So instead of forcing all of my blog posts to be about a specific topic or have a specific theme, I wanted to try and do kind of a newsletter-esque grab bag mix of things that I just want to talk about, which is why I have this post. What’s up with Alex? This is going to be the first one. There will likely be others. We’ll see how much energy I have to put into things.
Will there be any consistency to the different sections I have? More or less, I think some of the main things I want to repeatedly talk about are:
- How I’m doing (obviously)
- Cool things to share
- Something I’m excited for
- A random thought
I think those are going to be my core sections in this newsletter, but there could be more.
What’s going on with Alex?
Things have been pretty nice lately. I was in Philadelphia for a wedding this past weekend. It was wonderful! Philly is a very nice place, and I would absolutely go back.
I just completed maintenance on my home lab. I’ve had 6 TB drives that I needed to throw in my server for quite a while now, but it required downtime, which sucks when I want to watch Plex. I did the maintenance this weekend finally because my storage was sitting at 95% usage, so I figured that I might as well just do it. This maintenance itself was expected to take like four or five days, but it completely wrapped in about two days, fortunately.
It was just three drives that I was replacing, so you have to go through the process of taking out the old drive, slotting in the new drive, and letting it resilver completely. That’s typically the part that takes the time, the hours really. Then you do a replication to your backup drive and start the process again with the next drive. I’m using RAID Z2 with six drives, so I can’t just swap in drives all at once, or else I risk losing the whole storage or data set, which is bad.
I finally got a haircut. I’ve been complaining about my hair for about a month or two now, so getting a haircut was nice.
Oh, and I’ve been using the Dominant Industry Keyno Fountain Pen No. 001 Serenity. It’s blue, it’s gorgeous, it writes amazingly! I love this pen!
Cool things to share
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FWP Demon Slayer: Ferris Wheel Press has Demon Slayer-themed inks and fountain pens coming out sometime soon. I’ve already backed it on Kickstarter, and I’m really excited to see how they look! I currently have the Ferris Wheel Press Bijou, and it’s a nice-looking pen, but it’s not postable, or else the cap scratches the body. Hopefully we don’t get a similar situation with the Demon Slayer pen, but regardless, the ink is going to be really cool.
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CMF Watch 3 Pro: I purchased this smartwatch for like $70 right before I went to Philadelphia for a friend’s wedding, because it supported both iOS and Android. I recently bought an iPhone 16e to continue my mobile development work, since my previous iPhone 7 was no longer being supported by apps. I’ve been looking for smart wearable devices that work cross-platform on both Android and iOS, and this was one of them.
The watch itself is definitely an Android-based watch, but it functions really well. It looks good, and I really like the watch faces you can put on it. It definitely didn’t have as much integration or in-depth usage as the Pixel watches, but honestly, for just getting notifications, checking weather, and checking the time, that normal smartwatch stuff, it actually worked really well on both Android and iOS.
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Native Union Laptop Stand: I went to a co-working place with my friend this past weekend, and he pulled out this really nice-looking laptop stand that worked really well. There’s nothing super special about it, it folds up pretty neatly and is very sturdy. I saw him use it and was like, “Okay, I really actually need to get this,” so I ordered it.
It’s coming, but I like it! I’ll probably replace my current desk laptop stand with this, just because it feels better, looks better, and feels more premium. It was only like $70, so yeah, I love being able to lift my laptop up!
https://www.nativeunion.com/products/desk-laptop-stand?variant=42909316907147
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Apple Health: liked it enough to get its own section below
Apple Health
I’ve been exploring iOS for the first time in years. I’ve always found it pretty confusing to use, but I wanted to revisit my biases against it. My opinion largely remains the same, but something I really liked with iOS is actually Apple Health. I believe it’s a really good app, I liked its features and functionality, and I like how straightforward it was.
I think Google’s current Google Health app is a little clunky because it’s trying to do a bunch of stuff at once, and it’s not yet streamlined. Apple Health, on the other hand, was happy to give you information across a bunch of different metrics. It’ll tell you where that information came from, which app is actually supplying it, which I found really cool.
I really, really, really liked its medication reminder feature! That’s just such a “duh!” thing. Why doesn’t Google Health have a medication reminder feature? It’s ridiculous! Not only that, but I like the further medication information it gives you. You could enter in your medication and then check to see if it interacts with alcohol or other medications that you may take or are planning to take.
Apple Health also really integrated with all of the health apps, even Google Health, it was happy to take data from them and share data back, which I find great for a company that supposedly exists for other people. The Google Health app is a huge taker and never likes to share the data it has.
Something I’m excited for
Something I am particularly excited for is the release of the Your Name 4K Steelbook. If you don’t know me, Your Name by Makoto Shinkai is probably one of my top five movies of all time. It’s definitely my top three anime movies of all time, and the soundtrack truly makes me weep. Shoutout to Rad Wimps!
My co-worker and friend Lucas has a nice TV setup at his apartment that handles 4K, and I’m excited to go over to his place and watch the movie in 4K and cry, because that’s what should happen when you watch this movie!
Random thought
I know that they can’t, but sometimes I wonder if cats have the physical ability to play a trumpet or play a flute. My mind, for some reason, goes, “In order to be able to do that, they have a prerequisite of being able to use a straw, even though those definitely feel like different mechanics.”
This is my brain simplifying the problem to, “Oh, can a cat use a straw? Can cats suck air or liquid through a straw?”
Could I do some research on this? I’m sure I could. Will I do more research on this? Honestly, probably, but not super in depth.
Wrapping up
So hopefully I do more of these in the future. It’s all really dependent on how much work it feels like to do things. There are a lot of things that I really do want to do, but I always have the hurdle of just doing the first step. That’s kind of what my life with ADHD is, that first step feels like a mountain to me, but then once I get started, it becomes so much easier. Everything else is just easy, but literally that first step feels like a peculiar task sometimes.
Fortunately, I think I’ve set up my blog writing setup to be as frictionless as possible right now, so I do expect there to be more blog posts in the future. Maybe not like an everyday type thing. I don’t think I could do that right now, but I’m aiming for at least twice a month at a minimum.