Then
- Off balance. Last week was a dance of improvisation. School schedules were changing and shifting, normal rhythms interrupted. But still thankful that our family and house are fine.
- Busy weekend. Ryan had his first lacrosse game of the season and it went well. Jill had her homecoming dance. We’ll be at the coffee shop later to work on homework.
- Where has this year gone? How is it already October?
- Still doing pretty well with my diet. Still on track for my goals. Giving myself a year to get healthy was a good plan, but it’s hard to stay motivated over such a long span of time.
- Didn’t really make much progress on projects this week.
- Got a revise and resubmit with minor changes this week. Excited to see this work get published.
- Didn’t watch any college football this weekend. Which means I missed my Gamecocks struggling against Ole Miss. And Vandy’s shocking upset against Alabama.
- Looking forward to F1 being back next week.
- Grateful that our family is fine, our house is undamaged, and we have power.
- Heartbroken for communities devastated by Hurricane Helene.
- Thankful for the linemen who are working to restore power. (There were five trucks in the front of our neighborhood earlier.)
- I wasn’t particularly rigid with my diet while we were navigating high winds and power outages, but I felt like given the situation, I was able to make healthy choices.
- Not a productive week from a project standpoint.
- Read Dan Moren’s “The Armageddon Protocol.” I’ve read all the other books in the series and this book was a fitting conclusion. Thoroughly enjoyed the series.
- No Gamecock Football this week. No F1 this week. I did watch a little bit of NFL football, but it’s mostly on as background noise.
- I remain impressed with the Harris/Walz campaign. They’ve just got to keep it going until November. (And honestly, beyond Election Day when the MAGA types refuse to accept the results of the election.)
- I’m writing this from my back deck where I’m cooking out tonight. My wife is doing classwork out here with me. We’re a couple of geeks.
- I do feel stretched thin, with being a parent, an employee and a student. The day off this week helped. I need to remember to take those occasional “mental health” days.
- I ate well this week. I do feel that I need to make a couple of changes to my current routine. I’m getting hungry in the early afternoon and might need to add a planned snack.
- I got a lot of work done on my contract type design project. Really happy with where it is going.
- I haven’t posted much on social media the past couple of weeks. Not sure why… just too busy, I guess.
- Haven’t had time to keep reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. But it’s still by my nightstand.
- McLaren had a great race at Singapore. Lando Norris with an incredible victory and they expand their team lead. Having fun watching this incredible season, but bummed that the next race is a month away.
- Good win for my Gamecocks this week against an overmatched Akron squad. I’ve watched a few NFL games, but since I don’t really have a favorite NFL team, they are mostly background noise while I’m working on other projects.
- I remain concerned about the upcoming election. Especially when one side is starting to resort to false and racist rhetoric to inspire their voters.
- The weather continues to get better. We were supposed to have a bunch of rain this weekend, but we only had occasional sprinkles.
- Made time for a much needed date night with Liz. Our schedules are busy with both of us in grad school. Enjoyed a nice impromptu dinner at one of our favorite fancy restaurants.
- I continue to eat well and work on changing bad food habits. I’d been losing weight at a reasonable pace, and then plateaued this week. Which is frustrating, but I also know that factors like stress and lack of sleep can affect metabolism.
- Getting a good night’s sleep is an important part of staying healthy. It’s also the first thing I neglect when I have stuff to do.
- Going to try some approaches to getting some activity in this week. Nothing complicated. Walks and some body weight exercises.
- My contract type design project continues to soak up time and energy.
- Need to make some time to do some projects around the house.
- Continuing to read Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse.
- Football is back. Tough loss for my Gamecocks against LSU this week. I’ll probably watch Sunday night football tonight.
- The Azerbaijan Grand Prix was crazy today. Big win for McLaren. Apparently, I picked the best possible season to get into F1.
- The weather is improving. We actually haven’t spent much time on our back deck this summer because it was just too hot, but we did some work back there and I look forward to spending more time in the backyard as the weather cools.
- Busy week at the office upcoming with some complicated tight deadlines. Will feel better after Wednesday morning.
- Big win for my Gamecocks, defeating Kentucky soundly. Next week is LSU at home with College Gameday in Columbia. We’ll see how they do.
- The Presidential debate is this week. Sigh. I’m not going to watch it because it just causes me anxiety. (And I know how I’m going to vote.)
- Apple event this week. My four-year-old iPhone is due to be replaced. And honestly, so is my Apple Watch 4. So I’ll be paying attention to what they announce.
- I’m still bringing my lunch every day, which I think is a good foundation for eating healthier. Bonus: It also saves a lot of money.
- Went for a walk with Liz while Ryan was at lacrosse practice. I need to work more walks into my schedule.
- Lots of time on contract design and grad school. Not a lot of time for other projects.
