Gaby: let’s work out!

Body: sure!

Gaby: let’s do 5 rounds of 500 meters on the rowing machine

Body: fuck you, we are doing 3

Gaby: let’s do 5 rounds of x6 heavy kettlebell swings, x8 cleans to squat to press and 6 burpees

Body: fuck them burpees, not today!

Gaby: okay, no burpees then.

Something or someone is telling me I need to get some rest.

Yesterday, I was reminded that seven years ago, I bought my first Olympus camera, the OM-D E-M10.

Why that name? Who knows. But it was as an early Father’s Day present to myself. This was back in 2016, the year when Marley was born, and she was pretty much the excuse for me to get a camera.

Why this particular camera? Well, at the time I remember reading Casey Liss’s quick thoughts on it and Shawn Blanc’s thoughts about it too. And so, that was the extent of my research, really! 😅 And not only that but it was (still is) reasonably priced. And I also knew I did not want a DSLR camera. I wanted some compact but more than just a point-and-shoot. The next thing I knew, I got myself an Oly. This camera reignited my passion for photography, I must say. Eventually, I ditched the kit lens and got myself a 25mm prime lens, a 45mm, and a 17mm. Now, perhaps two years later or so, I upgraded to the Olympus OM-D E-M10 MARK III. Still having the same three lenses in my toolkit. And still have my passion for photography.

Not going to lie, part of me wants to “upgrade” or move to a different system, like Fujifilm, but it is not a must, at least not yet. The system that I currently have still serves me well.

If you’d like to check out some of my photography, check out my Glass account page.

😉

In the past few weeks or so I have been playing, well, a few games. One of them is The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, which I have played a couple of ours and have my thoughts about it, but not today.

Another game I have been playing is Cassette Beasts on the Nintendo Switch. This one is like a whole different take on a Pokemon game-like. It is super fun, the soundtrack is great, and awesome pixel art. So far it’s a little buggy, but it is so much fun that I can get past the fact. Have more thoughts but not today.

The game that’s got me knees deep on right now, is Diablo IV, currently playing on the PlayStation 5.

My first experience with a Diablo game was Diablo III: Eternal Collection on Nintendo Switch. I might have tried it on the PS4 but it was on the Switch where I really got into it. And I played the heck out of that game and even more than once. So when Diablo IV was announced of course I was eager for it to come out.

The pre-order date came around and pre-ordered it, whichever the mid-tier of the game was just so I could have early access and whatever else. I did get a chance to play the Beta once or twice but not enough to give me a sense of how the game was really going to be, plus I was knees-deep on ToTK.

Finally, the time came around to play the full game and I was delighted with it. I felt at home, this is my kind of game, and this is the kind of game I get addicted to, just like with Diablo III. It is everything you would expect from a Diablo game, amazing cinematics, a compelling story, stellar graphics, great voice acting, character and combat customization, and of course, lots of build-crafting, and hunting for the best gear you can get.

When I played Diablo III, I pretty much exclusively played as the Necromancer, I always felt overpowered with that class, and so much fun. This time around, though, I am playing (so far) as the Barbarian and so far it’s been a lot of fun with a decent amount of weapons and pretty cool skills and power-ups.

I am still trying to get used to some of the menu options, especially around the “skills tree” or whatever is called, it seems a little confusing and unclear to me as to what am I getting, and I don’t know why. Of course, I am playing this game in the easiest setting, I am not here for a challenge, I am here for a good time. And yet, is not as easy as Diablo III is in its easest mode, I never died on Diablo III, on D4 though, yes I have died a few times. It can get a little hairy when many baddies band together and you are not paying attention to what you’re doing.

I am sure there’s more to this game from what I have experienced so far, there is so much more to explore and discover. I hate (Love) that there is a real money item store, that’s how they get me, by getting me to spend money in order to get that shiny armor or horse, or whatever. This game will be hard to put down, I need to keep track of time otherwise will continue playing for hours without end, I am loving it.

Currently, there are no plans or have been officially confirmed or announced to bring Diablo 4 to the Nintendo Switch. That being said, I am sure that eventually, it will, and whenever that happens, you can be damn sure that I will be getting it on the Switch as well.

This morning I had a "Hol' Up A Minute" moment while driving to the site here in Naples, Florida. As many of you would know, I am from Puerto Rico, a colony, I mean, a US territory, thus, I am a US citizen or more like a second-class citizen. For 40 years I have taken for granted the fact I can travel anywhere within the US, to Puerto Rico and back without worries or having to carry a passport because technically, my driver's license should suffice. However, this morning it kind of hit me where I was, I am in fucking Florida, DeSantis's Florida. I panicked a little. I was like, "fuck, I should have brought my passport".

