Update for 5/22/2016

Posted on May 24, 2016 by Andy

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I’ve finished preschool and posted my comments on the wiki (modules 2, 3, 4, and 5). I’m still working out the best way to produce content from this material that’s useful to me without slowing myself down too much. But I’m considering this a stopping point, and I’m going to take a brief break for other projects (see “Project scheduling” below).
  • Diet – I spoke too soon, since apparently your triglycerides (and maybe other lipids?) can get worse at first on a low-carb diet as the fat gets flushed from your cells, so my doctor wants me to try it another two months and have another blood test, and I agreed, even though I’m still skeptical that a LCHF diet is right for everyone. He also recommended staying away from gluten in case a sensitivity to it was causing my ulcerative colitis (which I’ll ask my gastroenterologist about) and making all my own food so I’ll know exactly what’s in it. Even though I agreed to extend the diet, I still got very depressed that day feeling imprisoned by it and the doctor’s other suggestions, especially in cases where I’d be socializing around food I couldn’t eat, but it only took me a day or two to mostly get over it, though I still get frustrated whenever I read anything about nutrition or dieting because of the confusion around nutrition science and the inconvenience and severity of some of the advice, which makes me think eating (and life?) isn’t about enjoyment anyway, which is depressing, so I guess I’m really not over it. Anyway, I’m going to try planning out my meals for the next two months, because I really dislike always wondering what I’m going to eat next.
  • Daily routine – Still a mush, but fatigue is one of my greatest enemies, and my routine is largely about getting enough sleep, so I’m going to keep trying, and I wonder what would happen if I made getting to bed on time a project so I planned each evening around it, instead of planning the evening around getting certain things done, which probably means asking myself several times each evening what plans for that day I need to sacrifice. Sunday morning my pastor pointed out that self-indulgence dulls our spiritual perception, and self-denial sharpens it so that we see more clearly what God loves and hates, which sounds like a good aid to motivation for things like devotions and even sleep, since sleep often feels like a necessary evil, a sacrifice for the sake of productivity, patience, cheerfulness, and other good qualities (assuming cheerfulness is better than mild depression).
  • Project scheduling – I have a bunch of other projects that have been waiting for a stopping point in my math relearning, but I don’t want to take too long of a break from math, so I’m going to try alternating weeks again, which should work better now that I have these blog updates to encourage more of a structure to my time. I’m hoping a weekly rotation will help me learn to match my work on each project to the time available, since I want to have something to post by the end of each week. I’ve done some prioritizing on my current project ideas, and this week I’ll try for writing my time management thoughts, planning my meals for the next few weeks, catching up on my invoicing for freelance work, and maybe reading some in the books people have loaned me–you know, the kinds of responsible things that life is about.
  • TV – I watched the “Children of Earth” story arc from Torchwood last week, and while I’m sure someone with a more refined literary sense could critique its storytelling, I thought it was an amazing piece of television in terms of raising and discussing the issues involved in its premise, some of which I care about a lot. In particular, decision making is one of the topics I want to focus on in my cognitive science studies, and the story explored decision making in truly dire situations.
  • Video games – Saturday night I went over to Jeremy’s place to watch him set up the projector he’s borrowing for our Star Wars marathon and to help him and his son some more with Minecraft. I also showed them Bityard and my latest single-player project, which I’ll talk about more in future updates, if I decide to continue with it, since life is not about enjoyment but duty!

Life updates

  • Health – My Humira for my ulcerative colitis hasn’t been working very well, so my doctor ordered a blood test to see if my body’s even using it, so I’m waiting for those results, and then we’ll talk about the next step.
  • Socializing – Our head Immanuel Prayer trainer is relocating to Arkansas, so Saturday we had a going away party for her. Potlucks are always a little stressful for me to prepare for because I’m never completely sure what to bring, but thank goodness for prepackaged salads. I’ve been away from the ministry for a while, so I met some interesting new people, including a Kindergarten teacher who’s taking time off to write. Immanuel folks know how to have a meaningful get together, and we spent some time sharing what Jessie’s meant to us, and then she shared what we’ve meant to her, and we prayed for her and watched a tribute video and had a video call with a team member who was in Singapore, and the goodness of it all reminded me again of how important the central ideas of this ministry are, things like relational connection, gratitude, and a growing capacity for joy, though I might have to rethink that with my new philosophy of joylessness.
Posted in Blood tests, Cognitive science, Cooking, Daily routine, Diet, Doctor Who, Health, Immanuel prayer, Life updates, Math relearning, People, Project management, Project updates, Sleep, Video games | 3 Comments

Update for 5/15/2016

Posted on May 17, 2016 by Andy

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.
Posted in Daily routine, Diet, Ebooks, Life updates, Math relearning, Project updates, Service, Video games | 2 Comments

Update for 5/8/2016

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Andy

I’m moving my media-related topics to the projects section because the life updates are more for random events that happen to me, and my media consumption is really more like a project.

