Blog du Wren

Sleeping Around 2017-18

It's that time of year again, time for me to take stock of my life through numbers: it's Sleeping Around Round-Up time!! As I'm sure you all know, I track where I sleep every night and post it for the world to see. Then, every year, I dive into the number to see what it can tell me. Being that this year's data is year 10, perhaps a little extra analysis is warranted.

Firstly, as compared to last year and much of the year before, things are a bit skewed. Comparatively, housesitting is way down. But this due to the "Mansion effect", i.e. no longer having the longtime Bellingham stint (posted about here). Looking back to pre-Mansion time, housesitting is up and travel is a bit down, but not too far from normal all around.

Other observations:

I had 8 nights in my cabin at the Quarry, but still not as many as I hope for.
Another year of no nights in a tent. That makes a total of 2 nights in the last 4 years. That's too much of a trend to not notice.
Both international travel days and # of countries visited is lower than I like, but a break is acceptable.

Additional Stats
# of housesitting houses	11(!)	At least 3 new "clients"
# of states (other than WA)	8	OR, NY, CT, GA, FL, NC, TX, NV
# of countries (other than US)	1 :-(	Jamaica
Longest stretch at home	8	Averaging about 3 nights
Longest stretch away from home	31	On two separate occasions
# in car	33	Hotel Toyota
# in hotel/hostel	36	For work and play

As always, I encourage you to examine the data yourself and to look back at previous years' posts (which can easily be found from the archive page.)

TEN YEARS

Just for funsies, I did a bit of a 10 year analysis as well. The numbers are remarkably...well, predictable. I guess it turns out that I lead a pretty regular life in some senses. Sure there are spikes in travel or housesitting various years, but afterward, it seems to return to a steady average.

A few interesting facts pop out at me, like I've spent 261 nights in a car in the past 10 years and almost a year outside of the country. And some trend emerge, like downward slide in travel and the aforementioned lack of nights in tent. But overall, this data is becoming what data sometimes has a tendency to do: boring. But even thought it may be predictable and/or boring, I still find it incredibly informative. And I hope to have a second 10 years' worth of data to compare to this first decade down the road.

(I originally did this graphic with in-state, domestic, and international travel all separate, but the graph was a bit unwieldy (though still informative))

Monday August 20 2018

File under: stats

comment?

My Second NYT Crossword

Last month, I had my second New York Times crossword puzzle published! It was a Tuesday with what I thought was a quite clever theme. I promptly and proudly added it to my crossword . And while the wall continues to get filled, getting an NYT is always a thrill!

The thrill of this NYT, however, was a bit tempered. On its publication day, I immediately checked out the reviews (#2). They were not good. I comforted myself with the fact that the puzzle wasn't geared for hardcore cruciverbalists, but instead, as Tuesdays should be, it was more for the beginner. The occasional review comment did step to my defense, but overall, the wind was a bit out of my sail. On the upside, some of the criticism was fair and I trust that it will help me make better puzzles in the future.

If you want a chance to make up your own decision, the puzzles runs in syndication today, so it can be found in papers across the country (and world!). Or, if you're happening upon this post days* later, here's a PDF copy*.

As kind of a neat coincidence, it just so happened that I had a puzzle in the USA Today that very same day! It makes my 6th or so USA Today puzzle, so the thrill is a little less, but neat all the same. Three cheers for being a published crossword constructor!

Tuesday May 22 2018

File under: crossword

Toggle Comments (1)

comment?

My Circus Valentine 2018 Act

Della and I again this year had the privilege of being in Bellingham Circus Guild's My Circus Valentine. It makes the 4th year I've been in the event and Della hasn't missed one yet (often times with 2 acts!) Our act this year turned out to be our best, IMO, but it was hard fought to get there. Dual creative pursuits, such as act creation, isn't our strong point and each year, after going through it, we swear we'll never do it again. But we do and after we have an act that I can be stoked on, I'm so glad that we did.

You could see the act, posted along with other videos of our acts, over at our website www.wrenanddella.com, but I will post it here as well in the interest of posterity. We ended up getting this awesome edited copy from BTV show broadcast the event. I hope you get as much a kick out of it as I did totally nailing it.

(The costumes (a.k.a diapered cupids) were made by none other than Della, of course.)

Saturday April 14 2018

File under: juggling, circus

Toggle Comments (3)

comment?

Five years of the ACPT

This year marks the 5th year I've attended the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. I've never been under the delusion that I had any chance of actually competing at the competition, but instead go to schmooze, network, and be surrounded by people for whom an enjoyable day is spent inside a ballroom doing crosswords silently: in other words, my people.