I have listened to a couple of news lately in which fellow Puerto Ricans are being denied services or even being able to book an airplane ticket, because they did not have a passport, identifying them as US citizens (second-class citizens). There are many States in which people forget that Puerto Rico is a colony, ugh, sorry, a Territory of the United States of America.

What I am trying to say is, that I have realized that I no longer feel like a legitimate American citizen in some way, given the political situation in which we find ourselves today. I fear that, if for whatever reason, I get pulled over here in Florida or anywhere in the US today, having my driver's license, might not be enough to prove my citizenship and "legitimacy". 

Again, this is coming from someone that was born with US citizenship. I can't even imagine how other minorities must be feeling, especially in DeSantis's Florida or in the US in general.

It's scary.

Another trip to, what it would seem to be this week, the not-always-sunny Naples, Florida. The weather forecast shows thunderstorms all week long, so far. Not looking forward to the weather so much but I’ll manage. Also, unlike my previous trip, I’ll be traveling alone, the boss isn’t joining. The one thing I am very much looking forward to is all the hours I’ll be able to put on Tears of the Kingdom, bunker down in the hotel room.

I think I can say with confidence that I am back. I am back into my somewhat, being healthy, consistently working out train. It took too long, though. However, I no longer have this unmotivated feeling and have to drag myself to the gym or my backyard (outdoor workouts are my fave) to get a good workout sesh. I just do it, even if it is a short sesh (usually it would be an EMOM workout, 5 movements, 5 rounds, 25 minutes), I just move.

My only fear is my upcoming work trip, I will do my best to take advantage of the hotel's "fitness center". I don't want to break my ongoing streak and momentum. 

Keep moving!

Today I’ve experienced the most candid show of affection and morning greetings, between human beings.

This morning, like in every morning, I am driving the girls to grandmas house. We are a little late, not extremely late but ultimately, late. I’m driving, looking at the road in front of me when I see two cars coming. I see a huge mother-trucking- truck, just like most Idahoans know how, and a Volkswagen Beetle right behind it.

Then I saw it, from the Volkswagen Beetle, a gentle hand of a lady, with a hard to miss big ring, and the middle finder off, in what, I assume, was, her good morning greetings to the car in front. I passed them, I looked through my rear mirror and saw two hands, coming out of the mother-trucking- truck, with middle fingers in sign of a reply. Beautiful! And all before 7:00 am.

Good day everyone.

I have to admit that I struggle a bit with, waking up early, being all over the place in the mornings, and always rushing out the door like a headless chicken. This morning, however, I woke up on time and was somewhat and mostly organized. I took some chicken out to thaw, I did not forget Marley’s lunch or water bottle and turned on the dishwasher on my way out, and on top of that, I took the trash bin out! All of that, before 6:17 AM, perfect.

Well, because either sheer bad luck or the always conspiring universe, and fucking Murphy, on the way to dropping the girls at grandmas' house, I remembered I did not take my Make-Gaby-Functional-pills. So, I dropped off the little devils and drove back to the house, the first unplanned pit stop. Still, up to that point, I was still doing “good” time. Every stop light was green for me, almost no traffic, small wins. Right?

However, some idiot, which will remain unnamed, forgot to gas up the car yesterday, the second pit stop. And since I was already there, by the gas station there’s Dutch Bros, and the best part, no line, second pit stop and second small win.

Yeah, I might have made it to work much later than I wanted, but I and the car were… fueled!

It’s spring break, and Marley is out of school for the week. So far, we don’t do anything crazy like going out of town or some luxurious vacation, but it has become a tradition that we rent a hotel room, locally in town and we spend a night or two. The girls get excited and they get to spend time at an indoor pool, and all the fun that downtown Boise has to offer.

Our check-in is tomorrow after work, and the girls know it. Tonight, they can’t contain themselves in excitement. I am perhaps not too excited, I mean, I am too worried about work and I’ll be gone for two days. But I guess we, as adults, need these moments away from work.

I’ll try to be excited as well, but won’t promise anything 🙈😁

For dinner tonight, we decided to go to our local Cuban restaurant, CasaBlanca Cuban Grill. It had been a while since we last time there. Still, we were greeted as if it was yesterday the last time we were there. They even recognized the girls and pointed out how much they have grown since the last time they had seen them.

The girls order their usual, chicken strips, Marley opted for rice and Luna for fries. Annie had her grilled chicken breast with rice and beans (moros con cristianos) and a side of yuca. For me, well, they have this sandwich, puerco con pan (pork with bread) which I haven’t had in a long, long time, and oh boy have I forgotten how big it was. I can’t believe I used to eat one of these for lunch!

