concertman

Daily Thoughts 11 March 2026

Jarod — Wed, 11 Mar 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

🎤 Updated my concert listing page today. I need to spend some time going through the calender and see if there's anything I'd like to go see.

🎭 I should do something similar for the theatre as well. Not sure what that would look like though. I'll have to think it through a bit.

Daily Thoughts 10 March 2026

Jarod — Tue, 10 Mar 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

🎸 I really want to get back into my guitar building but since my woodworking shop is open air, it's still just been too wet/cold 😞

Links

🔗 https://blog.fsck.com/2026/03/09/superpowers-5/

I'm really appreciating Jesse's sharing around how he's using agentic workflows in development. Lot's of great stuff on his blog.

Daily Thoughts 09 March 2026

Jarod — Mon, 09 Mar 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

🦷 So turns out the tooth pain was an infection. That was not fun. The drugs are working now though so I'm feeling a lot better.

Daily Thoughts 05 March 2026

Jarod — Thu, 05 Mar 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

🦷 Tooth pain is never fun. Specially when you can't get into your dentist to have them actually address it for another month.

😖 I think I need to go see my physio again. I've managed to tweak my shoulder/neck again and I'm pretty sure it's pinching a nerve in my neck which is agrevating my tooth pain.

Daily Thoughts 26 Feb 2026

Jarod — Thu, 26 Feb 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

We've finally had some non-rainy days!!! Woohoo!

Today's Jam

Both these tracks go so hard.

Daily Thoughts 25 Feb 2026

Jarod — Wed, 25 Feb 2026 18:00:00 GMT

Thoughts

Not much in the way of thinking today.

Links

https://concerts.lynnandtonic.com - This work is amazing. It's inspired me to do something special with my concert posts.

Daily Thoughts 20 Feb 2026

Jarod — Fri, 20 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

TIL

Ghostscript can make PDFs really tiny! I'd never actually heard of it before.

Thoughts

Trying a new format for the daily thoughts, as well as trying to keep up the daily thoughts.
I hate being in shopping malls.

Random Update Feb 2026

Jarod — Thu, 19 Feb 2026 12:00:00 GMT

I'm just opening a new document at the start of my day (at least when I sit down at my computer) and updating it throughout the day as I think about new things to share.

Oh hello February. January felt like 3 months long. February has just been a slow blur. It doesn't feel like it's going any faster but there's been a flurry of activity, tasks, responsibilities, etc.

This coming weekend I'm being ordained as a Deacon in the Orthodox church. Lot's of mixed emotions about it. It's a huge responsibility and I just want to do the right thing for the people I'm serving.

The winter Olympics have been on. I mostly leave them going on my iPad while I'm working.

So far my favourite events have been the sledding (skeleton, luge, etc.) and snowboarding for no other reason than they've been the most entertaining to me.

I know it's not popular in the indie web scene right now but I'm pretty much going full in on AI/LLM. At work it's already been very helpful. I'm also finding ways to put it to good use in my personal tech projects as well.

Judge me how you will...

I can tell the days are getting longer. It really does feel like spring is on it's way.

I say that knowing that it has rained everyday in London in 2026 so far. That's biblical level.

Today's Jam:

Very simple and barebones but has a great feel/swing to it. Julia's vocals on this really help to push the story.

2025 Reading Recap

Jarod — Mon, 29 Dec 2025 11:57:00 GMT

I've done my music recap for the year so now it's time for my reading overview. I do a lot of my reading through the Books app on my iPad but not everything. So while this is fairly accurate, it doesn't cover everything.

For example, right now I'm reading On the Divine Liturgy by St. Germanus of Constantinople in the paperback form.

Many of the theological books I read are just not available in digital formats. While I find that frustrating I understand there are multiple reasons for it.

4,705 minutes

Longest book

Most Read Author

St. John Chrysostom

Overview

This year had a pretty varied spread of book types, topics, and styles. There really wasn't one that really stood out to me.

I'm enjoying working my way through Terry Pratchett's books and pretty sure I'll continue those as well as anything that Benedict Jacka puts out. Jacka's latest series is set in London with the main character living in my neighbourhood which is really fun to read. I keep recognising places he describes in the story from my day to day life living in East London.

2025 Music Recap

Jarod — Sat, 27 Dec 2025 13:34:00 GMT

It's that time of the year. Everyone is sharing their end of year lists and recaps. I'm no different.

Starting with minutes listened:

17,411 minutes

That's about 12 days.

1,267 different artists

Top artist: Taylor Swift. Yep, the new album is great.

Top Song: M-E-X-I-C-O by Post Malone. His new country album is great. I've not really gotten into his previous albums but his country album is a true, high quality country album (as opposed to some other artists who tried to do cross over pop -> country artists).

Top Album: You should have been able to guess what this one was just by reading the above. Yes, it's Taylor Swift's The Life of a Showgirl album.

That the main overview. Probably pretty boring for most of you. I know others would have expected something different from me. Let's be honest though, just because music is "popular" doesn't automatically make it bad. Yes there is some annoying, and even plain bad, popular music out there. There is good popular music out there as well. It's ok to enjoy it. Don't let others tell you what you can and can not enjoy.

Weeknote - 2025 Week 51

Jarod — Thu, 18 Dec 2025 12:00:00 GMT

Yeah, looks like it's been a few weeks since posting the latest.

So I've had the last week off and am off work for the rest of the year. This, of course, has given me time to catch up on a lot of tasks from outside my world of paid work, including updating my blog.

Of course with some time off I've also gotten back into my gaming. When I say gaming though think more dull, boring, old guy gaming. Not stuff like first person shooters or racing games. More like Farming Simulator and Minecraft. I started new worlds in both games.

I haven't explored much of the surface yet as I'm just getting started. More to come though as I am off work until 5th of Jan 😆

On the meta side of things. I'm working on removing GitHub from my blog build pipeline. I'm using CloudFlare for hosting and have a GitHub action that builds and pushes on each commit. I'm not really interested in this and would rather just push up the final product and just build everything locally on my own hardware.

So that's what I'm trying to do. We'll see how it goes when I push this new post!

That's it for now. Hopefully I'll have some more time to post of the holiday!

Weeknote - 13 Oct.

Jarod — Sun, 19 Oct 2025 11:20:00 GMT

A busy, but also not, week? Maybe I'll just classify it as mentally busy.

I think I've finally gotten a system for posting "tweets" directly from my phone while on the move. It's basically a combination of Shortcuts, iCloud Drive, & bash scripts. All put together with the help of Claude Desktop.

You can read the posts by going to Shorts

Speaking of Claude Desktop, I'm pretty much all in on using LLMs for development. I've been doing it at work and it's really made the process of developing fun again. Of course any time you tell someone you're using an LLM to help code they immediately think vibe coding which in my cause is not the case (most of the time 😉). I've started moding my LLM usage after this kind of pattern which was refined by Dexter Horthy. It takes a lot of setup and refinement but the results are so much better, specially in large legacy codebases.

I didn't spend any time working on my guitar building this week. Given our schedule over the next couple of weeks, it probably won't happen until early Nov. Oh well...

