I am doing some “mindless” work and usually, what I do is I am either listening to background music or a podcast, book on tape, or whatever. Sometimes, I open a web browser with Youtube and put something on without paying much attention.

Today I, for whatever reason, clicked on this video,

And damn! It felt like a punch in the gut. As if he was seriously talking to me specifically, although I am no content creator, it felt that way. I felt and related to what he was trying to convey. I got it, I understood it, and again, I felt it.

I feel like I am always full of excuses and not putting in the work. I have seen pictures of my old self, of when I was putting in the work. And in those times, I know I was the best version of myself. Regrettably, nowadays, I am not pitting in the work, at least not in the same way. And I do want to be the better version of myself, maybe not the same but still better than where I am now.

I need to own my own bullshit, and put in the work.

Well, I have been using the Apple Watch since the series 0, never bought or worn any other watch since, until recently when I purchased a less smartypants watch, a Casio G-SHOCK. At first, just becue I was getting tired or bored of the Apple watch itself a bit and wanted something different, design-wise. Then, apple announces the Apple Watch Ultra. When I saw the “chunkier” and the different design of it, well, I knew I wanted one.

It has been officially 16 days since I got my Apple Watch Ultra, aka MEGAZORD, yes, I’ve named it MEGAZORD. And, I am loving this thing. I had some first impressions. I still think it’s a hefty, chunky watch but that was never my concern, to be honest. I mean, I have always been a fan of chunkier-ish watches and to be honest, it is not any bigger than my G-SHOCK.

Heavier, yes, but not crazy heavy. Love the new design, the flat screen is probably my favorite thing, the protruded buttons, it looks very different from what I have been wearing all these years and I appreciate that. The screen is, to me, much much brighter and of course, bigger, which I also appreciate, I ain’t getting any younger, so everything is more clear and legible, especially outdoors.

Battery life of course it’s awesome, I think I charge mine every other day. However, if I am taking a bath or in any other situation in which I am not wearing the watch, I just throw it on the charger just because. I don’t necessarily wait until is dead-dead to charge it, probably should but, meh! Also, the braided cable, love it!

I got mine with the orange alpine strap band, I love the color, and I guess I have a newfound appreciation for the color orange. Love the accent orange color on the action button, which I forget it’s there since this is the first watch to have it. The build quality of this watch is top-notch, it doesn’t feel — or look — cheap by any means (and it certainly ain’t cheap).

As far as the watch faces, I am always bouncing between two different ones (so far), Modular, and Wayfinder.

Wayfinder has been my daily one. The apps I am using with it, so far are,

• World Clock with my local time. I suck at reading analog clocks these days so I cheat. I know I can have the digital time on the top Sub-dial but many times the clock hands get in the way and it’s hard to tell the time.

• Calendar.

• Carrot’s Weather

• Things 3

The Modular one is usually for workouts, I like easy access to timers and some information. But as I am typing this, I think I am just going to consolidate everything on the Wayfinder Watch Face, I would be just adding a slot for easy access to the Timer app.

Overall I am very happy with it, definitely more my style, no complaints here — yet.

IN OTHER NEWS!

I’ve gotten a new backpack, super-randomly, I need to play more with it and see what role fits in my everyday carry workflow.

I got a Confession to make. I love my iPhone 13 mini, I really do. I think is the best phone ever made, however, recently, I have found myself wanting a bigger screen. Not Necessarily a better camera, although that would be nice, but I have been feeling constrained with the mini’s screen size, for whatever reason.

you’re getting old, gabz

Also, it does not help the fact that I visited my local BestBuy recently and actually held an iPhone 14 Pro in my hands. And guess what? I did not mind the size as much as I thought I would.

If, I am going to go that route, it won’t happen until sometime next year, I think. I could find a way to expedite that but I rather just wait it out as much as I can.

I live, unfortunately, in a very Red state which makes me hesitant, and yet, I still feel compelled to vote. There’s a name I have seen around that, for whatever reason, does scare me, Ammon Bundy. Also, I was told that my level of sexiness would go up ten percent if I posted a selfie with an “I Voted” sticker.

For reasons I don’t remember anymore, something’s wrong with our washing machine, besides being super-old, that we have to add the softener in the middle of it rather than the machine do it by “itself”. We can’t just add it to the tray or whatever spot and hope it’ll work. Since I am the only responsible adult here (ha! responsible, he says) I am the one that has to remember, usually Annie is the one on top of the timing, or actually paying attention.

Yesterday, I loaded some clothes, and actually started a stopwatch to figure out how long it takes until I have to add the softener. Thirty-five minutes, in the normalsetting, thirty-five minutes until I have to add the softener. Now, when I load some clothes I ask Siri to remind me to add softener in 35 mins.