Last week was rather full.

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I got through a couple more modules and added a new feature to my notes: lists of propositional concepts from the module. I’ll post my comments this week.
  • Diet – Still waiting for the results from my blood test. I bought some ingredients for a jicama and sausage casserole, where the jicama replaces potatoes, but I haven’t made it yet.
  • Daily routine – For the most part the beginnings of my evenings were okay, but I’ve been neglecting my walks and devotions, and my sleep schedule has been all over the place. I’ve been wondering if I should try to rework my schedule to match my sleeping habits, but I think the better option is to rework my mindset to match a more normal schedule.
  • Comics – Saturday was Free Comic Book Day, and I spent a lot of the week deciding what I wanted to pick up, since there’s a limit at each place and I also wanted to buy things to support the stores. I ended up with these.

    A photo posted by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum) on


    The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Lady Mechanika go with my intermittent steampunk theme. The research somewhat renewed my interest in getting a handle on the world of comics, and I discovered some reading guides online, which I’ll post about sometime on the wiki.

  • Books
    • Software – Wednesday morning I took an advantage of an O’Reilly sale to buy a few books on some software: Sage for math, Inkscape for vector graphics, GIMP for image drawing and editing, and LMMS for music production. I’m hoping to explore some of those programs in the next couple of months.
    • Socrates – Wednesday at lunch I had a discussion with my boss and coworker about one of Plato’s dialogues we’d agreed to read, Meno. In my humble opinion, our conversation was many times better than Socrates’. His was a disappointment, and I’d never noticed till reading this how condescending he was.
    • Guns, Germs, and Steel – I finished this one on Sunday, and it’s joined the ranks of my favorite books–so well reasoned and written. I’m sure I’ll want to refer to it in the future, so I’m going to buy the ebook. I’ve been thinking of gradually replacing my print books with ebooks, so I figured I might as well get a head start with this one. Now I’m taking a break from audiobooks to catch up some on the last few years of Escape Pod and Podcastle, which are clogging up the storage on my phone.
  • Photography – I’ve had dusk on my mind lately, with some nostalgia for my childhood attached, and Thursday evening I made my way to a nearby forest preserve just after sunset, where I took pictures like this one with my phone.

    A photo posted by Andy Culbertson (@thinkulum) on


    The sky was actually much redder, which makes me think I should get a real camera, but I’d need to be more into photography to justify it. I was only there 20 minutes, but it was a somewhat intense experience and felt like much longer. It reminded me that there really is something profound in being surrounded by nature.

  • Music
    • Dusk – While searching for music to go with my dusk theme, I found an interesting music discovery website called Musicbed. Two moods go with dusk for me, carefree, for scenes of friends at the end of a day out, and contemplative, for communing with the landscape and the sky. While I was at the forest preserve, I listened to the music I’d already collected, and it fit the experience as well as I’d hoped.
    • Dance – On Saturday I was reconstructing an old playlist of cheerful electronic music to listen to while driving around to comic book stores, and I found a vocal version of one of the songs, “Faded” by Alan Walker, which stuck in my head and affected me so much that I felt inspired to make my own, though not enough to actually do it. But I do have that book on music production now, so … you never know what could happen.
  • Video games – After more assurances that people wouldn’t expect anything from me, I finally joined the Minecraft server I keep mentioning, Bityard, though I haven’t actually been on it yet. Here are some videos of it from other members, if you’re curious.
  • TV – I finished Mr. Robot, and the whole season, but especially the last episode, put me onto the issue of technology criticism. I’ll probably write about it on the wiki at some point, but if the topic interests you, you could check out my friend Adam’s blog, The Second Eclectic. So now I’m back to Doctor Who, with Arrow to fill in the gaps between DVDs.
  • Movies – My spoiler-free review of Captain America: Civil War: I liked it. I don’t really trust my opinions of movies, but my film critic friend Kevin also liked it, though only as a better-than-others superhero movie rather than for its merit relative to movies in general. He does think certain superhero movies stand up well on their own though, as you can see from that conversation.

Life updates

  • Chapel – Thursday morning my old employers spoke in my current employers’ chapel about how they developed their first product thirty years ago, which we publish, a long-time best-selling study Bible. It felt pleasantly familiar to see my old bosses talking.
Posted in Books, Comics, Cooking, Daily routine, Diet, Doctor Who, Dusk, Life updates, Math relearning, Movies, Music, Photography, Podcasts, Project updates, TV, Video games | Leave a comment

