Update for 5/15/2016

Project updates

• Math relearning – Last week was one of those weeks where I wonder where my time went, certainly not to this project, but I did manage to get through another module or two. I didn’t get around to posting them, so I’ll try to do that this week.
• Diet – The blood test results are in, and the verdict: A low-carb, high-fat diet is bad for me. Except for my HDL, which was already normal, my cholesterol numbers were about the worst they’ve ever been. So I’m left even more confused about what constitutes healthy eating, which is really demoralizing sometimes, but for now I’ll try something like the TLC diet, which is basically what I was doing before, and I also have an appointment with my doctor on Wednesday to see if I need a pharmaceutical solution. But I still plan to stuff my life full of sugar substitutes, so the cooking experiments will continue!
• Daily routine – My evenings last week were a mush and half filled with naps. I feel like I need to take some extended time to think about the nature of time management, but my latest thought is that for some activities I need to find and remember motivations beyond the mere fact that they’re on a self-imposed schedule.
• Video games – On Saturday, about a week after I joined, I logged in to the Bityard Minecraft server for the first time, met some nice people in the server’s Discord chat, and was killed by the base of the guy who invited me to join when I got trapped there and suffocated to death. A warm welcome.

Life updates

• Conference – Last week our ebook department went to the IDPF conference in Chicago, which I really enjoyed. Some of the talks were simple advertisements, but others were more enlightening and thought provoking, such as the panel on partnership between publishers and libraries, and we got to hear Tim Berners-Lee, the inventor of the World Wide Web, who might have been there largely to represent the W3C at the IDPF meeting, since the two bodies are looking at merging. I also got to meet someone who typeset our major study Bible long ago and someone from the Twitter ebook production discussion group, who recognized my name, which surprised me because I hardly ever participate. On our way out of the conference, my coworker brought up what he’d talk about if he had a session, which got me thinking about what I’d choose, and I came up with two topics: (1) the interactive possibilities in ebooks, along the way exploring the distinctions between ebooks and apps, and (2) the communication gap between ebook producers and reading system developers.
• Service – These days I have a horrible inertia when it comes to service opportunities, and when I hear about them, I just don’t respond. So when my church sent out an email last week asking for help with the funeral of a child that Saturday, I felt bad for the tragic situation, but I still didn’t volunteer. But I had a worship team rehearsal at the church right as they were setting up for the funeral, and I was feeling more motivated because one of my gaming streamers had been talking about his service activities the night before, and I had lots of time, so after the rehearsal I asked what I could do, and I spent the rest of the morning setting up for the reception, which was satisfying. I hope I can make room for more of this.