I've been watching The Reluctant Traveller with Eugene Levy and really loving it. There's a lot of unspoken lessons to take from the show. I'll leave it at that because there are deeper things I want to say but I don't really feel this is the place yet.

Had a great chat with a former coworker and good friend this week. We met up for lunch and had a great chat. There are many things that are weighing heavy on both of us but we were able to share and unburden a little bit. I'm not sure we solved anything, but that wasn't the point. Sometimes the point is to just share the load. To talk it out and feel like there is someone else there that will listen.

Weeknote - 6 Oct.

Jarod — Fri, 10 Oct 2025 19:39:00 GMT

Weeknotes are popular on the indie web. So... When in Rome...

Not too much happening. I hadn't felt too great this week and finally on Friday I just needed to rest and take the day off.

Had a wonderful birthday dinner last Saturday.

Le Relais de Venise

Might be my new favourite restaurant. They only serve one thing and they do it extremely well.

I've been catching up on Slow Horses. It's so good and hilarious. Gary Oldman is absolutely brilliant. He puts in an amazing performance episode after episode.

That's it for this weeknote.

Update

Jarod — Sat, 04 Oct 2025 15:23:00 GMT

Usually after I haven't posted in a while I start with something that acknowledges the fact with some kind of statement saying I'm going to try and do more posting. Whatever. Really, it is what it is. I'll post when I feel like it and won't when I forget that my blog even exists. That's just the way it goes right? No pressure. It's just here for my own "use".

Anyway...

I have decided that I want to learn how to build guitars. Like most middle aged white men I should have a hobby that involves either cars, gardening, or woodworking. I figured building guitars (Lutherie) fits into woodworking so I can still keep my middle aged white man status.

To be able to do some woodworking I needed to have a place to do that. In the house wasn't going to work because we don't have the space and the saw dust would be horrible. We don't have much space outside but I saw plans for a "shed" that really stood out to me so I decided that was the answer. I say shed, but it's kind of an open air work-bench that closes up.

So, before I could build a guitar I had to build the workspace first. Forunately my parents were visiting for a few weeks and my dad is always up building something. So this is what we got up to...

The shed turned out really good. I'm super happy with it. I need to finish painting it.

Next will be trying to figure out a mechanism that lifts the top and holds it in place. Right now it's just a 2x4 which isn't super safe and takes a lot of work to lift.

With that in mind I've already started on building.

We recently had the loft in our house converted and I was able to salvage some timber. I was able to take one of the roof joists and turn it into something that will hopefully be the body of a '72 Custom Tele style. Of course in the end is going to be customised, but we'll see how it comes out.

Right now I'm just trying to get the rough shape out.

First was the glue up

Then some planing

And some more aggressive material removal...

Don't buy cheap tools. You get what you pay for

Anyway, more to come (I would say soon, but I have no way of knowing when I'll update this, so just subscribe to the RSS feed and get it in your reader when it comes out!)

Public Enemy

Jarod — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 20:55:00 GMT

Show date: 27 June 2025
Venue: Royal Albert Hall

Setlist

This was everything I want from a show. Great music, great production, great showmanship, great venue. It was all there. Overall this was a top show which I completely enjoyed.

Nine Inch Nails

Jarod — Mon, 30 Jun 2025 20:47:00 GMT

Show date: 18 June 2025
Venue: O2 Arena
Setlist

This show might just have proven that I'm now too old to be on the floor in a show that might turn into a mosh pit (is that term still used?). Even so I held my ground and had a great view of the center stage in the middle of the arena. NIN started off with a smaller "acoustic" set that gradually grew over the first few songs. Then from there they migrated to the main stage. For the 3rd act they came back to the middle stage which was just Trent, Atticus, and Boys Noize doing some remix versions of some of the songs. Then it was back to main stage to finish off the night with the heaviest and most popular songs.

The lighting and stage production was some of the best I've ever seen. It was incredible and really drew you into the show.

The only thing I didn't like about it was the pushing and shoving. It wasn't even related to the music. Just people trying to get themselves closer to the stage. Oh well, like I said, I'm not in that age bracket any more.

The Swell Season

Jarod — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 16:44:00 GMT

Show date: 28 May 2025
Venue: Southbank Centre, Royal Festival Hall

Setlist

My main experience with The Swell Season was seeing the movie Once. I was really impressed by the show. Glen and Markéta are great songwriters and the whole band is extremely talented.

Near the end they brought up The Web Sisters to do a few songs. They did a cover of Who by Fire by Leonard Cohen which was really good.

At the end of the show they brought up a young woman from the audience who sang a song with them. She was really good and looked like this even was the highlight of her life. It was really wonderful to see.

As an encore Glen and Markéta came out and sang a song unamplified at the edge of the stage.

Overall it was a great show. I really enjoyed the venue. The seats were great. Being so close to the stage was really fun, but the seats were a bit uncomfortable.

Lido Festival

Jarod — Sat, 28 Jun 2025 15:47:00 GMT

Show date: 6 June 2025
Venue: Victoria Park

HUNNY

HUNNY was good. She's got a very R&B vibe. Good stuff. I actually ran into her later on in the festival and she was so nice. I hope she continues to do well!

Tirzah

I've not heard of Tirzah before. I really liked her stuff. Very chill and interesting. I'll start listening to her stuff more.

Forensics

I'll be honest, I didn't realise Mos Def was now known as Yasiin Bey. He and The Alchemist were performing under the name Forensics.

Air

Set list

Massive Attack

Set list

This is what I was really here to see. And it didn't disappoint. Massive Attack played the hits but it wasn't just copies of the album tracks. With an entire band backing they were able to lay into the live performance aspect and really open the songs up. They even brought Horace Andy, Deborah Miller, and Elizabeth Fraser on to sing each of their respective tracks.

Probably my favourite song of the night was when they brought on Yasiin Bey to perform I Against I from the Collected album. The song just hit really hard.

Spring Update

Jarod — Mon, 05 May 2025 11:02:00 GMT

General

And two months later I finally post something new.

It's been a bit disjointed lately and posting to the blog has been a bit 'out of sight, out of mind'. Also there are some changes I want to make to the blog but those are being held off until later in June.

Home

This coming Wednesday scaffolding will start being installed around our house to allow for workers to begin converting our loft into usable space. Right now it's just blank, unfinished space that is only used for storage. After the conversion it will be a new bedroom, office space, and bathroom. Our goal is to be able to provide a place for people to come and stay when they need to. I'll try and post photos throughout the process. It should be pretty interesting, at least to me.

Hobbies

Part of my reason for not posting to the blog much lately is that I've really not wanted to be in front of a computer more than I already am. I spend all day at a computer and honestly it's draining. I haven't really wanted my hobbies to also keep me tied to a computer.

So I've gotten into watching lutherie videos on YouTube and reading books about it. Lutherie, is the crafting of stringed instruments. Now I'm pretty much set that I want to build my own guitars. I'm excited about it, but it's also expensive to get started in. The tools, materials, and even the space to operate all cost.

So for now I'm slowly trawling through eBay for used bits and pieces to be able to get started.

If anyone has suggestions or ideas just let me know!

Today's Jam - Nova Twins

Jarod — Tue, 18 Feb 2025 12:28:00 GMT

Killer rock track.

