Journal

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.27.2023 to 09.02.2023)

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

Ok, I wrote this later and back-dated it, because I was going to not, but I need to not get back into the trap of “not”.

Look at me, slacking already, no posts since the end of Blaugust. Not even the Friday music album post, PS, I have missed several of those.

I am at the time of the year when I realize I have a ton of vacation days left to use up, so I took Friday off. I may take a lot of Fridays off. I have enough days to take one off each week for the rest of the year, and some of those weeks already have holidays in them. We don’t really take trips or go anywhere so I generally just, don’t take days off. Plus a few years ago I was really saving them because my wife had had a stroke and some heart issues came from that, so she was supposed to maybe have heart surgery. I kept saving for that, so I got extra bad about not taking a vacation. The doctor decided not to do the surgery, for now, because it would be too risky, but I am still bad about not taking vacation and we still don’t really travel.

It worked out, she had a garage sale, so I could help with that some.

Saturday the weather was decent enough that I could comfortably run the power washer my parents let us borrow to strip the back concrete off. It’s been a few years, it’s filthy, and it needs doing occasionally. It took something like 4 hours of pretty continuous spraying. Tina did the garage sale again while I was out back.

Which reminds me of something else. So occasionally we get these Iced Strawberry Lemonades from Sonic, especially since they are half-price in the mid-afternoon. I decided to mix it up and get a Limeade. I am pretty sure I don’t really like lime, I am pretty down on super bitter things like lime and vinegar. The drink was… Ok, except it was a bit bubbly I think, which I was not expecting. It also, had bits of stuff in it, which is really gross for a drink. I assumed bits of lime, it was actually bits of strawberry. I tried to transfer things to a glass but well, I wanted the ice, so I could not simply, strain the strawberry out.

The reminder part is, that part of my motivation was to see how I would like the lime because I have this lime tree that I bought a while back on super clearance. It has not produced any fruit but I transferred it to a larger, nicer, pot. But like, I have no idea what I am going to do with the limes. The stores don’t seem to be able to give them away either, I have noticed they sell for super cheap, so it’s not like I could sell them or give them away.

Anyway, I also have a Lemon tree, which will be useful, because I like lemons, for the most part.

I didn’t get anything new this week, I slacked and missed Band Camp Friday, but I was broke anyway because I pre-ordered some vinyl. I may have mentioned that last week. CHVRCHES has a 10th-anniversary Bones release. There was a really lovely looking special edition of 1989 (Taylor’s Version) I went for (because 1989 is the best Taylor Swift album) and I came across a super nice looking 10th-anniversary edition of the Tron Legacy Soundtrack. That Tron album is probably my favorite soundtrack and it’s also probably a top ten album.

Not that spending a lot is a goal, but I have been increasing cash-strapped for a while now on my “personal spending”. Like years, awhile. It probably does not seem like it to some folks, I do spend a fair amount, but I also heavily deal shop. I have a set budget though, out of each paycheck, that goes into a separate account for my personal spending. This also includes buying gas for my car and any time I want to eat lunch out, which isn’t super often. I cut it back a few years ago though from what it had been, and in the past few years, everything became 25-50% more expensive.

Also, shipping for vinyl is always killer. It requires a large box which is pricey to ship.

Anyway, our contract was up this year at work so when it was renewed we got a bit of a bump as usual, and I am getting on-call pay starting soon. My wife already said I can have the on-call pay for my budget, which will probably amount to an extra $250/ month after taxes etc.

Which will be nice. Primarily because I actually would like to subscribe and support more. Like I recently subscribed to TWIT premium. I want to pick up Thurrott Premium. But there are other things like Patreons and such that I kind of want to sub to, even briefly, to support some things I enjoy, and having that bump will probably help put me over the edge to do some of that.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap-Up (08.20.2023 to 08.26.2023)

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

Not a lot going on this week honestly, it’s been kind of blazing hot which really makes some things difficult to do. Go Climat Crisis. I did start on a new project. Well, continued one I sort of started on. I have way too many bookmarks, enough that navigating them later is not useful. They are well sorted, but I need to make them more useful. I came across the concept of a “digital garden” recently. It seems to be just a fancy term for “personal wiki”. Anyway, I’ve started building a sort of personal wiki of bookmarks and resources, though it’s just lists of sorted links in markdown files, that I’ll eventually post out to Github for public use.

I may also do the Wiki thing as well, for other bits of information I want to keep, though most of that is already in One Note.

I just have been pretty down lately and not really motivated for much.

On a gaming note, the Aurora Concert is back for the next week or so in Sky: Children of the Light, it’s pretty neat, but there are also just, videos of it on Youtube.

I didn’t buy anything new this week either, like I said, boring week. Ok, technically I did pre-order a few things, but I don’t really consider pre-orders buying until they come in, because I often end up canceling them later.

I didn’t listen to much new music either, though I did start building a sort of “monster playlist to shuffle” in Apple Music. We’ll see what comes of that in the long term.

Weekly Wrap Up

Weekly Wrap Up (08.13.2023 to 08.19.2023)

Ramen Junkie 0Comment

Another week of Blog Posts done, I’m in the home stretch now for Blaugust. I can assure you, and myself, that I will not be keeping up this pace. For a variety of reasons, probably most of which I will mention in a wrap-up post on the 31st.

But what about this week. The big event this week was going to see Alanis Morissette. I also had some overnight work at work, which I don’t usually have, which has thrown my whole schedule off, not that I am not tired, basically, all the time, already. Something fun that came out of my Instagram posts from that concert, Cedric LeMoyne, the awesome bass player from the show, liked my awesome photo of him. I really like the pic too, so here it is.

Anyway, I have some coding projects I want to get to but have not had time lately, or, probably more accurately, have not had the mental capacity to work on lately. I also have some code stuff I’ve been trying to puzzle out for work, and I am sure at some point it will “click” and just slide into place and work, and I’ll start running there, but other work issues, have been blocking that focus.

I’ve also started making an effort to read a bit more again, though not a lot of progress there. I go through ups and downs on how much I read. I just am ashamed of my massive book backlog.

Activity Log

I really want to, at some point, find a way to add things like, my Duolingo progress here. I could do it manually, but I also don’t really know how to format it.

I did get a new Marvel Legends this week, I didn’t plan to, but the two-pack of Endgame Captain Marvel and Pepper Potts Rescue was down to $20, and I had to jump on that. I’ve been sort of wanting it for a while, but mostly for the Endgame Carol, I already have the single-pack Rescue. The Pepper heads would mostly be a bonus. I’ve been tempted at $25 and $30, but at $20, it would be less than a single figure. If Endgame Captain Marvel had been a single-packed figure, I would have already bought it. At this point, the useless extra Rescue figure is just an accessory.

I picked up one book (for the embarrassing backlog) called The Little Book of Mathematical Principles, Theories & Things by Robert Solomon. What can I say, it was probably $2 and I like nerdy things.

I almost forgot that I also bought a game or a game bundle. Steam had a bundle of Mega Man games, half of which I already owned. Because of the way Steam discounts work, owning something, knocks even more off, so for a price I wanted to pay, I could get the Mega Man Zero collection. I’ve only played the first one a while ago, but it’s a series I have been meaning to play. I have beaten all of the previous Mainline Mega Man and Mega Man X games already. The Zero series is kind of a hole.

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