It is March 1st, not only that, but it is also a Monday and my final days at level 37 😉. For whatever reason it seems like a great opportunity — or excuse — to start new routines and setting up goals and do my best to stick with them. Well, more, than just starting or creating new ones, it is more like adding some to an already existing set of everyday routines.

First and foremost, better quality sleep. I need to be consistent with this one, go to bed on time, try to get 8 hours of sleep instead than less than 7. Wake up on time, be at work on time, this is an area in which I have been slacking a bit for a while. My job, or at least the team I work with, it is not very strict when it comes to the schedule as long as the job gets done. But still, I want to do better at this.

Reincorporate workout routines. I need to get moving, I need to get back into a healthier lifestyle and loose weight. I have tons of excuses and some of them may be valid ones but excuses nonetheless. Last week I kind of started on that, I actually closed all my rings pretty much all week except for Friday.

I want to have a more consistent and effective routine when it comes to organizing my week and work duties. Many times I find myself very unorganized and, as we say back home, Algarete, adrift, no sense of direction and just doing, thus things fall through the cracks. Whether is using pen and paper, an application or just a calendar system, I am not sure, perhaps all the above. But what it’s clear to me is that I need to create the habit, create an ongoing routine.

If you have made it this far, my birthday it’s on March 31st, I like vidjia games, beer, movies and scotch. 😉

Today is the greatest

Day I’ve ever known

Can’t live for tomorrow

Tomorrow’s much too long

I’ll burn my eyes out

Before I get out

— Today

I was listening to the Don’t Be Crazy pod show, as one does and in the latest episode they are talking about the motion picture show, The Shinning (1980). I know this movie it’s seen with big regards by many, and it is amazing and for some, maybe even creepy and flat out scary.

I honestly can’t remember exactly when and where I had watched this picture show, It had to be in my teens, probably. Not at the cinema for sure. In fact, I can’t even say with a hundred percent certainty that I watched the whole thing on one sitting. Perhaps I watched pieces of it here and there.

What I do remember though, is that I didn’t want to watch it ever again. I saw something, or felt something that all I can remember is the feeling of creepiness or terror and thus, the feeling of not wanting to revisit it.

That being said, after listening to this fabulous pod show, I think I want to revisit it. I want to experience it again and see if these “stay away from this film” feelings are well funded it or just pure rubbish. And perhaps also watch Dr. Sleep (2019) right after.

Might as well right!

I will report back. Stay tuned!

Had another strange dream last night. I was involved in some kind of sports game and cannot remember which for the life of me. Then I was in a mall, it looked like a mall from back home in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico. What I was doing there I don’t remember clearly either. However, something happened that I broke my iPhone, or part of it. Imagine as if the iPhone had a folding glass cover for the screen, like if you’d open it, it would look like you had a book 📖. Well, that covered broke. I was then calling my local Apple Store to schedule a repair. I knew I had Apple Care plus, but I wasn’t sure if I was over my “accidental damage claims” limit, and if I would have to assume the cost of the repair or not. I spoke with a lady, and she told me it was 280.00 USD for the repair, but they’d just make me pay 120.00 on front and the rest in installments. Not only that, but I remember saying “well, that is a lot of money”, then I said to myself, wait, the iPhone doesn’t have this, it is just a dream. Then I woke up, I felt relieved, turn around and went back to sleep.

I am wearing a case today, just in…. case 😎

Just like to-do apps, or pretty much any “productivity” app out there, it’s hard to find the perfect one or stick to one. The Same case, at least for me, is with podcasts apps. For music app there is only one and that is Apple Music. There, I’ve said it.

Now, back to podcasts! My two most used podcast apps have always been Overcast and Castro. I have tried the stock apple podcast app, but it just doesn’t work for me for whatever reason, it never sticks. I have to say that my first podcast app that I ever used was Pocket Casts for a long time until Overcast came around, and I think it was free with in-app purchase at the time. I think, I don’t remember much it’s been to damn long. For all these years I have always bounced between Overcast and Castro, love them both for different reasons.

