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Pretty Good Hat

Weeknotes S1E2

It was a pretty full week. Work is happening, five days out of seven, at least, and a few of the “things to do before the end of the year” items are starting to feel a little bit tightly compressed into the time we have left in 2024. Signs of autumn are intensifying, too! It’s cooler, rainy and gray; I’m taking my vitamin D.

  • 💿 I went to the dentist this week. I had to have an old filling drilled out and replaced. I have much anxiety about dental work, and for the first time brought along my own big headphones. I listened to Nick Cave’s new album, The Wild God. It’s a beautiful, remarkable piece of music, and I utterly zoned into it through the dental work.
  • Driving around this week, it felt like my neighborhood, like landmarks are becoming familiar and comfortable. It’s a really nice feeling. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve barely touched the surface in terms of actually checking out shops and destinations, but as I make a mental map of this new town it’s soothing for it to begin to feel familiar in its big and smaller shapes.
  • This article about the fish shell by Julia Evans captures so much of what’s great about it. Fish is so smart with completion suggestions and history! Unlike Julia, I’ve tinkered with a bunch of plugins and other configuration, but she makes me wonder if I could strip a bunch of that out and run it more simply.
  • I got into a bit more solid routine on the bike this week, combined with hitting all my scheduled strength workouts on time. That feels good! I’m working intentionally against the inertia I often feel when the work day is done, or in the morning before getting to my desk. It has been really tough, the past … several months? … to feel motivated to focus on it. So I’ll take this small couple-week stretch.

Peloton instructor Robin Arzon on a ride summary. The ride is titled Your Day One Ride, a 45-minute session with a pretty high average heart rate and lots of time in the red zone for me.

media this week

  • We’re watching The Big Door Prize (Apple TV+) season 2. This show deserves so much more love and attention. It’s thoughtful, sweet, and funny. I just learned that it didn’t get renewed for a third season, which is a shame.
  • I enjoyed Rebel Ridge (Netflix). Pretty good action thriller about civil forfeiture and race, with some truly menacing corrupt cop performances.

🍅 garden haul this week

  • A whole bunch of cherry tomatoes!
  • Once again, the starlings wrecked the ripening figs before we could get to them.
  • We made a cake out of a bunch of the pears we’ve harvested
  • Another couple pounds of grapes in the freezer
  • Radishes and greens are ready: Lots of kale and spinach in our future