So, my aim with the new format is to make writing Weeknotes posts quicker. I want to spend no more than 30 minutes writing one. — This post still took close to an hour to finish, damn.

The new format is simple. I start with the highlight or highlights of the week. Followed by at least one thing I've learned during the week. Then lastly, at least one interesting read during the week. And that's it.

Let's see how this goes then.

Highlight(s) Of The Week

The main highlight last week was getting our 2nd dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine.

I had to take a sick day the day after, because I was not feeling well. The side-effects of the 2nd dose of the Moderna vaccine are pretty rough. It felt like I had the flu, minus the fever. I felt really tired. I had body aches everywhere. I had chills all day. I felt hot and cold at the same time. It was tough.

Now, take all that I said about the side-effects I felt above and double it. Oh and add some nasty headaches as well. That's how my wife felt. Normally, she doesn't get sick as often as I do. So, it was surprising to both of us that she had a much tougher time dealing with the side-effects than I did. I'm so glad it's over, for the both of us.

A minor highlight was finally upgrading to a new phone. After 5-6 years of using an iPhone 6s Plus, I was ready for a new one. I did not realize how slow my old phone had become. Opening OneNote took like 10 seconds before it would allow me to type in a new note. On the new phone, it loads in an instant. Wonderful!

Lastly, paid off a couple of debts last week. One step closer to becoming debt-free, yay!

Something I Learned

Physical activities like exercise, will raise your blood pressure momentarily. Doesn’t matter if it is an isometric exercise, body weight exercise or free weight exercise. They all raise blood pressure temporarily.

The key is to always focus on breathing in and out deeply during exercise.

The fitter a person is, the faster his/her blood pressure drops back down to normal after an exercise. This also means that people with already high blood pressure, should exercise with less intensity, just to be safe.

Reference: – The Bullworker Compendium

Something I Read

Tagging is Broken — Interesting read on why using Tags might not be the best idea for organizing notes.

Three Mental Tricks to Deal with People Who Annoy You — I read this in the hopes of finding a trick to deal with aggressive drivers on the road. I love the first tip about “getting big”. I'm sharing my note on it below.

Getting annoyed at something or someone, is like being a 2 year old who can't get what he wants. Chances are, in the bigger scheme of things, that thing or person that is annoying you is not even worth your time. Be a grownup and recognize the situation you are in. Ignore and move on to something else that is worth your time.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #PublicHealth #Vaccine #NoteTaking #SelfImprovement

Got back my Mazdaspeed3 last Saturday. I'm glad to have it back. But I also have to say that I was so spoiled by that CX-5 turbo loaner car. It was a really good car!

Anyway, cost to repair the leak in the Mazdaspeed3 transmission was $1,071. It was actually the transmission shifting mechanism that was leaking, not the transmission itself. Thankfully it was an affordable repair bill. And that's thanks to an emergency fund set up for times like this.

So, no need to trade in my car then. Though that CX-5 turbo did make me think twice about trading in... Is still making me think twice LOL!

Started reading the Lord Of The Rings 50th Anniversary Edition book. This was a much appreciated Christmas gift from my brother.

There's apparently a way to forward/send emails into OneNote. Got this idea after reading Tiago Forte's One-Touch to Inbox Zero: How I Spend 17 Minutes Per Day on Email, which is a great read by the way.

Here's some good parenting advice from an Instagram post on how to handle your kids when they lie to you.

Up to Episode 6 now of Vincenzo and man, what a good show! There were a couple of interesting things in Episode 6 that caught my eye, most notably the interaction between a Buddhist and Catholic character.

There's this scene where a Buddhist monk was carrying a huge wooden cross, like Jesus was on his way to crucifixion. The monk was carrying the abandoned cross to donate to a nearby church. It struck me as a beautiful scene, where people can cast aside their differences and just be kind to one another.

That scene then led to a conversation between Vincenzo and a Buddhist monk regarding enlightenment.

Vincenzo: “If I go live somewhere far away, like in the middle of the ocean, will the anger inside me disappear?”

Buddhist monk: “It doesn’t matter where you live. What matters is whether you still have the anger inside you or not.”

Vincenzo: “Does that mean that I need to achieve enlightenment?”

Buddhist monk: “The only way to get rid of your anger is by fighting it. Stand your ground and fight back. Enlightenment is what you get when you win that battle.”

Tags: #Weeknotes #Cars #Mazda #CX5 #Mazdaspeed3 #LordOfTheRings #Productivity #Parenting #TVShow #Vincenzo

After two days...

We got our 1st dose of the Moderna Covid-19 vaccine. I thought it was going to be a drive-through setup, but it was not. And so we had to bring Davin and Caleb along with us, as we fell in line with other people. Had I known it wasn't a drive-through, we would have left Davin and Caleb at the babysitter.

Thankfully, once we got into the vaccination center, we found it to be a very organized event.

I started to feel some side-effects from the vaccine, 3-5 hours after getting it. I'm not sure how to describe it, other than I didn't feel 100%. My eyes felt like it wanted to close. I felt more tired than usual. I was already sleepy at only 6pm.

After a few more hours, I noticed that I was getting a little lightheaded every once in awhile. I felt better after laying down on the bed for a bit. But I was generally tired the whole night.

Next day, I was up and felt pretty good, minus the sore shoulder. I was able to go to work and didn't really feel any more side-effects then.

But that was just the first dose. For the second dose, I actually plan on taking the next day off. The side-effects for the second dose supposedly hit you harder than the first one.

Instead of sharing photos online, how about printing them and sticking them inside a family photo album? This will allow me to print photos of Davin and Caleb but not have to share it online. This idea actually feeds into my desire to take more photos of them since they are growing up so fast. But at the same time, it avoids the urge to post said photos on social media.

This idea was inspired by Olli Thomson's post that I found via Colin Devroe's post.

I mentioned on my previous Weeknotes post that I was taking a break from watching TV shows. But after some constant coaxing by the wife, I decided to follow the “Happy wife, happy life” adage and started watching Vincenzo on Netflix. And I'm glad I did because it's a really good show!

