Once again, this is a combined post! I didn’t have much occurring during the week of 2024.17 noteworthy, outside of work.
This past weekend, when I would have normally posted my weekly notes, I was busy working to finish off some projects that were piling up both at home and in the office. So I held off, instead of forcing myself to write.
This week was shortened for me; the first 3 days were in-office, then I was traveling to visit family (more on that ahead). The trip itself was long, but I finished off a re-listen to a book I was working on, so the time flew by relatively quickly.
My primary reason for traveling? This weekend, I had the joyful privilege of attending the wedding of two of my cousins! My cousins (brothers), Seth & Josh, married sisters (Katie & Gloria), on the same day, in a joint ceremony. It was great to be able to celebrate with them, and congratulate them as each couple begins their new journeys in life together!
Today (Sunday) also included a special event: Lori, the director of the choir at the church I was raised in, retired after 33 years, and many former choir members (including myself), joined in to surprise her, and celebrate her service in song during the Divine Service, and again afterwards at a potluck. 🙂
Read
Work Rules!: Insights from Inside Google That Will Transform How You Live and Lead by Laszlo Bock
Listened To
The Talk Show With John Gruber: 399: ‘I decapitated the MacBook Air’, With Federico Viticci
At this point, I should just summarize every week this Spring with “work is very busy, and I haven’t done much besides that of note.” 😂 (Of course, that’s boring reading though, so I won’t do that.)
I continued my meal planning this week, which included running across a tasty and easy Chili recipe. I was tempted to make it again next week, but I probably should have some diversity in my meals.
As you’ll see in my Read section (below), I went on a kick reading how others use OmniFocus, and I pulled a few ideas from Scotty Jackson’s article that I’ve implemented into my own system.
This weekend, I removed my /now page from my website. It was a fun idea, but I found updating it tedious, especially when I’m busy. And a /now page that doesn’t get updated isn’t particularly useful…
I also spent some time playing Voxel Tycoon, a game that I’ve played on and off for a few months. Something about this type of strategy game can be very fun for me.
The past week was pretty busy at work, with a combination of meetings, project kickoffs, and Spring beta testing/troubleshooting. And this weekend, as I publish this update, I’ve been crunching on a project as well, so I don’t feel like taking much time to write…
I did, however, make a bit of a change to something personally though… For the first time in years, I designed a weekly menu, and actually roughly stuck with it. This got me both purchasing a few foods I am not used to at the store, and also being a bit more conscious of exactly what I was eating day to day.
Speaking of changes… During the week, for some reason, I got very annoyed at Todoist and am back on OmniFocus. I’m not sure if it’s a coping mechanism for when I feel overwhelmed, or if there are features of OmniFocus I was missing in Todoist… 🤷♂️
I’m also strongly considering changing the format/content of these posts. I enjoy having a short outline of what I’ve done, interesting things, etc, but the time commitment to write it up discourages me if I’m at all busy. And there are times of my life when I am, in fact, pretty busy. Perhaps I’ll switch to just notable podcasts vs every podcast I listened to?
Listened To
Issues, Etc.: 1033: The Teaching of Limited Atonement - Dr. Jordan Cooper
The last week in March (Holy Week), I was traveling for both work and to visit family, and didn’t take the time to write up my weekly notes. So this post is going to include two weeks.
On the Wednesday of Holy Week, I was in the office for a few hours, then headed to Ohio to visit family, and to do some heads-down remote work. I’ve found that for certain projects, I really need to have dedicated time away from the office to focus if I want to complete the work in a reasonable amount of time…
Thursday through Sunday were a mix of church services for Holy Week (which included some of my absolute favorite hymns), along with a fair amount of remote work, in an attempt to finish the aforementioned project.
Monday started early with some travel for work, followed by a late afternoon/early evening trip back to Illinois. Then, Tuesday through Friday were back in the office for a fairly busy week of work.
Thankfully, this weekend I’ve had some downtime, which have included some reading, some catching up on chores and projects around the house, and a little gaming.
Speaking of gaming… I’ve enjoyed playing RuneScape over the years, and on Saturday (4/6) I finished the 2024 April Fools event, which brought Benchsitting as a new skill to the game.
