Weekly Notes 2025.07 & 2025.08

• I originally had this written up as two separate posts, but ultimately opted to combine it into a single update (you’ll see why shortly - I think it works better as one large update).
• Monday I spent mostly in airports, and flying… I decided a few months ago to take a week-long trip to Brazil to visit some friends. The trip was supposed to start on Sunday, but inclement weather caused my flights to be delayed enough that I didn’t make the flight to Brazil. So, I went 24 hours later!
• Tuesday through Saturday morning were spent at Maresias, a lovely city and beach a few hours away from São Paulo. My time was largely spent enjoying the wonderful environment, amazing beaches, delicious food, and fantastic company! For the first time in a while, I almost completely checked out of work (including email/Slack).
• On Saturday, we returned to São Paulo, and spent time visiting my friends’ family, and the local community.
• Sunday and most of Monday were spent in central São Paulo, which included shopping, more amazing food, lots of traffic, and even a Tchaikovsky concert!
• And then, all too soon, it was time to return to the US. My flight left around 10p local time, and I arrived back in the States early Tuesday morning, then flew back home in the later morning, arriving at my house by ~11:30a.
• Tuesday afternoon I spent attempting to get back into the swing of work, and catching up on emails and conversations.
• Wednesday and Thursday were spent in the office, with a combination of meetings, work, and continuing to catch up on things from my time away.
• On Friday, I only had one meeting, and so I opted to stay home. I also had some work that required dedicated time and thought to complete, and working remotely has been the best way for me to actually make time for such an effort.
• Saturday and Sunday were spent almost entirely at home (with a quick walk as weather allowed), mostly relaxing, with some light housework included.
  • I rewatched Black Blood Brothers on Saturday. I’m not really into anime, but this show I enjoy for some reason.
  • On Sunday I was debating what to watch, and recalled that Beast Games was on Amazon Prime. I’m not a huge MrBeast fan, but I was curious to see what the show was like, and ended up watching the entire season.

Weekly Notes 2025.06

• Not too much to report on this week… my time at work was focused on two primary projects
• Project #1: ensuring that a device intended for limited commercial release is successfully being manufactured. There were a few issues that I didn’t really have time to troubleshoot until within the past week, but by week’s end everything was up and running 🙂
• Project #2: tool selection and working groups for the broader organization. We had a number of national and international colleagues in this week to kick off some tool selection and migration activities, which consumed a large portion of the week. I think we have a path forward though!
• I also got to meet some colleagues that I’ve only worked with remotely before now, and go out to dinner with them on two separate occasions. Overall, it was a good experience, and it’s good to put a personality to a face on my computer!
• This weekend has been fairly uneventful - the weather is turning colder this week, so I enjoyed a little time outside clearing off snow before everything freezes again.

Weekly Notes 2025.05

• The weather continues to shift in Central Illinois, sometimes daily. Monday had highs in the 60s, followed by highs in the 30s-low 40s for the rest of the week. And next week looks to be even cooler, with highs in the 20s-30s. I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much, as it is still Winter. 😬
• My schedule calmed down somewhat at work this week, which was good, because I had a few projects that I needed to be able to devote working hours to.
• There have been a number of meetings and discussions at work over the past week (and extending back to early this year) regarding tool consolidation and/or selection for a number of disparate teams within the organization that will be working more closely together in the future. In my current role, I get the opportunity to speak into some of those decisions, which is interesting, but also somewhat time consuming.
• I’ve been wanting to set up my iPad to be able to function as a light-weight computer replacement while traveling. After an hour or two of work over the weekend, I think I a) like most of the apps that I’ve set up with, and b) have a working solution (combined with a keyboard) for my use cases. I’ll be able to answer email + messaging questions, but that’s about it.
• I really like using emojis as part of my pattern for written communications, and the fact that I don’t have Rocket on my iPad is kind of really bothering me. I have a dedicated emoji button on my keyboard, but it’s really not as seamless as just typing : and typing the name of the emoji I want.
• I don’t think I’ve ever mentioned VueScan on my blog before… I primarily use it for scanning old photographs, but it also has come in handy for general purpose scanning with my flatbed scanner as well. Today (Sunday) I had a document to scan and submit to a website, and it was an awkward form factor which didn’t work with my ScanSnap, and the combination of VueScan plus my (very) old flatbed worked fantastically!

App Selection

This started out as just a set of bullet points, but quickly became too nested, and so I spun it out into a separate section…