Update for 2/25/2018

Posted on February 26, 2018 by Andy

Life management

😐

I had a surprise freelance job last week, so no taxes. But this week!

Movies

😎

Tuesday I saw Black Panther with my geek meetup. I rate it 6/5. I’d been looking forward to it as a potentially good example of Afrofuturism, and I was not disappointed. In fact, I found myself thinking about it for days after, which to me is the sign of a good movie. Because of its themes I feel even less qualified to evaluate and comment on it than other movies, but it feels like a complex one that rewards rewatching, so I’ll probably do that. One thing I will say about it is that I’ve never felt so much sympathy for a villain. I was also happy to see Letitia Wright from Black Mirror.

Fiction

🤔

I finished “The Mist” from Stephen King’s Skeleton Crew collection and decided to listen to the rest. It’s a nice collection for getting a sense of the variety in his stories. It’s not all monsters. It’s not even all horror. My favorites so far are “Mrs. Todd’s Shortcut,” “The Jaunt,” and “Word Processor of the Gods.” “The Raft” is probably what I would’ve expected from Stephen King before I read anything by him.

Thinking

😎

Friday I picked up Rethinking the Fifth Discipline by Robert Louis Flood. Even though it’s a critique of another book (The Fifth Discipline by Peter Senge), I’m probably going to use it as my introduction to the details of systems thinking. It’s relatively recent, summarizes some major systems theorists, and advances the field with insights from complexity theory. Kind of an obscure book, but it was somehow at a local used bookstore.

Socializing

🙂

Picking up my systems thinking book on Friday took me past Jeremy’s workplace, so we came with me to the bookstore. We discovered there was an Applebee’s nearby, and since the one near us closed years ago, after the bookstore we had dinner there. It wasn’t the best maintained building, but the waitress was friendly and the food was delicious.

Death

🤔

Saturday I went to my friend Rex’s memorial service. Yet again I was surprised by how much I learned from the eulogies. I knew he’d been in the army but not that he’d jumped out of airplanes, and I didn’t know he went on mission trips to Uganda. And I didn’t know just how much he was loved. His church was interesting, a Messianic Anglican church with a charismatic flavor. There was a sprinkling of Hebrew, and I learned of the Tree of Life Bible translation.

Posted in Books, Death, Life management, Movies, People, Systems theory, Weeknotes | 1 Comment

Update for 2/18/2018

Posted on February 19, 2018 by Andy

Thinking

🙂

My analysis essay is trundling along. I’m hoping to post the rest of it in the next couple of weeks.

Life management

😤

I’m going to do my taxes this week. Don’t let me put it off!

Beliefs report

🤔

I’m planning on returning to my beliefs report as a Lenten project. But I want to finish the current phase of my analysis project first. And then I’ll probably keep working on the beliefs report till I’m at a good stopping point. So really its timing won’t strictly coincide with Lent but will overlap it instead.

Futurism

🤔

Last week’s futurism meetup was about futurism itself. The organizer also invited us to suggest topics for future meetings, and it just so happened that I have one. But I wanted to have videos to recommend before I gave him the topic, so since then I’ve been researching them.

TV

🤔

I caught up on Black Mirror (I rate it 5/5), and now I’m on The End of the F***ing World (that’s literally the title, including the asterisks), which has one of the actors from Black Mirror, Alex Lawther. He seems to play vulnerable characters with secrets, which is intriguing. Otherwise the show wouldn’t interest me. So far I like it better than I expected.

Death

😕

Sunday I played the piano at the funeral of a church friend, Marilyn. The organizers had asked me to play a couple of weeks before. It’s good that they did, because I was in Texas when she died, and I hadn’t heard the news, though it was clear she’d been declining. I knew her from a couple of ministries we’d been involved with together. As usual, it was good to hear people’s recollections, especially since I didn’t know her that well.

This Saturday I’m attending the funeral of another ministry friend, Rex. He’d had a few bouts with brain cancer, and this last time it was very aggressive.

