Week In Review 2026-06-20. No need for me to make this title "better."
This weekly update covers Sunday 06-14-26 through Saturday 06-20-26 (an icon Glossary, if needed).
LIFE
- 🈁 Another week of endings (one of which was sad) and beginnings.
- 📕 All of the people outside of my immediate family have been extended the invitation to my mother’s burial service next month. I don’t know if they will attend, but the invite is out there nonetheless. Flowers may be sent in lieu of their appearance, which would also be fine.
- 📜 Well, I now know what my apartment complex’s fire alarm sounds like, as it was pulled as a prank on the evening of Sunday 06-14. NOTE: It’s really loud and annoying!
- ❤️🩹 Still sleeping earlier than usual, and for a longer time than normal. I’m more in favor of the latter than the former. The amount of outdoor walks has increased, allowing both L. & I to see things like the Venus-Moon conjunction.
EXPLORE
- 🎨 Some photography on Saturday 06-20 (and possibly on Sunday 06-21) while L. worked this weekend. I tested out the Canon EOS Rebel XSi that I got from my friend I. earlier in the month, shot a bit more with Caira, and also used the Canon rangefinder.
- 🔬 Went all-in on the first Developer Beta of iOS 27 and macOS 27 Golden Gate. There are very few changes between OS 27 and 26.5, with the only noticeable glitches being with Messages on my Mac: first, there’s a notification for unread messages that I can’t zero out; second, some messages disappear on macOS but not iOS; third, a handful of messages in the Unknown Senders section reappear after I delete them.
- 🪟 Sunday 06-14 was typical (church, coffee, groceries), followed by some outdoor hikes at two parks west of me: Bluebird Park and Bluff View Park. Did my usual round of working at Living Room and drinking at Side Project Cellar on Thursday 06-18. Spent Saturday 06-20 at various locations for the photo stuff, as mentioned earlier.
MEDIA
- 📰 Speed Kills, Hacking, but Legal. Comparing blitzkriegs, both original and current, for reasons that should be obvious. It’s great that history has shown a path for how blitzkriegs end, but the path has plenty of destruction strewn about, including those who initiated it.
- 📰 Hey Boy, Hey Girl — Kerroo Brewing Company in Port Erin, Isle of Man, Pellicle Magazine. I suspect that if you were to throw a pint glass while you were at this brewery, it would not stand. Why would you throw it in the first place? Read it for the brief Manx vocabulary lesson, but also read it for how an isolated part of the UK creates its own pub culture unlike anywhere else.
- 📰 the girly wellness aesthetic as a white supremacist dog whistle, …hi, this is ava. I pretty much consider all yoga and wellness advocates to be guilty unless they prove otherwise through actions, not words.
- 🎬 Riding Japan’s Scenic Small Train Running on 7-Eleven near Kyoto, travelgeek. The gimmick is an optical illusion that makes this train appear to be riding on top of a rural 7-Eleven. The real treat is seeing the home of Shigaraki ware, and tons of tanuki statues (but no Tanooki Mario was seen, alas).
- 🎬 The MERLIN Bird Identification App Gets an UNFAIR Test, Bob Duchesne. I use Merlin a lot on my iPhone, but as Bob points out in this video, it’s generally a good guesser of sound, and only sound. It can’t tell you where the bird is, or how to find the bird—that’s still up to you. The app is best to help you figure out the common birds in your area, though it’s still best thought of as an aid and not a catch-all solution.
- 🎬 Road to the Apple II: A Complete Computer (Part 3), Upgrade. Part of an upcoming separate podcast, Designed In California, that talks about the very early days of Apple . This episode mentions the creation of the Apple ][, with serious consideration as to how it was the real first personal computer on the market.
WORK
- 🏥 The new guy, B., started on Monday, and I think he’ll be a good fit for the team. Tickets are still hovering at or just below 100. Friday 06-19 was a day where the team gathered at the office for the first time in 2026(!), and handled some clean-up of our workspace lab.
OTHER
- 🗣️ You may recall me talking a while ago about Piko, one of the call ducks on a Japanese YouTube channel. I had mentioned how cute and adorable this duck was, and how I would likely be really sad if anything were to happen to her. Unfortunately, this came to pass in late April, only a few days after my post! Piko was attacked in her backyard by a crow and died from the injuries. I guess I shouldn’t feel sad about the death of a duck halfway around the world whom I never met, but that’s where I stand.
NEXT
- 🔮 A second Les Ketchup post, which will also incorporate my relatively short thoughts about the (temporary?) end of Doctor Who.
PICTURE
- 📸 From August 2023, a view of a couple other bridges over Portsmouth, NH from the perspective of a third bridge while on its other side in Kittery, ME.
