§ I’m still riding out the long tail of my cold. Nevertheless, I went on a four mile hike on Sunday and then went back out to the same trail again on Monday to take advantage of temperatures 30°f warmer than average for this time of year.

§ I took advantage of the unseasonably warm weather to clean up the garden. I planted a huge patch of onion sets which were a surprising success as scallions last year and in a long raised bed next to the greenhouse I planted a variety of cold hearty salad greens: rapini, parsley, kale, spinach, and collards.

I also got a jostaberry cutting. I’ve never seen the fruit before. I guess it’s a cross between a blackcurrant and a gooseberry. I had always wanted to grow blackcurrants but didn’t want to risk spreading white pine blister rust. Apparently that isn’t a concern with the jostaberry.

§ I finally visited my local parrot shop because, well, it turns out we have a local parrot shop.

Wow, it has got to be the most overwhelming auditory environment I’ve ever experienced. Just imagine what it sounds like to have a hundred screaming macaws packed together in a tiny suburban strip mall storefront.

§ I didn’t think I was going to stick with it, but I’ve been using Apple’s Journal app daily for the past twelve-ish weeks now. It has found its own place next to Obsidian which I’ve been using to keep track of daily tasks for years. Journal is much more effective at reminding me what I did and how I felt on any particular day whereas each day’s note in Obsidian is just a bunch of checkboxes detailing what I had and hadn’t accomplished. I know I could combine the two and just keep track of all of this in Obsidian but I actually appreciate the split.

§ I got Casey Liss’ portable monitor. It is super cool. A single USB-C cable carries video and powers the monitor. Unfortunately this also led me into USB spec hell.

None of my Mac cables work at all. Same with the shorter USB C-to-C cord that came with my iPad. The tiny 4” cord for my external SSD kind of works but then the monitor only reaches 10% brightness. Apparently it requires a “USB-C 3.1 Gen 1” cable or higher but because USB-C cords lack any form of external identification my only options are to either methodically try all of mine or buy a new one to add to the pile.

I really love that the world is standardizing around a single plug shape. It occasionally feels like a maniacal genie’s malicious interpretation of that world, though.

§ I saw the world’s largest statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe which is, improbably, located deep in the farmlands of rural Ohio. It was striking, seeing it out there, towering above the tree line.

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