This year, I am not making formal resolutions for 2022. There are things I want to do that I am doing now, I just want to do more of them, or have more specific focus on certain things.
These things include the usual self-improvement:
Lose weight
Exercise more (keep running)
Be generally more kind, thoughtful and generous. I’m not a horrible person now, but why not always try to improve?
They also include hobbies, some of which may help me earn an income in the future:
Write more (blogging, the newsletter, more fiction)
Draw more (my own projects, plus some daily or monthly prompts tossed in)
Photography, uh, more. Birds, scenery, stuff. With my camera or phone, both are good tools.
I also want to expand my knowledge in a few areas in 2022, again with generating moola as the desired endpoint, though knowledge for its own sake is good, too:
Programming (C#)
Game development, starting with Unity and C#
Learning my way around more apps like Affinity Designer, among others
And a few hopes that aren’t resolutions at all:
Not get sick, including maybe dodging the covid bullet just a little while longer
That the pandemic will actually end sometime in 2022, and I won’t be repeating this line in a year with 2023 written instead
Find contentment in small things, while always striving for more. I guess just try to be happy, no matter the circumstances. Assuming happy doesn’t mean retreating from reality. Unless they invent the Matrix, but without the killer robots. I’m up for ducking out in that.
Remember: This is not a list of resolutions for 2022, it just looks like one. Thank you.
I have been reasonably pleased with Obsidian as my note-taking app so far. The interface is minimal and gets the job done, even if the UI doesn’t look at all native whether on Mac or PC.
I’ve been using it primarily on my Windows 11 PC, as that’s my main machine, but have also used it on the iPad (no issues) and Mac (no issues, but with a big fat asterisk, as I will explain right after this parenthetical).
Where I have run into problems is with the sync when using iCloud Drive.
My main vault (folder) for Obsidian is on iCloud Drive, and it works fine on the PC, saving and updating seamlessly. If I open the vault on the Mac, it also works fine there (as expected, since iCloud Drive is an Apple service).
The problem arises after a few specific steps when using Obsidian:
Access files in vault on PC
Access files in same vault on Mac
Access files in same vault again on PC
When Step 3 happens, Obsidian will pop up a message saying it is downloading files or indexing files. The latter is a one-time operation, per the pop-up.
Notification dialog (of doom)
Downloading files happens each time when a file is presumably changed in Obsidian on another machine. Note that I tend to close Obsidian on one platform before accessing its vault on another, though this is not strictly speaking necessary. The issue happens when I do not have the vault in question open before Step 3. I haven’t tested with the vault still open on the Mac before opening it back up on PC.
After downloading, the vault on the PC will now show the original file, along with one or more duplicates, with (1), (2) etc. added to the filenames. These files will not open and clicking on them will pop up the Automatic file downloads dialog again, like the circle of life except in this circle nothing actually happens and everyone probably starves. It’s a mess. Here’s a shot of how the file appears in the vault list:
No opening permitted!
If I open the Obsidian folder in iCloud Drive where this vault lives, Windows 11 will indicate that it has a sync pending. The contents, as expected, reflect what Obsidian is reporting:
Double-clicking one of these files will try to open it in iA Writer, which is set as my default Markdown editor in windows. This dialog appears:
I don’t sync so!
If I return to the vault on the Mac, the two files are gone. They don’t show in Obsidian, and they are gone from the related vault folder in iCloud Drive. Something is clearly happening when the vault is accessed on the PC after being accessed on the Mac where the sync is failing. Maybe it’s a limitation of iCloud Drive. I’m not sure.
I tried a few experiments with new vaults, and found I could replicate the buggy results easily.
My current solution has been to create a folder on the PC and share it over the local network with the Mac. This seems to be working so far and has the added security of keeping things off the internet. This means I won’t be able to access the vault from the iPad, but that’s an acceptable loss.
I want to blame Apple for this, but I’m not sure who the real culprit is. It does make me hesitant to use iCloud Drive for anything other than basic file storage, though–certainly not for file-sharing. Part of me wants to dig deeper into this to determine the cause, but working on the file shared locally through my own network is probably a better solution, anyway. If this also blows up, I’ll update this post.
In conclusion, technology has a ways to go. I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs would be yelling at someone right now if he were still alive.
UPDATE, May 26, 2022: Since I have forsaken using Obsidian on the iPad, I decided to move the main vault to OneDrive, where in the subsequent months it has worked without issue on both Mac and PC. So now I am a bit more willing to give Apple the stink eye.
The tragedy and triumph of the month that is December when it comes to waistlines and the expansions thereof.
I started the month well-positioned for weight loss, 1.4 pounds under 180. 170 here I come!
By December 4th, I had dropped to 177.9, which would sadly turn out to be my lowest point of the month, because…December. By the 8th I had ballooned up to 180.8 pounds, and it took 16 days to finally get back below 180. I held a glimmer of hope that I could carry the downward trend onward. It lasted two days. Even after a lot of exercise and old-fashioned calorie-burning yesterday, I was still up this morning to my highest point of the month at 181.2 pounds. Sigh.
