status updates

📖 reading before bed. Been a while!

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🎥 watching Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back.

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✅ Fix the kitchen drawer - it ain’t pretty but she’ll hold.

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📋 New task logged: Clean out washing machine → aaronaiken.me/tools/tasks/

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💻 restarting.

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testing…

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✅ Shipped: Build “Command Deck” - proper blog post about this to follow but man o day. So pumped.

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📋 New task logged: Build “Command Deck” → aaronaiken.me/tools/tasks/

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☀️ good morning! Sun is shining and the skies are the best shade of blue! I’ll ignore the below freezing temps.

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🥶 temporary fridge in place (apartment size). will use it upstairs now until our main one is fixed or replaced. then the temp fridge will live in the basement next to the stand-up freezer for overflow stuff/drinks/etc. what an ordeal, but thankful to have the backup in place.

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😒 meh. Time to call someone who knows what they are doing. All of my poking and prodding and troubleshoooting has resulted it nothing. Everything seemed fine when I took it apart, I’m at a loss. Getting a smaller fridge for the basement and calling a pro for the other.

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🛠️ building tonight. distracting myself from the very real things of life at the moment.

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🧊 continuing to troubleshoot the freezer. Larger issue identified today with independent thermometers in both fridge and freezer. Fridge is 20* above what it should be. Defrosting overnight and opening up from the inside to check out evaporator related parts…eesh.

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🏈 Mozzie’s NFL Flag Football team (Steelers) won today against the 49ers! This is his second season playing and his first win, he’s pretty excited :-)

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😔 my grandma, “mom-mom”, is likely to pass today or this week. She’s ready. We were never close but this is still very sad to watch. She’s my last living grandparent.

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☕️ Good morning. Windy out there today. Hoping today offers something akin to Holy rest.

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😴 these weeks lately, taking it out of me! Looking forward to sleep, praying it is a solid night of rest!

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🧋 cold brew finished steeping, second batch of the season.

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📋 New task logged: Fix the kitchen drawer → aaronaiken.me/tools/tasks/

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🪚 sawdust and shavings. Been a while.

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☕️ alright, who’s making the coffee?

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🍿 cold brew made and steeping. Popcorn popped. Crafting s manhattan next. Then sitting down with Mozzie to watch Rogue One.

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🧹 cleaned out the inner workings (coils, fan, etc) of the refrigerator…hoping by later tonight it is apparent (via an ice cube forming) that the freezer is fixed…

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✅ ok. Regrouping a bit. This week has absolutely drained me. Today’s plan: do the daily items then focus on building automation. Continuing to chip away at automating the tedious parts of my job. Worthwhile investment of time.

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🐿️ well, that was quite the chase. back to the list for today!

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📋 New task logged: fix the kitchen drawer → aaronaiken.me/tools/tasks/

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📋 New task logged: Fix the freezer → https://aaronaiken.me/tools/tasks/

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🫠 hm. freezer isn’t freezing…

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🐍 so much python lately.

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☕️ good morning, time to get into it. TGIF!

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😴 long but great day!

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😵‍💫 days like today make me feel…weird. brain is all over the place. work is insane. i have creative bursts/thoughts hitting me but i can’t do anything about them, so then my brain starts to worry about losing them. meh. all good stuff, just a lot.

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🥱 Wednesday afternoon slump…phew!

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🌐 brew install –cask finicky

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🧯 yesterday was nothing but fighting fires…fingers crossed today allows for a more stable approach to getting things done.

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🦛 shifting from Pirate Ship to Shippo. fun names.

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💊 gonna need Monday to take a chill pill.

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☕️ Building this morning, connecting things. FastMail, PythonAnywhere, Stripe, Pirate Ship, Jekyll, GitHub, etc etc etc. Hello Monday!

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🧠 brain has been in overdrive lately with the ideas. jotting down and making as much as i can to capture them as they come in.

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have a goal, and some late night time is required…

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🛸 rewatching Andor season 2 with Mozzie.

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👋 hey, Saturday! Nice to see ya!

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🙂 a nice evening catching up with a friend. belated birthday cigars and manhattans.

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☕️ Good morning, my kind Internet friends across the globe :-) TGIF!

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🥃 what a day, what a week! Looking forward to wrapping up a few things tomorrow. Grateful log to pickup again shortly. Writing in general. Stay tuned :-)

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💻 early morning tinkering before work (which will also include tinkering, just in a more professional manner).

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🙏 feeling rested.

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😴 sleep shall be sweet, I pray.

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🤪 brain is all over the place today. In an extremely creative spot at the moment.

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🥃 late but good night.