It has this great balance between being serious and hilarious at the same time. The main character is a very serious guy. But he's surrounded by all these wacky and funny characters. It makes for an entertaining show. The plot-twist at the end of Episode 4 was awesome! I was already hooked before then, but now I'm definitely looking forward to watching more episodes of it.

Here's the trailer to the show in case you're interested:

Almost to the end of The Light of All That Falls. I'm relieved and sad that it's almost done.

I'm relieved because it's a very long book. Finishing it means I get to read something else. But at the same time, I'm sad because it feels like I'll be saying goodbye to the book's characters pretty soon. What a journey it has been, for the characters in the book and for me as the reader.

A day passed and...

Finally finished the book. What an ending! One big takeaway from the book is this idea that I translated into my own words:

To be angry at God because he took away a loved one as part of his “Grand Plan”, means to acknowledge that as part of his “Grand Plan”, God gave you that loved one in the first place.

If a repair bill cost more than half the value of your car, it's probably time to consider replacing it.

I've spent some time doing the calculations on trading in my aging Mazdaspeed3 for a new car. Why? Because it's back at the shop for what looks like a transmission leak. And just to give some more context, last year I spent a lot of money to get the suspension replaced. The year before that, spent money on a new clutch. And before that, brakes and other maintenance items. So yeah, trading in my car has crossed my mind lately.

But anyway, I've come to the conclusion that I just don't want to spend over $300 a month on a car payment anymore. I think it's too much. I could use that money to pay off some other debt. This also means that I'm leaning towards just paying for the repairs, instead of trying to trade it in for a new car. I'll get a new car when we're out of debt.

I have forgotten how to post on Instagram. I have an account for my Speed3 that I created to try and maintain some interest in the car. Like other than sharing a photo, what do I say? Do I have to say anything? Most people seem to come up with these cool quotes or captions. I have nothing nowadays. Just a picture of my car. Sometimes it feels like every post is a performance for the Instagram crowd. And this is one reason why every once in awhile, I get this urge to create an Instagram replacement photo-blog.

I was able to watch some parts of the NBA 2021 All Star event. Couldn't really focus on it because of daddy duties, but what I was able to watch was entertaining.

Amazing to see the range that Damian Lillard and Steph Curry have nowadays. They can shoot from the half-court no problem. And I enjoyed the alley-oop plays they ran for themselves. First was an alley-oop to Damian Lillard. Then the next play was an alley-oop to Steph Curry. And the third play was an alley-oop to Chris Paul! I was ecstatic when I saw that haha.

I'm also not sure what happened, but Team Lebron was stacked. Their starters were Luka Doncic, Nikola Jokic, Steph Curry, Giannis Antetokounmpo and Lebron James. I mean that's like a modern day international dream team right there.

Took Davin and Caleb to a park over the weekend. We intended to just do laps around the trails — with Davin on his balance bike, me and Coney on foot, and Caleb on the stroller. But Davin wanted to go to the nearby playground, so we did.

Most of the parents and the kids at the playground weren't wearing masks. That was highly disappointing. Thankfully, the playground sort of opened up when Davin started playing. But still...

Anyway, Davin can ride his balance bike at a faster pace now. Simply walking behind him is not good enough to keep up. I think the next time we do the same thing, I have to bring my own bike. And since Caleb is at an age where he can now ride on a front-mount child bike seat, we should be able to go on family bike rides soon. Exciting!

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #DigitalMinimalism #PersonalFinance #PublicHealth #TheLightOfAllThatFalls #TVShow #Vaccine

This cake not only looks good, but also taste good. What the Harry Potter design hides, is a delicious Ube flavored cake. Yum yum!

One thing that I thought was a great idea, is to take pictures of your kids as they hit some milestones. Then you can use those pictures as decorations for the birthday party, or just add it to a family photo album. It's a nice way to look back and see how much your child has grown.

After watching the horrible ending on the k-drama Iris, I kinda lost my appetite for watching TV shows. However, I still wanted to watch... something. So, last week I decided to watch some anime instead. I'm watching Kuroko's Basketball on Netflix and I'm enjoying it so far.

I've started noticing that I get annoyed at myself for driving aggressively at times. I used to think it was my car, a 2013 Mazdaspeed3, that caused it. It surely doesn't help that it's a fun car to drive. But no, the car doesn't drive itself. I'm the one driving the car. If I'm driving aggressively, it's because of me and not the car. So, I've been wanting to understand why I drive aggressively at times. And so I bought a book...

The book I bought was, “Curbing Your Road Rage: and Other Important Tips for Getting Along on the Road” by Gordon Feinberg. It's a short book; just 41 pages. But I'm surprised at how much it affected my driving.

My driving is very relaxed and peaceful nowadays. So much so that I'm now wondering if I can move on from the Mazdaspeed3 and get into a bigger family car, like a Mazda6 or an Accord.

Luka hits the game winning shot against the Celtics. That was quite a game!

A fellow Write.as blogger, Mike, wrote this entertaining piece, ‘‘Twas the night before tmo. It is obviously a playful take on what was happening on the read.write.as feed then, but was a fun read nonetheless.

Found a great read on the topic of SEO by Scott Nesbit.

Got the link from jlelse's Blog.

Here are some really nice quotes from a book that I'm trying to finish, The Light of All That Falls by James Islington. I'm already 700 pages into the book and there's still some ways to go. I love the occasional philosophical discussion on morality and free will/choice in this book.

“It’s not enough to fight for the right side. You have to figure out how to fight the right way, too. If winning is truly all that matters, then we’ve lost sight of what’s actually right and wrong in the first place.”

~ Davian

This quote reminds me a lot of something I read from Ryan Holiday last year.

“Remember that your past does not define you — no matter the consequences. Choice is meaningless without consequences, and a privilege we do not deserve if we will not face them.”