RSS Update

Jarod — Sun, 16 Feb 2025 15:02:00 GMT

If you just got a ton of my old posts showing up in your RSS reader then I apologise. You might have already seen that images haven't shown up in my previous post in the RSS feed and I was trying to fix that. While fixing the image issue I noticed some out of date and just plain wrong items in my rss generation configuration and fixing them involved changing all the guid's for my rss feed. Doing that might have triggered RSS feed readers to see all my previous posts as unread. Again, apologies for that. Hopefully I won't have to do that again.

On the other hand, if you have no idea what RSS is and how you would use it then check this out, and if you'd like a good RSS feed reader then check out NetNewsWire.

Favourite photos - January 2025

Jarod — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 10:18:00 GMT

There's not much to choose from for January.

Favourite photos - December 2024

Jarod — Sat, 15 Feb 2025 10:00:00 GMT

Better late than never right?

Today's Jam - Duke Ellington

Jarod — Mon, 03 Feb 2025 15:09:00 GMT

Duke Ellington.

What's left to say?

Today's Jam

Jarod — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 17:01:00 GMT

How am I only hearing this track for the first time!? I certainly had to listen through a few times before moving on. It's not everyone's jam but I'm all about this.

The "last" one

Jarod — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 09:35:00 GMT

I've deleted my Facebook account, I've abandoned my Twitter account, I haven't used MySpace since Tom was in everyone's top 8 spaces. I use BeReal, but mostly because I have a personal streak going on there and I like the photos. Hardly anyone I "follow" on there ever posts anything any more.

Then there's Instagram.

It seems to be the last one I can't really let go of.^[1] I've whittled the list of people I follow down to a small handful. I really want to delete it. I hate Stories. Hardly anyone actually posts photos anymore. And, it's with ads that range from worthless to offensive.

I want to get rid of it because it doesn't add anything positive to my life.^[2] At best it's a time suck. At worst... Well we all know how bad things can get on social media and the problems it can cause for people.

The problem is that the 3 other members of my immediate family are deeply entrenched in it. For me to get rid of it would create a barrier between them and me, and none of them are even close to wanting to try and remove themselves from the "platform".

I post this to be honest about the struggle. To be open and accountable for the personal changes I don't make in the face of overwhelming evidence.^[3]

So for the time being I'm torn and unable to commit to deleting Instagram. Hopefully, at some point I'll be able to overcome the mental hurdle.

I'm not including YouTube in this. YouTube, while it has it's own problems doesn't rank to me as "social". It has social aspects but it has a much higher barrier to creation. It just seems different. ↩︎
I know lots of people are ditching as part of a political or societal protest. That's not me. I'm trying to be less reactionary about things and more intentional. Protesting, in many forms, is reactionary and at worst performative. While it has it's place, I think it's over used and thus becoming highly ineffective. It's way easier to go to a protest on the weekend than have a conversation to influence your neighbours or family. Being intentional and purposeful about the way we live our lives and how we interact with other people has more of a long term impact I believe. ↩︎
I've added the ability to do footnotes to my posts with this submission as you can see. I get the feeling that the footnotes can become whole posts in their own right. Maybe I'll work on that as well. 🤷 ↩︎

Air Drums

Jarod — Fri, 17 Jan 2025 15:36:00 GMT

If you’re not playing air drums when the beat drops on this track then you should rethink your life choices.

Today's jam

Jarod — Mon, 06 Jan 2025 15:36:00 GMT

This track just hits different. Right from when the beat drops with the guitar. It's just on another level.

Now fewer megabytes!

Jarod — Wed, 01 Jan 2025 17:38:00 GMT

Christ is born! Glorify Him!

Happy New Year!

The other day, while working on my website, I noticed that the total output size of my site was getting close to 1GB. Of course it was photos that was taking up all the space. So I went in search of some solutions. I currently use Eleventy to build my site and fortunately they recently added an image post processor which allowed me to change the sizes of the photos and not have to change my current workflow. Super nice!

An added bonus was that it didn't trigger a rebuild of the site's RSS output and spam all my subscribers (I'm guessing there's probably about two) with all my older posts.

Fun!

Music Overview 2024

Jarod — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:38:00 GMT

So let's jump into the music overview now.

I've told you I'm a Swiftie. So Taylor takes the Top Artist spot this year (again). Here's more of a breakdown...

Between Wicked, Frozen, and Rent, Idina Menzel has worked her way up there.

deadmau5 is good stuff for listening to while working/coding.

I also had a bit of a Led Zeppelin resurgance this year. IV is just an amazing album all around.

As for top individual songs...

Goodbye Earl is just a super fun track and some really good story telling. Just watch this concert performance of the song. This is story telling in music (and a bunch of white people dancing).

I always appreciate a good song with a story. I think that's also why Taylor Swift's "the last great american dynasty" is way up there as well. It's a great story.

The top albums list is just ruled by Taylor...

TTPD was interesting. It's not my favourite Swift album. I certain see what she was going for and why she did it. She's certainly at the stage in her career where she can explore and doe more "artistic" types of albums.

Taylor's drive to take back the ownership of her music is great and it also gives us another reason to go back and listen to her earlier stuff. I'm really looking forward to reputation (Taylor's Version).

Honourable mentions

Billy Strings' "Dust in a Baggie" performance at the Grand Ole Opry is amazing. The musicianship between those four is incredible. It's a new song that brings a very classic bluegrass style. The vocal harmonies, solos, and again, story are just so tight.

I've been listening to a lot more ska as well. I really want to get my trombone back out and skank! Reel Big Fish has been a go to for me recently.

Lastly my favourite rock track this year has been Halestorm's I Miss the Misery. Lzzy Hale's vocals are amazing.

Also check out her apperance with Evanescence...

There's many performances that I could point out that I have experienced this year but I'm going to leave it at that for now.

Reading Overview 2024

Jarod — Tue, 31 Dec 2024 12:13:00 GMT

So I read 30 books this year (There were more that I didn't read on my iPad but I can't remember which ones).

I'm not going to review each of them but here are some of my personal "awards".

Favourite: Ink & Sigil Scottish Hobgoblins hurling insults for the fun of it is just a good laugh.

Favourite Series: Terry Pratchet's Discworld is a lot of fun.

Most meaningful: Metropolitain Anthony's Living Prayer. Practical and beautiful.

Worst read: The Boys. Gratuitous everything. No redeaming qualities.

Updated Now page

Jarod — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 15:00:00 GMT

I've also updated my Now page. Go check it out.

Favourite photos - November 2024

Jarod — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 14:25:00 GMT

Yeah it's been almost a month but I'm still getting these posted before the end of the month!

From our holiday in Nice, France

I attended the 2024 Audio Developers Conference in Bristol this year. My favourite talk was this panel with Hans-Martin Buff, Adrian Utley, and Andrew Scheps. Three musical ledgends talking about the future of spatial audio. Absolutely incredible.

First snow of the season

It's not often you get in a lift that is big enough to carry a big lorry.

And of course we had to go see Wicked

Weird state

Jarod — Thu, 26 Dec 2024 13:57:00 GMT

It's that weird time of year. Between Christmas and New Years.

