Tags: #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay

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

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!

Content moved to... Basics of Using Git from the Command Line

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

Gameplay for me, seems to be much more enjoyable on the Xbox than on the PC. I'm not quite sure why that is. Maybe because of the Xbox controller? Melee fighting seems to be much better suited to a controller, than to a keyboard. In any case, I was drawn into the game much more deeply than when I was playing the PC version.

I unintentionally ended up with a Shield Mage play-style. This is something that I've never thought of doing while playing the PC version. I usually go for Shield and Sword. But man, a Shield on the left hand and a Flames spell on the right hand, makes for another fun way to fight.

A hilarious exchange between my wife and son.

Coney: Davin, why are you not wearing your slippers? Davin: Because I'm waiting for my slippers to rest.

***

And another one, this time between my dad and my son.

Grandpa: Where did you go? Davin: I dunno. I forgot to check the map.

Meta comment: I'm not really sure where to put this kind of content. They're too short for a single blog post. And it also seems out of place in a weeknotes post. In the past, this would go into my microblog. But that doesn't exist anymore, so I decided to include them in a weeknotes post. It was either social media or this site, so I decided to publish them here for now.

Personal blogging is an affirmation of who we are. It is one way to discover who we really are.

Had a small family gathering for Christmas. We spent Christmas eve watching Planes and Planes: Fire and Rescue. These two movies are Davin's recent favorites. And they are really good, wholesome, family movies. Planes: Fire and Rescue in particular, was a great tribute to firefighters.

Everyone had fun watching the two movies, especially Davin. He was even singing the songs in the movies. Me and Coney looked at each other in surprise when he did that. We didn't even know that he would do such a thing, especially with other people around.

A Christmas gift from my sister, started reading the book How to Take Smart Notes: One Simple Technique to Boost Writing, Learning and Thinking – for Students, Academics and Nonfiction Book Writers by Sönke Ahrens.

This is the book that is referred to the most, by people who built digital gardens online. So, I'm really looking forward to reading from the source material itself.

Finished watching Tony Robbins: I Am Not Your Guru. Was a great documentary film.

I'll end this weeknotes post with a beautiful quote from the documentary.

If you sit at the at the table of success too long, you’re gonna get bored. Progress equals happiness. If you’re growing in anything, financially, spiritually, emotionally, in your relationship, in your body, you’re gonna feel better in your life. That’s what we’re made for. And I think were meant to grow so we have something to give. You can’t give something you really don’t have.

~ Tony Robbins

Tags: #Weeknotes #Blogging #Christmas #DigitalGarden #FunnyThingsMyKidsSay #Skyrim