I wanted to give Micro.blog’s audio capabilities another try. I got a few things I wanted to talk about and I just wanted to just go for it. I suggest you listen to this post rather than reading it, as it’s meant more of a vent, but I went through the transcript below and for the most part it’s spot on (I added a few notes where I needed to correct myself).

I wanted to go over a couple of things that have been happening in the last week or so.

Write them? Well, record them rather, and then see how Microblog’s feature of transcribing (note: actually called Transcripts on MB) would work.

There (are) a lot of areas to talk about, and I’m going to try to go through them quickly in bullet point style. In general, there are a lot of things I’m doing and I kind of feel like I’m losing track of all of them because these different things carry me in different directions.

On the blog, which I kind of put on the side for a little bit - not on the side, but I wrote less… That’s actually not true; I didn’t write less; I didn’t publish as much because of the whole Middle East political stuff I’ve been writing about recently, that took me a very long time to write, to actually get out It’s been hard stuff to write and also very hard to edit, to kind of put into something that would be read-worthy is one word, but also reflect in a way that makes sense back to me I didn’t want to erase the emotional load in these posts because that’s the point on one hand, on the other hand, I didn’t want to just come across too whiny or for it to be completely emotional to the point that there is no informational value in it.

It is still mostly, I would say, on the emotional side, but I kind of feel like it took care of the mental load I had in my head and now I can slowly deviate more towards more informational things, the way I see them like try to quote a couple of articles that I read, explain certain things, at least the way I understand them, and most of all this has been… not most of all, for the most part - this has been a positive experience. People read what I wrote they were kind, they replied with comments that reflected that they care in general, that they’re interested and those that were less interested or didn’t want to read just didn’t, which is fine, this is why the disclaimer is there but this was very important to me to write, I felt like the blog started to feel almost, I shouldn’t say almost, basically started feeling incomplete because these are such important things to me and they’re just missing from this personal blog, so I had to add them.

Now these two main pieces are there. There is another one that I feel I need to write. It’s not exactly leftovers, but it’s an additional thing that I need to write. The story continues beyond where I stopped writing, the period of a couple of months that I recorded has a continuation I need to write about.

In terms of technical things on the blog, there are two things I want to work on and add.

One of them is the “on this day” feature on the blog which takes a day from last year at this date and posts it. I have a post explaining - I forget the name of the person (note: Jamie Thingelstad) - someone explained the idea of blog gardening… the idea of blog gardening is that he looks at the post from “on this day” a year ago and then he goes to that post and he goes through it again basically to spell check, to reflect on it maybe things change, maybe take it off completely, it’s a way to prune and make sure the posts (are) staying in order.

He explains that he goes one post beyond that date and one post before, and he uses that as a way to clean up the blog. I like the idea. I want to implement this; I know where the code is on GitHub that’s supposed to work with Microblog, and there is a template… I have enough information to give it a try.

The other part, the other thing I want to add is… now there is a game page on the blog, games, games is another part of my day to day activities that I do, just like watching movies, reading books, and I think games are important. In my personal opinion, everyone should play games to one extent or another, it’s almost as important as reading books - it is important as reading books - as long as you don’t do it too much, or taking photos for that matter, because the level of interaction you have, and also the level you interact with other people if you’re playing games with other people, is something that we don’t get out of the other solo activities. It’s important to play games with everyone to an extent. I like to talk about games.

I have a page (for games), but I would like to add an introduction to this page explaining where to find out more… and TinyTheme, which is the theme I use for (my) Microblog, has a microhook that would allow me to do that, and I need to play with that to see that it works.

Speaking of the movies, I haven’t watched any good… What’s a good movie?

I’ve watched movies that I know are entertaining, that have an entertainment value, and that’s fine, but I kind of miss the movies that are different, that are independent, that make you think a little bit, or make you feel a little bit differently. This weekend I’m staying with a friend, and I think that would give me the option of watching such movie. I have a couple on my list. I’m just aware this has been a little bit missing from the blog, and I haven’t been watching anything that interesting, so I want to… (note: audio recording cuts abruptly here)

…Another thing I’ve been trying to look into is Dragons and Dungeons, Dungeons and Dragons, I forget which (note: it’s Dungeons and Dragons) …Tabletop RPGs I’m trying to get back to this; it’s always something I’m trying to get back into.

It captures the game itch but it also captures reading a good story or watching a good movie itch, and it’s also a very social activity with a couple of people I want to hang out with at once. Instead of just seeing one friend, I get to see four of them. it also really helps with, because usually it means I’m DMing, I have this creative itch, it takes care of but this. But it is one of the hardest, if not the hardest one to do because it’s not just up to me.