However, while I am always striving to do better, I am no longer making promises to myself. I will hazard a prediction that I will be down at least a little in January, if only because the worst indulgences of the holidays will be past. But we’ll see.
Stats:
December 1: 178.6 pounds
December 31: 181.2 pounds (up 2.6 pounds)
Year to date: From 174.2 to 181.2 pounds (up 7 pounds)
Body fat (year to date):
January 1: 22.4% (39.1 pounds of fat)
December 31: 23% (41.6 pounds of fat) (up 2.5 pounds)
This is short. It’s less of a book and more of a booklet–which is not a criticism, but more a heads-up to anyone looking for a comprehensive take on art journaling.
MacLeod has found a process that works for her, outlines it in simple detail, and importantly includes numerous photos of her art journals to show exactly what she is going in terms of how she organizes pages and the material that becomes her novels. There is a level of enthusiasm and amiable goofiness here that makes art journaling appealing, particularly for people who may have tried and failed with software solutions like Scrivener. I think some people are just more visual or hands-on, and that physical connectedness is what helps spark their imagination and gets the actual writing flowing.
I feel like I was like this when I was younger, but now I’m not so sure. I am tempted to try, and MacLeod’s slim book is a fine example of one approach to take. I can give this a recommendation, assuming you can get it on the cheap. It really must be emphasized how short it is! Most people could probably fly through it in 15 minutes. Still, what’s here is decently presented and could help some who are stuck with their current plotting methods.
This is exactly what it says on the tin–a story about a group of teens who are returned as adults to a realm where their tabletop RPG is a real world. The concept is a favorite of D&D or D&D adjacent nerds, but Gillen’s writing elevates the material beyond its hackneyed premise. It is very dark, but in that darkness the characters feel authentic and make mistakes and judgment calls that never feel driven by the needs of the plot.
The art by Stephanie Hans is bursting with color and drama, perfectly matching the grim setting.
Recommended, with the caveat that Volume One does not have real closure–you are fully intended to move on to see the rest of the story.
I picked this up on sale and it’s a great example of “if you want something done, do it yourself” as it’s a Kickstarter-funded queer superhero comic–not exactly a sub-genre bursting with entries.
It’s fun and a bit naughty and sometimes juvenile, but it keeps things PG-rated. The hero of the story is not yet 18 years old, so this is also a kind of YA adventure. The art is appropriate for a superhero comic and there are lots of explosions and things, along with the innuendo, sly side looks and snappy comebacks.
My own real beef (not to be confused with beefcake, which there is plenty of) is that the story stops abruptly, and I am not seeing a Volume 2…yet.
We got another decent dump of snow last night and everything looks fresh and pretty again. I neither have to drive in it nor shovel it, so I don’t mind snow too much these days.
In fact, I went for a walk all the way to Burnaby Lake this afternoon, to get some fresh (if chilly) air and a few pics. I actually saw one person jogging on the river trail. I mean, sure, you can do it, but this is why I got a treadmill. Another guy was riding a bike, but was cheating because he had an electric bike with those silly fat tires. There were a fair number of people out, especially for midday during the week. I assume a lot of people have time off between Christmas and New Year’s.
Here are some photos, all taken with my phone, since I didn’t feel like lugging my camera and accessories out across the frozen tundra. It’s too bad HDR wasn’t more common, the originals on my iPhone 12 look awesome where there’s some dramatic light to provide contrast, such as in the first pic below.
Burnaby Lake, now part Popsicle.View from Cariboo Dam, Burnaby Lake. Probably not safe for skating, unless you are a duck.Brunette River in early afternoon sun.Snow, water, sky. Plus more snow.Happy pail!My feet, well-protected by my booties.
In January of last year, I detailed having a terrible case of the flu (first referenced in this post). This was pre-pandemic and hardly surprising, as I usually don’t get a flu shot and rode public transit five days a week and worked in a large, open office at a college. People were constantly around me, and people are fantastic at sharing horrible things like cold and flu bugs.
When I wrote on February 16th about the cold I had, COVID-19 was not on my radar at all. I knew of it, but only on the periphery–it was yet to reach pandemic stage. But looking back, the symptoms I had match up almost perfectly with COVID (while acknowledging that they also match up with having a cold or flu)
Loss of smell/taste
Coughing
Fatigue
Sore throat
Body aches
Sinus issues (plural, because I hit both extremes of plugged/unplugged)
The loss of smell is a real red flag here, because it’s so specifically tied to COVID-19. In the end, it doesn’t really matter much, as I recovered with no apparent long-term symptoms and have been successfully dodging the super-contagious Omicron variant as I await my booster (third) shot, expected sometime in January. But it’s fun (?) to think that as I worked to avoid catching the virus, I may have actually been one of the first to have had it.
Anyway, here’s hoping the pandemic actually ends in 2022. That would be nice.
This is not a momentous occasion or anything. Twitter is one of the social media sites that can be both a dumpster fire and pretty useful simultaneously. Looking over my history, it’s clear I’ve been content to be an observer.
As an observer, I still find people posting screenshots of walls of text composed elsewhere to get around the 280-character limit of Twitter to be weird.
