Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/08/20/railbus-and-biopic/
M200
I schlepped the family out to Sunol to ride the Niles Canyon’s M200 railcar. A railcar is a bus on rails instead of asphalt. The M200 was built in 1926, and was one of the early “skunk trains” named for the aromatic fuel it burned in its original gasoline engine, ferrying lumberjacks to their work sites from up in Willits. Later on it served as a school bus. When the Niles Canyon folks got ahold of it, they swapped in a diesel engine. I got to ride up front, next to the box that houses the diesel engine, taking in the heady aroma. I smiled to see that the rear view was a modern aftermarket backup camera system, and the speedometer looked like an old smart phone showing a GPS-derived speed estimate.
A happy coincidence: I wore my Wente t-shirt on the day we rode the M200. Wente Scout Reservation shares the skunk branding with the nearby railroad.
We rode East from Sunol along the original Transcontinental line from Sacramento to San Francisco, which used to run across the Dunbarton Bridge to connect with the now-Caltrain line up to San Francisco. The tracks had been pulled up long ago, but the volunteers have been laying “new” tracks East toward Pleasanton, which is as far as they own the Right-of-Way. The “new” tracks are old tracks that Caltrain replaced as part of the electrification upgrades. They may not be suitable for California’s future bullet train system but they’re plenty handy for a heritage railway running a motorcar at a top speed of 10 mph. The original line went up to 40 mph, explained our host.
Barry Lyndon
Of even more obscure appeal than a hundred year old railcar is a fifty year old Kubrick film. In July I took the Caltrain up to San Francisco and a Muni bus over to The Roxie. I left the family behind because I’m not a sadist. I had a burrito for dinner at Pacho Villa’s and because I’m an old-fashioned cheapskate who eschews online convenience fees, I had to wait in the standby line because it was a “full show.” After the train ride and the burrito, the standby line just added to the sense of adventure: maybe I wouldn’t get in!? The standby line self-selected down to four folks and we all made it in just fine. I sat mid-way near the aisle, behind a large afro that enforced good posture on my part and next to an autistic fellow who managed to unobtrusively stim during the more emotional scenes. I drank two cans of beer from the concession stand.
The movie was magnificent on the big screen. Worth the trek. A prideful young Irishman finds himself living an adventurous life in the 18th century. He learns to be wiley and shrewd and ultimately marries into Class, where that self-centered wily shrewdness renders him an insufferable Jerk. Rise and Fall. A good story with duels. If you like the musical “Hamilton” you might also enjoy the story of Barry Lyndon.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/08/25/infrastructure-is-so-much-more-than-code/
They say “infrastructure is code” – the DevOps Mantra. I say it myself.
I don’t call myself DevOps. (My employer does and I don’t argue with a paycheck.)
I write code to manage infrastructure. I am a DevOps Practitioner.
But …
I am large.
I contain multitudes.
I call myself a Systems Administrator.
Because, really:
Infrastructure is computers
Computers are largely code
Computers are more than code
There are cables and latches and screwdrivers involved
Infrastructure is also power, network, site planning, service agreements, security standards and processes and audits, recruiting, staff training, on-call schedules and standards, vacations, physical and mental health, procurement, shipping, payments, budgets. Infrastructure is so much more than code.
(On my current team we also advertise: Engineering Support services, Information Technology services, Audio-Visual services, Bicycle Maintenance, and Wildlife Removal. Multitudes!)
Infrastructure is not code; Code is infrastructure
And yeah you need to manage infrastructure resources effectively. Managing the code infrastructure means source control, automated tests, validation, pull requests, managing build/deployment infrastructure, &c.
There are cloud-only DevOps who wash their hands completely of the physical realm. All hardware is just an API. Good for them. They seem to spend a lot of time in meetings.
This is what you might see one day if you are a server who has been having an especially rough time.
For me … I’m a “full stack” engineer. Maybe I’m a full rack engineer. I have, in my career, managed most of the infrastructure components listed above. I’m grateful to work on a growing team that allows me to focus somewhat.
I keep a broad lens.
I enjoy managing infrastructure with code.
That frees up time and attention for the rest of the adventure.
Based on https://sfba.social/@dannyman/117061052052787533
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/08/28/spare-bicycle-scenario/
My bicycle is in the shop. The chain had been skipping and also wrapping around the main cog. For $20 I replaced the chain myself, but the problem persisted. I enlisted the fine minds at the bike shop. The two bigger cogs on the crankshaft are worn out, and given the nature of how it is built, they need to replace the crankshaft. Can I do it myself? Installing the crankshaft is easy, but removing the crankshaft involves a special tool. I’ll leave it to the experts. Officially, it will be done in three weeks. Unofficially, based on prior experience, I wanted to believe three days but not everything I want to believe comes to fruition.