- I’ve got some ideas for some backyard projects this fall. We’ll see if I can find time.
- Continuing to read Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse.
- Football is back. I watched the Chiefs win by a toe on Thursday night, watched some college football on Saturday and going to watch the Sunday night NFL game while I work on grad school stuff tonight.
- We had cooler weather last week, but then it’s hot again. Really, really reading for the cooler weather to return.
- Busy. We are starting to balance all of the family commitments with Liz and I both taking classes, Jill and Ryan handling homework, new pick up routines… It’s tough to get back into a rhythm.
- Thankful for the long weekend. I need the time to recharge.
- This week was challenging, but I did a decent job sticking to healthier food choices.
- My contract type design consulting job is going well, but taking more time than I expected. Very happy with the results so far.
- Grad school reading and projects are going well. Getting back in the rhythm of class and school.
- Continuing to read Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Going slow. It’s picking up pace, but I have less time to read.
- Just watched the Italian Grand Prix. Disappointed that McLaren didn’t win the race, but LeClerc had a great race for Ferrari.
- Tired. After the summer, getting back into a routine has been tough. Waking up earlier. Going to bed earlier. Longer drive and more traffic. It’s exhausting, but I know it will get better.
- Grateful for some cooler weather. Most summers in Columbia, South Carolina are hot, but this summer has been brutal. I’m looking forward to being able to comfortably hang out on our back deck and enjoy some cooler weather.
- I’m pumped up about the Harris/Walz ticket. Let’s go.
- Did a great job eating healthier this week. Really proud of myself for planning ahead and bringing my lunch to work.
- SbB Diskette was approved by MyFonts.
- My academic article is still officially under peer review.
- I’ve got a contract type design consulting job that’s going to take a bunch of time over the next few weeks. I’m excited to continue working on it.
- Lots of grad school reading is going to eat into my project time.
- Made progress on Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse.
- I found a Spades iOS app on Apple Arcade. I’m addicted.
- F1 is back. Watched qualifying for the Dutch Grand Prix this morning. Looking forward to the race tomorrow.
- Our oldest, Norah, moved into her own apartment this week. And while she lived in the residence hall last year, she’s now really out on her own. Proud of her, but it’s always a little bittersweet to watch the kids grow up.
- Back to heading to the coffee shop to work every weekend with my daughter. She has so much AP work to do, that she likes to go to Starbucks to study. I usually have work to do, too. So we go together. I don’t love the stress that comes with the work, but I adore having the time with Jill.
- Continue to be both nervous and excited about the future of this country. I think the wild swings in the news cycle affect me more than I’d like to admit.
- First day of class for me on Wednesday this week. Looking forward to taking something a little different.
- Did a decent job trying to eat better this week. Need to plan ahead a little bit better when we have a busy schedule.
- Didn’t really work out this week, but did move my daughter into a second floor apartment with no elevator. (And most of it was moved up from the lower parking level.) Lots of stair flights.
- I’ve got one font submitted to Monotype for approval to sell on their marketplace.
- My academic article is officially under peer review.
- I need to set up a new web site for my merchandise. Might work on that today.
- Paused on Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. I just haven’t had much time to read.
- F1 is still on summer break, but will be back next weekend.
- Had someone be incredibly rude to me at work this week. And it really bothered me for a day or two.
- Tim Walz. My goodness. I didn’t know politicians like this get elected. What a breath of fresh air. I’m all in on bringing joy back. I’m tired of the doom and gloom.
- Work on the Ph.D. will continue soon. A couple of weeks left until classes start. I’m taking one class this semester — a qualitative research class in the College of Education. Will be a bit of a change from my normal comms classwork.
- Started this week trying to make better food choices. Was mostly successful. I do feel better when I eat better.
- Rediscovered some old fitness apps that I’ve tried in the past. Dusted them off and trying to build a workout rhythm.
- I’ve decided to rename one of my new fonts because of a very minor possibility that the name infringes on an existing trademark. Naming fonts is harder than naming children.
- I’ve got a few other fonts in the works, but I don’t know how much progress I’ll make when classes start back.
- More Olympics. Volleyball. Water Polo. Basketball. Some track and field.
- Still reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. I didn’t actually pick it up this week, but it’s still the book beside my bed.
- F1 is still on summer break. ☹️
- Uncomfortable. The air conditioning went out in my office this week. That’s never something you want in Columbia in the summer.
- One of my friends is leaving for a job at another school. I’m bummed, but it’s a great opportunity for her. Just a lot of changes at the office this summer.
- I continue to be impressed with Kamala Harris’s campaign so far. I forgot what hope felt like.
- Tired. My teacher wife reported to school this week, and the alarm started going off an hour earlier. Ugh. Need more sleep.