~ Raeleth

This one is deep. Choice is meaningless without consequences. Let that sink in for a moment. We live in a world where our actions and choices bear consequences. However, most people would rather not think about the consequences of their actions. And that is sad.

Teach your kids to be comfortable with being bored, so that they won't need to rely on gadgets and devices to keep them entertained.

Lastly, I'll end this post with another #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay entry.

Davin: “Mom, I can see the weather... I think it's Thursday.” 😄

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #DigitalMinimalism #Driving #Parenthood #Parenting

It's a work in progress, so there will be changes. In fact, the nature of it means it will probably be forever under construction. When you go through it, don't think of it as a blog. It is not. There are no published dates. There's no RSS feed. There's no email subscription. The URLs to specific notes will probably change every week. It is really a digital garden/personal knowledge-base.

Matt shared this wonderful website on Mastodon. What an amazing find! It allows you to watch, what looks like dashcam videos, from all over the world. In an age where travel and road trips are put on-hold, this website lets you experience virtually driving in another country. It's a mesmerizing and very interesting way to see what other countries/cities look like.

Power outages and water shut-offs all across Texas. People have died in accidents on the road and at their own homes because of the cold. It's extremely disheartening. We've been extremely lucky to not have lost power or water at all. But that wasn't the case for everyone else. Last week's winter storm really showed how the state of Texas is just not ready for this kind of weather. I'm hoping that the state can learn from this and be better prepared for the next one.

I finished reading How to Take Smart Notes – One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens last week. Here are the last set of my literature notes for it:

It is not possible to think through things deeply, without writing down your thoughts. — page 95

Connecting thoughts and ideas to other thoughts and ideas can help us remember them in the future. Again this is what the Zettelkasten forces you to do. Which is why it can be considered a tool for thinking and learning. — Page 103

Ahrens says to add links to other notes, or links on other notes to your new notes when adding a permanent note to the slip-box. I guess this means you can edit existing notes to add links to new notes. — Page 107

Great ideas develop over time. They don’t all of a sudden materialize inside our heads. We would have to have been thinking about a problem and been trying to solve it for a good amount of time, before a good idea dawns on us. — Page 121

When writing down permanent notes, don’t forget to ask questions. Try to see what’s not there, what’s not covered. — Page 126-127

The fewer choices you have, the less decisions you have to make, the less mental resources you have to consume to make a decision. — Page 130

One way to enforce one idea per note is to make sure the contents of a note fit on a screen without having to scroll. — Page 130

When writing, keep a second document open where you can put text that you’ve cut out of the draft you are working on. This allows you to come back to them later if you need to use them. At the same time, it allows you to continue working on your draft without worrying about the parts you cut out because they didn’t have any function in the draft. — Page 145

One thing people don't seem to mention about trying to build a digital garden — it is a tough mental workout. A lot of the things you do as part of it, elaborating and writing notes in your own words, then connecting them to other permanent notes, requires a lot of thinking. And yes, that's the point of the Zettelkasten, to make you think and consequently learn and possibly gain new insight and ideas. But I'm just pointing out, that doing so requires a lot of mental stamina. And when you do it at the end of a long work day, when your brain is already fried, it's tough.

I believe in the end it is still worth it though.

I'm thinking of creating a new blog (yet again) just for sharing photos. Like an Instagram replacement, but as a personal blog. I want to keep Above the Earth and Seas as just a photo-blog for sky photos in the future.

I would have just gone with Instagram for this, but they made some changes that really annoy me. In the past, I could block all notifications on the app. But now, they've added notifications for people or accounts to follow. And I cannot seem to find a way to block those notifications. It is annoying and I don't want to deal with it. There's also the likes/hearts component of it that messes with my head. That said I still use Instagram to find great content that can only be found there. I just don't want to use it to post new photos.

Yes I know. I keep telling myself I need to cut down on the number of websites I have to maintain, but I also keep wanting to try out new ones. I've been trying to find a replacement for Instagram for some time now. And knowing myself, my brain won't shut up about it unless I try... something.

A personal blog can be thought of as another form of a notebook or paper to write on. It allows you to dump down your thoughts, so you can think through them.

Faith is an attitude of trust in the presence of God. Faith is openness to what God will reveal, do, and invite. It should be obvious that in dealing with the infinite and all-powerful personal God, we are never in control.

This is why we say that faith goes beyond reason. If we can figure it out, calculate precisely, predict with complete accuracy, we’re in charge—and by definition, we are not dealing with a person. Would you use any of those descriptors in talking about your relationship with your husband, wife, or best friend? Instead, you enter into an ever-increasing rapport of trust with such people.

One of the most fundamental statements of faith is this: your life is not about you. You’re not in control. This is not your project. Rather, you are part of God’s great design. To believe this in your bones and to act accordingly is to have faith.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

A great definition of faith.

“When you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them. Amen, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go to your inner room, close the door, and pray to your Father in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will repay you.”

~ From Matthew, Chapter 6

I have always wondered about this in regards to praying before eating meals in public, like at a restaurant. Yes I know we should give praise to God for the blessing of having food to eat. But shouldn't we do it in a way that doesn't draw attention in public? Because otherwise, are we not like the hyprocrites, “who love to stand and pray in the synagogues and on street corners so that others may see them”?

Fasting is normally associated with food. But I think it can be applied to digital activities. In which case, isn't digital minimalism just another form of fasting?

Finished watching Spenser Confidential. It was a great movie. Hilarious at times and action packed. Love that a lot of the fight scenes were hand-to-hand combat. Looking forward to the sequel, if they ever come out with one.

Warning to the parents out there. It is a rated R movie, so definitely be wary when watching around kids.

Listening to a My Chemical Romance track and still loving it after all these years. I'm reminded of the time back in 2005-2006, when I was on an mIRC channel chatting with some friends. You know how you could share what song you're listening to in the public chat? Yeah we used to do it then. Someone on the channel noticed what I was listening to and told me to check out My Chemical Romance.