I figured five years is enough to start tracking my progress (after all, what fun is collecting data if not to be able to analyze it), but first, a report on this year. I finished 366th out of 675, putting me in the 47th percentile. I aced 4 out of 7 puzzles, with just one dumdum mistake on . Without that silly mistake, I would have jumped up to the top half, my very attainable goal. Puzzle 5 destroyed me this year, part of which I attribute to the fact it was written not with solvers in mind, but to outsmart Dr.Fill, the crossword solving computer program. I'm sore about it, but the puzzle was actually really good. I got to chat up some old friends and say hi to some of my editors and get some suggestions on where to submit new puzzles to. Overall, it was a good time, if not remarkably so.

When asked about how it went, I find myself responding, "Oh, about like always." And the data seems to support that theory. Here is a chart of my performance for the past 5 years. After a year or two getting comfortable with the format and pressure*, and with the fluke of acing Puzzle 5 in 2016,

I can usually count on ending up just barely below the middle. Granted it's not a brag-worthy place to be, but being that these are the best solvers in the world, and I'm just merely a guy with a hobby, I don't feel so bad.

And while I don't feel so bad about my ranking, it sure would be neat to do a little better. And that's what will drive me back again: I would like to get 6/7 perfect puzzles and finish in the top 40%, both of which seem doable. Who knows, maybe I'll even get a mini-trophy for doing well in my category (affectionately called the "At-least-they-tried"s)

With crosswords becoming a bigger and bigger part of my life (and livelihood), attending the tournament was kind of a no brainer. It is a little oasis of nerdiness in this otherwise cool world, and I for one love it.

Friday March 30 2018

File under: crossword

comment?

Breakdown of Earnings 2017

Last year, I made a post that summarized my earnings for the year. It started with all sorts of caveats regarding the taboo of talking about money, etc. etc. All the same caveats apply for this year, so feel free to go back and review them. But basically, I'm posting a summary of my yearly earnings for the same reason I post about my sleeping around data—because I think it is neat and an incredible tool for self-analysis.

In last year's post, I talked about achieving a life goal (of sorts) of having no more than one quarter of my income come from a particular source. This year, I guess I juggled my way out of that one. But I think it's good. With this data, I can see that I'm succeeding as a juggler and I have no small amount of pride in that. Other numbers–housesitting, trivia, labor, crosswords–aren't changed too much. It's neat to see that those elements aren't necessarily suffering from juggling's big takeover.

I look forward to continuing tracking, analyzing (,and probably blogging about) this data in the upcoming years. It is truly mind-boggling how much interest I find in these simple numbers. But for now, it is just nice to have an answer to the question "What do you do for a living?".

Thursday February 22 2018

File under: stats

comment?

Jamaica Public Transport Experience

Whenever I travel, I'm drawn to skip the air-conditioned plush tourist buses in favor of whatever transportation the locals use. I tell myself it is to get to know the place better, to mingle with the locals, but I imagine cost plays no small role. But whatever my motivations, it is a travel habit I'm glad to have as it leads to some wonderful experiences. On our recent trip to Jamaica, these local transport adventures proved to be among the most memorable from the whole trip!

The two dominant non-tourist transport options were route taxi and mini-bus, both variations on the same concept: pack a regular old vehicle as full as possible with people going from here to there. When I say full, I mean FULL. Think of a regular sized car, like a Toyota Camary. Put 4 full-sized adults across the backseat and 3 adults plus the driver across the front (with additional cushion for the middle person to span the e-brake). Now drive that vehicle at a million miles an hour around curvy mountain roads and you've got an idea.

We chose Christmas day to venture from the north of Jamaica down to the south, a 77-mile journey through the less inhabited center of the island. While there was some fear about transpo not running, we found that with the exception of 1 leg of the 6 leg journey, we were in luck. Each leg took us from one small town to the next, about 45 minutes to an hour, costing about $1 or $2 per person. After each leg, you'd hobble out, try to get feeling back in your butt and legs, and then cram into the next rig.

By the end of our time in Jamaica, I truly felt like I had grown accustomed to the experience of getting nice and friendly with your neighbors and riding in companionable silence (albeit with the Reggae blasting). I won't say I loved it, but it wasn't the hardship it was on that first mini-bus.

In chatting about the mini-buses to a local friend, he casually mentioned "Yep, like two white girls on a mini-bus". In quizzing him, he told us of a once popular song that recounted the public transit experience from the perspective of a non-local. Della and I looked it up and found it couldn't be more accurate. So I'll leave you with this, Two White Girls on a Mini-Bus.

