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Day 32 - Saturday, May 2nd, 2026: Sleepy; solutions.

 Quick PSA: Mother's Day is next Sunday, May 10th! (In the U.S., at least.)

[ Bluesky / Threads / X / Mastodon / Tumblr / Instagram / Pixelfed ]

I've been exhausted today, but this time it's simply because of a lack of sleep. That's an easy fix! And what's more promising: we found out what's wrong, and we've got solutions. So over the next week and beyond, I should be feeling a lot less tired all the time. 

There won't be any Notes & Thoughts today, this is more of a diary-style entry. Spent all day running errands, and nothing too interesting came on my radar.

I'm listening to Selected Ambient Works 85-92 by Aphex Twin, I enjoy revisiting this album every once in a while! Xtal is probably my favorite track on the album, but I also highly enjoy Pulsewidth, Ageispolis, Heliosphan, and Delphium.

A dense, multi-level floral display in a store. The left side features large, vibrant clusters of pink and blue hydrangeas. In the foreground, various bulb plants like tulips and hyacinths are wrapped in decorative pink and brown paper. The center and right sections are filled with bright pink azaleas, white daisies, and tall yellow calla lilies in buckets. The plants are arranged on dark wooden tables against a wood-paneled wall, with small price tags visible throughout.
While grocery shopping, I saw this beautiful and vibrant display of flowers. For Mother's Day, of course, since that's coming up!

I also saw a really cute lemon-themed collection of kitchenware. If only that darned move wasn't coming up, I'd get those kitchen towels and that serving platter. Just imagine the charcuterie boards!

A retail display of lemon-themed kitchen items on a black tabletop. A wicker basket holds green-and-white striped towels with embroidered lemons and white napkins with botanical lemon prints. Beside the basket is a stack of pink and blue striped cloths. To the right sits a white bamboo-fiber platter and a matching stack of small plates, both decorated with watercolor-style lemons and blue leaves. A small grey basket in the background contains yellow patterned napkins.

Four gourmet food items sit on a dark, reflective stovetop. In the back are a can of La Colombe Triple Draft Latte and a jar of Fix & Fogg "Everything Butter" nut and seed spread. In the foreground are two vacuum-sealed blocks of cheese: Red Butte Hatch Chile Cheddar and Crimson Wensleydale with Cranberries. The background consists of a clean, white subway tile backsplash.
Food-wise (since I'm doing some diet changes) I got myself four treats. 
  1. La Colombe Triple Draft Latte: I love La Colombe! They manage to make their coffees incredibly creamy. Quite sweet, but not too sweet. Their Mocha is probably my favorite; I haven't yet tried this triple-shot variant.
  2. Fix & Fogg’s Everything Butter: By far my favorite nut butter. Although it's more than just a nut butter, as the name implies. This stuff is incredible!
  3. Beehive Cheese Red Butte Hatch Chile Cheddar: This one caught my eye because I love the taste of peppers, plus I've been on a cheddar kick lately. I'll have to try it plain first, but I can't wait to make a grilled cheese with this!
  4. Clawson Crimson Wensleydale With Cranberries: This was on sale! I've never tried a Wensleydale cheese before, and I figured the sweetness of the cranberries would offer a nice contrast to the possibly spicy chile cheddar.
A landscape shot at dusk or dawn featuring a bright, circular sun or moon glowing with an orange-yellow hue. It is partially filtered through thin, horizontal clouds. Below the deep blue and purple sky, a dark, silhouetted treeline and field stretch across the horizon, creating a serene and moody atmosphere.
And finally, the moonrise was absolutely stunning today! This first picture is taken with the default iOS camera, Bright Style applied. It appears a bit brighter than real life did, but the vibrant red-orange is true to life! I promise, that's not the sun! 
But speaking of pictures, I also tried two other apps. I wasn't particularly happy with the results (due to my own lack of skill and understanding).
A minimalist night photograph focusing on a bright, glowing moon in the center of a dark, grainy sky. Thin, dark clouds cut across the face of the moon, softening its light. The bottom of the frame shows a very faint, dark silhouette of trees or land against the vast darkness of the night.
This photo was taken with the Moment Pro Camera II app. Colors are dull, but overall brightness is more realistic. 
A twilight photograph of a bright, orange-yellow moon sitting low on the horizon just above a dark, silhouetted treeline. The moon is surrounded by a soft, hazy glow. In the dark sky to the right, a single tiny pinprick of light is visible. The foreground is entirely black, emphasizing the warmth of the moon.
And this photo was taken with Snapseed's camera. The app has built-in filters, which is neat. I'm not sure if the crunchy artifacts are from the filter, or the fact that it's a JPEG image. It does have a nice, 90s-inspired "retro" look to it, though.