Update for 5/1/2016

Posted on May 2, 2016 by Andy

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I got through two pre-K modules (out of five) toward the end of the week and posted my comments for one of them, PK Module 1, so my reading is moving faster now. I also posted some links to developmental math textbooks for people who don’t want to slog through a P-12 curriculum. I’m hoping to get through the rest of pre-K this week and Kindergarten by the end of next week, and then I’ll take a break to focus on other projects.
  • Diet – My blood test for cholesterol and a bunch of other things was Monday, so in a week or two I should find out if my low-carb diet helped. If it helped too much or too little, I’ll relax the diet. My cooking experiment this week was low-carb no bake cookies, which tasted much more like dark chocolate than like peanut butter, but I like them. Once I finish my Truvia, the next sugar substitute I want to try is maltitol, the one Atkins uses in their snacks.
  • Daily routine – The beginnings of my evenings last week went basically according to plan, and I got plenty of work done on my projects, but my discipline faded toward the end of the day, especially when the evening was interrupted by a nap, so I didn’t get to my walk most days or my devotions any day, and my bedtimes were as inconsistent as usual. I’m not sure yet what I’ll do to address all that this week.

Life updates

  • Clothes – So after I went to all that effort to buy new work clothes, my employer changed the dress code to allow jeans every day, starting Monday. I’ll either keep my usual clothing habits or save my dress pants for other purposes and buy some more jeans and a couple more casual work shirts.
  • Socializing – I found out at the last minute that TableTop Day was going to be Saturday, so I didn’t do anything for it, unless you count A Fake Artist Goes to New York at lunch on Friday, though I would have tried to play something with Tim after our dinner on Saturday if he hadn’t been too tired to stay. Sunday night I had dinner with some friends I hadn’t seen in a while, which makes me think about other friends I don’t see often that I might want to get together with.
  • Video games – My quest for online socializing through multiplayer games continued last week when I started playing RuneScape while my new streamer who plays that game was streaming, which made him very happy, so maybe I’ll keep playing it, especially if Sumurai8 plays more often. I still haven’t applied to that Minecraft server, but games like that one appeal to me more than other multiplayer genres I’ve looked at, so I probably will, as long as I don’t feel I have to show up all the time.
  • TV – Mr. Robot continues to be fascinating, largely because it’s about hacking people (manipulating them, aka social engineering) as well as computers. I finally watched some anime on Saturday, the first episode of One Punch Man, since one of my online acquaintances likes it, and it was better than I expected–cleverer, sillier, more artistic, more thoughtful, and more thematically focused–so I’ll probably keep watching, though I want to sample a bunch of different shows.
  • Comics – Free Comic Book Day is this Saturday, so this week I’ll be investigating graphic novels I might want to buy when I’m in the store.
  • Housekeeping – After many weeks of procrastination, I defrosted the hills of ice in my freezer on Saturday, and its contents are nicely organized now.
Posted in Board games, Clothes, Comics, Cooking, Daily routine, Diet, Housekeeping, Life updates, Math relearning, People, Project updates, TV, Video games | 4 Comments

Update for 4/24/2016

Posted on April 25, 2016 by Andy

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I’ve paused my pre-K reading to address some unfinished business with my comments on earlier reading–extracting questions I might want to answer as I go through the curriculum. I’ll need at least a couple more days on that. I’m hoping the end result will be a procedure that will give me the kind of depth I want without taking too much time.
  • Books – I guess the next person in line for the Guns, Germs, and Steel audiobook didn’t want it, because it became available on OverDrive again, so it’s once again in my possession. My boss, my coworker, and I are also reading Plato’s dialogue Meno for a lunch discussion in a week and a half.
  • Diet – Monday at last is the day of the blood test that will tell me if my low-carb diet is helping my cholesterol. I’ll reward myself with a cheat day, which will consist of a wrap at Chick-fil-A. Even if I decide to end this diet, I’ve gotten used to avoiding sugar, and I’ll probably keep doing that. My low-carb cooking experiment last week was peanut butter cookies, which were good except for their crumbliness and the slightly annoying cooling effect of the erythritol in the Truvia.
  • Daily routine – I kept a record of my time in the evenings last week, and some of the main culprits in my schedule delinquency were dawdling after work, napping, and wasting time online, which I attribute to fatigue and apathy. I didn’t try to get up early to do my walk and devotions in the morning, and I’m going to put off that experiment for now. I’ve started thinking about the reasoning behind schedules and productivity to see how I could make use of it apart from a routine, though this week I’ll still try to keep my routine, if only as a catalyst for thought on the subject. I also want to come up with a procedure for my devotions so I’ll have more of a clue what I’m doing and I’ll be less motivated to sacrifice them when time gets tight.