Then Overcast started feeling old, and stale, not much innovation or… Well, if it ain’t broke… But still, I feel like I am paying for a yearly subscription and not getting much out of it. I have mad love for Castro because of the inbox system, it’s easy to triage my queue and most important thing, it has a pink icon. Sadly, the app has been a little buggy for me lately, they are pushing fixes and whatnot, but it doesn’t feel as reliable for me as it used to. Which is a good thing to say about Overcast, the app it’s still rock solid, or at least for me.

Now, Pocket Cats its back into my device, it has been for a month or so now and so far, I am really liking it. I got to admit that there is some getting used to because I feel like the user interface and certain aspects of the app, are a little different from the other two. It doesn’t have the audio clip sharing that both Castro and Overcast have but, so far, it ain’t a big deal. I have paid for the year subscription and will keep it on my phone and give it a real go before I decide what to do. But, so far, Pocket Casts is the king of the pods in my Macintosh cellular device.

What’s in your Macintosh device? 😉

Just like every grieving person out there today, I am listening to some good-old Daft Punk on the Apple Music there. I have heard their stuff before, probably what I’m most familiar with is their TRON: Legacy album soundtrack. Listening to their Essentials playlist, I’ve realized how many tracks I’ve heard before but wasn’t aware it was them.

I have had my HomePod since its release date which I don’t remember when nor I will look it up. But it has been boom-boom-ing my home ever since.

To me, this is not the greatest apple product ever but is the one that gets used every single day in this household. We are constantly playing music, while cooking, cleaning or just hanging at home. We use it for timers quite a lot too. It’s like part of the family, I wish I could name it and call it by its name whenever I have a request instead of the famous last words — Hey, Siri!

In the past month or so, well, in my mind it has been about a month but who really knows, I have been playing with my writing setup.

Before and for the longest time it was always all over the place. Sometimes I would stick to using Drafts, but I always thought that using drafts to post to Micro.blog came with a lot of “hacks”. Ulysses has always been my favorite text editor, but it didn’t support posting to Micro.blog. Then iA Writer came around with their latest update with Micro.blog support.

So, this was my setup since then. Short and quick posts were composed and published using Drafts and long format posts with images (or without) using iA Writer. This setup worked fine, for a while, until…

Just like many other Micro.blogers, I have been bugging the Ulysses team for the longest time for Micro.blog support. I always got the same sort of respond, “We are working on it”. Well, let’s just say that there may or may not be a beta currently out there with Micro.blog support. And let us imagine that I may or may not have been using this beta. If all of that were true, well, 90% of my posts may or may not have been composed and published from Ulysses. Why Ulysses? I am a fan of their Revision mode, is like having a built-in Grammarly. Also, I like the way it handles links, it’s much cleaner.

😉

You know The Legend of Zelda, even if you have never played a single Zelda game, it is somehow embedded in our nerdy-pop-culture. Just like Batman, even if you don’t like superheroes, at least the name should ring a bell.

I like Zelda, it has a big place in our pop culture and gaming community, I am familiar with its lore and aware of every game out there. Believe me, I even have a triforce tattooed on my arm.

That being said, I think I have only played a small handful of Zelda games in my entire gaming life. I very much remember The Legend of Zelda: Four Swords Adventures on the GameCube, I think I’ve played Ocarina of time, The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask 3D and Breath of the wild. Oh, and the one with the train 🚂 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker. So, not that many of them, and to be honest, I have probably finished all the way through, 2 of these.

But anytime Nintendo announces a Nintendo Direct, people go bonkers for Zelda stuff. They want all the Zeldas, all the remasters and all the new as well. That’s cool, I guess, but I guess the hype sometimes makes go meh!

Don’t get me wrong even if I go “meh!”, I get excited for new Zelda stuff. The last two Zelda games released on the Switch are in my wishlist, hoping that I will play them some day. And yet, they’re sitting there, and I’m not entirely sure why. Maybe I’m burned out off Zelda games?

Now I am sounding like a grumpy old gamer 😅

The one I am really eager to play though is Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, simply because I am a sucker for the Dynasty Warriors type of games. 😁

Since I have gotten rid of my Instagram account, I have been using Flickr again to share and store my photos, but I’d also like a dedicated website that I manage. Maybe I should use my Blot account for this. My only worry, is storage. I use my free-tier Dropbox account for Blot, and I’m sure one day I’ll hit my storage limit if I post many photos there.

