Vegas airport Cinnabon after his House of Blues show too).

Not sure if I wrote much about the rest of the trip, but for posterity sake, we stayed at the Mirage, I golfed with Herm on the Paiute Sun Mountain course, Colleen saw RuPaul’s Drag Race LIVE! at the Flamingo Hilton and we had a lovely dinner at Chef Keller’s Bouchon in the Venetian. Setlist and photos can be found after the jump.

Viva Moz Vegas!

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Just a short mini post to get some photos archived from the Jack-O-Lantern Spectacular at the Minnesota Zoo. This is the third year, but our first visit. Running through November 7th, we thought it was well worth the $24 tickets (and fighting the huge crowd). Thanks again to zoo staffer Sarah Mariette for recommending that we go this year. Make sure you get tickets online ahead of time if you want to go – they are not available for purchase at the door.

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Before I forget all the details, here is a short post about the Doobie Brothers show at the Minnesota State Fair. Our original tickets were for the 2020 version of the fair that never happened, so we just held on to them. This is the second time I’ve been suckered into buying seats on the “floor” that are really much worse than being farther back in the actual grandstand structure (the other was Stevie Nicks). Fool me once…won’t get fooled again.

Of course everyone was excited to have Michael McDonald rejoin the band after a 26 year absence, so it was heartbreaking to get the notice a few hours before the show that he would not be performing. When they said openers Dirty Dozen Brass Band were also scratched, I figured it had to be a serious health issue and hoped everyone was OK. Ross Raihala at the Pioneer Press and I exchanged some private messages and he initially thought it was 50/50 health and 50/50 band fight (spoiler: it was COVID).

The show started promptly at 7:30pm and overall we were entertained. You can find the Ross review here, while the Star Tribune sent Jon Bream. Colleen and I loved that Bream caught both the Prince tribute by saxophonist Marc Russo and the ZZ Top moment by Johnston, Simmons and McFee. Reported attendance was 11,461 and here is the setlist from setlist.fm (which is also after the jump, along with a handful of very bad photos).

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Remembering those who perished in service to this country:

• Civil War: 655,000
• World War I: 116,516
• World War II: 405,399
• Korean War: 36,516
• Vietnam War: 58,209

And as vaccines start to take hold, also thinking of these American lives lost:

• Flu Pandemic of 1918: 675,000
• COVID-19 Pandemic: 591,265

Rest in Peace 💜

Better late than never – here is my very brief race report from the 2021 Get in Gear 10K. It was great to be back to running in-person again, even if it wasn’t completely normal. This was my 21st Get in Gear (and 20th in a row, if you count last year’s virtual race). It’s still my favorite 10K and I hope to continue running it every spring as long as I’m mobile.

The 2021 edition was shortened to 5.5 miles, as the start and finish were located in the parking lot near the entrance to the lock and dam on West River Parkway. The sign-in and T-shirt tables were located under the Ford Parkway bridge, which were only available on race day (none of the usual spots in Minnehaha Park were used this year). The streets were not closed, so the entire route was on the pathways. We even had to use the stairs on the St. Paul side of the Lake Street bridge.

The field was limited to 250 people, with two waves starting at 8:30am and 9:30am. Pods of ten runners were spaced two minutes apart – I started in pod one of wave two and had a nice bike escort for the first few miles. I don’t know why they let me set the pace in my pod for the first mile, but it was a cool feeling to be in the “lead” briefly. Finished with a 58:32 chip time (10:39 Minute Miles), good for 187th out of 240 and 12th in my age group. First time with peanut butter at a race finish – thanks, Old Home!

Up next: State Fair Milk Run 5K.

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The very clever series of commercials for Grand Casino (developed by the talented Chad Germann and his team at Red Circle Agency) has always made me feel like I should have one of those experiences at some point. Sadly, I’ve never had a large jackpot at Hinckley or Mille Lacs, but today my daughter and I at least had something happen that might qualify as a true Grand Story:

Hinckley has a ton of my favorite game, Black Orchid, often with unusually high progressives. The first machine I played today had a large frog progressive, so MK pulled out her lucky frog (a handmade clay pin) and set it on the machine. A few minutes later, boom, $78.43 frog jackpot. On our way out, we saw another Black Orchid that had a very large butterfly progressive that we tried to hit (unsuccessfully). Just before giving up, though, we hit a smaller $30.61 frog jackpot that put us back on the positive side of the ledger for the night…

My head is still spinning after returning home from the last home game of a very strange 2020 season:

• Games with fewer people aren’t as stressful overall, but it still takes me several hours to wind down after the final whistle blows.
• Immensely thankful everyone on our team stayed healthy all season.
• I don’t walk nearly as many steps on game day since we got a Cushman for IT.
• Five regular seasons already? 2016: 5-3, 2017: 7-1, 2018: 5-3, 2019: 6-2, 2020: 3-5
• The people in the Vikings organization are extraordinary and it’s a pleasure to work with them year after year.
• Three stadiums are now newer than us in the NFL, but next year will feel like opening the building all over again.