Life updates

  • Video games – My Skyblock world with Jeremy is coming along, though there are major differences between normal Skyblock and the one on this server that I’d like to sort out.
  • TV and movies
    • Blade Runner – I’ve been wanting to watch some cyberpunk, mostly for the scenery, so I got Blade Runner on DVD from Netflix, and I liked it much better than the first time I saw it.
    • Doctor Who – I finally got through season 2 of The Sarah Jane Adventures, so I’m back to Doctor Who, but while I was away, Netflix removed it from their streaming side, so I spent some time tonight arranging the DVDs in my queue.
    • Mr. Robot – Before I get back into Doctor Who, though, I’m trying out Mr. Robot, a series I’d ignored until Matt on Stuff They Don’t Want You to Know recommended it for its conspiracy themes. I really like it so far, especially since its computer-related aspects don’t sound made up like they are in most Hollywood productions.
    • Anime – I took a step toward watching anime again by collecting happy shows from this Reddit thread and putting them in a list on MyAnimeList, along with some other shows I’d gathered over the years from various sources.
    • Star Trek – One of the actors in Blade Runner was in Star Trek: Renegades, which made me curious about Star Trek fan productions, so I might watch some of those soon.
  • Worship team – Our team played this week, and changes have been happening. We had a guest electric guitar player and a new trumpeter this time, and it was our drummer’s last week before he’ll be out of town for the summer. This week was also interesting because we accompanied the children’s and adult choirs singing the Newsboys’ “We Believe.”
  • Freelancing – My freelance jobs from last week had a couple of minor hiccups, but I still finished them in a couple of days. I really should do some invoicing soon.
  • Birthday – My brother’s birthday was a few days ago, and I’ve been negligent and haven’t wished him a happy birthday yet. I hope it was a good one, Michael!
Posted in Birthdays, Blood tests, Books, Cooking, Daily routine, Diet, Doctor Who, Freelancing, Life updates, Math relearning, Movies, Project updates, TV, Video games, Worship performing | 2 Comments

Update for 4/17/2016

Posted on April 17, 2016 by Andy

On time! How did this happen?? It’s mainly because I used a little trick that’s helped me in other posts, writing no more than four (complicated) sentences per topic.

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I’m now on Topic D, about a third of the way through pre-K Module 1. I’m still working out exactly what to create from these lessons apart from my random comments, but thanks to my random comments on the first lesson, I’m closer to knowing. I’ll post my comments and whatever else I come up with as I finish each module. Math relearning is my favorite project right now, partly because I have such good material to work with.
  • Daily routine – The simpler organization for my schedule was easier to think about, but it didn’t really get me to stick to it. I have a couple of ideas for this week. First, I want to keep a record of how I spend my time in the evenings to see what issues I need to address, such as naps, and whatever else I notice. And second, for at least a day or two I want to try moving my life maintenance (walk and devotions) to the morning so I’m less likely to skip it.
  • Diet – I did a few low-carb cooking experiments this week: (1) hot fudge sauce for my low-carb ice cream, (2) pancakes, and (3) a beef broth sauce for a fajita steak and vegetable combination. They all worked out pretty well, except that for the hot fudge I had to use a lot of Truvia, which made it gritty, so I’ll keep experimenting. Because I’m still learning how to cook and eat low-carbishly, I have trouble socializing around food, which put me in a bad mood Thursday morning when I was feeling pressured to help out with a potluck at church, hosting a visiting choir. My sister was a good listener and made me feel better; and after some reassurances from the event organizer that they’d be okay, I ended up saying no.

Life updates

  • Board games – At lunch on Wednesday a few of us playtested a game my coworker Matt is creating. It’s tentatively called Good, Fast, Cheap, and that’s the idea. The players are building businesses and competing for contracts, but each development can only have two of those three qualities. I love that theme, and it makes me wonder what other aphorisms could be gamified.
  • Video games
    • Minecraft – After resisting and then contemplating it for months, my friend Jeremy finally bought the game two Saturdays ago, and Tuesday night I hung out at their apartment and taught their nine-year-old son some Minecraft basics. Yesterday I set up a Skyblock island on a Minecraft server so Jeremy and I could play it together, which we stayed up pretty late doing. I’ve only played Minecraft with someone else once before, and it’s fun enough that I’m still thinking of applying to that other server, though I don’t want to crowd my time with gaming.
    • Super Mario – Our family didn’t have consoles growing up, so I never played most classic video games. But this year I’ve been watching a lot of speedrunners who play Super Mario Bros. 1 and Super Mario World, so I’ve been wanting to try them, though not to speedrun, because speed and I don’t even belong in the same sentence. I don’t have consoles to play them on, but that’s okay because of emulators, but I needed to own the game cartridges as basically licenses to play the games, and to my surprise I found them at a couple of Half Price Books in the area, so that was my Saturday afternoon. Late Saturday night I got the emulators set up, and so after 31 years, I’m finally ready to play these games that defined the childhood of everyone else in the entire world.
    • Controller – To make it easier to play Mario and other games, I decided to buy a controller for my PC. My main choices were between Logitech, which is what Jeremy uses, and Microsoft, which my online friend Speedy recommended; and I went with Logitech because (1) it was the cheaper option, (2) I’m not a serious gamer, and (3) it’s my first PC controller. After testing it on a few games, I reached some verdicts: Final Fantasy VII (on an emulator)–easier; Stardew Valley–easier; The Talos Principle–harder; Rocket League–harder, surprisingly, though this type of game is hard for me in any case, but I’ll try to get used to the controller because it seems like it should be the better input method.
  • TV – I finished Daredevil season 2, and despite some unsatisfying dialogue I liked it, especially the last episode or two, which seemed to set things up interestingly for the next season or show. Now I’m back to The Sarah Jane Adventures, which feels like getting together with an old friend after a long absence. I also might be drifting into another, probably short, anime phase, a side effect of looking into these classic Japanese video games.
  • Freelancing – At the end of the week I got a request for a couple of short jobs from my old employer, so I’ll be doing that this week. They’re a kind of automated proofreading I’ve done many times before, so unless they have unusual complications, they should only take a day or two.
Posted in Board games, Cooking, Daily routine, Diet, Doctor Who, Freelancing, Life updates, Math relearning, People, Project updates, TV, Video games, Writing | 4 Comments

