There are two books, I find myself interested in at the moment and can’t decide. The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova and Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir.

The former has been around for a few years now (2005), and Project Hail Mary was released yesterday. I am really intrigued by the story of the historian, and at the same time, Project Hail Mary sounds awesome and in narrated by Ray Porter.

The system in Puerto Rico keeps failing our women. This week, two ladies were killed, one of them sought help for the system and the system ignored her, as they do. Now, she’s dead. The second, I haven’t read much about other than the killer was a professional boxer, he punched her, injected her with substances, and threw her from a bridge.

He gave himself up to the authorities, and now they’re seeking the death penalty, good, but still…

This is not new in Puerto Rico, and it pisses me off that we continue to be this way.

Their names Keishla Rodriguez and Andrea Ruiz Costa (Here is a tread for her story),

Here is a thing I do. Every Sunday, or almost every Sunday, I do my nails.

Here is why.

First, it’s cool, I like it, I like colors. Second, It has become a thing, the girls have done it for a while and one day I was asked me to join. They pick the colors and all. My wife does my hands though, the girls do my toenails.

But I think the most important reason I do it, is because I want my girls to know that not everything should be gender-specific. Not everything is for just for “boys” or just for “girls”.

But then, when I am at work or somewhere else, I always get the “Oh you must have girls”, every time they see my nails, and I roll my eyes. Some give me compliments and I like that :)

Yesterday I shared some pictures from Marley’s school field trip to the Botanical Gardens. However, I didn’t tell the whole story.

Basically, the story goes like so. As planned, we wake up bright and early, yeah right! I woke up late, then I was rallying everyone to hurry and eat breakfast. Everyone as in Marley and Luna. Still, we managed to leave the house at a good time and made it to the Gardens 15 minutes early!

We had to check in at 9:00am but Marley’s class tour wasn’t until 10:40am. They ran around the grass area then we remembered that there was a park nearby with a playground. We head over and Luna and Marley are having a blast.

At 10:30-ish, the tour.

They also had a blast. We were done by 11:30am ish, and I asked the girls what they wanted for lunch, and it was a unanimous decision to go to the Twisted Timber. Marley and Luna wanted pizza and I was longing for a Fiesta Salad, NOM NOM NOMS.

So, I’m driving through the connector (or freeway) when Marley and Luna started “fighting” as they normally do. This time though, things went…

Apparently Luna was taking Marley’s chips away, to which Marley felt the need to hit her sister. However, not in a way that she really meant to? Next thing I hear is Marley “Luna’s nose is bleeding!!!”

So, I pulled over to the side of the connector, Marley is freaking out, Luna is too and bleeding. And here I am grabbing Annie’s cardigan and using it to stop the bleeding, sorry Annie. There’s blood everywhere. After a few minutes, that for me was like hours, the bleeding stopped and Luna calmed. But Marley is still freaking out because now she feels awful about what had happened.

Now I’m rushing home, to get Luna cleaned up and sort everything out…

Marley spends a few hours crying and feeling awful. Eventually, she comes around, apologizes to Luna.

If there’s something I have learned with these two is that you will never know how things will turn out on any given day. 😅

Luna is fine, and so is Marley, and me. Later we all went to the Twisted sill 😜

I had my Fiesta salad 🥗 and the girls had pizza 🍕

The end…

I think I am broken. Although most of my back and hip issues have gone away a bit, I still have them every now and then. I haven’t been able to do a proper push-up in a while because my left wrist hurts badly every time I try. Then I don’t know what the deal is but every now and then, like several times a day, when I bend my left thumb, it hurts. Like if there was a wire that gets tight and shoots pain.

What’s worse, I am out of warranty. 😅

As an attempt to minimize stress managing tasks, between personal and work, I had stopped using a dedicated task manager app. Specifically for work I just went with a notebook and a whiteboard. This week, I had discovered that this system works great as long as you are not working from home.

There is something I feel like I need to get off my chest. It is this regarding the whole Hey/Basecamp ordeal. I have been having such a hard time thinking about this one, and have many thoughts. I am even afraid of publishing these thoughts because of the cords it might strike for some.

Back in March, I made de decision of signing up for Hey’s email service. I did not do it because I wanted to support or believed in the company, in fact, I knew very little about this them other than the made some project managing tool system. I did not do it because their email was revolutionary. I did it because I was tired and bored with what is already in-place, and I liked what I saw, tried it, loved it — the end.

