§ Well hello there, welcome to 2025.
§ I started a bit of preliminary planning for this year’s vegetable garden. I think the soil needs a bit of a break from nightshades—I’ve watched our yields decrease and pests increase over the past few growing seasons. Instead, I want to do a deep dive on beans and peas.
§ Caroline and I cooked beef bulgogi bibimbap and three kinds of dumplings—beef with cabbage mandu, peanut chicken, and pork with Thai basil—for her parents on New Year’s Eve. The bibimbap has become a bit of a tradition—this being our third year in a row making it. It was our first time making dumplings, though, which came with a steep learning curve. They made for a tasty side dish but probably won’t be something we’ll make again for a bit.
§ I’m starting a new year-long project to settle a small curiosity of mine. I put together a Shortcut that used Collections to log: 1) the type of food I’m eating and 2) whether or not it is a meal I cooked myself. Frankly, it might just be an excuse to generate a bunch of charts and graphs.
§ Our quails randomly started laying eggs again. It feels way, way too early in the season for that but I don’t know maybe it was triggered by the weirdly warm weather we had last week? I have no clue.
§ That warm weather? It’s definitely gone now. At least I got to try the new snowblower which is, honestly, awesome.
§ I’ve been enjoying digging though folks’ favorite music of 2024 lists. Particularly James Reeves, Simon Collison, and Sean Michaels. A couple of new standouts that have grabbed my attention are Meaning’s Edge by Djrum, DJ Niraha’s incredibly titled album KorgMusic2024DemoEL-HELL-EΛ.
§ I downloaded the new-ish Mario Party game which turned out to be a surprisingly fun way to spend the last couple of days of my vacation.
The only annoying thing is that it seems to require using a single Joycon as a controller which is maybe the least ergonomic thing imaginable. I’m curious to see if the rumored “Switch 2” console brings any improvements in this regard.
§ Last year was particularly eventful:
- I visited Boston for the first time
- I saw the total solar eclipse
- I got married and went on a thousand mile roadtrip through Québec
- I took a trip to Chicago for the first time in years
I don’t expect 2025 will be quite as busy but there are a few big things I’m looking forward to:
- Week 14 — My first trip ever to the Bay Area
- Week 21 — The public opening of a huge project I’ve been cranking away at for the past year at work
- Week 29 — My one-year wedding anniversary
- Week 36 — A second trip to the Bay Area
§ I went back to work on Friday. Throughout the course of Thursday afternoon it started to become undeniable that I was beginning to come down with some sort of cold. There is something particularly annoying about getting sick immediately after a vacation but I guess it is better than being sick during my vacation. Ugh.
