ryan erickson

Trying going blindly, it might be better

I was once told that it may be better to blindly go into an uncertain situation (or workday, or perhaps work week for that matter) than to contemplate the potential issues that may/may not arise. I’d love to tell you that I’ve taken that to heart over the years, but alas, I couldn’t lie to you. That would be wrong. No, I haven’t followed that advice for some time. It’s not in my nature. However,…

It was Military Appreciation weekend at the Virginia Living Museum and we took full advantage. The kids leaned and we got lots of photos too. 

Spent an afternoon at Northwest River Park. What a nice day. 

Getting sticker residue out of a washed and dried shirt, by Dad

If you do laundry long enough you’ll hit the snag of having a sticker washed, then dried, onto a shirt. Favorite shirt or not, it sucks when it happens. I’ve even thrown out shirts because I didn’t want to deal with the sticker goo! However, this time, I was game for the challenge. After a bit of searching and reading differing posts I used what I had in the house and got to work. I used: Rubbing…

My mother passed away one year ago today

Kind of a drab title I know. I struggled with it for a bit before I wrote this. Normally I leave the title for last, however, not this time. I guess I was working to make a statement or rather an admission to myself. It worked. I admit I haven’t fully digested the fact that she’s passed. I’m not really surprised with that though- it took me almost five years to actually cry for the loss of my…

Today Liberty was working on a side project for one her Girl Scout badges: The Pinecone Birdfeeder. It was a rather simple project: Find a pinecone Tie string to it (we used biodegradable twine) Smother in sunflower butter (or peanut butter, plain, no added sugars) And your choice of unsalted/unroasted nuts. We used pecans. We hung them on some trees outside the house. Done!  

Life. Also known as an Outlier.

During the morning ritual of trying to figure out the best way to write a great post covering the daily post prompt, I came to the conclusion that citing the specific word “outlier” as a specific thing would be an injustice to all of our lives. “How so?” you may ask. Let me tell you… Every day we wake up and start our day. Some are early, some late, nonetheless, we all get-up. Wait, did you just…

The perils of your own web server

Today brought about the kind of crappy day I was waiting for, with regards to running my own web server. The same “server” that runs this website is, in fact, a Raspberry Pi 3 sitting in my entertainment center in the front room. And until today I hadn’t really had any issues with downtime on it. However, today we had the first power outage of the season. I thought I had prepared for it. I have…

I think I’m denying I’m in denial… I can’t remember though

Ok, yes, it’s true. I’m in denial. But only sometimes. The statement “sometimes” can be easily quantified by the mere fact that I admit that I’m at times in denial. I’ve been having memory issues as of late. My wife and I think it’s been going on for the better part of six months or so, and the biggest issue with this is that I didn’t notice it (as expected I guess). The issue that brought this…

Anne of Green Gables coming to Netflix in May (yes!)

Surprise! I’m a big fan of the Anne of Green Gables series and thus far the few shows/movies I’ve seen based on the books by Lucy Maud Montgomery (also know as L. M. Montgomery) have been pretty good. So first, the trailer for the NEW series… We’ll be treated to eight episodes hitting Netflix on May 12, 2017. And if the series is anything like the trailer it’ll be just as much of an emotional…

We were cleaning out the garage today when I came across this piece of personal history. I admit I don’t really remember that night very well. After all, it was 20+ years ago.  Note that in hindsight I learned a lot about myself being part of Ranger Battalion (1st Batt, Bravo Co., 2nd Platoon SAW/4th Platoon 240 Gunner), and though I admit I was “upset” when I learned that 1st Batt got deployed…

[mks_highlight color=”#eeee22″]This is an unfinished and lightly edited story. Or, perhaps, it’s what it is and a thought put into words that may never amount to more than a post on my site.[/mks_highlight]   …YOU’RE WATCHING CNN!” “If you’re just joining us here’s what we know; approximately 30 minutes ago an airplane crashed just after takeoff from Dulles airport in Washington, DC. Witnesses on…

A visit to a Chesapeake fire station

My wife set up a visit/tour of one of our nearby Chesapeake fire stations for a local core group of homeschoolers our family is party too. And though I’m sure it was for the greater good of the group, it was our son Jack that took it to heart (from my fatherly point my if view). I’m guessing it was easily the most exciting thing he’s done in well over a year.  The program they have for small…

Backing up your Raspberry Pi SD Card

Let’s face it, as awesome as the Raspberry Pi is there are still some limitations. It’s not a gaming computer, so one only needs to remember that when thinking about how they want to use it. I have three RPi 3s in the house used for various things (a cloud server, web server (which you looking at now), and an experimentation pi for the kids). One of the most notable limitations of your awesome pi…

The pause before reboot

’tis the time to take stock of life. It’s not new here really, in fact, I’d chalk it up to a daily routine. When there’s time enough to pause the day’s events and try to reflect on what happened. Better yet, take those happenings of past and mold the future (read: the next hour and beyond). I oft think my wife and I are expected to take “the pause” to move forward. There are times when it seems…