Life has a way of carrying one away for long periods, and updating one's personal blog inevitably slides far down the list of priorities until it's all but forgotten. Then one Sunday the guilt comes rushing back in, and one realizes they haven't touched the blog since.. August of 2024?!
To be fair to myself; while I usually aim to make one post per project, a lot of what I've been up to in the intervening months haven't really met the bar of standalone project. Still - I can share what I've been up to and drop in a couple fun photos.
October 2024
The big highlight for October was making it out to MagicCon Vegas. I got to play in a ton of events, picked up a few cards I'd been chasing for a long while, and was able to catch up with some of my favorite internet-folks in person again!
November 2024
November was a busy month, with a big focus on re-vamping my office space. I ended up scrapping my old particleboard desk and building a super-wide desk with a step of adjustable legs from Flexispot. I was a little hesitant to buy from them since so many youtubers pitch their products, and they lean hard into the "SALE ENDING SOON" mentality (e.g. I bought the E7 Pro legs for $500, the website right now says they're in the FINAL HOURS of their spring sale and the same legs are.. $550). That said, they work amazingly well, were easy to design around, and my DIY desktop is beefy as hell but still moves smoothly.
Opposite the spacious new desk, I was finally convinced to give 3D printing a try. There was a really solid discount for black friday, and true to the hype, the Bambu X1C has been kinda idiot proof. After weeks of printing I've had to clear one clog, and had maybe one adhesion issue before I got the gluestick memo. Of course it needed some new shelving to flesh out the space. I've got some projects started with it, but will post about those down the line.
December 2024
Somewhere around November I got the itch to upgrade my home gym - I blame the youtube homegym dudes (Coop and Gluck's Gym, of course) for putting it into my head that the Rogue FM6 Twin was an incredible deal for the price. Also, it meant avoiding upgrades that would eat even more garage space. It was a real pain to build, don't let anyone tell you it's a one-person job. Even with helpers it took a solid 2.5 days to get everything together. That said, I've been absolutely loving it so far. It's honestly more gym than I need, but also I will never need to upgrade from this, and get some real joy out of every session.
Another end-of-an-era change in December; I finally retired my old 2002 Escort ZX2, Carthlhu. After decades of faithful-ish service, it was finally time to move on. I donated it to the local NPR affiliate, and while I was in Arizona I got sent photos of it's final voyage. I take some small solace in the fact it still gave the tow truck guy issues - spiteful to the bitter end.
January 2025
It'd been a long while since we'd done any diving, and with an international trip on the horizon, we decided to get drysuit certified! It was a fun time, but ultimately we learned that (1) drysuits are insanely expensive, and the rental ones are kinda bad, and (2) dive shops in Japan don't usually rent gear in very tall sizes. Still, it was a good experience, and if the opportunity arises to do some very cold dives, I'd be very much down. Given the financial uncertainty right now, I'm pretty happy we didn't decide to invest in more gear just as travel gets more difficult.
February 2025
The big trip we'd been planning for months finally came in February! We were off to Japan for two weeks - first week in Tokyo and the second in Hokkaido. Quite different experiences, but both weeks were amazing. The least compelling bit was a couple nights in Nieseko, in part because I don't ski, but also because it felt the most like a generic ski resort rather than part of Japan. Tokyo & Sapporo were excellent, but the unexpected standout was Noboribetsu, the onsen town in southwestern Hokkaido. Super charming, the onsen was perfect, and I got the impression we were there off-season as it wasn't crowded at all. Can't wait to visit Japan again, truly too much to see and do.
March 2025
Right after our big trip, we had a short reprieve of routine life before Emerald City Comic Con hit - one of our annual traditions at this point. I love Seattle, it's a great excuse to catch up with some friends who settled in there, and the convention is always a blast for me (despite being long absent from our local comic shops).
Kinda The Whole Time, and Going Forward
One psudo-project I've been working at since mid-2024, I'm trying to take my health and language learning more seriously.
Back in August 2024 I decided to get a DEXA scan, in part because I'd always figured they were prohibitively expensive and carried too large a radiation dose. Turns out neither of those are true, it cost about $60 and the dose was 0.1x a dental x-ray (or about one day's expose to natural background radiation). Turns out my body fat percentage was pretty high, close to 33%. While I've been able bring that down quite a bit, still not where I want to be. The Japan trip and 2025's stress eating undid some of that progress, but also seeing my lean mass improve with lifting has been a big motivator. In the interim I managed to get through a couch-to-5k program; true to form it started feeling too easy, a lot of it felt like it was harder than I could handle, but I finished all the sessions and can jam 5k runs at okay-ish pace now! The key will be convincing myself to run during allergy season.
On the language side; I've got a buddy I have lunch with fairly often, and we'd both been trying on-and-off to learn a new language. One day I made an off-hand comment about night classes, and after lunch that thought stuck in my head, "yeah, are those still a thing?" They very much are! A quick search turned up the San Jose Learning Center, and I took the plunge into Russian 2, a seven-week class that met once a week for 90 minutes via zoom, plus an in-person even where the levels mixed and everyone gets to practice together and cook food. It was so much more effective than solo study for me, in large part because simply knowing I'm expected to show up (and take a turn reading, answering questions etc) means I actually make time to study. I also can't overstate how relieving it was to see other students make mistakes and improve - in solo study one can end up feeling like they're the only one struggling to learn, and one's own progress is often harder to gauge. This week I'm finishing up Russian 5, meaning I've been going strong for 21 weeks, and just signed up for the next session.
Impressive accomplishments to be sure. I wish I had a tenth of your energy and ambition! Mom