Here’s that first tweet. While I still like the quote, I would not exactly jump at the chance to quote Woody Allen these days. I probably should have known better in 2011, really.
My first tweet. I quote Woody Allen: "Eighty percent of success is showing up."
Look at that sad, empty heart! No wonder the kitten looks so bereft. (If I change from the kitten avatar in the future, please apply this to whatever is in its place).
Thinking about it now, I have no recollection at all what my last tweet was. Let’s find out!
It turns out that was my only original tweet. Every other tweet was a reply to someone else and amounts to 12 total. Eight were to Nike Support, which forces you to use Twitter, the other four were inane responses to friends. A captivating Twitter Time Capsule, this is not.
In the bio for You Are Awesome it’s mentioned that Neil Pasricha gives 50 speeches a year–nearly one a week. I saw one of these speeches, back in December 2019 (what a simpler time that was) and he is a fantastic, engaging speaker. He could probably give 150 speeches a year (post-pandemic, of course) if he could clone himself. You get some of that same zest and enthusiasm in his books, but while You Are Awesome doesn’t get the blood pumping like his oration, it does a pretty good job of outlining his philosophy on taking on life and, in particular, accepting and moving past adversity.
He breaks things down into nine “secrets”, or steps to follow and the book is a quick, breezy read, full of anecdotes that Pasricha always makes interesting, his tone so dang friendly and relatable.
The advice ranges from simple and sensible (“Be resilient. Keep going.”) to what has worked well for him (“Be a big fish in a small pond rather than a small fish in a big pond.”) to somewhat less conventional things. When he talks of shifting the spotlight, for example, he refers to the belief many have that everyone is watching them, when for the most part everyone else is too absorbed in themselves to be paying much attention to every little thing you do. Accepting this means letting go of your ego. Pasricha is basically saying get over yourself.
My favorite piece of advice is to carve out time strictly for yourself–no interruptions tolerated! This may be more difficult for some, depending on their work or home life, but I really like the idea of shutting out this noisy world of social media and the relentless drive to catch and keep our attention (“Engagement!”) so I’m fully on board with this.
Overall, I think someone–especially someone young, though it’s never too late, as they say–following the advice in this book may not necessarily end up awesome, but they will probably be a happier, more content, and more successful person.
I was looking for “dumpster fire” but I think I like this image better. Photo by Betül Balc? on Pexels.com
As the final days of 2021 draw near, and we look forward (?!) to 2022, let’s reflect on the year that was. And it was a year.
Unlike previous posts, I’m mixing everything together–personal victories, political nonsense, the state of the world and so on. Let’s call it Earth Blend, available for $11.99 at your local Starbucks.
The Good
I left a job I had come to actively not enjoy (hate is too strong a word)
I did three and a half months of drawing prompts to start the year
I did an Inktober prompt. Yes, one. Hey, it’s better than nothing!
Summer forest fires, while bad in general, only led to a few smoky days in Metro Vancouver, down considerably from previous years
I ran a lot more than in 2020, even with a late start of August
I got a mirrorless camera (Canon EOS M50) and have had oodles of fun taking photos with the telephoto lens (nothing pervy, just naked birds)
Dodged getting sick for another year
I kept blogging. Funny cats, hooray!
Contributed art and a trailer to an actual video game that will be for sale on Steam soon™
Trump is no longer president
The world did not blow up
The Bad
Will no one rid me of this meddlesome pandemic?
The COVID twins of Delta (“more people will get infected”) and Omicron (“everyone you know will get infected”)
My weight is basically unchanged. It should be down. I blame myself and salty/sweet snacks.
The heat dome (seriously, I never expected it to be hotter locally than the times I travelled through the Mojave Desert in the summer). 42 °C is pretty warm.
The frozen dome. Yeah, that’s what I’m calling it. -14 °C is actually probably easier to manage than 42 °C, but it’s still, you know, rather chilly for these parts. We shattered temperature records at both ends of the thermometer in 2021. 2022 will reveal if this was a fluke or the start of a fun new climate trend.
My fiction writing was, uh, moribund-though I did one writing prompt, so that’s a start!
I didn’t read as much, since I no longer have a commute. This is both good and bad.
I got a DisplayLink adapter, so I could fudge using my MacBook Air with dual displays, and have yet to get it working. A minor thing but still technically bad.
I’m ending the year with sinus issues, possibly related to the cold weather, but likely not related to COVID-19
U.S. democracy is looking a little beat-up after four years of Trump, the January 6th riots, and 40+ years of Republicans pushing for one-party rule
The Rest
I still haven’t seen a movie in a theater since watching Onward in the first week of March 2020 and can’t say I miss the experience. I love being able to pause and go pee. It’s especially handy now that the average movie is ten hours long. To clarify, I go pee in the bathroom, as civilization expects.
Justin Trudeau smelled a majority government within reach and instantly doomed any chance of it by calling an unnecessary election. The result was a Parliament virtually unchanged from before the election, proving the whole thing a waste of time. You’d think Trudeau might learn a lesson from this, but…we’ll see.
Discovering a prominent anti-vaxxer was living in my building and later died of COVID-19 was a little weird