I know there are services out there that offer a similar solution and perhaps way more storage available but, I am already paying for Blot, and it’s probably cheaper than said services.

Savvy?

Two years ago, I posted about getting back on track.

Too many things in life, poor excuses and bad habits are the culprits of my current state. I think it’s time to change that!

A workout routine, I need to get serious about it, close those rings, be consistent and no excuses.

Two years later, I am having the same thought. I have fallen off the tracks. Part of me blames the pandemic. Even after gyms opened I was still, or am, hesitant to go back to it. Yes, we have a “vaccine”, yes cases may be going down a little, but I am way more conscious — and/or scared — about been out in somewhat crowded places. I know I will be careful, I know I will look after myself and others. But what about the other people?

I have tried numerous times to get into the healthy-active-lifestyle again and again the past few months and I keep failing at it. The motivation isn’t quite there, I may not have the tools or equipment I would like to have at home. I can make up thousands of excuses.

I would love to get back to an actual gym, where I have all the equipment accessible and have options. But, COVID is still out there and isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

Apple fitness plus is cool, I enjoy it — I think. And still, sometimes I am like 10 minutes into it, and I’m already thinking, “I can’t wait for this to be over”. I think I miss having a room to play with my kettlebell, then do some rows and maybe so machine workouts.

I mean, I could just get by with my kettlebell, but I hate swinging that thing inside the house, and it is too cold outside still for outdoor workouts 😅

Maybe as two years ago today, I should just do something and go from there.

I had this weird dream last night, weird and very vivid too. Vivid and weirdly enough to make me write about it.

The first part of it, it’s a little blurry, I was back home, in Puerto Rico on some kind of school trip. I remember being sitting in the yellow school bus. Many of my high school friends were there, I remember each of their faces. Where we were going and where we ended up, I do not remember.

All of a sudden, I’m on the rooftop of a tall building. There were other much taller buildings around me, all with glass windows. Kind of like the one you might have seen in the movie The Matrix. Like the one Trinity hits when escaping the helicopter that is about to clash to the building. On that roof, was also my father, and we were talking. I was asking him questions. I do not remember the questions nor the answers, but I suspect there were related to my mom and their relationship…

As we were talking, all of a sudden, an aerial type show, and there were a few dozens on planes of different kinds and shapes flying and doing tricks in the air and synchronized, it was cool. I remember I took one of my phones out off my pocket and started recording, “I need to share this with the guys in the chat!”, I said to myself. Once the spectacle was ended, a big airplane appeared, it was like one of those Boeing 737. It was sort of suspended midair right next to the building I was on. And someone down on the ground announced some in the lines of, “now, this plane is going to come down, cut through the tall building’s side, and windows without collapsing it”.

Somehow, I grabbed my backpack and jumped into the airplane as I wanted to be part of it, there were more “passengers”. The plane flys down, slowly, it’s right-wing cutting through the glass and the building is not collapsing.

We get to the ground, safe and sound, but I remember I had forgotten my backpack in the plane. Then I was told, “oh no, everything in the plane it’s pretty much lost at this point, here”. The guy handed me a detailed list of all the items I had lost. It had listed my camera and all the lenses I had, a couple of random items and my two phones. Then I started thinking, “how am I going to tell my boss I have lost the company’s phone”.

Then I was at the airport, looking for a flight home, and home was Puerto Rico, I remember the ticket had as its final destination SJU. I was freaking out because I had no face mask, it was in my lost backpack and I had no money to buy one. Not only that, but I remember telling myself or thinking, “just don’t touch anything and if you do, wash your hands and don’t touch your face”. Once I found my gate I realized I still had to go through some kind of TSA like checkpoint. I was in line and there was this kid asking something to his that, I don’t remember what, but I remember it was in a “dumb-like” manner and the guys behind me started laughing and making fun of the kid. The kid’s dad turns around and yell at the guys and whatnot, and I sigh, and do a facepalm expression. Then I realize I had touched my face and I go…

“FUCK, NOW I HAVE COVID!!!”