Man, that guy changed my life as far as my musical tastes go. I didn't even know that guy personally. He was just another regular on that channel. I'm so grateful that he took the time to tell me about an emo rock band back then. I wonder where he is right now? I hope he is doing well and still rocking out to My Chemical Romance.

Caleb is now getting better at walking by himself around the house. He's growing up too fast! It happened exactly like what was said in this post. Our baby/infant is gone. He's now a toddler.

When your child says, “Dad look at this”, what they really want is for you to notice them.

Source: https://www.instagram.com/p/CLc_d8wpSD9/

I'm finding that Instagram can be a surprisingly good place to find parenting advice.

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Yup, that's Caleb standing and playing by himself. Like I said earlier in this post, no longer a baby. Now a toddler.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #DigitalGarden #Music #Parenthood #Parenting #Spirituality #Writing #Zettelkasten

I've also taken to adding articles/posts that I want to read, into my Are.na Bookmarks/Reading List bucket. This seems to help decrease the unease that I feel, from not being able to immediately read interesting articles/posts. Since I know that I will eventually get to them someday in the future, it allows my brain to relax and focus on the current task at hand.

Since I have been trying to read less, a problem that I'm running into is what to do with my free time when I can't read. I would prefer to work on my digital garden, but I cannot do so when I'm not at home. This is because my notes in Obsidian, while synced to a Github repo, are not easy to work with via my phone. So, I now have a lot more time to think through things because I'm trying to read less, but during those times I can't work on my digital garden. That's one big limitation with my Obsidian setup.

That said, maybe I should look at it as a benefit in some way. I shouldn't be using my phone that much anyway.

I shouldn't be scared or embarrassed of publishing/sharing my digital garden online. This is because I will never get feedback on my thoughts and ideas if I keep them private. Not getting feedback means not knowing whether I'm on the right track or not. I need feedback on what I'm doing to see how I can get better.

If seeking feedback is to be desired, then wouldn't that be a valid use case for sharing posts on social media? I mean if the goal is to get more feedback, can you do better than social media in that regard?

Now to be clear here, I'm talking about sharing posts on social media. Not spending time on social media. Totally different things.

You should link to new notes from existing notes. This enables an existing note to grow, by adding more related notes to it.

Reference: Zettelkasten Method: How to Take Smart Notes for Knowledge Management

While trying to build my digital garden, I keep running into this issue where I don't know where to put my software development notes. These are notes that I want to keep, but at the same time, I don't think they are considered permanent notes. For instance, a listing of the CSS frameworks I need/want to learn is not exactly a permanent note. And I don't know where to put them. They don't exactly fit into my Zettelkasten folder, nor do they fit into my Reference folder.

Just realized that I have this habit of trying to turn all notes I take into permanent notes. They don't have to be. Not all notes are meant to become permanent notes. I need to remember that.

The following are my literature notes from reading How to Take Smart Notes – One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking by Sönke Ahrens last week:

“Nothing motivates us more than the experience of getting better.”

Seeking feedback, both good and bad, is one of the most important factors for success says psychologist Carol Dweck.

Adding comments to a blog is one way to get/seek feedback. — Page 53

Rewriting in your own words what you’ve just read in a book, is one way to gauge your understanding of it. — Page 54

We don’t get better at multitasking the more we do it. We just think we get better. But that’s because we don’t test ourselves to see if we actually perform better while multitasking. — Page 59

Separate the different tasks of writing and focus on each one explicitly. For instance, while trying to write, don’t be trying to proofread at the same time. Also don’t write as if you’re writing something ready to be published already. That will slow you down. I think that’s what slows me down. — Page 62

When writing something, like a paper or essay, it helps to have an outline in front of you, so you’re not tempted to think about what else you need to write. — page 62

It is easier for us to remember things that are connected to other thoughts and ideas. This is one thing the Zettelkasten helps us with, making connections between notes. — Page 69

Our brains will stop nagging us about unfinished tasks if we write them down and have a system in place that will guarantee that we won’t forget about the tasks. — Page 70

It’s okay if I end up writing longer literature notes, as long as they get turned into permanent notes in the future. — Page 76

Ahrens mentions that literature notes are usually written with an eye towards what's already in the slip-box. This goes against advice I read about writing literature notes mainly against its original context. — Page 76

Our brains are drawn to information that confirms what we already know. This can make it hard to be selective when it comes to note taking. It also feeds into our confirmation bias. — Page 79

Writing notes by hand is superior to digital note-taking. — Page 80

Writing down notes using our own words can tell us how well we understand something. — 85

If re-reading is not ideal for learning, then what is? Elaboration. And that’s what the Zettelkasten forces you to do. — Page 89-90

Apparently we can only hold on to at most 4-7 items in our head at any one time. So does this mean that having to juggle multiple websites and deciding what to post on each one can be taxing on my brain?

Maybe that's one of the reasons I get exhausted from maintaining multiple websites. Deciding what to post on one of them drains my mental stamina more than I realize. There’s too many decisions to make with multiple websites.

An idea: Instead of bundling everything up into one big Weeknotes post, maybe I should pick just one topic per day of the week to include in a Weeknotes post. That probably means I will leave out so many other journal entries. So, maybe a compromise is to pick at most 3 entries per day to include in a Weeknotes post. There's probably a number of ways I can do this. I'll just have to try it out and see what number works for me.

Judging from the amount of content in this Weeknotes post, I obviously did not implement that idea. I was lucky enough to have enough time to actually write this post. But the next time I'm short on time, I will try it out.

An idea: Create a “Software Development” version of my Weeknotes series, where I can focus on software development content.

What is driving this is my need to make searching for software development content on this site easier. I don't want to to dig through a long Weeknotes post to find a specific software development related entry.

“Sometimes it’s not the message. It's the timing.” ~ Tal’kamar, The Light of All That Falls

No matter how convincing an argument or message is, if the one receiving the message is not ready for it, then it won’t be received well.

Sometimes people need to change, before they can look at the same message in a different light. So it’s not that the message has changed, but that the person has changed.

Kinda like how I changed my viewpoint on adding comments to this journal.