It has been a long time since I’ve had the food coma I am having right now. I May just pass out on the couch.

My work site is located in a yet relatively agricultural area. Although most fields are being sold and developed into, what I call, Mega-Subdivisions, there are still many fields around.

During my morning commute, I often get these beautiful spectacles, with sunrises, the fields, and sometimes very dramatic colors. And I always think, “Man, I should take a picture”. Get my camera out and just get a beautiful snapshot. The problem is, I am driving on a road where everyone is going at least 55mph or considerably more than that. Also, a road that’s almost impossible to just pull over, as it barely has a shoulder on either side, plus, again, too many, too fast, cars.

At that point, I just resign from the idea, I mean, I could get a less busy route, but many times, I am already somewhat late to work or just right… Again, I resign from the idea and just embrace the spectacle and enjoy it.

Back in the Twitter days, every once in a while, someone, out of nowhere, not even a follower, would retweet, resurface something from a non-distant past that you totally forgot about. Well, guess what I had my first resurfacing (I am going to refer to it as resurfacing because I am confused as to whether they are called -re-blogs, re-toots, boosts, or whatever-the-fuck ) on the Mastodons this week.

Like 5 months ago or so I quoted something from this random and fabulous post, I had forgotten about, Take Care of Your Blog. The quote was,

Blog your heart out! Blog about something you’ve learned, or blog about something you’re interested in.

Of course, I opened it up and read the whole thing again, and good god, is this post so right? It puts in perfect words why I have always wanted to blog, why I write what I write, continue to do so,

Blog about cameras or HTML or that one browser bug you’ve noticed this morning or blog about the sky above you right this very second. How many clouds are up there? Blog about your annoying kids and your fucked up relationship and blog about that terrifying time when you went to the beach with some people you weren’t really friends with and you got drunk and then it got real dark and you didn’t have a tent so you slept on a sand dune all night long.

And the most important thing, as the article says, is you’ll connect with more people, and make new friends. I would also throw in there, new and interesting discussions but,

Or maybe they won’t. But you’ll never know unless you write that half-assed thing that’s in your head right now.

Clicking around, I came across this, Get Blogging and I glanced over it, just a quick scan before saving it to my read-it-later thingamabob. One thing, though, did catch my attention,

Why are they called “blogs”?

Originally blogs were called weblogs: a log of activity that you wrote to the web. Peter Merholz jokingly split the term into two words to make it an activity: we blog. Ev Williams started to use it as a verb and a noun: to blog. And the rest is history.

I will be really honest, it never occurred to me to question why blogs are called blogs, it like, it just is; why would I question it?

Now I know…

For the past few weeks, I have been dabbling back into Assassin’s Creed Valhalla, I am currently about a little over 45 hours. As far as the main story goes I am not quite halfway there, yet. Where I have been spending most of my time in the game on some of the DLC stories I never played my first time around with the game, some of them weren’t even available back then.

Wrath of the Druids DLC,

After probably 15 hours or so, I reached a level good enough to tackle this DLC, in fact, I think I was a little overpowered but, I like being overpowered. I didn’t think I was gonna be as huge as it was, I felt like I was playing a whole different game, rather than just a side story. This one takes place in Ireland, where you battle a druidic cult known as the Children of Danu. This one was a lot of fun to play, I finished the main story there but there is still some side exploration to do. The good thing is that you can travel back and forth to any other area.

Dawn of Ragnarök DLC,

This one was the most anticipated one I wanted to play. This one is straight-up Norse Mythology, where Odin’s (or Havi) son, Baldr, has been taken prisoner by the immortal fire giant, Surtr. I played what could be the prologue of this story, I had to fight this massive fire giant and I struggled, I almost died once or twice. Once I was back into the real world after waking up from the dream (or vision) and preparing to get back into it, I noticed that the recommended power is 320, I am currently at 220, I think. So, I have decided to put a pin on it for the time being.

The Siege of Paris DLC,

This one takes place in West Francia and the forces of Charles the Fat, as the name implies you infiltrate the city of Paris, forge new alliances, and all that good Viking stuff. This one suggested Power was 200 so I think I can tackle it. However, I was a little past my bedtime so I haven’t set sail yet.

My boss made me cry today!

Since I started this joby-job of mine, there has always been the expectation that I would prepare myself to become a Registered Genetic Technologist, or RGT for short. This has always been a huge source of anxiety for me. I have always had this fear of disappointing or letting down people, that’s due to my obsessive-compulsive personality, according to my crazy-doc. It is a huge pressure and something that hunts my mind. Especially since the lady I was working for, was kind of a motherly figure and she had – or so I think – high expectations of me.

