I got up early this morning, and instead of starting out with some writing of the Ruby code, I opened my notes app and started writing a blog post for today. Nothing major, just an observation for tomorrow. It’s queued up and ready to be published later today. Feels good.
Cal Newport with some advice on dealing with election day anxiety.
Here I have a suggestion that I think could be healing for all points of the political spectrum: use the stress of this election to be the final push needed to step away from the exhausting digital chatter that’s been dominating your brain.
Although I am not voting, I am slightly anxious about what the electoral map will look like by tomorrow. With the timezone difference though, I won’t have any issues following Cal’s advice. By 10pm tonight I will likely be out for the count.
I had some company this morning in the garden.
I was hoping the Packers would at least have a close game with the Lions tonight at Lambeau. After a dismal first half and the Packers just giving away penalties, I’ve seen enough.
Settling into Stimulus once again
Over the last few days, I’ve been writing more JavaScript than usual. The reason? I am using Stimulus a lot more in one of my Rails projects.
Enhancing the functionality of my Rails application with some HTML markup and a JavaScript controller is good, as Stimulus has a small learning curve and integrates well with Rails.
As I add more Stimulus to the application, though, I am learning some of its best practices the hard way. One criticism I have of my own controllers is that they are very page-specific. That’s fine for now, as the application is relatively small. Still, I plan to break these controllers into more generic behaviours that can be re-used more easily across the application in the future.
Going to start blogging again
I’m going to start blogging again.
Not the titleless posts I have been posting for the last couple of years, but the longer posts that need a title. The posts need to be split up into sections. The posts that have a call-to-action. The posts might just be rambling for the sake of it. The posts that venture an opinion. The posts that tell you something you already know. The posts that tell you something you don’t know. The posts that I will deem not worthy of publishing, but I do it anyway.
It’s not a ground-breaking start, but it’s a start.
Congrats to the Pixelmator team on joining Apple! I’ve been using Pixelmator for years and have nothing but praise for its simplicity and design.
While this is excellent news for Pixelmator, I wonder how long Apple will allow Pixelmator to exist as it is.
Our Japanese Maple in the garden is looking its best just before all its leaves start to fall. I wish autumn was a bit longer.
I mostly have notifications turned off, with only a few apps enabled. Even then, the scope is narrowed down so that I receive a notification from that app once or twice a day.
I had a great time with Drew out in the course today. With winter golf around the corner, it’s time to encourage Drew to try different shots and learn more about what’s possible with his clubs.
I’m heading out for 13 holes of golf with my youngest shortly. I love that our golf club’s course allows you to play 5 holes, 13 holes, or a full round. We’ll mostly play 13 holes over the winter until the weather improves.
Curtis McHale’s Makoism find also got me thinking about how I phrase my RSS feeds and changes.
RSS rotations. I love the sound of that.
I’ve seen many posts about people cancelling their Washington Post subscriptions, but I wonder if cancelling your Amazon Prime is the way to go?
The best thing those readers can do is cancel their $139 annual Prime subscriptions, if they have them, and invest that money in the journalism they say they want and need.
I like The Atlantic’s point about hitting Bezos where it matters: Amazon Prime subscriptions. Newspaper subscriptions allow for more independent journalism; we shouldn’t deprive ourselves of that.
I can’t decide whether Astropad’s Bookcase is a beneficial device or not. Yes, I’d like to read more, but not necessarily from my phone. That’s why I read from my Kindle. If you limit your device count to just the essentials, e.g., no Kindle, the Bookcase would be a good buy.
It’s an excellent start to the day when you’ve added a few new RSS feeds to your feed reader over a morning brew. It’s been a while since I’ve subscribed to anything new.
Excuse me while I bookmark another seller of Notebook & EDC products. This time it’s Lochby.
Watching the final seconds of the Packers game via the Apple Sports app is not good for my stress levels. The field goal was good though. A much needed win for the Packers!
The winds are picking up now for Storm Ashley. Had I known the winds were only going to pick up now, I would have probably taken Drew out for a few holes of golf this afternoon, but the storm warning has been in place since this morning. Oh well.
I’m using an old iPad I inherited as a secondary screen for my MacBook. I’m very impressed with the setup. I can see myself using this setup a lot.
Today, finished getting the back garden in order for the winter. Just the remainder of the leaves to fall and the golf net will come down in a couple of weeks.
Really happy with the avatars Andy Carolan did for me. Sprung for the additional backgrounds as well. Might have to see if I can get a golf one for next year!
I’m looking forward to a few days off work starting tomorrow. I had big plans to play golf tomorrow, but the weather gods have scuppered any plans for that.
Good views for the next couple of weeks as the leaves change colours.
Hunkering down for the night. Beer in my hand, lights are dimmed, watching the NFL. Love this time of year.
Last round at the Fairmont in St Andrew’s for the big yin. Hard to get creative with pictures round a golf course, but I try.