Then, yesterday the internet goes on fire, as a company they made some policy changes, which enraged everyone apparently, and could see why some people would have a strong reaction to it. I cannot say I understand why they did it, what prompted its decision, I do not know the whole story. I don’t know what happens behind closed doors. Not my circus, not my monkeys, as they say. All there is, are their public posts, and people’s reactions. Everything I read are people somewhat disappointed, angry and whatnot. Cancelling their subscriptions in some kind of boycott. I guess that’s cool, I mean we all have our right to voice our opinions about things and what better way to speak up against a company than with your wallet (or Apple Pay, etc). Me personally, my struggle, is not with what the company decided to do about their internal policies.

This morning I made a post,

Sometimes the mass gets angry about a thing. And perhaps me personally, don’t have a strong opinion about the thing. But then I have the pressure of, if I am not angry at the thing that everyone else is angry about, then I am by default, irrevocably, against the mass and therefore — wrong.

What I meant by that, I think, every time something like this happens and everyone starts hating at a thing, for whatever reason, pick one, if my opinion (if any at all) doesn’t align with the mob, then I am against that mob. This is a thing that has been in my mind for a long time. Not just about Hey/Basecamp, it’s about many other things. What if I just don’t have that strong of an opinion? Does that make me wrong? The situation makes me feel like if I keep using the service, that therefore I am supporting the company which in turn I am agreeing with their policies. If that is the absolute truth, I missed that part in the service agreement when I signed up for it. As far as I was concerned, all I have done is signing up for a service I like using.

There are ten-thousand arguments of why I should cancel my service and give them the middle finger. The internet/Twitter can (and will) list them all for me, I’m certain. Tell me why I should quit using X or Y service or company! You can tell me all the reasons why the company sucks, and I shall not buy or use anything that has anything to do with them.

And this is my struggle. Do I keep using a service, or giving my monies to a company because I, personally, like using their thing or quit using it because everybody else, are in disagreement something they, as a company, did and can do?

All that being, said, I might just be overthinking the internet’s overreaction and just needed to vent.

IN OTHER NEWS:

Started playing NieR Replicant ver.1.22474487139… and I am loving it.

Sometimes the mass gets angry about a thing. And perhaps me personally, don’t have a strong opinion about the thing. But then I have the pressure of, if I am not angry at the thing that everyone else is angry about, then I am by default, irrevocably, against the mass and therefore — wrong.

Everybody’s got a thing

But some don’t know how to handle it

Don’t You Worry ’Bout a Thing

For the past few weeks, I have been getting FaceTime calls from some friends in PR, but always at a “bad time”. Today, finally, all the stars aligned and had a FaceTime call with super close friends I haven’t seen or talked to in years. It was good to see their faces and catch-up with all three of them.

I hope we get to do this more often.

I have always liked the idea that if you can cut the middleman, cut the middle man. Especially when you are paying for the middleman. When Reeder came out with iCloud syncing I thought it was the way to go. For whatever reason though, I always had issues with errors, of some blogs, not syncing, or something of sorts. For that reason, I went back to using Feedbin. Then NetNewsWire released their latest iOS beta which includes iCloud syncing, tried it, it’s rock-solid, and canceled my Feedbin subscription again.

The problem is, I am an RSS reader butterfly, I have never been able to use one RSS client. I like them all for different reasons, and by all I mean, Unread, Reeder, and NetNewsWire. Two of them use iCloud syncing but they don’t use the same iCloud, I don’t know, file or puffy cloud? One doesn’t use iCloud and yet it is probably my favorite RSS client. And even if Unread used iCloud, I am sure it won’t pull the articles from the same place (puffy cloud) as the other two, I think.

Thus, if I want to keep my RSS butterfly lifestyle, I need a backend system, like Feedbin.

I often wonder how other bloggers organize their posts. Do you categorize and tag everything? Is it by year, context, blog site (if you have multiple sites)? Is it worth organizing at all? I often debate about my own organization, if any.

Here’s how my Ulysses looks at the moment;

Organization is minimal, as you can see. Actually, it is almost none existent. I dabble between the same two categories, Inbox and Graz/mL. It should be obvious right. Anything in the inbox is what I am working on. Sometimes even things in the inbox had already been published, but I am lazy, and they can spend days in there until I move them. I have recently created a ‘’Hey’’ one for things published in Hey World, but that’s about it.