- Laying the groundwork for my lifestyle change. Getting apps ready to track, planning diet and exercise changes. Trying not to over do it. I’m giving myself a year to make this change.
- I’m starting on Monday, because there’s still cake and other goodies in the house from my birthday.
- SbB Danceflr is available on MyFonts now.
- Continuing to work on some other font ideas. I have several designs that I never finished, so I’m working toward wrapping those up and submitting them to MyFonts for sale.
- Heard back from the publication I submitted my journal article to and I need to make a couple of minor changes before it heads to peer review. So that’s promising.
- Lots of Olympics. Surfing. Basketball. Gymnastics. Swimming. Handball. Beach Volleyball. Regular Volleyball. I think I’ve watched at least some coverage every day this week.
- Still reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Slowly. I’m struggling to get into it, even though I loved the first two books.
- F1 is on summer break. ☹️
- I feel refreshed. I really needed to take some time off from work and reset. With the leadership change at work, I think I needed the break more than I realized.
- I’m worried about the state of our nation, but I’m energized by the change in the presidential race. Biden stepping down, and Harris consolidating support has me encouraged.
- Being open to changes. The camp our kids went to is also the camp that I attended and worked at. They changed pick up this year, ending on Friday instead of Saturday morning. I wasn’t sure about the change, but we attended a new final ceremony and it was great. I probably need to make this a full post, but we all need to accept that sometimes, change is needed.
- SbB Departure Mono is now live on MyFonts. I’ve got two other fonts that I will submit today or tomorrow.
- I sketched out a couple of new font ideas while we were at the cabin in North Carolina. Was nice to have some time to sketch.
- We were in a cabin without our normal streaming setup. They had a Samsung TV service that had a bunch of ad-supported channels with random reality shows, so we watched some American Ninja Warrior and Ice Road Truckers.
- I started reading Mirrored Heavens by Rebecca Roanhorse. Enjoying it, but having trouble remembering all the things that happened in the second book of the series.
- F1 this weekend.
- Will probably watch some of the Olympics.
- I’m excited about upcoming vacation. It’s been too long since I took a significant amount of time off.
- I’m worried about the state of our nation.
- Grateful for some rain. (We needed it.)
- I published two longer blog posts this week. One about the Star Trek episodes I tend to play in the background, and a second post about the whole Sticker Mule debacle.
- More progress on fonts. I inched closer to releasing my new typefaces. Just some refinements to make sure everything passes the quality assurance checks.
- Submitted an article to a journal to review. Woke up in the middle of the night and decided to be productive. Finished the query letter and hit the submit button. We’ll see what happens.
- Finished Star Wars: The Acolyte. I enjoyed the show and am interested to see if they give it a season two to finish the story.
- I’ve been playing Pokemon Go with my son who just got a new phone.
- F1 this weekend with the Hungarian Grand Prix.
- I’m tired. It’s been a long week for some reason.
- Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
- Sad that summer is coming to an end. Kids start school in less than a month. The excessive heat has been brutal this year. We are fortunate to have shelter and air conditioning so we can manage, but I haven’t felt like leaving the house. Ready for cooler weather.
- I’m getting closer to finishing a couple of new fonts to make available on MyFonts. Just need to put the finishing touches on the files and marketing images.
- I spent time this week editing my paper on consumer attitudes toward logos. Happy with the edits. Time to submit it to a journal. We’ll see what happens.
- Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Finished watching the series this week. Liked where the story landed and was genuinely surprised by some of the callbacks and references to previous Trek franchises.
- Star Wars: The Acolyte. Finale this week. I’ve enjoyed the show, and like the idea that they are telling the story in an earlier time period. I’ll probably post longer thoughts on the blog after the finale.
- Looking for books for vacation and realized the last book in Rebecca Roanhorse’s Between Earth and Sky series is out. I thought I’d preordered it, but apparently not. Need to go back and reread the last book to remember where they left things. Looking forward to reading the final book of the trilogy on vacation.
- No F1 this week.
- Looking forward to an upcoming vacation.
- Leadership changes at work are never easy to navigate.
- Anxious about the state of our country.
- My sore foot is feeling better, but that means I need to turn my focus back to getting healthy.
- I’ve decided to give this “Now” page a try again.
- Finishing up a couple of fonts that I want to release soon. You can see previews at SbB Fonts.
- I’ve got a paper that I need to update and submit to for publication. I’d really like to get it wrapped up this summer before the new semester starts.
- Star Trek: Prodigy on Netflix. Working through the episodes slowly. I suck at binge watching.
- F1, because my daugther got interested and now I’m hooked.
