Personal Log

So I've read a couple things since I last posted here. I picked up the Bone Shard Daughter on a whim and really loved it. So many interesting characters and relationships between them all. The world-building is top-notch. I absolutely cruised through the book, quite a page-turner. I'll definitely be reading the rest of that series, for sure. I also started, and am in the middle of, Daughter of the Moon Goddess. This one is a little different. It's very romancy and kind of conventional about it. It's not bad, the writing is good, and the world is a really fun take on the Celestial Empire it's just kind of more like shojo manga than anything else. I'll still be finishing it, I think. I hold out hope for an interesting twist coming up. I'm going to hold off from buying any more books until after Christmas, I think.

Happy Devil's Night! to those who celebrate.

I've been, very very slowly, going through some tutorials about Astro, this static site building framework, and it seems pretty good! I think it should work pretty well for making Neocities sites, and like the goal is to replace this simple journal with something a little fancier once I know better what I'm doing with Astro. I just need to be patient and work things out.

They say you shouldn't talk about how it's "been a long time" in blog posts when there's been a gap or whatever, but I can't help it. It's been quite a month, ok? I'm in the middle of trying to sell a house, and buy a better house to fit my family and it's a lot of stress. Phew!

I think in my neglect, the Tarot thing I set up has become broken. That's fine, I can work on it at some point. I don't think it counts as a production service, lol. Anyways, how are ya'll? I need to read up on my neocities feed and do some catching up!

Oh hi. So earlier today I wrote a new post here about how omg I have been neglecting this blog for so long. I lost it when trying to upload via git, no idea what happened there the whole damn commit just vanished on me, oh well. Anyway, it's been a long time. I've been playing lots of Minecraft, I dove back in there. It turns out that with keepInventory enabled, vanilla survival is a much more fun game. I've been enjoying just exploring the world and making roads and mapping out different areas and biomes and stuff. I like doing super mundane things in Minecraft like just dungeon crawling and farming and whatever. I will probably "beat the game" at some point, but I like pretending it's a TTRPG world, maybe I will start writing stuff down and populating the world with kingdoms and nations and other civilizations and start telling stories there.

Anyway that's all I got for now, I will try and come back sooner next time.

So im reading the sutra about the Ten Bhumis and its pretty good, and i kind of want to record a reading of it, maybe even chant some of it too, would that be weird? im not an expert in sanskrit or any tibetan language or chinese or anything so im worried my umm pronunciation would be bad, but id give it a try.

Also the version i have has lots of footnotes, that i'd want to read too. And maybe give some definitions of words that have been kept in sanskrit and other languages and try and provide a translation or brief explaination or something for those. I'd have to find a good time to do that. right now is the quietest time, but i dont think my family would appreciate me being all loud.

I dunno i might just do it, lemme see what i can figure out.

So it's June now. I've been kind of out of energy for a while now, I just am feeling down about myself and like I have nothing interesting to say, All I do is work and try to stay ahead of whatever the next disaster is. Sometimes I have time to write or whatever, but I'm always too exhausted to do anything about it.

I was reading the other day about the crazy toxic disaster that happened in Michigan in 1973-74, which would have been right around when I was born. What happened is that some chemical company made a collosal fuckup and mixed a few hundred KG of this nasty fire retardent chemical into a livestock feed. They basically ran out of labeled bags for these two similar looking but very different substances, one a harmless food additive, one a deadly poison.

So tens of thousands of livestock animals were basically slowly poisoned over a whole year, with tons of animals being slaughtered and sold for meat, poisoned milk being shipped off to grocery stores, etc. They estimated that every person in Michigan may have ingested at least some of the poison.

Anyway my point to this story is: Maybe that's why I am the way I am. Maybe I have some subtle birth defect from being exposed to these toxins. Maybe it's lead. Maybe I am just a disaster. Ugh, anyway. That's all I got today. :/

I started reading A Court of Thorns and Roses, by Sarah J Maas and I'm getting some unexpected Isekai vibes from it, I'm in Chapter 6, which is interesting. I don't remember the specific recommendation that made me add it to my to read list, but I'm glad I put it on there. I've only come across I think maybe one passage where I was like, "that was not worded very well" and it wasd such a trivial thing that it doesn't even bear mentioning in specifics. Overall it's very well written, I love the characters, even the ones that are meant to be not very loveable. They're very interesting characters which is very refreshing.