But I'm once again absolutely wiped out! Tomorrow I'll be playing some Mario Kart 8 and/or Overcooked with a friend, which I'm looking forward to. It's important to stay in touch with loved ones! 

On that note: goodnight.


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Day 1 - April 1st, 2026: New Beginnings!

The first official post! Day 1, April Fools', but not a joke.

And it's been a big day! Went to work, but had to leave early. However, I did manage to snap this beautiful cloud during the sunrise:

An image of a bright cloud in front of a bright blue sky, surrounded by darker clouds.

So bright and vibrant, but surrounded by dark clouds... There's a clever metaphor in there somewhere, I'm sure! 

I went and looked at a new house today, and it seems promising. It's much smaller than our current place, but it's quite comfy. In the middle of nowhere, too, so it's quiet! I'm looking forward to the (possible) move, and hope everything goes smoothly.

Then I had a pretty nice breakfast. More treats than food!

A picture of the Belgian Boys crêpes box. 
An image of a plate with a fork, fufu, a grilled gouda pita, and a half-eaten meat pie.
These Belgian Boys crêpes were truly delightful! A little thicker than ideal, but their taste was perfect! And the convenience factor of being frozen can't be overstated!


For "main food" I made a Gouda grilled pita. Like a grilled cheese, but more leftover-y. I also had a little meat pie, and fufu. As you can tell, I'm not used to taking a picture of my food before digging in!


A picture of 3 crêpe halves. One with brown sugar, one with molten chocolate chips, and one with honey.
But the crêpes! Oh so delightful. One half plain, one half with dark chocolate chips, one half with brown sugar, and one half with honey. 
Brown sugar is definitely my favorite way to eat these! (Also, the chocolate and honey ones were so messy! Crêpes generally have holes, so you can imagine the mess these made...)
A picture of the cross-section of a Reese's Oreo cup, resting on top of its packaging. An unopened Reese's Oreo cup can be seen in the background.

And finally: Reese's Oreo cups! I love both of those things separately, and unsurprisingly these are truly delightful combined! I had a whole bag of these...





And here are some things I looked into today:

(I'm thinking of calling this section "Notes", but I'm not sure how fitting that would be...)

- Netflix getting another price increase.

- Rumors of a new Amazon phone. I missed out on the first one, and I'm not sure if I'm excited about this one. But it's interesting, if anything!

- The Canon Cat! An old 80s PC I'd never heard of before. No arrow keys, but it does have "Leap" keys. Curious little machine!

- Two old Apple ads. The famous "1984" ad, and the infamous "Lemmings" ad. I watched these ages ago, but it's nice to revisit them. 

- I learned LocalSend is available on Windows! Never thought about that, I suppose, but it sure is convenient!

- Windows Insider, and if I should join it on my "extra" laptop. There seems to be an issue with KB5079391, but I think I'll join when I have the time. I love messing around with beta software!

- I got curious whether Ubuntu could resize a BitLocker-encrypted disk. Searching online yields mixed results, so this is something I'll have to try on the weekend!

- Super Meat Boy 3D is out! Undecided on what platform I'll get it, but it's really high on my wishlist either way. I loved the original Super Meat Boy. (Despite being terrible at the game!)

- Thinking of joining eBay, just to purchase one of those silicon wafers. They look so cool! Even if they'd be nothing more than a neat piece of wall decoration.

- I found out that there's a desktop program for Google Drive on Windows. Probably not news to most, but that'd also be very convenient! (ChromeOS has spoiled me, in that regard.)

    On a related note: GNOME 50 dropped support for Google Drive in Nautilus. This is a bummer as it broke in KDE some time in 2025.

- I discovered the Machines & More YouTube channel. It's mainly about computers and computer parts; right up my alley!

- I've been eyeing one of these beautiful SHARGE power banks. Translucent, with a display, and on sale! But spending $109 on something I'd use infrequently is hard to justify. 

- Updating an Xbox 360 via USB should be possible. My 360 stopped connecting to the internet for some reason. I couldn't find any reports about it online, and I know my internet works (on that Xbox). So I'll have to test that this weekend also!

- MSI sells prebuilt PCs. I suppose it makes sense, but discovering this blew my mind. I'd always opt to build my own machine, but hey... it's convenient!

- Dolphin. The emulator! It's not currently installed, but that's something I want to get up and running this weekend also!

- Gmail now allows you to change your username. Huge news for those with..."older" Gmails. 

- ntfy, which will come in handy for all my little homelab-related things! 

- Niri and PaperWM. Two window managers I've been really wanting to try! I love KDE, but these look so... functional? Unique? How could I not?

- RustDesk, to pair with noVNC. Remote sessions have been a pain in the past, so I'm hoping this combination will resolve my remote computing woes.

