Category: Uncategorized

Today I took my electric skateboard out on the street, and I only had one time where I thought I was going to die. It’s a blast. I have so much fun on it. I think some teenagers commented approvingly, but I was mostly focused on not falling face-first onto the asphalt to fully hear what they were saying.

I spent the evening wrapping my head around and applying a lot of Redux basics. The last time I completed a frontend project was back in 2015, just before Redux really took off. It’s now pretty widely adopted, and it’s very easy to pick up given all the tutorials that exist.

I haven’t ridden my electric skateboard since my surgery, and I look forward to taking it for a spin tomorrow. I need to get confident enough to ride it on the street, but I think I need a few more trips around the basketball court before I’m fully there.

We’ve been reading Brian Biggs’ excellent “Everything Goes: In the air” once or twice a day for the past two weeks. As good as that book is, nothing can stand up to that repetition, and it is indeed time to take it back to the library.

Today was pretty standard. I worked until 4 and then walked to picked up Z around 4:30. We walked to New Seasons to pick up some groceries, and Monica met us there. We walked home, cooked dinner, and then put Z to bed. Monica and I both did some work, and now she’s asleep on the couch.

I have a large Chrome Industries single flap backpack that I purchased about 8 years ago. It’s made of vinyl tarp and so hardy; I use it for travel all the time. I wanted a smaller backpack to safely carry my laptop around in the Portland rain, and so I naturally turned to Chrome’s current offerings. I was disappointed to learn that Chrome no longer manufactures their bags in the United States. They do still make their custom bags here, but those are one-offs and much more expensive.

I turned to eBay and got a couple good deals on two Chrome backpacks: The Pawn and the Orlov 2.0. The Pawn is one of their vintage, USA-made backpacks and the Orlov 2.0, which (like any other bag labeled 2.0) is made in China. I get them next week, and I’ll happily lay out any differences I see.

We needed some moisture in the air, and we got it.

I took Z to the OMSI today. We ate thai food from Portland’s best, Kati. I found a great article on serverless user authentication, which is helpful for both the work I’m doing on my personal project and a new project I’m designing at work. I inched closer towards the next stage of my web app before falling asleep on the couch.

That’s it. Goodnight.

A usual Sunday spent gathering sticks with Zavian at the playground. It’s been pretty windy here, and there were plenty of sticks to gather. We worked with another kid, Jack, to line up all of these sticks in a long row. Later, when we returned to the playground in the afternoon, another kid used those sticks to build a little house.

I wasn’t productive today, but I learned that Trello has its own email-to-board system that I thought was exclusive to Evernote. I’m happy to avoid Evernote altogether, as its steep subscription fee and privacy issues were off-putting. Trello is free, which is truly a gift. I hope to use it as a cornerstone of my life organization project.

I worked out tonight, and Monica and I did 20 minutes of yoga.

Back in the summer, I made my son a ladder. It was only about three feet tall and it had four rungs. It’s the equivalent of the wee tiny ladder Link uses in the original NES Zelda game. He was fond of it for a week or so, where he used it to climb up to ring our door bell and fight imaginary fires. I dismantled the ladder a few weeks after he lost interest and returned the wood to my scrap pile. One of the ladder rungs made an appearance earlier in the blog as an essential piece of the podium laptop stand.

Cut to this week, some three months later, and Zavian’s been asking me about the ladder. They must’ve discussed ladders in his preschool class because he’s all about the ladder again. I told him the truth, and offered to make him a new one. He wanted to help me with it, and we spent 20 minutes in the basement working on it. Really, I was working on it and he was making a train out of scrap wood. He’s only 3, so he can only do so much around tools.

I’m typing this on the Pixelbook that just arrived from eBay. I’ve been impressed with my experience so far. The keyboard is divine and the touch screen is super convenient. I had completely missed the trend of useful touch screen laptops since I’ve been on a macbook for the past ten or so years. My Pixelbook came with a pen, and I’ve noticed essentially no lag when I sketch out ideas in Google Keep. It’s truly a fun experience. I’m sure I’ll have a better review after I spend a week or so with it.

We’re about a month in on this writing a blog post every day project, and I thought I’d check in. Also, I’m not sure what to write about, so this gives me a quick topic.

I’d say some of these posts are pretty boring. I recognize that. Also, I write about sleep way too much, probably because I write the posts right before bed. Some posts are short too, like I squeezed out a couple tweets and stamped them “done”.

I’m fine with all of that. I’m not at a place in my life where I can write an entertaining post every day. I’ll settle for writing anything. If I can continue to do that, it’s better than nothing.

Today I biked to the post office to return that turquoise ring and put my office white elephant gift in the mail. It was a chilly, sunny, enjoyable ride. I love the post office. The one here has a great mural, and the postal employees are friendly and helpful. Thank you, USPS.

I will sleep in the nude every night until I die. The only time I won’t is when I stay at relatives’ or friends’, and I’m worried I’ll surprise someone.

The one argument I can see for sleeping in clothes is that it’s easier to get out of bed on a cold morning.  As it stands, leaving the warm bed is an incredibly hard challenge to face first thing in the morning. The second is leaving the warm shower. I have to shut down all of the firing neurons that scream “turning off the warm water will be the worst decision of your life” or I will never leave.

Tonight I pulled Monica into a couch nap: her on top of me with a blanket on top of us. All that was missing on this windy winter night was a smoldering log in a grand stone fireplace.

This nap lasted from 9:30-11:30, pushing our actual bedtime past midnight. Don’t be like me. When you’re tired, just brush your teeth and go to bed. This was actually my second nap today. Do I suffer from some kind of energy issue? Or is this hereditary? My dad falls asleep all the time. Maybe exercise would break sleep’s hold over me. Actually, that seems counter-intuitive. I don’t know.