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🏈 car session while mozzie is at flag football practice. tinkering. launching some redesigned things soon.

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☀️ sun is shining this morning! A welcome sight, now we just need to temps to continue their climb.

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❤️ appreciate my family putting up with me being such a nerd.

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🥃 what a weekend! Yesterday started at 6:30am with work, then house and yard work followed by taking dinner to my grandmother. Today started at 5:30 for resurrection Sunday and the related gatherings. Taking a beat now before resting. Full week ahead!

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test…

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🔊 wiring for sound

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🔊 wiring for sound

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🔧 tinkering

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☁️ overcast skies made for a bleak sunrise service earlier this morning. Was still a great service though, even if cold.

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🌅 He is risen!

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🌱 yard work Saturday!

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💪 problems lately have been solved by giving them a night to rest, solutions being found readily each morning.

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☕️ early start to Saturday with work, unfortunately. Need to finish what I stated yesterday. Just a season.

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😵‍💫 helping Lindsay with her statistics class…oh man. not for me.

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☕️ Having coffee with my brother and showing off my cool status update process.

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☕️ good morning! yesterday was not idea, too much work and not enough present family time. hopeful that the weekend offers us what we need.

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☕️ good morning! yesterday was not idea, too much work and not enough present family time. hopeful that the weekend offers us what we need.

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☕️ good morning! yesterday was not idea, too much work and not enough present family time. hopeful that the weekend offers us what we need.

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🔥 steak on the grill

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🌧️ rainy today! more coffee required.

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testing with an image…

🛌 sleep lately has been terrible, or at least consistently terrible. First it was my shoulder waking me up all night, last night was my left shin (of all things). Need to figure it out, has been a few months of this.

🚀 awesome watching the Artemis II lunch!

😴 power nap!

🎭 Warmer weather means we are getting closer to Mind Steward Kids Theater! I help the camp run their registration, daily camp rosters, and other tech related things as they come up.

🐍 Python has become a goto for a lot of personal and work stuff lately. Not sure where it has been my entire life, not sure why I didn’t use it before, but man am I glad to have gotten into it!

🚀 Later and later lately…but I do eventually get started on what needs to be started.

☕️ Hey there, Tuesday.

🔬 sometimes, after a long work day and an evening full of family time, staying up to tinker is a nice way to wind down.

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🔬 sometimes, after a long work day and an evening g full of family time, staying up to tinker is a nice way to wind down.

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⚙️ so much to automate so little time to do so.

📖 reading before bed: The Lincoln Highway by Amor Towles.

🙏 praying for a solid night of sleep!

☕️ time for coffee!

😴 time to rest, what a week!

😴 time to rest, what a week!

😴 time to rest, what a week!

✨ blown away by what is possible these days. definitely going to be sharing some of what I have built in a post later!

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🥃 pouring a smidge more. Family is sleeping. I’m exhausted but have a few more things I want to tweak.

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📺 later night, watched part of a docuseries about the Inca Empire with Mozzie.

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🥃 Friday night! Time for a manhattan!

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Is this thing still on?

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🚀 SSH pipeline a success, now testing the API key (second test :-) )

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🚀 SSH pipeline a success, now testing the API key

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🚀 Testing the new SSH pipeline

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🧪 testing…

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showing mozzie how this thing works…hopefully it does!

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testing via bash

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is this thing still on?

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Is this thing still on?

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Lots of life has happened. All amazing. And all from God!

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so many good things going on! hopeful that things begin to slow down at somepoint soon though…a break will be nice :-)

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the wind and rain right now is insane!

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an amazing day today. good work. good family time. now, unwinding before rest and starting all over again tomorrow.

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so incredibly difficult to focus.

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now though, Your Friends & Neighbors S1, E6 and some Woodford to unwind for a bit.

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schedule has been too busy lately. all good things but too much. need to schedule time off and away. need to make tiem for reading, writing, and tinkering.

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another friday, and another week that took a lot but also gave a lot. tired and looking forward to rest when i’m able to get it.

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A phenomenal day! Work earlier and then started to prep and paint the mother’s room at church (family day!). Then Costco date with Lindsay and her parents 🙂

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Coffee this morning with my brother ☕️ breakfast with my family 🍳 office run now to ship equipment 🏢

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i may be slightly old-school by saying this, but I belive that, unless asked, opinions or commentary on current events and politics should remain private.

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late afternoon coffee. focus has been difficult lately.

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Haircuts for Mozzie and I - fresh!

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No more car lease! Expenses continue to be eliminated!