I wouldn’t have heard about Rex either except that I happened to check Facebook at the right time. That was also true of Ray’s cancer about a year ago. I need a better way to keep up with that site. I rarely visit it because it distracts me so easily.

Correspondence

🤔

I’ve been getting nice letters and notes the past few months. My sister sent me a very nice thank you/appreciation card after Christmas. My brother has sent me a few letters and postcards. His latest letter was a very long answer to a question I’d asked him over email. So now I need to write some replies. I also told another old friend I’d write her a letter, if I can get her address.

Posted in Analysis, Beliefs report, Correspondence, Death, Futurism, Life management, TV, Weeknotes | 4 Comments

Update for 2/11/2018

Posted on February 12, 2018 by Andy

Church

🤔

After being sidetracked from my liturgy hunting project for a few weeks by music duties at church, last Sunday I visited Lutheran church #1. It definitely had the feel I was going for, but I spent the whole service in confusion. I got there late, only by 15 minutes, but they were already at the sermon, as if they’d started half an hour earlier than the time they listed everywhere. And then I couldn’t see where they kept the printed liturgies, if there were any left, so I couldn’t even sing along most of the time. It was also closed communion, but at that point I was relieved not to feel the need to participate. Interestingly when the priest greeted me as I left, we recognized each other. We concluded it was from college. I want to go back for a proper experience of their service, but that’ll be after I’ve visited the other places.

Thinking

😎

I posted another section of my analysis essay. That’s it for the preliminaries, and now I’m digging into the heart of my method. It might take a while to sort things out enough to post more. But this is the fun part. The hard kind of fun.

I can already tell the trajectory of my analysis project is taking me straight into the realm of systems theory. So prepare yourselves to have systems thinking foisted upon you at every opportunity! Once I learn enough. You can begin by perusing these inspiring tweets. The world’s had a long break from being bludgeoned by me with a blunt framework. It’s been long enough. It certainly bludgeons me enough with complaints about the pit it’s falling into. Systems thinking can possibly offer some handholds.

Fiction

😎

I finished Red Mars. It was very good, and I’ll listen to the rest of the trilogy at some point. I was reminded that my other favorite character besides John was Nadia, a very sensible, determined, and competent person. She inspired people to follow when she was in her element. Overall the story demonstrated to me that fleeing to Mars won’t solve humanity’s problems. The last few hours of the book were rather stressful.

While I was waiting for my next audiobook to be available, I listened to short stories by some Internet acquaintances. One was a set on Audible by Jeffrey Koval. They’re all paranormal fiction with some interesting twists. The other was a story by James Troughton, “The Mothgate,” on the Escape Artists podcast for young adult sff, Cast of Wonders. It also has an interesting twist.

The audiobook I was waiting for was Skeleton Crew by Stephen King, a collection that has the next story in my Dark Tower listening project, “The Mist.” It arrived at the library late in the week, so I trekked there on Saturday to retrieve it. I’ll probably listen to the whole collection. After that is the first actual Dark Tower book, The Gunslinger.

While format shifting Skeleton Crew to listen from my phone, I started on another short one I picked up from Audible, The Oedipus Plays. It’s a full-cast production of a very listenable translation, and it’s so good I haven’t even finished and I’m ready to give it 5 stars. I wish this cast would do an audio Bible. You can listen to a sample on the product page. It makes me want to listen to more classics.

Video games

🙂

I’ve been missing Minecraft, so I’ve returned to my single-player world where I’m building homes in a bunch of different biomes. I’d built paths through the Nether to all the locations, but actually building the homes was stalling me. When you don’t know what you’re doing, designing nice homes is too much work. So now I’m stealing other people’s designs. Last week I built this one at my main base in a plains village. Next will be an adobe house in the neighboring mesa biome.

Social life

🙂

My longtime friend Alpana is back home from her latest Navy assignment, and we caught up over the phone. She pointed me to a potentially interesting collaborative sf franchise, Imperial Odyssey. Collaborative writing projects intrigue me, and now I’m thinking a list of them might make its way to the wiki.