I took my first crack at the exam in the Summer of 2022. The lady I was working with (or for) wasn’t just a member of the Society of Seed Technologists and an RGT, but also a member of the board of examiners, meaning that she, along with two others, would score my test. No pressure.

I did not pass the test, and I felt terrible about it. I would have a second chance to take it in the Winter of 2022. However, fall is the busiest time of the year for me, so I skipped it, and ultimately, she retired.

The new goal is to take it at the SCST conference in Saskatoon, Canada, this summer. This has been heavy on my mind since the beginning of the year.

I got to study, I got to study, I got to study

This morning, like every Friday morning, I had my 1-on-1 with my new boss. He is basically the the-lady-I-was-working-with-for’s replacement and my new direct boss. The main topic today was my goals for 2023. One of them read as follows,

“Continue with my goal of becoming a Registered Genetic Technologist by completing available webinars, attending the 2023 SCST meeting, and taking the exam”

To which he proceeded to suggest to not to take the exam this year.

Whuuut?

He also needs to get this certification, therefore he also needs to go through the process of studying for it. He suggested, to work together this year, study together and help each other in the areas I might be more knowledgeable on and he helps me in the areas he is more knowledgeable on, etc.

That took a huge pressure off my chest. So much so that I could not help it and my eyes got watery, I am not sure if he noticed or not, I think I played it cool. But it was a huge relief for sure!

I like my new boss

I need to get shit together, seriously.

I have a problem. I am the most unorganized, all-over-the-place type of person. At least in the last few years. Every morning is a race, I am all over the place, can’t find things, getting dressed, fixing myself up to look presentable, preparing the to-go breakfast, and lunch, choosing snacks, etc.

I need to be better at planning my days and reduce being scattered. I used to, just don’t know at what point I fucked up. I could probably figure it out if I think hard about it but I am lazy.

I remember back then when I was taking a course about productivity, I think it was Shawn Blanc, years ago, and its first exercise was to pick our outfight the night before. Such a small task made a difference. And yes, that is all I remember about that course, and maybe because I never followed through with the whole thing.

I need to stop fooling around and start planning better and being more organized.

What’s my line - annie mueller

We don’t know because we’re all such good actors, such good pretenders. We have a picture in our heads of how we are supposed to feel in any given situation. And we act it out, so well, so automatically, that we hardly even know we’re acting.

I very much relate to this, in my own way, I guess. Makes me think of those instances in which depression kicks in, and I am not entirely my “normal” self. And yet I still put up my act, I try my best to not break character – but do I really feel good?

Fake it until you make it, they say.

I have been blogging since, in some way, since 2015. At first, it was just for me in the form of private journaling, using DayOne. I wasn’t a super-avid blog reader, but I followed a few blogs that inspired me or planted the idea of starting my own blog. I very much remember reading Tim Nahumck’s blog and Seth Clifford’s (which sadly, does not exist anymore), Greetings from the Grid! Another blog I was reading at the time was Gabe’s at Macdrifter, I was a huge fan of both his Beer tracking app TapCellar, which crushed my feelings when it was discontinued, and there hasn’t been another good app since, or at least not like it, and of course, Matt Birchler’s. I remember when I was setting up my blog, which was hosted on WordPress at the time, asking Matt for his opinion on building my site, he probably doesn’t remember any of this, but I do.

Anyways, at the time, I wasn’t sure, what I really wanted to blog about. Given the people I was following, I thought tech would be the way to go, but I had a hard time with that. There are a few influences that I still carry with me to this date, Seth called it “Something I liked This Week” and Tim calls it, “Piques of the week”. I always liked those types of blog posts, so much so that today I do Something I Liked and A Game I have been playing.

The thing is that I knew that tech-related posts weren’t my thing. But it wasn’t until I moved my blog to Micro.blog, that I found my voice, which was simply to write about the things that interest me, to share stories and anything and everything that is in my mind. weather is in less than 280 characters or over 1500.

All of that is just to say that personal blogging has become my passion even if just one person reads it.

Now, tell me. Who or Whom, are your influences?

Gabz’s Log, Stardate 2023.01.12

I am in the third week so, 75% of the main story completion, or so I think. In an attempt to get a better S Class car, I spent lots of monies on a new car, some badass-looking Nissan Silvia. Also checked if I could make my current S car, A Mitsubishi Lancer a bit faster, which I did. However, I failed to realize that by doing so, now my Lancer is in S+ class, and there are no S+ class events in the third week, therefore I can only race with my Silvia which is pretty much stock. In short, I cannot use my Evo, and the Nissan is pretty much unusable in its current state. So, I could try to “grind” some money, which it would take some time, or… Or nothing, that is it, I need to grind, ugh!