As far as my Garmin Watch is concerned, my exercise is whenever I track a bicycle ride. Since I am not tracking bicycle rides, Garmin has declared me a slothful, indolent creature, detraining at an exercise load of zero. Yeah? Well. I do feel a little crispier than usual about the various frustrations that come along at work!
A thought comes around: purchase a spare bicycle? As a good suburbanite family we own three cars. (The old gas minivan earns its keep a few times a year on behalf of the Scouts.) Two bikes is not so extravagant. But I’d want to kit it out with tough tires and something that can hold a backpack. Out the door for under $1,000? I met up with the Bike People the other night. Everyone has a spare bike, and the warning I anticipated: because you have a spare bike there’s no pressure to get it fixed up until your main bike needs service and now you have two bikes you can’t easily ride! Yeah I kinda figured.
Six years ago: the younger child waits for the daycare commute in his bicycle seat on the Blue Bike I Gave Away to Free Up Garage Space.
And I do have a spare bike: the big red cargo bike. But since I’ve coaxed the youngest into pedaling himself, the big red cargo bike has become a big red shelving unit in the garage that requires some “garage cleaning” to become rideable, and for the effort I get to pedal a truck of a bicycle.
And of course, you gotta check with your spouse. “I thought you already had a spare: that blue one?” “I gave that away to free up space.” So, I guess the spouse had already mentally budgeted a spare bicycle. A new pedal bike would still consume less space and weight than the old RadWagon did.
Really, I gotta find someone who wants an old bucket e-bike.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/09/11/every-new-day/
We have broken the climate. The world is on fire. Rivers dry up. Glaciers collapse and destroy towns. I fear for the topsoil. I fear for the famines. I fear for the people. And every new day will bring its Grace and I can enjoy the world for what it is.
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Link:
https://dannyman.toldme.com/2026/09/27/3-books-1-film/
Recent media consumption …
Wishin’ and Hopin’
Wally Lamb tells a short and rambling tale of a fifth grader coming-of-age in a Catholic school set in the 1960s. A vivid picture of a young guy raised by Italian parents who run a diner down at the bus station. Colorful characters, young and old. I recalled my own time in middle school. Class performances were more of a thing even in the 1980s than they seem to be now. “Lift every voice and sing” needs to be a cultural habit.
“Lady Bird”
I was surprised how much I enjoyed this movie. After streaming it, I borrowed the Blu-Ray from the library for a second viewing. More coming-of-age in a Catholic school in 2002 Sacramento, California. Every character is going through their own struggle. The father losing his tech job in 2002 hit close to home.
“Sacramento is the midwest of California!”
“Of course you love me, but do you like me?”
“Aren’t Love and Attention the same thing?”
“Like ‘Napoleon Dynamite’” is fair: awkward high school students. I thought of “The Big Lebowski” what with a Californian of their Own Name stumbling through life on the eve of (another) war in Iraq. There’s an overall theme of longing for more while realizing that you love what you have.
Where are you from?
Sacramento.
Where?
… San Francisco.
Oh yeah, nice town!
The Pushcart War
Back to the middle school again for me, and back to the 60s in setting, except the 2012 printing of Jean Merrill’s classic sets the tale 14 years in the future of 2026, which is pointlessly jarring, because the novel is clearly set in a New York City with wooden pushcarts and telephone books and taxis. A New York City that has never heard of Internets or Smart Phones or Ubers or e-bikes. A timeless tale of The Little People standing up to The Man. Old timey and sentimental and absurd with a straight face like I was reading a Wes Anderson movie.
I get that the novel was set in the future when it was first published, but by the time I got to read it in the 1980s, I read the book a few times as hopeful historical fiction. So, after I got past the ridiculous date given in the introduction, I dialed the book back to when it really lives and had a great time again. This being the 60s there’s a pleasant “crackpot” florist in jail for terrorism, and a big peace march near the end. True to 2026, the rich and powerful are monsters pushing their master plan to own it all. Until the people at last determine otherwise.
I bought the book for my older son for his birthday, but the books of my youth do not easily appeal to the tastes of today. More prose for Dad. I hope it finds a reader through the Little Free Library. If I get my hands on an older printing I may stash that on my bookshelf.
James
Another middle-school flashback, ostensibly. Headed down the river with Huckleberry Finn, but with the adventure told from Jim’s point of view. The story and the back story reveal themselves in layers, and grow increasingly implausible and entertaining. Huck is a nice kid but here it is Jim coming of age, a grown man, who has emancipated himself, out of necessity, and now he has to figure out who he really is and how far he’s willing to go to get what he wants. The last part of the book reads like a movie and I am pleased to hear that is in the works.
I picked the book up on a Saturday and was finished the next day. I’m not a fast reader but James was engagingly urgent and I had to keep going. I’ve got it next to the bed, and I may re-read it before deciding where it should go next.
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