Journal > Dispatch #4 (June 2023)

Posted 2023-06-01 under #dispatch

We spent Memorial Day weekend at Lake Norman, but it was like 55° and rainy the whole time. I’ve been loving the mild weather for the most part, but I was definitely looking forward to some kayaking and dock jumping.

We finished off the closet project – building the second unit was a lot quicker than the first, since I really just had to scale up the existing plans. Then it was a matter of adding the connecting rod and shelf. I think it turned out great, though I’d like to improve at building drawers. Here are some before and after shots (courtesy of Claire):

Open closet with assorted clothes on wooden hangers above white mesh drawers filled with folded clothing. Open closet with hanging clothes above four white mesh drawers filled with clothing, with more clothes piled on the floor. Small closet with clothes on wooden hangers above a three-drawer wooden dresser, baskets on top of the dresser, and books stacked on an upper shelf. Closet with clothes packed along the left and center rods, a single white T-shirt hanging on the right, and wooden drawers topped with wire baskets of clothing below.

Other life updates: we had a big work retreat at the beginning of the month at the Tides Inn, which was incredible. I celebrated 15 years (15!) with the company, and received a scooter as a gift. This thing is rad – I’ve been really happy with the e-bike, but it’s nice to have a smaller option for quick trips to the office or corner store.

We signed up for the local JCC since they have the best/only outdoor pool in the area. As a bonus, they have a nice gym, and I managed to get ~4 workouts in over the month. Hope to keep that up, though June’s pretty packed. I didn’t manage to fit in any long bike rides, but I did get a trailer hitch installed on the car, which was a bit of a process. Now I just need to select and purchase a bike rack and a whole new series of adventures should be unlocked.

I read Building a Second Brain, a book about digital note-taking systems. It inspired me to try out a couple different PKM apps. I was initially drawn to Logseq, but the editing experience was a little rough and it didn’t seem to support adding PDFs and images to notes. I’ve settled on Obsidian, which checks a lot of boxes even though I’m not a huge fan of Electron apps. I set up a web clipper tool so that I can quickly send links from Brave to Obsidian. I also started keeping public notes, inspired by some digital gardening stuff I’ve been reading.

I didn’t write any Go, but I did start a notes page about it and have a decent idea for a starter project. I need to make some actual progress here this month.

Final thought: when I was younger, I’d engage in a lot of “what if” thinking, imagining myself living totally different lives. This tendency decreased as I got older and built a life I was increasingly happy with, but never entirely went away. But since Nev came along, it’s really the end of that – she’s so awesome, and any timeline where she doesn’t exist exactly as she is right now just doesn’t have any draw.

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