Just a few things to clean up this week in the building, then on to 2021…

The stability saga with my upgraded 2017 Retina 4K 21-inch iMac, MrJackpot, continues. The latest:

• All panics still involve IONVMeController.cpp in the crash report.
• Definitely caused by the Aura Pro X2 SSD from Other World Computing.
• Upgrading to Big Sur initially did not change the number of crashes (which were averaging about once a week while sleeping).
• The latest Big Sur update (11.1) has made things more unstable, causing multiple crashes a day (even during normal operations).
• I turned off screen sleep in Energy Saver and unchecked the following: Put hard disks to sleep when possible, Wake for network access, Start up automatically after a power failure and Enable Power Nap.
• Also ran this command from Terminal: sudo pmset -a standby 0 autopoweroff 0 hibernatemode 0 (which OWC support suggested in a July email). This initially seemed to slow down the number of crashes, but did not stop them completely.
• So far, the system starts back up with no noticeable file system damage (need to hold the power button for ten seconds, wait, then single press the power button to get the kernel panic multi-language message to appear (above), which then automatically starts the reboot process after a few seconds.

At this point, I don’t know what else to do until I can buy an M1-based iMac next year. I thought about buying an M1 Mac mini with an LG 4K display now, but that’s a pricy option. I sent a follow-up email to OWC support, but frankly I’ve been disappointed in how they’ve handled this issue (which seems to have impacted a large number of people). I’d been a happy customer of theirs since I started my Mac support career at NWA in 1996, so it’s sad and frustrating to be in this situation…

The “new zoo” has been impacted in unique ways by the pandemic, so we were happy to help support them via the drive-thru Nature Illuminated experience that runs through January 17. Prices vary by day, with discounts for zoo members (we paid $50 for our car of four people). The inflatable animals and lighting are set up in the eastern parking lots (near the school that SK and MK attended), which you enter and exit from the main zoo entrance on McAndrews. There is an audio program you can stream from your phone that ties in with the sequence of the animals, who are grouped much like the zoo itself. You are asked to drive with just your parking lights and the leisurely pace was just right, allowing for photos and an overall time of about 40 minutes.

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My favorite pandemic time killers (alphabetical):

• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Fargo
• The Mandalorian
• Ozark
• The Queen’s Gambit
• Schitt’s Creek
• Ted Lasso

Any others I should start? Better Call Saul was good too…

Back in high school, I loved studying history. Richard Demers was my favorite teacher, leading such courses as Ancient Civilizations, Western Civilizations and American Experience as part of Central’s Quest program. As I mentioned on my biography page, I took eight semesters of history, along with one independent study about the history of classical music. His euphemism for tests, OTEs (“opportunities to excel”), is something most of my high school classmates will recall fondly. They were always very difficult, but I’m grateful that grading on a curve was a thing back then.

Another concept that Mr. Demers taught in “Ancient Civ” was the Greek notion “excellence of body, excellence of mind.” This resonated deeply with me, but Google has not located authoritative references for this saying that I clearly remember (perhaps the Mandela Effect is in play?). The closest I’ve found is the Greek term arete (not to be confused with mountaineering’s sharp ridge separating two cirques or glacial valleys in mountainous regions). This line in the arete Wikipedia page jumped out at me:

It was commonly believed that the mind, body, and soul each had to be developed and prepared for a man to live a life of arete.

While I don’t recall the word arete being used by Demers, I do remember him discussing the concepts of paideia and the education of the aristocracy. It seems there is much more to learn about these concepts from Aristotle and Plato – perhaps some light reading for the long Minnesota winter?

I don’t really have a ton of comments on the new stuff this week:

• The upgrade file for Big Sur is huge, then it asks for even more free space to install.
• Happy it’s still free, but how exactly does that continue to work?
• Upgraded my work MacBook Air on the first day, then my home iMac the next day. No big issues so far on either one – there was one alert about the Cisco AnyConnect client, but version 4.9.00086 seems to work fine.
• Out of the gate, Big Sur seems very polished for a dot-0 release.
• Speaking of 11: while I like the Spinal Tap reference, the end of the “X” is a little sad too.
• Will the new Safari improvements get me to switch back from Chrome? Time will tell on that one…
• Hoping the AirPod tradeoff process between devices works as promised, since I switch a lot these days.
• Happy that Music and Photos survived the upgrade with no issues (and maybe even a little better performance?).
• All of my old crusty menubar apps seem to work so far (Last.fm Scrobbler, Backblaze).
• No issues with virtual desktops (i.e. – Mission Control), terminal sessions, Screen Sharing or iCloud Notes.
• The Apple Silicon stuff is impressive – guessing my first one will be an iMac next year.
• I would be clamoring for a new Air if they would’ve made the screen bezel smaller – that is the only thing I envy on our fleet of Dell XPS laptops.

