A week of baseball, then a week of hockey, now a week of both (plus a bonus trip to Disney!)
Month: March 2026
Spring Sports Trip 2026 (Part 2): Hockey in Washington and Canada
After spending 6 days in the 90+ degree temperatures of the Phoenix valley, I went to the low 50s and rain of the Pacific Northwest, visiting with my sister in Seattle. We flew in from Phoenix and arrived at SeaTac just after 9:30pm PDT Sunday evening, but by the time we got to her apartment downtown and were ready for bed it was almost midnight. Time for Week 2 of my epic 2026 spring sports trip.
Spring Sports Trip 2026 (Part 1): Baseball in Arizona
My annual March Spring Training trip has looked a little different the past few years. The last time I actually went out to Arizona for a few days in the Phoenix valley with the Cactus League was back in 2023. In 2024, I went to a local Rays game and then a single game in Goodyear with my wife as part of a Vegas trip instead. Last year, project deadlines at work forced me to cancel the trip out west altogether, but I managed to squeeze in a single Rays game again to keep my attendance streak alive. After last year’s trip was cancelled, I vowed to make the 2026 trip an epic one and finalized travel plans and accomodations in Arizona late last fall in anticipation of going. And then I changed jobs in December and started with zero PTO and an upcoming trip that required 8 vacation days. Oops! Luckily my manager was understanding of the prior plans and I was able to work things out so I’d still be able to go. So let’s do some spring baseball!
Building the PiDP-1
It’s been just over a year since my last classic computer build (the PiDP-10) so it’s time to assemble Oscar Vermeulen’s latest project, the PiDP-1! I actually ordered the kit last Thanksgiving and it arrived about a week later (from Panama!) but then life got crazy: I ended up switching jobs which meant I was busy onboarding, getting benefits and such in order, and basically learning the ropes. On top of that, I lost the two weeks of winter break provided by my old employer and started with no PTO at the new place, which meant very little no free time over the holidays (just Christmas Day and New Year’s Day). I did manage to do a little prep work for the kit during that time, however, like purchasing another 4gb Raspberry Pi 5 with a 64gb microSD, imaging it with Debian 13 Trixie, and prepping the PiDP-1 software. Finally over the past two weeks I found some time to pull out my trusty soldering iron and get to assembling …