And then I woke up.

The End

Assassin’s Creed Valhalla on the Xbox One.

Normally, when I post one of these, it is usually within the first few days or at least a week after first starting the game. This one though, it is a hundred and forty hours after the fact.

It is no secret whatsoever that I am a huge fan of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. I have played pretty much every major title since the first one, and I am still a big fan to this date. For the longest time the Ezio Saga, if you will, had been my favorite until AC Origins. I am a sucker for Egyptian everything, so that was right up my aisle. And then Odyssey came out, and then that one was my favorite (😂). And now, Valhalla.

Basically, what I am trying to say here is that Ubisoft has found a way to make these games better and better, taking the good things about them and improve upon them. Making each iteration better and better, to me, at least. AC Origins I replayed that one at least 3 times, and so Odyssey.

In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, you take the role of Eivor Varinsdottir (male or female), A Viking rider in Norway and long story short, you set out to England, against the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. Why, well because they can, and they will. If you have played Origins and or Odyssey, the game play and game mechanics are very similar. The same exploration sense of it, parkour and more parkour, leap of faith “eagle” (or raven in this game) vision. All the things that make and Assassin’s Creed and AC game.

In addition to all of that, you have the raids, basically as the word implies, you raid towns, military bases and Monasteries. By doing these raids you gain materials and supplies that will allow you to improve and buildup your settlement. By improving your settlement you get access to some perks which are somewhat necessary to progress in the game as you can upgrade your gear, stats and such. Raids are mostly besides the main story, they are sort of like side-boat-quests kind of thing. In this game, you can either travel by land or by water. I often choose to travel mostly by land simply because you can train your mount to be faster, with more stamina and to swim. So, once you can swim, well, you just go and forget you have a boat (or at least I did), until you want to go to town and do some raids.

The main story of this game it’s pretty huge, I believe people in the internets and some reviewers say about 70-80 hours, or something like that, full of good story telling, and lore My first play though was about 110 hours. The reason why is that I was having so much fun with the game that at any moment that I felt like I was close to the end, I would go out of my way and do side quests, which this game has a lot of the side quests. Some side quests can be, simple word events, like helping someone. Some others are cursed areas, and you need to lift the curse. There can be some secret missions, secret items, drinking games, and some dice game called Orlog, which I had a hard time understanding it at first, not going to lie. And all these side quests are scattered all over the map and the map its massive!

Often times I found myself just going around the map hunting for specific armor pieces and going into areas where I wasn’t supposed to, given my current level.

Now, I am not certain if this is going to be a little spoilery, talking about then protagonist’s dreams.

So, I guess this is a warning ⚠️ - ish

Anyhow, at some point in the game you visit some dreams, some visions you’re having. And they are very Norse Mythology driven or related and that was a lot of fun to play. Although I enjoyed playing it, I did not appreciate that part of the game on my first play through as much as I did the second time. In between play throughs I was listening to the audiotape Norse Mythology by Neil Gaiman, and then I realized that most of the missions in that part of the story, where Nordic tales, somewhat adapted to fit that part of the game. They weren’t word by word or event by event, but I would say pretty close, and it was awesome to see an adaptation of those stories in the game.

So, yes as you may have gathered by now, once I finish the game I started a second save file. This time around I am focusing more on the main story line, not doing much of the side quests and whatnot. Making different decisions and different approach.

If you’d ask me “Gaby, shall I get this game?”, I’ll say abso-fucking-lutely”! If you are willing to put in the time that is. The game is a lot of fun, I got this game for Christmas and, in between the two plays throughs I’ve got about 130 hours. And just today, as I am posting this, they came out with a new update that adds more raids and missions to the game, so let’s see how many more hours I’ll be putting on this one (😅)

I believe the game now, the standard edition can be acquired or less than 40.00 USD, but if you’re like me, you’ll be spending way more on it as you can buy armors, weapons, and other goodies from the Ubisoft Store 😜

I was having a hard time thinking about this challenge and what to post for whatever reason. The first that kept coming back to my mind was some postal cards we got from the hospital staff al back in 2014.