Update for 4/10/2016

Posted on April 12, 2016 by Andy

I was almost only one day late! But Monday evening while writing I felt the need to sleep, partly out of tiredness and partly out of procrastination. It’s hard for me to be brief in these things because I have so much to say, but it’s hard to write it all at once. I want to try writing it throughout the week. And maybe being briefer.

Project updates

  • Daily routine – Last week apathy and mental rebellion settled in, so I wasn’t great at sticking to my schedule, despite good intentions at the beginning of the week. Part of the problem is that I get thrown off by disruptions. The way my blocks of time are arranged makes it hard to think about adjusting my schedule on the fly, so I end up throwing it out for the day. So I’ve rearranged the blocks to make the routine easier to think about, combining errands and dinner at the beginning of the evening, putting my project time right after that at 6:30, and clustering the life maintenance blocks at the end of the day (walk, devotions, and night prep). That gives me a target time of 8:30 to start on those. So that’s this week’s scheduling experiment. I think finding a new solution to try will also be somewhat motivating, so we’ll see if that helps me stick to the schedule better. My Saturday schedule still needs some work, especially to account for weeks when I feel the need to sleep in.
  • Math relearning – I inched forward in my pre-K reading. I’ve made it past the Module 1 and Topic A overviews and a little way into an actual lesson. At this rate I’ll finish preschool a few years from now. But I’m intentionally spending more time thinking and commenting on this beginning material so I can figure out how I want to process the rest of it. I’m hoping I’ll get into a rhythm that’ll let me move much faster. Plus last week I only spent a few minutes on it.
  • Diet – Two more weeks until my blood test and I can find out if a low-carb diet lowers my cholesterol. Now, periodically I go into a meal crisis where I get bored with my usual options and I want to find other foods or places to eat, and I get a little distressed about it. That happens more often when my diet is restricted and I don’t want to spend much time cooking. I’ve gotten a little bored with regular salads from restaurants and stores, and they take too long to put together myself. There isn’t a lot of fast food that fits the diet, and it seems unbalanced to just order sandwiches and take off the bread so I’m basically left with a pile of meat for every meal. I’m also trying not to eat Atkins frozen meals all the time so I get bored with those. What I really want is a dish that combines meat and vegetables, preferably something I can make once and eat for several days. I don’t mind leftovers. Lately I’ve been making taco salads. They’re good, but again, more time to make than I like. I want some kind of casserole. I just need some good combinations and some sauces. So that’s my next low-carb project.
  • Books
    • Guns, Germs, and Steel – I’m a little over halfway through it. It really is an excellent book. If I were a history professor, I’d seriously consider it as a textbook for an intro class. It covers so much ground in such an integrated way while addressing such an important and fundamental topic. I’m thinking of buying the book for future reference. The main question for me these days is whether to get the ebook or the print book. Since I usually buy used if it’s print, buying the ebook would pay the author, and it would take up less (meaning no) space. But I like the idea of having this book on the shelf with my other social science books. The audiobook I checked out from the library just expired, so I have it on hold again. I would’ve pushed my way through the rest of it at the last minute like I normally do, but it’s more work to listen to than my other audiobooks, so I decided to give myself a break.
    • Reading schedule – My projects lately have revolved around writing, but I also have a lot of books to read. Typically I do that in tiny bits whenever I have 10 minutes between activities. But that doesn’t get me nearly far enough. So I’m thinking about dedicating whole weeks to reading during my project time. That’s probably a no-brainer to most people, but despite collecting so many books, I tend to think of my projects in terms of producing rather than consuming things, which normally means writing vs reading. My reading weeks will probably still involve writing, because otherwise I forget what I’ve read or what I wanted to say about what I’ve read. If I take time to write, I spend around 5 minutes per page. Let’s be conservative and round that to 10 pages an hour. That’s 20 pages per day if I stick to my schedule (wishful thinking). That’s 100 pages a week, if I take the weekends off. That feels like too many weeks per book, but by the end I’d have a lot of my own writing taken care of, so it’d be time well spent. I’d also like to develop an iterative method of reading that progresses from a brief overview to an in-depth treatment so I can stop after any stage and have something worthwhile to post. I feel like I should’ve had all this figured out years ago, but my scatteredness has prevented me.