If Jesus, the son of God, regularly took time to pray, shouldn’t we do the same?

You know that thing you do when you end your prayer? Saying amen? Don’t say amen as a way to disconnect from God. Say amen as a call to action.

So now, instead of ending your prayer and going back to your regular life, say amen and use it as a cue to start doing God's work.

Reference: Sunday Mass Homily by Father Tony Lackland

A good read this week was Out of the Matrix: Early Days of the Web (1991) by Daniel Kehoe.

Thirty years later, it is easy to overlook the web’s origins as a tool for sharing knowledge. Key to Tim Berners-Lee’s vision were open standards that reflected his belief in the Rule of Least Power, a principle that choosing the simplest and least powerful language for a given purpose allows you to do more with the data stored in that language (thus, HTML is easier for humans or machines to interpret and analyze than PostScript)...

Second time I ran into this rule of least power. The first time was in Al Khan's information overload article.

How do I apply this “rule of least power” to my career as a software developer? I ask because I specialize as a C#/.NET Developer. Maybe the answer is to not specialize and learn more programming stacks?

... Still, I hope its utility as a platform for commerce does not eclipse our original vision of the web as a means for sharing the world’s knowledge.

So the web was originally made to share knowledge. And I think that's what we do when we blog. At least, that's what I hope I'm doing on this journal — sharing knowledge.

That's also totally the opposite of what we do on social media. There's more sharing of highlight reels going on there, than there is sharing knowledge.

By the way, the author of this article also created Yax, which seems to be a simple website builder. Might be worth checking out.

Notes from The One Thing You Need to Learn to Fight Information Overload by Al Khan:

Alright, you might think starting with a thick old book might be too farfetched right now, though. But luckily, great thinkers have been old-school-blogging since Montaigne. Yep, they wrote essays. They’re filled with so much wisdom that you can finish them in under 2 hours and still get more than that of a modern book. Most of them are translated pretty well, so you can still get their ideas in more easily understood forms. I get my essays on Gutenberg.org and push them to my Kindle for reading. Awesome stuff.

Great idea on finding essays to read from great thinkers of the past.

Also, one last thing: Read books and essays made by the inventors, discoverers, thinkers, and field founders. They are most likely to change how you think.

This advice makes sense. Books from inventors, discoverers, thinkers, and field founders will probably change how you think, simply because they themselves changed the game in their respective fields.

One of the best ways to learn something is to try and teach it to someone else. This is where a blog can help.

When I write a “how to” blog post, I'm not doing it for the sole purpose of teaching other people. I do it as a way to solidify my understanding of what I've just learned. If readers learn something from my post, that's just icing on the cake.

So I've had my photo-blog/microblog for a few weeks now. I'm still asking myself, what am I gaining from doing this, other than the satisfaction of sharing a sky photo? I don't know.

I still think that $5 a month for a hobby photo-blog is too much. If it was my main website or blog, then I can justify paying $5 a month for it. But I'm having a hard time justifying it for a hobby photo-blog.

And I honestly don't know why I keep on doing it. I'd rather be working on my digital garden, but I get this urge to share sky photos ever so often. And I'm fine with that, if it doesn't cost me anything. But in this case, it does...

Maybe it's time to go back to my Write.as powered photo-blog. I don't pay extra for that one, since you get 3 blogs for one Write.as Pro subscription.

Having one blog that covers all sorts of personal topics (instead of one blog per topic) is like having a newspaper. Not everyone is expected to read everything on it.

A personal blog is made for you and not the readers... so if you want to cover a broad range of topics in there, you can do so.

References: https://bloggingwithoutablog.com/blogs-is-one-enough/#comment-147610 https://bloggingwithoutablog.com/blogs-is-one-enough/#comment-147635 https://bloggingwithoutablog.com/blogs-is-one-enough/#comment-147666

The Dallas Mavericks get a great, come from behind win against the Atlanta Hawks.

I've noticed a change in the rotation by the Mavs. Luka usually plays the whole first quarter. The past few games though, he's been going to the bench a lot earlier. Like he would get subbed out in the middle of the first quarter. I think this allows other players in the team to take point and find their own rhythm.

This is good because they're no longer solely relying on Luka making plays for them. It seems to get other players going offensively earlier in the game, which helps Luka out later in the game.

It also seems to be working so far as the Mavs have been winning, barely winning at times, but still winning their games recently. They also won the game against the Pelicans. That means they're on a 4 game winning streak right now.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Basketball #Blogging #Bookmarks #DigitalGarden #DigitalMinimalism #LiteratureNotes #Productivity #Spirituality #Zettelkasten

That's two different diseases — Alzheimer’s and Heart Disease — that gets pretty much the same recommendation to reduce carbs and sugar intake. This should really make you rethink how much sugar you should be ingesting everyday.

It took you years to put on all that weight. Don't be too hard on yourself if you're not losing weight fast enough. Think of losing weight more as a marathon than a sprint.

I've found a compromise for using my gel pen and fountain pen. When I'm at home, I use my fountain pen to write on my bullet journal. Anywhere else, and on any other notebook, I use my gel pens or ballpoint pens.

A few days ago I wrote this on my journal:

“Almost to the end of the k-drama Iris. It's a really good show!”

Then I got to the end. And wow. That ending was horrible! I had planned to say so many good things about this show. There's the amazing plot. The great acting. The pretty good fight scenes. The great story about love and friendship. But it was all brought down by the horrible ending. I can't even recommend it to my wife anymore, not after I've seen the ending. Such a disappointment. The show was great 95% of the time, until it got to the ending. Unless you're a sucker for horrible endings, don't waste your time on it.

Started watching Enola Holmes. I like what I've seen so far. I stopped midway because Caleb kept playing with the remote. But yeah, I like the movie enough to want to finish it.

Came across a long list of public Zettelkastens/Digital Gardens.

One thing I struggle with while trying to build my digital garden/personal knowledge-base, is determining whether a note is just information, or if it is a note that is worth keeping. One way to determine that is to ask the question, “Does this note provide a lesson or insight that will stand the test of time?” If the answer is yes, then it probably is a permanent note.

