Hollow Bean 2026

A wooden Jack-o'-lantern, with an LED candle glowing inside it

Here’s the list of kids’ cos­tumes I saw this year.

The list of Hallowe'en costumes I saw this year

Tran­scrip­tion:

Hollow Bean 2026

5:30 PM [when I start­ed hand­ing out candy]

  • Princess Uni­corn
  • Bat­man
  • Scare­crow
  • + Mom
  • 4 teens in parkas + ski masks
  • Vam­pire
  • Phan­tom of the Opera
  • Nurse
  • Pump­kin
  • Princess
  • Cave­woman
  • Jason [like from the Fri­day the 13th franchise]
  • Ghost­buster
  • Rein­deer
  • Spi­der-Man
  • Spi­der-Woman
  • Nin­ja

The last two, Spi­der-Woman and Nin­ja, showed up about 7:45 PM. At 8:40 PM I turned off the out­side light and had a cou­ple pieces of candy.

Explain…

Artemis II images

"Earthset"—the Earth setting behind the moon, taken by the astronauts aboard Integrity during the Artemis II mission.

This is large­ly a “note to self” post, but oth­ers might be inter­est­ed too: NASA has a gallery on their web­site ded­i­cat­ed to images from Artemis II’s lunar fly­by.

Here’s the full text from the “Earth­set” image above:

Earth­set cap­tured through the Ori­on space­craft win­dow at 6:41 p.m. EDT, April 6, 2026, dur­ing the Artemis II crew’s fly­by of the Moon. A mut­ed blue Earth with bright white clouds sets behind the cratered lunar sur­face. The dark por­tion of Earth is expe­ri­enc­ing night­time. On Earth’s day side, swirling clouds are vis­i­ble over the Aus­tralia and Ocea­nia region. In the fore­ground, Ohm crater has ter­raced edges and a flat floor inter­rupt­ed by cen­tral peaks. Cen­tral peaks form in com­plex craters when the lunar sur­face, liq­ue­fied on impact, splash­es upwards dur­ing the crater’s formation.

Image Cred­it: NASA

You can down­load this and oth­er high-res­o­lu­tion Artemis II images from the gallery.

The Constant Rabbit, backyard edition

A rabbit stretching out

Hoss[1]Our name for any of the wild rab­bits we see around town. Short for “hasenpf­ef­fer”. came and chilled in our yard for a while. Above is a pho­to of a bii­i­i­i­i­i­i­i­ig stretch last evening.

He was there this morn­ing at 8:30.

A rabbit resting in the yard

And he did­n’t look like he’d moved much by 1 pm.

A rabbit nearly asleep in the yard

He had depart­ed by 4:30 pm, but some­thing tells me he’ll be back.

I guess I’d bet­ter read this, which a friend has kind­ly lent to me. (Thanks, Caryl!)

The cover of The Constant Rabbit, a novel by Jasper Fforde

Foot­notes

Foot­notes
↑1 Our name for any of the wild rab­bits we see around town. Short for “hasenpf­ef­fer”.

Camping with The Gents

Sunlight on the lake

I got back ear­li­er today from a camp­ing trip to Mani­pogo with three oth­er gen­tle­men. We ate like kings, drank some fiery drinks, enjoyed a ridicu­lous game or six of “Chick­en Time Warp”, pad­dled on the lake, stared at the stars, dis­cussed the world’s prob­lems, and gen­er­al­ly had a relax­ing time.

Same time(ish) next year, guys.