Back in 2013, we had news that we were expecting our first, a baby boy, Alexander Gabriel Santiago. Things are a little blurry now, but I remember January 1st of 2014, we went to see The Hobbit, things went not good that night, and on January second of 2014, Alex was born, at 21 weeks of age, and sadly, he did not make it.

Today’s photo challenge, Compassion, made me thinking of these events. We have a box, where we keep anything related to Alex. Today, I opened it and looked through it, Marley and Luna joined. They asked, asked about the tiny footprints and other items, I told them it was their big brother’s, and he’s now watching over them. And I found the kind words we received from the hospital staff.

It was very unexpected for us to receive messages of comfort and compassion from the hospital staff. And we were very grateful and certainly helped our spirits.

And as you can imagine, we don’t watch the Hobbit very often….

This was a nice read by Greg Morris

I urge you all to do the same, reach out to a loved one, friend, colleague or neighbour and just check in. I brief message just saying you are thinking of them can mean the world in difficult times.

It made me think. I always say that I suck at being a friend, in some ways I may, I don’t know. Perhaps I don’t reach out to friends as often as I should or look after them? And yet, I am the type of friend — I think — that even if you don’t hear from me the entire year, at least you will on your birthday. It is probably the one good thing Facebook has ever done for me, I think, somehow syncing my friends’ birthdays into my calendar. And even without facebook I put an effort into gathering that information if possible. Perhaps because for me, my birthday it’s kind of a big deal, and love when others remember. So, I try to do the same? I am not trying to say that just by remembering someone’s birthday will make you the best friend in the world, but it is something, I’d think.

But Greg is right, especially in times like these when we don’t get to see friends and family and/or colleagues as often, it is important to reach out. Even if it’s a meme, or a dad joke or just yo!

Even if they don’t reply…

Just sat at my desk, well, it’s been close to an hour by the time I’m posting this. Anyhow, I opened both my task manager and email — big mistake!

Between what’s in my task manger and all the new emails that came in between I logged off yesterday and today… I feel so overwhelmed. Like I don’t know where to start, to be honest. If anything, I am still catching up with other things.

One thing at a time, I guess.

Holy by Jamila Woods

Woke up this morning with my mind set on loving me

With my mind set on loving me

Woke up this morning with my mind set on loving me

With my mind set on loving me

I’m not lonely, I’m alone

And I’m holy by my own

I’m not lonely, I’m alone

And I’m holy by my own

Discipline

dis·ci·pline

/ˈdisəplən/

noun

1. the practice of training people to obey rules or a code of behavior, using punishment to correct disobedience.

I have fallen off that train. Things have gotten a little out of control and i need to do something about that. The lack of discipline is what’s has gotten me here. Time to change that. I need to reclaim myself. No so much about punishment though, that seems a little harsh 😅

Whichever my current job is, my main goal is to be efficient and awesome at it. Unfortunately, in my current role, I have found myself struggling a bit to keep up at times. Not sure if it’s simply not having my system/workflow a hundred percent down. Or whether there is too much on my plate. And thus, my system seems to crumble. I have my ups and downs, good weeks and bad weeks. Some weeks, everything flows swimmingly but when I least expect it, something comes up. Something fell through the cracks, I have dropped the ball. Whenever that happens, I don’t feel awesome anymore, or efficient. With that comes anxiety, fear, self-doubt, and the infamous impostor syndorme.

here is a post, with an image, mind you

Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day!

Unlike many people I know, today it is not a day off for me. Thus, like every Monday morning, I ready myself to go to work. I opened the garage door and the first thing I see is a very dense fog, not ideal. I get on the road and noticed there were “glassy” looking — not good. These days I am always rushing, and it is early enough in the morning — about 4:40 AM — that I barely encounter other drivers. At least until I get to the freeway, that is.

My car did slide a bit when I was turning right into one of the main roads. At that point I knew I need to take it slow and with caution.