Life updates

  • Finances – Taxes finished! Next up: invoicing. I’m waaaay behind. Again. At some point it’d be nice to establish a routine on larger time scales (monthly, quarterly, yearly) to take care of things like invoicing.
  • Clothes – I got my pants in the mail. I’ve tried them on. They’re fine. Thank goodness. I can move on. Now that that’s done, here’s my complete set of dress shirts and pants, plus stuff for casual Fridays.
    My dress clothes hanging in my closet
  • Death – I went to the memorial service on Friday. I go to these things half to support the family and half to learn more about the person who died. Usually I end up regretting not knowing them better but feeling inspired to be a better person. That was true again. She was a programmer and a caring and feisty but reserved person who loved to cook. I felt a connection. I’m hoping I can meet with her husband over the next few months, mostly to listen. He’s my friend from a men’s retreat a few years back, but we’ve only spoken briefly since then when we’ve run across each other at church.
  • Socializing – Last Thursday a livestreamer I watch invited me to apply to join the Minecraft server he’s on. I’ve been wanting to expand my circle of online gaming friends, and this looks like a golden opportunity. I feel honored to be invited, since things like that rarely happen to me. I even have the application written. But whenever I’m confronted with anything that looks like a commitment, I hem and haw and take days to decide, because as I see it the major feature of a commitment is that it rarely stays inside its initial schedule. The time involvement creeps outward like a spilled liquid until it’s taken over a large part of my life. With all the items on my own agenda for my life and the difficulty I have managing even those, I can’t let everyone else pile on their agendas too. So these days I’m very cautious about what I agree to, and I have to maintain constant vigilance against letting the initial agreement expand too much. But with this server, unlike some others I’ve seen, they seem to leave it completely up to you how much you participate. So I just might say yes.
Posted in Books, Clothes, Cooking, Daily routine, Death, Diet, Life updates, Math relearning, People, Productivity, Project updates, Reading, Taxes, Video games, Writing | 4 Comments

Update for 4/4/2016

Posted on April 5, 2016 by Andy

A couple of days late again because on Sunday I couldn’t be bothered to do anything responsible after church, and yesterday I went to sleep practically right after dinner. I’m also trying to make these updates shorter because my long update last week scared me off of doing them a little, so I want to write less so it gets done and without taking all week. I’m not sure I wrote less this week.

Project updates

  • Math relearning – I finished the introductory material for the EngageNY curriculum, and I am finally ready to enter preschool. So hide your collections of 5 or fewer items unless you want them ruthlessly counted!
  • Daily routine – I stuck to my evening schedule decently last week, though I had lots of interruptions, and I want to be extra careful to follow it this week so I don’t give up on the whole idea. I’ll wait to write about it on the wiki till I’ve had a few more weeks of experience. I’ve added a routine for Saturdays, and Sundays I think I’ll leave for doing whatever, other than these updates. I’ve also added a schedule for my workdays, which nicely breaks up the monotony and highlights the need for focus. If I only have an hour to work on something, it becomes very obvious to me when I’ve gotten too sidetracked.
  • Books
    • I’ve been listening to the audiobook of Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond, mostly during walks and household tasks. It’s a wide-ranging treatment of a question I’ve had for most of my life: Why has the West dominated the world? It’s dense with historical details, which are hard for me to follow, so I’ve been listening for main ideas.
    • During my devotions I’ve begun reading Colors of Goodbye by September Vaudrey, about her journey through grief after losing her remarkable daughter to a car crash. It appeals to me because I want to learn how people cope with different kinds of pain and because her daughter is someone I’d like to learn from.
  • Podcasts
    • Serial season 2 just ended. You can binge listen to both seasons from their website. Serial is a journalism podcast that reports one story per season, stretched out over a dozen or so episodes. It’s fascinating and has brought the idea of podcasting to a broader audience.
    • Occasionally I try to catch up on some short story podcasts I listen to, Escape Pod and Podcastle. Last week a story that stood out to me was “The Copperroof War.” It’s the kind of story that makes me feel like a lot more stories could be told about its world, epic stories.

