§ Little by little, Christmas decorations have been packed away and I’ve slowly started getting back into the swing of things in the new year. The days are still short but the sun sets after 5:00pm now which is an important milestone.
§ Last Sunday I accidentally made double the amount of bigos I indented—more than six quarts full—so I’ve been eating it for both lunch and dinner for most of this week. I think it’s going to be a while until I can look at cabbage again.
§ On Wednesday our quails started laying eggs again. Basically right on schedule—only a week later than the last two years.
§ On Friday temperatures rose into the low-60s and I went for a short hike around a nearby nature reserve park before work.
I finally looked it up: walking from my home to the park is the same distance—1.25 miles—as my old apartment in Chicago was to my favorite neighborhood restaurant. Back in Chicago I made that walk frequently without a second thought. Here in Cleveland, though, I’ve always driven to the park. I’ll try to remedy this come springtime.
§ Following a sudden unexplainable bout of motivation I picked back up on a stalled prototype project from a couple of years ago and made some nice progress this week.
It’s a prototype exhibit that makes use of a high-quality color sensor for a color matching game/challenge.
I simplified everything dramatically by getting rid of a flaky web serial connection to a separate Arduino and moving all of the electronics and UI code to a single RaspberryPi. I also built a nice CNC-milled enclosure for everything.
§ Caroline and I started volunteering as mentors for her school’s FIRST Robotics team a couple of months ago. Saturday morning was the official kickoff of this year’s challenge which begins this season of the competition in earnest. I see a lot more busy Saturdays in my future.
§ I caught the tail end of an episode of This Country when I was in Ireland last summer and have been trying to find more of it since. Well I finally watched the whole first season and I can confidently say that it is the hardest I’ve laughed in recent memory. Definitely recommended if you are a fan of the British mockumentary format.
§ Also, the second season of The Pitt started. The first season was a surprise hit even though I’ve never been a fan of medical procedurals. We will see if this second season can replicate the magic.