Side note, Minecraft is a great way to pass the time when you’re on the phone. 😉

Photography

🙂

On my way back from the library on Saturday, I passed one of the lakes where I take pictures, and even though I’m usually not interested in trying to photograph winter, I liked the sky that day and decided to try it. The trip reminded me that walking through deep snow is a workout. Afterward I had to lie back in my car for a while to recover. I think the pictures turned out pretty well.

One of my usual photo spots, now with added winter. #snowscape

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A bristly hill. #snowscape

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Posted in Analysis, Books, Church, People, Photography, Systems theory, Video games, Weeknotes | Leave a comment

Update for 2/4/2018

Posted on February 4, 2018 by Andy

Work

🙂

I decided to do my 5-year service award, which meant my boss and I had to write statements for the CEO to read in chapel. We made it through the ordeal, and it turned out well. In my comments I shouted out the lunchtime board game group for getting me to connect with people outside my department.

Health

🙂

I picked up my glasses on Monday, and since then I’ve even put them on a few times to get used to them. I feel like I’m looking through some kind of strange microscope, but it’s nice to be able to see tree branches clearly again after 15 years.

Take that, DMV! #glasses

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Thinking

🤔

I posted another section of my analysis essay. It’s going more slowly than I’d hoped.

One reason it’s going slowly is that I decided I needed a systems theory book. The field of systems theory is, a little ironically, a mess. So a lot of last week’s project time went into researching that. I settled on Systems Thinking, Systems Practice, a detailed and somewhat up-to-date overview with application methods by a prominent systems researcher, Peter Checkland.

My next book hunt will be on design thinking.

Posted in Analysis, Health, Thinking, Weeknotes, Work | 2 Comments

Update for 1/28/2018

Posted on January 29, 2018 by Andy

Life management

🙂

My new coat came in the mail. It’s certainly warm. It’s also longer than my old one, so I’ll have to get used to that. My pants pockets are harder to get into, and I have to reach down farther to zip it up. Fortunately it’s only somewhat like sitting in a tube. Overall I’m glad I have it, so thank you to my parents for my early birthday present.

Health

Last week was an eventful one in the medical department.

Guts

😐

Monday I had another Remicade infusion. An IV at the hospital once every eight weeks. It basically takes up my afternoon. Something in the meds they give me, maybe the Benadryl, puts me to sleep. Even a large coffee doesn’t keep me awake, so now I just plan for a nap an hour into the visit. Then I blearily drive home and continue my nap there.

Eyes

🤓

A couple of weeks ago I got a notice in the mail that my driver’s license was expiring. I didn’t see a way to renew it online, so it seems I’ll have to go in person. Which usually means a vision test. My distance vision declined in my early twenties, but I was always able to pass those tests. Barely. It’s annoying and embarrassing enough that last time I told myself next time I’d just give in and get glasses. Well, this is next time.

Last week I finally got around to making an appointment with an eye doctor, and I went in Thursday. I was actually kind of looking forward to it, not only because it would take care of a long-standing problem, but also because I was curious if I’d feel like I was in an ASMR video.

The answer was no. The exam went a lot faster than one of those roleplays, and the optometrist was a lot chattier. Plus I had to actually expend mental effort and interact. So while it wasn’t exactly stressful, it wasn’t relaxing. Those videos did give me an idea of what to expect though, so I was grateful for them. But the real optometrist was much higher tech, so the ASMRtists need to step things up.

My vision problems are only slight, and the optometrist said my vision is “20/20 with some help,” whatever that means exactly. The problem is astigmatism, which I always thought had something to do with crossed eyes, but it’s just a deformation of the cornea. So we picked out some glasses, and they’ll probably have them ready Monday. Jeremy was so fascinated to hear I’m getting glasses that he’s coming with me to pick them up.

Thinking

😎

I’ve posted the beginnings of my analysis article. I’m just roughing it out right now to get down the essential points. I’m not worrying too much about making it interesting or even particularly understandable to people who aren’t me. That’ll come later.

Writing the article has reminded me that in analysis I try to think in terms of systems, so I’m going to stop putting off my study of systems theory. I’ve also learned that the linguistic field of semantics is directly relevant.

