Journal > Dispatch #41 (July 2026)

Posted 2026-07-14 under #dispatch

Nico turned two in June. What the hell! Where’s my baby boy, and who’s this sassy little dude running around my house. We threw him a farm-themed birthday (my man loves cows), then took the kids up to see their cousins in Richmond. The next weekend, we went camping with Claire’s family at Carolina Hemlocks Recreation Area. This was awesome – bit of a haul for sure, and the boy couldn’t handle the switchbacks on the way up the mountain, but we were rewarded with a beautiful campsite with river views and temperatures a good 20°F cooler than around here.

A toddler wearing cow-patterned clothing and a horned headband looks at a chocolate-frosted cupcake with a number 2 candle on an outdoor picnic table. Two adults sit with two young children at an outdoor picnic table. Three smile at the camera while the younger child looks down, and the older child holds a red toy barn.

Two adults and four children sit together on a bed. Several children look toward a phone held by the adult on the right, while one child holds a stuffed animal. A smiling man wearing glasses and a baseball cap carries a curly-haired child piggyback in a wooded park. The child makes a wide-eyed face and wears bright pink shoes.

An adult and two young children sit on a large rock in a shallow, rocky stream surrounded by forest. One child dips a foot into the water. An adult wearing glasses sits in a blue striped camping chair with a young child resting face-down against their chest, surrounded by trees and dirt.

In what’s surely a sign of a creatively unfulfilling month, here are my thoughts about a few recent purchases:

Aventon Pace 5 REC

We ordered Claire a new bike after hers was stolen last month. This thing is sweet, some nice upgrades from the previous version. I’m jealous of some of the tech, and especially the power to get up the bigger hills around here. At the same time, I’m pretty chuffed with how much mileage I’ve gotten out of my low-tech, single-speed e-bike; there’s something very pure and utilitarian about it that I appreciate.

DOIO KB16 Triple Knob Macro Pad Keyboard

I got absolutely sniped by this post about macro keyboards (via) and ended up picking this thing up. Physically, it is a well-made object and pairs nicely with my keyboard. I appreciate a good thwack, so I ordered some nice clicky switches (and actually swapped out the switches in my main keyboard as well, which makes typing this sentence quite satisfying) as well as some transparent keycaps inspired by that original post. I also printed a stand which puts it at a better angle and also somehow makes it feel more “mine.”

In terms of what to do with a whole bunch of new buttons, I’m still figuring that out. I’ve got a few set up to do some common work tasks (join my next meeting, start a new Harvest timer, etc.) and some window management things (full/half/quarter screen). I’m trying to be mindful of annoying things I do frequently that take more than a few keystrokes.

Xteink X3 Pocket eReader

I ordered this tiny e-reader after reading a few too many gushing blog posts and comments in Installer. My initial experience was pretty bad – it’s marketed as something you stick onto the back of your phone with magnets, but my phone (an iPhone 13 Mini I’m loathe to give up) is pretty small and it didn’t really work. What’s more, it couldn’t handle the first e-book I loaded onto it. (It has a bunch of images? Not sure but it just sort of bugged out and then locked up.)

I put it away for a few days until I stumbled on this post, which described a few alternate firmwares and led me to Inx, which is much smoother and could actually load my book, though it still struggled on the pages with photos. I printed a simple case in my favorite dark gray, giving it a little bit of protection and, again, putting my stamp on it. Then I found some software to convert EPUB files to the device’s native format (and even made a simple bug fix), which has resolved the image issues and improved the reading experience overall.

Now things are working well – I’m happy with the device and I’m finally making good progress in Every Tool’s a Hammer. It’s nice to have something to grab when I’m looking for a distraction that isn’t my phone. It’s neat that there’s such a robust community of folks making things for this device, but I’d be hard pressed to recommend it to someone who doesn’t want to tinker.

This Month

Reading & Listening

References

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