Fortunately, we don't have any engagements that require us to leave the house.

Unfortunately, I've managed to stack up quiet the work load of tasks that need to be done.

What I'm really wanting to do though it sit at my computer and play Farm Simulator 2025.

I'm probably going to just answer a couple emails and then play. Just because.

Get ready

Jarod — Fri, 20 Dec 2024 11:50:00 GMT

I've been neglecting my blog over the last couple of months.

Of course with the holiday coming up and having plenty of time off work, with nothing else planned, I'm going to put some focus back on it.

So get ready to get a flood (by my regular posting standards) of posts coming through here.

Now Updating

Jarod — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 15:07:00 GMT

So I just updated my Now page.

I've been wondering if I should include these other pages (i.e. Now, About, Books) in my RSS feed when they update. Maybe I will just for the fun of it. I'll have to do some research on how to get this to happen in my build pipeline. Shouldn't be a hard thing to do I don't think.

Favourite photos - October 2024

Jarod — Fri, 01 Nov 2024 13:31:00 GMT

I'm on holiday so I'm just going to go ahead and jump into posting my favourite photos for October.

Favourite photos - September 2024

Jarod — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:31:00 GMT

Wow, I didn't take very many photos in September. In fact there's only one that is really "shareable".

Anyway, enjoy this photo of a bit of a rainbow over east London.

Holiday Illness

Jarod — Thu, 31 Oct 2024 13:13:00 GMT

I've been a bit on edge during our current holiday. Last year, half way into our trip I came down with COVID. (We are still maskers, mostly on public transit so that made it even more frustrating.) In previous years we've had hospital visits, kids throwing up, and other various issues.

Well this year it looks like one of the kids had a bad reaction to some shellfish. Fortunately it wasn't the swelling/difficulty breathing kind. It did have to do with multiple kinds bodily emissions. Forceful kinds. There was a lot of cleaning up to do. And lots of laundry.

Fortunately it looks like it has all passed and what's left is just a bunch of tired people needing a rest after being up most of the night cleaning and caring for the sick (and trying not to be sick themselves).

We are in France now so... C'est la vie.

Monthly update: I guess

Jarod — Wed, 30 Oct 2024 15:41:00 GMT

Lots going on I guess. Or I just for get to blog more like it. Since I haven't created a way to post from my phone or iPad that I'm happy with yet I have to force myself to sit at my computer and type when I want to blog something. It does cause me to be more intentional about it but that also means I haven't made a habit of doing it yet.

I also have these grand ideas that I'm going to do lots of writing or updates or creative endeavors when on holiday as well.

That never happens.

I usually just sit around reading books. Which, I should say, there is absolutely nothing wrong with. Today I did get the urge to mess around with my website. I updated a few styles to make things look a bit differently. I also went through the process of updating dependencies in my build pipeline. So SUCCESS!

For now I just sit on the balcony of our rented flat in Nice and watch the people below.

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path: Manorbier to Stackpool

Jarod — Sat, 14 Sep 2024 17:00:00 GMT

Start with Day 1 of this walk Pembrokeshire Coastal Path: Saundersfoot to Manorbier

Let's just cut to the chase: Day 2 of this walk was brutal. We ended up cutting it short. It was still beautiful and a great walk but I just about didn't make it.

You can view our route on the Ordinance Survey.

We started out the morning with a great breakfast at The Castlemead Hotel where we stayed and then has a quick little wonder around the grounds. This church was visible from the grounds.

The trail started off at the beach on Manorbier Bay. Fortunately there wasn't any beach walking at this point. Walking on sand is tough!

It may not have started with beach walking, but it did start with some quick gains in elevation. Not hard, but what made it uncomfortable was that there was no wind and it was a bit humid.

Soon enough we were near the top of the first climb and could look back on the beach and Manorbier Bay.

We powered our way through the first stretch and got to the beginning of our first decent. This one down into a secluded beach with a sailboat anchored in the bay.

As we were getting closer to the beach we could see there were people enjoying the beach. As we got closer we could see that, in fact, they were all naked. 😏

So we made our way down the trail and started our way back up the other side.

From here the trail and the views were pretty similiar. Not many trees (no shade 🌞🥵) and a lot of tall vegitation that blocked with breeze. Altogether it was starting off as a pretty hot one.

After a while (and a long seemingly unending beach walk) we made it to our planned lunch stop of Freshwater East. We were hoping to find some shops to grab some more food and fill up our water, but there wasn't really much near the beach area. We found a restaurant with suitable items and grabbed a quick bite.

As we were leaving we had an immediate steep climb and half way up I started getting light headed. After sitting down for a minute I realised I was not doing well. Something I ate for lunch wasn't sitting well at all and I had very quickly lost all my energy.

Slowly, we made our way back down to the restaurant where we were able to grab a couple of comfy chairs and relax for a bit. It took me a while but after an hour or so I was finally able to start eating and drinking something again and my energy was coming back. It was touch and go for a bit and we had started looking for cabs to get us to our next stop. Fortunately that wasn't needed and we continued on.

We worked our way up the initial climb that I had failed earlier. At the top we were greeted by some horses that had found some shade and were enjoying an afternoon meal.

So back onto the trail and more up and down.

As the day went on we were getting more and more tired. We decided to take a short cut and make a quick way into Stackpool for a shower and dinner.

So we made it into our inn for the night. Of course at dinner we had to go all out.

And the next morning something to add back the protein.

And thus ended our Pembrokeshire Coast trail. At some point we'll probably do some more of the trail, but there's also a lot of coast around the UK.

Favourite photos - August 2024

Jarod — Sun, 01 Sep 2024 19:23:00 GMT

We took a trip to Kansas City last month. My photos all came from that. We didn't really get out much other than that.

Growing up in Kansas this was a common sight. Just driving to a town with a mall involved 30 minutes one these roads. I like these roads. Some find them boring but there is something about them I find super interesting. There's so much to see.

This was the playground I lived next to growing up. I still remember when this slide was installed. It made the front page of our town's newspaper.

Looking out over Troost Ave. towards downtown Kansas City.

This building has a lot of special meaning for our family.

During our time there we stayed on my in laws farm.

Book updates

Jarod — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 22:31:00 GMT

While I'm updating the site today I might as well update my reading list. I'd like to automate this more (as would I like to for a lot of things on this site, but that's for another time.). It would be nice to just do a single click when I'm done with a book. Someday.

Anyway here's what I've read. There's not much in the way of reviews because I'm just not like that. I did pull out some of my favourite quotes for the books though.

Ink & Sigil

Paper & Blood

Equal Rites

Favourite photos - July 2024

Jarod — Sat, 31 Aug 2024 19:23:00 GMT

July photos. Just getting them in before the end of August. All from our Pembrokeshire coast walk.

Pembrokeshire Coastal Path: Saundersfoot to Manorbier

Jarod — Sat, 03 Aug 2024 15:00:00 GMT

I had mentioned at the beginning of the year that I had wanted to do some serious walks and hikes this year. I had the goal of walking 1000 miles this year. Well that was a bit, well..., ambitious to say the least. I've been averaging 2.1 miles per day. To get to 1000 I'd need to do at least 2.8.

