weeknotes

weeknotes for w/c 17/03/25

what happened on the week beginning 17th march 2025?

good morning! it's a beautiful Sunday morning, and spring has finally sprung! the weather was pleasantly mild throughout the week. of course, Sunday brought light drizzles and depressing grey clouds, because it's the UK and we can't have anything nice for too long.

  • took the absolute win of completing 65% of my task list last week. rode that high throughout this week, even though I'm back to just above my baseline at mid-40% task completion. pleasantly surprised I haven't crashed too hard this week.
  • work's been good, just trucking along
    • went into a few more infrastructure meetings on Monday, with a focus on cutting build times. got some action items out of it, so we can hopefully move a little faster starting next week.
    • went into the office on Tuesday, met with some of my colleagues
    • skipped meeting with direct manager this week, as I didn't have much to discuss with him
  • I think other people's routines are fascinating, and we should encourage people to share how they live their lives
    • I want to build more personal tools, and I'd like to see other people building and sharing the personal tools they build
    • might be pretty cool to have my own release week for software projects I’ve been working on, or even a personal hackathon
    • been considering some sort of microgrant system for more "mundane" software that would help improve someone's quality of life (and also give other people tips on how to better live theirs)
  • the highlight of the week is my trip to Manchester. travelled via Birmingham on Wednesday, and came back down on Friday
    • got lunch with Ryan Lee on Wednesday in Birmingham at the Indian Brewery. had the pleasure of catching up with him about being a codebar organiser and becoming a principal over some delicious naans and their amazing mango pale ale. he provided some brilliant advice over lunch, too, and sent me on my way with a lovely chocolate bar. he's a gem
    • a lady from the company I bulk bought loo roll from called me to check in. it was a lovely five minute chat. as a man who lives alone, I won't be buying anymore anytime soon but I definitely have a few friends I can send their way
    • my work laptop and personal laptop are slightly different colours, so it's easy to tell them apart when they're both in my bag. it's the little things
    • the talk went well, and audience really liked it. everyone loved my scatterbrained delivery, and I think I took them along for a ride. about half done with the transcript blog post. need to find some time to polish it next week
      • felt a little overwhelmed towards the end, but I met some interesting people!
      • got told by a Mancunian that people in London look miserable, and I tend to agree
    • crashed in Birmingham at Katie's on the way back, she was incredibly gracious to have me over on such short notice
    • shattered from the trip, and was glad to crawl into my bed on Friday night. didn't give myself much time to rest this weekend, but I can sleep when I'm dead.
  • really tempted to invest in my homelab over the next few months
    • Willow has a nice rack (10-inches, if I remember correctly), and now I want a rack too
    • would like to move a few GCP and CI workloads to my homelab, but I'd like to have some segregated compute for that (which means building another machine, ugh)
    • in terms of my blog, I'm miffed at the lack of footnotes in Ghost (and I don't want to use a hacky workaround). it's the only thing stopping me from going all-in, and writing a custom theme and everything. however, they are experimenting with ActivityPub federation, which is a draw
    • learnt about ARK identifiers, and applied for one
  • interacted with a few loyalty schemes this week
    • got a Treat Drop from Costa on Tuesday, which was a 2 drinks for £6 offer. the drink I normally purchase, tea, is... £2.70, so their little offer is more than useless. if you're going to indiscriminately hoover up my data, at least use it to provide me with products and services I'd enjoy.
    • the Greggs loyalty scheme is the only one I've ever been truly happy with. the stamps in each category are clear and motivating. I think I'd riot if they tried to "fix" it. paid £1.50 a sausage roll, an egg and bacon bap and a cup of tea on my way to Manchester
  • walked part of the Wandle Trail on Saturday afternoon. was lovely getting out with the lads. popped to the pub afterwards, and had a decent (albeit eye-wateringly expensive) fish and chips. saw plenty of dogs and cats, and the walk was lovely.
  • had a good cooked breakfast up the road on Sunday, consisting of scrambled eggs, bacon, sausages, mushrooms, tomatoes, and toast. it was delicious stuff
  • tackled some personal care tasks
    • cut my hair
    • bought floss and stocked up on roll-on
    • purchased foam earplugs for gigs and loud places
  • had a mild asthma attack, but my powder inhaler worked better than expected. glad my medication is working for me.
  • got a letter about one of my regular savings accounts maturing. yippee, free money from me in the past.
  • completed a Google Cloud ML course unit on AI fairness and bias, with some really interesting content. didn't tackle as much as I wanted to
  • I don't know if I'm taking good care of my wok or not, but it's cooking well
  • helped a friend apply for Universal Credit this weekend
  • consumed some media this week
    • watched Austin Powers in Goldmember on Monday evening. a beautifully kitsch film
    • watched the first episode of Daddy Issues, and it's pretty good
    • had another Split Fiction Sunday with a friend! it's such a good game.
      • the two person, split-screen gameplay means dying during combat is less frustrating as you can keep the momentum going. movement is fluid, snappy and dynamic. the variety of art styles and references sprinkled throughout make it clear its an homage to the history of video gaming. I love it.
      • my controller's batteries died, but I'm glad I invested in rechargable NiMH batteries a few years ago. I've saved so much money
  • I'm painfully busy with deadlines and two conferences next week. I'm dreading it. I'll hopefully be able to catch a break in April.

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