‘Shorties’ is supposed to have anything that is 280 character or less, or at least that was the idea. Beer Log, as the name suggests, it’s supposed to have beer related posts but, honestly, I haven’t moved anything into it in a long while.

In other words, everything ends up in Gaby/mL, no tags whatsoever, once its published it just stays in there. And this is now that I am using Ulysses as my main editor. When I was using Drafts, my ‘Publish to Micro.blog’ action would delete the post after publishing.

Maybe I should be more organized? Does it matter, though?

Sight! Many times, I get excited about a new vidjia game. And sometimes said game, has a demo — great! Sometimes, I play said demo and don’t like what I am playing, but I am still excited about the game. I deleted, said demo and re-downloaded said demo, two more times. And two more times, I couldn’t get into it, but I was still excited for the game. The Game comes out, I had some monies in my Nintendo account, and purchased said game. Not only I bought said game, but I got the deluxe edition of it.

The game in question is MONSTER HUNTER RISE on the Nintendo Switch. After purchasing said game I told myself, “alright, let’s commit to it”. I played the tutorial part of it, and I kind of enjoyed what I played, but I was feeling like I was forcing myself in some way.

I have never played a Monster Hunter game before, well, let me rephrase that, I have never been able to get into them. I purchased and played Monster Hunter World on the PlayStation 4 and the same thing, couldn’t get into it.

What I am trying to get at is, well, I have dropped MH Rise, I don’t know why, but I can’t commit to it. Maybe this is not the time? Maybe I will come back to it later, and then I’ll finally get it and play it through? I don’t know, but I like very little when I get excited about a game and spend money on it, just to uninstall it and abandon it. It does not often happen but when it does, I get unhappy.

Some other games that have been abandoned like so are;

• Xenoblade Chronicles 2

• Xenoblade Chronicles Definitive Edition (this one I re-downloaded last night, though)

• Immortals Fenyx Rising (I will come back to this one for sure)

• Darksiders Genesis

I am sure there are more, but those are the ones I regret the most, not finishing.

Whether I might come back to MH RISE, maybe, who knows.

I don’t even know how to properly start this post other than, it would seem that I am not allowed to get too comfortable at what I do.

Every time I feel like I’ve reached a level of confidence, a level of “I’m doing good”, something, out of nowhere, will come around and bring my confidence down again.

It’s as if, it’s never enough, not good enough. I want to believe that with experience things will get much better but seems like I’m not quite there yet.

I’m not allowed to feel comfortable yet.

Today I have learned to never make changes to my site, based on what I see at my work computer, and furthermore, using Chrome. Chrome is great for inspecting but what I see after making the changes, what I see in Chrome, does not exactly represents what I like to see. If that makes any sense. Everything is better looking on Safari.

That being said, dressing up and fixing your site it is mostly for yourself as most people, if they even read my stuff, would do so — most likely — from an RSS reader.

But using the inspector and fixing things here and there is fun sometimes, I learn a lot by picking things and see what they do.

I shall stop now. Back to the writing. If anything.

🦥💨

In my quest for a healthy mindset/lifestyle, I have made some changes. I am not doing my full workout routine and such yet but I have made small changes. For now, I have changed some of my eating habits, eating leaner, eating more fruits and vegetables and less processed stuff, or at least as little as I can. Also and most definitely, cutting down my ale consumption. I have to say, I do feel the difference like my body seems, happier in a way. I like how it feels. Now, I need to up my activity. It is getting warm out so it is time for outdoor workouts or at least to try to go for runs if I can. Last week I did some Apple Fitness and that helped a bit. Even my back pain has gone away, which is interesting. Sometimes I want to change a lot in no time and then I get both overwhelmed and frustrated.

I like where this is going, just need to keep it up.

Today was hairdo day. The Wife got her hair done, Marley and Luna got theirs, and I finally got my long-awaited haircut. I’ve been living in Boise Idaho since 2008, and since then, my lady and I have gone to the same hairdresser, Tia. At this point, she’s not only our favorite hairdresser but also a very close friend, we have a lot of history, and she knows us better than many people.