Fiction

🙂

I’m halfway through Red Mars. The Mars globe is being very helpful, since they’re trekking all over the planet instead of staying in a small region like I expected. The characters are all interesting, but I find myself relating most to John Boone. He’s more energetic and outgoing than I am, but I recognize some of my ways of thinking in his attempts to grasp the present and future of Mars society. And his eyes-on-the-ground approach is one I’d want to take, even if I wouldn’t pursue it nearly as vigorously.

Movies

🙂

On Saturday Tim and I made last minute plans to watch Murder on the Orient Express at a second-run theater. To our surprise it was packed. We had to sit separately. I knew practically nothing about the movie. I didn’t even know it was a Poirot story till he gave his name. I liked it, especially the cinematography. And it was fun to see a star-studded cast in a movie that was actually good. Usually I assume they’re doing that to prop up a bad one.

Posted in Analysis, Books, Clothes, Health, Movies, Weeknotes | 4 Comments

Update for 1/21/2018

Posted on January 22, 2018 by Andy

Life management

🙂

My productivity finally picked up and gained some momentum last week. As a result my apartment is looking a lot tidier, even though some of that is just that I’ve moved things out of sight. I’ll organize them at a later stage in the process.

My parents generously offered to buy me a new winter coat, because that’s the kind of people they are. I was going to say no, but the more I thought about it, the more that seemed like a mistake. So I’ve ordered the updated version of the coat I already have, and I’ve offered to split the cost with them however they want.

Project generator

😐

The coding project generator is still feeling like a bottleneck for my future coding projects, even though I have a basically working version. So I’m going to try to get back to this one, if I can manage to make time for it.

Thinking

😐

Last week I started jotting some thoughts on my typical method of analyzing things. This week I’ll post a reworked version on the wiki as the seed of a (much) longer article.

Like I mentioned last week, these thinking projects are my most important right now, and I see this analysis essay as the most important of those. I don’t think many people will understand that, because it seems not many people have the systematizing impulse. But this project is my attempt to resolve a major shortcoming and paradox of my life.

On the one hand, I feel that analysis is my most significant potential contribution to the world and one of my most powerful tools for my own living. On the other hand, I’ve been so distracted most of my life that I’ve fit all my actual analysis into my spare moments or random, incidental projects. So I’ve barely done any that has any lasting value. I also feel that my method has significant gaps and that I apply it inconsistently. And in its half-articulated form, it isn’t very teachable. Still, when I do use these techniques, even in their truncated form, I get a lot of mileage out of them.

If I had my principles and practices laid out in one place, I could apply my method more purposefully and regularly, and I could pass it on to others who could make use of it. And I have a lot of topics in mind to analyze, so writing out my method feels like another bottleneck I’d like to eliminate as soon as possible. Honestly I think I would’ve achieved a lot more in my life if I hadn’t waited so long to work this stuff out.

Fiction

😎

I finished listening to the recorded part of Unsong, an online novel about the invasion of tangible Kabbalistic magic into everyday society. The audio is very well done but also very incomplete, and its release schedule is very irregular. So instead of waiting on the audio I’ll probably just read the rest of it … sometime. I do love it though. It’s like a cross between a couple of my favorites, Charles Stross’s Laundry Files and Ted Chiang’s “Hell Is the Absence of God.” It’s also really funny.

Unsong got me wondering about other online fiction, since it’s apparently not just bad fanfiction out there. I found a few places to find more: the TV Tropes pages for Web Original Fiction and Web Serial Novels and the list of sources at t4nky’s site.

My hold on the The Stand came up again, so I finished the last few hours. It was good, but I was kind of disappointed with the climax. I would rather have had a more constructive solution. But I can see good reasons for choosing the one he did.

The next in my Dark Tower project is “The Mist,” which I’ll hopefully get to in a few weeks when the CDs are back at the library. After that is the first actual Dark Tower book.