Got some basic weather data for my location working. Kinda. I'm using github actions and a little Python script, and it's polling correctly every half-ish hour and updating the stats, but for whatever reason the neocities public action isn't getting triggered. That's fine, it just means it won't be super accurate all the time. Since I'm pushing fairly regularly it should at least get an update every day or so. That's the main reason I added the "Last Updated" field, I figured I might not be able to make it update all the time. Anyway as you can see, the weather is preeeetty nice here rn, I Might have to work outside for a little while.

I tested out a new host for the tarot api over the weekend. It went alright, but honestly Render gives you an awful lot of good stuff for free, so I may just stick with keeping it there for now. I'm adding a few more things to my to-do list, just a couple of small improvements that can be made here and there. I swear I'll have time to work on fun things some day.

Well I am pretty pleased at how things are progressing around here. I've done a little housekeeping, updated my todo list, and now it's Friday! Pay no attention to the Holosuite update I released, btw, that was an accident. I haven't had a lot of time to play with Twine and really learn how it works so I'm not quite ready to do a full like program there. Soon though. It's Friday after all! Yessss, made it through another week. Anyway, that's all I have for now.

Hey, I fixed the Oracle! It turns out that the api I was using was really easy to deploy so I just forked the git repo and put it up on my own free render account. I think I am going to limit it to just this domain, but if anyone wants to use it let me know and I'll add you to the CORS list.

Well shoot, the tarot API I was using has gone dark so that's busted. Fortunately I can just pull down a copy of the source from github and host it myself. But of course that will take time, of which I don't have a lot to spare. So another thing that needs to get added to my backlog. Maybe I can work on that today after I finish on my day job.

Well, instead of trying to figure out secrets management which is what I should be doing, I decided to play around with Twine, a cool interactive fiction tool. I'm going to try out using that to generate some fun Holosuite content. I was originally planning to do a separate html file for each "scene" but Twine looks way simpler and more fun than doing things the hard way.

I have been having a hell of a time trying to get some basic space weather stats to work. I keep having issues with CORS and then issues with the proxy I tried to set up to work around that, and then I just spent way too long trying to teach myself how to make this work. I am a mediocre at best code wrangler, I'm more of an Ops/Linux nerd and could not program my way out of a paper bag. I'm pretty sure this is actually not as hard as I am making it out to be, and i just have some basic misunderstanding of what's going on here.

Anyway, today sucked so I havent had a chance to even think about the above problem. Some asshat stole the doorbell camera off of my front door. I have zero faith that the local ACAB precinct will bother to do anything about it, those guys are good for eating donuts but not much else. Oh yeah also teargassing people who dare to wish for a better world. Oh man I am angried up tonight so i better stop. Happy May Day ya'll!

Coming soon, i am working on getting some space weather info on my front page, for aurora chasing purposes. There were apparently some really good ones recently, and I want to see if i can catch them again. Ive seen some a couple of times, and it's completely worth it every time, one of my favorite things. Anyway i thought it would be cool to pull some real time data about solar wind and recent CMEs and graph them out for frequent reference. I do need to do weather data too, thats also on my todo list.

I started setting up Obsidian for taking notes and writing and whatever today. What a total badass of a program, I see what the hype is about. Yeah it's just a Markdown editor, but it's kind of a big deal. I also learned today about iSH, which lets you run an Alpine Linux shell on iOS devices, which is also a game changer. Being able to sync my junk up into github is pretty pretty cool. I think the addition of these two things to my toolbox is going to make writing, both for work and for personal stuff, a lot easier. And hopefully will help me get my dumb self organized. I'm always forgetting stuff, so having an offboard brain extension is kind of a necessity. I'm glad i can set it up in an open-source friendly way, too. I've used Apple's Pages app for writing for about the last two or so years, and i don't like being locked into a proprietary format. I'm all about OSS at heart. Anyway, hopefully this means i will be writing here (and other places) more often.

i cannot find a book I can stick with, gave up on yet another one that i was just bored to tears by. I used to be able to read basically anything but now I have such discriminating tastes. Very few things have been really grabbing me. I feel like a lot of the fantasy Ive tried to read is either too young adult samey, or too grimdark military story. I really want to read newer fiction by more diverse authors, but havent really found a lot to dig into. Oh well, the quest continues... any suggestions for reading material would be appreciated, drop into chat and let me know what's good.

