At the start of this week, I spent some time talking through 2024 goals. I’m excited for what’s to come. One over-arching desire is to build more intention and reflection. A weekly review may become part of that. It’s a beginning. See where it goes?
School
Last October I went back to school, scratching an itch, giving myself a chance to explore and learn where I hadn’t given myself the chance in the past. This week’s focus is a project around the traveling salesman problem, working in Python.
It’s felt great to see my progress, and see the project transition from googling every step, to more and more code coming from my fingers. Plenty of googling in the future, but that transition from “how to build from zero” to “how to fix what I just broke” is very satisfying. One of the biggest improvements is just making myself form very precise, discrete to-do lists, and knocking them out one at a time.
Running
Fully transitioned to winter-running mode over the last few weeks. Runs in the 30-40ºF range are the new norm for the foreseeable future. Every season, every temperature drop comes with some new anxiety. I never quite remember what I wore last time it was XX temperature. There’s always that little bit of paranoia when setting out, a hard time trusting the wardrobe as I walk out the door – even when I’ve looked up previous runs and used the same setup. But everything settles in within a few minutes. There’s a lesson here. (This is also inspiration for a coding project.)
Pushed myself a smidge on a long run this weekend, just to check in on my fitness… and in the middle of that run I did the fastest 10k I’ve recorded in several years? Felt like I had plenty left in the tank. Really curious to see how much I can improve over these next few months.
Books
Lord of Chaos. In progress. I started a re-read of the The Wheel of Time series roughly a year ago? First read during high school/college. Book six now, and thousands of pages to go. It’s a perfect bedtime read when school and life has me too fried for more.
Blogs & Pods
“One of the most interesting things you can do as a reader is to sit down and think about why you abandon a book.”
Music
The start of the year is always so good for me.
This year I stole the idea of so many, to create an ongoing playlist of stand-out tracks as I go through the year. Sampling from a couple great albums so far:
Nation of Language, “Sole Obsession”
Portico Quartet, “On the Light”
Bulgarian State Television Female Choir, “Polegnala e Todora (Love Song)”
I also have a new running playlist. Most often I’d create them for an immediate need, and delete later on. For the current on, I’ve just kept adding more. I keep it playing from newest-to-oldest, so that the freshest stuff is always near the top as I sprint around town. Recent additions:
Mýa, “Free”
Ghost, “Spillways”
Movies
Bad Boys (1995)
Will Smith before he was charismatic? It’s very much the Martin Lawrence show. I was surprised to see Smith so muted. You have to be wary with comedies of a certain period. Plenty of juvenile crudeness, innuendo, prejudice lurking, and… I’m over it! I’ll still watch the sequel – I hear it’s got more Michael Bay-ness going on.
R.M.N.
Villagers in a small town in Romania grapple with accepting outsiders (room for improvement…) and with their own economic need to leave home to thrive (and how they are received in turn). Empathy as a function of location. A major scene takes place at the most toxic community meeting you’ve ever seen (and it’s sad that you probably know exactly what that’s like!). Influenced by true events, and clear Biblical-refugee echoes here, with its Christmastime setting.
TV
The X-Files
I haven’t watched much since the ’90s. Late last year, decided to revisit. I’d forgotten how much wisecracking Mulder does. This week featured “Fallen Angel” and “Eve”. Strong entries, but “Ghost in the Machine” and “Ice” still have my top spots for the first season.
Three Pines
Another rewatch in progress. I really like my first go-round with this unfortunately one-season show. Mystery series in rural Canada with a bit of coziness, oddball characters, and a season-spanning arc with an indigenous community. It’s nice to watch a crime show where, like Columbo, you sense the lead detective is fundamentally good and decent. Dark heroes are a bit overrated.
Life On Our Planet
Seven episodes in, the mammals are taking over! LFG!
Mark Larson 