Inside The Perimeter

How have the first three months of 2026 gone by so quickly? I’ve yet to do a single hike at a State Park, which was one of my monthly 2026 goals.

One of the other things I did accomplish over the past weekend was making two jars of sauerkraut from a head of cabbage. The jars are in the basement fermenting, and I can already tell that I’ve overfilled one of them. Fortunately I put the jars on a tray to catch any fluid which escapes with the gasses.

After shopping at IKEA I met up with my buddy Chip at a bar called The Whelan. Before we met I went for a little walk and discovered the Westside BeltLine as well as a part of the BeltLine / Silver Comet Connector, both which have been completed in a fraction of the time it’s taken them to do the Southside BeltLine.

Wordle: three, my starter was ENTRY

On Friday I rode Critical Mass. It was the first time I’ve done so in over a decade, or maybe fifteen years? We started at Woodruff Park, rode down around Lakewood, past Ideal Sports Bar (one of my favorite dives), up toward Grant Park, and onto the newly (maybe) reopened section of the Southside (I won’t call it Southeast) Beltline before my group peeled off and returned to Stan’s house, which is two blocks from the ITP Estate.

Saturday saw me walk with Betsy, attend a talk at Trees Atlanta, and then attend the Trees Atlanta Volunteer Party which was held at Atlanta Toolbank. I bought the author’s book at the talk, and in letting a woman check out ahead of me cost myself the raffle as her ticket (which should have been mine) was called; thankfully it was a gift basket of items which didn’t appeal to me. The food served at the Volunteer Party was catered by Maepole (they have a restaurant in Summerhill). They specialize in southern food, and it was all delicious. There was also an ice cream truck, so it was no surprised that I weighed in heavy yesterday morning.

After justifying the use of the oven on a chilly morning I baked a package of bacon yesterday. In the afternoon I attended my first Schoolhouse Brewing Mug Club Party! There was free food, not free beer, and I picked up my member’s backpack cooler, so yeah, it was worth driving up to Marietta.

Wordle: three, my starter was FRAUD

I think that sometimes I have the memory of a goldfish. Side note: I wonder when the new season of “Ted Lasso” will drop, and if I will watch it. Anyway, I had set myself a reminder to buy a new lightweight camping chair for BRAG. However, when I was working in the basement I found that I already purchased one! In looking at my Amazon purchase history I learned that I apparently buy a new lightweight camping chair about every 4-5 years, as I bought one in July 2016, November 2020, and November 2025. Interesting…?

Two weeks after I acquired the entire series of “Fawlty Towers”, Britbox announced that it’s going to start streaming the show at the end of next month. Oh well, it’s nice to have it to watch on DVD as well…

Wordle: four, my starter was CLAIM

I really thought that I would accomplish a lot yesterday, but that’s not the case. I made bacon and baked bread. I even drove down to Dollar Tree and Aldi, which initially was going to be a long walk when it was just a trip to Dollar Tree. And then almost all tangible productivity stopped.

The only notable chore I completed in the afternoon was harvesting and cleaning four small heads of lettuce that Betsy and I devoured last night with pizza.

Wordle: five, my starter was PASTE. I’ve become a lousy Wordler.

It came down to a nearly 50/50 chance in Wordle this morning, and I failed. What sucks worse is that my other choice was the solution.

Wordle: FAIL, my starter was DAIRY

TAKE THREE!!! This is my third attempt at writing a blog post today. My goals for today are to get laundry done, visit Lowe’s on my way home, and return to Tuesday Night bike riding.

Speaking of three, I am on Day 3 of another attempt at making a sourdough starter.

I strained my left knee walking in the basement yesterday when I stepped over something on the floor and my foot slipped forward. It’s amazing how easily one can hurt themselves.

I made an excellent pizza last night, with its only flaws being that I overbaked it, and it could have used a meat topping.

Wordle: four, my starter was REIGN. Was hoping my three theme would carry over to Wordle. No luck.

What an interesting weekend.

On Friday I met ITP-Readers Barb and Stacy, along with others, at St Thomas More in Decatur for some Lent fried fish. Honestly, the meal was substandard (cold french fries, dense hush puppies), but tickled my desire to eat fish and chips. We also wandered over to The Brick Store and had a beer in the beer garden.

Saturday I met ITP-Readers Barb and Steve, along with Allan, for a good 27-mile ride around Silk Sheets. I intended to drive to Cochran Mill Brewing afterwards, only to find out that they went out of business on Friday — another brewery added to my list, which now contains 27 breweries.

So there I was, minding my own business at Manuel’s Tavern yesterday, when ITP-Reader Stacy enters…

Seems as if the whole weekend was centered on seeing friends twice…

Wordle: five, my starter was DAIRY. I think I’ve given up caring about my Wordle score.

I had a really busy day yesterday, at least until 3pm when I hit the couch and crashed for a while. I strained my back a little yesterday while volunteering with Trees Atlanta; not their fault, mine.

It’s crazy, even though I thought that I made two critical passes over my driveway, it wasn’t until after I backed the car into the carport that I found errant two roofing nails. I will be going out to see if any of my tires also have nail(s) in them, but I hope that I dodged that bullet.

Wordle: five, my starter was SPADE. Looking at my stats, it’s been ten days since I’ve scored better than four!

Roof is done. All that’s left is for the dumpster to be removed, continued vigilance looking for errant nails, and for me to figure how this financial setback changes my life.

I’m getting a pet! Actually, lots of them! I’m getting set up to start vermiculture by using worms to make castings from food scraps. I’ve thought about doing this for the past few years but have always hit roadblocks.

Wordle: four, my starter was MARSH

While I never made it to a Mexican restaurant yesterday, I had a good time hanging out at Schoolhouse before ending my day at Westside Pizza.

I watch a lot of cooking videos. One trend I’ve noticed over the past five years is the wearing of latex gloves during food preparation. Unless you are working with something that will stain your hands, like beets, I don’t understand this. First, you should always be working with clean hands. Second, people think that wearing gloves keeps things more sanitary, but then grab jars and utensils after cutting meat, or mixing things like meatloaf, without washing, essentially cross-contaminating everything. I also hate the idea of all of these latex gloves getting thrown into the trash, but I admit that the human race is already fucked so maybe I should give up giving a shit too.

Ironically a couple of hours after typing this I sliced my thumb taking the disc out of my food processor, not that a latex glove would have stopped that…

Wordle: four, my starter was MOUND