Thoughts for the week’s end

Or: Thoughts for the year’s end.

Or: Thoughts for the week’s end, 31/31.

This is probably my dozenth attempt at a “what would it look like to track some notes over the week and schedule it to publish on Friday” post. We’ll see if it works.

Thoughts for the week’s end – December 20, 2019

A little over a year ago, I wrote the above at the bottom of the first of this series. A little over a year later and I’m generally happy with how it’s turned out. 31 posts over ~54 weeks means I probably did a bit better than I expected with “we’ll see if it works.”

There was a real groove at the beginning. Nothing felt forced and I felt comfortable with the mostly Friday schedule. Thursday evening is a nice time to sit and collect the thoughts of the week into some blurbs to look back on one day.

As years go, things got busier and then slower and then just continually weird as the COVID-powered clock seemed to blur things together for months at a time in simultaneous slow and fast motion. Things started to feel a bit forced every time I sat down to write something after not doing so for a couple weeks.

I had already given thought to rebooting things at the end of the year when I ran into Robin Sloan’s Advice for newsletter-ers, in which he suggests: “A personal email newsletter ought to be divided into seasons, just like a TV show.“

This is personal, though it’s not an email newsletter. I write for myself—mostly—because I like going back and checking in on how things were. I also write some things in the hope that specific people end up reading them. It’s fun to casually share thoughts as we maneuver through, uh… life?

Anyhow. I like the idea of mixing things up.

So this is the last in the series of thoughts for the week’s end. Future thoughts will be reborn as something(s) else in the new year. If you are reading this, thanks for tuning in over the last year! 🥃

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My work-related treat to myself last year was one of these fancy UPDESK adjustable standing desks. It’s been fantastic and has led to a nice routine where I start the day off on my feet and then switch to chair level sometime after lunch.

The desk came with a monitor arm and for some reason I postponed its installation when I put the desk together and stuck with the tried and true method of “monitor resting on books” instead. This week I finally cleared things off and installed the monitor arm! It’s been a little funky to get used to, but has created a whole bunch of room for clutter to start gathering on the back half of the desk.

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I finally upgraded to Big Sur this week. Skipped Catalina entirely!

This may have actually been the smoothest my dotfiles setup has worked out since I first started using it in 2016. Of course I haven’t actually tried to do any development yet. I’m sure I’ll start grumbling soon!

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I used to play guitar a lot, now I play not so much or at all. But someday I’ll play guitar a lot again.

Me, in my MySpace profile, many years ago. Maybe 2006?

In the process of backing things up before the upgrade, I started browsing through old archives and found a text file with a copy/pasted version of my last MySpace profile that contains these hopefully prescient words.

The new guitar, a Gibson SG Standard ’61, arrived at the end of last week. The new amp, a VOX AC15, arrived yesterday.

They’re beautiful. I’m so stoked.

I’ve so far been able to resist making the neighborhood hate me. Luckily the VOX has a separate volume control for the preamp so you can play with the tone without going all out. I played along with Daytripper about a dozen times and just couldn’t get enough. 😍

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The snow snowed in earnest today! We headed out to the WSU Arboretum for a great hike in boots. It was almost deep enough to enjoy with snowshoes, but a bit thin in some places. We were the first to touch a few of the trails in the trees, which made the setting that much more peaceful.

The conditions at Palouse Divide are looking excellent. The road is currently snow covered and the trees are looking fluffy on the road cam. We may still get some snowshoeing in before the end of the year! ❄️