- I've been wanting to take a look at LXD. I'm comfortable with Docker, but LXD's promises are tempting! This is likely a long way off, but I'm sure I'll come around to looking into moving my handful of Docker instances over at some point...

Lots of topics to look into, thanks to all the podcasts I've been listening to! A lot of these were inspired by the latest episode of the Version History podcast: Macintosh: All in one.

And speaking of listening, I'm almost through my "Temp Listens" playlists. A collection of songs/albums I've been meaning to listen to. I've got some additional albums saved as well, but those were prioritized. Once I'm through my playlist, I'm planning on going through deadmau5' entire discography. (Or at least what's available on YouTube Music!)

This is a large first entry! The next few will probably be a little smaller. (Or maybe not?)

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Day 0: What is this, exactly?

Sysadmin Riley here! I will be undertaking a massive challenge: writing a blog post a day! The premise is simple, but I'm finding it hard to verbalize exactly what I'll be doing. Writing a blog post every day, of course. Generally just highlighting things that happened, new facts I've learned, interesting food I've eaten, topics I've dug into, things like that. These posts will likely vary wildly in size, from short one-liners on days when I might be sleeping off a cold all day, to huge walls of text when I finally fix some Linux issue that's been bothering me. 

It'll be like a journal of sorts, but one that the whole world can see! I imagine that over time, my writing style and general layout will refine itself, so these first few posts may seem a bit... "scattered".

The project will officially kick off on April 1st, 2026. (That's not a joke!) Month 4 of 2026; I've procrastinated long enough! 😅 (On a somewhat-related note, I'm not sure if I'll be using emojis or not. On the one hand, that's part of my current writing style. On the other, they seem kind of... "wrong" to put into writing like this? Well, I suppose I'll find out what I prefer long-term!)

Ideally, this'll run forever! But I'm setting the realistic goal of 1 year. Come April 2027, I hope I won't be disappointed in myself! Skipping a day seems almost inevitable, but I'll try hard not to ruin my streak. "Perfect is the enemy of good", after all. In ~365 days, we'll see some stats! I'll try to accumulate all my posts, all the words I've written, longest & shortest streaks, that sort of data. I love me some analytics! 

That's the introduction post for now; I'm sure this'll make more sense over time!

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Day 13 - April 13th, 2026: Long days and short nights.

 So tired once again! And very few notes. Went to bed early last night, so I didn't do anything too interesting. Although I did manage to get the BFF achievement in Goat Simulator. (And it was a downright pain!)

I did have to work today also, which was unfortunate. But on the bright side, it wasn't a full 8-hour shift! So I got to go home early. But, somewhat unfortunately, I've got a doctor's appointment, so I can't do a whole bunch of stuff. (Since I don't want to be late.) I might just take a little nap... 😴

Notes:

- There's been a leak of a potential OnePlus "Gaming" phone/device/handheld. I didn't bring it up initially because I didn't think it was too interesting. I used to love OnePlus, but haven't felt any connection since 2015-ish. But then another chip-related rumor came out, and it piqued my interest! Perhaps there's some hope this'll be a good (and real) device?

- The Master Switch: The Rise and Fall of Information Empires by Tim Wu sounds so interesting! Diagonal to my usual interests, I reckon this is one I should read anyway.

Thoughts:

- The Sony Xperia 1 VIII was leaked, and most people talk about the new colorways and the redesign (particularly of the camera area.) I have no strong opinion on it one way or another (I suppose the colors are nice?) but I'm bringing it up, because it brought me down a "memory lane rabbit hole". Remember the Xperia P? Or the Xperia S? With their super cool translucent bottom bars. What about the Sony Ericsson Xperia Mini Pro? The SK17i is a favorite of mine! How about SmartTags? I could browse old Android reviews and forums forever... 🥹

- PWM dimming! Apparently some people are sensitive to this, which I wasn't aware of.

- Another nostalgia-fueled thought: Zoo Keeper for the Nintendo DS. I miss the DS era. Reading reviews, carefully picking games, and just... having fun! Yes, yes, my rose-colored glasses are very visible. But I think I'll get the DS Lite out again and play some old favorites (and hopefully discover some new ones, too!) especially once I'm done with Goat Simulator. Tetris DS, Mario Kart DS, New Super Mario Bros, Pokémon Black & White, Super Mario 64 DS, WarioWare: Touched!, Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Sky, Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story & Partners in Time, Pokémon HeartGold & SoulSilver, Animal Crossing: Wild World, Space Invaders Extreme, Metroid Prime: Hunters, Picross DS... Gosh, I can't wait to revisit these!

- And speaking of the DS: the Anbernic RG DS seems really interesting, given how I've been on a retro kick lately. Roughly $100, I might... I might not... I suppose we'll see!

A shorter post since it was a shorter day. Nap time, then visit time! 



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