Anyway, last week Mary and I escorted a group of kids (ours included) out to camp in south Wales and had made the decision to take a couple days and walk part of the Pembrokeshire Coast Trail.

You can view our route on the Ordinance Survey.

We got into Kilgetty the night before and stayed at The Manian which was really nice. It's a little out of the way but still very nice.

The next morning we got up, had breakfast and took a cab to the beginning of the trail for us (it was a couple miles away and we didn't want to spend our morning energy on road walking).

Once we got there we were greeted by some well posted signage.

We had a nice chat with another couple coming down the trail. They gave us some tips as to what to look out for and be aware of and then we were on our way. Immediately it started off with an incline and into some up and downs which would continue through out most of both days.

Within the first few minutes we were rewarded with our first view of the coast

The wooded trail during this part of the trail provided some wonderful shade during this part of the trail.

After a while the trail leveled off a bit and opened up into the first bit of farmland we were to cross. This provided some more wonderful views.

Before long we were greeted with our first views of Tenby, Wales, which would mark the halfway point of the first day, and were we would stop for lunch.

Even though we could see Tenby on the coast we still had a ways to go. It included some more technical parts getting back down to the coast line.

After a bit more we came to some more pastureland and the trail opened into what I think was probably the best view of the trail. It was a wide open pasture that gently curved down towards the coast and the town of Tenby. That allowed for some amazing views of the village and surrounding area. There were a few people who were even sitting in the field enjoying the view with a picnic.

After a bit more pastureland and some downhill we came across this view.

At first we though, "Oh this looks cute!". It's very fairtale-esque. And that also means it's very deceiving. It just kept going. Up and up, and on and on. We had to take a couple breaks on the way up.

Make it up that part of the trail and we were rewarded with finally making it into Tenby.

At that point it was time for a bit of lunch and little rest. We couldn't take too long though because we still had a long ways to go to get to our hotel for the night.

Leaving Tenby to the west lead to what was one of the worst parts of the trail. It started off with a really long beach walk. Walking a long ways on sand is just not fun. It's tiring. It takes way more energy. And this beach was super busy as well.

This then lead to an equally long paved path along the side of the A4139. Really not much interesting and if there was a way to skip it we probably would have.

Finally we made it off the road and back onto the trail. First through a field and then onto a long upwards through more pastureland.

We were getting closer to Manorbier and it was getting late in the day. This is when the path became the most technical. There were mulitple parts where the up and down parts of the trail were greater than 45 degrees.

At that point it was time to head back inland to make our way to our hotel for food, a good shower and sleep.

We got settled into The Castlemead Hotel in Manorbier. After a long day it was time for some rest and getting ready to continue on the next day!

July updates

Jarod — Sat, 13 Jul 2024 15:31:00 GMT

A couple of updates to the site...

I finished reading The Light Fantastic by Terry Pratchet so click on the link to read my thoughts.

I've also updated my Now page.

I really want to figure out how to get rid of the /pages/ part in my URLs. It shouldn't be too hard to do technically. I'll just have to go around and update links in a number of places. I'll probably have to put in a redirect at the server level as well which I'm not super keen on doing. Oh well.

EDIT: Changing the urls and adding the redirects weren't actually that hard and should be working now.

Favourite photos - June 2024

Jarod — Sun, 07 Jul 2024 21:04:00 GMT

I didn't take many photos this month. At least ones that I'm going to share because most of the ones I've taken were part of our church's annual festival.You can see a small selection of those here.

My first general election as a British citizen.

These two guys were constructing some scaffolding. Soon after I took this the one on the top took his phone out for a selfie.

Kicking metaphorical bushes

Jarod — Mon, 24 Jun 2024 18:31:00 GMT

Sometimes I don't agree with some policy of a group I'm a part of.

Sometimes when I don't agree with said policy, I go kicking around bushes to make it known that said policy is dumb.

Sometimes there are metaphorical hornet nests in said metaphorical bushes.

In my latest kicking adventure there hasn't been any hornets yet, but you never know.

Favourite photos - May 2024

Jarod — Tue, 18 Jun 2024 09:42:00 GMT

Continuing the trend of favourite photos from the month that I've taken, here's a selection from May.

Pascha! Christ is risen!

Not so much that this is a great photo but it represents that our kitchen remodel is finished.

And then my first Premier League football match.

Then it was time for our annual church conference. Normally I get a lot more photos during this trip because it's a very photogenic place, but this year I was just way too busy with helping run the conference that I just didn't get any.

Euro-football

Jarod — Tue, 11 Jun 2024 20:58:00 GMT

Today in random football matches to watch. Northern Ireland v. Andorra live on YouTube. A UEFA friendly.

To say I'm not expecting much out of this match would be an understatement.

On the flip side, YouTube has had a good number of live football matches broadcast this year. Mostly Bundesliga and Bundesliga 2 but still very fun to watch. I'm glad to see this trend of free to watch football continue.

Happy Keynote Day!

Jarod — Mon, 10 Jun 2024 15:16:00 GMT

Happy WWDC Keynote day to all who celebrate!

Books

Jarod — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 19:05:00 GMT

I spent a large part of the day working on a new part of my site. I'm not listing all the books I've read starting at the beginning of this year. I've also added a breif little review (but don't expect anything hugely groundbreaking!). As with all things on the site this is just the beginning and it will grow over time.

In the mean time go check it out.

Books

The random busyness and car hires

Jarod — Sat, 01 Jun 2024 09:41:00 GMT

Well May turned in to a bit of a blur, and looking back I'm not sure where it all went.

I'm currently looking through my photos for the month and after my trip to the West Ham match there's not much there. Just a random spattering of different events that took up a lot of energy on my part but didn't result in the kind of enjoyment that I might have been hoping for.

I did make a really stupid, and costly, mistake a couple weeks ago which seemed to colour some of the events. I've mostly moved on from it now. Mostly, not fully.

Let me explain...

For the past few years one of the constants and highlights of our year has been attending our Deanery conference (A deanery is a small group of churches in a larger set). It's usually held at a beautiful conference centre in the countryside and during this time of year the weather is starting to become really nice. This leads to lots of time just enjoying sitting outdoors chatting with friends from all over the UK, most of whom we only see once or twice a year.

As part of this conference we have talks by different people as well as a book store. Our parish holds the only book store in the deanery and I manage that book store. So it usually falls to me to bring our book store from the parish to the conference. For the past few years this has involved me renting a car that we load up with books as well as my family and this driving up to where ever the conference is.

This year was no different. I booked the car and got a good deal for it. There was a problem though.

I booked the car for the weekend before the conference.

And I fully prepaid.

And it was a bank holiday weekend so they had no cars left.

I'm pretty sure I went through just about every emotion possible right there at the car rental counter. All within the space of a few seconds.

I ended up getting a car from another provider at more than double the cost (at first they told me it was going to be over 4x the cost).

As someone with an overall low level of self esteem, that level was at rock bottom after that.

Anyway, we made it to the conference. I had a lot of work to do during the conference so I mostly forgot about it. But I also didn't really enjoy the conference as much as previous years.

I know I'm not the first, nor the last, to ever do that, but it is a real blow to the wallet and the confidence. I'll get over it, or at least forget that it happened at some point.