Spent some time last week moving software development related content out of my weeknotes posts, into their own stand alone posts. Also tried adding “backlinks” to the pages just to see how they look.

I can probably streamline this process in the future by publishing software development content in their own posts in the first place. Then I can just add a link to them in my weeknotes post. This approach also opens up the possibility of keeping my software development posts in a dedicated dev blog, as opposed to being another post on here. For now I'm leaving them here. We'll see how it works out over time.

Came across this post last week. The author makes an interesting argument about avoiding backlinks. It is one you should probably consider if you're trying to build a digital garden.

Backlinks without context are useless. And to an extent, they are a waste of time. Following a backlink that doesn't have any context, could lead you to information that is irrelevant to your research. This is time that you could have spent following a link that could have lead you to something more meaningful.

I'm guilty of this, like when I added backlinks to the software dev posts that I moved out of their respective weeknotes post. I'll clean those up in the future.

A great read from last week was The One Thing You Need to Learn to Fight Information Overload by Al Khan.

One of the things I learned from that, is that the more you read, the more time you need to allocate to digesting what you just read. Apparently there is such a thing as reading too much. And reading too much means your brain is always occupied with someone else's thoughts. You need to give your brain time to process what you just read.

This in turn made me realize that I put in so much stuff into my daily logs, because I read a lot or run into a lot of thoughts and ideas. But I also noticed that I don't give myself time to really reflect on them. I give myself what, 10-15 minutes before bed to migrate my notes into Obsidian and into my Zettelkasten. I don't think that's enough time to really digest all that I've written down.

The Mavs are struggling this season. Their season might be in jeopardy if they don't find a way to start winning.

They should really be a better defensive team this year considering the changes they made to their lineup. And they've shown flashes where they played stellar defense. But they're just not consistent enough. And when it comes down to critical moments in the game, their defense doesn't shine through. Until they improve on this, I don't see them getting to the Finals anytime soon.

Kristaps Porzingis also needs to assert himself in the post. Multiple times during the game against Golden State, a smaller guard switched over to guard him. Instead of exploiting the match-up, he either took a long range jumper or passed the ball. Doing so makes it so much easier to guard him. If he instead backs them down into the post, then he could possibly draw a double team, and then he can kick the ball out to the perimeter for an open three point shot. I mean, I'm not sure why he doesn't even try to do this more often. I think Luka plays on the low post more often than him. That's ridiculous.

After a 30-point loss to the Golden State Warriors, it is a little reassuring to see them win the next game. The next few games are crucial. If they can't find a way to shore up their defense and win some games, I don't see them even reaching the playoffs this season.

Tom Brady is the GOAT. Just saying.

I'm starting to run into issues with maintaning this Weeknotes series. It took too long to write this post. I spent more than an hour trying to get this done. And I even had to cut out a number of items (a day's worth of entries even) I wanted to include in this post. I need a better way to determine what gets included in these posts. I simply don't want to spend too much time writing them.

I thought writing weeknotes on the weekends was the way to go. But I'm finding that I just don't have enough time to write when I prioritize spending time with my family.

The article from Al Khan that I linked above, provided a way to filter out what to read. I need something similar to filter out what to write, so I can do it faster. Because if I don't find a way to streamline this writing process, this will turn into a chore. And once it does, I'll most likely stop.

All this stress over spending too much time writing a post, just makes me want to try out the Publish feature from Obsidian. Instead of writing a blog post, I could be working on my digital garden/personal knowledge-base. Then I just hit publish every weekend or so, and new notes show up online. No more fussing over publishing a blog post in time before the new week starts.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #Basketball #DigitalGarden #FountainPen #Nutrition #PublicHealth #Zettelkasten

I actually use my dev blog to store answers to problems I've encountered before. And every once in a while, I use it to retrieve scripts or pieces of code that I need to re-use. That's easy to do with a dedicated software development blog. It's not so easy to do with this journal. And that's because these bits and pieces of software development content, are buried inside one big Weeknotes post. And that makes it hard for me to quickly get to the information I need. It is inefficient as far as searching for information goes.

For instance, to retrieve the notes I had about the basics of using Git from a command line. I have to sift through the content of Weeknotes-011.

So now I'm trying to think of ways to get around this. After posting the Weeknotes post, I'm thinking I could move out some of the software development content into their own stand alone post. But then that means readers will receive notifications of a new post, for a post whose content they've already read before. So I don't really like that solution.

Another possible solution is instead of including software development content in a Weeknotes post, I should just publish them in their own stand alone posts. This one is the logical solution. The only reason I'm not pursuing this, is because I want to avoid publishing multiple posts during the week. I'm trying to avoid another burn out from over-posting.

Another possible solution is to copy the software development content and publish them to my old dev blog, in my spare time. Then I'll update the Weeknotes post with a link to the stand alone post. I think this one is a valid solution. It's a little embarrassing to be going back so quickly, but if that's what I have to do, then that's what I have to do.

The last solution I thought of, is to create a micro notes blog or atomic notes blog. I've been thinking about this for awhile now and have mentioned it in my previous Weeknotes post.

An idea: Instead of creating a “microblog” to house micro/short posts, or creating one as a social media replacement, how about creating one to hold micro thoughts (or atomic notes) on a specific topic? I'm thinking more of a digital garden here versus a Twitter replacement.

This new micro or atomic notes blog, would basically be a cross between a digital garden and a collection of notes from my posts on this journal. Posts from this new blog will not be published to the read.write.as feed and email subscription will not be enabled. It will basically function like a public notebook. At least, that's the idea. I'm still not sure if I'm going to go through with it.

Also, it sounds like the same thing that I did on my Are.na account — where I started moving notes and excerpts from my journal entries into specific buckets. Yeah, it is similar. Except Are.na has the same problem when it comes to searching for information I want. Having a dedicated blog containing a collection of notes, like a public notebook, sounds like what I'm looking for right now.