Life updates

  • Socializing – Last week I had meals with three different friends and a surprise conversation at the grocery store with another friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Then Sunday I got together with my friend Tim, as I usually do, and we watched Batman v Superman. I liked the movie, but I’m open to people’s criticisms of it. My favorite part was the philosophizing in the middle. If only they could’ve kept that up during the fight scenes. Anyway, this is too much socializing, and I’ve decided for the good of my projects to remove all friendship from my life. Loneliness is a small price to pay for productivity! Okay, no, loneliness is one of the worst feelings, and I would fail miserably if I tried to do that.
  • Clothes – I returned the rest of the pants I ordered and did some more in-store research at Macy’s, and now I’m ready for my next attempt at ordering. (Okay, I did it just now, but let’s pretend I wrote this two days ago.)
  • Finances
    • I finally started my taxes. I’ve gotten through the income part. H&R Block’s online software makes it easy when you use them year after year. I had so much less data to enter because they already had it.
    • My replacement credit card arrived. Being a victim of credit card fraud is a strangely mild experience. It’s almost like any other business transaction. I’m sure it’s worse for the banks and retailers, or whoever ends up losing the money.
  • Work – I’m making an ebook of a commentary series published by my current employer (of course) but written long ago by my previous employer. It was one of their major products. Kind of interesting.
  • Worship team – Our teams are on a three-week rotation, and mine played this weekend. I felt like I played with more energy than usual.
  • Death – At church they announced that the wife of one of my friends had died while they were on vacation. I’d probably met her once, but I didn’t know who they meant until they said her husband’s name. Death is always more shocking when you have some connection to the person. I don’t know the story yet, but she was pretty young. I’ll most likely go to the memorial service on Friday.
Posted in Books, Clothes, Coping, Credit card fraud, Daily routine, Death, Ebooks, Life updates, Math relearning, Movies, People, Podcasts, Project updates, Taxes, Worship performing | 2 Comments

Update for 3/27/2016

Posted on March 30, 2016 by Andy

A couple of days late, but it’s been a busy weekend, as you’ll see if you read this week’s update! I probably should’ve split this one up.

Site updates

  • Blog – I blogged and posted to the wiki about mental focus. That was last week’s main project. It took longer than I expected because even though most of the wiki article had already been written, it was long and took a lot of reading time to organize and revise.
  • Wiki comments – No progress last week, as I expected. This week doesn’t look likely either, so I’m taking it off the agenda for now, though I may randomly decide to work on it. It can be a surprise.

Project updates

  • Math relearning – No real progress last week on this either, but I’m squeezing it in a bit this week because I absolutely don’t want to lose sight of it. Math is important for so many of my projects and goals.
  • Cognitive science – And nothing here, except that I’ve decided to collect a bunch of cog sci links on the wiki to get a sense of the field.
  • Daily routine – I mentioned this briefly as an afterthought in last week’s update, but on Monday I set up a schedule for my weekday evenings, and it’s turning out to be one of the best things I’ve done in a long time. I’ve been able to keep up with my routine, and to my surprise it’s significantly shaping my outlook on life. It will be the subject of an upcoming post.
  • Diet – The low-carb diet is rolling along. It’s hard to believe I’ve been at it for only three weeks. But I feel like I could keep it up for much longer. And even though weight loss isn’t my main purpose, it’s nice to see I’ve lost about 5 pounds since I started. It makes me think the diet is doing something. I managed to cook something this week, a low-carb version of the chicken tikka masala I make periodically, substituting cottage cheese for the yogurt and chopped cauliflower for the rice. It worked well.