Good, I did that today because I am fiddling around on the computer and totally forgot I had a load goin.

In other news,

Today is a relaxing Sunday. The girls are playing, nicely with each other which is rare sometimes, and litsening to Los Wálters - Isla Disco.

I’ll take it.

So, I messed up, big time.

Even though I did call the school to confirm the time of Marley’s lunch, in my mind, for whatever reason, it was still 12:20pm rather than 11:20am. I even left earlier than planned due to the climate to make sure I’d be on time. And yet, I was an hour late to have lunch with Marley.

😫😫😫😫

We have both been waiting for this day all week, super-excited, and yet, I failed. My day wasn’t going well, to begin with, but this… ugh!

Anyways, they allowed me to have lunch with her. As expected Marley was not happy and that broke my heart. I explained what happened to her, apologized to her, we sat, had lunch, we talked. We got snow, for the first time this year, down in the valley, and Marley asked if she could play outside after school. Sadly I think it’ll melt by the time she’s out, but I told her if we still had snow she certainly could. Once we were done with lunch I walked her back to her classroom, apologized again, and pinky-promised ( it’s kind of a big deal and she smiled) that it would never happen again, and off she went.

By that point, she was her normal self.

But I was still feeling terrible inside. I still do. Like the worst parent on Planet Earth.

Once I had some time to reflect, I came home, to try to get some work done, the day is not over. I opened my email and a whole lot of other shit ensued.

I sat back, cried a bit, cracked my fingers, and started typing emails.

Nothing today is going according to plan and I feel very frustrated, very much so…

On the other hand, I am looking forward to picking Marley up from school, then Luna from grandma’s, watching a movie, and having popcorn with the girls.

Today I wrote a thank you note, with a pen, I might add, and I can not remember the last time I wrote something somewhat extensive. Immediately realized that the pen does not have autocorrect or the card had a Grammarly extension. It was like writing blind and without a safety net.

This made me think, that I am probably more “writing fluent” in English than I am in Spanish by now. English words don’t have the same grammatic rules as Spanish words, accents, and such, so it is easier in that sense, the spelling though, that’s another issue entirely.

I also noticed that half my words were in all caps, or mixed. I swear I’ve forgotten how to write.

Second or third day now with Megazord.

Today, I am wearing it on my right wrist rather than the left, and somehow, it feels more comfortable, however, my right wrist is more prone to bump into things, for whatever reason so I got to keep that in mind. Also, I can feel the heftiness of the watch. It really is, compared to the regular watch, a behemoth, weight-wise. It is hard to forget I have it, and yet it does not feel uncomfortable to use.

The battery life is ridiculously great, it is Ultra Great /wink

Those are my initial impression so far, I haven’t yet had a chance to dive into other stuff, sadly, too busy.

In other news,

I may have done something out of pure impulse, as per usual…

Sorry to see you go. #GoodBye 🐤

Yesterday, I had a situation where I needed to compose an email in Spanish. I don’t do this often for work but now that I am working more closely with people down in Chile, I think they would feel more comfortable talking to me this way. Sadly my work computer, unlike my mobile Macintosh device, can’t or won’t recognize that I am typing in another language that is not English.

So I had an idea.

Have you all heard of Simplenote?

Simplenote, to me, is like what Tot might be for many Mac users. It allows me to share text from my Macintosh devices to my work Windows PC. What I was super-impressed by was the syncing, and how ridiculously fast it was. I would type a sentence or two, and stop to think about what to say next, on my Macintosh mobile device, and within a second, I would get a notification on my Windows POS that a note was updated. That happened every single time I would type, stop for a few seconds and continue my note.

I might have said this before about this app, but it is one of those note-taking apps that doesn’t get a lot of exposure or that people talk about. Yes, I might not have all the bells and whistles other apps may have but it is reliable and it just works.

Today, I was late to pick Marley up from school. Ish.

As I was getting in the car, just about to leave work, as I’d normally do, an old man approached my car (he was also missing his front upper teeth).

Anyway, I roll down my window and ask how I could help. He asked if I wanted $20.00 to take him to gas station down the road, as his truck ran out of gas.

Without hesitation, I go. Well, of course! And no money needed! It was quite the walk from the site to the closest gas station but a less than a minute drive (it’s a high speed road)

He was a nice old man, and we were both hoping the gas station had fuel containers too. We get to the gas station, I told him I’d wait for him and give him a drive back. Luckily, they had fuel containers, and guess what? Also gas 👍🏼

I give the toothless man a ride back to his truck, not too far from the site, and also on my way back to get to Marley’s.