Until there I'll probably leave most of the scheduling of critical functions to my wife.

Firsts and Lasts

Jarod — Fri, 17 May 2024 09:48:00 GMT

It was my first Premier League football match.

My first time in London Stadium.

George Earthy's first Premier League goal.

The last West Ham United home match of 23/24

David Moyes' last home match as manager of West Ham United

It was a great day out. I got a great seat and got to see West Ham play really well. It was disappointing for Luton Town. Luton's had an incredible season even though they are going to be relegated. They've been through some really tough situations and have always shown a tonne of class and grace through it all. I've got massive amounts of respect for their manager Rob Edwards. He is straight up class. I really do wish the best for him and the club.

On the other side is David Moyes. Another manager I've got lots of respect for. He's done so much for West Ham and it's a shame to see him go. I get why the club made the decision but it still a shame. Moyes has done some great things for the club. He's really brought West Ham along and elevated them in the Premier League. He pushed them to win their first trophy in 43 years. He will be missed.

It really was a wonderful day out and an amazing experience for a first Premier League match.

Favourite photos - April 2024

Jarod — Thu, 09 May 2024 13:18:00 GMT

So here's a collection of my favourite photos I've taken from the month of April.

Portishead

Jarod — Wed, 08 May 2024 14:58:00 GMT

Ever since university my all time favourite band has been Portishead. Around that time I was recording and touring with my own band and Portishead was a huge influence on our sound and what we wanted to be like.

I've always wanted to see Portishead live. Living in the United States made that hard. Then there's the fact that Portishead as a band has made very few albums and doesn't really tour that much.

It's unlikely that I'll ever get to see them play live. 😢

So a few days ago I got probably the next best thing to seeing them play live.

It's the 25th Anniversary of the Roseland NYC Live album and video. To celebrate there was a special viewing of the film at a cinema in Bristol. Along with this there was an introduction to the film given by Portishead guitarist Adrian Utley. When I heard about this it only took me minutes to start making plans to attend.

So I trekked Bristol one Friday and got there early enough to get a good seat.

And I got to hear Adrian tell us about the work that went into the remastering and re-release of the film and album.

And then we watched the concert film. It was just as amazing as I always remember it being. There were so many memories I had of the first time watching it. It's amazing.

And then the film was over. I was buzzing. It was so great to see it again and in this context was wonderful.

After the film everyone made their way out to the pub that's part of cinema. I went with the flow and hung out there for a while. Then on my way out I came across the man himself!

I got to thank him for his music and tell him how much of an influence his music had on me. It was amazing. I was so exited.

So if I never get to see Portishead live in concert I at least got to have this amazing experience.

British chaos

Jarod — Fri, 26 Apr 2024 11:16:00 GMT

It has got to be one of the most British things ever to describe as scene as total chaos and then show a video like the one in this article 🤣

'Chaos' as gaggle of Egyptian geese delays trains

New typeface

Jarod — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 10:23:00 GMT

I decided to just go ahead and do it and update the site to use Atkinson Hyperlegible Font. I'm really liking it. It's very clean.

I've also made a few changes to the link styles while I'm at it with inspiration from Cassidy William's site.

If you're reading this via RSS you might just want to jump over to the site, take a look, and tell me what you think.

Random update

Jarod — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 09:23:00 GMT

It's been a busy past few days. Nothing specific but just a lot of random little things. And the rest of this week is going to be the same. And next week as well. And the kitchen is still being remodelled. And I'm overwhelmed and going into shutdown mode a bit.

The kitchen is coming along great, it's just slow. It seems like the end is always just slightly over the horizon and we're never quiet there.

I'm working on adding new sections to my site. I've downloaded my old twitter archive, my old blog, and my old facebook archive and am working on a way to display them on my site. I'm not really sure how I want to do it just yet but I've got a few bits in mind.

I finished reading 3 more books recently and have been meaning to write about them but just haven't. I'm probably going to do a separate section of the site for books. Maybe a separate RSS feed as well. Last year I read 32 books of widely varying styles. This year I'm probably going to come in under that number, which is fine.

I want to redesign my site a bit as well. The FiraCode typeface just isn't working for me. It just doesn't feel right. I'm thinking of going with the Atkinson Hyperlegible Font from the Braille Institute. Over all, it just looks good. And it has the added benefit of accessibility so win/win.

Anyway, that's enough random thoughts for now.

Count Binface

Jarod — Thu, 18 Apr 2024 09:59:00 GMT

Count Binface, and previously Lord Buckethead, have been part of the political landscape of the UK for many years now.

Of course Count Binface is standing for London Mayor this year, and I've got to say, I do relate and can get on board with a large number of points in their manifesto.

kitchen remodel gripe

Jarod — Tue, 16 Apr 2024 22:54:00 GMT

The absolute worst thing about having our kitchen remodelled is that we had to move the cat's litter box to the upstairs hallway. It's right outside our bedroom door. It stinks.

A lot.

🤢🤮

ZSH history

Jarod — Thu, 11 Apr 2024 13:22:00 GMT

I was trying to keep this blog from being all about tech stuff but this was just too good not to share. If you spend a lot of time in the terminal then this might help you as well. It's been a huge improvement for me.

https://martinheinz.dev/blog/110

If you work in shell/terminal often enough, then over time the history will become your personal knowledge vault, documentation and command reference. Being able to use this personal documentation efficiently can hugely boost your productivity. So, here are a couple of tips on how to optimize your shell history configuration and usage to get the most out of it.

Cute London

Jarod — Thu, 04 Apr 2024 11:29:00 GMT

Yesterday we had a little family outing and lunch. We went to visit the Cute Exhibition at Somerset House.

In short it was equal parts overwhelming and underwhelming.

Upon entering the queue to have your ticket scanned you see a row of AI generated cats. AI generated images do not belong in the same class as human generated art. But that's a topic for someone else to blog on.

I could go through the rest of the exhibit room by room but I honestly don't feel like reliving it. There were a couple rooms that were interesting (some Manga and Kawaii displays, the history of Hello Kitty), but it soon got into the weird and overwhelming. Some rooms felt like they were just trying way to hard to push boundaries and explore the edges what is considered cute. It didn't work for me. It felt forced and disjointed.

Normally I would add some pictures but honestly I didn't even think to take any pictures. I didn't see anything that I was like, yeah I want to remember that. So no pictures from me.

I'm sure there are people who loved it and for whom it was just their thing. I'm not that audience. I'm guessing that most people aren't that audience.

I sum it up with the wise words of Randy Jackson, "That's gonna be a No from me dawg."

Weeknote

Jarod — Sun, 31 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

It's been a busy and disjointed week. I've had a lot going on at work and had to play catch up in a few places. Here in the UK we have Good Friday and the Monday after Easter.

Part of what is making the days a bit disjointed is that our kitchen is still under construction. It's coming along very nicely and it's going to be wonderful to have it done, but in the mean time it's just very disruptive. It is a privilege to be able to have our own house and to be able have someone rebuild an entire room for us and I don't take that lightly.

With the demolition done now they are starting to build things back starting with the floor

Then came the walls and electrics

As a family we really love going to the theatre to see plays and musicals. Our latest was on Friday where we got to see Harry Potter and the Cursed Child.

