Weekly Notes 2025.28

• This week we had a coworker from Fargo visiting our office, so Monday saw an earlier morning than normal in the office, anticipating their arrival.
• For lunch we catered a meal to the office and had a lunch & learn to give the team an opportunity to learn more about a project that the visiting coworker has been involved with.
• Monday evening was filled with preparations for travel, as I planned to visit family Tuesday - Sunday.
• Tuesday morning I met coworkers for breakfast, then headed the office for a morning of meetings. By around 1p I was done, and then it was last minute packing, and off to Ohio!
• I worked remotely from Ohio Wednesday - Friday, taking time over lunch to visit with family, and enjoying time together in the evenings.
• Thursday evening we invited my paternal great-uncle over for dinner (brisket - yum!), and afterwards some reminiscing on family history, followed by a few games of Pepper (a Euchre variant popular where I grew up).
• Friday evening our family went to Two Bandits for dinner & drinks (see pictures below), and afterwards my sister and I went for an extended walk (I thought it was going to be a little over a mile… pretty sure it was over two).

Weekly Notes 2025.27

• This week’s update will be a little shorter than normal, as nothing overly eventful occurred.
• I was in-office for the entirety of this week, mostly focusing on meetings and my standard workload.
• Tuesday evening a group of coworkers and I went out for dinner and drinks to La Fiesta, one of our local favorites.
• Wednesday evening I went out to another local restaurant, The 208 House, with a different group of coworkers who visiting our office from out of town.
• Friday evening, after work, I got distracted for a while watching the Sorted Food channel on YouTube. I ran across their videos a few weeks ago, and find the team enjoyable to watch, and occasionally I learn a thing or two as well!
• Saturday was a bit rainy, and so I spent most of my time indoors, split between some light gaming, working on family photos, and then Divine Service in the evening.
• Sunday saw better weather return, and so my morning was spent outside working on yard work, followed by house work after lunch, a little more gaming, and continued photo restoration efforts.

Weekly Notes 2025.26

• With a shortened week this week (thanks to Independence Day on Friday), my normal work week was both shortened, but simultaneously filled with a few extra meetings as everything was compacted into 4 days.
• Monday through Thursday saw roughly my normal schedule of in-office work, without a lot to report.
• Friday, being July 4th, meant time off, which I spent largely relaxing and working around the house.
• I also picked up a new game, Northgard, on Friday, which I would continue to play occasionally throughout the weekend. I was looking for a different RTS that I hadn’t played before, and Northgard fit the bill nicely. It’s a different take on a strategy game than I’ve played before, and it’s a little hard to describe verbally… I’d strongly recommend taking a look at gameplay videos if interested to get a better understanding of how it works.
• Saturday morning was once again consumed by yardwork… there hasn’t been a lot of rain in this area, but just enough to keep both grass and shrubs growing.
• Saturday afternoon I continued working on scanning and restoring old family photos, and then went to Divine Service in the evening, followed by shopping for the upcoming week’s groceries.
• Sunday then was left as my final day of rest prior to the start of the next work week. I slept in a little (which for me still means up before 8), and worked on housework, along with some additional gaming (Northgard) and continued photo work.
• And with that, this week’s post is concluded, and it’s time to finish preparing for the week ahead!

Weekly Notes 2025.25

• Monday of this week I opted to work remotely, mostly due to remote meetings, and a single in-person meeting at our manufacturing facility, which is closer to my house. It was a nice break, instead of traveling to the office.
• Tuesday, after an early dentist appointment, it was off to the office, for a day largely filled with meetings. That was the story Wednesday through Friday as well, and my evenings were mostly spent either reading interesting articles online, or watching YouTube videos.
• Saturday morning, before it got too hot, I spent time outside trimming shrubs, and catching up on some mowing that (if I’m being honest) probably needed done a few days ago, but… this is when I had time 🤷‍♂️
• Saturday afternoon I worked on some odds and ends around the house, and then attended Divine Service in the evening.
• Sunday morning I slept in, since I’d be to church the night before, and then spent time reading, exercising, and enjoying my coffee in the morning (not necessarily in that order!).
• In the afternoon I decided I felt like playing a game, and ended up playing some Age of Empires II, which I haven’t played in years. It was a fun trip down memory lane. In the later afternoon/evening I called my family to check in, since it had been a few days since I called.
• And now, after I post this, it’s off to finish preparations for the week ahead!

