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madfordmac.bsky.social
Alex
@madfordmac.bsky.social
61 followers 91 following 140 posts
Geek! 🤓 Server Engineer by day. 🌞 Church organist by night/weekend. 🌜 Occasional audio engineer. 🎙 Safe space. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ He/him
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madfordmac.bsky.social
Wisconsin weather may have prevented us from making it to my parents’ for thanksgiving this year, but still thankful for good bread. #sourdough
A stand mixer with a dough hook kneads a smooth ball of dough inside a stainless-steel mixing bowl.
November 27, 2025 at 6:13 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Took a drive in rural Dickinson county, Michigan (in the U.P.) last night to see the beautiful #northernlights display. Photos taken with an iPhone 15.
Red and green northern lights dance above the silhouette of tall coniferous and deciduous trees, growing taller as they reach the left edge of the frame. Red and green northern lights dance above the silhouette of tall coniferous and deciduous trees. A few leaf-bare trees dominate the foreground while the stars peek through the pink glow at the top of the frame. Red and green northern lights dance above the silhouette of trees. Several tall deciduous trees, leaf-bare from the impending Winter reach to the top of the frame, while some conifers fill in the bottom.
November 13, 2025 at 2:40 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Tracks. End of October so it’s cool, damp, and windy. But gorgeous.
Alt text: A large parking lot is shown under a mostly cloudy autumn sky. Several vehicles are parked, including a blue SUV in the foreground with a few shopping carts nearby. Beyond the parking lot, a Murphy USA gas station with red and white signage stands on slightly higher ground, displaying gas prices at $2.71 per gallon. To the left, a beige industrial-style building with an “O’Reilly Auto Parts” sign is partially visible. In the background, a wooded hillside glows with rich fall foliage—vivid shades of red, orange, gold, and green stretching across the horizon. A row of utility poles lines the base of the hill. The lighting is the soft glow of late afternoon or early evening, with sunlight breaking through clouds to illuminate the autumn colors. The overall mood is calm and seasonal, capturing the contrast between the commercial parking area and the natural beauty of the wooded ridge beyond.
October 21, 2025 at 9:50 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Cool to see the new #PokemonGo level system is live. Got a nice boost!
My current Pokemon Go level is 57: 4,788 Pokémon caught, 784 Pokéstops visited, 528km explored. Pokémon Go achievement medal: Legacy 40 Recognizing I reached level 40 prior to October 15, 2025.
October 16, 2025 at 1:13 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Fall up north is weird. The lilac is bare, but the maple tree is just starting to turn.
A tall deciduous tree stands beside a house, its branches spreading wide with dense foliage that’s beginning to change color for autumn. The upper canopy shows vivid patches of orange and red mixed among green leaves, while the lower sections remain mostly green. A few black utility wires run horizontally through the upper part of the image. Below the tree, a lilac bush appears mostly bare and brown. The house on the left has beige siding and part of a sloped roof visible. The background shows a clear blue sky and additional trees in partial view.
October 4, 2025 at 11:30 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
One of the kids joined us enjoying the first grainy live stream of the #twentyonepilots #Breach tour. Can’t wait to see it live on Tuesday!
September 19, 2025 at 2:41 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
I’m nothing if not resourceful. Sheet pan only holds 38 of the 40 taquitos I’m making for dinner? We’re not getting another pan dirty, we’re making our own pan.
A sheet pan is sitting on top of a household range. Taquitos are arranged in two columns of 19. On top of the neatly arranged taquitos is a piece of aluminum foil with the edges neatly folded up into the shape of a pan, just big enough to hold two additional taquitos.
September 3, 2025 at 2:56 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Modern newspaper makes very lovely smoke when burned. This is about 60 seconds after lighting up untreated advertising flyers under the natural lump charcoal in the chimney starter.
White plumes of smoke billowed from a black kettle grill in a yard. The grass is green but long. There is a green, carpeted stoop and awning of a porch on the left in the foreground and you can see a house with tan siding on the other side of a waist-height chain link fence in the background. There are streaks of late afternoon sun across the grass and through the smoke, but the scene is largely in the shade.
September 1, 2025 at 10:27 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Just in time!