It was really good! My favourite character was Scorpious. He really brought a sense of joy and compassion to the story.

The production quality was top notch as well.

What made the experience even more special was that our youngest daughter had a good friend who as actually in the show. He played the part of the young Harry Potter. Of course we were biased but he did a wonderful job!

After the show we even hung out at the stage door to say hi and give our congrats.

It was a great day out!

Young MC

Jarod — Mon, 25 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

This has got to be one of the most underrated hiphop albums. So many hits in one place.

John Mayer

Jarod — Sat, 23 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

As my domain name might suggest, I like everything to do with live music.

Tuesday night Mary was suppose to go see John Mayer at the O2 Arena in London with a friend of hers. Unfortunately her friend was unwell and couldn't go. So I got invited to go along. I'm not a huge John Mayer fan. I certainly appreciate his talent though. His solo tour just wasn't one that I would have spent my money to go see.

That said, the show was great. I really enjoyed it a lot.

The show was just John. No band, no tracks, just him and his guitar (or piano). Normally these types of musician with guitar shows don't lend themselves to big arenas. The sound usually gets lost. Or the guitar is too piercing and not balanced. Or the vocals are lost. This has none of that. The audio engineering was spectacular. The guitar mix was so full and round that no one part of it was over powering but also in a way that you never realised there were no other people playing along. The bass was full and thumping but not over powering. The fret and string noise was present but not grinding. All of it adding little bits that you would have missed with a full band. On top of that it was all mixed beautifully around the vocals. It just sounded wonderful and pulled you in from the very first song.

The stage production was really good as well. It was enough to draw an entire arena into the show but not so much that it overshadowed the fact that there was only one performer on stage. It was additive and never pulled focus from the performance. It was spot on.

Of course John has a crew that has probably been with him for ages and knows his music as well as he does. That's how you pull of an arena show as a musician with a guitar. It takes everyone really knowing their craft and being completely tuned into the music. This crew was exactly that.

John was a presence unto himself on stage. From the first song you could tell he was in his element. He was having fun and bringing everyone along for the ride. Multiple times he would acknowledge different shouts of song requests between songs. At one point he was so involved in the moment that he said he was throwing out the setlist and going to take requests. He even fumbled through bits of songs that he couldn't quite remember that people had asked for. It seemed like he was really enjoying the time and the music. Like playing for a living room of friends. Whether it was honest or just part of the act it doesn't matter, it worked and everyone seemed to feel it.

I'm grateful that I got to go to the show. I got to experience a true musical craftsman at work. With that experience in mind I know I'll be seeing John's music in a whole new light.

Kitchen remodel

Jarod — Tue, 19 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

This is how yesterday started.

This is how yesterday ended.

Minecraft

Jarod — Sun, 17 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I've never been much of a gamer. I don't have the hand eye coordination to be any good at video games. I did get into World of Warcraft for a while when I was playing with friends from work. That was really fun. The grinding aspect and the open world exploring, along with the teamwork aspect was what I really enjoyed.

I don't remember how I got into Minecraft, but somehow I did and I got my kids involved as well. We started our own self-hosted server that I've got set up on one of my computers. From there we all log in and can play together in our own world that we control.

After a while we kind of let that server go. It's saved on a hard drive somewhere in my house. I'm not sure where.

We had stopped playing a while ago. I'm not sure why. life got busy and the kids found other interests. So Minecraft kind of faded into the background. We continued to play intermittently on iOS but it just isn't the same.

Well, recently I got the bug to start playing again. We started watching some of our favourite Minecraft YouTubers (Mumbo Jumbo and GeminiTay) and I went ahead and set up our own server.

After a few days here we are...

The screenshot was taken from the mcview app which let's you see the entirety of your Minecraft world.

So as we start to grow and explore this world I'll post updates.

New typeface

Jarod — Wed, 13 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I'm trying out a new typeface on my site. The previous one was just a bit too rounded and I didn't really like it.

I've started using FiraCode. I've been using this typeface as my default in whatever code editor I'm using and it's really good. Of course that doesn't mean that it translates to web use so I'm just going to try it out for now and see how I like it.

Some jobs I'm not cut out for

Jarod — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

There are jobs that I just don't have the mental, physical, or emotional fortitude to deal with. The above are photos of someone performing one of those jobs. I'm glad we all have different skills and abilities!

I will take your bag's seat

Jarod — Tue, 05 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

If you have your bag sitting on a seat it is a certainty that I'm going to try and sit there. I seek out those seats 😂. I will even wake you up from your pretend slumber and ask you to move your bag so I can sit there. If you are man spreading along with the bag seating then it's even more likely I'm going to choose you. I do it to make you uncomfortable. And because I want to sit and you didn't pay extra to take up two seats on the Tube.

Day after Leap Day update

Jarod — Fri, 01 Mar 2024 24:00:00 GMT

There was a lot I wanted to write about over the last month, but when it came down to it I just didn't have the energy to sit down and write it. I've got a lot of drafts for posts but Just didn't have the drive to do it.

So this morning I forced myself to sit at my desk and do an update. I noticed that my Now page was out of date already so I dove into it and started updating lots of things there. Go check it out for a bit of an update

Last weekend we had our annual church social which I really enjoyed. Lots of really good homemade food from people all over the world. It's kind of like a global food sampler. I also got to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while which was wonderful. I don't really like socialising at big gatherings, I'm more of a small group kind of person, because I find it very difficult to find things to talk about (small talk). But it was great to be a part of it and to see everyone.

I'm still trying to figure out a way to enable a bit of two way conversation between this blog and readers. I'm not expecting to have a lot of comments or what now but I want to have it available if people would like to comment or message me about something. I just don't want to have to deal with adding any javascript to my site. I also don't want to have to manage another service that handles comments. I guess I could do email. I am trying to set up email using my domain but it just hasn't been a high priority. Maybe that's the solution though. It does seem like the simplest. I've just never been very good at responding to people's emails.

If you have thoughts, and already know how to get in touch with me, then let me know what you think might be a good solution.

European travel

Jarod — Wed, 14 Feb 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I love train travel.

It's faster than driving. There's much more personal space than flying. The views are often very scenic. It's usually less stressful.

Usually.

So we are in Tarragona Spain this week. It's school half term in the England, which means that everyone with school aged kids in England is on holiday. All at the same time. It's absolute madness.

Previous to this year we were a homeschool family while this had it's challenges in some ways it gave us a lot of flexibility. We could choose to take our holidays at less busy times. It was cheaper (waaaayyy cheaper), less busy, and less susceptible to disruptions.

We are now a family with two kids in the school system. While this has had some big benefits for our kids, I'm currently hating what it's done to our family holiday time. We are locked into always going on holiday at prescribed times throughout the year. Which means all the travel companies know this and the prices are hiked up to ridiculous levels. I hate it. Hate it.

Anyway, I state this because like I mentioned before that we are in Spain. We were scheduled to return on Friday. That was until the French train conductors decided to go on strike this Fri-Sun. So our train through France on Friday was cancelled. We either have to wait to go back on Monday, or go back tomorrow. Well both kids have to be in school on Monday and Mary has to work over the weekend. So we are having to stress out getting new train tickets so we can start our trip home tomorrow.

