Take 5, D.

Week Notes, 2025-09-07

Weekly Features from September 1st - September 7th:

🎂 FYI, next week will be my birthday. I'll probably have some thoughts about turning 54. My last weekly update in my 53 era starts now.

🛖 The cooler weather this week has been a treat, so unlike many of our neighbors, we’ve kept our windows open in our apartment. Our complex has seen a big roofing project take place in late August, but now it's my building that's literally under the hammer. Both yesterday and today, our roof was crawling with folks both removing and applying new roofing tile. Even with all the extra noise, I still have kept the windows open, as the roofing work is just a temporary interruption to my usual peace.

😷 I'm writing this week's update early as I'm unsure how I'll be feeling on Sunday 09-07. I did receive both my flu shot and this year's COVID vaccine on Friday 09-05, and if my past history holds up, I will have about 4-6 hours of lucidity, followed by 24 hours of quasi-flu symptoms that include restless sleeping and elevated body temperatures. After an additional 12 hours of decreasing effects, I'll finally feel "normal" but tired from the experience, so that would put me at Sunday for returning to reality after this legal trip. I've joked that if your state or community hasn't decriminalized or legalized psychedelic drugs, just get a double dose of immunization like me, and ride out the experience for the next day or two.

💉 UPDATE on Saturday 09-06 around noon: My powers of prediction are weak. It's been almost 24 hours since both injections, and I am surprised at how well my body is feeling. No flying toasters, no elevated body temperatures, but yes to restless sleeping that included short but violent dreams. I do feel a bit restless but tired, as my body is clearly energized to fight something, but due to the lack of sleep, I am also rather exhausted. Still, these feelings are far better than I had anticipated. YMMV, of course.

📤 Before the Labor Day weekend, I put in my request at work for vacation time in October and November. As of this writing, I have not had a response from my manager, which is somewhat concerning. What's more concerning is that he was scheduled to be at work this week, but for all practical purposes, he was out of the office and unreachable. A lot of our team's actions revolve around his work, so our work is affected if he's not available. Treading carefully, I know some things are happening with my manager's life outside of work, and I can only hope he's dealing with those things in a positive way. I am worried about my vacation requests, but the bigger picture is just as worrying if not more so.

📲 On Tuesday 09-09, Apple  will make its big OS 26 announcement and show off new hardware. I have been riding out the betas for both iOS 26 and macOS Tahoe 26, and generally the betas show improvement as you get closer to release date. My problems with OS 26 have come up with the newer betas, all of which center around iCloud. Syncing between devices has become erratic, so actions I perform in Photos will sync but my Safari sessions won't. My RSS reader of choice uses iCloud sync to mark off read articles, and there have been several occasions where an article I've marked as read on my Mac will show up as unread on my iPhone. Perhaps this syncing issue will get resolved with the actual Release Candidate of OS 26 on Tuesday. Or in a worse-case scenario, I'm stuck with it until 26.1 gets released. ¯_(ツ)_/¯

🚧 Here's a part of vacation planning I wasn't expecting: cleaning up my iPhone in case it gets inspected. I've read enough horror stories regarding visitors to the US from other countries who have been maligned at any border crossings, be they with roads or in airports. There are also increased actions of Border Patrol forces and ICE, particularly within 200 miles of the US border. Our November vacation will largely take place within that zone, so I am already pre-worrying about a "papers, please" moment when I'm in El Paso, or southern New Mexico, or when I may be walking back to the US from Juárez. I don't know if I'm overacting, feeling entitled, being realistic, or a mixture of all of these.

🆕 I will be providing further explanations for the media files I'm noting below. This week, I will be talking more about the--*spins wheel of fortune*--Watching links.

Other Things to Note from The Week That Was:

💫 Creating:

🏥 Health:

🎧 Listening:

🗄Organizing:

📖 Reading:

🌾 Socializing:

🧪 Testing:

📺 Watching:

🗃️ Work:

#Documentation #Life #Metablogging #WeeklyNotes