Week ending 3/7/2021

Chrome Tabs : 76 → 86

Gmail Inbox : 70 → 69 Unread, 70 → 74 Total

Trying out a different format this time, without bullet points. I can already see it’s got me writing longer updates, which I’m not sure is ideal for me or for you the reader. :smile:

Towards a Daytime Yoga Practice

I’m working on shifting my yoga practice to a morning or afternoon time instead of my typical evenings. From the several I’ve already done in the daytime, it’s clear it makes it easier to schedule and enjoy my evenings. I also had my first really noticeable difference in pain/discomfort pre and post yoga, which was pretty exciting.

Negative COVID Test

Another COVID test, another negative result. I think this makes 6-7 I’ve done now, through the whole of the pandemic. I’ve always gone to https://carbonhealth.com/ and in general I can certainly recommend them. Results came next-day in this case, and are faster now than they used to be. They do occasionally push their app, which I have no interest in putting on my phone, but it’s not a requirement. Services have always been free for me (I do have Kaiser, but no copay or anything yet), and appointments are generally available, unlike the challenges I’ve had with many other Bay Area test sites.

House Buying Research

I am continuing to look into the possibility of buying a home in the Bay Area, possibly in the Oakland or Berkeley hills. Some amazing options are coming on the market (and going quickly), but I still have some remaining questions regarding financing, taxation of housing as salary, and other issues. Definitely a good area to learn more about.

Digital Garden Launch

I continued to work on my digital garden (this place!) and finally launched it, a week or more after I had intended to. I got a bit of nice feedback, including on the official Discourse “meta” forums, but I’m still hoping for more traction over time. Whether that happens or not, it is already a tremendously freeing and inspiring outlet to have. I’ve written and published more in the past week than in several months before that, I think, and the ease and speed with which I now publish new ideas, thoughts, etc. is fantastic.

Consulting Progress

Speaking of Discourse, I’m working on setting up a community for a client on the platform, and that took some more steps forward this past week. We’re now at internal launch, with only minor tweaks to go from here. We originally planned a public launch March 1, but I’m finding that delays on the client end are the more common issue (fortunately, since I really don’t want to be the one responsible for delays!). I remain uncertain whether I’ll want to further pursue consulting work after this, my day job (real estate development) is itself unpredictable, and earns me a decent salary…

Food and Drink

I finally tried a couple of local food/drink options but found myself underwhelmed by most. I’d like to get back to reviewing things, but with everything being take-out these days, my motivation is low, in part because I don’t think any place can best represent themselves in a to-go container. That said, cocktails and pastries both should hold up reasonably, and unfortunately my experience with Patisserie Rotha and Kona’s Night Market were both less spectacular than their reputations suggest. Neither was bad, to be clear, but given the lines at Rotha, I expected more. I’ll probably return to Kona’s at the least as they’ve just opened and are no doubt still refining things… Perhaps I’ll give some details on both later.

No Code Testing and Discussion

I jumped into a number of discussions on Reddit around Notion and its recent outages, and was finally encouraged to give Coda a proper try. It’s more impressive and well designed than I realized, although its pricing and some other limitations will likely keep me from using it as a primary tool for the time being.

Baking - Passion Fruit Coffee Cake (“failure”)

I made an attempt at a passion fruit variation of the coffee cake I made a few weeks ago, using some unsweetened juice I had around. Early tests in the mixing process seemed promising, but unfortunately the bright, tart fruitiness was almost undetectable in the final cake. I’d love to make another attempt as my makrut lime version was very distinctive and enjoyable, but I may have to play with the liquid ratios to get it to firm up correctly. I have a bunch of other ideas to test soon too (candy cap mushroom anyone?).

Birthday and Social Time (maskless! :scream:)

Last but certainly not least, due to aforementioned COVID test I was able to spend a lovely day with a close friend and actually have some maskless time and real hugs! She and I often enjoy long beach walks, so we headed to nearby Ocean Beach and saw a bunch of beached jellyfish (and relatives), including one really giant one that was maybe 1.5ft across! It was great. And I brought cake to her and a couple other friends as well. The following day I went on a pretty epic hike with another good friend and we got slightly lost several times. :smile: Beware the Alltrails Montara Mountain Alta Vista Loop and pay close attention if you go! (also, don’t make the same mistake we did: go counter-clockwise!).