Then: 10.6.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
This week provided confirmation of how bad Hurricane Helene devastated the people and places that we love in Asheville. We’ve heard from all of our friends and they are fine, but the destruction is almost incomprehensible. Asheville is a 2 hour drive from our house, and we make day trips up there all the time. Many of the stores, restaurants and spots we visit are quite simply gone. Lutheridge — a camp very special to my family — is okay, but with a lot of damage. The pen store in Biltmore Village is destroyed. So is the little bakery next door with the amazing Ginger cookies and the restaurant across the street with the pea salad that my wife loves. It’s hard to process all the loss.
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Then: 9.29.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Hurricane Helene hit us in Columbia, South Carolina this week. Early Friday morning, we lost power with 60+ mph wind gusts. Trees down everywhere. In Columbia, we weren’t prepared for a storm of this magnitude. We got power back 12 hours later, but many people in the area are still without power.
As bad as it was here, it was much, much worse two hours north in Asheville. Western North Carolina is devastated. Asheville is in many ways a second home and it’s heartbreaking to see the devastation and flooding.
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Then: 9.22.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
This week was a little more relaxed than the last few. I took Friday off and spent some time working on projects. The weeknights were busy, and our middle child had driving lessons on Saturday and Sunday. Next week looks to be reasonable.
Humorously, I wrote, but forgot to upload, my Now page from last week. I’m trying to use this as a weekly journal. It’s more for me than anyone else, but if you missed my weekly update, I’m sorry.
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Then: 9.15.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
A very busy week. I had a significant work event on Wednesday, and needed to help my daughter with some of her homework in the evenings during the week. Completely wrecked my sleep schedule. Need to be better about going to bed at a reasonable hour. I feel it when I don’t get enough sleep.
The week ahead looks a little more typical… which is still relatively busy with classes, lacrosse and homework.
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Then: 9.8.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
A draining week and weekend. Not bad, but exhausting. I almost forgot to post my weekly update. We celebrated Jill’s 17th birthday this weekend. (Her actual birthday is next week.) It was wonderful, but involved getting the house ready for guests. Balancing that with classwork, work, lacrosse starting back up for Ryan. It’s Sunday afternoon and I feel like I am running out of time.
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Then: 9.1.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
I had an up and down week. Some good days, but I also had one of those days that was terrible from start to finish. Really thankful for the long Labor Day weekend. I’m going to start updating the Now page on Sunday.
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Then: 8.24.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
The start to the school year continues. I had my first grad school class of the semester this week. Looking forward to learning more about qualitative methods. Liz starts her Ph.D. class this week and the kids' school is in full swing.
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See previous “Now” pages in the “Then” category.
Then: 8.17.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Liz and the kids are back in school. We moved our oldest into an off-campus apartment. Starting to figure out everyone’s schedules. It’s been a busy week.
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Then: 8.10.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Reasonably good week. We’re getting our oldest ready to go back to college. I’ve started my plan to be healthier at 50 than I was a 40 — working out a little bit and eating better. Lifestyle change is hard.
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Then: 8.2.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
I celebrated my 49th birthday this week. My kids have an annual tradition where they bake a cake for me, usually with a high degree of difficulty. This year, they attempted to make a Borg Cube from Star Trek.
As I turn 49, I’m looking ahead to 50 next year. I’ve decided that I want to be healthier at 50 than I was at 40. I need to loose weight, eat better and be more active. Basically a lifestyle change. I’m going to add a health category to my weekly Now page updates.
Still wondering if I should post these on Sundays instead of Saturdays.
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Then: 7.27.2024
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Just had a relaxing week of vacation with just my wife and me. The kids were at summer camp for the week so we decided to celebrate our 25th anniversary early up near Asheville. We had a great time, but it’s going to be hard going back to reality on Monday.
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Then: 7.20.24
Posts in the “Then” category were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Weird week. I got randomly sick for an evening. I woke up at 2 AM with a fever that only lasted a couple of hours and no other symptoms. So strange. Whenever I get sick now, I worry about COVID and getting others sick, but I’m pretty sure this was just a random virus.
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Then: 7.13.24
Posts titled “Then” were originally shared on my “Now” page.
Good week, although still way too hot in Columbia, South Carolina. To be fair, it’s too hot pretty much everywhere, it seems. I’ve stolen a brilliant idea from Sven Dahlstrand (@sod on Micro.Blog) and I’m going to archive my previous “Now” pages on blog in a category called “Then.” I like to have an archive of everything and it always bothered me that my Now page implementation didn’t have a history.
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Then: 7.6.24
I’m giving the “Now” page concept another go. I love the idea, but I just haven’t figured out how to make it work for me. For now, I’ve settled on an opening paragraph and three category prompts: feels, projects and entertainment. Should capture a nice snapshot of what I’m focused on and how I’m feeling. When I update these, I’m going to copy them over to Notion so I have a weekly journal.
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Posts in the “Then” category are archives of my “Now” pages.