August 3, 2025
I realized it had been a while since I posted a personal story. Let me correct that in a roundabout fashion.
Former Smoker
Around October of 2024, I realized and accepted that my cigarette addiction was negatively impacting my health. The day after Thanksgiving I quit smoking, and I'm now 8+ months without smoking a cigarette or using tobacco.
One Foot in Front of the Other
In the Spring of 2025 after I got my garden started I began going for a hike or walk every morning. I maintained that every day unless it was remarkably stormy and raining. Those walks got a little longer each time until I was regularly walking at least an hour and a half. In June that got quite hot even with an early morning start. Ten years ago I competed in a powerlifting contest, and won the deadlift in my age and weight division. I enjoy strength training, and realized how much I missed it, so at the end of June I joined a gym close to my house. During July I was at the gym every morning except for Sundays. I perform 1 to 1.5 hours of cardio, and then go into an approximate hour long block of strength training. When I saw the kettlebells at the gym, I figured I'd incorporate them into the workout at the end, and knock out a few rounds of swings and snatches.
If I have to engage in hand to hand combat with some old Soviet Spetsnaz troopers, we'll at least start on equal ground. Wolverines! (For those of you old enough to have watched Red Dawn on VHS. )
I'm enjoying the strength training and the cardio, just a hair past 50 years old, it's seems timely to be as fit as I can reasonably be.
An Audio Book
A month or so ago @starkerz asked me if I would be interested in record audio for the book "The Digital Community Manifesto" that he wrote with @theycallmedan
You can read it or listen at:
https://ecency.com/hive-129940/@networkstate/chapter-1-pre-word
I've been immersed in that for several weeks, recording technical work is an interesting challenge, and I realized I am somewhat of a slow audio editor, but I am now over halfway through the process. It's been an education. Dan and Starkerz, and the contributors to the books, put an immense amount of care and thought into the work - and I can't recommend it enough.
I am a periodic introvert.
Occasionally I seem to have a need to withdraw for a season of reflection. I did that for a space, and feel energized. I feel social again, and compelled to put the Hive I've been staking to better use.
I installed Linux on a laptop, and have been learning that, inspired by a post by @themarkymark - where he did the meme "I use arch btw"
https://ecency.com/linux/@themarkymark/i-use-arch-btw-44x
I have actually started with Ubuntu to get my feet wet, but will likely join Marky in Arch-ville in a few weeks. The laptop is substantially faster running Linux compared to Windows 11. Given that I'm almost entirely using FOSS now, the transition has been relatively painless. Over the past month I've also been doing a bit learning some basic C and Python, and the Linux environment seems an even better learning environment with out the bloat of Windows. Over the past few years the call of minimalism becomes more and more compelling.