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have been doing a lot at the command line lately. Latest is music via cmus

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incredible weekend! Ariana graduated from Messiah Universi on Saturday🎓 and Sunday was an incredible Mother’s Day💐

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friday means wine at 4 🍷

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great day yesterday, finally a break in the rain for outdoor work. full workday otherwise, started the additional part-time work as-well. Also got my workbench put back together in the garage!

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eager for something that may resemble a vacation! Not sure when that will happen, likely has random days here and there over the summer.

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Very part time work lined up, in addition to my regular full time work. God continues to provide.

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exit

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Crafting a few margaritas this evening!

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Great time at church this morning, flag football game in the books. Cigar now to relax for a moment.

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Sold the couch yesterday, so now I am officially and completely moved out of the townhouse! Rebuilding daily. God is good!

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ok, up next: getting the garage sorted, situated, and to a useable state.

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move out is complete! #move

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the internet is awesome. read this and come across this

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incredible progress today, just one more trip of smaller things to be taken out tomorrow. resting now. #move

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Getting really close to being wrapped up here! Next step, later, is getting everything processed at home. Exciting part is dedicated spaces for wood and leather work - “honey do” stations! #move

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blur of a week so far! Today is the last day of moving out. Praying I can get everything finished.

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First and second floors are clear. Shed, deck, and patio are clear. Leather workshop is in-progress and the final piece. Can see the light at the end of this particular tunnel. #move

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Last three move out days ahead of me. Very ready for this move to be over.

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talking with Mozzie about technology, of the electronic variety, our use of it and how we need to do better. I enjoy conversations like that with him. I hopee some of it sticks.

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what a weekend, so good! unwinding for a bit before sleep. full week ahead.

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Sunday morning coffee ☕️

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that was easy, actually. v1.0.4 is live. Release notes courtesy of Gemini. RSS for status updates is available.

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working on RSS for the status updates. attempted this a while ago and it went nowhere…fingers crossed this time is different. Once up and running I’ll feel comfortable leaving this portion of the site as-is for a while.

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finished rewatching Andor S1. I stand by my take after watching it when it first came out: best Star Wars show made.

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Going through the basement, where my leather workshop was, where I sold my soul for a time, is the hardest so far. Saved the hardest for last.

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Power Nap!

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v1.0.3 live.

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and then there were 2. Two items left on my Status Page project until I move this site to the next release. Item 81 next, which will become v1.0.3, then item 32, moving the site to v1.0.4. I did having things organized like t...06:01 PM April 25, 2025 EDT

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oh, and using TaskWarrior is phenomenal so far. Simple is best!

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not enough coffee in the world. another week kicked my butt.

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man o day! crazy how quickly these days go by!

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ok ok. one more thing done. closed #85 - increasing the truncate setting to 300 for status updates. now it is time for bed :-)

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well hey now! we have ignition: latest status update is in the header area of the site. Looking cool! Time for sleep!

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wine and tinkering.

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Great day, incredible weather. Started to get the patio setup, grilled dinner, cigar and cocktail outside after work! Love this time of year!

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should do the trick now.

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testing testing… April 24, 2025 1:52 PM via bash

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test 2 via bash using the modified process. First one was spot on excluding a small error generated that did not impact publishing. April 24, 2025 1:38 PM

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testing locally…hoping to see correct a correct timestamp April 24, 2025 1:29 PM

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Had to give up on using taskwarrior on my work computer, also no luck getting it setup via a PythonAnywhere console. Not for lack of effort! May pick it up again later but pressing pause for now. Have it in use on my Mac for personal tasks, which is a great place to get comfortable using it.

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that’ll be issue #75 - bash status update time - bug. will squash.

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fast morning so far! and I forgot about how my status_update via bash messes with the timestamp of the post. need to fix that. April 23, 2025 8:24 AM

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A lot on my mind, things to do piling up. Taskwarrior seems to be a good tool for me, for how my brain is currently working. Will get it implemented in my work environment as-well to see how it works there. Now: rest.

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ah, CLI. Too much fun. Can’t believe it has taken me this long to discover it.

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Bailing on Emacs. Looking into Taskwarrior. More catching up on Andor now. Brain is tired from the day.

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FF practice for Mozzie. Taking a breather for a bit. Playing around with the latest status being shown in the header of the site now. Also delving into GNU Emacs.

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Great day so far! Coffee this morning with P. Matt, good conversation with Lindsay afterwards, walk with Mozzie, lunch with them outside, lovely weather, and making progress on work and website tinkering!

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Forcing myself to drink more water before more coffee. Still beat from the weekend!

