Things I enjoyed this week (April 5th)

In no particular order, per usual:

1. I participated in the Bridge to Brews 10k. My time was better than I'd thought, though not as swift as days of yore. Baby steps.

2.  A friend of mine invited me to go see some avant-garde jazz — a wonderful local group called Battle Hymns & Gardens — down in the industrial district. Of course I said yes, and was introduced to the music of Michael Hurley at the same time.

3. I've been using Atom, the new text-editor from GitHub, after receiving a beta invite. Testing such a thing when you already have mountains of work to do and are set in your ways with your tools can be tricky, but my initial impressions are mostly positive. I'm trying to figure out what it'll need to do differently to differentiate itself for me and make me want to switch. Right now, traction in the developer community is probably the only reason. The one big knock against it for me: no macro recording. I don't use it often, but it crops up occasionally and saves me tons of time.

4. I attended a nomadic traveler group meeting on Meetup at Eugenio's last night. It was interesting to hear other people stories, what motivates them and the kinds of things people seek. Some people want to find cheap countries with good wine, other people see all the sites and ancient ruins, and I... I came to realize I like visit grocery stores and sit on the bus ((That's a bit of an exaggeration, but not far from the truth)). I'm still parsing what that means...

Later the group unexpectedly turned into a comedy-appreciation group when Comedy Night at Eugenio's started ((Eugenio's is a really weird venue for, well, anything. But comedy is a particularly odd fit. And that Facebook event I linked to is obviously not the one I attended last night, but it's the same guy and place.)). It's hard to pick the highlights, but we'll just say I went to meet some travel-minded folks and left knowing more about how some guy got terminated from a Sizzler's and the time his Native American friend named Redfox got his ass-kicked by a baby deer.

Still, there is something about sitting around with a group of people and laughing — even at things you might not think are funny — that's kind of healing.

5. Sunshine. Seasonal-effective disorder is a real thing and there's a wide-spectrum. I have no idea where or if I even fall into that category, but man, I forget sometimes how much I feel like a different person when the sun is shining ((Hakuna ma-fucking-tata. Did you know they actually say that in Zanzibar? Minus the expletive, obviously. I remember being surprised to learn that was a real expression and not something fabricated by the Walt Disney Corporation.)). Hoping it sticks around.