Category: Weekly Running Notes

Week 11: 11-17MAR2024

~ Ryan

I love little life moments that feel small at the time, but have the potential to become momentous down the road. This week I took my son to get a new camera. He’s been more interested in photography lately, but his old kiddy camera is just not up to the task of giving him room to grow. He’s been using his iPad to take pictures, but it pains me every time I see it.

I’ve been wanting to get him something better for a while now. He’s not quite at the point where a DSLR would be worth the investment (though I do live for the moment when he wants to borrow/steal mine). So I’ve been looking for something middle of the road for a while now.

I think we finally found something that would do the trick for him. This week we picked up a Fujifilm instax mini Evo for him. And I’m so excited to see what he does with it. It’s a hybrid digital/instant camera, meaning that it works like a normal point-and-shoot digital, but can also print off pictures like an old Polaroid.

We’ve got a family vacation coming up, and I’m hoping that he reaches for his camera at least once during the trip. I’m excited to see what happens. And I look forward to the day when I have to ask him where my camera has gone to.

Weekly Goals:

The only big goal I had this week was to learn the basics of writing a screenplay to prepare myself for the NYC Midnight Screenwriting Challenge. I’m feeling like I’m in a better position now for this writing challenge than I was at the beginning of the week. So goal accomplished.

I also had to secure train tickets for our upcoming vacation this week. And I’m discovering that train tickets in Europe are a funny thing. They’re either very easy, or very hard. I got to experience both this time. But travel is secured, and we’re all very excited for a fun train ride.

Doing:

I finally got around to the household stuff I’ve been putting off. We moved recently, and there are still more boxes than I’d like that needed dealing with. Now there are fewer of those. I’ve always found that it takes a solid year to actually settle into a new place. No matter how many times I move, the timeline never seems to shrink. So I’m giving myself time, but also trying to make sure I stick to doing some settling in every week until it’s done.

This week I’ve been focusing on my office. It’s become more clear to me how much I need this space to be functioning, as I’ve been spending more time in it. I do most writing in my office, and being surrounded by piles of things that need sorting is too much of a temptation to turn away from the keyboard.

Posts Made This Week:

Listening to This Week:

  • Finished Young’s Infinite City. I really enjoyed it, and I look forward to another season of it if/when it comes out.

Currently Watching:

  • Constellation is getting really good.
  • Finished The Last Ship through the end of the fourth season. I can’t find season five available to stream anywhere, which is always annoying.
  • Watched Damsel on Netflix. Very awesome. If I had a daughter, I would watch this on loop with her.
  • Started The Regime on HBO and Mr. & Mrs. Smith on Amazon Prime. These have both been very good so far. Mr. & Mrs. Smith, especially, has been a blast so far.

Currently Reading:

  • Reading Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow still. Loving it so far. Hoping to finish it in the next few days. I’m taking my time with it, though. Some books I’ll burn through, but others I’ll savor. This one has called for savoring.

And that’s the week done. Tune in tomorrow to see what I end up settling on to fill the next seven days. Hopefully I’ll have made my mind up by then.

Week 10: 04-10MAR2024

~ Ryan

Finished my first big website project this week, setting up cornerstone pages. It was a fun project, and one I’m happy I finally got around to. I’m sure there’ll be more homepage-based projects like this in the future.

Weekly Goals:

I had a bunch of household stuff I wanted to get done this week, but most of it got pushed to the back burner for various life reasons. The rest got pushed because I didn’t want to do them. So these will all be waiting for me to get done this week. Yay.

Doing:

One big challenge I had to work on this week was to get a new photo printer. We’ve got a great old Canon printer/scanner/copier that we’ve had for years. It does a good job of printing photos as well. But in our recent move, the heads seem to have misaligned, and I have been trying unsuccessfully to realign them. I’m also out of Cyan. Because it’s always freaking Cyan.

I needed to print some photos this week, and discovered that the printer is now old enough that the ink cartridges are no longer readily available at just any shop. So I ordered some online, but they weren’t going to be here in time. So I shopped around and ended up picking up one of those little Canon Selphy photo printers. And I’ve got to say, I’m really liking this little thing. The prints are of decent enough quality, and the footprint is minuscule.

Posts Made This Week:

Listening to This Week:

Currently Watching:

  • I’m still enjoying Constellation and Resident Alien.
  • Also started playing The Last Ship in the background, because sometimes it’s nice to have something going on around you that doesn’t require much thinking or attention. This has been fitting the bill nicely.

Currently Reading:

And that’s another week done. I’ve been working on a couple ideas for the next few weeks of projects, so I’ll write more about that tomorrow. Until then, rest easy!

Week 09: 26FEB-03MAR2024

~ Ryan

So I do this thing for myself. At the start of each week, I create a fresh note in Drafts to serve as my weekly planner. It basically serves to keep me on task and to plan around family social calendars and remind me of things that need doing. At the end of each week, I sit down and review what has been done and what may need to be pushed to the following week. Then repeat.

I’ve been thinking for a bit now that this would make a great format for a weekly newsletter of sorts. So here’s a first stab at it. I’m sure this may change/evolve over time (most applicable slug line of this site, right there!), but no time like the present to get it rolling. I expect this will be the usually Sunday output you can expect from me until I end up doing something different. Enjoy!

Weekly Goals:

  • [x] Start a blog already
  • [ ] Start exercising again

Doing:

  • Finally started this blog on Thursday. Been posting daily so far. Not sure how the pace will settle out, but this has been manageable so far.

Posts Made This Week:

Listening to This Week:

  • Between podcasts right now. Looking currently for something fun to dig into.

Currently Watching:

  • Started Constellation on AppleTV+. Interesting start. Curious to see where it goes.
  • Started the third season of Resident Alien. Alan Tudyk continues to make me smile.
  • Watched Blockbuster on Netflix. Made me miss working in a bookstore. A fun show, and a shame that it only had a single season run. I could never get past the irony, though, of Netflix making a show about the business it was responsible for ending, only to cancel the show.
  • Watched The Kitchen on Netflix. Just…wow. One captivating display of how bad things can get while trying to just be aline in the world on your own terms, not someone else’s. Strongly recommend.

Currently Reading:

  • Halfway through Cory Doctorow’s _The Bezzle_. Excellent so far, and hard to put down. I very much enjoyed _Red Team Blues_, which came before this, and would recommend to anyone looking for a good quick read. (Of note for Doctorow fans, Humble Bumble is currently running a book bundle for 18 Cory Doctorow novels. Donations go to the EFF. The sale ends in 20 days, and can be found here.)

And that’s that for this week. Again, I’m sure this format will change/evolve over time. But this is a start.

Hope you all are having an excellent weekend. Until next time!