After The Stand I decided to stop procrastinating and start Red Mars. Judging by the first couple of hours, I’d say the past year or so of futurism and politics have prepared me to engage with the topics it explores, both social and scientific. I like it so far. My Mars globe from Christmas is helping me with the geography. I made it portable by taking pictures of it with my phone–eight around the equator and then one of each pole.

Work

🙂

After 18 years at the company, my boss’s boss has left to take an opportunity at one of our suppliers. He got a heartfelt send-off at our last team meeting. We gave him the department’s service award and read him appreciative messages as our “nominations” for the award. They were the kinds of messages I like listening to, living eulogies that give me character traits to learn from.

😈

For my current ebook work I’m waiting on other people. So this week, after months of getting other tasks out of the way, I’m beginning my evil software development plans. Evil because if they succeed, I’ll be making substantial changes to our ebook production tools and maybe even to our development processes. And the way we do things, I don’t need approval or permission. My poor, poor coworker. He does have an idea it’s coming though.

Posted in Analysis, Books, Clothes, Coding project generator, Life management, Programming, Weeknotes, Work | Leave a comment

Update for 1/14/2018

Posted on January 16, 2018 by Andy

Productivity

🙄

My laziness at home is being stubborn, so I’m going to start using my productivity tricks, like microtasks (just do one small thing to get started) and implementation intentions (like “When I get home, I will immediately start making dinner.”).

Church

🙂

Sunday I continued my quest for an occasional old-feeling liturgical church. I visited liturgical church #2, another Episcopal one. It was in a beautiful old building I’d driven by a few times before. The congregation was small, about 50 people, with many grey heads, and I worried it was a tired and dying church. But as the service progressed, I saw that it had a lot of energy and affection. There were several children who mingled among the adults, which made it feel like a big family.

The head priest chased me down afterward to talk to me, and we had a brief but nice conversation where he told me a little about the church’s history and showed me their outdoor labyrinth, which was visible as curvy mounds of snow. I don’t know if I’ll choose this church, but I’m glad it’s around.

Futurism

🤔

Tuesday was the futurism meetup again. This time the topic was Big Data, one I’m more familiar with because it’s closely tied to AI, so I had more to say than usual. Of course, in keeping with the tone of the group, some of us were rather worried about Big Data. I don’t feel it’s a huge threat, but the TED talk we watched did bring up some ways it could be abused I hadn’t heard of.

Thinking

😎

I didn’t say much about this topic last week because I’d procrastinated on the post enough already, but at the moment I see this as my most important set of projects for the year, so at some point I want to expound on my reasons and agenda.

To give you the short version now, the whole range of skills involved in thinking are fundamental to the kind of work I want to do, and it’s about time I brought them from the background of my thoughts to the foreground and studied them properly and put my views in order. I’ve pondered this stuff for years in my spare moments, so there’s a lot to organize and articulate.

I finished Theory and Reality. I gave it 4/5. It’s an overview of a field I’m less familiar with, the philosophy of science, so I can’t evaluate its completeness or fairness. Sometimes I wished he’d gone into a little more depth, but it did leave me feeling I had a really good starting point for exploring further.

Fiction

😎

Now that Theory and Reality is done, I’m taking a side trip to Scott Alexander’s Unsong (the audio version), and then unless I think of another short one I just have to listen to now, I’m going to dive into Red Mars. I’m expecting that one to be a little hard to follow.

TV

😎

I’ve had a hard time in the past few months finding shows I want to keep watching. Then The Orville came along, but I quickly ran out of episodes. But now Black Mirror seems to have stuck, and that has a few more episodes to keep me occupied.

Work

🙂

Friday I finished the big commentary series I’ve been working on for the past couple of years. Thanks to my improved planning, I was able to basically coast to the end (plus I didn’t have a real deadline), so it wasn’t as big a relief as some of my past projects. But I am glad that finishing that has put me much closer to being able to work on the programming projects I have in mind. It was also nice to be able to spring the surprise on the people who’ve been waiting for those ebooks. They weren’t expecting them for at least a couple more months.