Of course we didn't get the travel insurance so we have to incur the extra costs on top of the already stupidly expensive, overly inflated prices.

There's nothing I can do about it. So I complain about it on my blog and others might read it.

Oh well 😫

Back catalog

Jarod — Tue, 06 Feb 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I decided to start working my way through some of my iTunes collection that isn't on streaming services.

The first one that came up was Humanistic by Abandoned Pools. I was surprised I couldn't find this album on any streaming service. It really is pretty good. It's certainly got some Smashing Pumpkins vibes in places but the album holds up on it's own.

Now

Jarod — Sun, 04 Feb 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I've added a new page to the site called Now. It's based on the idea shared here.

I actually ended up writing more there than I expected and maybe I should turn some of the topics there into posts. I probably will at some point but for now let's leave them 😁.

Prettier RSS

Jarod — Wed, 31 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

So I'm really liking following blogs via RSS (I always have). But a lot of the bloggers that I follow have spent a lot of time really working on the design of their site. With RSS all of that is lost. I've seen some talk of HTML in RSS but it doesn't look like it's taken off.

That's disappointing.

Weekly update

Jarod — Sun, 28 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

So it seems like weekly updates have been working with my current pace of life. I can sit on the couch on Sunday afternoon watching a replay of Match of the Day from the previous day (today's is highlights from the 4th round of the FA Cup).

I have a habit of cruising the UK charity shop's eBay stores. I've gotten all kinds of things from there. Coats, shoes, tools, and every so often some vintage electronics.

I like to collect vintage computers and accessories and keep an eye out for some possible collectors items for a good price (and since it's a charity shop the money goes to a good cause). Well, this week I just happened to get one. I scored one of the original iSight cameras

Yesterday, with the help of my youngest, we finished the built in desk in my office.

With that installed I was able to move my work items over to the new desk and finally set up my Performa 5400/180 and some of my music gear.

Next stop is to get a new computer I can use for all kinds of creative endeavours.

Workspace

Jarod — Sun, 21 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

As part of my effort to build more habits doing the things I enjoy doing (in this case writing music), I'm trying to create spaces that help me. Right now I don't have a computer of my own that I can use for "studio" work. I also don't have a good space for that.

Since I work from home a lot, my office is set up for work. That set up is not conducive to the personal work I want to do. With that in mind I'm trying to build the right space. So I'm adding in a built in desk to one side of my office. This will hopefully provide me with some space to differentiate between work and personal tasks.

I've got a table top from Ikea that now just needs to be cut down to fit in the space with the boards I've added to the walls acting as support. The only problem is that the circular saw that I have only has a depth of 1" but the table top is 1.5". I need a new saw 😣.

Another Saturday another design update

Jarod — Sat, 20 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

Dark mode

About page

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I've been using my Saturdays to spend time upgrading the blog. It wasn't my intention. I was planning to work more on music and have that be my creative outlet. But this has been easier. I can do it while sitting and watching TV with the kids, or while watching football, etc.

The blog is moving along. I'm liking the direction it's taking. I really want to find a way to do better mobile posts with images though. That's going to be a bigger challenge than I was hoping but I don't think it's impossible.

New mindless swiping

Jarod — Tue, 16 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

MapSwipe

MapSwipe harnesses the collective strength of volunteers to actively contribute to geospatial data projects. From identifying infrastructure to tracking environmental changes and validating map data, MapSwipers help improve map data across the world.

I already spend too much time mindlessly swiping through things on my phone so I might as well do something helpful with it. Also, I really like looking at maps. I always have. Ever since I was a little kid I've loved just scrolling through maps and exploring.

January

Jarod — Wed, 10 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

Why does January take up a quarter of the year?

Another meta blog post

Jarod — Sun, 07 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

I didn't mean for this blog to be all about the creation of the blog and the technicals but adding these posts helps me test things out.

So with that in mind, for now, there will be a number of posts that just contain random text like this that I'm using to test certain parts of the build pipeline.

Mobile post with photo

Jarod — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

Adding a post with a photo is event more annoying because the way ive got things set up right now, the only way to add a photo to a repo on GitHub is to do it through their web ui. Which on mobile os a bit cumbersome. Right now it requires to separate commits to the repo

First mobile post

Jarod — Sat, 06 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

So in making this new blog I wanted something that I could use to replace what I used to use twitter for which was usually just spouting random nonsense out. But I wanted to be able to do it on a mobile device.

Doing that on a blog that is statically generated and self hosted isn’t trivial. Right now it just involves adding a file to the GitHub repo. It’s not hard, it’s just not nearly as trivial as posting to something like twitter or insta. Hopefully I can come up with a solution for it though.

Editing a blog post in the GitHub app is a real pain.

First walk of the year

Jarod — Mon, 01 Jan 2024 24:00:00 GMT

There's a culture of walking in the UK. Not just around town or getting from point A to B but to get out and enjoy the country side.

I've been getting into the culture a bit. The magazines, the apps, the community. I didn't do much last year outside of London but this year I'm looking to change. So I'm going to try committing to walking 1000 miles this year.

For my first walk this year I walked from Barking to North Woolwich.

The first part of still very urban and not much interesting. About half way it starts to get a little more interesting.

There are a couple of A roads that have heavy traffic but there are bridges.

After a while it gets to a little more secluded

It gets really interesting later when getting to the Docklands and around City Airport.

Then finally ending up on the Thames.

4.73 miles down.

Why a new blog

Jarod — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 24:00:00 GMT

So there are some aspects of social media that I'm missing. I feel like I have things I want to say but I'm not sure who (if anyone) wants to hear them and where should I post them.

I've been getting more into subscribing to RSS feeds lately and the slow web. It's not the control aspect I'm interested in but mostly the thoughtfulness part.

So we'll see where this is going to head.

First auto deploy to Cloudflare

Jarod — Sat, 30 Dec 2023 24:00:00 GMT

First test post for getting auto deployment to Cloudflare Pages working.

Another new beginning

Jarod — Fri, 29 Dec 2023 24:00:00 GMT

So I'm trying to do the blog thing again. This time though I'm going to focus on short posts that I can post from anywhere. Right now I've got it set up using eleventy

Learning to use Next.js

Jarod — Sun, 17 May 2020 01:00:00 GMT

So I've been wanting to set up my own website for a while now. I want to put a number of things on there. Stuff I've learned. Stuff I'm not sure about. And just general ramblings.

So will this work? Probably.

Let's give it a go

func newFunction() -> String {
    "this text"
}

I'll have to come up with a design I like though.

Radkey

Jarod — Tue, 17 Feb 2015 24:00:00 GMT

More music. This time from my second home town of Kansas City.

Current musical obession

Jarod — Thu, 13 Feb 2014 24:00:00 GMT

This is blowing my mind right now.

Journal beginning

Jarod — Mon, 10 Feb 2014 24:00:00 GMT

Here begins my journal of thoughts, code, and general stuff I've been thinking about. Expect this to evolve over time as I play with the design and try out new things.

In my quest to write cleaner code I've come across this new obsession...

Rubocop