Dino’s Journal 📖

The title pretty much says it all. This is a pretty good read for those who want to build better habits... now. Why wait to get started, right?

Link: The Secret to Better Habits in 2021

Below are some of my key takeaways from reading this.

Improve yourself with incremental acts performed consistently every day

Self-improvement is all about small, incremental acts performed consistently and intently every day. It's about doing the work that needs to be done to get better, day by day, until you finally get to see some results.

Kinda sounds like the advice Bishop Barron gave on one of his Daily Gospel Reflections — that baby steps are all you need to take to start doing God's work. In this case, it is also applicable to self-improvement.

This is a gem that I ran into on YouTube. If you like cars and driving, you might like this road trip series. If you like 90s JDM cars, especially Mazda RX-7s, then you'll most likely love this series.

While I've enjoyed watching road trip episodes from Top Gear, I always felt like they were out of reach. Like the cars were out of reach, the people doing the road trips were out of reach. Those were big budget production episodes and it felt that way.

This one though is different. While these guys were sponsored, this one still feels relatable. This feels like seeing a couple of car enthusiast friends film their road trip. It feels down to earth. It feels like something a regular joe, like you and me, can do.

As the title states, it's a road trip across 48 states in two Mazda FD RX-7s. One is still running a rotary engine, while the other has a K-swapped Honda engine. Interesting, right?

It's also very nicely shot. The cinematography, if that is the right word, is beautiful. The choice of background music is beautiful. I've never thought seeing somebody wash a car would illicit an emotional response from me, but it did. Then there's the numerous clips showing a Mazda FD RX-7 in motion. It's like watching poetry in motion. Just stunning to see a red and yellow Mazda FD RX-7 cruising on the highway. It's a sight that I'll probably never get tired of seeing. I consider the Mazda FD RX-7, one of the most beautiful cars ever made.

Anyway, I've run out of words and time. I hope you enjoy watching these as much as I did. And to the car enthusiasts out there, enjoy driving your fun to drive cars. It won't be long before our stick shift enthusiasts cars will be replaced by self-driving electric cars.

Episode 1

Excellent Sunday homily from Bishop Barron. He's drawing attention to yesterday's reading from Ezekiel Chapter 2. Every baptized Christian and that includes me, is called to be a Prophet.

Each one of us who have been baptized in the Christian faith, are all prophets in a way, because we are expected to spread the word of God.

I have tried doing that on this journal. Every once in awhile, I talk about God, I talk about my faith, I share some Christian music, I share some interesting homilies like this one. And whenever I do, I notice that I would lose readers and subscribers. It has been a stumbling block for me. Sometimes, I ask myself, what's the point of doing so, if no one is listening?

Don't force yourself to blog when you don't want to.

This is a rule or tip I've seen from other bloggers in the past. But I didn't really internalize it, until I made blogging less of a priority in my life.

I always had something to say. In fact, I kept writing down thoughts and ideas into my journal, so that I would always have something to say. But soon enough it became like work to me. More of a chore instead of a fun hobby.

I'll try to make this quick. Me and the wife finished Season 1 and we love it. Can't wait for Season 2. The wife is already digging into the first book. And she's not normally one to read a book just because of a show or movie she watched. But she was really interested in this one. And so am I.

Yes, this show is based off a book, the Grisha Trilogy of books to be exact.

I particularly love the world that was introduced to me in this show. I love the Russian inspired world and lore of the story. I love the language and the words/terminology they use. I love the setting. I love the plot.

It's 2021 and I'm still playing Pro Evolution Soccer 2019. The game-play clip below is a great example of the core game-play loop that keeps me coming back for more.

After a few moments of terror, frantically trying to clear the ball out of the box, I get a second or two to breathe. Then it's straight into a counter attack. My excitement building as I start to see passing lanes forming before my eyes. It culminates into a shot at goal, at which point I get off my seat and silently scream (because the kids are sleeping), GOOOAAAALLLLL!

I came across this music video a long time ago, back in 2013 or 2014 maybe. I remember getting teary eyed at reading the fan letters in the music video. Anyway, I was still an avid Facebook user then. I shared it on Facebook and that was it, I just forgot about it. Not even sure it garnered a Like on Facebook. It disappeared into the feed, never to be seen again.

And so imagine my delight when I rediscovered it a few weeks ago. I found it while going through my music log posts, trying to replace the Spotify embeds with YouTube music videos. I discovered that the music video has the same effect on me now, as it did then. It's a beautiful song, one where I feel like God is talking to me. And the music video shows how much comfort and peace it brought to other people.

I already shared this song in a previous music log, but I feel like it deserves to be shared again. Hopefully, this time around, it will reach a lot more people and not simply fade away into an algorithmic feed.

To anyone who needs to hear this message today, know that you are not alone. Look up and see, love has a face. ♪ ♫ ♪

At the start of this year, I decided to stop writing to my dev blog and instead start publishing software development posts on this journal.

I loved the ease of publishing new software development content to this journal using write.as. But I didn't really like how it all turned out. Specifically, I thought it was jarring to be reading a post on SQL Server, then hit the homepage to find posts on video games and God. It felt awkward to me.

So, I decided to once again start publishing software development posts to a dedicated software development blog. This time around, instead of going back to a static site generator, I spun up a new dev blog on write.as. I'm hoping that the ease of publishing new content outweighs the drawbacks of having yet another website to maintain. We'll see how it goes.