🙄

In other news, my 5-year anniversary at the company has come upon me, and that means I have to write something to be read for the service award they’ll be giving me in chapel. For the past year I’ve kind of been dreading trying to come up with something for that, but I’ve been reconciling myself to the idea, and in any case I’m finding myself less resistant to harder tasks these days. I think it’s a combination of better habits at work and feeling a little empowered by my analysis project. It also helps that they’ve given me a few weeks.

Posted in Books, Church, Futurism, Productivity, Thinking, Weeknotes, Work | Leave a comment

Update for 1/7/2018

Posted on January 12, 2018 by Andy

I think my brain was still on vacation last week. Life outside of work was very disorganized and procrastinatory. It seems like all I did was shop online and research and sleep.

New Year’s Eve

😜

I spent New Year’s Eve hanging out in three Twitch streams at once and chatting on Discord while listening to this countdown podcast from NerdSync.

Life management

😐

My coat arrived, but I didn’t like the velcro or its tubelike fit, so I’m returning it. I’ll stick with my old coat for now.

I also spent a whole evening ordering a BugZooka to catch bugs that are in my home instead of killing them and a Fidget Pad because I tend to mess with random objects while I work.

Thinking

😎

This year I want to study various aspects of thinking.

Right now on the theme of analysis and modeling, I’m reading Domain-Driven Design, Learning UML 2.0 and various UML-related specs, and Structured Analytic Techniques for Intelligence Analysis.

Last week on rationality I listened to Thinking, Fast and Slow, a look at how our conscious reasoning and unconscious intuition work and how they go wrong. I recommend it. This week I’m on Theory and Reality, an introduction to the philosophy of science.

Church

🤔

Inspired by our visit to the Episcopal church on Christmas Eve, I researched liturgical churches in the area to try out over the next couple of months in case I feel the need for one in the future. I visited the first one New Year’s Eve and was surprised by the amount of Spanish in their service. It wasn’t really what I was looking for.

Looking at liturgical churches has gotten me reading about Orthodoxy again, mostly from the website of CJS Hayward, an old college acquaintance of mine.

Fiction

😎

Another book I’m reading off and on is Labyrinths, a collection of short stories and essays by Jorge Luis Borges. Last week while reading it, I realized he’s become one of my very favorite authors. When I’m looking for creative, philosophical fiction writers to read, I’m really looking for more Borgeses. Ted Chiang is one.

Music

🙂

Borges was Argentinian, but his stories make me think of Eastern Europe, so I’ve been listening to Arvo Pärt while reading, and looking for more music like his led me to a new genre to explore, holy minimalism.

For Christmas I got the CD version of Aphex Twin’s Selected Ambient Works, Vol. II, an important album in the genre. I knew the CD was incomplete, and I’d bought one missing track, but I found out I was still missing a couple. Fortunately, I learned Aphex Twin now has the whole digital album for purchase at his online store. A combination of that and iTunes got me the rest of the tracks, and now I’ll be familiarizing myself with the completed album. It’s all fairly strange, but it has more variety than I expected.

Posted in Books, Church, Clothes, Gadgets, Holidays, Life management, Music, Weeknotes | 2 Comments

Update for 12/31/2017

Posted on January 3, 2018 by Andy

Christmas

Highlights from my Christmas vacation, part 2. I was with my family at our annual gathering at our parents’ house.

Sunday

🤔

Sunday morning we visited an Episcopal church we’d visited the previous year. It was just the liturgical shot in the arm I needed to feel like Christmas meant something. It made me think I want to look for a church like that when (if?) I move to a new area for grad school.

This church also has a #pipeorgan.

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And a #triptych.

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That evening we went to a Christmas Eve service at our usual Baptist church, the one we grew up in. The worship band was very polished. I wondered what it takes to refine the performances to that degree.

🙂

Later we watched Christmas for a Dollar. Usually I only tolerate Christmas movies, but after the first few awkward scenes this one charmed me into forgetting its flaws.

😜

Then I spent all night finishing my secret project. Literally all night. I usually do stay up late Christmas Eve, but this year I got no sleep. But it was fine. The next day I survived on adrenaline till the afternoon and took a nap.

