Still Alice

Another book that’s earned a permanent space in my head and heart. Been a while since I read it yet, ironically, can’t forget the many things in and about it.

Four checkmark day

A screenshot of Garmin connect app showing today's stats. Green checksums indicate completed targets for sleep (8+ hours), steps (10,000+), floors climbed (10+), and weekly intensity minutes (500+).

Finished second week of getting at least a 10K steps daily.

Went for a long walk with the dogs – down the downs and along the river. Went to town to grab a coffee and sit quietly at the café for an hour with a book. Then walked down and up the high street in the freezing cold. Met an old park run buddy ( Charlie) and his owner.

Now resting on the sofa, not thinking about work tomorrow. Instead, still slightly lost in the two books I finished this weekend. Both dealt with loss. One also had a lot of trail walking and outdoors.

The B key

A top view of the new keyboard and the old magic keyboard. The new keyboard is larger and has a full number pad on the side. The keys on the new keyboard are split into two halves. The halves are laid out at an angle to match the angle at which hands approach the keyboard while typing. There's a magic trackpad next to the keyboard. The new kayboard also has a wrist pad along its bottom length.
The new Logitech Ergo K860 and the workhorse Apple magic keyboard.

Got myself a new, ergonomic keyboard after using the trusty magic keyboard for better part of a decade.

A view of the new keyboard highlighting the tenting in the middle of the keyboard.
Tenting on the ergo keyboard.

It’s split, curved, tented, raised, and blends better with my dark desk top.

It’s also taken a machete to my productivity! First time I used it, I entered my password wrong 4 times. Had to go back to the magic keyboard to successfully login :(

Very very glad that I only took this small step instead of the huge leap I was planning with the ZSA Moonlander.

So, what’s with the B key?

Continue reading The B key

This week in ice, snow and dogs

If there was a theme of the week, for this week it’d be ice.

A bit of snow, a lot of hoar frost, a lot of freezing fog …. a lot of beautiful, crispy, clean white.

A plate with some stir fried green beans, some curly fries, and piece of chicken schnitzel.

Cooked a bit. This is the only thing I took a photo of – stir fried beans with cooked-from-frozen curly chips and chicken schnitzel.

The screen in all its glory during the setup
The new screen before mounting. The old monitor is partly visible behind.

Got myself a new monitor. It’s a beautiful, 21:9 ultra wide, curved screen. It’s also got a full powered hub so I’ve now got a single cable connecting everything to the laptop.

Sadly, Apple doesn’t support text scaling for non 4K screens, so the text is way smaller than what I’m used to. I think I’ll end up increasing default font sizes across my most used apps soon – Chrome, Obsidian, AS, VS Code.

A bottle of Chardonnay white wine of 2021 vintage from South Africa

Opened and finished another of the small stash of wines we’d picked up from Lidl. Like the ones before, this did not disappoint.

Spent a chilly Saturday in bed with the three of them. bliss

Chewie and I out for a walk on the ice before the rain took it all away

The day of peak white. And earlier today before the rain wiped out all the white 🙁

This week in dogs, plants and walks

A bright green young leaf surrounded by large dark green leaves on a monsterra plant. A yellow table is partly visible, out of focus, in the background.

The leaf finished unfurling.

It has company around the house.

One of the few sunny walks earlier in the week. That weather feels tropical warm now.

An alpine Dianthus covered in frost

Weekend brought in heavy frost.

Saw marks on a piece of a tree highlighted by frost.

A field on a downward slope, with low hills and trees in the distance. The field before the trees is frozen and white.

We did manage a sunny, if freezing, walk on Saturday.

A sunken path through woodland. The ground is covered in many layers of brown leaves. It's foggy. A black labrador dog is in the centre of the frame.

Sunday’s walk was just a mix of fog, woods and frozen fields.

Kia, a small brown cocker spaniel, hugging a small brown and white dog soft toy. Both are pretending to sleep.
My little dog with her little dog

Missed this little one though. She’d have loved bouncing around in frozen fields and grass.

This week

A new leaf unfurling on a monsterra plant. The new leaf is light green in colour while all existing leafs are a darker green.

The monsterra started unfurling a new leaf. It appears to be happy with its new location.

A photo of the cover of the book,

Bought a book just by (for) the cover. The cover even more beautiful than expected, and still slightly disappointing. I was expecting it to be embossed rather than predicted.

An Ikea air quality monitor showing red, warning about bad air quality. There's a pachira leaf in the foreground and a Google Nest WiFi router behind.

Bought an Ikea air quality monitor. I thought the air in my office was bad. It started on green. I moved it to the loving room. It’s been stubbornly stuck at red. Been researching air cleaners since then. They’re expensive 🙁

Went for a few good walks with kids. They slept around me rest of the while.

A Groot figure in plastic. The figure is resting on its right arm and left elbow, and its face is resting on the left hand. Its got a gentle smile and big wide eyes. There are a couple of coffee mugs to the right, and a clear plastic water bottle behind it. They are all on what appears to be an office cubicle table.R got me a Groot. Then she stole it away to Exeter. I am groot 🙁