August 31, 2025 at 8:13 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Ich stimme voll und ganz zu.
A loaf of sandwich bread on a wooden cutting board with shiny metal loop handles on both short ends. The bread is oriented vertically to show off the top scored in the shape of a grain of wheat and is has splotches of leftover flour scattered across the top.
May 26, 2025 at 2:06 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Now I know that for language learning, sentences don’t necessarily have to be logical as long as they’re grammatically correct. But I heard recently that Duolingo is using AI for content creation, and this sentence makes me wonder if this one might be missing the human factor.
A graphic from the language learning program Duolingo. The program’s character, Lily, is asking the user to translate the sentence, “My turtle, Raphael, is a police officer.” The user has provided an answer to Lily, written in German using 1-word building blocks, “Meine Schildkröte, Raphael, ist Polizist.”
May 7, 2025 at 2:10 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
First #grill of 2025. Lovely 18oz ribeye from @kwiktrip.bsky.social with garlic smashed baby reds by @mrzhyde.bsky.social. Delicious! 🤤
May 5, 2025 at 4:21 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
He is risen indeed! Alleluia!
A blessed Easter for all those who celebrate.

My office for the morning:
A grand piano and Clavinova set up in the corner of our sanctuary. The corner of the Easter banner is showing behind the piano.
April 20, 2025 at 2:26 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
I started using Duolingo kind of on a whim, but it’s been fun getting better at German again. 😁 🇩🇪
Graphic with a cartoon owl glowing bright orange like a trophy and the words, “I’m on a 200 day learning streak!”
April 15, 2025 at 7:19 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
So there are large numbers of people without power in Michigan today **both** from 🌪️ in the south **and** 🧊 storms in the north. 🤯 poweroutage.us/area/state/m...
Map of the U.S. state of Michigan with counties colored to show the percentage of people without power. Regions in the top and bottom of the mitten as well as the U.P. show 60% of the people without power.
March 31, 2025 at 3:07 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
I don't think this is any of my cats, but they all understand and support them. #savagechickens @savagechickens.bsky.social www.savagechickens.com/2025/03/the-...
A cat stares at a bulletin board stereotypical of one in a police drama with all the clues in the case. A post-it note on the bulletin board reads, "Where'd it jo?" The image is captioned, "The cat has become too obsessed with catching the laser."
March 27, 2025 at 2:54 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Can any Canadians out there confirm if this is normal up north? Totally the rich African prince scam, but delivered via the actual mail with a printed-on-envelope Canadian postmark and everything.
A letter from a scammer offering to give me 30% of his $5M if I help him invest.
March 7, 2025 at 2:26 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
I have recently discovered this joy. www.savagechickens.com/2025/02/not-... @savagechickens.bsky.social #savagechickens
A "child" chicken is sitting on a couch in front of a T.V. talking to his "parent" chicken: "Video games are not a waste of time! Name another form of escapism that provides me with self-defense training for the zombie apocalypse!" The sound "Brains!" is coming from the T.V.
February 26, 2025 at 3:16 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Half (ish) a year!
February 23, 2025 at 8:55 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
My aunt gave my wife and I #fahlo bracelets as a Christmas gift. NGL it’s actually a fun way to support good work. We will definitely follow new animals when our current trackers die, and you can even do that right in the app!
February 11, 2025 at 10:45 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Still loving my decision to start practicing German again.
January 28, 2025 at 9:05 PM
madfordmac.bsky.social
This photo is a unique insight into image stabilization. This tiny air compressor shakes quite dramatically while running. When I took a picture with my phone it correctly guessed the subject of the photo and made it sharp, the resulting corrections making the grass look shaky.
January 20, 2025 at 4:45 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
Tomorrow is going to be what I will call a very “Wisconsin” day.
A graph showing predicted high and low “feels like” temperatures for January 20, 2025. The high is -10°F and the low is -23°F.
January 20, 2025 at 4:12 AM
madfordmac.bsky.social
It’s been refreshing sort of casually keeping familiar with German again. In any given lesson I feel like it’s all review and I’m not learning much. Aber I can tell you that in terms of how comfortable I would be if I woke up in Rothenburg tomorrow morning I can tell you I’d be much better.
January 15, 2025 at 4:55 AM