Anyway, today was like every other appointment, we talk, we catch up and listen to each other. It’s almost like therapy in a way. As I was getting my haircut she asked about how I was doing and all that jazz. I expressed to her my current frustrations on being healthy and active, telling her the changes I’ve been making but most of all whether I wanted to get back into a gym membership or not. Her response/advice was quite the realization and took me by surprise a bit.

She said;

The most in shape I have ever seen you was when you were doing everything on your own, without a gym.

And you know what, thinking about it, she’s right. Yes, it is nice I guess to have a place where you can go and tune the world out, but maybe it’s not absolutely necessary. I enjoy my outdoor workouts far more than in a gym. All I need is a few kettlebells and a decent area, like my backyard. Also, I have been meaning to get back into running, and I rather run out and about over on a treadmill.

It is good to get reminded by people that probably know you better than you know yourself. People that know the best version of you.

Thank you, Tia

Something I am passionate about is photography. I am no pro photographer by any means, but I enjoy taking my camera out and snap a few pictures of anything and everything that caught my eyes.

I feel like I haven’t done much of it in a long while. Besides family gatherings and my girls, I haven’t taken a good photo in a quite some time. Maybe because I don’t go out much these days?

Perhaps I need a Gaby’s day out.

I don’t like spiders, at all, they make me uncomfortable for whatever reason. Last night I dreamt about spiders. I was in a room, I believe it was one of the girl’s. I remember laying in bed looking at the sealing to what it looked like water accumulated in the sealing paint. The paint started to make like pockets, or bubbles. Someone broke one to see if it was water when in fact these pockets were full of spiders, and they were crawling all over the walls. I remember thinking about burning the room or something 😅

I am always curious about the significance of dreams. So, this morning, I went to the internets, as you do, and found some interesting things.

What Does It Mean If You Dream About Spiders? It Doesn’t Symbolize What You’d Think

If you’re afraid of it or repelled by it, it may mean you’re repressing feminine energy of some sort in your waking life — whether that means within yourself or from another person. If it’s a nonthreatening presence, it could symbolize a spirit animal or totem that’s bringing feminine energy your way.

I am afraid of them and repelled by them for sure, so maybe something to do with that?

That could be a substance that’s being used in excess, or “that a relationship, career, or person has turned bad,” explained Richmond to Huffington Post. As for spiders crawling on you, Hack To Sleep explained the symbolism: “In this instance, the spider represents negative influences in your life that are difficult to rid yourself of, such as addictions, habits, or people that give negative emotional, mental, or physical impacts on your life.”

This one struck a cord, there are certain habits and negative things that I feel like I’ve been dealing with lately.

“In your dream, if the spider is crawling up a wall, it means that you are moving forward in your personal and professional life, and succeeding in a goal you are pursuing,” wrote Hack To Sleep. “If the spider struggles on the way up, it could mean that you are hitting roadblocks along the way and need to persist or try new tactics.” Take a dream like this as a sign that you should make like a spider and keep on truckin' when it comes to your IRL dreams.

I like this point better, I can relate, specially in my professional life.

I’m certain that I could go down the rabbit hole with this one. Maybe it’s nothing, just a dream, like many others. Like your teeth falling or being naked in public. I can’t help myself though, I am always intrigued and fascinated by the things I can’t explain.

Okay, hear me out. As it stands, I have three blogging spaces. I’ve got Micro.blog (😘), Hey World and Blot which is currently used for pictures only, although I haven’t been updating it. Micro.blog and Hey, are definitely sticking around, I have paid an annual subscription on both. Blot, well, it’s coming up for review in the next week or so, and I am debating if I should keep it. Of all three platforms, Blot.im is by far the cheapest which is why I keep renewing every year even if I don’t quite use it. But now I have three spaces and that’s too much for me to handle or find a use for.

I got a couple of days to think about it. Part of me just want to keep it, a big part of it is to support Dave and what he’s doing, and again, it’s cheap. I’m sure I’ll find an use for it, eventually.

This should probably be a commuting tales post, but I haven’t been too consistent with that so…

Anyhow, this morning like every damned morning I am taking my regular commute to work. I know I am a few minutes behind schedule, but I know I’ll be arriving mostly on time. As I am getting closer to the site, I noticed most cars are turning left on a street instead of going straight. Well, turns out coops had one block of the highway blocked. And guess where my work-site is?