Once I got merged into the freeway, there were more drivers than before but still not as many as there would be on regular hours. In normal conditions and like many of the other commuters, I would go over the speed limit. (I know that’s bad, sorry 😉) This time around though, I was doing the speed limit. When all of a sudden I noticed this car in the middle lane in full stop, making me having to make a rather abrupt change of lanes to the right. What I had noticed, when looking at my mirror is that a small pick-up truck had spanned and the bed of the truck had hit the barrier that separates the freeway 😳

This winter he hadn’t gotten much snow over here, which in many ways it’s a bad thing. What we have gotten though, are many mornings of icy roads.

Marley comes around with the iPad

Mar: papá, can I get a new game?

Me: which one?

Mar: this one..

I download the game for her

Me: Marley, we need to go through the games you don’t play anymore and delete them so you have more sapace

Mar: showing me the iPad’s Home Screen with empty icon spaces , I still have a lot of space, see!

😂

Task managers give me anxiety! There, I’ve said it.

I know we all struggle with finding the best way to manage our life. Always searching for that tool that’s going to be our second brain and remind us of all the things.

I have struggled a lot with tasks managers, I have bought them all, tried them all, loved and hated them all. Always going back and forth between them and failing to stick to them too.

Now, in the job I have now, for the past year or so, I’ve got many plates to juggle with. Too many things to track of, many projects if you will. I know I can be very forgetful and easily distracted, so it was obvious I needed a system. Without a system, things fall through the cracks and if things fall through the cracks, I get in trouble. I love my job, I don’t want to get in trouble. I have a Windows computer and both a personal and work iPhone. Obviously, I need something that can work and sync between both platforms.

For the past few months, I have been playing around with both Todoist and TickTick, both having a Windows app and an iOS/macOS app — duh 🙄 I have two main areas, Work and Personal with different areas or categories within. All good and dandy! I am using a big widget on my home screen showing me all my tasks and to-dos for the day. Well, this started to give me some anxiety, I was seeing all my personal things along with all my work things. My “Personal” area only had a few simple tasks, whereas Work, are the bulk of them. It was mostly my work things what caused me anxiety, though.

Having realized that, I think what I am going to do is, not use any particular task manager for personal things, just Reminders. I have already been using Reminders for reoccurring things, like meds or taking the trash out every Monday night, etc. Just leave my task manager and anxiety at work. Use TickTick for all my work related things, still have it installed on my phone in case I need to reference something but not front and center.

We shall see how this goes.

Today, I closed my Instagram account. In a way, it shouldn’t be a surprise, this is something I have been going back and forth in my head for months. Some obvious reasons, it’s a Facebook owned service, no matter how much I love the app — or used to.

I had quit Facebook years ago, and I’ve been okay and happy with that decision. I had closed my Instagram account before, and always coming back to it. Usually under the excuse that, I miss friends and family and Instagram is the “less Facebooky way” to do to stay in touch. Then I promise myself that I’d keep it small and under control, friends and family only. The thing is, I have no control. I start with just family and friends, and then I keep following other things and all they do is add some kind of anxiety. Either the content or the time I spend on the platform, I’m not certain.

One day, I had decided to do an unfollowing spree, to see if that’d help, and it really didn’t. I was still anxious about it, also spending too much time doom scrolling. It started to feel toxic — for me.

Instagram, toxic, isn’t that Twitter’s role? Well, for me, Instagram became a little toxic. Even if I deleted the app from my phone, I would find any excuse to re-download it and go back to doom-scrolling and following more accounts just because. Recent events have also played a role in my decision. I was seeing too much, not necessarily on my feed but on my stories. But Gaby, just ignore the stories. I can’t, I have a problem, and it’s that I am a completionist. I cannot have those circles on top, so I go through each one and there’s where I’d see most of the stuff I really didn’t want to see. Maybe you’re just following the wrong people, Gabz, well maybe or maybe not.

Regardless, this has been a long time coming, and this morning, I didn’t think twice, opened my browser and closed the account. The people who matter know where and how to reach me.

I still have my Twitter, apparently I do a better job there managing my timeline. Always a third-party app so no circles with stories on top to complete 😁

“I think he did it but I just can’t prove it”

I think he did it but I just can’t prove it

I think he did it but I just can’t prove it

No, no body, no crime

But I ain’t letting up until the day I die

No, no

I think he did it

No, no

He did it