Another blogging related idea: Instead of creating a new blog to contain posts for a specific topic (like a dedicated dev or gaming blog), what about creating just one post that contains all posts on a specific topic? This single post would then be a living document that gets updated as new thoughts and ideas on the topic come up. It will most likely end up being huge. But it will be a one stop shop for everything on a specific topic.

By chasing audience we lose the ability to be ourselves. By writing for everyone we write for no one.
– Tom Critchlow

Link: Small b blogging

This week I ran into this quote again. This explains so much of my dilemma with blogging. Should I write for myself? Yes, yes I want to. But doing so makes my posts seem only applicable to me.

For instance, my Weeknotes post, or my discontinued journal entries. They are/were this one big post with so many different topics all mixed in together. This is/was me being myself, writing for myself. However, I can't help but wonder if I should break down that big post into smaller chunks, so that readers can get to the topics they are interested in. Now that is me trying to write for everyone.

This debate that regularly goes on in my brain, is one of the things that tires me out when it comes to blogging.

Unsubscribed from the Aeon newsletter and a couple of other ones as well, because I'm having a hard time keeping up with all my subscriptions.

If you wanted to create some live polls during say an online presentation, you can use PollEv.

Why doesn't anyone create a camera/device that can take pictures as good as the latest iPhone, but not make it a smartphone? I'm thinking more in terms of avoiding distractions with everything that a smartphone brings. I just want a camera that takes great pictures, but is only as big as say an iPhone 12 Pro.

I guess in some ways it doesn't make sense from a business standpoint. An iPhone that can only take pictures and do nothing else, would probably not sell. At least, compared to an iPhone that can do everything else in addition to taking great pictures.

And you can always turn off notifications, uninstall apps, turn on screen time and dumb down your smartphone. So, why bother right? Except doing all that requires willpower and mental stamina. So, why not just give me a great camera, that's the size of a phone, without all the distractions?

Was doing research on what the best rifle was in Fallout 4. Ran into a post showing a Damage per Second stat. This stat is not something you will find in the game. So, that led me to try and figure out what the Fire Rate stat in Fallout 4 really means.

Based on this post, Fire Rate is the number of shots a weapon can make in a 10 second window (without reloading). So, if a rifle has a Fire Rate of 5, that means that weapon can fire 5 shots in the span of 10 seconds.

Using the info above, you can figure out the damage per second stat of any weapon in the game. The formula then would be (Fire Rate / 10) x Weapon Damage = Damage Per Second.

Re-activated my micro.blog subscription to try out a photo-blog alternative.

That was precisely the reaction that Jesus wanted. For God is like this crazy farmer, sowing the seed of his word and his love—not only on receptive soil, not only to those who will respond, but also on the path, on the rocks, and among the thorns, lavishly pouring out his love on those who are least likely to respond. God’s love is irrational, extravagant, embarrassing, unreasonable, completely over the top.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

Just because you don't believe doesn't mean you can't be saved. God is reaching out to everyone, even to those who are currently not listening. All you need to do is give Him a chance and listen.

How does God tend to work? From the very small to the very great—and by a slow, gradual process. God tends to operate under the radar, on the edges of things, quietly, clandestinely, not drawing attention to himself.

C.S. Lewis speaks to this principle. How, he asks, did God enter history? Quietly, in a forgotten corner of the Roman Empire, sneaking behind enemy lines. How was European Christianity established? Through the handful of people that listened to St. Paul in Philippi and Athens. How did the mighty Franciscan movement come to be? One odd, mystical kid who heard a voice coming from a crucifix: “Francis, rebuild my Church, which is falling into ruin.” A handful of followers joined him in his quixotic project, then dozens, then hundreds, then thousands.

So don’t be afraid to do small things at the prompting of God! Plant the seed, make the move, take the risk—take even the smallest step, and don’t worry about who notices or how much attention you’re getting. Sow the seed and leave the rest to the mercy and providence of God.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

Baby steps. All I need to take are baby steps. As long as I keep moving forward, I can leave the rest to God.

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Between news at work and stuff at home, last Friday ended being eventful and to an extent stressful. I'll end this post with what I wrote down on my journal that night:

I'm tired. I need a break.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #Fallout4 #Spirituality

Last week I remembered why I chose to go with pen and paper for my bullet journal — it was to give my eyes a break from staring at screens all day long.

My only issue with this analog approach to journals, is how to digitize the text that I wrote so that they can be searchable in the future. Sure, bullet journals have an index for tracking down specific topics. But let's face it, that doesn't even come close to being able to search text digitally.

I previously tried to get around this by publishing journal entries on this site. As part of writing those posts, the content from my bullet journal would end up in a text (markdown) file when I download a backup of this site. This benefit went away when I decided to stop writing journal entries.

Now, I'm doing a similar thing with these Weeknotes posts. This time around though, my journal entries end up in my Obsidian vault. I still have to manually type them in though. This is the part I'm trying to streamline. But I'm not sure that's even possible. It's either I ditch my analog bullet journal and go straight to digital journal apps, or just continue what I'm doing — write on my bullet journal then migrate (type up) my notes into Obsidian sometime later in the day or week.

If you have some thoughts that are stuck in your head, write them down so that you can get them out of your head. This frees up your brain and allows it to think about or focus on something else. Like you know, what you should be working on instead.

An idea: Instead of creating a “microblog” to house micro/short posts, or creating one as a social media replacement, how about creating one to hold micro thoughts (or atomic notes) on a specific topic? I'm thinking more of a digital garden here versus a Twitter replacement.

I started trying to build a digital garden on Are.na using excerpts from my journal entries. This also solves one of the problems I've had for awhile now — how to take excerpts out of my Weeknotes posts and put them into their own stand alone posts.

I actually think Are.na is better suited for displaying excerpts, than it is for building a digital garden. But we'll see how it goes. The alternative to it would be another Write.as blog. One using the Novel format, which means no published dates on the posts.

For now though, the use of Are.na is free, at least until I hit the 500 block limit. So I'll try it first and see what I can come up with.

