Week Notes, 2025-04-27
Weekly Features from April 21st - April 27th:
⤵️ After the Iowa trip two weekends ago, and Easter/Pascha celebrations last weekend, I guess I shouldn't be surprised how this week was a letdown. There weren't any real disappointments or bad events, but rather the return to a routine which seemed "boring" in comparsion to what had passed. I threw myself into more work tasks, and additional organizational tasks to stay both mentally and emotionally sharp.
🤧 Allergies are starting to affect me, but the full brunt hasn't hit so far. The trees are still in their spring green phase, including the coniferous trees with their soft green needles. The mold and mildew, which really bother me more than airborne pollen, have been manageable to this point. However, May is the typical month where the weather in Missouri ramps up both heat and humidity, which in turn cause the mold and mildew to spike. Argh. At least I know it's coming.
🍜 On Saturday 04-26, L. and I went to a ramen restaurant we used to frequent back when we lived one town over from it. We hadn't stopped by since 2018(!), which was when this restaurant was one of the first ramen restaurants in the STL region. Since then, not only have we moved further west, many more ramen restaurants have opened, allowing us to expand our exposure to what ramen could be. Our return to the old restaurant was...okay, though it was very clear its popularity had fallen way off since our last visit. The Yelp reviews over the last year or two have been brutal, with many focusing on the quality of sushi being served, as well as the owner neglecting the restaurant in favor of his other commercial outlets. I've never had the sushi at this place, and while the ramen was alright, I don't believe it's worthy of a repeat visit when there are many better options out there.
✅ Here's a second public reminder to myself that I should catch up on my Doctor Who backlog. I started mentally formulating a blog post about the show, but maybe that should wait until I watch some episodes...?
Other Things to Note from The Week That Was:
📺 Watching:
- Barred Owls Are Easy To Find, YouTube, Bob Duchesne
- Japan’s Dinosaur-Themed Love Hotel with a Water Slide | Hotel Artia Dinosaur Gifu; YouTube, It’s Time To Travel🇯🇵
- [The most beautiful village in Japan] Sakura in full bloom at Oshino Hakkai were the best!, YouTube, Japan Travel Walk
- Day 1 of the 2025 NFL Draft
🎧 Listening:
- How We’re Using AI, AppStories
- isolated mix 131 - Illuvia: Mauna Kea, A Strangely Isolated Place
- Hannibal Invades Italy, Tides of History
- Episode 585, Minneapolis Lagers, ABV Chicago
📖 Reading:
- Crosley Field, Part 2—A Leo’s World Special, UniWatch
- Dogs in Elk: binding and source, resc1440
- Bears Hall of Famer Steve McMichael was a ‘wild child’ who loved football — and life, The Athletic
- I Just Came Back From The Slate Reveal And I’m Totally Buying Into Their Bullshit, The Autopian
- Mizunara oak explained, Decanter
- The Raycast Slack to find answers to my Raycast Focus questions and setup.
💫 Creating:
- Revamped my "Where are you?" page to reflect changs in my social media presence.
- Added more to the second blog lore.
🗄Organizing:
- I moved around old and new blog posts into a better folder organization on my Mac.
- I took some photos of two watches I'll sell on eBay this week. The Timex/Hodinkee collab was a purchase I probably shouldn't have made, and while I like the actual watch face of the AVI-8, I have never found a comfortable watch band for it. I don't think I'm the leather watchband type.
🌾 Socializing:
- The usual round of church services, coffee, and grocery shopping on Sunday 04-27.
- The ramen restaurant on Saturday 04-26, followed by a nightcap at Side Project Cellar.
- A Thursday 04-24 bottle share at Side Project Cellar.
🧪 Testing:
- Raycast Focus has become my primary tool for suppressing distractions on my Mac. It needs a bit of fine-tuning to replicate the ease of the Focus app, but as it stands now, the two apps aren't that far apart.
- I may play around with Syncthing soon. I downloaded the offical macOS app, and a third-party iOS app called Synctrain.
- Also on the play-around list: ConniePad for iOS.
🗃️ Work:
- I made a bunch of mistakes on a ticket late last week (Friday 04-18), which lingered in my head for most of this week. On Thursday 04-24, I had another complicated printer situation that reminded me of the prior week's screw-up. This time, I got it right, so doubts begone!
🏥 Health:
- Wednesday 04-23 was when I had both a dental appointment and shouler rehab. Both went by far better than expected, especially the dental appointment as the new dental hygienist is so much better at her job than the previous one.
- A 2-2.5 mile hike in Queeny Park with L. on Saturday 04-26, and a neighborhood walk with L. on Sunday 04-27. We saw our first set of goslings this afternoon!