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Alright, security vulnerability resolved for the SMS portion of this status update area. Closes issue #84. Back to Monday. Next enhancement still in-progress, showing the latest update somewhere in the site somewhere. Header, footer, not sure yet.

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Test 7

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Test 4

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Test 3

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Definitely going to need to time away/off soon.

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Caught up on some sleep.

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He is risen! 🙏

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He is risen! 🙏

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Getting things setup to validate the originating number for SMS status updates is coming along well. Bed calls…eager for rest. Last time I slept in this room I was probably grouchy. So much of a story to tell!

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Bed. So tired. Sleeping in a bed tonight, no sleeping pad for me. Longer story to share later. Funny but too tired to share it now.

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The full list of my projects, publicly available.

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Even though I know no-one is watching, which is part of having things here in the first place (because once we know there are people paying attention we will or tend to do things differently), sharing the ideas for this site in public10:58 PM April 19, 2025 EDT

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Random ideas are fun. Eventual goal with this site, in addition to actually writing and publishing, is for the look and feel to resemble a site from the early 2000s. Making a GitHub project now will an initial list of ways to accomplish this.

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Have a few minutes to breathe while Mozzie has FF practice before his game. Sit here and reflect on the significance of the weekend, read, or do website stuff? Will just sit here. (Related to the length of this post, think I’m going to increase to 02:16 PM April 19, 2025 EDT

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Need more coffee. This weekend knocked me out! ☕️

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Awesome Good Friday service this evening!

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Warm temps today! Incredible looking forecast. Very ready for the summer months, grilling, soaking up the sun, cigars and drinks outside, so on and so forth :-)

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Right back to work upon waking, not idea but the present reality. Will make the best of it!

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Done. Not pretty, but got the work finished. Time for bed.

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More work, that type of month, week, day. Need to get a thing done tonight so I have time in the morning for another townhouse session. 🍷

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School and work session in the car with Lindsay. Starbucks! ☕️💻🚗

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Remote work at the dealership 🔧

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🎧 Focusing.

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In and out of getting the latest status update to show in the footer of each page (except status pages). Going well!

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Good morning ☕️ Nice walk with Mozzie, now coffee and a quick swing at issue #42

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Happy with the progress on things during FF practice. Last two enhancements for now: show the latest update in the footer (for now) and status updates RSS. That dynamic timestamp is cool too :-)

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Sweet. Blog post published. Now, dynamic timestamps here.

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FF practice. Doing some small things to help a friend. Then tweaks here.

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Quick and simple update to have the status page a bit friendlier for smaller screens. Chipping away at the list of things for this page and then will move away from working on it.

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Clicker press sold! Thanks to Matthew from CT for taking it off of my hands! Leather sewing machine sold! Thanks to Sarah from NY for taking it off of my hands!

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kept it simple. not doing a sitewide config for opening markdown links in a new tab. Will just do it by hand as needed. issue #64 closed.

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Up and moving slightly earlier this morning. Busy morning ahead. Work to cover, townhouse run, meeting later, more work.

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Groceries put away. Bills paid. Haircut earlier today. Shower soon. Exhausted!

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Very tired today. And throat is oh so very sore. Blaming allergies 🤧

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Dropped the pagination idea again and went with lazy-loading using IntersectionObserver. Pushing to prod soon.

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Good morning ☕️ Allergies are quite a thing this morning after cutting the grass yesterday, to be expected this time of year. Now: pagination

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✅ Grass cut. 😊 Jack and coke never tasted so good. 🍕 Pizza ordered. Townhouse run later.

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Insane day, typical for a Monday. All good stuff though!

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Feels good to have this back to normal. Attempting to add those tags in really screwed things. Lesson learned. Move slowly!

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What a mess. Back to normal and keeping things simple. Will try again later :-)

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Alright. Beginning to troubleshoot things again. Once done, tags will be supported and the various benefits from them. ☕️

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Good morning world ☕️ a type of hello tweet from the early days. Howdy 🤠

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Amazing concert! Anna Lapwood is amazing, the time with Lindsay was so needed!

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another test post, and then bed, I swear #movie

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test post and then bed #movie

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Another Test Movie Update - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - I have high hopes, but am realistic as-well. After this test I’m going to bed. #movie

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Movie Review Test - ⭐️⭐️⭐️ - great movie test #movie

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At the Anna Lapwood concert with Lindsay 🎶 Calvary United Methodist Church in Frederick Maryland.