It doesn't do back-links like Obsidian does, but it is possible to connect blocks to a channel. I wish they would allow connecting a block to another block, but they don't. So I'll just try to work with what it can do.

Some great reads last week were Brandon's post about “Home” and Scott Nesbitt's take on digital gardens.

Regarding digital gardens. Scott mentions using Write.as to build a digital garden. I have thought of using Write.as as well, but so far have not figured out the best approach to it. I believe that once Write.as allows a custom static homepage, then it will pave the way to being able to use it to create a digital garden. Until then, it will look more or less like another blog.

This is also another reason why I elected to try building a digital garden with Are.na first.

Found this new site, habitica.com. It seems like it could be used to help accomplish some self-improvement goals.

This was a photo that the wife sent me last week. I definitely agree with that!

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Last week I managed to solve my first ever React issue. The React developer in our team had the day off, so I tried figuring it out on my own. After getting the location of the source code from a team member, I was able to figure out why the app was taking us to another page. I am not a React expert, but apparently I can understand it enough to figure out the issue. I'm so proud of myself. The work that I've been doing with trying to learn React is not going to waste.

The song “Where I Belong”, which features Simple Plan, State Champs and We The Kings is such a good song!

I found a reason And suddenly I'm not so alone I'm finally breathing Like I never could on my own Start the countdown, let's get it on Scream our lungs out to our favorite song 'Cause this is where I belong (This is where I belong)

Could listening to music possibly reduce the stress levels brought about by work? I think it does. I was getting stressed out at work and then “Uh Oh” by Junior Doctor started playing. I immediately felt this sense of relief come over me. I felt much more calm and settled. So yeah, I think listening to music while working does help lower stress levels.

Just noticed Davin going over a YouTube video on how to build a tower in Minecraft. He then tried to mimic what he saw in the video and build the tower himself in the game. I thought that was pretty amazing for such a young kid. And amazing that a game fosters that kind of learning and creativity.

The hardest part of raising an infant is the countless sleepless nights. You're not going to get any sleep until your infant is asleep.

And for this week's installment of #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay:

Me and Davin were in another room. I was on the PC, while Davin was reading a book. We heard Baby Caleb cry and then my wife called out.

Davin: Dad, Mom is calling you. Good luck!

***

Davin was trying to color Thor in his coloring book.

Me: Davin, Thor’s clothes should be colored dark blue. Davin: That’s not dark blue, that’s black blue!

I'll end this post with a photo of what dad life looked like last week.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #BulletJournal #DigitalGarden #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay #JuniorDoctor #Parenthood #Minecraft #Nutrition #PopRock #PopPunk #SelfImprovement #SimplePlan #StateChamps #WeTheKings

While I've already had this idea in my head for the past few months, I was also inspired by this post from Angelo.

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I started working on an ASP.NET Core MVC website wrapper for this journal. I'm using the WriteAs.NET library that I wrote, to essentially turn Write.as into a Headless CMS. So far I have it working for my pinned pages.

Here is a screenshot of the About page rendered using ASP.NET Core MVC:

And the Archive page:

While working on this ASP.NET Core MVC website wrapper, here's another idea I had: Use it to practice Vertical Slice Architecture.

Better late than never. Found some good rock songs after listening to the Top 50 Rock Songs of 2020.

Got the Mazdaspeed3 back last week. Unfortunately, they couldn't reproduce the issue with the ticking noise on the AC fan. To be fair, the sound didn't manifest itself on my way to the dealership.

Fortunately, they did not charge me a diagnosis fee. That would have cost me $99. That's one benefit of developing a relationship with the service department. They treat me like a VIP. One of the perks I've noticed is that they are willing to waive charges and fees more often than not.

From note-taking to note-making by Anne-Laure Le Cunff is a good read on the difference between note-taking and note-making.

Note making is creating your own version of what you're reading. If you take the time to do this, to write a thought or idea in your own words, this will help you understand and remember it better.

Taking this idea further — It is not enough then, to just write down notes into a notebook. If all you do is write it down word for word, chances are you still won't remember it later. You need to re-write it and phrase it in your language, to give your brain a chance to really process that information and make it stick.

While reading Chesterton and the Vocation of Our Senses, I ran into this wonderful poem by G.K. Chesterton:

Here dies another day During which I have had eyes, ears, hands And the great world round me; And with tomorrow begins another. Why am I allowed two?

~ G.K. Chesterton, “Evening”

A wonderful reminder that even in the midst of this pandemic, most of us are lucky enough to have one more day.

G.K. Chesterton said that even those who reject the doctrine of the Incarnation (like the Pharisees) are different for having heard it. The claim that God became one of us changes the imagination, compelling a reassessment of both God and the world. This odd assertion is made, implicitly or explicitly, on practically every page of the New Testament.

Therefore, when Jesus forgives the paralytic’s sin, the Pharisees respond that only God can forgive sins, thereby, despite themselves, professing faith in the Good News.

~ Daily Gospel Reflection by Bishop Barron

Huh. I never even thought of it that way. Even when trying to prove Jesus wrong, the Pharisees ended up proving him right. They were professing the Good News, they just didn't know it.

In the book How to Take Smart Notes, the author relays a story about NASA trying to invent a pen that works in space. They were successful of course, but that's not the end of the story. Apparently, the Russians ran into the same problem. How did they solve it? By electing to use pencils instead.

This is a great reminder to look to the past for possible solutions. And another reminder to not over complicate things.

Update 2/12/2021: I just run into a page that disproves the story. Apparently pencils could be a fire hazard in space, especially if the tip breaks off.

On that train of thought, it’s also making me reflect on my efforts to try and make a fountain pen work for me. Right now, compared to my gel pen, a fountain pen seems to be the complicated option.

Just realized that tinkering with your own personal website is like modifying your car — it's one way to make it your own. It's a way to make it stand out from the crowd by adding your personal touches to it.

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #GKChesterton #Meta #NoteTaking #Spirituality