😎

What was this secret project? Every year I do something creative for the labels on my Christmas presents. Usually the theme relates to whatever I’m into at the time. This year my theme was futurism, and I made each person a Christmas card (really a short letter) as if we were all living on Mars 200 years in the future and working together at an educational institute. I stole the idea of writing a story from Isaac Arthur’s “Quiet Revolution” video and most of the backstory from his Outward Bound series.

Although it was only a handful of Christmas cards, this was the biggest creative project I’ve done in a while, and I learned a few things. So I’d like to comment on it more in a separate post in the next week or two.

Monday

🙂

Monday was Christmas, and we followed our traditional program of stockings, cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and then the rest of the presents. Abbie is always the gift distributor, and we take turns opening them from youngest person (Kimberly) to oldest (our dad). My Mars cards went over decently well. I had a good time explaining the story.

We didn’t end up taking an official Christmas photo this time, but I did take a couple of Christmas morning candids with my 360-degree camera.

In past years we’d noted that our Christmas dinners were basically repeats of Thanksgiving, but this year we decided to all-out do it on purpose. I say you can never have enough Thanksgiving, so I was happy with this plan. We ended up with leftovers for the rest of the week. Not to mention all the desserts we were already eating our way through.

In the evening Michael placed the last piece of the puzzle.

Later we played Abbie’s new game, Dixit, which I’ve been curious about for ages since hearing it was similar to another game I like, Tajemnicze Domostwo (or Mysterium, if you prefer American). Our lunch game group at work just calls it Polish Ghosts. In both you’re interpreting cards of surreal art. While they’re fairly simple, both games are very challenging, but I enjoy them anyway. They engage parts of my brain that like to be active.

Tuesday

🙂

Tuesday my dad and Abbie and I took our annual trip to Half Price Books for their post-Christmas sale. I bought a couple of Umberto Eco books I’d had my eye on, Foucault’s Pendulum and The Name of the Rose. When I get around to them, I’m thinking of listening to the audiobooks while I read. Could be interesting.

When we came home, Michael was scanning a bunch of our old family photos into the computer. Hundreds of them. I’m very grateful he took on this project, and I look forward to poring over the results.

Over dinner we watched the anime Abbie had given me, Garden of Words. I’d seen it before, which is how I knew I wanted to own it. And I initially watched it because the Internet had shown me it’s very screenshottable. It makes me want to photograph quiet corners of the area where I live that characterize it.

Audible was having a 2-for-1-credit sale, so after looking through the list for books I couldn’t get at a library, I settled on A Deepness in the Sky and Red Mars, the first in a trilogy on the settlement of Mars. It’s reportedly very good. If you hadn’t noticed a theme, I seem to be into Mars at the moment. I commented to Michael, who’s read the book, that it’s good I have the Mars globe now for reference, and he said yeah, that would’ve been helpful.

Wednesday

🤔

Wednesday we took Abbie to the airport. When we got home, this bird was hanging out in the front yard we share with our neighbors.

🙂

That night we binge watched some Nova, and I found out birds are actually very smart! This did not help decrease my wish for a pet bird. I found myself researching which ones are the smartest.

I also dug around in a box of old books and discovered a set of Raggedy Ann and Andy books my parents had given me for my first birthday. I’d forgotten about those. I shipped them home to become part of my nostalgia collection.

😮

While snooping into books around the house, I found out that one of my mom’s old Bibles I grew up with is very old. It was a gift to her grandmother in 1927!

Thursday

😐

I’d brought my winter coat home mainly so my mom could help me restuff it, though it turned out I needed it for the actual weather. Thursday we finally got around to looking at what we could do, and when I found her searching online for a replacement coat, I decided to take her advice and just buy a new one. The one I have is 20 years old. So I ordered an Eddie Bauer, and we’ll see how that is.

😎

That night our binge watching session was Madam Secretary. Each episode drew me in, even when I tried to escape by leaving the room. I think it was very well cast, and I was happy to see Lilith from Frasier as the Secretary’s chief of staff. I put it in my Netflix queue to probably revisit at home.