It means that besides just relearning the rules and coming up with everything, you (also) need to gather the people, you need to gather your friends, and I need to be that sort of a social anchor which is something that is alien to me. it’s not something I’m good at naturally. It’s not that it’s hard, it’s just that I’m very aware I’m doing this this part where you have to keep “bugging” people and chasing them and sending messages to make sure they follow up even if it’s an online activity, which is a must these days because we all have work and other obligations. Meeting in one place logistically is already hard; the distance is one problem, but then we also have the problem of actually finding the time. So that’s a big issue with RPGs.

There’s a new game I picked up, and I’m trying to (learn the rules), and that requires a certain level of solo-playing, which is a concept I’m teaching myself how to do. It’s basically like you play with yourself, essentially. It’s a make-believe. You switch between your own character to another character, and you roll the dice as a mechanism to randomize the world around you so you don’t completely predict the story (and) you have an element of surprise in the story you build, and then you kind of try to react kind of like improv, it’s a lot like “Whose Line Is It Anyway?”

Different prompts are getting thrown at you and it keeps you on your toes. You try to react to it (as in) “what would I do if I was in this person’s shoes in this situation?” which is a lot of fun.

…This recording business proves to be more cumbersome than I thought it would be I have different parts that I have to connect together and then I have to edit them before I put it up and I’m realizing that writing it would be so much easier and I was trying to save myself time by recording nut I’ll keep going for now.

Another part that is left - last but not least - I want to go back to Emacs, which is of course the tool I use to write the blog and almost any technical document or anything that takes me more than 5 minutes to write. it’s also my scheduling and my to-do lists.

It’s time to go through (Emacs) again evaluating the rather recent project workflow I developed. I also want to go back into my Emacs settings and go through the different tweaks and changes I’ve made to see if they still make sense. For now, my Emacs configuration is not public. I wiped my Mac and I need to basically rehash my credentials with GitLab. (However) there are certain configurations there that are personal: for example, my RSS feeds I don’t want (to be public) because some of the RSS feeds I pay for and they’re specific and should be secret RSS feeds. I need to separate them from my configuration because Emacs is my RSS reader.

Certain directories and folders reflect my job and people I work with by name because it makes sense to me and I use it every day and it’s not appropriate for those to be in (publicy-availble) settings so I need to go through them, and it makes the process a little bit more involved, a little bit more complicated, and then I end up having a public(file) of settings versus personal.

I know you can go down to the level of leaving certain things out of the Emacs settings so Emacs will go look in certain folders for certain files that explain what are the specific paths or folders, but I don’t feel I necessarily want to go to that level just to have public notes. It makes more sense to me to explain on the blog what I’m doing instead of having (notes) going on, which is a whole different thing to take care of.

In terms of work, it’s been busy-ish. I’m getting some help at work. There’s a person who’s going to work with me for the first time in two and a half years or so since I changed roles. My position is pretty unique at this point; it’s pretty much what I make it. Of course it’s not like I’m my own boss, I have a supervisor and there is a level of expectations, but it is a lot things that I develop and I do and it’s my workflow. (in the past) we had a manager who knew specifically what I was doing and I had a team of four people working with me. I had to fit my workflow to an existing workflow, (while) what happens here is mostly I have a workflow and I need to explain to someone else, and it’s a totally different person who doesn’t use the same tools who might have different ways and different strategies to work. I need to be open to that while I’m teaching this person and see what ideas and suggestions this person brings to the table. That’s kind of an involved process that’s going to take a couple of weeks at work, but I’m looking forward to have help with some of the projects I just don’t have the time to start.

the last thing I want to mention… It’s more like a month (or) almost like a yearly summary: I’ve been more focused on my exercises.

I don’t think I published it, (but) there was a post where I explained I’m using TrainWell which is an exercise app which connects you with a real-life coach. it used to be called CoPilot, (but) they changed the name for obvious reasons… The coach is phenomenal. She’s very attentive, keeps listening to me and adjusting the exercises according to my feedback, not only the length and the difficulty but also what exercises work better in my space (and) to what degree, (and) what kind of weights I’m using. I’m enjoying the results and I have more of motivation these days to exercise basically four or five times a week, which has been a continuous struggle. I’ve been able to do it before but with a lot of willpower. I wouldn’t say I’m looking forward to the exercise, it’s still a struggle, but it’s easier to get into “exercise mode” in my head and into autopilot. There isn’t as much resistance.

I find other activities to do while I exercise; for example, I can watch something or even play relaxing video games that I can pause (while I) exercise. It ties in with the exercise in a certain routine that I like, (and) that’s been going very well.

They’re not paying me or anything, but I know there are a lot of people who struggle with exercising, so I really recommend this app if you have the money for it - it’s a hundred bucks a month (note: first two weeks are free to try it out) and I definitely think (it’s worth it).