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

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

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

Finished reading The Great Cholesterol Myth: Why Lowering Your Cholesterol Won't Prevent Heart Disease — and the Statin-Free Plan that Will by Jonny Bowden, PH.D. and Stephen Sinatra, M.D. Here are my thoughts on what I think is a must-read book for everyone.

Why did I pick up this book?

My primary care physician was getting worried about my rising cholesterol numbers. She was worried enough that she wanted me to start taking statin medications to lower my cholesterol. I, on the other hand, was concerned about having to take said medications. And this was before I even knew of the scary side effects mentioned in the book. Also, I was getting frustrated at not being able to lower my cholesterol on my own, without having to take medications.

Part of my problem was that I didn't know if the food I ate lowered or increased my cholesterol. For instance, I went on a stretch of months where I tried to decrease the amount of meat I ate during the day. It didn't really lower my cholesterol that much. Even when I was already eating more veggies than I ever did in my entire life, it still kept creeping higher and higher. Obviously, I didn't know what I was doing with regards to my diet.

The other problem I had, was that I didn't really understand what cholesterol was and how our bodies used it. All I know is what I kept hearing from the news, or read in the magazines — that high cholesterol leads to heart disease. And wow was I surprised when I read what the book said about that idea.

Did you know that our brains are very much dependent on cholesterol? Or that the greatest concentration of CoQ10 can be found in the heart? Guess what decreases cholesterol and depletes our body's store of CoQ10? Statin drugs.

Anyway, to answer the question, I picked up this book mainly to learn more about cholesterol, so that I can manage it myself. The accompanying info on statin medications was just icing on the cake for me.

What did I like about this book?

There's a lot to like about this book. But the thing I liked the most, is how the authors were able to explain complicated medical and nutritional topics in layman's terms. You see I'm just a software developer. Definitely not someone from the medical field. But I was quickly able to understand the various topics discussed in the book, because of how good the explanations were.

And because they made it so easy to understand, I was able to learn a lot from reading this book. This is the second thing I like about the book. There's so much to learn. Like...

Did you know that fructose is the major cause for a condition known as fatty liver? Or that sugar is more damaging to the heart than either fat or cholesterol? Or that the quickest way to lower your triglycerides is with a low-carb diet? Or have you heard of the Triglycerides to HDL ratio as a risk indicator for insulin resistance and heart disease? I sure didn't. These are just some of the things you will learn from reading this book.

Anyway, like I said, there's so much to learn in this book. And that makes for a great read.

There's also the fact that the book is now on its second edition, which came out last year. If what the authors wrote were a bunch of baloney in the first place, then the chances of coming out with a second edition would be slim. But here it is, the second edition. And that leads me to another thing I liked about this book — it seems very well researched.

It's almost like they knew that people were going to come after them, regardless of how convincing their arguments were. And so they try to preempt this by presenting their sources. The end of the book is filled with references to the various studies that they referred to in the book. I know I need to do my own research and fact-check them. But they are making it easy by providing you the info to all the studies they've referenced.

Lastly, the book was a page-turner. This was probably the most surprising thing about the book. I didn't expect a book talking about cholesterol and statin drugs to be a page-turner. But it was and I very much enjoyed reading it.

What I didn't like about this book?

I'm not sure I found something I didn't like about the book. The only thing I can think of, is that I wished the authors would have dived deeper into the different diets that we have today. They do mention Keto, Paleo and Plant-based diets. But they didn't really cover it as much as I wanted them to. They mostly talked about the Mediterranean diet and Low-carb diet. And how those two diets could help improve your cardiovascular health.

Rating

I give this book a 5/5 rating. It was a great read. I've learned a lot from reading this single book. The authors present their case convincingly. They provide the references to the various studies they researched, so you can look them up yourself. Even if you don't buy into their argument, this is still a great book to read to broaden your view on cholesterol and statin medications.

Tags: #BookReview #PublicHealth