Life updates

  • Easter – Every year at Easter I ditch my usual church to visit an Anglican church in the area that knows how to do Easter better than just about any church I’ve seen. My brother, Michael, comes too. Now that he lives far away, he even flies in to do it. Here was our Easter weekend this year.
    • Friday – I picked up my brother from the airport early Friday afternoon. On our way to our annual Good Friday Taizé service, we had lunch at a Brazilian place, which was good but rather slow getting us our food and made us slightly late. It’s a crowded place, and we ended up sitting apart. The church that holds the service is beautiful, like a miniature cathedral. Afterward we thought about trying for my church’s Good Friday service, but that would mean constant driving and service attending for the rest of the evening, since Michael was planning on yet another one later, so we decided no. With that off the agenda, we even managed to go on my regularly scheduled walk.
    • Saturday – Saturday we had lunch at Chick-fil-A, partly because I know how to eat low carb there, and then made our way to an installation art exhibit we’ve been looking forward to for about a year, Presence by David Wallace Haskins at the Elmhurst Art Museum. It’s there through May 8, so if you’re in the Chicago area, I recommend it. It will mess with your mind. My favorite pieces were Void Room, Time Mirror, and Soundcube. Void Room is best experienced without spoilers. Just know that the first room you enter isn’t all there is to it. Actually I didn’t think that much of Soundcube until the artist demoed the other tracks for us and told us his plans for it, which got me thinking about its possibilities as a sound environment. By the way, David is at the museum a lot, and he likes to talk about his work, so introduce yourself if you see him. After the exhibit, I gave my brother a tour of the board game store I visit, and then I dropped him off at the very long Easter Vigil he attends each year. They go all night now, but he came home after about three hours.
    • Sunday – I made Michael my typical low-carb breakfast of eggs with cheese and an Atkins shake, and then off we went to meet Jeremy and Heather and their family at our Anglican church. It was energetic as always, and I was even in a better mood than usual. After church we had lunch at Olive Garden, where I managed to find something low carb to order that wasn’t a salad. Jeremy’s mom even got them to adapt an appetizer for me, which was nice of her. And after lunch we were off to the airport for Michael. Heather drove, for reasons that will be explained shortly, but Jeremy came along for the ride, so the airport trip was basically a social event.
    • I never got much cleaning done. Oh well.
  • Car – The reason my friends gave us a ride to the airport was that on the way home from the board game store Saturday, I slowed down at an intersection, and my car started shuddering and sputtering, and the check engine light started flashing. Soon the engine returned to normal, but the light continued flashing, and the shaking continued intermittently whenever I drove it, along with a sporadic accelerating and decelerating, getting worse as the weekend wore on. AutoZone read the check engine code for me: P0300, random cylinder misfires. Something like this happened last year, and that time it was so worrying that I got it repaired right away. This time I had to wait a couple of days, but the Internet didn’t seem worried about the condition, so I just tolerated it and tried to drive as little as possible. It’s frustrating and embarrassing to have a car that visibly shakes while idling and struggles to accelerate through an intersection. I finally got it fixed Tuesday. Car mechanics are such a relief. And so are kind coworkers who drive me to and from the shop.
  • Dentist – My teeth are in need of a cleaning, so I’m on a quest to find a dentist! This feels more challenging to me than finding a doctor. I seem to have gotten a lot more ads for dentists than doctors in the mail over the years, and somehow that makes these dentists and the whole profession feel a little shady to me. Why do they have to tell me how great they are? Shouldn’t everyone just know? What are they trying to pull?? Fly-by-night street dentists, the lot of them! Yes, it’s silly, but it still makes me more cautious when I’m looking for one.
  • Finances – Thursday night I got an email from my bank, a credit card fraud alert. I looked at the activity on that card, and it had been compromised for about two weeks. Shows how much I pay attention. So instead of tidying up the apartment for my brother, in between trips to the laundry room I spent the next morning sorting through many months of receipts to clarify which of the recent charges were mine. Then I called the bank, went through some rigmarole to confirm my identity, and got my card canceled. So now I’m waiting for the new one and living on cash. Fortunately, last time this happened, I decided to get a separate card for online transactions, and that one’s fine. Maybe I should get a third card as a backup so I don’t have to wait next time. I decided against it last time. In any case, the incident motivated me to address some of my financial projects: updating my budget, actually using my financial software (or finding an easier one), catching up on my freelance invoices, investing, and looking into charity giving. I definitely need to do my taxes soon. That’ll be this week’s main project.
Posted in Art, Blog, Board games, Cognitive science, Cooking, Credit card fraud, Daily routine, Diet, Holidays, Life updates, Math relearning, Project updates, Site updates | Leave a comment

Do I have ADHD?

Posted on March 26, 2016 by Andy

I don’t know, but I certainly am distractible. I also don’t know if I’ve always been this way. I noticed my massive procrastination tendencies back in high school and my wandering mind while reading in college, but I don’t remember feeling so distractible until I started working at desk jobs toward the end of college. The Internet was always an easy click away. That’s why I work on my projects in my car so often. There are far fewer distractions there than practically anywhere else.

Part of me wishes I hadn’t been so quiet, well-behaved, and smart as a child. It might’ve motivated my parents to get me tested for something. As it is, I suspect myself of having a few low-grade conditions, but they haven’t even motivated me to get tested.

I definitely don’t have the hyperactive part of ADHD, just the attention deficit, so there’s a lot I can’t identify with in descriptions of people with the condition. I don’t have meltdowns, for example. But I don’t think I really hyperfocus either, though I can focus for long periods in the right (troublingly rare) circumstances. And I rarely lose things or forget obligations. I do, however, get a lot of ideas, and I have poor follow-through on my personal projects, though that’s more from distraction by other ideas and less from avoiding boring work.

I wrestle with my distractability daily. I wonder about ADHD occasionally. What brought on these reflections this time was finding How to ADHD’s YouTube channel via Twitter on Wednesday. She creates entertaining and helpful videos on managing ADHD in yourself or your child. I decided that even if I don’t have it, I can benefit from some of the ADHD advice people give. So the next day I searched YouTube and listened to some videos of techniques for focusing with ADHD (at work, of course). I actually got a decent amount done that day.

This has all prompted me to post on the wiki some reflections on focus I’ve collected. The article is in a rather blobby, meandering form right now, since I wrote it by basically journaling over a period of time. I’ll probably be rewriting and adding to it in the future.

Also, happy Holy Saturday!

Posted in Focus, Site updates | 6 Comments