Joel Always one syllable, sometimes "@jayroh"

Back at it, (maybe?). Thanksgiving 2021.

26 Nov 2021

I would be remiss if I didn’t mention that it’s been well over 5 years – almost 6 – since I last updated this blog. Long time. Regardless, “there is no better time than now” right? So here I am, in an effort to dump some of the things that have been in my brain I am going to commit to seeing out the rest of the year by posting once a week, putting whatever pithy thoughts here that may have ended up on twitter or instagram.

I would like to give some credit to my friends Joe and Greg for their own projects – Joe’s own weeknotes, and Greg’s newsletter – for the inspiration to dust this thing off and smash the keys on this laptop. Thanks to both of them for the (unintentional) nudge.

This week was Thanksgiving. And while it’s our collective national responsibility to fill ourselves to bursting, watch football, and indulge in our favorite national pasttime (shopping), I, instead, took the time to really slow down and give my brain some time to recover.

What does that look like? A lot of reading. A lot of tinkering and research. And some self-care. To wit:

  • A trip to Comicopia ended up with the first volumes of Locke and Key, The Black Monday Murders, and Sweet Tooth.
  • Subscribing to GoRails - yay, Black Friday sales!
  • A meeting with Emma from All-Tru. Making a commitment to be nicer to myself for at least the next 8 months (at the least).
  • Learning a little more about Docker, docker compose, private networking, cloud hosting.

Misc Thoughts

  • I honestly can not believe this blog can still be built, still works, still does the job. Just goes to show what a great job the Jekyll team has done over the years.
  • The state of computer peripherals is a travesty. These days a new mouse requires a new app, an account on a poorly designed “cloud” app, and multiple computer restarts. All of for the sole reason of turning bright colored lights off a damn mouse. (At least this new one is not wireless)
  • Reading: Locke and Key 1, Hawkeye (2012 - Fraction & Aja) in prep for the new Hawkeye tv series.
  • Watching: Succession - what is going on with this 3rd season? Dexter “New Blood” - considering how the original series ended, anything they do here is an improvement.

1: First volume, “Welcome to Lovecraft”, is more brutal than I expected, but what else would I expect from Joe Hill (Stephen King’s son)? Fun fact - the town of “Lovecraft” is just a renamed Nahant, MA, which, when you look at the illustration of the place, is plainly evident.