Take 5, D.

Week Notes, 2025-10-05

Weekly Features from September 29th - October 5th:

📞 I finished my on-call coverage for the week, and also for the remainder of the year. In a weird form of symmetry, my last night on Wednesday 10-01 ended with a Bang (though not as big as the BANG on Thursday 09-25). Two P-2 calls came in 30 minutes apart, each with a Home Health service provider having issues closing out patient visits in their app. The urgency of these tickets and their relative proximity made me slightly panic at first. When I called each person, they were okay with the calls being worked on the following day, allowing me to lower the priority of each ticket and relieve my panic. In both cases, a team which specializes with support for Home Health providers ended up handling the tickets, which is another lesson for me to take: I don't have to have the final answer when on-call. Sometimes it's fine to just pass the ticket along to some other team that has a better answer.

🔻 Between being on-call and planning for the November trip, my creativity drive has taken a break. I took nearly a month off from touching my film camera, but between a couple quick bursts of activity, I'm now down to six exposures on the roll. If all goes well, I'll finish the roll in time to drop it off at Schiller's on Saturday 10-04. As for my other writings, they've been subsumed by vacation planning and all of the mess out there *waves hands furiously*. Maybe a break in scenery will do me some good and restart my creative drive.

🇹🇼 My "Who is this?" page briefly mentions that I was born in Taiwan. Here's a longer explanation of how that came about: my father was drafted during the Vietnam War by the Air Force, and was eventually stationed with the 374th Airlift Wing at Ching Chuan Kang Air Base (CCK AB) in 1971. The nearest US medical facility to CCK AB was the US Naval Hospital in Taipei, which is where I was born. Since both my parents were born in the United States, and the Naval Hospital was considered US soil for birth purposes, I am a native-born citizen of the United States. However, my passport clearly says "Taiwan" as my birth place, which from 1979 onward has been viewed by the US as a "strategically ambiguous" location. Mixing ambiguity with what's said on a passport could be a recipe for confusion or worse were I to come back from an international location, so I put in a request on Tuesday 09-30 for a Consular Record of Birth Abroad (FS-240) form. I have a much older version of this form, an FS-545, which I only found when I cleared out my mother's apartment after her death. This form is showing its age, so all things considered, I'd rather have a newer one for my records. Still, I'm glad my mother was a pack rat as I have no other copy of this certificate, apart from what I'm now requesting. And yes, I know my timing for the form request is impeccable.

🍁 I spent a couple days writing up my reaction to the CFL's proposed rules change from last week. I'm not a fan of the CFL effectively Americanizing their take on professional football, as they are poor ideas that end up removing a uniquely Canadian approach to the game, all while bringing the sport more in line with the American version. Coming up with a diet take on the NFL has proven to be a recipe for disaster for just about any pro league since 1970. We aren't celebrating the USFL finishing its 42nd season of spring football, or the WFL's recent 50th anniversary, right? Anyway, you can read my ideas about doubling down where the CFL is popular here.

🪵 By sheer accident, I happen to live in the St. Louis region, which has one of the more acclaimed breweries in the US. No, not the one with the horses, but the one with a lightbulb. Side Project has been going strong for 12 years, and I've been lucky enough to be a member of the La Coterie society since 2023. Membership societies for breweries...yeah, it's a luxury, and it's one I'm glad I have the means to enjoy. I had thought it would be too difficult to join a second brewery's membership, but yesterday I got lucky and will be splitting dues and beers for Private Press Brewing. This brewery is in Santa Cruz, and they specialize in stouts, barleywines, and related beers, with special emphasis on blending these styles together in unique expressions. Brewing a beverage is one thing, but having the mindset to blend various beverages to make something better than the sum of its parts...well, that's artistry. Another bit of artistry can be found in the bottle labels for Private Press, as they give off 60s/70s jazz and jazz-fusion vibes. More to come on this as it develops.

🆕 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*--Reading links.

Other Things to Note from The Week That Was:

💫 Creating:

🏥 Health:

🎧 Listening:

🗄Organizing:

📖 Reading:

🌾 Socializing:

🧪 Testing:

📺 Watching:

🗃️ Work:

#Documentation #Life #Metablogging #WeeklyNotes