Priorities

My current hyperfixation continues to be a pretty big priority for me. However I’m trying to think a bit more and ensure that I’m doing at least some other things too. One of the rules I try to live by is

Leave things better than you found them.

Googling this doesn’t give me a good source in the first page and I’m not up for digging right now.

I try to practice this in an everyday kind of way for myself. Clean the dishes after cooking plus a little extra. Make the code more readable when introducing a change. Organize or put things away when I notice they’re out of place. I try never to go overboard but just add that little something extra.

Of course, I often leave things worse when I’m distracted or have a strong single focus. Luckily practicing this in general helps make up for those misses and maintain equilibrium during those times. A bit more of a push now and then means that my situation and the situations of those around me will, hopefully, steadily improve over time.

Now, I’m not generally a fan of the constant treadmill of improvement hypercapitalism is pushing, but I do believe in a good sustained improvement where it is needed. I also strongly believe that we need to battle entropy in our personal sphere however we can. So pushing for these little improvements is really good for me.

Getting back to doing this is my number one priority right now. After that I’m hoping to hop back onto one of the many half finished projects I have laying around. Wish me luck!

Destiny

I’m continuing to chug along with Destiny. My best friend and I cleared the Vox Obscura exotic quest (regular difficulty), which is the thing I tried and failed to do solo last week. I also sent out messages to the guys I embarrassed myself in front of in the matchmaking queue. Just sending the messages made me feel better, and the one guy I thought was really mad even got back to me and was really nice! So a lot of the angst from last week is cleared up.

I’m still not really sure where I’m going from here, or how much longer I will play, but it is feeling good again!

Columbus Crew

Gyasi Zardes is officially off to Colorado. It is a sad time to be a Crew fan as we’re also struggling on the field. I really appreciate everything that Zardes brought Columbus and I hope he does well in the future.

Personally I do think it was time. I’m not sure that Zardes was a good fit for the more direct-attacking through-ball focused style we’ve been pushing lately. I can’t say that what we’re doing is working, but it does seem like we’ve been very close to succeeding with. Perhaps a different player in the designated player slot can make this strategy work.

Cooking

Everyplate

My girlfriend and I have been using the Everyplate meal kit thing since the start of February now. We’ve run into a few problems that we’re trying to correct. The first is that everything is coming out really oily. The second is that one of their go-to spices is really starting to bother my girlfriend. Finally the variety over time has been less than expected (some of that is because we’ve been getting only the vegetarian options, which seem to repeat a lot).

We’ve taken future deliveries down from 4 meals a week to 3, which isn’t nearly as cost effective, but will allow us to pick and choose a bit more. My girlfriend is taking charge of adjusting the recipes a bit to remove oil. Today I bought some spice mixes at the grocery to try as replacements for the one we don’t like (Southwest Spice).

It has been great for us to be able to cook together a lot without having to do a ton of planning or have lots of leftovers!

Cornbread

I’ve been craving cornbread. So I bought a mix to make today. Unfortunately I misread the recipe pretty severaly! I ended up using 5 times as much oil as I was supposed to X_X It was quite gross. My girlfriend convinced me to give it a second try. It came out much better this time, though possibly still a bit too much oil.

Reading

I read the first volume of Magic Artisan Dahlia Wilts No More this weekend and really enjoyed it! I continue to lean into these kind of “starting a business” style manga and light novels. Highly recommend! Although the first volume only just came out, and you’ll have to wait for July for volume 2 and October(!) for volume 3. The original web novel does not appear to be available anywhere.

Meanwhile the Honor Harrington novel I’m on is kind of dead in the water for me. I can see where they’re going (and the title is a major spoiler). Nothing that is being built out is that interesting to me. And the direction they’re going is one of my least favorite tropy story arcs “captured by the enemy”. I dislike it only slightly less than “character you love does something out of character that is clearly morally wrong and must learn from their mistake”. I dunno when or if I will finish this to be honest -_-

Music

I heard a song I liked on the radio after the game last night. Luckily CD 92.9 has a track list with timestamps so I was able to track it down! The song is A Real Thing by The Beths. I need to followup and try their older albums as well.

I went ahead and bought the track on bandcamp. Now I just need to remember how to add new tracks to my ducktaped together pi+ airsonic + beets monstrosity…

The Journey Continues

Do a little extra this week and see where it gets you!

Stay chill and enjoy