Here We Go Again
Or ... This Weather is for the Birds
After a deceptive week in March, when the high temperatures crested above 70°F and all our snow melted, we once again experienced the wrath of winter with the arrival of Winter Storm Elsa.
On Sunday, March 15 (the Ides, don’t ya know), we were inundated with waves of light rain, light snow, freezing rain, and heavy snow. There may have even been some hail in there. I can’t be sure — I stayed inside.
The first wave ended about 2:00 PM on Sunday. There was a lull of about six hours before we were scheduled to get hit with part two. To make the total snow clearing job a little easier, I spent about 90 minutes undertaking the Sisyphean task of shoveling the most problematic part of our driveway.
In total we got about 16” of snow from Elsa. Not as bad as other regions in Wisconsin and Upper Michigan. But it was still a pain to deal with. That was followed with 70-degree weather the very next weekend.
And now, as of this writing, when it’s been upwards of 70 degrees for a few days, we’re looking at another wave of snow (up to three inches) and freezing rain tonight and tomorrow.
So, yeah. This weather is for the birds.
For me, every year this nebulous period of February into March is always weird time. February usually begins with a high level of optimism, a holdover from January and all the plans, schemes, and goals I establish for myself each year. Those all seem to get delayed in mid-February during tax planning (and that never seems to get any easier).
But by the end of March, I manage to shake off the doldrums and get back to it. So here we are.
What’s Been Going On
Taking on the World, Revisited
So this year far I’ve spent less time writing and more time working on projects. The most pressing of those at the moment is moving the venerable Taking on the World site from Squarespace to a self-hosted static site.
I’ve been considering moving it for a few years now because Squarespace (where it’s been hosted for 12 years) is a bit more expensive that this site needs. The service fee for the site renews annually in late March, and for the past few years that date has sneaked up on me.
Last year I promised myself I’d re-code it and move it before the 2026 renewal. But 330-some days later, I hadn’t even started the process. And I really didn’t want to shell out another $230 on a site that was all but neglected.
As a site, Taking on the World was always primarily meant as a travelogue for friends and family to keep track of our journey. It served a secondary function of providing travel resources and reviews for like-minded travelers. But the content is more than a decade old at this point, and in recent years I’ve questioned its relevancy.
But it still gets a fair number of visitors (especially, for some weird reason, the post about the joke that killed King Martin of Aragon), so I didn’t want to completely erase it from the internet.
So during a week or so in the middle of March, I dusted off the old HTML coding skills (well, truthfully those are still serviceable; it’s the CSS coding that was the real challenge) and raced to build out a new version of the site before the renewal deadline.
So far it’s just the landing page and a few select pages that got big traffic. Everything else is directed to a custom 404 page. Now that the bones are in place, the idea is to use Hugo (a static site generator) to build out an abbreviated travelogue using the existing content. We’ll see how that goes. The more I think about it, that seems like a lot, and I wonder each day if it’s worth the hassle.
Out with the Old, In with the New
In other web-related news, as I sunset one web project, I’m in the process of launching another. I’ve been working on a new project, Driftless Dining, an experiential guide and resource to the numerous restaurants in the Driftless region. The idea is we’ll be covering everything from the greasiest of spoons to the hottest of haute cuisines.
I’ve been dragging my feet on the launch of this one (as I tend to do with new ventures), primarily because I didn’t want to manage another Wordpress site. So, right now, I’m exploring on how pushing it out as a Substack site would work.
Initial experimentation with this plan seems promising, so keep an eye out for that soon.
Mug Life
It’s no secret I’ve got a weakness for coffee mugs. And it’s no secret that my Hasami porcelain mug is my long-time favorite coffee-drinking device.
But it now has a contender — the new mug designed by YouTube coffee expert James Hoffman, a design meant for the serious coffee connoisseur. Mr. Hoffman announced the venture back in November in a YouTube short.
While I wasn’t particularly wild about the Hoffee Coffee design he presented in that video (though I do appreciate a good Droste effect), I still did not hesitate to plunk down $25 to buy into the manufactured scarcity of this limited edition mug.