The past week was once again relatively uneventful, with work consuming a lot of my time.
I found out mid-week that you can right click on a contact’s name in Slack, and copy the link to a Slack Huddle with them, then paste that to a meeting invite, so that scheduled meetings can take place directly in Slack. I won’t have a use for that often, but I may use it for scheduled lightweight meetings on occasion.
Over the weekend I worked on setting up a computer I need for a work project with Ubuntu, and decided to go ahead and pay for/set up Ubuntu Pro on it as well. I’ve gone back and forth on whether I like the idea of a paid subscription, but live Kernel updates and 10 years of ESM seems worthwhile for a system that I’m not touching on a day to day basis.
Listened To
Accidental Tech Podcast: 579: Use Your Words
Clockwise: 546: Taco iPad
Congressional Dish: CD289: The Not A TikTok Ban Bill
Connected: 494: Esse Tiere
Cortex: 153: What Even Is an Office?
DTNS/Good Day Internet: How Do You Keep Listener’s Interested? - Editor’s Desk
Getting Things Done: 250: Projects and Someday Maybe Lists
Issues, Etc.: 0782: The Bible and Gender Ideology - Dr. Mark Rockenbach
Issues, Etc.: 0802: Dealing with Pornography’s Temptation - Daniel Weiss
Just and Sinner: Is the Christian Forgiven of Past, Present, and Future Sins at the Moment of Conversion?
Just and Sinner: Sola Fide: Justification by Faith
Just and Sinner: What’s Wrong with the Modern Conception of Rights?
Just and Sinner: Sola Scriptura: Scripture Alone
Just and Sinner: From Reformed to Lutheran
Late Night Linux: 273
Linux Matters: the Joy of Linux Torture
Mac Power Users: 736: Maintaining & Caring For Your Apple Hardware
The Rebound: 487: Have You Tried NOT Going Viral
Upgrade: 504: Tone 47
We’re Not Wrong: About Sonia Sotomayor retiring and the death of Electric Vehicles
This past week was pretty uneventful. Work has been busy enough that I haven’t devoted much time to personal projects.
Over the weekend I replaced a failing drive on my media/backup server, which required a pretty small amount of my direct time to get resolved, but took well over 12 hours to rebuild the array.
Over the weekend I also watched the first part of Dune. I quite enjoyed it, and am looking forward to seeing the sequel sometime soon (probably when it’s out on BluRay).
Listened To
Accidental Tech Podcast: 578: Weird Can Be Beautiful
Ask Noah Show: 380: Open Source Task Management
Clockwise: 545: Cake and Cookies
Connected: 493: Ends in Potify
Dot Social: Moving the Fediverse Forward at FedifForum and Beyond, with Johannes Ernst of Dazzle Labs
DTNS/Good Day Internet: Why is DTN’s Twitch Channel called GDI? - Editor’s Desk
DTNS/Good Day Internet: About ByteDance (Narrative)
Issues, Etc.: 0743: The Book of Mormon - Dr. Jordan Cooper
Issues, Etc.: 0753: This Week in Pop-Christianity: A Jesse Duplantis Easter Sermon - Pr. Chris Rosebrough
It’s a Thing: 308: Living in a World of Fandom
Late Night Linux: 272
Mac Power Users: 735: Catching up with Ryan JA Murphy
The Rebound: 486: I’m Eating a Turtleneck
Upgrade: 503: We Own the Refs, the Stadium, and the Field
This week was, for some reason, slightly exhausting for me, though I can’t point to any one specific event or series of events that caused the exhaustion. I had a fairly standard work week, and then enjoyed a visit from my sister this weekend.
Also this weekend, I had the pleasure of watching an amazing performance by the Concordia University - Chicago Wind Symphony. It’s been many years since I attended an event of this nature, and I didn’t realize until afterwards how much I’ve missed it. All of the performers did a fantastic job, and it was a delightful way to spend an evening.
In the generally-interesting category, I ran across DropDMG when reading through a blog earlier this week. While I don’t have an immediate need to distribute macOS applications, knowing that such a tool exists could be useful in the future.