Whoa I know I should update this journal more often but boy has my real life been busy these last few weeks. I got back into Pico-8 development, I should have something I can post from that soon. It's just going to be a really basic shoot'em up game done off of a tutorial, but I think I have a few elements that should be at least interesting and different.

So I have been having these super realistic dreams for a while now, it started when I stopped smoking weed. That always happens, I stop dreaming when smoking and afterwards the dreams get progresively more and more vivid and detailed until they approach "Inner Light" from ST-TNG levels of "Oh I just lived an entire lifetime while I slept for a normal amount of time." Last night was one of those. I was me, but also not me. My life was mine, but also not-mine. The people in my dream were all people I was close to, but I don't know who any of them are. It's a very strange feeling to wake up after one of those.

I just pulled a tarot card, askign the question "What should I do now?" and it was the Ave of Pentacles. Does That mean I should be content? I should just go with the flow and do what needs doing? That's kind of what it seems like to me. And that's kind of the attitude I try to carry all the time anyway.

Well after a couple of false starts, I found a new book of fiction to read. I'm not sure how long it is going to take, though. I'm pretty damn busy out here in the meat space. Easter was nice I suppose, I got to see my extended family for a brief time. Pulling a tarot card this morning got me the Hanged Man, and I definitely feel a bit stretched out and upside down today. But that's not all the Hanged Man means, there's some secret knowledge that comes along with it, like Odin and his runes. My life feels a bit off the rails is how I've been thinking of it. The last week or so has been a challenge and the next week or so looks equally to more challenging. Today was definitely a wake up call of a Monday, like get your shit together or the world is gonna roll you.

OK so I changed a couple of things; one is that the Tarot API was using the name 'Fortitude' instead of 'Strength' which is what's on the card image I'm pulling, so I added an exception for That. Also I changed my reading list and that removed the weird characters that were showing up. I can't come up with a good thing to read right now, for whatever reason. I definitely want to find some fiction I can get into, specifically I've been craving some good old fashioned swords and sworcery kind of Fantasy. You know, basically D&D in a novel form. But like a lot of the things in that genre are old and dated and problematic, I want something a little more modern than say Dragonlance. Maybe I'm just being too picky.

Man I updated my reading list a little while ago and now there are some weird ghost characters above the title of my current reading book, I don't know where that came from and I am a little bit perplexed as to how to further troubleshoot it, lol. I am sure it's something super dumb and simple.

So I have been writing a personal journal in Pages (on Mac OS) for a while now, but I've decided to Switch to using git and markdown for it instead, to make it more like this page. It'll be cool, and easier to update, and more portable, and I can update from any device, which is the goal. I'm going to try and update this blog (and probably the personal one as well) to use Hugo, like a real website. I am really working hard to get all my stuff into open source and smaller infrastructure. I want to be a part of the Smol Web. Haha.

I finished reading the Errant RPG yesterday, and it was pretty decent. I'm considering running through a quick solo adventure just to play around with the rules a bit. It reminds me a lot of Marching Order, at least in terms of flavor. Which, that's another game I really should dig out of my boxes at some point, I have all my books packed right now and they're not super easily accessible. Oh yeah also, I was going to start reading another book, but the Libby app, which I've been using for checking out library books, won't open the book for some reason. So weird.

Well I've added a cool Github Action to automatically deploy this site to neocities, so I don't have to use the (really awesome but sometimes clunky) neocities web interface, and can edit my files with whatever text editor happens to be handy. I may try to generate some parts of the site dynamically, now that I have a decent deploy situation. I guess this post itself can constitute a test to make sure the system works as expected.