Just like every other driver I turned left then tried to find another way to sneak into work. I could have cut through the field, which there’s nothing planted at the moment, but I didn’t. Later I realized that cops would let you go through as long as you let them know you worked here.

Obviously, there was a car accident going on, but what freaked me out a bit was that the accident was right by my work-site. Once I have made it to work and got into me morning check-in meeting, my first question was. Was it someone we know? The answer was, yes. Every time I see local news about an accident or something bad, I always think the same thing, “I hope this is not someone I know. Well, in this case, it was someone I knew. They are okay though, apparently the accident involved three cars, and I only got to see one of them been taken away.

Now, this whole, unfortunate event, made me realize how much of a creature of habit I am. This event took me out of my routine, and now I am not only worried about my co-workers but out off wack!

I am not sure if I am the only one that gets this one.

Every once in a while, out of nowhere, a very embarrassing memory will come up in my head and I will get all sorts of feelings about it. Many times I beat myself up for a memory of when I was 19 years old or something. “Why did you say that?' or “Why did you do that? That was stupid”, you get the idea. But what I always fail is to also — or try to — recognize is that for every embarrassing memory, there’s also, sometimes, a good lesson.

So, instead of beating myself over it, I should ask myself. What did I learn from it? And focus on that instead of asking myself. Why was I so stupid?

After reflecting — and posting — about my current state of health, I’m still not entirely sure what I am going to do exactly. I need to come up with a plan and I need to get my motivation back.

That being said, today’s weight, 212 lbs. The goal is… I don’t know. I know I feel good at 190-195, and even better at 180-185. That’s a lot, but I’ve done it before. I’ve gone from 225 down to 190.

All I need is a bit of motivation and a lot of discipline, I seemed to have misplaced them both. So, if you see them, tell them I miss them. 😅

A few weeks ago I had my annual physical examination with also included some blood work. Upon visiting my primary physician it turned out that I am not quite dying — yet. Still and most definitely far from perfect but still, I’ll live. There was one thing that he found abnormal, something related to my cholesterol not the kind of problem that would necessarily cause a heart attack, but it can still be an issue.

He asked me to get a second round of blood work just to make sure. There’s always the possibility of a bad lab work. But if it was indeed high thenI would have to be under medication. Which, truthfully, I don’t want to do, I already have to medicate myself once a day and I don’t want to add yet another pill to my day. I know, like my dad, he takes like six different medications a day for various reasons, so one pill is nothing. Still, I don’t like pills.

I asked what could I to remedy the problem or prevent it from getting worse? In the back of my head I already knew the answer, though. He said, exercise and diet. Carbs and complex sugars are my biggest enemies. In my case, this means beer 😅

Today I got a called, regarding my second round, and it came back, not perfect, but I won’t need medication. The Doctor advised to up my exercise and work on my diet.

Ever since the pandemic, I have gone out of control. To make it even worse, I have barely been keeping up with my exercise routine. I haven’t been to a gym in a year or so. I have stopped working out at home or going for walks/runs.

I need to get serious and make serious changes. I am not as heavy as I’ve ever been, but I am getting there. Lower back problems are coming back too. I need to figure something out, need to incorporate some kind of routine with many new work schedule and cut out the breed (read beer).

• M: Too many free radicals. That’s your problem.

• James Bond: “Free radicals”, sir?
• M: Yes. They’re toxins that destroy the body and the brain, caused by eating too much red meat and white bread. Too many dry martinis!
• James Bond: Then I shall cut out the white bread, sir.

EDWARD FOX — M

SIR SEAN CONNERY — James Bond

“Never Say Never Again”

I love my HomePod, I really do, when it works. There are a few times though, when….

Today for example.

Me: Hey, Siri! Put a timer for 35 minutes.

Siri: …

Siri: hm….

Siri: I’m having trouble connecting to the internet. For more information, go to the home app.

Me (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻

Unplugged the HomePod, asked the watch for the timer.

Hey Siri, you’re in timeout 😤

The perfect email app or system, is the one you use. How do you know? Well, use it, use it how you will, with whatever client or application you will. Whatever service you will or not pay for. Just use it and do whatever the fuck. The rest, are just minor intricacies.

IN OTHER NEWS:

I got two more desk buddies.