In other Kingsbury Apple news, Colleen got her new Max on Friday and loves it. I’m still happy with my decision to get the smaller phone (and the iPad Pro for all of us to use as needed). Not really using the pencil, though (so far).

Back in 2017, I posted my top 7 online publications. The list today has changed a little:

• Star Tribune*
• Washington Post*
• New York Times*
• The Atlantic*
• The Economist*
• Daring Fireball (RSS)
• 9to5Mac (RSS)

* paid subscriber

It’s the start of bonus week, so let’s kick off things with a new Top 7 list:

• Let those you love know
• Never read the comments
• Always keep learning
• Move every day
• Travel as much as possible
• Eat the good stuff
• Less talking, more thinking

More reflections coming soon…

es • o • ter • ic
ĕs″ə-tĕr′ĭk
adj. Intended for or understood by only a small group, especially one with specialized knowledge or interests: synonym: mysterious.

Mysterious?

Today was one of those days when I worked on so many strange things, I don’t know how I ever learned all this random stuff. I’m sure there are a million people that could step in and learn my job over time, but right now I don’t know what my colleagues will do if I get a fever and can’t go to work. I’m trying to diversify that risk through delegation, training and documentation, but there is a ton of specialization in our environment (which I’m sure is true for many other professions as well).

Seriously, though:

switchport access vlan 360
switchport mode access
power inline auto max 30000
spanning-tree portfast
service-policy output softmax

Who talks like that?

It’s exhausting reading about the issues of 2020, but there is one topic I can’t stop thinking about. What will be the long-term impact on the economy if people change their thinking (and spending) on what’s really important to them? On one hand, I feel like there will be a lot of pent-up demand for things like travel. On the other hand, how many industries will find demand drop-off for good? My own personal spending priorities have shifted quite a bit during the pandemic (out of necessity), but I can easily picture some of these changes being permanent…

With all the crazy, awful things going on in the world today, I’m not sure it’s really appropriate to daydream about material things that are so outside the realities of a worldwide pandemic. On the other hand, it does feel a little therapeutic to briefly escape from all the anxiety and think about a different, calmer life. The North Shore of Lake Superior has always been one of those escapes for me and I could easily envision spending the rest of my life on that lake:

• Design and build a not-so-big log cabin
• Stone fireplace and large picture window
• Screen porch to manage the flying bugs
• Heated floors for warm feet in the winter
• Fast internet (but no phones)
• Nice speakers to play the North Shore playlist
• Wooded lot with shoreline
• Wildflowers and hummingbirds
• Detached garage with exercise area/game room
• Guest cottages for SK and MK
• Family kayaks
• Access to the SHT and bike trails
• Golf at Superior National
• Skiing at Lutsen Mountains
• Gaming at Grand Portage
• Concerts at Papa Charlie’s

Ahh…

As I started reading through Joe Bissen’s new book, More! Gone. Minnesota’s Lost Golf Courses Part II, I realized that not only are there a lot of closed courses I actually played, there are also a large percentage of the courses I included in my Minnesota Golden Links CD-ROM back in 1999 that are no longer here (43 by my initial count). Joe was kind enough to include a chapter with a list of all the closed courses he knows about, so I thought it would be fun to go back to my original Photoshop files and post the screens for the ones that are no longer open for play (pics after the jump – please excuse the ancient Photoshop techniques and poor color corrections).

Joe says in the introduction to the new book that he isn’t as interested in the courses that have closed recently, but it’s amazing how many of the entries in my 1999 guide are gone (including a few that opened after my guide and are already closed). There are a number of inconsistencies between his list and my guide, as I only included public courses that were members of the Minnesota Golf Association (MGA). Make sure and check out his original book Fore! Gone: Minnesota’s Lost Golf Courses, 1897-1999, as well as his website. Fun stuff.

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Golf courses I’ve played that are no longer open:

• Valley View, Belle Plaine
• Carriage Hills, Eagan
• Rich Acres, Richfield
• Hudson GC, Hudson
• Wendigo, Grand Rapids
• Brockway, Rosemount
• Parkview, Eagan

Can’t remember the last new one that opened around here…

My favorite song covers:

• Superstar – Sonic Youth (Carpenters)
• Hurt – Johnny Cash (Nine Inch Nails)
• Jolene – The White Stripes (Dolly Parton)
• Jesus, Etc. – Norah Jones (Wilco)
• Over the Rainbow – Israel Kamakawiwo’ole (Judy Garland)
• Take Me to the River – Talking Heads (Al Green)
• Walk This Way – Run-D.M.C. (Aerosmith)

In no particular order (and I’m sure I missed some)…