Marley gets off at 4:50pm, and I made it by 4:45pm!

Here’s the interesting thing about it all, last year today, I also made it late to pick Marley up, but for a whole different reason.

My hope is, that this doesn’t become a yearly habit. 😅

Like many of us, I love technology (especially when it does work), I love fancy services, fancy apps (with fancy nice looking icons), and, I love note-taking apps. Yes, this is one of those posts.

Being said that, I am terrible at taking and keeping notes. Perhaps because they are always scattered all over the place, or I am not consistent at it and whatnot. 

I do use Apple's notes app but is more like for long-term storage of things that I might not visit ever again. There are some very useful cases, for example, I store many of my workouts in there, which I do revisit to either do them again or mix and match.

Drafts, I have used Drafts or it has been on my phone for ages and it all this time, and it has changed usages many times. It has never been, or it was not intended to be my long-term notes storage, although, in some way, it has been. Or at least until I go into and weed things out.

One time, I found about ROAM Research, to me, it is the Drafts of "whatever-these-type-of-note-taking-apps" are. It is clean, I loved that once you open there's a date and you type away. But, it is expensive, development seems rather slow, I think, and I have never used it to its full potential. I guess I could say the same for Drafts but I know my way around Drafts much more than I know my way through ROAM. Also, ROAM was basically restricted to work-related things only.

Obsidian, I tried it, and, ugh, never sticks, I don't know why. I feel like I need a crash course on it.

Logseq is another one I have tried and it works fine, and I think it's free to use but I forget I have it, and as I have said before, I am very inconsistent at taking notes. Which to by work, it is very important. There are too many things to track and try to remember and unfortunately, I am not getting any younger and I forget shit.

This is why I need a note-taking system, especially where things are searchable, in case I need to refer back to something. The other caveat is, it has to be available on Windows since that's my work's main computer. 

Then there is the dilemma, do I use any of these for both personal and work or just for work? I am leaning more toward work only because my note-taking necessities for personal are very few.  However, if I pick system in which I have to pay, if I want to make my investment worth it, I should probably use it for both.

The one note-taking app that I remmeber I have used the most was Bear, maybe because it reminds me a bit of Vesper, remmeber Vesper? Sadly, it is Mac and iOS only.

Anyways, let me know what you think, down below, in the comments. 

Okay, guys, until next time.

It is still, at least on my side of the world, Wednesday, mitad de semana, and I have not been to the gym a single day this week. I haven’t for a few reasons, well, mainly because of exhaustion. Work has been a little hectic this week. And not only that but, I am also, a little out of wack. They always say consistency is the key, and I am now struggling with that. For the past two weeks, I had been consistent but inconsistent at the same time.

Let me explain.

Mom was here the past two weeks helping out with the girls, as Annie’s parents were away. That, in a way both, spoiled me and threw everything out of order.

I was consistent about working out every single day, but when and where, were inconsistent. Some days it would be right after work, or after picking up Marley from school, mom would be here to pick up the slack so I could do my workouts rather than go later at night after everyone is asleep like I normally would.

Last Sunday, mom left. Not only I am readjusting my work schedule and such, but everything else. We all are.

I need to build up a routine. One that no matter what, it does not get disrupted. I have been toying with the idea of early-morning workouts. Rather than going out to the gym (or even home workouts) after everyone is asleep, do it while everyone is yet still sleeping. That’d mean getting up way earlier than usual and some discipline for sure. But I need to do this for myself, I need to build up that superpower that is consistency.

Now, will I go to the gym tonight, or tomorrow morning? We shall see.

for the past few months, I have been into this thing about buying physical copies of Nintendo Switch games, whether I already owned them digitally or not. So, if I had a significant backlog, it's gotten much worse.

So I am trying to get through them.

The first one on the list is,

Koumajou Remilia: Scarlet Symphony

Gensokyo faces sudden disturbance as "Scarlet Mist" spreads once again. To Reimu Hakurei, this peculiar phenomenon resembled something familiar.
'Is this that vampire's doing?', she thought to herself.
There was only one choice: head to the Scarlet Devil Mansion, and find out the true cause of the disturbance.
......but this time, the way to the mansion was a little different from usual.  

This game to me is sort of an oddball, in some way. I am not even sure why I even got it, to be honest. That being said, I am glad I did, I think. Anyways, this is another Metroidvania-ish, and this one is the remastered version of its original release back in 2009. And you can very much tell that is heavily influenced by  Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. Although this title is regarded as a Metroidvania, the stages are very much linear, there is no backtracking or secret rooms and such. You enter a mansion and you pretty much work your way from different sections and a boss fight at the end of each, no fuss no muss. By defeating these bosses, they join your party and you can use their abilities in a single assistance attack and that's about it.

