Stationary bike arrived. Declared putting it together yesterday's workout, so wish me luck on future endeavors. I had a practice go on it and it's much harder than I expected.

This week I finally put out my first prints on Deadpan Studio. I've been noodling on some paintings and stuff the last few months and via some very kind encouragement, mostly from Monica - a fellow shy, but actually quite good, artist -, I decided to just actually follow-through on making something all the way from idea to print. It's been fun doing it, to be honest, including figuring out how to actually sell something online and package it and all of that stuff. I'm incredibly self-consicious about "doing" art at all, but it feels sort of nice to have a specific outlet for that now, and I'm not expecting to turn a profit, just have a bit of fun. I'm currently working on some oil paintings I intend to share there.

Mum & Dad got their first vaccines this week, their second will be in May! Feel good about that. I can actually, maybe, possibly, imagine getting to go home late this summer.

That's it. I'm really bored of cooking.

Not much to report for the last few weeks. We're just on the cusp of it being 1 year since we arrived home from Japan (1st March) and pretty much went directly into a lockdown. It's sort of funny to think of that trip a year on. We were definitely joking a little through the journey, but on the last few days I did start to get a little nervous that we might be stuck in Japan. Wonder when we'll be on the move again.

I've picked back up my weekly exercise goals. I rode my bike for the first time in a while a couple weekends ago and felt extremely weak, so I've decided to just go for it and buy a stationary bike. Not a peloton, obvs. Curious to see how it sticks. Because I can't do anything high-impact, I rely on a lot of walking and invested in a little mini-elliptical last year, and that's helped a lot. Even Alex has got pretty into getting sweaty while stepping and watching junk TV.

The new bike has bluetooth (what doesn't?) so maybe I'll Zwift?

Palm Pilot is just about done, wrapping up some last bits of logistics. Another project (Walkman) that went dormant over the holidays appears to be waking back up and seems like it'll turn into a longer-term product coaching thing. I'm not sure if I'm a good coach, but I am good at being constructively honest, and I think that objectivity (along with having already done similar things already) is what people are looking for, as a rule.

I haven't played anymore Destiny 2, but I have played a lot of Valheim.

I had a birthday this week. A pandemic birthday! I realise that just about everyone, except February babies, has had a pandemic birthday by now. Alex supplied a dozen donuts and some lovely flowers, and we later took a walk around the park with friends and their new dog.

This week I mostly worked on some paintings, getting towards completing a little project I'm code naming PalmPilot.

Been playing a lot of RDO still, and only just discovered Destiny 2 is free-to-play now, so that fills some idle time. One of my Quest controllers cracked a couple weeks ago and had to go back for replacement, so I'm losing good e-sports time in Beatsaber. My neck feels better, though.

Not much to update. We survived the inauguration.

In lieu of anything interesting to say, here's a special little treat for those week notes readers: a very painful, slow, video of me playing Sea of Theives' Becalmed on concertina. To watch it back is how I imagine it feels to watch a sheep in a nativity play forget their lines.

Partially recording it so the historians have interesting material for when I'm hailed as the greatest concertina player of all time.

Watch video on Youtube

If your feed-reader skipped the video (and fall-back link) above, like mine did, you'll have to actually and visit the website like a peasant (or click this link). Sorry.

If you're here, on an independent website, directly, in 2021: Hello, weirdo!

It's 2021 and my 500th week living in the wonderful US of A, and this week we had an attempted coup! What more could I ask for to celebrate this wonderful round number.

The week was somewhat of a write-off. Who can do anything productive when there are lunatics threatening the consitutional electoral process with violence? Alex and I declared Wednesday a Snow Coup Day and stayed glued to the live feed, and then stayed up late to see the electoral vote count get finalised.

Other than that basic threat to democracy, I don't have much else to report.

Replied to a couple of work emails, but not a lot else on the capitalism side of things. I never really talk about my jobs, because it's always felt too personal. So much about "doing the work" is the relationships that get built with the people you're working with (or for) that it doesn't seem quite correct to talk about it publicly. I might try and talk more abstractly about the things I'm learning and seeing more in future though, because it is a big part of what I'm doing in any given week. I'm a bit of a fan of the way that Tom code-names projects, so maybe I'll borrow that idea.

I'm very slowly working on learning Twinkle Twinkle on the concertina. I mostly don't understand how my two hands will ever learn to push different buttons at different intervals, but I'm assured it's just practice and they'll get it eventually. I'm trying to keep in mind that I can touch type, and this is largely the same skillset. Just a new layout and cadence, right?