This week turned out to be an interesting mix of holiday productivity, server upgrades, good food, and diving deeper into some AI tools (a phrase I never thought I’d write).
Since Monday was Labor Day here in the US, I had the day off, and spent it doing some small personal projects around the house, plus working on another work-related project that I’ve not had time for in the office (see the next point - and yes, I know it was a holiday, but it was a project that I both needed to spend time with and that I was enjoying experimenting on). Nothing too exciting, but it felt good to catch up on things I’d been putting off.
While I’m not going to go into detail on the work project, I did find it as an interesting excuse to attempt some “vibe coding” on a little one-off Java app to manipulate Excel files (reformatting columns, adding new data fields, combining data from other files into a final export, etc). I got the first part working with Apache POI, though I still need to finish the combination logic. I do appreciate how quickly I was able to get to a functional solution, and the code is readable/modifiable, but I’m not entirely sure how comfortable I am with the overall vibe-coding concept. It still feels potentially perilous to me.
Tuesday through Friday, I was back in the office for what felt like an endless series of meetings, largely due to the condensed week. No complaints though, and not much to report otherwise… it was the usual mix of project & vendor discussions, along with some team coordination.
Wednesday evening brought a fun diversion though. After dinner, a couple coworkers and I went out for drinks at Dac’s Smokehouse in Morton. It’s a barbecue joint that I’ve mentioned before, and that I am fond of. Dac’s has a nice atmosphere, and it was enjoyable to catch up over some locally-brewed beers.
Thursday I made another trip to Yasakani Ramen with coworkers for lunch. I think I’m risking becoming a regular there… the ramen is consistently delicious, and it’s fast enough for a work lunch. It’s a bit further away than I really prefer, but once every couple of weeks isn’t too bad.
Friday, I got my oil changed at the local Ford dealership, and ended up spending the wait time learning about some upcoming EU regulations with the help of Kagi Study, which I think uses Claude on the backend? It was actually a productive way to kill time, and I was impressed with how well it summarized complex regulatory language, and assisted me in thinking through potential implications.
The big accomplishment of the week, personally, was my weekend server rebuild. On Friday evening I finally installed TrueNAS on my Dell R710, and rebuilt my storage array. The migration from my old Ubuntu setup went smoother than expected, and I’m already appreciating the ZFS features, though I’m also definitely still in a learning phase…
Friday and Saturday I migrated my Plex music library (all purchased/owned, in case you’re wondering), and so far everything seems to be working well. Today, as I write this, I’m migrating my audiobook library (same addendum; all purchased/owned) to the new server as well, and that will probably take me a large portion of the rest of the afternoon (in the background, not active work).
Speaking of audiobooks, on Friday I also finished Sir Patrick Stewart’s memoir, Making It So. It was a fascinating look at his career journey, from Shakespeare to Star Trek and beyond, and Stewart’s narration of the audiobook made it particularly engaging.
On Saturday, while my music was migrating to the new server, I spent more time experimenting with Claude directly, instead of through Kagi (something I hadn’t planned on doing until this weekend). I tried out a few different lines of thought to see how it behaved, including brainstorming blog ideas (prompting me for what I should go into detail on in my weekly notes, instead of the boring versions I’ve been writing), researching some topics I wanted background on before talking to a professional, and even attempting to build a theoretical recipe list for the week (although… I didn’t choose to use the recipes for the upcoming week). On that last item though - I did find some interesting websites targeted at recipes for 1-2 serving meals, which I will definitely be using in the future. I’m still evaluating where AI tools fit into my workflow, as I have concerns both about their origin, their capability (and/or lack thereof), and the implications of using them, but I don’t think sitting on the sidelines and fully ignoring them is a viable approach.
This morning I went to Divine Service as normal, then followed up with my weekly grocery shopping.
When I got home, I also played a bit of RuneScape, finishing up my participation in The Need for Mead event (which I’ve been working on a little bit at a time since it was announced). It’s a time-limited event running until Monday (squeaking in at the end, i know!) where players collect nectar to earn rewards like the Meadweaver’s Outfit (which I personally think looks pretty nice on my character) and a Chunky Bee pet. It’s been a while since I devoted any time to playing, and it was fun to once again enter the world of Gielinor.
That reminds me… Over the past few weeks I’ve become interested in playing Sudoku and crossword puzzles again, and completely forgot to mention it on my blog. I tried a few different apps but ended up settling on the NYT Games app and subscription, which I’d used in the past. It seems to have the best design and play style for my preferences, and it’s a fun way to keep my mind active.
Oh! And I almost forgot! Throughout the week, and also this weekend, I’ve been taking advantage of the nice weather and going for walks in the evenings. For those unfamiliar with the area, September in Illinois typically sees highs in the low 80s°F, but this past week had cooler temperatures in the 70s. Yay! (I enjoy more moderate temperatures.)
And with that, time to wrap up this post a bit early, and enjoy the flatbread pizza I picked up at Kroger! 🍕