It is Japanese with English subtitles, very anime-like, all the characters are females, and the music is pretty awesome. 

I believe I finished the game in a few hours of gameplay. 

Next up, is Moonscars.

This one is supposed to be a tough game. I am still trying to find my footing and figure out the battle system. I have died a few times already, there is no hacking and slashing my way through this one.

Today was “let’s go to brunch day” and stuff. So on the road we go.

We get to the place, and we have to wait.

Then, it was our turn!

Then a walk and stuff downtown

then a pit stop to the brewery

the end

Marley has no school today — and tomorrow — so I took the day off.

Morning of coffee and donuts

Downtown walk

And finally lunch, before heading back to the house for a nap

Today’s workout, ugh, was one of those that when I saw it on “paper”, it didn’t seem too bad. Until, it was too late to back out.

Legs and core:

EMOM – 25 min, 5 movements, 5 rounds.

1. Deadlift to Walkout Push-ups (2 push-ups) x 6
2. Lunge Clean - Right x 8
3. Lunge Clean - Left x 8
4. Kettlebell Swing x 10
5. Kettlebell Pull-through x 16

I watched this video like most of us probably have and to me, this is both romantic and whole lot of malarkey. I mean, I get it, some people need less time on their phones in order to “create” but most of us, we have stuff to do, things that keep us busy and away from our devices anyway. There are days I don’t even touch my phone the entire day! If you feel like you need to go to these extremes, well, sounds like a personal problem or lack of discipline and I guess I get that.

When I do the doom-scrolling is because I chose to pick up my phone, perhaps unconsciously, but ultimately, I did, my device didn’t just show up on my face. The apps on my home-screen I decided to put them there and for a reason.

Whenever I make a setup like this is for pure ascetics and very little about “functionality” or limiting “distractions”., and they never last more than a few days. Again, these extremes are for, what I think, a few people, and mostly youtubers and such.

Ultimately , it’s a choice.

Chainsaw Man on Crunchyroll

Following a betrayal, a young man left for the dead is reborn as a powerful devil-human hybrid after merging with his pet devil, and is soon enlisted into an organization dedicated to hunting devils.

This is my kind of show, super-ridiculous, over the top, and bloody! It is also somewhat messed up, but that how these shows tend to be. I am only sad that I have to wait a week for the next episode, but the first truly set the tone and I want more!

Almost two months ago, I got myself a Casio G-SHOCK. Mostly because I wanted to change this a bit, I have always been a watch guy, and I stopped buying watches the moment the Apple Watch had come out. And I have been using the Apple Watch exclusively, since. 

The Casio I got, was a MOVe model, basically, it can be synced to the iPhone via Bluetooth using the G-SHOCK MOVE app. I could still get some notifications, and it would track my steps. I was never able to figure out if it could track a workout the same way the Apple Watch does, I am not a runner so, tracking speed and laps wasn't for me. After a few weeks, I started missing the Apple Watch just to track my workouts and easy access to timers and was using it just for that whilst using the Casio for daily use.

One day, something changed, my AirPods Pro started acting up. I would get this high pitch noise somewhat regularly among other things, it was super-weird and it seemed very random. One day, in my frustration, I went online to look for possible causes and fixes. One was to turn off the ear detection feature and that seemed to have worked, a bit, but not quite. I had also read that another cause, could be that another Bluetooth device may be interfering with the AirPods' connection, but I ignored that part or didn't think much about it. I stopped using my AirPods, entirely, mostly out of frustration. I had started using my Powerbeats Pro more, the battery life alone won me back over. 

Recently, I picked up my AirPods again, and still thinking about the annoyances, it occurred to me that perhaps the culprit was the G-SHOCK. I unpaired the G-SCHOCK from the phone, they aren't Bluetooth-connected anymore and what do you know, The Airpods Pro are acting normal again. Thus far.

It is still an ongoing experiment, it could be something totally unrelated. I need more data, so far it's just a theory.

Technology is weird...

There is a Pod-radio-show I have been really enjoying, and that is, Really Specific Stories by Martin Feld

Join podcast studies researcher Martin Feld as he delves into narratives of tech-podcast fandom, featuring creators and their listeners.  

I love the conversations held, every show has a different guest, with their own stories and experiences. Specific stories about how we all get into this medium which is podcasts. And I find these conversations very fascinating and interesting. It's like the telling of an origin story of sorts. Whether you are just a listener, host, or producer.