At 421 grams (14.8 ounces), it’s heavier than most mugs. Compare that to my Hasami porcelain at 247 grams (a mere 8.7 ounces) or the average coffee mug at 370 grams (a respectable 13 ounces). The mug’s heft, as Mr. Hoffman explains, helps with heat retention. Which is nice. But it also feels substantial (without being as ridiculous as the Heavy Mug featured back in Dispatch 18).
There’s also a lot to be said about the Hoffman mug’s unique handle design, which was carefully chosen to allow for maximum flexibility in mug-holding preference. I find it’s quite pleasant to hold.
Also, and this is a small thing (but it’s the attention to such details that really matter), the mug has the same design on both sides, so it’s ideal for both right- and left-handed drinkers.
In short, as Mr. Hoffman says in the above-linked YouTube short, “It’s just really nice to drink from ever single day.”
Although the initial run was pre-order only (and already sold out), there is talk of future production runs.
Coffee is Good For You Again
Speaking of coffee, over the past few decades there’s been an endless back-and-forth on the health benefits of coffee, mainly because of the caffeine content. Despite that most studies often show that coffee is in general is beneficial, my favorite beverage has still been so vilified over the years that some people have been scared right into drinking ground-up mushrooms. The horror.
So I’m happy to report that a recent, long-term study from scientists at Harvard University and the Broad Institute of MIT titled “Coffee and Tea Intake, Dementia Risk, and Cognitive Function” demonstrates that caffeinated coffee consumption has resulted in overall positive health benefits and is especially focuses on a lower risk of dementia.
The study uses data from two sources — the Nurses’ Health Study (NHS) and the Health Professionals Follow-Up Study (HPFS) — that together includes more than 130,000 participants who were followed for 43 years. That’s a lot of cups of coffee.
Findings (taken from the study’s results) summarize that caffeinated coffee intake was significantly associated with lower dementia risk: 141 vs 330 cases per 100,000 person-years comparing the highest quartile of consumption with the lowest quartile.
While the full study is locked behind a paywall, you can read the Abstract and a summary of the results at its page on the Journal of the American Medical Association published on February 9, 2026.
But, for me, here’s the main takeaway: higher caffeinated coffee intake was significantly associated with lower risk of dementia. Decaffeinated coffee intake was not significantly associated with dementia risk.
So keep drinking those two to three cups caffeinated coffee each day.
Useful Site Section: Start My Car
Someone mentioned recently that a vehicle that’s 10 years old is considered “vintage.” And while I don’t think that’s true, I will lean into it for my ten-year old F-150 — for no reason other than than vibes.
Now that we’re (almost) out of winter, we’re entering vehicle maintenance season again. If you own and vintage vehicle (like me), then the comprehensive guides, complete manuals, forums with fellow vintage vehicle sufferers, and (especially) the wonderful fuse box diagrams hosted on Start My Car are collectively an essential frustration-saving reference tool.
From the Old Dutch Files
For those of you who’ve been around for a while, you know I’ve been walking down nostalgia lane with Old Dutch, the regional chips I remember loving as a kid. They now offer many different flavors and varieties.
Ripples French Onion
150 calories and 190mg sodium per serving (14 chips)
Potatoes, canola and/or sunflower oil, sour cream (cultured cream, nonfat milk), salt, whey, buttermilk, sugar, dehydrated onion, dehydrated garlic, autolyzed yeast extract, parsley, natural flavors, caramel color, citric acid. Contains: milk.
A decent chip. This is a slight revisioning of the sour cream & onion flavor. But it works. For my $2.49, this is probably the second-best flavor in the Ripples line — the first being Ripples Original (profiled back in Dispatch 17).
One More Thing
If you, like our family, enjoy the investigative antics of Lieutenant Columbo, check out One More Thing... — a relatively new YouTube channel focused exclusively on video essays about Peter Falk’s seminal television detective.
Substack is telling me I’m nearing the email length limit, which means this is a pretty good place to end. I thank you for sticking with me and look forward to seeing you soon. Until then, remember to give yourself a present every day.