OK so I finally finished my book, the one about Taoist Meditation. It was really good, but definitely a very dense read, full of footnotes and references. It also contained a full translation of one of the original sources that were indicated. I'll be trying something a little lighter now, ad hopefully can finish it in less time and that's the RPG book Errant. I'm obsessed with small RPGs that are not D&D so this should be a fun one. well that wasnt so hard, I've updated my Oracle with the 3 card spread. Hopefully it displays alright, i havent tested it much. I have some plans to make a three card spread option for tarot, i just need to work out a couple of details. I actually do have a working test, just need to add a few things to it first, ill get to it slowly. Anyway, i am going to be pretty busy here in meatspace for a while so my updates will be fewer in number.

I added a chance for the card to turn up Reversed on the oracle page, which was way easier than i thought it would be. Adds a little spice to the daily card pull.

I am really close to the end of my book, and excited to move on. i think the next one im going with is going to be the Errant RPG book, for a little something light.

Expanded my reading list a bit after soliciting for some recommendations on mastodon. I'm about three quarters through the Taoist meditation book and am enjoying it but also i want to get to the next thing before wednesday. just for reasons. its been a very dense book, itll feel good to finish.

I've added an oracle page to the site. I made this because I was wanting to draw a daily random card but all of my decks are packed away in boxes due to my current weird living situation. Feel free to use it yourself, hopefully it's light enough on use that the image host and random api host don't get too annoyed. i might make some improvements at some point when i get time.

I've been reading a book on Taoist meditation (as seen over in my reading log) and it's really hitting home how intertwined taoism and buddhism are, and especially were during the periods when meditation practices were being developed in China. I think it's fair to say there is no real dividing line between the two, at least in the early period. They used the same or similar terminology, the same practices, referred to the same texts, and sought much the same end goals. Most of my reading has been in buddhism up to this point, though I've read a few translations of the Tao de Ching, and it's wild just how much of what I like about Zen/Seon/Chan is also contained within taoist writings. This book has been really helpful, and is very academic and well cited. I've been taking notes on it for future reading it's just that detailed. WHile there were a few longer slogs it's also been mostly very readable and not too bogged down in technical language so I definitely highly recommend it.

You ever spend way too long looking at a computer screen and like your eyes feel like theyre going to fall out? I am getting so old, like old enough that i need to squint at my computer screen anymore, and I know for a fact i should have bifocals. That is definitely going to be something i take care of, maybe next month. It'll be exciting to be able to see again. I lost my glasses a long time ago, and my eyesight is not really all thaaaaat bad for most purposes so I've just gone without. Big mistake, don't belike me.

I just bought a one-way plane ticket, so that's pretty wild. I'll be moving from the town I've lived in for many years, back to the place I came from. I'm largely happy about it, but there are still some things unresolved here. It's fine, I can come back to deal with those at some point, but I just wish I could get it all done at once. There's things that are just too much out of my hands. I don't want to get into specifics, for security's sake, just. I hate leaving things undone and I feel guilty about not being able to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. But, airplane! Yay!

Ugh, daylight savings time is the worst. I wish they would just pick one and use it all year round. I feel like i lose at least three days of being productive while my body is trying to adjust to the new daylight situation. Both going forward and going back hit me equally hard, I think. That's one of the reasons I decided to use ISO standard UTC on this website, is that it's like a universal standard that doesn't change relative to anything else. We as like a society need to all get on the same page if we're going to go to like space and whatever.

Also I just like clocks, and calendars of all kinds. I think I may incorporate a Mayan baktun calendar on my front page here at some point, in addition to the Unix Epoch and ISO time. It would be nice if the mayan glyphs would get put into unicode already, but i bet i can find a webfont somewhere that has them.

I started a reading log, over on the about me page. I'd like to maybe get through ten or so books this year, just as a personal goal because i havent been reading much lately and i miss it. I'm going to try and split it up at least sort of evenly between fiction and non-fiction, but also I'm going to include game books in there as well. I'm not sure, does that count as fiction or non-fiction? The game rules parts are certainly non-fiction, after all its a real game. But most of them take place in a fictional world, and contain at least some story parts in them. Either way, I love reading RPG source and rule books, even if I don't get to play very often.

I schlepped all my old entries over to an archive page so I didn't have to look at them anymore. I didn't want to delete them because I don't roll like that but I just wanted to start fresh again here so here we are. I'm going to try and write in here a little more often as time becomes available, we'll see. I like this goofy website.