Definitely worth checking out.

In this household, we have both the OG Nintendo Switch and the Switch lite. I fell in love with the lite, so light and easy to handle and carry around. Eventually, I went back to the OG, and Marley sort of took over the lite. Last night, I picked it up again, and I remembered why is so sweet to use, but at the same time, it feels so tiny on the hands it almost feels ridiculous.

Also, I have to confess, I kind of want the OLED Switch…

Tunic on the Nintendo Switch.

Explore a land filled with lost legends, ancient powers, and ferocious monsters in TUNIC, an isometric action game about a small fox on a big adventure. Stranded in a ruined land, and armed with only your own curiosity, you will confront colossal beasts, collect strange and powerful items, and unravel long-lost secrets.  

This game, wasn't even on my radar until someone mentioned it in a podcast back in March. I remember this because I was traversing my way through the dangerous city of Chicago. I was trying to get to the hotel where the convention I was attending was being held at. 

I added it to my PlayStation 5 wishlist, it wasn't even listed in the eShop, at the time. Fast forward to the end of the last month, the game is available on the eShop, and the switch being my preferred gaming console for these games, well, I got it on the system over the PS5. The game had been out I think six months prior on macOS, PC, and Xbox, but it wasn't until six months later that made it to the PlayStation and Switch.

Still, I had heard very little about this game. I heard it was a combination of a Zelda-like game and a Souls-like game. By this premise alone, I should have stayed away from this game, in theory. Why? Well, I suck at souls-like games, and yet I guess I'm a sucker for punishment because I buy them anyways, and I no longer have the patience for unguided exploring games like Zelda.

Tunic is an action-adventure game and right off the bat you can tell, it is very Zelda-like, especially the earlier ones. You are a fox and you wake up in this strange world with, gain, very little guidance on what you need to do. From what I have gathered so far, you battle your way through it, you must find and ring a number of bells and find some "gears" that should end up in a central place. Just like Souls games, there is very little or nonexistent back story presented, you must unravel the mystery as you go. Enemies can be a little unforgiving, or so I was told. If you die you respawn at your last save point, and you lose some currency and such, just as expected in a souls-like game.

You have stamina and mana, as well as your health. You can upgrade your stats, although that is not well explained in the game. There, is literally very, very little guidance and lots of explanation in this game, however, I can't stop playing it.

What is amazing about this game are the accessibility options, it has a No Fail Mode, No Stamina Restrictions, and Reduced Combat Difficultry. Well, guess what? I have all turned on! No shame, No ragrets! So to me, the combat isn't frustration, if any, it would be my own impatience. But it's fun to just turn on the Switch and just go to town exploring and see what things I can do, which paths I haven't explored, you know just fox around with my sword. And believe there are lots of secret paths and secrets in general in this game.

I have gotta say, even though I had no idea what is going on, no guidance whatsoever. I'm clueless about what I am supposed to do, and yet I am having a good time. The game is charming and beautiful, the music is great, and I even have the soundtrack on rotation because it is that nice.

To respect the identity and privacy of the subjects, I’m going to refer to them as child number 1 and child number 2 😉. Number 1 being the oldest.

Childs one and two are plying, as they do, there’s laughter, all of a sudden, no more laughter but crying. Child number 1 comes out of the bathroom crying and complaining, touching her stomach.

Turns out, child number 2 had, allegedly, jumped on her. After some serious scrutiny and interrogation, we got a somewhat picture of what happened. Child number 2 apologizes to child number 1, and all is good, ish.

Child number 1 still complains about serious pain, her tummy, and diaphragm area. I asked if it hurt enough to got to the doctor, child number 1 says, yes.

To the urgent care we go. After some waiting, lady doctor comes into the room. She asks child number 1 a few questions, and examines her. Luckily, there was no bruising, nothing felt loosened or improper. Lady doctor says there’s no concern for anything being broken, that child number 1 is just, tender, and sore. Rest and pain medicine should do the trick, but obviously be on the lookout if anything develops in the next day or so.

In conclusion, child number 1 and number 2, will be the end of me.

There’s a Porsche car show in town today, which they do every year. I was very excited about attending and snap a couple of photos. But, for whatever reason, I found myself uninspired. I guess when there’s too many of the same thing, it’s hard to see something unique. I did find a couple of cars that did catch my eye, but when it came to the photography part of it, I didn’t have the “eye”. I probably took like 8 pictures and most likely one will be cool enough, to me.

I’m a little bombed by that, I had been waiting all week for it and then, meh!

Oh well, it happens, I guess