Weekly Notes 2025.24

• Wow… it’s been another week already?
• This week started out with me getting an opportunity at work to use a skill that I’ve not utilized in a long time: video editing. We had some onsite meetings later in the week, and my team members asked me to assist in editing two “hype” videos for upcoming product launches. So of course, I obliged! That took up most of my time Monday, and a bit of Wednesday.
• Tuesday (the odd-day out in the above paragraph) was our department offsite, so instead of heading to the office I instead headed to nearby Bloomington for some team building activities, and of course, tasty food! (No, no pictures of it this time.) I was ostensibly on the team helping to prepare for and set up the offsite as well, but with everything else going on, my assistance narrowed down to transporting and setting up the tech for our over-lunch presentation from our department head. Overall it was a great day!
• Wednesday was back in-office in the morning, finishing the second video. I headed home around lunch then, as I saw some bad weather approaching and decided I’d rather take calls from home rather than potentially having to sit out a storm in a restroom. Thankfully, none of the tornadoes touched down where I live (or at work), though there were at least three in our county!
• I rounded out the week (Thursday/Friday) with mostly normal work in the office: a handful of meetings, and catching up on emails, messages, etc.
• Saturday began a heatwave (well, at least what I’m calling a heatwave… low to mid 90s F) here in Illinois, and so my mowing happened much earlier than normal.
• For most of Saturday afternoon I worked on scanning and editing old family photos and slides, and uploading them to both my own photo management system, and to my parents, so that we have two separate copies. In between, I of course added in laundry, dishes, and general housework (inside!).
• Sunday morning started with Divine Service, during which we had the induction of our new DCE intern, as well as his wife, who will be serving at the Lutheran school associated with our church.
• After church, it was off to do my normal grocery shopping, and then back home, where I once again began working on editing old slides. I enjoy both seeing bits of family history, and getting to “be a part” in some small by archiving and editing the photos.
• And now… it’s almost time for me to call it a day, so I’ll post this and finish up some last minute chores! Till next time!

Weekly Notes 2025.23

I haven’t done this often, but I’m going to include a few photos in this update, because… why not? It’s all just food from my trip (which you’ll be reading about shortly). Anyhow… on to the update!

• Monday morning I headed to ORD with some coworkers to fly to Fargo, ND for work. We were originally going to fly out of PIA, but the United flight was delayed enough by early in the morning that we decided to drive instead.
• This was my first time parking at and navigating the external portion of ORD. Overall it went well, but I definitely prefer to fly into O’Hare, not drive…
• Monday evening after we arrived we met our Fargo-based coworkers at Lucky’s 13 Pub, and had an enjoyable few hours catching up.

Rethinking My Note-Taking App Decisions

Intro

Over the past 48 hours I’ve once again been on a journey to rethink how I take notes. Why? I’ve actually been struggling to answer that question for myself, and I’ve boiled it down into a few potential reasons:

• I’ve never felt fully at home in Obsidian ever since moving to it, even though I’ve been using it for over 2 years now.
• I miss the seamlessness in my life of old Evernote, and constantly wish that there was an alternate that filled the same role in the same way.
• I have liked Bear from the time I first saw it, and wish that I could convince myself that it fills all of my use cases.

What Do I Miss From Evernote?

I started using Evernote back in the early 2010s (I think 2014; I’ve not checked the exact date while writing this post), both as a way to store personal notes and documents, and for some work-related project notes.