week in review 2024-01

Friday, January 5, 2024

A new year begins and with it all the usual trappings of struggling to slide back into a routine after weeks of living by no schedule other than the serving of dinners and starting of movies.

Notes on the week

Flying back to the Netherlands later this week, I can’t wait to be back in our apartment but am dreading discovering the condition of the rainforest of plants that have been left unattended for weeks. Plus the fridge, God I hope we got everything out of the fridge.


A new year brings with it the usual clamour for new routines and habits. I’ve never really been one to make ‘resolutions’, and the odd time that I have I’ve fell more or less flat on my face. This year though I’m taking a hint from Myke and Grey with a theme. I am incredibly happy in my life, but have felt in the past few months that I have been following along with the twists and turns that arise rather than taking an active role in steering. I guess this can painted as living a reactive life vs a proactive life. The theme of this year is to take a more hands on approach to life, and take stock of where I’m at across personal, professional, fitness etc. The ridiculous name I’ve been toying with is The Year of the Quartermaster.


I started this blog with the intention of ‘running the tap’ with writing until something good came out, but I’m really enjoying the weekly process. Honestly this is more of a little diary to myself without the pressure of daily notifications ala DayOne or Apple’s Journal app. Would I like to pick a topic or theme and make some long form writing? Yes. Will I be happy if this year all I create are these weekly posts? Absolutely.


A friend in work told me about the ‘rules’ of buying gifts for kids, “Something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read”. I guess I’m a kid in my people’s eyes, between the Netherlands-weather-proof jacket, over-engineered coffee cup and my new most prized possession in the world I’m feeling pretty spoiled.


Posy has an amazing YouTube video talking about a method for ‘motion extraction’ in a video file, and I’ve been playing with the effect on some footage I had. I’ve pushed the time parameter out quite a bit, and you end up with this crazy ghost effect, where the position of the subject in ‘the past’ acts as a mask to reveal the background in ‘the present’.

Testing out using Raindrop.io to manage links this week, and stumbled upon the feature to share a collection from within raindrop as an embeddable list:

Reading

Checking back in after starting the Hunger Games during the break. I finished the series in pretty short order, the first two books especially grabbed me and had that ‘just one more page’ impact. The third got overburdened by the weight of trying to resolve the overarching plot points, as well as tie up the characters development in satisfying ways. I think it fails a bit in this regard, but not so much that it detracts from the overall experience.

As a trilogy I’d give it a solid 8/10, and the individual books 8, 9 and 7 out of 10 respectively. Your mileage may vary, but definitely worth checking out the first at least.

Listening

A History of the World in 100 Objects is fascinating, and now available to purchase as one complete audiobook, but the original podcast series is still available. Take a trip through objects that shaped humanity.

CMAT is one of the breakout Irish artists of the past few years, and her music is equally catchy as it is relatable. One of the firm favourites in our apartment, I can’t wait to see her playing in the Netherlands later this year.