Saturday January 13 2018

File under: Jamaica, travel

Toggle Comments (1)

comment?

To Do the Tour or Not Do the Tour

One of Della's and my favorite things to do while traveling is to find a deal, to save money. It's what's led us on the cruises we taken, to the countries we been, and it guides our every day choices. And we get great joy out of it.*

But this deal/savings seeking leads us to a frequent dillemma: do we take the tour or not? Tours are usually lots of fun and frequently are the only way to see something, but they almost always cost a lot of money so we often end up skipping out, instead opting for the free activities like exploring, hanging out on the beach, and juggling.

In the interest of expanding our horizons, after much hemming and hawing, yesterday we took a tour. The tour promised three-fold adventure: dolphins (35% chance), the Black river and crocodiles, and a stop at the , a bar on stilts in the middle of the bay.

In short, it was totally awesome! We saw both , the Black River was amazing with its mangroves, nesting snowy egrets, and truly jungle-like vibe, and we can now say we've been to the world famous(?) . Beyond the three-fold promise, there were lots of other great perks: meeting other travelers, a neat swimming hole/rope swing/ into the river*, an adventurous, and lots of great information that we might never have gotten otherwise.

Our super successful tour will no doubt help encourage us to penny-pinch less when the next opportunity arises. And I look forward to it! But in the meantime, we'll be keeping an eye out for deal. Old habits do die hard.

Thursday December 28 2017

File under: travel, Jamaica

Toggle Comments (1)

comment?

Twas the Night Before Christmas 2017

Twas the night before Christmas
Reggae beats drift on by
So it goes in Jamaica
For my sweetie and I

We've come down to visit
This Caribbean island nation
For escape and adventure
To have a nice little vacation

And so far, it's worked!
A week in and we're thrilled
We done a few things
But mostly we've chilled

Last night was Grand Market
A sight to behold
We found our way to the right town
Or so we were told

Music was blaring
Up and down every street
With stands of all kinds
Especially jerk meat

The place was packed full
Of revelers and glee
Della and I were the only
White faces to see

But that makes it authentic
Not what most tourists get
Following our noses
Hasn't failed us yet

With the reggae still ringing
through us to the core
We spent X-mas eve day
Exploring some more

After fresh smoothies of star fruit
Picked right from the tree
We cram ourselves in a mini-bus
Which flies at speeds unsafely

We arrive at a place where
the sea meets a cascade
I proceed to re-enact
A blog post from last decade

Next we walked into Ocho Rios
A little too touristy for us
After a quick dinner and crunkies
We were back on a bus

Now we're settled at "home"
A quaint little AirBnB
Outside the reggae drifts by
Inside its just Della and me

We won't do anything special
Maybe watch a movie or read
But we'll be totally at peace
Because we have all we need

Adventure, warm weather
Time to ourselves
Santa couldn't make us happier
With all of his elves

Now I sit back and reread
My Twas posts from the past
I get quite a kick
From the pile that's amassed ('07, '08, '09, '11, '12, '13, '14, '15)

For while I'm kind of a grinch
About most yule themed things
These silly little poems
Much joy to me brings

I hope you have a your own reasons
For joy this fine night
May the upcoming year
Bring you much love and delight

Now I'll end it right here
With this last seasonal cliche
Merry Christmas to you
On this joyous day

Sunday December 24 2017

File under: holidays, poetry

comment?

The Beastly Frightful Unspeakably Spooky Circus of Doom

This year, the Bellingham Circus Guild put on its first Halloween show* and it was awesome! Della and I wrote a whole new act for the occasion. It was a little gimmicky, a little over the top, a little funny(?), and hopefully a lot fun. I sure liked how it turned out, anyway. Check out the video below.

(Since you can barely see our costumes in the video, here's a we snuck in the photo booth. And since we're talking about photo booth photos, here's of the cast and crew. What a group!!)

Before the show, I did ambient as a . was the cutest little teapot you could imagine.

Overall, it was an awesome experience. The gal the put on the show did a knock out job promoting it (3 total sellout shows plus a last minute show that almost sold out!) as well as all other aspects. It was really an honor to be a part.

Wednesday November 15 2017

File under: circus, juggling

Toggle Comments (2)

comment?

Summer Performance Recap 2017

By my rough count, Della and I had approximately 40 shows during our busy time, July and August. While it felt like we barely had time to catch our breath or do laundry, it rarely felt like we had time to capture it in words or pictures. But now that things have calmed down, I thought it might be fun to consolidate some of the photos, videos, and observations into an end of the season wrap-up (like I did last year!) Info and photo credits in the captions.