Friday

🙂

Friday was my flight, which we thought might be delayed due to snow, but thankfully it wasn’t. Then a trip home via Airport Rides by Jeremy, with a detour to TGI Friday’s for a late dinner.

This was a really nice vacation. We didn’t go out and do much besides a movie, some restaurants, and church, but somehow when I’m with my family, I don’t feel the need to do much.

Life management

🙂

Saturday began my new project to organize my life. For the first phase I’m trying to clean up a pile or two in my apartment each day.

Posted in 360-degree camera, Board games, Books, Church, Clothes, Cooking, Dusk, Futurism, Holidays, Housekeeping, Life management, Movies, Sleep, Spirituality, Travel, TV, Weeknotes, Writing | 2 Comments

Update for 12/24/2017

Posted on December 28, 2017 by Andy

Worship team

🙂

Sunday the Advent Orchestra had its performance. I thought it turned out well. By that point my tone was pretty good, and I hit most of the notes cleanly. And the songs took turns getting stuck in my head.

I wish I had the endurance to play my part exactly, but when you only play about once a year, high notes take a toll. So to pace myself through the run-through and two services, I wrote some lower parts to play in the spots where my music wandered up to high Fs and Gs. I ended up improvising a little too. It made me wonder what an orchestral jam session would be like.

I also thought a little about what I could do to get myself to play the horn more. I don’t know if I want to join a performing group, but maybe I can find some music to play on my own with recordings.

Movies

😎

On Sunday Tim and I watched The Last Jedi. 5/5. I think it helped I didn’t have many expectations. I agree with Film Critic Hulk that the film represents a new, broader direction for the series and that this is a good thing.

The other movie I watched last week is in the next section.

Christmas

Here are some highlights from last week’s segment of my Christmas vacation.

Monday

🙂

My flight was on Tuesday, but I took Monday off too so I’d have more time to pack and such. Plus I’ve always liked the idea of tacking some staycation days onto a vacation. I still stayed up late to finish some technology setup, but at least I wasn’t packing in a panic.

Tuesday

🙂

My flight to Texas was on United. They’ve improved their overbooking system. The check-in kiosk asked if I’d volunteer to take a later flight for an additional voucher, so to be nice to my fellow passengers I said yes, but it turned out they didn’t need me.

Wednesday

🤔

Wednesday my siblings and I took our customary walk down some residential streets. We had an interesting time observing the styles of the homes and decorations in the area. We also found this strange object.

Thursday

🙂

Thursday the family had our annual movie outing. This year it was The Man Who Invented Christmas, about Charles Dickens’ writing of A Christmas Carol and its connections with his life. The film was funny, had beautiful sets, and gave an interesting look at the creative process.

That night we started on a 1000-piece puzzle, “Trimming the Tree” by Terry Redlin. We worked on it rather intensely over the next few days. It was fun, but the parts covered by words on the box cover were annoying.

My sister and I gave the game Once Upon a Time another shot, this time joined by our mom. We threw in our two cents, but our mom won rather handily. I was pleased that my part of the story was simpler than the one I tried to tell at Thanksgiving.

Friday

🙂

Friday I accompanied my dad to the cafe where he’s a regular to pick up Sunday’s breakfast pastry. On the way back he told me about the remarkable doughnut shop group he’s a part of. It’s like something out of a novel or a movie, a bunch of older men who meet there daily and chat. This kind of thing.

After that we had a nice time all trekking out to divide and conquer the grocery store. It turns out a family vacation requires a lot of groceries, and we wanted to conserve our mother’s energy. It was over in a jiffy too, after we took some time to split up the shopping list and make sure we understood it.

Saturday

😉

Saturday night we watched Spider-Man: Homecoming. It was a rewatch for me, and it confirmed that I really do like that movie. While that was going on, I continued work on a secret project that will be revealed in the next update!

Posted in Board games, French horn, Holidays, Movies, Travel, Weeknotes | 2 Comments