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🍿 The King of Kings - ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ - Excellent movie, great way to tell the story of Jesus for a younger audience. #movie

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Up a little bit before everyone else. Coffee and tinkering. ☕️💻

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More ideas for this page. Need to finish the primary Status Page project, but first I may implement the way 10:27 PM April 12, 2025 EDT

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Phenomenal day! Incredible progress moving out of the townhouse. Sold my leather sewing machine as-well. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

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Massive progress! Help from in-laws 🙏 will be in a really spot to focus on the basement leather workshop this week.

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Oh yeah. Still spent from yesterday but need to get up and moving. Last major push for this part of the move. ☕️☕️

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Finished moving for the day. Exhausted. Will do more tomorrow.

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Using this iPod is awesome 🎧

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More townhouse packing. Headphones in this time. Less pacing, more focus. 🙏

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Working cigar. Been a while!

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TGIF 🤪☕️

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Just going to throw everything away.

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Back at the townhouse, trying to clean out. Something about this “move” is the hardest. But the best.

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Lunch out!

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ok, please God, let this go through and please God let it show the correct time. 9:46 AM April 10, 2025

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testing testing. 9:18 AM April 10, 2025

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guys. another test. ☕️ 7:39 AM April 10, 2025

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testing again…good morning. ☕️ 7:36 AM April 10, 2025

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Good morning ☕️ 7:31 AM April 10, 2025

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trying once more before bed. 12:39 AM April 10, 2025

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testing

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testing

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after debugging code inserted … 12:23 AM April 10, 2025

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another insane test. 12:12 AM April 10, 2025

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another update to test the timestamp shenanigans. 11:51 PM April 9, 2025

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testing via web. 11:34 PM April 9, 2025

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ok, testing again. at 6:42 PM April 9, 2025.

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changed how the date/time is handled. posting via web at 6:29 PM April 9, 2025.

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test

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test

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testing the timestamp again. 10:20 PM April 9, 2025

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alright…testing timestamp again. 10:20 PM April 9, 2025

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ipod battery replaced! love the focus of a device that does one thing only. for testing: 11:27 PM April 9, 2025

test again. 6:47 PM April 9, 2025.

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changed how the date/time is handled. posting via web at 6:29 PM April 9, 2025.

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web form password protected. testing after authentication.

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testing via web!

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New routing in place via flask. This is a test via SMS again after fixing some things.

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New routing in place via flask. This is a test via SMS.

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ifixit toolkit arrived today. Also replacement battery for my 2005 original 5th gen iPod. Eager to fix it!

I lied. Next item to add: status update source. Showing as “via SMS” will be cool.

FF practice. ☕️💻

Perfection. Back to regular stuff. Just a few more small tweaks to this page then I need to stop the enhancements for a bit. If I can :-)

Fourth test worked flawlessly! Fifth test now to remove the SMS reply, not needed.

Forth test via SMS

Third test. Third time is a charm!

Testing

Test

FF practice for Mozzie, sitting in the car. listing a few things on FB mkt place. Then back to pagination..

ditching the footer changes. pagination is easier said than done, but focusing on it. then rss. then sms.

seems I can’t not do things, no surprise there. in-progress: sidebar, pagination, footer.

all cleaned up for the most part. will shift back to prayfully considering next steps with writing here.

so this is really good for now, I’m satisfied with my progress. Love how it looks! Next small update will be to update the site nav ..

update live! fun looking page :-)

lez do this.

Initial styling of /status.html is good to go for noww. will get things pushed to prod after sleeping. Fun project!

status page is coming along really well on local! eager to continue chipping away.

more coffee. short break, working on the styling of status.html for a bit. then back to it.

back from a new hire meet & greet. seeing folks face to face is always best. post-covid work should be more hybrid than 100% in or out.

Background styling in place for the status page locally. WIP. Happy with how it is looking so far!

coffee steeping.

ok, enough of heading down rabbit holes. sleep!

End of a great family weekend! Full week ahead. Goal for this site: style the Status Page as a 2007-ish Twitter profile.

Mozzie’s first flag football game went great, he had fun! Wine now, low key evening before a busy week ahead.

took a few attempts for me to do this one, actually, but now mozzie can see how it all works! he’s standing behind me :-)

the novelty of this will wear off eventually, don’t worry. Until that time, however, I will post more than is needed.

☕️

seems to be working great!

third try via terminal. this one should push without me having to do anything…hopefully :-)

Cleaning out from the past 4 years. Heavy to do so, but is a massive step in the right direction…finally!

testing via terminal!

testing a status update in terminal!

Status updates are live! Future enhancements to this feature: styling and RSS. More to come!

Testing the 4th update…should appear at the top of the list!

Test post 3. Trying to get the sorting right on the page.

It appears to be working!

Testing…this is a status update…testing!